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Feeling Tired? How Everything—From Mattresses to Movies—Influences Your Sleep

Aiming for a good night’s sleep starts earlier than your bedtime routine.

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If you’ve never struggled with your sleep, consider yourself lucky. The rest of us—the 70% of American adults that report insufficient sleep at least once a month—are spending their late evening hours getting in their bedtime meditations and trying desperately to stay off their phones for that last hour before bed.

But sleep doesn’t exist in a vacuum—so many of the issues that affect our sleep aren’t directly tied to how we think about or prepare for sleep. In fact, one sleep scientist’s best advice for improving our sleep involves the moments just after we wake up in the morning. Other sleep issues can involve hormonal changes and doctors visits, our exercise routine, or even what movies we try to wind down with after dinner.

Reece Rogers has become an expert on the latter, writing WIRED’s recent feature on how to stop falling asleep on the couch after movies. And while it may have started as a personal quest, it quickly became Rogers’ entry into the deep world of sleep research, leading him down rabbit holes on the mattress industry and… cave fish.

“I was nervous the article would be overly niche when I first pitched it to my editor, Alan Henry,” says Rogers. “But I started to realize just how many other people are in the same boat during my interviews with sleep experts. I am delighted when my service journalism resonates with readers and helps their day-to-day lives. Now, let’s see if we can make it all the way through our next movie night…”

Read on for a peek into Rogers’ research folder, one that spans sleep apnea, dream journals, and the spiritual aspects of our relationship with sleep.

Check out the other WIRED Collections from Adrienne So on preparing for an epic bike race and Andy Greenberg on the heroes fighting cybercrime.

Image by janiecbros /Getty Images

Reece Rogers

Reece Rogers is WIRED's service writer, focused on explaining crucial topics and helping readers get the most out of their technology. Prior to WIRED, he covered streaming at Insider.