57. The Sleep-Deprived Director: How to Care When Your Nervous System Is Cooked

I recently had a baby with my wife. This is like day 12. I definitely have lacked sleep. I have tested my patience, and I've had some default moods surface during this time. And I wanted to reflect here with you in the Direct Your Life podcast today. If you're overwhelmed, if your nervous system is going crazy because you have a lot of stress in your life right now, This episode's for you. I'm also excited to share my Direct Your Day One Page system with you in this episode. I'll walk you through the steps that I take that help me step into my greatness every day with enthusiasm, more love, more connection, more aliveness, and most importantly, fulfillment. You can get this resource absolutely free. Just go to my webpage at— My wife says this intro sounds like a conspiracy mystery, so I'll stop that voice and I'll just tell you. This show is here to give you some cinematic fuel, tools, and excitement so you can stop drifting and start directing your life better than any movie. I'm Tony Suriano, your host, and this show is about Helping you and me direct our lives better than any movie. Because you can when you have awareness, when you have rituals that work, and when you get the right things you need for you so you can be good. And then that allows you to serve the day, the people, your goals. Now I wanted to start this with something that a gentleman told me. The other day, we were just having this conversation. I never met him before. He started chatting with me. It was a public place, and I started listening. He said, there are 2 types of people. You know that? You want to know? And I said, sure, yeah, let's, let's hear it. He says, there are 2 types of people: people that care and people that don't care. And I know there's more than 2 types of people, but that really does encapsulate what it is to be human. There are times that we don't care, and those times aren't great. And I want to talk about how you can get back into the caring mode when you slip out of it. I do believe he was on to something because when you work with people Meet people, spend time with people that just focus and value the act of caring. It changes everything. It makes a hard day's work acceptable. It makes a hard day's work doable. And this guy, this particular guy, was a bridge builder. He was getting into his retiring years, and he had a good attitude about life. And I could tell he did care. And when you're building bridges, man, I hope you care, because if you skimp here or just don't do it all in, hey, a bridge could fail. And bridges have a lot of people on them, right? So when he was telling me this, I was reflecting and I was thinking, wow, I'm a pretty caring guy. Yes. However, when I lack sleep when I'm irritated, and my nervous system just has had too much going on. I can slip into the I don't care mode and just kind of say, "Eh, whatever," but that isn't good for me or anyone around me. And recently, I had a baby with my wife. It tested me the last twelve days. I've had some patience. I've Had some impatience. I've changed some diapers. Never thought I'd really do that, but man, I'm the poop master. That's me. Yeah, and I realized during these 12 days, all my mindset, all my personal development, my rituals—I kind of threw them out the window because I knew I wasn't going to get sleep, and I was just thinking, all right, I got to make sure. I pay attention and help my wife and the baby because my wife unfortunately had surgery, a C-section for this. And that is a huge deal if you don't know anything about that. Although doctors say, oh, get a C-section, you know, we do it all the time. One, it shouldn't be done all the time, but two, when it really has to be done, it's a lifesaver and it saved my wife's life and the baby's life in this case. So I'm thankful for that. But what happens when you have a surgery in your stomach and you cut through 7 layers? It is not only painful to recover, it takes a long time to recover. So a normal birth would take some recovery, but it would be like mom and dad can help each other out for the, for the first week. Pretty— I'm not going to say easy, but pretty doable. It's just, you trade off. But in this case, for the first 3 weeks, it's not 50/50. It's like me stepping in, trying to be like 90/10, because I don't want her healing slower. I don't want her to get any problems happening with that wound, with that surgery, that incision. So it's taken me away from some of my personal goals, my project. That I'm working on right now. And I've had to take off some other work, and it's been hard, especially with the sleep deprivation. Now, any health nuts out there, you might want to know about this. If you're having some sleep deprivation, first work on it, fix it, figure it out. Don't let it slide. Don't think, well, this is just what I have to deal with. No, you can heal it. So this is a tangent. I did some research about creatine, which is a supplement that a lot of bodybuilders or people that want to build muscles, they would take. And it's been proven it helps since, I don't know, the '70s or maybe even longer back than that. But it also helps with cognitive function and recovery in times such as sleep deprivation or really tough physical times. So I started to add that to our diet. Although I've been waking up every two and a half, three hours, and then spending another hour up, and then trying to sleep for two hours, another hour up, I haven't had headaches. I've been a little sluggish, slow to start, and yes, there's been some impatience. But I gotta say, I'm doing that, and I'm doing electrolytes—a lot of it—and I feel okay. I feel good instead of like, oh man, I can't do anything, and I don't want to go outside. Yeah, so that's, that's a little health tangent there. But specifically why I'm bringing all this up is because the question really is, are we in caring mode or non-caring mode? You know which one you want to be in. How do you get back into it if you slip out of it? Now, when you care, you're in the present moment. You're not thinking about all your other things. And I would say I'm doing pretty good, but yeah, I've been thinking about my project and I've been a little pissy, like, oh man, God, if, if she didn't have the surgery, like, she could do this while I take at least 1 hour to do that. And I tell you, for the first 7 or 8 days, I didn't do any of my goals or my projects. I couldn't work on them because I had to be there for her. And I knew that was going to happen, but it's been taking its toll. So I'm so thankful my mom has visited, and now she's going to help until Karen gets back to her, her, uh, quote, normal self, you know, all healed with the surgery. So I am excited that she's here. It gives me a little space, and now I can come back here and do a podcast. And then I can go back there and help. So I'm, I'm being present now, where before I was thinking about doing this. And I'm excited. And I'm happy that I can take a little time here with my mom helping out. Now, caring also equals effort. Caring equals attention. I like to think when I'm talking to someone, my phone's away, it's not in my sight. I'm looking at them in the eyes. I'm Making sure they know I understand them. I'd like to think that caring is an emotional labor, so it does take work. And as long as you know that, hey, it's going to come out positive, just, just push through it, do it, help, then it's easier. So I like to think about it like, oh yeah, Care more, and things will be better. That sounds really simple, but it is definitely a huge truth. Now, what am I getting at really, besides me just journaling out all my feelings here on this podcast? I'm just realizing when you don't have a go-to card Or a sheet for your positive rituals that you need to do to take care of yourself, then you can so easily not do them. And that's what happened about 12 days now. Like I said, I threw that out the window. And usually my morning is, all right, do 10 push-ups, 10 squats, get some air, maybe walk around the block, have a lot of water. And have a nice Bulletproof Coffee with the cleanest butter, grass-fed, and some MTC oil for the brain. That's coconut oil. And all the good stuff. Read. You know, this takes about 2 hours for me to really sink into my great feeling and be ready for the day or ready to serve others. When the baby comes, that's not how it works. No, I was told this and I knew this, but still, it's It's a little stressful. It's a little like, whoa, this is really happening. I just got up and now I have to give her relief. And then I can't even have my, like, part of my ritual till an hour from now. I can't hear some positive content or read something positive because I have this baby in my hand. I'm trying to make it stop crying and feed it on time and all that stuff. But I do believe if I had a one-sheet or a card with me, I could have at least microdosed it. I talk about that in my book, and I didn't do it. So now I'm reflecting, going, oh wait, I know exactly what to do. So I'm going to get back onto it. But isn't that funny? You know, you learn stuff and you know things, but if you're not doing it, it just means you need to double down and really crystallize it as a habit. So what does that mean, microdosing? That means your perfect day, like what I was sharing about my 2 hours of power, if it takes 2 hours, you can't do that every day. It's just not practical when you have a life, especially when you have a baby. But what you can do when you have that amount of time, do it full on, do everything you want to do that's positive, that makes you feel great, and then start dwindling it down. Now, I've done this over the last decade, so I could have just tapped into this, but frankly, I, I forgot a lot of things. And, and with the sleep deprivation, I was a little off guard, and that did surprise me. But it also revealed something— that not all my defaults are empowering. And that's a problem, but not really. It's really a puzzle to solve. You want to make sure that your default Is helping you. How do you do that? You have to develop that habit. But beyond that, have something that you can turn to right away so you don't have to think. It's kind of like having a birth plan when you're going to have a baby. Good thing we had one because we weren't planning to go to a hospital. We were having a midwife and we were at her house and things just went in a different direction, which made us have to go to the hospital. And And I had the birth plan on me. I had to share it with the new doctor. My midwife came, which was awesome. And she was great support there. Thanks, Megan. But if I didn't have that birth plan, the doctors would ask me questions and I'd probably just say yes or not really think properly. And I'm glad I did because there were certain things that happened because of the birth plan for safety reasons from our baby and healthy reasons For our baby that may have been skipped. So what I'm saying here is develop your default under pressure and under heavy situations in your life. How can you do that? As I mentioned before, you figure out what works for you, what lights you up, gives you the energy. And if it takes an hour, just Take everything and microdose it into 10 to 15 minutes. So if, for example, I wake up, I have water, and then I want to take a nice 15-minute walk, instead, if I have little time, I'll just take a 2 to 3-minute walk. Then if I usually read for 30 minutes, I'll just read for 5 minutes. And that will open my mind. I've already moved my body. And now I have a couple minutes left. And in this case, I'd probably start setting myself up mentally thinking, okay, who do I want to be? How do I want to feel? What energy am I going to bring into the room when I go back to my wife and the baby? I want to be patient. It's funny, I keep hearing the baby cry and I tell myself, oh, okay, when it cries, it's telling me patience, patience, wah. And it is slightly humorous, so it's helping me slightly. But stuff like that, you have to not trick your brain, but train your brain to set yourself up for the person you need to be in that situation. Now, if you don't have a condensed version or a long version of something that lights you up in the morning or when you wake up, you need one. And here's a quick way that I can walk you through to get one. I was reading the book by TJ Powers. It's called The dose effect, and this goes deep into dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. These are the neurotransmitters that are released when you do certain actions in your life, and they can help you sustain happiness. They can help you just feel purpose and love, and your mood will change when these things are directed properly. So let's just quickly go over these. This is important, and I want you to think about what you can do during the day, and specifically in the morning when you wake up, or late morning, whenever you do, to get into this ritual with using these things. So dopamine, we've heard it, we think we know about it, but when I dove into this book, I learned so much more. And I urge you to do your own research, but you don't want dopamine that's quick, Meaning something's easy, you grab the phone, or you just start scrolling. That's dopamine, but that spikes it and makes you feel good temporarily. And then when you put your phone down, it quickly leaves and you're like, oh, I need my phone, huh? And that's not good. So you want something that lasts, which the way to get that is to have something challenging. Even reading for 5 minutes is challenging to our brains. We need to focus. We need to finish a section, turn the page. That will help your dopamine sustain longer, and it will fade slower, and that'll keep you in a good mood. You can do things like cleaning the house. When you have to organize things, you're focusing and you're moving things and lifting them. You're making progress through effort. So that's another way. There's tons of ways to get quality dopamine. So find yours. Then we have oxytocin. Which is the love hormone, the love neurotransmitter. And that comes from connection, hugging, like up to 30 seconds, give a good long hug, kissing, all that good stuff. In my case, like when I hold the baby and he's not crying, you know, it's like, oh, he's so cute. I'm looking at him and it's just this good oxytocin. And even laughing or connecting with your friends can create that as well. A good phone call to someone you care about. And again, if you don't have that much time, you call someone for 2 minutes that you trust and you love that gets you in a good mood. Boom, you got your oxytocin hit. Now serotonin, what is it? That is the real mood hormone because if you get sunlight, it's going to change your biology. And you're gonna be in a better state, a better mood. Notice that on a gloomy day, sometimes you're like, ah, it's a bad day, ah, it's gloomy outside. Then you see the sun beam outside of the cloud and you just instantly are lifted. That's serotonin kicking in, especially when it's hitting your skin and your eye lenses. Don't look in the sun though. Breathing, gratitude, perspective. If you eat the right foods, it can trigger This serotonin release. Dark chocolate, little sugar, next to none. Okay, try that dark chocolate, 90%, and that will help because your serotonin happens— it's mainly in your gut. And when your gut's happy, you're happier, and you can just handle things better. And finally, endorphins. We've all heard about the runner's high. You know, you're running and it's actually painful at first, but then you get into this This rhythm and you feel better. You can accomplish that with laughing. So turn on something funny for 2 or 3 minutes. Move, do some pushups, walk really fast. Don't walk slow. That's loungy. Just walk fast. You can go into the shower with cold water. That will kick it on. You could take a hot bath. And there's a lot more to it. But that's it in a nutshell. So if you get your daily dose and spread it through the things you like to do, then you're setting yourself up right. And if I would have done what I do most of my life by setting myself up right, these last 12 days would have been smoother and easier because I had a lot more weight on my shoulders than I was anticipating. And I didn't do it because it was out of sight. Again, if I would have had like a physical card always in my wallet or in my backpack, I probably would have been reminded to do it. But there was this weird part of me that was like, no, you know what, everything's off the table. Like, I'm just gonna be here watching the baby, try to make it easier for my wife. But when I was giving myself 100% there, I got irritated a little easier And then I got a little pissy when I lost sleep, and no one likes that. But if I would have taken care of myself— and this is what I always preach, take care of yourself the first hour or 2 of your day so you can actually be a pleasure to be around later. So hey, I caught myself. Yeah, a week late, a week and a half late, but I'm here. I'm doing it. Now this is what I want to do now. I want to introduce you to a free resource I created for you. And this can help you direct your day. I'm going to be adding some of the dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphin notes in there. But for now, I'm going to walk you through what is already in this daily one-page system. Go to tonysuriano.com/directyourday and you'll find this resource. When most people let the day direct them, they're actually drifting. But when you have something in front of you that just walks you through it, that doesn't take too long, but it gets you thinking, that's when you direct your day. So you fill it out and you do it every day. It starts out like this. You gotta set the state. Win the internal game first. First, ask yourself, what energy do I have right now? If it's low, that's okay. But then you need to ask, how are you going to show up today? How are you going to gain that energy? And if you do the exercise of trying to find that microdose, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, then you're going to set yourself up right. And that also Matters with the focus. What focus level are you at right now? And how are you going to get to your next level? So on the sheet, you'll see energy, you'll see focus levels, and also most important, how are you going to reset? Because listen, when you stop caring, it's usually because your nervous system is cooked. You're fried, you're burned out. There's just too much going on. You know, If I care, I don't have the energy to care. How can I care? And remember, if there's 2 people, you want to be the one that's caring. This is how. So think about it. How can you reset when things get overwhelming? You can walk. You can breathe. Just move. Listen to good music. Instrumental to me really helps. Sometimes lyrics get in the way. But hey, your favorite song that just boosts your mood, do it. Make sure you laugh. Sometimes silence works. And again, a lot of these things are part of that dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphin dose. So get that happening first. You're setting the state. That's like the scene 1 of your daily movie. Set your state up for success. Then if we go into scene 2 on this daily OnePage, there's going to be 3 Things you need to reflect on. And the question is, if today were a scene in your movie, what must happen for it to be worth watching? So let's call this scene 2. What has to happen in scene 2 for this movie of yours, your life, to be worth watching? List 1, list 2, list 3, and then cut everything else if you need to. These 3 will move the story forward. Then it goes into scene 3. Who do you want to be today? That question again that I always bring up. Who do you want to be today? You want to be the person that cares, or do you want to be the other person? And how do you do it? You make a statement. You declare it. You say it out loud. You can tell your person and say, hey, listen, I've been irritated. But today I do want to be more patient. I do want to be there for you. And in order for that to happen, I just have to have a few moments. I need to take a walk every other hour, and I'll be fine. So you got to just speak it into existence. And under this on the daily direction page, you'll see I am blank. And that one quick statement you can write down. Can really shift your mindset and shift your subconscious. Also, what's cool about this, you can go to tonysuriano.com/dailydirection and fill it out right there and then print it or screenshot it, whatever you want to do. And then you just go back to that same page and it'll reset. So you can do that every day. You don't have to download it and print it and fill it out by hand, although I recommend it. But if you just needed a quick win, this will really, really, really help. Okay. The next step is scene 4, cut the distractions. The question that follows is, what gets removed today? And just pick 2 things that don't serve you. The things that are not helping you become that patient person, that patient new dad that I am becoming. It's crazy. I'm a dad. That's so weird. But I am. And I have a son now. I keep holding my son up and feeling like I'm in The Lion King and I'm like, Simba, this is all gonna be yours someday. Yeah. So I digress. All right, moving on. You can see I'm a little slow and sluggish just because this is all new to me. But This is helping me and I hope it's helping you. So what are you going to cut in this scene so you can stay productive and be the person you want to be today? Cut them. Now, at the end of the day, there's a final thing here on this page. It's the director's check-in. Did you direct or did you drift? There's a little checkmark, you can click it. There's a little checkmark, you can click the other one. And it says, I directed today, or I drifted today. Just be honest. Then under that, write why. Why did it happen? How were you intentional if you did? How did you get off track if you weren't? And then adjust for tomorrow. And you fill that out. And like I said, you can print it there, collect them and see, check your progress over the months. This is something cool. Don't Pass on this. Go to tonysuriano.com/directyourday. Fill this out. Make this a habit. This will get you into those rituals that will serve you. This will help your dose effect, so then you're feeling good for the long haul of the day, because we all have crazy stuff that happens during the day. Good news, bad news, crazy baby poops. Yeah. It's a lot. So make it happen. Make your day the best day ever. So get there and start directing your day so you can direct your week, your month, your year, and then your life. That is it today. I just want to share these things, this reflection, that resource, and really the idea that if you're overcooking your nervous system, It is hard to care. Contact me on socials @TonySuriano and let me know how you're directing your day. Let me know how this Daily Direction One Page System serves you. And if you love this content, hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And if you're on Apple, please leave me a review. It helps the show reach more people that need to hear it. That's it for today. Thank you. Get out there, get your dose, get your daily direction going on so you can direct your life. Thank you.