What Coaches and Mentors Can Learn from Why We Sleep
Treating sleep as the first thing to cut when your schedule is full of other people's sessions is the specific trap Why We Sleep names; a coach who cuts sleep to fit in more sessions usually shows up with measurably worse patience and focus, without feeling any less present.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 3 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Protect a consistent sleep and wake schedule
Going to bed and waking at consistent times, even during a demanding stretch, supports steadier presence and patience than an irregular schedule with occasional long nights.
A coach sleeps in dramatically on a day off to recover from a busy week, which feels restorative but actually makes the following week's schedule harder to stabilize.
Pick one anchor time, either your wake time or your bedtime, and hold it steady for the next week even on lighter days.
Recognize how sleep loss quietly degrades thinking, mood, and decisions, even when you feel fine
Sleep-deprived patience often doesn't feel impaired from the inside, which is exactly why a tired coach can respond more sharply to a mentee's mistake while feeling the reaction was entirely fair.
A coach reacts more critically than usual to a mentee's setback at the end of a short-sleep week, and only recognizes the harshness once well-rested again.
On days after a run of short nights, notice your patience level before responding to a mentee's mistake, and give yourself an extra beat before reacting.
Build a wind-down routine that actually supports falling and staying asleep
A calmer, more consistent routine before bed, with session prep cut off earlier in the evening, makes it easier to actually fall and stay asleep even during a busy season.
Being available to the people you coach and protecting your sleep aren't opposites — the hours saved by cutting sleep are usually paid back, with interest, in weaker sessions the next day.
Name one thing, honestly
Is there a recent session during a short-sleep stretch where you weren't as present as you'd have liked?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 3 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
On days after a run of short nights, notice your patience level before responding to a mentee's mistake, and give yourself an extra beat before reacting.