Getting good sleep is the foundation and pillar of: good recovery, health, longevity, and flow.  Sleep regulates our hormones, repairs our bodies, gives us a break from digestion since we are fasting during sleep, basically this allows for more energy to help digest.  Sleep heals cellular damage and repairs the musculoskeletal system and nervous system and allows us to process the events of that day. 

[readolog_blockquote ]

Every experience and new skill that we learn is a new neurological pattern whether it is predominantly physical or mental, but every neural pattern is always some of both.  Sleep allows us to repair from learning new patterns and having experiences and absorb and process what has happened that day on a subconscious level.[/readolog_blockquote]

Have you ever felt like you just need to go home and sleep on it?  Sometimes when a big decision is looming over you we cannot distinguish what the choice we really want to make is from all of the new stimuli, this could be considered a mental stress on our brains.  Sleep allows us to call it a day and allow this entirely new stimulus to be processed by our mind/body and to “digest” it over night.

This is why sleep is CRUCIAL during periods of high stress and learning new skills, such as during relationship troubles or high stress periods, sleep is one of the pillars of balancing stress and recovering properly in life.  And so many people seem to have trouble getting sleep.

Being someone who is 6’ 4” and being 200lbs of lean muscle mass, my body has a great demand for resources, and combined with a heavily athletic and active lifestyle, I have experienced first-hand what it is like not to recover properly even just from 1 night of deep rest and sleep.

If I do not get a full 8-10hours of deep rest and sleep on a normal sleep cycle it could cause me to become a worse driver, have poor social skills, and just overall less nervous coordination and stamina for daily tasks or working.

Sleep should be considered paramount when starting a new training routine, job, or during any period where we are placing our body under a lot of stress, and when people are stressed is when they seem to have the most sleep troubles, I want to help everyone fix this by learning how to get sleep.

Tip to get good sleep: Wake up no later than 9AM on any given day. 

I love to wake up even earlier when I can but I have always been a bit of a night owl.  Waking up any later than 9AM can cause excess energy to be reserved for too late in the evening when our bodies should be winding down both mentally and physically.  DO not get over-wired for the night time by still being full of energy around 5-6PM if you can avoid it, this is when you should be running out of gas.  Waking up around 6AM-8AM will ensure that you have enough time to have a productive morning and expel a good deal of energy with the natural flow of the day and be ready to wind down and rest during the evening.

Tip to get good sleep: Match the natural cycle of the day as closely as possible.

I believe that it is imperative that we match our sleep cycle to the natural cycle of the sun to balance out our circadian rhythm.  The sun and moon effect how our bodies function hormonally and help to signal work and activity (sunlight) and also sleep and rest (darkness, moon etc.).  There are some days where the energy is so that we can work late and be very productive (think long summer days) but most of the time I believe that a good schedule for sleep is as follows:

• Be up with the sun or shortly after the sun, for me this is usually around 7:30 A.M.
• Start winding down and beginning to rest and let-go of the day during the evening, when my schedule allows, for me this is usually around 4-5PM.
• Go to bed and aim to get a few hours of sleep BEFORE midnight, I try to go to sleep anywhere from 9:30-11 for an optimal sleep cycle.

For good sleep habits do not stay up late!

Staying up until midnight or even later and then getting 8 hours of sleep is not the same thing as getting 8 hours of sleep from 10PM-6AM because you will not be naturally aligned with the daily rhythms.  As human beings we are part of this planet and are meant to follow the magnetic shifts and frequencies that compose the cycle of a day, and aligning our sleep patterns improperly with the day/night cycle will not heal us as efficiently.

Take the time to get to bed early and wake up early for maximizing your restorative sleep.

Get better sleep by adjusting your sleep schedule as soon as possible, even if this means that you have to throw the schedule you are on now off for a day or two.

Try forcing yourself up extra early one day and just staying up all day or only taking a 15min power-nap max, do this if you are used to sleeping in late in the morning. 

If your problem is that you go to bed too late and sleep in, then just try waking up earlier than you normally would one day, just set your alarm for 7AM and get up for one day.  The idea is that when you go crash and hit the pillow earlier at a normal time, lets say 10 instead of 1 AM, then you will actually be tired enough to change your sleep pattern.

When trying to get better sleep, make sure to exercise on a daily basis. 

Healthy exercise, and especially exercise outside in the sun, will help our bodies’ function better and serve to physically wear us out a bit so that the body craves rest.  Even just walking on a daily basis can help to stimulate the body, get us out of our heads, and help us to sleep better.   I recommend weight training or walking to help with sleep.

Do not eat over-stimulating foods before bed or over-eat.

I am personally an evening and night-time feeder and have no problem with it, but if I go to bed when I am VERY FULL, or if I eat a lot of sugar or pure carbs within 2 hours before bed I will not be able to wake up the next day and it will effect my sleep schedule.  I believe that many people do well with at least a snack before bed, but just find what works best for you.  For myself, chocolate, honey, and fruit are definitely a no-go, or I wake up still feeling tired.

Do not drink ANY caffeine in the afternoon.

I personally have a cut-off point at around 2 PM so that I do not feel the stimulating effects of caffeine when I am trying to go to sleep.  Caffeine has a half-life that lasts anywhere from 4-8 hours depending on the individual, which means that after 4-8 hours you will still have half the caffeine you drank still in your system.

This means that coffee at 3PM could potentially be affecting you still at 10PM depending on how much you drink.  If you are a heavy coffee drinker and get bad sleep, it is probably an over-consumption of caffeine. A brain that is on too much caffeine or any stimulant is naturally over-active and will have trouble going into deep rest and let-go mode.

There is a different study about caffeine being good or bad every day, in my opinion I enjoy coffee on a semi-regular basis, but I NEVER let it interrupt my sleep, because I know that if my sleep is affected that I am sabotaging myself for the next day.  So no caffeine after 2PM and cut back if you drink more than 2 cups a day.

Do yoga and some mindful stretching during the day and before bed. 

I believe that too much tension is one of the main reasons I do not get sleep sometimes, and I know that there are certain areas of my body that hold on to a lot of tension.  Doing certain stretches before bed will stimulate blood flow and allow you to relax into a deep sleep.  It took me a while before I learned which poses help my body best before bed but they probably are:

• A forward fold
• Pigeon Pose
• Extensions on my back with arms overhead
• Light down-dogs

These stretches always help me get better sleep, I like to do them before bed or during the day to help manage my tension, if I am laying in bed and I am really tense I will actually get up and do them.

Incorporate massage and foam rolling into your day if you are tense.

With the theme of tension interrupting sleep it is a great idea to start foam rolling techniques or have your partner give you a good deep-tissue massage (provided they have a strong grip), this can help you to target problem areas and relieve some physical stress.  Deep breathing during a massage is imperative and the skin-to-skin contact can really help to put you in a relaxed mindset.

Try taking a shower right before bed to unwind.

Taking a hot and cold contrast shower, or just a warm shower right before bed can be a good way to get blood and the lymph fluid pumping to get our muscles and nervous system relaxed and makes for an easy way to flow right into bed.  Nothing feels better than feeling refreshed and loose from a shower and hopping right into bed.

This brings me to my favorite tension release technique for better sleep quality; Making love.

Making love to your partner can really help to relieve chronic tension and stress from the day.  Make it a priority to pleasure the other person as much as possible, maximize skin-to-skin contact, and breath rhythmically with the individual.

Orgasms that are synced with deep and rhythmic breathing are some of the most powerful expressions of tension leaving the body.  The reason is because making love puts us in contact with a loved one’s chi and skin and our bodies respond positively.  Movement and thrusting in unison along with deep breathing allows for total mindlessness, physical rhythm, blood pumping, hormone stimulation, and nervous system excitation, than any other form of physical expression.

Use making love before bed as a great tool to help you rid tension from the body and to get better sleep.

It is also important to meditate daily for overall better sleep quality.

 Finding time to meditate daily will help to silence mental chatter and improve breathing quality, these both benefit us in falling asleep easily.  If we can train the mind to let go of thoughts and not get attached to them we can avoid late-nights up thinking about the day ahead or the events of that day, we can recover and move on faster mentally and emotionally than someone who does not meditate regularly.

Try a silent meditation by just focusing on your breath sitting up for just 10-20 minutes a day. For 10-20 minutes just breathe and allow your thoughts to pass by, eventually you will be trained in not thinking much at all.  Before bed I like to actually meditate by lying on my back on the floor, this helps to relax me completely mentally and physically, mimicking actual sleep.

For better sleep make sure your bed and pillows are comfortable! 

This one sounds like a no-brainer but many people are probably just sleeping on a crappy old mattress or bad pillows.  We spend 1/3^rd of our lives sleeping so when I say it is worth the investment, it is CLEARLY worth the investment.  If I told you that a 1,000$ investment would improve your overall productivity by even just 1% for the rest of your life you’d take it wouldn’t you?  Of course you would, so invest in a comfortable bed and pillow.

A good mattress will vary for your body type, but when lying on your back you should be able to sink just a bit to maintain a neutral spine, or you may want to place a pillow underneath your legs.  I sleep in the fetal position a lot so I make sure to have two pillows to support my neck and cervical spine and also a pillow between my legs when on my side.

Always avoid sleeping on your stomach, as ergonomically this is a terrible position for your low back and neck.

Avoid all electronic light and radiation for better sleep.

[readolog_blockquote ]Being exposed to artificial light can disrupt the natural hormone release signals in our body that tell us it is time to get tired and go to sleep.[/readolog_blockquote]

Stay away from your cell phone, computer, TVs before you go to bed, and make sure that none of these things are within a few feet of where you sleep.  Being exposed to artificial light can disrupt the natural hormone release signals in our body that tell us it is time to get tired and go to sleep.  If you are up until 11PM reading your smart-phone screen or a computer or even watching TV, do not expect to be able to fall asleep within 15 minutes.  I would suggest reading with a dim light for a few minutes, or even just stretching and meditating in near darkness for a half hour or so before bed.

This one is HUGE, the eyes are very much involved in sleep and being plugged in and artificially stimulated by electronic light can keep us up all night long or prevent us from getting really deep sleep.  Turn the phone off, read a REAL book if you want, but just turn the electronics off, your rest is more important.

Try taking a low-dose of Melatonin. 

Avoid all commercial sleep products like the plague, but I do find that taking a low-dose, about .5-1mg of Melatonin is sufficient in aiding me to get enough sleep. Melatonin is an essential sleep hormone and signals the body to start winding down and go into sleep-mode. Just make sure that when taking Melatonin that have at least a full 8 hours to sleep, because if it hits you hard you could have intense dreams and feel hung-over the next day, we want to find a dose that is just right in aiding sleep but not making us groggy the next day.

When people ask me how to get better sleep, I tell them to make sleep a priority. 

Making sleep a priority means you do all of the things above mindfully to avoid getting stuck in a position where you are lacking sleep and thus your performance is suffering as a result.  Sleep is the only time that we are at TOTAL rest, both physically and mentally.   We spend a third of our lives sleeping and we need to learn to embrace and love that third of our life, and stop trying to fight it.  Rest is just as important as action, and our ability to take action and create change becomes greatly hindered when we lack sleep.