Are you getting enough sleep?

I ask myself this question every day. I have an app on my phone that alerts me when it is time to go to bed each night at 10 pm and silences my calls and texts until 7 am the next day. Then, I check the next day to see how many hours I actually slept.

And some days I must admit the hours are very sore. And other days the hours stack up. And can I tell the difference in myself between my sleep hours lacking versus stacked up, absolutely!

When I have little sleep it is not good....I drag myself out of bed, I am a little irritable at times because I'm so sleepy, I am just overall sluggish, my thinking is foggy, and I have to push myself through things that should be easy. The day just starts out rough and is rough throughout until I get my sleep back in line.

When I have plenty of sleep, my day starts out bright, I'm on top of the world, I can get a lot done throughout the day, I can face challenges easier because I'm not on edge with sleepiness, I think clearer, and overall my mood is better.

Why does this matter you say? It matters tremendously to the start of your day. It matters to your day's obligations, to your dream work, and to your life mission. We all have a purpose on this planet and without adequate sleep we can not perform at our top level.

I have to admit last night I slept a total of 8 hours and 8 minutes. Wow! I checked my app to confirm. That is amazing and let me just say I feel awesome, spectacular and well rested to tackle this day!

Now, on Thursday morning I woke up not feeling the greatest and guess how many hours I clocked in...only 6 hours and 31 minutes....whew-not good at all! And I had to work my full day on that too. I would not recommend this. It was not fun at all.

Thursday was not my only day that I have gotten little sleep. And definitely not my only week that I have done this. I have had several days and several weeks that I have gotten very poor sleep and had little sleep during the week.

Now I can say after trial and error with both little sleep and much sleep, sleep is the only way to go. I don't get it perfect every day, but I am working on this because I see how critical it is.

How many times have we heard "make sure you get 8 hours of sleep a day"? Too many times that's for sure. Interestingly, it is true though. Sleep is important to our overall health and proper functioning of our body.

Not to talk health here, but sleep in my terms is important to thrive, to function at your top level, and necessary to put in the energy needed to tackle your day.

And for me my dream work is top priority and I cannot put the time in for it appropriately if I am not fresh mentally for the day.

Now, let me just say sometimes my late nights and early mornings have been related to my dream work in grinding it out, but it still is no excuse for continually working at a level where I am not sleeping enough.

There's always moments where we just have to get things done and little sleep may be the equation to do that. But, as a whole what is your sleep pattern?

Do you sleep enough? If you are up late, what are you doing? Is it meaningful work? Can you utilize your hours better throughout the day, so that you can have more hours at night to

sleep?

I know that I can utilize my hours better throughout the day and have been working this into my schedule. Its definitely paying off. I can see the fruit of my labor in my dream work by making sleep more consistent in my life.

What about you? Has lack of sleep kept you from meeting the goals you set out to do? If so, let's prioritize sleep for you.

If we don't take care of ourselves with something even that simple, who will? We are ultimately responsible for this for ourselves and even more responsible for the mark we leave on the world.

What mark do you want to leave on the planet? This is important. You are important. Your life's work is important.

Let's do this with more sleep, ok. If I can do it, so can you!