What to do every night before going to bed?
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Most of us don’t give much importance to our evening habits, but what things we do every night before bed has a great impact on our mood and also the kind of day we will have when we wake up again in the morning.
I often talk about creating a morning routine, but being a little intentional with our nighttime routine will also help us go a long way in how it makes us feel.
Deciding to create a good night routine is self-care. Deciding on improving and being intentional with your habits is the highest form of self-care.
When I end my day on a good note, it makes me feel happy and satisfied.
It makes me feel that I have given thanks and honoured my day well in return for being alive.
If right now you haven’t intentionally created a good nighttime routine for yourself, then I hope it will change after reading this post.
Here I share 10 good things to do every night before bed.
You can do the following things for 1-2 hours every night before bed and you’ll be so satisfied.
10 things to do every night before bed
1. Prepare for the next day
A good day starts the day before. Save yourself time in the morning by doing some preparations in the evening itself.
Here are some things you can do to prepare for the next day
- Decide on your clothes for the next day
- Iron your clothes
- Prep breakfast for the next day so that it becomes really easy to make it the next day
- Keep essential items ready so that you don’t forget them the next day. It could be your umbrella, an important file, your watch, sunscreen, etc.
2. Tidy up
Our outer environment is a reflection of our inner state of mind. How we keep our surroundings has a great impact on our mental state.
When our surrounding, our room, and our bed is neat and tidy, even our mind feels lighter and calm.
People don’t realise what a great boost simply tidying up does to the mind.
It doesn’t take much to tidy up unless your house and room have been a clear mess for the longest time.
So before you go to bed, devote some time to cleaning and tidying up.
Clean the kitchen, clean the dishes and don’t leave anything in the sink.
Tidy your room and bed. Change your sheets if it has been some time.
Sleeping in a clean room and environment just feels awesome!
3. Take a warm water bath
After tidying up and doing all the cleaning, take a warm water bath.
Let this be a mindful shower time. Take your own sweet time. Feel your body. Feel the touch of water on your skin.
Smile as you take this bath. Turn on some music. Indulge in a good shower gel and just enjoy your bath.
Let this be YOUR time to enjoy your time before going to bed. Do everything in a relaxed manner.
The refreshing feeling after this warm water bath and then entering your room that so clean and tidy is next level satisfying.
I simply love the feeling!
P.S how to start practising mindfulness
4. Skin Care
After your bath, brush your teeth and give some time for skin care.
Some of us women who are not into makeup hardly give any time in taking care of our skin and body.
We rush to put on the cream. We hardly even look in the mirror. We rush to moisturize ourselves and end up having cracked feet and dry legs for the longest time, but do nothing to take care of it.
Let this change.
Keep it in your night routine to take care of your skin every night before bed.
After taking bath and entering my clean and tidy room, I usually keep the lights turned off, but instead turn on my lamp.
(I have recently ordered some wonderful candles. Can’t wait to experience how wonderful I’ll feel. Fire and lights have some healing property and positive energy I can’t explain)
Then I turn on music depending on my mood and take my time to moisturise myself.
I don’t have a proper skincare routine, but at night before going to bed I moisturise my face with pure coconut oil. It keeps my skin supple and hydrated through the night and I wake up in the morning with soft skin 🙂
I then put foot cream and body cream and just make sure to enjoy this time mindfully.
P.S here’s a post on – how it feels to not hurry with my body.
5. Pray
Next up, devote some time before you sleep for prayer even if it is for 10 minutes or 5 minutes.
Prayer is a wonderful way to not only develop a connection with God but through our connection with him, with the higher power, we boost our connection with our own self.
I firmly believe that prayer is the most powerful tool to improve our mental health and build strength and confidence in ourselves.
Through prayer give your gratitude for the day.
As Rumi says, ‘If you only say one prayer in your day, let it be thank you’.
Pray and remember God, remember your true self, remember your loved ones, remember Mother Earth and pray for the happiness of all beings.
My prayer consists of chanting, some silent time and reciting some mantras.
I love listening to both Buddhist mantras and Hindu mantras.
You can listen to hymns and say your own prayers.
Last evening I was listening to this mantra.
6. Meditate
Through meditation, I believe you listen to God and through prayer, God listens to you.
Prayer and meditation are two-way communication with the higher power.
Simply sitting in silence and focusing on your breath coming and going is meditation.
Try to sit in silence for 10 minutes in the evening.
When my mind seems too scattered and running in all directions, I struggle but sitting in silence and focusing on breathing is the only thing that makes me feel centred again.
I believe it is also a good self-discipline exercise- to just sit and enjoy the moment overcoming your distractions and restlessness.
Over time you become better and will be able to do it with ease.
You can also sit in silence and visualise the life of your dreams and believe it with all your heart.
7. Journal
Journaling is a great way to clear out our minds and establish a good connection with ourselves.
We start to learn much more about ourselves and the answers that were clouded start to become clear.
Journaling makes our intuitive voice becomes clearer and clearer.
Make it a daily night routine to a journal. Review how your day went.
Here are some things you can write about in your journal before going to bed:
- What am I thankful for today?
- Is there anything I could or should have done differently today?
- How do I feel as I end my day?
If you want to receive daily journal prompts from me for the next 21 days, sign up for my free 21-Day Journaling Challenge+ guide that I created so as to help you get into the journaling habit and discover and heal yourself.
8. Don’t use your phone one hour before bed
You want your mind to be clear before you go to sleep.
We may not realise but social media is a constant stimulation for the mind and it keeps our mind active.
An hour before bedtime, your mind should feel light and relaxed so that you get a good sleep.
Strictly don’t use your phone one hour before bed. Especially don’t check social media.
In fact, don’t use your phone by your side when you go to sleep.
Keep your phone in the other room.
Buy an alarm clock if you need it for setting an alarm. I recently bought one.
This reduces the likelihood to keep on scrolling social media before going to bed and also will stop you from checking your phone first thing in the morning.
Here are 10 other toxic morning habits to stop.
9. Read for 20 minutes before going to bed
So instead of using your phone, you can journal or read before going to bed.
Read for 10-20 minutes every night before going to bed. Just set out a timer and make it a daily habit to read every night.
At the start of the month, pick out one book to read in the morning and one book to read at night.
Here are the best books to read for beginners. It includes both fiction and non-fiction books.
I usually read self-help, and non-fiction books in the morning and keep novels for the evening.
10. Create your to-do list for the next day
Lastly, create a small to-do list for the next day.
You can create a 1-3-5 list.
A 1-3-5 to-do list is where you write down:
- 1 main important task you want to absolutely get done tomorrow.
- 3 medium tasks that you would like to do
- And 5 mini tasks that you need to remember to do.
Then once you wake up in the morning, do your Most Important task (M.I.T) first thing in the morning before you get distracted and the world’s obligations come to you.
Slowly and mindfully get those other tasks off your list.
P.S it would help to create a simple daily routine you can stick to.
So there were the things you should do every night.
pin for later !
I hope you enjoyed this post. I also hope you try some of them out and see how it makes you feel.
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