EYN#044: 1 Key Lesson From The Olympics

We don’t give enough attention to our recovery.

The Olympics are in full flow at the moment. If you’re an elite athlete you’re a professional "recoverer". You understand the optimum way to recover so that you are able to perform at your optimum when you need to.

Ice baths, rest days and good sleep are all essential for Olympians. That’s because in order for an athlete to perform at their peak they need to be in top physical and mental condition. Recovery is big part of that.

But in the business world, the corporate world, the struggling with kids world, the life admin world, the don’t forget to put the bins out world – recovery is often treated as luxury.

I put it to you, that you should put some focus on how you recover.

A few years ago I did a great study on myself. I wore a device for 3 days that was taped to my body that measured my heart rate variance. It was with a company called First Beat. And effectively it assesses when you’re body is exerting energy, and when it’s recovering.

It put some data behind my life. It showed for me a few things:

• How important good sleep was to me
• The impact that alcohol had in reducing my recovery
• And what things exerted the most energy for me

Have a look at these 2 pages. I still have from my print out a few years ago. You can see I recover and relax very little during the day, and then am like a super recoverer at night.

Page 1

Page 2

You can also see if I've had some booze at night, my recovery time was a lot lower.

I also found this great little cycle on the Mind website, it’s a view of how lack of sleep can impact your mental health.  It shows how sleep, and recovery can have a big impact on your mental health and performance.

Some top tips on recovery and sleep hygiene that I use:

• Block time in your diary to recover – and prioritise it
• Get enough sleep – most people need about 8 hours of sleep
• Remove caffeine and alcohol before going to bed so that you get good sleep

So as you watch the Olympics think about how you can improve your approach to recovery. It will help you perform at your peak when you need to. When you have those important meetings, when you have presentations to vital customers, when your speaking on stages at conferences.

Make sure you think about your recovery. You'll see you performance increase.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Ben

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