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Adventures of Mattman: Ask Not What Good Sleep Can Do For You…

For the longest time, I have focused on the benefits that great sleep can have on your life.

Sleep superheroes all have shared abilities of the body, like regeneration, faster reactions, creative thoughts and problem-solving, nightly weight loss, and my favorite HGH Growth hormone to get strong and stay young!

I think most people if given a choice, would choose all of those benefits if they were as easy as swiping on their phones or pressing a button on a TV remote. 

The reality is most people do not get the science fiction-level benefits from sleep. Nobody ever really taught us how to sleep. Our parents turned off the lights, closed the door, and said goodnight. We were expected to figure it out from there.

When I realized this myself and began learning habits to help me sleep better at night, I came to an epic misquote that I love to say loud and proud: Ask not what better sleep can do for you, but ask, what can you do for better sleep?! 

Oh boy. When I say loud and proud, you’ll hear me quoting this from a few houses down the street.

My wife rolls her eyes which tells me this must be a very good parody quote. But it is so true! If you expect after one night to get the benefits of good sleep and keep those benefits without any effort, your mindset is wrong.

Instead, decisions I make throughout the day are made with my bedtime tonight in mind. Should I eat that? Should I drink that? Should I sit here and continue gaming or do I need to go for a walk?

Every time I come across a situation where I could procrastinate, I ask myself, “does doing this task improve my sleep tonight?” If the answer is yes, there is no debate. It must be done or at least begun! 

I don’t drink caffeine after 9:30 a.m. and I rotate three days on and two days off with coffee and tea. I can’t drink coffee every day or I get fidgety and don’t sleep as deeply.

I plan out my bedtime and wake-up times so I don’t accidentally stay up too late or sleep in. I eat certain foods every day to help my good gut bacteria flourish. I eat nutritious food so that my body can make as much melatonin, serotonin, and all the other hormones that regulate my body and affect how well I sleep at night. And the list goes on.

In the immortal words of Jocko Willink and Leif Babbin in their book Extreme Ownership, “Discipline will set you free.” When I attack the day with the mindset of what can I do for better sleep, I continue to be amazed at what I am cape-able of.

My best weeks are the week after my best weeks. And in my best weeks, I was losing focus and veering off my game plan. However, I’ve been in that mode enough now to recognize what wide awake feels like and I’ll continue to shoot for consecutive weeks of best weeks.

Better sleep is achievable for everybody. You can always sleep better than last night and always be learning to sleep better with every night.

But you need to decide that you are going to do it.

Once you realize the control you actually have, you will be on your way to sleeping like a superhero!

Good morning superpower seekers! My name is Mattman SirCapesAlot. I’m the comfortable caped crusader. I teach and preach the Game Plan for Better Sleep! I’m the resident Sleep Superhero on the Sweet Dreams Mattress & Furniture of Lake Norman Dream Team. I am also part of the FAM crew from FAM.news where you can find mattress and furniture industry info, intel, and good people! If you are interested in growing your local independent business, check it out!  And be sure to tune into the audio version of this article for a deeper dive into the information and happenings in a day in the life of a Sleep Superhero.

And speaking of Superheroes, Dreams 4 All needs help to serve more people! If you would like to make a monetary donation to the Dreams 4 All Foundation that believes nobody deserves to sleep on the floor, please text us at 704-706-2436. You can text us if you would like to see about doing this in your local community as well! We are always looking for more superheroes to join the ranks!

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