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Sleep hygiene. Who cares? You should. Am I perfect about it? Nope? Do I notice a significant difference in my mental, physical, and spiritual functioning as a result? Yup. In any ways possible, make the hour leading up to sleep a sacred space. Sure it’s tempting to go all in, but do this in a gradual and sustainable way. If your end goal is no phone an hour before bed and you’re currently falling asleep with it, maybe this week the goal is to put it down 15 minutes before bed. Maybe next week you add 5 or 10 minutes.
Remember that a part of growth is relapse and it’s critical not to beat yourself up here. Tomorrow is a new day, a fresh start. Now let’s talk about replacement behaviors. Now that you aren’t using the phone, what are you doing? Personally for me, this is where meditation comes into play. I like to engage in a short practice of gratitude, consciously bringing to mind a few positives from the day and allowing them to wash over me. Once that has ran its course, I go through my body doing a scan noticing if there is tension and releasing it with the exhale. From there, I just observe the breath until drifting off. The theta brain waves produced from these practices help us to reach deeper more rejuvenating levels of rest.
