If you are a high flyer by nature, getting enough sleep may seem like the least of your worries. With so many things to achieve, your to-do list is no doubt full to the brim – and constantly growing. When our schedules get busy and we need to find more hours in the day, sleep is often one of the first things to go. However, cutting back on sleep is one of the worst habits to get into, and will ultimately slow you down and even obstruct your path to success. Reaching peak performance requires you to be in peak shape, and this is only possible if you acknowledge and embrace the importance of sleep. Let’s explore why and how sleep is a defining factor in your success story.

Sleep Science: The Link Between Rest and Performance

In a world where we are constantly switched on, sleep has come to be seen as a luxury when it is, in fact, a necessity. It may be hard to believe that something as simple as laying down and going to sleep at night could be essential for human survival – but that is exactly what it is. It affects your entire body and therefore has a direct impact on almost every aspect of your being. Foregoing sleep on a regular basis will not merely leave you feeling a little groggy; it will eventually take its toll on your physical and mental health, as well as your cognitive abilities.

If you are set on success, you know you need to be on top form – and this means getting enough quality sleep to recharge your batteries each night. Here are just some of the things that make sleep an incredibly powerful performance enhancer:

• A sharper mind: According to the National Institutes of Health, sleep is essential for forming and maintaining the pathways in your brain that enable you to learn and create new memories. A good night’s sleep will help you to concentrate, respond quickly and focus your attention on the task at hand.
• A stronger immune system: Sleep is also crucial for maintaining a healthy immune system. A lack of sleep hampers your ability to fend off infection and illness, leaving you more susceptible to sick days. You cannot give your best if you are run down, so sleep needs to be part of your long-term plan for staying healthy.
• Mental wellbeing: How much sleep you get can even affect your state of mind. Most of us have experienced firsthand how a lack of sleep can leave you feeling irritable the next day, but chronic sleep deprivation can also increase the risk of developing anxiety or depression. Sufficient sleep is crucial to maintaining your mental wellbeing – which will help you to stay motivated and driven to achieve your goals.

Making Sleep a Priority

Even armed with all the facts, it can still be extremely difficult to make sleep a priority within your demanding schedule. First and foremost, you need to readjust the way you view sleep: it is not a luxury that you grab when you can, but an essential part of survival – just like food and water. Most adults need between six and eight hours of sleep each night, but everyone is different; you know when you are at your best, so find your magic number and adjust your schedule accordingly. If sleep doesn’t come easy, certain habits and lifestyle changes may help.

Prepare Your Environment

Environmental factors play an important part in sleep quality, and a few changes to your bedroom could make all the difference. First and foremost, you need to be physically comfortable, so make sure your mattress is up to par. If lumps and bumps are keeping you up, or you wake up each morning with back ache, it might be worth considering switching to a memory foam mattress. At the same time, make sure your bedroom is cool and dark enough to welcome uninterrupted sleep.

Prepare Your Body

Your behavior throughout the day can affect how you sleep, so make sure your routine isn’t conducive to insomnia. You can prepare your body for a restful slumber by reducing your caffeine intake – especially after lunch – and opting for an earlier dinner. Exercising at the right time of day can also play a part. Whilst vigorous exercise too close to bedtime may give you an untimely energy boost, exercising during the day will help you to sleep more restfully at night.

Prepare Your Mind

Many sleep disorders are related to matters of the mind, so mental preparation may be the key. Smartphones, laptops, tablets and TVs all provide too much mental stimulation, so get into the habit of totally switching off in the run up to bedtime. If you lay down at night to find that your head is spinning, try keeping a notepad and pen next to your bed. Before you go to sleep, write down all your thoughts, worries and to-dos; this can help to clear your mind so that you are free to sleep in peace.

In order to be at your best both mentally and physically, establishing a healthy relationship with sleep is absolutely crucial. By keeping your mind and body sharp, you can take on whatever challenges life throws at you and be your best self at all times.

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Bad habits constantly interrupt and disturb your life. They prevent you from achieving your goals. They’re a hindrance on more than one level. They waste your time, your energy and they can actually put your health in danger. This begs the question: why do we still partake in them knowing that they’re dragging us down, and knowing we could be doing so many more productive activities with our time?

In many cases, bad habits form because we’re either stressed or bored, and these habits offer a form of escapism or distraction, and are simply a way of dealing with the stress or boredom. This applies to drinking too much on the weekend, skipping that evening run or gym after work, or even something as trivial as biting your nails. Think of the last time you had some free time, knew that you could pick up a pencil and practice some drawing, but chose to watch series instead. It doesn’t have to be this way, however. There are a number of ways that you can teach yourself to restructure your habits around activities that promote growth and creativity.

Recognizing and breaking bad habits

The first step to getting rid of a bad habit is to recognize it. These habits no doubt confer some sort of perceived benefit, whether it’s emotional, relief from boredom or a distraction from a stressful situation. An example of this would be constantly checking your Instagram feed instead of studying. Once you recognize a bad habit the most logical response would be to drop it immediately. However, this method has a very low rate of success. Abruptly ceasing a certain behavior or habit – going cold turkey – is extremely hard to maintain. The correct procedure should either be to wean yourself slowly off the habit or to replace it altogether with a more positive habit that provides a similar benefit. For example, if being stressed causes you to want to have a drink to unwind, then you should find a more productive habit to replace drinking that will help you to alleviate stress.

You can also try cutting out triggers that tend to initiate your bad habit. If you find yourself looking at your phone too often, place it in another room while you work. If you’re trying to cut down on drinking and smoking, avoid going to bars for a little while. Above all else, don’t beat yourself up if you do slip up and regress a little. After all, we’re all human and are bound to make mistakes from time to time. The important part is to get back on track as quickly as possible and don’t let one small mishap undo all the hard work you’ve already put in.

How to build new habits

Once you’ve broken your old habit it’s time to build a new one. This isn’t as simple as it might sound. Building new habits requires a considerable amount of time, discipline and hard work, especially to make the habit stick. A good place to start is writing down your goals or intentions. This isn’t a new years’ resolution list that you make once and then forget about – it’s a daily list of goals that you want to accomplish. Therefore you need to identify the goals you want to achieve and break them down into attainable steps that you can list and check off.

Pen and paper is the obvious way of doing this, but a lot of people are turning to blogs and websites as a means of documenting what they hope to achieve and building new habits. Blogging means that you can share your journey with likeminded people, which can simultaneously inspire others and encourage you to stick to your commitments. Just remember, documenting your intentions isn’t the end goal, it’s just a framework that is used to ensure that everything is proceeding as planned.

Following through on your goals

Once you’ve written down what you want to achieve, it’s time to implement it… slowly. Perhaps the most common cause of failure when starting a new habit is diving headfirst into it, excelling for the first week and then slowly tapering off until you’re back where you started. It’s therefore important to start with bite sized chunks and ease yourself into a habit.

If you’d like to start running, then immediately attempting a 10km route after work every day is going to quickly end in exhaustion and failure. Instead, break it down into smaller, more manageable distances. Try run 2km every day after work for a week, and from there increase the length. 2.5km the next week, 3km the week after that. This will incrementally up the pace until you are where you need to be, but it will do it over such a gradual time that you won’t feel as if you’re taking on an unbearable load. Keep your goals small and simple and let them grow naturally. Many of us are so conditioned to expect immediate results that when things don’t happen instantly we get disappoint and give up. Remind yourself constantly throughout the process that progress takes time; be patient!

Then of course it’s about sticking to your schedule to really ingrain the habit. Skipping whatever habit you’re trying to build too regularly is fatal to progress, so it’s critical that you stick to your schedule even if it’s only in a small way. Don’t have time for a full workout? Just do ten pushups instead. Don’t have time to write a full article? Write something in your journal. On their own these might seem insignificant, but it’s this type of reinforcement that makes a difference and will help you to maintain a solid regimen. Stick to your habit building, no matter how small the input.

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