Dear Quiet

initiating… sharing_sequence

I’ve had three good nights of sleep, and one okay night of sleep, in a row. And that’s the most I’ve slept this month.

For some reason, insomnia fell upon me in 2026 and would. not. leave.

And to get those few nights of good sleep, I started doing a few different things in life. And honestly? Some of them turned out to be quite fun :-]

1. Walking First Thing in the Morning

I get up before the sun (and before my family) and have a 1/2 caffeine cup of coffee with milk. Then I get on my treadmill!

It faces a big window, and I watch the sunrise come up. I walk, listen to my favorite music, for about 20 minutes. I get to see people who are up early, walking their dogs, and what breed of dogs they have (my window faces a park).

This:

• Gets my body moving first thing in the morning.
• Gets that sunrise into my eyes, triggering my circadian rhythm to say, “It’s time to be awake!”
• Gets me in a great mood :-]

2. I Get Some Sunshine in the Morning

Once I’m done with my walking, I usually have another weak cup of coffee and do some writing. I get ready for the day.

Then I head to the backyard with my little one to enjoy the morning sun. Well, I’m not sure how I’ll be doing this, now that the temperature has dropped dramatically overnight…

But maybe we’ll go outside a little closer to noon. Or use our snow gear and be out there for at least 10-15 minutes. This also helps my circadian rhythm to be set and ready to be awake for the next 14 hours or so.

3. Stay Active

Not a hard one to maintain when you have a child under six…

We run around playing with lightsabers. Go out and run errands. Have a dance party. When the weather is nice, we go play with other kids.

When he’s at school and it’s just me, I workout. I even started belly dancing, which is a good low-impact workout. Much harder than it looks!

Dancing helps me to move my body, stay flexible, stay active, all while making it feel like I’m just having fun. And I am!

4. No TV in the Evenings

To be honest, it’s hard NOT to let my kiddo watch TV in the evening. We’ve been running around all day. We’re both full from dinner. It’s a nice change of pace to just sit there and relax.

But we all know about the blue light of the screens and all that… They’re really bad for getting good sleep.

I’ve been turning the TV off after the news. At first, my kid was even more creative and active than I thought he’d be! We played for hours. It was a little hard on tired-me, but we managed.

After a few nights, he wasn’t super stoked about having no TV. So now him and my husband play videogames for a bit. Hey, if they sleep well, they can go for it. But I stay in another room and…

5. Read and Drink Tea

This is what I do in the evenings while my family plays videogames. I go into a completely different room, read books, and drink some chamomile lavender tea.

It’s a good wind-down ritual in the evenings, and it’s been helping me fall asleep (and stay asleep) better.

Other things I do for sleep:

• Eat an earlier dinner, and no sugary carb-loaded foods.
• Deep breathing to calm the system.
• Using my bed only for sleep.
• Keeping it dark and cold in the room.

It’s been tricky, getting my body to behave normally and sleep at night, but… I’m getting there!

I hope your nights are full of restorative sleep 💎

Take care,
Dear Quiet

signal/log: 1.23.2026
uninstalling… bad_habits
intalling… great_habits