Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques - 287. Give It a Rest to Do Your Best: The Sleep Habits That Catalyze Your Communication

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

If you want to do your best, you’d better get your rest.The quality of your sleep fundamentally affects the quality of your communication. Communicating well, Dr. Cheri Mah says, starts with being well-rested.“Sleep impacts nearly every aspect of how you function,” says Mah, a sleep physician, adjunct lecturer at Stanford Sleep Medicine Center, and internationally recognized expert on sleep and human performance. In her research and work, particularly with elite athletes and professional sports teams, she explores the link between getting rest and doing our best. “If you are getting quality sleep, you can think more clearly, react under pressure, make good judgment calls, have more patience, be more empathetic,” she says.In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Mah and host Matt Abrahams explore strategies for better sleep, from bedtime routines to paying off “sleep debt” to the “nappuccino” — a caffeine-fueled power nap. Whether you struggle to sleep or can nod off at any time or place, Mah’s insights reveal why doing our best requires getting our rest.To listen to the extended Deep Thinks version of this episode, please visit FasterSmarter.io/premium.Episode Reference Links:Dr. Cheri MahEp.183 Rethinks: How Anxiety Can Fuel Better Communication Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> [e-mail] Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedIn********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost.Strawberry.me. Get 50% off your first coaching session today at Strawberry.me/smartJoin our Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community and become the communicator you want to be. Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction (01:15) - Sleep & Performance (02:29) - Better Sleep Habits (04:34) - Quieting a Racing Mind (06:07) - Dr. Mah’s Night Routine (07:37) - Sleep Extension (09:10) - Preparing for Big Events (10:02) - The Nappuccino (11:39) - Managing Jet Lag (14:14) - Chronotypes Explained (16:18) - Starting the Day with Sleep (17:58) - The Final Three Question (22:15) - Conclusion

Your communication hygiene, what you eat, do you exercise, and how you sleep can fundamentally impact how you communicate. My name is Matt Abrams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Today I'm excited to chat with Dr. Sherry Ma. Dr. Ma is a sleep physician and adjunct lecturer at Stanford Sleep Medicine Center. She's a recognized global expert on the impact of sleep on cognitive and physical performance. Her groundbreaking research at Stanford University famously demonstrated that sleep extension could significantly boost the reaction times and accuracy of elite athletes. Dr. Maa works with professional teams across the board in the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB,

Olympic athletes, and other high performers as well. She just won her second Super Bowl ring. she translates her clinical insights into practical tools that help executives and leaders manage fatigue and maintain peak mental acuity. Welcome, Dr. Ma. As a professional lousy sleeper, I really look forward to learning from you, and as do many of our audience members. So thanks for being here. I'm so thrilled to be here. Awesome. Shall we get started? Perfect.

Excellent. In the work that I do, I often talk to people about communication hygiene to help them communicate at their best, things like, eating well, getting exercise, and especially sleep. How does a good night sleep impact our functioning in general? A good night sleep impacts nearly every aspect of how you function. If you are getting quality sleep, we know that you can think more clearly, react under pressure, you're able to make good judgment calls. We know that sleep is so important for our mental health. We recognize that we are less emotionally labile, so we can have more patience. We are able to be more empathetic, qualities that obviously to be a good leader you need to have as assets. And then there's obviously

how your body is functioning physiologically. We know quality sleep impacts hormonal levels like your testosterone level, cortisol as a stress response, even leptin and grelin, which regulate your appetite. So as you talk about eating habits and nutrition, it can very much influence how you're eating. And then from, you know, outputs, if it matters on the court for some of my athletes, then the physical performance measures like reaction time, speed, accuracy can also be impacted. Sure. And as a communicator being able to respond in the moment, with clarity of mind, would be really important. The reality is many of us live in a sleep-deprived world, though. Many of us don't get the recommended amount of sleep, and this can lead to bad health outcomes

and other things regarding our relationships and communication. I've read research that shows that being sleep deprived decreases our empathy, and I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. And we actually interpret people's faces differently when more negatively. What advice do you have to help us get better sleep and to avoid these negative consequences? Yeah, sleep is challenging, right? It is this interesting process we each go through every single night, but arguably sacrifices, and overlook it and our schedules get busy.

And it's sometimes the first thing that goes out the door. But to the question about what can you do, I really advocate it's all about these small steps and gradual changes over time. So it doesn't mean that you have to overhaul your whole day or how you're approaching your sleep at nighttime. You don't need to go from six hours to nine hours, right? But small changes, even if it's having five minutes to actually have a wind-down routine, to transition from the craziness of your day,

Give yourself five, ten minutes to read a book or journal or even to listen to calming music, something to get yourself into the mindset that you're able to relax and allow yourself to sleep. That can make a huge difference. Or if you're someone who's getting under seven hours, which is the minimum that is recommended for every adult, that's okay. We've all gone through that. If you're someone who's getting, say, six hours, can you get 15 minutes more or 30 minutes more every day this week? 15 minutes actually makes a difference.

So these small things really can make a big difference and they add up over time. So if you're willing to put just a little bit of time and effort, it can make a big difference in your life. I love this idea of gradual progress, right? It can feel like, oh, I just have to do it all. And I'm going to sit in bed, try to sleep. That's one of the things as I'll get frustrated. I'm not sleeping.

I need to sleep, which isn't helping. I like this idea of rituals to rind down, to transition. I, as I've shared, I'm a lousy sleeper. I have a ritual where the very last thing I will do before I go to bed is I'll watch five minutes of something funny. I like to go to bed laughing. So I'll turn the lights down a little bit. I'll watch a quick YouTube video of one of my favorite comedians. And I don't know if it's the laughter that helps, but definitely just the tuning out my brain helps me.

So I appreciate the advice. A common barrier to sleep and a common barrier to speaking anxiety is the racist. mind that we have, just ruminating thinking. Do you have some ideas for how we can offload some of that so we're not constantly thinking and keeping ourselves awake? What can we do to help our brains at night? The racing mind is incredibly common. We've all experienced this at some point in time, especially when there's acute stressors, whether in your personal life or work life. One of the things that I really recommend doing is spending five to ten minutes and either journaling, writing a to-do list, getting those thoughts from your brain and throwing it down onto paper so that we think maybe there is this cognitive offloading that can happen. But specifically, you want to do this outside of bed before you then do something that's relaxing as your wind-down routine and then go into bed to sleep.

And the reason why is because so many of us get into bed and we have these racing thoughts. and a lot is on our mind what we have to do the next day, what we went through just this day. And then you're lying in bed with these swarming thoughts that can then lead to being awake for a half hour, an hour, and you're really just unable to fall asleep. So that can be incredibly frustrating. But your brain is starting to associate being awake with being in bed. And that's partly what we want to dissociate. So we give your body and brain time outside of bed to throw those things. thoughts down. Like I said, I love journaling or writing a to-do list. And then once you've gone

to process your thoughts, give yourself that time and space, then move on to a relaxing activity and then get into bed so that your brain's not associating those racing thoughts and what's on your mind. And you've given yourself that time before you're actually trying to sleep for the night. I really like that idea of the bed and the bedroom are for sleep and not for sitting there stewing and ruminating. So do do that outside of that space. and do it to get it off your mind. And in fact, there's work in the literature on managing speaking anxiety. Same idea.

Write the thoughts down, literally get them out of your brain. And sometimes you can even crumple up the paper and throw it away and feel a sense of agency. Hi, Matt here. Career coaching often comes through our workplaces, which can be a great starting point. But sometimes you want a space to focus on your priorities, not your organizations. That's where strawberry.combe comes in. It's career coaching you choose for yourself. You answer a few quick questions, get matched with a vetted coach,

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If you've been thinking something needs to change, you don't need permission to go explore. Go to strawberry.me slash talk smart. It's coaching focused on you. Think of it as therapy for your career. I'm curious. I can imagine at times sleep is hard for you as well. Do you have a routine or pattern that you like to follow? So I like to think about my evening and what leads up into sleep before the time that I actually turn out the lights. I really try to dim lights in the evening time, both in my living spaces, in my bedroom, so we're not exposed to the really bright lights around, even as we're starting to wind down our day. When I can, I really like to do some reading or journaling. I'm a fan of to-do list because then I know that I've put down the things that need to happen the next day. I'm reassured it's right there. And then I come back to it in the morning time.

I try to shower a little bit earlier in the evening because you want to shower about 90 minutes before you're falling asleep, not right before bed. The reason why is because that hot shower or hot bath, it increases your core temperature. And so when you fall asleep, your core temperature drops. So you don't want those two competing signals happening close to each other. But if you back up that hot shower or bath by about 90 minutes, then there is some studies that show it can help people fall asleep faster and actually increase some deep sleep. You've just changed a behavior in my life. I'm going to shower a little earlier. It's one of the last things I do before comedy.

You're famous for a study you did with Stanford basketball players that showed an astonishing improvement in their shooting accuracy after sleep extension. Can you define what you mean by sleep extension? And for the rest of us, corporate athletes, not professional or student athletes, preparing for high stakes presentations, meetings, negotiations, what might sleep extension look like in our lives? So sleep extension is really getting more sleep than your body requires. each night to pay back what we call accumulated sleep debt. So if your body needs a certain amount, let's just say eight hours a night and you only get six hours for a Monday through Friday, then every night you built up two hours of a debt. And then by Friday, now you have 10 hours of debt. If you take, say, Saturday and Sunday to sleep hypothetically 10 hours, then you'll probably

feel better. You're more refreshed. But we've only paid back two hours on that Saturday. night, two hours on that Sunday night. So you've paid back four, but when you had a 10-hour debt, you can see that the math leads to still having six hours of debt. So sleep extension means that if you got that additional hour, instead of eight hours that you need your body needs every night, you get nine hours, then you're going to slowly start to pay down that debt. But it takes more than one night or one weekend of sleep to really bring that debt down. So sleep extension is a short-term intervention to try to eliminate that debt down by getting additional hours. How far in advance do you need to start that? So let's say I know I've got a big presentation

or a big meeting coming up a few weeks. Do I start building now or is it like two days before? When do I start? If you could do a week before, my research has really shown more of a robust benefit in that week or two, more so than when I've looked at longer five. seven weeks of sleep extension. And so if you know you have an important deadline, an important presentation, an essential meeting that you need to be at your best, if you can give yourself a week of trying to get sufficient sleep first, but if you get even a half hour or more, you're going to put yourself in a better position to have that additional cushion if, for example, you don't get great night that night before that presentation or project. But I will say,

even if you are able to get one night or two nights in there and you couldn't do a week, I would take that as a win. I think the lesson for all of us, myself included, is that when we have some big event coming up, to factor in our sleeping, a lot of us would be tempted just to stay up late, rehearsing and practicing. And what I'm hearing from you is that's actually not helping at all. So build that in as much as is practical. I have to tell you, I smiled. I actually laughed out loud when I heard you talk about Napocino.

And I love that idea. What are your thoughts on napping and caffeine and how they can help us manage our sleepiness, but also just our performance? The nappuccino is one of my favorite tools. The nappuccino is when you take your favorite caffeinated beverage and caffeine will start to kick in in about 15 minutes. Now, if you go take a 20 or 30 minute power nap, then when you wake up after that power nap, both the caffeine will have kicked in and the power nap benefits will have taken effect. And combined together, there's studies that have shown that the nappuccino, caffeine plus power nap,

is more effective for alertness and performance enhancement than if you only took caffeine or you only went and took a power nap. So that's the napuccino. And I love it as a tool because a lot of us are running on caffeine and a lot of us really, really wish we could take that power nap. So now you have, you know, my blessing to make sure that it's built into your day because it really is a great performance enhancer, whether you're an elite athlete, whether you're a corporate athlete, whether you're a working professional and a student, that it's a way to give yourself a boost for a couple of hours and be able to maintain that alertness at what it needs to be. That's interesting.

Okay. I learned something new. Many of our listeners travel, and they travel across times on some just a few, some many. and this jet lag can affect their performance in lots of ways. Do you have specific advice and protocols you recommend to help people manage this jet lag? So if I'm getting on a plane today, expecting to be at my best to give a presentation three time zones later tomorrow, what can I do? I always try to challenge my athletes, my high performers, to break down each of their trips into three phases so that there's strategies you can employ pre-flight before you even get. on the airplane, then there's strategies in flight, and then there's strategies once you get to

the new location post-flight. Now, it's a little complex of, you know, depending on which direction you travel matters. East is different versus westward. How many time zones you're crossing. Three time zones is different than going halfway around the world. Right. Now, the things you can do pre-flight, don't go into your flight short on sleep because sleep deprivation will make jet lag worse. So get sufficient sleep beforehand. Um, don't panic. pack, so you're short on sleep going into it. And then depending on the direction of travel, you can start to shift your bedtime and wake time. For example, yeah, if you are on the West Coast and you're going East Coast three time zones, you can start to shift your clock so that your

bedtime is a half hour to hour earlier, and then your wake up time is a half hour to hour earlier, say two or three days in advance. So you actually have already shifted that clock. By the time you get to the East Coast off to the flight, maybe you only have to adjust by one time zone. So maybe not schedule a super early morning flight either to disrupt your sleep. Exactly. You want to be well-rested going into it. And choosing flight times can also be a different strategy depending on where you're going. When you're in flight, you want to hydrate well. Caffeine and alcohol generally, I say pass on.

You want to be strategic of when you're eating. So that can help to try and get your clock more acclimated to the new times. So maybe eat on the schedule of the new time zone. Eat and sleep on the schedule of the new times. zone. And when you arrive, it is about strategic light so that you can get your clock to be acclimated to the new time zone, using caffeine and power naps when you're going to have this lull from your internal body clock, and then trying to make sure that you can get back onto that schedule. Now, this sounds like a lot of different moving pieces. So there are some apps

that can provide these day-to-day recommendations now, and you put in your flight time, your arrival time, and it'll give you a more strategic day-by-day schedule. So that is a way to start and having a smarter way to travel and minimize that jet lag. I really appreciate you breaking it down under those three steps. When we had my GSP colleague, Baba Chivon, he suggested that we should consider the time of day that we conduct certain complex tasks like ideation, brainstorming, decision making, and try to coordinate with times of the day to help us be more alert and ready for that. Do you have thoughts on how we can strategically think about what we are doing relative to our sleep-wake cycle? That was very smart to be able to identify that your chronotype, which is your natural predilection to go to bed and to wake up at a certain time, can be influencing when you potentially could structure your day so that it works more to your advantage. Some individuals who are morning larks know they do better when they go to bed earlier and they wake up in the morning.

Others are evening owls. They like to stay up late. They like to wake up later in the morning. Now, if you're a lark, you're going to be most productive, most efficient in those first couple hours of the day. So that's when I would say if you fall into the lark category, you want to think about your important meetings, presentations, high cognitive load efforts in the morning time. If you're someone who's an evening owl, you don't do well in the morning. So don't structure your day to have those important things happen first thing when you wake up. You are going to do better later in the morning or arguably in the afternoon and evening period.

And so not just for work-related, high cognitive load things, but thinking about when you're working out and exercising, that can also be factors for when you schedule it in your day based on your chronotype. Now, there's a fair amount of people that are neither morning large. or evening owls and you fall somewhere in the middle and you can think about finding a balance between the two. Thank you for that. And the idea of chronotypes, larks and owls makes a lot of sense. In my house, birds of a feather do not flock together. I am by nature a lark, but I live in a household, especially when my kids were living with us,

with a bunch of owls. And if I wanted to have any engagement with my kids, I had to stay up late to do it. So it was frustrating, but I certainly appreciate the difference in distinction. On the show, we've talked a lot about how framing can change people's perceptions and action. One of the things I've heard you say, and I think it's a really clever reframe, so I'd love you to talk about this. You say we should treat sleep as the beginning of tomorrow rather than the end of today. How have you found that this perspective shift helps the patients that you have and the athletes that you coach to be better? So this is one of my phrases that I really want to challenge everyone to change their mindset around sleep.

And it is to think of sleep not as the end of today, but think of sleep as the beginning of tomorrow. And it's a small but powerful change in how you think about your sleep because for so many of us, it's the last thing that we ever think about in the day. A lot of folks will jump into bed whenever they wrapped up their day and then whenever sleep happens, it happens. And so it's becoming this afterthought and you're very reactive to your sleep. But if you instead make a small shift and think about, okay, I'm going to actually plan for when I want to sleep with a targeted bedtime. I'm going to take five minutes to actually have a wind-down routine so I can get my thoughts out on paper. I can actually transition to have, you know, a more calm state before I get into bed. Those things can make a world of a difference.

and now you proactively have made this a part of your day, and you're investing in how you're going to sleep. So the quality and the duration ideally are going to be setting yourself up for a much better tomorrow. Because I think at the end of the day, we all want to be our best every day, hopefully. But what you do with your sleep can very much influence whether it's going to be heading in the direction of an amazing day or you're setting yourself up for failure because you're not going to get enough sleep. and you haven't given yourself an environment that's conducive or quality measures or quality habits that are going to be conducive to good rest. Before we end, I like to ask all of my guests three questions.

One, I make up just for you and two, I've been asking everybody. Are you up for that? Sure, sure. So you teach one of the most popular classes Stanford offers to undergrad. It's called Sleep and Dreams. When I was an undergrad here, eons ago, it was one of my favorite classes. when you think about the students you teach, what do you think they find most interesting or what's one of the most valuable lessons they take away from the course? I think what makes the course

particularly special is that no matter what major you are, whether you're an undergrad, whether you're a graduate student taking the course, we all sleep, arguably not well. And I think what impacts these students is that they take the lessons that they learn in sleep and dreams and can carry that with them through life. And we've heard a lot of students come back and say, you know, I don't remember what I learned in my math class or my chemistry class at Stanford. But you know what? I remember sleep in dreams because I learned to identify that sleep apnea is so common and snoring is not normal. So I was able to help diagnose my dad, my cousin, my uncle with apnea and get them treated for something that is so common and under-recognized.

I know how my patterns of sleep are as an undergraduate, and I made changes in my own life to get better habits in the day or influence what they choose to do in the evening time. So they individually felt like they had an experience of understanding what it means for them to make those small changes. And so I think the stories, the education around how these students, are learning about this evolving field is what is uniquely impactful, that they carry those lessons with them as they go on through their life.

In many ways, how we treat our sleep as a lifelong journey, and you set them on that path. Who's a communicator that you admire and why? I'm going to say my mentor, Dr. DeMint. Who was the teacher of the class I took? Yes. So Dr. DeMent is considered the father figure of the modern field of sleep medicine. He was my mentor. He mentored pretty much the whole field. But I think he was an amazing communicator because he had this skill set that he could speak to a wide range of individuals from politicians trying to change legislation to students and helping them craft better habits at an earlier age. And I think he was able to do that in a very effective way. in addition to actually getting people to make some changes.

So I think that he modeled a really great way of knowing how to speak to the right audience and be able to enact change. He was definitely an amazing communicator. And the one thing that I will always remember about him is he is the only faculty member I have ever known who wanted his students to fall asleep in class. Because he was fascinated by it, he'd wake you up, he'd ask you questions about it, which of course meant nobody ever fell asleep in his class. class after it happened once or twice. No, but now you get bonus points for falling asleep in class. No. Yes.

I don't know. So we've got companies paying people. Now you can get extra credit for sleep. This is awesome. It's really changed. Final question. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe? For me, I would say number one is clarity.

Number two is adaptability. And number three is energy. For clarity, I think obviously being able to communicate concisely what you want to get across is essential. For adaptability, I think knowing who your audience is and being able to adjust how you present that and be able to meet also your audience with where they are so that you actually are making that connection and that will be lasting. And then for energy, I mean, everyone just likes higher energy. So I generally think that it's a good strategy to be able to communicate effectively.

Everybody who listens, know I love a good acronym. And this is ACE, ace your communication, adaptability, clarity, and energy. Thank you so much. And you certainly aced this conversation. Not only did you share really valuable practical, tactical tools we can do, we can use. You've changed the way I'm thinking about my own sleep. But you've also helped to re-energize or refocus us on the important. importance of sleep. And I hope everybody listening turns off this podcast, takes a nappuccino,

and feels refreshed. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.