Flawthentic ME
Flawthentic ME
076: Sleep Like Your Life Depends On it: Reclaiming Rest Through Mindset
Sleep quality directly reflects your relationship with yourself. In this episode, I share how I transformed from struggling with insomnia to consistently getting 7-8 hours of quality sleep without medication, and how you can do the same.
• One-third of adults aged 35-64 aren't getting enough sleep, creating a sleep deprivation pandemic
• Poor sleep is linked to chronic diseases, weight gain, cognitive impairment and mental health issues
• Understanding your "why" for better sleep creates the motivation needed for lasting change
• Auto-suggestion before sleep can program your subconscious mind to help you sleep better
• Brain dumping before bed helps quiet racing thoughts by transferring your worries to paper
• Keeping phones out of the bedroom is the single most important change for better sleep
• Consistent sleep schedules, cool dark rooms, and relaxation techniques support quality rest
• Start with one small habit rather than trying to change everything at once
Download my Bedtime Routine Checklist for quality sleep using the link in the show notes.
If you're struggling with feeling worthy of rest and self-care, reach out to learn more about my 12-week Unleash Your Self-Worth program.
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What if I tell you that the quality of your sleep is a direct result of your relationship with yourself? In today's episode, I am talking about sleep quality and also offering some insights into how you can have a better, restful sleep. Let's dive in. This is Flauthentic Me, a self-love podcast for South Asian women. A place where we celebrate self-love even when we feel imperfect or flawed. A safe space where you can be raw, real and authentic. And here's your host, self-love and mindset coach, sunny Lamba. Welcome back to Flauthentic Me. I'm your host, sunny Lamba, and in today's episode, I am talking about sleep and what makes me an expert. From being a person who could not fall asleep for hours or would wake up in the middle of the night and toss and turn in her bed for two to three hours, feel like a zombie during the day, I have now come to a place from last almost five years where I get my full seven to eight hours of sleep and I am so full of energy throughout the day. So I am bringing to you what I did and how I achieved this impossible task, because so many of my clients struggle with that. Right now. I can think of at least five clients who are trying to wake up early, and when we started digging deep, we realized that the problem is not that they're not getting out of bed in the morning. The problem is they're not getting enough sleep. But before I dive into the topic, I want to share with you a very quick checklist that I have made to help you build a really solid bedtime routine so that you can have quality sleep. I will share the link to download this PDF for you in the show notes, so just click on that and grab it for yourself. Now let's get started.
Speaker 1:When my son was born, sleep became a luxury a luxury that I couldn't afford, and all you moms know how that is. But then it became a habit of not sleeping enough. Even when my son started sleeping through the night, I would wake up in the middle of the night and my brain would go at 100 miles an hour. The moment my eyes opened, the brain would start and every thought possible would be going through my brain at that time, at 2 am, and then I would be up till like 4, 4.30 and fall asleep, and then I couldn't wake up on time or I would wake up very cranky. The worst part was that while I was lying awake in the bed looking at the ceiling with all these thoughts, my husband would be right next to me, snoring away in glory, and that made me even more mad. Who can relate to that? It took a long time to come to this place where I now sleep restfully, and I'm very proud to say that I've never, ever, ever, used any sleep aids, any medication.
Speaker 1:I do say that with the awareness and acknowledgement that some of you probably are struggling with sleep and it has become a really big problem in life, and if you are using any medication, there is absolutely no judgment. Sometimes we got to do what we got to do to get through the moment, through life, through the day. I do realize that sleep is not a luxury, it is a necessity, but more than that, it is an act of self-love and deep healing. We all need our seven to eight hours of sleep, but I also acknowledge the fact that we live in a world where there is a sleep deprivation pandemic going on right now, thanks to the devices that we have and social media. I looked up some stats and, according to Canadaca survey, about one third of adults in the age of 35 to 64 are not getting enough sleep. In those that do get enough sleep, the quality of the sleep is. One in five adults do not find their sleep refreshing and one in three adults cannot stay awake during the daytime. This is very concerning because sleep plays a very important part in our growth and restoration and in our healing. Our body naturally gets rid of toxins when we are sleeping. It naturally heals itself when we sleep sense when we are sleeping. It naturally heals itself when we sleep, and research has shown that lack of sleep is linked to chronic diseases like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and it is also directly related to weight gain. It also leads to cognitive functioning impairment, mental health issues and mood swings.
Speaker 1:So now let's get into what can you do to improve your sleep. The first question is why do you want to sleep better? You have to understand that, how it's impacting your life. Until you become aware of the pain that you're going through, you're not going to make any changes. With my clients, my first step is to always ask them why do you want to sleep better? What is going on in your life that can be better if you got your seven to eight hours of sleep? So ask yourself that question.
Speaker 1:I want to share a story with you here, and this should this story you might have heard before that there was an old man sitting with his dog on the patio and the dog was crying. A man passing by asked the old man, what's wrong with your dog? And the old man says he's sitting Now. This man says well, why doesn't he move? Why is he torturing himself? And the old man says because the pain is not big enough. So here's the biggest thing with any habit If your pain is not big enough, you're not going to take any action towards resolving that issue. So really figure out what pain are you going through, how is it impacting your life? And you might not see how it's impacting you on surface level. So you have to dig deeper how it's impacting your daytime performance, maybe your health, and also how it's impacting your morning routine.
Speaker 1:Because you don't sleep well, you cannot wake up early. Usually the conversation with my clients start with I want to wake up early and then when I say why do you want to wake up early, they say things like meditation or workout, and all that gets impacted because they're not waking up early enough. So their morning routine depends on their sleep cycle and the quality of sleep. So ask yourself is the pain big enough? And if it's not big enough in your mind, create it big enough. Write down 10 reasons, how this lack of sleep has a negative impact on your life.
Speaker 1:Once you know why you want to sleep better, the second step is creating an affirmation for yourself. Now, what does that do? I want to share a story again. When we were little, my grandma, my nani used to say tell your pillow what time you want to wake up and your pillow will wake you up. And we just laughed. We're like BG, how's that even possible? How is the pillow going to wake me up?
Speaker 1:Now, as a coach who works with mindset and who works with the subconscious mind, I see that my BG was on to something. She might not have the words to describe it, she might not know subconscious mind, but she knew the power of auto-suggestion. What is auto-suggestion? It's pretty self-explanatory. It is suggesting something to yourself or actually to your subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind is very receptive just before we fall asleep. So what you can do is say some statements to yourself before you go to bed, something like I am safe, my body is ready to rest, even reinforcing some positive beliefs and affirmations like I am worthy of rest and deep sleep. I deserve deep sleep. I deserve rest. We are going, going, going throughout the day and serving everyone else around us without realizing that my body needs rest as well. I deserve it. As I said, sleeping is directly related to your relationship with yourself. It's an act of self-love.
Speaker 1:I'm reading the book the Power of your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy and I am actually testing something on myself. As a kid I was a bed wetter and it lasted until I was pretty old almost college time and trying to control that led to me waking up five to six times. It led to nighttime incontinence, actually. So I go to the bathroom five to six times during night. Now, even though I sleep for seven to eight hours some nights, I still wake up five to six times to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1:From last two months I have been using the power of auto-suggestion. I tell myself every night now some nights I forget, but I tell myself that I am in full control of my bladder. I'm going to sleep through the night and wake up at 6 am fully refreshed. Two things have happened One on the nights that I do say that affirmation, I don't wake up at all. And second, I have been waking up at 6am without an alarm. This is the power of autosuggestion From being a person who would snooze her alarm five to six times and when my husband would come to wake me up I wanted to kill him to being this person who wakes up without any alarm. Autosuggestion is very, very powerful and you can use it for anything in life, not just sleep. But for this episode, we're only focusing on sleep now.
Speaker 1:If you are someone who cannot fall asleep or wakes up in the middle of the night and your brain has million things going on, especially if you have a lot of stress in your life at the moment, then of course, your brain is going through all the different scenarios of how to solve this problem in life, or your brain is going through all the different scenarios of how to solve this problem in life or whatever challenge you're going through. In that case, here is something that can help you Brain dump. What is brain dump? Before you sleep, take a pen and paper and write down everything that's going on in your brain All the thoughts, the worry, the anxiety, the challenges of life that you're going through, even what happened during the day, what happened negative, what happened positive, write it all down on a piece of paper. And when you write it down, you put it away and you again auto-suggest or affirm to yourself that I am going to have a beautiful deep sleep and until I wake up tomorrow morning, all these things that I'm putting on paper can stay on the paper. I'm taking them out of my brain, putting them on the paper and packing them away. For now, just saying that and that physical act of writing literally helps your brain to calm down and you can sleep better.
Speaker 1:Hello, my friend, if you're enjoying the insights in this podcast, you will love what I have in store for you inside the you Unlocked community. You Unlocked is an exclusive community and learning hub where you'll receive personalized guidance to apply these transformative concepts directly to your life. Plus, you will gain access to a treasure trove of advanced coaching tools and concepts that I simply can't cover in a podcast episode. It is the ultimate destination to connect, receive coaching and dive deep into all things self-love and mindset Alongside like-minded women just like you. Trust me, it's a game changer. Come join us at wwwflauthenticmecom. Slash youunlocked and let's unlock your full potential together.
Speaker 1:And now back to the podcast. Now let me share some practical sleep hygiene tips. These are the tips that you can literally ask chat, gpt or you can Google them, but I'm going to just put them in here from my experience as well. The biggest one and the most important one is no scrolling on phone, no even being on a screen at least 30 to 60 minutes before bed. You've probably read it everywhere, you've probably been suggested this so many times, but you still haven't implemented it. Am I right or am I right? Change that, maybe. Do some light reading.
Speaker 1:Journaling, as I said already, writing down brain dumping these are the three questions I write down every night or I reflect upon them. Number one what am I grateful for? Number two what am I celebrating? And number three what am I forgiving myself for? But no phones. I bang my head on the walls with my clients, please, please, please leave your phone outside of your bedroom. And then they come back. And when they tell me the moment, my clients, please, please, please leave your phone outside of your bedroom. And then they come back. And when they tell me the moment, they say oh, you know, I didn't do exercise or I haven't been consistent with my waking up in the morning. My first question is where is your phone? And I right away say don't come to me and don't tell me that you're not sleeping well and you're not exercising in the morning because you didn't wake up. If you're not sleeping well and you're not exercising in the morning because you didn't wake up, if you're still taking your phone with you into the bedroom, if you take and implement only one thing from this podcast, it is leaving your phone outside the bedroom, and your sleep will change In 2023, I think it was.
Speaker 1:I went to 10 days of silent meditation, vipassana, and after I came back from this 10 days silent meditation where there's no phones allowed I started putting my phone outside of my bedroom. Now, before that, I used to keep my phone away from me, but in the same room. It used to charge at the other end of the room, but after that I started leaving it in the living room downstairs. It's been almost two years now. My phone does not go into the bedroom.
Speaker 1:You do not need your phone right beside you. Yes, some clients say what if there's an emergency call? I do have my watch, my smartwatch, which, by the way, I don't wear. I don't track my sleep cycles anymore. I used to. I don't wear it, but it's in the room somewhere. So if an emergency call comes, it will come through or they'll call my husband. In my case, yes, I have that luxury that my husband still brings his phone to the bedroom, so if there's an emergency they can call him. But if you have to get a landline, like if that's the last resort I know landlines are like what, what are you even talking about? But anything, you do not need that phone in your bedroom with you. That's it. That's the end of it. If you cannot control your scrolling just because the phone is right there in front of you it's visible then put it outside, put it somewhere where you don't see it.
Speaker 1:Scrolling on social media and phones is one of the top reasons for the sleep deprivation pandemic that we are going through. Companies like Instagram and Facebook have research scientists working for them ensuring that we get addicted to these apps. They don't want us to leave the app and they will do anything to grab our attention. There's millions of courses out there on how to create attention grabbing social media posts. So don't think that you are alone. Don't blame yourself. Don't sit in that guilt and shame that I don't have control over my urges and I cannot get over scrolling. It's not you. There are research scientists who have made sure that brain, that your brain, gets addicted to your phones. So the only way around is to leave that phone somewhere else.
Speaker 1:I can go on and on about this, but if you're not doing this, I'm sorry I can't help you. None of the other tips are going to help you. But here are some other tips. Be consistent with your sleep. Go to bed around the same time every night. Try to do that, even on weekends. Now, I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I don't do that on weekends. My husband does, I don't. But try to do that. If you're someone who's really struggling with sleep, then try to do that for all seven days for now, until your sleep becomes sleep cycle becomes better.
Speaker 1:Next one is keep your room dark and a little cool and calm. So remove those laundry that is sitting on the chair, piling on the chair. Remove that, make your room a little less chaotic and a bit cooler. Little cooler body temperature helps you fall asleep easy. Another one is avoiding heavy meals or coffee or alcohol before bed. So again, about couple hours for coffee and alcohol. In fact, three hours is the best if you can Now. If you're someone like me who has to go to the bathroom five to six times in night, then stop drinking any liquids. There are so many more tips I can give you, but just having a consistent routine in washing your face just putting that cold water on your face will make you feel calmer.
Speaker 1:And putting some light music on keeping your room cool, some light reading, brain dumping, putting some meditation music Really something powerful is Yoga Nidra. You can just go to YouTube and type Yoga Nidra and you can find music for Yoga Nidra. That will help you fall asleep better. I'm actually planning to record a meditation as well for you, but it's not recorded yet, so I'm going to be honest here. Once it's recorded, I'll definitely share. You can use small little headphones or headphones, but if they are uncomfortable, then having a little speaker in your room where the music is going on.
Speaker 1:Now again, I'm not going to go into technicalities, but you're going to say well, I'm going to put the music on my phone. So then my phone is in the room. Figure it out, everything is figureoutable. If you have to like, record it on an old style recorder. Whatever you have to do, even for clock. My clients say but my phone has my alarm, go, buy an old style alarm clock. That's what I have. I bought an old style style. I can't talk today. I bought an old style alarm clock when I went for Vipassana and thankfully that has now helped me and now I don't even put an alarm on it anymore. But buy an old style alarm clock. If you have to Figure out how you're going to put this on where. Maybe your phone is downstairs and the music is playing there, but the speaker bluetooth speaker is right next to you. Figure it out, everything is figureoutable.
Speaker 1:A sleep meditation or yoga nidra can really really help you calm down your nervous system. You can even find meditation music with delta waves frequency. Delta waves is for deep sleep. That's the brain frequency during deep sleep. So if that music is playing, your brain automatically syncs to that frequency and helps you fall asleep. Meditative music also improves your emotional regulation. So if you have had a hard day or have some life stresses going on at this moment, then it will help you with those emotions. It also helps with subconscious rewiring. So those patterns in your subconscious mind you have got used to this new identity that I cannot sleep. So it will help you rewire that identity. So go find those meditation musics wherever you have to. Youtube Insight Timer is a really good app, but again, make sure I'm gonna say this again your phone is not right next to you.
Speaker 1:At the end, I want to say that I've given you so many things and I will summarize them, but remember you don't have to start doing everything. Just start with one small habit. The power of small, tiny habits is unimaginable. When you start and tell your brain that I'm going to do all these seven things, your brain will resist. You want to reduce the resistance, so start with one small thing. Pick any one thing. Maybe meditation music is one thing you're going to pick up today and then slowly add on things as you become better at that one thing. Another thing is make sure of your affirmations, reminding yourself. Rest is productive. Sleep is healing. I am worthy of rest and deep sleep.
Speaker 1:I want to hear about your nighttime rituals, especially if you're someone who's struggling with sleep. Tell me what do you do right before going to bed. What is that one habit that has helped you? Or maybe what is it that's really affecting your sleep quality? So send me a DM on Instagram at Sunny underscore Lamba.
Speaker 1:I want to hear about your nighttime rituals. Let's summarize Number one what is your why? Number two auto-suggestion to your subconscious mind. Number three is all the little rituals that I gave you, but the biggest one is keeping your phone away, no screens, 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime, and then brain dumping and also meditation. Once you start sleeping better, you will see the changes in your physical and mental health. You will also see so much growth in your life. You will perform better at your job, you will have less procrastination in your business, and I want you to have all that.
Speaker 1:If you're someone who thinks that, no, I have to do everything and I'm not worthy of success, I am not worthy of having all these habits and I'm not worthy of good sleep, then my program Unleash your Self-Worth is for you. Reach out to me to get the details. It's a 12-week trauma-informed coaching experience that will help you go from self-doubt and inaction to unwavering self-trust and consistent momentum. I use neuroscience-backed mindset training, deep emotional healing and habits reprogramming. Reach out to me. Let's talk about how Unleash your Self-Worth can help you live a better, joyful and more courageous life.
Speaker 1:If this episode helped you, please, please, please, share it with anyone that you think can use this information. Please, please, please. Share it with anyone that you think can use this information. Tag me when you share it on Instagram at Sunny underscore Lamba. I can't wait to hear more from you. Until next time, keep loving yourselves and stay Flauthentic. Thank you for listening to the Flauthentic Me podcast. Did you relate to something or had an aha moment? I would love to hear your thoughts. Connect with me on Instagram at Sunny underscore Lamba. You can also sign up for our newsletter so that you can get weekly tips and tools. Until next time, keep loving yourself and stay Flauthentic.