Sleeping. 

One of the most profound and surreal experiences of being alive. Sleep is extremely essential when it comes to our well being, and a handful of people truly realise that, and by a few I am talking about a couple hundred million people out of 7 billion plus. Take some time to reflect on the most recent incident when you were sleep deprived, thought about it? Good! I am sure you were not at your optimum or peek performing state. Resting is one of the Ks (constants) when it come to productivity, believe you me. The more rested you are the more likely you will have the right bounce in your step and the right neurones firing up in your cortex. 

Speaking of sleep, what is the ideal amount of hours that one should be consciously unconscious? 

Some people say six, others say seven, eight . . . while others say four to five hours is enough to get your engine revved up once more. Well, similar to my tip about being different and having to try different diets to see what works for you - you have got to do the same. My advise to go about this is to ensure that you are sleeping at the same time everyday and choose your time wisely. When I initially experimented on this, I decided to sleep at 9:00p.m for about two weeks to see when I would naturally wake up. Each night I would wake up a few minutes into 4:00a.m and I realised my rest hours was about 7 hours. The best part about it is that I would fight the urge to go back to sleep because it is only 4:00 am and would begin my day. I also noticed that when I went back to bed and woke up at a later time, let us say roughly 6:00a.m I would actually be drained and would not want to leave my 'precious' bed. Thus my advice is, once you find out your magic hours and your body tunes itself to waking up at that time, do not go back to bed, immediately wake up, do something, workout, write, meditate, play an instrument, do something, do anything! you will notice the changes, and like Miss Grande said, thank you, NEXT.

Next on the topic of sleeping is connecting to what I mentioned earlier about being consciously unconscious. You have to mentally prepare your mind for sleep. The irony in that statement. Mentally prepare your mind! Ha! Anyways, it is what it is - I bet you said it (if you know you know). 

I digress, what I mean by that is that a few minutes close to your clock out time, you need to put your tech away, put away your phone, laptop, smartwatch, and any other gadget that would pull you away from slumberland. Next, ensure that you have some extra minutes of peace of mind, let your mind relax, close your eyes. When you notice your mind drifting into issues or worries, bring it back to being consciously unconscious, breath in and out, remember to relax and allow your mind to drift away potentially into nothingness. I found out that I tend to have better sleep when I put my devices away and follow this ritual in comparison to when I drift off while watching a show on Netflix or elsewhere.

On the topic of better sleep and waking up with a spring in ones step, I have found that when I sleep on an empty stomach or after a very light meal I not only sleep better but also wake up easily and in a better mood. I have put this to the test so many times, majority of the times passively as my love for food is really real, but there is a huge difference between waking up from a night of salad and a night of hotel buffet topped off with a midnight snack. Simply put, digestion is a cumbersome task. Just like walking, running, and thinking, digesting food takes a lot from us and thus the more you eat the more energy your body will require to digest it. 

It as simple as that and that is all folks.