In our Sleeping With… bedtime routine series, we speak to people from different career paths, backgrounds, and stages of life to find out how they make sleep magic happen.
You might know Tallulah Willis from her superstar family (ahem, Bruce and Demi) and their matching pajamas. Or maybe you know her from her dog mom content, her candid posts on mental health, or her recently launched clothing line, Wyllis. No matter her project, the 26-year-old designer has always put mental health awareness and advocacy at its forefront.
Willis’s goal in creating Wyllis was to make clothing that helps people feel safe. Her messaging is clear: Phone numbers for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline and National Alliance on Mental Illness Helpline are listed on every page of the Wyllis website.
After a few difficult years, Willis is now six years sober and finding her footing. She spent the early months of quarantine in Idaho with her sisters and their respective partners, her own partner, and both of her parents. Now she’s back in Los Angeles, where she lives with her three dogs, Touchi, Guinevere, and Cowboy.
“Before I got sober, I thought my body was invincible,” Willis tells SELF. “I wouldn’t sleep. I wouldn’t really eat. I was just pouring substances in my body without thought.” Now, Willis says, “Sleep is huge. It’s my least favorite feeling to feel that sluggish, slow, tired feeling, because I’m such a go-getter. I just want to be able to do stuff and be productive.”
Here, Willis speaks about the bedtime routine she’s spent the last couple of years cultivating—including building her ideal bedroom and creating a routine while living with OCD and ADD.
I love routines, but keeping a routine is quite difficult for me.
It’s the same thing as people being like, “It’s amazing to write in your journal every day.” As much as I want to be someone who writes in their journal and meditates every day, goes on a hike every day, that’s not me and I’m not going to do it. For so long, I punished myself and got mad at myself because I wasn’t doing that. And when I just started allowing what worked for me to be okay and be enough, then I started to feel better. Particularly with my mental health, I know that having a routine would probably help. I’ve implemented or introduced some more grounding, rooting things, but my days are really sporadic.
I am a very, very empathetic person—a very sensitive person. I was told once that if you are that way, you need to be in water every day to wash the day out of you. So I pretty much take a bath every night if I can.
During particularly tough moments, it could be multiple baths a day. It’s really where I feel like I can pause. I have this candle from Diptyque called Essence of John Galliano. If I had just seen the name, I would have been like, “I don’t know if I want to smell his skin.” But I got it at a store, and I was just obsessed with the smell. So I always light my Essence of John Galliano candle.