Keystone Habit #2

I want you to join me in a bizarre thought experiment.

Imagine that you were forced at gunpoint to ingest one of two mystery substances, based only on their list of side effects:

Substance A:  40% increased risk of developing cancer and coronary heart disease, significantly increased appetite, decreased lean muscle mass, and increased sensitivity to pain.

Substance B: Irregular heart rate, severe mood swings, decreased appetite, elevated blood pressure, and anxiety. 

The-Blue-Pill-or-The-Red-Pill-CanStock-csp8420421-950x533-900x450.jpg

Neither sounds like a walk in the park but if you're like me, you're probably opting for Substance B. 

Well, I hope you have a good lawyer because crystal meth is a Schedule 1 narcotic, the possession of which will result in suspension of your driver's license for 6 months, up to one year in jail, and a $5,000 fine.

Regretting your choice? Would you believe me if I told you that Substance A is perfectly legal and is consumed by millions of people every single night?

Substance A is getting 6 or fewer hours of sleep and literally every side effect listed above has been verified in scientific studies.


Keystone Habit #2: Sleep at least 8 hours per night.

Look, I get it. Most people need eight or more hours of sleep to function but for whatever reason, you've always been able to get by on five and a half.

But have you ever considered that perhaps you are unwittingly spending your time in a "sub-optimal state of psychological and physiological functioning, never maximizing your potential of mind or body due to your blind persistence in sleeping too little"? That's a knowledge bomb courtesy of Dr. Matthew Walker, leading sleep researcher and author of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams.

An easy way to determine whether you are truly getting enough sleep is to answer the following question: If you didn't set an alarm clock, would you sleep past that time? If your answer is "Yes", my answer is "Turns out you are full of shit about getting plenty of sleep". 

I highly recommend Dr. Walker's book and I could go on for dozens of paragraphs about bad stuff that happens when you don't get enough sleep or really good stuff that happens when you do, but instead I'll just share my favorite finding from each category.


Bad stuff that happens when you don't get enough sleep:

You eat like garbage and lose muscle 

Your body produces two hormones that govern your feelings of hunger and they both sound like goblins or ogres from a super geeky fantasy novel. Leptin the Lean makes you feel full. Ghrelin the Gourmand triggers a strong sensation of hunger. Well it turns out that inadequate sleep decreases leptin and simultaneously increases ghrelin!

Insufficient sleep also increases levels of circulating endocannabinoids in your bloodstream, which further stimulate your appetite and your desire to snack (the "cannabi" root isn't a coincidence). 

A study put two groups of people on restricted calorie diets and limited the sleep of one group to 5.5 hours/night while letting the other group sleep 8 hours/night. Both groups lost weight but more than 70% of the weight lost by the shitty sleepers came from lean muscle mass rather than fat!

This is because your body freaks out when you don't get enough sleep and becomes very reluctant to give up the fat that it has saved for a rainy day, survival-wise. This is a biological process that evolved to better prepare us for the frequent lean stretches when we were all hunter/gatherers.  


Really good stuff that happens when you do get enough sleep:

It clears harmful build-up in your brain and solves the problem of limited short-term memory storage

As someone who has witnessed firsthand the wreckage of a neurologically degenerative disease, I'm attracted to anything and everything that serves to reduce the likelihood of suffering that burden. I was fascinated to learn that the glymphatic system in your brain "collects and removes dangerous metabolic contaminants" that are generated by your neurons, including amyloid proteins which are associated with Alzheimer's disease. This process is kicked into high-gear during deep non-NREM sleep, which increases the expulsion of this garbage by 10 to 20 times!

Sleep also triggers a kick-ass file transfer mechanism in your brain. Scientists have tucked sleeping people into fMRIs that measure changes in bloodflow in the brain and can literally see the transfer of information from the area of your brain that fills up on a daily basis with short-term memories to the fortress that stores long-term memories. If this transfer doesn't take place each and every night, you quickly lose your ability to retain new information and forge lasting memories.  


In summary:  Getting 6 or fewer hours of sleep per night on a consistent basis is a BIG FUCKING EMERGENCY THAT YOU NEED TO DEAL WITH. You may or may not need to talk to your doctor about it but one way or another, you absolutely have to develop a sound sleeping habit.

To improve the quality of your sleep in a systematic way, you are going to need to try a bunch of different things that have been consistently proven to work for other people.

Spoiler alert: Some of these things aren't going to make a damn bit of difference and you shouldn't stick with something if it isn't working. But more importantly, you need to be willing to try multiple things to find the 2-3 that will make a big positive impact on the consistency and quality of your sleep. 

Before you start experimenting, recall that recording your data is critical to improving your results. If you have a fitness tracker that measures sleep already, figure out how to use that feature and turn it on. For a lower-tech solution, download the Sleep Cycle app, which uses your phone's microphone to measure your sleep quality based on how much noise you make at night (it sounds hokey but actually works pretty well). For the lowest-tech solution, just put a small pad and pen by your bed and record what time the lights go off at night and come back on in the morning. How you do it doesn't matter nearly as much as committing to do it.


OK, now that you have a way to tell what works vs. what is a waste, let's dive in. I suggest trying no more than two things at a time and giving yourself at least two weeks to see if they move the needle on your sleep.

The items at the top of the list seem to have the biggest impact for the largest group of people but don't get discouraged if you have to dig down deeper to find something that works.

Go to sleep and wake up at about the same time every day. This is Dr. Walker's #1 suggestion, particularly waking up at the same time every day. If you make only one change, do this. You probably wake up at about the same time each weekday but we are talking seven days/week, sleepy-head. Set an alarm for bedtime just like you set an alarm for waking up.

Make your bedroom as dark as humanly possible. These blackout curtains are relatively cheap, work well, and are easy to install (I only mildly traumatized my son with the fervor of my profanity during installation, which is a drastic improvement above my typical behavior during handy-man tasks). 

Lower your core temperature. Your body's core temperature needs to drop 2-3 degrees for you to fall into a deep sleep. Keep your bedroom as close to 65 degrees at night as you can. Taking a 10 minute hot bath before bed helps you relax at the end of the day but the real value is that it draws your blood to the surface of your skin, thus cooling your silky smooth core.

Limit caffeine and alcohol. Now hold on. I'm not asking you to go cold turkey and entirely eliminate either of these magical substances from your life. But it's important to recognize that both have negative consequences for your sleep. 

Caffeine's half-life is 6 hours, which means 50% of what you drink is still percolating in your bloodstream 6 hours after gulping it down and 25% is still hanging around 12 hours later! So if you have a double espresso at noon, it's the same as crawling under the covers at midnight and slamming a half-cup of coffee!

Booze is even rougher on your shut-eye. It destroys your REM sleep, which is essential for maintaining your ability to process external stimuli and accurately read emotions. Even two drinks in the evening can take a significant chunk out of REM sleep. So at a minimum, if you've had a string of sub-par sleep days, tonight isn't the night for drinks.

Make sure your bed is comfortable. I put this lower on the list because to solve the problem of an uncomfortable bed, you will need to spend between a moderate amount of money and a mortgage payment.

Experiment with a few different types of pillows and don't skimp on the cost. Comfy sheets can make a large difference as well. If your mattress sucks and you can't stomach a new purchase, invest in a memory foam topper which can push the big purchase back a year or two (I speak from experience).

Buying a new mattress isn't nearly as painful as it used to be because, believe it or not, online mattress companies are one of the current darlings in Silicon Valley and have great customer feedback. Popular models are the Saatva mattress, the Sapira by Leesa, and the Amerisleep AS3 (we bought one earlier this year and are very happy with it). 

Avoid the no-no's before bed. Ditch any and all screens at least one hour before bed. This is very difficult for most people and I can't say I don't often sneak a peak at my in-box right before bed but it's well established that blue light from LED screens tricks your brain into thinking it's daytime. 

You should also avoid exercising 2-3 hours before bed. Exercise increases your core temperature and can also stimulate adrenaline production, which makes it harder to wind down for the night.

Lastly, don't take a nap after 3:00 PM. Humans sleep because a chemical accumulates in our brain that builds "sleep pressure" and because of our circadian rhythm. Napping too late in the day burns the valuable sleep pressure that has been building since morning and will leave you with inadequate stores to kick in when you need it.

Don't lie awake in bed.  If you're having trouble falling asleep, rather than lie in bed stressing about how you are going to be dog-tired the next morning, get up and do something that will make you feel sleepy like reading a book (no e-readers!). Only return to bed once you feel like you could fall asleep sitting up. 

If you often struggle to drift off at night, try to get an hour of exposure to sunlight in the morning and turn down the lights an hour before bed. Also, remove any visible clock faces from view in your bedroom, which will help prevent clock-watching anxiety.


Remember: The first two habits you should develop are these two. After those are part of your routine, add any Keystone Habit that isn't. They combine to form a synergistic DadBod domination machine, the likes of which few have seen.

Keystone Habit #1: Develop a Gratitude Ritual