The Beauty of Sleep

Diagnosed with chronic insomnia at just 17, Deirdre Hynds is a real life night owl who has spent a lifetime searching for the best natural ways to achieve that zen feeling of total rest and relaxation. Here are her thoughts on ‘taking your time’ and the new night-time treats she has created to help promote relaxation and calm.

I have always felt that ‘take your time’ is an expression that feels uniquely Irish in sentiment, gentle, caring, concerned. Interestingly, The Cambridge Dictionary offers two diametrically opposed definitions. The first version describes it as: “said to mean that you can spend as much time as you need in doing something, or that you should slow down.” The second version, however, strikes a more disapproving tone, a criticism of doing something too slowly. In other words you took your time! The first is an invitation, an expression of care, whereas the second is a passive aggressive condemnation, or thinly veiled criticism.

This polarisation seems about right. Taking the time to go slowly and carry out tasks at a more conscious or mindful pace feels right physically and mentally. We are less likely to make mistakes through rushing and over-exertion, but we often struggle with the sense of the societal disapproval that comes from a reduced output on the imagined conveyor belt of relentless ‘productivity’. Generally speaking, a lot of us spend our days being active, busy little bees, getting things done. We are compelled by the persuasive forces of the sun to get on about our day, flitting from one thing to the next. 

But the evening, if we let it, has this magically calming effect of slowing us down. That’s because historically, way back, (when we were living in caves and mud huts), everything about evening time, all of the environmental cues; the darkening skies, the dropping temperatures, the twinkling stars and moon, told our bodies that it was time to stop. The evening was time to slow down, to gather around the fire together and tell stories, to cosy up to that special someone, to collectively protect each other from roaming nighttime ne’er-do-wells, to look at the stars, to think, to dream, to sleep. 

In a hyper connected, highly digitised and artificial light filled world, we have become disconnected from that sense of natural evening ease. Our drive to be productive, to achieve and to succeed, is undoubtedly impressive, but ultimately, it’s exhausting.

I have always been a night owl; this feels like a nice way of saying I have had a pretty poor relationship with sleep from a young age.  I was even ‘sleep shamed’ in primary school, with my teachers giving out to me for not sleeping early enough, or ‘sleeping properly’. I constantly felt like my body viewed sleep with a sense of mutinous suspicion, which resulted in a lifelong internal battle between myself and…. well, myself I suppose.

I realised a couple of years ago that a lot of the problem was my own perception of how the body works (my body anyway), and I started to work to dispel the notion that sleep/rest was an automatic setting of the body that you simply switched on and off like a button.  

Jennifer Piercy is a fantastic Yoga Nidra teacher (her meditations on the Insight Timer app are free), and she explains the natural daily rhythm of energy and tiredness really beautifully,  

 “We treat tiredness with junk food, light, and information - then we expect to be able to knock ourselves out like a robot every night, but we are not robots, we are forces of nature, and ebb and flow like the tide. So many people wait for weekends, or periods of sickness to rest. During the waking day, about 70 minutes of each 90 minute cycle is active, but the last 20 minutes involves a shift into a more diffused sense of consciousness, this is when we find ourselves naturally defocusing, we might yawn, or stretch, or want to eat - going with, rather than against these waves of tiredness, can help us regain our energy. Some people don’t want to slow down as rest can cause an awareness of painful emotions, but avoiding this means that it can often present itself to us when we do finally rest, so we need to apply the brakes before we pull into the garage at night.” 

Over the last three years I have been applying these principles to my own evening experience, trying to apply the ‘breaks’ slowly, and mindfully. It has helped me a lot. Particularly as a long-term self-employed person, the conventional ‘clocking off’ from the working day doesn’t really exist for us types. What this looks like for me is an evening where television is replaced with audio books or podcasts, artificial lights are softened and dimmed, and I tend to walk at night, enjoying the nighttime landscape and soundscape for its particular meditative and soothing qualities (of course this utopian evening routine has been somewhat overthrown by the capricious whims of a very active ten month old!). 

 Around the same time of my growing awareness of the need to prioritise taking this time to slow down, and set a clear marker between the working day, and a time for rest, I started working on my own evening project. I developed Unwind, a new Irish range of snack bars specifically designed for evening time. They contain a combination of natural nighttime friendly ingredients like Montmorency Cherry, L-Theanine and Chamomile, produced with a mix of grains and seeds, topped with a small amount of Belgian chocolate. They include no artificial sweeteners, and are hand-baked, and packaged in Ireland. My website also includes advice on things that help us to relax and feel good in the evening, including; slow nighttime movement (yoga and sleepy stretches), original bedtime stories for grown-ups, and guided evening meditations, which are all available free of charge. 

Creating your own evening ritual is a very simple idea, it doesn’t require designer leggings or a trip to Bali. So, soften the lights, get cosy, it’s time to unwind. Visit unwind.ie WW