Sleep - Getting the Basics Right
Sprout Sweater Episode 13 : The Three Zzzed's to Better Sleep
Join Dave Algeo aboard "Sprout 1" and take another journey into your inner world where mind, meaning and metaphor collide.
This episode Dave shares his 'Three Zzzed's Sleep Improvement Strategy' and provides some tips on getting a better night's sleep. Hop on over to https://www.stressedguru.com/the-sprout-sweater-podcast to access Dave's 'Operation Snooze - Sleep Audio Course' for free. Sleep can often be the first thing to go out of the window but there are things we can do to get a better night's sleep.
Dave Algeo is a writer, coach, trainer and speaker empowering others to live big, by identifying the small but significant things that can transform the life we are living. Join Dave on the good ship 'Sprout1' as we explore the inner galaxy of the human mind, and find the sprouts that make the biggest difference. These are the sprouts you are looking for.
Search for 'Sprout Sweater' in your favourite podcast feed. To find out more about the podcast, and episode show notes at Podcast — Stress(ed) Guru and more about his in person and online events at www.stressedguru.com. Drop Dave a line at dave@sproutsweater.com to ask questions, offer feedback or suggestions for future podcast content.
Episode 13 Show Notes
The following is a rough draft of the content (not a full transcript - more notes forming the basis of the podcast recording
Develop your sleep Zen master skills, you never know what getting a better night's sleep can lead to.
Welcome aboard Sprout1 I am your host Dave Algeo chief sprout sweater. Settle in as we go perusing the world of snoozing and learn how knocking out some quality zeds need not be something you lose sleep over.
Its episode 13 Sleep - getting the basics right.
As we lift off the pad and before we get into the episode don’t forget if you find that the demands of life and the meaning of it all is leading you to sleepless nights, tossing and turning with deep and not so deep questions rattling around your head then hop on over to the sproutsweater.com to sign up for your sleep checklist and my soon to be released Operation Snooze Sleep Improvement program. Start getting your back, your shit together so you can start living life on your terms sproutsweater.com.
After years of training and coaching clients to achieve success with wellbeing I achieved their goal whilst not sacrificing their wellbeing so with wellbeing and not at the expense of it. I’ve come to realise that we have to take in a bigger picture. Bigger picture than just the goal and this has been confirmed by a number of interviews I’ve done recently on the podcast one of which most notably is with Simon Ward the High Performance Human coach.
It's clear from my experiences and also research and talking to people like Simon that when we are working towards a particular goal whether its fitness, weight loss, focus, business success we often need to take a bit of a seemingly secure root into other areas; we sort of need to traverse into other areas of our life landscape if you like. They may not seem directly associated with the goal themselves, or at first glance not seem like it but they could be really, really useful and impactful on the achievement of the goal itself. For example, let’s say you have become a bit too regular with the alcohol on a night. It's become that habit and I think over lockdown lots of people where that’s become an issue you know, working from home it’s the beer o’clock thing becomes more of a ritual and sometimes earlier. In that case it's often important to tackle the habit head particularly as the severity of the habit, the impact, the amount we are drinking etc. cranks up then it is really, really viable to tackle that head on and deal with it. However, in addition it can be really useful to look at the surrounding landscape of your life and to look for areas which may if not outright contribute to the destructive habit they are at least adding. They’re adding friction into the system that can lead you to engaging in the habit or leading you to be less than your optimum so that when it comes to making choices we are more likely to make the less wise choice. Over the years one of the culprits that I’ve found in this surrounding landscape is sleep. I’ll address anxiety over sleep quality and indeed anxiousness over other wellbeing related goals in the next episode but for now I want to focus on how through small sprout sized changes and the introduction of small routines we can actually not only improve our sleep but in turn put ourselves in a better place to work towards the principal goal or desire. Sleep may be your direct goal but for many of us it can be a really powerful part of the mix in working towards that other goal whether it's weight loss, fitness, focus or business or work success.
So, I want to introduce you to the three areas we need to focus on in order to get better sleep. Note I do say better not perfect. Let’s start by taking off that expectation of perfection. You and I live in the real world and that’s one where no doubt the demands come thick and fast and it can be challenging to undo some of the more disruptive habits that have formed around that. So, in the spirit of the sprout the small but significant changes we can make or routines we can introduce. Let's look at what I call my three zeds strategy to better sleep or as I affectionately call it, Operation Snooze, so let’s get mission ready. Since these podcasts are short form I recognize that you may need a little extra support on this so you know in terms of getting your sleep back on track pick up the tactics and the overall strategy today but I do have an audio program with a serious of audio courses if you like that breakdown and give you more meat on the bone for how you can improve your sleep along with some extended sleep relaxations as well to support you and an eBook infographic and bunch of other things. Head on over to sproutsweater.com to sign up to my newsletter and you’ll receive the sleep checklist and also you’ll get access to the Operation Snooze course free. So don’t forget to visit sproutsweater.com for that.
Back to Operation Snooze. Folks, it's not rocket science but it can easily feel like it if you try to fix everything at once so stay tuned after I outline these areas for improving your sleep and I will give you some suggestions on how to best approach and get started on this. But for now Operation Snooze the 3 Zzzeds to better sleep, let’s get mission ready.
In effect there are three areas that we need to tackle. We don’t need to tackle them all at once but if we do some work in small sprout sized chunks on each of these areas we are likely to improve our sleep over time - again not perfect but better. So, the 3 Zzzeds are :-
Your sleep zone i.e., your environment in which you sleep.
Your prezzed time routine. See what I did there? Your bedtime routine, what you do on the lead up to settling down to sleep.
And then sleep Zen. I had to think of another zed but it’s actually becoming a sleep Zen master. It's getting better at sleep. Developing the habits your sleep architecture and your skills at being able to switch off and unwind and settle down for sleep.
So, your sleep zone, your prezzed time routine and your sleep Zen.
How do we go about this? Well, I’m going to give you a bit of an overview for each of these and as I said don’t forget there is the additional Operation Snooze core audio course which you can use to dive in deeper and there are some audio relaxations to support you as well.
Your Sleep Zone
Now if you think about it your sleep zone is critical because it's very much rooted in our need for safety and familiarity because if you think about it sleep is a very vulnerable position and back in our cave dwelling days we had to feel safe and secure to actually allow ourselves to sleep. Because if you think about sleep it puts us usually in a prone position, very static and not alert and because of that we are then potentially vulnerable to predators. In order to do that we need to feel safe; we need to be safe but also feel safe. Part of that is familiarity and things that help us feel safer in our environment. So, translate that today’s environment, think about your bedroom for example and how does that contribute to that sense of safety but more importantly familiarity and calm, a sense of this is queuing me in for sleep. I’m ready for sleep. It's tapping into that primitive kind of feelings but we are trying to use the environmental cues there. Often our bedroom can be a place where there is clutter. You might have that treadmill or exercise bike there that you have got there for the best of intentions but it's just become a clothes prop or there is a pile of ironing knocking about or the kids toys there, there may be gadgets and all sorts of devices there. This is where your sleep zone can become counter to that peaceful familiar environment. No doubt you’ve heard this advice before but it's really, really worth revisiting. So, a number of things and again you can visit the course for more thoughts on this, how clutter free is it? Remember with clutter free it doesn’t have to be that your house is tidy or that the clutter is actually organized and put away, ideally that would be great but it's about getting it out of sight. Out of sight out of mind for now so that your bedroom doesn’t que you into feeling like there is still work to do.
What about light pollution from outside streetlights and also from gadgets. There is a lot of research around the pollution that comes from TVs, laptop screens, mobile phones, tablets, that kind of thing. Now as my friend Simon Ward in his interview said the bedroom is for sex and sleeping and it’s not for work. It’s not a workplace and we have other places where we can watch TV and where we can use our devices. Ban those from that room and try to reduce the amount of stimulus from the light but also the stimulus from the activity and the arousal levels that are created by those devices. And the other thing is sound as well, what can we do to just reduce the level of sound? Not necessarily to zero because many of us might feel that that is too quiet and it’s about finding what works for you. So how do you reduce the sounds of perhaps noises from the street, noises from within the house whether the boiler is clanking and that kind of thing and just reduce it to a level that works for you. Lots of tips around eye masks, ear plugs worth really trying different products that work for you. You might find that a bit of white noise or background music can help, some relaxation tracks or even an audio book can be useful. I certainly found myself going to sleep to an audio book. Tip there is let it be something that you have already listened to so you are not going to get anxious about what you miss but that’s that one. So, your sleep zone, have a review and think about how you can just make some small changes to the tidiness, the light and the sound pollution.
Your Prezzed Time Routine.
So, this is really, really important because how many of us hit the bed like we have it the day. - full on at full pelt. You know you’ve just closed down the laptop, you’ve closed down a device and suddenly you are trying to switch off. Now your mind is not capable of making those instance switches particularly when tired or particularly when tired and wired from the devices. Think about how you can build in 10 minutes initially to 90 minutes of a slowing down routine. A slowing down routine that includes emptying your head, reducing the light level and the light that goes into your eyes from devices and doing something relaxing. Again, I’ve got more tips on that in the Operation Snooze course. But think about how you can build in, if you don’t have a routine, start with 10 minutes. Here’s a little tip – delay your sleep by 10 minutes in order to build that routine in if you're really, really squeezed for time. Then once you’ve built the routine and you get it embedded, expand it. Look at what you are doing before, after perhaps your evening meal what you can do to support that prezzed time routine.
Your sleep Zen.
Now your sleep Zen is about the bigger picture. It's about what you do during your day to set yourself up for the best sleep possible. Again, there are lots of tips and again I have an audio eBook that supports the course with some particular tips around this but it’s about recognizing that quality sleep isn’t just about what you do in the bedroom or with the bedroom, your sleep zone. It's about what you do with the rest of your day and as Simon Ward said in episode 8 it’s about what you do for the moment you wake up. Here’s where getting yourself up and out into daylight, even poor daylight as soon as you can be really, really useful in stimulating your cortisol levels which we would associate as a stress chemical and yes it is, it's involved in that mechanism but your cortisol level is an action chemical. What happens is when we get up and get going in the morning we start to stimulate that. We get a nice healthy spike of cortisol which if you think about it in primitive terms it’s about as the day starts. You know you’re in your cave, perhaps the daylights start, you’re becoming more visible and therefore visible to daytime predators and we need to be on the move. We need to be awake, alert and ready to move and that’s what the cortisol’s job is to get you there. So, getting up and getting out into daylight, even poor daylight can be really useful in spiking that and that then sets you up for a good levelling off and down of cortisol through the day and encouraging your sleep chemicals, the sleep hormones like melatonin. So, think about what you do. Get active, reduce your caffeine or dial it back to before lunch and look at what meals you’re having particularly in the few hours before bed. If it’s a heavy meal it's going to be disruptive. Alcohol again is something that is really worth dialling back on and managing down so that your sleep is natural and not sedation because one thing that alcohol does do, whilst it might feel like it sends you off to sleep it doesn’t, it sedates you. Sedation and sleep are different states of mind and we need sleep, quality sleep. So, if you need additional support on that email me at dave@sproutsweater.com and I can give you some pointers in that direction and don’t forget there’s the course there. Here’s where I want to give you some strategies or an approach to how do I start this journey because no doubt you’ve heard this advice before; perhaps it seems too simple but what I’ve come to realise is that we often over complicate things or we seek complex answers and we tend to believe that the more complex the answer or rigid the answer then the better it is. The more likely it is to work. But actually, it isn’t rocket science, it's not sexy, it's just simple but simple doesn’t mean easy. We can often get overwhelmed with how much there is to do. For example, your sleep zone may need a particular amount of work. Your pre bedtime routine may feel impossible to create particularly if you’ve got young children or pets or what have you that gets in the way. So, it’s about recognizing that starting small is the best way to do this and to just gradually build and that’s where taking the pressure off, not perfect, but better sleep can be really useful. So, here’s my kind of I guess three approaches.
Option 1 - Pick one of the zeds. Pick one area and focus on getting that tip top and not in one day maybe pick it up over a couple of weeks or a week. It might be your sleep zone, that might be the area to tackle. You might see some quick wins where you can remove those devices. You can get a good old-fashioned clock, an alarm clock with a push button to put the light on if you need it and you can replace that. That might be something, or it might be clutter, or clear all the ironing away and that’s a quick win. But it's about then how do you continue to clear the clutter and then set up the processes that ensure that the clutter doesn’t return. That the device doesn’t return to the room. So, it’s really worth focusing on one area and over a couple of weeks looking at your processes, your habits, your rituals and routines around you and those general practices of tidying up. It might be that you look at your prezzed time routine and you really just want to nail that one and you spend the next few weeks working building ten minutes on, ten minutes of a nice relaxing wind down routine.
Option 2 - Pick one tip from each area and then embed those 3 new sleep tips and routines if you like into your sleep rituals and your day over the next few weeks.
Option 3 -Pick one habit. It might be just one thing like ‘ah I just need to switch off’, ‘I just need to empty my head every night that’s the thing. I go to bed and my heads still buzzing’. So, pick that one habit. Empty your head, take a little journal, a little notepad and spend some time emptying your head into it and get that head habit embedded so that you can then build around that.
So, pick one area, one of the zeds, your sleep zone, your prezzed time routine or sleep Zen tip. Pick one tip from each of those areas perhaps or just pick one habit and focus on embedding that.
Don’t forget, send me your thoughts, questions and ideas to dave@sproutsweater.com.
So as our craft the Sprout1 begins the landing process allowing you to return to your fellow humans and take a look at your sleep zone what improvements can you make. Introduce a sprout size 10 minute prezzed time routine and think about how you can develop your sleep Zen master skills. You never know what getting a better night's sleep can lead to.
I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight aboard sprout1. For show notes and information on how to get the podcast feed direct to your apple podcast, Spotify or other favourite podcast feed visit sproutsweater.com and touchdown!
Episode 14 Teaser:
In episode 14 Dave shares some tips to help you reduce your anxiety over your wellbeing goals. How often do you find yourself not sleeping well, then stressing about the fact that you are not sleeping well? Or have you found yourself embarking on a healthier eating regimen only to find yourself constantly stressing about what you put in your mouth? This episode is for you.