Start with the hour you get up

CDC's recommended amounts for adults are 7 or more hours a night for ages 18 to 60, 7 to 9 hours for ages 61 to 64, and 7 to 8 hours for ages 65 and older. The National Institute on Aging puts older adults at about 7 to 9 hours, the same as younger adults. The two sources differ a little at the top end. They agree completely at the bottom: 7 hours is the floor.

The institute also addresses a belief that costs older adults a lot of sleep. People tend to go to bed earlier and wake earlier as they age, and that shift is often mistaken for needing less sleep. It is not the same thing. The requirement stays where it was.

So do the arithmetic once. Suppose you need to leave the house at 7:15 and getting up at 6:00 keeps the morning from feeling rushed. Aiming for 7.5 hours of sleep puts lights out near 10:30. Most people need some time to actually fall asleep, so the routine itself starts closer to 10:00. Write those three times down: routine starts, lights out, alarm. Everything else in this article is about protecting them.

Keep the wake time on weekends and while traveling. The National Institute on Aging says so directly, and it is the instruction people abandon first. Sleeping until 9:00 on Saturday and Sunday is the equivalent of flying two time zones west and back every week.

Build a wind down short enough to actually happen

A routine that requires 90 quiet minutes in an empty house is a routine you will run about four times. Aim for 30 minutes and three or four steps, always in the same order.

The order matters more than the content. Repeating the same sequence turns ordinary actions into a signal, and the signal is what does the work. Reading, a warm bath, and calm music are the examples the National Institute on Aging gives. MedlinePlus lists the same kinds of things. None of it is exotic, and none of it needs to be.

Here is one version with clock times attached, for the 10:30 bedtime above.

1. 1 At 10:00, the screens go off. CDC's advice is to turn off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime, which is why this step goes first instead of last.
2. 2 At 10:05, do the small closing chores: let the dog out, lock the door, set out tomorrow's medicines, fill the water glass.
3. 3 At 10:15, wash up and change.
4. 4 At 10:20, read something undemanding in low light, sitting up, not in bed if you can manage it.
5. 5 At 10:30, lights out.

Then write a short version for bad nights. Ten minutes, two steps, usually the screen shutoff and one calming thing. On the night you get home at 11:15 from a hospital visit or a late shift, the short version is what keeps the habit alive. A routine you can shrink survives. A routine that is all or nothing quietly disappears.

Tie the first step to something you already do without thinking. The last trip outside with the dog, the dishwasher going on, the front door lock. Habits attach to existing habits far more reliably than they attach to a time on a clock.

The fixed points worth defending

A few specifics come up again and again in federal guidance because they are concrete enough to act on.

1. 1 Caffeine. CDC advises avoiding caffeine in the afternoon or evening. The National Institute on Aging names the usual sources and adds two people forget: chocolate and soda. Caffeine also appears on the 2025 American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology guideline's list of substances that can raise blood pressure, with a suggested ceiling of less than 300 milligrams a day.
2. 2 Exercise timing. Regular activity helps sleep. The institute's guidance is to get regular exercise but not within 3 hours of bedtime. If your only workable exercise window is 8:30 at night, that is still better than not moving, and it is a reasonable thing to mention to your care team rather than a reason to quit.
3. 3 Big meals and late liquids. CDC advises avoiding large meals before bedtime. The institute is more specific: avoid large meals within two to three hours of bed, and avoid drinking large amounts of liquid late in the day. That second half matters more than people expect, because the fewer times you get up at night, the less your sleep is broken.
4. 4 Naps. MedlinePlus puts a clock on it: no nap after 3 p.m. The institute says to avoid napping in the late afternoon or evening. A 20 minute nap at 1:30 is a different animal than an hour on the couch at 5:00.
5. 5 Daylight. MedlinePlus also lists getting enough sunlight during the day among its sleep habits. Morning light outdoors, even on a cloudy day, is stronger than anything indoors, and it costs nothing.

The nightcap question

Alcohol before bed is where two separate lines of evidence point the same direction, and together they are more convincing than either alone.

On the sleep side, CDC advises avoiding alcohol before bedtime, and the National Institute on Aging goes further in its guidance for older adults, advising against drinking alcohol even in small amounts. A drink can shorten the time it takes to fall asleep while making the second half of the night worse, which is exactly the pattern people describe when they say they wake at 2:00 and cannot get back down.

On the blood pressure side, alcohol appears on the 2025 guideline's list of substances that raise blood pressure. The same guideline's lifestyle table estimates that reducing alcohol is associated with roughly 4 to 6 mm Hg lower systolic pressure, the top number, in adults who have high blood pressure. That is an estimate for a group, not a prediction for you, and the size of any change depends on how much someone was drinking to begin with.

If a nightly drink is part of how your household winds down, the practical move is not a lecture. It is to try replacing it in the routine rather than simply removing it, so the 10:05 slot still has something in it.

Fitting the routine to the people you live with

Most sleep advice is written for someone who lives alone in a quiet house. Very few readers do.

1. 1 Negotiate the last 30 minutes, not the whole evening. Asking a household to reorganize its nights is a losing proposition. Asking for the television volume down and the overhead light off after 10:00 is not.
2. 2 Move the wind down out of the bedroom when schedules differ. If your partner goes to bed at midnight and you do not, the bedroom becomes the quiet place and the living room becomes the late place, rather than the two of you sharing one room on two clocks. A separate article in this series covers conflicting sleep schedules with a partner in more detail.
3. 3 Protect a night worker's sleep block the way you protect your own. If an adult child or partner sleeps during the day, put their sleep hours on the refrigerator alongside everyone else's. Written schedules prevent more conflict than conversations do.
4. 4 Give children and grandchildren their own earlier version of the same sequence. Two routines running back to back is workable. Two routines running during the same period is not.
5. 5 Handle the pet honestly. A dog that wakes you at 4:00 is a sleep problem, not a character flaw. Feeding, walking, and the last trip outside can move earlier, and where the animal sleeps is worth one deliberate experiment rather than years of assumption.
6. 6 If you are caregiving overnight, plan for interruption instead of pretending it will not come. Keep a dim light and a low key task ready, and use the short version of the routine on the way back to bed. The goal is not an unbroken night. It is getting back to sleep faster.

Where the routine meets your blood pressure log

If you already take home readings, the evening routine is the most reliable place to put the evening one. American Heart Association guidance on measurement calls for two readings at least a minute apart in the evening, taken the same way each time, after sitting quietly for at least 5 minutes with an empty bladder and no caffeine, smoking, or exercise in the previous 30 minutes.

Look at that list next to the routine above and you will notice the routine already creates the conditions. The 10:15 step empties the bladder. The screens are already off. Sitting to read supplies the quiet 5 minutes. Slotting the reading in at a fixed point makes it consistent, and consistency is what makes a log worth showing anyone.

One caution belongs here. European hypertension guidance notes that home monitoring can cause anxiety and lead to measuring too often, and the same trap exists with sleep. An evening routine that ends with a nightly verdict on how you are doing is a routine that will keep you awake. Take the reading, write it down, and leave the interpretation for your health care professional.

People sometimes want to move a blood pressure medicine into the evening routine because they would remember it better there. That is a fair instinct, and the evidence on timing is reassuring: two large trials comparing morning with evening dosing found no difference in heart and stroke outcomes, and the 2025 guideline notes that one large trial found people stuck with morning dosing somewhat better. Timing can follow preference. Still, never move, skip, split, or retime a dose on your own. Ask your health care professional or pharmacist, mention the reason, and then keep whatever you agree on.

When the routine is not the problem

Sleep hygiene has limits, and knowing where they are saves months.

Insomnia is the most common sleep problem in adults 60 and older, according to the National Institute on Aging, which describes it as trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at least three nights a week. If that describes you and a steady routine has not changed it after several weeks, the next step is a health care professional, not a stricter routine.

What happens next may surprise you. The American College of Physicians recommends cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, a structured short course of behavior and thinking changes, as the initial treatment for chronic insomnia in all adults. That is graded a strong recommendation. Adding medication comes second and is graded a weak recommendation, reserved for shared decision making after the therapy alone has not worked. Most people expect the opposite order. The National Institute on Aging puts the medication side plainly: sleep medicines may help in the short term, but they carry risks and are not meant for long term use.

Some symptoms point somewhere else entirely. Loud snoring that stops and restarts, gasping or choking during sleep, witnessed pauses in breathing, and dozing off during the day are worth raising with a health care professional whether or not your routine is good. Separate articles in this series cover questions to ask about persistent snoring and what to tell a health care professional about daytime sleepiness. Another covers keeping a simple sleep diary, which is the most useful thing to bring to that appointment.

One boundary to keep clear. If you ever take a reading of 180/120 mm Hg or higher and have symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, back pain, numbness or weakness, vision changes, or difficulty speaking, call 911 rather than waiting to see whether it comes down. If a reading that high comes with no symptoms, wait at least a minute, recheck, and contact your health care professional as soon as possible.

Start with one change this week: set the alarm for the same time every day, including Saturday, and leave everything else alone. Then add the 30 minute wind down. Two weeks of that will tell you more about your sleep than any amount of rearranging on the first night.