Summary of Better Sleep for High-Achievers
Key Wellness Strategies and Self-Care Techniques for Better Sleep
1. Understanding Sleep Effort: High achievers often struggle with sleep due to their perfectionist tendencies. Trying too hard to achieve perfect sleep can lead to increased anxiety and further sleep issues.
2. The Sleep Runway: Create a "Sleep Runway" before bed, which is a period of winding down (about an hour) to transition from daytime activity to sleep mode. This includes avoiding effortful, analytical, or exciting activities.
3. Flexible Bedtime with Consistent Wakeup Time: Maintain a consistent wakeup time but allow flexibility in bedtime. Only go to bed when you feel genuinely sleepy, not just tired.
4. Befriending Wakefulness: If you wake up in the middle of the night, don't check the time. Accept that you are awake, and engage in calming activities (like reading or listening to music) to reduce anxiety about being awake.
5. Scheduled Worry: Set aside a specific time to write down worries and concerns earlier in the evening, allowing your brain to process these thoughts without them interfering with sleep.
6. Self-Compassion: Practice self-kindness and avoid harsh self-criticism. Recognize that struggling with sleep is common and does not reflect personal failure.
7. Avoid Perfectionism in Sleep Hygiene: While Sleep Hygiene tips (like keeping the room dark and cool) can be beneficial, obsessively trying to perfect them can backfire. Focus instead on creating a relaxing environment without stress.
8. Emotional Suppression: Understand that temporarily suppressing emotions can be useful, but it’s important to allow time to process those emotions later to prevent them from resurfacing during quiet moments at night.
Presenters
- Nick Wall, Clinical Psychologist
- Dr. Daniel Erikson, Sleep Expert
Notable Quotes
— 01:44 — « Sleep is one of these weird things in life; most things in life are very amenable to effort and problem solving and trying harder, but sleep is one of these things where that approach totally backfires. »
— 07:29 — « A sleep runway is just a period of time before you get into bed where you are not striving, you're not engaging in effortful activity. »
— 19:18 — « Just because tired and sleepy sometimes overlap doesn't mean they always do. »
— 21:00 — « The more you think about it, the more aroused you get and the harder time you have sleeping. »
— 25:09 — « The tricky part here again for the high achiever is that a lot of people go okay get it I'm going to wait until I have the sleepiness cue before I go to bed and so they spend their evening kind of waiting for that sleepiness cue. »
Category
Wellness and Self-Improvement