If you’re a firm believer of daily rituals because you know it will make a positive difference in your life and mindset then perhaps it you may want to also experiment with evening ritual as well.
Starting your day right with a morning ritual always been a priority for many successful individuals. But what about ending your day with an evening ritual? It is just important to end your day the right way, no matter how tough your day was. Preparing the body and body in the evening is a important part to starting the next day off right.
What do you need to achieve in your evening ritual?
What you want to achieve at night isn’t just a restful sleep. In fact, an evening ritual should also be meditative. This way, not only do you let go of negative emotions, but you also end with a good product and successful mindset that will propel you towards your goals. An evening ritual will provide you with the gift of emotional balance, peace and also help you get a higher quality sleep.
Here are some things to experiment with in your evening ritual…
Write down all the things that happened during the day
It is always a good practice to start your evening ritual an hour to an hour and a half before your bed time. Th first thing that you'll want to do is to write down everything that happened during the day. Write down all the good and bad things and everything in between. If you are used to writing in a journal then this will be a piece of cake for you.
Try to remember things that happened the entire day to see if you had a generally good day or a bad day. When you're reflecting on the good things, think of how you can repeat those things the next day. The goal here is to try to figure out what generates results and internalize them.
On the other hand, what if a lot of bad things happened to you instead? Be objective and honest about it. For instance, does it really affect your life in the grand scheme of things or does it just bother you? You likely realize that YOU are the one that determines if an event is bad or good. Successful people view “bad” events as positive events that will help them reach their goals faster.
Always remember that your journey in life isn’t always a straight line. There will be times when you’ll need to deal with lows as well.
Write down your goals and small victories
A lot of people forget the fact that they are waking up for a dream that they always wanted to have in life. But if you lose track of this, you may not have the motivation to do what you have to do in order to achieve your goals.
Writing your goals at night gives you the excitement to pursue your dreams in the morning. In addition to this, you should also write down small victories and progress that you’ve done the entire day. This helps remind you about the things that you’ve done correctly and why it matters in accomplishing your dreams.
Take drinks that encourage sleep
Sleep can be elusive to a some people. If you look at the statistics, in 2013, 50 to 70 million Americans already suffer from sleep deprivation. In addition to this, nine million Americans use prescription sleeping pills just to have a good night sleep. Given the numbers, this is something alarming. The good thing is that you can do something about it.
A lot of people find it difficult to sleep because they drink coffee. But other than coffee, there are also drinks that you need to avoid including soda and other caffeine containing drinks in general. Instead, you should stick to drinks that help promote sleep.
Chamomile tea has been known to promote sleep. Mixing a bit of lavender is also a good idea since this has been known to fight insomnia. Another great drink that you can prepare is tart cherry juice, which is known to increase melatonin in your system.
Wear something comfy
What you wear to sleep is important. You want to wear something that isn't tight and cuts off your circulation. Ideally, sleeping nude is the best, but you don't have to. Just something comfortable and breathable will suffice.
Stretching
Another thing that you can do in order to improve your sleep is to perform light stretches before bed. Stretching has been proven to relax the muscles and improve your overall circulation. You may want to experiment with doing some light yoga stretches.
If you feel exhausted from a day filled with work, sitting on your desk, perhaps it is a good idea to stretch your back muscles, hips and your neck as well.
Shutdown distractions
Distractions and worries can keep you awake. In today's day and age, people sleep right beside their smartphones. In fact, 71% of smartphone owners sleep beside their device. The statistics are even higher and more prevalent among younger individuals aged 18 to 29 years old.
To get your brain to “sleep”, you need to stop sleeping beside your smartphone. We all think that we may receive an emergency call in the middle of the night, but really how often has that happened to you? I know for most people it's never happened, and even if it did, many times people slept through it.
There are apps that you can use to help you shut down these distractions. You may want to use these apps during the night to help you shut off distractions from your phone constantly beeping and buzzing from your social media alerts, messages, etc. One such app is called Flipd. What it does is to limit your access to your phone. You can just reply to text messages or receive calls from designated numbers. You can turn the entire system up to 12 hours.
There are also other alternatives such as Offtime. It simply filters out the unnecessary apps and block contacts that may restrict your productivity, but in this case, sleep.
Conclusion
How you retire at night is just as important as how to start your morning. Having sufficient sleep is a major physiologic requirement of the body. Unfortunately, a lot of people are sleep deprived, and are working late into the night.
Having an evening ritual will not only give you the sleep you need, but also help you evaluate what works and isn't working for you in terms of generating the results you want in your life. Most people get frustrated and lack motivation once they wake up because they last the rest and relaxation the comes with a good evening ritual. I encourage you to experiment with a evening ritual to see if it improves your life in a measurable way.
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