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Cultivate the Perfect Evening Routine to Avoid Insomnia and Fall Asleep Easier
Eat Meals Earlier
Don't eat any heavy foods within two hours of bed time.
If you get too hungry as bedtime creeps around, there are a few foods that are okay to eat before bed, and can even help you sleep—like bananas, oatmeal, and whole wheat bread, to name a few.
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Do Something After You Eat
After you eat, get up and do something a bit more active—even if it's just washing dishes or taking out the trash. It'll avoid that post-meal drowsiness, and it's a great time to have a 10-minute cleaning burst to keep your house looking nice.
Avoid Napping
Napping can make it more difficult to fall asleep at night:
If, after you've thoroughly tested your evening routine and gotten better sleep, you still feel drowsy, you can try adding a power nap to your day, preferably during the early afternoon.
Exercise Regularly
Getting in a regular workout can help you sleep better at night, even if your workout takes place in the morning.
Exercise in the afternoon can help deepen shut-eye and cut the time it takes for you to fall into dreamland. But, they caution, vigorous exercise leading up to bedtime can actually have the reverse effects.
So find some time in your day, as long as it isn't in the evening when you can sneak in some activity.
Leave Your Work at Work
It can be hard not to think about work during the night—especially if you have a big meeting or presentation the next day—but the more prepared you are the day before, the more you'll be able to relax and fall asleep that night.
Find the Perfect Bed Time
You want to go to bed at the same time every night, and wake up at the same time every morning—even on weekends.
To find the perfect time to go to sleep, count back 7 and a half hours from the time you usually wake up. This ensures you wake up at the optimal moment during your sleep cycle.
Don't Drink Any Caffeine or Alcohol
While alcohol may seem like it helps you fall asleep, it won't give you the kind of deep sleep your body needs. If you drink, do it a few hours before you go to bed for a better night's rest.
Find a Relaxing Activity
Lower Your Body Temperature
Your body temperature naturally goes down at night when it's time to sleep.
Two hours before bed, soak in the tub for 20 or 30 minutes. A shower is less effective but can work, as well.
Don't Lie Awake in Bed
If you find that you've been in bed for 15 minutes and you aren't feeling tired at all, get up and do something else.
Go back to reading that book, or doing something else low-key that won't make your body think it's time to wake up.
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Basic categories of nap
- The Preparatory Nap: This is the planned nap. The responsible nap.
- The Habitual Nap: You make time for it regularly. It's a habit and it's scheduled.
- The...
When to nap
There's no such thing as a single perfect time to take a nap, but a commonly recommended window. For most people, early afternoon is best.
We are biphasic sleepers: we pack in most of our sleep at night, but most people's brains experience a dip in alertness somewhere between 1 and 4 p.m.
Sleep inertia
It is the state of impaired cognition, grogginess, and disorientation commonly experienced on awakening from sleep.
This is why most experts suggest avoiding naps between 40 and 60 minutes in length.
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Keep in sync with your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle
- Try to go to sleep and get up at the same time every day;
- Avoid sleeping in, even on weekends;
- Limit naps to 15 to 20 minutes in the early afternoon;
Melatonin
Is a naturally occurring hormone controlled by light exposure that helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle.
Your brain secretes more melatonin when it’s dark, making you sleepy, and less when it’s light, making you more alert.
However, many aspects of modern life can alter your body’s production of melatonin and shift your circadian rhythm
Influence exposure to ligh
During the day:
- Expose yourself to bright sunlight in the morning.
- Spend more time outside during daylight.
- Let as much natural light into your home or workspace as possible.
At night:
- Avoid bright screens within 1-2 hours of your bedtime.
- Say no to late-night television.
- Don’t read with backlit devices.
- When it’s time to sleep, make sure the room is dark.
- Keep the lights down if you get up during the night.
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Benefits of an evening routine
Haphazard evening routines can have serious effects on our sleep.
The right evening routine helps us wind down, relax, and get into a deep, restorative sleep—making us refreshed and ...
The science of sleep
When we close our eyes for the night, our mind cycles through different stages of sleep:
- Light sleep: Which is most similar to being awake
- REM (or Rapid-Eye-Movement): Where our minds are asleep but active and where dreams are most likely to happen
- Deep sleep: Where our mind is in “regeneration” mode
So many things can get in the way of us reaching deep sleep, from stress and burnout to late-night screen usage, eating late, and physical issues. To make sure we reach our deep, restorative sleep, we need a proper evening routine.
Create a “closing ritual”
For most of us it is the mind, rather than the body, that disrupts restorative sleep.
To cleanse our mind of the leftover responsibilities of the day, we need to bring a mental wind down into our evening routine.
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