ENLIGHTEN UP! a blogSelf-awareness stories: lighting our way to clarity, contentment and resilience in a complicated world.
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Note: Given the state of the world these days, I thought a re-run of the guest post by Monica Le Baron would be timely and helpful.  Can’t sleep? Create your ideal night routine to fall asleep effortlessly in just 5 easy steps Before I struggled with insomnia, and way before I became a Certified Yoga Therapist and sleep expert, I wasn’t aware of evening routines and I didn’t even think I had one. The reality is that I had a very unhealthy night schedule that was preventing me from falling asleep, staying asleep, and feeling energized in the morning. I would watch TV, read business books or study Swedish until late, making it hard to stop the chatter in my mind and to be able to fall asleep effortlessly. Sometimes, I would force myself to unplug and go to bed a couple of hours earlier than my usual schedule, but that would make it even worse, it only led to nights of tossing and turning in frustration. I researched a lot about sleep hygiene tools and read many blogs about sleep routines. Some advice seemed good yet impossible to implement in my night routine, but I would try anyway which created even more drama in my life. After many sleepless nights, I realized that I needed to create my own routine that fit my life better and to be patient and extra flexible with it. That’s one of the main reasons why I won’t try to impose a “perfect” routine on my coaching clients or on you. The goal here is for you to become aware of your evening routine (even if you don’t think you have one) and then add a level of simplicity and mindfulness to it. Let’s take the first baby step to create your simple night routine so you can fall asleep effortlessly. STEP 1: GET CLARITY To start, it is important to understand your relationship with sleep and get clear of the conscious or unconscious stressors and habits that might be preventing you from getting a good night's rest. Take a moment to reflect (and journal if possible) about the questions below. These are some of the things I talk about with my clients during our first coaching session to gain clarity about their current sleep situation and the transformation they would like to achieve.
You might feel overwhelmed just by reading these questions, please don’t. The goal of this step is only to gain clarity, is not about taking immediate action. STEP 2: SET A REALISTIC GOAL Is time to create a realistic goal for your night routine. Ask yourself how would you like your evening routine to support your sleep, your health, or your life in general. And decide how much time are you willing to invest in creating your ideal routine and executing it. Then create a goal that is measurable, simple, and realistic. Here is an example of a realistic goal. If you’re going to bed at midnight and you would like to be fully asleep two hours earlier to get deeper sleep, then a realistic goal to start with might mean being asleep by 11:50 pm instead of 10 pm. Then you can go to bed ten minutes earlier each week until you hit your 10 pm goal. I realize this might seem too simple or not worth the effort, but small steps will set you up for success. If your goal were to be asleep by 10 pm on week one, this might add more pressure and anxiety to your nights. And we don’t want that! STEP 3: WHAT NEEDS TO STAY AND WHAT NEEDS TO UPGRADE? Now that you’ve created your realistic goal, and identified your evening routine and other factors that might be disturbing your sleep, and your energy, let’s identify which parts of your night routine should stay and which parts you’ll want to upgrade. Ask yourself the following questions to decide.
Even if there is a lot that you want to change, don’t try to overwhelm yourself. Keep it simple and stick to one or two things to start which will upgrade your entire sleep experience. STEP 4: CREATE YOUR ROUTINE Using the upgrades that you’ve identified in Step 3, write down your ideal evening routine to establish a regular relaxing bedtime that helps your body recognize when it’s time to sleep. Remember Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s wise words: “a goal without a plan is just a wish.” I use the following steps with my clients to create their night routine, and you’re welcome to use them as well:
Creating and using an evening routine may be new for you, so take your time. Don’t try to rush the process. Instead, create a simple yet specific routine and be flexible with it, especially at the starting. STEP 5: TAKE ACTION! Doesn’t matter how great your night routine is, if you don’t take action it will never work. Is like making a lavender tea and not drinking it, and expecting to get the calming results anyways. If your night routine is too complicated, rigid, or unrealistic, is going to be hard to relax and fall asleep. Use these 5 simple steps to create your ideal night routine. A routine that you look forward to at night and that signals to your body and mind that is time to rest. Remember that taking action is not always adding more activities, less is always best at night. Here’s a 10-minute yoga Nidra audio you can effortlessly add to your evening routine to peacefully fall asleep in minutes. CONCLUSION Sleep troubles don’t typically start in the bedroom; they’re just the tip of the iceberg and an indication that something else is going wrong. Not sleeping well is often caused by the things we do throughout the day, over the years, and leading up to our sleep time. Inside my Sleep Simplified 1:1 coaching program, I help my clients identify the root causes of their sleep troubles, implement effective changes, and create lasting habits that lead to better sleep. These lasting habits start by having an ideal night routine to fall asleep effortlessly at night. What upgrades you will be adding to your routine tonight? Please let me know in the comments below, I would love to know.  Monica, MBA, is a bilingual (EN/ES) sleep coach and certified yoga therapist who specializes in helping women with sleep disorders get a good night’s rest. Using her exclusive signature program, Sleep Simplified, she has helped hundreds of clients overcome insomnia, sleep apnea and more. After just one session, her clients have been able to get two extra hours of restful sleep, wake up fewer times in the middle of the night and fall asleep within minutes of their head hitting the pillow. Monica’s expertise has been featured in media outlets and apps including Insight Timer, International Association of Yoga Therapists, Brainz and more. Her passion for helping others get a good night’s rest was sparked after burning out at her corporate job and using yoga therapy techniques on herself to heal from insomnia, chronic pain, anxiety and stress. She lives in Chihuahua, Mexico, with her mother and siblings.
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 The short story in this post is part of a community program my writers group organized. Several of us, including me, wrote, workshopped and read pieces that featured different aspects of climate change and global warming. We made a video and uploaded it to youtube. It’s titled - - A Global Perspective. The link to the program is at the end of the post. Both climate change and global warming are and will continue to affect us human beings and all other life on planet Earth, so, it’s important to have a basic understanding of the difference between those two terms. Here’s one I found from the National Geographic Society: Global warming refers to Earth's rising average temperature, while climate change refers to changes in weather patterns and growing seasons around the world. According to the United Nations, both these conditions will result in: Hotter temperatures More severe storms Increased drought A warming, rising ocean Loss of species Not enough food More health risks Poverty and displacement This was the motivation for Journey Writers, my writers group, to do the program. Now, here’s “Once Upon A Time,” the short story I wrote (note – the line about Los Angeles? I wrote that in 2022!). Once Upon A Time It’s a dark and stormy night. That’s a cliché, but it’s true. All our nights have been dark and stormy for the past 48 years and 25 days. I keep count. It’s funny, or it would be if it weren’t so sad. You know, when I was a kid, I’d ask, “Why is the sky blue, Mommy?” Now my grandchildren ask, “What is blue sky, Nana?” Humph! I remember lying on my back on the grass peering up and wondering how far the sky went and if heaven was behind it. My grandchildren have never seen blue sky and never will. We’ve lived underground since The Great Warming. All of us, well that is, except folks with money. They took off in their rocket ships. Now they circle the planet in seven huge space stations, one for each continent. Every day they look down and see what’s left of the Earth they’ve left behind. When we look up the shafts to the surface all we can see is lightening, dark clouds and rain. No one has lived topside in 48 years. To go out now is certain death with all the toxins and poisons flying around out there. Sure, the techs go outside but they have to wear lifesuits. They go out to check the seals on the windows. Well, they’re not exactly windows; they’re more like the portholes you’d see on a cruise ship, way back then. They’re round and thick and they keep out the poisoned air. Used to be we didn’t even think about air. It was simply there to give us oxygen so we could live, work, play, love and create. Now the techs make it in the lab and circulate it through vents. It does the job, but it’s not the same. We’re thankful for the rain, though. The folks in the reclamation center collect it, remove the toxins, purify it and recycle it for us. But it’s not the same. I remember catching raindrops on my tongue. They tasted sweet in summer and cold like ice in winter. Anyway, we have almost everything we need. The engineers designed systems to simulate day and night, produce food and handle sanitation. Those folks are all around self-trained geniuses, but it’s not the same. I miss the sun and the moon. I miss the seasons. I miss picking strawberries in June and pumpkins in October. We got left behind when the rich folk went off planet. It didn’t matter if you were Black, brown, white, red or yellow. If you couldn’t afford a ticket on the big ships you got left behind. Period. When all was said and done, we had no choice but to bury our political hatchets, pull together and figure out what we needed to do to live. And we live pretty well down here. Our spaces are comfortable. What I love the most is that there’s not a right angle in the whole place. Turns out it’s pretty damn nigh impossible to dig tunnels with perfect right angles but I’ve always loved curves and arches so that part of living down here feeds my soul. The Great Warming? Oh, right. That. It didn’t happen overnight. It was so gradual, folks just ignored the signs and the warnings. We had more fires. One of the biggest nearly burned the whole city of Los Angeles. The storms got worse, and ash from volcanic eruptions created dark clouds that covered the sky and hid the sun. Did we listen? No, we did not. The sea levels rose and whole islands disappeared. I really miss Hawaii. I used to love visiting my Uncle Ernie on Oahu. And it got harder to breathe when the frozen ground at the poles thawed and gave up all the nasty gases hiding down there. By the time folks woke up and demanded that our ‘do nothing gridlocked government’ do something, it was too late. The rich folks left and here we are, living underground hoping and praying that Mother Nature forgives us. Oh! Would you look at the time! Gotta go. My son and daughter are on engineering duty so I’m watching my grands and they’ll be here any minute. Rosie, Darren and Gloria will bust in here all excited and ask for snacks. They actually like the synthmilk and the cookies I make from fauxflour. Can you imagine? The ‘faux’ stuff is okay but I miss real chocolate and real milk. Anyway, the kids will giggle, eat and drink and say to me, “Tell us a story, Nana. Please?” And I will. See, this life right here, right now is all they’ll ever know so I’ll tell them story after story about how things used to be, once upon a time. The End? If you’d like to see the whole program featuring several of us, here’s the link to the YouTube video. |
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AuthorBETH GIBBS started her yoga practice in 1968, four months after her son was born and she’s been practicing ever since. She currently teaches all levels therapeutic yoga classes for adults, and specialty classes for seniors in the Hartford, Connecticut area. Beth is a certified yoga therapist through the International Association of Yoga Therapists and is guest faculty at the Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy. She writes for the blogs, Yoga for Healthy Aging, and Accessible Yoga. Her master’s degree from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA is in Yoga Therapy and Mind/Body Health. Categories |
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