5 Tips For Consistently Going To Bed On Time
For most of my life, I've never had a consistent bedtime. This would also then translate to an inconsistent wake-up time. And it's hard to build consistent and productive rhythms when your sleep patterns are anything but.
In early 2019, this finally changed for me and the benefits have been immense. If you're anything like me, especially if you're not a morning person, you can relate.
But a consistent bedtime is not only possible but extremely beneficial. Here are five tips on how you can make a consistent bedtime happen.
1. Make going to bed easy
It's time for bed, but you're too tired to get up and do everything you have to do to get ready for bed. So you sit there longer and longer until you finally muster up the energy to go to bed.
Sound familiar?
In James Clear's book Atomic Habits (one of the best books I read in 2019), he talks about the importance of making things easy to minimize the resistance to creating new habits. Because having a consistent bedtime was never a thing for me before 2019, I knew I would need to make it easier for me to actually go to bed if I wanted to be consistent.
So now, right after dinner, I do the following things:
Floss
Change my clothes
Pick out my clothes for the next day
Make my lunch for the next day
Set out any breakfast supplies I may need for the next day
This now means, when it is time for bed all I now have to do is brush my teeth. Which means it is easy for me to go to bed.
But wait, I floss right after dinner? What if I happened to eat a snack before bed?
Like every human being in the history of the world, I don't like to floss. But it's an important habit to maintain. So flossing right after dinner ensures I do it every day, regardless if I happen to eat something again after. This way, I don't have to worry about it when it is actually time for bed.
To get to bed on time, do as much as you can to make going to bed easier before it is actually time for bed.
2. Get up at the same time every day
Like going to bed on time, getting up at the same time every day was also not something I have always done. As much as I would like to say my self-discipline is what turned this around, a lot of it also had to do with having kids. For some reason, they don't care when you go to bed. They seem to be programmed to wake you up early every day regardless.
That being said, when I know I have to get up at a certain time, it encourages me to get to bed by a certain time. I am much more a "night" person than a "morning" person. However, in this season of life with young kids, staying up late doesn't work with the schedule of my family.
The good news is after a while, getting up earlier than you might like doesn't become as hard because it becomes normal and expected. It still doesn't make it easy for me (especially since I don't like coffee!), but it helps me get to bed on time so I'll be less tired in the morning. This is important because regardless of when you get up, we are all the most productive in the early part of our day.
3. No email/social media before bed
There is no bigger time sucker than email and social media. At least when you are watching too much Netflix or any other streaming service, you know how long the next episode is going to be before you watch another one.
However, what we all anticipate as a five-minute social media check before bed often turns to 15-20 minutes before we even notice the time again. Not only does not checking your social media before bed help you get to bed on time but in my experience, it will also significantly reduce the amount of stress and overwhelm you feel.
When it comes to email, I recommend only checking it during normal working hours. And even then, I limit the number of times I check my email per day to twice. Interestingly, this approach will also help you get and keep your email inbox at zero (which I couldn't recommend enough).
This isn't to say you can't check social media at all in the evening but that you should plan to do it no less than an hour before you go to bed. This way, it won't push back your actual bedtime if you happen to spend longer on it than you thought you would.
4. Plan your evenings ahead of time
Another helpful tip when it comes to going to bed on time is to plan what you are going to do in the evening ahead of time.
For example, on Sunday Christina and I will plan what we are going to do each even of the upcoming week. This way when the workday is done (and especially once the kids have been put to bed) we aren't spending 20-30 minutes sitting around trying to figure out what to do.
It may seem counter-intuitive to plan your downtime, but it actually makes it more enjoyable and takes away the feeling of "where did the time go?"
If you have a general idea of what you are going to be doing each night, it makes it easier to both do things you might enjoy and get to bed on time.
5. Plan the exceptions to your rules
We all know life happens, events have to be attended, and few things will go perfectly according to plan. This also means going to bed on time every night may not always be feasible. This is perfectly ok and it won't impair your bedtime routines all that much as long as you plan for them ahead of time.
For example, because I would rather stay up later and wake up later, sometimes on Thursday nights and almost always on Friday nights I know I will be staying up later and sleeping in a little later. I don't work as much on Fridays and I don't work at all on Saturdays, so I plan and know I will be more lax on my bedtime routine those nights.
I'm also a big Duke basketball fan, and there are some nights when their games don't start until 9 PM. Which means I know I won't be going to bed on time on those nights. The goal is for these things to be the exception to the rule and not let them begin to change your habit of getting to bed on time.
I have found that when I plan ahead of time for these "disruptions" they don't end up impacting my typical bedtime routines at all.
Healthy rhythms don't happen by accident
Sleep is vitally important to a healthy and productive life. And like all things that make us better, it takes discipline and work to achieve. The good news is that once the practice of a consistent bedtime becomes a habit, the effort it seems to take to make it happen significantly reduces.
In fact, I would be willing to bet that just two weeks of committing to this goal will make this process more habitual and less effort-driven. It's not as hard as it seems and the benefits are more than they would seem. I know you can do it.
Happy sleeping.