Now we take our journey through the 5 pillars into the one you doctors, phd students, night owls, and parents don’t get enough of…
SLEEP
Or should we say, recovery?
The cells in our body only know how to act in two ways:
1) Take Action – Help you respond to stimulus (stress).
2) Recover – Help you get ready for the next time you see a stimulus.
Sleep is the state where we put our cells in the 2nd state the best. But, often we don’t get enough of this and it is the first thing we cut when we need it the most.
Even worse, when we think we are doing it right, we are actually not getting the right kind of sleep.
You sleep follows this pattern:
Bed-Time Routine – Where you do a routine that signals to your body that sleep is imminent (your body listens and gets ready for this).
You sit in your bed quietly with little to no stimulus for around 30 minutes.
THEN YOU ACTUALLY START TO SLEEP.
It starts with the 3 stages of Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (NREM)
Stage 1: The stage where you transition between wakefulness and sleep. This is that stage you are in when you have a hypnotic jerk (this is when you slap your dog or your partner in your sleep or have a falling feeling and wake up).
Stage 2: This is the stage where you get ready to recover. Your heart rate slows, body temperature drops, and your breathing slows down.
Stage 3: This is when you are fully relaxed and start repairing yourself!
Then we have just 2 other stages:
REM: This is where brain activity picks up and you start to dream. You’ll bounce off this and usually enter another cycle of sleep until you enter the next stage.
Wake: You are now up and alert.
As we sleep, we need to go through 4-6 cycles of this and each cycle is 90-120 minutes in length.
Which brings us to how we get the 7-9 hours of recommended sleep we all need to be getting each night.
Here’s the thing about that number though. I’m gonna take a bet that you tell yourself you sleep at least 7 hours per night, because that is what is says on your phone the last time you look at it before you go to sleep. After you were using it the whole time you were doing your bedtime routine.
That means with the 30 minutes it takes you to start your sleep cycles, we are looking at about 6.5 hours of sleep at best.
Womp. Womp.
So, the recommendation for doing this virtuously? Aim to get 8-9 hours of sleep per night OR if time is a on a crunch, start your bed-time routine about 30 minutes before the 7-hour deadline and put your phone in alarm mode. Before the bed-time routine even starts. Screen down.
Then just let your mind do its usual wondering amongst your thoughts. Your brain will do some problem solving, maybe even think about a story you heard today, and you’ll then start to notice you nodding off right at that 7-hour deadline.
Next up, we have MINDSET as our fourth pillar.
To talk with a coach today, click the link found HERE to schedule your No Sweat Intro