I mentioned ‘sleep’ in yesterday’s blog. Sleep is necessary for us to fully recover from each day’s trials and tribulations. However, many of us don’t get the sleep we need each night. It varies for each one of us. Saying one needs seven or eight or nine hours is not absolute for every one of the same age and gender.
I, like most of you, have had those days that unplanned emergencies come up and I’m not able to go to sleep when I originally planned. In fact, at one time in my life, I stayed awake for 166 hours straight. It was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I slept for 22 hours straight when I finally got to sleep.
What can you do when crunch time comes and you have a short time to catch a few zzz’s? Your subconscious mind is in control of everything in your life. You have to communicate with your subconscious mind and tell it to treat whatever time you have left differently. You have to preplan your sleep cycle to get the most out of it.
Allow me a short example. Let’s say you finish whatever event came up at the last moment and you have two hours before you have to wake up to go to work. You have several choices. One is to stay awake. I’ve tried that and it sometimes works. I’ve also showered, shaved and dressed and sat in a chair and took a nap fully ready to walk out the door. That works sometimes.
You can go to sleep and hope for the best, but you will be tired when you awaken. Or, you can tell your subconscious mind that you are taking a nap – a short nap. Your subconscious mind only understands three things – personal, positive, and present tense. It has to be from you – “I am taking a short nap.” It has to be present tense. It can’t be, “I will take a short nap.” Your subconscious mind doesn’t understand the meaning of ‘not’. “I am not having a piece of pie”, equates to “I am having a piece of pie.”
Tell yourself that you always awaken fully refreshed and ready to begin a new day. You are now preprogramming your mind to act normally when you wake up after a two-hour nap. You have to convince your subconscious mind that this is normal. Use words that your subconscious mind understands. Words like ‘need and want’ talk to your conscious brain – it will do you no good to use those words. You need to use words like, “expect and intend” to communicate directly to the controller of your life.
“I am taking a short two-hour nap right now. I intend to awaken in two hours and feel perfectly normal. I expect to awaken fresh and relaxed – no matter what.” Using the term, ‘no matter what’ puts emphasis on the action and makes your subconscious mind take that suggestion and supercharge that thought.
I’ve done this many times over the years and it rarely fails, even after many nights in a row of diminished sleep time.
Well that is hard but you have that routine everyday. You’ve used to it, huh?
It’s not easy. I agree. Yes, it takes a little time to change. Most of the time we are dehydrated and not hungry in the morning. We eat out of habit. Drink water and wait a short while and see what that does. It took me a few months to feel comfortable with eating within a six-hour window daily.