Some Chirstmas Stuffs

Here are some nice stuffs about Christmas, especially for children. Enjoy!
Audio stories:
The Night before Christmas
A Christmas Carol
Santa’s Letter to Suzy Clemens
Christmas Stories from Germany
Videos:
The Real Santa
12 Days of Christmas
A Mother's Christmas
Songs:
When Christmas comes to town
Santa Baby
Christmas Tree - The Countdown Kids
Spongebob Squarepants - Very First Christmas
Christmas_Mix
Upon A Christmas Night ( Michael Learns To Rock )
Christmas Fantasy
Text Stories:
A Collection of Christmas Stories
Christmas Tales

The Minds Fancy Dress Party -Or- A Brainstorming Session

.
In Berlin a restaurant opens for anorexics and in Buffalo a lawyer with a stutter wins a court case. When everything you're working on has gone STALE and your own initially promising concepts are starting to annoy you, you need a brainstorming session to get to the missing bits or generate some new ideas.
The papers provide ample ideas for jump starts. A stutterer in a court case or an anorexic going to a restaurant that has opened especially for them must have no problems with ideas to keep them going for at least two weeks after their memorable experiences.
Brainstorming is trix galore, right? But that's really nothing new. Our mind plays on us all the time, wherever we are, whatever we do. It thinks of a stutter as its rightful body. Or of the numb anorexic craving as its self in top form.
The mind's always on a mission. Always. When faced with putting together a magazine-type product, a sales promotion concept, a new hype of some sort. It's the mind, that comes up with everything.
When brainstorming, think of the stutterer. At all cost, do NOT work on losing the stutter if you wanna speak. It's only obstructing and keeping you from the ideas labeled 'good' in the recesses you're trying to access.
Material to work with? Anything, so long as it is not defined. Space for now. Goal to achieve? An arrival point.
Very often the best ideas are the ones born in the early seconds of a session. Here at contentClix, we call it 'performance brainstorming'. Trust your instinct rather than the treacherous mind and your first utterances prove most valuable.
What DO we get at when we get at what we normally miss out on? And DO we miss out? Or does what we can't afford to miss out on catch up with us anyway?
Days that we are opening restaurants for anorexix are here. Really, since last December. How about launching something with a statement. Something like "Soon, human beings don't have to think anymore and they'll still be thinking". Sounds like a reproach to technology - it's also been said 1,000 times of poetry.
So we live in days that a restaurant caters for anorexics. A real-life manifestation of something we think of as an unviable concept made into a commercial venture, a marketable concept.
We really are so overmarketed in our entertainment that this new theme restaurant probably doesn't even stand out any more. We can go around feeding anorexics and the poor girlies probably won't feel in any way forced to eat. Solves their problem by creating a new layer in indifference on a wider scale.
Perhaps this is a consolation for those girlies with enough energy left to be on the lookout for healthier anger ventilation opportunities: of the stutterers, 80 is male.
The mind's mission RIGHT NOW is getting on target. Do you feel it coming? The next thought you're likely to produce is something to do with doing your very best and losing a stutter. A marriage of idea and form! Perhaps we nearing some arrival point.
Angelique van Engelen runs http://www.contentClix.com, a copywriting agency in Amsterdam. She has lived and worked as a journalist in the Middle East and London for over six years and currently lives in the Netherlands.

Part VI: Your Personal Powerful Sleep Plan

You're reading How To Sleep Less And have More Energy Than You Ever Had Before

Author: Kacper M. Postawski

Your Personal Powerful Sleep Plan

Tying it All Together to Increase Sleep Quality and Reduce Sleep

Your ultimate goal with this program is to reduce the amount of time you spend sleeping. However, we haven't talked about reducing sleeping because I wanted you to firmly understand:

In order to reduce the total amount of time you spend sleeping, you MUST increase the quality of your sleep first.

There's a popular myth out that you can simply gradually reduce your sleep and this will work fine. This may work for some people, and I'm willing to bet they already do some of the things which we've talked about in this book to increase the quality of their sleep, albeit they're not aware of it. But it doesn't work for others.

If you simply reduce your sleep without making the proper life style changes we talked about before, chances are you will only reduce your energy levels and your immune system, which could lead you to getting sick or getting into a car accident because of drowsiness! This definitely isn't the way to go.

As the saying goes: You must learn to walk before you run.

You must increase the quality of your sleep and your daily energy levels by using the techniques we talked about so far in this book before proceeding to cut down on your sleep.

Does this mean you have to change your WHOLE life around drastically to simply cut down on an hour or two of sleep? No. In fact, just creating some small changes in your life style will have a difference on your sleep. The two most important aspects
of your life-style that affect your sleep are

1) Light exposure
2) Daily activity level

Both light exposure and your activity levels affect your body temperature rhythm in a very big way.

Your first step is to design a plan to incorporate these lifestyle changes into your life, and increase the quality of your sleep. To help you do this, I've included my personal Sleep Evaluation Worksheet in this book. As you fill the worksheet out, you will gain a better overall understanding on the obvious areas you need to improve on.

Once you complete the worksheet, we'll talk about reducing sleep. Then you'll create your personal strategy to increase the quality of your sleep, increase your energy, and reduce your sleep. Here we go:

Your Personal Sleep Evaluation

You will find a printable version of this entire sheet in the downloadable package that came with this e-book. The best idea would be to print it out and fill this out in pen, this way you will be able to look back on this sheet and see how much you've
changed your sleeping habits!

Your Basic Bio-Rhythm Evaluation

Your first step is to evaluate your body temperature rhythm, or circadian rhythm. In the appendix section of this e-book you will find a method to do is precisely by doing a little body temperature experiment. Print out the graph in the appendix
section labeled “My Body Temperature Rhythm” and follow the instructions. However, if you do not want to go to the extent of doing the personal body temperature experiment, you can simply estimate the progress of your body
temperature by answering the following questions:

1. At what time do you wake up? _______________

2. Do you feel really drowsy in the early hours of the morning? If so, how long
does it take for this drowsy feeling to go away? __________________

3. At what point during the day do you feel the pressure to sleep or take a nap? Note: This is most likely the time at which you experience your regular body temperature “slump.” This is most likely sometime in the afternoon.

_________________

4. At what point of the day do you feel MOST energetic, alert, awake, and “on the go!”?
___________________

5. At what time during the day do you start to feel tired and drowsy?
__________________

6. At what time during the day do you feel the pressure to sleep most intense?
____________

This should give you an ideal estimate of what your current temperature body rhythm looks like. You should know when your body temperature rises and when it falls, this way as you apply the methods in this e-book to optimize your sleep, you will be able to notice the changes. Here is an explanation on how to use the answers from the above questions to determine your body temperature rhythm.

1. If you feel you need an alarm clock to RIP you out of your sleep in the morning and you have difficulties getting out of bed and feel lethargic in the early morning hours, chances are your body temperature levels are still at a low and haven't began
to rise very quickly.

2. By the time you're feeling more alert and awake, your body temperature has risen past the low it was in while sleeping.

3. When you feel the pressure to sleep or take a nap during the day, this is when you experience your body temperature slump.

4. The point at which you feel most energetic and alert is your body temperature peak point.

5. The point at which you begin to feel drowsy and tired is when your body temperature begins to fall.

6. When you feel the pressure to sleep becoming really intense, this is when your body temperature is beginning to fall quickly. This is the ideal time to go to bed.

Here again, for your reference is the body temperature rhythm graph (this is the general shape your body temperature rhythm usually takes)

Your Sunlight Intensity Exposure Evaluation

As you've learned so far, high intensity light has a huge effect on the strength of your sleeping system. If you expose yourself to light during the day, your body temperature rhythm will “peak” at a higher point and will fall at a later point. You'll experience better sleep and will be able to lower your amount of sleep.

If you get inadequate light exposure your body temperature will be closer to “flat-lining”, preventing quality sleep and lowering your energy levels throughout the day. Lack of sunlight also inhibits melatonin hormone secretion, this further promotes lower energy levels and sleep difficulties.

1. When you're outside, do you wear sunglasses?

Circle One: Yes / No

Note: You should limit your use of sunglasses in the morning and evening. If you live near the equator wearing sunglasses in the mid afternoon IS a good idea to protectyour eyes from UV radiation. Limit your use of sunglasses as much as possible, and as much as feels comfortable. UV radiation is lowest at sunrise and sunset.

2. When you wake up do you instantly get sunlight into your eyes?

Note: If you press the snooze button on your alarm or lie in bed for a few minutes, circle “No.”

Circle One: Yes / No

3. On average, how much time do you spend outside at sunrise / Early Morning Hours?

Check one:

__ 1. 10 minutes
__ 2. 10-30 minutes
__ 3. 1 hour
__ 4. 2 hours
__ 5. 3 hours or more

4. On average, how much time do you spend indoors?

Check one:

__ 1. 10 minutes
__ 2. 10-30 minutes
__ 3. 1 hour
__ 4. 2 hours
__ 5. 3 hours
__ 6. 4-5 hours
__ 7. 5-7 hours
__ 8. 7-10 hours
__ 9. 10-13 hours
__ 10. 13-16 hours

5. On average, how much time do you spend outside from 12 PM to 6PM?

Check one:

__ 1. 10 minutes
__ 2. 10-30 minutes
__ 3. 1 hour
__ 4. 2 hours
__ 5. 3 hours or more

6. On average, how much time do you spend outside around Sunset?

Check one:

__ 1. 10 minutes
__ 2. 10-30 minutes
__ 3. 1 hour
__ 4. 2 hours
__ 5. 3 hours or more

Understanding Light Exposure

Indoors, we experience an average of 1-500 luxes of light.

At sunrise, we experience an average of 5,000 to 10,000 luxes of light.

During noon and the early afternoon we experience an average of 50,000 to 100,000 luxes of light.

At sun-set we experience 5,000 to 10,000 luxes of light.

If you currently spend less than 1 hour getting high-intensity light, you're suffering from light deprivation! Remember, for your eyes spending the day indoors is the equivalent of spending it in total darkness. The more “darkness” you expose yourself
to during the day, the poorer the sleep you'll receive in return.

Now that you have an idea of how much light you get, make plans to get as much sunlight during the day as possible. However, don't go out hard-core and try to get 16 hours of sunlight in one day, you're going to get sunburn! Use your common sense.

If you live near the equator then light is pretty intense all year round, and you shouldn't have problems. However, if you live further from the equator then it will naturally be more difficult for you to obtain light during the winter. This is why most people are lower on energy and usually sleep longer during the winter.

If you have difficulty obtaining natural sunlight because of your work schedule or because of the winter season, you may consider purchasing an artificial light generator.

Are You Currently Strengthening Your Sleep System or Are You Weakening it?

The rest of these questions will help you determine if you're currently following sleep system strengthening habits or not. By the end of filling out this sheet you should have a general idea of obvious areas you can improve on! Make sure to look over this e-book again and re-learn the key concepts of optimizing your sleep.

1. Do you smoke?

Circle One: Yes / No

Note: If you smoke, quitting smoking would be the first step if you want to achieve quality sleep and reduce your sleeping time.

2. How often do you drink alcohol?

Check one;

__ 1. Never
__ 2. Rarely, and on occasion
__ 3. On most occasions
__ 4. Very Frequently.

Note: If you chose 3 or 4, your alcohol intake is definitely affecting your sleep system.

3. Do you currently drink coffee?

Circle One: Yes / No

Recall: Coffee is one of the biggest enemies of our sleep system!

4. Do you drink any other caffeinated beverages?

Circle One: Yes / No

5. Do you currently eat heavy meals 3-4 hours prior to sleeping?

Circle One: Yes / No

6. How much water do you drink during the day?

You should be drinking AT LEAST 1.5 Liters of water per day! (8 cups or more)

Check one:

__ 1. None, I drink pop, juice, and other crap all day
__ 2. 1 cup
__ 3. 2 cups
__ 4. 3-4 cups
__ 5. 4-6 cups
__ 6. 8-10 cups
__ 7. 10 cups or more

7. Do you need an alarm clock to wake you up? If so, do you often press the snooze button and lie in bed for a while after waking up?

Circle One: Yes / No

8. What sleeping position do you sleep in most often? What position is most comfortable in putting you to sleep?

Check one:

__ 1. On my back
__ 2. On my side
__ 3. One my front

9. During the Weekend, do you “sleep-in” or follow an irregular sleeping pattern?

Com’on... Be Honest :o)

Circle One: Yes / No

10. Do you currently or have you ever taken sleeping pills to induce sleep?

Circle One: Yes / No

11. Do you exercise regularly?

Circle One: Yes / No

If so, what time do you usually exercise at?

Check one:

__ 1. In the morning
__ 2. In the afternoon
__ 3. Early evening
__ 4. Late evening

Note: Exercising in the late evening can cause insomnia and will prevent you from sleeping deeply as your body temperature will not drop as low. However, if it is only light exercise then this isn't something to worry about.

12. Do you Currently have a Regular Sleep and Wake Time?

Circle One: Yes / No

13. What time do you currently go to sleep at? _________

14. What time do you currently wake up? _______

15. On average, how much sleep do you currently get per night? ________ hours

If you currently don't have any sleeping problems, skip the next 2 questions

16. How long does it take you to fall asleep? ______

17. Do you frequently wake up during the night and can't go back to sleep?

If so, how often do you wake up? ______

How long does it take for you to fall back asleep once you wake up? _______

18. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of your sleep?

Circle one. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

19. On a scale of 1 to 10, how rested and energized do you feel when you wake up?

Circle one. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

20. On a scale of 1 to 10, how energetic do you feel every day?

Circle one. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

21. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much stress do you have in your life? Health / Finances / Social Life, etc.

Circle one. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

22. Do you currently take regular naps? If so, how long do these naps usually last?

Check one:

__ 1. Around 10 minutes
__ 2. 10-45 minutes
__ 3. Around 1 hour
__ 4. 1-2 hours
__ 5. More than 2 hours

Note: as you remember, you should keep your naps minimal, at a maximum of 45 minutes to avoid entering deep sleep and lowering your body temperature.

23. How long do you currently stay awake during the day? _____________

If you take naps, this counts as sleeping, so subtract the time you spend napping away from your total awake time.

24. Do you currently do any of the following?

Check all that apply to you:

__ 1. Use your bedroom as an office
__ 2. Watch TV in your bed during the day or before sleeping
__ 3. Read books in your bed during the day or before sleeping
__ 4. Talk on the phone while in bed or lying on the bed
__ 5. Use the bed to do lots of thinking
__ 6. Use your bed to do paper work.
__ 7. Use your bed as a storage area during the daytime

Note: You should use your bed only for sleeping and sex. This will create a good association in your mind that the bed = sleep; decrease the amount of time it takes for you to fall asleep, and the chance of insomnia.

Reducing Your Sleep

As you recall, during jet lag we travel over several time zones. If we travel 2 time zones to the West, our body temperature rhythm will still be set to 2 hours ahead. In response we feel out of place and it takes a while for our body temperature rhythm to adjust to the new time zone.

In the same way, when we try to reduce the amount of time we spend sleeping, it takes a while for our bodies to adjust to the new sleeping time. The main challenge with reducing sleeping is understanding how sleep works, which we have over-come
by going through all this information together.

The second challenge is people tend to misread their bodies. If you feel tired and drowsy during the day ask yourself this question:

“Am I tired right now because I need sleep? Or is it because of the way I'm living my life or acting at the current moment?”

Even if you take a highly energetic person and place them in front of a TV for 2 hours, they WILL GET TIRED!

This is why it's important to realize that increasing your daily energy levels is as important as decreasing your sleep, they work together.

A Little More About Body Temperature

As you've learned, your body temperature is really an internal clock that keeps us awake and sleeping at certain times.

It's also extremely important to understand that the rise and drop of body temperature is a cue for the body to produce feelings of awakeness or tiredness.

Whenever your body temperature begins to fall, you will feel tired, lethargic, and drowsier. Whenever your body temperature rises, you will feel more energetic, alert, and be able to focus better.

Don't mistake the fall of body temperature at certain times during the day as the need to sleep. Your body temperature may rise and drop several times in the day as a response to the activities you're doing at the time.

Whenever you put big physical demands on your body, your body temperature will rise above the norm. In response to intensive physical activity body temperature drops for a while when you stop the activity.

For example, if you work an 8 hour shift at a job that requires intense activity, you may feel totally wiped and ready to sleep when you come home at around 4 PM. What you'll actually find is that this feeling of tiredness is not a sincere desire to sleep, but rather a response from your body due to the drop of body temperature.

If you resist sleeping at this moment and provide a “wind-down” period for your body after this period, body temperature will return to a normal and you will feel alert again.

In your Powerful Sleep plan I suggest that you take a 10-45 minute nap during your day to physically recharge yourself, it's ideal to take this nap when you experience this body temperature drop as it will help you sleep. Always limit your naps to 45 minutes to avoid entering deep sleep.

When you wake up from your power nap it's usual to feel a bit lethargic and drowsy, this is because your melatonin levels are high. Get as much high intensity light as possible the moment you wake up, and make sure to MOVE your body to get your body temperature up and running again.

If you currently live a very sedentary lifestyle, your body temperature will drop very often when you're sitting around on your butt or watching TV, so if you feel tired during the day understand it’s not because you need more sleep. It's because you need LESS SLEEP and MORE MOVEMENT!

How Much Sleep Should I Aim at Getting?

Everyone has a minimal amount of sleep on which they can function properly during the day; this minimal amount of sleep is called your core sleep. The amount of core sleep needed to function properly varies from person to person. It also depends on
the strength of your sleeping system, and on the lifestyle you currently have.

The amount of core sleep you need will change if you employ the behaviors and strategies we've talked about so far in this book. If you incorporate the power nap system, your core sleep will change as well.

A recent study by the University of California has shown that people who sleep less than 8 hours a day live longer! The study also shows that the optimum sleeping time is about 6 hours. Does this mean you should sleep 6 hours?

No. The amount of time you eventually reduce your sleep to will be up to you and your body. The amount of sleep you need for optimum performance will vary. Sometimes the amount of sleep is genetic.

It will also be easier for you to sleep less the older you get, this is because melatonin production decreases as we age. That’s why elderly people sleep an average of 5 to 6 hours.

As you apply the techniques of this program, you will have to do a little trial and error testing to determine how much sleep is just right for you.

How to Reduce Your Sleep

The best way to reduce your sleep is to do it gradually and go at a pace that is comfortable to you. Do not try to reduce your sleep cold-turkey. If you reduce your sleep by two hours right away your body temperature rhythm will not adjust immediately. Although it has been known to work, I do not recommend it. The first challenge with reducing your sleep comes with sleep cycles. As you know, during the last sleep cycle the period of REM sleep is the longest. This is naturally when most of us wake up as it's easiest to get up from. The last period of REM sleep lasts for about 1 hour, but this varies from person to person.

If you begin reducing your sleep it's possible that you might start waking yourself up in the deep sleep phase. If you wake yourself up during deep sleep it's relatively hard to get up and you will feel very tired, slow, and lethargic. If this happens, experiment by reducing your sleep by another 20 to 30 minutes to wake yourself up in REM sleep instead of deep sleep.

Another reason why getting up in the morning may be difficult is because of the lack of sunlight. When you reduce your sleep, make sure that you get up at around sun-rise so you can instantly exposure your eyes to high intensity light. If you purchase a light box generator, this challenge can be easier over come.

Lets move on to your Powerful Sleep plan where we'll discuss how you'll put this system to work in your life, and the specific techniques you might want to use to decrease your sleep.

Your Powerful Sleep Plan

Did you fill out your Personal Sleep Evaluation yet? If you didn't go back, and do the sleep evaluation, a printable copy of the evaluation is available with the downloadable package this e-book came in.

After filling out the personal evaluation you should have a greater idea of the areas you could improve on in your life-style to increase the quality of your sleep.

If you filled out the body temperature rhythm evaluation or if you did the body temperature experiment, you will have a very good idea of how your body temperature rhythm operates right now, and will see the changes take place as you apply this program.

We'll now go over the most important aspects of this program.

1. Sunlight Exposure

Getting Sunlight into Your Eyes the Instant You Wake

You must get sunlight into your eyes in the first few minutes you wake up. This will instantly give your body temperature rhythm the message that it's day time. Your body temperature will begin to rise and melatonin levels will drop.

This is why it's such a good idea to exercise in the morning hours.

When you reduce your sleep time it's a good idea to set your “awake” time at sunrise.

Getting High Intensity Light during Long Indoor Times

If you are forced to spend a lot of time indoors because you work in the office or at home, this is the time that is most detrimental to your body temperature rhythm.

Ask yourself: What can I do to get the most sunlight possible during work?

Are you going to move your desk next to a bright window?

Are you going to take your lunch break outside in the sun?

Are you going to convince your boss to buy some artificial bright light generators?

Reducing Your Use of Sunglasses

Do you currently use sunglasses?

Reduce your use of sunglasses as much as possible. If you live near the equator, use sunglasses with common sense. UV radiation is harmful to your eyes, and is highest during when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. Avoid wearing your sunglasses just for style.

2. Activity Level

Have at least 15 minutes of intense cardio vascular exercise.

15 minutes is the minimum. You must provide enough physical demand on your body to raise your body temperature. Any kind of physical exercise will help your body temperature rise to a higher point, delay the body temperature drop, and allow you to sleep deeper.

Exercise in the Morning if Possible

Exercising in the morning is perhaps the best idea as it will get your body temperature to rise quickly. If you exercise in the morning you will easily beat the early morning zombie phase everyone else goes through.

If you exercise outdoors this is a double benefit as you give light exposure to your eyes as well!

A short 10 minute jog around the block at sunrise is ideal to raise your body temperature.

Avoid Exercising 2 hours prior to sleeping.

The rise of body temperature after exercise can continue for a considerable time. As you recall most of our deep sleep happens within the first 3-4 hours of sleep. If you exercise before sleeping the body temperature rise may prevent you from sleeping deeply.

3. Power Naps

The real important part of this program is to take power naps during the day. A power nap consists mostly of Stage 1 and Stage 2 sleep which is very beneficial to your physical energy. You must avoid making your naps longer than 45 minutes or you may enter deep sleep.

It is natural to feel lethargic and tired after a nap as your body temperature might begin to drop a bit more and you will have a higher level of melatonin in your body. This period of drowsiness after a nap is only temporary, so when you wake up, make sure to get lots of movement and some sunlight.

The ideal time to take these naps is when you experience your natural afternoon body temperature slump, or when your body temperature drops after a hot bath or exercise. Body temperature drops 60-90 minutes after a hot bath and about 4 hours after intensive exercise.

If you take your naps for about 30 to 45 minutes and you feel extremely lethargic and drowsy, it's possible that you entered deep sleep. The amount of time required to get into initial deep sleep varies from person to person. If this happens, make your nap time even shorter to avoid entering deep sleep.

The best idea to make sure you don't over sleep these naps is to get one of those cheap $1 watches with a timer on it. Don't worry, the beeping noise should wake you up as Stage 2 sleep is very light sleep and we're very wakable during this stage.

Take only 1 nap per day. If you feel the need to take another nap, keep it really short.

Don't underestimate the power of taking these short naps. If you want to succeed at reducing your sleeping time, these naps will help you tremendously at giving you more energy during the day. They will restore your physical energy as well as allow you to clear your mind and concentrate better.

4. Reducing Your Sleep Properly

Set a goal to what you want to reduce your sleeping time to. Understand that this amount will not be exact and that you must find the “hot spot” for waking up in the proper stage of sleep.

Many people who try this program report that they achieved instant results by simply increasing their sunlight exposure and cutting down an hour on their sleep right off the bat.

Other people who try reducing their sleep feel really tired when they wake up. Remember that your energy levels during the day depend more on what you do during the day and your body temperature levels. Don't blame the amount of sleep on you right away if you haven’t implemented completely the whole new sleep system.

Reduce your sleep gradually in 20 or 30 minute periods. When you feel comfortable with one sleep setting, you can push the time back a bit more. How quickly you reduce your sleeping time is up to you. The most important thing to remember is that you need to be consistent with your sleeping schedule. If you're not consistent with your new schedule you will not give your inner sleep clock enough time to adjust to the new schedule, and your body temperature will not align with your new wake up time. You must provide enough time for your body temperature rhythm to adjust to your new sleep and wake up time, this will reduce morning feelings or drowsiness and provide you with better sleep.

Remember that reducing your sleep isn't just about waking up earlier in the day. You may reduce your sleep by going to sleep later in the day. As you implement this program you will find that it becomes easier to stay awake longer and fall asleep later in the day, as your body temperature will drop at a later part during the day.

Once you get to a point where you find you can't function properly throughout the day, you have trouble concentrating and fatigue hits you at random times, this may mean you've reached your core sleep amount. At this point it’s a good idea to not push it any further. Increase your sleep a bit until you can function properly and set this as your optimized sleep time.

Reducing your sleep at first may seem challenging, but just like with everything in life, it gets easier as you do it consistently.

And remember, you MUST make the proper lifestyle changes to increase the quality of your sleep and your energy levels first. If you try to skip this step, reducing your sleep may make you feel extremely tired during the day. You may experience nausea, headaches, and stiffness in your muscles when you wake up.

5. Proper Hydration

Proper hydration to your sleep system is like engine oil to a car. If you truly want to optimize your sleep and increase your daily energy through the roof, take the steps explored in the earlier section of this book to hydrate your system.

Proper hydration allows our body temperature rhythm to rise and fall easier. Your body temperature rhythm will adapt to the new schedule you set for yourself much easier.

Those are the 5 most important points of this program. If you're still unsure about what changes you need to make in your lifestyle to increase the quality of your sleep and your daily energy levels, refer back to the self evaluation sheet you filled out and skim over this e-book to re-learn some of the important concepts.

To summarize, let’s look at an example of two people who work at the same job but have two completely different sleeping systems:

Bob

Bob gets up in the morning at 8 am and lies in bed for 30 minutes to “rest” before he heads off to the office. In the car he drinks a star-bucks cup of coffee which gives him 500 mg of caffeine, at work he spends 7 hours indoors. Once he gets home he sits on the couch and watches 2 episodes of Friends, he feels drowsy during the show so he doses off for about 2 hours. He wakes up at 8 PM feeling hungry. He sticks some microwavable dinner in the oven and watches the news as it cooks. After dinner, Bob takes a stroll around his apartment and decides to vacuum his living room, and organize some shelves. Bob heads to bed at 12:30 AM after sending a few e-mails, sleeps for 7 hours and 30 minutes, and wakes up un-rested and drowsy.

Hehe, that may be an over dramatization, but is it Bob's sleep clock that is controlling his feelings of drowsiness? or is it his actions?

1) Bob doesn't get any natural sunlight during the day. This contributes to very high melatonin levels which make him sleepy, and un-motivated during the day .

2) He stays awake for only 14 hours, only 4 more hours than he slept. He's practically sleeping 50% of his life away - This puts little pressure on his sleep system to give him quality sleep.

3) He doesn't put any physical demands on his body at all, which decreases his body's demand for deep sleep.

4) Because of the low variance in body temperature and melatonin levels during Bob's day, it's very difficult for Bob to obtain sufficient deep sleep to feel rested.

Over all the message he is sending his sleep clock is: “ I LIVE IN A CAVE and I HAVE LITTLE ROOM TO MOVE.“

As you recall, the sleep clock will adjust to whatever demands you put on it. In this situation Bob's sleep clock will naturally produce a “timer” for his body to follow, to keep Bob sleeping the same way every-day.

Is Bob's sleep clock working against him? Is it Broken? No. In reality this is simply his body's way of keeping him alive. If Bob DID live in a cave, this sleeping system would keep him alive.

Jane

Now, let's took at Jane, who works in the same office as Bob, but has an optimized sleep system for maximum daytime performance.

Jane wakes up at 6 AM, and bolts out of bed, she instantly opens the drapes in her bedroom to let the sunlight in. She puts on her shoes and goes for a 30 minute jog outside to absorb as much sunlight as possible. During her jog her body temperature
rhythm raises. At work, Jane feels energized and focused, during lunch break, she makes sure to go outside to get more sunlight for at least 30 minutes. During this time she goes for a walk with a friend. When Jane gets home from work, she takes a short 15 minute nap on her couch. When she wakes up she heads to the gym to do her 1 hour of exercise, this prevents her body temperature from staying low and making her drowsy and tire. Jane eats a meal out in her yard, in the sun at around 5
PM. When it finally gets dark, Jane visits a friend across town, her friend lives only 8 blocks away, so Jane decides to walk instead of taking her car. After an evening of sharing a few good laughs, Jane gets home by 8 PM. She spends the rest of the day actively moving about her home, and she also takes the dog for a walk. Jane finally goes to bed at around 12 AM, excited about the next day to come.

1) Jane gets as much sunlight as possible during the day
2) She takes a power nap that recharges her physical energy
2) She stays awake for 18 hours which puts a lot of demand on her sleep system
3) She puts many demands on her body, as well as her mind.

The message she's sending her body is I am an active Individual, I need energy, make sure I stay awake!.

Jane's body temperature rhythm starts at 6 AM, when sunlight hits her eyes first thing in the morning, her melatonin levels begin to drop rapidly. As she goes for a short jog, her body temperature is pushed to rise faster, as she is putting a higher demand on staying active during the day. Jane gets extra sunlight during the day; this delays her drop of temperature, and enables her to stay more active during the day.

When Jane finally goes to bed, she sleeps for only 6 hours, during which her body compensates for all the activity by lowering her body temperature quickly and making sure she gets enough deep sleep to prepare her for another 18 hour day.

Conclusion - How Are You Going to Use This Program?

I created this program with the best intention of helping you get the most out of your life, by providing you with the knowledge I have had the privilege of learning in my life :o)

However, I understand that not everyone who reads this book will follow through with this program 100%. This is only natural as most people who invest in self-improvement programs never use the information! Is it because they're lazy?

No! It's because most people are AFRAID of change in their lives. You've got to ask yourself: Is the result this program promises for your life worth putting in the time to make it work for you?

Also, we all have very different daily schedules and challenges, which might make it difficult for certain people to follow through with this program 100%.

I have done my all to give you my balls-out best in this book, I have spilled my beans and given you all the scientific knowledge you need to know to be your own personal sleep expert.

However, if you find yourself at a challenging time when you're not quite sure if you're following through correctly, you're stressed, or just plain down on yourself. Remember the two key most important parts of this program!

#1) Get Sunlight

#2) MOVE YOUR BUTT!!!

I'm not going to suggest that you get up off your butt right now and sign up for a membership at the nearest gym, and start a daily exercise routine. You can come to that conclusion only as naturally and easily as you let that sense of motivation in you
to grow.

However, do note that in almost every case of poor sleep, physical inactivity has something to do with it.

• Fact: More than 50% of people who experience insomnia are inactive, and live a very sedentary life style. You MUST MOVE during the day, get off that butt, and use your body. The more you use your body, the more your sleep clock will put the incentive on to giving you more restful and energizing sleep!

What's the point of sleeping and re-energizing your body if you're NOT going to use it?!

I hope you enjoyed this information, as I enjoyed sharing it with you! Remember, in order to increase the quality of your sleep, you MUST to INCREASE THE QUALITY OF THE DEMANDS ON YOUR LIFE AND YOUR BODY.

Wishing you Sweet Dreams,
Kacper M. Postawski, the insomnia terminator

Part V: Can't Fall Asleep?

You're Reading How To Sleep Less And have More Energy Than You Ever Had Before

Author: Kacper M. Postawski

Can't Fall Asleep?

Methods to Battle Insomnia, and What Else Could Be Preventing You From Getting Powerful Sleep

Have you ever had trouble falling asleep? Or perhaps you frequently wake up at night and can't fall back asleep? If you've ever suffered from Insomnia, you're about to get a crash course on what causes it and how to deal with it. You'll also be able to use this information to increase the quality of your sleep.

There are three types of Insomnia:

Type 1) Sleep Onset Insomnia

When you cannot go to sleep, and usually have to lie in bed from 30 minutes to 3-4 hours (or more) before you finally go to sleep, after much anxiety, stress, tossing and turning. You usually wake up with a massive headache, feeling drowsy, or with your whole body aching.

Type 2) Sleep Maintenance Insomnia

You go to sleep normally, but you wake up during the night, once or several times, and you can't go back to sleep, or it takes a long time for you to go back to sleep.

Type 3) Sleep Disturbance Insomnia

You go to sleep normally, you sleep for a normal amount of time (7-8 hours for adults, 5-6 hours for the elderly), but you wake up un-rested, with a headache, aching, feeling drowsy, dizzy, etc.

Most Insomniacs suffer from a combination of type 1 and 2, if you suffer from type 3, you are most likely suffering from Sleep Apnea, or PLM (period limb movement), or other underlying sleep disorders. Also, if you are pregnant it is very common to experience type 3 Insomnia, especially in the last tri-semester of pregnancy.

You've already learned about what makes sleep and qualitative sleep possible. You might already have an understanding as to why most people can't sleep, or sleep poorly. You've also learned some basics about the conscious and subconscious mind. What you'll learn here is that there's a very interesting mechanism that actually prevents people with insomnia from sleeping!

Types of Insomnia

Short Term Insomnia

There are two types of Insomnia, short-term insomnia and chronic Insomnia. Short term Insomnia IS quite common, everyone in their life suffers from Insomnia at some point or another, and it is in reflect to the natural occurrences in our lives, stress, family and relationship problems, finances. Depression, medical and health problems are also very common causes of short term Insomnia.

Here's where the real important thing you must understand comes into play. For most people, short term Insomnia lasts only a few days, afterwards their normal sleep patterns return.

For others, that period never ends, short term Insomnia becomes a part of their daily lives, perpetuated by the Insomnia Cycle Effect, which turns short term insomnia into:

Chronic Insomnia

If you have regular sleeping problems, then you have chronic Insomnia. Regular drowsiness, headaches, depression, and low energy is now a daily part of your life, falling asleep is pure torture. Don't worry, I've been there, and I know how it feels.

The Natural Sleep Response

What is the difference between someone with sleeping problems and someone who can fall asleep easily?

The answer lies in the natural sleep response.

As you recall, the first stage of sleep is Stage 1 Sleep. It's in this stage that our brain waves lower from beta waves to alpha and theta waves, and we enter an Alice in Wonderland day dream stage that takes us deeper and deeper into sleep. For most people this response is automatic after they lie in their bed for a few minutes, I call this response the natural sleep response.

Most of the time, when we lay our head on that pillow, when we feel the warmth of the blanket around us and close our eyes, our mind gets the signal and says: “Okay guys! This is it! Sleep time... lower the heart rate, lower brain waves, we're going for a riiiiiiiiideeee!.” By now, if we simply get out of the mind's way and let it go on its own, we will naturally enter Stage 1 sleep and proper sleep follows.

Chronic insomnia happens because of a diminished natural sleep response. It's possible for your natural sleep response to be completely erased by a process called “negative anchoring”, this is how chronic insomnia develops. Usually people with chronic insomnia also live a life-style that involves all the bad sleeping habits we've talked about before, which makes sleep even harder to obtain, and when they do sleep, the sleep is very unfulfilling.

We will not talk about chronic insomnia anymore in this book, however you can download a great free e-book I wrote on the topic right at:
http://www.wonderfulsleep.com/

If you're like most people, then you've most likely had a time in your life when you experienced short term insomnia. Something happened, and you couldn't sleep, perhaps this went on for a few days or weeks at a time. What prevents us from sleeping at these times? and how can we battle short term Insomnia?

Short term insomnia happens when our natural sleep response is interrupted, and we can't enter Stage 1 sleep. Despite the fact that we're in bed and our eyes are closed, our brain waves stay in the beta brain wave stage.

The Racing Mind

You're lying awake, and you can't sleep because your mind just won't stop thinking! Why can't your mind just shut up!?

Actually, as this is happening, your inability to sleep is NOT the result of your racing mind. It's actually the fact that you're lying awake that's making your mind race! That's a pretty interesting concept isn't it? Haha… Okay, allow me to explain.

Our thoughts work in the same way as a snowball that's rolling down a hill. The snow ball gradually gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Our thoughts work in a momentum like fashion, meaning that when you apply focus to one thought, you usually keep thinking about that thought, and that thought leads to other thoughts of that nature. Wow? Make sense? Probably not, let me make it a bit clearer.

Don't Do this.

Don't picture a bright blue mini van driving down a long road with two trees on the right side of it.

Did you picture what I just said? Naughty Naughty! Told you not to!

Ha! My point is, our mind works by continuously taking in data and processing it. This process is often outside of your control. You cannot NOT think about a bright blue mini van because whenever I mention it your mind has to picture a mini van to even think about it. Often times our mind has a “mind of its own” and it will move in directions without you being even aware of it. If what you're thinking about requires too much conscious thinking, this prevents you from entering Stage 1 Sleep.

The Rule is:

“Wherever focus goes, thought flows.”
Most of us are conditioned to just think about nothing when we go to sleep, our mind naturally just shuts off after a while and we go into Stage 1 sleep. However, during stressful times, our focus is entirely different, and our thoughts continue to flow in very un-sleepy directions. Let me give you an example, suppose you're trying to relax when you're a bit stressed...

Your thoughts:

Hmm.... It would be nice to just be in a big park right now.
With the birds,
and the bees.....
and all the happy little trees...
I'm walking in the park, lalala... Look, there's a bench in the park,
Lets sit on it....
Hey... I'm sitting.
You know... I sit like this all day in the office too...
I don't like my job, why on Earth did I choose to work there, what was I thinking?
You know, my boss is a real jerk.
I can't believe he assigned me that project.
Oh No! The deadline is in a few days!
What if I don't make it?
What will the people think of me in that conference room?
The Conference Room... There's a coffee machine in there.
I drink too much coffee.
I had all these goals for proper nutrition and I failed to keep up with them.
Why am I always a failure?
This is like that time in High School when I failed my exam.
High school - there was that girl in high school I really liked.
She didn't like me!
This feels so awful! Why didn't she like me!? Is something wrong with me?
WHY CANT I SLEEP?! There's got to be something wrong with me!

Our thoughts can easily turn from a walk in a park to re-living stressful situations over and over again, simply because of this momentum concept. So what's the solution?

It's simple: You must focus your attention on relaxing, and not trying to *FORCE* sleep to come.

Of course, relaxing is a challenge for most people too...

Okay, ahhhhhhh,... time to relax.
Wow! This feels good.
Mmmmmmm....
Okay, I'll just turn my head to one side there.
Yup... Relax.
Hold on, Gotta move my arm... There...
Okay you know what, I think I like the other side better.
You know, relaxing is a bit harder than I thought
Why Can't I just relax?
Okay... Just Relax...
RELAX DAMNIT!
WHY CANT YOU RELAX! AHHHHHHHHHH

Again, often the momentum concept takes over and a simple adjustment of position leads to hours of tossing and turning! We'll deal with how to combat tossing and turning soon.

The answer lies in focusing all your attention on getting relaxed, and focusing your imagination on something very pleasant, that you can easily enjoy, without having to think about it. Your goal shouldn't be to fall asleep, but to simply relax. The reason for this is simple: The more you focus on trying to fall asleep, the more frustrated and stressed you will become about the concept of not falling asleep, this will push your thoughts into a very negative direction. When you completely relax your mind and body, your brain waves lower - this has been proven scientifically by doing studies on meditation. As you know, lower brain waves lead to Stage 1 Sleep.

Another reason why a lot of people tend to think forever when they go to bed is because they engage in very thought provoking activities during the evening, such as entering arguments with other people or working on the computer. You should always allow yourself to have a wind-down period before you go to bed.

There are many methods to relax your mind and body. In the bonus of this book you will find a body & mind relaxation section to guide you through this process in a few simple ways. For now, lets look at just a couple of methods to quiet your mind in times that you can't fall asleep.

The Science of Counting Sheep - Alternatives That Work

Why does counting sheep NOT work?

Well, if you were to think about it... a horde of hyper active sheep sporadically jumping over a fence isn't very calming to the mind! The whole concept is also ridiculous, when's the last time you saw sheep jumping high in the air over a fence? Sheep are naturally very lazy animals that spend most of their day eating and sleeping. If you're HELL BENT on counting sheep, count a bunch of sleeping sheep with a bunch of ZZzzs forming in bubbles around their heads, on a peaceful green meadow, this should work better :o)

Here are a few better techniques to slowing down your thoughts, when your mind just keeps racing.

Thheeee sllooowwwwwwwww mmeeeetthoooodddd

This technique works very well. What you do is hear your thoughts as if you were saying them out loud, or if you're a more visual person, you can visualize your thoughts as if they were being written on paper or on a screen right in front of you. Afterwards, begin to consciously hear/see your thoughts as if they were being played in slow motion.

So for example, if this was one of your thoughts:

My boss is such a jerk, I can't believe what he did last day at work, I can't believe I'm working at that company, what was I thinking!

Once you notice you're thinking this way, stop, and replay the thought in your head very slowly:

Mmyyyy boss, izzzz , suuuuch, aaaahhh, jeeeerrrkkk........ eeeeeyyeeeee, caaan't
beelliieeeve....

After you replay the slowed down thought, you can play it over and over again even
slower, making it shorter and shorter every time, until it fades completely. ie:

My boss is such a jerk...
My boss is such a...
My boss is...
My bo.....
M....
....
..
.
This method is very effective for two reasons:

1) It gives you something else to concentrate on rather than being frustrated.
2) It puts focus on relaxing your mind, which will drive your thoughts into a positive direction, and prevent your thoughts from sporadically racing around everywhere.

As you try to do this, you will notice a little resistance from your mind, from time to time thoughts will come racing into your mind. Simply apply the same technique to them over and over again, and you will find yourself relaxed and asleep in no time.

The Chalk Board Method

This technique works well if you're a highly visual person. If your mind is racing, you can visualize your thoughts as if they were being written on a black chalkboard at the same time. Whenever a new thought arrives, for example:

Oh no, what am I going to wear tomorrow?

Visualize your slowly wiping the thought off the chalk board, leaving it completely blank.

This method will have the same effect as the previous one.

Battling with Tossing and Turning

We've all had those nights that we just couldn't find the comfortable part of the bed and spent hours tossing and turning till the break of dawn. Why does this happen?

Well, your desire to “toss and turn”, really isn't the result of you not being comfortable, it's the result of you not feeling relaxed. On a deeper feeling our mind wants us to relax, but most of the times we interpret the message as “find a comfortable spot on the bed.” True relaxation comes from within you, and has to be triggered by your inner thought process.

For example: You could be in a hammock on a hot summer day in Hawaii, but if you're thinking about whether the stock market will rise or fall, and you've got a 100 million dollars on the line and it's REALLY bothering you, it won't matter what position you're in that hammock, you won't relax!

If you're lying in bed and you get the urge to toss or turn, wait it out, you'll be surprised how quickly it fades! When you get the urge to toss and turn, ask yourself “How can I focus on something else right now to feel more relaxed?” As you lie there for about 15 seconds, you'll be surprised at how the urge to toss and turn simply fades, and you ealize that all you really want to do is relax.

Understand that if you do start tossing and turning, it will not end with just ONE toss or turn, because of the momentum effect, you will just keep tossing and turning till the break of dawn!

Sometimes the urge to move is really intense, or maybe you really are in a very painful position on your bed. If you absolutely MUST move, do it in this way:

1) Move, but move very slowly. Remember what it feels like when you wake up in the morning and you're very sleepy, do you move very quickly then?

2) As you move very slowly, put a big bright smile on your face, and take a deep breath.

Another reason why tossing and turning keeps us awake is because we do it very quickly, and the more we do it, the more it agitates us! So do it very slowly, and make sure to smile and breath deeply, you will feel the difference :-)

Sleep Restriction

Sleep restriction is perhaps the most powerful technique to battle short term insomnia and chronic insomnia. The rule of sleep restriction is simple:

If you can't fall asleep and you lie awake in your bed for longer than 30 minutes, get out of bed! Stay out of bed until you feel a tired sensation coming over you, and then go back to bed.

This works because it interrupts your pattern of thinking. If you've been lying awake in bed for longer than 30 minutes, your mind is racing, and you can't relax. Chances are you're not going to suddenly get hit over the head and relax instantly. You've simply created too much negative momentum and it's keeping you awake! This is why getting up and out of bed is the best way to interrupt this. Getting out of bed is a great way to clear your mind, and get the feeling of drowsiness back in you.

Sleep Restriction will also help restore proper bed associations (see below)

Poor Bed Associations

Have you ever had this happen to you?

It’s the end of the day, and you feel tired... perhaps you're even yawning a little. You get into your pajamas, turn off the light, climb into the bed, and all of a sudden you're wide awake and you don't feel tired anymore?! This is a very common experience for anyone with sleeping problems. It's a result of poor bed associations.

As we're going through our day, our minds link certain experiences to emotions or states of mind, this happens without us even being aware of it. In hypnosis and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) this is referred to as state anchoring.

An anchor is an experience, a taste, touch, smell, or sound that instantly recreates an emotional state in your body. For example, do you have a favorite song that makes you feel a certain way? As you're reading this, try to remember that song.

Doesn't it seem that whenever you hear the song those emotions just come flooding right into you? This happens because at some point in time you heard that song for the first time, at that point you were feeling that way, and those emotions became anchored to that song.

Often when people can't sleep they try reading a book or watching TV in bed to induce sleepiness, these actions actually make insomnia even worse. Not only does watching TV keep your conscious mind awake and racing, it anchors feelings of wakefulness to your bed. This gets your mind to associate that your bed is a place where you “think,” not sleep. This completely disturbs the natural sleep response.

Your bed should ONLY be used for sleeping and sexual activity, nothing else.

A lot of people use their bed and their bedroom for a variety of purposes. People also tend to have heated emotional arguments with our spouse/significant other in the bedroom, this is a huge no no, as you link major feelings of frustration to the bed! (this isn’t good in any way!)
Avoid using your bedroom as an office, a workout room, or a storage area. Stay off your bed during the day, don't lie on the bed when you're talking on the phone, use your bed only for sleeping or sex.

Taking a Warm Bath or Shower

Another reason why you may have trouble falling asleep at night is because your body temperature simply isn't dropping! If this is the case, it could either mean: You're not getting adequate sunlight or exercise during the day. Or... you simply need less sleep! Stay awake longer and this won't be a problem :-)

If this problem still persists, you taking a hot shower before going to sleep can help drop your body temperature, however, you must do this right. A lot of people have conflicting opinions whether taking a hot shower or bath before sleep actually helps you fall asleep.

If you take a hot bath or shower, you must take it at least 60-90 minutes before going to sleep, not less. When you take a hot shower, your body temperature rises very quickly. This is why you feel so refreshed and awake after a hot shower in the morning. However, after this quick rise, the body temperature rhythm begins to fall quickly in esponse after about 60 minutes. This is why we usually feel tired and lethargic in the first hour in the morning (unless you exercise in the morning.) Most people choose to battle this drop of body temperature with caffeine...yuck!

A hot bath or shower can help put you to sleep, only if you take it 60-90 minutes
before you sleep. If you try to sleep right after a hot bath or shower, chances are the
body temperature rise will make it harder.

The drop in body temperature is a natural trigger for your mind to relax your muscles, lower your brain waves and enter Stage 1 Sleep.

Room Temperature

Your room temperature can also affect your sleep. It can affect your ability to fall asleep, as well as the quality of your sleep.

If you currently sleep in a very hot or humid room, you may experience trouble with sleeping deeply as your body will have difficulty lowering your body temperature. Naturally your body temperature will not fall as quickly either and your natural sleep response may be interrupted.

Studies show that falling asleep in a cool room with an easy atmosphere is much easier than falling asleep in a hot environment. You also sleep more deeply when you're in a cool environment.

Take this advice, but not to an extreme! Obviously, if turn your temperature down to the point where you're FREEZING, falling asleep might be difficult, as your body tries to raise your temperature in order to survive.

How Light Creates Insomnia

As you recall, melatonin is a hormone in your body which controls your sleep, and is regulated in reaction to the amount of light available to you. Melatonin is produced when you're exposed to darkness. The more melatonin in your body, the easier it is to fall asleep and to sleep deeply. If you have too much light in your room while you sleep, your melatonin levels will be affected!

Recent studies show that melatonin is even affected by light touching our skin, not just coming into our eyes. This is why it's so important to sleep in total darkness, and again, why you should GET MORE SUNLIGHT!

If you currently have a nightlight in your room, or sleep in a room with street light seeping in through the windows, light could be making your sleep worse. Try to change your environment so it's as dark as possible.

Sleeping Pills - The Death Rattle to the Sleep System

Sleeping pills are complete poison to your sleeping system. Sleeping pills often turn short term insomnia into chronic insomnia.

During the mid 19th century the only type of sleeping pills available were Barbiturates. These pills were very dangerous and only an over dose of about 10 was enough to kill you. Marilyn Monroe died of over-dosing on Barbiturates.

Currently there are about 4 different types of sleeping pills.

1) Benzodiazepines (commonly referred to as BZs)
2) Anti-Depressants
3) Over the Counter Drugs
4) Synthetic Melatonin

We will not go over the details of how these pills work, and the side effects of each one as it would go beyond the scope of the ebook.

Sleeping pills may put a person to sleep; however, they have many side effects and leave chemicals in your body which can stay in your blood for up to 6 days! The side effects of these chemicals are often day-time drowsiness, nausea, blurred vision, weakness, loss of appetite, and in some cases very frequent urination.

The National Institute of Health recommends that sleeping pills be prescribed to patients for a maximum of 4-6 weeks as the body does become habituated to sleeping pills after a few weeks, and they lose their effectiveness. However, most doctors prescribe them for months! or in some cases even YEARS! Sleeping pills perpetuate insomnia because they support the belief that insomnia is a ”disease” that has to be cured with pills. As you know by now, sleeping is an inner system that is very easily corrected if you know the mechanics of it! The main reason why doctors prescribe sleeping pills is because they simply don't want to deal with the patient's sleeping problem, as most doctors only receive about 1 hour of training on sleeping problems, prescribing pills seems like a very easy solution. Patients often become psychologically dependant on the drugs and end up taking them for years; enduring the side effects which make their lives more miserable than BEFORE they had sleeping problems.

Most sleeping pills work by depressing the activity of the brain, and forcing lower brain waves. Because of the nature of how sleeping pills work they deprive you of deep sleep. While you may get a full 7 or 8 hours of sleep, the sleep will be of very low quality, leaving you with side effects that can last for days.

Sleeping pills are completely detrimental to your sleep system, and your health! A recent study by Dr. Daniel F. Kripke (M.D) of the University of California shows that people who use sleeping pills regularly to induce sleep have a much higher mortality (death) rate than people who don't.

You may get full details on this study right here: Click Here for a Complete Study of Sleeping Pills.

In conclusion, if you're currently using sleeping pills, get rid of them! Not only are they depriving you of quality sleep, they are depriving you of your day-time energy! It's a myth that you can take a sleeping pill to get quality sleep and feel energized the next day.

One final note about pills: Never mix sleeping pills with alcohol, if you do, you are risking your life!

Insomnia is a “Symptom,” not a Problem

Insomnia is often mistakenly looked at as a “problem” that has to be solved, when in fact it is simply a symptom of a weak sleeping system. If your sleeping system is weak insomnia is very likely to occur, and the only way to cure it is by strengthening your sleep system through using the methods in this book! Inversely, insomniacs often have very unbalanced wakefulness systems as a result, which is why they wake up many times during the night and have trouble falling back asleep. These periods of nighttime awakenings usually happen at the end of a sleep cycle in Stage 2 Sleep. If someone has a weak sleep system it is very difficult for that person to sleep deeply, therefore they experience a lot more Stage 2 sleep, and awakenings are even more likely to happen. You can see how this results in an endless loop of poor sleep and day-time fatigue!

In the next section, we'll wrap up all the information you've learned so far to create your own Power Sleep plan, to increase the quality of your sleep, decrease your sleeping time, and get way more energy in your life!


Section Summary

Take this short quiz to better learn and remember what you've just read.

1. The natural sleep response is...

a. A channel that comes with a recent HBO package on TV

b. A natural response that lowers brain waves, relaxes the body, and prepares us for Stage 1 sleep.

c. A part of your subconscious mind.

d. A point in the day where your body temperature drops.

2. Short term Insomnia is...

a. A common effect of trauma in our lives.

b. A leading cause of death in America.

c. A great movie with Al Pecino.

d. A & C

3. Sleeping pills are detrimental to the sleep system because

a. They are expensive and the stress of having to spend money prevents deep sleep.

b. They work by limiting brain activity, thus depriving you of deep sleep.

c. They have long term negative side affects that make you drowsy and tired.

d. B & C

4. A sure way to battle insomnia is to

a. Watch TV or read a book in your bed.

b. Strengthen your sleep system and practice relaxation exercises instead of focusing on forcing sleep to come.

c. Count hordes of hyper-active sheep jumping over fences.

d. Sleep on your back.

5. To minimize the chance of insomnia, you should always use your bedroom...

a. As an entertainment room for guests

b. As your office.

c. For sleep and sex only.

d. For settling very important arguments with people over the phone.

End of Part V. When you're ready, move to Part VI.

Part IV: Optimizing Your Sleep Clock

You're reading How To Sleep Less And Have More Energy Than You Ever Had Before.

Author: Kacper M. Postawski

Optimizing Your Sleep Clock

Sleeping Less, and Increasing the Quality of Your Sleep

Okay, now that you know the basics of the mechanics of sleep. Let’s talk about how you can use this new knowledge to sleep less, have more powerful sleep, and have more energy in your life. I have given you the previous "scientific" information here because I wanted you to have a knowledge base with the "right" information. Too often in life we try to achieve something but with the wrong information! I have a belief in life that there are 3 fundamental steps to achieving anything, whether it is getting quality sleep, achieving a financial goal, a personal goal, or anything else, these 3 steps are...

Step 1) Get the right information
Step 2) Make the right plan
Step 3) Take ACTION!

To give you a personal example of how step #1 is so important:

I go to the gym about 3 days per week, and every single time I'm there, I see the same people relentlessly working out their abs on the ab cruncher machines. And these people are doing about 10 - 20 sets of 100 to 200 repetitions of ab crunches and sit ups, for up to 3 hours! Every time I go past them I laugh a little, and I also feel a bit sorry for them, because they're wasting their time.

The reason why they're doing all the sit ups is because they're desperately trying to get a 6 pack of abs on their stomach.

I have a 6 pack myself, but is it because I trained hard for 2 years to get it? No, actually it took me only about 7 weeks. I learned that the only way for your abs to become visible is to decrease your body fat percentage below a certain point, about 7% for men and 12% for women. This is only achieved by following a specific diet and working out ALL the muscles of your body, not just one. This way you're working out every single muscle, and your body fat decreases all over your body, instead of following the "spot reducing" method, where you work out only one part of your body and expect the muscles to become visible through all your fat. This is the only way to get a 6 pack of abs.

That information took me 3 minutes to learn! 3 Minutes of powerful information prevented me from wasting my time for months, or perhaps years without getting the result I wanted.

So this is what I meant by "getting the right information" in life. Often people have the right MOTIVATION to do something, but they have the wrong INFORMATION. A lot of people want to have more time and energy in their lives, but they don't have the right information on how to go about getting that result! This is why I have chosen to write this book for you, and teach you about the mechanics of sleep first.

In this section we'll talk about all the methods and understandings you must have to optimize your sleep clock for optimum sleep performance. Afterwards we'll talk about sleeping problems and finally how to tie all this information together to create your own sleep optimization plan and reduce your sleeping time. After finishing this book and filling out your Personal Evaluation Plan, you may feel compelled to explore a more fun part of sleep: Dreams, in the other book that came in the downloadable package.

Remember, your main goals are to:

1) Increase the quality of your sleep.
2) Increase the level of energy you have every day.
3) Decrease your sleeping time by as much as you can. (We'll explore this in detail in
a later section.)

Getting enough Sunshine

I cannot over emphasize how important this is! As explained earlier, the amount of natural sunlight that enters your eyes has a drastic effect on your temperature body rhythm.

• When we're exposed to high intensity light, our body temperature increases, and melatonin levels rapidly decrease.

• Exposure to natural sunlight also delays the temperature drop. This allows you to stay awake and alert for longer periods of time.

• Lack of sunlight results in higher melatonin levels, this leads to lower body temperature levels, feeling very sleepy, and tired through out the day.

Lack of sunlight will create a flat-line effect in your body temperature, because it will not get a chance to rise high enough, your body temperature won't fall low enough during the night either. If your body temperature is flat-lined, this could cause major sleeping problems, and it will be very difficult for you to sleep deeply for long periods of time. A lot of people who complain about "poor sleep" usually don't get enough sunlight.

Consider how for the most part of our evolution we were always outside during the day, it seemed that nature intended us to be this way, then suddenly over the past 100 years we drastically changed our exposure to natural sunlight. Most of us hardly get any sun today at all! We drive to work in a car, we wear sunglasses, we work in offices, what kind of effect do you think this has on our sleep clock?

How Much Light Should You Be Getting?

The intensity of light is measured in a unit called a lux. 1 lux is approximately the light that your eyes receive when you're locked in a dark room with a single candle.

• In an office lit by fluorescent light bulbs, the light intensity is about 200 - 500 luxes.

• At sun-rise, the light intensity is about 10,000 luxes.

• At noon, on a bright sunny day, the light intensity is about 100,000 luxes!

Consider how for most of our evolution we spent most of our time outside, in these high intensity light environments, and how now we spend so much time in low light intensity environments. Spending the day indoors is the equivalent for our eyes as spending the day in complete darkness!

Because our eyes rarely get exposed to "real light", our eyes can't really tell the difference between night and day. Also, consider the fact that most of us aren't even exposed to real "darkness" anymore as most of us are exposed to other sources of light during the night (street lamps, TV screens, Computers). The result is, our eyes can't tell the difference between night and day, and our body temperature rhythm flat-lines. As a result, we get poorer sleep, and can't stay awake and alert for very long.

There are many miscalculations about how much light actually enters our eyes. A recent study by Doctor Daniel F. Kripke, of the University of California, shows that most of the time when people measure light intensity in certain areas, they take the measurements wrong, by pointing the measurement devices straight at the source!

For instance, during a sunny day at noon, the sun provides us with 100,000 luxes of light. However, most of us don't look DIRECTLY at the sun! Obviously, this wouldn't be a "bright" idea. The Sun can be damaging to our eyes in high intensity amounts.

However, Dr. Kripke states that the light that enters our eyes really depends in the direction that we're looking at. By measuring light intensity in the directions that most people look at during the day Dr. Kripke says that most of us get an average of 5,000 to 10,000 luxes of light during the day.

He also says that the same misconceptions come into play when measuring light intensity indoors. Many people think we get an average of 200 to 500 luxes indoors, however, these light intensity measurements are often taken by pointing the measurement instruments right at the light source! And obviously, most of us don't walk through a super market looking straight at the ceiling. Dr. Kripke says that most of us experience only about 1 to 5 luxes of light when we're indoors!

So what's the solution? Well, I could hammer this further into your mind by providing you with more information about light, and the effects of light deprivation, but I think the best solution to this is just to GET MORE SUNLIGHT! Go out there, and get as much of it as possible.

If you're working at home and you're doing some thinking, go outside into your yard and think there instead.

If you work in an office, move your desk near a window.

Plan more activities outdoors

Open the drapes or shades immediately upon awakening.

Avoid sunglasses in the morning and evening. (More on sunglasses below) Now, let's discuss other strategies for increasing your light exposure...

The Effects of Sunglasses

Sunglasses can block from 20% to 90% of sunlight entering our eyes! Many people who I've consulted have received a huge boost of better sleep and energy throughout the day simply from wearing their sunglasses less often, or eliminating the use of sunglasses completely.

Naturally, sunlight can be damaging to our eyes in certain circumstances. Natural sunlight is composed of many different types of light, including UV (Ultra Violet) light which can be very harmful. Over exposure to UV light is a leading cause of skin cancer and cataract (break down of the lenses in our eyes).

However, most people who wear sunglasses wear them when they don't even need to. UV radiation depends on the time of day; it's highest in the noon hours. Usually, the higher the sun is in the sky, the higher the UV radiation. UV radiation is lowest during sunrise and sunset. Also, the closer you live to the equator, the higher the UV radiation you're exposed to on a daily level.

Try to minimize your use of sunglasses, and use your common sense as to when they may be appropriate. If you currently wear sunglasses all day, you are minimizing the amount of sunlight entering your eyes, which is affecting your body temperature rhythm.

Artificial Bright Light

If you currently work in an office where light is limited, getting light during the day may be challenging for you. If you feel really drowsy and tired during the first hours of work in the office, chances are your body temperature isn't rising fast enough, most likely because you haven't been exposed to enough light, or haven't had enough activity!

If you work in an office, or at home, a good idea is to get a "bright light box." Bright ight boxes are machines that artificially produce light at high intensities, from 5,000 luxes to up to 10,000 luxes. They're a bit pricy, but a great investment if you or your employer values your energy level while you're at work. If you work in a place where your employer depends on your ability to function properly and with full energy, you could give them this book and convince them to invest in a few of them.

They range from $150 to $300 in price, here's a company I would personally recommend to order these from. Click here to learn more now. (They even offer a mini hand-held bright-light generator that you can take with you virtually anywhere.)

Bright light therapy also has a connection with our emotions and daytime mood; it has known to cure depression and other mental disorders. Lack of light in the winter is one of the main causes of winter depression, and why people generally sleep longer in the winter.

Again! I could go on forever about how important light is in our lives, but let’s move on.

How Exercise Affects Your Body Temperature Rhythm

If you want to instantly increase the quality of your sleep, then start an exercise program if you don't exercise already. Exercise helps you sleep better in a number of ways, I'm not even going to mention all the other health benefits! :

• Exercise will raise your body temperature rhythm, and make your body temperature "peak" at a higher level. This will increase your energy levels throughout the day, you'll feel more awake, alive, and motivated.

• As your body temperature levels will max out at a higher level, your body emperature will also drop more easily and deeper. This will allow you to sleep deeply, without interruptions.

• Regular exercise will prevent your body temperature rhythm from "flat-lining", which will allow you to sleep deeply even if you've had a stressful day, or couldn't exercise on one particular day.

• Exercise delays the body temperature "drop" in the evening, allowing you to stay awake and alert longer without feeling tired and drowsy.

• Exercise is also a great relief of tension and stress, which as you'll later find out, is a major cause of sleeping disorders.

If you don't exercise yet, GET A MOVE ON IT! and start now. The best time to exercise is in the morning, as this will promote a quick temperature rise. However, avoid exercise 3 hours prior to going to sleep, as your body temperature will probably still be on the rise, and you may find falling asleep / sleeping deeply more difficult.

If you don't exercise, I'm not suggesting you get up off your butt right now, get a membership at your local gym and begin a full scale work out program. You can do that only if you really want to. However, recent study shows that just moderate exercise during the day has many health benefits. If you can't motivate yourself to start exercising regularly, you could find a less intensive physical activity that you still enjoy, like walking briskly, biking, rollerblading, these will still have a substantial
effect at raising your body temperature.

My final point about this would be: What's the Point of Trying to Rejuvenate your Body, and Increasing the Quality of Your Sleep, if You're Not Going to USE YOUR BODY?

Power Naps - The Secret to Energy With Little Sleep

If done correctly, taking regular day-time naps will give you a huge boost of energy throughout the day.
As you may recall, there is a natural "slump" in body temperature during the mid afternoon. This slump is what makes a lot of people sleepy during the day, and why so many people feel the need to take an afternoon nap! However, is taking a nap good for strengthening your sleep system? The answer is yes, and no.

In many siesta countries, taking a regular nap is a normal part of the culture, i.e.: Spain, Mexico. This has several effects:

As you remember, we sleep through certain sleep stages, and sleep cycles. During the first sleep cycle, our body enters deep sleep for the longest period of time, it's at this point that our body temperature begins to drop really low, our respiration, heart rate and blood pressure decreases.

If you've ever been woken up out of "deep sleep", you know that it’s almost impossible to get up. Waking up during or after a major deep sleep phase makes you feel lethargic, slow, and disoriented i.e.: when you wake up during the night to go to the bathroom, you stroll in there like a Zombie, and don't even remember it the next morning.

It takes about 45 minutes to enter the first deep sleep phase. If you limit your nap to 45 minutes, you will sleep mainly in Stage 2 sleep. Stage 2 sleep also plays a major role in restoring physical energy, as you look at the previous chart, 50% of sleep is spent in Stage 2 sleep. This is why you may have heard before that a simple 10 minute nap can totally re-charge you. If you limit a nap to 45 minutes, you will wake up feeling re-charged, and ready to go.

However, if you take a nap for longer than 1-2 hours, you will most likely enter deep sleep. Your temperature will begin to drop, and you'll wake up feeling very sleepy and disoriented. Also, when you enter deep sleep during the day, you put your body temperature rhythm out of whack, it may be difficult for you to go to sleep later on in the night. You'll have difficulty sleeping deeply at night, which will have negative consequences for the day ahead, such as poor energy, headaches and nausea.Most likely resulting in more naps.

As you see, taking long naps is not the way to go as you can enter a cycle of behavior resulting in poor energy levels and poor quality sleeps. This would affect your health and your life in big ways. Taking irregular naps is one way that sleeping disorders develop.

The correct way to take naps is to keep them ultra short. This will prevent deep sleep and re-charge you physically. Some studies even show that taking short naps can reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease by as much as 30%.

As part of this book, I would personally recommend that you do take a short nap during the day, you'll be surprised at how energized you feel for the rest of the day when you do take one! Limit the nap to 45 minutes, if you still feel tired after the nap, then shorten the nap time. The amount of time required to enter deep sleep varies from person to person.

Because everyone experiences the afternoon body temperature slump, we can assume that nature intended us to have an afternoon nap. Perhaps to keep our ancestors from the mid-day sun and dangerous predators out for the hunt?

Waking Up At the End of a Cycle

This is the true secret to "waking up energized."

I'm curious, have you ever had an experience where you woke up in the morning and ou felt ABSOLUTELY GREAT?! With no aching muscles, no lethargic feeling, or that usual slow and moody state of mind that most of us wake up with? The state of mind that tells you "grab some coffee or you'll die..."

Before actually learning this information, I had this experience a few times, and it made me wonder how on Earth it happened. I woke up with a sense that I've already been awake, and I felt completely ready to go.

As you recall, we sleep through sleep stages in sleep cycles. Each Cycle ends with a period of REM sleep. During REM sleep our physiology and brain waves are the closest to the ones when we're awake. The longest period of REM sleep is towards the end of sleep, during which we usually wake up for the final time.

The challenge is, most of us use alarm clocks to "bolt" ourselves out of sleep. Often, our alarm clocks wake us up in the wrong sleep stage, making it very hard to wake up. For instance, if a person is in their last sleep cycle towards the end of a night, and they're in Stage 3 sleep, if your alarm clock goes blaring off at this point, it mightbe very difficult to get up, and feel rested. However, if only the alarm clock went off 30 minutes later, in REM sleep, getting up would be much easier.

Obviously, most of us are limited and don't really have a choice as to when we have to set that alarm clock to. We have busy schedules, work places to get to, and traffic to beat which unfortunately will not adjust to our schedule.

So the only way to wake up at the end of a cycle is to do some trial and error testing with the time we go to sleep at. If you currently wake up feeling horrible, try going to sleep 20 minutes earlier, or 20 minutes later, 40 minutes earlier, or 40 minutes later than you usually do. By doing this, you'll eventually find a "hot spot" for waking up at the end of your cycle.

Remember though, your sleep cycle never depends on when your alarm clock wakes you up, only on your body temperature levels. As you apply the other information in this book, your sleep cycles will change as well, so you may want to try experimenting with this technique when you get a solid sleep cycle pattern happening.

The Weekend - Your Sleep System's Worst Nightmare

Ahhh, it's the weekend... I'm curious, have you ever heard... SOMEONE say these lines? (Yeah, I know you'd never say them...)

"It's the weekend! I can finally get some sleep!"

"It's the weekend. I can finally sleep in bed and veg out all day!" or my personal favorite

"It's the weekend. I can finally CATCH up on some sleep!"

Sleeping in late on weekends is detrimental to the sleep system for the following reasons.

• Limits your exposure to sunlight on these two days which results in your body temperature rising and falling slower.

• As a result, it's harder to fall asleep on Sunday, which results in the usual "Sunday night insomnia".

• Limits your prior wakefulness before you go to bed again. This weakens the pressure to go to sleep at night, alters your body temperature rhythm, and further promotes insomnia.

• Reduces the ability for your body to sleep deeply.

You should keep your weekend sleeping schedule the same as it is during the week. This will set your body rhythm in place, and you won't have to "sleep in" to "catch up" on sleep, as your body will learn to adapt to one sleeping schedule. If you continuously mix up your sleeping pattern, your body temperature rhythm will be out of whack, and it will be difficult for you to sleep deeply.

Also, "catching up on sleep" is a myth. As you know by now, It's only during the first 3-4 hours that we experience most of our deep sleep, the rest is comprised mostly of Stage 2 and REM sleep. If you sleep for 10 hours, this will primarily increase your REM sleep, which will not be of great benefit to your body.

If you feel the need to re-energize during the weekend, take a 45 minute nap, as described before! You'll save tons of time by sleeping less, feel more energized, and your sleep system will be strengthened by this new behavior - making it easier for you to sleep deeply.

Having a Regular Rising Time & Sleeping Time

This combines with what we talked about above with weekend sleep. If you currently have a schedule that doesn't require you to wake up at the same time every day during the week, and you have chosen to get up at different times each day, you're weakening your sleep system.

Remember, your body temperature begins to rise the moment you get out of bed, start moving, and allow sunlight to enter your eyes. If you get up at different times every single day, this is the equivalent of putting your body through jet lag every morning. If your body temperature rises 2 hours later one day, then it will drop 2 hours later as well, making it harder for you to fall asleep and sleep deeper the next day if you decide to get up at a different time.

Secondly, I'm sure you've probably heard someone say this before: "I have to wake up early tomorrow, so I'm getting to bed early."

A lot of people try to compensate for waking up early by going to bed early the night efore, sometimes lying in bed for an hour or two before actually going to bed, this is also detrimental to the sleep system, as it reduces your prior wakefulness, which lowers the pressure of sleep, and makes it harder to sleep deeply.

Although having a regular rising and sleeping time may take some "discipline", as ou read and reflect on this concept, you may feel compelled to add this simple strategy into your lifestyle, the benefits of sleeping less, getting better sleep, and having more energy far outweigh the few extra hours you could spend in bed wasting your life away in that cozy cocoon of slumber.

How Nicotine, Caffeine, and Alcohol Affect Sleep.

Mmmmmmm Coffee...

Ironically, the substance that most of us chose to consume to help "wake us up", eeps us from experiencing proper restful sleep. If everyone simply learned the secrets to sleeping properly in this book, there wouldn't be a need for coffee!

Coffee contains caffeine, which is also present in a wide variety of junk our bodies on't need: Cola, Pop, Candy Bars...

Caffeine increases heart rate and blood pressure, it promotes alertness and reduces fatigue. These effects can last for a few minutes or can last for up to seven hours! If you're currently drinking caffeine, you're putting unnecessary pressure on your awake system, which is weakening your sleep system.

Different people have different tolerance levels to caffeine, so caffeine doesn't affect everyone's sleep in the same way. Also, if you drink one or two cups of coffee in the morning, it’s unlikely your sleep will be affected. However, seeing how caffeine can stay in the blood stream for hours at a time, if you drink caffeine at least 6 hours prior to sleeping, it will affect the quality of your sleep, it will be difficult for your body to enter deep sleep or spend a lot of time in deep sleep because of the stimulative effects. You might also experience frequent night time awakenings out of Stage 2
sleep.

Interesting Facts:

Caffeine

People who drink caffeine tend to frequently get up in the middle of the night to urinate. This is the result of the body trying to detoxify itself.

The energizing effect that caffeine gives you in the morning is only temporary. Getting just 10 minutes of high intensity light would be 10x more energizing for the rest of your day, more beneficial to your sleep system, and your health.

Nicotine

If you currently smoke, you might want to strongly consider the following. Nicotine harms sleep in many ways, like caffeine, nicotine produces faster brain waves, heart rate, and breathing rate, and an increased amount of stress hormones in your blood.

Generally, if you smoke you can't expect to get quality sleep, the stimulant effects of nicotine will prevent you from sleeping deeply, as nicotine is a poison to your whole body. Nicotine puts your whole system, including your body temperature rhythm, totally out of balance.

If you want to improve your sleep, your best choice would be to quit smoking. While n this book I won't give specific methods and information on that, I would like to point out that I can provide you with some extremely powerful information to help you quit. If you want to make the decision to quit smoking, contact at Questions@WonderfulSleep.com

Alcohol

Some people think that a "night cap" of alcohol will help you sleep; this couldn't be further from the truth.

While alcohol may temporarily relax some muscles in your body, it's extremely detrimental to your sleeping system.

Alcohol Suppresses Deep Sleep, and REM sleep!

Alcohol will suppress the 3rd, 4th, and 5th stage of sleep, which will result in a very light, un-restful sleep. Reduced REM sleep usually leads to a REM sleep rebound, in the form of intense dreaming or nightmares, which weaken your sleep for days afterwards.

Considering that most people combine alcohol with coffee to fight hang-over, this is a deadly combination for your sleep system!

Alcohol also dehydrates your body, so even small doses of it will produce un-restful sleep. As you remember, your blood vessels dilate during deep sleep to allow more blood flow to the muscles. If your body is dehydrated this process is much more difficult because dehydrated blood doesn't flow as well through your blood vessels as fully hydrated blood.

Note: Never Combine Alcohol With Sleeping Pills! If You Do, You're Risking Your life! (More on sleeping pills in later section)

Prior Wakefulness

As you learned earlier, there are two systems which really control your sleep. These systems work together:

1) Your awake system and

2) Your sleep system

Your awake system keeps you awake and your brain waves high during the day, and naturally loses strength as you get less light exposure, and your temperature level drops towards the end of the day. When your sleep system takes over, it works to give you the most refreshing sleep possible. When you get quality sleep, your awake system benefits from this the next day!

This dual team works in the negative sense as well. If you're doing things in your life to weaken your sleep system, your awake system will suffer from poor sleep, which will most likely result in you feeling tired, lethargic, and lead to an even weaker sleep system. Most people avoid exercise and outdoor activity because they didn't sleep too well. They're actually depriving themselves of the life force that feeds their sleep system!

The more demand you put on your awake system, in the proper ways (as we've talked about so far) the stronger your sleep system will get.

The challenge is, most people try to cope with feeling tired during the day by taking long naps, or going to sleep early. These actions weaken the sleep system by lowering natural sunlight exposure, and decreasing physical activity. The body temperature rhythm adjusts to this behavior by falling earlier, and rising very slowly, which makes it difficult to sleep deeply, and to stay awake and energized during the day.

By increasing your prior wakefulness you will increase the pressure to sleep later on, and increase the strength of the sleep system. While this may seem difficult at first, in the long run your sleep system will get much stronger, you'll get better sleep in a shorter amount of time. We'll explore this in detail later on when you design your own specific plan in the next section.

Hydration and Sleep - We're Dying of Thirst in Our Sleep!

I can read your thoughts right now:

"Oh no... Another guy that's going to talk about drinking 8 glasses of water a day..."

"Yup!"

If you're not drinking at least 8 cups of water a day, chances are you are creating a water deficit in your body. Here's a break down of how much water your body uses every day:

• Your Intestines: about 1/2 cups of water

• Breathing: about 1 and 1/3 cups of water

• Your Lungs: about 2 cups

• Your Skin: about 2 cups of water

• Your Kidneys: about 5 and 1/2 cups of water!

Under normal conditions, the body loses approximately 12 cups of water every day!

The main effect of dehydration is seen in your blood, your blood clumps together and can't carry oxygen to all the parts of your body. As an effect, you'll feel tired, low on energy, and your immune system will be lowered.

Studies show that most people are so dehydrated, they mistake the body's natural call for water for hunger! Most people find it difficult to start drinking 8 cups of water a day, and see it as too much of a "chore". However, this is usually only because your body has adapted to chronic dehydration. Once you start drinking more water and give your body the message that "Hey, we have water! We can have all we want!" it will get the point, and you will actually get thirsty more often!

Speaking from my personal experience, when I decided to quit drinking all the crap I was taking in every day (Pop, Coffee, Juice), and drink nothing but water, I saw the effects immediately. I had dandruff and all kinds of skin problems for years which disappeared in less than 3 days after I started drinking water! I had more energy, and decreased my sleeping time by 2 hours.

Interestingly enough, after about 6 months of drinking nothing but water, I accidentally picked up a cup with Pepsi in it and took a sip. IT FELT LIKE I WAS SWOLLOWING 20 scoops of sugar! It was absolutely disgusting and I almost gagged!

The challenge for our bodies that we're constantly presenting is drinking fluids that aren't part of what our bodies were meant to take in naturally. Our bodies cope with it and "adapt". The moment you start giving your body what it really needs and deserves, it will thank you for it, and it won't want to go back to the other crap!

So how does water affect your sleep?

During deep sleep our blood vessels dilate, and most of the blood which is usually tored in our inner organs throughout the day travels into our muscles to repair them. If your body is dehydrated, your blood clumps together and doesn't get to all the places it needs to, it doesn't carry enough oxygen to all your muscles.

During REM sleep, respiration and blood pressure escalate dramatically, blood flow to the brain and muscles also increases.

Most people wake up in the morning extremely thirsty. Sleeping without water in your system is the equivalent of running an 8 hour marathon without a water break!

Also, a large portion of our energy during the night goes into our digestive system, which also relies heavily on water! If your system is more hydrated, your body will spend less energy digesting food during the night, and put more focus into giving you better sleep. As a result, you'll sleep less, and feel much more ENERGIZED and REFRESHED in the morning.

Proper hydration also plays a major role in helping your body temperature rhythm adjust. The more hydrated you are the easier it is for your body to control your body temperature. Your body temperature is the main underlying clock which controls when and how you sleep! Proper hydration in your body will help this system operate at its optimum level, just as motor oil does in a car engine.

It would go beyond the scope of this short e-book to talk about how beneficial water is to your health, not just your sleep. If you take this message to heart, and decide to totally hydrate yourself once and for all, here's a quick method:

Buy a 2.0 Liter Bottle of Pop of your choice (Coca Cola, Pepsi, Sprite...), take the bottle to the bathroom and pour the contents down the toilet, as you do this, say to yourself "I'm not drinking this crap anymore!"

Clean out the bottle, and fill it with drinking water. This is approximately how much water you should be drinking every day! Carry this bottle with you around the house, and whenever you feel like drinking/eating some junk, take a sip of the water. Your goal should be to finish at least half the bottle in a day.

Also, keep a glass of water by your bed when you go to sleep. When you wake up, drink the whole glass before you set off on your day.

How Food Affects Your Sleep

There are a small changes you can make to your diet to sleep shorter and more deeply. While I am not a professional nutritionist, and I do not want to get into talking about dieting in this book too deeply, here are the facts:

Your digestive system slows down at night, and it becomes harder to digest food. During deep sleep, a lot of energy is required by our body to pump blood through our muscles and replenish physical energy. Most of the energy during sleep is sucked up by our digestive system, therefore, the more demand you put on your digestive system during the night, the poorer the quality of your sleep will be.

If you currently have any heavy food in your diet, especially food that’s high in saturated fat, it's most likely diminishing the quality of your sleep.

Other foods that could diminish the quality of your sleep are:

• Foods high in sugar and simple carbohydrates, which raise blood-sugar levels and can cause bursts of energy (obviously disturbing the sleep system).

• Food that cause gas, heartburn, or indigestion. E.g. Spicy, Fatty foods.

Some research also has brought to attention that the lack of vitamin B and folic acid can impair sleep. Lack of calcium and magnesium can also decrease the quality of sleep. The brain uses calcium and magnesium to produce a calming chemical in the brain, lack of these will make it harder to sleep deeply.

Your Sleeping Posture

Your sleeping posture can also have a very significant effect on how deep you sleep. If you sleep on your back or on your side, you should be fine. However, if you sleep on your front, or need to lie on your front to fall asleep; this could have some serious repercussions on your sleep and your back!

Sleeping on your front puts unnecessary pressure on some of your vital organs, like your stomach, liver, and intestines. You'll also put a lot of strain on your neck and your back, which makes your sleep very un-restful, and often is a major cause of back problems. Whenever you're sleeping in a position that puts unnecessary pressure on your body, it makes it harder for you to sleep deeply.

How Does Stress Affect Your Sleep?

Stress is entirely triggered by our mind when we're faced in a situation that could mean possible pain. In the cave man age stress was very useful at keeping us from harm and alerting us to danger, it helped us survive through very intense conditions. In today's society, stress is often a very annoying habit which has major effects on our health and keeps us from achieving the things we really want in life.

Firstly, what happens in your body when you're "stressed"?

• When we're stressed, our adrenalin hormone levels instantly increase. This gives our nervous system a huge bolt, our level of alertness and muscle tension instantly increases.

• Our heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and blood sugar levels increase drastically.

• Our brain waves increase for a higher level of alertness and sensory acuity. Right off the bat you can probably already see how stress can prevent us from experiencing quality sleep, or even falling asleep! One huge drawback of stress is a constant high level of brain waves that keep our minds racing all the time. As you will learn in a later section, this can be very detrimental to your sleep system and can cause insomnia.

The other reason why stress prevents us from sleeping deeply is because of all the heightened "stress" hormones. These hormones make our sleep lighter and less restful. In the cave man ages this would actually be very beneficial, in times of stress you would be able to awaken quickly and be ready for battle with predators who are likely out to kill you. However, this isn't the daily situation for us today.

Stress creates a similar sleep pattern as those of mothers with babies, who also have a higher wakefulness system, allowing them to wake up during the night to the slightest stir of their kids. However, this isn't always linked to stress.

If we were to go into methods of reducing stress in this book, it would obviously become a very big book - so we won't explore that much. However, there are a few simple relaxation methods you can employ on a daily basis that will have a huge effect on these hormone levels.

It's been proven that practicing daily relaxation can have a very beneficial effect on the levels of your stress hormones, consequently improving your sleep and your health. We'll explore mental relaxation in a later part of this book. You can find a special section on relaxation in the appendix of this book.

Section Summary

Take this short quiz to better learn and remember what you've just read.

1. Getting enough sunlight is important because...

a. We melt if we don't get enough sunlight.

b. Getting a nice tan is good and will attract beautiful people into your life.

c. Helps our body temperature become more balanced, and promotes deeper sleep.

d. It increases our REM sleep.

2. Regular exercise helps the sleep system because

a. Helps our body temperature rise quicker and peak at a higher point and delays the body temperature drop in the evening.

b. Dehydrates us, and this is good because water is bad for sleep.

c. Relaxes all our muscles which helps you sleep deeper.

d. Deprives you of donuts, allowing you to sleep better as you dream of donuts and other junk food.

3. What best describes the effects of Sunglasses on your Sleep?

a. Sunglasses help you look more suave and attractive, therefore increasing the quality of your sleep.

b. Sunglasses prevent light from entering your eyes, which helps sleep because light is bad for you.

c. Sun-glasses prevent quality sleep because they limit your exposure to sunlight by 20% to 90%.

d. None of the above.

4. Having a regular rising time on weekdays AND weekends is good because...

a. Allows your body temperature rhythm to become more balanced and set in place.

b. It's not good. Kacper is a psychopath who just wants to deprive me of sleep during the weekend.

c. Allows your eyes to get a normal pattern of light exposure which helps stabilize your body temperature rhythm.

d. A & C

5. How long should you take your day-time naps for?

a. As long as it takes to feel good

b. 3 hours or more

c. 1-2 hours

d. 10 - 45 minutes

6. Proper hydration is good for your sleeping system because:

a. It makes you go to the bathroom more often and this helps you sleep.

b. Your brain waves make a swimming pool out of the water in your body and have a fun and relaxing time drinking tequila and pina-coladas all day by the pool.

c. Allows your blood to oxygenate your body better for your deep sleep to be more physically recharging.

d. Allows your body temperature to adjust easier because of proper hydration in your body.

e. C & D

7. Alcohol is bad for the sleep system because

a. It dehydrates your body.

b. Deprives you of deep sleep and REM sleep.

c. Creates a REM sleep rebound which results in un-restful and often disturbing sleep.

d. It's poison to your whole body.

e. ALL OF THE ABOVE.

8. Staying Awake Longer...

a. Makes it harder to fall asleep.

b. Puts more demand on your sleep system and promotes deeper sleep.

c. Gives you a dangerous dose of oxygen during the day which can cause death.

d. Gives you a greater chance to expose yourself to light during the day, and to increase activity levels during the day; which helps balance the body temperature rhythm.

e. B & D

This is the end of part IV. Go to Part V.