If you aren’t sleeping well, you aren’t alone – about 40 percent of Americans say that they just don’t get enough sleep, or don’t sleep well. With all the stresses and worries of everyday life, it isn’t surprising that many of us don’t often enjoy a night of uninterrupted sleep. It is also difficult to sleep well as you get older, partly because of various health issues. If all this sounds familiar, there are steps you can take to increase your chances of sleeping soundly and waking up refreshed.

One of the most common reasons for not sleeping well is disruptions in your routine, or not going to bed at the same time each night. Most of us prefer a routine, and if you get up early during the week for work, but sleep in at the weekend, it can make it that much harder to sleep well on Sunday night. Simply making an effort to go to bed and get up at about the same time every morning can be surprisingly effective when it comes to improving the quality of your sleep. Shift workers are especially likely to suffer from a lack of sleep, and if you have jet lag and are trying to get your sleep patterns back to normal, you probably know how hard that can be.

The color of your bedroom may be responsible if you feel you don’t sleep well at night, Bright colors, such as red and purple tend to stimulate the brain, making it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. If it is time to paint your bedroom, you may want to go with a blue tone, as blue has been proven to relax and soothe you, making it the ideal color for a bedroom. Blue can even help to lower your blood pressure and reduce your heart rate. You should also avoid painting your bedroom gray or dark brown, but yellow or green are both conducive to relaxation if you don’t like blue. A silver painted room is supposedly more likely to make you want to exercise, although it isn’t the best choice for sleeping well. Sleeping in as dark a room as possible can also help you to enjoy a better night’s sleep.

Taking your work to bed is a common cause of not sleeping well, especially for busy or overworked people. If you are studying in bed, writing reports or practicing for that presentation tomorrow, you probably find that sleep won’t come easily. If practical, don’t have your office, study or workspace in your bedroom – the more distractions you remove from the room, the better your chances of sleeping well. Your bedroom should be used for sleeping, relaxing and spending some romantic and quality time with your significant other. Even watching TV or browsing the Internet late at night in bed can reduce your chances of sleeping well.

If you aren’t sleeping well, it may be that your diet is responsible. If at all possible, don’t eat a large, rich or spicy meal within a couple of hours of going to bed, and the solution to that may be as simple as eating your evening meal a little earlier. We all know that caffeine close to bedtime can help to keep you awake, but it isn’t just coffee – soda and tea too close to bedtime can prevent you from sleeping well, and of course, can mean too many unwanted trips to the bathroom. If you smoke just before going to bed, it can also overstimulate you and prevent you from falling asleep quickly.

Of course, a comfortable bed and the right mattress also make a huge difference when it comes to sleeping well. It’s well worth investing in a good mattress, one that is firm or soft enough to suit you, and there are plenty on the market to choose from. One of the best mattresses around is the Nectar mattress, which incorporates such features as evenly distributed weight, better air circulation and a quilted gel memory foam, which adjusts more precisely to your body shape and size. The company’s nectar mattress coupon 2017 allows you to save money on one of the most effective and comfortable mattresses available today.