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In our Sleeping With… series, we ask people from different career paths, backgrounds, and stages of life how they make sleep magic happen.
Snowboarder Hailey Langland is ready for these Olympic Games to go a bit differently than the last. During her first Olympics in 2018 at the PyeongChang Games, when she was just 17 years old, she placed 6th in slopestyle and 14th in the big-air categories—not quite the result the San Clemente, California, native was hoping for.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself in PyeongChang,” Langland tells SELF days after she finished fourth at the Visa Big Air World Cup in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, in December. “I wouldn’t say that I let other people down. I definitely let myself down with the result that I got.”
Still, those 6th- and 14th-place finishes proved to be an invaluable learning experience for Langland, and something she now calls upon as she prepares to represent Team USA once again.
Heading into the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the now-21-year-old aims to enter her second Games better prepared mentally, looking to “make the most fun” this time around rather than focusing on the pressure of high-stakes performance.
“I’ve grown in the last four years and my riding has grown the last four years, so I’m really excited,” Langland says. “Honestly, I just want to do it for me this time.”
Langland has plenty to be excited for. After all, she’s been dominating on snowboarding’s world stage since her early teens, so taking that to the Olympic level seems only fitting. At 14 years old, the Red Bull athlete won her first World Cup Grand Prix. Two years later she became an X Games big-air champion by landing the cab double cork 1080—a difficult trick that involves two flips and three rotations—making her the first woman to complete the trick in an X Games competition. Then in 2019 she took home a silver medal in slopestyle at the championship in Aspen.
Fast-forward to December 2021, when Langland earned the top finish for the U.S. snowboard team at Visa Big Air by landing two new tricks for the first time: the cab frontside 900 indy and the frontside 900 weddle—tricks she spent months learning and honing at her training camp in Austria prior to the competition. She scored 123.5 points, placing fourth and narrowly missing the podium.
“This jump was just perfect, and I ended up trying [the tricks] and landed every one that I tried,” Langland says about her performance. It was this showing that helped Langland earn a spot on the slopestyle and big-air snowboard team this winter.
As the days to Beijing inch closer, Langland sat down with SELF to discuss how her nighttime routine fuels her recovery so she can always hit the slopes in top form.
I make my bed every morning, which helps my early bedtime seem more inviting.
I’m definitely a wake-up-and-make-the-bed kind of person. My stuff is a mess—my clothes and board bag are everywhere—but my bed has to be made because there’s nothing better than coming home and getting into a made bed when it’s bedtime. It’s super inviting. I love linen bedding and just bought a complete bedding set from Parachute.
I get tired by around 8 p.m. Especially when it’s cold, your body is working more to produce heat. My nights are pretty routine—eat dinner, hang out for a little bit, watch TV, and catch up on emails. If I need to, sometimes I’ll stretch just before bed, but nothing over 20 minutes.
I’m usually asleep by 9 p.m. I definitely go to sleep earlier than when I was younger, and I really strive to get eight hours. I feel like when I get that full eight hours, I wake up feeling ready to go and less groggy.
I’m usually a really good sleeper, but competitions can mess with it.
My boyfriend likes to say that I could literally fall asleep anywhere, and I think it’s pretty much true. I could be at a concert, and I will fall asleep if my body is telling me to sleep. I did fall asleep at the first football game I ever went to, and I got made fun of by some local dudes who were watching the game behind us. I had just flown in from Europe that morning and I was so jet-lagged. I was asleep at the football game while everyone was cheering. I think some of my friends have photos of me actually asleep.
Typically I sleep really well. This week in particular, I did really well all night, except for the night before finals. I was excited and just ready for it, so I was kind of tossing and turning a little bit. I definitely didn’t go to bed until midnight or so because I was just so antsy and ready for the day to start.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t necessarily sleep as well the night before the contests I do well at. And the ones my sleep is on target for, I may not perform as well the next day for them. Honestly, though, it’s hard to say, because I used to have a Fitbit, and my sleep score would always hit the 80s to 90s. So even if I felt like I didn’t sleep very well, I think I’m probably still getting above average sleep.
I lost my Fitbit, and I’m super interested in getting the Oura Smart Ring because a lot of my friends are using them and they’re not as bulky.
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I have sensitive skin, so my skin-care routine contained a lot of trial and error.
I’ve pretty much tried every product under the sun labeled “sensitive” and “hypoallergenic.” I’ve always had super-sensitive skin, and it’s always been very particular. It’s not so much that there were ingredients I couldn’t use, but more like brands of products that would bother my skin.
I have so many girlfriends in this sport, and I always ask them what products they’re using. But their skin is so different from mine, so a lot of the time what they’re using doesn’t work for my skin. It’s taken me about four or five years to hone a routine that works. Last year was really a big trial-and-error year for me. I just completely stopped using a lot of skin-care products, except for moisturizer, for a good month straight. I definitely saw results and noticed less irritation.
For my skin, less really is more.
When I was younger, I was trying every single skin-care product I could possibly find, like toner and scrubs and weird moisturizers and things like that. I’m surprised at how it’s evolved. I used to have an entire bag just for skin-care products. Now I use just a few.
For example, up until about two years ago, I used drop oils on my skin all the time because I’m in such a dry climate for months out of the year, and oil was the only thing that was working for my face. But when it came to my eyelids, it was too much oil, and I used to have a lot of milia on my eyelids. Milia look almost like a pimple, but they’re completely white, hard, and they don’t go away as easily. I used to scour the internet to see how to get rid of them and never found solid answers. I remember being so upset thinking I’m just going to live with this forever.
But I finally saw a difference at the beginning of last year, which I think has to do with giving up those oils. [The milia have] almost completely gone away now—I have maybe one to two on my eyelids. I would love to share that because I know I was so bummed not getting an answer on how to get them to go away naturally.
My nighttime facial routine is super gentle.
Most nights I go to bed without washing my face with cleanser, or really even having a set routine besides brushing my teeth—I use Crest Charcoal Whitening Therapy toothpaste. I typically only wash my face once a week because my skin gets so dry from the cold weather.
When I do, I start by double cleansing with Dermalogica’s precleanse. Then I follow that with their special cleansing gel. If it’s pretty late or I just don’t feel like putting in the extra steps, I’ll just use the daily microfoliant from Dermalogica instead.
And then for moisture, if I need a little extra, I’ll use their smart response serum right before putting on their skin smoothing cream. Usually I use the skin smoothing cream on its own, but sometimes being in the mountains and at these higher altitudes, you could definitely use a little bit more moisturizing. Over time I’ve been working out what works for me, and these have been my holy grails for the winter.
Right before I jump into bed, that’s usually when I’ll put on lip balm. I use a brand that I found in Europe called Labello, and it’s got SPF 30 in it. Then I'll put on some body lotion. I use Frank Body Glide ‘N' Go body oil stick. It’s really nice because it’s in the shape of a deodorant: You just glide it on your skin. You can rub it in if you want, but I usually just leave it, so it’s super tacky.
I’m really lucky I don’t usually get breakouts. It’s usually an allergic reaction if I do get them. But I only deal with maybe a pimple or two. When I was younger, I used to get so embarrassed and I would try to hide them. I’d cover it with makeup even if it was just one pimple, and now I just don’t do anything. I just kind of let them live their life for a week and then they’ll go away. I’ve found that it’s so much easier to live with the skin I have, support it, and not fight it.
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