Everyone in life has a nature that tends toward either chaos or order… knowing which one is your nature is essential to happiness and success.

How does your body blind your soul? What does it even mean to “blind your soul”?

Being soul-blind means being so wrapped up in the things going on immediately around you that you cannot see anything else. It is when you become so overwhelmed with the stress and build-up of life that you start losing sight of what really matters to you.

How can your body overwhelm the part of you that is supposed to be in charge?  The same way the old saying says you boil a frog… slowly.  If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will jump back out, but if you put it in water which you slowly heat, it will sit there while it cooks.

The same thing happens with your soul… if you are dropped in a situation where everything is completely skewed and wrong, you will rebel.  If that situation comes about slowly, though, you can be talked into (or talk yourself into) just sitting there while you let it happen.

I’ll offer an example from my personal life, and it has to do with why I have been gone so long, as well:   My previous job was causing me to work so many hours and stress out so much that it was tearing me apart.  What little time I had at home was not quality time with my family, as it should have been, but instead was still focused on work and the stress from it… I couldn’t let go.

It didn’t start out that way, though… if it had, I would have jumped out, just like the frog in the pot of boiling water.  Instead, things got that way over time, and even when they moved further that way, there was usually something positive, too… a raise, a promotion, etc.  These made it even harder to see that the overall impact was the slow heating of the water, the slow blinding of my soul.

I was even aware of it, sometimes, to some extent, but I couldn’t see my way beyond it… I was blind in my soul, even if my eyes could still see. I knew that it was hard on my whole family, yet even that could not open my sight to what needed to be done.  I kept making excuses, like the economy being so bad that I might not be secure in a new job, if I could even find one… and so I didn’t really look.

In an ironic twist, the poor economy was actually the cause of my eyes opening… my position was eliminated, and suddenly I was forced out of that environment.  I couldn’t seem to do it on my own… I had been there for over seven years, and with the economy in the state it was, I couldn’t risk not being able to take care of my family… even though I was already not taking care of them in a way that matters far more than the money.

It took nearly a week for the shock and the remains of the stress and feelings of being overwhelmed to fade enough for me to begin looking for a new job. In the meantime, there were new stresses… what were we going to do with no more money coming?

I went online and looked for a new job, sent my resume to a few places, and was astonished to receive a call within an hour, asking me if I could interview that day.  I did, and a few days later I was offered the job.  I took it.

Luckily for me, it turns out that not only was this job available when I needed it, but it is a great place to work, too.  I’m also closer to home, and I have no overtime.  My job is no longer overwhelming the rest of my life… and the blindness of the soul is leaving me.

There are three lessons that learned from this experience, that I want to share with you:

1. The big positive things from a piece of your life, things like raises and promotions in a job, or wealth and beauty in a relationship, don’t matter as much as the ongoing small things… if your energy is always being drained, and you take that one piece of your life into every other piece of your life, it’s not good for you.
   
2. You can find reasons to not do something, and convince yourself that they are good reasons, even when you should (and if you were completely honest with yourself, actually DO) know better.
   
3. You can let a piece of your life that is less important, like a job, hurt the pieces of your life that are more important, like family

So what to you do if you look at your life and see that there is one piece of it that is taking over the rest, that is blinding your soul?  To quote from the Bible, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”

I am not, of course, recommending that you blind yourself physically… but if one piece of your life, whether it’s a job, a relationship, or something else, is taking over your life, draining your energy,  to the point that you forget to, or can’t, take care of the other parts of your life, then take that leap and do what you have to do in order to clear your soul’s sight of what is truly important.

If you think that your soul is already blinded, if you spend your days drained of energy and feeling overwhelmed, or if you may be headed that way, find a way to take at least a day completely to yourself, with no one else around, and no interruptions.  Take that day to take a look at your life and find out what it is that is sending you down that path… and look at what you can do about it.

You may be able to fix the thing that is causing you the harm, especially if you are only headed down that path, rather than already at the end… relationships especially can start heading down that path, but be repairable (there are quite a few articles even on this site for help with that).  Jobs are less likely to be able to be fixed, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be… you may be able to invest less of yourself into your job and still get it done, and that may keep it from taking over the rest of your life.

If you can’t fix it, though, the only answer may be removal.

Trust me, I know that it is a lot harder to do than to say, yet I have also just been through a really strong reminder of just how important it is.  My life felt like it was falling apart, and I was hurting physically and emotionally, as well as being blinded.  I now feel like I’m not just healing, but moving past where I was before I started heading downhill, and that’s with it having been only about a month.

Please feel free to share your story, either in the comments or by emailing me, and if you want any advice, I will be happy to help if I can… even if all you really want or need is someone to listen.

What causes the most stress during the holidays?  It’s usually one of two things… family (relationships), or presents. Maybe you don’t get along with someone in your family… maybe you don’t get along with anyone in your family.  Or it could be that you have “things that need to get done”, and spending time with extended family keeps you from doing those things. Or perhaps you are one of those ones who worries about gifts… […]

Sometimes, in life, something brings to your attention that you’ve gotten so far down a path that you don’t want to be that there is really no way back.  You just stop, look around you, and realize that you are unhappy with where you are and who you have become.

The natural reaction for many, probably even most, people is to give up and start sliding into despair, thinking there is nothing they can do about it.  It doesn’t have to be that way, though… there is something much more positive you can do, instead.

First let me say that from the easy perspective, the one that is up close and mired in the current situation, the feeling that there is nothing you can do about it is right… because that feeling is all about the fact that you can’t get back to “the way things used to be”.  If you move back a couple of steps, however, that very realization can be enlightening and even free-ing.

When you hit a point where you know that you can’t go back, that means there’s only one way you can go, and that is forward.  You can take your moment of darkness and turn it into the point where you breathed light and hope back into your life.

How do you do this?

You start by accepting that all of the things that brought you to this point are in your past, and you cannot change them.  You are who you are, and where you are, and right now is the only thing left that you can change.  You have to let it go, and forgive yourself… let who you have been and what you have done be in your past.  Let it even be a different person – you are NOT required to be that person any more.

Now you have a blank slate, an open canvas to paint yourself.  Who do you want to be?  The only one who can decide what gets painted is the painter, and that is you.

Other people in your life, whether friends, family, coworkers, or something else, may not like the changes that you make.  They only knew the person that you used to be, and if the new you is different enough, they may feel like they are dealing with a new person, and that takes time just as meeting any other new person does… perhaps even more so because they keep expecting you to be, and and act like, who you used to be, much as might happen if you met the identical twin of someone you already knew.

You can’t worry about others, though… you are your own home, and you have to build to suit yourself.  If you were designing an actual home for yourself, and you love to cook, you wouldn’t design one with a tiny kitchen.  In the same sense, you shouldn’t try to be a person that others think you should be.

Speaking of homes, that brings up another important point… walls.  As we go through life along whatever path we take, we build up walls inside ourselves… mental walls, emotional walls, even spiritual walls.  These walls generally grow up haphazardly, over time, in response to various things that happen in our lives.  They contain us, force us into internal contortions and stress just to fit inside, keeping us from truly being comfortable in our own skins.

Internal walls, much like walls in the world outside, require demolition.  Have you ever watched the show Extreme Makeover Home Edition?  The first thing the team does is demolition… tearing down all of the old construction, all of the old walls, in order to make room for the new home that will better fit those who live there.

You need to do the same… those walls are from that other person, the one that you used to be, and any that you leave standing are going to impact the design of your new home, your new self.  As much as you can, wipe them all out… and any that you do leave standing, take a close look at them to make sure that you want that to be a part of who you are becoming.

One last thing before I go… remember that this new home you are building doesn’t have to be complete overnight.  You can lay the foundation, and then take your time on the framing, to make sure that everything is where you want it to be.  The finishing, like choosing what color to paint the walls, can be far down the road… you don’t have to hurry, it’s not for anyone but you.

Even if you don’t feel like you’re at the end of the line, take a look around at the home you have built for yourself… is it time for some remodeling?  You may even find that today is a good day for demolition day for you, too.

A huge number of adults feel overwhelmed or depressed on a regular basis.  It can be from any of a huge number of sources, although any of those sources can be tied to one of the three areas of your life that I talked about in my last article.

Have you ever seen a young child depressed or overwhelmed?  Even if you have, at one point or another, have you ever seen them stay that way for long?

Many adults (maybe even you) would respond that young children are not under the same stress as adults.  While this is true, there is another secret that we know when we are young, and tend to forget as we grow older.

What is that secret?  It’s simple, though not always easy… if you want to defeat feelings of depression or being overwhelmed, simply decide to do something and do it.

It doesn’t really matter what it is that you do, as long as it is a conscious choice to do it, though it generally works better if it takes more than just a couple of minutes.  You can choose to go fishing, build something, or even make a nice dinner.  It works even better, of course, if your action helps to work toward clearing up whatever had you feeling depressed or overwhelmed in the first place.

Children do this instinctively… watch a 3 or 4 year old, and see how often they sit still, not doing much.  They will do so to watch TV sometimes, or play video games, but watch them after they do this… they will be grumpier and misbehave more often.  It’s not because of what they watched or played.  It’s because they ceased to be active, and became passive instead.

Passive activities drain your energy… they suck away your positive feelings and leave you feeling empty.  Passive activities are, by nature, activities that take your time and your energy without a return:  your energy still goes into the activity, but you get nothing back.

Active activities take your time and energy, also, but that energy is returned to you by the results of your activity.  It may be returned when you eat the fish you catch, or when you see your home clean, or when you see your body change shape (if your active action happens to be physical).  It may even be returned by looking at what you created, if you choose some type of creative activity (I personally happen to like woodworking… I’d like music and art, too, if I had any talent in those areas).

A lot of adults are passive most of the time.  They let their energy drain away into nothingness, with nothing to show for it.  This can usually be traced back to a specific event, something that they didn’t want to deal with.  They then sought passive ways to “escape” from that event, which started the process of bleeding away their energy and positive emotions.

Once that drain starts, it makes it harder and harder to stop being passive, as you have less and less energy to use actively.  That leads to being even more passive, and even more drain, until sometimes it adds up to the point that you feel like you have no energy left, like you are empty and dying inside.  Life feels overwhelming because you have so little energy to grab it and take what you want and need from it.

If you want to beat those horrible feelings (I know how bad they are… I’ve been to the bottom of that barrel), you have to put a STOP to those passive activities that are draining your energy.  You have to turn off the computer, turn off the TV, get out of bed, and do something.

The easiest way to start is to take a shower and get cleaned up.  Even that is a start on becoming active.  Once you are cleaned up, get out of the house (or apartment, or wherever it is that you live)… it doesn’t really matter too much where you go, although some place that you enjoy is an easy choice when you’re just getting started.  Once you’ve gotten started on this, try inviting someone else to do something with you… it can be a friend, a family member, significant other, or complete stranger.  Activities that involve more than one person get more result for less energy spent.

This can be a fragile time, right at the beginning.  It can be very easy to fall back into the passive activities that you were just doing, so the best thing to do is to keep away from them as much as possible.  Any time that you’re not at work (where your job may require it), stay away from the computer, the TV, and the video games (unless you have someone over who is doing it with you, and even then don’t do it for long).

The more you stay away from your old passive activities, and the more you continue in your new active activities, the easier it becomes, and the more “full” your life will generally seem to become.  This will bring about positive results not only for you, but for everyone around you.  Your relationships are almost certain to improve (providing, of course, that you don’t neglect them in your pursuit of one of your new activities), your self-esttem and self-respect will improve, and you will generally be more pleasant to be around.  You are also likely to do better at work, and even like your job better.  Depending on the activities that you choose, you may even find another means of income or a new job.

You can get started on this today.  You only have two ways to spend your time and energy:  actively and passively.  If you choose to stop your passive activities, you will find that you HAVE to choose active ones to replace them.

Let your “inner child” out… let them out to do and to play (which is active, of course).  Do things that you enjoy, and find others who enjoy those things too.  You will soon find that the emptiness that seemed to fill you is, itself, being filled.

You’ve heard before about the need to balance your home and work life.  This is generally said to tell someone that they are working too much.

Balancing your life is great… without balancing it, eventually something will slide too far and you will generally end up feeling miserable, whether because of loneliness, financial stress, or something else (it depends on what you let slide).

The problem is that there are not two aspects, there are three… and each one has a different “weight” for different people, meaning that how much of one you need varies.

What You Are Balancing

The three aspects of your life that are required to remain in balance for you to have a truly happy, fulfilling life are: work, social (family and friends), and personal (you).  Each of these areas has both a positive and a negative side. The positive side adds to the overall positive energy and feelings in your life, while the negative side drains from the same.

The fact that each aspect contributes to (or detracts from) the whole of your life means that any one of them being too far into the negative can damage the others, too.  Think about it this way:  If your work life is negative enough, it is going to be harder and harder to overcome that to have truly good time with your family and friends, which makes it even harder to have the good time for yourself.

The Details Of The Aspects

• Work
  The positive side of the work aspect of your life is the feeling of doing something useful, of accomplishing something and being a necessary part of the “team”.  Along with this is the needto be appreciated… even if you feel like you are useful, or even critical, if you do not feel appreciated, it will overall be negative (in the long run).The negative side of work is feeling like you are not important, or that you are not appreciated… that your work is not valued.  There is also negative available when you are TOO necessary, although that is also linked to the appreciation factor… if your work was properly appreciated, you would get the support you need to be able to do what you do and still be able to step away (to your social or personal aspects).
• Social
  The positive side of your social life is the feeling that there are people with whom you can relax and be yourself.  You do not have to keep up a front, and you can let most of your walls down.  These are people who you can call on for help without needing to specifically do something to pay for it.  Spending time on this aspect of your life helps to let you mentally recover from any drain work may have placed on you.The negative side of your social life is when the balance of helping each other gets tipped too far one way or the other, although the most noticeable, of course, is when it gets tipped in the direction of others.  This can be when you have people in your friends or family who are always taking from you, whether mentally or materially, but it can also be when you are always taking and not giving back… either one eventually makes for a drain from the social aspect of your life, instead of a positive contribution.
• Personal
  The positive side of the personal aspect of your life is feelingthe satisfaction of doing what you want to do, the feeling of having time when you do not have to worry about taking care of anyone but yourself.  Positive personal time is time spent on something you enjoy, with no deadlines.  This time is absolutely critical to an overall positive balance in your life.The negative side of your personal aspect comes from having time to yourself, but not doing anything productive with it.  The definition of productive here is different than what you might think, however… it can be productive to simply sit and do nothing, as long as you are actively choosing to do that.  Non-productive time is when you just default to doing something (time spent on the computer can go this way rather easily, as can time in front of the TV) rather than actively choosing to do something.

 

The most commonly neglected aspect is the personal.  It can be easy for a person with a giving nature to concentrate on work, then after that take care of social, and never really get around to personal.  I am personally guilty of doing just that… I often forget the importance of actively taking time to do something for myself.  Even when I have time, I often simply default to doing something… this is something I intend to change.

So… do you want to make your life better overall?  If so, sit down and take the time to examine all three aspects of your life, and see where you are getting a positive contribution and where you have a negative drain.  Once you have determined where the drain is coming from, take a look at that area and see if you can specifically find out why there is a drain and work on fixing that thing.

Let me know (in the comments) if there is something in particular that you have a problem with, or something that you have overcome, or if you have anything else interesting to say!

Sometimes, when you’re young, you call for a “do-over”… an opportunity to go back and attempt the same thing over again.  It tends to happen the most in sports, such as basketball (especially when you’re playing H-O-R-S-E)… you take a shot, and something causes you to mess it up.  That may be outside interference, or just you stumbling, but the result is the same… you miss, and you want another chance.

The desire for a “do-over”, though, is not limited to sports, nor to the young.  The desire comes up now and then for most people as they go through life… they are not happy with where they are, so they long for the chance to “just do it over”.  They may even go so far as to claim that it isn’t fair.

Unlike the example of kids playing basketball, however, there is no such option in life.  With life, you must instead assess where you are now, and then decide where you want to go.  Once you decide where you want to go, then, and only then, can you figure out what your next step should be on your way there.

You don’t have to decide where you want to go with your whole life, what your purpose is, or where you will find true fulfillment.  You just have to figure out somewhere that is reachable that you want to be.  You can decide to go with your desire to paint (or even be a painter) and acquire some brushes, paint, and a canvas or you might decide you want to be Mr. Universe, and start off with a goal of shedding 10 pounds of fat.

The trick is to focus not on the past, and what you didn’t do or where you didn’t end up, but instead on the future (especially the near future) and where you want to go from here.  Focusing too much on the past often leads to depression (“Look at all these mistakes I made!”), and focusing too far into the future can leave you feeling overwhelmed (“I’ll never get there!”).

There are no “do-overs” in life… but you can get somewhere better, somewhere that you would like to be, if you’ll just reach out and take a step toward some place reachable that’s closer to where you would like to be.

Have you been feeling lost lately?  Or maybe not quite lost, but adrift… not really knowing where you’re going, or even which direction?  You can even feel this way if you know where you want to go, but are at a loss for what to do right now to get there.

It’s easy to start feeling lost or adrift when you feel like you are being pulled in too many directions at the same time.  The feelings are a trap, too… easy to fall into but hard to escape.

So if you’re feeling that way right now, what do you do?  You could start by looking at your life as a boat.  If you are in a boat and drifting without direction, what do you do to stop yourself?  You drop anchor.

An anchor in your life serves the same function as an anchor in a boat… it holds you steady against the wind and the tides.  It is something solid that you can rely on when everything else seems untrustworthy.

Life anchors are often people… someone you can trust.  It could be your spouse, your parent, your brother or sister, or your best friend.  They can also be places, places to which you can run and feel safe, or even things… some people might have a locket, a lucky coin, or even have their car as their anchor.  It can even be an activity… some people can get lost (in the good way) in something they love to do.

No matter what your situation, there will always be something, or someone, around that you can use as an anchor.  Anchors only work, however, when you hold on to them… if you dropped an anchor over the side of the boat that wasn’t attached by rope or chain, it wouldn’t do much good.  You generally start to get lost, or drift, when you forget to hold on to your anchors, though sometimes it can be when one is yanked out from under you.

If you’re feeling lost right now, here are some concrete steps you can take to stabilize your life:

1. Focus On Where You Are Right Now
   

   One of the main causes of feeling lost is the feeling that you are being pulled in many directions at once.  You can combat this by concentrating on where you are right now, rather than where you are going.  It won’t cure your current state, but it can at least help you to keep it from getting worse.

2. Find An Anchor

   Once you are focused on where you are right now, look around you and find something that you can use as an anchor… find someone some thing, some place, or some activity that makes you feel safe.  Your anchor doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else, it just has to work for you.

3.  Hold On To Your Anchor

   Once you’ve found your anchor, you have to hold on to it.  Life’s currents, the ups and downs that come constantly, can make you forget to hold on to your anchor.  As soon as you do that, though, you also start to find it harder and harder to hold steady on the course that you wish to follow.

4. Use Your Anchor

   Finding an anchor does no good if you don’t use it… spend time with that person, or in that place, or with that thing, and let yourself feel safe.  Once you feel safe, then you can start to let go of all the mental build up, slowing your wild swinging around.

5. Let Your Drifting Slow To A Stop

   Sometimes, when you feel progress, you want to just jump back out there and push ahead.  The same holds true with the feeling of being adrift… once you start to feel a little less stressed, you may feel the urge to push right back out.  That can be dangerous in the same way it’s dangerous to put too much weight on a recently broken bone… the surface may be healed, but it still may be a little weak underneath.  While I certainly don’t recommend that you spend the rest of your life hiding from, well, the rest of your life, I do recommend that you take the time to heal the damage that’s a little deeper, too.

I want to take a moment to reinforce the fact that your anchor doesn’t have to make sense as an anchor to anyone else… it’s about what works for you.  You may find something other people would consider bizarre that helps you… it could be a rusty nail, if that nail came from something important, or preparing meals for a crowd (working in a soup kitchen, for example).  As long as it gives you that feeling of safety and stability, even if it’s only so long as you’re doing it, holding it, or with that person, it can help.

It’s often easy to forget your anchors, or how important they are, too.  That’s a major reason relationships drift apart (see, the terminology is even the same)… the two people forget how important it is to spend time with each other, just using each other as an anchor… resting.   If you have a spouse, and they are NOT one of your anchors, you really need to work on your relationship.

You will, of course, want to reach out from your anchors, too.  But just like a routine makes you better able to appreciate and enjoy the exceptions, anchors help you to better reach out and move forward… you just have to remember to bring them with you.

If you’re not happy with your body, chances are good that if you mention it to someone, you say you need to lose weight.  Losing weight can, of course, help, but do you honestly care what your weight is, or do you care what your body looks like?

The first thing that comes to mind for most people when they think about reshaping their body is going on a diet, a diet that either leaves them hungry all the time or drastically reduces the range of what they can eat.  While that sort of diet can work, there’s actually a way that’s much faster and more effective, a way that doesn’t leave you hungry all the time, nor deprive you of either meats or vegetables.

The fastest, safest, and most effective way to reshape your body in a short period of time involves three elements:  sleep, diet, and exercise.  It may surprise you to see sleep listed along with diet and exercise, but poor sleeping habits can considerably reduce the effectiveness of the other two factors.

I’ve covered sleep and diet in previous articles this week, so today’s article is going to be on exercise… not on specific exercises for you to do, but a general pattern for exercising effectively.

The first thing to understand is that aerobic exercise (also called “cardio”) is not the most effective tool for reshaping your body… it can certainly be one component, but an exercise plan that doesn’t cover resistance training, also known as lifting weights, will be far slower and less effective.

Let me dispel a myth quickly that I’ve heard from many people… weight training (more properly called resistance training) doesn’t have to make you big and bulky.  What it does do is sculpt your body… putting muscle in the right places while allowing that muscle to burn extra calories and remove fat from other places. 

Speaking of an exercise plan… you need one.  You need to set up a schedule for your exercise, knowing what you’re going to work on at what times.  My personal preference is to rotate upper body, lower body, and cardio.  That means that one day I’ll work out the major muscle groups of my upper body, the next day I’ll do the major muscle groups of my lower body, and the next I’ll work on my cardio (generally running on the treadmill for me).  This gives your muscles a couple of days to heal before they’re worked again.

Once you have a general plan like the one mentioned above, then you can work on plans for individual days.  You’ll need to choose a specific exercise for each muscle group that you’re going to work that day, and you’ll need to change the exercise that you use for a given muscle group fairly regularly, or your body will adjust and that particular exercise will become less and less effective for you.

You may want to start each day with a bit of a warm up… I usually jog for one mile before I really get started.

Regardless of the exercise, you’ll want to use this pattern while doing it:

1. 12 repetitions (reps) at the original weight
2. 1 minute break and increase the weight for the next set
3. 10 reps at the new weight
4. 1 minute break and increase the weight
5. 8 reps
6. 1 minute break and increase the weight
7. 6 reps
8. 1 minute break and decrease the weight
9. 12 reps
10. 2 minute break and move to the next exercise
    

You can continue that until you’ve done all the muscle groups for that day.

So how do you decide how much weight?  You should always select a weight subjectively, rather than objectively:  the first weight you use, for 12 reps, should be about a difficulty of about 6 on a 10 point scale.  The next weight should be a 7, then 8, 9, and the final set of 12 should be at a 10… in other words, you should barely be able to complete it.  Whether that’s 5 pounds, 50, or 500 doesn’t really matter… it’s the amount of effort your body is putting into it that determines how much you get out of it.

When you first begin your exercise routine, you’ll likely find that your muscles are sore the next day, and even the day after… the best cure for this soreness, believe it or not, is to lightly exercise those same muscles again, doing something like what you would do for your first set if you were working that muscle group that day.  If you avoid exercising because you’re sore, on the other hand, that soreness can last much longer.

If you keep it up, you’ll almost certainly notice a major difference in how you feel after just a few days, and it won’t take much (if any) longer for you to be able to start seeing it.  There is usually a measurable (as in tape measure) difference within 7-10 days… assuming you’re not already in top shape, of course.

I’ve personally done this before, and I intend to do it again (and soon, too!).  I did it for twelve weeks before, and in that twelve weeks I lost about 10% body fat and gained over 20 pounds of muscle.  I don’t have pictures of myself, but if you want to see pictures of other people who’ve followed the same plan (or a VERY similar one), you can check out the Body For Life Challenge champions pictures… and remember, this is in twelve weeks… less than three months!

Good luck… and feel free to send me before and after pictures if you do try it!  I may even post them if I get enough… and I might appear in that post, as well.

There’s one attribute, one piece, of your life that affects the rest of you more than anything else.  When you damage that aspect, it can damage the rest, like bringing down a building by taking out one critical support.  On the other hand, improving this one area of life can bring improvements nearly across the board, as well.

So what is this one critical thing?  What is it that affects everything else?

Sleep.

When you don’t sleep well your body and mind don’t get the chance to slow down and take care of repairs and construction.  That means that everything starts wearing down… everything from your thoughts to your emotions to your physical health.

There are many different ways of “not sleeping well”.  It could be a lack of sleep (probably the most common), restless sleep, or even oversleeping.  All of these things cause your body and mind to be unable to rid themselves of stress, and therefore unable to heal.

There are many symptoms, as well, and although most people will get most of the symptoms eventually, which ones show up first can vary widely from person to person.  Some people may start off by being irritable, while others may show it through depression, getting sick easily, lack of mental focus, or even difficulty getting their eyes to focus.

Whatever any given person’s early symptoms may be, they tend to be consistent for that person, meaning that if you start by getting irritable when you don’t get enough sleep, chances are pretty high that you’ll start with that symptom the next time you’re lacking in sleep, also.  That’s fortunate, because it can help you to figure out that it is, in fact, a lack of sleep that is behind it.

Sometimes not sleeping well is nearly unavoidable… when a major life-changing event is coming, when you only have a limited amount of time to do a lot of things, etc.  A limited amount of exposure to this kind of situation isn’t generally enough to start causing serious problems.  It’s when you get to be in the habit of not sleeping well that the real issues start to arise.

A persistent lack of focus can make your job (or school) performance drop to the point where it becomes dangerous… or speaking of a lack of focus being dangerous, how about when you’re driving?  Constant irritability can cause your relationships to suffer and eventually even begin to wither.  Constant stress can cause different parts of your body to start failing, often beginning with your digestive track (your stomach and your guts).

So now you know the negative side, some aspects of which you may already be dealing with, not knowing that they’re coming from your poor sleep.  What about the good side?

Getting enough good sleep can do the opposite of the negatives, helping you deal with depression, improving your focus (and mental/emotional state in general), and giving you a better outlook on life.  Those things, of course, can lead to more positives… better relationships, better performance at work getting you a better job, or even (to be drastic) keeping you from committing suicide out of your depression.

How, then, do you make sure you get enough good sleep, so you can move from the negative to the positive?

The first step is to establish a routine for sleeping.  That consists of many different pieces, the most important of which is probably the timing, but also your behavior before you go to sleep, where you sleep, and other factors that make the experience similar each night.

If you know that in general you need to get up at 5:00 AM, for example, and you need six hours of sleep each night, you might set a bed time of 10:30.  It is important to stick close to this bed time as much as possible, because your body begins preparing for sleep long before you actually get there.  Your breathing slows, your heart slows, and you may start to yawn… all of these things are preparations the body is making for sleep, so that it can get to work on repairs as soon as possible.

Going to bed at a given time helps your body know when and how much sleep it’s going to get… establishing a routine for before bed gives you a way to send a strong signal that the time for sleep is approaching.  You may, for example, choose to read for a bit prior to bed (it helps some people relax… it often has the opposite effect on me, however, if it’s a good book).  The routine can also involve much smaller things, like brushing your teeth.

It doesn’t really matter much what your routine is, as long as it’s consistent… the consistency is what teaches your body and mind that these things are a signal that the time to sleep is approaching.  There are a few exceptions, of course… a lot of physical exercise or downing a couple cups of coffee are probably not productive as part of a bed time routine.

Just because you’re an adult now doesn’t mean that you don’t need a routine and that you don’t need a bed time… you do need it in order to get the best sleep, and thereby get more out of life.

PS – This is another thing that I have to work on, and one thing I can suggest that can be very helpful to making your sleep better sleep is to take a few minutes before you lay down to have just a little quiet time to yourself, allowing the day’s events to come up and be mentally looked at, then let go.  This simple process can, if practiced regularly, drastically improve the quality of whatever amount of sleep you get.