The Dr. John Delony Show - The Importance of Sleep, Family Boundaries, Dealing w/ Regret

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode My nephew is getting out of jail and I want to help him out. I own a business and would like to give him a job. Is this a good idea? I got a DUI. Mom of 2 small kids, never been in trouble with the law. I am so angry with myself. The Geek Minute: The Importance of Sleep The Drive w/ Dr. Peter Attia Why We Sleep - Dr. Matthew Walker ChiliPad Cube Lyrics of the Day: "Pull Me Under" - Dream Theater tags: family, relationships, disagreement/conflict, substance abuse, parenting, reconciliation/forgiveness, sleep, fitness/physical health, anxiety These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, if I'm doing my job right, you should all be asleep at the end. Because the Geek Minute is back and we are talking about all things sleep, nerdy, and everything. We're also going to talk to an awesome guy whose nephew is getting out of jail and he wants to know how he can support him. And we're going to talk to the mom of two young kids who got a DUI and thinks she's a failure. Stay tuned. What is up? This is the Dr. John Deloney show. I'm John, just like my mama named me, and I hope you are doing good. Hope you're being kind to one another. Hope you've met your neighbors, you know, playing tennis. I don't know if you're being kind to one another. Hope you've met your neighbors. Y'all are playing tennis. I don't know if y'all play tennis.

That sounded weird. Hope you're just out in the yard kicking a soccer ball around or doing whatever it is people do these days with their neighbors. And I hope that y'all are being wonderful with one another. So on today's show, we've got a lot going on. If you're new to us, welcome. Normally, I am way more on top of things when I start the show, and by way more on top of it, I'm not. But we talk about mental health, talk about relationships, we talk about all this stuff. On this show, we've got a packed show today, so I want to go ahead and get to the calls.

If you've got challenges in your life, relationship issues, mental health challenges, you just want to know how you can support folks. Questions about parenting, marriages, education, whatever it is. Give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash show. And we will get you on the show. And we will talk to you.

We're getting calls, emails from all over Earth, right? So it's an exciting time to be in the podcasting. Is it? It's not. There's about 11 million podcasts. This is but one. We are almost cracked the top million, though, James. With your great production help, we are almost cracking the top one million. You're welcome.

That's the kind of coaching I get, guys. You're welcome. All right, so let's go straight to the phones today. We've got a lot going on. Let's go to Colin in Fairbanks, Alaska. Colin, what's going on? Oh, man, just had a great time. How are you, my friend?

Same, same, same. How's the world treating you? Dude, it has been a crazy year. Lots going on, but for the most part, man, it has been incredible. Very cool. Very cool. So brother, what's going on? How can I help? Well, I've got a situation. I own a small service-based carpet cleaning business. I'm an owner-operator. Started about three and a half years ago. Very cool, man. That's a whole other story. I got fired from a job, and I was tired of getting fired, so I started my own business, and it's been amazing. Hey, so would you fire yourself,

or have you turned into a pretty good employee? You know, for the reason I got fired was it was lack of performance in a sales job, and uh i said you know in this environment it just wasn't it wasn't the right fit for me so i said man i i need to start my own business so i did it and it's been it's been incredible well good good for you man all right so you got a carpet cleaning business management has always been restructuring in your life that's my good hunting reference and but now you got your own place and you're crushing it. So what's up? Yep.

So I've got a nephew. This is kind of the emotional concern I have because I listen to a lot of business books and tactical stuff like that of do this, do that. Here's a budget. Here's this. Anyway, I've got a nephew, 21 years old. He's coming out of prison of the last three years. Um, I would love to help him out in some way to bring him on and, and, and work in the business with me and kind of

be a, a mentor. If I, if you will, um, his sister or my sister, his mom and I are super close. Like we're, and so she's just concerned for him. And I want to know, like, what's the best way I can help him, but also not jeopardize the integrity of what I've built, what we've built as a team and a culture here with my business. Because coming from a background of theft and burglary, I'm hoping that he's had a come-to-Jesus moment. But we're in people's homes. We're in people's businesses. They trust us with door codes and keys and all kinds of stuff that we've built a reputation for. How do I help him but not jeopardize what we've built?

Sounds like you don't want to hire him, but you think it would help him. That's exactly. Okay. So hiring him would cause you to treat him with a little more scrutiny, with a little closer eye, with probably a little less of a leash than you do your other employees or then with yourself, which then would cause that relationship to strain further and a partridge of a leash than you do your other employees or then with yourself, which then would cause that relationship to strain further and a partridge in a pear tree. Is that fair? Yeah. So there's really two ways you can do it.

Number one, when he gets out, you could sit him down and say, I'm going to take the risk of a lifetime because I'm going to gamble my entire thing on you. And you tell him what you just told me. A hundred percent of my job is based on trust. There's a million different carpet cleaners. And I don't know if you guys are just, if there's like a Michael Jordan of carpet cleaning, you may be it, right? My guess is like at the end of the day, the tools are the tools and the chemicals are the chemicals. It comes down to, do I show up on time?

Do I leave this place? I do good work, obviously, but am I a pleasure to do business with? Am I fair and honest? All those things you've built up over the last three years, right? Absolutely, 100%. So sitting down and saying, you can take all of this from me with one stupid move. And I'm going to go all in on you and trust you and he can say i'm gonna rise to the challenge i've learned my lesson this will never happen i'm a changed person so colin i'll tell you this i was a little punk thief when i was a kid okay

a punk thief okay and i had some things happen in my life i never went to jail um i never stole on a big scale or anything like that right i was always taking kids baseball card i was just a punk man and dude there are a few things that get me more fired up on earth than a thief now than someone who steals oh absolutely okay so i'm telling you that to tell you I have had a change of heart, a massive one, and now I do whatever I can to make sure that that level of integrity is whole in my life, right? Comically so, to the point that my friends and family are like, dude, it's just 14 cents.

You don't have to take it back to the store. We're all getting back in the car. We're going back to the store. Is that right? So I want to tell you, change does happen. People do grow. I wouldn't do this job if it wasn't for that. The other side of that is, is day two out of jail the day to start that?

I don't know. You know him. The other thing you can do, besides sitting him down and being that honest with him and then going all in on him, which I don't know is the wrong move. I get from you that you don't think that's the right one, but you can do besides sitting them down and being that honest with them and then going all in on them, which I don't know, there's a wrong move. I get from you that you don't think that's the right one, but you can do that. Or you can sit them down and tell them you've got six months, you've got one calendar year. I want you to go work your butt off. I want you to show us, right? Not punitively. I want you to show us who you've become. Yeah. And then I'll be ready when you're ready. Or you can take him to lunch or to breakfast once a week

and mentor him that way. Hey, how are things going? How are you? Are you plugged? Does that make sense? Yeah. And you can pour into him in other ways instead of just,

you've been fired a lot, right? You've had ups and downs in your life. You can talk to him about getting knocked down and getting back up, right? You've got a lot to offer him besides just a job. Here's my interesting question. What's your sister want you to do? What's she saying?

You know, she was, she was very apprehensive. She said, Hey, she goes, she started the conversation. You can say no to this, but essentially can you, is there any way you can help? Ah, there you go. And I said, and, and she's, and she's not looking for a handout. She actually called the police and put him in jail before. Wow, okay. So we're coming from a place where we're not afraid to beat him up,

but in a good way. Like, look, if you mess up, don't put me, don't put our lives in jeopardy by your silly decisions. You're not afraid to hold him accountable, which is awesome. He's blessed to have you guys. That's cool. So what do you think the right move is? You know, the suggestion you made was one of the exact suggestions I told my sister. I said, look, I said, I love him. Like I enjoy spending time with him as, as a young man, but again, that was three years ago. And so, um, he literally is not even out of, out of prison yet, but it's supposed to be the next in the next week or so. But anyway, with that being said, um, I told her, I said, look,

I said, he's got a show before, unless he's directly next to me, like in my eyesight, I will never send him on a job by himself for at least a calendar year. And if he messes up one time, like I've got, I've, I've, I've got to let him go. And so or or like you were saying like he's got to prove himself somewhere else where he's not he's somewhere else for a full calendar year before i even bring him on and take him into people's homes how old is he he's 21 21 so he's he's a in the eyes of the law he's a grown man he's still a kid right and if he's been in jail for eyes of the law, he's a grown man. He's still a kid, right? And if he's been in jail for three of the last years, he's still a child, right? He had to grow up and learn some hard stuff, right? I would recommend having this conversation with his mom in the room.

And you know what would be really great for everybody is for you to call out how uncomfortable this is for everybody. Sure. To let him know, hey, your decisions have potentially put a wedge between me and one of the women I love the most in the world, which is my sister. Because I want to help you, and she's desperate for you to get some help. But now, because of your decisions, we love you, but now I'm in a weird spot because my business is all based on trust. And so I'm going to lay out the boundaries here, one calendar year,

or six calendar months or whatever it is. Sure. You meet with me every other week for a year. You make a budget with me. Let me know that you are making good, solid decisions. You don't miss work at your new job. Dude, you're going to come on

and me and you are going to take over the world with our carpet cleaning business, right? But I'm going to invest in you, but I'm not just going to hand it out to you as you walk out because this is about trust, and that's what you've got to earn back, right? And, man, I think by just laying it all out there, that keeps you and your sister from getting across with one another because he's going to get out, and it's going to be hard for him to find a job. That's the reality.

And then she's going to start getting more frustrated with you and more frustrated with you, right? And this is just a way to clear that deck right away. Everybody's in the room. Everybody knows my plan is I'm going to stick to this plan. And then he's cool. You're cool. And he may say, dude, I want to work carpet clean.

And you say, high five, brother. I'm still going to have breakfast with you, whatever, right? Yeah. But you're able to hold your head up high, put some boundaries in there, and let him know he's loved and he's connected and a partridge in a pear tree. And my hope is two years from now, you guys have the most dominator carpet cleaning business on planet Earth, just you two rocking and rolling. That would be ideal. I love your heart, and I love not only your heart but your rational thinking.

How do I best love him, not how do I best just make everybody feel good really quick and then potentially lose my business, lose my sister, lose my nephew in the process, right? Good for you. Good for you. Let me know how this goes as y'all have that conversation. As you move on down the road, I'm rooting for you. I'm rooting for him.

That's awesome. All right, let's go to Rosie in Henderson, Nevada. Rosie, what's going on? Hey, how are you? So good. How are you? I'm peachy. That is the Dr. John Deloney show, First Peachy. That's incredible. We don't have a lot of fruit references on this show. We've got to get more of those. James has been telling me in my notes, we've got to get more fruit references. And here comes Rosie dropping one on us. So thank you so much. So what's going on?

How can I help? So pretty much, I just need to know how I can. I got a DUI. Okay. I'm a mom, so it's really weighing on me. And it's just really, I just can't seem to like, I feel like I'm stained or something pretty much. Okay. So how old are your kids?

Oh, they're nine months and two years. Nine months and two years. Okay. And then tell me about this DUI. What was going on? So I was at a bridal shower, my friend's bridal shower, and apparently had too much wine. And I mean, I felt like I was fine. I was like drinking water and trying to be responsible, but.

Hey, hold on real quick. Let's back up. So I want to, we're going to, as part of this, we're going to start changing the narrative. And because it's going to change the narrative in your soul. Okay. So instead of saying apparently and evidently say, I went to a bridal shower and I drank too much. Mm-hmm. Is that cool?

I did. Yep. And I thought I felt fine, but I wasn't. Is that cool? I want you to take ownership language, okay? Yeah. All right. So tell me again.

You were at a bridal shower and then what? So I drank too much at the bridal shower. I thought I could drive home. I ended up falling asleep at a red light and either someone called it into the cops. So they pretty much one cop parked in front of me, one cop parked behind me to wake me up. That way I didn't like drive into the intersection and I mean from there I had my I got taken to jail and had got arrested you so you said you fell you I'm smiling here not at you but with you you you didn't doze off you like crashed yeah yeah so is were you did you fall asleep because you had seven drinks, or did you fall asleep because you had just enough

and you're a mom of two little bitty kids? I definitely do not get a lot of sleep with the baby. Right. And it wasn't like super late at night or anything. I guess that was like, hey, here's a good chance to catch up on some sleep. But obviously the drinking. We're going to catch up right here at uh fourth and mockingbird lane right sounds good wow so you went to sleep to sleep um how far over the limit were

you um i didn't they took my blood so it wasn't they didn't like breathalyze me or anything, so I'm not sure, but I had to be held for at least 12 hours. Okay. Before I, you know, go home. Are you married? Yes. How was that phone call? Well, the cops called him, not me. I didn't really get to talk to him until I got out, but.

So paint the listeners a picture of that drive home. Your husband comes to get you out of jail And you come out Oh no, I ended up getting a lift home Oh, he made you get a ride home? Well, he was home with the kids It was like 5am Oh boy I didn't want, yeah

Luckily my phone was still alive I kind of wanted to take the drive of shame by myself anyway. All right, that's fair. I was going to say, man, that would have made a Christmas story 20 years from now. Like, hey, y'all remember the time we went and picked your mom up from jail? So you get a Lyft home and you come in. Yeah, he's just home on the couch with the baby. But it was just kind of, we were just trying to be quiet.

It wasn't much of a conversation because of the kids. Yeah. But, I mean, later on, obviously he was upset, but he was just also, like, not understanding, but calm, cool, and collected. Sure. So here's the thing. You don't have a stain on you. Okay? Answer these questions.

These aren't rhetorical. Did you do something dumb? Yeah. Yeah. Did you put a whole bunch of people at risk? Yep. You did. Okay.

Was it stupid? Absolutely. Yeah. Will it ever happen again? No. Yeah. Will it ever happen again? No. Okay. So you got super, super, super lucky you didn't hurt anybody? Mm-hmm.

You got super, super lucky that your two little babies still have a mom? And you got super, super lucky that somebody called it in and that someone didn't smash you from behind because you were asleep at a stoplight, right? So cosmically, you got real lucky and you got a husband that loves you and was able to be there for your kids and roll his eyes and say, oh my gosh. How expensive is this going to be? Well, just the lawyers right now, it's just the base pay of like $2,000.

Yeah, it'll probably be about $10,000 by the time you get done with it. That was the last number I heard. So it's going to be real, real expensive. If you're like me, you don't have $10,000 laying around, so this is going to hurt, right? Mm-hmm. So if you choose to carry this around, like I'm a loser and I'm an idiot and I've got a stain on me, then this is going to affect your kids, this is going to affect your husband, this is going to'm a loser and I'm an idiot and I've got a stain on me, then this is going to affect your kids. This is going to affect your husband. This is going to affect your

friendships and relationships. If you can stand up tall, hold your head up, not use words, not use adverbs, not use L-Y words. Apparently, evidently, if you say, yep, I screwed up big time and I got busted and then I went to jail and then I paid my $10,000 in lawyer's fees and court costs, etc. And I will never, ever do that again. And it is what it is. And at some point, your 10-year-old is going to come bouncing into the room. Mom, did you ever go to jail? And you'll have to go have a seat.

You know what I mean? That will be part of it. But you're not going to shy away from it. You're not going to lie. You're not going to be weird about it.'re not going to lie you're not going to be weird about it you're going to say yeah your mom made a bad dumb decision and this is why as you notice this is why like i do these things right this is why i never drink alcohol at our friend's house this is why i don't drive anywhere i always get an uber whatever whatever whatever behavioral decisions you're going to change. And then you're going to hold your head high and make sure this never happens again. Right?

Yeah. Yeah, I just, yeah. Anything beyond that, Rosie, is a choice. Is you choosing to hang on to this longer than necessary. Beating yourself up further doesn't help anything. It doesn't make it not happen. It doesn't make it, it doesn't make other people feel bad for you. It just makes everything mush, right? And it's not forgetting it. It's not undermining it. It's not saying that wasn't a big deal. It was a huge

deal. You got real lucky and now we're going to move on. So why is that hard? Why don't you want to choose to do that? I just see, I just get these, like when I'm home and I just see the kids playing together or something new the baby did. I just feel, I get these flashbacks of, you know, the jail and just these guilty pangs of like, I couldn't be here right now, whether breathing or just in a jail cell, for, like, multiple other reasons. And so it just continues, like, oh, what a happy moment, and then, you know, the guilt, the flashback. There you go. Okay, so you ready? You've probably heard me do this on this show,

but we're going to do it again anyway. I'm going to do it a thousand more times before I finally get canceled. You ready? Yeah. Close your eyes real quick. Okay. Are they closed? I want you to picture in your head a giant, I don't know, a green donkey. Okay. Okay. Sitting in your front yard,

sitting down, not standing, sitting in a weird stance. Got it? Mm-hmm. Okay. That donkey is sitting there and I want you to have a yellow hat on his head. Cool? Okay. You got it in your head? Yep. Alright, open your eyes. You just proved to everyone listening to this show you can control your thoughts. Mm-hmm. So, when you're sitting down playing with your

little baby, right? You're two months old, you're nine months, or two-year-old, and you're nine months old, and that thought of that freezing cold concrete little chair bed thing, right? I want you to go, nope, and then choose in that moment to focus on your two-year-old. Come up with some sort of trigger, which is every time you think of jail, you reach out and grab her hand. You reach out and grab his little head in your hand and you tickle it. Come up with some sort,

and what you're doing is you are choosing in short order, I'm not going to dwell on these things because we are done with them. Right? Yeah. Anything other than that is a choice. And what will happen over time really in short order

is they will stop flashing into your mind you'll stop walking around like a failed mother you will hopefully never forget that you endangered a whole bunch of people including yourself that you almost did something dumb enough that could have left your husband

on his own with two little kids. Okay? I don't want you to ever forget that. But the guilt and the participation and the I'm no good, I'm a loser. We're done with that. Okay? Because it will only drag down everyone around you. It will only drag you down.

Okay? You learned. You're going to live and move on. Okay? And then you're going to work to control your thoughts as they pop into your head. Thank you so much for that call. I know that's hard, Rosie. Man, I'm still dealing with crap. I said when I was 14, I see my kid and I'm like, man, you're kind of dad to the dad that says that. And I go, nope, not doing that, man. Because I was 14, I was a child. And yep, I shouldn't have said that, but I did. Now I'm moving on because I don't say that anymore.

Whatever the behavior happens to be. We're going to slip off into a geek segment here. What do we call it? The geek minute? Is that what we call it? It's a teaching segment. Geek minute. I get a bunch of emails about sleep. I get a bunch of emails about sleep. Here? I get a bunch of emails about sleep. Here's an example Kelly pulled for me from Mason.

I've noticed when it comes to anxiety, you talk very highly of the importance of sleep. Can you talk about how much sleep we should be getting, what not to do before bed, when it's too late or too early to work out, et cetera? I've been dealing with lots of anxiety and keeping my sleep on track is nearly impossible to me. All right. So I am a huge fan of sleep researcher out of Berkeley, California, the University of Berkeley, Dr. Matthew Walker. He's got a remarkable book called Why We Sleep.

He was on a podcast with Dr. Peter Attia. It's called The Drive Podcast. After this one, go to Dr. Peter Attia's Drive Podcast. It's a three-part series on sleep, and they go off the deep end. Six hours on sleep, and you're talking about the neurochemistry, the biochemistry, all of it, right? If you want a deep, deep, deep dive, it's the best interview. It's the best discussion on sleep I've ever heard. It's for nerds. It really is, but it's also high level too, but it'll be in the show notes. Yeah. Here's the thing. I'm going to walk through

several things about sleep that are revolutionary, that are mind blowing, and that are really important. Dr. Walker says that sleep is the greatest legal performance enhancing drug that most people are probably neglecting. Now, as I get into these things, I always want you to remember, follow the money, right? So you're going to ask yourself, why did I not know that sleep prevents all of these things we're going to run through here? Because it's free. And it's something every one of us can do every night of our lives for free. And it can solve a lot of challenges in our life. But nobody can charge you for sleep. So you don't hear about it very often.

So for years, insomnia has been labeled a symptom of depression or anxiety, right? And that means that if you had anxiety or depression, one of the things they would ask you is, are you struggling with sleep? And you'd say, yeah. And they go, yeah, you got anxiety. Turns out it's the other way around. A lack of sleep causes many of these mental health conditions. Root cause, causal, not is related to, helps cause some of these things like depression, anxiety, and paranoia, right? Walker says, without sleep, our brain reverts to a primitive pattern of

uncontrolled reactivity. We produce unmetered, inappropriate emotional reactions and are unable to place events into a broader context or a considered context. What does that mean? How many of you have not slept for 24 hours? You pull an all-nighter and then you just start laughing and you can't help it. You just start laughing, laughing, laughing. Or you're in your car on your way to that exam and a song comes on the radio and you start crying, right? Or it's week two after 15-hour workday, 15-hour workday. You're just crushing a project and you're watching a show and you start bawling, right? Or your husband walks in and says, hey, I'm not going to do the dishes tonight.

Let's go out to eat. And you just lash. I can't believe it. You just launch into him, right? Our amygdala gets heightened, heightened, heightened, heightened, heightened with less sleep, less sleep, less sleep. One study found that people derived of sleep for four hours per night for two weeks suffered a 50% reduced ability to dispose of glucose into muscle

tissue. What does that mean? That means that a lack of sleep can increase your risk of diabetes and insulin resistance and weight gain. A lack of sleep can increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease, reduce the activity of your immune system. It's easier to get sick. Impairs learning and memory. I was the king of all-nighters. Turns out I was an idiot, right? Increases your risk for cardiovascular disease,

increases your risk for cancer, contributes to root cause depression and anxiety. Now, most important type of sleep, right? The one that calms and resets the anxious brain is non-rapid eye movement, in-rim sleep. It's a slow wave sleep, right? You can reduce anxiety in a single night with deep, deep sleep. People with anxiety disorders routinely report having disturbed sleep, but rarely a asleep improvement considered as a clinical recommendation for low anxiety not only are is there a causal connection but it's the type of sleep right so here's the thing over the last hundred years last 200 years

what happens we get oil lamps so usually we just go to bed when the sun went down we get oil lamps. So we used to just go to bed when the sun went down. We get oil lamps. We get light bulbs. We get TV. We get radio. We get TV. Now we all have devices. There is street lights everywhere. There's house lights everywhere.

So overnight, bam, 15, 20, 25, 30% of the natural sleep cycle has just been lopped off, right? And these things are critical to brain function. I love this. Dr. Walker says that the brain acts like a plumbing system that discards toxins from the body, but it does this during sleep, okay? And here's another thing. Ambien, Lunesta, these are not like those over-the-counter sleep meds. They're called hypnotics. They produce, for lack of better terms, they produce unconsciousness. They don't produce sleep.

So I heard it put this way. These are pharmaceutical baseball bats to the head. I can make you unconscious for eight hours. That is different than sleeping for eight hours. I know this because I took those medicines for years. I used to train in mixed martial arts. Our practices would go from 8 to 10, 8 to 10.30 at night. I'd get home all amped up, and I couldn't sleep. Well, I had one of those pills

and I'd go right out into a black hole. Turns out over years, my brain wasn't getting the sleep it needed. Surprise, surprise, Deloney ends up crawling around his backyard with mind crippling anxiety, right? With numbing depression. I wasn't sleeping, wasn't sleeping, wasn't sleeping. So here's a couple of things you can do. Two, as Walker says, bridge, the best bridge between despair and hope is a good night of sleep. So here you go. Number one, you can make fun of this all you want. This is not what you were told as a kid.

I don't care. Try it for two months, 60 days. Get like a calendar and mark them off. Try it. Just try it. Number one, go to bed and wake up at the same time every night, even after a bad night's sleep, and even on Saturday and Sunday. Some of us get up at 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock,

and on Sunday we sleep until 8. You screw it all up. Some of us go to bed at 9 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 9 o'clock, midnight. Go to bed the best you can at the same time every day and get up at the same time even on the weekend. After 30 days, you're going to be stunned because your body will begin to reset itself. Keep your bedroom super cool. About 65 degrees is optimal, right?

If your feet get cold, you can wear socks. I use a Chili Cube. We'll put it in the show notes there. It's a little device that circulates water through a sheet that goes under my sheet. Because my wife, I don't know, is part polar bear, I think. And she's part regular bear. She likes everything warm. And I like it freezing cold.

But it will drop the temperature down into the low 60s or even high 50s. And in the summertime, I run that thing all summer. And it is awesome. It's expensive. It's been worth it for me, especially if you run hot natured. An hour before bedtime, turn the lights off, dim the electronics. I actually have special glasses that block the lights. Blackout curtains can be helpful, right?

I live out in the country now. The only thing that keeps me awake now out there is the stupid moon. And I give it a few days because that sounds pretty natural. If you can't sleep, I give it 10 or 15 minutes and then I get up and I go read. I get up, reset. What you don't want to do is to remind your body to start developing a pattern where going to bed is something that makes me stressed and crazy. Don't work in bed. Bed is for sex and bed is for sleep and that is it. Watch TV in another room. Do work. Don't just sit in your bed with your laptop working right up until you close the laptop and then try to go to sleep.

Your brain's got to cycle down. Here's another big one. Don't drink caffeine after lunch. I don't drink caffeine after 10 a.m. unless I've got something that I have to do for work late into the evening. I just don't. The half-life on coffee is way, way longer than we thought. Here's another one. Alcohol is a sedative, but it is not sleep. You feel like you're getting sleepy and you actually go to sleep, but alcohol blocks REM dream sleep, which is the critical, important part of deep sleep. right? Alcohol will ruin your

sleep. So if I have drinks out with friends, I consciously know I'm choosing socializing over good sleep and this is going to cost me for the next few days. And over the last few years as I have prioritized sleep over and above all other things, all of the health-related things, I've begun to drink way, way, way, way less. Now, I just have water out with buddies, right? I'll have a decaffeinated tea or decaf coffee. I hope I'm still fun. I think I still am, but I drink way, way, way less, right? I do take magnesium, GABA, hemp oil, occasional melatonin. These are sleep encouragers. These are not hypnotics. They're not sedatives, right? And I work with a doctor on those that I trust.

Here's the thing. Not working out after five or six. Don't work out without two or three hours before you go to bed. Kelly just perked up. She's like, that's the only time I can go to the gym. If you do, it's going to push you up, okay? So I would say at least two to three hours before you try to go to bed, don't be exercising. Okay. That also doesn't mean don't work out until

9.30 or 10 at night and then go to bed at 1 a.m. and get up at five. Don't do that either, right? You got to get your time to sleep. How long is a good time to sleep? Seven to nine hours for most people. If you think, oh no, I just need four hours, almost, almost to a person you're wrong. There's a very few people who can get by on that. It's probably not you. Maybe Jocko, not you. Maybe, I don't know, some, not you, right? Not you. Most people walk through life chronically, chronically under sleeping. And if you don't think this is a big deal, if you remember a few years ago, the big stink with Netflix when they said, we have two competitors, YouTube and sleep. And we think our best route is to go after sleep.

There's a lot of excitement, a lot of great TV shows, a lot of garbage TV shows, a lot of clicky, flashy, brighty things that keep you from going to bed. What I want you to do for 60 days is prioritize going to sleep. And if you have a night, this is a big one. If you have a night where you don't sleep, I get those occasionally. They don't bother me anymore. They used to stress me out so bad. They'd make me nuts. Oh my gosh, I got to sleep. I got to sleep. I got to sleep. I'm going to be a wreck. You know what? Now I just get up and read. I get up and I read. And then the next day it makes it back up and I go to sleep. I'm going to be all right. And I don't freak out. I don't lose. It's going to be okay.

And so in honor of sleep night, right? In honor of sleep, sleep night here, the sleep show here, I pulled this song from 1992. It's one of the greatest songs ever written. Especially if you like good musicians, all of these guys in this band are better than you and better than anybody you know of. And they play metal and opera and keyboardy things in 80s. I don't know. They're just awesome, right? I remember seeing them in concert opening up for Joe Satriani and I just didn't speak for a while. They're just awesome, right? I remember seeing them in concert opening up for Joe Satriani and I just didn't speak for a while. They're the most extraordinary live band I've ever seen.

But in 1992, they caught my attention on their Images and Words record. Dream Theater. James, do you like Dream Theater? No, I get proggy about other bands, but I'm not into Dream Theater. Yeah, see? And you know what else? He also plays Fender guitars, which is a whole other conversation we should probably have someday.

It's ridiculous. Gibson, brother. Do you want this episode to air or not? Here we go. All right, so Dream Theater's 1992 classic song, Pull Me Under. I don't know. That's a veiled reference to sleep, I guess. It doesn't really work, but I'm going to go with it.

And here they go. They sing Lost. By the way, prog bands have all of these like theater-y, artsy words. Even I'm like, okay, here's the words. Lost in the sky, clouds roll by and I roll with them. Arrows fly and the seas increase and then fall again. This world is spinning around me. This world is spinning without me and every day since future to past, every breath leaves me one less to my last. Kelly's eyes just rolled to the back of her head.

Watch the sparrow falling. Gives new meaning to it all. Does it? If not today, nor yet tomorrow than some other day. I'll take seven lives for one and then my only father's son, as sure as I did ever love him, I am not afraid.

That's enough of that. Pull me under. Pull me under. I'm not afraid. Everybody, go to sleep. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you.