Your profile summary

Your sleep is fairly well optimised, scoring 57 %.You said you sometimes have a problem with sleep though you are not very sleepy during the day, which means your body is probably getting the sleep it needs. Quality of sleep is more important than quantity. There’s room to improve your score. Your personalised advice below may be useful.

Environment

Your bedroom should be mainly for sleep

• Sleep experts recommend that bedrooms should be for rest, relaxation and a good night’s sleep.
• If getting to sleep is a problem, remove distractions from your bedroom if you can. If you use your mobile telephone as an alarm clock, try to turn off the mobile to avoid getting any late night calls or text messages. The alarm clock function still works when the mobile is off.

Lifestyle

A regular bedtime will help you

• You sometimes like a lie-in, but creating a habit of waking up at the same time each day (even weekends) will help your body know when to sleep – improving the quality of your sleep.

You regularly drink coffee or consume caffeine

• You use one of the oldest and best short-term cures for sleepiness: caffeine.
• Caffeine stays in your system for many hours, but is active in your brain for only about an hour. However, having large amounts of caffeine in your system will disturb your sleep.
• If keeping alert is your goal and you want to cut down your caffeine intake, try taking a short nap when you feel sleepy.
• Current research shows a short 15 minute nap is more effective than a cappuccino at beating tiredness.

There are things you can do to improve your sleep

• Health has a direct impact on sleep.
• Exercise is a good way of improving your the start to the day. But if you exercise too close to bed time, it will make it difficult for you to sleep. After a heavy workout, your muscles may be tired, but muscles only need to rest, not sleep. Your brain will be too stimulated to calm down quickly
• Smoking and alcohol also affect your sleep – causing you to wake more easily out of light sleep (a stage of sleep that occurs for about half a normal night’s sleep)

Try it yourself – BBC Sleep profiler.