Improve Your Leadership with Better Sleep. Here’s How with 8 Steps

The Connection Between Sleep & Leadership

In the bestselling book, “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams,” author Matthew Walker explores the fascinating and oftentimes misunderstood world of sleep.

One chapter dives into sleep and leadership. This quote from page 302 stood out to me:

“We often think that a good or bad leader is good or bad day after day - a stable trait. Not true. Differences in individual leadership performance fluctuate dramatically from one day to the next… So what explains the ups and downs of a leader’s ability to effectively lead, day to day? The amount of sleep they are getting is one clear factor.”

Ensuring that you’re getting 7-9 hours of sleep is thus paramount not only to your health, but to your leadership. This is yet another example, as we see often in somatics, of how what’s happening with your body directly affects your mindset, mood, and decision-making.

Taking this into consideration, here are 8 surprising changes you can make to get better sleep.

Get Better Sleep with These 8 Changes

1. The most important shift to make is to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends.

While this may seem impossible given your lifestyle, it can work wonders for your ability to fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling rested. Little kids need sleep schedules, and apparently us adults need them too.

2. We all know caffeine later in the day impacts sleep. Unfortunately, alcohol does as well.

While you may feel relaxed and tired after a few drinks in the evening, once the alcohol has worn off, most people wake up in the middle of the night. Alcohol also makes it hard for REM sleep to kick in.

3. Make sure your bedroom is cool because your body temperature drops in order to fall asleep.

In particular, ensure that your hands, feet, and face are cool because these are key places where bodies discharge heat. Fans are helpful, as well as sticking your hands and feet out from under the covers.

4. Given this importance of lowering your body temperature, consider taking a hot bath before bedtime.

Getting out of the bath drops your temperature and the bath itself can help you relax and unwind from the day.

5. Make sure your bedroom is dark, as in having no light at all.

Even a small amount of light can affect your circadian rhythm, so bring in black-out curtains or a sleep mask if you haven’t already.

6. Get at least 30 minutes of natural sunlight each day, without sunglasses, preferably first thing in the morning.

This helps regulate your circadian rhythm and thus your sleep.

7. We all know screen time affects our sleep, particularly blue lights from phones, iPads, and computers.

While it’s best to avoid these entirely a few hours before falling asleep, it’s far more realistic to set these devices to “Night Mode” to at least reduce blue light emissions before bedtime.

8. Lastly, if you’re having a hard time falling asleep, get out of bed.

If it’s been more than 20 minutes, read a book (preferably one that’s somewhat boring) on the couch until you feel tired. Tossing and turning while trying to fall asleep can make you anxious, so instead, read or find another relaxing activity you can do until you’re ready to fall asleep.

Tell me in the comments - which of these recommendations is most surprising to you?

Numbers 1 & 2 were the biggest surprises for me, and have had the most impact on my sleep. I hope any or all of these will recommendations will help you too. Because as this book reminds us, sleep is holy.

References:

Walker, Michael. “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams.” 2018.

NIH Medline Plus, Page 20: https://magazine.medlineplus.gov/pdf/MLP_Summer2012web.pdf