Almost 60% of adults report having sleep-related issues due to stress. Common recommendations usually involve taking a bath, writing a journal, meditating, supplements, and making a gratitude list. Eventually, your “relaxing” routine becomes a new source of stress.
What we actually need is to start eliminating stressors that constantly stimulate our nervous system. Then, our body will be able to do the rest!
Stop Treating The Evening Like A Modified Workday
Many people continue to engage with their work laptop, passively scrolling through the day’s real-time demands and deadlines or monitoring ambient news alerts, with the certain knowledge that a briefing book or spreading crisis could arrive at any time. Or they participate in group chats that retain the mind in the same reactive, judgmental, decision-making state that it has occupied all day.
None of this is conducive to sleep. Your subconscious is still churning on those unsolved problems, and your adrenal system is still dousing your bloodstream with streams of cortisol, which isn’t exactly the prescription for drifting easily into dreamland.
Another effective subtraction: drastically reduce the consumption of current events. This isn’t an argument for ignorance so much as an argument against a form of information consumption, particularly in the form of breaking news and Twitter or Facebook outrage-cycles, that is the antithesis of constructive. It’s hard to think of anything less productively in your own self-interest than to marinate overnight in the events of the previous day that you can do nothing to change. This is the hardest advice to follow, because in our day and age this is a genuinely addictive activity.
Plant-Based Support As A Transition Tool
Light physical activity is recommended in the evenings as well. Gentle activities such as Yin yoga or progressive muscle relaxation can reduce the tension that gathers in muscles and connective tissue throughout a sedentary day. Just 15 minutes of these kinds of activities can make a difference in how prepared your body is for sleep.
In addition to physical activity, many people find that incorporating plant-based solutions can support the progress they’re trying to make with movement and the sleep environment. Herbal teas containing valerian or chamomile are long-standing favorites for this. More recently, hemp-derived cannabinoids like those found in The Hemp Doctor Delta 9 collection are thought to work via the endocannabinoid system, which contributes to maintaining homeostasis – including the ebb and flow between high-alert and winding down. It’s hemp-derived, and many users describe its effects as feeling like the gentle come-down after a good day, rather than the blunt force of a pharmaceutical.
Adaptogens like ashwagandha work along these lines, helping the body regulate its response to stress so that acceptance and relaxation become a more natural part of the progression toward sleep.
The Brain Dump Ritual Nobody Talks About Enough
Many people struggle to fall asleep or grab some shut-eye because their brain is keeping tabs on outstanding items by running a low-level loop of incomplete tasks, worries, and ideas. The brain is designed to keep doing this; it’s how we actively plan and solve problems during the waking day, and it becomes hell as your head hits the pillow.
Approximately two hours before you want to fall asleep, write down everything still open in your head. It or they could be task(s) like “get milk,” which the brain treats quite differently from completed items but which you likely still have some emotional energy tied up in; worry(s), like an upcoming meeting or a sore tooth; or idea(s), things you’re working on or considering but haven’t firmed up.
Don’t structure it. Don’t prioritize it. Just get it out of the confines of your stress-pointed skull and onto paper. Call it whatever you want – brain dump, action items list, uncapped idea firehose – doesn’t matter. Put a date at the top so later that night your brain doesn’t decide it has new, urgent things to loop on.
This does more to lower cognitive noise than almost any attempt at formal meditation because it addresses the actual mechanism keeping you alert. The brain treats incomplete items differently than completed ones – it keeps rehearsing them. Getting those items onto paper breaks that loop and gives your mind permission to let go.
Environment Does Half The Work For You
Good lighting is crucial. Overhead lights are often the harshest and least appealing. Low lighting is best, and make sure any light source you are using to keep it at a very warm Kelvin. Circadian lighting is the next big thing in your pocket, but you don’t have to redesign your entire house! Just use warm lights in the evening in conjunction with the low light, warm color sends a message to your brain that we are winding down.
Using candles near your task areas is a good practice too. For example, when reading in bed at night. Using a light above your head is annoying and too bright but a candle at the foot of the bed provides ample bright light.
Less Structure, More Signal
What truly matters in creating an effective relaxing evening routine isn’t strictness. It’s about being steady and straightforward. Four or five consistent cues – the lights dimming, putting away your screen, writing your brain dump, making your tea – will help train your nervous system to cue in to the pattern and go with it.
You’re not looking for a flawless routine. You’re looking for an adaptable ecosystem and ingrained behaviors that don’t obstruct your body’s impulse to rest. Remove the obstacles, and your body will take it from there.
