Hello,
Yes, as a coach or trainer, you should be teaching “sleep” to your clients.
Sleeping well directly affects your clients’ mental and physical health. Fall short and it can take a serious toll on their daytime energy, productivity, emotional balance, and even weight.
Many of our clients are regularly tossing and turning at night, struggling to get the sleep they need. Getting a good night’s sleep may seem like an impossible goal when they are wide awake at 3 a.m., but they have much more control over the quality of sleep than they probably realize.
First, let’s admit a few things:
1. Optimal sleep is essential for sports and fitness performance
2. Optimal sleep is imperative for mental clarify and focus
3. Optimal sleep is required to reduce cognitive decline and memory loss
4. All of your clients have – at some point – mentioned they want/need better sleep
5. You likely don’t yet know the SCIENCE of sleep
Here are a few things you should know about sleep (and you can share with your clients right now):
Avoid naps if possible.
- Naps decrease the ‘Sleep Debt’ that is so necessary for easy sleep onset.
- Each of us needs a certain amount of sleep per 24-hour period. We need that amount, and we don’t need more than that.
- When we take naps, it decreases the amount of sleep that we need the next night – which may cause sleep fragmentation and difficulty initiating sleep and may lead to insomnia.
- Some recent data shows that if you nap, it should be less than 7 minutes.
Don’t stay in bed awake for more than 5-10 minutes.
- If you find your mind racing, or worrying about not being able to sleep during the middle of the night, get out of bed, and sit in a chair in the dark. Do your mind racing in the chair until you are sleepy, then return to bed. No TV or internet during these periods! That will just stimulate you more than desired.
Keep your bedroom cool.
- Studies show that the optimal temperate for sleeping is 65-67 degrees Fahrenheit. and about 65-67% relative humidity.
Keep your bedroom very dark.
- If your room is not dark, you will not secrete enough melatonin to get a restful sleep. You should also dim the lights in your house 2 hours prior to sleep to start the hormonal transitions needed for quality sleep.
This list is just a small sample of the vital information needed for optimal/recuperative sleep.
How You Can Help
When you become a Certified Sleep Science Coach, you will learn how to help your clients dramatically enhance their metabolism, memory, creativity, immune function, hormone balance, hunger management, disease prevention, sports performance, accident avoidance, memory, reaction time, good judgement, surgery recovery, happiness and over 100 additional functions and behaviors.
Our programs are open to anyone with a desire to learn and help others. There are no prerequisites.
That’s it for now.
Take action!
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