Beauty brains/the manual

Make rest assured and treat your feet

Lockdown has sent people in one of two directions. Sleeping like a baby – waking every two hours and finally throwing in the towel, exhausted but wired, at 5.30am. Or like a teenager – 10 or 12 hours, emerging exhausted and groggy.

Maybe we’re approaching this the wrong way. The latest thinking suggests that not everyone thrives on a continual chunk of sleep, anyway. Anthropologists recently discovered that in pre-industrial Europe, our forebears would sleep for a couple of hours after dusk, then get up and do a bit of wood chopping before going back to sleep until dawn. So perhaps those of us who can currently be more flexible with our routines should approach broken sleep with more of an open mind.

It’s not advisable to do anything too energetic between sleep shifts, since that could cause a spike in your cortisol levels. Try taking magnesium supplements, an Epsom salts bath, or some high-quality multivitamins to shore up your gut, which also controls sleep.

If you feel lethargic during the day, there’s a groundswell of support for napping. Nahid de Belgeonne, founder of thehumanmethod. co.uk, an online source of potent movement and breathing practices, promotes ‘Intermittent Resting’, which involves concentrating on your work for 90 minutes – then resting for 20 – four or five times a day.

All very well at home. When we finally return to our offices, de Belgeonne suggests going for a walk outside or finding a quiet area, sitting with a notepad for cover, and allowing yourself to daydream.