I found it great to read the comments of people’s experiences, observations and experiments around the practice of getting an early night in response to the article The Science of Early To Bed – so much wisdom readily available in us.
A few of the comments relating to what we do before we go to bed have activated my keyboard this morning. To me, ‘before’ bed is not just the last few minutes before I peel back the sheets and get in.
I agree with what has been shared that it’s how I do everything for the whole of the day that governs the ease of getting to sleep and the quality of my sleep.
But for me it goes back even further than the day’s activities, to how I make my bed in the morning. This may sound funny to some, and some may accuse me of being ‘obsessive’, however, in the morning as soon as I get up (early) I have a little ritual – fully present and loving with myself – when I make my bed. I devote up to 5 minutes to it.
I take off the pillows, top sheet, doona and blankets, whatever… then I smooth out all the wrinkles in the mattress protector and bottom sheet and tuck it back in tight so it’s neat, then shake and smooth out the pillows and put them in place, nicely centred. I then feel how much warmth I may need for the night and choose the coverings accordingly. After that the top sheet goes on, with the same length hanging down both sides of the bed, no wrinkles, and enough length up the pillow end for a comfortable fold-back. Then on goes the doona and/or blankets, also applied symmetrically and smoothed out. I finish by topping off with a couple of colour-matched velvet cushions, shaken out, smoothed and placed at harmonious angles.
Can you imagine the love and care pouring out of my bed, sitting there innocently awaiting me for later?
I can feel it myself, and so can others (“It feels so amazing, am I allowed to sit here?” kind of thing.) When it’s time for me to go to bed and I begin to peel back the covers, my face erupts in a smile ‘all by itself’ – my body is feeling the love I have put into my bed to support and cradle me all night. It feels so delicious and inviting, the smile is inevitable! I can go to sleep within seconds of my head meeting the pillow . . . provided of course I have quietened myself down from the day instead of leaping into bed at 10,000 rpm. Even then, the quality of love in my bed is so strong and supportive that it can help me wind down . . .
It might seem like there’s not enough time in the day to put this level of care into things like making one’s bed, preparing one’s food, clothes, bathroom, kitchen, work spaces, etc., but when you factor in the time lost to feeling tense, tired and disconnected, making complications, messes and mistakes that we have to go back and clean up or correct, being moody and creating issues in relationships that have to be resolved, running out of energy before the day’s over, etc., I reckon the small amount of time given to making my bed and putting loving self-care into one’s physical environment is a great return on investment!
Dedicated to everyone’s loving choices that bring the best quality sleep!
By Dianne Trussell BSc, science researcher, educator & writer, Goonellabah, NSW, Australia
Further Reading:
Insomnia – my sleep disorder or my daily dis-order?
Ironing the Pillow Cases – A Lesson of Love
Early to Bed, Early to Rise, Makes you Healthy, Wealthy and Wise
Livingness Toolkit
895 Comments
Starting the day with an imprint of love to return to sets a foundation of loving care and attention to all activities during the day.
Those ‘little’ lovely details DO make a difference to life. I love to fold my clothes in certain ways depending on what it is. I do this at work too and it feels lovely opening the drawer and seeing the care and detail.
The truth is, love is actually all there is and as far fetched as it sounds we will one day live that truth again.
There is power when we bring order to our living spaces. The love we imprint our spaces with, loves us back! Each time we go back to re-tidy and clean we are not setting the bar back to zero, but deepening the imprint of before.
I really need to apply this same philosophy to my work desk! to often I leave it to only come back to a disorganised mess!
‘Can you imagine the love and care pouring out of my bed, sitting there innocently awaiting me for later?’ Getting into a lovingly made bed is like the warmest cuddle ever. Bed time has to be my favourite moment of the day when I can snuggle down and feel all that love feeding me back!
When it comes to our day the energy that we awaken is then put into our movements so our bed making can then prepare us for our most loving day and as this is a spherical approach to life we awaken the next day having evolved from the previous day because of the way we have approached each day from the outset, so building a forever deepening level of Love-every-day WOW! thanks Dianne.
It makes sense, the energy that we make our bed in (or do not make our bed!) we come back to at the end of the day, so, do we do this in a quality that supports us? This could be said for everything we do .. how we get dressed, cook a meal etc are we doing it being present with ourselves and in a way that supports ourselves. I have a lot to learn with this one and sometimes when I am in a rush can feel just how this affects me, and others, not in a great way.
How I wake up sets the day. I love waking up to the birds singing it’s pitch dark outside but they are already greeting the day to come with such energy and enthusiasm. I make my bed knowing that it is a place of great rest to come back to. How I am in my day makes a huge difference too. But going into my bedroom at night and seeing just how inviting my bed is, ready for me to put my self to sleep again is well quite magical.
My husband is amazing at making our bed, he makes it every morning without fail. When someone commits to doing something and brings there kind of flare to it it is just gorgeous and inspiring to see.
I love making my bed, I lay my PJ’s and my i pillow on my heated blanket, I then turn my electric blanket on half hour before bed so they are all nice and toasty before I get dressed and jump in!
Our bed and how we prepare it so when we return to sleep we are greeted by a deepened love that we have lived during the day and this is because we have started with the most Loving ritual that snowballs as we appreciate the Love we are living.
Bringing this level of care and love into areas of our life will have a huge impact on our lives and health.
There will be a time when all we’re leaving is the imprint of love wherever we go rather than what we’re all currently leaving which is the imprint of what is not at all loving wherever we go. It’s not so much that we ourselves are the stamp it’s more that we are the portals through which either love or what is not love comes through. Interestingly despite the fact that we live in what appears to be a loveless world, love is actually our default setting. We just work tirelessly to scribble it out.
Your blog really makes me sit up and ask if we are paying attention to the smaller details in life – after all – we have no idea how far one ripple, or one choice can go.
With sleep being such a big issue for many people these days it would be great if they were given articles like this when they seek help, ‘it’s how I do everything for the whole of the day that governs the ease of getting to sleep and the quality of my sleep.’
And how much more our education would be true in a sense that it actually works when we apply truthfull observation and change whatever is needed from there.
Dianne, I love reading about the care that you take when making your bed – it feels very nurturing to take care of the details.
Dianne, ‘Can you imagine the love and care pouring out of my bed, sitting there innocently awaiting me for later?’ This is lovely. I notice this if I leave my house tidy and cared for – it feels really supportive to come back home to this care at the end of the day.
Dianne, I love this; ‘Can you imagine the love and care pouring out of my bed, sitting there innocently awaiting me for later?’ I have experienced this love and support from my living room and dining room area – where I have allowed the time to lovingly clean and tidy this area in the morning and then to return home after work has felt amazing to come back to such a loving and supportive space and so I can feel how this would also happen with lovingly making my bed.
It brought a smile to my lips Dianne reading how your body received the love that you had made the bed in. There is nothing better than feeling the quality of our essence in all our movements.
I love your words “…dressing my bed…” Elizabeth. I had actually never considered that before but I am sure now I won’t forget, ensuring that the love I dress myself in, in the morning will be the same love with which I will ‘dress’ my bed. Now I can’t wait for the morning!
So simple, but so profound and a very practical way to bring more order into one’s life. And having more order in the morning cannot but help to support the order of our day and on into the night, such is the power of the ripple effect. Turning back a bed made in love is, for me, a real smile moment.
Once you have prepared and made your bed with such love and care and felt the difference it would be very hard not to do it every day.
There are so many areas we can bring more care and love to ourselves, this is one such example, how we make our bed in the morning, ‘ fully present and loving with myself – when I make my bed. ‘
This level of attention to detail is super supportive on every level. Once you start you sure don’t want to stop and you get to feel that there is a deeper level you can always take this love for ourselves.
Sleep is needed to maintain our vitality which is why it is important to prepare ourselves properly for it.
Oh how lovely ✨
“Can you imagine the love and care pouring out of my bed, sitting there innocently awaiting me for later?” I absolutely love this sentence… And of course the same goes for anything we do when we bring that level of love and care to it. I have often felt that cleaning when there is nothing to clean, or tidying up when a room is tidy has seemed pointless.
But what I am appreciating now is that there is always an opportunity to reimprint any space with love, so that whoever comes into it next will feel the depth and quality of how it has been prepared. Whether they are aware of it or not is of no consequence.
It’s great to see how circumstance in our day may play out chaotically – but it’s not random at all but a consequence of some simple choices you made at the beginning of it all.
“the small amount of time given to making my bed and putting loving self-care into one’s physical environment is a great return on investment!” This is so true and a real life example of how we can bring love and self care into our lives and the difference joy and expansion this brings to each moment we choose it .
Getting into my bed at the end of the day has to be one of my favourite activities, not just because I want to go to sleep but because of the investment, love, care and attention I have paid to setting up my whole bedroom. I also devote a number of minutes to making my bed in the morning so that the love I put in it feeds me back when I get in it! I find it an absolute joy and a real support just to be in my bedroom.
Beautiful. What an experiment to do and fully allow ourselves that we deserve to put care into our every day.
How you make your bed in the morning after getting up sets already the quality of going to sleep in the night.
How much are we in rhythm with every movement which sets the standard for the next movement to come?!
Love doesn’t come out of nowhere, it rides on the back of all the loving choices that have gone before it. I like most people thought that I could pluck love out of thin air whilst making unloving choices in every single area of my life. I have now rediscovered love and that rediscovery has come about as a result of changing my unloving choices into loving ones, one loving choice at a time.
Super inspirational Dianne. This loving procedure will cost you 5 or 10 minutes but most probably will save you an extra hour of sleep. The more love you have in you body once you get into bed the less sleep is needed to heal what is not love.
We can never escape the fact that there is a quality of energy behind every move we make as such every imprint we leave holds a quality of energy that represents love or lovelessness. We can feel it all however it comes down to whether we want to be honest about what we feel as such take the responsibility of what quality of energy we are choosing to be moved by. To make our bed in a loving way is an act of love that not only honours who we are but also is an honouring of the love we all are and all deserve to be met with through our movements, be it in person or by way of our imprints.
Very true Carola. And there are no shades of grey in the energy behind everything we do: it is with a healing energy, or a harming energy. No middle ground.
This article talks about the great science of energetic imprints, and how these can form the basis of our lives, to be more loving and supportive as we work and toil throughout the day, with a returning to our divine selves when it is time to rest and recover.
Dianne, I agree with yiu here; ‘I reckon the small amount of time given to making my bed and putting loving self-care into one’s physical environment is a great return on investment!’ from my experience it is definitely worth the time, my relationships are stronger and less strained, I feel less tense and overwhelmed and more able to focus on what needs to be done with work or preparing meals. What I find supportive is making these loving touches every day to the house so that it stays feeling cared for and supportive.
Dianne, I love this article. Since previously reading this article I have started making my bed in the mornings. I really enjoy smoothing out the creases and making everything symmetrical. It feels gorgeous to leave the bed in this way. I have also noticed this with other areas of my house, – straightening up chairs and placemats. A few minutes time spent on these details makes the house feel very different – I love the order and spaciousness that this brings. Thank you for your inspiration.
What if it wasn’t just our bed we made with this quality? Our world would be so changed ~ for just look at what shifts when we bring this care to one single thing.
I love getting into a beautifully made bed, in a beautiful tidy, clean room that has amazing order and a well loved atmosphere. It’s super nurturing and rejuvenating.
Put the love out, let the love in when it comes back. Simple.
One of the many cycles of love that are on offer in our days. Preparing our beds for our return later… the quality with which we do this is an amazing feedback loop and opportunity to reflect and learn.
If I am working late I can often leave my office in a bit of a mess, now however I am putting more effort into the way I leave it, as I know how I leave it the night before meets me the next morning.
The power of doing anything in love and gentleness leaves a beautiful footprint to re-meet when we come back to it, from making our bed, to tidying our desk, clearing our cupboard and everything else.
That is a great point – when we consider the procrastination time, the inane distraction time, we can easily take 5 minutes to lay a foundation to come back to at bed time. What a great loving seed to plant for ourselves to come back to.
Just like the story of the princess and the pea, energetically we can feel all the care or lack of care in our daily movements, especially making our bed.
The ripple affect of everything we do affects the next so it makes that how we live in the day will affect the quality of our sleep at night.
I remember reading your blog sometime ago Dianne, and loved what you have shared, and like you it has become my daily routine each morning , thank you.
Making my bed with love and care in the morning supports the quality of sleep that I want to surrender to in the evening.
To me it is just common sense that the bed has to be made with care in every detail to the tee as it just feels so disregarding and dishonouring not to do so. After all, I would rather come home to an imprint of love than an imprint of disregard any day.
So so simple, and something to live by. I make a point to observe what my relationship with this is day to day. This morning was a bit of a rush, late night last night and fell into bed and then up early on the move again… yes lots getting done but in what quality? And that is reflected in how much time I gave to making my bed. I can have the same itinerary but giving myself (the bed etc) that extra minute or two to make sure the quality is there, changes everything through my day.
That is such a great point Simon. These little things can be early warning signs of a much bigger ripple effect with rushing and the quality we then bring to whatever we do or whoever we are with.
I love this idea of your bed, so beautifully made up, sitting and waiting for you all day to come back to. And I love how simple and practical self-care can be, with just a few extra moments that can make all the difference to a whole nights sleep.
This does make such a difference, and it is very much about preparing, preparing for life, all the details of life matter. Being aware that we come back to what we have chosen is important, and how we make our bed definitely shows us this every day.
This is true self care and it is this deeper level of care for ourselves that always comes back, doesn’t matter if it is making our bed or cleaning the house, getting dressed in the morning, when we do it with the quality that is in us, it will serve not only ourselves but everyone, it emanates out and is felt whether people are aware of it or not.
True we are so powerful when we balance our life in repose and motion, so winding down before going to bed is crucial. And making your bed from this still place within one self is very supportive indeed.
That is so true, how much time we waste during the day, because we get busy with things, that don´t evolve us any bit. For me it is really painful by now, when I review a day and see pockets of wasted time, by getting drawn in any humanly discussions, issues that are actually not existing anymore, thinking etc. I really hate that fog, that is polluting my presence then.
I would very much appreciate to sleep in a bed that you finished to get ready to sleep in. It must feel like heaven lying down in the dedication of your preparing.
The days were my room is out of order show me that there are things I am letting slip or things that I am not dealing with in my day and it is reflected in how I care for my space which also reflects how I have been caring for me.
This is a beautiful reminder how much time we loose in rushing around, being in stress and tension. What you are reflecting and offering is that if we allow space and time to nurture ourselves in our preparation for sleep, food, cleaning our space and other things we are allowing another level of care to our lives, which will support our rejuvenation/rest period and our movements.
I so enjoy the invitation that a lovingly made bed offers me, not only when I come to get into it at bedtime but also as a reminder throughout the day that there is a quality there ready to hug me back.
Yes.. how much time do we actually waste through exhausting and pushing ourselves and wanting or needing recovery time afterwards? Self care is so worth the investment because it sustains and nourishes us, providing a foundation of steadiness and consistency.
Giving ourselves the space up front and through the day, rather than squeezing everything in!
I used to think that I was ‘making my bed in love’ that is until I read your wonderful blog some time ago. It didn’t take too long before I realised that there was a much deeper level of this love to access. And as the bed-making love has deepened so too has the quality of my sleep as well as the ease with which I go to sleep; definitely worth the extra few minutes in the morning.
And there is an ongoing lesson for me in terms of the intention behind why I am making my bed. A hint of ‘keeping up appearances’ still wheedles its way in sometimes, which dismisses the sweetness of simply setting up a loving embrace for our return.
Making this a focus as to quality in how we put our bed together is super important. I remember I would leave the house with a bed unmade or shoved together and be fine with it. Today every cell in my body goes crazy and can’t handle it slightly. When we start to truly love and nurture ourselves all these things matter.
Thank you Dianne for it reveals to us how much power our choices have when we truly care. I love this example and have used this example in my own everyday life ever since.
Making my bed has become a daily moment where I check where I am with my connection to myself. Which often by the time I have done kids lunches and breakfast I’m ready for a moment to connect more deeply. I love coming back into my room and feeling what love I have chosen to leave for myself reminding me that I am worthy of enormous love.
‘You made your bed, you better lie in it’ – this keeps coming to mind when I read this blog. Life is not a punishment but it is undeniably true that the quality we choose in every moment lays the foundation for what comes next. At the end of the day, and of our life it’s inextricable that we’ll come back to the light we’ve lived. Thank you Dianne.
It seems like we are ever being pulled to be more loving with ourselves, what we considered loving yesterday may not be so today and in fact if we look back we can see how by deepening our level of care and consideration for ourselves, our honouring of ourselves, the quality of our life changes quantifiably.
when we give that detail care to everything during our day we can feel the space which is much bigger then time.
A great learning here and beautifull sharing in how the quality, care and love in which we do things in for either ourselves or others comes back tenfold when we meet it again. Very inspiring.
Starting the day by making the bed lovingly, is a great way to set up the rest of the day in a quality that supports every action thereafter.
“I agree with what has been shared that it’s how I do everything for the whole of the day that governs the ease of getting to sleep and the quality of my sleep” – yes, and the quality of sleep governs the type of day we experience too.. which later generates the sleep quality. They are inextricably linked. So as i’m finding myself, sleep isn’t just the resolve or recovery to a bad day i might have had where I’d ‘switch off and forget’ [because it’s night-time] .. but more so an extension of my living day that is continuing to be lived whilst asleep. The preparation and care we have and hold for our days is to be there equally for our night-time cycle too.
Many people look at me funny when I say I get up at 3:30/4am when I start work at 7am with a 30’ commute. So what do I do the rest of the time? I prepare my room, my work lunch, do some computer work. I have the space in the morning to not be rushed. I enjoy my working day far more this way.
Everywhere we go, everything we do is bed preparation when you understand how energy works. It’s the choices we make that determine the depth of rest we will take. Thank you Dianne for this powerful blog.