How She Gets to Bed: Rocio “Luz” Cadena, Founder of Life of Leisure
How She Gets to Bed is a deep dive into how women who kick ass during the day spend their night. Tonight, we’re ecstatic to feature Rocio “Luz” Cadena, founder of Life of Leisure, a wellness movement to help creative, overwhelmed women reclaim their time (and humanity!) during the age of busyness, burnout + workism. Without further ado, here is how she gets to bed. 💤
Luz’s Background
Industry: Wellness
Occupation: Writer + Founder of Life of Leisure
Age: 29
Location: Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Awake by: 7:30 AM
Asleep by: 11:30 PM
On the Day-to-Day
It depends on the day of the week! I block Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for calls, and I have six to eight calls on those days to connect with the team, women+ founders and Dough corporate partners. In between meetings, I clear out my inbox. My days vary a lot because I juggle a full-time job with running my business, so no one day looks alike. However, I’m very committed to my morning routines so unless I have a very early call, I tend to start my day with wellness practices. I start off by reading my mantras, making my bed, stretching, breathwork, meditation and journaling. Journaling + mediation are Mon, Wed + Fri. Breathwork is on Tues + Thur. The weekend I’m more flexible and I listen to my body to tell me what I need most. Then after all this, I get started on my full time job around 10am and fit in Life of Leisure in my moments of downtime during the 9–5 hours and in the evenings.
I’m working hard on the launch of my digital community next month so I’m focused on pre-launch events, getting the platform ready, social media and and and! I’m now living in Mexico (my homeland!) doing the ~digital nomad~ thing so I like to work in my apartment until the late afternoon at which point I will go to a cafe to be around people and then return home after a few hours to eat dinner and continue working and maybe meet up for a social activity in the evening later in the week.
Activities to Relax
Honestly, this is really tricky in my position of having a full time job and a business on the side because a lot of the workdays I’m working late on Life of Leisure, until 10ish or so. All to say that my wind down routine leaves a lot to be desired. Typically though, I like to watch YouTube videos in the evening as my brain associates this with non-work amusement. I like to watch The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Li Ziqi, who lives a magical, cinematic life in the beautiful, mountainous area of Sichuan, China.
Products to Get Unready
While I don’t do these things as consistently or as often as I’d like them, I do like to do face masks in the evening (anything Korean made I love, or bentonite clay mixed with apple cider vinegar to help with my oily skin). Ahh, I also love baths! I would luxuriate in one almost daily if I had the time but I don’t actually have a bath in my studio in Playa, which is fine because I have the ocean! Instead, I prefer to shower in the evenings because my brain associates this with rest and getting ready for bed. I also try to read before going to sleep, which truthfully, I’m not always successful with. And the last thing that I manage to do every single night is to use my lavender essential oil right before putting on my silk face mask to snooze.
Late Night Snacks
I’m not really a snacker so if I’m hungry at night, I’ll eat whatever is available which tends to be yogurt & fruit Special K cereal with almond milk, or any granola with almond milk. Other times, I’ll try to have unsweetened Greek yogurt with granola.
Nighttime Routine
These days I tend to work past 10pm Monday through Thursday. Fridays and maybe Wednesdays I’ll meet up a friend for dinner or join a digital nomad meetup. Dinner tends to happen between 6 and 9pm — I’ll either eat something I made earlier in the week, have a sandwich or eat street tacos.
But when I do have a semblance of a routine, it looks something like this:
10:30 PM — Skincare routine: Wash face with MIZON Egg White Bubble Cleanser, apply Be The Skin Botanical Pore Toner, apply Sircuit Weapon Vitamin C serum and finish off with CeraVe PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion. Brush my teeth with my new Philips Sonicare Electric Toothbrush and go to bed.
11:00 PM — Read my book or watch YouTube videos. I know, I know, blue screen light is not good before sleeping but as I mentioned before, my nighttime routine is a work in progress!
11:30 PM — Dab lavender essential oil on my temples, pillow and neck and go to sleep!
Follow Life of Leisure on Instagram (@lifeoleisure) and join the Life of Leisure Society digital community waitlist!
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