This is key to keep your mind clear on what your bed is for. If you do other things in your bed, like work, or worry, or watch TV, you get away from that association and risk developing habits that lead to insomnia. If you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep, get up after about 20 minutes. “Do not lay in bed tossing and turning because it teaches your body that the bed is a place to be awake and asleep,” Shelby Harris, director of behavioral sleep medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, says. It’s hard to do at 2 or 3 A.M., but get up and relocate. “It’s one of the most effective treatments,” she says. Do something quiet and relaxing in dim light, and stay away from light-emitting screens, she recommends.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and leave the room to do some calming activity, return to bed only when you’re feeling sleepy. If you lay back down and still can’t sleep, get up and do it all over again. “You have to retrain your body. The more you do it the more body will learn,” Harris says. This also means that you shouldn’t turn in for the night before you’re tired. Keeping a consistent bedtime is important (more on that later), but if you’re not tired, you’ll just lie there awake, worsening the problem.

“Meditation isn’t a standard treatment for insomnia, but we’re starting to incorporate it into the bigger treatment package,” Harris says. It’s tough to power down for sleep when you’ve been in go mode all day long. “We think our brain is an on/off switch, and it’s sadly not that way. You have to treat like it’s a dimmer,” Harris says. The best way to shut it down slowly and close the day is through meditation. Mindfulness exercises, like coloring or deep breathing, will help you focus and wind down. “Anything is great, as long as it focuses your brain.” Never meditated before? Try one of these apps to get started.

Do less. Really. “If you try to force it, the more it won’t happen,” Harris says. “All you’re doing is making your body more tense the more you think about it and it doesn’t happen.” If you find yourself thinking actively about trying to fall asleep, get up and go meditate or do something relaxing. Taking your mind off the task at hand will take the pressure off and help sleep come easier.

Keeping a regular bed time and wake time seven days a week is important for those with chronic insomnia. “If you go to bed later and sleep in and on weekends, you’re making yourself jet-lagged by Sunday night and it will be harder to sleep Sunday and Monday,” Harris says. If you’re really tired for some reason, don’t sneak off to bed earlier than normal. Stick to your regular bed time. The only exception: If you’re not tired at all, you shouldn’t go to bed. Tossing and turning wide awake is the last thing you need.

“If you wake up in the middle of night and can’t go back to sleep, don’t look at the clock,” Harris says. If you do, you’re likely to start thinking about how long before the alarm goes off, and that’s no going to do you any favors. “It makes you do math and math is not sedating.” Your phone is a no-no too, thank to its sleep-disrupting blue light. Resist peeking, and instead, just estimate when about 20 minutes has passed. Then get up until you’re tired enough to go back to bed.

(A version of this article first appeared on Straits Times / Additional Reporting by Natalya Molok)