How to get rid of the desire to have time to everywhere and sleep

I've tried almost everything to to sleep calmly. Nothing helped, neither regime nor herbal supplements or weekend without work and shut down the computer before going to bed.

Restful sleep helped me to gain a stay in Camp Grounded - the famous "summer camp for adults" in Mendocino, California, located in the red forest, where the refuse for a certain time from the gadgets. There I slept better than anywhere else.

In Camp Grounded all follow a simple rule, which is the founder of Felix Levy camp (Levi Felix) adopted during the life of the Bedouins: no clocks. In the camp, no one keeps track of the exact time, and it is felt in everything. For example, tourists call for lunch around noon area.

At first, I did not expect that anything special. Sometimes I even annoying lack of strict regulations. But the weekend passed and I, as never before, felt unusually calm. Something has changed.

Moreover, when I left the camp and returned to a normal routine, fatigue returned. I tried unsuccessfully to restore calm, but the rest did not work even on weekends in the countryside. I want to share the scientific explanation of what I experienced in Camp Grounded, and tell you how I was able to repeat the experiment.

The science of stress and sleep

To learn more about your pleasant discovery, I turned to science and all technology, assess the state of the body, which could find.

The first and most obvious choice was sleep trackers like Basis Watch, but it was a dead end. All trackers showed that night I slept fine (about 50% of shallow sleep, 25% of the REM phase and 25% deep sleep). However, this morning I woke up totally overwhelmed.

So I decided to undergo a medical examination - polysomnography. Pleasant to talk to an Israeli scholar of Sleeprate startup connected to me a bunch of wires. It turned out to recreate a scene from the movie Wolverine (see. a photo).

The results showed that the culprit was my eternal weariness stress. And this figure usual sleep trackers ignore. "You need to relax," - he told me the doctor Baharav Anda (Anda Baharav).

Indeed, many studies have shown that over-voltage in the body or the excitation of the nervous system interfere with the night to reach a state of deep sleep. Meditation or a cup of herbal tea will not help solve the problem before going to bed. Tranquility just before going to bed is not enough - it's too late. Daily stress does not disappear by itself in the evening after work.

The body prepares for sleep during the day. And if you want to sleep soundly at night, you need to change their behavior from the moment of awakening.

Strange, but I do not feel stress. Like many other members of the creative class, I was a happy workaholic, who is happily working 10-plus hours a day. I love my job and I can easily reply to messages after sunset. Unfortunately, as shown by a number of surveys, my body is not so happily took my lifestyle.

NeuroScience saliva test in the laboratory showed that the level of cortisol, A hormone involved in the development of the stress response, was virtually zero. He was very low after waking up and almost completely disappeared in the second half of the day. I have therefore often sleep during the day, to have the strength to work in the afternoon.

I'm used to the feeling of weakness and did not realize that my constant need for coffee and after-dinner dream - a sign of serious illness.

Sleep problems caused by stress, are very common among professionals in the field of technology. The combination of chronic stress and continuously increased or decreased levels of cortisol leads to an overload of the nervous system.

But that changed in Camp Grounded?

Camp Grounded against fear to miss something important

Access to all information in the world - it is good, and curse at the same time. We can instantly find out about the most amazing things, but you have to put up with the annoying fact that you can always find something better. Vicious circle.

Constant anxiety, concomitant desire to find something better, has become so widespread phenomenon, that even got its own abbreviation - FOMO (Eng. fear of missing out - the fear to miss something important).

In Camp Grounded pay a lot of attention to, to help travelers understand that this weekend they can not be afraid of missing something. Time and place of the events, in which you can participate in the daily schedule are approximate, if desired. Virtually impossible to plan more than an hour ahead.

The whole point is gaining an understanding that you can be happy no matter what happens next. This ability to appreciate the moment.

"No clock" - the first rule that set Levi Felix. It often causes disappointment among campers. The first clients were Felix CEOs of IT-companies - in the field fear to miss something important especially strong.

Most people who come to the camp, at some point realize how much they are tied to time. Fear to miss something important has penetrated deeply into their lives.

Felix Levy, founder of Camp Grounded

Even my friends, who are well versed in advanced technologies and understand their shortcomings, can not resist the temptation during the holidays: find out in Yelp, a dish restaurant the best view in the local Twitter trends to find out what interesting things you can do to update social networks to see how many friends have set huskies.

Probably everyone has experience of such a trip with friends when things are not detached from the Internet. And even if you superveselo, do not forget about the level of cortisol, which surpasses all weekend. Many of us return from this holiday as a squeezed lemon, because all weekend not so much rest as chasing the best and most interesting.

It turns out, Camp Grounded helped me get rid of stress, because to get rid of the need to strive for better options. Is it so?

retrial

Armed with a new hypothesis, I, like a scientist, wanted to test it in practice and repeat the experiment. Therefore, next year I, contrary to the rules Camp Grounded, made his way to the camp with the invisible bracelet on his wrist that measures heart rate variability. This is an indicator of stress, affecting sleep. This bracelet is perfect for measuring stress levels during the weekend without gadgets. If one of the campers asked what in my hand, I would say that most ordinary bracelet, without any technology.

On the first day in the camp, I had promised myself not to do anything causes stress and tried to prevent the occurrence of fear to miss something important. To be sure, I relied on the will of the happy event, which determines how fun day will be held.

Early in the morning I saw the tent for meditation near the lake. And while I was basking in the sun, the other vacationers were going on to practice field akroyogoy and the game of football. It was terribly hard not to plan the day.

But when I went to sleep that night, I felt no desire to chase after exhausting possibilities. And when I woke up the next day, I had just calm.

When I got back to civilization, I asked the engineers to design a bracelet, if there is something unusual in the data. I did not talk about his hypothesis that the bracelet was an unbiased interpretation of indicators. Abe Carter (Abe Carter), the founder of start-up of production Amiigo bracelets, said: "The night of Saturday May 23 is somewhat different from the rest. I would say that you have experienced less stress. "

Success! Camp Grounded camp strategy works.

Of course, this is not a universal solution. Most of us have to keep track of time at work. But when I need to gain strength, I now know for sure that I could do it in Camp Grounded or in a similar situation. In addition, it is a useful conclusion for further work on the problem of getting rid of stress.