Welcome to Hubberman Lab Essentials,

[music] where we revisit past episodes

for the most potent and actionable

science-based tools for mental health,

physical health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. Today,

we're talking all about sleep and how to

optimize your sleep. Let's consider what

the perfect 24-hour cycle would look

like. Regardless of when you wake up in

the morning, one of the first things

that happens is that your body

temperature is increasing. And that's

just going to happen naturally. That

increase in body temperature in turn

causes an increase in the release of a

hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is

often con demonized and considered this

bad thing. And indeed, you don't want

cortisol to be chronically or

consistently elevated throughout the day

or night. But you do want cortisol to

reach its peak early in the day, right

about the time you wake up. One way that

you can ensure that that cortisol peak

occurs early in the day, right about the

time that you wake up, is to view bright

light, ideally from sunlight, within the

first 30 to 60 minutes after waking. The

reason for that is very simple. You want

to trigger that cortisol increase to

occur very early in your day, and you

don't want that cortisol peak to happen

later, which is what will happen if you

wait to get outside and see sunlight.

The reason for this is that you have a

set of neurons, nerve cells in your eye.

They're called intrinsically

photosensitive melanopsin cells, but you

do not need to know that name. Those

neurons respond best to bright light and

especially right after waking early in

the day. They are best able to signal to

a set of neurons that reside over the

roof of your mouth called the super kisa

nucleus which is a cluster of neurons

that then sends a huge number of other

signals electrical and chemical out to

your entire body that triggers that

cortisol increase provides a wakeup

signal for your brain and body and sets

in motion a timer for you to fall asleep

later that night. Here's what you do, or

at least here's what I do. I wake up in

the morning and I want to reach for my

phone. But I know that even if I were to

crank up the brightness on that phone

screen, it's not bright enough to

trigger that cortisol spike and for me

to be at my most alert and focused

throughout the day and to optimize my

sleep at night. So, what I do is I get

out of bed and I go outside and if it's

a bright clear day and the sun is low in

the sky or the sun is, you know,

starting to get overhead, what we call

low solar angle, then I know I'm getting

outside at the right time. Especially on

cloudy days, you want to get outside and

get as much light energy or photons in

your eyes. But let's say it's a very

clear day and I can see where the sun

is. I do not need to stare directly into

the sun. So, the way to get this

sunlight viewing early in the day is to

look toward the sun. Never look at any

light, sunlight or otherwise, that's so

bright that it's painful to look at

because you can damage your eyes. But

for this morning sunlight viewing, it's

best to not wear sunglasses. That's

right, to not wear sunglasses. It is

absolutely fine to wear eyelasses or

contact lenses, so-called corrective

lenses. In fact, those will serve you

well in this practice or this tool

because they will focus the light onto

your neural retina and onto those

melanopsin intrinsically photosensitive

ganglen cells. This is grounded in the

core of our physiology. There are

literally hundreds if not thousands of

quality peer-reviewed papers showing

that light viewing early in the day is

the most powerful stimulus for

wakefulness throughout the day and it

has a powerful positive impact on your

ability to fall and stay asleep at

night. So, this is really the

foundational power tool for ensuring a

great night's sleep and for feeling more

awake during the day. If you wake up

before the sun is out, you can and

probably should flip on artificial

lights in your internal home environment

or apartment or wherever you happen to

live. If your goal is to be awake,

right? If you wake up at 4 in the

morning and you need to be awake, well,

then turn on artificial lights. If

you're asking whether or not turning on

artificial lights can replace sunlight

at those hours. Unfortunately, the

answer is no. Unless you have a very

special light, we'll talk about what

kind of light. The bright artificial

lights in your home environment are not,

I repeat, are not going to be

sufficiently bright to turn on the

cortisol mechanism and the other wake up

mechanisms that you need early in the

day. The diabolical twist, however, is

that those lights in your home or

apartment or even on your phone are

bright enough to disrupt your sleep if

you look at them too late at night or in

the middle of the night. So, there's

this asymmetry in our retinal, our eye

biology, and in our brains biology

whereby early in the day, right around

waking, you need a lot of light, a lot

of photons, a lot of light energy. And

artificial lights generally just won't

accomplish what you need them to

accomplish. But at night, even a little

bit of artificial light can really mess

up your so-called circadian, your

24-hour clocks and all these mechanisms

that we're talking about. On cloudy

days, you especially need to get

outside. I repeat, on cloudy days,

overcast days, you especially need to

get outside and get sunlight. You just

need to get more of it. Now, how much

light and how much light viewing do you

need? This is going to vary depending on

person and place. I mean, literally

where you live on Earth, whether or not

there's a lot of tree cover, whether or

not you're somebody who has sensitive

eyes or less sensitive eyes, it's really

impossible for me to give an absolute

prescriptive, but we can give some

general guidelines. In general, on a

clear day, meaning no cloud cover or

minimal cloud cover, you want to get

this sunlight exposure to your eyes for

about five minutes or so. Could be 3

minutes one day, could be 7 minutes the

next day. about 5 minutes. On a day

where there's cloud cover, so the sun is

just peeking through the clouds or it's

more dense cloud cover, you want to get

about 10 minutes of sunlight exposure to

your eyes early in the day. And on days

that are really densely overcast or

maybe even a rainy, you're going to want

to get as much as 20 or 30 minutes of

sunlight exposure. Just don't try and

get this sunlight exposure through a

windshield of a car or a window, whether

or not it's tinted or otherwise. it

takes far too long. It's simply not

going to trigger the relevant

mechanisms. Now, if you live in a part

of the world where it's extremely dark

and overcast or the weather won't let

you outside or you live in a cave, there

are sunlight simulators or daylight

simulators that you can purchase. Those

are quite expensive in general.

Therefore, I suggest cheaper options

that work just as well because they get

just as bright. things like ring lights

that are sold in order for people to

take selfies and this kind of thing. A

LED tablet will work pretty well. I

actually have one of those and I put it

on my desk all morning even though I

still get outside and look at sunlight

first thing in the morning. Again, also

especially I should say on cloudy days.

Many of our listeners live in locations

throughout the world where for instance

during the winter it gets very very

dark. So they can't get sufficient

sunlight. But get that morning light,

ideally from sunlight, and take into

account all the specific points that

I've given you here. When you start

doing this, you'll notice that your body

will start to feel more energized and it

will feel more energized more quickly.

You'll actually start to notice this

mechanism kicking in each day,

especially if you're paying attention to

your physiology. It's that diffuse, very

bright sunlight, that photon energy that

you really want. That's going to set all

the rhythms of your brain and body in

the proper way. Not just that cortisol

peak, but it's going to trigger proper

metabolism. It's going to set a timer

for you to be able to fall asleep about

16 hours later. It's also going to

suppress any melatonin, a hormone that

makes you sleepy that happens to be

swimming around in your bloodstream at

the time you wake up. It does a number

of other things too, including interact

with the adenosine system and kind of

wash out some of the adenosine that

might still be residual if you didn't

sleep enough. Fundamentally speaking,

get that morning sunlight viewing. I

promise you will be grateful that you

did. It makes everybody feel better,

feel more alert, and it will greatly

assist with your ability to fall and

stay asleep later that night. You will

also want to leverage not just light but

temperature as a tool. If you are

inclined, it would be wise to try and

increase your core body temperature a

bit more quickly than it would otherwise

if you were to just, you know, shuffle

around outside, get your sunlight, maybe

read a little bit, etc. And there are

two main ways you can do that. The first

way is to get into cold water of some

sort. So this could be a cold shower of

anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. This could

be an ice bath if that's your thing. It

could be a cold tub or if you own a a

cold tub uh that's specifically designed

for deliberate cold exposure. Get under

some cold water. 1 to 3 minutes of cold

water exposure will wake you up because

of that adrenaline release. And and I

want to highlight the and it will serve

to increase your core body temperature.

That's right. If you put something cold

on the surface of your body, your brain,

a little cluster of neurons in the

so-called medial preoptic area, act as a

thermostat and say, "Ah, the external of

my body is cold and therefore I'm going

to heat up my core body temperature."

So, this is a little bit paradoxical.

People think, oh, if you get into cold

water or an ice bath, your body

temperature is going to drop. And

indeed, that's true. If you stay in for

a while, but if you just get in for

about 1 to 3 minutes or under the cold

shower for 1 to 3 minutes, your core

body temperature will increase. So, this

is great for waking up. And we have

exercise. One of the best ways to

increase your core body temperature

early in the day is to do exercise. I

always say the best time to exercise, at

least what the research points to, is

immediately when you wake up in the

morning. It could be a walk. So you can

get your sunlight exposure while you're

taking a walk first thing in the

morning. It could be a light jog. It

could be skipping rope. But try and get

your core body temperature increased

first thing in the morning. And a great

way to do that is with a cold water and

or with exercise. And again, it doesn't

have to be your full-blown workout for

the day if you're doing workouts

consistently, which I hope everybody is

because everybody really should

exercise. Right now, you'll notice we're

only focused on this early part of the

day. And you might be saying, "Wait a

second. I thought this was an episode

about tools for sleep." Well, everything

that we're talking about doing in these

first 60 to 90 minutes of the day really

set in motion a wave of biological

cascades that carry through the entire

day and into the evening and into the

night and really do serve to optimize

sleep. So just hang in there with me. So

the next category of tool for use early

in the day is caffeine. You do not have

to drink caffeine. So what I'm about to

describe are ways to leverage caffeine

use to optimize sleep and wakefulness if

you are comfortable with caffeine.

Caffeine is something that a lot of

people consume early in the day. How

much depends on your tolerance and

there's a lot of individual variability

here. Again, caffeine is a denosine

antagonist or effectively works as a

denosine antagonist and limits

sleepiness. And for many people,

shifting that caffeine intake from

immediately after waking in the morning

to 90 to 120 minutes gives them a much

longer arc of energy throughout the day

and they don't feel the need to drink

more caffeine later in the afternoon. If

you do drink caffeine later in the

afternoon, really try and limit the

total amount or drink decaf. Certainly

keep the total amount to less than 100

milligrams if you are interested in

getting into the best possible sleep.

And I say this knowing that many people,

including myself, can drink a double

espresso with 200 milligrams of caffeine

or more at 5:00 p. p.m. or even 6 PM or

after dinner and still quote unquote

fall asleep fine or still sleep fine.

There are more and more papers all the

time that point to the fact that

caffeine intake late in the day after 4

p.m. that is can really disrupt the

architecture of your sleep. So you might

think you're sleeping well, but you're

not sleeping nearly as well as you could

if you avoided caffeine in those

afternoon hours. Now, some of you might

be doing your main bout of exercise

first thing in the morning and you want

your caffeine before that bout of

exercise. In that case, I say go for it.

I absolutely respect the fact that

people have different work schedules,

kids schedules, etc. So, if you want to

do some or none or all these tools,

that's really up to you. I'm just

providing them to you in the simplest

form that I can possibly provide them.

Now, the other lever or tool that you

have available to you is food. Not just

what you eat, but when you eat. And it

turns out that if you eat early in the

day, you support a biological clock

mechanism that will make you more alert

early in the day. That said, many people

choose to fast in the early morning

hours of the day or in the first part of

the day. I'm one such person. I

generally don't ingest any food until

about 11:00 a.m. or 12:00 noon.

Sometimes I'll have breakfast. If people

are meeting for brunch or breakfast, I

will have breakfast for social reasons

every once in a while, but most of the

time I don't eat until about lunchtime.

However, some people are really hungry

when they wake up in the morning. Just

know that if you eat early in the day,

you are further triggering an increase

in metabolism and in temperature that

will make you more alert. So, you don't

have to eat early in the day, but you

can start to see how these different

tools layer together. Sunlight viewing,

exercise, cold water, eating, many of

them are converging on the same

mechanisms. In fact, when you drink

caffeine, there's also a small increase

in body temperature due to the

adrenaline increase that it stimulates.

So all of these things can be layered on

top of one another or you can use them

individually or think about them

individually. Now food is an interesting

lever or tool because it's not just

about when you eat, but it's also about

what you eat. And I've talked a lot

about eating for energy and what that

means in terms of caloric energy versus

neural energy, etc. in previous podcast

episodes. We're not going to focus on

that now because that's very nuanced.

All that said, if you eat a very large

meal, it doesn't matter if you slept

terrifically well 10 hours the night

before or if you are about to go to

sleep or if it's the middle of the

afternoon, if your gut is full of food,

there's just a large volume of food in

your gut, it's going to divert a lot of

blood and other critical resources away

from other organs of your body, in

particular your brain, and you're going

to be sleepy after eating a big meal. So

this is sort of a duh, but I think

oftentimes in the discussions about what

to eat for energy, people neglect to

consider food volume as a strong

parameter or variable in that

discussion. So if you eat a huge

breakfast, it's likely that you're going

to be tired immediately after eating

that breakfast, unless of course you

exercise very hard prior to that and you

metabolize all that food very quickly.

So if you do decide to eat in the first

few hours of the morning, just

understand that you are setting or you

are helping to set a food entrained as

it's called circadian clock. Light,

temperature, timing of food intake,

movement, and exercise. All of these

things literally funnel in in a neural

sense. They funnel into this thing that

we call the circadian clock. and they

let that clock, that set of neurons,

predict when you are likely to be eating

and active and viewing sunlight the next

day and the next day and the next day.

So, what all these tools do is they

really set up a cascade. Think of it as

kind of a wavefront of wakefulness and

focus throughout the day. It'll take you

through the middle of the day in the

afternoon stages we'll talk about in a

few minutes, but really they take you to

this period that is about 5:00 p.m.

until your bedtime. A second critical

period in which you need to leverage

particular tools in order to get and

stay asleep optimally and to be able to

sleep through the night. So really,

there are three critical periods

throughout each 24-hour cycle. And

during each of those critical periods,

you're going to want to do as many

specific things as you can to optimize

your wakefulness and focus and mood

throughout the day and your sleep at

night. The first critical period is the

one that we've been talking about up

until now. Things like morning sunlight,

viewing caffeine, 90 to 120 minutes

after waking, exercise, and so on. And

it really encompasses the time from

which you wake up until about 3 hours

after waking. The second critical period

is the time throughout the day and

afternoon leading into evening. So you

may ask, what are the things that you

can do throughout the day, the middle of

your day and into the afternoon and

evening hours that are really going to

set you up for the best possible sleep

later that night? Well, there are a few

dos and there are a few don'ts. First of

all, be careful about ingesting too much

caffeine throughout the middle of the

day. That's kind of an obvious one for

the reasons that we talked about

earlier. Second of all, if you are a

napper, and I raise my hand now for

those of you listening, I'm raising my

right hand because I love naps. I've

always loved naps. Should you nap?

Should you not nap? That's a question

that I get asked a lot and that I asked

Dr. Matthew Walker when he was a guest

on this podcast. Here was his answer.

And here's what the data support. It is

fine to nap in the afternoon, but don't

nap so late in the day or for so long

that it disrupts your ability to fall

and stay asleep at night for your major

sleep bout. I should also say you do not

have to nap. It's kind of an interesting

phenomenon that happens on these

podcasts and on social media where we'll

talk about naps and the fact that naps

are great and don't make them longer

than 90 minutes, but then all the

non-nappers get really worried like,

"Wait, am I supposed to nap? I don't

like naps. I wake up groggy." You do not

have to nap. In fact, if you can make it

through your whole day without napping,

great. More power to you. So, this

critical period throughout the day is

one in which most people are doing a lot

of stuff. They're emailing and picking

up kids and they're exercising and

they're commuting and doing all sorts of

things, taking phone calls and Zooms,

etc. But if you can get that period of

deep relaxation through a nap or NSDR,

that's going to serve you well. Try not

to drink too much caffeine, certainly no

more than 100 milligrams of caffeine

after 4 p.m. if your goal is to fall

asleep at a reasonably normal time. And

for those of you that exercise in the

afternoon, understand that if you

exercise very intensely, so this might

be weight training or running or some

other very intense exercise, typically

that's going to further increase your

body temperature and it's going to

so-called delay your circadian clock.

It's going to make it such that you want

to fall asleep a little bit later, maybe

even a lot later. So if you're

exercising in the afternoon or evening

and that's the only time you can

exercise or that's the time that you

prefer to exercise, great. Just know

that you are delaying your circadian

clock, you are making it such that you

will naturally want to go to sleep later

and wake up later. Contrast that with if

you exercise early in the day, say

immediately after waking up or in the

first 0 to 4 hours after waking. In most

cases, that's not going to shift your

circadian clock much. This critical

period two or second critical period I

should say during the middle of the day

is a time in which you should be doing

certain things and avoiding doing

certain things. So that raises the

question of whether or not you should

also be getting a lot of light in

particular sunlight throughout the day.

Now on the face of it you might just

think yes you know sunlight's great

provided we're not getting a sunburn and

we're not staring at the sun and

damaging our eyes we should get as much

sunlight as we possibly can. However,

because light is such a powerful

stimulus for controlling the timing of

your sleepfulness or sleepiness, I

should say, and wakefulness,

we might want to be cautious about how

much light we are viewing in the

afternoon, in particular, in the early

evening hours. Well, turns out it's not

so straightforward viewing. So, sunlight

to the eyes, sunlight in the late

afternoon and evening hours. So again,

depends on time of year, depends on

location that you happen to be in. But

getting some sunlight in your eyes for

again maybe 5 or 10, maybe 30 minutes

depending on how much cloud cover there

is. Doing that in the afternoon serves

an additional beneficial purpose, which

is you inoculate your nervous system

against some of the negative effects of

bright artificial light or even dim

artificial light in the nighttime hours

between 10 p.m. and 4:00 a.m., which is

really critical period 3. And we'll talk

about what to do and what to not do

during critical period 3 of every

24-hour cycle. But to make it very clear

what I'm saying here, get that morning

sunlight in your eyes, but also get some

sunlight in your eyes in the late

afternoon and evening hours when the sun

is at so-called low solar angle, when it

starts to descend in the sky. Getting

that sunlight in your eyes in the late

afternoon and evening signals to that

clock that it's evening time and that

sleep is coming. It also serves as a

second anchor that tells your brain and

body, hey, it's evening. The sun is

descending. Those yellows and blues and

oranges that you see in the evening

sunsets, those signal to your brain and

body that evening is there and that

nighttime is coming. And they're really

establishing a second reference point or

wavefront of biological signals that are

going to optimize your nighttime hours

and your transition into really terrific

sleep. So now let's talk about what I'm

calling critical period three of each

24-hour cycle. So this would be the

period of time of late evening. So, it

might be 6:00 p.m. for some, depending

on when you go to sleep, or 7:00 p.m.

extending into the hours in which you

decide to get into bed and go to sleep.

And then throughout the night, there are

a number of things that you're going to

want to do, and there are a number of

things that you are going to want to

avoid doing in order to optimize your

sleep. First of all, you're going to

want to avoid bright artificial lights

of any color. Once the sun goes down,

you would be wise to try and dim the

lights in your indoor environment. If

you are going to use light at night, and

most people do, I would encourage you to

use as little artificial light as is

required to carry out the activities you

need to require safely. If you're

watching a television show or you're

watching something on your computer, dim

that screen way, way down, as dim as

possible while still, of course, being

able to view what you need to view. That

bright light exposure will absolutely

quash any melatonin that happens to be

circulating in your brain and body. Now,

melatonin a lot of people think of as a

supplement, but melatonin is naturally

released as the evening comes about and

into the nighttime hours. It's a hormone

that makes you feel sleepy and allows

you to fall asleep. So, viewing bright

light in the late evening hours and

nighttime hours is really not good for

your sleep quality and your ability to

fall and stay asleep. So, for most

people, a simple rule of thumb is going

to be avoid bright artificial lights of

all colors and in particular overhead

bright artificial lights between the

hours of 10 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. Use only

as much light as is absolutely necessary

in order to carry out the routines and

activities you need to carry out safely.

Now, that's light, but as you recall, we

also have this tool related to

temperature. And you're probably not

going to be surprised that the way to

leverage temperature in the evening is

the exact opposite of the way that you

want to leverage temperature early in

the day. Early in the day, temperature

increases from cold showers or exercise,

etc. wake you up. What that means is

that taking a cold shower late at night

is probably a bad idea. Rather, taking a

nice hot bath or a sauna you might think

would heat up your body. And indeed,

that's what happens if you stay in a

very long time. But if you do hot tub or

a hot bath or a sauna in the evening and

you don't stay in for more than 20 or 30

minutes and you get out, you take maybe

a coolish shower or a warm shower, then

what happens is there's a compensatory

cooling off of your core body

temperature for the reasons we discussed

earlier and your body temperature will

drop by 1 to 3° and it will make it much

easier to get into sleep. So if you're

somebody that enjoys hot baths, hot

showers or hot tubs, evening and

nighttime is going to be the best time

to do that if your goal is to facilitate

sleep. Similarly, you should try and

make your sleeping environment pretty

cool, if not cold. Now, that doesn't

mean you need to be cold while you're

asleep. You can get under as many

blankets as you need, but it's a good

idea to make your sleeping environment

cool. In fact, drop the temperature in

that sleeping environment by at least

3°. You'll be happy that you did. You're

going to want to sleep in a relatively

cool or cold sleeping environment and

then layer on the blankets as needed to

stay asleep. If you lower the

temperature in your sleeping

environment, so lower the temperature in

that room or use a controllable mattress

cover that can cool down like eight or

something of that sort, it's naturally

going to make your sleeping environment

cooler. And if you're too warm under the

blankets, all you have to do is extend a

hand or a foot out from under those

blankets. Whereas, if the sleeping

environment that you're in is too warm,

there's very little you can do to cool

off besides push off those blankets. But

if the room is too warm, well, what are

you going to do? You'd probably have to

put your hands into some cool water,

take a coolish shower or something for a

couple of seconds. That's not very

practical. I would be remiss if I didn't

touch on alcohol and CBD and THC. Many

places, but not all. THC is illegal,

although there are medical uses and some

places it's um decriminalized. Other

places it's legal. Alcohol, of course,

is consumed almost as frequently as

caffeine is consumed. The sleep that one

gets after drinking alcohol is greatly

disrupted sleep. THC and alcohol do help

some people fall asleep and maybe even

stay asleep. The architecture of that

sleep is suboptimal compared to the

sleep they would get without alcohol or

THC in their system. So, I'm not here to

tell you what to do or not to do. I'm

certainly not um the substance police.

That's not my role. I'm just reporting

to you the biology. If your sleep is not

restoring you to the extent that you

feel it should or if you are regularly

relying on a drink or two in order to

fall asleep or THC in order to fall

asleep that is disrupting your total

pattern of sleep. Okay? So you've done

everything correctly up until now. You

got your morning routine from critical

period one. You got your afternoon

routine. You saw some sunlight in the

afternoon. You avoided caffeine in the

eight hours or 10 hours before bedtime.

You're not drinking alcohol. you've

cooled down the room, uh you're doing

all these things right, you've dim the

lights, etc., etc. What else can we do

in order to optimize our sleep? I always

say behavioral tools first, then look to

nutrition, then if necessary, look to

supplementation, and then if still

necessary, look to prescription drugs,

obviously prescribed by a

board-certified physician. There are

supplements that for most people will

greatly improve their ability to fall

and stay asleep. And the three main

supplements in that category or that kit

of sleep supplements, and I've talked

about these before, are magnesium

thriionate. So, T h reo n a t e,

apagenine, api g- e n i n, and theonine.

T h e a n i n e. Theonine. You don't

necessarily need to take all three.

Although many people get a synergistic

effect from taking all three. You may

not even need to take even one. What I

recommend is that if you're already

doing all the behavioral tools regularly

and you're still having trouble falling

asleep and staying asleep, well then you

might try one of the supplements within

this sleep stack. They do have fairly

wide margins for safety. Although I

should also say anytime you're going to

add or remove something from your

supplement protocol, your nutritional

program, you definitely want to talk to

your physician. I don't just say that to

protect us. I say that to protect you.

For most people, the margins of safety

on these things are going to be pretty

broad. For some people, the dosages of

any one or several of the supplements I

mentioned will be zero. That is, you

won't need them in order to get and stay

asleep most nights of your life. For

many people, however, taking 145

milligrams of magnesium 3en8ate can be

very beneficial. Some people need to go

a little higher. Some people need to go

a little bit lower. 50 milligrams of

apagenine. And again, you could just

take the apagenine on its own. And 100

to 400 millig of theanine taken again

alone or in combination with the other

supplements mentioned in this stack many

people find allows them to get really

drowsy and fall asleep sleep really

deeply and they feel much more refreshed

the next day and they don't have a

groggginess. About 5% of people report

that magnesium 3 and8 really disrupts

their gut. It gives them diarrhea or

gastric distress in which case don't

take it. Now in a slightly different

way, many people who can tolerate

magnesium 3 and8 or really thrive on

magnesium 3 and8 and like epigenine

might find that theanine even at the

lowest dose of 100 milligrams because

again the range is 100 to 400 milligrams

that theanine gives them such vivid

dreams that they actually find it

disruptive or they wake up and in the

middle of the night or they find that

the sleep that they're getting is kind

of anxietyridden because of the

intensity of those dreams. So some

people might choose to leave theanine

out of the sleep stack and just take

magnesium 3in8 or rapenine. Again, some

people might leave magnesium 3 and8ate

out of the sleep stack. All of this is

really about finding the supplementation

protocol that's ideal for you. I should

mention that whether or not you're

taking one or two or three of the

components of the sleep stack. The ideal

time to take those is 30 to 60 minutes

before bedtime. That sleep stack can be

very beneficial to people. And I do

think that it's preferable to melatonin.

First of all, melatonin is a hormone

that you indogenously make. The dosages

of melatonin that are contained in most

commercial products is far far far

greater than what we would make

indogenously. So, it's really supra

physiological. So, that's of concern

because melatonin is not just

responsible for making us sleepy and

fall asleep. It also does things like

interacts with other hormone systems,

testosterone and estrogen, even in the

puberty system in kids. Is taking

melatonin every once in a while a

problem for adjusting to jet lag, etc.?

Probably not. I would even say no. But

taking it chronically over time,

especially kids taking it chronically

over time, can potentially be

problematic. I do want to mention a

couple of broad contour tools that will

impact your ability to sleep really well

on a consistent basis. And the one that

impacts the most number of people is

weekends. Turns out that most everybody

feels the impulse to sleep in on the

weekend, especially if they've been out

late the night before. However, the data

show that keeping relatively consistent

sleep and wake times is really going to

enhance the quality and depth of your

sleep. So, if you stay out late one

night, sure, you might allow yourself to

sleep in an extra hour or so, but you

should really try to avoid sleeping in

longer than an hour beyond your normal

wake up time. it would be better to wake

up at a consistent time plus or minus an

hour and get a nap in the afternoon

provided that nap again isn't too long.

Now, a couple of final points and

additional tools that I think are going

to be useful to everybody in particular

people who have young children or are

following a shift work schedule or who

are experiencing jet lag. Keep in mind

jet lag can be due to travel, which is

obvious, but jet lag can also be due to

getting woken up in the middle of the

night, right? Your body doesn't know the

difference between flying to a new time

zone and getting woken up in the middle

of the night. The tool that I'd like to

offer you is an understanding of

something called temperature minimum.

And I'm going to make this as simple as

possible, and I'm confident that

everyone can understand this, even if

you don't have any science background.

Here's the question you need to ask

yourself. What is your typical wake up

time? If your typical wake up time most

days is 7 a.m., well, then your

temperature minimum is 5:00 a.m. That's

right. Your temperature minimum is not a

temperature. It's a time within your

24-hour cycle. Approximately 2 hours

before your typical wake up time, your

body is at its lowest temperature that

it will ever be in the 24-hour cycle.

That's why it's called your temperature

minimum. Here's what you need to know

about your temperature minimum. If you

view bright light, exercise or drink

caffeine or all of the above in the two

to four hours before your temperature

minimum, that will delay your clock.

What that means when I say delay your

clock is it will make you want to go to

sleep later and wake up later the next

night. Okay, so let's run this exercise

for you, the person waking up at 7 a.m.

on a regular basis. I can predict with

almost certainty that your body is going

to be at its lowest temperature at 5:00

a.m. So, what that means is that if you

get up at 3:00 a.m. or at 4:00 a.m. and

you flip on bright lights in your house

or in your bathroom or you have a cup of

coffee or you do any kind of exercise or

you get up and head to the airport, the

mechanisms in your brain and body that

control timing of sleep and timing of

waking will shift. They will delay. It's

as if you put your clock on hold for a

little while and then let it start

again. Okay, that's the simplest way I

can describe it. And you will tend to

want to go to sleep later and wake up

later the following night. Now, the

opposite is true if you view bright

light, drink caffeine, or exercise or

socialize, I should say, in the hours

immediately after your temperature

minimum. So for you in this example, the

person who's waking up at 7:00 a.m.,

your temperature minimum is 5:00 a.m. If

you view bright light, exercise, maybe

have a snack, maybe not, or socialize,

move about at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. or 7:00

a.m., that will tend to phase advance

your clock. It will tend to basically

make you want to go to bed earlier and

wake up earlier the following night.

Now, I use this example of a person who

wakes up typically at 7:00 a.m. whose

temperature minimum is 5:00 a.m. But of

course, you need to adjust that for

yourself if you're somebody who wakes up

at 9:00 a.m. or at 5:00 a.m., etc. Why

do I offer this as a tool? Well, this is

an immensely powerful tool if, for

instance, you are headed to a time zone

where you need to go to bed earlier and

wake up earlier once you arrive in that

time zone. What it means is in the day

or two before you leave, you can force

yourself to exercise, drink caffeine,

maybe even to eat a meal early in the

morning, or maybe you still fast early

in the morning. That's really up to you.

But you force yourself to do the act the

activities that are going to phase

advance your clock. Whereas, if you're

traveling to a time zone where you are

going to need to go to sleep much later

and you're going to need to wake up much

later, even a little bit later, you can

do those things in the hours prior to

your temperature minimum. And I should

say for everybody, people who are doing

jet who are jetlagged and engaged in

shift work or not, but just for

everybody, if you need to be awake in

the middle of your sleep cycle, you

know, you're feeding a baby or you're um

you're taking care of a loved one or you

need to do something that's critical or

you need to work, use red light. Okay.

Now, for shift workers who really are

trying to stay awake all night and sleep

all day, this is not going to be ideal.

But for people that for instance need to

stay up really late one night or wake up

especially early like 3:00 a.m. to

prepare for an exam that you're just not

ready for or to head to the airport etc.

Using red light has been shown to allow

people to be awake enough that and

obviously see what they need to see in

order to perform their activities safely

but it does not seem to disrupt the

cortisol rhythm that is the healthy

normal cortisol rhythm. Okay. So, that's

a lot of information and a lot of tools,

and I really want to encourage everybody

to get your behaviors right, get your

nutrition right for you. I promise that

if you start to implement some or

ideally all of these tools, the quality

of your sleep will increase

tremendously. And of course, in doing

so, the quality of your daytime

alertness and your ability to focus will

improve tremendously. Again, sleep is

the absolute foundation of your mental

health, your physical health, and your

performance in all endeavors. And last,

but certainly not least, thank you for

your interest in science.

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