Not Sleeping Well Lately? We're Here to Help.

Not gonna lie, I'm usually a pro at sleeping. I can fall asleep within five minutes and stay asleep until my alarm goes off. I can sleep with a TV on, or even on an airplane. The one thing I haven't mastered is how to sleep while standing up, but apparently folks in the Army say it is possible.

All that to say, I have NOT been sleeping well lately. In fact, I woke up last night at approximately 2:34am (I was so surprised that I had to screenshot my clock) and could not fall back asleep till about 4am. So, if sleeping right now is hard for me, a champion sleeper, I cannot imagine how tough it must be for those of you who always deal with sleep problems.

In fact, in our pre-COVID world, the CDC claimed that 1 in 3 adults is not getting enough sleep. The data is not aggregated yet, but my hypothesis is that it's now probably more like 2 in 3 adults. Anxiety and emotions are high, sickness is rampant, and we are all just trying to get through each day of ambiguity.

So, why does sleep matter? It took me until only the past 2-3 years to truly understand that sleep is the #1 most essential part of being healthy. Sleeping is nature's way of repairing your body and just as importantly, your brain. In fact, many mental health studies have proven that poor sleep is correlated with higher rates of anxiety and depression. And on the physical health side, poor sleep is also directly tied to higher rates of obesity and poor diets.

I always tell people that if you want to lose weight, first focus on your sleep, then on your diet and lastly on exercise. If you want to get smarter and happier, first focus on your sleep, and then on all the rest. Truly, sleep is the *foundation* of all things and so many of us are not optimizing our own.

So this week at Brit + Co is all about, you guessed it: better sleep. Stay tuned for all the ways to get your best zzz's ever.