PNTV: Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson (#300)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv.

Today we've got another great book, Sleep Smarter by Sean Stephenson. Sleep smarter, subtitled 21 Proven Tips to sleep. Your way to a better body, better health and bigger success. Shawn Stevenson has a super popular podcast.

Check it out.

I think it is called the Model Health Podcast. Let me check that out to confirm the Model Health show. Look for that.

We'll link it below as well.

And this is a great book. 21 super practical tips. If you're going to read a book.

On sleep, check this one out.

Really highly rated on Amazon. I used it as one of the core preps for optimal sleep 101, which we're going to share soon. Packed with big ideas, 21 proven tips to rock it. Philosopher's Note, a few of my favorites and we've got five of them here. So the first thing, the first tip in Sleeping Smarter is to recognize the fact that sleep is the secret sauce. You need to. As James Moss, another classic sleep researcher out of Cornell says, we need to realize that sleep is a necessity, not a luxury. Too many people think sleep is a luxury. It's not. Good sleep is connected to every single marker of your well being and optimization from obesity and depression and your memory and performance on your job and creative work. Sleep is the secret sauce. The number one tip is see it as important because if you don't prioritize it and it doesn't actually have value for you, you're never going to be motivated to change your behaviors accordingly. That's our first big idea. And the question for you is do you value sleep? Do you think you can get by? And the proper quantity, if you believe the researchers, is seven and a half to nine hours. There are very few people who can get by with less time than that. Right now you might hold a long conversation. We'll leave it at that. So how are you doing on that? And do you believe that sleep is important? Secret sauce. Assuming you do believe that sleep is important, you can do a little bit to optimize it. We'll move on to the number one thing that you can do to dial it in. The second chapter was to get morning sun, which is another tip. Right? Set your circadian clock. And then the next tip I believe was this one. Reduce screen time at night. Your TV, your iPhone, your iPad, etc. Are emitting blue light, which by now you're probably very aware of. That blue light frequency didn't exist until very recently. We used to have fires at night. Okay, cool. Very different frequency than your TV blaring at you, right? So when we have that blue light come into our lives and into our eyes, etc.

Whole other conversation.

But apparently your skin has photoreceptors. It can actually see in its own way, which is why I just got blackout curtains for our rooms. Get rid of all light. Darkness is important, right? But this blue light is affecting our melatonin. Emerson's actually hilarious. Our three and a half year old son, we're all about digital sunset. His mom wears these funny orange glasses that block blue light if she's going to read on the dim setting on her iPhone after putting him to bed. We use blue light friendly lights in our bathroom, right? And Emerson literally said to me the other night, melatonin disrupts your. I'm sorry, bright lights disrupts your melatonin. Yeah, exactly. Bright lights, blue light disrupts your melatonin.

Keep that in mind if you are.

Jacking up yourself with iPhones. 50% of people go to bed with their iPhones next to them. Last thing they do is check them at night. First thing to do in the morning is check it.

Right?

This is not wise. And research shows that it takes longer for those individuals to get into deep sleep. Takes them longer and. And they spend less time in deep sleep than people who don't do that. So if you're doing that, quit doing that. Not only are you getting the blue light, but you're also stimulating yourself. And as awesome as it is that Edison invented the light bulb in 1879, right? That was less than 150 years ago after millions of years of evolution, of dealing with candlelight, right. And very basic frequencies. Now you flip on even a hundred watt bulb and you're going to start disrupting your patterns that are getting you entrained with circadian rhythms. And then you go, 50 years ago, TV. It was only over the last 10 years that we can jack ourselves up that much all the time. And Sean says, look, people who were roaming out at night, not tending the fire and making sure everything was cool, but actually going out and just cruising around at night, we were prey. We did not evolve to be super active at night. So just because you can now because of technological advances, doesn't mean you should check in on that. Turn off the screens. That's the number one way to boost your sleep. We'll talk about my practices in the final Big idea. And then here's a cool idea. Caffeine. Sean talks about the fact that we need to have a curfew on our caffeine. Caffeine has a half life of five to eight hours, which means if you drink 200 milligrams of caffeine at noon, say five to eight hours later, half of that 200 milligrams, which is 100 milligrams for the non math majors, is still in your system. Half life of five to eight years. Caffeine takes a long time to get out of your system. Important to know. And if you don't want to be jacked up and buzzing when you're trying to go to sleep, you need to set a curfew on your caffeine. But here's what's cool. I never knew about something called adenosine. Adenosine is, is basically something that's a byproduct of your brain working. Your brain is working, neurons are firing, and adenosine is released, and it goes into receptors that basically signal your body that you're tired.

Right?

Pretty sophisticated system you work. The byproducts go into a receptor which signals, hey, we're going to need to rest pretty soon. You get enough of that adenosine in there and you need to shut off. What caffeine does is it doesn't actually give you energy. We all think that caffeine gives us energy. It doesn't actually give us energy per se. What it does is it blocks the adenosine from going into the receptors. Caffeine is like adenosine enough that it sneaks into the receptors, and then the adenosine is just kind of hanging out, and it can't actually get in there to the receptors to say, we're tired. So it's not so much that you're getting energy per se as you're masking fatigue, right? Oh, man, I'm super tired.

Boom.

You get some caffeine and you quit getting the adenosine signaling that you're tired. Very interesting thing. So know this caffeine has that half life. You want to have a curfew, and you want to use caffeine strategically, not habitually.

Check that out. Somewhere recently.

I love that phrase, strategically, not habitually. I use it twice a month for my master classes in the form of coffee.

Right?

Strategically, not habitually. Remember the half life. Set a curfew. If you're drinking caffeine late into the day and you're not sleeping the way you want. That's a really powerful, easy way to boost your sleep.

Remember that.

The fourth thing is the off switch. So the off switch. I love that phrase that Sean shared, and I use it as one of the big ideas in Optimal Sleep 101. Flipping the off switch. One of the most common complaints for people of why they stay up and have insomnia or can't sleep the way they want is their mind is too busy or anxious. In a word, right? We want to get good at flipping the off switch. And Shawn talks about research that shares and shows that people who meditate in the AM sleep better in the PM. One of the last PNTVs we did was on Choke by Sian Bailak, right?

One of the world's leading experts on.

Why we choke and don't perform at our best. Well, the reason is worry. And one of the best ways to conquer worry is to meditate. So you can deal with your choking and you can deal with your insomnia by learning how to meditate, to control your thoughts, to be able to flip the off switch. One of the things I do every single time I meditate, every single time I take a nap or napitation, and every single time I go to sleep is I do five deep breaths, inhaling to six, holding for two, exhaling for eight. Let's do one right now. Inhale to six, Hold for two and exhale for six. Roughly. Inhale for six, hold for two, exhale for eight. Even just doing one of those boom just drops you in, grounds you more, and it flips off your brain.

Deep breathing is the quickest way to.

Get out of your sympathetic fight or flight into the parasympathetic restorative mindset where your thoughts are slower, et cetera. I do that. I do five of those breaths every single time I meditate, take a nap and fall asleep. It's a way that I flip the off switch, which is tied to our final big idea, which is rightis r I t u s. It's Latin or Greek for ritual, and it literally means a proven. So a ritual or ritus is a proven way to do something. Well, that's pretty cool. If I figure out a way to do something that works, I'd be very, very wise to make it a ritual, to make it a habit, a rightist. And it's never more important. There's a few areas of our lives where it's as important as our sleep routine. We want to be consistent. You don't want to go to bed at one time one night and sleep in. Then another time, another night and sleep in. You're going to get jet lag. You want to be regular in your rhythms, ideally aligned at least closely to, if not perfectly with the circadian rhythms. It's the most fundamental rhythm we have. So create nighttime rituals. When you have a great night of sleep, what do you do? What do you tend to do habitually? You got to know those things. I do that, and then I do this, and then I do that, and then I do that. Some of my nighttime rituals include shutting down early, honoring this number one, reduce screen time idea.

Right.

Digital sunset. I talk about it all the time. The sun goes down, our electronics go off. Then it's family time. It's not intense work time. I'm turning my brain off. Shut down complete is how Cal Newport describes it. I love that idea.

Right.

Dinner earlier. Dinner with the family. Another great way to mess up your sleep is to have a huge meal right before you try to go to bed. Not a good idea. Set a curfew to that three hours before. Tangent. Another idea. Don't exercise intensely right before you want to go to bed. You're raising your core body temperature. Not a good idea. So anyway, I do the family time. Dinner, puzzles, bath with Emerson and then get him into bed. And then I do my shower. I do a hot shower, and then I have a cool room. Another big idea, tiny little thing. But if your thermostat is set at like 72 suboptimal, 60 to 68 degrees is what researchers say is the optimal area. We want to stay cool. That's an important part of my nighttime ritual. Make sure the thermostat is set where I want it to be set. For me, it's 67 is my current favorite. I've tested with different things. Sean jokingly says, don't dress like an arctic hunter. Don't be so bundled. It's harder for your body to stay cool than it is to get warm. And it's really important to stay cool and have a low core body temperature if you want to sleep well. Insomniacs have a higher core body temperature. We talk about all these ideas a lot more in optimal sleep 101, which I'll be sharing soon. And there you go. Quick look at Sleep Smarter. It's a really great book.

I think you'll dig it.

Simple, to the point. Funny. We have our nighttime rituals. What are yours? Identify it and then get 4% better. Get a little bit better. Make it fun. Figure out a way to do something and do it well. Then also remember that your nighttime, your nighttime dictates your next morning. Hal Elrod's team was out filming me for a documentary he's creating on the miracle morning. And we were talking about my miracle morning. And I talked a ton about the fact that my morning starts the night before. I love creating in the morning and having a great day. So I make sure that my night is super solid. Then I can bet on having great energy in the morning. So remember, these rituals are super important. Figure out yours. The off switch. You got to be able to turn off your mind. People who meditate in the morning sleep better at night. Adenosine and caffeine. Put a curfew on your caffeine. Remember that it's just masking fatigue, which isn't wise to do habitually. The second big idea that we covered was the number one tip to get better sleep. Reduce screen time. Melatonin disrupts your. I'm sorry, bright light disrupts your melatonin.

We don't want to do that.

And then the first big idea was recognizing the value of sleep. It is the secret sauce. It's shocking how connected it is to diabetes, obesity, depression, your memory, performance, et cetera, et cetera. See the value of it. So you prioritize enough to get it done. In the sleep class, I talked about the fact that really it comes down to you need to value your own optimization and actualization over being entertained. Because that's what most of us are doing. Not all of us, but most of us with that extra time. It's what I used to do at night is I'm just, I'm getting a little bit more entertainment. But that hour or whatever of entertainment we can plug into our sleep and get such huge benefits in the process of actualizing. So think about it. What's the big idea that jumped out and landed the most? How can you make it a more regular part of your life and have another awesome day? Thank you Sean for the great book.

See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that PNTV episode. A lot of people don't know all the stuff I do beyond these free videos I share on YouTube. So I. So I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program that you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff. So here's a quick look. Ten bucks a month. Join the Optimal Living Membership program. You get Instant Access to 250 Philosopher's Notes on some of the best Optimal Living books out there. Old school classics, positive psychology, modern stuff, Mindfulness, peak performance, purpose, neuroscience, wealth, etc.

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