Hello and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health.

Today we're talking about sleep. Are you a good sleeper? It's something we all aim for, yet many of us fall short.

And the consequences of a poor night's sleep go far beyond just feeling groggy

the next day. In fact, sleep plays a pivotal role in our long-term health, influencing

everything from our mood to our immune system, even how long we live. So how do you get better

sleep in a world that never seems to rest?

I'm joined by sleep scientist Dr. Matt Walker to unpack the later sleep science and share

his top tips to get in a good night's rest.

Personally, I have really noticed I'm in my late 40s now that I do not sleep as well as I used to.

I used to be someone I would have considered myself a really good sleeper and there's no

doubt that I'm more easily disturbed that when I'm disturbed I find it harder to go back to

sleep.

And I know you have some really great advice for people listening to this.

We're now saying, you know what?

Maybe I didn't take sleep as seriously as I should have done.

Now I want to take it really seriously. How can I go and get better sleep? What would your

advice be, Matt? I think there's a couple of general tips, and you can find most of these on the

internet too, but it's good to go over them. The first thing is regularity. I would say if you could

just focus on one thing, go to bed at the same

time, wake up at the same time, no matter whether it's the weekday or the weekend. And I'm pretty

religious like this, you know, and not because I want to be a poster child for good sleep.

It's selfish. You know, if you knew everything I knew about sleep and how important it is, you wouldn't do anything different than prioritizing your sleep. And I do. So I would say, make sure you're getting somewhere between a seven to nine hour opportunity. Find out what is innately correct for you, which is called your chronotype or your morning type, evening type, or somewhere

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