Relax
Evening Routine
Relax before you snooze...
Shut down all technology and put your phone to one side.
Make a plan for tomorrow and pack your bag ready for the day ahead.
Ensure your alarms are set for the following morning but resist the urge to start scrolling on your phone!
Spend quality time alone, with friends, family, or pets.
Spend some time completing relaxing tasks. Take a bath, write in your journal, meditate, try out some breathing exercises, or listen to relaxing music.
Make sure your bed and sleeping environment is comfortable and safe for the night.
Climb into bed early, even if you don’t fall asleep. This is a great way to prepare your body for a restful night’s sleep.
Sleep Meditation
As part of our evening routine, you may want to try meditation to aid you in restful sleep. There are many forms of sleep meditations to explore, from Yoga Nidra to sleep hypnosis, and they can be extremely beneficial to your physical and mental wellbeing. Sleep is crucial to our health! It aids brain restoration and development, allowing our body to absorb and release the day’s evets and challenges. Restful sleep can help you feel relaxed, refreshed, and ready for the new day ahead. It can also help you focus and regulate your emotions, after all, we’ve all heard the saying “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed”!
Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra is not quite like the Yoga we are familiar with! It is very similar to most forms of meditation, although it’s technically not considered as meditation- it’s even better!
Yoga Nidra activates deeper relaxation than meditation and directly works with the autonomic nervous system, which controls our breathing and blood flow. It can also help to produce the melatonin hormone, and this can encourage positive sleep patterns.
A typical Yoga Nidra exercise will include deep breathing affirmations, releasing tension from different areas of the body (known as Rotation of Consciousness), and visualisation.
Now it's your turn to give it a go!
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is a heightened state of focus where the brain is conscious and receptive.
In popular culture, hypnosis is misunderstood and often shown as putting someone into a sleep state to control their actions, but this is not the case!
Hypnosis is a fantastic way to support restful sleep and detachment from the day’s events. Sleep Foundation (2022) has likened it to a form of mind-body medicine that can transform sleep and anxiety disorders through the power of suggestion.
ASMR
ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, or you may know it as a bodily response called ‘the tingles’.
ASMR can be triggered through different sounds, motions, or visuals, yet not everyone experiences ASMR. In fact, if you do feel the tingles, you are part of a minority of people across the world.
That being said, it doesn’t mean that ASMR triggers cannot help relax those who do not experience tingles!
You will find that the majority of ASMR videos will encourage a meditative state as you focus on the sound and visual aspects of the triggers.
There is much left to study about ASMR but what we do know is that it has helped millions of people across the world to sleep better.
So, are you ready to give it a go? You may find you are one of the few who gets 'the tingles’!