Life – Blissfully jess

A couple years ago, I was experiencing a difficult time in my life and with that came many sleepless nights. I remember laying in bed most nights, exhausted, but also wide awake. I was emotionally drained and could not get myself together, it seemed. Some nights I would toss and turn and would get about 3 hours of sleep per night. I was exhausted, but still couldn’t figure out how to make it better.

*I am not a trained professional, all of my tips are simply from personal experience and what worked for me.

I’ve always been someone that enjoyed falling asleep while watching TV. I knew that people said that it’s not a good idea to do this, but it never bothered before, so I didn’t see any problems with it. It worked for me until I went through the difficult time in my life when I was having a hard time sleeping. After struggling to sleep for a while, I decided that it was time to start researching & implementing some techniques to try out.

After doing some research online and getting some guidance from my counselor, I figured out several techniques that I could implement to help me fall asleep at night. Alas! I found a list of things to do that helps me sleep at night! So, I want to share them all with you. Nobody likes to toss and turn at night!

This might seem excessive to some people, but I actually try to give myself a good hour before I want to “fall asleep”. Giving yourself time to wind down & get your mind and body ready to fall asleep is super helpful.

Here are a list of things that I try to pull from every night. I hope some of these tips help you too!

Turning off electronics an hour before bed (Phone, computer, TV)

Like a lot of people, I have always enjoyed laying in bed, watching TV until my eyes get sleepy and about to fall asleep. I also got into a habit of doing some social media scrolling at the same time as well. But, when I started having a hard time falling asleep, I was experiencing some extreme anxiety and those things started to not help me out at all. I know a lot of people mention turning off electronics, but watching TV & scrolling really did help me out in terms of helping me fall asleep (so I thought).

So, I started turning off my TV and stop scrolling an hour before I go to bed. I’m not perfect and don’t always follow this, but when I do, it definitely helps being able to refocus and start calming my mind down. However, I know that some people actually enjoy watching TV right before bed and find it to be incredibly relaxing. Whatever works for you! But, if you start noticing constant struggle to fall asleep, I would recommend at least giving this a try!

Melatonin

About an hour before I go to bed, I usually take 3-6g of melatonin. This is just a natural remedy to help you naturally fall asleep. I personally love melatonin because it helps me fall asleep, but it doesn’t make me feel all groggy the next morning. When I take a sleep aid, I can sometimes feel all groggy and half asleep if I didn’t get enough sleep for the sleep aid to wear off. Right now, I am enjoying the Nature Made Melatonin.

Essential Oil Diffuser

I absolutely love my essential oil diffuser! An hour before bed, I also like to turn on my essential oil diffuser. There’s something so relaxing about diffusing lavender/eucalyptus/ tea tree oil to calm your mind. I have mine sitting right next to my bed on my night stand. I love climbing into bed with relaxing aroma already there, mmmm allll the calming feels right there!

The oil that I like to use is Pure Aroma because it comes in a package that contains allll of the oils that I like to use on a daily basis. I usually always have one package in my amazon cart because I know that I’m going to need a refill!

If you don’t have an essential oil diffuser yet, I would recommend getting one that comes with some oils to get you started, like this one. That way you can test out which oils you really like so you know which ones you would like to get a refill on.

Bubble bath/hot shower

One of my favorite things to do to wind down on a Sunday night is to take a relaxing bubble bath! I like to fill the tub with lavender bubble bath and bath salts. Light a couple candles, play relaxing music and soak for about 20 minutes or so. In my new apartment, I don’t have a bath tub (bummer), but I will sometimes take a hot shower before bed. Not exactly the same in my opinion, but it will have to do for now!

Reading

Reading is one of those activities that I really love, but I sometimes have a hard time getting myself to settle down with a good book. Instead of turning on TV to help me fall asleep, I started picking up a book and reading while in bed. Reading has been the perfect way for me to really calm my mind down and lets me naturally get sleepy. Sometimes I can only make it a couple pages before I have to turn off the lights. Recently, I’ve really enjoyed reading You Are A Badass How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero and Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo.

Journaling

We’ve all heard about the major benefits of journaling. Maybe you are rolling your eyes at this point because you’ve heard it so much. Some nights I find myself talking myself out of it, but I’ve been trying to be better about it. Just picking up a journal and a pen and writing about your day- things that went well and what didn’t go so well. It really, REALLY helps to get everything out of your head and onto paper. Even starting off with a couple sentences every night might help to make it a habit. You never know what you might discover! It definitely helps getting everything out so it doesn’t sit on your subconscious.

Meditation

Ahhh, meditation. I personally have a love/hate relationship with meditation because I’m still really bad at it. I’ve been trying to make this a daily habit for a couple years now and it’s one of those things that takes some (lots) time to master. But, when I do practice meditation, I notice how much more relaxed and calm my mind is. Even if it’s just listening to calming music, rather than a guided meditation. Just a couple of minutes can work wonders! I do recommend getting some guided meditation apps on your phone to try out nightly. Most of them have free options so you don’t have to commit to monthly payments if you don’t think that you’ll need that kind of investment. Some guided meditation apps that I like are Sanvello, Calm & Simple Habit.

There you have it! Those are my 7 tips for helping with sleepless nights. I don’t do allll of them every single night. But, they have all helped in my journey to sleeping better. Nightly, I try to at least take melatonin, set my essential oil diffuser, journal & read.

Give these tips a try and let me know if any of them helped!

OCTOBER 2018 ➡️ OCTOBER 2019

One year ago I was 25 years old, still living at my parents house, looking at my 2 degrees and wondering why the heck I couldn’t get my life together. There’s no hopeless, frustrating feeling like staring at your Master’s degree, applying to all the jobs, revising your resume a million times, connecting with & contacting all the recruiters you can find on LinkedIn while making a whopping $0/month income, feeling like you’re getting nowhere.

You can see the stress and frustration on my face and in my body language. I looked at this picture right after I took it and knew that I had to make some changes. All I knew to do at the time was continue working on myself. That meant dragging myself out of bed early in the morning to get in a sweaty workout.

It’s almost coming up on one year (October 31/Halloween to be exact) that my mom gave me the crazy idea to start my own business. I was already helping my dad with their social media, so why not turn it into a business and help other small businesses as well? The wheels started turning. I told myself that if I ended up creating this business, that I would find a way to use my platforms to spread as much positivity and inspiration as I possibly could. I had no idea where the business was going to take me, but I knew this was going to be the start of something so life changing if I stuck to it.

But, all things, whether it’s exciting or not, comes with various road blocks and frustrations. Over the last year, I’ve been able to create and accomplish things that I never even knew were possible for me.

One year ago, I was confused, frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed and just wanted to get this thing called life figured out already. I was getting discouraged by seeing everyone else on social media seemingly landing prestigious jobs, buying houses, getting married, etc etc. I fell deep into “woe is me”, because that’s all I knew to do at the time. “Why is everyone else getting everything figured out except me? What am I doing wrong?”

My mom giving me the idea to start my own business ultimately lead to me to understanding that I am in complete control of getting my life where I want it to be. I had no idea what that meant for me, but I knew that I had to put my complete trust in my faith and the universe to guide me to where I’m supposed to be.

It meant taking chances and risks along the way so I could learn and continue to grow.

Nearly ONE YEAR later and I can honestly tell you that I am in a completely different place than I was last year. It all started with working from the inside out. Believing in myself that I can do the thing that I never put thought into because I didn’t think I was capable of it.

I hired a coach, put in the work, made mistakes, had mental breakdowns, experienced anxiety like I’ve never experienced before, connected with a whole bunch of awesome women, made investments, hired more coaches, curled up in a ball, cried some more, attended webinars, took notes, wanted to just throw in the towel at times and kept going.

Oh, I also moved out of my parents house into an apartment that I never thought I’d be able to afford.

In the last couple months, I’ve felt an active calling to do more with my business. I’ve never known what people meant when they say they felt “called to do this/that”. But now I know exactly what those people are talking about. But, I had no idea what the universe was trying to tell me to do or how to even figure out what the heck I was supposed to do with this feeling.

I’ve gotten comfortable with my social media management business and my current clients, but I started feeling like I needed to do MORE.

I didn’t know what to do to figure this out, so I started reading.

I’ve never been a big reader because reading usually puts me to sleep (lol). But, I honestly felt an active motivation & energy to pick up all the books I could find and start reading. I’d heard people talk about the You Are A Badass series by Jen Sincero, Everything Is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo and Best Self : Be You, Only Better by Mike Bayer.

So, I went to Amazon and ordered 5 books.

You Are A Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero

2. You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero

3. You Are a Badass Every Day: How to Keep Your Motivation Strong, Your Vibe High, and Your Quest for Transformation Unstoppable by Jen Sincero

4. Everything Is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo

5. Best Self: Be You, Only Better by Mike Bayer

I also went to various Facebook groups and asked for recommendations of what to do. I learned about the power of meditation and manifestation. I journaled. A lot. I now have a new fire and understanding that I have all the power in the world to create something super powerful and fulfilling.

I’ve hired another coach and I am happy to be in the process of building ANOTHER BUSINESS.

I told myself that I would create a platform for change, no matter where the journey decided to take me. When you understand your worth and the power you have, you can truly do anything with your life that you want to. As long as you don’t give up on yourself.

There was one part of You Are A Badass: How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness And Start Living An Awesome Life by Jen Sincero that really stuck out to me.

“Can you imagine if your favorite musicians never let themselves make enough money to buy guitars or take lessons or hire producers or buy purple platforms boots and tight sparkly pants or pay thousands of dollars for studio time so they could record the songs that saved your ass in high school? Or if the people who build airplanes refused to make the money they need to pay for the research and the materials and the factories and engineers and the electricity and whatever plethora of other costly things that go into building the miraculous flying machines that allow us to travel the world, hang out on tropical beaches, and visit the people we love so dearly?”

Just let that sink in for a second because this was so important for me to hear, I’ve read that paragraph many, many times. She’s talking about making investments and finding the money, but this also means that by not following your dreams & goals might mean not making the difference that you were supposed to make. There have been so many people throughout history that have made some incredible difference in the world. A difference that we are all reaping the benefits of every single day. Who says that can’t be you or I as well?

Over the last year, I’ve learned that sometimes the journey doesn’t look the same for everyone. We are all experiencing difficulties in our lives and obstacles that we are maybe a little bit ashamed of. But, if we can find the fire inside of us, we can truly make the difference that we were put on this earth to make.

I truly believe that there’s more to life than just going to school, working until retirement, living for Friday and dreading Monday. What’s the point of that? With this new business that I’m creating, I hope that I can help empower & inspire others to understand their worth & reach their full potential. Stay tuned for more info! ❤

Tag: Life

My 7 Tips For Falling Asleep