In order to really believe something and act on it, sometimes it takes a respected scientific authority telling us what we already know to be true.

A recent paper published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine found exactly what you might expect to be true: social media use before bed results in poorer quality sleep and poorer resting cardiovascular function when compared to slow breathing. I’ll be the first to own my poor habits in this arena, and I’m certainly not in the camp that believes social media is an eternal detriment on humankind. But it should be no surprise that scrolling through your social media feeds doesn’t do wonders for your sleep quality. Exposure to blue light, the time warp of constant novelty, and content that is potentially exciting, angering, stressful, or whatever else -- none of these lend themselves to a state of rest and relaxation. On the other hand, simple, slow-paced breathing turns down your sympathetic nervous system (the fight/flight/freeze one) and turns up your parasympathetic activity (the rest/digest/recover one). This means better rest and recovery.

The easy takeaway is to put your phone down before you go to bed, and spend some time with deep breathing, meditation, or some other form of turning down.

The bigger, more important takeaway is to question that which you likely already know to be true, but have avoiding acting on for whatever reason. Often, we know the better choice before we make it. Stop waiting for someone else to tell you.

Read more details about the study HERE.

- PS

3/7/19

• Bar muscle-up skill work

• 90s max bar muscle-ups

Then...

• With a partner (only one partner working at a time:

• 3 min max cal row

• 3 min max strict pull-ups

• 3 min max cal row

• 3 min max strict push-ups

• 3 min max cal row

• 3 min max lateral hurdle jumps