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.