After Years of Insomnia, Here’s How Lindsey Vonn Gets a Good Night’s Sleep
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Skiing is all about finding your balance. As one of the most decorated American skiers of all time, Lindsey Vonn was pretty good at it, racking up three Olympic medals and 13 World Championship medals over the course of her 19-year career. Now that she’s retired, balance is still a goal of hers, but it looks a little different now than when she was racing down mountains.
In 2023, Vonn tells SheKnows, she spent more than 150 days away from home, traveling for work. “And that’s in a lot of different countries, as well,” the Olympic champion-turned-businesswoman says. “I need to be able to balance it better… There’s always going to be work to be had, but it’s a matter of finding time for yourself.”
Relaxation was on the schedule over the holidays at Vonn’s house in Utah, but for the former elite athlete, that doesn’t necessarily mean rotting in her bed every day. Vonn tries to get to the gym “as much as I can,” she says, even if it’s a 10-minute workout in her hotel room while she’s on the road. “That is something that helps me mentally as well as physically,” Vonn explains. “It helps get my equilibrium right when I can get into the gym first thing.”
Unplugging is also key. “Reading a book for 20 minutes or watching my favorite TV show for an hour, just simple things like that where I can just disconnect and recharge,” Vonn explains.
Vonn also tries to get as much sleep as she can. As a longtime sufferer of insomnia, she knows the value of it.
The ski champion began experiencing insomnia after undergoing knee surgery in 2013. She’d torn her ACL and MCL and had “a bunch of fractures,” Vonn remembers. “I was just in a lot of pain.” On top of that, Vonn says, “I knew if I wanted to get back to the Olympics that next winter, that I had to sleep. And the combination of the pressure of sleeping and the pain that I was in just got me in this really bad downward spiral of not sleeping.”
For Vonn, that meant six to seven hours of sleep a night, altogether. For a professional athlete who was used to sleeping nine, 10, or 11 hours every night, plus naps, that wasn’t nearly enough.
“When you’re not sleeping well, you start the day off behind,” Vonn says. “It took me so long to get going in the morning.” She would force herself to do an interval workout on her bike first thing in the morning “just so I could get my brain to function,” Vonn remembers. The insomnia got even worse after Vonn retired in 2019. “I wasn’t physically as active, so I didn’t have that physical tiredness that I would normally get,” she recalls. “My mind was always going and I was anxious.”
Vonn now uses a prescription sleep medication, QUIVIVIQ. She says it helps her “fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer,” and the effect that’s had on her life has been massive. “I wake up and it’s a completely different feeling now than it used to be,” she says. “I don’t feel like I’m already behind the eight ball. I’m ready to conquer the day and that’s what I need. I’m a go-getter, I’m a do-er, and I need sleep to be able to do that.”
Just as important is Vonn’s nightly wind-down routine. When she’s getting ready for bed, she’ll light a candle or, if she’s on the road, use a room scent that helps her feel like she’s at home. She’ll read a book, take her QUIVIVIQ, and finally shut her eyes for the night.
“Everyone wants something magical,” Vonn says of her sleep solutions. “You still need to take care of yourself. You need to have these routines that are gonna help you get in the right state of mind to sleep.”
As an athlete and a self-described “pretty stubborn” person, Vonn thought she could take care of her sleep issues herself. Finally talking to her doctor about it was “the best thing I’ve ever done,” she says, and she recommends anyone else struggling with insomnia or other sleep issues to do the same. “Most people just think not sleeping is OK and it’s just a part of life and we should just deal with it, and it’s absolutely not. It’s not OK.”
Vonn’s goal in sharing her insomnia story is to encourage others to seek help and find their own solution. “Without sleep, you’re not your best self and I definitely wasn’t,” she says. “Definitely life has changed a lot for me now.”
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