Sleep is Seriously Underrated

Sleep is a good thing. We need more of it. We want more of it. But we ignore it. Why are we fighting it?

“person sleeping near window” by Maeghan Smulders on Unsplash

We are damaging our brains and we are destroying our health. Do we do these things in pursuit of fame, fortune, and ego, potentially leading to money? I believe we are driving to an unknown need.

Sleep is one of the most important things you can do right next to eating. Sleep is the elixir of life and it allows us to accomplish the things that we need to do every day — physically and mentally. If sleep is so important, why are we choosing to forgo it? In pursuit of — one more web page, one more text, one more post on Facebook, one more video on YouTube, one more something?

People, people, please turn off your phone and leave it in the kitchen. Turn off your tablet and leave it in the living room. Turn off your laptop. Turn off the TV.

Go. To. Bed. And. Go. To. Sleep.

Do not say you have insomnia. Do not say you cannot go to sleep

I have too much on my mind. — wrong

My mind is racing! — wrong

Dude, I am a night person. — wrong

Photo by Floris Jan-roelof on Unsplash

Go to bed and close your eyes. Take a long inhalation through the nose, inhaling for five, six, seven, eight seconds. Let it out slowly — two, three, four, five seconds. Do this three more times. Three more times because this is the most important thing you can do. After you do this, mentally tell your toes to go to sleep, mentally tell your feet to go to sleep, mentally tell your legs to go to sleep. Torso. Hands, arms. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep.

The behaviors you follow today while ignoring sleep create ingrained habits, and those habits end up damaging your life, causing depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Additionally, these habits are seen by your children, becoming their habits, which is even more dangerous! Sleep deprivation is a cause of developmental and mental health issues in your children’s brains. Think about the children!

Professional athletes and professional business people should both recognize they need to be at their top form every day. I can see an immediate mental deficiency in myself and my family when we do not get enough sleep on a road trip for competitive swimming events. In my case, I immediately see my short-term and my long-term memory become degraded. Simple concepts seem to escape me after multiple days of sleep deprivation. Driving becomes dangerous. I am placing my family at risk when I become too drowsy. Sleep should not be ignored!

Remember the rules of three? Let’s make it simple for the sleep deprived. Your day is 24-hours long. That means you should be spending one-third of that time, or 33%, or 8-hours asleep (kids are longer 9 to 12 hours is typical, stretching to even 14 or 17 hours depending on their age).

I know some of you are saying:

There’s no way that I can sleep for 8 hours! Eff that dude! I’ll sleep when I am dead! I have too much

Realistically you can, or you will be dead. The reason why you can is:

• When you get more sleep, you become more rested
• When you get more sleep, your brain is not foggy
• When you get more sleep, you are on your game
• When you get more sleep, you’re able to get more work done throughout the day
• When you get more sleep, you are more beautiful

Because you got more sleep, and are more rested, you now get your work done. When that occurs, you will find that you have less stress and more time to get more sleep. See? Self-rewarding work, even almost a circular argument for the good of all things — sleep!

You just have to make sleep more important than your work and certainly way more important than anything that is via electronic stimulation such as TV, internet, email, instant message, Twitter, SnapChat, Pinterest, Netflix, Facebook….

The lack of sleep also affects you physically. It creates increased stress on your body which causes increased stress hormone output, which eventually spirals into more stress. Sleep allows your brain to flush and clear the nasty toxins out that have been built up throughout the day that are crashing around into your synapses. Sleep also allows your heart and blood vessels to relax and become more pliant, reducing the chance of heart attack or stroke. Sleep allows your body to recover from the physical stresses of the day such as working out allowing that exercise recovery that is important for muscle growth.

The National Institute of Health has a great primer that can be used to help discover what sleep deficiencies and deprivation can do to you mentally and physically.

Do you need any more reasons to get more sleep?

Go forth and be brilliant (by getting more sleep).