Not having a good night’s sleep? Finding it hard to get up in the morning? Like most people I use to be on my phone all night before I sleep and found myself tired the next day. My life took a complete change after I started both a morning and evening routine. My health, focus, and productivity changed for the better. I will take about my evening routine in this post and how it boosts my sleep and recovery.
So Why Have an Evening Routine?
I did some searching online about sleep and found that in order to have a good and deep sleep, we need to keep a consistent sleeping pattern every day. For example when you go got sleep at 10 pm in the evening its best to sleep around the same time every evening or at least close to it. High fluctuations in sleep time will impact your Circadian Rhyme and will disrupt your evening sleeping cycle.
To maintain a consistent sleeping pattern, it’s best to have an evening routine that aligns with a time schedule to maintain consistency. Think of it as needing to wake up and go to work on time. We can switch this around and think about going to bed on time. Make this your personal appointment that you won’t skip. To ensure you are ready for your sleep appointment, there are a few things you need to prepare before you go to bed. Having this in mind, let’s go through the evening routine in more detail.
Things to Consider Before the Evening Hour
The key to the evening routine is to plan your last hour of the night to get ready for bed.
Prior to the Evening Hour, we need to ensure things we do doing the day does not impact our sleep. The following are some of the things we need to understand do we know what to do before the Evening Hour.
- When to have your last coffee of the day?
- When should I finish your last meal of the day?
- When should I stop doing my last workout?
These are is important questions to answer. What you do in each of the above scenarios can impact your sleep and how to energize you are the next morning.
Let’s start with the Evening Hour first and I will answer the question above later in the post. Putting together a productivity habit for the last hour of your day can determine your mood, your mindset, and the outcome of the next day.
The Evening Hour – Overview of the 60-minute Evening Routine
The final hour consists of three components and I will provide a quick overview of each here:
- Prepare for tomorrow morning (10 minutes)
- Relax and Stretch (15 minutes)
- Journal (5 minutes)
- Warm relaxing bath and read (30 minutes)
- Get ready for bed
These are the key activities I do on most nights and I will go through this in more detail below:
The Evening Hour: The Breakdown
Diagram: Shows all the activities in detail in the last 60 minutes before bedtime.
1. Prepare for Tomorrow Morning
Do you ever struggle to find a missing pair of socks in the morning or ironing your shirt just before you leave for work? Missing milk in the fridge? Clothes not washed? These are things that can cause unnecessary stress and anxiety in the mornings. Now, do we all want to have a distraction-free morning? While, this is not easy to achieve, there are things you can do the night before that can help.
Packing in Advance: I prepare all my clothes, socks and everything laid next to my bathroom. I don’t even have to choose what I wear because I wear almost the same work clothes every day. I want to not make any decision in the morning that can be decided the day before. This is to make the next morning go smoothly. For those who have breakfast at home in the morning or pack food for lunch, you can also prepare in advance. I prepare as much as possible the night before. I freeze most of the fruit and vegetables for my morning green smoothie so I can easily pop the ingredients in the blender in the morning. I also put all the powders in the blender container the night before.
Relaxing Music & Tea: I use music to calm my mind and I switch on to some classical music for relaxation like Bach to relax. Having calming music makes a huge difference. It keeps the place peaceful and calm. Have you ever been to a massage clinic? Most massage clinics have calming or ambient music in the background. I also make a non-caffeinated tea such as herbal tea and add turmeric or ginger in it to help me relax and get ready for bed.
Switch on Airplane Mode: I switch my phone on airplane mode and charge my phone about an hour before I sleep. I intentionally charge my phone and leave it far away from my bed. I also place a bottle of water near my phone so I can drink it the first thing in the morning. At this point, I do not use my phone until tomorrow morning. This avoids any distractions when I sleep.
2. Relax and Stretch
Stretch & Yoga: I then proceed to do some basic stretches; a basic yoga pose or two and use my foam roller to iron out any aches in the body. I will alternate each one of these exercises between different nights. The goal is to keep my body flexible and relaxed. I want to have a clear and relaxing mind before I sleep.
I’ve included an evening Wind Down Yoga – 12 Minute Bedtime Yoga – Yoga With Adriene here for you to follow:
Ambient Lighting: Depending on whether I take a hot bath or not, I will proceed to turn the water on for my bath and light some soy wax candles. I sometimes put some bath salt in the bathtub to relax the body, detox and helps with sleep.
Tip: Eating to close to bedtime will make you stuffed and this impacts your sleep. What I have discovered and experienced is its best not to eat within the last 3 to 4 hours before you sleep.
3. Journal at Night
Write down my plan and ideas: I then proceed to do some journaling and write my action plan for the next day. I also use this time to reflex on what I have accomplished during the day. Somethings to get things off your mind its best to write them down. What I’ve found is by having a consistent journaling habit, I am able to write down some thoughts in my journal and think less about it. For example, I may be thinking about something I need to do tomorrow. I can write it down. If I have some negative thoughts or things that are troubling me, I find writing it down helps me move those thoughts into my diary. There are various journal methods like the five-minute journal or the bullet journal. I will go through this in detail in a future blog.
4. Bath and Read
Bath/Shower & Read: Once my bath is ready (around the same time I finish my stretches) I will turn down all the lights. The bathroom will still be bright, and I can read for 10 to 15 minutes. According to a 1997 study by Cornell University Medical College raising the temperature before you sleep follow by a sudden drop helps your body fall asleep faster and achieve a deeper rest. So by having a hot bath before you sleep will help with a quicker and deeper sleep.
Getting ready to sleep
Dim the lights: Once I am done, I proceed and get ready for sleep. It will take at least 20 minutes before I can sleep after my bath. I ensure all the lights are dimmed and I am only doing very simple things around the room and finally lay down on my bed. It will take me 10 to 20 minutes to fall asleep at this point.
COOL TIP: You can buy Blue Light Blocker Glasses and wear them at least 90 minutes before you sleep. This will block out the blue light you can get a night of better sleep.
Gratitude: I take this time to think about all the positive things in my life and day. I want to end the day with a positive thought in my mind
Earlier in the post, I listed a few questions we need to answer before the Evening Hour. I have used the diagram and points below to answer these questions.
Diagram: Shows all the activities I do before my final 60 minutes.
When should I have my last coffee for the day?
The reason why I am asking this question is the time you have coffee during the day directly impacts your sleep. Caffeine is a stimulant and is designed to increase alertness. The closer you are to bed, the less caffeine you should consume. The last cup of coffee you consume will still have half the caffeine in your system for 8 hours. This means if you do not want to have a good night’s sleep its best not to have coffee eight hours before bedtime. I stop drinking coffee after lunch and replace my afternoon coffee with hot water or non-caffeinated tea. Let’s say if you sleep on average around 10 pm, try not to have coffee after 2 pm.
When should I finish my last meal of the day?
Eating to close to bedtime will make you stuffed and this impacts your sleep. By sleeping with a full stomach, your brain will need to dedicate the capacity to signal the rest of the body to process the food. This energy is usually used to reboot your system to repair your body, help you relax, boost your memory and power your dreams. What I have discovered and experienced is its best not to eat within the last 3 to 4 hours before you sleep.
When should I stop doing my last workout?
Recent research suggests avoiding doing any vigorous exercise within the last hour of sleep. A new study, published Oct. 29, 2018, in Sports Medicine, suggests that you can exercise in the evening if you avoid vigorous activity for at least one hour before bedtime
Does using my phone impact my sleep?
This is a big yes! Blue light emitted by your smartphone is the worse offender for causing sleeplessness.
So, what is blue light? Blue lights are not blue but are wavelengths between 450 – 480 nm. Blue light causes the brain to stop producing melatonin, which is a vital chemical for sleep.
What is melatonin? It is a hormone that your brain produces in response to darkness and helps with your timing your circadian rhythms (your internal body clock) and with sleep. Being exposed to blue light can block melatonin and disrupt your sleep.
I try to minimize exposure to any blue light at least 60 minutes before I sleep. I block out any lights from my devices or leave them away from my bedroom to avoid the blue light interrupting my sleep.
Recap
Now let’s recap, there are two main components to my evening routine. Firstly, its all the activities I need to do or avoid before the last 60 minutes of bedtime (ideally, 90 minutes). The second component is the last 60 minutes before bedtime where I go through various routines throughout the hour.
My main goal is to have a structure for my evenings in order to have a scheduled time for sleep and to reduce any anxiety, stress and be organized for the next day. Having a relax mind and good sleep is the key.
You may have noticed my 60 minutes does not include getting ready for bedtime. This is very different for different people. Some people can sleep in 5 minutes and some people may need more than 60 minutes this all depends on the individual.
Some More Tips!
Tip 1: For the last meal of the day I tend not to eat a heavy meal. I usually have a lot of vegetables and a healthy cut of meat.
Tip 2: Classical music makes me more relaxed. I also put on Yoga and Meditation music for my stretching and yoga routine.
Tip 3: I find adding bath salts and lighting soy candles helps with my relaxation before I sleep.
Overcoming the Phone Addition
A big challenge for everyone is the temptation of touching your devices, in particular, your smartphone at night. This was extremely challenging, and I tried to eliminate this by putting more clocks around my home. This habit may take a week or two to bed down. I suggest starting with not using your phone 20 minutes before you sleep or if you have to use it for music; turn the phone to airplane mode at the one hour mark. I
Here you go. This is my evening routine and I hope this gives you a solid structure to your evening. For anything we read and are motivated to do, it’s a good idea to commit to it and tells others you are doing it. By telling other people, you will be excited and also most likely commit to it. With anything, I would suggest you don’t wait for tomorrow, I suggest you start this tonight! Start with a few things in this blog post and build on it. You can start by taking a nice bath with Epsom salt and read every evening. Then you can proceed to keep your phone away from you and eventually be phoneless for the last hour of the day.