It's easy to forget how powerful a good night's rest can impact your following day. Developers tend to have at least an hour or more of learning something new and keeping up with the fast-paced growth of technology. Staying up a little bit longer or hitting the snooze button could affect the rest of your day.

Speaking completely from experience, my mind tends not to be as sharp when sleep is interrupted or lack thereof. Maybe a mix of all these aspects.

I tend to experience a lack of focus, the capability of absorbing new information, and that dreaded sluggishness. Despite a fueling breakfast and maybe a cup of coffee, the initial jolt of energy doesn't last long enough to outstand your coding session or learning session.

So what are the things I can do about it?

I've done my homework in scraping up information all over Google to figure out how to ensure you optimize the moments before sleep, sleep itself, and the following morning after.

While all of them are fantastic ideas, I needed something tailored to my circadian rhythm and lifestyle. While I work towards earning that perfect night's rest for a more robust code-crunching day, I've experienced great benefits from the following:

• Exercise: 30 minutes a day won't harm your busy life schedule. I used to hit the gym 3 times a week for max an hour each session. Any form of exercise would be great but being en ectomorph, I'd like to focus on weight training vs other forms of exercise.

• Avoiding caffeine: I was a huge soda drinker as a teen, and eventually took effect on me as I grew older. While coffee is still in my morning breakfast, I tend to not have it every day to eventually stop. Caffeine can last up to 10 hours in your body. Imagine that.

• Wind down: Set up your phone to have an alarm when it's time to knock off the electronics and do something that allows you to wind down your body and mind. Reading a book, a quick meditation session, or even a brief walk. Allow yourself to get ready for a good night's rest.

• Curtains: Night owls out there, I know the feeling. Anything to block out the sun while you're trying to get rest can help improve your sleep. Your body clock responds to sunlight to being awake while darkness allows it to know it's time to sleep.

• Interruptions: Any form of interruption to your sleep can affect your sleep cycle. My experience has shown me that I tend to sleep longer and improperly due to interrupted sleep cycles. I'd start my day groggy knowing I've had 7-8 hours of sleep still feeling the urge to snooze off some more. Turn off your phone, set it to silent, tell your neighbors to keep it down, whatever it takes.

• Bed environment: Comfortable sturdy bed, strategic pillows, a cold room, and your sleeping posture. Pillows help support you as you sleep, be sure to use just the right amount to help you be comfortable without giving you a sore neck or shoulder when you wake. Posture also matters, I'm a devout side sleeper but it's not the best for my shoulder given the pillows I have.

Keeping this ritual isn't easy, at least for me. Life gets in the way but always try to preserve your body and mind. Learning to code is enjoyable and it takes up most of my day, being able to cope with what I've learned, apply it, and play around with it to build something is a sensational feeling. However, an improper sleep regimen can impact all of that for me.

As I progress through my coding journey, this will serve as a reminder to me to improve myself not just in my developer skills but as a human overall.

I've taken most of my knowledge from around the web, but I leave you this TED talk on "6 Tips For Better Sleep" by sleep scientist Matt Walker.

Till next time.