Month: January 2021

Something that has finally helped me with my insomnia and my SAD too!

Featured by Charlie-Jane, posted in lifestyle, Mental health

For a few years I’ve seen the lumie lights advertised and I thought with the fact I’ve basically not had more that 4 hours sleep a night at maximum for a year that I was willing to try everything. If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ll of seen I used sleep masks, ear plugs, white noise, oils, pills, sedatives, sprays, scents and lots more. Basically you name it I have tried it and it hasn’t worked. In December I had enough with the house move stress that has caused me immense stress and I just couldn’t sleep so I asked for the lumie light alarm clock for my birthday. It’s pretty expensive for a alarm clock but at the end of the day I would pay anything to sleep again. So James brought it for my birthday and I was so excited to try it. I’ve now been using it a few weeks so can give true review now.

So basically the light/ alarm clock is used to create the lighting of a sunset and then a sunrise in the morning with your alarm. You can use the light as a calming light or a bright light in your bedroom too. It goes from white to yellow, orange and red. Or you can turn the light off and have the time only on it. You can personalise the wake up and sunset to you with the brightness you’d like, how long you want it to take to come on or turn down and you can choose your sounds. There is 5 sounds for waking up I choose birds, there is also 5 sounds for sleeping I choose white noise, crickets or thunderstorms. My favourite is crickets.

So I’ve got myself into a routine with it. I always go to bed about ten thirty or I am too awake to try. I set my sunset for half hour and have it go from a bright white to red. The sunrise as it happens makes me feel sleepy and I yawn the crickets sound help send me to sleep too. I normally fall asleep with it or just a few minutes after the sunset is finished and the room is lit a dark warm red. once you’ve set your sunset for the first time all you do then is press a button and it does it every night for you! The same with the alarm. I set it for half an hour so half hour before it slowly fills the room with a sunrise and then at 7:30 plays the sound of birds I wake up with that and the room feels warm and lovely and lit when the room used to be pitch black and dark.

I’ve personally found it has helped me to calm down and although not every night do I fall asleep at the same time as the sunset I am never up as late. The best thing is the sunrise setting has allowed me to wake up in the morning and feel more energised. I start the day on a positive instead of in a dark miserable day. For once I don’t mind a alarm. I also try to set my alarm for ten minutes before Elijahs awake just so I can wake up slowly. My mood has significantly improved since I received this and would recommend to anyone to try. Obviously some things work for others and don’t just like oils work for some people and not me but I can say even if it doesn’t help you sleep the wake up in the morning is so nice and calming and if you wake up in a good mood it’s better then miserable you haven’t slept much and woke to the darkness!

If anyone’s interested this is the clock I have:

It’s a new year…

Featured by Charlie-Jane, posted in books, family life, lifestyle, Mental health, parenting, Uncategorized

Whilst i wanted to write a blog post talking about the highs and lows of the last year in a reflective manor i couldn’t feel more against it this year. Normally i would set myself a list of unrealistic expectations and then feel sadness when i could not keep simple promises to myself. The simple fact is last year was terrible, Not the sort of year you try to find positives from but a year you shut the book on and perhaps think of burning. To many i am sure the last year had some positives that they could find but for me the only positives to come from the last year has been that i have learnt that i do not need to invest so much time and energy into others and to nurture myself. It is because of this new found self love that i am able to separate myself more before i become victim to my depressive and intrusive thoughts. Last year i became very invested in my phone, like many people had found themselves i realised that i had become addicted. The need to keep up to date with others gave me many expectations on what i should be doing with my life, how i should have myself together, how i should have life that is to be a insta worthy place. I would find more and more that i would question my appearance based on others, I would think does my house look good enough? I would think am i parenting correctly? am i doing enough? I would find myself in the endless scroll that never ended. Though i do not blame myself for becoming attached to my phone as it was my only means of contact to the outside world i still feel that it sucked the life from me. Since discovering my addiction i decided to use my phone less, take breaks and to remember the things that are posted online are often snippets of reality that are only showing the best bits of a persons life…

With that being said this is why i have often gone missing for chunks of time, i needed to concentrate on me and to take away the expectations put onto myself to create content that would be worthy of reading or seeing. There will no doubt all over the world be new fitness fanatics, artists, dieters and peacekeepers being created as we land on the other side of the chapter of last year creating more pressure for us to perfect our personal flaws. But know this, we do not have to improve ourselves, we are perfect as we are. Creating unrealistic goals and achievements can put extra pressure on us that at a time of such uncertainty that only sets us up for more disappointment. Remember if there are goals you wish to achieve set them for yourself in the mindset that there is no race to achieve them, there is no failure in giving up and it is okay to have no aspirations for this year.

I feel we will still struggle on this year as we all continue to battle the biggest pandemic in our lifetimes that forces us to hide away in our homes to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. The battle has still only just begun but know that you do not need to change yourself in a pandemic because others are, all you need to do is survive. To not only survive but to find your own happiness, to listen to the stresses and thoughts you have and to try and make yourself feel happiness in yourself by doing things you may love and by taking the time for you.

It is a new year and instead of making crappy pointless goals this year how about you make only one to be happy, to look after you first and let everything else fall into place. So watch your favourite films, cry reading books and have so many baths you become a shrivelled mess. But do not think of yourself as a failure or a underachiever. We do not and have never needed to change. May this year be a year that brings you comfort and joy.