I hope this doesn't send you to sleep...

but if you need to catch some ZZZ's, read this

Shh, shhh… Hello again! Sorry for the whisper. My husband is asleep next to me. It’s just past 12am – how did that happen? I’m up in a few hours for a long day of catering. 12am might not be late for some but I am usually in bed by 10pm...

Are you also reading this while trying to fall asleep? Well, actually, I hope my content doesn’t send you into a deep slumber. But I get it. When did something as simple as sleep get so hard?

One sec. Did I double lock the front door? Have I replied to my father-in-law about dinner next week? And I must remember whether or not I ordered my daughter’s new school shoes…

Sorry, as I was saying – falling asleep is hard. Then you’ve got to tackle getting a full, undisturbed eight hours. In the last few years I’ve actually found a bedtime routine that helps me fall asleep straight away, but sometimes, on nights like these, when your mind is racing at 100mph and you’ve got a million things on your to-do list, you just can’t close your eyes without your brain pinging you reminders of what you need to do – and what you haven’t yet done.

And isn't it ironic? We spend the majority of the day rushing around, cramming things in, and then when we finally get a moment to ourselves in the quiet of the night, our mind decides to throw a party that we definitely weren’t invited to.

According to Mental Health UK, one in five of us aren’t getting enough sleep. That’s a lot of grumpy people in the mornings (we’ll excuse that frowny-faced man who shoved past me on the tube this morning, shall we?). It’s something we often overlook, despite it being one of the main pillars for overall health. Bad sleep = stress, anxiety, bad skin, poor brain function, the list goes on…

I’ll admit, I used to be one of those people who would just run on five or six hours of sleep, especially when I was a new mother (ha! At those times, more like two or three hours…). Or when I crammed in lots of work when I was supposed to be resting in between work (hello freelance world) But after it was affecting my day-to-day, I decided to actually invest in my sleep. I don’t just mean getting a new mattress and listening to white noise (though I hear that also helps), but actually incorporating micro-habits and prioritising better sleep in the same way I would with other aspects of my health, like fitness or diet.

Psst.. Still with me? Before I start to drift off, these are the eight things that have changed my sleep habits…