2020 has made a weary world more restless and anxious than ever before. Pandemic anxiety due to navigating working from home, isolation, loss of wages, and overall survival has impacted the entire world; but with Black people being disproportionately at risk of contracting coronavirus, we are also at risk of higher rates of depression, anxiety, and lack of sleep.
According to a recent report from Express Scripts, the use of anti-insomnia, anti-anxiety, and antidepressant medications have spiked, with filled prescriptions increasing by 21% between February and March 2020. Those numbers peaked during the week of March 15—the same week the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic and the US declared a national emergency in response to the crisis, per the report.
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My sleep schedule has been altered tremendously and I spent many nights in quarantine crying, trying to find movies that fill me with joy before I sleep, rearranging my space, and applying essential oils before bed - none of that worked. I decided that I'd try sleeping naked to give myself an opportunity to feel free, and to literally take the weight of the world off of me as I rested every night.
Going to bed in my birthday suit centered me, it allowed me to face myself, the literal naked truth. It also allowed me to intentionally moisturize and wake up and assess how I felt the night before in ways that I didn't when I'd go to sleep fully clothed.
In case you need a bit more convincing of the naked truth, here are the benefits of sleeping au naturel:
You Sleep Better
A study from the National Institutes of Health found that the temperature of the room where you sleep is one of the most important factors in achieving quality sleep. The ideal bedroom temperature for getting to sleep is 60–67°F (15.6–19.4°C), and sleeping naked is an additional way to keep the body's internal temperature low.
It Can Prevent Vaginal Yeast Infections & Improve Overall Vaginal Health
The vagina is a warm environment, which makes it an ideal place for yeast to grow. Sleeping naked can reduce the risk of vaginal yeast by allowing room for your vagina to breathe.
You Can Develop A Positive Body Image
When you think of how many hours of the day we spend with layers of clothes on, we don't have many moments where we're facing ourselves and learning to love our bodies. For me, sleeping naked doubles as self-care, as you're examining yourself and learning to fall in love with every inch of you.
You’ll Likely Fall Asleep Faster
This 2012 study states that heat exposure increases wakefulness and decreases slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep. With your skin cooling off faster, you're more likely to fall asleep, and rest peacefully.
If you're struggling with sleep, consider ditching your nightgown or pajamas and hop in the bed in the nude, and share if it's improved your sleep pattern!
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak