Sleep guide - How to get 8 hours of sleep

A few honest thoughts on changing your sleep habits, from Juniper's founder.

Going to bed earlier from one day to the next almost never works. It's the same reason every gym is packed in January and half-empty by February: big, sudden changes rarely stick. So how do you actually make one stick?

The key is changing the routine slowly. I've been working on this myself for a long time. I'm not at the finish line, but I've come some of the way, and the biggest thing I've learned is to make the change as easy as possible for yourself at first, then gradually make it more demanding.

The Thursday/Sunday principle

My husband and I started by deciding that Thursday and Sunday nights would be the two nights we really prioritised sleep, since those are the nights that set you up for the week ahead and the weekend ahead. After a few months, once that felt like the new normal, we added another night.

If you use a sleep tracker, I'd also recommend setting a goal for the year. Something like clocking 150 nights with more than seven hours of sleep is a reasonable, positive step up from wherever you're starting, though the right number is different for everyone.