The Evening Routine That Finally Fixed My Sleep at 51

Medically reviewed by Stephanie Wright, RN, BSN

Falling asleep can be easy for you, but for me, somewhere along the way in my late forties, I began having trouble getting to sleep. Sometimes it would take an hour for me to fall asleep. Or, I’d fall asleep fine but wake up in the middle of the night replaying every embarrassing moment of my life. Either way, I’d get up in the morning feeling like I hadn’t slept well.

At first I blamed it on the change in sleep patterns and assumed that eventually it would improve. It did, but not because I sat back and waited. I implemented some small changes to my daily and nightly routine. In fact, I’d dare say that I sleep better now at 51 than I did at 48.

Here’s my evening wind-down routine.

My last coffee is at noon

How fast you clear caffeine varies a lot from person to person, and it shifts for reasons that have little to do with age — genetics, medications, liver function, how much you drink day to day. So I can’t tell you that turning 50 is what changed it. What I can tell you is that coffee in the afternoon used to be no big deal for me. Now, it interferes with my ability to fall asleep.

After just four days without my customary after-lunch two o’clock cup of Joe, I noticed an immediate difference in falling asleep at night.

If I want a hot beverage later in the day, I’ll sometimes have a cup of green tea. Green tea is not decaf, it’s just much lower in caffeine.

Dinner is around 7, followed by a walk

I eat dinner around seven and then go for a walk afterward. The walk is a signal to my body that this is my wind-down time for the evening.

At 9, I turn the lights down

Exposure to light can delay your brain’s release of melatonin, the hormone that makes you sleepy. To encourage melatonin production, I turn off most of the lights in the house at nine and leave only a couple of lamps on. I soon start to feel tired.

My phone charges in the kitchen

I put my phone in the kitchen. This prevents me from staying up too late scrolling or catching up on the latest world news or responding to a barrage of texts.

By the time I realized it was 11:40, I was wide awake.

Leaving the phone in another room is an excellent case of out of sight, out of mind. Now, when I’m in bed, I have to get up and walk into another room if I want to check my phone.

I bought a simple, inexpensive alarm clock, about $12, for my bedroom and leave my phone in the kitchen all night.

I keep the bedroom cool

I keep the temperature in my bedroom between 65 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Your body’s core temperature drops as you’re gearing up for sleep, so a toasty room can interfere with sleep.

Instead of getting hot and sweaty and waking up in a mess, I stay cooler and sleep through the night. During the summer, a fan keeps the air circulating. During the winter, I leave a window open. I also switched to a cotton sheet set, which is more breathable.

I’m in bed by 10 with a paper book

Fiction only. If I read anything else, my brain will start making lists of things that I need to do and I’ll stay up much later than I planned.

At ten, I climb between the sheets, pick up my book and settle in for the night. Under the light of a lamp on the nightstand, I’ll read a couple of pages, maybe as many as twenty pages. Then, I turn off the lamp and go to sleep.

I get up at 6:45 every day

My alarm goes off at 6:45 each morning, weekends included.

Researchers emphasize that it’s important to keep the same wake-up time in order to train your body’s circadian rhythm to peak in sleepiness at the same time each evening.

I gave up being a Sunday sleeper-in, which was contributing to tossing-and-turning Sunday nights.

If I wake during the night, I leave the clock alone

I used to reach over and look at the clock when I’d wake up during the night. Instead of relaxing back into slumber, I’d calculate how much longer I’d be able to sleep and toss and turn trying to drift back off.

When I glanced at the clock at 3:14 a.m., I started counting down the hours left to sleep.

Now, if I happen to wake up during the night, in the glow of a little lamp I’ll read a few more chapters from my novel and then climb back into bed.

My routine at a glance

Make the routine fit your evening

Your routine should fit into your schedule. If your plans include working late or caring for a child or loved one at night, build that into your plan. Start by deciding on some steps that can be repeated each evening, like finishing tomorrow’s preparations, turning down the lights, or reading. Having some actions that can be repeated helps create a consistent evening. As long as the order of actions is consistent, it’s OK if the timing changes. You don’t need to copy the bedtime or wake-up time in this article, but make sure there is still plenty of room in your plan for an appropriate amount of sleep.

If you have a bed partner or housemates, it’s helpful to communicate your sleep plans to them. This way you can all agree on the best time to wind down, keep quiet, and decide where phones will charge. Having this conversation once, rather than negotiating it each night, can be beneficial for everyone.

Give tomorrow’s tasks somewhere to wait

Some people find that as they’re lying in bed they think of all the things they haven’t done. You need to book an appointment, reply to a message or pick something up at the grocery store. Writing down a few things that need doing frees your head. Do it earlier in the evening and leave the list somewhere other than the bed. It’s not a guaranteed fix for trouble getting to sleep, but it may help you organize tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate process, as it’s not a journal where you reflect on your day, just make some notes about what needs doing and possibly when you’re going to do them. If you think of other things you need to do you can always quickly jot them down rather than checking or responding to emails. They can then sit in peace until you’re up without you having to remember them.

Reconsider what goes into your evening cup

What’s in your evening cup isn’t just about coffee, although cutting back on it, or having it earlier in the day, can be a good first step. Even drinks people think of as relaxing can contain caffeine, such as green and black tea. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), caffeine is a stimulant that can interfere with your ability to sleep. Some people are more affected by caffeine than others, but the NHLBI reports that its effects can last as long as 8 hours. Try cutting back and see if it makes a difference. Using a completely caffeine-free beverage makes it easier to tell if cutting back earlier in the afternoon will help you sleep better at night.

Cut back on alcohol. Alcohol won’t help you sleep, says the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Even small amounts of alcohol can affect your ability to stay asleep. Falling asleep quickly after a nightcap doesn’t mean you’ll stay asleep throughout the night.

If you’re wide awake, move the reading elsewhere

Reading in bed may work well for the easy sleeper who dozes off after a few pages. But if you find you’re still wide awake after reading for a while, get out of bed. That’s the idea behind what the NHLBI calls stimulus control therapy, which is part of insomnia treatment. It means making an association between your bed and sleep. Get into bed only when you are sleepy and get up when you are unable to sleep. So, if you have gone to bed and find yourself frustrated and wide awake, move to another comfy spot in the house where you can read in a dimly-lit area or sit in a comfy chair in silence. Stay in this alternate space until you begin to feel sleepy and then return to bed. The amount of time you spend out of bed is up to you. Make sure you have adequate lighting to ensure there are no obstructions in your path so you can safely wander around the house in the middle of the night.

Night sweats may need more than a cooler room

If you’re getting up drenched in sweat and readjusting your blanket multiple times during the night, a fan and lightweight blankets may help, but they may not fully solve the problem. According to the National Institute on Aging, hot flashes, especially night sweats, and mood changes, depression in particular, can contribute to poor sleep during the menopausal transition. The NIA says managing those issues may help with sleep as well. Talk to your doctor. During a visit, tell your doctor how often you’re experiencing symptoms and how they’re impacting your daytime energy levels. And don’t worry, you don’t have to get all of your sleep habits in order before seeking help. A comfy bedroom and treatment for disruptive symptoms can be part of the same plan.

Keep a brief record without grading yourself

If you’ve been having sleep problems for some time, you may not be sure whether your main problem is getting to sleep, staying asleep, or waking too early. A sleep diary can help. NHLBI suggests keeping a diary for 1 to 2 weeks before you go to your doctor about insomnia, writing down when you go to sleep, wake up and take naps, how sleepy you feel during the day, and when you have caffeine or alcohol or exercise. Keeping track of your sleep and daytime patterns can help you and your doctor understand what’s going on. Jot down your entries quickly in the morning instead of getting up repeatedly to look at the clock during the night. Rough estimates are fine, and note anything that woke you, like pain, feeling overheated or needing the bathroom. A sleep diary isn’t meant to be a report card on how well you slept. Try not to make keeping track of your sleep a source of anxiety.

Know when to ask about a sleep disorder

Are you still exhausted no matter how much time you allot for sleep? Sleep apnea is a condition characterized by brief, repeated stops in breathing. According to the NHLBI, symptoms during sleep include breathing that starts and stops, frequent loud snoring and gasping for air. You may not know you have those symptoms until someone tells you, so mention anything a partner has noticed. NHLBI also lists fatigue, headache and insomnia as symptoms, and all three are more common in women.

Ask your doctor whether pain, medication or another health issue might be affecting your nights. Keep track of everything you’re taking, including over-the-counter products, to discuss with your doctor. Poor sleep does not have to be an inevitability when you’re in your fifties.

There’s treatment beyond general sleep advice

If familiar sleep advice hasn’t helped, talk to your doctor about CBT-I, or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. According to the NHLBI, CBT-I is a 6- to 8-week treatment plan to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. NHLBI says it’s usually recommended as the first treatment option for long-term insomnia. It can be done in person, by phone or online. CBT-I is more individualized than yet another list of sleep tips. In the meantime, try to make your nights a little easier by leaving your phone out of arm’s reach, or writing down what you need to get done tomorrow. It may help in general even before your sleep improves. And there’s no need to spend every night worrying about whether you forgot some small rule.

Start with one change

Most of what I changed was moving or tweaking habits I already had. They took weeks of repetition to cement.

Pick out the easiest tweak and try it for two weeks. When you’re exhausted from poor sleep, small, gradual changes are best.

Keep doing it until it becomes a regular part of your nightly routine. Then, pick another idea to implement.

But poor sleep isn’t your lot in life, and not something to just put up with. You can change your situation.