Sleep is quite possibly the best medicine on account of how cheap it is and how many scalable benefits it provides. Yet many of us fail to prioritize it.
Aside from ensuring we get 7-9 hours and go to bed and wake up at the same time everyday…Something else which drastically helps our happiness, discipline, and energy is not hitting the snooze button.
We go in and out of sleep cycles which last an hour to an hour and a half. Getting nine more minutes—even thirty more minutes of sleep, doesn’t help us. It actually does some damage. This is why we rarely feel well-rested after a few taps on our phone. We’re just prolonging the inevitable.
My advice sounds crazy: Just jump right up and start your day. You’ll be tired, often exhausted…but it truly is a habit you can develop. It helps if you get your brain working almost immediately. After drinking a full glass of cold water to hydrate, do some reading or writing to let your brain know, “we’re working today.”
Also, download the free app SleepCycle. I’ve been using it for years and it ensures you wake up at the lightest level of sleep during whichever cycle you’re in.
Matthew Walker also has a phenomenal book on the intricacies of sleep called Why We Sleep.