Hey ya'll! Some of you may know I'm very passionate about getting adequate sleep. It's been proven to be vital for both physical and mental health. But many of us (myself included until several months ago) just get 7 hours (or less) and say we're good, but wonder why we're tired, struggle to get out of bed, and deal with so much fatigue and mental struggles. You've probably heard the estimates that teens should get 8-9 hours of sleep, and adults should get 7-8 or so. But that doesn't do as much good if it's not quality sleep. There's a whole crap ton of factors that can worsen your sleep. One of the worst culprits is blue light, which I'm sure you've heard of. While blue light glasses or the "night shift" settings on devices certainly help, that light still affects your sleep quality. In addition, even just a bathroom light on in your room or a night light can affect your melatonin release, meaning that even after you close your eyes to go to sleep, your brain may not want to for quite a while longer. Though most indoor lights are warmer than screens, so those are still the worst for your sleep.
While you don't certainly have to do this, one good solution (and what I do) is to cut off almost all light 2-3 hours before bed, and only allow the reddest of red lights. There's ways on most devices (apple for sure) to make your color filter completely red (if you want help finding the setting, lmk), and that's much better than the basic slightly warmer night shift filter. This is ofc a bit extreme, but I've found that it works amazingly for my own sleep quality. Whatever extent you can do is good. 

• Another key factor is sleep consistency. Research shows that sleep consistency is actually more important than sleep quantity for longevity. Try to generally go to sleep (or attempt to) and wake up within 15 mins of the same time every day. 
• Caffeine. It has a half life of 4-5 hours, which means that if you drink a Dr Pepper at 6 pm, half of that caffeine is still in your system at 10-11pm. Even if you "can still go to sleep after having caffeine", your brain still has to process it, and it'll worsen the quality of your sleep
• Try not to eat any heavy meals or intense exercise 3 hours before sleeping, and not drink anything an hour before sleeping
• As alluded to before, try to make your room as dark as possible when trying to sleep. Ideally, an hour before sleeping, turn off all devices and light whatsoever. You could use this time to do whatever, but I personally like to stretch, meditate, and listen to music, a podcast, or an audiobook. Again, that's over-optimizing a bit, dimming lights is also good.
• Pick whatever time you want to wake up throughout the week you want to wake up, and try to go to sleep 8-8.5 hours before then. You can also fiddle around with the timing to see what your body naturally prefers when you're following the proper steps. I always thought I was a night person, but when I'm following this routine, my body starts getting sleepy around 9, and I wake up with no alarm at 6:30-7 
• Lastly, I know that this routine isn't always feasible. Some people work late, and lots of activities occur late at night. I've certainly spent many nights not following this routine. But when I do, especially consistently, I've personally found that I have way more energy that lasts throughout the whole day, I can retain learned information way better, and my mood is just better. 

Thank you for reading my ramblings, and go get some good sleep 


Disclaimer: I'm not a sleep doctor, but most of this is based on things I've learned from the book Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker, which I'd highly recommend. This is stuff that's just worked extremely well for me, and I hope it helps for someone else.