It’s Sleep Awareness Month! Of course, you’re probably plenty aware of sleep, given that you spend about a third of your life curled up in bed under the blankets—or at least you should, and you probably know that, too. Sleep is important to help our bodies repair from the wear-and-tear of the day, give our brains some rest to think clearly when we’re awake, and for babies and kids especially, to help them grow.

At different times in our lives we need different amounts of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation has a great chart that helps you determine if the amount of sleep you and your kids get is within the recommended amount. Sleep needs vary by age, and from person-to-person. Activity level, chronic diseases, and a lot of other factors weigh into how much sleep each person needs in a given night. But, of course, many of us find it hard to get the amount sleep that we need to perform at our best.

The National Sleep Foundation’s website shares a lot of tips for keeping your bedroom optimal for sleep. Of course, we all know those tips that we should keep devices out of the bedroom like laptops and smartphones, but how many of us actually do? I, for one, use my iPhone both as an alarm clock and to track my sleep time and quality, so I’m certainly not following these recommendations!

What else goes into an optimal sleep environment? [1]

Of course, daily stresses running through your mind during the night also are not ideal to produce sleep. Journaling before bed can help get these stresses out of your head, and make them into actionable items to conquer the next day. Keeping a notebook beside your bed may help, but since you’ll probably need a light to write in it, it may make just as much sense to jot it down in your phone—as long as you don’t get distracted by social media for an hour.

If you have certain sleep disorders, or work shift-work, you may need to invest more time into ensuring your bedroom is optimal for sleep so that you can still get enough, whether it is getting a full “night” during the daytime, or taking naps if you need to for medical reasons.

One common sleep disorder is sleep apnea, which causes breathing to stop while sleeping. A machine, known as CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) responds to when you breathe and ensures your airways stay open while you sleep. These machines are completely silent, because of course the sleep doctors especially know the important of keeping your bedroom quiet. If this is a concern you or a loved one has stopping you from using CPAP, know that these machines run even quieter than when your heat or air conditioning kicks in! If you have a sleep disorder, a medical alert bracelet or necklace may be important—we can make custom bracelets for sleep apnea, necklaces or bracelets for narcolepsy, or other disorders that affect sleep.

While it can be hard to get a good night’s sleep every night, settling into a routine is your best chance to make it happen! Learn how your medications may affect your sleep, and tell your doctor if they are causing you issues with sleep—either making you too sleepy, or keeping you awake.