The 1 Thing To Improve At Everything
1/3 of all Americans suffer from a massive problem. It can effect all aspects of our life including our overall health and happiness, our cognitive thinking, our performance at the gym, and even our finances. But what if I told you there is a solution and it’s FREE…and it’s simple and easy to use. On top of the fact that it feels great, everything in your life will improve. Would you keep reading?
I’m talking about sleep deprivation. Most Americans suffering from sleep deprivation don’t believe they have a problem (my former self included). As a nation we are chronically sleep deprived. Sadly, we believe that there is a badge of honor and something heroic about living with minimal sleep.
Get more sleep please.
On average Americans get 6.5 hours of sleep per night. That’s 20% less than 30 years ago. And people believe they can get away with it and that they’ll be just fine. I can’t count the numbers of times I’ve heard “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. That’s not true, you won’t be sleeping…you’ll be DEAD. If I asked you how much sleep should you be getting everyone always says 7-8 hours. And that’s right. All the research points to that as where we all eventually average out to once sleep is recovered. But why don’t we fight for our sleep then?
Chronic sleep deprivation increases our risk for almost all diseases. Obesity. Strokes. Heart attacks. Depression. Diabetes. Cancer. If you can name it, it most likely can be traced back to sleep deprivation in some manner. But we feel fine. Or so we think. Sleep deprivation is a silent killer just like heart disease. The majority of people say they felt fine right up until the point of that first heart attack.
That’s some pretty scary stuff.
So what does sleep actually do for us? It allows our body to heal itself, consolidate memory, reinforce learning, fight of illness and infection. It replenishes hormones and boosts neural pathways and it puts our bodies in a physiological state to allow us to thrive the next day. That sounds pretty awesome to me.
When push comes to shove, the most import thing that you can do for optimal performance in all aspects of life is to SLEEP! It’s going to take all of us to take a leap of faith…and WAKE-UP! No more thinking that we are machines.
New goal for 2015.
I know we are a few months into 2015 already, but if there was one thing that you should commit to this year it’s to try to get some more sleep. Whether you are a CrossFitter or an Olympic Weightlifter, trust me, no matter how hard you work, you can always rest harder.
“We can’t change the world over night. But we can change our world every night.” – Dr. Kirk Parsley
Rest well friends,