7 Things You Should Do Before Bed to Have a Better Sleep

The things you do before heading to bed can significantly impact your mood, energy, and productivity the next day. Your actions can affect how much you sleep and the quality of it. Of course, you can try to squeeze out as much rest as you can out of every hour you spend sleeping, but there isn’t any substitute for good and efficient sleep time.

Healthy and successful people are aware that they can ensure a better sleep with just a few actions. They can wake up well-rested and ready to go about their days. If you want to have a good night’s sleep like them, try out these seven things to do before bed.

1. Turn off Your Gadgets

The light that your devices and gadgets emit can easily keep you up at night, so try to turn them off at least one hour before bed. This action can do wonders for your sleep while letting you clear your head of concerns before hitting the sack. It’s also one of the best tips to improve sleep.

Watching television or scrolling through your phone up until you decide to sleep isn’t good. It’s even worse to leave your TV turned on, making endless noise as you sleep. Doing this can interrupt your sleep time frequently, robbing you of a good night and making you wake up feeling tired.

Turning off any screen is an excellent thing that people who were wondering how to prepare for going to bed can do. It also does wonders for their sleep and mental health.

2. Avoid Food and Drinks

Eating food or drinking beverages is an example of what not to do before you go to sleep. You aren’t supposed to digest and sleep at the same time, so try to eat early in the night, at least two hours before bedtime. If you can’t handle your peckishness, try to stick with lighter foods.

Some foods can actually promote better sleep, like warm milk, honey, almonds, and bananas. Unless you have these foods and drinks, it’s better to avoid anything that isn’t water. Eating dinner too late makes it harder to sleep. If you do happen to eat later, try to postpone your bedtime as well.

3. Set a Schedule

It might be the most straightforward and helpful step of how to prepare for going to bed. Having a fixed sleep schedule and sticking to it lets you enjoy a better night’s sleep with more ease. If you want the best results possible, try to comply with your schedule, even on weekends and holidays. It would be best if you also didn’t try to fight your sleep rhythm.

Some people have to wake up later if they want to have a good rest, while others can just wake early and well-rested. Try to adapt your schedule to your body’s preference as long as it’s possible. If you aren’t able to stick to your sleep routine, set yourself up with an alarm to go to bed.

4. Set the Scene

An ideal sleep environment is calm, dark, and quiet. Do your best to eliminate any noise and light that might be present in your room as you sleep. If you live in a noisy area, or your home itself is loud, try to use any device, app, or machine to generate white noise. Wearing earplugs is also an excellent idea, as long as you don’t have tinnitus.

Having a comfortable bed is essential, but you might have to shell out on a better mattress or even some pillows. You can also improve your sleep quality by heading to bed in better shape. An excellent way to do this is by investing in bedroom home office furniture. With just a simple ergonomic office chair and an adjustable standing desk, you can enjoy your bedtime with improved physical health and well-being.

5. Meditate

Meditating more is a simple thing you can do if you ever wondered what to do before you go to sleep. Doing this can calm you down right away and improve your night’s sleep. Anything works as long as you stop your mind from racing. You can focus on your breathing, your heartbeat, or anything else with a rhythm.

It can work wonderfully on many aspects of your life, but it significantly benefits sleeping. You can also perform some meditations to fall back asleep should you find yourself awake at night. Find a meditation practice or regimen that works for you, and enjoy a good night.

6. Have a Bedtime Ritual

Developing a sequence of things to do before bed each night is a way to signal your body and mind that it’s time to sleep. There are many things that you can do. You can read a book, or you can take a hot bath. In fact, rising and lowering your body temperature can promote drowsiness.

Try to avoid doing things that may stress or stimulate you before heading to bed, like checking your work email. These actions are a shortcut to raising your cortisol levels, which you can think of as a natural alarm system, making it considerably harder to sleep. If you ever asked yourself how to prepare for going to bed, this is an excellent method to use.

7. Stretch

One of the most important things to do before bed that people who spend a decent period of their day sitting at a computer can do is stretching.  It’s also helpful for people who spend a considerable amount of time in any other posture that can tense up their bodies. If you were looking for an effortless step in how to prepare for going to bed, this is it.

You can do many stretch exercises while lying in bed, but you can also do them before getting on it. Find a comfortable routine that works well for you and do it for a while or as long as it takes for you to feel relaxed.

Find out What Works Best for You

Don’t try to do all of these things to do before bed on your first night after reading them. Try out a couple, and check out the rest on later days. Simple actions that can work quickly are turning off your devices and avoiding foods and drinks. These things let you have a good night’s rest for a productive day.