In the last email, I talked about the four pillars of physique change:

1. Sleep
2. Stress management
3. Exercise
4. Nutrition

I made the point that understanding the frameworks for each will help you find your bottlenecks and break through plateaus.

Today, I want to start with the simplest: sleep.

If you don't get enough sleep, you'll be hungrier and more irritable, and your recovery from training (and therefore growth) will be impacted.

I'll come back to what I mean by "enough" in a moment, but first, I'd like to lay out what I see as the hierarchy of importance for getting enough sleep.

The Sleep Hierarchy of Importance

Pyramids are on my mind an unhealthy amount recently, as I've just finished all the prep for the launch of the 3rd editions of The Muscle and Strength Pyramid books (26th of December launch — stay tuned for more details). So, I'll present this to you as a pyramid:

The key, naturally, is the length of time you get with uninterrupted sleep.

You can't do that without your eyes closed (in bed).

And you can't do that without being in bed.

These are all pretty bloody obvious. But if we take a moment to look at our habits, how many of us actually get to bed at a reasonable hour so we have a shot at getting enough sleep?

If our experience working with thousands of coaching clients is anything to go by, not many.

And yet, instead of doing it, we distract ourselves with other things that require less sacrifice — blue light blocking glasses, bedtime rituals, or buying a sleep tracker.

You'll see that I've put "tracking your sleep score" at the top of the pyramid because this is my personal pet peeve, but consider it a catchall for anything else that is not doing the thing (getting in bed at the right time).

As one Reddit user so deliciously put it:

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As I have said before, nobody failed to achieve their desired physique because they didn't buy a particular sports supplement. Similarly, no man who wakes every day feeling chronically tired fixes it without first doing the thing. And you don't need a tracker to tell you that!

So, if a lack of doing the thing is your problem, switch off the TV, stop doom scrolling, and get your arse in bed at a reasonable time.

Everything else until you do that is irrelevant.

How Much Sleep Is Enough?

For adults, 7–9 hours is usually quoted, and you may benefit from more when training demands are particularly high.

There is a simpler way to think about it, though:

1. If you are chronically waking up tired, you need to get more sleep.
2. The level of exhaustion you feel is a good indicator of the negative effect this will have.

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This doesn't mean that your training is useless and dieting is impossible, but you'll do better if you get some more sleep.

Tactics

Now that we have the non-negotiables down, what do you do if you are struggling to fall (or stay) asleep?

Here's the 80-20 of it:

1. Is the room cool enough?
   Use thinner sheets, use a fan, turn on/up the AC.
2. Is the room dark enough?
   Consider blackout curtains or an eye mask.
3. Is the room quiet enough?
   If noise is loud and often, consider earplugs. This could be your neighbors, your partner snoring, or traffic.
   I live in a city, and bike gangs and boy racers (think Tokyo Drift) will race by with unbaffled exhausts a few times a month, so wear them every night.
   If you live somewhere particularly quiet, you may hear every little thing. A small but consistent noise (such as AC, a fan, or a white noise app) can help make other noises less prominent.
4. Is your mattress/pillow right for you?
   If they are uncomfortable, it will prevent you from getting a good night's sleep.
5. Do you drink caffeine-containing drinks?
   ​Try quitting these earlier in the day, especially from the afternoon onwards, as it can disturb sleep quality without you necessarily knowing it. You could be a slow metabolizer of caffeine, meaning it sticks around in your system (up to 3.3 times) longer than others.
6. Limit alcohol consumption and frequency.
   This can interfere with the restorative deep sleep we're aiming for.

Naturally, there are other things, but these are the big ones, and because we're constantly being peddled bullshit fixes, it's easy to miss them.

What has worked for you? Hit me up in a reply. 😴