My evening routine as a student - how I get enough sleep

It’s always a great thing to go to bed early, spend just a couple of minutes on social media and then fall asleep, waking up feeling amazing the next morning. It’s really a sad thing that never happens. Those five minutes on facebook, and those on tumblr, and those on twitter suddenly add up to five hours in total and result in about three hours of sleep that night.

I had that phase a couple of years ago where I would just spend hours and hours talking to my friends overseas. Different time zones are really a great thing. By now I noticed that that’s not the road to success and over time I changed my time management to the point where I actually developed something like an

evening routine.

Since I have to wake up around 6:30am, I usually try to be in bed by 10pm. What I would consider my evening routine takes place between about 8pm and 10:30pm. To me, that’s the time to relax and end the day in a nice way.

I generally try to be done with all school related things by 8pm, which usually works if I don’t have any group project meetings that day. I like packing my bag in the evening so that I have less to worry about in the morning.

My evenings are usually really relaxed. I spend about half an hour going through some of my social media, checking my emails and answering messages I received throughout the day. After that it’s time for a bedtime snack, which can be anything from fruit and veggies to joghurt or even pudding sometimes, usually paired with a delicious cup of tea. My favourites are tesco’s apple cinnamon tea, and elder tea. I don’t like black teas, I don’t like milk, sugar or lemon in my tea, I use tea bags and I leave them in the mug until I finished it. Also, I don’t have tea cups. When it comes to tea, I like doing what you’re not supposed to do.

I like having my tea while filling out my habit tracker and logs in my bullet journal and planning for the next day, which is also a great opportunity to check if I forgot to do something that day. I don’t really have to migrate tasks often, but sometimes, it happens.

After that I shower and brush my teeth before I then go to bed. I do have that really bad habit of being on my phone in bed. I mostly end up reading something or going through twitter again, but I always manage to get around seven to eight hours of sleep.

For the rare evenings I really can’t seem to fall asleep I like to put on a diffuser with some vanilla and rose essential oils and switch up the shower for a nice bubble bath. I also fall asleep more easily whilst listening to music, but I know that many people don’t really like that. Apart from myself I hardly know anyone who listens to rock whilst falling asleep. However, I always put on a timer for about an hour and setting it to “stop playing” so that my phone doesn’t play music throughout the entire night whilst charging as that could cause overheating. But that’s just on a side note.

I obviously don’t manage follow this routine every single evening. Sometimes there are more things to do for school, sometimes I’m still playing videogames with friends around 10pm - it varies. But I like to try to keep it consistent, at least from sunday to thursday.

Getting enough sleep really changed my productivity levels. I get so much more done, I feel like I have way more energy, I’m more active and energetic and overall a way more positive person than a couple of years ago.

However, creating habits takes a lot of time and effort. If you force it, it ends up in creating restrictions rather than healthy habits that you like to continue. Having a bullet journal or just any kind of journal really helps to keep track of what you want to do and after some time you’ll start doing those things on your own, without even having to note them down in that journal any more.

I’ll make sure to make a post about my bullet journal soon, so stay tuned for that, and get enough sleep, it really helps!