When was the last time you woke up in the morning and thought, “Woah! I feel awesome! I am totally full of energy and super excited to get out of bed!”

Not recently?

You are NOT alone. In fact, 92% of westerners wake up feeling “unrested”.

It has become a rarity to wake up from even a long night’s slumber, actually feeling rested.

For many, it begs the question, in this modern world, “Is that even possible?”

Or have we gotten to the place, like frogs boiling in water, where we have come to accept waking up tired as normal?

I remember when I almost always used to wake up tired. I used to even say things like, “I always wake up tired” or “no matter how many hours of sleep I get, I still feel ‘meh’ in the morning.”

But then I discovered that feeling rested is a culmination of a lot of different things that result in a cumulative effect of either feeling exhausted and uninspired in the morning, or feeling rested and rip-rarin’ ready to go. Rest isn’t a straight line from when you crawl in bed at night to the next morning.

Not at all, actually. There isn’t even a direct correlation between how many hours you spend in your bed with your eyes closed and how rested you feel when you wake.

No. Feeling rested includes all sorts of things. Here are a few strategies you can implement to help you get the most from your nightly zzzz’s:

1. Stop drinking caffeine before noon every day. Come to find out, caffeine can hang out in the body a lot longer than we might realize, and when we reach for that 3 pm cup o’ jo to help us touch the finish line, we just might be negatively affecting how deeply (and therefore how restful) we sleep at night.
2. Get moving. I don’t mean to nag, but movement is full-on, pure medicine. If you move your body, for a minimum of a heavy-breathing , brisk, 20 minutes every single day, your whole LIFE benefits: Your relationships, your digestion, the luster of your skin, and… yup, you guessed it — the rest that you reap from your hours in bed.
3. Hard stop that tech. This one is gonna be soooo hard for soooo many of you, but that late night scrolling and Netflix is literally killing you (sorry to be dramatic, but it’s true). The blue light impact and dopamine created in your body is wrecking havoc on your body’s ability to settle into deep sleep patterns, where the body regenerates cells, strengthens immunity, restores health, and heals from the busyness of the previous day. Research tells us that 2 hours minimum without tech before going to sleep makes a world of difference in a variety of health markers, including how rested we feel when we awake.

I could go on with things like eating a little earlier, eating a little lighter, laughing more, and taking time to meditate and contemplate all the things that you are grateful for. The list is long — and, undoubtedly, impactful.

But the first thing to know is that all of these things fall into the category of “self-care“, and each of these things “do a body good”…. in their own particular way.

So the next time you think self-care is superfluous, think again. It’s the backbone and the baseline of heart health, immune system function, digestive health and resilient relationships.

Self-care starts with you. And at the risk of gettin’ preachy — nobody can, or is gonna, do it for you.

It’s all in your hands. And the good news is ALL the benefits you reap, they are yours too!