The BEST Scientific Sleep Advice Doctors Don't Tell You

Sleep is so important, isn't it? And I

think everybody now knows that because of people like yourself or really, you know, you were the real pioneer in pushing the subject into the world. I

remember when you first went on Joe Rogan's show, the amount of my friends that sent me that episode and then sent me your book was just staggering. It was

like that was the catalyst moment, I think, in society for the mainstream to really start talking and caring about sleep. However, there's still so many

sleep. However, there's still so many people struggling um because of all the factors that you talked about when we're talking about group two who have those lifestyle factors, the stress, the

psychological factors, the trauma, etc., etc. What can we give them, those people, the people that really really struggle, maybe they haven't got a disorder. We'll

come to the people with sort of sleep disorders later and we'll talk about optimizers. But what what is the new

optimizers. But what what is the new information or advice that we can give them that will help them once and for all sleep 8 hours a night and get their

life back?

If you were to push me to say what are the three most impactful things that you can start doing tonight to start sleeping better,

it would be the following.

Digital detox.

Okay, let me write this down. Digital

detox. Okay, what does that mean?

1 hour before bed, try to limit activating social media engagement, email, and text messages that are going

to trigger you.

It's fine to listen to a podcast, you know.

Thank God for that.

You heard it here, folks.

Right from that book.

But it's also good to like and subscribe, would you say? I would say that you know like and subscribe and then just click here so that you get the latest notification you get that bell

just click on the bell icon so that you so it's not a problem of blue light a quick aside we've been taught this myth of the blue light effect

from devices and it really is a myth because an incredible Australian researcher a guy called Michael Gradazar has almost singlehandedly changed the the what I think of as being

the zeitgeist for a while after a very influential paper which is a great paper and what they showed was that 1 hour of iPad reading before bed ended up impairing your melatonin it disrupted

sleep it reduced the amount of dream sleep and even after they stopped reading the iPad the blast radius impact on your dream sleep lasted a week it's almost like the drug needed to get

washed out the system that even when you you'd stop using technology for an hour before bed the impact of that technology ology even though you'd stopped using it could still be seen in the echo of sleep

disruption for a week later. It was a very influential study in a very prestigious channel.

When was that a while ago?

That was probably about 10 years ago.

But then Michael Gredazar, this incredible Australian researcher started to say, well, I can't replicate these findings.

And what he was discovering is that it's not the blue light that's the problem.

Now, the blue light will change aspects of your melatonin. And melatonin is a hormone. It simply tells your brain and

hormone. It simply tells your brain and your body when it's nighttime, when it's time to fall asleep. It doesn't

participate in the generation of sleep.

Melatonin is like the starting official at the 100 meter race. It brings all of the races to the line and it begins the timing of the race, but it doesn't participate in the creation of the race itself. That's a different set of

itself. That's a different set of chemicals.

It doesn't make you go to sleep. It

doesn't make you and if you look at what we call meta analyses where we gather together all of the individual studies on a topic and we put them in a big statistical bucket what they found is that melatonin will only improve the

speed with which you fall asleep by about um 3.4 minutes and it will only increase the efficiency of your sleep by

about 2.2%. So not much more than

about 2.2%. So not much more than placebo. Um, so melatonin is it's now

placebo. Um, so melatonin is it's now the placebo effect is the most reliable effect in all of pharmarmacology. So,

you know, maybe no harm, no foul. I

would say, and don't forget, I will come back to the three, but when it comes to melatonin, be careful. More isn't always better. And you run the risk of

better. And you run the risk of confusing your morning brain into a dense nighttime fog. And what I mean by that is

10 milligrams or 20 milligs of melatonin is what we call a supra physiological dose, which again is just a fancy medical term to say it's a size of magnitude of melatonin that your body

would never naturally release. It's far

greater. So melatonin is the signal of darkness. And normally by the morning

darkness. And normally by the morning hours, our natural release of melatonin has stopped and you're down to zero levels again in the morning.

In the morning. So you wake up and your body no longer has the signal of melatonin saying it's night, it's night, it's night. But if you've dosed yourself

it's night. But if you've dosed yourself with 10 milligs or 20 milligs of melatonin, you run the risk of saying, well, yes, I know it quote unquote knocks me out. But the problem is in the

first, you know, 3 or 4 hours of the waking morning, you're struggling because you're in this fog of a hormonal melatonin, a hormonal signal saying it's

still pitch black. No, it's not. It's

bright light outside, but your body is fooled into thinking it's pitch black because you've dosed yourself too high.

And no wonder you're reaching for two or three cups of coffee in the morning.

So, what what dose of melatonin should I be taking?

Somewhere between probably about 0.1 to 3 millig.

And do you advise melatonin for people?

Yes, in two conditions. The first or circumstances I should say. The first is when you're going through jet lag.

Wonderfully helpful. But timing is critical. You need to create that sort

critical. You need to create that sort of that artificial signal of night because let's say that you and I here in Los Angeles, we're both going to fly

back to London tomorrow and London is 8 hours ahead. So, we fly overnight. We

hours ahead. So, we fly overnight. We

arrive in London and then that first night, let's say we decide to go to bed uh or I decide to go to bed in the hotel at midnight. The problem is here in Los

at midnight. The problem is here in Los Angeles and my body clock, it's still 400 p.m. because London's 8 hours ahead.

400 p.m. because London's 8 hours ahead.

So, my melatonin is not going to rise for probably another 6 or 7 hours. So, I

need to artificially hijack my melatonin system and tell my brain, "Oh, no, it's not 400 p.m. It's instead it's midnight." And so, there under

midnight." And so, there under conditions of jet lag, very helpful. The

second is if you have a circadian rhythm disorder. Let's say that you're someone

disorder. Let's say that you're someone who has a an advanced circadian phase.

What that means is you're someone who really can't get sleepy until 3 or 4 in the morning and you would prefer to be sleeping throughout most of the day. So

you you're almost nocturnal.

Is that a genetic disorder?

And yes, it's a genetic disorder in part.

How many people have that? probably one

to two% of the population have a very severe adv what we call an advanced circadian phase disorder but their melatonin can also be helpful because once again their melatonin part of their

problem is that their melatonin is very delayed so they don't get the signal of oh it's night until maybe 4:00 in the morning you and I we start to get our

signal of melatonin depending on our chronoype by somewhere between about 9 10 or 11 p.m. they may be delayed by 5 hours. So if we can give them melatonin,

hours. So if we can give them melatonin, we can artificially try to fool their brain into thinking it's actually earlier in their biological rhythm. So

they sleep earlier and they're more in sync with the rest of society.

How does someone know if they're that type of person if they have that disorder? Is there there's not a way to

disorder? Is there there's not a way to test, is there?

Well, what we typically do is we will bring you into a laboratory and we will measure your innate level. So we will shut out sort of all windows. All clock

faces are gone and we just let you run your natural rhythm.

And they have the same rise and fall in melatonin just like you and I do. Except

where it's doing that rise and fall of melatonin on the 24-hour clock face is radically different.

Okay?

For you and I, it's, you know, 910 p.m.

11:00 p.m. at night when we're starting that melatonin crescendo.

For them, it's 4:00 in the morning. So,

we can measure it. It's not in their minds. It's not their choice. It's a

minds. It's not their choice. It's a

biological edict.

Are you concerned that melatonin is becoming more and more popular as a way to solve lifestyle issues that have caused sleep impairment? Because I'm

seeing loads of, you know, I'm an investor, so I see lots of companies now pitching me different products that have melatonin in them as a sort of day-to-day sleeping supplement.

I think I'm really torn. I've been on both sides of this argument and I'm cautious about it for two reasons. The

first is in pediatric populations here in the United States.

Pediatric Yeah. So the people's use of melatonin

Yeah. So the people's use of melatonin in kids is increasing. So in pediatric populations it's increasing exponentially. And in fact, if you go

exponentially. And in fact, if you go down the sort of the supermarket aisles here in America, often if you go into sort of the the health sort of food section, there's this big purple

section. That's the melatonin section.

section. That's the melatonin section.

And a large proportion of that is there dedicated to gummies for your children with melatonin.

And there was a study that was published about three years ago that showed here in America over the past 10 years there has been a 53%

increase in poisonous overdose admissions to hospitals of melatonin in the past 10 years. 503%

increase. So firstly we've got to be a bit careful. The second reason is that

bit careful. The second reason is that melatonin is a bioactive hormone and it's also involved in reproductive development. And there studies done back

development. And there studies done back in the 1970s I think where they were looking at juvenile male rats which is to say male rats who were going through adolescence and they were dosing them with high

amounts of melatonin and what they found is that that stunted the development of the testes of the testicles and it caused testicular atrophy. Now, these

were very high doses, but we've got to be a little bit careful. We think we say, "Well, melatonin is a natural hormone, so anything natural is safe."

Melatonin overall in terms of its safety profile is very safe. It's actually a very good antioxidant.

But you've got to be careful because things like for example testosterone supplementation in males what we know is that if you're injecting testosterone

after a while after maybe 18 months or so the testicles themselves will stop producing their own testosterone and even if you stop the administration of

the exogenous testosterone the injection the testes never return their function of producing testosterone.

Now, we don't have any evidence yet that that's the case that if you keep taking melatonin at high dose, your body, the fear would be shuts down its own natural production of melatonin. I've seen no evidence of that. In fact, I've seen

evidence the contrary that even after about 6 months or even 12 months in certain small cities, when you stop melatonin, the production starts again naturally. It seems fine. Problem is,

naturally. It seems fine. Problem is,

people haven't been taking melatonin for just 12 months. They've been taking it for years.

We've got no idea what happens after years.

That was my hesitation when the first time someone offered me melatonin is from doing this podcast and speaking to smart people like yourself, I've come to learn this sort of principle that if you start making something for your body in

terms of a hormone, if you start sort of um consuming something externally like testosterone, your body will say fine, I don't need to do this. It will try and return to that level of balance where the quantities in your system are

maintained, which means it kind of learns to shut down. And I always think about the case of testosterone because men know that if we start injecting testosterone then we're going to have to pretty much do it forever.

Yeah.

Um if we want those levels to be the same.

Yeah. That's the worry is that there are no free lunches in biology and usually if you fight biology you typically lose.

There's always a trade-off and some of my friends often like talk to me about like these miracle things or this thing or take medafanol and everything will be fine and d but what's the trade-off? And

I get most concerned when they say there isn't one cuz then I go we don't know it.

Yeah, you've got to be careful because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Be very careful when you're doing that deal with with your physiology. So to

come back to sort of the three things, the first thing we were mentioning is digital detox and don't worry about the blue light. Worry about light in

blue light. Worry about light in general. I'll come on to that because

general. I'll come on to that because that's the second. But Michael Gratazar as I was saying what he found is that the blue light doesn't really disrupt your sleep. It's a combination of first

your sleep. It's a combination of first these devices that we use are attention capture devices and they are designed to fleece you of your attention economy and

they do it ruthlessly well. They've

spent tens of millions of dollars designing these products to do that. So

what happens is that these devices become hugely activating and as a result they essentially will be a mute button on your sleepiness. So you could be there, you get into bed, it's 11 p.m.

You think, I am so tired. I was falling asleep on the the the couch watching television and then you get into bed, you start going onto social media and then you start doom scrolling and then you get into this what we call bed

rotting where you just sit there and now you look at the clock and it's no longer 11 p.m. It's 1:00 a.m. and you've just

11 p.m. It's 1:00 a.m. and you've just done sleep procrastination. Now it turns out that it's yes that that these are attentiongrabbing devices that will mute

your sleepiness, but you have to be of a certain personality type. He found not all of us are vulnerable to this sleep disruption of devices. You have to be

someone who is perhaps neurotic, someone who has high impulsivity or someone who is perhaps high anxious. If you are of any of those kinds, you should be really

careful about your use of technology in the bedroom. Now, for me to, you know,

the bedroom. Now, for me to, you know, sit here and say, look, put your phone in the car, in the garage, and that way, you know, that's what I would love

because what we've learned to do in this modern era is the first thing when you wake up, what is it that you do?

No, no comment.

Lots of you.

You, it's just you and I, Stephen. Um,

I grab my phone before my eyes are even open. And what happens is this sort of

open. And what happens is this sort of small tsunami of anxiety washes over you because as soon as you unlock the phone, it's everyone else's agenda for your day but your own. And it's a terrible way to

wake up. Have you ever had the

wake up. Have you ever had the experience where you've got to wake up for an early morning flight? And it's a critical flight. You know that that

critical flight. You know that that night is not going to be a good night of sleep. It's going to be a shallow kind

sleep. It's going to be a shallow kind of sleep. It's what we call anticipatory

of sleep. It's what we call anticipatory anxiety. You are anticipating an anxious

anxiety. You are anticipating an anxious event in the morning. And studies have shown that when we create this anticipatory anxiety, the amount of deep

sleep that you have drops significantly.

You don't sleep as well. And therefore,

if we just do this little sort of version, this lit version of the morning flight, which is we know that when we go to bed and we put our phone down, we know that when we wake up every morning,

we're just going to open it up to that hit of anxiety every morning. No wonder

our sleep can start to get shallow. Now,

I'm not going to sit here and say, "Well, don't take your phone into the bedroom because the genie is out the bottle and no matter what I say, it's not going back in anytime soon." And a friend of mine, Michael Brander, has got

this beautiful uh framework where he says you can take your phone into your bedroom. It's fine.

bedroom. It's fine.

But you can only use your phone standing up.

What's his name?

Michael Grande. He's brilliant.

Mind his own business.

And and what happens is that you you're there and you think after about seven or eight minutes, I'm just I'm just going to have a bit of a sit down here. as

soon as that phone goes away. So I would say that digital detox is the first friend that will really help your sleep.

The the second is regularity. And we'll

come on to regularity when we speak about you know what really makes for good sleep. If you were to only do one

good sleep. If you were to only do one thing, not three things, but just one thing. Go to bed and wake up at the same

thing. Go to bed and wake up at the same time. No matter whether it's the weekday

time. No matter whether it's the weekday or the weekend, regularity is king.

Okay. So that's the third pillar. That's

correct. Regularity.

Okay. And then I have the T for timing.

Correct.

Which we'll go through these. Um

quantity, which we've talked a little bit about already, and quality.

Correct. So when I looked at the science, for me, I created this framework of the four macros of good sleep. You've heard of the three macros

sleep. You've heard of the three macros of food, macronutrients, fat, protein, carbohydrate. To me, there are four

carbohydrate. To me, there are four macros of good sleep. And it's QQQRT.

QQRT and it stands for quantity, quality, regularity, and timing. And think of it less like

and timing. And think of it less like pillars, but the four legs of a chair.

And if any one of these becomes unstable, the chair will topple over.

So, I'll probably start with the one that people have heard me bang on about, which is quantity. 7 to 9 hours. This

myth of 8 hours is nonsense. It's a

wonderful range. 7 to 9 hours. And what

we know is that using that sweet spot of 7 to 9 hours, when you get less than that, the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life.

Short sleep predicts all cause mortality. Now, we say that there's the

mortality. Now, we say that there's the minimum of 7 hours of sleep. And some

people have argued perhaps correctly that look, if you look at these mortality curves, there's not much of a percentage difference between sleeping six hours versus the seven that you're

telling me is minimum. So 6 hours is just fine. So all of this nonsense and

just fine. So all of this nonsense and rhetoric is is is silly from you. And I

think they've made a conflation because 7 hours is the minimum amount of sleep that you need to survive. Because the

way that we quantify what minimum is is based on whether you die or you don't prematurely, the amount of sleep that you need to

survive is different than the amount of sleep that you need to thrive. And

people will conflate the former with the latter. So you've got to be careful when

latter. So you've got to be careful when people are sort of touting on social media saying, "Well, no, but look, you there's not much difference between my sort of survival rate on 6 hours versus 7 hours." You may have a just as much of

7 hours." You may have a just as much of a long life, but the quality of your life will be very different. So that's

quantity 7 to n hours. And is that does it change for parents by the way?

Because I've met so many parents that seem to be functioning better than me and they've got four they're having like four or five hours sleep. Did evolution

not give parents any leeway or anything when they have kids that suddenly their brain changes and now they can survive with less sleep? The evidence doesn't suggest that once you go through

parenthood, you get some magic sort of, you know, immunity shot that makes you, you know, resilient and not vulnerable to a lack of sleep. And in some ways you

could argue because we used to, you know, live as a collective tribe and we would share duties at that point, you know, mother nature doesn't really worry

too much about you now because you've already procreated and you've passed on your genetic code. So you are now the the sort of the you know the not

particularly well you know cured for individual through evolution. It's your

offspring gets so it sacrifices you in a way. I mean

that's what we see in the animal kingdom. Did you see that documentary

kingdom. Did you see that documentary about the octopus?

Yeah, it it was just I mean I thought it was beautiful documentary but um the TLDDR for anyone that hasn't seen it is once the octop and I'm going to completely butcher this so please ignore

um once the octopus has given birth it dies. Basically it doesn't move out of

dies. Basically it doesn't move out of that hole and it dies. Is that a rough?

Well, I don't know if if it dies, but its level of of active life.

I searched, does the octopus die after reproduction, and it says yes. Female

octopuses die after their eggs hatch.

After laying eggs, a female stops eating and devotes all of her energy to protecting and oxygenating them until they hatch. Once they do, she dies

they hatch. Once they do, she dies shortly after, a process called semiol parity, meaning they reproduce only once. This death is triggered by hormone

once. This death is triggered by hormone changes from the optic gland similar to mamalian proterty glands. And males die shortly after mating as well, usually

within a few months.

That is wild.

In some ways, you know, it's it's tragic and it reminds me I'm so glad that I'm not an octopus. But

if you love the D CEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor. become part of the 15% of the

favor. become part of the 15% of the viewers on this channel that have hit the subscribe button.