Latest / Forged In The Dark / Close the Loops
Transcript
- Forged In The Dark: Over the next couple weeks, I am going to incorporate some mindfulness tools into the episodes because I was recently reminded of how much mindfulness I actually teach. And today's mindfulness tip comes from a walk with a friend, a truly inspiring high performance conversation. And the topic of sleep, but not just sleep, ritualizing bedtime. Welcome to Forged in the Dark. I'm your host, Jamie. Let's dig in. Not too long ago, I was cleaning out some old posts on Instagram, and I was reminded of when I started. Everything was a mindful approach to a balanced life. And I literally just taught mindfulness tools at the very, very beginning. And then I added in Other tools, neuroscience tools, brain training tools. But it was being reminded of the mindfulness aspect that really did make me look at everything I do and everything that I teach currently and how much it is all wrapped up. Not only in the choices that you make, but so many of these choices that I'm recommending to you include mindfulness practices, gratitude, meditation, breath work, affirmations, faith, connection to the higher power, intention setting, all part of mindfulness. But really, this was this was just the other morning. I I went on a walk with a friend, and she is truly a high performer. I mean, she uses words like hustle and grind. And really, let me just stop here. Let me just stop here. Because I looked at my friend. We met at the trailhead and I looked at my friend. And I said, How are you? And she said, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. And I laughed because I was like, Okay, that's three. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. What's actually going on? What's happening? And that's when We've really started talking about the challenges that she is currently facing. As an entrepreneur, and not just an entrepreneur, but an entrepreneur with a team. She services her clients. She supports her team. She is responsible for everything all the time. And she works from the time she gets up in the morning. And I think. I think she has a 6 30 a.m. call So she starts her days early and she doesn't stop. I will not get into her skipping meals in this episode. What we'll focus on is the sleep. Because that was the next question I asked her. I mean, I let her talk and she told me really heart in a in a heartfelt way how dangerously close to burnout she feels she is. And my first question to her was tell me about your sleep. How are you sleeping? How many hours of sleep do you get? Every night. And she just looks at me. And I said, Okay, okay, look, I know you well enough that you will drive the car until the wheels fall off. I know you well enough to know that you work until you are mentally and physically drained to the point that you've got nothing left. I understand this, but After you've got nothing left, tell me what that looks like. That time between where the tank is empty and I can't get to sleep. So basically, she has a couple shows she likes to watch, and by the time she goes to zero, she turns on the TV and she veges out until she can try to go to sleep. Now, whether this sounds familiar to you or not. Here's what I told my friend, and here's what I'm recommending for you: whether you are a high performer or not. Whether you have trouble sleeping or not, this will improve your sleep. So What I told my friend, I said, okay, I know how important and precious not only time but the minutes are. So let's start small. Let's start so small that you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, like, like for any days that you might skip or think of skipping, you have to look yourself in the mirror and say, Really? You didn't have 10 minutes. Because that's what we're talking about. My recommendation was a brain dump for five minutes, whether it is a piece of paper and a pen or a journal, and you know, a writing instrument, a journal, but I meant to say an online journal, any kind. There's so many. I think the iPhone even has an app now that's a journal. You can open it up, you can press talk to text. And dump your day. If you do not have the physical energy to dump your day onto a piece of paper, at least talk it out. Go through your entire day. Go through all of your to-do list, all of the pending items, and write it all down. And this is a really important part of this because the intention. That you have when you are writing this is to leave your day and not take it into the night. Now, there's all kinds of reasons why you can wake up during the night every couple hours. It could be blood sugar, it could be bladder. But for high performers, I believe it's a brain thing because your brain has to be able to close the loop. Oops, close the circles. So anything that you have pending, it's it's gonna be like that little spinny thing when something is loading, right? It says loading, loading, loading, loading. So every time your brain gets back up to the peak of that thought or idea, it's going to wake you up. It's going to stimulate you. And then you spend the rest of the cycle trying to talk yourself back down off of it. So the intentional brain dump at bedtime, even just five minutes, helps you close all of those loops. You do not need to complete 100% of the tasks on that mental dump, but you do need to choose. to leave it to leave it until tomorrow to close that cycle in your brain. And the other thing I told her to do was five minutes of something relaxing. Five minutes of meditation, five minutes of breath work, five minutes of legs up the wall. Legs up the wall, especially if you only have five minutes, might just be the most effective. You lay on your back on the floor with your bum, I don't know, six to twelve inches away from the wall, heels comfortably resting up, and then you do nothing but lay there and breathe. Focus on your breath. If your mind is busy, count your breath, breathe in. One, two, three, four, hold to four, exhale to four, hold for four again, or whatever your favorite breath technique is. When your feet go up the wall, your feet are above your heart. This automatically signals to your central nervous system to calm down. So you dump your you you do your daily dump, your thought. Dump, your task dump, your list dump. And when you set your pen down or turn off dictate, you are excuse me. You're done for the day. And then you put your legs up the wall or you sit with your breath work and then you go to bed. And you do this every night. And this isn't even a full practice of ritualizing bedtime. It is a beginner baby step. Ladies and gentlemen, all of the things that you are working on during the day, the work stuff, the learning, the growing, the healing, it all integrates when you are sleeping. Now, I don't want to throw around the big words like parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. So I like to use words like stress and rest. You integrate your learnings when you rest, when you sleep, The stress response will keep waking you up and waking you up and waking you up. So I know that I had more points for today, and I do believe we're out of time. But what's your sleep like? How could you benefit from a good night's sleep? It wasn't until I stopped sleeping well. That I realized a good night's sleep? my gosh, waking up refreshed, mental clarity, physical energy, all from a good night's sleep. I would so much rather you sleep three, four, five hours of good quality sleep than go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep, wake up. Four times in an eight-hour sleep cycle. The quality of your sleep might be contributing to the stress and anxiety you feel. And if you're listening to this show, you're probably a high performer. And high performers have a real hard time turning it off. So do the brain dump, try whether it's breath work or meditation or legs up the wall. We're talking a total of 10 minutes. It is not too much and it might just make the difference you're looking for. So until next time, sleep well.