Knowledge blog > Sleep
Sleep better: tips that you can easily implement
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Table of contents
- Sleep hygiene: the foundation for better sleep
- Tip 1: Sleep better with consistent routines and daylight
- Tip 2: Better sleep starts on your plate
- Tip 3: Exercise regularly
- Tip 4: Relaxation before bed
- Tip 5: A personal bedtime ritual
- Tip 6: Write down your thoughts instead of ruminating
- Tip 7: The right sleep environment
- Tip 8: Reduce screen time in the evening
- Tip 9: Melatonin and your sleep-wake cycle
- Tip 10: Learn more about sleep
- At a glance: What disrupts your sleep and what supports it
- Conclusion: Better sleep starts during the day
- References
Sleep Hygiene: The Foundation for Better Sleep
Sleep hygiene might sound like fresh bedsheets at first, but it actually means something else: it refers to the habits and conditions that help your body wind down in the evening and recover overnight. These include your daily rhythm, what you eat and drink, how much you move, and how your bedroom is set up.
The good news: many of these factors are within your control. The following 10 tips show you where to start.
Tip 1: Sleep better with consistent routines and daylight
Your body thrives on regularity. Your internal clock sets the rhythm: a tiny area in the brain located directly above the intersection of the optic nerves, known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Throughout the day, it coordinates many processes, from body temperature to hormone release. Its most important pacer is light.¹
Morning sunlight
Bright light in the morning signals to your internal clock: the day is starting. This helps keep your sleep-wake cycle stable, so you feel tired more easily in the evening. Bright light late in the evening, on the other hand, can push your internal clock back.¹ That’s why a short walk after you get up is an easy way to start the day, even when it’s cloudy. Outdoors, it’s usually still much brighter than indoors.¹
Tip: If you want to learn more about melatonin, the hormone your body produces naturally, read our article How does melatonin affect your sleep?
How much sleep do you need as you get older?
For adults between the ages of 26 and 64, the U.S. National Sleep Foundation recommends seven to nine hours of sleep per night; for those 65 and older, seven to eight hours. ² These are general guidelines.
The best way to determine how much sleep you personally need is to pay attention to how rested you feel during the day. You can establish a routine by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, if possible—even on weekends. This way, your body clock doesn’t have to constantly readjust.¹
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Tip 2: Better sleep starts on your plate with mindful eating
Your brain produces the hormone melatonin, which is important for your sleep rhythm, from the happiness hormone serotonin. This in turn is produced from the amino acid tryptophan, which the body obtains from food.
Tip: A diet rich in tryptophan can improve your natural biorhythm and therefore your sleep quality.
How do caffeine and sleep get along?
Caffeine keeps you awake because it blocks the effects of adenosine. Adenosine builds up in the brain throughout the day and causes you to feel tired in the evening. A small laboratory study involving five participants also showed that caffeine consumed in the evening shifted the body’s internal clock back by about 40 minutes.⁵
Another small study involving twelve participants shows how long caffeine’s effects last: A high dose of caffeine—roughly the amount found in four cups of coffee—still shortened sleep by more than an hour, even when consumed six hours before bedtime.⁶ It’s therefore best to have your last cup of coffee in the early afternoon, especially if you’re sensitive to caffeine.
What is the effect of alcohol?
A glass of wine in the evening makes many people feel sleepy more quickly. An analysis of numerous studies shows that while alcohol shortens the time it takes to fall asleep, sleep becomes more restless during the second half of the night. In addition, REM sleep—the dream phase—is insufficient during the first half of the night.⁷ Alcohol is therefore not suitable as a sleep aid.
Drinking a small glass of wine with dinner every now and then is fine. However, you shouldn't overdo it for the sake of a good night's sleep.
Tip: Find out what role vitamins and minerals play in a good night’s rest in our article on vitamins for your sleep.
Tip 3: More Sports and Exercise
Exercise isn't just good for your muscles. An analysis of numerous studies shows that people who exercise regularly sleep slightly longer on average and rate their sleep quality higher.⁸
Is exercising in the evening a problem?
For a long time, it was believed that exercising in the evening robbed you of sleep. An analysis of 23 studies involving healthy adults reached a different conclusion: Moderate exercise in the evening did not impair sleep; in fact, the proportion of deep sleep was slightly increased. Only very intense exercise that ended less than an hour before bedtime might delay falling asleep.⁹
Here's a rule of thumb: Gentle exercise like yoga, stretching, or a walk works well in the evening. It's better to schedule high-intensity intervals or competitions earlier in the day.
By the way, exercise and sleep also matter for the powerhouses of your cells. You can read more about this in our article Strengthen your mitochondria: 8 tips for more energy.
Tip 4: Relax
If your mind is still racing in the evening, relaxation techniques can help you consciously wind down at the end of the day. Well-known methods include autogenic training, Jacobson's progressive muscle relaxation, and breathing exercises.
Meditation is also the subject of increasing research. An analysis of several studies shows that mindfulness meditation can improve self-reported sleep quality.¹⁰ Even just a few minutes in the evening is a good start.
The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique for Falling Asleep
A well-known breathing exercise is 4-7-8 breathing, popularized by American physician Andrew Weil. Here’s how it works:
- Breathe in slowly through your nose with your mouth closed, counting to four
- Hold your breath and count to seven
- Breathe out audibly through your mouth, counting to eight
- Repeat the whole cycle four times
The exercise slows your breathing and pulls your attention away from racing thoughts. So far, there’s been little scientific research on this technique specifically for sleep. But trying it out only costs you a minute.
Tip 5: Develop a personal bedtime routine
A ritual is like a signal to your body: It's time to wind down. The idea behind it is that if you do similar things in a similar order every evening, over time you'll almost automatically start to wind down for sleep. This could be reading a book, having a cup of herbal tea, taking a warm shower, or doing a few stretching exercises.
Sip Moon Milk
Try drinking Moon Milk before bed: This natural beverage has its roots in Ayurvedic medicine and is traditionally made with ashwagandha. This main ingredient is also known as the “sleep berry.”
Valerian Tea in the Evening: What to Expect
Valerian is a classic choice among evening teas. The root is traditionally used to promote relaxation, and a review of 60 studies suggests that valerian may help promote sleep.¹¹
mportant to keep in mind: Valerian isn’t a switch that flips on instantly. The European Medicines Agency describes valerian-based medications as having a gradual onset of action; the full effect typically becomes apparent only after two to four weeks of regular use. ¹² A single cup in the evening is therefore more of a pleasant part of your bedtime ritual than a quick way to fall asleep. People who enjoy valerian tea often drink it regularly in the evening over the course of several weeks. If you’re taking medication, are pregnant, or are breastfeeding, talk to your doctor or pharmacist first.¹²
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Tip 6: Write down your thoughts instead of brooding over them
Sound familiar? You’re lying in bed, and your mind is running through tomorrow’s to-do list one more time. This is exactly where journaling comes in: you write down what’s on your mind, and in doing so, you mentally take it off the table.
A sleep lab study with nearly 60 young adults looked at this more closely. Participants who spent five minutes before bed writing down what they still needed to get done over the next few days fell asleep faster than the comparison group, who wrote about tasks they had already completed. The more specific the list, the faster they fell asleep.¹³
Here’s how to get started:
- Write down your tasks for tomorrow and put them in order
- Jot down whatever is going through your head right now
- Note what you’re grateful for today
Tip: Is an appointment the next day making you nervous, like an important conversation or a presentation? Then try shifting your perspective: write down how the day would go in the best case, step by step. This steers your thoughts away from the worst-case scenario and toward a picture that makes you feel good.
Tip 7: The Right Sleeping Environment
How well you sleep depends not only on your habits, but also on your bedroom. Three factors play a particularly important role here.
Temperature, Light, and Noise: 3 Factors for Better Sleep
- Temperature: If your bedroom is too warm, you wake up more often and your deep sleep gets shorter.¹⁴ A common guideline is 16 to 18°C. In the end, though, what matters is how it feels to you: some people sleep best at 15°C, others at 19°C
- Darkness and quiet: A dark, quiet room supports your internal clock during the night.¹ Blackout curtains, a sleep mask or earplugs can help if that doesn’t happen on its own
- Bed and mattress: Only you can decide which bed is right for you. It’s worth giving it a test lie
Tip 8: Limit Screen Time in the Evening
For many people, smartphones, tablets, and laptops are part of their evening routine. However, the light they emit contains a high proportion of short-wavelength, bluish light, to which your body’s internal clock is particularly sensitive.¹
A small sleep laboratory study involving twelve participants compared reading on a backlit e-reader with reading a printed book. After reading on a screen, the participants took longer to fall asleep, their melatonin levels rose later, and they were less alert the next morning.¹⁵
Is Night Mode enough?
Surprisingly, probably not. In a study with more than 160 young adults, those who used night mode on their smartphone in the evening didn’t sleep any better than those who left it switched off. Among participants who normally got enough sleep, the best sleepers were those who skipped their phone entirely before bed.¹⁶ So it’s not just about the color of the light, but also about what you’re doing on the screen: news, emails and social media keep your mind awake.
Tip: How to make your digital wind-down work
- Charge your phone outside the bedroom and use a classic alarm clock instead. That way, scrolling in bed and checking the screen at night simply stop happening
- Set up a bedtime or focus mode that switches on automatically every evening. That way, you don’t have to decide all over again each time
- Give your hands an alternative: a book, a crossword puzzle, knitting or a jigsaw puzzle
- If you can’t do without a screen in the evening, turn the brightness way down and hold the device farther away from your face. How strongly light affects your internal clock also depends on its intensity¹
Falling asleep while watching TV: Is that bad?
Many people like to fall asleep in front of the TV in the evening. The soft background noise has a calming effect, and their eyes close on their own. But this isn't without an impact on your sleep.
For one thing, what you watch makes a big difference. In a survey of over 400 young adults, watching regular television was not associated with poorer sleep. In contrast, those who frequently watched several episodes of a series in a row slept worse and felt more tired during the day. The reason: After exciting episodes, their minds were still too alert to fall asleep.¹⁷
On the other hand, light plays a role when the TV is on all night. In a small sleep lab study, healthy adults spent one night sleeping with the room light on. Their heart rates were higher during sleep than on nights with dimmed lighting, meaning their bodies were less able to relax. ¹⁸ Although the study used a room lamp rather than a TV, it shows that light at night is not without consequences.
Tip: If you like to fall asleep while watching TV, choose calm shows instead of exciting series and set a sleep timer. That way, the TV will turn itself off, and you'll sleep the rest of the night in the dark.
Tip 9: Melatonin for a Balanced Sleep-Wake Cycle
Even if you’ve been keeping up your sleep rituals for a while and have found your routine, your sleep rhythm can still get thrown off every now and then.
There are various reasons for this, travel being one of them: on a business trip or on vacation, jet lag can hit you hard before you know it. In this case, melatonin can help ease the effects of jet lag.
Tip: Supplements let you provide your body with melatonin, helping you fall asleep faster.
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Tip 10: Get to grips with sleep theory
Sleep is more complex than many people think. While you sleep, you cycle through different sleep stages several times, from light sleep to deep sleep to the dream phase. When you understand what happens in your body at night, it’s easier to spot which habits are disrupting your sleep.
Further reading:
At a Glance: What Disrupts Your Sleep and What Helps You Sleep
| Area | Tends to disrupt your sleep | Tends to support your sleep |
|---|---|---|
| Light | Bright light and glowing screens late in the evening.1,15 | Daylight in the morning, dimmed light in the evening.1 |
| Caffeine | Coffee, black tea or energy drinks in the afternoon and evening.5,6 | Last caffeinated drink in the early afternoon.6 |
| Alcohol | Alcohol as a sleep aid.7 | Alcohol-free drinks in the evening, such as a warm herbal tea. |
| Exercise | Very intense workouts in the last hour before bed.9 | Regular exercise, keeping it calm in the evening.8,9 |
| Thoughts | Ruminating in bed about unfinished tasks. | A five-minute to-do list before going to bed.13 |
| Bedroom | Too warm, too bright or too noisy.1,14 | Cool, dark and quiet.1,14 |
All information is based on the sources listed in the
Conclusion: Better sleep starts during the day
Sleeping better is rarely a matter of a single trick. It usually comes down to many small adjustments: light in the morning, consistent bedtimes, having your last cup of coffee in the early afternoon, exercise, a calming bedtime routine, and a dark, cool bedroom. Pick two or three tips that fit well into your daily routine and try them out for a few weeks.
More blog articles on the topic
This encyclopedia entry is based on carefully researched sources:
Literaturverzeichnis & Quellen
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