My night-time self-care routine: how I unwind after a busy day

A consistent nighttime routine can be a game-changer. You get a chance to recap the day and realign with your goals.

If you’re looking for a new routine or just a few ideas to add to the mix, feel free to pick and choose from mine!

These might sound like they take hours, but most nights I can go through all of them in 20 minutes or less.

Since I have so much to do, I usually work until around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. Then I watched a bit of YouTube for about half an hour. Then I usually go to sleep early. I scroll through Facebook, then watch Amazon Prime until I fall asleep. Falling asleep usually does not take too long. I have the potential to be one of those people who falls asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow.

One thing I did try to implement was reviewing my day at the end of the day. This can be done by asking yourself four review questions. I managed to do this exercise for over a year—close to two years. For almost a decade, I told people that I heard you could learn a lot from this exercise. Then, in 2018–2019, I finally did something about it. I can now safely say that reviewing your day by asking these four questions can make a tremendous difference in your "recovery" life.

The exercise I was told to do is as follows:

1. If anything happens during the day, whether it is good or bad, write it down. If something great happened, write it down; if something absolutely terrible happened, write it down. Just keep writing every day.

2. At the end of the week, take 15 minutes to read what you wrote; at the end of the month, take one hour to read what you wrote that month; and at the end of the year, take one day to read what you wrote that year.

This was one of the greatest learning experiences of my "recovery" life. I was amazed at how much I forgot about what happened during these times. Now I use those journals to remind myself of what I need to inform people about in their recovery journey.

Here are the four questions to ask yourself at the end of each day:

1. What did I do that was right?

2. What mistakes (missed opportunities to do the right thing) did I make?

3. How can I improve?

4. What did I learn? Or better yet, and way more difficult to answer, what did the Creator try to teach me?

Everyone’s nighttime routine looks different, and I fully believe you should do the parts you enjoy and leave the rest.

Share your nighttime routine in the comments!