You must daily have the courage to risk making mistakes, risk failure, risk being humiliated. A step in the wrong direction is better than staying “on the spot” all your life.

-Maxwell Maltz

There are some activities and jobs in which people must fail every day in order to succeed. Think of the insurance salesman who is turned down 9 times in a row, just to have one success. Or the skateboarder who must fail at performing a new trick many times before he is able to perform it successfully one time. We can learn a lot from these extreme failing individuals- they seem to view failure as a temporary setback, or a learning experience.

Learning from Extreme Failing: Skateboarders

As a high school student, I loved skateboarding. The nature of skateboarding involves a lot of failing- my skater friends allowed themselves to fail much more often than I did, and in doing so, they became great. I’ve pulled together some footage from my high school skateboarding days to give you a visual of extreme failing:

What if a skateboarder fell one too many times, and thought of his failure as a defeat, wallowing in its permanence and pervasiveness? What if he decided he wouldn’t try the same trick again, for months? I can tell you that he wouldn’t get very far in skateboarding with that mindset. To be successful at skateboarding, you must pick yourself up after a failure and immediately start trying again. You must look at a failure as a challenge, or a temporary setback to achieving your goal.

The Extreme Failing Mindset Can be Applied to Any Type of Setback

The extreme failing mindset isn’t just for insurance salesmen and skateboarders- it can help anyone overcome a setback in their life. One example would be if you recently broke up with someone- If you tell yourself “This is only temporary, I will find someone else”, you will be on your way to a fast recovery. But if tell yourself “This person meant everything to me, I’ll never find someone else like them”, you are setting yourself up for depression and pain.

Similarly, if you recently lost your job, and explain it to yourself as “I lost my job because I am lazy and incompetent- no other employer will want to hire me”, you most likely won’t recover and get a new job for a while- the negative mindset will be self-fulfilling. By contrast, if you tell yourself “The economy is not doing well right now so my employer had to make some cutbacks- I tried my best, and now I will find a new job even better than the last”, you will be on your way to finding a great new job.

Three Dimensions of Explaining Setbacks to Yourself

Based on years of research from psychologist Martin Seligman (explained in his book Learned Optimism), there are three dimensions of explaining setbacks to yourself: Permanence, Pervasiveness, and Personalization. On each dimension, you can explain a setback with either the extreme failing (optimist) mindset, or the pessimist mindset:

Permanence: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is permanent or temporary? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is temporary.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “I will find someone else”

Pervasiveness: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is universal, or specific? Extreme failing individuals believe the cause of a bad event is specific.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My relationship was only one part of my life”

Personalization: Do you believe the cause of the bad event is your fault (internalize), or other people’s fault (externalized)? Extreme failing individuals believe the bad event is external to themselves.

Breaking up example: Tell yourself “My ex was not the right person for me”

Do You Have the Extreme Failing Mindset? Take the Test

How do you perceive failures in your own life? Take the test to find out how well you handle setbacks, and how much of an extreme failing individual (optimist) you are.

Taking Responsibility

A comment was recently posted by Brandon (see below), with concerns over how the Martin Seligman’s optimism test, and the Personalization dimension of explanatory style. The test seems to encourage us to not take responsibility, and instead blame external events/people. Here is a quote from Dr. Seligman’s book to help answer Brandon’s concern:

I am unwilling to advocate any strategy that further erodes responsibility. I don’t believe people should change their beliefs from internal to external wholesale. Nevertheless, there is one condition under which this usually should be done: depression . . . We want people to change, and we know they will not change if they do not assume responsibility. If we want people to change, internality is not as crucial as the permanence dimension is. If you believe the cause of your mess is permanent, you will not act to change it. If, however, you believe the cause is temporary, you can act to change it. If we want people to be responsible for what they do, then yes, we want them to have an internal style. More important, people must have a temporary style for bad events- they must believe that whatever the cause of the bad event, it can be changed.

According to Seligman, we should use the external explanation only in situations where we are at risk for depression. Additionally, the Permanence dimension (temporary/permanent) is the key to change, not  Personalization (internal/external).

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What does it benefit to man if he gains the entire world, but loses himself?

-Jesus Christ

Social programming is the set of instructions each of us learned to fit in with society. Our family members, school teachers, and peer groups were all part of the socialization process. The long-term affect of this socialization is that we seek external approval and external goals in our lives. If we are to take control of our consciousness and pursue our own goals, we must learn to break free from social programming:

Caught in a treadmill of social controls, that person keeps reaching for a prize that always dissolves in his hands. In a complex society, many powerful groups are involved in socializing, sometimes to seemingly contradictory goals . . . Schools, churches, and banks try to turn us into responsible citizens willing to work hard and save . . . merchants, manufacturers, and advertisers to spend our earnings on products that will produce the most profits for them . . . gamblers, pimps, and drug dealers . . . promise rewards for easy dissipation- provided we pay. The messages are very different, but their outcome is essentially the same: they make us dependent on a social system that exploits our energies for its own purposes.

-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

Society tries bribing us at every opportunity. People who submit completely to social programming, and mistakenly believe that their happiness is obtained only by achieving external goals, are “rat racers” who never enjoy the present moments of life.

Do you constantly delay gratification to the future? Are you always looking to others for approval, and setting external goals? If so, your social programming is being used against you:

Ways Your Social Programming Can Be Used Against You

Money- “I want to be rich”

• Falsely believing that you will be happy when you make more money
• Becoming a workaholic to make more money

Status- “I want to be popular”

• Falsely believing that “once I obtain status, people will like and respect me”
• Trying to “keep up with the Joneses”
• Becoming popular with lots of people, but not building close relationships with individuals

Approval- “I want to be liked”

• Working at a job you hate to pay for your family’s high consumption
• Pursuing a career path that Mom or Dad told you to go after
• Not speaking up at work when you have a good idea, for fear of getting shot down

Power- “I want to dominate”

• Using others only as a means to achieve your goals
• Trying to one-up others, dominate conversations
• Pinpoint other people’s weaknesses and failures

How to Break Free from Social Programming

The key to breaking free from social programming is not to eliminate all external goals. Instead, it is to create goals that are meaningful to you personally, and then enjoy the day to day process of realizing those goals. Here are some tips for breaking free-

1) Choose your own values, principles, and goals

To assume responsibility for choosing our values, principles, and goals, relying solely upon our own reason and understanding- to honor our internal signals to that extent- is to practice the ultimate form of intellectual independence, the one most difficult for the overwhelming majority of human beings and for which their upbringing has least prepared them.

-Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self

It’s easy to adopt external goals that society gives you- after all, those are the goals you were programmed to adopt. It’s more difficult to create your own set of values- this requires intellectual independence and aloneness from society.

2) Follow your own vision

You follow your own vision by moving forward with your own personally selected goals, and not letting any external circumstances circumvent who you are. Following your own vision can leave you feeling alone in the world, and requires courage. But the more you are able to become independent and think for yourself, the higher your own self-esteem will be.

3) Accept your aloneness

You must accept your aloneness in order to truly be free of social programming:

We can learn from one another, but we cannot share the act of being conscious or of thinking. We can share the results- namely, our thoughts and perceptions- but consciousness, awareness, thinking, reasoning is, ultimately, an individual, solitary process, not a social one. And many people dread independent thought and judgment precisely because of this factor of inescapable aloneness; it makes them aware of their own separateness as living entities; it makes them aware of the responsibility they must bear for their own existence.

-Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self

4) Be honest with yourself

Here is a poem which emphasizes being honest with yourself:

The Guy in the Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He’s the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear up to the end,
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and “chisel” a plum,
And think you’re a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.

-Dale Wimbrow

Note: The word pelf in the first line means “wealth.”

Breaking Free is a Life-Long Process

Your genes instruct you on what feels good and bad, and society bribes you on how to expend your energy. To take control of your consciousness, you must be fully aware of social and genetic programming, and make yourself independent of it as much as possible. By taking control of your consciousness, and following your own vision, you will become better at thinking for yourself and more independent of others.

Breaking free is a life-long process, not a one-time effort. But I promise you, based on my own personal experience- the quality of your own life will improve drastically when you begin the process of breaking free.

Part of the Breaking Free Series

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Genetic programming is the set of instructions each of us was born with. It gives us instinctual drives such as fight-or-flight that are meant to motivate us toward activities which ensure our survival. In modern day society, if we are to take control of our consciousness and pursue our own goals, we must learn to break free from genetic programming:

Submission to genetic programming can become quite disastrous, because it leaves us helpless. A person who cannot override genetic instructions when necessary is always vulnerable. Instead of deciding how to act in terms of personal goals, he has to surrender to the things that his body has been programmed (or misprogrammed) to do. One must particularly achieve control over instinctual drives to achieve a healthy independence of society, for as long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.

-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

People who submit completely to their genetic programming, and mistakenly believe that anything which feels good equates to happiness, live by the maxim “seek pleasure and avoid pain.” They are constantly trying to fill their genetic drives in the present, while ignoring the long-term consequences. They are also easier targets for societal organizations that take advantage of an individual’s instinctual drives.

Do you respond predictably to what instinctually makes you feels good and bad? Are you constantly seeking pleasure and avoiding pain? If so, your genetic programming is being used against you:

Ways Your Genetic Programming Can Be Used Against You

Fight-or-Flight- “React to perceived threats”

• Getting stuck in “survival mode” due to excessive stress at work
• Having an argument with your spouse, resulting in stress

Food- “It tastes good”

• Overeating
• Using food as a form of self-medication due to being unhappy with your life

Sex- “It feels good”

• Constantly being preoccupied with sex, distracting you from your personal goals
• Using pornography, strip clubs, or prostitution as a form of self-medication due to being unhappy with your life

Drugs and Alcohol- “It feels good”

• Needing alcohol to let loose and have fun at social events
• Using drugs as a form of self-medication due to being unhappy with your life
• Getting your fix by frequenting bars, liquor stores, or drug dealers

How to Break Free from Genetic Programming

If you cannot resist what feels good, tastes good, or control the way you react to perceived threats, you are not free to direct your consciousness towards the path you choose. You are living your life without taking conscious control of it. But there are some easy habits you can adopt to change the way you respond to genetic programming-

1) Use mental rehearsal to practice taking control of your consciousness

Spend 20-30 minutes a day mentally rehearsing situations in which instinctual drive is taking control- this is when you are reacting to things that taste good, feel good, or responding to perceived threats. In your mind’s eye, take conscious control of the situation, and respond in a positive manner.

For example, if you tend to overeat during meals, mentally rehearse yourself at a restaurant, eating a reasonable portion of food, and leaving the rest, or getting a to-go box. But don’t stop there- mentally rehearse every possible situation in which you need to take control. Visualize yourself responding positively to all sorts of possible scenarios, such as friends bringing snacks to work, or going to a buffet restaurant. You are practicing your self control, the same way a sports player would practice before a game.

You may start to think your time is being wasted, but give this a try for at least a week and you will be surprised. This is because you are tricking your mind- you will begin to notice that it will be easier for you to take control of yourself when the actual situation occurs. Your brain cannot actually tell the difference between mental rehearsal and reality. Keep this up for 21 days and you’ll find yourself much closer towards having complete control of your genetic programming.

2) Create a mantra to use whenever you lose control

Repeat a phrase to yourself every time your genetic programming would typically take control. For example, if you normally get stressed out when you have a lot on your plate at work, you can use the mantra “I’ll handle it.” Then, whenever you feel your muscles get tense and feel yourself slipping into survival mode, repeat the mantra to yourself “I’ll handle it.” Like mental rehearsal, this is a way of tricking your mind. On a subconscious level, your mind will believe your mantra, and you will distract yourself from the typical stress response.

3) Stay in control by staying accountable to yourself and close friends/family members

Find a way to track your progress, such as a daily log showing how many times you took conscious control over your genetic programming. After a month of progress, reward yourself in some way. For example, if you made progress by no longer using alcohol to self-medicate for a month, reward yourself with a nice dinner (note: if you are an alcoholic, I recommend you begin attending AA meetings as a support group).

Tell close friends and family members about your goal of taking control. Make sure you only tell those friends and family members which have been supportive of your personal growth in the past. Otherwise, instead of keeping you accountable, they may hold you back. After you’ve told your supportive friends/family members, ask for their help in keeping you accountable.

Breaking Free is a Life-Long Process

Your genes instruct you on what feels good and bad, and society bribes you on how to expend your energy. To take control of your consciousness, you must be fully aware of social and genetic programming, and make yourself independent of it as much as possible. By taking control of your consciousness, and resisting instinctual drives, you will be free to direct your energy towards the path you choose.

Breaking free is a life-long process, not a one-time effort. But I promise you, based on my own personal experience- the quality of your own life will improve drastically when you begin the process of breaking free.

Part of the Breaking Free Series

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Popularity: 5% [?]

You have many preconceived notions about what you want from life. These include survival needs programmed by your genes- food, sex, and fight-or-flight. These also include desires programmed by your society- to be well liked, rich, and attractive. If you embrace these needs and desires, you may be lucky and be the perfect fit for your time and place in history. But what if you aren’t so lucky? And whether or not you are lucky, is embracing these needs and desires the best use of your energy?

You must learn to break free from social and genetic programming in order to truly take control of your consciousness and follow your own vision. This two-part series covers-

Breaking Free from Genetic Programming

Breaking Free from Social Programming

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This cat knows that sleeping in is good for you

There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock. -Author Unknown

Super-Replicating Belief: A Belief that has some property which facilitates its own transmission, which makes it be held by an increasing number of minds.

There is a super-replicating false belief in our society that sleeping in is lazy. Sleeping in is not lazy- many individuals would actually be more productive if they slept in versus waking up early. But as a whole, promoting the belief that sleeping in is lazy serves the needs of a stable society, in which individuals are all on similar schedules.

What are some of the ways that society makes us feel guilty for sleeping in?

• “Early to Bed, Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy Wealthy and Wise”
• Early risers are considered more productive than those who sleep in
• We are only supposed to need 8 hours of sleep, and people often brag about getting by on less
• If we sleep in, we may feel out of synch with the 9-5 society
• The online community, including bloggers Steve Pavlina and Leo Babauta, promote becoming early risers

There is no need to feel guilty or lazy- here are 5 reasons why sleeping in will boost your productivity:

5 Reasons Why Sleeping In Every Day Will Boost your Productivity

Are you a Night Owl?

1) Depending on your chronotype, you may be a Night Owl living in a Morning Lark’s world

Morning Lark: Morning person, naturally wakes up 2 hours earlier than the majority of the population, is ready for sleep between 8pm – 10pm. Cope more easily with early shifts.

Night Owl: Night person, naturally wakes up 2 hours later than the majority of the population, doesn’t feel sleepy until 12am – 2am. Cope more easily with late shifts.

Many creative types, such as writers, actors, and computer programmers, tend to be Night Owls. If they don’t have to get up early for work, many Night Owls choose to go along with there inherent sleep schedule and work until very late at night.

2) Most people need more than 8 hours of sleep

Before the invention of the electric light in 1879, most people slept 10 hours each night, and this has recently been discovered as the ideal amount of sleep for optimum performance. Additionally, people in cultures that are free from the demands of modern society typically sleep 10 hours each night. There are big benefits to sleeping ten hours per night:

Research Center of the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, have demonstrated that alertness significantly increases when eight-hour sleepers who claim to be well rested get an additional two hours of sleep. Energy, vigilance, and the ability to effectively process information are all enhanced, as are critical thinking skills and creativity.

-James B. Maas, Power Sleep

3) Sleep consistency is important; the time you wake up is not (unless you must get up for work)

Sleep consistency is key- this is why I named this post “5 Reasons Why Sleeping In Every Day Will Boost your Productivity”. But the time you wake up is not important:

In 1757 Benjamin Franklin gave us the epigram “early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” It would be more accurate to say “Consistently to bed and consistently to rise….” As long as you fulfill your sleep requirement without interruption, it doesn’t really matter what time you go to bed or get up.

-James B. Maas, Power Sleep

Sleeping in can improve your long-term memory retention

REM Sleep: Stage of sleep with predominant eye movements and dreaming. During REM, brain neuronal pathways are fired randomly, and REM sleep causes strengthening of memory circuits similar to lifting weights causes strengthening of muscles.

When you fall asleep at night, you go through 4 stages of sleep every 90 to 110 minutes. You typically go through 4-5 cycles of these stages each night. With each successive cycle, more time is spent in REM stage. During later sleep cycles, REM sleep increases from twenty to as much as sixty minutes.

Whenever you have a short night of sleep, you eliminate the long REM periods that come toward morning. This can have significant negative consequences in terms of your learning, thinking, memory, and performance. The only solution is for you to get more sleep.

5) Sleeping in allows you to catch up on sleep debt

Sleeping is a way for you to catch up on sleep debt (Hours of sleep you need per night – Hours of sleep you actually get). In my sleep debt post, I recommend that instead of sleeping in, you catch up on sleep debt by going to bed earlier. However, if you can’t get to bed early, and can’t get enough sleep in your normal schedule, it’s smart to sleep in to catch up on sleep debt when you are able to.

Now that you know the benefits, here are three tips for becoming a late riser:

How to Become a Late Riser

Note: If you are a Morning Lark, and easily awaken at an early hour, you will generally not be able to become a late riser. This advice is for Night Owls who do not wake up easily for work.

For freelancers and those in control of their own work schedule, sleeping in is an easy habit to adopt. But what about the rest of us? Here are some solutions for the regular worker:

1) Talk to your employer about flextime

Flextime allows you to determine when you work, so you can sleep in every day if you negotiate coming in late with your employer.

2) Talk to your employer about working from home

Talk to your boss about working from home one day of the week. Prove that you can be trusted, and then negotiate working from home full-time. As part of this arrangement, make sure to negotiate working on your own hours (so you can sleep in).

3) No flextime and can’t work from home? Quit your job

If your employer doesn’t allow flextime or working from home, and you are a Night Owl, and getting up early each morning is hell for you, why not consider some alternatives? You could find another employer that is more flexible, or you could start your own business. Either way, you would be more productive working your own hours, versus the hours that society chooses for you.

4) No flextime, can’t work from home, and don’t want to quit your job? Sleep in and face the consequences

A late riser in North Korea:

This post is part of the Sleep Evolver Series

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Sleep Debt = Hours of sleep you need per night – Hours of sleep you actually get

During a busy week recently, I averaged 5-6 hours of sleep per night, and planned on getting my eight hours of sleep on the weekend nights. After getting less-than-adequate sleep for 5 consecutive nights, I noticed it had started to take a toll on me. By Friday, I felt like I had pulled an all-nighter the night before.

When the weekend came, I slept in and got 10 hours of sleep per night to partially make up for the sleep I had missed over the week. I’m sure many of you have experienced a similar scenario. I had accumulated sleep debt during the week, and I paid it back over the weekend.

Your Sleep Bank Account

The whole idea of sleep debt comes from the analogy of having a sleep bank account, where you can make sleep deposits and debits. This analogy is not perfect, and can be a bit confusing. Here are some caveats to the sleep bank account:

• Current research suggests your maximum sleep debt is 20 hours
• You cannot “sleep ahead” and build up your sleep bank account
• You can only pay back sleep debt in increments of 1-2 hours; If you are 10 hours in sleep debt, don’t expect to pay it all back at once

Losing one hour of sleep per night over a week is equivalent to pulling one all-nighter- here’s an example to explain why:

Sleep Debt Comparison Example: Sarah and Ashley

Sarah and Ashley both need eight hours of sleep per night. Sarah gets 6 hours of sleep on week nights, and 8 hours of sleep on the weekend. Ashley gets 8 hours of sleep per night, except for Thursday night, when she pulls an all-nighter:

Sleep Debt Comparison: Sarah versus Ashley

At the end of the week, Sarah has 10 hours of sleep debt (56 – 46); Ashley has 8 hours of sleep debt (56 – 48). So both women have similar levels of sleep debt, even though one accumulated the debt all over Thursday night. Their similar levels of sleep debt will give them similar negative symptoms of sleep deprivation:

• Daytime drowsiness
• Mood shifts, including depression, increased irritability, and loss of sense of humor
• Stress, anxiety, and loss of coping skills
• Lack of interest in socializing with others
• Weight gain
• Reduced immunity to disease and viral infection
• Feelings of lethargy
• Reduced productivity

Why not just sleep in on weekends to pay back sleep debt?

You cannot make up for large sleep losses during the week by sleeping in on weekends any more than you can make up for lack of regular exercise and overeating during the week by working out and dieting only on the weekends.

-James B. Maas, Power Sleep

You can make payments of an extra couple of hours of sleep on Saturday and Sunday to pay back part of your sleep debt. But you aren’t likely to be able to pay more than 2 hours at a time. You still have debt left, and this doesn’t get to the root of the problem- you still face symptoms of sleep deprivation over the course of your week.

Calculating the Hours of sleep you need per night

Each individual has different sleep needs- some need 9-10 hours of sleep per night to perform at their best. Others function perfectly at 5-6 hours of sleep per night. Thomas Edison slept three or four hours at night, and regarded sleep as a waste of time. Albert Einstein needed 10 hours of sleep per night to function well.

Note: Before calculating your hours of sleep needed, be sure to review my previous post on do’s and dont’s for better sleep. Caffeine, alcohol, your diet, and exercise habits all play a role in sleep quality.

The Easy (Less Accurate) Way to Calculate Your Nightly Sleep Needs

If you feel drowsy during the day, you probably didn’t get enough sleep the night before. Try going to bed earlier and see if you feel alert the next day. If you do, this is your nightly sleep need.

The Accurate Way to Calculate Your Nightly Sleep Needs

1. Select a bedtime at least eight hours before you need to wake up
2. Maintain this time for a week and keep track of the time that you wake up
3. If you feel drowsy or don’t get up easily to your alarm, go to bed thirty minutes earlier than usual
4. If you feel alert, try to cut back fifteen minutes and see if you still feel alert to confirm if this is your correct number of sleep hours

Calculating your Sleep Debt

Take your nightly sleep need, and subtract it by the amount of sleep you actually got. The number that remains is your sleep debt:

Sleep debt = Hours of sleep you need per night – Hours of sleep you actually get

Paying back sleep debt

You cannot replace lost sleep all at once. If you lose two nights of sleep you will not sleep for fourteen or sixteen additional hours on the third night. When you sleep longer to catch up, try to do so by going to bed earlier than usual. Otherwise your normal waking time will be shifted. This is likely to make it difficult to get to sleep at the usual time the following night.

-James B. Maas, Power Sleep

As Dr. Maas mentions in Power Sleep, you should pay back your sleep debt by going to bed earlier than usual. This way, you can maintain your normal waking time. You can also use a nap to help you pay back your sleep debt. But make sure you take your nap in the early afternoon, as late-afternoon napping will shift your biological clock, making getting up in the morning a struggle.

Avoid accumulating new sleep debt

After factoring how much sleep you need, and repaying your sleep debt, factor it into your daily schedule. Create a daily ritual (see my creating daily habits post) of going to bed and getting up at the same time, each day of the week. This will ensure you do not accumulate new sleep debt.

This post is part of the Sleep Evolver Series


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The feeling of sleepiness when you are not in bed, and can’t get there, is the meanest feeling in the world.
-Edgar Watson Howe

You spend one third of your life sleeping. This one third has significant effects on your waking life, in terms of productivity, energy, alertness, creativity, memory, body weight, mood, safety, and good health. Here are 10 sleep hygiene do’s and don’ts for better sleep:

1) Sex

Do: Have pleasurable sexual relations or masturbation before bedtime. Researchers have found that this can promote sleep onset and induce deep and restful sleep.

Don’t: Have un-pleasurable sexual relations before bedtime. If sexual experience leads to dissatisfaction, anxiety, or performance concern, it will be detrimental to a good night’s rest.

2) Exercise

Do: Exercise to stay fit, reduce stress, and induce deeper sleep. Exercise elevates your body temperature, and an ensuing drop in body temperature at bedtime will induce drowsiness and deeper sleep. The best time to exercise for better sleep is in the late afternoon or at noon-time. Exercise in the morning has little effect on the quality of your sleep.

Don’t: Exercise within three hours of bedtime. This will stimulate the release of adrenaline, and you’ll be too alert to relax and fall asleep.

3) Eating

Do: Eat a light snack high in carbohydrates and low in protein if you are hungry before bedtime.

Don’t: Eat a large or heavy meal within four or five hours of going to bed. This may make you drowsy initially, but you will toss and turn during the night.

4) Drinking

Do: Cut back on liquids of all kind before bedtime. This will ensure you don’t interrupt your sleep due to a full bladder in the middle of the night.

Don’t: Drink any caffeinated beverages within six hours of your bedtime. Stimulants such as caffeine will delay sleep onset and disturb REM sleep. Additionally, avoid drinking alcohol within three hours of bedtime if you expect to sleep well. The common practice of “having a nightcap before bed” actually suppresses REM sleep, and you will experience early-morning awakenings.

5) Nightly Ritual

Do: Create a nightly ritual of reading for pleasure before turning off lights. Use a reading lamp that can be gradually dimmed, and take your mind off the day’s worries. Also, try taking a warm bath before bed. After the bath, your body temperature will plummet (if you have a cool bedroom), and this will initiate sleepiness and more deep sleep.

Don’t: Create a ritual of stay in bed longer than you need to get sleep. Staying in bed too long will promote shallow and disturbed sleep.

6) Sleep Schedule

Do: Establish a regular sleep schedule. Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that if you alert your sleep schedule by even a few hours, your mood deteriorates.

Don’t: Sleep in on weekends. This does not help overcome sleep loss during the week any more than overeating during the week would be helped by dieting on the weekend.

7) Sleep Position

Do: Sleep on your side, with the spine straight; or on your back, maintaining the primary curvature of the cervical spine.

Don’t: Sleep on your stomach or with your head elevated. This can give you aches and pains, and is not recommended by medical experts.

8) Napping

Do: Take a nap of fifteen to thirty minutes in duration, if your hectic lifestyle doesn’t permit you to get enough sleep at night. Set an alarm for 15-30 minutes, as any time longer than that will put you in deep sleep, and you will wake up terribly groggy.

Don’t: Take a nap if you are already getting adequate sleep during the night. Additionally, don’t take late-afternoon naps, as this delays your falling-asleep time in the evening and will begin to shift your biological clock.

9) Pets

Do: Sleep with a stuffed animal if it comforts you.

Don’t: Sleep with your pets. Their movements and noises during the night or early morning can disrupt your sleep.

10) Your Bedroom

Do: Use your bedroom for sexual activity and sleep. If you watch television in your bedroom, focus on comedy as a tension reducer.

Don’t: Use your bedroom for arguing, watching exciting/violent television shows, eating, or working.

This post is part of the Sleep Evolver Series


photo credit: girlstyle, bmfcker, cowbite, slightlypale

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