Sleep

What are you doing about your sleep? – is a question I frequently ask in coaching conversations.

For far too long, people have taken sleep for granted. Until the mid 1990’s most people got away with it. Then the way we communicate, the internet, email, mobile phones and social media changed everything and the 24/7 working mentality was born.

Do you sleep well? Do you know how to sleep well? Having struggled with sleep myself, I have made three key discoveries that have helped me in the last few years.

Firstly, and the most important was all about circadian rhythms and our very own body clock, which regulates all of our internal systems. Take time to learn about your personal rhythms.

Secondly, determine if you are a morning or evening person, that’s a fairly simple thing to determine, you’ll have a feeling for that. There are some who are in-between. I’m a morning person, so I get tired sooner and go to bed early. What are you?

Thirdly, the one size fits all of an average of 8 hours sleep doesn’t add up for everyone. In fact, we sleep in 4 or 5 cycles of 90 minutes.

Top tip, put your mobile phone as far away from bed as you can. Sleep is the biggest influence on our mood, performance, motivation and decision making skills – what will you do about it today?