Good Life Project - How to Close the Books on 2017 | Amber for Sleep.

Episode Date: December 28, 2017

Don't make this year-end mistake...Everywhere you look, people are reflecting on the year, sharing what went right, what went wrong, what freaked them out and lit them up. Then, they're looking at the year ahead, setting goals, intentions and making commitments and resolutions about what they "want" to happen. Reflecting, learning and then setting intentions, and goals is a good thing.But there's one thing that's critically important to turning the page on another year that most people never do. It's a simple ritual we call "Closing the Books." And, the problem with skipping this step is that, if you don't do it, you never fully let go of this year and create the space to step into next year as unburdened by the past as you can possibly be. So, how do you Close the Books? That's what we're talking about in today's GLP Riff.Good Life Science: In our Good Life Science segment, we're diving into some fascinating new research on sleep, and how wearing glasses with amber lenses at night affects your ability to get the nods you need. You may have heard about this before, but this new research shows just how big a benefit you can get. It also brings up a pretty powerful reason to wear them that we'd never considered. It's not just about your devices and screens anymore, it's bigger than that. And, as always, for those who want to go to the source, here's a link to the full study.+--------------------------+Our Podcast Partners: ShipStation: Manage and ship your orders. FREE for 30 days, plus a bonus. Visit ShipStation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in GOODLIFE.Videoblocks:  Go to videoblocks.com/goodlife to get all the stock video, audio, and images you can imagine for just $149.Health IQ: Tapping science to secure lower rates on life insurance for health-conscious people. To see if you qualify, get your free quote today at healthiq.com/goodlife. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So are you planning to close the books on 2017? What do I mean by that? Well, there's a very particular ritual. It can take a few seconds. It can take hours. It can be super fun. It can be simple and short and sweet. But there's one thing that is really important to do as you close the books on 2017 and turn the page and open up into 2018. A lot of us think about processing and reflecting on the year behind, but without this single ritual, it kind of keeps the doors open and keeps your mind dwelling a little bit in the past. We're going to talk about that in today's episode. And along with that, in our Good Life Science update, some fascinating new research on how wearing amber lens glasses can affect your sleep. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been

compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk It's that time of year. Yep. Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.

It's that time of year, yep, where pretty much everywhere you look, all over the intertubes, you will see every possible variation of reflections and trying to figure out how do I process the year, what went well, what didn't go well, and all this other stuff. And those are great. I actually, for a while, when I was more of a consistent blogger, would do a very substantial year-end reflection post that actually, in 2012, turned into a 30-something page annual report, which actually became the inciting incident, the launch piece for Good Life Project. So there's great value in reflecting and really detailing what went on in the past 12 months, how you contributed to that, what you've learned from it. But also there's kind of a little discussed piece of this whole process that I wanted to focus a little bit of energy on today. And that

is something I call closing the books. The phrase for those who come out of the business world or finance or accounting comes from accounting, where at the end of the year, you look back at all of the different ledgers, all of the credits and debits. If you sort of expand this to the good life or the lifestyle ledger, the credits, the things that have added positively to your life, the debits, the things that have in some way detracted from the experience of living a good life. And then reconciling. You reconcile the books so that you try to understand what led to each of these and to look at anything that's

remaining that in some way made a dent, made an impact. There's a number on your books where you don't quite understand where it came from or what happened and then try and reconcile it. How do we actually give meaning to this number? And you think about it and you do that, but then there's this thing that happens. There's this thing called closing the books, which is once you have made as much sense of all of the numbers, the credits, the debits, the unknowns, as humanly possible, you then close the books, meaning you essentially say, okay, we have learned everything we can. We have adjusted everything we can. We have assigned as much meaning as we can. We have taken ownership of as much as we can. And now it's time to move forward. But you can't

really move forward all that comfortably until you close the books. In accounting, this literally was the process of making the last journal edit and then taking the giant journal book for the year that represented every transaction and closing it, putting a bow on it, and then opening a new book, which reflected the year to come. And then you would start the new set of journal entries or transactions in that book. Well, we need to close the books in life as well. And it's not enough to just kind of journal. It's not enough to just kind of say, okay, I understand everything. What I found is that it's actually really helpful to, in addition to that, have some sort of ritual that represents in your mind a closing of the books on 2018, 2017, sorry, closing of the books on 2017. Jumping the gun a little bit here. And that's a matter of actually doing something. It doesn't have to be a big, grand thing. It can be a simple little ritual.

So I'll share a couple of examples of this in my own life. One of the things that we did as a family for a number of years is something called the Midnight Run, which a lot of people look at as just a touch crazy. So I live in New York City, and I live at a part of the New York City where a couple blocks from me is Central Park, which is this massive, massive park. And there are roads that exist within the park. And there's an actual loop that exists within the park. And at the strike of midnight, every New Year's Eve, there's this thing called the midnight run, where tens of thousands of somewhat crazy human beings gather in the center of Central Park. And we all count down, you know, like 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And then at the stroke of midnight, exactly, there's a firework show. And that firework show launches the midnight run where tons of people go and run. I think it's about the four miles, do a four mile run to run in, to basically run out of the old year and run into the new year. It's a lot of fun. This is not in any way, shape or form competitive. You will see people running everything from Santa outfits to every outfit that you could ever imagine to G-strings and weird hairdos and everything. It's just a lot of fun. And depending on how cold it is on any given year, it's also sometimes just a little bit crazy. But the bigger point being that it's a

ritual. That is, it is a ritual of closing the books on the year behind us and opening the books. And this is an actual physical ritual. You are physically running out of the old year and running into the new year. And in doing that, you're moving your body from one place to another. So I love the idea of not just having a sort of simple mental closing the books ritual, but a physical involvement in doing something. Another example, far simpler and very likely way warmer, would be to create something that you can do in a matter of seconds. I know some people that will take a thought or an intention that represents the year behind them, represents all that they have learned from it, and put it in a fireplace or put it in a small bowl

and in a very safe and contained way, they will burn it. And that represents sort of the extinguishing and the integration of learning and the closing the books ritual. You can also just do it in a writing type of way. You can create an actual book or journal and write your final entry for the year and literally close the book or the journal, wrap the little elastic strap around it

and file it in a box or on a bookshelf where you've kept past ones, if that's you. The point is, it's really simple. It's to go one step beyond just reflecting and learning and understanding and to create a ritual that tells your brain, we are closing the books on the past 12 months and we are opening a new book.

We're sort of cleansing the psychic palette so that we're creating space. And in doing so, you can tell yourself as you do it, I am letting go. I have learned and integrated what I can learn and integrate from the year behind me. And I am closing the books. I'm letting go of my need to dwell in that space any longer. There is no further purpose for me being in that space. I have gotten everything I can get from it. And I am choosing with intention and with hope and positivity to now focus my energy on creation and on what I will make in the year to come. Really powerful thing. So think about what might be your closing the books ritual for the year that we're moving

out of and then make a commitment to it and do that thing that says, I've got everything I got. I've learned everything I can learn. I've reconciled everything I can reconcile and I am now letting go and focusing forward and let that be your signal to yourself that it is time to now create something new. A really fun way to sort of move into the creating something new thing as well is to do what I call a good life bucket check. And when we do this in the context of, okay, so this is the first thing that I'm doing in the new year, I like to make this a blame-free bucket check.

Forget about and let go of and forgive yourself for wherever your good life bucket levels may be as you wind into the end of 2017 and just get a benchmark for 2018 so you know where you're starting. What are the good life buckets? If you are new to this podcast, if you have not read my last book,

How to Live a Good Life, it's all detailed there, but really short and quick. A good life is a blend of three different buckets, your vitality, connection, and contribution bucket. Your vitality bucket is about optimizing your state of mind and body. Your connection bucket is about cultivating deep relationships.

Your contribution bucket is about meaningful contribution to the world. Many people equate this with work. So take a moment to do a bucket check and think about each of these three buckets. Assign a score from zero to 10, meaning how satisfied am I with the fullness of this bucket? And then quickly just give your bucket a number. And then as you think about the first seven days or 30 days of the year to come, kind of say to yourself, okay, which bucket feels like it needs some love right now? And then make a commitment for the first month, say, or you can even start shorter, the first week of 2018 to every day, wake up and do a little something that fills this bucket,

a little something positive that is nourishing, that tops off that bucket a little bit more. For me, it's the vitality bucket that needs a bit of love right around now. So I will be orienting pretty much the first 30 days of the year around doing things to fill that bucket. That is my intention in addition to a whole bunch of other really super fun stuff. So something to think about, find your closing the books ritual and maybe do a quick blame-free bucket check so you can enter the year with a solid objective benchmark

of where your three good life buckets are and then an intention to do things to give love to the bucket that is most in need of love to try and top them all off and get them bubbling over as you head into 2018. That's what I'm thinking about in today's Good Life Project Riff. And I'm really excited to dive into today's segment on science, which is about amber-lensed glasses and sleep and some brand-new research on how these two things play together.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. And we are back with today's Good Life Science Update. Today we're talking about amber-lensed glasses and sleep and some brand new research on how these two things play together. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. These Good Life Science Updates are my way to share my science geekery with you

where I find really cool, interesting studies that touch on our ability to live a good life and share them with you. As always, if you're a science geek like me, we will include a link to the actual study in the show notes. So be sure to check that out if you want more detail. Today, we're talking about sleep and amber lensed glasses. So I was first exposed to this idea a couple years back when I saw some people in the biohacking community, people who are trying to sort of deconstruct every part of how we live our lives and optimize it. And I saw them starting to become proponents of wearing these things that they called filters or glasses in the evening that looked like they were kind of staring through these dark orangey amber lenses. And you would put them on, you know, kind of late

in the evening and wear them for the last couple of hours of the day. And they said that the reason they were doing this was to block blue light. Turns out there's a relationship between blue light and melatonin in your body. And what we know is this, melatonin is critical in your ability to fall asleep. And blue light, especially at night, it suppresses melatonin and it makes you more awake. Now, here's the thing. Amber tinted glasses or lenses can block large amounts of blue light. And if you get it right, and if you wear lenses that kind of wrap around, you can actually block the vast majority of blue light. Here's where it gets funky. Blue light comes in a really strong way from electronic devices, but not just your phone and your computer screen. It also comes from your TV. And here's where it gets even more funky. There has been a push over the last couple of years

for environmentally friendly lighting and for lighting that draws a lot less energy and for bulbs that last a lot longer. So it's no longer just our devices. We're now seeing draws a lot less energy and for bulbs that last a lot longer. So it's no longer just our devices. We're now seeing that a lot of light bulbs are being replaced with LED light bulbs, which are way more efficient, produce a lot more light, don't get nearly as hot. They last something like a bazillion times longer. But here's the deal. They are LED light, which is loaded up with a really high amount of blue light. So now if we take it, it's not just about looking at our computer screens or devices or phones at night before we go to bed. If you're

rocking LED lights in your home or apartment, you're also now flooding the entire ambient environment with blue light. So while you can take your device, and many of them now have a setting where they'll start to lower some of the blue light in the screen in the evening, if you're actually using LED light in your home, or if you're spending time in front of your TV, that actually won't do what you need it to do. So researchers at Columbia University decided that they want to actually measure how wearing amber glasses at night blocks blue light. And they took a group of people, 14 individuals with insomnia, diagnosed insomnia. So this is a small study, but they got really powerful results. And they had them for an entire week wear special wraparound

glasses with amber tinted lenses in them that pretty much entirely blocked blue light. And then the following week, they swapped in a pair of clear glasses or glasses with clear lenses or lenses that did not block blue light. This was the supposed control or placebo group. And what they found was that the people who wore the amber glasses ended up sleeping about an extra half an hour. That's 30 minutes of extra sleep. I don't know about you, but for me, 30 minutes of additional sleep can be the difference between waking up kind of grumpy and groggy

and waking up feeling pretty good. So this is really powerful. It is a really simple intervention. If you're somebody who struggles in any way with sleep, then you may want to explore buying yourself a pair of amber wraparound shades and dealing with the heckling in your home as you rock them in the final hours of the day before you go to bed. Yes, it helps to actually set your devices so that it pulls more of the blue light out of the screens, but that will not also take care of the larger devices around your home. And increasingly, if you're using LED light in

your light bulbs, that provides a whole nother layer of blue light that setting your screens on your devices won't help. So think about experimenting with that and dealing with the heckling in your house, because it may just give you substantially more sleep. And by the way, as we move into the new year, if there's one thing that is the unlocky for all the positive behaviors that you're thinking about, from exercising more to fitness to weight loss to inflammation reduction to weight loss, to inflammation reduction, to disease reduction, sleep tends to be the unlucky because sleep controls so much of the chemistry that puts you in a place where you feel like you can and want to do all of these other things. It is massively important in controlling cravings and hunger, in giving you the energy and the alertness to want to exercise. So really focusing

on this as you move into the new year is an important thing. And if you struggle with it, this is a pretty cheap, fast, and easy way to test an intervention that just might make a difference. If it works, awesome. And if it doesn't make a big difference, well, it's not a real big risk that you're taking in trying to do it. So think about that. Give it a little bit of a shot. I'm going to actually experiment with this in my own life and maybe share the results with a little bit of sleep tracking with you. Hope you found this useful. As always, so much fun sharing a bit of time with you. And I'm really excited to say happy new year wherever you are around the world.

Look forward to being back in touch in the year to come. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Hey, thanks so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we've included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app

so you never miss an episode and then share the Good Life Project love with friends because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. Swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot?