Joe Polish talks with Arianna Huffington at her Sleep Revolution party about her book on sleep. Huffington says people care for their phones better than themselves, warns that sleep deprivation damages your brain and sex life, and recommends a 30-minute tech shutdown before bed, a hot bath, and reading physical books.
Questions this video answers
Number two on the New York Times list.
About 95% of the time.
30 minutes.
Chapters
Okay.
I'm here with my dear friend Arianna Huffington. You got this awesome new book, and you got to explain what's going on. We got sheep behind us. We got clouds.
We are at my. At the end. At the cave end of my Los Angeles.
Yeah.
Found by my dear friends Linda and Stuart Resnick.
Yeah, it's pretty happening.
Final guests are just leaving. And you are so sweet to come all the way for the party. Thank you so much.
All the way from Arizona.
All the way from Arizona. I'm very grateful. And Linda Stewart is a marketing genius, you know, behind a lot of brands like Fiji Water and balm, wonderful, etc. And so the theme of the party, of course, was sleep. And behind us are sheep. You know, counting sheep is one of the ways supposedly you are going to go to sleep more easily. Although I prefer counting blessings. But here, sheep jumping over the fence.
It's pretty funny.
And over and on top of them are clouds.
Yes.
And here's Joe.
Well, you said. So you got up and you gave a little talk, everyone. And there were some pretty amazing people here. And you made a couple of comments about cell phones being like the. What did you say?
I said that we take better care of our smartphones than we take care of ourselves because we always know approximately how much battery remains on our smartphone. And for me, it gets below 13%. I get kind of anxious and I look around. The recharging shrine.
Right, the recharging shrine. That's what it was. I love that. That is so funny.
But we don't do that for ourselves.
You're right.
Like, we let the body go way down and we have huge adverse consequences that I write about in the science chapter for our brain, for our health, for our happiness, and for our sex life, in case anybody's interested.
Well, and also this book is now. Right now, it's number two on New York Times, which is awesome. So you need to go buy this book and you need to read it, and you need to apply what Arianna talks about in the book, and it'll make your life better in many ways. Did you get good sleep last night? I mean, preparing for this big party.
About 95% of the time, you know, there are always unforeseen circumstances. I'm a work in progress, like all of us, but 95% of the time, I get eight hours.
So last thing, I'll ask you about this when you're. Because you obviously do so much. I mean, you're very accomplished. You are moving mountains all the time when you're really stressed out and you have a lot. What do you do? What are a couple rituals that everyone could do that would really help that I know you talk about in here.
Thanks for asking that key question. The one essential ritual is creating a transition to sleep.
A transition.
Okay, because most of us just are on smartphones until the last minute by our nightstand, and we turn off the lights, and so our brain never has a chance to power down. So I allow myself 30 minutes now where I power down my devices, take them outside my bedroom. I personally love to have a hot bath with Epsom salts and flickering candles because it's like, again, a way to slow down and wash away the day. If you don't like a bath, have a shower, wear clothes to bed that you don't wear to the gym because your brain gets conflicting messages. Are we going to the gym or are we going to bed? And in bed, I only read physical books. And let me tell you something, I would consider it a personal picture if you read this book in bed and you fall asleep while you're reading.
Yeah, there you go. So, look, we gave you just a process here. So sometime this week, get the book, get a bath, do the Epsom salt, do the flickering candles, the whole works. Read Ariana's book and let me know what you think. And also, I got some, those of you that follow me on social media and listen to my podcast, we're going to put out some really awesome videos with Ariana of some of me interviewing her and some other ones we think will be very valuable. You can come in and say whatever you want. Thank you.
