It is not only sleep disorders like apnea that will rob you of a fulfilled life.  Poor sleep habits, not getting enough or getting TOO much sleep, will also make achieving your goals more difficult.

First thing you need to do is browse through this section on sleep and brush up on your sleep knowledge.  Think of this site as your sleep aid!

One of the biggest questions I get asked all the time is “Are naps good for you? Or bad? I’ve heard both sides of the story.” I’d like to settle this argument once and for all right here, and reveal to you how you can properly manage your sleep to create an abundance of energy in your life, with LESS sleep.

Yes, naps are VERY good for you, IF you understand how the sleep system works, and you know how to nap PROPERLY.

In my “Powerful Sleep” course I teach people how to properly understand their sleep system, circadian rhythm, light exposure, and how it affects their inner sleep system. While we can’t get in this article, here’s what is true:

Most people don’t realize that sleep is actually quite a complex and fascinating inner system. When we’re sleeping, we’re not just dead zombies off in an unknown universe. Your inner sleep system is a mechanism which follows specific time periods and stages to energize your body.

So how do you nap properly?

You take what are commonly referred to as “Power Naps”, or what I usually refer to as “Stage 2 limited naps.”

You see, when you sleep you go through what are called “sleep stages”, there are 5 stages in total. The first two stages, Stage 1 and 2 are your “Light Sleep”. It’s during this stage that we sleep “lightly”, we are easily wakable, and our circadian rhythm isn’t altered enough to create a disturbance in the sleep system.

The Energizing effects of Stage 1 and 2 sleeps are very beneficial, just 10 minutes of sleeping in these stages can restore your energy to the point where you feel as if you slept for 8 hours.

However, why do most people do more HARM than GOOD to themselves by napping?

It’s simple, they don’t know about “deep sleep.” Deep sleep comprises of all the other sleep stages. It’s during deep sleep that your body undergoes a MASSIVE physiological change, your body temperature, heart rate, respiration drops. Your blood vessels dilate and all the blood that is usually stored in your main organs during the day is channeled to your muscles to repair them.

If you enter deep sleep during the day, your circadian rhythm, and your “inner sleep clock” (see link below for details) will be altered and out of wack, often resulting in an in-balanced, weak sleep system and lower energy levels all together.

For an average person it takes about 45-90 minutes to enter “deep sleep”, this is why for an effective nap you MUST keep your nap down to a MAXIMUM of 45 minutes. Even 45 minutes is sometimes too much. The most energizing naps are usually 10 to 20 minutes long.

If your naps last too long, you will enter deep sleep. Waking up from a deep sleep phase is more harmful to your sleep system and your energy levels than good! You will often feel lethargic, low on energy, and in that “zombie” state of mind.

If you use naps properly, you can boost your energy levels drastically, and lower your sleep time down drastically.

However, there are still two vital things you must know about napping in order to make them super effective during your day, so that you’re capable of lowering your sleep, and boosting your energy.

1. You must know exactly what the best time during the day is to take your nap.
2. You must know what to do AFTER your nap to speed up your body temperature rise.

Both these sleep secrets are exposed in the Powerful Sleep package, download it today at www.PowerfulSleep.com

There are many breathing and relaxation techniques that you can learn to use to promote relaxation and relieve stress. The deeper and slower that you breathe the more relaxed and sedated you will become.

Sleeping with the window open will help the air to circulate in your bedroom and fill your lungs with fresh air. Relaxation techniques will help your body to wind down and prepare for the sleep cycle.

Try this breathing technique when you first get into bed:

1. Take a deep breath.
2. Breathe in through your nose and visualize the air moving down to your stomach.
3. As you breathe in again silently count to four.
4. Purse your lips as you exhale slowly.
5. This time count silently to eight.
6. Repeat this process six to ten times.

The results of this breathing technique are immediate. You will feel your shoulders and arms relaxing. Your chest will feel less constricted and you will feel less stress and tension.

Practice this breathing technique on a daily basis so that it becomes a natural routine for you and helps to induce natural sleep.

As well as using breathing techniques to encourage natural sleep you can try several relaxation exercises. The goal is to relax your mind and let your body unwind and surrender to sleep.

Try the following relaxation exercise before you get into bed:

1. Lay on your back on the floor with your feet slightly apart, your hands by your sides, and your palms turned upward.
2. Close your eyes and concentrate on every part of your body.
3. Begin at the top of your head and work your way down to your toes.
4. Start by feeling your forehead tense, then your eyes, face, and jaw.
5. Tense and release each muscle group, such as your shoulders and neck.
6. Give attention to each area of your body from the top of your head, down through the trunk of your body, down along your legs, and ending at the tip of your toes.
7. Stay in this relaxed condition for a few minutes. Concentrate on your breathing and let all worry and stress dissipate from your mind and body. Make sure that your breathing comes from deep in your stomach and flows slowly and evenly.
8. Stretch slowly before standing.

The above exercise will tell your body and mind that it is okay to settle down, leaving behind thoughts of worry, fear, and stress.

There are many more techniques and exercises available to promote deep breathing and relaxation. You will have to find what method works best for you.

Your goal is to recognize that deep breathing and concentrated relaxation are tools available for you to achieve natural sleep.

However if you sleep eight hours a night or more and still awake less than refreshed, chances are you’re getting too much sleep. What you need is not more sleep it’s quality sleep.

Quality sleep allows us to awake feeling refreshed and full of energy, ready to power through the day. It also allows us to sleep less hours, freeing up more time for us to do the things we want.

A lot of people assume that because they’re feeling tired all day or have a mid afternoon ’slump’ that they need more sleep. Not true!

A lot of people believe because they may have had a couple of late nights, they have to ‘catch up’ by having extra sleep. Also not true!

Sleeping for too long can damage your circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is your 24 hour ‘clock’ controlled by a central part of the brain. This clock tells us when we are sleepy by altering the body temperature by a few degrees. When the body temperature is lowered, we feel sleepy. Conversely when it is raised, we feel awake and alert.

When we sleep for a longer time, our body temperature does not rise as fast. This is why we feel sleepy and sluggish in the mornings. The more tired we feel, the less exercise we do. Inactivity keeps the body temperature down so creating a vicious cycle.

The more sleep we have, the less time we stay awake to create our sleep quality for the following night. Our body does not get exposed to sufficient sunlight to lower our melatonin levels, so we stay sleepy throughout the day.

The deeper stages of sleep (stages 3 and 4) are the most restorative. This is where the body regenerates. Most of stage 3 and 4 sleep takes place in the first 4 hours of our sleep. The rest of the night is spent in REM (dreaming) sleep and the lighter stages. Stages 3 and 4 are also where the immune system repairs and strengthens itself. It is vital to get this type of quality sleep.

A good start is to make sure we get enough exercise during the day, this gives us a three-fold benefit. It gets us out into the sunlight which reduces our melatonin levels, it raises our body temperature so we feel energized and it tires us in a healthy way so we can have more deep sleep at night.

So when you come home from work feeling worn out and weary, don’t veg out in front of the TV. Put on those sneakers and go for a brisk walk around the block instead!

A lot of people feel “tired”, and blame it on getting not enough sleep, or other external factors. Basically, the fact that they’re tired is always “out of control.” What they don’t know is that there’s a reason for feeling “tired”, and that there’s a simple method to change “tired” to “energized” in a heartbeat….

Most of us feel tired during one of the four:

1. After waking up in the morning.
2. After intense physical activity, or long hours of work.
3. After sitting in one place for a long period of time.
4. During the evening, or in the late evening hours.

 

What do all four of those have in common? There’s one very common process that happens in our bodies in all four cases. During all of these we all experience very similar”symptoms” of tiredness. These include yawning, rubbing our eyes, feeling sllooowww, and having the urge to just get into bed and sleep. 

Why Do We Get These “symptoms?”
Our bodies have a natural temperature rhythm. Our body temperature rises when we are awake, and promotes feelings of alertness. Our body temperature also falls when we’re sleeping, and promotes feelings of drowsiness, and a desire to sleep.

The natural DROP of body temperature in our bodies is a CUE for our body to produce feelings of tiredness, drowsiness, and the strong urge to sleep. I call this the “natural sleep response”. When we’re exercising, or putting excessive physical demand on our body, our body temperature RISES rapidly, however when you END the physical activity, there is a RAPID body temperature DROP until your body temperature regulates sometime after. It’s during this DROP that most of us think there’s no other way out but to sleep, and we usually jump into bed and do just that.

The feeling of the body temperature drop after long hours of work is usually mistaken by us as a deep need for sleep. In reality, we don’t need to sleep, we just need to “cool down”. Allow me to give you a personal example:

As a kid I used to work at a FULL SERVE gas station for 8-9 hours in a row. This meant I had to be on my feet running around pumping gas for 8-9 hours with one 10 minute break. It was hell! Even when I had the early morning shift I would come home and feel TOTALLY DRAINED and TIRED, I usually fell asleep and slept till the evening.

However, as I began learning the inner science of our sleep system and the inner sleep clock, I tried a little experiment one day. Instead of going to sleep I came home and played fetch with my dog out in the yard for about 45 minutes instead. To my surprise, after just a few minutes of a little light activity (throwing a plastic chewed up Frisbee across the backyard), the feeling of tiredness faded and I was able to stay awake and alert WAY into the early morning hours.

How did this work?
I simply allowed my body temperature some time to return back to the normal pattern it proceeds. I gave it time to “come down.” When it returned back to normal, I didn’t feel tired and the intense pressure to sleep faded.

This same body temperature drop happens after you sit in one place for a long time. Listen, you could take a person who is robust, athletic, and naturally energetic, but if you put them in front of a TV for 3 hours, THEY WILL GET TIRED! This is simply because our body temperature drops when we’re NOT MOVING.

That’s why the biggest antidote to feeling tired is exercise and movement, NOT SLEEP.

During the morning our body temperature is low too, which creates feelings of drowsiness and tiredness, however, most of us chose to mask this feeling by consuming large amounts of caffeine. The other main temperature drops happen in the afternoon, and in the mid-evening.

In the Powerful Sleep system I describe the EXACT methods to gain a full understanding of your body temperature rhythm, so you can create a quick RISE of body temperature in the morning, and delay the body temperature drop in the evening. This allows you to stay awake and ALERT longer, have more energy and MORE TIME (time is a precious commodity!)

We all need some help now and then in getting to sleep. Rather than just popping a pill which can be habit forming and lead to more sleep problems in the long term, try these sleeping tips. One or more of them will surely help.

Have a hot bath
Not hot enough to make you uncomfortable though. The heat of the water relaxes the muscles and also causes the core body temperature to drop afterwards which sends a sleep signal to the brain. This is great for children too. It only works for baths though, not showers!

Get more light during the day
This sounds strange, but its vital for good sleep at night. Our brains are hard wired to go to sleep when it’s dark and wake when its light. Not getting enough light during the day will deprogram our biological clock. Once our circadian rhythm has been upset, our brain won’t receive the sleep signal when we’re ready to go to sleep.

 

Even if you are working long hours try to get outside into the sunshine for a while at lunchtime. If you live in a part of the world which has short days in winter, install a bright light at home and sit under it for at least 30 minutes. This should be enough to keep that biological clock ticking! 

This is a good reason not to watch TV in bed. Even if the program is dull, the bright flickering light of the TV screen will be working against your natural sleep patterns!
Don’t lie in bed and worry about not sleeping.

This will only cause stress and make sleep even harder to achieve. If you find yourself becoming concerned about not sleeping, get up and make yourself a drink (not coffee!) Find something to read. Stay up until you feel sleepy again and only then go back to bed.
Go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning.
This reinforces the natural biological rhythm and helps your brain send a sleep signal. It also reinforces a habit. Habits are an important part of better sleep. Obviously you won’t be able to do this every single night, there will be nights where you might go out to a show or out on the town with friends! However if you manage most nights, this will still work well.

Don’t go to bed until you are tired.
Yes I know! This sound like a direct contradiction of the previous tip! The logic behind this is that is you are not sleepy you will lie in bed awake and will start worrying about not being able to go to sleep. The most important part of all this is to get up at the same time every morning no matter what time you went to bed the night before. Eventually you will feel very sleepy at your normal bedtime. Getting up in the morning when you are still tired is not easy to do but it will help in the longer term. Stick with it!

Keep a sleep diary
This, while rather tedious, will give you an excellent idea of your sleep patterns and will be a necessary record if you ever decide to visit a sleep clinic for help. Some people have done this and found their sleeping problems disappeared of their own accord! A sleep diary should note the following:

• What you had for dinner
• What drinks you consumed after dinner
• Any naps taken during the day
• What time you went to bed
• How long it took you to fall asleep
• If you woke during the night
• What time you woke up in the morning
• How you rated quality of sleep (1-10)
• Any further observations

Do this every days for a few weeks and you should see a pattern emerging. This will give you invaluable information on your personal sleep habits and patterns.

Develop an evening ritual
Do the same things at the same time each night. This programs the unconscious mind that you are preparing for sleep. Brush you teeth, put the cat out, check the locks on the doors. Do each step in the same order. It may sound simplistic but it can work really well.

Exercise more during the day
Exercise relaxes the body and mind as well as being good for your health and helping with weight loss. Even walking just 30 minutes a day will help. If walking’s not your thing try Yoga or Qigong. Both are soothing and will relax you totally. If there are no classes near you, videos or CDs are easily available. (Check out HealingProducts.com)
Practice muscle relaxation
You can do this during the day or after going to bed. Practice tensing and relaxing each muscle group in turn, starting at the top of the head and gradually working down to the toes. This relaxes the body and also distracts you from any worrying thoughts while you are performing it. Visit the page on relaxation techniques for some easy to follow techniques.

Write down worries before going to bed
There’s always something to worry about isn’t there? These are the things that can keep you awake when your mind won’t let go. Solution? Have a worry time before going to bed. Think of all the problems that are currently in your life and write them down. Make a decision to do something about them the following day.

If you are tempted to think about any of those things while you are trying to sleep simply tell yourself, “its ok, I’ve made a note of it and I’ll handle it tomorrow”

Sweet dreams!

A recent study done by the University of California and the shocking finding of it: “People who sleep 8 hours or more have a 50% higher mortality (death) rate than people who sleep less.” Yes, it’s true that such a study was carried out, in fact in a moment I will give you a link to a short 2 page report on the entire study so you can read about it for yourself, and view the results of it.

However, does this mean that sleeping longer will create a higher chance of death and disease for you?

No. There’s no solid proof for that, but as you read about this study, and if you’ve read the two free chapters I sent you from our Powerful Sleep eBook, you might have realized the connection between less sleep, your daily energy levels, and the strength of your immune system.

As you might notice, it’s during deep sleep that your body undergoes major physiological changes to repair your muscles, power up your immune system and replenish your energy.

The question really isn’t “how long should I sleep?” The question really is…

“How can I optimize my sleep system to gain POWERFUL and QUALITY sleep.”

You see, there is a difference between quantity, and quality. The problem, and the challenge is that most people don’t understand sleep. They think sleep is a very basic thing that happens to us every night. I mean, think about it, we sleep, we wake up, and we magically feel refreshed, right? Because of this misunderstanding, many people live today with very out of balance sleeping systems that are deprive you of your energy, without even being aware of it.

Sleep is actually quite a complex and fascinating system. Here, briefly, are the effects of sleeping longer:

Sleeping longer than you need to will weaken your sleep system, as you reduce your prior wakefulness, exposure to sunlight, activity levels, and your body temperature at a low for too long.

As a result, your melatonin hormone levels will stay high longer, you’ll be more tired and drowsy during the day

When you sleep for long periods of time, your body temperature doesn’t rise as quickly in the morning. This results in feeling very drowsy and tired for the early part of your day. If you stay inactive, this body temperature pattern will lead to poor sleep, which will prevent you from sleeping deeply.

This weakened sleep system and inability to get proper restful and energizing sleep creates low energy levels and a weakened immune system.

People usually sleep longer because their sleeping system is not being taken proper care of. They feel low on energy during the day, and think they need more sleep. In actuality, they feel low on energy because they have a weak sleep system, not because they’re sleeping too little.

If you’re currently sleeping around 8 to 10 hours and you feel LOW on energy during the day, it’s not because you need more sleep. YOU NEED LESS SLEEP, and MORE ENERGY from your sleep.

Sleeping less actually INCREASES the strength of your sleeping system. The problem is, most people don’t know anything about proper sleep system hygiene, or how to strengthen their inner sleep system. Only with the proper knowledge can you learn to optimize and strengthen your sleeping system, to have more energy and a higher level of health. Only once you’ve optimized your sleeping system for maximum performance can you reduce your sleep.