Sleep and Self-Healing: 4 Tips

Self-healing. It's very common that someone facing a serious health challenge begins to look for means to bring their life back into balance. You may find it surprising that one of the first questions I ask of people in this situation has to do with their sleep habits. While the sleep itself is restorative, there is a deeper level to the same question. At a mind-body level, sleep can also be considered a benchmark for your orientation to self-care. You could call it priorities, but I think the real challenge goes deeper. Do you "pay yourself first," sleeping as much as you need to for optimal health and energy, or is sleep more of a luxury to be earned ... after your work is done? According to the results obtained from a recent informal poll of Internet users, 44 percent -- nearly half -- say they most commonly put off sleep in favor of getting their "stuff" done. That's a pretty big number! 44 percent of the current US population is roughly 134 million people. (1) With that figure in mind, let's consider some benefits of getting a full night's rest:

• Improved mood
• Lesser incidence of heart disease
• Lesser incidence of diabetes
• Easier to maintain a healthy body weight
• Greater alertness; reduced incidence of careless accidents. (2)

If scientists were to announce a proven, free, and completely effortless miracle product that substantially minimizes your risk for heart disease, diabetes, depression, obesity, and careless accidents, don't you think the product would be immensely popular? We might expect such a product to "fly off the shelves," but the joke is you don't even have to leave home to get enough sleep! The fact that 44 percent of the people in the recent survey group don't actually get their rest indicates that there must be a hidden dark side to the proposed solution. There is. We live in a society where it seems like there's always more to do than time to do it in. The consequences for not getting everything handled can feel massively imposing. The fear of failure ... poverty ... and even of survival ... is so strong that it may in the short run outweigh our common sense. But what if it's just a temporary unintended blip on your mental radar? You inadvertently slipped into an unhealthy habit and now you're ready to put things in order. Check out these four tips for getting yourself into the dream zone on schedule:

1. Set up reasonable goals for what you expect to accomplish in a day. One of the greatest skills you can ever hope to hone is building a strong relationship between what you say you're going to do and what you actually do. I call this a skill because for most people, it does take some practice. Here's how it relates to sleep. If you've sketched out a reasonable expectation for what you plan to do on a particular day, when those items are checked off as complete, then you're done. No guilt. Snooze time awaits! Be sure and factor in at least a half hour to wind down once your chores are finished.
2. If you regularly find yourself unable to restrict your expectations to a manageable number of tasks, consider that a signal that some aspect of your life could benefit from a critical review. Either you've got more on your plate than you should be trying to handle, or you're not using your time effectively. Narrow your focus until you bring things back into order.
3. Check off the "big stuff" first. By taking on your highest priority tasks first, not only will you be handling them when your mind and body are fresher, but the energy boost you'll get from checking them off might just spur you on through the remaining items on your list more quickly. Said another way, don't allow yourself to put off your most important tasks by dwelling on the small stuff.
4. Even if you're not done with everything, when your appointed wind-down time arrives, go to bed anyway. Come on. Just try it. The world isn't going to end just because you went to bed with dishes left in the sink. They will still be there in the morning. You did check off your most important tasks first, right?

The most important take-away from this article is this. Sleep is self-care. Your willingness to stop activity and obtain the rest you need is a signal to your holistic self that you consider health and vitality a top priority. The clarity of that priority ... and your willingness to act on it ... is a critical beginning step in your self-healing program.nnSources: (1) US Census Departmentn(2) US Centers for Disease Control