Hi, I’m Shawn Maguire and welcome to the New Vision counseling.live podcast, episode number 30 episode number 30 hey, we just got done doing three podcast, 27 through 29 over morning habits that will change your life. Now, it might seem a lot to do three podcasts over Morton habits, but if you go back and listen to them, what you’ll discover is that they set the tone for the day that you’re going to have every day. It’s like investing in a four o one k plan every day. You put a little bit more in, a little bit more in a little bit more in and then a compound interest over your life. You have millions of dollars. The same is true of your morning routines. Now remember, we want to be a place in envision Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City where we help you discover what better looks like for you and then equip you with the tools to create it, and part of that is we went over the morning routines, morning habits that changed your life.
Now I’m going to jump into the evening habits that will change your life. You say, Sean, that’s a lot of life change. Yes it is. And I know that if I can motivate you to see the value in your morning and your nighttime habits that whether you’re in Edmond, Oklahoma City, Tulsa Paradise in Hawaii or Florida, that you real experience tremendous change over the next months and then the next years of your life. So what can you do? Well, I’m going to share some of the things that I do now because I want you to do all of these are even think you should do all of these, but to give you an idea of what you can do. Because so much of my life and the life of the people that I served through Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City is limited by what we’ve been raised in by the schools that we’ve gone to and by the experiences with friends that we’ve had and we’ve compared herself to others or have listened to what teachers say that we can accomplish. Sure. We’ve listened to what our friends say or even sometimes what our parents say, well meaning that we can accomplish and it really is limited our abilities to go as far as God has created us to go.
This heater here is making my voice dry because her house was cold this morning in Oklahoma. So what do we do for evening as well? I think many of our evenings are very different and diverse and so my evening starts the routines I’m going to start, we’re going to be when my kids and all of us as a family are winding down because every other night looks different. And I’m sure if you’re a normal person, your nights are different and diverse, especially if you have kids and includes gains and includes friends, activities and includes so many different things that I’m just going to start with the routines and the habits that I will help you implement in your life. So the timing of this depends on the flow of your evening. So for us, typically eight 30 or nine depending on the rhythm and season of her life, maybe a little bit later in the summer.
For you, this may be 7:00 PM so again, timing is timing is what you need for your family. I’m really big in Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City on helping you develop a unique rhythm for your life in this season. So whatever number you need to start at whatever time. That’s great. So we start by doing some form of a devotional. He said, what do you mean, like the Bible? Yes, sometime it’s the Bible. We read, you know this week we’ve been reading acts and you know we started with, I helped my daughter put together a Lego that she got and that’s what we did. And my son put together his own Lego and that’s what we did while my wife read the book of acts and then we talked about it when we were done. So that’s something else. Sometimes we’ll read it, we’ll read a devotional. Other times, like on weekends we might watch a movie and then then that’s part of our time.
You know, I really identify with superhero movies because they live for a purpose bigger than the sacrifice of today and they live for a purpose bigger than what it costs them. And I love that. Think that’s the Christian ethos of how gods live for us and that world to live for him. So that’s some of the things that we do. Other areas are, we talk about the day we share the wins, what are the wins of the day? Sometimes you know, we always ended with a prayer, sometimes the pairs long, other times we might have a worship song, something that we can sing together to kind of wind is down for the night and help us go into a good space when we sleep. Now when the kids go to bed 10 and I oftentimes will have talk times if we haven’t got our talk time in earlier that day, we’ll finish up or maybe there’s some things we need to talk about or just to connect time or maybe we’ll pray.
We do pray every night before we go to bed. A lot of times this happens. If there’s an issue, it’ll happen before we get into bed. There’s not an issue. We typically pray while we’re in bed before she goes to sleep. Now some of you, he may say, okay, I’m with you so far. Something else that I do at night is I, I select the outfit I’m going to wear the next day. Now that may seem a little bit much, but here’s why I do that. I also want you to know that I try to be a very efficient in my mornings because when I first wake up, I’m not all the way awake. I tried to remove as many decisions as I can so I can just go to my closet, pick the outfits and the shoes and just grab it and go and put it on.
If I’m going to shave that morning cause I don’t need to shave every day I will have the stuff out I need to shave with. So it reminds me, hey, don’t forget to shave. And then I’ll move into, at nighttime I’ll do the things, I’ll sit out the smoothie ingredients I’m going to have or the green ingredients. If they’re vegetables, I’ll typically leave those in the fridge, but I’ll put them towards the front. But I tried to do different ingredients every day so my body does not get allergic or adapt much and get sick of certain ingredients. So I have all that out. I have the, you know, clean the Coffee Cup out, fill the water up. And so in the mornings I’m just naturally move through the rhythm of the, of my clothes, go get my coffee and then right before I leave I’ll make my smoothie and I’m out.
So that really helps that at nighttime. Something else that I do that I find really helpful is I have things that I do that if I can’t sleep, I have a list of items that I engage in to help me unwind or go to sleep. Now these things are, I have all these natural sleeping remedies that have like Valerian root in it. They might have some lavender, you know I have lavender oil that I can put on my feet if I’m not sleeping well. If I haven’t had a high stress day, I might take the column. C. A l. M this is for a lot of marriage Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City. I hope people take this. It helps you kind of just relax more. Um, I have the non THC CBD oil that can help relax as well. I have a lot of things that I, that I do based upon what’s going on in my life.
If I have really stressful season that these will be part of the rhythm, I’ll, I’ll take them without even needing to get up out of bed to do it. I’ll just take them before I go to bed. It depends. Also I try to take, you know, ideally it would be an hour, but that’s typically not my rhythm. My rhythm is 30 minutes before I go to bed. I shut down any kind of high level brain activity that is stressful or that requires a lot of thought engagement, a lot of thought engagement. And so I’m not going to do anything hot or tense before I go to bed 30 minutes before I’m going to relax and I’m getting into my rhythms. That really helps me. And then I sit down either in my chair or I’ll, I’ll kneel at my bed and put like a nice little pillow under my knees cause you have hardwood floors and I’ll write in my either my five minute journal I write and that takes about three minutes.
And then I’ll write in my five year journal. Two different goals with the five minute journal does is you don’t need the journal to do this. It’s just a structured way in the season I’m using. But it helps us ask questions about what was great about my day. It’s about what’s it, you know, what’s was great about my day. But another way to say that if you’re not going to get the journalist, what did I love about today and what ways have I been helpful? And Ben and give her, what did I learn today and how did it add value to my life? How did it add value to the life of others? Now, if you’re driving, you might want to go back and grab a notebook and pen, write these questions out. You can save a lot of money and just write them out and answer the same questions every day and then think about in what ways did what I do matter and contribute to others’ lives today.
You know, what did I do today? Another question and reaching for my goals. And then another one I like to say is, in what ways could I have made my day better? That’s a reframe of how did that fail today? It’s in what ways could I make my day? It could have made my day even better and then I visit. Then if I’m, it depends on, it’s all depends on how much of these I do. I do all of them as some form every night, but to the length depends on, you know, everybody’s days are different. Some days you might have 35 minutes, other days you may have 10 minutes. And so you want to adjust what you’re doing so you don’t stress about it to the timeframes that you have. But try to get at least 20 to 30 minutes of wine downtime each night. And I don’t do anything.
Um, besides believe that for most people you should have sex in your bed and you should sleep in your bed because that keeps your bed optimally focused on, you know, is a trigger for sleep and sex. Those are the only two things. So it alleviates proactively sleep problems that a lot of people who read in bed long times or watch TV for hours in bed or do pretty much their whole life in bed. That can create a level of anxiety that can create a level of stress and that can create a level of sleeplessness that you just don’t have to be a part of. So that’s one of the things that I do is I stay out of my bed until it’s actually time to sleep. Hope that makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen that one change positively impact people’s ability to have great nights sleeps or they wake up feeling rested.
Now, some people you might need more, maybe you like a Celeris sleep blanket that is weighted and it helps you feel like you’re being snuggled. My daughter likes this. She finds a lot of value. Make sure if you get one for your kids, it’s a kid. One, you don’t want a 30 pound blanket for your kid that weighs 50 pounds. That’s not a good thing. This is a really good thing. If you have a lot of anxiety and you don’t feel safe or something like that, this kind of helps comfort and a very interesting way. There’s what, there’s some science behind it, but a lot of people find that helpful. Also, you may want as part of your rhythm to look at before you’re 30 minutes starts, just look at your next day’s agenda and then write. You know what I do is I have a method that I got from this guy named Clay Clark and Tulsa Thrive time coaching.
He’s helping my Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City and our practice at New Vision counseling grow in healthy ways. And one of the things he does is he writes out his agenda but then he used a different markers, a yellow one to highlight the things he hasn’t done and he writes them out for the next day. He types them out. But I write them out and I have this amazing little, it’s a journal slash note taker slash has my to do lists on it every day. And I just knocked that out the night before most times so that I can start fresh what I know I need to work on and that gets it out of my mind for next day. I don’t have to think about anything. And then it’s ready for me when I start the day. So better to get those thoughts that repeat in your mind, out of your mind and onto paper and then you can accomplish your day more successfully and have a better night’s sleep because of it.
Now when I get in bed, this is what I have. I have, uh, I have a kindle Paperwhite cause it does not have the blue light in it that keeps you up. And I have a fiction book that I read that’s not a high level engagement book. It’s oftentimes one of the books my kids are reading. My goal was intentionally originally to keep up with what they’re reading, but we homeschool our kids and these guys reads, it seems like they read hundreds of books a year, but they read so much that there’s no way that me having a very different life than them because I work outside of the home can keep up with them. But I do read these fiction books that are, they’re entertaining enough, but within one to five pages, I’m out. I’m knocked out and I’m sleeping. Now the nights that I’m not, I can go longer.
That’s okay. And I’ll go up to 20 minutes in bed, 20 minutes in bed, and if I’m not sleeping after 20 minutes, I start to get anxious and stressed because I know the outcome of that. So then I’ll get out of bed. But I don’t go more than 2025 minutes in bed because Harvard did this huge study and one of the elements they discovered is if you’re not sleeping within the first 20 minutes, you needed to get up and engage in relaxing activities outside of your bedroom, outside of your bed. So your bed stays strong as a strong trigger that your body relates to sleep and your mind relates to sleep. So I’ll do that. And then I have these other things that I do on might take some natural sleeping remedies. I might take some calm, you know, it’s a little warm water and put some calm in their ca LM.
You can bite it, natural grocers or sprouts or wherever your health food store is. And uh, it kind of bubbles and then you just drank it. It kind of helps you relax. And then I read, I read outside of my bedroom, I might take that fiction book and read it outside in my chair. That helps me relax. And then on a normal night, I read that kindle I just talked about and that I, I have a, a binaural sleep or I’ll have a person that has a, and I won’t give you names of pastors that I make the time, 15 minutes and put it in a really low and I’ll have that pastor preach. It’s pastor that I know I can trust and he’s got a soothing voice. There’s a lot of those out there today and I’ll have, uh, an APP that has a meditation to have that.
It relaxes my mind and I time it to 15 minutes on a real low level and then it goes up times out. Another thing that I do is my wife and I pray, I always reach over and I touched my wife as an action point kind of connection. And we pray every night. Now she’s asleep some of the time when we pray, but in the world that I live in, that’s still counts because I’m praying and we’re connecting and, and somewhere inside of me made me just maybe her spirits awake. Who knows? Who knows? But on an unconscious level, I know that we’re connecting together and inviting God into our night, into our lives, and we’ve already prayed with four kids and a lot of times we’ve already prayed together about something specific going on in her life, but that’s how we tell we time it out and end our night together.
And so that’s really an important way that we go into our sleep. We go into our sleep and it’s relaxing and there’s so many nuances. I have a fan that I angled just right. I have my feet are up and my knees, I sleep on my back, so the pressure is taken off of my knees. My head is slightly tilted. I this chiropractic little tube pillow that has my neck and just the right angle for me keep it just a little bit chilly as well because that helps us sleep so our body knows it goes into this deeper sleep. When you’re hot, your body stimulate in, it moves, activates, and when you’re cold it kind of slows down. You know? Also, that’s one of the things for anxiety that I use is, is cold or in Christian marriage counseling Oklahoma City. If you are going to have a hot topic that you’re gonna talk about, a good thing to do is have an ice pack under your leg or on your back or even on your neck.
If you have one of those, it keeps the conversation cool and this is a great way to kind of deescalating, relax your body. Your mind is to have a cool in your room. Now these are seems like a lot, but guys, this really takes me not much time at all at all. Like it’s a rhythm that takes me very limited amount of time, really, really ever more than 20 to 30 minutes of my night is comprised of doing these activities and I am used to it and my body and my mind know what to do when I jumped into these habits that begin to slow me down and I can relax and rest. Now backstory for me is I used to stay up most nights, all night, often on slept terribly because I thought it was like everybody else. You know, they say you need eight hours sleep, eight hours sleep, everybody needs eight hours sleep.
That’s a lie. Everybody doesn’t need any of our sleep. Some people need nine hours sleep. My wife, she’s a good niner. She ate. Okay, so she’s got, she’s up right now. Well I’ll, I will still say eight to nine hours sleep, but it’s if you remove the limits of what you’ve been told you need, it’s very interesting to discover that you may need less sleep than you’d been told. Cause I get if I sleep seven to eight hour, if I sleep more than six hours regularly and I even get seven consistently, I start to sleep poorly. I’m up a lot, I’m up a lot. I need to be tired and I need to have engaged in a day and then I feel better. So we got to get the mess mentioned. That is really noteworthy. I exercise somewhat every day. I don’t do it three, two to three hours before I go to bed.
But I exercise that really profoundly helps me in my evening routine later to help sleep. So this was an evening routine slash sleep protocol podcast that will really set you up. We went over the 27th to 29 how to start your day. This is a longer episode and we went over how to end your day. So basically how to close, how to open your day, how to end your day is amazingly helpful. Something else that I do is also I keep thinking of these things. I visualize myself the next day of how I’m, how I’m doing well, how I’ve done a great, I might look in the mirror and say some positive things to myself as well and I can probably do a whole podcast and just exactly those things and how they can impact your life, how through marriage counseling, individual counseling in Edmond, Oklahoma City, that it’s been really impactful.
And so I’m sure if it’s impactful here in little old Oklahoma City, Edmond, that will be impactful for you wherever you’re listening to this podcast today. So I hope these were really helpful. These habits of opening your day and how to close your day, guys really will impact your life. I’ve seen over the past 25 plus years of serving people through counseling lives. May Zwingli changed because of implementing these habits and these strategies. If this was helpful to you, do me a favor, go to Google or evict reviewers. Review the way that we counseled through the Internet. I know that these podcasts, you know I’ve been blessed profoundly about the people that I listen to in podcasts and I just want to give back in a way that you can do that is share these with others, share how we’ve impacted your lives, and it really means a lot to me personally because part of our calling is we help you discover what better looks like for you and equip you with the tools to create it.
Also, these podcasts maybe great, but you may need more or we have a friend that needs more. So what you can do is you can share this link with them. You can also go to our website and vision counseling.live and contact us today because today can be the day where you start discovering what better looks like for you. When you invite a sent to help, you have the tools as biblical counselors who Mary, who married Biblical principles with cutting gets counseling techniques to change your story, to add value, to give you the tools to succeed in your store today. God bless. Look forward to seeing you again really soon.