Another year, another resolution to improve my sleep. Insert eye roll here. This time for real, though. Or so I hope. My body has been showing signs of really, really needing some care, and sleep feels like the foundation of it all, so I’ve been highly motivated to get it together. I started on January 1st, as any good New Year’s Resolution starts, and so far, I’ve been able to not only stick with it, but I’m seeing the positive effects of my efforts, which is motivating me to keep going with it.
It started with me looking closely at my HRV number and noticing that it has been exceptionally low (between 9 and like 18 for the last 8 months or so, with the occasional day in the 30s). Normal healthy range is above 50, so that was a bit of a wake up call. In researching, it seems there are four ways to improve your HRV score:
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Increase exercise (I already train 4 days a week and I am certain I do not need to add more).
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Improve nutrition (I already track macros and eat varied micronutrients and balanced macronutrients so I’m good there).
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Manage stress (Between Buckles’ passing, losing my uncle to bone cancer, my marriage ending, and me moving into temporary housing as I look for a house to buy in a market with zero inventory and inflated prices, yeah. Stress has been at an all-time absolute high).
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Improve sleep (I’m not sure I have ever had consistently good sleep. We’re exploring the root causes in therapy, but I know that for at least the last year and a half to two years or so, I have been averaging between 5 and 6 hours per night).
So I started focusing on stress and sleep. Here’s what I’ve done:
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No more doom scrolling. I used to spend forever on TikTok at night. It was a coping mechanism and a way to avoid dealing with my own emotions. Now I’m pretty much only on TikTok when I’m on the treadmill walking, and before bed, I’m reading. (Currently reading this.)
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Turned my phone screen red once the sun sets. This improves melatonin production and instantly feels so much better for your eyes when it’s dark out.
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Bought a red light panel. I listened to this podcast to help determine which panel to buy and it also goes into all the different benefits of red light therapy.
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Started being consistent with my magnesium glycinate every night.
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Started using magnesium spray on the bottoms of the feet every night.
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I want to stay chilled out before bed, so I’m not allowing myself to do anything stressful before bed. No more work, no back and forth animated texting, tidying up, folding laundry, washing dishes, bustling about the apartment. I find it raises my heart rate too much, and I get, like, too stimulated.
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When I need to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I use a very very dim light because when I turn on the bright bathroom light, I find I feel too awake to fall back asleep.
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I turn the temperature down to 64 for sleeping.
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I use a fan for white noise.
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I use an eye mask to make it exceptionally dark when I sleep.
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For stress, I’m monitoring how I feel frequently. I’ll body scan throughout the day to check in and see if there’s tension in my body and I’ll stop what I’m doing and try to relax when I find the tension. If I’m on the phone and someone is getting extremely animated when they’re relaying a hard day they had, I’ll ask them to stop and take a deep breath and lower their tone and intensity and explain that it’s affecting me to the point that I’m feeling stressed about it (these are very, very good friends, I probably wouldn’t do this with anyone else).
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I try to nasal breathe throughout the day. There are so many benefits to nasal breathing, but it’s especially good for stress management as well.
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I’m journaling frequently (I use the app Notion). The act of getting my thoughts down has been really helpful in managing my stress because once the thoughts are out of my head and onto the paper, I have so much more clarity and calm.
