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Getting good sleep isn’t just about hitting the sack at a reasonable hour—it’s about creating a cozy, calming environment that helps your body and mind relax. That’s where these bedtime essentials come in.
Table of Contents
What are Bedtime Essentials?
Think of these essentials as tools that can improve your sleep hygiene (the little habits that set you up for restful, dreamy nights!) I’m sharing my go-to list of sleep essentials to help you turn your bedroom into a peaceful retreat and finally wake up feeling refreshed!
If you listened to the podcast episodes where I talk about sleep and the sleep challenge I took to help revamp my entire sleep routine, you’ll recognize some of the items below as my go-to sleep tools!
If you missed the episodes you can check them out here:
I didn’t think I would like having something over my eyes while I was sleeping but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly this helped me relax and drift off to sleep!
These were really helpful for listening to music and audio books as I was falling asleep. Because they are bluetooth, I don’t need to have my phone handy to control it, which is great because part of my sleep strategy involved keeping my phone across the room so I wouldn’t be tempted to pick it up and doomscroll until the wee hours of the night. As soon as I started to feel my eyes closing I could switch off the headphones and take them off without getting out of bed.
Keeping the lights dim in the evening and being able to turn it off after reading without getting out of bed was a big part of helping me wind down and ease into sleep. Having a nightstand lamp I could reach over and switch off was a big plus!
My goal was to stay off my phone and computer in the evening, but sometimes I’d have to be on a little bit later than I’d have preferred. It was good to know that using these glasses could help ensure that the device’s blue light wouldn’t be interfering with my sleep schedule!
I’m a light sleeper and I find that any noises in the house can easily interrupt my sleep. I started to use a noise machine at night to block out the night time sounds that might be made by anyone else living in my house, including my 2 cats, my dog, and my 9-year old!
A comfortable mattress is a must-have for a good night’s sleep, but those things are expensive! Adding a topper is an easy and inexpensive way to take your bedtime comfort up a notch without breaking the bank.
Using this blanket was like being lulled to sleep by a giant hug. I love the feeling of cozy compression and this has become a regular part of my bedtime routine. The right weighted blanket for you will be based on your size, so be sure to read the product description to make sure you order the right one.
If you tried the white noise machine and it wasn’t blocking out enough sound for you – maybe you have a spouse that snores, or inconsiderate neighbors – using comfortable ear plugs can help minimize those potential sleep disruptions.
I love having nice soothing cup of decaffeinated herbal tea before bed. My favorite is chamomile but I like some variety here and there, so I always keep a sampler box on hand so I can switch it up! Make sure you choose tea that is CAFFEINE-FREE so it doesn’t interfere with your sleep cycles!
Sleeping better doesn’t have to be complicated! It’s about having the right tools to support a peaceful night’s rest and creating simple habits that help you wind down at the end of the day.
Whether you start small or go all in, these essentials can make a big difference! Try incorporating a few of these favorites into your sleep space and see what works best for you.
Even though I love being active, and I know there are countless benefits to staying active as I get older, I have to admit that I don’t always *feel like* getting up and running or lifting weights.
Pre-pandemic I had a regular schedule of dropping my son off at preschool and then meeting a friend at the gym 3 or 4 days a week. I did this for so long, I assumed my workout habit was so solid that there wasn’t much that could knock me off track.
Like many of us, my routine unraveled when everything shut down — and since then, rebuilding it has taken more intention and creativity than I expected. That’s actually how I stumbled onto something surprisingly helpful (and kind of fun): apps that pay me to work out.
Yes, really — there are apps that pay me to work out! And they’ve given me that much-needed boost when my internal motivation takes a nap.
Staying Active with Apps that Pay Me to Work Out
Even though I genuinely like to exercise — and fully understand the benefits of movement, especially as I move through midlife — that doesn’t mean I always feel motivated to lace up my sneakers or pick up a dumbbell.
Truth is, getting started is often the hardest part. Once I’m moving, I usually enjoy it, and I’m almost always glad I showed up.
But that initial push? It can feel like climbing a mountain.
… ok, think back to March 2020.
Gyms were closed for at least 2 months. Our gym opened back up as soon as they were able to when quarantine was lifted. I was anxious to get back to “normal” ASAP but found I wasn’t comfortable working out with a mask on at the gyms.
We decided to take the money we would have spent on renewing our gym membership for another year and we set up a home gym instead
You can even see my Perfect Sit-upthing-a-majiggy. They don’t make this model anymore (not sure if that’s a bad sign?) but I actually love this thing because it puts your body in the perfect position to reduce head and neck strain while doing crunches.
I was pretty confident that having a full gym conveniently located in my house would mean we’d be working out all. the. time. and back in our routine of regular activity.
Nope.
Despite it being super convenient to walk down the hall and workout whenever I felt like it, I had a hard time getting it into a regular routine with it.
Once I was in the workout room and got started, I had no problem doing a workout. It was the inertia of getting myself in there and working out that was a big struggle.
I tried all kinds of rewards and motivational tricks to get myself into a regular routine using my home equipment but I couldn’t do it consistently.
I couldn’t understand it since I enjoyed working out, it was ridiculously convenient, and I had plenty of equipment to keep my workouts interesting.
What I realized was that my fitness habit hadn’t been as solid as I thought. After the quarantine hiatus, I was struggling to get back into the same routine I’d had prior to COVID.
I realized that the missing ingredient wasn’t the convenience, or the assortment of available equipment, but it was the accountability and my workout partner that I’d meet there a few times a week.
It wasn’t enough for me to want to work out, I actually needed someone to SEE me and be part of my workout program with me in order for me to actually do it. (I learned recently that the term for this is ‘body doubling’ and it’s a very common strategy used by people with ADHD to complete tasks.)
The First Step (LOL) to Overcoming My Workout Inertia
What finally helped me become more active on a daily basis was joining my first StepBet. Before this I had no idea that making money from exercise was even a thing.
Now, in case you’venever heard of it,StepBet is an app that offers paid challenges with the possibility of earning the entry fee back if you reach the daily and weekly personalized step goals, which are based on your own activity tracker history, until the end of the challenge.
As soon as there was some kind of visibility of my workouts and public accountability for reaching my daily step goal, I had a much easier time getting back into a regular activity habit.
I started joining multiple bets at one time, figuring if I was doing the work for one challenge anyway, I could be winning other challenges simultaneously and tripling my earnings.
Then I thought, if I was already moving, but maxed out on how many StepBets I could participate in at one time, I should find some other apps to earn rewards for the activity I was already doing.
Most Effective Apps Have the Following Features
I tried a LOT of apps. After some trial and error I learned that certain features were more effective than others to motivate me to move. What worked best for the apps that got me up and kept me moving had the following features:
Gamification
These apps celebrate consistent activity with awards, badges , or points when I keep my movement streak going.
Cash and Gift Card Rewards
These are the apps that award points for activity and then give you the option to cash them in for actual cash or e-gift cards.
Loss aversion
The fact that I’d put up some cash (even a small amount!) and I’d only get it back if I met my goal was a surprisingly good motivator. I was surprised how much I was willing to exert myself to NOT lose $10!
Public accountability and activity visibility
Even if it’s just strangers, knowing that someone somewhere was “competing” with me in these challenges got me up and moving
5 Fitness and challenge apps that pay me to work out:
#1 – Evidation
Evidation is a health data collection app that rewards members for tracking their activity through a wearable device and participating in health research studies.
When you join Evidation, you can earn points for tracking actions like walking, sleeping, taking surveys, reading health-related articles, and participating in health programs and research. You can redeem your points for cash or donate to the charity of your choice.
Once you’ve accumulated 10,000 points you can cash in for a $10 reward. I sync the app with my Apple Watch and it tracks my steps and my workouts.
Between my activity points and the points awarded for answering short surveys and reading articles, I usually accumulate enough points to earn my $10 reward in 3 to 4 months.
Out of all of the apps that pay me to work out, this one is the easiest (and cheapest!) to use.
The Reward:$10 every 10,000 points 3 or 4 times per year
This app also awards points for tracking your activity. When I first joined Paceline in 2022, I would earn a $1 Amazon gift card for completing 150 minutes of activity per week.
There was also an option to save up your points and cash in for a higher value gift card at other places, like Starbucks, or redeem them for discounts on the health and wellness products available in the Paceline Marketplace.
It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was $52 a year to spend on Amazon, which I was going to do anyway.
In 2023 they changed their points and rewards program. Now they award 400 “Pacepoints” if you complete 50 minutes of activity per week, 800 additional “Pacepoints” if you complete 150 minutes of activity per week, and 300 bonus “Pacepoints” if you complete 300 minutes of activity each week. This means the maximum number of points you can earn in one week is 1500 points.
Sadly, they got rid of the $1 Amazon giftcard, and replaced it with a Marketplace where you can cash in your Pacepoints on things like charitable donations, a two month free trial to Barry’s X, mystery gifts, and gift cards.
The gift card options are limited… you can get a $5 Starbucks giftcard for 24,000 points, a $5 Adidas gift card for 24,000 points, or an $8 Spafinder giftcard for 35,000 points.
Do some quick math, you can see this wasn’t a change for the better. I used to be able to earn $52 in Amazon giftcards each year. Now it takes me 16 weeks to earn a $5 giftcard to Starbucks.
Pacepoints expire 24 weeks after the calendar week in which you earned them. Because the app is synced to my watch, I automatically earn these points each week without having to manually track anything, otherwise I probably wouldn’t bother.
[UPDATE 2025: They’ve since updated their rewards program and you can no longer cash in your Pacepoints for the Starbucks giftcard. I still use this app but of all of the apps that pay me to work out, this one offers the least incentive.
The Reward I choose:a $5 Starbucks GC every 4 months.
GOLD – you’re eligible for this level if you spend at least $500 at DSG per year or if you are an active ScoreRewards credit card holder)
ScoreRewards – eligibility is dependent on being a ScoreRewards Credit Card Member
You’ll receive a $10 DSG store credit when you earn 300 points.
On the free tier (SCORECARD), you can earn up 3 points per day (per ScoreCard account) by syncing your wearable tracker with the app and doing any one of the following in one calendar day:
Reach at least 10,000 steps
Complete at least 3 miles
Complete at least 30 minutes of fitness activity
Out of all of the apps that pay me to work out, this one is the easiest (and cheapest!) to use.
I can usually accrue the 300 points for the $10 reward in about 100 days.
This is the app that started it all for me. This app only has games based on step count. The games vary in intensity and duration. The platform creates simple, personalized StepBet workout routines based on your fitness tracker data, encouraging you to meet weekly step goals. If you stay consistent, you earn a share of the prize pool — a fun way to stay accountable and earn real rewards for moving your body.
StepBet has a community feature that allows you to post comments during the bets and cheer each other on. Even though this app is only tracking steps.
Some games give out awards at the end for the member who invited the most players to participate or the member who provided the most support to the community. Some games have drawings at the end for health and fitness related items such as a pair of walking shoes.
StepBet membership is $59.99 per year and allows members to play up to 3 games at once and provides access to exclusive member-only games with prizes and unique challenges.
Because the Step Goals in each challenge are based on my own step history, the goals are within the range that I feel comfortable walking on a daily basis. Most games include a Power Day, which is when the daily step goal is about 20% higher than a normal Active Step day.
What does become an issue is that the longer you do these StepBets, the more your Step goals increase with each game. I found it necessary to take breaks every 6 or 7 games or so in order for my average daily step count to drop down to a level that was realistic with my schedule. I usually join the 3-week/$10 bet games and the winnings are usually between $12 and $15 per game, which is a 20-50% return on my investment.
The Reward: I can earn anywhere from $6 to $20 per month when I’m actively participating in games.
From the same folks that offer StepBet, this app offers a much wider variety of games focused on different areas of health such as nutrition and mindset, not just fitness. Games include activities such as running, drinking water, reading books, eating fruits and vegetables, meditating, and strength training.
I don’t love that this app mentions weight loss as a way to promote better health, BUT I will give them credit for branching out beyond DietBets, where they only use the scale to measure progress. It’s several steps in the right direction and I’m hopeful that they’ll continue to shift their focus away from weight as a measure of progress.
What I like most about this app is that they offer a wider variety of games, and they games can be quick and cheap. For example, I can participate in a 2-week game for as little as $10.
How it works:
For each game, the participants’ entry fees go into one big pot.
If you lose the game by failing to meet the requirements for the duration of the game, your money stays in the pot.
If you win the game by meeting all of the game’s criteria you’ll get your money back PLUS your share of the pot left over by the participants who lost the game.
So if I win my game, I not only get my initial investment of $10 back, but I also win a share of the entry fees that were forfeited by participants that lost the game.
Game duration can be from 2 to 8 weeks and cost anywhere from $10 to $100. Personally, I prefer the $10/2 week games because of the quick turnaround.
It does require a 6-month membership fee of $68.99. Members can participate in up to 10 games at a time.
The Reward:My $10 games have ended with anywhere between a $12 – $16 payout and my most recent $25 game had a $32 payout.
Even though I love being active, I’ve come to accept that a little external motivation goes a long way to get me moving. Finding these fitness apps that pay me to work out provide that extra nudge I need to stay consistent.
If you’re like me and looking for that push to get you out the door, on a walk, or in the gym, consider giving these apps a try.
Here’s to staying active, staying motivated, and collecting those points (and cash!) along the way!
This week’s featured Self Care Superheroes are all sleep-related, since May is Better Sleep Awareness Month! I recently released 2 podcast episodes talking about the 30-Day Better Sleep Challenge that I did at the end of 2023 to help me fix my terrible sleep habits!
In the first episode I let you listen in on my Better Sleep Strategy Session with Sleep Coach, Christine Meyer. This is where she helped me put together a plan to improve my sleep habits in 30 days. You can check that out HERE.
In the second episode I reconnect with Christine to share my Better Sleep Challenge results, and what I took away from this experience. You can check that out HERE.
If you’re like me (before the Challenge!) and you’re struggling with getting enough sleep, falling asleep, or staying asleep – check out these sleep-related Self Care Superheroes:
Weighted Blanket
This is my SUPERSTAR Superhero when it comes to sleep. If I could only use ONE of my sleep accessories, it would be this one!
The cozy compression of this blanket is probably the #1 reason my sleep debt is down and the quality of my sleep has vastly improved!
If it hadn’t been for my Apple Watch, I probably wouldn’t have even realized my sleep (or lack thereof!) was the issue.
Even now that I feel a lot better about my sleep habits and sleep quality, I still use my watch to track my sleep and look at the Health app on my phone to see how much time I spend in each sleep phase and how often I wake up during the night.
This is a new feature on RWR! Each week I’m sharing the 3 things I’m using that are saving my life. (Not literally. but almost.)
Each item I’m sharing is making my life easier today – or for future Laurie! It’s somehow saving me time, energy, money, stress, or irritation.
Here’s what is saving my life this week:
InfinitiPro Curling Iron
I would go straight to messy bun just to avoid having to style my flat, straight hair when I leave the house. I would love to be one of those people who look put together in public, but I’m not sure it’s ever gonna happen. This might be as close as I get and I’m ok with that.
How it’s different from the 47 other curling irons I’ve purchased, hoping they’d make me want to look like I tried:
• It’s FAST: It takes me no more than 10 minutes, start to finish, to add waves to my whole head.
• It’s DUMMY-PROOF: It does all the work. You just put a section of hair through the plastic guard and it winds the hair automatically and beeps to tell you to remove it.
• It’s BURN-MYSELF-PROOF: that plastic guard covers the hot part of the iron, so I can’t accidentally burn myself using it.
Don’t laugh, ok, but I love these things. You literally just STEP IN to them. No hands! No bending down to pull them on or tie them! Plus they are super comfortable, I wear them to walk my dog twice a day and to run errands and whatnot.
Now I’ve seen people saying that these shoes are only for people with mobility issues who literally cannot bend down to tie their shoes… and lazy people (or that shoes like this are making us lazy? I forget.)
No. These shoes are for anyone who needs ONE LESS OBSTACLE to help them get out the door because they already don’t want to leave the house, but it’s necessary and they just want the process to be that much easier.
For the record, I am able-bodied, I can reach my shoe laces, and I can tie them.
If you listened to my podcast episodes about my sleep challenge, then you already know why I love these so much. They are a great alternative for those of us who want to wear headphones but earbuds are not a great option. I can wear these to bed without bothering my husband with my music. If I wake up in the middle of the night I can put them on and listen to a meditation or music.
I’ve found that I also like to use them to listen to audiobooks while I walk my dog, and because they are over my ear, I can still hear what’s going on around me – like cars, other dogs, etc.
I’ve also started using them for running, but the ones I have are a bit thick and not breathable, so I’ll probably get another pair just for running in a lighter material.
In this episode, I’m letting you listen in on a private sleep strategy session that I did with a sleep coach to prepare for an upcoming 30-day sleep challenge. I was struggling with chronic exhaustion because I had garbage bedtime habits and I needed to do something to turn it around. I decided to embark…
Key Takeaways:
Consistency is key when it comes to establishing a healthy sleep routine. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day can help regulate the body’s internal clock and improve sleep quality.
Creating a relaxing sleep environment is crucial for promoting restful sleep. This includes decluttering the bedroom, using aromatherapy, and minimizing noise disturbances.
Managing stress throughout the day can significantly impact sleep quality. Incorporating relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation, and deep breathing exercises can help reduce stress and promote better sleep.
If you’re unable to fall back asleep after waking up in the middle of the night, get out of bed and engage in a relaxing activity until you’re feeling sleepy again. This can help prevent you from associating the bed with being awake and promote better sleep efficiency.
Doing a brain dump before bed can help clear the mind and reduce racing thoughts that may interfere with falling asleep. Writing down tasks and concerns can provide a sense of relief and allow for a more restful sleep.
Quotes:
“If you’re not sleeping, you can’t do anything else. It just trickles down into everything.”
“I need to be more consistent and more intentional about what I’m doing during the day and in the evening to get better sleep.”
“Creating a relaxing sleep environment and establishing a consistent sleep routine are key factors in improving sleep quality.”
Resources Mentioned:
About Christine:
Christine Meyer is an Ace Certified Health Coach, Certified Health Education Specialist, and a Licensed Physical Therapist Assistant. She has over 14 years of experience in the health and wellness field and helps mid-life women go from foggy to focused, by helping them restore their restful sleep. Her coaching focuses on lifestyle changes, which includes stress management and time management skills. She is a wife, mom, and new Grandma and resides in Southern California.
0:00:00 – I don’t think there are enough people who talk about the importance of sleep. You know, people will do like nutrition or workouts and stuff like that, but it’s like if you’re not sleeping, you can’t do anything else. I mean, it just trickles down into everything. 0:00:13 – (Laurie): I’m Laurie Mallon, and this is the results without Restriction podcast, the show where results have nothing to do with weight and everything to do with setting and reaching health and fitness goals that focus on what we’re achieving and not what we’re doing losing. We’ll talk about deprogramming from diet culture and get expert advice on reclaiming your relationship with food and movement. Join me on this journey to get results without restriction.
Welcome, everyone. Today’s episode is a little bit different. It’s part one of a two part episode where I’m sharing my experience participating in a 30 day sleep challenge that I recently completed with the help of sleep sleep health coach Christine Meyer. Now, you may remember that Christine Meyer was previously a guest on the show. If you listen to that episode, you’ll hear me admit to Christine that my personal sleep habits are not that great. They finally caught up with me a few months ago.
I found myself chronically exhausted, and it was having a negative impact on pretty much every area of my life. So I reconnected with Christine and she agreed to help me with my 30 day sleep challenge. The 30 day challenge started with Christine and I meeting virtually for a better sleep strategy session so that she could understand my current sleep situation and struggles. Then she sent me a restful roadmap, which was a summary of our call and printable action plan for me to use during the 30 days of the challenge.
This episode is a recording of our strategy session. In the next episode, I’ll be recapping my challenge experience and reviewing my results with Christine, so be sure to check out that episode after you listen to this one. So now have a listen in on my virtual sleep strategy session with health coach Christine Meyer.
[Beginning of the Consultation Recording] 0:02:02 – (Christine): Welcome. Basically, what we’re going to do is talk about your sleep habits. You know, what’s going well, what are you struggling with? And at the end of the session, we will decide together four action steps that you can start implementing over the next 30 days to help you with your sleep, and then I’ll be sending you everything we discussed and the goals that you’re going to be working on. Tell me what’s motivated you to seek help with your sleep. 0:02:27 – (Laurie): I’m so tired, christine. I’m tired all the time. I was at the point where I was just so tired all the time, and I was like, oh, my God, I’m dying. Like, something has to be seriously wrong with me because why do I feel like this all the time? And then I got an apple Watch, and I started wearing it to bed, and my watch was like, oh, by the way, you have a double digit sleep jet. And I was like, well, shoot, I had no idea my sleep was. Was that bad. Like, I know sometimes I stay up a little bit late or sometimes I get up too early and it’s like, we have pets and I have a kid and, like, things interrupt my sleep. So I was like, I didn’t realize it was that bad.
So I was like, okay, I need to do something about this. And then we had our podcast, and I was like, I definitely want to do something about this. Did a few things, and I can see when I do these things, it gets better. When I don’t do these things, when I do my own thing, that debt climbs. And I’m like, what I need is a routine, a habit. I need a block of time that I dedicate to establishing really good, like, sleep hygiene or, like, a nighttime habit. Because I’m getting to the point that when that sleep debt is getting high, I’m just useless during the day. I’m just counting the hours until it’s socially acceptable for me to go to bed. 0:03:41 – (Laurie) Like “please let my son go to Bed soon so I can go to bed.” I need to be more consistent and more intentional about what I’m doing during the day and in the evening to get better sleep. 0:03:53 – (Christine): So when you’re doing the things you need to do, sleep is good. And you notice that when you don’t do the things you need to do, it’s not so good. What keeps you from that consistency of being in a routine? 0:04:04 – (Laurie): When I make the choice to go to bed early and I don’t have my phone at night and I get caught up, my sleep jet gets under 5 hours, I feel great. And I’m like, oh, I can stay up and watch tv with my husband or watch a movie after my son goes to bed or something, and it’s like, I can’t keep doing it because then my sleep debt climbs up, then I’m exhausted, and then we do the whole thing over again. So, yeah. 0:04:27 – (Christine): So you tracking your sleep debt kind of contributes to that pattern. It sounds like looking at the numbers and seeing what you’ve accumulated or if it’s going up or down, would that be right? 0:04:38 – (Laurie): I’ve made the observation that when that sleep debt goes down, how I feel, I feel a certain way. And when I feel that way, like. If I didn’t, if I saw the number and it said like four and I still felt like shit, I wouldn’t stay up. Like, I would be like, “oh, I really want to go to bed.” But it’s like I’m just having the Awareness of how I feel And when I feel good and I Have a lot of energy, then I start thinking I can stay up and party like I’m 46 again. 0:05:06 – (Christine): So it’s keeping those patterns in place even when you’re feeling good. But a preventive measure in a way, right. 0:05:12 – (Laurie): I want it to kind of just be a routine where I’m not, you know, maybe staying up and watching a movie is a once a week thing or it’s like a Friday night thing, but it’s not like a bunch of nights in a row until I feel like I just am exhausted again. 0:05:26 – (Christine): So there’s an inconsistent sleep schedule. Like you mentioned, you go to bed at eleven, but that sounds like that can vary quite a bit. 0:05:32 – (Laurie): It can vary. When I’m really tired, I’ll go to bed. Before my son even goes to bed, I’ll just say, “peace out, I’m going to bed. I’ll see you guys later.” My husband’s like, “bye, go to bed.” If I’m really tired, I put myself to bed. But then I’m like, two days later, I can be up at 11:30 doing whatever, watching a movie, doing stuff on the Internet, like scrolling facebook. 0:05:52 – (Christine): How does this affect your day to day life? All of the inconsistency and kind of the back and forth with that. 0:05:59 – (Laurie): It affects how I interact with my family. I’m not popular here because it affects my mood and I’m just cranky, snippy. I don’t have the energy for things that I’d like to be doing, which is getting back into running and lifting. The idea of working out when I’m too tired is just, I just can’t because I just want to sit on my couch and just go to bed. 0:06:21 – (Christine): Okay, so the sleep and the moodiness affects others in the, in the household there? 0:06:26 – (Laurie): Yes. 0:06:26 – (Christine): All right. And how long have you been experiencing this? 0:06:30 – (Laurie): Probably like, since COVID hit as a parent, I already had like, a certain level of, like, low grade chronic stress. But then with COVID and then, like, things going on in the world, like, it just kind of got worse and I found myself waking up a lot at night. So even if I went to bed early, I was still waking up randomly and 2 hours later I can’t get back to sleep. So it probably started around three years ago where it got bad. But if I’m honest, my sleep hasn’t been great basically since I had my son nine years ago. I just kind of accepted that’s, that’s where we are, so. 0:07:02 – (Christine): Okay, so I did review the questionnaire, obviously, so I’ve got a lot of that information from you. We’re going to, you know, dive in deeper into, into some of those areas, but definitely want to call out, you know, things that you’re doing that are helpful for sleep and. Sounds like you exercise on a pretty regular basis, would you say? 0:07:20 – (Laurie): Yeah, I walk the dog twice a day for half an hour whether I want to, and I’m like a zombie or not. That’s like the bare minimum. Sometimes I do other stuff, but it depends on my energy level. 0:07:30 – (Christine): Okay. But it sounds like you want to do more. And like you said with the like weight training, 0:07:35 – (Laurie): I want to get back into running now that it’s cooling off, but I’m just like. 0:07:38 – (Christine): Okay, alcohol sounds very infrequent. You said maybe once a week, if that I can be a sleep sabotager. Uh, for sure. Especially in the evening time. Sounds like you’re limiting caffeine to early afternoon. Or would you say on the days you’re tired you are drinking it later in the day? 0:07:55 – (Laurie) I try not to really just try to pay more attention. I used to have two cups of coffee early. Between like seven and ten would be like I’d have my coffee done and then I would have a soda between like around lunchtime. And then I would try to just do water or other drinks, non caffeinated or tea or something in the afternoon. But on the days that I was really tired, I would make the mistake of like, I’m like, hey, I really need to like pep up here a little bit, have a later cup of coffee again. That keeps me up later, and then we kind of start the cycle all over, so. 0:08:30 – (Christine): Right, gotcha. 0:08:31 -(Laurie): But for the most part, I try to keep it well before, like the after, like mid afternoon, so. 0:08:38 – (Christine): Okay. It doesn’t sound like you’re eating late at night. You said your last meal is about 6630 and it sounds like you’ve got some outlets for first stress management. Aside from the exercise you’d like to read, I think you said you connect with your friends. You did rate your stress at about a seven out of a ten. You said you manage it fair? Tell me more about that. 0:09:02 – (Laurie): I’m just always in a probably that, like, low grade level of I’m always thinking about stuff. It’s hard to shut my brain off. So I think that is kind of like what I’m referring to. Like that I’m always trying to remember stuff. Did I forget this? I also have ADHD, so that’s like my default. Always trying to keep track of the sticky notes in my mind. Constantly running through that loop of what did I forget? What do I need to remember? 0:09:27 – (Christine): When you say manage it fair, I. 0:09:30 – (Laurie): Feel like I could do a better job of actively trying to relax, like doing a little bit more to turn it off. I don’t really try to turn it off. I just wait till it. It wears down. 0:09:43 – (Christine): Right. 0:09:44 – (Laurie): And I just kind of don’t know. But if I was like, you know what? I’m going to shut the door on this. I’m going to focus on this. That’s not work related. It’s not news, it’s not. It’s not stressful. It’s like fun. It’s like some kind of activity or game or whatever. That’s just for the purpose of relaxing, reading my book or something like that. So getting better at that intentional flipping of the switch of my brain is now in this mode. 0:10:11 – (Christine): Right. There’s that difference between, you know, doing things to manage stress, but like you said, also just unplugging and doing things that are not stimulating the brain as much and slowing down there. So. Okay, so it sounds like you wake up in the middle of the night at least one or two times a week. 0:10:31 – (Laurie): Yeah, probably. Well, so I’m not great about drinking water. It’s one of my things I want to be better about, but I’m not great about remembering to do it during the day. So I’ll like, get to be like, 04:00, 05:00 and I’m like, oh, I need to drink my water. And then I’ll start drinking water. And I try to stop before 08:00 but I feel like I’ll wake up at least once to pee during the night. 0:10:54 – (Christine): And so how often does that happen? 0:10:56 – (Laurie): Probably almost every night. I also have pets. I have a dog who sleeps on my bed. That probably wakes me up because she hears the cats. They can’t be together as a dog will eat the cat. So she hears the cat, she wakes up, she Wakes me up. So sometimes that’s what wakes me up, too. 0:11:17 – (Christine): Gotcha. And your husband snores as well, is that right? 0:11:19 – (Laurie): He does. 0:11:22 – (Christine): All right. So we’ve got some noise there. How long does it take you to get back to sleep when you’re awake In the middle of the night? 0:11:27 – (Laurie): Sometimes it’s easy, and then other times I’ll lay there for, like, an hour and a half. 0:11:32 – (Christine): Okay. And what do you do to try to lull yourself back to sleep? 0:11:36 – (Laurie): Sometimes I count backwards from 100. Sometimes I just try to remember things that I’ve memorized in the past, just to not think about the things that I know are going to hype me up. So I try not to think about, like, work stuff or the state of the world or things like that. I’m just, like. I try to go to, like, boring routine, like ABCD, like, just things that are going to kind of bore me. 0:12:03 – (Christine): So it sounds like you’re from what I read in the questionnaire, your sleep can vary anywhere. You’re in bed maybe about seven and a half hours, but you’re sleeping maybe six to seven. What’s different on the nights that you’re getting less asleep? 0:12:15 – (Laurie): I fall asleep pretty easily. So if I’m not getting sleep, it’s either because I went to bed too late, I stayed up because I waited too long, and then I didn’t feel tired, or I’m waking up in the middle of the night, and then I can’t get back to sleep. Those are my two big things. But once I lay down, like, and I turn off the light and take off my glasses, I fall asleep pretty quickly. I don’t ever lay there going, oh, hey, I can’t sleep. But it’s just when I wake up a few hours later and I go pee and I’m like, oh, I’m awake. 0:12:46 – (Christine): Okay. And you read in bed before you go to sleep? Table lamp or overhead lights? 0:12:52 – (Laurie): It’s just a little table lamp. 0:12:53 – (Christine): Okay. In the evening time, you tend to have the lights on in the house? 0:12:58 – (Laurie): Yeah. 0:12:59 – (Christine): All right. And you wear, like, any blue light glasses at all when you’re reading? 0:13:03 – (Laurie): No. 0:13:04 – (Christine): Okay. And you have regular, like, led light bulbs in your. Your lamps? 0:13:10 – (Laurie): I assume so. 0:13:11 – (Christine): Okay. All right. So what’s worked well in the past, you said, is reading. And what else? When you get in a good routine, what’s. What’s that look like for you? 0:13:22 – (Laurie): Tea in the evening, like after dinner? Yoga. Nidra read my book, and then, you know, lights out. So that’s usually, like, a good. For me. That’s been helpful. 0:13:35 – (Christine): Okay. And what would it take for you to get back to that and stay consistent with it? 0:13:42 – (Laurie): I would have to set a boundary and say, this is the time I’m going to do this. This is what I’m going to be doing. You guys like people in my house. You do whatever you want. Don’t involve me. I’m busy. I’m going to be doing this. I’m doing my yoga, I’m going to read my book, and I’m going to bed, so. 0:13:58 – (Christine): Okay. And then you said you’ll still make space for, you know, having an occasional late night for the tv. 0:14:04 – (Laurie): Yeah. So, like, once a week on a weekend, I don’t have to get up early the next day for school or for work out. I can sleep in a little bit. 0:14:12 – (Christine): So, based on what we’ve discussed so far, like, what really stands out for you? Is there anything that kind of jumps out at you, aside from the routine? Anything that we discuss that you feel needs to be part of your action plan? 0:14:26 – (Laurie): My room could probably be a little bit more relaxing, a place I want to go. And it’s easy for me to relax. Like, there isn’t a pile of clothes in the corner. There’s a bunch of donation stuff sitting on top of my dresser, and, like, making that space relaxing. 0:14:44 – (Christine): All right, so room environment, routine. Anything else? 0:14:47 – (Laurie): I think I would like some, like, aromatherapy, something next to my bed that smells nice because I mentioned I have a dog. So sometimes I go in there and I’m like, hmm, kind of smells like dog in here. Doesn’t bother me, but I’m like, it could be better. 0:15:01 – (Christine): And that kind of goes in with the environment of the room. And your nighttime routine with would get, you know, could be infusing that. So anything else I think, too, what. 0:15:13 – (Laurie): Would also help me is kind of a brain dump before bed. Like, I want to make sure I do this tomorrow, or here’s what’s happening tomorrow. I know I need to do this, this and this, but just someplace where I can just kind of get it out and then it’s safe. I’m not relying on myself to remember it because. 0:15:33 – (Christine): Right. That’s what kind of stands out for me with a lot of, this is, like you said, stress management, having those relaxation moments where you’re just unplugging and not doing and even, you know, not even just in the evening time before bed, but maybe even taking some kind of a timeout during the day. A lot of times we’re go, go, go, go all day, and it’s like, okay, it’s time to relax at night. And it. It doesn’t always work that well because we’re kind of wound up. We’re in that mode. 0:16:02 – (Christine): So how do you feel about doing something during the day to, even if it’s just a very brief moment, to just kind of step back and do some kind of unplugging relaxation type of activity or exercise? You mentioned yoga, nidra, and actually, those can be very beneficial. Midday as well, because it helps you to kind of, you’re unplugging, relaxing, but at the same time being aware. And so that could be something again, you know, looking at things that are more unplugging, where you were just calming your body and your mind and just being, like, calm in that moment. 0:16:43 – (Christine): Yoga, nidra, a meditation, deep breathing. Just something where you’re just basically your mind and your body, you’re being still, if that makes sense. 0:16:52 – (Laurie): Okay. Yeah. I could do ten to 15 minutes restorative yoga in the afternoon, 15 minutes before I go to get them from school. I can just shut the computer off a little bit early and do that. 0:17:04 – (Christine): Yeah. Yeah. And again, it doesn’t have to be anything really long. You could be sitting in your chair doing, you know, neck stretches, time of thing, but just anything to just kind of be in that decompressing moment. Because if you think about everything we do from the moment we wake up, it’s going to. It’s going to go with us to bed at night. Learning to just decompress during the day as well so we’re not carrying it all into the evening time can really be helpful. 0:17:29 – (Christine): Taking those self care moments. 0:17:31 – (Laurie): Okay. I like that sometimes it’s just taking. 0:17:34 – (Christine): A few deep breaths, just closing your eyes and stopping what you’re doing when you notice you’re getting wound up. I call it a mental timeout. 0:17:40 – (Laurie): So I never get wound up. Christine. I’m holding my hand. 0:17:45 – (Christine): Some relaxation during the day, making the environment more relaxing, having that routine. And this is all going to help with your stress management and. Right. It’s all wound up together there. The other thing that stands out for me is, you know, not getting. Being able to go back to sleep at night. It’s fragmented. What do you feel about doing something like a breathing exercise, a body scan some way, again, to not keep the brain active. What a lot of people do is they’re thinking, I need to get back to sleep. And then your brain is still thinking, you know, and it’s more stressful. So maybe, again, doing some kind of relaxing activity. 0:18:27 – (Christine): It’s actually recommended. If you can’t get back to sleep after 20 minutes, you should get out of bed, go into another room where it’s quiet. And again, you could do those activities. It could maybe be reading under low light, but doing some kind of breathing, listening to relaxing music until you get sleepy again, and then go back to bed. Because what can happen is we start associating the bed with not sleeping. If we’re laying there tossing and turning so many times, you know, it can kind of start affecting you, you know, mentally, that you’re worried about not getting back to sleep. So basically, about 85% of the time that you’re in bed, you should be sleeping. 0:19:03 – (Christine): And when I looked at your, your numbers, you know, it kind of varied from like six to 7 hours. But sometimes your sleep efficiency is, you know, basically anywhere from 80% to 90%. I don’t like hyper focusing on numbers, but that’s just to kind of give you a, an understanding of what that is. So you’re in bed seven and a half hours, but maybe only sleeping six to seven and a half. And so it may seem counterproductive to get out of bed when you can’t sleep, but it actually can help with you, you know, sleeping more while you’re. 0:19:31 – (Laurie): Actually in the bed. You know, if not getting out of. 0:19:34 – (Christine): The bed is not an option for you, you could just focus more on relaxation type of activities. 0:19:40 – (Laurie): Can I get out of the bed? But like, go sit in a chair in the same room and like a meditation or something over there. You can try that. 0:19:47 – (Christine): Another option too, like I said, is, you know, do just kind of, if you’re going to stay in bed, is focus on just doing those relaxing type of activities. Just focus on relaxing versus focusing on trying to sleep. That would be my suggestion for that. And then with the noise, obviously we can’t change some of the environment around us. I don’t know if you’ve tried earplugs or anything like that to help you sleep at night. 0:20:10 – (Laurie): We have a sound machine that we run in the room. Seems to be helping. I find it comforting if I wake up and I hear my husband snoring, that can kind of keep me awake. But what I do then is I pretend it’s the dog snoring and then it doesn’t bother me. I had pugs for twelve years, so I always found that, like, it was very. A comforting sound to me. The other thing I meant to tell you is I have a weighted blanket and I have one of those weighted eye masks that I like to sleep, like, with on my head. 0:20:36 – (Christine): Okay, whatever works for you. So your top four tips would be to create that environment in your room with aromatherapy. And you said cleaning up clutter. 0:20:49 – (Laurie): Yes, it’s cluttered. 0:20:50 – (Christine): Okay. How else could it become more sleep conducive for you? 0:20:54 – (Laurie): I don’t think there’s really much else other than making it smell better and just knowing it’s cleaned up and tidy. 0:21:01 – (Christine): It’s true. I mean, there’s actually research to show that having a cluttered room can actually contribute to stress and sleep. Just, it’s a subconscious thing, but it’s, it’s a real thing. So that sounds like that’ll be very helpful for you. So sticking with your routine of the reading, the quiet time, yoga, nidra. Now, routine includes like a sleep schedule. You know what would be an ideal one for you? Not that it has to be rigid and set in stone seven days a week, but I. Ideally, what time should you be going to bed and then waking up? 0:21:35 -(Laurie): Ideally, I’d like to be trying to at least sleep seven and a half to 8 hours. We get up at 630. So if I’m asleep by 10:30 with no interruptions, ideal. However, I’m going to have at least one interruption during the night. So I kind of want to give myself, like, padding. So if I could be starting my routine by 9:15 and then in bed, turning off the light at 10:00 I think would give me that buffer, like that time to unwind and then falling asleep early enough that if I do have some kind of interruption, it’s not gonna throw me off my schedule too much. 0:22:13 – (Christine): Okay. And are you always waking up at the same time? 0:22:16 – (Laurie): Yes, except on weekends, not as much, but during the week, that’s our standard. Everybody gets up at 6:30. 0:22:23 – (Christine): Okay, so 9:15, start the wind down routine. Be in bed by ten. How confident do you feel that you can do that on a scale of one to 10, being most confident, I. 0:22:34 – (Laurie): Give it a nine. It’s a matter of just prioritizing it and making it, establishing the habits. 0:22:42 – (Christine): Okay. And then it sounds like the brain dump will be part of the nighttime routine then. 0:22:48 – (Laurie): Yes. 0:22:48 – (Christine): And you may, just might need to experiment with it. And it’s, it may change. You may find, well, I don’t like doing it this at this time. And nothing has to be really rigid, but it’s knowing that we have kind of like that menu options of things to do. And you just know this is your time for you to wind down. What do I feel like doing tonight type of a thing? It’s perfectly fine. Sounds like the brain dumps going to be definitely part of that for you. So you can, you know, keep the brain from thinking too much. You know, even if you wake up in the middle of the night, it can definitely help with that. And then during the day, finding some time for some kind of relaxation would be the third one. Right. 0:23:25 – (Christine): And then we’ve got if waking up in the middle of the night, maybe going and sitting in a chair, if you can’t get back to sleep after 20 minutes, you said maybe do a meditation. What do you think you might do during that time? 0:23:37 – (Laurie): I think. I think a meditation might be good. And then trying to go back to sleep. 0:23:42 – (Christine): Okay, so how does that sound to you? 0:23:45 – (Laurie): That sounds good. That sounds doable. It sounds like really simple, like things that I can implement. Right. Nothing or nothing here is like heavy lifting. 0:23:56 – (Christine): And it sounds like you’ve got good support from your husband. If you tell him he can help hold you accountable, you can feel not guilty about it. He’ll reap the benefits. 0:24:06 – (Laurie): That’s going to be his biggest motivation, that I’ll just be overall in a better mood and more agreeable. 0:24:12 – (Christine): So what I’m going to be sending you is a summary of the four suggestions here and the tips as far as you know what you can do. And then there will also be like a resource page for some apps for meditation and breathing, some of my YouTube breathing videos. Another one’s a website for managing stress. But is there anything else that you feel would be helpful? 0:24:36 – (Laurie): I think that would be good. What I’m afraid of is overloading going too much in the opposite of like now. You know, I have a few things to do, but I’m so anxious to solve this problem. I’m going to try to do too many things. So I kind of want to keep it the handful of things I’m going to do. 0:24:50 – (Christine): As far as the session today, how was that for you? 0:24:53 – (Laurie): Very good. It really helped to kind of verbalize and reinforce, you know, why it is that I want to do this. 0:25:00 – (Christine): Okay, good. I will give you our summary and everything. 0:25:04 – (Laurie): This is great. 0:25:04 – (Christine): Thank you, Christine. 0:25:05 – (Laurie): Okay, you’re welcome. See you later. 0:25:10 – (Laurie): Thanks for listening. And if you liked this episode, go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe so you’ll be notified when the next episode is live. Check out our show notes for this episode where you can find any of the links and resources that were mentioned during the show and connect with a health and wellness provider committed to helping you ditch diets and achieve results without restriction.
In this episode, I’m welcoming Teri Patterson (The Sober Nutritionist) back on the show to talk about Dry January, what it is, and how taking a mindful break from alcohol and approaching it with curiosity can lead to a new awareness about how alcohol is impacting your health and wellness.
Key Takeaways:
Growing Awareness: The awareness and participation in Dry January have significantly increased in recent years. In 2021, about 13% of Americans considered participating, while in 2022, this number rose to 35%, indicating a growing wellness conversation around mindful breaks from drinking.
Non-Alcoholic Beverage Industry: The rise of Dry January has led to an increase in non-alcoholic beverage options, with major companies introducing alcohol-free products to support the movement.
Mindful Break from Drinking: Dry January is not about depriving oneself but about taking a mindful break from alcohol. Shifting the mindset from deprivation to gaining new ways to honor the body is a more empowering approach.
Potential Benefits of Dry January:
Improved energy levels
Reduced anxiety
Better sleep
Less brain fog
Enhanced mood
Skip the goals, set Intentions: Instead of setting rigid goals, focus on setting intentions. Ask yourself why you want to participate in Dry January and how you want to feel at the end of the month.
Curiosity and Mindset: Approach Dry January with curiosity. Pay attention to any challenges, cravings, or shifts in mindset. Curiosity helps suspend judgment and fosters a more positive experience.
Common Dry January Misconceptions:
Some may see Dry January as a way to prove they don’t have a drinking problem. It’s essential to recognize that willpower alone may not lead to lasting change; tools and support are crucial.
That one must complete the full 31 days, or the effort is wasted. Each day offers valuable data points to guide the journey.
Benefits Beyond January: February 1st is not the end; it’s an opportunity to ease into the insights gained. Use journaling to reflect on the experience, revisit initial intentions, and design the post-January period intentionally.
Rediscovering Fun Sober: Challenge the myth that “sober is boring.” Reconnect with activities and experiences without relying on alcohol. Engage in hobbies, socialize, and find joy in the absence of alcohol.
Quotes:
“If sober is boring, you’re doing it wrong.”
“We have to ask ourselves, is that true? What happened when I was 10 and I was running around in the backyard playing with my friends and we were playing doorbell ditch and laughing and hoping we didn’t get caught or running through the sprinklers. Where is that person? That person is still inside of us.”
“February 1st is not the, you know, you don’t put the key in the lock and now I’m out of jail. Imagine February 1st as the time to just ease into the information that you’ve gained and allow yourself to say. Okay. Wow. That was really interesting.”
Teri Patterson is a Functional Nutritionist and a This Naked Mind Senior Coach. Teri blends her knowledge of nutrition with her passion for living an alcohol-free life into a unique business as The Sober Nutritionist.
Teri’s mission is to help her clients discover how drinking less can be the key to better health. Teri is also the host of the popular podcast The Sober Edge, Inspiration for Alcohol-Free Living and the creator of the brand-new SELF Experience, a place for women after alcohol who want to build a life by design, not by default.
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Laurie: Welcome, everyone. Today, Teri Patterson, also known as the Sober Nutritionist, is back on the show, and she’s here to chat with us about Dry January, what it is, and how taking a mindful break from alcohol and approaching it with curiosity can lead to a new awareness about how alcohol is showing up in your life and impacting your health and wellness.
Welcome, Teri.
Teri: It’s so nice to be here. I’m excited to be back on your podcast and having a conversation around dry January.
Laurie: You are like my expert on very compassionately examining our relationship with alcohol and what it means and how it shows up and looking at all the ways that it’s impacting the different areas of our life. So I’m excited to dig in with you as we’re coming up to January. And a lot of people will be participating in the Dry January. So I really want to get some information out there for people to help them participate successfully, however it looks for them. What we’re going to start with is in case anybody doesn’t know what is dry January and why it’s becoming more popular in recent years.
Teri: Yes, we see the roots of dry January actually from 2013 when a British organization called Alcohol Concern, they actually started a charitable fundraiser around taking a 30 day break from drinking alcohol. And the reason they picked January was of course, because traditionally people might want to make some healthy changes.
But the other interesting part is they did it because the pubs and the bars don’t get as much business during January. So they thought, Oh, this is a good time for people who aren’t necessarily going out to the pub so much. To take a mindful break from drinking. And so that’s really the roots of it. And it was done to help raise money.
And, uh, it’s been fascinating because the movement has grown since then. And now it is absolutely huge. And I was looking up some statistics because what we see in the United States, it’s really interesting in these last few years as awareness. around taking a mindful break from drinking has become more popular.
We see these dry January numbers just increasing exponentially. So in 2021, we had about 13 percent of the American populations say, yes, I’m considering, or I am going to participate in dry January. And in 2022, 35 percent of Americans said they wanted to participate. So you can see that the awareness, the wellness conversation around taking a break is really growing.
And to support that, we’re seeing a lot of companies jumping into the non alcoholic beverage industry, seeing big names now like Heineken Zero, for example. Everyone is coming out with their own version of an alcohol free product to support this movement.
Laurie: I have noticed that, Teri. I’ve seen so many ads just in the last year popping up everywhere for non alcoholic versions of alcoholic drinks for people who want to feel like they’re still social or they still can have that drink, but without the alcohol impact.
I was going to say too, that In January, we tend to see a lot of, like, the pendulum swing. So, like, December is a big month for indulgence. People like to eat a lot of special foods and, and they tend to maybe not move as much. They’re out of their regular routine. And by the end of December, people are at a point they’re like, I just want to get back into doing the things that I normally do that make me feel good.
Sleeping more, moving more, eating the foods that I’m used to eating on a regular basis that make my insides feel good. We see that pendulum go from like really enjoying to [00:04:00] restriction. I’m going to start a diet. I’m going to start cutting out all these foods starting January 1st. I have a resolution. I’m not going to do X, Y, Z.
If you’ve been a big drinker over the holidays, it’s probably one of those things that people are just like, Oh, I really overdid it. Maybe I need to take a break, or maybe I need to kind of look at what this means.
Teri: Exactly. And so we often want to be like, it’s like an alcohol timeout, you know, so I’m going to take this time out and alcohol is the enemy and you know, and, and I’m, I’m deprived.
I’m sitting over here in the no fun corner, not drinking for the month of January. Right. And so. It, again, when we go back to mindset, it’s really powerful to think about what we’re gaining versus what we’re giving up because we can maybe look at it as deprivation and that’s just not going to serve us in the long term.
So it’s so much more powerful to say, Oh my gosh, I found new ways to honor my body.
Laurie: 100 percent because when I went vegan, like 150 years ago, it feels like, at the time it was more like. I approached it with curiosity. What would happen if I took 30 days where I didn’t consume this? How would I feel? Would I feel better?
I’ll give myself permission. As soon as you say, I can’t have, I can’t, like it’s off limits. Your brain goes, Oh, I have never wanted that more in my entire life than I do right now. But if you kind of approach it with here’s, you know what, I’m going to see how it feels and just keep my mind open and be aware of like what’s going on here and there and just make note.
How does that feel in my body? Right. So approaching alcohol the same way, what you’re gaining could be, you know, better digestion, better sleep, more energy, more friends, more clarity, like all of these great things can come from this that you wouldn’t experience necessarily if you don’t take that break or approach Dry January with that curiosity. I love that you mentioned that.
Teri: It’s also interesting too, as you say, we, we want to be mindful that when we go from indulgence to restriction that, you know, we need to have time for our mindset to catch up. And one of the things I really love about dry January is it’s no longer feels like something that gets sprung on us. January 1st, we now see a lot of opportunity to sort of prepare and think about it and plan and have some intention behind it.
And we’re also seeing that it’s not, uh, you’re not an outlier. Any longer when you choose to participate in dry January, I think if you pay attention, your listeners and all of us will notice more people say, Oh yeah, I’m going to take a month off.
I’m going to, um, you know, participate in dry January and it’s now seen as positive. It’s no longer like, Oh, I have a problem. I need to take a break from alcohol.
Laurie: I love that. It’s just taking a step back and saying, I’m not the only one doing it. We’re all doing this together. It’s a positive thing. It doesn’t automatically mean, you know, you have any kind of label around your alcohol consumption, but we’re being curious about how this is showing up for us.
So you talked about a couple of things that I really want to dig into. When we participate in Dry January, we go the 31 days, cutting back on alcohol and examining the impact that it’s having, what are some benefits, either mentally, physically, after the end of that experience?
Teri: So it depends on if people really are able to go 31 days not drinking, you’re going to have different effects than if you cut way back.
Like, let’s say you have your couple glasses of wine every night, which is perfect. Very common. And let’s say you decide I’m only going to drink once a week. You’re going to experience some benefits for sure. Because anytime we take what is basically a toxin out of our system, we’re going to feel better.
Uh, and if you are able to go 31 days with no alcohol, you’re going to exponentially feel even better. And so one of the things I think is really powerful is just notice if it feels challenging. To not drink. That’s one of the first things that happened for me was I thought, well, I’ll take a break and cut back because I realized that, you know, I was drinking more than I wanted to.
I was feeling kind of crappy a lot of mornings. I just didn’t like that. My brain kept saying, well, when’s the next drink? When’s the next drink? So when I tried to cut back, that’s when I realized, oh, this might be a little bit more of an issue than I thought. So I think inviting people to just get really curious about, is this, A challenge for me.
Is this feel hard? Am I feeling more cravings mentally, physically? And so I think that is a really important part of this. And then once we do cut back, we’re going to start seeing things like we’re going to have more energy. We’re going to have less anxiety. One thing that people don’t often realize is that alcohol creates more anxiety because of the adrenaline and cortisol releases in our body.
And so sometimes we think, well, when I drink, I feel less anxiety or I drink because I’m stressed. And initially because alcohol is both a stimulant and a depressant, we do get a little bit of that buzzy euphoric feeling. And we might feel like, Oh, I’m not so stressed, but that lasts a very short period of time.
And then the depressive. Parts of alcohol last much, much longer. So we’re actually Increasing anxiety when we drink so people often notice. Wow, my mood feels a little lighter they’re gonna notice things like potentially within a couple of weeks, you’ll have hopefully better sleep and We’re going to notice less brain fog lots of different effects.
Laurie: That’s really interesting the beginning of your comment was depending on what the goal is. Is it to abstain completely? Is it to cut back? Can we talk a little bit about how to realistically set a goal for dry January and what that might look like?
Teri: Yeah, I love this question. This is so good because I like to think of rather than setting a goal, which sometimes looks like very black and white, you know, I succeeded if I made it 30 days, I failed because I only made it 10 days and then I had a drink.
I like to help people set an intention and an intention allows us to have sort of, how do I want to feel? What is my motivation behind taking a break? And so for people to be successful, I think it’s really powerful to bring in some curiosity because curiosity helps us suspend judgment. And what I love about this is you said, I want to participate in Dry January.
I would ask to tell me why. And you might say, well, I hear there’s a lot of benefits to cutting out drinking and I’ve been drinking a little bit more than I want to, or I’m noticing that. I’m thinking about alcohol more than I want to. And so we can start right there and say, well, great. How do you want to feel at the end of January?
And you’d say, Oh, I want to feel proud of myself. I want to feel motivated to take on more health challenges. I want to sleep better. I want to be able to go to the ladies book club and say, no, thank you when they pass the wine. So I think those are all really important things to bring in. So we’ve taken it from a very black and white, I’m going to go 31 days without drinking alcohol into something that is personal to you, the individual.
And that can make a huge difference in how we follow through with that stated goal.
Laurie: I do see this too with eating and creating these food rules and things and they start out with black and white, I’m going to do this, I’m not going to do this. And then three days in, if something is such an ingrained habit that they didn’t even realize, and it’s so.
It’s hard for them to not do the thing they want to do or to do the thing they don’t want to do. It becomes a failure point and it’s completely devastating mentally and it throws off the whole experience. Then they’re quote unquote starting over, they failed. So I love that you’re saying, look at the intention.
How do you want to feel? Let’s Let’s reverse engineer this process from where you want to end up instead of trying to power through something that might not really be a good fit for you. And it might actually set you up to be worse off than maybe you are now. And, and really feeling worse about yourself, about the whole thing.
So I love that you’re, you’re reframing it as a, an intention versus a hard and fast goal of XYZ, I’m going to do this, I’m not going to do this. So I love that. Let’s talk about some of the misconceptions that people might have about participating in Dry January.
Teri: I think a lot of times people will have a mindset that if I can take 30 or 31 days off, that means I don’t have a drinking problem.
I’m going to prove to myself that this is not an issue. And what I find sometimes is you can go probably 30 days with just willpower. You can avoid all the usual places. You can suffer through this idea of depriving yourself. And then on February 1st, let’s bring out the cocktails because I did it. Let’s celebrate with alcohol.
This is something that. people will do because they are not building in the tools behind the taking a break. So we can change our behavior for a short period of time, but [00:14:00] willpower, as we know, will run out. And so it’s really important to have The mindset, the habit change, the intention, you know, the routines to get support in all of these areas if we want to make this more successful and we want to come out the other end, you know, saying, wow, I learned a lot about my relationship with alcohol.
I’m more curious in these ways. I have some maybe work to do over here. I felt really good. Um, and so, you know, If you’re considering dry January, I invite you to just look at the why, you know, am I trying to prove I don’t have a drinking problem? Well, anytime we ask is alcohol a problem for me, that’s a clue, right?
And so if that’s you, if you’re saying, wow, you know, maybe. This is a problem. I invite you to reverse that. Instead of asking, do I have a problem with [00:15:00] alcohol? Ask yourself, is alcohol adding anything to my life? Is alcohol serving me? Is alcohol making my life better? And that again is just an open ended curious question that allows us to say, huh, yeah.
Maybe it’s not. Maybe it used to be fun. And now I find myself drinking even though I don’t want to. And so we might think that dry January is this proving to ourself that, you know, I’m okay. And the reason I started there, Laurie, about your question is because a lot of clients have shared this with me.
Like I told myself, if I could take a month off, then all bets were off. I’m fine. And so I think the other misconception is that you’re, you have to go 31 days. Or that February 1st is now the goal. And so I invite you to stay mindful throughout the 31 days. Oh, I drank [00:16:00] on day seven. Oh, I drank on day nine.
Oh, I didn’t drink again until January 27th. And pay attention to those times when you felt like I really want to drink or I must drink, you know, or it just happened that I found myself with a drink in my hand. Like these are things that we can use during the month that look very different than the myth of I’m going to get through 31 days with, you know, no problem or to prove something to myself.
And it’s also really powerful to just allow that if you have, we call them data points. So if you have a drink, it’s information. What happened? Like if you’re running a marathon and you trip on mile three, you don’t start back at mile one. You just keep going. And so it’s helpful to drop the myth that if I have a drink, oh, well, I’m like half the other population.
I drank on day 10. It’s over. No. Use that information to guide you in the next 20 days.
Laurie: That’s really helpful, Teri, and I love that you mentioned your data points, because I was just going to say, I remember from our past conversation, instead of having that all or nothing, black or white, oops, I tripped and fell, it’s over, I’m starting from the beginning, approach it with curiosity, look at the situation, what were the conditions, what was the environment, what was the mindset, and then just look at that information and see what you can pull out of there.
I love that. One of the things that might be a challenge for somebody is that They are approaching Dry January. They want to participate. They don’t know anybody else who’s doing it. They don’t have a support group. They don’t have a bunch of friends that they can hang out with.
Teri: Well, I think what you’re mentioning here, Laurie, is really powerful is to have some support outside of ourself.
You know, one of the things that, uh, comes up when I’m working with clients around this journey is we spend a lot of time beating ourselves up in our own head. And so we could start to create a lot of stories around, oh, it’s not going well, or you’re never going to be able to do this. But when we’re in a group, we have the other person saying, I believe in you, I’m cheering you on, this is going well, you’re doing it.
And so it is so helpful to be in community during dry January, and it’s not hard to find a dry January community. There are going to be lots of opportunities. So I think we just start with asking Google, you know, what is available in my area? You could do it online. You can do it maybe in person. There might be a blended atmosphere where people say, hey, We’re going to have, um, hiking every Saturday morning during dry January so that you have a reason to get up at 6 a.m. Or 7 a. m. As opposed to, oh, you know, I drank on Friday night and now I, I’m going to sleep until 11 and I didn’t make the running group. So setting up a little accountability and a little companionship is really helpful. Laura McCowan has a group called The Luckiest Club. You can join that. I think it’s very inexpensive, $25 a month or something, and you could join that for dry January.
There’s free smart recovery groups, uh, that will be featuring some things for dry January. I did my first dry January as a leader, not an individual. And I guess I did my first dry January without even thinking about it in 2016 because I wasn’t drinking by then. But in 2020, I worked with This Naked Mind in their live alcohol experiment for January, and there was about 3, 000 individuals that came at that time who wanted to go through a 30 day program.
It’s very inexpensive, uh, to have coaching support, to see other people also experiencing this. One of the things that can happen, Laurie, is when we are drinking and overdrinking or drinking more than we want to, or questioning our drinking, we often think we’re the only one. And so when we see other people say, Oh yeah, you know, somehow five o’clock is really hard, or I do great, you know, Sunday through Tuesday.
And then what is it about Wednesday? And so when we have this support, it helps us get out of our own way. And helps us, you know, again, have that accountability and that support where other people are also going through the same thing. And we don’t feel so isolated. One of the other things I’ll say about having some accountability or some support is, uh, if you Don’t tell anyone, then no one knows if you’re doing well, no one is noticing.
No one’s cheering you on. Um, for example, I just recently, um, have been going through a health challenge of my own, so I had some food sensitivity tests and I can’t eat eggs right now and I can’t have dairy. And so I was talking to my daughter about a recipe to make some Christmas cookies and she was like, “Mom, You can’t make that. It has butter!” And I was like “Oh, you’re right!” But if no one knew I was trying to cut out dairy, I could just go about my business and pretend it wasn’t really happening. You know, and my brain, because we’re humans, we want to avoid discomfort, seek pleasure. I don’t make the cookies with butter and pretend I don’t have, I’m not supposed to be giving up dairy.
So some of that. External accountability is really helpful to just be like, Oh yeah, it’s like going to the gym and you’re in a group class versus going to the gym and just looking around and saying, well, I’ll do five minutes on the treadmill or I’ll lift the five pound weight. But when you’re in the group, it’s very different.
The instructor saying, pick up those 10 pound weights. You know, do this, do that. So use that as a motivation to help you through this dry January.
Laurie: So don’t do a secret dry January, make it, share it, share it with those around you so that they can help you, cheer you on, be those extra eyeballs and ears and shoulders.
Teri: And remind you of your, of your intention, like, gosh, you know, um, Let’s go for a walk. You don’t need a glass of wine right now. Let’s take a walk. And if you still want a glass of wine, have a glass of wine. But, you know, having that, I love the word secret. Yeah. Don’t, you know, save the secret Santa for December and have an out loud, public dry January.
Laurie: Loud and proud dry January. I love that.
Teri: People want to know, like, what do I tell people about not drinking? So dry January is awesome because people just say, Oh, I’m doing dry January. And everybody’s like, Oh, okay. It’s not that you have a problem. Everybody’s doing dry January. We touched
Laurie: on this a little bit, but maybe we can dig in a little bit more.
You said over here in the no fun corner. Right? So if we start to feel like, oh my gosh, if I take out drinking, what am I going to do?
Teri: Yeah, there is a huge myth out there, Lori, that sober is boring. And I like to say if sober is boring, you’re doing it wrong. Because what we realize is that we have. often built alcohol into all of the activities.
I mean, for example, you know, oh, we’re going to go on a picnic. Oh, get that special bottle of rosé so I can drink during the day. Oh, we’re going to baby shower. Well, we have to have mimosas, you know, oh gosh, we’re going to have pizza and watch the game. I need a beer. And so, What we’ve done is we’ve really trained ourselves to rely on alcohol, and then we see alcohol as the fun factor, but that’s not true.
Uh, I had a client who was very concerned in her mind. She thought, well, if I give up alcohol, you know, what really bothers me is I have this memory that I was in Italy and I was sitting out on the terrace with my husband and looking over the vineyards and the little old wizened old winemaker came out with this very special old bottle and he poured us this drink and it was magic.
You know, the moment was magical and I, I just can’t imagine never experiencing that again. And so what I told her was, I said, okay, so let’s imagine this. Let’s look at that bottle of wine that he poured for you. And I want you to think about taking that bottle of wine into your closet. And I want you to sit in the dark and close the door and have a drink of wine.
And then I want you to come out of the closet metaphorically and imagine being on this terrace in Italy. And. You can smell the flowers, you’re experiencing the warm afternoon sun, it’s a beautiful vista, you are sitting across from your husband who you are just gazing into his eyes thinking this moment is so magical, and the little old wizened man comes out and he pours you this special juice that they make from these old apples.
And you toast each other and you think, I’m, this moment is magical. So tell me, Laurie in that moment, was it the wine? Or was it the experience? So when we think about, you know, well, I have to have alcohol to have fun. We have to ask ourselves, is that true? What happened when I was 10 and I was running around in the backyard playing with my friends and we were playing doorbell ditch and laughing and hoping we didn’t get caught or running through the sprinklers.
Where is that person? That person is still inside of us. We just decided that we needed alcohol. So we had fun at some point in our life without alcohol and we can get there again and much of it is a mindset shift.
Laurie: Absolutely true. I love that. February 1st, Dry January is over.
Teri: Now what? First of all, February 1st is not the, you know, you don’t put the key in the lock and now I’m out of jail.
Imagine February 1st as the time to just ease into the information that you’ve gained and allow yourself to say. Okay. Wow. You know, that was really interesting. And now I’m at a new place. Now I have more information. I have new experiences and I really want to see what this means moving forward. And for many people, it will be a place of new awareness around the impact that alcohol has been having.
And, you know, I have lots of clients that come to me and they say, well, you know, I’m here at this place where I’m drinking more than I want to, that, you know, things are happening that I don’t like, I don’t feel as good. Now that I’m older, perhaps, you know, alcohol is having more of an impact. But they say, I don’t want to stop drinking forever.
And so, you know, this is a really important awareness when we say, well, what are the benefits of alcohol? If we took alcohol out for a month and we felt better and we found socializing wasn’t as hard and we enjoyed the community aspect. that. Do we really want to go back to putting a toxin in our body on a regular basis or every day?
So, you know, I invite people on February 1st to explore. Well, what does it mean? And one of the best ways I think to do this is to journal and to really write down like, okay, here’s how I felt during this month. Here is the good, the bad, the ugly. And what do I want to do with this information? Uh, you know, really design Your February rather than just default into the old patterns.
And that again, takes some intention. And so while dry January, it might be like, uh, people think, well, it’s a month without alcohol. What if it’s a month exploring your relationship with alcohol? And then there’s more to do maybe in February and March and April.
Laurie: I love that Teri, because you said January doesn’t have to just be a month without alcohol.
It could actually be a month with …Whatever we’ve been not doing because of alcohol, what are some activities or, or things have you been putting off or not interested in doing or not had time for because you’ve been doing all of these events or activities that are based on alcohol, what can you kind of fill in and explore and try?
And maybe that becomes things that you do in February. And I like that you were talking about journaling because then it gives you a chance to revisit who you were on January 1st, why you started it, what were you thinking, how are you feeling, and be able to look back and revisit. Each of these different points, maybe you did have a drink, what was going on, it’s so much, it’s so much easier to recall and go back to that when you’ve written it down.
Ask me how I know. Instead of trying to like remember and just kind of think at the end, like, Hmm, how did that go? Well, guess what?
Teri: I don’t remember. You know, Annie Grace does have the 30-Day Alcohol Experiment as a book. So that’s a good resource as well. It’s not a journal, but there’s questions and there’s, you know, a 30 days, like each day it talks about something different, like alcohol and socializing, alcohol and anger.
Laurie: That’s a great resource. I’m glad you mentioned it. I will put the link to that in the show notes as well. Terry, we’re going to wrap up and I was hoping that you could give us your top three tips for participating in Dry January.
Teri: Tip # 1, I’m going to take a page from your playbook and say, write down your intention.
What do I want to experience during the month of January? Why? How will I know if I was successful? And I invite you to redefine success. So I’ll know because I was I was paying attention. I brought in awareness. I asked questions. I made new choices like those types of things. So I invite people to really explore Their intention and their why behind taking a 30 day break and then write that down.
And that can be the very first tip is to set that intention in writing. How do I want to feel? What is my motivation for doing dry January? And then the second tip would be, ask some questions when you feel like drinking. What am I thinking alcohol will provide in this moment? Am I thinking that, oh, I’m feeling a little social anxiety and alcohol will help, or I’m bored, or I’m lonely, or I feel sad? stressed?
All of these things are going to be really powerful to start to untangle where alcohol started to become our go to.
And then the third thing that we touched on is that community aspect. Don’t do this. In secret share with someone you maybe you’re not a joiner. You don’t want to join a big group although I invite you to consider it but have some support somewhere [00:31:00] so that you have someone cheering you on someone to help keep you accountable And someone to share some of these thoughts with because if this is brand new for you, there’s going to be a lot going on because our brain has defaulted to alcohol perhaps for a long time.
And so you deserve to have that support You know, the NA beverage, the non alcoholic beverage industry is really growing. So have some fun with maybe some mocktails or some special hop water or some kombucha or some teas. Enjoy having an adult beverage. If you had a ritual of pouring a drink every night, just change what’s in the glass and allow yourself to just say, wow, it feels really different when I have that sparkling tea versus my, you know, my, uh, hard cider and enjoy that. There’s so many resources out there and you’re going to find a lot more popping up as we get closer to January. So have fun with that.
Laurie: That’s a really good tip to have something prepared, have a plan for when you normally would have something, swap it in with something else, try it out.
Those are great tips, Teri.
Teri: I don’t have something specific to Dry January, but I do have a program that I’ve recently created called Stop Drinking in Your 50s and Beyond. And it is a six week program. And in that program, it’s a self paced program. And so, uh, it, what it is, is for Every week you have five days of activities and then two days of application.
So on three days a week, you have a short video, no more than 10 minutes. And then one day a week, you have a journal prompt. And one day a week, you have kind of a tactic to work on. And so I really believe that to make this a journey that is successful, you need to have knowledge, application and some tools.
Laurie: Teri, I’m going to be putting all of your links into the show notes and I really do appreciate that you shared your new program information with us and I’m going to be putting the link to that if anybody wants to learn more. You’re on social? Yes. Okay, perfect. I’ll be putting those in the show notes with all of your information so our listeners can connect with you in all of the different places where you are.
Thank you, Teri.
Teri: Yes. Thank you, Laurie. And good luck to all of your listeners if you decide to try Dry January. I’m cheering you on.
