Building a Nighttime Ritual to Help You Wind Down & Sleep Well
How you end your day is just as important as how you start it.
It’s easy to think that the morning only impacts the day ahead and the evening only impacts the night ahead- but the reality is that each directly impacts your energy, sleep, and overall circadian rhythm. As a result, they influence your hormonal balance, mood and mental health, and more.
Most of us actually know what is best for us at night, but we don’t do it. And there are many reasons for that like:
Being too mentally exhausted to do anything
Struggling to actually relax even when we want to
Wanting to make up for the lack of time to ourselves during the day
Feeling so stressed out we disassociate with scrolling or binge-watching
But just know that even making a few tweaks to the evening can make a big difference for you!
Here’s what to prioritize in your nighttime ritual to help you wind down and get the sleep you need:
1) Use natural, soft lighting and limit artificial light.
Light exposure is what controls our circadian rhythm (our “internal clock”), helping to determine our wake and sleep patterns. Our bodies actually rely on natural changes in the light to help us feel energized and sleepy when appropriate.
Until the invention of artificial lights, humans evolved experiencing the natural shifts in daily light- from sunrise to sunset. Our cortisol rises and sets with the sun… while our melatonin (our "sleepy" hormone) follows the opposite pattern.
But artificial light- particularly from screens (TV, phone, computer, etc.)- actually suppresses melatonin production. We’re essentially tricking our bodies into thinking it’s still light out when it may not be!
In a perfect world, it would be easy to avoid all artificial light but realistically, it's impossible in today’s world. But like most things, something is always better than nothing- especially in the evenings. Some tips for shifting your light after sunset:
Use apps or tinted glasses to block artificial light.
Dim lights in your home.
Use a salt lamp and/or candlelight.
Switch to red light bulbs or use a red light device.
Have a screen cut-off time especially for scrolling.
2) Eat a balanced pre-bed snack.
Balancing meals and snacks (protein + carbs + fat) supports healthy blood sugar, mitigating major highs and lows that can disrupt energy and tax the adrenals and liver.
If your blood sugar is dysregulated at night, sleep can easily become disrupted. This is because when blood sugar drops, the adrenal glands kick in, releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to raise it but also energizing us and therefore, waking us from sleep.
Having a snack 1-2 hours before going to sleep (especially if there's a big gap between dinner and bedtime) can help stabilize blood sugar and therefore, improve sleep quality and prevent nighttime wakings.
Some examples:
Greek yogurt with berries and honey
Cottage cheese with pineapple
Egg salad on rice cakes
3) Do an activity that (actually) helps you unwind.
Similarly to getting grounded in the morning to set the tone for the day, doing so again at night helps close out the day and signals to the body that it's time to rest.
It's important that these activities are actually relaxing (vs. being energizing or stressful like intense exercise or doom-scrolling). Our nervous systems often need input that brings calm, safety, and even connection at night.
Some examples of helpful activities:
Drawing/coloring
Doing a puzzle
Taking a magnesium bath
Reading
Meditation (especially yoga nidra)
If you're going to watch TV), choosing media with lighter subjects.
Even simple things like making a cup of tea, washing your face, brushing your teeth, or making your lunch or laying out your clothes for the day ahead are rituals that can help you wind down and get more restful sleep.
4) Aim to be sleeping by 10pm and no later than 11.
There are many documented negative impacts of sleep deprivation (parents have experienced this first-hand), but there are also drawbacks with going to bed too late, too.
The time between 10 and 11pm has been found time and time again to be the ideal sleep window, especially because of the way our hormonal rhythms work.
Going to bed at this time can maximize the amount of deep sleep we get through the night. Research also shows that a 10-11pm bedtime correlates with lower risk of certain chronic diseases.
Ever experience a "second wind" a night? It's not all in your head. This increase is energy happens when your body releases a surge of cortisol at night. It's technically a missed sleep window.
This one is so hard, I get it. Nighttime is often our only time to ourselves. But the value of shifting bedtime to even 1 hour earlier (and no matter what, being consistent), outweighs the perceived value of staying up late in most cases.
And if you’re a mom whose sleep is not totally within her control, there are many changes you absolutely can make to help improve the sleep you are getting.