what the research says is that people

who are having sex within a few hours

when they sleep have better markers of

sleep and recovery so does masturbation

not have the same implications well what

was so interesting about this research

is that Kristen Holmes is the vice

president of performance science at wo

who has access to health data from

hundreds of thousands of people and her

groundbreaking research will tell you

the secrets of achieving perfect health

and performance the key to your health

is your tradan Rhythm which are physical

mental and behavioral changes that

happen in a 24-hour cycle one of the

most known circadian rhythms is being

asleep during the night and it has

massive Health consequences for example

we know their shift workers on average

are going to die 15 years sooner but if

you're awake for 2 hours between 10:

p.m. and 4:00 a.m. 2 days per week for

25 days of the year you qualify as a

shift worker you are putting yourself at

increased risk for cancer cardiovascular

disease mental health issues you can

have trouble having children I mean

that's terrifying we know that we

haven't adapted to Blue Light the light

we get from screens yes if you're

viewing light between the hours of 10

p.m. and 4:00 a.m. it actually has a pro

depressive effect it this goes on and on

and a lot of people are like I have to

go to bed at 1:00 a.m. because I'm a

night owl total BS you're making a

choice and if you want to perform

consistently increase your tolerance for

stress and take control of your life you

need to we want to eat and most

importantly we need

to quick one this is really really

fascinating to me on the back end of our

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deal

Kristen why do you do the work that you

do I am uh irrationally passionate about

human flourishing and the Frameworks

policies basically determinants of of

human flourishing and um yeah I've kind

of dedicated my life

to understanding um how the physiology

and and psychology work together to help

people take control of their health um

so they can understand how to apply

their energy and and attention in a way

that's truly rewarding what is your job

title I'm the vice president of

performance science principal scientist

at uh whoop which is a technology a

physiological monitoring technology

company and what does that mean so I'm

trying to make sure uh whoop is a

thought leader in human performance so

trying to see around the bend to

understand you know what's going to be

important for tomorrow in terms of

understanding uh how we can take control

of the directory of our health you know

what are the markers that are important

that we need to be tracking um what are

the behaviors that we need to be

engaging in in order to move those

metrics around in a way that is Health

promoting I look at a lot of the high

stakes high stress environments so

professional athletes um Frontline

Healthcare CL Ians um and uh you know

military operators so kind of

understanding some of these extreme

professions and and crafts and and what

the physiology and the psychology looks

like we can then kind of abstract and

and and I think in some ways generalize

what that means for the regular

population um who are experiencing less

extreme demands on on their time and

their energy and and their cognitive

bandwidth and you conduct um your own

studies yes yeah so I'm a principal

investigator on um on many studies um

which means that I'm kind of leading

those experiments from kind of A to Z

and I have a team that is you know kind

of supporting that research um and from

various aspects of of expertise um but

yeah I mean one of the studies that we

published in in May was looking at uh a

thousand paratroopers in Army Alaska so

super extreme you know environment you

know harsh but the the Army came to us

they were you know if if you you know

Alaska in general has a very high

suicide rate um this base in elor Alaska

has a lot of mental health issues a lot

of suicide and um they're trying to

understand you know what is actually

going on here and we were able to run a

study where we showed that there's

actually one

Behavior one behavior that was surfaced

that was the most predictive of positive

psychological functioning in these um in

these soldiers and that one Behavior was

sleep wake

timing so the more consistent and more

stable the sleep wake the Sleep onset

and offset of these soldiers um the

higher levels of positive psychological

functioning so work place resilience um

uh less homesickness more feelings of

control more positive social networks it

bubbles up in every single piece of of

research that we do at whoop sleep wake

timing I think is the mother of all

performance optimization behaviors sleep

wake timing so is this the same thing as

your Cadian Rhythm or yeah so this is

one of the most I think when we think

about circadian rhythms which is just

physical mental and behavioral changes

that happen in a 24-hour cycle um and

your biological clock is kind of

orchestrating these rhythms right and

okay so I'm going to have to pause and

take this right back to Monkey level

stuff yeah what is a Arcadian Rhythm as

if you're expending it to a 10-year-old

yeah so it's basically physical mental

and behavioral

changes that happen over a 24-hour cycle

okay so here's my read on it and correct

me if I'm

wrong there's a clock in my head yes the

the the supermatic nucleus yeah is a is

the Master Clock okay which is somewhere

in my body it's in the it's in the

hypothalamus so it's in my brain and

this clock regulates every cell in my

body cell tissue organ okay and it

releases it controls the release of a

chemical which makes those cells organs

every part of my body do stuff yeah so

it is your hypothalamus so the superism

nucleus it responds to light and it

responds to Darkness okay okay so that's

like the most pronounced entrainment cue

for this master clock and it then tells

it sends signals to every cell tissue in

your body as to what it needs to be

doing in the presence of light in the

presence of darkness and when we are

viewing light at a phase of the natural

light dark cycle that is if I am awake

when I should be sleeping or I am

sleeping when I should be awake when my

body anticipates that it causes huge

amounts of stress in the system if we do

this once or twice not a big deal but if

we're doing this

chronically okay it has massive Health

consequences you know cancer um

metabolic disease um you know

cardiovascular disease 100% of mental

health issues there will be some level

of circadian disruption okay so when

this inform this light information comes

in

and tells these clocks to what to do if

I am going outside of my natural

biological

preferences that is circadian

disruption and if and if you think about

how many folks are walking around

circadian disruption it is mind-blowing

I mean basically the the kind of the

definition that's been thrown out there

is if you are awake from the hours of 10

p.m. to 4 a.m. if you're awake for 2

hours between 10: p.m. and 4:00 a.m. for

2 days per week for 25 days of the year

you qualify as a kind of card carrying

shift worker and you likely have

significant circadian disruption which

means that I have you are at risk for

some of the and it you know it's not

going to happen tomorrow but if you

continue on that pattern that I just

described red you are putting yourself

at increased risk

for cancer and cardiovascular disease

metabolis dysfunction um you know you

can have trouble having children it

impacts fertility mental health

psychiatric disorders there isn't

disease or disorder that circadian

disruption doesn't

touch so a way of thinking about this um

so that I and everyone else can

understand is there's this master clock

in our um hypothalamus look at me um

hypothalamus and this Master Clock

regulates all of the other clocks

throughout our entire body and there's

millions of them right basically yes and

the thing that's the Master Clock is

using as a signal the clock in our brain

is light and darkness that's its most

reliable yes that's the signal it cares

about it listens to the most but there's

other signals as well and if that Master

Clock if so if I'm if I'm up at 4:00

a.m. and I'm looking at a a light at

4:00 a.m. that Master Clock is going to

start firing off chemicals to all the

other clocks um and then all the clocks

are going to be out of sync because then

when I wake up it's light and then you

know you're confusing I'm confusing my

body and it's firing off in all kinds of

different ways so I need to form an

alignment which means basically sleeping

at the right time exposing myself to

Darkness at the right time etc etc your

body loves regularity and and that's and

the problem is modity is not set up for

that you know we have access you know I

think all the Circadian research um

unfortunately was done after the Advent

of electri electricity so so we're kind

of fighting you know this access to

constant light um and you know we're

starting to see the the I think dilar

effects or the the negative consequences

of exposure to light really after the

sun goes down we haven't adapted to blue

light after dark right after the sun

goes down we have not adapted to blue

light blue light being the light we get

from screens yes there was a study that

looked at the timing of light and its

impact on um mood and and brain circuit

circuits and they saw that if you're

viewing light between the hours of again

this is kind of this magic window of

time 10 p.m. and 4: a.m. it actually has

a pro depressive

effect so it impacts your dopamine

system reward motivation right so when

we wonder you know oh why are why what

is this Mental Health crisis I mean we

have to look at light first and I and I

just don't know and and I think what's

hard about the discussion and hard about

this behavior is

that you know it it's really hard for

people to not engage with their phones

you know before bed um that has its own

addictive properties right but we just

have to understand that these our our

relationship to light will directly

influence the trajectory of our health

there's just no question about that

to understand this from a more sort of

prehistoric ancestoral lens if we go

back I don't know tens of thousands of

years to how maybe some of our ancestors

used to live they would have food at

certain times and they would have light

exposure at certain times they didn't

have artificial light right they had

invented that yet the modern world is

very much the antithesis of that it is

we have food whenever we want it we can

order I can order a cookie at 3:00 a.m.

if I want to eat cookie at 3 a.m. and I

can watch YouTube video the D CEO for

example like And subscribe at any hour

of the day um so is this kind of like a

misalignment issue with our the way our

body was designed by nature and the

world we now live in yeah we have not

evolved to to to digest food in the

middle of the night or or to view light

in the middle of the night um or to be

super active in the middle of the night

which just happen and it does it creates

this it creates this misalignment and

you know I think what's interesting if

we are to kind of look at individuals

you know or societies currently that

don't have

electricity it's it's really interesting

to to I think see some of their

behaviors some of their sleep wake

behaviors and this is fascinating there

is a study done looking at um kind of a

hunter gatherer type of society who

don't have access to any electricity and

when you observe their sleep wake times

they all fall asleep within 15 to 30

minutes of each other and they all wake

up between 15 and 30 minutes of each

other so this whole notion of

chronotypes is like kind of like total

BS It's like because I think that's you

know I think that's the reason a lot of

people are like oh I I I have to go to

bed at 1: a.m. because I'm a night owl

no you're you're making a choice

generally speaking now this is in

healthy populations not people who have

circadian you know disorders and and

things like that um generally speaking

like if you were to throw everyone in

this building on a mountain in Colorado

and this experiment has actually been

done with no electricity we will

literally all fall asleep within 30

minutes of each other after 48 Hours

like that is how powerful these light

dark signals are to our body and I I

think that just those two examples are

really compelling in that you know we're

we have evolved to kind of wake up and

fall asleep in relation to This Light

Dark cycle so what are this stuff we say

to ourselves because I say that to

myself all the time I told I've told

myself I'm a nightow yeah and I've given

myself the whole chronotype Spiel yeah

that's be

yeah in my opinion the way I interpret

the

literature it it seems that you know the

the variability that I think is talked

about or how we think about it in as a

as a society in terms of there's

chronotypes that are you know very you

know you're you fall asleep you want to

you you're genetically predisposed to

fall asleep at 1:00 am and I'm

genetically predisposed to to fall

asleep at 9:00 P p.m. yeah I I don't

think it's that kind of variability I

think the variability maybe is an hour

at the most maybe an hour and a half

obviously it's age related as well um

but for the most part I don't I don't

think this variability is is as

pronounced as as as what um what we say

it is sleep yeah so conventional wisdom

says it's all about how many hours you

spend

sleeping we already this has already

been shown to be not true sleep

duration is is important right we can

put a pin in that um but sleep

regularity predicts all cause mortality

and this is just recently published

actually um not by my team but um

looking at it was actually UK uh uh

biobank 60,000 people 10 million sleeps

objective measure of sleep and they

found that sleep regularity predicted uh

mortality and independent of sleep

duration so it it's not to say that

sleep duration doesn't matter but that

is absolutely incomplete advice how much

time you spend in bed does doesn't

necessarily predict how long you live it

is the degree to which you stabilize

when you go to bed and when you wake up

that predicts mortality what did they

find what what was the conclusion of

that was there a sort of a percentage

variance in those that have irregular

and regular sleep yeah so the Sleep

onset offset times I'm I'm not sure but

actually this is research that my team

is doing and that we have not published

yet so this is preliminary data but we

are we're actually able to determine

down to the

minute what is a tolerable level of

variability so for the most elite

athletes on the planet the

0.001% 18 to 23 year olds we know that

um 70 minutes of onset offset

variability at 70 minutes we will see a

sharp decline in markers of recovery

heartly variability resting heart rate

which is a indicator of how you will

adapt to load the next day to stress the

next day to stress the next day so life

load so sleep awake time is really

important and we're we're we're doing

research across across every age bucket

and and but you can imagine that if

these are the most robust humans on the

planet and they have 70 minutes of of

variability that is tolerable within

that population some are a little bit

sooner um in terms of the or uh can deal

with less variability others can deal

with slightly more variability but the

mean is 70 70 minutes so you can imagine

for individuals who are more vulnerable

who have less are less robust physically

mentally emotionally their tolerable

level is going to be much

narrower what's going on inside of the

body when we increase the variability or

that we don't have a regular sleep and a

regular wake up time what's actually

going on from like a chemical

physiological perspective yeah so one of

the things that's suppressed is

melatonin

and circulating reductions in

circulating melatonin have been shown to

be linked to every disorder and

disease in the

body every disorder and disease in the

body when we have suppressed or reduced

circulating melatonin that is going to

impact us on every level and make us

more vulnerable to disease and and

disorders so that is probably one of the

most important thing when we have super

unstable sleep awake time we are going

to uh have cell suppressed melatonin

production um which leads to

inflammation in the body it's melatonin

I think is is one of the big players in

the story growth hormones yes yes and uh

typically you know if you're not going

to sleep uh if you're going to sleep

late you will not release a human growth

hormone um as uh you'll get less of a

Bolis of of release and why does that

matter that's when all the physical

restoration happens so all the

Regeneration physically so for bypassing

that we're basically all the work that

we did in the gym or you know everything

that we did during the day um we're just

not going to recover um from that in in

the same way that we would if we were

getting that sleep is growth hormone

essentially the thing that causes our

sort of muscles to grow and repair

essentially so I sometimes think this

because I think if I'm sometimes in my

life because I'm quite busy I have to

make the decision whether to go to the

gym or get a great night's sleep yeah

and the more I've learned about growth

hormone in the body and whoop and all

those things I've started to make the

decision towards sleep versus going to

the gym because my brain now goes well

you're not going to get the recovery and

sort of restoration anyway benefits yeah

the benefits of going to the gym if

you're poorly slept that night yep I

think if it's um if you're consistently

getting you know decent sleep and

consistently getting you know going to

bed and wake up some more times um you

know I would say it's okay to prioritize

exercise sometimes um but sleep is is

very important um and is probably the

thing that needs to be prioritized

first how consistent are you with your

sleep I'm very consistent I heard that

in 2017 you started trying to sleep

within sort of 25 to 30

minutes um every single day y the same

sleeping window that's right yeah and

yeah it was a it was a paper that came

out uh by Andrew Phillips actually in in

the summer of 2017 and it basically was

a four-year study um that was conducted

at Harvard University looking at

students and they were basically

students sleep and they're trying to see

okay you know what aspect of of sleep is

is predictive of things like GPA and um

other uh you know measures of of kind of

uh flourishing and uh what they found is

that basically sleep weight time

predicted

GPA what's GPA for people oh sorry grade

point average yes so it's the difference

you know they more regular you know it's

the difference between getting an A and

A B um by just stabilizing sleep awake

time and so at that time I was working

with you know tons of Collegiate

athletes so nc2a athletes professional

athletes so eppl um you know NBA NFL

MLB you name it like the biggest high

performers like in the world and and I

started tracking this you know just

manually at the time at whoop we didn't

actually track this uh this wasn't

automated I had to like you know kind of

do this in Excel and then sure enough

you know sleep wake time started

predicting all these performance metrics

that people care about and um we started

rolling in some subjective measures um

we had internal load we had external

load of course so all the objective

measures but I started rolling in some

subjective measures and sure enough

sleep awake time just continued to to to

ladder up to all these performance

variables that people care about so I

started of course you know because I

have access to all these these data I

start I'm like I need to I need to

like start stabilizing my sleep wake

time and sure enough summer 2017 I just

like that's basically like my

non-negotiable and yeah I mean I I

haven't I haven't been sick since

2017 I had a little tiny head cold that

lasted 48 hours but since then I

literally have not had a sniffle a

stomach ache I didn't get covid like I

literally have not been sick and you

know there I do a lot of other things

well but that has been the single

biggest change just sleeping and waking

up at the same time that's it what is

your routine there how do you ensure

that happens because yeah so the the key

to that is stabilizing when I wake up so

even when I travel and I do travel and I

I travel internationally I travel to the

West Coast um I try to maintain my home

time zone as much as I can as long as I

can fulfill my business commitments and

and social you know there might be a

social element as well but for the most

part um I stabilize when I wake up so I

keep that consistent even if I can't go

to bed at the same time I ensure that I

wake up at the same time and that

basically sets my circadian rhythm so I

will then feel sleepy at the right time

and I can kind of keep that virtuous

cycle going if I um have short sleep I

just basically try to build in a nap

prior to 1:30 for 30 minutes to an hour

so I don't accumulate sleep debt is

another thing that we can talk about

sleep DT is wild in some of its

correlations like psychological safety

and executive function and um but but

yeah so I kind of that's how I manage

short sleep um but I I always try to

wake up at the same time so I'm getting

that Bolis of light at the same time

every single day and what time do you

wake up and go to sleep so I go to bed

um around I kind of get into bed usually

around

9915 9:30 I read for a half an hour 45

minutes

a book um printed page dim light um and

then I fall asleep usually around 10 and

then I wake up um like at 6 uh 14 no I'm

just kidding like around six around 6

you know whenever I talk about these

subjects the rebuttal I get is one you

might be able to predict it's from a

group of people that I can't yet relate

to yeah do you know who I'm talking

about um parents oh yeah yeah well

I've had I have two kids so I totally

understand the whole parenting thing so

yeah I mean there's no question there

are going to be times in your life where

you're literally a shift worker because

you're caring for a sick parent or a

sick child or you just literally have

kids and they're young um you're a shift

worker I mean there there are things um

you're making decisions to go out and

and and socialize in in times that maybe

maybe aren't optimal for kind of human

functioning but yes there's there's no

question that there are periods in your

life where it's going to be harder um

that said there are some things that you

can do to mitigate some of the negative

effects of both Direction and timing and

one of those those things is um is

dialing in your feeding window which is

another kind of circadian Behavior so

the timing of when you eat is is pretty

important um and can at least check some

of the boxes in terms of its impact on

uh metabolic functioning and and her

health and things like that so let's

talk about that then meal timing mhm

what is the what do I need to know about

when I should be eating what I should be

eating um and the implications that has

on yeah my circadian rhythm my body

yeah so it's it's in the

literature there's time restricted

eating and there's time restricted

feeding um and time restricted feeding

generally if you're reading the

literature is going to refer to Mouse

models time to eating will refer to

human uh studies Mouse models being

studies they yes sorry um yeah mice the

studies done with with mice are just

time restricted feeding and and

uh humans would be time restrict to

eating and not to confuse this with

intermittent fasting which I know is a

Hot Topic and people love talking about

it um Tim restricted eating basically

has a cading component so it's really

about the timing of when you're eating

your food in relation to the light dark

cycle intermittent fasting is basically

just reducing calories and so tempting

does not have a calorie um uh component

to it it's more about the the timing and

there's been some a lot of interesting

studies um that have been done that show

if you eat you know within uh you know

kind of 8 to 12h hour window uh you will

have uh much better metabolic outcomes

and this is pretty this is well

established um and I and if we see in

the whoop data that if you're um if you

stop eating three hours prior to when

you sleep to when you fall asleep

markers of sleep and Recovery are are uh

exponentially better um so timing of

meals really really does matter and

there's no question that uh and we we

know this from from other research

you're more primed to metabolize food um

closer to when you wake up in the

morning so earlier in the day you're

going to be much more primed to utilize

the the nutrients that you're um that

you've digested so does that mean we

should be eating we should have sort of

an earlier EA window yes yes you know

Brian Johnson of course yeah I know he

stops eating at 11:00 a.m. which is

crazy so which is insane and not super

practical but I think if you can stop

eating around when the sun sets you'll

position yourself to improve your

metabolic health and I and I would go so

far to say that you know regardless of

what it is you're eating because a lot

of folks cannot afford to you know eat

high quality food that's just a reality

and a lot of those folks do suffer from

you know at higher rates of C CIO

metabolic dysfunction but if if we can

just consolidate our eating window to 8

to 10 hours we get ourselves like 60% of

the way to our our kind of metabolic

goals again it's not to say that content

and quality does not matter it

absolutely does but if we aren't going

to if if we if we can't focus on that

for whatever it might be consolidating

our eating window so eating every single

one of our calories between you know an

8 to 12 hour window we will improve our

health and what's your eating window so

I do about 10 hours okay yeah so I I

definitely I pretty much don't eat after

the sun goes down when you say the sun

goes down sun sets yeah is that like

5:00 p.m. I mean now it's early yeah so

I give myself like an hour window yeah

like four right now it's it's definitely

early but um but for the most part I can

kind of get away with it based on my

lifestyle so ideally between sort of 7:

a.m. and 4 p.m. and then to make sure

you're not eating you know two to three

hours before you fall asleep yes that's

the big key I think um is is you want a

nice big buffer

between uh yeah when you when you have

your L calorie and and when you go to

sleep because

that they're both so digestion is a

parasympathetic activity what does that

right so that means so your autonomic

nervous system has two brand is your

parasynthetic and and your sympathetic

your parasynthetic is your rest and

digest right um we also want to be in a

parasynthetic state when we're sleeping

so when we are digesting food we're

basically kind of confusing our system

in terms of where it should apply its

resources right so it basically diverts

resources away from you know the sleep

and the restoration and and that's what

you know if you have a big meal you'll

notice your heart rate is really is a

lot higher right and your stress score

is higher right some of the features on

on the whoop app and when you are not

having to digest you'll see your stress

score is lower you'll see your heart

your your heart rate is lower your heart

rate variability would be higher in

those situations we want to make sure

that when we're sleeping we are not

diverting any resources away from sleep

I mean alcohol is another one right like

you just to metabolize alcohol you're

diverting all you know significant

resources away from the Regeneration and

the recovery that needs to happen during

sleep um by bouncing you out of deeper

stages of sleep so same sort of effect

happens with food and we see this you

know at population levels on the app

it's just very apparent that meal timing

and alcohol are are really the two

biggest disruptors to a good night's

sleep so interesting because I've always

wondered there was a time in my life

where I routinely ate super late at

night because I would work very very

hard during the day I would basically

forget to eat I'd get home

maybe 9 or 10 at night I would then

order the food yeah at 9 or 10 which

means it comes at 11 12 and then I'd eat

at 11 or 12 yeah it's very stressful for

your system yeah tell me about it the

interesting thing that I started to

notice was when when I did that I woke

up feeling like I hadn't slept yeah and

I've always wondered why so I arrived at

this own sort of self self constructed

conclusion that if I put food into my

body at midnight it basically keeps my

body on for a couple of hours yeah

that's exactly right that's a perfect

way to describe it I would see the the

exactly that in the loop data which is I

would see that my heart rate went up to

about 70 beats per minute for the first

3 hours it was almost like my body was

was still walking around or something

still and then 3 or 4 hours in it would

start to fall again back to I don't know

45 the food yeah and we know you know

there's there's a really nice study that

looked at basically everyone is eating

the exact same meals and they're

relatively the same age like it was a

really beautiful design um and they

basically looked at folks who are eating

after after 3 p.m. and folks who are

eating before 3 p.m. and the folks who

ate a bulk of their calories before 3

p.m. had um significantly better

metabolic outcomes and lost more weight

um so again there's no calorie

restriction component here you know

they're all kind of eating similar diet

similar macronutrient distribution

similar calorie content and um and it's

the folks who were eating bulk calories

prior to 3 P.M who had the best outcomes

exercise

one of the issues that I have sometimes

in my life today is one of those days

where because I was up very early this

morning it meant that I didn't go to the

gym this morning which means I'm

probably going to get home after being

in the studio being at the office today

at maybe 78 p.m. and I'm super hungry

then usually right and I also need to

work out so sometimes what happens is I

choose to work out first and then

obviously it makes the meal late at

night but there's also days in my life

where I end up working out and I'm known

for this at like 11: or 12: p.m. at

night wow

and there was this old train of thought

that that was a good thing to do because

people would say oh you're going to be

tired when you get in bed but that's

doesn't seem to be what happens yeah

does it do you feel more energized I

feel more energized yeah well not

surprising right you know adrenaline

cortisol like all of the kind of

hormones and chemicals that you need to

kind of get to a place where you can

exert that energy are are kind of

flowing through the system and it takes

time for them to go back to to normal

levels so to kind of get back to

homeostasis is going to take some time

and and so yeah I mean it would make

sense that you're um you know kind of

activated um after exercise so for some

folks there is a lot of individual

variability I think with exercise timing

some people are impacted more but I

honestly think that it has more to do

with the light you know usually if we're

in a gym it's generally well lit right

you're not in a dark gym so you're

getting exposure to um to light which is

going to make you feel like more

activated and it's again telling your

body that it's time to be awake and

alert on that point of light there's a

school of thought that says you should

look at lights when you wake up in the

morning my my partner always gets up in

the morning walks out into the balcony

and sits out there for 10 or 20 minutes

in morning I love that yes I love to

hear that yeah she's the best so

annoying she gets everything right oh I

love it um yeah but but for sure that

you want to get Light Within you know

100,000 lucks is is pretty much what you

want to get within you know 5 to 20

minutes of waking up to tell your body

like it's time to go 100,000 more oh Lux

so just like Photon energy so pretty

much if you're outside for five to to 20

minutes it sounds like your girlfriend

is like nailing this protocol you'll get

all of the photon energy that you need

to tell your system that it is time to

be awake can't you just go look into a

lamp or something um it will just take

longer because it doesn't have the same

light intensity but if you're waking up

you know prior to when the sun gets up

yeah Turn All the Lights you know you

want to try to mimic day as much as

possible and then once the sun does come

up it's good to get outside and before

you get in bed you referenced that you

read books versus being on an iPad or

screens Etc

um does the same philosophy and

principle apply to light exposure before

sleep as to food exposure before sleep

oh no question right absolutely um we

want to try to restrict light basically

after the sun goes down we want to dim

our home environment to the degree that

we can um we want to try to minimize all

artificial light in the lead up to bed

all artificial light yes yeah you want

to make it as dim as possible so you

know they're a lot of night like blue

light blocking glasses the filters that

you can put on your iPad and your phone

activate all of those um but but again

like we don't we want to protect our

melatone release right and for all the

reasons I kind of have explained when we

don't have it is linked to every disease

and disorder right so we we know this so

we want to protect our melatonin release

and the only way we can Rel

melatonin is by Darkness we we need to

be exposed to to Darkness in order for

that Master Clock in our brain to know

that it's time to go to sleep um and

again be able to tell our body our

tissues and organs and cells and our and

our body what it needs to do at that

moment when I was at the

headquarters in Boston um not so long

ago I saw them working on sleep masks

and I think I've always been quite

dubious about sleep masks you know you

get on those planes and they hand you a

sleep mask in the little bag I always

what a bunch of weirdos you know like

putting that strapping that thing to

your face how embarrassing I'm one of

those weirdos now yeah I mean it's hard

even the Little Dot on your you know

from your alarm clock or your TV is

going to emit enough light we're so

sensitive to

light artificial light so natural light

like the moon totally fine but any other

type of light is really going to impair

our ability to get into these deeper

stages of sleep where all the restor

restoration and regeneration happens do

you use a sleep mask I do yes what's

your sort of routine there um yeah just

when I start to feel sleepy I just put

it on and go to bed do you listen to

anything when you go to sleep no I don't

is there are you aware of any research

that might indicate that listening to

serial killer documentaries at 3:00

a.m. I think in principle anything that

activates you uh stimulates

you cognitively or um makes you energize

you probably want to avoid reading yeah

interesting I think there's a group of

us out there I'm yet to meet them but I

but I know that I'm not alone that I

like to listen to Horror and Thriller

and serial killer stuff at um you know

very late at night and it helps us to

sleep or at least that's what we tell

ourselves I think if you perceive it as

helpful it probably is you know and I

think that's where and if your objective

data shows that you're getting you know

the requisite time in these deeper

stages of sleep then go with it I think

I think what is actually there's

definitely the cold dark quiet right you

need your room to be cold you need to be

dark you need to be quiet so there's

environmental stuff you need to um you

know stop eating a few hours before bed

ideally um you need to have stable sleep

wake time ideally these are all things

that are going to drive getting into

these deeper stages of sleep but the

other thing that you probably do really

well is you manage stress throughout the

day you know like you I think that's

another like the things that we do

during the day how we you know whether

or not we're living our values right do

our behaviors align with with things

that we care about are we thinking about

the things that we want to be thinking

about are we managing our relationships

effectively so all the things that can

manifest as stress negative stress um

will invariably rear its head during our

sleep but if we're managing those things

during the day proactively and

relatively well generally speaking like

sleep should happen you know pretty

naturally there's a huge group of people

who listen to podcasts like this and as

they listen to these podcasts they just

feel more depressed about their

situation you know because they've they

believe they're trying their very best

and they're still struggling especially

as it relates to sleep and I think I've

always wondered what the message one can

send to them and also you know I think

there is a huge component of sort of

personal responsibility and choice that

you speak about as well and that I

believe in as

well but what is the most compelling

message for those people that do have a

choice they they know deep and side much

of it is a lack of discipline they know

they could not watch YouTube they know

they could put their phone away at 9:00

p.m. they know they could not eat the

cookie super late at night they know

they could deep down they know they

could make a different set of choices

but they listen to these podcasts over

and over again whenever I have the

health experts on maybe they even take

notes but they just don't do it yeah

what is the most

compelling thing you can say to those

people that do have a choice but

continually choose a bad option to get

them pushed over the fence to

the positive circadian rhythm body clock

loving side yeah so if people are trying

to

develop new habits you have to

understand how that new habit links to

your values so the things that you

believe in the things that you say you

care about right if I know growth and

impact are my two most important values

presence is another one how what do I

need to do every single day to back into

that so I can align my behaviors with

the things I say I care

about and I think when folks are

struggling um they don't really know who

they want to be in the world and they

don't maybe understand exactly what it

is that they value they're fuzzy about

their desires about their values and I

think you end up when you're fuzzy about

your desires and things you value end up

you're flinging yourself in all sorts of

directions emotionally physically

mentally right and and I think that's

kind of the project is figure out what

you care about and then align your

behaviors and create outlets in your

life and that frankly might

mean getting rid of people you know who

don't support those values and and I

think we're way too lenient on our

circle of friends um and in the sense of

you you know I think

we we keep people around in our life who

don't NE necessarily help us become a

better version of ourselves have you had

to shed some people yes

absolutely why did you shed them because

it it didn't really support who I wanted

to be who did you want to be um I wanted

to be able to wake up at a very simple

level with as much joy and energy as I

as I could and I I want to be present

for my kids and

um yeah

so and and and so I think and and I

think folks are

engaging in behaviors that

um I think you know create um a

situation

where

yeah I don't know how to say this that

like just say

it yeah I

mean I think you know for me um you know

I I grew up in a in a household where

you know my mom was an

alcoholic um you it was a tough

environment and um you know she ended up

you know dying of therosis and um you

know it's not easy you know

so being in that kind of environment so

I think for me you know you end up

um it's it's crazy how when you when you

live that life you end up repeating

those patterns and and I

think you know I had I had

to you know even though for me

personally I made choices where you know

I I I really have never drank alcohol

right because I saw how it destroyed my

family

and but yet I was still hanging around

with people who were engaging these

behaviors and and it just was impacting

me at my core and um it didn't mean that

I didn't love those folks but I had to

get away um you know and a lot of this

was you know related to you know I was

an environment at at a university where

you know that was just like the norm

like it is just wild to me how

educational institutions normalize binge

drinking at a level that is just so

destructive and you know and just to be

I suppose to just be around that all the

time like was just really not allowing

me to to show up daily as the person

that I wanted to be even though I wasn't

engaging in that behavior like it's

still like it just yeah it just made me

feel um um like I couldn't be the

version of myself that I wanted to be so

yeah just it's a lot of hard decisions

you know but um but I let go of a lot

you know to to be able to create an

Environ and infrastructure that

supported who I wanted to be in this

world when I talk about being able

to change your behavior and break a

habit it is nothing in the context of

someone who is INS snared by an

addiction of sorts it is nothing it's a

completely different conversation yeah

what is it like growing up with a mother

who You observe at a very young age you

how old I mean my whole life your whole

life yeah like

she as a child when you when you see a

parent someone you

love that is in that is sort of grip by

addiction what is that

like yeah I mean I think at a at a

fundamental level

um you just feel deprioritized I think

generally you know like you you know I

think you

feel

um you know you're you're you're

unsupervised number

one there isn't a lot of supervision you

know so you end up like really having to

to offend for yourself um my dad worked

a lot you know he was definitely

workolic um such a good man um so much

integrity and and but I think that was

his form of Escape but it kind of leads

you know you got to figure out how to

eat you got to you know you got to

figure out how to do a lot of the basic

stuff on your own so you develop a lot

of Independence I think but it it's hard

to um you know form emotional

attachments I think um as an adult

unless you really work through that you

know because you're you're afraid that

you're not going to be taken care

of what did you come to understand about

your mother's addiction and what she was

struggling with if anything at

all yeah I mean I think what was so sad

about that time period is is you know I

think it was well understood you know I

think um a lot of those behaviors I

think to degree are normalized and I

don't know that there the connection

between depression you know she was no

she she had massive seasonal effect

disorder which one of the reasons why

I'm so interested in you know um kind of

everything related to to light and and

just the opportunity there for for for

health but um you know she had major

depressive disorder and you know was not

diagnosed Pro properly I don't even

remember I have no idea if she ever even

went to the doctor to you know to try to

get treated um so you know I I think the

the biggest

thing that I learned is that we can

actually make choices um and and I know

that there are you know when you look at

regions of the brain we understand that

people are predisposed but I think

there's a lot of things that we can we

can actually control to reduce our

vulnerability to um to some of these

diseases how has that experience defined

and shaped you when you look back and

connect

dots yeah I mean I just always you I was

very competitive high level a athlete

representing um the US and and so

there's definitely trying to understand

my own body and my psychology so I could

perform my potential but there's no

question that like this whole everything

that like underpins the work that I do

is is trying to to understand you know

how we

can improve our own situation so we can

um you know self actualize and and live

our potential and um so that was I

always you know

felt um so bad you know for my

mom

why you know that she wasn't able to

become the

version of

herself like I wasn't able to realize

her

potential and she had so

much

I can't believe you did this to

[Laughter]

me would you like a tissue

thanks you're very um you're a very

special person and it all makes makes

ton of sense why you've got such an

incredible incredible drive and Mission

to you I didn't I didn't know any of

those what You' just said but I've never

talked about that public so I'm just

yeah what a what a wonderful way to have

channeled such a

unimaginable pain to then sort of fix

you know hundreds of thousands of

people's other lives and help them get

closer towards their own potential yeah

I and I I never want to like project my

values onto other folks

but but I think that's always been like

a the core of like why I do what I I do

is and the reason why I coached for so

long is I just love seeing people like

realize their potential or understand

their potential knowing that we're

always of course a work in progress but

I just like I want like everyone to be

able to wake up and

feel you know be energetic and and be

able to like really really live the

things that you you care about you know

and and just and understanding I think

the path to that you know requires some

work you know in terms of making sure

that you're attending to some of these

non-negotiables that we're talking about

and I think sometimes it takes folks

time to connect those dots and there's a

lot of wonderful learning that comes

with that but I think if I can kind of

help accelerate some of that wisdom and

keep people from experiencing I think

some of the pain that I felt you know

it's worth it to me it's the most incred

incredible incredible thing that you've

committed your life to because me and

you are both aware that there's going to

be a ton of people who are either on a

path towards such an addiction or are

currently enthralled by such an

addiction and the work that you're doing

the message you're spreading is going to

prevent and lift some of those people

out of that situation which has has a

wonderful karmic effect on the world and

I think if there's anything that we can

convert our pain into it is it is

exactly that I want to talk about

alcohol I've recently quit drinking

alcohol I think it was about 3 to four

months ago now um it was so interesting

I had a conversation with some of my

best friends I said this on a podcast a

couple of couple of months ago and one

of my friends was an alcoholic so he

managed to um quit alcohol and he's

writing a book about it and then as I

look across the group of my other

friends none of them are alcoholics but

they're all sort of casual Drinkers and

we were sat there together around this

table having dinner and he was telling

us about this he's writing about

quitting alcohol and I was at there

thinking that book that he's writing

doesn't necessarily resonate with me

because I've never had I've never felt

like I've had an addiction or really to

be honest any problem with it yeah I am

such I was such a casual drinker I would

have maybe one glass of wine a week if

that there's probably months I've gone

without any alcohol at all so I couldn't

think of a reason to quit so really I

was saying to him is there another book

that someone else could write for me

that just takes those people that are

those casual drinkers that are right on

the fence and just gives us a reason to

nudge over the other side and because I

have this podcast I thought you know

I'll just try and quit and see if see

what the implications are for my

life alcohol Health circadian

rhythms what are you what's your

perspective on all of this well I I like

to think about it I love this the the

principle of non-neutrality

right and and this is

is how I like to think about behaviors

and and how I've kind of always thought

about it is if you've got a series of

behaviors we talked a lot about about

sleep um and and you know physiological

things and you've got the psychological

things and they're either going to

support your your values kind of who you

want to be in this world or they're not

and and I think that's the lens with

which I look at alcohol you know in what

way is this supporting my values of

growth and impact and and presence and

compassion and um tolerance you know the

the things that are like core to who I

want to be in this world and and I think

when you look at it through that lens

the choices become really clear to me um

if you're honest with yourself and you

have some degree of

self-awareness understand what you care

about I think choices become a lot

clearer like there's way way more

clarity about how to live your life um

in in the micro which is really what

we're talking about these just many

choices throughout the day does it does

it does it support who you want to be in

the world or does it not and and there's

very little gray actually and the gray

are excuses in in my view and and we can

rationalize and make stuff all you know

all day long right to to to make

ourselves feel better but when you can

step back from all of that and look at

it really you know taking yourself kind

of out of the equation and look at it

from a a very objective standpoint um

you know I think a choice like alcohol

becomes very

clear but it helps me to socialize

Kristen yeah if if you need alcohol to

bond or

to you know form a

connection there's probably something

else going on that is unaddressed in

from my perspective is that such a thing

as such a small dose of alcohol that it

doesn't

matter in your opinion yeah I mean I

think it depends on who you are um and I

I think there's a lot of individual

variability there as as well I know R

Resveratrol is is something that's

talked about a lot and there's

uh you know suppose there's in wine and

grapes there's ratol and that's been

linked to um enhanced uh health and

well-being but I think you'd have to

drink like 10 b or something to get the

amount of resp respirol to actually make

a um uh to to make a dent I don't think

that's the argument um so yeah I don't

know that really any amount of alcohol

is is going to be is going to be helpful

and we know from the literature that

just one to two drinks per week uh will

can have you know negative implications

um on on health so um it's actually I

don't know that any like even in a

moderate amount of alcohol is good for

you what's the implications for our

Cadian rhythms that we've been talking

about yeah it's mainly because it

impacts sleep it's going to impact when

you go to bed and when you wake up um so

I think that's the biggest the biggest

impact and I think again when we go back

to

melatonin um you know it's when you're

disrupting that that sleep onet offset

um that's going to uh obviously have all

the downstream negative effects that we

we've already spoken about so I suppose

if we're drinking we're staying out

later so we're exposing ourselves to to

light um so yeah there's lots of uh

we're going to be eating later uh

there's other um behaviors that

accompany drinking that kind of you know

pile on the the negative effects I was

reading some research from the Sleep

foundation and it says that a 2007 study

with 29 young adults found that moderate

doses of alcohol up to 1 hour before

bedtime reduced Mel Onin production by

nearly

20% that's the study on alcohol and

melatonin in young adults a 2018 study

of

4,908 Finnish participants found that

Sleep Quality was was reduced by

99.3% after one glass of wine and by 24%

after two glasses of wine and by almost

40% 39.2% after three or more glasses of

wine or an equivalent amount of alcohol

yeah which is is really really

staggering that your Sleep Quality will

could di 40% after three glasses of wine

oh yeah it's I mean we see it is we just

finished this analysis actually looking

at alcohol and markers of recovery so

heart rate variability and heart rate

and literally with every drink it is

just there's a linear relationship in

the decline like and it is significant

um so I mean yeah it's we're talking

even one drink um will produce

clinically significant reduction in

heart rate and heart R variability this

was maybe the most

compelling motivator for me to quit

alcohol was when I got my whoop the

first time and then I think it was

someone's birthday or something so we

went out and I had a glass of wine or

something I woke I woke up the next day

looked at my heart rate variability

which is the a measure of how well I'm

going to be able to deal with stress and

load and all those things the next day

how well my body's going to be able to

deal with life and it was flashing red

which is like a warning and and it says

on there when I clicked on the flashing

red thing it was like like did you have

a really stressful day are you sick or

did you drink alcohol last night and I

felt so targeted I was like how does

this thing know that I had one glass of

wine last night with my friends why is

something flashing red with inside of me

people keep Diaries on whoop don't they

they keep like the whoop Journal I it's

called yeah so it's a go mine of

information actually really yeah what

have you learned from that in terms of

alcohol I imagine that's where a lot of

the conclusions yeah mean we see a six

per reduction in next day recovery after

alcohol on average so this is you know

one drink to 10 drink you know it's just

basically looking at the the average is

6% okay so theage of okay recovery so if

someone's having if someone was B Bing

drinking it they could have a 30 or 40%

reduction yeah but it kind of and we we

might and and that specific data point

might we might have controlled for you

know the the 30 drinks or you know it's

it's probably somewhere in the range of

five drinks you know per night and and

the average recovery reduction is six 6%

and that's relying on self-reporting

right so I wonder if there's biases in

what there might there might be yeah

people that had 10 drinks think they had

four but I think yeah exactly I don't

really remember how many drinks I had so

yeah any drinks I had interesting super

interesting the other thing we obviously

drink is coffee yes caffeine surely

there's a correlation between circadian

disruption and CA that's definitely one

of the Circadian kind it definitely can

disrupt circadian rhythms if we're

having caffeine you know

within eight to 12 hours I would say of

when we intend to sleep um it's going to

impact our sleep onset of course um and

even if we're you know tired enough

where we have you know we're sleep

deprived um we might might fall asleep

but it will invariably end up disrupting

or fragmenting our sleep so we're not

kind of getting into that deeper stages

of sleep we're not achieving the sleep

quality that um that is going to Le you

know allow us to wake up feeling

restored and refreshed so timing of

caffeine is really important what of

this conversation makes me have a huge

amount of empathy for shift workers oh

and when I say shift workers I don't I

don't mean people working you know

warehouses I mean doctors nurses

firefight

firefighters the police um truck

drivers people that are baking yeah

anyone who's up between the hours of you

know for more than two hours between the

hours of 10 P p.m. and 4 a. is

considered a shift worker so it's yes

there's a lot of a lot of individuals

walking around who are shift workers but

people who are you know literally up

during the biological night um you know

it's it's a huge sacrifice we know those

folks on average are going to die 15

years sooner it is you know shift work

is considered a carcinogen by the World

Health Organization it's you know shift

work is um those folks make an enormous

sacrifice they're going to die 15 years

sooner on

average I mean that's terrifying I

know is anybody is anybody trying to Sol

for that yeah I mean that's a lot of the

work that I do is is looking at shift

work you know and trying to understand

you know what other levers you know can

we deploy to offset some of the the the

impact of of being awake during the the

biological night and you know time

eating as a lever you know really

thinking about when we're eating protein

um you know when we're viewing light

um you know what what do the what's the

Cadence of of of you know on off um so

we minimize the disruption dadian

rhythms I mean the fact is like the

roster size at these hospitals are just

simply not big enough to be able to uh I

think deploy schedules that mitigate

some of the the risk associated with

this disrupted circadian rhythm but it

is frightening and um you know there is

a lot of work to try to understand how

we can mitigate some of the the negative

effects but it's it's it's it's a tough

problem to solve it's not just I guess

it's not just that those individuals

will die you know on average 15 years

earlier but their quality of life I

imagine won't be as good because if

they're not sleeping yeah consistently

it'ser

fol these profs you know who are having

to operate counter to the Natural Light

Dark cycle so let's talk about that then

mental health depression

suicidality what's the correlation there

between yeah so there's a lot of

interesting research I mean you know one

is just you know we talk about just the

lay person so getting outside of shift

work we come back to shift work you know

if you look at um this most folks

experience social jet lag right which is

basically characterized as um you know a

a big a difference between our weekday

sleep schedule and our weekend sleep

schedule right so pretty much anyone you

know between 20 20 to 30 probably is you

know kind of falls into this bucket of

of having social jet lag but one of the

things that we one a research study we

saw looking at specifically a social jet

lag in and college students they saw

that for every hour of variability

between week day and weekend schedules

they saw a 177% increase in non-suicidal

ideation so these folks aren't

committing suicide but they're

fantasizing about committing suicide and

that increases 17% and this was more

pronounced than individuals who were

already

vulnerable so kind of coming back to

circadian disrup ion being present in

100% of mental health issues we can see

where shift workers would be extremely

vulnerable right to mental health issues

given that their variability and we look

at the whoop data it's basically random

in terms of looking at their sleep wake

time it's so variable that it it's like

we can't even see a patter it's

random which is frightening why is that

frightening because you know the more

variability you have like the more

psychological and

physiological uh you know negative

consequences there'll be is there a

correlation here between how we deal

with stressful events in our lives as

well because I'm assuming there must be

absolutely managing stress throughout

the the day uh and and the degree or

even during the night um can uh

definitely increase your tolerance for

stress so you know deploying breath work

for example um as you know on demand

self-regulation tool to pay down in the-

moment stress can be and to activate the

parastic branch of the nervous system

can be really powerful so you know I

kind of call these mini moments of

deactivation so doing that proactively

for folks who are in these high St

Stakes high stress environments is an

amazing strategy um because lots of

those folks again if you think about

just Baseline when you are engaging in

shift work and you're awake during the

night your system is humming at a uh a a

kind of a stress level that is above

what would be normal right like your

your system is having to work so much

harder to maintain homeostasis because

you're doing exactly the opposite of

what your body wants to do so all the

kind of biological preferences are being

um bypassed right when you're up during

the the biological night so to pay down

some of that stress you know these many

moments of deactivation are absolutely

critical for that

population so that means uh just

literally taking 30 seconds where you're

doing the physiological sigh for example

which we know has emerged as being the

most efficacious breath work technique

in the moment to reduce not only in the

moment anxiety and stress but actually

you know your perception of anxiety and

stress like in the future what is that

sign the physiological sigh it's

basically a double inhale followed by an

extended

exhale perfect it's exactly

right so basically like when you're

crying um it it you know you kind of do

that double double inhale all B extended

exhale but that like reduces stress in

the moment in a really powerful way and

if you do that you know five 10 times um

you're end up activating the parastic

branch so you're reducing your heart

rate um and uh and and you know kind of

doing that throughout the day is is a

great way to um mitigate Nega negative

stress accumulation there's a pretty

unfortunate Paradox a pretty tragic

Paradox in the fact that our shift

workers some of them like doctors

especially are the people that we need

to be most focused firing on our

cylinders exactly yeah but those are the

people that are from what I've learned

today about the Circadian rhythm most

likely to suffer with things like focus

and sleep and all of those things that

are imperative to showing up well yeah I

mean there's a relationship you know we

know that with every 45 minutes of sleep

deprivation acur on the W platform we

see a 5 to 10% next day decrease in

mental control mental control executive

function so we we measure this um with

an MC and a Stroop so these kind of uh

performance tests to measure executive

function and we see for every 45 minutes

of sleep dat AC crude we see up to 10%

decrease or decline in next day

executive function and what does

executive function mean for people that

are our ability to make

decisions okay use the word there sleep

debt what is sleep debt so that's

basically what you need versus what you

actually got and that's highly

individual right and and that's one of

the kind of beautiful things on the wo

platform is that we learn your your body

we learn how efficient sleeper you are

we learn what your optimal sleep wake

time should be and we basically tell you

how much time you need to spend in bed

so a lot of the work that my my team has

done specifically at whoop is to try to

understand you know what is this

relationship to of sleep debt to other

performance metrics that we care about

right that tell us a story about

someone's ability to kind of function in

their environment and one of the studies

that we did um was looking specifically

at business Executives so CEO types um

and we we basically looked at um it was

this this one was a six-month study um

looking at two different cohorts uh

both you know I think equal distribution

between men and men and women and and

what we saw was for every 45 minutes of

sleep debt acred in these Business

Leaders we saw a 5 to 10% decrease in

next day executive function so the

leader's ability to make decisions in

the presence of sleep debt um you know

gets gets worse the more sleep debt you

acrew we did a follow-up study and this

one was wild so we basically looked at

um it was roughly it was about 70 uh

business executive CEO types and we

looked at um all of their objective

markers sleep at being one of them and

we look at the psychological safety of

their direct reports during team

meetings and Define psychological safety

you're how um how safe you feel to show

up in your environment as your true most

authentic

self and what we saw is again for every

45 minutes of sleep that the leader had

there was a significant decrease in

psychological safety of the direct

reports so they felt less safe in their

environment to show up as their true

self when their leader had 45 minutes of

sleep debt acred and and some of these

folks were carrying a couple hours of

sleep debt so and there was a linear

relationship between the amount of

psychological safety and the amount of

of sleep that the leader had so and what

was so interesting and compelling about

this research is that the leader had no

idea they couldn't perceive their own

cognitive physical and emotional

declines right but that's what's so

Insidious about sleep deprivation is

that you can't really tell when you're

operating at a lower

level you just adapt to that lower level

of

functioning but everyone around you can

feel it right just with how you hold

hold your face how you emote um the kind

of eye contact you make how tolerant you

are um and you you think about how sleep

deprivation you know it and I think this

is really what this research surfaces

it's just it's not just sleep

deprivation just doesn't impact me right

it's going to impact every single person

I come in contact with and from a

business perspective just from a sheer

like numbers perspective Google um did a

study called Aristotle and they looked

at psych they looked at a bunch of

different metrics related to team

performance and what emerged in that

study is being most predictive of team

performance was the degree to which the

team had psychological safety felt safe

in their environment to kind of show up

as their as their true self and they

brought in to the tune of $4.5 million

more than teams who are lacking

psychological

safety so this is like a really

important concept that I don't think a

lot of people talk about but when we go

back to this concept of the principle of

non-neutrality right and what are

behaviors that promote enable you to

live your values and and kind of show up

as as your your best self as

consistently as possible minimizing

sleep debt is right there at the top of

the list it's fascinating and as it

relates to sort of accident and injury

is there a correlation between sort of

injury of oneself and accidents you

commit on others correlation between

that and sleep debt it's very well

established that um the more sleep that

you're you're carrying you know the more

accident prone you are um you know the

the the the more risk you're going to

take um and uh yeah we see this in in

the medical field we see this um you

know in in you know just car accidents

and yeah it the list goes on and on car

accidents a 2016 study by the foundation

for Traffic Safety found that drivers

who reported that they usually sleep

four to 5 hours per day had

5.4 times the crash rate of drivers who

usually sleep for seven hours or more a

day which is horrifying yeah I know it's

it's uh yeah I mean we look when we

think

about you know sleep it's it's we're not

getting better at it as a society and I

and I think we're we're kind of coming

at this conversation from the long the

wrong lens you know we're telling folks

just to spend more time in bed without

addressing the behaviors that are

actually enabling us to fall asleep and

stay asleep you know that's to me that's

that's the conversation and and it's not

about spending more time in bed and yeah

that might be what needs to happen but

it's it's about you're not going to get

there for folks who who are not thinking

about all the Circadian things that

we're talking about and um you know some

of the environmental stuff the cold dark

the quiet yes that matters but um but at

a foundational level I think folks are

not engaging in the behaviors that are

going to enable us to pay down the sleep

deprivation the other study that I found

that was super interesting um was that a

2021 study found that less than seven

hours of

sleep is associated with increased risk

of injury and if this is sustained for

at least 14 days the risk of muscle and

bone injury is 1.7 times almost two

times higher yeah so as someone that

goes to the gym a lot and likes to work

out if I have a high sleep debt then I'm

much more likely to get an injury almost

two times more likely get injury if

that's sustained that's right which is

crazy yeah it is yeah and you know I'm

so grateful that I think folks are

finally realizing that sleep is the

greatest natural performance enhancer

that we have on this planet um yeah it's

and that is certainly super evident in

all the research that we're doing what

about sleep and

sex sex with a partner is a health

promoting behavior and we have found

that in our in our

research when what research have you

done yeah I we just we actually haven't

published it yet so this is preliminary

preliminary data but um but we people

who um are reporting that they're having

sex uh before bed so within a few hours

of of when they intend to sleep with a

partner have um better markers of sleep

and Recovery you said with a partner

very intentionally there I did yeah we

don't we don't see the same effect um

when folks are are having sex with

without a partner in reporting it how do

you have sex without a partner I mean

that all right I should say a partner

like a spouse or a boyfriend or you know

someone who you're consistently with so

we're not we're talking about I guess

not one night stance sorry I should have

clarified it I thought you meant with

without a human at tool oh God yeah

we're I'm talking about human sex here

yeah does masturbation have the same

implications do I um we didn't we didn't

see big effects with masturbation are

people reporting that they're onop they

sure are they are I should say that it

is complet completely optional to track

so people can opt into tracking these

things again it is completely

deidentified we have no ability to to

know who's doing what in terms of

Journal tracking and behaviors um but uh

yeah so we don't actually see uh any big

effects with with masturbation and any

markers of sleep and recovery so no no

strong no strong effects there we said

something earlier about exercising

before bed now if I have sex before bed

and you

know it lasts a long time time

yeah is that not then going to produce a

ton of adrenaline and wake me up again

so after so it depends if you

ejaculate then um you will then release

oxytocin which is kind of a

calming chemical so guys typically after

they ejaculate feel sleepy because of

the release of of oxytocin but then that

goes back to my point about masturbation

don't you really oxytocin when you

masturbate yeah I think I think the

oxytocin is about connection okay right

so it's it's that's I think that's and

that might be why we see these strong

effects when you're having sex with a

partner or a spouse

um is is that you're you're getting this

benefit of this this beautiful

connection with your partner and and

spouse provided it goes well um and then

you release this oxytocin which is you

know kind of makes you feel uh connected

and safe and um so all of those I think

those that kind of condition uh helps I

think you fall asleep and and

potentially stay asleep it does make

sense because I do get very very tired

after I've had sex with my partner and

I've always wondered why that is I don't

know that women uh it seems to have

women want to maybe stay up and snuggle

and talk a little bit more after sex

so but but guys it seems get sleepy and

want to fall asleep

and all want to run off a bit of a

stereotype that goes back quite far

prehistorically as you know this podcast

is sponsored by whoop and people often

ask me why I chose whoop over all of the

possible wearable options and I've tried

many of them but whoop for me stands out

for several reasons a because of its

noninvasive design B Because of its

unique analytics and C a membership

model that continually evolves with the

product but the biggest GameChanger for

me which is reason d is wop's ability to

Foster meaningful Behavior change for me

with whoop I've been more attuned than

ever before on how my daily activities

can impact my sleep and stress levels

and their features like the whoop coach

feature which they recently announced

and the journal and the weekly planner

Have Been instrumental in helping me to

maintain health and fitness habits that

I previously struggled to achieve

consistency with if you're looking to

improve your health and fitness this

year Beyond January then you've got to

give whoop a try go to join. whoop.com /