Schedule

There’s something to be said about waking, eating, and sleeping on a schedule.

These are connected in some way. One leads to the next which leads to the next. Sleeping a while after eating the last meal seems to result in better rest than sleeping right after.

Eating seems to require a buffer time before sleep. This may have to do with digestive processes. It might be a primordial defense against aspiration. Or a social evolution, geared toward post meal bonding.

Whatever it is, this buffer period makes it difficult to sleep early when I’ve eaten a late dinner. Almost invariably I’ll stay up for a while, sort of wired on even though I’m tired. On the occasion that I’m exhausted and fall asleep anyway, I wake and find my digestive process stalled.

Incidentally, I found myself getting drowsy much earlier at night after earlier dinners. Four or five o’clock in the afternoon seems to be the magic hour. Starting dinner early allows me to digest and relax for a while, getting into slumber mode before it gets too late at night for a full stretch of sleep.

After discovering this, I’ve tried several times to replicate the result. When I successfully make dinner early, I end up falling asleep much earlier. There just seems to be a natural internal process, aside from digestion, that needs to take place after dinner. Rushing it doesn’t seem to be an option, so shifting dinner time solves it from the other end.

In addition to things like magnesium, meditation, and mobility, try eating dinner earlier in the evening to bring yourself to rest earlier. The tricky part is reorganizing the day to get dinner ready earlier.

To powerful living,

Steve

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