Establish Healthy Sleep Habits in 2016 to Improve Mood, Focus and Even your Salary

Not surprisingly, sleep discipline is fundamental to my work as a mental trainer, in which I help top athletes, business leaders, and others take their games to the next level.

In fact, it's one of the seven rules of my concept, Hell Week — a civilian version of the military ritual that helps people unleash their best selves in the span of seven days.

It's a pretty simple adjustment with enormous benefits. Clients who sign up for my Hell Week must be in bed by 10 p.m. every night and up at 5 a.m. each morning — no exceptions.

Between 50 and 70 million Americans suffer from some form of sleep disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But after one week of improving their sleep habits, people have gotten results in that they’re of sleeping through the night — seven uninterrupted hours of fully restorative sleep.

Establishing a regular schedule is the first big step towards effective sleeping. I'm a firm believer in the 5 a.m. wakeup call, since there's so much you can get done before the rest of the world (including, perhaps, your spouse and kids) is up and out of bed.

If you're just not a morning person and never will be, setting the alarm at 7 a.m. or 8 a.m, is okay. The important thing is that you establish a regular and predictable wake-sleep cycle.

And yes, that goes for the weekends, too. You might enjoy your Saturday morning lie-ins, but it's throwing your internal clock for a loop.

While you're first adjusting to the new schedule, it helps to put the alarm clock on the opposite side of the room, so you'll be forced to get out of bed. If you use your phone, choose a new alarm sound. This will help signal to your subconscious that you've entered a new sleep routine.

Investing in automated shades that can be programmed to open at the desired time each morning is another smart strategy, since it exposes your body to daylight (at least for part of the year).

This will help your body follow the natural circadian rhythms associated with lightness and darkness.

Automated shades aren't cheap, but they'll be worth the investment if they promote healthy sleep. A 2015 study by economists Matthew Gibson and Jeffrey Shrader, titled "Time Use and Productivity: The Wage Returns to Sleep," found that getting just one extra hour of sleep per week can help increase wages by more than 4%. That's a pretty good return on investment.

How you spend your waking hours is just as important to healthy sleep. Regular exercise is another key tenet of my Hell Week program. This being a week of extreme living, I require clients to push for two workouts a day. In "normal" life, a single daily workout is enough to tire out your body and relieve it of stress — two essentials for deep, restorative sleep.

Try not to workout within an hour or two of bedtime, since this will elevate your heart rate and make it harder to wind down.

Other no-nos in the late evening hours: large meals, especially the boozy kind, and excessive screen time on a TV, laptop or other device.

Eating a lot before bed can exacerbate heartburn, plus your body won't burn off the extra calories. Alcohol, meanwhile, might help you nod off, but it will then wake you up a few hours later once the effects wear off.

As for screen time, the blue light from your laptop computer or smart phone can be as bad as an extra glass of wine or two at dinner, because it slows the production of the sleep hormone melatonin.

During Hell Week, my rule is to power down all gadgets the minute you walk out of the office at night (assuming you're on a traditional work schedule). At the very least, try to block out the blue light at least two hours before your head hits the pillow.

In those final waking hours, look for ways to power your mind down from the day. Reading from a physical book or magazine is a good way to go, especially if you pair it with a hot cup of herbal tea or other non-caffeinated drink.

And if you're in a relationship, nothing beats a bit of intimacy. That's not something I picked up in the military, but I promise you it works.

Erik Bertrand Larssen is a performance consultant who energizes people into successful careers and happier lives. After a career in the military as a paratrooper, he worked in the telecom industry, moved into headhunting and then started mental and career coaching. Holding a Masters degree in business economics, Erik is the No. 1 mental trainer in Norway with clients ranging from business executives at Fortune 500 companies to Olympic medalists. An international bestselling author with books in 14 countries, Erik will have his first English-language book, “Hell Week,” published by Simon & Schuster on June 14, 2016. An Oslo, Norway, native and father of five, Erik splits his time between his hometown and New York City.