So many people neglect themselves and their own personal wellbeing on their financial freedom quest. The otherwise small sounding details of keeping up on personal wellbeing can and oftentimes does provide the edge over your competition to overcome adversity. Success is about longevity, and preserving yourself over the long haul all but guarantees success. So many people physically exhaust themselves to the point of loss of peak cognitive and physical function. How can one be expected to overcome difficult obstacles on a daily basis if brain function is declining day by day? Keeping the smaller details of your life in check can and will make a substantial difference in how you perform every day. One of the focal points most people overlook is sleep, and this is a huge mistake.
Sleep
In our society, sleep deprivation is considered to be valiant and admirable. How many times did we hear in high school and even college about someone “staying up all night preparing for an exam”? By the time that person showed up for the exam, they were completely exhausted and there were many unfilled gaps in what they studied the night before as they drifted off going over the notes. Furthermore, without a proper night’s sleep prior to the big exam, remembering any of the material beyond the morning of a test becomes nearly impossible. Personally, I can barely remember a thing I learned in high school and college. This can be partially attributed to cramming for an exam and not taking a night’s sleep to let it all sink in and process. And this is just the beginning of the vital role sleep plays in brain function.
Less than 8 hours of sleep
Getting less than 8 hours of sleep every night is commonplace in America. Between the distractions of social media, TV, and so much more, people just can’t seem to put their devices down early enough to get that amount of hours in and still be up for work or school the next day. In the book, “Why We Sleep, Unlocking The Power Of Sleep And Dreams“, author Dr. Matthew Walker, phD, goes into extensive details about the enrichment the last two hours of sleep provides during an 8 hour sleep cycle. His studies and the studies he cites show that without these last 2 hours of sleep, the fatigue buildup in the brain significantly decreases performance in so many different ways. Concentration, comprehension, ability to solve problems, awareness, and so much more decrease after even just one night of insufficient sleep. To counterbalance this, so many people supplement their lack of sleep with caffeinated beverages to give them an artificial energy boost. What they’re really doing, as described in the book, is blocking the receptors that bind with a sleep inducing hormone called adenosine. This blocking of the binding site lasts a few hours, hence the increased alertness and awareness during that time However, that adenosine returns at a later time with vengeance. This is the “crash” people experience at the end of a caffeine cycle. People who do this on a daily basis are subject to perpetual lethargy, and as a matter of fact are even taking years off their lives! Taking sleep seriously will not only improve your performance and ability to overcome massive obstacles, but it will significantly increase your quality of life! This is something so many of us overlook and it needs to be addressed so people can optimize sleep’s great gifts appropriately.
Diet
This one is more obvious to most people than our previous discussion on sleep. There is so much out there in modern culture about dieting and fad dieting. It’s such a large industry with so many things to sell you. “Take this magic pill and lose 100 pounds!!”, is something you might hear on TV during a commercial. People are looking for expediency without changing their lifestyles and companies are in the business and selling that fallacy to people in the form of pills and fad diets. What really needs to change for people to reap the benefits of eating healthy is their habits. It’s not enough to go on a fad diet for 60 days or take a pill and then go back to your old ways of eating potato chips for lunch everyday. You need to make sustainable changes in everyday life in regards to what you’re putting in your body. The right food on a consistent basis will keep you full, ending the constant urge to snack, and enable your body to perform at peak levels. Consider creating some form of accountability group to make sure you’re staying on track with your eating habits until those behaviors become ingrained in your head. Accountability is a huge incentive for people to stay persistent even when things are really difficult. Groups or even a partner can make this seemingly impossible task so much easier.
Exercise
Exercise is self explanatory. The more sedentary you are, the worse you’ll physically feel. A sedentary lifestyle with bad eating habits is life-threatening and severely impacts cognitive and physical performance. Move around. Do difficult things. Challenge yourself on a daily basis. Go to the gym even on the days when you really don’t want to. Oftentimes, those workouts actually turn out to be the best and most rewarding. Go outside and run. Get to the gym and lift. Do things to get your body moving and active. I personally like to exercise right after I wake up and eat breakfast. I fuel up and get right into my day. Exercising first thing in the morning leaves me feeling energized and accomplished for the rest of the day regardless of what I have on my agenda. Not staying active is a fatal mistake.
All the small details
The three above details are often overlooked on how important they are to our overall success. Neglecting one of these boils over to all aspects of life including work, finances, relationships, and so much more. Keeping yourself cognitively and physically sharp will keep you ready for anything life throws at you. You’ll be able to handle adversity and persist forward when you take the small details seriously.