All About That Rest: Creating A Bedtime Ritual
My neighbors, my neighbors. First, it was the naked roller skater that lived above. Nope, no typos there. I was sitting in my apartment one day and heard a strange noise over and over. I thought to myself, “It sounds like he’s rollerskating up there. No way.”
Well, yes way. Roller skating is exactly what he was doing and somehow he was surprised that I could hear it.
These days it’s my next-door neighbor. He loves playing bassy music for many hours straight...into the wee hours of the morning. It’s been an ongoing thing that I completely forgot about because he was gone for 6 months. During that time, I fell in love with my loft, and then he returned, and then I remembered why I thought about moving. Since then, I’ve been trying to find ways to get back to the peace that I was enjoying and more importantly a restful night’s sleep.
When it comes to health, rest is important. Don’t listen to those misguided souls that put not sleeping on a pedestal. Your body needs to rest daily. It will function better, you will be healthier and you’ll be happier.
In the past couple of days, I’ve revamped my bedtime routine. I created it a few months ago when I was trying to optimize my sleep. It complements my morning routine. Your steps might be different if you don’t have outside noises to contend with. Either way, creating a ritual helps you get in the habit of prioritizing your sleep. Here’s my routine:
Around 8 pm, drink a cup of tea while doing something relaxing. Sometimes it’s watching something like a Seinfeld rerun, others it’s doing a bit of journaling.
Put my phone on do-not-disturb by 9 pm. I also place it on the charger in the living room. If I keep it in my room, I’ll inevitably look at it before I go to sleep or during the night if I wake. It’s a slippery slope.
Shower and wash my face. Washing off the day after I put my phone away signals to my body that it really is time to relax and go to bed.
Turn on brown noise. After many failed conversations with my neighbor, I realized that I was going to have to continue my search on how to block out the sound on my side. This is no small feat. Bass doesn’t like to be shut down. I’ve tried earplugs (foam and silicone) and they were useless. Noise-canceling headphones work in the day, but I sleep on my side so they’re not helpful in bed. After much trial and error, I’ve found that brown noise playing through the TV on the wall that we share does the trick. The sound is soothing enough for me to sleep through and the bass gets muffled. White noise didn’t work as well.
Stretch and breathe. To completely relax my body, I do a few quick yoga stretches and a breathing exercise. Sometimes I’ll sit a little longer and meditate. I’ve also been adding in some affirmations like: “I live in a peaceful and quiet space that brings me joy. It’s easy for me to go to sleep.” These help calm my mind and remove the focus from the things that I can’t control. Coupled with the brown noise, I’ve found the affirmations to be very helpful.
Get in bed and close my eyes. Once I’m done with all these things, I get in bed..and close my eyes. I’m adding what seems like common sense because I used to get in bed and feel like I couldn’t sleep. Once I started to make it a point to close my eyes, I’d wake up the next day not remembering what happened. Sometimes, I’ll also add in a visualization session as I drift off.
With this ritual, I’m asleep by 11 pm at the latest. Since I wake up naturally between 6 am and 7 am. That gives my body the right amount of rest. I used to think that the 7-8 hours thing was BS when I was younger, but I can tell that my body operates differently when it’s well-rested.