CNA938 Rewind - A Letter to Myself: Mindfulness and sleep expert Eric Lim on why "life happens for you, not to you"

Is good quality sleep the key to resilience?

When adversity hits, sleep is often the first thing to be disrupted.  The mind races and the body tenses. Even when there is no real threat as you lie in bed. 

I’ve been there too. Back when I was juggling caregiving and work, the emotional strain was real.  Sleep felt impossible. My mind looping through worry, frustration and fear of needing to keep it all together.

Over the years, here’s what I’ve learned: Even if life seems to be happening to you, it doesn’t have to stay that way. 

⭐️ Difficult times don’t last forever. But fear makes it feel like they do. What if you gave yourself permission not to push things through, but to first acknowledge what is already here?

⭐️ What if you see that life happens for you and not to you?  We can’t control when adversity hits. The question isn’t if it will happen, but how we meet it when it does.

For me, mindfulness gave me the space and the courage to accept my life circumstance as it was and to create the internal conditions for better sleep.

It turns out that people who sleep well show better emotional regulation and are more effective in handling stress, even during tough times, based on a meta-analysis published in Sleep Medicine Reviews journal in 2022. 

These are some of my reflections from CNA 938 radio interview with Joel Chua’s show “A Letter to Myself”.

You are more resilient than you think. And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is give yourself permission to pause.

When life gets tough, what helps you to rest and rise again? ☺️