[21 Days to Better Sleep Challenge] DAY 1/21 - Sleep Disturbances and Feeling Overwhelmed. How Teaching The Brain New Habits And Routines Can Help | SMart Choice Lifestyle

Feeling excited about your future goals and planning your next trip or experience is a good thing, a healthy thing. But when all this is happening at night, you know it’s time for a self analysis. It’s not even funny how many ideas can pop into your head when you can’t sleep at night. I know myself to be an over thinker, but the speed my brain is processing information at 3 am is still mind blowing.

A few nights ago I just had it! Could no longer passively sit and watch all the to-do lists and worrying about the next day’s activities that my mind was putting me through. I did fall asleep (eventually), but the following day I sat and asked myself why was I constantly in a rush, either doing or thinking? All the roads pointed out to insufficient sleep, to chaotic sleeping patterns.

Constant attempts to find the best morning and evening routines, changing activities and having a full past two months all lead up to my body and brain not caring anymore about whatever discipline I wanted to have in my life. I just wanted to relax and recharge. But what you repeatedly do, you become, and just like that I managed to push myself into a loop: not enough sleep - rushing throughout the day - sleepy in the afternoon - hard to fall asleep at night - not enough sleep and on and on.

When you become used to doing things in a certain way and then you change them and don't try to get back at the initial stage for a while, your body will most definitely send you signals. That’s where [re]CONNECTING with yourself proves helpful.

We have to listen to our body’s needs, to be in sync with what they ask of us and to be able to nurture their wants: sleep, nutritious food, rest, movement. Headspace is essential for me. As much as I love people’s stories, i recharge in solitude. I need to go to bed early enough in order to sleep 8h and wake up recharged at a good AM hour.

Press the reset button and wish to better the way you’re feeling and thinking about ourselves, to gain more self-confidence (or to gain it back), and to do our best in this world and not waste any gifts (ex: writing, inspiring others, empowering, creating, etc).

Most of the times, sleep proves to be the cause of all the chaos in our minds and lifestyle. That’s why going to bed at a decent hour (something like 10pm) can be the best choice you’ve ever done in a while, especially if your schedule is busy or you have sleep issues (like in Multiple Sclerosis or other conditions).

A regular sleeping pattern can reduce our anxiety about schedules, can lead to more productivity (as the brain is more alert), and give us time to start our mornings slow and more mindfully. And overall, sleep is the promoter of less inflammation inside the body. We need sleep in order for our bodies to properly take care of toxin removal, hormone manufacture, and infection fighting. Whenever we don’t get enough sleep, our bodies cannot complete those important tasks, increasing our chances of developing health issues (or worsen preexisting ones) due to excess toxins, inflammation, and hormone imbalances.

In order to achieve having a regular sleeping pattern, some habits need to change. We all stay up to late or go to bed at different times every night. We are caught in the screens of our devices, wanting to finish “that one last episode of Game of Thrones!”, those “last three emails!”, or “one last refresh on Facebook”. We all do that! Because we want to finish what we’re doing, we don’t prioritize sleep.

Remember the chaos I was talking about earlier? Our bodies get confused. But if we set and strictly follow a bedtime routine, we will get in the habit of relaxing at a certain hour, naturally inducing sleepiness. If you know yourself as having a sleep disorder, first check solutions with your physician and add a bedtime routine that includes his/hers suggestions. All this needs to be in our best interest.

Arianna Huffington's #sleeprevolution movement shows a light over the importance of sleep in our lives. Here's her manifesto:

So, my choice / challenge for the following 21 days is to begin getting into some healthy sleeping habits (21 days is the minimum amount of days that can induce a new habit into one’s life). For increasing my chances to actually follow them, they’re included into my night routine. One hour before bedtime I put down all devices and screens, making notes on what I have to finish / see / do the next day. Then I go and make myself a chamomile tea, take a shower and wash my teeth, say my prayers and clear my mind for about 15 minutes and then do some journaling before turning the lights off.

What would your routine look like? How is your relationship with sleep and mental space going? Would love to hear that from you in the comments down below!

Until next time, have a wonderful day!

Denisa

Creative Choices: Three Mindful Tips to Clear Overwhelm in the Creative Mind | SMart Choice Lifestyle

When was the last time your mind felt overwhelmed by lots and lots of thoughts? Mine is doing that as I write this blog post. Just started another draft because the previous one talked about three topics at the same time, and that really brought no value neither to me writing it or to you reading it. 

So, I decided to approach things more like documenting the experience of feeling overwhelmed. You probably had many great ideas throughout your life, but not many of them got to see the light of day. It might have been for lack of time, lost interest, or resources.

If you're like me, and you overthink things, this might be the reason you have all these great ideas but no actual result with any of them, because you constantly feel the need of adding or remodeling something. It's a mix between overthinking and perfectionism, the mother of all anxiety for creatives.

HOW DOES OVERWHELM HAPPEN?

You start with a simple and great idea that makes you happy. Then begin to add to it, making it more refined. But when the adding doesn't stop, you find yourself in overwhelm land and can easily give that idea up or save it for later because it got too complex.

A creative mind is contradictory and most of the times a puzzle even for the creative person. Plus, we NEED to do a thousand things at the same time, because our interests go far and wide and we "can't just do one single thing". Add this to a thirst for learning and reading, and you find yourself in my shoes. 

The funny, ironical things is that I have a very clear vision and outlined plan of what I want to do, but my mind keeps wanting more information. It finds that it doesn't know enough, and the more I know, the better the plan will be. The truth is the more info I consume, the more time I lose, and get further and further from my original idea. And it becomes exhausting!

The more I learn, the more I get the impression that I really don't know anything for sure. It never ends! But the truth is that all knowledge is smoke if we don't use it, if we don't act upon it. What use is there to know a lot of things if you don't share it with others? 

But here comes another issue! Every idea I once had wants to come out in first, and be written on this blog, for you to see and be helped by. It's like my mind has a... mind of its own! What's really happening is that my mind is overstimulated by all the information I bombard it with daily. If I keep on filling it and take little out, of course the lack of  "mind space" will get to my nerves (and yours as you read this, I will get to the point in just a minute, promise!).

Lots of ideas and no... idea where to start from? Pick one and go do it. Overthinking leads to inaction, and nothing ever gets done.

"What's this have to do with me?" you're probably asking. Well, here are the three key-things I learned about how to calm down any overwhelming situation, before acting on each idea at a time.

1. Clear your mind on paper. 

Making space for thinking has proven do do wonders. Whenever I feel cluttered up inside my mind, I take out a simple notebook and a pen and dump all of my ideas and thoughts on paper. You might think that you're not good at writing or don't have the time to do that. But do you have time of being stuck between thoughts and ideas that keep you from creating and / or doing whatever you were supposed to do that day? No? OK! 

Then the next time when you feel that your mind is bubbling up ideas and a neverending web of thoughts, write them all down, let that weight down on paper. You might end up with some pretty usable stuff, or... with a bunch of nonsense that didn't belong inside your mind to begin with.

Choose all the good info and prioritize it. Having things written down brings more clarity and space, helping your mind deal more easily with ideas and creative processes. Remember to also let go of the ideas that are no longer relevant to your current situation. That doesn't mean you abandon them forever, you just save them for later. 

2. Have "no info consumption" pockets of time.

Have morning and evening rituals that don't involve any social media, screens or work. Allow yourself to relax into and after your day. Build habits like doing some light stretches, taking deep breaths, taking a shower and then a light and healthy meal. Use these pockets of time even for doing the "brain dump" I was talking about before.

Get outside and take a brisk walk to clear your head. Spend time with friends and family and take your mind off your work for a few hours. Whenever you force a machine to work, it brakes down. The same is true for your mind and brain. Give them a rest and come back to your projects feeling refreshed and ready to work.

Giving your mind a rest is proven to help you relax and actually be more creative. You have time to unwind and take care of yourself, your relationships and your body. When the mind races, the body suffers, because it gets tense and not used to its highest potential. Witch brings me to number three...

3. Stand still, be mindful, and pray***

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Become aware of that avalanche of thoughts and steer them away gently one by one. Focus on deep breathing and on gradually relaxing your body, beginning with your legs and going up towards the head. It will take some practice, but it will gradually pay off all the effort you might have invested into it. It can get frustrating and even impossible at times, but the trick is to commit to it and do it daily. 

Our brains work in synergy with the mind. In fact, our minds are a complex web of neurocircuitry made out of synapses, connections between brain cells (neurons). The more we use our minds and the more information we consume, the more neural connections we create. The more of those, the more our minds grow and learn patterns. These patterns are memorized and hard to brake as they become habitual thinking ones.

It takes some effort to replace them with other, more easy / useful habits to what we need in our new contexts. We can't just snap our fingers and create a new mindset. Our current one is the product of all we've learned, done, heard, smelled, tasted, spoken and felt throughout our lives. The more we repeated a pattern, the more it stuck. Transformation needs to be gradual. We need to replace some thoughts with new ones, and that takes time.

(***more details on my perspective in a future article to be linked here)

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