Sleep Hygiene Tips for Your Evening Routine

Creating an evening routine that you can stick to is one of the best ways to be proactive with your sleep hygiene. While a sleep routine can’t fix insomnia by itself, it is an excellent way to help you take control of your habits and get longer, better, and more restful sleep. 

Read on for a list of our 10 favorite sleep hygiene tips so that you can design the perfect evening routine to support healthy sleep habits.

Why Is Sleep Hygiene Important?

If you’re unfamiliar with the idea of sleep hygiene, it’s a way to alter your sleeping environment — internally and externally — to support better sleep. Improving your sleep hygiene is one of the most beneficial things that you can do for your sleep. 

When you have poor sleep hygiene, it impacts both the length and the quality of your sleep. This can eventually have negative repercussions on your overall health and well-being.

What Are Some Sleep Hygiene Tips

While each of these tips is effective, creating the most helpful evening routine should involve a multi-pronged approach. Try combining multiple sleep hygiene tips to see the most difference in your sleep length and quality.

1. Start a Bedtime Routine

Our bodies crave routine. With consistency, you can develop a bedtime routine that can help “train” your body so that it knows when it’s time to wind down and get ready for sleep. Routine is also psychologically satisfying — sticking with a routine can help build self-esteem (which can ultimately help you to sleep better, too. 

It’s important to stick with this routine, even on weekends and holidays. Remember, it takes time to create a habit, but they’re very easy to break. Make sure to be consistent.

2. Limit Blue Light Before Bed

Many of our technological devices emit short, high-energy waves of blue light when we use them, which is not noticeable to the naked eye. However, this blue light has been tied to multiple health impacts — like macular degeneration — and it may also affect sleep quality. 

To avoid this, it’s generally recommended that people stop using technological devices (such as smartphones and tablets) for at least an hour before going to bed.

3. Keep Your Room Cool

The temperature you keep your sleeping environment in can also impact the quality of your sleep. Extreme temperatures — either hot or cold — can make it difficult to both fall and stay asleep. Keeping your room cool, but not too cold, can promote the best sleep environment possible.

4. Try Meditation or Mindfulness Exercises

Although the goal of meditation isn’t to make you sleepy, regular practice of mindfulness meditation can help you learn to manage thoughts in a way that can encourage better sleep. With practice, you can learn how to acknowledge your thoughts (both good and bad) as temporary and then let them go. This way, you’re equipped to handle racing thoughts at bedtime.

5. Don’t Exercise Too Close to Bedtime

Exercise is excellent for your body and mind, but doing it too close to your evening routine can work in the opposite direction. When you work out, your body is flooded with adrenaline and happy hormones, which can improve your mood and help you sleep better. 

However, when you work out an hour and a half before bed, those same chemicals can keep you from falling asleep as easily. You may want to stick with morning workouts in order to get your body moving without affecting your sleep.

6. Limit Caffeine During the Day

Caffeine is what gets a lot of people up in the morning — for many of us, there’s nothing better than that morning cup of coffee. However, caffeine is also a stimulant, so drinking too much too close to bedtime can keep you staring at the ceiling for far longer than intended. Watch for other sneaky sources of caffeine, too, as chocolate and tea may contain more than you’d expect.

7. Set a Sleep Schedule

As part of your evening routine, you can also set a sleep schedule for yourself. Everyone’s perfect sleep schedule is different, and you should consider the amount of sleep that makes you feel the best. Try to go to bed and get up at the same time every day, even on weekends and holidays, to see the most benefit.

8. Try Calming Tea

A nice cup of tea is a great way to end the day, and it’s the perfect bookend to your morning cup of coffee. Look for caffeine-free teas that are known for helping improve sleep quality and duration — chamomile, lavender, and valerian, for example, are three popular choices. 

9. Save the Bed for Bedtime

As comfortable and cozy as it can be to hang out in bed, people who have trouble sleeping should try their best to save the bedroom for bedtime activities only. When you spend active, awake time in your bedroom, it can send a message to your brain that the bed is for fun and not just for rest. Keeping your bedroom for sleep sets the most supportive sleeping environment possible.

10. Close Your Blinds

Our bodies are driven by the seasons, motivated to hibernate in the winter and get outdoors in the spring. The natural balance between the daytime sunlight and the nighttime darkness also plays a huge role in the sleep-wake cycle, known as the circadian rhythm. 

Essentially, when it’s dark outside, the body wants to sleep. When the sun comes out, our bodies flood with hormones designed to keep us alert.

Close your blinds or consider upgrading to black-out blinds if your existing blinds aren’t blocking enough light — this can help make sure your body recognizes the clear line between day and night.

Can Sleep Hygiene Fix Insomnia?

While sleep hygiene can help improve both the length and quality of your sleep, it can’t “fix” insomnia on its own. Combining sleep hygiene tips with other methods of improving your sleep helps create a well-rounded approach that can create the long-lasting change you need.

When Should You Seek Professional Help?

There’s no “right” answer on when you should seek professional help for your sleep issues — it all comes down to how much they are impacting your life. Sleep is one of the most essential functions of the body — it’s when we repair and rebuild our bodies, build long-term memory, and more. 

Don’t hesitate to seek out help if your sleep isn’t as regenerative or satisfying as you’d like it to be. Sleep psychologists can help identify any underlying factors that might be affecting your sleep. By addressing these issues with CBT, you might be able to experience deeper, more restful sleep.

The Bottom Line

Protecting your quality of sleep can be helpful for both your mental and physical health. Implementing these sleep hygiene tips can help recalibrate your body and encourage better sleep. However, it’s important to remember that sleep hygiene alone isn’t enough to address deeper issues like insomnia.

If you’re ready to start getting better sleep, take the first step with our free sleep quiz.

Sources:

Why Routines Are Really Good for Your Health | Piedmont Healthcare

Will blue light from electronic devices increase my risk of macular degeneration and blindness? | Harvard Health

Mindfulness meditation: A research-proven way to reduce stress | APA

Circadian Rhythms | NIH