Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 210: The Results Of Our Sleep Experiment | Ear Biscuits Ep. 210

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

Are we sleeping wrong? As a follow-up to a previous AMA question, R&L try switching which side of the bed they sleep on. Find out about their results, their wives' reactions, and a brand new sleep contraption that Rhett brought in to share on this episode of Ear Biscuits! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Before we get started, we wanna invite you out to our Bleak Creek Conversations. The week that our novel launches, that's the end of October, we got this special event planned and we want you to be there. Yes, we're gonna be talking about the book, answering your questions,

and also premiering a very special documentary that we shot back in Buies Creek, the location that inspired Bleak Creek. We're gonna be in Boston on October 27th, New York on October 29th, Chicago on the 30th, Dallas-Fort Worth on Halloween, bring your costumes! Winston-Salem, North Carolina on November 1st, that's a double show.

And then we're gonna be in the LA area at the Wilshire, the Wilshire Ebell Theater on November 3rd, Sunday, November 3rd. And that's a very special show because it's a local show. We are bringing out the Mythical Crew. So you're gonna get to see us, but you're also gonna get to see your favorite Mythical Crew members,

including none other than Cotton Candy Randy will be roaming the grounds. Oh my goodness. So that'll be like a one of a kind, once in a lifetime sort of event there at the Bleak Creek Conversation. Tell your LA people. Yeah. Or if you're looking for an excuse to visit LA,

that's a good time to tack on some mythicality. Also. And just real quick, I wanna remind you, you get a book, you will walk out of the Bleak Creek Conversations with a physical copy of The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek. It is included in your ticket price. It's quite a deal.

And just to round out the year, we've got four more dates if you want to see us in concert. Again, totally different show. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Phoenix, Arizona, Sacramento, California, and Valley Center, California. Starting on November 20th through the 23rd. RhettandLinkLive.com has all your information. Let's do a biscuit. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link.

And I'm Rhett. This week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting, we are asking the question, are you sleeping wrong? Does that make you feel shameful and guilty? You're putting it on them. If so, mission accomplished. But we're also putting it on ourselves. Yeah, well. Are we sleeping wrong?

Are you sleeping right? We're gonna talk about our, now we talked about. Sleep tight, sleep right. Sleeping on different sides of the bed, which we have a very specific update about that because we tried it. We did it.

But we're also gonna move beyond that to talk about sleep positions and we're gonna break out contraptions. I have a contraption, an invention that I bought, didn't invent myself, that I have with me right here. I'm gonna break it out, I'm gonna put it on, I'm gonna tell you how it feels and what I experienced and you've had your own perils in sleep positioning.

Oh goodness. So we've got, there's quite a lot to talk about, believe it or not. This is gonna be the Kama Sutra of Sleeping episode. Do we need to? Lots of positions. Do you need to Google that? I'm just saying positions.

Okay. Sleeping positions. Sleep positions. There's something I wanna run by you, something that I've been experiencing and I just need to talk it out because I don't know what to do about it. and I just need to talk it out because I don't know what to do about it.

It involves my shower and it involves my neighbors. Okay? All right. And it involves them at the same time. You're showering with your neighbors again? As you know, I'm a, I'm a, well I was gonna say schedule oriented. I'm a very routine oriented person.

You don't say. Is the word I'm looking for. So here's the thing that I've found. I get in the shower pretty much the same time every morning. And of course, when I get in the shower, as I've established in an episode completely dedicated to my shower routine of Good Mythical Morning, I do the exact same thing when I get in the shower,

from start to finish. And I think I may have mentioned this on that episode, but when we remodeled our bathroom, I insisted, much to the chagrin of my wife and the input we got from people with design opinions, which is all these people Christy are asking, asked to not put a window in my shower. So now you see where this is going because I was like,

when we moved into our house, there was a little window in the shower and you would slide it open, it was opaque. You could not see through it is what that means. But I would slide that puppy open and there'd be a little square about the size of my head. Which direction is his face? Facing the front of my house, okay?

Cause you know the second. Facing the street? Yes, facing the street, cause the second story of my house is just my bedroom. It's like the back of the house has a second story that's nothing but my bedroom, my bathroom, and my walk-in closet. That's all that's up there.

I have a whole second level dedicated to my bedroom life. And this bathroom window in the shower overlooks the front of the house, but since it's so offset, if you're like, if you're walking down the street or something, you would be hard pressed to notice that there's a window, I think.

And I really started to enjoy, at a certain point in my shower routine, opening that window, letting the steam fly out, and looking out, not at the street, not at my yard, but I can see some nature. There's some mountains in the distance there. And I have like a, so it's like having a nice picture of a mountain scene in my shower.

Do you do this while you've cut the water off and you're lathering? I do it, I try to do it multiple times. You open and close it? Well that was my old window. When I remodeled the house, I insisted on having a window and I insisted on getting a bigger window because that was only as big as my face basically.

I wanted one that was like, I wanted a widescreen view of the mountains and everything else. So I got an, and I didn't want it to be opaque. So I got a full visible window. Haven't you seen it? Haven't you been in my bathroom? No, I have not seen this. You should come up there, man.

I don't like to go up to your second level. I'm like your dog. If you want me up there, you have to carry me. That's true. I do carry Jade up the stairs and down. I'll carry you up there, man. As much as I've talked about my toilet and now my shower routine.

I've kind of been turned off. At this point. I don't wanna know about it. Yeah, it's a lot. But I have to finish the story now. Okay. So yeah, I've really been enjoying, my new window is a crank window Yeah, it's a lot. But I have to finish the story now. Okay. So yeah, I've really been enjoying,

my new window is a crank window that then it opens this way so it turns flat. But are there? So if it gets fogged up, I can open that puppy up and it gets flat and I can look above and below it. Are you saying? No, there's not a curtain in my, hold on. Like a shower curtain just for the window?

You're telling me that you got your wife to agree to have a see-through window in the shower that anyone can look through at any time? Not anyone. I mean, you have to be in a certain vantage point to look in that window. And it turns out that vantage point is if you're seated in your car,

if my neighbor is seated in their car in the driveway when they're leaving to go to work and it just so happens that every time I'm in the shower, lathered up, right when I get full lather and I look out that window, I can see, there's like, I can see my neighbor's driveway, I can see their car, I can see the driver's seat of one of their cars and I can see, there's like, I can see my neighbor's driveway, I can see their car, I can see the driver's seat of one of their cars and I can see one of them

get in the car and put it in reverse and drive off. I think I can also see them see me. But they would be seeing you in the mirror? No, they're seeing me through the window. But they're putting it reverse. Are you saying they're putting their car in reverse and then looking over their back window? Is this across the street from you?

No, this is on the same side of the street. So when they pull in forward into their driveway, they're facing me. Okay, so when they're backing out, they can see up into your window. I understand. They just look out their front windshield back at their own house and look a little bit to the right

at my house on the second story back there and they can see a widescreen window with a guy lathered up taking a shower. Well because what I was gonna say is if it was the other situation, objects and mirror are closer than they appear, you'd be fine. No this is direct eye to eye contact. There's no mirror involved.

Yeah this is objects are exactly the same size. Now it's not a full length. Which may be disappointing. It's not a full length window. It's a landscape window. Is it nipples up? And it's, I would say it's shoulder blades up for me, six foot tall man.

Okay, so it's safe for your wife. You're just seeing your wife's head. For Christy, it's just just like it might be chin up. It's how, like if she's standing against the window, she could rest her chin on the window sill. Does she do that? Does she open the window when she showers? I don't know, I don't know.

I need to ask her that. Do you still open the window now that you can see through it? Yeah because it gets fogged up. And I wanna be able to see the mountains. Have you heard of anti-fog spray? I mean, I could come over and do that. Yeah, do that.

But it also lets the fog out so I don't have to tax my vent and I think about things like that. I don't wanna run my bathroom vent too much. Your bathroom vent is not for fog. It's for dookie smells. It is for fog. It's for steam, man. It sucks the steam out as well.

Well, yeah, it also does that. So that your mirror over your sink doesn't get fogged up. Yeah, I mean, it does that as well, but I mean, you're making that much steam, how hot is your shower? You taking a super hot shower? I guess, yeah. Okay, I would've thought with the stopping and lathering and everything,

you wouldn't have been generating that much steam. And then it gets sucked out the window. But my question is, I found myself, whenever I've started seeing my neighbor get in his car, I've like started shimmying over and hiding. I'm hiding in my own freaking shower. That's no way to live. How big is the shower?

I mean, it's not hard to hide, right? You just back away from the window. I kind of move over and I have to hunch a little bit and it just, I'm experiencing shame and I just don't think that's healthy. I just think I need to unapologetically stand there. What is the neighbor, the husband, the wife? The husband.

I've seen the wife a couple of times. And what kind of relationship do you have with the neighbor otherwise? We have friendly exchanges at the mailbox. They got two young kids that I sometimes yell at, tell them to be quiet, no just kidding. I'm friendly with the kids. And I'm like, when they went on a vacation,

they asked Christy to water their plants. Okay. They gave us a key to their house to do that. In the case. And they kept our mail when we went on vacation. Okay, so you have a friendly, neighborly relationship. Never had them over for dinner or vice versa.

Do you plan on having them over for dinner? Is there any incentive to do that? I think that it's a good idea. I'd like to say that we'd eventually have them over for dinner, but let's be honest, it will never happen. Okay, in the case of a natural disaster, let's say like the big one hits the city or something like that and everybody is kind of holed up

in their houses for an extended period of time. I'm killing and eating them, yes. What kind of relationship do you want to have with them? Do you want to be the leader of your street? Do you want to be the meet again of your street? Or do you want to submit to the leader of your street? Do you wanna be the meet again of your street? Or do you want to submit to the authority of your neighbor? Well, they're both doctors.

But I don't think that their leadership potential. I think they're more like, they got to focus on. This is actually, this is very good information. Because you've got two doctors that you need to do your bidding in the case of a shutdown of your street. Yeah. You wanna establish yourself as the temporary sort of

mayor of your little area. Yeah, because I can't be the doctor, there's already two of them. All right, then you need to be making full unapologetic eye contact with him every morning that he backs up. So okay, I need to assert my dominance. Yeah.

I just need to assert my dominance. Yeah. I just need to assert my leadership. Do not back away. Okay. Because it will pay dividends. Should I wave? Definitely not. Should I smile? No. Just look.

Do you know how to dominate? You don't smile, you don't wave, you just stare. Cause I was wondering if I should just next time I see him by the mailbox, just bring it up. Listen, I know that you see me showering. No, let it be your little secret that you then cash in and when you need it. In the apocalypse.

You would be absolutely, if you do this for another six weeks, you could get this man to do anything. Wow. You're weird. I'm gonna do anything. Wow. You're weird. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna stare him down, man. I'm not, and my hands are gonna be up.

I want him to know I'm kinda going with you here. I want him to know that I'm lathered up and that I'm showered. That's a good touch. Raise both hands. I would say shampooing. Shampoo. Shampooing shampooing. Shampoo. Shampooing while staring.

Shampooing while staring. But don't look like you're enjoying the shampoo. Look like I'm shampooing but all I'm thinking about is the power I have over you. Stoic leadership assertion. Yeah. This is not gonna be easy. You know I got a window in my shower too.

Really? Yeah I do. You open it? It's a small assertion. Yeah. This is not gonna be easy. You know I got a window in my shower too. Really? Yeah, I do. Do you open it? It's a small opaque one but it. Does it open? It opens enough to like get like a shining looking through a doorway sort of amount of face. Okay so from eyeball width.

But my neighbors, there's only one neighbor that I could see that way and it's a side of their house that they literally never go to. It's like a little walkway on the side of the house and they're never there. If I stand really close to the nozzle of my shower and then look back to the right over my shoulder or turn around, I can get an angle into their house

because they remodeled after me, I should say, and they put two French doors on that side of their house where there used to be nothing. So now, if they play their cards right, they can see me while in their house, but again, it's still from the collarbone up. So I need to try to stare at him in there too, huh? Yeah, well, you know, here's another thing.

Here's another reason that you need to do this because you don't want there to be like a Bathsheba situation with your wife. Oh, that's right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they see her bathing. That's right. They're gonna put me on the front lines of the war.

Right, you have to be like, I know that you can see my wife bathe. From the chin up. If King David had have known that Bathsheba's husband could have seen her bathe, he probably wouldn't just, he would have given her some tips before he left. Well listen, well why don't we just assume the empowerment

that's deserved here and Christy should be staring too. She should also assert her dominance. She wanna be, okay, sure, yeah. You think she can do that? She thinks she's comfortable doing that? Trust me, she's better than me at staring and asserting dominance. Okay, all right.

Yeah, I think you could be, now you're basically saying that you will be a tag team. Oh yeah. Yeah, if that's what she wants, go for it. Yeah, I need to ask her if she opens, I highly recommend having a window. I mean, especially if there's something to see. Because when you're in the shower, it's just nice to look out at the scape.

The first house that we looked at that we actually made an offer on before we ended up buying our current house, one of my favorite features of it, in spite of the fact that it needed a lot of work in order to be habitable by my wife's standards, I think, I don't know if you ever went out there and looked at this, but this was the one that was

at the very, very last street in the mountains. The whole backyard, it seemed like it was teetering off the mountain, like the whole back of the house was supported by stilts. Yeah, and you could see, it was one of those houses that you could just see forever. And the master bedroom had a shower that was outside and completely covered in glass.

So it was like. You mean covered but it's not opaque glass. No it was clear glass and you accessed it from your bathroom but it was like walking out into like a air lock pod that was completely glass and was out there and you could just see forever. But you could be seen. You could be seen if someone was down

in like the other yard in a certain place probably, but I also think that it had like curtains that could be like set up in there and so, but yeah, it was, you were pretty exposed if you wanted to be, because it was, you know, floor to ceiling glass. Wow. I was super excited about that.

You put an offer on that house and then you basically, then they changed their mind, didn't want to sell it and you raised your price and you were under contract, right? No, no, no, no, not with that house. The dude selling that house was not, He took it off the market. Because he was like selling it

but not really wanting to sell it and so even when we offered what he was asking, he didn't wanna sell it, it was strange. We low-balled initially and I think he was insulted but that's what you gotta do, you gotta stare him down. Well if you had high-balled, then you could have been high highballing from that shower.

I actually don't have any regrets for not getting that house though, thinking about. Talk about the big one, that thing would've just tumbled down the hill, man. Yeah, right. Man, and you'd have been naked. You know what, come over, take a shower. I don't wanna take a shower in your shower.

Just come over, take a shower. I don't wanna do that. Two shower heads, big widescreen window. You don't want me staring the guy down. You don't want his allegiances to be divided. He's gonna leave for work one morning, he's gonna be like, who is that? It'll be a good test because then it'll be like,

Link, I just wanted to tell you, there was a man in your shower. It's like, it'll be a good test. See it'll be like, Link, I just wanted to tell you there was a man in your shower. It's like, it'll be a good test. See if he wants to come clean. Right, see how honest he is. Right, see where his allegiance lies. If he's a whistleblower. Right, never seen him with a whistle.

If he had a whistle, I would have to talk to him. It's like, I don't want a neighbor blowing a whistle. Right. Quite annoying. Okay, well let's get into, let's move from the shower to the bedroom as I suggest doing on a regular basis. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today. Get a Best Buy gift card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply.

So we were answering a question submitted to us a handful of episodes back that a wife sprung on a husband that all of a sudden she was just gonna sleep on the other side of the bed. We wigged out over that and talked about it. If you haven't listened to it, you can go back and listen to that one.

But basically at the end of that, we discussed how we both always slept on one side of the bed. And we went on a rampage about is that the left or the right side or whatever. But the long and short of it is we ended up saying, what if we switch, what would happen? What would it feel like? We concluded, I believe, if my memory serves me correctly,

that mixing it up in the bedroom is, seems like a great idea. So we should try it. And then, you know, days went by, weeks went by, and I really wasn't motivated to do it. Wasn't motivated to bring it up with Christy or to, as I said in that Ear Biscuit, just surprise her by being on her side of the bed.

Cause I've just felt like it can't be good. But then I just started to think about all of the listeners out there, Rhett, and they're just, you know, they want us to be true to our word, they want us to have follow through, they want us to have backbone, you know? If we say we're gonna try something and we got temporarily, if not prematurely excited about it,

well we need to follow through! You know, we don't need to be those guys who just talk out of their buttholes and don't really mean anything. We gotta be people who put action to our words and follow through to our beginnings. It sounds like a personal pep talk. Yeah, exactly.

Until yesterday when I was like, you know what? You started talking about sleeping and what you're gonna get into that I don't wanna steal your thunder. And I was like,, you know what, you started talking about sleeping and some, whatever you, what you're gonna get into that I don't wanna steal your thunder. And I was like, well you know what, if you wanna talk about that, we can't talk about sleeping if we don't follow through with sleeping on the other side of the bed, so let's do it. Right, so we both did it last night.

I got home last night and I was like, I'm not gonna do this. And then I was like, I texted you, I was like, don't forget to sleep on the other side of the bed. Sweet dreams. Well the reason I didn't gonna do this. And then I was like, I texted you, I was like, don't forget to sleep on the other side of the bed. Sweet dreams. Well, the reason I didn't wanna do it is because I knew that it would be, it isn't like the kind of thing that your wife

is going to be like enthusiastically receiving. Like, you know, I said, hey, oh, by the way, tonight we need to sleep on opposite sides of the bed. And she was like, why? I was like, for the podcast. It was just like, do I really have to explain this? It's like, just do it. You said all that to her?

No, I mean. You felt that way. I was feeling that way. And what did she say when you said for the podcast? Well, she kinda shook her head, first of all. And then as we were getting ready to go to, she came into the bedroom and I was already on her side of the bed. Oh, you did what I said I was gonna do.

Wearing the contraption that I will show you in a second. Oh gosh. And I was in the zone, I had my iPad, I was reading a book on my iPad. You were snuggling up. And she was like, oh okay. And also I was, you know, I didn't know, okay what should I do about charging my phone

because I get over to her side of the bed and like she's got a charging cable but like the end of the cable to the phone is completely broken off. It's just a cable that just goes to nothing. I was like, whoa, it's different over here. It's like you need to call an electrician to charge your phone. Well yeah, how do you do this?

Do you wire it directly to the inside of the phone? But she was like, oh yeah, that happened last night. My phone dropped off the table and it broke off the piece and then I had to get it out of my phone. Well she should be happy to get your side, man. So I just took my cord from my side and used it on her side. And she was like, ah.

And then we couldn't find another cord. And so then she was like, I'll just charge it in the morning. Now, but then. Last time I saw Jessie, she was asking me if she could charge her phone. Right, she always needs to charge, she's one of those people.

And she, I said, could you please. She's a 10 percenter, man. I was like, could you please turn on the noise machine because the noise machine. You didn't move that. I didn't move that, no, everything else is the same. The noise machine, you know, it's the thing I talked about

when we were profiled by the Wall Street Journal, it's that, it's like a pretty large, I can't even remember the name of it. It's too big to move? I mean, you got it, it's got a droid? It's got an adapter and stuff. It's like a freaking Star Wars droid? I have a lot of things plugged in on my side.

And so she turned it on and like I was like, it's the left button, you know. But the first thing that she said was, she was like, oh, because it brought about, she listened to the podcast all about sleeping on different sides of the bed. And of course, we talked about the conversation that we had when I realized that it wasn't

the right or the left. You're putting her in harm's way. I as a, you know, traditionally was sleeping the furthest away from the door, and so that, putting her in between, yeah, and putting her in harm's way. And so she was like, oh, I feel so safe over here. She's taunting you.

Yeah, she's like, I feel so safe. And also, it seems like if one of our children has an issue at night, maybe you'll be the one to go and see about it. Cause you're closer. She made me feel real bad. Good. But I'll tell you, I wanna hear how you got into it

before I talk about what my night of sleep actually involved. Yeah, I was like, Christy, tonight's the night, baby. We're gonna sleep on other sides of the bed. And she was like, oh no, do we have to? I was like, I don't want to either. So you, so interesting, both of you, because of the nature of your personalities,

were actually worried that it was going to change something fundamental about your night of sleep. Yeah. Whereas me and Jessie were like, all right, she's gonna give me a hard time about how close I am to the action. Yeah. But neither of us were worried about

it changing the quality of sleep. I had to, so yeah, we have the same charging thing which is put your phone, you need to get Jessie one of those things. You put, it's that disc that you just put your phone, you need to get Jessie one of those things. You put, it's that disc that you just put your phone down on and it charges it. I have one of those on my side. Oh yeah.

Actually. You got one for yourself. Well no, and I got her one for, Let's say Mother's Day. Birthday or something. And it was Mother's Day. And her case is so thick that it's like unreliable to use a wireless charger.

But I do have one of those. I didn't have to switch that. I just had to make sure my water bottle and my lip balm was on her side. So I'm a minimalist, I guess. I mean, it's a lot of water though. It's a big bottle. Minimalist?

It's probably not true. A man who, no, a man who has. A liter of water, lip balm. Yes, you're a maximalist. So I moved everything over and I'm getting in the bed, she's getting into bed and she's doing a little reading and I'm like, oh it kind of, you know, I'm like, wow, this, it kind of feels like we're on vacation.

Even though we established that even on vacation, we sleep on our normal sides of the bed, that's, it did feel like vacation to me. So I kind of got excited. I was like, whoa, this is fresh. And your divot's not as deep as my divot. That's kind of fresh too. You noticed that?

Yeah, like we have, and our mattress, they have a little, she has a little divot. I got a deeper divot. You need to rotate your mattress. That's true. Come over and do that when you're showering, checking out my window. Yeah, so all of a sudden I got excited.

I'm like, man, this is me turning over a new leaf. And then, of course, Jade is in the bed and she sleeps in between us, but she sleeps in a certain, very specific way. She, like me and Christy, is very routine oriented. And I noticed she was not curling up and laying down or getting under the covers and burrowing, one of the two options that she always does.

She was just sitting there looking at me, totally confused. Yeah. Which actually made me feel good. I'm like okay, this matters to her too. This is weird. So I had to like grab her and put her under the covers and say okay, everything's gonna be okay.

We're just on the other side. And that was the extent of it. Christy apparently didn't think it was that big of a deal because once we got into bed, there wasn't much discussion about it. I was actually pretty sleepy so I went to sleep. Now you wanna talk about the quality of sleep. Well before you get into that,

because Barbara, my experience with Barbara was that Barbara tends to sleep in between us or on the other side of Jessie, but closer to Jessie. Like as much as I love Barbara and Barbara loves me, I think Barbara prefers to sleep next to Jessie. And so I noticed that Barbara was sleeping, she was sleeping on Jessie's side,

which I was sleeping in, that side of the bed. So this is like, it doesn't, I mean Barbara's not super consistent. Sometimes she'll just be next to the bed on the floor. I'm like, why are you down there? I don't know. But most of the time she's in the bed and she was kind of up against my leg most of the night.

So she was favoring Jesse's side. That was nice. Yeah, but she kind of was like, I guess this is what I usually do, so even though they're in a different spot, there was a confused look at first, but then it was like, I'll just go to where I usually go. I'm not really gonna think about this too much.

I kept waking up in the night, and here's the thing that I noticed. I think I frequently waking up in the night and here's the thing that I noticed. I think I frequently wake up, like if I change positions, I wake up a little bit for reasons that I'll get into when you talk about your apparatus. But the thing that I noticed was last night I would wake up a lot more than the level

to which I normally wake up. So it was probably five, I felt like five times during the night, I would be jostled or I would find myself waking up and I'd have to wake up a little bit more because I'd be disoriented. I experienced disorientation. Because there's a drop off on the wrong side.

Okay, yeah. Because I told the kids we were gonna do it and Lincoln was like, well, if drop off on the wrong side. Okay, yeah. Because I told the kids we were gonna do it and Lincoln was like, well if I slept on the other side of the bed, he sleeps alone, but apparently, he sleeps on one side. I think he sleeps on the far side. So he was like, if I slept on the other side, I think I would fall off the bed.

I doubt he would, but I don't know, maybe he would. I've almost fallen off my bed as a grown ass man a few times in my current house. Yeah, I sleep way too light for that to happen. Something about rolling over and being deep in a dream or something, I've woken up catching myself with my hand on the floor. But I haven't totally fallen off.

You need a rail? I can install a rail when I'm over there. Okay, good. We need to make a list, like a little handyman list to do. So I would just wake up more than normal because I was trying to figure out where I was and that happened a lot. And then, so by the morning, I just kind of felt like,

I felt like it compromised my sleep. What was your experience? Well, let me show you what I'm gonna, I mean, for those of you who are listening, Link can just describe what this thing looks like. Okay, so you've got a black belt that has blue balls on it. One, two, there's, how many balls are on that thing? Two or three? belt that has blue balls on it.

One, two, there's, how many balls are on that thing? Two or three? Three. There's three balls that are, they look like, they're shiny like a hand ball, and they're bigger than a tennis ball. And they're spaced apart. They look like they can slide on this belt. So Rhett's putting on this black belt

with blue balls on it. I hope it's called blue balls. The way you say blue balls is. Okay, he now has it on. He's seating himself back in his chair. Okay, so I don't, I should probably know the name of this belt, but if you just go to Amazon,

it's not an endorsement or a sponsor, so I'm not even gonna tell you the name this belt, but if you just go to Amazon, it's not an endorsement or a sponsor, so I'm not even gonna tell you the name of it, but if you just put, I think it's called the Sleep Positioning Belt, but it's some brand. I actually started to- Blue Ball Belt. So again, that would be a better name. Oh, the balls are hard. There's no give to those.

That's not a ball at all. It's just plastic in the shape of a sphere. Yeah, well let me tell you why. So the whole idea of this thing is that it has these, now this is pretty cool. These balls, each one of them, if you turn it like this, it slides freely. And then you can lock it into place and it stays in place.

So you can, the whole idea of this thing is for people who are trying to train themselves to sleep in a certain position. Because, let's say, and I think the two positions that people train themselves to sleep in are one, on their side. So in that case, you would take these three balls and then you would loosen them,

you would move them together. And then you would put it all on your back. So this is for people with sleep apnea or people with snoring problems and they're aggravating partners that they sleep with. So if you slept on your back, you'd have three plastic, hard plastic balls.

If they weren't hard plastic balls. Pressing into your back. Now I did see a couple people on the Amazon reviews talk about how they ended up still sleeping on their back and they woke up in pain. Kind of like when you went skiing all day with that thing in your shoe. Right, now while I am prone to going skiing

with a contraption in my shoe, I sleep, that would be for people, you might do this, you're a deep sleeper, so maybe people who are really deep sleepers could accidentally move and still not be awakened by the discomfort. I, on the other hand, awake immediately. So what I do is the way that I had it oriented a second ago is, because I'm trying to train myself

to sleep on my back, because I currently sleep on my side, kind of in the fetal position, which by the way, we'll get into this in a second, is the most popular position. Not just on your side, but on your side, kind of curled up, 41% of all people sleep that way. And that's the majority? That's the majority, by far.

Only 8% of the population sleeps on their back. That's kind of crazy. 8%? Yeah. According to sleep.org. Okay. So you wanna sleep on your back. Well, let me.

So you're moving. Let me explain why I wanna sleep on my back. But you're putting a ball on your left hip, a ball on your right hip, and a ball on your belly button. Right, so the ball on the belly button is redundant. It's not, I mean, I'm not gonna go all the way onto my belly. This is so that instead of like putting like a wedge pillow

on each side of you, which is another way to train yourself, I just wear this belt and the moment that I start to roll over to get more comfortable, because that's the way I like to sleep, I hit this ball and I either kind of in a light sleep, kind of just quit trying or I wake up and realize that I just tried to go onto my side. Not a real pleasant way to sleep, kind of just quit trying or I wake up and realize that I just tried to go onto my side.

Not a real pleasant way to sleep, by the way, because- You keep waking up. Keep waking up. So I've been doing this for the past like three nights, but last night was the worst night. In fact, last night at about, I'd say 3 a.m., I took the belt off.

Oh, you gave up. And you just got on my side because I was like- You de-belted. Because I was like, I'd say 3 a.m., I took the belt off. Oh you gave up. And you just got on my side because I was like, I need sleep. I also thought that I was gonna go to the gym. My alarm was set for like 5.50. You released the blue balls. But then I didn't end up going. So, but let me, this is why I'm doing this.

This is not a very, I mean, for our test of switching sides of the bed, it's not a really good control because you're adding this whole blue belt situation. But I personally can safely say that even my, my experience in sleeping closer to the door, at no point did I feel an increased level of anxiety. It isn't like, I was like, oh, now I am in harm's way.

It was a subconscious thing that I was doing when I was choosing the side of the bed. It wasn't a conscious decision. I know, but- And so, and then in practice, I realized that my subconscious decision was unnecessary. Like I didn't feel more exposed. But you weren't disoriented

by having the drop off on the wrong side? No, because like I said, I sleep on both sides of the bed on vacation. We don't have a side of the bed on vacation. Okay. And I've also slept on the right side of the bed, the left side of the bed.

Like I slept on the left side of the bed in my last house. Now I sleep on the right side of the bed because the door. Okay, yeah, I remember. But last night you're saying that you had the worst night's sleep you've had since starting to wear the blue belt. So that tells me that it could have been a contributing factor.

I can't tell you that it wasn't. I can't tell you that it wasn't. But to me, it was, I had an anxiety about getting up. This is the first night that I've done it where I had it where I was thinking about getting up and going to the gym and I just, I don't know, it translated into, you're not getting good sleep, you're not getting good sleep, you're gonna be tired, you need to get on your back, you need to get on your side so you can actually get,

that was the kind of anxiety. Yeah, if I know that, if I need to work myself up to get some gumption to go to the gym and I set my alarm, sometimes I'll wake up like two hours beforehand and then one hour beforehand. Something subconsciously that kinda keys me up as if I were gonna miss my alarm or like not actually go. But I ain't wearing those balls.

Well, maybe you need to be. Okay, so. So you wanted to sleep on your back. The reason I wanted to sleep on my back is because most of the science shows that it is the healthiest position for your back, your shoulders, and your hips, and I have issues of varying degrees

with all three of those things, right? So straight from sleep.org, I'm just gonna read it. Though it's not the most popular position, only 8% of people sleep on their backs is still the best. By far the healthiest option for most people, sleeping on your back allows your head, neck, and spine to rest in a neutral position. This means that there's no extra pressure on those areas

so you're less likely to experience pain. Sleeping facing the ceiling is also ideal for warding off acid reflux, which is something that I've had a little bit of a problem with too. Just be sure to use a pillow that elevates and supports your head enough you want your stomach to be below your esophagus to prevent food or acid

from coming out of your digestive tract. Ew. However, snoozing on your back can cause the tongue to block the breathing tube, making it a dangerous position for those who suffer from sleep apnea, a condition that causes periods of breathlessness. Ah. This position can also make snoring more severe.

Now a lot of people have also said that it's better for wrinkles. Not that that's necessarily a motivation for me, but hey, I wanna be as young as, I wanna be as young as long as I can. Sleep on your back helps with wrinkles? It seems like it stretches your face. Well, two, on your side. It smushes your face on your back helps with wrinkles? It seems like it stretches your face. Well, two, on your side.

It smushes your face on your side. This position on your side where your torso and legs are relatively straight as opposed to the fetal position also helps reduce acid reflux and since your spine is elongated, it wards off back and neck pain. Plus, you're less likely to snore in this snooze posture because it keeps airways open. For that reason, it's also the best choice

for those with sleep apnea. 15% of adults choose to sleep on their side, but there's one downside. It can lead to wrinkles because half of your face pushes against a pillow. And then you're up to the 41% of adults, which is the fetal position, is the most popular sleep position.

A loose fetal position where you're on your side and your torso is hunched and your knees are bent, especially on your left side, is great if popular sleep position. A loose fetal position where you're on your side and your torso is hunched and your knees are bent, especially on your left side, is great if you're pregnant. I think it has something to do with what organs are on what side and where the baby is and what it's pressing on, and that's why that you should be on your left side. That's because it improves circulation in your body

and in the fetus and it prevents your uterus from pressing against your liver. Oh yeah, I should have read ahead. Prevents your uterus from pressing against your liver, which is on I should have read ahead. Prevents your uterus from pressing against your liver, which is on your right side. This pose is also good for snorers, but resting in a fetal position that's curled up too tightly can restrict breathing in your diaphragm,

and it can leave you feeling a bit sore in the morning, particularly if you have arthritis in your joints or back, which I have both of those things. Prevent these woes by straightening out your body as much as you can, instead of tucking your chin into your chest and pulling your knees up high. You can also reduce strain on your hips by placing a pillow between your knees.

And then of course the most unpopular and final position is sleeping on your stomach which is what my dad does. While this is good for easing snoring, it's bad for practically everything else. 7% of adults pick this pose but it can lead to back and neck pain since it's hard to keep your spine in a neutral position. Plus stomach sleepers put pressure on their muscles

and joints, possibly leading to numbness, tingling, aches, and irritated nerves. Oh yeah, so if, I mean, I have this longstanding experience of waking up on my stomach, and I would have been sleeping on my stomach and I would, I would have been sleeping on my arm and then I'll wake up and I cannot feel it. Yeah.

And like I'll shake it and it would be so bad, it won't even have the tingles. And you think, oh no, I've done it. It's gonna have to be amputated. Yeah, which we wrote about in that song, Have You Ever. I would grab my arm, my dead arm with my live hand on the other arm and put my finger up to my mouth and bite it, I've done that,

just to see if I could even feel biting my own finger. And it would just be a very numb burning sensation. And there have been a few times when I've woken up and both of my arms are completely dead. Like I was sleeping on both of them. Like you talk about a weird sensation, man. You're waking up and you just got, you're flopping at the shoulders.

Like that is scary. And you know when you shake to try to get them to wake back up, like if your foot falls asleep, it's a lot worse if it's from your shoulder all the way down. It hurts. Yeah, as the blood comes back. You gotta get the life to come back in it.

The tingle. I don't have that problem anymore because I very, very rarely make it to my stomach because of the problems that I've had with my shoulders. Right, but you find sleeping on your side, or what do you normally sleep on? You start off on your back? On my back.

And you stay on your back? Usually. Now, I'm very broad shouldered, you know, so it's like, for me to sleep on my side, it's like my shoulders have to collapse on themselves because it's like my shoulders have to collapse on themselves because it's like, it just feels unusually wide. Like right here, you see that? The broadness, just like it wants to collapse on itself

when I'm on my side. But the problem that I had, I think I've told this story, a number of years back, I started to get extreme pain inside of my shoulder and the doctor and the physical therapist ended up saying, well they were like, how do you sleep? And I was like, I sleep on my right side, spooning my wife with my right arm used as a pillow with my elbow bent, so it's like my bicep is against my right ear.

And then my hand is behind my neck. And sometimes I'll put my hand up and I'll grab the head of the bed and just hold on. Just in case, what? And I had this routine for a long time. For leverage? As I was going to sleep, I would tap a little song on the head of the bed.

That wasn't annoying to anyone else, though. And it would put me to sleep. I know I'm weird. Christy never wants to ask me, why are you tapping? This is like, she had already lived with me so long, she's like, I'm not even gonna ask why. She quit asking why. A long time ago.

Like 18 months in. Other than why did I do this? Why God, why does this continue? And I started, the physical therapist said that I ground down, my bones started grinding against each other because they were constantly in this grinding fashion, like here at the tip of my

collarbone and my shoulder blade. And they said it was irreparable damage and that really rocked my world. They say you can't sleep on your side. And it was hurting so bad I could no longer do it. And so I would stop, I started sleeping on my back. And then if I rolled over. How did you train yourself to do that? If I rolled over on my side, it would hurt.

And then if I rolled over on the other side, it wouldn't hurt but I was so afraid of doing the same thing to the other shoulder that subconsciously, I would wake up whenever I'd roll on my side. Like I would wake myself up. So it was like I had blue balls in my brain. Yeah. That would wake me up. So it was like I had blue balls in my brain. Yeah. That would wake me up.

Can relate to that. So, I don't need your belt. I got it in my brain. So now I'll wake up on my side sometimes. I wake up throughout the night trying to sleep on my side and I'll go back to my back. And last night I woke up further because once I started to wake up, I'm like to sleep on my side and I'll go back to my back. So and last night I woke up further because once I started to wake up,

I'm like, where the hell am I? Whose lamp is this? I'm in the same bed. There's a drop off over here. I don't know, I haven't given up on this. But last night was unpleasant. And I can one of the things I concluded is I was like, you know, when I sleep on my side, now first of all,

I favor my left side and the reason I, actually I favor the side that faces away from my wife. And let me explain why. Again, I have this, I have very high self-preservation instincts. And you know, my wife, I've talked about this before, that usually large people have learned how, like me, have learned how to not hit people.

I don't step on people, I don't accidentally elbow people. You can hang out with me for an extended period of time and I'm never going to accidentally hurt you with anything. My wife is small, so she steps on people's feet. She also gets uncomfortably close. Because the stakes are low, is that what you're saying? Yeah, she also gets uncomfortably close and at times has hit me by accident

with like an elbow or something but it gets close enough on a regular basis. If she's like, if I'm really close to her and she's moving or something, I don't like to get hit in the face as a general rule. Yeah, it's not a good time. I subconsciously face away from her, which seems less romantic

and I think she interprets it as less romantic, but it's really just to protect myself. So I noticed last night once I took the blue balls off and I went to my side, I was facing, I was on my right side, but I also realized that. Right side meaning you were still facing away from her? Facing away. Okay, yeah. Now.

Because you're not favoring a side, you're protecting yourself. But I do, especially. You sleep in fear. Especially if, I mean, we have a California king size bed, which California king is actually four inches narrower and four inches longer. So a king size bed is 80 by 80. I went with the California king, which is 84 inches long.

Not like I needed those extra four inches, but I am a big man. And so I was willing to sacrifice the four inches of width. So it's 76. Now, what that does, what that means is that we still have a lot of space and if she's kinda in her position and she hasn't migrated, I will naturally sort of sleep on my right side

but throughout the night, I will probably flip sides because you get, it's the same reason that people who are incapacitated in bed, they have to move them because you get bed sores. Even over the course of a night, if you don't move, certain things will start hurting a little bit. So what I noticed last night is that because I'm restricted and I can't move,

I'm actually starting to get stiff. Even my back, which I'm supposedly in a healthier position, I feel like, in fact, my back is a little bit stiff today after having slept on my back. And maybe it's because I didn't have the right pillow and maybe I should have like, it wasn't until like halfway through the night that I started supporting my knees

and like getting my legs up a little bit. I just don't know, it feels restrictive. I think you just need Jessie to just kick you in the back throughout the night. Yeah, that could help. But I also prefer sleeping on my side because I often find myself in beds that are not long enough like if we go on tour, I can't lay on my back

in that bunk bed. I'm too big. There's too much ret to lay on your back unless I have my knees bent which you can't sleep with your knees bent on your back. And so I sleep in the fetal position. Unless you're like a toddler. I sleep in the fetal position to fit in those bunks.

Many hotels you go to, or if you go to Airbnb, if they have a regular size bed, I'm probably going to be going off of it. You got a tough life, man. So I sleep on my side. So I just don't know if I should train my brain. Like the problem with getting the blue balls into my brain is that then I will be trained to sleep on my back

and then I'll be trying to do that in all my circumstances and I actually think it's going to be a problem in others when I have to get out of my routine of sleeping in my big bed. So I don't know what to do with these blue balls. Well second choice is straddle a pillow. Put a pillow between your knees. That still helps with your back, right?

Yeah, well it does. That's hips. No, I think it helps with both. It feels like, yes, sleeping on my side but keeping my legs straight and not doing the fetal position. I mean my back is doing fine. It's not like I'm experiencing back problems

that are so debilitating that I'm trying to sleep. It's just like, you know what? I'm getting older, I already have a predisposition to back problems, I've got a little hip thing, kind of like the same kind of hip thing that you do or it feels like it's getting caught. I have a shoulder thing as well. You're falling apart.

And so it's like, maybe I should go ahead and preempt this, but I just don't know what I'm gonna do. I feel like I'm at a crossroads. I'm a crossroads, but I'm wearing a belt that's got blue balls on it. I think you need to sleep on your back and not worry about the travel

and the restrictions of other places because that's such the minority of how you sleep. You think I'll just naturally adjust in those situations? Yeah, yeah, don't let the tail wag the dog of your back. Now I've punched Christy in the face while sleeping multiple times and there's many times that I wake up where I go to my right side and I put that elbow up because I still have that long standing

and then before I can correct myself, which I always do, she's like fleeing. So if she were here, she'd be chiming in and saying like, I don't sleep good because I've been punched and I've been elbowed a lot and sometimes laughed at. Well why didn't she move? And she tolerated this. I've woken myself up laughing.

She tolerated this in a literal double bed. For the majority, 15 years. Over a decade, 15 years of your marriage. Your wife needs some sort of metal. There should be some kind of like. A link last metal. She's lasted with a link. She should have some sort of like, you know.

That's what I'm gonna get her for, you're talking about Mother's Day, maybe Christmas. I'm gonna get her a, you've lasted with Link. Maybe it should be an anniversary. There's some kind of like service for people who've been through hard things. I'm not good at consoling someone I've punched when I'm asleep and I'm just like, I'm kind of groggy.

I'm like, oh, I'm sorry I hit you in the face. Won't happen again tonight. So yeah, there's a lot of, like I'll wake up with her hand pushing on my elbow. It's just like, you know, like some people have to roll over their snoring partner, like kinda log roll. She has to like push the elbow away. So apparently I'm not on my back the entire time.

Oh yeah, I'm moving around a lot. I mean, I don't. We need plexiglass. Well, I watched a movie one time and it was about an Amish family and I don't know exactly why they did this but they had to put the boy and the girl in the same bedroom.

It's not a documentary, it was a movie. And they put a board in between them. It was like a bed board so when a man and a woman, a boy and a girl needed to sleep in the same bed but they didn't want them to mess with each other. Well, they're not siblings, are they? No, they weren't siblings. It was like, oh, your cousin from so-and-so

is coming into town, he's gotta sleep in this bed, so we're gonna put this board up. Okay. But then those hands reached across that board. Oh yeah. It wasn't that kind of movie, but I think it just illustrated the, you know, you can't stop the lustful intentions of teenagers it wasn't that kind of movie, but I think it just illustrated the,

you can't stop the lustful intentions of teenagers with a piece of wood, no pun intended. I mean, are we slowly creeping towards the old married couple sleeping in separate beds? Like my grandparents slept on, like my grandparents slept on, like my mom's parents, they slept in twin beds on opposite sides of the room. Well, I could get into a lot of trouble by giving my actual thoughts on this.

Do it. This will never happen in my house, I don't think, because the idea of sleeping in separate beds is like so quintessentially unromantic in my wife's view. Now I think, first of all. What if you made it technologically cool, like it's two twin beds that are, they're smushed together and then you push a button and they go on tracks

the opposite sides of the room. That seems like overkill because you don't need more than one bed, you don't need a super wide bed to make love, I don't know how you make love, but typically I'm taking up the amount of space that one person takes up. I use all available real estate. But what I'm saying is that typically you have to be

in physical contact with each other. So you're only taking up so much space. True. You don't need, I don't, I might use all four corners of the California king size bed but it's just because it's there to be used. If the bed was cut in half, there's still four corners. There's a lot to do.

And I don't think, I feel like the thought is if you sleep in a separate bed or even in a separate room like Jessie's grandmother did for a long time, for as long as I ever knew Gaga and Papa, they were in separate rooms. I bet that was snoring related. Yeah, it probably was. I don't think it necessarily, okay,

I could see how being in separate rooms would be a problem. And I could see how you could think that being in separate beds would lead to less overall physical contact and therefore less, you know, intimacy. Maybe that's true. I don't think that that would be the case. I don't think it would be the case either because it doesn't happen by accident.

It's not like you roll over and like, whoops. Right. Look what's happening. Yeah, and so because of that, I feel, it's not gonna happen and I sleep fine, but I do, you know, I'm such a light sleeper that if my wife wakes up to go to the gym, I wake up. There's no world in which I don't wake up.

Even with the noisemaker never going off, even if I put a sleep mask on, I have this just like sensitivity to being, I'd be a good like watchman, you know what I'm saying? So in conclusion, what are you gonna do? You gonna stick with the balls, man? Give it another week? Yeah, I feel like I gotta try it for a little bit longer.

Sleep on your back, you gotta do it. Get your own bed. I feel like I just, I'm gonna go to the point where I'm without the balls, able to sleep on my back and see if there's a noticed improvement in like joint health. I am not however gonna sleep on Chrissy's side of the bed anymore.

Been there, done that, I did it for you. I didn't learn that much. But it's over. Jessie did say, I could get used to this when we did it last night, but I doubt that she'll be on my side of the bed when I get home tonight. Right, because why? Yeah.

There's books to move. There's books to move, there's chargers, there's shingles. Yeah, I mean, there's drawers. Our drawers are so different. Let's have a rec. You gonna recommend something? Yeah, I am.

I'm going to recommend a television show that is for a specific sense of humor. I showed it to you, I made you watch two episodes. It's I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. It's a sketch show on Netflix. I Think You Should Leave. And it is so dumb. It is just such a dumb show.

And that's why I like it. To make you feel smart? No, it's not dumb and like trashy reality TV. I'm saying that like, it's just stupid comedy. You know, it's just taking, and well, in a sense, it's smart in the way that they do it. But it's just like a large percentage of the population would watch it and be like, this is just too stupid.

This is just too crazy for my sensibility. But I very rarely encounter something that's too stupid for me. So I highly recommend it. And the short episodes are like 15 minutes long. Apparently this guy was a, I think he was a writer and maybe a very, very short-lived cast member on SNL. I think he's kind of from that world.

But it is, and there's a bunch of like, you know, noticeable, recognizable celebrity comedian cameos in it. And it's just really, really stupid. Go for it. Hashtag Ear Biscuits, let us know what you think. Where do you sleep and why? You rolling around? Did you try?

Will you accept the challenge and let us know? Sleeping on the other side of the bed. And if you need a set of blue. Hashtag your biscuits. If you need a set of blue balls, depending on how my experiment goes, I might be selling some on Craigslist. We'll talk at you next week.

Hashtag blue balls.