Sleep like a champion!

Continuing our discussion about sleep, here are a few more things I found out by learning and actual testing – they really work!

The next thing is do not eat a big meal late.  In fact, if you can eat your last meal before 6pm, (even 5pm!) you will sleep better.  While this is not a discussion on how to lose weight, they are related!  If you go a long time each day wothout eating, your body will switch over from buring calories as fuel to burning fat as fuel.  And the longer you go, 12 hours, 13, 14, 15…the more exponential the benefits are.

But let’s stick to sleep.  When you eat a big meal, your heart rate goes up and your body works to digest all that stuff.  You lie in bed, and you are hot, because your body is generating heat digesting everything you ate.  Then later, in the wee hours when the bulk of the digestion is done and your body has stored all the extra as fat, then you cool down and can sleep better.  But, it’s too late – you don’t have enough hours to get enough sleep.  So don’t eat late, and don’t eat big for your last meal.  Lunch can be big – but not dinner.

Restaurants want you to have drinks, an appetizer, a main course and a desert – because they drive the ticket up and make more money!  You have to be smarter than that!

More on great sleep tomorrow!

Great sleep makes you a better person

When you sleep well and enough, don’t you feel great the next day?

I can say that when I don’t have enough sleep, I can’t focus – I have brain fog the next day.  And I am not happy!  My ambition, optimism, and patience all take a big hit.  And when I am tired, I eat more to try to maintain my energy level.

How about you?

So let’s talk about this.  It may take a few days to get through all the things I have experienced (no new discoveries for mankind!), but it’s important.

The first requirement is that you cannot sleep enough by getting up later on most days.  I mean, you gotta get the kids going, get them to school, get to work…right?

So the only way to get more/enough sleep is to go to bed earlier.  To do that, you have to start your wind-down routine earlier.

Here’s another thing – you have to shut off the screens at LEAST one hour before bed.  That’s right, people!  I know we are all addicted to our favorite app and all the content engineered to give us little addictive dopamine hits, but you have to stop.  You know if you get on your phone, you’ll be there for hours.  And what do you get out of it long term – nothing.

Screens emit blue light.  Blue light is like the daytime sky, and when your eyes see it, your brain emits chemicals that say, “It’s daytime, stay awake.”  

Kill the screens early.  Instead, get something to read.  For me, reading gets me pretty sleepy in about 15 minutes when it’s close to bedtime.

Let’s talk more about HOW to SLEEP LIKE A CHAMPION tomorrow.

The one who influences us the most…

“It was hard to communicate with you.  You were always communicating with yourself.  The line was busy.” – Jean Kerr

We talk to ourselves constantly.

Over and over, we hear messages, beliefs, and reinforcements.

What are you saying?

He who thinks he can….

Belief builds reality. 

There’s “He who thinks he can” – who goes out there and figures it out and does it.

Equally, there’s “He who thinks he can’t” – who just can’t do it – because he believes he can’t, he doesn’t try.  

Belief is a very powerful factor in achievement.

What do you believe you can and can’t do?

Crises awakens your potential

Your greatest strengths emerge when they are forced out of you; when you HAVE to do things you wouldn’t normally do, or do yet.

A crisis reveals what you can do when you have to.

And now that you know, the fence you constructed in your mind gets moved out.

What crisis in your life had you doing things you’d never have done otherwise?

“This is not happening to me, it’s happening for me.” – Sean Stephenson

Self-Control

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.” – Michel de Montaigne

While I can influence things, I can’t control what happens all the time.  I am in charge of what bothers me.  I am in charge of my reactions.

I am getting better and better at this with practice when opportunities come up.

It’s not that I do not care, it’s that I choose not to suffer over things that don’t go the way I wanted or expected.  

Practice this.  The next time you get bad news, or when people say something you don’t like, take a moment and make a conscious decision not to react, outwardly or even inwardly.

This type of self-control is freedom – not from circumstance, but from inner choice.

Flow state sessions

To get into flow, we must be free of distractions and have total control over what we are doing.

It goes for physical work and mental work.

I do my best work when I am in flow state.  I can’t always just get into flow when I want.  I need to be well rested and in a quiet place.  

When I do get into flow – when my mind is working well, I am fully engaged, and the project is coming out of me, I stay with it to take advantage of the productive “session”.

Do you have quiet spaces where you can get into flow? 

Do you take advantage of the time and stay with it?

The opening after the storm

Not all storms come to disrupt your life. 

Some come to clear your path.

It’s true.  Ask me how I know.

Don’t give up. 

Take advantage of it.

Live on purpose

There’s a lot out there in the world.  Your choices shape your life.

You have to be clear on what you want your life to look like and you have to be clear about your boundaries.

Live on purpose, according to your choices, not by whatever comes along.

You have to determine what gets your attention, energy and time.

You are in charge of you.

What is getting your attention, energy and time?

Event – Story – Meaning – Emotions – Actions (and changing history)

Something happens.  Ok.  It happened.  Then what?

Then you made a story about it.  You replayed that story over and over and assigned it meaning – “This event shows that…”

The story and meaning elicit emotions from you.

Those emotions release chemicals into your bloodstream that make you feel good or bad.

Your bahavior or actions changes based on those emotions.

Question – was it the event, or the story you told over and over that were the most influential?

In the event you may have not had any choice.  But in the story and meaning, you have ALL the choice.

You get to make the story and the meaning.

The really cool thing is that you can assign NEW meaning to things that happened a long time ago – you can literally change history.