Dear reader,
"The natural, easily reversible periodic state of many living things that is marked by the absence of wakefulness and by the loss of consciousness of one's surroundings, is accompanied by a typical body posture (such as lying down with eyes closed), the occurrence of dreaming, and chances in the brain activity, and physiological functioning, is made up of cycles of non-REM sleep and REM sleep and usually considered essential to the restoration and recovery of vital bodily and mental functions"
Sleep is a very important part of our day and life. Over a life span we spend on average a quarter to a third of our life's sleeping. When we sleep eight hours a day we are a sleep for a third of a day. Often you hear people say I will sleep when I am dead or I don't need any sleep. There are different ways of sleeping that have affect on you. I will dive in to the world of dreams and how success and sleep match up. Also I will share my rhythm for sleeping.
Why do we sleep?:
We all need sleep, you are able to survive if you spend the night awake. But eventually the powerful force of sleep will dominate. We basically sleep to rest, to restore our energy to grow muscle and repair tissue. Your body fixes it self, the only thing you have to do is let it happen. You need to rest, close your eyes and a new day will set upon you. Sleeping is often for most people one of the most fun things to do. I enjoy sleeping a lot to. I'll get to that later on.
Sleep is not only good for our physical body, but also our mental state of mind. We make better decisions once we are rested, our minds are sharper and we have not had a day of information and insights coming our way. Also we have a chance to let big decisions rest and think about it before making the final decision. Hence the phrase, sleep over it.
Dreaming:
Dreaming is a part of our sleep cycle. You basically have four stages before getting to your REM sleep.
Stage 1 is your introduction to sleeping, this last about 7 minutes. In stage 2 your brain slows down. Often if you nap you are in this stage. You want to get awake about 20-30 minutes when taking a nap. Stages 3 and 4 are your deep sleep stages. These are the stages that your body repairs muscles and builds up energy for the next day. After about 90 minutes you are in your REM sleep. This can last in cycles up to an hour and an adult has five or six of these a night. This is the part of the night where you dream.
If you can recall your dreams or part of them they are from these stages. I know from myself that I am dreamer and I can sometimes recall parts of three or four dreams a night. I don't always recall the full dreams but often I am able to recall people, places or activities that have happened during the dreams. I enjoy my dreams and it feels like a part of my day that I can't have any control over.
Sleep and success:
Sleep is very important, as I mentioned earlier for both your physical body as well as you mental state of mind. So you can conclude that sleep is needed for success. Whether you want to be a professional athlete or you need to make great business decisions then sleep is needed for both. Often you will hear about successful people that they don't need much sleep. That is correct, they have probably studied they sleep pattern and habits to define how much sleep they need to be able to perform.
There are things that have influence on your sleep, such as alcohol and drugs. When you have one glass of wine it affects the way you sleep and it interferes with your sleep cycle. Drugs have the same effect, either they keep you awake or they can knock you out. Sleeping pills have this effect and are often used for traveling or people that need to perform.
What I have learned about sleeping:
For about a year now I have been using the app sleep cycle. I have been using it to track the amount of hours that I am a sleep, the quality of my sleep and to learn what works the best for me to get the most amount of rest and to be every day as productive as possible. For the last 90 days I have not been drinking and so I have found that my sleep and dreaming has improved.
Sleep cycle is a great app where you can have different bed time stories or music that will help you fall a sleep. It tracks your sleep and you set a time frame when you want to wake up. Based on your breathing it will look at what time would be the best for you to wake up it analyzes each cycle and determines when you can best wake up. It has detailed reports over each day and it gives you tips on how you can improve your quality of sleeping.
If you have any questions or comments about sleeping, just drop them in the comments box and I will get back to you.
Thank you for reading,
Franklin, Moments2Success
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