Tumblr Why is It Easy to Stay Awake Until 6
How To Get More Sleep
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SUMMARY:
If you think you can get by on 4-6 hours of sleep, know this: 50 years of sleep science has proven that lack of 7-8 hours of sleep is one of the worst things you can do for your mood, health, brain, and relationships. Here are five ways to get more sleep:
1. Start with 45 more minutes:
Take the pressure off yourself and just get 45-50 more minutes of sleep starting tonight. To make this super simple, go to bed 45 minutes earlier than you usually do. It might not seem like much, but this little bit of extra sleep will help start a new habit that could change your life.
2. Rest more during the day:
It's ironic: find moments of rest and peace throughout the day and you'll sleep better at night. That's why meditators sleep better: they've learned to manage their mind and slow life down during the day. So try meditating 20 minutes a day. If you've never tried meditation, try my Release Meditation Technique, whichI've taught over a million people. If meditation isn't your thing, then take a nap or go for a peaceful walk for 20 minutes, focusing on your breath with each step.
3. Stop drugging yourself:
A lot of people can't sleep because they're drinking caffeine, eating sugar and whacking out their system with white carbs all day long. To sleep better, avoid putting your hormones and digestion on a roller coaster. No caffeine after 3pm, and work hard to dramatically limit how much sugar and white carbs you consume.
4. Wind down:
About one hour before you go to sleep, dim the lights in your house and turn off all the screens and technology. No browsing or social media or email in that last hour. Do some light reading or plan your day by journaling. This is the way to naturally drift off to sleep coolly and calmly. Remember: no tech before bed.
5. Practice gratitude:
When you get into bed, calm your mind and emotions by focusing on taking 10 deep breaths and then asking yourself, "What am I grateful for in my life?" A happy heart rests well.
You deserve to get more sleep but you must make it a practice. With more sleep, you have greater creativity, decreased stress, and higher levels of engagement and enthusiasm throughout the day. You start to experience what we call The Charged Life!
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey everybody, it's Brendon and in this video let's talk about you finally getting some more sleep.
I've always been a big proponent of pushing this topic on people very strongly because we've known for a very long time—only about 50 years of real research—that if you're not getting enough sleep:
- Your cognitive abilities throughout the day go down.
- Your creativity goes down.
- Your stress goes up.
- Your bad decision making goes up.
- And your ability to handle conflict or life challenges and be resilient and happy and positive all goes to sh**
So…
- What do you do?
- How do you get more sleep?
- How do you finally manage this part of your life?
Because look, we all have a lot of expectations, a lot of demands in our lives and so at some point we start believing the hype out there that, "Oh hey, you can get by on you know 3 – 4 hours of sleep. Don't worry about it. Just sleep a little less. Get up a little earlier."
And we start telling ourselves this big lie that we can get away with less sleep. Even though we have 50 years of science saying we can't.
Especially today, there's this popular myth that, " You can take sleep for two hours, rest, take a nap for 30 minutes here and there. Or sleep for four hours and nap and meditate throughout the day to catch up."
The reality is we know that's not possible for the vast majority of people.
People say, "But Brendon, the navy seals can do it." I'm like, "Yes, but you're not a navy seal and they hate it and they call it hell-week when they do that, okay?"
Most normal, average, must perform, must be awesome, care about your high performance and have to be smart people throughout the day really must sleep 7 to 8 hours a night.
So, if you're not getting that on a consistent basis, what can you do?
Well first and foremost, if you're not getting that much, don't all of a sudden take this pressure on yourself about sleep. In a sense of saying, "Well gosh, I'm only sleeping 4 hours of sleep, I better figure out my 8 hours." I was like, "Calm down dude, here's how I want you to start."
1. Just get 45 to 50 minutes more sleep tomorrow, tonight, this week then you usually do.
Every night just knock out another 45 to 50 minutes.
How do you do that?
Go to bed 45 to 50 minutes earlier than you usually do. That's all. Just start with that and if that picks you up that fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth hour of sleep, ROCK ON!
If you have no problem sleeping 8 hours regularly throughout every single night then go watch one of my other videos. But for those who have that challenge, you're just not getting that 8 hours of sleep on a consistent basis, here's the first counter intuitive thing that you can do.
2. It's going to sound weird so let me walk you through it—rest more during the day.
One of the reasons people don't sleep enough and can't fall asleep is because their keyed up all day. They're building this momentum, this tension, this stress all day. And then at night, they get in bed and they're like, "Whooohooo." They're like totally wacked out on a roller coaster and they cannot bring the adrenalin down.
You need to teach your body to have the ability to recover.
And actually if you recover throughout the day, it's easier to put yourself to sleep at night.
It's almost counter intuitive. So how do you do that?
Well, we know for example that people who meditate sleep better at night because they've learned that ability to manage their mind, slow it down, to chill out.
So try this if you've never tried it before—meditate every single day for about 20 minutes. Just find a time during the day to meditate. To sit down, close your eyes. If you've never watched my video on YouTube called "The Release Meditation Technique," give that a try. I've taught over a million people now how to do the release meditation technique.
It's very simple you close your eyes and you repeat the word, "Release" to yourself over and over and over. When other thoughts come up, you just return to the mantra of release and that's all you do. Eyes closed, repeating release for 20 minutes; super simple, incredibly effective.
And if you're someone who's like, "Dude, I don't want to try meditation. I tried it, I don't like it. I didn't release. I don't like it."
That's cool.
Then go for a walk for 20 minutes during the day without your phone, without your phone, without anybody with you, by yourself. Don't speak. Try not to think too much. Just wander for 20 minutes outside. Just walk around. Have 20 minutes of silence, no stress, no screens, breathing with each step. Just think about your breath and walking for 20 minutes. Try that.
Now if you really want to go advance, do all that I mentioned. Either walk or meditate twice per day for 20 minutes.
It's going to teach your body to have a rhythm and to slow down. And you'll find, you start sleeping better at night. You won't even know why. Well I'm telling you why but I'll tell you, it's that simple and that straight forward.
You must find your time throughout the day
- To have a few moments,
- To wind down,
- To chill out,
- To meditate,
- To rest,
- To relax.
It will help you relax better at night.
3. The second thing that you can do is stop drugging yourself.
A lot of people can't sleep because they're having caffeine at 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 o'clock at night and their body is all keyed up and its hormones and your processing, your digestive system are out of whack.
Drugs include caffeine, include sugar, include white carbs; include all those things that are whacking your system out, especially, after that 3 o'clock hour in the afternoon.
You think, "Oh gosh, it's fine if I have some coffee at 6 o'clock at night because I've done that for years and I can still sleep okay once in a while."
It's not okay.
You need to knock off the caffeine. Knock off the sugars. And knock off that high white flour sort of starch carbohydrates after five o'clock, just don't do it because it's whacking out your system and your sleep.
So, a lot of reasons you feel fine, you don't feel full. You're like, "I don't understand. I ate hours ago. I should go to sleep fine."
Your body really does need its time to wind down, okay. It really does need it.
4. Which leads us to the third point—wind down.
>In that hour to ninety minutes prior to sleep, dim the lights in your house. Don't look at any screens anymore. That means no TV and no handhelds. You're not Twittering and Facebooking and doing all the other things on your phone. And I really mean no texting either.
Just stop in that last hour.
That means if you want to read a book, go ahead read a book. Don't read like magazines with dozens and dozens of pictures to start dropping dopamine in the back of your brain stem. Just read one thing, read one article or one book or journal and plan your day with no noise, no TV.
I know you might have the kids and they might be loud and everything else but then turn the TV out for yourself. And you're like, "But Brendon, I got to fall asleep with the TV." No you don't you just taught yourself to.
Trust me, thousands and thousands of years of human history passed with no television. They slept just fine. I'm sure if you have ever gone camping or been in the great outdoors you're like, "Wow I sleep amazing."
It's because you're not watching television, I hope. Now people, they're in the camp grounds watching their iPads.
You got to turn it off. Dim the lights, no screens, no sounds or stimulation. Just chill the last hour and allow you to kind of glide yourself into bed, calm, cool. You'll sleep like a champ.
5. Last thing number 4 very simple—when you go to bed, your thoughts, you got to get them under control.
The way to do it is be in a place of gratitude.
Just say, "Thank you." That's it. When you get into bed just say thank you to your god, to your creator, to yourself, to the world, to the cosmos, whatever your personal faith or beliefs are. Just go, when you think about the ending, if you think about the ending is just be grateful.
Just think about all the things you're grateful for in your life.
Don't think about all the things you need to do tomorrow. That's going to whack you out. Just think about the things that you're genuinely grateful for in life because you know what, a happy heart rests well.
So, if you can just be happy and grateful for:
- The things that you do have in life.
- The person or the choices you've had in your life.
- The blessings that are all around us all the time.
- The good things that have gone on in your life.
Think about those things, it'll help you fall to sleep much more peacefully and easily.
You'll drift out just fine. Set your alarm for 8 hours later before you go to bed so you know you're going to get that time and try to do it. If you wake up early, just lie in bed thinking about all the things you're grateful for in life. Maybe some of the things you have to do as you wake up to slowly wake yourself up.
Don't wake up and immediately check your screens. That sets the anchor and it trains your brain. Got to get up, got to handle, got to handle!!!
And that's why you're waking up too early, often and kind of freaked out and you can't stop. Because you're actually conditioning your brain to get up and check all these things. Don't do that.
When you wake up instead have a morning ritual that doesn't include checking into everything. Check into yourself. Think about your thoughts. Maybe stretch your body. Do your exercise, your workout. Then plan the day and get at it.
If you keep these things in mind, if you actually practice them, you'll start to have a whole new experience with sleep.
You'll feel better about it. It'll be less pressure about it. You'll sleep great, you'll wake up great. You'll start to feel more energized, more engaged with your life, more enthusiastic because you actually for the first time feel rested, clear, ready to tackle on the day. You'll get to experience what we call, The Charged Life.
Like this? Please share it with your friends so that your loved ones can start getting more sleep starting now. - Brendon
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Source: https://brendonburchard.tumblr.com/post/126022364133/how-to-get-more-sleep
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