Little leaves are small, simple ways to change – tiny opportunities for you to impact your life in a big way. Taken alone or altogether, each leaf has one goal in mind: to change your life for the better.
Facebook can wait.
Twitter can wait.
Television can wait.
Your inbox can wait.
Go to bed.
Take the time you normally crash under the covers, now, and subtract 60 minutes from it. Crawl in your bed an hour before you normally do, and don’t let all the little voices in your head — and on your screen — convince you it’s not worth it.
It’s not easy to do. We have a thousand different distractions tugging at our pigtails, demanding our attention every hour of the day, and often we don’t even feel the pull — not until the clock has ticked to 1am, at least, and we settle in for another night of six short hours before the shrill voice of the alarm.
Tonight, though? You have a choice. A choice between something you need, something you absolutely cannot live without, or something that has never been necessary — something that often just passes your precious time with no real benefit.
Go to bed earlier.
You’ll wake up refreshed. This might be an unfamiliar feeling.
And imagine: what if you did this every day of the week?
14 Comments
I'm a writer, minimalist, and health dork with three goals in mind: to teach you how to lose weight, move more, and be happier by living a simple, natural life. It works. Like what you read here? Get 3NL delivered straight to your inbox!
Excellentt advice. I try to do this as often as I can remember
Sometimes Ill have a hot herbal tea (SleepyTime, Stress Tamer) in the dark about an hour before bed, with my wife, and we usually start passing out with silent minds before the hour is up.
I also noticed it was more refreshing sleep after I quit drinking caffeine. I used to be
a caffeine fiend.
-Richard
Remembering is the hard part, right?
I’m kind of a caffeine fiend myself, but I’ve noticed the same: reducing my intake has definitely helped me spring out of bed easier in the mornings. Which is marvelous, sure, but also a little depressing. I just love the taste of coffee too much to completely give it up.
I always want to go to bed earlier, but find that I can never fall asleep – what should I do?
Hey Daryl! A couple of things:
1. Give it time. Your body will need a little time to adjust to going to bed earlier, so stick with it for a week and see if you don’t improve by the end of it.
2. Magnesium. There’s a product called Natural Calm that is easily absorbed by the idea and definitely improves my sleep — as it turns out, a majority of people (Paleo or otherwise!) are deficient in magnesium, which can have repercussions on sleep and many other functions of the body.
3. Install F.lux. If you find yourself staring at a laptop late in the night, as I do, the program will be a lifesaver. Most screens output the same temperature of light as the sun, meaning sleep hormones like melatonin — which normally are released as the sun goes down — have a much harder time of functioning as they should. Alternatively, close the laptop!
There’s a few more I can think of, but those three are the biggies. Hope this helps!
I’m a flight attendant so often time during the month my sleep is very irregular…I always strive to get at least 8 hours while working but sometimes it’s at very odd hours. I’ve been on vacation since October 30th and have been really trying to get in 9 hours per night (at the correct time as well)…I usually go to bed around 10/1030 so I’ve been hitting the sheets at 9/930 BUT instead of enjoying that extra hour of sleep I’ve been waking up an hour earlier!!!! Any suggestions? I typically fare well with 7-8 hours of sleep but after reading so many articles/books saying we need 9-10 hours I’m trying to make the adjustment…I just wake up, although I do feel rested with the 8 hours.
I’ll echo what I mentioned to Primal Mami above: if you’re feeling well-rested, I wouldn’t stress about it. The number of hours required varies by person (and also tends to decrease as you age), so I’m not really sure a hard rule of 9-10 hours really applies. You can experiment with magnesium supplementation and the like (post coming on that sort of thing soon), but why try and change something that is working well for you?
considering i slept 3 hours last night due to mass amounts of schoolwork, i’d take this little leaf 5 times over!
Leaves aplenty!
I’ve been heading to bed about 1-2 hours earlier for the last week or so, problem is that I wake up 1-2 hours earlier in the morning. I sleep 7 hours, no matter what time I hit the sack. Any ideas?
Are you well-rested when you wake up in the morning? If so, I wouldn’t fret — so long as your body is getting the amount of sleep it needs, the actual number of hours doesn’t matter too much. And hey, there’s nothing stopping you from using those early morning hours for something worthwhile: reading a book, going for a walk, etc.
I’m writing a post soon on ways to improve the quality of your sleep, so keep an eye out for that too.
Short and to the point… this is one of my bigger challenges.
I always have something online to do, client work, or I am just trying to squeeze as much as I can into a day…. not healthy to say the least when I am not getting enough sleep.
Thanks for the reminder.
My pleasure, Chris.
I know the feeling — there’s just always one last thing to do before calling it a night, right?
Simple advice that when taken seriously, can have HUGE effects as you pointed out.
Even though I go to bed at a very decent time 90%+ of the time – between 10 and 11 – and I feel refreshed when I wake up 99% of the time without an alarm clock I’m still going to use your advice.
Why? I feel like it. Tonight is the PERFECT night too. It’s been raining ALL day long. I’ve been lazy all day long. And, I’ve been wanting to go to bed earlier – before 10 – but just have not done it.
Tonight I’ll be in bed before the clock strikes 9:30 which will be about an hour before my average bedtime. That’s 50 minutes away… time to get off the computer NOW!
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