Field Notes #46: Sleep relaxation exercise + our uncharted inner lives

Plus confusion around medical contraptions and abortion, quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, and learning to bail

Hello, friends! I hope you are having a lovely day. This is Field Notes, my weekly compilation of 1 health insight, 2 quotes, and 3 links related to illness and wellness. Winter Camp is just 17 days away, and I’ve been writing up reflective prompts and setting up the community portal for you. I am excited to see many of you there. Use the code ODYSSEYREADER for $80 off. If the registration cost feels impossible right now, I also have a pay what you can option. I hope anyone who wants to come to Winter Camp can come.

1 health insight

Sleep is like a magic key to feeling better and better health, and yet it can be so elusive. I’ve been waking up lately at 3:17 a.m (or so) for no apparent reason. I can’t seem to fall back asleep easily. It’s maddening!

A few nights ago, I finally tried an exercise I had learned years ago while in a yoga class.

Basically, you start at your feet, and you tense your toes, curling them up; then you count to 10, keeping them as tense as possible, and then relax them, feeling the tension release. Then you move to your whole foot — you can point your toes down or back, holding for 10 seconds or so, and then relax. Move up to your calves: tighten them as much as possible, hold, and then relax. Then your upper legs, to your stomach, arms, shoulders, neck, and jaw.

Each time, it felt as though an enormous weight dissipated from each little area, leaving a positively delicious feeling of soft sleepiness, void of stress, void of tension, void of anything but relaxation.

Keep going. Move up your whole body, tensing each muscle group, holding it, and then relaxing it. Shoulders can be particularly satisfying.

Last, tense your entire body, hold and then release.

Finally, when my body was all mush, I fell back asleep.

Thank goodness.

The next morning, after some rabbit-hole Googling, I found the official term: Progressive Muscle Relaxation or Body Scan Meditation. Dr. Edmund Jacobson (BBC article) popularized this method decades ago from his belief that stress — and all thoughts — manifest in the body.

Perhaps this will help you, too. Here’s a video about it:

2 quotes

“We need to find better ways to communicate. If we can do this in our relationships, we can do it in our work environments, and even in our political environments. We have to transform our governments into mindful, compassionate places of deep listening and loving speech. We each can do our part to contribute as a citizen, as a member of the human family. In the process of community building we get the transformation and healing we need to further the transformation and healing of the world.” —Thich Nhat Hanh in The Art of Communicating

“We know now that, aside maybe from physical health, our emotional state is one of the most important aspects of our lives. It rules everything else. Its influence is pervasive. Yet it is also the thing we steer around most carefully. Our inner lives are uncharted territory even to us, a risky place to explore.” — Marc Brackett, PhD, in Permission to Feel

3 links

Covid-19 killed hundreds of frontline physicians, study finds. (Inside Medicine newsletter, Jeremy Faust, MD) — We knew this, and yet it’s still horrifying to read. “As is so often the case with Covid data, those numbers fall into the ‘perfect’ place for what you might call ‘quiet mayhem.’ One death in 650 instead of one in 750 is not so many that the average person would ‘notice’—but enough that on a systemic level, it amounts to catastrophic losses (to say nothing of the individual tragedies).”

The Public, Including Women of Childbearing Age, Are Largely Confused About the Legality of Medication Abortion and Emergency Contraceptives in Their States (KFF) — Survey data confirms widespread bewilderment and uncertainty. For example: “Emergency contraceptives like ‘Plan B’ are legal in all 50 states. However, a third of adults (32%) say they are ‘unsure’ if emergency contraceptive pills, or ‘Plan B,’ are legal in their state or not.”

Being prepared to pull the plug: A success strategy, not a failure (Armchair Rebel newsletter by Michelle Spencer) — “Learning to bail is a hard lesson, because its quite counter-cultural, and because the more effort and energy you invest in preparing for some activity or task, the more determined you become about it.” I so appreciated this reminder about bailing for your health.

To our journeys,

Brianne