Ep 19. Snooze to Success: Unlocking Restorative Sleep for Top Performance
Episode Show Notes
Links to relaxing yoga positions mentioned in the episode:
Legs Up the Wall Pose (Viparita Karani)
Reclining Bound Angle Pose (Supta Baddha Konasana)
What would be possible in your life if you got more restorative sleep? And what are the bonus effects of that? And the bonus effects of the bonus effects?
This is something that is worth reflecting on!
Sleep is such an important cornerstone of health and high performance, and still, so many are suffering from poor sleep and/or not enough sleep.
Taking care of your sleep is the nicest gift you can give yourself and it will truly have a ripple effect in your life.
Giving yourself time and space to relax and unwind in the evening can have such a big impact on the sleep you get - and of course, what and how much you can achieve during the day.
This episode is all about that, sharing some of my favorite and somewhat unusual, hacks on how to unwind and prepare your mind and body for sleep.
Hi ladies,
You know exactly the feeling you have after a good night’s sleep. The world looks brighter, the challenges are smaller, and you feel more awesome.
Sleep is so crucial to maintaining resilience, decision-making skills, and overall well-being, and still, such a struggle for so many.
I don’t think I need to go into so much detail about what happens when you don’t get enough sleep. Most people are very well aware of the effects on physical & mental health, cognitive function, performance, and general well-being.
In the last episode, I told you about my burnout story. And if you listened to that, you know it all started with sleeping problems.
Winding down before you go to bed is incredibly important, and often overlooked.
And I definitely did not do that back in the days, rather the opposite. Simply because I wasn’t aware of how important it was.
Luckily I have learned a lot since then.
And remember, sleep is not something you do, it is something that happens when the circumstances are right, and there’s a lot you can do to give yourself a better chance of a restful night.
So let’s focus on the things you can do to improve it instead, zooming in on evening routines to unwind from a hectic day.
I will divide this episode into two parts; Evening and bedtime Rituals & Sleep Hygiene.
Starting with evening & bedtime rituals, because having a consistent bedtime ritual is just as important for grown-ups as it is with kids.
This will signal to your body and mind that it’s time to get ready for sleep.
Being a busy bee, your days are packed. So in order to get those stress levels down before you jump into bed, you need to create a transition for yourself.
Otherwise, you try to go to sleep, but your mind is still running wild and your heart rate is elevated.
So the idea of the bedtime routine is to get your pulse down and start producing melatonin so you get sleepy in a natural way.
Being a yoga & mindfulness teacher as well as a coach, I love to incorporate that into my evening routine myself, and I teach my busy clients to do the same.
And there’s a good reason for that, as yoga and meditation are extremely effective in activating the calming, parasympathetic nervous system, which is exactly what you want to do.
Here’s a few tips and tricks you can try in the evening:
An hour before bed-time, start by turning down the lights in your home. Light candles, or at least dim the lights, so your body understands that it’s night time.
Avoid screens as the blue light will do the opposite to what I just mentioned. And if you absolutely need to use them, turn down the brightness to a minimum.
Yoga
Doing some soft yoga or stretching is a lovely way of disconnecting from your day and preparing for sleep.
Three yoga positions that are beneficial for relaxation and promoting sleep are Child's Pose, Legs-Up-The-Wall Pose, and Reclining Bound Angle Pose, and Yoga Nidra. (Which is not a position, but a guided meditation practice) See links above.
Personally I love doing a few yoga positions in the evening and recently I have also started doing the Legs-up-the-wall pose and it’s so nice. Just crawl as close you can to a wall and get your legs up so they rest on the wall. This is great for blood circulation and is very calming and relaxing.
Mindfulness practices
Meditation: Just close your eyes and watch your breath for a few minutes. Paying attention to what’s going on in your mind and your body can do wonders.
Read a book. Preferably fiction and not work-related to not get your brain too activated.
Go for an evening walk. Super relaxing and sleep-promoting.
Taking a warm bath or shower. This is effective because when we do that, your body temperature goes up, but then it drops, which supports you to fall asleep easier. The body needs to cool down to sleep, that’s why it’s so tricky to sleep during hot summer nights.
So this takes us to the next part, sleep hygiene. This is the classical things that you have heard before from doctors and psychologists.
Sleep Hygiene as a Key to Restorative Sleep
Keep your bedroom dark, cool and quiet.
Ideally the temperature of your bedroom should be around 18 degrees or 65 Fahrenheit. This is for the same reasons as I mentioned earlier, you want to support the body temperature to drop.
And, use your only for sleep and sex, to teach your body and mind to associate the bed with that and nothing else.
As I track my sleep with both a Garmin watch and Oura Ring I can see concrete differences between when I do unwinding activities and when I head straight to bed. I love health hacking, sleep hacking, bio-hacking
If you want to learn more about sleep, you can go back to some of my earlier episodes.
Nr 4 is all about how a stabilized blood sugar can improve sleep and performance and nr 9 is about habits during the day that can improve sleep and how changing some of those habits drastically improved the sleep for one of my VIP clients.
You can find links to these two episodes here:
Ep 4: Food Hacks That Will Help You Amp up Your Performance
Ep 9: Improve Your Sleep to Boost Mental & Physical Capacity
So see if you want to experiment with these hacks and observe the changes in their sleep quality and overall well-being.
And share with me!
Remember, your sleep is not a luxury, it’s a fundamental aspect of maintaining your badassery, resilience, and leadership.
Prioritize it, and unleash the truly well-rested and vibrant leader within you.
