The CDC reports that adults need 7 hours or more of sleep per night for optimal health.
They also report that adults sleep 6.8 hours per day on average, which hasn’t changed much from Gallup polls in the 1990s and 2000s, but is down more than an hour from 1942.
If you want to improve your sleep, here is an approach based on my own experience.
Stage 1
Establish a baseline. What you measure you master so at this stage you can start by measuring your sleep. With this data, you can decide what you want to improve. This could be duration, quality, consistent sleep/wake times. It’s up to you. Devices like Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Oura ring make this easy.
Stage 2
Establish a routine and start testing.
Many people make the mistake of trying to change everything at once. This makes it hard to know what impacts your sleep. I tried things like Blue blocking glasses, not eating 2 hrs before bed, raw honey before bed, etc.
Each change showed improvements in the quality of my sleep.
Stage 3
Improvement stacking.
Once you have started getting results on what has a positive or negative impact you can experiment with combinations. This is where you can dial in your best sleep approach. By keeping the changes that work, and experimenting with the rest, you will learn exactly what works for you.