Transcription
There's a simple truth: the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. After hearing this two years ago, my perspective on sleep completely changed. To hopefully inspire the same change in you today, we're going to talk to a bunch of different sleep experts who actually help people on a daily basis so that we can build a guide for you of tips that actually work. At the end of the video, they're going to tell you exactly what you can do tonight to start creating change.
But first, if you want to improve your sleep, we have to understand why it's so important and why we need to start prioritizing it now! What are the negative side effects of getting six hours or less of sleep for a long period of time? It's like asking what the negative side effects of smoking three cigarettes a day are. That kind of metric—"Hey, I got six hours of sleep today and killed it"—is misleading. Great. Talk to me in three years or 30 years of getting that inadequate sleep.
All right, so then what is the goal? How much sleep do we actually need? Does everyone need eight hours of sleep? If not, how can they figure that out for themselves? No, not everyone does, but a lot of people do. In fact, when we're talking about the middle of the bell curve distribution, we're probably around seven and a half to eight hours. To me, it's really about how you function the next day. If you're presented with the option of getting that sleep, do you take it?
To actually get that, what are the most important things we can do to start improving our sleep? I'm going to give you just a couple. Number one: there's no such thing as "can't sleep." If I could snap my fingers and eliminate that phrase from popular language, I would. Your perception of what's going on can often be dramatically different from what's really happening. Your brain is not like an on-off switch; you really need to dim things down for your brain, like you dim the lights down at night.
So what can you do? Again, make that to-do list. Do that dump—not the one you're thinking of, but if that relaxes you, that could work too. You can use these techniques to protect your natural melatonin levels. To enhance melatonin, watch the sunrise. As a personal trainer, I'm kind of biased towards physical activity and movement, and I guess it would be the concept of sleep drive. What that means is basically our propensity or willingness to actually sleep, which comes from being physically active. In today's society, people don't move enough, and that's one of the reasons they can't fall asleep: they're not physically tired enough because they haven't moved enough.
Number two: the secret to great sleep is being equally happy in bed awake as you are asleep. If you think being in bed awake is a nightmare, you're going to struggle. But if you're kind of like, "Eh, I'd like to sleep, but if I don't, it's fine," you're going to do great.
That was some awesome advice. But what if you're one of those people who, whenever you try to go to bed, it literally feels impossible? What if you're someone who, when your head hits the pillow, your mind just doesn't shut off? I think that setting a consistent wake-up time and a consistent bedtime can make a big difference because your body's going to be much more in tune with that natural rhythm.
What I would tell people who struggle with that is that settling your mind is a skill. It's not a genetic trait you inherited from your mother. You can do things like meditation to build that skill, or you can try 30 minutes of meditation before bed—that's what I do to wind down.
For people who have a bad habit of using their phone too late at night and that's holding them up, what are your recommendations? My recommendation—it's an easy one to say and a difficult one to break—is to keep phone sleep in the kitchen. I literally have the same thing; that drawer right there is basically my charging drawer.
What if you're too hot and you can't fall asleep? We do sleep better in cooler temperatures, so open a window, turn down your thermostat, or there are cool products out there—no pun intended—that actually cool your bed.
And that was perfect timing because we have to thank the sponsor of this video, which is Eight Sleep. I'm super pumped about this because I've been using one for the last six months, and it is amazing. It allows you to cool or warm your bed at different sleep stages so you can improve the quality of your sleep. Straight up, I love this thing, and there are a bunch of other top performers who swear by it as well.
I personally have the Pod Cover 3, and it's super clutch because I run really hot, so it's hard for me to fall asleep. I literally just set it to 57 degrees Fahrenheit—yeah, that cold—and it does wonders. On the flip side, I get to wake up at a consistent time with the heat and also with the vibrations of the alarm. Not to mention, it also helps track and analyze your sleep. If you'd like to get one for yourself, Eight Sleep is actually giving an additional discount, so click the link in the description. That link helps support this channel, and use code Mike50 for that discount.
But now it's time to dive back into the two biggest things that mess up people's sleep. Unfortunately, oftentimes, they don't even know that it's affecting them. If someone suspects that they have a sleep disorder, like sleep apnea, narcolepsy, or insomnia, what should they do?
I really like this question because I have sleep apnea, and I'd fall asleep sitting on the couch at 7:00 PM. I could not stay awake to watch TV for an hour. I've actually successfully treated it to the point that I no longer need to use a CPAP. Hell yeah, I want to know how!
Getting a sleep test done is important if you suspect something. Weight loss made a difference for me, and I also started running a lot more, so my cardio improved significantly. There have been a bunch of factors like that, which I think are the biggest changes. Insomnia is fairly easy in the sense that people are extremely aware of their insomnia and usually pretty upset by it. You could see a sleep specialist, do a cognitive behavioral therapy course, or read my first book, "The Sleep Solution." If people are really struggling to fall asleep, there are lots of sleep specialists near you that you can talk to for real expert advice and maybe a sleep study to really get a sense of what's going on.
But there's something we're often overlooking: what about the substances and things that we consume throughout the day and to go to sleep? What are your thoughts on sleeping pills, for example, or melatonin? Do you think people should use them—yay or nay? Probably nay. It really depends on the motivation. If I'm talking to somebody who says, "Look, I'm a good sleeper. I exercise, I've got my circadian rhythm and my schedule down, and I take a little bit of magnesium to supplement things, or I'm using a little bit of melatonin because I'm a business traveler," those are perfectly fine.
The problem arises when you talk to most people about any sleeping pill or any substance they're using for sleep, and they say, "Oh, I can't sleep without it." That's where the problem becomes. I think sleeping pills often lie when it comes to this idea that you can't sleep without the sleeping pill. That's never true. It's impossible not to sleep. When you actually look at the data on sleeping pills, it's remarkably terrible.
What are your thoughts on alcohol and maybe weed close to bed? There is actually more and more research supporting how disruptive alcohol can be to sleep, even one drink closer to bedtime. The problem is it's an illusion, right? Your body may be unconscious, but it's not going through the deep sleep cycles, and it's not restorative at all.
As for THC, from what I've been aware, I think THC can interfere with REM sleep. Is eating too late into the day going to affect my sleep? Generally, it's thought to; we usually recommend several hours between your last meal and when you go to bed. However, I think there are exceptions. If you're getting ready to go to bed and you're feeling hungry, that's not a great feeling to take with you to bed.
When is the last time someone should plan to have caffeine before going to bed? That's an interesting one because for a lot of people, they'll say, "Well, caffeine really doesn't affect me." We always tell people six hours before bed, but it also depends on what your caffeine source is. Espresso is quickly processed through the bean; there's not a tremendous amount of caffeine in it versus a full-throttle monster energy drink, which is a double dose mega.
Also, what Dr. Andrew Huberman says is that it really depends from person to person, so you're going to have to experiment for yourself. It's going to be around six to 12 hours.
So far, we've learned a bunch of different things, and oftentimes people think that knowledge is power. But I'm here to tell you that's not the case. Knowledge is only potential power. It's only power if you actually take action on it. I used to be the person who would watch YouTube video after YouTube video, thinking that I was learning and growing, but I wasn't applying any of those things to my life.
So I made sure to ask the sleep experts: what's the most important thing that you could actually start applying to your life tonight to make change? I would say that it's to actually measure something. You don't have to get a device to measure your sleep; score your sleep on a scale of 1 to 10 and just do that. Start to take small, one change at a time. We've mentioned a bunch of things. What stands out to you as something you want to try? Just do that one thing and see what difference it makes.
Believe it or not, this is exactly what I did as well two years ago. Here's your sleep guide, and if you stick with this, you're going to get the results you want, which is a longer and more vibrant life. I hope this helped you on your journey to become the best version of yourself. Please be sure to subscribe; it really does help out. Check out this video here if you'd like to continue learning.