How to sleep like a supermodel – according to Miranda Kerr

What time do you go to sleep? Supermodel Miranda Kerr – who recently shared her surprisingly down-to-earth wellness and beauty secrets with GTG – is tucked up in bed by 8.30 or 9pm.

It was her husband, Evan Spiegel, the 34-year-old Snapchat founder (with whom she’s had three children, Hart, 6, Myles, 5, and seven-month-old Pierre) who got her into the habit, when they first started dating ten years ago.

“He was going to bed at 8.30 pm on a Friday night, and I was ,like, Wait a minute, what’s happening?!” remembers Kerr. ” I only had Flynn [her oldest son, 13, from her first marriage to actor Orlando Bloom], so we could have stayed up. But he said, No, it feels so good to go to bed that early. I knew that, but I didn’t think it was possible!”

Now though this early bird routine has become a firm part of the Kerr-Spiegel household: they get up at 5.30 every morning – and deem 6am to be a “lie-in” on weekends.

Indeed, the pair are self-confessed homebodies and much prefer staying in to going out. “We went to a wedding the other night, and Evan was like, Oh yeah, we’ll be able to have a big night – we had someone to watch the kids in the morning. By 10.30pm we’re looking at each other and he’s like, Let’s go home, it’s way past our bedtime!”

“It’s interesting because he’s seven years younger than me, but he’s definitely the mature one – I’m much more mischievous!”, the 41-year-old adds. “He’s a modern man with traditional values”.

Yet, although she admits it was Evan who taught her the importance of a good night’s sleep for mental health, Kerr has her own bag of sleep tricks, from mouth-taping at night to a budget £2.50 eye mask from Amazon and a whole menu of biohacking treatments.

“My husband thinks I’m crazy because I sleep in my earplugs, an eye mask and all the things. I’m there, all kitted up, like, Don’t even touch me! And he’s like, Really?” But, she explains, “It is more of a sensorial thing, because of all of the travelling over the years. I’d have to sleep on aeroplanes – so this would be my routine to try to sleep”.

So who better to divulge sleep-boosting secrets than an exhausted mum-of-four, accustomed to jetting around the world for work, with access to all of the latest wellness tech? (Other than possibly supermodel and GTG columnist Elle Macpherson, who recently revealed how she gets a good night’s sleep in midlife).

So, let’s find out exactly what goes on behind closed doors…

8 steps to Miranda Kerr’s sweet dreams

1. Budget zero-pressure eye mask and earplugs

Miranda’s number one sleep essential is a black padded eye mask with cups (“like a bra for your eyes”) that doesn’t press down on the eyes and prevent movement, as she read that this can disrupt REM sleep patterns. She’s not into anything fancy, though, and buys a cheap brand from Amazon: Yiview Sleep Mask Pack of Three, £7.65. They’re foamy and lightweight with blackout technology. Plus, she never sleeps without her earplugs.

2. The best sleep tracker on the market: the Oura Ring

Image: Instagram@MirandaKerr

Kerr uses a gold Oura Ring, £449, to track her sleep quality: the smart device uses heart rate, blood oxygen and body temperature sensors to track the different phases of sleep (awake, REM, light and deep) – and generates a score for how well you’ve slept, which she says is what got her hooked. For example, when she’s had a glass of wine, she notices that her score isn’t as good.

She first discovered it after seeing someone wearing one at an event: “It lit up as it tracked his movements, and I was, like, Whoa, what’s that? It sounded right up my alley! I’m obsessed with all health tech”. But, although you can use it to monitor daily step count, she only feels the need to wear hers at night. “I’m just a really active mum, so I’ll jump around with the kids: we’ll put music on and have a dance party – every other day. I’m holding the baby, and I consider this exercise!”

3. Mouth taping to sleep better and boost energy

Kerr also wears The Skinny Confidential Mouth Tape, £28: a patch with a small hole in it that you stick over your mouth while you sleep to encourage you to breathe through your nose, instead of your mouth. The benefits of mouth taping for better sleep include getting more nitric oxide into your body and increasing blood flow, as well as reducing snoring and boosting energy (and other celebs from Gwyneth Paltrow to Ashley Graham and Tess Daly are fans, too).

Kerr has noticed that she gets a higher deep sleep score on her Oura Ring when she uses it. And, she’s even got her 13-year-old son Flynn into mouth taping, as it helps him to sleep better. But her husband is less of a fan. “Sometimes I don’t use it, because he wants to talk, and I’m around trying to mumble through this thing… It’s not great. But then my Oura score goes down!”.

4. The fancy biohacking workout machine

Image: Instagram@MirandaKerr

Kerr is obsessed with the Vasper system: a piece of biohacking tech that looks a bit like an exercise bike, but your arms and legs are strapped in, then you get a hit of liquid cooling and compression therapy while you work out. A 21-minute burst of high-intensity interval training on this is apparently worth two hours of other exercise. It can also help to balance hormones, build lean muscle – and, yes, improve sleep.

She first heard about it while visiting a fancy health club in Paris and has been using it to help get back into shape postpartum (since having her youngest, Pierre, in February): “I ended up buying one because it was a good way to get me into exercise. Evan doesn’t like it, though. He tried it, but he doesn’t like any of my technology!” (FYI, if you’re based in the UK, you can also try out the system at The Fit Partnership in London with a membership from £495 per month).

5. A mindful cleansing regime before bed

At 6pm Miranda has a bath with baby Pierre, but she doesn’t have time to take her makeup off, too. Instead, she does her skincare routine just before bed – and likes to unwind by dimming the lights and meditating, using the guided meditations on the Hatch Restore 2 Sunrise Alarm Clock, £212.25 (she owns two, keeping one in the bathroom and bedroom). “My husband says I take too long, but it’s only seven minutes!” she says.

The latest time-saving addition to her nighttime routine is the new Kora Organics Active Algae Cleansing Balm, £43 – which she formulated so that it can be applied to dry skin, and removed speedily with a wet flannel (so she doesn’t need to shower again). It uses pineapple enzymes and re-balancing algae to cleanse the skin without stripping it or leaving an oily sheen.

6. A neurofeedback therapy session to beat jet lag

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Kerr finds that neurofeedback therapy improves her sleep: this is a non-invasive procedure that helps to optimize brain health, where electrodes are put on your scalp to measure brain activity, mapping out the waves using visual or audio cues. For example, the screen might go a particular colour for alpha brain waves (which are associated with calm rather than being stressed) or beta is all about focus. This real-time feedback helps to teach you how to gain more control over your brain functions so that you can learn how to manifest the desired feeling on a day-to-day basis.

Kerr was introduced to it by celebrity psychiatrist Dr Daniel Amen (who appeared in the latest season of The Kardashians – as pictured above). Although the treatment is thought to be safe, it’s effectiveness is debated – but Kerr thinks it has had results for her: “I’ve done it many times over the last ten years, especially if I am jet-lagged from travelling and haven’t had enough sleep, or super busy in a high-stress moment – and it helps me to rebalance things”.

7. An insomnia-busting gadget you clip to your ears

Before bed, Miranda uses another brain-boosting device from home: a CES (cranial electrical stimulation) machine, which is a control box with a set of electrodes that you attach to your head. These deliver low-intensity electrical currents, which are thought to help treat anxiety and insomnia.

This treatment has been trialled in the NHS (and you can find plenty of at-home versions online, such as this KTS Sleep Aid Device, £79.99), although again there is still debate into its efficacy. Kerr finds that it helps her to sleep better, but adds: “My husband came in the other day, and was laughing at me, because I’m laying in bed with my eyes closed and these beads in my ears, it’s playing calming sound waves and the lights are flickering – he’s like, What are you doing?!”.

8. The heart rate tracking app to soothe stress

Every night, Kerr spends five minutes using the Heart Math Inner Balance Coherence Plus app and sensor, £240: you put it on your ear to measure your pulse and get an HRV (heart rate variability) score. Then it links up to an app, to reveal a visual representation of these heart rhythm patterns – for example, when you’re stressed the graph looks jagged, but the waves are smooth when calm.

Studies have shown that our heart activity impacts our brain function, so – similarly to a clinical neurofeedback session – the idea is that if you can learn how to manage your heart rate, you can ease stress, boost cognitive health and sleep better. But this is a much more accessible way of doing it from home.

Plus Kerr says she keeps it in her handbag, too, for mini de-stressing moments. “It makes it fun for the kids, too! I do it with them when they can’t sleep: I’m like, ok, let’s connect with our heart and watch. It goes different coloured lights – red is when you can’t sleep, and when you think of something calming it goes blue, or green for something happy”, she adds.

Kora Organics’ new Active Algae Calming Cleansing Balm, £43 ,is available now