Many of you, at one point, became aware of the things that were wrong with the behaviors approaching your night’s sleep. Then, some of you decided to address the problem and establish a new routine of actions to lead you to a good night’s sleep. This is a crucial step for your well-being and health to return to a sense of vitality now unknown during the day.
Establishing a new evening routine means having an ideal combination of actions in your head that can give you the image of genuinely restorative rest.
It is all about arriving at behaviors that can ensure you achieve a state of calm and serenity, starting from what are your characteristics and lifestyle.
You will find that your ideal routine will result from a period in which you must be willing to experiment, re-calibrate and correct.
On the one hand, the objective is clear: arrive in the vicinity of the bed with a mental state predisposed to sleep. On the other side, you can’t get there by imposing behaviors on yourself that are light years away from who you are and a lifestyle you enjoy. That’s why my nighttime routine cannot be yours.
It might look like it, but each will have its peculiarities. I tell you to be wary of gurus who have a pre-established magic formula.
There might, by all means, be a framework that starts with the same elements, but the endpoint to be reached will be, even if only slightly, differently for each of us. The details will make the difference, as with any personal success.
Sleep Well: Preparing for Sleep During the Day
The beginning part of your sleep preparation routine begins even before the less intense evening lights fall on the day.
You need to observe some behaviours during the day to get quality sleep and sleep well.
These are to:
- engaging in vigorous exercise
- engage in activities considered “healthy” to reduce the burden of stress and psychological tension and to help you stay “aware” and as relaxed as possible
- to stop consuming caffeine after a specific time (at least 6 hours before going to bed).
- learn not to use your bedroom except for sex and sleeping at night, excluding any other activity.
They may seem like insignificant behavioral changes and attentions. Still, I promise you that you will feel their beneficial impact in no time.
Better Sleep: What to Do Two Hours Before Going to Bed
During the space between one and two hours before your bedtime, you must end all the chores and commitments that the day has dumped on you.
That which is done is done, and the rest must be put off until the next day. It’s imperative that you do not carry the professional or relational anxieties and tensions accumulated during the day under the covers.
To do that, you need to create a “time pillow” where you can unplug from all the demands coming at you from the outside and start turning your attention to your inner self, seeking that calm and relaxed place that prepares you and introduces you to a relaxing and rejuvenating sleep.
It is time to turn off your computer or work schedule, stop your favorite TV series, and break away from your video game.
It is the time to stop doing anything too stimulating or stressful. It is the time-space to occupy yourself with pleasant but relaxing things that can release stress and tension to prepare you for high-quality sleep.
Good Sleep: What to Do An Hour Before Bedtime
The time between fifteen minutes and one hour before bedtime is the time to get serious about the possible quality of your sleep.
It is a 45-minute window in which you need to get into the core of your routine that will accompany you to fall asleep in the best way possible.
This is the space where sleep experts tell you to occupy with pleasant reading, listening to relaxing music, avoiding blue light from technological media, etc.
The objective to seize during this time is clear and self-evident: to calm and relax your mind and body so that you are ready for the sleep journey as soon as you lay your head on the pillow. You may find a flood of suggestions on the Web about what to do during this time.
The one I feel like advising you on is choosing a routine that is easy to apply and avoiding becoming additional possible stress in remembering what you are supposed to do.
The most straightforward strategy that I have also experimented with is to divide these 45 minutes into three parts:
- 15 minutes to devote to the body
- 15 minutes to devote to the mind
- 15 minutes to devote to the emotions
Come up with a relaxing activity for each of these aspects. The total relaxation you can achieve could be complete and pervasive.
Some examples of relaxing activities
For the quarter-hour to devote to the mind, consider these activities:
- writing a diary
- meditating
- do deep breathing exercises
- listening to relaxing music
And for the 15 minutes to set aside for physical relaxation, consider these options:
- a yoga session
- a self-massage with a natural scented, calming lotion
- progressive muscle relaxation
Lastly, for the part to be offered for emotional relaxation, reflect on these activities:
- Reflect on the feelings and emotions you felt during the day, maybe with the background of soothing music or a calming scent diffused in the room
- Try some art forms such as drawing or others that will help you bring out your emotional side without creating too much clutter in your home that you then have to clean up
Whatever you choose must possess the power to foster emotional reconciliation with yourself. Then remember, these are activities whose performance cannot exceed 15 minutes.
Therefore, pick the one that is quickest to apply and the most fun and soothing for you. Should you be able to find the formula that best suits who you are and your lifestyle, then your sleep will become a very healthy experience.
Sleeping Well: What to Do 15 Minutes Before Bedtime
After relaxing physically, psychologically and emotionally, you should have a quarter of an hour left to do the very last things of preparation for sleep.
By this time, you should be sufficiently relaxed to go to bed and make your sleep a pleasant and refreshing experience. There should be some final preparations left before you can get under the sheets:
- brushing your teeth
- turn on the music you wish to fall asleep to
- carefully turn off all the lights
- get under the sheets.
Importantly, you should not use these last 15 minutes to set the alarm clock quickly, feed the dog or cat, prepare the ready-made coffee pot for the next day, or do anything else you seem to have forgotten.
Launching yourself into these things before going to bed, especially in the last 15 minutes before it, is likely to create jolts of unwanted energy that would ruin all the preparation aimed at relaxation put into practice earlier.
Postpone everything until tomorrow; all you need to do at this stage is to prepare for deep, high-quality sleep.
Here you are, in bed!
By the time you rest your head on the pillow, if you’re not so tired that you fall asleep in a few minutes, there are a few additional steps you could incorporate into the sleep routine we’ve been trying to build together.
Suggestions that can increase the likelihood that your sleep will be restful and restorative.
There are three things that you can do here:
- A meditation on breathing
- A meditation on progressive muscle relaxation
- A meditation on visualization
Suppose you’re intent on being supported by some music tracks that are often circulating on YouTube. In that case, the only thing to pay attention to is to set it to start when you are in bed, with no need to get up and interrupt the relaxing path.
Sleeping Well: The Different Methodologies Of Meditation
The meditations that focus on the rhythm of the breath can be used to calm you down further and are usually crucial in the natural alternation between inhaling and exhaling. Their declared goal is to get you to a “physical and mental” place of absolute peace, where you meet to sleep.
Progressive muscle relaxation is a form of meditation in which each muscle group in the body is contracted and then released following a direction from head to toe or backwards.
This is a tool used to release excess tension and anxiety and can accompany you to sleep in a very “gentle” way. You can either use an audio guide to carry it out or simply imagine this relaxing “passage” running through your whole body one step after another.
Meditation focused on the visualization exercise is usually easier to perform if it is “guided.” However, should you already be comfortable practicing it, you may continue to perform it on your own without outside help.
It would be best if you generally aimed for a visualization path composed of images that can profuse positivity, luck and peace. They are handy tools, especially for those with a history of restless sleep inhabited by night terrors.
Sleep Well: The Final Step Towards Quality Sleep
Where we have dissected into various steps a possible path that will lead us “naturally” into the warm arms of Morpheus, I feel it is only fair to introduce one last thought.
It is often the case, and not just in the context we are talking about, that when defining an endpoint, we do it as if we were peeling an onion: we search for the core by removing everything we do not want.
Let me explain: the only way we often find to set a goal is to tell ourselves what we don’t want to be instead of what we do want to be.
A Mongolian concept: “Don’t ask us for the formula that worlds can open to you, Yes a few crooked syllables and dry as a branch. That alone today we can tell you, that which we are not, what we do not want.” (Eugenio Montale, 1923, Ossi Di Seppia) So I would like to bring you to understand the importance of “knowing what you want.”
Suppose you clearly understand how you want to feel as soon as you wake up. In that case, you will find it easier to create a sleep routine that knows how to recharge you with positive life energy that you can use to face the new day.
Because in this context, the mistake is often repeating to ourselves that “we no longer want to feel tired, overstressed and unable to fall asleep,” without realizing that often, we focus more on what we don’t want the more we attract it to us as if that “DON’T” has no value to our brain.
It’s as if to get to the finish line, we take steps backwards or, at most, sideways. We will seem to be moving without feeling that we are getting closer to our goals.
That’s where the last step in this setting phase is to decide clearly what we want and fix it positively. “I want to feel calm, peaceful, relaxed, happy and full of energy.”
Our ultimate goal for far it may be must appear to you like a comet star with an illuminating light so that the steps to be taken are clear. That way, they will be easier to accomplish.
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