It has only been within the last year I have understood what it means to get a good night's sleep. For so long I devoted such little effort to my sleep. The effects of such poor sleep habits took a hefty toll on my life. I had all sorts of problems with fatigue and depression. I didn't realize the awful sleep I was getting was one of the main contributing factors. I still struggle with depression as I know most people under the sun do, but it's not as bad as it once was. Not by far. In the past, I would never really prepare for bed. I would just "go" until I eventually got tired and crashed. There wasn't any proactive effort to improve my sleep patterns other than taking Ambien, which in truth was more about the buzz I got than it was about falling asleep. The sleep you get from Ambien is not restful. It's like your brain just shuts off but your body can just keep on tossing and turning. Ambien was also a contributor to the depression. In addition to poor sleep, my mood always had a difficult time recovering the morning after taking Ambien. Forget recovering, my mood was horrible the next day. I've been keeping a journal for a while now and when I look at the entries from the mornings after Ambien it is painfully clear the negative affect it was had. In retrospect, I wonder why it took me so long to realize how it was affecting me. It could be because the Ambien was prescribed to me by my psychiatrist. Surely, they wouldn't give me anything to worsen my depression...would they? Either way, I no longer take Ambien and encourage people to avoid it. All of that aside. I made many more changes to my sleeping habits that have had a positive result. One simple change I made that I also encourage others to do is to set the "Nightshift" setting on my phone and computer. This lessens the blue light present in those devices which reduces the strain on our eyes. I know it's best to avoid all screens before bed, and I try to as much as possible. These days it is a little harder. If you're like me you usually have to use your phone as an alarm so you will inevitably be looking at before bed. This little trick is something simple everyone can do and it does make a big difference. So long as you're not laying in bed scrolling through social media until the moment your eyes shut. Even then I think it would make a noticeable difference. Another thing I've done is to keep a lamp in the bedroom with a red bulb. At night I only use the red light and steer clear of any white light. Truthfully, I purchased a full spectrum LED bulb from Amazon. With this bulb I can control the color of light it emits from my phone. I believe you can even set it to a schedule, but I haven't gone that far yet. It has been surprising the magnitude of the effect this has had on my ability to fall asleep. There is no more laying in bed awake with my mind still running like a TV that was left on. That is something I used to do as well. I used to set a sleep timer on the TV and let it lull me to sleep. Little did I know it wasn't doing anything but inhibiting my ability to get into the first stages of sleep. I keep a few things next to my bed: a pair of headphones, earplugs, a sleep mask, and books. I use the headphones to listen to sleep inducing audio like ASMR or brown/white/pink. I'm sure you can find audio like this on most streaming services, but I use YouTube more than anything. My favorite as of late has been the Brownian noise videos. The deepness of the brown noise compared to the higher-pitched pink noise seems to work better for me lately. Another favorite listen is the ASMR shoe shine videos from Angelo Shoe Shine or Jason Dornstar. I've never once had a shoeshine, but now I feel like I would be unconscious before the shiner got the laces out of my shoes. The books are there just to seal the deal. I keep a wide variety of uninteresting books, but not boring books. Books that are just intriguing enough to keep me from wandering off in my thoughts. With the combination of the red lights, the sleep audio or earplugs, and the sleep mask, I never get farther than a couple of pages. Kidding, I don't pull down the hood of the sleep mask until I'm fading out. The sleep mask is self-explanatory. One final thing I do to get the best sleep is to make sure I haven't eaten before bed and that I do not eat anything if I wake up. This is something I used to do and it is one of the worst things anyone can do for their sleep.