011. How are you sleeping?
Every issue of Moment comes with a question designed to gently nudge you towards working well: making your mental health part of your self-employed business plan.
You don't always need to act upon it.
Not every question or theme will resonate with you.
But at the very least, we hope that Moment will help you commit some time to actively thinking about how you can look after your own wellbeing as a foundation of doing great work, rather than it being something you only worry about in times of crisis.
011. How are you sleeping?
Physical health and mental health are intertwined. It’s easy to remember the obvious ways to look after our physical health - exercise and diet, but often, we neglect sleep health as part of our overall wellbeing.
Our sleep health is both a great signal to see how we're doing right now, as well as something which we can work on, with dramatic benefits to our emotional and physical wellbeing.
If you're not sleeping well, it could be a sign of something worrying you. If you're not sleeping well, it could lead to more stress and anxiety.
And right now our sleep patterns have been disrupted by a year of unusually high levels of stress and uncertainty. According to the British Sleep Society, three-quarters of the UK have noticed their sleep patterns change during the pandemic, with more than half saying their sleep is not restorative.
If we’re not sleeping well, our time awake is going to be harder - less focus, less motivation, and a feeling of sluggishness.
Good sleep health doesn’t mean how long you sleep, but rather how well you sleep. You could be getting 10 hours of broken sleep and feel dreadful, or 6 hours of great sleep and feel great. Everyone needs different things.
Most importantly, how you’re sleeping right now isn’t something you’re stuck with - you can impact how well you’re sleeping - by modifying your bedtime routine, by removing screens from the bedroom, by only using the bed for sleep, and creating a better environment for sleep [light, temperature, sound]. It takes some effort, but you can improve your sleep health if you recognise that it’s affecting your waking day.
(nb. Leapers members have access to Sleepio - an NHS approved platform which is proven to improve sleep health. Chat to Matthew if you’re interested).
So, how are you sleeping, and are there steps which you might want to take to try and change that?
Visit Leapers to discuss the question further,
or if you’re not a community member, sign-up for free here.
Things we read this week:
There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing - About ten people sent me this link, it’s a great read, and is helping lots of people.
How female news leaders are changing media culture for women
Would you live with your boss 24/7? These people do
When personal branding became a performance
Google’s plan to help people avoid burnout
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