Get more sleep. If you tell yourself you're just one of these people who can get by fine on five or six or even seven hours of sleep, chances are, you're lying to yourself. Let me ask you do you need an alarm clock to get up in the morning? If so, by definition, that means you're not getting enough sleep. Here's the practical tip to get more sleep. This isn't a popular tip, but it's wildly successful and it does work.

First of all, think of what time do you actually fall asleep? Most nights. If you're like a lot of people, you maybe watch a movie a sitcom on Netflix or TV, then maybe watch the local news then on opening monologue from a comedian. unwind before you know it, it's 1140 at night, then the alarm is going off 6am and you've got six hours and 20 minutes sleep and you're feeling tired. Here's what I want you to do. Look at the time you actually fall asleep for you at maybe 1am.

Go back two hours. starting tonight. At that point, two hours before you normally fall asleep. I want you to eliminate any TV screens, any video screens, your cell phone, remove all electronic stimulation. And then I want you to just read something on paper, a book, a magazine, stay away from news. Stay away from anything that's going to agitate you could be a novel could be work of nonfiction.

Read something that's interesting to you. and eliminate music eliminate all outside stimulation. Preferably don't read in bed but if you have to even read in bed Here's what I want you to just read until you get tired. And when you find your eyes are starting to get heavy, go to bed. Now, it may be for you, it still takes two hours, here's the thing, you'll get a more restful sleep, you will sleep much better, even if you fall asleep at the same time. Now, for most people, I can't guarantee this for you.

But for the vast majority of people who do this, what you'll find is after about a half an hour, you're going to get very sleepy and you'll actually fall asleep. an hour and a half, sometimes two hours earlier than you normally do. What's the downside of this? Well, people might make fun of you for being oh you go to bed at 10 o'clock at night you're a loser but you wake up at six after eight hours of sleep and you've been getting by on six or six and a half. You are going to feel so wildly popular. You're going to feel like you can conquer mountains.

Now, everyone is different, I realized that but there are some general trends the general trend everywhere in the Western world, the industrialized world, the wealthier parts of the world. Try not to offend anyone but the vast majority of the world. People are not getting enough sleep ever since the advent of electricity and lights. Now that we all have smartphones and tablets is 1000 times worse. When you don't get enough sleep. You end up crabby, a bad mood, your brain doesn't function as well, you're not going to be as productive.

So I want you to try this for one week. Just not saying you can't watch TV or movies, watch them but two hours before you're ready for bed, cut off and let's see when your body's actually ready and willing to fall asleep for so many people. It's actually more like 10 o'clock at night. It's not 1130 or 1145. Even if you've been going to sleep at 1145 for the last 20 years, you're artificially keeping yourself up that light. If you can't keep your eyes open reading a book with no outside stimulation, it means your body is ready to go to sleep.

So here's the assignment number one. Try this for one week, again, two hours before bedtime. Just do nothing but read paper, no screens whatsoever. The second thing I want you to do is right down to the q&a section right here on this course, what your nighttime routine is, what time do you actually go to bed? Are you watching TV, or videos on YouTube? Or on Netflix before?

Are you doing email up to the last minute, are you checking texts to the last minute, I want you to write in the q&a section right now. Just a brief summary of What are you doing before you go to sleep?