Habit Formation: Day 10
I have been getting up at 6:30 am every day, without fail and not a minute later. I've also been working out at 7:30 am so, by the time I'll complete my 30 days waking challenge, I'll have also completed 30 days workout challenge, essentially ingraining it as a daily habit. Even more, on the fifth day, I thought of adding meditation to my daily routine. Meditation has a plethora of benefits and I've always wanted to add it to my daily routine, something I've always failed at. So, on the fifth night, I sat down and wondered, when do I add meditation? I began visualizing my morning routine. I woke up at 6:30, brushed my teeth, fed my dog, prepared and drank milk and by the time I'd finish with these tasks, it would have been 7. I had nothing to do from 7 to 7:30 as I needed to wait at least 30 minutes after milk before a heavy work out and so I would often go through my social accounts, check emails, or read an article. Why not meditate from 7 to 7:30? It's also better to meditate in the morning! The next day I knew, I was meditating for 30 minutes.
Another improvement that I've seen is a reduction in daytime sleepiness. It's as if following the same routine every day has my mind marking certain times as 'no sleep' ones and certain as 'fall asleep.' So after waking up, whenever I used to read articles or do some time pass during the 7-7:30 slot, I often used to have the temptation of going back to sleep—controllable temptation though. So, when I'd start working out, I would still have this little drowsiness which would begin fading out gradually as I progressed into the workout. Now, while I meditate, I do feel a little sleepy because of it, but then as soon as I get up and begin working out, almost instantly, I feel re-energized and the drowsiness just fades completely. Even the post-lunch drowsiness is very controllable and not overpowering. I feel this slight temptation and awareness that I am feeling sleepy and if I were to try sleeping, I would fall asleep easily. I, however, don't give in to those temptations—I wait until my afternoon nap, which has a very refreshing effect on me.
Another aftermath effect of this habit is this enhanced ability to fall asleep. I used to take about 30+ minutes to fall asleep but now, I fall asleep within minutes and usually, get a quality sleep also in a 30-minute nap, sometimes waking up from a dream. Is it hard to believe? I'll explain how this works.
Whenever you sleep a lot, your brain knows it has a lot many opportunities to sleep or recover itself and that too spread throughout the day. As a consequence of the same, whenever you try to sleep, it doesn't prioritize your sleep. It knows, it can take it later when it needs. Whenever you'll try sleeping, your brain will not initiate sleep, and maybe you'll spend time tossing around or thinking—just wasting time, really. Your brain knows it can later make you oversleep to recover the sleep and it also knows it can make you feel sleepy whenever it really wants and you'll gladly go take a nap. The thing with sleep is, the body has a specific demand and that demand stays the same most of the time. Its quality is what changes. Even if you sleep for ten hours every day and feel sleepy, then that's because there's no quality in there. When you focus on quantity, that's what you'll get—quantity without as such a good quality. The other approach, the one that I follow, focuses on quality.
Even though I sleep just 7 hours approximately, I feel ten folds better and well rested as opposed to sleeping a 12 hours which I used to earlier. When I have marked my sleeping times and I'm very strict about them, my brain knows that it's either now or it's not getting the opportunity to rest. When I go to sleep, my mind reacts quickly and makes me fall asleep. Sleep is a necessary resource the mind needs to function properly and hence; it is not going to waste unnecessary time fussing about other things. It is going to grab this opportunity and ensure it gets the recovery time it needs. Another thing I'd mention is that I'm sleeping less than required which makes my brain mark it as a scarce resource. As a consequence of the same, whenever it'll get the opportunity to mine this resource, it will chuck all other tasks and prioritize on getting sleep. But, I'm sleeping less than needed, so am I sleep deprived? No, I'm not. Someone sleeping for ten hours could be sleep deprived, but I'm not. Since my sleep has become a high-priority scarce resource, my brain has also begun cutting out unnecessary sleep stages. It is focusing on high-quality sleep, the one I need to feel refreshed and to keep my body and mind functioning. So, I'm getting all the necessary sleep I need.
We have a sleep cycle consisting of several stages and one sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes. So, when you are asleep, you tend to complete several of these sleep cycles. These sleep cycles, though; consist of a lot of unnecessary stages which don't have any benefit on your body or mind. Consider that light sleep, when your eyes are closed and mind shut but then the slightest noise is enough to peak your alertness again and you're awake. When you are tired, such sleep won't make you feel rested. It is the stages such as REM (Rapid Eye Movements; a stage when you dream.) and SWS (Slow Wave Sleep; concerned with memory consolidation and overall body functions.) which make you feel rested. And of all the time you spend asleep, only a minor chunk of it is spent in those two stages.
As polyphasic sleepers have found out, if you get the highest quality of sleep then you can get by with as less as two hours per day. Anything more than that simply implies that you have more of the unnecessary stages. I wouldn't suggest you to start sleeping as less as two hours; it is really dangerous and can have negative health impacts if you don't know what you're doing. So, the best thing to do now is to cut back on at least the extra hours and bring yourself to 7 or 8 hours.
Be strict and make sure your waking time is fixed; your sleeping time will automatically adjust itself to get enough sleep. Start with really changing this one habit and trust me, it will have a very positive effect on you, just as it had on me. Maybe this one little change will initiate a string of other positive behaviours and habits. Start small, and focus on improving yourself with each passing day.
P.S: I haven't been posting much lately. I had another wedding to attend and I have an exam on the 10th of this month, after which I will get back to getting some content out for you!
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