#38. Simple tips to drastically improve your sleep.
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Welcome back, everybody. Today's episode talked about the number one thing you can do to get better, faster results. Yes, that is sleep. You guessed it, so getting better sleep will get you better, more immediate results. No matter what you're trying to do. And the best thing about that you can implement one of the things we talked about in this show and get better results with your sleep or get better sleep, and then once that's a habit, you can go to the next one so you don't have to change everything at once. You can just do one little thing to get better results, so I hope you enjoy this episode.
Before we get into this episode, I mention that you can't improve what you don't track. So many of us think we're getting good sleep, but you're just guessing unless you're tracking your sleep. So we want you to try whoop for free for a month. Hit the link below. You get a free month to try whoop. You can track your sleep, try to improve it, and implement the things we talk about in this episode and by hitting the link below, you help us out as well, so you get a free month. We get a little kickback. And you can improve your sleep.
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Sleep is probably my best feature, you reckon. Do you have you ever known a sleeper that is better than me? So we do wear a whoop which tracks your sleep, and it gives you an excellent indication of how deep you're sleeping, how long you're sleeping, the quality of your sleep, and I feel like I do all of the things that we're about to talk about in this show and. I always hit my sleep target like every week. It gives you a summary on the loop and every single week. I am in the sleep target zone, so I think the. The biggest thing that I changed to improve my sleep was without blockers.
Yeah, do you agree? Yeah, so for those of you who I mean, surely everyone knows what blue light blockers are by now. If not, give a bit of a description. So essentially, they are orange glasses that block any blue light that is emitted from like screens lights. So your TV phone is everything like that, and they help start your circadian rhythm. To get you sleepier so you can sleep better and sleep longer. And yeah, so for those who don't realize that blue light is the light. Your body absorbs to wake up and get going for the day. Yeah, it's good to have in the morning and throughout the day because it keeps you awake doing the right things. But at night, as Mac said, you sit there looking at screens, artificial light, and stuff. It emits blue light and sends the wrong signal to stay up and be active. Yeah, so the glasses just stop that from happening and then much more modern these days. We used to have hideous ones like safety goggles, but now they just look like glasses with orange lenses. And they do make everything look a bit funny about you. Get used to it pretty quickly. So yeah, that's probably my favourite helper. The other thing that I like the most is that son I bought Jack a sunrise clock probably three years ago when we first started dating, and it naturally.
It wakes you up, I suppose, so it's like a sunrise. It stimulates a sunrise in your bedroom. It's very unnatural to be woken up by an alarm clock. Just going beep, beep, beep. Yeah, I've known where I enjoyed this. Probably one of the best gifts you've given me. And we both get used to it, yeah? So it's just the light. It's a light lamp, so the lights slowly come on. So it's like a sunrise. Yeah, it doesn't make a noise until it gets to the required time, and then it will make a noise in case a lot doesn't wake you up. When I first started using this because I was running the gym and had the first class, I had to get up pretty early, so I always had my phone alarm set for like 5 minutes after I set the alarm. Lauda, Llama, just in case. Yeah, no faith, and I never used my phone alarm. Yeah, I was always up before the actual noise on the line went off, and I never used my phone alarm so, but I had it set for at least 12 months, if not longer. Just in case, but I never used it. And how much better do you feel when you wake up with the Sunrise clock? Like because you gradually wake up, and you're naturally waking up. You're not like jolted into it. You don't get that groggy, like extra tired feeling that many people have like. You wake up, and you. You want to get out of it. Yeah, you jump out of bed, ready to go. Yeah, it's good definitely. I feel like many of the things we're going to talk about today. Do relate to, I suppose, the caveman times because that's how our Arcadian rhythm began initially been like. We slept when it was dark, and we were awake when it was light. If anything, just try and think what it would have been like back then and do things that. Support that. I guess that's pretty much the overarching theme of everything that we're talking about. Yeah, and don't stress like we've got a lot of things we want to talk about and topics we want to give you points. We want to provide you with all these suggestions, but you don't have to take them all in and doormat once. You can choose one.
Implement that, and then go to the next one after a month or two once that's a habit. Come back listen to this episode. And yet, it's not so we've like. I've well, both of us have been working on this for years, and we still work on it. And this is, I feel like last year we did a sleep podcast, and if you listen to that one and listen to this one, they're going to be similar, but very different, because we've learned a lot in that time. And we've changed a lot of the habits that we do in that time. Yeah, as I said, we keep improving our sleep. It's not something that stops and is done. You keep working on it and keep getting it better. I feel like one new thing that we started doing to improve our sleep is walking every morning. Yeah, and you're probably like, what the heck? Why would walking in the morning help you previously? But really, when you think about it, your sleep, how the quality of your sleep or how well you're going to be able to sleep starts in the morning. So like with the Sunrise clock, for example, it's probably like the first thing. That will impact how well you sleep the following night because you have woken up with your natural.
Is it like an hour and a half your cycle? You sleep cycle or so you're woken up at the end of a sleep cycle, so then that just means that when you go to sleep that night, you're going to be able to sleep, fall asleep more accessible because you haven't been woken up in the middle of a sleep cycle and felt like shit throughout the whole day, you're going to be ready to go to sleep. Yes, the walk works similarly, too. The sunrise cook. Because you're getting up when you naturally wake up and you're going for a walk. You're getting natural light into your eyeballs, which helps you be more alert more focused. Feel awake. It signals to your body that the day has started, and it's time for you to be awake for the following X amount of hours.
So yeah, that's something that we've started in the last. What two weeks? Yeah, so there's been a bit of research done on that by Doctor Andrew Huberman, so we listen to his podcast quite a lot. There's research to show that getting up and going for a walk first thing getting sunlight on your skin, even if it's cloudy, just getting light on your skin. Your body your. Body skin absorbs the blue light through your skin through your eyes. So try not to wear sunglasses, which just sets your circadian rhythm for the day. And again, there's a lot of research he's done to show how beneficial that is. General Health and well being as well. Not just sleep, yeah. So whether you're trying to lose weight, fat build muscle, you know, think better. Waking up and going for a walk helps all those things. Yeah, and not only is it good for helping you stay awake, but you're adding in, like I don't know, an extra 20 minutes of movement or exercise for the day without even really thinking that it's structured exercise. Yeah, you know, you're just doing it, and it makes you feel fresh, and it's just a good habit to build. As I said, it gets you set up for the day. Good health benefits and you're exercising. The first thing which is a great thing to do, yeah, especially if you can't do if you aren't a morning like an exercise or if you don't do your workout in the morning, then it's a good opportunity to still move in the morning 'cause you don't necessarily have to do your workout first thing, yeah? Another thing that I want to talk about was the delay in coffee.
So this is a hard one for everybody. Jolted up with your alarm, and you have that groggy feeling like most people do in the morning. The first thing you're going to do is want need and have a coffee which we have been guilty of this for so long, especially since we got a coffee machine. But one thing that studies have shown is by delaying yours. Caffeine intake by just 90 to 90 minutes to an hour and a half. It can make a huge difference in allowing your body to produce cortisol levels so that you feel alert naturally. Whereas what happens when you have a coffee? Immediately. It's like artificially creating the cortisol level, so you have the spike of energy, and you feel alert and awake. But then you crash and burn fast, and you haven't let your body do it, whereas when you let your body do it. Then you have a coffee, your cortisol levels are already high, like naturally high, and then they're not rising too much more when you have a coffee, whereas if you immediately have a coffee and you're still half asleep, then it's this massive spike in the crash. Yeah, and then that's when you need a second or third coffee, and it's a better stimulant. So when you wait and your body is already risen and done all the hormone things it needs to. And then you're adding coffee. Then you're. It's better stimulant weather for your mind, workout, etc. It is better for you than you know, doing it unnaturally. Yeah, and I guess. The unnatural way, whereas if you are having a coffee immediately, you crash and burn. It's more likely for you to have a coffee in the afternoon, which will also severely impact your sleep. Yeah, don't tell me it's not because it is. Alright, you said that there's one person to come to mind. I'm not going to mention his name, but I know he wakes up as he gets out of bed, walks to the kitchen and makes a coffee. He knows who he is, yeah?
So for those people like just taking a couple of things, what we've just talked about, you'll find that the like you're already automatically waiting. So if you get up and go for a walk first thing and then jump in the shower and sort of getting stuff sorted and then have your coffee. At least, you know, maybe 60 minutes have already passed. Yeah, if minimum, out even thinking 40 minutes, I'm watching the clock yeah, like just giving your body time to wake up as it might only be half an hour or 45 minutes or whatever, but at least it's time. You can improve on that instead of even if you just do a few things in the morning before you go for that coffee. So I was trying to get up there. Yeah, and coffee in the I know many people who make coffee at night, even little in the afternoon doesn't affect their sleep, but it does. Even if you don't have a whoop, then it's tough for you to tell because you can't like it. You might feel like you're asleep, but you're not getting the restful deep REM sleep you need for your brain and body to recover properly. Just sort of getting the surface like maybe you're staying asleep all night, but you're just getting the surface level sleep, which it's hard to tell unless you have some sort of yes—such a tracker. Of course, I did earlier in the year they had a study, and they had all the brain waves there from people. So you got three groups. One had caffeine. One didn't end up placebo, who got told they did, Oh yeah so. But then, like the people that didn't have caffeine and like everybody slept. So no matter what, everybody still went to sleep and slept throughout the night. Whether you had caffeine or not. But then it's the brain waves when they were asleep that was completely different. The people that had caffeine. Their brain waves were all over the place where it should be a nice flowing up and down going into a deep sleep, coming back out and all through the night. So the people that didn't have caffeine, their sleep waves were perfect.
But then the ones that did, they still slept, and they still wake up in the morning thinking they had a good night sleep in the coffee didn't affect them, but their brain waves at night were wholly different and entirely all over the place. Do you know when they had the coffee, how long before going to bed? They had the coffee was there, but I cannot remember, yeah? See, Andrew Huberman's been doing a lot of research on the duration that coffee lingers in your body and how it affects your sleep. And he says, well, maybe it was Matthew Walker. Yeah, I'm pretty sure his Walker. Yeah, and he says that 10 to 12 hours before you go to bed is when you should stop having coffee or caffeine. Caffeine. So not just coffee. So green tea, even chocolate, a little bit of chocolate is fine, but yeah, there's caffeinated teas that people still think. Fan at night, but then realize it's caffeinated. Yeah, 10 to 12 hours before we met, which is a long time. But if you like having two coffees, just. Cram him in before lunch. I guess it will be better for you to have two coffees. Close together, then a coffee, yeah, 10 hours before bed.
The rock before you go to bed and like right as you wake up, and that's it like yeah, which is pretty much what we've been talking about. Yeah, but I feel like you need to look at the whole day. Like Mike just said, caffeine can stay in your body for 10 hours. So what are you doing in the afternoon? And all that sort of stuff? Sleep isn't just something you think about right before you go to bed. Yeah, it starts in the morning. Like I said, with the alarm clock, didn't you tell me something about it? So we talked about getting sun exposure in the morning, but you shouldn't. You also get afternoon sun exposure because it's a different light. Or you are going into the evening, yeah yeah. Well, again, you sort of spoke about it at the start. Like what did Cavemen do like now? And modern technology has only been around for years, if not less. Like I'm talking too fast foods TV. All that sort of stuff that's even less. And that's not that long, so our bodies haven't been able to adjust to it. Yeah, like evolution wise, I guess you could say so you think about it back before those TV's all that sort of stuff, you would probably have dinner at 5:00 when the lights still out because you still need to cook in natural light to have food. You'd still be out doing stuff, so you'd still be getting natural light as the sort of some sets. So your eyes see that light gets dimmer and dimmer than it gets dark. And then your body is ready for bed so. You are going out in the late evening and early evening just to get a little bit of light and see it go down.
So again, going for another walk or just sitting outside and reading a book or having dinner outside. I know that's not feasible for everybody everywhere, but in a well-lit room like a natural room. Even better. Yeah, I feel like they are different colours, though, so you know how they say that the red light of the sunrise? Is what stimulates you to get going for the day. I guess the afternoon is sunset. We don't see the evening where we are over the water like the sunrise, but the sunset is more like a purple colour. Yeah, so I guess we have coloured cones and rods in our eyeballs that tell our brain different things. So like, if you think about it that you're trying to get exposure to the colour rather than it's kind of more appealing to go outside and see the purple clouds or whatever. From the sunset sense, Yep. And one thing I guess on exercise in the evening. Again, this is hard. Everybody is busy; everybody's got different schedules. Like two nights of the week, we can't even avoid this but trying not to work out too intensely later in the evening. Yeah, it doesn't. It just makes you. I feel so mentally jacked. Yeah, ready to go technically, that's what a workout does, no matter how intense. Even if you're just doing weights and that sort of stuff, it's going to the movement itself. Stimulate your body, yeah, and that's what it's meant to do. Within a couple of hours of going to bed isn't ideal because you're trying to wind down. So again, we can't avoid this. I don't expect everybody to, but trying to and putting some effort into like if you've got the option, do it, do your workout earlier, but if you don't, still gotta get your training in, and there are plenty of things you can do to counteract. You work out. I guess like after we look at the gyms late.
We do everything we can to get ourselves back on our everyday schedule night schedule routines are like showering. As soon as we get home, we can immediately put our blue light blockers on and try to calm your brain. I guess because Jim is very stimulating. Yeah, it's anyways.
I feel like one other thing that people neglect before going to bed is when they eat dinner. When we come home from the gym, what time do we get home like eight usually 8:30 we eat dinner at then 8:30 say by the time we share and everything and that effect, I think that affects my sleep more, if not as much as having worked out an hour before, because usually, we eat at 6. So we have 3/4 hours before we go to bed to digest the food. Whereas when we go to the gym at night. We eat like an hour before we go to sleep, and it takes me so long to fall asleep because I'm still digesting everything. I still feel full, and we have to eat. There's a lot of food after the gym because we've been there for hours and we don't want to undereat because that's also. Yeah, so it's hard, but ideally, if you aren't training in the evening, then you want to eat dinner 2 to 4 hours before you go to bed because that gives you enough time to digest and feel you shouldn't feel overfull when you're going to bed like you shouldn't feel overfull. Any of the time. Arguably, unless your goals are to gain a lot of muscle, I feel like that's something that many people don't think about, especially in summer here in Australia, because the sun is. Up until 9:00, so many people are doing things and then don't have dinner until late. Yeah, and that affects your sleep in the same course I was talking about before they did the same similar study but with food.
I looked at people's brain waves that didn't eat food before they went to bed, and that did, and again, everybody slept. Everybody said, woke up and said they had a good night sleep. But again, the people that ate before they went to bed. Then brain waves were all over the place. Yeah, really, yeah. So again, it's just exciting. Like you can't.
Tell until you see the brain waves, and when you visit the brain waves, you're like, Oh yeah ****, it does affect your sleep because when you think about it, we have slept too. Regenerate cells muscle tissue like bodily brain, bodily functions. And if you're going to bed while your body is still trying to digest, then it's taking away from all of those other things that your body is trying to achieve at night. I did hear someone on a podcast somewhere say. If we didn't need sleep, then evolution would have. Evolved out of it by now, but obviously, we need it more than anything else. I feel like there are many things that we've become out of. But sleep has heavily stayed, if not probably got more. We need more rest because of the stress and everything.
On a stress note, I feel like many people are also guilty of working or watching an action movie or something right before bed and then trying to go to sleep. And obviously, your brain is just like still in work mode, I suppose. So like the wind-down, a time before bed is also essential. We've noticed sometimes if we watch TV shows like. The Witcher, for example. It's tough to get to sleep because it's so like. Intense and your brain is paying a lot of attention, whereas if we watch a sitcom-like Big Bang Theory, it's fine because you can watch it and not watch it. Yeah, you know what I mean. And it's two different shows like you think about it. The Witcher is trying to drag you in and make you feel like you're a part of it. Boy does it, and it's all about survival and hunting and killing and all that stuff in that show. So your body is in flight or fight. And then you're just going straight to bed. It's not going to work, so you need to calm down a bit or not watch those shows before. Yeah, I'll just mention some easy things to do, like it doesn't have to be meditation, but meditation is great before bed. Any kind of stretching, foam rolling, yoga thing where you just like being with your body, and breathing and relaxing. The training I find very satisfying because then you know everything is done for the next day. Yeah, and you're going to wake up. And the house is clean. And journaling. I feel like that's probably the most common one that Jack does. Just like writing down the things you have to do tomorrow, your thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc. So then you know it's written down. You don't have to worry about remembering it while you're trying to go to sleep because everyone knows that's when you remember everything you need to do.
Yeah, I feel like doing your mobility or recovery work just before going to bed is very unlike underlooked. Many people feel like they haven't got time to do it, but you could just do 5 or 10 minutes before going to bed, and it's beneficial. Yeah, and you're probably just watching TV at that. Yeah, 5 or 10 minutes before, but you can still watch TV. Just have it on in the background, but you just painted a little more attention to your body because your foam rolled out those tricky bits or stretched out those tight muscles, yeah? Yeah, very beneficial. On the TV note, also do not I know been going for a while now but do not have a TV in your bedroom or a phone or a tablet or always forget about that. Yeah, I know, or any electronic device, get it out of your bedroom. Even if you're watching TV with blue light blockers, your bedroom bed is not a place to watch TV.
I still have this conversation regularly with a couple of people, and yeah, get the TV out of your bedroom and leave your phones out of the bedroom—everything they don't need to be in there. Your bedroom is specifically for sleeping. I think the last person said, oh, what if I have an emergency call during the night and I said when was the last time that happened, and it had never happened, and they were a couple of years older than me. Almost 40 odd years, and I haven't had an emergency call during the night. I don't think it will happen, and I feel like. If it's that much of an emergency, it will be in your immediate surroundings. Yeah, so you're going to be waking up, or whatever's going on now. The person in trouble will call you 600 times, and you'll hear your phone from in the kitchen, yeah, or wherever it is. Yeah, I feel like I used to be very guilty of going to bed on my phone as I'd be like. OK, I'm going to bed at 9:00, and then I lay on my phone in bed till 12. And then I put it on my bedside table, and because I would be like a teenager or young 20, what older adult would you be texting everybody? So then, even if you're not getting messages, even if your phones do not disturb, your brain is so used to getting notifications throughout the day and in bed in that spot.
That it subconsciously just makes the noise is so like you might think you're asleep and you might think you're here, vibrate and you're like, Oh my God they message me back, you know, yeah, or someone's in trouble, or I'm missing out on gossip. , then your brain won't associate being in bed with notifications either. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing that we are probably going to dive into a little bit more this year is a cold, darkroom. So there are a couple of devices out there that we haven't got our hands-on yet, but the technology is getting better. So that means it's getting cheaper, which we're probably going to get this year, like a chilly bed or something.
Chill the bed. I know there's a chilly bed. Go back a couple of years, and if you had two people in the bendable sleeping at the same temperature, you could now set the side because I know you'll want to sleep a lot warmer than I am. Yeah, definitely. Because I get sweltering during the night, there's that much study again. Out there from studies that show sleeping in a cool room, fully blacked out is going to give you the best sleep that you can get. Without any sort of doubt of mind in there, so things like chili bad and all that sort of stuff, but we'll bring more info into that after we've used it. I experienced it. I feel like lately. I've experienced the whole hot room thing because it's a bit warmer here, and after a few days, the house gets very hot and stays hot, and I feel like the last week say we have done all of the things that we've spoken about in this podcast, except for being able to sleep in a cool room. And I have. Probably like I still sleep great because I'm the best at it, but I probably slept. The worst I have since last summer is that it's just generally hotter. Yeah, cool and on the darkroom thing we haven't mentioned. I haven't mentioned a sleep mask yet. It's like my second after the light because it's my second favourite thing. I got a new one for Christmas from my mom because my other one was three years old, and it was pretty gross like I washed it, and it was gross. Jack doesn't wear a sleep mask. He hates them because of the heating. My face gets too hot, but did you know that mantra now brings out ones with cool? It's a cooler like it has cool iPads rather than just cotton ones, does it, though? Yeah, we got a few products at trial before we sleep episode. Asleep if you can't avoid having a dark room, like if you have ****** curtains or a streetlight out the front. Then a sleep mask is your best option. Obviously, the light will still penetrate your skin, which has little impact, but a sleep mask makes a world of difference.
If my sleep mask makes it through the whole night on my face because they do fall off and the sunrise clock is at full capacity, then I don't wake up because my sleep mask is on, and it's blocking the light from like getting through my eyelids. I suppose, whereas if I lose it in the night, the Sunrise clock does wake me up. Yeah, but they're good if you can't block all the light coming in your room like ours. We can't stop all the rays, so the mask is good. But if you can block all the morning. You don't need a sleep mask. No, I can't sleep without it now, though.
I just mentioned two things we quickly haven't covered yet: alcohol and sugary, fatty foods before bed. Yep, I feel like they go hand in hand. Yeah, well, I thought the only two things we haven't covered that I want to talk about. And I know a lot of people use alcohol to help them sleep, but it doesn't. It doesn't help you sleep exactly. And the same thing as what I talked about in those studies. The same thing happens. You might sleep, but yeah, don't sleep. Yeah, yeah, sleep is ****. & with fatty, sugary foods, sugar is also a stimulant. So it's also going to do the same sort of thing as alcohol and coffee do. And high-fat foods take a lot longer to digest, so they're going to be sitting in your stomach and then your body will be digesting while you're going to bed.