Note to self #1: Learn to rest.
Even strong women and warriors need it.
Hi👋🏽 I’m Kat. I help navigate difficult conversations and teach women how to negotiate in their own terms. Welcome to my version of a newsletter where I’ll be reminding you how to be kinder to yourself. You’re doing great, sweetie. Remember you’re all you have. So welcome and thanks for being here.✨
As we spring forward and bid winter adieu here in New York, let’s take a moment to show some gratitude for making it through a brutal season that lasted all 12 months. It’s been emotionally, mentally and physically taxing for most of us, so I hope you’re taking it easy on yourself as you thaw out from that period.
In the book, Wintering, which came out incredibly perfectly timed at the end of 2020, Katherine May reminded us to take better care of ourselves by taking time to rest. She relates winter as a season for women to heal and rest in love. It’s a beautiful sentiment. According to May, winter seasons represent the difficult times in our lives when we are unable to grow or move forward because challenges and misfortunes happen. Death happens. Loss happens. Depression happens. Winter simply happens. It’s a period even if planned remains to be an unwelcome guest in our lives. And for a large portion of humanity, last year indeed felt like this generation’s period of wintering. And rest I did.
It’s pretty clear that the most basic form of rest is sleep. I am not exactly a night owl. And I would not classify myself as a morning lark unless I had a good night’s rest. I don’t know about my contemporaries but I can’t function with only a few hours of sleep anymore. I know my friends who bemoan aging as a result of this but I honestly think as I matured, in age and in self-awareness, I am now able to interpret my body’s needs better.
Let’s face it, when we were younger we misused and abused our body. We ignored all the cues and wore our body out. We fed our body toxic and treated it like a cheap, disposable, piece of garbage. A lot of us probably treat our cars, electronics or signature handbags better than we do our bodies.
I am not an exception to this ghoulish behavior. I notoriously stayed out late and frequently binged on vices beyond the acceptable limit. I have burned the midnight oil far too often during my years working in corporate and then in grad school. Sure I had the advantage of youth back then, which often aided me in quick recovery. I cyclically repeated this again and again. I’ll sleep when I’m dead, I often said as if working hard or going the extra mile at the expense of my well-being is something to be proud of. I wore it like a badge of honor, like most young, ambitious women professionals do.
Putting our body through this compulsive destructive behavior is a sign of how little we value ourselves. If we truly reflect on our poor habits, they’re often dictated by external factors that have a lot to do with the lack of our intrinsic needs: security, acceptance, community and love. None of these values require us to push ourselves to a point of destruction. And it’s true that women often find themselves working that much harder than their male counterparts to have to prove themselves. As if we, as we are, are not enough.
Surely, my mom friends will be quick to say it’s a luxury to get decent sleep. Although I won’t pretend to know what sleep depravity caused by parenting is like, since I’m not here to keep score on who has it worst. But I do know what it’s like to be sleep-deprived.
Often it starts slow. Exhaustion creeps in. Then soon the body starts to work against you. You go through bouts of mental fog. You feel spiritually misaligned. Productivity and morale goes down. Emotional disconnection and dissatisfaction persists. Sexual drive and pleasure diminishes. The body starts to seek other sources of energy. More caffeine and [insert your drug of choice here], please.
Without rest, we are unable to function fully or live purposefully. And if that’s not sufficient, evidence also shows that more sleep prevents infections and protects us from all kinds of diseases. Sleep strengthens our immunity. And if there’s anything the last few months taught us, it can’t hurt to have more of it. Besides, scientists claim that the number of people who can function on less than five hours of sleep without impairment is nonexistent. So why even try.
Perhaps one can argue this is not that fatal if done rarely. But living in the type of burnout culture that we do today, coupled with the pandemic anxieties, this habitual behavior doesn’t feel sustainable. Or healthy. And yet we seem to find ways to reward and glorify workaholism and judge others who take long lunches, who say no to more projects, or who are in bed by 9. Yes, some of us are in bed this early.
I do hope that the pandemic somehow shifted our work attitudes and that we finally learned to prioritize our well-being above all else.
Whether you’re a struggling caretaker, an insomniac or just suffering from crippling anxiety, as a whole we could all use an extra few hours of shuteye. Of course I recognize there are those whose circumstance may prevent them from doing so. In some cases, sleep could threaten their very survival in more ways than one. It’s a matter of life or death. But for the rest of us who are in a fortunate position to make these practical considerations, I hope you consider taking steps toward getting more rest this week. Do it for you. It helps to reduce your screen time before bedtime. Your social media feed will still be there in a few hours. Your body will thank you tomorrow.
Sleep well and sweet dreams. 🌙
xx
Kat