Hints for a Good Night's Sleep

• Maintain a regular bed and wake time. Different people require a different number of sleeping hours each night to feel recovered. The average person needs 5-7 hours. You should try and go to bed and wake at a similar time each day to ensure a good sleep pattern is maintained.

• Use your bedroom only for sleeping. It is best to keep work materials, computers and televisions out of the sleeping environment. This strengthens the association between bed and sleep.

• Make sure your sleeping environment is cool, quiet and dark. These conditions promote better sleep quality.

• Refrain from eating 2 hours before bedtime. Your metabolism slows during sleep so this will give your stomach time to digest your most recent meal before it slows down during the night.

• Avoid caffeine close to bedtime. Caffeine is a stimulant and therefore produces an alerting effect. The effects of caffeine can remain for 3-5 hours and even if you don’t think caffeine affects you, it may be disrupting or changing your sleep quality.

• Exercise at least 20 minutes 3 times a week. Getting your body moving keeps you healthy and agile while promoting better sleep quality and better living. It is best to exercise during the day or early evening, and not during the last 3 hours before bedtime.