How Do Teen Sleep Routines Compare To TikTok Nighttime Routines?

Lately, my TikTok #ForYou page and been flooded with “get ready with me for bed” or “nighttime routines”. These influencers document their routines as they use fancy products to wash their face, shower, and brush their teeth. Their rooms have the perfect lighting to give an extremely peaceful and calming feel. 

But as a student-athlete, my nighttime routine is all over the place as I rush to get homework done, shower, pack my lunch, and set my four alarms to make sure I’m up on time to start my rushed morning routine. Watching TikTok’s peaceful, well-planned, and aesthetic nighttime routines made me wonder how the nighttime routines of other Christian Brothers Students would compare to Tiktok Influencers. 

According to TikTok nighttime routines, going to bed around 9 PM is best to begin your morning on the right foot. TikTok user @beautyandorganising takes her followers through her two hour nighttime routine where she eats, does homework, cleans, picks out a cozy outfit, showers, does body care, bushes her teeth, and finally gets into bed to “chill”. Lara, the owner of this account, classifies her tasks as “aesthetic,” but compared to other TikTok creators’ nighttime routines, this seems fairly average. 

@katylgibbss shares her “that girl” nighttime routine, as she completes similar tasks to Lara, but adds farther boujee-ness by changing her pillow cases, using pillow spray, oiling her hair, manifesting and planning ahead, and reading. I jealously watch this Tiktok wishing I had time to enjoy a clean room, do skin AND hair care, journal, and read the book that has been sitting on my nightstand waiting to be read. 

Alyssa Elorduy (’25) is “EXHAUSTED” in the mornings after going to bed at 11 P.M. Alyssa’s 45 minute showers are a crucial part of her nighttime routine, followed by a good tooth brushing and finally her FaceTimes and/or TikTok. For Alyssa, homework is not the priority of the night, “… sometimes if I’m feeling good, I look at my grades… [but] that’s near never”. But she has trained her body to wake up at 7:03 A.M., describing it is “implemented in my brain”. 

No matter what you may believe, I have become more convinced school effects people’s nights more than they think. 

“I don’t know if it changes,” Marco Bower (’25) shares, as he explains he doesn’t quite have a routine, but simply showers and then goes to bed time whenever he just falls asleep, even if that is at 1 A.M.. FaceTime is the utmost important part of Marco’s night. “If I need to get stuff done, then like yeah, I’ll do it, but I’m still on FaceTime”. Still, Marco has unknowingly crafted his nighttime routine to fit what he enjoys, as well as homework. 

So is the aesthetic nighttime routine even realistic nighttime routine even realistic for high school students? 

From the time the bell rings at 2:45 P.M., the rest of everyone’s day looks different. Some of us will go to sports, others straight home, and some will hang around CB for several hours before getting picked up. From the moment we leave campus, we encounter diverse tasks, whether it be doing homework, going on social media, spending time with friends, eating, or any other variation of the burdens we all must tend to.

So yes, for some Christian Brothers students, going home and beginning an aesthetic nighttime routine may be realistic. They may be able to achieve the perfectly clean, TikTok ready room, followed by consistent nightly rituals that enable them to be “that girl”. 

However, for a majority of high school students, this achieving an “aesthetic” is not realistic. Like anything aesthetic, more work, time, and patience is needed, and of course you need to have the want and care to make it aesthetic. Some of us simply lack the care, time, effort, or patience. 

By the end of a long very unaesthetic day of school, the last thing on the most of students mind is making sure their nights are TikTok worthy. It’s about getting done wait needs to be and finding as much time as possible for you. Five days a week, students consistently take in information. And to be honest, very little about high school is perfect. And well, it’s not meant to be. 

Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to watch these “get ready with me for bed” TikToks enviously and secretly hoping one day I will be able to relate. But for now I’ll do my best to enjoy my own far from seamless nights.