This article was written by Emily Abbate and provided by our partners at Rodale Wellness.
Sleep. We all need it, but we don’t all do it well. While most people equate good sleep with getting eight consecutive hours, a University of California at San Diego paper on sleep research and aging reviewed data from 1.1 million people and determined that there is no statistical reason to sleep longer than six and a half hours per night. In fact, the people who slept six and a half hours a night lived longer than the ones who slept eight. This research brings into focus what’s really important: Your sleep quality. A lack of the right kind of sleep can increase your risk of heart disease and cancer, aid in weight gain, and even increase your risk of death.
It’s just as important to avoid doing the wrong things before going to bed as it is to do the right ones. Here are the six most important things to avoid at night for the best sleep possible, as adapted from The Bulletproof Diet: