What would your life be like if you suddenly gained a few extra hours each day?
Can you see how you could then do more of the things you enjoy?
Or maybe some of you would work even more hours on your businesses or work life!
Today in the UK the clocks have gone back one hour which means that just for one day, we had an “extra” hour.
It’s a quirky thing how here in the UK we create British Summer Time by putting our clocks forward by an hour in early spring and then we put them back an hour in autumn.
It’s all to help our farmers with more light in the winter mornings – but personally I prefer lighter evenings.
I used the “extra” hour today to cleanse my home and did some more de-cluttering (does it ever end?) in readiness for Diwali and the Indian New Year next weekend.
A while ago I wrote about my 9 tips to create and extra hour everyday.
But how can you create a few extra hours each day of your life without having to manipulate the clock?
Well, my friend and mentor Steven Aitchison has created a wonderful new guide called “How to Become an Advanced Early Riser” where he shows you how to get 5 hours of sleep each night and still feel fantastic.
As Steven says:-
“This guide will show you exactly how to sleep 5 hours every night and still feel fantastic, whilst being more productive, having more energy, and relaxing more.
Ever wondered what the top achievers in life have in common: they sleep less and achieve more.
This guide is perfect if you want a concise yet detailed program which will show you how to gain an extra 7 – 28 hours per week, time spent on things you love doing the most.”
Now I must admit that though I would love to get by on just 5 hours sleep each day, I usually need 7 to 8 hours. My late father used to get by on 4 hours sleep a night – even to the ripe old age of 78 he was getting up at 3.30 am every day to meditate for a few hours before I was even awake!
I am applying Steven’s guide during the 30 days of November starting on Monday 1st Nov.
In the meantime, I was privileged to interview Steven about his new guide:-
1. You have created quite a resource to help people sleep less and yet sleep better. What was your inspiration and motivation?
The inspiration really comes from writing what I know about. I have been getting by on around 5-6 hours sleep for 13 years or so and totally love the feeling of being able to achieve so much more than I could than if I were to sleep in every morning.
I wrote to my subscribers from Change your Thoughts asking if they would be interested in a guide like this, and surprisingly most of them said they would love to read a guide on How to become an early riser without compromising their energy levels throughout the day.
2. Please describe your product in more detail. Usually ebooks or guides are just that – a single document to read. Why have you gone for MP3s as well?
There are three parts to the guide:
The main guide; Shows you how to get a quality sleep and how to keep your energy levels high throughout the day.
The success log: This is where you can record what your sleeping patterns, your energy levels and your motivations for rising early are just now. It also lets you record your reasons for getting up early and getting less sleep, as motivation plays a huge role in being able to get by on less sleep and get up early. If you are not totally excited about getting up in the morning, your motivation will soon disappear.
The Mp3s: These are four downloads to help you relax when you need to. There are two pieces of relaxation music, one to help you sleep at night and one to help you for relaxation. There is also a guided meditation which will transport you to another place in your mind to help you focus on your intentions in life. The fourth piece is a strange piece of dance trance music interlaced with binaural beats, which has the power to alter your brainwave patterns to induce a burst of energy, which lasts for an hour or so.
3. What’s your suggested approach for using your guide?
Everybody is different and it’s important to find your own way of working with the program. The program has 18 modules to help you, and you can pick and choose the modules which is important to you. Some of the suggestions you may already do, but most of them you can implement to be able to sleep a lot less hours than you do just now.
So my suggestion is to read the full program, do the exercises in the success log, and then start implementing the program to suit your own situation.
You will start to see results in as little as 1-2 weeks. One customer, who is 8 months pregnant, tried the program and reported she is now sleeping 1 hour less per day and is getting a lot more done in her life, which is amazing considering the body hormonal balance changes so much during pregnancy.
4. How did you research and test your teachings?
Most of the research in science states that getting less sleep is bad for you. However I found a major flaw in a lot of the scientific studies. They were mostly based on self reporting evidence, which means it is not based on actual measurable results.
One study which was based on using data from a wrist monitor found that women who sleep between 5 hours and six and half hours were more likely to live longer, that’s a much better study than self reporting as you can see results. However, there are always two sides to the story.
Although I carried out a lot of research I found the best research is on myself. I know exactly how I feel each day and have, in the past, recorded my own energy levels, sleeping patterns and concentration levels.
I found that I concentrated much better in the mornings and got so much more done than I did at night, there’s something about a brand new day that just gets you going.
I figured if I am getting these results, why not dissect what i am doing and then pass that information on to others who might be interested.
5. I am assuming you are now getting by on 5 hours sleep a night. How many hours were you sleeping before? How long did the transition take?
I am sleeping on average 5 hours per night, sometimes four and a half, sometimes 6.
I used to sleep about 8-9 hours per night, but found myself constantly rushing in the mornings, being later for work, and generally just harassed throughout the day, I was meeting myself coming backwards.
That changed when I nearly lost my job for being late and I decided it was time to change. It was also about the same time I was really starting to study the mind and what it was capable of and the first two tests were getting up early and getting up without the help of an alarm clock.
So it was almost an overnight thing, however it took me a few weeks for my body to adjust to the new routine.
6. I notice that you also have other guides already on your website. What’s next for you?
I would love to write a comprehensive blogging course, but I need to do a few more things before that comes out. I have so many ideas which I will run by my list of subscribers and let them be the best judge of what would work.
7. Finally, anything else you would like to add about your product, your blog and what you do?
I would like to add that How to Become an Advanced Early Riser is not for everyone, especially if you are recovering from illness or are currently going through an illness. Like anything else, listen to your own body.
I have so many plans for my blog which should see it become much bigger in 2011. My goal last year, when my blog had 3,000 subscribers, was to reach 10,000 blog subscribers, and I have now reached that figure, to date I have around 14,000 blog subscribers.
I now want to write more posts about blogging and the business of blogging, but realise they will have to be guest posts as my audience won’t really appreciate blogging articles.
I also want to do more blog coaching, more life coaching and much more guest posting.
Thanks Steven for sharing your wisdom with my readers – and congratulations for your success and for creating such a useful resource.
I remember well you telling me a year ago how your target was to reach 10,000 subscribers a year ago – and well done for doing so.
I wish you even more success with all your projects in the coming months and years – the world is a better place because of what you do.
And please do share your own tips for sleeping fewer hours:-)
Image courtesy of bdogggut34
Hi Arvind, thanks for this wonderful resource for the How to Become an Advanced early Riser guide. I would love to see your results at the end of November, as I am sure you will do great with it.
If there are any questions your readers want I can answer them here.
Steven, I will be thanking YOU at the end of November:-)
I am sure your guide is going to help many people get more of their lives once they are spending less time sleeping!
Hi Arvind,
It’s very true that we spend too many hours sleeping. I find 6 hours is more than enough and if I sleep longer than that then my back hurts. I guess it’s a result of years of shift work where you get used to sleeping less, at odd hours and anywhere. I find that I’m a night owl and work better late in the day.
I worked in Angola on the diamond recovery platforms and was amazed to see the workers sleep standing up amidst the tremendous noise and vibrations.
Congratulations to Steve on his book and achieving his blogging goals.
Arvind, I hope you have sleepless success.
Thanks Andre – here’s to sleepless success for all of us:-)
Hi Andre, thanks for commenting. I have suffered a bad back for years and find that if I sleep longer the more pain i get in my back, strange 🙂
It truly amazes me what our bodies can get used to, as in your sleeping whilst standing example.
Hi Arvind (and Stephen) I hope you are well.
I will be really interested in your results – I have been looking at the book for a while and read some of the interviews.
Whilst I am always up early, I am also usually in bed relatively early and find I need around 7 hours sleep, if I could get by on 5 that would be great!
Look forward to your updates,
Kate.
Kate, I shall be writing another post at the beginning of December with an update of my results.
After a heavy weekend of healing work, I struggled to wake up this morning but it was only the first day:-)
Happy sleeping less!
Hi Arvind (and Stephen),
Thank you for this. I dont feel so odd any more. I have in the last two years increased my sleep intake from 4 hours to six hours and feel the benefit of it. People seem to have their own internal barometer in terms of what amount is neeeded for them. I have always loved the early morning since I was a child. The rest of may family were the oposite and clung to their pillows until mid-day like drowning passengers on a shipwreck holding on to logs. Basically I cannot stay longer than 30 mins after waking in bed. This has always been the butt of jokes from friends and family to which I always answer “I will be a long time with my eyes closed so I wish to see as much of life as possible! I think it was Margaret Thatcher who famously used to sleep for only 2 hours (I think) each night. Also, thank you for this very interesting blog Arvind / Stephen.
Fiona, thanks for sharing.
It was indeed Margaret Thatcher who famously used to sleep for only 2 hours each night. That lady was clearly not made for sleeping:-)
I loved what you said about wishing to see as much of life as possible. And kudos to you for wanting to do that with less sleep.
By the way, most people are trying to sleep less, whereas you went form 4 to 6 hours sleep each night. Well done for finding the right balance for you.
Really interesting interview… I actually am doing a similar experiment right now where I sleep at 12 midnight, and wake up at 6 AM. So far, I am experiencing lots of energy, and getting lots of things done. I realized even when I got 8-9 hours of sleep, I still had trouble getting out of bed… so might as well get up earlier and get more things done… but I ended up feeling more energized rather than cranky. I know Tim Ferriss has similar things to say about sleep…
Henway, thanks for sharing about your experiment.
It’s so rue – getting things done and clearing up things releases a lot of energy which you can then expend on fun things:-)
Dear Arvind,
It’s nice to see how much you are doing and the dialogue that you create here.
On the topic of sleep, I used to think that sleeping less and getting more done was great. In the words of Steven who wrote this program it’s so important for each person to check this for themselves. We do not have the scientific data to say whether 6 hours or 8 hours is correct, as he rightly says.
I am pointing this out because I am concerned about the amount of sleep deprivation taking place already and the resultant accidents and ill health that have been reported.
You mentioned your father was up early to meditate, so doesn’t it really depend on how you use that extra time?
If people are using the time to do more and more, without spending time to ‘be’, then I think that risks healthy balance physically, mentally and spiritually – don’t you?
Warm regards,
Carole
Carole, welcome again to my blog and thanks for your kind words.
As you say above, sleeping less and releasing more time for other things is useful as long as that time is used on more fun and self- enriching activities such as meditation.
Of course if one just uses that time for more destructive things then they might as well have stayed in bed.
What Steven is advocating here is that it is possible for us to thrive on less sleep, thereby freeing up more time for those things we really enjoy doing.
I would say that by sleeping less, almost everyone would ultimately benefit. I know on those mornings when I have gone back to sleep (i.e. snoozed) I have actually felt more tired and groggy.
Carole, enjoy your freed up time, whatever you choose to do:-)
I usually feel better on as little sleep as possible. I like to go to bed late and wake up early. I don’t have a set schedule right now so it varies from 3-6 hrs. When we’re truly healthy and/or using extensive spiritual techniques on a consistent basis (meditation, yoga, etc.), we shouldn’t need as much sleep. Sleeping 7-9 hrs is such a waste of time that it would be beneficial to make the lifestyle changes needed to reduce this. Not to mention those changes would give other positive benefits so it is extremely worth doing.
Welcome to my blog, DiamondHealth.
You are so right – when I have spent more time on yoga and meditation, I have naturally needed less sleep and yet I have felt more energised and happy.
Let’s start a mission to get people to sleep just 5 hours a night:-)
Hi Arvind,
I was wondering if you wrote an article on your November sleep experiment and if you could provide a link of your experiences?
Many thanks!
Zain
Hi Zain,
Trust you are well!
In the end, I didn’t write an article about my November experiment. But I did manage to reduce my sleep per night:-).
Happy sleeping!
Arvind
I sleep even less than that, and I think it’s the quality of sleep that matters more than the quantity. Sometimes I can get up to 10 hours of sleep (very rarely) and feel awful or get 3 hours sleep and be full of energy.
Nikky, welcome to my site!
It’s amazing that you can get by even less than 5 hours sleep a night. I would love to be able to do just that.
I’ll keep trying out different things until I am like you:-)