I love sleep. I really, really love to sleep. I can fall asleep at nearly the drop of a hat. I can fall back asleep three hours after ten hours of sleep. I have fallen asleep standing up, sitting against a wall, I regularly sleep on airplanes, in cars, and once I even fell asleep on the toilet. Okay, more than once. What can I say, I was 15!
My husband says sleeping is my mutant ability, and I love that.
But I’ve developed a really, really bad habit. I stay up late at night, watching television and playing video games, doing research online, reading blogs… And along with staying up late, I’ll usually either have a beer or two, and a late night snack with tons of calories…
And then at 6:15 a.m. the next morning, after 6 hours of sleep, if I’m lucky, my alarm goes off and I have to get up, get the kids fed and ready for their day, shower, get ready for work, and get out the door. It’s an insane schedule, and there’s so many things wrong with it I hardly know where to start.
Many different sources quote the same thing: that adults generally need 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to function properly. I know that – I bet most people know that. And yet night after night I go to bed and get significantly less.
I also know that it takes about three weeks to form a good habit. I’ll be honest – that seems like forever when I sit here and think about 21 days in the future. But if I think back on the past, okay, the time actually really flies by. I can think back three weeks when I was really worrying about the status of a project I’m currently involved in, and now it’s nearly over, and the time absolutely zipped past my worries.
So, how do I actually go about creating these good habits? wikiHow to the rescue!
Step One: Know what I want.
I want to get a restful, full night of sleep. That’s the goal.
Step Two: List the benefits. (I actually already made this list – go me!)
- I may possibly lose weight
- I could work early in the morning with fewer distractions instead of late at night
- I would have fewer circles under my eyes
- I would be healthier
- I wouldn’t be awake to munch late at night
- I wouldn’t need to drink so much caffeine to stay awake during the day
- I wouldn’t need high calorie energy drinks
- I could wake up early to exercise in the morning like you’re supposed to
Step Three: Commit to the habit.
Oh dear, this will be the most difficult for me, I’m afraid. Not the actually committing part, but rather the remembering that I’ve committed part. I am very good forgetting that I’ve set goals. Then I remember, but it’s too late – I’ve already fallen off the wagon, sometimes for days at a time, and then it’s like, “What’s the point?” So getting back on the horse/wagon will be something I really need to work hard on.
Step Four: Set goals and reward yourself.
I havn’t thought about setting goals, yet. How do you set goals for going to bed early? I have in the past looked at the clock, and realized that it was fifteen minutes earlier than I had gone to bed the previous night. Yay! And then about half the time I’ll hop on my iTouch really quick and screw around online until the wee hours, and the other half of the time the night following I’ll be up later than two days previous. Argh! Ruined before I even really began, in either case!
Step Five: Start slowly.
I suppose for me this means instead of completely dropping all my evening activities, some of which are actually quite worthwhile (side work designing web pages), I start scaling back. Setting an alarm to go off at 11:30 p.m., and shutting off the television and computer at that point and going up to bed. Then I could creep back in five minute intervals…although that seems better suited for waking up earlier than for going to bed earlier.
Step Six: Consistency over performance.
This translates into a little success every day, instead of being perfect every day, then burning out after two of them. I think for me, this would be not going to bed later than 11:30 p.m. – and if I did that every day for three weeks, that would be success. It’s not a drastic step, but if I did more, that would be great. But trying to go to bed at 9 p.m. every night? I would definitely stay up late for a great television show probably before I even started.
Step Seven: Don’t go it alone.
I have read more than once that sharing your goals with friends and family help to keep you on track. I wouldn’t know. The few times I have shared my goals with those close to me, I have failed. I will tell you that it’s miserable when someone asks, “Hey, how about that XYZ you were working on,” and your answer has to be, “I gave up.” I’ve just never gotten to the point where I imagine that scenario, and the humiliation that would result is enough to snap me back on track. Perhaps I’m not really envisioning the benefits of the end result. A clearer picture of why I want what I want might really help on this one.
Step Eight: Don’t stop after 3 weeks!
Well duh! You haven’t really quit smoking if you’ve quit for 3 weeks then started up again! So I haven’t really formed a habit until I’m doing it all the time. That means a regular, 9 or 10 p.m. bedtime, all the time. A permanent change.
Well, okay. I think I’m ready. Do you?