SoundSleep
“Sleep hygiene” is a clumsy phrase for a simple idea: the ordinary habits around bedtime that make sleeping easier or harder. Most of the advice is genuinely sound. The catch is that it is offered as a checklist for everyone, and you are not everyone.
The ones that hold up
A consistent schedule. Going to bed and getting up at roughly the same times, weekends included, does more for most people than any other single change. Your body is running a clock whether you cooperate with it or not.
A cool, dark, quiet room. Somewhere in the high 60s Fahrenheit is the range usually recommended; the exact number matters less than not being too warm. Dark and quiet are worth engineering for with blackout curtains, earplugs or steady background noise.
Alcohol earlier, or not at all. A drink may help you fall asleep and will generally make the rest of the night worse. It is also one of the more reliable ways to make snoring louder, because it relaxes exactly the tissue whose vibration you are hearing.
Caffeine has a long tail. Half of an afternoon coffee can still be in your system at bedtime. If you are sensitive, an early cutoff is one of the cheapest changes available.
Screens, with a caveat. The light matters less than what you are doing with it. Work email at 11 p.m. keeps you awake because it is work email.
The overrated ones
Elaborate routines, supplements and gadgets tend to promise more than they deliver, and an hour of anxious preparation for sleep is its own obstacle. If a routine is stressing you out, that is a cost, not a benefit.
How to find out what works for you
This is the part generic advice cannot do. Everyone's list is different, and the only way to learn yours is to test it against your own nights.
In SoundSleep you can tag what you did before bed — alcohol, a late meal, exercise, a new pillow, stress — and once a factor has enough nights behind it, the app reports what those nights actually cost you. If you want something stricter, the Experiments Lab alternates a change ON and OFF night by night and gives a verdict only when both sides have enough data.
That turns sleep hygiene from a list you feel guilty about into a short list of things that demonstrably matter for you.
SoundSleep is not a medical device and nothing here is medical advice. If your sleep worries you, talk to a doctor.
← All posts