THE SLEEP AND BREATHE PLAN.
SLEEP.
If I’ve done my job properly, my sleep health guidance will send you to sleep!
Seriously, sleep is spoken about everywhere, yet very few people truly value or utilise the insane amount of physical and mental health superpowers it offers. In fact, it’s that powerful it can even rival the best workout or diet regime in terms of healthy lean-body results.
In my opinion, three main reasons stop more people from focusing on their sleep health:
1) Fear of missing out. ‘I’ll sleep when I die’ is something I’ve heard almost my entire life. I totally get it. My personal ‘why’ behind my own health and fitness is to enhance the vitality and clarity it rewards me with, so that I can enjoy every second I’m awake.
2) Sleep routines suck. Yep, they really do – especially if you like binge watching TV or scrolling on your phone before bed. Sleep routines are awesome, and for some strong-willed anti-sleep die-hards, drastic sleep routines may need to be enforced. My guidance is not so drastic or rigid, so it offers potential for everyone.
3) Too busy to sleep. Again, I get it – It’s a valid excuse. I keep myself insanely busy, but I still practice what I teach. I’ll be honest, the one time in my life when my sleep health was awful was when my kids were born. It was rough, but I kept to the very basic guidance I offer here as close as was humanly possible.
I’m going to spare you all the science behind sleep and just get on with offering my guidance. If you utilise what I suggest when following an exercise training plan, then I can assure you the benefits will be far greater than you can ever dream of. Okay, bad dad joke!
My guidance revolves around two key practices that lead to improved sleep health. Both practices I suggest interlink, but we’ll start with the foundation that your improved sleep health will be built upon:
GO TO BED & GET UP AT THE SAME TIME EACH DAY.
Wow, not new information or rocket science, but I’m not done yet. I’m going to give you a little more guidance to make this suggestion work for you and your lifestyle.
Regardless of the unavoidable demands in your life and how it impacts your sleep, sticking closely to the basic practice of going to bed and getting up at the same time works insanely better than simply living a life based upon sleeping ‘whenever’. Even if you work the graveyard shift, you can still enforce this basic practice.
I’m not going to give you a thousand different ‘when to sleep’ scenarios, I can’t possibly know your personal situation or lifestyle, but I can outline a few pointers that will help you improve your sleep health.
DETERMINE THE HOURS YOU NEED TO SLEEP.
Most adults require between seven and nine hours sleep per night. If you have no clue as to how many hours you need, firstly ask yourself some basic questions:
“If my alarm doesn’t go off every morning, would I sleep well past the alarm time?”
“Do I need caffeine to function in the morning?”
“Do I nap or doze off regularly?”
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, or you came up with your own similar questions and answered yes, then it’s very likely you need to get more quality sleep than you are currently getting.
If this is you, then calculate the average number of hours you sleep per night. If it’s drastically below seven hours, then seven hours should be your minimum initial sleep target. Tip: A lot of my clients start the process by going to bed at the same time on as many nights as possible and use eight hours sleep as the initial target.
When they achieve eight hours of consistent sleep, they are better equipped to re-evaluate if they need a little more or a little less than eight hours of sleep. If after reassessing they still felt tired and the alarm always wakes them up, then a little more sleep seems a logical adjustment. If they woke significantly before their alarm but felt energised and productive, then a little less sleep seems a logical adjustment.
If you answered yes to any of the initial basic questions but get adequate sleep, so nine hours or more per night, then my suggestion would be: If after following the simple guidance given here, you’re still not feeling refreshed when you wake, then a check-up with your doctor or health specialist would be advisable.
Finally, if you answered no to all the questions above and wake up feeling refreshed, or consistently wake up at around the same time your alarm goes off, you have a very good idea of how many hours sleep works best for you.
I personally thrive with close to seven hours sleep per night, but my wife is closer to nine.
One final step before moving on...
When you have determined the target hours you need to sleep per night, you then need to add a little extra to that target. When working with my clients, I suggest adding 30 minutes to one hour on top, and I’ll suggest the same to you. So, if you calculated you need seven hours sleep per night, then your target sleep time would be seven and a half hours sleep per night (assuming you added 30 minutes on top).
Why add extra time on top? This offers a little extra time for you to get to sleep once you are in bed, plus it allows for the occasional toilet run that breaks your sleep. If you need a lot of toilet runs, or have very disrupted sleep in general, then adding one hour to your calculated nightly sleep target initially makes sense.
DETERMINE WHEN YOU NEED TO GET UP.
It may be tempting to initially decide when to go to bed, but when you get up is far more important from a practical perspective. The start of your day is the base from which you build out your day, so it needs to work for you and your lifestyle to ensure you not only have time to complete your career and family responsibilities, but you also get time to get the most out of your day for you personally.
Some will rightfully think to themselves, I’ll never have time to do some of the things I actually enjoy doing. I hear you. You may not get to tick the ‘personal enjoyment’ box every single day, but if you set a bright line (a rule you will absolutely uphold) of achieving some ‘you time’ once per week at the very least, then you have a solid, realistic plan.
I’ll say this: From all my years of professional and personal experience – even the person who loves you more than life itself will never be able to value your time as much as you. That’s just the way it is, and more importantly, it shows the true value of time… It’s beyond priceless, so take a little piece of it back, even if that means your soulmate feels offended.
What that little piece of ‘you time’ represents to your emotional and physical health and self-worth could represent days, months, or years of extra future life through the lost art of intrinsic self-love.
Enough, you get my point. Let’s move on.
NOW CALCULATE WHEN YOU NEED TO GO TO BED.
This one is easy. It’s already decided for you. After calculating approximately how many hours sleep help you function best and deciding the best time to get up – you then calculate the time you need to go to bed to get the hours you need and get up when you need to!
An example: I must get seven hours sleep, and I must get up at 5 a.m., so I must go to bed at 10 p.m.
Notice I said ‘must’, not ‘should’. ‘Should’ is a suggestion; ‘must’ is a direct instruction. That seems like a rigid way of thinking, but for most, that’s the only real way to get your circadian rhythm back in a healthy yet practical flow. Once that personalised healthy flow becomes more natural, you’ll simply ditch the word ‘must’.
Weirdly, when clients get to the point where they can ditch the word ‘must’, they describe it as empowering. I agree.
A few more pointers before we continue:
1) We must exclude this routine on evenings when a social event determines your bedtime. Being social in-person (as opposed to online) is hugely overlooked in terms or your overall wellness, so I’m not about to take that away – unless it happens every night, then something must give!
2) Please avoid changing up this routine at the weekend just because it’s ‘the weekend’. Disrupting your regular sleep pattern ‘just because’ can really mess with your circadian rhythm. It’s like self-imposed ‘jet lag’. This may also go some way in explaining why Monday mornings can feel so rough.
3) Finally, if you’re unwell – then listen to your body and rest and sleep as needed.
Back to our sleep health plan…
When you come up with a predetermined time to go to bed, your job is to ensure you go to bed close to that time on every day that it’s possible to do so. If I was pushed to suggest a realistic ‘go to bed’ buffer window, then 20 minutes before or after your target time seems like a reasonable ‘bright line’ to realistically live by.
If you have a new-born or young children who cause havoc with your sleep, then please read on. If not - that’s your improved sleep health key practice number one covered. You are now ready to move on to key practice number two: Breathe yourself to sleep.
SLEEP HEALTH FOR PARENTS.
One question I get a lot is “How do I tackle my sleep health if I have a baby or young children?” As I said earlier, it’s not easy, and to be honest, no answer I give will ‘fix’ the issue. It’s a temporary road bump in your sleep health journey, and all we can do is tackle each bump as best as possible.
What I’ll do is repeat the same guidance to you I offer to my clients, and indeed the same guidance I set up for myself when my little light-sleepers came into my world with a sleep-depriving thud!
Without parenting or schooling you, I’ll start by saying, setting up a regular bedtime for your children is an absolute no brainer for your child’s immediate and long-term health. It also happens to fit nicely into the guidance I offer.
Determine the best time for your baby or child to go to bed so they get adequate sleep for their own health at that key development stage in their lives. In this temporary period in your life, it makes sense to determine your bedtime first and not your ‘get up’ time. It also makes sense to go to bed not long after your little one settles. Is that ideal? No. Does it mean you will be going to bed at a weirdly early hour? Probably.
Anyone can pick holes in this guidance as being impractical, or ‘not living’, but I’m sure many parents will testify, this insanely euphoric time in your life is also a period of complete and utter craziness, and regular sleep slots into your current life like a square peg slots into a round hole.
Your goal for sleep during such periods in your life is to – get as much as you can. If it is anywhere near your optimal determined hours of sleep per night (using the simple guidance I mentioned earlier), then you are doing well – and ‘well’ must be viewed as good enough.
So, if sleep is constantly broken, what can we possibly do to help with this?
Do all we can to naturally speed up our ability to go back to sleep. From the time of going to bed, you’ve got to do all you can to get back to sleep as quickly as possible after your sleep is randomly broken by your little one crying, needing feeding, suffering from colic, or any number of reasons.
So, how can you improve your ‘getting back to sleep’ time?
By breathing. And that leads me nicely onto my second and final key sleep practice.
BREATHE.
BREATHE YOURSELF TO SLEEP.
Breathing has become big business, and for most people, it can seem quite intimidating with so many breathing experts achieving amazing things by harnessing the power of breathwork. My very basic and raw breathing guidance is anything but intimidating – but it works very well for my everyday clients.
I’ll avoid giving you a hundred and one things to think about. You’ll simply focus on the approximate timing of your breath and initially use your hands as practical focused-breathing tools. Let’s do this.
Box-ish your breathing:
Box-ish breathing, as I like to call it, involves breathing in for 4-ish seconds, hold for 4-ish seconds, breathe out for 4-ish seconds, and hold again for 4-ish seconds before repeating the pattern again over and over until you feel in a very relaxed state. Four cycles of box-ish breathing are an excellent ‘go-to’ range to get your relaxation vibe flowing.
Want a tutorial on how to perform various versions of ‘box-ish breathing’? Click here to watch my quick tutorial video.
BELLY, THEN CHEST BREATHING (A DIAPHRAGMIC-FIRST STYLE OF BREATHING):
Keep this simple. Place one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest. When you breathe in, focus on the hand on your belly rising first, followed by the hand on your chest. On the exhale, turn your focus to both hands lowering at the same time and rate.
That’s it. This simple guidance works wonders for your breathing pattern, especially for anyone new to breathwork. Once you get used to this breathing pattern, you can relax your hands.
My tip: If you are lying down, place your hands by your side with your palms facing up. If you are sitting up, place your hands on your thighs with your palms facing up.
A few basic breathwork tips:
1) Please do not put any pressure on yourself to get the timing of your breathing and holding periods spot on every time or achieve maximum ‘fullness’ and ‘emptiness’ of your belly and chest – Just simply be more aware of the timing of your breathing and the box-ish pattern.
By not forcing the amount of air you inhale and exhale, you’ll limit the amount of dizziness you feel – especially initially. When practicing breathwork, dizziness is NOT a bad thing, but as I have mentioned already – we are not practicing an advanced level of breathing here; we are simply using breathwork as a means of relaxation. That said, I can say with confidence, I’ve seen everyday people achieve amazing all-round health benefits from this casual approach to purposeful breathwork.
2) Focus on breathing in and out through your nose. You may struggle with the ‘breathing out through your nose’ part, but try your best to persevere with nose-only box-ish breathing. If it causes you stress, or feels completely alien, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth to begin. Feeling relaxed and not stressed is especially important when using box-ish breathing to boost your sleep health.
Please ensure you do not practice box-ish breathing when you are driving or in any other situation that requires you to be fully aware and alert.
3) Consider consulting your doctor before practicing focused breathwork. Some doctors and health professionals can offer excellent advice that factors in any lifestyle issues or concerns you may have personally.
There you have it. My two key practices to improving sleep health.
Are they perfect? No. Do they achieve amazing results? Yes, they absolutely can.
Can you add additional sleep health practices to your routine? Absolutely. However, if you do add ‘extras’ to your sleep health, do so gradually so you can determine what benefits (if any) each addition adds to your personal sleep health.
WHAT ADDITIONAL PRACTICES CAN YOU ADD?
The list is getting longer by the day, but some popular practices include:
Get 30 minutes of sunlight or natural daylight and fresh air each day. I love this practice, and it happens naturally as part of my personal daily walking routine. If you cannot get outside, at the very least try to get near a window and even go as far as to opening it to get some fresh air if possible.
Stop caffeine intake 6 to 12 hours before bed. The reasons for this are logical. Reduce your stimulation to improve your ability to naturally fall to sleep.
Activate night light or blue light feature on your phone. If you have a modern phone, then this feature comes as standard. It’s worth using in the evening. Want to take it a step further?...
Use blue-blocking glasses. Notice I haven’t mentioned limiting screen time late in the evening? Not because it’s not good advice – it’s great advice, but it’s advice that rarely gets implemented and is very often seen as ‘one step too far’ in the quest to improve sleep health.
Blue-blocking glasses can provide a workable compromise to the nightly screen-binge sessions seen in most households by blocking a % of the blue light emitted from digital screens and helping your ability to sleep as a result. If you think this is something you could benefit from, then why not do a little research?
Sleep in a cool room. Keeping your bedroom or sleeping environment cool is the best way to go at night – ideally between 60 - 69 F or 15.5 – 20.5 C. This can significantly improve all stages of sleep, including REM sleep and restorative deep sleep.
Sleep in a dark room. Limit light as much as possible. When it comes to sleeping in a dark room – blackout blinds or curtains are ideal. This signals to your brain that it is night time and will help trigger the release of melatonin. It also helps to keep you asleep until you complete all your sleeping cycles.
Stretch yourself to sleep. This might be the first time you’ve heard of stretching being used as a means to improve your sleep preparation routine, but I’ve been doing this for years – and lots of my clients who ‘don’t do stretching’ have improved their sleep by practicing a 2 – 3-minute stretch before bedtime.
It’s important to ease into your chosen stretch. This is not an aggressive stretch; it’s eased into, then relaxed into and the stretch may increase through the relaxation of your central nervous system. Couple this relaxed stretch with box-ish breathing and it can work wonders to not only put you in a relaxed state, but also reduce muscle tension prior to bedtime.
Water-powered heat-regulating mattress. I like this one. The temperature of your bed can make a radical difference to the quality of your sleep. This takes the ‘cooling your room’ suggestion a step further. This is a field where the technology is improving quickly, so if it’s something that might interest you, then research away!
This list could go on forever, but you get the idea.
IN SUMMARY.
Practical sleep health is a balancing act between improving your health through the quality of your sleep without destroying all forms of socialising and family bonding time because of your increased sleep health efforts.
For those very reasons, I rarely suggest to my clients they go beyond the two key practices I highlight. What tends to happen is they love the results they feel from the practice of a regular sleep pattern combined with the simple breathwork I suggest, and as a result, they become self-motivated to add further sleep health and general wellness practices that fit their unique lifestyle.
Whilst my sleep guidance produces amazing results alongside a smart exercise plan, it also holds huge health benefits for anyone with a heartbeat.
My hope for you is to find a way of naturally including some or all of the methods I teach and the guidance I offer to not only better your health and wellness over the short term, but eventually develop a balance of healthy habits and cycled training plans that improve the quality of your future life indefinitely.