Guilt is Not a Motivator, Time Your Caffeine to Avoid Sleep Disruption, and Become More Self-Aware
Hi Folks! Connor and Nick here from Healthy Living With Nick and Connor. Thanks again for being on our email list, it means a lot, and we are excited to share our weekly email with you. We hope you enjoy it! Here is what we hope you take away from this one:
Stop being guilty when you don’t accomplish what you want, and definitely do not try to use guilt as a motivator because that is the opposite of what guilt will actually do.
Time your caffeine properly so you do not disrupt your sleep!
Get back in the driver seat and become aware of your decisions.
Starter Mindset Tip: Stop With the Guilt
Guilt is counter intuitive to creating success. Everyone gives in sometimes, everyone fails, don’t be too hard on yourself when it happens to you. Guilt is a bad way to correct your mistakes, in fact, it often just leads to decreased motivation and less self-control. This guilty self-criticism should be turned into self-compassion. Become supportive of yourself, take responsibility for your mistakes or lack of self-control, and reflect on why the failure happened in the first place. When the inevitable failure or setback does happen, forgive yourself, think about how it happened, and don’t go using it as an excuse to throw in the towel and stop trying. (McGonigal, 146). If you are someone who struggles with this, instead of judging yourself, judge your work. When you shift your mindset to judging your work, you can analyze where your willpower or self-control went wrong, and see where you can make improvements. (Grant, 200)
Health Recipe: A Steamy Mug of__ , Time Your Caffeine and Stop Sabotaging Your Sleep
Timing: No extra time out of your day
Level of Difficulty: Depends on your level of caffeine addiction
Serving Size: Try out the morning delay or skip the late afternoon joe and go from there
Spice Level: Mild for chill coffee drinkers, a little spicy at first if your body is used to that cup of joe right away in the morning!
INGREDIENTS
Your favourite caffeinated coffee or tea
REASONING AND BENEFITS
Before you get worried about us taking away that steamy mug of caffeine, you can relax, because we aren’t going to do that. Coffee and caffeinated tea can be great for you when consumed in moderation and during the right times of the day. We are talking only about coffee and tea, because avoiding caffeine from pop and energy drinks is a good idea because of the sugar and other ingredients. Coffee and tea both offer good nutrients and antioxidants to your body, and can be used to increase focus during your day. Let’s talk about timing: try and avoid drinking your first mug of caffeine right when you wake up. You are going to want to wait 60-90 minutes before you drink caffeine. This will actually help you fall asleep at night because the sleep pressure that builds up inside you throughout the day (adenosine) will be able to start right away. If you consume caffeine right away, the caffeine will actually block and delay that sleep pressure from building, and that means you won’t have enough sleep pressure built up inside you to fall asleep as well at night. Next step: put a stop to caffeine after 2 pm. Caffeine has a half life of 5-7 hours, so if for example you have a coffee at 4 pm, half of the caffeine will still be in your body when you are trying to fall asleep. This can make it hard to fall asleep, and will cause a fractured sleep when you do end up falling asleep, reducing that important sleep quality. The one situation where we recommend you stop drinking caffeine all together is if you are having a really hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. We aren’t saying you have to stop forever, but take a break from caffeine, fix your sleep, and then you can introduce caffeine back into your life at the optimal times of day and take note of how it truly affects you.
INSTRUCTIONS
Wake up and fight the urge to drink caffeine right away by drinking two cups of water.
Now that you have fought the urge, indulge in the finest mug of coffee or tea 60-90 minutes after waking up. The higher the quality of the bean or leaves, the better the nutrients.
Don’t drink the whole pot of coffee, enjoy a mug or two and shut it down.
Do you need an early afternoon pick me up? Go for it, but avoid caffeine after 2 pm, or else it will start impacting your sleep
Is a post dinner cup of joe in your routine? Shut that down and try drinking decaffeinated tea instead.
PRO TIP: If you are in the habit of drinking caffeine right away in the morning, get creative with how you delay that first cup. If you have to make it right away to get to work, toss it in a thermos, and set an alarm for 60-90 minutes after waking up. When the alarm sounds, enjoy the heck out of it.
* When you buy your coffee, try out some fair trade organic coffee beans to maximize those nutrients and antioxidants.
** Some great caffeinated teas that pack a mean nutrient rich punch that we love are: Yerba Mate, Matcha, and Pu-Erh. If you can, organic would be great, loose leaf organic even better.
*** Time your caffeine before exercise or a focused work bout to get an added edge. Heck, have some caffeine right before an early afternoon siesta and get the energy increasing double whammy of caffeine and a LLD (Little Lay Down).
Dessert Quote:
“Self-control is one of mankind's most fabulous upgrades, but it’s not our only distinction. We also possess self-awareness: the ability to realize what we are doing as we do it, and understand why we are doing it. With any luck, we can also predict what we’re likely to do before we do it, giving us ample opportunity to reconsider. You need to recognize when you’re making a choice that requires willpower; otherwise, your brain always defaults to what is easiest. Most of our choices are made on autopilot, without any real awareness of what’s driving them.” (McGonigal, 20)
Now we want to hear from YOU! Please let us know what you think of today’s newsletter, and send us an example of how you applied the health recipe to your life! We would love to share how you introduced this week’s recipe into your life’s unique menu. Thanks and have a great Sunday!
Sources:
Learn more about motivation and self improvement:
Grant, A. (2021). Think again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. Random House.
McGonigal, K. (2013). The willpower instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. Penguin.
Learn more about mastering your sleep:
Walker, M. (2017). Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. Simon and Schuster.
