During Christmas, or any holiday period, it’s normal for our sleep to fall off track. From excessive socialising and events to all the organisation and planning involved, sleep becomes less of a priority, and we can find our usual routine changing entirely.

However, when it comes to getting back into the swing of things and returning to work, we can then feel as though our sleep has changed entirely, which doesn’t work well with getting back to normal life.

If this sounds familiar, here are three things you can do to get yourself back into a good sleep routine.

1. Go to bed later and wake up earlier. This might sound counterintuitive, as you will be reducing your window of sleep. However, by going to bed later and waking up earlier, you’ll be increasing your chances of falling asleep more quickly and increasing your sleep drive (appetite for sleep) meaning you’re more likely to have more restorative, better quality sleep.

2. If you’re tossing and turning in bed, simply in bed awake, get up and leave the room. Spending too much time in bed awake will lead you to associate bed with wakefulness, when really what we want is for bed to be a place of sleep. So, leave the room, read a book or do something else you enjoy, then once you feel truly tired, head back to bed ready to fall asleep.

3. Manage stress and anxiety. No amount of sleep can outrun the tiredness that stress and anxiety brings. So, challenge any unhelpful thoughts and write things down with pen and paper to get these worries out of your mind.