Change Your Life in Just 18 Hours a Day!
If you sleep for at least 6 hours a night, good news!: you can completely overhaul your life for success in just 18 hours a day!
Let’s start with something easy — sitting around doing nothing.
Meditating has been found to yield dramatic results, including, according to Psychology Today, improving health and happiness, aiding emotional regulation, increasing mental clarity, and boosting productivity. Many experts suggest meditating for 20 minutes in the morning and again in the evening, but if you’re too “busy” to do 40 minutes a day, I use the Headspace site/app for 10-minute sessions, which will still promote these outcomes.
Want to further enhance your physical and mental function while lazing around? No problem! Research shows that getting between 7 and 9 hours of sleep every night improves functioning and decreases risk for a host of diseases. Just increase your sleep by the time needed to flirt with nine hours and you’re off and running.
Plus, add in a 30-minute midday powernap and your afternoon productivity jumps. Promoting napping is — yawn — practically trite at this point, with everyone from Forbes to the local daycare touting the benefits. So, what are you waiting for? Lay down for a snooze, already.
Already we’ve changed your life for the better in all areas (mental, physical, emotional, and social — ya know, because you’re less cranky and more patient from all of the above) by merely adding a few hours of sitting or lying around.
Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.
Next, we all eat, so that’s a surefire target for improvement in just a few tiny hours.
Surely you’re aware that eating well improves your health. Instead of restaurant lunches and takeout dinners, which are notorious for being higher in calories and fat, spend an hour mapping out a week’s menu. (Even if you don’t do meals out, this plan can improve meal efficiency.) Then shop for a couple hours on Sunday morning, and spend the rest of the day making meals that you can simply reheat throughout the week.
No problem! Of course, Sunday is toast (which is all you’ll have time to eat that day with all the other food prep), but this is super-efficient and averages out to fewer than two hours a day on shopping and cooking!
Financial health is also important, so add an extra hour in your meal planning to compare sales at a few local grocers: designing your food plan around sales can save you at least 30% on your grocery bill. You will have to add an extra 30–90 minutes to the shopping trip (to patronize that second, and potentially third, store) but hey, nobody said saving money was free.
Another recent tip from a financial guru: log on to all of your accounts every morning to check your balances and expenditures. In this way, you keep your financial situation solidly in mind as you move through your day. (Your meditation sessions can help with the extra stress this might cause.)
Hygiene is a daily part of life. I know I don’t have to mention daily flossing and brushing twice a day. Plus, I’m sure you never go to bed without spending a mere 3–5 minutes washing and moisturizing your face.
Adding a few extra habits to your routine can make you feel more vivacious. For example, add a cold rinse to the end of your shower, to close your pores and goose you into vibrancy as only frigid water can.
And, before you get into that shower, try brushing your skin with a natural- bristled brush: this removes dead skin, and promotes lymph movement, provided you always brush toward the heart.
Self-massage also touts many benefits to body and mind. Add 10 minutes before your shower for a warm-oil Ayurvedic massage, or before bed for a foot massage. A soothing massage, by you for you, is an excellent way to decrease stress, release tension, and promote deeper sleep. Just 10 to 20 minutes a day can improve your relationship to yourself and/or see you sawing the biggest logs of your life.
Since we’re on the subject of caring for our bodies, it’s no secret that exercise is important. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate cardiovascular activity at least 5 days per week. That’s just 150 minutes a week, or less than three hours! Lucky day!
[They do stress that 150 to 300 minutes per week is a target goal, and doing more than 300 minutes per week yields greater benefits. Of course it does! That’s no problem! Jumping jacks in the grocery line! Calisthenics on the commute!]
What about weight lifting, you ask? Good guess — you need that too!: strength training for all muscle groups just twice a week, in addition to your moderate-intensity cardio workouts. Only twice? Phhhttt. Child’s play.
My own physical therapy team is very encouraging of adding extra exercises to the above, the more the better, obviously! But don’t worry, they assure me; each only takes a minute or ten, so they are easy to do anywhere and anytime. Right now, I only have 13 exercises to do daily, so you know, a mere 51 minutes and I’m done for the day!
Another provider suggested a daily 10-minute abdominal massage to aid digestion. Sure, why not?
Yet another member of the healthcare team who helps with my connective-tissue disorder — and I mention it only because you might have something specific about you that requires just a teeny bit of additional time in one of these categories — advises a 20-minute Epsom-salt bath every night, along with a couple minutes of self-massage to alleviate trigger points (toxic accumulations, she says! eewww) in my legs. Sounds lovely, and that should fit in well between my evening socializing and my meditation.
Oh, right — you need a social life. Apparently, loneliness and social isolation contributes more to mortality than excessive alcohol consumption, and, according to the National Institutes of Health, can increase your risk for immunity problems, heart disease, mental decline, Alzheimer’s, and even death.
So, be sure to foster three to four high-quality friendships with people who share values and interests similar to yours. This means that the easy, non-committal acquaintances who flit in and out of your life unsubstantially do not count towards warding off loneliness, and in fact, can often increase it.
Volunteering is a great way to foster new relationships, so why not spend your Saturdays offering just four to six hours of your time (for free) to a cause about which you care deeply. This also adds to your sense of purpose in life — double dipping in the bonus department!!! (Hey, no guilt!)
Friend time needs to be balanced with family time, obviously. But, whatevs. Keep your marriage alive with daily briefings, physical contact (hugging or holding hands counts), date nights a few times a month (minimum) and of course, sex.
Don’t forget to call or write your mom, dad, grandparents, adult children, aunts, uncles, and siblings regularly.
Parents, you’ll already be spending plenty of time giving your undivided attention to your children, so it’s probably a moot point to mention that that’s what they need for character building and a sense of belonging.
You’re might be feeling ready to get back to work as you read this, and when you do, these eensy-weensy workplace actions can keep you well and improve your life. Obviously review proper ergonomics and get your work station up to par in this area. And also, set an alert on your computer to remind you every 10 minutes to take three deep, conscious breaths; every 20 minutes to focus your eyes on the horizon to prevent eye strain; and every 30 minutes to get up and move for at least two minutes to promote circulation and prevent both short-term illness and serious disease.
These are surefire ways to get a lot more done!
Research also says you must take scheduled breaks at work to optimize performance. Why not use these breaks to fit in the brain-building recommendations of experts?
It’s ridiculously easy to include learning a new language, reading a challenging book, balancing your checkbook without a calculator, and other actions that preserve mental faculties. Journaling is also recommended to bring mental clarity, while writing by hand activates parts of the brain not used when typing.
Finally, let’s not forget that a very insignificant amount of time each morning to set your intention for the day, and at bedtime to jot your gratitude list, can substantially alter your life for the better.
There you have it!
Feel free to implement all of these tactics immediately, and just watch as your entire mental, physical, social, professional, emotional and financial health improve magically.
All in only 18 hours a day!!!
Feeling like you’re gonna need to free up some time to implement these simple and concise changes? Try these resources:
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
Speed Reading: Speed Reading for Beginners Made Easy with Step-by-Step Instructions and Exercises by Calvin Horgan
Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity by Charles Duhigg
And for your new meditation, rest, and hygiene habits:
Massage Oil with Lavender and Chamomile
Cheers to the new, improved you!! :)
