Stop the 3AM Wake Up!

They call 3 AM that witching hour, that that time where the mind just kicks in. You wake up, you're you're stuck in it. I want to give you guys some hints, some tips, some tricks that I've used that have helped me to get that sleep back, to get that full night, to not get stuck in your head at 3 AM. Hopefully break the cycle. For those of you guys that are new here, all this channel is is me trying to help men build on their lives. Whether you're in a decent place or Not a great place or a fantastic place. I want to help inspire you to continue pushing, continue growing, becoming the guy that you are capable of being. Now, sleep, sleep is kind of one of those really core things that you've got to have in place. And if you don't have it, it's just going to— it throws everything off. You're not going to be able to be the dad you need to be, the husband you need to be, the business owner you need to be, the employee you need to be. It just isn't going to work unless you're getting that sleep that you need to have. Okay, and that'll vary a little bit for each of us. But the reality is that 3 a.m. wake-up call—it's a it's a regular occurrence for many many many men out there. Now there's a lot of science behind it, and there's some great videos. I'll probably create a playlist of videos as to why this happens, where this 3 a.m. wake-up comes from. But essentially it's this: there is something in your body, your mind, or your physical body that is driving while you're sleeping and saying. Okay, your body's finally at rest. Now quick, process all the insanity of your life. Go! And of course, when that happens, you wake up and your mind's racing. And when your mind races, you're up. That's it. It's done. It's a done deal. Now, there are some things that we can do to help break out of this. And these are not super challenging things. Okay? There's some very simple takeaways that we can do that are going to allow you to get to sleep better, stay asleep better, and subsequently not be up at 3 AM racing. Okay, so first and foremost, the thing that I want to give you guys is the 3-2-1 rule. Okay, so it's easy enough to remember. Everybody can remember 3-2-1. The way it's going to work is this, and this one is very much about the physical. Okay, this is helping your physical body to get to sleep, to get to sleep well, and to stay rested. So 3 3, 2, 1. Number 3. 3 hours before bed, no more food. So, cut out the late-night snacks, cut out the, oh, I'm just going to have a quick bite of what— cut it out. 3 hours before you go to sleep, you guys decide what that time is, but whatever that time is, 3 hours before you hit the pillow, make sure there's no more food going in. This is going to let your body's metabolism start to slow down. Okay? So, your body itself is starting to take it a little bit easier. Right? 2 hours before you go to bed, take it easy on the liquid. Okay? Easy on the liquid. You don't want to be downing a pile of water, pile of liquid heading into bed. Now, if that's water, great. If it's caffeine, definitely not a great idea. If it's booze, definitely not a great idea. Before you go to bed, guys, try to give it that 2-hour window. No liquids. This is going to help you not have to get up during the night to use the washroom. It's also going to have— help you again with the metabolism starting to slow down heading into your sleep. The last one, one. Okay, so 3, no food, 2, no drink, 1, no screens. For the last hour before you hit the bed, make sure that you have your screens off. Now, there's lots that we can do during this time. Have a conversation with your significant other, open up a book. One of the big things that I found that has been really helpful for me is grabbing one of these guys. Grab yourself a journal. Okay. Journals go a long way. And another big tip is tied to this, but whatever you do in that last hour, the 1 hour that you have before bed, make sure you just turn the screens off. Okay. The dopamine hit that you get from staring at a screen right before bed is not going to help you get a solid sleep. It's going to, it's going to keep your mind awake. It's going to keep it alert. You're not going to be able to enter into your sleep in a restful way. Okay, so three to one easy to remember. Three no food, two no beverage, no water, one no screen. Start off with that. Okay, that's going to get your body going. What else can you do? Well, the other one is this. Another tip that I can give you is the journal. Okay, in this, before you head to bed at night, you're going to have a thousand thoughts going through your head, especially if you've turned off the screen. It does this kind of amazing thing, but. Go through your day. Just take 10, 15 minutes, process your day. What did you accomplish? What did you get done? What did you not get done? What's racing through your head currently? And put it into the journal. Doesn't have to be, doesn't have to be Shakespeare. It doesn't have to be something that's super poetic. It can literally just be a blunt checklist if that's all you have. But whatever you have that's going on up here, put it on the page. It does a couple of different things. One, it allows your mind to kind of process ahead of time what happened throughout the day. And oftentimes that 3:00 AM wake-up is your mind doing exactly that. For a lot of men out there who have busy lives, who have families, who have businesses, who have jobs that are strenuous, your mind is trying to process what happened throughout the day while you're sleeping. And the more that your body hits into rest, the more the brain takes over and is going into overdrive on that process. Yeah. If you can help it to process a lot of that, the bulk of that before you go to sleep, what you're going to find is that 3 AM wake-up happens less and less and less often. The other thing that happens is you got a lot of things that can create stress about the next day. Oh, I still have so much to do. I didn't get this done. I've got this to do. I've got that to do. I got to go here. I got to go there. I understand. Believe me, I understand. Okay. At one point I was working 3 jobs, 8 kids, lots to do. I understand. I get it. I get the stress. I get the workload. I get that being there. But having the ability to put it down on a page of these are the things that I need to do in some ways can help your brain to go, this is for tomorrow. I'll deal with this tomorrow. I've already got the list down. I know what I need to do. Okay? So use the journal in those 2 ways. Process the day that you've had, plan the day ahead, get it all down on the page so your mind can go, this is it. This is it. Now, this is about getting to sleep. So those one, those 2 there are kind of the helpful ways for you to get to sleep. Now, once you're asleep, there's a couple of different things that you can do to ensure that you're going to stay asleep. The lighting in your room. Turn off the lights. I know there's a lot of folks that like to keep the lights on for whatever reason, but please trust me. Just turn off the lights. It's going to go a long way. It really is. Having those lights off when you hit deep sleep, it's just going to be easier for you. If you've got the ability to put lights on a timer, maybe that's something you can do if you really want to have the lights on right until you go to bed. But highly, highly recommend that you guys turn off the lights and we want to get that good rest. The other one is audio. If you guys are going to put audio to go to sleep, and I know I was a sucker for white noise, for music going to bed, but But what I found oftentimes is I'd have that music on and it would be helpful in trying to get me to go to sleep, just the sound of rain falling or, or light music playing. But the reality is, once I was asleep, that music, that noise would wake me up. And that's, that's really what we're trying to avoid. So again, if you're going to use music, make sure that you have a timer, a set playlist, a specific period of time that's not playing all the way through your sleep. Instead, it pops in and Out, in when you go to sleep, off within an hour. That way, once you hit your deep sleep around that 3:00 AM, you're good to go. Okay? Last but not least, and then this is about what happens if 3:00 AM does happen. Okay? So you do wake up at 3:00 AM, you've done this stuff, your brain is probably programmed. And I know I went over a decade with this 3:00 AM wake-up happening, and I realized it took me a long time to break that habit of the 3:00 AM wake-up. And what had to happen when that happened was I needed to start disassociating my room with that 3 AM wake up. So what I recommend that you do and, and give this a shot, let me know down below in the comments how this worked for you. If this is something that's happening to you, but 3 AM, when you wake up, instead of just sitting there in bed, instead of just letting the mind take over, you're stressing, you're thinking about stuff. Instead of doing that, what I want you to do is when you wake up, put your feet on the floor. Stand up, go to the washroom again. Cold water all over the face. Just shock yourself. It's going to seem crazy to do if you want to get back to sleep, but the reality is that massive splash of cold water on your face is going to be a reset button for your body. It's going to turn the mind back off. Next thing that you can do is go back to your room, grab the journal, and again, just whatever it is, if it's a dream, if it's, if it's thoughts that are running through your head, if it's stresses about tomorrow that aren't already down, or maybe they're already down and they came back. Write them down again. This habit of breaking the cycle at 3 AM becomes very, very useful. And I found within probably about a week, within a week, I was able to break that habit and it became less and less frequent that that 3 AM was happening. In some ways, I think it's because my body became accustomed to, oh, if I wake up at 3 AM, it's just going to be a matter of me writing down what I already wrote down before. I'm not going to deal with anything until the following day anyway. I know that it's just gonna be me walking to the washroom, water on the face, reset, back to sleep. So if you guys are still finding yourself up, up at 3:00 AM, don't beat yourself up about it in the moment. Don't stay in bed. Don't let your mind and your body get used to the bed being a place where you stress and toss and turn and have ideas. Get up, go splash yourself with the cold water, write down any ideas that are in your head, and then go back to sleep. Try to go back to sleep. It, it's crucial that you build a habit of this not being an okay thing, something that has to be corrected. Eventually your mind and your body are going to click in and go, okay, we get it. This is not what we want to do. That's it as far as these tips, guys, go. So you've got the 3-2-1. You've got make sure you use a journal effectively. You've got make sure you set up your, your sleeping environment for success. And if you do wake up, don't beat yourself up. Let me know down below if you have any tips for guys that you think could work, that you've found worked in the past for helping with this. Hopefully this is a help to all you guys out there that are struggling with this. If you know somebody that's having problems, you know, you know a man out there that is struggling to get that full night's rest, 3 AM is a regular for them, tag them on the video, share it out with them. Hope you guys have a great day. I'll catch you next week with the other recorded video. See you then.