5 Tips for Better Sleep & Recovery
What’s the Hype on Recovery?
Your growth and health adaptations don’t necessarily come in the hour time period where you are working out or stressing your body; they come in the following 23 hours of the day where your body is repairing itself from that stress you just placed on it! This means that while you certainly need to work out to stress your body, you also need the time AFTER to recover and improve.
When you only think day-to-day, workout-to-workout, and you don’t think about how the activities OUTSIDE of working out will affect your growth (like your sleep, nutrition, etc), you are leaving a lot of gainzzz off the table. Focusing on recovery allows you to come back the NEXT day feeling ready to perform - again and again - and that has been the biggest change for me.
To me, sleep has been the most significant improvement for my recovery in 2021 (as I have previously dialed in nutrition, which is a whole other topic). I prioritize my sleep like it is AS important as my workouts or nutrition… and I know that this will help me longevity-wise. Let’s hop into the 5 biggest factors I have learned to help me sleep better - and thus recover better.
5 Quick Tips That Help Me Sleep Better:
*These are all activities that have had objective measures on my sleep improvement. Whoop is pretty cool because it analyzes each night of sleep you have (resting heart rate, HRV, sleep time, sleep efficiency, etc. Every morning, it prompts you to include the list of activities you did the day and night before - so it can tell you which activities help you sleep better. These are a mixture of personal & scientific benefits*
1. Cut food off 2-3+ hours before bed
Digestion takes a toll on the body.. by allowing my body ample time to digest the food before actually going to bed, my sleep has become more restful - and my body can spend its energy and focus on other areas of recovery. I have also noticed I spend more time in deep sleep or REM sleep when I cut food off hours before, which is a good thing! Fall asleep faster and have more restful sleep = more energy the next day.
2. Cut the caffeine out in the early afternoon
This has allowed me to wind down easier in the evening and fall asleep without latency. Honestly, I’m not sure if I used that word correctly in that sentence but it sounded *scientificcccc*. Depending on how sensitive you are to caffeine, you may be better off consuming caffeine in the morning and not in the afternoon. Experiment for yourself.
You: “But I am always tired in the afternoon so I need caffeine”
Me: Maybe it isn’t a caffeine issue? Maybe you are always playing catchup due to poor sleep? Or a poor diet? I found that switching my diet to higher fat and protein and lower carb has helped me maintain energy throughout the day. A year ago, I was consuming 4 cups of coffee/day. Today, I am at 2 - with more energy.
3. Sleep with nasal strips, mouth tape, and/or eye shades
Super easy and affordable. No additional effort, you just have to buy them. Bonus points if you use all 3 at once. This is the surest way to look extremely lame when going to bed, but your sleep may improve as mine has. Mouth tape and nasal strips ensure that I am nasal breathing during sleep, which will help keep the breathing rate down and have more restful sleep (because quick reminder, nasal breathing > mouth breathing in most cases). The eyeshades act as a personal face blackout curtain, but just look more ridiculous.
4. Experiment with colder temperatures
Colder temperatures allow the body to fall asleep faster and stay in more restful sleep. I like to open the window and turn on the fan.
5. Read before bed
Find an activity that gets you to turn the lights off, stay away from the phone, limit blue light, and unwind. For me, it is reading. Sometimes I am so bored of my book that just looking at the cover gets me sleepy.
Some of these ideas are novel. Some are pretty basic. Actually, they’re mostly just basic. But remember, you don’t need any fancy ideas to improve your health - oftentimes, the most impactful changes you can make to your health are the decisions and actions you can be most CONSISTENT with on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. It is easier to be consistent with simple and basic ideas… so start there! Your health is a continued science experiment: test what works for you, and continue to learn and grow.
While I have found some tips and tricks that work for me, I’d love to know what your favorite sleep “hacks” you use. What am I missing out on? Feel free to let us know.
In health,
Cameron from Whealth
