How to Get Good Sleep: What Actually Works

Most sleep advice is a list of thirty tips with no indication of which ones matter. In practice a small number of factors do most of the work, and the rest are refinements.

Here are the ones worth your attention, roughly in order of effect.

Keep a consistent wake time

The single most useful habit is getting up at roughly the same time every day, including weekends.

Your body runs on an internal clock that is anchored largely by when you wake and when you see light. A steady wake time stabilises that clock, which in turn makes falling asleep at a sensible hour easier without effort.

Sleeping in late on Saturday and Sunday shifts your clock the way a short flight west would, which is why Sunday night insomnia and Monday grogginess are so common. The fix is unglamorous: get up at the same time, and if you are short on sleep, take a short early afternoon nap instead.

Get light in the morning, cut it at night

Light is the main signal your clock uses.

• Morning. Ten to twenty minutes of outdoor light soon after waking is far stronger than any indoor lighting. Even an overcast day outdoors is brighter than a well lit room.
• Evening. Bright light in the two to three hours before bed delays melatonin and pushes your sleep later. Dimming lights matters more than the colour of your screen.

Screens get blamed heavily. The light they emit does have an effect, but for most people what keeps them awake is what is on the screen rather than the screen itself. A gripping argument in a comment thread is more activating than the backlight.

Temperature

Core body temperature has to fall for sleep to begin. A bedroom that is too warm blocks that, which is why people sleep badly in heat even when everything else is right.

A cool room, around 16 to 19 degrees Celsius for most people, works better than a warm one. A warm shower an hour or two before bed helps for the same reason: blood moves to the skin, and core temperature drops afterwards.

Caffeine, later than you think

Caffeine has a half life of roughly five to six hours, which means a 3pm coffee still has about half its caffeine working at 9pm. Sensitivity varies a lot between people, largely genetically.

If you sleep badly and drink coffee after midday, moving your cut off earlier for two weeks is a cheap experiment with a clear answer.

Alcohol is a sedative, not a sleep aid

Alcohol helps people fall asleep faster and then damages the second half of the night. It suppresses REM sleep early on, and as it clears, sleep becomes fragmented and shallow. This is why a few drinks often produce a full night in bed and a tired morning.

What to do when you cannot fall asleep

Lying in bed frustrated teaches your brain that bed is a place for being awake and anxious. The standard advice is counterintuitive but well supported:

1. If you have been awake for what feels like twenty minutes or more, get up.
2. Go to another room and do something quiet and dull in dim light.
3. Return when you feel sleepy, not when you feel you ought to.
4. Keep your wake time fixed the next morning regardless of how the night went.

Watching the clock makes this harder, so turn it away from you.

Things that help less than advertised

• Catching up at weekends. Partially restores alertness, at the cost of shifting your clock.
• Melatonin as a sleeping pill. It is a timing signal rather than a sedative. It helps with jet lag and delayed sleep timing, and does much less for ordinary insomnia. Doses sold are often far higher than needed.
• Long naps. A nap over about 30 minutes, or late in the day, reduces sleep pressure at night.
• Trying harder. Effort is activating, which is the opposite of what sleep needs.

When to see a doctor

Habits will not fix a medical problem. Speak to a doctor if you snore loudly and wake unrefreshed, if someone has noticed you stop breathing in your sleep, if you have persistent insomnia for more than a few weeks, or if you fall asleep during the day despite adequate time in bed. Untreated sleep apnoea in particular raises blood pressure and is very treatable once identified.

Frequently asked questions

How many hours of sleep do adults need?

Most adults need seven to nine hours. A small minority genuinely function well on less, and far more people believe they belong to that group than actually do.

Is it bad to sleep during the day?

A short nap of 10 to 20 minutes early in the afternoon is generally fine and can improve alertness. Long or late naps interfere with the following night.

Why do I wake at 3am every night?

Waking briefly between sleep cycles is normal, and most people do not remember it. It becomes a problem when you wake fully and then cannot return. Alcohol, a warm room, stress and a full bladder are common contributors.

Does exercise help sleep?

Yes, reliably, and the time of day matters less than once thought. Vigorous exercise in the hour before bed is activating for some people, but regular activity at any time generally improves sleep.

Should I use my phone in bed?

The content is usually the issue more than the light. If you keep your phone in the bedroom, the practical risk is that a quick check turns into an hour.

Do sleep trackers help?

They are reasonable at tracking time asleep and poor at staging. For some people they are useful feedback, and for others they create anxiety about numbers. If a tracker is making you worry about sleep, that is a reason to stop using it.