When most of us think about getting healthy, we look at things like exercise and nutrition. These are both extremely important, but there’s another essential pillar of health and wellbeing that many of us overlook: Sleep.

Sure, we do it every night, but few of us understand why we sleep, and how critical sleep is to our physical and mental health. As nations such as the UK celebrate mental health awareness week, it’s worth taking a moment to think about whether your sleep habits really are as healthy as they could be.

Everyone is unique, and in an ideal world we would all sleep in tune with what chronobiologists call our internal clock. However, the pressures of the world and the schedules we have to keep mean that we try and force ourselves into patterns that go against our nature. This can lead to physical and mental health problems.

In her new book, Sleep Sense, Dr Katharina Lederle (MSc in Biosciences at Ruprecht-Karls University, Germany, PhD in Human Circadian Physiology & Behaviour at the University of Surrey, UK) explains how we can learn more about our own internal biological clock, and start sleeping in line with this, regardless of the outside pressures (work, kids, spouses!) that we deal with everyday.

In addition to learning why sleep matters for your brain, your body and your emotions, you’ll be presented with a ‘menu’ of simple and practical options to start improving your sleep immediately.

The goal is to create your own “sleep symphony” where your own internal and external worlds are in sync. You’ll find this results not just in more peaceful nights, but more energetic and focused days as well.

Sleep Sense is now available and will shortly be showing up at good bookstores in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. You can order your copy direct from the publisher (that’s us!) today:

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