I get 7-9 hours of sleep a night - here's my exact routine

Hey friends,

I used to be such a bad sleeper. Very light sleeper, late-night snacker, constantly woke up at 3 am wide awake for an hour or two … the worst.

And now … I get 7 to 9 hours almost every single night without fail.

So today I’m talking to all types of sleepers, but specifically people who have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.

The good news is good sleep is completely learnable. I learned it!

Sleep isn’t something that just happens (for the most part). It’s a practice and a routine, and it’s really just training your body how to wind down at the end of the day …

Most of us are watching Netflix or scrolling on our phones right up until the second we lie down, doing things that keep us stimulated and awake and alert, and then we get in bed and wonder why we can’t fall asleep or why we’re up at 3am.

So let me walk you through my whole routine from 1 hour before bed up until the morning time.

A warm shower

I always start with a warm shower - most nights (close to every single night) I take one and put a few drops of eucalyptus essential oil right in the shower with me, so the steam picks it up and the whole bathroom turns into a spa. I also have a low-lit lamp in my bathroom instead of the bright overhead lights (this is calming for the nervous system).

Then I get into some fresh PJs, and something about clean skin and clean pajamas just tells my brain okay, it’s sleep time.

And here’s a fun fact I love about this - the warm shower actually helps you fall asleep, but it’s not actually about the warmth of the water, it’s what happens after. The hot water pulls all your blood up to the surface of your skin, and the second you step out, all that heat dumps out of your body, so your core temperature drops faster than it would have on its own. And your core temp has to drop a degree or two for you to fall into deep sleep. So the warm shower is secretly a cooling trick … interesting, right?

Then … my nervous system reset - this is the foundation of how I wind down at night …

If you’ve been here a while you already know about my 5-minute nervous system reset, and it’s still the base that my whole night is built around.

Quick recap for anyone new: I do a 4-7-8 breath (inhale 4, hold 7, exhale 8, four rounds) with a few essential oil drops on my wrists, then I put a warm wet washcloth over my face for 30 seconds, spray on some clove water, hum or chant “voo” for about 30 seconds, and lie on my right side for five minutes.

That washcloth is my favorite part of my reset, and I have to tell you why again because I think it’s such a fun fact to know about - when something wet hits your face it triggers something called the diving reflex, which is the same reflex that lets seals and dolphins slow their heart rate down underwater. You have a seal mode in your body and you can switch it on with a washcloth from your bathroom drawer!

So I start with that, now here’s everything else …

Red light only, no overhead lights

Once I’m in my bed it’s red light and nothing else - no overheads, no blue light, nothing. Bright light tells your critter brain that it’s still daytime and keeps your cortisol up, which is the exact hormone you do not want climbing at 9pm, and red light just doesn’t send that same signal.

This is also when I do my whole reset - red light on, everything soft and dim, and my nervous system winding all the way down.

In between 68 to 69 degrees

I keep my room right between 68 and 69, and this one is kind of a non-negotiable for me. If it gets any warmer than that - especially in the summertime - it is a total guarantee that I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night. Guaranteed! Your body relies on a drop in core body temperature to enter deep sleep. If your body can’t cool itself down, it can make it very hard to fall asleep (which reduces the amount of deep sleep you get).

My full-body pillow (oh my gosh, biggest game changer)

I have a full-body pillow that I use every single night and I have no idea how I ever slept without it before. I’m a side sleeper, and there’s something about having my legs and my torso up against something that is so unbelievably comforting - especially my legs and feet propped up!

It’s the coziest part of my sleep and I will not be sleeping without one ever again. (I linked my favorite one at the end!)

I also like to put a couple drops of eucalyptus essential oil on my pillows right before I turn the lights out. Not too many, just a couple.

A soft mattress - for me, anyway

This one is really just personal preference and I know people who swear the complete opposite, but I need a soft mattress. If it’s too firm I feel like I’m sleeping directly on the concrete ground and I just cannot settle into it. See what your body likes - there’s no universally right answer here, only what works for you.

Silk sleep mask and a silk hair wrap

I wrap my hair up in a silk hair wrap every night so it’s not tangling or bothering me while I sleep, and then I wear a silk sleep mask over the top of that.

And I want to be specific about this - go for silk or 100% cotton, not satin! Satin is usually just polyester (aka, plastic), and silk is a natural fiber that comes from the earth. It’s gentler on your hair + your skin, and it breathes so much better against your face all night long.

A sleep mask is an absolute non-negotiable for me. I am still a light sleeper, so if there are lights shining in, I will wake up. I need it to be pitch black. (I do a mask instead of blackout curtains on purpose, because I still want to know when it’s getting light outside. I’d rather my body get that natural light cue and I just pull the mask off).

I have to have some sort of sound…

I cannot fall asleep in complete silence. Again, I’m a light sleeper, and total quiet means I hear every single thing that’s happening and it wakes me right up.

So I put on a 9-hour nature sound track from Insight Timer (this is not sponsored). I just love it - the app is completely FREE, which I still can’t get over because there are thousands of free tracks. Meditations, deep breathing, nature sounds, music to fall asleep to. If you need any kind of background sound at night, please just go download it, it’s so awesome.

I also sleep with my windows cracked .. there’s a street right below my place and I actually love hearing the world start up in the morning - people walking/jogging by, cars going past, all the hustle and bustle. I find it comforting for some reason.

No screens in my room

I don’t have a TV in my bedroom and I keep it device-free, and my phone goes on airplane mode. In my opinion, when you bring screens into your room your brain stops associating that space with winding down and starts associating it with being stimulated before bed. I love books and journaling though!

Same bedtime, same wake-up time

This one is probably more important than almost everything else on this list. Going to bed and waking up around the same time every day trains your body to naturally wind down on schedule and to know when it should be waking up. Your internal clock can learn the rhythm if you let it.

I do not eat two hours before bed (usually, unless it’s a weekend and I’m having a late dinner)

90% of the time I stop eating around 6 or 7pm and I don’t eat again until morning.

Now, I have to tell you - I used to be a horrible late-night snacker. I used to always wonder why I just couldn’t control myself. What it came down to was learning to eat enough healthy protein, fats, + fiber during the day. I used to restrict way too hard. Once I started getting enough protein and healthy fats consistently, my nighttime cravings completely disappeared and they haven’t been back for about two or three years.

I’ve also been practicing not eating past 6 or 7 for about two or three years now, and at this point my body really doesn’t even want food that late anymore, which is something I never in a million years thought would be possible for me.

There’s a reason we want to protect that window of time - when you eat too close to bed your body is stuck doing all this digestion work at the exact time it’s supposed to be cooling down and repairing.

So that’s it :)

A warm shower, some soft light, a cool room, a really good pillow, and a body that’s been taught what bedtime means so it feels calm and safe enough to fall asleep.

Everything I use in this routine - the body pillow, the amber sleep bulb, the silk sleep mask and hair wrap, the eucalyptus oil, all of it - is linked together in one spot here → my Nighttime Wind-Down Routine Collection.

Try a few of these for the next 2 weeks with me and come tell me how you sleep!

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Paid members - right below I made you a printable 2-Week Sleep Reset tracker so you can do this with me. Check off your habits each night, log how you slept each morning, and by day 14 you'll be able to see exactly what's working for your body. Download right to your phone to reference: