Scientists have an idea to help us get to sleep faster. You need a pen and paper. Writing a to-do list helps people sleep faster. To-do lists help us to relax, so we don't worry about things we have to do. If we write things down, we can forget about them. This makes us calmer. A researcher said: "We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime."
The researchers looked at how 57 university students slept. Half of them made a to-do list before they slept. They all had to sleep by 10:30pm and could not use technology. Those who wrote a to-do list fell asleep around 9 minutes faster. The students who wrote detailed lists fell asleep faster than students who wrote simple lists. Around 40 per cent of adults have difficulty falling asleep a few times each month.