Challenging life events are inevitable unless you live off-grid by yourself in the middle of nowhere!
These challenging events are often out of your control and not even caused by you. The event happens and throws us off balance leading to stress, emotional turmoil, anxiety …
But when you’re resilient enough, you always bounce back, don’t you? After all, resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks and adversity and the more resilience you have, the faster and better you bounce back.
Why is resilience so important? Well, we know that resilience helps you manage strong emotions and impulses, to recover from unexpected and uncalled for life events. Just as important, resilience gives you a positive view of life which in turn improves your self-esteem, confidence, and optimism for the future.
Phew! That’s a lot that resilience does for us!
Resilience is like a battery that needs recharging, and that’s why it’s vital to give your resilience a frequently boost. The question is, HOW?
One of the best ways to boost your resilience to sleep well and sleep enough. Yes, it’s as simple as that — get a good night’s sleep and your resilience batteries increase.
How does sleep help your resilience? Let me share what science tells us about how the two are connected
Emotional imbalance
The amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for our ‘fight-or-flight’ stress response and becomes hyper-reactive when we’re short on sleep. That’s why we feel irritable, anxious, and even out of control with the slightest challenge when we don’t sleep enough. Resilience depletes very rapidly when this happens.
Conflict and lack of empathy
Research tells us it’s hard for us to empathize with others when we don’t get enough sleep. When this happens, it’s quite hard to interpret and understand the emotions of others which makes us more likely to pick a fight instead of seeing the issue from their perspective. The result? We use more of our resilience fighting our inner voice than we should, leaving us with little in reserve。
Low self-regulatory capacity
A sleep-deprived brain de-prioritizes activity in the part of our brain that helps make logical arguments, forward planning and goal setting. This reduces our ability to control our impulses and cravings and leaves us prone to risky behavior. All this means we may use too much of our resilience store to help fight these impulses.
Negativity bias
Remaining positive in the face of adversity is very difficult for the sleep-deprived. Research had found that without enough sleep, a person will have lower levels of optimism and self-esteem, and we need more resilience than usual to remain centred and positive.
Sleep well
and sleep enough
These are just a few reasons why a restful night’s sleep is key to replenishing or maintaining our store of resilience. But I’m sure it’s enough to convince you why you need good restful sleep every night.
This begs the next question — how do I get a good night’s sleep, and how much is enough?
How much sleep is enough? And how much is too much? Yes, it’s not good to sleep too much, and you can’t make up for sleep lost during the week by sleeping in over the weekend. You can’t compensate this way!
Research tells us that between 7.5 to 9 hours of quality sleep every night is optimal. Why the disparity of optimal sleep duration? It depends on the individual and between 7.5 to 9 hours is a useful guide.
How to get a good night’s sleep? That’s the million-dollar question! And a good night’s sleep doesn’t necessarily mean you sleep non-stop. We all go through sleep cycles of about 45 minutes for each cycle. It’s possible to wake up between sleep cycles, stumble to the toilet, stumble back, kiss our loved one, then fall back comfortable to sleep.
There isn’t just one best way to get a good night’s sleep, or even to fall asleep quickly. The best way is unique to you, so please experiment a little. Many experts tell us to calm our minds as we sleep, or avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed, or to meditate. That’s all excellent advice, but I do know people who have a double espresso just before bed without any side effects! I also know some who must have a shot of whisky just before bed to help them relax. The amount of whiskey is exact as too little is useless, and too much gets them drunk and awake!
But what’s excellent advice from the sleep experts is to create your own pre-sleep routine. Once you find out if a warm shower is useful, or a shot of whiskey is better, or a spot of meditation works for you followed by a bath, continue doing it. Over time, your body will adjust to your routine, helping you get to sleep faster and sleep better.
Create your own
pre-sleep routine
One last tip if you still can’t get to sleep or stay asleep. This could mean you have a different challenge caused by any number of reasons. If that’s you, speak to a sleep therapist who will not prescribe sleeping pills (those are terrible as you grow a dependency). Alternatively, let me help you with hypnotherapy to either reset or build neural patterns in your brain to help you sleep.
A good sleep = recharging our
resilience battery = a better life!
Contact me, and I’d be delighted to help you build your resilience or improve your sleep patterns.
