mel robbins – Workplace Navigator

I recently read Mel Robbin’s book, Let Them. It’s a great book to learn to let go of the things you can’t control, which for me, can be focused on trying to chart the course of my adult children’s lives. Robbin’s book helps me focus on what I can control which is me and how I want to show up. She also dives into the perils of adult friendships. I can get caught up with my old high school friend traveling to Bali or the gang getting together at the haunt in my old neighborhood. I’ve learned to not be attached to what everyone else is doing. It’s none of my business. My business is my life and where I want to be right now.

My college roommates, Janine and Susannah, also know as *Those Girls and the Blonde,* reconnecting at a cooking class in Paris in 2016.

Robbins’ points out adult friendships are so difficult for three main reasons: Proximity, Timing and Energy:

Proximity. When we were all in grade school, we saw the same folks every day, in class, on the playground and even in the neighborhood. I grew up on a cul de sac which was chock full of kick the can and touch football games practically every day. My friends or potential friends were around me constantly. In fact, my closest friend to this day was a neighbor from two doors away on that cul de sac. Robbins defines proximity as physical closeness. “This matters way more than you think,” she says, citing research that shows it takes 50 hours to become a casual friend and 200 to become a close friend. If you’re not around each other, it’s hard to log the time required for a real connection. When you’re no longer in school or living with friends, that kind of time together doesn’t happen by accident. “The number one predictor of friendship is how often you see people,” Robbins explains. This is a real eye opener. If I want to make friends as an adult, I need to spend more time focusing on connecting and meeting more people.

Timing. Everyone is on a different path and in a different season in life. Even as I am in my sixties, I have friends that are still raising children, some heavily involved with their grandchildren and then some are traveling the world or living it up in a retirement community. When we were in first grade, we all just wanted to make it to Christmas break and prayed for enough snow to close school and go sledding. Now, I’m lucky to be in the same time zone with my college and high school friends let alone the same place in life. Robbins gives the example of coworkers: You might like the people you work with, but if one person is juggling three young kids and another is traveling every weekend, you may never build the connection required for any kind of deeper friendship. The same goes for long-time friends. “Sometimes, the distance isn’t emotional; it’s just the fact that your lives have diverged,” she says. I recently was able to see two of my college roommates about 24 hours apart as I traveled up the east coast. These friends who I had traveled to Paris with and Boston in the last decade, are still my close friends but we rarely are able to be together at the same time. I’ve learned to be more open and take what time I can get with a friend. For me, it’s not the quantity of time but just making the opportunity.

Energy. Energy is how it feels when you’re around someone, and often, that energy changes based on the two reasons above. “Do you feel safe, supported, and understood?” Robbins asks. “Energy is one of those things you can’t fake.” You might have the same job or live in the same building, but if the emotional vibe between you isn’t clicking, the relationship won’t thrive. I think of this as, “you can’t push a rope”. I’ve spent tons of time on wedging myself into someone else’s life that just doesn’t have the space or energy for me. I think to myself now, “welp, you can’t push a rope.” I have reached out to an old friend several times to connect for lunch and the timing (see above) is never right. In my mind, only energy can help overcome timing and proximity and if it’s all MY energy, then maybe it’s time to let it go for this season. I have found that especially with my long term (plus 40 years of friendship) friends that we might go a decade without reconnecting and yet when we meet up at the restaurant or on that trail when the stars align, it’s magic. We know each other’s stories and roots. We reconnect instantly and time evaporates. I believe it’s because we are both bringing energy.

So, what do you do if you want to make new friendships as an adult? Robbins says that you have to be purposeful. It’s not like heading out to the playground and meeting someone on the swing set. According to Robbins, finding and keeping meaningful friendships as an adult starts with a mindset shift: We have to stop waiting for it to happen and start building it on purpose. So, say hello to that neighbor, join that gym, start a local book club and show up for that meditation class. I have to say that I work harder now at making friends instead of waiting for kismet. Make the call or the text. There are connections out there just waiting for me, I am in charge of making it happen.

You’re driving to work and forget you had to go to the dry cleaners. You end up missing the exit. You’re fifteen minutes late for work and you can’t figure out where the morning went. You are in a fog for most of the morning and blow off that spin class you’ve promised yourself you’d attend for the last two months. All of this anxiety is likely due to your sleep cycle or lack thereof.

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Not getting a good night’s sleep is related to so many consequences. You would think that we would have a class in high school on how to get a good night’s sleep rather than world history or calculus. Want to know what the result can be? Here are a few: depression, weight gain, poor cognitive processing, lower sex drive, quicker aging, forgetfulness, and poor judgement. Hmmm. Sounds like we all need a good quality night’s sleep.

So here are some suggestions:

Detach from your phone. I actually plug in my phone to charge in the kitchen at 7 PM, rather than charging it in my bedroom. I will make sure that it’s set to ring, just in case. My kitchen is about 50 feet from my pillow but if someone REALLY wants to reach me for an emergency, I can hear the phone from there. My son was driving home to Miami the other night and my phone was in the kitchen as usual. I got up to go to the bathroom and walked into the kitchen to check his progress. Then I went back to bed and, yes, went to sleep. The last thing your mind needs is unnecessary pings and pongs in the middle of the night.

Wait until morning to send the email. If you send an email right before you head off to bed, what do you think happens? For one thing, you are likely to think about that email for a good part of the night. In addition, you are keeping someone else, the receiver of that email, awake (unless they are reading this post and following the first bullet). It’s like being at a bar after midnight: not much good from writing emails, drinking, or anything else late at night. Wait until morning when you can execute your best thinking.

Keep it cool. You ideally want to sleep in a room that is between 60 to 69 degrees Fahrenheit. I turn a fan on in my bedroom. It keeps the room cool and the white noise from the fan drowns out any noises that might wake me. Your body needs to drop its core temperature to sleep properly. If you think about it from a caveman’s perspective, they were sleeping at night in cooler temperatures. So turn down the thermostat and get some better, quality shut eye.

Make it dark. One of the best things I did while repairing my home after Hurricane Matthew was to put in blinds on my French doors in my bedroom. It completely shut out any external light. I felt the quality of my sleep improve. I remember going to my brother’s home in Albuquerque, New Mexico and he had aluminum foil on his bedroom windows. He has always worked graveyard shifts, so blocking the sunlight is imperative. In addition, I don’t have anything in my room that typically lights up at night, like a clock, television, or computer. There is one small night light in the bathroom so that I don’t need to turn on a light (and wake completely up) if I need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Dim the lights. Bright light is understood as the sun in your mind, in the sky which is code for, “It’s daylight, let’s get to work.” I make a concerted effort to keep my lighting to a minimum in the evening, especially an hour or so before bed. So put a forty or twenty watt bulb, or a dimmer switch next to your bed so that you can ease yourself into a good night’s sleep.

Don’t hit the snooze button. Apparently about a third of the population are addicted to snoozing in the morning. It’s about the worst thing you can do. I’ve been reading Mel Robbin’s 5 Second Rule, and she suffered for years by hitting the snooze button. You sleep in 90-minute intervals. Mel says that in the last two hours before you wake up, your body is preparing to wake up. So if you don’t have a 90-minute sleep cycle coming, you need to get out of bed. Ironically, I woke up this morning at 4:20 AM and my alarm goes off at 5 AM. I knew I couldn’t squeeze in another 90-minute cycle, so I got out of bed. If I had stayed in bed and tried to sleep, I would have been woken up mid-cycle and been groggy the rest of the morning. Snooze does the same thing. It perpetuates grogginess.

Caffeine and alcohol. Stay away from caffeine after 2 PM and alcohol after 6 PM. Caffeine seems obvious since it’s a stimulant. I personally need to stay away from it after noon. Alcohol is more deceptive. It lulls you into thinking you are going right to sleep, but it actually causes disruption in your REM sleep. So if you are drinking into the evening, your sleep won’t be as restful and of poorer quality.

I put these habits into place over the last three months and my sleep has dramatically improved. I have also increased my quality and quantity of mediation but that is for another post. Try one or two of these and see if your sleep doesn’t improve. What are your secrets to a good night’s sleep?