If it only took 30 days to get into some healthy sleeping habits would you take the challenge?

When you give so much of yourself to others you start to lose yourself along the way. You forget to take care of your health, well being and the only thing keeping you sane, sleep.

For years now I have been joining challenges in hopes to challenge myself to try something new, maybe a new habit or break a bad one. I started this journey with a 1 year no shopping challenge ( a story for another time) and it spiraled to many other 7- 30 day challenges. I thought it would be fun to start documenting some of the challenges I am venturing into and tell you about the ones I have done in the past in hopes that it inspires you to make some changes in your life.

Why you need Healthy Sleeping Habits:

Before going into the kind of healthy sleeping habits we need as woman. Let’s discuss the symptoms many of us experience due to lack of quality sleep. Maybe you have experienced one or many of these symptoms like,  weight gain, hair loss, acne, depression, anxiety,  low libido, and the list goes on.

Quality sleep can reduce many of these symptoms by balancing your hormones, allowing your body to produce more growth hormones as well as heal and restore everything.

Why I did a 30 day Healthy Sleeping Challenge:

Over the last couple years, I learned that motherhood is all about adapting to changes according to your children’s needs. During the newborn stage you may not get more than 2 hours of sleep but as your child gets older you find that you can slowly get at least 6-8 hours of sleep.

So the decision came at a time when I could have had 8 hours of sleep but because of bad sleeping habits, I wasn’t. Though in theory, I had learned to just go to sleep as early as possible, 10 pm early but then I would stay up browsing the internet while in bed and finally fall asleep by 12- 1 am.

I was slipping away slowly, barely waking up for the fajr morning prayer. I was moody, tired, gaining weight due to sugar cravings and taking afternoon naps.

Making some changes:

Something had to change because somewhere along the way I came to the realization that I used to stay awake after the kids went to sleep so I could finally have “me time”.

Boy! was that a mistake, I worked hard to get the kids into a routine and be in bed by 8 pm that I had completely lost sight of why I was staying awake after having put them down. I wanted ‘me time’, but that slowly turned to catch up with social media, the blog, and stress- induced work.

The Rules for the challenge:

• Go to sleep at the same time every single night for 30 days (I choose 9 pm as it was winter time)

That was it…

Sounds easy, right?

Oh man, was I in for a rude awakening. The first couple of days didn’t go too well, I stayed up most nights staring at the ceiling in the dark. Let’s just say that you can get into bed early but it doesn’t mean you will actually fall asleep. I went into the challenge not realizing that I actually had to do allot more if I wanted to fall asleep at 9 pm.

First 10 days:

• I started exercising
• Not eating after 5:30 pm in order to give meals enough time to be digested before hopping into bed.
• No phone in the evening.

Second and last 10 days:

Things started to get better, I was getting the hang of it all and then aunt flow decided to be the party pooper as always. It’s during this time, I usually fall off the bandwagon so I decided to take it easy. I was still going to bed early, but not exercising 🙁 and I was giving into those chocolate cravings. But despite this little set back by the end of the thirty days, I felt great. I was waking up for fajr and witr (10 minutes before Fajr) without an alarm. I was exercising which meant I had more energy during the day and I was able to concentrate for longer periods of time.

The takeaway:

Like most things in life, everything is connected. A lesson that I am slowly learning from my dear friend over at Holistic Womanhood It’s only by taking the first step that you will see a clear second step and a third step. Although this challenge was just about going to sleep earlier and trying to get at least 8 hours of sleep. What ended up happening was that I started exercising, having smaller portions for dinner, and winding down in the evening with the kids so they too could be ready to go to sleep by the time I was ready to head to bed.

Want to take the challenge?

If you are interested in taking the Healthy Sleeping Habits challenge yourself,  you can start with the 7 day challenge (there is a sign up bar somewhere at the top)  inshaa Allah after those 7 days that I will send you a 30 day challenge eBook.