Cool Down (16 page)

How do you wake up on a workday? What kind of alarm clock do you have? Odds are it uses a noise to wrest you from sleep. Although some people pride themselves on being able to wake up naturally, and reliably, without an alarm clock, these are the lucky ones. They have discovered a way to stay in sync with their natural sleep cycle. For everyone else, there's the alarm clock.

I believe alarm clocks are fundamentally wrong, and I think also that they are a prime contributor to the counter-productivity of high-speed life. To illustrate my point, let me ask you this: When you are finished with your computer, do you shut it down by pulling the plug or turning off your power bar? No? When you first learned to use a computer, you were probably warned never to just flip the “off” switch, since computers really dislike like being turned off that way. Why? Because computers have to tidy up first. They have to get rid of all kinds of files and temporary memory blocks. If they don't, those blocks will still be there next time the computer is powered up, which degrades its performance and ages it prematurely. That's why the shut-down operation is software-driven, and takes a few seconds or even a minute before the computer is ready to close down. People who use an alarm to wake themselves up are simply flipping the “off” switch on their sleep cycle without tidying up first. This causes a chemical imbalance that can have repercussions for the rest of the day. Sleep is a series of five phases, ranging essentially from light sleep to deep sleep to REM sleep and then back again. We dream for a while and then we don't dream. And then we dream again. People lucky enough to be able to wake up naturally are basically enjoying the results of having finished, tidied up, and put away a complete sleep cycle. By contrast, those who are woken by an alarm are given no chance to close off the cycle, and depending on where you are in it when the buzzer goes, you might wake up feeling fine, or you might end up feeling groggy and tired. Most people experience at least one day per week of feeling groggy, tired, and fighting an ache behind their eyes. Even one day a week like this is too much, since it puts the mental tachometer too far back. There has to be a better way to close down the sleep cycle and build a foundation for a productive day. The waking-up process needs to be slower,
cooler
.

The healthiest type of wake-up device available is one that closes down the sleep process gradually, using subtle increases in light and sound. If your wake-up time is 6:00 a.m., then this clock would come to life at 5:30 a.m. with a gentle low light and very low sound. Over the course of half an hour, these stimuli increase gradually, assisting the body's natural sleep cycle, and helping to bring it to a complete closure.

One of the primary chemicals that brings on and maintains sleep is melatonin, something that is manufactured when there is little or no light. Therefore, the gradual introduction of light, even onto closed eyelids, helps inhibit further production of melatonin, while encouraging the release of stimulant hormones into the bloodstream.

Sound, preferably low-level white noise or quiet music, does the same thing. Together, the light and sound start to stimulate the senses, and awaken the body gradually and in a much healthier fashion.

For those who do not wish go out and buy a new clock radio, the next recommendation is to use timers. Put a timer on the lamp in your bedroom (not the one on your bedside table, but one further away, if possible), as well as one in your living room and kitchen. Set them to come on at the same time as your alarm. Therefore, even if you must use a harsh alarm to wake up, you will ensure that there is light from the very first moment you open your eyes, which will stimulate hormone production and help to shift your body into wakefulness.

If your partner gets to sleep a little while longer than you and prefers that no lights go on in the morning, then use a flashlight. If it is high summer, and it is already light outside, then move to a room where you can open the drapes to let the light in. The objective, in all of these situations, is to use the body's own natural stimulant system to dilute the chemistry of sleep with the minimum of shock.

Another key technique for helping ensure top-quality performance and quicker wakefulness is to no longer use the snooze bar on your alarm clock, since it is not possible to reconnect properly with the full sleep sequence in just nine minutes. It might actually make things worse. Falling back into the primary stages of a new sleep cycle within the time afforded by the snooze bar means that you'll just have to pull yourself out again, and this can hurt more than it helps. Instead, sit up and move your feet around and down, so that you are sitting on the edge of the bed. This reduces the temptation to flop back down. As your eyes start to open and adjust to the light of your timer-activated lamps, start thinking. Think about positive things, about goals, plans, or upcoming leisurely activities. Get the wheels turning, so that together they flush out the chemical remnants of sleep.

It sounds harsh, this bright, snoozeless approach to rousing first thing in the morning, but it can truly make a difference between a mediocre day and a top-quality one. By using this technique, you will be:

Everyone has heard the old expression that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, yet it still goes under-appreciated and underused by a great many hard-working people. Some say it's because they have no time. Others say they have no appetite at that hour of the morning. Still others can get by on just a coffee and a muffin or donut.

For those who are lukewarm to the idea of slowing down and having a good breakfast, I would like to suggest that the cost of ignoring breakfast will exact itself throughout the entire day. In Chapter 3, I demonstrated how taking 15 minutes to eat lunch away from your desk will yield far more productivity for the entire day and week to come, and now I must say the same about taking time to eat breakfast—a good breakfast, a real breakfast.

Donuts and muffins always seem so much more appealing than cereal. First, they can be eaten quickly, with little mess, which is perfect for the commuter on the run. Furthermore, the sugar, the colors, the texture, everything about them seems to connect with our senses and satisfies our immediate hunger. They fool our ancient instincts. What the body truly seeks is fruit, grains, and protein—a package of energy for a busy day, but what what we often choose is a low-grade commercial imitation.

The problem with donuts, of course, is that they are made primarily from refined sugars and flour, which deliver a quick burst of energy that lasts for about 20 minutes and works in conjunction with the caffeine boost delivered by coffee and tea to fool the body into thinking it's been fed. Soon after comes the sugar crash as blood sugar imbalances get rebalanced and recompensated by the body's internal mechanisms. Few people who experience a sugar crash actually fall face-first onto their laptop, of course, but if that forehead tachometer mentioned in Chapter 2 were working and visible, the significant drop in processing ability would be noticeable. This is the hidden cost of high-speed food. Muffins may provide a slightly healthier alternative, of course, but most commercially created muffins contain high amounts of fat, including hydrogenated and trans-fats, as well as glucose-fructose and other high-sugar products.

The temporary satisfaction gained from small portable breakfast snacks like these, including the cup-of-coffee-only breakfast, not only negatively impacts mental productivity and energy levels during the morning, they also exert great negative influence on the choices we make for our lunchtime meal.

People who eat small, inefficient breakfasts are much more likely to feel
very
hungry come lunchtime. What's wrong with feeling hungry at lunchtime? Nothing. But there is something wrong with feeling
very
hungry at lunchtime, since extreme hunger leads to more poor food choices. People who are very hungry at lunchtime:

All of this high-speed reaction to extreme hunger puts extra strain on the body, leading to further reduced ability during the afternoon. The natural lethargy felt by most people at 2:30 p.m. is exacerbated by the blood sugar imbalances caused by fast food, and the sheer effort of its digestion. This reduces the ability to concentrate, which ultimately means work takes longer to get done, with much of it having to be done on the train ride home.

Is there a solution to this? Sure! In the morning, eat foods that take longer to digest—the foods that stick with you longer (see the TIPS box for some suggestions). These will give your body something to keep it occupied and will maintain better internal balance. I'll repeat here just one of the snack suggestions made in Chapter 3, simply because it's the one that many of my past clients and audience members have told me was the most successful of all: the 11:00 a.m. yoghurt. A serving of yoghurt, preferably 0% fat, at 10:45 or 11:00 a.m. helps alleviate growing hunger pains. This allows people to feel less ravenous when lunchtime arrives and therefore allows them to choose more wisely and eat more slowly. It's as simple as that.

The other counterproductive result of not having enough time to eat breakfast happens when people skip it entirely. Those who choose this route condemn their body to experiencing “famine mode.” When it becomes apparent to your body that food is scarce, because there's none in your stomach by 9:00 a.m., the body reacts by breaking down its own stored energy reserves. It eats from the inside. Now this would be a great concept if your body were to take on those stored fat reserves and whittle them away. But no, stored fat takes weeks to break down. Remember, it's there to help keep hunter-gatherers going through the winter. Instead your starved body goes to work on a different source of easily accessible energy, which is stored inside muscle fiber. This, by the way, is why some unfortunate marathon runners have to undergo that torturous experience 500 yards from the finish line, when they find themselves on hands and knees unable to move any further. During the three hours or so of a race, a marathon runner's body burns up all available stored energy from the muscle tissue. There is nothing left. The poor racer may still have a small amount of body fat around his middle, but three hours is nowhere near enough time to start working on it, and so he collapses. For the high-speed working person who skips breakfast in order to get to the train station on time, similar reflexes operate behind the scenes. Unwilling to undergo famine again, her 50,000-year-old body makes sure that when she finally decides to eat something, a little extra will be stored as fat, just in case another mini-famine happens again tomorrow.

Thus, for the average North American male or female, skipping breakfast or settling for a quick, poor breakfast paves a quick, easy route to weight gain and sluggish mental performance. By contrast, those who
cool down
enough to eat a good breakfast reduce their potential gain of body fat. They fuel their body and mind for a good three or four hours of high-tachometer productivity and accuracy until the next refueling stop just prior to midday.

So where can someone find time for a good breakfast, when mornings are already so busy?

This is an area where we have to counteract the event-to-event mindset, described in Chapter 3. The home-to-work sequence must be redefined, so that if breakfast is currently skipped or rushed, an additional 15 minutes is injected, somewhere between the time we rise and the time we start work. There are two approaches that seem to best fit this mold: