A Stupidly Long Nighttime Routine

A Stupidly Long Nighttime Routine


I’m a pretty simple person. I am happy when I get a good night’s sleep, and I am dysfunctional and lucid when I don’t. So if the price to be happy is a ridiculously long compiled list of nighttime routine habits from every single productivity guru out there, then I’ll be performing the routine like a Broadway star on opening night.

Without further ado, here’s the list:

  1. Hot shower — I need to relax those muscles that I use to just sit at a desk to type.
  2. Stretching routine — My shoulders get tight when sitting at a desk all day.
  3. Foot massage — My only exercise is walking on flat uniform terrain, namely asphalt. I can’t imagine how much tension is in the same small muscles in my feet.
  4. Brain dumping — Not only are my muscles tight and stressed, but so is my monkey mind. It’s better to let it run wild on paper than when I’m trying so hard to count sheep.
  5. Oral Hygiene — Nothing signals “ready to sleep” more than clean mouthfeel. It’s not marked as complete unless I brush my teeth, floss, gargle some teatree oil, and clean my retainers.
  6. Pack my work backpack — Work belongs at work, I don’t want to wake up and see some unanswered pings ruining my morning or worse, see new pings before I go to bed.
  7. Change into pajamas— That is, if I’m not already in pajamas.
  8. Check the thermostat — I need a nice and warm 68F to get some snoozing without the shivering.
  9. Say goodnight to Mrs. Snuffles the cat — because I’m not the only one who deserves a good few hours of Z’s.
  10. Stare at my Starry Night Lego Set — It sets the nighttime theme for my bedroom because my blackout curtains make day and night look the same.
  11. Put on my retainers, ear plugs, eye mask, and mouth tape — Basically sensory depravation at it’s finest when you don’t have an isolation tank. And, also, added protection from spiders crawling into my mouth.
  12. Position my 5 billion pillows so that I’m in a perfect side-sleeping position. — I have to sleep on my left because, apparently, your stomach is positioned so that if you slept on your right side, your stomach acid will go to your mouth through your esophagus.
  13. Remember that I need to pee one last time, and I get out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom looking like a sad BDSM victim.
  14. Repeat steps 4 (brain dump) and 12 (positioning pillows) — because now my sleeping position is all messed up and I have more greivances to log into my brain dump journal.
  15. Sleep — basically, the whole point of this list



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