As small businesses, we have to be looking after ourselves to ensure we can continue working and function for our customers. But as a grower, I talk to so many flower farmers who do everything except prioritise their health and well being, which means their business is unlikely to be sustained in the future.
When we spoke at the Flowers from the Farm conference in January, Paula dressed up in yellow jacket and protective hat to emphasise looking after your safety , and we had a huge amount of feedback to thank us for the reminder, so now i’m hoping to nudge you into action over sleep, so that you can, like me prioritise getting a full night’s shut eye in, because the benefits to both me and my business are immense.
Sleep helps you function and it is crucial for physical recovery. - Working physically can take a toll on your body, and sleep helps to repair muscle fatigue and inflammation. When we’re doing jobs with lots of fine motor control like picking and making bouquets, A lot of the mental acuity needed for that is going to be governed by how time you have been in bed to recover.
Particularly for middle aged women and those of us approaching or at menopause, prioritising sufficient sleep is hugely important, and uninterrupted sleep is the holy grail.
So how can we do it?
Well research says that we need 8 hours sleep, so importantly we need to go to bed 8 hours before we need to get up. (this one sounds obvious, but for years I thought 10.00 was “too early” for bed, but I was on the go by 6am at the latest)
We try and get our children into a routine, but we also need to do that for us as well, do you go to bed at the same time every day?
Don’t take any interruptions to bed, Electronic devices should be charging downstairs.
If you go do bed and worry about what you need to do the next day, make sure you’ve downloaded your worries and ideas to a list that you can get going on straight away in the morning
The most difficult time to get sufficient sleep is when we’ve got very hot or stormy spells of weather, and picking needs to be done early or late in the day. At that point, make sure you go easy on yourself, and recognise that you may not get enough sleep at night. A short nap in the day may help you to recover, and looking after your nutrition and self care in other ways is even more important.
We’ve got a whole section about self care in our Business of Growing Flowers course, and we love that our students recognise that they need to look after themselves to have successful businesses.