six nighttime routine hacks to UPLEVEL YOUR SLEEP
Uplevel your sleep, up level your life. We are not taught enough about the importance of sleep and its tremendous impact on physical and mental health.
I might even argue that sleep is more important than nutrition and exercise, simply because of a lack thereof, influences both our nutrition and exercise exponentially. Without sleep, our bodies do not have the opportunity to repair, restore, reset, and recover. There are a multitude of different processes that take place during our night’s rest and without it, these systems are compromised, leading to dysfunction.
Consider these few ways to up level your quality of sleep:
Remove phone from your room
Full transparency, this is a work in progress for me! However, sleeping in a phone-free room not only reduces exposure to harmful frequencies released by our phones, it also prevents reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, or even worse, throughout the night. Doom scrolling is so common! Unfortunately, scrolling the news, the media, and so forth can be extremely stressful on the nervous system, particularly when winding down. Similarly, exposure to blue light signals to the body that it is time to wake up and promotes wakefulness — which can lead to sleep disruption. Disconnecting early in the evening gives the body the opportunity to unwind most effectively and promotes better quality sleep. Winding down before bed, blue light-, technology-, stressor-free, can be one of the most important things you do for your sleep.
Read 30-60 minutes before bed
Spending time reading before bed is not only beneficial to your cognition and mental health, it also is much gentler and less stimulating than scrolling the news and social media. I recommend paperback books for reading to completely remove any type of artificial lighting, but turning on night shift mode on your iPad/Kindle can help. Find a genre that you enjoy — I particularly love self help and wellness-related books — be willing to explore what most interests you! Devoting time before bed to read can help promote relaxation and as a result, better quality sleep.
Practice meditation/breathwork
Breath work and meditation are effective tools to help support chronically activated nervous systems. The hustle and bustle of the day oftentimes leads to stress. When it’s finally time to wind down, this can make it much more challenging: especially if we’re inundated with stressors (i.e. kids crying, emails, a pressing deadline, and so forth) up until we turn off the lights!
In order to sleep, we must prioritize the part of the nervous system that is responsible for relaxation, sometimes known as “rest and digest,” or the parasympathetic nervous system, the counterpart to the ‘fight or flight.’
Most of us live in a state of fight or flight; even our thoughts have the power to activate it! Try practicing this helpful technique that acts as a lever to turn on our relaxation response in order to have an easier time clocking restorative sleep. My favorite is the 4,7,8 technique — inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Investing in a meditation practice can also help support the body in winding down! I always encourage clients to start with five minutes and build from there — it’s about strengthening a muscle, the more you practice, the more effective you’ll become!
Reduce light exposure as much as possible
Working with your body’s innate rhythm is imperative for quality sleep. By reducing light exposure, not just blue light, you are giving your body the ‘ok’ to begin to release melatonin, the hormone responsible for helping us wind down. Turn on night shift mode on your devices, if possible, and dim your screens. Turn off overhead lights, or dim them if possible. Wear high quality blue light blocking glasses, as well, to help reduce exposure. Over the course of the day, light exposure is helpful to our ability to function and remain alert. In the evenings, however, monitoring your exposure to light can be influential on your quality of sleep.
Add relaxing ingredients to your routine — lemon balm, chamomile, lavender, L-theanine, magnesium, passionflower!
I am not a proponent for treating a symptom as opposed to an underlying issue — but, I am big into promoting relaxation before bed. Drinking sleepy time tea and supplementing with magnesium or L-theanine are two ways you can wind down in a gentler, more healthful way. I personally love the sleepy time tea by Traditional Medicinals — loaded with a blend of calming, anxiolytic (‘anti-anxiety’) herbs, it helps to ease and relax before heading to sleep. Similarly, supplementing with magnesium glycinate before bed can help promote relaxation — my favorite magnesium brands are linked in my Amazon storefront! Making this a consistent part of your nighttime routine can help support more consistent, restorative rest.
Spend 10 minutes journaling
Spending time ‘brain dumping’ can be a powerful tool, especially if you are someone who struggles with racing thoughts. At night, when we are finally alone and free of distraction, it is easy for your thoughts to become amplified, and sometimes keep you lying awake, tossing and turning. Instead, try spending time journaling all of the thoughts that come to mind, as it symbolizes removing them from your thought process, inhibiting them from further stress and anxiety. This is one of the most common reasons I see clients struggling with their sleep: racing thoughts, rumination, and more. If this is you, consider this technique! If you wake up and can’t seem to get back to sleep, avoid reaching for your phone, and instead, write what’s on your mind. Symbolically, you’re removing the thoughts from your brain and ‘dumping’ them on the page — to be dealt with in the morning.
If you need support in improving your sleep quality, addressing sleep issues, or creating a solid nighttime routine based on your schedule and circumstances, let’s chat! This is one of my most favorite, and most important parts, of working with clients. Sleep is a pillar in your wellness — it is a nonnegotiable — schedule your call below!
