It’s no secret there are many benefits to getting enough sleep.

According to registered dietitian, Joe Leech in an article he wrote for healthline, if you want to enhance your health and wellbeing, getting enough sleep is “just as important as eating healthy and exercising”.

Mr Leech provides 10 reasons why good sleep is important, including:

• It helps with maintaining a healthy weight.
• It helps with keeping calories in check because “poor sleep affects hormones that regulate appetite”.
• Sleep boosts concentration and productivity.
• It helps with maximise athletic performance.
• Getting enough sleep helps reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
• Adequate sleep reduces the risk of mental health issues, such as depression.
• Sleep helps to boost immune function, reducing the risk of frequent illness/infection.
• Sleep helps decrease inflammation in your body.
• It helps to improve your social skills.

With all the health benefits of sleep, Sleeping Beauty was clearly onto something.

SELF’s Sleeping With …

The other night scrolling through my news app I came across an article published in SELF – part of their Sleeping With … series, in which they interviewed American actress, producer, director, talk show host and entrepreneur, the one and only, Drew Barrymore.

I’ve been a huge fan of Ms Barrymore for years.

Some of my fave Ms Barrymore movies including ‘Charlie’s Angels’ , ’50 First Dates’, ‘Ever After’, ‘The Wedding Singer’, ‘Never Been Kissed’ … and of course, ‘E.T’, so when her name popped up I instantly clicked the headline to find out: what is Ms Barrymore’s sleep routine actually like.

While it’s clear that Ms Barrymore’s children are her world: “I feel like my kids and the work are a priority”, she tells SELF, the thing I love is that her night-time routine seems a little less A-list celebrity and a little more normal – like a routine many of us who would have.

Reading the SELF article, Ms Barrymore’s night-time routine revolves largely around dinner and getting the kids to bed before she has time to focus on a little bit of her own work and now a “gratitude list”.

“I’m noticing things differently because of this gratitude book,” says Ms Barrymore. “It’s so awesome. So that’s been a really nice nightly ritual that I just started a month and a half ago.”

Ending the interview with an insight into her night-time beauty routine, Ms Barrymore tells SELF that no matter what the evening entails once the kids are in bed – “a little more work or just read a book, chill out for a second” – taking care of her skin is something that’s always on the night-time agenda.

“I’ll always wash my face. I’ll take care of my skin, make sure it’s clean and clear. Then I’ll go back into the bedroom and fall asleep. The sleep is good,” she tells SELF.

Wash your face 

All this talk about sleep recently got me thinking about my own sleep habits and my night-time routine.

Being an early rise – my first alarm goes off at 4:30 AM, I love my mornings – I’m normally ready for bed by about 8:30-9 PM.

This doesn’t leave a lot of time for too much fun in the evenings, especially during the working week, but I’d much rather have my mornings than trying to stay up late because isn’t that what adults do … #adulting.

As it turns out, my night-time routine isn’t too extravagant.

I’ll get home from work, cook dinner, FaceTime with J (the part I look forward to the most), work on various projects for a little bit (lately it’s been uni work) and then I’ll try to wind down.

I’ve started watching reruns of Sex and the City, so I might watch one or two 20-minute episodes to wind down and, while admittedly I haven’t always washed my face before bed (terrible, I know), I now make sure that no matter what’s going on I wash my face.

I swear by Cetapahil Gentle Skin Cleanser because I have really sensitive skin.

After that, it’s bedtime and I’m normally sleeping to the sound of a short YouTube meditation or Ted talk by about 9 PM.

Bonne nuit.

x G.