How many times have we heard about some ‘successful’ billionaire or internet guru tell us they sleep four hours a night, or in 20 minute stints here and there?
And we are all expected to praise them and think, ‘wow, I just need to have a 4am wake time and this morning routine of drinking 12 raw eggs, with two Hours of Bikram Tai Chi, 20 minutes of HIIT, an hour of journaling, some lemon juice, turmeric only 2.5 minutes on the toilet, a facial scrub, followed by an icebath, sauna and breakfast of nothing but meat, eggs and nuts.’
That is incredibly exaggerated to make the point that some of these suggestions of getting up earlier and earlier to ‘win the day’ are getting out of hand.
To do all the things that are recommended by some of these people you would have to get up at 2 or 3 in the morning having only gone to bed around 10 or 11. And this is not a good idea for anyone.
We need sleep, and we need somewhere between six and eight hours each 24 hours for most of us to function optimally.
I am not saying you will get your perfect amount of sleep each and every day, but if you can hit your sweet sport three to five times a week, you are going to feel, perform, and even look so much better just from that.
We have all been guilty of watching one more episode, reading a few more pages, just another 20 minutes on the playstation or a quick scroll before bed.
And we all know it ends up so much more than that.
So the next day in the gym you notice the barbell feels heavier, the pedals on the bike are harder to move, the oar on the rower doesn’t seem to move smoothly, you feel heavy dangling under the pull up bar.
You look at the curser on the screen, and get lost in it blinking away, then open four other tabs and end up down a rabbit hole of aunt Marys baking tips, Billy Bobs bets fishing adventures, or simply frustrated because you cannot focus on the simple work task you have been doing forever in your job.
But hey! You followed internet gurus advice, and he is a multi billionaire! Why isn’t it working???
Because quite simply their morning routine, sleep habits are pure bullshit.
They get clicks, and clicks equals money and business for them.
At one stage Elon Musk was claiming he only slept a few hours a night. But he learnt the hard way I guess as he has come out and said getting fewer than six hours took a toll on his mental state.
Others report similar hours of sleep now. Richard Branson, Arnold Schwarzenegger bit say around six for them.
But this is the thing, across a bunch of wealthy people asked the results aren’t overly consistent. Most sleep regular amounts, they may be able to go to bed later and get up later as they are billionaires, they set their own schedules.
The 4am wake up and win the day mentality if you aren’t a morning person and are not getting to bed before 10pm is actually not going to work for you long term.
So you have to figure it out and weigh it all up.
Do I want to go to bed earlier?
Do I feel better getting going earlier in the morning?
Am I missing other activities etc just to get ab at 4am?
Am I willing to sacrifice time with family etc to go to bed earlier?
Look if you want to get up at 4am and ‘win the day’, by all means go after it. But make sure you are getting adequate sleep to make up for the earlier time of rising.
My main point today is that you don’t need to feel guilty for being someone that needs a good eight hours of sleep to be productive and function well.
There are no shoulds here. Should do this, should do that. No, your sleep patterns can be different to the gurus and still be super effective, productive and you still be successful. Two things can be true!