It’s 12AM. You have a big presentation tomorrow and want to get a good night’s sleep. You lie down on your bed, trying to fall asleep, but guess what? You cannot! Even after a few hours just rolling on your bed, fully awake.

Has something like this happened before? It has certainly happened to me. If you cannot sleep, try these 7 do’s and don’ts! They certainly can’t hurt.

1. Make the room a bit cooler and drier than usual.

When your room is hot and damp, you probably won’t be able to fall asleep because it is all stuffy and sticky, especially in Vietnam where temperature is high and the air is humid. Make your room slightly cooler and drier using an air conditioner! (But keep the temperature above 27 oC to conserve energy, or use a fan.)

2. Only sleep in your bed and don’t do anything else.

Some people like to read, play with their computers, play guitar, and do many other things on their bed. This actually makes it harder for you to fall asleep. When you do things other than sleeping on your bed, your body automatically associates that activity with being in bed. For instance, if you like to read on your bed, your body will think that a bed is a place for reading books. Therefore, reserve your bed only for sleeping.

3. Have no / dim lighting

This may sound obvious, but having the lights on prevents you from falling asleep. So simply, turning all lights off will certainly help you fall asleep. If you don’t like pitch-black darkness, like me, have some lights on but make sure they are dim.

4. Stick to your daily routine.

Have you ever tried sleeping for 10 hours and you still feel that you need extra sleep? That might be because you didn’t get any REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. Only when you REM sleep your body recovers and it truly rests.  According to research, REM sleep occurs periodically when you sleep, and how often this occurs depends on the person. Sticking to your daily routine will increase the chance you have a REM sleep.

Here are some tips to avoid to help you get some rest:

1. Avoid intense exercises

A light exercise may help you fall asleep because it makes you tired. Intense exercise, however, does pretty much the opposite. I’ve actually tried this before since I had really hard time falling asleep. If you exercise too much, you will be tired but you won’t be able to fall asleep since your brain will be filled with adrenaline from the exercises. And if you can’t fall asleep while you are tired, you are going to have a really hard time. Just don’t do this.

2. Avoid hot showers just before sleep

Surprisingly, a hot shower actually stimulates you and wakes you up. If you need to take a hot shower, take it about half an hour before you go to bed.

3. Avoid caffeinated beverages

Beverages that contain caffeine will obviously wake you up as it stimulates the brain, which is the last thing you want trying to have a good sleep.

Now that you know all these wonderful tips on how to sleep, you will never have to , hopefully, count sheeps before having a bit of sleep. Just remember, sleeping is vital for your health and your health is much more important than other things you do on times when you should go to bed. Good luck and sweet dreams!