How to sleep better 101. Transform your decisions, learning, leadership and give your full potential a fair chance.

Ready for a life boost that doesn’t require another app, hack, or supplement?   

Today we unpack why sleep is the hidden engine behind emotional stability, sharper decisions, and real learning, and how a few consistent habits can transform your days by fixing your nights. 

We start with the brain, how chronic restriction (yes, even 1-2h a night) quietly erodes attention, working memory, processing speed, and reasoning. If you lead teams, negotiate deals, parent, or simply want to grow faster, “sleep on it” isn’t a cliché; it’s a strategy.  

Then we get practical.  

We lay out the core behaviors that reliably improve sleep quality.  

Finally, we show you how to make these shifts stick with a simple habit loop: trigger, action, reward. Pick one change per week, set hard boundaries around your schedule, and anchor it to a personal why that matters more than late-night distractions. 

This is a warm, candid guide for anyone who wants better focus, calmer emotions, and faster growth without grinding harder.  

Subscribe for more science-backed tools, share this with someone who’ll keep you accountable, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What’s the one sleep habit you’ll start tonight? 

Transcript

Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your partner in change, your transformation executive leadership coach, and just someone who is obsessed with the process of change, of personal and collective evolution, unlocking more of human potential, and just growing a tiny bit every single day. Today, guys, we are talking about one of the fundamental habits, routines, rituals that you absolutely need if you want to grow, improve, unlock more of your potential, and just be a good human. Today we're talking about sleep, but we're not just talking about sleep. First, you're gonna learn a little bit more about why it's so crucial to the quality of your life and your performance and the how you experience life, how sleep is super crucial to decision making, to your success in the real world, and how you don't even know that you're shooting yourself in the food very often when you compromise your sleep and prioritize something else above sleep. And not only that, we're also gonna learn what are the core habits that ensure or at least give you the most probability of getting great night's sleep every single night. We're gonna talk about the latest research and also what I experienced, what I observed working with clients, improving their sleep, helping them to create better sleep experience, sleep quality, and sleep routines. Like, what are the things you definitely need to pay attention to in order to give yourself a chance to have great night's sleep? And then we'll finish with a bit of a refresher on how you actually build this new habits and routines that allow you to have a great night's sleep, if not every single night, then on most nights. We're gonna talk more about how to build solid and great sleep habits and routines around sleep. So it stick with you, it's not something you do once in a while on the weekends or when the quote unquote time allows. So we're gonna learn about how to actually wire in your new sleep habits and routines. So let's start with why. Like, why does it matter? Why sleep is so crucially important to great life, to life lived well. Let's start with maybe emotions. These days, a lot of people are talking about emotional regulation and decision making and creating personal well-being and emotional and mental and just wellness in general in life. Emotional regulation is the key to that. And something I'm reading to you right now from the book of Dealing with Feeling just recently came out by Mark Breckett. A lot of fundamental work and research on the subject of emotional regulation. So, quoting you from the book, people who are sleep deprived are about 60%, 6-0 guys, percent more reactive to their emotions than those who get sufficient sleep. And sufficient sleep is right now considered to be seven to nine hours of good quality sleep. Our prefrontal cortex, known as the CEO of the brain, is in the home of executive functioning. Executive functioning, guys, it's planning, it's decision-making, it's being that badass human that you are, not some animal that is driven by their instincts and first the first uh well, your responses, your immediate uh reactions to the world, but instead of responding thoughtfully in a again uh more in a more thoughtful way. So, executive functioning, which is needed for effective emotional regulation, it is the CEO of the brain. When we have a full night's sleep, the connection between your fear center, your emotional center, and the prefrontal cortex is smooth. Deprivation causes poor communication between the two, which translates into emotional dysregulation. Adequate sleep, as I've shared, has been proven to drastically reduce feelings of anxiety by improving the ability to process stress and anxiety in helpful ways. So that was from the book. Then I'm gonna read you a few other pieces of research which are not about emotional regulation but decision making, learning. After 17 hours awake, psychomotor performance is about at about 5.0.5% of performance compared to when you have alcohol in your blood. So when you are after 24 hours, you are about, for example, at the level of intoxication or in performance that is comparable to being legally drunk and not allowed to drive. Obviously, if you sleep seven to nine hours, let's say eight hours, so that leaves you with 16 hours awake. So you that's where you never get to that point. But if you keep pushing it or keep accumulating deprivation, chronic restriction, uh, six to or sometimes even four hours for 14 days, that accumulates and it's compared to one or two nights of total sleep loss. So, guys, if you are undersleeping chronically by let's say one hour even, it accumulates. And at some point, you and it happens more and more in a way that you don't notice. So at some point you're gonna be walking like someone who didn't sleep for a couple of nights, and that is compared again to being legally drunk and not allowed to drive. That's how your cognitive function is compromised. Meta-analysis of 70 Plus studies showed short-term sleep loss reliably impairs simple, complex attention, working memory, processing speed, short-term memory, reasoning, both speed and accuracy. Learning and memory formation are compromised. Uh, so when you sleep deprived, even again by one hour, by a couple of hours, you get less and less learning no matter what you do in your day. What it means is if you are into learning and improving and progressing, and you don't treat your sleep with enough respect and allow yourself to sleep deprive yourself, all that learning is throwing out of the windows, throwing into the trash. So we talked about emotional regulation. What is recommended for executives, for example, after 16-18 hours awake, don't make any decisions, any high-stake decisions, and definitely not irreversible decisions. That is where the wise saying of sleep on it really helps. If you are presented with a choice right about your bedtime or when you already were awake for 16 hours plus, it's not the time to make decisions. Like all the options are gonna be skewed, meaning you're gonna look at them not in an objective kind of way, not with your best judgment. And how you're gonna look at it with a good night of sleep in you is gonna be completely different. And things you were considering when under sleep deprivation or at the end of your day, things that you were considering would sound would sound like the least desirable or the least uh likely to do option. It's gonna sound dumb to yourself. Like you considered that when you were tired. So always, whenever, especially you need to make important decisions, irreversible decisions, something that's gonna affect your long term, sleep on it. You better sleep a couple of nights on it and definitely don't sleep deprive yourself and then try to make that decision. And how many executives or leaders are actually sleep deprived? And then we wonder why governments and sometimes business people, well not sometimes very often, do make those stupid decisions and judgments. Maybe, just maybe. They need a little bit more sleep. And also, when I do my leadership workshops, for example, and that is my anecdotal data, meaning just data not from researcher studies or randomized control uh groups, but uh just asking people and asking them things like, remember the time, the last time you regretted some decision or something you did, what was the cause? And across the board, most people reply, emotions. And emotions. You are emotionally dysregulated, 60% more so when you are sleep deprived, right? Before having before having learning strategy days, ensure a full prior, a full night of good sleep prior. Encoding of new information, of learning, of things you need to keep in your mind suffers markedly so after a single all-nighter. And that's where you know people pull all-nighters for exams, and then they forget everything all almost the next day, and then they finish university or school or whatever, and they're like, Oh, I don't know what I learned. And the reason might be is because every time you actually needed to study, you pulled all-nighter, which compromised your learning to a big, big degree. Mind the emotional channel, right? We I'm reading to you some of the research that Chad DPT also brought to me. When you are sleep deprived, and again, sleep deprivation, even by an hour, a couple of hours every day, your decision making, your ability to strategize long-term, your ability to evaluate options, your ability to be emotionally balanced, no matter how you're gonna fight it, it's all gonna be compromised. So if you are interested in unlocking your full potential, becoming your best self, learning rapidly, and actually remembering and retaining that, then sleep is your superpower. I don't even know what kind of priorities you need to have. Like obviously, when you are a parent, when you have kids, when you need to take care of someone sick, or you have some sort of health issues, that is a different story, and you're gonna be just coping. But don't anyone fool you, it is not being your full potential, you are compromising other things because you have to do or you chose to do, like parenting, that other thing, but it's not gonna be ever your best until you get your full night's sleep. So, even though it is that, but also, guys, when you have the ability to prioritize your sleep, then prioritize your sleep. And that is the first step towards building better sleep habits. When I work with executives, with entrepreneurs, the first thing before working on anything else with sleep, I'm helping them to figure out their why, their reason, their solid reason why they would want themselves, not because I'm telling them, but themselves to prioritize sleep. Because if you don't have a good enough reason, except that, oh, I heard this on a podcast from Andrew Huberman or from Angela Sharina, or I heard it from my coach, or somebody else told me, if you don't have your own reason why you would want to prioritize sleep, then when something else comes up, especially something social, and somebody would ask you, oh, you know, you'll sleep when you're dead, or you are in that environment where people say things like, I don't have time to sleep, you know, I have more important things, then you're probably not gonna be prioritizing sleep. And then no matter what you do, if you have this belief that sleep is less important, you're not gonna be having a great sleep experience. In fact, a lot of executives, a lot of leaders I worked with could not get good enough sleep, just couldn't sleep beyond six hours, not because they were physically incapable, but because they had this belief, and until we restructured that belief, until they started to really believe that better quality sleep is possible and is important, nothing else changed. And when that changed, everything else was easy. And what is everything else? Well, everything else is uh creating a solid around the sleep habits, so good sleep is possible. And those are, for example, managing substances, and by substances I mean food and different drinks, not drinking alcohol prior to bed and at least five, six hours before bed, or none, but even better. So that is what recommended if you want to preserve the architecture of your sleep and have the best quality sleep, and just not compromise your sleep. Actually, alcohol when you're drinking before sleep, it disturbs your whole sleep architecture, so your sleep is not the same at all. And the most important part, you compromise that part of the sleep where your body, your brain, does the emotional procession, and so this like natural therapy happening in sleep when you process emotional or other experiences, it doesn't happen well at all. And that's where if you drink something, some alcohol quite often, sometimes even every single night, what might end up happening? You're never gonna get this therapy, and that's how you carry on some trauma, unprocessed again experiences and stressors, which then yeah, well, which then translate into a whole bunch of down spiral tendencies in the dysregulated kind of way from stress to again to emotions to anger to flipping out at people. But anyhow, let's get back to sleep. So, substances, alcohol, caffeine, and at least 12, well, at least actually recommended eight hours before sleep, you gotta finish that. And yes, even if you can fall asleep, most people can with coffee, you'll your sleep is not gonna be the same at all, as well. Eating not late, uh, two, three recommended three hours before bed, finish all the eating. Yeah, maybe if you have something you know small, it's not gonna be that much of a big deal, but your major meals should finish somewhere around three hours before bed. Then we have what's not considered that much, but I've seen my own practice and is based on solid research. So, one of the most important factors in sleep qualities uh is actually regularity. Your body, your brain, they work on a specific schedule which is governed and balanced by day-night cycle and how the sun goes around the earth. We humans are designed to function during the day and sleep at night, and we have our internal clocks and synchronize the work of all of your internal organs, your whole system. So, from your metabolic processes to your cognition, problem solving, thinking, creativity. All of these processes actually run well when they run on schedule, and they run on schedule when you do things like sleep on the same time, and sleep quality is the best when it happens on the same time. So it is recommended to go to bed and wake up on the same time. That's how you optimize your melatonin, your growth hormone, your like all of these beautiful things that happen in your sleep, they happen that way only when you go to bed on the same time because your brain needs to prepare your whole body and release certain chemicals and decrease certain chemicals in your bloodstream in your body to produce optimal sleep experience to make sure that all the cycles of deep sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, and all the kinds of sleep happens happen optimally. So, for that to happen, you need to sleep on the same time. And while working with a lot of people, what I notice when we start switching to regular sleep uh time, a lot of times, a lot of problems like I couldn't sleep longer or I would wake up at weird times, a lot of these things disappear by themselves, and also people start to fall asleep a lot faster. And that's because again, there is certain chemistry happening that is needed to happen before you go to sleep, and it can't happen optimally if your sleep time is uh on and off by a couple of hours every now and then. So, regularity is crucially important. Also, top sleep researchers say that it's one of the things that correlates highly with all cause mortality. So basically, you don't get sick and you don't die that fast when you it seems like when you sleep on a regular time, like also things like cardiovascular problems or problems with your heart also happen a lot less when people sleep regularly. And there is a huge also data set showing that people tend all tend to have all kinds of adverse health effects, and there is there are more accidents happening when we switch our clock, for example, in some in some places in the world. I don't I forget whether that's when you get less sleep because we change our clocks. I think it happens in spring, right? In the northern hemisphere. And I don't actually think if in the southern hemisphere anyone does that time switch, but anyhow, so a lot more accidents happen because of compromised cognitive function at scale, and also people tend to have strokes and heart attacks and all kinds of stuff, more so on the day when the clocks are switched. That's why actually some countries changed this habit and some still didn't, but hopefully it will follow suit very soon. The second thing is light viewing light in the morning and protecting your environment late at night from bright light, not looking at unprotected screens with a lot of blue light, all of that matters for your melatonin, for your cortisol, some of the main molecules that your brain produces or triggers to produce in order to maintain really well-defined sleep and awake cycles. So you awake, ready to go, and energize during the day, and it is easy for you to fall asleep at night. You need those cortisol and melatonin to function properly, and they function properly when you view light in the first hour of waking or as soon as the sun comes out outside, natural light, I'm not talking about artificial light, and when you restrict a lot your exposure to any form of bright light late at night. So if you have TVs with a lot of bright light, if you have again unprotected screens, meaning there are no apps that adjust the light, you don't have any glasses, so you have blue light. Don't be surprised that your sleep isn't gonna be this that good either. So the prescription here in the morning, as soon as the sun is out, as soon as you are up, get outside, get about 10 minutes of that sunlight. Maybe it's uh on your balcony, that works as well, just not through sunglasses or through the window. And at night, have protection of your screens of your eyes, measure light intensity in your apartment, and there are guidelines for that, and there are free apps you can install on your phone to ensure that light is not bright and doesn't disturb your sleep. So, regularity sleep, and then one of the things that you might not hear as often is the way you breathe affects your sleep a lot. So, nose breathing is very important for good quality sleep and avoiding things like sleep apnea or all kinds of sleep disturbances. If you're not sure if you sleep with your mouth open, if your nose breather, what is recommended? Uh get a piece of tape like scotch tape or something that can keep your lips closed uh at night and see if you can sleep that way. The chances are if you can, you'll understand that. Well, actually, there is also an app that can measure your sleep noise. So if you uh have any if you snore or make any noises that will indicate a poor sleep quality, poor sleep health, there are apps you can install on your phone and see if your sleep is not good, then you can try to uh tape again. I recommend small pieces of tape in the middle of your mouth. It doesn't feel as disruptive to like your whole sleep experience or not that uncomfortable, and see if you can sleep that way. But the main point is becoming a nose breather, and you can Google it, research it more if you are not sure, also affects a lot your sleep quality. So, breathing, we talked about substances, regularity, we talked about light and movement. What research shows the more you walk, the more you move, the better you sleep. Obviously, if you are chronically training and your cortisol and adrenaline are spiked to the limit, that's not gonna be the case. But for most of us, the more we walk during the day, the more steps you get, the better your sleep gets, and vice versa, the more the better you sleep, the more you tend to want to walk. So movement is also crucially important for your sleep quality. But do not exercise intensely about two, three hours before bed, otherwise, it's gonna be harder to g to fall asleep. And the last but not least, guys, so now you know all this information. If you didn't know that yet, and yes, you are so committed to sleeping better because you know how it affects your learning, your growth, you showing up as the best person you can possibly be. So now that you are aware of all of these things, how do you actually put it into practice? You start one habit at a time. I've uh worked as a coach for closer to two decades now. And what I learned, if anything, do it one thing at a time. Let's say uh starting this week, you're gonna work on regular sleep time. Let's start with that, and until you really master it, don't go anywhere else. Then you go too late, then you go into breathing, then food, then coffee, then alcohol. Obviously, some things will have more effect than others, but those are fundamentals that will always matter to you as a human. So I would start with the regularity that then would work on light, on breathing, then on food and coffee and alcohol, things like that, and obviously walking, just walk more uh for many different reasons. But most importantly, I would take it one step at a time. So many clients. Oh, I failed so many clients because I asked them to do too much all at once, and we ended up doing nothing at all, and then now I pace myself and my ambitious clients to do one thing at a time. And if you can master one thing a week, that's amazing, and then we can move to the next one. But more often than not, so many things come up that you didn't know were in the way, like social obligations and you know, all these invites and like all the other things, and managing that actually takes quite a lot of time. But then how do you build the habit for anything? Whether that's regular sleep or whether that's figuring out your light or consumption of food and coffee and all these things, yes, first figure out why it's important and why you're committed to doing so. But then the second, make sure that when let's say you decide to uh to go to bed earlier, what is gonna be the trigger? It might be time, like, but decide, make a firm decision. So, first trigger, trigger, what's gonna be the trigger for you to start that new routine? For me, uh 8:30, I'm stopping everything and preparing myself for bed. Like, no matter what, time is there, no matter how whether I want to sleep or not yet. That is my trigger. Then the action, I wash my face, I brush my teeth, like uh do a little bit of a routine, and I go to bed. And there is not much in between. I just switch everything off. Usually it might happen even before, but at 8:30, I switch everything off and do this, you know, a little bit of a hygiene thing, and then go to bed. And then reward, and reward is like I go to bed, I'm like, yeah, good job. You know, well I sometimes it's hard to be consistent, and sometimes things are going through your mind, but good job, you did it, and today was a good day. And then I wake up in the morning and I acknowledge, ah, I feel so fresh, it's so amazing to have great quality of sleep. So rewarding feeling is very important for habit formation. So trigger action reward. When are you gonna do it? What you're gonna do exactly, how you're gonna do it, and then what is the reward? Give yourself that good feeling. Other things that are very helpful or very powerful, having some sort of accountability, your spouse, your kids, some someone that will remind you, you know, you said you're gonna do that, you said it was important, so are you gonna do that? That's important, or just announcing it to someone who you know who matters, even if they don't keep you accountable, if you say something and you uh don't do it, you're gonna feel about bad about that. And that's also a sort of accountability, a form of accountability. And get it all out of the way. If you decide to go out to bed at 9 or 10 and 11, don't agree to social stuff after that. And when you are somewhere, when it's time to go home and sleep, you say, I'm gonna go home and sleep because of this, this, and that. It has to be a commitment, and getting it all out of the way is one of the major things to do. And then again, that's where we started. Why I give you all this information about why sleep is important. Why? Why are you going to do that? Do you want to be great at learning? Do you want to change fast? Because actually, when you sleep deprived, your ability to be cognitive flex cognitively flexible and change yourself decreases by a lot. We haven't exactly measured that yet, but that decreases just like your learning decreases, and your ability to emotionally regulate and respond instead of reacting. So, why? Why are you committed? Do you want to be the best leader, the best parent, the best example of inspiration instead of overwork person who's barely actually handling it all? Do you want to inspire yourself and others and grow and develop and create the best in yourself and in humanity? Well, sleep does it. Sleep is the necessary thing that allows us to be the best we can be. So, what's your why? Like, this is my why. What's your why? Until you figure that out, everything else that you heard in this podcast is not gonna matter. So, hopefully, this podcast was useful in so many ways. So, please do share this podcast episode with friends, with family, with anyone who maybe gonna keep you accountable, who you will keep accountable, do it together. That's the base the best, the most empowering way to start anything that lasts, keeping each other accountable and doing it together. Social learning and improvement is really powerful. So, share this podcast, rate, review, help us reach more years. And besides all of that, keep changing, keep learning, and keep growing, and till next time, have a good Night of sleep.