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It is beneficial for our health to set aside time every night for a routine that can help us greatly reduce stress and anxiety before going to bed.
I have listed 5 healthy habits to incorporate in your night time routine in order to help you relax and have a better sleep.
1. Have a cup of tea
Having a cup of tea can greatly sooth you as it warms your body before bed. Many of us associate warmth with comfort and relaxation. Think of hot baths, the sauna, and heated pools.
Warmth relieves our bodies.
I highly recommend herbal teas such as ginger, chamomile, and peppermint before bed. Personally I also drink green tea in the evening time! 🍵
These options are good substitutes from caffeine. Having coffee or black tea too late in the day might make you restless at night, keep you on edge and make it harder for you to sleep.
The Twinings brand is my all-time favourite tea brand! It’s so flavourful even when you stick to the staple teas such as chamomile, green tea, and lemon & ginger.
2. Reading
Reading before bed is another great habit to incorporate in your night time routine.
By reading, you relax your brain. Some people find fiction books the best to read before bed because they are reading a story. However, other people prefer non-fiction because they read a quick chapter before bed and/or it puts them to sleep.
Either way, reading before bed calms you.
It even tricks you because you are not spending your time mindlessly on your phone scrolling trough apps. Instead, you are being active in your cognitive sense as reading boosts your brain power imperceptibly to you.
SEE ALSO: Top 20 Books I Read in 2020
3. No screen time
This leads us to our next healthy habit to incorporate in our night time routines. We should limit our screen time before bed. As a rule, I don’t look at my screen one hour before bed (normally by 9pm.)
If you are reading on a tablet make sure the light you are using is non-obstructive and/or set device into night mode which will protect from blue light.
When you keep scrolling or working on your devices before bed, you don’t make that distinction in which your brain is supposed to ‘shut off’ and/or ‘disconnect’ from the day’s activity.
Furthermore, limiting your screen time before bed greatly reduces your anxiety and breaks you from the unhealthy habit of mindless scrolling for hours.
SEE ALSO: How to Refresh Your Life (20 Simple Ways)
4. Journaling
Journaling is the fourth healthy habits I recommend to end your night with. I am a big advocate of journaling and self-expression. I have been journaling for over a decade and it has helped me unburden my thoughts and my heart. I recommend this practice to any and every one.
If you want to read further about the mental health benefits of journaling; you can read about it here.
When we journal before bed, it allows us to go to sleep with a clean slate. We can dispose of negative emotions and thoughts on paper which allows us to start fresh the next day when we wake up.
SEE ALSO: 5 Benefits of Journaling for Your Mental Health
5. Meditating
Meditation is the final healthy habit to incorporate in your night time routine. In some regards, the practice of meditating is actually quite similar to journaling.
In meditation, you centre yourself and mindfully focus on a particular thought or activity (such as breathing) in order to train your attention and awareness. This practice helps to clear your mind and emotionally calm you as you stabilize your state (much like journaling).
In the beginning, I found meditating quite difficult as I often suffer from spiralling thoughts and my body often can’t quite sit still. However, meditating – and setting a timer at night to do so – has immensely helped me to be more tranquil and mindful before bed.
Practicing these 5 healthy habits during my night time routine have greatly aided me in not only obtaining a better quality of sleep but they have also offered me less stress and anxiety when I wake up in the morning to start a busy day.
They have centred me and offered me an hour at night to completely focus and stabilize my mental and emotional health which translates to better sleep and better overall days.
I hope you find this post helpful and that you can try to incorporate some of these habits in your own night time routine. Let me know what are some practices you partake in during your night time routine. 🌛
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