#79: The Best (and Worst) Evening Habits for Deep Recovery and More Energy Tomorrow
Your evening habits can make or break your sleep. The right nighttime routine helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling truly recharged. But the wrong habits? They lead to tossing, turning, and waking up exhausted.
For mums, energy is everything. Yet, with the constant mental load, late-night wake-ups, and overstimulation, it's easy to fall into habits that unknowingly disrupt sleep. We spend our days prioritising everyone else’s needs, and by the time the evening arrives, all we want is a moment to ourselves. But instead of truly resting, we stay up late catching up on tasks, scrolling on our phones, or relying on a glass of wine to unwind. It feels like downtime, but it rarely leaves us feeling better.
I know this pattern well because I’ve lived it. I used to be a night owl, convinced that staying up late was the only way to fit everything in. Slowing down felt impossible, and honestly, I didn’t think I needed to. But the reality was, I was running on stress and caffeine, burning through my last reserves of energy until my body had nothing left to give.
It took me years to realise that how I end my day matters just as much as how I start it. That real, deep recovery doesn’t happen the moment my head hits the pillow—it starts long before that. If you’re constantly exhausted, running on empty, the problem isn’t just sleep. It’s how you transition into it.
Why Evening Habits Matter More Than You Think
A restorative evening routine does more than just help you drift off—it lays the foundation for how deeply your body recovers and how much energy you have the next day. Sleep isn’t just about the hours you spend in bed; it’s about how well your body restores, repairs, and resets overnight. For that to happen, your hormones, blood sugar, and nervous system all need to be in balance.
Cortisol, your body’s main stress hormone, should naturally lower in the evening, making space for melatonin, the sleep hormone, to rise. But if stress lingers—whether from late-night emails, an intense workout, or just scrolling on your phone—cortisol stays high. Instead of winding down, your body remains on alert, making it harder to fall and stay asleep.
Blood sugar stability is another piece of the puzzle. A dip in blood sugar in the middle of the night might not seem like a big deal, but it’s one of the most common reasons people wake up at 2 or 3 AM, restless and unable to get back to sleep. And then there’s the nervous system—the force that determines whether you feel calm and ready for rest or wired but exhausted. If your brain is still racing when you lie down, your body can’t fully settle.
We’ve been sold the myth of the “superwoman” who does it all, balancing work, parenting, and life without ever slowing down. But exhaustion isn’t a sign of failure—it’s a sign that something isn’t working. If you’re struggling to sleep or waking up tired every morning, it’s not your fault. It’s the consequence of living in a world that expects mums to run on empty.
Let’s challenge that. Let’s redefine what a strong, capable mum looks like—not someone who sacrifices sleep to do more but someone who respects her body enough to rest.
Downshifting the Nervous System: How to Transition from ‘Go Mode’ to ‘Slow Mode’ for Better Sleep
For most of the day, life demands that we be “on.” We wake up already in motion—getting the kids ready, managing work, answering emails, preparing meals, tidying up, and juggling countless responsibilities. Our bodies respond by keeping us in a high-alert state, also known as fight-or-flight mode.
But many of us stay in this state long after the day is done. We rush through the evening, still checking messages, still tackling unfinished tasks, and then expect our bodies to simply switch off when it’s time to sleep. But sleep isn’t an on-off switch—it’s a gradual downshifting process. If we don’t give ourselves the chance to slow down, the body stays stuck in go mode, making it harder to fall and stay asleep.
A good evening routine isn’t just about what time you go to bed but how you prepare your body to transition into rest. The goal is to move out of fight-or-flight mode and into the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) state. And the only way to do this is to actively signal to your nervous system that it’s safe to let go.
Simple ways to do this:
Deep breathing techniques like box breathing
Gentle stretching (hip openers, spinal twists, child’s pose)
Grounding rituals (a warm cup of herbal tea, journaling, a warm bath)
Balancing Blood Sugar at Night: How to Prevent 2 AM Wake-Ups
Many mums wake up at 2 or 3 AM, suddenly alert, with no obvious reason why. More often than not, this isn’t just stress—it’s a blood sugar crash. When blood sugar drops too low, the body perceives it as a threat and releases cortisol and adrenaline to compensate. The result? Interrupted sleep and exhaustion the next morning.
To prevent this:
Have a well-balanced dinner with protein, healthy fats, and slow-digesting carbs.
Avoid sugar and alcohol in the evening—they create rapid blood sugar fluctuations.
If you wake up hungry at night, try a small protein-based snack before bed (nut butter, boiled egg, turkey slices).
Exercise: The Right Intensity at the Right Time
Exercise is essential for energy and recovery, but timing and intensity matter. High-intensity workouts (HIIT, weight training, long cardio sessions) increase cortisol. If your body isn’t fully recovering overnight, intense exercise late in the day can push you further into exhaustion.
The best approach:
If you’re not suffering with fatigue and can recover from high-intensity workouts, finish them by 4 PM to allow cortisol to drop before bedtime.
Prioritise gentle evening movement—stretching, yoga, or slow walking—to release tension without overstimulating the body. If you want to wind down properly before bed, gentle stretching can be a game-changer for your recovery. I’ve written a full post on why stretching in the evening helps with deep sleep and energy restoration—you can read it [here].
Rethink Your Evening Stimulants: Why Caffeine and Alcohol Might Be Stealing Your Sleep
When I was a student, I could drink coffee late in the evening and still fall asleep with no trouble. I never questioned whether it was affecting me—I assumed I was one of those people who just wasn’t sensitive to caffeine. But as the years went on, and the more coffee I drank, the more my sleep began to suffer. At first, I didn’t connect the two. I just noticed that I started waking up in the middle of the night, or lying in bed feeling wired but exhausted, unable to switch off.
It wasn’t until I quit caffeine that I realised just how much it had been interfering with my sleep. Without it, my nights became deeper, my wake-ups less frequent, and my energy in the morning felt more stable, rather than the up-and-down cycle I had been stuck in for so long.
Caffeine lingers in the body much longer than most people realise. With a half-life of 5-6 hours, even a coffee at 2 PM can still be in your system by bedtime, quietly disrupting your ability to fall into deep, restorative sleep.
If caffeine is part of your daily routine but you’re still waking up tired, you might find [this post] helpful
Alcohol is another hidden sleep disruptor. I stopped drinking alcohol when I got pregnant and never got back to it. It might seem like it helps with relaxation, but in reality, it fragments sleep cycles, leaving you feeling groggy and unrefreshed the next morning. For me, cutting caffeine was the biggest shift in improving my sleep, but reducing alcohol in the evening can be just as impactful.
If you’re struggling with sleep, and you’ve tried everything else, caffeine and alcohol might be the missing piece. It’s easy to dismiss them, especially if you feel like they don’t affect you—but sometimes, it’s not until you take them away that you realise just how much better your body can feel without them.
What to Avoid in Your Evening Routine (The Biggest Sleep Disruptors)
Certain habits can sabotage your sleep without you even realising it. If you’re waking up exhausted despite getting to bed on time, one of these common disruptors could be the culprit:
Bright screens before bed – The blue light from phones, tablets, and TVs blocks melatonin, making it harder to fall asleep naturally. Even if you feel tired, your brain is tricked into thinking it’s still daytime.
Checking work emails late at night – Your brain stays in problem-solving mode long after you close your laptop. Set a boundary by having a ‘work cut-off time’ at least an hour before bed.
Too much sugar or alcohol in the evening – Sugar can spike your energy when you should be winding down, while alcohol may make you drowsy but disrupts deep sleep, causing restless nights.
A warm bedroom – Your body temperature naturally drops at night, signalling it’s time for rest. Sleeping in a hot room interferes with this process. Aim for a cool, comfortable temperature of 16-19°C.
Falling asleep to Netflix or podcasts – Background noise might feel comforting, but it keeps your brain slightly alert, preventing you from reaching the deep, restorative sleep stages your body needs.
Finding an Evening Routine That Fits You
There’s no such thing as a perfect evening routine that works for everyone. We’re all different—what relaxes one person might not work for another. The key is to find what feels good for you, something that helps you transition from the busyness of the day into deep rest.
For me, that means turning off the bright lights and lighting candles, playing Robbie Williams or Pink, dancing a little, stretching, and doing some gentle core work. Then I meditate, and if I’m hooked on a book, I’ll still read—though I try to force myself to stop before it gets too late. It’s not always perfect. Some nights, Freya wakes up, and I have to skip parts of my routine. Other nights, I’m just too tired to dance. But before I sleep, I always take a moment to visualise my body healing—it helps me relax, somehow.
Your routine doesn’t need to be rigid or flawless. It just needs to support you. Some nights, you might do it all. Other nights, just one small thing. And that’s okay. The most important part is listening to your body and finding what truly helps you unwind.
If you want to understand more about why sleep is so important and the fundamentals of good sleep hygiene, I’ve covered it in detail in [here]. This post builds on that by focusing on the evening habits that can make or break your ability to truly recover overnight.
Before we go…
You are not failing if you’re tired. You are not weak for needing rest. You are human. And you deserve to feel good.
I know how easy it is to ignore exhaustion, to push through, to tell yourself, I’ll rest when everything is done. But the truth is, it’s never all done. There will always be one more thing—one more load of laundry, one more email, one more snack to prepare. And in the process, your own needs fall further and further down the list.
But here’s what I want you to hear today: Rest is not a luxury. It’s not something you have to earn by doing enough. It’s a necessity. And the more you honour it, the more energy you’ll have—not just to care for your family, but to feel like yourself again.
Right now, you might feel stuck in a cycle of exhaustion, wired but tired, knowing you need better sleep but not knowing where to start. That’s okay. Change doesn’t happen overnight, and you don’t need a perfect routine to feel better. It starts with one small shift—breathing deeply before bed, dimming the lights earlier, replacing late-night scrolling with something truly restorative.
And when you wake up feeling just a little more rested, a little more yourself, you’ll see the difference. Your patience, your energy, your mood—it all shifts. Because when you take care of your energy, you show up for life in a completely different way.
So tonight, let rest be an act of self-respect. Let go of the guilt. Slow down, breathe, and remind yourself:
Your energy matters.
Your health matters.
You matter.
With love,
Karo