Are you tired of tossing and turning at night? You're not alone. Insomnia is more common than you might think — a recent study in England found that about 29% of adults have trouble with insomnia symptoms. Each year, over 15 million prescriptions for sleeping pills are written in the UK. While medication might knock you out, it can leave you groggy, dependent, and it never fixes the root cause.
The good news? You can sleep better naturally with simple, proven changes to your routine. At DELIM, we're all about holistic sleep solutions — no pills, no side effects, just better sleep. Below are 10 science-backed hacks to help you drift off faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up actually refreshed.
Last updated: April 2026 | Written by the DELIM Sleep Team
1. Try Mouth Taping for Better Nasal Breathing
Many people snore or sleep poorly simply because they breathe through their mouth at night. One clever solution gaining popularity is mouth taping — using a special adhesive strip to gently keep your lips closed while you sleep. It might sound unusual, but the benefits are well documented in the wellness community.
By keeping your lips sealed, you force yourself to breathe through your nose. Nasal breathing acts as a natural filter and humidifier for the air you inhale. Your nasal passages warm the air, remove particles, and produce nitric oxide — a molecule that helps dilate blood vessels and improve oxygen delivery. The result is a calmer, deeper breathing rhythm that supports more restful sleep.
A preliminary study found that for people with mild sleep apnea, mouth tape cut snoring frequency and breathing interruptions roughly in half. Many users also report waking up without the dry mouth or sore throat that open-mouth breathing causes.
It's important to use a product designed specifically for this — like DELIM Mouth Tape, which is gentle, skin-safe, and breathable. Never use regular sticky tape. Only try mouth taping if you can breathe comfortably through your nose. If you have nasal congestion, a deviated septum, or untreated sleep apnea, speak to a doctor first.
Want to learn more before you try it? Read our full Beginner's Guide to Mouth Taping.
2. Keep a Consistent Sleep Schedule
Your body runs on an internal clock called the circadian rhythm — a roughly 24-hour cycle that controls when you feel sleepy and when you feel alert. The most powerful way to support this clock is simple: go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, including weekends.
When your sleep schedule is consistent, your brain learns to release melatonin (the sleep hormone) at the right time each night. You fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up without an alarm feeling more rested. When your schedule is erratic — sleeping in on weekends, staying up late — your body gets confused. This is sometimes called "social jet lag," and it has the same effect on your mood and energy as flying across time zones.
A practical trick: set a bedtime alarm, not just a wake-up alarm. When it goes off, stop what you're doing and start winding down. Protect that hour before sleep like you would a work meeting — it matters just as much. Over 2–3 weeks of consistency, most people notice a significant improvement in how quickly they fall asleep and how they feel in the morning.
3. Optimise Your Sleep Environment
Your bedroom should feel like a dedicated space for rest — not a home office, entertainment room, or storage unit. Small environmental changes can have a surprisingly large impact on sleep quality.
Temperature: The ideal bedroom temperature for sleep is around 16–18°C (60–65°F). Your core body temperature naturally drops as you fall asleep, and a cool room helps that process. If your room is too warm, your body struggles to reach the depth of sleep it needs.
Darkness: Even small amounts of light — a streetlamp through thin curtains, an LED on a charger — can suppress melatonin. Use blackout curtains or a quality sleep mask. This is especially important in summer when the UK has very early sunrises.
Noise: If you live in a noisy area or sleep next to a snorer, consider earplugs or a white noise machine (see Hack #10). Consistent background sound is far less disruptive than unpredictable noises.
Comfort: Your pillow matters more than most people realise. An unsupportive pillow leads to neck tension, which causes tossing and turning. Choose one that keeps your neck aligned with your spine in your natural sleep position. Breathable bedding — linen or quality cotton — also helps regulate temperature through the night.
Scent: Lavender has genuine evidence behind it as a sleep aid. A few drops in a diffuser or on a pillow can subtly calm the nervous system and signal to your brain that it's time to rest.
4. Unplug from Electronics Before Bed
This is probably the most widely repeated sleep tip — and the most ignored. The reason it keeps coming up is because the evidence is strong: screens genuinely damage sleep quality, and most of us are on them right up until the moment our head hits the pillow.
Here's what's actually happening. The blue light emitted by phones, tablets, laptops, and TVs closely mimics daylight. When your eyes detect this light in the evening, your brain interprets it as "still daytime" and suppresses melatonin production. A 2015 Harvard study found that reading on a screen before bed pushed back melatonin onset by 90 minutes and reduced next-morning alertness even after 8 hours in bed.
But it's not just the light. Social media, news, and even entertaining videos activate your brain's reward and stress circuits — exactly the opposite of the calm, drowsy state you need for sleep. The mental stimulation keeps cortisol (your alertness hormone) elevated at a time when it should be dropping.
Practical steps:
- Set a hard "no screens" rule from 60 minutes before your target bedtime
- Charge your phone outside the bedroom, or at least face-down and on Do Not Disturb
- If you use your phone as an alarm, buy a separate cheap alarm clock instead
- Replace scrolling with reading a physical book, journalling, or a relaxation routine (see Hack #5)
- If you genuinely can't avoid screens, use Night Shift / Night Mode and lower brightness — but understand this only partially reduces the problem
The first few nights without your phone before bed can feel uncomfortable. That discomfort is a sign of how dependent you've become on the stimulation. Push through it — most people notice improved sleep quality within a week.
5. Practice Relaxation Techniques
Sleep isn't a switch you can flip. It's a gradual process of your nervous system downshifting from a high-alert state to a calm, restorative one. If you've been busy, stressed, or stimulated all day and then expect to fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow — you'll be disappointed. Relaxation techniques exist specifically to bridge that gap.
Diaphragmatic (belly) breathing is one of the most effective and underrated sleep tools. Breathing deeply into your belly — rather than shallow chest breathing — activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your body's "rest and digest" mode. Try the 4-7-8 method: inhale for 4 counts, hold for 7, exhale for 8. Do this 3–4 times before bed and notice how quickly your heart rate drops.
Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) involves tensing and releasing muscle groups from your feet upward. It physically removes tension you didn't know you were holding and is particularly effective for people whose stress manifests physically — tight shoulders, jaw clenching, restless legs.
Meditation and mindfulness have strong clinical support for improving sleep, especially in people whose minds race at bedtime. Apps like Calm or Headspace have specific sleep programmes, but even 5 minutes of focused, slow breathing with your eyes closed counts.
Journalling works differently — rather than calming the nervous system directly, it offloads the mental "tabs" that stay open at night. Writing down your to-do list, your worries, or just a brain dump before bed has been shown in research to reduce time-to-sleep, because you've given your brain "permission" to let go of those thoughts until morning.
Pick one technique and do it every night for two weeks. Consistency matters more than which method you choose.
6. Watch What You Eat and Drink Before Bed
What you consume in the hours before sleep has a direct impact on how well you sleep — and most people underestimate this. The main offenders are caffeine and alcohol, but meal timing and composition matter too.
Caffeine has a half-life of around 5–6 hours, which means if you have a coffee at 4pm, half of that caffeine is still in your system at 10pm. For sensitive individuals, it can be even longer. Cut off caffeine by early afternoon — ideally 1–2pm. This includes tea, energy drinks, pre-workout supplements, and even dark chocolate in large amounts.
Alcohol is widely misunderstood as a sleep aid. Yes, it helps you fall asleep faster — but it significantly disrupts the quality of your sleep. Alcohol suppresses REM sleep (the restorative, dreaming phase), causes you to wake up in the night as it metabolises, and dehydrates you. The result is that you might sleep 8 hours but wake up feeling like you only got 5. Avoid alcohol within 3 hours of bedtime, and ideally less on weeknights.
Meal timing: Eating a large meal too close to bedtime forces your digestive system to work hard when your body should be winding down. Aim to have your last big meal at least 2–3 hours before sleep. If you're genuinely hungry close to bedtime, choose a small, sleep-friendly snack — a small bowl of oats, a banana, warm milk, or a handful of almonds. These contain tryptophan or magnesium, nutrients that support melatonin production and muscle relaxation.
Hydration: Stay hydrated throughout the day, but taper off in the 1–2 hours before bed to avoid waking up for the toilet in the night. A small sip of water is fine — a large glass is not.
7. Get Regular Exercise and Morning Sunlight
Exercise is one of the most powerful natural sleep aids available, and it's free. Numerous studies show that people who exercise regularly fall asleep faster, experience deeper sleep, and wake up less frequently in the night. The mechanisms are multiple: exercise reduces anxiety and cortisol, increases adenosine (a sleep-pressure chemical), raises body temperature (which then drops post-exercise, triggering sleepiness), and improves overall physical tiredness.
You don't need intense workouts. 20–30 minutes of moderate exercise most days — a brisk walk, a cycle, a swim, or a gym session — is enough to see meaningful sleep benefits. The key caveat is timing: vigorous exercise within 2–3 hours of bedtime can raise your heart rate and cortisol, making it harder to fall asleep. Morning or afternoon is ideal.
Morning sunlight deserves its own mention. Getting natural light exposure within the first hour of waking is one of the most direct ways to set your circadian rhythm. Sunlight tells your brain "it's morning" — which, crucially, starts a 14–16 hour countdown to when melatonin rises and you feel sleepy. In the UK, this is particularly important in winter when natural light is scarce. Try to step outside in the morning, even if it's cloudy (cloud cover still transmits meaningful light). A 10–15 minute walk is enough.
The combination of morning light and regular afternoon exercise creates a powerful 1-2 punch for your circadian rhythm — making nights significantly more restful over time.
8. Build a Calming Bedtime Ritual
Your brain learns from patterns. When you repeat the same sequence of calming activities every night before bed, your brain begins to associate those activities with sleep — and starts preparing your body for rest before you've even climbed into bed. This is called a sleep cue sequence, and it's one of the most underused sleep strategies.
The ritual doesn't need to be elaborate or expensive. What matters is that it's consistent, calming, and screen-free. Here's an example 45-minute routine:
- 9:00pm — Warm shower or bath. The warm water raises your body temperature slightly; when you get out and cool down, your core temperature drops quickly, which signals to your brain that it's time to sleep. Research shows this brings sleep onset forward by about 10 minutes.
- 9:15pm — Skincare routine. This doubles as a mindfulness ritual — slow, deliberate, sensory. It also gives your skin the overnight repair window it needs.
- 9:25pm — Herbal tea (chamomile, valerian, or a sleep blend). Chamomile contains apigenin, a compound that binds to GABA receptors in the brain and promotes relaxation. Sipping something warm also slows you down physically.
- 9:35pm — Read a physical book, journal, or do a short breathing exercise. Keep the lights dim.
- 9:45pm — Lights out. Apply your DELIM mouth tape, settle in your preferred sleep position, and let your body do the rest.
Adapt this to what works for you — the specific activities matter less than doing them in the same order every night. Within 2–3 weeks, the routine itself becomes a powerful sleep trigger.
9. Sleep on Your Side to Reduce Snoring
Your sleep position has a bigger impact on sleep quality than most people realise — particularly if you snore or share a bed with someone who does. When you sleep on your back, your tongue and soft tissues at the back of your throat are pulled downward by gravity, partially blocking the airway. This is the primary mechanical cause of snoring and can also worsen mild sleep apnea.
Switching to side sleeping keeps the airway naturally open, which significantly reduces snoring in most people. Studies show that positional therapy (sleeping on your side) can reduce snoring by 50–70% for habitual snorers. The left side is often cited as particularly beneficial — it can also reduce acid reflux, which is another common cause of disturbed sleep.
How to stay on your side:
- Use a body pillow along your front — it's much harder to roll onto your back when there's something in the way
- The classic "tennis ball in a back-pocket pyjama top" trick still works — discomfort when you roll onto your back wakes you just enough to reposition
- Invest in a good side-sleeping pillow that fills the gap between your ear and shoulder, keeping your spine aligned. This prevents neck pain that otherwise makes side sleeping uncomfortable
- If you have a partner who snores, encourage them to try side sleeping combined with mouth tape — the combination is highly effective
Combine side sleeping with mouth taping (Hack #1) for maximum snoring reduction. Many couples report that this combination alone transformed their nights.
10. Use White Noise or Soothing Sounds
Sleep is fragile. Your brain never fully switches off during the night — it continues monitoring your environment for potential threats, and sudden or unpredictable noises trigger micro-arousals, pulling you out of deep sleep even if you don't fully wake up. Over a full night, this can dramatically reduce sleep quality without you realising it.
White noise works by creating a consistent acoustic backdrop that masks these sudden sounds. Rather than your brain reacting to a car door slamming or a neighbour's TV, those sounds blend into the constant hum. Think of it like how a constant fan noise becomes invisible but a dripping tap is maddening — consistency is what your brain tunes out.
The research on this is solid. A 2021 review found that white noise significantly improved sleep onset time in noisy environments, and ICU studies (where noise disruption is extreme) showed patients slept longer and with better quality when white noise was introduced.
What to use:
- White noise — even frequency across the spectrum, good for general masking
- Pink noise — deeper, more natural sound (like steady rain), some studies show it enhances deep sleep specifically
- Brown noise — even deeper rumble (like a river), popular with people who find white noise too sharp
- Nature sounds — rain, ocean waves, forest — these work for many people and feel more relaxing
Play at a low-to-moderate volume — around 50–65 decibels, roughly the level of a quiet conversation. Set a timer or use the sleep function on your chosen app or device so the audio doesn't play all night at high volume. Free options include YouTube, Spotify sleep playlists, or apps like Calm and Brain.fm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is mouth taping safe in the UK?
Yes, mouth taping is generally safe for healthy adults who can breathe comfortably through their nose. Use skin-safe tape made specifically for this purpose — like DELIM Mouth Tape — and stop if you feel any discomfort. Consult a GP or sleep specialist first if you have untreated sleep apnea, chronic nasal obstruction, or any breathing condition.
How can I stop snoring naturally?
The most effective natural approaches are: sleeping on your side, using mouth tape to encourage nasal breathing, keeping your nasal passages clear (nasal strips help), reducing alcohol before bed, using a supportive pillow that keeps your airway aligned, and maintaining a healthy weight. Combining mouth taping with side sleeping is particularly effective.
How long until I see results from these changes?
Some hacks (like a cooler room or white noise) can work from the first night. Others, like a consistent sleep schedule or regular exercise, typically take 2–4 weeks of consistency before you notice significant change. Stick with it — the improvements compound over time.
Can I use multiple hacks at once?
Absolutely — in fact, combining hacks is more effective than any single change. A good starting combination: consistent sleep schedule + no screens 1 hour before bed + mouth taping. Add more as you build the habit.
What if I've tried everything and still can't sleep?
If sleep problems persist despite good sleep hygiene, it may be worth speaking to your GP. Conditions like sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, or clinical insomnia respond well to treatment when properly diagnosed. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is recommended by the NHS as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia and is more effective than sleeping pills long-term.
Ready to start tonight? Pick two or three hacks from this list and commit to them for two weeks. Track how you feel. The combination of consistent sleep habits, a calming bedtime routine, and natural tools like DELIM mouth tape can genuinely transform your nights — and your days.
Explore our full range of natural sleep solutions at thedelim.com and read more on the DELIM Sleep Journal.
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