How to Develop Your Night Time Routine for a Flawless Morning

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Why You Need a Night Time Routine

Let me guess. In the morning, you wake up after your third alarm, only to rush around in the morning getting ready, looking for your clothes, and preparing for your day.

You don’t like the way your hectic morning routine makes you feel, but you don’t want to wake up any earlier. You’re exhausted and need more sleep anyway. So you cram as much as possible into your mornings and make do.

Does this sound like you?

If so, you’re not alone. I was there too.

Before starting my night time routine, I too ran around with my head chopped off in the early moments of the morning. I was stressed on the way to work, and rushed once I arrived.

This is no way to have a productive, mindful, and intentional day. And that’s the goal, isn’t it?

Developing a night time routine allows you to best prepare for your morning. Sure, a morning routine is necessary too – personally I think all routines are important. But a night routine is really what starts your morning successes.

Your Night Time Routine Starts Earlier Than You Might Think

Most people out there would tell you that a night time routine starts when you’re getting ready for bed. Maybe they even call it a bedtime routine or an evening routine.

I would argue that your night time routine starts MUCH earlier than when you’re getting ready for bed.

When I shifted my mindset to include activities much earlier in the afternoon in my night time routine, I was able to be more intentional with my time after work and after dinner.

Depending on what a typical day looks like for you, your night time routine might start when you get home, when your spouse gets home, or around dinner time.

For me, I get home around 4:30pm from my day job, which means that I find the greatest success when I begin my night time routine at this point. You might find that yours begins at dinner, or after, simply that’s because it’s when you arrive home.

If you hold a shift work position, you might even find that your evening routine begins on the drive home, as you will be going to sleep around midnight or 8am.

Whenever you shift in mindset to being home before bed, this is when your bedtime routine begins.

Related: Why You Must Establish a Solid Routine to Boost Your Wellness

Night Time Routine Activities to Remove

Before we get into some of the great night time routine activities, we need to talk about some of your current routines that might be holding you back.

Stop Drinking Caffeine

Alright, guys. Raise your hand if you drink coffee after 12pm.

If you do, I recommend you think about your sleep priorities before continuing this habit later today.

Caffeine has a half life of twelve hours. If you go to bed twelve hours after drinking caffeine, half the amount you drank will still be inside of your body keeping you awake.

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times on the blog, and I continue to include it because knowing how the drugs we use affect our bodies is SO important. You heard me. Caffeine is a drug. And it alters your brain chemistry just like any other drug does.

While I think it would be great for everyone to never need to drink caffeine again, I realize that this is both improbable and unrealistic. I myself certainly don’t want to give up tea or coffee completely!

Instead, shift your mindset and understand that what your drink or eat today, and affect your morning tomorrow. Choose not to drink caffeine after noon.

Reduce Artificial Light

If you are not sleeping well, and waking up tired, you might need to consider what activities occupy you in the evening.

In an ideal world, we would all wake up with the sun and go to sleep when the sun sets. However, today’s society is certainly not wired for that type of slow living.

When we introduce artificial light to our brains, our brains do not recognize it in the same way that they do sunlight. The accumulation of artificial lights at night – lamps, TV, cellphones – can affect our sleep schedules and our morning success because it inhibits our brains from producing the appropriate bedtime hormones.

If you want to develop an ideal evening routine for a flawless morning, reduce the amount of artificial lights that your body is exposed to. This might mean giving up your nightly scroll through Instagram or Pinterest and reading a book instead.

Related: Sleep Hygiene: Secrets for the Best Sleep of Your Life

Don’t Eat Your Trigger Foods

Ice cream is a trigger food for me, and this is such a hard one for me to adhere to. If I eat ice cream too close to bedtime, I often have bad GI side effects, and sometimes get nightmares as a result.

If you eat a trigger food later in the evening, not only is your digestive system working harder than it needs to while you sleep, but when you wake up, you will likely regret it as well. You want your night routine to be a time to refuel and unwind, not one that increases physical and mental stress.

Choose to be intentional about how you fuel your body, even through the evening time when things are more relaxed. Avoid foods that you know from experience will result in poor symptoms.

Night Time Routine Activities to Add

Now that we’ve removed a few of the poor habits, let’s add some healthy habits to our night routines!

Be Intentional with Your Goals

Becoming intentional with your goals is the main aspect of your night time routine.

No matter what you choose to do in the evening, choose activities that help you reach YOUR personal goals.

For me, in the evening, I want to relax, be less stressed, but also stay productive. That’s why some of my specific night routine activities include giving my home a quick clean after dinner, completing a gratitude moment, and diffusing essential oils when I get into bed.

What do your values tell you about your goals? How do these goals shape your night routine?

If you want to learn more about your personal values, and learn to structure your routines around pre-developed goals and personal intentions, download and use my four-page, multi-use, Becoming Intentional packet below.

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