Hal Elrod's Sleep Experiment

 Before bed, your brain is still taking instructions. If your last thought is dread — “I’m only getting five hours, tomorrow is going to suck” — you’ve already programmed the morning. Hal Elrod tested a different instruction: gratitude, sufficiency, trust in the body, and a chosen emotional state before sleep. 

Thank you for giving me these five hours of sleep tonight. Five hours is exactly what I need to feel rested and energized in the morning. My body is capable of miraculous things, the least of which is generating an abundance of energy from five restful hours of sleep. I believe that I create my experience of reality, and I choose to create waking up tomorrow feeling energized and excited to take on my day, and I’m grateful for that.” 

Transcript

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Welcome back to Night Shift with Justin S. King, How to Transform Your Life One Night at a Time. Tonight I am going to be sharing Al L. Rod's sleep experiment. I was listening to the updated version of Miracle Morning. It was the first time I've studied this book. And there's a part of it where he mentions a experiment he did. The first part of the chapter, he discusses the power of the mind. Specifically, he references his own story where he was in an accident and it was possible that he would never walk again. And partially with the power of his positivity, he walked. He took his first step within three weeks of this accident after being told he might not walk again. So he experimented with this when he started working on his miracle morning with how to wake up in the mornings. And what the experiment was, he tried sleeping for four, five, six, seven, eight, nine hours. And before bed, he would tell himself that he's not going to get enough sleep, and he's going to wake up and be completely tired. And no matter if it was four hours or nine hours, he would wake up feeling miserable, like he did not get enough sleep. On the flip side, he told himself this affirmation, a specific affirmation. And whether it was four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine hours, he felt energized and like he had gotten enough sleep when he woke up. He was not advocating that you can only sleep on a few hours of sleep. He does go on after this sharing this experiment to talk about the dangers of sleep deprivation. However, this is one thing you can do and try and say before you go to bed so you condition your mind to wake up productive. And this is the exact phrase he used in that experiment. He says, Thank you for giving me these five hours of sleep tonight. Five hours is exactly what I need to feel rested and energized in the morning. My body is capable of miraculous things, the least of which is generating an abundance of energy with five restful hours of sleep. I believe that I create my experience of reality. And I choose to create waking up tomorrow feeling energized and excited to take on my day, and I'm grateful for that. The only thing that he changed in this was the number of hours each time he said it. So that is a simple shift you can try tonight. If you've been waking up groggy or tired, ask yourself, are you constantly saying I don't get enough sleep? What's the last thought you had before bed when you look at how many hours you're going to sleep? And flip that and instead tell yourself you're going to get exactly the amount of rest that you need to feel energized and capable. I will put this in my show notes. And that's it for tonight's episode of Night Shift. My name is Justin S. King, and I help entrepreneurs find peace tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of their lives through sleep optimization, emotion regulation, and discovering their purpose. Good night.