Life Hack for Better Sleep
The thing about sleep is you know you need it.
Science actually proves the human body requires sleep to grow and heal. Sleep allows your brain to process what you’ve learned. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke says:
“Sleep affects almost every type of tissue and system in the body – from the brain, heart, and lungs to metabolism, immune function, mood, and disease resistance. Research shows that a chronic lack of sleep, or getting poor quality sleep, increases the risk of disorders including high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and obesity.”
Any mom who has survived sleep deprivation knows how important sleep is. It’s a lifeline and a requirement to function correctly the next day. Those early days with a newborn are often remembered fondly - those first smiles, the smell of a baby’s head, or the cute footed pajamas - but in the back of your mind, hidden beneath the momnesia that convinces you “it wasn’t so bad”, you also recall the brain fog that comes from lack of sleep. It was on those sleep-deprived mornings that you poured breastmilk into your coffee instead of creamer or went to work with two different shoes.
Fast forward to the time the same child was so sick you stayed awake most of the night to make sure they were breathing. When they are so congested that the only way they could stay asleep was to sit upright leaning against your chest while you sit upright in the rocking chair. You might have managed a few winks, but any time they moved, you woke up. Then the next morning, you were running on fumes and irritable, and easily confused. Words escaped you when you reached for them. You weren’t as sharp in your meetings and no amount of caffeine was enough.
Good ole sleep deprivation. We as moms know it well.
Life with a newborn or having a sick child certainly is the more extreme reason for being sleep deprived, but not getting enough sleep or consistently getting low-quality sleep can be just as detrimental. Waking up frequently throughout the night, regular insomnia or just trying to survive on fewer hours per night than your body truly needs can take its toll.
Are you getting enough sleep?
According to the Mayo Clinic, most adults need 7 or more hours of sleep each night. While this varies from person to person, adults actually need 7 to 9 hours of sleep but many moms I know are getting far less. There are people who believe they can train themselves to require less, but that is simply a myth.
There is so much pulling you away from getting good quality sleep. Stress and anxiety are at the forefront, but the pace of information flooding your brain each day between social media and work is intense. Multi-tasking and jumping back and forth between mom responsibilities and your career alone are enough to keep your brain in overdrive. The nonstop expectations to produce and accomplish are affecting your ability to fully shut off at night. So you wake before you are ready and stay up too late binging Netflix just to get a sense of relaxation and rest. Are you truly sleeping well, though?
You know sleep is important, but you might also struggle to actually sleep when you’ve laid your head on the pillow. Whether it’s waking up too frequently, tossing and turning, or full-on insomnia robbing us of good quality sleep, you may be at a loss to know HOW to get good rest.
We can know it’s important all the live-long day but sometimes life makes it seem impossible.
I have a solution for you.
It’s a very simple gratitude practice that I promise is actually easy, too. This is a tried and true recipe for a good night’s rest. It works without fail, every time I do it. I’ve had multiple clients use this practice and report back with extremely positive results:
Less tossing and turning
Good quality and solid sleep
Waking up feeling fully rested
Reduced insomnia
Remembering more of their dreams
The entire goal is to get into the frequency of gratitude and love as you fall asleep. This is different than the Gratitude Journaling activity I’ve talked about many times. It’s not about a specific number of people you list or how many items you check off your list. It’s just about putting your body, mind, and spirit in a place of feeling gratitude as you enter your sleep state.
Gratitude Practice for Good Sleep:
Spend a few minutes thinking about all the ways you can be grateful for the day you just experienced just before you drift off to sleep.
Thank the people in your life for showing up the way they did.
Thank God for the abundance you had showered on you throughout the day.
Thank the Universe for all the pleasant exchanges you had with strangers.
Express gratitude for all the ways you felt loved.
Thank Source for each person in your life and what you admire about them.
Be thankful for the beautiful places you got to be today.
Thank God for all the things you have today that you use to pray for.
Thank yourself for the good sleep you are about to have.
Set the intention to have restful sleep and to wake up feeling energized. Be grateful - in advance - for the good night’s rest that you are about to have.
When you wake up in the morning, make note of your sleep. Do you feel more rested? Take a minute to express some gratitude (and be amazed) that this shit really does work.
I would love to hear how this works for you! Comment below or send me a DM on Instagram!
To learn more about my Gratitude Journaling method mentioned above, download your Free Journal Prompts Here.
Panic Attacks are just rude.
Do you experience these, too?
Anxiety. Fear. Stress. It’s the driving force behind most of these events.
I have suffered from panic attacks my entire adult life, only I didn’t realize that’s what it was .. for years! Sure, if you look at my life on paper, it makes sense for why I’d be struggling to deal with stressful situations. Teen pregnancy, young marriage, divorced and remarried before 30, blended families, new babies after a LONG gap, two more divorces before 40, being let go from two jobs in less than a year as a single mom.
I’m sure y’all get it. Life can be hard.
But why does anxiety react in our bodies to the point that we question if we might actually die? Talk about a dramatic way to get our attention.
For me, my panic attacks usually are a wake up call to fears I have been avoiding. Only for me, it shows up as my heart beating in all the ways that are not fucking normal.
I’ve learned after:
multiple trips to the ER
many doctor visits (including various types of cardiologists)
seeing a chiropractor
regular appointments with my massage therapist
working with an energy healer
… that my heart is just fine. As in, it is not unhealthy in the least. I am not at risk of a heart attack, but these panic attacks have generated such fear in the past that all of that knowledge, reason and logic flies out the window in the moment of my heart beating so fast and so hard that I feel like I’ve just ran a marathon.
For the record, I have never done this. I have no idea what it feels like to run a marathon or how fast my heart-rate would be. I’m just going to guess it’s pretty similar to the speed that has sent me to the ER on more than one occasion.
So, I’ve found some things that work really well for me when anxiety is screaming at me. It’s been lots of trial and error. What works one day doesn’t always work the next, but in the event it may be helpful to you, I’m sharing some lessons learned.
3 ways to soothe a panic attack…
Meditation
Generally, meditation is my go to for its calming nature, but in the heat of a panic attack, I can’t typically guide myself. Panic isn’t linear or logical, so I can’t talk myself out of it. It’s all energetic and emotions, so I usually need something to help me not think about it.
This is simply not a time when affirmations or positive self talk is enough to calm the physical response to fear that my body is having.
Sometimes, peaceful music or binaural beats are enough, but I recently discovered a guided meditation on Insight Timer for Panic Attacks and this is PURE MAGIC.
There have been times in my life when an attack has lasted on and off again for hours. In less than 12 minutes, this man’s voice gets my body out of freak out mode - every single time I’ve used it.
Breath-work
Initially, when I first started having panic attacks, I could simply lie down flat on my back and slow my breathing and it would slow my speeding heart-rate in a matter of minutes. This became less effective as time went on, but depending on the level of stress, it does still work at times.
The guided meditation I suggested is teaches you a very specific way to breathe, but in the midst of a full blown panic attack, I have been better at following directions than remembering how to breathe on my own.
Go figure.
Get physical
First, changing your location can sometimes be enough to break the emotional response to whatever has triggered a panic attack. Exercise, in general, has been proven to reduce anxiety and help prevent future panic attacks. Sometimes, it can be as simple as: Move Your Ass!
And then. Other times, it’s not.
Bringing your awareness to your physical experience can also be very helpful. Fear and stress can be a bit illogical at times, so forcing your mind to focus on what you are physically sensing can be an excellent way to break out of the chaos of a panic attack.
Pay attention and say out loud what you notice about your five senses. What do you see, here, smell, taste, and touch?
Now, once you’ve managed the actual event of a panic attack and found the soothing that your body needs in the moment, it’s time to get to work on resolving the underlying issue that’s causing them. Panic attacks aren’t something we need to learn to accept as normal, but they are super common. In fact, according to these stats, 1 million Americans experience panic attacks each month. The good news, though, is that 70-90% of patients are helped significantly by seeking treatment. Oftentimes, treatment can be as simple as talk therapy.
Key takeaway - you are not alone if you experience panic attacks. You just might need a little help.
Also, it should go without saying, but I am not a trained medical professional.
For any heart ailments such as the ones I’ve described should always be reviewed by your doctor to rule out actual life threatening problems.
Latest information from the CDC says: Despite increases in awareness over the past decades, only about half (56%) of women recognize that heart disease is their number 1 killer.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States, killing 299,578 women in 2017—or about 1 in every 5 female deaths.2
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for African American and white women in the United States. Among American Indian and Alaska Native women, heart disease and cancer cause roughly the same number of deaths each year. For Hispanic and Asian or Pacific Islander women, heart disease is second only to cancer as a cause of death.3
About 1 in 16 women age 20 and older (6.2%) have coronary heart disease, the most common type of heart disease:4
About 1 in 16 white women (6.1%), black women (6.5%), and Hispanic women (6%)
About 1 in 30 Asian women (3.2%)
What’s the deal with meditation anyways?
On my worst days, I can tell you what went wrong. The very best days have one thing in common. The mood I feel throughout the day is always based in my morning routine and whether or not I meditated. I kid you not, if I don’t, my day is altered in not so great ways. It is amazing to me that I know this and still sometimes, I allow my day to get away from me without meditating first. I know it sounds crazy to someone who has never taken the few minutes to try this, but if I could share one tiny piece of wisdom that has the BIGGEST impact on my life, I would tell you to meditate. I am telling you … MEDITATE. For real. It will change your life.
The thing about meditating is that it is not time consuming. I am no monk, but I do feel like people look at me different when I start talking about it. It sounds a little out there, I guess. I don’t really understand the stigma or perception now that I know how false it is. What meditation is for me is a minute, or 5, or 15 to connect to something bigger than myself. It allows me to stop the chatter in my brain or at least slow it down. It allows me to feel centered and cared for and loved. It gives me an opportunity to remember how I want to feel and what I want to focus on with my day, intentionally, before the to do list pulls me in eighty different directions. It lets me just stop for a hot second before I get back on this merry go round of life with small children, school and work. The thing is I only need about 15 to 20 minutes to fully take advantage of all the goodness that meditation brings me. I have meditated for an hour or decided to add another 30 minutes after a great 20 minute session, but most days I don’t devote that much time to my meditation routine.
I can talk to the benefits all day long, but what I have a hard time describing is what happens in some of my really amazing meditations. Sometimes, I feel SO connected, so tapped into this higher being, so surrounded by God, that I can physically feel this connection. I feel tingles, almost chills and a lightness that comes over me. It is the most amazing feeling that I can only compare to one other sensation, but it’s not quite the right comparison. It’s the closest thing I’ve got though. AMAZING. That’s how I describe both. It’s in those moment, when I can feel the connection, that I will often times hear, very clearly, my intuition guiding me with simple ideas and super clear next steps. Those moments of clarity are not clouded by my own internal dialogue. The chatter is gone.
And then just like that, the chatter is back. The other misconception about medication is that to do it “right”, you have to completely silence your mind. The reality is, though, that never happens. Your mind won’t ever become utter silence unless you are truly enlightened. I assure you, I am not one of those souls, but sometimes I do get close … for about 30 seconds. The reality is your mind will have thoughts the whole time. The trick to learn is how to let those thoughts come and let them go without following them down the rabbit trail. Just recognize your thoughts and release them. I do this again and again during meditation.
The other idea about meditation that isn’t quite accurate is that there is a right way to do it or that you’re supposed to sit in silence. This does work really well for some people, but if you’re like me, music may help. I like nature sounds, singing bowls and binaural beats as background noise because it’s soothing. Check out a few on YouTube to get you started. It helps me quiet my overactive thinking a bit and it allows me to relax more quickly. It helps me to have something to listen to and something to focus on instead of my thoughts. On especially hard days, I also find some guided meditations can be great tools to lead me toward those better feeling though and better feelings. The idea of someone’s voice being able to lead me toward feeling happier or more relaxed can be the best tool when I feel the twinge of depression sneaking back in.
Meditation quite literally saved my life. When I was deepest in the depths of despair and depression, I started meditating. I started with two minutes. The next day, I set a timer and tried five minutes. I sat silent. I listened to music. I was introduced to guided mediations in the Insight Timer app and the world of meditation broke wide open for me. I cannot claim that meditation alone is what brought me out of depression, but it was definitely an integral part of my healing. It was through therapy, with time and one tiny step at a time, that I began the army crawl out of that dark hole toward a better feeling life. It is when I feel depression sneaking back in and I meditate that I realize the impact it has on my general sense of well being. I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience except my own, but mediation is the one part of my morning routine that has the biggest influence on the outcome of my day. If you need pointers or could use someone to help you find your rhythm, please reach out. I would love to help. Namaste.