Building personal resilience is about consistent habits to prepare for and manage periods of difficulty of stress. Integrate Resilient Rituals into your day to day to build personal resilience and thrive – in work and life!
A key part of resilience is mental, emotional, and physical preparation to be able to manage life’s challenges. Rest and recovery is an essential part of this preparation.
During times of stress (global pandemics for example…), we need to dial up the recovery time — however, most of us do the opposite.
Sleep is our body’s natural recovery process. When we sleep we process and organize memories, we release hormones that regulate growth and metabolism, we replenish and repair muscle tissue, we boost brain plasticity and our immune function.
The amount of sleep changes as you grow, but most of us need between six and eight hours. Cutting this short means your body doesn’t have time to step through all the necessary recovery processes, and you wake up tired, less able to concentrate, and more susceptible to breaking under stress. Over time, this has a serious impact on your physical and mental health.
Some of us are blessed with a natural ability to switch off and drop into sleep within minutes of head hitting pillow (I am not one of those people), but even “good sleepers” are having more trouble due to the heightened stress, reduced structure, and amped up screen time associated with COVID-19. Not to mention the COVID nightmares.
As a self-proclaimed “bad sleeper”, I’ve spent YEARS compiling a recipe for a restful night’s sleep — from sleep trackers to essential oils to meditations to melatonin – I have tried it!
Here are the four things that I have found absolutely essential to restful, and importantly, consistent sleep:
1. Wake up and go to bed around the same time each day.
Consistent wake up and bed-times affects your circadian rhythms — your “biological clock” which responds to light and regulates melatonin to stimulate wakefulness or sleep. Waking up — and ideally getting some sunshine as soon as possible — kicks off this process for the day, and consistency over time means your body gets into a natural rhythm and you’re able to have deeper and more restful sleep.
2. Set yourself up for success – exercise and hydrate well during the day.
For me, the single biggest factor in whether or not I have restful sleep is how much I’ve moved my body during the day. Exercise, whether it’s weight training or a walk, burns energy and releases hormones so your body is ready (and asking) for rest. For me it also helps clear my mind so my thoughts aren’t whirring when my head hits the pillow.
Make sure you’re exercising a few hours before sleep so you’ve had time to cool down and lower your heart rate before getting into bed. Unless of course it’s some wonderful restorative yoga, like this one from my yoga teacher tribe sister Tamika Caston-Miller.
Staying hydrated during the day means you don’t wake up thirsty in the night, and provides water integral to our biological recovery processes. The Mayo Clinic recommends at least 3.7 liters (125 oz) for men and 2.7 liters (91 oz) a day for women. I just fill my 40 oz Hydroflask three times!
There are even certain foods that help promote healthy sleep – and food and drink to avoid. Contrary to what you might think, alcohol and sleep are not in a happy and functional relationship! Drinking can help you crash, but your body’s response to the alcohol, sugar, and dehydration disrupts the natural recovery processes, and you’ll often wake up several times in the middle of the night.
3. Optimize your sleep environment: clean, comfortable, & cold!
Where you sleep is really important – mentally and physically. Your bedroom should be a sleep haven – meaning that it’s clutter free and separate from your working from home space, even if that’s by a partition or by clearing away your work stuff.
Most people don’t know that there’s an optimum room temperature for sleep (and it’s chilly!). Ideally, your room should be between 60 and 67°F (15.6 and 19.4°C) for a healthy sleep.
A quality mattress, pillows and bed sheets are something I don’t skimp on as they can make your break your sleep experience, and there’s so much out there now that won’t break the bank. There’s a lot out there and I’m not a sleep expert, so I’ll tell you what works for me (and I’m not getting anything for these endorsements!). The Tuft & Needle Mint mattress, natural fabric bed linen like those from Brooklinen, and personally I love a cooling weighted blanket for an almost swaddled sleep experience!
Investing in a clean and comfortable sleep environment is investing in your physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. I think it’s worth skipping a few Frappuccinos for.
4. Drift off with a music playlist, meditation or audio book.
The thing my friends and clients seem to have the most trouble with is switching off their brains. I can relate.
I use music to set the scene as part of my night time routine, but I find it doesn’t quite do the trick in lulling me to sleep. What works for a lot of people is a sleep story, audiobook, or meditation.
Audiobooks should be a familiar story, something comforting that isn’t going to keep you up in anticipation (mine is The Alchemist). All the big mediation apps also have sleepy stories – again I tend to go back to the same one, it’s like a friend reading you a bedtime story.
Sleep meditations are guided exercises designed to relax you and shut down your body and mind for the night. Most are designed on the concept of “Yoga Nidra” or yoga of sleep. I use these when I’m particularly wound up or upset about something, and if I’m still awake will transition into a sleep story afterwards.
I love the Audible and Thrive Global sleep collection (available free on Audible) – particularly the AMAZING sleep meditation from Sean “Diddy” Combs (yes you read that right), which absolutely is the best thing ever.
Sleep is the foundation of physical, mental, and emotional resilience — exactly what we need to navigate this pandemic and build positive habits for the challenges to come. I hope these tips can help you get build a healthier sleep routine and get more restful sleep!
