Master Your Sleep in 30 Days

 I'm sharing my sleep research here as I wrap up my final experiment before releasing "Live Long and Prosper."  Like many of the other chapters in the book, this final chapter seemed to fall out of the sky recently.  It's a controversial subject because there are many opposing viewpoints about how sleep affects our waking hours.  I'm sharing a Ted Talk I came across randomly yesterday while taking a break from my writing session.  

While I'm no sleep expert, I do believe I've learned some important lessons derived from using feedback I check daily thanks to my new smart watch.  My initial scores were in the "needs attention" range at the end of November.  I am now consistently in the good or excellent range.  In my opinion, your sleep habits can be adjusted in 30 days by making small changes.  Here goes:

1. Go to bed at the same time or within a 30 minute window every night for 30 days.
2. Get up at the same time every morning 9 hours after you go to bed.
3. Don't let a bad night of sleep stop you from your pursuit of ideal sleep.
4. If you do wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall asleep, get up and do a mundane task for about 30 minutes and then go back to bed.
5. Dim the lights about an hour before bedtime.
6. When you wake up, get out of bed right away and get busy.
7. Keep a record of the time you go to bed and the time you wake up.

You may be asking, "why 9 hours of bedtime?"  Great question.  If you're like me, you don't actually sleep the whole time you're in bed.  You also may not fall asleep immediately.  The extra hour tacked on to your bedtime allows an average of 8 hours of sleep.  

You can test these ideas on your own by using sleep tracking devices such as smart rings or smart watches.  Give this a try for 30 days and see what happens.  Have a great day.