If you have been listening to athlete interviews from the Tokyo Olympics, you will have noticed a standout theme - recovery!
Proactive investment in rest and recovery practises, helps offset pressure, process internal and external expectations, regulate the triumphs and/or disappointments and supports your body to physically rebuild, so you can turn up when you feel most vulnerable, with the courage and energy to perform. Mental and physical fatigue, and unmanaged accumulated stress, will derail even the strongest of competitors. Every single one of us can learn from this, and apply the same rest and recover principles and practises to our own lives - so we too can show up at our best more often!
Athletes have the importance of recovery drilled into them, and in particular the importance of quality sleep. To not prioritise sleep is to self sabotage! From personal experience, I slept 12-13hrs every night at the Olympics - it was what my body wanted. Sleep is the easiest, cheapest and most effective form of recovery anyone has at their disposal.
In order to perform at my best now, whether it be in business, as a mother or just to maximise the quality of my everyday life, I need to get my regular 8 hours sleep, minimum! It is one of the biggest factors in my health and wellbeing journey. Consider making it part of yours too, you honestly won't regret it.
Here are three tips to try:
set a regular time to begin your night routine and start unwinding (mine is 9pm)
turn the temperature down in your room at night - we sleep better in cooler weather
avoid bad habits by not having screens in the bedroom for a week
Still to this day, I track and log my sleep. Even better, I get AIA Vitality Australia health and wellbeing points from health/life insurer AIA Australia because sleep is that important (and those points are also helping me reach platinum status where I can enjoy more rewards too...I'm just a little competitive).
If you enjoyed this article, please pay it forward by sharing it with someone who would benefit! You might also like to grab Alisa's FREE Performance Starter Kit to utilise some powerful resilience, wellbeing and performance resources. And, if you'd like more of Alisa's positive energy and practical expertise, book her as your next In-Person/Virtual Keynote Speaker!