Category: sleep

creativity, dreams, grateful, gratitude, sleep

This just in: My bedtime practice of writing down my blessings

Christa Avampato
My blessings journal
My blessings journal

“If you want to sleep more soundly, count blessings, not sheep.” ~Dr. Robert Emmons

I read this quote in a book recently and decided to give it a try. Though this week was stressful, this nightly practice really did help me appreciate the good things that were happening right alongside the tough things. Despite the scare with Phin, I could stay focused on getting him the best care and appreciate my loving friends, the sunshine, the flowering trees, my comfy home, and all of the new adventures ahead of me.

It’s easy to let life weigh us down. Living is hard work. Living fully is even harder work. But we can do hard things. We can pick ourselves up and keep going and keep recognizing that while life is difficult, it’s also pretty amazing.

simplicity, sleep

This just in: Rest is underrated

Christa Avampato
"Take rest; a field that is rested gives a bountiful crop." ~Ovid
“Take rest; a field that is rested gives a bountiful crop.” ~Ovid

“Take rest; a field that is rested gives a bountiful crop.” ~Ovid

I had big plans for these three weeks before I start my new job. An endless list of things I wanted to do in the city and day trips to Charlottesville, Baltimore, and Annapolis. I’ll be able to do some of them but the list will be cut short so that I can keep a close eye on Phin for the next two weeks while he heals. I’ll have to schedule my life a bit differently during this time and save the road trips for a later date.

There’s a lesson here in all this for me. Many lessons, in fact. There is something to be said for rest, for choosing to do the things that really matter and not just running around like a looney simply for the sake of running around. I’m more of the looney variety by nature. So with this extra down time, I’m finishing the first round of edits on my novel, reading a stack of books about public education to prepare for my new job, enjoying the sunshine, and resting.

This change of plans is a gift and though I wish more than anything that Phin didn’t have to go through this recovery period, I’m also very grateful for what he is teaching me. Now, and always. Love and rest make for a powerful kind of magic – healing.

fear, future, sleep

Inspired: Don’t believe everything you tell yourself late at night

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

3am can be a tough hour for me. That’s when some of my greatest fears surface. “What are you doing?” “That’s a terrible idea!” “You’ll be all alone!” And on they go. To exercise those little gremlins, I write them down in the notebook I keep next to my bed and then put an “X” through them. Then I lay down, focus on my breath, and silently say “I am okay” until I fall asleep again. Don’t believe everything you tell yourself late at night. At night, the good and bad rise up in our minds. We can’t control that. All we can do is get it all down, throw out what harms, keep what helps, and get some more sleep. Tomorrow needs us at our best.

art, creative process, creativity, discovery, imagination, sleep, writing

Inspired: The magic of sleep and its impact on creativity, clarity, and writing

Christa Avampato

Dan Levitin’s latest research on the power of sleep to bolster and ignite creativity is fascinating. For writers, this research is especially valuable because one of our chief tasks is to connect disparate dots of information to create a cohesive story.

Levitin reveals a number of actionable pieces of advice on how to make our sleep cycles most beneficial to our imagination. The brain prioritizes the thoughts we have right before going to sleep and spends a good deal of its sleep time working on them. I’ve been spending time before bed working on my most important personal projects and challenges. The results of this practice have been amazing for me. I’m waking up with insights and connections in my work that I haven’t been able to see in my waking hours. I’ve also been going to bed and waking up hours earlier than usual and that’s tripped a powerful switch, too.

While we often think of creativity as elusive and unexplainable, I’m fascinated to learn how we can engineer it at least to some extent. At the very least there is much we can do to make room for its arrival and help it to feel welcomed and valued. Sometimes all we need is awareness and openness. Sometimes all magic needs is a space to happen. Get some shut-eye and create.

clarity, cooking, dreams, Second Step, sleep

Beautiful: Making Bread Overnight and Writing in Dreams

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

Bread making and sleep are magical processes. I put flour, salt, yeast, and water into a bowl in specific proportions, mix them up, cover the dough, and let it sit for 20 hours. When I wake up the next morning, it’s transformed into the perfect sticky consistency because I left it alone. When I need a booster shot of inspiration for my writing, I stuff my brain full of information that relates to what I’m trying to write and then I let my brain work it out while I sleep. Just as the light of day starts to filter into my apartment, the words I need start to filter right into my mind as I’m half-awake. I grab my pen and paper to get it all down.

The trick is to give your work what it needs and then walk away. Get the right ingredients into the right environment to work together. Arm yourself with data and information that your brain can sift and mesh together. The process is about you, and it’s also about you getting out-of-the-way. There’s a little mystery in creativity, a little magic inside each of us. There’s a time to work and a time to give up, and we need to do both to come up with something that’s inspired and inspiring.

nurture, sleep, work

Leap: A Needed Balance Between Working and Resting

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“When one foot walks, the other foot rests.” ~ Indian Proverb

I used to look down on the very idea of rest. Who needs rest when there’s living to do?

I do. A few years ago, I put my lifelong case of insomnia to bed and never looked back. On a rare occasion I will have a restless night, but rather than that being the norm, it’s often brought on by some infrequent and specific external stress. 99% of the time, I get at least 7 hours of rest so that I can recharge and be ready for the day ahead.

Rather than harming my productivity, the rest has actually enhanced it. I like the feeling of being able to lay down after a good day of work and know that I’ve earned the rest. It helps me to focus. It helps me to live in the present moment and to appreciate the busy times as much as the slow times. The rest has also made me more mindful of my own energy levels and it’s helped me to recognize when to call it quits. Rather than fight it, I revel in the need and ability to rest.

As I make these big changes in my career and my life, I feel more confident than ever that I can be both productive and nurturing of my body, mind, and spirit. I used to fear burn out. Now, it’s not even up for consideration. At the slightest twinge of discomfort, I’m able to take a breath or two or three.

Recharging isn’t something that needs to be done on week-long vacations, though I highly recommend those. Every day, we have the choice to come back down into our bodies, into the very depths of who we are, and rest there. Quiet. Peaceful. Free.

sleep, stress

Step 259: A Moment, or More, of Rest

Christa Avampato

“Sometimes the most urgent thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.” ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

I have spun myself out. Stress seems to be everywhere. Yesterday, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t calm down until I got home and collapsed in a heap on my yoga mat. I sank down into the floor, feeling the comfort of the solid ground beneath me. I could have continued to ignore my own advice and run, run, run to combat stress. I thought about it, and then thought better of it. I didn’t need to run, I needed to rest.

Resting, contrary to logic, is hard work. Our minds race, our hearts race, and our feet follow along furiously trying to keep up. It’s a cycle. I used to beat myself up for over-scheduling my life. Now, I just de-schedule it. It’s another form of editing, an under-appreciated, subconsciously coveted, and courageous talent. It causes anxiety, guilt, and a bit of regret. But sometimes, a little regret is necessary. We aren’t perfect. We make mistakes. We burn ourselves out. We wear ourselves down.

Energy is cyclical, and when we’re done, we’re done. Take a load off. You deserve it.

Illustration above by Jim Davis. Garfield had the right idea.

health, insomnia, sleep

Step 82: Sweet Sleep

Christa Avampato

On my subway ride home from work I was considering this year of extraordinary living that I’m working on. Now over 80 days in, I’m thinking about what’s working, what’s not, and where I’d like to experiment. I considered some main topics of my life where I focus my energy. Health is a big one, particularly as I go through my yoga teacher training. With my new job, I’m stumbling across a variety of cool products and services every day that I’d like to share here. Books that inspire me, new music, companies who are getting it right in this economy, causes I care about are other areas. I’d like to take more time on this blog to explore these topics of interest as examples of what I find extraordinary.

Up today: sleep, one of my favorite topics. I’ve had insomnia off and on for most of my life. My mom has it, too. A few weeks ago I read an article in the New York Times about insomnia and some of its facts are startling:
1.) Over the course of a year 30%-40% of U.S. adults experience insomnia over the course of a year
2.) 10%-15% of people have chronic insomnia (like mine and my mom’s)
3.) Americans spend $24B a year (yep, billions) on sleep-related goods and services
4.) For the nearly $4B we spend per year on sleep-inducing drugs, these drugs provide only an average of 11.4 additional minutes of sleep

So what do we do to get some more shut-eye? I can’t say I’ve claimed victory over insomnia just yet, though here are some additional things I’m trying that are helping me tremendously. I share them here in the hopes that they can help you, too:

1.) I only sleep on my right side or my back. The left side of our bodies is the lunar side so leaving it open to the sky while sleeping on the solar side, the right side, is said to induce sleep. You can chalk that up to “too-groovy” science if you’d like; I did, too, until I tried it. It’s working.

2.) I try to spend 5 minutes before I go to sleep seated in a comfortable, cross-legged position on my bed, eyes closed, just breathing deeply. I thank the Divine for another day, I remember the best thing and the least best thing that happened to me that day, and I take a few moments to consider what I learned in the course of my daily activities. Some might call this prayer, others may call it simple reflection. I find it helps me let go of the day’s stresses and quiets my mind.

3.) I try to eat as soon as I get home from work, ~6:30pm, giving my body some time to digest before I toddle off to bed. Earlier this year, a friend of mine gave me the idea to eat breakfast like a queen, lunch like a princess, and dinner like a pauper. When I stick to that idea, I find it helps my sleep.

4.) I’m lucky that I live in a very sunny apartment on the top floor of my building. I have filmy curtains up over my windows to let the light in. I never bought blinds. I find being able to wake up with the natural light in my apartment is helping my sleep patterns.

5.) I’m a recovering multi-tasker. I used to take pride in being able to do many things at once, until I realized I wasn’t enjoying any of these things to the fullest. Now in my waking life I’m trying to be present wherever I am. When I’m at work, I’m at work, working. When I’m home, I’m home, working on my own independent projects. When I’m out with friends or on the phone with family or long-distance friends, I don’t multi-task or think about what I’m doing next. The people I spend my time with are my sole focus when I’m with them. This being present translates to improved sleep – when I’m in my bed, I’m only focused on how grateful I am for a place to rest and relax.

If you’re dealing with insomnia, I hope these ideas are helpful. And if you have other remedies that have helped you, I’d love to hear them! Happy sleep to all and to all a good night…

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

fear, grateful, home, insomnia, nature, sleep, stress, thankful, weather

My Year of Hopefulness – Cleansing

Christa Avampato

It’s the middle of the night and I’m having a tough time sleeping. I’ve become accustomed to insomnia as I’ve had it off and on for most of my life. Tonight is a little eerie though. I’m awake because of the wind. It’s keeping me up long past my bedtime. It’s so gusty that as I was walking back to my friend, Amber’s, apartment, I could feel the weather bearing down on me. For a moment I almost lost my footing. You’d think this was Chicago in the winter the way the gusts are going. We rarely have wind like this, especially at the beginning of September.

I can’t help but think that this odd wind is a way for the greater universe to say to me that my life is being cleaned out, and it must be this way as tough as the circumstances may be. With these gusts will go all of the bad energy from the fire. And with that energy will go the fear as well – mine, and my neighbors’, family’s, and friend’s fears, too. Rather than it being a disturbing wind, perhaps it’s trying to be of great use at a time of great need. Maybe a strong, forceful wind is exactly what’s called for in times of stress. At least I’m hoping that’s the case.
As I headed from The Empire Hotel toward the subway tonight, for a second I thought “damn, all my warm clothes might be ruined. I have nothing to wear!” And then a second later I started laughing, out loud. Who cares? So I will have to buy some new warm clothing now that Fall has arrived. I stopped for a moment right by Columbus Circle and looked up at the sky, the clouds faintly swirling and swishing in the very dark sky. I said a prayer to whatever and whoever is up there looking down on me, blowing all the smoke away so that I might see and think a bit more clearly. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad I’m here to witness this.” And I’ve never meant any 9 words more in my life.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
insomnia, science, sleep, The Journal of Cultural Conversation

The Journal of Cultural Conversation – Take a Nap, or Don’t

Christa Avampato

My latest post on The Journal of Cultural Conversation (TJCC) is up: Take a Nap, or Don’t, an update of my continued research on insomnia. Does sleep help creativity? Does insomnia help creativity? Science weighs in…

My writing partner and collaborator, Laura Cococcia, is the creative genius behind TJCC and has asked me to write for the site every Monday. I will repost all links to my TJCC articles on this blog and on my Twitter account.