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The Myth of
8 Hours, the Power of Naps, and the New Plan to Recharge Your
Body & Mind
BY Nick Littlehales
Read by Nick Littlehales
Hachette Audio
March 2018/ ASIN: B07B1JFXHT
Self Help / Audiobook - 7 CDs, 6 hours and 39 minutes
Reviewed
by Leslie C. Halpern
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An
elite sports sleep coach and creator of the “R90”
sleep technique, Nick Littlehales has written a book to help
everyone maximize their time at rest. Readers, who for the most
part should be aiming for six restorative 90-minute sleep cycles
per night, will learn first about whether they are early birds
or night owls, a determination essential for determining how
to structure their days and nights.
Narrated by the author in a crisp British accent, the book discusses
the importance of technology, lighting, intellectual stimulation,
physical comfort, and other requirements for getting a good
night’s sleep. Despite what most of us have been taught,
one eight-hour night’s rest is not necessarily right for
everyone. Sleep requirements vary depending on age, lifestyle,
and physical features. Although Littlehales created his sleep
technique with athletes such as competitive cyclists, soccer
teams, Olympic athletes, and NBA and NFL players in mind, it’s
applicability to the general population is what prompted him
to write this comprehensive book on an important subject that
many of us take lightly.
For instance, he writes about how nightly brushing your teeth
in front of a fluorescent light in the bathroom accompanied
by a brief dialogue with your partner as he or she does the
same thing is a stimulating eye-opening experience rather than
a relaxing pre-bedtime ritual. To avoid the harsh lighting that
signals daytime to our bodies, he suggests brushing our teeth
and perhaps a quick late-night shower by candlelight as a more
relaxing bedtime ritual. Another suggestion he makes is to brush
our teeth hours before bedtime and use the remaining time to
relax our bodies and bodies by performing a brief filing or
organizing project to declutter before going to bed.
As if the pre-sleep and sleep requirements weren’t enough
to focus on, the author also has post-sleep waking rituals to
help us rise and shine. He also provides good reasons to avoid
sleeping late to “catch up” on lost sleep, which
he says is actually lost forever. Sleep provides much more than
just a guide for improving our sleep. Filled with relatable
examples and easy-to-understand ideas, it’s a guide to
sleeping better and more efficiently so that we can live better
and more efficiently. It’s an excellent book for anyone
even remotely interested in the subject of sleep.
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