Stop Obsessing Over Sleep: Why Your Morning Routine Beats Bedtime | Sleep Expert Reveals (E395)
The High Performance Podcast
High Performance
4.6 • 4.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sleep expert Stephanie Romiszewski has always taken an unconventional approach to rest, and in this episode, she reveals why overthinking sleep is the real culprit behind poor rest. Stephanie explains why obsessing over sleep only makes it worse, and how we can fix our sleep problems by addressing our daytime habits instead of focusing on the night itself.
She dives into the dangers of sleep trackers, sharing how even false data can increase anxiety and disrupt your performance. Stephanie also introduces her game-changing advice on the importance of a consistent morning routine, wake-up times, light exposure, and movement, and why these factors are far more influential than any bedtime ritual.
She also shares her AWAKE acronym, a practical guide to improving sleep by embracing variation, avoiding the chase for perfect rest, and keeping a strong, balanced day.
This episode offers a refreshing, honest perspective on sleep, revealing how our mindset and routines during the day play a bigger role in getting quality rest and maintaining peak performance.
Stephanie's new book 'Think Less, Sleep More' is out now and published by Atlantic Books, RRP £14.99
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Stephanie, welcome back to high performance. |
| 0:02.8 | Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. |
| 0:04.6 | We're very excited to welcome you back. Our audience loved the first conversation. |
| 0:09.3 | This time, we've also done our sleep diaries. So how did you find making your own sleep diary? |
| 0:15.6 | Interesting. Me too. And we're going to reveal those towards the end of the conversation. |
| 0:18.9 | And I'm looking forward to being assessed and judged, basically, |
| 0:22.2 | for what my sleep is like. |
| 0:24.4 | But you've written a book, and your book has been described as the book, |
| 0:28.3 | The Sleep Industry Will Not Want You to Read. |
| 0:31.7 | Why would the sleep industry not want people to read your book? |
| 0:36.0 | Your sleep is flexible, and I think it's easier to sell |
| 0:39.7 | things when we tell people that it should be exactly the same every single night and you need |
| 0:44.4 | to achieve a certain specific thing in order to actually be okay as a human being. The reality |
| 0:51.1 | is a bit different from that and I think the problem with it, |
| 0:55.4 | because obviously this happens in so many industries |
| 0:57.5 | where we're told we need all these things |
| 0:59.2 | in order to be fit and to be nutritionally perfect. |
| 1:05.1 | But in the sleep industry, |
| 1:06.8 | I don't think we know enough about sleep to fall back on. |
| 1:09.7 | So when everyone is saying, you need to get your eight hours and you're not getting those eight hours, |
| 1:15.6 | initially what you think is, okay, well, I'm going to spend more time in bed, |
| 1:20.6 | or I'm going to get this particular supplement because it tells me it can extend my sleep time. |
... |
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