April 7, 2025 • 34 mins
The quality of your sleep fundamentally shapes your ability to achieve fitness goals, affecting everything from hormonal balance to decision making.
• Sleep deprivation shrinks your bandwidth for making good decisions
• Lack of sleep triggers hormonal imbalances that directly impact recovery
• Protein synthesis for muscle building occurs primarily during sleep
• Poor sleep creates a vicious cycle of stimulants, stress, and bad food choices
• The 10-3-2-1 method provides a framework for better sleep hygiene
• No caffeine 10 hours before bed
• No food/alcohol 3 hours before bed
• No exercise 2 hours before bed
• No screens 1 hour before bed
• Consistent bedtime rituals train your brain to recognize sleep cues
• Hot showers before bed help trigger your body's natural cooling mechanism
• Creating a sleep moat helps protect you from making poor health decisions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
how sleep impacts your weight loss and recovery.
We know, that sleep is importantand yet just so many of us just
suck at getting to bed on timeand waking up on time.
(00:23):
What's going on, everybody?
This is episode 55 of In thegrand scheme of fitness, and
today we're gonna be talkingabout how sleep impacts your
weight loss and recovery.
This is one of those thingsthat we've all heard it a
million times.
We know that sleep is importantand yet just so many of us just
suck at getting to bed on timeand waking up on time.
(00:45):
Yeah, because it's like you getin this zone where it's like you
wake up early and you knowyou're kind of tired around like
early evening, but then youhave like this second wind and
next thing, you know it's like10, 11 midnight and you're still
like doing whatever you do andit's like shit, I gotta wake up,
you know, in this cycle.
So you know, we're gonna justkind of break it down, I think,
(01:06):
street level, a lot of anecdotesand just our personal
experience and just kind ofwhatever we know from what
science tells us on just whysleep is important.
This isn't gonna be some, youknow, phd level dissertation on
like the you know biology andbiorhythms of sleep, but we're
gonna just just bring to yousome stuff that we know is
important and also, I think, howyou can optimize your sleep and
(01:28):
improve your sleep hygiene withsome really simple,
straightforward hacks.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Some applicable strategies.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So what time did you go to bed last night, Ethan?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
2.45 am Failed.
I did fail.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Listen, life happens, happens.
You know, sometimes here's,here's my feeling on on sleep.
It's like it's elusive.
It is you.
You set yourself up for successthe best you can.
But if you, if I think we canall relate that, when you're
laying in bed and the clock'sjust ticking and you know you
gotta wake up it's almost likethere's a proportionate amount
of stress and anxiety starts toaccumulate for every minute that
(02:12):
goes by, and then by like 1 or2 am.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You're just like yeah the curse of looking at the
clock after you've been layingin bed only to see the time that
is way later than you know isgoing to be good for you you're
like it's already been two hoursperpetual moment of anxiety
where you're stressing about howlittle sleep, you're going to
get right.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah then, the anxiety about the sleep is what
causes you to not sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
It's very meta, it is so and there's so many things
that can affect, like it couldbe physiological, like your
nervous system could just be allwound up.
It could be psychological ormental, emotional, where you're
just having all types of trainof thoughts or you're feeling a
certain thing you know.
So it's like I think addressingthe things that might help you
go to sleep can be multifaceted,and yeah if you don't
(02:56):
necessarily have the tools, oreven if you have the tools, it
doesn't always work and yeahit's it can be very elusive.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, it can be very elusive.
Yeah, you're in the past oryou're in the future or anywhere
but the actual physical placeyou are at the moment to just
let yourself relax enough todrift.
But yeah, it's a real pain inthe ass and I think that as we
get older we kind of conditionourselves.
So if we have a history of notsleeping well for a long time,
it's like that's just kind ofthe pattern that we've created.
It can be a real thorn in oursides if we don't figure it out.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
But I also think it's interesting because on our last
episode we talked about busyschedules and fitness and we
talked about the sacrifice ofexercise and healthy habits as
like the first thing to go whenkind of shit hits the fan or
we're spread thin because ofthat kind of daily perception
that well, if I don't exercisetoday, I'm not going to be any
(03:46):
different tomorrow.
And, and even though it's themost important thing we named
health as the most importantthing that many people name.
It's like the first thing to goand I feel like sleep, sleep's
in that same realm.
Yeah, it's like ah shit, If Ionly get like five and a half
hours Like I'll make it throughtomorrow, I can slug it out.
Yeah, I might be a little tired, I'll have an extra cup of
coffee, and so I think there'slike a degree of perceptible
(04:09):
sacrifice around sleep, yeah,where it's like, oh, I got to
make food or I got to do thisreport, or you know, maybe it's
a circumstance Like, oh, mykid's crying all night, but
there's like this thing where,like, sleep is this
semi-sacrificable thing in ourlife, where life comes first,
the things that have to happenfirst, and sometimes it is
(04:31):
Sometimes you've got to do thereport or you've got to stay up
late for work or something butit's one of those malleable
aspects of life that I think wekind of throw into the grinder,
whether we choose it or not, orwe just allow it to be that.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, that's a good point and I think it's the same.
It's the same feeling that Ihave with fitness.
It's like on those occasionswhere you do have to burn the
midnight oil and get something,there's a real deadline.
Or you have to wake up reallyearly for something, or you do
have some sort of emotionalturmoil where, like, you just
can't sleep and it's not yourfault, like fine, those are
(05:04):
excusable reasons.
But then just like the normalnight, where you're just like
you know, three hours into ascroll hole and you've right,
your eyes are starting to water,because you've just hammered
through a hundred instagramreels.
You know it's like those are notgood excuses to miss sleep.
So it's like it's same argument.
It's like, on the regularnights, just practice good sleep
(05:26):
which we'll get into in asecond and get your ass in bed
and try to get a nice sleep sothat when the inevitable XYZ
fire pops up and you got to putit out and that might require
you sacrificing some sleep, then, okay, you got some equity
built up.
Yeah, for sure you know you'vebuilt up that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
The sleep bank's got a little extra funds.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
You, you know you've built up that the sleep banks
got a little extra sleep bank,exactly where you can tap into
on those occasional rough nights.
But if you're every night's arough night because you just
aren't thinking, you're notconscious, you're not aware or
intentional about your sleephygiene and every night's a hot
mess, well then you're justdigging yourself deeper and
deeper into this, like deficitof energy and mood and tolerance
and humor and all the greatlittle personality accessories
we can sprinkle on the top tojust make ourselves an even more
(06:10):
interesting person yeah, orlike the icing on the cake, you
get to show up to life morefully, and I think it's the same
way, it's an inverserelationship of when we don't
exercise and we, or we haven'tever exercised consistently and
we're not on the other side ofthe positive benefits of
reoccurring physical behaviors.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
We don't realize, like we've talked about in our
past episodes.
We don't realize what ourpotential can be.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, we just don't know you don't know what you
don't know, but that's an actionwe have to do.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And then I think it's the same thing when we're so
constantly sleep deprived, wedon't realize how dull we are,
how lack of a shine to ourpersonalities.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, you're missing the inside jokes.
You're not really trying to befriendly, you're just not
showing up.
I know when I get a fullnight's sleep.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I'm so zazzy with my clients.
I'm just on fire oh for sure,and especially when there's a
contrast of not sleeping, I'mlike, wow, I'm really on it
today.
Versus, this is me.
Being on it today is myconstant, and when I get a poor
night's sleep, I'm off it today,and so I feel like we're just
so many of us are living in thisconstant state of dull, just
(07:09):
fatigue and dull.
We're just like yeah, and thenwe acclimate to that we accept
it as normal and we don't evenknow what it's like.
And the same way, we don't knowwhat it's like when we exercise
regularly and what ourpotential could be if we do that
.
We don't know what it's like tobe well rested and have good
sleep and what our daily lifeoperations would look like if we
were just in a yeah, just likehow much it just raises your
(07:32):
baseline.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, you know, yeah, and that's the thing about
baselines is that we acclimateto them and so it all kind of
just feels normal.
But you don't realize like it'shard.
It takes a real effort to likepunch back a couple levels and
like, observe yourself andrealize like, oh, like, no, like
I know how I could be at mybest and I've just lowered my
baseline to the point to whereI've just kind of like adapted
(07:54):
to that and I forgot how robustI am or you know how much better
with, you know, whateversituation I find myself in, that
I am when I'm well rested, andthere's that's sort of like the
soft impacts of not gettingenough rest.
But then there's some real hardimpacts of it as well.
There's some real likequantifiable issues where if we
(08:17):
compound bad sleep night afternight I mean cortisol levels,
which is, your stress hormonesgo through the roof, causes
inflammation, causes anxiety.
You know, like when we'restressed and we're anxious, our
IQ lowers.
We just are not as smart as wewould be normally.
So that leads us to making baddecisions and not just not
thinking through things and andjust kind of making more like
(08:40):
gut, like I was gonna say, yeah,it's almost like you're living
in fight or flight.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, yeah, you're not operating off like the
higher procedures, you'reoperating off of like kind of
survival yeah and so your foodchoices, your daily choices, you
know if you're so tired.
That, just like getting throughthe day is a struggle.
The opportunity for you to makehigh executive functioning
choices is going to be limitedyeah, I just think of like
(09:04):
energy as an aggregate, right?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
so it's just this big pie and that's, that's energy.
Right, it's just, it's just,it's a hundred percent, it's
just an aggregate.
And then everything in yourlife your kids, your work, your
spouse, your pets, your, allthese things kind of take up
like a slice of that energyaggregate every day.
And if you're well rested, wellthen you have full bandwidth
and you can kind of handle lifeand parry life as it comes.
(09:29):
But all of a sudden you getlike half the amount of sleep
you should multiple days in arow.
You know that that pie startsto shrink and that bandwidth
just starts to shrink.
And that's where we just kindof revert to like more lizard
brains, instinctual operatingsystems, and not like higher
level, really thinking throughthings deeply and from different
(09:50):
angles.
You know 100, you know, yeah,and then there's also like the
impact on just your training.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You know I was just saying, well, yeah, the
physiological implications, thescience behind what sleep does I
mean?
There's that meta study thatcame out like four or five years
ago.
That was done over like over adecade.
And it was just like itbasically showed that, like
sleep is the absolute mostimportant thing.
You know it affects yourendocrine system or your
(10:19):
hormonal systems, your recovery,all your protein synthesis
protein synthesis when you buildmuscles happening at night.
Your testosterone tends to behighest at night.
If you're a male, you know allof all of these components that
are just part of your overallecosystem, of your body are all
being regulated and if you'renot getting good sleep and those
things just don't happen, youdon't get good recovery, you
don't build as much muscle, yourhormonal system is going to
(10:39):
start getting out of whack andnot being as regulated.
You know there's just so manythings that go into the recovery
aspect of sleep and theregulation of our sleep, and I
think a lot of it too is likeour urban environments, like
especially if you live in anurban environment, we have so
much coming at us.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's just like noise and light pollution.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
All of the things, whether it's lifestyle and the
line of work I mean, how manydigital nomads I know that are
on call, where if the servergoes down at 4 am and they call,
they have to be available,Whereas that's a very specific
lifestyle where now things arejust kind of out of whack and
you have to sacrifice that sleep.
But the physiologicalcomponents really are so real,
(11:21):
they are so, so real and I thinkit's like we consider all of
the like circumstantial andemotional components of our
lives and they come first and Idon't think we really realize
just how we feel in our bodiesand all the things we're kind of
talking about that come fromgood sleep, that then affect all
those circumstances that wejust don't honor as much, and
(11:42):
it's like like we were saying wejust sacrifice sleep, when we
don't realize that, likephysiologically, we're affecting
our vessel so much.
It's not just like, oh, I'mgonna be tired tomorrow, but I
have to do this, and xyz, it'slike no, like you are literally
gonna feel like shit over andover again yeah, and then you're
gonna normalize feeling likeshit, and so you.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
it's like this vicious cycle where it just
keeps getting worse because youfeel like shit.
Then feeling like shit makesyou want to give yourself a free
day on your workouts, or justnot want to cook dinner Cause
you don't feel like it, so youjust order it out, or you have
three cups of coffee and you'reall strung out Coffee all
morning alcohol at night?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Exactly, you're not strung out at night.
I mean you know how many timesmyself or my partner or other
people where it's like, oh, Iget myself, or my partner or
other people where it's like, oh, I get home, and because, like,
your body will releasenorepinephrine and epinephrine
and adrenaline and cortisol tokeep you running through the day
because your life requires that.
And so now you get through theend of the day and you've been
running on empty and you'refrazzling your nervous system.
(12:47):
And so you finally get homefrom work and you're like kind
of blinking your eye and likewhere the fuck did the day go?
I just struggled through that.
And now you want reprievebecause your nervous system is
showing up the way it needs to,based on your life, to make it
through the day.
And now you're just, you're allshaky or you just you just
didn't have a moment to yourself.
You just you fucking hated theday.
(13:07):
Your, your actual emotions,you're, you have negative it all
just comes back.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
You're like, oh, I fucking hated my job today.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Oh, my spouse was annoying me.
Oh, like I didn't want to takethe dogs for a walk.
Like I just emotionallystruggled throughout the day
because I'm just like graspingat straws and like you said.
Well, now I just want to cope.
Maybe I want to reach for adrink, just want to cope.
I want to cope.
I want to do this.
Now.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I want to binge watch netflix because I want to
escape my life or I want justlike not, I want to, I want to.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I mean, I know that for me, is that so often like
watching tv, is this reprieve oflike fuck, like my day has just
been a lot.
I want to escape.
And I want to escape.
And I'm not saying thatwatching tv is bad or escaping
into a television show is a badthing, but I think when we are
just physiologically strugglingto get through the day whether
(13:55):
the day is actually that bad ornot we have this sense of this
was so hard and it's a lot ofit's just physiology the day
might have not been that bad.
That's that like the normal,that more exactly, bandwidth,
like that normal drive to workmight have been extra shitty
because you just didn't evenwant to like, you just don't got
.
Well, you know, you're just not, you lose your patience.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know it's like when you're tired and someone
cuts you off, it's like nextthing you know you're, you're
just like flipping them off.
You're like, you're like whowas that where?
If you're well rested andyou're in a good present state
of mind, if someone cuts you off, just go, whatever.
You know it's so, it's like.
That's like that how stress isso relative and it just depends.
Stress is damaging to the pointthat you react to it, right.
(14:36):
So if in that exact example, youknow, if I allow myself to have
like this, you know,sympathetic nervous system
outburst and trigger like crazebecause someone cut me off God
forbid in traffic and because Ihadn't slept, and the last three
nights I've been drinking toomuch caffeine in the morning and
(14:58):
drink too much alcohol at night, not sleeping well, and just
this, like digging this negativespiral down, all of a sudden
someone cuts you off and youexplode like in to go into
lizard brain.
Like you create such a stressresponse, right, that could
frazzle you all day and you'retelling, telling people, this
person, I was at the light and Ihad to ride away and you're
just like holding on to thisthing that's just continuing to
(15:19):
cause more and more stressversus.
You know you slowly climbyourself out of that deficit,
you practice good sleep hygiene,you pay attention to these
triggers and these impulses, andthen that exact same situation
happens and the guy pulls out infront of you and maybe you just
flip him the bird and turn backyour radio on and just like
start singing to your favoriteartist and you show up to work
(15:42):
and you say, hey, bill, how'severybody doing?
And like exact same situation,completely different stress
responses, and so a lot of thatcan be just boiled down to.
It's like this secret littlelayer of our lives called sleep
that we live in a culture thatis okay with us, like burn the
midnight oil, and there's somesense of pride and a badge of
(16:03):
honor of like, oh man, I onlyslept like two hours last night
because I was working, or justwhatever.
And it's like it's just one ofthose moments to recognize that,
like it only hurts you andwhatever rationalization we come
up with to justify not getting,not initiating those evening
(16:25):
routines, not turning the lightsdown and getting the tea kettle
on, and you know, whatever thatis for you to start trailing
your brain.
It's getting close to bedtime.
Now let's start getting readyfor that.
You know, the longer youpostpone doing that, then just
sort of like the worse thosevicious cycles tend to get.
(16:46):
You know it affects, like wewere saying earlier, you're too
tired to work out.
Now you're skipping yourworkouts.
And you're skipping yourworkouts and you're ordering
takeout food.
And you're ordering takeoutfood and you're ordering takeout
food and then, like the nextmorning, you wake up all puffy
because you had too much saltand you didn't sleep well
because you ate a bunch of spicytacos.
It's just this vicious cycleright, and it's like it's very
hard to like.
Look at that, because everyonehas reward behavior.
(17:09):
I had a hard day.
It's like I hear you but you'renot that unique.
I'm so sorry to have to tellyou this, but you're not that
special Like.
Everybody is stressed out.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Everybody is doing their best, everyone is like
figuring out what the hell thislife that we're in even means,
and it's like yet we can choosethere is always that there's
always a choice well, and itgoes to something we were
talking about pre-show is that,like willpower and the ability
to make hard decisions, isdirectly correlated to the level
(17:45):
of sleep and I think it's like,especially if you're trying to
modify the way you eat or modifyyour activity levels.
You know, if you're on thisjourney where you're trying to
implement behavioral changes,that's already going to require
some form of discipline, it'salready going to require some
form of willpower that mighttest your reserves in that
(18:07):
capacity, your reserves in thatcapacity.
And if a lack of sleepdiminishes significantly your
ability to have willpower andmake certain decisions, then
this, this forging a new patternof life, if you're not already
in this flow is going to be thatmuch more challenging.
And so it's like you know we'retalking about the backend, but
it's also limiting youinevitably fall to the backend,
(18:30):
but it's just going to basicallycap or just completely destroy
your ability to forge ahead intosomething new.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's almost like when you it's like practically
getting good sleep is sort oflike the anchor of like just
good lifestyle choices yeah,it's like it is.
It is the most fundamental it'salmost like the better your
sleep gets, the more of a moatyou create, create to sort of
keep all of the bad decisions atbay.
Yeah, 100%.
And then the worse your sleepgets.
It's like that you start todrain and shrink up that moat
(19:00):
and all of a sudden, the takeout, the skipping workouts the
binge watching TV, the alcohol,the social media, it just starts
, you know, it's like a siege.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You don't need an archer, you don't need like a
crazy cannonball to get to thecastle.
Right, it's like you can justlike literally like throw a rock
and hit the castle but you know.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But to your point, you know you get good sleep and
you think clearly now, and allof a sudden you don't really
have the same cravings becauseyou're, you're rested, you feel
good.
You don't want to mess that up.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You feel and and you just fill that moat back up,
which just keeps you in thatmomentum of just like virtuous
cycles versus vicious cycles,and I think it's like if life's
about momentums and stackingupon little decisions we make to
then build a momentum and builda momentum, and I think it's
like the ability to build apositive momentum without, like
(19:51):
you said, that foundation thereis.
It's almost like we'reundermining ourselves and so
then we might sit there and say,oh, I want to lose this amount
of weight, or I want to startexercising, or I want to start
living certain lifestyle changes.
I want to play with my kidsmore.
I don't find it whatever.
I want to cook my own food.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It doesn't matter Hard to spend an hour cooking
your food with your kids ifyou're exhausted yeah, just
exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
So.
Again, it's just like theanchor, the foundation there's.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So many positive life experiences you could trace
back to.
You know like are you sleepingnow?
Listen, there's always theexceptions.
There's always people that weknow that for some reason can
get four or five hours everynight and live a wonderful full
life and seem to have no problemwith that.
That's a genetic thing it reallyis like that's 100 you know
that's just like that personjust genetically, just has the
(20:36):
ability to rest, you know, andthat's great.
I'm like the opposite like Ineed like eight or nine hours,
like if I want to feel reallygood, like I need like eight
hours absolutely, and that'ssomething like I I just didn't
even want to admit for so long.
So I thought that like that wassomehow, you know, taking away
from me as and like my worth asa human especially with our
culture, right I need nine hoursof sleep.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It's like but I think in any anybody's been going.
It's shown like out again likethe exceptions don't necessarily
make the rule and it's justbeen pretty conclusive yeah like
six as like an absolute minimum.
Eight is really an optimalgeneral zone.
It might be seven for some, itmight be nine for some, but that
like it's pretty factual.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, there's really no like, yeah, there's not
really like, like, likespeculation here about this.
This is, it's pretty concreteum, you know so.
So at various points in my lifeand career I've always, you
know, dug into like well, how dowe do?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
this.
I was gonna say so what aresome strategies?
Yeah, and how do we get?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
because here's the thing, like we don't want to get
addicted to sleeping pills, wedon't want to be taking 20 grams
of melatonin every night and,like you know, so we want to.
We want to, like, get ourselvesto this place where, you know,
our brain is designed to adaptto its environment and so for
better or for worse, and thateven if that means that you
might shave off 10 years becauseyou have a heart attack.
(21:53):
If your brain's adapting to justnot sleeping ever, then your
brain's going to adapt.
But the opposite's true as well, and we start like laying
little breadcrumbs down forourselves and we start thinking
about sleep earlier in the day.
You know it's like it's.
It's analogous to a lot ofthings in life.
Just because you know you wantto work out three days a week
doesn't mean that you just likecross your fingers and hope that
(22:15):
three amazing opportunities perweek present themselves like no
, you gotta, you gotta plan it alittle forward so monday is
gonna be this, then wednesday isgonna be this and then friday
is gonna be this.
I'm gonna do my walk mondaythrough friday at noon at my
lunch break.
Like you have to be intentional, and I think that sleep is like
that too.
Like think about it.
Okay, like the easiest one isno caffeine afternoon.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
No like after 12 pm, no more caffeine next, the
half-life caffeine will start toleak into your bedtime because
there's exactly, there's the.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
There's like the first hit of caffeine where you
actually feel it, but thenthere's like that half-life that
can last for six to eight hours.
Yeah, exactly and that's whereyou don't even feel the effects
anymore.
But your brain's just alert,you know, and so you need to
give it plenty of time to cycleout.
So you know you adjust thosetimes according to your schedule
.
Like, we have a lot of nurseswe work with and so they might
have to sleep until 2 pm becausethey work nights, and so you
(23:06):
know, figure out like what thosenumbers are for you, but
essentially at least 10 hoursbefore bed caffeine needs to be
done with In an optimal state,100% Done 10 hours.
And then it's like try to getyour last meal around three
hours, not to say there'sanything that's going to, you
know, like there's anythingnecessarily wrong with if you
(23:28):
have to eat a little bit later.
You got to do what you got todo, right.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
If life circumstances requires it, but yeah, right.
But we do find that like two tothree hours before bed if you
have a super full stomach itcould disrupt your sleep.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
You know you might wake up in the night, you might
have like heartburn, you mightbe like thirsty because your
body's digesting food and so youknow if you got to do what you
got to do sometimes.
But if you you can.
It's that two to three hoursbefore bed.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It's the same for exercise.
Yeah, again, I think it wouldbe better to get an exercise
session in if you had to, evenif that means you're an hour
before bed.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Right yeah, versus not doing it, but in an optimal
place.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's going to basically create a sympathetic
nervous state.
You're going to go into thatfight or flight.
You're going to releaseadrenaline and cortisol, just
because that's the nature of thestress of exercise it's going
to jazz your nervous system upand so it doesn't really let you
wind down in the same way.
So if we're talking aboutoptimal uh, you know, optimal,
yeah, yeah, practices, thatwould be again.
Yeah, there are exceptions.
(24:26):
I think it's better to get theworkout in.
But if we're looking to createthat good sleep hygiene, looking
to try to aim, when we'retalking about planning our
workouts and looking at our weekand creating our schedule is to
try to do that, yeah, samething.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
A hundred percent.
And then and then I think thebig one and the probably the
most overlooked is one hourbefore bed we got to start
initiating evening routines,yeah, and so what that looks
like is for me it's 9 pm,because I like to be close to
sleep, sleep not just in bed,but sleep by 10.
Doesn't always work out thatway, but that's the goal.
(25:02):
And I think that's the takeawaywith sleep hygiene is that you
can brush your teeth every day.
That doesn't mean you're notgoing to get a cavity.
Can brush your teeth every day,that doesn't mean you're not
going to get a cavity.
It just means that you're doingwhat you can to try to prevent
unnecessary downside.
You know what I mean?
It's just like optimizing forupside and trying to prevent
downside, not to say any.
Anything is guaranteed.
(25:23):
It's just you're just doingyour best.
And I think that's the thingwhen you think of the 10, 3, 2,
1.
Uh sleep strategy is caffeine10 hours before bed, food and
alcohol three hours before bed.
So it's kind of in yourmetabolized enough two hours
before bed.
You know no more exercise.
And then one hour before bed isreally just initiating those
(25:43):
evening routines, and what thatlooks like for me is screens off
, so for watching tv.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I mean because I think there's like there's two
things that we're kind oftalking about is like, because I
think the one hour rule, morethan even the ritual, the sleep
ritual is like no screens andit's such a hard one to do
because again, it's in our freetime.
We might want to watch tv toescape, we want to fuck around
on our phones because finallythe day is done and we have the
freedom to not be bound, butthat limiting screen time one
(26:14):
hour before bed is so huge.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Well, it's circadian rhythm, so blue light from our
screens, especially our phonesand tablets that are like right
up in our face, it just triggers, even if you have like a red
light filter on.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
It just doesn't matter, and it's just the nature
of social media.
It's the nature of our phones.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, it's the stimulus, it it just doesn't
matter and it's just the natureof social media, it's the nature
of our phones.
Yeah, it's the stimulus, it'sthe dopamine hit.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
It's this whole, like jazz, you love more.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
It's not this.
Let me wind down Totally,totally.
And so you know whatever thatmeans like turn the TV off, put
your phone on the charger.
I like to take a shower atnight.
It's like a hot shower.
Hot shower's huge.
I like to get some bedtime teagoing, and so then we listen to
an audio book, and so all thatkind of happens in 30, 40
minutes.
We kind of wind it down TV'soff, shower, get the tea going,
(26:58):
you know, get ready for bed.
And then it's like we lay inbed with tea, put the audible
timer on for like 30, 40 minutesand just listen to the most
boring audio book, but likeit'll be like a, a biography of
george, george washington rightnow we're doing a biography of
einstein and so you, you sit,you lay there, you're like, oh
wow, that's so crazy quantumphysics.
(27:19):
You know it really does I wouldsay 75, it works 75 of the time.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
There's always the 20 that like 25 but the the
bedtime ritual like when I'vegotten the most sleep, and it's
amazing because you do literallytrain your brain it's not just
like oh, these things arerelaxing, like having tea is
relaxing, like it's.
No, it's that if you actuallycommit to this rhythm, your
brain gets trained to understandthat when you have tea, that
(27:46):
you're in bed or you startstretching at night or you do
some self-massage or you listento an audiobook book, that
that's triggering to your brainthat you're going to go to sleep
.
And if you commit to thatpattern enough, it's not just
like, oh, this is a relaxingactivity or it's not being on
your phone, it's that itactually is creating a
physiological response for yourbrain to be like oh, it's
bedtime.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
You condition yourself now.
It's just like you cancondition yourself to like oh,
it's 10, time to watch TV.
Well, that's conditioning.
We're just a bundled ball ofconditioned responses.
That's all we are.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I got home at 9, I'll order some takeout.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I'll wait for it to come, I'll watch.
Tv until it gets there, and Ispeak from personal experience
where I've been, in that placewhere I'm just like yeah, like
oh this feels good.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
This is the barrier of least entry, because it does
feel good, it is indulgence, andindulgence always is short-term
gratification and long-termkind of struggle.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You're like fuck, this isn't working.
But the opposite is true, likewithin a month's time, next
thing you know it's 9 pm, tv'soff and it's like, ooh, let's
finish up that biography.
What kind of bedtime tea did weget?
We got these.
A nice like there.
You do look forward to it, youdo kind of anticipate it and it
(28:57):
triggers that parasympatheticnervous system, just like
massage would.
That's why people fall asleep inmassages, just like stretching
or rolling or or whatever you do, or listening to a guided
meditation Guided meditation,but like we have to like you
know, your your sympatheticnervous system's kind of
counterintuitive, becausesympathetic kind of feels like
it'd be gentler, but really thatis more of your stress, fight
(29:18):
or flight.
And then your parasympatheticnervous system is more like your
present moment you're relaxed,you're just.
You know, you're just in astate of, of, of relaxation yeah
, and so we got to get thatparasympathetic nervous system
activated before bed and sowatching like fucking social
media reels and eating war movieor like a suspense documentary.
(29:40):
Yeah, it's like this is notgonna work, not really what's
best and so you know, dim lights, candlelight, audiobook,
bedtime, tea, hot shower, astretch, you know whatever,
because our body temperaturenaturally drops when we sleep.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, and it's like the same way that cultures drink
hot tea in hot cultures is thatwhen you expose yourself to
heat, you have a reactionaryphysiological response of
dropping body temperature and soa super hot shower at night has
actually been shown tofacilitate a better, more
significant drop in bodytemperature as you sleep yeah.
Which facilitates more deepsleep, not even REM, but way
(30:17):
deep sleep Right, right, right,right.
more hormonal response and youknow it makes a lot of sense
yeah, and I think like in theend it comes back to what we've
talked about many times withnutrition is that there has to
be like a degree of personalresponsibility.
Yep, you know you, you can'tjust wish for the best like you
have to choose to take this onas my best.
Life will be lived with XYZ, soI need to take this choice on
(30:41):
and make conscious choices.
And in doing that, what are thetools?
How do I meal prep easy?
How do I plan and count mycalories the easiest way, or
what tools allow me to be in acaloric deficit in the easiest
way for my lifestyle?
There's a degree ofself-responsibility that has to
be chosen because you recognizeit's important to then learn the
tools and make it as accessiblein your life as possible.
(31:04):
And I think sleep's the same way.
Is that we kind of just like,oh yeah, sleep.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Oh, I only got five hours last night.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
It happens when I'm tired, yeah it happens when I'm
tired, and I think it's the samedegree of that.
It's more personalresponsibility, but that's life.
And that has to be a choice thatyou then make to understand how
important sleep is which is thewhole first half of this
conversation to then recognizethat it's so important that I'm
going to make a consciousdecision about it.
(31:28):
Then I'm going to make thatconscious decision, learn the
tools, learn about sleep hygiene, start making intentional
decisions in my life to reflectthat and then hopefully build
this new pattern so that I canreap the most decisions in my
life to reflect that and thenhopefully build this new pattern
so that I can reap the most outof my life, because if you
don't fucking sleep, you're notgoing to have the best life you
know exactly 100.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And it's like why are humans apex animals?
Because we don't get sleep andwe work hard?
It's because we can plan.
We have the ability to plan andto think about the future.
And if we sleep when we'retired, we eat when we're hungry,
we drink when we're thirsty,we're no different than every
(32:08):
other animal.
But if we just go, let me thinkabout my day when.
What am I going to eat?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
especially in this modern day lifestyle for hunter
gatherers.
Maybe we're sure, but likeright now, we don't.
We do this.
Everything is so malleable.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The beautiful thing is that we can design.
It's called lifestyle design,folks, and we can actually
create the reality that we wantfor ourselves by these daily,
weekly, monthly, annual choices.
You get good sleep, you eathealthy, you drink your water,
you, you are probably makingbetter decisions and aligning
yourself with better than 90% ofthe population out there.
(32:43):
Just by those fundamentalbaseline choices, you're
thinking clearly, you're in agood mood, you know you're
probably more creative, you wantto take more risks, all more,
all the, all the things thatthat equal up to like success.
However you want to define thatprobably all come and sprout
(33:06):
from the foundation of just thebasics in our life, that being
optimized and we can plan that.
The good thing is is that, like,you can decide to do that.
You can get, you know, you canget the right black out curtain
so you don't get woken up toosoon.
You can, you can.
You can get bedtime teas.
You can uh, you know, um decideto exercise.
(33:27):
There's all these things likeit's just a choice.
But I really love how, I lovethe analogy of the moat being
filled by getting good rest,because it just puts you in such
a better position to makesmarter choices and keep all
those bad sort of like bad lowself-discipline choices at bay,
right, because you're thinkingat a higher level, the mode of
(33:49):
response versus the dry bed ofreaction, dry bed of reaction,
exactly.
So I hope that helps, guys.
You know the big takeaway isthe 10-3-2-1 caffeine, food and
alcohol evening routines.
Initiate them before bed andreally have an intention of like
going to bed and waking up andyou know, within a month's time
(34:09):
I'm sure you'll see a hugedifference.
But that's episode 55 of the.
Grand Scheme of Fitness.
How sleep is so important.
Hope you guys enjoyed it.
how sleep impacts your weight loss and recovery.
We know, that sleep is importantand yet just so many of us just
suck at getting to bed on timeand waking up on time.
(00:23):
What's going on, everybody?
This is episode 55 of In thegrand scheme of fitness, and
today we're gonna be talkingabout how sleep impacts your
weight loss and recovery.
This is one of those thingsthat we've all heard it a
million times.
We know that sleep is importantand yet just so many of us just
suck at getting to bed on timeand waking up on time.
(00:45):
Yeah, because it's like you getin this zone where it's like you
wake up early and you knowyou're kind of tired around like
early evening, but then youhave like this second wind and
next thing, you know it's like10, 11 midnight and you're still
like doing whatever you do andit's like shit, I gotta wake up,
you know, in this cycle.
So you know, we're gonna justkind of break it down, I think,
(01:06):
street level, a lot of anecdotesand just our personal
experience and just kind ofwhatever we know from what
science tells us on just whysleep is important.
This isn't gonna be some, youknow, phd level dissertation on
like the you know biology andbiorhythms of sleep, but we're
gonna just just bring to yousome stuff that we know is
important and also, I think, howyou can optimize your sleep and
(01:28):
improve your sleep hygiene withsome really simple,
straightforward hacks.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Some applicable strategies.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So what time did you go to bed last night, Ethan?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
2.45 am Failed.
I did fail.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Listen, life happens, happens.
You know, sometimes here's,here's my feeling on on sleep.
It's like it's elusive.
It is you.
You set yourself up for successthe best you can.
But if you, if I think we canall relate that, when you're
laying in bed and the clock'sjust ticking and you know you
gotta wake up it's almost likethere's a proportionate amount
of stress and anxiety starts toaccumulate for every minute that
(02:12):
goes by, and then by like 1 or2 am.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You're just like yeah the curse of looking at the
clock after you've been layingin bed only to see the time that
is way later than you know isgoing to be good for you you're
like it's already been two hoursperpetual moment of anxiety
where you're stressing about howlittle sleep, you're going to
get right.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah then, the anxiety about the sleep is what
causes you to not sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
It's very meta, it is so and there's so many things
that can affect, like it couldbe physiological, like your
nervous system could just be allwound up.
It could be psychological ormental, emotional, where you're
just having all types of trainof thoughts or you're feeling a
certain thing you know.
So it's like I think addressingthe things that might help you
go to sleep can be multifaceted,and yeah if you don't
(02:56):
necessarily have the tools, oreven if you have the tools, it
doesn't always work and yeahit's it can be very elusive.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, it can be very elusive.
Yeah, you're in the past oryou're in the future or anywhere
but the actual physical placeyou are at the moment to just
let yourself relax enough todrift.
But yeah, it's a real pain inthe ass and I think that as we
get older we kind of conditionourselves.
So if we have a history of notsleeping well for a long time,
it's like that's just kind ofthe pattern that we've created.
It can be a real thorn in oursides if we don't figure it out.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
But I also think it's interesting because on our last
episode we talked about busyschedules and fitness and we
talked about the sacrifice ofexercise and healthy habits as
like the first thing to go whenkind of shit hits the fan or
we're spread thin because ofthat kind of daily perception
that well, if I don't exercisetoday, I'm not going to be any
(03:46):
different tomorrow.
And, and even though it's themost important thing we named
health as the most importantthing that many people name.
It's like the first thing to goand I feel like sleep, sleep's
in that same realm.
Yeah, it's like ah shit, If Ionly get like five and a half
hours Like I'll make it throughtomorrow, I can slug it out.
Yeah, I might be a little tired, I'll have an extra cup of
coffee, and so I think there'slike a degree of perceptible
(04:09):
sacrifice around sleep, yeah,where it's like, oh, I got to
make food or I got to do thisreport, or you know, maybe it's
a circumstance Like, oh, mykid's crying all night, but
there's like this thing where,like, sleep is this
semi-sacrificable thing in ourlife, where life comes first,
the things that have to happenfirst, and sometimes it is
(04:31):
Sometimes you've got to do thereport or you've got to stay up
late for work or something butit's one of those malleable
aspects of life that I think wekind of throw into the grinder,
whether we choose it or not, orwe just allow it to be that.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, that's a good point and I think it's the same.
It's the same feeling that Ihave with fitness.
It's like on those occasionswhere you do have to burn the
midnight oil and get something,there's a real deadline.
Or you have to wake up reallyearly for something, or you do
have some sort of emotionalturmoil where, like, you just
can't sleep and it's not yourfault, like fine, those are
(05:04):
excusable reasons.
But then just like the normalnight, where you're just like
you know, three hours into ascroll hole and you've right,
your eyes are starting to water,because you've just hammered
through a hundred instagramreels.
You know it's like those are notgood excuses to miss sleep.
So it's like it's same argument.
It's like, on the regularnights, just practice good sleep
(05:26):
which we'll get into in asecond and get your ass in bed
and try to get a nice sleep sothat when the inevitable XYZ
fire pops up and you got to putit out and that might require
you sacrificing some sleep, then, okay, you got some equity
built up.
Yeah, for sure you know you'vebuilt up that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
The sleep bank's got a little extra funds.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
You, you know you've built up that the sleep banks
got a little extra sleep bank,exactly where you can tap into
on those occasional rough nights.
But if you're every night's arough night because you just
aren't thinking, you're notconscious, you're not aware or
intentional about your sleephygiene and every night's a hot
mess, well then you're justdigging yourself deeper and
deeper into this, like deficitof energy and mood and tolerance
and humor and all the greatlittle personality accessories
we can sprinkle on the top tojust make ourselves an even more
(06:10):
interesting person yeah, orlike the icing on the cake, you
get to show up to life morefully, and I think it's the same
way, it's an inverserelationship of when we don't
exercise and we, or we haven'tever exercised consistently and
we're not on the other side ofthe positive benefits of
reoccurring physical behaviors.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
We don't realize, like we've talked about in our
past episodes.
We don't realize what ourpotential can be.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, we just don't know you don't know what you
don't know, but that's an actionwe have to do.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And then I think it's the same thing when we're so
constantly sleep deprived, wedon't realize how dull we are,
how lack of a shine to ourpersonalities.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, you're missing the inside jokes.
You're not really trying to befriendly, you're just not
showing up.
I know when I get a fullnight's sleep.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I'm so zazzy with my clients.
I'm just on fire oh for sure,and especially when there's a
contrast of not sleeping, I'mlike, wow, I'm really on it
today.
Versus, this is me.
Being on it today is myconstant, and when I get a poor
night's sleep, I'm off it today,and so I feel like we're just
so many of us are living in thisconstant state of dull, just
(07:09):
fatigue and dull.
We're just like yeah, and thenwe acclimate to that we accept
it as normal and we don't evenknow what it's like.
And the same way, we don't knowwhat it's like when we exercise
regularly and what ourpotential could be if we do that
.
We don't know what it's like tobe well rested and have good
sleep and what our daily lifeoperations would look like if we
were just in a yeah, just likehow much it just raises your
(07:32):
baseline.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, you know, yeah, and that's the thing about
baselines is that we acclimateto them and so it all kind of
just feels normal.
But you don't realize like it'shard.
It takes a real effort to likepunch back a couple levels and
like, observe yourself andrealize like, oh, like, no, like
I know how I could be at mybest and I've just lowered my
baseline to the point to whereI've just kind of like adapted
(07:54):
to that and I forgot how robustI am or you know how much better
with, you know, whateversituation I find myself in, that
I am when I'm well rested, andthere's that's sort of like the
soft impacts of not gettingenough rest.
But then there's some real hardimpacts of it as well.
There's some real likequantifiable issues where if we
(08:17):
compound bad sleep night afternight I mean cortisol levels,
which is, your stress hormonesgo through the roof, causes
inflammation, causes anxiety.
You know, like when we'restressed and we're anxious, our
IQ lowers.
We just are not as smart as wewould be normally.
So that leads us to making baddecisions and not just not
thinking through things and andjust kind of making more like
(08:40):
gut, like I was gonna say, yeah,it's almost like you're living
in fight or flight.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, yeah, you're not operating off like the
higher procedures, you'reoperating off of like kind of
survival yeah and so your foodchoices, your daily choices, you
know if you're so tired.
That, just like getting throughthe day is a struggle.
The opportunity for you to makehigh executive functioning
choices is going to be limitedyeah, I just think of like
(09:04):
energy as an aggregate, right?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
so it's just this big pie and that's, that's energy.
Right, it's just, it's just,it's a hundred percent, it's
just an aggregate.
And then everything in yourlife your kids, your work, your
spouse, your pets, your, allthese things kind of take up
like a slice of that energyaggregate every day.
And if you're well rested, wellthen you have full bandwidth
and you can kind of handle lifeand parry life as it comes.
(09:29):
But all of a sudden you getlike half the amount of sleep
you should multiple days in arow.
You know that that pie startsto shrink and that bandwidth
just starts to shrink.
And that's where we just kindof revert to like more lizard
brains, instinctual operatingsystems, and not like higher
level, really thinking throughthings deeply and from different
(09:50):
angles.
You know 100, you know, yeah,and then there's also like the
impact on just your training.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You know I was just saying, well, yeah, the
physiological implications, thescience behind what sleep does I
mean?
There's that meta study thatcame out like four or five years
ago.
That was done over like over adecade.
And it was just like itbasically showed that, like
sleep is the absolute mostimportant thing.
You know it affects yourendocrine system or your
(10:19):
hormonal systems, your recovery,all your protein synthesis
protein synthesis when you buildmuscles happening at night.
Your testosterone tends to behighest at night.
If you're a male, you know allof all of these components that
are just part of your overallecosystem, of your body are all
being regulated and if you'renot getting good sleep and those
things just don't happen, youdon't get good recovery, you
don't build as much muscle, yourhormonal system is going to
(10:39):
start getting out of whack andnot being as regulated.
You know there's just so manythings that go into the recovery
aspect of sleep and theregulation of our sleep, and I
think a lot of it too is likeour urban environments, like
especially if you live in anurban environment, we have so
much coming at us.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's just like noise and light pollution.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
All of the things, whether it's lifestyle and the
line of work I mean, how manydigital nomads I know that are
on call, where if the servergoes down at 4 am and they call,
they have to be available,Whereas that's a very specific
lifestyle where now things arejust kind of out of whack and
you have to sacrifice that sleep.
But the physiologicalcomponents really are so real,
(11:21):
they are so, so real and I thinkit's like we consider all of
the like circumstantial andemotional components of our
lives and they come first and Idon't think we really realize
just how we feel in our bodiesand all the things we're kind of
talking about that come fromgood sleep, that then affect all
those circumstances that wejust don't honor as much, and
(11:42):
it's like like we were saying wejust sacrifice sleep, when we
don't realize that, likephysiologically, we're affecting
our vessel so much.
It's not just like, oh, I'mgonna be tired tomorrow, but I
have to do this, and xyz, it'slike no, like you are literally
gonna feel like shit over andover again yeah, and then you're
gonna normalize feeling likeshit, and so you.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
it's like this vicious cycle where it just
keeps getting worse because youfeel like shit.
Then feeling like shit makesyou want to give yourself a free
day on your workouts, or justnot want to cook dinner Cause
you don't feel like it, so youjust order it out, or you have
three cups of coffee and you'reall strung out Coffee all
morning alcohol at night?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Exactly, you're not strung out at night.
I mean you know how many timesmyself or my partner or other
people where it's like, oh, Iget myself, or my partner or
other people where it's like, oh, I get home, and because, like,
your body will releasenorepinephrine and epinephrine
and adrenaline and cortisol tokeep you running through the day
because your life requires that.
And so now you get through theend of the day and you've been
running on empty and you'refrazzling your nervous system.
(12:47):
And so you finally get homefrom work and you're like kind
of blinking your eye and likewhere the fuck did the day go?
I just struggled through that.
And now you want reprievebecause your nervous system is
showing up the way it needs to,based on your life, to make it
through the day.
And now you're just, you're allshaky or you just you just
didn't have a moment to yourself.
You just you fucking hated theday.
(13:07):
Your, your actual emotions,you're, you have negative it all
just comes back.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
You're like, oh, I fucking hated my job today.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Oh, my spouse was annoying me.
Oh, like I didn't want to takethe dogs for a walk.
Like I just emotionallystruggled throughout the day
because I'm just like graspingat straws and like you said.
Well, now I just want to cope.
Maybe I want to reach for adrink, just want to cope.
I want to cope.
I want to do this.
Now.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I want to binge watch netflix because I want to
escape my life or I want justlike not, I want to, I want to.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I mean, I know that for me, is that so often like
watching tv, is this reprieve oflike fuck, like my day has just
been a lot.
I want to escape.
And I want to escape.
And I'm not saying thatwatching tv is bad or escaping
into a television show is a badthing, but I think when we are
just physiologically strugglingto get through the day whether
(13:55):
the day is actually that bad ornot we have this sense of this
was so hard and it's a lot ofit's just physiology the day
might have not been that bad.
That's that like the normal,that more exactly, bandwidth,
like that normal drive to workmight have been extra shitty
because you just didn't evenwant to like, you just don't got
.
Well, you know, you're just not, you lose your patience.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know it's like when you're tired and someone
cuts you off, it's like nextthing you know you're, you're
just like flipping them off.
You're like, you're like whowas that where?
If you're well rested andyou're in a good present state
of mind, if someone cuts you off, just go, whatever.
You know it's so, it's like.
That's like that how stress isso relative and it just depends.
Stress is damaging to the pointthat you react to it, right.
(14:36):
So if in that exact example, youknow, if I allow myself to have
like this, you know,sympathetic nervous system
outburst and trigger like crazebecause someone cut me off God
forbid in traffic and because Ihadn't slept, and the last three
nights I've been drinking toomuch caffeine in the morning and
(14:58):
drink too much alcohol at night, not sleeping well, and just
this, like digging this negativespiral down, all of a sudden
someone cuts you off and youexplode like in to go into
lizard brain.
Like you create such a stressresponse, right, that could
frazzle you all day and you'retelling, telling people, this
person, I was at the light and Ihad to ride away and you're
just like holding on to thisthing that's just continuing to
(15:19):
cause more and more stressversus.
You know you slowly climbyourself out of that deficit,
you practice good sleep hygiene,you pay attention to these
triggers and these impulses, andthen that exact same situation
happens and the guy pulls out infront of you and maybe you just
flip him the bird and turn backyour radio on and just like
start singing to your favoriteartist and you show up to work
(15:42):
and you say, hey, bill, how'severybody doing?
And like exact same situation,completely different stress
responses, and so a lot of thatcan be just boiled down to.
It's like this secret littlelayer of our lives called sleep
that we live in a culture thatis okay with us, like burn the
midnight oil, and there's somesense of pride and a badge of
(16:03):
honor of like, oh man, I onlyslept like two hours last night
because I was working, or justwhatever.
And it's like it's just one ofthose moments to recognize that,
like it only hurts you andwhatever rationalization we come
up with to justify not getting,not initiating those evening
(16:25):
routines, not turning the lightsdown and getting the tea kettle
on, and you know, whatever thatis for you to start trailing
your brain.
It's getting close to bedtime.
Now let's start getting readyfor that.
You know, the longer youpostpone doing that, then just
sort of like the worse thosevicious cycles tend to get.
(16:46):
You know it affects, like wewere saying earlier, you're too
tired to work out.
Now you're skipping yourworkouts.
And you're skipping yourworkouts and you're ordering
takeout food.
And you're ordering takeoutfood and you're ordering takeout
food and then, like the nextmorning, you wake up all puffy
because you had too much saltand you didn't sleep well
because you ate a bunch of spicytacos.
It's just this vicious cycleright, and it's like it's very
hard to like.
Look at that, because everyonehas reward behavior.
(17:09):
I had a hard day.
It's like I hear you but you'renot that unique.
I'm so sorry to have to tellyou this, but you're not that
special Like.
Everybody is stressed out.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Everybody is doing their best, everyone is like
figuring out what the hell thislife that we're in even means,
and it's like yet we can choosethere is always that there's
always a choice well, and itgoes to something we were
talking about pre-show is that,like willpower and the ability
to make hard decisions, isdirectly correlated to the level
(17:45):
of sleep and I think it's like,especially if you're trying to
modify the way you eat or modifyyour activity levels.
You know, if you're on thisjourney where you're trying to
implement behavioral changes,that's already going to require
some form of discipline, it'salready going to require some
form of willpower that mighttest your reserves in that
(18:07):
capacity, your reserves in thatcapacity.
And if a lack of sleepdiminishes significantly your
ability to have willpower andmake certain decisions, then
this, this forging a new patternof life, if you're not already
in this flow is going to be thatmuch more challenging.
And so it's like you know we'retalking about the backend, but
it's also limiting youinevitably fall to the backend,
(18:30):
but it's just going to basicallycap or just completely destroy
your ability to forge ahead intosomething new.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's almost like when you it's like practically
getting good sleep is sort oflike the anchor of like just
good lifestyle choices yeah,it's like it is.
It is the most fundamental it'salmost like the better your
sleep gets, the more of a moatyou create, create to sort of
keep all of the bad decisions atbay.
Yeah, 100%.
And then the worse your sleepgets.
It's like that you start todrain and shrink up that moat
(19:00):
and all of a sudden, the takeout, the skipping workouts the
binge watching TV, the alcohol,the social media, it just starts
, you know, it's like a siege.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You don't need an archer, you don't need like a
crazy cannonball to get to thecastle.
Right, it's like you can justlike literally like throw a rock
and hit the castle but you know.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But to your point, you know you get good sleep and
you think clearly now, and allof a sudden you don't really
have the same cravings becauseyou're, you're rested, you feel
good.
You don't want to mess that up.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You feel and and you just fill that moat back up,
which just keeps you in thatmomentum of just like virtuous
cycles versus vicious cycles,and I think it's like if life's
about momentums and stackingupon little decisions we make to
then build a momentum and builda momentum, and I think it's
like the ability to build apositive momentum without, like
(19:51):
you said, that foundation thereis.
It's almost like we'reundermining ourselves and so
then we might sit there and say,oh, I want to lose this amount
of weight, or I want to startexercising, or I want to start
living certain lifestyle changes.
I want to play with my kidsmore.
I don't find it whatever.
I want to cook my own food.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It doesn't matter Hard to spend an hour cooking
your food with your kids ifyou're exhausted yeah, just
exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
So.
Again, it's just like theanchor, the foundation there's.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So many positive life experiences you could trace
back to.
You know like are you sleepingnow?
Listen, there's always theexceptions.
There's always people that weknow that for some reason can
get four or five hours everynight and live a wonderful full
life and seem to have no problemwith that.
That's a genetic thing it reallyis like that's 100 you know
that's just like that personjust genetically, just has the
(20:36):
ability to rest, you know, andthat's great.
I'm like the opposite like Ineed like eight or nine hours,
like if I want to feel reallygood, like I need like eight
hours absolutely, and that'ssomething like I I just didn't
even want to admit for so long.
So I thought that like that wassomehow, you know, taking away
from me as and like my worth asa human especially with our
culture, right I need nine hoursof sleep.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It's like but I think in any anybody's been going.
It's shown like out again likethe exceptions don't necessarily
make the rule and it's justbeen pretty conclusive yeah like
six as like an absolute minimum.
Eight is really an optimalgeneral zone.
It might be seven for some, itmight be nine for some, but that
like it's pretty factual.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, there's really no like, yeah, there's not
really like, like, likespeculation here about this.
This is, it's pretty concreteum, you know so.
So at various points in my lifeand career I've always, you
know, dug into like well, how dowe do?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
this.
I was gonna say so what aresome strategies?
Yeah, and how do we get?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
because here's the thing, like we don't want to get
addicted to sleeping pills, wedon't want to be taking 20 grams
of melatonin every night and,like you know, so we want to.
We want to, like, get ourselvesto this place where, you know,
our brain is designed to adaptto its environment and so for
better or for worse, and thateven if that means that you
might shave off 10 years becauseyou have a heart attack.
(21:53):
If your brain's adapting to justnot sleeping ever, then your
brain's going to adapt.
But the opposite's true as well, and we start like laying
little breadcrumbs down forourselves and we start thinking
about sleep earlier in the day.
You know it's like it's.
It's analogous to a lot ofthings in life.
Just because you know you wantto work out three days a week
doesn't mean that you just likecross your fingers and hope that
(22:15):
three amazing opportunities perweek present themselves like no
, you gotta, you gotta plan it alittle forward so monday is
gonna be this, then wednesday isgonna be this and then friday
is gonna be this.
I'm gonna do my walk mondaythrough friday at noon at my
lunch break.
Like you have to be intentional, and I think that sleep is like
that too.
Like think about it.
Okay, like the easiest one isno caffeine afternoon.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
No like after 12 pm, no more caffeine next, the
half-life caffeine will start toleak into your bedtime because
there's exactly, there's the.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
There's like the first hit of caffeine where you
actually feel it, but thenthere's like that half-life that
can last for six to eight hours.
Yeah, exactly and that's whereyou don't even feel the effects
anymore.
But your brain's just alert,you know, and so you need to
give it plenty of time to cycleout.
So you know you adjust thosetimes according to your schedule
.
Like, we have a lot of nurseswe work with and so they might
have to sleep until 2 pm becausethey work nights, and so you
(23:06):
know, figure out like what thosenumbers are for you, but
essentially at least 10 hoursbefore bed caffeine needs to be
done with In an optimal state,100% Done 10 hours.
And then it's like try to getyour last meal around three
hours, not to say there'sanything that's going to, you
know, like there's anythingnecessarily wrong with if you
(23:28):
have to eat a little bit later.
You got to do what you got todo, right.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
If life circumstances requires it, but yeah, right.
But we do find that like two tothree hours before bed if you
have a super full stomach itcould disrupt your sleep.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
You know you might wake up in the night, you might
have like heartburn, you mightbe like thirsty because your
body's digesting food and so youknow if you got to do what you
got to do sometimes.
But if you you can.
It's that two to three hoursbefore bed.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It's the same for exercise.
Yeah, again, I think it wouldbe better to get an exercise
session in if you had to, evenif that means you're an hour
before bed.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Right yeah, versus not doing it, but in an optimal
place.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's going to basically create a sympathetic
nervous state.
You're going to go into thatfight or flight.
You're going to releaseadrenaline and cortisol, just
because that's the nature of thestress of exercise it's going
to jazz your nervous system upand so it doesn't really let you
wind down in the same way.
So if we're talking aboutoptimal uh, you know, optimal,
yeah, yeah, practices, thatwould be again.
Yeah, there are exceptions.
(24:26):
I think it's better to get theworkout in.
But if we're looking to createthat good sleep hygiene, looking
to try to aim, when we'retalking about planning our
workouts and looking at our weekand creating our schedule is to
try to do that, yeah, samething.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
A hundred percent.
And then and then I think thebig one and the probably the
most overlooked is one hourbefore bed we got to start
initiating evening routines,yeah, and so what that looks
like is for me it's 9 pm,because I like to be close to
sleep, sleep not just in bed,but sleep by 10.
Doesn't always work out thatway, but that's the goal.
(25:02):
And I think that's the takeawaywith sleep hygiene is that you
can brush your teeth every day.
That doesn't mean you're notgoing to get a cavity.
Can brush your teeth every day,that doesn't mean you're not
going to get a cavity.
It just means that you're doingwhat you can to try to prevent
unnecessary downside.
You know what I mean?
It's just like optimizing forupside and trying to prevent
downside, not to say any.
Anything is guaranteed.
(25:23):
It's just you're just doingyour best.
And I think that's the thingwhen you think of the 10, 3, 2,
1.
Uh sleep strategy is caffeine10 hours before bed, food and
alcohol three hours before bed.
So it's kind of in yourmetabolized enough two hours
before bed.
You know no more exercise.
And then one hour before bed isreally just initiating those
(25:43):
evening routines, and what thatlooks like for me is screens off
, so for watching tv.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I mean because I think there's like there's two
things that we're kind oftalking about is like, because I
think the one hour rule, morethan even the ritual, the sleep
ritual is like no screens andit's such a hard one to do
because again, it's in our freetime.
We might want to watch tv toescape, we want to fuck around
on our phones because finallythe day is done and we have the
freedom to not be bound, butthat limiting screen time one
(26:14):
hour before bed is so huge.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Well, it's circadian rhythm, so blue light from our
screens, especially our phonesand tablets that are like right
up in our face, it just triggers, even if you have like a red
light filter on.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
It just doesn't matter, and it's just the nature
of social media.
It's the nature of our phones.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, it's the stimulus, it it just doesn't
matter and it's just the natureof social media, it's the nature
of our phones.
Yeah, it's the stimulus, it'sthe dopamine hit.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
It's this whole, like jazz, you love more.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
It's not this.
Let me wind down Totally,totally.
And so you know whatever thatmeans like turn the TV off, put
your phone on the charger.
I like to take a shower atnight.
It's like a hot shower.
Hot shower's huge.
I like to get some bedtime teagoing, and so then we listen to
an audio book, and so all thatkind of happens in 30, 40
minutes.
We kind of wind it down TV'soff, shower, get the tea going,
(26:58):
you know, get ready for bed.
And then it's like we lay inbed with tea, put the audible
timer on for like 30, 40 minutesand just listen to the most
boring audio book, but likeit'll be like a, a biography of
george, george washington rightnow we're doing a biography of
einstein and so you, you sit,you lay there, you're like, oh
wow, that's so crazy quantumphysics.
(27:19):
You know it really does I wouldsay 75, it works 75 of the time.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
There's always the 20 that like 25 but the the
bedtime ritual like when I'vegotten the most sleep, and it's
amazing because you do literallytrain your brain it's not just
like oh, these things arerelaxing, like having tea is
relaxing, like it's.
No, it's that if you actuallycommit to this rhythm, your
brain gets trained to understandthat when you have tea, that
(27:46):
you're in bed or you startstretching at night or you do
some self-massage or you listento an audiobook book, that
that's triggering to your brainthat you're going to go to sleep
.
And if you commit to thatpattern enough, it's not just
like, oh, this is a relaxingactivity or it's not being on
your phone, it's that itactually is creating a
physiological response for yourbrain to be like oh, it's
bedtime.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
You condition yourself now.
It's just like you cancondition yourself to like oh,
it's 10, time to watch TV.
Well, that's conditioning.
We're just a bundled ball ofconditioned responses.
That's all we are.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I got home at 9, I'll order some takeout.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I'll wait for it to come, I'll watch.
Tv until it gets there, and Ispeak from personal experience
where I've been, in that placewhere I'm just like yeah, like
oh this feels good.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
This is the barrier of least entry, because it does
feel good, it is indulgence, andindulgence always is short-term
gratification and long-termkind of struggle.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You're like fuck, this isn't working.
But the opposite is true, likewithin a month's time, next
thing you know it's 9 pm, tv'soff and it's like, ooh, let's
finish up that biography.
What kind of bedtime tea did weget?
We got these.
A nice like there.
You do look forward to it, youdo kind of anticipate it and it
(28:57):
triggers that parasympatheticnervous system, just like
massage would.
That's why people fall asleep inmassages, just like stretching
or rolling or or whatever you do, or listening to a guided
meditation Guided meditation,but like we have to like you
know, your your sympatheticnervous system's kind of
counterintuitive, becausesympathetic kind of feels like
it'd be gentler, but really thatis more of your stress, fight
(29:18):
or flight.
And then your parasympatheticnervous system is more like your
present moment you're relaxed,you're just.
You know, you're just in astate of, of, of relaxation yeah
, and so we got to get thatparasympathetic nervous system
activated before bed and sowatching like fucking social
media reels and eating war movieor like a suspense documentary.
(29:40):
Yeah, it's like this is notgonna work, not really what's
best and so you know, dim lights, candlelight, audiobook,
bedtime, tea, hot shower, astretch, you know whatever,
because our body temperaturenaturally drops when we sleep.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, and it's like the same way that cultures drink
hot tea in hot cultures is thatwhen you expose yourself to
heat, you have a reactionaryphysiological response of
dropping body temperature and soa super hot shower at night has
actually been shown tofacilitate a better, more
significant drop in bodytemperature as you sleep yeah.
Which facilitates more deepsleep, not even REM, but way
(30:17):
deep sleep Right, right, right,right.
more hormonal response and youknow it makes a lot of sense
yeah, and I think like in theend it comes back to what we've
talked about many times withnutrition is that there has to
be like a degree of personalresponsibility.
Yep, you know you, you can'tjust wish for the best like you
have to choose to take this onas my best.
Life will be lived with XYZ, soI need to take this choice on
(30:41):
and make conscious choices.
And in doing that, what are thetools?
How do I meal prep easy?
How do I plan and count mycalories the easiest way, or
what tools allow me to be in acaloric deficit in the easiest
way for my lifestyle?
There's a degree ofself-responsibility that has to
be chosen because you recognizeit's important to then learn the
tools and make it as accessiblein your life as possible.
(31:04):
And I think sleep's the same way.
Is that we kind of just like,oh yeah, sleep.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Oh, I only got five hours last night.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
It happens when I'm tired, yeah it happens when I'm
tired, and I think it's the samedegree of that.
It's more personalresponsibility, but that's life.
And that has to be a choice thatyou then make to understand how
important sleep is which is thewhole first half of this
conversation to then recognizethat it's so important that I'm
going to make a consciousdecision about it.
(31:28):
Then I'm going to make thatconscious decision, learn the
tools, learn about sleep hygiene, start making intentional
decisions in my life to reflectthat and then hopefully build
this new pattern so that I canreap the most decisions in my
life to reflect that and thenhopefully build this new pattern
so that I can reap the most outof my life, because if you
don't fucking sleep, you're notgoing to have the best life you
know exactly 100.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And it's like why are humans apex animals?
Because we don't get sleep andwe work hard?
It's because we can plan.
We have the ability to plan andto think about the future.
And if we sleep when we'retired, we eat when we're hungry,
we drink when we're thirsty,we're no different than every
(32:08):
other animal.
But if we just go, let me thinkabout my day when.
What am I going to eat?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
especially in this modern day lifestyle for hunter
gatherers.
Maybe we're sure, but likeright now, we don't.
We do this.
Everything is so malleable.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The beautiful thing is that we can design.
It's called lifestyle design,folks, and we can actually
create the reality that we wantfor ourselves by these daily,
weekly, monthly, annual choices.
You get good sleep, you eathealthy, you drink your water,
you, you are probably makingbetter decisions and aligning
yourself with better than 90% ofthe population out there.
(32:43):
Just by those fundamentalbaseline choices, you're
thinking clearly, you're in agood mood, you know you're
probably more creative, you wantto take more risks, all more,
all the, all the things thatthat equal up to like success.
However you want to define thatprobably all come and sprout
(33:06):
from the foundation of just thebasics in our life, that being
optimized and we can plan that.
The good thing is is that, like,you can decide to do that.
You can get, you know, you canget the right black out curtain
so you don't get woken up toosoon.
You can, you can.
You can get bedtime teas.
You can uh, you know, um decideto exercise.
(33:27):
There's all these things likeit's just a choice.
But I really love how, I lovethe analogy of the moat being
filled by getting good rest,because it just puts you in such
a better position to makesmarter choices and keep all
those bad sort of like bad lowself-discipline choices at bay,
right, because you're thinkingat a higher level, the mode of
(33:49):
response versus the dry bed ofreaction, dry bed of reaction,
exactly.
So I hope that helps, guys.
You know the big takeaway isthe 10-3-2-1 caffeine, food and
alcohol evening routines.
Initiate them before bed andreally have an intention of like
going to bed and waking up andyou know, within a month's time
(34:09):
I'm sure you'll see a hugedifference.
But that's episode 55 of the.
Grand Scheme of Fitness.
How sleep is so important.
Hope you guys enjoyed it.
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