5 tips to help you build a perfect evening routine
Sleeping is essential. And your day is highly affected by the night you just had. Chances are that if you are sleep depraved, or if your sleep quality is very low, you will not be able to enjoy your day as much as you should. We discussed previously the fact that the colour of your day is basically defined by your morning. But the very first step of a morning routine is actually a good night of sleep. And a good night of sleep depends on your evening. Building an evening routine is not easy, in a sense that each one of us functions differently. The goal here is to find a routine that fits you. A routine that you can stick to (otherwise it is not really a routine, is it?). Let me give you five tips that I consider essential to any evening routine. Once again, this is based on me personal experience.
Tip number 1: you need to find your sleep time
This is the starting point of your routine building. Everything you will include in your routine will be based on this time. To find your perfect bed time, you need to know your chronotype. And this is fairly easy. Imagine that you have two days with no plans at all. At what time would you naturally get sleepy and go to bed? At what time would you ideally wake up? This should be a period of more or less 8 hours. Take the middle point between your ideal bed and wake up times. If this mid-time is located between 12 pm and 1:30 am, you are a lark. In between 2 am and 4 am, you are a third-bird. After 4 am, you are a night owl. Then take this mid-point, add 4 hours: this is your ideal wake up time. Your sleep schedule should match as possible your chronotype. Then, knowing the time you will wake up, you simply need to subtract 8 or 9 hours to get your bed time. I am personally a third-bird. I usually wake up around 7:30 am. Since I know that I will wake up a bit during the night, I aim for a bed time of 10:30 pm, so that I get 9 hours in my bed, and therefore, approximately 8 hours of sleep.
Tip number 2: avoid screens (and mostly, your phone)
On this aspect, there are mostly two points. The first one is related to our sleep hormone, which is called melatonin. Melatonin is produced by our body and makes us sleepy. Its production is directly linked to the light around us. At night, we get sleepy because our body understands that it's almost bed time and starts to produce melatonin. However, our screens produce a very intense blue light that tend to stop the melatonin production, therefore delaying the moment we actually feel sleepy. Nowadays, most of us spend their day in front of their screens. It can be a good idea to use blue filters glasses, or to use a software that reduces the emitted blue light from your screen, especially in the evening. The second reason is the stimulation of your brain. Social media are extremely triggering for our mind. And scrolling Instagram until your fall asleep will probably affect your sleep quality. Or, imagine that you are about to fall asleep and your phone rings: you just received a message from a friend, accusing you for something you did earlier that day. How can you possibly sleep quietly knowing that you have an argument coming the next day? For that reason, I strongly encourage you to drop your phone, and any kind of screen at least 30 minutes before your sleep time (one hour would be best, but I myself struggle with that).
Tip number 3: no food or drink 2 hours before bed
This one is rather simple. Digestion is not a relaxing process for our body. Therefore it shouldn't be done when we are trying to get some rest. Try to separate your dinner and your sleep time by at least two hours. The same goes with alcoholic drinks. Alcohol increases your heart rate, and can really disturb your sleep, especially the REM phase (when you dream).
Tip number 4: no intensive work-out close to bed time
Intensive workouts are.... intense. For your body, your muscles, your heart and your brain as well. I know we live in a crazy world where finding time to hit the gym is hard. But try to keep your trainings as far as possible for your night. Working out increases your heart rate, your body temperature and puts your entire body in an excitation mode, which is not what you want to get a good night of sleep.
Tip number 5: take a moment to meditate or to perform some breathing exercices
Meditation, here it comes. Meditation is an extremely powerful tool. But it takes a while before you can notice the beneficial effects of it. More than time, it actually takes regularity. Meditation is therefore a very good habit to get. If you meditate every day, I can insure you that you will see results within a month. Many studies have shown that meditation actually affects the structure of our brain, especially in terms of grey matter. Meditation is not relaxation. It is not meant to fall asleep. Meditation is an exercice that you should perform while being alert. However, it calms your mind, it calms your body, and it is therefore a great way to end our day, winding down before going to sleep. If you are struggling with meditation, or if at first it stresses you a little bit, keep it for the morning. Instead, simply perform some deep breathing exercices while lying down in your bed. This will relax you, and you will probably fall asleep much faster, before enjoying a good night of sleep. We will talk about different applications for mediation and breathing exercices soon.
So these were the five tips I had for you guys. Of course, there are many more, but those five or the ones that, for me, are not really negotiable. I leave you with an example, which my own evening routine. Obviously, this routine can be shifted depending on your day. A good practice though would be to have a short version of your routine, for the days you have plans in the evening or you are maybe travelling.
- 7 pm: dinner
- 7.30 - 9 pm: movie or TV show (usually, I also drink a nice herbal tea that helps me sleep at this point)
- 9 pm: time to brush my teeth, change to my PJ's, and get into my bed
- 9.15 - 10.15 pm: reading a book, journaling (no screen, no phone)
- 10.15 pm: meditation
- 10.30 pm: bed time
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