Hi sparrowhawk,

Playing poker within a few hours of going to sleep is generally bad for your sleep. Increased levels of anxiety and stress has adverse effects on the quality of your sleep.

Personally, in order to get a better sleep, I need to really get my mind off poker and other things that make me anxious. The best way to do this is to maintain non-poker obligations and devote a large portion of your time and energy to non-poker. Oddly enough, I find that when I spend less time playing poker and more time doing other things, I play much better poker, and feel much better too.