How to Sleep BETTER and SMARTER | Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Now, can you guess the topic we're going to talk about today? In this lesson, I'm going to talk about a critical thing that is really key to your memory. It's key to your mind. It's key to your learning, which is sleep. How you sleep matters, especially for your gray matter. And so put in the comments, how is your sleep in general? How is your sleep? Because you know when you don't get a good night's sleep, how are you performing the next day? How's your focus? How's your ability to concentrate? Probably not that good. It's compromised, right? What about your memory? What about your thinking ability, your ability to solve problems? What about— do you suffer from brain fog or mental fatigue? A good night's sleep is so critical for your learning and for your memory. And when you're not sleeping, it impairs almost everything. Every single thing in your life gets compromised when you don't have the energy and the vitality, the brainpower. To do the things that you desire and really deserve in your life. So if you want to win the day, you have to get a good night's sleep. So what is your process? Well, a couple things that I am really conscious of is to turn into routine. So number one, I would say your, your brain, like the rest of your body, loves to stay on a schedule. So you have these circadian rhythms, and this is your biological clock, right? Every 24 hours. So going to sleep at the same time and waking up at the same time, your brain Your brain loves routines and it loves that consistency. So I would encourage you that even on the weekends, if you can, go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time. A lot of people have alarm clocks to wake up in the morning. I suggest you have an alarm go off to go to bed because that's so very important. And it's not just the amount of sleep you're getting. People say, how much sleep should I get? 7 hours, 8 hours, 9 hours? Really, it's the quality of the sleep, right? The quality of your deep sleep, which is restorative to your body. The quality of your REM sleep, which is restorative to your mind also as well. Some people use sleep tracking devices, and we could talk about that a little bit in the comments about recommendations that that we use and our community uses. But go to sleep at the same time. Now, the other thing is you have to be wary of caffeine. I know we have a number of coffee drinkers that are out there, and they say to stop drinking coffee or caffeinated drinks past 2 o'clock. Do not drink past 2 o'clock because that could stay in your system for upwards of 8+ hours, and that could affect your sleep. Now, some people are immune to that, but everybody's a little bit bio-individual. Some people could have coffee in the evening and it won't affect them. Other people are incredibly sensitive. I would also suggest that you do not eat or work out too close to bedtime. So I would finish those kind of activities a few hours before you're actually going to bed. Now, in the actual process of going to bed, my goal is to get into the parasympathetic mode. Parasympathetic is rest and digest, rest and digest. This is your recovery, right? And one of the things I do is really manage my environment. Because we know through memory training that whatever you're learning or the activity that you're doing gets linked often to the environment that you're in. And here's the thing, if you use your bedroom or specifically the bed to work, to study, to do anything other than sleep, then what happens is that activity of work and the stress of anxiety, checking your emails, for instance, you're going to connect the two and wonder why you're having trouble sleeping. Sleeping. So I would reserve different places in your home for certain activities. It's not always going to be perfect, but the goal is progress. You do the best you can with what you have. And so dedicate that area specifically just for sleep. Now, when I'm winding down, it's interesting because if you look at hunter and gatherers, when did they know to go to sleep? Because there would be a change of the environment. And usually 2 of the triggers I wanna talk about are light and temperature, light and temperature, that they knew it was time to go to sleep when the sun went down because it would trigger melatonin physiologically, meaning it's time to rest. And the problem is we live in a modern-day society with modern-day conveniences, and we have things like indoor lighting. So we don't get those same triggers, especially if you're on your devices. at night, meaning you're watching television, you're looking at your laptop, your tablet, your phone, and it emits this blue light. And the blue light fools your mind into thinking it's still daylight. And so you're not secreting the melatonin, which is your trigger to relax and go to sleep. And so what can you do? Well, ideally you're not on your devices the last hour of the day. Ideally, if you have to be on it, that you are turning it into night mode. And That you have some kind of app on your computer, or maybe you have blue-blocking glasses that keep the blue light out of your eyes. And so that is one part of it, is the lighting. And ideally, when you're sleeping, you have those blackout curtains because sometimes even a little bit of light can be disturbing. Light that maybe comes off of an alarm clock, maybe lights that's coming in from a streetlight outside. So ideally, have it as dark as possible. Some people are comfortable wearing a mask, you know, over their eyes, something to be able to keep the light out. So just be conscious of how light can it affect your brain, meaning your eyes are the only part of your brain that you could see, right? And so keep the light ideally on low. Some people actually have different tinted light bulbs that they use when they go to sleep. Whatever works for you, find always what works best for you. Now, also, in addition to light, you have temperature. As a hunter-gatherer, you knew it was time to sleep not only because the light went down, but the temperature dropped. And that temperature drop also physiologically your body reacts by creating that melatonin and saying, "Hey, it's time to relax and go to sleep." Yet again, in with modern-day conveniences, not only do we have light control, but we have temperature control. You have thermostats that keep you at a certain temperature throughout the day. Yet we know when your body temperature cools down, that's when you're secreting the melatonin to help you to relax. So how can you enable to do that? Well, one of the things I sometimes do is take a warm bath or a warm shower, because when I come out of it, my body temperature starts dropping, and then I know it's time to go to sleep. Some people will take a bath and they'll use Epsom salt, which helps you to relax. The magnesium in the salts help you to relax, and they're taking a warm bath and they come out and their core body temperature drops, which is a signal to be able to go to sleep. Some people, what you'll do, and I do myself, is turn down the thermostat in the bedroom at nighttime. For me, it's about 66 degrees Fahrenheit. 66, 67 degrees Fahrenheit is really a sweet spot. You want it to be cool, but you don't want it to be so cold that it is distracting, right? And it's keeping you awake. Some people use devices. They have a mattress pad that helps to chill and reduce the temperature also as well. There are all kinds of ways to be able to do that. Some people use masks on their head that also cools them down. Whatever you use, be conscious of the lighting, be conscious, please, of the temperature. The other environmental things besides lighting and temperature is sound. And so if you happen to be fortunate enough to live in an environment where it's very quiet, that's wonderful. But if you live in the city, or if maybe you have a partner, a bed partner that is snoring or makes noises, you might want to use earplugs. If that's comfortable for you. Some people choose to use white noise machines also as well. What I do also is I set my intention for the next day. So, you know, in my morning routine, as I've talked about, I drink water first thing in the morning. So I'll set my environment accordingly. I really want to manage the environment, not just light and temperature and sound, but I'll also manage my environment. Specifically not working, right? And what do you have on your nightstand? I'm curious. Put it in the comments. What do you have on your nightstand? For me, I have a sleep tracker. I have a glass of water because I want it there when I wake up so I could drink the water right away. Basically, when it comes to habits, my thought is I want to make the things that are good for me easy and the things that are not good for me difficult. What do I mean by that? I want it to be easy for me first thing in the morning to hydrate. So I put the water there. I want it to be difficult to check my phone, right? You've heard me, a lot of videos online. One of them has like 37 million views on Facebook just saying, don't touch your phone the first half an hour of the day. One of the things you can do is control your environment and not have your phone by your bedside, right? So I don't have my phone at the nightstand. And I would say to do that, 'cause that makes your life easier. It's kind of like, uh, If you don't want to eat bread when it's being served and they ask you, do you want some bread? Say no up front. Otherwise, if they set the bread there, you're gonna have to say no in your mind like 30 times during the course of that meal. No, no, no. Easier to control your environment and make it easy to do the good things, difficult to do the harmful things. All right, on the side of my bed besides a glass of water and also my sleep tracker, I have 2 other things. I have a journal, and in that journal is where I take notes on gratitude. One of the wonderful things you could do before you go to bed that helps you get in that parasympathetic rest and digest is writing just 2 or 3 things that you're grateful for that day, because gratitude gives you a calm, right? It takes you out of your executive mind. It gives you— allows you to appreciate the things that are most important to you, and that's in a relaxed, safe place to be able to trigger your mind to go to sleep. Also in that journal, I record my dreams, meaning that one of the first things I do first thing in the morning is I write down my dreams because I think there's a lot of treasure in ideas that come out of dream states. But I have my journal there to be able to capture my dreams and be able to do my gratitude. The last thing I have on my nightstand besides a glass of water, a tracking device, a journal, is a fiction book. And I say fiction books specifically because I don't want to watch a device at night. I don't want to read also a business book or neuroscience book because that gets me in my executive brain. I love fiction reading at night. I absolutely love it because remember, leaders are readers. I used to read nonfiction books all the time because I just want to level up and get better, right? When I started reading fiction reading, I started to see also these studies saying that reading fiction actually boosts your, your EQ. You know, where nonfiction reading can boost your IQ, you can learn new ideas and thoughts and insights. Fiction reading actually boosts your emotional quotient, makes you more emotionally intelligent. It helps you to create empathy and build your empathy because you get to see things from different points of view through a narrative, through storytelling. It also boosts your creativity. It also boosts your imagination, your ability to be able to relate to other individuals. So very, very powerful. Plus for me, fiction reading is incredibly entertaining. So pick a fiction book that's light reading. I love to do that at night. It helps me to phase down. And these are all activities that I stack. You don't have to do every single thing I'm saying, but what it allows you to do is even if you just did 1 or 2 or 3 things, it's better than what? Than nothing. So those are some of my favorite things that I do. What I would love to know is what's your favorite brain tip when it comes to sleeping? What's your favorite habit? What's your go-to? What's your non-negotiable? What's your sleep advice? Please put it in the comments because remember, we're here to do this together. We're all on this path together to be able to realize and reveal our fullest potential. And you're not just learning from me, you want to learn from each other, and you get to teach each other also as well. And when you teach it, you get to learn it twice. All right, fantastic. So that's your homework. Get a good night's sleep today and tomorrow and teach these strategies to other individuals. Let me know what works for you and let me know your Sleep advice. Is there a certain supplement that you take that helps you to be able to sleep? Is there certain rituals that you do, like maybe going through and scanning your body as you're laying there, reviewing your day, as I've talked about, to boost your episodic memory, setting an intention, much like you do at night where you need to wake up at a certain time, and maybe it's earlier, and you happen to wake up within minutes of the alarm clock? Well, that same power of your mind, what if you set an intention to wake up happy? You know, the power of your mind to be able to work on things while you're sleeping and in your dreams. You could also set that same intention like you set the intention of waking up at a specific time and you end up doing it very close to that time. That's the power of your mind. So all these wonderful ideas, please share in the comments and I'll see you in our next lesson.