Find yourself struggling to fall asleep even though you’re exhausted? There’s a common reason many people I work with struggle to drop off when they go to bed - they’re going to bed far too early!

The first thing most of us do when we aren’t sleeping well is go to bed earlier and then wake up later in an attempt to claw back the lost hours of sleep.

However, this actually causes issues for the following reasons:

1. Going to bed earlier means we haven’t built up a strong enough sleep drive, which means we end up tossing and turning for longer

2. Our body clock becomes confused and we start sleeping at the wrong times and in shorter periods

3. We start to relate our bed to being awake, which means the sleeplessness continues 

Even if you’re feeling shattered, going to bed early still means your drive for sleep won’t be high enough. Your body clock won’t associate that time with being asleep, meaning it will become harder to nod off.