Mastering Your Mindset Volume 4: Why We Sleep

Wow!! What a book. I am super confident this book will have a positively profound impact on your life. That I guarantee. An incredible read and truly eye opening.

I love sleep. I respect everything it gives me. I purchased this book purely based on how much I value my sleep and have personally experienced what a period of poor sleep can do to the body and mind. It can be completely debilitating.

Your sleep will effect all walks of your life from your mood, training, cognitive function, hormones and concentration. Have one poor nights sleep and I am sure you’ll agree you know about it then next day.

When you actually take a moment to think about it why do we sleep? It has taken more than 3 million years to develop this 8-hour sleep necessity and within 100 years we have decided to swipe off 20% off that leaving so many of us living in this sub optimal state believing 4 to 6 hours of sleep is adequate to live on. If you fall into this category then its not. You’re doing yourself a massive injustice.

Sleep is the foundation of life.

From a health and fitness standpoint sleep is the greatest legal performance enhancing drug we in the modern age have access to and are neglecting. Fellas take note if you sleep 5 to 6 hours per night you will have a level of testosterone 10 years a man your senior. A lack of sleep will age you by a decade. That will have a massive impact on not only your sex drive but also your ability to build and retain muscle.

For those who have a fat loss goal sleep is essential. Take a moment to think about it but do you gravitate towards refined sugary food when you’re under slept and/or over worked. Ghrelin a hormone that instructs you when to eat gets ramped up. People sleeping 5 – 6 hours per night will on average eat 200 to 300 extra calories each day because of an under slept state. Add that up its about 70,000 extra calories a year which is about 10-15 pounds of obese mass each year.

We live in a massively dark deprived society. Its almost as light at night as it is during the day. There is artificial light everywhere. That lamppost beaming through the blinds, iPads, iPhones and laptops. The list is endless all of which contribute to poor sleep and suppress Melatonin the hormone of darkness which instructs your body when its dark and when its time to go to sleep.

1 hour of iPad reading vs 1 hour of book reading in a dim light that one hour of iPad reading delayed this release of this hormone by 3 hours. Its 50% less in terms of its peak and furthermore you don’t get the same amount of REM sleep which leaves you struggling to wake up and feeling less refreshed or restored by your sleep.How guilty are we all of laying in bed looking at our phones or watching Netflix?

So how do you go about improving your quality of sleep?

  1. Regularity – going to bed at a similar time each night consistently / wake up at the same time.
  2. Light – last hour before bed try to stay away from screen and also start to dim the lighting throughout your house or where you live
  3. Keep it cool – your brain needs to drop around 2 degrees Fahrenheit to initiate sleep which is why it’s always easier to fall asleep in a room that’s too cold rather than too warm.