The one thing that impacts everything else

Jan 24, 2018

Your sleep is the most important thing you MUST address before all else.

In many traditions, the beginning of the day actually starts the night before. This makes sense, because the quality of our sleep impacts our mood and state of mind the following day. So, ensuring that our habits before bed are favorable to maintaining high quality sleep is important. If you are feeling that many of your new habits are not happening because you wake-up in a state of stress, or simply too tired, make taking care of your sleep a priority.

One of my corporate clients, now a partner at one of the largest architectural firms in the world, started my leadership training having a few goals in mind. We quickly discovered that for him to put new habits in place to set these goals in motion was impossible because he was constantly in an irritable mood. I asked him to list his activities before bed, and we found that the hour before he went to sleep involved watching and then discussing the news with his partner. I asked him if he would be willing to try something new, and instead of TV read a book and discuss the book with his partner. They both agreed to give this a try, and he quickly found that the quality of his sleep improved drastically. It was a small shift, but of great consequences. He was only then able to embody the type of leader that he saw himself in his vision. His behavior changed when he had created a state of mind that allowed him to focus on what was truly important to him.

I had another client with a similar experience. Also at a high level position at a large organization, she was struggling to become the person she envisioned herself because how difficult it was for her to get the amount of sleep she felt her body naturally needed. In her case, we discovered that the challenge was her getting to bed early enough because her older daughter (at the time 3 years old) had a difficult time following the bed time routine and ended up sucking much precious sleep hours from both mom and dad. So my client made sleep training her daughter a priority and in a short two weeks, she was into her envisioned schedule, waking up early for a run and feeling rejuvenated in a way she had not in years.

There are hundreds of studies and even books on the topic of sleep. Arianna Huffington dedicated a whole chapter of her book Thrive on the importance of sleep, and how it completely transformed her life. I share here some simple tips you can put into place to protect your sleep, so that you too can start the day with the clarity and focus you will need to embody consistent new habits:

Choose to feed your mind with life giving information before bed time. Unfortunately, if you are in the habit of watching the news, you are inadvertently telling your mind to focus on tragedies and world events - all of which you certainly have no control over. If watching the news is something you enjoy doing, make sure it is not the last thing you do before going to bed. Turn the news off at least an hour before you go to sleep. Instead of watching the news, read a great fiction or a self-development book, or a book that enriches your mind with new experiences, lessons, and wisdom. If you don’t like to read, you can listen to uplifting podcasts, or engage in a life-giving conversation.
Turn off all blue light emitting objects at least an hour before going to sleep and remove these items from your bedroom. This includes computers, iPads, and smart phones.
Minimize the number of electronics in your room. Anything tied to a wall outlet emits some form of electric energy that interferes with sleep.
Get black-out curtains and sound proof your room as best as you can. If you must, add a white noise machine that can cut off the loud external noises.
Get into a bed time routine. Like children, adults also thrive on having the same routine every night, especially with respect to time. Try to get to bed at about the same time every night, and let your body wake-up naturally, if you can. Your natural clock is the best alarm, because it knows how much sleep is enough sleep (ps: this has been by far the hardest one to put in place since becoming a mom, and I feel the tremendous difference in the quality of my day when I get to wake up naturally before my daughter does).
Eat three hours before going to sleep. And, choose to eat extremely light before bed. I choose soups, sauté veggies and light, dairy free snacks. Heavy and sugary foods (and alcohol) are certain to cause discomfort at night.

These simple tips should get you started so that your days can be filled with the new habits you are trying to incorporate in your life. Sleep well, and have a day that matches your vision!