‘Crisis': Expert reveals secrets to how to get a flawless sleep
The Great Aussie Wake-Up, commissioned by Holiday Inn Express, found that 91 per cent of Australians struggle to fall or stay asleep in a typical week, and 93 per cent regularly wake up too early.
Sleep expert Olivia Arezzolo said the research showed the issue had progressed from a problem to a crisis.
But she said three core controllable elements could be implemented to form the foundation for good sleep.
'When you look at the biomechanics of the circadian rhythm, there are key factors which control it,' she said.
'Light is one, eating is another, and temperature is another.
Before adding the nice-to-haves, you need to get the essentials right first.'
In terms of food, Ms Arezzolo stressed the importance of having breakfast and warned against all too common late night snacking.
'I think a really big factor which is often overlooked, is there's this massive growth in intermittent fasting,' she said.
'It's one of the biggest trends of 2025 and this is meaning that a lot of Gen Z, but also just overall Aussies, are skipping breakfast. 

'The stat from the Holiday Inn research was that 76 per cent of Aussies are losing part of their morning routine and one in four are not eating breakfast.
'Breakfast is absolutely critical for circadian rhythm alignment. I'm sure you've heard that term with reference to light and temperature, but eating is also a regulator of the circadian rhythm.

'It essentially anchors the body clock. So in order to fall asleep with ease in the evening, we need to be having breakfast within the first hour of being awake.'
Ms Arezzolo said you ideally want three hours in between your last meal of the day and bedtime. For coffee it was a minimum of eight hours.
'I have a 2pm absolute latest cut-off time (for coffee), but ideally, you want nothing after 12 o'clock, especially if you're struggling to sleep.'
For light Ms Arezzolo recommended getting 20 minutes of light within 30 minutes of waking and staying away from blue light producing screens close to bedtime.
'Like eating, light is a factor controlling the circadian rhythm. 

'Essentially, if you're exposed to blue light in the evening, then you have the suppression of melatonin, which is your key sleep hormone to fall and stay asleep.
'This is akin to having a coffee before bed. As soon as you have that blue light enter your eyes, you have the biological signals to remain alert and awake.' 

Another key finding of the report was an overreliance on the snooze button with more than half (52 per cent) of Australians hitting snooze every morning.
Gen Z were among the worst offenders, with a massive 70 per cent regularly hitting the button – and one in ten tapping snooze at least 120 times a month.
'When you're hitting the snooze button regularly, every time the alarm goes off, you get a spike in your stress hormone cortisol,' Ms Arezzolo said.
'Too much cortisol leads to chronic states of anxiety, burnout, having that 'wired but tired feeling', being unable to sleep, and particularly 3am wakings.
'You're essentially setting your nervous system up to be on overdrive from the moment you wake up simply by pressing the snooze button, not just once, but multiple times. So that one is definitely alarming. Pardon the pun.'
Ms Arezzolo said in the course of her regular life, people are constantly asking her to fix their sleep however they tend to focus on alternative aids rather than focusing on the essentials.
'I'm like, 'okay, but tell me about your mornings and tell me about your evenings. What are you doing just before you're waking up and just before you're going to sleep? What are you doing just when you're waking up? Do you have the foundations right'? 
And nine times out of 10, they don't.
'You can't overlook these and then just pick and choose which sleep strategies you want to employ because you prefer that. It doesn't work like that.
It's biology.
'Circadian rhythm is controlled by light, temperature and eating. So you have to get these things right.'
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ABC News
14 minutes ago
- ABC News
Woman says faecal transplant saved her and could help many more like her
As the blender blitzed and Jane Dudley prepared for a radical procedure, the concept of being at the forefront of a potentially revolutionary change in the treatment of bipolar disorder was far from her mind. Mostly, Jane was thinking about how revolted she was by what was about to happen. But months after her husband Alex, a park ranger with a lifelong interest in ecology, first proposed the "gross" idea to Jane as a way of managing her crippling bipolar, she decided it was worth a try. "I was at a point of desperation where I felt I can't continue living with this level of suffering," Jane tells Australian Story. "It was a desperate act." Eight years ago, Jane began a series of home-administered faecal microbiota transplants (FMT), or "poo transplants", with the hope it would "take the edge off" her mental illness, which had led to her being hospitalised multiple times. 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News.com.au
6 hours ago
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Daily Telegraph
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She and her husband Darren Robinson – who she met 'the old-fashioned way' in a bar in 2012 – renew their vows in every country they visit. In 10 years of marriage, that's 25 vow renewals. 'Sometimes it's been incredibly romantic, like in the Maldives with the sunset. Then we nearly forgot in Iceland and did it on the plane as we were taking off,' she says, laughing. The couple also run a production company together, Robinson behind the camera ('the workhorse') and Horton in front ('the show pony'). They share their home with rescue dogs Mr Barkley and Maui, whom Horton describes as a salve during her three years of depression. 'My wonderful husband would put me to bed and hand me a puppy.' Adhering to her own motto of 'adapt or die', Horton's career trajectory has been, as she puts it, eclectic. She was a producer for Entertainment Tonight in the US, a crime then health reporter for the ABC, a Sydney gossip columnist, a panellist on Today Extra, and host of Married At First Sight's spin-off TV show Talking Married. It's all a long way from home for the girl from Kingaroy in regional Queensland. Or, as she puts it, 'From the red soil to the red carpet.' Now she can add author to the list since she has documented her harrowing menopause experience – along with evidence-based advice from experts – in a book to support other women going through it. Despite enduring all the turmoils of menopause, Horton says the experience has also helped her. 'I wish I could just say, 'Slap on some HRT [hormone replacement therapy], you'll be fine,' but it's not as simple as that,' she explains. 'I had to do the work. I'd treated my body as a rental. I had to have the appointments with the psychiatrist. I had to change my lifestyle, improve my sleep, increase my exercise. I'm living proof that you can go through dark times and come out. Perimenopause broke me, but then I rebuilt me.' I'm Your Peri Godmother by Shelly Horton (Murdoch Books, $34.99) is out Tuesday. For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.
