Good sleep should be a MUST! It should be taught in schools!
I want to touch upon this subject of “Getting Good Sleep” which is being neglected by millions of people in the desire of “getting more things done”.
Do you think — you don’t need much sleep? Well, do you know what price are you paying at the cost of sleeping less?
We are living in a fast-and-furious culture where everyone is on-the-go all the time. Why are you tired — if everything is fast-and-furious?
You can never complete your To-do list every day. You can never check-off everything every day.
“You can rest even when you are not done. Or, you can rest when you are completely done(dead)“- Brene Brown
Creativity is the nature of human beings. You can’t showcase your creativity to its true potential — when you are tired and not rested.
Now, I practice getting good sleep and train my mind. I wasn’t good at it at all!! There are some days when I may struggle with sleep. It only happens when I am stressed, and then I practice mindfulness(in the form of Meditation) to get calm.
“Calm is a superpower”– Brene Brown
When anyone is stressed or unproductive, I always ask how many hours do you sleep every day consistently? If the response is less than 7 hours — it doesn’t surprise me — why you are feeling tense, stressed, or any negative emotion.
Results of sleep deprivation:
- Heart diseases and other bodily diseases.
- This leads to unhappiness.
- Anger and frustration.
- Constant stress.
- The toll on your mental powers.
- Reduction of Cognitive ability to think better.
The whole concept of productivity revolves around Good Sleep. Again, getting good at “good sleep” is a skill and can be learned
Are you compromising on your sleep to get more tasks done?
A year ago, in the pursuit of getting more in life, I started to sleep less and less, and sometimes only 4 hours, and as a result, my well-being, patience, and inner-peace went out of the window. I had a lot of mood swings. There were days, I just didn’t want to talk to anybody. I felt like — I was drunk. I hated that time, period!!
Then, I started studying sleep theory and learned that — how it affects our mind, body, and emotions. In all the studies, I found that — in order for our body and mind to function at its peak, we need 7–8 hours of sleep every day.
You might be thinking- “you are fine and you don’t need to sleep that long”. May be??
But, You may not know what you are getting into!! You might be getting into sleep debt that brings a lot of diseases in the long term. It’s like — eating unhealthy food occasionally won’t do much harm, but it will impact you if unhealthy food is consumed every day.
And, the same thing goes with sleep. I understand — occasional less sleep due to circumstances and life events may not cause problems. But, it will for sure — if sleeping less becomes a part of the lifestyle.
When you invest money, compound interest takes time to accumulate. You don’t see the interest right away. It takes months and years. And, the same thing is with — sleeping less. You get my point!
And, who doesn’t like to sleep more? I do!! I feel so good and happy when I am well rested after a great night’s sleep. I usually need 7.5 hours to function really well.
I had to train my mind to sleep for at least 7 hours. It was difficult in the beginning, but I’ve gotten better with time.
In this article, Brene Brown, the author of several New York Times bestselling books and a shame researcher talks about sleep.
Advantages of Good Sleep:
- Peaceful and calm mind.
- Brains function properly.
- You make better choices and decisions.
- Letting go of anger and frustration becomes easy.
Are you finding difficulty in getting good sleep? Do you ever wake up saying — holy shit, why does it happen with me? Does any fear, lack of self-confidence and self-worth bother you when you go to bed?
There are several key factors to consider before going to bed.
What not to do:
- Check emails.
- Expose to horror TV shows or movies
- Social media
- Anything that affects your sleep
Some recommendations:
- Review your day
- Write 3–5 things you are grateful for
- Read something to relax your mind
I usually read and write a gratitude journal before bed. Sometimes, taking a long walk in the neighborhood and meditation does work for me as well.
Another recommendation is — take the last 5 mins before you go off to sleep. You have to program your subconscious mind thinking about the life positive events because your subconscious mind is home and active when you are at sleep.
If you spend the last 5 mins of your day thinking how terrible you feel, what others said to you, what others think of you, what opinion others have for you, etc. and etc, you are putting negative instructions in your subconscious mind. So, do not do this!
Be very careful about how you program your subconscious mind.
Whatever you place in your subconscious mind before sleep, you awake with the same mind.
This is what I do every night! I just close my eyes, feel the silence and affirm:
“Thank you, Universe for giving me this day! I am well, I am content, I am abundant, I am positive thoughts, I am peace, I am faith, I am happy”.
Just know that — sleep is not a nice-to-have thing. It’s should be a priority in life. I have learned to prioritize 7–8 hours of sleep now.
Also, if you train your mind to sleep by a definite time and wake up by a definite time — you have a much better recovery and you will feel amazing! For example: bedtime- 11 pm and wake up time- 6:30 am.
Get great sleep! Enjoy!
Farewell!
The Blog of Nishant Garg 