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Getting enough sleep is fundamental if you want to have powerful days and live a healthy life. And to get enough sleep regularly, you need a sleep routine that serves and nourishes you.
If you don’t know where to start on your self-actualization journey, creating a healthy sleep routine is definitely a good place to start.
Once you start rearranging your schedule to get enough sleep, EVERYTHING else will fall into place more easily.
Because sleep, rest and relaxation are so important, we dedicate the whole month of December to focus on and optimize our sleep routine, bractice breathing to relax our selves and explore other ways to relax and restore in the I AM CREATOR School. (It’s the perfect antidote to the end-of-year stress and hurry as well.)
Next to food, our homes/environment and movement, sleep and rest is one of the four fundamental factors for physical well-being.
I started changing my sleep routine in 2019 when I first learned about Ayurveda. And it changed my life for the better, more than many things.
Our body needs sleep to repair the damage done during the day. While we sleep, our body cures illness and makes it possible for us to have a great next day.
What keeps most people up at night is their thinking, I talk about how to change your thinking in other posts (like this one about how to overcome negative thinking), but if you just want a quick fix: you can say a Mantra instead of letting your thoughts run free.
Also know, that if you start exercising, eating well, learn how to be kind to yourself and start living well, your thoughts will change and not keep you up any more (and hey, we do all of that in the I AM CREATOR School).
Especially when you think that not having your thoughts go wild is impossible, or can’t remember a time when you weren’t bothered by your thoughts, believe me when I say that it is very possible, even for you. There were times in my life when I thought it would never be possible for me, yet it is. 😉
We address how to implement all of these super important changes in the I AM CREATOR School, one by one, step by step, so you can really benefit from it for the rest of your life.
But even now, you can get a head start.
There are three simple things that will make sleep easier:
- No food for at least two hours before going to bed
- No electronics at least one hour before going to bed
- Go with the circadian rhythm
There are more things that can affect your sleep, like room temperature, light or noise but we notice these more easily ourselves than the other three.
One of the rules I learned from Ayurveda is that to establish a healthy sleep routine, we should go to bed around nine, so we can fall asleep before ten.
After 10pm, we enter another more awake phase and it becomes more difficult to fall asleep again until around 1am.
Why people don’t want to change their sleep routine
There are two excuses people make when they think they can’t go to sleep before ten: One is, that it’s kind of uncool. Everything is going on at night: meeting friends in bars, concerts, events.There’s a fear of missing out, or that life would be boring that way (my life has never been as exciting as it is now!).
But this is where you have to prioritize and think about who you want to be in life.
If your goal or priority is to hang out with your friends at night and you get enough sleep and can get everything done and feel healthy, mentally stable, loved and fulfilled during the day – then good for you.
But most of the time, when we cherish the nighttimes, it’s because we don’t have a fulfilled day and life.
If you spend your nights out and still try to live a meaningful life during the day and sacrifice your sleep for it, you’ll most likely get sick.
Statistics show that if you get less than six hours of sleep per night, your risk to get cancer doubles.
Maybe if you’re working and have kids, the evening seems like the only time you have to yourself and you don’t want to give that up.
But what is it that you are actually doing for yourself in the evenings?
If it’s watching TV, instead of creating a healthy sleep routine, then maybe you can check what your priorities really are.
Everybody, who turned their life around, is going to tell you that changing your sleep routine and getting up before your kids to get an hour to yourself in the morning is much more effective, fulfilling and exciting than watching TV at night.
Whether you mediate, journal, work out, or start working on your dream project. An hour in the morning at your free disposal holds the potential to change your life.
In contrast, an hour in the evening when you’re already exhausted won’t and not sleeping enough now because you still feel fine, might haunt you later.
The second reason is, that people think they need a different sleep routine because they are natural night owls. Natural night owls think that this won’t work for them because they do their best work at night. I hear that and I am pleased to tell you that I thought so, too. But that doesn’t make it true.
For the first thirty years of my life, I was up at night. I had a hard time falling asleep at night even as a baby.
I studied until late for school, later university, and I did my best creative work at night. However, I rarely had very happy days.
While I always got a lot of things done at night because I liked the peace and quiet, I now have that exact same effect in the morning.
With the positive benefits on top of getting good and regular sleep, being able to take appointments during the day, getting enough sunlight to boost mental well-being and most of all, having a chill and fun day filled with life and beauty.
When you know you’ve got your most important work done before eight, you can enjoy the rest of the day.
Most of all, you will fall asleep easily because you are calm in the evening, rather than trying to go to sleep right after doing creative work. It’s hard work to calm your mind then.
My recommended times for a healthy sleep routine are sleeping by 10pm and getting up at 6am. You might need more sleep than that, if so, go to bed earlier!
Many of the highest achieving individuals go to bed as early as 8pm, so they can get 10 hours of sleep and do their best work.
The chances that you can get by and be healthy with less than six hours of sleep are the same as getting struck by lightening. [source]
The choice, as always, is yours. 💚
And even if you work best with a different schedule, the most important part is always, that you feel well and that you achieve everything you wish for. If that’s the case – perfect.
But if it is not, just give this new schedule and a new sleep routine a try to see if it can support you to live a more powerful, energetic and fulfilled life.
How Powerful are your days and how nourishing is Your Sleep Routine?
Are you getting enough sleep yet?
In the I AM CREATOR School we go through a different essential aspect of our lives, which we all share and all have to figure out at some point, each month.
We always start by looking at what we have now and what we can let go of because it doesn’t serve us well any more.
There are so many things we do just because we are used to them, not because we actually chose them, or want them, or because they serve us well.
Let’s figure out what that is for you!
After that, we look at what it is that we do want and make a plan to get exactly that, see if there are any blockages that have prevented us from creating those changes in the past and remove them to then integrate what we want in small doable steps into our lives. It’s fun!
In December, we will be looking at our sleep routine, our breathing and how we rest and resource ourselves in general. Because all of this matters as much as the more active and visible parts, we often tend to focus on.
No one has ever got an award for being good at relaxing and taking care of themselves (maybe we can change that?), but if we want to achieve things in our lives that make us happy, then we need to know how to take care of ourselves, relax and restore.
So, we will learn how to do just that. And we will learn this from all those masters who have been winning awards in all kinds of fields, and perfected the relaxation part to get there.
We are not here to cope and struggle to get by – we are here to enjoy our lives and experience them fully.
Are you fully enjoying your life yet? Is it time to start?
Join the I AM CREATOR School to let the rest of your restful, relaxed, joyful & powerful life begin today. ❤️
