Author: Leah Santa CruzMarch 22, 2023Meditation CoachBy Leah Santa CruzMeditation CoachLeah Santa Cruz is an expert meditation coach with a background in neuroscience and psychology. She's the Co-Head of Meditation for the award-winning Balance app and the co-host of the Well Balanced podcast.Image by spacejoy / unsplashMarch 22, 2023Our sleep series, The Wind Down, provides a minute-by-minute peek into the wind-down routines that get well-being experts ready for bed. Today, we're relaxing with Leah Santa Cruz, a meditation coach and new mom who is finding ways to embrace nights of interrupted rest.Advertisement
This ad is displayed using third party content and we do not control its accessibility features.When I was a child, falling asleep was a challenge for me. So I instinctively began to relax my jaw, perform a body scan meditation, and imagine positive symbols. Every time, I'd drift into sleep within minutes, successfully curing my insomnia. But as I entered my 20s, I'd often pull all-nighters for work and school, leading to burnout and adrenal fatigue. After that, I began to value sleep more and learned I need at least eight hours to feel my best. For me, this is easiest when I exercise regularly and check in with my mood each day during my meditation, allowing me to process and release the thoughts and worries that might keep me up at night. Meditation also helps me release physical tension—a prerequisite for deeper sleep.
When I became a mother, waking up at night to tend to my baby became inevitable. At first, I dreaded these wake-ups, but resisting my reality only led to anxiety, thus more difficulty relaxing and sleeping. A vicious cycle. So I learned to shift my perspective and view my sleep as shifts or naps instead. One way I released the attitude of anxiety was learning that for millennia, our ancestors actually slept in two shifts, once in the evening and again in the early morning, with a one- to three-hour wake period during the night. From our prehistoric ancestors all the way until the industrial revolution, "double sleeping" was the norm! When artificial lighting was introduced, we stayed up late but still had to wake up early, leading to truncated sleep that shifted our circadian rhythms and sleep practices.
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Shop nowNow we think of a solid night's sleep as one continuous shift, but back in 1992, a sleep study showed that our hormones and circadian rhythms will adjust back to a double-sleep pattern when we're deprived of artificial lighting for several weeks. This helped me see that my biological rhythms could adapt to being a new mother and that by dimming the lighting in my home at sundown and limiting my screen time, I can still get all the sleep I need—even with the baby wakings. This relaxed mindset, along with good sleep hygiene and a meditation practice, allow me to fall back asleep easily.
When my son is older and sleeping "through the night," I'll again enjoy the luxury of uninterrupted sleep. But in the meantime, I know the most important thing I need to feel energized and present for the people I care for during the day is having a positive and accepting attitude toward my sleep at night. I also give myself permission to be human. I'm not always going to do things perfectly, and there's going to be an occasional night when I don't get great rest because I stayed up too late watching a movie with my husband after my son fell asleep, but I find that every trade-off still leads to something beautiful.
- Average hours I sleep a night: 8-9 hours, in multiple sleep shifts
- Ideal bedtime: 9 p.m.
- Ideal wake-up time: 6:30 a.m.
- Nightstand essentials: A glass of water, an old-school alarm clock (I keep my phone in the living room at night), and my memory foam pillow with silk cover (I even travel with it)
- Favorite place I've ever slept: My grandmother's house growing up. She had the softest pillow-top bed
