How to Become a Sleeping Winner

How to Become a Sleeping Winner

 

If you have the money for upgrading your furniture to increase your productivity, you should get a new:

 

A. Bed                                    B. Working Desk

 

It seems like B is the sensible choice since your working desk is directly related to your work. A good desk allows you to work efficiently and makes you feel good at work place. A bed has nothing to do with your work and you only use it to sleep, why should we bother with it?

 

Actually, a good bed improves your life more than a good table. The answer is A. It sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?

 

I am willing to spend money on good bed and pillows because it brings me excellent quality sleep. It’s a worthy investment because it brings me sweet slumber for many years to come. Good sleep means great health and increased performance. No wonder Angelina Jolie spent a fortune in getting a super bed (with horsehair mattress)!

 

Imagine waking up feeling tired and painful, wouldn’t that leads to a shitty day? You won’t even have the mood to wake up and go to work or school.

 

The two things that we should consider about sleep are quality and quantity. Experts suggest that there is an optimum amount of sleep, which is roughly 8 hours. If we sleep more or less than the optimum amount of sleep, we will have health problem. From my experience, good quality sleep can actually reduce the time for optimum sleep. No wonder I feel so refreshed after sleeping for 5 hours.

 

To achieve quality sleep, we need a good mattress. The mattress must have the suitable hardness to support our weight. Hard mattress suits heavy sleeper and soft mattress fits well for light person. Ask the mattress vendor for the correct hardness if you are not sure. You won’t want to get the wrong mattress and suffer back ache, as if you are sleeping on a concrete slab.

 

Why do we feel so comfortable when we submerge in a pool of water or jelly? We feel so nice floating around because our weight is evenly supported and there is no soar spot. If you sleep on a hard board, the weight is not well distributed and the force that pinpoints at small areas of your body will make you suffer from pain. That’s like sleeping on a bed of durian. Auch!

 

So what we need to do is sleep as if we are floating on a cloud. Get some soft pillows that are made from Dow feather or cotton, we will use them as our “clouds”. Sounds yummy, doesn’t it?

 

First we sleep in a position called “soldier”, where we face upwards and our limbs spread naturally, as shown here. We now get a soft wide pillow, ideally 80 X 80 cm. Put it right under your knees to support your leg. You might want to “spread out” your legs a little to make yourself comfortable. Adjust it nicely until you feel like your legs are floating. Make sure the body weight on the pillow is evenly distributed.

 

Next — the hands. Get two small soft pillows. The pillows should not be hard and puffy like those on sofas. They need to be soft, gentle, and easily shaped. They should act as inclined support for your hands, so place the pillows under your forearms, touching the edge of your elbows. Shape the pillows so that it ascends towards your palm. You should feel as if your hands are floating inclined a bit upwards. Again, make sure the weight is well distributed.

 

Now comes the head. There are quite a number of contour health pillows that are designed to fit nicely to your head and neck to distribute the weight evenly. It is a good idea to get a good contour pillow for a try. Unfortunately, sometimes the pillow material does a bad job in distributing the heat, which means you will feel very uncomfortable from the heat until you cannot enjoy your sleep. If that’s the case, try getting a soft down feather pillow. It’s very cooling and comfortable. If it is too soft, you can put a small pillow underneath for support. That way, you head can float on the cloud.

 

Now, with soft pillows supporting your legs, hands, and head, you should feel like floating in heaven. What’s better than having a soft sleep and wake up refreshed with a smile on the face? Fortunately, it doesn’t just end here. There is another way to make your sleep even better. Read on.

 

Proper mattress and soft pillows make you sleep well because they distribute our weight nicely with gentle cushioning effect. But it does not relax our muscle, which is important for a pleasant sleeping experience. We can ensure proper muscle relaxation by easing muscular tension through a simple exercise called Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR).

 

Basically in PMR, we alternately tensing and relaxing specific groups of muscles. After tensioning, a muscle will be more relaxed than prior to the tensing. Repeat the same process throughout the body until you feel gentle and relaxed. You can read the step by step instruction of PMR here.

 

You might possibly think that spending a few minutes doing PMR is troublesome, but the sacrifice is peanut compare to the benefit of many hours of comfortable slumber. So try not to skip it. It’s a good idea to simplify PMR after you have done it a few times to save time and sleep faster. You want to sleep well, not exercising on bed.

 

A combination of methods above is a powerful synergy for a good night sleep. Maybe we should call it The Wise Sleeping Method. Be adventurous, be creative, and spend a bit of money on good bed and pillow. I wish you a nice sleep so that you don’t have to count sheep on your bed.

 

Finally, don’t forget to read this article:

 

Would you pay $64,950 for a bed?

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