While one persons recipe for success may not necessarily work for someone else, we tend to look at the schedules and habits of high profile business leaders to see what we can glean from them. From how they start their mornings to whether or not they check their email first thing in the office, they always seem to set some sort of proverbial bar we drive ourselves to follow.
While their advice on topics like what they eat for breakfast in order to gain extra energy is rife on the Internet, however, the evening routine seems to be an underestimated area and its sufficient to say our energy level, productivity, mood and even motivation all face the wrath of how you ended your day.
So courtesy of Sleepypeople.com, we took a look at the pre-bedtime habits of some of the worlds most successful people revealing that, indeed, no one size fits all.
(1) Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
Facebook’s COO makes sure to leave the office at the same time ever night. Of this, she said: I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 pm so that Im home for dinner with my kids at 6 pm. I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it’s not until the last year, two years that Im brave enough to talk about it. Now I certainly wouldnt lie, but I wasnt running around giving speeches on it.
To make up for that fact, Sandberg claimed to send emails to colleagues late at night and early in the morning as proof that she was working: I was showing everyone I worked for that I worked just as hard. But now Im much more confident in where I am and so Im able to say, Hey! I am leaving work at 5:30 pm. And I say it very publicly, both internally and externally.
But while the odd piece of work may creep in when’s at home, once it’s time for bed she always turns her phone off so she can have some uninterrupted sleep.
Sheryl Sandberg: We’ve got to get more women
(2) Adriana Huffington, editor in chief of the Huffington Post
As for Arianna Huffington, well, she wrote a book on the matter “The Sleep Revolution”. Huffington revealed that she had to tweak her routine after fainting from exhaustion: I hit my head on my desk. I broke my cheekbone. I had five stitches on my right eye. So I began the journey of rediscovering the value of sleep.”
The first thing she did was stop bringing devices into the bedroom,deeming it a “screen-free zone”. Instead, she advocated reading a book until slumber hits you. And paramount to her routine was sleeping the recommended eight hours and not getting out of bed until that time period passed.
Why In an article she wrote about how people were failing to take sleep and the pre-bedtime routine seriously: “If you type the words ‘why am I’ into Google, the first autocomplete suggestionis: ‘why am I so tired ‘ The existential cry of the modern age. And thats not just true in New York but in Toronto, Paris, Seoul, Madrid, New Delhi, Berlin, Cape Town, and London. Sleep deprivation is the new lingua franca.”
(3) Barack Obama, president of the US
With George W. Bush having been said to be an early riser, Obama’s pre-bedtime routine couldn’t be any more different. WhereasBush arrived at the Oval Office by dawn, left by 6 pm and was in bed by 10 pm, ObamaAllegedly holds conference calls at 11 pm and reads or writes before heading to bed.
Referring to himself as a “night owl”, he suggested his evenings typically consisted of,?”having dinner with the family, hanging out with the kids and putting them to bed about 8:30 pm.
“Then I’ll probably read briefing papers or do paperwork or write stuff until about 11:30 pm before my usual half hour read before I go to bed… about midnight, 12:30 am sometimes a little later.”
Read more about how Elon Musk and Bill Gates spend their nights.
(4) Gwyneth Paltrow, actress and founder of Goop
While speaking to Elle magazine, Hollywood star and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow revealed how she stays so calm, and it all has to do with one particular night-time ritual.
Relaxation is key, and is the biggest influencer of whether you sleep well or not, Paltrow suggested. A relaxing routine activity right before bedtime, conducted away from bright lights, helps separate your sleep time from activities.
I take an Epsom salt bath every night to wind down,” she said. I use a lot of organic essential oils on my pressure points.
“Before you even think about dieting, first try to get more sleep. It plays a powerful role in determining your appetite and energy,” she further explained. “Ideally, I’d like ten hours sleep a night, but I find seven or eight keeps me going.”
Tinseltown trading techniques of Gwyneth Paltrow and Zooey Deschanel
(5) Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla
Musk swears by the concept of not indulging in too much caffeine before bedtime, a lesson he, much like Huffington did in regards to the amount of time she slept, learned the hard way.
He claimed he once went through eight cans of Diet Coke every day, on top of his customary two cups of coffee. He stopped when he realised he was getting really wired something that prevented him from feeling rested the next morning.
As such, he suggested doing the “heavy” drinking in the morning and steering clear of such beverages the closer it gets to bedtime. It certainly helps given that he’s already known to be a night owl,typically going to sleep around 1 am and getting up at 7 am.
To ensure he gets enough rest, however, he tracks his sleeping patterns sixhours on average with his phone, and adjusted his routine accordingly.
Are we living in the Matrix Elon Musk says the chance is high as is a future with Skynet
(6) Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft
It’s been suggested that Gates makes a point of reading every night. His reading material Apparently biographies of the likes of Warren Buffett and Franklin Roosevelt, as well as history tomes and periodicals from The Economist and Scientific American.
I read an hour almost every night,” he explained. Its part of falling asleep. It’s a double edged sword though. Like anyone who loves books, if you get into a good book, it’s hard to go to sleep, so figure out a way to ensure you don’t stay up too late like reading to the end of a certain chapter.”
For him, seven hours of sleep is needed to get the creative juices flowing the following morning.
Even though it’s fun to stay up all night, maybe taking a red-eye flight, if I have to be creative I need seven hours,” he said. “I can give a speech without much sleep, I can do parts of my job that way, but in thinking creatively, Im not much good without seven hours.
