One of the key themes we come back to in our Optimizing work together is the idea that we want to make our prior best our new baseline.
Another key theme we revisit again and again is to MAKE THE CONNECTION between how very simple micro-lifestyle choices aggregate and compound into very significant gains (or losses) over an extended period of time.
But…
What if we’ve unwittingly made our kinda sorta OK our accepted baseline?
And then failed to make the connection between that extra 30-60-90 minutes on our phones at night (and all the other little choices) and the subtle (or not so subtle!!) lethargy we feel the next day?
In his great (!!!) book Why We Sleep, leading neuroscientist Matthew Walker tells us that WAY too many people aren’t making the connection between their failure to hit a basic minimum of sleep and their now-accepted sub-optimal baseline.
In fact, he has a section called “YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW SLEEP-DEPRIVED YOU ARE WHEN YOU ARE SLEEP-DEPRIVED.”
Here’s how he puts it: “Similarly problematic is baseline resetting. With chronic sleep restriction over months or years, an individual will actually acclimate to their impaired performance, lower alertness, and reduced energy levels. That low-level exhaustion becomes their accepted norm, or baseline.
Individuals fail to recognize how their perennial state of sleep efficiency has come to compromise their mental aptitude and physical vitality, including the slow accumulation of ill health. A link between the former and latter is rarely made in their mind. Based on epidemiological studies of average sleep time, millions of individuals unwittingly spend years of their life in a sub-optimal state of psychological and physiological functioning, never maximizing their potential of mind or body due to their blind persistence in sleeping too little. Sixty years of scientific research prevent me from accepting anyone who tells me that he or she can ‘get by on just four or five hours of sleep a night just fine.’”
So…
Today’s +1.
Are you getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep EVERY night?
If not, WAKE UP!
Make the connection.
If you feel so inspired, let’s commit to bumping our baseline up, getting curious about just how great we can feel (and think and look and…) and prioritize a great night of sleep tonight!!
ONE MORE TIME…
What’s one thing you ALREADY know you could be doing to Optimize your sleep?
Tonight the night to move from Theory to Practice?
+1z +1z +1z!!!
😴
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