Need to Sleep Post FI Life

Need to Sleep

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Need to Sleep vision board

I am 13 months in from quitting my job and I am still logging in about 10 hours of sleep a night! Boy did I need to sleep!

The Need to Sleep quote stuck out for me when I was creating my vision board. I am surprised that I have not been working for over a year now and my body is still requiring a lot of hours of sleep. 

I really think that adrenal fatigue is real and that we just burn ourselves out during our work life and think we can just get by on 5-6 hours of sleep a night. I think we believe that, because we don’t have any other options when we give all we have to our jobs. 

Sleep is always the thing that seems to suffer, when we stay up late at night trying to do the things we don’t have time for during the day.

My Favorite part of the day…Sleeping

I have to admit, I have always been a pretty good sleeper and am lucky. I can fall asleep pretty quickly, but my problem is if I wake up, I have a hard time falling back to sleep. The wheels start spinning and I have not found a good way to turn that off yet.

I am now having a little more trouble with staying asleep lately due to hormones, if you know what I mean ladies over 50! That part sucks, because I would always say, sleeping is my most favorite part of the day. Scott is freezing while I have the window open, fan on and no blankets!

When I first quit my job, I was sleeping like a crazy woman! I spent about two months just sleeping until I wanted to get up. My block-out curtains are not great, but they do a pretty good job keeping out a bulk of the sunlight. 

After about two months we went to meet up with friends in Oaxaca, Mexico and I thought I had pretty much caught up on 30 years of deprived sleep and was ready to start a new project. 

Well, that was short lived. 

If you want to hear all about why I decided not to jump into another project after my two month sabbatical, check out my guest post at Budgets are Sexy

I started working in naps in the afternoon for the next few months, which were great. I love power napping, this is one of my favorite pastimes. I can sleep for about 20 minutes and feel completely refreshed. Scott takes a nap and a bear wakes up in his place!

Sleep award goes to…

Scott is about seven months in from quitting his corporate job and he wins the prize. He is logging in 10 to 12 hours a day! 

Yes, I know, right!! I am not exaggerating, he can snooze like no other. 

He is a pretty solid sleeper and falls asleep easily and stays down for the count. I am now getting up a few hours before him and can get some writing or social media time in before he gets up. 

Again, I think this all goes back to adrenal fatigue, high pressure/stress jobs just sucking literally the life energy out of us. I am not sure why I think that after almost 30 years of working, that I would be “rested” after a year or for Scott after seven months of sleep. 

What were we thinking! It may take years to feel like we are rested. 

Need to Sleep in Action

Here are a few things I am doing to try and help improve my quality and duration of sleep.

  1. No Alarm clock
  2. No appointments before 10 am
  3. Wear blue blocker glasses in the evening
  4. No cell phone in the bedroom
  5. Go to bed at a “decent” time. (I have not been so good about that lately)

 

My friend, Kristin Rainey, is the founder and CEO of Northstar Sleep School which offers online and in-person workshops on how to improve your sleep. She has a great podcast too. Also, check out this article on how important it is to have a wind down routine to help promote better sleep. 

We Underestimate the Power of Sleep

I think we really underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep and sacrifice sleep to do other things. I am trying to be conscious of when I am tired and take a break, nap or sleep in longer if I need to. 

Life Pyramid

Life PyramidA friend of mine came up with this pyramid concept that I want to introduce here and I will expand on it in some other blog posts. He was really advocating getting the bottom three platforms of this pyramid well set into place before focusing on anything else. 

#1 Sleep

Sleep is the foundational platform for good mental and emotional health. Scott and I are really taking this to heart and spending the time we need to get enough sleep. This has been our #1 priority over the past year. Allowing myself to take the time and not rush this part has probably been the hardest part.

About seven months in, I stopped needing naps in the middle of the day and was then only getting about 8 hours of sleep a night. I thought, wow! I must be rested now, but No! I am back to sleeping 10 hours again. 

It was just a relapse. 

I am back at it again. So don’t rush it, it will take as long as it will take. I am still working on the foundation in my Life Pyramid.

Call to Action

So I am still focusing on prioritizing time for my whole health: mental, emotional and physical. Sleep happens to be one of those things that really helps in all three of these things. Therefore, my need to sleep journey continues and I guess it will take as long as it takes. 

How are you prioritizing sleep in your life?

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