Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to just go to bed. If you
Speaker 1: have reached the evening and are feeling overwhelmed or sad
Speaker 1: or exhausted, do yourself a favor and go to sleep
Speaker 1: as soon as you can. Most likely everything will feel
Speaker 1: different when you wake adequately rested in the morning. So
Speaker 1: despite the widespread perception, most people do get enough sleep
Speaker 1: from a total hour perspective. In fact, the number of
Speaker 1: hours people sleep per day has been rising over the
Speaker 1: past few decades, according to the American Time You Survey.
Speaker 1: But what tends to happen is that people in an
Speaker 1: irregular fashion, getting too little sleep in the first half
Speaker 1: of the week and then crashing in the second half.
Speaker 1: It makes for exhaustion and an inability to maintain good habits.
Speaker 1: While sleeping less in the first half of the week
Speaker 1: might seem productive because there would be more space for
Speaker 1: work and chores, if you just crash and make up
Speaker 1: the hours in the second half of the week, you
Speaker 1: haven't saved any time at all. You've just moved it
Speaker 1: around at the cost of a lot of unpleasantness. Far
Speaker 1: better to sleep the same amount every single day. In
Speaker 1: other words, we all need a bedtime. I tell people
Speaker 1: that you should only stay up past your bedtime if
Speaker 1: you have a really good reason. However, you don't need
Speaker 1: a good reason to go to bed before your bedtime.
Speaker 1: If you are exhausted for some reason or another, there
Speaker 1: is no reason to stay up. Don't fool yourself that
Speaker 1: you are going to get something great done. If you
Speaker 1: are exhausted, you are not going to finish any of
Speaker 1: your personal projects. If you are exhausted, you are not
Speaker 1: going to get ahead on work. Don't remind yourself how
Speaker 1: far behind you are and forge ahead. Don't try to
Speaker 1: have quality time with your spouse. That won't really be
Speaker 1: quality time at all. Just go to bed. If you do,
Speaker 1: one of two things will happen. One is that you
Speaker 1: will sleep to your normal wake up time. If you
Speaker 1: have gone to bed prior to your bedtime and wake
Speaker 1: up at the normal time, then you have likely either
Speaker 1: made up a small sleep debt or have banked a
Speaker 1: little extra rest. Either way, you will feel incredibly well
Speaker 1: rested when you wake up. When you get enough sleep,
Speaker 1: you feel like you can conquer the world. I am
Speaker 1: willing to bet that whatever seemed overwhelming the night before
Speaker 1: will no longer feel overwhelming. It will feel doable, and
Speaker 1: so you will do it. Sleep is a superpower. The
Speaker 1: other thing that might happen is that you will wake
Speaker 1: well rested before your alarm. This tends to happen if
Speaker 1: you don't have a sleep debt to work off, and
Speaker 1: you are exhausted for other reasons, like an emotionally or
Speaker 1: physically rough day. When this happens, well, congratulations, you now
Speaker 1: have found time. It's found time at a point of
Speaker 1: day when people often hit their peak of energy. If
Speaker 1: you are up before your family or before you need
Speaker 1: to be, you could read, or work, or exercise, or
Speaker 1: do something creative, or sit there and ponder life quietly
Speaker 1: if you don't want to disturb anyone else. I am
Speaker 1: not particularly a morning person, but when I travel from
Speaker 1: the East Coast to the West coast and thus pop
Speaker 1: up at five am feeling like it's eight am, I
Speaker 1: am able to do all manner of great things before breakfast.
Speaker 1: Going to bed earlier than normal can give you the
Speaker 1: superpower in normal life. In any case, it's better than
Speaker 1: trying to Ford John to solve everything in an exhausted state.
Speaker 1: You won't solve everything. You will probably solve nothing and
Speaker 1: get frustrated. So just go to bed. Life will feel
Speaker 1: better in the morning. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four, then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot com that Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.