In SELF’s Sleeping With… sequence, we ask individuals from completely different profession paths, backgrounds, and phases of life how they make sleep magic occur.

Contemporary off a breakout season with the Los Angeles Sparks, WNBA guard-forward Rae Burrell has much more pleasure in entrance of her: She’s serving to launch Unmatched, a brand new player-owned, three-on-three ladies’s basketball league bringing collectively a few of the largest names in hoops—and paying them the highest common salaries in ladies’s sports activities historical past.

When Burrell’s agent approached her with the Unmatched proposal the evening earlier than the Sparks’s ultimate sport in Minnesota final fall, “it was actually thrilling information for me,” Burrell, 24, who was named to Unmatched’s Vinyl staff, tells SELF. “Attending to know different gamers that I haven’t actually been round within the WNBA has been actually enjoyable.”

To prep for Unmatched—which is able to pilot a brand-new type of three-on-three on a shorter full courtroom—Burrell has been working with Vinyl coach Teresa Weatherspoon (a.ok.a. “T-Spoon”) to sharpen her abilities and adapt her type to a compressed format. To date, she’s having fun with herself. “There’s extra alternatives to play within the house and present what you convey to the sport,” she says. In addition to, she says, it comes with an enhanced sense of “togetherness”: “Since there’s solely six of us [per team], there’s not as many individuals to lean on, in order that simply makes our bonds even stronger with the few those who we do have.”

In relation to exercises, Burrell has been lifting 4 days per week to keep up her muscle, emphasizing huge compound workouts like squats, bench presses, fowl canine rows, and pulldowns, and has additionally penciled in a bunch of velocity drills to enhance her acceleration. And naturally, she’s been needing loads of sleep to enrich all that onerous work. “Generally your physique simply needs to remain up, however I attempt to guarantee that I’m in mattress and prepared to fall asleep by a minimum of 12 a.m.,” she says. Learn on to learn the way else the WNBA star and Unmatched launcher winds down for mattress after an extended day of coaching—from her go-to rest methods to her multistep skincare routine.

Main as much as mattress, I make sure that to get in an excellent dinner.

I attempt to maintain dinner round 6 p.m.-ish, 7 p.m., as a result of I don’t need to eat too near mattress. Often, my dinner relies on if the following day is a sport day or apply day, however both means, I strive to ensure I get in protein, carbs, and greens one way or the other.

If it’s a sport day, I’ll get some pasta or some rooster in to offer me some vitality. If I’m doing pasta, I actually prefer to maintain it easy and do some spaghetti and meatballs—I imply, that’s only a basic. After which for the rooster dish, I normally simply do barbecue rooster or grilled rooster after which have candy potatoes on the aspect.