The most important supplement you’re missing out on is getting good quality rest. Here are 10 actionable tips to get better sleep tonight.

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Sleep: The Final Frontier.

It’s this land of peace, quiet, happiness, and––for most hard working entrepreneurs and parents of young kids––unexplored riches.

Sleep is this forbidden fruit that teases you with its sweet, succulent juices. It’s the carrot being dangled in front of you that drives you to insanity as you chase it unsuccessfully.

All kidding aside, you should know by now that sleep is important.

Getting some of that Vitamin S could be the one “supplement” that is missing from your ability to drop extra weight and keep it off for good.

Seriously.

While you know that sleep is important for overall health, it’s also crucial to prioritize shuteye in your fat loss journey.

Which is why sleep is one of the four major pillars of my Lean4Life Academy process and something I discuss with my online coaching clients every single week.

In this article, we’re going to talk about how to get better sleep.

I’ll explain why you need to do just that and we’ll explore some of the consequences to skipping out on that nightly rest.

From there, you’ll get 10 actionable tips to plus-up your sleep.

Let’s get into it.

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It wasn’t until I had my restful nights of slumber interrupted by a new kid that I learned to appreciate sleep.

Once it was pulled away from me, snatched out of my grasp, I finally realized how amazing a full and peaceful night of shuteye was and what it meant to me.

I definitely should’ve appreciated sleep more before I had kids. Most parents experience this same feeling.

Hey this is what I signed up for, so I get it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.

And for the record: No, there is nothing awesome about sleeping for two hours only to be jarred awake by the scream of a baby at 2:30 in the morning and having to pop up, lurch from your land of slumber, stumble into the kitchen to prepare sustenance for the child and then spend the next 20-30 minutes in a half-alert state while you feed the little munchkin hoping that you may be able to steal another 90 minutes of rest before you hit repeat.

Once is cute.

Twice is endearing.

Three times or more of the late night feedings and the claws come out.

Now fast forward for a few weeks and enter the land of Groundhog Day as your mind melts into the official zombie state of repetition.

Real sleep deprivation is no laughing matter

Kidding aside, of course, let’s talk about the actual impact of not getting enough rest every day.

It can cause some pretty serious side effects and impact our performance at work, at play, in the gym and even in the bedroom.

Poor sleep is linked to:

• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes
• Depression
• Low sex drive
• Muscle loss/difficulty gaining muscle
• Poor sleep is one of the strongest risk factors for obesity

On the surface, poor sleep will not lead to fat gain––remember, that comes from consistently overeating.

Instead, it works in a far more sneaky and nefarious way to ruin fat loss progress.

When sleep quantity or quality is hampered, your hormones go haywire. As a result, your body and mind play a ton of tricks on your hunger cues.

You’re more likely to experience cravings in place of true hunger. This makes it harder to stick to that calorie deficit consistently.

Which hinders your ability to lose fat.

Humans are sleeping much less than they did in the past

But that’s not the end of it, unfortunately.

The quality of our sleep has suffered, as well. Especially for parents.

If it isn’t the newborn that is keeping you up at night, it’s the teething toddler.

As they get older, it doesn’t get much easier as the exuberant grade-schooler is then jumping on the bed for no damn reason other than because it’s fun.

Or maybe it’s the teenager skipping curfew.

And then even when they’ve left the nest, you battle sleepless nights wondering if they’re going to be safe and make good choices.

But the truth of the matter is that even after the babies are sleeping through the night and the worries are cast aside about our toddlers, teens and tweens, we just typically just do not get enough sleep anyway.

In order to be productive, healthy and finally realize those weight loss goals, we need to function properly.

And optimal function does not exist without a proper night’s sleep.

How much sleep do you need?

Most adults need a solid eight hours of sleep every night. Every. Single. Night. This includes weekends.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends anywhere between seven to nine hours of sleep. While there is a small percentage of people that can get by with less than this. However, you’d know that if you were in that small group.

And no, you cannot make up for sleep on the weekends. It doesn’t work that way.

Likewise, napping throughout the day does not seem to make up for consistent poor sleep, either.

Ideally, you should be able to wake up every morning, around the same time every morning, without needing an alarm clock to do so.

Let’s put it this way: if you are consistently waking up, yet still feeling sleepy, you are probably not sleeping enough.

Or perhaps you are not getting enough quality sleep.

Here are 10 tips to get better sleep tonight. Once and for all.

Turn down the heat

Lower temperatures equal better sleep.

For most of us, this can mean dropping that thermostat to somewhere in the ballpark of 60-68 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s a pretty decent variance, so it will be up to you to figure out the sweet spot.

But, use those lower temps from the A/C as an excuse to cuddle up with that significant other under the covers and turn the heat up in other ways.

Turn down the volume

Loud noises are going to interrupt sleep.

This is a pretty obvious solution, but perhaps overlooked.

Aim to keep things as quiet as possible or look into something that generates some white noise (like a fan or an app that plays the sound of ocean waves).

That should help drown out the sounds of things like traffic or the neighbors getting it on in the apartment next door.

If all else fails, you can always try ear plugs.

Embrace the darkness

Keep your circadian rhythm in check by keeping things dark when you go to sleep.

Light is for the day.

The night time is the right time for darkness.

Even small amounts of light can screw up your melatonin and totally mess your evening of shuteye.

Embrace the sun

Wake up and go outside.

Like, not immediately … put on some pants, at least.

But upping your intake of natural sunlight and getting some good ol’ vitamin D from that big bright orb in the sky will do wonders to reset your circadian rhythm to its optimal pattern.

Essentially, you want to be much more alert and awake during the day and tired at night.

Stepping out and getting some sun is a great way to accomplish this feat.

Bonus if you use this time to increase your daily step count.

And even more points if you also shut off the technology during that walk in the sun to practice a little more mindfulness.

Speaking of technology …

Turn off the tech

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and especially your damn email can all wait until the morning, especially if you’re checking in from your phone.

Stop it.

This can seriously damage your sleep cycle and turn you into a cranky asshole who isn’t getting quality sleep.

Try to have a set schedule when you are cool with looking at screens. Which means have a hard and fast rule that you’ll turn off those screens about an hour before your head hits the pillow.

Look, I know that’s probably not realistic, so at least try to make it 15 to 20 minutes before bedtime.

If that’s still not something you can commit to every night, then simply aim to stop looking at your phone while you’re laying in bed and about to try and fall asleep.

Maybe read a book instead.

Watch your eating/drinking habits near bedtime

Do you drink caffeinated beverages? There’s nothing wrong with this, but you should limit caffeine consumption to earlier in the day if sleep quality is off.

Likewise for alcoholic beverages.

While it might seem like that boozy binge helped you pass out, in reality, alcohol can wreck sleep quality, too.

Same applies for big meals. Remember that eating a ton before bed does not necessarily lead to fat gain (unless you are eating in a caloric surplus). But, later meals may disrupt your sleep quality through digestive discomfort.

Stick to a sleep schedule

Humans are creatures of habit. It’s cliche, but true.

Except when it comes to our health. Then all habit-forming gets tossed out the window in place of random diet fads and bullshit.

If you’re reading the knowledge bombs that I drop every week on this website, then you’re making the commitment to yourself to build better habits around eating and movement.

It’s time to do the same with your sleep patterns.

Your objective here:

Go to bed at the same time every night. Wake up at the same time each and every day.

Yes. This includes weekends.

Stay up late on a Friday night bender? Try not to sleep in any more than about 40 to 60 minutes after your regularly scheduled wake up time.

Stick with this pattern for a few weeks before making slight tweaks and adjustments.

Develop a bedtime routine

Sleep training for a newborn includes developing a nightly routine to help the baby understand when it is time for bed.

Parents: this is the same thing you should be doing each and every night, as well––minus the bath time rubber duckies, I guess.

Lower the lights, sing yourself a song, say a prayer, write down some notes in a journal.

Whatever it is that you can do to let your mind know that it’s time to end the day … do it.

And then keep doing it every night.

Read a book

I’ve talked about the benefits of reading and provided a few tips on how to read more books this year.

Committing to a nightly practice of reading a few pages before turning off the lights is a great way to hit that reading goal while encouraging more quality rest.

Take the last 20-30 minutes before you wind down by catching up on some nice works of fiction, non-fiction or anything in between.

Invest in the right bed gear

While you should be aiming for 7-9 hours of shuteye per night, it’s also the quality that is important here.

If you are sleeping on a mattress that you’ve had since your high school Prom days, you’re doing it wrong.

Invest in a great mattress that works best for you.

Look, you’ll be spending almost a third of your life on this thing (think about that), so you should be more than happy dropping as much cash on your bed as you did on your man-cave or on that kitchen set.

Let me help you learn to create the simple habits to help you get better sleep tonight … 

I’m here to help you out. 

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “Get better sleep tonight” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

If you enjoyed this post, maybe you’d like more knowledge bombs from me. I’d be honored if you join my mailing list to get regular updates every time I post something pretty dope.