How to Overcome Sleep Problems | Jim Kwik

Can you talk about your sleep rituals and contrast them if you have different rituals?

Yeah, absolutely. So sleep, for years I had challenges with my sleep because I was not diagnosed with— when I went to UCLA, I got this big sleep study done years ago. And it looked like that I actually have sleep apnea, very severe sleep apnea, where I would stop breathing over 200 times every single night. And every single time, an episode was measured by at least 10 seconds. And the doctor was like, no wonder you're not sleeping. It's like somebody's coming in with a pillow and putting it on your face 200 times a night and you're waking up because you can't breathe. And they put me on a CPAP breathing device and then that wasn't working real well. They built me a dental device and all these things and my sleep really wasn't improving very much. And on top of it, I had this surgery where they call it a UPPP, where they cut out your tonsils, your uvula, soft palate, Because it was an obstructive physiological challenge. I've later found out that both my parents and siblings, they all have sleep apnea. So part of it was this kind of genetic lottery that I won.

Mechanical, yes.

Absolutely. And then it was exasperated though, because all through high school and college, I had very poor sleep hygiene because in order to keep up, I would pull these all-nighters all the time. So at a very young age, I was training myself just to not sleep because I had to work 3 times harder than everybody else. And all-nighters are not good for the brain. They're certainly not good for memory. But I had these challenges. And so sleep, when it comes to your cognition, we know that it's top of the list for your brain. It's when you consolidate short- to long-term memory. So if anyone's having long-term memory issues, check your sleep. It's where you clean out beta amyloid plaque that potentially could lead to brain aging challenges. It's also where you dream. You know, we talk— you and I have talked about in the past how in our dreams we're very creative and come up with ideas and inventions and solutions to problems, all that.

Hmm.

And so I really dialed in sleep, making that a priority. It was very difficult also, exasperated not just by what I did in school, all those all-nighters, it's just when I found my purpose, Teach people how to learn, I would be on planes all the time. There's one year I was on over 240 days out of the year just not sleeping at home. And so that's a lot of time zone international travel. And so typically, so my— the good news is my sleep has improved a lot more of recent with friends like yourself. I can't tell you how many times I've texted you after you posted like your sleep score on Instagram. I was like, are you getting that REM sleep, right?

Deep sleep.

Because my sleep is definitely not perfect, because, you know, some things take a little bit more time, you know, to be able to— you don't turn a cruise ship like just on a dime. And so I know what it feels like for literally over a decade or more just not getting it. I mean, I was averaging about 2 hours, 3 hours of sleep a night. I mean, that's how severe— interrupted, waking up over that time 9 to 14 times. Just because of my issue. And so it made me do a lot of episodes on the nature of sleep and interviewing a lot of our mutual friends, doctors and biohackers and just experts on sleep. So for me, I keep it very, very simple, my sleep regimen now, because it's not— I wasn't— I fall asleep in like 4 minutes because my mind is not racing at all. Like, it's like, you know, I meditate and I would do all these recovery and I have a float tank and I do all these things to rejuvenate myself. But falling asleep is not the issue because I'm not ruminating over things because I have very good mind control, if you will.

Yes.

But part of it is the ones that you've talked about on your show. Temperature is a big deal for me. So I have the pad and I have the blanket on top, the weighted blanket that's also cooling also as well. I'm testing right now a cooling device that goes around my forehead that keeps the temperature cool, because I know I'm— I think everybody is a little bio-individual. Some people are ultra-sensitive to temperature, other people are very ultra-sensitive to light. When I travel, I do, I do do everything I can to be able to lightproof the room. I literally bring tape and like these clips to be able to kind of keep the curtains closed and everything, because I am, I am ultra-sensitive light sleeper in general. So temperature, light is a big deal. When I'm here, I'll do like these— I have a sauna and a cold plunge here, so I'll also do that where I could kind of downregulate. My whole life has been really spending time getting in the parasympathetic, whether it's bodywork or doing something physical for me to get in my body where I can rest, digest, recover. I'll sometimes take a warm bath and put Epsom salts, so I think the magnesium, it helps me to sleep better also as well. I'm okay with sound.

Yeah.

Sometimes I will play some kind of sleep meditation music. I don't keep my phone in the bedroom because I feel like— I've had conversations with a lot of individuals like Simon Sinek, and we've had videos done together talking about just having a phone like at the dinner table just creates anxiety. Just the sight of it, even if it's face down, you know, it makes a difference. And I feel like having the phone in the room is this unconscious attachment where I could just kind of grab it. So I'm really I'm really big on setting up this sleep sanctuary or my environment. Now, when I travel, obviously I don't have some of this technology or I've conditioned, I only use my bedroom. That's the other thing about learning is we anchor certain states to the environment that we're in, and so that's why you shouldn't be doing work in the bedroom or just— My computer I only use for work, but I have an iPad For more entertainment, but I don't use that for, for work also. So I've trained myself for objects and location to access certain states in the bedroom. I just, I want to be able to rest. I don't want to be able— I'm not working at all in the bedroom. Um, or if I get up in the middle of the night and I can't go back to sleep, I'll go into my office and I'll just work then.

Mm-hmm.

When you travel, when I travel, sometimes I don't have the luxury of some of these, some of this technology, but I'll still, keep it to the basics, which is light, which is temperature, which I can control. Sometimes I'll get a room with— people see me on Instagram do this all the time— but both with the bathtub, and I'll literally make trips to the ice machine. I love that. Because I'll do my ice baths because it is very healing and nurturing for me also as well. I'm experimenting a little bit with lion's mane for REM sleep. And so, you know, REM, I noticed that my REM goes down, like my cognitive, you know, like I stopped performing as well when my deep sleep is out of whack. And physically I could feel it also as well.

Can you share how you record your dreams?

Absolutely. So the importance of this for me is we'll probably spend about 20 years of our life sleeping, maybe 3 to 5 of them in totality dreaming. And that's a, that's a big chunk of time that we're investing in that process. And for me, dreams are a wonderful source of treasure. When I started doing research on dream states and remembering dreams and creativity, I always saw this theme come up where great inventions and works of art, literature, music came from dream states.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein in her dream. She dreamt of Frankenstein. That's amazing. Paul McCartney came up with the song Yesterday in his dream. A chemist came up with the framework of the periodic table in a dream, right? Elias Howe, who was an inventor, came up with the sewing machine in his dream. And athlete upon athlete, so many examples. Jack Nicklaus was shooting high 70s and he was in a real slump and he had a dream of just changing his grip and it was so Real for him that he tried it the next— he remembered it and he tried it the next day and shot like mid-60s and he got back in his zone, if you will. So your brain doesn't— we know from research that our brain doesn't shut off at night. If anything, sometimes it's even more active in certain regions. And what are we doing? We're consolidating short to long-term memory. But we're also coming up with ideas because if you're studying all day as a student or You're learning all day as an entrepreneur. Your brain is, is still continuing that process. And this is not dream interpretation. This is just, you know, we're talking about dream recollection. Now, the power of your mind, it's interesting. So in there I give a framework which we can go through very, very quickly. Of course, it's an acronym like everything else, because I want to make it very easily memorable for you so people refer back to the book if they don't need to.

But dreams.

Right, dreams. And just remember dreams. The D in dreams stands for decide. Really decide that you're gonna remember your dreams. And I think that intention is just really important because most people don't really decide to remember someone's name. They don't decide to actually really decide to read a book a week or decide with full decision and resolution that they're gonna learn a language. And so start with the idea that you want to make, set that intention and actually decide, like make a real decision that you're going to. Because your mind, your mind knows the difference between something you're just interested in and something you're truly deciding. The R in DREAMS stands for record. And we know this, and I have a dream journal that's just dedicated. That's what I have. I have 2 journals on the side of my bed, and one of them is a dream journal, and I'll write on it. And I feel like that you need to be able to capture that, and when you could record it— Now, some people don't like to To write. Sometimes I'll have like, I have a pen that has a little light on it, so then if I wake up in the middle of the night and something that's juicy, I'll write it down. Also, sometimes I'll audio record it also as well. So not my phone, but I have an audio recorder that if I wanted to go back and reflect on it without turning the lights on and everything else, that's the way of recording it.

Yeah.

And what you're doing is you're putting conscious attention towards your dreams, right? When you're deciding to do it, when you're hoarding it, you're putting more energy there. Which, that alone, putting your attention to something, just like putting your attention on the person's face or putting your attention to the person's name, you're more likely to— it makes it more memorable, right? The E in DREAMS stands for eyes, and it helps to be able to keep your eyes shut. And you have to train yourself to do this, but a lot of times we forget our dreams just because we have outside distraction. Immediately when we open our eyes, our attention goes elsewhere. And so you can start training yourself when you wake up, to keep your eyes closed as you're going through and kind of reflecting on your dream and kind of rehearsing and reviewing your dream before you actually write it, write it down. The A is affirm. And this is actually really big. This is something that's very interesting. Have you ever— this is actually what I started doing a few years ago, which led to extraordinary results. Have you ever had to wake up the— you know, you're going to bed, you're setting the alarm, and For especially something early, like you have to catch a flight or you have to get up especially early for something like 4:30 in the morning or 5 o'clock in the morning, something that's unusual than other times. Have you ever woken up like, like a minute before your alarm goes off? That happens, right?

Yeah.

Isn't that amazing? I mean, just, just think about it for a moment. You set an intention like, oh, and some energy towards like a goal. Like I want to, I want to wake up. I have to wake up at 5 o'clock. That's, that's my intention, right? You set an external alarm and you wake up within minutes of that alarm. Like, what if the night before we set intentions for our dreams the night before? Or like what we want to solve, like a problem. We open up a loop in our mind, not obsess about it where we're thinking, you know, our executive mind thinking about it all night, but just set intention or write it down. It's like, oh, I would like to meditate on this or sleep on this, this problem, or this, this is something I want to be able to create. And then set that intention. And with that same power of you waking up almost to the minute when your alarm clock goes off, which is just astonishing. What if you set your affirmation, you started to affirm that you're gonna remember your dream and something you want to specifically program your dream to go, you know, to set an intention that way? I also do this for lucid dreaming. I'd like a new episode coming out specifically geared towards lucid dreaming, and one of the things you could start affirming is that you'll remember your dreams But also you could affirm that you're becoming aware of your dreams, because a next-level skill potentially for those interested in it is lucid dreaming. As you know, lucid is awareness. It means that state where you know you're dreaming. Have you— is this something you do naturally or something you've had to—

I think so, yeah.

You know, it's like where you're in the middle of a dream and you realize that you're actually dreaming.

Yeah, yeah.

That's an area of lucid dreaming. Um, and so there's a process, just like with everything that looks like magic, doesn't happen by accident. You could actually train yourself to be more lucid in your dreams.

Hmm.

And, um, and, and what's the benefit of becoming aware of the dreaming process? Like when you're doing it, it's that you could direct your dreams and kind of choreograph things. You could, um, people use it to lucid dreaming to face fears and phobias because they can introduce themselves to something that they're nervous about. But in a safe place, knowing that they're dreaming, and get all the benefits of, you know, your sleep, you know, in terms of using your dreams. And one of the things you could affirm is that I'm going to be— I'm going to be lucid when I'm dreaming more. Or you could train yourself to ask a question like 100 times a day. Ask yourself, am I— is this a dream? Is this a dream? Is this a dream? And now we're going off topic in terms of remembering your dream. But if you start asking yourself, you start to To, to focus on it. And the first time the answer is yes, then you're like lucid dreaming, right? Or you could train yourself to have triggers like I do for my habits. Like maybe every time you walk through a doorway, you've trained yourself to ask yourself, is this a dream? Or something. So when you start doing it in the dream, you trigger that memory and that, that those words, and then you become more conscious of it. But the A again in dreams are affirm. Um, the M in, uh, in dreams and Or manage. And what are you managing? You're managing your sleep, right? Because obviously you're not going to get those dreams if you're not getting quality sleep. And so we talked about that already. And then finally, the S in DREAMS stands for share. Get in the habit of sharing, not just recording, but get in the habits of talking to your significant other or other individuals about your dreams. Because again, it's putting energy towards this process of dreaming, and you get more conscious about it. And then you— so So by sharing your dreams with other people, you start becoming more aware of your own dreams. And, uh, and you can share it many different ways. There's forums even online on Facebook and everything where people are sharing their dreams and getting in the habit. So even if you don't know somebody that'd be interested in hearing those dreams, you're, you're doing it in a way that's, that's enhancing your experience.