Avoid fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout with a simple bedtime routine

Cold showers before bed? Oh yes!

Ever woken in the morning after falling asleep stressed or in the grip of something that causes you to worry, leaving you even more drained than you felt the night before? If you don’t take charge of your sleep, your exhaustion and fatigue will only increase, and it’s a matter of time before burnout appears.

Sleep has always been an issue for me. Nodding off sometimes takes an age, and I have lost count of how many sheep I was meant to lose count of. But a simple bedtime routine I stumbled across in 2018 has really helped, even when I am at my most stressed.

We all know sleep is important to us, and there is ample research out there to prove it. Seeking out helpful information and employing it is naturally going to make you feel good. Try out this evening/night routine for a week and see how you feel after seven days. Be strict with yourself and try to stick with it. Some of it, as you will see, is a bit chilly, but fight on through and catch some much-needed Zzz’s!

Exercise

Get 30 to 40 minutes of exercise in the day, preferably in the morning, to stimulate your body and tire yourself naturally. Exercising in the morning not only wakes you up for the day but also brings you down gently towards the end. A good hit of endorphins and some burnt off energy will leave you feeling relaxed and content in the evening. If you cannot exercise in the morning, try your hardest not to exercise less than two hours before you intend to go to bed. Although exercise shouldn’t make you sleepy immediately, it can help your body better regulate its internal clock, so your workout should be completed a few hours before you intend to nod off.

Less food before bed

Avoid eating anything two or three hours before you sleep. Firstly, when digestion takes place, lying down is only going to increase your chances of having acid reflux and cause that irritating heartburn in your chest — something that will inevitably keep you up. Secondly, if you end up eating food high in sugars and carbohydrates, as well as rich foods, the digestion taking place will be prolonged and won’t let your body settle. If you need to eat within those two to three hours before bed, choose a healthy alternative such as a piece of fruit or some nuts.

Ditch the blue screens

Avoid blue screen electronics an hour before bed. There is a time and place for using computers and gadgets, and immediately before bed is not it. You’ve probably noticed that long after you’ve turned off that computer or tablet, you were tossing and turning in the hope of falling asleep. Melatonin is a hormone that your body produces naturally. It keeps track of your ‘internal clock’ and plays a major role when you need to sleep. This hormone builds up as soon as it starts to get dark. Melatonin is the main culprit why you feel sleepy. So, when the amount of melatonin reaches its peak in your body, you will feel drowsy and yawn until you do something about it.

Melatonin is conditioned to drop as soon as it’s morning, or when you come into contact with light. So, if you find yourself staring at a screen before bed, you are tricking your body into not releasing melatonin when it should be, only prolonging the time it will take to fall asleep and have a good night’s sleep.

Get COLD!!!

Have a thirty-second cold shower an hour before bed. Continuing with the melatonin topic, our bodies are controlled by a 24-hour master clock called a circadian rhythm. This clock tells us when it’s time to wake up, time for bed, and even when to eat. It’s responsible for hormone levels such as melatonin, which, as previously mentioned, help you get to sleep.

Who would have thought, but having a cold shower can actually stimulate this hormone and help you to regulate your circadian rhythm more efficiently. So, although it carries little appeal, jumping into a cold shower not long before bed can help you to nod off. Ironically, it also helps you wake up in the morning.

Meditate

In recent years, meditation and mindfulness have really bounced onto the scene, and the once tie-dye-incense-smelling associated hobby is now far more mainstream. Apps like Calm and Headspace have really popularised sitting around, closing your eyes, and switching off. And why not?! Once a cynic myself, I now enjoy listening to some ambient sounds, or maybe a bedtime story by Matthew McConaughey with sleep stories.

Meditation has so many benefits, helping counteract memory loss, also improving focus and concentration. It helps to regulate mood, emotions, reduces stress, and can clear up anxiety. Meditation has been proven to help make digestion more efficient, lower blood pressure, and decrease the tension within your muscles.

There are many links to videos and tips out there, but if you’re struggling to make time, simply grab five minutes using this link and give it a whirl: https://youtu.be/inpok4MKVLM

Become a fiction bookworm

Try reading a few chapters of a gripping novel to get a better night’s sleep. (Note: it’s widely believed that non-fiction is more stimulating to the mind whereas fiction helps you drift off. So maybe put down that interesting personal-development book before bed and pick up a classic James Patterson crime novel.