Sleeping better: an evening ritual with warmth that you keep up

If you search for tips to sleep better, within a minute you have fifty pieces of advice on your screen and usually no idea where to start. Herbs, apps, schedules, mattresses, breathing exercises: it is a lot, and on top of that it contradicts itself.

This article takes a different angle. Not as many separate tips as possible, but one thing you can really keep up: a fixed evening ritual. And because we are a shop for infrared warmth, we honestly set out what warmth is and isn't in such a ritual. We sell sauna blankets and lamps, not a sleep solution. Sleep is too important to turn into marketing.

Why a fixed evening ritual does more than separate tips

A ritual is nothing more than a series of actions you do every evening in roughly the same order. It sounds almost too simple to amount to anything. Yet that is exactly why it works for people who keep it up: you don't have to work out again every evening what you are going to do.

Without a ritual, an evening usually ends like this: you work until it is late, you sit on the sofa with your phone, at half past eleven you notice that you have actually been tired for an hour, and then you still have to start brushing your teeth and tidying up. Your body gets no signal at all that the day is over, because there is no transition. You go from full speed to zero in five minutes.

With a ritual you do build in that transition. Not because the actions themselves are magic, but because repetition gives predictability. Your mind learns that after this block comes the next one. For many people that is the difference between tossing and turning and calmly closing the day. You can read more about why fixed moments work so well in our article on the psychology of a rest ritual.

What a ritual is not

An evening ritual is not a checklist of ten points you have to carry out perfectly. If it becomes a performance, it works against you: then you lie there wondering whether you did everything right. Two or three fixed actions in the same order are enough. Better short and every evening than extensive and once a week.

Tips to sleep better that you will actually keep up

The best known tips to sleep better appear in almost every overview, and that is no coincidence. They are boring, they cost nothing and they don't come in a box. In short:

• Get up at around the same time every day, also at the weekend. This is the point most people skip and the one that matters most for your rhythm.
• Get daylight in the morning. Outside, even on a grey day.
• Keep caffeine well away from the evening. For some people that means no more coffee after noon.
• Move during the day, but don't plan a hard workout right before bedtime.
• Wind the evening down instead of ending it abruptly.
• Use your bed for sleeping, not as a second office or a second sofa.
• Alcohol makes you sleepy but usually disturbs the night that follows.

What stands out: not one of these tips is about a device. That is the most important context for the rest of this article. Warmth is at most a pleasant way to fill in one of those points, namely winding down your evening calmly. It is not at the top of the list and it doesn't replace the list.

What warmth does for relaxing

Here is the honest answer to the question many people come for. An infrared sauna blanket, an infrared lamp or a warm bath make you warm. Many people experience that as relaxing, and half an hour under a blanket is, for some, the only moment in the day when they really lie still. That is the value.

What we don't add: that warmth improves your sleep. That is a claim we don't make and one you shouldn't accept from any seller. We sell comfort and a reason to do nothing for a while. What that then does for your night differs from person to person, and we don't know that.

It is useful to know, though: your body temperature fluctuates over the day and drops in the evening and at night. That is normal physiology and it happens with or without a blanket. All sorts of theories exist around that fact about getting warm before sleeping. We leave those to researchers. What you notice in practice is simpler: after a warm session you are warmed up and then need time to cool down again. That makes the timing more important than the warmth itself.

Relaxation is not the same as sleep

A common mistake is to think that relaxing and sleeping amount to the same thing. They don't. You can lie awake completely relaxed, and you can fall asleep tense out of sheer exhaustion. A moment of rest is a moment of rest, and it is pleasant in itself. We wrote about this separately in the difference between relaxation and sleep.

The timing: how long before bedtime

This is by far the most important practical question, and at the same time the one most often skipped. If you get warm and crawl under the duvet straight afterwards, you often lie there still glowing. Then it works against you instead of for you.

The rule of thumb most users discover for themselves: plan your warm moment so that afterwards you can still calmly cool down, get dressed, have a drink and pick up a book. In practice that means starting well before bedtime, not just before it. Exactly how much room you need depends on how quickly you cool down and how warm you set the session.

Take this table as a shape, not a law. If you notice that you need two hours to cool down, move it earlier. And if a session in the evening actually wakes you up, read the section on that further down: then the morning or early evening is the better moment for you.

Screens and light in the evening

Of all the parts of an evening ritual, this is the hardest, because a phone asks nothing and gives a lot. Yet it is the part where people most quickly notice a difference in how their evening feels.

Two things play a role. The first is light: bright screens right in front of your face in an otherwise dark room are something different from a dimmed lamp. The second, and probably the most important, is the content. News, work email, discussions and endless scrolling put your mind to work at the very moment you want to let it wind down. A phone lying next to you also interrupts every moment of rest you are trying to build up.

What works in practice for most people:

• Put your phone out of reach, preferably in another room. Not on silent next to you, but really away.
• Switch off the big lights and use one small lamp. That makes more difference than a blue light filter.
• Decide beforehand what you will do instead of looking at your screen. Without an alternative you'll pick it up anyway.
• Save series and films for earlier in the evening, not for the last half hour.

A sauna blanket has a practical advantage here that few people think of beforehand: your arms are underneath it. You simply can't reach your phone. That is not therapy, it is just handy. More about this is in our article on a screen free evening ritual.

Regularity does the work. Warmth is the form you give it, not the reason it works.

Step by step: an evening ritual that sticks

Below is a setup you can put in place in a week. Don't start with all five steps at once. Choose one, do it for two weeks, and only then add something.

1. Choose your bedtime, not your sleep timeDecide what time you want to be in bed and count back from there. Everything else follows from that one time.
2. Draw a line under your working dayLaptop closed, work email off, things tidied away. Without a clear end, work runs on into your evening.
3. Plan the warm moment well in advanceA session with the blanket, a bath or a shower, with enough time afterwards to cool down.
4. Make the last half hour screen freePhone in another room, lights low, a book or music ready. Choose the alternative in advance.
5. Keep to the same time, also at the weekendAn hour of leeway is fine. Sleeping in for three hours on Sunday feels nice and shifts your rhythm for days.

If you skip an evening, that is not a failure. A ritual you do four evenings a week is worth infinitely more than the perfect ritual you drop after ten days. More examples are in our article on building a fixed evening routine.

Luxyor Comfort 150

• A fixed, screen free half hour in your evening
• Adjustable temperature and a timer, so your session stops by itself
• Get warm without going out or having a cabin at home
• 60 days to change your mind and a 2 year warranty

View the Comfort 150

What does and doesn't work in the evening

The overview below puts the common advice next to the things people often try because they feel pleasant at the time. See it as a direction, not a recipe, and pay particular attention to the right hand column.

If warmth actually makes you wide awake

This happens more often than you think and it is not a sign that you are doing something wrong. Some people come out of the blanket fresh and full of energy after a warm session. If you are one of them, the evening is simply not your moment.

What you can do then:

• Move the session to the morning or the start of the afternoon. Many users do this and are happy with it.
• Lower the temperature and shorten the session. A short, mild session feels very different from a long, hot one.
• Leave more time before bed. Sometimes an hour and a half is simply too tight for you.
• Rinse off with lukewarm water afterwards instead of warm.
• Drink water. Getting warm costs fluid, and lying awake thirsty helps nobody.

And if none of these adjustments work: use the blanket during the day and keep your evening simple. That is a perfectly good outcome. If you are torn between morning and evening, our article on morning or evening in your routine will help you further.

Your bedroom: temperature, darkness and noise

A ritual stops at the bedroom door, but the room itself plays a part too. Three things are worth sorting out, and all three cost little.

Temperature

A bedroom can be cooler than your living room. That feels contradictory after a warm session, but in fact the two fit together: you are warmed up, you cool down, and a cool room helps not to block that process. If you sleep with someone who always wants it colder or warmer, a separate duvet each is often the simplest solution.

Darkness

Streetlights, standby lights and a charging cable with a bright blue LED together make more difference than people think. Blackout curtains or a sleep mask are small changes with an immediate result.

Noise

Complete silence is not achievable for most people, and it isn't necessary either. What disturbs is unpredictable noise: a door, a car, a conversation. Many people find constant background noise more pleasant than changing noise. Here too: try it for a week and see what you think.

Improving your sleep rhythm if it has shifted

Sometimes there is nothing wrong with your evening, but your whole rhythm is out of line. After a holiday, a run of late nights, the switch to winter time or a period of night shifts, your natural bedtime can have shifted considerably.

You can't reset a rhythm in one evening. What people do in practice:

• Shift in small steps. Fifteen minutes to half an hour every few days is more realistic than two hours in one go.
• Start with getting up, not with going to bed. You do decide your wake up time yourself, but not the time you fall asleep.
• Get daylight straight after getting up. That is the strongest signal your rhythm has.
• Keep to the new time at the weekend too, especially in the first two weeks.
• Expect a few tough days. That is part of it and says nothing about whether it will work.

If you work irregular hours or shifts, other rules apply and a fixed rhythm is often simply not achievable. We wrote about that separately in rest for people who work shifts or nights.

What to look out for

There are a few persistent misunderstandings around sleep and warmth. The most important ones at a glance:

• Thinking a device will sort out your sleep. No blanket, lamp or panel does that. Regularity, daylight and movement are at the top of almost every piece of advice, and no plug is involved.
• Quickly doing a session just before bedtime. Without cooling down time you lie there glowing. Then the timing is the problem, not the blanket.
• Falling asleep during a session. Don't do this. Always use the timer and make sure the device switches off by itself.
• Changing too much at once. Hardly anyone keeps up five new habits in one week. One, they do.
• Seeing every night as a score. People who rate their sleep every day with an app often end up worrying about it more. Look at a week, not a night.
• Confusing relaxation with sleep. Lying calmly on the sofa is pleasant in itself and doesn't have to lead to anything.
• Using warmth to fight lying awake. If you lie awake at night, the advice is usually to get up and do something calm, not another session.
• Underestimating dehydration. Getting warm costs fluid. Drink before and after, but not so much that you have to get out of bed for it all night.
• Believing sellers' promises. If someone sells you a product with the promise that it will solve your sleep problem, that isn't true. We don't make that promise.

When to see your GP

This article is about habits and about a pleasant evening. It is not about sleep problems that persist. There is a clear line there and it is important that you know it.

Make an appointment with your GP if one or more of these things apply to you:

• You have been sleeping badly for weeks and it doesn't go away by itself
• You function noticeably less well during the day because of it: work, study, traffic, family
• You fall asleep during the day without meaning to
• Your bed partner hears you snore with pauses in your breathing
• You have restless legs, pain or breathlessness that keeps you awake
• You use sleeping pills or alcohol to fall asleep
• You worry a lot or feel low, and it doesn't go away

Sleep problems often have a cause that you won't solve with a ritual, and there is treatment for that. Going to your GP with "I don't know if it is bad enough" is a perfectly good reason to go.

This article is general information and does not replace medical advice. We sell sauna blankets and red light equipment and are not a healthcare provider.

Which form of warmth suits an evening ritual

If you want to include warmth in your evening, there are several forms and they don't all fit equally well. A quick run through the options:

• A warm bath or a warm shower. The simplest and cheapest. Works fine and needs no device.
• An infrared sauna blanket. You lie still, your arms are underneath it and there is a timer. Practical for a fixed evening block in an ordinary home.
• An infrared lamp. Aimed at one spot, for example the shoulders or lower back. You sit with it and stay on the move, so it is less of a moment of rest than a blanket.
• A red light panel. Meant for the skin and local use. Gives hardly any warmth and is usually not the logical choice for an evening ritual.
• A cabin. Lovely if you have the space, but the warm up time makes a daily evening session impractical for many people.

The trade offs between these forms are covered in detail in our guide to an infrared sauna for at home. If you specifically want to choose a blanket and know what to look for in size, temperature and finish, take a look at the guide buying an infrared blanket.

Luxyor Slimline 100

• Entry model for anyone who wants to try out an evening ritual
• Thin and light, so it is quickly put away after your session
• Timer and adjustable temperature for a short, mild session
• 60 days to change your mind and a 2 year warranty

View the Slimline 100

In closing

Sleeping better rarely starts with a purchase. It starts with a fixed time to get up, daylight in the morning, movement during the day and an evening you wind down calmly instead of cutting it off abruptly. Those are the things that come back in almost every piece of advice, and they cost nothing.

Within that, warmth can be a pleasant form: a fixed half hour in which you lie still, don't hold a screen and let the day settle. Plan it well before bedtime, use the timer and don't expect miracles from it. If you want to set up such a moment, take a look at the infrared sauna blankets or read the background and frequently asked questions in the knowledge base.

And if you sleep badly on a structural basis, if your day suffers because of it or you are simply unsure? Go to your GP. That is the only tip in this article that we really insist on.