6 Strategies To Sleep The Night Before a Competition

Struggle to sleep the night before a competition? Or do you find you’re more of an insomniac than you like to admit? Or perhaps you just find yourself waking up in the night, or taking ages to fall asleep most nights of the week? Transform your sleep with these 6 Strategies.

Super Sleeper 101

Smart athletes know that consistent restorative sleep is key for optimum cognition, physical performance, recovery, and epic levels of positivity and resilience.

Achieving Super Sleeper status doesn't start when you get into your PJ's, or your head hits the pillow.

To transform achieve Champion sleep every night, you need Super Sleeper level language and stories around sleep - and that starts the moment you wake up.

Doing stuckness around champion sleeping

As you can see in the Sleep feedback loop below, your unintentional and unconscious thoughts, videos, images, beliefs, identity and stories around not being a super sleeper feed into this self-perpetuating feedback loop.

By consistently (and unintentionally) telling your brain you're not a super sleeper, this becomes your underlying narrative throughout your day, so your brain edits your reality to fit this narrative, which only strengthens the not super sleeper neuropathways.

And this keeps you doing stuckness in the sleep feedback loop and around not doing super sleep.

Break your unhelpful sleep patterns

When you're doing stuckness around Champion sleep, we call you an upside genius, because you are SO awesome at getting the opposite of your desired result.

And this means you can be AMAZING at being a genius - doing the things to get you the desired result - like Super Sleeper Status.

You just need to break the unhelpful patterns and install new ones, which is easier and quicker than you think!

Doing super sleeping

By CONSCIOUSLY, INTENTIONALLY and CONSISTENTLY telling your brain you're a Super Sleeper, this now becomes the underlying narrative throughout your day, so your brain edits your reality to fit this narrative, which strengthens the brilliant super sleeper neuropathways.

The more you choose and activate these Super Sleeper neuropathways, the stronger, better and faster they become at their job, so they become the new way you act, think, feel, believe and sleep. As you can see in the feedback loop below.

The old pathways that used to activate the old not super sleeping ways, become weaker and weaker and harder and harder to activate.

This creates powerfully positive Super Sleeper momentum, so you achieve Super Sleeper levels of sleep every night.

Here are 5 strategies to Super Sleeper status and totally transform your sleep:

1. Active sleep Language

To transform your thoughts into ACTIVE sleep language, first you need to know what non-sleep enhancing thoughts you are thinking, when you’re thinking them and why you might be thinking them.

This enables you to bring unconscious and unintentional thoughts to the forefront and once you become aware of what you're thinking, you can transform your thoughts.

By changing your thoughts into active statements using the do, doing and did, you start to break that unhelpful feedback loop, get unstuck, and create and maintain incredibly powerful sleep-enhancing thoughts, feelings, actions, habits and beliefs that enable you to become a Super Sleeper.

Remember, ‘passive’ statements e.g. It always takes me ages to full alseep, place you in the victim mindset mode, when you feel like you're powerless to the circumstances beyond your control and there's nothing you can do to influence the situation for the better - which isn't true.

Whereas, ACTIVE statements (do, doing, did) e.g. I am doing not sleepiness when I go to bed, place you in ownership mode, because you realise you DO have influence over the situation and you CAN influence it for the better, and RE-WIRE your brain for lasting transformation.

Read more about passive vs, active language in a previous blog: Struggling to change your feelings in sport? Here's why.

2. Ditch unhelpful sleep thoughts

As you can see from the sleep feedback loop, non-sleep enhancing language can keep you stuck.

Whereas sleep-enhancing language can totally transform your sleep, so you become a Super Sleeper every night.

I want you to weaken those non-sleep enhancing neuropathways and the best way is to DITCH those thoughts quickly and easily.

I like the Black Box Method for this, which can read all about here: Athlete Guide: Ditch negative thoughts Easily and quickly

3. Super Sleeper language

Every thought you have around sleep MUST use powerful, positive, productive sleep-enhancing language. This sets the dominoes falling in the direction of Super Sleeper Mode.

Super sleeper language will strengthen those powerful neuropathways, make them faster and better at their jobs, your brain will see this as an indicator to edit your reality according to you being a super sleeper, and Super Sleeper mode will therefore become your default and achieved on autopilot.

Here’s my guide on powerful, positive and productive language: Why it’s a bad idea to repeat phrases that mention things you want to stop doing and/or feeling

4. Access super sleeper state

Super sleeping is a state. It's something you do. Not doing super sleeping is also a state and something you do. This means you can do super sleeping, it's just finding the best technique/s for you.

You can create Champion level lasting transformation and move from non-super sleeper to super sleeper by getting in touch with powerful sleep resource states from your memories or imagination.

Here’s a quick summary on how how you can access super sleeper states:

1. Take yourself back to a time when you can really connect with doing super sleeping. Step fully into that time using present tense and sleep sleeper language.

2. Borrow Super Sleeper qualities from someone/thing else. Step into them doing super sleeping and imagine what it would be like to be them, doing super sleeping.

3. Imagine your desired state. Create a Super Sleeper place in your mind where you can't help but feel really, really sleepy. Where you take on these super qualities and just are a super sleeper, you always have been. Go into detail about what this place looks, feels, sounds, smells like.

5. Sleepy stories

95% of cognitive activity is processed by the unconscious. That means only 5% is conscious.

I create massive change in my athletes through speaking to their unconscious in stories - and you too can harness this power.

In the special forces telling a sleep-inducing story is a very popular method to help their soldiers fall asleep quickly and easily.

Take yourself into a story, whether it's sleeping on a yacht under the stairs, in a rowboat, a hammock, tent, at a spa, walking along a beach or anywhere else, real or made up, and immerse yourself in that story using present tense and super sleeper language.

You'll drift off to sleep before you've had time to finish your story.

6. Bedtime routine

For too long now, pro athletes have known that a powerful bedtime routine is the secret sauce to crazy performance...

And as a result, they’ve become masters at not only prioritising sleep...

But falling asleep quickly, easily and deeply...

Sleeping through the entire night in a blissful sleepy state...

Waking up feeling joyful and energised.

Now it is YOUR turn to become a Super Sleeper and sleep like a champion...

Here are the 5 most important rituals to include in your bedtime routine: 5 Evening Habits To Optimise Sleep and Increase Sports Performance

Want some inspiration? Here are 5 Sleep Routines Of Badass Athletes

Is this helpful? Have any questions? Let me know in the comments below!

Adelaide

P.S. Ready to take your performance to the next level? Here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Apply for a free 30 minute call to discuss your ultimate performance goal and how to get there. Apply now by clicking here.

2. Read one of my most popular blogs: Athletes: How To Create Your Playlist For Unstoppable Performance

3. Follow me on Instagram (@adelaidegoodeve) for daily free brain hacks