Overwhelm #3: Sleep Your Way To World Domination

If you’ve been following this series on Managing Overwhelm, you may have tried at least one of the active recovery practices I suggested in the last post, and I hope you experienced a lift in your capacity as a result. (Message me - I’d love to hear how it went).

This time we’re going beyond “burnout recovery” to the root of almost everything: rest.

“Active recovery” means activities which put your body into rest-and-digest mode - crucial for dealing with stress in your life. This is one half of a bigger stress-management picture. If you really want to build up your resilience, get out of overwhelm forever and be burnout-proof, you need to tackle the other half of the picture, which is your relationship with sleep.

Transcript

This is the third in my 10-part series on overwhelm. Today's audio is all about sleeping your way to world domination. Today we're going beyond burnout recovery to the root of almost everything, Rest. Active recovery means activities which put your body into rest and digest mode while actually doing something. It's crucial for dealing with the stress in your life. Active recovery is yoga, Meditation, Going for a walk, Taking a sauna, Things like that. Active recovery is one half of a bigger stress management picture. If you want to build up your resilience, Get out of overwhelm forever and be burnout-proof, You need to tackle the other half of the picture, Which is your relationship with sleep. I want to say that active recovery and sleep really feed into each other, So it's not either or, They work together. Do not scrimp on sleep. The research is conclusive, You need at least 8 hours a night, At least. And that's 8 hours of sleep, Not 8 hours in bed, 8 hours actually sleeping, Which probably means you need to be in bed for 9, Maybe 10 hours a night. Chronic exhaustion is probably driving most of the challenges you're experiencing right now, Whether they're deeply practical challenges or highly emotional ones. Lack of sleep affects both your ability to think clearly and stay calm under pressure, As well as physical resilience. Sleep deprivation leads to poor decisions, Disorganization, Conflict, Avoidable illness, You know, That cold that you pick up because you're run down, All of which can snowball you into chaos in surprisingly little time. Over the long and short term, Sleep is probably the biggest thing you can do to impact your mental and physical health, More powerful than any therapy or personal development activity out there. It's a baseline that you can build therapy and personal development on top of, But those things are not going to replace quality sleep night in, Night out. In fact, Psychiatrist Dan Siegel is said to have been able to sign off more than half of his psychiatric patients, Psychiatric patients, I want to emphasize that, People with actual psychiatric diagnoses. He was able to sign off more than half of his patient load after three weeks of training in good sleep hygiene. That's how important it is. I know you want to get on with your to do list. I know you feel under pressure and getting your sleep sorted is the thing that will make the biggest difference to your performance and wellbeing now and over the long haul. Do not wait for the signs of burnout. Start now. This is one place you can push, Even if you're weaning yourself off pushing overall as a habit. You can get obsessed about going to bed. Go on a sleep hygiene rampage. So here is your nine point science backed sleep checklist. So this stuff is universally true for human bodies, Meaning that most of it likely does work for you. Start working on it now and keep tweaking and persisting until your sleep is bomb proof. And as someone who has really struggled with sleep disruption because of long COVID and perimenopause, I want to say it is possible to correct your sleep. It doesn't happen overnight, No pun intended, But you can do it. So here is your basic sleep hygiene checklist. Number one, Be in bed for nine hours to get eight hours sleep. I've already mentioned that. Number two, Sleep in a cold, Dark, Quiet room. No more than 18 degrees C. You can sleep in a cooler room if you're comfortable with that. Number three, Be careful about caffeine, Alcohol and other substances. Number four, Hydration throughout the day. Number five, No food two hours before bed. Let your body digest. Number six, Go to bed and get up at the same time every day. And this is including weekends. This sets your circadian rhythm so your body starts to naturally produce melatonin at the right time every night, Supporting you to fall asleep. Number seven, No screens, Stress or mental strain two hours before bed. I know that sounds like a lot. It's something to aim for and work towards. Number eight, Have a power down routine and stick to it. Again, This cues your body to know it's time to go to sleep. We're going to switch into rest and digest. We're going to start producing melatonin. And so your body is starting to support you to do what you want it to do. And number nine, Get enough exercise. Again, Not too close to bedtime. This helps to discharge stress from your body so that you can get a good night's sleep. Okay, I want to talk about napping now. Napping for world domination. I've reclaimed so many afternoons from zombie apocalypse by just having a short nap. It's really looking like it's going to go wrong. And a nap has rescued me. Not everyone can nap without it affecting their nighttime sleep. So you need to know if this works for your body or not. But if you can handle it and still build up enough sleep pressure at night that you can fall asleep at the right time, Then a nap can be really tip your body into being able to cope rather than being overwhelmed. So actually, Many of us, Especially when we're in burnout, Will sleep better at night if we nap. I always remember my midwife telling me sleep begets sleep. You get a little bit of sleep and your body is just less stressed. So it's more able to drop off to sleep at night. But there is a right and a wrong way to do this. The research says that you should take either 20 minutes to nap or 90 minutes. So use a timer. Anything in between that 20 minute and 90 minute kind of goalposts. And you'll start to drop into a deeper sleep. And you won't be able to have enough time to complete the cycle, Leaving you groggy and under functioning when you wake up. So stick to just that 20 minutes. And if you think you don't have time to nap, Just notice how you're spending that time when you start to get tired. You'll probably waste at least 20 minutes scrolling or getting into an argument or doing something you didn't want to do, But with two sides to say no to do. So why not repurpose that great time and have a rest? Thanks for listening. Join me in my next audio in this 10 part Overwhelm series. I'm going to explain what your brain is actually for and how to use it more wisely so that it doesn't overheat, Malfunction or just melt down on such a regular basis. I'll see you there.