A Nighttime Ritual To Create More Happiness

Today, I wanted to talk about those days (and especially those nights at the end of a long day) when you feel kind of stuck and defeated. Maybe you didn't get through your whole to do list, or maybe you feel like you should be further along. Maybe it's just an anxious, frustrated night. No matter what, a happiness ritual at the end of the day can help!

A Four Step Bedtime Ritual To Create Your Own Happiness

First and foremost, I just wanna say that this happens all the time. You are not alone. There is nothing wrong with you. Everybody experiences this, but we don't want to get into the everyday habit of feeling like we should have done more, and beat ourselves up. We can't always be in a good mood, but we can change our mindset. If we allow these kinds of thought process to become a habit, it's going to be really hard to be motivated and have peace of mind. It’s going to be hard to feel happy and excited to reach our goals and create our best selves. 

We're not gonna be able to show up the best for others or for the people that are relying on us. We can’t even show up for ourselves, if we're constantly beating ourselves up. A happy relationship with yourself is the easiest way to improve your other relationships. So first and foremost, know you are not behind. It's totally normal. However, there are some things that we can do to really help you showcase the good that happens and to make you feel better at going forward. So I wanted to share my four step nighttime happiness ritual, for days like this where you're looking for a better way out of feeling a little defeated and stuck. 

So the first thing that I want you to do at the end of each day is to take out a pen and a piece of paper. We are going to have some journaling practices. Feel free to pause and go get supplies, or come back to it later, whatever, but I highly, highly suggest taking an actual pen to paper for this simple ritual process. 

#1. Write What you HAVE Accomplished 

You'll see why in just a second, but there is one thing that I want you to do when you're feeling like you had enough time to have accomplished more during the day. Write down everything that you did get done. It can be as simple as, you know, you got the kids to school on time, or you washed your hair today. Let's be honest that, you know, happens like once a week, maybe over here. Give yourself some grace and write down everything that you did.

You know, usually if you didn't check off as much of your to-do list as you had intended, it's because something else really needed to take priority. Maybe there's a work project you had to go into work mode for, maybe a kid got sick, but it's usually because something else needed to be addressed more. 

You can give yourself that recognition,and say, “It’s not that I did nothing, it's that I did other things.” These things were also important to me and they took priority today. So write down every single thing that you did accomplish today.

#2 Write A Different Gratitude Log

For your next step in the happiness ritual, I want you to create a gratitude list. I do my gratitude journal or list a little bit differently than a lot of people. I feel like we all love the idea of a gratitude list, but it can start to feel really repetitive. If every single day you're writing down, “I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my health.” It’s great, but then are you really feeling into the emotion? We want to really recognize all of the amazing things that we have to be grateful for every day. 

So when I write a gratitude list, what I do is this. I write down 10 things that happened that day that you're grateful for, and then write down why. Get to the details that made you think of it as good stuff. So for example, maybe, your husband opened the door for you that day. Write it down and then write why. So instead of it just being the simple best things , “Oh, he opened the door for me.” It becomes, “He opened the door for me and I am so grateful because I love that he's still romantic and he still puts forth effort into the relationship. He does small acts that make me feel seen. Instead of saying, “I'm grateful that I had a conversation with a friend today.” you can elaborate and say, “I'm grateful that I had this conversation with this friend, it just makes me feel so good. I've wanted a friendship like ours for years and I am grateful.”

Do you see how there's a little bit more of a difference? It becomes more of a gratitude practice. It can tune you in to what you think is the most enjoyable part of an activity too.There's a little bit more of feeling into it, when you ask yourself why you're grateful for each of those things. You are giving yourself a shorter timeline to process and think about. It also helps you to be more specific, and not get stuck in the rut of writing really vague things every single day. It gets you more outide of the box of your brain's lazy nature, and becomes a great way to keep you in each present moment.

So far, we have gone over everything that you did accomplish and then, created a list of things that you're grateful for today. Already, you're probably starting to feel really good, or at least a little bit better. Now, I want you to reread it! I want you to reread your gratitude list, and really feel into this because we'll feel good writing it, but it feels even better to reread . You can see exactly how there's a lot of really good things going on for you right in front of your nose. 

Even in hard moments, even on bad days, a lot of time there's a lot of good that we can find!

#3 Take Some Magnesium

My third step in this happiness ritual is to take some magnesium. Are you getting enough sleep every night? The average adult needs about 8 hours of sleep to feel rested and alert. Make magnesium part of your nightly routine for better sleep. This is a supplement that every cell in your body has and needs to function. Most of us are highly deficient in it. The reason I recommend this as a nighttime routine in general is because it also can help your sleep cycles and improve your quality of sleep. 

Most of the time, if I'm having a hard time processing emotions, if I'm feeling more stressed and take magnesium, it really helps. Magnesium is involved in more than 600 reactions in your body, including energy creation and converting food into energy, protein formation, and creating new proteins from your amino acids. It’s needed for gene maintenance; it helps to actually repair your DNA, muscle movements, contraction, and relaxation. 

Most importantly, Magnesium helps with nervous system regulation. Having enough magnesium helps to regulate the neurotransmitters in your brain, which actually send messages.

Adding magnesium, especially on the hard days, I think is just crucial. It helps you get a more consistent sleep schedule. A good night's snooze makes a huge impact on my day to day. So I really can't recommend it enough. Remember though to take it at a later time of day as it will make you sleepy!

#4 Plan For Better Days Ahead

Now that we have gone through these, our last happiness ritual step is to now look at tomorrow's calendar and make any adjustments . So maybe there was a phone call that you really meant to make today that you didn't get around to. Schedule time to do that tomorrow or the next day. Maybe you need to move things around for the rest of the week. That's okay. Give yourself some grace, but now we've gone through a little bit of a process. 

So hopefully now, you're feeling better. You're feeling more optimistic, you're feeling more grounded and centered. Now from this place, we can take some action steps to make sure that tomorrow you get out of the right side of the bed for a productive day. Like I said, at the beginning, it's hugely beneficial to make sure that if you have a bad day, we can stop this kind of negative thinking. We can stop creating habits out of our bad days. I really hope that this four step process was beneficial to you. Like I said, if any pieces of this were great, implement them, if not, just leave it right here. Everyone has their own unique needs. Find what works for you and work with as much time as you would like. A consistent little routine of any kind makes for more successful people. No big deal, but I really hope that this was beneficial and that you have a good rest of your day.

Thanks so much for reading. I know there's a ton of information out there and I'm just so grateful to you for taking the time to tune in. Also, don't forget to get your hands on my free download; eight quick and easy intentional morning ritual ideas. It's my gift to you to elevate the everyday with your morning routine as well. So be sure to snag those especially if this helped you!