In a perfect world, we’d all get to bed on time, enjoy our full seven to nine hours of sleep, and wake up refreshed at the same time every morning. But while that may be the goal, I’m guessing most of us enjoy the extra shut-eye that a day off allows. So how bad is it to sleep in on the weekends?

Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money and co-founder of TheStreet.com, claims to only need four hours of sleep each night to feel well-rested and alert. Cramer said he sleeps between 11:30 p.m. and 3:45 a.m. most weeknights, and rarely needs an alarm to rise. His father, he says, was the same way, only taking a couple of naps but never sleeping a full eight hours.

Cramer’s not the only one: Leaders such as Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and even ex-US President Barack Obama rarely — if ever — get what’s considered a full night of sleep.

I am the absolute worst at this. I know I have to go to bed at a reasonable time, but when lights-out time hits, there I am: on the computer, on my tablet, or on my smartphone, usually doing another lap of YouTube/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter just to make sure I didn't miss anything. And a half-hour later, I'm still doing it.

Do you think wearing socks to bed is totally dorky? Well, as it turns out, socks could be the secret to falling asleep faster, sleeping longer and waking up less during the night. Why? Well, as we all know, cold feet are the worst, in a lot of different ways.

Most of us have a go-to position that we instinctively adopt at night, but it may not be the best one for the quality of your sleep, or more general health.

Need to fall asleep fast? One mid-century relaxation technique, developed in the US Navy Pre-Flight School, supposedly works within minutes. It may not be magic, but it seems like a pretty good way to relax your body and mind.

Lucid dreams can be more than escapist fantasy, but in order to reap the benefits of your slumbering mind, you must first tell your brain that your dreams matter. Welcome to week two of Lifehacker's Lucid Dream Workshop, oneironauts.

Shopping for a mattress is a pain in the arse; it’s expensive, after all, and it’s hard to distinguish one mattress from another when they look identical, except for the fact that one might be a few inches longer or wider. If you’ve ever wondered which mattress to buy, how much bigger a queen is than a full—or what the hell an Alaska King is—Reddit has a helpful graphic that might make the process of buying the correct-sized bed for your home a little less painstaking.

In a perfect world, we’d all power down our electronic devices at least a half hour before bed, take a bath, read a relaxing book, meditate and then drift off to sleep in our freshly washed lavender-scented sheets. But for me—and around 60 per cent of Americans—in reality, this process involves watching TV as we attempt to fall asleep.

The next time your morning alarm goes off, use your nine minutes of snooze time to stretch, check in with yourself, and reflect on what you hope to get out of the day.

If you’re having a hard time waking up early, it may help to embrace one simple fact: getting out of bed on that first early morning is like ripping off a band-aid.

Even if you're a night owl, you can still have more productive mornings if you put in a little effort to make getting up easier. Of course, it still won't be easy, but if you like the idea of a more relaxing start to the day, here are some suggestions to get you started.

Whether you just don't have air conditioning or want to save money on energy, there are lots of ways to keep cool as the mercury rises. Here are some good ones.

Okay, so this life-hack might not be particularly enticing in the middle of winter, but those who are willing to brave bedtime in the buff will have a newfound confidence to go with their chill. (If you share a bed with your partner, it can also lead to more nooky. Hurrah!)

Every Sunday, I wage a war on my fitted sheet as I attempt to put it on my mattress, struggling to fit it around one corner as it pops off another.

One of the most frustrating issues you can encounter with a device, usually your computer, is when it starts doing something it never did before. Typically, this is something you didn’t want it to do: It takes 15 more seconds to boot, it’s emitting some strange noise, or it is unable to launch the application you’ve been using for the last three months. Weird things like that.

My son was born with a festive spirit. The kid never met a celebration he didn’t like. So obviously this time of year is his jam. We spent many hours (and I do mean many) executing our Halloween decorations this year. And he’s been begging me for the past week or two to start setting up our little winter village, complete with this year’s addition—a taco truck.

Most of us already know that if we don’t get enough time to rest and recuperate between stressful tasks, we risk burning ourselves out. But how much rest do we actually need?

Dr. Harvey Karp is probably best known as the guy who wants to help you get your baby to sleep. Author of The Happiest Baby on the Block, Karp gifted us with “The Five S’s” for soothing—swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging and sucking—to help us calm even the un-calmest of babies. But Karp, a paediatrician and child development expert, has a trick for getting toddlers to sleep, too. Particularly when they want someone to lie with them until they fall asleep.