Welcome to Love Notes from Rhonda.

And today I want to talk about sleep.

Sleep, my best friend and my nemesis.

For so many people, sleep is the thing that eludes them over and over again, day after day after day.

So how is your sleep?

Do you prioritize sleep?

Because do you know that sleep is the beginning, the foundation of all health?

Yeah.

When I was younger, I prided myself on not sleeping very much.

I was dead wrong.

Sleep is key to weight loss.

It's key to stress reduction.

It is key to your body processing toxins.

It is the key to health.

It's also the key to mental health.

So I want you to start thinking about how you go to sleep and how well you sleep.

Because I am on a personal quest to make sleep my number one priority.

And there have been times in the past that sleep has been my number number one priority.

When I was on TV every day, sleeping was the only way I could look good because the cameras back then didn't have filters.

And oh, by the way, no matter what's happening with that darn camera, it doesn't have enough filters if you didn't sleep well.

So sleep was my number one priority when I was on TV every day.

And since then, through the years, sleep has been put on the back burner a little bit.

So I will get caught up in something, feeling passionate about something, and all of a sudden I'm awake until 4 in the morning.

So are you like me?

Are you a night owl or are you a morning bird?

Right.

Which one are you?

Regardless, sleep is going to be the biggest opportunity you have to make the biggest impact on your physical health and mental health.

So let's talk about your sleep.

How many hours do you get?

What environment have you created for yourself?

Do you have a sleeping ritual?

I have a sleeping ritual and I believe in sleeping rituals.

Now, if you are like my sister Linda, who can fall asleep anywhere, then maybe sleeping rituals are not necessarily needed for you.

My sister can fall asleep anywhere at any moment of the day, so she's a fortunate person.

Yet that is not true for me.

I have to prepare myself, my body and my mind and my heart to fall asleep.

So I have created a ritual.

Now, you can create whatever ritual works for you.

I'll tell you mine, and you can copy it if you'd like, or again, create your own.

One of the very first things that I do is I turn on my hot water pot so that I make myself some tea.

So I turn on some hot water and I decide, ooh, do I want yakimmy chamomile tea, probably, or a sleepy time.

Or I also might put some herbs in it as well to support sleep.

So I make my cup of tea.

Then I take a shower.

I take a shower and I take a hot shower at night to allow myself to clean off the day, to clean off the energies of the day, and to put myself in a state of relaxation.

Then I take my cup of tea and I take my showered body that I have slathered with a lotion into my bed and my room.

My bed lights do not have regular light bulbs in them.

They have amber light bulbs in order to help you read and sleep.

So the light bulbs next to your bed, I highly encourage you to get amber light bulbs.

And they are low wattage.

So you do have to see if you can read in that light.

But the point is, is that amber light helps your body move into its nighttime phase.

So I read a book.

I take one of my spiritual books.

I do not read murder mysteries, or I do not read science books, or I do not read, you know, any book, a novel.

Oh, gosh, I could never read a novel before I go to bed because I would be up all night.

Cause I'd have to read the next chapter and the next chapter.

So I read spiritual books before I go to bed every night.

So I'm drinking my tea, I'm lathered up with lotion from my shower, got all my potions and lotions on my face, et cetera, et cetera.

I rub my feet with oil, get into bed, and I read my spiritual book.

And as I read my spiritual book and drink my tea, I naturally start winding down.

I naturally start in a page, a two page, three page, four page.

I'm naturally getting sleepy.

And when I do get sleepy, I immediately put my book down, turn off the light and go to sleep.

So one thing that I also do is I make sure my room is cold.

People sleep better in cold rooms.

So I cool my room down.

So when I'm going in the shower, I'm also turning on my air conditioning so that my room is colder.

So cold rooms, hot shower tea, spiritual book slathered with lotion.

This is my idea of heaven.

I want you to think about a sleep ritual.

My goal is to have a minimum of 8 hours of sleep a night.

I'm not always successful, and that is continuously my goal.

Sometimes I get 6, sometimes I get 4, sometimes I get 10.

So my goal is to have a continuous sleep.

They've proven over and over again through research that the more you consistently sleep, the better health you are my sister Linda, who can fall asleep anywhere.

She goes to bed every night by 10 o', clock, sometimes 9 o'.

Clock.

She gets up at the crack of dawn and goes to work as a teacher.

So whether your job has supported you in getting good sleep or not, whether your life has supported you in getting good sleep or not, sleep is the key to your mental and physical health.

Something that you have full charge of doing something about.

So I highly encourage you to make sleep your priority.

So let's dream together.

Until next time, be fearless.

I love you.