comptonrae lifestyle

Top 7 Holiday Season Mistakes That Ruin Your Sleep

How can the chaos of the holidays be so exhausting and still leave me lying awake at night?

I’m going to go ahead and throw it out there right away: I am a huge fan of fall — give me those autumn leaves and pumpkins, please! You can keep the PSL, though, sorry not sorry.

October seems to have a way of bringing me back to myself; the cool, foggy mornings and crisp, vivid sunsets seem to have the same effect on me that the warm sunshine of spring has on those who can’t stand the winter months.

October has a dark side, though, and I’m not talking about Spooktober.

No, I’m talking about the kick-off of the Holiday Season and everything it entails: the maple and pumpkin drinks everywhere you look, and the seductively colored candies and sweets in nearly every grocery aisle.

You might be backing away from the screen in confusion — maybe even horror — thinking, “Micaelyn, what are you talking about? These are the best parts of the holiday season!”

And they are.

But they’re also a couple of the things that I know destroy my sleep if I overdo it — and goodness knows we all have a tendency to overdo it during the holidays.

Turns out, visions of sugar plum fairies aren’t always the best when you’re actually trying to get some rest.

7 things you do every holiday season that ruin your sleep

Let’s start breaking this down — here are the top 7 holiday season mistakes that ruin your sleep:

1. Too much sugar. This one should be fairly intuitive; starting with the PSLs and Halloween candy in October and ending with Christmas cookies and sugary New Years champagne, the holiday season is basically three straight months of overdosing on sugar. While I don’t recommend cutting out your holiday sweets purely from a mental health perspective — nothing would make me more depressed than not being able to have some pumpkin pie and spritz cookies — I do recommend setting consumption limits. Not so much around quantity, but around time: don’t eat sweets or drink sugary alcohol less than an hour before bed.

2. Too much artificial food dye. This one isn’t quite as top-of-mind, but can be just as important. When I was 8 years old, my mom took me to our pediatrician because I was having constant migraines. My father also has a history of migraines, so she said it was probably at least partly hereditary, but that the number one thing she recommended cutting out of my diet was artificial food dyes — especially Red-40 — and it made a huge difference. Artificial food dyes have been linked to a host of health issues, including hyperactivity and depression, both of which can have serious impacts on sleep. Try swapping out artificially colored candies this Halloween for natural options! This is a safe space, so let’s be honest: you’re the one who ends up eating most of your kids’ candy, anyway, so you might as well save yourself some suffering!

3. Abandoning routines. I’ve talked a LOT about how important it is to maintain a consistent bedtime routine, and it couldn’t be more important than during the holidays when literally everything is chaos. Our lizard brains thrive on consistency and predictability, and when we abandon our normal nightly routines it sends those lizard brains into a panic and makes it so much harder to quiet our minds when it comes time to sleep. Of course, you’re probably not going to stick to your 10 pm bedtime on Christmas or New Years Eve — which is completely fine! Just make sure you do your best to stick to the routine as much as possible outside those special occasions.

4. More screen time + less sunlight. Hands down, one of my favorite parts of the holidays is watching all our favorite movies — National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation being my family’s all-time favorite. But all that extra screen time (Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter marathons, anybody?) plus a decrease in overall sunlight can combine to create some serious problems for your circadian rhythms. The light emitted from our devices mimics the light from the sun, so when you queue up a film at 8 pm, the light from the TV screen can send your brain signals that it should be waking up rather than getting ready to go to sleep. If your brain gets lots of sunlight signals late at night, and very little real sunlight exposure during the day due to winter weather, you can see how your circadian rhythms can get completely upended.

5. More alcohol. Anyone who knows me knows that I love my wine, especially when I’m pairing it with delicious foods. Those folks also know that if I drink wine after 9 pm, I’ll be up by 4 with the sweats and I’ll never get back to sleep again. Obviously, not everyone drinks alcohol, but for those of us who do need to be extra mindful of our intake during the holidays. On its own it might not disrupt our sleep too much, but combined with all the other contributing factors, it can also be the thing that ultimately makes or breaks your night’s sleep.

6. Less time spent exercising. I’m not the best at maintaining a regular exercise routine the rest of the year, but it generally goes entirely out the window during the holidays. Between the travel, shopping, events, decorating, cleaning, and days on days spent in the kitchen, it’s usually the last thing on my list. This year, though, I’m going to make a point of prioritizing my exercize routine, not only because of what it does for my sleep, but of the emotional release — I can’t run away from the relatives that drive me crazy, but I can run it out on the elliptical!

7. Neglecting self-care + mental health. Moms, this one is specifically directed at you. The holidays come with so much expectation, and with that expectation comes a lot of pressure. We want to make wonderful memories for our children and our families, and we often end up neglecting ourselves trying to get there. Mental illnesses like depression and anxiety are only exacerbated when we don’t get enough sleep, and the worsening symptoms often make it harder to sleep — a vicious cycle I know many of us here are all too familiar with. So here’s my reminder, both for you and for myself this holiday season: don’t forget to take care of yourself — you can’t pour from an empty cup. I’ve personally found the Mindful Mamas app to be a fantastic resource for quick mental health check-ins and helpful guided meditations that are tailored to all kinds of different needs and scenarios. I don’t have any affiliation with the app or its developers and don’t get any kickback if you purchase it, it’s just a personal favorite that I highly recommend. It is a bit of an investment where apps are concerned ($69.99/year), but the sheer breadth of what they provide makes it completely worth it, in my opinion.

Tips for the self-promoting WFHM

How does a work-from-home mom avoid the social media spiral and still promote her services?

I see you, mama. You’re finally striking out on your own, working on your terms, and following your own passions.

You know that you need a social media presence in order to get more clients, regardless of the industry.

But it all feels so overwhelming, whether it be from a time perspective or a technical one, or both— I mean, come on, you’re already running a business, taking care of one or more kids, running a household, and trying to find time for yourself, and TikTok doesn’t come naturally to all of us.

Or maybe, like me, you’re more overwhelmed by the mental and emotional impacts of social media (I’m talking about the comparison game if you didn’t catch my drift).

Either way, there are some strategies you can use to maintain a social media presence without letting it consume your life — or your mental health.

The ugly truth & the elephant in the room

After nearly two and a half years of full-time motherhood and experimenting with different business ideas, I finally chose to go back to work — on my terms.

I decided to trade the 9-5 with a “business casual” dress code and micro-managers hovering over my shoulder for the freedom of self-managed hours, negotiable compensation, and — here’s the ugly truth — unreliable income.

There, I said it. The dirty little secret no blogger wants to talk about — the fact that when you become an independent contractor or go into business for yourself in any capacity, reliable income goes out the window.

This is where social media has been particularly problematic for me because I know that I need to have a social media presence to attract new clients — and fix that pesky income problem — but I also know that it shatters my already shaky self-esteem.

So how do we avoid the comparison game and still have a social media presence while building a business?

Avoiding the social media comparison game

The two biggest enemies for any WFHM who needs to leverage social media are time and authenticity, and both play a key role in avoiding the social media comparison trap.

Tip no. 1: Set time limits. If mental health and productivity are concerns for you, set realistic boundaries around the time you invest in social media.

Start by evaluating how much time you feasibly have to put towards content creation, posting (captions and hashtags can take forever if you don’t have systems in place), and engaging (everything from sharing stories to liking and commenting on yours and others’ posts).

Then, decide how you want to divide your time. At most, I have an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to devote to social media. In general, I’ll use the mornings to post and engage and use the afternoon or evening to create more content.

Don’t worry if all your time goes to one or the other at first — maybe content creation is a breeze but you struggle to share stories and engage, or vice versa.

With time and practice, you’ll become more efficient and be able to do more with the time you’ve set aside for yourself.

Tip no. 2: Only post content that feels real. I had to learn this lesson the hard way because posting content that doesn’t feel authentic to who you are will just burn you out.

There are so many social media gurus (and I don’t claim to be one) who say that showing up with something, anything, is better than not showing up at all, and I have finally worked up the courage to declare that I fully disagree.

People can tell when a story or a message or a post is inauthentic, and it invariably drives them away, so it won’t serve you from a business perspective.

If that weren’t enough, forcing yourself to produce inauthentic content in order to stick to an unrealistic content schedule is just a quick way to make you hate what you’re doing.

The only tip you really need: Post when it feels right and you know you have something to say that will either resonate with others or help them (hopefully like this post).

Don’t forget to meditate, hydrate, and recalibrate

No matter how good you are at limiting your scroll time, the green tendrils of envy and the crippling fingers of doubt will almost assuredly worm their way back into your brain at some point — I hate to say it, but it’s true.

Whenever I start to feel my thoughts spiraling in the direction of self-doubt and deprecation, there are three things I fall back on: meditating, gratitude journaling, and making sure I’m meeting my basic needs — it’s amazing what a meal and a bottle of water can do for your perspective.

If you can diffuse a scent that you find particularly uplifting during your meditation and journaling session, all the better to stimulate feelings of positivity and gratitude.

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How to Clear Your Head Before Bed

When it really is all in your head

More often than not, the biggest thing standing between me and sleep is my own over-active brain. I could be dead tired, running on little more than a nap, and still my brain insists on staying in overdrive and keeping me awake.

If this sounds even remotely like your experience, keep reading to discover some of my tried and true techniques for clearing my mind before bedtime.

Get out of your mind

I personally find quite a bit of release in putting things down on paper and giving them somewhere else to live than in my brain; there’s just something to be said for physically writing something down in ink on paper that gives me just a little peace.

Since everyone’s brains work a little differently, some of these techniques may be more or less effective for you personally, so make whatever tweaks feel natural or necessary to you!

If you’re fixating on a specific situation or conversation from your day (which happened to me ALL the time when I worked in an office — hello, coworker drama!) you might want to consider journaling about it before bed.
When your doomscroll-style thinking is more generalized, try making a list of all the things that frustrated you about the day and then make a list of all the things that went well or that you’re grateful for. Putting things in perspective this way can help remind our brains that it’s not really as bad as it may seem.
So many of my late nights are spent staring at the ceiling and thinking about all the things I needed to do and didn’t get done and now have to do tomorrow on top of all the other things I have to do tomorrow…as you can see, it spirals pretty quickly. When I’m stuck in this headspace, I’ll take the time to write down a list of all the things I think I need to do from most to least important, and I’ll also write down an estimate of how long I think each task will take. That way, I can look at how much time I’ll have to spend in total to get all my tasks done, and plan accordingly. It also usually helps me realize that it’s not as overwhelming as my brain was making it out to be.
Simply taking a moment to do some deep breathing or meditation can do wonders for calming erratic thoughts and to ground yourself back in a positive headspace. Oftentimes, I find myself taking quick, shallow breaths while fixating on any of the above topics, which only heightens my physical discomfort and, by extension, worsens my anxiety and creates a vicious cycle. In times like these, I make a concerted effort to focus on my breathing. But instead of focusing on taking deep breaths through my diaphragm, I do the opposite and use my diaphragm to push out every last bit of air in my lungs and hold it that way for a second or two before taking a measured inhale. I’ve found this exercise to be more effective than deep breathing because when I’m in the middle of an anxious episode, even focusing on breathing deeply enough can make things worse. When I do the opposite, and push all the air out, my body’s instincts and need for oxygen kick in and no amount of anxiety can keep me from taking a big gulp of air.

All about trial and error

Possibly the most frustrating thing about not being able to sleep is not knowing why, because if we don’t know why we can’t sleep, we can’t find a solution. This unfortunately means that a lot of what we end up doing is pure trial and error, and we’ll find some tools that work and a lot that don’t.

I’d love to hear your favorite techniques for quieting your mind before bed!

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5 Simple Swaps for a Greener Kitchen

Time to simplify

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably feeling more than a little down about the state of our climate and environment and you might be looking for some ways to live a greener life. Since the kitchen is the heart of a home, what better place to start doing the work than where many of us spend the most time? Just so you know, none of the links in this post are currently affiliate links — I do not make any money if you buy these things, I just want you to know what I use and love!

Ditch the plastic

The best place you can possibly start is by identifying any and all plastic objects in your kitchen that you could replace with something more environmentally friendly. Here are some of the quickest plastic swaps you can make:

Ditch the plastic Ziploc bags in favor of reusable silicone bags. They can be used over and over and over again, are dishwasher safe for easy clean-up, and protect against freezer burn way better than their flimsy plastic cousins. I buy mine from a small company I found on Amazon — they come in a variety of sizes for all your food storage needs!
Just like plastic baggies, plastic food storage containers can easily be replaced with glass containers instead. Glass containers are much healthier if you rely on the microwave to reheat your food since they don’t release any toxins when heated, and they aren’t porous like plastic so you don’t have to worry about them turning red after you eat your leftover spaghetti!
Plastic utensils are cheap and easy to acquire, but they can easily melt if left on a saucepan and will linger in the landfill for centuries after you’ve served your last casserole. Try switching over to wooden utensils instead! As long as they’re sustainably made, their impact on the environment is exponentially better than the plastic alternatives. I love shopping Helen Milan’s collection of sustainably sourced house and kitchen implements — they’re all beautifully made and you can feel good about buying them.
While the soft side of most sponges is made from natural fibers, the rough side used for scrubbing is almost exclusively made from petroleum-based materials like polyester or nylon and are therefore nonbiodegradable and non-recyclable. Instead, I use a combination of natural fiber and wood brushes and silicone scrub pads to wash dishes in our home. They take a little getting used to, but last so much longer than the traditional sponge. And a great bonus is that silicone scrub pads don’t provide the same kind of ideal breeding ground for bacteria that perpetually soggy sponges do, and there’s no danger of scratching your pots or pans! Even better, you can run it through the dishwasher whenever it needs a refresh. I’m still finding my favorite silicone scrub pad, but you can click here to view Helen Milan’s collection of beautiful, eco-friendly dish brushes.
Last but not least, you can say goodbye to all that obnoxious plastic cling wrap. Half the time it gets so stuck to itself it’s totally worthless and the other half of the time it doesn’t keep it’s seal in the fridge and all of a sudden your food is spoiled. I’ve found Bee’s Wrap to be an awesome alternative and haven’t bought or used cling wrap in years! Bee’s Wrap is made from organic cotton, beeswax, jojoba oil, and tree resin, and can be washed and reused dozens and dozens of times. I bought my first pack in 2018 and finally had to retire one of the larger pieces after three years. Basically, you mold the Bee’s Wrap to any food item with the heat of your hands, and when the wax cools, it forms a tight seal. There are even special sandwich wraps with a string tie that are absolutely perfect for so many more things than just sandwiches!

Cut down on the paper

Although it’s a better alternative to plastic and other petroleum-based products, paper still has an impact on the environment. You can mitigate this impact by adding your food-soiled paper towels to the compost bin, but the best thing to do for the planet and for your wallet is to invest in reusable cloths to clean your kitchen.

One of my former coworkers bought me a mega-pack of small washcloths for my baby shower, and I’ll be honest, I was a little confused by it — what could I possibly need so many washcloths for? Well, once I had my reflux-prone newborn at home, I understood. And when he started eating solids, I understood even better. These things are a must-have for mealtime cleanup and save us so much money on packs of paper towels!

I became such a believer in them that I finally sprung for some cloth napkins and larger cloth towels to use around the kitchen. I still keep paper towels around for certain tasks, but having the reusable cloth towels around really helps us cut down on how much we rely on them.

Small steps can make big differences

Making these swaps is pretty easy, but sticking to the change can sometimes be hard when things don’t seem as convenient anymore. I’ve found, though, that given enough time, you actually start to see and think about things differently, and even begin to go out of your way to find the lowest-impact option simply because you’ve adapted.

And trust me, your wallet will adapt, too! It’s crazy how much you can save just by investing in a quality product that will last.

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Regulating Your Circadian Rhythm for Better Sleep

On the clock

When I was especially deep in the all-consuming black hole that is insomnia, I started reading into all kinds of different ways to try and get my body and brain to sleep. Up until this point, I’d pretty much only pursued the pharmaceutical options because I didn’t feel like I had enough flexibility in my life at the time to make big lifestyle changes (a convenient excuse and a classic one for me at the time).

One of the things I discovered that did seem somewhat achievable at the time (and paid off big years later) was regulating or resetting my circadian rhythm.

Keep reading to find out what it is and how you can leverage it to help you sleep better!

What is a circadian rhythm?

You may have heard it referred to as your “internal” or “biological clock,” and you can think of it as the body’s instinctive awareness of time, specifically in the context of night versus day. This instinctive awareness is tuned into the daily 24-hour cycle and helps regulate our body’s natural processes, including the mental, physical, and behavioral changes we experience throughout the day.

How does it work?

Not surprisingly, this cycle responds most strongly to changes in light; dawn is a natural trigger to the body that it’s time to wake up, and we all feel the urge to slow down and rest once the sun goes down. In fact, our brains actually have what’s called a “master clock,” which is a bundle of roughly 20,000 neurons called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN. This master clock is responsible for synchronizing all the other specialized “clocks” in our bodies, including our circadian rhythm. The SCN is housed in the hypothalamus, and responds to stimuli from our eyes.

Additionally, a number of the body’s hormonal processes — like the production of melatonin, the body’s sleep hormone — are triggered by an increase or decrease in light exposure. This is why blue-light exposure from digital devices has become such a problem; the blue-light wavelength mimics sunlight, and can delay the body’s natural production of melatonin when these devices are used late into the night. Amazingly, even some of our genes respond to exposure to sunlight!

How can the circadian rhythm be disrupted?

Those of you who have taken trans-oceanic flights are already (and, perhaps, painfully) familiar with one of the most drastic ways you can throw off your internal clock — jumping rapidly through the time zones! Most of human evolution took place before the invention of rapid transportation, so flying from California to Europe is a surefire way to confuse your body and throw you off for days.

Anybody who’s switched from the day shift to the night shift or vice versa, or anyone who works odd hours are probably the most frequent victims of this kind of disruption, but if you have the opportunity to plan ahead you can help to mitigate its effects by going to sleep or waking earlier or later as necessary.

Less drastic changes in your daily routine or lifestyle can also impact your biological clock, like staying up into the late hours of the night scrolling on your phone or binge-watching the latest Netflix original thanks to that pesky blue-light.

How can I get it back on track?

Sticking to a strict wake and sleep time will give you the best odds at re-establishing a healthy rhythm, but if you can’t wake up at exactly the same time every day or stick to the same bedtime, try to keep within an hour of your ideal time on either side. For example, if your ideal wake-up time is 7 am, a good window of compromise would be from 6-8 am.

If your bedroom window gets significant light exposure late into the night — i.e. headlights, traffic lights, city lights, etc. — consider investing in blackout curtains to keep it as dark as possible while you’re sleeping.

One of the easiest and most beneficial things you can do to help regulate your biological clock is to take an early morning stroll. You don’t have to wake up with the sun, but try and get out by 9 am or so at the latest.

This early-morning light coupled with some light physical activity sends a firm message to your brain that it is time to wake up and get going. As long as you follow up by turning off devices shortly after sunset and getting to bed at a reasonable time, you’ll be well on your way to re-establishing a healthy cycle, even if you still struggle to sleep and just lay in the dark the first few nights. The key will be consistency and maintaining the willpower to stay off your devices at night, no matter how many hours you’ve spent staring at the ceiling.

BONUS: After having my son, I discovered that early-morning walks are a great way to “flip” a newborn baby’s sleep schedule, too! Newborns frequently experience a phenomena called “day/night confusion” because the in-utero environment doesn’t exactly provide the best opportunity to learn the difference.

Taking walks early in the morning and keeping things nice and dark during the night can help make the transition quicker and easier. For those late-night and early-morning feedings in the dark, try using just a nightlight or dim lamp instead of turning on the main light in the room.

What else can I do?

There are many routine things you can do to support and maintain a healthy sleep schedule, from practicing good sleep hygiene to sticking to a set daily routine.

Sometimes a lifestyle change is just what the doctor ordered; whether it’s switching up your diet or eating habits or starting a workout routine, re-evaluating how we live our lives can be a powerful tool for improving our sleep in the long-term.

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Intermittent Fasting Can Help You Lose Weight — and Sleep Better

What is intermittent fasting?

If you’ve looked into the weight-loss world at all, chances are you’ve heard of intermittent fasting, but what is it and how does it work? What benefits does it have?

There are a number of different ways to approach it, but here are some of the most popular:

The 16/8 Method or the Leangains protocol: this method involves fasting for 16 hours per day and only eating within an 8-hour window, i.e. fasting from 9 pm until 1 pm the next day and eating between 1 pm and 9 pm. This is arguably the most popular method because it’s one of the easiest to stick to and the method I personally use! The benefits of this method rely on not over-consuming or eating high caloric or junk foods during your 8-hour window. Some experts recommend that women do a 15/9 or 14/10 fast instead.
The 5:2 Method or the Fast Diet: another straightforward method, the 5:2 protocol involves eating regularly for five days out of the week and restricting your caloric intake to 600 calories for men or 500 calories for women two days out of the week.
The Eat-Stop-Eat Method: this method requires you to fast for 24 hours twice per week. So, for example, if you eat dinner at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, you won’t eat again until 7:30 pm on Wednesday. Then, you repeat from Friday to Saturday. You can also start from breakfast or lunch — it doesn’t make a difference.
Alternate Day Fasting: this is a more intensive version of the Eat-Stop-Eat Method and essentially involves fasting every other day. So, for example, you would eat normally on Monday but not eat at all on Tuesday and then resume a normal diet Wednesday and fast again on Thursday and so on. Some versions of this method allow for a limited (500) caloric intake on fast days instead of a complete fast.
The Warrior Diet: this method attempts to mimic ancient human eating habits by focusing on consuming paleo-style foods (i.e. raw fruits and vegetables) during the day in small amounts and then eating a large dinner within a four-hour window at night, still focusing on whole, unprocessed foods.
Spontaneous Meal Skipping: this is another very easy method to follow because it’s entirely up to you and how you feel in a given day! If you want to skip breakfast one day and dinner the next, you’re good! As long as you’re eating healthy foods when you do eat, you can still reap the benefits of intermittent fasting this way.

How does intermittent fasting help you lose weight?

So we’ve looked at the different methods of intermittent fasting, but how does it work to help us lose weight?

For one thing, it works on both ends of the calorie spectrum in the sense that not only are you consuming less food (fewer calories in) and boosts your metabolism (more calories burned) as long as you’re eating healthy foods and not binge-eating during your mealtime windows.

But there are a variety of other benefits, as well.

Intermittent fasting has been shown to lower insulin levels, which facilitates fat burning, as well as increase levels of the human growth hormone (HGH), which also facilitates fat burning and muscle gain.

Intermittent fasting also appears to target visceral fat, which is the type of fat that builds up around our organs and causes disease.

Studies have also shown that intermittent fasting can trigger cellular repair functions and can even trigger beneficial changes in gene expressions that promote longevity and protection from disease.

How can a diet help you sleep better?

Surprisingly, this type of dieting can also help you sleep!

We’ve addressed the importance of routine to trigger the body’s sleep response, and intermittent fasting can work in a very similar way.

Our bodies need to focus on cellular repair at night rather than digesting, so following a regular eating schedule can help reinforce a healthy circadian rhythm, which in turn can improve your sleep. One study found that intermittent fasting can also reduce nighttime awakenings and decrease leg movements.

Additionally, the reduced insulin levels that come about as a result of intermittent fasting help to boost melatonin production — the body’s sleep hormone. And those elevated HGH levels? They help boost cellular repair while you sleep.

It’s also just a simple matter of evolution. Ancient humans spent all day hunting, foraging, and eating. Nighttime was strictly reserved for sleep and rest. Tens of thousands of years of living this way established our circadian rhythms, so when we eat late at night, it confuses our bodies’ internal clocks and forces them to prioritize digestion over sleep.

Key takeaways about intermittent fasting

The fact is, food wasn’t always readily available to our ancient ancestors, and they frequently had to go hours if not days at a time without a meal, so our bodies are primed for intermittent fasting by nature. The seemingly unreal amount of benefits that accompany it are simply the result of our evolution — our bodies adapted and found a way to use food shortages to our advantage in the form of cellular repair, elevated HGH levels, lower insulin levels, reduced inflammation, and better sleep.

I’m really not a proponent of dieting in the traditional sense — I think that counting calories and cutting carbs and restricting the variety of foods you can eat is neither sustainable nor truly beneficial. Intermittent fasting offers the same benefits of weight loss along with a slew of other health benefits you don’t get from any other diet fad, and you don’t have to cut out all your favorite foods — you just have to be judicious in how much you eat and when.

Are you going to try intermittent fasting? Which method appeals most to you?

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Exercise is an Insomniac’s Best Friend

What can I do to help myself sleep better?

I’ve never enjoyed exercise. Not as a kid, not as a teen, and not for most of my adult life, either.

Most of my hatred for it stems from the many episodes of public humiliation in grade school PE classes. Feeling like I can’t catch my breath is a primary trigger for my anxiety and panic disorders, so running the mile and other intensive cardio exercises caused me to have more than one public panic attack, the worst of which ended with my equally panicked PE teacher calling an ambulance because he thought I was having an asthma attack. Unfortunately, I was too far gone into the panic attack to be able to tell him otherwise.

Suffice it to say, these incidents resulted in so much shame and insecurity that I dreaded any kind of public physical activity for the longest time — in fact, I still do.

But I’ve also come to realize — after almost three decades on this spinning rock — that, unpleasant though it may be, exercise is absolutely essential. Not only for my physical and mental health, but for my sleep, too.

How can exercise help me sleep?

It’s a fairly well-known fact that exercise triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s happy chemical, that can help boost the mood and fight off feelings of anxiety and depression. A somewhat lesser known side-effect of endorphins is an improvement in sleep quality.

But the benefits of exercise for sleep don’t end there. Here are three ways a regular exercise routine can help improve your sleep:

Exercise can help regulate your internal clock. Some forms of exercise, like running, trigger the release of the hormone serotonin, which helps regulate the body’s sleep-wake cycle.
Exercise changes the body’s core temperature. During exercise, the body’s core temperature rises, but after exercise it drops back down, mimicking the same drop that occurs when the body is preparing for sleep. A simple 30-minute aerobic exercise routine 1-2 hours before bed can trigger this temperature change and prime the body for sleep.
Exercise simply tires you out. The more physical activity you undertake during your day, the more your body will crave rest and sleep — it’s really that simple.

What if I’m not an athlete, or don’t enjoy rigorous exercise?

You don’t have to become an all-star athlete in order to reap the benefits, though. Studies have shown that even a single 30-minute exercise session can help improve sleep in the same day, and while there is some debate surrounding which types of exercise are most beneficial for sleep, most experts agree that the most important thing is to simply be active. Picking an exercise that you enjoy will make the process easier and improves the chances that you’ll stick with it long-term.

You may be asking yourself why it’s important to stick with it long-term when I just said that even a 30-minute session can improve sleep that same day, but studies have shown that individuals who exercise regularly throughout their lives are less likely to experience insomnia.

And, as a bonus, if you have trouble sleeping due to sleep-related breathing disorders like sleep apnea, regular exercise has been shown to improve symptoms even without a significant change in weight or body mass index (BMI).

Personally, I find that exercise causes me to be alert and focused, so I try to get my workouts done before noon at the latest, and I find that I see the greatest improvement in my sleep if I do my workout at 5:30 in the morning. Keeping a sleep diary can help you pinpoint factors that both help and hinder your ability to sleep and will allow you to pinpoint which times of day are most beneficial for you to exercise.

The most important thing to remember is that you’re doing your body a favor when you exercise, a favor that extends beyond the impacts it has on your sleep, and that in and of itself makes the sweat and discomfort worth it — though you won’t find me in a public gym any time soon.

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Why You Need to Stop Scrolling

How do you know when you’ve been using social media too much?

April was a difficult month for me. Friends and family members were receiving terrible news left and right, and the sheer weight of it all sent me into a dark place.

I was constantly exhausted, unmotivated, and depressed. I was getting up late, napping during the day, and doing things half-assed and at the last second. And I kept turning to social media to distract me from everything going on, and quickly realized that it was only making things worse.

We all know that social media is a highlight reel, the very best snapshots of people’s lives, filtered and cropped and edited to look just right. Seeing all those flawless faces, beautiful homes, and gorgeous spaces was only sending me deeper into the mental pit I was in — mostly because it underscored just how messy and icky my life felt at that moment.

What do you do when you realize you’re over-indulging in social media?

So I decided to take a break, to step back and focus on the things that I could control, find the joy in my day to day routine, and root myself in gratitude for all the things that were going right, no matter how small or mundane.

I didn’t post anything or create any content for nearly a month, and at times I felt guilty — like I was dropping the ball. But staying off social media opened up so much more time in my day, helped me clear my mind, and opened the way for me to step into new, healthier routines.

I started waking up early, working out every morning, and eating better. I stopped napping during the day and managed to get more done without waiting till the last minute.

After a couple weeks, I noticed that I was happier, and that I had more energy, focus, and motivation — and so much more time!

But it’s not just a matter of how much time we spend on social media — it’s the impact it has on us emotionally, mentally, and even physiologically.

How does excessive social media use affect us?

Studies have shown that people who check social media late at night tend to be unhappier than people who don’t, and that people who experience feelings of envy when scrolling through social media are more likely to develop symptoms of depression.

We’re also discovering that excessive scrolling can impair our ability to make value-based decisions — in other words, people can become so addicted to social media that it can cloud their judgement and affect their decision-making.

So if you’ve been feeling depressed, unfulfilled, or just generally unmotivated, do yourself a favor and delete your social media apps for a week or two and ground yourself in the day to day.

You may just find that you feel better and have more energy and focus to devote to the things that really matter in your life.

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Are Hormones Affecting Your Sleep?

Aren’t hormones just for growth and sex?

Hormones are the regulators of our body; they control countless different bodily functions and responses, and when our hormones are out of whack, so are our bodies!

Hormones affect everything from our energy and appetite levels to our sex drive and even our sleep, and since getting poor sleep can in turn affect our hormone production, it’s easy to fall into a vicious cycle of sleeplessness.

To top it off, women experience regular hormone fluctuations thanks to our monthly cycles — add in pregnancy, postpartum, lactation, or menopause and it’s a whole new ballgame.

So which hormones affect sleep?

One of the key hormones linked to sleep issues in women is estrogen; too little of it sends our body into a downward spiral.

So what can you do if you think that your hormones may be contributing to sleep issues?

First, I would recommend visiting your doctor and asking them to do a serial blood panel. This entails taking a blood sample once a week at the same time for a month to monitor your hormone levels. Because our hormones are always changing, a single blood draw is really just a snapshot of what’s going on, whereas multiple samples over a period of time can offer a broader, more informed perspective.

This test could help you pinpoint which of your hormones may be out of balance and potentially contributing to your sleeplessness. After that, you have some choices.

What can I do to balance my hormones?

The most common solution recommended by doctors is hormonal birth control, because for some women it can help keep hormone levels more stable.

For other women, however, hormonal birth control can actually exacerbate the problem.

After having my son, I stayed off of birth control for 9 months and exclusively breastfed until he was 15 months old. Once he started eating more food and my period returned — right around that 9 month postpartum mark — I decided to go back on hormonal birth control just like I’d been doing for more than a decade before getting pregnant.

Now, I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety since I was about 14 years old. It’s just been a part of my life that, over time, I had come to accept. I was terrified of getting off my antidepressants when I got pregnant and was convinced that I would have terrible depression, both during and after my pregnancy.

But I didn’t.

In fact, I was the most stable — the most happy — I’d been since I was a young child while I was pregnant, and to my absolute astonishment, that happiness persisted even into the postpartum period.

Sure, there were sleepless nights that left me frazzled, and moments of frustration and failure that made me doubt myself and fall into a negative state of mind, but it was nothing like what I’d experienced for so long beforehand. I was able to cope, able to bounce back, able to keep the bigger picture in perspective and not spiral into the deep dark hole I’d become so familiar with.

Two weeks after resuming hormonal birth control, however, and I was right back in that hole.

It was like a switch had been flipped, and all of a sudden I was a deeply unhappy, unpredictable, anxious mess of a human being. I was angry, I was irrational, and I cried all the time over the littlest things.

I knew that it was probably the birth control — nothing else in my life had changed, after all — but I decided to give it a couple months to see if it would level out.

It didn’t.

And I quickly decided it wasn’t worth waiting any longer to see if it would, so I stopped using my birth control as soon as I got my next period.

Within five days, I was feeling worlds better.

All of this is to say that using more hormones — especially synthetic ones — to try and fix our hormonal issues isn’t always the answer. For some women, hormonal birth control is a godsend, and I am so happy that it gives them what they need.

For others, myself included, it’s a nightmare.

Thankfully, there are other options out there. In terms of contraception, the copper IUD is a great alternative to hormonal methods and is long-lasting — it’s what I switched to after I ditched my Nuva Ring.

And in terms of hormonal support, we can always turn to plant power.

Which plants can I use to help support healthy hormones?

Many plants are estrogenic, which means that they contain a plant-based variant of estrogen called phytoestrogens. They’re bioavailable and adaptogenic, which means that they are easily absorbed, processed, and utilized by our bodies and can help normalize our bodily processes.

Clary Sage is a well-known phytoestrogen, and Lavender has recently been discovered to be estrogenic, as well. While these plants don’t contain real hormonal estrogen, their compounds mimic the hormone and can mimic its hormonal actions.

In order to support my hormones, I use a combination of essential oils each day that help to nurture a healthy endocrine system.

Here’s the recipe for my favorite hormone support blend:

10 drops of Endoflex
10 drops of Geranium
10 drops of Sclaressence
Top with carrier oil of choice

Endoflex is a blend of Spearmint, Sesame, Sage, Geranium, Myrtle, Matricaria, and Nutmeg and helps support the thyroid, which is one of the biggest hormonal regulators in our endocrine system and is often associated with a variety of issues like weight fluctuation, poor temperature regulation, appetite fluctuations, imbalanced energy levels, and sleep issues when not functioning properly.

Geranium has been linked to an increase in estrogen production when used in aromatherapy, and has also been shown to stimulate the adrenal cortex.

Sclaressence is a blend of Clary Sage, Peppermint, Spanish Sage, and Fennel, all of which are fantastic for hormonal support.

I apply this roller each morning to my throat — right where a man’s Adam’s apple would be — since that’s where our thyroid lives.

You can also apply it to the insides of your ankles, which are the Vita Flex points for the female reproductive system.

It should be noted, however, that pregnant women should refrain from using these oils until 40 weeks as they have been known to stimulate contractions and labor.

Have you struggled with hormonal imbalances or issues with hormonal birth control? I’d love to hear your experience so that we can all better support one another and learn together.

Please note that I am not a doctor and none of the recommendations made in this post should be substituted for medical advice from a licensed practitioner. Please speak with your doctor before pursuing any form of self-treatment, including the practices outlined above.

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How Spring Cleaning Can Help You Sleep

Cleaning is a chore…how can it help me sleep?

Over the last year, most of us have spent more time in our homes than ever before. Day after day, staring at the same walls, sitting in the same spot on the couch, making the same daily trek up and down the stairs or from one end of the house to the other.

Spending all that time in the same space can have serious impacts on our mental and emotional wellbeing, as well as our sleep.

This is especially true if you’re working from home and no longer have a physical barrier between your home life and your work life. We’ve discussed the importance of maintaining strict activity barriers around our designated sleep and relaxation places — like our bedrooms — in previous posts, but the same is true for our homes in general. When our home is our workplace and our workplace is our home, it can become even more difficult to mentally switch off when it comes time to relax.

One of the best things we can do to help mediate that stress and help provide as much separation between work and home as possible is by keeping our space clean.

If you have a designated home office, make an effort to keep the space tidy and organized to reduce the stress of having to find important documents at the last second. Keep the door to your office closed when not in use to create a sense of separation from your work.

If you don’t have a separate room to use as a home office, do your best to tidy things away at the end of the day in a designated storage area that’s out of the way of your living and sleep space. Cleaning up your work materials at the end of the day will signal to your brain that it’s time to relax and let go, and keeping it out of sight will help prevent your mind from fixating on anything that may have gone unfinished during the day.

What if I don’t have time to keep my whole house clean?

Even if you aren’t working from home but still spend most of your time there (hello fellow stay-at-home mamas!), there are still benefits to keeping your space as clean and organized as possible — especially your bedroom.

In fact, if you can only keep one space in your home thoroughly clean and organized, make it your bedroom!

Having a clutter-free, organized bedroom makes it easier for your brain to relax since you aren’t being reminded of things you need to put away or clean, and the ritual of making your bed in the morning and turning down the sheets at night is a powerful conditional trigger that tells your brain that it’s time to wake up or go to sleep.

Additionally, a clean space is simply a healthier space. The cleaner your home is, the fewer irritants, germs, and bacteria there are lying in wait to make you sick. Regular vacuuming, dusting, and mopping helps improve the air quality of your home, which in turn facilitates easy breathing at night and a better night’s rest.

Finally, cleaning gets you moving, and the more active we are throughout the day, the better our chances are for getting restful sleep at night. It may not be as intensive as a full-blown workout, but it’s certainly better than another hour spent on the couch binge watching another series on Netflix.

Have you started your spring cleaning yet? If not, be sure to check out this post for some toxin-free DIY cleaning recipes to help you tackle all your household messes.

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