A Christian bedtime routine

The thirty minutes, on one card

1. 30 minutes before lights out: dim the lights and put the phone away, charging outside the bedroom if you can.
2. 25 minutes: set down the day. Write tomorrow’s list and any worries, each with one next step. Close the notebook.
3. 15 minutes: read one verse, slowly, twice.
4. 10 minutes: pray a short prayer. Say what you are carrying, and hand it over.
5. 5 minutes: in bed, breathe out slowly, longer out than in.
6. Lights out. If sleep does not come after a while, get up, sit somewhere dim, and come back when sleepy.

To keep it by the bed, print this page, or copy those six lines onto an index card and stand it by the lamp. The times are a guide. A routine that slips by ten minutes still works as a signal that the day is ending.

Dim the lights, put the phone away

In the evening, overall brightness matters more than the colour of a bulb or a screen filter. Turn off the overhead lights and use one low lamp. If you can start dimming earlier in the evening, even better.

Then put the phone away. Much of what a phone does to sleep is the stimulation, the one more video, and the bedtime it quietly pushes later. A screens off time thirty to sixty minutes before bed is a good aim. Charge the phone in another room and use a plain alarm clock if that helps. If you want a verse on a screen at the very end, the quiet room shows one on a dark page with no feed to scroll.

Set down the day

Take five minutes with paper and a pen. Write tomorrow’s to do list, as specific as you can make it. Then write any worries still in your head, one line each, and beside each one the very next step. Nothing I can do tonight is allowed.

Keep it to what you still have to do. Then close the notebook and leave it outside the bedroom. If a worry comes back in bed, you can tell it honestly: you are written down, and you will be looked at in the morning. For a fuller version with a prayer over the list, see anxiety at night.

Read one verse

One verse is enough. Read it slowly, then read it again, so you have a last thought to lie down with. Here is one for each night of the week:

• Sunday: Psalm 4:8, the Bible’s plainest sentence about falling asleep.
• Monday: Psalm 127:2, for the week’s first long day.
• Tuesday: Matthew 11:28-30, rest for the weary.
• Wednesday: Psalm 121, the keeper who does not sleep.
• Thursday: Philippians 4:6-7, prayer first, then peace on guard.
• Friday: Psalm 131, setting the big matters down.
• Saturday: Proverbs 3:24, lying down without fear.

More verses, each printed in full with a note on why it fits the night, are on Bible verses for sleep.

Pray a short prayer

Keep it short enough to say with your eyes closed. Thank God for one thing from today. Name what you are still carrying and hand it over. Ask him to keep the people you love. Then stop. Long, effortful prayer in bed can slide into problem solving.

There are seven more, each anchored to a verse, on bedtime prayers for adults.

Breathe out slowly

Lying down, breathe in gently through your nose, then breathe out for longer than you breathed in. Slow breathing like this is one of the relaxation techniques sleep clinicians teach, because it eases the body’s keyed up state. Do it for a few minutes. If it helps, think the first half of Psalm 4:8 on the in breath and the second half on the out breath.

It works best as a skill you have practised, so try it once in the day too. If it starts to feel like effort, stop. All you are doing is letting the day go.

Lights out

Turn the light off. If you are not sleepy yet, it is fine to sit in the chair under the low lamp a little longer: going to bed when sleepy, rather than just tired, is part of the evidence on sleep.

If you lie awake for a while (go by feel, not the clock) and feel alert or frustrated, get up, keep the light low, and return when sleepy. The can’t sleep page has the steps and the verses for that. In the morning, get up at your usual time, weekends included. A steady wake time does more for tomorrow night than an early bedtime.

Earlier in the day: caffeine, alcohol and light

A routine at night is helped or undone by a few things earlier. These come from the sleep research behind this site:

• Caffeine: it lingers for hours and can shorten sleep even when you do not feel wired. Try none after early afternoon, about eight hours before bed. Tea, soda and chocolate count.
• Alcohol: it may help you fall asleep but breaks up the second half of the night. Finish at least three hours before bed, or skip it.
• Morning light: fifteen to thirty minutes of outdoor light soon after waking helps set your body clock for the evening.
• Naps: keep them short and early, or skip them.

A routine like this supports sleep. It is not a treatment for insomnia. If you are sleeping badly most nights for weeks, the guide to prayer and sleeplessness explains what helps and when to see a doctor.