Bedtime Habits

It's said that a nighttime routine helps you get to sleep faster since your body will begin to recognize the patterns around bedtime and act accordingly. I'm fortunate to generally fall asleep fairly quickly, but a few pre-sleep habits I've gotten into coincide with some of the quickest falling-asleep times I've ever measured.

I start thinking about bed approximately half an hour before I get into it. Once I get up to brush my teeth, the nighttime routine is past the point of no return. After brushing, I change into pajamas and check that the doors are locked and the stove is off. Finally--and this is important--I take a drink of water or two. Sometimes it almost feels like a mild compulsion, and if I wait more than thirty seconds or so between drinking water and getting into bed, I feel like taking another drink to keep the pattern fresh. With all this complete, I can turn off the lights, turn on my alarms and an audiobook (listening to something keeps me from thinking overmuch), and go to sleep.

I very much look forward to lying in bed and drifting off, so to get this feeling more often, a new element has been added to my nighttime routine: I wake up after about two hours and get to enjoy being groggy for a few minutes and falling asleep all over again.