I was 86% correct on accurately

predicting when an NBA team will be at

highest risk of losing strictly based on

the sleep oh gosh yes and just 15 or 30

minutes can make a difference so let's

dive into just some very practical

strategies to get the best sleep

possible Dr sharim ma is a renowned

sleep doctor and performance expert

whose sleep optimization research has

enhanced the careers of CEOs as well as

athletes in the NFL MLB and Formula 1

and has provided lifechanging expertise

to companies like under aror and Google

for my Elite athletes that I work with

sufficient sleep it's a game Cher for

example we saw 12% faster Reaction Time

a 9% Improvement in free throws and a 4%

increase in Faster Sprint time and when

you experience what it feels like to be

well rested you never want to go back

getting insufficient sleep and it

doesn't have to be these big jumps I'd

love to dig into that okay so i' have a

shower then I get straight into bed

after is that good or bad tweak the

timing of your shower and your hot bath

to just an hour or two before bed it's

hard to grasp how much of a difference

this can make in your life what about

sex does it have an impact on your sleep

okay so is there anything that I can eat

before bed that won't disrupt my sleep

but will get rid of The Hunger there's a

pre-sleep meal for example cereal and

milk cereal and the reason why is

because and then I read this fascinating

word nappuccino yes this is a useful

tool if you're a working professional

and you need a little boost and

alertness and performance what you do is

the DI of AO raffle is about to close

anyone that subscribes to the DI ofo

before we hit 7 million subscribers

which is probably going to be in a

couple of days time you will be included

in the raffle and on the day we hit 7

million subscribers we are giving away a

lot of money can't buy prizes to all of

you so hit the Subscribe button get in

before 7 million and I'll announce the

prizes and the winners in the comments

below when we hit 7 million subscribers

[Music]

Dr M what is it you do and why is it so

important in your mind that you do

it great question so I am a sleep

physician um but I spend a lot of my

time and career trying to educate and

and advocate for people to prioritize

sleep right this fascinating process

that each of us does every single night

and arguably is about a third of our

lives but many individuals don't do this

very well or they you know sacrifice it

and overlook this area I very much

believe if you don't sleep your best you

will not be your best or counter to that

is if you your if your sleep is best

you'll be at your best and what that

means if I unpack that a little bit more

is we often are sacrificing our sleep

we're underslept we often don't have

good quality sleep it we're very

reactive to our sleep at night time and

it's the last thing that we think of at

the end of the day when we wrap

everything up um and that's arguably not

going to put ourselves up to be the best

we can be in the following day right and

for my Elite athletes that I work with

when you actually get sufficient sleep

you have practices that you plan into

your day and you actually are more

proactive with that it can be a game

Cher and for them when it comes to

performance on the field that can be the

difference of a 9% Improvement in free

throw shots it can mean reacting 12%

faster and so until you experience that

it sometimes is hard to grasp how much

of a difference this can make in your

life but it is one of the foundations

that will impact everything about how

you function your mood how you feel and

ultimately perform the following day if

I could offer you or yes you

specifically see if I could offer you

something that's free and healthy and

safe that's going to help you think more

clearly make better decisions be in a

better mood be more productive and

efficient would you want it of course

how much exactly and so it's really a

decision of whether you want to invest

uh your time to be able to be more

proactive with this particular area of

your life to get the benefits that come

down the road with it who do you work

with give me a sort of broad spectrum of

the individuals organizations that

you've worked with on sleep and why have

they come to you I've had an opportunity

to work with a number of professional

sports teams and athletes as well as

organizations over the years to try and

apply the science into practice to help

them improve their sleep their

scheduling and their travel so for

example I've been with the San Francisco

Giants in Major League Baseball I've

worked with um NBA teams like the Golden

State Warriors uh NFL teams like the

Philadelphia Eagles I won a Super Bowl

ring in 2017 with them to um other

sports organizations like Nike and under

arour and ESPN to try and show how you

can predict when NBA teams will lose

strictly based on the schedule and

insufficient sleep opportunities um to

individual athletes who recognize you

know hey this is an area that I am not

optimizing and I know this can be such a

valuable asset to extend my career to

prevent injuries down the road and to

help me be at my best do you ever work

with CEOs I do I do work with Executives

and seite um um Executives to try and

help them be their best because they too

are high performers right their

performance outcomes are maybe a little

bit different than pro athletes where

we're quantifying on field performance

and looking at their swim times and what

they're doing when it comes to the you

know onc court or on field um

performance outcomes but for these

Executives they arguably are also making

incredibly important decisions they have

to still react when they're under

pressure and they have to make good

judgment calls and so many of the things

that I coach and and try to recommend to

my lead athletes are very much

applicable to the SE Suite executive or

even just the working professional

that's really what what I found so

fascinating about your research and your

work is that although there's a focus on

athletes as someone who is also

traveling is also very very busy also um

struggles with sleep sometimes because

I'm I have to perform late at night

whether that's on stage or with meetings

or whatever it might be I resonated with

so much of it and I also train in the

gym pretty much every day if I can um

and I've also noticed a correlation

between things like injury in the gym

based on how I'm sleeping in my quote

unquote sleep de but I but I I want to

confront two things the first thing I

want to confront is the misconceptions

around sleep that you encounter over and

over again what are the like big

overarching misconceptions that stand in

the way of people believing in and

implementing the advice that you give

them I'll start with just this badge of

honor that I really believe still

persists in society where you should get

only four or five hours of sleep and

should be able to perform at your best

and I think the tides are turning and I

do think that that is changing over the

last several years where there are more

vocal Advocates of um you know Elite

athletes like the Tom Brady who you know

say everything is around performance

enhancement I going need to go to to bed

early so that I can wake up early and to

be ready to go for the day to you know

the Simone bios who says I need to get 8

hours of sleep and so I think that that

is a badge of honor that is now shifting

and now it's going to become well if

you're not getting your 8 n 10 hours of

sleep right then you're actually at a

decrement to yourself and you're

actually not going to set yourself up to

be the best that you could possibly be

whether you're on the field as a pro

athlete or whether you're leading an

organization or trying to go after

whatever ever it is that matters to you

right and and I think that's going to

continue to shift but I'm excited about

it because that's one thing until you

experience that that difference and that

life transformation of what it feels

like to be well rested then it can be a

game changer you never want to go back

to it again when you're getting

insufficient sleep are there any

misconceptions around how to sleep in

sleep hygiene and um I know the

quantities of sleep weeny that also seem

to stand in people's way

of them getting a great night's sleep

yeah so I think that there is a

misconception that everyone needs a

certain amount of sleep there's

individual variability so the the

recommendation from the American Academy

of sleep medicine and the Sleep research

Society so two of our national

organizations here in the US recommend

minimally 7 hours of sleep but that's

the lower threshold you might actually

need 8 hours or 9 hours or more to feel

well rested right I I personally feel

terrible on seven hours and I much more

need the eight to nine hours and there's

those in that individual differences so

you need to find what you feel well

rested you're able to function well at a

high level during the day and that will

then be your individual requirement so I

think there's this misperception that

everyone needs a certain amount but you

need to find what works for you and it's

all about small changes so if you're not

at 7 hours I think you shared sometimes

you're you're you're under that oh yeah

sometimes yeah you know it's about F 15

or 30 minutes more can make a difference

refence so if you're getting 6 hours

then I'm going to recommend getting 15

minutes or 30 minutes more every day for

this one week and then get 15 or 30

minutes more next week so that you're

building from say 6 hours of sleep to 6

and a half hours and you may not think

that that's that much but we can all do

15 minutes more right we're less

scrolling or doing what we're wrapping

up our day but those 15 minutes add up

where that's a difference of like an a

student to a b student or 11 minutes

more sleep is the difference of a b

student to a c student in one of these

studies really exactly and then over the

course of a week 15 minutes will be

almost 2 hours more sleep than if you

didn't what was the study so this was a

study done um in high school students

but looking at the difference of how

much they're sleeping versus their

correlation to to grades and so that

15minute difference was shown to be that

A to B student 11 minutes from that B to

C student oh gosh yes so it doesn't have

to be these big jumps

but small changes over time will will

add up the the study I have in front of

me here which I've printed out um also

highlights the importance of sleep for

everybody but also specifically in this

case for athletes can you walk me

through this study and what you found in

this particular study on the adult male

basketball players yes and how you

conducted the study so in the study we

looked at the men's basketball team and

we really tried to examine if we

extended their sleep over 5 to 7 weeks

encouraging them to get 9 or 10 hours of

sleep every single night to B pay back

what we call an accumulated sleep debt

would we see any impact on performance

outcome specifically would we see an

impact on reaction time their fatigue

levels and would we see an impact on

their onc Court performance specifically

free throw shots three-point shots

Sprint time and these are measures that

we would do after every regular practice

and over the course of those 5 to 7

weeks we demonstrated that we saw a 9%

Improvement in free throws a 9%

Improvement in three-point shots we saw

a 12% faster reaction time and a 4%

increase in uh faster Sprint time and so

these were the quantification which was

novel at the time was what was quite

fascinating because it wasn't that 1%

that I think many Elite athletes are

trying to find every small way to adjust

their training to get that 1% better

better because in Elite Sport that 1%

can be the difference right of being at

the top versus not but this was arguably

9% or even double digits for Reaction

Time depending on the outcome and so

we've expanded that looking at other

sports as well but this was one of the

first ones to show that it really

potentially could have a significant

impact on performance outcome for these

athletes how much did they sleep more

per night to get those results yeah so

they did so we did quantify objectively

through a uh what's called actigraphy it

looks like a wearable nowadays um and

then compar that also with what they

thought they were getting and so we did

extend their sleep um uh substantially

over I believe an hour and a half uh

compared to what they were getting prior

to the study because getting 9% more

free throws or three-point shots or 12%

better reaction time is quite frankly

for some teams the difference between

like winning a championship and not yeah

because I think about the Premier League

often which is it's soccer I guess

football um often time there's been

leagues within my lifetime there's been

years in my lifetime where both teams

have um tied with the same amount of

points and one is one just on the amount

of goals they've scored they've just

scored a couple more goals so after 38

games they both have the exact same

points and the winner is just the person

that scored like a couple more goals but

even you think of reaction times you

think of goalkeepers in in soccer their

whole game is reaction time so if you

can increase your reaction time by 12%

it's really really staggering

it can be a game changer and I think

that's what has been so fascinating with

some of the athletes or organizations

and teams I've worked with who have made

it to the most important games and those

championships because the hope is that

you've invested not just the night

before that championship game but you've

invested an entire season even starting

in the off season on cultivating better

habits to give yourself that foundation

and be able to leverage these strategies

that the other team is not because we

know that it significantly can impact

not just the individual level on

performance outcome but organizations as

a whole and I think one example of that

is um I partnered with ESPN to do what

was called the NBA schedule alert

project where they ask can you predict

Dr ma when NBA teams are going to be at

risk of losing games strictly based on

the schedule so not factoring in

strength of team but based simply on

their schedule where they're traveling

to how many times are crossing these

various factors does it affect

organizations as a whole and teams and

their game outcomes as you mentioned and

over three seasons I was 76 to 86%

correct on accurately predicting when an

NBA team will be at highest risk of

losing strictly based on the schedule so

in the spirit of the project we didn't

factor in strength of team but to me

that was staggering because there's many

other factors that maybe are not always

considered to be as clearly important

about you know this travel schedule up

front but hey maybe these factors really

do play and influence um game outcomes

in this way and that's not the only

thing that has obviously shown that

organizations and teams as a as a whole

will have differences performance

outcome there's other studies like the

Monday Night Football study that showed

if you simply bet on a West Coast team

when they play an East Coast West Coast

matchup during night games over 25

seasons you'd beat the Las Vegas point

spread 68% of the time and so if you're

able to predict with with greater

accuracy then obviously there is

potentially some gambling outcomes that

could work in your favor here but really

being able to show that you would be

able to benefit and predict better than

what the spread will be between the the

two teams over is that because the West

sorry the West Coast team has gone which

who's who's traveled it doesn't matter

it simply matters that the West Coast

team is playing the east Coast team

during night games so this can happen on

the west coast it can happen on the East

Coast the reason why is because

performance is enhanced in the late

afternoon to evening around 4: to 8:00

in both scenarios the body clock of the

West Coast team because they typically

go out just the day before the game it

feels like they're on the west coast

okay right so when you're a West Coast

team and you stay there and the East

Coast team comes out the East Coast is

three hours later so what is a seven

o'clock game on a West Coast feels like

a 10 o'clock game for a East Coast team

got you same thing applies when the West

Coast team goes east coast even if it's

a 7:00 game there yeah the West Coast

feels like it's a 4:00 body clock yes

and so that special window of around 4:

to 8:00 p.m. when world records are

broken and performance in a 24-hour day

is is optimal and that is leveraged then

over those 25 Seasons that the West

Coast will have more favorable outcome

overall got you so in this study you did

in 2011 that was published in 2011 one

of the things I read as well is that

players who had slept more in your study

sprinted

faster I mean quite quite dramatically

faster as well I I think from 16.2

seconds at the start of the study versus

15.5 seconds at the end yes over what

distance was that yes so that was from

the Baseline to half court to Baseline

to full court and back so we chose a

very standardized

sprinting uh sprinting drill that they

are familiar with that we could

replicate after every regular practice

as you imagine not everyone on the team

was participating on in this study and

so they did this after every regular

practice and that ended up being a 4%

difference in Sprint time that is pretty

crazy do do do professional teams know

this do athletes know this are they

aware of this or is this something

that's fairly new some are aware and I

think the momentum is shifting towards

more athletes more teams recognizing

that this is an untapped competitive

advantage that this is an area that they

may or may not have implemented specific

strategies or education or or planning

for when they travel but I think the

more Forward Thinking organizations

teams and athletes are starting to pick

this up and starting to recognize that

they can use this as a weapon right as a

performance-enhancing drug if you may

because it is safe it's healthy it's

effective and we know that it will be

one of the only things that can give you

these performance benefits um and and

those are the ones that are trying to

Leverage The Science into application

for optimizing yeah their sleep at

nighttime have you seen athletes

individual athletes change and save

their careers when I say change I mean

change the trajectory of their career or

save their careers because they focused

on their sleep and can you give me some

examples of that yes Golden State

Warriors Andre Iguodala he's someone who

I worked closely with he came to the

Warriors back in around 2014 he was

already an Allstar he was 28 at the time

knew that his career was going to

probably be sunsetting at some future

time but wanted to extend it as long as

possible but he knew he wasn't doing

sleep best as possible he was very open

about sharing how he would stay up till

the we hours in the morning playing

video games would sleep for a few hours

go to practice play for a few hours come

home and take a 2 to three hour power

nap and that was his routine for for 10

years um and he said you know how do I

improve how I approach my sleep I know

that this is important as an athlete to

who wants to play in the league as long

as possible so I had the opportunity to

work with him over several months to

help him recraft how he approached to

sleep including a wind down routine

thought about some of his nutritional

choices tried to shorten his naps time

them closer to game time to give him the

Boost and alertness and performance be

able to manage a racing mind and be able

to have just a more proactive approach

to his sleep in a really neat way The

Following Season the Warriors went to

the championship for the first time in

many years they won he came back with

the finals MVP he subsequently has won

three more championships with them so

four in total and extended his career

for 10 years when we made these changes

there was a quantification of the

performance enhancement so a third party

Quantified as he went from under seven

to seven and a half to more than eight

hours he had a two-fold increase in his

threo percentage he had a

88.9% increase in his free throw shots

which very interestingly is the exact

same 9% that I showed in my man's

basketball study that had the same 9%

Improvement in free throws he had a 29%

Improvement in his points per minute a

45% decrease in his fowls and so you

know these numbers are pretty staggering

again for someone who's already at the

highest level as an Allstar and it's not

to take anything away from Andre but he

has been very vocal about the difference

this made as he changed these habits it

he says it changed everything for him

and I think that that's you know a very

inspiring story of what it can mean to

extend your career and be able to almost

tap into this additional performance

capacity that I think even he was

surprised about that he for the first

time was able to improve beyond what he

already thought was his best and I think

that's what's so inspiring because this

is something that's accessible to all of

us to be able to tap into that little

bit more so not only did he win the most

valuable player award but his

three-point conversion went up

218% yes so during the time that I had

worked with him his three-o percentage

went up twofold during that time it begs

the question what did you do to

him and you know you named a couple of

things there but I'd love to dig into

some of those key points sure um where

you started with him the specific sort

of implement things that you implemented

into his um sleep hygiene and so that if

I am him the day that you met him when

he was taking those naps and staying up

late which I often do to be fair um

where would you start with me and where

did you start with him okay so let's

dive into is just some very practical

strategies that I started to challenge

him with which was we'll start with his

sleep environment we want to make your

sleep environment like a cave really

dark quiet cool and

comfortable dark cave so dark blackout

curtains eye mask are some of the

easiest tools that you can grab but are

incredibly helpful and great investment

to be able to use that both at home and

then when you travel so that if you're

in a non-ideal environment like a hotel

room you have for example an IM mask

that can help dampen out the the light

uh making it quiet so

earplugs uh also a white noise machine

I'm a huge fan of even a small travel

white noise so that you can actually

mask over external noises that you may

or not be able to control I'm someone

that tells myself that I sleep with

something playing for I grew up with a

radio in my room so when I'm as an adult

now I'm always looking to play something

as I fall asleep is that going to hurt

my Sleep Quality I would say if you're

accustomed to this would say that's fine

to continue to do so I am not a fan of

having the TV on and having the bright

light exposed um to you in that hour

before bedtime because it also can just

be very psychologically stimulating but

if like you said it's a radio or it's a

podcast that you feel is helping you

relax then I'm a fan of it do you think

Daria will help people relax it

might it might help you at least think

about your sleep a bit more and

challenge you to do maybe one one change

tonight we consider that to be a

scientific endorsement of of the podcast

um okay so I've got sound down you are a

fan of the white white noise machines I

am because sometimes there's external

noises like a garbage truck or

construction that you're not always able

to control so if you can at least mask

over it temporarily that can sometimes

be helpful to keep individuals more

asleep during the night time and there's

even some now that are adaptive so if

the door slams then the volume

temporarily increases and then will

decrease so there's almost these smart

white noise machine that are that are

coming out on the market so that's from

a noise standpoint and earplugs are

going to be helpful if you're traveling

when you're at home you can obviously

use those to dampen down any external

noise from a from a temperature

standpoint you want it to be cool I

think this is an area that a lot of

people can benefit from because they

often sleep in much warmer temperatures

than what we know is probably more

conducive to sleep which is cooler 60 to

67° has been shown to help individuals

stay asleep and fall asleep that may be

frigidly cold for some but you have to

find the temperature that's right for

you I would say decrease your

temperature by say one degree or two

degrees every couple of days and then

you can find the temperature that works

well for you and there's even technology

now where there's mattress covers that

can help you regulate temperature from

much cooler to warmer so if there's

differences in bed Partners that's a way

that you can actually accommodate both

of their preferences so that's about 16

to 20° cus

what about when I shower or I bath

because often I go and have a shower

then I get straight into bed after yes

is that good or bad I would encourage

you to shift that timing a little bit

earlier into the night so an hour and a

half before you are planning to go to

bed I would shift your shower because

when you are taking a hot bath or hot

shower it increases your core

temperature but when you fall asleep

your core temperature drops so you don't

want that competing signal to be right

before bedtime but if you back that

shower up an hour and a half that should

be sufficient time that we think

potentially there's an augmentation of

helping that drop in temperature and

some smaller Studies have shown that

that can help decrease the time to fall

asleep and also enhance deep sleep which

has implications for Muscle Recovery

regeneration and you get more of that in

the earlier part of your night so it's

an easy fix uh just to tweak the timing

of your shower in your hot bath to be

just an hour or two before bedtime not

right before bed so it's a strategy too

if you have difficulties winding down

and relaxing to implement that hot

shower hot bath earlier in the evening

one of the problems I also have when I

sleep sometimes is I I hear people say

you got to you can't eat like 3 or 4

hours before bed however I sometimes you

know I sometimes get home at 10:00 p.m.

and I get home hungry as hell at 10 p.m.

and then sometimes if I order food for

for example it might come at like 11:00

okay which means I end up eating at

11:00 and then I really see it in my

sleep schools

um I think as well that I'm someone that

tends to fall asleep later again this

might just be me telling BS to myself

but that's what tends to happen and I

know I'm not supposed to eat before bed

but I'm so hungry so is there anything

that I can eat before bed that won't

disrupt my sleep but will get rid of The

Hunger yes the preference is not to have

a huge meal right before bed that's

fried fatty um you know really heavy

sitting in your stomach that hour right

before bedtime um so if you're able to

time that and be strategic then that's

obviously the preference but I'm okay

with you having a pre-sleep snack a lot

of times for my athletes that means

we'll go for something like 50% of a

complex carb and like 50% of a lean

protein so for example cereal and milk

is an easy one cereal yes cereal and

milk of course we want something that's

whole grain uh and not you know

necessarily A sugary you know cereal but

Cal and milk is an easy one that's many

people have access to or cottage cheese

and fruit or 100% ho whe crackers and

peanut butter and the reason why is

because I don't want you waking up in

the middle of the night being hungry or

even trying to fall asleep and you feel

like you're hungry but we want something

that's slow digesting through the night

because ideally you're going to be

sleeping S 8 n hours during the night uh

and we want it to be able to get you to

the morning time and then you will fuel

when you wake up so a pre-sleep snack

can can be a great strategy if you're

coming home late and you want to

obviously be able to fuel before bed or

if you have a really early dinner and

you're hungry before bedtime yeah that

happens sometimes as well sometimes I'll

eat dinner at about 5:00 p.m. Y and then

I get to about 10 11:00 p.m. I'm still

awake and I'm starving okay so what's a

pre-sleep snack that you think you can

grab for some nuts okay yeah does that

work yeah yeah nuts have protein in them

um yeah you can grab a good nut mix

maybe you can partner that also with

like some yogurt too raspberries

raspberries yeah fruit yeah and some

yeah a a protein and carbon there and

those are good good pre-sleep snack

what's the if I wanted to destroy my

sleep what would you recommend I eat

right before bed what would you

recommend I I yeah consume right before

bed it can be if you just want to

destroy your entirely okay so we're

going to have the the night cap of

having a couple of drinks right before

bed okay so some alcohol yeah we'll have

some alcohol on board we'll we'll throw

in some caffeine too to to really get

you to stay awake in the next couple of

hours we add a really heavy meal that's

Fried Tomato based um fatty sitting in

your stomach right before bed and you

say tomato based yeah sometimes

individuals will have acid reflux with

tomato based products and so if that's

something that is is yeah is that

something that you experience then you

generally want to avoid some of the

Tomato based products that can aggravate

some of the acid reflux so some fried

food with some

ketchup yes okay so alcohol caffeine and

some fried food with some ketchup I

think that would really work to your

disadvantage during the nighttime any

sugar yes sugary carbs are tends to be

some of the preferences when you're

particularly also sleep deprived so

people will choose more carb heavy foods

and foods that have um less fiber and

more more sugar why fats is it that if I

eat those Foods before bed it impacts my

sleep what what what's going on I don't

think we have a great understanding of

that I think the field of sleep and

nutrition is definitely growing and I

think down the road in the next five or

10 years we hopefully we'll have more

answers to that but it's a fast area

that we do start to understand what we

eat can affect our sleep so for example

the stages of our sleep or how we sleep

during the night time some of the

smaller studies shown what you eat can

then affect having more Awakenings

during the nighttime um and affecting

the quality of your sleep but I think

many of them are still at the infancy

because that's certainly something I can

attest to I I talked about one time many

months ago I think it was last year

actually when I I was staying in a hotel

here in LA and I had a cookie before bed

because it was cuz I'm bloody you know I

blame the hotel I don't really blame the

hotel I take full responsibility it was

in the mini bar and I hadn't eaten all

day I'd came back I'd been working all

day and when I'm when when I'm when I've

been working a lot I'm much more likely

to reach for something bad and I had

this cookie and honestly I woke up the

next morning 8 hours later feeling like

I hadn't slept at all I just felt so

tired and I know it was that Bloody

cookie cuz I looked at my um my whoop

hashad investor and I could see that my

heart rate throughout the night was

really high like atypically high my

heart rate throughout the night will

usually just be this nice flat I don't

know 50 55 beats per minute and when I'd

had that cookie it it started and pretty

much stayed for the first 3 or 4 hours

about 75 beats so it was like my body

was was still on it was like I was

walking MH um and so I've always just

had this idea that when I if you eat

something like that right before bed

like puts your body under a lot of

strain like metabolic strain then it's

kind of like your body doesn't fall

asleep and my REM sleep's always

attacked as well if I if I if I were to

eat something like that yeah it's it's

very fascinating I think we're starting

to understand the connection of what we

eat how our gut is responding to that

and then how that potentially can affect

your sleep and then ultimately your

daytime functioning the next day but we

do recognize from sleep deprivation

studies uh that individuals will make

different nutritional choices and grab

for the cookies and the ice cream and

some of those other snacks later at

night than they would if they were well

rested that's a real horrible Paradox

isn't it it is do you know what I mean

like if you're tired then you're going

to eat bad things right before bed which

is going to make you sleep worse and

make you tired which is going to mean

you eat bad things before bed is vicious

cycle it is and unfortunately that could

potentially lead to potential weight

gain and other Downstream consequences

so just one other reason why obviously

making sure you're having sufficient

sleep but also having good practices and

your approach to sleep is also um a

priority so you're asking what else did

we do with Andre but in that ways of

preparing to sleep you know we addressed

does he have a windown routine so we

implemented one where he would read

before bed to actually relax and prepare

his brain and body to sleep for the

night managing a racing mind can be

incredibly common for not just the elate

athlete but for for all of us and so

even before he did that reading we'd

actually have him stretch and process

his thoughts outside of bed and that set

him up with a two-part system so that he

could actually be strategic about

preparing to sleep for the night a lot

of people can relate to this managing a

racing mind athletes um performers

creatives um so if I've got a racing

mind I think as well I think I tend to

feel like I have my best ideas just

before I'm about to get in bed what

would you recommend someone do if they

have a racing mind again incredibly

common to have racing thoughts thinking

through the day needing to process your

thoughts about how to prepare for

tomorrow so what I'd recommend is

spending 10 minutes processing your

thoughts outside of bed in dim light

every single night so that can mean I

would recommend you could do stretching

H you could do deep breathing exercises

to activate your parasympathetic system

and dampen down your sympathetic system

that's what I recommend for a lot of my

athletes if that's not your thing I

recommend journaling getting your

thoughts down onto paper uh or writing a

to-do list

those are easy ones that all of us can

do for even if you start with 5 minutes

today so I'm going to stretch um I've

read I read something I think it was

whoops data they released at the end of

the year where they because there's an

activity log in whoop where you

basically say what you're doing and I'm

going to butcher this but I think the

stats said that reading before bed

improved your sleep by about 5% across

everyone that was using ROP which makes

sense because you're going to be away

from Light I guess and you're also going

to be calming your you called it your

parasympathetic nervous system yes the

parasympathetic nervous system what do I

need to know about that in the context

of sleep that's just the system that

helps you relax and wind down the it is

in balance with the sympathetic system

which you may have heard is the fight or

flight system that gets you going that's

where your heartbe heartbeat will be

much more rapid your breathing can be

much more rapid when you need to go

that's when I'm overthinking yes but you

want to dampen that down and you want to

get your parasympathetic atic system

activated so you can help actually relax

physiologically your body and also your

brain so that you're in a better state

to sleep at night right it's easier to

slowly pump your brakes and then try to

sleep versus if you were going 60 M an

hour on a freeway and then suddenly

slamming on the brakes and just jumping

into bed so you actually have a process

to slow yourself down your brain and

body it will help prepare you to

actually get better sleep during the

night time just want to close off on

Andrew then is there anything else you

did with him to yes there's please give

me there's more that we've done with

Andre but this is to give you some

highlights so you know approaches to his

sleep were having that way to process

his thoughts being able to wind down

before bed and relax improving his sleep

environment so that it was as I

mentioned dark and cool I believe his

was around 67 degrees it was quiet um we

tried to we took out technology from his

bedroom so he didn't have that exposure

prior to bed we looked at cutting down

some of his power naps that were several

hours long to shorten them to 20 to 30

minutes and time it much closer to game

time so we would get that boost as you

would go into evening

games um and we looked at some of his

nutritional choices but this is the

highlight of of some of the ways that we

were strategic about his approach to

sleep and while we're also extending his

sleep from that under 7 to 7 and 1 12 to

8 hours because we knew he had an

accumulated sleep debt that had been

built from not getting sufficient sleep

probably for many months to years prior

to this and so as we've shared some of

the performance outcomes were

astonishing and he's been very vocal

about sharing his sleep story and he's

not the only one um if I could share

another story about another athlete

where you've asked what has saved

someone's career so with Andre I think

he saw this performance enhancement that

he could tap into that was that was um

previously he didn't know almost existed

right but then there's other athletes

where I think having sleep as a

foundation almost save their career one

example is Ryan Jensen so Ryan Jensen

was cut from the Ravens and put on the

practice squad and during this time as

the story goes his father said you know

what's happening you're not yourself you

like made your mom cry the other day you

know there there's something that's

going on and he eventually was tested

for sleep apnea which is a very very

common sleep disorder where your Airway

has some partial or full collapse during

the air during the night and so can have

very fragmented sleep through the night

and he was eventually tested diagnosed

and then put on treatment through what's

called a CPAP or continuous positive

airway pressure so it's a it's a mask

that provides air to keep the airway

open so then you actually can have

Consolidated sleep during the nighttime

and in a very neat way four years later

Ryan Jensen comes back signs a $42

million contract as one of the highest

paid centers in the NFL and then 3 years

later in

2021 wins the Super Bowl with Tom Brady

on the Bucks I see this as the success

story of Saving his career and he's been

vocal about how much of a difference it

made from literally almost the end of

his career happening to now being able

to succeed at the highest level and also

of course being healthier and being able

to have um more success on the field

than he probably imagined for himself

and better relationships presumably he's

not made his mother cry I'm quite

curious about that why is it that when

we haven't slept we're more likely to

make people cry because we are our

emotions are not regulated well when

we're short on sleep we are more

irritable we are more grouchy we respond

more with our emo

being able to um why we respond with our

emotions yeah what's going on in the

body is it like a different part of my

brain is it my hormones is it something

else it's probably a combination of both

right we know that um our emotional

regulation is not the same if we're well

rested versus if we're asleep deprived

and so we rely more on our innate

response which may not necessarily be

that which is strategic for what we

should be responding with if we were

tempered and had a better rest under our

belt um so we ask cognitively there's a

an implication of which part of your

brain you're going to be using but then

also you are just not in a state in

which you are going to be able to

respond in the way that you would

otherwise is it the amydala that's the

emotional center that is one that's

where like fear is very much um and

emotions and and um yeah the amydala is

where like fear and emotions are are

often centered because I've started when

I started learning more about sleep and

the impact it has on my emotions I could

see a huge VAR in how

um how I make my decisions but also how

like short I can be yeah if I haven't

slept yeah and so on the days now where

I haven't slept I literally have a

conversation with myself and tell myself

that I'm going to be in my M mdala today

so to try not to make any decisions try

not to talk to many people because

there's a risk that I might just be I

might be too short in how I consider

things and how I respond and I really

want to stay away from that but I've

seen such a huge huge variant and I've

also heard of other like famous CEOs and

stuff like that talk about how they they

focus so much on their sleep I can't was

reading something the other day and it

was I think it was it was Jeff Bezos do

you know what I'm gonna say I don't but

Jeff Bezos is someone who has been an

advocate about sleep and vocal that he

needs eight hours every night yes the

quote that I heard him say or someone

told me that he said was I think it

might have been Ariana Huffington

actually he said that his job as a CEO

is to make decisions and he says he

doesn't have to make that many decisions

a year he only makes a couple of big

decisions a year every day he's probably

just making two or three big decisions

so if his job is to make decisions then

his job is also to sleep because the

variance I see in even my own decision-

making when I'm slept and underslept is

just unbelievably staggering as someone

that sits here for seven eight hours a

day sometimes having

conversations you wouldn't believe the

difference when my brain and my mouth

are like connected because I've slept

it's like a different human being it's a

different podcast host um have you got

data to support this this impact on

cognitive performance yes so you

definitely make better decisions when

you're well rested you're less likely to

make cognitive errors you have better

judgment when you're well rested and

you're going to react faster so in the

situations where you need to make big

decisions whether it's on the field and

you need to react because you're running

a pass whe whether you are Jeff Bezos

and you're running a company and you

need to make critical decisions um under

under sometimes you know acute stressors

or you are someone who just is trying to

be your best we know that the cognitive

domain very much is influenced by

getting sufficient sleep and some of the

I would say you know large um very very

public disasters have happened as a

result of what we know is sleep loss um

where people have made poor decisions or

decisions that have led to unfortunate

disaster so for example the Challenger

disaster with a space shuttle that

exploded um and as a result there's

investigations of why did this happen

and the final report does suggest that

insufficient sleep for some of those key

decision makers around being able to

launch or not was attributed to fatigue

and insufficient sleep so being able to

make good Dame time decisions had this

disastrous effect ultimately on the

Challenger explosion or are you aware of

any studies that have measured cognitive

performance on and sleep yes so my

studies as well as many of my other

colleagues particularly look at reaction

time because we know reaction time is um

very finely or is very sensitive to

sleep loss and I'm starting to find it

also is sensitive to extension of sleep

so the other half of the story when you

pay back sleep sleep debt we see that

benefit on on uh reaction time but uh

reaction time and looking at aspects of

you know how quickly you're able to

respond or if you're having errors when

you're responding and you're not

supposed to be responding cognitively

those are um tests that are typically

used in a lot of sleep studies because

we know is quite sensitive can you give

me an example of a study that will

convince me that um if I sleep more my

cognitive performance will improve one

of the studies I mentioned before even

15 15 minutes more sleep was that

difference of that a student to the B

student there's another study I often

cite where if you look at the difference

of someone who gets 9 hours of sleep for

a full week the reaction time stays very

consistent great you want to react

appropriately you want to not make

cognitive errors or lapses in judgment

and that will be consistent over the

week if you're someone who's getting

seven hours of sleep you see a slowing

of that reaction time and then a

leveling off if you are getting 5 hours

of sleep you see an even sharper decline

in being able to react fast and then you

see a leveling off if you're getting

three hours of sleep every night you're

just going to tank that reaction time

and be slower at the same time you have

more lapses in judgment and not able to

respond appropriately but the the thing

about this study that I find so

fascinating is when we know that there's

this deficit when you're going to react

slower in the seven and the 5our group

there's this leveling off so people say

oh can I get used to getting

insufficiency sleep in some sense there

was this stabilizing of it but the

reality is you're not at your best right

we know what your reaction time could be

if you were getting that 9 hours and if

we even gave you three nights of what we

call recovery sleep so we said okay now

we get let's say 8 hours in bed for the

next 3 days you're going to feel better

and you'll probably feel more refreshed

but those reaction times for the 7 hours

and the 5 hours and the 3H hour group

didn't go back to the Baseline so it

takes more than one night night or one

weekend of that recovery sleep to get

you back to your Baseline and so that's

the bottom line that I tried to show my

athletes is that you can pay back sleep

debt but it often can take more than

just one day or one weekend of quality

sleep how long does it take so my

Studies have suggested multiple weeks uh

will really be beneficial to paying back

more of your sleep debt than just a

night or two nights of sleep the biggest

bankr tends to be in the first week or

two but obviously this depends on how

much more you're actually getting how

you're timing that in your night but the

bottom line is that if you can invest

maybe a week or maybe if you have a

vacation coming up and you do two weeks

that's going to be U the biggest impact

on paying back your sleep debt and if

you say hey that sounds like a long time

Dr ma well even potentially like 5 days

is one of my preliminary studies had

suggested in professional baseball

players even if it's 5 days of getting

one additional hour of sleep that was

shown to potential that was shown to

improve cognitive reaction time and also

processing speed in the athletes that

actually got one additional hour so if

you got six hours you went to seven if

you got seven hours you went to eight

hours versus the athletes that just

continue to get their normal sleep

interesting I I guess I've got to

understand what this concept or this

idea of sleep Deb is because I I want to

make sure I'm super clear on what it is

and isn't cuz when you say the word debt

I assume it's kind of like I I owe

the Sleep bank manager a couple of hours

um but but I I've kind of gone back on

forward on this idea of sleep debt I

think some people have told me that it's

real some people have told me that it's

not real um and I don't know where where

I should stand on it so if I if I

haven't so for example I flew into La

first couple of nights my sleep wasn't

great am I still but I had good sleep

last night am I still paying for it now

the way I explain the concept of sleep

dead is that your body requires a

certain amount every single night again

we talked but individual variability but

let's just say you need 8 hours every

night and conceptually if you don't meet

that 8 hours then you build up a debt so

if you're only getting six hours a night

you now have two hours of debt built up

if you go Monday to Friday that's 5 days

now you have 10 hours built

up right two hours every night becomes

10 hours and if you then sleep in on a

Saturday and you get let's just say 10

hours of sleep you've paid back two of

those hours but you still have eight

hours left to go and my buddy knows yes

so conceptually that's the idea of

accumulating sleep debt I do stand in

the camp that believes that that does

accumulate over time we do think that

you can pay back some of that debt on

the short term right so what you lost

like you said this past day or this past

week maybe this past month you should

pay that back with getting extra sleep

or we call Sleep extension we don't

think that you can Surplus and Bank more

and that you can pull from that in the

future but we re recognize that if

you've got insufficient sleep that if

you extend it over a couple of days

maybe a couple weeks then you will see

benefits in your reaction time in your

fatigue levels in your performance

outcomes and so we do recommend that as

a tool especially if you know that

you're going to have a day where you're

going to have sleep loss so it's a

strategy for example if you know okay in

a week I'm going to have a project and

I'm not going to be getting enough sleep

that night night then what you can do in

the days leading up to it is getting

sufficient sleep but arguably even more

so that we know when it gets to that

project the decrements that you'll

experience tend to be less robust than

if you went into it with just say that

was 5 hours so what evidence do you have

that sleep debt is a real thing what's

the first thing that comes to mind so my

my what I've dedicated my career to is

trying to understand how to pay back

sleep debt with sleep extension

interventions so what that means is

typically I'm working with a number of

Collegiate athletes where many of them

are not getting what they need because

when we start these studies many of them

have high fatigue levels they are

reacting slowly we often see lapses in

their um their judgment and their

ability to ultimately perform and

function which is what they consider

their Baseline but then when we actually

challenge them by paying back some of

that debt by getting additional hours

when we monitor the the differences that

can make over multiple weeks that's

where we see there's Improvement in the

reaction time their fatigue levels drop

their performance on the field improves

and so we recognize what has changed in

this is trying to pay back some of that

accumulated debt when the rest of their

training has been held consistent where

we've been trying to maintain the rest

of their their training which is key

which is the key point because in my

mind I go well maybe if you've got the

athlete to sleep well on that first

night then when they've showed up to

training they've trained a little bit

harder they've built their muscles a

little bit more they've had better

recovery in their muscles so

then the next day the same thing happens

because they've slept so it's actually

just that they're training better which

is causing them to improve their that's

fair we we've tried to hold their

training to be consistent and choosing

periods where their training isn't going

to vary significantly as well as you can

almost make the argument too that

sometimes as the season goes on athletes

get more fatigued more tired and that

can be actually a decrement to how

they'll perform so when we see the

benefits come down the road as the

season potentially gets even longer that

at least is some suggestion that the

intervention of sleep while we also have

the measures of how much more they were

getting actually were at least

associated with these performance

outcomes because REM one of the key

things about REM sleep which is the sort

of final stage of sleep is that it helps

with Muscle Recovery uh deep sleep is

actually deep sleep is where we uh deep

sleep is where it's implied that there's

more R Muscle Recovery regeneration

because there's the biggest pulse of

growth hormone during your deep sleep so

to back up a bit you have light stages

of sleep then you have deep stages of

sleep and then you have that rapid eye

movement sleep or when you dream that is

tends to be more associated with

consolidation of learning in memory and

skill consolidation so you go through

these Cycles during the night time about

90 to 120 minutes but the proportion

changes through the night the beginning

of the night you get more of that deep

sleep and then in the early morning

hours is when you get more of that REM

sleep so you might have woken up in an

earlier morning and had the recall of

these vivid dreams it's because you

often will be waking up from the that

REM sleep yes that happened last night

actually CU I woke up suspiciously early

for me so I woke up at about 5 or 6:00

and I was just kind of dipping in and

out of Dreams MH and were very vivid

dreams that I can still remember now

yeah um so the muscle memory element of

all of this what is muscle memory and

how is that sort of implicated with

sleep so muscle memory there's different

types of memory and you need sleep think

of sleep as hitting that save button

right you need to sleep after you have

learned new information learned a new

skill so that you can consolidate those

those uh those memories and be able to

retrieve it later so I always use an

analogy of hitting that save button

after you learn new material or learn a

new skill set you need to go home and

sleep so that it goes into long-term

storage and that you can retrieve that

the following day and subsequently

without that sleep we know that that

groundwork for that new skill or that

new memory is not going to be as strong

and so in the context of students who

are trying to study for a test or an

athlete that's trying to remember the

Playbook you want to space those

intervals that you're learning that

material and have sleep that follows so

that you strengthen those

connections and also you mentioned when

you were talking about one of your

athletes encouraging them to nap before

a game yes um I I read this fascinating

word in the research that I was doing on

your work I think it's napino yes what's

a napino the nappuccino so this is a

useful tool if you're trying to have a

temporary boost and aler and performance

so the nappuccino you go and take your

favorite caffeinated beverage the

caffeine will start to kick in in about

15 minutes and you go and then take your

20 to 30 minute power nap so if you're

able to fall asleep within that 5 to 10

minutes while the caffeine will start to

come on board then when you wake up

after 20 to 30 minutes then bam both the

caffeine will have kicked in and the

power naap will have kicked in and

there's research to show that that's

more effective for alertness and

performance Improvement for a couple of

hours than if you only did the caffeine

alone or only did the power nap alone so

the nappuccino is is a useful tool for

some who who utilize caffeine and you

can partner that together with a short

20 to 30 minute nap so if I wanted to

take a nap now I have an espresso and

then go and have my nap exactly yes the

cettas you do need to fall asleep within

about 10 minutes or else the caffeine

will start to come on board but if if

you do this in the late morning or early

afternoon it can be a helpful tool so

that you have a boost in your alertness

for a couple of hours and I grew up

thinking that naps didn't work because

the minute I learned about sleep and

these sleep cycles and that it takes I

don't know 45 60 Minutes whatever it is

to get into late stage sleep like the

Rems sleep the deep sleep I thought

what's the point taking a 15 20 minute

nap if I'm not going to get into deep or

REM sleep so there's benefit of just

that 15minute nap you mentioned you want

to stay in lighter stages of sleep cuz

there's benefits of lighter stages of

sleep and that can give you that

alertness and performance boost even

when you're in lighter stages of sleep

you actually don't want to go into

deeper stages of sleep because when you

take the longer naps as I think you you

might have shared you you've taken the

2-hour nap the three p you wake up and

you're much more sluggish much more

groggy that's not a good state for you

to go out and then do you know work

after that or it's not the state that

you want to be if you're a a basketball

player and have to go and play a game

but those deeper stages you come out of

what we call Sleep inertia with that

sluggishness and so it can also affect

your sleep at night and make it harder

to sleep subsequently so you actually

want to stay in those lighter stages of

sleep and keep those naps very short so

what's the maximum length that a nap

should be I like 30 minutes okay yes so

you can time that by setting an alarm if

it takes you 5 or 10 minutes to fall

asleep you can plan for that as well and

the setting alarm to wake yourself up 30

minutes later I think it's a great

strategy when again you don't get

sufficient sleep at night or you had

poor sleep leading into that night and

you need a little bit of a boost later

in the day what do you think of the

snooze button the snooze button I'm not

a huge fan of the snooze um I fully

understand why people love to hit the

snooze and then go back to bed uh and if

you're someone who does that one of my

suggestions is just to cut down so that

you only hit the snooze once 5 minutes

later start your day the reason why is

because it helps to maximize your rem or

your dreaming sleep in those early

morning hours if you can actually sleep

Consolidated all the way until the time

you have to wake up so for example if

you're someone who hits the snooze

button five times every five minutes for

a half hour it means that you're having

very interrupted sleep for the last half

hour of your night versus if you just

let yourself sleep Consolidated all the

way through and then maybe hit the

snooze button just one time and then got

yourself up to start your day it means

you would have given yourself another 25

minutes of Consolidated sleep likely

that dreaming REM sleep that's so

important for learning and memory and so

that is one just easy adjustment that

you can make in terms of your morning

approach to maximizing what you get

during the night so what's the what's

the value in consolidating it versus

just having fragmented sleep yeah so

then if you're getting a lot of that REM

sleep in those early morning hours and

you're snoozing you're going to be

waking up and coming out of that REM

sleep so you likely are changing the

stages of sleep you would be getting in

those early hours so you would then be

awake and then probably going into

lighter stages of sleep awake lighter

stages of sleep than necessarily having

a solid REM period all the way until you

wake up what's the cost of that so

learning a memory and consolidation is

definitely one area that we recognize is

associated with that REM sleep and so

you want as we talked about it changes

through the night you want to have as

much as possible but you part have to

have just the duration so when you get

the most of it in the morning hours if

you cut that short and either wake up

earlier or you're snoozing and you're

interrupting it you're not going to

maximize the value you get of the hours

in rem okay so I just want to make sure

that I those 25 minutes I give them to

REM sleep versus just giving them to

little fragmented light sleep exactly so

I'm better off just putting my alarm to

the time that I actually have to get out

of bed exactly just to maximize the

amount of R sleep that I get to

consolidate my memories are you a

snoozer no not really okay well I mean

we all have our moments but not really I

can't remember the last time I pressed

pressed the snooze button but the thing

that I do and I'm not sure if this is a

good idea or not is because I have told

myself and I say told myself because I'm

quite conscious of the BS that I believe

about myself but um I've told myself

that I'm like an alow chronotype or

something which by the way I don't even

know if it's true and I don't know if

chronotypes are true um and I typically

work quite late and I love working late

I get better ideas late I do my writing

pretty late at night as well and so what

I've done in my life is I've basically

made sure that I don't have any meetings

or any engagements before 11:00 so even

like this podcast today started at 11:00

yes um basically nothing in my life

starts till 11:00 for that very reason

just to because if I do end up staying

up a little bit late I want to be able

to kind of sleep through without having

to set an alarm and just wake up

naturally what do you think of that is

that suboptimal no I think it's a great

strategy so there are chronotypes where

you've mentioned you're more of an

evening owl you go to bed later you like

to wake up later as a natural

predilection is is that real or I just

myself this is justifying myself no

there is a natural tendency for some to

feel like they are evening owls and

there's others who feel like they do

much better in the morning so they go to

bed earlier they wake up earlier they're

more productive in the morning those are

are morning Larks and then there is a

group that's somewhere in the middle

that don't strongly lean one way or

another but really what you're doing is

you're you're making your sleep work to

your your chronotype and to your

advantage where you do feel like you're

more productive in the evenings and then

you want to be able to maximize your

sleep waking up without an alarm and

starting your day later I think that's

like a great strategy because a lot of

people aren't able to have that

flexibility and so Society often will

force particularly the night owls onto

an earlier schedule where you have to

wake up whether to go to work or other

obligations or kids earlier Point yeah

and and then you're cutting your sleep

short like you mentioned like with

school and then we're getting these um

and then you're on a schedule that

doesn't work synergistically with what

your chronotype is they should do some

studies on kids in school and like

Disobedience and ability to pay

attention and do homework in grades

because honestly I was so useless in

school and I really I really think of it

now I'm not entirely sure here because I

got diagnosed with ADHD when I was like

30 years old so part of me thinks I've

just got like a very active brain and

part part of having an active brain

meant that late at night I was Finding

ways to stimulate it by playing Video

Games Etc so that might just be the

reason but the other reason might be

that I'm an Al Chron type and I found it

really hard to get up at like 7:30 to

get to go to school by sort of 8:30ish

and so I would miss school I would show

up knacked I would sleep in lessons um

and I feel like school just starts way

too early for kids it's a ongoing uh

it's an ongoing problem and actually in

a very interesting way there has been a

change to school start times

particularly in California um this this

year was the first year that school

start start times for high schools and

for middle schools was shifted much

later because there are studies to show

that our when our students are better

rested they have higher attendance rates

their GPA and grades are much higher

there's less mental health issues um

there's less car accidents and so this

these Studies have um been over the last

decade and longer in which they have

built evidence to help make decisions to

start school time later um and that is

in California been enacted this year and

some other states are starting to follow

suit but to your point what makes it

challenging is that at the age of high

school many of those body clocks are

shifted and so students St want to an

adolescence go to bed later and wake up

later naturally that's just how our

sleep changes through the life cycle but

when they stay up late and then we cut

their sleep short by forcing them to get

up really early for school now they have

insufficient sleep and that builds like

a sleep debt and so they're not setting

themselves up for success in school for

learning and memory so that's where

again there's more evidence of if we can

shift the school start time get these

students to have a little bit more sleep

they ultimately are better prepared for

school come to school have less uh car

accidents and are just healthier

students do you think there's anything

parents need to know about sleep when it

as it relates to their children and

sleep hygiene with their children I

think it's important for parents to

start at the early early years of

instilling good sleep habits a good

sleep routine and giving their their

children the tools and skills to be able

to make sure that it's a priority as

they go through early childhood into

adolescence and hopefully then sets

themselves up for making sure it's a

priority for their adult life um I'm a

young parent myself I just had uh my

first son and so um I recognize and can

empathize with the TR the struggles of

getting sufficient sleep when they're

very young but then trying to instill

how they can approach their sleep from

early age I think would be incredibly

helpful to also just change culturally

how we think about sleep because so many

of us now have never learned about sleep

for or what we should do until you're an

adult but if we can make that change

earlier on I think we're going to have

healthier kids better families um who

are better rested and and also just this

generation where we recognize this is so

important that we shouldn't sacrifice it

because we're doing ourselves a

disservice to letting us be the best

that we can possibly be how old is your

son 11 months 11 months so how are you

sleeping oh I transparently am quite

tired okay I I as a yeah new Young mom

also um I don't have the ideal sleep

that I know I would love um it's a for a

short time but I'm trying to be

strategic of the things that I can do

with some of the tools that we've talked

about trying to leverage power naps um

when for example I do have to still wake

up during the night time to tend to him

um and you know the early morning starts

are not always consistent so my sleep

schedule is not always consistent so you

know going back to those three buckets

we talked about earlier like if I don't

get the full duration that I want then

how do I maximize the quality right I've

optimized my sleep environment I try to

have a process to wind down at nighttime

um or the timing you know is and the

sleep schedule is another area that you

can still work on when for example you

may not be getting the duration um so

these are strategies that I try to

employ when I know that I um also am a

work in progress and trying to get the

best sleep possible Once Upon a Time if

you had a business idea it was

exceptionally difficult to get going but

now in the age of Shopify it is

exceptionally easy as many of you will

know Shopify are a sponsor of this

podcast if you don't know Shopify it's

an exceptionally simple web platform for

anybody that's got an idea that wants to

transact on a global scale so things

like these conversation cards which we

sell we've sold using Shopify and it

only took us a couple of clicks to get

going so why did we choose Shopify for a

number of reasons but I think one of the

big ones which goes and appreciated is

their checkout system converts 36%

better compared to other platforms and

here's what I'm going to do to remove

the cost for you if you go to

shopify.com Bartlet you'll be able to

try Shopify for

$1 a month I've seen Shopify completely

change people's lives and for many of

you I think it could change yours what

are the other examples of sort of case

studies that you're you're most proud of

or that were most pivotal in shaping

your thinking about sleep I mentioned

the Philadelphia Eagles back in 2017 and

tried to help them educate their players

about sleep how to have a more strategic

approach to their wind down routine to

thinking about how they're integrating

sleep into their training practices and

thinking about ultimately how they

travel and and having for example

strategies to minimize jet lag when

you're Crossing time zones and having to

play in different locations than the

give me some of those then so some the

tips you'd give me someone that travels

a lot yeah um pre- during and post

travel yeah what should I be thinking

about before I travel while I'm

traveling and after I I land yes so have

a a game plan for every trip I think

most people have no strategies in place

when they travel they just get onto an

airplane get to a new location and try

to adjust when they get there that is

not really a great strategy you want to

have at least a pre-flight strategy

inflight strategy and post-flight

strategies because that will set

yourself up better to minimize jet lag

also travel fatigue and ultimately then

be able to acclimate faster if you're

Crossing multiple time zones before

pre-flight try not to panic pack I know

all of us do do Panic packing right

before bed right before we're getting on

a flight um so you want to try and be

strategic and pack early you want to get

at least why do I want to not panic pack

because most people will Panic pack the

night before they they have a flight and

then they'll cut their sleep short so

they'll get only say 5 hours of sleep

because they're staying up late trying

to pack everything and get ready for

that early morning flight or for the

next day well I I pack the morning of

travel so okay but I'm I'm out here in

La for I'm out here for 2 weeks and I

packed a carryon carryon suitcase okay

cuz I so look at what I'm wearing I wear

just the same outfit every day so I have

like the same outfit um but I pack

literally an hour before I go to the

airport okay okay so but you're right it

does cut my sleep because I could have

been in bed whether it's beginning of

the day or the end of the day if it's

affecting then the duration of your

sleep I would recommend trying to a

little more strategic and do it a day

before two days before don't pain it

pack number two try to get at least

those seven hours if not

your your amount of sleep that makes you

feel like you're functioning and

Performing well um at least a day if not

two days if you get insufficient sleep

before you get onto an airplane jet lag

will be worse and that travel fatigue

can feel much more robust and you're

more likely to have the quas on in the

airport which is going to destroy the

whole thing for for you so those are

things that you can do before flight

depending on where you're going you can

actually start to adjust your body clock

before you even get onto the airplane so

let's just take a 3-hour time difference

here in the US if you're in the west

coast and you're going to the east coast

three time zones you can actually start

to go to bed a half hour early wake up a

half hour early do that for two or 3

days and and get sunlight in the morning

because that sunlight reinforces to your

brain to start to shift that body clock

so if you can do that a day before 2

days before maybe 3 days before when you

actually get to the new location you

don't have to shift your body clock

three time zones you've already shifted

it one time zone or two time zones

because the rule of thumb is for every

time zone you cross it takes about a day

to re acclimate even if you feel better

after the first day usually jetti feels

the worst in that first day when you

arrive um but physiologically you

haven't really adjusted fully even if

it's over you know a couple of days so

that's the rule of thumb so those are

some things pre-flight you can do when

you're in Flight you want to hydrate

throughout the flight because

dehydration can worsen jet lag you want

to think about getting onto the new time

zone schedule so again depending on

which direction you're flying and how

many times when you're Crossing you want

to start to synchronize perhaps like

when you're actually sleeping or some of

your meal times so that you're getting

onto that schedule and then you partner

that with for example building a travel

sleep kit I'm a huge fan of investing in

sleep tools that will help you sleep

when you need to in non- ideal

situations whether you're on the plane

and now trying to take a nap or shift

your sleep schedule then you actually

have an eye mask and ear plugs you have

noise cancelling headphones you have

your own travel pillow you have the

tools with you to S drugs sorry sleeping

medication okay so some uh medications

can be helpful like melatonin

particularly if you're trying to advance

your clock has um evidence that it can

help shift that a little bit more

quickly when you're trying to advance

your clock earlier would you recommend

it to athletes um it I would say if it's

something that you've used before and

you know that you don't experience some

of the side effects it could be a useful

tool so melatonin while it's one of the

most commonly used supplements and sleep

aids there are still side effects that

to be wary of so specifically for

athletes too you can feel more groggy

and sluggish when you wake up from it um

it's not regulated by the the FDA here

in the US and so you don't always know

what's actually in those supplements so

for my lead athletes they use what's

called NSF Sports certified versions um

they're just there's more um regulation

around them but in for the for the you

know everyday person you know there's a

study where they looked at the amount of

melatone that was actually in a variety

of these supplements and it was a wide

range from over 400% of what was on the

label to obviously sub you know you know

uh under 100% of what they actually

indicated so there's a wide range of

what's actually going to be in the

supplement but it can help particularly

when you're on travel with um re

acclimating my team here we most of them

use a certain app when we travel and it

just tells you basically you say where

you're going and then it'll tell you

what time to eat what time not to eat

Etc so you can get aligned with that

with your destinations like circadian

rhythm I guess so we'll link below one

of the apps that our team use we're not

affiliated with them in any way but

we're flying out here I know will and my

team sent me a screenshot and said Steve

this is what time you need to be eating

and everything cuz we're going to La so

it's been super helpful for all of us I

I'll link that below because I know some

people are going to be wondering what

apps they should be using so we're in

the flight we've got our postt trvel

flight kit with the ey masks and all

those kinds of things in we've got our

app is we're

hydrated um noise cancelling headphones

is there anything else we need to be

thinking about while we're traveling

when you're traveling so on a plane on a

plane so we talked about hydration minim