You don’t have to wake up in a pool of blood as Arianna Huffington did after spending the nights on her Blackberry and days with her daughter on a week-long tour of colleges. That so impressed her that she has become a sleep evangelist, even advising recent Smith College graduates to literally “sleep their way to the top,” by focusing on their own well-being as part of redefining a third metric in success.
You can look at the ‘Three Sheets to the Wind’ research quoted in Julia Kirby’s HBR blog post Change the World and Get to Bed by 10:00, showcasing how even a moderate level of fatigue can be equal to or greater than alcohol intoxication legal-limits.
Any of these will give you an idea of why a culture change to encourage each of us to get enough sleep is critically important to decision making, automobile safety, and the places in our lives where we want to be creative and productive.
Long distance driving is something I have done with frequency and the moments of opening the windows, hunching my shoulders, changing to music I cannot stand, have all been ways in which I kept myself awake. Occasionally I turned into a rest area and took a nap when I was afraid of running off the road.
Deciding how I want to spend my time can get messed up when I am tired. Creating blog posts gets easily put to the side when I am tired.
The new habit under construction is GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP by:
- Setting an alarm for 10 pm
- Powering down computer and television
- Getting into night clothes and setting alarm for at least seven hours sleep
- Elevating feet on the headboard for 10 minutes (loud timer) while repeating major “I AM’s” created from Mike Michalowicz’s New Year’s blog
- Turning out the light and going to sleep
- If sleep doesn’t come right away, have several sleep-inducing books by the bed
Some more about sleep and relaxation can be found at Kori Ellis’ blog on Natural
Sleep Aids: 6 Ways to get a better night’s sleep naturally featuring a success photo (see above).
How many hours sleep does it take you to awake refreshed and ready to go? How do you get those hours?
