sleep better – part 2: BEFORE-BED TACTICS TO WIND DOWN

You’ve made it through the day. Now your body needs a little help making the switch. Here’s what actually works when you go from full speed to trying to sleep with next to no transition time. Chiropractor, wellness advocate, and friend of bellamumma Samuel Garner breaks it down…

The One Thing Sam Recommends Every Time {And It’s Simpler Than You Think}

If there’s a single thing he comes back to again and again, it’s magnesium in the evening. Magnesium plays a real role in relaxing the nervous system and helping muscles release the tension they’ve been holding all day. And most of us are holding more than we realise. Tight jaw. Stiff neck. Shoulders that haven’t dropped since Monday. Magnesium helps the body shift out of that “fight or flight” state and into something closer to “rest and digest” before sleep, even when you haven’t given yourself much of a wind-down window. Some formulas also include GABA, a calming compound that can further support that shift into sleep mode.

What An Ideal Pre-Sleep Hour Actually Looks Like

Sam suggests taking magnesium around an hour before bed, as part of a broader evening wind-down. It works best alongside a few other habits: dimming the lights, stepping away from screens, and giving yourself even a short window to mentally switch gears. Ten to twenty minutes of gentle deep breathing can be enough to help you drift off.

Heat is another tool worth considering. A sauna session, a warm bath, or a jacuzzi soak in the evening can help relax the muscles, ease physical tension, and support a calmer nervous system before bed. It’s the same principle as a warm shower: your body temperature rises, then drops as you cool down, and that cooling effect is one of the body’s natural cues to initiate sleep.

Why Screens Before Bed Are More Disruptive Than You Think

It comes down to light. The body struggles to tell the difference between natural sunlight and the light coming off your phone or laptop. Our sleep cycle is built around the natural rhythm of sunrise and sunset, and that biology hasn’t changed much since we were farmers going to bed after dark.

Morning light signals the body to wake up and get alert. Darkness signals that it’s time to wind down. When you’re scrolling through a bright screen late at night, it can suppress melatonin, the hormone that helps you fall asleep, and delay your body’s natural sleep signal. The result? You’re wide awake when you should be winding down.

The Stretches Worth Adding To Your Evening Routine

Gentle movement before bed is one of the most underrated tools for better sleep. Sam recommends focusing on the areas that tend to carry the most stress through the day: neck, shoulders, lower back and hips. Slow neck stretches, chest and shoulder openers, gentle spinal twists. Nothing intense. The goal isn’t a workout, it’s just helping your body shift gears.

Yin yoga, light stretching, or a few minutes of slow breathing can all help move your nervous system toward that rest and digest state that supports deeper sleep. If you do nothing else, even five minutes of intentional slow movement before bed is worth something.

Hot Showers, Magnesium, Herbal Teas: What’s Actually Worth It

There’s a lot of sleep advice floating around. Here’s Sam’s honest take.

* Warm showers and heat exposure {sauna, jacuzzi} do have real merit. They work through the same mechanism: raise your body temperature, then let it drop, and that cooling phase signals the body to wind down.

* Magnesium is genuinely useful, especially for people who carry a lot of muscle tension or find themselves mentally wired at night.

* Herbal teas are helpful more for what they represent than what’s in the cup. The ritual of slowing down, making something warm, and sitting quietly with it tells your body that the day is done. That matters.

And the fundamentals? They still matter most. Morning light. Regular movement. Cutting caffeine by 2pm. Reducing light and stimulation as the evening winds down. The small stuff adds up. But none of it works without the basics underneath.

Connect & Contact

Samuel Garner is a chiropractor at Avalon Beach Chiropractic and Wellness
and co-founder of Sauna Amalfi.
Follow at @avalonbeachchiropractic and @saunaamalfi