Thursday, July 29, 2010

Successfully Living Your Dreams

As a child I never required much sleep, and when I did sleep I had vivid dreams. I remembered a lot and learned that my biggest problems in life were solved while I slept.

Fast forward many years full of multi-tasking, playing many roles and wearing many hats.

Although we know sleep is a major part of our lives, researchers and doctors understand little about sleep and what it does for us. Of course we do know that sleep has many health benefits and getting a good night’s sleep is the key to feeling energized every day.

But to me sleep is much more than that – it is more effective than brainstorming, meeting with others to solve problems ~ it is the vehicle I use to make it all work.

• Keep a note pad by your bed to write notes down in the night
• Take time every night to think about your problems before you go to bed, as you will be amazed at how you will find solutions
• Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated as this helps your thoughts

For those of you that travel, don’t let jet lag become an excuse ~ when you log over 150,000 miles a year like me, I can’t afford to “take take time to acclimate” myself ~ I get about 10 minutes.

Doctors say the body takes about 1 day per hour of change to adjust. There are no techniques to speed up that process, but that doesn’t work when you fly all the way to Dubai from LA and need to go to work the next day. My tips:

• Get plenty of sleep on the plane (helps if you get upgraded)
• Take some sort of sleep aid during those long flights – even Sleepy Time works
• Set your watch to your new time zone the minute you get on board
• Drink lots of water
• Get as much sunlight as you can when you arrive
• Try Melatonin which helps you adjust
• Establishing good sleep habits will really pay off when you travel. If you have trained your body to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep, you will have a much easier adjustment to the new time zone
Just remember to keep a journal next to you to note your dreams. Some of my dreams have really come true and there is nothing better than living your dream!

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