Dong QiuIt is no secret that sleeping is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Mountains of research over the past decade demonstrate, time and again, that a decent nights rest is essential for everything from cognitive function to heart health, mood and more. Not getting good sleep or enough of it is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and hypertension, not to mention the hit to your cognitive function.For many of us, however, getting good sleep is often easier said than done. And much of the advice out there is probably familiar by now, if a little too generic: sleep for 8 hours, avoid bright light and anything stressful before bed, and so on.In reality, life is messier. For a start, we dont all need the same amount of sleep our age, sex, personal habits and tolerances all influence what we individually need. We also all have different lifestyles, including work and travel, which might see us needing to adjust our sleep schedules on a regular basis. Getting good sleep is about more than just clocking up time spent in bed but we also arent great judges of the quality of the sleep we, a consequence of being unconscious when doing the thing we are trying to assess.AdvertisementAll of this means that following prescriptive messages about sleeping more can feel frustrating. The good news, as we explore in this special issue devoted to the subject, is that new research is revealing the benefits of a more holistic approach some of the most important things you can do to improve your sleep dont happen in bed, no matter how comfortable that bed might be.Your sleep is affected by what happens during the rest of the day, such as what and when you eat, as well as your gut microbiome and hormonal production. Your personal chronotype not only when you prefer to sleep, but also when youre most active during the day plays a role in the quality and quantity of the sleep you get, too.What we need, then, is a 24-hour perspective on sleep. None of this changes how crucial our unconscious hours are, but it does give us fresh opportunities to improve them well before we lay down our heads.Explore key questions about sleep in our latest special series:Sleep in numbers3The number of days it took for otherwise healthy people to become pre-diabetic during a sleep-restriction studySource: DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.10.011207,000The number of workdays lost in the UK per year due to insufficient sleepSource: RAND Europe35%Percentage of people in the US who have used a sleep tracking appSource: American Academy of Sleep Medicine15 to 20Minutes taken for most adults with healthy sleep patterns to nod offSource: The Sleep Foundation1/5Maximum reduction in heart disease risk, if you are sleep deprived, from sleeping later at the weekendSource:British Heart Foundation1/3The proportion of adults in the US who report not getting enough rest or sleepSource: US Centers for Disease Control300%Maximum increase in heart disease risk in adults who sleep no more than 5 hours a nightSource: University of Chicago Medicine34%Percentage of those aged 7 to 16 in England who had a problem sleeping on three nights out of sevenSource: NHS EnglandTopics: