September 1, 2020

Sleepy course 😴 Day 21

Today I would like to start with a story about a writer. His name is Allen Carr.

He wrote popular books such as The Easy Way to Stop Smoking or The Easy Way to Stop Drinking. The methods described there were so effective that scientists wanted to study them.

The book’s effectiveness was compared not only to solo attempts at quitting smoking, but with other programs as well, and even with personal coach + pharmacological support approach

And what do you think? Allen Carr beat all of them. In one study, 22% of subjects who read the book weren’t smoking at a 12-month follow-up compared with 11% for an alternative method.

Allen Carr

What is Allen Carr’s secret and why scary images on cigarette packs don’t work?

The truth is, Allen Carr doesn’t try to scare people. He uses positive emotions and asks to quit smoking not because “smoking is bad”, but because “not smoking is wonderful!”

In the brain, we have a structure called nucleus accumbens. It’s like a friend who likes partying. It doesn’t care about risks and it leaves for immediate pleasure. I should say, that the nucleus accumbens is second to none when it comes to fun and amusement, and live without it would be boring. But it’s also responsible for all addictions.

Photo by Jan Kopřiva

It dismisses out of hand all attempts at improving life - eating healthy, getting to bed on time, staying active.

And the most depressing thing, nucleus accumbens is a good manipulator and it almost always gets what it wants. It will yield, temporarily, if you try to will it to behave. However, as soon as you loosen the control, it’ll make you return to the old ways.

An effective way to win against it is to use the same methods. Be more cunning! Treat adopting a new good habit or abandoning a bad one as something pleasant. Nucleus accumbens will then also treat it as fun and won’t interfere.

The good news is nucleus accumbens is talented and learns quickly! If you show it that you can enjoy self-improving habits, it’ll start having fun with them.

But don’t underestimate nucleus accumbens. To make it believe you, you have to truly love your new way of life!

Sleep and smoking 🚬

There are not one, not two, and not even three, but a lot of studies that show positive effects of quitting smoking on sleep quality. Non-smokers fall asleep faster, have less interrupted sleep, enjoy more SWS, snore less, feel better in the mornings, and even have fewer nightmares!

In other words, it’s the full package, And that’s just sleep! There are a lot of positives to quitting smoking overall.

If you smoke, you have an excellent opportunity to quickly and effectively improve your life in several areas at once, including sleep.

Sleep and alcohol 🥃

Alcohol, on the other hand, is a sly fellow. At first, it may seem alcohol helps with sleep. Some studies even show that during the first half of the night alcohol increases the amount of SWS, and reduces falling asleep time.

But things are not that simple. Research shows that long term, alcohol negatively affects the quality of sleep. Moreover, it disrupts circadian rhythms and reduces melatonin production.

Let me guess, you are now asking, “Sleepy, and what if drink in moderation?” 🙂 Unfortunately, studies showed that even one shot, drunk in the evening, reduces melatonin production by 19% for several hours.

Therefore, you shouldn’t use alcohol as a sleeping draught. 😉

Photo by Charles "Duck" Unitas

Lifestyle 🕺

Do you remember, that we started the course with very simple and easy-to-implement methods, such as sleep in socks, take shower, turn off the lights?

Now we moved to much more difficult ones - reduce consumption of simple carbohydrates and alcohol, quit smoking. Knowing those things affect sleep is easy, changing your lifestyle is not. But this is what’s most important.

But I have no doubt you’ll succeed! You now know how to negotiate with fun-loving nucleus accumbens. I’m sure it’ll learn quickly to enjoy your new healthy lifestyle which is capable of bringing you long-term happiness instead of just momentary pleasures.


We still haven’t talked about caffeine. Tomorrow, I’ll bring a couple of good news for tea and coffee lovers. 🙂

Task:

  1. Together with the nucleus accumbens imagine the joy of your wonderful new life without alcohol and tobacco.
  2. Enjoy your evening ritual. ❤️

The studies: