MakeYourBed!: Recent Episodes
Kate Astrakhan
Better Living Through Podcasts.
Seems like everyone and their brother is telling you how to live happier, healthier, wealthier when the actual secret is to just MAKE YOUR BED!
Let’s face it: sleep is just as important as eating and drinking water. Despite this, millions of people do not sleep enough and experience insane problems as a result.
The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) conducted surveys revealing that at least 40 million Americans suffer from more than 70 different sleep disorders; furthermore, 60 percent of adults, and 69 percent of children, experience one or more sleep problems a few nights or more during a week.
In addition, more than 40 percent of adults experience daytime sleepiness severe enough to interfere with their daily activities at least a few days each month — with 20 percent reporting problem sleepiness a few days a week or more.
On the flip side, getting a healthy amount of sleep is linked to:
Increased memory
Longer life
Decreased inflammation
Increased creativity
Increased attention and focus
Decreased fat and increased muscle mass with exercise
Lower stress
Decreased dependence on stimulants like caffeine
Decreased risk of getting into accidents
Decreased risk of depression
And tons more… Google it.
According to countless research studies, people who go to bed and rise early are better students. Harvard biologist Christoph Randler found that early sleep/risers are more proactive and are more likely to anticipate problems and minimize them efficiently, which leads to being more successful in the business.
Other benefits of going to bed and rising early — backed by research — include:
Being a better planner
Being holistically healthier as individuals
Getting better sleep
More optimistic, satisfied, and conscientious
Waking up early allows you to proactively and consciously design your day. You can start with a morning routine that sets the tone for your whole day. You show self-respect by putting yourself first. In your morning routine, you can pray/meditate, exercise, listen to or read inspiring content, and write in your journal. This routine will give you a much stronger buzz than a cup of coffee.
Sleep Article
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/gglg45gfd/anticipate-problems/
Advice From Real Students
http://collegerefs.tumblr.com/post/125072336833/prettystudying-7-advantages-of-waking-up-early
“Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad? If not, I have failed indeed. Has anyone’s burden been lighter today, because I was willing to share? Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way? When they needed my help was I there?” — Will L. Thompson (music and text)
If we’re too busy to help other people, we’ve missed the mark. Taking the time to spontaneously — as well as planned — helping other people is one of the greatest joys in life. Helping others opens you up to new sides of yourself. It helps you connect deeper with those you help and humanity in general. It clarifies what really matters in life.
As Thomas Monson has said, “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.” That would truly be a failure.
One-day (24-hour) food fasts are a popular way to maintain health and vigor. Fasting leverages the self-healing properties of the human body. Radical health improvements occur when the digestive system is given rest and the organs get ample time to repair and heal themselves.
A regular practice of fasting can:
Improve digestive efficiency
Increase mental clarity
Increase physical and mental vigor
Remove toxins
Improve vision
Give a general feeling of well being
Like all the other habits, fasting gets easier with practice. I’ve been fasting for years and it’s one of the best things I have done for my health.
Fasting is also one of the most recognized techniques in religious and spiritual practices. I also use fasting to get spiritual clarity and refinement.
Honestly, I could go on for hours about this one. Give it a try. You’ll never be the same.
If you stop consuming sugar, your brain will radically change. Actually, study after study is showing that refined sugar is worse for our brains than it is for our waistlines. According to Dr. William Coda Martin, refined sugar is nothing more than poison because it has been depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals.
Refined sugar has now been shown to make us cranky, make us make rash decisions, and make us stupid.
Again, like caffeine, if you stop eating refined sugar, you will experience some negative withdrawals. But, like any good habit, the effects of this will be seen in the long-run. What would your health be like a year from now (or five) if you were completely refined sugar-free?
Fast Company Link To The Article Read
http://www.fastcompany.com/3050319/lessons-learned/how-giving-up-refined-sugar-changed-my-brain
In a recent interview at the Genius Network mastermind event, Joe Polish asked Tony Robbins what he does to get focused. “Do you meditate? What do you do?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know that I meditate. I don’t know that I want to meditate and think about nothing,” Tony responded, “My goal is clarity.”
Instead of full-on meditation, Tony has a morning routine that includes several breathing exercises and visualization techniques that get him to a state of clarity and focus. For me, I use prayer and pondering (my version of meditation) as the same vehicle.
Whatever your approach, the goal should be clarity and focus. What do you want to be about today?
What few things matter most during the next 24 hours?
I’ve gotten the best results as my morning prayer and meditation are motivational; my afternoon prayer and meditation are strategic; and my evening prayer and meditation are evaluative and educational.
Although people think they perform better on caffeine, the truth is, they really don't. Actually, we’ve become so dependent on caffeine that we use it to simply get back to our status quo. When we’re off it, we under-perform and become incapable.
Isn’t this absurd?
With healthy eating, sleeping, and exercise, your body will naturally produce far more and better energy than caffeine could ever provide. Give it up and see what happens. You will probably get withdrawal headaches. But after a few days, you’ll feel amazing.
Although the amount of warfare and deaths by human hands are reduced globally, you will not get that message watching televised news or reading the newspaper.
On the contrary, these media outlets have an agenda. Their goal is to appeal to your fears by inflating extreme cases — making them seem normal and commonplace. If they didn’t do so, their viewership would plummet. Which is why Peter Diamandis, one of the world’s experts on entrepreneurship and the future of innovation has said, “I’ve stopped watching TV news. They couldn’t pay me enough money.”
When you detox from the toxic filth that is public news, you’ll be startled as your worldview becomes radically more optimistic. There is no objective reality. Instead, we live in perceived realities and are thus responsible for the worldview we adopt.
People who make their bed in the morning are happier and more successful than those who don’t. If that’s not enough, here’s more:
71 percent of bed makers consider themselves happy
While 62 percent of non-bed-makers are unhappy
Bed makers are also more likely to like their jobs, own a home, exercise regularly, and feel well rested
Whereas non-bed-makers hate their jobs, rent apartments, avoid the gym, and wake up tired.
Crazy, right?
Something so simple. Yet, when you make your bed first thing in the morning, you knock-off your first accomplishment of the day. This puts you in a mindset of “winning.”
Do it! It only takes 30 seconds.