How I prepare for sleep

My busiest work days often entail waking up at 5am and getting home at 8.30 pm which leaves me little time once I get home to spend time relaxing before going to bed if I want to get in 7 hours of sleep.

I can be difficult to easily go from a state of heightened alertness when training a client combined with a gym that is artificially lit to unwinding and being ready to sleep.

I find that missed sleep is the quickest way to kill my gains in the gym, it'll also leave me feeling ratty and not very happy the next day.

Supplement Approach

One supplement protocol (adapted from a bio signature protocol from Charles Poliquin) I have used very successfully is-

30 minutes before bed-

450 mg of Magnesium Citrate and Glycinate

5 grams of Inisotol

300mg of phosphatidyl serine

2 grams of Taurine

5o0mg of Glycine

These combination of supplements work on relaxing neurotransmitters in the brain and also reducing levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Lifestyle Approach

I combine these supplements with dimming the lights in my house (I eat dinner by candle light) and not checking emails after I get home.

I will write down any tasks for tomorrow down on a 'to do' list so that they are not playing on my mind while in bed. I plan experimenting on incorporating a grateful log as recommended by Charles but have so far not used this strategy.

I will then also often have a relaxing shower and do some diaphragmatic breathing to relax the whole body as a final preparation before sleep.

Electronic devices will be switched off at the wall and mobile phones are kept out of the bedroom.

I use ear plugs to block out sound and a combination of black out curtains and an eye mask to eliminate light.

This so far have never failed to get me to sleep quickly.

Try these tips out and let me know how you get on.

Welcome Teodora Sklayne- Personal Trainer to Train With Sklayne

Who is Teodora Sklayne?

Just writing few lines about who I am, where I come from and how I got here today.

I was born in a town called Ruse, in Bulgaria and have lived there for the first 18 years of my life. I have had an amazing childhood, full of friends to play with on the playgrounds and plenty of energy and activities. I was very active also participating in athletics when I was 13-15 years old, mainly sprinting at a regional level. However, in my later teenage years I stopped participating in exercise and concentrated more on other “more fun stuff”.

After my first year in university, studying Business Management, I went to Alaska, USA for a summer on a work and travel program for students. Because of the stress of working for 14-18 hours a day, both jobs in kitchens of restaurants, eating way too much food, and with the involvement of few other factors as well I gained a massive amount of weight – 16kg (35lb)!

I was looking like this:

(October 2007)

Honestly, I did not realise I have gained that much weight until I had come back to Bulgaria and saw the expressions of my friends’ and family’s faces! I was as shocked as they were!

My father and I immediately decided to get on a diet. My father was overweight back then and had problems with high blood pressure and diabetes type 2. We started together on zero carbohydrate diet that we've heard about from friends. According to the scales it was working! We were both losing massive amounts of weight for a very short period of time. I decided to start an aerobics/Tae Bo class at the same time – 3 times a week for 1 hour sessions. For about 8 weeks I lost 12kg (26lb).

Few months later a came to UK, in a strawberry farm near Hull. It took a couple months of working 16 hour shifts and eating whatever to get back to gaining a lot of weight again. It was the famous Yo Yo effect.

In June 2008 I came to London. The stress of the unknown, looking for jobs and other personal problems got the reverse effect; again I managed to lose some weight. Wouldn't say it was healthy, but it was working. Eating no breakfast and most of the times just a can of sweet corn for lunch or a sandwich, the only proper meal I would have had was in the evening. Here is a picture from August 2008:

A year later I was fortunate to meet the love of my life Martyn Sklayne, who happened to be a personal trainer. Back then I was not really interested in “fitness stuff”. I was signed up for the local gym, but was visiting maybe twice a month for a spin class and twice for some swimming and sauna. At first when Martyn told me that he helps women and men with their physiques with resistance training (weight training) I was very resilient of the idea. As every woman, imagining those muscular bodybuilders, I was afraid I might become too “bulky”.

Well who can you trust if not a personal trainer who has years of experience helping people get real visible results. We started with some basic body weight and dumbbell exercises at home as well as some changed in my nutrition lifestyle, e.g. having a high protein breakfast, drinking more water etc. – simple but effective!

I was opening up more and more for the idea of weight training, after noticing changes in my body, just few weeks after starting to exercise. I wanted a better and better figure and was working hard for it!

After a year of training and eating right, without being on specific strict diet, I was looking like this:

Please note that on the picture above I was weighting about 60kg and on the picture on the left - about 56kg! So ladies, it’s not about the weight, it’s about the body composition.

In the last one year I have been working in the article translation sector of Charles Poliquin’s website, where I gained extensive expertise in nutrition,

Now I am more passionate about training then ever and being a qualified personal trainer as part of the faboulous duo in Train with Sklayne gives me the opportunity to help people achieve their goals and change their lives!supplementation and training as well as the opportunity soon to become a BioSignature Practitioner and PICP Level 2 Coach myself (courses taking place in April 2012).