Quick Checklist To Get A Good Sleep
Sleep is essential to us.
Sleep is a priority.
Sleep keeps us sharp.
Sleep helps us remember, learn and grow.
Sleep refreshed our emotional state.
Sleep enables the highest levels of mental contribution.
This is something really really need to invest your time, cultivate it into your daily life. No one can sleep for you, not your mother, not your wife, it’s the one single core activity that only you can do, to protect yourself so you could achieve more.
The Cost Of Lack Of Sleep
When I’m lack of sleep, the chemistry inside my body is totally different, it turns me to basically a bad guy:
- Not just less fun but boring
- So so impatient, this really would hurt people around me
- Not energetic at all
- Bad temper
- It affects my work, my relationship, all my activities
And then I feel guilty about myself, I can’t blame for sleep but me, in the end I’m responsible to take care of myself as an adult.
And sleep is also more important to the brain, not just body. When volunteer research subjects are deprived of adequate sleep, they maintain their physical strength; what suffers are mental skills like perception, abstraction, and reasoning.
Bedtime Procrastination
It’s easier to just go on than go to bed, researchers call it “bedtime procrastination”.
from “Shave 10 Hours Off Your Workweek”
That rings a bell. Even though I think I’ve understood all the great juice I could get from a sleep, and all the cost I wouldn’t need to pay when I’m lack of sleep, I still fail to go to bed as scheduled.
Why is that people fail to do what they know is good for them to do? Hehe, it’s a very interesting area.
Sometimes it’s tempted to just keep going than stop, but is the thing that important that need to be done right now, 11:30 pm in the night? Or is it the same to get it done tomorrow morning, except then you’ll have a refreshed mind and better decision making ability?
Quick Checklist To Get A Good Sleep
- Commit to it
- Schedule it
- Establish a ritual
- Exercise during the day
- Expose to sunlight
- Avoid eating too late
- Kill the lights an hour before the bedtime
- Turn off all electronic devices
These are recommendations I read from multiple sources, and I practiced before, it works, it’s proven strategy. But if you don’t keep paying attention on it, it’s easy to derail from it in your busy life.
Remember: one less link, one less episode, one less page, now, you’ll get more tomorrow.
Deliver The Message To The Unknowns
When I was young I simplify believed sleep was a waste of time, I could do more if I could somehow trick myself to skip it. I did remember when I first got to Japan, there was a guy in the TV who bragging that he only took 4 hours sleep per day, and even once had an accident when driving the car because he fell asleep. Sadly he took that as a badge of honor, and more sadly, I bought it and took that as a role model.
There were lots of nights I refused to sleep, and wouldn’t listen to any kind advice from people close to me. I thought that sacrificing sleep was the price I need to pay in order to achieve more.
I was wrong. Completely wrong. And now I look back, I feel this tremendous amounts of guilt, I made them worried. They knew how sleep is essential to us, and wanted to deliver the same message to me, but my blindness and arrogance turned them down, I was the unknown.
I wish I would have known the truth earlier. Now I know it, but it’s my turn to be struggled about how to deliver the message to others.
Listen to those who are telling you to go to bed on time, they say it because they care about you, you might not buy it, but at least show some respect. Meanwhile, if you’re on the other side trying to push this idea, be sure not to send it in a demanding tone, what you’re doing is a good thing, stay patient and creative.
If you have the similar experience, no matter being the unknowns or knowns, please leave a comment and let me know your story, it’s worth sharing.
If you want to read more: there’s a chapter in the Essentialism just named “Sleep”, and also one in Mentally Tough: The Principles of Winning at Sports Applied to Winning in Business, and it’s repeatedly mentioned my favorite podcast, the list goes on and on.
