Sleep Better, Feel Better

By Coach Jake Marconi

We all know that sleep is very important. We recover during sleep. We create and form memories during deep sleep. We produce hormones during sleep. We are grumpy when we don't sleep. We perform poorly at work, and in the gym, when we don't sleep.  

An average sedentary adult needs five full 90-minute sleep cycles, or 7.5 hours per night, to be recovered, and active people need closer to 8.5 or 9 hours. This should always be the goal- to get as close to 8 hours as possible. However, with our busy schedules, it is not always possible to get that full amount of sleep.  However, there are steps that we can take to try to maximize the quality of sleep that we get. 

Daily practices for getting to bed and maximizing sleep quality.  

• Contrast shower -  post workout if it is an evening workout or before bed if you trained in the morning. Start your shower warm as usual, do your washing and then as you're rinsing off start to decrease the temperature until you cannot stand it any longer. It sounds counterintuitive, but finishing my shower this way leaves me feeling much more relaxed then a normal shower. 
• When you get home at night, start to wind down 2-3 hours before bed. Starting with dinner, cook or heat up your dinner then sit down and thoughtfully eat, dinner should be the only focus.  Enjoy (and chew) your food.
• All entertainment (books, TV, Netflix, etc...) should be fictional.
• Avoid/cut out blue light from your computer or phone. If you have to use either, make sure that the "night shift" on your phone is turned on, and brightness is all the way down. On your computer, you can download a software called f.lux, for free. It blocks your computer’s blue light, and can be set to coincide with when your wake-time. It will then gradually dim as the day goes on.
• As bed time nears closer, I'll usually do this in the last hour before bed: light a candle and leave on only necessary lights. Get a book,  and heat up some Yogi Soothing Caramel Bedtime Tea. This is the final touch for me, my eyes get really heavy and I am ready for bed. DON'T FORGET TO BLOW OUT THE CANDLE. 
• If you're one who cannot turn their mind off before bed, try getting a cheap notebook and keep it next to your bed. Right before you go to sleep, do a 5-minute brain dump of all the things keeping you up. I do this on nights when my "monkey mind" is going crazy. 
• Room temperature: Ideally the room is best for sleeping when the temp is 63-67 degrees. I usually just crack a window or turn on a fan. The idea is just to have the room at a cool, comfortable temp. 
• Blackout shades: I pulled the trigger and put these up after three weeks of restless sleep where I was getting up 3-4 times a night. On the first night the shades were up I slept straight through the night. The investment was small; Two black out curtains (2x$9.57) and two tension curtain rods (2x$2.37), all at Wal-Mart.

Implementation

If you currently do none of the above on a daily basis, trying to implement them all at once would be a tall order. Instead, start with one or two, and implement them every day for two weeks straight. If they work for you keep them, if not, throw them out. All of the listed are things that I do daily and have found to work for me. Find the "you" method: try things to see if they work for you, and eventually you can find a routine that best suits you.

Better sleep makes for a better you.

- Coach Jake