4 Easy Nighttime Habits to Feel Energized & Sleep Better

(00:36):

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. And I'm so glad that you're here with me. It is an absolute honor to be able to spend some time with you, and I want to welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. First of all, thank you for making this one of the most popular podcasts in the entire world. And I also want to acknowledge you for something. Thank you for taking time for yourself today. I mean, you could be listening or watching a million things right now, but you chose to take some time for yourself and listen to a podcast that could help you improve your life. And you want to know what could improve your life, taking your evenings a little bit more seriously. I mean, just stop and think about this. Wouldn't it be amazing if tonight were the most relaxing, happy, blissful, or productive night that you've had in agents?

 

(01:25):

Well, guess what? It can be because today you're getting the four simple, easy research back steps that you can take right after you finish listening to this with me. And when you take these steps, it will make tonight one of the best evenings of your life. And that's not all the things that you're about to learn will also make tomorrow morning. Fantastic. You're going to wake up and feel incredible because of the four things that you do tonight. I would personally love to have tonight be one of the most relaxing, happy, blissful, and productive nights that I've had in ages. And I know you would love that too. And you want to know why I set it up that way? Because imagining an evening that awesome sounds a hell of a lot better than talking about evening routines. I mean, what even is an evening routine?

 

(02:18):

Before we jump into why this topic about evening routines is so important, I want to just take a minute and zoom out a bit and have you just think about your day. How many times have you gotten to the end of the day and you think, oh my God, where did the day go? I mean, I don't have any time. I didn't get to the most important things on my list and now it's evening and I'm tired and I still have to cook dinner and I still have to walk the dog. I've got the series that I want to watch and I've got the things that I want to do, and now all of a sudden I don't even have any time. And it happens all the time, doesn't it, that you get to the end of the day and you're just too tired to do anything except for slouched down on the couch.

 

(03:02):

What is it about the evening? It's like when the evening starts, all of a sudden the time it just goes by so fast, nine to five drags, but five to nine, it's like the time doesn't even exist and you're probably giving it all during your nine to five, right? But what about the five to nine or your nine to 11? What if there was a simple way to really take advantage of the end of the day even though at the end of the day you're really tired? Just imagine if every evening you just had this rhythm, this simple routine that you would just do that was as easy as turn it on the TV this evening routine would really set you up not only to make the most of this big chunk of time that you have at night, but also in a really easy way to set you up for tomorrow morning.

 

(04:02):

It sounds great, doesn't it? I know. So I dug into the research and the fact is there are very simple steps that you can take, and I've been trying them out. I've been road testing them for both you and me because just like you, I want to make the most of this time. And I don't want it to be hard because during the day is hard enough. And so I've done the work and I've boiled it down to the four simple steps that you can take that will help you have a better night every night, a more relaxing evening, every evening. And even better than all of that by doing the four simple steps you're going to set yourself up to also absolutely rock your day tomorrow. And I'm really excited to share this with you because I've been like the Guinea pig test in this and I can't wait to hear what happens in your life when you try this because it actually works.

 

(04:54):

And here's the other thing that's interesting about the topic of evening routines, whether you've ever thought about it or not, you do have an evening routine. I mean, stop and think about what do you do between five and nine? What do you do between nine and 11 if you're up that late? Are you doing a whole lot of nothing? Are you pouring a glass of wine and then that turns into a half a bottle and then that turns into the whole bottle? I mean, that's a routine. Are you scrolling through social media for four hours and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, what just happened? I should have gone to bed hours ago. That's a routine. Eating at nine o'clock, that's a routine. Leaving all the dishes in the sink and hoping that somehow when you wake up tomorrow morning, they're not going to be there.

 

(05:40):

They're going to be magically washed and put away. That's a routine, and I know I'm being kind of snarky about it, but I am doing it for a reason. I want you to stop and think about what you're doing every evening. Is it serving you? Is it setting you up for success? Does it help you sleep better at night? Does what you do at night make you feel like the person that you want to be? Now, for a long time, I did not take this conversation seriously. My evening routine looked a whole lot like this. It was a combination of disaster, a lot of drinking, tablespoon of regret, dash of delaying all the things that I didn't feel like doing, pushing them off until the morning if I cooked dinner, did I clean it up? No. Why would I clean it up? Why would I clean up the dishes at night when I could just stack them in the sink and squirt a bunch of suds all over 'em and then put all the hot water on it?

 

(06:40):

And it's almost like I thought that maybe those bubbles that would come up were going to be like the magic scrubbing bubbles on TV and they would just take care of the mess. I don't know why I thought that's what was happening in the sink, but that's what I thought was happening. And you're probably laughing because either you do this, right, you just stack the dishes in the thing with all the dish soap, you put all the water in there, and if you're not the one doing that, somebody in your family probably does that. And I'm not even through the rest of my evening yet in terms of what my old evenings used to look like. And this is probably around seven o'clock at night. So my evening routine begins by just stacking dishes, not doing them, creating this giant stack of goopy messy bubbles in grease.

 

(07:21):

And then you know what I would do? I'd start checking my email after work because nothing relaxes. You like cracking open your laptop at night and plopping on the couch while you're trying to watch a series answering emails. I'd pour myself a drink, I'd continue drinking. The other thing that I would do, I would endlessly scroll through my phone. Would I pack the kids' lunches? Of course not. Why would I do that? Would I put my gym bag out? I can do it in the morning and then I would spend about an hour. Do you ever do this just clicking through the television? Have you ever wondered how can there be thousands and thousands and thousands of things that are on the TV but absolutely nothing to watch? I'd have about a thousand thoughts hit me where I'd think I should really go to bed.

 

(08:00):

Would I go to bed? No. Would I read a book? No. I would just sit there and do nothing literally. And all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, it's midnight. What the, I should have gone to bed earlier. And then what happens? Well, now you're all stressed out because you realize that you just wasted yet another evening. And then what happens? You're freaking wide awake. So you climb into bed, you're wide awake, you're staring at the ceiling, you realize that there are all these things that you wanted to do tonight that you didn't do. And now I'm laying in my bed and my phone is right there. And then I see that I've got my journal by the table because I'm supposed to be doing a gratitude journal. So I crack that sucker open at 1215 at night. And what am I doing?

 

(08:41):

Instead of doing gratitude, I'm now making a to-do list of everything that I didn't do today. Oh, I better do this. I better do that. I forgot to do this. That was my evening routine. And this really isn't a joke. I'm being a little dramatic and funny about how I tell you, but if you really think about how easy it is to fall into an evening where the rhythm isn't setting you up for success, the rhythm is creating a giant mess for you to wake up to tomorrow morning. And don't tell me this isn't you or somebody that you love. And here's the other dirty little secret about your evening routine. Not only does what you do at night impact how your evening goes, but what you do at night single handedly determines what's going to happen tomorrow morning. Because let me tell you what used to happen to me after the kind of night that I just described.

 

(09:37):

So I would eventually drift off to sleep and then all of a sudden the alarm goes off and I say all of a sudden, because it's as if morning came and the blink of an eye, and it's like, did I even sleep? I mean, it's already morning. Oh my God. And you wake up and you have a giant anxiety attack from the moment that your eyes are open. Why? Because you're behind the ball. You're completely disorganized. You didn't get the greatest night's sleep. You walk out into the kitchen and then all of a sudden what's in the sink? Oh, the stack of dishes from last night. And what are those dishes like? They're not clean, they're cold, and there's dirty, disgusting water that was even more disgusting than the taco meat that was stuck on the pan that you were trying to soak off. And now what do you have to do?

 

(10:19):

You have to stick your hands in this cold, greasy. That's how you start your day and then you can't find your keys and you can't find your backpack, and now you're late and this is how you're starting your day. That was my life for a very long time. And if you stop and consider this, if you just keep waking up every day and you're not getting a great night's sleep and you're not set up for success and you never have time for yourself, no wonder you feel like you're caught on this loop of never being able to break out of it. And I don't want you to make the same mistake that I was making. I literally was making this mistake like, okay, tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, it's the new me. Tomorrow morning I get a fresh start. Tomorrow morning I am going to wake up and seize the day.

 

(11:01):

Well, that's only true if you did last night's dishes. If you didn't set yourself up last night, the new you is waking up and cleaning up the old messes. And I don't want you to do that. What if you looked at your evenings as an opportunity to not only wind down your day and find a little time for yourself and do a few simple, I'm talking crazy easy things that will help you wake up feeling refreshed and empowered to attack the day. Nothing that's going to be hard, but I'm going to warn you when you hear the steps, you might go, oh, for God's sakes, Mel, seriously, I don't need to hear this. This is obvious. I know why I waste my evenings on social media. I know I shouldn't have a glass of wine as much as I do. I know I need to go to bed early.

 

(11:48):

I know I should be reading a book instead of just doom scrolling. I know all this. I don't need to listen to this. Well, I got news for you. You need to hear this. So do I. Because common sense isn't so common. And if it's obvious, it doesn't mean that you're actually doing it. And this is one of those reminders that's really important. And don't worry, this is not an episode all about sleep and sleep hygiene. I'm actually going to tell you the truth about four simple, easy changes that will make a significant difference in your evenings and your mornings. And these really impact time and they impact your energy. And this is just so dead simple. And even though I'm not going to address sleep specifically and in a detailed way, I'm going to promise you something. If you follow these four steps, you're not only going to fall asleep faster, but you will get better sleep as a byproduct.

 

(12:39):

And I'm going to tell you why. There's research as to why settling in to a very simple evening routine. Even if these four steps just take you 10 minutes, and that's probably all it's going to take you. Research from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine says if you create even just a 10 minute evening routine, it does help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep. Why? Because having the rhythm of this rock solid evening routine works with your circadian rhythm signals to your mind and your body that you're ready to go to sleep. So there is this added benefit, and before I walk you through the four steps, I want you to know how easy this is. It's dead easy because by the time you're ready to do these four things, you've already done the hard stuff today. You've already gone to work, you've already gone to school, you've already done all kinds of things on your to-do list.

 

(13:27):

You've already done so much stuff. And as you move through these four simple things, it's not going to take really any brainpower at all, but it gives you so much time and energy back tomorrow morning. And that's why this is just so cool and why I'm so passionate about it. Alright, have I made my case? Are you really excited about your evening tonight? I bet you are because I can tell you're going. All right, Mel, shut up. You've sold me. What are these four things? I'm so glad you asked because I'm going to tell you what they are after a short word from our sponsors. They allow me to bring this to you at zero cost. So take a listen and I'll be waiting for you after the break and we're going to jump right in to how you're going to create a rock solid evening routine.

 

(14:06):

Don't go anywhere. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I've been waiting for you. Thank you for taking this time for yourself and you're going to thank me after you listen to this because I'm going to give you found time back both in the morning and the evening. You're going to love this. You and I are talking about the fact that a rock solid evening routine truly is the way to set yourself up for a super successful morning, a better life, and a much more enjoyable and restorative evening. And before I break down the four simple steps based on the research, there is one thing that you have to do before we jump into the four steps. I mean it.

(15:18):

I'm going to say it again. Pick your bedtime. I know, I know, sounds stupid. But this really, really works because if you were picking your bedtime, which I know you're not, you wouldn't be up at 11 o'clock at night wishing that you had gone to bed earlier because you would know your bedtime. So what time do you need to be asleep in order to get eight hours of sleep every night? That's how we're going to work around this question. Pick your bedtime. And here's the thing, when I say pick your bedtime, you probably went, oh, my bedtime should be 10 not so fast. This is actually a very complicated question and I'm going to explain why. In order to determine what time you need to be asleep, you have to know what time you need to wake up. This is where you are sabotaging yourself.

 

(16:12):

This is where you're shooting yourself in the foot. This is where your days and your evenings go off the rails because you don't even know what time you truly need to wake up and get out of bed in order to set yourself up for success tomorrow morning. And figuring this out changed my life because I was the kind of person that used to think, ah, I can just roll out of bed at 7:00 AM and I can do my entire morning routine, which involves making my bed, getting the exercise in, getting journaling done, making breakfast, walking the dogs, getting the kids out the door. Does this sound familiar? Oh, and I can do it all in about 15 minutes. Sounds like a lot of fake math, right? My daughters call it girl math, Christopher. My husband calls it Mel time. And so here I would be going like, oh, I can just wake up at seven o'clock and do 150,000 things and the alarm would go off, and as soon as I woke up and I got up, I was already behind the ball.

 

(17:02):

I don't have time to do any of this exercise out the window. Dogs don't get a walk. I don't have time for journaling. And so I need you to be honest with yourself. What time do you need to wake up for real in order to be able to do all the things that you need to do in the morning to truly start your day off on the right foot? And if you're being honest about what you really need to set yourself up, I bet that the time that you need to wake up is probably half an hour or an hour earlier than you are currently waking up. So for me, waking up at 7:00 AM is what I felt like doing. It's what I thought I could do, but it's not what I needed to do. And what I've come to realize is that when I really think about what I need to do in the morning for myself to set myself up to have a great day, I need to get up and out of bed between 5 45 and six 15 if I want to have enough time in the morning to do what I need to do.

 

(18:08):

And if you're not even honest with yourself about what time you need to get up to give yourself the runway that you need of time, then before you've even laid your head on the pillow tonight, you've already just screwed up your morning routine. So when I ask you the question, pick your bedtime, what I'm actually saying is not when do you need to fall asleep. I'm saying, when do you need to climb into your bed? And I'm going to keep on breaking the math down. Here's how you're going to do it. You are going to start by picking the time that you need to wake up using real time, not fake time, the time that you need to give yourself the runway, the time that would really allow you to do everything that you would like to do. And I want you to really just think about that for a second.

(19:49):

10:00 PM is when you need to be asleep by. So if you need to be asleep by 10:00 PM now let's get to answering the real question. When are you actually climbing into bed? I don't know. I can't answer that for you. How long does it take you to fall asleep? Are you the kind of person that can basically send a text at 9:35 PM and you're asleep at 9 37? Or are you the kind of person that needs to get in that bed at nine because it takes you an hour of reading a book or laying there or meditating or whatever it is that you need to do in order to drift off to sleep? So when I say to you, pick a bedtime, I'm not talking about when you feel like going to bed. I'm not talking about when you need to fall asleep. I'm talking about when do you need to crawl in between those sheets and start that wind down process?

 

(20:38):

And that is personal to you. My husband for example, that man literally as he is laying his head on the pillow, I think the is snoring and sawing logs right as his head is hitting the pillow. That's how fast the man falls asleep for me. It takes somewhere between five and 25 minutes to go from climbing into bed and getting all settled in and getting my book out. There's some nights I'm so tired I can barely read. I turn off the light, I go to sleep. There are other nights I read a little bit longer. And so what does this mean? This means that in order for me to be out of bed by 6:00 AM and get the sleep that I need and that you need to, it means my bedtime is not 10:00 PM My bedtime is somewhere between nine 15 and nine 30. And the reason why I'm getting granular and maybe a little irritating is because if you don't get this right, if you don't pick the right bedtime for crawling into your sheets, you will never actually be able to build a rock solid evening routine because everything that I'm about to explain to you now builds to this point.

 

(21:44):

Falling asleep is critical to you getting great sleep and understanding what it takes to fall asleep and then giving yourself that amount of time and building an evening routine that leads up to that and builds momentum to it. That's essential. And there's more research here. This comes from Dr. Rebecca Robbins. She's a scientist at Harvard Medical School and the division of Sleep Medicine and Circadian Rhythm disorders. Her research shows that by having a consistent bedtime for me, nine 15 and a consistent wake up time for me, 6:00 AM will help you get better sleep and it will also help you fall asleep faster. And this is so important from the standpoint of training your brain to help you be a better sleeper. And being a better sleeper helps you have a better morning and a better life. So picking a bedtime when you crawl in between the sheets that truly supports you, critical element foundational to your rock solid evening routine, and to setting yourself up for an amazing morning too.

 

(22:39):

Alright, now that you know when you need to be climbing into the sheets and when your body needs to be in that bed, nine 15 for me, that's my target. Now you are ready to talk about the four super easy steps that you'll take every single night to make the night amazing. And tomorrow morning, fabulous. And step one, clean up the mess. So your morning is fresh. What does that mean? Well, lemme bring in a visual. That's disgusting. Okay, you ready for step one? Just imagine a toilet bowl. Seriously, you're in the bathroom, you're sitting on the toilet. As soon as you're done doing your business in the bathroom, what do you do? Well, you stand up, you turn around, you flush the toilet, of course you flush the toilet. Why do you flush the toilet? I'll tell you why. Because you don't want to leave that mess in there for someone else or for yourself when you come back in.

 

(23:25):

I mean, that would be disgusting. You clean up the mess. So the bowl is fresh, you want to do the same thing every evening. You want to clean up today's mess. So tomorrow morning is fresh and we are literally going to in step one, flush the day down the toilet so that when you wake up tomorrow morning, you don't have a mess waiting for you to clean up. I'm going to give you a list of the things that you do so you can wake up fresh and it doesn't take long. I mean, I'm talking five minutes and that's what I love about this evening routine. It is so easy. It takes almost no time. What are you going to do to clean up the mess?

(24:46):

And you know what? If you had a guest staying over at your house tonight, you would do that when they went up to bed. Why? Because you want them to wake up and see a clean looking place. So do this for yourself as a way to take care of yourself. That's step one. See how easy this is? Clean up the mess and start tomorrow fresh. You know what I feel like? I feel like we should have a toilet bowl sound flush right here. And given that we just flushed the toilet on the day, I feel like this is a great time to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. And when we come back, the mess is clear and it's going to be fresh for you and me to talk about. Step number two, don't go anywhere. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and you and I are breaking down the four steps on how you create a rock solid evening routine and set yourself up for success.

 

(25:31):

And the reason why this matters is because it will improve your health. It'll make you feel more successful, it'll change how you feel, it'll make you wake up and feel more in control. And it will also help you have an evening where you make the best use of the time while you're tired and you also find time for yourself. And I'm going to explain more of that as we keep going. We've already covered this foundational question of you got to pick a bedtime, and that is when you are crawling into those sheets. We've also covered the first step, which is cleaning up the mess from tonight in order to set yourself up for a fresh start tomorrow morning. Now let's talk about the second step in this evening routine. Once you've cleaned up the mess, I just want you to take five minutes and make it easier for yourself in the morning. What do I mean by that? I mean, set yourself up.

(27:03):

And over the course of the day, it becomes worse and worse and the decisions get harder and harder and your resistance to them becomes bigger and bigger. And so one of the reasons why, just taking five minutes at night to make things easier while you're at half capacity, you're tired. I mean, heck, you can be doing this stuff while you're scrolling on social media. If you do some simple things to make tomorrow easier, it removes a ton of decisions that you have to make in the morning. And what we know based on habit research is if you are trying to make a new habit stick, like drinking more water by filling up the water the night before and putting it in place where it's right there in front of your face, it is visual, the more likely you'll drink it in the morning. Why? Because you don't have to remember to do it.

 

(27:51):

And you don't have to make a decision to do it. It's right there for you. You bump right into it. It's like you've set a trap for yourself. And you know why else this makes so much sense is because you took five minutes last night while you were exhausted to just clean up the mess and to set things out so that you set yourself up for success and made it all easier. And now you got all this time because you don't walk into the kitchen and go, oh my God, the dishes, oh my gosh, the lunches. Where's my backpack? Where's my keys? I don't know what to do. I'm running out of time. Because what happens when you're running out of time in the morning? You didn't set yourself up last night, what goes out the window? Oh, no time to exercise, no time to walk the dogs, no time to do the gratitude practice.

 

(28:31):

I'm now so stressed out and overwhelmed. I forgot to drink my water. Not anymore because while you were exhausted last night, you took five minutes to clean up the mess and start the day fresh. And then you took five minutes little steps to make your morning easier. And I love this. And there's so many examples of how you can do this. You can put your keys on the counter so you don't have to spend 10 minutes searching for them. I mean, that used to be me. I used to burn through 15 minutes every morning just searching for my keys. Not anymore. Pack your gym bag. Why? Because it sucks to pack your gym bag at 5 45 in the morning, but if you did it while you were half asleep texting your sister, it's already waiting for you by the door in the morning. You just made it easier.

 

(29:18):

And now you're leveraging research to make that habit of going to the gym stick. And what I also love is that you can use half your brainpower to do something like this. In fact, last night I'm here in our Boston studios and I was staying in a hotel and as I was brushing my teeth, I'm in my pajamas. I was laying out my exercise clothes on the back of the chair. Why? Because it made it easier When I got up at 5:45 AM this morning to get out of bed, just pull them on and get out the door and go to the gym, I set myself up. And one of the things that's so cool about this, and this is where I want you to really just consider the argument I'm making, what is your most precious commodity in the morning? I'm going to say this another way.

 

(29:59):

What are you in short supply of in the morning? Every morning time? You never have enough time in the morning do you? So by taking just a couple minutes at night without a lot of brainpower and making the mess go away and setting things out to make things easier for you tomorrow, it's like a double gift. You're not only making it easier, you're making it more likely that you're going to do the things that you want to do. And you also have found time. I think that's so cool. You've taken time away from the evening so you can start fresh tomorrow and you've taken steps to make it easier and you've protected your time at the time of day that matters most in the morning when you never have enough time. So we just gave you time. How cool is that? And so now you're going to have the time to do the things that you want to do.

 

(30:58):

And that brings me to the third step, which is take five minutes for yourself. Five minutes. 

(31:59):

And by the way, you don't have to do anything. This is just time for yourself. You could just sit and be quiet. Imagine that you could have a cup of tea, you could read a book and if you didn't get to it this morning, you could do your skincare routine. I see a lot of people doing skincare routines. I think I missed the memo on this one. I don't have a big skincare routine, like 57 steps at night. But you know what I do have at night? I love a bath. So oftentimes for me, my take five is to just linger in the bath and do nothing. And you know, here's how I make it so easy as I am brain dead and I'm cleaning up the mess and I'm making my mornings, I'm packing my bag, I'm laying out my exercise clothes, what's happening?

 

(32:42):

The bath is running. I fricking love that. You know what else I use this time to do, to read or to listen to audiobooks? I want to just underscore this is time for you. One of the things that I've noticed is I've looked at the data is that so many of you around the world are listening to the Mel Robbins podcast at night. I think that's kind of cool because you know what that tells me? That tells me that you're taking time at night for yourself and you're choosing to listen to something that is going to help you improve your life or make you feel better. And that's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. So you could listen to another episode of the Mel Robbins podcast as a way to take five for yourself. And I'm saying this as the third step of a rock solid evening routine because I don't want you to just give that time away.

 

(33:32):

That's what you've been doing. You have been giving the time away to social media or to the television or to whatever, which why you can't remember what you do. Most evenings, I want you, after you pick your bedtime, which is when you crawl into your sheets and you clean up the mess from tonight, so you can start tomorrow fresh and you take a few steps to make tomorrow morning easier. Just set yourself up. Take five, take this time to be kind to yourself. And for me, my take five usually hits somewhere between 7 45 and nine 15. And I'm saying that because what you'll notice is the more that you kind of fall into this four steps, the more it becomes a rhythm. And in the beginning it's just five minutes, right? But what happens is as you take five for yourself, and you don't just flop on the couch and turn on the tv, you don't just zone out into your cell phone every single night that you take five for yourself.

 

(34:29):

You break the habit of doing that. You break the habit of cracking open your laptop and putting it on your lap and checking email or scrolling on the phone as you're wasting the evening in front of the TV and you stop giving that time, time that could be yours a way to something that really doesn't matter. And look, I know why you're doing it. Same reason I was doing it because you're exhausted and you just want to zone out. But here's what I want to challenge you on. Taking this five minutes before you do what you normally do, it's actually extraordinarily restorative. And what I noticed is that it starts with just taking five minutes, but it quickly expands because it feels so good. And next thing you know, it's not five minutes, it's 45 minutes and you're reading more books or you've started stretching and doing a haha yoga practice at night.

 

(35:26):

And you probably find that as time starts to expand, you realize, oh my gosh, I've just been giving this time away. Not anymore. And that brings me to the fourth step and the last part of a rock solid evening routine. This is right before you slip into that bed and you get into those silky amazing sheets. And by the way, one of my favorite sponsors of the Mel Robbins podcast is Cozy Earth. I want to give 'em a huge shout out. I love their sheets. But the final thing I want you to do before you tuck yourself in is this tuck in your phone. What does that mean?