Sleep
What you will get: Reflections on one of your basic human needs.
Are you getting enough of it every night?
And what’s more.
Is it enough of the right kind?
You see…
It’s a basic human need. Yet so many people neglect it.
What am I talking about?
SLEEP.
(What did you think I was talking about??)
And you know, so many of my clients have come to me with sleep problems.
Things like…
“I just can’t switch off from work.”
“I wake up several times in the night.”
“Well I can survive on 4 hours a night.”
SURVIVE?
Yes, sure you can survive on 4 hours a night. But do you want to just survive?
As my good friend and colleague Denise Kelly always says:
“Life is for thriving, not just surviving!”
So why do you sleep?
Well, according to psychologist Joe Griffin, healthy sleep has a vital role in both managing emotions and embedding learning.
You see…
Every day, your limbic brain (subconscious brain) is triggered my hundreds of emotional stimuli.
And you can’t express every single emotion and sudden urge you get right?
So you have learned to suppress your emotional urges in order to “fit in” with acceptable social norms. (Yes, I know there are several times you wanted to slap your boss across the face – but you didn’t actually do it, right?)
But emotions are energy. And energy does not disappear when you suppress it.
So when you have healthy sleep, with several dream cycles in the night (sometimes called Rapid Eye Movement or REM sleep) then you allow this build up of emotion to be released and expressed in your dreams. So when you wake up after a good night’s sleep the emotional backlog is cleared and you are fresh and ready to start the challenges of the new day.
And what’s more…
When you are in the dream state of sleep, the cells in your brain are vibrating at the optimum frequency for embedding new learning. So things you experienced the day before get programmed into your subconscious as new memories and beliefs.
So yes you can survive…
On 4 hours of sleep per night. But you will wake up feeling tired with built up emotions each day, and the longer this goes on the worse you will feel.
And that’s not all…
If you sleep too much because of exhaustion due to too much work or worry, you can also dream too much. Your rational, conscious brain is so occupied with thoughts and concerns that you have too much dream sleep and not enough deep sleep (deep sleep is when your rational brain shuts down completely).
So too little sleep is bad for you.
And too much of the wrong kind of “anxious” sleep is also bad for you.
And what is a healthy level of sleep?
It’s hard to say precisely, as we are all individuals right?
But most studies show that 7-9 hours of the right kind of sleep per night is needed for most adults.
So I’m off to get a good night’s sleep to make sure I am fresh, alert and focused when I wake up – ready for the challenges and opportunities tomorrow will surely bring.
How about you?
To your success
Steve Neale
“Europe’s Leading Expert on Personal and Professional Growth”
Psychologist, Executive Coach, EI Practitioner, Award Winning Trainer, International Author, Psychodynamic Therapist, Hypnotherapist, Mindfulness Instructor, International Speaker, Creator of the LPS, Creator of the Accredited Masters in High-Performance Leadership
