Sleep (or lack of it) remains a big issue for a lot of affiliates. Truth is ad networks and most affiliate networks still operate on the 9-5 schedule so if you need to get anything productive done, which requires communication that’s the window of time you need to be operating in too. Whether it be insomnia or the after-effects of waking up at 1 in the afternoon almost all of us wish this problem of getting enough sleep would just go away. After all, we spend a third of our lives doing it.
I personally got frustrated after telling myself every late morning that I would definitely go to sleep early that night only to find myself repeating the same pattern and staying up til 4 or 5 in the morning doing work. This resulting in another “sleeping in” of sorts and only have 2-3 hours of sunlight to enjoy here in the already depressing state of New Jersey.
SO I decided to fire up the iPad and fast forward to the chapters on sleep in Tim Ferris’ book The Four Hour Body. He goes into a bunch of methods and devices he uses to fix his insomnia and one of the methods he touches on involves taking 20 minute naps spaced out through out the day resulting in having to sleep a fewer number of hours in your “core sleep session.” The less you want to sleep the more naps you’ll have to take, but I’m sticking to one 20 minute nap during the day, which will let me sleep just 6 hours overnight and still be well rested and functional (I’m big on sleep, normally needing 8 hours not to feel groggy throughout the day). So what can you do to hack sleeping time?
1. Nap 20 minutes during the day and sleep 6 hours overnight.
2. Download F.lux- I’ve been using this program for about two months now and it definitely helps me be ready to fall asleep at night and reduce eye strain. What it does is reduce the brightness setting on your monitors automatically as the sun sets. At first when it dims it feels really weird, but then you get used to it and can’t tell the difference.
3. Download SleepCycle on your iPhone - Also learned about this from Tim’s book. This app is amazing! It actually measures the quantity and quality of your sleep overnight. How does it do this? Using the accelorameter in your iPhone, it’s able to tell when your moving about in your bed and when your in stages of deep or REM sleep. I use it now and it’s scary how accurate it is. What’s even better is that you give it a 30 minute window to wake you up within and it will wake you up when you’re in your lightest phase of sleep so you don’t feel like you usually do when you want to throw your alarm clock out the window.
4. Use WakerUpper.com - Do you suck at waking up in the morning? Well thanks to the Internet, you can now have a free automated calling service wake you up in the morning with an optional reminder if you’d like. It’s called WakerUpper.com and works like a charm. No more needing to have your girlfriend call you to wake your lazy ass up!
5. Buy a Philips goLite- If you’re having issues operating during the day with enough energy, something else recommended by Ferris might help. It’s called the Philips goLite Blu Therapy and is a portable device which emits a particular kind of blue light which you naturally get on very sunny days that is supposed to give you a boost of energy like you would on an actual sunny day. Now I don’t know if this thing works or not, but the reviews on Amazon seem to be pretty promising.
Hope these tips help you conquer some of your sleep-related issues (unless you’re Ryan Eagle, in which case you don’t sleep)
