Spa Night Every Night: Activating the Senses for the Most Relaxing Nighttime Routine
Written by Courtney Monasch
How often do you go to a spa? As a millennial woman coming out of 2020, likely, not very much. Spa treatments take time, are expensive, and viewed as luxurious treats reserved for tropical vacations and weekend getaways. These coveted spa days are few and far between, let alone if you’ve even had one.
So, what makes spa outings so sought after? To me it’s not the massage, the facial, the luxurious products in the restrooms or even the steam room that’s bigger than your studio apartment. It’s the full sensory experience.
You walk into a spa and are welcomed by an aura of tranquility, zen, and calm. Greeted with chilled lemon water and a cottony soft waffle robe you absorb the minimal aesthetic accentuated by crisp white uniforms. You’re enveloped in the smell of sea salt and gardenia.
You hear the humming of water pouring over smooth stones from the waterfall in the corner and the melody of a soft guitar. A sensory environment prepares the mind for rest and relaxation, eliciting an almost immediate shift of energy.
This feeling of release and peace shouldn’t be so few and far between as the number of spa visits you’re able to treat yourself to. I have a proposition: make every night a spa night.
While morning routines are often revered as setting your day off on the right foot, your nighttime routine determines your mindset before bed, which directly affects your quality of sleep and thus overall health. So, in order to replicate a spa-like environment every night, I will break down how to recreate the qualities that make a spa so rejuvenating. This means activating each of the five senses with something that brings you comfort and relaxation.
A way to begin the nightly wind-down process is to prepare a cup of herbal tea. Lavender and chamomile are both traditionally used to prepare the body for rest by calming the body and mind. Tasting these herbs can help set the tone for falling asleep faster (this is also a much better alternative to midnight snacking).
Scent is also a huge relaxer that most people don’t usually incorporate into their nightly routine. Similar to ingesting it, smelling lavender can have a full body calming effect. My favorite nighttime ritual is spritzing a mist of lavender spray on my pillow before I lay down. You can even make your own with lavender essential oil, water and a spray bottle.
Another way to incorporate lavender into your routine is by running an essential oil diffuser through the night. As a bonus, the soft bubbling of the diffuser acts as a spa-esque sound effect. I find this one of the easiest and most effective nighttime habits that creates a spa-like atmosphere and readies me for sleep.
Another spa essential is sound and music. To distract the mind and continue to build a peaceful environment, use your phone or smart speaker to incorporate sound into your nighttime routine. Some things I’d recommend are white/brown noise or zen spa music. Use whatever streaming platform you have to find meditative instrumental music. They even have pre-made spa playlists that will really set the mood. You can also use apps like Calm or Wellness Coach to do a quick meditation designed to help you drift to sleep more easily.
Akin to the soft robes provided at spas, touch is an important sensation to consider being mindful of in your sleeping space. To evoke that luxurious spa feeling, get pajamas and sheets that are soft, light, and breathable. Investing in nice sheets is something that I’d never really considered as a young professional, but it can make a world of difference and definitely gives you that “treat-yourself” spa feeling every time you get into bed.
Lastly, sight (or lack thereof) is an important element to a spa-like nighttime routine. Enter sleep masks. I’ve been attached to my silk sleep mask ever since I started using it. When it’s finally time to drift off, putting on a mask is a physical act that signals to your body that it’s time to sleep and it also helps wandering eyes from scanning around a room that’s not completely dark.
Combining all of these sensory elements into one nighttime routine can really make each night feel like a special treat. The best part is these practices take little to no time, but together they make a huge impact.
To recap, here are some sensory elements to include in your spa night routine:
- Herbal tea
- Lavender pillow mist
- Heated neck pillow
- Essential oil diffuser
- Soft sheets, pillow cases, and pajamas
- Silk sleeping mask
- White noise machine/spa music
- Sleep meditations
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