Understand Sleep

Life Education

This Comprehensive article by HelpGuide on Sleep is well written.  Each person needs a different amount of sleep, at different ages. Lack of sleep has negative health consequences: increasing risk of diabetes, heart disease, fatigue, chance of depression; reducing decision making abilities, ability to think critically, creatively, and reduced ability to cope with stress.  Sleep deprivation is similar to drunkenness.  

To prepare for sleep, it is advised to have a consistent routine, so that your body is habituated to feel sleepy after doing that routine.  It is also good to begin shutting off lights and dimming your room gradually, to simulate the sunset, which is our natural trigger for going to sleep.

It is normal to wake up in the middle of the night.  Just go back to sleep right after.

What happens when you sleep? Well, during the day your brain uses energy and produces waste. This waste goes no-where UNTIL you sleep: that’s when it gets cleaned up. So it’s important to clean your brain by sleeping! Hence it clears your mind and you wake up refreshed when you sleep.  Data from Ted Talk by Jeeff Llinff

From my Doctor

  • Don’t eat big meals within 1-3 hours of sleeping (digesting horizontally is not good for your stomach and also disrupts the quality of your sleep)
  • Don’t exercise within 4-6 hours of sleeping (exercise earlier in the day, because exercise energizes your body making it harder to sleep)
  • Sleeping before 12AM is best because (Chinese Medicine) your body systems have a circadian rhythm for resting and cleaning and it begins around 11PM.
  • (Personal Experience) Drink enough water prior to sleeping so that you don’t get dehydrated during sleep–your body may wake you up so you can drink water, causing interrupted sleep.

If you exercise, you need more sleep than the average person.  According to this ESPN article, “Roger Federer and LeBron James have said they sleep an average of 12 hours per day, compared to about 7 hours for the average American. Usain Bolt, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Steve Nash sleep up to 10 hours per day.” According to an infographic, lack of sleep reduces your performance.

Q: Why does sleeping to much make me feel even more tired A: “our “sleep clock” as they refer to it is actually a group of cells in a part of your brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. We also refer to this as a circadian rhythm. Sleep is regulated by two processes, the “sleep clock” (your circadian rhythm) and a sleep drive (this builds throughout the day and is associated with a buildup of a neuromodulator called adenosine). If you “oversleep” your sleep drive may be low but your circadian rhythm is thrown off (it’s regulated by consistency and especially waking up at the same time daily). In essence it’s confused. This confusion causes some people to feel more rested and some people to feel more sleepy. One additional curve-ball in this is that if you “oversleep” you may sometimes be waking up in the middle of a sleep-cycle which will also cause you to feel sleepy for a period of time.” – Reddit

More Knowledge, More Power

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What is Self Worth?

Identity, Life Education

Self Worth is how much you are worth to yourself.  Too many people mistake self worth for your worth to the market, economy, government, other people, etc.  But that’s not self worth, that’s Market Worth, or Economic Worth, or how much Bob or Alice think you’re worth.  Self worth is how much you think you’re worth, so you are in control.  

You don’t have to be perfect to have self worth, unless you choose to make it a requirement, in which case you should realize you’ve chosen to make it impossible to have self worth.  Remember, you are your worst critic, and no-one sees as many flaws as you do, so realize you have a skewed view of your imperfections.

If you decide to value yourself based on how much wealth you have, then you have chosen to tie your self worth to money.  It doesn’t have to be, you could instead measure it based on how popular or powerful you are.  Or you could free yourself from societal or external standards, and say that you have self worth because you give yourself self worth.  You are valuable because you say so.  Then, with a secure internal mindset, you can go out into the world and try to get external value like Market Worth or Popularity Worth if you want.

Believe you can have what you want.  This idea of “deserve” only exists within certain contexts: at home, you only deserve ice cream if you finish your vegetables; working in America, you deserve one because you can pay for it it; at a business, because you have connections; etc. etc..  Getting something has two components: believing you have the self worth to have it, and an opportunity to have it.  Opportunity is partly in your control, but the belief in your self worth is definitely in your control.  You are worthy of happiness, love, friends, success, if you say so.  Whether you get it is separate–if you don’t get it, it doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy of it.

Unbalanced or Lack of Self Worth can lead to depression or over compensating, or denial and delusion, so take care of your self worth!

When you’re comparing yourself with others, be kind and use context: if you’ve been playing violin for 2 years, don’t compare yourself to a professional violinist who has had a 40 year career.  Make sure your comparisons make sense, or else you’re setting yourself up for depression.

More resources that can help:

Overcome Illogical Thoughts of Insecure People

Understand Judgments

Formally expressed, Self Worth is “Who am I to myself right now in this reality?”  (Identity and Reality explained in my: Life Education Curriculum).

Misc. Thoughts

Why do I always feel ashamed of who I am? While I was religious, they taught me to be ashamed, that’s why!

The market is imperfect.  If it was perfect, then we can say that the rich are successful and the poor are unsuccessful, and justly so.  But just because someone is poor does not mean they are unsuccessful or not hard working–they could just be unlucky.  Don’t think the system’s evaluation system is reliable, or accurate even.

A few days ago I talked to a friend and that friend told me I’m normal: Yay!  and I’ve been feeling more and more normal ever since I was told that.  See, I used to always think I was different, but I never asked around to find out from other people whether they thought I was different or normal.  If you ask around and they do think you’re different, embrace it I say, but if it’s detrimental than perhaps move to a different place: a fish is normally in water, not normally in the sky, so if you’re a fish in the sky, find water.

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Overcome Illogical Thoughts of Insecure People

Social Anxiety

If someone doesn’t like me, it means they dislike me.  No, it just means they don’t like you: whether they dislike you is a separate question.

If something went wrong or someone was feeling bad, it must be my fault.  No, you’re not the center of everyone’s lives: other things are at play.

If people don’t invite you, it doesn’t mean you’re banned–ask to go if you want to and it’s appropriate. (See 4 Kinds of Invitations)

If someone dislikes me, I am less valuable.  No, everyone has their own Self Worth (see What is Self Worth? and Who Am I?) independent from whatever worth other people judge you to have.

If someone dislikes, it means I’m unliked as a person.  No, it means that one person dislikes you, and it doesn’t make your entire existence unlikeable.  Is liking a fruit an objective truth? People are different, some like apples, others like oranges: liking people works the same way, some will like you, some will not, and that’s OK. (Watch the movie Wreck-It Ralph)

If I’m not perfect, I’m horribly imperfect.  No, there’s a range: you could make mistakes once a minute or once a day.  Don’t let one mistake feel like many mistakes, and don’t let mistakes in general make you feel imperfect: everyone is imperfect, not a big deal.

More advice: Common Relationship Mistakes

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