Buckhead resident and integrative health coach changed her sleep habits and her life.
When Jenni-Lee Basson and her husband, Garth, were planning a move to Atlanta from South Africa six years ago, she had an epiphany. During one of their weeklong visits to their new city, they slept incredibly well. Removed from the prevalent crime to which they had become accustomed in their home country, and which often kept the mother of three up at night, they were able to enjoy a level of restorative sleep they hadn’t experienced in years. Even during Garth’s cancer battle, which he was fighting at the time and ultimately beat, they rested soundly. It made her stop to think about how important sleep was to her well-being.
“I had such broken sleep,” says Basson, who began considering her sleep habits after Garth was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2015 and received a second diagnosis of stage four cancer two years later. That stress, coupled with raising three girls, had put her in a continuous cycle of exhaustion where she fell asleep quickly but woke up often during the night and felt groggy the next day because she never achieved adequate deep sleep. “That became a habit,” she says, noting that she accepted her doctor’s prescription for sleeping pills at the height of Garth’s cancer treatment when she couldn’t shut down.
“There came a time when I said, ‘I don’t want to become dependent on these pills. I need to look at how I can make some changes,’” says Basson, who began with small, simple steps such as taking magnesium at night and choosing to put down her phone a few hours before she went to bed. By the time her family completed their move to Buckhead, she had a comprehensive, fairly strict nighttime routine that includes being in bed by 10 p.m. with the lights out by 10:30, ensuring that she can get a full eight hours of sleep. She strives to keep her bedroom decluttered, uses blackout curtains and sleeps with an eye mask. She often takes an Epsom salt bath to help detox and ease into a deeper sleep.
Basson’s sleep-based routine also goes beyond her bedtime regimen. For instance, she engages in a variety of deep breathing exercises throughout the day to combat stress—something her entire family does on a regular basis. “When you have high levels of stress, you can’t just bring those down before you go to sleep,” she says. “You have to take small breaks during the day with sessions of breathing. It has helped me a lot.” She also does infrared sauna sessions when time allows. The cumulative results for her have been noticeable. “You start your day better, you feel more focused, you have clarity. When you wake up in the morning, you’re more energetic. Mentally, physically and emotionally, your overall health is improved,” Basson says. “The importance of better sleep is something underestimated by so many.”
With that in mind, Basson, who has always been passionate about health and nutrition, went back to school to study integrative holistic health, taking a yearlong online course with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Now she has a growing business as an integrative nutrition health coach that allows her to share her knowledge with clients facing similar challenges. When it comes to sleep, her advice is to implement small changes over time to avoid becoming overwhelmed and stay consistent. “You cannot make a list of 10 changes and say, ‘I’m going to do all of this.’ Even one change can be hard. So you’ve got to make one change at a time,” she says. “There’s no quick fix. We don’t do anything unless there’s a reward. The reward is feeling and functioning so much better.”
JENNI-LEE BASSON
jenliveshealthy.com
@jenliveshealthy
PHOTO: Erik Meadows
