Fit Soul Chapter - 17 - Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Welcome to fit soul chapter 17. I'm Ben Greenfield and this is the weekly recording of a chapter from my book Fit Soul, which you can also get for free@fitsoulbook.com that's fitsoulbook.com Digital and print versions are both available. There we are in chapter 17 today. Chapter 17 now I lay me down to Sleep on my website@BenGreenfieldFitness.com I often present advanced and admittedly expensive biohacking tips to use a bit of better living through science to upgrade your naps, meditation and sleep. Yet this may seem like paradoxical steps to take if you already read or listened to chapter 15 of this book, in which I present a stripped down minimalist approach to eschewing excessive reliance upon science and self quantification and instead learning how to intuitively listen to one's own body. So I thought that in this chapter I would revisit the concept of optimizing your sleep and rest and specifically highlight the fact that I do not think you necessarily need to stick laser lights up your nose, swallow a cattle trough's worth of supplement capsules, and sleep on a special mat that you had to mortgage your house to afford in order to wake up refreshed the next morning. As a matter of fact, the foundational principles of getting a good night's sleep, no matter how your biohacking or healthy living budget lies, are largely based upon five key spiritual and physiological principles that anyone can implement. Basic concepts of sleep hygiene aside, which I do outline in great detail in my book Boundless, there are five key principles to get better sleep naturally. And speaking of principles, if you like this type of approach, I do have an article also on my website you can search for@BenGreenfulFitness.com called Principles, in which I use the concepts I'm about to outline to you of simplicity to lay out principles for mitochondrial enhancement, exercise, sleep and many other factors. But today we have five key principles. Number one relax. You must activate your parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system prior to rest, even seeming extremely restful. Activities such as ensuring you have a full stomach and or drinking a few relaxing glasses of wine will temporarily make you sleepy. But once those wear off, typically around 1 or 2am, your body gets flooded with a rebound rush of hypoglycemia and excitatory neurotransmitters. Even ancient writers of the scriptures knew this. Consider verses such as Ecclesiastes 5:12, which says sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep. For those who sleep, sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. So figure out how to relax your body and brain prior to sleep. Supplements and biohacks aside, you can try a series of simple yoga moves like those that I'll link to on the resources page for this chapter@fitsoulbook.com Chapter 17 that's fitsoulbooks.com Chapter 17 these are moves you can perform by your bedside accompanied with deep nasal breathing. You can keep the lights dim, switch to incandescent red bulbs instead of fluorescent or LED lighting, or even adopt the use of nighttime candles in your bedroom. If you're old schooly, you can finish any hard workouts three hours before bed to keep the body's core temperature low. Or as one of my friends wrote in a recent guest post on my own website, you can adopt a 10-32-10 sleep routine 10 the number of hours before sleep in which you don't consume caffeine 3 the number of hours before sleep in which you don't eat two the number of hours before sleep in which you don't work one the number of hours before sleep in which you don't engage in screen time and zero the number of times you hit the snooze button. Number two is to read. Once you are relaxed, crawl into bed and grab a bedside book that isn't about topics that get you excited like fitness or business, but instead topics that are relaxing philosophical or fictional reads that charm your mind with positive affirmative thoughts prior to bed. Ideally, these books should not be consumed on a Kindle, smartphone or any other e reader due to the presence of light that can shut down your natural melatonin production, but rather in paper form, although if you are reading on a screen you can use red blue light blocking glasses for example. A few of the books that I'm reading right now for bedtime include the Way to Love by Anthony Demello, Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton, Ride Sally Ride, which is a funny one by Doug Wilson and Desiring God by John Piper. Number three Meditate or Pray. My favorite app for bedtime meditation is called Abide. It's an app chock full of sleep enhancing and deeply relaxing and restorative nighttime stories and meditations. It's the same one I use to lead my family through meditation in the morning and it's one of the few non free items on my list, although the cost is incidental. Another very good one for those of you religiously and spiritually inclined is the free app Pause. However, I often simply close my eyes and along with my wife, with whom I keep a bedside list of family members, friends and topics to bring to the Lord in prayer, utter a few simple prayers of gratitude, praise and supplication to God. If there is any sin harbored in my heart, especially anger or feelings of unrest towards any people in my life, I bring those feelings to God in a spirit of confession and repentance, heeding the words of Ephesians 4:26 which reads, Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. If you're not accustomed to praying prior to falling asleep or don't know where to start, try the relatively well known verse I'll give you. Although their origin is obscure, you'll find them quite settling to your spirit in times of stress or insomnia. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take. If I should live for other days, I pray the Lord to guide my ways. Father unto thee, I pray thou hast guarded me all day. Safe I am while in thy sight safely let me sleep tonight. Bless my friends, the whole world bless help me to learn helpfulness Keep me every in Thy sight. So to all I say, good night. Number four is to breathe. While there are a multitude of forms of relaxing breathwork, many of which I discuss in great detail again in the book Boundless, two of my favorites are a double inhale to exhale and a 4, 7, 8 pattern for the former. My friend and neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, who I mentioned in chapter 12 of this book. It claims that breaking up one long inhale as a double inhale through your nose and then exhaling through your mouth can calm you instantly. It definitely seems to work. My friend Andrew weil favors the 4, 7, 8 protocol, and this one also seems to work quite well. Relying upon your own breath is, of course the last time I checked, also free. And by the way, four seven eight is just four count in seven count hold eight count out repetitively. Number five is to trust. Fall asleep with a smile on your face, trusting God he will provide for tomorrow. Matthew 6:25 27 says, Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air they do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life? Psalm 48 says, in peace I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. And Psalm 91:1 16 he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God and whom I trust for he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day. Finally, when it comes to the Spirit of bringing any of your burdens to the great Heavenly Father, nothing is quite as clear as Matthew 11:28 which reads, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not the spiritually enlightened, yet lazy fellow who simply trusts God, then sits back, laces my hands behind my head and stares at the sky while laying in a hammock all day and waiting for God to provide. Rather, I'm a firm believer that one should trust God than put on their seat belt, as the saying goes. Or perhaps more biblically appropriate is the approach in Nehemiah 49 which states we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. I have a whole article about that called Seat Belts and Sentries on my website. In other words, cast your cares upon God when you can't get to sleep at night or you wake up with racing thoughts. But don't completely ignore or discount thoughts, ideas or insight God gives you as you're falling asleep or waking in the wee hours. My own strategy for this is to keep a simple pilot pen, light and paper journal next to my bed at night so I can without needing to grab my phone, which is a major mistake when attempting to optimize sleep. Jot anything down that I need, get it out of my head, then fall back asleep. Summary so sleep really can be that simple. Can't stomach supplements? Don't want to fork over the cash for fancy biohacks? Resisted to feeling as though you may become attached to a host of items that you rely upon for sleep. Then use these easy, inexpensive spiritual and psychological sleep and relaxation methods. Relax, read, pray, breathe and trust the next time you're tossing and turning or crave a good night's sleep, and you'll be pleasantly surprised at the results. I do believe I encourage you to turn to these simple tools before launching into all the fancy stuff constantly championed and marketed for sleep improvement. I suspect you'll be surprised at how simple sleep can be, especially when you place your trust in the Almighty Creator. Speaking of trust in the Almighty Creator, that's exactly what we're going to get into in the next chapter the intense hope that that specific form of trust can provide. In the meantime, for resources, references, links, and additional reading and listening material for this chapter, you can visit fitsoulbook.com chapter17 that's fitsoulbook.com chapter17.