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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[Music]
hello and welcome to the moonshots
podcast it's episode 157
i'm your co-host mike parsons and as
always
i'm joined by the sleeping giant himself
mr mark pearson freeland good morning
mark hey good morning mike you're right
there's no sleeping on the job here but
there's certainly a lot of learning out
loud particularly in today's episode
isn't there
how good is that and you know we are
about to
disrupt ourselves i think for a second
time in this health series aren't we
matt that's right today when to show
number 157
we're jumping in mike into dr matthew
walker's why we sleep the new science of
sleep and dreams which is number two in
our brand new never touched before
health series
and boy this health series is kind of
rocking our world a little bit
we focused on something that we do
perhaps more than anything else
breathing in our last episode and i tell
you what mark
something i'm quite partial to is a good
old nap the afternoon nap or just a big
eight-hour block of sleeping it just oh
the rejuvenation that comes from sleep
so what a delight it is to study
author matthew walker and his
very popular book why we sleep
and we've got science we've got
practical tips
we've got some hacks that you can do i
mean we're going all throughout the
universe of sleeping
and mark i think that the short of it is
if you want to be at your best at home
or in the office anywhere in between you
got to get your sleep sorted so you
should buckle in for this show because i
think we're gonna share a number of tips
some of which even i did not know
that's right and as a quick scene setter
mic for you and on our listeners
if you were to google how much you sleep
in your lifetime the average
um
number of years that people tend to
sleep in their life is around 26
26 years of your life obviously
depending on how you go
is is spent a sleep so i think it's
something that we all do exactly like
you just said breathing i think
breathing in sleep are things that are
so intrinsic to all of us and we do a
lot of
but i think until now and getting
digging into matthew walker's book
i didn't really appreciate it either how
fundamentally important and even
surprising the importance of sleep can
be for us so i think today we've got
that action-packed show and loads and
loads of great clips from matthew
fantastic i mean the
opportunity for for you me and all of
our listeners is to in fact learn out
loud maybe to get some of the science
uh behind sleeping
maybe to
share
some of these ideas that sleeping and a
good sleep is more than just
feeling
like
capable and competent when you wake up
like
you know
mark i'm i've been very guilty of just
like
one of those guys that just worked
really hard during the week and tried to
catch up
um
on on the weekend i was guilty of being
like pretty exhausted by thursday
certainly by friday like
mark
i i i'm gonna go as far as saying that
for a lot of my career more than 20
years
i've just sort of been a mess by friday
just due to like
working so hard so intensely maybe
cutting corners on my sleep
and it's just not good is it well you
hear so many
you know habit hacking approaches in
life you know oh you want to start your
own business stay up late or wake up
early and i think this
is very very true for a lot of us
where we've perhaps sacrificed
how much you get a good night's sleep in
favor of doing that work and i think
what matthew reveals to us today
in show 157 is exactly that the
importance of sleep goes far beyond just
the ability to perform the next day or
the next week but in fact as a whole in
your being it's so fundamental to being
the best version of yourself it's
unavoidable and we should all take
ownership and control over how much good
sleep we get every single night
you're absolutely right so i think
you've just set it up perfectly so with
no further ado let's listen to author
matthew walker who wrote why we sleep
let's listen uh to matthew talking about
the importance of sleep
let me start with the brain and the
functions of learning and memory
because what we've discovered over the
past 10 or so years is that you need
sleep after learning to essentially hit
the save button on those new memories so
that you don't forget
but recently we discovered that you also
need sleep before learning
and now to actually prepare your brain
um almost like a dry sponge ready to
initially soak up new information
and without sleep the memory circuits of
the brain essentially become waterlogged
as it were and you can't absorb new
memories
so let me show you the data and here in
this study we decided to test the
hypothesis that pulling the all-nighter
was a good idea
so we took a group of uh individuals and
we assigned them to one of two
experimental groups
a sleep group and a sleep deprivation
group
now the sleep group they're going to get
a full eight hours of slumber
but the deprivation group we're going to
keep them awake in the laboratory under
full supervision
um there's no naps or caffeine by the
way so it's miserable for everyone
involved
and then the next day we're going to
place those participants inside an mri
scanner
and we're going to have them try and
learn a whole list of new facts as we're
taking snapshots of brain activity
and then we're going to test them
to see how effective that learning has
been
and that's what you're looking at here
on the vertical axis
and when you put those two groups head
to head what you find is a quite
significant 40 percent deficit in the
ability of the brain to make new
memories without sleep
i think this should be concerning
considering what we know is happening to
sleep in our education populations right
now
in fact to put that in context it would
be the difference in a child acing an
exam versus failing it miserably 40
percent
and we've gone on to discover what goes
wrong within your brain to produce these
types of learning disabilities
and there's a structure that sits on the
left and the right side of your brain
called the hippocampus
and you can think of the hippocampus
almost like the informational inbox of
your brain
it's very good at receiving new memory
files and then holding on to them
and when you look at this structure in
those people who had a full night of
sleep we saw lots of healthy learning
related activity
yet in those people who were sleep
deprived
we actually couldn't find any
significant signal whatsoever
so it's almost as though sleep
deprivation had shut down your memory
inbox and any new incoming files they
were just being bounced
you couldn't effectively commit new
experiences to memory
i mean mike what a way to kick off the
show with a dose of truth from dr
matthew walker
i mean yeah wasn't it interesting you
know that he he used this analogy that
sleep is like a save button
so it's not only about being awake ready
to learn and perform but it's how you
with uh
withhold and retain
and build upon that knowledge or that
work or that that experience that that
was quite interesting for me because we
often just think about i have to get a
good night's sleep so i can do my big
thing tomorrow so i can perform but he's
actually making the case that like you
actually need to do it just to
you know hit the save button on
everything that happened during the day
yeah it's it's really really interesting
for me i mean there's been times in my
life as i'm sure there are for yourself
and our listeners where i've pulled all
nighters whether as a child uh playing
video games all night long
or when i got into my career genuinely
pulling all-nighters in the office
sleeping under a desk for maybe half an
hour before a client turns up at 9am
i think i think we've all probably done
that before
and
i think the this really surprising thing
actually for me
is the science that proves uh as
matthew's broken down with mri scans
the deficit of 40
in performance i mean if i'm building on
what matthew was saying it is the
difference between an an a grade for a
student and maybe a d grade
so pass or a fail but also as i think
about my own career what impact a 40
deficit has had on my work the following
days uh or maybe even the week following
is absolutely staggering and this idea
of hitting the save button
allowing yourself to rest and most
importantly allowing your brain to sort
of
make those synaptic connections retain
that information and actually be ready
for the next day in order to absorb more
information
is absolutely staggering and surprising
to me
yeah yeah there's there's a lot inside
of the book
um
you know that really
is like a big slap in the face isn't it
like just a few things that i've pulled
from the book like um
if you um
have 10 days
with just seven hours of sleep
this is equal
to a 24 hour sleep deprivation
period and the brain dysfunction caused
from that so let me let's just unpack
that for a second so you go ten days
with seven hours of sleep that is equal
to having an all-nighter and all the
dysfunction that comes from from having
a almighty
so think about this how many of us you
me and all of our listeners
have perhaps had weeks
or at least one maybe two weeks in a row
where you've only on average got
seven hours of sleep
that is equal if you do that for just 10
days
that is the equivalent to going
24 hours without sleep and just when
you've done that just remember how
dysfunctional
we're like zombies you know barely
compass mantis um
that's
just shaving off one hour a day that's
what it does mark so that so let me let
me build on that because this is
fascinating so they're 30 days in a
month so let's say to every 10 days you
go with only seven hours of sleep this
is the equivalent of having three
all-nighters
every single month almost one a week
i if i did that i would be exhausted and
i would obviously not be able to perform
to the best of my ability but the truth
is there's certainly been times in my
life when i've probably gone more than a
week maybe even two three maybe even
four weeks of less than seven hours
sleep i had no idea that that's the
effect and the dysfunction that it has
on my brain until now that's fascinating
[Music]
yeah and look the the i think that the
key thing here
is
we have a choice do we want to make
sleep like a non-negotiable
i think um in its um what you're going
to hear in the the rest of the clips
is that this is way way way more than
just feeling like energized or alert
during the day
this will affect our performance our
overall health there's even direct
links
to
the lack of sleep and cancer
so sustained lack of sleep
results in really genetic
disease and so
this this really makes it um
a moment for for us mark and all of our
listeners to say do we want to
prioritize sleep do we want to make that
as an essential
habit and you know we've done a lot
around habit design so what's coming up
uh for the rest of the show is we're
going to get into like the brain and how
it really is affected by sleep how our
bodies we're going to get into like what
it takes uh to get a good night's sleep
some of the things we can do
and
we're going to bring it really home and
and show and demonstrate how good sleep
behavior is going to result in benefits
far beyond just being a good uh
entrepreneur so that's pretty
action-packed isn't that yeah isn't it
that's very very action-packed and talk
about action-packed mike we've got a
number of members and listeners who
deserve a bit of a shout-out don't they
they're certainly not i'm hoping they're
getting good night's sleep and i'm sure
they will after today's show but they're
certainly joining us on the moonshot
show alive and kicking aren't they
absolutely and um i think it's only
appropriate that we do a shout out so so
mark let's uh let's kind of tip the hat
uh to all of our members on patreon
that's right members on patreon drum
roll please welcome back bob niles john
terry and bridey nile and sandy marjalyn
and ken dietmar tom byron and mark
helena yaniv
marjan connor and rodrigo welcome guys
and thank you for joining us via the
patreon platform great to have you with
us
yes and if you do want to become a
member head over to moonshots.io
click on the big member button because
once you remember you'll get access to
our exclusive master series
where we go even deeper than we do on
this show so head over to
moonshots.ao become a member it's all
hooked up through patreon so it's nice
and easy and your support is very much
appreciated because when you contribute
to us it helps us pay our hosting bills
uh our website bill
and it actually helps us
put together such a
regular every single week 52 weeks a
year we put this show together for you
our listeners the moonshotters so we
deeply appreciate your support we're
very grateful for you
learning out loud with us and talking
about learning mark i feel like my brain
wants to understand sleep some more yeah
that's right i went to bed nice and
early last night so i would absorb and
retain information much like matthew was
calling it on that first clip so in this
next clip we've got matthew going one
level deeper he's going to break down
for us the idea on sleep and the aging
effect that it has for us if we don't
get enough of it so this next clip we're
going to hear from is matthew breaking
down sleep and our brains
because it's of course no secret that as
we get older our learning and memory
abilities begin to fade and decline
but what we've also discovered is that a
physiological signature of aging
is that your sleep gets worse
especially that deep quality of sleep
that i was just discussing
and only last year we finally published
evidence that these two things they're
not simply co-occurring they are
significantly interrelated
and it suggests that the disruption of
deep sleep is an under appreciated
factor that is contributing to cognitive
decline or memory decline in aging and
most recently we've discovered in
alzheimer's disease as well
now i know this is remarkably depressing
news um it's in the mail it's coming at
you
but there's a potential silver lining
here
unlike many of the other factors that we
know are associated with aging
for example changes in the physical
structure of the brain that's fiendishly
difficult to treat
but that sleep is a missing piece in the
explanatory puzzle of aging and
alzheimer's is exciting because we may
be able to do something about it
and one way that we are approaching this
at my sleep center is not by using
sleeping pills by the way unfortunately
they are blunt instruments that do not
produce naturalistic sleep
instead we're actually developing a
method based on this it's called direct
current brain stimulation you insert a
small amount of voltage into the brain
so small you typically don't feel it but
it has a measurable impact
now if you apply this stimulation during
sleep in young healthy adults
as if you're sort of singing in time
with those deep sleep brain waves not
only can you amplify the size of those
deep sleep brain waves but in doing so
we can almost double the amount of
memory benefit that you get from sleep
the question now is whether we can
translate this same affordable
potentially portable piece of technology
into older adults and those with
dementia
can we restore back some healthy quality
of deep sleep and in doing so can we
salvage aspects of their learning and
memory function that is my real hope now
that's one of our moonshot goals as it
were
uh
a moonshot he's talking our language
isn't he mark yeah he is he's talking
our language thanks matthew for giving
us a shout out
[Laughter]
now here's the thing
when we talk about sleep in the brain
when i have had a good pattern of sleep
and it's not just one or two days let me
let me go as far as saying like if i
have two weeks
of really good consistent sleep
here's how i feel
during my day
i don't feel
when at that moment of waking like when
i've really slept well i don't feel like
i'm
sort of battling gravity to get out of
the bed
it's almost like i just kind of
flow and cruise out of the bed like
naturally you know how sometimes you can
feel
really heavy when you get out of bed
like it's like gravity's pulling you
back into the bed do you ever do you
ever have that yeah there's plenty of
times when i've woken up you know even
if i haven't had a drink the night
before
you know and it works
did i have a drink yeah
where you wake up and you think oh i'm a
bit
a bit heavy and it is it's my brain
sort of reacting and responding to to i
think not having that great night sleep
so what it does is it impacts my
my my mood
my ability to have that get up and go
attitude
yeah
now the you know once you've kind of
wrestled yourself out of bed
um
the other thing i notice
like sort of to create this very stark
contrast when i have had that period of
good sleep say let's say a week or two
the other thing i notice
is
that
um i'm more inclined to
be genuinely
naturally optimistic and positive about
the morning like i just know notice that
my mood
instantly before
stretching before a cup of coffee or
some journaling or breathing access
whatever i'm going to do in the morning
i just generally have a better
disposition to the world but the big one
i want to pitch to you mark around
cognitive function
is that when i'm working
when i'm
writing discussing and thinking
i feel like i'm
seeing and imagining the world through
high definition
whereas when i'm not well slept i'm a
little bit foggy
my my thoughts are not as crisp
my responses are a bit more muddled uh
for example
if i'm
discussing some approach
an idea with a client i think i kind of
noticed i take a little while to get
going if i haven't slept well
whereas
when i'm well slept
and
in a good rhythm
my thinking is like a laser light
precise in my mind it feels
crisp
high definition
and um i'm able to
um perform at a very high level
uh
relative to my potential whatever that
may be but i feel like i'm really well
geared and
also my capacity to recall previous
conversations is much more instant like
i can connect dots and and so forth
for me that's what you know how i relate
to sleep and the brain how do you when
when you heard the author matthew walker
they're talking about
you know our recall and the relationship
of brain and sleep
what comes to your mind like how do you
see it in your life
for me it's definitely an impact on
focus
like you were saying so if i'm
waking up and i'm feeling pretty good
there are less distractions in my brain
there's less
uh
things that are pulling my attention
away from whatever it is that i have to
do whether it's on the weekend and i
want to have a good uh weekend planned
maybe it's active maybe it's just seeing
family and friends there's that
laser-like focus
but also during the week when i'm
working on a project or like say with a
client or even on the moonshot show my
focus is far more concise and precise
yeah because i've woken up feeling to be
honest i think good night's sleep makes
me feel happier it makes me feel happier
healthier and therefore i don't have all
of those distractions that might be
playing in my mind around oh i
haven't had a good night's sleep so
therefore i'm not going to perform my
best and then my confidence takes a hit
then my general well-being takes a hit
and what happens is that day or at least
the morning becomes you almost feel like
it's a write-off and you assume oh i
can't do this so i'm gonna make an
excuse
yeah yeah you're so true but listen it
doesn't stop there
mark actually what matthew walker goes
on to do say you know there's this
direct relationship between sleep and
the brain here's the good news what
we're going to do now is hear from
matthew walker about sleep and the body
but as a deeper dive i want to focus on
this sleep loss and your immune system
and here i'll introduce these delightful
blue elements in the image they are
called natural killer cells
and you can think of natural killer
cells almost like the secret service
agents of your immune system and they
are very good at identifying dangerous
unwanted elements and eliminating them
in fact what they're doing here is
destroying a cancerous tumor mass
so what you wish for is a virile set of
these immune assassins at all times
and tragically that's what you don't
have if you're not sleeping enough
so here in this experiment you're not
going to have your sleep deprived for an
entire night you're simply going to have
your sleep restricted to four hours for
one single night and then we're going to
look to see what's the percent reduction
in immune cell activity that you suffer
and it's not small it's not 10 percent
it's not 20
there was a 70
drop in natural killer cell activity
that's a concerning state of immune
deficiency
and you can perhaps understand why we're
now finding significant links between
short sleep duration
and your risk for the development of
numerous forms of cancer
currently that list includes cancer of
the bowel cancer of the prostate and
cancer of the breast
in fact the link between a lack of sleep
and cancer is now so strong
that the world health organization has
classified any form of night time shift
work
as a probable carcinogen
because of a disruption of your sleep
weight rhythms
[Music]
so you may have heard of that old maxim
that you can sleep when you're dead
well i'm being quite serious now it is
mortally unwise advice
we know this from epidemiological
studies across millions of individuals
there's a simple truth
the shorter your sleep the shorter your
life
short sleep predicts all cause mortality
and if increasing your risk for the
development of cancer or even
alzheimer's disease we're not
sufficiently
i'm disquieting
we have since discovered that a lack of
sleep will even erode the very fabric of
biological life itself
your dna genetic code
i mean
did he bring it then that was like a
sledgehammer wasn't it yeah i try not to
go for too many superlatives on the show
but i have a feeling that that might be
one of the
most important
uh lessons that i've that i've learned
in recent memory this fact that he found
through the experiment that just
reducing your sleep to four hours a
night
leads to a 70
drop in his immune assassin test
i mean this is
mind-blowing uh to to use the
superlative for a second because i don't
think i really anticipated or nor
expected that to have such a profound
impact on my body's ability to not only
fight off disease but actually be
preventative for disease because
i understand my body's ability to
unconsciously
combat
bad cells keep myself healthy but i did
not appreciate that having um shorter
sleep would lead so directly
to these these terrible um diseases that
he's that he's referencing there i had
no idea
yeah i think this this clip was in
service to all of our listeners just to
say if we didn't convince you that you
just want to wake up feeling better
or you wanted to have better memory
let's just drop the big cancer threat
right up front in the show
to say listen
series uh part one of our of our health
series was all about breathe and breathe
properly
i think part two of our message is sleep
and sleep properly it is so fundamental
to your performance to your overall
genetic health i mean cellular level
this gets to and i think wow we've
really got some science to to to get us
on the right track here don't we mark
yeah i think with sleep it's something i
always took for granted you know it's
something that we all do and we have to
do and like i mentioned at the beginning
of the show an average of 26 years i
think that's 29 million hours or
something like that
and
again i i just kind of took it for for
granted and i just thought yeah i'll go
to sleep i'll feel well rested it's good
time for me to to reset my brain i'll
wake up the next day feeling better but
i totally under appreciated the actual
physical
impact it has on me i can see it from an
emotional perspective i can wake up i
can feel focused i can feel happy
but having this knock on effect down the
line and impacting my body
is not an area that i that i would have
anticipated before and and the call out
to shift work
nighttime shift work having been
classified by the world health
organization as a carcinogenic threat
again i had no idea before delving into
matthew's book
and that's pretty frightening actually
it is it really is but i think you know
the service that we're doing for
ourselves mark for you and i and for the
listener
is to
basically support the notion of we all
know that when we've had a good sleep we
feel pretty good
but it's more than that and you can't
discount it you can't cheat this
actually you just might just like you
might focus on
exercise and getting enough exercise
each day
breathing right every day eating right
every day you also need to sleep right
every day and hopefully what everybody
has
really sort of taken out of the first
half of the show
is
something that i feel personally has
been a real aha which is i
must sleep well to be the best version
of myself i have to get a good eight
hours for me it's that ten to six block
i wake up naturally feel good and you
know i've just started the day in a
winning way
what i know for sure and as i uh as i
get a little grayer uh mark what i know
for sure is if i cut corners on sleep
i am feeling it almost immediately
and if i do it several nights in a row i
i'm a bumbling mess mark but it's more
than that i'm i'm actually doing more
longer term damage
and so this is not a discount i am
personally willing to take any more so
sleep is of the essence
much like breath work and and many other
things like meditation and i think mark
we would deeply uh take the message of
matthew walker in his book of why we
sleep
and look you know you can negotiate and
argue some of the science uh in his book
so it's an extremely popular book there
are people that love it there are people
who are arguing some of the some of the
data put all of that aside
i think there's enough here
with uh not only uh matthew walker but
james nestor and many other of these
authors that are talking about breath
work and sleep and the interrelationship
with that and memory and performance and
emotional well-being
this is our case for if you want to
shoot for the moon go for a moon shot
you've got to get good sleep right yeah
i totally agree and the great news
listeners is we've got an action-packed
second half of the show coming up where
we're going to hear from matthew again
giving us some good tips so you'll hear
from mike and i giving
our little breakdown on the hacks that
we might do but also you're going to
hear from dr walker as well giving us
practical tips on how to improve your
sleep hygiene yeah and listen talking
about an essential practice um i think
um listening to to the moonshots master
series that sounds pretty essential to
me mark and we're so excited to announce
that for the past period
our moonshots master series is actually
also available
through the apple podcast app and this
is for those of you who might prefer to
listen to the master series
on their
on their apple podcast app and you don't
want to do the whole patreon thing well
we've made the podcast available as well
so if right now you're listening on an
iphone just open up the podcast app and
actually search for moonshots master
series and you will actually find that
you can subscribe directly in app to the
master series where you're going to hear
these really deep dives and i'm talking
90 minute master classes
how to get motivated how to think better
there's a ton of great shows i think
mark where we've already produced five
of those master series the sixth one
will be coming soon and we're delighted
to say that when we announced this last
week we've already had a bunch of you
jump in and subscribe to our moonshots
master series
mark it's pretty cool to see the little
moonshots media empire expanding
throughout the world and in different
platforms isn't it that's right i mean
it's great we're always going to be
pumping out our weekly shows for you our
moonshot listeners but now you've got
the chance to also join us on the master
series which is comprehensive deep dives
into topics like motivation first
principle thinking teamwork uh how to
generate and maintain good habits as
well as how to control and be aware of
your circle of influence so already
we've got five huge topics that we deep
dive into and learn out loud together on
the master series so come join us in
your apple podcast channel because we'd
love to see you there
totally
now we're going to get into
the hard yards we're going to roll up
the sleeves and we're going to do the
the really important habit design of
making sure
that we sleep well so we've hit you with
like the science the data
now we're going to hit you with some
serious do's and don'ts and we're going
to try and unearth how we
can all sleep better and to kick that
off we're going to listen to matthew
walker and we we're going to get into
his tips
on how we can have a good night's sleep
what are things that we can all do
tonight and in the future to start
getting better sleep well beyond carving
out a non-negotiable eight-hour sleep
opportunity
there are probably at least five things
that we can do the first is that we have
to try and maintain regularity and if
there's one thing that you take away
from this it would be going to bed at
the same time and waking up at the same
time no matter whether it's the weekday
or the weekend even if you've had a bad
night of sleep still wake up at the same
time of day and reset
the second thing is that we are a dark
deprived society in this modern era and
we need darkness in the evening to allow
the release of a hormone called
melatonin and melatonin helps the
healthy timing of our sleep
so try to dim down half the lights in
your home in the hour before bed stay
away from screens especially those led
screens they emit blue light that
actually puts the brakes on melatonin
and those blue light emitting devices
fool your brain into thinking that it's
still daytime even though it's nighttime
and you want to get to sleep the third
key ingredient is to keep it cool
many of us actually have a bedroom
that's too warm in terms of temperature
so an optimal temperature is about 68
degrees fahrenheit or about 18 and a
half degrees celsius and the reason is
that your brain and your body need to
drop their core temperature by about two
to three degrees fahrenheit to initiate
good sleep and that's the reason that
you will always find it easier to fall
asleep in a room that's too cold than
too hot so having a cool room actually
takes your brain and body in the right
temperature direction to get good sleep
great mike so we've got three big tips
there and we'll follow it with another
two from matthew in the next clip as
well so apart from having a good solid
eight hours of sleep what matthew's
calling out to you and i and our
listeners is to have a regular routine
very similar to what you were just
saying mike about ten to six
keeping it dark as well as keeping it
cool
how are you tracking mike when you think
about your sleep pattern are you
maintaining those three big tips
oh i mean um
i try to that's for sure but i will tell
you one thing
that i learned from from preparing this
show with you mark which was
i have been guilty of when i'm when i
have a backlog of sleep to make up to
doing like the epic sleep in right
and what he's saying is
do not do that like if you have had a
bad night's sleep and let's say your
wake-up time is six and you're feeling
like i could really take another couple
of hours
he's actually saying that that's
actually harmful to your sleep pattern
because you kind of break the habit
which makes now i think about it it
makes total sense doesn't it because
even i just got back from traveling in
europe and um it was a big trip and you
know i traveled over 15 000 kilometers
from sydney to
to bucharest
and um you know i was really jet-lagged
when i got back and um one particular
night i slept
from 12 midnight to 12 in the
noon of the following day
now
i
and this was just last week and i'm
somebody who's pretty self-aware on
sleep
i thought oh that was a good one like i
really smashed away that full bonus
hours there
but actually as as we listened to to
matthew walker
you realize like actually that wasn't so
great
what i want to do is
keep to my 10 to 6 schedule
and interestingly enough it has been the
last two nights that i've largely done
that and i feel so much better like
totally
uh beat the the jet lag but i think
that's one thing um that i've been a
little bit guilty of is
doing those catch-ups um how did you
respond to his first three tips on how
we can build a good sleep habit the one
that stands out to me is the idea of
keeping it dark we we tend to uh
be
overexposed to devices don't we whether
it's your television your laptop your
ipad your phone
and what matthew's reminding us there is
they all have these light emitting
diodes and the blue light that we've all
heard about now
is actually tricking your brain it's
fooling your brain into thinking that
it's still daylight
so it makes perfect sense once matthew
walker breaks it down for us that if he
gets to 8 9 10 p.m and you're still
using your device worse still you're
using your device in bed
your brain is uh and that's a big no-no
it's it's you're you're not setting
yourself up for a good night's sleep
because actually fundamentally you're
not turning off it's as though your
brain still thinks it's daylight so it's
not releasing that melatonin it's not
relaxing down so therefore when people
struggle to fall asleep well it's
because you've you're using your device
too much or watching the television or
playing video games too much
and for me mike at least over the last
maybe even 10 years actually i've really
actively avoided keeping a television in
my bedroom because it's
almost too tempting to
after dinner or late into the night say
oh you know what i'm just going to watch
an hour in bed or i'll play a video game
in bed and when i hear colleagues or
friends of mine who do that
it's such a big no-no for me that i'm
surprised that that they would do it
because i need my bedroom and i need my
routine leading up to when i go to sleep
to be
light free or at least blue light free
in order to
ramp down and get ready for sleep i
think that's a really big reminder and
similar to what cal newport was
revealing to us with his digital detox
work
you know with regards to focus and not
being distracted while you're you're
doing one thing i think the same is true
here you're focusing on going to sleep
so don't be distracted
yeah
that's a great tape mark i love that
look i think
just a few
a few things that have just been great
for me is
no phone in the bedroom huge mark um
how do you go are you able to resist the
temptation or does that little iphone
sneak in i'm i'm good at resisting it
before bed you know i'll put it into uh
you know disturb mode focus mode um
maybe an hour before going to bed
admittedly in the morning i'll tend to
take a look at it maybe after a certain
period of time but i very very
actively try hard to not reach for it as
soon as i wake up because i'm aware that
that light will suddenly trigger my
brain into
kind of an anxious mode actually so it
does sneak in the room it does
it does sneak in my room because it's my
alarm clock
and that's the that's the the falsehood
that i have here and i need to get
myself an old-fashioned wind-up clock i
think
totally or
use your apple watch yes um
honestly
i i would say
not bringing the phone
into the bedroom
huge breakthrough for improving my sleep
the next one
is
having a kindle
so that i'm not getting an led screen
i'm just getting e-ink
and i have this great ritual i mean it's
a little bit frustrating i read in bed
um
and the funny thing is though because of
the ritualization i've done of going to
bed and training my body is that i can
only ever read about four or five
pages
and then every time i start i'm like oh
i don't remember reading this page so i
have to go back a few
so i'm like the slowest reader um and
you know i choose not to read anything
work related
and in fact one thing i've been doing
recently is like i used to to read like
a lot of spy thrillers and stuff totally
unrelated to work i'm now just reading
um
uh like the history of great
philosophers and stuff like this
because what i noticed is um
[Music]
i'm reading this great series
at the moment and it's so captivating
that actually keeps me awake
so i'm now trying to find more boring uh
academic stuff to read in bed
in order to like knock myself off but
the point here is is that get that phone
the hell out of the bedroom
um and
another thing
you know
to build on like no iphone kindle only
the other thing is even what i do is
that last 30 minutes before i go to
to bed
if i've been wearing a jumper
uh or or a hoodie
i take it off so i'm just in a t-shirt
just to cool down a little bit take off
socks it's another thing that i just
kind of
worked out um works for me really well
and then this is going to sound really
really really silly but it totally works
is i don't um sort of rush around the
house i deliberately sort of
walk
and move
slower
just
just to always keep my heart rate down
so i'm really kind of almost going into
this semi-hibernation mode before
entering the bedroom
oh i like that i like the
i like the tips there on
reducing your core temperature like
matthew was saying so removing the socks
and so on but i also like the slower
pace i think that's a really nice idea
yeah i think it's critical because um
you know
explore test and experiment with what
you think can help just get the system
to slow down because then when the heart
rate slows down and you're not too hot
you're breathing well
then that transition is just really
really easy and uh we've got we've got
another quick set of tips here um
and uh these are the ones that uh that
matthew walker says don't make him so
popular but nevertheless they're
important the fourth critical factor is
actually avoiding alcohol and caffeine
unfortunately this makes me deeply
unpopular but
alcohol is perhaps the most
misunderstood drug when it comes to
sleep people think that it helps them
fall asleep that's not actually true
alcohol is a class of drugs that we call
the sedatives and what you're doing is
just knocking your brain out you're not
putting it into natural sleep we also
know that alcohol will fragment your
sleep so you will wake up many more
times throughout the night
and alcohol is also a very potent
chemical for blocking your dream sleep
or your rapid eye movement sleep
caffeine is also a problem many of us
know that caffeine can keep us awake
it's an alerting chemical it's a
stimulant in terms of a class of drugs
but few people know that even if you can
have a cup of coffee after dinner and
you fall asleep fine and maybe you stay
asleep
the depth of the deep sleep that you
have when there is caffeine within your
brain isn't as deep as when you have
abstained from that cup of coffee after
dinner so as a consequence you wake up
the next morning you feel unrefreshed
and you don't remember waking up or
having a difficult time falling asleep
but now you find yourself reaching for
two or three cups of coffee in the
morning and you develop this dependency
this addiction cycle
the fifth and final tip for better sleep
is to not stay in bed awake
so if you haven't fallen asleep within
20 or so minutes or you've woken up and
you're finding it difficult to fall back
asleep don't stay in bed awake the
reason is that your brain very quickly
starts to learn the association between
your bed being about the place that
you're awake rather than your bed being
about sleep
so the advice is to get up go to
another room and in dim light just read
a book
no screens no email checking no food
and only when you feel sleepy should you
return to bed and that way you can
actually then relearn the association
between your bedroom being about the
place of sleep rather than being awake
i should also note that some people
don't like the idea of getting up and
going out to a different room if it's
dark and they're warm in bed an
alternative is actually meditation
meditation has been demonstrated in
clinical trials to help people just
relax the body
calm down the
fight or flight branch of the nervous
system that can happen when we wake up
in the middle of the night and we have
that rolodex of anxiety thoughts and by
meditating you can start to quiet the
mind as well as the body and that also
helps you fall back asleep more easily
i mean that's quite a surprising tip for
me mike this idea that if i can't fall
asleep rather than perhaps lying there
and you're getting frustrated do you
know how bad that is when you're
you're thinking why can't i sleep and
then your mind goes off on a tangent and
you start thinking oh maybe i can't
sleep because of work or is it something
i ate or whatever and
so you sort of start that cycle of
wondering why can't i sleep and then
therefore you don't sleep i like this
quite surprising idea from from matthew
there saying well just get up change the
association that your body's going to
have with going to bed and create a
slightly better habit
i totally made the mistake of fighting
the good fight to get back to sleep yes
that's that's definitely been have you
you've been the same have you always
tried to wrestle back back to sleep for
like maybe 10 20 30 minutes yeah yeah
absolutely whether it's just lying there
in the dark looking up at the ceiling
um
or whether it's having an active mind
running around trying to count sheep
i've tried to catch sheep in the past i
don't know whether you didn't work
no
no it didn't if if anything i was more
stimulated because i was wondering how
high the number i could get to
look there are definitely some good
techniques on youtube to get yourself
back to sleep um one of them is uh you
breathe in and breathe out and you're
like in and you say the word in out like
it put all your attention on breath
and pretty soon that the brain just kind
of
turns off
all sorts of stuff to do there i mean
the lesson here is like self-awareness
alcohol caffeine
um
like you are in control these are all
choices you can make about how you want
to sleep and hopefully we've made today
on this show the case for why that's so
damn important you know
even if all the science doesn't get you
you'll just feel better good sleep feel
good
go make the day happen
so i think at this point mark
it is
only fitting that we return from one
last time to matthew walker and he's
gonna try and i think he's gonna make a
very good case
for sleep and the power that it has and
why in fact it's just like a swiss army
knife and then finally in taking a step
back then
what is the mission critical statement
here
well i think it may be this
sleep unfortunately is not an optional
lifestyle luxury
sleep is a
non-negotiable biological necessity
it is your life support system
and it is mother nature's best effort
yet at immortality
and the decimation of sleep
throughout industrialized nations is
having a catastrophic impact on our
health our wellness
even the safety and the education of our
children
it's a silent sleep loss epidemic and it
is fast becoming one of the greatest
public health challenges that we face in
the 21st century
i believe it is now time for us to
reclaim our right to a full night of
sleep
and without embarrassment
or that unfortunate stigma of laziness
and in doing so we can be reunited with
the most powerful elixir of life
the swiss army knife of health as it
were
sleep is the swiss army knife of health
the life support system maybe even the
elixir of life i mean my what a way to
round out our show on dr matthew walker
and his book why we sleep
i know it's like that was a very good
very good um case for it i mean
thinking of it as uh an opportunity to
reclaim our right like this this is a
theme that has has come up a lot because
you know i've often uh mentioned in the
show i think we're at at a war for our
attention like we have so much
notifications and screens that we can
become quite unaware and fall victim to
serving the screens
rather than serving ourselves you know
what i mean like there are emails
notifications
uh voice commands smart devices
um
we're being bombarded right and and and
sleep is is like a sanctuary isn't it
yeah sleep is perhaps the only time that
a lot of us spend any time disconnected
from work from friends from family
uh because you have the assumption that
i must reply right now i need to be
effective i need to be efficient if i
don't respond right now what's going to
happen
and what ends up happening is much more
personal to you because it has that
impact on your brain it has that impact
on your body and your immune system
and i think
what i've learned from today's show mike
is actually
how important that sleep really is not
only from like we've covered an
emotional and a healthy and happy
perspective from a mindset but actually
far more deep rooted in in my body and
my dna i mean this has been a pretty
impactful show for me and as part of the
health series it feels like it's another
utility within my belt that i can work
on in order to be you know more focused
and better at what i do
or just avoid doing some of that genetic
damage or
immune system damage that matthew walker
pointed out that's crazy isn't it it's
really really surprising and what a
great set of lessons both practical as
well as scientific that matthew had for
us today
so
what's the one thing that changes mark
now that we've done
the sleep show
what changes in the mark pearson
freeland habit system oh well actually i
think i'm going to
maintain um
the the sort of habits i have around
sleep with regards to routine with
regards to avoiding alcohol caffeine i
also avoid sugar when it gets late into
the evening yeah i think that has an
impact as well um the thing i'm going to
change is actually mike it's the build
that you had which was losing uh your
jumper or your socks in order to help
bring yourself into a slightly cooler
temperature prior to getting because i i
run pretty hot so i think that's a
really nice very practical and
actionable tip that i'm going to start
giving a go
yeah and what we learned in the last
show is that when you get that
heart rate down which obviously being if
you're really warm your heart rate is up
when your heart rate is slower you're
calmer but it's also the perfect uh
segway
uh to sleep uh what i think about it uh
as is going into like this kind of monk
mode
uh before sleep that just is about
mindset
cooling the jets down and being ready to
put away a good eight hours
yeah that's exactly it
well mark thank you uh thank you for all
your help pulling together this show and
this health series which is absolutely
bringing me new insights and challenging
me
to think holistically about being the
best version of myself and thank you to
you our listeners for joining us on this
journey of health and today it was all
about breath with the author matthew
walker and his book why we sleep so it
is sleep
that is where the good things happen in
fact what we learned from him is sleep
is our way of saving information it's
hitting that save button and the science
really tells us that sleep has a direct
relationship with the brain and with the
immune system to
better memory
better health
less of those gremlins in your health
system so that you can be the very best
you can be so how do we do it it's about
making it regular keeping the room cool
and dark and avoiding those elixirs of
alcohol and caffeine and if you do wake
get the hell out of bed because you
never want to make that association with
bed and being awake do these things
and you'll not only be feeling good you
will have tapped into
your right as in fact matthew said
reclaim your right to a good night's
sleep and you will have a swiss army
knife not only for sleep but for health
so that you can be the very best version
of yourself and that's what we're all
about here at the moonshots podcast
that's a wrap