Balance

Last week I wrote about not having balance, the impact of long hours at work, not taking down time when on holiday and the need to focus on:

💚 Regular exercise (walking is a great start. I’ve started open-water swimming!)
💚 Good quality sleep (7 to 9 hours with consistent sleep and wake-up times if possible)
💚 Eating as little ultra-processed food as possible
💚 Some quiet reflective time (massively helps innovation and creativity and reduces stress)
💚 Getting outside
💚 Mindfulness and maybe even a short meditation or breath work
💚 Social interactions and hobbies

One of the most underestimated things in the list is the power of sleep. Good sleep can:

➡️ Increase your productivity
➡️ Improve your mood
➡️ Boost motivation
➡️ Improve your ability to learn
➡️ Help you manage emotions
➡️ Help digestion and reduce likelihood of over eating
➡️ Improve recovery and immunity

Last week I was really struggling with my sleep. 😱 (Unlike my dog!)

This isn’t unusual. I’ve never slept brilliantly even when I was younger. Getting to sleep is usually ok but staying asleep is difficult. I get Restless 🦵 Leg 🦵 Syndrome (RLS), a neurological disorder (I found out last week!) that interrupts sleep.

I also over think things and once my brain has spun up, trying to solve a problem, I can think about something for hours. It used to be mainly work but it could be anything, even something simple and mundane.

So, what have I done to improve my situation?

✅ Regular bed and wake up times (even if I slept badly)
✅ A solid bedtime routine with minimal screen time
✅ Listening to an audio book or reading before bed
✅ Herbal ‘sleep’ tea in the evening
✅ Write down anything in my mind or something I need to remember before bed
✅ Use a ‘back to sleep’ meditation app if I wake up (I use Headspace)

It’s about being ok with that fact that the things you try may or may not work and that you may not sleep as much as I want to.

I went through a phase of trying to be very 🔬scientific 🔬, using my watch to track my sleep but that ended up causing me more stress and turning it into a competition! It works for some people but didn’t for me. And that’s ok as well ❤️.

This week, my sleep has been better 🥳. I know it’ll never be great but it’s about doing what you can and not getting too hung up on it. (I know I’ll never sleep as well as a tired dog! 😀)

If you need help with your sleep, or any other well-being advice, give me a shout. (I’m usually around at 3:30am!! 😂)