Tag: The Wind Down

There’s a reason nearly half of those featured on The Wind Down wear an Oura ring to bed every night: By collecting data on how much time you spend in various sleep stages, sleep trackers can help you better gauge your sleep quality—and your overall health.

“After buying an Oura ring so I could monitor my sleep more precisely, I saw a direct correlation between the nights I got the least deep sleep and higher sugar readings on my continuous glucose monitor (CGM),” precision medicine doctor Florence Comite, M.D., notes in her routine.

They can also help you identify the amount of time you need in each sleep stage in order to feel your best, and plan your evenings accordingly. “My goal is to fall asleep in less than 5-10 minutes and spend 25-40 percent of the night in deep sleep and 15-25 percent in REM sleep. Since I wear a sleep tracker, I know I usually get my best deep sleep prior to 1 a.m. and the best REM sleep from 3-6 a.m… so if I go to bed too late, it will cut into my deep sleep, and if I get up too early, I lose REM sleep,” writes functional medicine doctor Jill Carnahan, MD.

Of course, not everyone is going to enjoy tracking their sleep down to the minute. For some people, these readings can be more anxiety-inducing than helpful. In that case, experts note that it’s still worthwhile to track your sleep the old-fashioned way: by writing about how you feel when you wake up in the morning.

I developed insomnia back in my early 20s, right after I graduated from college, around the time when my dad was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Any time you are a caretaker, especially in an acute situation, your circadian rhythm and sleep patterns are thrown off. I also believe that my anxiety at the time strongly contributed to my insomnia.

Sleep continues to be a practice that I mindfully work on. I believe that it is, without question, one of the most restorative nonnegotiables for a healthy life. Simply put, a good night’s sleep helps us function more optimally spiritually, cognitively, physiologically, and emotionally.

These days, I still don’t sleep for as long as I’d like every night. I have long days and often don’t get home until after dinner. I also sometimes lose track of time and find myself working, learning, or creating late into the night. But my sleep efficiency usually averages 94+%, and my combined REM and deep sleep percentages are at least 50% to 70% most nights.

I sleep best when I have time to do an extended wind-down ritual. It includes taking a warm bath or shower in the evening, meditating with my red light therapy while in my lymphatic drainage boots, and also relaxing on a crystal PEMF mat. (I really do like to stack my routine!) But with my travel schedule, it’s not often that I have the luxury of going through this process.

When I’m on the road, I try to have a cup of herbal tea or warm water with a little lemon, take my evening supplements, cleanse/shower, and do a light skin care prep. I also practice light breathwork and meditation and sleep with solfeggio frequencies (a type of sound healing) on.

8 p.m.: It’s a Tuesday night, and I’m in total relaxation mode. My devices are all in do-not-disturb mode.

8:15 p.m.: I choose my wind down activity for the evening based on where my intuition leads me. Sometimes it’s a restorative or yin yoga class either from youtube or Glo. Sometimes it’s a sound bath, either one of my Tibetan Singing Bowls like this one, or a Spotify playlist. Sometimes it’s watching some TV, either comedy or something inspirational.

9 p.m.: I get everything set up so I can take a nice juicy bath, with candles, bath bombs, and peaceful meditation music.

9:45 p.m.: I brush my teeth, and when I’m done, I look myself in the eye in the mirror and say, “I love you!”

9:50 p.m.: I plug my phone into an outlet in my bathroom, far far away from my bed. It’s automatically scheduled to be on sleep mode during my sleeping hours.

9:51 p.m.: I turn on my essential oil diffuser, usually choosing lavender for a sense of calm.

9:53 p.m.: I turn on a sleep playlist, and tell Alexa to set a sleep timer for 30 minutes so the music stops automatically at that time.

9:55 p.m.: I slide into bed with my weighted blanket which has been a game changer for my sleep.

9:57 p.m.: I open my journal and write down three things I’m grateful for.

10:02 p.m.: I do a 3-minute breathing practice like this one to calm my nervous system and stop any anxious chatter in my mind.

10:05 a.m.: I choose one of the books on rotation on my nightstand and turn off the nightlight when my eyes start to get heavy. Books currently on my nightstand include Rest is Resistance (Tricia Hersey), Black Futures (Kimberly Drew, Jenna Wortham), Inner Engineering, A Yogi’s Guide to Joy (Sadghuru), and Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (Alexis Paulijne Gumbs)

6:24 a.m.: My body naturally wakes up without an alarm clock, but in the rare cases this doesn’t happen, my sunrise alarm clock wakes me up with a soft light that grows in brightness along with the sounds of birds chirping. I then get up and do my morning meditation and journaling.