How are you feeling today?

Good, I'm just tired.

How many times have you said that, this week? This month even? If you're tired all the time, it can be hard to do any of the things you're supposed to do on a day-to-day basis. Life can be draining if all you want to do is sleep all the time. It's frustrating to figure out too! There are those days when you slept for 10 hours last night and you feel even more tired than after nights where you slept only six hours. What's the deal with that!

If you feel tired all the time, here are some tips on sleep to get you more energized and feeling more well-rested.

1. Set a regular and consistent bed time.

Your body likes patterns. Repetition is the key to learning but its also the key to getting comfortable with the way you live your life. So go to bed at the same time every night. That doesn't mean go to bed and be on your phone for two hours, scrolling through Instagram until your phone feels like it's going to explode in your hands.

2. Wake up at the same time every day.

Again, your body likes patterns. If you get the amount of sleep that you need after going to bed at a usual time, you'll find that you will make up naturally more often which makes it easier to get out of bed.

3. Sleep in 90-minute increments.

Your body goes through five stages of sleep within about 90 minutes, the most important being your REM sleep. These sleeping stages are cyclical and when you wake up is critical to how you're going to feel the rest of the day. If you wake up during a REM cycle or during deep sleep, you're going to feel exhausted the rest of the day. But if you allow your body to go through the whole cycle and you wake up right around stage one, when your body is most awake, you'll feel refreshed and like you've had a full night's sleep.

4. Don't nap unless you have sleep debt.

If you got enough sleep in the day, DON'T NAP. You'll throw off your sleep schedule and be wide awake when you try to go to bed at your regular time. The Only time you should nap is if you know you didn't get enough the night before.

5. If you HAVE to nap, make sure it's 20 to 30 minutes.

In the case that you must nap, 20 minutes is the magic number. It's the amount of time you need to rest but also it's right before you would start falling too deep into sleep. Remember, if you wake up in the middle of a cycle, it just makes things worse. So if you're going to lay down decide ahead of time if it's going to be for 20 minutes or for 90 minutes.

6. Control your stress.

Anxiety can highly disturb sleep. Too much brain activity, even while you're in bed, can make it very hard to fall asleep. So try your best to look up, try and get comfortable with some ways to relax before bed. Anxiety and stress can become a vicious cycle. You're stressed so you don't sleep, but then that lack of sleep only adds to your stress, and so on. But you can reverse the cycle by sleeping enough to have the energy to deal with everyday life and other conflicts.