High Performers Don’t What??
Someone just wrote to me and said that his biggest issue was that he’s now only getting about four hours of sleep a night. He’s so charged with ideas that he doesn’t feel he can sleep. His mind is racing.
If you’re an entrepreneur, your mind will race. It just will.
You’ve got details to track.
You’ve got opportunities to explore.
And, the gentleman who wrote to me commented that he supposes all high performers must not sleep. There’s so much to do. There’s so much to think about.
Right?
Welcome to your Wednesdays With Wayne.
My answer was a surprise to him. I said, “Actually, high performers learn how to block time in order to get the sleep they need” and to hit the productivity levels they want to hit. And that’s true. My dissertation (yes, the “doctor” part of my title comes from clinical psychology) was on sleep and daily functioning (specifically following exercise). What we have learned over the past few decades and especially over the last five years is that sleep isn’t just useful, it’s essential. It restores neural and cognitive function as well as hormonal balance. We used to think it was tough and cool to stay up all night. We used to say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” We didn’t know that not sleeping might get us closer to that dead state than we could have imagined.
By not sleeping you end up fat and foggy. Your cortisol levels and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) levels don’t get a chance to reset. Your brain function – decision making and response time – is impaired. And after a period of diminished sleep, you begin to hallucinate. Sleep deprivation over the course of even a few days can yield the same brain function impairment as having had a few drinks.
So are all high performers running on just four hours of sleep a night.
Nope! Quite the opposite. To be physically and mentally fit, the DynamicLeader® High Performers that I coach and advise are getting seven-to-nine hours of sleep each night. Knowing that sleep isn’t wasted time, but a time for the body to reset and the mind to work out the solutions needed for the day, sleep is coveted, not shunned.
What about that racing mind thing?
Get a journal. Learn to write in the dark. Put your f’ing phone down. Get a pen. Get a journal. And learn to write in the dark. Yes, I repeated myself. You can get a small nightlight or something, but don’t go stimulating your brain all over again because you have to write things down.
It IS actually kind of fun, though. You wake up the next morning and look at things going across the page. It puts you back into the mindset of “what was that again?”
You know how when you wake up from a dream it only hangs with you if you stay with it? If you jump up and start doing other things (put your f’ing phone down!) then it’ll evaporate. So, to keep the flow of your dream-state, whether you had dreams that you can remember or not, get up and grab your journal first thing. Review your notes. Recapture your evening and reset your day. (Okay, now you can pee….)
You’re coming into the last month of the year. Finish strong.
Your goals for 2018 can only be accomplished if you’re fit. High Performers eat correctly, drink correctly, sleep correctly, and move correctly.
Maybe part of your 2018 “resolutions” will be to regain your health. Your mental and physical health starts with sleeping. Block time out of your day to do that. Set your end-of-day time and stick to it. And don’t wait for the calendar page to turn. Get a jumpstart on transitioning to the New You in the New Year by setting the conditions in place for that NOW.
Let me know how it goes for you, too.
Forget fat and foggy and step into set and sassy.
Oh, and hey, in two weeks, I’ll have another surprise for you. Honestly, the timing was a surprise to me. Count it down. Two weeks from yesterday….
Truly, it’s going to be Life Changing! I’m serious. You’re going to want it and I’m going to want you to have it.
Stay tuned and… Keep Making Your Magic™!
~ Dr P ~
Check out the new stuff brewing at www.WaynePernell.com