Last week I wrote about how tired I was.
This week I decided to do something about it. I was reading Gretchen Rubin’s new book ‘Better that Before, Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives’ and without I doubt I knew that getting to bed and lights out by 10 was a habit I wanted to master.
I learnt from the book that there are four habit-forming tendencies. You can take a quiz here to find which relates to you.
I found from doing this, that I am an ‘Obliger’ meaning I find it easier to show up and do things / meet commitments to other people than I find it to keep commitments to myself.
I saw therefore that I needed a sleep accountability partner to tell my lights off time to each day. I experimented with my coach as my accountability partner but now have asked my husband to help me with this.
I also write in my journal each morning the exact time that I turned off the lights the night before. (Gretchen says that recording and measuring also helps to establish habits)
I also have a yearly resolution tracker from the work of the lovely Mayi Carles that I colour in each day I meet the 10pm deadline.
Yes I know that’s a lot, but otherwise it just was not happening.
SO now I have had lights out by ten, I feel amazing.
My energy levels up and I feel really creative and ready to do new projects and begin my work on ‘Making it Work Online’ with Jenny Shih which begins next week and in joining Martha Beck and Deepak Chopra for a meditation challenge. I’ve even been inspired to get my sewing machine out and dust it off.
I ask heard on episode 7 of this podcast that more sleep has an amazing impact on blood sugar levels which helps insulin resistance. It will be interesting to see therefore the longer term effect of more sleep on my blood sugar stability, which is affected by PCOS.
I have not cracked this yet. My husband noted with some amusement that I squeezed out every last-minute on a few nights to read as many pages of my book as possible, down to the last second.
He suggested I look for natural breaks in activity and see 10pm as the latest time , not the required time. I am going to play a bit with this, this week. We also have the hour change in Germany this weekend, so that is going to make going to bed early feel even earlier.
Is going to bed at 10pm something that comes easily to me?
Nope.
Is it worth it?
Absolutely.
I’d love to know if you have any clever ways of getting more sleep and whether you find it easy or difficult to get to bed at an hour that means you get enough rest? Let me know in the comments below.