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Abstract

evels of relaxation and help you wind down after a busy day. Switching off your stress response will allow you to fall asleep faster, have a more restful sleep, and subsequently achieve greater quality sleep.</p><h1 id="1a7e">How to do it</h1><h2 id="9c14">Gut smashing</h2><p id="719d">A particularly effective method is something known as gut-smashing. It feels about as unpleasant as it sounds, at least if you’re like me and you hold a lot of tension in your gut. This exercise massages your abdominal wall, an area that is often overlooked in most rolling regimes.</p><p id="5be5">Essentially, you lie face down on either a foam roller or a medicine ball (or any soccer ball-sized ball with a bit of give), placing the object in your gut. Breathe into the object, hold your breath as long as possible before it gets uncomfortable, then slowly exhale. It will likely be very painful and uncomfortable, but you aren’t harming any of your internal organs. It’s just the tightness of your gut that you are feeling. Repeat, either in the same spot if it’s particularly tight, or move to a new spot. Repeat for about 5 minutes.</p><p id="6278">This exercise also stimulates your vagus nerve — which lowers blood pressure, reduces heart rate, and reduces the stress response — and turns on your parasympathetic nervous system, making it especially beneficial right before sleep. Turning on your parasympathetic nervous system is a great way to improve your heart rate variability (HRV), which is an <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-one-biometric-you-should-track-to-optimize-your-health-4b0ed1406598">important biometric indicator of whole-body health</a>.</p><p id="9c59">Kelly Starrett, bestselling author and mobility expert, explains,</p><blockquote id="5da9"><p>“One of the biggest problems we have in society right now is that people aren’t very good at down regulating. What we see is people getting into a constant parasympathetic nervous system vs parasympathetic nervous system tug-of-war, and the sympathetic system is turned all the way up to 60. We know that we can power up by drinking some coffee or chugging an energy drink and be ready to go, but show me how you can go (in reverse) from 60 to 0.”</p></blockquote><h2 id="dcab">Traditional foam rolling</h2><p id="29ac">Otherwise, you can try traditional foam rolling — where

Options

you get a foam roller and spend about 30 seconds to one minute rolling each part of your body:</p><ul><li>Upper back</li><li>Lower back</li><li>Lats (armpit area)</li><li>Quads</li><li>Hamstrings</li><li>Calves</li><li>Shins</li></ul><p id="0f5e">Pause on any particularly sore spots until they start to release. This type of rolling is particularly effective for flushing out the tissues.</p><h2 id="11db">Lacrosse ball</h2><p id="3a1b">This is my favorite, and what most of my rolling consists of. This method is very effective for releasing tight muscles, as it can get quite deep into the muscle.</p><p id="c4f0">You’ll need a lacrosse ball or any sort of hard ball about the size of a tennis ball. Put it into any sore spot (called a trigger point), apply as much pressure as possible, and wait for the release. The cool thing with this method is you can usually feel the release — you’ll feel the spot start to twitch, and then it’ll stop. This is the muscle releasing, and this is what you want to aim for.</p><p id="4971">I spend a lot of time on my upper back — in the fleshy bit behind your armpit and underneath the shoulder blades (which you can reach by putting your arm across your body to move your shoulder blade). It’s also helpful for the calves and shins, the top of your glutes, and the spot just under your hip bone. Either lie on the ball with it in one of these areas, or lean against a wall with the ball between your body and the wall. Move the ball around until you find a tender spot, then push into the ball. Pay attention and see if you can feel the twitch. Sometimes I put my hand near the spot and this makes it easier to feel the twitch. Repeat in as many tight spots as you want to. I typically go for about 10–15 minutes.</p><h1 id="ae48">To conclude</h1><p id="5a57">Self-myofascial release, or foam rolling, is a potent relaxation technique that can turn off your fight or flight response, improve HRV, and help you get a better sleep. There are various techniques you can try, but they all achieve a similar result — connecting with your body and breath, releasing feel good and relaxing hormones, releasing tension you’ve stored in your muscles, and turning off the stress response. Try this technique for 10 minutes each evening before sleep, and experience the benefits for yourself.</p></article></body>

How to Improve Your Quality of Sleep in 10 Minutes

A simple but effective exercise routine to achieve optimal relaxation before bed.

The secret? Deep tissue work. Foam rolling. Self-massage. Whatever you want to call it, manual manipulation of your tissues has myriad benefits, especially before bed. We hold so much tension in our muscles and tissues, and it’s so important that we release this tension regularly, especially if we want good quality sleep and to reduce stress and inflammation.

Ben Greenfield explains,

“You need dedicated, scheduled and planned sessions of rolling.”

And a great way to achieve this is through including it in your evening routine. In just 10 minutes every evening, you will achieve at least 70 minutes per week of deep tissue work, for free! This is about the equivalent of a massage session that you would pay a lot of money for, and achieves the same, or sometimes even improved, results.

Benefits

Connect with your body

Rolling before bed can be a type of movement meditation — you are focusing on your body, breathing into tension, and listening to what your body is telling you. Connecting with your body before bed is powerful for increasing relaxation and subsequently a higher quality of sleep. This practice will release tension, and bring you back to your breath.

Wind down and relax

Shawn Stevenson, author of Sleep Smarter, explains that rolling can “unlock your sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system and activate your parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system” and has “clinically proven benefits on serotonin production, oxytocin, and reduction of cortisol.”

Foam rolling can greatly improve your levels of relaxation and help you wind down after a busy day. Switching off your stress response will allow you to fall asleep faster, have a more restful sleep, and subsequently achieve greater quality sleep.

How to do it

Gut smashing

A particularly effective method is something known as gut-smashing. It feels about as unpleasant as it sounds, at least if you’re like me and you hold a lot of tension in your gut. This exercise massages your abdominal wall, an area that is often overlooked in most rolling regimes.

Essentially, you lie face down on either a foam roller or a medicine ball (or any soccer ball-sized ball with a bit of give), placing the object in your gut. Breathe into the object, hold your breath as long as possible before it gets uncomfortable, then slowly exhale. It will likely be very painful and uncomfortable, but you aren’t harming any of your internal organs. It’s just the tightness of your gut that you are feeling. Repeat, either in the same spot if it’s particularly tight, or move to a new spot. Repeat for about 5 minutes.

This exercise also stimulates your vagus nerve — which lowers blood pressure, reduces heart rate, and reduces the stress response — and turns on your parasympathetic nervous system, making it especially beneficial right before sleep. Turning on your parasympathetic nervous system is a great way to improve your heart rate variability (HRV), which is an important biometric indicator of whole-body health.

Kelly Starrett, bestselling author and mobility expert, explains,

“One of the biggest problems we have in society right now is that people aren’t very good at down regulating. What we see is people getting into a constant parasympathetic nervous system vs parasympathetic nervous system tug-of-war, and the sympathetic system is turned all the way up to 60. We know that we can power up by drinking some coffee or chugging an energy drink and be ready to go, but show me how you can go (in reverse) from 60 to 0.”

Traditional foam rolling

Otherwise, you can try traditional foam rolling — where you get a foam roller and spend about 30 seconds to one minute rolling each part of your body:

Upper back
Lower back
Lats (armpit area)
Quads
Hamstrings
Calves
Shins

Pause on any particularly sore spots until they start to release. This type of rolling is particularly effective for flushing out the tissues.

Lacrosse ball

This is my favorite, and what most of my rolling consists of. This method is very effective for releasing tight muscles, as it can get quite deep into the muscle.

You’ll need a lacrosse ball or any sort of hard ball about the size of a tennis ball. Put it into any sore spot (called a trigger point), apply as much pressure as possible, and wait for the release. The cool thing with this method is you can usually feel the release — you’ll feel the spot start to twitch, and then it’ll stop. This is the muscle releasing, and this is what you want to aim for.

I spend a lot of time on my upper back — in the fleshy bit behind your armpit and underneath the shoulder blades (which you can reach by putting your arm across your body to move your shoulder blade). It’s also helpful for the calves and shins, the top of your glutes, and the spot just under your hip bone. Either lie on the ball with it in one of these areas, or lean against a wall with the ball between your body and the wall. Move the ball around until you find a tender spot, then push into the ball. Pay attention and see if you can feel the twitch. Sometimes I put my hand near the spot and this makes it easier to feel the twitch. Repeat in as many tight spots as you want to. I typically go for about 10–15 minutes.

To conclude

Self-myofascial release, or foam rolling, is a potent relaxation technique that can turn off your fight or flight response, improve HRV, and help you get a better sleep. There are various techniques you can try, but they all achieve a similar result — connecting with your body and breath, releasing feel good and relaxing hormones, releasing tension you’ve stored in your muscles, and turning off the stress response. Try this technique for 10 minutes each evening before sleep, and experience the benefits for yourself.