Sleep – The Foundation Of Life

Have you ever noticed what happens to your life when you don’t sleep well? Sleep isn’t just the end of your day — it’s the foundation that brings everything else to life.

Energy, creativity, connection, joy. In this episode, we explore why sleep is your greatest superpower — and how to reclaim it.

Transcript

Welcome to this talk named put sleep first.

I hope that by the end of this talk you will really see the importance of sleep in your life and maybe you can design your days in a way that you will sleep better at night and trust that that will make the next day as good as it can be.

I've started to design my days after what gives me best sleep and I've seen how much it gives me and I'm forever grateful that someone taught me to put sleep first.

Sleep isn't just a pause from life.

It's the foundation of your awake life.

Your body,

Your thoughts,

Your mood,

Your ability to love,

Create,

Stay engaged.

All of it grows out of good sleep and you know this.

You know when you haven't slept well.

You lose your spark,

Your clarity,

You get angry quickly,

We lose joy.

Simply said,

Life is pretty miserable if we lack sleep week after week.

And when sleep has its rightful place,

You sleep well,

Then you wake up like a new person.

Everything begins to fall naturally into place again.

The problems wasn't so bad after all.

There was a solution right before your eyes.

The ideas and relationships begin to blossom again and this is the effect of a good night's sleep.

Still,

Sleep seems to be the first thing we sacrifice.

We think we are human doings and not human beings.

We stay awake to do more,

To be more,

To keep up with all our to-do lists.

To be able to do all this,

We try to make up for it with coffee,

Energy drinks and sugary snacks,

Alcohol maybe.

We push the body forward with caffeine or sugar.

Instead of listening to the signals,

It's quietly but confidently sending you.

It works for a while to drink coffee or energy drinks,

Some hours,

But over time it wears on the nervous system and the emotional balance.

It simply isn't sustainable,

Not for your health,

Not for your mental health.

Body-mind.

You end up stressed,

Anxious and very often burnt out.

This is what it leads to.

Do more and more and sacrifice sleep.

And this is just a culture we live in,

In the Western world.

So today I invite you to start doing something radical.

Design your days around how you sleep.

Put sleep first.

Instead of squeezing sleep in where there are space,

You begin shaping your days so the night has good conditions for you,

So you can get the best sleep possible.

That means beginning to listen to your own body every day.

Discovering your circadian rhythm,

The time you naturally get sleepy and the time you wake naturally with energy.

And you can experiment gently and learn from this.

Perhaps with the help of a smart watch or a sleep ring.

I used AuraRing for a long time.

It helped me so much in understanding myself.

Then I can just experiment.

Okay,

When I go to bed that late or that early,

When I wake up like this,

When I run in the evening,

When I eat this or that,

When I'm stressed or not stressed,

When I go for a walk or not,

Meet friends.

You can just experiment with everything and then you see how it affects your sleep quality.

Not just how many hours but how much deep sleep you get and how much dream sleep like REM sleep you get.

Let curiosity and better sleep patterns guide you,

Not pressure.

You're curious.

How can I sleep better?

What if I do this?

A few simple but powerful choices can make a big difference and I'm just gonna mention the biggest ones.

First,

Avoid eating late.

Your digestion needs to calm down so your body can restore itself.

And here I have to talk about deep sleep here because most people don't know.

They know that there is something called deep sleep but they don't know what it does.

What deep sleep actually does to you is to restore your body,

Your biological body,

Your heart,

Your inside body,

Your immune system.

And the deep sleep comes the first two to three hours after you fall asleep.

And here's the secret.

If you eat late,

Let's say half an hour before bedtime and it's a big meal not so easy to digest,

You're gonna be digesting,

Not you,

But your body is gonna be digesting the first two three hours into your sleep and thus it takes away the deep sleep.

We don't know this but it does.

I can see it on my Oura Ring and I can read it in articles that if you eat late you lose deep sleep.

And I have tried and if I get one hour deep sleep versus two and a half you feel totally different the next day.

This is why you can just sleep five or six hours one night but still you feel so awake in the morning you're like what happened there?

Yeah you got deep sleep and probably some dream sleep as well.

But the point is this.

Avoid eating late.

If you want to try one thing just try eating the last meal let's say even three hours before you sleep.

It is possible.

You just need to value yourself and say I'm worth this.

I'm gonna have a big delicious meal but not just before I go to bed.

The next thing I want to talk about is to move your body.

Get the pulse up every day.

Super important for good sleep but not to write before bedtime.

That's counterproductive.

Give yourself time to settle after activity and as mentioned cut back on alcohol and energy drinks and avoid caffeine after four in the afternoon.

Just a simple rule.

You can drink a coffee or two maybe not three or four or five but not after 4 p.

M.

That's gonna affect your sleep because just like alcohol caffeine leaves your body bit by bit by bit it halves itself.

Next I know this is a tough one but try not to have a screen at nighttime.

No TV the last hour.

No phone the last hour and obviously your phone can't be next to you because then it's impossible.

You have to put it in the living room or something.

The last hour is for you to brush your teeth,

Do what you need to do maybe tidy a little bit,

Maybe meditate,

Listen to something,

Read a book.

Just have quality time for yourself.

No screen time.

And I have to say if you've had a rough night of sleep take a nap.

Even a short rest in the middle of the day can reset the balance between body and mind.

You can really,

I can really feel it when I've had not enough sleep,

I'm being grumpy,

I take my nap,

I know I'm worth it and I wake up after just 15 minutes and I am like a new person.

Okay so say no to things that disturb your rhythm with moderation and kindness.

No late coffee or energy drinks.

No late meals.

Live healthily.

Life is to be lived not tightly controlled.

So just know that you're worth it and be good to your body.

Your body is your temple.

And then of course I want to say that we all need also to learn how you best fall asleep.

I know so many people who struggle with falling asleep.

It takes them hours,

Maybe an hour or two.

And I know this because I've been there and I still wake up some nights and it takes me some time to go back to sleep.

But then I'm really glad that I've learned how to sleep.

In my experience and of course I've had many good conversations with people who really are curious and work with sleep.

The one reason we don't fall asleep easily,

And you're gonna know this,

It's thoughts.

We think about stuff which means we do problem-solving.

We lie there in our bed and we think we're trying to sleep but actually if we're mindful we are lying there we're trying to solve problems.

What should I answer my boss at work or my friend?

How can I be a better person?

What should I do tomorrow?

Shall I move somewhere else?

You know it it can be anything.

But something keeps you awake and what keeps you awake is a problem you're trying to solve and you can only solve problems with your thoughts.

Your thoughts are genius but not when you're trying to sleep.

That's just gonna make you stop sleeping.

So the golden key is to just know this.

I'm not sleeping because I'm thinking.

Okay so what do you do?

Well then we have to meditate because meditation is going away from thoughts and focus on what's happening in the moment through one of the five senses.

You can focus on your breath,

On sounds,

Whatever as long as you don't think.

And every time you start thinking again then you know okay now I'm not gonna sleep so I have to go back to the now.

And you breathe and you go back to the now.

And every time you go back to the now you can lie there and feel so good because you're actually meditating.

You're practicing and at the same time every time you go back to the now you made that road deeper and deeper and it's easier and easier and go back to the now again and again.

When I want to sleep I focus on my breath and then I focus somewhere in the back of my head and I can just start feeling energy wandering around touched by my breath and I just stay there and if I can stay there 20 seconds without thoughts I'm gone.

It happens again and again.

I have nights,

Not often,

But nights where I can't sleep and I'm aware that I'm thinking but if I manage to do this I am asleep in 20 seconds.

But maybe I'm thinking for half an hour before that,

You know.

I'm only human but this is for me the trick.

It's actually pure meditation.

I use some mantras to get there as well.

I say I've stolen Sarah Blondin's line.

She says I'm in my body I am home.

I do this as I fall asleep and then I say I can now relax my body and my mind.

So first I focus on the body and that's all the muscles and most muscles are relaxed when you lie down but in your face it's always some muscles in your face that you thought you relaxed but they're actually quite stiff.

You're using muscles.

So melt your face when you lie there.

When you're done with your muscles like your body then you relax your mind just by going into the moment into your breathing or sounds or you can look into the back of your eyelids where it's dark but there are always some colored patterns.

You can do whatever you want as long as you stay in the now.

And then I say to myself there is no problem to solve.

I can relax my mind and my muscles.

I can finally rest.

I can finally give myself this precious time of spending time inside my body in touch with my senses in the now.

And that's that's what helps me.

I hope it helps you.

So when you begin putting sleep first you realize it doesn't get in the way of life.

It's the foundation of a good life.

Do these practices night after night.

Good sleeps many nights in a row gives you the energy to meet your day with such clarity and joy.

Maybe you haven't had many nights of good sleep but I'm telling you if you can have five nights of good sleep oh my you feel like a super super human.

And study after study shows that sleep strengthens both physical and emotional well-being.

The immune system works better.

That's the deep sleep.

Memory and problem-solving and clarity becomes sharper.

That's mostly the dream sleep.

And emotions are easier to meet and hold.

So tonight you might ask yourself what can I do to sleep well?

Take a breath here.

You know the answer.

So it's more about prioritizing.

Get good habits.

Understand the value.

This is more valuable to nail than to nail your to-do list or many problems in life.

That can actually wait because if you sleep better those solutions will come to you tomorrow.

I promise you.

So why not start today?

I don't know if it's morning or evening for you but let's see how well you can sleep tonight.

Try to remember all the things we've talked about and I really hope you get a good night's sleep.

It would make me so happy if you did.

Thank you.