Dr Williams sets out three key brain-training tips for sleeping better:

1. Form a non-negotiable pre-bed habit

Reducing screen exposure before bed and avoiding eating anything heavy a couple of hours before you want to sleep are two fairly common and obvious tactics, but Dr Williams also says that in the 30 minutes before sleep, we need to have an activity that our brain recognises and associates with sleep.

“That could be having a bath, lighting your favourite candle, reading your book, saying your prayers, having a certain milky drink,” she says. For me, it’s writing my diary. I’ve kept a diary since I was in primary school and have always written it just before sleep – and it can take me longer to drift off if I’ve not written it that day.

2. Reserve the bedroom for sleep and sex

When it comes to spatial hygiene, Dr Williams says: “The bedroom should only be used for two things: sleep and sex. And the main reason sex is in there is because people won’t stop doing it there!”

That means setting serious boundaries against working from bed if you’re not in the office, watching Netflix in bed or taking stressful phone calls in the bedroom. If you rent a room and your bedroom is your only space, try to keep the bed itself limited to the two Ss and use your desk for everything else.

If you’re lucky enough to have enough living space that you can work elsewhere and watch TV in a living room, then keeping your bedroom free from work and stimulation allows the brain to recognise it as the place to sleep.

3. Make your bedroom like a cave

“You want to keep your bedroom at about 18°C, as dark as possible with blackout blinds and as quiet as you can. Anything that you’d do for a little baby to make their room compatible with sleep, we should do for our own rooms as well,” says Dr Zoe.

4 simple tips for sleeping sounder, stressing less and feeling better, according to a GP