Calm · 10 min
The hour before bed
An hour that gets slowly quieter, dimmer and duller, so sleep has somewhere to land.
Sleep does not switch on. It comes in when the day has been given a chance to wind down. Most evenings run at full speed until the light goes out. This is a simple way to give the last hour a different shape.
The steps
Four small steps,in your own time.
Pick a time about an hour before you usually fall asleep and set a quiet reminder for it.
When it goes, turn off the big lights and use one or two lamps. Finish anything that needs a screen or a decision.
Do one or two slow, ordinary things: wash up, lay out tomorrow's clothes, have a warm drink without caffeine, read something undemanding.
Go to bed when your eyes feel heavy, not before. If the hour is cut short, keep just the last ten minutes.
The reason
Why it helps
Bright light, busy screens and unfinished conversations all keep the mind on watch. Dim light and dull, familiar tasks send the opposite message. Doing the same few things each night also builds a cue: after a while, the lamp going on and the kettle boiling begin to mean that sleep is near.
A gentle variation
If evenings are when the person you care for needs you most, the hour may not be yours. Take the smallest version: once they are settled, three minutes in a dim room, a few slow breaths, then bed. Small and regular beats long and rare.
WE · TRIBE
Try itwith someone.
Share the hour with whoever is at home. Agree that the main lights go off at the same time and that hard conversations wait for the morning. Reading side by side, or one of you reading aloud to the other, is a good way to spend it.
Try it today
Tonight, an hour before sleep, turn off the main lights and do one slow, ordinary thing by lamplight.
More like this
More from VIVE Calm,for real days.
Calm · 2 min
Rest
Twenty minutes lying down, awake, is not a failure to sleep; it is a practice of its own.
Calm · 3 min
Awake at three
What to do in the small hours when sleep has gone and the ceiling is not helping.
Calm · 5 min
The same time up, every day
One fixed time to get up, weekends included, does more for a ragged night than any perfect bedtime.