Health / Sleep

One of the core pillars of health and wellness is a good night’s sleep. The right products will help you perfect your pre-sleep routine, so you can easily wind down, snuggle up, and get some actual rest. The SELF staff takes bedtime pretty seriously, so we decided to round up all the tried-and-true products our team can’t sleep without. From white noise machines to pillowy sleep masks to breathable pajamas, these are the things we all personally swear by and recommend to everyone we know. These picks can really help transform your space into a dreamy oasis. Happy snoozing!All products featured on SELF are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

If your current bed is creaky rather than cozy, or stiff instead of snuggly, might we suggest swapping in a comfy new memory foam mattress? Known and loved for their pressure-relieving, contouring materials, memory foam mattresses are often a great option for people who wake up feeling achy or sore—or anyone who wants their bed to feel like a warm hug, really.What are the benefits of sleeping on a memory foam mattress?Memory foam mattresses tend to be softer and less bouncy than hybrid mattresses or traditional innerspring mattresses, and they’re often described as having a squishy or sinking feel after you lie down on one. That’s a result of its materials, Glenn Russo, MD, a spine specialist with the Hartford HealthCare Connecticut Orthopaedic Institute, tells SELF. The thick layers of foam respond to body heat and pressure by getting softer, so when you lie down on one you’ll feel the bed conforming to your shape. That contouring effect can distribute your bodyweight more evenly on the bed and possibly help prevent the development of pressure points and back pain, Dr. Russo explains. It can also help limit motion transfer, which comes in handy if you share your bed with a restless partner (or if you’re the tosser and turner, for that matter).Who should try a memory foam mattress?Because they adapt to the body’s shape and weight, memory foam mattresses may be especially appealing to side sleepers, Kavita Trivedi, DO, a spine rehab expert at UT Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute in Dallas, tells SELF. Sleeping in this position places additional weight on your shoulders, hips, and knees, and a mattress with a little more give usually does a better job at preventing that pressure from building and getting uncomfortable or even painful, Naimish Baxi, MD, a physiatrist at Hospital for Special Surgery in Paramus, New Jersey, previously told SELF. For some side-sleeping people, a memory foam mattress has just the right amount of sinkage to provide them with the pressure relief they need.That said, others may find that sinking feeling unpleasant: Memory foam can make it hard to roll from side to side and it might not provide the level of support that some people need for their preferred sleep position, Kirkham Wood, MD, a board-certified spine surgeon and professor of orthopaedic surgery at Stanford Medicine in California, tells SELF. Experts typically recommend that back sleepers and stomach sleepers lie on a firmer, more responsive mattress than most foam beds tend to be. There are definitely memory foam mattresses that lean closer to firm than soft or medium-firm, but they generally aren’t as supportive as hybrid or spring mattresses (you want to feel like you’re sleeping on—not in—the mattress). Latex mattresses are another great choice if you want something more supportive.One more thing to bear in mind: Dr. Russo says that memory foam mattresses can trap heat, which can lead to a sweaty wake-up call. If you’re a hot sleeper who’s curious about memory foam beds all the same, look for newer models that contain gel-infused foam and copper layers, as these are often included to help keep you cool throughout the night.The best memory foam mattressesIf you think a memory foam bed might be a good fit for you and your sleep style, it’s relatively easy to give one a try: In addition to convenient bed-in-a-box-style deliveries, many mattress brands offer generous sleep trial periods, during which time you can test out your new mattress and return it for free if it doesn’t meet your needs. Below we’ve highlighted some of the best memory foam mattresses available right now, including popular and SELF Certified mattress models from top-rated retailers like Nectar, Bear Mattress, Leesa, and Casper.

We hear it time and time again: If you want to sleep well, you gotta ditch the screens before bedtime. All that late-night scrolling and streaming, according to research and sleep experts, keeps your brain alert and stimulated, which can delay when you fall asleep and prevent you from getting quality rest. The light that your electronics emit essentially screws with your body clock and sabotages your sleep. The ubiquitous advice is pretty straightforward—stop using your devices an hour or two before bedtime—but just because we know that doesn’t mean we’ll actually do it. I, for one, am well aware that I shouldn’t be scrolling through Instagram or catching up on my current favorite show right before I go to sleep, but I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t part of my nightly routine. I also read on my Nook up until the very minute I feel myself dozing off. I can’t seem to escape screens, so I don’t know how I’m supposed to abandon them entirely during my precious evening unwind time.Turns out, I might not have to. (Phew!) According to Jade Wu, PhD, a board-certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist and author of the new book Hello Sleep, there’s a world in which you can enjoy your screens at night without totally derailing your sleep schedule. You just have to make a few tweaks to your daytime routine first.Get as much light as possible during the day. Dr. Wu’s first tip is to make sure you’re exposed to a lot of light during the day. To get into why this matters, you have to first understand how your sleep-wake cycle, or internal body clock, works. Melatonin—a hormone that regulates sleep—ramps up in your body in the evenings, stays at high levels during the night, and winds down in the morning and throughout the day. “Melatonin is a time-keeping hormone that tells your body when it’s time to be sleepy and it naturally responds to the amount of light in the environment,” Dr. Wu tells SELF. When there’s little light, your brain knows it’s nighttime and releases melatonin, making you feel drowsy. If you’re around a lot of light—whether that’s through actual daylight or artificial light from a screen or lamp—your brain thinks it’s daytime and suppresses melatonin, keeping you alert and awake. Research shows that the brain needs a big contrast in light—during the day versus the night—to keep your body clock on track, Dr. Wu says. If you’re outside all day, for example, and come home, get under the covers, turn off the lights, and read a book on your tablet, there’s still going to be a huge difference in the amount of light you’re exposed to. In that scenario, your nighttime screen use won’t interfere with your sleep as much as it would if you were working inside with the curtains closed all day. Essentially, your brain keeps track of how much light it was exposed to throughout the day, according to Dr. Wu. “If, five hours ago, there was a lot of light, and now there’s some light from your screen but much less, the brain will still know that it must be evening now, even though there’s still light coming through,” she says. Unless you’re a park ranger, say, you probably don’t spend most of your waking hours outside, but there are other ways to increase your daytime light exposure. Sit by a window, go for as many outdoor walk breaks as you can, and use bright lighting in your home office space—again, the more light you can get during the day, the less disruptive your screens may be, Dr. Wu says.Turn up the lights at dinnertime.Increasing the amount of light you’re exposed to in the early evening, around dinnertime, can also soften the negative effects of late-night screen use, Dr. Wu says. If, like me, you’re a bit hooked on your devices, she suggests making a point to turn up your lights a few hours before your bedtime (around 7 p.m. if you turn in at 10, for example). You want to be in sleep-inducing dim light a couple of hours before bed, though, so a short burst of bright light is the goal here: Go outside and watch the sunset if you can, or brighten the kitchen lights as you cook or eat dinner. “Earlier in the evening, you’re briefly injecting yourself with some light so that your body is prepared to make a contrast later in the evening, when there is going to be less light,” Dr. Wu explains. 

Getting a good night’s sleep is already a challenge sometimes, but if streetlights stream into your bedroom at odd hours or the sun wakes you up at the crack of dawn, it can start to feel impossible. Enter blackout curtains, which can make your bedroom so dark and cozy that you might want to add them to every room in your home (you know, for napping purposes).According to experts, light-blocking window treatments and drapery are a simple addition to your bedroom that can lead to major improvements in your sleep.What are the sleep benefits of blackout curtains?You want your room to be as dark as possible before you go to bed, Daniel A. Barone, MD, associate medical director of the Weill Cornell Center for Sleep Medicine in New York City, tells SELF. “A little bit of ambient light, whether it be from a streetlight or the sun, can be enough to cause somebody to wake up,” he says.In fact, being exposed to as little as 10 lux (which is roughly the amount of light you see during twilight hours) before bedtime can have a negative impact on your sleep, Kathryn Jean Reid, PhD, a research professor of neurology (sleep medicine) at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, tells SELF. It’s for that same reason that experts discourage screen use right before bed—TVs, tablets, and phones generate bright, blue light that can make it hard to doze off or snooze soundly through the night. Sure, a few episodes of your comfort Netflix show might lull you into a state of relaxation, but any kind of light exposure before you drift off is going to mess with your sleep.That’s because the darkness is also helpful when it comes to winding down and getting high-quality rest. Dr. Barone explains that darkness prompts your body to produce melatonin, a hormone your brain naturally produces that helps regulate the timing of your sleep-wake cycle. “When you have blackout curtains, what you’re doing is helping promote that [process],” he says.Blackout curtains will help block light from seeping into your bedroom, so your body’s melatonin production can run its course smoothly and you can get to sleep more easily. Both Dr. Barone and Dr. Reid say that they’re worth a try for just about anyone who wants a dimmer bedroom, with a few caveats. For one, they shouldn’t make your space so cavelike that it’s unsafe for you to get up in the middle of the night (say, to use the bathroom). They also shouldn’t stay closed for too long after you wake up—getting a dose of bright daylight in the morning is just as important for your sleep-wake cycle as keeping things nice and dark at night, Dr. Reid says. Finally, no blackout curtains will be a cure-all for sleep disorders like insomnia, but a set of light-blocking shades can play a valuable supporting role in an intentional presleep routine.How to shop for blackout curtainsThe blackout curtains you choose will mainly depend on how much light you want to block. Some curtains are designed to create almost total darkness, while others will simply reduce the amount of light that reaches your room (these are often marketed as “room-darkening curtains”).Certain blackout curtains also offer additional benefits like outside noise reduction and temperature regulation, which will have varying degrees of effectiveness but can be a nice boost if you live on a busy street or want to be mindful of energy efficiency, especially in the hotter months. Perhaps most importantly, don’t forget to shop with your home’s style in mind; not only are these shades available in a slew of different sizes, but you can find blackout curtains in a variety of colors and prints too.With all that in mind, here are the best blackout curtains you can try right now, from major retailers and highly-rated drapery brands like Amazon, West Elm, Deconovo, and more.

If you’re a side sleeper like I am, you may find that your hips and shoulders sink or rise out of spinal alignment on mattresses that are either too soft or too firm—which is why a medium firm or medium soft mattress could be a win. That’s precisely what I found the Casper Element Pro gives me. Its layers of medium-soft memory foam manage to hug my body while pressing back against it, and I noticed that the normal aches and pains I deal with around my neck and lower back were lessened in the morning (which isn’t always the case with my Leesa).ComfortIn terms of firmness, the Element Pro veers medium-soft; when I push my body against it, I can feel a very faint sink (meanwhile, my medium-firm Leesa stays level and shows no signs of my outline). As a result, I felt like I was being cradled by a glove while I slept, with each body part separately supported—a sensation I really like, especially because I suspect it’s largely why I didn’t toss as much while I slept. It was actually hard to get out of bed in the morning when I slept on this mattress—mostly because I was so cozy and comfortable and didn’t want to leave it.TemperatureI’m a notoriously hot sleeper (well, notorious to me, anyway, as I’m the one who wakes up at 3 a.m. coated in sweat). In New York, I manage this problem by using a smart cooling mattress topper, but in my parents’ home, there’s no such luxury. All-foam mattresses aren’t known for strong temperature regulation (as opposed to innerspring and hybrid mattresses, which allow air to easily travel through the coils). Casper’s solve for this is a top layer made of “AirScape” foam, which is perforated to theoretically allow heat and humidity to escape.Though I can’t speak to the science of whether this foam actually increases airflow, I can say that I only woke up once in three weeks to find my duvet kicked to the floor. I tested the mattress in winter, which may have impacted this (though it was quite warm, with several 70-degree days in South Carolina). That said, I noticed that every night when I slipped into bed, the top of the mattress felt noticeably cooler than most I’ve ever slept on (including my Leesa).MaterialsThe Casper Element Pro is wrapped in a cozy brushed fabric that reminds me of the inside of a sweatshirt. Inside are two layers of foam made of polyurethane (also known as polyfoam), a layer of viscoelastic polyurethane foam (a.k.a. memory foam), and a base layer of polyurethane. All of Casper’s foams are CertiPUR-US certified, meaning that they were independently tested and approved by the nonprofit Alliance for Flexible Polyurethane Foam, Inc., which ensures that the foam is manufactured without ozone-depleting chemicals, formaldehyde, heavy metals like mercury, and that they have low volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions for indoor air quality, and more. I didn’t experience any reactions to the materials in the mattress (nor did I notice any significant new-mattress, chemically smells), and I appreciate that this mattress meets these environmental standards.A Risk-Free Trial PeriodOne of the biggest advantages of mattress-in-a-box companies like Casper is that it’s way easier to buy, try, and return if the bed isn’t a great fit. Casper offers a 100-night risk-free trial period (with returns eligible after 30 nights, the amount of time Casper claims that it takes for your body to acclimate to a new mattress), which I think is an ample amount of time to test. Shipping is totally free in the US and Canada, as are returns, and the company offers a 10-year limited warranty (meaning it covers manufacturing defects, but not normal wear and tear; read more about the warranty here).Should You Buy It?If you’re a side sleeper who struggles to stay still during the night, the Casper Element Pro is an excellent, dependable option. I loved how it simultaneously embraced and supported me in a way I haven’t experienced before, even with other all-foam mattresses. The queen size costs less than $1,000, and you can get it for cheaper during one of the brand’s sales throughout the year. As a commerce editor who writes about all manner of mattresses, I think this a fair price given the quality and comfort of the bed, as well as the $2,000+ pricing of higher-end Casper mattresses we’ve written about (like the Wave Hybrid and the Nova Hybrid). In the end, the Element Pro is certainly worth a try—especially with such a generous trial period.

When it comes to sleep, I subscribe to the “listen to your body” mindset. I’m a freelance writer, meaning I can go to bed whenever I want and wake up either on my own or whenever my emergency alarm finally jolts me awake (assuming I remembered to set one). There’s little consistency, and I feel little shame in hitting the snooze button five times. I’ve never really questioned my process—even though I regularly fall victim to a presleep toss-and-turn and wake up feeling sluggish. After talking to Jade Wu, PhD, a board-certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist and author of the new book Hello Sleep, I’m inspired to make my sleep habits a little more routine. A consistent sleep-wake schedule, Dr. Wu tells SELF, is incredibly important when it comes not only to sleeping soundly at night, but keeping a number of body functions—like digestion, hormone regulation, and body temperature—in check. One simple way to get into a groove of sleeping better: Wake up at the same time every morning. “The reason you want to get up around the same time every day is because the body functions best when it runs consistently on a rhythm,” Dr. Wu says. Here’s why it’s a great idea for so many health and happiness reasons (regardless of whether you actually have to)—plus how to make it happen if you’re getting sleepy just thinking about it.Waking up at the same time each morning can help you sleep better at night—and make it easier to get out of bed in the morning.Your body clock, or circadian rhythm, is the system that regulates your sleep-wake cycle. It’s heavily dependent on clues from your environment, says Dr. Wu, which is why light makes you feel alert and awake, and why you start to feel sleepy around dusk. The light you see when you wake up essentially tells your body it’s morning, meaning it’s time to get out of bed and start your day. By opening your eyes like clockwork every morning, you’re essentially programming your body for better sleep. “Consistently having that light cue at the same time in the morning will go a really long way in anchoring your 24-hour clock,” Dr. Wu says. Over time, your body will automatically know when to release melatonin—a hormone that induces sleepiness—at night and when to stop producing it in the morning, she explains, which can make it easier to both fall asleep at night and wake up ready to go in the morning. Inconsistent wake-up times can really mess with your body clock.If you wake up at different times each day—or even if you keep a pretty consistent sleep schedule during the week but sleep in every weekend—your brain will get confused and start to release melatonin at weird hours. It’s kind of like constantly traveling to different time zones and getting jet-lagged, Dr. Wu explains. If your wake-up times are all over the place, it’ll likely be harder to get a good night’s sleep, she says, and you may have issues concentrating the next day. 

There’s no shortage of soothing sleep habits, and you’ve probably already tried them: Taking a warm shower, turning on some white noise, and keeping your phone out of bed can all help you snooze a little better, for example. There’s also plenty of chatter about “sleep-promoting” foods (think Thanksgiving turkey), but the science behind this concept is a bit slimmer. Yet many people on TikTok claim that tart cherry juice is helping them fall asleep. In one viral video, which has more than 197,000 likes and stirred up lots of reactions, user @missalanablack talked about her struggles with sleep. She saw another user post a video about drinking tart cherry juice before bed, so she gave it a try. “Why didn’t I know about cherry juice earlier?” she said in the video. “I have taken so many supplements to help me go to sleep, help me stay asleep…all I needed was some cherry juice?” She noted that she was “done” 15 minutes after having a cup of the juice, adding, “I didn’t wake up once through the night.” TikTok user @hymtherapper also decided to test the tart cherry juice tip in an older video, but he drank it in the middle of the day. In the video—in which he was clearly surprised by the tartness of the juice—he said he felt drowsy 15 minutes after drinking a cup of it. “I’m just now waking up,” he shared in a follow-up clip that noted he slept for six hours. “I’m just letting you all know right now, the juice worked. The juice worked.”Of course, any health claims on TikTok should be taken with a grain of salt, but people seem to swear by this stuff. So SELF asked experts whether you should try sipping on some tart cherry juice for better sleep—here’s what you should know if you’ve been tossing and turning.Small studies suggest tart cherry juice may help with sleep, but the research is super limited.There are some studies that point to the potential sleep-related perks of tart cherry juice, but they’re not recent and had small participant pools—and many of them have been industry-funded. In one 2012 study, for example, researchers had 20 adults drink tart cherry juice concentrate or a placebo before they ate dinner for a week. They discovered that people who drank the tart cherry juice had elevated levels of melatonin in their urine compared to the placebo group. (Melatonin is a hormone your brain naturally produces in response to darkness, and it helps control the timing of your sleep-wake cycle.)A 2018 pilot study of eight older people with insomnia concluded that drinking tart cherry juice in the morning and again before going to bed for two weeks increased sleep time by 84 minutes, on average. The researchers noted that tart cherry juice may be “partially responsible” for easing insomnia.“The studies are small, but they did see that tart cherry juice helped [sleep] with a mild to moderate benefit,” Kelly Waters, MD, a sleep medicine specialist with Corewell Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan, tells SELF.

No one told me that when you become a mom, the middle-of-the-night wake-ups may not end when you get past the baby stage. My youngest is almost five, and I still have to go into his room at 3 a.m. to listen to him recount his weirdo dreams.Making matters more exhausting: After jolting awake—due to mom duty or some other nocturnal disturbance—I’ve struggled to get back to sleep. For a long time, lying awake in my bed while everyone else in my household was conked out led to anxious, distressing thoughts: I’d wonder how I could possibly get through my to-do list the following day while sleep-deprived, I’d worry that I’d never get back to sleep, or I’d ruminate on overwhelming sociopolitical issues that are impossible to solve on my own (especially from my bed).  I was doing what you might expect someone who woke up way before their alarm to do: Get really stressed about the fact that they’re awake when they shouldn’t be. Also not surprisingly, that’s the exact wrong thing to do, Fiona Barwick, PhD, director of the Sleep & Circadian Health Program at Stanford University School of Medicine, tells SELF. So what should you do instead of freaking out that you’re not sleeping? We asked Dr. Barwick for her best advice on dealing with middle-of-the-night wake-ups so you can (hopefully) get back to sleep peacefully—without crying into or punching your pillow.Recognize that your brain is overreacting.As SELF previously reported, there are a lot of reasons why you might wake up at night: You’re anxious, you drank alcohol before bed, you have to pee, your partner (or dog) is snoring, you heard a loud noise outside—any manner of disruptions can pop your eyes open. “On average, adults wake up 10 to 12 times per night,” according to Dr. Barwick. If you’re awake for less than three minutes, you probably won’t remember, she says, which is why you don’t realize you’re experiencing most of these interruptions. Sometimes, though, it can be hard to get back to sleep, and that’s okay. “It doesn’t mean your sleep is broken,” Dr. Barwick says. That’s important to remember, she adds, because it’s easy to spiral into catastrophic thinking, like, I’ll never get back to sleep and my day tomorrow will be ruined! In fact, we’re primed for these spiral-y thoughts: As you fall asleep, your brain shuts down front to back, starting with your frontal lobe, a region that influences your ability to reason and regulate emotions, Dr. Barwick explains. When you wake up during the second half of the night (after the first three to four hours of sleep), you’re largely operating from your limbic system, which includes the amygdala, an area in the back of the brain that’s involved in emotional responses like fear and anxiety, as well as the hippocampus, your brain’s memory hub. As a result, your emotional volume may get turned up, says Dr. Barwick, making it easy to ruminate about a high school–era mistake, say, or the state of your inbox, or how worried you are about the declining whale population. 

Review: “The Nectar Premier mattress is an excellent, high-quality combination of support, comfort, and temperature regulation, and it’s the closest to perfect I’ve found. The bottom line is that when I went to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving, I left two days early so I could sleep on this mattress. And let’s be clear—they weren’t upset. They actually went and bought the mattress too.” —SELF reviewerRating: 9/10Sizes: Available in twin, twin XL, full, queen, king, California king, and split king sizesPrice: Ranges from $669 for a twin to $1138 for a king; free shipping and returns includedTrial Period: 365-night trial periodWarranty: Forever warranty5. Casper Nova Hybrid Mattress Why It’s Worth It: For a comfortable, cooling mattress with ample support, meet the Casper Nova Hybrid Mattress (previously named the Nova Snow Hybrid). The OG mattress-in-a-box brand is known for its foam mattresses, though this hybrid version tops small springs with a parfait of perforated foam, gel bands, and foam with seven zones designed to lift your waist and lower the back for better alignment while you sleep—all topped with a cozy knit top layer. Our reviewer raved about its “perfect mix of firmness and cushiness,” whisper-quiet structure, and game-changing “cool-to-the-touch” features.Review: “Casper’s Nova Hybrid Snow is the most comfortable bed I’ve slept on to date. Since making the swap, I feel more comfortable laying in bed, and I definitely fall asleep a lot faster than I used to. My sleep is deeper too, since I wake up less frequently, and, best of all, I can officially kiss night sweats goodbye.” —SELF reviewerRating: 9/10Sizes: Available in twin XL, full, queen, king, and California king sizesPrice: Ranges from $1,795 for a twin XL to $2,895 for a king; free shipping and returns includedTrial Period: 100-night trial periodWarranty: 10-year limited warranty6. Purple Hybrid Premier Mattress Why It’s Worth It: All of Purple’s products, from its mattresses to its ergonomic seat cushions, contain the brand’s signature Purple GelFlex Grid, a unique squishy purple polymer that some sleepers really enjoy—including our reviewer, who said the three inches of cradling, pressure-relieving gel and responsive coil core of the Purple Hybrid Premier Mattress “completely transformed” her sleep quality and satisfied both her and her partner, despite preferring different firmnesses of mattresses and sleeping positions.Review: “I absolutely love the Purple Hybrid Premier mattress. I’m more comfortable, I sleep deeper, I wake up less frequently, and I don’t feel any pain or stiffness the morning after. Even better, my husband loves it too, which I didn’t think was even possible in our household.” —SELF reviewerRating: 9/10Sizes: Available in twin XL, full, queen, king, California king, and split king sizesPrice: Ranges from $2,499 for a twin XL to $4,698 for a split king; free shipping and returns includedTrial Period: 100-night trial periodWarranty: 10-year warranty7. Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Hybrid MattressWhy It’s Worth It: The Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Hybrid Mattress surpassed our reviewer’s expectations for creating cool, comfy sleep. Each mattress contains an eight-inch core of over 1,000 individually wrapped and zoned coils, as well as a top layer of contouring CopperFlex foam and cooling gel GlacioTex beads. Buyers can choose from three firmness levels for their mattress (soft, medium, and firm), which come with varying levels of elastic, cloud-like TitanFlex foam, gel swirl memory foam, and firm VariFlex foam. As a bonus, the Aurora comes in the widest range of sizes of our tested mattresses (including sizes for RVs).

Since the beginning of developing The Nap Ministry, I have repeated, “This is about more than naps,” over and over again. I’ve done this because I realize that it is so easy for us as a culture to attempt to engage with this work from a quick surface level. Social media makes it so seductive to quickly scroll and feel a high from the media presented. It allows for an engagement that lacks depth, slow study, and embodiment. The memes on our page, or what I like to call “propaganda messages,” are one of the many tools I use to lay a foundation for us to deprogram from grind culture. But there is always an incomplete understanding when you are engaging on social media because it has been created to be an extension of capitalism. The designers of the platforms wants us there all day scrolling, spending money, and absorbing messages in a fast-paced, disconnected manner.To truly grasp the heart of the messages, we will have to put down our phones and laptops and rest. We will have to take an intense look at the ways in which grind culture has traumatized us and then begin the lifelong process of healing from this trauma. This work is about more than simply naps and sleep, it is a full unraveling from the grips of our toxic understanding of our self-worth as divine human beings. Grieving in this culture is not done and is seen as a waste of time because grieving is a powerful place of reverence and liberation. A grieving person is a healed person. Can you guess why our culture does not want a healed person in it?You are worthy of rest. We don’t have to earn rest. Rest is not a luxury, a privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out. I hear so many repeat the myth of rest being a privilege and I understand this concept and still deeply disagree with it. Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us. The more we think of rest as a luxury, the more we buy into the systematic lies of grind culture. Our bodies and Spirits do not belong to capitalism, no matter how it is theorized and presented. Our divinity secures this, and it is our right to claim this boldly. I’m not grinding ever. I trust the Creator and my Ancestors to always make space for my gifts and talents without needing to work myself into exhaustion.When we can begin to tap into the deep vessel of who we truly are, so many things would end about oppression. I believe the powers that be don’t want us rested because they know that if we rest enough, we are going to figure out what is really happening and overturn the entire system. Exhaustion keeps us numb, keeps us zombie-like, and keeps us on their clock. Overworking and the trauma of burnout continues to degrade our divinity. Once we know and remember we are divine, we will not participate and allow anything into our hearts and minds that is not loving and caring. We would treat ourselves and each other like the tender and powerful beings we are. When I say sleep helps you wake up — it helps you wake up to the truth of who and what you are. And the system doesn’t want that. It would crumple under the weight of this power.Things I know for sure that continue to keep me focused on resting: It’s my body, my cells, my skin, my heart, my breath; therefore, I will lovingly center it as the site of my deepest freedom and care. I don’t belong to the systems. They cannot have me. I will never donate my body to a system that views it as only a tool for its production. I need you to begin to slowly feel this and to declare that the systems can’t have you. It will take deep work but it’s imaginative and beautiful work that will be a lifelong process. I am grateful we have a lifetime and our healing needs to not be rushed and urgent. We have a lifetime. We can go slow. We can go deep. We can go into the cracks.Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto