refresh

Our bodies have the ability to come back better and stronger given the means to do so. Here you’ll learn how to get a great night’s sleep, the value of naps, meditation, and other ways to heal and fortify mind body and spirit.

Sleep is key, no getting around it, and those that attempt to do so at their peril.
Whereas the West is awakening to the proven scientific benefits of mindfulness and meditation.
But there's more. Not many have heard of biophilia… yet. There's credible science it's real.

In essence refresh is about:

how we regenerate, recharge and rebuild: body, mind and spirit.

Sleep.  Along with obesity, sleep is one of the most serious health issues confronting our modern lives.
Further, the two are related.

Like nutrition we kid ourselves if we think sleep is a simple subject.
It is not.
Science is still struggling to unravel the mysteries of sleep – what it is, how much we need and how best to get it.

Which is why folks who "hack" sleep do so at their peril.
Hacking what we poorly understand in the first place is about as clever as bleeding the sick was not all that long ago.

If your sleep is poor, you'll most likely run around impaired, zombied or feel bad; perform poorly and be at greater risk of illness, disease, premature ageing, and accidents up to and including death.  Serious stuff.

To make matters worse? Remember "perform poorly"? ( please say yes ).
That impaired judgement includes your awareness your judgement has become impaired in the first place.
Can you say vicious circle?

To top it all off this feeds into a variety of delusions.  As our performance degrades over time, we may not even be aware of how impaired we are overall, thinking we're jusssst fine, when in fact every facet of our lives may have faded into shadows of what they ought to be.

The irony is we often sacrifice sleep to be more productive and become anything but.

A contributing delusion is this whole 4 hours or less sleep bravado thing.  It's like facebook posts… sure… everyone tries to appear they're überwo/man, while nearly nobody is.  If you could put a candid camera on your colleague bragging how little sleep they require, you'll likely find them narcoleptic, repeatedly dozing off out of sight (sometimes not) when they're hoping nobody's looking.

• Only a tiny fraction ( likely 1% - 3% of the population ) qualify as those officially recognized as "short-sleepers" (aka/glamorized as "the sleepless elite").  Short-sleepers most likely have a genetic pre-disposition to live well on less sleep, meaning not only is it highly improbable you are a special snowflake, it's equally doubtful you can magik yourself into one.
  Which is why the 1/3 of the public who try to be end up the "chronically sleep deprived" instead.
  True short-sleepers may or may not be high-achievers.
  On a very few hours sleep they…
  • don't find themselves inadvertently dozing off;
  • don't require caffeine;
  • are energetic, happy optimistic and upbeat;
  • perform well under objective measures.

Those last 4 are helpful rules of thumb as to if you are indeed getting enough or more likely are simply fooling yourself.

These are the latest sleep-time recommendations from experts at National Sleep Foundation:

Age	Sleep Recommended
Newborns (0-3 months)	14-17 hours / day
Infants (4-11 months)	12-15 hours / day
Toddlers (1-2 years)	11-14 hours / day
Preschoolers (3-5)	10-13 hours / day
School age children (6-13)	9-11 hours / day
Teenagers (14-17)	8-10 hours / day
Younger adults (18-25)	7-9 hours / day
Adults (26-64)	7-9 hours / day
Older adults (65+)	7-8 hours / day

Like so many serious life problems that plague our modern age,
and make no mistake – this is one,
the first step to recovery is our acknowledging we have a problem in the first place.

I've battled with "bad sleep hygiene" personally and am someone "in recovery".
I invite you and those you love to join me in making the sandman our best friend vs. our insidious foe.

If you're part of simplerfitness' fast-track I'll be helping you get some quality kip (sleep) as part of it.
Otherwise… stay tuned… sleep is of critical importance and I'll be expanding how to improve yours as time permits.