Do you toss and turn in your bed like a salad in a bowl every night?
Maybe it is your que to establish a few before bed rituals.
A good night’s sleep is a daily requirement for our body to function properly and maintain our well-being. It makes you adapt to daily stressors and helps you focus on daily activities.
Building before bed rituals at night can lead to a more relaxed and restful night’s sleep. Rather than scrolling on your phone until the wee hours of the morning, try establishing before bed rituals that can help you relax and get the quality sleep that you deserve.
What Are Before Bed Rituals?
Before bed rituals are a set of routines or practices that you can perform before going to bed.
They are a consistent sequence of activities you choose to implement leading up to your actual sleeping time. These activities are designed to help relax the mind and body and prepare you for a restful sleep.
A bedtime routine is not just about brushing your teeth and crawling into bed. It is about creating a peaceful environment that allows you to unwind and promote good quality sleep. They should be something you find relaxing and easy to follow every day.
Why Are Before Bed Rituals Important?
Building a before bed ritual is essential to unwind and promote a good quality restful night. Introducing a bedtime routine can transition you from your daily busyness to the calmness of the night. It’s like a secret code that signals your brain to start winding down.
By performing a consistent series of movements every night, your mind and body get adapted to this routine. So, when every night you start practicing them your mind and body know it’s time to hit the sack.
You’ll be amazed at how quickly these calming activities signal your brain to slow down, preparing you for a peaceful night’s rest.
7 Before Bed Rituals for Better Sleep
To set the right mood for sleep, it’s essential to wind down and relax. That’s where building a before-bed routine comes into play.
These rituals work to put up a rejuvenating slumber which leaves you feeling refreshed and energized for the day ahead.
1. Get Into the Mood
Having a bedtime routine is not only for kids, but it’s also essential for adults, especially those struggling with their sleep patterns.
To set the right mood for a restful slumber, take a moment to build up a peaceful atmosphere that makes you want to release your troubles. Something that makes you go ahh!
Dim lighting, play calming music, diffuse some lavender oil, and engage in calming activities. These little efforts can do wonders for your mind. And if you want to take it a step further, try lighting up some candles to create that spa-like oasis.
These little efforts can do wonders for your mind. Not only these small differences are pleasing to your eyes but also to your senses.
2. Avoid Any Stressful Activity
How the hour you spend leading up to your bedtime plays an important role in your sleep quality.
Engaging in any vigorous activity like impactful exercise, listening to loud music, taking cold showers, or exposure to bright light can overstimulate your senses and can keep you up for a longer time.
To encourage a sense of calmness and help you unwind more easily, be mindful of what you allow into your senses an hour before your sleep time.
3. Try Progressive Muscle Relaxation
To fall asleep easily it is important to encourage both mental and physical relaxation.
To make your body relax try progressive muscle relaxation. This technique was founded by Dr. Edmund Jacobson in 1920 to promote relaxation and control any stress or physical tension.
To perform this technique you have to start from your lower body muscles and then gradually make your way up. You must contract one muscle group at a time and then slowly release them after a few seconds.
These techniques yield a number of benefits, including releasing tight muscle, reducing anxiety, improving blood circulation, and letting loose any tension that is making it difficult to unwind.
4. Take Relaxing Bath
Having a hot bath is a classic.
It has been and always will be everyone’s go-to calming ritual to wash away daily stress and relax tired muscles.
You can also further up your unwinding experience to another notch by adding essential oils to your bath water.
Adding fragrant oils that promote relaxation to bath water stimulates the olfactory system, which is connected to smell. Certain smells can transport your senses into different places through memory stimulation. It can even evoke distinct memories and pleasant feelings by making you imaginative. Making you feel at a happy place.
So, grab a good book, run yourself a warm bath, and get ready to enter the land of nod.
5. Massage Your Feet
One of the excellent ways to court sleep is to massage your feet with oil.
Each of our feet has over 7000 nerve endings, which are linked to different parts of our body. Massaging the feet can improve blood circulation, which carries oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body, and can help prevent health problems such as poor sleep, anxiety, body pain, and heart problems.
It is a therapeutic before-bed ritual that can help minimize symptoms of menopause, experiencing difficulty sleeping, and anxiety, as it can help to lower stress levels and relax the body.
Image by kira-auf-der-heide on unsplash
6. Drink Soothing Drinks or Elixirs
One of the warmest before bed rituals is drinking beverages that comfort and nourish your soul and body.
Several soothing drinks may help promote sleep. Warm milk is considered the most preferred drink that can help promote relaxation.
It contains an amino acid called tryptophan that our body uses to make serotonin. It is a neurotransmitter that helps promote regular sleep.
Another example is tart cherry juice, which contains melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate sleep-wake cycles. Tart cherry juice may also contain tryptophan, which can further promote sleep.
Decaffeinated green tea and magnolia bark tea are also options that may help reduce stress and promote relaxation.
7. Practice Deep Breathing
At night time your day flashes back in your head. People start to ruminate and even worry about the next day’s duties from the night before.
Trying deep breathing exercises can help you clear your mind. It brings your attention to breathing exercises and distracts your wandering mind from overthinking.
There are many techniques for sleep.
4-7-8 breathing technique
Diaphragmatic breathing
Box breathing
Alternate nostril breathing
Buteyko breathing technique
The main focus of these techniques is to regulate your breathing by calming your nervous system and decreasing stress levels in your body.
Create Your Own Before-Bed Rituals
Next time you’re tempted to binge-watch Netflix till your sleep decides to grace you with its presence, consider adopting a before bed ritual in your night routine to get some quality sleep. So, get those PJs on, brush those pearly whites, and start building your very own bedtime routine.
I’m sure, Your body (and your boss) will thank you.
