Your Sleep Hygiene Checklist: Timing, Atmosphere, and More!

As with any other form of health, it’s important to practice proper hygiene. But sleep is one area that many of us can unintentionally take for granted. Who among us hasn’t stayed up too late, binging Succession or getting absorbed in Red, White & Royal Blue? But beyond the occasional late night, many people suffer from poor sleep – one in three adults don’t get enough sleep, to name just one example! 

If you’ve ever had one too many bad night’s rests, consider a sleep hygiene checklist to help reset your routine. Whether you treat it like an actual checklist you mark off or a mental one to help wind down your day, it’s sure to help bring some peace to your evenings. 

Sleep Hygiene Checklist: Timing

1. Make a habit of going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. 
2. Aim for at least seven hours of sleep every night. (The ideal amount for most adults is six-eight.)
3. Put away any work, tasks, or engaging mental activities a full hour prior to bed.
4. Avoid having stressful or emotional conversations before bed.
5. Don’t have any caffeine 6 to eight hours prior to bedtime. 
6. Try to skip bigger meals near bedtime, particularly if they include foods that may cause heartburn. 

Sleep Hygiene Checklist: Atmosphere

1. Build a soothing bedtime routine that relaxes your body and mind before bed. That could be anything from taking a bath, with a CBD-infused bath bomb for even more calm and relaxation, to playing chill ambient music to diffusing essential oils, benefiting from the terpenes that cause those soothing scents.
2. If your bedroom is not already dark, cool, quiet, and comfortable, invest in the tools to make it so. That might mean blackout curtains if your neighbors have intense lights, a white noise machine if your flavor of quiet doesn’t mean total silence, or a soft new comforter.
3. Most of us use our cell phones as alarms, but if you want to take the sleep hygiene checklist to the next level, invest in an actual alarm clock and move your phone out of the bedroom to avoid distractions. Do the same with your TV if that’s an option for you.
4. Avoid bright lights in the evening, including the light from screens (see above).

Sleep Hygiene Checklist: Other Factors

1. 20 or more minutes of daily exercise is a vital component of a well-balanced life, but for the purposes of the sleep hygiene checklist it’s important to try to do it at least six hours prior to bed, unless it’s a relaxing, low-impact yoga session.
2. Keep a sleep journal to look for possible patterns on nights where your sleep is most affected. 
3. Avoid naps if possible. If a nap is unavoidable, do your best to keep it short. 
4. Consider over-the-counter nighttime supplements or treatment, such as CBD Night Gummies or CBD Night Oil with melatonin, the naturally occurring hormone closely associated with sleep regulation and maintenance of your sleep cycle. It’s not just melatonin, though – CBD also works as a sleep aid. If you need some help figuring out which CBD sleep product is right for you, we’ve got that covered, too.

Healthy sleep for everyone is important to us. Check out our blog for more sleep hygiene checklist tips, such as how to fix your sleep schedule in four steps, CBD for insomnia, and even more. Learn even more about the little compound that could in our CBD 101 guide and try our product quiz for a different approach to finding the right CBD product for you!