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By Laura McMullen for U.S. News

Seven to 8 hours of nap any night means a happier, smarter, healthier and substantially longer-living you. But some-more than 35 percent of us customarily time in reduction than 7 hours of z’s. If you’re disposed to tossing and branch via a night, ask yourself why. Examine your “sleep hygiene.”

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• What’s Your Sleeping Environment Like?

  Your bedroom should be dark, quiet, and a gentle temperature. And how’s that bed? You might need to deposit in a new mattress if you’re waking adult sore, sleeping improved when you’re divided from home or carrying difficulty remembering that boss was in bureau when we bought your bed.

• What Do You Do In Your Bedroom?

  Your room should be a refuge indifferent for usually nap and between-the-sheets romance. If your bedroom is also where we do homework, answer emails, call your mom, make selling lists and eat snacks, you’ll have a harder time relaxing when we wish to.

• Are You Still Wired When You Go To Bed?

  You’ve got to unplug. If you’re one to peruse Facebook, watch Letterman, or content your friends from a comfort of your possess sheets, that mechanism shade could be disrupting your sleep. Try to embankment your wiring an hour before bedtime. Pick adult an out-of-date repository instead.

• Do You Have A Sleep Routine?

  Or do we infrequently tumble defunct in front of a TV during 9 p.m., though other times stay adult operative until midnight, and still other times yield to bed during 2 a.m.? Talk about churned signals. Choose a bedtime that’s about 8 hours before we wish to arise up, and hang to it any night.

• When Do You Exercise?

  One of a roughly million a href=”http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/slideshows/7-mind-blowing-benefits-of-exercise”benefits of unchanging exercise/a is that it can lower your sleep. But if you’re one to strike a treadmill while examination Jimmy Kimmel, rethink your routine. Vigorous practice within dual hours of bedtime can make it tough to tumble asleep.

• When Do You Consume Caffeine And Alcohol?

  That after-dinner coffee or happy-hour bender might be wreaking massacre on your nap routine. Shoot to equivocate both caffeine and ethanol 4 to 6 hours before bedtime. And yes, a few beers might send some of us right to sleep, though later, a dump in blood-alcohol levels mostly wakes us up.

• Are You A Napper?

  There’s zero wrong with a small mid-day siesta. But if we tumble defunct during The Young and a Restless and afterwards snooze by The Bold and a Beautiful, we might have an issue. Skipping or cutting your naps will expected assistance we nap during night.

• Do You Eat Before Bed?

  Well, don’t. Not usually are a href=”http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2012/10/04/9-ways-to-knock-out-those-nighttime-munchies”nighttime fridge raids/a severe for metabolism, though they can interrupt your sleep. Spicy dishes are famous to arise snoozers with a hitch of heartburn. If we contingency indulge in a pre-bed bite, opt for snacks in lieu of complicated meals.

• You’re Getting Sleepy, Very Sleepy…

  If these tips are working, we wish we pleasing dreams. Sleep hygiene tips come from a a href=”http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/ask-the-expert/sleep-hygiene”National Sleep Foundation/a, a a href=”http://www.umm.edu/sleep/sleep_hyg.htm”University of Maryland Medical Center/a, and Matthew Mingrone, an otolaryngologist and lead medicine for EOS Sleep California centers.

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