Sleep! The Foundation of Everything
- innerathletetrainer
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
As we embark on our fitness journey for 2026 there are several things I'm sure we are all thinking. What are our goals? how do we achieve them? Should I start that gym membership? Should I join that running club? Should I try going vegan or carnivore this year? These are all legitimate concerns. However I want you to think backwards this year and for the time being focus less on the activities, and set your goals on it's antithesis, sleep. Sleep is where all of our training, hard work, nutrition and stress all get synthesized. Sleep should be foundational to any health routine regardless of how unattractive it is, for it is the very the substrate by which all other systems run off of.
Health is very much like financial investing. It is a long game that requires consistent investments over long periods of time whether they be large or small. Throughout time there will be periods of gains and losses, but In the end the long term investment pays off.
The magic word when it comes to your long term health is consistency. Consistency in training, consistency is nutrition, and consistency in stress management. An Inner Athlete treats all of these will equal primacy, for none is more important than the other, they are all equally important. The glue that binds the efforts however is often the thing we neglect the most, our sleep.
Sleep is literally where your muscles repair from your workouts, where nutrition goes to work on healing your body, and where the brain synthesizes short term and long term memory and cognitive function. All of your efforts spent during the waking hours get solidified, codified, organized and optimized during sleep. It is truly the one things that binds and synthesizes all of your efforts.
When you deprive your self of sleep (recovery) you do so at your own peril. Lack of sleep literally makes you worse at being you. That's something to truly ponder. Lack of sleep produces the following results: Less motivation, less neuroplasticity (The brain’s ability to learn) less impulse control, impaired digestion, lower reaction times, lowered immunity, alters hormonal function, produces more trouble with memory recall, produces an autonomic nervous system response similar to being over trained, greater systemic inflammation and the list truly does go on. Everything, and I mean everything improves with the right amount of sleep and recovery.
How much and what is REM anyway?
How much one sleeps for optimization is going to vary but the common wisdom is a minimum of 8 hours of sound sleep with productive REM cycles is a great baseline to begin with. What is an REM cycle you ask? A REM cycle, Rapid Eye Movement, is the 5th and most important part of a 5 part sleep cycle. It is beyond the scope of this article to dive into all 5 components so we will simply focus on the most important. A full 5 stage cycle will last about 90 minutes of which REM takes approximately 25 percent of that time. REM is your deepest sleep state and it’s where all the heavy lifting is done in your body and your mind. A good quality sleep is anywhere from 60-120 minutes of REM sleep in a 7-8 hour sleep cycle.
What keeps us from optimum sleep?
For most of us without pre existing medical conditions that may inhibit our ability to sleep, our problem in part is lack of good sleep hygiene. The best way to prep yourself for a successful nights sleep is to be committed to a sleep ritual. Think of warming up before you work out. Some of the most important components of a sleep ritual include dimming the lights around evening time, moving away from computer light at least one hour before going to sleep, not eating or consuming any kind of drinks other than water at least 3 hours prior to sleeping, and cutting off caffeine at least 8 hours before bed. Your bedroom should be as dark as you feel comfortable in and the ideal temperature should be at least 65 degrees or lower if you can stand it. Some other rituals might include light movement, a warm shower or spraying lavender around your area. These are just some tips but it I think you get the point that a sleep ritual is a must in order to prep the body for a good nights sleep. The worst thing you can do is sit in front of the computer nibbling on processed food such as chips right before going to bed. You are putting the body in an over stimulated state that will take hours of your sleep time to recover from.
What’s also important, though very challenging for many of us, is to have a consistent sleep / wake cycle. This is something that took me 20 years to finally get through my thick skull but it has made a big difference. Try, if you can, to go to sleep and wake up at roughly the same time daily. There will of course be exceptions but you want to make this the rule rather than the exception. There are of course medical related issues that could impact your sleep such as breathing issues like sleep apnea. These conditions should be treated by a qualified physician. Other issues may require Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia of CBT-I. This technique has a solid track record and you can research it through a basic google search.
The Big Takeaway
Health should never be compartmentalized. What you do during the day, the things you eat, the thoughts you think, the poorly managed stress you experience will all impact your sleep at the end of the day. In over 30 years of personal training and coaching I have seen peoples sleep quality improve simply by making better choices throughout the day. Put simply, the better you eat, the more you move, and the less stressed you are the better you will sleep. If during the day you are managing your stress, staying hydrated, eating clean including fruits & veggies and minimally to zero processed food, you will begin to sleep like a baby. The body simply has less to process during sleep when you live your day well. One of the other benefits is I’ve seen is peoples requirements for sleep actually drop. While living healthy during the day and making the right decisions I’ve seen sleep requirements drop in some of my clients from 9 down to 7 hours while still having enough energy to get through the day.
If you want the ultimate bio-hack, and the secret to the fountain of youth, you will find it in solid and intentional sleep.
In Health and Wellness
James
James Jankiewicz
MSc, CSCS, PN, ACSM_EIM
Founder: Inner Athlete Training
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