Eric Rogers: The Secret to Optimizing Sleep & Performance

Dr. Eric Rogers | Peak Sleep

Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity

Storm work, overnight shifts, rotating schedules. For workforce athletes, sleep
is often a casualty of getting the job done. But what if sleep became your performance edge? Sharper decision-m in
the field. More energy for your kids when you walk through the door. Faster recovery so your body holds up for the
years to come. Eric Rogers has trained Navy Seals and elite performers. And now he's here to give field professionals
the same tools to take back control of their rest. There is no other single
factor that affects so much in our life as much as sleep. This is the work ready
podcast. [Music]
Work in the field is tough and it takes more than muscle to last. Around here, we're building a place where workforce
athletes can pick up proven ways to stay strong, earn respect, and lead their crews without burning out. If you want
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Hello and welcome to the work ready podcast. So happy that you're joining us here today and I'm really thrilled about
the guest that we have on today. Eric Rogers, uh, PhD in psychology, board certified in behavioral sleep medicine,
founder of Peak Sleep, uh, US Army veteran, and spent a lot of his career,
uh, working with elite performers, uh, most notably the Navy Seals. So, Eric, we're just so excited to have you on the
show. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me, Kevin. Um, we've been talking about doing this for
a while, so I'm glad to be here. you know, just raising the the awareness that, you know, sleep disturbances are a
really common uh thing that people in the trades uh deal with. And often times
people don't even know where to start in terms of how to improve that. And often
times too, I think people are left with the sense of there's no hope. And um and so really I think the heart of this
Eric’s full-circle story: from watching SEALs on the beach to working beside them
conversation and the reason why I've so enjoyed uh connecting with you is just because there are so many things that
people can do to really play an active role in improving that area of their life. And so you know we're going to
talk about the highs and the lows, the struggles and and all those things. But anyhow, I'm I'm excited to jump in with
you. Yeah, sounds good. Eric, uh, maybe just start off by telling us a little bit
more about your background and what got you, um, interested in working with elite performers and again, notably the
the Navy Seals. Sure. Yeah, it's it's actually an interesting story. Um, actually going
all the way back to to childhood. Um, when I was probably 6 or 7 years old, my
family and I took a trip to San Diego where they have a variety of seal bases
as well as where they do their primary training and selection. and
we were visiting some family friends and we were out on Coronado, which is just a
little island off of the coast of San Diego and I am playing in the sand and
with my dad next to me who is uh a Vietnam veteran or was a Vietnam
veteran. He passed away a couple years ago. And I think like a lot of young
boys, uh, I looked up to my father quite a bit. Uh, viewed him a little bit like
Superman. And so, so we're playing on the sand and
all of a sudden there's these two guys that sort of emerge out of the waves in
full scuba gear. And I had never seen anything like that at that point in my life. And I'm sort
of watching these guys and uh my dad leans over and says, you know, those are
Navy Seals. And I remember
uh sort of the admiration my father had in his sort of nonverbals and in his
voice tone when he said that. And at the time it didn't really mean anything to
me other than I could see that this man who I respected so much respected these
guys so much and that really stuck with me. Um
and obviously life goes on. grew up, went to grad school, uh joined the army,
and you know, chose a path in my military career where I ended up being what's
referred to as an operational psychologist. And all that that really
means is that we use psychological principles in
sort of a less conventional way. And my
my personal specialty was in assessment selection. So I was
working with special operations, the special forces specifically, and I was
responsible for evaluating, assessing, and helping in the selection process of
candidates who wanted to wanted to be uh in special forces.
And I I loved that job and did it for quite a few years. And then my wife and
I moved I got out of of the military and my wife and I moved back to the West
Coast. She's from San Diego uh originally. So we came here and there just happened
to be a job with the SEALs
essentially doing that same thing. So, I got hired with the SEALs to do
assessment and selection and I was also their sleep specialist at the time. Um,
and what was really interesting is my office where I worked was on Coronado
was on the beach, probably 20 ft from the
beach and probably 100 yards or so from the exact spot I was playing as a kid on
His personal sleep struggle and breakthrough
the beach when I saw the seals for the first time. So, it was really sort of one of those full circle sort of sort of
journeys. But that that's the the basic story of how I ended up working with the
SEALs. That Yeah, that's such a cool story. I've I've actually been on Coronado as well and uh seen that um the training
facility where they uh do conduct buds and watch the teams out there with their boats and it's just such an inspiring
environment. Uh, Eric, how did you get first get interested in sleep? Like what
sent you down that from a career career path? Yeah, it was it kind of came out of blue
to be honest with you. I was again in the in the army. I was working as an
operational psychologist doing assessment and selection which I loved but it was a demanding job. um long
hours, sometimes irregular hours and
over time my own sleep started to suffer, right? So there were periods of
insomnia along with a variety of of other sort of
sleep challenges. And I did what I think a lot of people
first do and you you go online and you try a variety of things trying to get a
handle on it. And uh none of these things really worked.
And then I met uh a a fellow psychologist who did specialize in sleep
sort of randomly. and this person ended up becoming sort
of a mentor of mine and introduced me to
it and then I sort of took it from there and really fell in love with the subject matter.
Um, I applied it to my own life, felt and experienced the benefits firsthand,
and it wasn't long before I started using it with other people, people I I
was working with. And what I liked, I liked a lot about it, but probably
the most um important thing that I responded to was
the fact that, you know, in therapy, as a psychologist, as a clinical psychologist doing
therapy, it's it's great. It benefits a lot of
people, but progress at times can be a little
slow and at times I'm a little impatient. And
what I liked so much about helping people sleep
better was that it not only worked and worked well, but it worked quickly
and it helped them, but it also gave me the sort of immediate gratification of,
oh, I see the outcome of my efforts. So, I personally responded really well to
that as as well. Um, and these days, and you and I have talked about this a
little bit, these days I try to spread the message as much as
possible that if you are struggling with sleep, um, there are solutions that are
effective. Even if you haven't found it yet, there are. They're manageable. I wouldn't say
they're always easy. They do require some
change in behavior, maybe even a little sacrifice, but but they're manageable.
And if you do pursue that and benefit from it, it can really be life-changing.
So, I try to spread that particular message as far and wide as possible because I
know people get discouraged and people have been trying to fix their sleep for quite a while. Um, and we we'll get into
The real cost of poor sleep — and the benefits when you fix it
sort of why nothing's worked for them so far, but but yeah, um, it's my passion.
It's it's going to be what I do for the rest of my career. Theosity is more than training. It's a safety and readiness
platform trusted by companies to keep their field professionals strong, healthy, and ready for the job. Now,
we're launching something new, the Work Ready Community. It's the first online community built exclusively for field
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Join us and be part of the movement. [Music]
I Yeah, I've just seen that passion and I really appreciate it. And again, this
is something that I think is such a huge issue in the trades. And you know, most
of our listeners are frontline workers in the trades. And in fact, I was just texting yesterday with a guy who um
worked two overnight shifts right in a row. And he's like, "Man, sorry it took me so long to to get back to you." is
like the, you know, the older I get, the longer I do this work, the longer it takes me to to recover and pull out of
those um, you know, those long shifts where I'm overnight sleeping, you know,
not getting sleep and then then it's hard for me to get caught up. And he just, you know, naturally shared with me
some of those struggles. But why why is sleep so important? And what are just
other aspects of our life that are impacted um you know by sleep either
positively or or negatively? Absolutely. Uh so
I I and I and I make this comment with a lot of conviction and confidence but
there is no other single factor that affects so much in our life from health,
performance, well-being as much as sleep. Um,
and I think the the messaging I think a lot of people get from people who
specialize in sleep like me is often uh the doom doom and gloom aspect of
sleep, right? So, all of the scary health outcomes that
can come from not getting enough sleep from heart disease,
dementia, um, cancer, things like that, right? We hear
this a lot and all of those things are true. But what I
found is that a lot of people, especially the younger
population, that's not where that's not what they're
focused on. That's not very motivating for them. So, what I tend to do is focus
more on the positive benefits sleep can give you
in the here and now, right? Um so
in terms of brain functioning you know it improves your judgment your decision making
your problem solving ability creativity how quickly you think um your focus
concentration memory and ability to learn quickly. Uh
on the mental health side of things it affects your mood. It affects how
resilient you are to stress, decreases anxiety, decreases
depression. Um, and that's all happening in the brain.
But physically overall, I mean, your your immune system, pain tolerance,
ability to prevent but also recover more quickly from injury.
Um but then if you know and then you think about
sort of home life uh makes you more patient, present uh engaged with those
that you love um or emotionally balanced and um even improves your sexual
functioning and your sexual drive. So when I discuss
sleep, I tend to focus more on what it can do for you right now. Uh and one of
the reasons is that um so many of us have sleep deficits,
right? We we are chronically sleepdeprived, which means that there is
room for improvement. there is room to enhance your
performance as opposed to simply avoiding all of the bad negative outcomes that can come from not not
getting enough sleep. Um, so yeah, it it affects everything.
It seems like as a psychologist too and if you're working with people maybe dealing with depression or you know
anxiety or some of these other things if you're not addressing the sleep aspects
you're really not addressing some of the the baseline root cause components of of
that am I right in my thinking that absolutely they are so intertwined um
let's I mean if we're talking about depression let's just take depression as an example um Insomnia
and depression are often very much related. Uh sometimes poor
sleep itself can lead to symptoms of depression but having depression can
also lead to insomnia. Um and what they found is that ideally the
ideal situation is you're working with both of them
together, right? you're addressing both of them at the same time. It is true that if you have depression and you
treat insomnia, many times the depression improves, right? Um the opposite is true as well.
If you treat the depression, sometimes the sleep disturbance improves as well,
but not always, right? Um but yeah, I mean the the best way to approach it is
“You’re not alone”: how common sleep issues are in the trades
by addressing them simultaneously. But yeah, I mean the overlap between sleep
issues and just about every mental health challenge is huge.
Yeah. No, thanks for sharing that. And you and I have talked about my background as a chiropractor. I mean, I
probably took care of like 30,000 people over the 15 years that I I practiced.
And you know, one of the common things is someone would come in and, you know,
lower back pain and they'd be like, "Doc, have you ever seen this before?" And and I was like, "You know what?
Actually, I see it about 20 times every single day." Like I'm like, "This is it's so common." And they're like,
"Really? I I feel so alone. like you know this is something that's affecting
me and it was often times those conversations that I had with those people to just
help them realize that hey you know what number one this is somewhat normal number two there's actually stuff that
you can do um to help you know treat this whether it's you know us working together or it's you a combination of
you doing things on your own but it's just giving that that person um just a
confidence that you know this isn't abnormal and that there is a solution and that they can have hope in that
situation. What would you say to to some of those people who might be listening who may even feel like as it relates to
sleep, man, I feel so alone in this? Like do other people deal with this? And you know what what can I do?
Yeah. I mean first off there are a lot of people who are who are struggling
with this. I mean, if we if we pull back and look at sort of
uh the rates of poor sleep in society,
um we're talking about 40% of the population is getting less than what is
recommended. You know, the recommended 7 hours of sleep per night. Um and in a
lot of industries like utility, construction, things like that, those rates are much higher.
well above 50%. Right. So, and it has to do with
um long hours u multiple shifts like you mentioned earlier. Um but yeah, so
so really really high in in certain industries. And then if you're looking
specifically at things like rates of insomnia,
about 30% of the population at any given time are either they have insomnia or
they have some symptoms of insomnia. Um and then there's things like
obstructive sleep apnnea uh which is also very common in
uh utility and construction but also very common in the military but just in general population it's it's roughly 15
to 25% of the population have sleep apnnea. Uh when I was working in the
military those rates were m those rates were higher. Um, and
the reason for that is still somewhat unclear. Um, it may have something to do
with the working conditions, the hours, the unpredictability over time. But one
theory and something that I'm almost positive is contributing to it is the
fact that screening for insomnia and sleep apnnea
happens so much more frequently in the military. And if you were to screen
everybody in general population, those rates would be much higher as well,
right? There's a lot of there are a lot of sleep disorders
that go undiagnosed for a variety of reasons. Um, which is a shame because if
if we're talking about those two disorders specifically, insomnia and sleep apnnea, there are very effective
and we we'll talk more about them through today, but there are very
effective treatments for both. Great. I can't wait to dig into that a
little bit further. So just to paint a picture for some of the common struggles that we hear from our audience in terms
The 3 Sleep Zones explained
of uh what tends to lead to sleep disturbances, it it could be the unpredictability of the hours. So maybe
they're working a storm where they have to do over time or there's an outage and they need to to work those extra hours.
It could be somebody's working maybe at a power plant where, you know, it's it's a 24-hour uh 7-day a week uh operation
and so they have to work through the night. It could be alternating shifts uh where you know maybe one week they're on
nights, one week they're on days. So there are all these different variables that that often times disrupt the sleep
consistency. Sure. And uh one of the things that uh I just actually found you just by doing
some research and and then you uh you and I connected on LinkedIn, but as I like started to look at your website, um
there was this really cool survey that people could take to help them identify
a little bit more about like sleep zones and these concepts about sleep zones. And it's a great starting point in terms
of better understanding like where some of the struggles are and and where people fit. And then that helps provide
some guidance. Can you talk a little bit more about the sleep zones and and how you develop that and how people can just
think about where they fit on that that continuum? Absolutely. Uh you know often when
we talk about sleep people are described as being either a good sleeper or a bad
sleeper. Right? So um and all bad sleepers are sort of given the same set
of recommendations to improve it. But the problem is that sleep performance is
a continuum and where you fall on this scale
really determines what recommendations will and won't work for you. Um so what
I ended up doing um to help clarify and ensure that more people get the right
recommendations for their own struggles is
divide up that continuum in three separate zones. So for example, zone one
are people who are getting good sleep. Uh they're getting the right amount and
the right quality of sleep. So the goal there is simply to maintain and continue
doing what you're doing because it's working right. The the most important
distinction is between zones two and zones three.
Both of these groups are not getting
ideal sleep meaning uh it could be improved but the reason is different and
the reason matters quite a bit. So those in zone two
are getting either insufficient or inadequate quality sleep. Right? But the
reason is due to a variety of factors. Maybe their schedule doesn't allow the
right amount of sleep or maybe they're not prioritizing sleep properly. And
there's there are some tweaks that could be made to help optimize their sleep a
little bit more to improve it, but they aren't necessarily struggling with sleep. They don't have insomnia. Their
sleep could be better. they could get more benefit from their sleep, but they're not struggling. So, that's zone
two. And um the recommendations for that
group would be different than the recommendations for those in zone three.
And in zone three, you are struggling with sleep. You want more, but you're
having difficulty in getting it. Um,
so all of the sleep disorders that I've been talking about so far, uh, sleep
apnnea, insomnia, uh, they would absolutely fall into zone
three. So the problem is that if you were to take some of the recommendations
that are meant for someone in zone 2 and apply them to zone three, many times
they would not work and sometimes they could actually make your sleep worse.
That's yeah, that's so helpful to understand those different zones and distinctions. So, as I'm hearing this,
what I'm realizing is that it seems like there are three big levers that we want to consider. So, it's it's not just the
quantity, so the number of hours that people get, but it's also the quality of the sleep. And then it seems like there
might be a consistency uh portion as well in terms of like scheduling and
trying to to be in that consistent time frame. So, can you maybe share a little bit more on that and how that relates to
the three zones? Yeah, I think the biggest thing from what you just said is to highlight the
fact that quality matters just as much and sometimes maybe even more than
quantity. Yeah. And the the example I often use is
that of u pizza dough, right? So, if you were making a pizza and you had a ball
of dough and this represented the amount of sleep your body could produce right
now and you rolled it out and you let's say your body is able to
Quantity vs. quality — the pizza dough analogy
produce 7 hours, but you've read online that you really need eight or more. So,
you try to stretch this out as far as possible to get eight, maybe nine hours
of sleep. The further you pull this beyond what it's capable of, the thinner
it becomes and it starts to get some breaks in it, right? Some tears and some breaks, uh, which would represent, uh,
light and fragmented sleep. So, poor quality. Uh if you were to take that
same amount of pizza dough and stretch it out to 6 and 12 7 hours,
it's much thicker. It's fuller uh and it doesn't have any breaks in it. Right? So
this is high quality sleep even though the quantity isn't maybe what you are
trying to get. So it's always a balancing act. Everybody's a little different. uh not we you know people do
require um more or less sleep. It is uh there are
some individual differences in that. Um
but yeah, you cannot and a lot of what we're going to talk about today is actually more focused on the quality of
your sleep rather than ju simply how much you're getting. Yeah, that's such a
helpful visual to be able to to think about the pizza dough. So, I appreciate you sharing that that metaphor. Uh, I'd
like to jump into some of the things, you know, often times people are they Google uh questions about sleep and uh
there's been a lot of talk and and if you were to just Google like, you know, what is good sleep, what's bad sleep,
you know, when should I go to bed? Um, some of the things that come up are, uh,
there's a a term called a sleep chronotype. And so it talks about like being a morning lark versus an evening
owl. And uh do you just maybe want to address that because I think a lot of our listeners maybe have heard some of
that and how can they take some of those components and then you know start to better understand um who they are and
how they can start to get that better quantity and quality of sleep when when they do decide to to rest.
Yeah. So chronotypes are your body's preferences in terms of the timing of
your sleep. And we all vary, you know, we all vary a little bit, but in
general, they can divide it up into a few different categories. You hear
a lot of animal names being attached to these. You you mentioned it, uh, larks
and owls, right? Uh, but there's others as well and lions and bears and and
whatnot. And to to be honest, I think a lot of that is uh marketing. It it it
helps a little bit with recognition, I'm sure, but really what you can divide it
Chronotypes: early bird vs. night owl
into are three general categories. Uh, the larks are the morning type chronoype
or the early birds, right? So, there's someone who their natural preference
uh is to go to bed uh
quite early. Uh we're talking 8 9 um sometimes even a little earlier.
And then also get up really early. Um usually a couple hours earlier than than
most people. And about 30% of the population would fall into
this category. Um about 50% of the
population are what are are in the middle, right? What we would consider the intermediate type. Um
you know, their their preference is a bedtime around uh
9:30, 10 to maybe 11. Um, and then waking up, you know, 6 to 8
some somewhere in there. Um, and then there's the evening type or the owls.
And there tends to be more issues tied to this group. Um, and we can talk a
little bit about that maybe. Um, their preference is to stay up much
later. uh midnight, 1, sometimes even 2 am. And
then sleep in much later, right? And about 20% of the
population falls into this group. And there's a variety of things that determine our chronotypes. Uh genetics
is a big one. Um our age impacts it. Uh there are patterns.
um at when you're you're young or when you're a let's say when you're a
teenager, you actually naturally are an even more of an evening type of
chronotype. But as we get older, as I'm personally experiencing these days, I'm
becoming much much more of an u early chronotype.
Um, and then there's things that we do personally, uh, behaviorally
that affect it. Uh, I'll give you one example. There's something called,
uh, revenge, bedtime procrastination. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of that before.
Uh, it's something that I I personally did experience at one point. At the same time, I was struggling with sleep. It
was stressful. I was busy all day. Um I had what I felt like no time to myself
or to relax. So in the evening I
um would stay up later than my natural
preference simply because I wanted some quiet time for myself to unwind. And
that's the concept of revenge. Bedtime procrastination is you're just trying to find a window of time to recover because
our days are so busy, right? But the problem with that is it pushes us
later than we're naturally built for. Um, and ultimately it leads to uh much
less sleep, right? So that that's something that we can do. You see a lot
of people, they'll they'll really get into a video game or
something like that and they'll just play much later than they actually
intended to and then over time this naturally impacts
um our chronotype. It it shifts it later. Um,
and the other thing is cues in the environment,
right? And they're referred to as zeitge, which are is a German word for
timegivers. And the the biggest one is light exposure,
right? So when we get um
when we're exposed to light that is sitting sending a signal to our circadian rhythm that it is daytime,
right? But when we start messing with our light exposure or when we start
getting a lot of light exposure late at night, it starts to delay
our body's preparation for sleep. So over time, if we continuously do that,
it also will shift us into a later chronotype. And you can use light to
gradually pull yourself back as well. But but those are chronotypes. Um they
dictate when our natural preferences for sleep, but they also dictate when in the
day our peak uh productivity periods are as well.
Um so a morning for example a morning type chronotype they're usually more
productive early in the morning um versus a night chronotype their natural
um peak in performance and productivity is
in the evening. That's fascinating. I'm going to paint a picture of a maybe a potential scenario
and tell me if this is on and uh and if this might be something that someone
could, you know, potentially be dealing with. So, they're an evening type
person, but they work, you know, they have to be at work by 6:00 a.m. And so,
they try to go to bed early because they know that they need to get the sleep and they have to show up early, but then
they lay there in bed for 2 hours because they're like, I can't fall asleep. And there's a little bit of that
chronotype, you know, aspect that's probably impacting their ability to fall asleep.
And then pretty soon it turns into feeling like man do I have insomnia? What's what's causing this? Starts to
lead to stress which again further reinforces some of those issues. I mean is that something that you see from time
to time? Very common. That's that's the most common issue with
chronotypes and somebody like that would fall into or they'd be classified as a
circadian rhythm disorder. Right. Um, and they are that person you just
described is the one who is most likely to be misdiagnosed
as having insomnia, right? Because many times they will go
in maybe to speak to their primary care physician and they'll say, "I can't
sleep." And on the surface it does look like insomnia. They're going to bed.
they're unable to sleep for long periods of time. Uh it does look like insomnia,
but what's really happening is that they're simply trying to go to sleep
much earlier than they're biologically prepared to, and that's why they're struggling. If you were to take that
same person and allow them to sleep in
How to shift your sleep schedule (safely)
um go to bed late at night and sleep in
uh they wouldn't they wouldn't struggle, right? They would be able to sleep just fine. uh but the fact that their
schedules and just uh the demands in our life don't allow them
to do that, they're the most likely to struggle and to be misdiagnosed. So when
you're evaluating somebody you and it looks like insomnia, you always want to
rule out the possibility that it's a circadian rhythm disorder. Yeah. And I can just hear people
listening to this thinking that's exactly my scenario. And yet I have no control over my schedule. I have to show
up to work at that time. And we're going to spend I mean the whole second half of this, you know, conversation talking
about practical things that people can do. I don't want to leave those people hanging. So, you know, right off the
bat, what are some things that maybe someone could consider in that type of a situation to better help them adapt um
to what life's demands are so that they can be optimized in that situation?
Yeah. Uh I will so I'll try to be as
hopeful as possible on this one because this is a real challenge. Yeah. And
um I don't think there is a 100% solution
here but it is possible to gradually and over time and through
consistent work advance meaning move up
your uh chronoype your circadian rhythm to the
to where you are maybe getting closer to
falling into that intermediate zone. Um it
usually requires um the assistance of a professional
and very close monitoring of light exposure,
right? um over time and you can gradually move move it forward. And if you're able to
stick to it for um a long enough period of time,
um you you can advance it to where you'll be able to fall asleep uh a
little bit earlier. But yes, in that situation,
it's challenging. But but there is a way to to move it up so that you're able to
get a little bit uh better sleep. Could exercise potentially impact that as well?
Yeah. So I mentioned light and light is the the primary way of of moving this
because it is the primary zeitge. But there's a variety of things. Exercise
being one, meal timing being another really big one. uh you'd want to again
th this this advancement is one of the more complex
um sleep interventions out there. So you do
want to work with somebody who's experienced in in doing this or you can
create all sorts of issues. But yes, you you adjust gradually over time and
you're consistent with these adjustments. Uh exercise,
movement, uh meal timing and light being really big ones.
Yeah, that's so helpful. And I just can't emphasize enough that consistency
probably um is a big part of it. In sports medicine and exercise
physiology, we talk about it's called the said principle, specific adaptations to impose demands. And I'm I'm
constantly just impressed with how the body starts to adapt when you
you interject specific um you know, stimulus or stimuli or interventions,
but do it on a consistent basis so that the body can gradually adapt. And I would imagine that this fits into that
category for sure. It would and you would really want to. Yeah. In terms of the consistency,
Why sleep hygiene alone doesn’t fix insomnia
uh we are talking consistent all week, right? Yeah.
Including the weekends because the weekends are are if if you're working a
job that has distinct weekends. Uh that's where a lot of undoing can take
place. Yeah. you know, over the last like maybe year,
uh, every once in a while, uh, Google like different articles on sleep and, you
know, things that people can do and everybody is definitely using AI and AI is spitting out like common thing uh,
recommendations and it seems to always come back to sleep hygiene and so you you know, you read like 80% of the
articles and it's like um, it goes back to the light, it goes back to uh, you
know, avoiding sounds, things like that. And sleep hygiene obviously plays a
huge, huge role in that. What would you say to those people though who maybe are like, man, I've tried to cut out blue
light right before I go to bed. I've tried to, you know, do all these things, but um, you know, maybe it's not
taking them to the next level. And maybe also speak to the positive aspects of that. I mean, I'm not saying that those
are not good recommendations, but maybe just for some people, it just might not be quite enough.
Yeah, this is a great question. Um, and there are positive aspects to it. Uh,
sleep hygiene, like you said, cutting out caffeine uh in in the late afternoon, keeping
your room dark, cool, quiet, uh maintaining a consistent
routine, things like this. um or creating a nighttime routine. These are
classified as sleep hygiene. There is nothing inherently wrong with sleep
hygiene. All of these recommendations are absolutely
correct and we should all be doing them. Um the problem is that
they are the majority like you said they are the majority of things you're going to see if you were to type in I can't
sleep what should I do right and the problem is that
they are much more helpful for someone if you go back to that zone
system for someone in zone own two who
is simply looking for ways of enhancing their sleep. Um
they are not enough for someone in zone 3. So if you have insomnia and you were
typing in that question, I can't sleep. decent chance that you have insomnia and
sleep hygiene is almost certainly not going to be enough
to fix that. Um the problem is because it is so prevalent online
and just like I did when I was originally trying to look for solutions.
When you go online and you see a ton of these recommendations and you try a
bunch of them and they don't they don't work, right?
You still have insomnia. You you get to the end and
you legitimately feel like you've tried everything cuz you've tried everything
that you see online. Um, but it's not enough. If you have
insomnia, uh, there are there there are several
effective treatments. One in particular, it's called cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia or CBTI. It is considered
the gold standard in terms of treating insomnia. and it focuses on
a couple of really important areas. So, I'll just touch briefly on them. Um,
one is referred to as your sleep drive or hypostatic uh sleep pressure. You can
think about it like a balloon uh that gradually fills over the course
of the day getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And this is pressure to go to sleep. So you want this balloon to be as
big as possible by the evening uh or by the time you're
ready to go to bed because it helps you fall asleep, stay asleep, and improves the quality of your sleep. Right? So
that's one sleep drive. The other uh a lot of people have probably heard of
it's the circadian rhythm. Um, and we want our circadian rhythm as dialed in,
as aligned as possible. And many times when we're chasing sleep or we're trying
to fix sleep on our own, uh, we inadvertently throw it out of alignment.
So those two things, the sleep drive and the circadian rhythm are so foundational
to sleep. I refer to them as the diet and exercise of sleep because just like
if you're trying to lose weight and you're not addressing diet and physical
activity, you're likely up until maybe now with Ompic or whatever, um
you're likely not going to have much success. So, if you're trying a bunch of recommendations that aren't addressing
these two foundational elements, you're you're likely not going to have
much success. And then over time, there's a third factor that comes into
the picture. And it's called uh hyperarousal, which is an increased
state of physiological and psychological alertness. um often describe as feeling wound up.
And this develops over time and you experience most it most often when you
are in bed attempting to sleep, right? And it's just this this um sense of
alertness that keeps you um awake. So, when you have insomnia,
you have to be addressing these three areas or
um you're likely not going to have the success you're looking for. And most of
most of the sleep hygiene, a few of the recommendations do touch on
a few of these areas, but you really need to um to focus on all three simultaneously.
And cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia does that. So that's that's why it's the gold standard.
I'm so glad you you walked us through that, Eric, and that you also equated it to diet and exercise because I've seen
that over and over again. People have goals of, you know, they want to lose weight. And so they just use general
Physical work, recovery, and calming your nervous system
recommendations and think that it's all about energy output and energy input. And so it it matters about what I, you
know, how many calories I eat and how many calories I expend. But when you really dig deeper for those people who
feel like they're stuck, it comes back to like the type of exercise. So it could be, you know, doing more
resistance work instead of cardio. It could be, you know, adjusting to increase the amount of protein that
you're eating. Um, you know, cutting out those carbs. It it's all based on people's, you know, the way that their
metabolism works. And, um, yeah, so there's just so many factors. And that's when you know that person to to have
that breakthrough, they do need a a professional to help them uh guide them in and what's going to be best for them.
And again, I think if if you're listening to this and you're struggling with sleep, you you've tried uh you
know, the sleep hygiene strategy, that's so good. And I just want to reinforce that every aspect of that is spoton, but
it's just you might have to dial that in more. So, thank you for providing those recommendations. Sure.
Um well, let's talk uh a little bit more about like a few of the more practical
components. Uh so again, working the extended hours, what does working a
physical job do in terms of uh you know
impacting the the sleep recommendations? You talked about how sleep is when your
brain and your body is recovering. And so um you know maybe making some adjustments uh to to fit those needs as
well um might be uh relevant. Yeah. And in general um
physical activity, physical exertion if your job involves a lot of that is good,
right? It's it's a form of exercise. Um, and going back to that balloon metaphor
of the sleep drive, there are a couple of things that add pressure to this
balloon. One, the most important is simply the amount of time you've been awake, right? So, the more am time
you've been awake, the bigger this balloon gets. The other thing that can add pressure to this even uh more
quickly at times is exercise, right? So if you have a job that is very physical,
you can imagine that your sleep drive, that balloon is going to be big at the
Box breathing + hot shower = faster recovery
end of the day. So technically, you should be able to fall asleep quickly.
Um that's not always the case because especially in certain industries um
like a lot of the people watching this work in their jobs are physical but they're also
dangerous. Um there's a lot of risk involved. You have to be paying
attention or there can be bad outcomes. Right? So, and you're doing this for a
long period of time. And what happens is your sympathetic
nervous system kicks in. Your fight orflight response kicks in in order to
keep you safe. But then you maintain this for very prolonged periods of time.
And it's not something you can simply turn off at the end of the day. All right? uh you are wound up by the time
you uh go to sleep. So you may be very tired, you may be very sleepy, but
you're too wired to fall asleep um regardless of how physical the job was.
So in those sorts of situations, you need to find a way of calming down
your nervous system as quickly as possible so that you can get to sleep.
Um, and I'll just give you a couple um recommendations for doing that. Uh, the
first is using, and there's a variety of them out
there, but using a controlled breathing technique that mimics a calm state,
right? So, um, this is a great way of pulling you
out of that fight orflight mode. Um, the one that I tend to use and that I
recommend is called box breathing. Uh, we used it a lot with the seals and um
you can imagine it like uh a box and you're breathing and each side
of the box represents one component of the breath, right? So, the inhale, the
exhale, and two separate hold periods or pauses.
And you um conduct each of these components for the same amount of time,
which is 4 seconds. And you can imagine if you're if you're inhaling for se 4
seconds, holding for 4 seconds, exhaling for four, it's it's very slow. And
that's exactly what you're looking to do. uh because that then sends a signal to your brain that the threat is over,
the danger is over and you are safe to relax. So that's one way that you can
sort of almost trick your brain into relaxation.
And the other recommendation would be to take a hot shower.
Um, this is as close to what I consider a sleep hack as I as I give. Uh, not a
huge fan of hacks, but this is this is a sleep hack. Um,
and the reason it works is because our bodies every night
our core body temperature drops between 1 to two degrees. It's just a signal to
the rest of our body that it's time to start preparing for sleep. And by taking
a hot shower, you can sort of jumpst start that process. Um,
the way it works is if the water is hot enough, you you want it to be
comfortable. You don't want something painful, but you do want it hot, right? You want your body to feel the need to
cool itself down. And what happens is the heat around your core moves outward
towards the surface of your skin while at the same time the blood vessels on the surface of your skin dilate allowing
that heat to escape your body especially through your hands, feet, and your head.
Um, and you want to do this one to two hours before you actually plan on
Time-zone and storm-work strategies
falling asleep. So, you do have time to cool down, but you have also you have time for that drop in core uh
temperature to occur before going in bed. And you don't want to get out of the shower and put on socks right away
and and or something like that. You don't you want to keep your feet, hands, and heads uncovered for
uh roughly 30 minutes or so to allow that heat to continue to leave your body. You don't want to trap it in. Um,
and this is a great way of calming down because one, a hot shower
is relaxing and two, it it
can jumpst start that cooling process to send a a stronger signal to your body to
start winding down. Such a great recommendation. I've I've
never had that uh that recommendation so
thoroughly. um talked about. So, thanks for walking through that. And I love the um concept of box breathing. It's
actually something that we teach every single person through Vamosi on how to do box breathing. And there's so many um
benefits to box breathing. Obviously, the the balancing of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, but
it's also just reconnecting your brain to the diaphragm. And it's one of the
only physiological processes that we can like actually control. I mean, we can um
control our breathing pattern and uh it's important for core stability. So many benefits. So, thanks for bringing
that up. Yeah. I mean, just to build on that point you just made, I mean,
when you're wound up, what other option do you have? You can't tell yourself to
relax. Yeah. You can't force it. Uh you need to focus
on what you can control. And your breathing is something you can control. Yep. We'll actually in the show notes
we'll add a link to box breathing with some guided instruction um because I think that's something that everyone can
definitely benefit from. So thanks for sharing that. You know a common thing that we also
hear are you know people may cross state lines to work a storm and so now they're
dealing with time zone changes um and so that just compounds uh sleep. Can you
maybe share a little bit more about the impact of time zones and then maybe how people should strategize sleep when it
comes to navigating that? Sure. Yeah, this is challenging. Uh
uh but I'm sure very common and yeah, there there's a few things you can do.
Um first off, just to explain why it's happening. Uh it goes back again to our
circadian rhythm. um when you travel across especially
several time zones. Let's just use an example of going from the west coast to
the east coast, which is actually a relatively small change of 3 hours. Um but but the reason
why you would struggle when you get to the east coast is because the time on
their clocks does not match your biological time, right? So, if you tend
to go to sleep at um 9, let's just say pretty early, but
let's say you go to sleep at 9 and you try to do the same thing on the East
Coast, your body thinks it's 3 hours earlier. So, you're so much it's going
to be so much more difficult, right? Um, and that's why it's actually easier to
go east coast to west coast. It's easier to delay going the to bed for a period
of time than to force going to bed earlier than you're biologically
programmed to. Uh, so that's essentially uh
what's happening. Um, if you're able to anticipate the travel,
which you may sometimes and other times you may not, if you're able to anticipate it, you can start gradually
shifting your sleep schedule a little bit
um earlier. So again, going back to that west to east coast travel, if you knew
you were going to be going to um the east coast, several days in advance uh
for something like that, probably 3 days ahead of time would be fine. You can gradually
uh move up your bedtime, right? 30 minutes, 45 minutes each night so that
by the time you're ready to make the trip, you're ready to go to sleep at
the destination city, right? Um,
if you can't anticipate it
and it's going to be a short trip, um, my recommendation is to maintain
your schedule as much as possible um, for your home city, right? So, if I
was traveling to the East Coast, uh you might want to and and I go to bed at
9:00 a.m. typically. Um when I get to the East Coast, I would go to sleep at
midnight, right? And I would sleep later if that is possible, which sometimes it
is not. But if you're able to do that and it's a short trip, that's the easiest way of keeping your circadian
rhythm aligned. Um, if you're not able to and
you and it's and you're not able to also prepare for it, um, one of the best things you can do is
the let's use the same example again. and you go into the East Coast, uh, you
may struggle that first night. You probably will struggle that first night. That's jet lag. Um, the next day, as
early as you can, you're going to want to expose yourself to as much morning sunlight as possible.
And you're going to also want to eat your breakfast or your first meal of the day as early as possible. This is the
only other way that you can start speeding up that adjustment a little
bit. Um, it is a legitimate challenge. There's no uh foolproof solution for it.
You are uh fighting your biology. Uh, and you can shift and you can help the
How to use naps, caffeine, and sleep debt correctly
the process, but you can't eliminate it completely. Yeah. No, thank you. Those are great
recommendations. And uh again, control what you can control and and I I like
how practical that is. Um, I was talking to someone uh earlier this year about
the impact of storm work. And storm work is really common, especially I mean we're seeing it more and more
hurricanes, ice storms, uh, tornadoes. And the situation that this individual
mentioned is that they worked 18 on, six off, uh, for a week straight. And um you
know we talked a lot about the safety implications of that and just the
cumulative effect of sleep deprivation. I would call that sleep deprivation. I mean it's even though you're 6 hours off
I mean you're not sleeping for 6 hours. Uh so maybe first talk about like the
impacts of that schedule. Yeah. Then let's try to again make it practical because it's the
reality. I mean it's an emergency situation. people are relying on, you know, electricity to come back on and so
people's lives are at stake. But what can people do despite those
circumstances to at least maximize, you know, safety, also maximize, you know,
the opportunity to get rest when they can and maybe talk about how naps play into that. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Um, it's not an ideal
situation, right? you you know without a shadow of a doubt that if you're only
given six hours off, you are not going to get ideal sleep. Uh
you're simply not. The window is way too short. Uh so anytime that you're getting
less than the recommended amount of sleep, which again, let's just use 7 hours as our basis.
um you are going to start accumulating
chronic sleep deprivation. Um acute sleep deprivation is when you
would be staying up consistently for long periods of time like over let's say
24 hours, right? Uh but when you're consistently getting less than the
recommended amount of sleep, um that is sleep deprivation. It's cumulative. It
keeps adding on itself and it is a it is a risk factor, right? Um it impacts
um judgment, decision-m um impulsivity,
difficulty focusing. Uh, one of the things that I think is the biggest risk
factor, especially if the schedule you're describing goes for several days
on end, is the risk of something called micro sleeps.
And these are brief periods of time in which you are
very sleepd deprived and your brain literally shuts down for a few seconds.
Uh can be a second to 30 seconds. Um
sometimes you're not aware that this is happening. Many times you're not aware that this is happening. but you are
literally going to sleep because it is your brain's desperate attempt to try to
make up some of the sleep that you're not getting at night. Um, and obviously that's a dangerous scenario.
Um when
when you know that this is going to be your schedule, it's really important to
prioritize recovery as much as possible. Uh take as much of that 6-h hour window
as possible for sleep. Um sometimes that is difficult. You get
off again. We talked about sometimes it's difficult to unwind quickly. Uh you
have to eat something probably you have to shower maybe. Uh you might want to
speak to your family. So that 6 hours can quickly become four.
Uh now we're talking about serious sleep deprivation especially if
you're doing this for numerous days in a row. Um so that the that risk of micro
sleeps is a real concern. Uh so again you want to make sure that you're
maximizing that window of recovery as much as possible. Um I think it is
important to point out the fact that sleep debt
you know following let's say you work this schedule for a few days and then you have a longer recovery period and
you're like great I'm going to sleep for 10 hours and I'm going to make all of
that up. It it unfortunately doesn't work that way. The closest example I can give you just that everybody might
recognize is, you know, somebody who Monday through Friday is getting less
than ideal sleep and then tries to make it up on the weekend. You can make up a
little bit, but you cannot make it all up. And so, whatever is left gets rolled
over to the next week, and that's how it compounds over time. Um, sometimes
depending on how long you've been building up this debt, it can take weeks
to maybe even a month to fully pay it off. Um,
and I don't know if you've ever heard of the term um, sleep banking. Uh this is
the idea of if you know you're going to be in a situation like this, you can
sleep a lot in the days leading up to it and then
use some of that extra saved up sleep to help protect you. So
that's how it's often described and that's not really what's happening.
um what is happening and and why that is
still a decent idea is that we're all carrying around a certain amount of
sleep debt. I guarantee the vast majority of people who is who are
listening to this have sleep debt. Maybe a lot. Right? So,
if you know that you're going to be working a storm soon, you can anticipate
that, which I'm I know you can't always anticipate this. Um,
sleeping as much as you can leading up to this experience is still a good idea
because you can move yourself closer to
being at 100%. It's not that you're saving sleep to use later. You're simply
returning yourself to an ideal baseline before you deprive yourself again.
Right? So, so that's
uh sleep debt, what it is, and and and
how you can pay it off. Um, in terms of
what you can do in the moment, you brought up naps.
naps are ideal if you're able to do it. Um, and I recommend it right because
it would it goes a long way in preventing a lot of the more dangerous aspects of sleep deprivation, right?
It's not a replacement for a good night's sleep, but it can absolutely help. A short five to 15 minute nap is
ideal. Um you don't really want to go beyond 15 20
minutes because then you start to enter into a deeper stage of sleep and it's harder to come out of it. So a very
brief 5 to 15 minute nap is ideal uh when possible.
Um, I just understand that it's not always
it's it's just not always an option. Totally. Man, I remember when our kids
were really little, like one and three, you know, I'm working like crazy and
just not sleeping. And I had one moment that really shook me where I was driving down the freeway and I I literally did
fall asleep at the wheel. And fortunately, there are the rumble strips to w wake me up. But it definitely
completely changed my pattern in terms of if I start to feel myself nodding off, it's like I have to stop. Um, but
what are and I I'm sure a lot of people can relate to a similar story, but what are some things that like if you're on a
crew, you're doing a pre-job brief or a tailboard and you're looking at your teammates and you've been working these
type of schedules, what are the signs that people can see in others that may,
you know, I think cause them to raise their hand and say, "Hey, man. I I think you might need to, you know, sit down
for 20 minutes, you know, take a take a nap, take a a break because that could honestly it could impact the safety of
the entire job. It could save people's lives. Um, so I'd love to hear your perspective on that.
Absolutely. Uh, these are things we should be looking out for in ourselves, but but also in those around us, like
you said. Um there is a difference between being tired and being sleepy. Um
a lot of us are tired much of much of the time. We we're we're busy. Uh stress
can lead to feeling tired and a variety of things. But being sleepy is
when things start to become dangerous because it's an overwhelming desire to
sleep. Uh so when either we notice this
in ourselves um or we notice it in others, you know,
when you're seeing that classic head nodding,
that's an immediate intervention time because what is happening are you are
either having or you are just about to have micro sleeps. Um
essentially that is what it is. Uh your brain is temporarily for for a second or
two shutting down. Uh so when you feel yourself doing that or you see somebody else on the crew
doing that, it's time to intervene. Um uh heavy eyelids, you know, difficulty
keeping your eyes open. If you see somebody sort of
zoning out or staring vacantly, uh that's another good sign. And if you
notice yourself having difficulty uh focusing, your
vision is becoming a little blurry, these are all very classic signs that
you are sleepy. Um and
and you're approaching a dangerous situation. So yeah, that that is the time to raise your hand and say, "I need
a break." or if you see it happening to somebody else, pulling them and forcing
a break. You know, one of the common things, and I've even done this myself, is, you know, I'm tired, I grab a cup of coffee,
and I just try to stay awake. I also see people oftenimes, you know, grabbing a Monster energy drink to, you know, try
to, you know, stimulate themselves. What are the impacts of caffeine on a chronic
basis when it comes to stimulating you but then also impacting sleep?
Sure. Uh sometimes, you know, caffeine gets a little bit of a bad rap with
regard to sleep and often you'll hear that ideally you're not you're not
drinking caffeine at all. And I mean, there's nothing wrong with not drinking
it at all, but it can be used in situations like what we're talking about to sort of boost alertness a little bit.
Um, going back to that concept of the sleep drive, the balloon,
what what's really happening in that scenario is there's a chemical called adenosin that is building up in our
brain over the course of the day. And
that leads to feelings of sleepiness and decreases our alertness. What caffeine
does is it blocks adenosin receptors in our brain. Right? So the adenosin is
still building up. It just has nowhere to latch on. So we don't feel the effects.
Um now of course that also means that once the caffeine is finally out of your
system there is all this adenosin buildup in our brain that now has a
place to latch on and that is what we experience when we talk about the
caffeine crash. Right? So caffeine can be used strategically to boost
alertness. Uh the problem is that we often use caffeine more as a crutch or
just to function as opposed to something that helps enhance our performance,
right? We we drink too much of it on too regular a basis. And so where caffeine
is a problem with sleep is that uh caffeine has a very long halflife of
let's say roughly 5 hours. So it varies a little bit person to person. But let's
just say it has a halflife of 5 hours. meaning that 10 hours after you have
some something with caffeine in it, uh it takes 10 hours before all of the
caffeine is gone, right? And ideally, we don't want
any caffeine in our system or very, very little caffeine in our system when we're trying to fall asleep.
Um because not only will it make falling asleep more difficult for most people uh
but it also impacts the quality of that sleep. And I know and I know that there are a lot of listeners who are hearing
this and they're saying well I can I can
drink a monster uh and go to sleep instantly.
Yes, you probably can. Uh, that's likely more of an indication of how sleepd
deprived you are. And two, just the the the fact that
you're able to fall asleep doesn't mean that that caffeine isn't
having a significant impact on the quality of of the sleep that you're getting. So, so yes, caffeine early in a
shift um can be very beneficial
uh especially when you are feeling uh a little sleepy. Um it
shouldn't be used when you I mean it's a trade-off, right? So if it is an
absolute emergency scenario and you cannot take a break,
um it can be used in that scenario even if it's late in a shift to prevent any
sort of real negative safety outcomes.
Understanding though that that is then going to carry over and affect your
sleep. So ideally, we're maximizing our recovery as much as possible. When we
are using caffeine, it is early in our shift, 8 to 10 hours before we're
planning on sleeping. That those are great guidelines. And
when you're saying that it may impact like the quality of sleep, is it like
the REM sleep like you just can't quite get into those deeper waves or Right. It's going to be lighter, a
little more fragmented. Um, it has less of a negative impact on our
sleep compared to something like alcohol, which I'm sure we'll talk about. Uh,
but yeah, it's lighter, a little more fragmented um,
compared to normal natural sleep. Yeah, let's talk about another stimulant. And I think a lot of people
don't even think of this as being a stimulant. It also ends in and that's nicotine. And you know, you put in a dip
or you smoke a cigarette and you just don't realize that that's actually something that is probably also, you
know, potentially stimulating you or preventing that that higher quality sleep. Can you speak a little bit more
about that? Absolutely. It's very much a stimulant and uh will have a very similar negative
impact on your sleep if you are doing it too close to bedtime which many people
do. How many times do we hear even as a way of relaxing or right before bed um
you have a cigarette or or do something else with nicotine in it. Um, and
that is that is likely going to have a a a significant impact on your sleep. So,
ideally, you're wanting to uh keep that at least four to 5 hours before bed to
prevent uh some of the major damage. But the other problem with nicotine is is is
how addictive it is. and and then if you're experiencing
cravings uh over the course of the night that's again going to interrupt sleep and lead
to lighter more dis uh fragmented sleep. So,
um, if you're going to use it, again, do it
very early, but understand that, um,
especially cuz a lot of people who do smoke uh, smoke frequently and
at some point they're going to have cravings, which can also then impact
your sleep quality. So yeah, it's it's
it's something that is even more damaging than than caffeine. Yeah, you briefly talked about alcohol,
but I think we should jump in there. You know, for me, it's one of those things. I I didn't really like fully understand
the impact of alcohol on my sleep. I I wear a Whoop. Um, I've actually really
enjoyed it and I mean we could do a whole podcast just in terms of uh, you know, having a wearable that helps you
from a sleep perspective. But man, it is so clear the impact um, for me of
alcohol and and sleep and and how that impacts the quality and even the quantity of sleep. And so I mean at this
point like I'm going for the athletic brewing if if I drink a beer and going for the non-alcoholic just because it
it's I mean I'm going to be in the red every single time if I if I drink alcohol. So that's been my personal
experience and uh it's also been really helpful to have that data because it it has enabled me
to make better decisions about you know what's good or bad for me especially
from a recovery standpoint. Let's talk about alcohol because again it's one of those things like like cigarettes.
People oftenimes think I'm going to just wind down with a glass of wine when I get home or I'm going to drink a couple
beers and they don't fully I think appreciate or understand the impact
that's having on their recovery on the whole but then again how it's impacting
their sleep. So love for you to expand on that. Yeah. Uh I'll start this by saying I
have nothing against alcohol. Uh, I enjoy alcohol actually.
I enjoy beer. Um, but the reality, and I call it an
inconvenient truth, is that there is probably
no other single thing that disrupts sleep more than alcohol.
And that may actually be a little confusing to a lot of the listeners
because it's a sedative, right? So it so a lot
of people, especially people who struggle or who have insomnia, will actually use alcohol
to help fall asleep because it can do that. It does for some people
Alcohol, nicotine, and sugar—the inconvenient truths
help you fall asleep more quickly. So, they view it as a sleep aid. The problem
is that the damage it does far outweighs any potential benefit.
Um, the most notable things that alcohol
does is one, it disrupts your sleep architecture pretty significantly. So
sleep architecture is um our a visual sort of representation
of how much time we spend in each stage of sleep. So stage one, two and then
three, sometimes four, uh three and four are often combined. And then REM sleep,
right? the rapid eye movement sleep that is that represents a cycle of sleep and
you go through that cycle numerous times a night. Each cycle takes roughly 90
minutes to get through. Um, and when alcohol is in your system, you spend a
lot more time in the first half of your night in stage three deep sleep
and very little time in rim sleep. And ultimately, you do end up with less
rim sleep in your night than you would otherwise. But but sort of once you
cross the the halfway point of the night, um especially after that alcohol fully
metabolizes, you get what is referred to as a rim
rebound effect where all of a sudden your body is desperately trying to get
REM sleep because it didn't get any of it in the first half of the night. And REM sleep is when you do the majority of
your dreaming. So your dreams will often
become vivid and intense. Uh you also sweat a lot more um during
them. And REM sleep is really important. I mean it's it's important for memory
consolidation, learning, creativity, and emotional regulation, right? So when
we're not getting those, all of those areas are being affected. Uh but
alcohol, especially again in the second half of the night, leads to lighter, more fragmented, less restorative sleep.
uh it's a diuretic, so you're going to be likely using the the bathroom more
often and it's going to also leave you more dehydrated. And then um something that's I think
less talked about is the fact that it increases snoring and worsens breathing
related issues like sleep apnnea which we touched on. Um so and it is true that
the more you drink the more damage is done. The fact is that any amount of alcohol
is going to have a negative impact on your sleep. Um so the ideal scenario is
none. Uh that is the ideal and and I and and I
know a lot of people when they hear that they're like oh my god no I mean that's just ridiculous.
That is the truth. Yeah. So none is the best. But this is what
I'll say. Um, none is even more important when
your recovery window is short because let's say you have a recovery
window of 8 hours or less. That's really where you need to maximize that as much
as possible. You're not going to get likely the the ideal amount of sleep.
So, the quality of that sleep needs to be as good as possible. and alcohol will damage that significantly.
um in in situations in which maybe you you do have
a day off or something like that and you you don't have those sorts of
responsibilities the next day and and are adamant that I am going to have
something the next best thing would be to have one
or two drinks max drink um 3 to 4 hours before you intend
to go to bed and drink as much water as you can in between drinks. It's not
going to eliminate the issue. It's not going to eliminate the damage the alcohol is going to do,
but it can minimize it a little bit. So, none is ideal.
Mild to moderate is the second best. Uh and I and I know that that's challenging.
That is legit challenging. Uh but inconvenient truth is definitely the best way to uh position that, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean another inconvenient truth is unfortunately sugar is another thing.
And I mean most of us are addicted to sugar. I know that that's one thing that like man I I do have a sweet tooth so I
have to work really hard on you know cutting out sugar as much as possible. But what does refined sugar h do to
sleep and how does that act as a stimulant as well? Yeah, I mean it gives you the the rush,
right? I mean, that's it's legit. It can be used. Um, however, yes, uh, it it can
also have a detrimental effect. I'm not going to um exaggerate the
effect of of sugar. It's not going to have the same sort of effect as alcohol
or caffeine, but it is going to affect the sleep quality. Um,
again, lighter, fragmented, less restorative. Um,
but yeah, I mean, if we're rank ordering these, I would put it lower, but it's
still having an impact. Yep. And then you get the crash, too. I mean, it's it's the high followed by the
low. Well, we talked about the things that disrupt sleep. Now, I think a common thing is
people turn to sleep aids to try to help them. This is very common. You know,
there's medication, melatonin, CBD, uh bunch of different things. love for you
to just kind of walk through that because those are probably things that
people have tried or maybe you're curious. Is this right for me? Um what are some of the pros and cons related to
to those? Yeah, probably the most common is well,
okay, so the most common for somebody who is
um struggling and maybe has insomnia is that they're
offered medication. Um and unfortunately
medication should never be uh the first option.
The reason why it is and this is I'm sort of getting on a a a soap box right
here is the fact that when somebody is struggling with sleep,
the first person they tend to tell is their primary care physician.
Melatonin, CBD, and what really works
Um, the problem is, um, that,
and this might be surprising, it was surprising when I heard it as well, is
that the vast majority of primary care physicians are taught very, very little
about sleep. Uh Harvard recently put out this document
that looked at how the the curriculum in in medical schools and in a 4-year
program they spent a little less than two hours
talking about sleep, which is mindblowing
because sleep literally has some form form of impact on every single thing
that they are treating. Um to some extent it has an impact on
that and they're spending so little and I'm really I'm not trying to point out
and uh criticize and I have I have an immense amount of respect for anybody in
in health related fields. It was the same in my program. uh very little time
spent on sleep even though sleep and every sort of mental health condition
overlap tremendously. So I'm not blaming the individuals, I'm blaming the the educational institutions
for leaving this out. It is so so important. And I have a a brief story. Uh, I was,
I don't know, a couple months ago, long story, I won't get into this. I had
to get stitches in my face. Uh, so I'm
going to get the stitches out. I'm in the ER and the and the ER doc comes in
and the first thing I notice is that he is displaying those signs of serious
sleepiness. I thought he was going to fall over. So, I'm very concerned because he's about to
use sharp instruments in my in the general area of my face. And he
looks like he could fall asleep. And he ends up asking me what I do for
work. And I sort of told him that I, you know, help people sleep. And his
response was, "Oh, you mean like sleep hygiene?" And
that remark in and of itself is extremely telling. Um
because when I sort of talked to him a little bit more similar to some of the
things we've been talking about here, he was interested. He so much so that he
started asking me questions about how he can improve his sleep, about how his
mother can improve her sleep. Um, and and I'm I was happy to to have that
conversation, but I left thinking that there is no reason I should have had to
have that conversation. Um, this should be
common knowledge in any health related educational field. So,
so when when physicians get about 2 hours of education on sleep, it covers
sleep hygiene and medication and those are the two things that they have a
tendency to offer. Um, and the problem is that medication
uh is never sleep medication is never meant to be a long-term solution. It is
a band-aid at best. Uh, and it comes with some fairly significant
side effect risks. uh drowsiness, uh hallucinations,
parasomnas and uh sleepwalking actually complex sleepwalking,
driving even sometimes. Um and some of them can be physiologically
and psychologically habit forming. Um
so so they are there is a place for sleep medication
but they are not meant to be the first option. The first option is
um the gold standard I described earlier in cognitive behavioral therapy. Um if
somebody goes through CBTI and doesn't uh respond to it then
potentially medications are an option or in an emergency situation and for a
short time sometimes medications can be used responsibly but many times they are
used as a solution and people are using them
for long periods. period of time, years.
Um, and and that's that's really unfortunate.
Thank you so much for sharing that. I know when I worked with the US Olympic Committee, uh this was like 2010ish,
sleep sleep aids were pretty prevalent and they would hand it out like candy and it became this almost cultural thing
and a dependence and people confused anxiety with that was a solution. But
then just realizing the impact that it had on the quality of the sleep, the ability for people to recover and then
perform at the highest level. And you know, often times you're traveling halfway across the world to compete in
these events and then you show up and you can't perform at your best. So I
I've I've seen it uh you know, be a substitute. Unfortunately, they actually
passed rules where they could no longer I mean they had you had to go through
some pretty big hoops to even be able to be prescribed that um by the time I
stopped working with them in 2018. But definitely a problematic uh situation.
That's great. Uh just knowing that there are really effective ways you can improve your sleep without medication.
Yeah, there really are. Uh, I think people see medications as
uh the easy button. Uh, but but they're not solving anything and it's not
producing the same quality sleep as you would get otherwise naturally.
Yep. What about melatonin? You know, that's some something that I hear people use quite often or even CBD.
Yeah, melatonin um is a safer option. uh
relatively few side effects to no side effects. Works well for some, not as
much for others. I think the concerns with melatonin are
uh sometimes people use too much of it. Uh when you do use melatonin, you do not
need a lot. Very small dosages.5 to 3 milligrams is
ideal. uh above that doesn't add much additional value but can increase side
effects. Um I'm a huge proponent of
not using sleep aids as much as possible. Um
because I think I I have concerns with especially the psychological dependency
on these believing you need something to sleep. um I have a bit of an issue with
but a a lot of people do use it and find
it helpful. I think when I would recommend melatonin um
is when you are like we discussed earlier either for
travel or you're trying to um adjust your chronoype a little bit. uh
melatonin can be used to help shift your circadian rhythm a little bit. Uh but
again, that should be done under the supervision of somebody who
does that regularly. But but that is a very common and beneficial use of
melatonin as opposed to simply a nightly dose to sleep. Uh again, it's common
um relatively few side effects. Uh but you can absolutely form a psychological
dependency on it. Uh CBD is a little bit different. Uh the research is mixed. Um
some people swear by it. You know, they they feel that it helps helps improve the quality of their sleep as well as
their anxiety. Uh but it but it's unclear whether or not it's the CBD
itself or it's the belief in the CBD that is leading to
uh the positive outcomes. Uh the placebo effect is
a real thing and um the power of belief
is incredible. So, uh, the science is doesn't support it as as much. But if
you are going to try any of these things, CBD, melatonin, and definitely
medi medication, um, that is a time to have a conversation with your physician. Make
sure that it doesn't um interact with any other medications you're on.
That's great. Well, we'll start to wrap things up with a few final questions. and you talked about like primary care.
Often times people go to their primary care um to talk about sleep and often
times that leads to a referral as a first step for like a sleep study and I
I see that quite commonly and um you know there are definitely some some great insights that people can pull away
from the sleep study. oftentimes they're looking at sleep apnea as being a potential um component, but can you
maybe briefly talk about sleep studies and then sleep apnea and again prevalence and the impact that that has
on sleep and some of the solutions that people might be able to um you know seek if if that's something that they're
dealing with. Absolutely. So um sleep studies are really designed for
uh identifying something like sleep apnnea not for evaluating
or trying to diagnose something like insomnia because I don't know if you've ever seen what happens in a sleep lab
but you go in and one you're sleeping in an unfamiliar environment
and a lot of wires are attached to your body and your head. So, it's a very
unnatural sleep environment. Um, and for somebody with I mean, it's going to
cause sleep issues for anybody uh trying trying to sleep in there, let alone
somebody with insomnia. So, it's not really used to diagnose that, but it is great at diagnosing
sleep apnnea. And sleep apnnea is essentially when
Sleep apnea and solutions (CPAP, side-sleeping, nerve stimulation)
you um are sleeping and the muscles in your
neck and throat area relax and collapse in on itself blocking your airway,
right? And when that happens, it results in a it results in waking you up
briefly. And this can happen especially if you've got severe sleep apnnea. It
this can happen many many many times upwards of a hundred times per hour you
can be brought out of sleep. Um
many times the things to look for are significant snoring. If you sleep with a
partner and your partner has ever commented on you stopping breathing or gasping in your
sleep, those are very significant uh signs of sleep apnnea. And that would
be an experience or a time when a referral to sleep sleep study would be
uh great. Um and there there are a variety of
things you you asked about what are some of the interventions or some some of the
things you can do if you have sleep apnnea. The gold standard for that still is
called a CPAP machine. It's a continuous positive airway pressure. That's what
CPAP stands for. and it delivers a continuous flow of pressurized air uh in
through your nose or your mouth. And that air keeps your airways open so that
you're not um struggling to breathe so your airways
aren't collapsing in on themselves and and interrupting your sleep. It's it is
still the gold standard. The problem is
it also can be uncomfortable and people can struggle with
the machine itself um that goes either over your nose and mouth or just your
nose and it has a hose attached to it and it can be a it can take some getting
used to. So, one of the biggest problems for people treating sleep apnnea is the
fact that the the individual um doesn't like the machine.
Um if that is the case,
there are a few alternatives. None yet are quite as good as the CPAP. The
number one is losing weight. uh oftent times not always uh
people who are overweight are more likely to struggle with sleep apnnea. So
one of the common recommendations is losing weight.
That is actually a challenge for people with sleep apnnea
because and we can talk about this if if you like but
um sleep good sleep plays a big role in losing weight and if your sleep is so
disrupted due to the sleep apnnea it makes losing that weight
extremely challenging to near impossible. So, that is a great recommendation, but it's very, very hard
to do. There's also oral appliances that your dentist can uh create that sort of
you wear at night and it forces your jaw out uh which opens your airway a little
more. There's sleep positioning uh training. Many times people struggle
more when they're sleeping on their back. Uh so because if you think about
what's happening, your airways in your neck are collapsing backwards, blocking off your throat. Um so sometimes
sleeping on your side can be helpful. There's a variety of ways to help that.
um from pillows to the one I it always
makes me smile is sewing sewing a couple tennis balls onto the back of a shirt
t-shirt. Um obviously if you turn over on your back
that's going to be very uncomfortable. It's going to keep you on your side. Um, and then there's something newer on
the market, uh, that you may have seen, hypoglossal nerve stimulation, which is technically a surgery. Um,
and it's a a a little um thing that you wear. It's a
wire that goes up to um your uh mouth area. And what it does
is it sends an electrical impulse uh to the tongue muscle and causes it to
protrude while you sleep. And that movement uh keeps your airway open um
more so. So it it's it's again newer to the market um but it is it is an
alternative uh to the CPAP. Anecdotally, I've heard uh of people
using a resistive breathing device to improve uh basically their their lung capacity and
their diaphragmatic um control. And so a lot of like uh endurance athletes and
triathletes will actually use one of these devices where it's it's almost like a resistance band. You breathe into
it and it provides a little bit of resistance. And I've anecdotally heard just, you know, general population folks
get those and notice some improvement in in their sleep apnnea through that. So,
I don't know if you've you've heard of that, but um it's intriguing to me.
I I I haven't. But one thing it it just sort of made me think about, you know,
the recommendations on mouth taping and things like that. uh that's very popular
right now. Um the science doesn't really support it,
but again, belief is really strong. And um I bring it up in this conversation
because if you have sleep apnea,
um mouth taping can actually be quite dangerous.
Sure. Uh so you don't want to just try mouth taping um without first figuring
out what is the the issue with your sinuses and your breathing at night. Uh
because if you do you you could be talking about a pretty dangerous situation. So, it's always a
good idea if you're if you're going to try that um and you know you're having
trouble breathing at night, it's always a good idea to rule out sleep apnnea before before experimenting.
That's a really good call. Well, Eric, man, we covered so many
different subjects in this this conversation and I really really enjoyed it. I think that our audience um
definitely is going to step away with some great uh just things to think about
and um you know concepts that they can directly apply to their life. Where can
people find more about what you have to offer? whether that's through um you
know one-on-one coaching or it might even be signing up for uh your zones uh
training and some stuff that people can do at home. Yeah, absolutely. Uh
if you uh would like to find out more about uh me or the sleep zones, the the
easiest way to go is just to the my website uh peaksleep.com.
uh on the homepage you'll you'll see uh the path to taking the sleep zone quiz.
I I would recommend starting there uh to find out
um which zone you fall into. Uh if you are someone in zone three,
um I do encourage you to
uh either reach out to me, you can email me, uh you can find my email on online.
Final takeaways—sleep as your hidden edge
Um and ask me about what your options are, possible solutions. Um
I may be willing and able to work with you or I may be able to point you in the
right direction. Um, again, I know how challenging it can be to
sort of find the solution on your own and weed through all of the recommendations online. So, um,
I I can hopefully help you navigate that a little bit. Well, Eric, we are all on a quest to
become the best versions of ourselves. And sleep, as you mentioned, impacts
every aspect of our health, our well-being, our attitudes, our mental health, um prevents disease. There are
just so many important benefits. And when people have this knowledge, it really empowers them to um continue in
on that journey. So, we're we're so grateful for your time, for sharing your insight, and we're so grateful for you,
the listeners, for uh joining us today. And remember to tune in for future conversations that are about again
advancing each one of us uh to become that best version of ourselves. Thanks so much for joining the Work Ready