How to Have Limitless Energy with Shawn Stevenson & Jim Kwik

In order to become limitless, we do it together. I'm inviting a friend, a longtime friend, onto this Limitless Together series, and his name is Shawn Stevenson. And Shawn, thanks for joining us, buddy. If you could unmute and join us. Shawn is my personal energy coach. We talk about the power of energy, and I believe you don't have energy, you do energy. People wake up and say, I hope I have motivation, I hope I have creativity, I hope I have focus, I hope I have energy. But energy is not a noun, it's a verb. And Shawn is the bestselling author of one of my favorite books, Sleep Smarter. He supported me. If you've read my book and you see the area of energy where I talk about my sleep apnea, the obstructive sleep apnea that I have where I stop breathing over 200 times a night and it's very difficult to sleep, Shawn is one of my coaches. He is the head, he's founded The Model Health Show, which is consistently one of the top health podcasts on iTunes. Shawn, I could go on and on. Thanks for coming on, buddy.

It's my pleasure. Anytime, anything for you, Jim.

No, we appreciate it. So we have 1,857 people watching this live on Zoom alone, thousands more watching on the replay. We're probably going to turn this into a Kwik Brain podcast episode. We've had you on my show. I've been on your show. How many times have I been on your show? Good amount of times.

The most of anybody that's been on my show, yes.

Okay.

I love you, man, and, you know, we talk about a lot of the same things. So it's just been so grateful to have you in my life. I think it's been about 10 years now, you know, and I'm really pumped about this. I'm pumped about the mission. And what we're doing with Limitless. And so today we're going to be talking about energy. And I'm— the first thing, can I just jump right in, Jim, and get started?

Yeah.

Awesome. So the first thing for us to understand—

Zoom has a little bit of a lag today, so, um, so, so we appreciate it. Um, yeah, our team, they're extremely tactical, so maybe we could talk about 3 to 5 things for Limitless energy.

Absolutely, absolutely. And hopefully everybody can hear me okay, even if there's a little delay. So first thing that we have to understand is that energy starts from the top down. All right, it literally starts with the brain. Go figure that. So in understanding that, we have to look at what the brain itself is as far as an energy-consuming and regulating organ. Our brain, even though it's only about 2% of our body weight, it's consuming upwards of about 25 percent of our calories that we take in. Our brains are very, very hungry, very energy-hungry organs. And so, with that said, it's kind of important to understand that we have to feed our brain the right stuff. We understand that the energy we're taking into our bodies, the food we consume, is primarily going to your brain more than other organs. However, there's a little caveat there. Your brain has something called the blood-brain barrier. And it is the most choosy club in town as far as who can get past that velvet rope. So there's only certain nutrients, just a couple of dozen nutrients, that can actually cross the blood-brain barrier and feed that hungry brain. Alright, so understanding that energy is from the top down, number one. And number two, let's talk about— before I share with you something very specific, very tactical to add into your diet rigorously like never before, after I share the science with you, I want to share with you something to Avoid something to ratchet down a little bit, especially now more than ever. People are locked down and snacking like crazy, and that's okay. It's okay.

To a degree.

We have to understand something. So I want to share this study with you. So this was published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology, determined that excess sugar intake and insulin resistance is so connected to Alzheimer's disease that scientists are now referring to it as type 3 diabetes. All right, your brain does not do very well with a large amount of sugar coming in, so we have to be very careful about that. Your brain has a lot of receptor sites, obviously, for glucose. It's run primarily on glucose. But once we reach that tipping point, there's also insulin in your brain, and it can create this downregulation in insulin sensitivity, and it can cause a lot of problems with our energy. So I just want to give that as something for us to avoid, number one. And then, Jim, we can jump into something tactical to do to help to feed that hungry brain.

Absolutely. So what are, what are some of your favorite brain foods that give you your brain energy to fight mental fatigue? A lot of people that are working from home, they're under more, you know, stress and it's consuming a lot of energy.

Yeah, well, this— what I'm about to share The results are so— for some people, they happen so quickly, it's kind of hard to understand. But for me, I'm always looking at the science, like, how does this work so well? So what I want to share with people is that, number one, we're looking at what is your brain actually made of and what makes it run. The most— the largest structural piece of your brain besides water, which we'll get to in a moment, but the most dominant structural part of your brain is made of DHA. So it's made of an omega-3 fat called DHA. So when I say that this is the primary, most abundant structural part of your brain, that it's obviously important, but this is massively underutilized in our diet today. The vast majority of people are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, specifically the ones that our brain needs the most, which is DHA, EPA. Now, let me tell you exactly what it can do for your brain. So, there was research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and it discovered that increasing dietary levels of DHA was able to almost instantly improve both memory and reaction times in healthy test subjects. Your brain is hungry for DHA, very, very hungry for it. And for most of us, I know myself, I think about when I hear about omega-3s, I tend to think of fish oil supplements, because that's kind of primarily where we look at it from. But I'm also like, are fish oil supplements proven in clinical trials? And actually, they are. A placebo-controlled randomized trial in the Nutrition Journal found that healthy test subjects taking 3 grams of fish oil a day— now you're getting a specific amount here, guys— 3 grams of fish oil per day for 5 weeks significantly improved cognitive performance compared to participants taking a placebo. So, placebo double-blind controlled trial found that taking fish oil can help you to improve your cognitive performance. All right, so, and what's the number? 3 grams a day. That's our goal. So, with that said, what if you're just like, well, Shawn, I'm vegan, or I don't like fish, even the smell of fish, even watching Aquaman makes me gag. If you're in that position and you feel like that, there are some other options. So, we've got fish oil, which The reason I'm bringing up fish oil is that this has the clinical evidence, but we know we have DHA and EPA and other things like krill oil. That's another level down. It's a microscopic shrimp, and this is why salmon have the color that they have. It's a lot of astaxanthin from microscopic organisms that they're eating, and this is the primary food for whales and things like that. But krill oil, that's another step. Then if you want to go more to the plant-based, we can get into marine phytoplankton. That's another thing, very kind of cost intensive to make, but very concentrated source. And then we've got some kind of typical everyday foods that you're going to find a little bit of omega-3s in there, some, some DHA and EPA potentially. So fish, high quality fish, fatty fish, some grass-fed meats, eggs are another source. But it's primarily going to be found in animal foods and your body can convert some like ALA from plants into DHA, but about at least 75% gets lost in conversion. So I just wanted to drop that on you guys. So that's the first category here is our nutrition.

Perfect. And what would the foods be for vegans or vegetarians that even if it's not in the ratio, that they would have to have more of it? What were some of those foods that contain it?

Perfect. Chia seeds, flaxseeds, wonderful sources. Pretty much all the nuts— walnuts are wonderful source of omega-3 fats. But again, these are not the DHA that your brain needs. Your body can convert some, but most of it's lost in the process. So I highly recommend that folks that are doing a vegan or vegetarian approach to supplement, whether it's marine phytoplankton or, you know, there's plant-based kind of algae oils as well. You definitely need to supplement. It's so important for your brain. I can't even stress it enough.

Okay, amazing. Okay, so you have the nutrition dialed down for the brain, blood-brain barrier. People are seeing like this is very, very, very, very useful for people. What else, when you think energy, what else are you thinking?

Perfect. The number one thing as far as what we can proactively consume and put into our bodies, and the number one thing that your brain is made of, About 80% of your brain. Your brain is the most water-dominant organ in your body next to your lungs. Your brain is starving for hydration. It's starving for water. It's made of it. And so even a small decrease in our normal hydration levels can lead to cognitive decline, can reduce our energy, and cause lags in our performance. All right, so what I've seen clinically, Number one cause of fatigue is dehydration. So often people come into the office and they're just like, just, what can I take to have more energy? I'll make sure I have the receptionist give them a couple bottles of water and then I'll just leave them sitting there for a while and I'll do something else. And then they'll come in and I was like, so how do you feel? They're like, actually, I feel a lot better. It just must be being here. They're just thirsty. It's just thirsty. So what is the number here? This is such a strange and arbitrary thing, you know, just looking at 8 ounces, 8 glasses a day. It really depends on you. It depends on your activity levels. That 8 ounces, 8 glasses a day is not going to be the same for somebody who's 5'3 and 100 pounds compared to somebody who's 6'7 and 300 pounds. So a little formula I like to give for baseline is take your body weight. whatever number that is, and divide it in half. So if you're 150 pounds, divide in half, that's 75. That's the number of ounces I want you to target. All right, and again, it's still going to be based on if it's, you know, you're out and you're training, or maybe you're just, you're having a really stressful day, or maybe you're eating foods that make you a little bit more dehydrated, then it's going to change, but that's your baseline to follow. All right, so that's all the nutrition front. So I also want to share something as far as energy is concerned in regards to our movement, if that's okay.

Yeah, let's do it.

All right, perfect, perfect. So for on the micro level, if we just look at the micro level, when we move our bodies, we're actually generating energy. It's something called piezoelectricity. It's just happening just when we move, even if we're not like physically seeing ourselves move, all the movement that's happening in our bodies. You know, we have kind of a resting metabolic rate, stuff is always moving and grooving around. But when you physically move, you ratchet up those benefits to the degree that researchers— this is a 2007 study conducted by researchers in Germany— found that simply going for a daily walk is able to boost the participants' perceived energy and also improve their working memory. All right, just going for a walk. Stanford study found that walking, just going for a walk, increases something called— they refer to as creative inspiration. So that's being able to like think outside the box.

For—

it improved it an average of 60%, something specifically referred to as divergent thinking. So what tends to happen, we all know this, is that we're working on a problem, we keep thinking about that problem the same way, just like trying to push through and force our way through, when usually the solution for a problem— we're thinking it's one thing, the There's usually 10, 20, 100 different ways to solve this issue. And going for a walk actually helps the creativity, helps your brain to just have a different level of energy and understanding and being able to problem solve better. All right, so go for a walk, especially if you're feeling like you're stuck in a rut, get out and get a walk in.

You know, you and I, we've gone on walks together and it's interesting that the people like Steve Jobs, they do walking meetings to be more creative. We know as your body moves, your brain grooves. You create these brain-derived neurotrophic factors, which is like fertilizer for your brain. I saw a study where people who are on ellipticals or doing something rhythmic as they listen to a podcast or an audiobook, they'll actually retain and process it better, actually, also as well. So here we have nutrition through food, supplements, water. We have physical movement, which is important because the brain primarily— we have a brain so we can control our movement. People are asking how long approximately should we walk? Is there, is there a time on that?

Yeah. Yep. So this particular study I mentioned earlier, 11 minutes appears to be that sweet spot. That's that minimum we want to hit. But then we see benefits as we get up into the, you know, 20 to 30 minute range for other things as well. So, but 11 minutes is that sweet spot. So I recommend 11 minutes, 2 to 3 times a day, or you can put it all together in one nice walk. And it's a great way. And what's so great about walking is that, like you said, we can connect. You can maybe hop on. There's this lady I always see in my neighborhood. She's like on her Bluetooth walking her dogs. She missed her time. She's chatting with whoever she's chatting with. It's always like some juicy stuff too, which, I mean, she speaks to me. So, you know, like we know each other, but I shouldn't be listening in, but I'm sorry. Anyways, um, so let's move on to the last category here, which is our sleep. And the secret with sleep is that And this is going to sound very strange. It's going to be to slow down so that you can go faster. All right, slow down so that you can go faster. And in my book Sleep Smarter, I actually highlighted several incredible, fascinating studies and really kind of created a movement in sleep wellness many years ago when it came out. Because there's so much data, but if we don't ask the right questions, we're not going to find these answers. And so for this particular part of the Limitless movement and the book Limitless itself, we're looking at, okay, what are specific things as far as sleep and sleep wellness that impacts our performance and impacts our brains? And so I just wanted to share this with you guys. Researchers at Stanford University set out to examine the benefits of sleep on athletic performance, but this is also— athletic performance is also very cognitive. Your brain is helping to run all this stuff. And they took test subjects who were members of the men's basketball team, and these results are absolutely shocking, what I'm about to share with you. So prior to this study, the athletes were getting just random sleep. It might be 4 hours, 5 hours, 8 hours. It was just very random. But they put them on this protocol where they ended up getting an average of 8.5 hours of sleep per night over the course of the study. And now here's what happened. The athletes, after getting 8.5 hours consistently for a small amount of time, Shaved nearly 1 full second off of their sprint time. That makes the difference between winning and losing in a race, getting to a ball or not getting to a ball. Their shooting— their shooting improved dramatically as well. The players saw their free throw shooting and their 3-point shooting improved by 9%. This can make the difference between getting a scholarship or getting signed in the NBA. Huge, huge 9% difference simply by being more well rested. And subjectively, they noted that they were less fatigued, they had less daytime sleeping— sleepiness, their reaction times improved as well, and they overall reported that their moods and overall physical well-being were all better. And these are all things we know. We know what it's like when we're sleep deprived and everything is kind of slow motion, you know. So making sure that we're optimizing our sleep is a huge key to performance.

So what are your— people are asking how long they should sleep. And people want to know, obviously, this book Sleep Smarter. What are, what are, what are 3 of your favorite sleep tools or techniques or strategies?

Perfect. You know this about me, Jim. I'm very much on practicality. What's the low-hanging fruit? So number one, something very simple, and this can piggyback to these things we've already gone through. Is your exercise timing. The time of day that you exercise can actually influence your sleep quality significantly. So researchers at Appalachian State University test— took test subjects and they had them train at 3 different times over the course of the study exclusively. So they had them train at 7 AM for a phase, 1 PM, and then 7 PM in the evening. They found that when folks were exercising in the morning, morning exercisers, spent more time in the deepest, most anabolic stages of sleep, they had more efficient sleep cycles, they tended to sleep longer, and they had a 25% greater drop in blood pressure in the evening. And that just means their fight or flight nervous system is relaxing and turning off. Just get some exercise in in the morning. This doesn't mean you have to do a full workout. Maybe you just go and go for your walk, you know, go for your power walk. Or maybe you could do some bodyweight exercise, maybe you could do a 4-minute Tabata, do something because what that does, and clinically we call this a cortisol reset. It gets your cortisol elevated normally, how we're designed, and it just kind of starts to help to reset that pattern for folks who tend to be tired and wired. So that's number one, is to get some morning exercise in. Number 2, this one is the— since I gave a low-hanging fruit, I've got to give one rip the Band-Aid off. This one kind of sucks, but this might be the biggest challenge to our sleep and health. overall wellness right now in our modern time, which is our devices. If we're on our device at night, Harvard researchers have confirmed that the blue light spectrum coming from our devices, which I love— I love being able to connect with you guys— but it's sending information to my brain that's basically telling my brain that it's daytime if I'm on it in the evening. And so what they found is that it stimulates the release of cortisol in the evening. and suppresses melatonin. So it's kind of like an inverse relationship. And so we just want to be mindful of that if we're on our devices. And what they found was that basically every 30 minutes you're on your device at night, it suppresses melatonin— I'm sorry, every hour you're on your device at night, it suppresses melatonin for 30 minutes. Every hour you're on your device, melatonin is suppressed for 30— even if you're exhausted and you go to sleep, if you're not producing adequate melatonin, you're not going to go through your sleep cycle efficiently. You might get 8 hours of sleep and wake up feeling like trash, or 7 hours of sleep, waking up feeling like trash. And that's another one of the big secrets is there is no cookie-cutter amount of sleep hours that you're supposed to get. All right, if you, if you want to look at sleep minutes sort of like calories, today we know that all calories are not created equal. And so it's the quality of those calories that matter a whole lot. Calories do matter, sleep amount does matter, but the quality of those minutes matter more. My book is not called Sleep More, Sleep More, it's called Sleep Smarter. And so just employing some very simple things to help improve your sleep cycle. So with the technology thing, obviously we know Jim, I'm sure, has talked about this on his platforms, wearing some blue light blocking glasses if you are going to be on your device. I love the fact of giving yourself a 30-minute, a simple 30-minute screen curfew before going to bed. All right. That's not— it's not that long, but for some people, even 30 minutes, it's like, what am I going to do for 30 minutes? Because we somewhat lost the ability to just talk to another person who might be there in the house with us without picking up our phone for our just checks. We can use this time to, you know, take a magnesium bath, which can help to improve your sleep quality. We can use this time to listen to a podcast. You don't have to stare at a screen to listen to a podcast. or an audiobook. Limitless on audiobook, for example. And you can use this time to connect, talk with your significant other, which could lead to potentially other things that can help you to sleep well as well, which that's a chapter in the book, chapter 9. It's a really good chapter. So those are a couple of very tactical things to implement to improve our sleep.

Amazing. What about sleep environment? Light, temperature? Some people are asking about this.

Yes, yes. So I'm so grateful, you know, I really helped to push this information into culture several years back. And now for many people, it's just kind of like part of their regimen. Our sleep environment makes— it makes— literally makes a world of difference because, as Jim talks about, we create these neural associations to everything, to things in our environment. And so if you walk into your bedroom And this is the place where you go to, you know, watch television or you go to do work or whatever the case might be. You're telling your brain, even if you go in there like, I intend to go to bed, you're going to have circuits that are firing saying, you know, I'm ready to watch TV, you know, Sanford and Son is on or Friends or whatever. I don't know why I said Sanford and Son. But these, you know, your brain is going to be firing for this activity. So you want to create a neural association For sleep and relaxation in the bedroom, right? That's what you want. And so how do we do that? I highly recommend getting the electronics out of your bedroom if at all possible. Some folks tuning in right now, they're like in a studio apartment, and that's all good. I understand, I get it. But even just not working in your bed, if possible, set up a little area where you can sit and make your bed that neuroassociation, like I only sleep and get my freak on in the bed. That's all I do here. I didn't know how to put it, Jim, but that's what came out. So that's what you want to do. And number 2, we want to create that environment where it's also nice and cozy and dark. So researchers at Cornell took a test subject and put them in an otherwise dark room and took a light that was the size of a quarter and put it behind their knee. And that was enough to influence their sleep cycle. It disrupted their sleep cycle, simply putting a light behind their leg. And this is because your skin has photoreceptors that is always, again, trying to figure out what time it is. And our bodies are amazing, right? So get your room as dark as possible. And if you're somebody who has issues with the dark, which we're not going to have judgment here, all right, you can get yourself a nightlight that is in the shade or in the hues that are not as disruptive for sleep, which is going to be more like the orangish-reddish hue. All right, the red light special light. All right, get a little nightlight like that. So get your room nice and dark. And lastly, cool. All right, get it cool because we evolved as humans, no matter what environment we're in, when it gets dark outside, when night comes around, the temperature goes down.

All right.

And our bodies have evolved that way so that when the sun starts to go down, we have a natural drop in our core body temperature to help to facilitate sleep. That drop in our core body temperature releases sleep-related hormones and enzymes to help us to sleep better. But if we're artificially keeping our temperature up by having the heat up too high, or we just exercise right before we're trying to go to bed, that can cause massive disruptions in our sleep. If it's a time of year where it's just, you know, you can just like shut the heat off, you can do that. Or maybe you might want to turn the AC on or at least open a window, do something to just drop the temperature just a couple of degrees. And that's one of those other very simple tactical things to help improve our sleep.

Amazing. Shawn Stevenson, thank you very much. Everybody, this is Shawn's book, Sleep Smarter. I highly recommend it. This— we're talking about limitless together, and part of being limitless is having enough energy and building your energy reserves. And you can't do that without the proper nutrition, which includes food, supplements, and water, without also the things that we all discuss— movement and also the power of sleep. I challenge everybody right now, actually, if you could take a screenshot of this And tag Shawn, tag myself. It's Shawn Stevenson. Post it on Instagram and share your best sleep hack or your favorite brain food or your favorite exercise, one of those things. What's your favorite exercise? What's your favorite brain food outside of water? And also, what is your favorite tip for sleeping? I'll actually repost some of my favorites. I know Shawn will see these also as well. And And also listen to Shawn's podcast, which is absolutely amazing. And wow, we have to do this again because there's so many, there's so much love here. And Shawn— I see it.

Yeah.

I see all the messages. Thank you guys. I love you guys. I appreciate you guys. I'm @ShawnModel on Instagram, so definitely tag me. And Jim, I love you, buddy. This is awesome. Thank you for continuing to impress upon our culture the need to learn, right? Right now more than ever, and the fact that we have these superpowers we can tap into, a lot of the knowledge that I'm expressing is, you know, thanks to Jim just helping me to, to really optimize my brain, you know. So thank you, buddy.

Thank you. Thank you, my friend.

Hi, Kwik Brain, it's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning. As well, number two, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing. Because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing: if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: three one zero two nine nine nine three six. Did you remember that number? 310-299-9362. Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question, and I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video.

Bye.