Your sleep is affected by what you do throughout your day. Following these tips will put you in a better position to get restful sleep.

During the day

1. Limit your caffeine intake: caffeine has a half-life of 8 hours, so try not to have caffeine during the few hours before bed. If you find it very difficult to get to sleep, try to cut out all caffeine after mid-day.
2. Save your bed for sleep: Make your bedroom comfortable and make your bed a place that your brain associates with rest and sleep. Try not to work on your bed, if possible. You may find that laundering your sheets more regularly helps you to sleep better.
3. Natural light: try to get some natural daylight during the day. 20 -30 minutes in sunlight will help your brain calibrate daytime and nighttime, making it easier to sleep at night.
4. Exercise: Regular exercise can help to improve your sleep, by tiring out your body and helping you to reduce anxiety and stress.
5. Avoid or limit alcohol intake: Avoid, or try to limit, your alcohol intake before bed - alcohol doesn't help us sleep well, in fact, as it metabolises out of your body it can wake you up.

Getting ready for bed

1. Get the right temperature: Try to have the bedroom at around 18c, as this is the average ideal temperature for a restful night. 
2. Be consistent: Try to get a routine of waking up and going to bed at the same time every day, including weekends. 
3. Limit screen time: try to not use any screen-based devices for at least an hour before bedtime. This includes phones, iPads, laptops, PCs, Kindles and TVs. Try to reduce your exposure to these devices during the evening. Set a time when you will stop checking or answering emails or messages.
4. Remove distractions: put your phone on 'do not disturb' or remove it from the bedroom altogether, so that you don't continue to monitor it for incoming messages or alerts.
5. Keep a routine: establish a restful pre-sleep routine that you can follow every night. This may involve reading, listening to music, preparing yourself for bed (taking make-up off, changing), releasing nice smells into your bedroom, breathing exercises, or preparing for the next day. Going through the same routine will prompt your brain to prepare for sleep. 
6. Bathe: Warm baths and showers can help your body to relax and by encouraging your body temperature to drop can induce feelings of sleepiness.

Getting to sleep

1. Breathing exercises: practice breathing exercises to help you relax in bed.
2. Don't fight your thoughts: if thoughts appear as you are trying to go to sleep, tell yourself that you will think about them the following morning. Then either write them down or imagine locking them in a box for now. 

Sources

studentminds.org.uk
Improve Your Sleep

By student minds - The UKs student mental health charity.
Student Minds works with students, service users, professionals and academics to develop new and innovative ways to improve the mental health of students.