Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1345: 6 Ways to Optimize Sleep for Faster Muscle Gain and Fat Loss

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the importance of sleep and ways to optimize it for faster muscle gain and fat loss. How humans are pretty good at getting by with little sleep. (1:55) Mind Pump Realizations: You want to make gains you MUST prioritize sleep. (5:27) Why your lack of sleep is sending the WRONG stress signals to your body. (12:25) 6 Ways to Optimize Sleep for Faster Muscle Gain and Fat Loss. (19:54) #1 – Get sunlight during the day. (22:13) #2 – Turn off or dramatically reduce the lights 2 hours before bed. (25:44) #3 – Stop eating 2 hours before bed. (30:50) #4 – Sleep in a cool room. (35:37) #5 – Have a room that is pitch black. (38:48) #6 – Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. (41:22) Call to action for trainers! (43:58) Related Links/Products Mentioned July Promotion: MAPS Strong ½ off!! **Promo code “STRONG50” at checkout** Visit Felix Gray for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Change Your Sleep Schedule To Lose Weight, Study Shows Sleep loss limits fat loss, study finds Does Lack of Sleep Hinder Muscle Growth or Performance? Sleep loss dramatically lowers testosterone in healthy young men THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP: STUDIES SHOW SLEEPING NAKED IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH Visit ChiliPad for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! The “Re-Timer” Effect: How To Re-Time Your Circadian Rhythms If You Wake Up Too Early Or Stay Up Too Late. Ten Scientifically Proven Reasons I Am Addicted To A Daily Sauna. Mind Pump Podcast - YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Ben Greenfield Fitness (@bengreenfieldfitness)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump the World's Top Fitness Health and Entertainment Podcast, we talk about a very, very important component for your health, for fat loss and muscle building, we talk all about sleep and the strategies that you can take to improve your sleep, so that you can burn more body fat and build more muscle.

We actually give you six ways you can do this. Now while we're talking about these, we do mention blue light blocking glasses and people message us all the time when we talk about those and people ask, where's the best place to get these blue light blocking glasses? Well, our favorite company is Felix Gray. They make glasses that don't change the color of the whole room and they do block a majority

of the blue light that comes out of electronics that can affect your sleep. Now, here's the place you go to get the Mind Pump hookup. Go to FelixGrayGlasses.com forward slash Mind Pump. It's FelixGray. That's F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y glasses dot com forward slash mine pump. Now before the episode gets started, maps strong is 50% off.

Now map strong is a great muscle building fat burning workout program inspired by strong man workouts. Now what does that mean? Well that means you're gonna do traditional exercises and some non traditional exercises. It's a fun workout. It does place a stronger emphasis on the posterior chain, that's the back, the butt and the hamstrings. So those are areas you really want to develop and work on. You'll love this program. Now to get the 50% off here's what you got to do, go to mapsstrong.com that's MAPSSTRONG.com and use the code Strong50. That's STRONG50, no space for that discount.

One of the last things that I figured out when it comes to building muscle, burning body fat, improving performance, the last thing, the very, very last thing that I piece together is sad because it's also happens to be after I piece it together, really figured out. One of the most important, impactful, powerful things and my favorite thing to do. Oh, 100%. What are we talking about here?

Sleep, sleep, sleep, wow. How long? That's it. What's in sure where we're going with that? How long, let me ask you guys a question. You guys have been trainers as long as I have. We've been doing this for a long time. How long did it take you guys to figure that out for yourselves?

Oh, it took a really long time. I think I was running under that same kind of mentality. I don't need that much sleep because I was just trying so hard to be productive and to be always working and working on my body and improving and I didn't really account for the fact that sleep, I mean, that's the piece that actually starts to rebuild you and repair all of the breaking down that you're doing by lifting weights and doing all this extra activity

and all that stuff. It took me a long time to figure that out. Do you think that it, do you think it was a lack of knowledge or understanding or attention towards it? Or do you simply just think it's something that you have to kind of go through in your youth and then you don't realize it until like age.

You don't value it yet. Yeah, until father time slaps you in the face and then you're forced to recognize it. Cause that's kind of how I want to believe that you know I'd been a I was a trainer for 10 plus years at this time and I read enough research around it and you know began to apply it and then you know oh it all came together for me but I think the truth is what ended up happening was just as I started to get older, you know, I started to realize I couldn't have those nights that I used to be able to have when I was 22. Like when I was

22, I could rage all night with my buddies on Friday night till two, three in the morning and we'd be crushing legs at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Well, like talking shit to now. That's a big part of the problem. A big part of the problem is humans are pretty good at getting by with little sleep. So it's not like you get poor sleep and then you just can't function. We're pretty good at getting poor sleep and then still being able to drink some coffee

or take an energy drink and function and work and do the things that you need to do, we're still pretty good at that. And the problem with that is you don't quite, and especially if you do it all the time, like I did, I always did that. I didn't sleep more than five hours. So you think it's more of that?

Do you think it's more that you were just adapted to that lifestyle and accustomed to running on minimal sleep and high stress and it just you never recognize what great sleep and taking care of yourself? Do you think it's more of that or do you think it's just we've aged and that has now become even more important? I think it's fallen to those patterns, I think. I think it's always important.

In fact, in some ways ways more important for young people whose brains are still continuing to develop. Teenage girls, for example, require the most amount of sleep for optimal health more than old people do. I think it's literally you get by and in spite of the fact that you get poor sleep, you still think you're doing okay.

And I know this for a fact because the one, now one of the big things about being a trainer or the big the fallbacks or issues I think is that we are much better with our clients than we tend to be with ourselves and I would see it have a tremendous impact on my clients but the science supports it as well. You know they did this one study where they took these were young people they were none of them were old they took young people and they had them all go on a diet and one group had six hours of sleep,

the other group had eight hours of sleep. That's it, two hours. It wasn't like three hours of sleep versus eight hours of sleep. It was six hours. I used to get six hours all the time. They put them on a diet, you know what they found? They found that the group that got the poor sleep lost twice as much muscle and half as much fat as the other

group. They both lost the same amount of weight. Twice as much. Twice as much muscle. Wow. Now, what we do is was there, I don't remember this study, was there a wide range of the age group or did it was it all the same age group? Do you know? Do you remember that? It was a, it was because I'm really curious to the question that I keep presenting, which is, was it that, you know, it was in spite of, of just, not paying attention or knowing that it was really affecting me that bad?

Or is it really that as you start to age, you really feel the difference in the impact, and then that's when I piece it together. I think you, I think as you get get older you probably can't get away with as much in terms of pushing your body but I think it's just in spite of because I feel don't I mean I would love to be able to rage with you guys tonight and get up first thing tomorrow morning and just now are talking and just crush work like it was no big deal. Well I'm pretty sure I can't think

about this way. Doesn't't think about this way. Doesn't think about this way when you were younger and you would not get any good sleep. Oftentimes you had a day where you could sleep. Yeah. You know, when you went real hard, you know, oh, Saturday, oh, it's fine. That's fair. That's fair. I do. I do recall. I do. I do recall a lot of Sundays laying around and like sleeping. You can't do that when you're a dad. Right. The worst you when you're a dad, right?

The worse you have is like, mom, let me sleep, so 12, leave me alone. You just have to yell back. Yeah, now, you know, is a dad, it's like you go to bed late and you're like, man, I still have to wake up tomorrow early. The baby's gonna be up or my wife's gonna be pissed off. I'm gonna translate. You got shit to do.

Exactly, so I think that's part of it. Yes, you get away with more, But the studies are very, very clear. I remember this with clients. And I saw it with clients, but I never applied it to myself. Even though I read all the books that said, you want to build muscle, you got to get good sleep, all the experts said it, all the old time bodybuilder said it, all the old time strong men said it.

There wasn't anybody that said that sleep was not important. Everybody said it was super important. I had this one guy that I trained. I'll never forget this. I had this one guy that I trained. High achiever, very successful. He hired me. I trained him.

His goal was to build muscle. He was like the classic skinny fat guy, you know, body not really responsive. And we were getting some results. We were getting some progress. His doctor recommended that he really work on a sleep because he was starting to develop these anxiety type issues. He's a high-achieving kind of person

and he got it in his head that this is something he should tackle. He said, that's it, I'm going to make this a priority. I remember him talking about this. Every night, when my wife falls asleep, I watch TV till whatever, or I read, or whatever. I never get good sleep. I drink lots of coffee. He goes, I'm going to take this very seriously. And then he was one of those people that, like I said, he's very focused. And when he decides to do something, he's very successful at it. And I'll never forget him doing that and watching his gains as I was training him.

And I remember asking him, are you eating differently? Are you taking a supplement? He's like, dude, all I'm doing right now. Prioritizing. It's prioritizing my sleep. And literally his strength gains, it was almost like he went from natural to steroids. I'm not exaggerating.

It was like he went from horror. It was hard to get him to get a little stronger to we were jumping strength all the time. And it was incredible. And I remember that because it stuck out so so much to me Then later on I had this experience with other clients once I started to kind of piece it together for my clients before I ever to play it to myself This was one of the first things I would do I would get a new client who you know We're talking about fat loss or whatever and I would convince them to prioritize sleep and once they did that they would always get

They would notice a significant impact. Now, the key is to be consistent with it and do it for like a week, two weeks, three weeks a month, but then they all started noticing. Did not apply it to myself until no joke until we started the Mind Pump podcast. That's when I started. The reason why I applied it to myself

was because I really, it was selfish. I really wanted to be sharp on the podcast or when we were doing interviews. I wanted to be really, really sharp and I started noticing that when I got really good sleep and I was eating healthy, that I was way better in my interviews and being sharp. And I remember thinking to myself, because I could get away with just having conversations with people lack of sleep, that's not an issue. But I'm on camera, I'm on podcasts. So I started to prioritize it,

I especially started prioritizing it before our live events, because I really wanted to be good. It was clear, I could tell a clear distinction between my performance on the podcast before and after. And then I started to notice a difference in my body, just on my strength and my inflammation, and just general how it felt. And then I was like, okay, it all sunk in.

I was like, this is just as important as diet and exercise. Yeah, I think for me it was when I realized how many stimulants I needed to keep drinking and ingesting even before my workouts, just to get into that mindset and that frame of mind where I'm like, oh, I can go ahead and be productive right now and lift weights and get some of the type of force that I need for this workout. And it was at a point where it just kept ramping up and ramping up.

I just realized I'm not getting, you know, the type of sleep that I need. My body is just fighting itself before I even get to the workout part of it that I'm going to get the most benefit from. And so it was really just kind of like taking that in and realize, okay, I need to kind of back off and then start to look a little bit more at being consistent in my times where I'm like, okay, this is my specific time I'm going to bed and I'm gonna try and stick with this

as much as possible and that really, I mean, that was a huge benefit to me. So are you still looking up that study? No, I'm not looking up that specific study but I did find another one. Cause to me that's just mind-blowing. We just went right over that. Double the muscle it lost.

I know. In the same period of time, just over the, over two hours of sleep is crazy. I'd love to see what those controls were on that because there's other parts that I would question. There's other things that tend, with my experience and finding clients that lack and sleep, right, getting enough sleep,

there's also other common factors. We talk about studies like, remember when they did the coffee cigarette study, right, getting enough sleep. There's also other common factors. We talk about studies like, remember when they did the coffee cigarette study, right? I found it over, average age was about 35. Okay, so average age 35. Average age 35, so I'll be, and all they did was just, you get to get four hours sleep,

you get to get six hours sleep. Well here, when they cut back on their sleep, only one fourth of their weight loss came from fat. Sleep deprived dieters also felt hungrier producing higher levels of granolin and hormone that triggers hunger and reduces energy expenditure. That is, okay, I tell you what, we didn't touch on that. And that is something that... You all for sure.

I have for sure pieced that together and it took me also a long time to put that together. But I would start to pay attention to, you know, it's inevitable, no matter if you prioritize sleep, shit happens, right? Shit happens, but people have babies and you have long work days or you have a stressful thing or the emergency happens. So I started noticing, I started paying more attention to like, what did the rest of my day look like? And it was like clockwork, anytime that I had a really sleep-to-probably night,

I had these crazy cravings for junk food. Sweet, yeah. Yeah, I just, that was, if I wanted ice cream or candy or fast food or something like that, I would, it would be always after a night of really, really bad sleep. So I thought that was really interesting. But my point though, or what I'm alluding to here with this group and wondering what all the controls are,

is I know that a client that hired me, that also struggled really bad with sleep, also tend to be my type A high stress job or high stress relationship, also pounding the energy drinks. Like, there's other things that I think also probably make that statistic. So, because that to me is crazy, right? To lose that much muscle over two hours asleep difference is massive difference.

Well, here's another one. There's a lot of studies that support this, right? Another one was on muscle mass and they found, and researchers discovered that the individuals who slept five and a half hours a night the individuals who slept five and a half hours Unnight so it was they compared five and a half hours to eight and a half hours. Okay, so three hour difference the five and a half hour Sleepers had 60% less muscle mass at the end of the study Those who slept eight and a half hours you're ready for this had 40% more muscle mass

so and a half hours, you ready for this? Had 40% more muscle mass. Wow. So huge, huge difference. And you gotta understand something that lack of sleep is sending a loud stress signal to the body. It's telling the body things are not good. We need to slow down metabolism, store energy. We need to ramp up appetite so that you get more energy. We cannot put on lots of muscle because muscle is energy expensive.

It burns a lot. And hey, here's a thing. For most of human history, if you were really, really stressed, it was either something acute, you're about to get killed. Or if it was chronic, you weren't finding food. So your body's turning into this, okay, conserve energy, ramp up appetite, don't build lots of energy-expensive tissue like muscle. So people don't realize this, but sleep.

If you're trying to build muscle and burn body fat and you're getting poor sleep, you're probably gonna progress at 50% of your potential, not exaggerating. Well, this is why it makes sense when we talk about, like, you know, if you're getting ready, you're training a program and you're, and this is another case, okay? Here's another case for why a three day or four day a week type of full body routine is superior to a body part split.

Say you're running a body part split, which takes you at least five to six days a week to complete. And, you know, Tuesday, just And Tuesday, just things didn't align. And you were up till one in the morning and had to get back up at six because it was just shit happened, right? And then you also have a scheduled chest day, you know, on that day.

And you go in and you hammer your chest and your workout. Not the most ideal time. In fact, if I was running a three day week full body type routine, I would probably take that day off of lifting and I would do something more mobility focused or meditative or something that is working inward versus hammering my body with more stress when I'm already sitting a signal to it

that it's stressed out because it's not getting good sleep. Absolutely. You can't, remember exercises of stress and in your body, all stress accumulates, right? It all accumulates in the body and if there's too much of it, then there's too much of it and your body just won't adapt, it won't progress. It kind of goes on the defense. And if you want your workouts to get your body to respond in the way that you wanted to,

you can't do it with a little bit of stress reserves leftover, otherwise the workout them tips you over and then you're screwed. Sleep does that, poor sleep does that. And in studies show that it's not, doesn't have to be like, oh, I only got three hours of sleep the last night. It's literally, they compare one or two hours less

of sleep every night, which I know people do chronically. I did that chronically. Totally. I was six hours of sleep. Me never fully recover. Yeah, chronically, it's what I did. Five, six hours every single night. And I could get by for sure.

And that's the problem. People can get by, but they don't realize the profound impact that has on health and performance. You know, with men, just one night of poor sleep lowers testosterone. Poor sleep consistently, one of the number one reasons why testosterone levels will be low. In fact, one of the ways you could raise testosterone

easily, the one step you can do is to get good quality, consistent sleep. Two little sleep raises inflammation dramatically. And look, we've all experienced this. You get a bad night's sleep, just one, your stiff and achy the next day. That's higher levels of inflammation. It negatively impacts the immune system.

I think we've all experienced this. I know for me, if I'm fighting something off, if I feel like I'm getting sick, and then I get poor sleep, I'm getting full blown sick. You're super vulnerable. So I'm getting full blown sick. And the reverse, if I feel like I'm fighting some off get a really good night's sleep,

oftentimes I can beat whatever stuff. Well, like you mentioned about finding that you're a sharper on the podcast and really taking that seriously, it, if I don't get enough sleep, I could totally tell right away. I just have that mental cloud and I can't, I can't really access,

like I don't have as good a memory, I'm just not cognitively sharp. There's just a lot happening there mentally and it carries, and even though I'm taking supplements and caffeine to try and help to get me, back in that state, it's different. It's just not that clean,

that naturally driven cognitive boost. Okay, so we've made the case that sleep is extremely important. Yeah, in fact, I'll add one more thing to that, Adam. This is something that I think is important to, a while ago I studied sleep from an evolutionary standpoint because I thought it was weird that we slept. If you think about it, we're super vulnerable. It is weird.

You're unconscious for hours. You're eating easily, right? You can't, someone's It is weird. You're unconscious for hours. Easily, right? You can't, someone's going to kill you. You're not being productive. You're not looking for food. You're not building shelter. You're not inventing anything. You're not mating. So it's a super vulnerable non-productive state of being. it evolution would have figured out a way for us to not have it. But the fact that it still exists means it's extremely important. So that's the last point that I wanted to make. Yeah, so again, again, we've made a very strong case on the importance that we've all agreed

shared stories on what a game changer has been for clients of ours, for ourselves, when we finally piece together. Now the next step and what I think we should do is give List off some strategies at getting good sleep because it didn't just stop there for me. Once I started to piece it together, it wasn't like I would, oh, aha, light ball went off, I could get good sleep, I build more muscle, and then just going forward, I get great sleep. I had a lot of learning, I had to learn along the way through trial and error to really put together a really strong strategy to have good sleep consistently. Otherwise, it would be like, oh, whenever the star's aligned

and I could just get to bed early and it just everything worked out. Just an hour earlier, that's all I gotta focus on. Right, right. It just life ends up happening. And so there's a lot of tools, there's a lot of strategies, there's a lot of things that I've changed

in my routine every day to assist making sure that I prioritize that. There are things, first off, you gotta treat it seriously, right? So what I mean by that is just like your workout, if you're serious about your workout, then you know what you're going to do when you get to the workout. Maybe you take a pre workout supplement or you do your mobility work. You have the right music, you're wearing your workout clothes, you don't just go from doing whatever you're doing to jumping into a workout

and expect a good workout. Same thing with sleep, especially in today's day and age. It's something that you have to prioritize in order to have it be consistently good. One of the first things you could do, and the stuff we're gonna go over is all proven. It's all proven stuff. It's all stuff that studies have really really shown to have a pretty positive impact. And in some of them are gonna be more impactful for different people, right? There's certain things that, like in the list that we put together when I was looking at them,

like, yeah, God, man, that one was like a game changer. Game changer for me. So like, you know, it seems common sense, but it's definitely something that I've, you know, I didn't even consider because for the most part, like the way I would go to sleep is turn the light off and then lay down. And that's it. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. So number one, get sunlight during the day. You know, someone might say, what does that have to do with going to sleep? Well, you have a circadian rhythm and part of that rhythm is also letting your body know that the sun is out that I'm away. In fact, we've all experiences. We have a day outside. You don't have to do much. You just out in the sun. You sleep like a baby that night. We've all experiences before. We've also all been cooped up indoors all day long,

even if you're busy and moving and all that stuff. And then you find that it's just it's tough to go to sleep. Sunlight provides a really, really good base for your circadian rhythm, more so than electric lights ever will. So getting sunlight during the day, even if it's just an hour walk or sitting by a window at work, some people are like, well, I work all day in an office, you know, at lunch go outside or stand next to the window. Getting sunlight during the day has been shown to have a pretty signified self, have a pretty significant impact on your ability sleep. This one I didn't, I didn't really apply until much later

because you know, just our jobs would come to work, we're in the studio, then I'd go home and I'm inside or whatever. And once I started reading more about this, this is okay, I'm gonna really try to just at least get an hour of sunlight. It makes a huge difference. Oh, you talked about some of the things that you didn't really start doing to a Mind Pump.

This is one for me. I had already started prioritizing different things and trying tools and working on getting better sleep before this and before even mind pump a little bit. But the sun thing, it didn't really dawn on me and I've probably heard me talk about it in the last year on the podcast a couple times where I just started to notice that we would work all day,

be busy as shit, we'd be in our studio, and then I'd come home and I would have my little sleep routine and I was still struggling with getting sleep and I was like what am I where where is the disconnect here? Where am I missing and I thought about I'm like God, you know what this whole week is gone by and I've though All I've got is fluorescent lights. I'm in a in a cube with no with no windows and the super bright You know production lights that we have going on us, and staring at my phone and computer, and I haven't got any real, natural sunlight. And I remember going out, and it was one of the times

where I was at the studio earlier before we all get together and work. And I started going for a walk and listening to one of my audio books about an hour before we would meet in the studio. And just an hour walk, sun's heading on me me and I'm outside listening to my audio book, and then we would work, made this huge difference in how I slept later on that night.

And that was kind of when that light bulb went off for me on how impactful that that can be for me. And I don't know how much research there is around this, Salmi, but you know, I think they encourage you to do that first thing too, right? Yeah, isn't it? I deal in the morning to get when the sun rises comes up is to get out in the sun in the first hour or so and try and get light then so

to set the circadian rhythm. Yes, yes, that's what they say. That's the best, but if you can't getting some sunlight when the sun is up, it's better than not. Yes, and it makes it does make a big difference. It makes a big difference in children too. I notice a difference in my kids. When they don't, even if they're up and active, if they're not getting sunlight during

the day, at night they want to stay up later, which is strange. If I have sunlight, I can tell, you know, 9.9 pm come around and they want to go to the jazzy. Yeah. Totally. Now the second thing you can do is to turn off or dramatically reduce your light exposure about two hours before you go to bed. Okay, so your eyes obviously perceive light,

so does your skin, but mainly through your eyes, and that tells your brain that the sun is still up, and indoor lights tell your brain that the sun is not just out, but it's up and it's like bright day, okay? And here's why you need to do this two hours before bed, because your brain takes about a couple hours before you go to sleep to be ready to get into those great stages of sleep.

You can't expect going from going from bright electronic lights to turning them off, hitting the pillow and going right into Excellent sleep. It doesn't work this way. The human body evolved with the sun rising and setting And so what the brain saw was that it got bright and then it started gradually getting darker and then it was dusk And then it was dark and then you went to sleep and your brain was prepared. It's like a shock to the brain when you go from light to dark, your brain's like, ripping off a bandage. Oh, I guess it's dark.

Let's maybe get ready. But you're already in the, so now you're trying to get eight hours sleep but you only get seven hours or six hours of good sleep. And if you're listening and you're going, oh, I crash every time, regardless. That's a sign you're not getting good sleep. Exactly. So that does not necessarily mean you're getting quality sleep,

just because you can turn off the electronics and go straight to bed and then crash right away. That doesn't mean that you're getting quality sleep. So it's not just, it's not just for the people who lay in bed and talk, because I would literally toss and turn. So this was actually something that happened during Mind Pump also. I resisted

this for a long time because I like to watch TV late at night. Sun's already gone down. You know, we and I like having a big cool high def 4k TV and you know, so it's it's putting off this really bright light. And then now with the the job that we have a much of the the businesses ran on my cell phone. So that's probably even worse to be staring at this little tiny screen, even closer to my face before bed. So I resisted this one for a while. And I just, you know, I attributed the tossing and turning for 30 minutes before I went to sleep is just that's like natural for me. And it was the blue blocker glasses.

And I swore I would never mess with those things and I'm wearing them right now because it's not, it's sun's going down, we're podcasting late right now and we've got these super bright lights and I've just trained myself to do that. Like when the sun goes down, if I know that we're gonna be under lights

or watching TV or on the computer screens, I just have now made that a habit because it is a huge difference for me. It allows me to still get away with those things. In a perfect world, you know, and this is like we talk about supplements and tools to help you do things with this. In a perfect world, you don't need blue-bucker glasses. In a perfect world, you shut your TV off, you turn your computer off, you turn your phone off, you turn all your bright fluorescent lights off

in your house and you go by candle or fire light or orange light for the... Himalayan salt can. Right, for the remainder of, from, you know, 7 p.m. till nine or 10 when you go to bed. That's the ideal world. Now the reality is I live in today's world where I like to work late at night sometimes,

I like to Netflix and chill, we work like this sometimes at night, and so this is where I find tools like this to be, could be a game changer for you if you had similar patterns like me. They do. In studies show that using blue light blocking glasses a couple hours before bed increases melatonin production. It improves those deep REM stages of sleep. Ideally, Adam's 100% right.

You want to turn the lights off, go by candlelight, or Justin mentioned Himalayan salt lamps, that low amber glow. That doesn't have that much of an impact. Oh yeah, that was a big game changer for us and our family. Mainly because we were always operating under the bright fluorescent lights, the, you know, all throughout the house,

everywhere we'd go. And we, sometimes we dimmed them down, but really there was something about the amber, sort of glow with these lamps that we started placing them around the house. And it just, it sort of brought a lot of the intensity down and everybody just sort of just started to chill and calm. It has a very calming effect to it and it was crazy.

Yeah, you're feeling your body literally wind down and here's the other thing. Overhead lights have a stronger impact on you than lights that are at eye level or below. So Himalayan salt lamps placed low, have a minimal effect. Let's appreciate it. Well, I mean, it makes sense evolution, right? We're gonna have a fire down in front of us. It's not the sun beating up above us. So we just evolved this way.

And so, you know, have these kind of dark lights around you at, you know, we have Himalayan salt. What are they called? Nightlights. Yeah, we have them throughout the house. Yeah, and then we just turn the lights off and then that's what we'll use. And it does. It chills everybody out.

But blue light blocking glasses. If you've got to work, if you're going to watch TV, put them on, and at least a couple hours before bed. Now there are other ways that your body perceives the sun to be up. One is light. We just talked about that. Another one, believe it or not, is the presence of food in your gut. Your gut, your stomach, your organs also have a circadian rhythm.

And when you eat right before you go to bed, that's telling your body, you need to be awake. Now, a lot of people know this. I think instinctively they know this. They'll eat a big meal and then they'll struggle to go to sleep. They'll have this like terrible sleep or whatever. It's a good idea to not eat at least a couple hours before sleep. Studies show this has a huge impact.

Studies show that not eating a few hours before bed helps with hormones, balancing. It helps with stress reduction, inflammation. Indirectly can help with muscle, building and fat loss, even if all calories are controlled, all because it improves your health, and then it definitely improves your sleep. So it improves digestion, too. Just think of you're lying down.

Yeah, gravity. If you eat a big meal for dinner and then lie down on your couch and watch TV, the amount of time that food's going to take to digest in comparison to, if you have it at six o'clock and you're still up around the house and maybe you do in dishes and kind of cleaning around and you're doing things, that's only going to speed up that process. It's not going to sit in your, and here's the thing too, what I would I notice with myself, right? And I always think like if I'm a trainer, I'm aware of this, and I do this, I know that there's lots of other people that are this,

it's when I offend multiple of these, that it really... Oh, yeah, they had a... Yeah, like I'll be the first to admit that there's been plenty of times where I've had a big late night meal, you know? We didn't eat, we were on a drive from somewhere, and four or five hours went by, and I'm ravishing.

I just want to eat so bad, but it's 9.30, 10 o'clock, and I door dashed something to the house, and then I set up and watched TV with Katrina while we eat our food, and then we go lay down in bed. Yeah, good life. It's like a one in a million chance that night's good night's rest. But that's what we tend to do though, is like it's multiple things.

Maybe one of these things, like I've had people be like, oh, I've tried the blue bookers. I don't quite notice this huge difference. It's like, you got to, it's really a compounding effect when you allow multiple of these things to be offenders for you to really notice a drastic distance.

It's just like, look, it's just like exercise. Like, I don't, you know, my legs aren't building, I'm squatting, but the workout programming is terrible. And they don't have a good diet, right? It's, it's just like that. You do have to do a lot of these things to have a really, really big. Well, speaking back to the digestive part, this is something that was a lesson I had to learn multiple times that to not eat that late was one thing for sure, because

then it just kind of, as I'm digesting, it sits up in my throat, and then this turns into some crazy acid reflux as a result, and then going back through and really seeing what types of food create more of a volatile type of reaction, I started to narrow that down and find offenders, like gluten for for me and is definitely one of those I don't if I am gonna have it because I don't want to not live life You know, I don't want to be that one where I'm oh, I can't eat that. I can't ever eat any kind of gluten If I'm gonna do it, it's gonna be earlier in the day Right and I'm gonna have a much better chance that it's not gonna totally screw up my sleep

But that's definitely something now as an adult like I've just just figured out and it's like I have to do that. What a great point you bring up, Justin, because there again, like many things, there's gonna be an individual variance and different things will be game changes for some and not so much for others. It could be that too. Like maybe you're pretty good about eating an hour or two

before you go to bed, but then the food an hour or two before you go to bed, but then the food choices that you make before you go to bed could make the world of a difference. Well, think about the foods you tend to eat right before bed. Right. You tend to never be the best choice. That's right. Usually not planned. Right.

And just simply making better choices as the last meal that you eat before you go to bed or not over stuffing yourself. So yeah, these are all things that you have to kind of play with as an individual and just become aware of it. We always talk about that with clients is, you know, we try and we tease certain things out and then we're looking for feedback on how did you feel? Did you notice this? Did you sleep better?

Yeah, no, you mentioned gravity. It's true. You know, astronauts oftentimes encounter digestive issues because of lack of breath is moving in here. astronauts oftentimes encounter digestive issues because of lack of lack of breath. Yeah, so one of the best things you do is eat and walk or move to encourage digestion, you know, eating and then going right to laying down, not a good idea, not to mention the circadian rhythm is totally gonna be off.

Another thing you can do is ensure that you sleep in a cool room. This one actually has a pretty profound impact when they do studies on this. They tend to, you know, they've measured this in around 65 to 67 degrees, tends to be where people sleep the most. There's a huge individual variance here. I know that. But sleeping in a cool room, you can make a pretty big difference. So, how are ways you could do that? You open the window, use a fan, air conditioning, sleep naked. They did this one study and they found that people who slept naked had significantly better sleep than people who wore pajamas. And really it wasn't that they were naked. It was that they that their core temperature was low. I'm an underwear. I'm like, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I'm like sleep, no I'm a nickie guy. What are you? Underwear. Underwear? Yeah. Underwear?

Yeah. Wow. I'm the only nickie guy. I'm full nickie. I was walking around naked last night in their house. Well, there's an emergency. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say,

I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, I need to get out and say, other people sleep at them. I'm trying to burn it down for a late nice snack. That would be doing the aches. Ah! No, this was actually what, so it's funny. We went, you listed these all off, and the first three that we've covered were things that really came together for me.

When we got together and we started doing mind pump, the back three are ones that I had already pieced together. Like, I am neurotic about the temperature in my house. I have, I mean, you know, I get in fights over it all the time with my wife. And this is how crazy I am dialed in on this, okay? No joke. So like right now part of our routine,

a lot of times Katrina will stay downstairs and she'll stay up, stay up and working, and I'll go to bed because I had to be up earlier and I'll go up to bed and I let her keep the temperature warmer in the house so she's not miserable freezing all day long but then when it goes bed time it's kind of like the deal like hey that's all I care about it is like I can handle 6970 in the house throughout the day that's fine that's totally bearable it's like I can handle 6970 in the house throughout the day. That's fine. That's totally bearable. It's when I go to sleep. I've got to have it down below 67. And I'll do this, right?

And I always know because she'll be sitting on the couch and there's a vent right there and I get her cold. You know, and I'm almost bundled up. You can bundle up, right? But she'll do this. She'll go over and she'll creep it up one degree. And I'll send you like 30 minutes later, I'll jump out of bed and I'll know I can feel my body temperature one degree higher than what my body wants and it will ruin my night's sleep. So I'm so isn't that a dad thing? Hey, dude. This is totally. Yeah. Totally relate. No, this is a big deal for you.

This is why too, man, when we first partnered with Chile, I was so ecstatic about that product because I was like, what? You can keep me cool. Right, and the fact that I could, and it was, it literally maybe save our relationship. You know what I'm saying? Like this.

You know, she could have it at like 70, as long as I could cool my bed down to 50 something underneath those sheets on my side. You know, say we're good to go. The next one is this one that a lot of people don't fully understand. So I'll break it down. But it's to have a room that is pitch black. So pitch black means no little red light on the TV, no phone lights.

Those dice and fans with the bright little lights that the LEDs on there. Yes, study that. Studies actually show that pitch black makes a difference over even a tiny bit of light in your room, so you wanna, and here's what I do with my room and our windows, we black them out, like those stripes or whatever.

They block everything out, close the door and it's pitch black. And then I have a TV in my room. And no matter what, if it's on or off or whatever's a little tiny red light, I'll put tape over that. Because you want to totally, totally black. I need to do that because I'm the guy that'll wear the Princess Mask,

or just a pillow over my face. Oh, I see. Yeah, because I'm just a mask. Yeah, you know, it's a role player. You're going to play. You're going to play you guys into. You're talking about the world. We have fun. Yeah, the night mask. Yeah, the night mask. Yeah, because any little bit of light, it totally interrupts any kind of like dream, any sleep, anything I'm doing, like I'm up at that point. I can't have like any light there, I'm like obsessive about it.

So we're the same way too, although it is a pain in the ass, you know, when she leaves the laundry basket on the floor, you know, and you're trying to, oh yeah, you're gonna be trying to memorize your way back to the toilet in the middle of night, cause I get up two, three times, and that's just have you tripped over it well of course I have of course I've got to learn how to see in the dark yeah

that's what I've done no you I've memorized my room so I don't need to see anything to know where to get it but it's the random thing that's on the floor that you were ready for well so so along those lines if you get up in the middle of night to go to the bathroom try not to turn on the bright bathroom light when you're going to the bathroom. That's right. Man, I was trying to get that as a partner was the, I've got the glowing, yeah, I got the glowing toilet bowl or just those Himalaya, like you said, those, the night lights.

Yeah, that's what I do. I'll put the night flip that switch when I'm in there. Exactly. That's what I do. So it's minimal and so I can see what I'm, or you can be like Adam and sit down when you pee. Yeah, he says that. I mean, yeah. I see what I can do with that. Hey, I'm not making some.

I do, I can do that. I can do that. Well, there's a lot of wives out there that would appreciate that. Totally, seats always clean with me. That's right. Or you just be in the shower like Justin, you're the only one that's going to be in the sink, dude.

Sorry. Now, the last thing, this one I learned relatively recently, although it's obvious when you hear what I'm abouteing the sink, yeah. Sorry, I'm sorry. Now the last thing, this one I learned relatively recently, although it's obvious when you hear what I'm about to say, and that's the go to bed and wake up the same time every single day. So here's what a lot of people do. Even people who take sleep seriously. Monday through Thursday,

they go to bed at a particular time, they wake up early and they go to work. Friday night comes around and they're gonna go to bed late because hey, I can sleep in tomorrow. Yeah. And Saturday Saturday night, hey I can go to bed late because I can sleep in tomorrow. Then Sunday, oh I gotta go to bed earlier. Here's what happens. Your body starts to acclimate to the new sleep schedule which throws you off about a day, about a day or two, depending on how bad it is, right? If you go like if you're flying from Europe, then it, you know, jet lag or whatever takes a while.

So if it's a few hours, where you go to bed instead of going to bed at 10, you go to bed at midnight or one, and then try to sleep in, you're not really making up for it. And then what happens is your body tries to adjust to that, especially if you do two nights in a row, and then it tries to adjust to the other way to do it,

and you actually lose quality sleep by doing this. It's just a hard one to do though. No, it is hard to do. Because stuff happens, of course, inevitably, with stuff that we, you know, you just brought up a great one, traveling, right? Traveling across the United States or cross country or across the world and you lose time or days, even.

But that reminds me of something that I started doing not that long ago because one of the times we hung out with Ben Greenfield, and he told me, and I have you read this study sound that referred to infrared saunas after like traveling like that helps you like recalibrate. Yeah, supposedly it helps reset the circadian rhythm by doing that. And also, you know, what he does to he eats his last meal when the sun, when the sun is still up in the place he's gonna go. And then he doesn't eat until the sun comes up in the place he's gonna go.

I haven't tried that, but I have tried the infrared sauna after these horrible traveling times or just horrific nights of sleep, and it does seem to feel that way. Now this is just my experience with it, and I don't even remember. I remember when he first shared the study with me, but I couldn't recall it right now. I'm not like Sal, I can recall studies after I've seen one time. But I do know that it made a huge difference for me,

and it's now become a habit. Like if I have one of these really bad nights of sleep or if we're traveling and we're going back across the country where we're gonna lose four or five hours or whatever, I'll do that and it does seem to feel like it resets me. I think you'll re-energize after I come out of it. The thing that reduces the amount of time it takes for the body to acclimate to a new time schedule.

Look, if you're a trainer, here's the thing with trainers, they coach nutrition and fitness pretty well. A lot of trainers ignore Coaching the sleep part or what they'll do as they'll say I did for a long time me too or rest in recovery in general Yeah, I look I I Focused on sleep after I stopped training clients when we start the podcast so my entire training career I would say things like make sure you get good sleep, but I wouldn't coach it Yeah, if you're a trainer coach sleep like do other things, and if your clients can follow along,

they will get much better results, fat loss, and muscle building. Of course, if you're not a trainer, do what we're saying, you will see a return. It's not just a small return. You'll see a big return, almost as big as eating right and exercising, and even some people will even argue as big or even bigger. Look, my pump is recorded on video as well as eating right and exercising and even some people even argue as big or even

bigger. Look, my pump is recorded on video as well as audio. Come check us out on YouTube, my pump podcast. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin can be found at my pump. Justin, you can find me at my pump sal and add them at my pump at them. Thank you for listening to My Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB

Superbumble at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family.

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