#127 How To Sleep Better And Why You Must Make It a Priority

Rachel Denning (00:01.166)
Good morning my friends. Welcome to another episode of the extraordinary family life podcast where we're talking about everything to make our lives extraordinary. And today we are going to talk about sleep because it's having a much more significant impact in the quality of our lives than many of us think it does. There's things that are seemingly unrelated.

For example, some might be feeling irritable and stressed. Some might be feeling depressed or anxious. Some might be struggling or just kind of dragging themselves through the day and not realizing that for them, it's actually the quality of their sleep. And it's pretty fascinating what an impact this can have in a big way. So I'm up recording right now before the sunshine.

and awake, energized and alive, feeling fantastic. And I wake up the vast majority of days really energized. And sometimes when I have a three year old elbowing and kicking and kneeing me in the back all night, sleeping, have you ever noticed that? Little ones like to sleep perpendicular in between parents so they can punch one and kick the other. But even on those days, you can get up and you can generate some energy.

because most of the time we're sleeping really well. And you know, I don't, I don't pop out of bed like, woohoo, excited. I always have that kind of sleep inertia groggy few minutes, right? And you just move your body and your body's like a dynamo, right? Remember I did an episode and talked about that. Your body's like a dynamo. You start moving that body and boy, it wakes you up and you get going. It's awesome. But these healthy practices make a huge difference. And so I want to encourage you to take,

the quality of your sleep very seriously. And the reason why is because it's a chance for your body and your mind to renew. Part of it literally, literally renew where your cells are regenerating and like your entire body system is like it recreates itself, right? The old cells die off, the new ones come in.

Rachel Denning (02:27.822)
There's also a cleansing process that happens while you sleep and so quality sleep obviously brings renewal on a cellular level and I'm just kind of on a mental level to it just it goes through your whole body and just kind of gives it a chance to rest recover reset renew and cleanse So there's a lot of there's a lot of toxins a lot of junk that just comes by being alive, right? just

you get all that in there and the body cleanses it at night. So if we're not getting, uh, at enough sleep or quality sleep, then, I mean, can you picture this? Can you sense it? Can you feel it? Like you're waking up.

Not renewed. Not re -energized. Not cleansed.

we feel the effect. And it starts to show up and it'll stack, right? So we can do like sleep stacking and chronic sleep deprivation will stack against you in mental performance. That's a significant one. There's a lot of research on that. That is you are lacking or your children or whatever lacking sleep, it starts to show up in academic.

performance immediately even the full grade level drop of performance and we don't have to compare everything to grade level right but it just cognitive performance your ability to process information your ability to retain information just to have a sharp mind have you felt the foggy brain some of that's related to the quality of sleep and I've worked with a lot of people who

Rachel Denning (04:19.694)
can fall asleep quickly, but then they're not sleeping well through the night. And for some of you, you may want to try a sleep tracker. I've never used one. I can, I can really tell how well I sleep. Um, but for some of you, you may want to actually track it and see it was interesting. When we put it, my daughter can fall asleep easily. She can just pass out anywhere.

But when we threw a tracker on her after we did, cause we did the brain scan, right? And she has a very active, uh, this is our daughter that we adopted. And so she genetically inherited a hyperactive basal ganglia. And so the doctor suggested that her sleep quality was, was not good because you know, the hyperactive basal ganglia, like your mind sleeps with one eye open, so to speak. It's always kind of just edgy.

And so we threw a monitor on her and then watched it. We just tracked it for a while. We're like, Whoa, man. She was waking up a lot during the night. And it was, it was really important. It was insightful. So some of you may want to try a tracker just to observe how well you're doing in your sleep cycles and getting sleep. So let's dive in and make this a huge, huge, huge priority.

make sure you're getting good sleep. Now, obviously when you have little ones, there's gonna be interruptions. And when you have family, there's gonna be an interruption. When you have a spouse, there's gonna be an interruption. When, especially when you have little, little ones, oh man, are you gonna have interruptions, right? And on those times when babies are waking up to nurse or fussing and little kids come in and get sick or disturb you or whatever,

just roll with it. Like I know it can't be perfect and don't sweat it. Don't stress it. Don't feel guilty. Don't beat yourself up. Don't, don't throw a pity party. Like on those days when it doesn't happen, say, Oh well, not that big of a deal. Let's go. I'm going to generate some energy. And because all these other areas of, of your life, you're getting dialed in as well, right? You're eating well and you're exercising, you're moving your body or you're having time during the day for recovery for.

Rachel Denning (06:39.022)
meditation for yoga, for just journal writing, your gratitude practices, all those things just make such a big difference. I'm just going to throw in a few strategies here that just work and they're backed by research and they're just super helpful in getting the quality of sleep we all need. So our bodies can recover. We can, for the most part, wake up renewed and energized and alive.

In a big way, the quality of your sleep is determined by the way you go to sleep, the way you get into sleep. And I want to offer some suggestions on getting into sleep. What's interesting, you guys, we're always training for greatness. Everything is training. Well, we're always training. Some of us are not training for greatness for training for mediocrity or struggle. You've heard that quote by Will Durant.

It says, excellence is an art won by training and habituation. Great sleep is an art won by training and habituation. And mediocrity is an art won by training and habituation. Patheticness is an art won by training and habituation. Basically, whatever we are doing, we train ourselves into. And that's true with how we go to sleep and how we sleep. The body's amazing. It is so incredible.

from the coldest climates on earth to the hottest ones, from all these different lifestyles, the body can adapt and adjust and it's incredible. So for the most part, the way you're sleeping, you've trained yourself into that. And I realized there's different body types and there's some effect there. But I also realized that, you know, whether you're a night owl or an early bird or anything in between,

The vast majority of it is brought about by training. You just trained and conditioned yourself into those things. I would like to invite you and challenge you to really try to get to bed earlier and get up earlier, just across the board with the research and working with literally working with thousands of people across the planet that and studying the lives of high performers really.

Rachel Denning (09:04.75)
truly holistic, successful people. There's just the pattern. You'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to notice the pattern. Early to bed, early to rise works. Some of you trained and conditioned yourself into late, but it seems to me that the quality, let's say you take seven hours, right? Seven or eight hours, which is the range. Anywhere between six and eight for adults.

teens may need a little bit more, but not, not exaggerated. They're not needing 12 or okay. Like the little ones do, they can get 10 or 12 and they'll sleep that way joyfully. But you know, six to eight is a good range. So don't, don't be fretting if some nights you just get six. In fact, sometimes my body will pop up. When I get quality sleep, I'll pop out of bed. And those are the days I feel awake, energized, live immediately at six hours.

And that happens more often to me, the earlier I get to bed. So if I'm getting to bed regularly at nine 30, um, once or twice a week, I'll literally pop out of bed ready to go at three 30, which is fantastic for me. I love it. And then I have more time. I can just really get after it and I feel great. And it seems to me from work, all the people and all the research, the quality set, you know, seven hours and seven hours isn't always equal.

If you were going from 1 a .m. to 8, that may not be as helpful as 10 to 5. There's something about getting to bed before midnight and there's different research on it about, especially for men, a man's body produces testosterone, which is like the running system that just runs everything in the man's body. From

from stamina to recovery, all of it, right? And the man's body will produce testosterone in that nighttime range. In fact, if I remember it right, it was about 10 p .m. to 2 a .m. Somewhere in that range is where it's producing testosterone, and there's a lot of great recovery and a lot of great sleep. So it appears that the timing matters. And so I wanna invite you, and if you're...

Rachel Denning (11:23.982)
If you're on a habit, if you're on a track right now, you've conditioned to train yourself to midnight, 1 a .m. I know some of you are 2 a .m., 3 a .m. You guys got to get to bed earlier. But if you're consistently there, then you start working your way back in 15 minute increments, even 10 minute increments and try it. Just try to get back down to a better schedule. Now you've also conditioned yourself into being busy doing something in the night. And it's hard when you have the mindset.

on that and you've been doing it for a while. You're just like, well, I have to do all the things. When will I do those things? I won't be able to do those things. I have to stay up late because I have to do those things. And this comes up all the time in my coaching sessions. They have this list of reasons of why they can't. I'm like, well, you can switch that. You can do those in the morning. You can cut that stuff off. And it's actually for very often the things we're doing at night are actually decreasing the quality of our sleep. So I'm going to throw up. I'm going to throw some things out here that based on research and experience.

and experiments that just work. The first one's food. Stop eating three to four hours before bed. And so have dinner. If you can have dinner around five or six and that's it. Oh baby, that is good. Good, good, good. You want to have more of an empty tank when you're going into bed. It's interesting how many of us have huge dinners and then still snack and are eating all the way up to bedtime. And that's disrupting the quality of your sleep. So.

cut that out. If you're feeling a little bit hungry, you might want to make kind of an herbal fusion. You take something like a mint or a chamomile or we, we love roasted dandelion and you put a little grass fed butter in there with a little organic cream, a little bit of monk fruit for sweetener. And that that's so good for your body and your brain. It will not.

If it uses like a monk fruit or your ether tall, it won't get in your blood sugar. It won't kick you. Oh, and that won't even kick you out of intermittent fasting, which I'm doing all the time. And it's good for the brain because of the healthy fats and it, um, and it kind of satiates any hunger, but it doesn't, it doesn't do any. So it's really, really good. So if you, if you're kind of feeling hungry and you can just do a little bit of that before bed and, and again, kind of do warm, warm in the evening, warm and cozy, low lights.

Rachel Denning (13:48.526)
you know, holding, you know, a warm cup of something and you know, caffeine, no caffeine, you guys, caffeine is tanking your quality of sleep. Even if you're doing it in the morning, like just caffeine just spikes your body and it makes it dependent on that. It's just a bad cycle. There's a lot of research on that. Tons and tons of great research on that, but no caffeine. If you drink caffeine, man, make sure it's in the morning, but then you're setting up your dependence on it for the day too. So I just.

Don't do caffeine. We can create and generate natural sources of energy. So have something warm, low lights and warm going to bed, right? You're going to lead yourself into sleep. And in the morning, bright lights, cold, cold water or cold jump in the lake or go outside with cool that wakes you up. It gets your body alert. Um, so kind of have that warm in the evening, cold in the morning. So no food cut that out. Next, um, is screen time two to three hours.

Before bed shut off the screen time and I know that's a big one for a lot of people there We are on our screens whether it's on social media or looking things up or working or watching movies or whatever But I promise that one is a game changer Changes the the light that's coming into our into our brain and kind of activating our mind in which we'll keep it thinking about things later Make it even either making it difficult to sleep or difficult to stay in deep sleep. So cut off screen time cut off work to

Maybe an hour or two and most of us are working with screens so it shuts that down But cut off the work and let your mind start to relax in the evening spend some time in low lights Just having conversations connect with your spouse. You guys you know you need time to be friends if you know I'm talking about and You need time to connect connect to the kids and do Do little again like an ideal situation is you're kind of in a living room with just just some lamps on some lower light?

having some conversations, playing kind of low key card games with the kids or something, or drawing or puzzles, or listening to stories or audio books, or reading a good book before bed. Man, that's just really great slow down times that make a big difference and that are super powerful. So set up those conditions. Oh, here's another one that they found research, gratitude practice.

Rachel Denning (16:15.278)
They took these people and did all this research and they had a group of them just write down gratitude or express gratitude before bed. They just name a few things that are great for that day. And it was fascinating how much that affected their quality of sleep. Just getting into a grateful state of mind was able just to, man, it's just so calming and just being in that gratitude. There was lots of research on it actually. And they reported sleeping way better because of a gratitude practice.

If here's another one that we've learned from experience, from our own experience and working with others, many of us have a hard time going to sleep at night because our mind is just processing all of these things we have to do. So if you keep a little notepad next to your bed and just jot them all down, if you have your calendar, just kind of get it all on schedule. But that probably the easiest way is a pen and a paper, just a little notepad and just jot things down when you have ideas, when your mind's, because what happens, you're busy, busy, busy going all day and then you start to settle down, your mind's like, boom.

What about all these things? It comes activated and gets alive. So just keep a notepad there and jot down a whole bunch of things. Just get it all down and the mind can go, oh, okay, I can relax now because it's written down and I don't have to try to process or retain it. Other little hacks, try to make your room as dark as possible. Black that baby out. We bought dark curtains and you can put a little piece of black tape over any lights that are in there.

just cover things up, make sure it is dark. The darker the better. It's actually been shown that the colder the better. So if you can get your room down to like, they said the spot on target is 68 degrees. So get it a little cooler at night and then maybe get some blankets if you wanna get more cozy that way. My friends invest in a high quality mattress and pillow. Interestingly, you'll spend about,

third of your whole life in that bed. So it's worth investing in it. It'll help your body, you know, it'll help us sleep. So we have a big, we bought a good mattress and then Rachel and I, we like it crazy soft. So we put a memory foam mattress on top of our soft mattress. Oh man, that's good. And then get a really good pillow. That's really comfortable. And, and just kind of get that dialed in there.

Rachel Denning (18:41.453)
And then my friends just, man, get to have, oh, try to have a set time if you can be more consistent at a set time. So if you shoot for a target range, let's say you shoot for 10 o 'clock, I would say an ideal that you're kind of shooting for as often as you can is maybe a 10 to five. That's just a great range right there. And it gives you time to start your day with power. And the more often you start your day with movement and exercising.

getting your heart rate up and your breathing rate up and you start your day with motivation and inspiration. Your days are going to go better. And the way to effectively and consistently and sustainably have a great morning routine is to have a great evening routine. Most people struggle to get up in the morning because their, their nighttime system is sabotaging their morning success. And, and for the most part, it's just,

being more diligent and disciplined and consistent in the night, making it a bigger priority. Say, Hey guys, love you all. Um, this is great. I'm getting to bed and be willing to gently and lovingly say no more often say, Hey, my morning routines are so important to me and I want to be the best person I can. I want to be the best spouse and this parent, the best worker I can. So I got to get up and start my day right. And I get my start my day, right. I got to get to bed. And if I personally,

can get in bed around nine 30 and do a little reading, um, spend some time with rage. Like that's gold. My friends. Oh yes. And I sleep deeply and well, and then I get up, start moving my body and I feel awake, energized and live. And my brain is alert. My body's alert. I can tell I've been renewed and recovered and man, does it make a huge difference. Again, if your training is off,

just start moving it back incrementally and getting up earlier and going to bed a little bit earlier. As you move that schedule back over, just watch what happens to your recovery, just the way you feel mentally and emotionally and physically. It's important. So take your sleep seriously, the quality of your sleep, especially, and do what you can to get that dialed in just so you feel great all the time. And

Rachel Denning (21:04.877)
And the research is there my friends, it not only affects the quality of your life mentally, like your brain actually functions better, physically you feel better, emotionally you feel better, but it also will affect the longevity.

because poor sleep habits consistently stacked on top of each other actually adds to aging and infirmity and illness and disease. There's a lot of research around this. So if you wanna live a long, healthy, energized life, get to bed at a good hour and sleep, sleep really well. So a couple of, they're just, I've shared a few key things. Try them, experiment with them.

Give them a shot, like make this a priority and don't listen to your excuses right now and don't listen to your stories about, well I can't do this and I've always been like that and oh I can't pull that off. You can, you totally can. And you just have to decide, you have to make it a priority, you have to work with yourself and your stories and your schedule and you have to work with other people, I get it, and tell them. Like let them know how important it is. In fact, get the TV out of your room. You got a TV out of your room, get that.

out of your room. I'm saying this with love and firmness, get that thing out of your room. Your bedroom is for two things, right? And they both start with S. That's what that's for, man. And get your work out of there. If you got piles and stacks of work and stuff and things and projects, get it out of your bedroom. Your bedroom needs to be that place for sleep and recovery and the other good stuff. And just make that.

make that important. Ah, it's so good. Oh, it's so good. And so do that my friends and watch how much more it'll help you feel and do it consistently. You gotta get in there and get this pattern, get the new training in and you'll feel so much better and have more stamina and vibrancy and be able to show up consistently where you need to show up at work and at home and be there and be all in love this stuff.

Rachel Denning (23:21.901)
Love you guys, remember every day we're training for greatness. Reach upward.