“I try to remind myself that having to stay late at the office to write, trying to push through on no sleep, is disrespectful to the craft. When I spend that extra time on my phone instead of going to bed, when I plan a trip or a week poorly, I am cheating my work, cheating my family. I’m doing something unfair to the stranger I happen to bump into. Mostly, I am cheating and harming myself. A 2017 study actually found that lack of sleep increases negative repetitive thinking. Abusing the body trains the mind to abuse itself.”
Ryan Holiday
“The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves. If we underinvest in ourselves, and by that I mean our minds, our bodies, and our spirits, we damage the very tool we need to make our highest contribution. One of the most common ways people—especially ambitious, successful people—damage this asset is through a lack of sleep.”
Greg McKeown, Essentialism (Page 94)
“We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities.”
Maria Popova, via Think Like A Monk (Page 125)
“…I learned the one infallible trick to successfully getting up earlier: I had to go to sleep earlier. That was it. I’d spent my entire life pushing the limits of each day, sacrificing tomorrow because I didn’t want to miss out on today. But once I finally let that go and started going to sleep earlier, waking up at four became easier and easier. And as it became easier, I found that I could do it without the help of anyone or anything besides my own body and the natural world around it.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 124)
“Everyone weighs sleep against other priorities. This plasticity is what gives scope for the individual to be exploited, by herself and others, as sleep’s nonessential component is eroded. Sleep inequalities persist because their consequences can be deferred – but they cannot be deferred indefinitely.”
Jonathan White, Aeon
The War General Who Slept Peacefully Every Night—A Short Story About Conquering Moments
Excerpt: How was this General able to sleep peacefully knowing he was in the midst of war? It has everything to do with conquering moments…
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“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death. The higher the interest rate and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, via Stillness is the Key (Page 230)
“People say, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ as they hasten that very death, both literally and figuratively. They trade their health for a few more working hours. They trade the long-term viability of their business or their career before the urgency of some temporal crisis. If we treat sleep as a luxury, it is the first to go when we get busy. If sleep is what happens only when everything is done, work and others will constantly be impinging on your personal space. You will feel frazzled and put upon, like a machine that people don’t take care of and assume will always function.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 230)
