18 Mar 2022 · 14 min
Brendon Burchard breaks down why most people need 7-8 hours of sleep, not hacks or shortcuts. Fifty years of research shows insufficient sleep wrecks decision-making and emotional health. His framework: add 45-50 minutes by going to bed earlier, meditate twice daily, cut caffeine after mid-afternoon, and dim lights an hour before sleep.
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Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening. Now let's begin.
Let's talk about you finally getting some more stuff sleep. You know, I've always been a big proponent of pushing this topic on people very strongly because we've known for a very long time, only about 50 years of real research that if you're not getting enough sleep, your cognitive abilities throughout the day go down, your creativity goes down, your stress goes up, your bad decision making goes up and your ability to handle conflict or life challenges and be resilient and happy and positive all goes to shift. So what do you do? How do you get more sleep? How do you finally manage this part of your life? Because look, we all have a lot of expectations, a lot of demands in our lives and so at some point we start believing the hype out there that oh, hey, you can get by on, you know, three, four, Hours of sleep, don't worry about it. Just sleep a little less, get up a little earlier, and we start telling ourselves this big lie that we can get away with less sleep, even though we have 50 years of science saying we can't. Especially today. You know, there's this popular myth that, oh, you know, you can take sleep for two hours, rest, take a nap for 30 minutes here and there, or sleep for four hours and nap and meditate throughout the day to catch up. And the reality is, we know that's not possible for the vast majority of people. People say, well, Brendan, the Navy SEALs can do it. I'm like, yes, but you're not a Navy seal. And they hate it. And they call it Hell week when they do that. Okay, most normal, average, must perform, must be awesome. Care about your high performance and have to be SM smart people throughout the day. Really must sleep seven to eight hours a night. So if you're not getting that on a consistent basis, what can you do? Well, first and foremost, if you're not getting that much, don't all of a sudden take this pressure on yourself about sleep, in a sense of saying, well, gosh, I'm only sleeping four hours of sleep. I better figure out my eight hours. It's like, calm down, dude. Here's how I want you to start. Just get 45 to 50 minutes more sleep tomorrow, tonight, this week than you usually do every night. Just knock out another 45 to 50 minutes. How do you do that? Go to bed 45 to 50 minutes earlier than you usually do. That's all. Just start with that. And if that picks you up that fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth hour of sleep, rock on. If you have no problem sleeping eight hours regularly throughout every single night, then, you know, go watch one of my other videos. But for those who have that challenge, you're just not getting that eight hours of sleep on a consistent basis. Here's the first counter intuitive thing that you can do, and it's going to sound weird, so let me walk you through it. Rest more during the day. One of the reasons people don't sleep enough and can't fall asleep is because they're keyed up all day. They're building this momentum, this tension, this stress all day. And then at night they get in bed and they're like, they're like totally whacked out on a roller coaster and they cannot bring the adrenaline down. You need to teach your body to have the ability to recover. And actually, if you recover throughout the day, it's easier to put yourself to Sleep at night. It's almost counterintuitive. So how do you do that? Well, we know, for example, that people who meditate sleep better at night because they've learned that ability to manage their mind, to slow it down, to chill out. So try this. If you've never tried it before, meditate every single day for about 20 minutes. Just find a time during the day to meditate, to sit down, close your eyes. If you've never watched my video on YouTube called the Release meditation technique, give that a try. I've taught over a million people now how to do the release meditation technique. It's very simple. You close your eyes and you repeat the word release to yourself over and over and over. When other thoughts come up, you just return to the mantra of release. And that's all you do. Eyes closed, repeating release for 20 minutes. Super simple, incredibly effective. If you're someone who's like, dude, I don't want to try meditation. I tried it. I don't like it. I didn't release. I don't like it. That's cool. Then go for a walk for 20 minutes during the day without your phone, without your phone, without anybody with you by yourself. Don't speak. Try not to think too much. Just wander for 20 minutes outside. Just walk around, have 20 minutes of silence. No stress, no screens, breathing with each step. Just think about your breath and walking for 20 minutes. Just try that now. If you really want to go advanced, do all that I mentioned, either walk or meditate twice per day for 20 minutes. It's going to teach your body to have a rhythm and to slow down. And you'll find you start sleeping better at night. You won't even know why. Well, I'm telling you why, but I'll tell you. It's that simple and that straightforward. You must find your time throughout the day to have a few moments to wind down, to chill out, to meditate, to rest, to relax. It will help you relax better at night.
Hey, it's Brendan jumping back in here again. Are you looking to go the next level in your life right now? The next level of joy, abundance, success? Then you already know that you need to journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you got to stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous, and keep growing. That's what the Growth day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app. It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community that you need to level up to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growth Day app on your phone right now.
Every day.
You can keep improving every day. We are here for you and every day is truly a great day to grow together. So let's make self improvement a way of life. Let's make that self improvement stick. Go to growthday.com right now.
The second thing that you can do is stop drugging yourself. A lot of people can't sleep because they're having caffeine at, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 o' clock at night and their body is all keyed up and its hormones and your processing, your digestive system are out of whack. Drugs include caffeine, include sugar, include white carbs, include all those things that are whacking your system out. Especially after that 3:00 clock hour in the afternoon. You think, oh gosh, you know, it's fine if I have some coffee at 6 o' clock at night because I've done that for years and I could still sleep okay once in a while. It's not okay. You need to knock off the caffeine, knock off the sugars, and knock off that high white flour, sort of starch, carbohydrates after 5 o'.
Clock.
Just don't do it because it's whacking out your system and your sleep. So a lot of the reasons you feel fine, you don't feel full, you're like, I don't understand 8 hours ago, I should go to sleep fine. Your body really does need its time to wind down, okay? It really does need it. Which leads us to the third point. Wind down in that hour to 90 minutes prior to sleep. Dim the lights in your house. Don't look at any screens anymore. That means no TV and no handhelds. You're not twittering and Facebooking and doing all the other things on your phone. And I really mean no texting either. Just stop in that last hour. That means if you want to read a book, go ahead, read a book. Don't read magazines with dozens and dozens of pictures to start dropping dopamine in the back of your brain stem. Just read one thing, read one article or one book or journal and plan your day with no noise no tv. I mean, I know you got. You might have the kids and they might be loud and everything else, but then turn the TV out for yourself. And you're like, but, Brendan, I gotta fall asleep. The tv. No, you don't. You just taught yourself to trust me. Thousands and thousands of years of human history passed with no television. They slept just fine. I'm sure if you've ever gone camping or been in the great outdoors, you're like, wow, I sleep amazing. It's because you're not watching television, I hope. You got to turn it off. Dim the lights. No screens, no sounds. Simulation. Just chill the last hour and allow you to kind of glide yourself into bed. Calm, cool. You'll sleep like a champ. Last thing number four, very simple. When you go to bed, your thoughts, you got to get them under control. The way to do it is be in a place of gratitude. Just say thank you. That's it. When you get into bed, just say thank you to your God, to your creator, to yourself, to the world, to the cosmos, whatever your personal faith or beliefs are. Just go. When you think about anything, if you think about anything is just be grateful. Just think about all the things you're.
Grateful for in your life.
Don't think about all the things you need to do tomorrow that's going to whack you out. Just think about the things that you're genuinely grateful for in life, because you know what? A happy heart rests. Well, so if you can just be happy and grateful for the things that you do have in life, the person and the choices you've had in your life, the blessings that are all around us all the time, the good things that have gone on in your life, just think about those. It'll help you fall asleep much more peacefully and easily. You'll drift out just fine. Wait. Set your alarm for eight hours later before you go to bed so you know you're getting that time and try to do it. If you wake up early, just lie in bed thinking about all things you're grateful for in life. Maybe some of the things you have to do as you wake up to slowly wake yourself up. Don't wake up and immediately check your screens. That sets the anchor and it trains your brain. Got to get up, got to handle, got to handle, got to handle. And that's why you're waking up too early often and kind of freaked out. And you can't stop because you're actually conditioning your brain to get up and check all these things. Don't do that. When you wake up Instead, have a morning ritual that doesn't include checking into everything. Check into yourself, think about your thoughts, maybe stretch your body, do your exercise, your workout, then plan the day and get at it. If you keep these things in mind, if you actually practice them, you'll start to have a whole new experience with sleep.
Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Bread. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity, right? So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars. Cheer us on.
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Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today? Please remember you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com. It.