Melissa Jeffcott

 Hands up if you would like to get more sleep and wake up feeling refreshed and full of energy, ready to bounce into your day? If your hand is down, there could only be one of two reasons:

You are one of those annoyingly bouncy people who go to bed super early with your gym gear already laid out in preparation for your early morning run on the beach/Instagram brag (ok, you can take your green smoothie and leave for yoga now).

OR

Your hand is down because you have no energy to raise it, because you are so exhausted by the constant interrupted and/or lack of sleep that you experience being a parent/on the other side of forty/just being alive.

Now that those pesky perky ladies have left, I am here to tell you that I completely understand that life can be pretty exhausting, however there are a few basic things that you can do to help yourself enjoy a more well rested night, and hopefully feel better equipped to take on the busy demands of each new day.

Firstly, and this might come as a shock (not) to some of you, but no one in your family is actually going to notice that you are tired. Does your husband come home from work, notice you’re done in and immediately start preparing a delicious nutritious meal your whole family will eat, whilst offering to give you a foot rub after dinner (um, if he does, then can I please borrow him?) Will your kids take a look at you at 7.00pm and say “Gee mum, you look exhausted. Let me have a shower and quietly put myself to bed while you have a glass of wine and check your Facebook feed.” No, it is up to you and only you to make sure you are looking after yourself, and if you need some help to do that, then guess what? You have to ask for it! Women have been waiting since the dawn of time for their partner’s to read their minds, and unless you are married to a clairvoyant, I would say the chances of them always anticipating your needs are slim to none. So make sure that you actively (and nicely) ask for help to get your kid’s night time routine done with a minimum (or at the very least not a maximum) of fuss.

Once the little darlings are in bed and finally asleep (two very different things, I know!), chances are you are slumped in front of the TV, too exhausted to think of doing anything besides getting yourself a cup of tea and a choccie. Before you know it is late, and you are berating yourself for watching that episode of Sex and the City you have already seen 342 times. By the time you get to bed, have set your alarm (and have one last check of all forms of social media known to mankind) you are feeling a little frustrated, and resign yourself to another night of tossing and turning while mentally making to do lists in your head. But I doesn’t have to be that way, and I am here to give you the benefit of my wisdom (or at the very least a few handy tips).

Do not automatically go for the couch and the TV.

I have pretty much stopped watching TV in the past few months and my life is much better for it. There might be one or two shows that I actually like to watch each week, so I will consciously sit and watch those. But the days of mindlessly sitting flicking through the channels, and watching someone get bad tattoos on 7Mate because nothing else is on are long gone. Ask yourself if this program benefits me in some way, and if not then switch that idiot box off and go to bed (unless there is a movie with Ryan Gosling in it – you are always allowed to stay up late for the Gos!

Use a dump diary.

It doesn’t sound as pretty as a gratitude journal, and by all means write down what you are grateful for as well, if that works for you. However, it can be a great help to just dump all the ‘stuff’ that is in your brain in order to stop ruminating on it until the wee hours. This is for your eyes only, so get it all out of your head and onto some paper, no matter how petty or silly you might think it is. Then in the morning, you can transpose what’s important on to your daily to do list, and throw the rest of that brain dump in the trash (make sure it’s the recycling of course).

Make your bedroom a warm and inviting space.

Now, I am not talking about candles and flowers and sexy lingerie (although please go for it if you want to). What I am talking about, is the basket of laundry on the floor full of clean clothes that sits there until someone comes scrounging for clean undies and tips them everywhere. Or the bathroom towels that are hanging on the floor. Or the piles of paperwork stacked on your chest of drawers. Even if you just move all this stuff out of the bedroom and into another room, having a clean and inviting space to sleep can help to settle the body and mind.

I know you don’t want to hear it, but I am going to tell you anyway. You need to break up with your phone/iDevice.

Your bedroom is not the place for this relationship. Trust me, I have been there, I have canoodled with Candy Crush, flirted with Facebook, and inspired myself with Instagram till the small hours, when in reality I should have been simply seducing sleep. “But my phone is my alarm”, I hear you say. Ha ha, I have told myself this too and I don’t believe you anymore than I believed myself: just buy yourself a cheap alarm clock, you know you can’t be trusted!

So there you have it, my advice for bringing more rest and less stress into your life. If you are able to make at least one or two changes, then I guarantee you are on the road to getting a better nights sleep. If you manage to score a foot rub as well, then I’d say life just got a whole lot better!

This post was first published on The Working Mums Collective, a fantastic place for working mums to connect, share stories, celebrate successes and really support and empower each other no matter what journey they are on.