Bad night’s sleep?

There are not many worse ways to start your day off than a terrible night of sleep (or more accurately: lack of sleep). Waking on the wrong side of the bed due to bad dreams, inability to get comfortable or a mind that won’t stop ticking is infuriating at best. This is something that we all have to deal with from time to time. But we don’t have to accept it as standard.

Not getting a good night’s sleep is bad, mmm-kay.

If you are regularly waking up cranky, tired or otherwise not at your best, then it’s time to start taking steps to remedy the situation. Don’t let it get out of hand. If you are tired you are never going to be able to contribute fully at work and you will more than likely rub your friends and family the wrong way too. More seriously, you may be a danger to yourself and others on the road, at work and at home.

When my clients turn up to morning training sessions looking like they’ve just gotten home from a night of clubbing it’s time for some questions and answers. If you are getting to work and desperately reaching for your mug of hot coffee whilst yawning and wiping the sleep from your eyes, you need to take a good hard look at things too.

Here are a few things I recommend to those struggling to get a good night’s sleep:

• Get into a rhythm – try to rise and retire at the same time every morning and night. Your body craves rhythm, once you get used to the pattern it will become natural.
• Hit the sack when your body tells you too – if you feel like it’s time to go to bed then it’s time to go to bed, don’t watch the rest of the TV show or read another chapter of your book. Your body follows its own inner patterns of about 90 minute intervals, if you don’t go to sleep when you get tired chances are it will be another 90 minutes before your body and mind will relax again.
• Don’t watch the TV right before bedtime – TV stimulates your brain, all those bright lights and flashy noises aren’t going to calm you down, are they?
• Write down what’s on your mind - before you go to bed write down everything that you are thinking about, list your tasks for tomorrow and anything else that needs attention. Now forget about it and get some sleep.
• Meditate – you don’t have to be a reclusive Zen monk to benefit from a little meditation. Keep it simple – find a quiet room where you won’t be disturbed and let you mind wander for 10-15 minutes, once you’ve thought everything through your mind will relax all by itself.
• Nine is the magic number – aim for nine hours of sleep every night in a totally dark room. Sacrifice whatever you have to in order to get to the magic number.

Good night and good luck, Adam.

Know thyself

We humans seem to spend endless hours learning about the world around us; about the birds, the plants, the stars. Yet we don’t spend much time learning about ourselves. Sure, we know that our heart pumps blood and our kidneys do something important, but how much do we really know about ourselves?

How much do you know about you?

I contend that it is truly difficult to achieve anything worthwhile in our lives if we don’t truly understand who we are. Now, we can get really esoteric and start talking about our ego, our relationship with the community, spirituality, our place in the grand scheme of things and so on, but that is far outside the scope of this post. What I am trying to get at is simple: I want you to think about how much you really know about yourself.

Here are some things to ask yourself:

• Why do I act differently around different people?
• How do I feel when I’m by myself?
• Who and what do I rely on for comfort?
• Why do I wear the clothes I wear?
• Why do I do the things that I do?

These questions may seem a little silly, but I ask you to ponder them for a moment. The answers don’t come easy, do they? Are you starting to see what I’m getting at? We don’t really know ourselves that well at all (even if we like to think that we do).

I further contend that the more you know about yourself, the more you will understand about why things turn out the way they do for you. Perhaps this knowledge will allow you to find out why you do or don’t achieve your goals (be they fitness related or otherwise).

One way to expand your knowledge of yourself is to meditate. Again, we’re not talking esoteric (unless you’re into that kind of thing). The simplest way to meditate is to find a nice, quiet and comfortable place to sit without any interruption and simply let your mind do its own thing for a while. Just follow yourself around your own mind. It’s one of the most interesting journeys that you will ever go on (and it’s free!). Try it for yourself. And if you want to know more about meditation, there are heaps of great websites around, just do a search.

I’ll leave you with this famous quote: “Know thyself – and thou shall know all the mysteries of the gods and of the universe.”