My sleeping habits have been a mess for a long time. Over a month ago, I've decided that enough was enough and bought a calendar, pinned it on a wall, and decided that I'd have to wake up before 8 every day no matter what (I know it seems like nothing for most people, but it was challenging at first for me, one of the caveat of being able to work when I want and being a night owl =p). After waking up, I just put a checkmark and the calendar.
A month in, I'm falling asleep and at a regular time, I have way more motivation to follow my exercising routine, I am more focused and motivated in my work as well.
So I couldn't agree more, sometimes a little change can have a huge effect.
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I could have copy-pasted this comment as an outro message as it's pretty much the exact same situation and experience I had one year ago when i decided to turn things around.
I wasn't even aware of how bad it was until after I had spent way too long trying to figure out why I was always experiencing constant fatigue. The number of hours is one thing, but the quality is just as important. And it gets ruined by bad habits such as looking at screens to late, having too much caffeine (even if one stops at 16:00), and of course: not having a set rhythm.
After taking a full 180 and designing my day from start to end around optimizing energy levels, I feel as if I have gained my life back and the motivation and mental clarity I had 10 years ago. (I summed up everything I now do in an article 2 weeks ago The complete step by step guide to better and deeper sleep).
Another fun thing I noticed is that while I had always believed that I was a night own myself, I also understood that I had never actually tried to get up early consistently and thus never tried to have a morning rythm. (Surprisingly, it takes as much as 5 weeks for our minds to fully adjust to a new rhythm). So considering that I hadn't been doing a steady rhythm for decades, I would have never been able to really tell!
Very grateful for the change I've made. And can't promote them enough. I find that doing a blog post weekly on the best life-style change and hacks I've found helps reinforcing my own beliefs and persistency with them as well.
Thanks for your comment, it adds an extra bit of motivation to see it worked out for you after a year!
I totally agree about the bad sleeping habits, since I've started last month, I've cut out screens from the bedroom, and even if I want to read a book before bed, I do it in the living room. I can now fall asleep within a few minutes when it used to take me a few hours.
I'll take a look at your other article! And perhaps try to occasionally blog about it since it seemed to help you stay on track.
Cheers!
PS: Have you read "The Power of Habits" by Charles Duhigg ? It tackles habits from a scientific point of view and really helped me getting started.
Most behavioural changes requires periodic reviews. First to foster awareness of one's real actions, as even though we feel like we've learned and understood what we ought to do, that doesn't mean we're really doing it. And second to reinforce belief in why we're doing it, as our rational selves who posess the understanding of what and how to do something is unfortunately not the ultimate driver of behavioural. So keeping that emotional comnection and conviction to the why is essential. Hence why so many people recommend journaling of one sort or another. I just figured that since I always struggled to find the motivation to journal for myself, doing it on Hive provided that extra motivation. Win-Win!
I have The Power of Habit book well placed visibly on my shelf to remind myself of it😉 (one reason why I still enjoy physical books is the ability to use them as decoration in places where they can provide me with regular reminders of the most important take-always that I got from reading them!). I read through all those books back in 2016 from "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek, "Simple Rules : How to Thrive in a Complex World", The Power of Habit, and a few others.
Simple rules is probably the book I would recommend the most. Its essence is something I have adopted not only into my personal life, but also into how I work and how I treat my money.
As for sleep, you're absolutely right that getting away from screens before sleeping (or ideally removing them from your bedroom entirely), as well as making it a place for sleep only are both great components of a good sleep strategy. Those are also o hei my list in that post, and things that helped me too go from needing 40m-1h to fall asleep to doing it in 5-15m. My best hack here has been to insist that the last hour of the day is meant to set myself up for success the day after. And instead of using my brain on things that requires problem-soling, I'll instead prep whatever will help me save time, be more productive, and face less barriers doing what I want to the next day. Could include tidying up the apartment a bit so that it has less distractions, pack my gym bag so that it is ready to be grabbed up and go when I want to hit the gym, write a short list of things to do, meal-prep if I want, etc. Anything that is helpful but doesnt require a screen.:)
I'll look forward to a post from you if you decide to sum up your new habits, hacks or experiences!
It would be really helpful to get good night sleep. What I am experiencing, if we reduce our screen time on bed, we can get some extra hours of sleep.
You should try to completely avoid screens on bed, you need to help your brain associate your bed with sleeping.