Friends, this is the companion post to my recent one on Morning Routines and Rituals. (It’s a good read to make sure your day starts off pleasant and peaceful.)
Yep, I believe daily, morning and nighttime routines are so important that I’m writing about them – twice. If you haven’t yet read my recent post on morning routines and rituals, be sure to do so! It’s a companion blog to this one, and I discuss the why? for having something of a morning routine (hint: thriving from a solid and intentional foundation!). Together, this AM/PM combination is sure to help you design meaningful, purposeful, and beautiful-you-centered bookends to all your busy days.
Morning rituals set the tone for the rest of the day, but how you end your day can be just as important.
Maybe you’re struggling with sleep and want to improve your rest. Maybe nighttime is your “witching hour,” in which you tell yourself all day long that you won’t drink, and then crap! You realize it’s happened again and you’re 2 or 3 glasses in.
In these two cases (sleep and drinking too much at night), there are few things more effective than a good nighttime routine! You know how kids have a bedtime routine? As they get older, there are a few more things they’re able to do on their own, but often they still need reminders. You have to give them a heads’ up that it will be time to get ready for bed soon. Then hygiene, then bedtime story, then lights out – something like that. Can you imagine not doing this for your child? Bedtime would be so difficult, chaotic, and frustrating. Well, as adults, we’re truly no different, except that (usually!) no one is going to give us a heads’ up or a reminder except ourselves. As humans, we truly do crave nighttime routines.
For sleep, it’s important to start sending the “it’s time to get ready for bed” message to your brain and body.
With the drinking example, it’s crucial to figure out other ways to spend your “witching hours” and figure out how to wind down sans booze (and duh, hopefully sleep better). Bonus hit, how you start your morning and spend your energy and attention throughout the day can also really impact sleep success and drinking cravings.
The process for coming up with a nighttime routine is similar to a morning one. What are your evenings like currently? Do you have a routine? What’s working for you already, and what could perhaps be shifted, or taken out completely? Would things improve with a few loving boundaries (around alcohol, maybe, but also phone or television?) Are you able to imagine something more desirable for your evening? Do you have an ideal night or bedtime ritual? How do you want to feel when you get home, as you relax into your night, as you get ready for sleep?
This is a great exercise for journaling; sometimes it helps to see it down on paper, so go ahead a write it out!
Once you have some ideas, get serious about implementing a few. (A few. Not 25, OK?) Is there anything you need to buy or borrow? Do you need to switch up your space at home to make it more conducive to your new rituals? Laying this groundwork is important, so knowing the steps you need to take first is critical – and it also just makes it easier for you.
Here are some ideas for nighttime routines that you can try. Again, of what would be too many to ever possibly list:
- Read (ideally nothing too suspenseful or scary!)
- Take a bath (essential oils and Epsom salts, yes)
- Listen to relaxing music
- Meditation (there are so many guided nighttime/sleep meditations out there! My favorite app is Insight Timer.)
- 5-10 minutes focusing on your breath
- Drink bedtime tea (an actual sleepytime blend, or something calming like chamomile, tulsi, or passionflower)
- Diffuse some oils or burn some incense.
- Light some candles; maybe for smell, but also for light. (Switching to low lights and candlelight in the winter months helps to honor the seasons and our body’s natural rhythm!)
- Do some gentle stretching
- Spend some time reflecting on the day. What can you leave behind, let go? What did you learn? What’s important to do tomorrow (but to do tomorrow, so write it out and let it wait for you then!)
- Cultivate some gratitude. What are you grateful for today, and why? What went well? What are you proud of?
- Journal practice of any other kind
- Say good-night to that telephone and put that thing somewhere other than your bedroom (wink, wink)
Creating these “bookend” routines has made all the difference for me over the past few years, in my relationships to alcohol, food, and stress, and in my relationships with myself and those around me.
Just find a few nighttime routines that work and commit to sticking with them the best you can, but give yourself permission to be flexible depending on what’s going on in your life, calendar, and hormonal cycle (seriously!). I hope you find this helpful! Mine aren’t perfect, and yours don’t have to be either. Let me know how it goes!
