How to Relax Before Bed: Start with Your Body

By Timothy Spinks

If you have been wondering how to relax before bed because your body feels tired but your head will not settle, here is the short answer I have come to. Start with your body, not your thoughts. Slow your breathing, let your muscles soften, add a little warmth and lower the lights, and give yourself about an hour before you want to be asleep. More often than not, the mind follows.

Last Saturday was World Mental Health Day. This year Mental Health UK chose the power of being heard as its theme, and put it simply: "It's good to talk. It's even better to be heard." That line stayed with me, because the evening is often when we finally hear ourselves. The day goes quiet, the noise drops away and whatever we pushed to one side starts to speak up.

Why is it hard to relax before bed?

I know this one well. There have been plenty of evenings when I went from a full day straight to bed with my head still running through it, lying there and trying to think my way calm. Telling yourself to stop worrying is a strange sort of instruction, and it rarely works.

Part of the trouble is that the evening is the first real gap in the day. While we are busy, worries wait their turn. When the busyness stops, they tend to arrive together. The body carries the day too, in ways we often only notice once we sit down: shoulders creeping up towards the ears, a tight jaw, breathing that has gone quick and shallow. I find that when my body is still braced like this, my head has very little reason to believe the day is over.

If it is the thinking side that keeps you up, I wrote about that in how to stop overthinking at night. This post comes at the same problem from the other end.

Can relaxing your body calm your mind?

This is the part that changed things for me. I stopped trying to argue with my thoughts and started giving my body something simple to do instead, like breathing more slowly, letting my shoulders drop or sitting somewhere warm with the lights low. None of it asks you to sort your worries out first, and I think that is exactly why it helps.

There is some research that points the same way. In one study, 60 healthy students were each given one of three relaxation techniques (deep breathing, muscle relaxation or guided imagery) or put in a control group, and each did 20 minutes of audio-guided practice. All three techniques left people feeling more relaxed than the control group. Muscle relaxation and guided imagery also moved the body steadily towards a calmer physical state, measured through things like heart rate. It looked at relaxation rather than sleep, and it was a small group of young people, so I treat it as a pointer, not a promise. Still, it fits with what a lot of us notice at home.

A woman sitting on the floor of a bright living room, leaning forward over her legs in a slow stretch

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

How to relax before bed when your head will not settle

Here is what I lean on. None of it is clever, and you do not need all of it. I would pick two or three and see how they feel over a week or so.

Six ways to relax your body before bed

Slow your breathing down. It is the easiest place to start because you can do it anywhere, including lying in bed. If you would like a few patterns to try, I have written up four breathwork techniques that promote sleep.
Let your muscles go, one area at a time. Start at your feet and work slowly upwards, noticing where you are holding on and letting it soften. For me it is almost always the shoulders, the jaw and the hands.
Add some warmth. The NHS suggests relaxing for at least an hour before bed, for example by taking a bath or reading a book. A warm bath, a blanket over your knees or a warm mug in your hands all do a similar job for me.
Lower the lights. I switch off the big overhead light and use a lamp instead. It is a small change, but it marks the shift from day to evening in a way I can feel.
Put your phone in another room. NHS Every Mind Matters suggests trying not to use phones, tablets or computers for an hour before bed, because the blue light from screens can make it harder to fall asleep. For me, another room works far better than face down on the bedside table.
Write tomorrow down. If worries keep coming back, the same NHS advice suggests making a list of what you need to do the next day before you go to sleep. Once it is on paper, your head does not have to keep holding it.

How long before bed should you start relaxing?

The NHS advice is to start relaxing at least an hour before bed, and I find that about right. An hour is long enough to feel the day properly loosen its grip, and short enough to fit into most evenings, even busy ones.

For me, that hour starts with a small ritual: lights low, phone away and a can opened at the start of the evening rather than last thing at night. It is my signal that I am off duty. If you would like a more step-by-step version, my 20-minute wind-down before bed lays one out.

A small vintage lamp casting warm light over a patterned sofa in an otherwise dark room

Photo by Irvin Aloise on Unsplash

When should I speak to a GP?

Everything here is about everyday stress and the feeling of being wired at the end of a long day. It is not a treatment for anything. The NHS says to see a GP if changing your sleeping habits has not helped, if you have had trouble sleeping for months, or if it is affecting your daily life in a way that makes it hard for you to cope.

And if you are finding things hard to cope with more generally, please talk to your GP or someone you trust. Being heard matters, and you do not have to work it all out on your own.

A calmer start to the evening

I made Sleep Toniq for this part of the day. It is a canned evening drink made with chamomile, honey, apple cider vinegar and orange. Think of it as the thing that starts the evening rather than ends it, something to open while the lights go down and the phone goes away, in the place where a glass of wine or another cup of herbal tea might otherwise sit. If that sounds like the kind of evening you want, you can read more about Sleep Toniq here. If not, the slow breathing, the warmth and the low light are still well worth a try on their own.