I Tested Every Sleep Hack on the Planet — Here's What Actually Works

No matter where I am in the world, on an airplane, passed out in my office like I used to do sleeping under my desk, or just in my own bed at home, since cracking the code on sleep, even with simple methods, my sleep quality has been shockingly good. That matters more than most people realize because poor sleep doesn't just make you tired, it affects your focus, your ability to gain muscle, your ability to recovery, your hormones, even things like blood sugar control, hunger, inflammation, and mood. It's all so when you get a good night of sleep, kind of like you're on a smart drug. Uh some of us has forgotten what it actually feels like to have our brain firing on all cylinders. The good news is it doesn't have to be complicated. I've tested just about every sleep protocol, sleep device, and sleep biohack on the planet on myself, and most of what actually improves sleep comes down to small, simple habits. So, in this video, you're going to discover the tried-and-true tactics that can really enhance your sleep. Nearly every

human on the planet functions best by sleeping around 7 to 9 hours per night. Yes, there are some people who have genetic anomalies who may be able to get away with less than seven and as little as five, but that's pretty rare. And there are some professional athletes who are hard-charging, high-achievers who need sometimes, in some cases, more than 10 hours of sleep per night. Something in your body, when you're short on sleep, is going to be going wrong. Inflammation can run rampant somewhere in a muscle, your brain cell regeneration is not occurring, and this is the kind of biological damage you invite when you don't sleep enough or consistently. Most people who believe they can thrive on less sleep are wrong. Even highly driven, successful individuals often operate under this assumption, but they don't actually have the gene that allows for short sleep, which is pretty rare. Some well-known figures like Barack Obama, Donald Trump, or Martha Stewart have been cited as functioning on very little sleep. I'm working long hours, long hours right up till 12:00, 1:00 in the morning. You can What time do you get up? Uh, 5:00. But in most cases, performance is still being sacrificed somewhere, whether in cognitive function or the appearance of the face and skin, or recovery, or overall long-term health and immune system status. Consistently getting too little sleep leads to measurable decline, including impaired memory, reduced creativity, increased inflammation, and incomplete physical and neurological recovery, not to mention the inability of your brain to clean itself out at night. Operating on low sleep while also pushing hard physically or mentally accelerates damage. And the combination of stress and sleep deprivation compounds these negative effects. Now, when newer

research is also showing that sleep consistency, meaning going to bed and waking up at around the same time on as many days of the week as possible, may actually matter more than total sleep volume. Sleep deprivation makes it so hard to eat and exercise right, much less make it through a day of mentally demanding work. Your body is chock-full of inflammation, hormone imbalances, and blood sugar dysregulation when you're short on sleep, and it's operating well below peak capacity. Here's the thing, you can almost entirely recover from the damage of a lost night of sleep with a single good night of 8 or 9 hours of sleep. And there's even some evidence that if you know you're going to have a crappy night of sleep, or you're going to be short on sleep, that getting extra sleep in the days leading up to that can also help. This is called sleep banking. Now, there are other specific strategies that will help you get through the day without making sleep deprivation worse. Step one, stay hydrated. Your cells require both water and minerals to maintain their environment.

Hydration becomes more important after poor or lost sleep. You can use strategies like a big 32-oz glass of water or a stainless steel mug like I do as soon as you get up along with electrolytes or trace minerals added to it. Next, you can caffeinate

smart. Don't over consume caffeine when you're sleep deprived. Too much caffeine can reduce the quality of the next night's sleep and that of course can leave you feeling more tired the following day. Yes, you can consume caffeine to address some of the effects of sleep deprivation, but you don't want to overdo it. One or two 8-oz cups can help to maintain alertness without derailing sleep later that night and preferably those cups should come before 2:00 p. m. in the afternoon. Also, if you are consuming caffeine, try to avoid high sugar energy drinks or high sugar coffee drinks, both of which can contribute to the metabolic dysregulation already caused by the sleep deprivation. Next way to combat

the effects of sleep deprivation is movement. You can of course get outside and expose yourself to natural light to reset your circadian rhythm. You do light aerobic exercise like walking or yoga if you're super tired because light, light movement, and vitamin D can all help to realign your circadian rhythm and can help to reduce the anxiety caused by sleep deprivation. And if you look at research, one of the best ways to exercise to maintain alertness when you're in a sleep deprived state is to do brief intense exercise snacks throughout the day of about 5 to 10 minutes in duration. So, if you're really short on sleep, you may want to consider a quick set of jumping jacks or burpees or hit the air dine bike or the rowing machine at intervals regularly throughout the day and that burst of adrenaline helps to keep you awake and simultaneously help with things like blood flow and oxygenation to combat sleep deprivation. So, what you can do is first of all

consume what I would consider to be slow burning logs rather than fast burning kindling as a fuel. Avoid sugary and quickly digested starchy carbs and instead aim for higher protein foods and foods with healthy fats and decent amounts of fiber. Foods with a low glycemic index such as beans and more complex carbohydrates can help to keep your blood sugar levels more stable. Now, foods rich in protein can increase what's called orexin, which helps you stay awake and alert. Supplements like essential amino acids or ketones, which provide a slow steady stream of energy, can be used as substitutes for snacks in between meals. And then there are a few key nutrients that specifically help to combat the effects of sleep deprivation. So, here they are in no particular order of importance. NAD, which helps your cells to repair and recover, something they didn't get a chance to do as much of when you're in a sleep-deprived state because you were short on sleep the night before. Creatine, which gives your body extra phosphate to burn because you're not producing as much energy when you're in a sleep-deprived state. And then magnesium L-threonine, which is a form of magnesium that's been studied to combat the effects of sleep deprivation. So, NAD, creatine, and magnesium L-threonine would all be useful if you're in a sleep-deprived state. Sleep deprivation lowers immune function and

increases pro-inflammatory compounds. So, if you're sleep-deprived, you need to take steps to flush out toxins and support immunity. You can nap the right way with something called polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep can help during

short-term sleep deprivation. It's not ideal long-term, but it is a strategy you can use when you're going through a period where you know you're going to be in a sleep-deprived state. So, what this means is that you short yourself on sleep at night, but then you take regularly timed naps throughout the day. Now, one example of this could be something as simple as you slept 6 hours at night and so you take a 45-to-60-minute nap after lunch. Researchers deprived rats of sleep in one study, and the rats entered a hypermetabolic, hyperstressed state. Their immune systems broke down, their bodies deteriorated, and eventually they died much faster than the rats who got adequate sleep. Running on little sleep puts your body in that same kind of stressed and dysregulated state where not only does your health suffer, but you're much less likely to be resilient enough to manage whatever stress balls of the world is throwing at you during the waking day. Sleep deprivation can be fatal for two main reasons. Your neurons require complete shutdown to recuperate, and without sleep they don't get that recovery. And then you combine that with the fact that sleep deprivation triggers a hyper metabolic stress state that drives physical breakdown. Now, before diving into some tactics that will prevent sleep-related health damage, it's important to understand the basics of circadian rhythm. Everything else in the rest of this video will make

more sense once you understand what a 24-hour cycle of sleeping and waking actually looks like and how your body responds to factors like meal timing, workout timing, and light regulation or sunrise and sunset. Most people think sleep is just about what happens at night, but your body is responding to cues from the moment that you wake up, and most people are unknowingly working against their own biology from the minute that they open their eyes and get out of bed. Your body responds to predictable daily cues like light such as sunrise or just the lights flipping on in your house, meal timing like your first meal of the day, movement like an exercise session, and sunset. So, understanding this rhythm helps explain how your body functions across a 24-hour cycle. Morning light helps set the rhythm. So, sunlight in the morning or any device that produces a bunch of blue light that kind of simulates sunlight — interacts with photoreceptors in your eyes and your skin. That improves alertness, mood, energy, and nighttime sleep. Morning light also suppresses melatonin and helps to shift your circadian rhythm into place. Now, the morning timing matters. Around 6:00 a. m. or so in most people, cortisol rises to help you wake up. Morning light and some kind of a movement session help to maximize this effect. If you can't get sunlight, artificial light can help and there are certain bulbs or eyeglasses that they make that actually produce a little bit of extra light, but nothing is as effective as full spectrum sunlight within the first hour that you've gotten up. Now, next up is food. If your hunger hormones are

imbalanced such as leptin dysregulation, eating within a couple hours of waking can help to reset your hormonal cycle. So, skipping breakfast to do something like intermittent fasting if you have poor sleep might actually do more harm — than good. And the composition of that first meal matters quite a bit, too. You should aim for around 20 g of protein. If you tend to skip breakfast or intermittent fast and you're dealing with circadian rhythm issues, you may want to consider prioritizing a protein-rich meal within the first couple hours of waking. Now, it's still important that you not eat a whole bunch of food before you go to bed, but prioritizing a protein-rich breakfast can solve some sleep issues in a lot of people and can also help with jet lag. Now, around 10:00 p. m. melatonin rises and that helps you start to feel tired. Blue light at night from screens or bright bulbs or car lights or overhead lights or visiting the mall or the grocery store can all suppress melatonin. So, that's why reducing or blocking nighttime light exposure matters quite a bit. Now, late eating and nighttime light, of course, disrupts circadian cycles. Late-night snacking can create blood sugar fluctuations and worsen the cycle of poor sleep and cravings and also send your body a message that shifts your body clock forward when you're eating later at night while also increasing your body temperature. All things that can impair sleep. Excess nighttime light exposure can also interfere with hormones involved in fat burning and recovery. So, sleep is when your brain and body repair. During sleep, your lymphatic system, which is like the drainage system for your brain, becomes active and helps to clear waste from the brain and the spinal cord. As your core body temperature falls overnight, the body supports neural repair, neural growth, reduced inflammation, and increased immune activity. You can work with your circadian rhythm by getting adequate bright light in the morning and reducing it at night, by training at specific times during the day, but not too close to bedtime, by reducing your blue light exposure in the hours leading up to bed, and to avoid eating or doing a heavy exercise session prior to bed, which can increase your body temperature and throw off sleep. You probably won't be surprised to learn that sleep quantity and sleep onset, or what's called sleep latency, both improve with physical activity. What you eat also matters. Research suggests that certain foods have a profound beneficial effect on sleep, and your evening meal should contain only low to moderate amounts of things that can raise body temperature or be difficult to digest, like high amounts of saturated fat or really spicy heavy meals. If you often feel like you have a brick in your stomach after dinner, don't overdo it on the marbled meat, the butter, the coconut oil, the hot sauce, the MCT oil, etc. Eat foods that support sleep. Fatty fish, some fruits like kiwi and tart cherries can all improve sleep quality. A real nutrient-dense food outperforms processed food every time, just because of the swings in blood sugar that can occur when food is already broken down for you, as you would find in processed or ultra-processed food. And then finally, some kind of postprandial stroll after dinner, or even doing like a sauna, cold plunge type of session, can also help quite a bit with blood sugar stabilization before you go to bed. And for a little bit of extra protein, many people do well with some extra collagen, such as 10 to 20 g of collagen or essential amino acids, such as 5 to 20 g of essential amino acids before they go to bed and then people who really struggle with low blood glucose which often happens for example if you're on a GLP agonist before bed you can address some of that with ketones which give your body an alternative substrate to glucose as fuel for the brain during a night of sleep. Slow carbs like sweet potatoes and quinoa can be good

alternatives to starchy carbs like white bread or white rice. Finally, like I mentioned earlier heavy fats at night can mean harder digestion and worse sleep. So avoid doing a whole bunch of like hard saturated fats, cheeses, butters, etc. In the morning light aerobic exercise paired with sunlight is really good for circadian rhythm. In the afternoon and early evening it's a good time for strength and intense training. If you're sleep deprived light movement or brief intense workout snacks throughout the day can help with sleep. After

workout especially if it's close to bedtime make sure you cool your body with something like a lukewarm shower, a very quick cold plunge, or something that allows your body temperature to stay low during sleep which can actually assist with sleep quality. The science and logistics of sleep are very

important and there's a host of tools and biohacks and strategies for optimizing sleep. But I've just shared with you some of the best simple sleep optimizing strategies when it comes to things like exercise, diet, light, and the timing of when you do certain activities. So hopefully in this video you learned just a few things that help you to enhance sleep. So here's a quick tip that if you do nothing else from this entire video it will cost you nothing. It will take less than 20 minutes and it can start improving your sleep right away. All I want you to do is every morning within an hour of waking preferably expose your eyes and your entire body if you can to as much natural sunlight as possible. And if you can't do that just get some form of bright light to jumpstart your circadian rhythm then do the complete opposite at night. At least leading up to an hour before you go to bed Limit screen time, use blue light blocking glasses, you can use red light to light up your bedroom. One final tip that I'll leave you with is that when you walk into your bedroom, you should of course make sure the lights are dim, make sure the temperature is cold, but also reduce stress as much as possible. Don't work in your bed, don't let your brain associate it with business, and if you really struggle and you're a light sleeper with ambient sound, you can also place something like a white noise generator or wear earplugs to help you to sleep. Those are some components of sleep hygiene that are just super important but super basic. Your light, your temperature, your stress, and the element of sound. So, if you like this video, I'd love to hear your comments and your questions about sleep. Hit subscribe if you want even more content that helps to make you healthier and your life better. Thanks for watching.