Kind: captions
Language: en
what's up everybody welcome back we're
doing another routine video i'm going to
walk you through all the things that i
do for one of the most complex
and important things that i do every
single day of my life
and that's get ready to sleep
so here we go i'm going to walk you guys
through all the things that i do to get
my sleep hygiene right and i think that
this is incredibly important and even
with fellow entrepreneurs who are
burning the candle at both ends and
trying to do something extraordinary
with their life i'll have one piece of
advice
prioritize sleep
so number one is to remember that your
night sleep begins
the morning before and one of the most
important things that you can do is get
direct sun exposure into your eyes and
on your skin first thing in the morning
now i know a lot of people live in
northern latitudes and you're stepping
outside and it's basically just a gray
day but even that helps it's better than
nothing you want to get out you want
that sunlight to hit your eyes you want
that sunlight to hit your skin because
it helps to set your circadian rhythms
it's one of the most important things
you can do for actually getting a good
night's sleep but it starts the morning
before and by the way as a pro tip when
you're traveling this is one of the
critical things that you want to do to
adjust to the new time zone the second
you wake up get out go outside and get
that sun exposure and i try to look up
into the sky not at the sun as that will
burn your eyes out but i try to look up
into the sky to make sure that i'm
getting the maximum amount of sunlight
into my eyes i'm not wearing sunglasses
i'm not wearing blue blockers like i'm
wearing now
which is part of the night routine
but in the morning when i'm trying to
get all that sunlight in to set my
circadian rhythms then i'm making sure
that i get that exposure
make sure that you're using your body
throughout the day it's incredibly
important to actually be physically
active to burn that energy off to make
sure that you earn your night's sleep in
a modern lifestyle so often we're
spending so much time sedentary that we
don't actually tax our body in any
meaningful way which means that by the
time we're trying to lay down to go to
bed we don't have the impulse to sleep
and so doing things that are physically
taxing throughout the day is an
extraordinarily useful way of being
ready to actually go to bed hey
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as you go through the day i find that
there are certain things you need to be
very careful about in terms of what you
in take so eating and drinking so a big
one for me is the last meal that i eat
and what time that happens at now i get
up very early which we'll cover as we
get later in my day around what time i
go to bed but i typically get up very
early somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m
so my day already is skewed that way but
my last meal i eat usually around 1 15
to 1 45 pm and that is the last meal i
will eat for the day i won't have
anything after that literally nothing i
don't even have water
after 2 pm
now the reason that i don't eat after 1
45-ish is because i want to do
intermittent fasting and it's much
easier for me to get through the rest of
the evening without intaking any more
food than it is to spend the whole
morning hungry until say 12 or 1 o'clock
which i know a lot of people do it's
dealer's choice whatever works better
for you but having an extended fast is
very very helpful
now also
another reason that i end it early is
that i think you will notice a massive
difference in how you sleep
if you have your last meal at least at
least bare minimum
three hours before bedtime so if you go
to bed at 9pm like it's a religion like
i do then your last meal is going to be
at 6 00 pm anyway so you're going to
want to get that out of the way and i
wouldn't start chewing at six i would
try to be done chewing at six so that
you actually have a full three hours
rest between when you had that last bite
and when you go to bed your digestion
stops in the middle of the night so it
can create discomfort if your digestion
stops sort of mid process and you're
sitting with something sitting either
still in your stomach or in your
upper intestines so
that can be very uncomfortable so that
disrupts people's sleep and makes it
hard for them to get to sleep and
remember that you have trillions of
microbes inside of you and when they're
being asked to sit in all the things
that they're
digesting it can create issues so
i find that i sleep way better by not
just eating three hours before bedtime
but taking that all the way back to
where i'm done chewing at about 115
145 excuse me
so that's worked out really really well
for me and if you're worried that you're
going to get hungry remember you're
taking in a normal amount of calories
you're just having your last meal later
and what i've heard said before and i
think is really clever and brilliant is
that as i get hungry i have sleep for
dinner
and i love that i love that idea of
right when i'm about like yeah i could
eat now i brush my teeth which for
whatever reason the taste taste of
toothpaste
kills hunger so just as i'm thinking i
want to eat i brush my teeth and then
boom i go to bed i feel asleep with no
problems and i'm able to stay asleep now
the reason that i stop drinking at 2 pm
is i find that if i have any substantial
amount of water because i'll still have
a sip of water here and there
but sips and the reason is that i'll
wake up in the middle of the night to
pee if i
and by the way if i'm eating too close
to bedtime same thing because there's so
much water in the food that you eat
but i don't want to wake up in the
middle of the night if i can at all
avoid it so the times where i eat later
drink late i find myself waking up in
the middle of the night to pee and then
my brain kicks back in and i start
problem solving and it makes it
impossible for me to fall back asleep
and i was losing two sometimes three
hours a night of productivity because i
wasn't sleeping i was trying to fall
back asleep i wasn't doing anything
useful other than tossing and turning
and ruminating over everything that had
happened during the day that i need to
do that i could have done better it was
nightmarish so not only are you fatigued
suboptimal cognitively but it's just
really a lame way to spend time
because there's an interesting part of
your brain that shuts off in the middle
of the night that makes fears seem way
bigger than they will as soon as you're
up and are actually attacking your day
it all feels very manageable but in the
middle of the night it feels terrifying
it feels overwhelming feels like you
know just absolute stress inducing and
so that makes it even less likely that
you're going to be able to fall asleep
so anything that i can do to mitigate
waking up in the middle of the night
and starting that death loop
i'm going to do so that's one of the
reasons that i stop eating and is
definitely the reason that i stop
drinking at 2 p.m every day
okay the next thing that i do for
sleep hygiene as it's called is as the
evening wears on i make sure that i'm
not getting a substantial amount of blue
light and
bright light into my eyes so i'm going
to dim my computer screen i'm going to
put my computer screen on screen on
night mode so you can go into your phone
you can go into your computer and set
them just automatically at a certain
time i think i set mine for
6 p.m if i remember right and it just
automatically flips over to an orange or
light
i dim the screen so i'm not getting
super bright light happens again both on
my phone and my computer and then on top
of that just to make sure i put on blue
blocking glasses to make sure that i'm
not getting too much of my eyes and
there are some days if i'm going to be
at the computer for a really extended
amount of time i'll wear blue blockers
even during the day just so i'm not
getting an overwhelming amount of the
artificial blue light from my screen
so that's how i curb that and then
another thing that i do around my
computer is i try not to do any work
that i think will be stress inducing for
the final hour before my bedtime so i'm
still gonna work right up until i go to
bed my rule in life is monday through
friday if i'm awake i'm either working
or working out
now i love my work so this isn't a
torture chamber i'm sure some people are
imagining that and thinking it's
horrible but for me it's completely
joyful
and
i do though have to acknowledge that
there are some things that i work on
that stress me out and so i don't check
test text messages after 8 pm i'm not
looking at emails after 8 pm
i'm doing things that are work but
enjoyable now i'm not religious about it
there are definitely times where
i feel that something really just has to
be done in a timely fashion and so i
will break that
rule light
occasionally but i try not to because i
do find that i sleep much better if for
the last hour before bed i'm doing fun
things i'm doing things that
give me energy that make me feel light
that are part of that passion that feel
good and i can feel a difference in
my
stress and anxiety levels there's a
lightness to it that i don't know i
don't have a better word for it but as
i'm going to bed i just feel relaxed i
feel
joyful i have a sense of purpose and
it's like i can let everything go for
the day and when i climb into bed i
remind myself that i only have one job
now that i'm going to bed and that job
is to sleep
and that mantra the only job i have now
is to sleep has helped me a lot
especially when i wake up in the middle
of the night hey thank you so much for
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so when i lay down then i have a host of
different mechanical things that i do
one of them is to make sure that i have
my own blankets i use a two blanket
system so i myself have two blankets
that way if at any point during the
night i'm getting cold i can pull the
other blanket up so i start it down
where it's basically just covering my
shins and below and then if i'm getting
cold i can pull that up to my waist if
i'm a little cold but not too cold or i
can pull all the way up if i'm really
cold and that allows me to better
control my temperature and then this is
the one that people think is weird but
i've been doing it forever so it seems
so normal to me i do not ever under any
circumstance share blankets with my wife
now the reason is when they move it
becomes your movement or you're playing
tug of war for the blanket or worse the
other person might actually pull the
blanket off you or you might pull the
blanket off them and give them a bad
night's sleep so that was a lesson i
learned very early on because for
whatever weird reason i like to sleep
with the blankets up over my head i like
to be completely cocooned feels so nice
there is no light which by the way is
another thing
make sure your room is dark
make sure your room is dark so no light
no light leaks no phones no night lights
nothing as dark as you can get it cover
up if things have like little led power
lights cover those up do whatever you
can to get the room actually dark
for me i have another layer which is i
sleep under the blankets now if you like
my wife lisa the last thing you're ever
going to do is cover your head with a
blanket she absolutely hates it and
feels like you know she's just
claustrophobic and has to get it off of
her but for me it just feels
like i'm in a womb and it's so wonderful
so i love it so i have slept with the
blankets over my head for decades at
this point which is another reason why i
need to have my own blankets so get my
own blankets i can meter them based on
the temperature in the room which brings
me to another point
one of the
best
signifiers to your body that it's time
to go to bed that's going to kick you
into sleep mode
is making sure that your room is cool so
we keep our room somewhere around 67 to
68 degrees it should be cool enough that
when you go to
take your clothes off and get in your
pajamas you kind of don't want to
because it's that cold so that's the
right temperature so whatever that
temperature is for you you want to get
it there
get under the covers you're nice and
warm it's not like you're sleeping cold
but you want the room to be cool to
signal to your body that it's nighttime
right we've come up through evolution
with all of these signals from daylight
from the
brightness
the color temperature the difference
between fire light which is dim and
orange to daylight which is bright and
blue and so we have all of these subtle
signals including a drop in temperature
so as the temperature comes down it's
yet another signal to your body that
it's time to go to sleep so from setting
our circadian rhythm with getting that
sunlight directly in our eyes on our
skin actually being outside to the
temperature dropping the color
temperature of the light changing
the brightness of the light changing all
of these are signals that keep your
circadian rhythm where you want it to be
so that you can fall asleep
now there's one last thing that i advise
that you do and that is to tape your
mouth closed and i mean that literally
so next to my bed i keep this little
roll of tape um it is surgical tape so
it's sticky but it's not crazy not like
duct tape and i peel off a little piece
about that long long enough just to go
from not quite totally covering my lips
but the middle bit
and
that what that's going to do is force me
to breathe through my nose now if you
haven't seen james nestor and his
thoughts on breathing through your nose
i highly encourage you read his book his
name is james nestor i think the name of
the book is just breathe
but check it out james nestor a book on
breathing through your nose
really makes a difference i sleep so
much better now that i take my mouth
closed because what would happen is i
would start breathing through my mouth
which has all kinds of physiological
knock-on effects which he covers in his
book
but also my mouth and throat would end
up getting dry and that would wake me up
and
you know you're trying to like get your
mouth uh
moist again and it is
extremely distracting and yet another
thing that wakes you up and then i would
just do it again i'd fall asleep my
mouth would go back up and i start
breathing through my mouth again a lot
of this because i have allergies and so
i found that by taping my mouth closed
and having an air filter in my room so
that my allergies aren't being triggered
i breathe wonderfully nice and easy and
always through my nose and it's made a
huge difference in terms of the amount
of unbroken sleep that i get that was a
real game changer so shout out to
james on that one
there is one secret that i have when i
wake up in the middle of the night that
many of you may never have heard of
and that is i use
my iphone headphones
and i put it and this is very important
i put it on a fiction
novel
ideally a long fiction novel because
what i found is and i'm using audible so
audible boom i put my headphones in and
i pick a fiction book that isn't too
crazy right that there's not going to be
some murder scene where people are
screaming which will wake you up i've
tried using the timer on audible for
i've tried 45 minutes i've tried an hour
i've tried two hours and i find as soon
as the book stops it would wake me up
i would find if the narrator started
speaking more loudly it would wake me up
and so i was like oh man like it's
helping me fall back asleep but then it
creates like this moment where i
eventually wake back up and so is there
anything that i could do
what i have found
put your headphones in
and then
take your phone out access the app go to
the book hit play
and before i go to bed i've got my book
ready it's right there so all i have to
do
open my phone and hit play i've got the
brightness turned all the way down it's
all orange light
i hit play on the book it's already
queued up now the key is
this is the advanced class stuff i turn
the volume down so low
that i have to put an ever so slight
amount of pressure on my ear against the
pillow to hear it properly but if i put
that pressure i can hear it perfectly i
can follow the narrative
when i say that i will fall asleep in
30 seconds 90 seconds like at the most
i am out like a light now as soon as i
fall asleep what ends up happening is i
let the pressure off my ear and i can no
longer hear it well you can hear that
there's something happening but it's so
soft
and because it just keeps being there
there's never a moment where it wakes me
up because it just keeps going and going
and going and i'm able to then just stay
asleep for
usually i'll wake up one more time
and then i'll start hearing the book
again
and then i'm back out
this is the closest thing to magic i've
ever come up with it works so well i
went from tossing and turning two to
three hours a night if i woke up to
being able to fall back asleep in
seconds because there is something about
a novel a story
that shifts your brain out of problem
solving mode and puts it into story mode
passive mode now i've tried things like
the call map where it's like somebody
narrating a story i haven't found it as
useful as just picking a random book
that i'd actually be interested to
listen to
and then because they're so long so i
pick books that are you know say 15
hours long and then by the time we get
down to say there's only five hours left
in the book then i pick a new book and
then i'll finish that book as i move
around the house or whatever this really
is the closest thing to magic i have
ever come across ever i've been using it
now every night
seven days a week for
four or five months
it works like a charm every time it's
absolutely amazing
there's one more important part of this
step and that is to never set an alarm
now of course there's going to be edge
cases you have to catch a really early
flight or something like that but for
the most part
if you can avoid setting alarm you're
going to be way better off one you know
in the back of your mind oh god i've got
that alarm coming as the time is the
time
and then also you want to get as much
sleep as your body will allow you to get
so if your body needs eight hours get
eight hours if your body needs nine
hours get nine hours so i find that i
naturally sleep about six and a half to
seven hours a night that's just my
rhythm no matter how sort of relaxed and
stressed i am that's just where i wake
up it's perfect i feel well rested my
cognition is absolutely optimized so
find your number but make sure that you
don't have an alarm staring in the face
that you get whatever amount of sleep
you need and that's me saying that as
somebody that's run big companies is
very busy i work 93 hours a week and yet
i still managed to get sleep now
i fully understand if you have kids
there are extenuating circumstances but
you want to do everything else right you
want to get to the point where
at least the only thing that's going to
disrupt your sleep is the kids so that
you do all the things you can around
sleep hygiene to make sure that you're
ready so get out get the sunlight on
your face and skin immediately make sure
that you're exercising so that you're
able to
actually earn that sleep make sure that
your diet is right which is something
that's beyond the scope of this getting
your diet right is very important and
getting the timing of your diet is very
important figuring out when you need to
stop drinking if waking up in the middle
of the night to pee is an issue for you
that's going to be an important thing
and then controlling the amount of blue
light the intensity of the light in
general
and then doing things that you can to
lower your stress lower your anxiety in
fact there's one secret tip that i
forgot
when i first lay down
i think of and shout out to doc gaiman
who was the one that encouraged me to
try this
i think of three things that i'm truly
grateful for i make them different every
day and i really envision them so that
whatever stress i may have coming into
going to bed i'm now putting myself in
this grateful place i'm in a way better
mental state it just feels awesome and
as i'm thinking about those things i
drift off to sleep and so just
recognizing that you can shift your
state and get into that much more
pleasant place is really powerful and to
even do that on your worst days is
incredibly beneficial and dr gaiman
talks a lot about that even on the day
that his father passed away he did the
same thing and he said three things that
he was grateful for and he said even on
that day it helped him fall asleep on a
day where he did not think he was going
to get sleep
little things like that make a big
difference all right i hope that you
guys all found that useful and now
without further ado i'll show you
the last little trick here and then i
will bid you farewell
and upon you and hope that you all sleep
incredibly well
and as my wife
and all of the greeks in the world would
say
gary
you