My night times are regimented because I have an overactive mind, yet I believe sleep is the number one most important thing for physical and mental health. I'm one of those people that cannot function on less than eight hours' sleep, but that's something that I can't achieve naturally simply by letting my head hit the pillow at a particular time.
"Bedtime" for me actually begins at 7PM. It's at this hour I start preparing myself to get to sleep that night. Here, I'll make sure I've had a satiating but low-carbohydrate dinner. I'll begin limiting my fluid intake so bathroom trips get less and less frequent and, with any luck, I'll only wake once in the night to pee.
I mentioned that flurry of thoughts that kicks in about an hour later. Those thoughts don't get left in my head. At 8PM, I grab my trusty notebook at pen, and write down two lists. One for everything I have to do the following day, and the other for everything I'm worried, excited, or otherwise thinking about.
These lists are lists in exercise only. They are not to-dos. Everything in my schedule is already in my diary. If it's really important there's an alert on my phone too. I don't forget things.
The lists serve one simple purpose: to slow the swirling haze of thoughts down and put them all in a nice, neat box. I then rip out the page of paper and throw it away - often the thoughts are fixations, and I don't want to keep a personal Burn Book in my house. Not unlike the way you'd rip up photos of your ex; it's symbolically freeing.
There is no phone, laptop, or iPad use after 9PM. My friends all know this: message me after this time and you will not get a read receipt. Bad sleepers are normally advised to put their devices away an hour before they go to sleep, but I need two hours.
If I've been socialising during the evening, 9.30PM is the time I strive to get home by. Doesn't always happen - it's usually more like 10.30PM - but it remains in my mind as the time I need to be edging myself towards a chilled state so I can get to sleep before 11 (or, at the latest, midnight).
I take a natural supplement called Melatonin, which I ask friends travelling through the USA to pick up because you can't buy it in New Zealand. The final 1-2 hours of every day are spent having quiet conversations in bed with my husband so my minds is purged of all the day's thoughts, and/or reading until I fall asleep with my book on my chest.
If sleeping is a simple task for you, then all of the above must read like insanity. In truth, my inability to just fall asleep is the one and only thing I hate about myself.
But them's the breaks. This is what I have to work with. If you're an anxious and overworked person like me, you too might struggle with every impending evening. Do try a version of my regimen out and see if it can work for you.
