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Morning Routine
Last week we talked about the morning routine, this week as promised, let's get on to nighttime routines. Morning routines have lots of benefits, but as I mentioned, to maximize the benefits it’s best to bookend your days with routines in the morning and evening that improve your mental, emotional, and energetic wellness.
So we will dive into those nighttime routines in today’s episode. You will learn the importance of having a nighttime routine to set your restful sleep in motion, how it helps to set you up for success, and how it helps to heal your body if you are on a wellness journey. Whether you just know you could feel better or you are an autoimmune warrior, a nighttime routine will work magic on your sleep and energy levels which means big benefits for you!
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Nighttime Routine
Rough Transcript (listening is best)
Nighttime Routine
Last week we talked about the morning routine, this week as promised, let's get on to nighttime routines. Morning routines have lots of benefits, but as I mentioned, to maximize the benefits it’s best to bookend your days with routines in the morning and evening that improve your mental, emotional, and energetic wellness.
So we will dive into those nighttime routines in today’s episode. You will learn the importance of having a nighttime routine to set your restful sleep in motion, how it helps to set you up for success, and how it helps to heal your body if you are on a wellness journey. Whether you just know you could feel better or you are an autoimmune warrior, a nighttime routine will work magic on your sleep and energy levels which means big benefits for you!
Intro
Welcome if this is your first time listening - I’m Audrey Christie - I’m a functional and integrative nurse nutritionist and energy medicine practitioner. I help women start their very own Autoimmune Revolution so you can stop chasing symptoms and learn how to heal your body from autoimmune disease.
I feel like we had some grumbles last week with morning routines, many people aren’t morning peeps, and that is a-oaky. As you learned last week - a morning routine isn’t reserved for only those people that are early birds.
Personally, I am a morning person, and for sure not a night owl, but being a morning person doesn’t stop me from having a nighttime routine that works well to help me drift off to sleep and stay asleep.
In the Autoimmune Revolution membership, one of the FIRST things we work through is SLEEP. Why? Because, as Thomas Dekker famously said, it is the golden chain that connects our body to healing.
So often when we start to examine what the Autoimmune Revolution members are doing, why they might not be getting optimal sleep - heck even sometimes part of the reason they are suffering from so much anxiety. When going through and assessing where our routines are, I have found that everyone has some sort of morning and nighttime routine, they are present but are actually contributing to their inflammation, rather than assisting the body in healing.
So last week I said it was my mission to change your mind, and we are working through morning routine steps in the Wellness Circle now - that is the private Facebook group where we take these episodes and dive deeper and support each other in taking actionable steps to wellness. Join at audreychristie.com/facebook.
Coming up we will work through adding the evening routine steps in the group.
Where does a Nighttime routine fit in?
If you listened to my episode on Sleep Hygiene - that's episode 116 then you heard me talk a lot about the hours leading up to sleep, right? Specifically the 2 hours till bedtime and the 1 hour till bedtime frames of the evening.
This is the sweet spot for your evening routine! Start with the hour before bedtime and work your way to the full two hours before bedtime or you could go the other way too!
Just like with the morning routines I could totally give you a list of steps to do and say - do these 5 things each night, and many of you would do them, but you would fall off the wagon pretty quickly. Statistically, 80% of you would fall off the wagon.
This happens because we are all unique, so what works for me, isn’t likely to be exactly the same for you, even if we are the same age, have the same, schedule, heck - even if we were identical twins!
Why is a Nighttime Routine important?
If you have kids - you might know some of the reasons a nighttime routine is important right? Did you frantically try to figure that out when a baby or toddler just would not go to sleep? I know I did!
It’s not too different for adults!
Having a nighttime routine helps you to:
- Improves your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep
- Improves your Productivity
- Reduce your stress levels
- Your brain functions more efficiently during the day
Do you know how much healing happens just by reducing stress and improving sleep? Holy moly! A TON! Even if you are in the “doesn’t sleep well and doesn’t notice it” camp. I assure you - once you start actually sleeping - you will.
You can, of course, supercharge this will all kinds of magic for attracting abundance, connecting with you with a higher power, focused healing, emotional blockage release, the possibilities are endless.
It's worth repeating, this is equally important for kids and adults. Just a little snippet about kids - if you do nothing else from my suggestions, take away their handheld devices at least an hour before bedtime. You may be the fun parent if you let them stay up playing on their phone or iPad, but the harm that occurs, in the long run, will be more damaging than you can imagine.
What time to start your nighttime routine?
So here’s the deal - start your routine 9-10 hours before you need to get up in the morning.
Simple right? So if I am getting up at 6, my head needs to be on the pillow at 10, and my nighttime routine needs to start at 8 or 9 pm.
Nighttime Routine Example
Here’s my nighttime routine, I do it every night, even on the weekends. Sure there may be an occasional late-night event that changes things, but that happens less than once per month.
- I start my nighttime routine at 7 pm most nights. I get up at 4:30a, so I know that I need to be in bed no later than 8:30 pm.
- No later than 7 pm my nighttime routine starts with putting my phone away. Yep, absolutely no handheld devices after 7 pm - why? Because the full spectrum light prevents the supply of adequate melatonin. For me, I have to put my phone completely away and turn it off in order not to be tempted.
- Nighttime supplements, if I am sore from working out or having an issue - generally I will my nighttime supplements during this window. If I am having a cup of “sleepy tea” it happens here too.
- Wash face and brush teeth. Those are pretty self-explanatory - but they usually don’t happen until after 7 pm.
- Gratitude journal, I make a quick note of all the things I am thankful for from the day.
- Once I am in bed, lights out, temp down, I start triangular breathing. In for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, repeat. This reduces cortisol faster which helps sleep come on faster.
- On my last deep breath, I envision all of my energetic body coming back to me, and on the exhale, I envision all of the energies I picked up during the day being released.
Seven steps may feel like a lot, but it really happens in little bits over the last 2 hours before bed.
If I am home later, often this routine shifts forward a bit or might be condensed in some ways. Sometimes I know in advance if I will be out a little late, so I may do my gratitude journal during my afternoon meditation.
Start thinking what would a nice evening routine look like for you? Is it something you could do with your kids, family, spouse, partner?
How Can You Start Your Own Nighttime Routine?
If you want to work through actionable steps in this episode, I would love to have you join us in the Wellness Circle, my exclusive and free community to help women pursuing holistic wellness, body, mind, and spirit and discussions around the Autoimmune Revolution Podcast- friends chronic disease is 99% preventable and autoimmune disease is capable of being healed or put in remission with lifestyle, energetic, and nutrition practices. You can get the direct link on the show notes page or at audreychristie.com/facebook
When you join the free Wellness circle you will also get the Kickstart your Autoimmune Revolution guide. It has 5 steps to get you started on your very own Autoimmune Revolution. Are you ready to stop fighting and starting healing?
To wrap this up...
To wrap this up - starting and maintaining a nighttime routine improves your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep, improves your productivity, reduce your stress levels, and helps your brain to function more efficiently during the day. All of these things are critical for maintaining and returning to health no matter where you are on your wellness journey.
Thank you so much for tuning in, if you have a second it would mean the world to me if you could leave a rating or review! That helps me help more people get clear of autoimmune disease. I’d be oh so grateful.
I hope you have the most magical and restful day friends, and I challenge you to leave your world, however you can, a little better than how you found it when you got up this morning.
Be well.