Hello everyone, this is Helen Huang @ Sorting, based in Beijing, China.In order to better learn and practice the YiXiaoNeng Time Management System, after finished publishing 100 Chinese articles, I decided to continue writing and publishing a daily English article in another 100 days based on the "YeWuBin Time Management 100 Episodes" audio program. Today is the 123rd day.
Today's topic is: Sleep Better Must Have Tools
In our last lesson, we talked about how to improve the quality of sleep.We discussed the science behind sleep quality and even some methods you can employ, like not eating just before bed, but if there are no tools, you cannot monitor, quantify and enhance the quality of your own sleep.
Have you ever been asked this question: "Did you sleep well last night"?Usually, you answer by examining how you currently feel – whether you currently feel good or bad. If you feel alert, energetic, and refreshed, you'll say you had a good night's sleep. If you feel unfocused, tired and dull, you'll say you had a bad night's sleep.
But what if you wanted to answer more scientifically than that? Is there a way to describe the quality of your sleep using data and facts rather than our feelings?Yes, of course there is and I'm going to tell how. I am also going to recommend some tools that you can use to do this.
First, I recommend a mobile phone APP called Sleep Cycle.
Before you go to sleep at night, turn on airplane mode for your phone, then turn on this software, place your phone on the bed beside you, and make sure not to cover it, so it can begin to monitor your sleep cycle.When you wake up every morning, you can open the APP and see the length of the three cycles of sleep: deep sleep, shallow sleep and REM. The APP makes it very clear which cycle is which.
Sounds incredible right? Actually, there is something even more powerful that this APP can do for you. The sleep cycle APP can also wake you up when you are in shallow sleep, so it will not disturb your deep sleep.
I once said that the traditional alarm clock is a great destroyer of health! This is because when we have not yet developed a regular and healthy biological clock, the stiff sound of the alarm clock is likely to wake you up when you are in deep sleep.
In the previous lecture, I mentioned how important deep sleep is. It is so valuable because we only have between 30 minutes to 2 hours of deep sleep each night. If your deep sleep is disturbed, it will effect you for the rest of the day.
At one point, I was able to master my sleeping cycles so well that I had up to 5 hours of deep sleep in a single night. I used the methods we talked about in the previous lecture.
The Sleep Cycle APP can wake you up when you are in the light sleep stage. For example, if you set an alarm in the APP for 6:30 am, then you can also set an interval of 20-30 minutes. The software will then choose the best time before or after 6:30 that maximizes your deep sleep, but still wakes you up during the light phase of sleep.
This is truly amazing. However, I must mention that relatively speaking, the accuracy of the mobile phone software is not that great compared to other tools.
Therefore, next I will recommend a different solution called UP3. Unlike the mobile phone app, this is a bracelet you wear on your wrist.UP3 has since been upgraded to UP4 and there are several updates this hardware currently.
The great thing about the UP3 bracelet is that it not only monitors our sleep, but also monitors our movement and resting heart rate while we sleep and while we are awake.This hardware can be bought in the Jingdong Mall, or online atAmazon.comand many other places.
The bracelet wakes us up when we are in the light sleep phase, but its more powerful function is something called the "smart coach".It can do statistical analysis for you in accordance with your sleep time and movement data, and then it will give you customized suggestions based on that information in order to improve the quality of your sleep. It will even tell you how much you move during each sleep cycle. And using your heart rate, it will track and assess your physical condition based on the data it gathers.
I have used this hardware for two years, and I feel great. So I highly recommend it to you.
Whether you decide to use the Sleep Cycle APP or the UP3 bracelet, both will help you track, quantify, and improve the quality of your sleep to some extent.It is very important to ensure that the quality of your sleep every night is high. Because the quality of sleep will affect your physical health, as well as your brain's ability to efficiently process and convert information.
Now you not only know the science and method of powerful quality sleep, but now you have tools you can use to assess your sleep each night.The power of using effective tools!
Make sure to tune in tomorrow, when we will move onto another important means of controlling our energy – the food we eat!
That's all for the class. Thank you being with me together today. Have a wonderful day!
