Self Care and Sleep

I have partnered with Cozy Earth in exchange for this post. All expressed opinions are 100% my own. Full disclosure.

I don’t know about you, but 2020 and the beginning of 2021 were excruciating for me. For numerous reasons, most obviously Covid and all of the unplanned changes that came with the pandemic. One thing that I realized through therapy and inviting friends back into my life in recent months is that self care was not on “my list” of things to do. I had merely been surviving each day, and fighting to simply do that.

During the height of the pandemic, I had all four kids at home, two of whom are school age, a four year old who was supposed to be in preschool and an infant still breastfeeding. The laundry was piling up to high heaven and the dishwasher had to be ran regularly just to stay on top of it. There were google meets for school and so much schoolwork, so much math (can I just freely admit how much I hate math?!!).

Each night, I ended up dragging myself to bed by 1 or 2am and feeling like I had nothing left to give. I was completely spent. Then I’d have to wake up as soon as one of the little ones was up and do it all over again. It was utterly exhausting. If I wanted any “me” time at all, it came after all of the other household chores were done.

This eventually lead to a major depressive episode in my life, to the point that I admitted myself to the hospital because I felt so desperate for help. I will share more about that in the future, but for now I’ll just say it became another extremely dark time in my life, like I have shared here before during other seasons of depression.

Eventually, through therapy, I began to learn new coping skills and started to come out from under the state of hopelessness I had been living in.

As I began to learn the importance of self care and as my therapist put it “putting Alice back on the list”, I have found many ways to pay attention to my own needs and be kind to myself over the past few months. I started eating healthier, doing yoga, reading for both pleasure and self help, finding time to be creative, making art again, blogging again, and spending time doing things that bring me joy on a regular basis.

But one of the biggest acts of self care that I have started incorporating into my life is creating a better sleep routine. I began to realize that good sleep was essential to my mental health.

I started sending my kids to bed earlier (we let bedtimes slip for a long while during the pandemic since there was no school and nowhere to go). But I realized giving myself that little extra quiet time, I was able to do things for me. I started heading to bed earlier, around 10 or 10:30 and spending time reading and praying and writing in my journal.

Since then, I have gone even further and have tried to make my bedroom a sanctuary for rest and relaxation. One way of doing that is by getting new candles, pretty throw pillows and new sheets.

I recently received a set of queen bamboo bedsheets and pillowcases from Cozy Earth. When I opened the box and saw the packaging I knew these would be luxurious. They arrived in a super cute tote bag and were sealed in plastic inside. Once I got them open, I immediately fell in love with the soft, silky texture of fabric. I really had no idea what bamboo sheets would feel like, but these are amazing. Very smooth and soft. I am a stickler for sheets that aren’t scratchy or rough at all, so these were perfect.

The fact that this material is moisture wicking was very appealing to me. Over the past few years, I have woken up almost nightly in a terrible sweat. Then I try to go back to sleep freezing cold on a damp pillow case and sheets. The first night, I slept on these, I could immediately see the difference from the typical cotton sheets that I use. They remained dry even when I woke up drenched in sweat.

My sweet little Violet couldn’t get over how soft these bamboo sheets were either! My sleepy little angel…

And some exciting news: Cozy Earth is offering a 40% off discount to readers of my blog!

Just use code: CE-ALICE during checkout on their site!

They have a lot more than just bedsheets also, so be sure to peruse the site to see their other bedding items and loungewear!

What has helped you do some self caring during these difficult months? I’d love to hear how you have been coping and what has made the biggest difference for you!

Till next time…