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Sleep researchers dedicate their careers to understanding how and why we sleep – so what do they do to get a better night’s rest?

It might be reassuring to know that even the experts aren’t always able to practise what they preach. “I think you’ll find a lot of sleep researchers are not very good at sleeping,” says at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

But one thing many of them agree on is that consistency is crucial. Here’s what else they had to say:

MAKE A PLAN

“It is about prioritisation and planning. So I try not to have meetings before 10 o’clock, for example, because I am more of an evening type: I quite like to go to bed late and wake up late. So I’m thinking ahead in terms of what’s best for me with my sleep timing, my circadian timing, how can I try and arrange my schedule to support that?”

, Timeshifter

CONTROL YOUR LIGHTING

“We dim our lights in our house pretty much when the sun sets, and then, in the mornings, turn the lights on inside as much as possible and certainly open up the window shades to get the sunlight in the house as soon as the sun is coming up. I think those are really important things: minimise light at night, maximise light in the morning.”

, University of Utah

KEEP COOL

“Sleep science has shown that your body [temperature] should drop a full degree centigrade while sleeping, and so I do try to keep the room very cold and very dark.”

, US National Institutes of Health

EAT AND DRINK AT THE RIGHT TIME

“I try to avoid eating after 9 o’clock at night and having caffeine after 5 o’clock, though how people metabolise caffeine is highly variable from one person to the next.”

, King’s College London

SWITCH OFF

“Anything that triggers stress will trigger arousal, a state in which you feel excited or very alert. So you want to avoid stress before bedtime, including checking your emails.”

, Imperial College London

GO DARK

“Personally, I love reading in bed, which is bad because of the light. Computers, scrolling on your smartphone, tablets, all that bright screen light, it just tells your brain to stay awake, so you should really try to avoid that as you’re going to bed. But listening to music, for instance, with your eyes closed, relaxing, something like that can be helpful if you’re not somebody who can go immediately to sleep.”

, American Academy of Sleep Medicine

TRAVEL SMART

“When I arrive in a new time zone, I consider my light exposure to try and help myself adapt as quickly as possible!”

Victoria Revell, University of Surrey, UK

BED IS SACROSANCT

“You should use your bed for sleeping and not for lounging in. I’ve become very good at not watching TV in bed, and I think that helps.”

Malcolm von Schantz, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

GO WITH THE FLOW

“Like many people, I go through different stages of sleep. When I was a new mum, my sleep was terrible, but I’ve gone through that whole patch. So what I would like to say is keep an open mind about your sleep, because sleep does change quite a lot throughout the years.”

, University of Warwick, UK