Establishing Routines for Improved Sleep

The Importance of a Night Routine for Better Sleep

Sleep is the most productive activity you can engage in, so preparing for it properly is crucial. Everything you do throughout the day affects your sleep quality, but your actions in the evening are especially impactful. Establishing a consistent bedtime routine can significantly improve your sleep. By prioritizing this, you can enhance the restorative power of sleep and set yourself up for a more productive and energized day ahead.

Eating Late-Night Snacks Harms Sleep Quality

Digestion takes a lot of work for your body, therefore if you still need to digest food and you fall asleep, your body will need to work instead of rest. A 2016 study by St-Onge and colleagues found that people who ate closer to bed experienced worse sleep quality, more frequent wake-ups, and more time spent in the lighter stages of sleep. Having a bigger gap between your last meal and sleep is an easy habit that can have extremely beneficial effects. If you do tend to get hungry, the previously mentioned study also found that high carb intake can improve sleep onset, and how quickly one falls asleep. Similarly, avoid ingesting any caffeine closer than 6 hours to bedtime. Optimally, you should take your caffeine between 2 and 6 hours after waking up. This specificity of caffeine intake is due to caffeine’s function. Caffeine inhibits the receptors of adenosine, the chemical that makes you tired. Thus if you have caffeine in your system at a time when you want to sleep, you will face difficulties since your body detects less adenosine and won’t enter a deep state of rest.

Always Keep a Consistent Routine for Better Sleep

Another habit taught by best-selling author and MIT professor Cal Newport also improves sleep quality. Every day he sets a time when his work day will end, and regardless of the circumstances, he sticks to that time. Aside from the productivity boost of having a deadline, this habit gives your body a clear indication that now is the time to relax. Not only does he stop working, he does the same routine at the end of the workday. Routines and a consistent end of work give your body clear times for different mind states to be in. This gap between the end of the work day and sleep allows your brain to relax and process all the information that comes into it during the day. Newport emphasizes the importance of not thinking about work, checking emails, or worrying. Making this time completely work-free is vital for its function. Not only free of work but free of any novel information or stimuli would be best. In this cool-down time your brain is processing your day and preparing for sleep, doing anything tasking only hinders the former operations.

Free Write Journaling to Process Your Thoughts

At the end of the day, your brain is processing all that occurred on that day. This may be hindered by overthinking, a state where you constantly replay something in your mind without a purpose. The thought of being replayed doesn’t necessarily have to be from the same day, but, commonly, it is. The thought may be a regret, or it may be about something in the future, it doesn’t matter what the thought is, what matters is that it is inhibiting your mind from relaxing. A specific type of journaling called free write journaling is an excellent tool to proactively process that thought. As stated in its name, this type of journaling knows no boundaries. All it takes is sitting down and just writing about what is on your mind. Putting your thoughts on paper helps them get out of your head. After making them physical, you can analyze your thoughts and resolve them. The main objective of this exercise is to write without a filter, and to put as many of your thoughts on paper as possible. You don’t need to stay on point or organize it, just write.

Citations

Lower Stress With an End-of-Day Ritual | Dr. Cal Newport & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Sleep Toolkit: Tools for Optimizing Sleep & Sleep-Wake Timing | Huberman Lab Podcast #84

Training the brain to reconsider troubling thoughts can ease mental health challenges, says UCLA Health research psychiatrist

St-Onge, M. P., Mikic, A., & Pietrolungo, C. E. (2016). Effects of Diet on Sleep Quality. Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.), 7(5), 938–949. https://doi.org/10.3945/an.116.012336