Originally posted on Shannon’s Blog.

Staying up later and getting up around midday seems to be the norm at the moment. Since lockdown started everyone’s sleeping routine has thoroughly gone out the window.

Alarms have been turned off. 1am is the new 10pm. And so on.

But as more businesses start to reopen and people are starting to return to work, it’s time to get back into a routine and go to bed at a more reasonable hour considering you have a full day at work on the horizon.

Here are 7 tips that will help you to get your sleeping pattern back on track before returning back to work, to prevent you from yawning in meetings and falling asleep at your desk.

Set an alarm for the same time each morning

Whether you go straight back to you 6am start or get back into the rhyme slowly, setting an alarm for the same time each day will help you get back some normality.

Lets face it, weekdays and weekends have merged together as one at this point, so even getting up at a regular time at the weekend will also help encourage you to go to bed at the same time too.

Also try to avoid using that snooze button. It will become the enemy when you eventually do have to get up at bang on 6am else you’ll miss your morning coffee and be late into the office.

Find a winding down routine that works for you

Person to person, winding down can be completely different. Some like a book. Some like a skincare routine with about ten different steps. Some like a hot shower to get that cosy warm feeling.

Find out what works for you and, try and make it into a habit for each night. You” associate this with going to bed, helping your mind and body to recognise it’s bed time and should help you to drift off.

Don’t go on your phone or tablet or whatever else before bedtime

This goes hand in hand with winding down at night.

It is super easy to think that you’ll move from the sofa to bed and watch another episode of Normal People. But limiting your screen time before bed will do wonders for your sleep pattern.

Try to avoid any screen time about 1 hour before you hit the sack. This should help your mind to relax. And let’s face it you won’t be missing out on anything on Instagram, considering everyone else is still at home doing nothing too exciting.

Avoid naps during the day

It is so easy right now to take 20 winks on the sofa in the afternoon. But as soon as you return to work, you won’t be able to sneak off somewhere and take a power nap.

Try and keep yourself as motivated and energised throughout the day as possible. And if you find yourself wanting to squeeze in a quick nap, take yourself for a walk. This will get you faraway from your comfy bed/sofa and get your blood flowing again.

Eat at the right times

Hopefully if you have set your alarm and got up when it is actually the morning, you’ll have time to have food at the right times of the day.

This means breakfast before 12pm, lunch before 4pm and dinner before 10pm. This will really help with digestion and will mean that you aren’t going to bed on a full stomach.

Also avoid caffeine as close to bedtime as much as possible, to help your mind and body relax rather than feeling a bit wired.

Fit in a workout

Making sure you get some sort of exercise in your day will really help you to get rid of some of the excess energy that is preventing you from going to sleep at night.

It will help to tire you out, especially if you do it at nighttime, and then you’ll feel tired at the right time of the day.

If you prefer meditation, this will also help in a different way to a sweaty workout, by relaxing your mind and body, making you feel ready to get into bed and count some sheep.

Get dressed and undressed

Establishing your day with getting out of your pyjamas and into proper clothes means that when bedtime comes around and you put on pyjamas on again you know it’s bedtime.

Pyjamas are obvious bedtime attire, whether that’s actual pyjamas or a big t-shirt. Your mind will associate your pyjamas just with going to sleep again, rather than doing work and everything else you do around the house during the daytime.

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Words Shannon Mountford.