Tyrone Bray walks through four ways to sleep better: make your room dark to protect melatonin, keep it around 18°C for deeper sleep, manage sound with silence or white noise, and get daylight before noon to anchor your cortisol rhythm. These shifts improve recovery even when you're already sleeping enough.
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Evening, people. What's up? Back again. So last night I obviously spoke to you guys about the 3 components that are essential for ensuring that we get good quality recovery and rest so that we can obviously be our optimal self. Now yesterday I obviously covered the 2 main ones, which were duration and also the timing of the sleep. Now if you're unsure about those and you don't know what I'm talking about, check out that video that was posted last night. And now today, of course, we're going to talk about quality. So it's one thing to get the correct amount of time to sleep, and it's one thing to get that sleep at the particular time that we need it. But if the sleep that we're getting is of poor quality, then unfortunately we're not going to wake up feeling refreshed, re-energized, and our body isn't actually going to go through those repair phases that we spoke about yesterday. So what we're going to need to do instead is go, okay, well, what is it I need to do to make sure that the sleep that I'm getting is of a high quality? Hey John, hey Matt, good to see you guys checking in here and watching. So what we want to do is, the first thing we need to do is set up our environment to make it as cave-like as possible. Now that sounds a bit weird to some when I say that, but the reason being is ultimately we are still cavemen. Now I know we're not because we live in societies and modern world and all that, but physiologically we're the same beings we were when we branched off and evolved anywhere between 2.8 and 6 million years ago, depending whose research you, you look at. So ultimately, physiologically, we're the same being. And in an ideal world, in order to get the best sleep possible, we need to sleep in an environment that is first off as dark as possible. So we want minimal light pollution where possible, because there is research that's been done that shows even just shining a laser pen on the back of somebody's knee actually starts to spike cortisol. Now cortisol is our stress hormone or activating hormone, and when that happens, if cortisol comes up, then unfortunately melatonin goes down, and melatonin is of course our sleep hormone. So we need to block out as much light as possible. So that's number 1. Number 2 with the environment is most people tend to sleep better in a cooler bedroom or cooler room. So Ideally, they, they tend to do best in a room that's around 18 degrees. You can go a little bit more than that, but if the room is too hot, you might find it cozy and snuggly and fall asleep well, but often the sleep that you're getting is not actually of a good quality. You don't get into as deeper phases, and you won't go through as many sleep cycles quite often. So what you'll want to do is make sure the room is a bit cooler, and then that way the sleep that you're getting, although it might not feel quite as comfortable when you go to bed, the sleep that you'll get is actually of a higher quality. Then the next thing you'll want to do is look at sound. Now, for most people, dead silence works best, but some people actually sleep better with some kind of white noise in the background, something like a fan or something going in the background. That tends to help a lot of people to, again, sleep well. It almost kind of puts them into a bit of like a trance-like state or hypnotic state. Not everybody enjoys that. Most people prefer silence. I personally prefer silence, but of course, like most things, it's going to be individual. It's different based on each person. Now, the one other thing that tends to work very well for most people— so let's say you're struggling with sleep, because a lot of people tell me, oh, well, by the time I get to the evening, I don't actually feel tired, especially around 10 PM. I feel almost like I get a bit of a pickup. And like I can go again. Now, there is a natural pickup for most of us somewhere between 10:00, 10:30, but that doesn't mean that it's now time to go or to watch another show and so on. We should, of course, ideally be going to bed. One of the things that can set the body up for that is making sure that you get direct exposure to sunlight or daylight, okay? Of course, like here in the UK in the winter, our Sunlight is complete shit. We get odd days of it, like we've had a few recently, but generally speaking, it's dull, it's overcast, and so on. But you at least want to get some kind of exposure to daylight, ideally before midday. Tends to work best for most— most— can't speak. Look, tends to work best for most people is what I was trying to say. But the other thing that you— or the reason that we do that, sorry, is because that daylight will help to anchor our hormones. So, as we wake up in the morning, cortisol is rising, that activates us and wakes us up. Obviously, as I mentioned before, melatonin is going down. But what we do when we get plenty of sunlight early on in the day is it helps to anchor those hormones, and it pulls cortisol to its high point, and then as we come out of that and exit, go inside, or start to cover up our skin, etc., then that allows for cortisol to start dropping off as the afternoon progresses and so on. And then melatonin tends to, to be much higher for those who have had good exposure to sunlight. And another advantage for guys is that daily sunlight also helps to increase testosterone output and things like that as well, which of course is great if you have aesthetic goals and obviously energy-based goals related to your health and body transformation goals. So hopefully that's enough information. There is of course a billion and one other things I could talk about, but I don't want to make this video too long. As always, guys, if you have any questions or specific scenarios that you're dealing with and you're struggling with that you want me to give you feedback or advice on, let me know. And if not, then just start off with these, these key things that I've just mentioned now. So we're looking at making the room as dark as possible, as cool as you can, not obviously cold, but around 18 degrees or so. Cut out as much sound as possible, unless you're someone that works well with white noise in the background. And of course, where possible, expose yourself to as much sunlight or daylight as possible, because that will help anchor the hormones and set your body up ready for sleep in the evening. Any questions, guys? Let me know. And if not, I look forward to seeing you guys later. Take it easy.
