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Welcome to The Figuring It Out Podcast.
At 22, I took the plunge to go on the entrepreneurial journey and start a fitness business, 7 years later I’d been the nutritionist for 2 elite sports clubs and private coach to some of the worlds best sportsmen and women.
Now it’s my mission to show fitness coaches how you can put yourself in a league of their own, become the go to coach, and finally eliminate the self-doubt and imposter syndrome that's holding you back from building the business of your dreams.
This podcast will help you figure out how to thrive and conquer the fear that comes with the lonely entrepreneurial journey.
If fear is the only thing stopping us from achieving our dreams and we only fear what we don't understand, then the antidote to fear is knowledge. All we have to do is find out who has the knowledge that we need to conquer our fears and achieve our entrepreneurial dreams. My name is Callum Walker, and welcome to the podcast that will help you figure it out and conquer this lonely entrepreneurial journey. The podcast. I'm tired.
Callum:I'm tired. I am sleep deprived. It's not necessarily just sleepy, but I I got up. I had my coffee anyway, and I just feel this, like, real kind of thick fog in my head. Now I am gonna share with you a couple of things that I kind of I'm doing that will really help if you ever are sleep deprived.
Callum:If you're a coach, like, how much sleep deprivation do you go through? Like, quite a lot, especially if you're like an in person PT. You know, you'll be at the gym at a while. Sometimes you'd there at five and you'll leave at ten. So if you are, there's a couple of things I'm gonna kind of share with you that'll really kind of help you with sleep deprivation.
Callum:A couple of things you can do to really, like, overcome it and also a couple of things not to do. The first thing is accept that you are sleep deprived. I think that's a really important thing because, like, I know for myself, like, would get really frustrated. I'd be like, oh, I can't do this, can't do that, can't do that, can't do this because I'm sleep deprived. And I would just almost kind of like search me to try and get out of sleep deprivation.
Callum:And I do that through trying to, like, have more coffee. And then I try and, you know, push through with things. And it's like your body and your mind is not in that state right now, Callum, to be able to do that. So the first thing is you've got to change your expectations. Now it's not necessarily like submitting and going like, oh, the day is over because I'm so tired.
Callum:I think it's more potentially changing up your expectations as to what are the tasks that you could do today that realistically you like, there are tasks that you can't do if you're sleep deprived. So as an example, if I kind of think about, like, really creative things that I can do when I've had, like, a really good night's sleep and I've had some coffee and I've had some movement. I feel refreshed. Like, I can very easily, like, piece content together, like, write emails, do all of these sorts of things, like, really study books. And when I try and do that, when I'm sleep deprived, I just get frustrated because I'm sitting here and I'm like, nothing's going in.
Callum:Nothing's going in. Like, I don't know if you ever seen the In betweeners, but it's a great episode in the In betweeners. And Will's basically got all of these, power drinks, And he's sitting there in he's sitting there in the library and Simon comes over. He's like, oh, hi, mate. How's your how's your nutrition going?
Callum:And Will's like, nothing is going in. And it's like, I used to feel like that immensely when I'd like almost kind of be reading a book. I'll be trying to do some content or whatever, and I'd waste like four hours where I was almost actually just accepting like, Helen, you ain't doing that work today. You can do that tomorrow when you have had a good night's sleep and maybe actually change up the expectations and the demands of the things that you're actually gonna be able to do today. So so I think the first thing is almost kind of accepting.
Callum:It's like today, I'm like, right. I'm sleep deprived. What are the things that I can do that are going to be productive in terms of moving the needle forward, moving me forward, that I can do while sleep deprived? So this, for example, like, it's actually ended up being, you know, a useful situation of being sleep deprived. And I'm like, right.
Callum:I can actually share with you guys a couple of things that I do to overcome sleep deprivation. So that's a big positive, and that's a win. Also, I'll go and edit some of my content from a video perspective point of view because it doesn't take too much of a mental load. So I think the first thing is almost like just accepting that, like, you're sleep deprived, mate. K?
Callum:Then the second thing, is really, really, really important, and it's really hard to not do this as well because you're either like your conditioning, like you're used to your habitual behavior will kind of drive you to want to do this. Or like society kind of tells you this is the antidote to sleep deprivation. Be careful with coffee. And two reasons. First of all, the best way that you will be able to overcome sleep deprivation today will be to schedule in at some point like a a a nap.
Callum:Okay. And it doesn't have to just be a nap. It could also be like, as Andrew Huberman talks about, a nonsleep deep rest protocol or like an in other words, like a yoga nidra. So what is a a nonsleep deep rest? What is a yoga nidra?
Callum:Well, to keep it really simple, like, they're both the exact same things, and they genuinely, like, will replenish you more than anything. So today, if you're watching this and you're sleep deprived or at some point you do become sleep deprived, which I'm sure you will, or you have clients who are sleep deprived. This could also help if you're, like, sleep deprived because you've got kids and the quality of your sleep isn't great. Go and do a non sleep deep rest or effectively what's otherwise known as yoga nidra. And all it is is just a body scan.
Callum:Now it'll work best ideally if you're lying down, but you may not have the luxury of being able to lie down. But at some point, if you can kind of schedule in a break, like, as early as you possibly can, like, you know, within the day, where all you do is just, like, shut your eyes and you're kinda going into, like, a meditation to start with. So the one I go with, Andrew Huberman does one, which is non sleep deep breath. But to be honest, if you just go on, like, Spotify or if you go on, like, YouTube and just type in Yoga Nidra or non sleep deep breath, you'll have one that will kinda walk you through it. I use an app called Insight Timer, and there's a a woman called Jennifer Piercy who does one.
Callum:And it's great. It's beautiful. I'll just listen to it. I basically just listen to what they say. But all it is is basically just a standard kind of body scan.
Callum:So you're shutting your eyes and it'll be like, you know, okay. Notice your right thumb. Now your index finger and your middle finger. And you notice it. And then you go all the way through the body, like your scan all the way down to, like, your legs, to your feet, like all of these things.
Callum:And effectively, happens is that, like, it's kind of like a massage, like a mental massage for the brain. And it's amazing. You will feel so rejuvenated. You will feel amazing afterwards, like almost as if you have slept. And you could you could have some that are ten minutes long, some are thirty minutes long.
Callum:So just by finding ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, that can help immensely. But then the other thing is just doing a standard nap. Now an important thing with a nap is you gotta keep it under thirty minutes really. And the reason for that is that, like, when we're looking at your sleep, you don't just, like, sleep. Like, you go through, like, five core stages of sleep.
Callum:Yeah? But you can kinda split it into, like, three categories, being light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. And, essentially, you have kinda like stage one and stage two, stage three, stage four, and REM. Stage one and two of sleep are your light sleep. Stage three and four are your deep sleep.
Callum:And then you have REM sleep, which is racket eye movement. Now what's really important with a nap is that you you do two you do one of two things. You either commit to a full on, like, sleep cycle where you go for, like, a full ninety minutes where you've gone through. So, basically, we kind of sleep in ninety minute blocks. So you'll have, like, ninety minutes where you'll go through, and it's not always in this order, but just for the purpose of this is easy.
Callum:You'll do like stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four REM, and then you wake up and then you fall back asleep. You don't always remember waking up, but basically you do like a ninety minute sleep cycle. Now what happens is that you either want to commit to a full ninety minutes where you go through the whole thing or you need to make sure that you wake up in light sleep. So in stages one or two. And the reason for that is like, have you ever had a nap that you've like you've had and it felt like it's gone on too long and you're just like, like, you feel like you have been hit by a bus.
Callum:Like, you feel like worse than you had done if you hadn't have had the nap in the first place. If you kind of in that situation, what's happened is that you'd probably slept and had a nap between, like, thirty five and sixty minutes, and you would have woken up in deep sleep. And that's known as sleep inertia. So it could end up making you feel worse. So if you're gonna have a nap, just make sure that it's, like, less than twenty five minutes.
Callum:Give yourself, like, five to ten minutes to actually drift off, but set a timer. And make sure your alarm's nice and soft. If you have an aggressive one, it's just gonna spike your your sympathetic nervous system unnecessarily. So make sure that you do that. But then but then secondly, and where and this is the most important thing when you are sleep deprived.
Callum:Like, be careful with caffeine. Like, your your mind is gonna wanna tell you I'm tired. I'll have a coffee to wake up, but it would just make things worse. Like, I had a little bit of caffeine so I can, like, kind of just get some stuff done. But my overall dose of caffeine is very, very low today.
Callum:Now the other problem is that, like, I love a hot drink. I don't really want to drink hot water and I can't drink coffee. So it's got a small amount of caffeine in, but got some cocoa powder. Yeah. Tinually, get some hot cocoa powder.
Callum:Well, cocoa powder and make it hot and just have that throughout the day. Really, really nice. Why do we wanna make sure that we're careful with our caffeine intake when we're sleep deprived? Well, if we wanna kind of replenish ourselves throughout the day, and we do that through either a yoga nidra, non sleep deep rest, or actually having a nap, having some coffee is going to make that really hard. Like, you're not going to be able to kind of have that nap.
Callum:So I always kind of see that coffee actually just delays fatigue. So, again, I kind of come back to what I said at the start of this, like, delay like, accept that today with my expectations, like, it's not a cough like, it's not a go go go day to start with. So in terms of my caffeine dose I'm having in the morning, I'm gonna lower that. Again, I'm a bit of, like, it's know, maybe a unicorn with this, but I only have one coffee a day. Like, I don't have caffeine after 8AM.
Callum:Screws my sleep. I'm very sensitive to caffeine. Now sip of this, actually. That is divine. Oh, chocolatey goodness.
Callum:No carbohydrates in that either. Very low carb. So if you if you've got clients who like chocolate, they like a little bit of sweet stuff, get drinking some cocoa. So, yeah, where was I at? I was at with caffeine.
Callum:Yeah. I have a very, very low dose because also if you have a high dose, not only is it going to make you make it harder to have a nap, But also what it will do is it will it will kind of probably make you feel more anxious. So when you're sleep deprived, your cortisol is gonna be higher. Your level of, like, sympathetic activity with your nervous system's gonna be higher. Naturally, you're not fully replenished.
Callum:And caffeine basically just like to summarize it, it just heightens whatever state you're in. So if you're in an anxious state, which you will be naturally physically by being sleep deprived, that caffeine will heighten that even more. So if I think about most of the breakdowns and meltdowns I've had, they have heavily been caffeine induced meltdowns tied in with sleep deprivation. And I've, like, gone to mom. I'm like, mom, I just need a nap.
Callum:I just need oh, you killed the candle. I just need to sleep, but I can't sleep because I had too much coffee. Like, don't make that mistake. Don't make that mistake. So yeah.
Callum:So that so that that would be the thing that I would just say. And and to be honest, once you've had that nap, once you've had that, like, that restoration, you feel like a whole new person, which is pretty which is pretty beautiful. So, anyway, so I am sleep deprived today. So what am I gonna do? Well, what time is it now?
Callum:It's 11:00. I've been up since seven. And the reason I'm sleep deprived is because I had a fractured sleep. I went to bed late. I didn't like going to bed late.
Callum:But what am I gonna do today? Well, I've just been recording some content with you guys. Then I'm gonna go and edit and flip some up. You know, publish all of this. But then also, like, today's gonna be more of a slow day, like, just in general.
Callum:If I think about it, like, it's been very kinda go, go, go, go this week in a great way. Like, I'm in the middle of the next level coach six week course. It's going really, really well. If you guys already want to upgrade onto my twelve month elite coach program, which is so exciting. I'm adding more guys to the group and our wonderful community.
Callum:But, yeah, it's been very kinda go mode. I've doing a lot of traveling around, and I've I've got a really kind of important couple of days. Like, it's what day is it today? It's Friday. I've got a really important day on Sunday and Monday.
Callum:Because basically I've hired some staff, which is so exciting. And I've got a lot of stuff to get done with them. So I just need to make sure that, like, I'm, you know, as energetic as I can be and trying to push through today, that's not going to work. So, you know, I've been invited to a party tonight. I'm not going to go because, well, two reasons.
Callum:One, I need an early night, but also we're in the middle of the celebrity traitors, celebrity traitors. And I haven't watched it Wednesday and Thursday because I was traveling and out in the evenings. So to be honest, like, yeah, okay. I'm using the early night as an excuse, but I just wanna, like, sit here. I just wanna sit here, watch the Celebrity Traitors, and just just have like a me night.
Callum:Do you know what mean? Like, make myself a really nice meal. I'm gonna make a chili con carne tonight. One of my favorites. I might have a little bit of whole grain rice.
Callum:I'm normally very low carb, but tonight I'm going to have a little bit of whole grain rice because it'll help my sleep. So we get like, you know, if you want to go and have like a good night's sleep, one thing that you want to do as well, which can help is a couple of things. First of all, have so I'm having some whole grain rice. Why am I gonna have some whole grain rice tonight? Well, starchy carbohydrates are very high in an amino acid called tryptophan.
Callum:And, basically, tryptophan gets converted into serotonin, and serotonin calms you down, but also it increases melatonin production. So on days when, like, today, I'm a bit sleep deprived, I'll have, like, a little bit more carbs in the evening. Now it's whole grain, so it's low glycemic, but but then also as well, so that'll help sleep. Another really, really cool trick, kiwis. K?
Callum:If you're sleep deprived, kiwis. Have a Kiwi one hour before you go to bed. Why a Kiwi? Well, if we kinda look at like what drives us to go to sleep, one of the main things that helps us get to sleep is melatonin. K?
Callum:So it's a hormone that's produced in the body that basically just signals to the body like it's time to go to sleep. It kinda like turns off the internal light switch. It doesn't send you to sleep, but it gets the whole body ready to to go to sleep. Now kiwis are very, very high in serotonin. And when you consume serotonin, that gets converted to melatonin, which can then help you get to sleep.
Callum:And there's some really cool research that shows if you have a kiwi one hour before going to sleep, it can actually increase the duration of your sleep by 13%. Now that may not sound a lot, but if you're sleeping for eight hours, that's an extra hour and a half of sleep that you've got just from having a kiwi. Okay. So have a kiwi one hour before you want to go to bed and you will be conked conked. So one of my favorite things that me and Alice do, we'll just sit there and eat our kiwis before we go to bed.
Callum:Now important thing, Go with a normal kiwi. K? You've got two types of kiwi. I'm a bit of kiwi nerd. Two types of kiwi.
Callum:Have a normal kiwi, and then you have a golden kiwi. Now the golden kiwis taste better than the normal kiwis, but they have a lower serotonin content and they will have a less of an impact on your ability to sleep to go the normal kiwi one hour before you get to bed. So tonight I'm going to be perched on that sofa, chili con carne, grain rice. Then afterwards, it's gonna be kiwi before we go to bed, and I'm just gonna completely sleep. In terms of training, again, like we're training for the high rock, the hybrid games at the moment.
Callum:And I've also I've also had a marathon. I've got a marathon in Paris in April. It's November now, but I'm not gonna train today. I'm not gonna train. I'm very, very fatigued.
Callum:And then it is the do the thing that you don't wanna do. I do enough of that in my life. I have no problem with motivation with that. Like, I do that. Today's rest and recuperation.
Callum:Hot shower, hot bath later on. I'll go for it like I'll go for a little walk and I might do a yoga flow. I'm definitely gonna have a nap or an NSDR. That is definitely what's gonna happen today. So, yeah.
Callum:But then tomorrow, hopefully, well, regardless of whether, like, I will sleep better. I always sleep better after a sleep deprived state day. But tomorrow is going to be a marathon marathon run. I'm not gonna run a marathon, but tomorrow I'll do like a probably do like probably at 12 k. So just traded for marathon.
Callum:I've got a long time to go. So I'll do a 12 k. We've got canal buyers here, so I'm gonna go run down the canal, which is beautiful. Got some great trail runners as well. So that's gonna be the gig.
Callum:So, yeah, never forget. If every one of your clients gave me just one new client, you have doubled your business, and don't forget to grab the free nutrition course below to level up your nutritional gain so you can get better results with the clients. See you later.