Take the best medicine in the world properly
Preface
This post is the first one in a series of 7 and is based on my pdf-guide ‘7 challenges to make almost everything a bit better’. You can download it from here. This guide is an attempt to show that living healthier, happier and caring about our future on this planet is not difficult. It does not call for fancy diets, prescription pills, hippie lifestyle or expensive ‘green’ gear.
There are a couple of rather basic but paramount things we can do that have a positive effect on several aspects of our lives. And in here, they are called challenges (because who doesn’t like a nice challenge?).
Challenge #1: Take the best medicine in the world properly.
If there is one thing that has a tremendous effect on all aspects of your life it is sleep. It is so important and so disregarded, that Center for Disease Control in USA has declared insufficient sleep as public health epidemic.
Lack of sleep and sleep interruptions have immense impact on your body:
- It weakens immune system.
- It increases risk of cardiovascular diseases, stroke.
- Contributes to depression and anxiety.
- It disrupts blood sugar levels and increases concentration of hunger hormone. If you are sleep deprived, you will feel hungry even when you are full and you will crave calorific food. So, the very first step in your diet efforts should be enough sleep.
- Impairs your decision making and decreases your willpower.
In other words, to live healthier, happier and have energy to make sustainable choices, getting enough of quality sleep is a single most important thing you can do. If you sleep enough, your blood sugar is regulated well. If it is regulated well, you do not overeat and can make better food choices (through a stronger willpower). If you make better food choices, you are in a better shape. If you are in a better shape, it is easier for you to bike or walk more instead of taking a bus. If you bike and walk more, less CO2 is emitted and you get endorphin surge/spike from the activity, which in turn brings you a feeling of happiness.
It is a golden key to success of everything you want to be and do in life. If there can be a single take-away from this guide, let it be this one.
How to get enough of good quality sleep
Duration and schedule:
- The optimal amount of sleep is between 7:30 and 9 hours. Not less and not much more. It is literally brain damaging to sleep less and you just cannot compensate for it by sleeping more on the weekends — the damage has been done and cannot be repaired.
- Other important thing is a rhythm — getting up and going to sleep at the same time every day. Your body and brain rely on it to execute all the restorative actions during the night. Rhythm is so important that clinical psychotherapists prescribe ‘regular sleep schedule’ as a one of the first things to treat depression.
Environment:
- For the best sleep, your bedroom must be dark, cool and screen free. The last one is especially important. Blue light of the screens (any light, in fact) prevents melatonin (sleepiness hormone) from being created and your brain does not get a signal to go to sleep.
Preparation & sleep inhibition:
- Avoid caffeine 8 hours before your bedtime. That includes coffee, colas, teas, chocolate. It takes 8 hours for caffeine concentration in your body to drop below 50%. Caffeine molecules replace sleepiness hormone molecules in, so if concentration is high, your sleep quality decreases.
- Avoid alcohol. Too much of it before sleep will sedate you instead of making you sleepy and will decrease sleep quality.
- Relax. Unload your mind. Take a hot bath or shower, meditate or just write down anything that is on your mind at that moment.
- Keep it darkish. To be properly ready for a good night sleep, there must be enough melatonin in your body. One of the triggers for melatonin production is absence of sunlight. Whenever it gets dark, your brain knows what is supposed to happen next. It was so for thousands of years. However, with the modern lifestyle, we are rarely in the dark before going to sleep, which disrupts natural cycle. To counter that, avoid bright light hours before sleep. Make it both brain-helpful and hygge and use (a couple of) small soft light sources instead.
Actions:
1. Prepare your environment.
2. Make your sleep schedule.
3. Set yourself up for success — set reminders about screen free time and going to sleep times, turn on blue light filters.
Will you take your medicine tonight?
References:
This challenge is basically a summary of ‘Why we sleep?’ By Matthew Walker. The book, which we believe, has to be an obligatory reading for every human being.
