This week, we catch up with Alexx Stuart, founder of Low Tox Life, an avid researcher and recipe creator.
Alexx is a believer that healthier people + healthier planet = the holy grail of wellness. Through Low Tox Life, Alexx promotes a food philosophy of keeping it real, keeping it unrefined, trying for organic as much as possible, and in terms of diet, eating what’s right for you. There’s no one right way, except the natural, real food way.
The Goodnight Co. reached out to Alexx to learn a little more about her sleep ritual and her relationship with sleep.
How do you navigate a stressful day?
First step for me, is that I acknowledge that a stressful day ENDS, and at the end of it, you have to let it go. It’s all going to be fresh tomorrow. I feel like the acknowledgment that it’s 'not forever' gives some perspective and allows me to see the temporary stress as a good response to help me through the situation / day. That said, a few things I do when something stressful ‘hits’:
- I make myself a Pukka Three Tulsi Tea. Tulsi is the cure all plant of Ayurveda and it’s my cure all. Calming, anti inflammatory, adaptogenic – it’s got it all for a stressful day.
- I take a few deep breaths as long as I need them.
- I bounce on my mini trampoline. There’s something about a couple of minutes bouncing that gets your blood going.
What your pre sleep ritual?
My brain works best at night so not working / writing at night means very little writing at all… I ensure I have my Flux app programmed to switch off the blue light on my laptop at 7pm and that my phone is on nightshift. I wear sexy blue blocker glasses, too – blue light is the enemy of melatonin levels naturally rising, so if you’re a night owl like me, don’t feel you have to stop being who you are, just accommodate your body’s natural rhythms with what you can do and relax about it. I spent years trying to not be a night thinker and basically became really uncreative. Once work is done, I read a long form article about something completely unrelated to my work before sleep. I give myself a little foot massage with the supremely settling Young Living Copaiba and Vetiver oils. I do all the toiletries stuff. And I sleep super fast.
What’s the one thing you can’t sleep without?
Ear plugs. I travel with them everywhere and I wear them every single night. I’m jumpy at little things – I have been since I became a mother 8 years ago – so if I don’t have them, little noises wake me in the night… no thanks!
How do you achieve your balance?
Family. Meal time with friends and family I love. Cooking. Music. Taking the long way round after picking my son up from school or dropping him off, so I can walk the little local beach. I am not great at boxing everything into neat little parts of the day to achieve so called ‘balance’ – it ebbs and flows in my work. It’s the nature of my work, so doing little things like the ones I’ve described there, keep the busy times feeling like there’s balance for me, and then I take a couple of good big breaks in the year. That is what works for me to feel like I’ve got my cup being constantly topped up.
Find Alexx’s tips, online courses and mouthwatering recipes for a low tox life here.
