Why missing a night of sleep can damage your IQ

Poppy potential.

Why missing a night of sleep can damage your IQ

Katie Pisa, for CNN

'Thinking Business' focuses on the psychology of getting ahead in the workplace
by exploring techniques to boost employee performance, increase creativity and productivity.
London (CNN)From Napoleon Bonaparte and Margaret Thatcher

to Twitter founder and Square, Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey and Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer,

many successful leaders have claimed they only need 4-5 hours of precious sleep a night.

They seem wired differently and shame the rest of us for craving eight hours of shut eye 

every night. But for the majority of us - including many top CEOs and world leaders - 

this is certainly not the case, according to Dr. Tara Swart, 

an international neuroscientist and CEO of The Unlimited Mind.

Missing a night of sleep can have quite a "devastating" effect on our performance, Swart says.

"One to two percent of the population can survive on four hours of sleep a night," said Swart,

"but 7-8 hours is optimal for most of us," she claims.

Could the secret to success in your professional lives be linked to how well you sleep?

"There's a very strong correlation between restfulness and leadership," according to Jessica Payne, associate professor and director of the Sleep Stress and Memory Lab 

at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

"The majority of people need seven to nine hours of sleep and the majority of people

don't get that much," cites Payne. It's as important as diet and exercise, she added.

Long term damage

While many of us skimp on sleep for years, thinking we can either make up for it at the weekend

or another time, these long-term habits can add up to big trouble. The problems really strike

after many years of doing this, said Payne. Memory problems, issues with decision-making,

lack of creativity and regulating personal emotions are some of the first areas to be diminished

by lack of sleep, according to Payne.

Social ability and emotional stability are linked to sleep, and a sleep deficit can be

a "huge problem for leadership," says Payne. A lack of it makes us irritable, she said,

and many of us don't understand how key sleep is in regulating your emotions

and interacting with others both in the workplace and at home.

Swart, who trained as a doctor and specialised in psychiatry, then followed her passion

for neuroscience and after working as a psychiatrist for seven years,

is now a coach for leading executives and financiers.

What she didn't expect when she started her research into sleep were the "shocking" health consequences many of her clients suffered by abusing the need for sleep.

"So many of my clients have had heart attacks and nervous breakdowns," she says,

even those in their forties. While much of it is due to information overload

and uncertainty in today's world, a great deal of illnesses are due to higher levels of cortisol

from stress, which in turns leads to difficulty sleeping, she said.

On top of the obvious health risks, when you have any sleep disturbance,

your IQ drops by 5-8 IQ points, explained Swart. While we can usually carry on,

albeit a bit more groggy, studies show that when we miss a night of sleep,

our IQ drops by 1 standard deviation,

meaning you'll be "operating as if you've got a learning disability," she said.

Coaching to sleep

What do experts recommend to overcome sleep challenges for leaders?

Both Swart and Payne do a lot of coaching for executives, CEOs, CFOs

and financial industry leaders in particular. The coaching takes place either on a personal level

or in sort of retreat-style group setting where colleagues go away to focus for a day

maybe four times per year. Similar to using a personal trainer at the gym,

these increasingly popular type of consultants, or coaches, push their clients in terms of leadership.

Swart says she uses various techniques including a food diary or a questionnaire

that looks at the physical, spiritual and mental health around each individual.

Wearable technology has helped too, claims Swart,

as many clients love seeing data and tracking their sleep in this way.

Poor "sleep hygiene" is linked to everything from how late in the day we drink caffeine and alcohol, to looking at the blue light of our computer screens less than an hour before we go to sleep.

Other tips from Swart include using certain aromas to help sleep,

blackout curtains and eating at least an hour and a half before going to sleep.

Power napping

We've all heard the term "power nap", but what few realize is the literal truth to those words.

Both Swart and Payne stressed the importance of naps as one of the most significant steps

in becoming a successful individual and leader.

"I dream of one day having a cubicle where everyone can have a nap," said Payne.

"We're a long way from that, but it's absolutely right for everyone

who wants to enhance their performance. It has a huge effect."

Even if you don't go to sleep, incorporating a "mindfulness period" or "restful wakefulness",

will help relieve stress and rejuvenate the brain, in turn making leaders more effective

and better at their jobs, claims Payne.

The most famous example of a company embracing this advice is Google,

well-known for their nap parties and pods where employees can go in and curl up.

Swart said though she advises a 90-minute nap to get the most creative benefits,

most of the leaders she's coaching don't have time to do it.

So a focus on other mindfulness techniques and rest periods is often encouraged too.

Payne agrees, adding that mindfulness training, whether it's sleep or meditation,

will help to relieve the stress system. "It's the new frontier," she said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/01/business/sleep-and-leadership/index.html?iid=INTL_SPC

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blog:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    for extra TCR information

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Five Ways To Never Be Stressed Again

Goat's beard simply doing its own thing successfully. 

Five Ways To Never Be Stressed Again

Everybody feels stress and knows it intimately, 

but very few of us think about what stress actually is.

Stress is a thought. That’s it. No more, no less.

If that’s true, then we have complete control over stress,

because it’s not something that happens to us but something that happens in us.

The dictionary definition of stress is, “bodily or mental tension resulting

from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium.” It is your thoughts out of balance.

The medical definition of stress is, “the perception of a real or imagined threat to your body

or your ego.” It could be a tiger chasing you or your belief that your spouse is mad at you

(even if he or she is not). Whether it is real or imagined, when you perceive something 

as stressful, it creates the same response in the body.

A cascade of adrenaline, cortisol, and other stress hormones floods your system,

raising your heart rate, increasing your blood pressure, making your blood more likely to clot, damaging your brain’s memory center, increasing belly fat storage,

and generally wreaking havoc on your body.

The operative word here about stress is that it is a perception, also known as a thought

or point of view. There are objective stressors, to be sure—war, death of loved ones,

financial troubles, starvation, dental work. But how these affect us determines our body’s stress response. Imagine Woody Allen and James Bond, each with a gun pointed at his head—

same external stressor but entirely different responses.

When I was very sick with chronic fatigue, barely able to work, a single father with two kids,

thinking I had to go on disability, I worried constantly. I couldn’t sleep and everything

seemed stressful. Then, a wise man told me I had to stop worrying. I argued with him strenuously, providing a comprehensive list of all the real external events 

that were stressful to me.

He just kept repeating that worrying was toxic; he said, what really mattered was

how I viewed the situation, and he kept telling me I just needed to stop worrying.

And slowly, very slowly, I trained myself to watch my thoughts, my perceptions,

and when a stressful thought came into my head, I stopped, took a deep breath, and just let go.

It’s like a muscle—it gets stronger the more you use it, but if you let go, it relaxes.

But of course, life takes over and things happen, all the “D’s:” divorce, death, deadlines, demands, dumb thoughts, and dumb schedules. 

And as anyone does, I get sucked in to negative thinking, which creates stress in my body. 

My sleep gets interrupted, my muscles get tight, my mood gets cranky, 

but then I breathe and remember that stress is all in my head. 

We get so attached to our way of thinking, to our beliefs

and attitudes about the way things should be or shouldn’t be, that it makes us sick.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t respond to injustice or experience intense feelings of joy, happiness, sadness, loss, or pain. I do. But I try just to be fully in them when they come,

then experience the next moment, then the next and the next,

and just show up with my whole self with love and attention. That’s the only thing I can do.

Most people, when they look at my life, think I’m crazy and wonder why I’m not more stressed—running a medical practice; writing books and blogs; teaching all over the world;

working on health policy; volunteering in Haiti, churches, and orphanages; being a father, son, brother, partner, friend, boss, and more. But it’s actually quite simple.

I don’t worry about things much. I simply wake up and do the next thing as best I can.

And when things get out of control, which they do, I simply make a gentle U-turn.

It’s like a GPS for my soul. Your GPS doesn’t yell at you and call you stupid

or judge you for taking a wrong turn.

In the sweetest voice imaginable, the GPS reminds you to take the next possible U-turn.

Each of us has to find out how to make our own U-turn.

There are some wonderful ways I have discovered that work very well for me!

Here’s how I make my U-turns (and I try to pick one or more each day):

Move. The best way to burn off the stress hormones without having to change your thinking

is to move and sweat. Run, dance, jump, ride, swim, stretch, or skip—do something vigorous

and lively. Yoga is also fabulous, as it combines movement and breathing.

Breathe. Most of us hold our breath often or breathe swallow, anxious breaths.

Deep, slow, full breaths have a profound affect on resetting the stress response,

because the relaxation nerve (or vagus nerve and not the Las Vegas nerve)

goes through your diaphragm and is activated with every deep breath.

Take five deep breaths now, and observe how differently you feel after.

Bathe. For the lazy among us (including me), an UltraBath is a secret weapon against stress.

Add 2 cups of Epsom salt (which contains magnesium, the relaxation mineral),

a half-cup of baking soda, and 10 drops of lavender oil (which lowers cortisol) to a very hot bath. Then, add one stressed human and soak for 20 minutes. Guaranteed to induce relaxation.

Sleep. Lack of sleep increases stress hormones. Get your eight hours no matter what. 

Take a nap if you missed your sleep. Prioritize sleep.

Think Differently. Practice the art of noticing stress, noticing how your thinking 

makes you stressed. Practice taking deep breaths and letting go of worry.

Try Byron Katie’s four questions to break the cycle of “stinkin’ thinkin’” that keeps you stressed.

You can also try my UltraCalm CD, featuring guided mediations and relaxation techniques.

Also, I highly recommend tapping, a technique that combines ancient Chinese acupressure

and modern psychology. Pick up a copy of Nick Ortner’s new book The Tapping Solution 

to learn more. Another great stress-relief technique to try is Holosync, an audio technology

designed by the Centerpointe Research Institute, which instantly (and effortlessly)

puts you into states of deep meditation—literally, at the push of a button.

Visit Centerpointe’s website to find out more.

Also, check out meQuilibrium, a digital coaching system created by experts to change

the way you respond to stress. It teaches specific skills to help you get a handle

on all of the emotional, physical, and lifestyle imbalances that keep you from feeling your best.

Enjoy, and happy U-turns!

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, MD

http://drhyman.com/blog/2013/04/26/five-ways-to-never-be-stressed-again/#openModal

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blog:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.turbochargedreading.blogspot.com    for extra TCR information

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com         just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

The art of resting fully.

"I fully agree with this article and have practiced this for years especially the years I’ve been chronically fatigued which is a different kettle of fish!

What you will find is; if you put your alarm on for 20 minutes that in a week or so you will be able to just lie down, nap and wake up in 20 minutes without the alarm. I understand that lorry drivers are adept at setting a nap time. Apparently my granny used to say that she’d just have 10 minutes in her rocking chair and she always woke up in 10 minutes time.

Similarly, if you time yourself 20-30 minutes and then stand up from your studies with an oxygenating stretch being beneficial before going back to your work. You will find that you do not lose concentration; you do not lose the flow but that you can maintain a high level of work for as long as you want or need to.
You might wish to scroll down and check out my article Grounding in the Centre of your Space to find more about being able to go to sleep at night." M'reen

The art of resting fully

by Yan

I didn’t sleep enough last night. But I have a ninja trick to quickly cor­rect this:

I prac­tice the art of rest­ing fully. Want to know what it is?

When I say that I didn’t sleep enough, I mean just that — I didn’t “have insom­nia”. I just went to bed too late, at around mid­night. Then I was cold, and my body couldn’t warm up while lying under the sheets. Feel­ing cold, I couldn’t fall asleep. After 45 min­utes of feel­ing cold I got up and took a warm shower. Then I went back to bed and fell asleep promptly — until my alarm rose me up at 6:45.

Sleep­ing six hours is not enough for me to feel fully rested (I rather need 7.5/8 hours). So I felt slightly grumpy, a lit­tle fatigued, and def­i­nitely unin­spired by what I had put on my to-​​do list.

Feel­ing the blah

That gave me a lit­tle taste of the ordeal most peo­ple who come to Sleep­Tracks expe­ri­ence — and a reminder of what I used to expe­ri­ence in a much more pro­nounced way a decade ago, when I was label­ing myself as an insomniac. Any­way, after about an hour of respond­ing to SleepTracks’s clients and a few other tasks, I started to feel the urge to procrastinate. That’s what hap­pens when we are under-​​rested and sleep-​​deprived, right? We eas­ily crum­ble under the slight­est pres­sure. We feel eas­ily over­whelmed. We can’t con­cen­trate. So we start to pro­cras­ti­nate. Or we get back to an old habit: using worry as a project instead of work­ing on what­ever is in front of us. Blah.

What is the ninja trick then?

In three words: tak­ing a nap. I actu­ally took three naps that day. Yes, three. Now please hear me: most days I don’t nap at all. Some­times I’ll nap once in the after­noon. But yes­ter­day I lis­tened to my needs and rested three times. Did I waste my whole day doing that? Hardly. First nap lasted 20 minutes. 

Sec­ond nap lasted about 15 min­utes — because I fell asleep and then woke up think­ing that the alarm had already rang. The last one, spent on the couch, lasted for about 30 minutes.

Yes, I was overindulging. And doing so with­out the slight­est bit of self-​​judgment. With­out telling myself that I “should be” doing this or that instead. In fact, when I lied on the couch I told myself “I’m going to stay there until I actu­ally want to get up and do something”. It felt great, because I actu­ally needed it. 

I know because I felt so much clearer and ener­getic and moti­vated after each one of those naps. Instead of sit­ting stu­pid and con­fused in front of my com­puter, I was able each time to be pro­duc­tive and inspired again.

Rest fully when you need to

Rest­ing fully when you need to is the best act of self-​​love you can pro­vide your­self. And nobody else but you can give your­self this pre­cious gift. Rest­ing is more impor­tant to your over­all health than nutri­tion. More impor­tant than phys­i­cal activ­ity. More impor­tant than any­thing else.

Let me repeat that and be obnox­ious about it: When you need it, phys­i­cal rest is more impor­tant to your over­all health than nutri­tion. More impor­tant than phys­i­cal activ­ity. More impor­tant than any­thing else.

Most peo­ple have for­got­ten that they even have the pos­si­bil­ity of lis­ten­ing to that need and to fill it. They take cof­fee, choco­late, load up on carbs instead, or stim­u­late them­selves with the news, with fran­tic activ­ity… or with worry. All of these are crappy sub­sti­tutes to the real deal: rest. Your need for rest won’t nec­es­sar­ily come from lack of sleep. It can man­i­fest itself after hard phys­i­cal exer­tion, demand­ing con­cen­tra­tion at work, or an exhaust­ing rela­tion­ship con­flict — any­thing that taxes your energy sys­tem more than usual. In any case, hon­or­ing this need will make a big dif­fer­ence in your day. And even help you turn your back to insom­nia (more on that later).

Sim­ple nap­ping instructions

1Don’t make it com­pli­cated. And don’t focus on falling asleep. Just have the inten­tion to “rest” for 20 min­utes or so. Peo­ple will say “I can’t sleep dur­ing the day” as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for why they won’t lie down even though they are clearly exhausted — but the goal is NOT to fall alseep, but sim­ply to answer your body/mind’s need to rest for a moment. If that is your inten­tion, then your nap will always be a success. Call it “a lit­tle quiet time” if you don’t want to call it a nap because you’d feel lazy

2Just lie down on your bed (keep your clothes on, this is a quickie, remem­ber) or on your couch. Under your desk, or over. Any­where, really. Put a sleep mask on.

3Set some timer and let go for 20–30 min­utes. Not more. Even if it takes you 15 min­utes to doze off.

4Use Power Nap, the audio ses­sion cre­ated specif­i­cally for that in the Sleep­Tracks Sleep Opti­miza­tion Pro­gram. The back­ground sounds will make the world around you fade out, and the brain­wave entrain­ment will help you to let go and guide you to sleep. I’ve used Power Nap for a few years reli­giously — but now I’m so used to nap­ping when I need to that I just put on my sleep mask and off I go. Peo­ple around me are always sur­prised to see me get back from a nap so quickly with a spring in my legs. “Already?” they say. “Did you sleep?” “Yes, of course I did. »

And you can too. It’s just a mat­ter of practice.

When to do it (and when not)

Sim­ple, again: do it when you feel the need to rest (and when you can get away with it). But will nap­ping ruin your next night’s sleep? Some sleep experts warn you not to take naps if you strug­gle with sleep. They say it will make your insom­nia worse. I say on the contrary. Use those short naps as train­ingto get good at let­ting go quickly and fall asleep when­ever you lie down. Even if you don’t sleep you’ll get the ben­e­fit of rest­ing and rejuvenating. Just don’t do it after din­ner at night in order to avoid dis­rupt­ing your night ­time sleep. DON’T nap for an hour in front of the TV after dinner!

A good rem­edy against the fear of not sleeping

Nap­ping reg­u­larly will also lessen the fear of not sleep­ing you may be har­bor­ing right now. Know­ing you can always take a nap (or, like me, a few ones) if the need arises and wake up refreshed will lower the pres­sure you put your­self under when night­ time comes. As far as I’m con­cerned, next time I don’t sleep enough I’ll just resort to my favorite rest­ing trick, and I’ll go for a short nap. Even if you think I’m a lazy bum. (btw, I’m a lazy bum only when I decide to. Next week I’ll be locked at home on a writ­ing retreat, attempt­ing to write the full draft of a book in one six-​​day burst. It will be intense! I might nap a few times along the way.)

Pic­ture: Julia Manzerova                           

http://www.sleeptracks.com/wp/the-art-of-resting-fully/

Perhaps you’d like to checkout my sister blog www.innermindreading.blogspot.com

and find easy, fast and efficient ways of working with the issues or little unpleasantness’s in your life.

I am now featuring aspects of my upcoming internet programme to teach Inner Mind Reading.

Grounding by centering in your space.

                                          Photo by M'reen. A beautiful celandine

Grounding by centring yourself in the space you are in.
M'reen Hunt

I took the photograph of this beautiful celandine, though I do have a gardening friend who regards them as the enemy – spoil sport.

I learned this when I lived in Spain many years ago and used it today when I realised that my last

few months of repetitive sneezing was a link with my father.

I’ve used this in my home; car; cathedral; garden; during a conference or whenever I’ve needed

to alter the energy around and within me.

I shall expand on its uses in future blogs as this two minute technique is limited only by your imagination.

You might want to work on a different aspect of your energy and so would change my intention

of ‘I’m safe’ to ‘I relax into sleep’ or ‘I release this headache’ or ‘I release the energy linking me

with my father in this way’ etc.

Looking at these three intentions:

‘I’m safe’, of course you are, I don’t see a sabre tooth tiger in the vicinity

and for most people this is a neutral situation.

‘I relax into sleep’. This doesn’t challenge any beliefs.

If you said, ‘I am going to sleep’, then that is entirely different for two reasons as you know you jolly well can’t get to sleep and your subconscious mind always takes the easy way out and decides that to go to sleep next week will do fine. So no ‘ings’!

‘I release this headache’. Firstly you must be absolutely sure that this is not the first signs

of something that needs a doctor’s attention;  secondly, if you have a headache or migraine

every weekend rather than simply releasing it why not deal with the stress that is causing it?

‘I release this particular energy linking me with my father’. Is this an appropriate intention for me;

and are any of the other intentions you might use appropriate? Well find the blog: www.innermindreading.wordpress.com How Do I Know If I Have A Problem And How Big It Is?  

As that will tell you how to do this.

Even though I demonstrate this to clients, people create their own way of doing this and it works. 

They then ask me to teach them the original version and I ask why as it is working perfectly for them? 

One lady insisted that she couldn’t do it so she just sort of thought and it worked.

Another lady told me that she practised so much on the bus that she felt that she could feel

the texture of the surfaces she ‘touched’.

Try, experience and share your experience.

If appropriate close your eyes and imagine a little boomerang or bird or whatever pleases you moving 

from your heart or area of discomfort to the points I shall describe and back into your being. 

On the return to your centre say, or think, with a DEEP voice, “I feel safe.”

Use a deep voice as this helps you to relax.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall in front of me, and having touched the wall in front of me

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall behind me, and having touched the wall behind me

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall to my right, and having touched the wall to my right,

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the wall to my left, and having touched the wall to my left,

I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the ceiling high above my head, and having touched the ceiling

high above my head, I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

With my mind’s eye I travel to the floor beneath my feet, and having touched the floor

beneath my feet, I return DEEP within myself and I feel safe.

It took me ages to be able to do this in bed and I know someone who had to get out of bed,

sit on the side of his bed; do his centring before getting back into bed and sleeping.

Also, the distance to the same wall sometimes changes and the flight of my paper plane changes.

If you are outside, just choose a tree to find your ‘wall’ and imagine how far up the nearest cloud is. 

When in the garden you might want to bring in the chakra colours; that is the colours of the rainbow 

and those I remember by chanting King Richard Of York Gained Battle In Vain.

When in a meeting you might want to release your tiredness. The fact that there are other people in the room makes no difference as we each have our own space. But as you are calmer they noticeably become calmer. Just wait for a future post to find this ‘magic’ aspect of centering!

Perhaps you’d like to checkout my sister blog www.innermindreading.blogspot.com

and find easy, fast and efficient ways of working with the issues or little unpleasantness’s in your life.

I am now featuring aspects of my upcoming internet programme to teach Inner Mind Reading.