Are you ready to dig into the fascinating world of REM sleep? According to Matthew Walker, this is “a key trigger that rocketed Homo sapiens to the top of evolution’s lofty pyramid.” Other mammals have REM sleep cycles, but none as highly proportional as human do. Because of this, Walker posits that this has causally influenced our degree of sociocultural complexity and our cognitive intelligence. Intrigued? Read on…
With some basics behind us, are you ready to hear some of the fascinating things that happen in our bodies when we sleep? The best thing to do is read Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep, but I’ll share some of the MANY things I highlighted while reading. All excerpts below are from Walker’s book.
Have you noticed your, or family members, preferred sleep times shift over time? Early rising babies grow into late rising teens who then mature into early rising seniors. This shift happens to all of us, but deeper than that we are all born with an immutable genetically-gifted tendency towards being an early- or late-riser, one that sets our circadian rhythms – our chronotype. This adds another layer of complexity worth considering.
I haven’t slept consistently well since 1999. Sporadically I have had periods of good sleep, but they have been punctuated by things like pregnancies, babies, young children, surgeries, recoveries, repeat, repeat, repeat. I’m at a point in life where there will be no more babies and my body is feeling more comfortable in bed – it is time to reclaim my sleep!
In an effort to improve my sleep, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks digging into sleep resources, learning as much as I can. Of course, I have needed several nights to sleep on it all before sharing, but now I’m ready. Here we go, it is time for Sleep Week! My research has taught me more than I ever knew was available on a single topic – holy cow, sleep is complex and fascinating!
Immediately after writing yesterday’s post on comparing our Insides to someone else’s Outsides, I opened my podcast app to see what new gems awaited. What would I listen to while doing my floor and mobility work leading into my workout? Fridays are typically a goldmine for new episodes of my favorite shows. One that jumped out was titled “Giving Up The Embarrassment” from Battle Ready. The description almost made me want to add it to yesterday’s post but the topic deserves a post of its own. It brought me back to grad school, imaginary boxes, and then down a meandering path of pride, elementary school, reputations, ego… Let’s go.
We’ve all heard the saying “don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle” (or end, or basically anything other than their beginning). True, and fair. Today’s let’s add a twist to that by looking at comparing our Insides to someone else’s Outsides.
“It’s all about the journey.” That sounds so cliché, to the point where we no longer stop to realize the depth of the statement. Maybe we are all so busy hustling towards destinations that we don’t even want to consider the joy of the journey, forget about the triteness.
But, what if we did consider the journey? What if the destination is the journey? What if flipping it around brought exponentially more joy and satisfaction than the rush to simply arrive?
When something unexpected happens and you have an emotional response, how long do you typically hold onto that feeling? On average, because every such event is different in myriad ways. Say, someone says or does something unexpectedly rude or hurtful. Do you find yourself stewing and replaying the event, going on tangents, round and round? I’m raising my hand, because, hello, we all do this! Today I’m giving us all an exit from that, freedom in the form of the 90-second rule.
Happy First Day of Fall! I love the turning of seasons, a moment to reflect and also look ahead. Wrap things up, zoom out in order to zoom in again, take a breath, assess. Tomorrow marks 8 months post-op (Remember that? The impetus for starting this whole blog?) so today seems like a good day to assess the state of the wait.