BEDTIME RITUAL FOR YOUR BEST BEAUTY REST
The secret to waking up refreshed with glowing skin, a sharp mind, enough energy to take inspired action & feeling like a brand new version of yourself each day? Creating a beautiful bedtime ritual that supports your body, mind & spirit for the most optimal night of sleep. If you want to do one thing to help take care of your body, boost your mental performance, level up your beauty game & elevate your overall wellbeing, it’s getting a proper night’s sleep!
Setting yourself up for a restful night of sleep with a bedtime ritual is equally as important as starting your day with morning rituals. Morning rituals & routines are having a real moment in the wellness world right now and for a very good reason, but let’s not forget to close out the night in the same mindful way by creating a bedtime ritual.
As human beings, our systems thrive off setting routine tasks or rituals to help our often overworked nervous system to know what to expect. A calm, balanced nervous system is a healthy nervous system, releasing less cortisol (the hormone responsible for inflammation & accelerated aging) and allowing the body and mind to relax. Structure & repetitive behaviors give the body & mind a sense of security and a feeling that your reality is within your power to control. Committing to rituals also helps to build trust with yourself and a sense of integrity which over time, boosts confidence & self-assuredness. So it’s no surprise that creating a sacred bedtime ritual preps & primes the body for the ultimate regenerative sleep state.
To create a bedtime ritual that helps you relax, reset, reflect & enhance your life overall, you’re going to want to implement practices that are unique and individual to your own personal lifestyle & preferences. We’re going to share our best bedtime suggestions so you’re able to curate a nighttime ritual that feels aligned for you.
SET THE MOOD
Creating an ambiance that’s conducive to restful sleep is so important. Taking the time to turn your space into a sanctuary that feels soothing, cozy & totally zen cues your mind to settle down, pause & gracefully ease into a state of relaxation. Melissa has her entire home set up with color-changing LED light bulbs that are automatically set to adjust to a red light setting around 8 pm every night. Utilizing red light at night, rather than the harsh blue lights creates a peaceful setting, lowers stress levels & regulates our systems to produce melatonin.
Another way to enhance the ambiance is through aromatherapy. Using the Campo Essential Oil Diffuser is the perfect way to purify the atmosphere & diffuse a sensual flow of earthy scents to help elevate the energy of the room. We love the Campo Sanctuary Essential Oil, Relax Essential Oil Blend & Woods Essential Oil Blend for a nighttime vibe.
Music & sound is also a key factor for setting the tone for the evening. Whether you like soft jazz, soothing piano, or any other gentle feel-good music that fills your soul, you can have fun with this and make it unique to you! Directly before falling asleep, playing some light frequency music (especially 432hZ) helps promote a deep, restful night's sleep. There’s an abundance of solfeggio frequency music available on YouTube that you can choose from. With specific frequencies that activate & balance the various chakras, sound healing is something you can look into as well if you’re feeling out of harmony in any particular area or wanting to work with a particular chakra. You can also explore sound healing with crystal sound bowls which can be a beautiful activity to wind down the night.
When creating a sanctuary-like ambiance & environment, you really want to consider all of the senses. So far we've covered sight, sound & scent, so to invite in an element of taste, take some time to make yourself either a beautiful cup of herbal tea or a nighttime elixir. You could create a signature nighttime drink, such as warm nut milk with holi(mane) blended in. At that point, you can take your nighttime supplements as a part of your routine as well. Make sure that any vitamins you consume in the evening are conducive to a rested state and not going to energize you (for example, B vitamin complex blends should not be taken at bedtime). Magnesium is a wonderful mineral that promotes sleep by relaxing your muscles, calming the mind & stimulating melatonin production. Another great supplement to take in the evening is the new Lotus Wei Sacred Body Elixir, a bio-active silver elixir that helps to ground & balance your energy, cleanse your auric field, and detox your body from toxic overload...
CLEANSE YOUR ENERGY
Once the mood is set, you’re going to want to cleanse. Cleansing not only your physical body but your energetic body with a purifying bath or shower is going to ensure that you sleep with a clean slate. The element of water is one of the purest & simplest ways we can rest our energy and cleanse any mental, emotional & physical debris. The Indie Lee Sleep Body Wash is the perfect nighttime shower gel to assist you in getting into that relaxed state. If you’re a bath gal, you can indulge in the luxurious holi(bath) by Agent Natueur or the Osmia Serenity Milk Bath.
Flower essences are also amazing at cleansing our energies & Lotus Wei has a beautiful collection of bath salts that help to harmonize particular energies within your body. We also love keeping the Lotus Wei aura mists on our vanities & bedside tables to assist in clearing not only our space but our minds & souls as well. Using the Sacred Body Wei Qi Facial Mist is a wonderful way to keep your electromagnetic field clear and protected as you enter the dream world.
BEAUTY DETAILS FOR THE ULTIMATE GLOW UP WHILE YOU SLEEP
Now that you’re cleansed & refreshed, you can get right into the best part of the evening, your nighttime skin routine (we’re biased, of course). Find a skincare routine that works for you & your skin type, but make sure to include a nourishing serum or use products that promote overnight skin cell regeneration like some of these natural retinol alternatives...
To make your evening ritual even more enjoyable, it’s a nice idea to treat yourself and add that element of luxury. Give yourself extra time to incorporate treatments like face masks a few times a week and utilize beauty tools. There are some beautiful masks that you can leave on overnight, such as the Patyka Pro-Collagen Lift Mask. Some beauty tools that are amazing to work with at night include the Skin Gym Gua Sha, which helps to stimulate your lymphatic system & drain your skin of any lingering toxins, and the Skin Gym Wrinklit LED Mask that utilizes light therapy. This mask comes with three different light settings, but we recommend using red at night for the rest-promoting effect it has on the body. Pop the mask on & wear it around the house while you do the rest of your rituals, leaving it on for at least 15 minutes. Red light therapy helps to reduce inflammation, redness, and even hyperpigmentation all while stimulating collagen production, so the benefits are very substantial.
SKIN GYM
WRINKLIT LED MASK
Beauty is all about the details, so make sure you are finishing your skincare rituals with a nourishing eye cream. Melissa loves to use the Kypris Ad Astra at night for its rich texture (for Melissa’s full, current nighttime skin routine, visit this blog). Another way to luxuriate your ritual is to use the Fitglow Night Lip Serum. You will wake up with the most pillowy soft lips as it actually helps to improve the cellular structure of your lips with consistent use, giving them more fullness and volume over time. Fitglow also has a Night Lash + Brow Serum which strengthens, fortifies & helps your lashes & brows grow while you rest. There’s nothing like knowing that your beauty products are working overtime for you while you slumber.
While you’re indulging in your beautiful skincare ritual, it’s the perfect opportunity to recite some positive & uplifting affirmations to yourself. You can practice mirror work, which is a technique used to develop a deeper connection with yourself, instilling confidence and self-love. You can also choose to recite affirmations that are fitting to whatever energies you want to work with. For example, if you want to focus on beauty & your skin, you can say aloud “I am filled with vibrant beauty & my skin is radiant, glowing & luminous”. If you want to enhance self-love, while putting on your facial oil repeat “This oil opens my heart chakra & encourages me to feel the sacred love that is inherent in my being.” To focus on a more emotional aspect such as feeling calm, peaceful & clear minded before bed, you can say “I support & invite sacred serenity into my dreams tonight.” The options are endless when it comes to affirmations and mirror work, so get creative and do what feels right for you.
REDUCE YOUR TOXIC LOAD
Part of setting the mood, curating your environment & winding down in the evening is making sure to eliminate toxins. From technology and lighting to the sheets we cuddle up with & the mattresses we sleep on, it’s so crucial to keep your evenings free of toxic, overstimulating & hormone-disrupting chemicals. Making sure to give yourself a time frame each night where you shut down all electronics, put away your laptop & blue light blasting cell phones, really allows your natural circadian rhythms to work for you. Putting away our phones can be challenging, so if you’re unable to put it away for whatever reason, we suggest using the Save Face Blue Light Blocking IRL Filter for your phone. EMF (Electric and magnetic fields) exposure has been found to negatively affect us, especially at night, disrupting our sleep & wreaking havoc on our cells. Save Face also carries an innovative little decal, the No Bad Vibes Coin, that you can pop onto the back of your phone that neutralizes EMFs and diffuses radiation.
It’s pretty wild to think about the fact that we spend about a third of our lives asleep, in our beds, laying on a mattress, which is why it is so important to make sure you have an organic, non-toxic mattress. Typical mattresses are made with bleach, cotton laden with pesticides, and harmful dyes, all of which can cause serious health issues. Melissa LOVES & highly recommends the Savvy Rest mattresses. She just went through the process of designing her daughter Willow's first big girl room and chose to use Savvy Rest for their outstanding all-natural certifications and comfort. Melissa uses these mattresses throughout her entire home and suggests that everyone invests in a high-quality, non-toxic, natural mattress to really ensure optimal wellness.
They have generously provided Citrine clients with a discount code. Use code CITRINE20 for 20% off your purchase!
REFLECT & CONNECT
Lastly, ending your evening with some reflective rituals to help you get into a super positive mindset before you head off to sleep is very healing. Falling asleep with a sense of uplifted peace and gratitude actually helps us to access better opportunities, elevate our creativity, and perform at a higher level in our waking lives. There are so many sacred activities you can add to your nightly ritual, from meditation & breathwork to journaling & intention setting. Melissa’s intuitive coach, Bianca Jade was interviewed on our blog and shared her Top 5 Spiritual Practices that are perfect for both beginners and seasoned soul-searchers alike. You can develop a combination of practices that align with you, your preferences & lifestyle but the real goal is to continue to develop a deeper connection to yourself. This mindful, conscious connection to your spirit and higher self will allow you to enhance your intuition, be less reactive, access higher frequency emotions and states of being, and truly improve your life on a multitude of levels. Regardless of if you choose to incorporate some of these practices into your evenings, it’s an extremely powerful & simple practice to reflect on your day and notate what you are grateful for before heading off into dreamland. Gratitude is such a potent tool to help us improve our lives so just remember that...
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie
So with that… goodnight, sweet dreams & have a restorative beauty rest xoxo!
