February Foundation - Sleep

This month we are focusing on the foundation. When I say “foundation”, what comes to mind? Do you think of a house, a building or some kind of structure? Do you think of the bottom or the base of something? All of those images are what I want us to be thinking about for February. Foundation is the base, the bottom or beginning of a structure that we will be building. We will be building this structure, and it all starts with this part. The base. The foundation.

We asked a few questions to start our foundation conversation: 
What are the most important things we need in place?
What barriers are you seeing to putting these in place?  
Who are we talking to about the plan?

No matter what answers you came up with, or how many other questions this exercise brought up for you, this is really square one. This is the foundation. What do you want to do. What is getting in the way, and what supports are in place. Those are the basics we need to get started.

From there, we move into some tangible steps. Foundation can mean a few things. The meaning we used last time was about the base of our routine, as in the goals or the very reason we are trying to do this. That use of foundation is especially helpful if you are just getting started, or making sure you are still focused on the right things.

The next use of the word foundation brings us to our next step: Putting the plan in motion.

If we were in a coaching session, talking about your routine, I would ask you, once you have decided what the broad goals are, we would look more closely at the smaller steps to get you there. If the broad goal is to live healthier, and yes, that is the broadest goal possible. No matter how broad we go, we can always zero in on the specific steps that make the most sense for you.

And that is what I would ask about in our session: What are the most foundational pieces to put in place first. The best way to think about this is to go back to the basics. When I talk about basics, I really mean basics. The foundation. Let’s look at some of these areas:

Sleep

There is nothing more foundational than sleep. To get more scientific: Sleep is not simply rest, but an active biological process that regulates nearly every major system in the body. During sleep, the brain organizes and stores memories, clears metabolic waste, recalibrates emotional responses, and restores cognitive capacity. Deep sleep supports physical repair through growth hormone release, tissue recovery, and immune strengthening, while REM sleep plays a central role in learning, creativity, and emotional processing. Without sufficient sleep, attention, decision-making, reaction time, and problem-solving ability decline in ways comparable to alcohol impairment. That’s right: Being sleep deprived harms functioning like alcohol does. In other words, being over-tired is akin to being drunk.

Sleep is also one of the strongest regulators of physical health. Consistent, adequate sleep helps maintain hormonal balance, including those that control hunger (ghrelin and leptin), stress (cortisol), and blood sugar regulation (insulin sensitivity). Chronic sleep deprivation is associated with increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, weakened immunity, and systemic inflammation. Even modest sleep restriction over several nights can elevate stress hormones and reduce the body’s ability to recover from physical or mental strain.

Equally important is sleep’s role in emotional stability and mental health. During sleep, the brain processes emotional experiences and reduces reactivity in threat-detection systems like the amygdala. Poor sleep amplifies anxiety, irritability, and negative mood while lowering resilience and motivation. Over time, disrupted sleep patterns are strongly linked with depression, burnout, and decreased overall well-being.

In practical terms, sleep functions as a foundational health behavior, playing a role in nutrition and movement, and everything else, but often more even influential because it affects how effectively all other habits work. Adequate, consistent sleep improves energy, focus, recovery, mood regulation, and long-term health outcomes, making it one of the highest-impact interventions for performance, resilience, and overall quality of life.