If peak performance and being successful is important to you, then I’m sure you already know on some level that getting restorative sleep every night plays a key role in your ability to function highly during the day.
While many people know this on an intellectual level, they aren’t currently getting the good quality sleep they need during the week. The pressure to always do more, especially in the early year of a career, pushes people to work longer hours, overall compromising on the quality of their work.
True peak performers know that overworking in a false economy.
From my years of working with peak performers and top CEOs, these are the best habits I’ve come across.
Watch the video above for a deeper explanation of the top 5 best sleep habits of peak performers and successful people. Below is a little recap of the top 3. If you are struggling right now then take note of these, and the common theme amongst them of setting boundaries around your downtime — it is essential.
Don’t get Swept Along with the Hustle Lifestyle
Many career-focused people have an amazing work ethic, which is wonderful, but they need to balance this with getting enough rest at night. When you are working hard and making decisions during the day, you don’t want those decisions to be clouded by brain fog.
That drive you have to achieve more will stay with you for years to come if you look after your energy by restoring it every night. Making sleep a priority prevents you from burning out, and gives you the strength to keep pursuing your goals for years to come.
Diary Management
You might wonder how managing your diary improves your sleep. Well, your daytime activities are more closely linked to your mindset at bedtime than you might realize.
Going to bed with worries about what’s to come the next day, what you might forget to do tomorrow, or what you may have already forgotten about today will trigger you to wake up in the small hours.
We sleep much more soundly when we aren’t bothered by these things; so keeping our important tasks diarised helps with this. Going through the day knowing what are the most important to be ticked off the list, allows you to finish each day with a sense of accomplishment. So when you put your head down to sleep, you feel you have earned it and are less worried about what tomorrow’s to-do list has for you.
The Bedroom is for Two Things Only
I often say that the bedroom is for just two things; sleep and intimacy. However, I meet a lot of new clients who use their bedroom as a multi-purpose space. From gym equipment to shelves full of financial documents; what we see around us stimulates our brain to think of those things.
Bedroom clutter that reminds us of work can be a major trigger for insomnia, so clearing out the bedroom is one of the first things I work on with a new client.
There are more tips in the video, so do watch and if you recognise a particular struggle of yours, please leave me a comment.
To learn more about sleep see: The 10 Day Sleep Challenge
I always find that using my phone or any screen time late at night / evening affects my sleep. And the other one is to not have time to connect and reflect. So journaling helps as well as meditation.