As an entrepreneur, you have a lot to do. Your time is more demanding than you might imagine. Trying to prioritize them often means sacrificing your self-care, physical, mental and emotional health, and sleep. When you skimp on sleep, you put your health and livelihood at risk.
Lack of sleep puts you at increased risk for accidents, heart attacks, weight gain, high blood pressure, decreased alertness, poor decision-making, lack of mental clarity and many other problems. that could impact your ability to run your business. Here are some healthy sleep habits that can help you improve your overall health and run your business more efficiently.
1. Do not use your phone in your room
Do you have a habit of staying awake while using your phone? If so, it’s a habit you need to break. Checking email, browsing social media, and viewing business blogs can all seem productive, but it interferes with your ability to sleep. Your room must be reserved for sleeping only .. Working, paying bills, or other stressful activities will cause your brain to associate your bedroom with annoyance, stress, and alertness.
Don’t even keep your phone in your room. It’s light and the vibrations or sounds it makes will wake you up, especially if you know that important messages can come in at any time. Try charging your phone elsewhere, such as in the kitchen or living room.
2. Communicate that you are not available at night
As a business owner, you want to be available to your customers. However, you shouldn’t sacrifice your sleep to do so. You need to set boundaries with your customers, employees, and customers. Let them know what your available hours are and stick to them.
Don’t answer emails, calls or texts overnight. Protecting your sleep starts with your actions. When others see that you are protecting your private time, so will they. Remember that you will need to configure “do not disturb” options on your communication platforms for the hours when you are not available. Most of them will let you set this up once, and that will keep the schedule to you.
For example, if you don’t want to be notified of new Slack messages at 11:30 p.m., you can set up a ‘do not disturb’ from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Monday through Friday. You might want to extend it to weekends so you can enjoy a better work / life balance.
3. Develop a calming nighttime routine
Most entrepreneurship bloggers write about morning routines and their necessity. You also need a good evening routine that will help you relax at the end of a long day. Go from 100% working mode to calm, relaxed and ready to sleep cannot be done in an instant. Stop working out at least an hour before bedtime. This includes not using screens during this hour.
Do not watch TV, use your laptop, make calls, or scroll through social media during this time. Blue light from screens interferes with your body’s ability to release melatonin, which is the hormone that lets your body know when to sleep and when to wake up.
Consider getting a pair of blue light filtering glasses. They can help you sleep better if you have to work at night. If you go to bed at 11:00 p.m., your nighttime routine should start at 10:00 p.m. Your routine may include doing the dishes or tidying up your living room, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, meditating, stretching, putting on your pajamas, inflating your pillows and getting into bed, etc.
4. Outsource your nightly tasks
As an entrepreneur, you know what you’re good at and what you’re not. Instead of trying to do it all, outsource some of what you don’t like or aren’t good at doing. Delegating tasks to contractors, freelancers, or employees can help you get the most out of your time. If you have a virtual assistant in another time zone, they can handle your emails and other issues while you sleep.
5. Track your sleep
If you track revenue, growth, and other metrics, you know how useful data can be. Tracking your sleep data is also useful and there are many applications which can help you like sleep cycle, sleep score, sleep monitoring etc. If you find that you fall asleep quickly, but tend to wake up every 60 to 90 minutes, this could be giving you important clues about your sleep schedule. .
You may need to consume less caffeine at the end of the day, exercise earlier in the day, eat a smaller dinner, start relaxing earlier, or improve your bedroom environment. You might also benefit from a sleep study.
Sleep deprivation has serious short and long term effects. You cannot be productive or efficient if you are always groggy and slow. Mood disorders caused by insufficient sleep can impact your relationships with your employees, customers and customers. Better sleep will not only improve the growth of your business, but will also help improve your overall health.
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