Sleep is like weight loss, only possible when you consistently follow a set of rules. Here are the rules.

Great sleep isn’t magic, and it definitely isn’t “just luck” When I get a truly solid night, I feel it everywhere: better mood, better workouts, better focus, and a calmer baseline even after a brutal week. Today I’m giving you the exact framework I use as a certified sleep coach to help people move from 4 to 5 hours of broken rest to 7 to 8 hours of consistent, high-quality sleep 95% of nights. If you’re tired of getting lucky with sleep, press play and try this for a week. Subscribe, share...

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  Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shorina. I'm your host, I'm your partner in change, personal and collective transformation, your sleep, stress management, recovery, high performance coach, master health, executive and self-amparalization coach. I'm just someone who's really passionate about feeling our best every day, looking our best and doing our best as many days in a row as possible, no matter what life throws your way, just getting the most out of it. And all of that is not possible if we don't learn how to have

• 0:52Speaker 00

  great sleep consistently. And believe it or not, guys, there is a lot, a lot more in your sphere of control, of influence, about getting consistently great night's sleep every day than a lot of people think. Let me tell you a story as usual. My days are full of stories just because I talk to so many people and I work with people and just, you know, this podcast and my daily blogging is an outcome of being out there and talking to people and working with people and learning from life so much. Anyhow, so today, Saturday, is my scheduled day off and I had

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  nothing better than set your weekend for a great start than having a great night's sleep, which you also set yourself up for in advance. I had great eight and a half hours of sleep and I woke up feeling like life is really good, even though it's been really hard, challenging week. But I woke up and I felt like I'm in heaven. Somebody, I went to sauna and, you know, we exchanged like, how are you, etc. And I shared that I just had eight and a half hours of sleep. And my friend there said, oh, great job.

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  You must be feeling on the top of the world. Somehow, we all know that when you get great quality sleep, it feels just on the top of the world. And people kept asking me how I was in the gym and I would say something like, really good, you know, just really great sleep. You know, when you get one of those nights, it's like you are on drugs and the whole world is singing, even though the weeks has been one of the toughest. In sauna, we kept talking about sleep, the racing mind that won't let you fall asleep or wakes you up at 3:00 AM with questions that suddenly needs answering, the social media that keeps your mind spinning long after it's time to stop and rest, the sleep masks, the next level earplugs that they make these days that make you feel

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  like you're back in caveman days, total darkness, total quiet. And the friend in the sauna shared that, like, I still can't figure it out. Some nights I sleep great and some nights I don't. I'd like to make it consistent. And guys, the point of this podcast is, I'm a certified sleep coach. You can, you really can sleep well. Maybe not every night, you know, there are things happen in your life, but like with 95% consistency, would you like that? Again, I'm a certified sleep coach, but even I sometimes make those mistakes, which might feel like luck,

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  but actually it's the outcome of my own doing. A couple of days ago, I had an extra cup of coffee at about 12:00 PM. And man, did I regret that when it was 10:00 PM and I usually go to bed at 3:30. And my mind still wouldn't shut up. And I said to myself, like, I should know better by now. Like, I'm sensitive to caffeine. One strong cup is my limit and 10:00 AM is my cut of time. I'm certified sleep coach and I still do those stupid mistakes. And did I say to myself, oh, you know, I wish I had better sleep? No, I wish I had remembered that more caffeine at 12:00 PM doesn't work for me. If there is one thing I've learned coaching myself and my clients

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  into seven to eight hours of sleep from four to five hours of sleep, 95% of the nights, it's this. Sleep is like baking. Follow the recipe, get the cake, skip a step and good luck trying. Sleep has rules too. The setup, the ingredients, the temperature even. A couple of weeks ago, we're gonna have him on my, on this podcast soon. I interviewed a sleep expert with 26 years of experience, Dr. Michael Bruce. You can look him up. He told me helping people sleep well every night comes down to three things that you do or you figure out, how people figure out in that order.

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  Number one, rule out clinical conditions from sleep apnea to other possible conditions that block good sleep. Treat those first, take care of those first. Number two, rule out nutrient deficiencies that get in the way. Yes, sleep is a biochemical state as well. And if your body missing certain nutrients, and we're gonna talk about what nutrients exactly, the chance of you getting great sleep every night is just less. And number three, build good sleep hygiene habits and repeat them. Right? So first, conditions. Second, nutrient deficiencies. Third, sleep hygiene and sleep habits. Most people I coach get stuck between two and three.

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  Suboptimal nutrition, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin C, B vitamins, zinc, iron, potassium. Those are things that people tend to be insufficient in and those are crucial for great night's sleep every night. And then inconsistent, inappropriate sleep routine and hygiene or sleep environment. So here is what has to happen every night to bake your sleep cake. And again, understand that sleep is like weight loss. It's an outcome of good habits that create the outcome.

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  It's not something that just happens. So what are the rules of great sleep, of great sleep baking? Number one, same bedtime. Give or take 30 minutes. All sleep experts these days talk about regularity. Your brain needs to know when sleep happens to prepare you for that experience. You're not a computer when you press the button and you're off. You are a biological organism and you read cues and it takes time to create certain conditions like sleep. Number two, sleep-friendly room. Dark, most people need masks these days and if you think you don't, try it. Believe me, it works. Cool, 8 to 20 degrees,

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  but basically don't be hot. You need to stay cool, just like ice cream. Well, maybe not like ice cream, but you need to stay cool in order to sleep well. And it has to be quiet. Earplugs, for most of the people, you know, noisy world. And even if you don't think you wake up during the night because of the noise, actually, your brain does, as research shows. It micro-wakes up. So basically, you're not aware of that, but your brain can't get into deep sleep when you have some sort of noise, like cars or traffic or, I don't know, your partner making too much noise. So number one, bedtime, consistent bedtime. Number two, sleep-friendly room. And number three, cut off caffeine, eight to 10 hours at least.

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  Amount matters too. If you drink a whole gallon of really strong coffee, you're just gonna have more caffeine in your system and not even 10 hours will help. And also remember that caffeine is not just coffee, it also tea, it also green tea, it also different supplements, it also super dark chocolate. Like, a lot of things actually have caffeine in them. Number four, eat well, eat early. Finish dinner three hours before bedtime. Whole foods, whole foods proteins and things with fiber. Basically, whole food carbohydrates, beans and vegetables, not too much fat, no processed sugars of foods, no alcohol.

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  Number five, cut off water early. Nobody sleeps well running to the bathroom at 2:00 AM. Mind the lights. Protect your eyes from blue light, from screens, for all kinds of screens, from TV to your laptop, to your phone. There are programs that change the lights, so look into that. Dim your room lights as well and keep them on the orange spectrum. It matters for your melatonin that makes you fall asleep. Number seven, move more during the day. Sedentary lifestyle does not help with sleep. Walking helps. Exercise deepens your sleep, just not too close to your bedtime.

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  Now, for the busy, stressed, overstimulated mind, a couple of more things. Number one, stop working. Stop doing anything that keeps your mind busy an hour before bed. Brain dump everything onto paper. Close the open loops, as they call them in cognitive sciences. Write tomorrow's to-do list. Even better, they did a lot of research on that. The more detailed your list is, the faster you seem to fall asleep. And number three, do something like 10 minutes of yoga nidra right before going to sleep, which is a body scan, or exhale focus breathing. Shift from thinking, shift your brain from thinking mode to being. But basically, what you change is brainwaves

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  from those better waves or active thinking to more alpha and other waves that are more relaxed. So down-regulate your nervous system for rest.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  And do this every night, guys. Build the habits as soon as and soon. Sleeping well won't be something you try to do. It'll be something that just happens. Just like ideal body weight happens when your eating habits are consistently on point with energy balance equation.

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  So have you tried doing this consistently, guys? Like honestly, have you tried doing this for at least a week? Or are you still hoping to get lucky for the kind of sleep that turns your hottest week into your best mood?

• 11:18Speaker 00

  Again, the idea of this podcast is that sleep is an outcome, just like weight loss or maintaining ideal body weight or muscles or baking a cake. It's an outcome of a specific process. And this process is quite well documented by sleep scientists. It's some, there are ingredients that you have to put in the recipe in order to get sleep, good sleep as an outcome. And when you stop, start throwing things out of the window, don't be surprised that

• 11:59Speaker 00

  just like a cake, you'll get a frustration, not a dessert. So guys, before complaining or hoping for a good quality sleep, go through the list that is on this podcast. And also you can find a link to my blog, my daily blog on Substack, absolutely free, which you can read and the recipe of great sleep is also there. And when you do put all the ingredients in the right order, in the right amounts, then the probability of you getting great quality of sleep is, well, it's quite high out there.

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  Again, obviously, if you have conditions, you have to treat those, look into nutrient deficiencies and supplements, and then build those great sleep habits and you'll get great, great, great sleep cake.

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  If not all of the nights, then more than 90% of the time. And that is true for most of the people. Thank you, guys, for tuning in. Thank you for listening. If you're still hoping for great sleep and you know it's gonna make such a huge difference in the quality of your life, then either really listen to this podcast, read my blog, put the recipe on repeat, do the habits every day, do this for a couple of weeks, address the possible conditions or nutrient deficiencies, and you'll be surprised how great your sleep can be, how consistent it can be, and how the quality of your life, your cognitive

• 13:41Speaker 00

  productivity, your workouts and recovery and injuries and your mood, basically everything's gonna become so much brighter and better when you learn how to have great night's sleep every night. Thank you, guys, for tuning in. Thank you for listening. And till next time, stop hoping for great sleep, build habits, and you'll get the cake. Talk to you soon. Sleep well tonight.