Episode 36: How to Choose Your Last Thought of the Day for Better Sleep

Tina Boogren
2 days ago
6 min read

Description: Most of us are intentional about how we start our mornings, but rarely think about our last thought before sleep. It turns out that final moment before you drift off matters more than you might realize. Your brain continues processing and consolidating whatever is on your mind as you fall asleep, which means choosing that last thought carefully could change not just how you sleep, but how you feel the next day.

Subscribe here to receive a weekly reminder for each new episode.

Resources: How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay by Jenny Lawson

Listen Now:

Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Everyday Wellness with Dr. Tina H. Boogren. I am your host, Dr. Tina Boogren, and I'm so happy you're here. This is episode 36, and I am hoping so much that you have been implementing some of these recent invitations. I know I have continued my art practice, and it is making me so stinkin' happy. I am continuing to play with watercolor and marker and even handwriting. I went with one of my really good friends to a scripting class where we learned how to do calligraphy. I just am loving that little just respite out of my day to create more than I consume. And I have been continuing with last week's invitation of taking just a little bit of time in the morning to do some reading, and that's making me happy. So I finished my Maggie Smith book that I mentioned in the last episode, and I started Jenny Lawson's new book, and I'm just loving reading it in the morning, just little bits at a time. It feels very different than the fiction novel that I read in the evening, but it is just, ah, such a game changer in how I start my day, which leads us to this week's invitation.

So this week we're going to kind of bookend our day. So if we're purposeful in how we start our day, I've already mentioned that I have really changed my morning routine, that when my alarm goes off in the morning, before I do anything else, I do not touch my phone. I grab my journal, I grab my glasses and I grab my journal and I do some writing. And then, as I said, I pick up that book and I do a little bit of reading before I ever check my email, before I even get out of bed, and it has made such a huge difference. Which leads me to thinking about, how do we end the day?

There's this phenomenon that many of you are familiar with, particularly probably the educators as listeners, in the primacy-recency effect, which simply means that we tend to remember the beginning and the end of things the most. The middle, eh, it kind of gets all jumbled up together. And so I'm thinking about this in terms of our day. So the start of the day, if we're really intentional in that, and hopefully you've got some routine started there. Now let's think about the end of the day, and I'm going to nudge us to think about the literal very end. We have talked before about putting in place some nighttime routines, and I hope that you've been doing that, I hope you've kept up with that. If not, here's a good nudge and reminder of maybe getting that back together. So many people will set an alarm that tells them, okay, it is time to start winding down, get off the screen, get ready for bed, get things ready for the next day, and then do all of those rituals that help us get ready for rest and sleep. So maybe taking a bath, maybe reading a book, maybe doing some coloring, maybe that is when we do our art.

But I'm talking about even later than that. I want us to think about choosing our last thought of the day on purpose. Meaning, I want you to think about right before you fall asleep, being purposeful of what is running through your mind. I just, I don't know a lot of the research, but I know that our brain is really susceptible right before we hit that sleep state, that we can be really thoughtful about what we're thinking about right before we go to bed, and that it matters. And for many of us, particularly when things get busy, we may be running through our to-do list or feeling that stress or, I hope not, but we're, oh, consuming on social media, we've got our phones and we're doom scrolling. Think about that as your very last thought before you go to bed and you move into that dream state. What if we decide that we are going to choose that final thought or image? So maybe you picture the best possible day the following day. Like, you kind of rehearse what you want that day to look like, or imagining yourself, ah, on their upcoming vacation, or the long weekend, or some happy thing, or maybe you are recalling a happy moment or a happy memory, or the best part about your day. But when we think about, you know, what we focus on at night, it just, it matters more than we realize.

There's studies, like I said, I don't know them deeply, but I've been doing a little bit of reading in preparation for this that say that emotional processing and memory consolidation that happens during sleep shows that the brain continues to organize and strengthen whatever we've been thinking about just before we drift off. So in other words, the mind keeps working the night shift on whatever we hand to it last. So when the final input is stress or self-criticism or anxiety, it can shape not only how we sleep, but how we feel the next day. So instead, again, doesn't take any time, doesn't cost any money, what if we are really purposeful in choosing that last thought? And again, maybe we recall one moment from the day that was the best part of the day. Maybe we picture something that we're looking forward to tomorrow or in the future. Maybe we think of someone or something that we are grateful for. Maybe we repeat like an affirmation or a mantra, something like, "That was enough for today," or one of my favorites, which is, "Tomorrow is going to be the best day of my life." I love to put that just kind of out into the universe. So you don't even have to journal this. I mean, of course you can, but it's not even about that. It is literally just being thoughtful about your thoughts and being really purposeful about what is the last thing that you want running through your mind before you drift off into sleep, and how that can impact your sleep, and for many of us, sleep is something we might struggle with. And then even thinking about how it impacts the next day. Again, remember that primacy-recency effect that says we remember the beginning and the end of our days or things, events, in general, but think about how we can use that for our day, starting purposefully and ending purposefully.

I am going to really, really work on this this week. I'm excited about it. I'm actually going to put a little sticky note on my nightstand to remind me to do this. So maybe you do the same. Sometimes , I get all excited about trying something new, and then I forget that I was going to do it, so I'm just going to put a little sticky note next to my nightstand to just remind me of this. And as always, I'm going to have questions over in our Facebook group, Everyday Wellness, that match this week's invitation so that we can keep it fresh in our mind, get ideas from each other, so jump on over there and join that conversation.

I'm cheering so hard for you. As always, we're grateful to Adrienne and Marzano Resources and Solution Tree for this incredible job I get to do, and to you, this badass Everyday Wellness squad, I'm cheering so hard for you. Let's purposely end our day on a really positive note and see what kind of impact that has. I can't wait to hear about it. Make it a great week, you guys. I love you.

If this episode resonated with you, find more mental wellness episodes here.