Adjusting Course

After writing, posting, and promoting the previous "Day 7" post about establishing proper pacing for our Steemit activity I realized that, after writing daily posts for one week, I was DAMN POOPED! So, I did a re-evaluation of MY OWN pacing activity since launching this series last week, and found that my pace of "one article per day" has generally been a bit too fast. It puts quite a bit of excess pressure on me to research and write a new post each day, and doesn't allow enough time to comfortably promote the post on Steemit Chat, Discord, and social media. The result is that less people who can potentially benefit from this info are able to see, and consume, it. So, following along with the very "Steemit Productivity Strategy" I have been laying out in this series, I have decided to adjust my pace down to "one article every TWO days". This new pace will enable me to write better, more well-researched posts, and have more time to get a proper amount of exposure for each post. It will also free up more energy for some additional curation, as well as writing my longer, weekly health-related posts. I will report on the results of this adjustment in a future post sometime next week.

There's A Party In Your Bed

In fact, NOT ONLY did I do a re-evaluation on the pacing of this writing series, but I also celebrated the one-week milestone by having a nice, good, long "sleep-in" day. Since I joined Steemit in August I have been going full force - at times (especially in the first few weeks) even pushing myself TOO hard, which contributed to a nasty, creeping episode of serious sleep deprivation over the weeks. Now that I have finally gotten my basic bearings on the platform, and have begun implementing an effective productivity strategy to enable me to proceed in a more methodical manner, I thought it would be a good time to do a more serious battery charge.

The Healing Power Of Sleep

Mounting scientific evidence is showing that sleep is one of the most vital and powerful healing mechanisms our body provides for itself. For instance, when you get sick (like with a cold or flu, or any other common acute illness) what does your body tend to do? It naturally forces you to sleep. In addition, many medications for cold and flu have the main intended effect of alleviating the symptoms of the illness which make it more difficult for your body to sleep (for example, pain, fever, coughing, etc.) so that your body's most powerful healing mechanism, sleep, can do it's job. Personally, as soon as I feel any kind of symptoms of contagious illness coming on (which is rare for me) the first thing I do is try my best to sleep as much as possible.

Now, the main kinds of exhaustion issues we encounter through our Steemit activity are the more chronic ones, which build over days and weeks (and possibly even months), and usually center around sleep deprivation. I have discussed in a previous post "Day 4" how sleep deprivation progresses with our uncontrolled, unstructured Steemit use. In this post I want to examine the main SOLUTION to this problem, which is sleep, or "sleep therapy". The sleep deprivation symptoms which MOST affect our Steemit activity include : cognitive decline, memory decline, mood instability, eye strain, and neck and back strain. Here is a good article which examines EACH of these (and a few others) :

10 WAYS YOUR BODY REPAIRS ITSELF WHILST YOU SLEEP
https://sleepjunkies.com/health/10-ways-your-body-repairs-itself-whilst-you-sleep/

Information Is Only As Good As Our Ability To Process It

In order to make gains on Steemit we have to be able to ACTUALLY PROCESS the content information we consume. The problem is that if we taking in TOO MUCH information, in an uncontrolled, unstructured manner, then we are not giving ourselves the necessary time to STOP taking in new info, and PROPERLY DIGEST that which we have taken in. Sure, we can include some offline activities throughout the day (such as : mowing the lawn, cleaning the dishes, listening to some good music, meditating, etc.) to take our minds off of "computer stuff" and take our mental activity down a notch , but EVEN THESE activities don't allow the full type of "reset" and healing which sleep provides to the body and mind. During sleep our minds are consolidating information that we took in throughout the day (which, of course, includes that which we took in through Steemit), as well as repairing the physical brain components which are responsible for optimal cognitive performance and memory capacity. This means that after we have a good, deep sleep - for the proper duration of time - our brains are powered up towards maximum capacity again, and we have made new connections and developed new ideas and perspectives on the information we took in before sleep. After some quality sleep we will often find it easier to organize and write out our ideas into a decent quality Steemit post.

In addition, the hormones and neurotransmitters which control our emotional regulation (mood) capacity are also re-balanced during sleep, and so once we are "powered up" our threshold for frustration is increased, and we find it easier to get through our new round of work without succumbing to the common destructive emotions of self-doubt, feeling overwhelmed, procrastination, etc. With a more positive mental and emotional state we are able to proceed most easily with out various Steemit tasks, including writing new posts.

In the more physical realm, the eyes, neck and back take a real BEATING from hours upon hours of activity sitting up and looking at the computer screen. The eyes are especially stressed, as the different frequencies of artificial light, COMBINED with the constant movement and color changes on the screen, all drain the vital energy out of this organ, which is essentially an "external extension" of the brain, and which uses a significant amount of energy to function properly. Not properly resting the eyes, or constantly bombarding them with radiation is a recipe for disaster. Luckily, sleep provides a MAJOR rest and recuperation period for the eyes, and so is vital for long term success in ANY endeavor which requires multiple hours of daily computer use. Alternating "sitting work" with "lying work" (ex. listening to music or podcasts), is NOT ENOUGH for proper eye healing. The eyes need a significant period of the more complete inactivity provided during the deep sleep phase to be able to most fully recover from the abuse they endure throughout the waking hours of the day.

The neck and back are the other main physical body parts which take a beating from hours upon hours of "sitting work" (ex. sitting up at the computer, looking at the screen, and/or typing). The epidemic of chronic back and neck pain, unhealthy curvature of the spine, carpel tunnel syndrome, numbness in the extremities, etc. is only increasing as people spend more of their waking hours interacting with devices. Sleep is a major time where stress is taken off the neck and back, and these structures are allowed to rest and repair. It is often the case that after a long, refreshing sleep, we wake up with significantly less pain that we had before retiring for the night.

So, you are likely more convinced by now that sleep is an EXTREMELY important "tool" for enhancing our health and productivity on Steemi. In fact, we can even label sleep a new POWERTOOL in our "productivity toolbox". We should therefore use it as such by incorporating it into our "Steemit Productivity Strategy".

Today's Dreaded Homework Task

Add "sleep" as one of your daily Steemit tasks. Start experimenting with different durations and frequencies of sleep to find the most appropriate amount and number of sleep periods, throughout the day and night, which enable you to complete your daily Steemit operations in the most productive and comfortable manner. For instance, in addition to one task including "Sleep for 6 hours per night.", you may also want to try some napping throughout the day. That is, if you find yourself becoming more exhausted in the early afternoon, try adding the task of "Taking a 30 minute map at 2:00 pm each day". Include these sleep-related tasks on your daily task lists, and experiment with the length and frequency of sleep periods until you reach the most appropriate sleep routine. Feel free to share your thoughts, ideas and experiences in the comments.

Full Steem Ahead...

@transcript-junky