In this episode, I'm unveiling some nocturnal nuggets of wisdom that have helped me craft my personal, ideal evening routine.
While this one certainly isn't as dialed in as my morning routine is, I'm forever a work in progress and keep striving to be more consistent with my evening rituals.
Hitting the hay by 11 and disconnecting from my phone by 9 can feel like a tall order some nights, but I always feel so much better when I take care of my mind and body before bed.
Let's work together to take our nighttime habits from lackluster to blockbuster! Because let's face it, who doesn't want to relax at night and wake up feeling refreshed?!
In this episode, I'm unveiling some nocturnal nuggets of wisdom that have helped me craft my personal, ideal evening routine.
While this one certainly isn't as dialed in as my morning routine is, I'm forever a work in progress and keep striving to be more consistent with my evening rituals.
Hitting the hay by 11 and disconnecting from my phone by 9 can feel like a tall order some nights, but I always feel so much better when I take care of my mind and body before bed.
Let's work together to take our nighttime habits from lackluster to blockbuster! Because let's face it, who doesn't want to relax at night and wake up feeling refreshed?!
Welcome back to the Savvy Scoop podcast, where we give you the full scoop on all things living your best life. So if that's your jam, you are in the right place. New episodes drop every Wednesday for you to enjoy, as always. I'm your host, shawna Gray. I'm a social media manager, lead generation and engagement strategist for service-based business owners. If you're a fan of the show, I would so appreciate you rating and giving an interview wherever you listen. You can also give it a watch on YouTube. Maybe you are right now and you can subscribe there too, so you never miss an episode.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so I have talked about my morning routine on a previous episode. If you haven't listened, go back. I can't remember which episode it is, but I mean, I don't have that many. You'll be able to find it pretty easily, and that routine is super dialed in, super locked down. It's not really hard for me to do anymore because it's just how I live, how I am.
Speaker 1:
The evening routine we're still working on it and people always say to have a good morning routine, it starts with your evening routine, and while I do believe that, I think it actually to have my morning routine, I just need to go to bed at the right time. It doesn't kind of right now for me really matter what I'm doing before that, as long as I go to bed early enough that I can get up by six for my morning routine. So as long as I go to bed by like 11, I'm good. If I don't follow my evening routine, I don't find that I like suddenly can't get up for my six o'clock morning routine, start workout. But I do find that I get better sleeps and I generally feel better when I've done my morning routine and it's something that I look forward to. And the nights I do it properly, I'm like oh, that was so good, that was so nice. So when I don't do it, I don't know why I don't do it. So I'm hoping that maybe by speaking about it and I will say this is my ideal evening routine and it's something that I try to do most nights and I'm just I'm not going to. You know, I like to keep it real. So I'm not going to tell you that I do this every night. I absolutely don't. But it is my ideal, it is what I set out for myself every night and I do some form of it every night.
Speaker 1:
This is the one thing I do. The one thing I do every night is I do dim the lights in our house a little earlier, so by seven o'clock. That's when we generally eat dinner. That's when I will dim the lights in the house to start bringing the mood and the energy down and getting everyone kind of primed for bedtime. That's the one thing I do. So there you go. If you take nothing else away from this, dim the lights in your house earlier in the evening, because it really does to me, in my mind, it does make a difference. So we do that. We have dinner.
Speaker 1:
And then another thing, actually another thing that I do every night is I like we'll kind of do a quick tidy of the house, like close the kitchen, so after dinner we'll go, we'll get our desserts, I make my tea, and then I kind of say anyone want any last thing while I'm in the kitchen? Because after this, like that's it kind of thing. So I quote unquote close the kitchen, so I'm tidying up, get everyone's desserts and final beverages and whatever we want, and then that's it, and then kind of make sure the rest of the main floor is tidy, because there's nothing worse to me than waking up to dishes in a mess. I just hate it. And then I try to make sure that I'm finished. Again, we're working on this. Okay, we're working on this. We're always a work in progress. This is where I put work in progress, one of the ways I mean I'm a work in progress in many ways, but this is one of the ways I'm a work in progress trying to be finished on my phone by nine o'clock. Okay, we're working hard to get off the phone by nine o'clock, so I try to be done with my phone at nine o'clock.
Speaker 1:
Then I go downstairs where my bathroom is and I say my bathroom, it's, anyone can use it, but it's just no one else wants to go down there. So it's my bathroom and I do my skincare routine. It's very basic Do my skincare routine, brush my teeth, you know all that good stuff. And then I come up and the kids are usually starting to get ready for bed. Get them to bed by the time they've, you know, done whatever been, you know, bopping around, and get them actually to, you know, read their books and go to sleep. It's, you know, sometime between 9.45 and 10.
Speaker 1:
Once they're in bed, I like to come into our bedroom and put on a nighttime blend in my diffuser. I just find it just so lovely and just a nice way to like unwind and relax. And again, I don't know if it does anything, but I feel like it does put me in a nice, like calm mood and while that the diffuser is gone, then I do a little stretch. It's just like a five minutes, but that also sets me up really nicely, like it sets my body into a calm state. Then I'll read. So we're working on the reading too. We're working on the reading instead of the scrolling, working on it.
Speaker 1:
But I'm getting better because I've already you know, at time of recording it's March and I've read a book a month so far. I mean, that's only two books, but whatever, I'm taking this as a win. I only only two books, but whatever, I'm taking this as a win. I only read two books all of last year. So if I finish and I'm on my third book and if I finish this book by the end of March, then hey, I'm already crushing it from last year and I'm crushing my goal because I want to read a book a month. I only want one book a month. I mean that's really not a huge goal, but the amount of books that I start and don't finish is wild, honestly. But I get them from the library, so I only get them for three weeks and I'm a slow reader and I'm bad about scrolling.
Speaker 1:
So, anyway, having this intention of one book a month actually helps, because I'm like, oh, I got to get this book done because it's going to go back to the library and then I'm not going to have it. I will have read half of it and that's just like super annoying. So anyways, after I stretch, I try and read for a little bit, usually like half an hour, put the book away and I say put the book away, it's on my phone. That's the bad thing. I need to get a Kindle or a Kobo or something again so that I don't pick up my phone, because if I didn't pick up my phone then I think that would I just put it away at nine o'clock. That would really help. So we're going to work on that. I think for Mother's Day I'm going to ask for another e-reader so then I can have the phone away.
Speaker 1:
I'll do my reading and then I like to put on a little meditation while I fall asleep. I find if I put on a meditation, even if I'm not doing exactly what it says, I do find that it helps my brain stop going over everything that I've done that day or everything I have to do the next day. Before the meditation's over, I'm asleep. So that's it. That's my ideal evening routine.
Speaker 1:
Again, we're calling it the ideal evening routine. We're working on it, but when I can do that and when I'm doing that consistently, I really do feel my best, feel so great, feel so much better. So that's it. That's what we're working on, if you have any advice. But I just feel like the fact that I get up at six every day and do my morning routine, I feel like I've really accomplished a lot, because I am a night owl naturally.
Speaker 1:
So I'm fighting against my natural self every day to do this evening routine and go to bed and get up on time. So I'm trying, I'm really trying, but I think I need to remind myself every day to do this evening routine and go to bed and get up on time. So I'm trying, I'm really trying, but I think I need to remind myself every day how good I feel when I do it. So, anyways, that's what we're working on. I hope that that's helpful. Maybe it'll help you set up an ideal evening routine and maybe you'll follow half of it every day, like me. If you have any questions or you have advice for me, you know where to find me. I'm on Instagram at simplified savvy or the savvy scoop pod, and let's try to be routines, okay. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.