Matthew Walker, PhD, sleep expert and author of Why We Sleep, makes a compelling case for how sleep benefits our brains and bodies, how sleep is a nonnegotiable biological necessity, and that the shorter we sleep, the shorter we live – and has the research to back it up.

And unfortunately, most of us are not getting enough sleep. According to medical research, adults need between 7 hours 30 minutes to 8 hours 30 minutes of sleep each night. However, the average American adult sleeps only about 6 hours 40 minutes per night, so most of us are under slept by around 1 hour, according to Dr. Peter Attia.

Why Sleep Matters: Links to Effective Leadership, Health, and Well-Being
Our ability to be effective leaders in our organizations, communities and families, as well as healthy individuals, depends on getting a good night’s rest.

Leadership behaviors and skills that directly relate to sleep include our ability to

• Learn, memorize, and make logical decisions
• Navigate challenges
• Be productive
• Be creative
• Recalibrate our emotions and remain calm (mental health)
• Maintain good mood and energy levels

• Manage mental health (think of sleep as emotional first aid for mental health)
• Regulate appetite (weight management)
• Restock immune system to help fight malignancy, prevent infection, and ward off sickness
• Regulate hormones and promote reproductive health
• Help prevent diseases like cancer (bowel, prostrate, breast), Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease
• Drive safely, preventing car crashes and traffic accidents
• Slow the effects of aging and increases longevity

• Avoid alcohol before bed (because it robs you of REM sleep)
• Avoid caffeine about 7 to 8 hours before bed
• Maintain a regular sleep schedule, try to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day
• Keep your bedroom cool (around 65 degrees Fahrenheit), dark, and gadget free

• Newsletter: Click here for more information, including Twelve Tips for Healthy Sleep, page 20 (other good sleep articles in this NIH newsletter)
• Video: Click here to watch Sleep is Your Superpower TED talk with Matt Walker. 19 minutes.
• Book: Click here to purchase Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
• Oura Sleep Tracking Ring: Click here to learn more about Oura. After hearing about the ring on Dan Harris’s Podcast, I purchased it. I love! the ring because it provides a daily sleep score that measures sleep contributors including total sleep, efficiency (% of time actually asleep after going to bed), REM, light, and deep sleep stages, latency (time it takes to fall asleep), timing (how aligned your sleep is with circadian rhythms), and resting heart rate (average and lowest throughout the night). I also like the daily readiness score which helps me gauge my physical activity for the upcoming day.
• Podcast: Dan Harris #221: Click here to listen to All Your Sleep Questions, Answered | Dr. Matthew Walker. In this episode, Dr. Walker shares significant findings on what happens to us when we do not get enough sleep. He also offers practical tips on how we can get more, quality sleep and how meditation can help. 2 hours 36 minutes.
• Podcast Series: Click here to listen to Pete Attia’s Podcast the drive #47 – Matthew Walker, Ph.D., on sleep – Part I of III: Dangers of poor sleep, Alzheimer’s risk, mental health, memory consolidation, and more. 1 hour 43 minutes.
• Podcast Series: Click here to listen to Pete Attia’s Podcast the drive #48 – Matthew Walker, Ph.D., on sleep – Part II of III: Heart disease, cancer, sexual function, and the causes of sleep disruption (and tips to correct it). 2 hours 4 minutes.
• Podcast Series: Click here to listen to Pete Attia’s Podcast the drive #49 – Matthew Walker, Ph.D., on sleep – Part III of III: The penetrating effects of poor sleep from metabolism to performance to genetics, and the impact of caffeine, alcohol, THC, and CBD on sleep, 2 hours 1 minute.

You may have set New Year’s resolutions or be in the process of setting them. As part of your resolutions, I’d like to challenge you to include an intention about how you want to feel this year.

If you are like the executives I coach, you are probably quite driven and mastered the “doing part”, so I’d like to encourage you to set an intention based on how you want to feel in 2020 and let that be the motivator for what you do in the world and how you show up.

Here is a simple yet powerful intention you can say to yourself at the start of your day, throughout the day, or before you fall asleep. I like to say these phrases to myself when I am feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and want to feel more personally resourced.

Feel free to use the following blessing or adapt the language to make it your own:

May I feel safe
May I feel happy
May I feel healthy and strong
May I feel at ease

These phrases are not meant to be a mantra, but rather a blessing, so try noticing and welcoming (without judgment) whatever feelings arise for you. Sometimes you will feel something and other times you will feel nothing. Whatever arises for you is okay because you are planting seeds that will blossom when they are ready.

Happy 2020!

“We live in a materialistic world that pays insufficient attention to human values. We seek satisfaction in material things instead of warm-heartedness. But human beings are social animals. We need friendship and that depends on trust. Building trust requires concern for others and defending their rights, not doing them harm. Friendship is directly linked to warm-heartedness, which is also good for our physical health”.

                                                                                                        – The Dalai Lama

Idiot compassion …
refers to something we all do a lot of and call it compassion.
In some ways, it’s what’s called enabling.
It’s the general tendency to give people what they want
because you can’t bear to see them suffering.
Basically, you’re not giving them what they need.
You’re trying to get away from your feeling of
I can’t bear to see them suffering.
In other words, you’re doing it for yourself.
You’re not really doing it for them.
– Pema Chodron

In my work, I’ve learned that leaders who show up with wise compassion – that is with presence, deep listening skills, and appropriate boundaries – have richer connections and are better able to inspire their teams, manage their schedules, delegate tasks, provide valuable feedback, and mentor their colleagues – which leads to better business results.

What is Wise Compassion?

Wise compassion includes empathy (the ability to listen deeply to, understand, and experience what another person is feeling) plus the desire to help the other person who is suffering. What makes wise compassion a skill is that it requires our willingness and ability to tolerate our own uncomfortable feelings in order to take the action that truly helps the other person while being true to ourselves in terms of values, self-respect, and appropriate boundaries.

What is Idiot Compassion?

Idiot compassion occurs when we convince ourselves that we are helping the other person but what we are really doing is taking or not taking the right action to avoid feeling our own emotional discomfort. This approach can inhibit the other person’s growth and lead to overwhelm or resentment for us.

Examples of how Idiot Compassion Shows Up at Home and Work

• Offering advice versus being present with and listening to the other person and trusting them to find a solution. This shows up at when we try to “fix” a situation for someone versus trusting in the other person’s potential by being present, asking open ended questions to help them figure out what they want to do, and trust that even if they makes a mistake, they will learn and grow from the situation.
• Not providing honest, constructive feedback because of fear of hurting the receiver’s feelings. Providing direct, honest, and constructive feedback takes courage and, if delivered with a generosity of spirit, can be life changing (and a relief!) for the receiver.

• Not delegating because of feelings of guilt or having trust issues. Doing something ourselves that should be delegated because we don’t want to burden others with more work or have issues letting go deprives the other person of an opportunity to grow and learn.
• Quickly agreeing to take on a project versus taking enough time to understand if your team is sufficiently resourced to deliver. What can make this a challenge is our tendency to people please, our desire to be the hero, having enough patience to understand what the project really entails, and having the courage to say no when the request is not realistic.

Steps for Showing Up with Wise Compassion

• What does the other person truly need in this situation? For example, they might need for me to listen deeply and be present with them without providing immediate advice. They may need space and time to figure it out on their own, or they may need additional resources and support.
• As I help this other person, what are my personal boundaries so that I don’t go into hero or rescue mode? And what do I need to in order to feel like I am being valued and respected versus feeling resentful or taken advantage of?
• What are my watch-outs? How might my fear of being with my own discomfort get in my way of doing the right thing? Or my need to be right, nice, or liked?
• How can I stay grounded and non-reactive while being with and managing my own emotional discomfort so that I can truly help the other person? Self-management strategies include: I will practice straw breathing (see below, a tool many clients love!) or prepare in advance by writing it out and/or reviewing with a trusted friend or go for a walk.
• What might I need to let go of in order to truly help this person? For example, my ego, my image, my desire for a quick fix, or my short-term emotional comfort.

Straw Breathing for Self-Regulation
A fight with a partner, a disagreement with a co-worker, someone cutting you off in traffic, or feeling nervous about an upcoming speaking engagement can be a trigger. Straw breathing is a simple tool that can help you down regulate and be in charge of your own physiology. Click here to learn more with Fleet Maull.

Worried about your meditation practice? Are you making progress? And is it worth it?

Assess your practice by asking yourself the following questions by Joseph Goldstein:

1. Are you less immediately reactive in difficult or stressful situations, both in meditation and in life?
2. Overtime, are you generally becoming aware of the wandering mind, more quickly in the sittings?
3. In daily life, the feeling of rushing is a good feedback that we’re ahead of ourselves not beings settled back in our bodies, do you find that your rushing less often or becoming aware of it, more quickly?
4. Is there more awareness with your speech, perhaps refraining a little more frequently from angry or judgmental speech?
5. Is there a little more openness in being with other people, more willing to listen?
6. Are you becoming a little more familiar with the qualities of calm and concentration in the practice?
7. Are you using the tool of mental noting, is it becoming a little more continuous, at least for periods of time? Is the tone of the note becoming softer?
8. Is there a little more ease in being with whatever arises in your meditation practice, simply noting it for what it is?
9. Is it a little easier to sit longer?
10. Are you becoming somewhat more aware of the changing nature of all experience and holding onto things a little less?

Source: As told by Dan Harris in his Ten Percent Happier Podcast #184, click here for more information.

Our family has a Thanksgiving tradition where each person shares around the dinner table what they are grateful for and why.

If you don’t have this tradition, you might consider it because research suggests gratitude activates our parasympathetic (rest and digest) system and positively impacts our brains:

• Improving general well-being,
• Increasing resilience,
• Strengthening social relationships,
• Facilitating more efficient sleep, and
• Reducing stress and depression.

Shawn Achor, a Harvard educated happiness researcher who works with Fortune 100 companies, suggests the following tips for cultivating gratitude.

• Journal – Each day, journal about one meaningful experience by writing down three specific details about it. It’s called the doubler because the brain doubles the experience, and you get to relive the experience. And, according to Achor, you only need one positive memory to judge the overall day as meaningful!
• Express Gratitude – Each day find three new things you are grateful for and why. Achor calls this the 45–second disrupter, claiming the practice of spending 45–seconds (about the amount of time it takes to brush your teeth) on what you are grateful for and why, three times a day, has the power to transform someone from being a low level pessimist to low level optimist in just 21 days! The key is to find new things (which retrains your brain to scan the environment for positive experiences) and the why (which attaches positive meaning to everyday experiences that could be overlooked or taken for granted).
• Write a Two Minute Note – Each day praise, recognize, or thank someone by writing them a short email note or text. Achor claims this is the most powerful habit.

For more information, I recommend listening to The 10% Happier Podcast #156: The Science Behind Gratitude with Shawn Achor and Dan Harris.