I’m sending out part two on a full moon, a cosmic event notorious for making us all lose sleep and bringing our emotions, overthinking, downloads and vivid dream states to it’s fullest peak. I’ve been writing this on five nights of almost no sleep, because I am processing a huge emotional upheaval, transformation and dark un-flow that’s depleted me to all levels. I’m writing this in a nervous system state that’s not know complete comfort, rest and softness in a month straight, on the heels of a tumultous June. Do I need to revisit my own learnings more than ever? Maybe this letter to you is actually a letter to my own self. I don’t know about you, but I certainly have this habit of being the best to myself, the most learned, the most healing spiritual wellness girlie, when I am in a phase of life that’s happy and well. When things go down, when life brings a huge challenge, I become a raccoon and a mess. I forget all the tools my happier self tends to herself with, ironically in the very time I need them more than ever. So let’s go right into the rest of my journey with sleep medicine, and let this act of writing be a reminder to myself to intentionally soften into this tonight.
Cultivating bedding luxuries
We all have the ideal kind of bed that gives us the best sleep ever - as much as many of us may vehemently refuse to be the kind of spoilt person who needs a special kind of pillow, blanket and bed, as much as we may pride ourselves on our self-denial and our “I could sleep on the cold floor if I had to,” this particular conversation is about - you don’t have to, so why not allow yourself a little extra care? Why not allow yourself a little upgrade, a little more cocoon, a little more self-mothering, just because you can? You are fully deserving of it. Think of the best sleep state you’ve ever experienced - was it in a hotel room? What was it about the bed, the pillow or the perfect weight of blanket that gave you that extra layer of bliss, that sank you a little deeper into good sleep?
I’ve realised over the past few years that I’m a soft girl. I need that sink-in, so I have a memory foam mattress topper that makes my bed feel like a sink-in bed. When I lay down, I need my lower back to feel sunk in, and my huge ass (showing off a little) doesn’t allow that to happen on a firm mattress. I keep a pillow below my knee to allow more lower back comfort, and I keep a pillow between my knees when I lay on the side. I have an ergonomic pillow curved to perfectly accomodate the back of the neck, I have a super soft down pillow for the nights when I’m in that mood, I have a firm memory foam pillow, and I have an old pillow that’s soft just from being that old. I alternate among all of these as per what my body wishes for every night. I’ve learnt that a slightly heavy quilt, with a layer of a really, really soft bedsheet I’ve had since school, gives me the deepest comfort, and I need the room to be a little colder than comfort so I can be snuggled in under a heavy blanket - mine is a traditional Indian quilted cotton blanket. I invested in a pure silk pillowcase only for the night, for my hair and skin.
I just Googled it - we spend about one third of our life sleeping or attempting to do so. Let that sink in. Do we want to spend one third of our life in compromise and discomfort? What would it feel like if you let yourself have that one little luxury, or invest in just the right pillow or mattress for you? What if, if you love a hotel room bed, you very much need to and deserve to make your own bed as close to a hotel room as you can afford to, little by little if not all at once?
I am lucky to always sleep in solitude, because my energy body and human design is such that anyone sleeping next to me - even a person I love the most in the world - acutely disturbs my sleep quality. I am sensitive enough to feel it, but most of us live our lives not even realising this. If I have to share a bed with someone three or four nights in a row, I am significantly unhealthy and craving any setting which will let me be in my own energy at night. I’m that person on a vacation who will sleep on the floor if it can mean avoiding sharing someone else’s energy as I sleep, because some of us are simply born this type. If you’ve noticed that you have the best sleep ever when you don’t have to share, can you make changes in your life to let yourself have that just a little more? I feel like the conversation with our partners about how just because I sometimes need to sleep alone doesn’t mean I don’t love you or that our marriage is going to fail is something our world desperately needs to be having more. With ourselves, as well as with our loved ones. When we are well slept, we show up a hundred times happier to our life.
The Five Senses
I love to ritualize grounding down into my body, leaving the internet, leaving the mind, and coming into sleep mode by tending to each of my senses. Here’s what this can sometimes look like for me:
sight, I care for my eyes by tidying the room, dimming the lights, lighting up a candle because nothing is as primally cozy and comforting to our bodies at night as a little fire, and eliminating screens. A warm, amber, even red, cozy room for my eyes to relax into before shutting down. A tiny sense of tidyness even though I’m too tired to seriously clean at night.
sound, the power of sound to soothe, relax and bring you to sleep is so underrated, and all of us have our own kind of music that works on us like the loveliest lullaby. For me, this can change from day to day and season to season. Sometimes it’s nature sounds like crickets or the rain, sometimes it’s classical piano, sometimes it’s sleepy lofi, sometimes it’s soothing, easygoing chill RnB, sometimes its a healing frequency, my latest favourite is brown noise. Using sound for self soothing into better sleep is a rich, fun rabbithole that will reward you so much.
touch, the glide of moisturizer or body oil on skin applied in a soothing self massage, a ritual like gently caressing yourself with a feather all over the body, self-pleasure, there are so many ways in which touch can soften us into a better sleep. A few moments to physically connect with your body, or even allowing yourself to receive the loving touch of a partner or a pet can physiologically soothe you into relaxation, ground you into your body.
smell, there are so many fragrances - gifts from Earth - that can soothe us into better sleep. I’m talking true aromatherapy, never inhaling chemicals from paraffin artificial candles. I wear perfume to bed - I use a beautiful aromatherapy blend from Forest Essentials called ‘Nidra’ that calms me down. Lavender, frankincense, cedar, there are so many essential oils in aromatherapy wisdom that help us feel calm, relaxed and sleepy. I swear by Kama Ayurveda, St Botanica and Soulflower for my essential oils - these are my most purchased. I love working with smoke - burning white sage, lavender or frankincense in their incense form instead of essential oils work just as beautifully for me.
taste, brewing a really yummy cup of something that puts me to sleep - cacao or chamomile or lavender being my favourite - gives me a window of time to do a little mindfulness meditation exercise. This exercise is simply being with my cup, and experiencing each sip to it’s fullest, with mindful savouring and basking. Deeply observing the way it tastes, the way it feels going down my throat, the way it gently lulls me into sedation. I feel like these 5-10 minutes of just fully being present with the act of sipping something, instead of our usual way of sipping stuff while we do more stuff, often works beautifully to bring my system down from the hyper-arousal, vigilance and overstimulation of my modern life.
Taking a little time, a little effort, to create an ambience that tends to all your five senses, and experiencing each of these senses mindfully, phonelessly, will take just as much time as laying in bed deep scrolling. And, it will actually put you to sleep instead of adding to your anxiety.
We live in a world where all of us are always up in our heads, and unless we’re out there working with the earth and doing physical labour, it’s impossible to hit the pillow snoring every night. We all struggle with sleep because we’re so wired, so thought-y, so type-y all the time, that our brain does not know how to wind down. We need a window of wind down, however tiny, to *whoosh* and *sigh* back into our body, to feel life with our senses, to soften into rest mode, to take a break from consuming content or Doing Things for once. We all need to wind down before we expect our bodies to enter sleep.
Releasing shame around wake-up time and honouring your true rhythm
Oh, this last one is a juicy, spicy one. Have you ever been made to feel like if you’re not an early riser, you’re doing life wrong, you’re the problem and you’re good-for-nothing? That you cannot exist outside the 5am club, and that you’re a hopeless slob who will never be successful if you don’t do early mornings? That you’re not a productive member of society if you don’t wake up at someone else’s idea of the right time to wake?
If you’re one of my Indian readers - I’m going to be controversial enough to go ahead and say especially South Indian like me haha - you have probably spent your life seeing waking up early conflated with being a Good, Right Person.
If you’ve been exposed to way too much 5am hustle culture motivation, you’ve felt that. If you, like me, went to design school and were told that good students should stay up all night working on assignments and you’re lazy to act like a human being with needs in this industry, you’ve felt it. Maybe, in other streams of education too.
Fuck that.
When we honour our inner rhythms, when we listen to our own body’s whispers, we give ourselves a chance to experience the healthiest, happiest, most productive life. Some of us are not designed to wake up at dawn and hit the ground running, and if you’re using caffeine to make yourself do this and swimming against the grain, you might want to watch out for alarming symptoms of fatigue. Sometimes, our bodies will give us many signs that the ‘productive early morning’ we are making ourselves do is something that its simply not enjoying, and we cannot abandon our body in favour of that cool, productive story.
Too many of us in this world learn to completely ignore, reject and disregard our bodies in chase of someone else’s idea of what worked for them. We forget that we are unique individuals meant to thrive in our own unique, weird conditions. I’ve met people who designed their workday around their ideal waking up time - and I’m talking 10am, 11am and 12 noon even. I’ve had seasons when I felt most creative late at night, and then grew up into a season where being up super early and then giving myself an afternoon nap keeps me feeling my best. Feeling best in my body, not to share on social media or tick off a checklist. When I played with releasing judgement around the Shoulds of When A Good Person Must Sleep, and just let my body lead into the sleep and wake up time it feels like - as much as my work life can allow, I felt so much transformation in my energy, creativity and wellbeing levels.
I’m definitely not saying that early mornings are wrong, because I love early mornings myself and they make me feel amazing. I’m just saying, what if we loosened up and explored “What’s my ideal time to wake up, and can I slowly start redesigning my life or making tweaks to be able to wake up that way?”
What if we stopped making our waking up time good (early) or bad (late), and just let it be an objective reality of what feels good for our body?
What did you feel most called to, and in what way can you bring more intention, ritual and magic to tend to the quality of your sleep?
I wish you the softest warm kitty nights!