The Reasons that a Routine at the End of Your Day will Cure Cancer…ish

“You don’t get extraordinary days when you live everyday ordinary” is a great motivational statement that Phillip Deas had as part of his sermon this week on Excellence. However, I will turn this statement on its head a bit and say that you won’t have extraordinary days if you don’t value sleep as a part of your ordinary daily routine.?

You know sleep is vital for your health if you read my article last week. Sleep strengthens your immune system, has critical roles in brain functions for memory, mood regulation, and helps to decrease the risk for dementia. Sleep is also crucial for appetite regulation, reducing obesity, diabetes, and cancer risk.?

Let’s pretend we live in a magical fairyland where research and factual scientific data change day-to-day practices. I picture this world like something you might see on Star Trek, where all the people seem healthy and full of purpose as they walk across the city with skin the colors of the rainbow and funky ears. Back to reality, where life is messy, where if your skin looks purple, it was probably because there was some accident involving small humans, curiosity, and a general disregard for consequences.?

For normal humans, the end of the day is full of last-minute strings to be tied up whether we feel like it or not. So is it any wonder that we can’t get to sleep at a reasonable hour, and even when we lay down, our minds run through all the things we didn’t complete? Not so much. One of my favorite authors, Michael Hyatt, calls this ‘life in the whirlwind,’ which I think is apt. Michael Hyatt taught me the power of the shutdown ritual, which helped me improve my sleep hygiene.?

“What is sleep hygiene?” might be the question you are now asking. Sleep hygiene is all about good practices you can follow to create the ideal conditions for a quality night’s rest. This is all about setting up a routine or ritual that allows me to ignore specific tasks because I know that I will get to them on a different day.?

That knowledge also allows my mind to view it differently as I will get to it vs. remembering to get to it. You already have a ritual at night, but they are not intentional or optimized. What should be included in your evening shutdown ritual? Generally, all the tasks that need to be done at night with some time for specific tasks like taking the garbage out on Monday. Here is an example of a nightly shut down:

Cook dinner 5:15-5:45

Dinner 5:45-6:15

Dinner Clean up/Pack lunches for next day 6:15-6:40

Bath/Shower 6:40-6-55?

Read with kids 6:55-7:15?

Pick out clothes for next day/ pack workout clothes 7:15-7:20

Tell kids goodnight & set up audiobook 7:20-7:30

Prep dinner for tomorrow & clean up rest of kitchen 7:30-8:00

Go through kids folders from school 8:00-8:10?

Put away ten items of laundry & spray pillow with lavender linen spray 8:10-8:20?

____ specific day task 8:20-8:40?

Wash face/brush teeth etc. 8:40-9:00

Sleep meditation 9:00-9:10

The goal is not that your ritual looks exactly like this but that you own the process of shutting down nightly. Notice that I didn’t put in any TV or social media gazing on the schedule. I did this mainly as the blue light from both activities will keep your brain alert and keep you from falling asleep. Keeping screen use to a minimum, at least an hour before bed, is essential for sound sleep. Besides the blue light disrupting your brain’s ability to shut down, videos, work emails, and social feeds all conspire to keep your mind active — and keep you awake way later than you should be. Schedule your TV or social media time so that you get out of the habit of just scrolling through Facebook whenever you have two free minutes. Use the digital wellness app that comes pre-installed on your phone or install one for yourself.?

Your rituals will hold you when your willpower gives way. I am human like everyone, and I know in my bones that I need a ritual to do what I need to for my body. I know everything I should do, just like most healthcare providers but doing them is no easier than it is for anyone else. I am not 100% successful every day, but I no longer live day to day dealing with what life has thrown at me. I have tamed my whirlwind to the best of my abilities, and that gives me the mental capacity to deal with the unexpected better than I did in the past. I want extraordinary days that come from doing something common in an uncommon way.?

Action steps: Create a shutdown ritual on a piece of paper and put it on your fridge and your mirror. Leave space for editing because you will need to add or take out things. Get all the people in your house on board. When kids have a bedtime routine, they can better focus in school and control their emotions just like adults.

https://renegadewellness.substack.com/p/the-reasons-that-a-routine-at-the

Take a Sunday and Forget the Hustle

“Wake up before everybody and work into the night. Hustle.” Gary Vaynerchuk

I remember coming out of grad school with this exact thought process. After all, that is what I did in grad school living apart from my husband for basically two years and then working for free for a year while paying college tuition. Clinicals. I went from clinical rotations, taking my boards a couple of months before graduating, to working my first full-time professional job. I signed up for a two-year fellowship program, moved to a different state, got a new job, and got pregnant with my first kiddo within 18 months of graduating. I was hustling to move from novice to expert in my field. I was hustling to work full time to pay down loans and make fun trips possible while having kids. It was all going great until it wasn’t because of what the hustle fallacy gets wrong—the importance of rest.?

I used to treat rest like a four-letter word. But there is wisdom in taking a Sunday. Despite having gone to church for the majority of my life, I never understood the importance of the Sabbath. If this is an unfamiliar term to you, Sabbath is a day of abstinence from work, kept by the Jewish people. It was not until I hit a wall two years into my fellowship and failed a specialist board for the second time that I started to take rest more seriously. This life failure was because you can only go on fumes for so long. It was rare for you to find me sitting and just enjoying something because there was always something to get done. The life I have chosen continues to provide me with a never-ending to-do list, but now I take a day to mentally build myself up for the following six days to come. We must realize that we are not machines and rest is not a weakness.?

What does it mean to take a Sabbath? It is about a time for mental renewal. It takes a day to build up my mental reserves, which are drained by my work, family, and the day-to-day actions that it takes to keep a house running. It doesn't mean I sit on the couch all day binging on a show because that doesn't help build up my mental reserve for the coming week. When I try to select some of my activities for my Sabbath, it is all about what helps me destress the coming week. I see my Sundays as my mental health mindfulness day. For me, a typical Sunday is baking, a 15-minute meditation, church, and doing a weekly preview before dinner as the day winds down.?

My weekly preview is where I map out my week, so I can destress any days where it looks like there will be lots of activities or projects due. The weekly preview is something that Micheal Hyatt utilizes in his Full Focus Planner. While I am not the best at using the rest of his planner, I love using the Weekly Preview. I am much better at letting my spouse know what days I need him to be primary for dinner or with kid pick up. While doing a weekly preview might not sound like something that would build me up, it is very soothing for my mind. Knowing I have a plan for my week allows me to go to sleep faster on Sunday night.?

Your Sabbath could look very different from mine, and that is great because that means you are looking at your life and doing what you need to build up your mental reserve for the week. The biggest problem is moving from living your life in the whirlwind where you are constantly hit by things flying at you to taking at least one day out to build yourself up. Life will never be perfectly balanced. However, you can feel mentally calm in the storm or come unhinged where you take out your stress on those you love the most.

Does taking a Sabbath sound great, but you are not sure how to make it happen? Try anticipating your regret if you don’t follow through on getting the rest you need for the next several years. When we think about how bad we will feel if we don’t change, we can use that negative emotion to improve our actions now. Why do I believe that? Science. Over the past 15 years, more and more studies have been published around the idea of how anticipating regret can influence our behaviors. Anticipating your regret helps you to get to your why. There is a root reason why we want to change, and when you can harness that, it makes it easier to stay on the path you want. Those root reasons are not what a doctor or research study would probably give you. They are the emotional reasons that connect with the story of you. Give anticipating your regret a try and start your journey to taking your own Sabbath.?

Action Step: Get out pen and paper. Write down why you will regret not taking a Sabbath. Next, write down the activities that mentally relax you and help you destress for the week to come. Copy this paper and put it in a few places around your house, such as your mirror and fridge, to help keep yourself accountable. You could also ask a friend to help you stay accountable, and maybe you can get them to join you in taking a Sabbath.

Crafting An Ideal Week: no week is perfect, but it can be ideal

We are prone to gravitate toward not putting much thought into how each day of our week runs outside of the general. Get up, get dressed, get the crying kids too tired to be up dressed, and get to work. We attempt to get everything on the to-do list checked off. We attempt to make the household run well. We attempt to have dinners ready at 6:00 with veggies on the plate. However, it often feels like a frantic scramble repeatedly occurring as we skid into each box to be checked off.?

We are living life where tasks run us instead of planning the best time for those tasks to occur. We are living life in the whirlwind. Life in the whirlwind is not horrible, but it can make you feel anxious because of all the things that need to get done and no clear route. Often when I was in ballet class, I would study the others who had a higher level skill down. I would watch how they moved so I could make my body move like theirs and perfect that skill, too—watching the people who live their lives outside the whirlwind can also teach us how and what to change so that we can move from frenzied to controlled.

Who are the people you look at and know they are doing life on purpose? They are the people that seem to get those big things done. They seem to live their lives outside of the whirlwind of the craziness of life. They have time for self-reflection, work, and relaxation. They are almost like superheroes. And the truth is that they are heroes. They are the heroes of their own stories and their own mission because they plan how to get specific things done each week. They have an ideal week so their story can be written the way they want it to be written. Each hero on their mission knows how to manage their time, so they do not feel anxious and stay inspired to do the work that matters. In a word, they have discipline.

We all need discipline, but discipline sounds so boxed in without freedom of expression. However, discipline can allow you to live out your why because you made the time for it. Discipline in a weekly routine will focus us daily, so we don’t have to waste mental energy each day figuring it out. Without focus, TV, food, news, and social media are more than willing to occupy your time. They get money to keep you distracted. Their distractions mean you will not obtain what you want in this season of life or in the coming seasons. An ideal week is a framework for managing your priorities and your time, so you not only kick ass but kick back regularly for self-care, family, and work because you planned it like that.

As Miles Davis once said, “Timing isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” Crafting your ideal week will take thought and time. Daniel Pink’s When: The Scientific Secretes of Perfect Timing is a great guide for planning how to set up your ideal week so you can plan each day with purpose and intention. Pink gives mounds of research noting that morning is the best time to handle analytical tasks that require a logical, focused and disciplined mind for the vast majority of us. Tasks that require more abstract or “outside the box” thinking are best saved for the late afternoon. No matter who you are, try to schedule the mindless, busy work tasks during the afternoon trough, which is that bit right after lunch where the draw of caffeine is real.

Why is this? Your brain is best after rest, and the mental energy you have daily to spend is a real finite thing. It is best to use that mental energy on your highest return opportunity. Each workday morning, you have the opportunity to be distracted or to be disciplined. Your highest return opportunity is to dedicate the mornings to what will allow you to take those small steps towards a bigger goal. It is tempting to allow urgent distractions to take up your morning because we are all attracted to getting in that quick win. Calls to change insurance and replies to emails are all quick wins because they get things checked off your to-do list.?

Often it is easy to get sucked down a rabbit hole as you see other non-important tasks, and before you know it, an hour or two has passed. The return on investment for accomplishing tasks that don’t require thinking in the morning is low. We often don’t have the mental energy to do those tasks that require deep thinking later. When you allow your quick wins to dictate your morning, you are living a reactionary lifestyle where you are not in control of how your day runs.

Many gurus will tell you that happiness comes by living in the moment or being fully in the present. Being present for each activity is hard if you are letting those urgent distractions direct your day. Writing your own story where you are the hero requires that you have focus and discipline so that you can have those moments daily where you are fully present. If you are the hero of your own story, you know what you want and what you need to accomplish to solve the problem so you can rest at the end of the day instead of feeling frazzled. An ideal week can get you one step closer to grabbing those high-level opportunities and increasing your output without increasing your anxiety.

Action Step:

Grab a blank piece of paper and sketch out your ideal week. Include time for working on your highest level opportunity, self-care, and community. Like the template above? Click on this link to edit it for your Ideal Week. View it as a work in progress and don’t be afraid to make tweaks for the coming month.

Love the idea of discovering your hero path? Check out Donald Miller’s Hero on Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life

https://renegadewellness.substack.com/p/crafting-an-ideal-week-no-week-is