Photograph by Malik M Imran
Two Major Sleeping Early Benefits.
Have you ever asked yourself, why so many people are more successful than others? Why is it that two people that have the same abilities and opportunities in life end up in completely different outcomes? One person ends up fulfilling his/her goals and another doesn’t. Why is that I wonder?
I was confused about this for a long time, the fact that I was a nicotine addict didn’t help me find the answer to that question, neither the fact that I was overweight and flirting with obesity.
In my previous years, some say the best years of our life, from 20 until 35 years old I would smoke every day with a vengeance, no exercise at all, eat when ever I wanted whatever I wanted, my slept patterns matched my eating habits too.
At the age of 36 I was diagnosed with serious problems to my stomach and generally my gastrointestinal was so messed up my doctor told me that he usually sees such a damaged system in people over 60 years old!
I couldn’t eat something without wanting to vomit and I couldn’t use the toilet because my hemorrhoids were killing me. I was 36 years old, and I was a mess, chain tobacco smoker, heavy drinking of coffee, overweight and flirting with obesity and we all know what comes next?
What usually comes next is death, yes death, I was 36 and I was in danger to die from heart attack, stroke or get diabetes II and all the nice side effects of years of misusing my body.
That was my wake-up call, the sad thing was that I should have never end up in this situation in the first place. Who was to blame about my situation? I sat down and thought about this a lot, and I concluded that a series of events let me here and some of them was not my fault but most of them was.
The moment I admitted that this was primarily my fault and not someone’s else (parents, school, society in general) I took my life in my own hands. I stop being a victim for the first time in my life, at the age of 36 I woke up!
Am I a successful person? I ask myself a lot this question. Comparing it with my previous life yes, I can say I am successful in my life. People in general define success with different terms and its only natural. Personally, I measure my success as of how many goals I end up fulfilling, goals that I set up to complete at least one year ago. That’s how you must think if you want to be successful on the goal that you setup to accomplish.
Everyday mundane things like cleaning the house and doing the dishes and cooking and so on are just everyday life, that’s not goals its chores either you like doing them or not. You must do it if you want to be able to function properly as a human being.
There is a habit a mundane habit you can say that for many of us does not seem to be important at all but if you manage to turn it into a way of life you are halfway there in accomplishing any goal you set in your life for now on.
Which habit I am referring to; well, I think you are here because of the title, and I am sure you are looking to find out more about the subject.
Going to sleep early preferably before 9 p.m. separates the successful people from the not so successful ones.
If you go to sleep early you will wake up early and that’s the biggest secret of success. It is that simple. When you hear people saying to you that is not that simple, they are not your friends and they do not care about you, they want you to give up on your goals. It is that simple, life is simple, force and make yourself to adopt this simple rule, go to sleep early and wake up early and then the world opens to you in levels of mental cognition that you never thought existed.
At the beginning you will not know what to do with all that extra time that you suddenly find yourself having, you will procrastinate at first but then I promise you with a few organizing techniques and motivation you are going to take your life in your own hands and achieve the goals that you want to achieve in life for you, your family and your friends if you wish to.
Enough theory, let me show you in practice the variety of benefits that you will have once you start practicing this simple tactic.
Health
It is proven in many studies already that lack of sleep, deprivation of sleep leads to the creation of a plethora of medical problems including cardiovascular problems, and gain weight.[1]
Lack of sleep also hinders your ability to have an effective mental capacity during your everyday work and diminishes your ability for academic performance.[2]
Now to be more precise, age does play a role in how many hours of sleep you must get in a day. It is a good tactic to consult with your doctor If you are having any kind of health issues or not of what is the optimum number of hours that you need to sleep to have a healthy life.
For example, athletes may need more hours of sleep because they abuse their body in training. Research suggests that 9 hours of sleep per night could be ideal for athletic performance while 7 hours could be best for academic achievement.[3]
Every country has published the optimal number of hours of sleep per age and is a good tactic to take that under consideration and at the same time adapt it to your individualistic level of health status.[4]
Another interesting piece of information that deserves some discussion is the idea that except that the total amount of sleep critical role may play the timing of sleep and the wakefulness in academic performance.[5]
Lastly and not least when you go to bed early you stop eating at night. Nighttime eating may have a detrimental effect on your health as it promotes weight gain which combination with lack of exercise leads to obesity, sedentary life and open the way for cardiovascular diseases[6]
Economy
Fortunately, or unfortunately the invention of electricity and we have Nikola Tesla to blame for this enables us to stay way much longer awake from our natural sleeping patterns.
As homo sapiens we evolve with two distinct niches daytime and nighttime. We have in our DNA a circadian clock that alerts us of the daily circle.[7] Before electricity we will go to sleep when the sun went down and wake up when the sun got up. We did this because we were slaves of the environment and the planetary movement of earth.
Having that in mind checkout the sunset and sunrise hours of where you live, and you will get a good idea when you should go to sleep and when to wake up. Of course, we are not cave men anymore we have things to do and places to go, that’s why I recommend, and I practice this myself to go to bed around 9 p.m. If you go to bed 9 p.m. you will probably wake up around 3 to 5 a.m. depending on your individualistic medical status.
For what I read and from my own experience as you get older you need less sleep. An average adult between the ages of 25 to 55 usually needs from six to 9 hours of sleep depending on the physical labor is doing during the day.
Now, why is it economic to go to sleep early. First you stop burning electricity that power all kinds of electrical appliances like computers (portable or not) mobile phones, tablets, television, radio, modems, routers, kitchen appliances like microwave and electrical over, lights air conditioning or electrical heaters.
All the above burn electricity and electricity costs money. Find out how much you pay for every kWh every month and then multiply that by 12 and you be surprised how much money you will save.[8]
Second if you are sleeping you are not eating and drinking either inside the house or outside of the house. Make a general yearly estimate of how much money you spend on food, drink and entertainment after 9 p.m. and you be surprised of how much money you will save.[9]
Conclusion
Sleeping early is all advantages and no disadvantages at all. Getting a good night’s sleep improves your immune system and your health and saves you precious dollars that God knows how hard your worked to earned them.
Sleeping early and waking up early translates to more time for you to achieve your goals and more energy to achieve excellence in any endeavor you wish to embark on.
[1] Pannain S. & Beccuti G. (2011:403-406)
[2] Eliasson A. & Lettieri C. (2009:72-73)
[3] Chaput J.P. , Dutil C. & Knyinga-Sampasa H. (2018:427)
[4] Chaput J.P. , Dutil C. & Knyinga-Sampasa H. (2018:425)
[5] Eliasson A. & Lettieri C. (2009:73)
[6] Ormsbee M.J. & Kinsey W. A. (2015:2657-2658)
[7] Freiberg A.A. (2020:2)
[8] 2021 Electricity Rates By State (Updated June 2021) – Payless Power
[9] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/
Sources
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