002: Prioritizing Sleep

Hello again and happy Tuesday.

A week ago today I wrote to you for the first time. Thank you for coming back.

With nothing but small changes, I am still working to put myself on the path towards a more fulfilling life.

I'm hoping to build on the following areas:

- Fitness

- Diet and nutrition

- Relationships

- Learning habits and efficiency

- Finance

This list is not all-encompassing, but it allows me to look at this process in a simple manner. With a firm stance, I do not believe transformation has to be complex and challenging. My core belief is that transformation occurs one step at a time, or brick by brick.

Over the last week, I have added a few changes to my day-to-day life. I am shifting my athletic focus to rowing, prioritizing strength and power movements that lend well to the sport. I have added more endurance-based training, along with nightly mobility sessions. I have simplified my meals throughout the day, focusing on protein first. I'm also starting to time my carb-heavy meals around my workouts - both before and after.

But, the thing change I've seen the most improvement from, has been my sleep.

Talking on sleep is weird because we all do it - but most of us don't do it well.

I have struggled with sleep for most of my adult life. Not only falling asleep, but also the efficiency at which I sleep and the duration. For as long as I can remember, sleep has been something that I've put on the back burner. Something that I don't rank as a top priority.

The last few weeks, though, have been as challenging as ever. Finding time to unwind has been challenging. Setting a consistent sleep time has been inconsistent at best. Waking up well-rested is a feeling that I've been missing for a long time. Because of this, I decided to change the way I treat sleep.

Recently, I read a book by Matthew Walker called "Why We Sleep." Now I'll be honest, it wasn't a cover-to-cover read. I used a wonderful tool called Blinkist that summarized the most important takeaways from the book.

Here's what I learned:

• Sleep is essential for physical and mental well-being.

  • The book emphasizes that sleep is not a luxury. Walker argues that sleep is a necessity for our health, immune system, memory, and emotional regulation.

• Lack of sleep has severe consequences.

  • Routine sleep deprivation can lead to a range of negative outcomes. These include increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. It also includes an increased risk in cognitive decline and mental health disorders.

• Sleep improves learning and memory.

  • Adequate sleep is necessary for effective learning and information processing. It enhances creativity, problem-solving abilities, and cognitive performance.

• Sleep deprivation impairs performance and safety.

  • Insufficient sleep impacts attention, concentration, reaction times, decision-making, and productivity. It also poses serious risks to safety, such as drowsy driving accidents.

I knew sleep was important before I started learning from Walker, but I underestimated it. I had no idea that negative sleep patterns led to this many side effects.

After reading this book, and feeling the way I did the last few weeks, I decided to make changes.

First I prioritized sleep duration and consistency. I decided to give myself a strict "bedtime" every night, waking up within the same 30-minute window each morning (even the weekends).

Next, I changed my behaviors around sleeping and my bedtime. On days where it's possible, I put my phone in another room starting at 7:00pm. I spend the next 2 hours focusing on unwinding and avoiding electronic screens.

In this time, I journal, stretch, meditate and read a physical book.

This has been great because it has allowed me to carve out more daily time towards the other aspects of my life I'm trying to improve.

• The book I'm reading every night is "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, a book on Stoic philosophy.

• The dedicated journaling time has also helped me build a habit I've been trying to build for years.

• The stretch routine each night helps with exercise recovery and range of motion in my tightest joints.

• Staying away from screens allows me to decrease stress and avoid bad habits that keep me up late.

After making these changes I have been able to track my sleep and sleep quality through Whoop, an activity tracker that I use daily. This device allows me to see sleep performance on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Since adding these habits around sleep, my sleep performance has been brilliant. I'm spending more time in restorative sleep, sleeping for longer, and waking up feeling better. These changes have bled into every other aspect of my life as well.

As I continue this journey towards a more fulfilling life, these are the types of things I am looking to change. The changes and adjustments will be small, but the impacts will be gigantic.

Because of the benefits of improved sleep that I've seen and felt, I recommend you do the same in your daily routine. Put a bigger emphasis on sleep, and your mind and body will thank you.

If you have any questions, or want to bounce ideas around, please let me know.

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Weekly, I will look to inform you on what I'm focusing on. Most times, the bigger ideas will receive their own newsletter section. But here at the end of these newsletters, I want to be a little more transparent about other, smaller topics.

Here's what I'm looking to focus on over the next week:

1. Books I'm reading:

• "Dune", Frank Herbert: I've recently started reading "Dune." As a science fiction lover, I've never read this book before - even with a ton of people recommending it to me. It's amazing. If you've never read it, you should.

• "Meditations", Marcus Aurelius: I've decided that I need Stoic philosophy in my life. From all that I've seen online, there's no better book to start with than "Meditations". So far, so good. I've never spent so much time highlighting text in a book.

2. Fitness things I'm focusing on:

• I've (semi-seriously) decided that I'm going to attempt to break a world record in rowing. No idea which record yet - but I'm far away from having to make that choice. As of now, I'm focusing my exercise programming towards a style of training that would benefit a rower. My back has always been the weakest part of my body, and I'm trying to rectify that in the coming months.

3. Diet things I'm focusing on:

• Hydration. I haven't been drinking enough water. Not only am I trying to drink more, but I'm also adding in electrolytes in hopes of improving my water absorption. Currently I'm using a supplement called LMNT, and I can't recommend it enough.

• Protein consumption. I'm currently training 10+ hours a week and with that type of load, I need protein more than anything. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm not eating enough protein, even with me knowing its importance. This week I'm looking to get daily consumption to somewhere around 200 grams per day. In the future, I see this number going higher.

4. Life things I'm focusing on:

• I've got a wife who is busy with school and work, while I'm busy with work amongst many jobs. I'm finding that excuses are easy when it comes to spending dedicated time with her, being that we're both so busy. I'm looking forward to re-prioritizing time with her and allowing myself to disconnect from work and projects.

• I grew up in Arizona and never learned how to take care of a backyard. This year, my wife and I are looking to take advantage of our backyard a bit more - which means I want it to look good. Wish me luck.

That's it for this week.

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If you got to this point, I'm thankful that you've read this far.

Creating a fulfilling life is hard work, as I'm coming to find out. But as I'm sure you've heard, "nothing in life worth having comes easy." Hopefully this glimpse into my life transformation gives you the confidence to embark on your own journey. Remember, it doesn't have to be complicated - you just have to get to work.

Build something you're proud of, brick by brick.

Humbly,

Grayson