Sleeping to Live

Hi Byte Wellness Fam!

How are you feeling?

I feel ready and willing…to rest. In fact, that’s what we all talked about in the text thread and the #PhyteWellWednesday Workshop this week. You can watch the recording of the workshop below to see how we addressed the need for sleep and our complicated feelings around it.

Plus, if want invites to the weekly workshop (on Wednesdays at 7pmCT), text TEXT to 1(866)717-1919.

Discussion Question

Discussion Question:

  • Where does sleep fall on your list of wellness priorities? Why there?

Healing Equals Balance

This is the 5th week of our Wellness RESET challenge! Remember, this challenge is designed to help us recognize where our wellness superpowers lie and how to get the most out of them.

We’re doing all this because we were built to heal. Our bodies were designed with all the machinery needed to stop chronic conditions like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart attack and stroke in their tracks.

Chronic disease develops when there is a longstanding imbalance in our bodies and minds. Healing is simply about restoring balance.

Looking at the way we live everyday, you’d think we’ve forgotten what healing looks like. In American culture, anti-inflammatory living is what we desperately need to restore balance.

But our bodies have a deep memory. Our bodies still have the machinery needed to heal. They’re simply waiting for the right inputs. We need to give them the right inputs. Those are our wellness superpowers.

The way we eat, move, handle stress and sleep can:

  • either restore our balance by bringing us into a more anti-inflammatory state or

  • create more imbalance by boosting chronic inflammation in our bodies.

Why We Need Sleep

Last month, we covered stress-management as a form of anti-inflammatory living that heals.

This month, we’re unpacking sleep.

Here’s what the research shows us about the effects of short-term sleep loss (even losing just 2-4 hours of sleep for one night):

  • We need sleep to balance inflammation

    • Missing out on sleep boosts inflammation

  • We need sleep to balance our metabolism

    • Missing out on sleep boosts hunger hormones, slows metabolism and leads to unnecessary weight gain

  • We need sleep to balance our stress hormones

    • Missing sleep boosts cortisol (a stress hormone), which can spike blood pressure and blood sugar, leading to high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes

  • We need sleep to manage pain

    • Missing sleep increases our pain sensitivity, making it harder to get through everyday experiences without excruciating pain.

Why Can’t We Sleep?

Hopefully, that’s all the reason you need to justify prioritizing sleep. Some of us may have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep because of medical problems that haven’t been diagnosed.

We might have our sleep quality thwarted by sleep conditions (like sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, insomnia) and other types of conditions (like asthma or COPD, chronic pain, incontinence).

We can’t always identify what’s keeping us from getting quality sleep. That’s why it’s so important to consult your doctor for any ongoing sleep problems.

But, many of us don’t have a medical reason for missing sleep. Instead, we have ONE specific barrier: our mindset.

If you’re like me (shaking my head), the knowledge of how drastically our bodies veer off track when we don’t have adequate sleep might not be enough to get you to give in to sleep.

If we find ourselves trading sleep for work (either job or family responsibilities), we have a serious question to ask ourselves. It’s the same as the Discussion Question above: how important is sleep to me, really?

And that question extends into another important one: How important am I to me?

If I accept the fact that depriving myself of sleep will create imbalances in my body that can result in my harm, but I decide to deprive myself anyway…what does that say about how I feel about myself?

Do I value my productivity over my well-being?

Over the last few years, as news of police brutality and violence against Black women has become more prominent, we’ve seen the hashtag #ProtectBlackWomen circulating.

I use the phrase all the time. But, when it comes to the Black woman staring back at me in the mirror I don’t always honor it. If I’m willing to trade half of a night’s sleep in order to finish more work, am I really protecting myself?

In a Sojourner Truth-esque mood: Ain’t I worthy of protection?

Rest As Resistance

Over the last 6 months, I’ve had a change of heart (and habit). I’m finally prioritizing sleep. I’m finally silencing that voice that says (3 hours after my bedtime), just finish this one last project, then you can rest.

Ironically, what finally convinced me to stop skimping on sleep time wasn’t any medical fact- it was a social reality.

Seeing art from Tricia Hersey of the Nap Ministry and reading essays from Audre Lorde positioned rest as a form of political resistance.

Marginalizing systems (like racism, classism and patriarchy) were designed to see us work ourselves into the dirt… for scraps.

Getting high-quality sleep every night is yet another way to beat them. That, I can go for.

(Can you relate? Have you found a way to transform your thinking and allow yourself to sleep?)

I’ll leave you to ponder.


Happy Healthy Living,

Dr. Wuse

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