If you find yourself tossing and turning at night, unable to get a good nights sleep, try my 6 evening habits to create a routine that will ease your way into a restful slumber.
A few months ago I shared how you could Create the Perfect Morning Routine, to set you up for a really good day. However, my 5 habits for a perfect evening routine are just as important to ensure I ease my way into a restful sleep.
Don’t get me wrong – after a busy day, all you may want to do is jump in your bed and pull the covers over your head. Especially if your evenings are full of cooking for the family, doing homework, tidying the house or working on your side hustle. But I’m not talking about spending hours preparing for the next day. In fact, my whole evening routine only consists of 5 habits which take a small amount of time – but make sure I end my day feeling totally relaxed, content and ready to drift into a peaceful sleep.
5 habits for a perfect evening routine
Sleep is just as important to your health and wellbeing as what you eat and how often you move your body. Regardless of what’s going on in the world, your evening routine plays a huge factor to your quality of sleep. The actions you take before you’re ready to close your eyes, has a big impact on your ability to fall asleep – and stay asleep.
Check out all the steps I take below and see if you can integrate them into your evening routine to improve your quality of sleep and ease any restless nights you may be experiencing.
I always aim to be in my bed before 10.30pm each night. (Hey – I said sleep IS important!) Everyday, at 7.45pm, an alarm goes off on my phone. This is my cue to get up and make myself a cup of my DIY Turmeric Tea. Apart from water, this is the last thing I eat/ drink for the rest of my day.
I make this tea in batches using ingredients from my kitchen. Each ingredient helps my body to repair itself whilst I sleep – and it tastes so good! Clcik the video below and see how I prepare it.
Whilst waiting for my water for the tea to boil, (and of course the time it takes for the tea to cool down a little), I meal prep!
No, I’m not talking about cooking and prepping full meals for the week, counting macros, putting my meals into containers and piling up my freezer. I mean, simply checking I have the ingredients for what I plan to cook for the next day. Preparing my packed lunch for work and getting my drink ready for my morning work out.
Doing this whilst waiting for my tea to cool down, saves so much time and effort each morning. I go to bed knowing it’s one less thing I have to think about in the morning and it allows me to consistently make healthy choices about what I feed myself and my family.
Whilst drinking my tea, I review my bullet journal (this is where I write down my actions for the week). I tick off what has been accomplished. I may add actions for the next day and I do a mini brain dump. Emptying my brain, feeling good about ticking off actions from my list and planning for more progress, BEFORE bed – enables me to ease into the night without those distracting thoughts keeping me up.
At 9.15am another alarm goes off on my phone! This is my cue to start making my way up to my bedroom and start my daily gratitude practice. Honestly – this is my favourite part of my day.
Having a daily practice of gratitude has been scientifically proven to:
- increase happiness and a positive mood
- have more satisfaction with life
- give you better physical health
- enable better sleep
- lower levels of cellular inflammation
- create greater resiliency
- encourage the development of patience, humility, and wisdom
For me personally – it just makes me feel good! Being able to reflect on my day and find moments of things I am grateful for, has been one of the biggest aids in my mindset transformation. No matter what type of day I have, I’m always able to find at least 5 things to be grateful for. It’s the best way to put life into perspective.
After I finish my gratitude practice, I wash the day away with a nice long shower. I am now ready to prepare for my sleep!
But, instead of climbing into bed and turning my phone on to ‘catch up’ with social media, work emails, messages or any other online distraction – I read.
Having just spent time being grateful, the last thing I want to do is go online and be reminded of the problems of the world or find things that would make me feel bad. So, I grab the book on my bed stand and tell myself to read 2 pages. Those 2 pages may turn into a whole chapter or, depending on the day I’ve had, literally be 2 pages!
Reading instead of being on my phone is the perfect way to slowly drift into sleep, without adding mental distraction just before you close your eyes.
The best evening habits are the ones that empty your mind for a good nights rest.
Creating your own personalised evening routine is a key factor in mind and body wellness. Why not try my 5 habits for the perfect evening routine outlined above and create a routine to improve your own quality of sleep, setting you up in a positive way for the new morning ahead.
Share your own Evening Routine in the comments below or let me know which of my habits you will try.
