Getting a good night’s sleep is crucial to our health and well-being. A bad night’s sleep can make us feel sleepy, irritable, moody, and foggy in the morning. In this blog post, we will explore five simple ways that you can improve your quality of sleep. These tips will help you wind down before bedtime to get a better night’s rest. Make sure you read this article to discover all the ways how to have a mindful sleep ritual!
Through the rest of the year and beyond, find ease in simple acts of rest. Connect with an inner softness that treats your thoughts and feelings with slow- and kindness. Practice grounding through warmth. Allow yourself the space to rest and sit still - and gradually grow.
Having a good night sleep comes with being grounded and releasing. Grounding practices are particularly helpful when it comes to feeling overwhelmed, allowing us to come back to a place of balance and mental clarity. For those of us who live in our heads, we're even more susceptible to and cycles of anxiety due to the tendency to overthink problems rather than to sit with and feel them. The antidote, the is to shift our focus to practices that soothe our body, mind & soul and activate our rest mode.
When we cultivate a bed time routine we ground ourselves, we engage in the practice of calmness and softness. We create grounding energy and connect to an inner source that settles our nervous system. Our bodies settle. Our nerves calm. Our thoughts move away from fog towards clearness and suddenly they disappear. We create space to rest, and in our deep rest mode we begin to thrive.
A bedtime routine will help us get in the habit of winding down before bed. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but it should be something that signals to our body that it is time for deep rest. Some possible practices include reading, taking a bath, journaling, listening to calming music, and drinking warming chamomile tea or a soothing warm beverage like a moon milk.
Moon milk may be a lovely way to end our day. An exquisite evening moon (oat-)milk that is a natural sleep aid that not only looks good but can be good for us as well. It contains L-tryptophan, an amino acid that's a precursor to serotonin and melatonin, which both induce sleep. Pimp up your moon milk with relaxing plants such as ashwgandha, reishi and blue lotus, along with a touch of lavender. The essentials when it comes to making moon milk is choosing your favourite milk (we love oat milk or coconut for this) and any kind of fat, I oftentimes add 1/4 tsp of coconut oil, or coconut butter to give it extra body and nourishment. This really soothes the gut and makes it like an exquisite dessert. If you like maple or honey, feel free to add some. While enjoying our warming drink, we set the intention for restful sleep as we sip.
These tips will help you wind down before bedtime to get a better night’s rest.
Before we signal our nervous system to get into rest mode, we should have a light, easily digestible and small dinner. Eating too late in the evening may lead to undigested food remaining in the digestive tract and the resulting in the accumulation of toxins.
One of the most important rituals to have before bedtime is waking up at the same time every day. This not only helps regulate your body’s circadian rhythm, but it also helps with our sleep quality. When our body gets used to this pattern, the body will know when it needs to shut down for the night and when it knows that it should be awake.
We should also try to avoid to hit the snooze button. For most of us it's got a negative association, so we should try to get out of this negative loop and strive for as many positive feelings and triggers in the morning as possible.
A few soothing practices we can cultivate before bedtime include reading a book, using calming lavender oil on our pillowcase, taking a soothing warm bath with Epsom salts, or doing some light and gentle stretches in the living room while listening to some calm melodies. Mindful meditation is an easy way to combat the effects of daily stress, and take back natural control of our sleep hygiene. Just 10 minutes a day can reduce stress and help our brain to recharge and restore. For me pranayama is another way to enhance the quieting of the mind while enjoying the soothing heat of the moon-pad. The warmth of the moon-pad may increase circulation and relax the muscles for better sleep. I try to exercise in the morning when possible for better sleep quality and try to turn off my electronic devices an hour before bedtime so that the blue light doesn't disrupt my natural sleep cycle.
As soon as we picked our personal bed time ritual we should try to stick to it and do it over and over again - eventually we will harness all the positive effects on our sleep hygiene that comes with it.
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