How to Build a Nighttime Routine for Better Sleep, Memory, and Focus

Hi, it's your brain coach, Jim Kwik. And one of the questions I get very often, almost daily, is, Jim, what's your evening routine for falling asleep? What are those things that you do to be able to wind down and get the restorative rest so you could not only bounce back, but bounce forward the next day? In this episode, I'm gonna share with you some of the highlights of the things that I do. I believe first you create your habits and then your habits create you. The idea here is I want you to understand why I do what I do. And ultimately, if it makes sense to you to Test it for yourself, and then really judge by results. Now, when we're talking about sleep, sleep and your brain, you know, it's— they go hand in hand, right? Getting a good night's sleep is one of the most important things you could do for a focused brain, for a better memory, right? When you get a bad night's sleep, how's your thinking the next day? How's your ability to solve problems? Do you have a lot of energy, or are you more forgetful and not very motivated? When you sleep, you actually consolidate short to long-term memory. So if you have long-term memory issues, check your sleep. So I am not a medical doctor and I'm not a sleep expert, but I've learned a lot over the years of teaching people how to optimize their brain potential by optimizing their sleep. And so 3 reasons why you want to optimize your sleep, because the reasons come first, right? Reasons lead to results. A lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know because they don't have real reasons. So what's the purpose? Number one, as I mentioned, if you have long-term memory issues, check your sleep. 'Cause that's where you're consolidating short to long-term memory. Number 2 is where you clean out plaque, the beta amyloid plaque, the proteins that potentially could lead to brain aging challenges. So when you sleep, that's kind of where your sewage system kicks in and helps get rid of the things that built up during the day. And then the 3rd reason, here's a different reason, is dreams. Now, we've done multiple episodes on how to remember your dreams. We've done an episode on lucid dreaming, how to control your dreams and learn while you're dreaming. But also, we know that a lot of inventions and incredible works of art were created in dream states. You've heard me talk about how Mary Shelley created Frankenstein in her dream. Paul McCartney came up with the song Yesterday in his dream. But that requires good sleep. A good night's sleep usually starts the day before, right? And you wanna make sure you get the early sunlight, which is very important to reset your circadian rhythm. And remember, your eyes are the only part of your brain that's outside of your skull. And it gives your brain a reset, right? So you get the— go outside, not through the windows, because that'll filter out some of the spectrum of light, but go outside even if it's hazy outside. But if you could get a good 15 or 20 minutes, that's what's important for me. Now, you've heard me do an episode where I plan my day around 3 C's. In the morning, I wanna be creative and I wanna stay in my creative mode. And that's where I write, that's where I put together courses, that's where I script podcasts. The second part of my day, usually in the afternoon, I consume, right? So create is where I'm drawing information out of my mind. Consume is I'm putting information in. I'm listening to podcasts. I'm having conversations in masterminds. I am reading, doing my own research. So I'm in consuming mode. The third act of my day is the third C, which is clearing. And that's my goal when I'm sleeping. I wanna clear. Where in the beginning, I wanna be creative, I wanna draw out. When I'm later in the afternoon, I'm consuming. And I'm pulling in. The last part of my day, I want to clear my day. I want to clear my mind so I could more effortlessly and easily and enjoyably get the rest that I desire and that I really deserve. So what are some of the things that lead to that? In no specific order, your environment plays a big role. So let's talk about your personal environment. We know the power of light and temperature. We've talked about this in previous episodes, that as a hunter-gatherer, you would know it'd be time to go to sleep because there'd be a drop in both those environmental factors. It would be a drop in light and a drop in temperature. So I want to be able to create that because with modern-day conveniences and you have a thermostat, it doesn't have to get colder at night. You know, with modern-day conveniences, with lighting and everything, it doesn't have to get darker even. And so I want to make it darker and colder. And darker, as dark as possible. Cold, I don't want it so cold that it's distracting me from falling asleep, where I'm shivering. And so that would be a little bit too cold. You want to find an ideal temperature for you. Now, also in my environment, I try I tend to have my digital devices out of the room. In our bedroom, we do not have a television set. You know, one of the things is whatever you're associating to in terms of an activity, it gets linked to that environment. That's why, you know, my wife and I, we don't work in the bedroom, right? We don't even do entertainment things, watch television, because the mode I want to be in is I want to be able to relax, right? And plus, the screens can help you stay awake as well. When you're looking at your devices, you're looking at screens, the, the blue light, or any light really, it's fooling your mind into thinking it's still daylight, so you don't produce the melatonin, right? So ideally you want it as dark as possible. Now, in the chapter on habits that we wrote for Limitless, part of the idea here is you want to make the things that are good for you, you want to make it easier, and the things that are not so good for you, you want to make it more difficult. So you know that You know, one of the things that keep people from sleeping very well is they're on their devices, right? They're just swiping. And you wanna be able to wind down. You wanna get in that parasympathetic rest and digest place. But if you're context switching and you're going through thousands of different, thousands of posts, for example, as you're doom scrolling, you know, then you're getting all these different inputs and you're trying to wind down. And yet you have access to the world's information here with the bright lights. And so my goal is to keep the phone out of the bedroom, maybe put it into the bathroom where it's not easy for me to be able to grab. Now, here also in my environment, besides thinking about light and thinking about temperature, mattress. So I use— people ask— I use an Essentia mattress. For me, it's really been the best. It has EMF protection. For those of you, we've done episodes on EMF and the brain. It has a natural cooling system built into it. Maybe you have those gravity blankets, those heavy blankets to help you sleep. It gets pretty warm So some people have used a cooling mattress pad. For me, I no longer need it because of this mattress. And plus it's organic, it's, you know, allergy friendly, and it's also got this posture support. So it has a remote control where you could go into zero-g mode, gravity mode, or different positions so you don't snore, or you could breathe better, and it's better aligned for your spine. And so that's my personal preference. Again, I will put a link to the resources.

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One of the things I do before I go to bed also is I like to heat up actually, because if I could go into a sauna, right? You've seen me do episodes talking about the sauna that we use. We have a Sunlighten sauna. When I leave the sauna, My core body temperature drops, and that's a sign to create melatonin. In our bedroom, I have a higher dose pad, which is a heating pad there on the couch, and it has crystals. When we come off the pad, and I'll be there, and I'm just doing some light fiction reading. I don't read like nonfiction because I don't want to get in my executive brain, but I love fiction reading at night. So you'll notice on my nightstand, I only have a few objects there, and one of them is usually a fiction book. Fiction also, just by the way, because I'm a big advocate for literacy, it builds your EQ, right? Your emotional quotient. It helps to deepen empathy. It enhances your imagination, your creativity. You're jumping into different point of views and perceptual positions, so it allows you to, to kind of craft narratives. And so I'm a big fan of fiction reading before I go to bed. So I'll be reading it maybe on that heating pad afterwards. Talking about also the EMF, I have some Vedic device that in the corner—it's this little little gold sphere—and it helps to mitigate EMF also. So, and I'll put a lot of my these fun gadgets again in the show notes at jimkwik.com, along with links to potential discounts just for our community. One of the things I also do is I use a float tank occasionally. Floating is something that I've been doing for over ten years. It's a way of you go into a sensory deprivation tank, and most cities have. float services in some kind of spa. And basically you're in a sensory deprivation tank where you can't see anything, you can't hear anything. It's like a big egg, if you will. And it has about a foot of water and about 1,000 pounds of salts, like Epsom salt, you can imagine. So when you're in it, you're floating, and the temperature of the water is approximately body temperature. So you can't see anything, you can't hear anything, and you can't feel anything. And it's a wonderful way for me to be able to Like an active meditation to be able to wind down. And that, that's something that I do not every single night because it takes time, or if I'm traveling, obviously I'm not traveling with a float tank. But I could— most cities again have this kind of service. And so these are kind of the fun different things. But at a baseline, you don't even have to spend a whole lot of money, right? Well, we'll spend about 1/3 of our lives, you know, sleeping or trying to sleep, to about 3 to 5 full years dreaming, right? So then we really want to optimize this. And so I have the mattress, we talked about the environment, we talked about light, we talk about temperature, reducing EMFs that potentially some people are a little bit more sensitive, just like people are more sensitive with caffeine than other people are. Some people could have an espresso late at night and still be able to fall asleep easily and effortlessly. I'm not one of those people, so I reduce my caffeine intake. No caffeine past 2 PM for me. Because the half-life, it stays in your system upwards of 8 hours. And I'm very sensitive to caffeine, so I try to be able to reduce that or just eliminate it. For me, I also don't want to work out. I don't get my heart racing before I go to bed because the whole point is to be able to slow down, to be able to get that restorative rest. I also don't want to be able to wind up my mind either and thinking about work. What I'll do is I just have a journal here and I will review my day. And this is really good for memory training. It's called your episodic memory. And so one of the things I'll do at the end of the day, just take 3 minutes, and you can do this with your kids, you can do this with your partner, is just talk about your day. Because the more you review your day, like some people don't even realize, like, what did I eat today, right? Who did I talk to today? You know, what are the kind of things I did for my self-care? What did I do for work? But I'll take 3 minutes and just rehearse what I did that day. And that's a way of mentally training your memory. Right? Because whatever you practice, you get better at, and you get better at pulling the episodes of your life, your episodic memory. And when I'm going through it, I'll share with my wife, you know, or, you know, message somebody just like 3 things I'm grateful for that day since I just reviewed my day. Gratitude is a wonderful way to sink in into your heart, into your body. It's a wonderful way to activate the parasympathetic rest and digest system. Right, as opposed to a sympathetic system where you're very busy, you're very, you know, kind of awake, you're in that kind of beta brainwave state where maybe even fight or flight, you're very stressed out. You want to get in that parasympathetic. I did an episode also about the 4 elements and the 4 things I do each morning to get more of these elements into my life. And, you know, back in Babylonian times, ancient Greek times, they used to think that everything was made up of these 4 elements. What are they? Air, fire, water, and earth. So I talked about how I integrate those 4 things in the morning that don't take a lot of time and zero money. At nighttime, I'm also thinking about that, right? The fire for me is maybe I'll have some red light, right? We have red light bulbs, you know, in the bedroom because they're not as stimulating, you know, as the normal bulbs that most people use. Sometimes I'll put on, you know, glasses to help filter out the blue light. You know, you've heard of blue-blocking glasses. But I want to get some fire. Maybe it'll come from a sauna. Maybe I will light some candles. Candles also. You know, it's kind of like a hunter-gatherer having the fire going, you know, to say it's time to kind of wind down. It's very meditative for me. For water, it could be a bath, you know, wonderful warm bath with Epsom salt. If you don't have access to a float tank, you could get the magnesium and the relaxation from a nice warm bath, and you come out and then your body cools down and creates the melatonin. So that's the water. Earth is grounding, and I like to do some stretching, ideally outside, to kind of wind down. But I'll do some foam rolling, you know, on the ground, and you can be connected to the earth. And then when it comes to air, at night I'll do a yoga nidra, you know, where I'll, I'll be lying down in shavasana and I'll just connect with how my body is connecting to the bed or to the carpet or to the couch. I'll do some, some breathing and some visualization with that so I get that, that air, and I'm just releasing the tension in my body. And those are little things you can do that don't take a lot of time. You know, to do some foam rolling, maybe take you to do for a minute or two. You know, to do some yoga nidra, kind of a little bit of meditation and some slowing down your breath is is wonderful to do. Two technologies that I'll use at night, and I am advisors for these these companies because I believe in them. One is called Happy, and this is a device basically where they've taken molecules. Right. Let's say you want to take certain substances like caffeine or melatonin, and each thing has a magnetic signature. So this technology, patent technology, allows it to be able to imitate those signatures. And then you just set the feeling that you want to create, like sleep or rest for melatonin, and you just have this by your bed. And I turn the Bluetooth off so I'm not getting those kind of EMFs on it, and it just helps me to get into that state. I also I'm a big fan of NuCalm. You've heard me mention this before. It's an app, and I'll just put it on airplane mode, and it's really easy. You know, when I go into NuCalm, it has these things like, what do I want to feel? And for me, one of the favorite things to do is hit this deep sleep, and I'll put it on. It's like an 8-hour track, and it has patent technology, audio technology, that really puts me in this incredible relaxed state. And you know, it's easy. It's an app that you get to be able to download. You could just go jimkwik.com/newcalm and get access to that. And so these are some of the things that I do. You know that if you watch my episodes on how to remember your dreams and journaling, you could get some of the insights from there as well. So my nightstand, again, I have a dream journal and I have a gratitude journal. One of the ones I have there is a 5-minute journal. Some of you have heard of that. It just takes a few minutes, but it gets my thoughts out and it just gives me clarity. I plan my day for the next morning. Like, I'll think about, like, the next morning, what would make it a win for me the next day? And I think about 3 things personally and 3 things professionally, and I write them down. And so I could release it. I don't have to think about a to-do list or anything else. And probably the last thing that I do, and I'll give this suggestion to you, Is I will do this auto-suggestion, right? When you're winding down, you're more suggestible, you're more connected to your unconscious. Some people call it a non-conscious or subconscious, which are different, but we'll do an episode on that. And have you ever had a situation where you had to get up early, maybe had to catch a flight, and you set your alarm to go off at a specific early time, and you end up thinking about it, and you end up waking up within minutes of that time before your alarm goes off, or even seconds? That's the power of the human mind. And so my question for you as we wrap up this episode is, what are you setting an intention for? How can you use that power of your mind to maybe sleep even better? Whether it happens to be some kind of incantation or affirmation or an intention that you're setting at night, instead of just to wake up at a specific time, like on your alarm clock, what if you had it set to get good sleep, right? To affirm you're gonna get wonderful deep sleep, you're gonna fall asleep naturally and easily and stay asleep. You're gonna be at a restorative wake up, you know, knowing that you can handle everything that that week has to throw at you. What if you actually implanted or thought about and intended to dream about certain situations, you know, problems that you want to be able to solve, and you activate more and more of that power? And I think the more you do it, the better you get at it. So you can set that intention also as you journal. I think it's wonderful when you have a thought and you write it down. It's the first step in creating something outside of yourself. You took something invisible and then you wrote it down. You made it visible for yourself. You know, and the more you do it, the better you get at it, right? So definitely watch the other episodes if you haven't yet on how to remember your dreams, how to lucid dream, and so much more. If you haven't caught my morning routine, make sure you watch that episode as well. And I want to know what you do, right? Take a screenshot of this and tag me in it and share what's your best advice for getting good sleep so that your fans, your followers, your friends, your family get to benefit from what you've learned. Or maybe one thing that you've learned in this episode That you want to be able to share, that you want to be able to try. So I want to thank you so much for watching this episode. My name is Jim Kwik, your brain coach, and sweet dreams, everybody. Be limitless.