8 p.m.: It’s a Tuesday night, and I’m in total relaxation mode. My devices are all in do-not-disturb mode.
8:15 p.m.: I choose my wind-down activity for the evening based on where my intuition leads me. Sometimes it’s a restorative or yin yoga class either from YouTube or Glo. Sometimes it’s a sound bath, either one of my Tibetan singing bowls like this one, or a Spotify playlist. Sometimes it’s watching some TV, either comedy or something inspirational.
9 p.m.: I get everything set up so I can take a nice juicy bath, with candles, bath bombs, and peaceful meditation music.
9:45 p.m.: I brush my teeth, and when I’m done, I look myself in the eye in the mirror and say, “I love you!”
9:50 p.m.: I plug my phone into an outlet in my bathroom, far, far away from my bed. It’s automatically scheduled to be on sleep mode during my sleeping hours.
9:51 p.m.: I turn on my essential oil diffuser, usually choosing lavender for a sense of calm.
9:53 p.m.: I turn on a sleep playlist and tell Alexa to set a sleep timer for 30 minutes so the music stops automatically at that time.
9:55 p.m.: I slide into bed with my weighted blanket, which has been a game-changer for my sleep.
9:57 p.m.: I open my journal and write down three things I’m grateful for.
10:02 p.m.: I do a 3-minute breathing practice like this one to calm my nervous system and stop any anxious chatter in my mind.
10:05 a.m.: I choose one of the books on rotation on my nightstand and turn off the night light when my eyes start to get heavy. Books currently on my nightstand include Rest Is Resistance (Tricia Hersey), Black Futures (Kimberly Drew, Jenna Wortham), Inner Engineering, A Yogi’s Guide to Joy (Sadghuru), and Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals (Alexis Paulijne Gumbs).
6:24 a.m.: My body naturally wakes up without an alarm clock, but in the rare cases this doesn’t happen, my sunrise alarm clock wakes me up with a soft light that grows in brightness along with the sounds of birds chirping. I then get up and do my morning meditation and journaling.
