How to Wind Down for the Day: A Practical Guide

To wind down for the day, pick a cut-off about an hour before bed, close work and put your phone away, turn the lights down, and do the same few calm things in the same order most nights. Healthdirect and the Sleep Health Foundation both recommend this kind of buffer zone: a block of time before bed when you are not solving problems or planning tomorrow. Done most nights, it teaches your body when the day is over.

This page is the whole routine in one place: how long to allow, what to do in the last hour, and how to adapt it if you are a parent, work shifts or can't switch off. Each section links to a longer article if you want the detail.

Use six steps, in this order. The exact activities matter less than doing them most nights.

1. Set a cut-off. About an hour before bed, work, email and the day's decisions stop.
2. Put the phone away. Ideally on the charger in another room.
3. Switch to lamps. Overhead lights off.
4. Write tomorrow's list. Five minutes, as specific as you can make it.
5. Do something calm. A warm shower, quiet reading, music or slow breathing.
6. End on the same last step every night, then go to bed when you feel sleepy.

Why bother with a routine? The Sleep Health Foundation says your body clock works best with a regular sleep routine, and that feeling sleepy at bedtime is a window of opportunity you should not ignore by staying up. A wind-down is how you get to that window calm instead of wired. The full walkthrough of building one you will keep is in how to build a wind-down routine, and what happens in your body is in what winding down does to your body.

About an hour. The Sleep Health Foundation says to have a relaxing routine in the hour before bed, and Healthdirect recommends a buffer zone before bedtime. A few things that matter more start earlier, so here is the countdown.

If you only have 15 to 20 minutes, keep the lamps, the list and one calm step. A short routine you do most nights beats a long one you drop. The same countdown, with the reasoning for each step, is in what to do in the last hour before bed.

Stop what keeps you alert, then do something calm. The Sleep Health Foundation lists moderate exercise, computer games, television, movies, important discussions, social media and replying to emails and texts as stimulating, and says to avoid them in the hour before bed.

For the calm part, a 2019 review of 17 studies found that a warm shower or bath taken 1 to 2 hours before bed shortened the time to fall asleep. The Sleep Health Foundation also names reading quietly and a warm milk drink, and says to find a relaxation technique that works for you and practise it during your wind-down.

Get the list out of your head and onto paper. In a sleep-lab study of 57 healthy young adults, people who spent five minutes writing a specific to-do list fell asleep significantly faster than people who wrote about what they had already done (Scullin et al, 2018). The Sleep Health Foundation adds that you can never fully switch your thoughts off, so the aim is calmer thoughts, and suggests a worry time earlier in the evening to make plans and then leave them until tomorrow.

If your head races the moment the lights go out, that is the pattern we cover in tired but wired. A ten-minute guided body scan is the addition we would make: the script and free Australian recordings are in yoga nidra for sleep. If you regularly have trouble getting to sleep or tiredness is affecting your mood, Healthdirect says to see your doctor.

Keep it to about 20 minutes and keep it fixed: a five-minute list for tomorrow, lamps on, a warm shower, then something calm that is only for you. Leave the chores. The Raising Children Network says some chores can wait no matter how important they feel, and that even 5 minutes of reading, walking or meditating for yourself counts.

If a baby or young kids wake you at night, the same source suggests sharing night duty with a partner where you can, and resting when the baby rests. The full version, with a 20-minute plan, is in wind-down routine for parents.

Treat the wind-down as a sequence that starts when your shift ends, not a time on the clock. The same steps apply: lamps instead of bright light, phone away, a calm step, then bed. The Sleep Health Foundation says to keep the bedroom cool and dark, go to bed at the same time each day where you can, avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed, and sleep just before work rather than earlier in the day if possible. Healthdirect adds earplugs or white noise, and removing distractions and lights.

The Sleep Health Foundation puts the average shift worker at about an hour a day less sleep than someone on set hours, so the routine matters more, not less. More in sleep for shift workers in Australia.

Lights. The Sleep Health Foundation says a brightly lit environment, or the blue light of a computer, can reduce the evening level of melatonin. Lamps after dinner is an easy fix.

Screens. The foundation recommends screens off 1 to 2 hours before bed, and says interactive use such as games, browsing and messaging is more alerting than passive use such as music or an e-book. What matters most is the content, not only the light. See screens before bed.

Bedroom. Healthdirect says the room should be the right temperature, quiet and dark, with work tools and laptops kept out. In a Sydney summer that usually means blinds closed through the day, windows open once the air cools and a fan across the bed. The detail is in what temperature should your bedroom be.

Finish dinner at least 2 hours before bed and don't go to bed hungry, according to the Sleep Health Foundation. Healthdirect says to stop caffeine 3 to 7 hours before bed and alcohol at least 4 hours before. A nightcap helps many people nod off, but the foundation says it makes it harder to stay asleep. The trade-off is laid out in the nightcap and your sleep, and the dinner side is in eating late and sleep.

Water is the other end of the problem. Go to bed behind on fluid and you can wake dry in the small hours. Drink a huge glass at lights-out and you may book a toilet trip instead. A smaller drink earlier in the wind-down is the usual compromise. More in hydration and sleep.

Then the problem is staying asleep, not falling asleep. They are different problems with different fixes. Our view is that a wind-down helps most with falling asleep, while staying asleep leans more on food, drink and room temperature. Sleep runs in cycles of about 90 minutes (Healthdirect), and the gaps between cycles are where a wake-up is most likely. The mechanics are in how sleep cycles work, the two problems are pulled apart in falling asleep vs staying asleep, and the 3am wake-up has its own page in why you keep waking up at 3am.

Something fixed, physical and the same every night. What it contains matters less than the fact that your body learns to read it as the end of the day.

Ours is Settl, a nightly sleep drink for adults. One scoop in cold water, 30 to 60 minutes before bed, gives you 730mg of magnesium glycinate (146mg elemental), 3,000mg of glycine, 200mg of L-theanine, 50mg of chamomile extract and 900mg of myo-inositol. It has an electrolyte layer, so eight hours without water does not wake you dried out and needing to get up. There is no melatonin. Every dose is on the ingredients page.

The glycine and L-theanine amounts match doses used in small trials, but no trial has tested Settl itself, and it does not replace anything above. It is the last step of the routine, not a substitute for it. If you take prescription medicine, talk to your GP or pharmacist before adding any supplement.

How long should a wind-down routine be?

Healthdirect and the Sleep Health Foundation point to about an hour before bed. If that is not realistic, 20 minutes of the same steps most nights is a better plan than an hour you can't keep. The Sleep Health Foundation says it isn't possible to do the same thing every day, but it should be most days.

What is a good wind-down routine for adults?

Close work at a set time, put the phone on the charger away from the bed, switch from overhead lights to lamps, write tomorrow's list for five minutes, then do one or two calm things such as a warm shower, quiet reading or slow breathing. End on the same last step every night and go to bed when you feel sleepy.

Does a warm shower before bed help you sleep?

It can. A 2019 review of 17 studies found a warm shower or bath at 40 to 42.5 degrees Celsius was linked with better self-rated sleep quality, and that 10 minutes taken 1 to 2 hours before bed shortened the time to fall asleep. The authors say the best timing needs more research.

How long before bed should I turn off screens?

The Sleep Health Foundation recommends turning screens off 1 to 2 hours before bed and keeping them out of the bedroom. If you can't, choose passive use such as music or an e-book over interactive use such as games, browsing and messaging, which it says is more alerting.

What should I do if I can't switch off after work?

Mark the end of work with a fixed cut-off, then spend five minutes writing a specific list for tomorrow. In a sleep-lab study, people who did that fell asleep faster than people who wrote about what they had already done. If your head still races in bed, get up, sit somewhere dim and quiet, and go back when you feel sleepy. More in tired but wired.

Can a supplement replace a wind-down routine?

No. Healthdirect and the Sleep Health Foundation put habits first: regular times, a buffer zone before bed, less caffeine and alcohol, and a comfortable bedroom. A supplement sits on top of that. Settl has not been trialled itself, so treat it as one option for the last step, not a fix.