There are four fundamentals of optimal living, regardless of what sport you play, and if you drop your guard on any one of them, you will not be giving yourself the best chance for success.
These four fundamentals can be summed up in an acronym of EMMS:
Eating (include hydration here)
Movement
Mindset
Sleep
EATING
If you’re going to reach optimal living and optimal performance, you’ve got to fuel the beast that you are.
You’ve got to put high-octane gas inside that million-dollar sports car you drive called your body every single day.
Here are two ways I suggest you do that in addition to consulting a nutrition specialist in your area:
- Consume 2/3 of your body weight in fluid ounces of water on a daily basis.
- Map out your meals before you wake up, so you know what you will be eating that day.
I am not a nutrition coach. Let’s get that out there. If you have no plan, this is a place to start.
Good luck getting optimal results and competing with those athletes who have a nutrition plan when you don’t.
MOVEMENT
The fundamentals of movement — your strength, conditioning, flexibility and mobility — will most likely be taken care of by your strength and conditioning coach. If it’s not, FIND ONE. Don’t leave this to chance. You need to train to meet the specific demands of your sport. I won’t go into detail here because I assume you have a strength coach already. If you don’t… FIND ONE.
MINDSET
The mindset component of your mental performance mastery training is going to be taken care of through this program. Throughout this training program you will be developing an elite mindset and the 10 fundamental skills of mental toughness like all the great athletes we have had the privilege to work with and have mentored.
SLEEP
Let’s talk about the most underrated aspect of human development: sleep.
I want you to follow and study the works of whom I refer to as “The Sleep Doctor,” Dr. James Maas.
He was a professor at Cornell University for over 40 years. His books Sleep for Success, Sleep to Win, and Power Sleep are three absolute must-reads that I have in my library. I was fortunate to do a podcast with Dr. Maas that you’ll want to check out as well as my podcast with Dr. Chris Winter. Both Dr. Winter and Dr. Maas work with professional sports organizations all over the world. They both shared these simple strategies in my interviews with them.
QUICK NOTES ON SLEEP TIPS FROM THE SLEEP DOCTOR
#1: Create an optimal environment for sleep. Set your room up for sleep success from a temperature standpoint. The optimal sleeping temperature is 65–69 degrees.
#2: Schedule 10 hours of sleep a night so that you are able to get the ideal amount of 9 hours and 15 minutes of uninterrupted sleep a night. A lot of athletes will say, “Nine hours and 15 minutes of uninterrupted sleep? I’m always getting up to go to the bathroom.”
If that’s the case, let’s go back to your nutrition plan and cut hydration two to three hours before you go to bed so you’re not getting up in the middle of the night.
You may also make the excuse that you are too busy to map out 10 hours for sleep or to get 9:15 of sleep.
Well… then get control of your video games and social media and get into the rack.
Look, you ARE NOT MAKING SACRIFICES TO BE GREAT… YOU ARE MAKING DECISIONS. I can’t emphasize this enough. You aren’t making sacrifices… YOU MAKE DECISIONS.
Make a decision: Do you want to be an elite athlete or be good at video games?
Do you want to be fully rested and recovered and energized so you can work at a more elite level, or be up to date on how everyone else is living their life by studying their Instagram? You have to make choices.
Remember, there are a lot of factors that play into your success… the most important factor is YOU, what you do and what you can get yourself NOT to do.
#3: Eliminate distractions. You may want to work on getting an eye mask and/or ear plugs to remove any of the light and sound that can interrupt sleep. There will always be car alarms and people shutting doors, etc., that wake me up since I’m a light sleeper, and I want to try to block that sound so I can maximize recovery and get after it the next day.
#4: Keep a consistent sleep schedule. Perhaps the most important consideration is to be consistent with when you go to bed and when you wake up. Dr. Maas calls that “sleep consistency.” Even on weekends he wants you to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time.
OPTIMAL SLEEP ROUTINE
One of the elite athletes I work with has a routine for optimal sleep performance. He calls it his “optimal sleep hygiene routine.” It’s beautiful. You will want to create your optimal sleep hygiene routine for your performance.
9:00 p.m. He puts his phone on airplane mode.
9:30 p.m. He gets underneath the sheets hoping to fall asleep at 9:45.
7:00 a.m. His alarm goes off. His phone is still on airplane mode and he leaves it on airplane mode until 9:00 a.m. to avoid distractions so he can focus on his most important personal development tasks first thing in the morning. He also plugs his phone in as far away from his bed as he can so he is not on it.
9:00 a.m. He goes off of airplane mode so he can be available to other people in the world.
9:00 p.m. That night, the phone goes back to airplane mode.
He says, “If I can’t get done everything I need to with my phone on for 12 hours a day, I’m not focused enough.” The phone is off at 9:00 p.m., he’s in bed at 9:45 p.m., he wakes up at 7:00 a.m., giving him 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep so he can wake up, feel refreshed, and attack the day. He said that this optimal sleep routine was a big factor in his being injury free and putting up the best numbers of his career in 2019.
To review, here are the four fundamentals of optimal living: how you eat, how you move, how you train your mindset, and how you sleep. Most athletes don’t have a work problem. They like to work. Hard work is easy when you are motivated and committed.
Most athletes have a recovery problem and a fear of missing out #FOMO.
Trade FOMO for JOMO “Joy of Missing Out.” Master the four fundamentals of optimal living and you’ll master your recovery so that you’ve got more juice to invest in yourself and others every day.
And remember, if you’re juiceful, you’re useful. If you’re juiceless… well… you’re useless.
Here is a Mental Performance Daily Podcast where I discuss The 4 Fundamentals of Optimal Living.
