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How To Fall Asleep Fast (Like a Boss)

In terms of things you need to survive, sleep is second only to air and water. You can comfortably go a couple minutes without air and a couple hours without water (survival time is about two days). Without sleep, normal function begins to degrade after just 18 hours.

Sleep is so necessary and so powerfully auto-regulated by the body that death by sleep deprivation is actually impossible. Under significant sleep deprivation, a person will begin to take forced microsleeps in which the brain will “shut down” for seconds or minutes.

If you’re already breathing and drinking water, there’s nothing more important than improving your sleep.

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I wrote about how to take short naps to recharge your battery during the day. While I think everyone can benefit from setting aside 30 minutes to chill, you are obviously going to get more out of a nap where you actually fall asleep. Being able to fall asleep instantly is especially handy here.

Falling asleep in general seems to be a big problem for many people I talk to. They’ll complain that they lie down to sleep, but they just can’t get there. Often times they’ll then get up to do something until they’re completely exhausted a few hours later. Ends up being 2am, amirite?

I think everyone can learn how to fall asleep fast. It just takes practice.

How to Fall Asleep Fast

Start with good, basic sleep hygiene. Here are some creative sleep tactics. Remember, not everything works for everyone so don’t get hung up on supposedly proper sleep methods that don’t work for you.
Go to bed earlier. A good rule of thumb is that every hour of sleep before midnight is worth two after.
Once in bed, stay in bed. Don’t get up because you get frustrated that you can’t fall asleep. No matter how long it takes, stay in bed. [Yes, I know this runs counter to common advice. There may be exceptions, but in general you need to train that getting in bed means going to sleep.]
This is the big one in my experience – treat sleep like meditation. You can’t fall asleep when your mind is racing thinking about a hundred things you have to do. Acknowledge anything that comes to mind, and then immediately dismiss it. At first this will be difficult, and you’ll probably wonder why it’s so hard to just think about nothing. With time, you’ll notice it becomes easier to dismiss a thought as soon as it comes into your head. Soon, you’ll be falling asleep the moment your head hits the pillow.

I truly believe that improving your sleep may be the highest-payoff investment you can make in your health and wellness. Literally everything improves when you get good sleep. Use this tip to learn how to fall asleep fast, become a ninja at falling asleep, and you’ll be one step closer to awesome, restorative sleep.

by david 5 Comments

Care and Feeding of Cast Iron for the Lazy Man

Last fall, I jokingly tweeted:

If you asked me in all seriousness if I would ruin a cast iron pan then, I would have answered in the affirmative. In fact, a few years ago I bought a nice cast iron skillet for the grill. After having left it outside numerous times (because it was too hot to bring inside after grilling) and letting the rain cause it to rust, it’s basically useless until I get around to sandblasting it and re-seasoning it.

My future brother-in-law and his wife didn’t know this, so they graciously gifted me with two really nice Lodge cast iron pans for Christmas. Apparently I have matured because I’ve taken remarkably good care of them and I’ve learned a couple tricks to caring for cast iron pans. My main pan has an amazingly seasoned surface, and it literally gets better with every use.

The most important part of seasoning cast iron (keeping it nice and non-stick), I learned through my copious research over Christmas, is the type of oil you use. You might think the best oil would be a saturated fat such as lard or tallow, but you’d be wrong. This blog post does a great job of explaining the science behind it, but I’ll give you the TL;DR version:

Saturated fat is inappropriate for the exact reason that it is so stable and good for cooking – it doesn’t oxidize easily. To season a pan, you actually want oxidation to occur. Hence, you want to go to the opposite end of the oil spectrum. In her post Sheryl recommends flaxseed oil, as it is highly oxidizable and in fact is usually refrigerated. I think you can get away with canola oil, and still get great results – but it won’t be as good as flax oil will be.

Every time I use the pan this is what I do:

Wash the pan as soon as it cools down. Never soak it for hours. Soak for a few minutes if you have stuff really stuck to it.
Scrub it clean with a stiff brush and soap. Soap is not going to take the seasoning off a properly seasoned pan.
Dry it off with a towel or paper towel.
Put it on the stove and heat it up until it’s completely – usually only takes a minute or two. Turn the burner off.
Take a tiny bit of oil on a paper towel, and brush the entire surface of the pan.
Flip the paper towel over to the dry side, and rub the pan completely so the layer of oil is as thin as possible.
Let it cool down and put it away, or leave it on the stove.

LightOil — Just the thinnest coating of oil.

by david 1 Comment

How to Get Started With Gym Movement

Not a day goes by that I don’t get a message asking about my training, how people at The Movement Minneapolis train, or what this Gym Movement thing I talk about is. As with any technology that is on the very leading edge, it can take a little bit of research and exploration to find those answers. I aim to provide a useful starting point for people interested in Gym Movement and the protocol.

First of all, what is Gym Movement?

Gym Movement is a system of training centered on the simple, but revolutionary premise that you can PR every time you train. The idea may seem bold, and it may seem counter to what is accepted dogma in training, but it is not counter to our biology. You are always changing, always adapting, and as long as you are headed towards better you can very literally set a Personal Record (PR) every time you train.

What is The Movement?

This training system that we believe, and have been able to demonstrate through experience, delivers the fastest and most sustainable progress is also by necessity a life system. You see, what happens in the gym or in sport training does not happen under a special set of rules, laws or circumstances. What is true inside of the gym must be true outside, and vise-versa. The Movement is a tribe of people centered around this idea that not only can you PR in the gym every time you train, but you can PR in every aspect of life – provided you are headed towards better. The particular system of training, the Gym Movement Protocol, was created by Frankie Faires but The Movement has no central leadership.

Because, “if you follow anything other than your body, you will break your body.” – Frankie Faires

How do you follow your body?

Simply by using your body’s own feedback as biometric feedback, or biofeedback. There are expensive pieces of equipment that allow you to do this, such as Tendo units and Omegawave, as well as less expensive and more accessible technology such as ithlete HRV or BioForce HRV. However, we have found that simply by using range of motion (ROM) testing you can learn even more, without anything other than your own body.

Your body is constantly giving you feedback, if you just ask the right questions, you can follow your body.

How can I learn more?

Conveniently, I’ve spent many hours creating a free eCourse to teach you all the basic tenets of Gym Movement. You can also contact one of the originators of The Movement, Frankie Faires at his web site. If you’re local to the Twin Cities, you can come to The Movement Minneapolis for a free class, where we’ll teach you the basics of testing and applying the protocol.