The anecdote
I am a mess. My wife has just moved out and I have two young boys to look after by myself for a whole week at a time. They are 2 and 5 years old. How the hell am I going to do this?
I lay in bed. I have had a glass of wine after putting the boys to sleep. It is the first time I have done this in a number of weeks, and it was so good to be able to chill out for a while. A friend came over and we had a few laughs and for a minute I could take my mind off my crumbling context.
In bed I am on my phone. Checking who knows what for unnecessary reasons. I put my phone on the charger next to my bed.
In the middle the night I wake up. I check my phone to see what time it is and see that I have got a message. I check the message; nothing important. But now my mind is awake, my heart is beating faster, and I am stressing that I will not be able to get back to sleep.
I somehow manage to drift off after about an hour, and before I am ready to wake up the boys are awake. The days is on. And I feel terrible. I have a dull headache from the wine. I am hazy from lack of sleep. And the boys sense it right from the outset.
The day is difficult; much more difficult than it needs to be. I somehow struggle through with bursts of anger and tears and quite a bit of time in from the of the TV.
Sitting on the couch in this state I had a realisation. I already knew that I was going to have to take excellent care of myself to be able to get through this. But now the first step I needed to take was clear: I needed to ensure that each night I got the best night's sleep I could. Sleep became my keystone habit.
The insight
The thing I realised is that tomorrow doesn’t begin when I wake up; it begins starts at dinner time the night before. That is the moment when I have the opportunity to enable the next day to get off to an excellent start. I do this through eating well. Through putting down technology. Through winding down before bed. And through getting to bed at a time that enables me to get eight hours of sleep.
The consequences
In an upcoming post, I talk about the web of wellbeing (future post on Wellbeing to come). What I found to be the most useful node to optimise within that web is the sleep node. Getting this right requires the organisation of a number of other things, but it also has an uplifting impact on everything else. Being present becomes easier. Making good decisions becomes easier. Exercise becomes more effective. I am more creative. I am more relaxed. And I get sick less often.
The mindful wrap-up
What might be the one node of wellbeing that you optimise for? And could it be sleep? Are there some basic things you can do this evening to give yourself a chance at a better night’s sleep?