Reducing your sleep

As you recall, during jet lag we travel over several time zones. If we travel 2 time zones to the West, our body temperature rhythm will still be set to 2 hours ahead. In response we feel out of place and it takes a while for our body temperature rhythm to adjust to the new time zone.

In the same way, when we try to reduce the amount of time we spend sleeping, it takes a while for our bodies to adjust to the new sleeping time. The main challenge with reducing sleeping is understanding how sleep works, which we have over-come by going through all this information together. The second challenge is people tend to misread their bodies. If you feel tired and drowsy during the day ask yourself this question: “Am I tired right now because I need sleep? Or is it because of the way I’m living my life or acting at the current moment?” Even if you take a highly energetic person and place them in front of a TV for 2 hours, they WILL GET TIRED! This is why it’s important to realize that increasing your daily energy levels is as important as decreasing your sleep, they work together. This post gives you introductory information about how to reduce your sleep.

A Little More About Body Temperature

As you’ve learned, your body temperature is really an internal clock that keeps us awake and sleeping at certain times. It’s also extremely important to understand that the rise and drop of body temperature is a cue for the body to produce feelings of awakeness or tiredness. Whenever your body temperature begins to fall, you will feel tired, lethargic, and drowsier. Whenever your body temperature rises, you will feel more energetic, alert,and be able to focus better. Don’t mistake the fall of body temperature at certain times during the day as the need to sleep. Your body temperature may rise and drop several times in the day as a response to the activities you’re doing at the time. Whenever you put big physical demands on your body, your body temperature will rise above the norm. In response to intensive physical activity body temperature drops for a while when you stop the activity. For example, if you work an 8 hour shift at a job that requires intense activity, you may feel totally wiped and ready to sleep when you come home at around 4 PM. What you’ll actually find is that this feeling of tiredness is not a sincere desire to sleep, but rather a response from your body due to the drop of body temperature. If you resist sleeping at this moment and provide a “wind-down” period for your body after this period, body temperature will return to a normal and you will feel alert again.

In your Powerful Sleep plan I suggest that you take a 10-45 minute nap during your day to physically recharge yourself, it’s ideal to take this nap when you experience this body temperature drop as it will help you sleep. Always limit your naps to 45 minutes to avoid entering deep sleep. When you wake up from your power nap it’s usual to feel a bit lethargic and drowsy,this is because your melatonin levels are high. Get as much high intensity light as possible the moment you wake up, and make sure to MOVE your body to get your body temperature up and running again. If you currently live a very sedentary lifestyle, your body temperature will drop very often when you’re sitting around on your butt or watching TV, so if you feel tired during the day understand it’s not because you need more sleep. It’s because you need LESS SLEEP and MORE MOVEMENT!

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• sleep girl