If I'm Anal About Anything, It's My Bedtime Ritual

Dear Reader,

The most serious hour of my day starts around 7 p.m.

Lights go dim, phones go to airplane mode, a final snack is negotiated. The kids go down. Then my own ritual begins.

I’ve never been a good sleeper. Falling asleep, staying asleep, and the worst of the three — waking at 3 a.m. with the next day already running, which I’ve done most nights since college.

So I became a bedtime detective. Dozens of supplements. Devices, teas, boundaries, blackout everything, and thousands of dollars on an Eight Sleep, which cooled the bed beautifully and changed nothing.

I’m still figuring it out, but lately, this is the combination that’s helping me most. It isn’t a cure and it isn’t medical advice — just the sequence that’s been giving me deeper, more consistent sleep.

Here it is, in order, from 7 p.m. to lights out at 8:30.