Sleepmaxxing is par for the course in elite circles these days. High performers in business and in sport arm themselves with Whoop bands, CBT-I therapists and five-figure mattresses to get better sleep. The old stereotype of the high-flyer surviving on four hours has long been dead; a study by Harvard Business Review, analysing the sleep schedules of thousands of leaders, found that senior executives are actually getting more shut-eye than their weary subordinates. Only 1-3% per cent of the population carries the famous DEC2 gene, which can allow you to function normally on four to six hours of sleep. For the rest of us, the data is loud and clear: poor sleep is bad for your memory, recovery, executive function and cognition – everything you need to operate at your highest level.
So what can we learn about sleep from well-rested VIPs? Whether it’s long hours or high-stakes, adrenaline-inducing competitions, getting a full eight hours can be particularly difficult for this cohort. We asked Sam Neame, a performance coach who works with everyone from Olympic athletes to CMOs, for his best tips for sleep-challenged clients.
1. If you want great sleep when you travel, bring your own pillow
“Travelling with your own pillow is something I advise to most people that I work with, because you’re going to a completely new environment where you need to sleep before the Olympics or a competition. Having a pillow also has your scent from home, which is familiar – one of the reasons people don’t sleep well in a new hotel is because it’s a new space. So the first two nights you’re going to be on guard.”
2. Wake up at the same time every single day, even when you had a late night
“Most people don’t sleep very well Sunday night – not because they’re nervous, but because they had a lie-in on Saturday. They caught up on their sleep and now they don’t need to go to bed at 8pm. So they bugger themself. That’s why Mondays and Tuesdays are quite unproductive for a lot of people and mentally tough. Do I ask people to wake up at 6am on weekends? No, because they won’t. But I do say just don’t wake up late. Ggo to bed earlier the night before, and wake up at the same time.”
3. Wearables aren’t always your friend
“I make some athletes remove their Whoop a week before the Olympics or a big competition because of sleep anxiety. When you wake up and look at your sleep score and say, ‘Oh shit, it’s red,’ you’re going to have a bad day. The mind controls so much output. We weren’t developed to have wearables. The built-in wearable is our awareness of our body.”
4. Evening screen time is sleep’s greatest enemy
“Cortisol from phones is unbelievable. The brain is terrified when we’re flicking through short-form content. I remember doing a trial with three clients that I work with. I said, ‘Let’s all do this together as a team. For one week, we’re not going to go on our phones past 8pm. We’re also going to read 10 pages of a book at night.’ Their sleep improved tenfold, their stress came down by at least 50%, according to their Whoops, and their recovery increased by around 30%.”
5. A work-out will help you sleep…
“Olympic athletes sleep because they are so exhausted from physical and mental fatigue, but CEOs, they’re never physically exhausted. We’re built to move. I have to implement certain exercises for corporates to do in their office now. I had one CMO, and every 55 minutes, she’d stand up for five minutes and do air squats and move her body just to get everything going. She felt unbelievable.”
6. …unless it’s late at night
“The evening is a time for cortisol to be as low as possible. When it comes to lifting heavy weights in the evening, don’t do it. You’re not going to sleep well. Obviously, most people are in office jobs, and they say, ‘Well, shit, I haven’t trained today. I better go and do a quick workout.’ You do deadlifts and chest and all these big heavy compound exercises – you’re spiking your cortisol, you’re going to offset your sleep because you’re going to have a later onset of deeper sleep, so you’re not going to feel recovered.”
