The Best Way To Wind Down Every Night

If you want a head start on tomorrow, eat breakfast tonight–that way you can sleep until lunchtime.

Anonymous

You’ve heard it before: If you want to succeed, create an awesome morning routine.

But at the end of the day, the last thing you want is to think about what you have to do tomorrow morning.

You want to chill, binge, and unwind instead.

In this post, I’ll share the best way to wind down every night, why going to bed 1 hour earlier may completely transform your life, and what your evening routine can look like. But first, let’s talk about perspective.

Go To Bed 1 Hour Earlier

“You can have anything you want, if you want it badly enough.”

Abraham Lincoln

To be a morning person doesn’t mean that it’s easy to wake up early every morning.

But if you go to bed 1 hour earlier, your wake up won’t be as dreadful.

You’ll have more energy, more confidence, and more focus. Especially if it’s part of your routine. It will also give you a sense of accomplishment that will excite you for the next day.

It’s all about perspective.

Just think about it, if you go to bed 1 hour earlier today, you will most likely feel better tomorrow morning. Peter Drucker said, efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. Just by going to bed 1 hour earlier than usual, you’ll prove your evening routine to be more effective.

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.

Peter Drucker

You can simply do this and see how it transforms your life over the next 30 days, or if you want to enhance your entire evening routine and properly wind down every night, read on.

Do This 1 Hour Before You Go To Bed

#1 Turn off your phone 1 hour before going to bed.

This means that 2 hours before you sleep, you’ve already put your phone away. It can charge up and stay on Do Not Disturb mode until your alarm goes off the next morning. If your phone is also your alarm, place it across the room. That way, when the morning comes, you’ll actually get out of bed.

Electronics affect the quality of your sleep.

According to SCL Health, the blue light is harmful to your eyes and restrains the production of melatonin (the hormone that controls your sleep-wake cycle). Whether you work a desk job or outside all day, your phone is probably the one object you’re in constant contact with all day, every day. We’re constantly checking and doing things on our phones, so we owe it to ourselves.

You may have separation anxiety at first. But after a couple of nights, you’ll see how much your sleep has improved. You’ll notice how clear your mind is. You’ll actually feel rested.

Unless you’re playing music, let your body and brain rest from all electronics. That includes TV, laptops, iPads, etc.

#2 Read & Write To Learn

Scientifically, your brain is in optimal condition to learn between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, and then again from 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM. So ideally, your evening routine should fall into the second time slot.

Once your phone is out of the way, use this time to learn.

Reading and writing stimulates your learning abilities. If you don’t enjoy either, you can do something else that relaxes you (that doesn’t involve electronics).

But reading helps you retain information and activates your creativity and imagination. Especially in the evening. And writing helps get you into a reflective state. It helps you analyze your day, see what improvements you can make, and brainstorm new goals.

Even if you take 10 minutes to read and write, that’s more than enough time to help you wind down.

Your brain is most creative in the mornings, and most analytical in the evenings. So use this to your advantage.

#3 Meditate

Meditating in the evening helps relax inner tension before going to sleep.

Practice gratitude and meditate on how God has blessed you. Think about what’s good, pray about what’s not, but ultimately, meditate and connect with God.

Meditating in the evening (just before bed) helps ease any stress, anger, and emotional wounds from earlier in the day.

Even if it’s 5 minutes before you get in bed or are already in bed, it will clear your mind, body, and spirit from mental discontentment and emotional discomfort.

Meditate on God’s goodness and thank Him for new mercies. Journal about what you’re grateful for. Talk to God about the highlight and lowlight of your day. It doesn’t have to be long, but it needs to be reflective.

So, 1 hour before you go to bed, turn off your phone, read and write to learn, and spend a couple minutes in meditation. This will help set you up for a good night’s rest and a successful morning.

Create Intentional Routines

“If you’re going to grow, you have to be intentional.”

Curt Kampmeier

Having intentional morning and evening routines is freeing.

• It frees you from stress and sets you up for success.
• It frees you from being purposeless and steers you into living out your dreams.
• It frees you from getting hurt and directs your path towards healing.
• It instigates your dreams into reality.

Having a routine is the most fundamental piece to self-improvement. But it starts with you. You’ve got to put some effort into your routines and be intentional in order to get the results you want.

Routines help you produce results.

Results boost your confidence.

Confidence steers your passion and purpose.

The more confidence you have, the clearer your purpose is. And purpose helps us focus.

So start with an intentional routine. Start by going to bed 1 hour earlier.

Conclusion

One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.

Paulo Coelho

The best way to wind down is to create an intentional evening routine that sets you up for success and increases your motivation. It will improve your health physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. But you need a plan.

If your current bedtime is 11:00 PM, go to bed at 10.

At 9:00 PM, put your phone away and unwind. Take a few moments to think about your day, write a couple of things you want to do tomorrow morning, and pick up a book and learn something new.

Meditate, pray, and/or journal. Clear your mind from the day’s wounds, stress, and frustrations.

Do this for one week.

You’ll see a big difference! The you that will wake up tomorrow morning will be different from the you going to sleep tonight.

How you unwind and ease into your resting state will affect your energy and confidence tomorrow. Take the time to implement this for one week and compare day 1 to day 7.

• Turn your phone off 2 hours before going to bed
• Read & Learn
• Write 2-3 things you’re grateful for or what you want to do tomorrow morning
• Meditate
• Go to bed 1 hour earlier than usual
• Repeat

YOU GOT THIS!