Track your sleep. How can you improve it?

Dream, anxieties, restlessness,
checking the phone…
it doesn’t add up to a good nights’ sleep.

I’m terrible for having a device next to me at night. See, I enjoy listening
audiobooks and podcasts to help me sleep, I find this period before sleep
a nice time to engage content that interests me, to learn about a topic or
engage in learning in something that will help me develop as a person or
professional.

Does it help my sleep? I don’t know. But I do try and keep a balance of my
sleep. If I have an early start I make sure I avoid alcohol, coffee too late in the
day or an overly heavy meal and I’ll be in bed relatively early to plan ahead
for the next day.

If I go to sleep anxious it doesn’t help my sleep so I really need to make sure
the daily tasks are taken care of where possible and any important emails are
read, responded to and dealt with. If I go to sleep with unfinished business as
it were, I can’t settle and I end up checking my phone for emails throughout
the night!

I took Facebook off my phone as an example because the endless notifications
and checking who does what at some ungodly hour became a habit I needed
to break.

How much sleep do you need?

How can you improve your sleep patterns and what habits can you break to
help improve the quality of your kip?