Module 1
Takes a lot of discipline and hard work.
Goal – as many waking hours every day to achieve goals while still being healthy.

How sleep works
5 stage cycle

Stage 1
Transition between wakefulness and sleep
Light sleep, easily waken
Brain waves slow down
Lasts around 5-10 minutes

Stage 2
Body temp begins to decrease
Heart rate slows down
Preps body for deep sleep
Lasts around 20 minutes
Still light sleep

Stage 3
Delta Waves (Slow brain waves). Paralyse our bodies to allow to heal properly.
Transition from light to deep sleep
Body makes repairs.

Stage 4
Slow brain waves. Delta.
Paralysis
Deeper than 3
Turning the machine off so that we can repair it.

REM
Rapid Eye movement
Eye movement, increased respiration and brain activity (Dreams)
Enter around 90 minutes after falling asleep
Typically lasts around 10 minutes

Stage 1-2 Light Sleep
3-4 Deep Sleep
5 REM – stimulates brain areas for learning and making or retaining memories

Deepest sleep occur in first four hours, then tapers off.
Hacking sleep is about training self to achieve quality sleep.
Increase sleep quality. Can operate at high level while sleeping less time.

Quantity vs Quality.

Lecture 2
Quality Vs Quantity + Deep Sleep

How to improve sleep quality?
Improve ability to get deep sleep.
Focus on understanding deep sleep and how to get more of it.
Restorative both mentally and physically. Deep sleep makes biggest difference.
Failure to get deep sleep has highest correlation with day-time impairment. Tiredness, drowsiness, headaches, aches and inability to focus.

First 4-5 is when you get the most deep sleep. Diminishing returns to extra time in bed. If you optimise first 4-5 hours can sleep less and feel great and energised. Why sleep hacking is possible.

The 90 Minute Misnomer
Sleep cycle in 90 min period. Wake wrong time mixes you up.
Wrong. Cycles can take from 1-2 hours. Vary from person and day to day. Too unpredictable to say when to wake up.

We are able to control many of the variables in our lives that affect the quality and quantity of deep sleep.

Module 2
Body temperature
Light exposure
Consumption (Diet)

Body Temperature
Rises and falls through day and night
Affects alertness and energy, how tired and how much quality sleep we get.
Body temp increase makes us more awake
Fluctuation of around 2 degrees a day. F?
If your body temp is too flat or doesn’t drop low enough for a long period of time it will be difficult to sleep deeply.
Higher peak temp during day, lower it will be during day.
Deeper trough = deeper sleep

Variables
Activeness
Consistency
Sunlight
Environment

Melatonin – sleep hormone. Produced as sun goes down. High melatonin = good sleep
Lack of sunlight results in melatonin production
More exposure to high intensity lighting inhibits melatonin, makes it difficult to go to sleep.
High melatonin makes us tired because it lowers our body temp.

Big different in light strength (lux) between lights and sunlight.

Ideally lots of light exposure during day.
Limited as we prepare for bed and during sleeping hours.

(Old people sleep less as ability to produce melatonin decreases with age)

Consumption
Diet, hydration, toxins like alcohol and tobacco

Module 3
Exercise, consistency, light exposure

Exercise
Exercise causes our body temp to rise to a greater peak which increases our energy level throughout the day.
Spike in temp while we’re awake causes a greater and more sustained temp drop in evening.
Allows you to be awake and alert longer.
Greater peak during day, lower trough during night.
Temp drop causes more deep sleep and fewer awakenings.

20-30 min a day. Aim for 5 days a week.

Don’t exercise 3 hours before bed. Stimulates brain and heart rate, also body temp up.

Skipping physical in the morning will have negative effect on sleep system over days. 1 extra hour sleep not same effect as going to gym.

Consistency.
Our bodies love consistency
Means we should go to bed and wake up around the same time everyday.

Why?
Regulate 2 variables – sunlight amount and stabilise body temp cycle.
Weekends count.

Optimising Light Exposure During the Day
Get light as early as possible. Melatonin and serotonin. Switch from one to the other.
Light also effects body temp.
Open curtains as soon as you get up.
Don’t wear sunglasses in morning or evening.
Sunglasses can block 20-90% of sunlight that enters your eyes.
Maybe try to have sunglasses off at points in the day for energy.

Optimising Light Exposure During the Evening
Electronic screens are evil. Blue light. Similar effects to high intensity sunlight.
Cut out 1.5-2 hours before bed.
Can wear sunglasses and still watch TV and stuff. Hmm.

Section 4
Consumption and Sleep
Stimulants
Aspirin can have caffeine.
The Effects of Alcohol. Affects quality. Suppresses deep and REM sleep. Dehydration and sugar.
Not amount of sleep it’s the quality of sleep that’s important. Stimulant, then depressant. So stop before bed.

The Importance of Hydration
Body still working while asleep. Dehydration stops us from executing many things (especially oxygenation.) Inhibiting sleep. Stops body temp adjusting properly.

Needing to piss at night.
1.5 hours before bed. 230ml in last 1.5 hour so fuck all.
Saw Palmetto. Vitamin.
Do wake use red torch.

Good Food Good Sleep
Digestion – blood flow to stomach. Low blood flow to brain = bad sleep as brain needs to run sleep.

The more demand we put on digestive system while we sleep, the less resources we can allocate towards executing all the processes required to achieve a restful sleep.

Avoid taxing foods – high in fat, sugar, simple carbs.
Eat lightly in evening, not too close to bedtime. 2 hours before. Digest before.
Big meal – 4 hours.

Sleeping Aids
Melatonin etc.
Short term fix.
Side effects. Chemicals can stay in your blood for 6 days. Can cause daytime tiredness etc.
Depress activity of brain. Force low brain waves. Sleep will be low quality.
No shortcuts, just make great habits.

Section 5
Environment and Sleep Practices

The perfect sleep temperature
Too cold or too hot can wake us up.
Bodies designed to sleep best at cooler body temps. Good for deep sleep.
Evolved outside beside fire. Too comfortable.
65-70 degrees. 18-21 (22-23)
Depends on person.

Overcoming noise.
Abrupt noise wakes you up
Ear plugs
White noise – fan.

Your Bed is your Sanctuary
Only for sleeping and fucking and fisting
Do not do stimulating stuff. Associate bed with activities rather than just going to sleep.
Create state anchor – when you enter your bed you want your body to invoke a natural sleep response.
Achieved through habit.
Bedding – just find what works for you. Don’t effect your brain waves.

Optimal Breathing for Sleep
If you can’t breathe easily won’t have quality sleep
Quick fix – breath right nasal strips. When sick. Promote breathing through the nose.

Mouth breathing reduces oxygenation of body.
Germs get into body
More likely to get sick due to increased capacity of cold air into your lungs.

Sleep Posture
Sleep on front – pressure on organs. Bad for back.
Train yourself to sleep on back or side.

Section 6
Waking up, napping and falling asleep

Waking up
If we wake at the wrong time we will be groggy. Better to wake in light sleep cycle or REM.
Alarm clocks often wake us in the middle of a deep sleep.
When come out of deep sleep feel tired and groggy for first few hours.

Two solutions
Don’t use alarm clock
Use smart wake alarm. Jawbone. Smartphone. Sleep cycle.

Falling Asleep and combatting restlessness
Plan next day. Make external brain – put all the stuff out of your brain to come back to the next day. Notepad next to bed with flashlight.

Avoid mind racing activities before bed. Identify what activities get you wired up and then avoid them. Cut music past 10 or 11.

After 30 minutes restless in bed perform new activity to change your state of mind to take yourself from frustration/anxiety of not falling asleep.

Best pre-bedtime activities
Meditation
Reading
Stretching
Night walk
Hot shower 60-90 before bed. Makes body temp spikes and then fall.

Napping – what you need to know.
Powerful. Einstein, DaVinci, Franklin, Churchill
Afternoon nap can increase productivity by 35% and improve decision making capability by up to 50%.

45-60 minutes or less to avoid entering deep sleep.
Waking from deep sleep will result in grogginess.
Longer naps can advance circadian – making it harder to fall asleep.

Best time to nap – afternoon slump. 6-8 hours after you wake.
Ideal nap should not affect ability to sleep at night. Afternoon better.

Guided sleep meditation pzizz.
Playlist – meditation/quiet music, then louder one.

Module 7
Key takeaways and Personal Results
Action plan.
Improvement in quality of sleep starts with actions during day
Can get an extra month of time each year – 2 hours a day saved.

Putting into context
Be realistic about your adherence
Interested? Likely to be successful. What habits do you want to build?
Start with 1-2 habits – start with easiest. Get momentum.
Too much at once more likely to fail.

As you improve sleep you start to notice you don’t need as much. Start reducing 20 minutes at a time. Until you get to level you’re happy with.

I’m not an oracle, I don’t know things for sure, I’m probably wrong about a bunch of things. These are just thoughts going through the mind of a dude who thinks about things a lot and has a tendency to consider worst case scenarios as part of his nature. First part is probably good for anyone but if you’re already stressed out maybe give the second part a miss.

Immediate

Behaviour of people

As discussed in my emotional processing theory I believe people are averting their attention from the pain and fear of uncertainty by resorting to fantasy and seeking proof. Look for minor things to be upset about, people to be angry at, conspiracy theories, but the truth at the heart of it is fear, however they avoid dealing with the core emotion as per these theories.

Majority of people usually constrained by what is deemed socially acceptable – we are monkeys, social animals, to be rejected by the group meant death, so usually the strongest motivator in normal, peaceful conditions. Now other people have become a source of danger and the illusion of the societal group is broken, people are acting according to their own individualist primal monkey survival instincts. That monkey has a berry, if I have two berries, or better yet three, my chances of survival are better. Hence toilet paper.

So idea is to be ahead of the mob. I ignored this situation as I do most other news until toilet paper disappeared, at which point I began paying attention because the mob’s behaviour had now intruded into my world – reasonably rare or even unprecedented in my lifetime. So I felt some unease, took good action, bought a 2 week buffer of food before the mob switched from TP to food, out of my own survival instinct wanting access to staples if the TP panic moved to other items. At the same time I purchased a buffer of medications for the same reason, and they are now limited in how much you can buy. I didn’t hoard, but I took enough to give me time to wait for more should supply be interrupted when I want it.

As far as being ahead of the mob now, I can’t see too much else I need that they could take, beyond that I look at preparing for the economic repercussions, which people are rarely talking about in comparison to the virus, which is pointless to me.

Mob behaviour will probably last until social pressure is reinstated – fat arse Instagram hoes taking videos of themselves buying just enough food, everyone adapting to the new norm. I don’t think the British solidarity in the face of the Blitz etc was immediate from memory of what I’ve read. It took time to coalesce.

Personal Conduct

Trust instincts. If you have health issues do what feels right, listen to your fear. Reminds me of being young and getting in a car with a drunk driver because everyone else was. Don’t place societal norms and pressures above your instincts.

Be aware being confined and possibly sick, worried etc that you will be more easy to provoke. If you have an ex, are in a relationship, have people you shouldn’t upset be cognisant of this. Make a conscious effort now that you have more free time to dedicate some of it to meditation, Wim Hof method (increases white blood cells too), whatever you need to do to expel some of your pent up frustration. (My ex is frustrating me more than normal, she’s like a stubborn mule whose life is ruled by fear and inertia and anytime I want to make something happen with the kids I have to anticipate a multi-day process of taking shit from her as she processes the request. But who’s more retarded – the mule or the dude angry at it for being a mule?)

Limit inputs – don’t start day with worry and stressful inputs, don’t end day with it either. Limit social media and news consumption, be smart about when you consume it also. Only consume what you need to plan your strategy for the coming days. Lockdown information, economic mostly. Maybe health but not much is going to change there for a little while, and is largely irrelevant if you’re not in an at risk group and considering what will follow the storm of the virus.

If you’re dead you’re dead, and you can’t do much about that. What you can do is plan for the economic crisis to follow if you’re alive for it.

Financial Situation

Seen credible publications say this could be the beginning of a depression. Unprecedented – no one has seen the world basically press the hold button on the global economy. Caveat with this is I know very little about economics, I’m not predicting anything, I’m considering possibilities/worst case scenarios that seem possible/likely to me given consideration of the larger picture evolving here. Also I am by nature a worrier, which can be troublesome but also has its uses. I’m aware of that and it is why I chose not to consume news for the last two years, I’m not freaking out, but considering what could happen, and what I would need to do to make myself feel secure no matter what lies ahead.

Possible depression?

We all know the depression was a calamitous time in world history. I don’t know that it will happen, as I said I know I know little about economics but I have the sense that the true price was never really paid for the 2008 GFC by those who should have paid it, the lesson that needed to be learned, not. As far as I am aware most countries have not been flourishing, as evidenced by the fact that none of them had much room to influence things with lowered interest rates etc. Japan, the 3^rd largest economy  has been a cunt hair away from recession or in recession for the past twenty or thirty years. US in great debt, lots of QE having occurred in the recent past in many countries. It just doesn’t feel like a strong foundation to withstand a shock like this.

I’m now reading a book called Freedom from Fear – The American People in Depression and War to try to get a chronology of what happened after Black Thursday Oct 24 1929. Some parallels are quite interesting so far – prior to the great depression the US had experienced 3 decades of growth and prosperity, but all economies were still reeling/not fully recovered from the shock of WW1 11-15 years earlier. Stocks had risen to ridiculous levels, with people investing heavily in new radio technologies, seen as emblematic of America’s push into the future.

I’m not saying there definitely will be a depression, I’m just considering it. But it is also not impossible just because we have mobile phones and electric cars. In the lead up to the great depression the US had seen the advent of the mass-produced automobile, movies, radio, flight. It seemed like an incredible time to them too, the future more than likely a continuing upward trajectory. Here are some quotes from the time from President Herbert Hoover or referencing him. Keep in mind black Thursday occurred Oct 24 1929.

July 27, 1928

“The outlook of the world today is for the greatest era of commercial expansion in history. The rest of the world will become better customers.”

August 11, 1928

“Unemployment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing. . . . We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.

November, 1929

“Any lack of confidence in the economic future or the basic strength of business in the United States is foolish.”

January 21, 1930

“Definite signs that business and industry have turned the corner from the temporary period of emergency that followed deflation of the speculative market were seen today by President Hoover. The President said the reports to the Cabinet showed that the tide of employment had changed in the right direction.” – Washington dispatch

March 8, 1930

“President Hoover predicted today that the worst effect of the crash upon unemployment will have been passed during the next sixty days.”—Washington dispatch

Unemployment dropped to pre-crash levels in 1942, thirteen years later thanks to WW2 manufacturing.

Pivot.

Not knowing what the future looks like on a practical level I want to be as self-sufficient as I can be. I already have all the gear I would need to live in a park if I got kicked out of my place tonight. All I can think of at the moment that I would like is the ability to create my own electricity – portable solar, battery and a small laptop to charge off it along with phone etc. and I could be happy and functional pretty much anywhere. Worst case scenario it’ll be stuff I want when I go hunting again in the future.

I’ve ordered a few books, one is about surviving system collapse, just to see what the hardcore people have thought up, save me thinking every angle myself, anything I want to have prepared for just in case.

Financial. I have bought things already anticipating possible closure of non-essential stores. Other items I can wait on I can wait until people become financially stressed and start selling things off, I can get better prices then. Stores will also have big sales. Better to sell things now if I want to while the reality of even a recession hasn’t hit people. Studying this book to see how long things took and people reacted – already I’ve found out that some people don’t connect the crash to the depression – as you see in the quotes above people weren’t really seeing the forest for the trees until the bottom fell out properly. Still working through that.

For myself I’ve raised financial in my prioritised value system – this changes what I do, what I study etc. The self-improvement and introspection I’ve been doing are on hold until I feel I’ve got a hold on the current external situation. Guess I’m improved enough.

I’m studying personal finances and budgeting on Coursera now – a free course. I talked in episode 4 about my ‘3 of 3 degrees’ system where I would do work in Leadership (of myself, my life/for kids), creativity, and study most days. Practical leadership life actions have now taken precedence, along with study, creative not so much. Writing this now I would include as leadership as it allows me to solidify these concepts, which will allow me to get a clearer picture of my thoughts as time goes on.

I had the goal of living in a place with a pool, just as encouragement to aim for a more comfortable life in the future but now that’s not seeming so likely. In a worst case scenario a shed with dirt for vegetable gardens would be ideal. Not just out of fear or subsistence, but because there are huge opportunities in times of crisis and if that were the case I would want to save every penny I could to put into the business understanding that with time that frugality would pay bigger dividends. With my business, if I could keep my head above water while other went down I could start cleaning up and building up, buying cheap gear second hand, a better class of job applicants etc.

But that’s all pie in the sky stuff. At the moment I just consider what the worst could be, what I would do if that were the case, and I can scale back if it’s not as bad and take no action that would affect me negatively if things turned out to be not so bad. Just being cautious. Not betting the farm on anything, just being aware.

Then I go on to say how it’s awesome I’ve had a shit life because my high tide mark for suffering and lack of agency and feeling pain is so high I could be a great position to capitalise on whatever stress and challenges come at me given the new base I’ve created for myself in terms of how I live my life, deal with stressors and create and be productive. Finally this just copying a comment I wrote earlier:

I guess the takeaway point is I’ve had a pretty shitful life haha, most of it has been a crisis, so I’ve had to learn over the years to accept not having control over my life and float with the current, see where I wash up and then start working again. Struggling against the current, trying to hold onto the way you want things to be, just causes pain and saps energy and emotional reserves. Let go and back yourself to dig deep and kick arse when you wash up wherever you end up.