Monday’s post briefly mentioned our modern sleep-deprivation epidemic. The TED talk shared in that post (repeated below) should be a major wake-up call about the importance of quality sleep. 

Now, the question is just how to get ourselves sleeping soundly every night. 

The first step is to give sleep the priority (and the time) it deserves. This was covered in Monday’s post. Yesterday, we looked at the next step: smart choices during the day and, especially, during the evening. 

But there is still one deeply fundamental element missing: a general sense of being in control of your life. 

Taking control

If your mind is constantly in fight or flight mode, you’re going to struggle falling asleep (and staying asleep). For obvious reasons, the mind has evolved to be on guard whenever we feel threatened. And being on guard is clearly incompatible with falling asleep. 

Our modern world has eliminated most physical threats, but it has introduced a huge amount of complexity and information overload that seems to have a very similar effect. To feel safe, we need to take control of this wonderfully complex life. 

As you probably know already, there’s no quick fix. In fact, reaching a point where you feel fully in control of your health, finances, and creative powers takes years of careful planning and execution. 

But luckily, the brain cares much less about where you are than about where you’re going. In other words, if you’ve given yourself several good reasons to believe that the future will easily outshine the present, you should sleep much better. 

It may sound cheesy, but a proactive personal development journey is the key to feeling at home in this overwhelming and rapidly changing world. 

Sleep really is just a nice side benefit of such a journey. But it’s an important one 🙂

See you tomorrow when we wrap up this week’s topic!