Week 7: Crafting your ideal evening routine
Welcome to Week 7. It’s bedtime!
Hello to all of my night owls, and to everyone reading this first thing in the morning :)
Last week, we explored the importance of a ritualistic morning routine. This week, we’re ~winding down~ and taking a critical look at our nighttime routines.
There is no shortage of articles boasting about the ridiculous morning routines of the world’s powerhouse CEOs, or borderline bullying us into setting a 4am alarm to be “successful.” But the real secret to success (and to waking up that early) starts with how you wind down and prepare for a solid night of deep, restful sleep.
Sure, it’s been shown that some people really don’t require that much sleep (I am absolutely not one of those people) – but for the majority of us, an uninterrupted 7-8 hours are optimal for feeling and performing our best.
Now, answer this honestly: Are you getting 7-8 hours of sleep consistently?
If you answered yes, that’s amazing – use this week to explore making those 7-8 hours even more restful.
If you answered no, welcome to the club. This week’s focus is setting a target for 7-8 hours of sleep as consistently as possible – and we’ll accomplish this by crafting and enacting a nighttime routine optimized for rest.
Step 1: Audit your current nighttime routine
Sound familiar? This is where we started last week, and it’s where we start tonight: What does your current evening routine look like?
If you’re like me, it’s:
Come home
Make dinner
Sit on the couch and do some work until you feel sleepy
Get a “good night, love you!” text from Mom
Decide I’m sleepy enough to head to bed (for those saying: “hey, I thought she went to bed early!” – this is usually around 9pm…)
All wrong. Why? Because that’s a whole lot of stimulation for a period in the day that’s supposed to be dedicated to decompressing: a potentially late meal, loads of (stressful) screen time, and no intentional winding down before heading to bed.
Our evening routine goal (and when we’re talking about optimizing sleep, our daily routine goal) should be to keep on beat with our circadian rhythm – the internal clock that helps regulate our sleep-wake cycle for more restorative rest.
But often, we send signals to our brains that it’s not time to sleep quite yet by scrolling through our phones, continuing to work on our laptops after 5pm, or staying up late to catch the season finale of Euphoria (me…). And suddenly, it’s 2am and you’re in a deep YouTube hole, not sure how you got there, and sort of still not tired?
If any of this is ringing true, let’s audit our routine to find our key areas of improvement…
Here are a few questions to guide your audit:
What time do you have your last cup of coffee, or other caffeinated beverage?
How late is your evening meal? Do you have dessert?
Do you have any evening routines? (e.g. evening skincare, putting on a fresh set of pajamas, etc.)
Do you take any sleep supplements? (e.g. melatonin, CBD, hemp, etc.)
What time do you typically head to sleep?
After you’ve compiled at least a couple of days of this feedback, ask yourself…
What elements of my evening routine do I feel like I need?
What elements could I do without?
What do I feel like I’m missing?
Step 2: Set your intention
Just like last week: your answers to those final three questions are where the ~*magic*~ starts to happen.
What elements of my evening routine do I feel like I need?
Keep these.
What elements could I do without?
Lose these.
What do I feel like I’m missing?
Add these.
With this, write out your ideal evening routine, step-by-step. This is the routine we’ll work toward; and having this written down gives us a plan we can visualize.
Step 3: Improve your sleep hygiene
Yep, that’s a real term – and it doesn’t necessarily mean curling up in fresh sheets with just-brushed teeth and a sparkling clean face…
It’s an intentional routine.
Using our habit stacking technique, begin introducing the elements of your ideal nighttime routine to start practicing better sleep hygiene.
And in the morning, assess how you’re feeling—and most importantly, how you feel you slept. Remember our handy daily tracker? If you’ve been consistently filling it out, keep at it this week, paying extra attention to your sleep ratings. If you haven’t been (that’s ok) – pick back up this week, and assess any trends you can tie back to your quality of sleep.
Still sleepy? Try this:
If you notice that your sleep doesn’t necessarily improve, even with your newly buttoned up nighttime routine, consider a few of the following…
Cut back on caffeinated beverages – switch to half-caffeinated coffee after 12pm, or full decaf after you’ve weaned off to avoid withdrawals (hello, caffeine headache).
Restrict any screen time in bed – morning and night. Talking to you, everyone who picks up their phone and scrolls Instagram first thing in the AM.
Try white noise – my personal favorite part of my nighttime routine is asking Alexa to play me a distant thunderstorm. Something about loud crashes of thunder and lightning really soothes me… ??
And if all else fails (it won’t, it just takes practice)... this CBD oil from Ned completely changed the game for me. I’ve said it before – I was MINUTES away from buying a new mattress before I started using this stuff.
It’s WAY past my bedtime. Sweet dreams, Self by Syd fam!