back to indexSleep Toolkit: Tools for Optimizing Sleep & Sleep-Wake Timing | Huberman Lab Podcast #84
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Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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where we discuss science and science-based tools
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for everyday life.
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I'm Andrew Huberman,
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and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
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at Stanford School of Medicine.
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Today, we're talking all about sleep
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and how to optimize your sleep.
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This is a topic we've covered previously on this podcast
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in the episode called Master Your Sleep.
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However, since the airing of that episode,
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there's been some terrific new science to come out.
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I've also received thousands,
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yes, literally thousands of questions
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related to the specific protocols covered in that episode,
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as well as in the episode on jet lag and shift work.
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And while today's episode is not specifically
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about jet lag and shift work,
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we are going to cover tools that will allow you
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to shift your schedule if you need to for work or travel.
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And we will also cover tools
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that will allow you to fall back asleep
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if you happen to wake up in the middle of the night,
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or if you get a poor night's sleep,
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how to actually recover from that poor night's sleep
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more quickly, and yes indeed,
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even replace sleep that you've lost.
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So today's episode is going to be filled
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with practical tools.
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We will touch on some of the underlying science,
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but it's really designed to be a practical toolkit
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for optimizing your sleep,
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depending on your specific sleep needs.
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Various times throughout today's episode,
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I will refer to studies that form the backbone
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of the tools that I'll be describing,
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but whereas most of the podcast episodes here
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tend to be deep scientific mechanism,
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and then tools, scientific mechanism,
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and tools today, I'm mainly going to focus
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on the practical tools that anyone, indeed,
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all people I believe should use
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in order to optimize their sleep.
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Why should everybody want to optimize their sleep
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and put considerable effort into optimizing their sleep?
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Well, put simply, sleep is the foundation of mental health,
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physical health, and performance of all kinds,
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cognitive performance, physical performance, et cetera.
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It also controls things like our immune system,
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wound healing, our skin health, and our appearance.
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Whether or not we can think clearly or not,
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whether or not we will live
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as long as we possibly can or not,
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whether or not we suffer
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from dramatic age-related cognitive decline or not,
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in other words, whether or not we keep our memory as we age,
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I could go on and on about all the terrible things
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that can happen to somebody if they don't sleep well.
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Thanks to the great work of Professor Matt Walker
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at University of California, Berkeley,
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and the wonderful book that he wrote, Why We Sleep,
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I think the world is largely on board now
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that sleep is critical to our health,
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our mental health, our physical health, and our performance.
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But what's not often discussed is how great life is,
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that is, how much more focused and energetic
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and how positive our mood gets
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when we are sleeping for the appropriate amount of time
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at the appropriate depth
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and when we are doing that regularly.
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Basically, everything in life gets better
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when we're sleeping well.
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So today, I'm going to teach you the tools
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that will allow you to optimize your sleep,
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that is, get to sleep and stay asleep,
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fall back asleep if you wake up in the middle of the night,
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and adjust your sleep given the various life demands
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you may be experiencing.
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I'm pleased to announce that the Huberman Lab Podcast
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is now partnered with Momentus Supplements.
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We partnered with Momentus for several important reasons.
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First of all, they ship internationally
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because we know that many of you are located
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outside of the United States, that's valuable.
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Second of all, and perhaps most important,
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the quality of their supplements is second to none,
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both in terms of purity and precision
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of the amounts of the ingredients.
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Third, we've really emphasized supplements
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that are single ingredient supplements
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and that are supplied in dosages
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that allow you to build a supplementation protocol
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that's optimized for cost,
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that's optimized for effectiveness,
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and that you can add things and remove things
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from your protocol in a way
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that's really systematic and scientific.
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This is really hard to do if you're taking blends
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of different supplements,
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or if the dosages are such that you can't titrate,
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or that is adjust the dosages of a given supplement.
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So by using single ingredient supplements,
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you can really build out the supplement kit
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that's ideal for you and your specific needs.
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If you'd like to see the supplements
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that we partner with Momentus on,
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you can go to livemomentus.com slash Huberman.
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There you'll see those supplements,
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and just keep in mind that we are constantly expanding
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the library of supplements available through Momentus
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on a regular basis.
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Again, that's livemomentus.com slash Huberman.
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Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast
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is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
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It is, however, part of my desire and effort
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to bring zero cost to consumer information about science
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and science-related tools to the general public.
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In keeping with that theme,
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I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
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Our first sponsor is Inside Tracker.
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Inside Tracker is a personalized nutrition platform
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that analyzes data from your blood and DNA
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to help you better meet your health goals.
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I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done
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for the simple reason that many of the factors
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that impact your immediate and long-term health
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can only be analyzed from a quality blood test.
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And nowadays, with the advent of modern DNA tests,
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you can also get insight into, for instance,
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what your biological age is
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and compare that to your chronological age.
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And of course, your biological age
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is really the age that counts.
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The problem with a lot of blood tests
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and DNA tests out there, however,
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is that you get information back
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about the levels of metabolic factors,
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lipids, hormones, et cetera,
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but you don't know what to do with that information.
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Inside Tracker makes that all very easy to navigate.
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They have a personalized platform.
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So this is a web portal where you can go,
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you'll see the numbers from your blood tests and DNA tests,
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and then it will tell you, for instance,
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how you could adjust various aspects of your nutrition
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or your exercise or supplementation
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in order to bring those numbers
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into the ranges that are best for you.
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If you'd like to try Inside Tracker,
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you can go to insidetracker.com slash Huberman
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to get 20% off any of Inside Tracker's plans.
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That's insidetracker.com slash Huberman to get 20% off.
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Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep.
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Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers
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with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capabilities.
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It turns out that your body temperature
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and your ability to fall and stay asleep
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are very closely related.
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If your body does not drop by one to three degrees,
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you are simply not going to get into deep sleep
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or stay in deep sleep.
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And waking up, it also turns out,
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is related to body temperature.
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Every time you wake up in the morning,
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your body is warming up in order to wake you up.
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And this has an enormous number of hormonal and metabolic
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and other cascades that are vitally important,
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not just to what happens while you sleep,
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but your health and your energy
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and focus throughout the day.
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Eight Sleep is an incredible device.
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It's one that I've been using for six months or so,
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and it's completely transformed my sleep.
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And I already thought I was sleeping pretty well.
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The way it works is that you can cool or heat your mattress
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according to different times throughout the night.
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So for instance, you can cool your mattress
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if you tend to run warm,
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and that will help you fall and stay deeply asleep.
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And then toward morning,
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you can have the mattress programmed,
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or I should say the mattress cover programmed
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so that you warm up your sleeping environment
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and you wake up when you want to wake up.
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If you've been sleeping pretty well,
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but waking up in the middle of the night,
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you might also find that by cooling your mattress
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even further toward the middle of your sleep bout,
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well, you'll stay in deep sleep much longer.
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If you'd like to try Eight Sleep,
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you can go to eightsleep.com slash Huberman
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to check out the PodPro cover and save $150 at checkout.
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Eight Sleep currently ships within the US, Canada,
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and the United Kingdom.
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Again, that's eightsleep.com slash Huberman
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to save $150 at checkout.
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Today's episode is also brought to us by Element.
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Element is an electrolyte drink
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that has everything you need
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in order to get your brain and body to function at its best,
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but none of the things you don't, in particular, sugar.
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Electrolytes are vitally important
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to the way that your neurons, your nerve cells work,
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and indeed to the way that all the cells of your body work.
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But your nervous system and your neurons
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particularly depend on electrolytes
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because you need the electrolytes,
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sodium, magnesium, and potassium in the proper ratios
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in order for those nerve cells
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to fire what are called action potentials,
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which are the electrical signals
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that allow your neurons to work
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and to allow you to do everything
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from remembering information
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to moving your muscles deliberately.
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When you exercise, or even if you don't,
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you can get quite low on electrolytes,
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especially on a hot day, you can get dehydrated.
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There are a lot of different ways
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to replenish your fluids and electrolytes,
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and there are a lot of different electrolyte drinks
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out there, but many of them contain a lot of sugar.
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And some of those that don't contain a lot of sugar
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don't have the proper ratios
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of sodium, magnesium, and potassium.
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If you'd like to try Element,
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you can go to Drink Element, that's lmnt.com slash Huberman,
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to claim a free Element sample pack
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with your first purchase.
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Again, that's drinkelement.com slash Huberman
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to claim a free sample pack.
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Let's talk about sleep and tools to optimize your sleep.
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I want you to conceptualize yourself
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as contained within a room that has only very few windows
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or very few entry points.
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What do I mean by this?
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Well, your brain and your nervous system
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control whether or not you move or don't move.
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They control whether or not you're digesting food
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or you're not digesting food.
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They control whether or not you're stressed or not stressed,
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happy or sad, et cetera.
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All of that stuff that controls all that stuff
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is housed inside your skin and skull, et cetera.
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That might seem pretty obvious,
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but what that means is that for your brain and body
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to feel alert and focused, ready to move and exercise
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or do some work, or if your brain and body
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are going to lie down and go to sleep,
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well, that brain and body needs cues.
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It needs inputs to determine
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when to do those different things.
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And those cues and inputs arrive through a defined set
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of what I'll call stimuli,
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but you can also think of these as levers or tools.
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The main levers and tools that are going to allow you
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to control when you are awake and when you are asleep
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and to get better sleep every single night
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are light, literally photons, light energy,
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could be from sunlight, could be from artificial light.
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We will discuss those particulars in a moment,
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as well as darkness.
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That is the absence of light.
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So we've got light and dark.
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Those are two very powerful tools
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to encourage your nervous system to be in one state
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or another, meaning awake or asleep.
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Temperature is another tool or lever.
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Turns out that when your body is cooling down,
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you have a greater tendency to fall and stay asleep.
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In fact, every night when you actually sleep,
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your body is dropping by one to three degrees,
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and that drop in temperature is required.
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It's like a gate that your body has to go through
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in order for you to get into sleep.
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And in fact, the converse is also true.
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If your body heats up by one to three degrees or so,
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So you've got light, dark, temperature, food.
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And when we say food, we mean what we eat,
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when we eat, and the amount that we eat.
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Okay, so light, dark, temperature, food, exercise.
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And of course, exercise comes in different forms.
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We can do cardiovascular exercise.
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That can be low intensity, long distance exercise.
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It can be high intensity,
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so-called high intensity interval training.
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It could be weight training, it could be yoga,
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it could be swimming, any number of different activities.
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But exercise in general causes an increase
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in body temperature and tends to make us more alert,
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not just during the exercise,
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but in the immediate hours after that exercise.
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Exercise does some other things
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that relate to our sleep as well,
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and we'll talk about those today
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and how you can leverage them.
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Another potent lever for adjusting your sleepiness
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and wakefulness is caffeine.
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This, of course, comes as no surprise to people,
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but why and how caffeine works
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might come as a surprise very briefly.
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We have a molecule in our body called adenosine,
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and the longer we have been awake,
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the more adenosine builds up in our brain and body,
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and adenosine is part of the reason why we get sleepy.
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Caffeine effectively operates
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as a adenosine antagonist.
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It works by basically occupying the receptor for adenosine,
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so it's a little bit of a convoluted mechanism,
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but basically all you need to know
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is that caffeine prevents the actions of adenosine.
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That's one of the reasons why caffeine makes us feel alert.
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But how much caffeine we drink and when we drink caffeine
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turns out to be vitally important
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for adjusting our wakefulness and for optimizing our sleep.
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So we'll talk about that as well.
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The other category of lever tools,
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which are immensely powerful for optimizing sleep,
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There now exist as many as eight different supplements
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that can powerfully modulate sleep in healthy ways
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and that have huge margins for safety.
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We're going to talk about what those supplements are.
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In previous episodes of this podcast
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and as a guest on other podcasts,
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I've talked about three particular supplements,
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magnesium threonate, apigenin, and theanine,
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which together can really enhance the speed
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at which one falls asleep
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and people's ability to stay asleep
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and to really get into those deep stages of sleep,
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they're particularly restorative.
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Today, we're going to talk a little bit more
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about each of those three
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and how they can best be used in combination.
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We are also going to touch on some other supplements
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that I have not talked about much before, if at all.
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Things like glycine and GABA, as well as inositol.
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Many people are going to find inositol interesting
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and of particular use to them,
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especially if they're following a low carbohydrate diet
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or if they are fasting before sleep
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or just trying to avoid eating too close to bedtime
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and yet they're having a hard time falling asleep.
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Inositol also turns out to be especially useful
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for people who have a tendency to wake up
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in the middle of the night
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and have a hard time falling back asleep.
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It also has some interesting and potent effects
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on anxiety throughout the day.
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So we're going to talk about inositol as a tool as well.
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And then last in our list of general categories
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of levers and tools for optimizing sleep are digital tools.
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When we say digital tools, I don't necessarily mean devices.
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What I mean are things like non-sleep deep rest scripts.
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These are zero cost scripts that you listen to
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that take your body through some deep relaxation
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and that can help people both fall asleep, stay asleep,
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fall back asleep, and get better at sleeping.
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And also going to talk about digital tools
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related to self-hypnosis.
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This is distinctly different from stage hypnosis.
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So I know some of you hear hypnosis and you think,
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oh, you know, people, you know, clucking like chickens
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and doing things that are outside their control.
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That's not at all what I'm referring to here.
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I'm talking about clinically and research supported tools
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that have been shown to enhance people's ability
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to fall and stay asleep
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and that can get you far better at sleeping.
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So again, to recap the list of levers and tools,
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we've got light and dark,
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that includes the intensity of light,
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the timing of light, et cetera.
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We've got temperature, we have food, we have exercise,
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caffeine, supplements, and digital tools,
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not just limited to devices,
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but zero cost tools that you can access on YouTube
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and elsewhere in various apps
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that can really help you optimize your sleep.
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So today we're going to talk about all of these.
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I really want to provide you as many tools as possible,
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give you the logic behind each of those tools
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and when and how best to apply them
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so that you can develop the sleep toolkit
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that's ideal for your sleep needs.
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As we head into our description
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of tools for optimizing sleep,
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let's consider what the perfect 24 hour cycle
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Let's start this 24 hour cycle
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with when you wake up in the morning.
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So for some of you, that will be 5 a.m.
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For others of you, that will be 10 a.m.
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Most people I believe wake up sometime
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between 6.30 a.m. and 8.30 a.m.
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But regardless of when you wake up in the morning,
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one of the first things that happens
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is that your body temperature is increasing
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and that's just going to happen naturally.
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Some of it is going to be the consequence
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of your moving around a bit,
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but really the increase in body temperature
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is one of the main triggers for why you woke up
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in the first place.
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That increase in body temperature in turn
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causes an increase in the release of a hormone
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Cortisol is often discussed as a stress hormone,
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but it's not just associated with stress.
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It also enhances your immune system
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provided cortisol is elevated at the right times
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and the right time for cortisol to be elevated
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is when you first wake up in the morning.
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That increase in cortisol
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is also going to increase metabolism.
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It's also going to increase your ability to focus mentally
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and for you to move your body.
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So again, cortisol is often demonized
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and considered this bad thing.
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And indeed you don't want cortisol to be chronically
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or consistently elevated throughout the day or night,
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but you do want cortisol to reach its peak early in the day
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right about the time you wake up.
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One way that you can ensure that that cortisol peak
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occurs early in the day,
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right about the time that you wake up
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is to view bright light, ideally from sunlight
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within the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking.
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View bright sunlight within the first 30 to 60 minutes
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I'll get into all the caveats about what happens
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if you wake up before the sun is out,
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what if you live in the UK where there is no sun
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or people claim there is no sun.
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Hate to tell you this folks, but there is sun in the UK.
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We'll talk about all that.
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But everybody, whether or not you live in a cloudy place
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or a sunny place, whether or not there's cloud cover
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or not that day should really strive to get bright light
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in your eyes, ideally from sunlight
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within the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking.
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The reason for that is very simple.
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You want to trigger that cortisol increase to occur
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very early in your day.
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And you don't want that cortisol peak to happen later
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which is what will happen if you wait to get outside
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The reason for this is that you have a set of neurons,
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nerve cells in your eye.
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They're called intrinsically photosensitive
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melanopsin cells, but you do not need to know that name.
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Those neurons respond best to bright light
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and especially right after waking early in the day,
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they are best able to signal to a set of neurons
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that reside over the roof of your mouth
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called the suprachiasmatic nucleus,
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which is a cluster of neurons that then sends
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a huge number of other signals, electrical and chemical
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out to your entire body that triggers
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that cortisol increase, provides a wake up signal
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for your brain and body and sets in motion a timer
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for you to fall asleep later that night.
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So again, we're not trying to go
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into too much mechanism today.
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We are trying to really hammer on tools
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and I'll substantiate those tools just a bit
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with some mechanism, but here's what you do
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or at least here's what I do.
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I wake up in the morning and I want to reach for my phone.
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But I know that even if I were to crank up the brightness
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on that phone screen, it's not bright enough
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to trigger that cortisol spike.
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And for me to be at my most alert and focused
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throughout the day and to optimize my sleep at night.
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So what I do is I get out of bed and I go outside
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and if it's a bright clear day and the sun is low in the sky
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or the sun is starting to get overhead,
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what we call low solar angle,
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then I know I'm getting outside at the right time.
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If there's cloud cover and I can't see the sun,
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I also know I'm doing a good thing
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because it turns out, especially on cloudy days,
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you want to get outside and get as much light energy
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or photons in your eyes.
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But let's say it's a very clear day
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and I can see where the sun is.
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I do not need to stare directly into the sun.
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If it's very low in the sky, I might do that
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because it's not going to be very painful to my eyes.
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However, if the sun is a little bit brighter
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and a little bit higher in the sky,
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sometimes it can be painful to look at.
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So the way to get this sunlight viewing early in the day
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is to look toward the sun.
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If it's too bright to look at directly,
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well, then don't do that.
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You just look toward it, but not directly at it.
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It's absolutely fine to blink.
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In fact, I encourage you to blink
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whenever you feel the impulse to blink.
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Never look at any light, sunlight or otherwise
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that's so bright that it's painful to look at
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because you can damage your eyes.
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But for this morning sunlight viewing,
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it's best to not wear sunglasses.
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That's right, to not wear sunglasses,
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at least for this morning sunlight viewing.
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It is absolutely fine to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses,
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so-called corrective lenses.
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In fact, those will serve you well in this practice
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or this tool because they will focus the light
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onto your neural retina and onto those melanopsin
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intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells.
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If your eyeglasses or contact lenses have UV protection,
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There's so many different wavelengths of light
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coming from the sun and they are bright enough
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that they will trigger the mechanisms
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that you want triggered at this early time of day.
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So try and get outside,
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ideally within the first five minutes of waking,
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or maybe it's 15 minutes,
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but certainly within the first hour after waking.
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I want to share with you three critical things
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about this tool of morning sunlight viewing.
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First of all, this is not some woo biology thing.
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This is grounded in the core of our physiology.
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There are literally hundreds, if not thousands
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of quality peer reviewed papers showing that
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light viewing early in the day
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is the most powerful stimulus for wakefulness
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throughout the day
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and it has a powerful positive impact
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on your ability to fall and stay asleep at night.
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So this is really the foundational power tool
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for ensuring a great night's sleep
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and for feeling more awake during the day.
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Second of all, if you wake up before the sun is out,
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you can and probably should flip on artificial lights
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in your internal home environment or apartment
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or wherever you happen to live.
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If your goal is to be awake, right?
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If you wake up at four in the morning
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and you need to be awake,
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well then turn on artificial lights.
link |
Once the sun is out, however, once the sun has risen,
link |
then you still want to get outside and view sunlight.
link |
Some of you will wake up before the sun comes out
link |
and if you're asking whether or not turning
link |
on artificial lights can replace sunlight at those hours,
link |
unfortunately, the answer is no.
link |
Unless you have a very special light,
link |
we'll talk about what kind of light,
link |
the bright artificial lights in your home environment
link |
are not, I repeat, are not going to be sufficiently bright
link |
to turn on the cortisol mechanism
link |
and the other wake-up mechanisms
link |
that you need early in the day.
link |
The diabolical twist, however,
link |
is that those lights in your home or apartment
link |
or even on your phone are bright enough
link |
to disrupt your sleep if you look at them too late at night
link |
or in the middle of the night.
link |
So there's this asymmetry in our retinal,
link |
our eye biology and in our brain's biology,
link |
whereby early in the day, right around waking,
link |
you need a lot of light, a lot of photons,
link |
a lot of light energy and artificial lights
link |
generally just won't accomplish
link |
what you need them to accomplish.
link |
But at night, even a little bit of artificial light
link |
can really mess up your so-called circadian,
link |
your 24 hour clocks and all these mechanisms
link |
that we're talking about.
link |
So if you wake up before the sun is out
link |
and it's still dark,
link |
please turn on as many bright artificial lights
link |
as you possibly can or need,
link |
but then get outside once the sun is out.
link |
On cloudy days, you especially need to get outside.
link |
I repeat, on cloudy days, overcast days,
link |
you especially need to get outside and get sunlight.
link |
You just need to get more of it.
link |
Now, how much light and how much light viewing do you need?
link |
This is going to vary depending on person and place,
link |
literally where you live on earth,
link |
whether or not there's a lot of tree cover,
link |
whether or not you're somebody who has sensitive eyes
link |
or less sensitive eyes.
link |
It's really impossible for me
link |
to give an absolute prescriptive,
link |
but we can give some general guidelines.
link |
In general, on a clear day,
link |
meaning no cloud cover or minimal cloud cover,
link |
you want to get this sunlight exposure to your eyes
link |
for about five minutes or so.
link |
Could be three minutes one day,
link |
could be seven minutes the next day, about five minutes.
link |
On a day where there's cloud cover,
link |
so the sun is just peeking through the clouds
link |
or it's more dense cloud cover,
link |
you want to get about 10 minutes of sunlight exposure
link |
to your eyes early in the day.
link |
And on days that are really densely overcast,
link |
or maybe even a rainy,
link |
you're going to want to get as much as 20 or 30 minutes
link |
of sunlight exposure.
link |
Another key thing is do not forget about,
link |
just don't try and get this sunlight exposure
link |
through a windshield of a car or a window,
link |
whether or not it's tinted or otherwise.
link |
It takes far too long.
link |
It's simply not going to trigger the relevant mechanisms.
link |
You would be standing there all day
link |
trying to get enough light into your eyes
link |
from the morning sunlight.
link |
And by then the sun will have already moved
link |
from low solar angle to overhead,
link |
and it simply won't work for all sorts of mechanisms
link |
related to your circadian rhythm functions.
link |
So just don't try and do it
link |
through a windshield sunglasses or a window.
link |
It's just not going to work.
link |
If the weather is really bad, or for whatever reason,
link |
safety reasons you cannot get outside,
link |
well then I suppose try and get near a window.
link |
That would be the last last resort,
link |
but you really want to get outside
link |
to get the sunlight exposure.
link |
Now, if you live in a part of the world
link |
where it's extremely dark and overcast,
link |
or the weather won't let you outside,
link |
or you live in a cave or some other small box
link |
that does not allow any natural light into it
link |
for whatever reason,
link |
well then you're going to need
link |
a replacement for that sunlight.
link |
And there are sunlight simulators or daylight simulators
link |
that you can purchase.
link |
Those are quite expensive in general.
link |
And therefore I suggest cheaper options
link |
that work just as well because they get just as bright.
link |
Things like ring lights that are sold
link |
in order for people to take selfies and this kind of thing.
link |
A drawing LED tablet will work pretty well.
link |
I actually have one of those
link |
and I put it on my desk all morning,
link |
even though I still get outside
link |
and look at sunlight first thing in the morning.
link |
Again, also especially I should say on cloudy days.
link |
We do not have any affiliation to any ring lights
link |
or LED lights or these panels.
link |
So we will provide a link to a couple of different options
link |
if you want to explore the various options.
link |
I don't know what people's different budgets are.
link |
I don't know where people live.
link |
I just know that many of our listeners
link |
live in locations throughout the world
link |
where for instance, during the winter,
link |
it gets very, very dark
link |
so they can't get sufficient sunlight.
link |
But get that morning light, ideally from sunlight
link |
and take into account all the specific points
link |
that I've given you here.
link |
And I should say, enjoy this practice.
link |
It's really nice to get outside first thing in the morning
link |
and get the sunlight.
link |
In fact, when you start doing this,
link |
you'll notice that your body
link |
will start to feel more energized
link |
and it will feel more energized more quickly.
link |
You'll actually start to notice this mechanism
link |
kicking in each day,
link |
especially if you're paying attention to your physiology.
link |
So enjoy this practice of getting outside.
link |
Yes, you can take your morning beverage outside.
link |
Yes, you can take your dog with you.
link |
In fact, animals intuitively know
link |
to get this morning sunlight.
link |
They actually seek it out at the right times of days.
link |
We human beings need to be told by podcasters
link |
and other people about the science
link |
that supports these kinds of practices.
link |
Our pets apparently do not,
link |
but get outside alone or with somebody,
link |
with your kids, with your dog.
link |
However you go about this practice,
link |
make sure you do this practice
link |
at least 80% of the days of your life.
link |
If you miss a day, for instance,
link |
your bedridden for a day,
link |
try and get next to a window.
link |
Let's say you are traveling or for whatever reason,
link |
you are not able to get outside first thing in the morning.
link |
Well, then try to get twice as much sunlight in your eyes,
link |
or I should say, extend the duration of sunlight viewing
link |
in the morning for twice as long the following day.
link |
This is a slow integrative mechanism
link |
that underlies this whole thing of wakefulness
link |
during the day and sleep at night due to sunlight viewing.
link |
And if you miss a day, you can make up for it the next day,
link |
but you have to get twice as much light
link |
or twice as much duration of light.
link |
If you really want to get technical
link |
and you really want to measure
link |
how much light is in your environment,
link |
you can download a free app, something like Light Meter,
link |
and that will allow your phone to act as a bit
link |
of a light meter and give you a pretty accurate measurement
link |
of how many lux, which is a measure of brightness,
link |
are in your environment in the morning.
link |
And in general, that's just going to be a good tool
link |
for evaluating your environments.
link |
Here's what I suggest you do.
link |
Wake up in the morning, take Light Meter,
link |
point it at the brightest light in your home
link |
and take a measurement.
link |
And what you'll probably find is it's about 1,000 lux.
link |
Now go outside, and if there's some sunlight out
link |
and there's cloud cover, point it at the sky
link |
and press that button.
link |
You can actually hold it down
link |
and it'll give you a dynamically updated lux measurement.
link |
And what you'll find is like 5,000, 10,000,
link |
sometimes even 90,000 lux,
link |
even though you don't experience it as so much brighter.
link |
And that's because an indoor artificial light
link |
is very concentrated over a small spatial area,
link |
whereas the sunlight is very diffuse.
link |
But it's that diffuse, very bright sunlight,
link |
that photon energy that you really want
link |
that's going to set all the rhythms of your brain and body
link |
in the proper way, not just that cortisol peak,
link |
but it's going to trigger proper metabolism.
link |
It's going to set a timer for you to be able to fall asleep
link |
about 16 hours later and on and on and on.
link |
And I should mention within the on and on and on,
link |
it's also going to suppress any melatonin,
link |
a hormone that makes you sleepy
link |
that happens to be swimming around in your bloodstream
link |
at the time you wake up.
link |
It does a number of other things too,
link |
including interact with the adenosine system
link |
and kind of wash out some of the adenosine
link |
that might still be residual if you didn't sleep enough.
link |
Fundamentally speaking, get that morning sunlight viewing.
link |
I promise you will be grateful that you did.
link |
It makes everybody feel better, feel more alert,
link |
and it will greatly assist with your ability
link |
to fall and stay asleep later that night.
link |
Before we continue with today's discussion,
link |
we're going to take a brief pause
link |
to acknowledge our sponsor, Athletic Greens,
link |
I started taking Athletic Greens way back in 2012,
link |
so I'm delighted that they've been
link |
a sponsor of this podcast.
link |
Athletic Greens contains vitamins, minerals, probiotics,
link |
digestive enzymes, and adaptogens.
link |
So it's got a lot of things in there,
link |
and that's actually the reason I started taking it
link |
and the reason I still take it once or twice a day.
link |
It essentially covers all of my nutritional bases
link |
and the probiotics in particular are important to me
link |
because of the critical importance
link |
of what's called the gut brain axis,
link |
that is neurons and other cell types in the gut,
link |
in the digestive tract that communicate with the brain
link |
and the brain back to the digestive tract
link |
in order to control things like mood, immune function,
link |
hormone function, and on and on.
link |
Whenever somebody has asked me
link |
what's the one supplement they should take,
link |
I always answer Athletic Greens.
link |
I gave that answer long before I ever had this podcast
link |
and it's the answer I still give now
link |
for all the reasons that I detailed just a moment ago.
link |
If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,
link |
you can go to athleticgreens.com slash Huberman
link |
to claim a special offer.
link |
They'll give you five free travel packs
link |
that make it really easy to mix up Athletic Greens
link |
while you're on the road,
link |
plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2,
link |
which are also very important for a huge number
link |
of bodily factors and brain factors
link |
that impact your immediate and long-term health.
link |
Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Huberman
link |
to claim that special offer.
link |
Okay, so now we're still focusing
link |
on this early part of the day when you've woken up,
link |
like the first hour or so after waking.
link |
And we can go to our list of other levers and tools, right?
link |
We have light and dark.
link |
We already talked about light and sunlight in particular.
link |
We've got temperature, food, exercise, caffeine,
link |
supplements, and digital tools.
link |
Now, once you've woken up and you want to be awake, okay?
link |
So this is likely to be early in the day
link |
if you're following a more standard schedule.
link |
You will also want to leverage not just light,
link |
but temperature as a tool.
link |
If you are inclined, it would be wise
link |
to try and increase your core body temperature
link |
a bit more quickly than it would otherwise
link |
if you were to just shuffle around outside,
link |
get your sunlight, maybe read a little bit, et cetera.
link |
And there are two main ways you can do that.
link |
The first way is to get into cold water of some sort.
link |
So this could be a cold shower
link |
of anywhere from one to three minutes.
link |
This could be an ice bath.
link |
If that's your thing, it could be a cold tub,
link |
or if you own a cold tub that's specifically designed
link |
for deliberate cold exposure, get under some cold water.
link |
That will certainly wake you up.
link |
And if you've ever jumped into cold water
link |
or had a cold shower, you know it really wakes you up
link |
because you release adrenaline epinephrine
link |
from both your brain and body.
link |
The body from your adrenals and your brain
link |
from a little cluster of neurons called locus coeruleus.
link |
Again, the names don't matter.
link |
One to three minutes of cold water exposure
link |
will wake you up because of that adrenaline release.
link |
And, and I want to highlight the and,
link |
it will serve to increase your core body temperature.
link |
Your body and brain interact as a bit
link |
of a thermostat system where if you put something cold
link |
on the surface of your body, your brain,
link |
a little cluster of neurons in the so-called
link |
medial preoptic area, act as a thermostat and say,
link |
ah, the external of my body is cold,
link |
and therefore I'm going to heat up my core body temperature.
link |
So this is a little bit paradoxical.
link |
People think, oh, if you get into cold water
link |
or an ice bath, your body temperature is going to drop.
link |
And indeed that's true if you stay in for a while,
link |
but if you just get in for about one to three minutes
link |
or under the cold shower for one to three minutes,
link |
your core body temperature will increase.
link |
So then when you get out of that cold water,
link |
your body temperature is increasing at a rate,
link |
at a slope that's steeper than it would otherwise,
link |
and you're going to feel more alert.
link |
It also has the advantage of increasing,
link |
not just adrenaline, but dopamine,
link |
which is a molecule involved in motivation, focus, et cetera.
link |
So this is great for waking up.
link |
So we've got sunlight,
link |
we've got temperature triggered by cold water,
link |
and we have exercise.
link |
One of the best ways to increase your core body temperature
link |
early in the day is to do exercise.
link |
Now, some of you might choose to do your full-blown workout
link |
for the day first thing when you wake up in the morning.
link |
I always say the best time to exercise,
link |
at least what the research points to,
link |
is immediately when you wake up in the morning
link |
or three hours after waking or 11 hours after waking,
link |
but that's really getting down into optimization
link |
for sake of muscular strength and grip strength,
link |
and it's very hard to give a strict prescriptive.
link |
Here's what I suggest.
link |
If you want to be alert early in the day
link |
and you want to sleep great at night,
link |
get that bright sunlight, get into some cold water,
link |
and if you don't want to get into some cold water,
link |
try and get some movement.
link |
It could be a walk, so you can get your sunlight exposure
link |
while you're taking a walk first thing in the morning.
link |
It could be a light jog, it could be skipping rope.
link |
These days, I skip rope for about 10 minutes or 20 minutes
link |
while looking at the sun,
link |
so I'm trying to layer in these different things
link |
for waking up, and then I take a cold shower afterwards,
link |
that's what I've been doing as of lately,
link |
but I don't do that all year long necessarily.
link |
Or some of you are going to be working out mid-morning,
link |
I sometimes do that,
link |
but try and get your core body temperature increased
link |
first thing in the morning.
link |
And a great way to do that is with the cold water
link |
and or with exercise.
link |
And again, it doesn't have to be your full-blown workout
link |
for the day if you're doing workouts consistently,
link |
which I hope everybody is
link |
because everybody really should exercise
link |
at least, I believe, five or six
link |
or maybe even seven days a week.
link |
For me, it's six days a week, sometimes five,
link |
rarely is it seven.
link |
So get that exercise or even just a modest amount
link |
of movement, walking, jogging, skipping rope,
link |
some light calisthenics,
link |
that will further increase your core body temperature
link |
and help you feel more awake.
link |
Then we have the category of caffeine.
link |
And again, we're just talking about this
link |
early part of the day.
link |
And you might be saying, wait a second,
link |
I thought this was an episode about tools for sleep.
link |
Well, everything that we're talking about doing
link |
in these first 60 to 90 minutes of the day
link |
really set in motion a wave of biological cascades
link |
that carry through the entire day
link |
and into the evening and into the night
link |
and really do serve to optimize sleep.
link |
So just hang in there with me.
link |
And for those of you that are interested in focus
link |
and attention, your ability to learn,
link |
all of these tools and practices
link |
are going to greatly enhance those as well.
link |
So the next category of tool for use early in the day
link |
Caffeine is a very important compound to think about.
link |
I do realize that some people who are prone to anxiety,
link |
especially panic attacks, anxiety attacks,
link |
might avoid caffeine entirely.
link |
That's absolutely fine.
link |
You do not have to drink caffeine.
link |
So what I'm about to describe are ways to leverage caffeine
link |
use to optimize sleep and wakefulness.
link |
If you are comfortable with caffeine, if you like caffeine,
link |
I happen to love caffeine.
link |
I like it in the form of coffee or espresso
link |
or yerba mate tea.
link |
In particular, non-smoked varieties of yerba mate tea
link |
is non-smoked because the smoked varieties
link |
seem to carry some carcinogenic, some cancer causing risk.
link |
There's increasing data on that.
link |
So non-smoked varieties of yerba mate.
link |
So caffeine is something that a lot of people consume
link |
How much depends on your tolerance.
link |
And there's a lot of individual variability here.
link |
Again, caffeine is adenosine antagonist
link |
or effectively works as a adenosine antagonist
link |
and limits sleepiness.
link |
I highly recommend that everybody delay their caffeine
link |
intake for 90 to 120 minutes after waking,
link |
however painful it may be to eventually arrive
link |
at that 90 to 120 minutes after waking.
link |
You want, and I encourage you to clear out
link |
whatever residual adenosine is circulating in your system
link |
in that first 90 to 120 minutes of the day,
link |
get that sunlight exposure, get some movement to wake up
link |
and then, and only then start to ingest caffeine
link |
because what you'll do if you delay caffeine intake
link |
until 90 to 120 minutes after waking
link |
is you will avoid this so-called afternoon crash.
link |
And you may still get a little bit of dip in energy
link |
in the afternoon, but it's not going to be
link |
that massive crash.
link |
I've talked about the reasons for that crash
link |
on previous episodes, but if you delay your caffeine intake
link |
90 to 120 minutes after waking,
link |
you are doing yourself a great service
link |
towards wakefulness and to avoid the crash.
link |
And the afternoon crash has another liability to it,
link |
which is typically people will emerge
link |
from that afternoon crash, either grumpy or groggy,
link |
and then they'll lean into drinking more caffeine,
link |
which can then disrupt their sleep.
link |
So wait 90 to 120 minutes after waking in the morning
link |
to drink caffeine.
link |
And if you drink caffeine at any point throughout the day,
link |
really try and avoid any caffeine,
link |
certainly avoid drinking more than 100 milligrams
link |
of caffeine after 4 p.m.
link |
And probably even better to limit your last caffeine intake
link |
to 3 p.m. or even 2 p.m.
link |
And for many people, shifting that caffeine intake
link |
from immediately after waking in the morning
link |
to 90 to 120 minutes gives them a much longer arc
link |
of energy throughout the day,
link |
and they don't feel the need to drink more caffeine
link |
later in the afternoon.
link |
If you do drink caffeine later in the afternoon,
link |
really try and limit the total amount or drink decaf.
link |
Certainly keep the total amount
link |
to less than 100 milligrams if you are interested
link |
in getting into the best possible sleep.
link |
And I say this knowing that many people,
link |
including myself, can drink a double espresso
link |
with 200 milligrams of caffeine or more at 5 p.m.
link |
or even 6 p.m. or after dinner and still quote unquote,
link |
fall asleep fine or still sleep fine.
link |
However, there are terrific data,
link |
Matt Walker and I talked about this,
link |
and there are more and more papers all the time
link |
that point to the fact that caffeine intake late in the day
link |
after 4 p.m. that is can really disrupt
link |
the architecture of your sleep.
link |
So you might think you're sleeping well,
link |
but you're not sleeping nearly as well as you could
link |
if you avoided caffeine in those afternoon hours.
link |
Now, some of you might be doing your main bout of exercise
link |
first thing in the morning,
link |
and you want your caffeine before that bout of exercise.
link |
In that case, I say, go for it.
link |
Drink your caffeine, do your workout right after waking up.
link |
I don't have a problem with that.
link |
You will find however,
link |
that you're going to get an early afternoon dip in energy
link |
and that dip in energy is going to be substantial
link |
because it's going to be a dip in energy
link |
that naturally follows that workout from the morning.
link |
So it's dependent on temperature,
link |
and it's going to be related to the elimination
link |
of that adenosine blockade by caffeine.
link |
So you're getting a kind of a one, two punch
link |
on your energy levels by taking a lot of caffeine
link |
and exercising early in the day.
link |
You can sort of expect that you're going to get
link |
a drop in energy in the early afternoon.
link |
That's okay if that works for you,
link |
but just know that delaying that caffeine
link |
90 to 120 minutes after waking would be the ideal scenario
link |
most days and most scenarios.
link |
All that said, I absolutely respect the fact
link |
that people have different work schedules,
link |
kids schedules, et cetera.
link |
So if you want to do some or none or all these tools,
link |
that's really up to you.
link |
I'm just providing them to you in the simplest form
link |
that I can possibly provide them.
link |
Now, the other lever or tool that you have available to you
link |
is food, not just what you eat, but when you eat.
link |
And it turns out that if you eat early in the day,
link |
you support a biological clock mechanism
link |
that will make you more alert early in the day.
link |
That said, many people choose to fast
link |
in the early morning hours of the day
link |
or in the first part of the day.
link |
I'm one such person.
link |
I generally don't ingest any food
link |
until about 11 AM or 12 noon.
link |
Sometimes I'll have a protein shake.
link |
Sometimes I'll have some almonds.
link |
Sometimes I'll have breakfast.
link |
If people are meeting for brunch or breakfast,
link |
I will have breakfast for social reasons.
link |
Every once in a while, but most of the time,
link |
I don't eat until about lunchtime.
link |
However, some people are really hungry
link |
when they wake up in the morning.
link |
Just know that if you eat early in the day,
link |
you are further triggering an increase in metabolism
link |
and in temperature that will make you more alert.
link |
So you don't have to eat early in the day,
link |
but you can start to see how these different tools
link |
layer together, sunlight viewing, exercise, cold water,
link |
eating, many of them are converging on the same mechanisms.
link |
In fact, when you drink caffeine,
link |
there's also a small increase in body temperature
link |
due to the adrenaline increase that it stimulates.
link |
So all of these things can be layered on top of one another,
link |
or you can use them individually
link |
or think about them individually.
link |
Now, food is an interesting lever or tool
link |
because it's not just about when you eat,
link |
but it's also about what you eat.
link |
And I've talked a lot about eating for energy
link |
and what that means in terms of caloric energy
link |
versus neural energy, et cetera,
link |
in previous podcast episodes.
link |
We're not going to focus on that now,
link |
because frankly, to get into a description
link |
of whether or not somebody should eat fruits or vegetables
link |
or animal proteins or dairy, et cetera, early in the day,
link |
that's very nuanced.
link |
What you eat for your breakfast
link |
or if you choose to not eat breakfast is really up to you.
link |
All that said, if you eat a very large meal,
link |
it doesn't matter if you slept terrifically well
link |
10 hours the night before,
link |
or if you are about to go to sleep,
link |
or if it's the middle of the afternoon,
link |
if your gut is full of food,
link |
there's just a large volume of food in your gut,
link |
it's going to divert a lot of blood
link |
and other critical resources
link |
away from other organs of your body,
link |
in particular, your brain,
link |
and you're going to be sleepy after eating a big meal.
link |
So this is sort of a duh,
link |
but I think oftentimes in the discussions
link |
about what to eat for energy,
link |
people neglect to consider food volume as a strong parameter
link |
or variable in that discussion.
link |
So if you eat a huge breakfast,
link |
it's likely that you are going to be tired
link |
immediately after eating that breakfast,
link |
unless of course you exercise very hard prior to that
link |
and you're metabolize all that food very quickly.
link |
So it's up to you whether or not to eat
link |
first thing in the morning or not,
link |
but if you do eat in the first few hours of the morning,
link |
just understand that you are setting
link |
or you're helping to set a food entrained
link |
as it's called circadian clock,
link |
light, temperature, timing of food intake,
link |
movement and exercise,
link |
all of these things literally funnel in,
link |
in a neural sense,
link |
they funnel into this thing that we call the circadian clock
link |
and they let that clock, that set of neurons predict
link |
when you are likely to be eating and active
link |
and viewing sunlight the next day
link |
and the next day and the next day.
link |
I say all this because there are some beautiful studies
link |
and I'll highlight one again in the show note captions
link |
that show that if people are having a hard time
link |
waking up in the morning,
link |
one of the things they can do is maximize sunlight viewing,
link |
exercise in the morning, drink caffeine,
link |
although again, I support the idea
link |
that that would best be done about 90 to 120 minutes
link |
after waking, eating some food
link |
in those early morning hours, et cetera, et cetera.
link |
You can layer in multiple levers or tools
link |
in order to be more alert.
link |
And that's what these levers and tools are really there for
link |
in this sense of what we're talking about today,
link |
which is optimizing sleep.
link |
Yes, they will make you more alert.
link |
Yes, they will provide some adrenaline and dopamine,
link |
for instance, the cold water, et cetera, et cetera.
link |
But the reason we're talking about these things
link |
in the context of sleep is that they start to give your body
link |
some predictable autonomic timing.
link |
What is predictable autonomic timing?
link |
Well, your autonomic nervous system
link |
is the components of your brain and body
link |
that cause wakefulness and sleepiness.
link |
And you can start to create some predictability
link |
in that autonomic timing.
link |
You can start to do things that really make it such
link |
that you naturally wake up at six in the morning
link |
or five in the morning.
link |
That's right, if you're somebody who naturally
link |
is a night owl who likes to stay up until two in the morning
link |
and sleep until 10 a.m. and you now have a job
link |
or you have to go to school or you have a partner
link |
that likes to get up early and go to sleep early,
link |
well, you can make that happen
link |
and you can make that happen pretty painlessly
link |
if you take a week or so and go to sleep 30 minutes
link |
or an hour earlier each night, set an alarm and wake up
link |
30 minutes or an hour earlier each morning
link |
until of course you're waking up
link |
at the time you want to wake up.
link |
And then even in that groggy state, get some exercise,
link |
get some sunlight viewing.
link |
If the sun's not out,
link |
turn on those bright artificial lights,
link |
have some breakfast, even if you're not hungry.
link |
In fact, for those of you that engage in shift work
link |
because you have to or travel and you're jet lagged,
link |
one of the quickest ways to shift your circadian clock
link |
and get onto the local schedule
link |
is to eat on the local schedule.
link |
So what all these tools do is they really set up a cascade.
link |
Think of it as kind of a wave front of wakefulness
link |
and focus throughout the day.
link |
It'll take you through the middle of the day
link |
and the afternoon stages we'll talk about in a few minutes,
link |
but really they take you to this period
link |
that is about 5 p.m. until your bedtime.
link |
I realize some people are going to bed very early,
link |
like 8 p.m. or 9 p.m., which to me seems very early,
link |
but very few people go to sleep at 5 p.m., right?
link |
Unless you're doing that for shift work or other reasons.
link |
But from 5 p.m. until bedtime is really a critical period
link |
in which you need to leverage particular tools
link |
in order to get and stay asleep optimally
link |
and to be able to sleep through the night.
link |
So really there are three critical periods
link |
throughout each 24-hour cycle.
link |
And during each of those critical periods,
link |
you're going to want to do as many specific things
link |
as you can to optimize your wakefulness and focus
link |
and mood throughout the day and your sleep at night.
link |
The first critical period is the one
link |
that we've been talking about up until now.
link |
Things like morning sunlight, viewing caffeine,
link |
90 to 120 minutes after waking, exercise, and so on.
link |
We can call that critical period one.
link |
And it really encompasses the time from which you wake up
link |
until about three hours after waking.
link |
Although I should just mention,
link |
because there are always those people that say,
link |
wait, I wake up at 4 a.m.
link |
and the sun isn't out until 8 a.m.
link |
Okay, so it might be four hours,
link |
but really it's those early morning hours
link |
of your day once you're awake.
link |
The second critical period is the time throughout the day
link |
and afternoon leading into evening.
link |
So you may ask, what are the things
link |
that you can do throughout the day,
link |
the middle of your day and into the afternoon
link |
and evening hours that are really going to set you up
link |
for the best possible sleep later that night?
link |
Well, there are a few dos and there are a few don'ts.
link |
First of all, be careful about ingesting too much caffeine
link |
throughout the middle of the day.
link |
That's kind of an obvious one for the reasons
link |
that we talked about earlier.
link |
Second of all, if you are a napper,
link |
and I raise my hand now, for those of you listening,
link |
I'm raising my right hand because I love naps.
link |
I've always loved naps.
link |
Nowadays I do NSDR or a reverie sleep hypnosis
link |
And I tend to do that, as I mentioned,
link |
in the early afternoon hours if I'm feeling kind of sleepy,
link |
because even though I optimize my caffeine intake, timing,
link |
et cetera, I tend to get a little sleepy in the afternoon.
link |
Most people get a little sleepy in the afternoon.
link |
Some of that is related to hitting
link |
that peak of body temperature.
link |
And you might think, wait,
link |
I thought high body temperature
link |
is associated with alertness.
link |
And it is, but right as you crest that high body temperature
link |
and your body temperature starts to drop,
link |
there's a tendency to be a little bit sleepy.
link |
So some of you might opt to take a nap in the afternoon.
link |
Should you nap, should you not nap?
link |
That's a question that I get asked a lot
link |
and that I asked Dr. Matthew Walker
link |
when he was a guest on this podcast.
link |
Here was his answer and here's what the data support.
link |
It is fine to nap in the afternoon,
link |
but don't nap so late in the day or for so long
link |
that it disrupts your ability to fall
link |
and stay asleep at night for your major sleep bout.
link |
Okay, so naps are fine,
link |
but don't sleep so long during the day
link |
or too late in the day that it disrupts your ability
link |
to fall and stay asleep.
link |
I should also say you do not have to nap.
link |
It's kind of an interesting phenomenon that happens
link |
on these podcasts and on social media
link |
where we'll talk about naps
link |
and the fact that naps are great
link |
and don't make them longer than 90 minutes,
link |
but then all the non-nappers get really worried like,
link |
wait, am I supposed to nap?
link |
I don't like naps, I wake up groggy.
link |
You do not have to nap.
link |
In fact, if you can make it through your whole day
link |
without napping, great, more power to you.
link |
But if you do nap and you find that naps serve you well,
link |
keep those naps shorter than 90 minutes
link |
for reasons related to ultradian cycles and so forth.
link |
And make sure that you don't nap too late in the day
link |
that you are then staying up too late at night
link |
and having a hard time waking up the next morning.
link |
I will say that for a lot of people who do not like naps
link |
or that find they wake up really grumpy from naps
link |
or groggy from naps,
link |
I encourage you to try the Reverie app,
link |
try an NSDR script, try yoga nidra,
link |
try something of that sort
link |
for anywhere from 10 to 20 to 30 minutes.
link |
I tend to do this every day.
link |
Now I'll just lie down and I love yoga nidra,
link |
I love NSDR scripts, I love using the Reverie app.
link |
In particular, the portion of the Reverie app
link |
that gets you better at sleeping,
link |
it really is beneficial for me
link |
because it serves as very replenishing
link |
while I'm doing that hypnosis,
link |
but it's also gotten me much better at falling
link |
and staying asleep and falling back asleep
link |
in the middle of the night.
link |
So this critical period throughout the day
link |
is one in which most people are doing a lot of stuff.
link |
They're emailing and picking up kids and they're exercising
link |
and they're commuting and doing all sorts of things,
link |
taking phone calls and zooms, et cetera.
link |
But if you can get that period of deep relaxation
link |
through a nap or NSDR, that's going to serve you well.
link |
Try not to drink too much caffeine,
link |
certainly no more than 100 milligrams of caffeine
link |
after 4 p.m. if your goal is to fall asleep
link |
at a reasonably normal time.
link |
And for those of you that exercise in the afternoon,
link |
understand that if you exercise very intensely,
link |
so this might be weight training or running
link |
or some other very intense exercise,
link |
typically that's going to further increase
link |
your body temperature.
link |
Makes sense, right?
link |
Based on everything we know about metabolism
link |
and body temperature.
link |
And it's going to so-called delay your circadian clock.
link |
It's going to make it such that you want to fall asleep
link |
a little bit later, maybe even a lot later.
link |
So if you're exercising in the afternoon or evening,
link |
and that's the only time you can exercise
link |
or that's the time that you prefer to exercise, great,
link |
but be careful about ingesting too much caffeine
link |
in order to get the energy to do that exercise
link |
because that caffeine will disrupt your sleep.
link |
And just know that you are delaying your circadian clock.
link |
You are making it such that you will naturally
link |
want to go to sleep later and wake up later.
link |
Contrast that with if you exercise early in the day,
link |
say immediately after waking up
link |
or in the first zero to four hours after waking.
link |
In most cases, that's not going to shift
link |
your circadian clock much.
link |
And toward the end of the episode,
link |
we'll talk a little bit about forced exercise
link |
prior to wake up times.
link |
That doesn't mean doing exercise in your sleep.
link |
That means deliberately setting an alarm
link |
and getting out of bed much earlier than you naturally would.
link |
That turns out to be a very potent tool
link |
to so-called advance your circadian clock.
link |
So we can talk about that a little bit later in the episode.
link |
But this critical period too in the middle of the day
link |
is when you're going to want to leverage specific tools.
link |
And we've talked about those, limiting caffeine intake,
link |
being mindful of the clock delaying effects of exercise,
link |
the fact that also if you're going to nap,
link |
you don't want to nap too long or too late into the day.
link |
Otherwise it'll disrupt your nighttime sleep.
link |
So this critical period too,
link |
or second critical period I should say,
link |
during the middle of the day,
link |
is a time in which you should be doing certain things
link |
and avoiding doing certain things.
link |
So that raises the question of whether or not
link |
you should also be getting a lot of light
link |
in particular sunlight throughout the day.
link |
Now that's something that hasn't been explored too much
link |
in the literature until recently,
link |
when Dr. Samara Tarr,
link |
who's the director of the Chronobiology Unit
link |
at the National Institutes of Mental Health
link |
has decided to do a number of experiments,
link |
exploring the effects of light on mood
link |
and other aspects of brain function and body function
link |
when that light is delivered, not just in the morning,
link |
which is great for us, but also throughout the day.
link |
So should you be looking at sunlight
link |
or bright artificial lights throughout the day?
link |
Now on the face of it, you might just think,
link |
yes, you know, sunlight's great,
link |
provided we're not getting a sunburn
link |
and we're not staring at the sun and damaging our eyes,
link |
we should get as much sunlight as we possibly can.
link |
In fact, we talked about this in the episode on hormones,
link |
about how getting light onto as much of our skin
link |
as we can throughout the day can really help
link |
in the production of testosterone and estrogen
link |
in both men and women in healthy ways
link |
that improves mood and libido and all sorts of things
link |
that are associated with wellbeing.
link |
However, because light is such a powerful stimulus
link |
for controlling the timing of your sleepfulness
link |
or sleepiness, I should say, and wakefulness,
link |
we might want to be cautious about how much light
link |
we are viewing in the afternoon,
link |
in particular in the early evening hours, right?
link |
Well, it turns out it's not so straightforward.
link |
Viewing, so sunlight to the eyes,
link |
sunlight in the late afternoon and evening hours,
link |
so again, depends on time of year,
link |
depends on location that you happen to be in,
link |
but getting some sunlight in your eyes for, again,
link |
maybe five or 10, maybe 30 minutes,
link |
depending on how much cloud cover there is,
link |
doing that in the afternoon
link |
serves an additional beneficial purpose,
link |
which is you protect or you inoculate your nervous system
link |
against some of the negative effects
link |
of bright artificial light or even dim artificial light
link |
in the nighttime hours between 10 PM and 4 AM,
link |
which is really critical period three.
link |
And we'll talk about what to do and what to not do
link |
during critical period three of every 24 hour cycle.
link |
But to make it very clear what I'm saying here,
link |
get that morning sunlight in your eyes,
link |
but also get some sunlight in your eyes
link |
in the late afternoon and evening hours
link |
when the sun is at so-called low solar angle,
link |
when it starts to descend in the sky.
link |
Again, you don't have to stare directly at the sun,
link |
although if you can catch a nice beautiful sunset,
link |
But as the sun starts to descend,
link |
it triggers those same neurons in your eye
link |
that communicate with your circadian clock,
link |
but it communicates with a different component
link |
or different compartment within the circadian clock.
link |
That circadian clock is not just one thing,
link |
it's multiple things, and you have what are called
link |
morning oscillators and evening oscillators.
link |
And to make a long story short,
link |
the tool that I'm describing of looking at the sun
link |
in the late afternoon and evening,
link |
again, blinking is fine, don't stare at the sun,
link |
but getting that sunlight in your eyes
link |
in the late afternoon and evening signals to that clock
link |
that it's evening time and that sleep is coming.
link |
It also serves as a second anchor or reference point
link |
for your body and your brain to know where it is in time.
link |
Remember back to the beginning of the episode,
link |
when I said your brain and your body
link |
and all your organs are locked inside this skin
link |
and the skull, and they don't know what's going on
link |
in the outside world.
link |
Well, that morning sunlight viewing
link |
and the other things you do during critical period one,
link |
those provide one strong set of signals
link |
that it's wake up time and time to be alert
link |
and time to be focused.
link |
And then in the evening,
link |
by getting sunlight in your eyes again,
link |
and in particular sunlight
link |
that comes from low solar angle sunlight,
link |
well, that provides a second stimulus
link |
or a second reference point that tells your brain and body,
link |
hey, it's evening, the sun is descending.
link |
And you might say, wait,
link |
how does the brain and these neurons know the difference
link |
between morning light and evening light?
link |
It turns out has to do with the particular wavelengths
link |
of light that are present in morning versus evening.
link |
It's an incredible mechanism.
link |
And you are probably familiar with the fact
link |
that when the sun is directly overhead,
link |
it's really bright white and yellow,
link |
and the sky's often blue.
link |
And if there's cloud cover just comes through
link |
as a bunch of bright light.
link |
Well, next time you're out in the morning,
link |
take a look at what a sunrise looks like.
link |
There's a lot of yellow blue contrast.
link |
And those yellow blues signal important specific sets
link |
of cells in your eye and brain that it's morning.
link |
In the evening, you're also going to see yellow and blue,
link |
but the ratio of yellows and blues has now changed.
link |
And you also see some oranges.
link |
And in a really brilliant sunset, you'll see some reds.
link |
If you haven't noticed this already,
link |
you'll really want to look for this.
link |
It's like kind of fun and cool to look at.
link |
Well, those yellows and blues and oranges
link |
that you see in the evening sunsets,
link |
those signal to your brain and body
link |
that evening is there and that nighttime is coming.
link |
And they're really establishing a second reference point
link |
or wave front of biological signals
link |
that are going to optimize your nighttime hours
link |
and your transition into really terrific sleep.
link |
So now let's talk about what I'm calling
link |
critical period three of each 24 hour cycle.
link |
So this would be the period of time of late evening.
link |
So it might be 6 p.m. for some,
link |
depending on when you go to sleep or 7 p.m.,
link |
extending into the hours in which you decide
link |
to get into bed and go to sleep
link |
and then throughout the night.
link |
There are a number of things that you're going to want to do
link |
and there are a number of things
link |
that you are going to want to avoid doing
link |
in order to optimize your sleep.
link |
First of all, you're going to want to avoid
link |
bright artificial lights of any color.
link |
Yes, of any color.
link |
We haven't talked a lot about blue blockers,
link |
you know, lenses that block blue wavelengths
link |
or short wavelengths of light.
link |
I don't have anything against blue blockers.
link |
In fact, many people find that blue blockers
link |
provide them some relief from headache and some eye strain
link |
if they wear blue blockers throughout the day
link |
and certainly at night, but you don't need them.
link |
And even if you do wear them,
link |
you will find that if lights are very bright,
link |
doesn't matter if it's a blue light,
link |
a yellow light, or a red light,
link |
those bright lights will wake up your brain and body.
link |
They will activate the same mechanisms
link |
that were activated early in the day by sunlight.
link |
However, and here's the really diabolical twist.
link |
I mentioned this earlier,
link |
but the diabolical twist in the way
link |
that your brain and body respond to light
link |
is that early in the day, in the morning hours,
link |
you need a lot of bright light, ideally from sunlight,
link |
to be very alert and to wake up.
link |
But in the evening hours and nighttime hours,
link |
it takes very little light, very few photons,
link |
in order to wake up your brain and body
link |
and to disrupt your circadian clock and disrupt your sleep.
link |
So what that means is that once the sun goes down,
link |
which of course is going to happen at different times of year
link |
in different places on earth,
link |
but once the sun goes down,
link |
you would be wise to try and dim the lights
link |
in your indoor environment most days, right?
link |
I realize some nights you're going to throw a party
link |
and have people over.
link |
You might not want to dim the light.
link |
Some nights you're going to go out.
link |
You might view a lot of bright lights,
link |
but most nights of your life,
link |
you're going to want to dim the lights
link |
in your internal environment.
link |
And ideally the lights that you do use,
link |
you would place low in that physical environment.
link |
So you would try and not use overhead lights,
link |
but rather rely on desk lamps
link |
or lights even placed low to the floor, even on the floor.
link |
If you are going to use light at night, and most people do,
link |
I would encourage you to use as little artificial light
link |
as is required to carry out the activities
link |
you need to require safely.
link |
That could be studying,
link |
in which case you might need a little bit more light
link |
in order to read or study.
link |
If you're watching a television show
link |
or you're watching something on your computer,
link |
dim that screen way, way down as dim as possible
link |
while still of course being able to view
link |
what you need to view.
link |
Even better, I should say,
link |
ideally you would use candlelight and or moonlight.
link |
Now, some nights the moon is really bright
link |
and you actually can use moonlight
link |
to go about your usual activities.
link |
Moonlight might seem very, very bright,
link |
but actually moonlight is fairly low light intensity
link |
and candlelight, which can also seem very bright,
link |
actually is very low light intensity.
link |
If you're sitting across a table
link |
with some candlelight there, and it's a really bright candle
link |
chances are it's only about three to 10 lux,
link |
which is very, very little light energy
link |
compared to say an artificial desk lamp
link |
or an overhead light, which is going to be in the area
link |
of anywhere from a hundred to a thousand lux.
link |
So candlelight is fine, of course,
link |
be cautious with open flame, but candlelight is fine,
link |
moonlight is fine, dimming artificial lights is fine
link |
provided they're dimmed way, way down.
link |
And again, try and avoid using overhead artificial lights.
link |
The absolute worst lights are going to be
link |
overhead fluorescent lights of the sort
link |
that you would have in the supermarket
link |
or that you would see at a gas station
link |
or something of that sort.
link |
And I confess there are times in which I'm driving home
link |
and it's late at night and I want to be able to get to sleep
link |
and I'll need to stop at the grocery store
link |
or a gas station or something like that.
link |
I've actually put on sunglasses at night
link |
in order to avoid getting that bright light exposure
link |
at night, although that's a little bit extreme.
link |
I have done that from time to time
link |
because that bright light exposure will absolutely quash.
link |
It will eliminate any melatonin
link |
that happens to be circulating in your brain and body.
link |
Now, melatonin, a lot of people think of as a supplement,
link |
but melatonin is naturally released
link |
as the evening comes about and into the nighttime hours.
link |
It's a hormone that makes you feel sleepy
link |
and allows you to fall asleep.
link |
So viewing bright light in the late evening hours
link |
and nighttime hours is really not good
link |
for your sleep quality
link |
and your ability to fall and stay asleep.
link |
So for most people, a simple rule of thumb
link |
is going to be avoid bright artificial lights of all colors
link |
and in particular overhead bright artificial lights
link |
between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
link |
That's right, between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.,
link |
avoid those bright artificial lights as much as possible.
link |
Use only as much light as is absolutely necessary
link |
in order to carry out the routines and activities
link |
you need to carry out safely.
link |
I should mention that the reason overhead lights
link |
are problematic is the same reason why sunlight
link |
is so great early in the day, which is that the cells,
link |
that is the neurons that can wake up your brain and body
link |
through activation of the circadian clock,
link |
reside mainly in the bottom half or two thirds
link |
of your neural retina.
link |
And the way the optics of your eyes work
link |
is that the cells on the bottom half of your eye
link |
view the upper visual field.
link |
So this is a beautiful adaptive mechanism
link |
that allows these cells to respond to overhead light
link |
from sunlight in the early part of the day
link |
and throughout the day.
link |
But in the evening, if you have bright artificial lights on
link |
and those bright artificial lights are overhead lights,
link |
it's going to more closely mimic what sunlight does
link |
in the evening time.
link |
And that turns out to be a bad thing
link |
if your goal is to eventually go to sleep.
link |
So again, do like the Scandinavians do,
link |
use lights that are set low in the room at night.
link |
And if you really want to optimize your sleep-wake cycles,
link |
I suppose you could also do the opposite throughout the day.
link |
You could really emphasize the use
link |
of bright artificial lights and sunlight
link |
that comes from above.
link |
And of course, sunlight always comes from above,
link |
but if you're working in a given office environment
link |
and it's 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.
link |
and you want to be as awake as possible,
link |
really crank up the overhead lights.
link |
And then in the evening,
link |
which is this critical period three that we're referring to,
link |
really try and dim those lights or have them off
link |
or just rely on candlelight or moonlight
link |
from the hours of about 10 p.m. until 4 a.m.
link |
Our good friend, Samir Hattar,
link |
who's been on this podcast before,
link |
Samir is director of the Chronobiology Unit
link |
at the National Institutes of Mental Health.
link |
Well, he's absolutely obsessive about this light stuff
link |
and avoiding light at night.
link |
In fact, he lives in what I joke is like a cave at night
link |
from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m.,
link |
which is really his kind of sleep cycle.
link |
He has his house so dark that you'd be lucky
link |
to be able to find a spoon in the kitchen.
link |
In fact, you'd be lucky to find your way down the hallway
link |
But in any case, dim the lights from them way, way down.
link |
It will serve you well.
link |
It will make it much easier for you to get sleepy
link |
and stay sleepy and fall asleep and stay asleep
link |
throughout the night.
link |
Now, not to depart from this critical period three,
link |
but if you recall viewing that afternoon light, right?
link |
The low solar angle light as the sun is heading down
link |
in the sky, so it could be sunset
link |
or what I call circa sunset, around sunset.
link |
Well, doing that is going to slightly
link |
but not completely offset any of the negative effects
link |
of viewing artificial light at night.
link |
So I don't want to give people a pass here,
link |
but let's say you know that you're going
link |
to watch some Netflix at night,
link |
or you're going to be up late studying
link |
and yet you still want to be able to fall and stay asleep.
link |
Definitely make sure you see that evening light.
link |
There's a great study.
link |
We'll provide a link to the study which showed
link |
that if people view evening sunset light
link |
or evening sunsets or sunlight right around the time
link |
of sunset, it really serves to inoculate
link |
or offset some, again, some,
link |
not all of the negative effects of artificial light
link |
between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
link |
Now that's light, but as you recall,
link |
we also have this tool related to temperature.
link |
And you're probably not going to be surprised
link |
that the way to leverage temperature
link |
in the evening is the exact opposite of the way
link |
that you want to leverage temperature early in the day.
link |
Early in the day, temperature increases from cold showers
link |
or exercise, et cetera, wake you up.
link |
What that means is that taking a cold shower late at night
link |
is probably a bad idea.
link |
Rather, taking a nice hot bath or a sauna,
link |
you might think would heat up your body.
link |
And indeed that's what happens
link |
if you stay in a very long time,
link |
but if you do hot tub or a hot bath or a sauna
link |
in the evening and you don't stay in
link |
for more than 20 or 30 minutes and you get out,
link |
you take maybe a cool-ish shower or a warm shower,
link |
then what happens is there's a compensatory cooling off
link |
of your core body temperature
link |
for the reasons we discussed earlier.
link |
And your body temperature will drop by one to three degrees
link |
and it will make it much easier to get into sleep.
link |
So if you're somebody that enjoys hot baths, hot showers,
link |
or hot tubs, evening and nighttime
link |
is going to be the best time to do that
link |
if your goal is to facilitate sleep.
link |
Similarly, you should try and make your sleeping environment
link |
pretty cool, if not cold.
link |
Now, that doesn't mean you need to be cold
link |
while you're asleep.
link |
You can get under as many blankets as you need,
link |
but it's a good idea to make your sleeping environment cool.
link |
In fact, drop the temperature in that sleeping environment
link |
by at least three degrees,
link |
and you'll be happy that you did.
link |
Now, some people rely on things like eight sleep.
link |
I use that one of these
link |
controllable temperature mattress covers.
link |
Other people would simply do this
link |
by putting a fan in the room or opening a window.
link |
Again, depends on time of year, depends on technology,
link |
depends on budgets, et cetera.
link |
But you're going to want to sleep
link |
in a relatively cool or cold sleeping environment
link |
and then layer on the blankets as needed to stay asleep.
link |
And I say as needed,
link |
because one of the things that you're going to do
link |
in your sleep or if you happen to wake up
link |
is if you're too warm,
link |
you're going to put a foot or a hand out
link |
from under those blankets.
link |
And the reason for doing that is very logical.
link |
Once you understand the mechanism, you have special portals.
link |
You essentially have ways of passing heat, excuse me,
link |
in and out of your body,
link |
primarily through the palms of your hands,
link |
the upper half of your face and the bottoms of your feet
link |
through so-called glabrous skin.
link |
This was covered in the episode with Dr. Craig Heller
link |
from the biology department at Stanford.
link |
If you lower the temperature in your sleeping environment,
link |
so lower the temperature in that room
link |
or use a controllable mattress cover
link |
that can cool down like eight sleep
link |
or something of that sort,
link |
it's naturally going to make your sleep environment cooler.
link |
And if you're too warm under the blankets,
link |
all you have to do is extend a hand or a foot out
link |
from under those blankets.
link |
Whereas if the sleeping environment that you're in
link |
is too warm, there's very little you can do to cool off
link |
besides push off those blankets.
link |
So for instance, if you're too warm
link |
and you're waking up in the middle of the night,
link |
which is what happens if you get too warm,
link |
you'll push off those blankets.
link |
But if the room is too warm, well, what are you going to do?
link |
You'd probably have to put your hands into some cool water
link |
or take a coolish shower or something
link |
for a couple of seconds.
link |
That's not very practical.
link |
Better to just keep the sleeping environment cool.
link |
I'm not a big fan of people putting socks on
link |
while they sleep, or I should say,
link |
I'm not a fan of putting socks on while I sleep
link |
because that eliminates this glabber skin portal
link |
on the bottoms of one's feet.
link |
So for those of you that have heard,
link |
wear socks while you sleep,
link |
that works great for people that tend to run too cold
link |
while they sleep and wake up because their feet get cold.
link |
But if you're somebody who wakes up
link |
in the middle of the night,
link |
chances are you're waking up
link |
because you're getting too warm.
link |
And the best thing that you could do is to cool
link |
or lower the temperature in the room that you're sleeping
link |
and not wear socks.
link |
Get under as many blankets as you need to.
link |
Fall asleep and then across the night,
link |
you'll naturally just move a hand or a foot
link |
or all hands and feet out from under those blankets
link |
to cool off because of the relationship
link |
between temperature and sleep.
link |
That is dropping your core body temperature
link |
one to three degrees gets you into sleep
link |
and helps you stay asleep.
link |
So let's say you do exercise late in the day
link |
and you're finding yourself very alert in the evening
link |
and you need to fall asleep.
link |
Or let's say you've exercised
link |
and you needed four cups of espresso
link |
in order to do that exercise.
link |
Well, there are a few things that you can do
link |
to try and bring your nervous system down
link |
into more state of calmness.
link |
And you can do that also
link |
by lowering your core body temperature.
link |
One of those I already talked about before,
link |
taking a nice hot shower or a hot bath
link |
and then getting out and cooling off
link |
will decrease your body temperature.
link |
Maybe not enough to get you into sleep
link |
if you have a ton of caffeine in your system.
link |
But again, you can use this mechanism of temperature shifts
link |
to wake up or temperature shifts to fall asleep
link |
in ways that really can help you overcome
link |
some of the irregularities in your sleep-wake cycle
link |
and exercise cycle, et cetera.
link |
Because of course, nobody's perfect.
link |
Some days we end up having a workout in the afternoon
link |
or we'll miss the workout entirely.
link |
Other days we end up having that cup of coffee
link |
in the afternoon with a friend
link |
and then we have a hard time falling asleep.
link |
So you can use these tools,
link |
not just in their optimized form,
link |
being absolutely obsessive and compulsive
link |
about exactly when you do each of those tools.
link |
That would be wonderful.
link |
But life happens, as they say.
link |
And some days you're going to feel too alert at night
link |
and you want to fall asleep,
link |
or you got to get up especially early the next morning
link |
and you're not somebody who normally goes to bed at 10 PM.
link |
Well, that's when something like a hot bath or a sauna
link |
can really benefit you
link |
because it can adjust your temperature rhythm accordingly.
link |
I would be remiss if I didn't touch on alcohol
link |
I always get questions about these.
link |
And I should say, of course, many places, but not all,
link |
THC is illegal, although there are medical uses
link |
and some places it's decriminalized,
link |
other places it's legal.
link |
Alcohol, of course, is consumed almost as frequently
link |
as caffeine is consumed.
link |
I personally don't drink alcohol.
link |
I don't have anything against it per se.
link |
I just don't tend to enjoy it.
link |
One of the reasons I don't enjoy it is if I drink alcohol,
link |
I simply fall asleep.
link |
So that doesn't really accomplish any of the things
link |
that I really want to accomplish
link |
because the sleep that one gets after drinking alcohol
link |
is greatly disrupted sleep.
link |
Hate to break it to you,
link |
but that's the truth.
link |
And when Dr. Matt Walker came on this podcast,
link |
he said exactly the same thing.
link |
While THC and alcohol do help some people fall asleep
link |
and maybe even stay asleep,
link |
the architecture of that sleep is suboptimal
link |
compared to the sleep they would get
link |
without alcohol or THC in their system.
link |
So I'm not here to tell you what to do or not to do.
link |
I'm certainly not the substance police.
link |
That's not my role.
link |
I'm just reporting to you the biology.
link |
If your sleep is not restoring you
link |
to the extent that you feel it should,
link |
or if you are regularly relying on a drink or two
link |
in order to fall asleep or THC in order to fall asleep,
link |
that is disrupting your total pattern of sleep.
link |
However, I do realize that nowadays,
link |
a lot of people are relying on THC and or CBD,
link |
especially edible forms in order to fall and stay asleep.
link |
And, you know, we can just acknowledge the data.
link |
It does seem that there's an anxiety lowering effect
link |
of some of those compounds that do help people
link |
who have a hard time falling and staying asleep
link |
because of reasons related to anxiety.
link |
Although in a moment,
link |
we'll talk about some supplements and supplement protocols
link |
that can also assist in the ability to fall and stay asleep
link |
and that can adjust anxiety
link |
and that do not seem to disrupt sleep architecture
link |
in negative ways and in fact can enhance the depth
link |
and quality of sleep architecture.
link |
Okay, so you've done everything correctly up until now.
link |
You've got your morning routine from critical period one,
link |
you've got your afternoon routine,
link |
you saw some sunlight in the afternoon,
link |
you avoided caffeine in the eight hours
link |
or 10 hours before bedtime, you're not drinking alcohol,
link |
you've cooled down the room,
link |
you're doing all these things right,
link |
you dim the lights, et cetera, et cetera.
link |
What else can we do in order to optimize our sleep?
link |
Well, I always say behavioral tools first,
link |
then look to nutrition,
link |
then if necessary, look to supplementation,
link |
and then if still necessary, look to prescription drugs,
link |
obviously prescribed by a board certified physician.
link |
Well, we've talked a lot about the behavioral tools
link |
for critical period three,
link |
we have not talked a lot about
link |
the supplementation based tools.
link |
There are supplements that for most people
link |
will greatly improve their ability to fall and stay asleep
link |
and the three main supplements in that category
link |
or that kit of sleep supplements,
link |
and I've talked about these before, are magnesium threonate,
link |
so T-H-R-E-O-N-A-T-E, apigenin,
link |
A-P-I-G-E-N-I-N, apigenin,
link |
and theanine, T-H-E-A-N-I-N-E, theanine.
link |
Now, some important things to point out about magthreonate
link |
as it's called apigenin and theanine.
link |
First of all, you don't necessarily need to take all three,
link |
although many people get a synergistic effect
link |
from taking all three,
link |
in fact, you may not even need to take even one.
link |
What I recommend is that if you're already doing
link |
all the behavioral tools regularly
link |
and you're still having trouble falling asleep
link |
and staying asleep, well, then you might try one
link |
of the supplements within this sleep stack.
link |
They do have fairly wide margins for safety,
link |
although I should also say anytime you're going to add
link |
or remove something from your supplement protocol,
link |
your nutritional program,
link |
you definitely want to talk to your physician.
link |
I don't just say that to protect us,
link |
I say that to protect you, but for most people,
link |
the margins of safety on these things
link |
are going to be pretty broad.
link |
A couple of notes about dosages.
link |
For some people, the dosages of any one
link |
or several of the supplements I mentioned will be zero.
link |
That is, you won't need them in order to get
link |
and stay asleep most nights of your life.
link |
That's terrific if you don't need them.
link |
For many people, however,
link |
taking 145 milligrams of magnesium threonate
link |
can be very beneficial.
link |
That's the dosage that most people will benefit from.
link |
Some people need to go a little higher,
link |
some people need to go a little bit lower.
link |
One of the reasons that we've been pointing people
link |
towards single ingredient formulations these days
link |
is because it allows people to adjust the dosage
link |
of one component of a so-called sleep stack
link |
without having to disrupt the dosage of another component
link |
It also allows people to try just one element
link |
within the sleep stack without having to purchase
link |
and try the others, which is a problem
link |
if you're buying a blend of a lot of different ingredients.
link |
So 145 milligrams of magnesium threonate,
link |
50, five zero milligrams of apigenin,
link |
and again, you could just take the apigenin on its own,
link |
and 100 to 400 milligrams of theanine,
link |
taken, again, alone or in combination
link |
with the other supplements mentioned in this stack,
link |
many people find allows them to get really drowsy
link |
and fall asleep, sleep really deeply,
link |
and they feel much more refreshed the next day
link |
and they don't have a grogginess to them.
link |
Now, a couple of notes about these different supplements.
link |
About 5% of people report that magnesium threonate
link |
really disrupts their gut.
link |
It gives them diarrhea or gastric distress,
link |
in which case, don't take it.
link |
If magnesium threonate disrupts your gut or your digestion
link |
to a point where it's uncomfortable or at all
link |
and you don't like it, don't take any of it.
link |
The proper dosage for you, in other words,
link |
would be zero milligrams.
link |
Now, in a slightly different way,
link |
many people who can tolerate magnesium threonate
link |
or really thrive on magnesium threonate and like apigenin
link |
might find that theanine,
link |
even at the lowest dose of 100 milligrams,
link |
because again, the range is 100 to 400 milligrams,
link |
that theanine gives them such vivid dreams
link |
that they actually find it disruptive
link |
or they wake up in the middle of the night
link |
or they find that the sleep that they're getting
link |
is kind of anxiety-ridden
link |
because of the intensity of those dreams.
link |
So some people might choose to leave theanine
link |
out of the sleep stack
link |
and just take magnesium threonate or apigenin.
link |
Again, some people might leave magnesium threonate
link |
out of the sleep stack.
link |
Again, all of this is really about
link |
finding the supplementation protocol that's ideal for you.
link |
I should mention that whether or not
link |
you're taking one or two or three
link |
of the components of the sleep stack,
link |
the ideal time to take those
link |
is 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime,
link |
especially if you haven't had anything to eat
link |
for the three hours or so before bedtime.
link |
I confess that oftentimes I'll have
link |
a little bit of a snack late in the evening,
link |
some berries or something.
link |
I try not to eat too close to bedtime,
link |
but some evenings, just because of work schedule,
link |
I'll get home late, be 9 p.m., and I'll eat a big meal,
link |
and then I'll take the sleep stack and fall asleep.
link |
Every once in a while, that just so happens.
link |
Certainly I'm not.
link |
But that sleep stack can be very beneficial,
link |
and I do think that it's preferable to melatonin.
link |
Here's the reason.
link |
First of all, melatonin is a hormone
link |
that you endogenously make.
link |
You now know a lot about melatonin,
link |
and it's controlled by light,
link |
meaning light inhibits it or eliminates it.
link |
Darkness promotes it.
link |
And melatonin indeed can help us fall asleep,
link |
but the dosages of melatonin
link |
that are contained in most commercial products
link |
is far, far, far greater than what we would make
link |
endogenously, so it's really supra physiological.
link |
So that's of concern because melatonin
link |
is not just responsible for making us sleepy
link |
It also does things like interacts
link |
with other hormone systems, testosterone and estrogen,
link |
even in the puberty system in kids.
link |
Is taking melatonin every once in a while a problem
link |
for adjusting to jet lag, et cetera?
link |
I would even say no, but taking it chronically over time,
link |
especially kids taking it chronically over time
link |
can potentially be problematic.
link |
So at least in my opinion,
link |
these other supplements are going to be preferable
link |
Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of today's episode,
link |
there are some other things
link |
that I certainly take every once in a while
link |
and that other people might consider taking
link |
in addition to the sleep stack I talked about before
link |
or in place of that sleep stack,
link |
if that sleep stack doesn't work well for them.
link |
So every third or fourth night,
link |
I will take two grams of glycine
link |
and 100 milligrams of GABA in addition
link |
to the standard sleep stack that I talked about before.
link |
So I'm taking magthreonine, apigenin, and theanine,
link |
and then I will also take two grams of glycine and GABA,
link |
which I find greatly enhances my ability to get into sleep.
link |
But the reason I only add glycine and GABA
link |
every third or fourth night is that if I take it too often,
link |
I find that the entire sleep stack
link |
doesn't work quite as effectively.
link |
I don't know exactly why this is the case,
link |
but in any event, that's what I do.
link |
And more recently, I've also started using inositol,
link |
in particular, myoinositol every other night.
link |
I'll take 900 milligrams of myoinositol
link |
in addition to magthreonine, apigenin, and theanine,
link |
and not on the nights when I take glycine and GABA.
link |
So I'm adding 900 milligrams of inositol
link |
to the standard sleep stack
link |
of magthreonine, theanine, and apigenin.
link |
And what I find is not only does it greatly enhance
link |
my ability to fall asleep quickly,
link |
but if I wake up in the middle of the night,
link |
which I often do to use the bathroom,
link |
I find it very, very easy to fall back asleep.
link |
Whereas when I don't take inositol every other night or so,
link |
I find that if I wake up in the middle of the night,
link |
it's a bit more of a challenge to fall back asleep.
link |
So inositol has a number of different uses
link |
that have been discussed in terms of mental health
link |
and in terms of adjusting anxiety for its daytime use.
link |
What I'm talking about is taking 900 milligrams
link |
of myoinositol also 30 to 60 minutes before sleep,
link |
along with the standard sleep stack.
link |
And I found that to be immensely beneficial.
link |
I also noticed that it has a pretty long tail
link |
of anxiety suppression throughout the day.
link |
And I'm not somebody who suffers from anxiety,
link |
but I have to say it just has led me
link |
to feel a bit calmer throughout the day.
link |
And I don't really know how to say this,
link |
except in subjective terms,
link |
to feel a bit more buffered against
link |
or resilience against stress events.
link |
And if you look at the literature on inositol
link |
and its interactions with the serotonin system
link |
and other systems,
link |
that all makes sense as to why that would be the case.
link |
So we will provide links to our so-called sleep kit,
link |
which is part of our neural network newsletter.
link |
It's a zero cost newsletter
link |
where you can access this information
link |
about supplements and other behavioral tools
link |
for sleep in list form.
link |
But that sleep kit doesn't include
link |
some of the newer information
link |
that I've provided this episode,
link |
in particular the information about inositol
link |
and what I'm finding to be the very beneficial use
link |
of inositol for the ability to fall back asleep
link |
after waking up in the middle of the night,
link |
which is something that a lot of people struggle with.
link |
Now that's supplementation for falling and staying asleep,
link |
but we can return to the behavioral tools
link |
also as powerful levers and tools for falling asleep
link |
and getting back to sleep.
link |
And again, we look to NSDR, non-sleep deep rest,
link |
or the Reverie app as a way to do that.
link |
As I mentioned earlier,
link |
the Reverie app has been developed
link |
on the basis of really high quality peer reviewed research,
link |
both clinical and non-clinical
link |
by my colleague, David Spiegel,
link |
who's our associate chair of psychiatry at Stanford.
link |
It's a wonderful tool.
link |
It does carry a cost after the initial seven day trial.
link |
I can tell you what the cost on that is
link |
so you can get a sense because I do realize
link |
that anything that carries a cost,
link |
for some people, it won't be accessible.
link |
Right now, Reverie, and I should just mention,
link |
they didn't pay us for an ad read.
link |
I'm just telling you what they told me
link |
so that I can accurately report what it costs to use Reverie.
link |
They have a monthly subscription
link |
to use the Reverie app at 14.99.
link |
You do get the seven day free trial.
link |
They have a yearly subscription of 99.99
link |
with a seven day free trial,
link |
and they have a lifetime purchase,
link |
one-time purchase of 2.49 with no trial.
link |
Right now, it's only available for Apple, not for Android,
link |
but they are, yes, going to have it available for Android.
link |
Soon, there's a signup list there.
link |
I should mention that while the cost might seem high,
link |
if you compare that cost to, say, supplements,
link |
or you compare that cost to a poor night's sleep over time,
link |
the cost, at least to me, seems somewhat modest,
link |
certainly within range for a number of people,
link |
but I acknowledge not within range for other people,
link |
which is why I also want to point to zero cost tools,
link |
and the zero cost tool for getting asleep, staying asleep,
link |
and falling back asleep is going to be NSDR.
link |
We'll put a link to a non-sleep deep rest protocol
link |
that's available on YouTube,
link |
so available to anybody, zero cost,
link |
provided you have a internet connection.
link |
Again, dim the screen
link |
if you're going to turn that on late at night.
link |
And there are a number of other Yoganidra scripts,
link |
and apps, and sources around the internet,
link |
in particular on YouTube, that are zero cost
link |
that you could use if the Reverie app
link |
is outside your price range,
link |
or is not preferable to you, et cetera.
link |
When I wake up in the middle of the night,
link |
it's usually to use the restroom.
link |
I'll go use the restroom.
link |
We'll keep the lights as dim as possible.
link |
I'll get back into bed,
link |
and if I find that it's easy to fall asleep, great.
link |
And if not, then I will generally plug in the Reverie app.
link |
They have a fallback asleep hypnosis,
link |
and 99 times out of 100,
link |
I'm back asleep within minutes,
link |
and I don't wake up until morning.
link |
Now, very briefly, I just want to touch on some tools
link |
that are very commonly used by many people out there.
link |
And believe it or not,
link |
there is peer-reviewed science on things like eye masks.
link |
Do eye masks improve your ability to stay asleep?
link |
And indeed, they do, provided they are not too tight,
link |
and provided that the room is cool enough.
link |
Well, eye masks cover the upper half of your face,
link |
which is where glabrous skin is localized.
link |
Remember, palms of the hands,
link |
bottoms of heat, glabrous skin on the face.
link |
So a lot of people who wear eye masks will wake up
link |
because they're too warm if the room is too warm.
link |
So if you're going to use an eye mask to keep light out,
link |
definitely make sure the room and your sleeping environment
link |
and your bed are cool enough
link |
in order for you to stay asleep.
link |
In addition, I get a lot of questions about earplugs.
link |
Here's the deal with earplugs.
link |
Some people find that earplugs are very beneficial
link |
because, of course, they prevent the entrance of sound
link |
into the ear that could wake us up.
link |
But some people find that the sound of their own beating
link |
of their own heart can be disruptive.
link |
And they get a sort of humming in their head
link |
when they have those earplugs in.
link |
I'm one such person, although I have family members
link |
that like using earplugs when they sleep.
link |
So it's really up to you.
link |
You have to see whether or not those earplugs
link |
help or disrupt your sleep.
link |
For me, they're no good.
link |
For some people, they really enjoy them.
link |
I don't use an eye mask
link |
unless I'm sleeping in a really bright environment
link |
or I need to sleep on a plane and things of that sort.
link |
Other tools that I'll just mention
link |
that have peer-reviewed research to support them,
link |
elevating your feet either with a pillow
link |
or by elevating the end of your bed
link |
by about three to five degrees can be really beneficial
link |
for increasing the depth of sleep
link |
because of the so-called glymphatic washout.
link |
This is the movement and circulation of fluids
link |
in your brain at night that lead to more wakefulness
link |
and actually can improve cognitive function
link |
and a number of other things related to brain health.
link |
There's one caveat to that.
link |
For people that suffer from acid reflux,
link |
having your ankles elevated above your chest
link |
or above your heart in the middle of the night
link |
can actually exacerbate that acid reflux.
link |
You want to do the opposite.
link |
You want to actually elevate the head side of your bed
link |
by about three to five degrees.
link |
Now, one of the common causes of sleep disruption
link |
that has tremendously detrimental effects
link |
is so-called sleep apnea.
link |
So this is basically bouts of suffocation
link |
or lack of oxygenation during sleep.
link |
This is particularly the case for people
link |
that are very heavyset,
link |
and that heavyset could be from obesity.
link |
It could also be heavyset from having too much muscle.
link |
A lot of people who are carrying too much muscle
link |
will actually have sleep apnea without realizing it.
link |
Sleep apnea is actually very dangerous.
link |
It's associated with a number of cardiovascular issues.
link |
It's associated with sexual dysfunction.
link |
It's associated with issues with cognition.
link |
Sleep apnea is bad.
link |
A lot of people will have to use the PAP,
link |
which is a device.
link |
It looks like a sort of a snorkel mask or dive mask.
link |
It's a whole apparatus that people go to sleep with.
link |
However, many people can relieve themselves of sleep apnea
link |
provided it's not too serious and can sleep much better.
link |
In fact, I think all people can sleep much better
link |
if they train themselves to be nose breathers
link |
There are a lot of reasons to be a nose breather
link |
unless you are breathing very hard due to exercise
link |
or talking or eating.
link |
That was all covered in James Nestor's book,
link |
Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art.
link |
It's been covered in a number of different podcasts.
link |
We've talked about it on this podcast as well.
link |
It's a good idea to be a nose breather
link |
unless you need to mouth breathe.
link |
And it's a great idea.
link |
It's a superb idea to be a nose breather in sleep.
link |
And one way to really get good at that
link |
is to take a little bit of medical tape
link |
and to tape your mouth shut before going to sleep.
link |
You heard me right, put some medical tape over your mouth
link |
and force yourself to nose breathe during sleep.
link |
It also prevents snoring in most cases,
link |
really offset sleep apnea.
link |
Sleep apnea, again, being a very serious health concern.
link |
I should also mention as a tool
link |
that if you have a hard time being a nose breather in sleep,
link |
you can try doing your cardiovascular exercise,
link |
at least the lower intensity cardiovascular exercise
link |
through purely nasal breathing.
link |
And one way to do that again is to tape your mouth shut
link |
or put a gulp of water in your mouth,
link |
but don't actually swallow that mouthful of water
link |
or to use a mouthpiece or just deliberately
link |
keep your mouth closed
link |
and insist on breathing through your nose.
link |
Most people find that
link |
when they start doing cardiovascular exercise that way,
link |
it's really challenging at first,
link |
but over time they actually can feel quite calm
link |
and still can generate a lot of physical effort
link |
purely using nose breathing.
link |
The reason that doing nose breathing
link |
during cardiovascular exercise
link |
translates to being a nose breather during sleep
link |
is that your sinuses actually can dilate their plastic
link |
and over time, plastic meaning they're malleable, that is,
link |
and they can become wider.
link |
You're not going to get giant nostrils, don't worry about it.
link |
Your airways within your skull,
link |
because that's what the sinuses really are,
link |
these little passages within the skull
link |
and of course within the nasal passages,
link |
will dilate and will allow you
link |
to breathe more easily through your nose.
link |
But for those of you that are waking up
link |
in the middle of the night, breathing on your back,
link |
ah, ah, or your partner is telling you that,
link |
or other people are telling you that,
link |
or that person on the plane with your mouth hanging open
link |
and drooling and your mouth breathing,
link |
terrible, terrible, terrible
link |
for health reasons and other reasons.
link |
Put some medical take over your mouth,
link |
learn to be a nose breather during sleep.
link |
Your sleep will improve
link |
and your daytime feelings of wakefulness and focus
link |
will improve, your cardiovascular health will improve
link |
and on and on and on.
link |
So now we've largely covered the tools
link |
that one could use to get and stay asleep.
link |
And we talked about exercise, we talked about temperature,
link |
we talked about supplements, and we talked about,
link |
of course, keeping the sleeping environment
link |
both cool and as dark as possible.
link |
I do want to mention a couple of broad contour tools
link |
that will impact your ability to sleep really well
link |
on a consistent basis.
link |
And the one that impacts the most number of people
link |
It turns out that most everybody feels the impulse
link |
to sleep in on the weekend,
link |
especially if they've been out late the night before.
link |
However, the data show that keeping
link |
relatively consistent sleep and wake times
link |
is really going to enhance the quality
link |
and depth of your sleep.
link |
So if you stay out late one night,
link |
sure, you might allow yourself to sleep in
link |
an extra hour or so,
link |
but you should really try to avoid sleeping in longer
link |
than an hour beyond your normal wake-up time.
link |
If you normally get eight hours of sleep
link |
and you wake up at 7 a.m.,
link |
probably okay to wake up at 8 a.m. on the weekend
link |
or after a night out the night before,
link |
but try not to sleep until 11 or noon,
link |
thinking that you're going to catch up on your sleep
link |
or that's better than waking up at a consistent time.
link |
It would be better to wake up at a consistent time,
link |
plus or minus an hour,
link |
and get a nap in the afternoon,
link |
provided that nap, again, isn't too long.
link |
And the other tool that relates to nights
link |
that you stayed out too late
link |
or that you feel like you want to sleep in a bit more
link |
in the morning is if you are going to wake up
link |
at your consistent time.
link |
So for example, normally you go to bed at 10
link |
and you wake up at six.
link |
Let's say that's your schedule.
link |
And you end up staying up late one night until midnight
link |
or one for whatever reason.
link |
And the next morning you wake up at seven
link |
and you're still groggy.
link |
In that case, you absolutely want to wait
link |
to ingest caffeine 90 to 120 minutes after waking.
link |
You really do because there are good data
link |
to support the fact that caffeine can disrupt sleep.
link |
Yes, that's obvious.
link |
Caffeine especially disrupts sleep
link |
if you take it too late in the day.
link |
That's very obvious as to why that would be the case.
link |
But caffeine especially disrupts
link |
what's called compensatory sleep.
link |
So if you start changing your waking time
link |
and your to sleep time
link |
and you start using additional caffeine
link |
to offset the sleepiness that you're experiencing
link |
because of those late nights out,
link |
well, that's when you really start to disrupt
link |
not just your nighttime sleep
link |
but your daytime compensatory sleep.
link |
So those naps, you also are disrupting
link |
the total architecture of sleep in the early morning hours.
link |
There's a lot of great science that's been put to this
link |
or that's emerged from this, I should say.
link |
So try and keep those sleep wake times relatively constant
link |
plus or minus an hour
link |
and try as much as you can to delay that caffeine intake
link |
90 to 120 minutes after waking every day
link |
but especially on days where you wake up
link |
and you feel you haven't gotten enough sleep.
link |
In that case, I highly recommend you just use NSDR
link |
or the Reverie app or some other form of deep relaxation
link |
to try and compensate for the lack of sleep.
link |
Knowing of course, that there's no complete compensation
link |
for lack of sleep.
link |
There are just things that we can do
link |
to partially offset lack of sleep.
link |
Now, a couple of final points and additional tools
link |
that I think are going to be useful to everybody.
link |
In particular, people who have young children
link |
or following a shift work schedule
link |
or who are experiencing jet lag.
link |
Keep in mind, jet lag can be due to travel, which is obvious
link |
but jet lag can also be due to getting woken up
link |
in the middle of the night, right?
link |
Your body doesn't know the difference
link |
between flying to a new time zone
link |
and getting woken up in the middle of the night.
link |
The tool that I'd like to offer you is an understanding
link |
of something called temperature minimum.
link |
And I'm going to make this as simple as possible
link |
and I'm confident that everyone can understand this
link |
even if you don't have any science background.
link |
Here's the question you need to ask yourself.
link |
What is your typical wake-up time?
link |
Okay, what's your typical wake-up time?
link |
If for you, your typical wake-up time
link |
is 7 a.m. plus or minus half an hour.
link |
So, and that could be 7 a.m. because you set an alarm clock
link |
or it could be 7 a.m. because you naturally wake up
link |
at 7 a.m., doesn't matter.
link |
If your typical wake-up time most days is 7 a.m.,
link |
well, then your temperature minimum is 5 a.m.
link |
That's right, your temperature minimum is not a temperature,
link |
it's a time within your 24-hour cycle.
link |
Approximately two hours before your typical wake-up time,
link |
your body is at its lowest temperature
link |
that it will ever be in the 24-hour cycle.
link |
That's why it's called your temperature minimum.
link |
Here's what you need to know about your temperature minimum.
link |
If you view bright light, exercise, or drink caffeine,
link |
or all of the above in the two to four hours
link |
before your temperature minimum,
link |
that will delay your clock.
link |
What that means when I say delay your clock
link |
is it will make you want to go to sleep later
link |
and wake up later the next night.
link |
Okay, so let's run this exercise for you,
link |
the person waking up at 7 a.m. on a regular basis.
link |
I can predict with almost certainty
link |
that your body is going to be at its lowest temperature
link |
So what that means is that if you get up at 3 a.m.
link |
or at 4 a.m., and you flip on bright lights in your house
link |
or in your bathroom, or you have a cup of coffee,
link |
or you do any kind of exercise,
link |
or you get up and head to the airport,
link |
the mechanisms in your brain and body
link |
that control timing of sleep and timing of waking
link |
will shift, they will delay.
link |
It's as if you put your clock on hold for a little while
link |
and then let it start again.
link |
That's the simplest way I can describe it.
link |
And you will tend to want to go to sleep later
link |
and wake up later the following night.
link |
Now, the opposite is true if you view bright light,
link |
drink caffeine, or exercise, or socialize, I should say,
link |
in the hours immediately after your temperature minimum.
link |
So for you, in this example,
link |
the person who's waking up at 7 a.m.,
link |
your temperature minimum is 5 a.m.,
link |
if you view bright light, exercise,
link |
maybe have a snack, maybe not, or socialize,
link |
move about at 5.30 or 6 a.m. or 7 a.m.,
link |
that will tend to phase advance your clock.
link |
It will tend to basically make you want to go to bed earlier
link |
and wake up earlier the following night.
link |
Now, I use this example of a person
link |
who wakes up typically at 7 a.m.,
link |
whose temperature minimum is 5 a.m.,
link |
but of course you need to adjust that for yourself
link |
if you're somebody who wakes up at 9 a.m. or at 5 a.m.,
link |
Why do I offer this as a tool?
link |
Well, this is an immensely powerful tool
link |
if, for instance, you're headed to a time zone
link |
where you need to go to bed earlier
link |
and wake up earlier once you arrive in that time zone.
link |
What it means is in the day or two before you leave,
link |
you can force yourself to exercise, drink caffeine,
link |
maybe even to eat a meal early in the morning,
link |
or maybe you still fast early in the morning,
link |
and that's really up to you,
link |
but you force yourself to do the activities
link |
that are going to phase advance your clock,
link |
whereas if you're traveling to a time zone
link |
where you are going to need to go to sleep much later
link |
and you're going to need to wake up much later,
link |
even a little bit later,
link |
you can do those things in the hours
link |
prior to your temperature minimum.
link |
Now, for those of you that work shift work,
link |
this can be especially useful,
link |
but I want to say a couple of things about shift work.
link |
There are a lot of details about shift work and jet lag
link |
in an episode that I did specifically
link |
about jet lag and shift work,
link |
so for the deep dive, go there,
link |
but suffice to say this for now,
link |
if you are going to do shift work,
link |
try to stay on the same shift for two weeks at a time.
link |
It's very detrimental to brain and body.
link |
It can even be horrifically challenging
link |
for your brain and body in a number of ways.
link |
If you are switching on the so-called swing shift,
link |
you know, you're working three days the night shift,
link |
three days the day shift,
link |
three days the night shift, three days the,
link |
try and stay on the same schedule as much as possible,
link |
and I should say for everybody,
link |
people who are jet lagged and engaged in shift work or not,
link |
but just for everybody,
link |
if you need to be awake in the middle of your sleep cycle,
link |
and it's not just a quick departure to the bathroom
link |
and back to bed, but you really need to be awake.
link |
You know, you're feeding a baby
link |
or you're taking care of a loved one
link |
or you need to do something that's critical
link |
or you need to work, if possible, use red light, okay?
link |
Now, for shift workers who really are trying
link |
to stay awake all night and sleep all day,
link |
this is not going to be ideal,
link |
but for people that, for instance, need to stay up
link |
really late one night or wake up especially early,
link |
like 3 a.m. to prepare for an exam
link |
that you're just not ready for,
link |
or to head to the airport, et cetera,
link |
using red light has been shown to allow people
link |
to be awake enough and obviously see what they need to see
link |
in order to perform their activity safely,
link |
but it does not seem to disrupt the cortisol rhythm
link |
that is the healthy, normal cortisol rhythm.
link |
I realize this is kind of an advanced tool
link |
and many people won't have access to this.
link |
There are a number of different sources
link |
for red lights now.
link |
Companies like Juve or Cozy Light,
link |
these are different brands.
link |
I don't have any affiliation to any of these brands,
link |
There are a number of different red light bulb sources
link |
out there and commercial sources
link |
that you can explore if you want,
link |
but understanding this temperature minimum
link |
is really powerful because it allows you
link |
to adjust your schedule depending on travel,
link |
depending on changing work schedules or school schedules,
link |
and if you're not a morning person,
link |
you can use the tools related to temperature minimum
link |
to really become a morning person over time,
link |
and it actually is pretty easy,
link |
and I talked about this in a previous episode,
link |
but I'll just mention that there have been shown
link |
to be important positive effects on cognition,
link |
on even grip strength and physical performance
link |
for people that are early morning risers,
link |
and that's especially true for night owls
link |
that deliberately shift themselves to become early risers.
link |
Okay, so that's a lot of information and a lot of tools,
link |
and I suppose the one set of tools
link |
that I really didn't drill into too deeply,
link |
the ones related to jet lag and shift work,
link |
and again, please check out the episode
link |
on jet lag and shift work if that's relevant to you,
link |
but I think for most people who are going to sleep at night
link |
and are trying their best to sleep well at night
link |
and are trying their best to wake up in the morning
link |
at whatever hour and stay alert and focused
link |
throughout the day and maybe with a brief nap,
link |
the tools that I talked about today
link |
related to light temperature, food, exercise,
link |
caffeine, supplements, and digital tools,
link |
I'm hoping will prove to be very useful for you.
link |
They certainly are all supported
link |
by excellent peer-reviewed research,
link |
and I should just emphasize again
link |
that most of the tools we talked about
link |
are completely zero cost,
link |
so while the supplements and some of the digital tools
link |
do carry some cost to them,
link |
I really want to encourage everybody
link |
to get your behaviors right,
link |
get all of the things related to your timing of exercise
link |
and type of exercise in the best possible order
link |
We talked about this critical period early in the day
link |
and then another critical period in the middle of the day
link |
and the late afternoon,
link |
and then this third critical period
link |
in the middle of the night.
link |
Different tools for the different three critical periods.
link |
I promise that if you start to implement some
link |
or ideally all of these tools,
link |
the quality of your sleep will increase tremendously,
link |
and of course, in doing so,
link |
the quality of your daytime alertness
link |
and your ability of focus will improve tremendously.
link |
Again, sleep is the absolute foundation
link |
of your mental health, your physical health,
link |
and your performance in all endeavors.
link |
So if there's one area of your life to really focus on
link |
and try and optimize,
link |
if your goal is to be happier and more productive
link |
and just to have a better life overall,
link |
I can confidently say that sleep
link |
is really the thing to optimize.
link |
If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast,
link |
please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
link |
That's a terrific zero cost way to support us.
link |
We also now have a Clips channel.
link |
It's Huberman Lab Clips.
link |
Please subscribe to our Clips channel
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for short outtakes from podcast episodes.
link |
Please also subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple.
link |
And on both Spotify and Apple,
link |
you can leave us up to a five-star review.
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If you have questions about the content of these podcasts
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or you have suggestions about topics you'd like us to cover
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or guests you'd like us to invite
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on the Huberman Lab podcast,
link |
please put all that in the comment section on YouTube.
link |
We do read all those comments.
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In addition, please check out the sponsors mentioned
link |
at the beginning of today's podcast.
link |
That's the best way to support this podcast.
link |
During today's podcast and on many previous episodes
link |
of the Huberman Lab podcast, we talked about supplements.
link |
While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,
link |
many people derive tremendous benefit from them
link |
for things like sleep and focus
link |
and hormone support and so forth.
link |
For reasons mentioned at the beginning of the episode,
link |
we are now partnered with Momentous Supplements.
link |
If you go to livemomentous.com slash Huberman,
link |
you'll see many of the supplements described in today's
link |
and other episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast.
link |
Again, all as single ingredient formulations.
link |
They ship internationally.
link |
Their quality is exceedingly high.
link |
And by largely focusing on single ingredient
link |
and various dosages of different supplements,
link |
you can create the optimized supplement protocol for you.
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If you're not already following us on social media,
link |
we are Huberman Lab on Instagram
link |
and also Huberman Lab on Twitter.
link |
There I cover science and science related tools,
link |
some of which overlaps with the content
link |
of the Huberman Lab podcast and other of which,
link |
I should say much of which is distinct
link |
from the information covered on this podcast.
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If you're interested in obtaining protocols
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or summaries from these podcasts,
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you can get those completely free of cost
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by going to HubermanLab.com,
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go to the menu at HubermanLab.com,
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go to the neural network newsletter.
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You simply provide us your email
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and you'll get the neural network newsletter
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You can also find previous newsletters there
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For instance, toolkit for sleep or deliberate cold exposure
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and so on and so forth.
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Again, we don't share your email with anybody.
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So our privacy policy is made very clear there
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and it's completely zero cost.
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So thank you for joining me today
link |
for our discussion about tools for optimizing sleep
link |
and in doing so, tools for optimizing, not just sleep,
link |
but your daytime feelings of alertness and focus
link |
and your overall health.
link |
And last, but certainly not least,
link |
thank you for your interest in science.
link |
I'll see you in the next one.