I recently had a trip to my hometown where people still don’t watch TV. It’s not that they don’t have TVs, but they intentionally don’t watch it or don’t have the time for it. They wake up early around 5:30 in the morning and pray. After praying most of the people in the cities go back to sleep but those people in my hometown and many more like them who do farming don’t sleep after praying, they go out and attend to their duties. And in the evening, they sleep as early as 9:00 PM. How is this possible and what causes this early waking up and sleeping? A very simple habit; “not watching TV.”
That TV for the people in my hometown is social media for me and you here. We don’t watch TV but kill our time surfing social media apps. So, for us to better manage our time we should quit surfing social media in the evening or at the time when we are preparing for sleep.
TV, in our lives nowadays is somehow left out of the entertainment industry in my opinion. It is losing its place to social media and content consumption which is a bigger nightmare for your time management. For an average person who doesn’t care about time management and doesn’t have goals, wasting time by surfing social media channels won’t affect him that much. But those who have goals must have a strong strategy to manage their social media surfing time and content consumption first because it needs efforts to overcome such a habit.
What's my Sleeping Habit?
I have recently started to develop a habit of sleeping at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning. A week in, my brain started to automatically trigger the body to prepare for sleep when its time.
The process of developing a new habit initially is not pleasant as you must come out of your comfort zone. You must do things opposite of what gave you the joy before. Imagine waking up and not having your phone by your bedside and now you must stand up, walk, and then grab your phone, how does it feel — not so good right? This is how it feels to develop new and good habits, but the temporary change in mood is worth it for the long-term benefits.
I leave my phone on my working desk, thus allowing me to sleep in peace without a phone and wake up without a phone in my arms reach.
What's Undistracted Sleeping?
You may have heard this many times that the key to a better and healthy life is a healthy diet, exercise, and sleep. It may sound cliché for you, but it really is the formula. I had read this many times and I underestimated it but didn’t know that the problem exactly was not paying attention to these three basics.
Sleeping for 8 hours without any distraction helps boost your immune system and energize your body to be fully prepared for the amazing next day. The most important change that you would experience after sleeping for 8 hours undistracted is that you won’t feel tired and sluggish anymore. The inadequacy in sleep results in tiredness and feeling sluggish.
You may have experienced a feeling of tiredness and sluggishness during your day — no matter how much sleep you get and how much do you rest, you still feel sluggish and demotivated. It’s because you are distracted during your sleep.
Our body releases a hormone called melatonin when it’s dark, which signals the body to slow down and prepare for sleep, and when our body sense sunlight or any other artificial light especially blue light, it reduces releasing melatonin which signals the body to be prepared for being awake.
For your brain to sense the 24 hours cycle well, you need to develop a healthy sleep habit and stay consistent with your bedtime.
I won’t emphasize much on eating healthy and exercising in this article, but they are equally important. Never underestimate a healthy diet and being active on daily basis. If good, enough sleep is a steering wheel of a moving vehicle, a healthy diet and being active are it’s wheels.
What Distracts Your Sleep?
The number one answer that comes to your mind is noise. But this isn’t the main distraction. It is light. Sunlight or any other artificial light especially the blue light of your smartphone causes the biggest distractions. It messes with your brain by slowing down the melatonin release thus signaling your body to prepare for being awake. This results in not getting enough undistracted and restorative sleep which is essential for your brain to form new connections and process the data to form new ideas so that you stay more creative.
A bodybuilder probably takes a day off called a rest day between workouts so that the muscles form new tissues replacing the old broken ones. Your brain works the same way. It needs to restore and prepare for the next day.
Sounds Intimidating? Don't Worry
Sleeping on time, exercising, and eating healthy sound a bit intimidating but these are very easy. We can really take advantage of the power of developing habits. Everything seems to be intimidating at the initial stage but once you form it into a habit, you would continue to do it unintentionally. Or in other words, it would happen by itself.
Start from today, the most common sleep schedule is from 09:00 PM to 5:00 AM but it depends on how comfortable you are and how your day ends.
Thank you so much for reading so far. If you like this article, please share it with your friends and leave a comment.
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