SEVEN YEARS before Glover Teixeira earned the UFC light-heavyweight championship in 2021, he was wiped.
“All I wanted to do was train more than anybody,” he says. But despite his hustle and his experience as a 35-year-old fighter, Teixeira was no longer competing at the same level as his much younger opponents.
So he turned to the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas for help. After trainers there assessed everything from his workout regimen to his nutrition and sleep, they recommended something that surprised him: He needed to train less and concentrate more on recovery.
In fact, the new plan that the UFCPI sent Teixeira even told him to take an entire day off. (“I kind of felt guilty,” he says.) It took him some time to adjust, but eventually he started to access “rest mode” more often.
He stayed in bed 12 hours at a time. He built a routine that was more in line with circadian rhythms.And after a while, Teixeira began winning more fights—his power, focus, and energy not only returned but remained.
Rest mode isn’t something you need a UFCPI plan to execute. Sara Mednick, Ph.D., a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine, says anyone can take advantage of what she calls the “downstate,” daily periods of relative calm that can improve your energy and sharpen your thinking.
“Like every animal and plant, we have natural rhythms for our upstates and downstates, and tapping into these rhythms optimizes your energy so you have more when you need it,”says Mednick, author of The Power of the Downstate.
Here are five opportunities to shift into downstate throughout your day.
Downstate No. 1: Coffee O’Clock
Don’t try to overcome your post-lunch lull with another run to Dunkin’, says Mednick. Caffeine heightens stress, burns you out, and meddles with sleep.
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So instead, take ten minutes after lunch to run through a 2-2-2-2-2 exercise, which will help set you up for a more productive afternoon.
For the first two minutes, focus on the space just outside yourself (the few inches around your body). Then, for two minutes, pay attention to your senses (smell, hearing, etc.). Next, spend two minutes on how you’re feeling (sad, mad, glad) and two more on what you’re thinking (This is silly and will never actually work … ). In the last two minutes, compare how you felt when you started with how you feel now (Oh, whoa, this kind of worked!).
Downstate No. 2: Late Afternoon
Like you, your heart works hard all daylong. Unlike you, it doesn’t get a break, which means that days of prolonged stress can be especially rough on it, says Mednick. (If you’ve ever felt lethargic at3:30 p.m., that might be your heart say-ing, “It’s quitting time.”)
Indulge your heart in the downstate and you might be able to stoke your energy—or at least lower your stress. Lie down and elevate your legs against a wall. (Yeah, if you’re in an office, find some privacy.)
Or if that’s uncomfortable, prop up your hips with a cushion or block. Remain in this position for at least five minutes.
Downstate No. 3: After Work
“In the evening, the right kind of physical contact can help to settle our system, relax us, and help us feel secure and safe,” says Kevin Gilliland, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist.
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So set and enforce boundaries around distracting devices. Designate a bowl in another room for phones and stash yours there. Power down your laptop. Then move into the present with your partner and/or kids. Bring an interesting question to the dinner table. Make it a point to hold eye contact. Initiate a great big family group hug.
Downstate No. 4: After Dinner
Early-evening sunlight signals to your brain to decrease cortisol, the stress hormone, and increase melatonin, a sleep aid.
Going for a 15-minute walk before sunset helps to further ease you into the restorative, pre-bed downstate, says Mednick. When you’re back home, ensure you’re not taking in excess blue light, which can jolt you out of the downstate.
If the idea of wearing blue-light-blocking glasses, like Mednick’s recommended Swanwick Classic Night Swannies ($79; swanwicksleep.com), sounds silly, fine. Your alternative is avoiding screens altogether.
Downstate No. 5: Bedtime
Sleep is your body’s most powerful downstate.
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Mednick recommends that you go to bed by 10:00 p.m. every night. That’s because you experience your most restorative chunk of rest during the first deep wave of sleep, she ex-plains. The later you go to bed, the more that wave is compressed.
“When you align the downstate of your autonomic nervous system with that first period of nighttime sleep, your whole restorative system resonates,” Mednick says.“You get the most recovery from the day before, and you set yourself up to be best prepared the coming morning.”
The good thing is, this can be easy—as long as you’ve already followed all the downstate-enhancing tips in the steps before this one.
A version of this article originally appeared in the July/August 2022 issue of Men’s Health.
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