In this episode, we discuss the power of doing the Amish Hour to help you get better sleep.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about trying the Amish Hour. I’m a big believer that we should sleep more. When I was in college, I never spent an all-nighter trying to prepare for another exam. I just made sure I wasn’t waiting until the last minute to do study. I absolutely hate missing out on sleep and I try to make it up or move around my schedule so that I can make sure I’m getting my 8 hours of sleep a night. Sleep is important because it helps your body recover and it clears the brain plaque from your brain so you decrease the chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease.
I know I feel my best when I’m fully rested and I have my stuff planned out. One thing that can help you get enough sleep is to take advantage of the Amish hour. The Amish hour is when you have no electronics for an hour before you sleep. This is good because it reduces your exposure to blue light. You want to limit your exposure to blue light at night because it disrupts your melatonin production which is a hormone that helps you go to sleep.
So here are a couple of tips to get rid of the blue light out of your life. One good tip is to buy a router that shuts off the internet to your devices at a certain time. If you have an alarm system that is connected to your wifi, it can still be active while your smartphone and television are not connected. For your television, you can buy a power outlet with a timer on it that shuts off at a certain time. So if you want to sleep at 10 pm, have all the distracting electronics shut off at 9 pm. This way, you can begin your Amish hour. Say there is a show you want to watch after 9 pm. There are plenty of streaming options or watch the clips on Youtube the next day while you’re getting ready.
Then after while of knowing that your wifi will shut off, it will make you more disciplined with your activities. Instead of messing around on the internet, you can focus more on that important stuff. If the night is a slacking off night, then at least you know you lived within your parameters for slacking off and didn’t go overboard with it.
Plus if you’re missing those things, are you really missing out on those things? If you have a family, and you’re only time to relax is after 9 pm, then try to find another way to relax. I think most people go to television or their Smartphone because it’s so easy but a book or a crossword puzzle could suffice. You can also draw or color if that helps. Find something where you can take your mind to the business of the world. Or I guess you can wake up an hour before everyone else and get your relaxing time before then. It all depends on your situation but here are some tips to help you move in the right direction.
Plus when you find your Amish hour routine, it helps your body get into a sleep mode. If you work and sleep in your bedroom, then that can send mix signals to your brain that it’s actually time to stay up. So it’s wise to remove all electronics from your bedroom. If you need your phone in case of an emergency, then I would suggest put it as far as away as you can, so you can’t grab it and put it on do not disturb mode, where people can call with an absolute emergency. I would also recommend that you invest in an alarm clock with a light that gets brighter as it gets closer to your alarm. This will represent the sun and can help you wake up faster.
As people, we do a lot of things automatically. I think it’s 90% of our day is done out of habit. So if you think you have a lot of free will, you probably don’t. The way you eat and live is based a lot on your habits. So if you get in the habit of having a bed routine, then this can help with your sleep.
As a business owner, I have a lot of ideas in my head about what I need to do. So I recommend you get a journal where you can write down your ideas. I find that when I write down my ideas then at least it is written down and I won’t forget about them later on.
Also when you’re doing your Amish hour, you can brush and floss your teeth and do whatever hygiene stuff you need to do before you go to bed.
To do this requires discipline and to have the right systems in place. If you have trouble turning off the television or turning off your phone, then create a system that removes vices from your environment at a certain time. Sheer discipline is really hard, but leveraged discipline is what successful people do and that comes with having the right systems in place. Plus discipline gives you freedom. If you can have the discipline to get a full 8 hours of sleep, that means your brain the next day will be operating at a 100% versus 86% with someone who got seven hours of sleep. So at work, if you’re operating at 100%, you’ll be more creative and you will have more perseverance at work on tough tasks, so you’ll accomplish more. Operating at 86% is a B and you have to remember that A players are 32 times more effective than B players. So if you want to have a good life, be an A player but to be an A player you need to do things that will make you an A player and following the Amish Hour is just one of many tips that you need to implement to become an A player.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, to get a better night’s sleep, try the Amish hour where you remove electronics from your environment an hour before you go to bed. If you keep up this routine, then you’ll be able to sleep better hopefully and become more productive as a person. People need to sleep more and it should be prioritized at all costs.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode.
Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
