A wind-down routine you’ll keep

Sleep advice tends to arrive as a list of rules nobody follows. A routine sticks when it is short, pleasant and fits the evening you already have. AI can design one around your real constraints — children’s bedtime, a late shift, a small flat — and shrink it on the nights when you have ten minutes.

1. 1

   Describe a normal evening

   When you get home, when you eat, what you do in the last hour before bed.

2. 2

   Pick what you actually enjoy

   A shower, a book, stretching, tea. A routine made of chores will not last a week.

Why evenings go wrong

After a long day, the easiest thing is to stay on the sofa with a screen until you are too tired to keep your eyes open. Then you go to bed with your mind still running through emails, news and tomorrow’s list, and lie awake. It is not laziness. Winding down does not happen by itself. The body and mind need a signal that the day is over, and most modern evenings never send one.

A wind-down routine is that signal. It does not need candles, a journal with a ribbon or an hour you do not have. It needs to be short, pleasant and the same most nights, so that your body starts to recognise it.

What a good routine has

• A clear start: a time, or an action such as turning off the main light, that marks the change.
• Something to close the day: tidying for five minutes, preparing for the morning, writing tomorrow’s list.
• A step away from screens, or at least from the kind that wind you up: work email, news and endless scrolling.
• Something you enjoy: a shower, a book, music, stretching, a hot drink without caffeine.
• A bedroom that is ready: cool, dark and quiet.
• The same order each night. Repetition is what teaches the body.