You don’t need a perfect bedtime routine to sleep better. One small, repeatable step in the evening is enough to start with, and it’s much easier to keep than a long list of rules.

What a useful wind-down looks like

A good wind-down tells your body the day is coming to an end. It should feel calm and unhurried, not like another task to finish. You don’t need to match every movement in the video exactly. Moving slowly and breathing easily matters more.

Three things help most:

• Do it at roughly the same time each evening.
• Keep the pace slow and the stretches gentle.
• Do it in the hour or so before you want to be asleep.

Pairing movement with your breath

The most useful skill here is slowing your breathing, especially your breath out. Slow breathing is linked to the body’s natural calming response, which can help both tense muscles and a busy mind settle.

Here’s an easy way to try it. Breathe in gently through your nose for a count of four. Then breathe out slowly through your mouth for a count of six. In the video, you could try letting each movement follow your breath out, easing into a stretch as you breathe out and pausing as you breathe in. Many people find their whole body starts to soften after just a few rounds.

Other small things that can help

If you’d like to add a little more to your evening, here are two options with good evidence behind them:

• A warm shower or bath: a review found that a warm bath or shower around 1 to 2 hours before bed helped people fall asleep around 10 minutes sooner. A warm shower before bed, then your video, works well as a pair.
• Your mattress, if you’re replacing it: a review of 39 studies found that medium-firm mattresses were linked to better comfort, sleep quality and spine alignment. This only matters if you’re already thinking about a new one.

If an ache keeps you awake

This is the most common difficulty. You get into bed, everything goes quiet, and an ache you barely noticed during the day suddenly feels much louder.

Instead of lying there trying to ignore it, you could get up and repeat one gentle movement from today’s video, slowly, with a few long breaths out.

Small changes to how you lie can help too. A useful rule is to support the sore area so it can rest in a comfortable middle position, not twisted, stretched or squashed. A spare pillow is often all you need:

• Neck: you could try a pillow that keeps your head level with the rest of your spine, neither propped up nor dropping down. If you find your pillow too low, try adding towels under the pillow to adjust the height. 
• Shoulder: lying on your other side and hugging a pillow can give your top arm somewhere to rest.
• Back or hips: on your side, you could try a pillow between your knees. On your back, try one under your knees.
• Knees: a pillow between or under your knees can stop them pressing together or locking straight.

It can take a few nights of trying to find what feels best for you.

Your focus for tonight

Do today’s video in the hour before bed, and finish with three slow breaths out.

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