We are brought up to believe that sleep is the cousin of death, and therefore you should sleep less and work more. It is good to put in the hours but without enough sleep, you won’t be super productive when you are grinding. How many hours do you sleep? 3, 4, or 8? Now, try sleeping an extra 40 minutes and see your energy levels skyrocket the following day. You will be more alert than you have ever been when you try to get more sleep.
I have very bad sleeping patterns. And what leads to that is majorly technology, smartphones to be exact. I am always surfing the internet until late at night. Sometimes I wake up and write at 3 am when I should be sleeping. That’s the problem with being a writer, I can have an order that comes late and needs to be sent out by morning. When you are doing jobs with a deadline you might find yourself working when you are supposed to be sleeping.
You want to eat and at the same time, you want to watch your health. If you are staying awake at night because of smartphones and not work, just switch off your phone at a certain time let’s say 11 pm. This I can’t do because I don’t know who might need me for a late-night emergency. I will thus just put the phone away by a certain time. I won’t put it on silent mode or switch it off, just discipline yourself to avoid touching the phone past a certain time if you want to sleep better.
Sleep is not for lazy men only; my neighbor was telling me his kid eats a lot. I then asked him if the kid sleeps wells, he told me it doesn’t. I told him to let it sleep more, when a child sleeps, there is a hormone called leptin hormone that is produced. This hormone helps in controlling how much a kid eats during the day. When a child lacks sleep, the opposite happens; enough of the leptin hormone is not produced and thus it eats too much without control. Lack of sleep in kids can thus lead to obesity.
Sleeping is a healing process that enables the reproduction of cells which helps in brain repair. Getting enough sleep thus regenerates brain support cells. During the day, the brain goes through a lot of fatigue and damage. And so when you refuse to sleep, you are doing a lot of harm to your brain.
Another way sleep can help you is by gaining muscles. If you are trying to build muscles, get enough sleep, and see your arms bulge. You won’t grow if you don’t sleep enough, it is true for kids, and it is true for gym guys. Workout though, you still have to hit the gym hard if you want more muscles. Or just do push-ups on your floor.
If you want to get better sleep at night avoid siestas, when I sleep even for 20 minutes during the day, I struggle to get sleep at night. Another simple technique to get quality sleep is to avoid working from your bed, when you have laptops and phones in your bedroom, you won’t sleep after work, you will go to YouTube and spend your sleep hours streaming videos.
Books are equally a distraction, some people read while in bed. It is good for your mind but you need a break so that you can read better and retain more when your mind is fresh. Sleep removes the toxins that clog your brain during the day. So, you can benefit a lot from a good sleep. As I am writing this I am very sleepy because I spent my night writing instead of sleeping. Now, that might affect the quality of this article. It won’t be long because my brain is fatigued.
And with those simple tips, you can start training yourself to sleep better and avoid poor sleeping patterns. You don’t have to sleep till 10 am, just add an extra 40 minutes to your sleep and see your life change. You will be grateful that you read this article. And if you ever feel sleepy during the day, that’s a sign that you don’t good enough rest for your body.
Till next time!
