## Stretches to do before bed

**URL:** https://lucystretch.com/articles/stretches-before-bed/
**Published:** 2026-10-12
**Updated:** 2026-10-15
**Reading time:** 4 min
**Tags:** evening, routine, back

**In short:** Five stretches suit the end of the day: a neck side bend, child's pose, happy baby, knees to chest and a supine twist. Thirty to fifty seconds each, all on the floor, nothing that raises your heart rate. About four minutes in total.
The evening is the easiest stretching session to keep up, for a dull reason: the
day is finished, so nothing is competing with it.

Here are five that suit the end of the day, and the one category to leave out.

## Why evening works better than morning for most people

Three practical reasons, none of them physiological.

The cue is reliable. "Before bed" happens every day whether you plan it or not,
which is more than can be said for 6:40am.

Your muscles have just spent hours held at one length, so the contrast is obvious
and the session feels worth doing.

And nothing is after it. A morning routine competes with leaving the house. An
evening one competes with a phone.

On the physiology, be sceptical of strong claims. Plenty of articles assert that
stretching improves sleep. We are not going to tell you that, because it is a claim
about your body that we are not in a position to make. What we can say is that
these five are slow, floor-based, and do not raise your heart rate.

## The five, in order

Head down to hips, finishing on your back.

1. **Neck Side Bend.** Sitting, drop one ear towards the same shoulder. Thirty
   seconds each side. Let the weight of your head do it.
2. **Child's Pose.** Knees wide, big toes together, sit back towards your heels and
   let your forehead rest down. Forty-five seconds. Put a cushion under your hips
   if they do not reach.
3. **Happy Baby.** On your back, knees wide, holding the outside of each foot.
   Forty-five seconds. More of a settle than a stretch.
4. **Knee-to-Chest.** Draw one knee in at a time, then both. Forty seconds each
   side.
5. **Supine Twist.** Knees over to one side, shoulders staying down, head turned the
   other way. Fifty seconds each side. This is the one to finish on, and the one to
   keep if you only do one.

Total, about four minutes. All of it works on carpet. None of it needs a mat.


## What to leave out in the evening

Not everything belongs here.

**Long, deep end-range work.** Pushing into an unfamiliar range is stimulating, and
it is harder to judge how far is sensible when you are tired.

**Anything that needs balance.** Standing quad stretches and single-leg work are
fine in daylight. Last thing at night, on a dark landing, they are a trip hazard.

**Backbends.** Camel pose and bridge pose are good stretches at the wrong time of
day for this purpose.

**Anything that gets your heart rate up.** If you are breathing harder, it has
stopped being a wind-down.

## How long to hold, and how often

Thirty to fifty seconds per stretch is plenty. The 2025 *Sports Medicine*
meta-analysis of 189 studies and 6,654 adults found
[thirty-second holds matching sixty-second ones](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-024-02144-8),
and found gains across a week flattening at around ten minutes per muscle group,
regardless of whether those minutes came in three sessions or six.

Which means an evening routine on most days is a perfectly efficient way to do it.
And on the days you skip it, nothing is undone. There is no streak here to break.

## When to stop, and when to ask someone

Stretching is general fitness, not treatment. Stop anything that produces pain,
dizziness, numbness or anything that feels wrong.

Talk to a doctor or physiotherapist first if you have a back or joint problem,
recent surgery, or if you are pregnant or recently postpartum: lying twists and
knees-to-chest are positions worth asking about specifically in that case. Our
[fitness and safety note](/lucy/fitness-safety) has the rest.

## Where Lucy fits

Lucy is an iPhone app of short guided stretching routines for people who sit all
day. *Wind Down for Sleep* is four minutes and five stretches, and it is exactly
the five above. Nothing in it raises your heart rate and all of it happens on the
floor.

The timer counts each hold and cues the side changes, so you can keep your eyes
closed. Every duration can be shortened before you start.

One routine is free in full. The rest is a subscription with a 7-day free trial,
priced in your own currency on the App Store.

## FAQ

### Is it good to stretch before bed?

It is a common and comfortable time to do it, and the evidence on dose says the
time of day does not change what you get from the minutes. Whether it affects your
sleep is a claim we are not going to make. If sleep is the problem you are trying
to solve, that is a conversation for a professional.

### Should you stretch before or after a shower?

After is more comfortable, because warm tissue is more pleasant to stretch. It is a
comfort preference rather than a performance one, and not a reason to skip a
session.

### How long should an evening stretching routine be?

Four or five minutes covers it. The *Sports Medicine* review found gains within a
single session flattening at roughly four minutes per muscle group, so a short
sequence across a few areas is well matched to that.

### Can you do these in bed?

Child's pose and happy baby work on a firm mattress. A soft one lets your hips sink
and the twist loses its point. The floor beside the bed is better, and a rug is
enough.

### What if you fall asleep halfway through?

Then it worked out. Nothing about this needs finishing, and the app lets you leave
any routine part-way through without recording it as a failure.

Lucy runs this as an evening routine you can start and then stop thinking about.