The Value of Sleep

One of the things I’ve been struggling with for the past four months is getting enough sleep.  For a variety of reasons, most of them my own fault, I’ve been getting 5 to 6 hours per sleep a night, and that’s just not enough.  I’ve noticed a number of effects from this:

• Tiredness during the day (duh!) leading to nodding off in meetings and social events.
• Poor focus at work
• Occasional irritability
• Poor decision making at times
• Greater tendency for binge eating
• Greater need for artificial stimulants like caffeine and chocolate

Needless to say, this has made my goals a lot harder to accomplish.  So I’m taking a few steps to remedy the situation.

Step 1 - Bed by 10!

I wake up every day at 6:30am.  So if I want to get a good 8 hours of sleep, I need to be in bed by 10pm at the latest.  Sure, some days I won’t be able to do that, but I want those days to be the exception where I’m doing something fun and important and not the rule, where I stay up late surfing the internet.

Step 2 - New Bed

So long old mattress.  Hello new bed!  My current sleeping arrangement is very poorly setup.  It’s too soft in some areas, the pillow setup is bad and the whole mattress is damaged thanks to the lovely Daisy, also known as super puppy!  Time to get something new and this time do a bit more research on it.

Step 3 - No Eating Late

This is an obvious one but I’ve been a bit lax with it lately.  No more really late dinners.

Step 4 - No Drinking Late

I’m cutting out the caffeine anyway, but I’m also going to try to cut down on the water consumption after 8 or 9pm.  This is to avoid the inevitable trip to the bathroom at about 4am.

Step 5 - Bedroom Rearrangement

My bedroom is both my place of sleep and my place of work.  I think this is a bad idea.  It should be one and not the other.  I’m going to rearrange a few things, get rid of my desk and turn the bedroom into a place of relaxation, not stress.

Step 6 - A Sound Experiment

I’m going to experiment with white noise makers as well as music.  I want to see if either one will make a difference in my sleep patterns.

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I’m hoping that all of these things added together will make for a much better night’s sleep.

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Runner’s High

There are a lot of bad things I could say about running, it’s bad for your knees, bad for your feet, it’s boring at times, it’s too strenous at other times.  However, I will say this for running, it’s incredible for relieving stress.  There’s something called a “runner’s high” which kicks in at some point and is an incredible place to be mentally.  I’ve never achieved this state with walking, elliptical, swimming or weight lifting, only running.  Which I suppose is why they call it a “runner’s high”.

About 15 or 20 minutes into a high intensity run, my body and mind get into this zone where everything feels good.  Breathing and movement become second thought.  All thoughts of stress and worry disappear from my mind.  In fact, all thoughts in general disappear and I’m left in this really calm state where everything is good.  I can’t describe it but if you’ve been there you know what I’m talking about.

It doesn’t happen every run.  If I’m struggling to run then I’m focusing too much on my physical distress.  If I’m running too slow then my body doesn’t reach this state and my mind never clears.  When it does happen though, it’s like magic.  Some people tell me it’s what meditation feels like, that point where you empty your mind of all thought.  I wouldn’t know.  All I know is that it’s one of the best stress relievers ever.

How To Recreate

You’re going to need a place to run where you can go uninterrupted.  Street running is not good for this since you’ll be stopping and starting too many times.  Trail running is good as is track running.  Treadmills work well.  You need to avoid distractions as much as possible, so don’t watch TV while you do this or run with the dog.  Music is ok.

Now find a comfortable pace.  Something you can keep up for hours.  Something that won’t leave you panting and struggling to breath, but at the same time will challenge you enough to get other thoughts out of your mind.  At this point just run.  In about 15 or 20 minutes, you’ll feel it kick in.  Now just clear your head and keep going.  Don’t look at the clock, don’t count the seconds or the minutes, just focus on the running.

Why?

So why am I telling you all this?  Well, because this is one way in which you can turn running into a pleasurable experience.  Too many people see jogging as a chore, a dreaded task to avoid rather than embrace.  I see it as a release, a meditative experience where I can leave my worries behind and focus only on the next step.  That’s important for two reasons.  One, it gets me running more and two, it gets me stressed less.  Those are both extremely important to your health.

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What do you do for relaxation and stress relief?  Any chance you could combine it with some sort of physical exercise?

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The Top Five Things You Can Do To Improve Your Health This Year

It’s the new year, a time when people try to change their bad habits and improve their lives.  Personally, I think any day of the year would be a good day to start improving yourself, but hey, I’m not judging! 

We spent the last couple of weeks talking about ways in which you can improve your diet and add more exercise to your life, now we finish up these lists of tips with five other ways in which you can improve your overall fitness and health.  These are just as important as eating better and working out and they’ll help you lead a healthy life in 2009.

Get More Sleep - You know how you sound cool and tough when you tell your friends how you survived this week on just two hours of sleep a night and then pulled 24 hours straight of partying on the weekend?  Guess what, you don’t sound that cool.  Actually, you sound kind of dumb.  Your body needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night.  When you don’t get enough sleep you do stupid things.  You eat too much, you drink too much, you get stressed out and you make poor decisions.

Studies show that a lack of sleep has the same effect on your driving as being drunk.  Thankfully, we’re past the days when driving drunk was considered acceptable and even cool.  Now I wish we were past the days when sleep deprivation was considered tough.  Trust me on this one, there is nothing better you can for your body than getting a good amount of sleep per night.

Worry Less - Having a bad day?  Bad week?  Bad month?  You’re not the only one.  Trust me, I had a REALLY bad couple of months.  That’s unfortunate because stress can take a horrible toll on your body.  When you’re stressed, your body is constantly in panic mode.  Hormone levels are high, blood pressure is high, stomach acids begin churning.  When you’re stressed, your body starts preparing for a fight or flight moment.  It knows something bad is happening and it wants to be prepared.  That’s great if you’re about to be attacked by a saber toothed tiger and need to sprint your way to safety.  It’s not so good if you’re going to spend months and months like this because you just lost your wife or you’re afraid of losing your job.

Take some time to relax.  No, I don’t mean a trip to a beach resort in Aruba, although if that makes you happy and you can afford it, by all means, enjoy.  I mean spend a few minutes alone contemplating all the good things that you still have in your life, go sit somewhere outdoors and enjoy nature, take some time to meditate or just practice your breathing.  I can’t tell you exactly what you’ll find relaxing, it’s different from person to person, but I can tell you that taking some time away from it all to relax and lower your stress level is a must for both your physical and mental health.

If you want some tips about feeling better, try the following blogs:

Steve Pavlina
Zen Habits
Questing Soul
The Happiness Project

Talk To Your Friends and Family - And if we’re talking about stress levels, why not address one of the most common sources of stress by turning it into a strength?  Your immediate circle of friends and family has a tremendous amount of influence on your life.  They determine how you feel, what you eat, where you go out, when you go to sleep and a whole lot of other details in your life.  Don’t believe me?  Just keep a journal for one week and write down all the decisions you made that week that were influenced by friends and family.  I think you’ll be amazed.

Unfortunately, a lot of the pressure that friends and family exert on you can be very negative.  They can take you to unhealthy restaurants, not give you time to work out, harass you into making bad decisions and so on.  Why not reverse all this by having an honest conversation with your friends about what you’re trying to achieve?  Don’t hide things from them, tell them the truth and ask for help.  Trust me, it’s not as hard as it sounds.

Dump The TV - Repeat after me, “there is NOTHING good on”.  Yes, it’s true, there is absolutely nothing worth watching on TV.  You can get better news on the internet and most of the rest is crappy dramas, comedies that aren’t funny and reality shows that make me mourn the death of western civilization.  I stopped watching TV five years ago and I’ve never regretted it.  It’s a time sink that makes you stupid and why anyone would want that is beyond me.

Quit Smoking - Actually, the applies to all drugs, not just cigarettes.  I have no moral objections to drugs and honestly, I’m not even sure why they’re illegal.  If you want to destroy your life with them, be my guest.  However, be aware that this is exactly what you’re doing, you’re destroying your life.  You are paying other people for the privilege of killing yourself.  Does that sound smart?  And for what?  The momentary joy of that first puff of smoke?  That’s worth the shorter life, the inability to play ball with your kids and the fact that you smell like a chimney most of the time?

Guess what, no one thinks you’re cool because you smoke.  No one looks at you and says “oooh, look at that guy light up, he’s awesome and I want to just like him!”  We just wish you wouldn’t stand so close because you’re making it hard for us to breath.

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I think many people miss the fact that being healthy isn’t just about eating better and going to the gym.  It’s also about sleep, stress and a whole bunch of other factors.  You can’t just lead a happy life at the dinner table and at the gym, it’s something you need to do every hour of every day, even when you’re asleep.

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Super Charge Your Morning

In the past, I’ve spoken several times about early morning workouts.  I’ve usually discussed a variety of slow, controlled exercises to do as you roll out of bed.  Today, I’m going to suggest something different.  As usual, some of you may like this and some of you may not.  That’s perfectly fine, we all have our preferences, but I’ve been experimenting with this type of a morning routine for a few weeks now and it seems to be working great.  I’d also like to add a disclaimer that the following workout should NOT be attempt by anyone with health issues.  As usual, consult your doctor before making any radical changes to your physical routine.  That said…

Overall Theme

The idea behind this morning routine is to set the tone for the rest of your day and that this tone should be “high energy, let’s get things done!”  I’ve found that it works great for me on a workday but less so on a weekend when I want to be a bit lazier.

Here We Go…

Did the alarm go off?  Don’t wack it into submission and then roll over back into bed.  Don’t shut it off and then lie there for a minute or two contemplating the ceiling.  Don’t turn it off and then slowly get up to make your first cup of coffee.  All of these options feel good but they’re going to set the wrong tone for the rest of the day.  Instead, as soon as the alarm goes off, explode out of bed and start your morning.

Yes, this is difficult, and if you have a wife, husband or other partner sleeping with you, you may want to take them into consideration, but when I say “explode”, I mean it.  Get out of that bed RIGHT NOW with as much energy as you can and immediately put that energy to use.

Workout

Don’t even bother standing up.  Instead, as you get out of bed, get on that floor and start with 20 push ups.  If you can’t do a full push up, do the assisted ones where your knees are touching the ground.  Done with the pushups?  Great!  Roll over and do 20 crunches.  By the way, all of these exercises are meant to be done at high speed.  That means no more than 1.5 seconds for each rep.  Yes, that’s fast, but you should still be able to use good form.

Done with your 20 crunches?  Good, stand up and do 20 squats with no weights.  As soon as you’re done with those, do bicep curls, preferably with a light weight but no weight is fine too.  After the curls, get right back on that ground and do 20 more pushups.  That’s it, you’re done with the workout portion of this morning.  At 1.5 seconds per rep and with no breaks between exercises, this should take you about 3 minutes total but you may find yourself breathing hard at the end.

But You’re Not Done Yet

That’s right, this morning routine isn’t just about the workout.  Find something you need to do, it could be something simple like washing the dishes or it could be something more complex like writing a post on your blog.  Whatever it is, it should be reasonably doable within 15 minutes.  Now sit down and do it.  No interruptions, no checking email, no making coffee.  Sit down and accomplish one task.  As soon as you’re done with that task, repeat the 3 minute workout above.

Why am I telling you to do this?  What the heck does washing dishes or writing a blog entry have to do with fitness?  Well, the way you start your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day.  If you follow my instructions above, you’ll spend about 20 to 25 minutes total starting your day right.  At the end of those 25 minutes, you’ll feel amazingly full of energy and you’ll feel productive.  Your body will feel good from the quick exertion and your mind will also feel good from having accomplished something.  If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself with much more energy and at a higher productivity level for the rest of the day.

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One thing to remember is that fitness and health isn’t just about what you do, it’s also about what you don’t do.  For most people, stress about work and all the things they need to accomplish can be a major force against good health.  Stress elevates blood pressure, it causes binge eating, it causes indigestion, it can even cause irregular heart beats and other health issues.  By starting your morning right, your body feels better and so does your mind.  That increases physical health and decreases stress, which is something all of us could use.

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Dealing With Stress

What does stress have to do with fitness?  A lot!  Stress is one of the leading causes of bad health.  It can affect you in many ways, from higher blood pressure and cholesterol to irregular heart beats and loss of muscle tone.  It can also have indirect affects such as causing obesity through stress eating.  In fact, stress is another one of those items, like motivation, that has a tremendous impact on on our health, even though most of us don’t notice it.

Stressful Times

The reason I’m writing this is because the past few months have been stressful times for all of us.  We have a crucial election coming up, our government seems to be inept and/or mired in corruption, our financial markets can’t decide if they’re collapsing or not and our retirement plans are taking a roller coaster ride right along with the markets.

There’s no doubt that these are stressful times.  People are worried about their finances, their homes and their future, and I can already see some of the stress induced activity this is causing.  Over the past few months I’ve seen or heard:

• A coworker telling me he hasn’t been going to the gym because he’s just too worried about his retirement plan.
• Coworkers stress eating junk food like donuts
• A family member complain about irregular heart beats any time she thinks about her retirement plan
• A friend tell me he hasn’t been sleeping well because of worries about his mortgage

Lack of sleep, heart problems, stress eating, not exercising.  These are all going to negatively impact your health, and that’s going to add one more thing for you to stress out about.

Deal With It

I’m not a psychologist, a therapist or even a financial adviser.  I don’t have the solution to all your problems.  However, I can tell you that you need to deal with your stress or let it go.  If you don’t, you’re going to ruin your health and is that really what you need right now?  Do you need to deal with the guilt of binge eating or trips to the doctor right now?  Isn’t there enough on your plate already?  Find a way to deal with your stress now, before it consumes you.

A Few Recommendations That Work For Me

• Ask yourself, can I do anything about this?  If there’s something you can do then do it.  If there’s nothing you can do then admit to yourself that you can’t do anything about it and move on.  For example, there’s nothing I can do about the credit markets.  So I’m not going to stress about them.  There is a lot I can do about improving my own finances, so I’ll go ahead and do it.
• On a related note.  If you’re stressed about something you can’t do anything about, distract yourself with something you can accomplish.  I am a campaign volunteer for one of the presidential candidates.  I also donated a bit of money to his campaign.  That is all I can do at the moment considering my limited time and budget.  However, I occasionally find myself concerned about the election or annoyed at some of the articles I see out there.  Rather than stressing myself out, I go and do something productive.  It can be something as simple as washing the dishes or working on the yard, but it gives me a sense of accomplishment.  It allows me to feel like I’ve done something which makes me feel less stressed about things I can do nothing about.
• Take a walk.  Walking can be very relaxing, especially if you toss in some other distraction like music or a dog.  You’ll come back home or to work refreshed and ready to face your problems, at which point it might be a good idea to ask yourself that question above.
• Talk.  Talking to a loved one or a friend is great.  They might have a new perspective on the problem or they might have good suggestions on how to deal with the issues causing you stress.  Plus, the very act of talking and sharing will often make me feel better.

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These are just a few suggestions of things that work for me.  Maybe there are others that work for you.  Have you considered yoga?  Meditation?  Dance?  Taking a class?  Reading a book?  Whatever it is, deal with your stress before it deals with you.  Because you definitely don’t need something else to worry about right now.

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