How to tackle insomnia
How to Tackle Insomnia: Habits for a Better Night's Sleep
Insomnia can be a difficult thing to pin down, because the root cause is often hard to identify — it's frequently linked to stress or other factors, and sometimes to your environment or routine. The good news is that the most effective tools are habits, not products. Here are some evidence-led ways to give yourself a better chance of a good night's sleep, plus an honest look at the collagen-and-sleep question you may have seen online.
Set a Screen Curfew Before Bed
Try to wind down before bed with something relaxing — a book, a warm bath, or a few minutes of breathing or meditation — rather than scrolling your phone or watching TV. Screens emit light and, just as importantly, stimulating content that can keep your mind active when you're trying to switch off. Giving yourself a screen-free buffer of an hour or so before bed is one of the simplest, most effective sleep habits there is.
Try a Wind-Down Audio or White Noise
If a busy mind or a noisy home keeps you up, a calming audio routine can help. Guided sleep meditations, slow breathing tracks, or white noise and natural sounds like rain or the sea can mask disruptive noise and give your brain something gentle to settle on. It's worth experimenting to find what works for you.
Mind Your Evening Drinks
Hydration matters, but timing helps. Drinking a lot close to bedtime can mean waking up for the toilet and breaking your sleep. Aim to get most of your fluids in earlier in the day and ease off in the couple of hours before bed. It's also worth watching caffeine and alcohol in the evening — both can disrupt sleep quality more than people expect, even if alcohol feels relaxing at first.
Keep a Consistent Routine
Going to bed and waking up at roughly the same times — even at weekends — helps regulate your body clock and makes falling asleep easier over time. A cool, dark, quiet bedroom supports this too. These basics sound unglamorous, but they're the foundation of the most effective, evidence-based approach to insomnia, often called sleep hygiene.
The Collagen-and-Sleep Question — Honestly
You may have read that collagen helps you sleep. Here's the truthful version. The original idea comes from collagen being rich in the amino acid glycine, and small randomised trials (such as Yamadera et al., 2007) found that around 3g of isolated glycine before bed improved subjective sleep quality, possibly by gently lowering body temperature.
But the caveats matter, and one common claim is simply backwards: collagen does not "produce sleep hormones." The sleep hormone melatonin is made from tryptophan — an amino acid that collagen notably lacks. The glycine studies used pure glycine, not collagen, and they're small and short-term. So while it's an interesting area to watch, we won't claim Kollo improves your sleep. If sleep is your goal, the habits above will do far more.
Sleep Habits at a Glance
| Habit | Why it helps |
|---|---|
| Screen curfew | Reduces light and mental stimulation before bed |
| Wind-down audio / white noise | Masks noise and settles a busy mind |
| Evening fluid & caffeine timing | Fewer night wakings; better sleep quality |
| Consistent sleep schedule | Regulates your body clock — the foundation of good sleep |
| Collagen for sleep | Not claimed — glycine evidence is on isolated glycine, not collagen |
| Persistent insomnia | See a GP — effective treatments like CBT-I exist |
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Shop Now →The Bottom Line
Tackling insomnia is mostly about consistent habits: a wind-down routine, a screen curfew, sensible evening drinks and a steady sleep schedule. Those do the real work — and if sleeplessness persists, a GP can help, including with proven approaches like CBT for insomnia. We won't sell you collagen as a sleep fix, because the evidence isn't there.
Where collagen genuinely shines is skin, with promising support for joints and nails — and it's worth knowing that disrupted sleep is common during the menopause transition, where our complete guide to menopause supplements covers evidence-led options. If you take Kollo for its skin benefits, our complete guide to liquid marine collagen has the detail, and our women's wellness guide for over 40s ties wellness together for midlife.
Kollo Health was co-founded by Jenni Falconer - TV presenter, Smooth Radio breakfast host, ten-time London Marathon runner and host of the RunPod podcast. Read her story and why she created Kollo.
