JJ Virgin4x NYTimes Best Selling Author, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer

How To Get GOOD Sleep!

22 Jul 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:26

In a brief interview, JJ Virgin explains her comprehensive sleep‑hygiene system that starts with daytime habits and culminates in a one‑hour pre‑bedtime ritual. She stresses eating a final meal 2–3 hours before sleep that combines protein, fat, and fiber to stabilize blood sugar and support growth‑hormone release. She recommends vigorous exercise earlier in the day and an evening walk after dinner to aid digestion. A heat exposure—sauna or a hot Epsom‑salt bath—followed by a rapid cool‑down helps the body lower its core temperature, especially when the bedroom is set to about 65 °F. Lighting is dimmed an hour before bed, and the sleeping environment is made pitch‑black (or an eye mask is used) and quiet (ear plugs or EarPods if needed). She maintains this ritual consistently, even while traveling, so her body recognizes bedtime cues.

Chapters

Hey JJ, what are your rules for sleep and making sure that you get a good night's rest?
You actually set up for a good night's rest starting in the morning. So how you eat throughout the day is going to be really important for having a good night's sleep. In fact, that last meal before bed needs to be a hormonal home run— protein, fat, and fiber— that's going to give you good blood sugar, slow release. But you want to do that 2 to 3 hours before bed so when you're sleeping, you're not digesting and your growth hormone can come up. So that's the first piece. The other piece is exercise. Exercising hard earlier in the day can help set you up for a great sleep, but also doing an evening walk after dinner can help with digestion and preparing you for bed. And then get hot. I love to either do sauna or a hot Epsom salts bath at night because when I get out, my body is gonna now accelerate, cool me down. I pair that with cooling the room temperature down to about 65, and then make your room dark. So we start dimming the lights about an hour before bed. And then we make the room pitch black. And if you don't have a pitch black room, make sure you're wearing an eye mask. If you don't have soundproofing in your room, make sure you're wearing EarPods in there as well, some kind of a little plug. And that's what I do to prepare myself for sleep. And I have an hour ritual that I do every night wherever I am, 'cause I travel all the time, so that my body just knows, oh, we're getting ready for bed now.