My Top Tips For a Good Night's Sleep...
This week I thought we'd talk all about sleep-related things, nightwear and everything to do with having a good night's sleep.
Sleep is unbelievably crucial, so there are some things I do to make sure that I get a great night's sleep. We spend so much time in our bedrooms and I think it's really important that it's a lovely, peaceful space that you can relax in and you can enjoy.
I love spending time in our bedroom, and I have got all of my favourite colours that help me relax - soft, calm pale pinks and pale blues. I love to come up in the evening and have that peaceful wind-down routine.
Sometimes I have a hot bath, but something I do every evening is to take my makeup off, cleanse, tone and moisturise and start to unwind.
I make sure that I don't look at my phone, and that it is firmly over to one side so I can just really relax and gather my thoughts.
I think of all the things that I'm grateful for from that day. I think it sets the tone for a good night's sleep. If you think of all the positive things from your day, you're likely to have a much better night's sleep. Whereas if you're thinking about all the negative things, then you're going to go to bed with those on your mind.
I do this with the children as well, I like to ask them if there are three things that they're grateful for at the end of each day. I think it's just a really positive way to think about the day. Even if it's been a shocking day, there are some good things. Somebody might have smiled at you or somebody may have phoned you or whatever it might be - just reflecting on those good things can ease the tension in your mind.
It's really important not to have caffeine after a certain time. For me, 3:00 PM is my cutoff. I very rarely drink coffee or regular tea. I drink matcha tea, which has slow-release caffeine so I don't have those peaks and troughs. I don't drink fizzy drinks - I used to, but not anymore. I was a Diet Coke girl in my youth and the caffeine and the sugars and all the other stuff inside that is just not good for you at all. Now I drink hot water with a squeeze of lemon and a slice of ginger. Occasionally I will have a cup of tea, but it has to be a special occasion or a situation where I feel too embarrassed to say, sorry, I don't drink tea.
I think it's lovely just to come up to your bedroom with your hot drink of choice to relax and take some time. I have such a busy life that I don't often have time to sit down and think about the positives, but in the evening, I make sure that that is something that I do.
If anything is troubling me, I say a prayer because personally, I find that really helpful.
The next thing I do is lavender oil. I love lavender oil. You can get all sorts of different sleep sprays and things like that, but most of them have got lavender in them. And actually, it's so much cheaper just to get a little bottle of essential oils. The children made me some sweet little hankies at school, and I love to use them to put a little of the oil onto and tuck them under my pillow rather than putting it directly onto my pillow.
The smell of lavender is just incredible and I find it really, soothing and helpful for a good night's sleep. So that is a really great tip. I also have a lavender pillow that you can heat up - and if I've got a headache I love just to come upstairs and put it on and just lie back. The smell is amazing. I find that really, really soothing and helpful just to come and have half an hour to relax and try and shake my headache off before it gets any worse.
Now, some of you may remember I had lots of problems with what I thought was my shoulder that actually stemmed from my neck. We've got some lovely friends up in Scotland - Jilly and Manjit - and Manjit is a retired, shoulder consultant. He was so helpful. They could see I was in loads of pain and so I had an online consultation with Manjit. We talked about what was going on and he said, Charlie, it's not your shoulder, it's stemming from your neck. I think it's the way you're sleeping. I'm super flexible, which sometimes is a great thing, other times it's not. I found that as I was sleeping I was really twisting and throwing my head back and I was waking up in so much pain and couldn't break the habit.
So I invested in something called a 'Pro-Sleepy' pillow. It's quite an odd shape, quite thick and it's made from a sort of memory foam. You sleep with your head in the dip in the middle and so it supports you. The great thing about this is you can sleep on your back or your side, but your neck is still supported and it works really, really well. Since I have been using this, I haven't had any problems. I'd actually trapped a nerve under my shoulder blades, which is why I felt it was coming from my shoulder -well it all stemmed from my neck! So this is a brilliant, brilliant pillow.
It's taken me a while to embrace it because it's not the most beautiful thing and I like a good, beautiful squidgy, soft feather pillow, but actually being pain-free it's absolutely worth it. You can get special pillowcases that come with it, but actually, I just stick it in one of our normal ones.
Let's talk about sheets. So I love cotton sheets and I actually stick to white because I just think it's easier. And I love the calm look of white sheets. I think there's nothing better than beautiful white sheets on a bed.
We use the seersucker sheets from The White Company, within their Devon range. I actually have them on all the beds down in the farmhouse in Devon too. They're great because they don't need so much ironing, and I'm all about saving time but I still want my bed to look lovely and inviting.
When the weather is really hot, we sleep with just a sheet, but I thought I would talk to you about our bedspread, which is from Volga Linen. It was a wedding present and I love it! I just love the colour, I think it's really restful and it's not too thick or too heavy and it washes really well. So you could simply pop a sheet under it and you'll be cooler. I did have a look on Volga Linen's website and sadly they don't do these anymore, but it might be worth getting in touch with them!
Our bed is from And So To Bed, we brought it just after we got married. Simon's bed was so uncomfortable. It had just one mattress and because he's quite big and I'm quite small, we both ended up in a messy heap in the middle and it wasn't comfortable at all. So we now have two separate single mattresses with a zip link, he's got a firmer mattress and I've got a soft mattress that works really well.
It is important to turn your mattress frequently, not just flip them horizontally but also vertically.
The next important thing is having a good mattress protector. I like the waterproof ones, that way if something is spilt on your bed, you're not damaging your mattress as they are terribly expensive!
In the UK I highly recommend John Lewis's. They have a great selection and I buy all of our mattress protectors from there. I have mattress protectors on all the beds, including every one of the BnB rooms. In fact, I have lots of spares so they can be changed after every stay at the moment because of COVID. The John Lewis ones wash really well too.
Now let's talk about Nightwear! I am obsessed with nightwear. So obsessed that I used to have a nightwear business. I ran Sleepycozy with a great girlfriend and Nina's actually taken it on now and she's running it on her own. She moved down to Somerset and it was at the time when I started Ask Charlie so it was just a sort of natural split.
Sleepycozy was just children's nightwear until Nina and I bought the business together and we just did a selection of ladies nightwear. One of my favourite pieces I own has been going for 4 years now, it's lawn cotton so it's really light, so soft and really pretty and feminine. We came up with a design for it because at the time there was nothing on the market for nursing mothers. When you want to feed your baby, you may not want to pull your nightie or pyjama top all the way up so just having a really pretty practical nightshirt makes it really easy for that.
We also thought that a lot of the things that were on the market just weren't very feminine and weren't very girly. They're great all year long and in the winter you can just pop on a cardigan or a dressing gown if you're up and about doing things.
Sleepycozy have very kindly offered a code to all reader and followers of Ask Charlie! Receive 20% off the frilled nightshirt shown until the end of July with the code AC20.
I have a selection of other cotton pieces of nightwear, one from GAP which I feel so pretty and feminine and girly in, perfect for a hot summers night. Then one which I bought from the Country Brocante in Midhurst not so long ago that is just gorgeous, with beautiful detail on the front. The great thing about that is that obviously you're not in a bra and the detail ensures it's not revealing. Personally, I just don't like to have everything on display, particularly if you're caught short and there's a knock on the door.
Let me talk to you about my dressing gown. It was a birthday present from the children a couple of years ago from Kings Framers, which is a lovely, lovely shop in Lewes, in Sussex. It's about an hour from where we are, and I love it. If you ever get the opportunity to go to Lewes, it's the most beautiful town, and this has to be one of my favourite, favourite shops. I could buy everything in there! The dressing gown is great just to have at the end of the bed and grab if I need to go and deal with a barking dog or a crying child or whatever it might be.
So let's have a quick recap to get a good night's sleep:
When you come up to bed, think about all the things that you're grateful for.
Take off your makeup, run a bath and just unwind.
Leave your phone alone. No tech, no devices.
Read a book if you love reading. Sometimes that works really well for me but actually, I am such a bookworm that if I get into a good book I can't put it down and I'll be awake all night. So I just read on a holiday. Audible is brilliant for me as I can get my book fix that way.
If you're really struggling to sleep, I can really recommend hypnotherapy. I've got a lovely friend, Kate Finn, who is a hypnotherapist, and she's really helped me. She's got this really, really beautiful recording that you can listen to to unwind at night and to go to sleep if you're struggling.
Lavender oil - put some in your bath, put some on a hanky by your pillow.
Try not to have caffeine, particularly after 3:00 PM, because that will stimulate you and it will be harder for you to unwind and get a restful night's sleep.
Don't drink too much alcohol. It might help you go to sleep quickly, but it will not give you a restful night's sleep. So I really try and limit how much I drink because it's just not good!
A cool and calming environment, beautiful bedding and nightwear!
I hope that you have found my top tips helpful for a good night's sleep. I will see you again next week, sending lots of love and wishing you a really, really happy weekend.
Love, Charlie x