Why Your Sleep Is Worth More Than Your Awake Hours + Money Combined

Not many prioritise sleep. It's often left last on our to-do lists, but it will leave us last too if we do that.

As an around the clock Freelancer, it has been hard to find which hours work best for me. I usually find working late nights to early mornings to be the most creative but it would often leave me disconnected from daily life, often for better mental clarity to focus my creative juices at night as a Web Designer and Digital Marketer.

Freelance vs full-time graphic designer job (view original embed)

It felt healthy because I was still getting my recommended regular 8-9 hours of sleep duration, minus vitamin D on some 2-3 week periods, and then I would switch it back to a daily routine and feel more like a people person.

I definitely maximise my sleep as a Freelancer, I've never felt more healthy. In Full-time work, if you live far from work or poorly manage your sleep (or other) time, it's easy to become crushed by poor sleeping habits which can deteriorate other aspects of your life, especially when media takes over. It's something I've learned to deal with over the years. It's basically the hidden assassin if not managed well.

I quit coffee in 2015, full English breakfast tea drinker now, but not everyday. I found regular coffee was definitely upsetting my regular sleep rhythm among other side effects.

I find when I get 8-9 hours of deep quality sleep with 3-4 hours REM sleep I feel so much more productive. When I get 2 nights of 6 hour sleeps or less, I feel so mentally dead. Elon Musk says he lives off 6 hour sleeps. Many beg to differ that that's healthy for you.

Bedding

The right pillow and mattress make all the right difference when it comes to sleep. They say you should replace your mattress every 5-10 years. My pillow is definitely in need of an upgrade after staying at a hotel for a weekend + visiting IKEA and testing their Guldpalm pillows out! (Made of feathers inside) Although my mum warns o stay away from feather pillows due to rashes, albeit an untested theory for me.

Early Birds vs Night Owls (view original embed)

Without the proper sleep in your life, you're inviting many diseases to also take over your body.

Our brains work on 1.5 hour sleep cycles, We should be getting 8-9 of these cycles in one sleep session. Its why we feel fine after after a 3 hour nap, but maybe not so much during a 5 - 7 hour nap if we wake up during a 1.5-2 hr sleep cycle. Baring in mind it takes me about 40 min to fall asleep most nights, even in a tired state.

Sleep cycle (view original embed)

Anxiety is the worse for sleep because it drastically prevents me from sleeping and my quality of sleep. Thankfully I'm not anxious a lot, only upon big life decisions like accepting a job or deciding to travel to a new country.

The 7 Deadly Disadvantages of Working From Home (view original embed)

Here are my Fitbit sleep quality tracking + LIFX (a Melbourne to SF startup) auto-light turn on in the mornings cause my room is very dark. I'm basically a night owl as well for creative purposes, but I can make the early bird life work as well.