evening routine.
I've talked about my morning routine before in a previous post, morning routines, and morning routines can be made better by having a good evening routine. For a long time, I only focused on the morning routine aspect, making sure I have as much time as possible in the morning to do the most amount of things within my limited time before work starts. However, a morning routine can go only as far as your evening routine which is the foundation that helps you be ready to take on your morning. I had gotten so use to the winter months and had been enjoying the coziness of early nightfall that summer ended up throwing me off balance and made it difficult to have a consistent evening routine because of the constant daylight. But, with the days getting shorter, I've gotten back into a groove of an evening routine and have been enjoying the wind down of the day again.
My evening routine
Disclaimer: Like before, I'm only sharing my evening routine, I don't think it's the ultimate routine that will work for everyone. I just want to share and maybe help give some inspo for anyone possibly wanting to adopt an evening routine.
My evening routines are relatively the same each day of the week. They start out at around 5pm or whenever I stop working and we start making dinner. Of course it does vary occasionally throughout the week like if we hang out with friends after work or if we go out to eat or need to do some weekday night shopping to get out of the house, but for the most part, it's pretty similar.
I've also started implementing a 3-2-1 rule that I learned from watching Ali Abdaal, 8 Simple Hacks to Improve Your Health. It's where you stop eating 3 hours before bed, stop drinking any liquids 2 hours before bed, and then stop looking at screens 1 hour before bed. It's a very new addition to my evening routine but has quickly become an integral part of my evening routine and feels like it has improved my sleep.
The routine.
- Wrap up work around 5pm, or a little bit before, and jump into making dinner. Since we work from home (and no commute), I usually start prepping stuff for dinner around 4pm, so it's usually ready by 5:30pm
- We usually watch a TV show while eating dinner, lately we've been watching The Office SuperFan episodes. Sometimes we'll just watch one episode or 2-3 episodes, depending on how we're feeling. I also try to finish eating by 6:30pm for the 3-2-1 rule.
- After dinner and watching TV, we try to a little bit of tidying in the kitchen and run the dishwasher for the night. I'll also usually lay out any stuff for the morning (like my probiotic pills, drink mixes, and my gym water bottle).
- Then I'll sometimes make a caffeine free tea and do some creativity if I hadn't had a chance to do it in the morning. I keep it simple and work for about 30 minutes and then just spent the rest of the time watching YouTube and set out my clothes for tomorrow. Eventually stopping drinking liquids are 7:30pm
- Depending on the day, I'll take a shower and/or do my night time hygiene and skincare (cleanse, retinol (1-2x a week), and moisturizer or some nights, I'll just throw water on my face) and at around 8:30pm, I'll end my screen time and put my phone away on the charger.
- For the last hour of the night, I'll do some gentle stretching and read until it's 9:30pm and I'll turn out all the lights and go to bed!
My evening routine isn't as intense as my morning routine but that's kind of the point. It's meant to be relaxing and a wind down from the day. I've been trying to go to sleep at 9:30pm so I can wake up at 5:30am (yes, from my morning routine blog, I finally worked up to waking up at 5:30am now!) and this routine has been feeling good and I've been feeling good as well. It doesn't make it a bit difficult with other plans come up and my whole routine gets shifted but that's also just life sometimes.