Why was school so hard?
Growing up, I didn’t really do well in school. It’s strange, because looking back, it was a mystery as to why, because it was relatively easier than what I am able to achieve today. Was it because I didn’t care about education growing up? Can I blame bad parenting? Was it because I was stupid? These are obvious misconceptions in my opinion, well the stupid part I guess is up for debate, but I do believe the root underlying issue is something that we ignore in our daily lives. Humans have a lot of pressure to live life according to certain standards. This makes sense because we are part of a civilization and the point is we have rules set in place so we can all live in harmony. Some of these rules are obviously laws like don’t run a green light. Some are rules like standing in line at a store so we have the first come first serve rule in place to make it fairer for the person who arrived first. We also have undercover rules set in our society like, people should get married by their late 20s/ early 30s. This isn’t followed by everyone but the pressure is real and we all know it’s there. However, are some of the rules really useful? Obviously, we shouldn’t cut in line even though the rich do have an advantage here by the ability to purchase “VIP/Express” passes which allows them to break this “rule”. But what are some rules we are following today that we don’t need to and don’t really cause others to harm? How do we define a rule that is essential vs ones that we accept unconsciously without considering all the variables? The one I want to dive into today is REM sleep.
REM is the missing piece
When we start school, we are told that we need to rise up early in the morning to start our day. We follow those patterns to college/work and we tend to follow the same guidelines for sleep. I can’t speak for everyone else but I know after studying my own sleep, my body type is not made for this lifestyle. College has advantages like night classes (not because you are hungover from rage cage the night before) but it allows an individual to have a choice to sleep in. What if we introduced the ability to sleep in for earlier studies like high school, junior high, etc. This goes back to what I was saying earlier, how was I supposed to succeed in school if my brain wasn’t fully rejuvenated from the proper sleep it deserves. How can I be so sure of this? It took me a lot later than trying night classes to figure out what type of sleeper I was. I used an Oura ring to track my sleep. It turns out, I’m getting really good Deep sleep but my REM sleep was non-existent. At a high level, deep sleep helps your muscles/body tissue repair while REM is what rejuvenates your mind. Some people identify as morning people because they may be able to get their REM early in the morning. Some people call themselves night owls because they probably have different sleep cycles and feel much more alive by choosing different hours to sleep. I’m somewhere in the middle where I need to sleep a little early but wake up late. However, once I do get these hours of sleep in, I’m 3x more efficient in everything I do. My mind is much sharper, I can make decisions faster, and my focus levels are far superior. Why take Adderal, a common alternative option I see people take to be more productive, when you can just sleep more. I strongly believe if the schooling system was updated to change its scheduling to accommodate all types of sleepers, we would have a better success rate. So why is it that we are so misled to wake up early?
“Richard Branson reportedly gets up at 5.45am, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner wakes up at 5.30am, Apple CEO Tim Cook gets up at 3.45am, Oprah gets up at 6am and Elon Musk rises at 7am, to name just a few.”
Barnsley
Watch out for the “fake memes”
When we are manipulated to think that we need to follow other successful people and follow their ways of waking up, we forget to evaluate what’s actually good for us? I think many blindly follow these strategies and sure, they may be getting more done with some more hours and coffee, but are they bringing their best self. How can they possibly give their best when they haven’t even received the proper REM sleep they need. I honestly think if we don’t get the sleep we need, we will just be zombies that are easy to control. Ok, I’m joking because it was a little extreme, but in reality, your ability for critical thinking will take a major blow. Let’s be real, will you rather have a day where you spent more hours doing more work or fewer hours doing quality work. It truly feels amazing when you consistently get REM sleep, you can feel the difference in your mind. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that one day not getting it will completely ruin it either. It’s when we don’t consistently get it, that’s when we see the negative experience. And of course, I can only speak for myself and my goal here is to share a successful thing I learned hoping it will do the same for someone else reading this in the future.
