Coaching practices for Make Time Before Bed
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Make Time Before Bed, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- The minute my head hits the pillow the worries flood in and I lie there for hours, then the lost sleep makes the next day’s anxiety even worse
- There’s no point where I actually put the screen down for the night
- By bedtime I’m still buzzing from the day and I get into bed wired
- I eat dinner late and snack right up until bed, then lie there wired and digesting and wonder why I sleep so badly
- I answer the last email at 11:58 and then expect to be asleep by midnight, and instead I lie there still buzzing in work-mode
Practices that may help
- The Pre-Sleep Worry Buffer
Use a 10-minute afternoon or early evening worry review to protect sleep from nighttime rumination.
Worry Time: Containing Anxiety With Scheduled Worry - Set a screen cutoff time
Pick a consistent hour to put screens away and protect the wind-down window.
The Digital Sunset - Evening yoga routine for sleep
A gentle 15-minute yoga sequence 30–60 minutes before bed lowers cortisol and core temperature to accelerate sleep onset.
Yoga for Stress: What the Research Shows - Enforce a firm late-eating cutoff
Stop eating at least 2–3 hours before your target sleep time.
Time-Restricted Eating, Made Practical - Build a no-work buffer in the final 60 minutes
Closing work tasks at least 60 minutes before bed allows the sympathetic nervous system to downregulate before sleep is attempted.
The Wind-Down Routine: Engineering Your Path to Sleep - Offload cognitive load with a bedtime worry journal
Write tomorrow’s to-do list and any intrusive worries before bed — externalized thoughts stop competing for attention at sleep onset.
The Wind-Down Routine: Engineering Your Path to Sleep - Schedule a worry time earlier in the day
Contain bedtime worry by giving anxious thoughts a specific earlier window, then postponing them at night.
CBT for Insomnia (CBT-I), Made Practical - Anchor the wind-down with a consistent starting cue
A repeated pre-sleep ritual — a specific tea, a book, a certain playlist — becomes a conditioned cue that induces sleepiness over time.
The Wind-Down Routine: Engineering Your Path to Sleep - Write tomorrow’s six most important tasks the evening before
Before the day ends, write exactly six tasks — no more — for the next day, ordered by their importance to you.
The Ivy Lee Method, Made Practical - Use daytime movement as a cue
Time physical activity to reinforce a strong day signal and a calmer night.
Circadian Rhythm Optimization
Related concerns
- Process Goals Before Bed
Write tomorrow’s to-do list and any intrusive worries before bed — externalized thoughts stop competing for attention at sleep onset.
Offload cognitive load with a bedtime worry journal
- Committed Action Before Bed
A gentle 15-minute yoga sequence 30–60 minutes before bed lowers cortisol and core temperature to accelerate sleep onset.
Evening yoga routine for sleep
- Do It Tomorrow Before Bed
Write tomorrow’s to-do list and any intrusive worries before bed — externalized thoughts stop competing for attention at sleep onset.
- The 10 10 10 Rule Before Bed
Suzy Welch's 10-10-10 rule asks you to evaluate a decision through three time horizons: how will I feel about this in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years? It is a heuristic for countering short-term emotional reactions by making long-run consequences more cognitively vivid. Evidence for the technique specifically is limited, but it draws on well-supported research on temporal discounting and affective forecasting.
- The One Thing Before Bed
A repeated pre-sleep ritual — a specific tea, a book, a certain playlist — becomes a conditioned cue that induces sleepiness over time.
Anchor the wind-down with a consistent starting cue
- The Third Alternative Before Bed
Contain bedtime worry by giving anxious thoughts a specific earlier window, then postponing them at night.
Schedule a worry time earlier in the day
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