In this episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick introduces the first part of a multi‑part health series focused on sleep. He acknowledges that while the importance of sleep is widely known, the episode’s purpose is to share concrete, personal strategies he uses to improve his own sleep quality. He outlines five key areas: (1) maintaining a consistent sleep schedule aligned with sunrise and sunset to support the circadian rhythm; (2) optimizing the sleep environment by ensuring darkness, quiet, and a cool temperature, using tools such as a sleep mask, earplugs, and temperature‑regulating bed pads; (3) establishing a screen‑free bedtime routine that includes low‑light activities like reading or a bath; (4) limiting exposure to blue‑light emitting screens for at least an hour before bed; and (5) incorporating regular daytime physical activity, which promotes deeper sleep and reduces stress. Throughout, he references advice from Dr. John Thoma, emphasizes personal accountability, and ends with a reflective question prompting listeners to identify which of these actions they can implement immediately. The episode is delivered in a conversational, motivational tone, encouraging listeners to take actionable steps toward better sleep.
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Hello everyone, it's Caitlin from No Days Off. If you've been listening this week, then you know that we are currently sharing our top 5 episodes. These are our most downloaded and most shared episodes to date. So today we're sharing part 4 of 5, and this episode is actually the first episode we released in our health series last month. So we're excited to bring it back for you all. Don't forget to share this episode with others and let's continue to grow our No Days Off movement. Enjoy the episode.
Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. Actually, it is going to be part 1 of a multi-part health series that I've been really, really looking forward to doing, and today we're gonna start with sleep, getting better sleep. Let me talk about real quick the health series I'd like to run. Obviously, if you're a listener, you know that our episodes are 5 to 10, maybe 11 minutes long, and so we are not going to solve all health challenges in our 5 to 10 minutes together each day. And I'm not the expert in health. I am simply somebody that aims to get better every single day in terms of my health. And the areas that we're going to focus on, well, selfishly, they're the areas that I'm focusing on. And in talking about it with you, I hope to impart some wisdom. You take from maybe what I've learned, but it also holds me accountable to honoring what it is I'm sharing. And I'm going to start, uh, part 1 here today discussing sleep. I do not need to share with everybody the statistics around the importance of sleep. I think that Instagram and Facebook do a fantastic job of that. You can also walk into any bookstore and see countless books literally about how to improve your sleep. We know it's important. We know that just as human beings, when we wake up refreshed, we function differently, our mind is clearer, the decisions we make are better, our attitude is better, our relationships just flow much more easily. Everything is better if we in fact sleep. And if we sleep, have a solid sleep for consecutive days, I don't know about you, but I know for me, it just, it just gets better and better from there. So you can look up the stats, but I don't think I have to prove to you the science behind sleep. But what I want to talk about are the steps that we can take to in fact improve our sleep quality. And these are specifically things that I'm doing myself to up my game. In no exact order, let's get, let's get into this list. The first thing I'd like to discuss, first thing I had to work on personally, was sticking to a consistent sleep schedule. I've quoted my friend Dr. John Thoma on our episodes in the past. And I will tell you that Dr. John would tell you sleep is one of two things that are most important in all of your world, all of your life. The other one, by the way, is light and sun. No surprise, we're going to talk about that in a future episode. But sleep is right up there. And what John would talk to you about is not just the quantity of sleep you're getting, but the time in which you're going to bed and the time that you rise. He'd talk around circadian rhythm. So what John believes, and what I got a second, is we should go to bed not only the same time at night and wake up ideally at the same time every day, even on weekends. We should really aim to go to bed shortly after sunset and rise at sunrise. The reality is that we as human beings, that's how we're wired, and our ancestors went to bed with the sun when the sun was going down and they woke up when the sun was coming up. That is how we're hardwired. And if we honored that schedule, while not necessarily practical for everybody, if we honored it, obviously we'd feel better. I don't think there's anything that's going to shock the heck out of you about what I'm sharing today. Like we intuitively, we know these things. Staying on a consistent sleep schedule and ideally going to bed with the up and down of the sun, is going to regulate your body's internal clock. And when you do that, your quality of sleep is going to be better. Next thing, the next area I worked on personally, uh, increase or improve or create more comfort in your sleeping environment. So have the right bed, of course, but more importantly, I think you got to make sure it's dark, you got to make sure it's quiet, and you got to make sure that the temperature is right. For me personally, I look like a clown when I go to bed. I really do. Why? Well, because I have a sleep mask. I usually put in earplugs. And the reason for that, I want it as dark as I can get it, and I want it as quiet as I can get it. Not only that, I am one of those that has one of the SleepPads, the pads on my bed that regulates the temperature. Mine's made specifically for the type of bed I have, but there's lots of brands out there The Chili Pad, what's the other one called? Eight Sleep or whatever it's called. What do they do? They drop the temperature of the bed by a few degrees, which is exactly what you need in order to get into a state of REM. So I'm not saying get crazy and go all out, maybe like I have. Step 1 though would be blacking out your room and like eliminating any and all light. Even the slightest bit of light has an impact. Science would prove to you There is an impact with the slightest bit of light on your sleep. Your next thing you should be thinking around, again, these are the things I'm thinking around, make sure you're establishing a solid bedtime routine. What does your wind down look like? For me, it's reading. For my wife, it's taking a bath. For some of you, maybe it's meditation, or it's doing something ideally that does not involve blue light, which is the next thing we're going to talk about, limiting our exposure to screens. The light, again, this is stuff we could all Google, stuff we've all seen, the light that's coming from our phones, the light that's coming from our computers or the television that we're looking at before bed, it's totally messing with our body's sleep cycle. So we really should aim to put down our technology or get away from the TV at a minimum an hour, if not more, before bed. The math— I'm sorry, the science behind it tells you so. And I assure you that if you commit to this and you test it out, you would feel it when you wake up in the morning. This is full transparency. This is an area that I'm still working on quite a bit. It's not the phone. It's not the computer. I'm pretty distant from those things. It's the idea that I've got to wind down with something on TV before I pick up that book. And you know what? I need to eliminate it, and I'm working on it and creating habits around that, and it will be gone here soon. The last thing that I would like to mention before we wrap up, I really— I personally experienced this, I feel it, I know many of you do as well. If I want to sleep better, I gotta be more active in my day. Specifically, physical activity, regular physical activity, strenuous exercise, uh, not before I go to bed, but during the day. It will absolutely, uh, allow me to get to bed, uh, in a much easier manner. So regular physical activity promotes better sleep for me. Along with that, it does lower my stress. It does lower my worry because of the endorphins and the things that come with exercise. But regularly moving, being active, for many of you, maybe it's simply like getting 10,000 steps. Like you're not exercising, but you're moving and you're walking and you're tracking it. The more physical activity, the better for the sleep cycle. I mean, there's no trick to this. We all intuitively know this. So just some things to think about around sleep. We can all see this, we can all read it, we all hear it, we know the importance, but what I want to challenge you, challenge you on is in fact taking action around this. So the focusing question: of those things I just listed, where does the opportunity lie for you starting tonight? Can you change your sleep environment? Do you need to be more consistent with the time? You're going to sleep, do you have a good wind down? Are you establishing like good bedtime routine? Can you eliminate or at least limit the blue light, the screen time? Can you work out? Can you get more regular exercise? And will that increase your sleep, your ability to sleep? And will it also, of course, lower your stress and all that comes along with that? Lots to think about, lots of action steps. Please take action today. I think that you'll find it very valuable, and it will also aid us with these next things we talk about in the, in the coming episodes around health. But that's all we have for today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
