I’ve known for some years that I don’t sleep especially well and often feel continually tired, but earlier this year I got a bit of a wake up call to how bad it was. Now, I know this isn’t scientific but I’d bought a Fitbit which claimed to monitor your sleep. This is what I found over my first full month.

3 hours 39 minutes. On average. Over a month. I do know – that’s not enough! No wonder I was tired, short-tempered and grumpy, finding it hard to cope with some of life’s little curve balls.

I was already speaking to my doctor about (sorry if this is TMI) being perimenopausal so the first thing was to address this. I already take too many tablets for my blood pressure so it was great to hear you can get patches. They take a little longer to work but can be very effective.

Next I looked at the issues I have with light – my husband likes to watch movies in bed on the iPad and I find the light quite disturbing. I’m also prone to wake as the sun rises which makes sleeping in the summer a particular challenge for me. I remembered somewhere I had an eye mask I’d been given and thought I’d give that a go. It was odd for a couple of nights but really helped me to sleep through to the alarm.

I’ve addressed my night time routine. Aimed to get into bed by about 10. Only use my ebook in bed – no blue light from tablets, phones or computers. Keeping the window open to improve airflow (although that may be more of a challenge for nesh old me in winter).

And most recently, I’ve addressed (again, sorry if TMI) snoring. While I don’t snore all the time, I know sometimes this disturbs my sleep so I figured anything that might help this could be good. I invested in these. VERY weird at first but you quickly get used to it – especially when they’re cut right down for tiny noses!

And I’m having lots of success! Here’s the last month…

Over 5 and a half hours on average! That’s much more respectable!

I’d like to get it over 6, and I’d like to have no nights when I barely get any, but I’m pretty thrilled with that in 6 months.

I’d love to hear anyone else’s tips to get me a few more minutes…