Sleep Awareness Week is a beautiful reminder of something we often neglect: rest is not a luxury, it’s the foundation of living well. While most advice focuses on nighttime rituals: the wind-down routine, no screens, perfect sheets, my experience building ettitude and growing a team has taught me that sleep begins with how you spend your day. Chaotic, overstimulated days lead to restless nights, while intentional days support better sleep. This Sleep Week, I’m sharing seven simple daytime habits that have transformed my sleep.
1. I Start My Day With Light — Before Anything Else
Starting the day with natural light is my most important morning ritual, even before checking Slack or email. It’s the first signal I give my body to anchor my circadian rhythm.
But the flip side of seeking light in the morning is protecting darkness while you sleep. Even small amounts of light during the night or early morning can suppress melatonin and start waking the brain before the body is fully rested. That’s why I always wear an eye mask. It helps create complete darkness so my body can stay in deeper sleep until it’s actually time to wake. In fact, this is one of the reasons we created our bamboo lyocell eye mask at ettitude: to make it easier to protect those final hours of restorative sleep.
Once I’m up, I do the opposite: I step outside or open the windows and let natural light in. Skipping this simple practice and staying inside under artificial light has a noticeable negative effect: I might feel wired at night or suffer an afternoon slump. It’s a foundational habit that sets a positive tone for the entire day.
If you adopt only one habit from this list, make it this one. Starting your day with light supports everything else that follows.
2. I Treat Caffeine Like a Strategy, Not a Crutch
There was a time when I relied on afternoon coffee to power through long stretches of meetings. I told myself I could still “sleep fine.” But fine isn’t the same as restorative. I would wake up at 3am, not anxious, just alert. My body was tired, but my brain wasn’t. Now I treat caffeine consumption strategically, not habitually. I cut it earlier. If I feel that 2pm dip, I walk outside, hydrate, or breathe deeply for a few minutes. Nine times out of ten, I don’t actually need caffeine. I need oxygen or movement.
3. I Manage Stress Before It Manages Me
Sleep can only take place in safety. If your nervous system feels under threat all day, it won’t fully surrender at night. As founders, we’re always making decisions. There’s always something unresolved, and if I don’t manage stress during the day, it resurfaces at night.
Now I build in micro-resets throughout my day:
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60–90 seconds of slow breathing (longer exhales than inhales)
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Short walks between meetings
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Writing down unresolved issues before bed
That last one is powerful. When I put a problem on paper, my brain doesn’t feel responsible for holding it overnight. To further support restful sleep, I also keep a pen and paper on my bedside table. If I wake up with an idea or lingering thought, I jot it down quickly and go right back to sleep, instead of lying there trying to “remember” it until morning.
4. I Move — Even When I Don’t Feel Like It
Movement is one of the most underrated ways to improve sleep. When I’m traveling or deep in strategy mode, it’s tempting to stay at my desk. But I’ve noticed that on days I don’t move, I feel mentally tired but physically restless at night. The difference is immediate: before I walk, my shoulders are tense and my jaw is tight, as if my body is still on high alert. After even ten minutes outside, my breath deepens, my mind feels quieter, and the restlessness fades. It's as if my muscles finally get the message that the workday is over. Movement helps complete the stress cycle. It tells my body, “We’ve processed today.” If I’ve used energy during the day, mentally and physically, my body is far more willing to surrender to rest at night. It doesn’t have to be extreme. A long walk. Pilates. Light strength training. Consistency is more powerful than intensity.
5. I Eat Earlier and Lighter at Night
This was a big shift for me. Heavy, late dinners used to leave me feeling uncomfortably warm and unsettled in the middle of the night. Which makes sense, because digestion raises core body temperature, and your body actually needs to cool down slightly to initiate deep sleep. Eating earlier and keeping dinner lighter gives my system time to metabolize food before bed, so my body can focus on restoration instead of digestion.
I also closely monitor my blood sugar. If I have a carb-heavy lunch without enough protein or fat, I’ll spike and then crash in the afternoon. That drop in blood glucose can trigger cravings for caffeine or sugar, and that ripple effect often shows up later as fragmented sleep. Stable blood sugar throughout the day supports balanced cortisol levels at night. When my days are steady, my nights are too—stable days, steady nights. For me, balanced energy during the day translates directly into calmer, deeper sleep.
6. I’m Intentional About What Touches My Skin
As the founder of ettitude, I think a lot about materials, not just from a sustainability perspective, but how they interact with the human body. Your skin is your largest organ. It’s constantly absorbing, regulating, and sensing. If your bedding traps heat or contains harsh irritants, your body has to work harder all night.
For me, temperature regulation is one of the biggest factors in sleep quality. Our bodies naturally cool down to initiate and maintain deep sleep, so even slight overheating can fragment those cycles. I personally sleep much better when my environment is breathable and clean. That’s exactly why we design ettitude’s CleanBamboo® bedding to be naturally cooling, breathable, and gentle on skin. When your bed helps regulate temperature instead of trapping heat, your body can stay in deeper, more restorative sleep.
Creating a bed that feels cool, soft, and calm isn’t indulgent, it’s foundational to good sleep.
7. I Create a Mental “Sunset.”
The biggest difference in my sleep didn’t come from what I added; it came from what I reduced. I used to end my day reacting: emails, messages, and scrolling. My brain stayed in output mode until the second I tried to sleep. Those nights, my mind felt jumpy, replaying conversations or headlines, and I would toss and turn, unable to fully let go. Now, there is a distinct before and after: Instead of scrolling, I sit quietly with a book or simply dim the lights. When a thought pops up, like a forgotten task or an unresolved worry, I jot it down, tell myself it can wait, and feel an actual wave of calm settle in. It’s a subtle shift, but it changes everything. My evenings now feel like a gentle exhale, rather than a last-minute sprint. If something important needs to be solved, I write it down before bed. That simple act tells my brain: You don’t have to hold this overnight.
This Sleep Awareness Week, Redesign Your Day
If there’s one takeaway I hope you carry from Sleep Week, it’s this: To truly improve your sleep, focus on what you do during the day. How you spend your waking hours shapes how you rest at night. Better sleep is not just a nighttime hack. It’s a daytime practice.
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Morning light anchors you.
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Smart caffeine timing protects you.
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Stress regulation calms you.
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Movement grounds you.
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Balanced meals sustain you.
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Breathable bedding softens you.
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Mental boundaries restore you.
The quality of your sleep is a reflection of your lifestyle. When you achieve deep, restorative sleep, the benefits carry over into your waking life: you lead more effectively, your thoughts are sharper, and you engage with your work, family, and community with greater calmness.
This Sleep Week, don’t just redesign your bedtime. Redesign your day!
About the Author
Phoebe Yu is the Founder and CEO of ettitude, where she pioneered CleanBamboo®, a sustainable fabric designed to be softer on skin and gentler on the planet. Through ettitude, she advocates for better materials, better sleep, and a circular, regenerative economy that redefines how we design, make, and live.
