Having
a good-night-rest. Sleeping long enough. Waking well-rested! What a luxury.
Sadly, for quite some people, it has become a luxury that they often have to do
without. Someone (some time ago) came up with the story that one can manage
fine with 5 to 6 hours of sleep a day. The thing is that it actually seems to
work for a few years. And yet, these people are (seemingly without really
noticing it at first) damaging their brain and body extensively.
Someone
who goes with less than 5 hours of sleep twice a week has a 200% bigger chance
of getting a stroke (Dr. Helmut Kolitzus). Rene Kahn wrote the very nice and
practical book ‘The 10 Commandments for a Healthy Brain’. One of these
commandments is ‘sleep healthy and sleep plenty’. For all phases of life it is
important to get enough sleep. What is enough though? For teenagers that is
actually a lot: 10 to 12 hours. But for all others it is AT LEAST 7-8 hours.
Another interesting fact is that one can’t really catch up lost sleep. So,
sleeping very little during the week, and trying to catch it up by sleeping a
lot during the weekend doesn’t work.
People
with a high resilience factor have constantly enough energy to face the
challenges of ordinary life and the little insanities that are also part of it.
If you want to have enough energy, you obviously also will need to get enough sleep.
This goal of enough sleep can best be divided into 3 factors:
1.
Having the discipline to go to bed at a regular time
2.
Being well prepared, so that you will be able to be really sound asleep
3.
Leaving worries behind
1.
Having the discipline to go to bed at a regular time
- Try to go to bed as often as possible before 12 pm, it is ideal to start preparing to go to bed at around 10 pm and to turn the lights of at 11 pm
- Get 7-8 hours of sleep, don’t go for the 5-10 hours of sleep (it doesn’t work)
- Don’t eat any big meals after 8 pm
- Refrain from alcohol after 6 pm
- Don’t watch TV or go on the internet after 9 pm
- Create a completely dark bedroom, any form of light initiates our senses
- No computer, tablet, phone or whatever might be work-related in the bedroom
- An excellent mattress is a must (just remember that you are, on average, spending about 2800 hours in bed each year)
- Go out for a big stroll after diner
- No fighting, arguments or difficult conversations after 9 pm
Anselm
Gruen wrote a great book about a constructive way of dealing with worries: ‘Einreden:
der umgang mit Gedanken’. Through one of the storylines in this book you follow
the thoughts of one of the old church Fathers: ‘Evagrius van Pontus’ (4th
century A.D.). He wrote the book: ‘Antirrethikos’, in which he describes 600
negatieve thougths. Imagine, they were already able of worrying in such
proportions 1500 years ago. Yet, after each of these negative thoughts he
described 3 positive thoughts that helped him to put the negative thoughts into perspective.
This
is one of the ways to stop the often uncontrollable streams of negative
thoughts. So, start writing them down. And then write 2 or 3 positive thoughts down
to put the negative thoughts into perspective. Obviously this often doesn’t
really solve the problems at hand, but it really does decrease the aggressive
negativity that comes with worrying.
An
example: how on earth will I ever be able to survive the immense work-load of
tomorrow without completely messing things up!?
Positive
thoughts:
- My self-esteem is not depending on my results
- Even if I won’t be able to finish all the work tomorrow, nobody is going to die because of it
- Hey, who says I have to finish everything tomorrow? Quality matters.
These
are all only a select few of the many ideas that Anselm Gruen is describing. In
short, go and get the book ‘Einreden: der umgang mit Gedanken’, use it, and
sleep well!
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