I've never seen a single paper that

shows you can't lose weight you can't

get stronger all of it can be done but

you paying attention to things that just

do not matter Dr Andy gpin one of the

most highly respected exercise

physiologists in the field today he is

the director of the center for sports

performance and he's a coach to many

professional athletes I'm going to talk

about how do I lose weight and how do I

improve my performance mood sleep but if

you want to live as well as possible for

a long time it comes down to a couple of

things number one you can't not pay

attention to grip strike and in fact we

can actually PR dicts Alzheimer's and

Dementia risk via grip strength testing

and then leg strength and do2 Max those

things will out predict how long you're

going to live more than almost any

metric and I'm saying leg strength

because one of the most significant

issues that we face during aging it's

our Falls if you look at the risk of

dying after a hip break and those are

over 60 years old there is a 70% chance

of death of the next 15 years wow what

is V2 Max your maximum ability to bring

in and utilize oxygen there was actually

a study with 750,000 people and found

smoking and diabetes at a 40% increase

risk of dying and V toax is 300% oh

what do I need to be doing comes down to

a couple of things if you can do this

stuff consistently you're going to be

just fine first of all but why' you care

most people will go through challenges

at some point in their life this is

going to give you the ability

to not be in those situations

anymore sorry I need to collect myself a

little bit here just just a lot of part

of my story that the world doesn't know

um it's absolutely crazy to me that so

many of you have decided to watch our

show um and so many of you have decided

to subscribe to our show we now have

five million subscribers on YouTube

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started the dire of a CO just over 3

years ago now and in my wildest

expectations we might have had a 100,000

subscribers by now so you can imagine

how shocked I am that so many of you

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conversations every week um and spend

some time with us so thank you and I

made a deal with you I made a deal that

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[Music]

episode Dr Andy Galpin if someone's just

clicked on this podcast right now and if

you were to speak freely about the

things that you care about the most what

exactly is it that they would walk walk

away from this

conversation with in terms of value that

would positively impact their

life I've done hundreds of podcasts and

I have never had that

question and I've certainly never had it

coming right at the gates so I love

it the way I would capture it would be I

want to enhance Human

Performance and when I say that I want

to make sure that you're not hearing

sport performance that means sport to

you fine that's great but I really break

that down into three categories people

want to look a certain way whatever that

means to you I don't care people want to

feel a certain way and people want to

perform a certain way you set the ground

rules you want to look this way when you

say perform and you think perform that

means X to you when you say you want to

feel that means why to you great let's

establish all that and then my goal is

simply to help you achieve all of those

goals so you want to be bigger and

stronger and have more energy throughout

the day great you want to think more

clearly you want to be a better leader

athlete spouse parent that's great you

want to be out of pain you want to have

a certain functionality in a certain all

those things are on the table so when I

say perform I mean cognitively

physically in whatever area of

Department that matters for you all

those are on the table we we analyze all

that we break it down and we say okay

this is the targets we're going after

and then my mission is just to help

anyone I'm working with but really

broadly the world get better at that I

don't think I've ever seen any paper

that has shown any genetic combination

that shows you can't grow muscle I've

never seen a single paper that shows you

can't lose weight never seen a single

indication of any physiological marker

that says you can't get stronger

whatever you're interested in nothing

should stop you from making some

progress in some area of your physical

health and if you do that you got a

chance why do you care why' you care

about human performance and exercise and

cognitive performance where did that

come from what was the like first Domino

that fell in your

life sorry I need to collect myself a

little bit here

um

I've been on a lot of podcasts and

there's just I've been in the media a

lot and there's just a lot of part of my

story that the world doesn't know

um the shortest answer to that question

was I grew up with sports being

everywhere right and and I played Sports

growing up everyone I knew played Sports

growing up and I personally was an

adequate athlete which

means I was good but not exceptional but

I wasn't terrible

either I was told uh as a teenager and

by the people around me and my parents

and my

grandparents that you you know you

deserve nothing not in the negative way

but in terms of like no one owes you

anything in this world if you want to

get better at sports you better train

you better work harder and in in the

most positive loving like way possible

Right my I was very fortunate my parents

were incredibly positive and supportive

and there's no negativity there and so

it was just as simple as a matter of

fact of hey you say you want to win then

why aren't you working hard than

everybody else just the way that my

parents raised us and the way that my

grandparents and my siblings um there

was just a sense of

like

my sorry I'm trying to it's okay give it

more genuine answer but um there's only

so most people will go through

challenges at some point in their life

and

uh I'm no

different

I was just very fortunate to where my

parents were in a position that my dad

was a construction worker my

grandparents were construction workers

we grew up in the country my mom did

whatever she could to you know keep our

house and things like

that and they raised us in a very

positive way they always said you're

going to go to college I don't care what

you do what you spend your career on

whatever but you're just not doing what

we did just because they wanted us to

have an easier and better life

um so so for me Human Performance was

that hey here's your chance like here's

your chance to get out and do something

um this is going to give you the ability

to not be in those situations

anymore and I get to do that by being

around Sports all the time which is is

pretty great so why I

care

what is the emotion

Andy sorry I've never been on this road

in real public before

um there's a lot of things that people

will go through in life that are out of

their

control to me this represents stuff that

will be within your

control and so I give you the chance to

make changes that you can control your

strength and your health at least you

got

that you tell me where the parameters

are here because I want to make sure

that you're comfortable but from that I

understand that in your childhood there

were things that you you couldn't

control and in in what I heard there was

that this was something that you could

give you that

control I don't want to overplay my own

situation

I had a tremendous childhood had a

tremendous

life again especially never being around

alcohol or violence and things like that

like I had a lot of great breaks and

still had loving parents support

positivity there were a number of years

you know as a child that were really

difficult and just being like man my

parents never did anything like again

never violence never alcohol never

negative never hate just okay fine that

was really horrible really bad break

what are we going to do we're going to

work harder financially difficult yeah

for sure

um in other

ways but the the thing I appreciate is

like many of the things the biggest one

is just like it doesn't matter we're

moving forward like not in terms of like

ignoring it we're letting it go but like

okay great bad deal here got real bad

luck but we're we're we're pressing on

we are going to overcome this

stuff when we start talking about

exercise and health and performance and

all these

things what have what's been your

academic and life experience that has

built the foundation of everything that

you know can you give me a little bit of

a

walkr yeah so I have an undergraduate

degree in what's called exercise science

can you iology it's same thing I got a

master's in human movement sciences and

then my PhD is in what's called human

bioenergetics and what happened

professionally once you graduated from

there so as soon as I finished my PhD I

started my lab at Cal State Fullerton um

so I work and I'm now one of the

directors of What's called the center

for sport performance there so within

that we've got multiple

Laboratories biome mechanics strength

conditioning um motor control motor

learning Etc and they all study the the

mission of that Center actually is to

study and disseminate research that

enhances Human Performance what is the

range of people that you work with that

come to you and say Dr Andy Galpin I

need help with this oh oh my gosh so we

have traditionally spent most of my

career working with our pro athletes um

I've been fortunate to work with Olympic

gold and silver medalists world

champions the highest contract in Major

League Baseball and golf All Pro that

every position in the NFL etc etc but by

far in terms of numbers wise we've

worked with more executive clients and

than professional athletes so our

coaching program rapid health and

performance is like what if we took what

we've been doing for a decade in only

these Elite athletes and put a system

together for non-athletes and that's

exactly what we've done with that

company and it's gone exceptionally well

people that tend to come in for that uh

kind of fall into a couple of buckets a

lot of times it's kind of like your your

adult athletes if you will so I want to

run a marathon I want to do something

like that but the overwhelming majority

of people are just going hey I want to

just feel better I want to look better

and I want to perform better and I want

to minimize my likelihood of missing

what I mean by that is you can try a

diet you can try a thing and like see

what happens for six weeks and that's

very effective but some people have more

money than they have time and some some

people have been through the ringer I've

been trying for a year two years five

years I haven't slept in a decade what's

it going to take I don't want to miss

anything and so we do extremely

comprehensive testing uh it takes a very

long time to finish all of our testing

we can get a volumetric measurement of

each muscle on your body so I can look

at the size of each ind1 we can look at

your V2 Max we can look at cognitive

performance we're running very in-depth

sleep assessments we're looking at

environmental factors in your house like

we're running everything possible that

we go through with our highle athletes

and by doing that we're able to see and

find what we call Performance anchors so

these are things that are putting the

most constrain on your

physiology and so the analogy I'll say

is imagine you want to drive a car

faster people's initial inclination is

to hit the gas pedal that's great my

inclination is to look at your left foot

which is I want to make sure your foot

isn't on a break

somewhere so before I you the gas pedal

let's make sure our left foot's off the

brick and in this case that is a

constraint what are you doing to hold

back your own biology and so we can able

to find those things and then because of

that we can give them extremely specific

Solutions and our program tends to be so

effective because we can go through all

this

analysis that allows us to

then give them very simple and hypers

specific plans when you talk about that

left foot on the break analogy which I

thought was a really nice sort of

crystallizing

analogy what are the most common um

things that we have our left foot on the

break with in terms of are there

fundamental things that you see most

most often that are kind of getting in

the way of us reaching our Optimal

Performance yeah you want to think about

these in a couple of buckets we call

these stressors yeah so the way that

your body works at all times in fact I

think this is one of the traits that

separates human physiology from any

other

animal we have a better ability to adapt

and respond to our environment that's

the single thing your body is trying to

do at all times right put pushing and

pulling it's always reading and sensing

trying to get to a certain place

stressor comes in and it adjusts okay

great that's a good thing we categorize

those stressors into two major areas

what we call Visible stressors and then

hidden stressors visible stressors are

things you're doing that you are visible

and aware of so you went and worked out

you felt that great that's a stressor

you drank alcohol you felt that you

didn't sleep tonight you feel these

things right you can see them you smoke

cigarettes like you have all these

things you your diet your nutrition so

all those are analyzed from a

perspective of there one of the most

common ones well the obvious ones youve

probably covered countless times right

don't drink alcohol in excess and don't

drink um try to have quality water and

sunlight and honestly like

the the you know

15-year-old Health like could probably

tell you like what are the five pillars

in of health and like that would you

would line those things up pretty well

now where things get more interesting in

our stuff is the hidden stressors so

these are things that are putting equal

or greater stress on your system but you

can't see or feel them so this could be

things like a vitamin or mineral

insufficiency you no one wakes up and

goes ah man like my vitamin D is low

today you know you don't see that you

don't feel that right where you know

like man I ate all you could eat pizza

last night like I know why I feel this

way because of that thing I did last

night um if there is a pathogen if there

is an something suppressing your immune

system If U endocrine system is not

happy with something going on oxidative

stress something like that could be

happening um a lot of times these can be

falling into sleep as well we've seen a

number of times where people have a um a

self-

perceived I sleep okay I sleep pretty

decent and then we can actually run real

true in depth analysis and we can see hu

in fact we've had multiple times where

we've like very likely saved somebody's

life because there's self-perceived

sleep was pretty good and we were able

to actually see like your your steps

away from a heart attack um and

effectively put them basically in a

hospital within a few weeks and and

we're told many times like you basically

saved this guy's life that's happened

countless times so there are things that

are going on that are beyond your

perception that we can see um whether

it's through some of our molecular

biomarkers whether it's again our brain

analysis like a lot of the stuff that we

can see um other ones that are common

are things like muscle strength muscle

performance people don't realize how

telling those can be over your overall

physiological Health but you don't

necessarily see them a really easy

example is most people um are somewhat

aware that grip strength yeah is a

incredibly important predictor of in

fact there's a really cool paper it's

titled something like grip strength is

an indispensable marker of Aging

something like that right which is

basically saying like you can't not pay

attention to grip strike and we've

actually published a paper last year

Tommy wood um from the University of

Washington neuroscientists LED this

project and we've got a couple of them

going but one of the things things we

found there is is we can actually

predict um Alzheimer's and Dementia risk

via grip strength

testing and strongly we actually have a

project right now that we validated in

the UK biobank which is 500,000 people

or so we validated it in the American

equivalent which is called n Hanes um we

can actually predict muscle quality from

four blood markers and we can also

predict the risk of dementia as well

from those four basic biomarkers and

those are also directly tied to grip

right and so looking at things like that

is saying okay you have some potential

signs of of either short-term or

long-term physiological stress that's

happening and you don't necessarily feel

it yet because you're 35 or 45 and you

don't feel super weak but we're seeing

these early signs one other example of

that and I and I'll caution to say that

there's only been one paper on this so

in science that's a way of

saying we'll see like okay but just as

one example this paper came out last

year and it showed that the asymmetry in

your grip strength so the difference in

strength between your right and left

hand is actually an early predictor of

neurological

Decline and the reason is think about

this in order for your muscles to

contract they have to be sent a signal

from your central nervous system your

brain and brain stem and if you're

having significant asymmetries from one

side to the other and by this they meant

over 10% so if you have a grip strength

of 40 kilos on the right hand 10% of

that would be 4 kilos so if your left

hand is 30 kilos that's way more than

10% difference that may be an early sign

of of early denervation of that left

side and so neurologically I'm

potentially losing ground there so just

things like that are are things were

able to detect this is hey we're seeing

things that are putting stress on your

system whether you realize that or not

so they can be these molecular

biomarkers but they can also be other

things that people just either don't

have a technology or they don't know how

to or or they're not aware that that can

give you tremendous insights into the

overall stress as scientifically we call

this allostatic load or

allostasis but that's the marker where

after ultimately and in the case of grip

strength I find that so fascinating

because I was reading about that in your

work um a while ago that it could also

be the case that I've just trained one

side to totally it could so it's if

you've trained one side then you're yeah

then if you've only gone after one side

you've done either a sport

or you have a lifestyle or an occupation

that is really one side dependent it

could be as simple as but for the

typical person we tend to yeah be fairly

even and asymmetrical sorry symmetrical

with our grip strength yeah remember

these are population averages sure right

this is one study it's you know the

individual person always uh means less

to the individual person than it does to

the population when we were talking

about some of these invisible stresses

um my partner came back to the house two

days ago and said babe I've just found

out from the doctor because she did a

bunch of tests and she hadn't been

feeling so great but one of the things

we found out was that she was very

deficient in vitamin D and it made me

wonder how many people are walking

around and you must have seen this in

some of the the lab work you've done

with a deficiency in things like vitamin

D and what is what is then the symptom

of that

deficiency so vitamin D is one of the

more common deficiencies you will

see you will not see or feel that oh

this is another example of potentially

hidden stressor right what could you be

experiencing vitamin D is associated

with low bone mineral density low muscle

size low muscle strength cognitive

function uh immune

function mental health so you could be

experiencing any number of things and

vitamin D being low could be

contributing to that it's very likely to

be the sole explainer of any individual

thing but it could be playing a larg

impact vitamin D is also one of the

higher safety profiles and so typically

what I tell people is I don't like when

people go after supplements specifically

vitamins and minerals you can get away

with vitamins a little bit more minerals

be really careful of but vitamin D

honestly you can go pretty wild with it

and the chances of you being deficient

or even just subclinically low as we'll

call that chances are pretty high and

the chances of you running into issues

with the vitamin D are also very low so

it's one of those ones that mask like

pretty good chance to be effective

pretty low risk I'm okay with people

really pushing vitamin D obviously

supplements the better answer is the

sunlight right yeah but if if you want

to take a supplement and you don't have

the don't have money for or availability

to get blood testing done and you're not

sure going after a little bit of vitamin

D is there are worse things you could do

we'll put it that way so I'm okay with

that one are there other deficiencies

that you're more concerned about in

terms of um vitamins yeah well well I

you should be concerned about vitamin D

being low because it is so effective in

so many areas that's generally how

vitamins and minerals work it's also

very very very common I maybe I I sort

of inadvertently blew past that so much

because there there are things that we

are going after much more that people

are unaware of um when you see vitamin D

on a blood panel and if it is low you

can take vitamin D that said you do want

to be really careful if you get blood

work done of trying to just move those

numbers up and down and I'm going to say

this for a couple of reasons vitamin D

is one of those ones that's okay if it's

low take vitamin D directly move it up

no problems there that said when you go

to interpret blood work you have to

realize most of those values when you're

being told that number is high or that

number is

low I won't say they're irrelevant but

they're misleading at the least and that

to

say you've got some blood work done

right

and it gives you a whole bunch of things

back let's say you did a basic thing

like what we'll call a CBC and CMP so a

complete blood count and a cardom

metabolic panel those are like the most

common things you'll get and you'll see

all kinds of stuff in there white blood

cell counts and vitamins and and

hormones and things like that okay great

and then on the as you look over at the

paper on the right side it's going to

tell you a reference range that

reference range is going to tell you

whether you're high or low right and so

on that test you did right um it

probably said you know your vitamin D

level is 20 and it should be between 30

and 100 something like that great well

it's that 30 to 100 part where things

get

squarely because did they take into

account

ethnicity okay those numbers differ

based on your ethnic background right

what is normal as we said earlier is

also not the same as what is common okay

and it's definitely not the same as

optimal now remember and I'll try not to

say this too many times I don't deal

with disease I disee I deal with like

I'm not not in a disease state but I

want to get better and optimized and why

I'm drawing that distinction is because

on a blood test you're looking for do

you clinically flag for an actual

metabolic disease or otherwise okay most

of those things are set against that and

so their reference ranges are built off

of databases like the UK biobank like

and hannes here who are generally not

healthy people and the people that are

in those data in fact we actually ran

this and published this last year that

in the and haes database in America at

least the people that had the muscle

mass had no association between their

muscle mass and their exercise

history which means these people did not

gain muscle by

exercising now some people exercise in

these databases but you're talking very

very small numbers in addition when they

build reference ranges so they're

building it off of populations that are

not the healthiest and as you're aware

our our world is not getting healthier

mhm so those numbers are moving okay now

when they build a reference range they

use typically most companies by the way

every company that you get your blood

draw from has a different

range so they're not all the same okay

so that it's not like they're not

nefarious it's not it's just like they

have different databases to pick from

many companies will give you a reference

range based on their own database okay

so all you're seeing is like what's

normal for the people that bought their

lab right not population okay and they

use a 95% curve which is to say 95% of

people

land within this spell curve and so if

you were within that you're normal 2 and

a half% at the top 2 and a half% low so

what that could mean is you could be in

like the 94th

percentile and be told you're in the

reference range easy example is

something like blood glucose okay now a

normal blood glucose is going to be in

the mid or mid 80s rather 80 85

something like that okay technically

you're not going to flag on most

people's databases until you get past

like 110 120 130 plus you're actually

diabetes and so you can come and flag

for like

108 and technically medically you're not

diabetic yet you're not pre-diabetic yet

but there's no world on this Earth where

somebody has a fasting blood glucose of

108 and they are healthy or they are

optimally healthy we'll say right that

is in fact we have strong evidence you

get past 95 you're starting to increase

your risk of oxidative stress

retinopathy tons of issues happen with a

consistent blood fting blood glucose

over 95 and so a great example that

would be you would be within the

reference range there you'd be told your

normal and then I would look at and be

like that's absolutely suboptimal is it

clinically officially diabetic no but

I'm telling you right now to have to

perform at your absolute best that's not

the range you want to be in I'm going to

make it worse for you so the reference

ranges are one particular concern the

second one is and the reason I brought

this up with vitamin D vitamin D is okay

it's low you push it up no problem most

your markers you don't want to do that

with though because physiology is

responding to physiology which means

something moves something up and then it

moves something else down in the way

it's the push pull thing so if you don't

know what you're pushing up you might be

pulling something else down you're

pulling something else down it might be

pushing something else up you don't know

what you're doing there so you don't

want to treat those markers as Like A

and B and C are low I should make them

all go up you need to understand why

they're doing that low testosterone is

an easy example low testosterone is

often times a symptom of something going

on you need to go backwards and figure

out why is your testosterone low to

begin with right because if you can do

that then then you get out of the way

testosterone will go up we've done this

a countless times with people right

we've we've doubled testosterone more

times than I could even count without

using hormones at all again I'm not

against hormone therapy like at all but

you don't always necessarily need it if

you can understand well why is your

testosterone suppressed as it is if it

truly is sometimes it's not like we you

know there are normal ranges for

different people but if we can see

something going on where you've got

immunosuppress depression or something

else happening that's again subclinical

so you're not sick all the time you're

not like in a hospital bed it's like oh

okay we can see a and C happening those

are known to be associated with you know

compromising testosterone clear those

things up and then back out of the way

and watch testosterone just take off

easy example this one is um my my

colleague Dan Garner he did this one

famously he had an athlete or a client

who actually had a a number of markers

that are in a blood test so basophil

specifically that are associated with

allergic reactions not an allergy test

okay but he noticed that this particular

individual was doing everything right

but that number was off the chart found

that actually was happening is there was

a a tree in this gentleman's

neighborhood that was causing him a

little bit of a response so he had to

make sure he stayed away from that tree

his basil fill number went back to

normal and this testosterone rocketed

really

absolutely it gets more complicated okay

so take something like albumin albumin's

a protein it's the uh it's actually the

protein on egg whites which is great it

does a lot of things it's a carrier

protein though so it carries um breed

blood cells it carries cortisol through

your body it's also what's called an

acute phase reactant mean it it will

respond to acute changes in your body

albumin is is a really good way to

measure hydration most people have no

idea about that right it's because when

you get dehydrated a little bit albumin

is measured based on concentration so

how much is there relative to how much

blood so if you take the total amount of

blood down then the concentration of

albumin looks like it goes up right you

see what I'm saying so in when you're

dehydrated albumin levels will go up

however when you're

inflamed it goes the opposite

direction and so if you look on a blood

test if you're a little bit dehydrated a

little bit inflamed what's albumin going

to look like level dead in the middle

yeah this is exactly what happens when

people do things like I feel suboptimal

or terrible or just not at my best but

my labs look okay nothing's off the

markers that much like I don't I'm not

clinically deficient or excessive to

something so everything can be within

the reference ranges but given the

reference range problem given the

association problem and giving other

things that we uh really happen as that

multifaceted approach we can absolutely

see what's explaining why you're feeling

what you're feeling dead in your blood

panels without anything ever being off

your reference range in that particular

case if your alumin was up or down and

then you went in and did something

specifically to change your alumen

you've actually now messed with the

entire system when it had nothing to do

with alumen it was just the fact that

you needed to drink some more water and

lower overall inflammation so I say that

to caution folks of saying like be

really careful about especially if

you're going to go to minerals and then

absolutely with medications please let a

qualified physician or somebody that

understands blood work at this level

really make sure that they're helping

you um One More Time vitamin D is a good

example of something that's okay you

push that one up no problem there for

the most part there there are times when

it is but the rest of them folks like be

a bit careful there so what are the if I

if I stay away from the temptation of

the industry that says like drugs and

minerals and supplements are the answer

to everything and I come back down to

the sort of fundamentals of health and

performance sleep is one of the

fundamentals right oh it pro arguably

the core yeah so thinking about sleep

then so many of us are suffering with

sleep my sleep for whatever reason is

really really good in terms of duration

I don't know about quality we can you're

making a face on me I don't know about

quality but the duration is great and I

speak to so many people I think

increasing numbers that are struggling

with sleep for whatever reason if

someone comes to your Labs you know and

you realize that there's an issue with

sleep a how do you realize there's an

issue and what are the first steps you

take to help correct that so that they

can get that foundation in place so I

want to know exactly how you're sleeping

so I know exactly why you're sleeping

that way so then we know exactly what to

do about it and this is why frankly our

success rates are so high okay what do

we want to do I want to run the most

in-depth analysis of your sleep

absolutely possible so I have a company

called absolute rest and so what we do

is we actually build full functional

sleep labs in people's

houses and this is all Wireless so we

can run full full clinical grade FDA

approved sleep studies in your house you

don't have to go to a hospital you don't

have to go to anywhere else right um

we're going to run that we're going to

run this all wirelessly and we're going

to run uh we're looking at not only

depth of sleep um the the the the gold

standard in science is called

polysomnography right so it's the like

the wires attached to your brain all

that stuff actually don't think

polygraphy is the best way there's a

better way to do it called

cardiopulmonary coupling where we can

actually look at your autonomic nervous

system and how that's actually

responding so I prefer that method we'll

do both we we actually run full PSG and

um cardiopulmonary coupling as well but

we're looking at that so we can look at

are you do you have brexis like are you

are your jaw clenching at night uh we're

looking at you are your leg moving we're

doing that also while we're looking at

position so we're having this on your

right side on your left side on your

back where you at um we can actually do

a whole bunch of other fancy stuff with

ocular metrics with eye tracking with

facial scanning and like all kinds of

other stuff but we want to most

specifically look at how you're sleeping

we're looking at then why and so in

terms of why you're sleeping that's in a

bunch of different buckets one of the

buckets is environmental and so we

actually run full-time environmental

scanning of your sleep environment we

actually have a little device I take

take it with me like everywhere I go so

we have our athletes always checking the

environment when they're in hotels and

places like that we can always run

environmental scans to make sure that um

it's an optimal thing so we're looking

for temperature humidity but carbon

dioxide dander pollen allergens molds

things like that we can all measure in

real time instantaneously on that thing

so we want to make sure nothing in the

environment is causing the sleep if we

can check off environment then we're

looking at behaviors um you've probably

heard a lot about sleep hygiene and you

know don't watch exciting TV Thrillers

before night don't get on your laptop

and work and answer emails and then fall

asleep try to fall asleep five minutes

later that's all behavioral stuff right

and I'm happy to talk about as many of

those as possible um but that that's the

like stuff people have kind of shared

the world a lot right but then those are

very true and very real outside of

Behavioral then we're looking at

physiological so what are your actual

melatonin concentrations how much

serotonin are you making dopamine are

there what is it in your blood

biochemistry uh precursors what is

actually happening so we're taking

salivary markers and blood markers to

see what is going on in your physiology

that is U potentially causing or as a

result iron concentrations B vitamins

like a ton of stuff that are that are

needed for proper sleep physiology we're

measuring all of that we also are

measuring psychology so we have a very

in-depth um way to to evaluate

psychology of sleep so previous trauma

and PTSD and associations there's a

funny enough there is a ton of actual

Sleep Disorders caused by people's

psychological state of their

sleep

meaning we have had a lot of success you

know fixing sleep problems because

people just have such a negative

association with their sleep because

they've s slept so poorly for so many

years that they actually start getting

anxiety when it starts getting late at

night because they just know they're not

going to sleep well and so now actually

the the problem is gone but they have

have such a problem they get into this

is a common one of like I get so tired I

get so tired I can't I fall asleep on

the couch and then I get in bed I lay

there for hours or the the classic one

we get here is I fall asleep immediately

but then two to three hours in the night

I wake up and then I'm shot awake okay

great like those are all like pretty

clear solu or causes a lot of the times

so they have very clear Solutions um

that are not not very often supplements

what do you do in those cases cuz I a

lot of people that have messaged me

speak to exactly what you've described

that yeah so we would go back and

actually figure out uh again is this

behavioral so are you doing the no

offense the idiot proof stuff like are

you drinking are you like doing all

those things so a lot of times it is

simple as that a lot of the times you

don't need to spend a dollar on any

assessment it is really truly do the

stuff people have told you 100 times to

stop doing I mean on the psychological

Point yeah if it's just an anxiety

reaction well I started there for a

reason because that can be causing it

okay so it is an actual sleep problem

you're happening you're having because

of your behaviors okay now let's say

it's not all those things remember

earlier when I said your body's

superpower is adapting responding right

that's exactly what's happening if you

get into bed and you learn a pattern of

continuing to lay there and stay awake

or wake up in certain hours that pattern

will be recognized and that pattern will

be repeated you have to break that

pattern so how do you do it this is not

very common but I'll give you like an

extreme example okay there's a thing

called Sleep restrict rtion training

okay it's very effective but it is

brutal we don't go to it often one more

time but we have gone to it I have used

it it can be successful this is the same

for people who wake up after a few hours

or struggle to fall asleep so what you

do is let's say um you want to get up at

we'll make the math easy here 5 o'clock

in the morning okay great and you

typically get in bed at 10: and you lay

there and you're kind of up all night

and you have all these sleep issues

right and then you wake up at 5: you're

exhausted so you have to have Cafe

caffeine all day and then you're up from

your caffeine so then you have to have

melatonin right I can't tell you how

many times we've looked at people's next

morning melatonin concentrations and

seeing them 20 30 or 40 times higher

than the upper limit on the reference

range value so then what happens when

you're walking around with extreme

amounts of melatonin the next day like

you're sedated great so how do you break

this cycle well one of the ones is you

stop those Habits Like not that much

caffeine that late and stop the

Melatonin okay I don't like melatonin

like at all very much for almost

anything but we're going to set the

clock and you're going to wake up at 5

o'clock in the morning I don't care what

happens you're waking up at 5: in the

morning period and we're not even going

to get into bed until

11:59 so you're going to have five hours

of sleep at most and you know what

happens night one you lay there and you

don't fall asleep because you're in that

pattern right and you're also staring

the clock knowing I have to get up at 5

and you're laying there worrying and

thinking about how you're not sleeping

and it is brutal and you're going to

have a couple of hours of sleep and

you're going to wake up at 5: and you

are going to get up at 5: every single

day period no sleeping in a weekends

okay you're also going to not get into

bed no matter how tired you are you're

not getting into bed until

11:59 you do that for a week what will

happen very quickly is your body will

start to realize a new pattern of yo the

second she lets us lay down you better

fall asleep and you better not mess

around during those 5 hours cuz we're

not getting any naps or not getting

anything else right you will start to

fall asleep quickly and you will jump

right into deep sleep and you'll you'll

go through a a pretty compressed but a

proper sleep

architecture every week then you add

back 10 to 15 minutes so next week you

go to bed at 11:45 and you know what

happens next week when you get into bed

at 11:45 you lay around falling trying

to fall asleep no chance right cuz now

you've got a week with pretty gnarly

sleep restriction you fall asleep

immediately 10 or 15 minutes a week

after that and so what you end up doing

is you backfill until you get back up to

your eight or eight and a half hours but

the pattern you're learning the entire

time is when I go to sleep I fall asleep

and I do not wake up until that next

time so you stop the overnight wakings

you stop the struggling to fall asleep

it takes a couple of months clearly and

it is brutal but it is very very

effective how effective from your

research we've never had a problem with

somebody and not working really putting

it that way now again we don't use it

very often yeah you don't need to yeah

you can do a subtler version of those

things um so I want to acknowledge that

as an extreme sort of thing and I don't

recommend doing it especially if you

have legitimate health concerns like you

want to have an MD or walk through that

something like that on you you can do it

on a more condensed scale though if you

generally if you're laying there

struggling to fall asleep uh almost

every sleep scientist is going to tell

you you get out of

bed because you don't want to set that

pattern of like every night I toss and

turn for an hour and a half that's a

problem right and so you want to break

out of that pattern one way or the other

to not just set up that routine and the

same thing would be this is why it's

important to not do things first thing

in the morning that are deleterious to

sleep so rolling over waking up and

immediately turning the TV on or

immediately looking at social media

because your body will anticipate that

response it will then start a Cascade

prior to that that kicks you up and

starts waking you up earlier and earlier

every morning because it knows that

stimulation coming at 6 am. and so

instead of you waking up at 600 am with

your alarm and then checking your phone

your body starts to wake you up at 5:45

5:30 5:15 because it just knows that

thing is coming at 6 and so making sure

that your morning is not jump started um

in that direction that it really does

wake up appropriately is really

important to those that like wake up

super early and they just can't get back

to sleep there's obviously a a

well-known might be a myth I don't know

that says we should sleep for eight

hours a

night well anytime you throw out numbers

like that again you're talking on

average for most people most of the time

uh we certainly have some people that

are high performing at seven maybe seven

and a half um we certainly have plenty

that need nine 15 need more um there's

actually excellent research on um it's

called Sleep extension research when you

look at so this I love this this is a

great example of going from like are you

talking about risk of long-term health

or are you talking about maximizing

performance okay now the research is

clear going from like s and a half hours

to 9 hours is probably not needed to

minimize your risk of brain health over

there okay like seven out probably fine

however if you're trying to maximize

your performance it's a different answer

the Sleep extension research will show

you that the most classic one share M's

work out of Stanford many years ago now

but she took the Stanford basketball

team and she had them sleep an

additional 2 hours a night in season

right they asked them to sleep for 10

hours a night the end result was I think

like 1.8 hours of additional sleep per

night for five to eight weeks in season

okay now there's no control group

there's there's lots of potential

criticisms I'll acknowledge all that but

it doesn't matter because what we're

getting at here you you'll see the

bigger point and so she did this in high

level athletes in season right now these

also were not chronically sleep deprived

so they didn't go through like three

hours of sleeping like that they were

sleeping seven hours or whatever and

said go from seven to or uh eight hours

go from8 to 10 on average those numbers

different for every person but that's

what she did and what she saw was a 9%

Improvement in free throw

percentage enormous right wow about a 9%

Improvement in three-point shooting

percentage Improvement m in Reaction

Time reduced sleepiness um improved mood

and a handful of other markers improved

in season in division one basketball

players now probably would have gotten

better in season anyways right like that

tends to happen again no control group

so I don't want to oversell it but I

think it's pretty powerful saying hey

going from okay sleep to maximizing your

sleep pretty big improvements um in all

these tests in some of the tests like

the the reaction time test they did

daily for the whole season so it wasn't

just like well the one time they did a

test they happen to get better that day

same thing the free throw and

three-point shooting percentage stuff

was done like in a weekly practice and

so they measured it you know weekly over

the season in pretty marked improvements

that's been repeated in tennis swimming

cycling it's been done in as little as

45 minutes of extra sleep per night for

3 days and we're seeing improvements of

reductions in cortisol by 20% as been

shown in rugby players uh reductions in

body fat improvements in V2 Max all this

stuff has been shown when you go from

this like even seven to 7 and a half

hour range to eight eight plus um

there's been there's actually evidence

of 30 additional minutes per night uh

reduces likelihood of getting a cold by

four

times so good to great it's not the same

thing now I run many companies in a lab

I have two small children like I I I

know some of you out there like oh my

God if I could only sleep for 10 hours

like trust me like my wife will murder

me just hearing that but my point is not

that my point is to say look what if

what if that work at Stanford was

exaggerated okay so instead of improving

3point percentage by 9% it was actually

5% or four like I don't know but who

cares right pretty powerful and look at

all the other studies like they're

they're all generally in science when

you see multiple

studies from different Labs different

scientists different groups different

populations and they're all generally

pointing towards the same thing the

numbers aren't exact and the mechanisms

yeah yeah yeah but that is when you

start to get real confidence and with

sleep extension that's where I believe

the collective research is it's like

there's a lot of studies from a lot of

different scientists and a lot of

different athletes measuring different

things and you see this 3 to 10%

Improvement in most measures when you go

from anywhere between 45 to an

additional two hours per night for as

little as 3 Days To up to 5 to seven

weeks so uh from a normal person

perspective if you can sleep even 30

more minutes it's probably going to

matter if you can if you need it if

you're person who needs a nap and does

well with napping that can be your

additional 30 minutes or 45 minutes or

90 minutes or whatever um so different

people will get this differently I

personally hate napping like as as a

personal human but we'll use it a lot a

lot of actually in our um like our

Executives and CEOs we do a ton of of

very concentrated like intentional

napping that's super super effective so

whatever it is for you um I personally

do better if I just go to bed earlier I

can't sleep in like that that will never

happen but if I can definitely go to

sleep earlier I can't nap those things

so whatever works for you in your

situation and your physiology but it's

generally a good idea um I can't make

the argument that you'll live longer by

going from 8 hour hour to sleep to

8:30 not at all but I can make a strong

argument that it will make you perform

better what about sleep debt you know

because there's a lot of misconceptions

that if I sleep for four hours today I

just make it up tomorrow by sleeping

another four hours and I think I've

lived under that illusion for a certain

several years of my life yeah it's an

excuse I tell myself I'll just make it

up on the weekend the here's the

misconceptions about sleep

debt um one of the guys that works for

us at Absolute rest Steven lley from

Harvard he he will always laugh about

this and you'll say yeah man you can't

time travel as in like you can't go

backwards and make the debt up so if you

only suff for four hours you'll never

get those additional four hours back but

that's not what we're saying with sleep

Deb okay you can't do that but you can

absolutely go from consistent diminished

sleep to getting back out of that sleep

debt so when you think about sleep debt

that way you absolutely can do it you

phrased it well though a second ago

which is to say it is a huge mistake to

think I'll have inconsistent sleep short

sleep and then just sleep more and over

the course of seven days as long as the

total amount of hours add up to the same

I'm fine and that is is a terrible

strategy and I don't think a single

sleep scientist in the world would

disagree with me there trust me we

interact with as many of these people as

you can so one of the things um you

mentioned earlier you said your total

sleep duration is good okay great that's

only one component of sleep you also

mentioned Sleep Quality that's another

really important component I would argue

the overwhelming majority of people have

never had an accurate assessment of

Sleep Quality but that's another thing

right what people also don't realize the

Sleep consistency and in fact a lot of

the data will suggest that sleep

consistency is more important than Total

Sleep Time meaning you need to be going

to bed and waking up at roughly the same

time plus or minus 30 minutes is the

goal I'm a human too I will stay up you

know later and you know occasionally do

things like that so we'll give our

people typically 45 minutes a grace

period but as like a your default State

you should be trying to go to bed and

waking up plus or minus 20 to 30 minutes

most of your nights um if you can do

that you will see many of the benefits

of longer duration by simply getting

more consistent the other major

component of sleep here is sleep

timing so um the performing at the same

time of day the same type of

tasks is as important as sleep duration

and Sleep Quality meaning we we take

advantage of this with athletes all the

time you can predict winning percentage

of NFL games NBA games NHL games and

Major League Baseball games the big four

in America over a 30-year span can be

predicted by simply looking at who

performed not in their time zone but who

performed in the time that was their

normal circadian

time what I mean by that is let's say

you had a West Coast team whether they

travel to the East Coast or not doesn't

matter but if they played on the East

Coast at the same time of day that they

normally play on the west coast it

doesn't matter that they got on a plane

for three hours they they performed at

the same time of day that they normally

did they have a competitive Advantage

somewhere between two to 4% depending on

the study maybe a little higher over the

team that is playing at home in their

same building if they're playing at a

different time than they normally play

so I'll give you like one example we

worked with the univ University of

Washington football team this year on

their sleep and so if they play a normal

West Coast game at

1:00 um in normal West Coast Football

Time 1 p.m. and then we had to go to the

east coast which we didn't have to too

often but next year we're going to start

having to go there right and we got

there and we played a game in Ohio but

we played it at 4 o'clock Ohio time

which is still one o'clock our time then

we don't have any concerns with jet

lager travel but in fact in that case

the Ohio team who typically plays at you

a different time is having to compete

way earlier or way later then they're

actually at a at a circadian

disadvantage because we're playing at

the same local circadian time so it's

not the time change that gets people we

do the same thing by the way with with

our executive professional clients when

especially like negotiations if you're

doing like a team meeting you have to

think well that's great but if you're

going to like actually have to battle

somebody like negotiation or make really

hard decision I want you making that

decision on your local schedule and I

want your opponent off

schedule don't don't tell anybody who

said that you'll have an

advantage so you get the East Coast

person to have to have a a a 400 PM or

5:00 p.m West Coast meeting that's 8 or

N9 o'clock their time their their

cognitive performance is going to be

lower than yours or the inverse so we

make sure we give our people advantages

I was thinking about the gym because the

time that I go to the gym fluctuates

wildly sometimes I go in the morning and

I'm going to be honest because it's what

I have to do sometimes I go at midnight

terrible idea I know you're gonna say

that Yeah we actually have we

encountered this a number of times where

we see uh sleep issues we see energy

issues we see struggling to lose body

fat issues things like that and they

come in and they think they want this

like secret recipe of supplements and

you know blood markers and they want all

this stuff and I'm like we do it I'm

like yo you got to stop training at

night and we start looking at things

like their respiratory rate their HRV

other markers of Sleep Quality and it

can be as simple as the fact that you

are doing too much high intensity stuff

in the evening that has a carryover that

carryover can be a couple of hours for

some people it could be six hours for

other people and so if you are doing a a

training session at 10 p.m. you better

expect not to sleep very well that's

going to happen now some people are a

little bit more resilient to that and

others it's really really really

damaging and so we have to pull people

off of exercise a lot at that time or

minimum go hey yo for you if you're

going to train at night it needs to be

restorative training short duration get

a little sweat going don't get your

heart rate up too high don't do anything

too neurologically fatiguing and then

get out of there we got to do our harder

work in the morning um I'm just Mak it's

not always the case but it's more often

than not that we have to peel people

back that said again I work with

professional athletes we play major

league baseball games at 7 o'clock we're

not done till 10 or 11 whether it's like

hey they literally can't control it

that's their job or you know schedule

wise whatever you you can work around it

the world is

not perfect but in an ideal scenario you

really want to pay attention to that

because that can can seriously affect

what are the topics on sleep that most

people just aren't talking about because

you're right there's a theit proof stuff

we all know about um but but from your

research you must have discovered

another set of issues that just don't

get the same level of Spotlight and

attention yeah um I mean I could I could

go on about this stuff for a long time

we've mentioned the environmental piece

of it really important we actually have

a a literature review in review right

now that that should be published fairly

soon entirely on environmental factors

Rel I've never thought about it before

when you start talking about sort of

pathogens in the environment I thought

Jesus Christ is that I didn't know that

was an issue oh oh yeah yeah CO2 I

didn't think that was an issue when I

was asleep oh absolutely so think about

it this way when you take a breath in

you breathe in oxygen when you take an

exhale and you breathe out you're

breathing out CO2 so the difference is

O2 and CO2 is the carbon molecule now

your tissue is breaking down car carbon

for all the metabolism in fact the way

that you produce all of your energy

doesn't matter if you're using

carbohydrates or fat remember fat is

just a big long chain of carbon that's

what fat molecules are carbohydrates are

a carbon that has a water on it it is a

carbon that is been hydrated so the

chemical equation for like glucose blood

sugar is C6

h126 which means six carbons and six H2O

that's all carbohydrates are right

they're big chains of carbon so whether

you're using carbohydrates or fat it

doesn't matter their the end product of

metabolism is going to be three things

water ATP which is the central energy

currency and carbon dioxide great so it

doesn't matter what you're using for

fuel it doesn't matter what you're using

the fuel for exercise digestion building

your immune system thinking it doesn't

matter remember your brain is a massive

suck of of energy right uses the

majority of your ATP throughout the days

is to power your brain so great doesn't

matter what it's coming from or what

it's being used more metabolism for any

reason from any Source results in more

carbon dioxide buildup you take the

carbon dioxide out of your organs and

tissue and you put it in your blood your

body is paying attention to carbon

dioxide deeply right that's one of the

primary ways in which you regulate your

pH your body will regulate PH almost

over almost anything else that it has uh

blood sugar pH um blood pressure things

like that are like the tight things that

want to mess with ph is arguably the

number one thing and the reason is if

you get too alkaline or too acidic

enzymes don't work so everything shuts

down so you want to keep your pH will

stay very very very tight you could do

basically whatever you want you could

eat and drink you could do anything you

want and it's going to keep pH like

really really tight right it's hard hard

hard to change so it's watching that CO2

you take a breath in of O O2 you're

pretty much using that to run and

regulate cellular

metabolism you're managing O2 by

altering respiration and so if you were

to hold your breath right now and you

were to 10 seconds 15 seconds 20 seconds

would go on right now I you could

actually do this at home I would

encourage you to hit pause and do this

if you can not while

driving if you don't breathe what's

going to happen is you're going to not

breathe in oxygen okay fine but really

you're going to start building up CO2

because the way that you do is you build

it up in the blood you get it to the

pulmonary system and then you exhale and

you get rid of it so you're breathing

your respir ation rate is entirely

determined by how much O2 or how much

CO2 you want in your system that's what

regulates respiration such to say that

air hunger you're feeling when you

holding your breath it's not that you're

running out of oxygen you have anerobic

metabolism you can produce bolt loads of

energy without oxygen you have enough

oxygen in your system currently to go

extensive amounts of time you're not

running out of oxygen what you're

feeling is a buildup of CO2 it's the CO2

that drives your respiration so when you

then breathe out you've exhaled and then

you're probably going to go and breathe

pretty hard for a few times because what

you're saying is there was too much CO2

build up I need to dump it so I can

lower that level okay now

physiologically we call that hypo Capa

Capa is is carbon dioxide and hypo is

low if you breathe a

bunch hyperventilate you're getting CO2

concentrations very very very low bring

it back if you hold your breath and hypo

ventilate you let CO2 concentrations go

up CO2 concentrations have a

bidirectional relationship between

Psychology and

Physiology okay so if CO2 Rises not only

do you feel a physical sensation in your

chest you feel a physical panic but

you'll feel a psychological change right

it is telling you you need to move into

what's called sympathetic drive this is

your fight flight or freeze right and

this is great if you think about this

from a normal electric perspective we'll

get to a more interesting one here a

second if I start moving and start

expending energy I start building up CO2

I want my brain to know hey this is

potentially a fight or flight situation

doesn't matter if it's that extreme

right it's just a gradient be more

focused be more alert be more aroused be

more intent your vision literally

Narrows right be more focused um I'm on

task I'm like right now I guarantee you

our respiratory rates are higher than

they need to be um I HRV is a little bit

lower right HRV is heart rate

variability that's a measure of where

I'm at in the sympathetic

parasympathetic drive right I'm more

focused our vision is very narrow right

now I got four feet to look at right and

I'm a tune I'm paying attention like all

of our senses are really heightened

right now when we're done we're probably

going to go the exact opposite direction

right our vision is going to open back

up I'm not going to be paying things Etc

I'm going to go into parasympathetic

parasympathetic is rest digest it is

chill it is Z it is depressed it's

lethargic it's all these things right so

parasympathetic sympathetic is not good

or bad you as a normal human want High

resilience on both sides when you go to

bed tonight I want you to feel lethargic

I want you to feel no motivation I want

you to feel Zen great I want digestion

and things like that right now I I don't

want you to feel super Zen like I want

you to be a little bit like May same way

right a little bit alert speaking a

little faster than you'd like to be but

really focus driven and motivated that's

great I don't want you feeling that

though before going to sleep I don't

want you feeling lethargic when it's

time to wake up I don't want you feel

largic when we got to go to the gym so

it's about just making sure we're on

when we want to be on and not we want to

be on so your CO2 is going to tell you

that so a physical stressor like the

exercise elevates CO2 tells the brain

sympathetic drive a psychological

stressor does the exact same thing so we

could be not doing anything we're

experiencing that right now we're not

moving at all for the most part but I

guarantee you our cortisol levels are

higher or glucose is being dumped into

the blood elevated uh I guarantee you

our strength right now is higher our our

speed our power our muscle endurance is

higher right now than in the exact same

situation if we were watching TV okay

it's like we are primed and ready our

nervous system is actually literally

primed you set out neurotransmitters

into the system already that are there

ready to activate so it's faster okay so

that's awesome that's telling us to to

go the direction we want to be in now if

CO2 goes the opposite direction we have

the opposite feeling okay so we get

super Zen super chin so what you want to

be doing is breathing at a rate to where

your supply meets your demand if I'm my

Supply is up a little bit and I have a

little more demand then I'm going to

breathe a little bit more normal

respiration rate at night should be

something like 11 10 breaths per minute

okay if you're looking at your overnight

sleep tracker and you're seeing you're

breathing 16 17 18 breaths per minute

couple of things are probably happening

number one you may have some form of

sleep apnea you can't get enough

oxygen so you're ventilating more than

you need to be number two you could be

in sympathetic drive more than you need

to be okay now that could be happened

for a number of different reasons but

you're over breathing you shouldn't be

breathing that much because your demand

of energy is very very low and so you're

dumping

CO2 by doing that your CO2

concentrations get too low this puts you

in a little bit of a state we call

respiratory

alkalosis your kidneys will often times

not always often though respond by

trying to put you into metabolic

acidosis and so there's a lot of

research showing that people that are

diagnosed with metabolic acidosis it's

actually misdiagnosed in reality it's

respiratory

alkalosis that caus it's the over

breathing that caused the problem the

metabolic acidosis um you'll start

changing how much bicarbonate you

recycle electroly light um we see

hydration issues with this constantly so

if you're an over breather like you're

going to have all kinds of hydration

problems all that's going on over there

okay so getting back now that we have a

little bit of foundation to what's

really happening with CO2 in your room

if you are what we call CO2

sensitive and you're intolerant to CO2

so a little bit of CO2 starts building

up and your body already kicks you into

a position where it thinks you're way

too high it then will tell you to start

breathing you'll start over breathing

that whole Cascade I just explained then

kicks in so what happens to your

hrb gets worse what happens to your

ability to fall asleep gets worse oh I

wake up and then I can't get back to

sleep you look at your respiratory rate

you you check your CO2 tolerance you're

going to know exactly why right now I'm

about to finish the

circle if it's not those

things and you simply are sitting there

let's imagine you and your partner are

in your room um do you guys have any

other living things in your room this

sleep with you my dog your dog yeah what

size of dog uh not big not not big a

foot and a half okay now um without

getting too personal here what does your

uh room look like when you guys are

asleep how big is the room roughly um

it's about the same size of the space

we're in now okay fantastic and is your

door shut is it closed always closed

always closed yeah perfect you you

couldn't be seeing me up better here

so you're at night laying there

breathing in and you're breathing out

and you're breathing out CO2 and your

lovely little Bulldog is breathing out

CO2 and your partner is breathing out

CO2 so what's happening to the CO2

concentration in that room as that door

is closed it's rising right it's going

up generally not an issue not a huge

deal but what of you is maybe a little

bit CO2 sensitive the amount of CO2 in

your room is rising you're rebreathing

that CO2 right back

in CO2 is then getting too high that's

going to cause your entire system like

we said earlier when when CO2 levels

increase this kicks off sympathetic

Drive puts you into fight or flight now

all a sudden HRV goes down a little bit

resting heart rate goes up a little bit

arousa goes up a little bit your body

temperature changes you're not getting

into the same sleep stages and we're

having either a struggle falling asleep

staying asleep Etc in addition to that

um there's a handful of studies now we

need way more research here but there's

a handful of studies that have taken

people at what's called 900 parts per

million so that's the CO2 concentration

that's the level right below 9900 parts

per million we have no issue and so

normally like I'll check my house um if

if our doors are closed and stuff all

day I myself two uh Shephard mix you

know rescues um wife two kids ours will

easily get up to 15,00 parts per million

now the research on this stuff has done

experiments where they take people up to

like 3,000 okay so can I make a strong

claim that if you're at 1100 parts per

million it's really going to screw up

your sleep well I I I don't think

so but now we're playing a game of like

the studies have gone to the extreme and

what they will see is a huge reduction

of Sleep Quality both subjective and

objective so actually measured on like a

a PSG system or similar as well as

subjects saying like I did not sleep

well last night next day cognitive

function memory reaction time um

sleepiness um wakefulness um next day

executive function decision- making at

work all this stuff is significantly and

when I say significant here I want to

make sure I'm saying not only like

research statistically significant but

of a magnitude That Matters to your life

right so it's both clinically relevant

and statistically significant so we're

seeing real reductions in Sleep Quality

in fact there's a thing called something

to do with like a building sickness MH

um where people like they they have

headaches and they have uh they feel

like you know brain fog and all that

stuff because they're in large like

apartment buildings and the quality of

the air gets so low and by that I

specifically referring to CO2 that they

feel these issues and once they get Co2

out of the room then this building

sickness thing goes away so if you're in

that situation and that starts to rise

and it does get up to 22,000 or 2500

which is not that crazy you're

absolutely going to see reductions in

Sleep Quality um sleep onset again was

is a time it's called latency the time

takes you to fall asleep waking events

disturbances and then next day

sleepiness wakefulness and cognitive

function will be compromised certainly

up to 3,000 to 3500 parts per million um

what happens at 2,000 I don't know like

again we need more research like where

is the exact line that starts to matter

I do know you get up that high it starts

to matter and that number is not crazy

especially for people who close their

door yeah I just thinking damn right

people who live in apartment buildings

uh or hotels where they can't control

people that live in environments where

they can't open up their Windows because

it's too hot or too cold or rainy or the

air quality is really poor whatever the

case is so if that happens a couple

steps you can take take one you're not

going to do cuz I don't do it either

which is don't have your

dog in the room uh I have two dogs and I

sleep right on the end of my bed like

not on my bed but on the floor below it

so that that's out of the question but

making sure you have a lot of

ventilation in your room if you can and

you want to use a fan in your room

that's fine don't make it too loud if if

you want to download there's all kinds

of apps you can download on your phone

that allow you to measure the decimals

of noise keep it under 35 35 decimal um

same thing by the way if you're using

like a white noise machine white noises

will actually compromise Sleep Quality

they'll make it worse if they're too

loud the other thing to do is if you can

get away with having your doors and

windows open during times the day where

you can at least let that clear out a

little bit and then if you can shut them

you know even if you can open up up for

half an hour or something like that um

all those steps will help manage CO2

that's just CO2 we haven't even gotten

into the other stuff in your environment

so is there any other big ticket sleep

items that are unobvious cuz CO2 for me

that's a revelation for me yeah sticking

with the environmental theme there are

some things you can do for travel okay

that are not super well understood one

of them is we've talked a lot about

patterning if you can pattern your sleep

environment at home with your sleep

environment on the road you're going to

have much more

success many people are aware of the

first night phenomenon which is the

first night you get into a new place you

tend to struggle go sleep so the first

in a hotel or other place doesn't matter

how comfortable it is cuz the body's on

edge Bingo right so how do you take that

away well make the body think it's at

home so how can you do that the sound

the smell the temperature all of this is

all these sensors are going in your

brain If you artificially design your

sleeping environment in your house any

way that can be transported with you

then you can cut that problem down in

large parts so if there's a particular

scent I don't mean like have a a plugin

that there but some um like lavender is

very common Lavender is highly

associated with Sleep Quality um so a

lot of people will do like a little bit

of a lavender spray on the bottom of

their bed or in the corner of their room

or just something very very subtle that

you're not paying attention to um there

are companies that make little lavender

sprays right and so then you have that

lavender scent at your house again

something that you would barely even be

conscious of when you walk in then you

take that scent on the road with you

when you get in your hotel room you can

spray it around a little bit and now

your body will go oh okay we're at home

not going to fix it entirely but these

things can you can start stacking little

behaviors like that trying to stay in

the same Rhythm do the same thing the

the 90 minutes before sleep that you did

at home when you're on the road so don't

all of a sudden you know like switch out

and shower at a different time or eat at

a different time like try to be as

consistent with your sleep routine as

possible will be the bigger ticket but

then little things like you know having

the same setup if if you have a noise

machine machine take that thing with you

and try to bring that environment as

much as you can but the smell is a very

big one because it's very high reward