How to Pray the Daily Examen Before Bed in 15 Minutes

By bedtime the day is a blur of tasks, conversations and small irritations, and most of us fall asleep without noticing where God was in any of it. The daily examen is a short, structured way of looking back over the day in prayer, and it fits into the 15 minutes before you turn the light off.

It comes from Ignatius of Loyola, who wrote it into his Spiritual Exercises in the 1500s and reportedly told his companions that if they had to drop every other prayer on a hard day, they should keep this one. You do not need to be Catholic or Jesuit to use it. I have taught it to Anglicans, Methodists and a few curious people with no church at all. Here is how to pray it, how to keep it from turning into a guilt list, and how to adapt it to your own evening.

What the daily examen is

The examen is a prayer of review. Instead of bringing a list of requests to God, you ask God to show you the day as it really was: where you felt alive, where you felt drained, where you acted with love and where you did not.

It is not a performance review and it is not a confession booth. The older word Ignatius used is closer to "noticing". The aim is to become more aware of God's presence in ordinary hours, so that over weeks you start to notice it during the day itself rather than only looking back.

How to pray the daily examen in five steps

Sit somewhere quiet, in bed if that is where it will actually happen. Set a gentle timer for 15 minutes if you tend to drift. Then move through these five movements, spending two or three minutes on each.

1. Become aware of God's presence. Take three slow breaths. Say something simple like, "Lord, you were with me today. Help me see it." There is no need for more.
2. Review the day with gratitude. Walk through the day from waking up, hour by hour. Pause on anything you are thankful for: a kind word, a good cup of tea, a moment of sunlight on the bus. Name two or three things specifically.
3. Pay attention to your feelings. Notice where you felt peace, joy or energy, and where you felt anxious, resentful or flat. Ignatius called these consolation and desolation. Do not judge them yet, just notice.
4. Choose one moment and pray from it. Pick the moment that stands out most strongly, good or hard. Talk to God about it honestly. This may be thanks, it may be sorrow, it may simply be a question.
5. Look toward tomorrow. Think about what is coming tomorrow. Ask for the specific grace you need, whether patience in a meeting, courage in a phone call or rest. Close with the Lord's Prayer or a short line of your own.

That is all. On a tired night it can be done in five minutes. On a slow Sunday evening it might stretch to 20.

A sample examen from an ordinary Tuesday

To make this concrete, here is roughly how one of my own evenings went, kept short.

Presence: "Lord, thank you for being in this day, even the parts I rushed through." Gratitude: the colleague who brought me coffee without asking, the twenty minutes of quiet on the train, my daughter's laugh at dinner. Feelings: peace on the train, a knot of irritation in the 2pm meeting, tiredness after. One moment: the meeting, where I spoke sharply to someone who did not deserve it. Tomorrow: grace to apologise to her before lunch, and patience for the budget review.

Notice how specific it is. "I'm grateful for my family" is true but tells you little. "My daughter's laugh at dinner" brings the moment back, and with it the gratitude.

Why the examen should not start with your sins

Many people meet the examen in a form that puts failure first: list your sins of the day, feel sorry, resolve to do better. Some versions of the prayer even call it an "examination of conscience" and leave it there. I understand why, but I think starting there does real harm for most people, especially anyone prone to anxiety or scrupulosity.

Ignatius placed gratitude before any look at failure, and that order matters. When you begin with what was good, you look at your mistakes from a place of being held rather than a place of being judged. People who start with their faults often quit within two weeks, because every evening becomes a small trial. People who start with thanks tend to keep going, and over time they notice their failures more honestly, not less.

Sorrow still has its place in step four. It just is not the doorway in.

Adapting the examen to your life

The five steps are a frame, not a cage. A few adaptations that people in our community have found helpful:

• The two question version. On exhausted nights, ask only: "When did I feel most grateful today?" and "When did I feel least grateful?" This is a common short form and still carries the heart of the prayer.
• Write it down. One line per step in a small notebook. After a month you will see patterns, like which people or tasks consistently drain you.
• Pray it with a spouse or child. Children often love the "best part, hardest part" version at bedtime, and it gently teaches them to look for God in the day.
• Move it to midday. Ignatius actually recommended praying it twice, at noon and at night. A three minute version at lunch can change how the afternoon goes.

If you are still finding your feet with any regular prayer, building a prayer practice when you do not know where to start covers the basics of time and place. The examen also pairs well with a scripture practice in the morning, such as Lectio Divina in twenty minutes a day, so that one prayer listens to the Word and the other listens to your life.

When the examen feels dry

Some nights you will look back over the day and see nothing. No obvious gratitude, no strong feelings, no sense of God at all. That is normal, and it is part of the prayer rather than a failure of it.

On those nights, keep it simple. Name one physical thing you were given, such as food, warmth or a bed, and thank God for it. Then rest. Dry seasons in prayer are often where faithfulness is built, a theme explored more fully in what to do when prayer feels empty.

Frequently asked questions

What are the five steps of the daily examen?

The five steps are becoming aware of God's presence, reviewing the day with gratitude, paying attention to your feelings, praying from one significant moment and looking ahead to tomorrow. Each step usually takes two or three minutes. Together they make a prayer of about 15 minutes.

What is the best time to pray the examen?

Most people pray it in the evening, shortly before bed, when the whole day is available to look back on. Ignatius also recommended a short midday version. Choose the time you can keep most days rather than the ideal one.

Can non-Catholics pray the daily examen?

Yes. Although it comes from the Jesuit tradition, Christians of many denominations use it, because its focus on gratitude and attention to God fits most traditions. You can adjust the closing prayer to suit your own church's practice.