The Power of Sleep and Performance: 6 Solutions to Better Your Sleep Part 3
We continue in Part Three to talk about the power of sleep. You may want better sleep, but you don’t know how to get it so we will look at six solutions to make your sleep better! You can look at Part One and Part Two to find out more about the importance of sleep. If you are a high achiever and a problem solver it is hard to go to bed when you are at the point of completing a task or solving a problem, we understand that. What we have found out though is that that is counterproductive, when you get the proper amount of rest you can solve three times more problems and it allows you to be more creative.
Dr. Matthew Walker, an English Scientist, and Professor who wrote Why We Sleep helps us discover the importance of sleep. We continue to hear him speak in an interview on Skavlan TV. He says that routine is important and answers if it is good to use a snooze button? “Regularity is critical, going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time and certainly using alarms can do that…we should all set a “to bed” alarm. Think about the time you need to go to bed to get that eight-hour sleep opportunity. And then set the alarm 15 minutes before…now is the time to start preparing to get ready for this sleep event.” He says to get all your personal care out of the way before the alarm would go off so that they won’t take away from your time to power down to sleep. “What about the snooze button, though? Unfortunately, it is not a good idea.” As he wrote in his book, “When you look at the cardiovascular response to an alarm, it is actually quite a stressful event for your cardiovascular system. We see a spike in heart rate, stress chemicals increase. Now, it is fine to use an alarm just that one time in the morning to wake you up, but you shouldn’t be hitting the snooze button because then you are repeatedly assaulting your cardiovascular system.” You may think only hitting the snooze button a few times doesn’t do anything, but if you do it every day in your life it places an additional cardiovascular strain on your system. Having a bedtime routine is important so that when you do get in bed at the time, you set, you are ready to sleep, and you set yourself up for success to be able to get up in the morning on the first alarm.
What are some solutions for good sleep? The National Sleep Foundation gives us some solutions. The first is to create a good sleep environment. Keep it cool, quiet, and dark with eyeshades or blackout curtains. When you set up this sleeping environment as soon as you get there, your body should start to respond to it by relaxing and getting ready to sleep.
The next solutions are to realize that pills, vitamins, or drinks can replace good sleep. Avoid coffee, tea, chocolate late in the day so you can get a good night’s sleep!
Having a consistent sleep schedule, bedtime routine as we wrote of earlier, is a solution. Set a bedtime and wake up time and stick to it. Even as a parent, you need to strategize how to get good sleep! This will help you to be a better parent.
Another solution is to be careful about what you do before your bedtime. Don’t eat, drink, or exercise within a few hours of your set bedtime.
Be sure to keep a journal by your bed so that you can write down things that may keep you awake and worrying.
You can play music before you set bedtime to get you in a relaxed state; there are many playlists available of soaking worship music that can help. You want it to be a peaceful place.
Finally, you must pray! Keep a prayer list nearby so that as you are falling asleep, you can pray.
When you set yourself up for a successful night sleep, you can be in a place where God can speak to you in dreams. If you need direction in your life, God can give you that in your dreams. We have a vapor of time on this earth to use the talents God has given us, and we want to multiply the talents so that when we get to heaven, we will hear well done good and faithful servant. Do you have sleep hacks? We want to hear from you! Write to us in the VFNKB Community or write to us at [email protected]. Greg and John shared in this segment.
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