Who Will Cry When You Die\?: Life Lessons From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari pdfdrive com

84.
Sleep Less
Thomas Edison’s life story is one worth reading about. Part visionary, part
gambler and part genius, he was a brilliant inventor who made the best use of his
time on the planet. Though he had only six months of formal schooling, he had
read such classics as 
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by the time he
was eight and invented the phonograph, which captured sound on records, by the
time he was thirty. A master of positive thinking, when someone asked him why,
during his last years when he was almost totally deaf, he did not invent a hearing
aid, he replied, “How much have you heard in the last twenty-four hours that you
couldn’t do without?” He then added with a smile, “A man who has to shout can
never tell a lie.” But what I remember the most about this special man was his
rare ability to thrive on only four hours of sleep. “Sleep is like a drug,” he
explained. “Take too much at a time and it makes you dopey. You lose time,
vitality and opportunities.”
Most of us sleep far more than we need to. We say to ourselves that we
must have at least eight good hours of time under the covers in order to function
at our best. We cannot imagine getting by on less sleep and shudder at the very
thought. Yet, as I wrote in an earlier lesson, it is not the quantity of sleep that is
most important. What really counts is the 
quality
and richness of your sleep.
Just remember those times when everything in your life was working. You
were thriving at the office, fulfilled in your relationships and growing in your
inner life. You were overflowing with energy and passionate about every minute
of your days. If you are like most people, you will also recall that during these
times you could get by on less sleep. As a matter of fact, there was so much to be
excited about that you did not want to waste time by oversleeping. Now reflect
on those times of your life when things were not going so well. Your job was
exhausting, the people in your life were driving you crazy and you had no time
for yourself. During these times, you probably slept longer than usual. Perhaps
you slept until two o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday or Sunday (we often use
sleep as an escape from reality during difficult times). But how did you feel
when you finally woke up? Groggy, uninspired and tired.
So it is not the number of hours of sleep that is key but rather the amount of
renewal your body receives. Strive for less time in bed but a richer, deeper sleep.

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Understand that fatigue is often a mental creation that stems from doing things
you do not like to do. And remember Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wise
words:
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

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