Sleep advice often focuses on the bedroom — dark, cool, quiet — and stops there. But the hour or so before you get into bed does much of the work. A wind-down routine is not about perfection; it is a repeatable sequence that tells your body the day is closing.
Set a gentle alarm — earlier
Most people set a wake-up alarm but none for winding down. Pick a time about an hour before bed. When it goes, the day’s tasks are officially done: screens can dim, lights can lower, and whatever is unfinished can wait for tomorrow’s list.
The sequence
- Dim the lights and put your phone to charge outside arm’s reach.
- Do something genuinely calm and analogue — a few pages of a book, a shower, light stretching.
- Write tomorrow’s top three tasks so your brain stops rehearsing them.
- Keep the bedroom cool, dark and quiet; treat the bed as a place for sleep, not scrolling.
If you wake at 3am
Everyone wakes briefly; the trap is switching the light on and starting the day in your head. Stay put, breathe slowly, and remind yourself that resting is still useful. If your mind is racing, the evening list from your routine is where those thoughts belong — deal with them in the morning, not at 3am.