8 Hours Sleep - The Slow Home Experiment
This month’s Slow Home Experiment sees us trying to get 8 hours of sleep every night, and unsurprisingly, Ben’s nailed it so far.While this experiment plays very nicely to Ben’s strengths (sleeping) I’ve been getting 6-7 hours sleep a night for years and genuinely thought I’d been getting enough.When we started slowing down the rhythm of our lives, one of the first changes I made was to get up early in the morning and have some quiet time to myself. Over the years I’ve had good and bad runs at making this happen, and sometimes it’s been used for work while other times it’s been more about self-care rituals like writing or exercise.The past week has seen me get 8 hours sleep every night, but I’ll admit, it’s been due to me sacrificing those early morning hours, rather than going to bed earlier. So I can already see that it’s not going to be an ideal arrangement long-term and I’ll need to start getting my extra hours earlier in the night rather than the mornings.The biggest problem I’m having with that though is that by 8:30pm (the time I’d need to get to bed in order to be asleep and get a full 8 hours for my 5am alarm) I’m just not that tired. It might be because I really do need less than 8 hours sleep, or it could be that I’m simply not tiring myself out enough every day.So this week I’m going to be more physically active (walking every day on top of yoga/rock climbing) and see if that helps me to feel sleepier at 8:30pm.It’s certainly not an experiment I’m loving so far, although I will say that the extra sleep does have me feeling less weary so I’m sure there’s wisdom to be had in getting the extra hours!Also, don't forget, you can play along with us by tagging your social media posts with #slowhomeexperiment and sharing your experiences. Hit us up on Instagram and let’s get experimenting!
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Show notes:
- The Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington