The Caregiver Cup Podcast

Why Every Caregiver Needs a Nighttime Routine: Sleep Strategies for Physical, Emotional, and Mental Health

• Cathy VandenHeuvel • Episode 230

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Caregiving is a demanding journey, and it often feels like there’s never enough time for yourself—especially when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep. But what if I told you that establishing a simple nighttime routine could transform how you show up, not just for your loved one, but for yourself?

In this episode, I’m sharing why sleep is the ultimate self-care practice for caregivers and how it impacts your physical, emotional, and mental health. From personal experience, I know how easy it is to lose quality sleep while caregiving. When I started my caregiving journey in 2017, sleepless nights felt like a permanent part of the deal, but I learned that this doesn't have to be the case.

I’ll walk you through the three key steps to creating a nighttime routine that works—reflection, releasing stress, and focusing on sleep. You’ll learn simple techniques like deep breathing, journaling, and setting boundaries with your phone that can make a world of difference. We’ll talk about how starting small can lead to better sleep, more energy, and a healthier, happier caregiving experience.

Are you ready to wake up feeling refreshed, patient, and in control? Tune in to discover how a few small changes to your evening routine can help you find balance, reduce burnout, and make caregiving more manageable.

Join me as we dive into the power of sleep—and why it’s one of the most important gifts you can give yourself as a caregiver. Let’s create a routine that helps you thrive!

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Speaker 1:

Well, hello, my friend. How are you doing? This is Kathy again from the Caregiver Cup podcast. Welcome. If this is your first time. I want to welcome you to the podcast If you're coming back again. Thank you again for coming back, because I know this topic today is such an important one when it comes to your personal well-being.

Speaker 1:

This is a self-care practice. In my opinion, is the most important self-care habit every caregiver should focus in on. If you don't have any other focus when it comes to self-care, sleep is something I want you to focus in on. As I started my caregiver role back in 2017, I felt I took 10 steps back when it came to sleep. I felt like I did when I was in the middle of the night with my babies, when I was taking care of my kiddos. I was walking around like a zombie. I wasn't getting a good night's sleep. I was being interrupted. That's how I felt when I was raising my small children, and I felt that way as a caregiver, but I wasn't getting up in the middle of the night taking care of crying babies and feeding them, and I still felt that way, so as a caregiver.

Speaker 1:

For me, the root cause was self-fed, with too much caffeine being overtired, insomnia and my mind filled with emotions and nonstop thoughts. I know you've been there where you go to bed at night and you lay there and you can't fall asleep because either your mind is racing, or you were doing too much at the very end and you didn't leave time to unwind, or you drank that extra cup of coffee right after supper so you could go ahead and get a few more things done, and now that caffeine is just floating in your body and won't let you unwind, I had to learn to accept a nighttime routine, adopt one and create one that was going to help me give me quality sleep, because if I wasn't, it was just this mad vicious cycle of waking up in the morning and feeling like crap and not being able to function, or I was more emotional and I was sleep deprived and it was just this hamster wheel kind of a feeling, and I had to work on it, and I still, to this day, work on my sleep and, seeing how important it is, you could do tons of research out there and talk about the detriments or the disadvantages of not getting quality sleep. So why is sleep so important? This is the big, huge question. This is the big question to ask yourself. Just think about how you feel when you have a good night's sleep and I've had two really good night's sleeps back to back and I'm starting to feel really good the last couple days but what do you feel like when you don't have a good night's sleep? For example, I'm from Wisconsin, so we have the Packers games here and we had a Friday night Packers game and I stayed up beyond my nighttime and then we went to my granddaughter's soccer game early in the morning. Well, that night I was so crabby, I was just beyond, I didn't even want to be with myself and because I was just like holy, and you know how you get when you don't get a good night's sleep. And there's times where we can't as caregivers. But I want to talk about what we can control and what we can't control later in the episode. But let's just back up a minute and talk about sharing the benefits of sleep that research gives us, and so I'm just going to talk about these high level, but I think you already know what these are.

Speaker 1:

Sleep is essentially important for caregivers because it directly impacts our physical, our emotional and mental well-being, and what I want to talk about is the key reasons quality of sleep is so important, especially you as a caregiver. Can you hear the little squeak in my stool? I put my feet on a stool underneath my desk and it's squeaking today. So I'm sorry if you hear the little squeak. But let me get back to the research. So quality sleep restores physical health.

Speaker 1:

Caregiving often requires physical exertion, which is helping with like mobility, household tasks, tending to medical needs. Your body needs to recover from that and when you're sleeping your muscles repair, you restore your energy and it can help improve your immune functions so that you can maintain the stamina. So just think about that. When you're working really hard, you want to say I need to get sleep so my muscles can relax and I can boost and restore my energy again. Also, another key one is it supports your emotional resilience. Caring for a loved one can be emotionally taxing, so lack of sleep increases irritability, anxiety and feelings of overwhelm and you know how they just explode more when you don't get that good quality sleep. And so you want to get your sleep so you can emotionally regulate those emotions or you can foster emotional regulations, which helps caregivers navigate challenging situations with more patience and empathy. I need to get a good night's sleep. So tomorrow I have some more patience and empathy. Think about that. That might be a statement that you keep saying.

Speaker 1:

Sleep also boosts your mental clarity and focus, and it's crucial for your mental or your cognitive functions. And because you're juggling multiple things, you are actually multitasking more than you ever were in your managing medication and coordinating appointments, and when you're sleep deprived, that can impair your memory, your concentration and your decision-making skills, and it can lead to mistakes and you lose that sharpness that you need. So thinking about sleep is an important piece for clarity and focus, and the big one that I want to talk about, too is it prevents burnout, and it's a key factor. When caregivers are chronically sleep deprived, their emotional exhaustion and their detached and decreased personal satisfaction comes into play. This can lead to feelings of helplessness. Caregivers and we need to go ahead and recharge and maintain a sense of balance, and when we sleep, it makes it easier for us to provide care without that feeling of overwhelm. Think about when you are totally stressed. Ask yourself did I get a good night's sleep the last few nights, or is that adding to my stress?

Speaker 1:

Another key factor is your mood and your mental health. When you're sleep deprived it closely is linked to mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. So, as a caregiver, who you know are under a great deal of stress, lack of sleep can exasperate negative emotions and create this cycle of irritability, sadness, hopelessness. And quality sleep improves that I think about. When I have lack of sleep, I might break down in tears or I might break out in an anger statement that I never would have said if I had my sleep under control. Also, a couple other ones I'm just going to skim through. It supports your long-term health. You know sleep. If you have any type of immune issues, you know. It supports your heart. It improves heart disease prevention. If you don't get enough sleep, diabetes and high blood pressure may fall into place. So you want to get proper sleep. And when you get sleep, it increases your patience and tolerance, which we already talked about. It enhances your coping skills. It strengthens relationships because you are more alert and less stress. So all of these are important. So quality sleep is a fundamental pillar of caregiver health, helping you maintain your physical and your emotional and mental well-being. So you want to think about prioritizing your sleep so you can recharge, reduce stress and show up as your best self for both you and your caregiver, or you and your loved one, you and your loved one. So that's a goal.

Speaker 1:

Many caregivers and coached many caregivers and one of the things that we talk about when they talk about their stress or they talk about being overwhelmed. I ask them what's their nighttime routine? And sometimes they're taken back with it. When I talked to Lisa, she was a caregiver client of mine whose husband had to go through a kidney transplant and what her nighttime routine was during that time was pretty much non-existent and she said I said what is one thing that you would do in a nighttime routine? And she said I used to read every night and she goes. Since I became a caregiver, I miss it. And so I encouraged her to find and develop a nighttime routine and now, within a few weeks after we talked, she now goes to bed at 9pm and she gets her reading in, which is a game changer for her, and so she takes her mind off of things and is able to read before she goes to bed and that relaxes her.

Speaker 1:

But for us I know some of this is easier said than done. When it comes to Kathy wants me to incorporate a nighttime routine and you're like okay, this season is challenging, chaotic. It's an emotional journey. Where am I going to have time for it? I was in the same boat. I had to figure out what that would look like, but also know that this was an important way for me to show up better tomorrow as my best self, and I could accomplish more, knowing that I had a better night's sleep. What I developed was three words or a framework of a nighttime routine that matters. So you can hear my dog's barking, so somebody must be walking by, but the three-word framework that I want to talk through in this podcast is reflection.

Speaker 1:

Want to talk through in this podcast is reflection, and during a nighttime routine, you want to reflect on the day and bring closure to it and you want to go ahead and do it in a positive way, and we're going to talk about that. The nighttime routine is you have to release stress and there are techniques and you have to find your personal habits and techniques to release that stress before you go to bed. It's not going to do you any good if you carry that stress into your night, because most of the time you're going to wake up, you're going to not be able to fall asleep. You're going to toss and turn, whatever it would be. And then the third framework is focusing on sleep and looking at how can you get the best possible sleep and the tips for a better rest. Now, there's not a light switch. You can't just flip this on and I have a step action to follow. No, you have to develop what works best for you. When you focus on this framework, though, and incorporate your personalized habits around these, you can set yourself up for a better night's sleep, which results in a better tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

So let's break these down, and the first one is reflection. So, when you reflect on the day, it is crucial for caregivers for several reasons, as it provides both emotional and practical benefits that can signify or significantly improve their well-being or your well-being and caregiver experience. You know you have to go ahead and reflect on the day the good, the bad and the ugly but you also want to go ahead and look at the positive and the opportunities and what you've learned. I had to ask myself what would be the best way for me to positively reflect on my day If there were challenges. How could I give myself self-compassion and grace? What have I learned from the challenges? And I also wanted to acknowledge my wins, and so I had to break those down. And what I've done is and we'll get into the tips in the next framework but, for example, last night my nighttime routine was my nighttime routine starts about 6pm because my bedtime is nine, or at least I'm in bed at nine, and so for three hours before that's my focal point. And last night I went for a walk and thought through my day. On other days I may have to journal by my bed. After a shower I would sit by my bed and do some journaling, but I have to talk through what were the good things that happened today? What am I grateful for, what were the challenges of the day and what did I learn from those challenges? Challenges, what were the hardest, hardest things throughout the day, and it could be something as seeing your loved ones suffer. You know, and you're doing that. You have to acknowledge that. But then you also have to go ahead and give yourself grace and self-compassion and learn from them. But also, what were your wins for the day? You know, what did you do that you're most proud of? So, thinking about processing through the day and reflecting on it.

Speaker 1:

The second framework is figuring out ways to release the stress. If you've listened to me in previous podcasts, I talked about that stress backpack that we carry and it gets heavier and heavier as the day goes on. So you want to think about techniques for letting go of the stress before you go to bed. What could that be? I think of this like action steps or things that you want to do as caregivers. Like I said, we carry a lot of stress and we need to de-stress. Now you don't want to get your heart rate up before you go to bed and do a HIIT workout or a kickbox because that may help you de-stress, but that's not going to help you relax. Remember the first one.

Speaker 1:

The first framework is finding ways to relax, and so maybe your relaxing walk after supper would be a way for you to go ahead and release the stress. For a long time. I would go out to my garden and kind of deadhead all of the pick, all the dead flowers off there, pick the weeds, and for me that was a de-stressing piece, so you want to do it. So I'm going to share some techniques and I'm going to encourage you to share yours with me. At the end I'll actually give you a question to hit that text button or send me an email on.

Speaker 1:

But one thing you could do is deep breathing exercises. They activate that parasympathetic nervous system which helps reduce the body's stress responses and promotes relaxation. You might try a technique like four, seven, eight and inhale for four seconds, hold seven seconds and exhale eight seconds and repeat that process again. The next one you might try is progressive muscle relaxation. I'm sorry my dogs are barking so much today. I should have shut the door, but I'm just going to keep going, so bear with me. You may not even hear it in the microphone, but I'll try to tune some of that out. They call this PMR. Progressive muscle relaxation helps you relieve physical tension by consciously tensing up your muscles in a group of muscles and then releasing them. Like you start with your toes, you tense them up and then you let them go and you work your way up to the head and you just lay there and let it.

Speaker 1:

Another one is journaling writing down your thoughts, your emotions. It helps caregivers process through experiences and release muscle tension. It can serve as a brain dump to clear the mind before you sleep. Spend five to ten minutes before your bed writing down what happened during the day, acknowledge the stressful moments. End with something that you're grateful for, end with your wins. That may be a thing. Another one is do what Lisa did, and she loves to read. Read something you enjoy, something that's going to kind of get you into dreamland. Maybe you dream more about that romance novel that you read. Another one would be guided meditation or mindfulness. It promotes awareness. Now you could use a meditation app. You could use a guided sleep meditation. There's platforms on YouTube that you could follow.

Speaker 1:

Focus in on your breath and listening to a calming voice through relaxation. As a sidebar, I know a podcaster that does this for children. She has a podcast sleep app where they listen to the soothing bedtime stories before they go to bed. Think about that. The child's in their room. They might have a light nightlight on and they just listen to that. You might have a visualization practice. Visualization can help you shift your focus from stress to relaxation by guiding your mind to a peaceful, calming place. Maybe it's a beach or a forest, or maybe you listen to the sounds of a breeze or a sound wave or sound machine. Something simple. We talked about journaling, but a gratitude practice focusing on three things that you're grateful for and getting rid of the negativity. This positive reflection helps close the day on a peaceful note and reduces stress.

Speaker 1:

Before sleep, think about those people that went above and beyond, the person that smiled at you, the person that waved at you while you were driving. You focus in on those and you're fostering a sense of calm and positivity. Maybe it's gentle stretching and I've incorporated a lot of this lately or yoga Light stretching or yoga helps release tension stored in the muscles and calms the mind, preparing the body for rest. You know you do a child's pose and then or you get on all fours and do the I don't know the words for it a cat and a dog kind of a thing where you're stretching your back muscles. One that I do do is aromatherapy. Certain scents like lavender and chamomile or what is another one that really helps me Vanilla helps me as well are knowing for calming properties that help the stress.

Speaker 1:

Now, think about it. Maybe you could have a candle, you could have lotion, you could have essential oil diffuser with a few drops of this and you put it in your room. Better yet, put it in your bedroom before you go into bed, if your loved one can handle that. If they're sleeping with you, maybe you walk into your room and your diffuser or your candle is lit and there's soothing music or nature sounds in your room while you're washing your face and getting ready for bed, because playing calming music or nature sounds for 10 to 15 minutes can totally relax you. For me, I can't put the water on because then I think I have to go to the bathroom all the time. But those are just a few things that you can do to go ahead and promote relaxation. Why these techniques? You might say because you're focusing on calming the mind and the body before sleep, and caregivers can let go of the day stresses and avoid carrying that into the bed, and so you want to focus in on that Now.

Speaker 1:

The last framework that I want to talk about is focusing on sleep and what you can do to go ahead and ensure a quality sleep or start working towards it. I feel this is your commitment to a nighttime routine. This is what you have to commit to, because you may be able to go ahead and do the reflection and relaxation, but if you don't really commit to it fully, then it's not going to work, and so this is the few hours before bed that's really for you to get to the path to sleep. I didn't do this well, and if somebody came in and graded me on focusing on sleep and then my sleep, I would get an F. Here's what I used to do, a lot and I can't say I don't do them anymore, but I really, really, 90% of the time, talk myself out of those things, unless there's a need. I used to do the housework, like laundry, and I used to try to get a jumpstart on the next day. So I caught myself at seven and eight o'clock at night doing these things. Well, I wasn't giving my body any time to wind down. I was working overtime in my business or my corporate job, or Googling my spouse's condition or reading my emails. And when you're looking at blue light, there's a lot of science behind it that blue light from the screens your phone screen, your computer screen, your TV screen that keeps your body or your eyes interpret that as sunlight, and so it's saying it's daytime. It's daytime, you need to stay awake, and so you want to go ahead and set a time where you turn that off. You don't keep that on anymore because you want to get a good night's sleep.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that I did wrong was I would watch? I would watch. I'm a big, intense, action-packed person that loves action-packed movies or sports or anything that's high energy. And if I would do that right before bed, I couldn't fall asleep. I'd lay in bed going why can't I fall asleep? Or another thing I would drink caffeine. I would drink a cup of coffee right after supper, so I could go ahead and get all these things done. Well then, that caffeine stayed in my system and I couldn't fall asleep.

Speaker 1:

And there's a lot of research about eating and not letting your body digest the food. So you want to go ahead. I would stop eating three hours before bed so that I would allow my body to digest and it wasn't working as hard while I was sleeping. So you want to avoid that mind racing, that worry, that frustration, that stress, that high energy in your mind. And I really had to take a serious look at it because I would wake up and I would need naps throughout the day, or I felt like I was going to fall asleep or I was edgy. You know what that's like.

Speaker 1:

Instead, taking a serious look at how I could make a nighttime routine to unwind, and in an enjoyable one, the one that I knew that okay, yep, this is not the time that I do it. It reminds me of you can't go outside and cut the lawn after a certain time or early in the morning because other people are sleeping the same for you. You don't want to exercise your body to the point where it wakes up. You're trying to get it to wind down from a sleep. So here are some of my tips to go ahead and help with quality sleep, I think by incorporating release and relaxation tips into that. Three hours is going to be good, but you want to also think about other things. So establish a consistent schedule for yourself, if at all possible.

Speaker 1:

I know you might have different seasons of your life, but first of all determine how much sleep do you usually need. Are you a seven-hour sleeper? Are you a nine-hour sleeper? You want to think about that and stick to that. And going to bed and waking up at the same time each day, even on weekends, helps regulate your body's internal clock or circadian rhythm, making it easier to fall asleep and wake up refreshed. So over time then it trains your body to naturally prepare for sleep and so being able to do that, like I said, I'm a nine o'clock at night go to bed girl and I'm up at 5am, but that's what I love to do, and today, when I woke up, I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't even look at the time or I didn't wake up. This is the first time in probably two months that I never woke up in the middle of the night, and I'm trying to figure out what I did right, because last week I got a good night's sleep, but I wake up because I drank too much water right before bed. And so you want to also create a relaxing bedtime routine that you enjoy. A bedtime routine signals your brain that it's time to unwind or wind down, and it prepares for rest. And maybe you decided 60 minutes before bed to do a calming activity like reading or listening to soft music or doing stretching, and avoid stimulating activities like watching TV or using your phone, because that's going to only make it hard to sleep.

Speaker 1:

You also want to think about your exposure to screens. We talked about this a lot before bedtime and stopping electronic devices. There are some people that I know that leave their phone in a different room. I know there's people that will challenge me and say I need my phone. In case somebody calls me, I suggest you put your phone on mute but then go to the emergency contacts or go to the contacts that you want emergency access to. I'll give you an example. My phone goes off at nine o'clock. I have a bedtime routine set on my phone and it doesn't come back on until 7 am. I don't take notifications, I don't take calls, anything. But my emergency overrides are my spouse and my children. So if they need to get in contact, and my sister and brother, and if they need to get in contact with me, the phone will override and it will allow me to go ahead and do that. So you want to think about that, because there's nothing worse than your phone laying by your bed and then you hear the buzz or you see the light from the phone. You don't need to look at your phone unless it's an emergency or unless you need to do it. So we are so attached to our phones and you want to stop that. So stop using electronic devices about an hour before bedtime and instead think about ways to promote relaxation, like journaling or meditating.

Speaker 1:

You also want to think about your sleep-friendly environment. You know you really need to think about. There's a lot of studies that say cool your bedroom down to 65 or 68 degrees, and so you are comfortably cooler and use the bedding or the blanket to cover up with. You want to make it as dark as possible, because if your brain sees light, it's going to tell you that it's time to wake up in the morning, and so do you have blinds and darkening curtains. Or could you wear a mask, like an eye mask, and obviously put your phone away. Put your phone away or limit that time, okay.

Speaker 1:

Another thing you want to talk about is sleep-inducing diet. You want to be aware of implementing that, because certain foods can promote better sleep by enhancing the production of melatonin and serotonin, two hormones that regulate sleep and relaxation. Incorporate sleep-promoting foods like almonds and walnuts and kiwi tart cherry juice into your diet. Or limit your food that you want to avoid, like heavy food, spicy food, sugar food. These foods have magnesium, and I don't know how to pronounce this trypofen, magnesium and I don't know how to pronounce this trypofen which can promote a quality sleep. A lot of people take a magnesium supplement.

Speaker 1:

You need to do what works for you, but the big thing is watch what you eat and drink before bed, because your body has to go through a digestion process and when it goes through the digestion process. It takes an hour or two to go through that, and you don't want your body to be working when you're laying down, or, if it does, you're not getting that deep quality sleep. There's so much more I could cover. Oh, my gosh, my head is spinning, but I just wanted to stop there because I don't want this to be a two-hour episode. So my disclaimer is I want you to think about the. I don't want this to be a two-hour episode. So my disclaimer is I want you to think about the season of caregiving you're in, though, because my disclaimer is this may not work for everybody right now in their season, so you want to think about what can I control to get a better quality night's sleep and what can't I control.

Speaker 1:

So if you can't control having uninterrupted sleep because you're taking care of your loved one in the middle of the night, you can control certain things though. You can control the relaxation and the reflection and letting go of those negative thoughts or start working on those. You may be able to control your sleep environment. So think about what you can do, you know, because I think that's going to be important, because when I was caring for my mom during hospice. We couldn't control all of that, but I knew I could control what I ate. I knew I could control setting a when we did rotate and take nighttime rest. We could control the temperature in the room, we could control the darkness in the room and we could control that so we could get quality nighttime naps in rotation. So I have a few closing thoughts here.

Speaker 1:

A nighttime routine is crucial for you as a caregiver because it offers a dedicated time to unwind, reflect and let go of the stresses of the day, allowing both the mind and the body of yours to recharge. By incorporating small, intentional habits like reflection, relaxation techniques and really thinking about prioritizing your health, you as a caregiver can reduce emotional overwhelm, improve your mental clarity and enhance your physical well-being. Starting small, such as adding just one calming habit to your evening, can make a big difference. Like Lisa added, reading it made a big difference. I could see in the next couple weeks her smiling. She was reading again and that's something she enjoyed. Maybe for you it's listening to an audible book at the very end of your day and doing some stretching while you're doing it. Maybe for you it's putting on a facial mask and taking a nice warm, hot shower and then going ahead and doing some stretching, whatever it would be. This routine will foster better sleep and help you show up more patient, more resilient and more energized, enabling you to provide better care for your loved one while maintaining your health, and that's what this is all about. You want to provide better health for you and sustainability.

Speaker 1:

I'll be honest, this is something I continuously work on. Right now. I take a short stroll after dinner and reflect on my day. Reflection helps me process what went well and what I need to release, because your brain tells you all of these crazy things. Because your brain tells you all of these crazy things and you know what, you just have to release them. Then I take a shower, a nice warm shower with a lavender candle I was going to say calendar, a lavender candle and soft music. I go through and dim the lights in my home to help me relax, so no matter where I go, the lights are dimmed down. And then, around 830 ish, I head into my bedroom where I meditate or stretch or journal, which helps me release any lingering stress, and so I do that, and I only have a little nightlight on when I'm meditating and stretching.

Speaker 1:

I also drink water in the evening. No caffeine. That was a big, big change for me. But I try to stop at about 7, 730-ish to avoid waking up all night peeing. I can't do that and I also set a boundary for myself.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, at eight o'clock my phone gets put away no texts, no phone calls, no notification. I have my emergency overrides on my phone so I don't have to worry about missing an emergency if I need to get that, worry about missing an emergency if I need to get that, and it allows me to focus on rest. Those emails, those texts, those whatever can wait. It's funny because my brother is a midnight person and he goes to bed at midnight and wakes up at seven o'clock-ish, versus I go to bed at, I turn everything off at eight o'clock and if he texts me I'm like John, you know I'm not going to respond to you until five o'clock in the morning and then he doesn't respond until he's up and had his morning routine. So prioritizing sleep helps me wake up refreshed and ready to handle whatever caregiving throws my way. So creating this routine has made such a difference in how I approach caregiving and my well-being.

Speaker 1:

But remember, it's not about perfection, just finding what works for you. Starting one small change at a time, like reflecting on your day, might be it, and what do you want to do? Maybe you kind of move your body after dinner and kind of reflect on that. Creating a calming bedtime habit can make a huge difference too, so I'd love to hear what you do. What does your nighttime routine look like or what are you working on to improve? Remember there's a text button Send Kathy a message underneath this podcast in the show notes and share yours with me.

Speaker 1:

What does your nighttime routine look like or what are you working on to improve it? I would love to hear from you. I'll also be sharing more tips for navigating challenging seasons and improving sleep in my weekly newsletter, because I can't get it all into this podcast. And what better way is to go ahead and share more in my weekly newsletter Now, if you're not on my mailing list, there's a text button or there's a link I'm sorry, there's a link underneath in my show notes as well and join my community newsletter. It comes out weekly on Fridays, and what I said is I'm going to go ahead and share more about improving your sleep with more tips.

Speaker 1:

We can find more rest, balance and joy in our caregiving journey if we just focus on one small habit at a time. Take it one night at a time. Your well-being matters and investing in a solid nighttime routine is one of the best ways to ensure you're taking care of yourself so you can continue showing up for your loved one and remember filling your cup is an essential piece. So I hope you enjoyed this episode on sleep and the importance of sleep and creating a nighttime routine. I never, ever did it. I never did it and it seems so basic, but I never thought about it. So that's why I did this podcast episode. I want you to think about what you can do to ensure that you show up tomorrow as your best self, that you let go of today's stressors and release those negative thoughts and set yourself up for a better you. So until next week, my friend, thank you for listening and we'll talk to you again real soon.