I used to often be so tired that I’d fall asleep on the sofa. My sons even bought me the cup in the picture above and I use it daily as a reminder of how important rest is to me, though for several years now I am able to be wonderfully rested and so falling asleep on the sofa is a thing of the past 😉
My routine is that, unless I am out for the evening, each night I head up to get ready for bed around 10 pm. Each morning my alarm is set for 7 am, but I wake up (almost always) a few minutes before that, ready to bounce out of bed, rested and ready for the day. No snooze buttons are required and the alarm is just there as a backup that I rarely need.
It has not always been this way for me, but I wanted to change this as rest is foundational to physical and mental performance. This recent quote sums up how I did it:
Simple rules turn desired behaviour into default behaviour
Shane Parrish in this tweet
As it may benefit some, a few of my rules that I have added to over the years that shifted desired behaviour into default behaviour:
- No eating within 90 minutes of bedtime, simply a cup of herbal tea.
- Once I enter the bedroom, there is no TV, and though I do use my phone as an alarm, I do not look at the phone once it is in my room (if you can’t resist, by an alarm clock if you need one and leave your phone in another room to charge overnight).
- Meditation when in bed can slow and calm the mind and ready for sleep. I used to use apps for this (like Calm), but now simply lie down and focus on my breathing (to me this is the essence of meditation and quieting the mind when we wish to do so).
- I loved it when I discovered that Spotify has a sleep timer. Now I have a sleep playlist and start it on random when getting into bed, setting the sleep timer. I very rarely am awake to hear the music stop at the end of the sleep timer (thirty minutes for me, btw)
- When I wake up, I get up. I don’t look at my phone in bed or until I am sitting down with my breakfast
- Oh, and I have the same breakfast every day and sit in the same chair by the window to watch the day wake up as I then ease into the day checking the news on my phone (finally).
Summarising the rules:
- Go to bed at the same time every night
- The bedroom is for sleeping, make it that haven
- When you wake, start your day
These are now my default behaviours, but it took some simple rules to get me there. In writing this, I even had to remember what my rules are, they are so automatic to me now.
What simple rules could you begin with to start shifting your desired behaviour to become your default behaviour?