Sleep is something most of us ignore and cut away at the moment adversity strikes.

A pending assignment, project, exam? We stay up until 1 am for it, wake up at 6 in the morning, and head to class. Barely five hours of sleep.

And how does the day go? We feel groggy and unable to focus on anything, longing for the bed the entire day, as if it’s a gateway to heaven.

We drink coffee, but it only has a brief effect on our focus.

And when this cycle continues for long, dark circles form around our eyes; we’re often frustrated, and our performance levels plummet.

Soon enough, we develop problems within our body unknowingly. Our blood pressure is often high, we’re risking heart disease, our mental health weakens, and getting through every day seems like a huge weight.

So many unwanted problems, just because of cutting off hours from your sleep schedule every day. Something that can be avoided easily.

Let’s flip the coin now.

What about a person who sleeps adequately every day?

They can focus on their daily work better, perform better, and lead a much healthier, happier life.

If you have been cutting off sleep or finding it hard to improve your sleep, here are 6 changes you can make in your daily life to change that around.

No matter how distant we humans have grown from nature, we can’t completely attain independence from it. Like it or not, we are one with it.

Like with animals, plants, and other living organisms on Earth, our bodies too follow a natural circadian rhythm.

In other words, our body’s natural 24-hour clock. It controls when we feel sleepy and when we wake up, and other factors like body temperature, hormone levels, and digestion accordingly.

An optimized body would run in line with this rhythm. That is, sleep in the night and stay awake in the morning.

If you sleep at the same time every night, the body sets that time as the time you sleep every day and naturally makes you sleepy by that time. It will shut down all the systems to prepare you for sleep, like a company that shuts down at the same time every day.

You won’t have to struggle to fall asleep, and your body will run like a well-organized company.

The famous 8-hour sleep being the ideal amount of sleep—fortunately or unfortunately—is a myth. Sleep is something personal, and as much as the number of hours, when you wake up is equally important.

Human sleep operates in 90-minute cycles, divided into light and deep sleep. Deep sleep takes up to the latter 35%-50% of the sleep cycle, and waking up during this period will make you feel “snatched out of sleep,” regardless of how long you slept.

It is important that you look at how much time you can sleep and try to wake up at a time when you’re in the first half of a sleep cycle.

I talked about natural circadian rhythms earlier. The way our body follows this is by sunlight.

From dawn to dusk, we receive blue light from the sun. This blue light is what inhibits the hormone called melatonin, which is what makes us drowsy or sleepy.

Back when we humans lived in a world without artificial light, we only received blue light from the sun, and hence our bodies had no problem falling asleep at night, as it stopped melatonin production at sundown.

Now that artificial light is everywhere due to the widespread use of LEDs, blue light is emitted from both lights and screens all the time, even during the night.

This disturbs the natural sleep clock. The blue light from your phone and other screens continues to inhibit melatonin production later into the night, not allowing your body to fall asleep.

This is why it’s important to avoid using your phone or watching TV at least an hour before sleeping.

Caffeine is said to have a half-life of 4.5 hours. Which means it will take 9 hours for it to completely leave your body.

Having caffeine in the evening or night can seriously make it harder to fall asleep.

Exercise can help you fall asleep faster and also improve sleep quality. This is because exercise reduces stress levels and lowers anxiety.

And exercise doesn’t necessarily mean heavy weight lifting in the gym. Simple daily exercise like jogging, running, and even stretching exercises like yoga can help.

A temperature between 18 and 20 degrees Celsius is considered ideal for sleep. Depending on what conditions you live in, consider cooling your room or heating it to reach such a temperature.

Eating heavily before sleep can make it harder to fall asleep, as the digestive system is still at work, while all the other systems go to rest.

Spicy and sugary foods will not only make it harder to fall asleep but keep you up at night because spicy foods can cause acid reflux and sugary foods increase blood sugar, giving you a "sugar rush" that keeps you excited.

Moreover, lying down right after eating can cause stomach acid to flow up the esophagus and cause acid reflux.

Your sleep does not necessarily depend on how many hours you sleep, but rather the number of cycles you cover, and how well you cover them.

And how well you cover them, what we call "sleep quality," depends on how dark the room is, whether you have caffeine in your body, whether you've exercised, how much exposure to blue light you're getting, and what and how much you eat before sleeping.

By controlling these factors, you can improve your sleep quality and power your day.

Sleep can be a superpower if dealt with the right way.