← The Michael Chernow Podcast 
The Michael Chernow Podcast
Why Sleep Is My #1 Performance Tool | Michael Chernow | Monday Moments
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If I don't get at least seven hours of sleep a night, I really do struggle. I believe that sleep is the greatest recovery tool, life optimization tool. Sleep is the time our body recalibrates. Sleep is everything. Sleep is the number one anti aging protocol you can implement into your life. And one of the greatest habits you can introduce into your life is the go to sleep alarm. Forget about the wake up alarm. If you have a go to sleep alarm that you actually stick to, like when that alarm goes off, you just go to bed. Waking up in the morning is not going to be a challenge. An entrepreneur straight out of New York City. Michael Chernow what's cracking? Welcome back to the Creatures of Habit podcast Monday. Moments. This week I am going to be talking about sleep and how important sleep is to my life. I believe that sleep is the greatest recovery tool, life optimization tool. Sleep is the time our body recalibrates, metabolizes all the things that we did during the day, and resets, and without enough of it, we suffer. So I have taken my sleep protocol as far as I think anyone can. I want to walk you through what I do for sleep and tell you all the things that I use to help optimize and get the greatest, most qualitative sleep I can get. Because being an entrepreneur, a dad, a husband, I guess I can call myself an athlete, I've got a lot going on and I absolutely need that recovery. So my sleep routine starts at around 6pm and that's when I get home. I shut my phone off and I sit down with my family for dinner and we sit down at the dinner table every single night at 6pm and that's when I start winding down. Actually, I should say that before I get into the house, a little trick that I use to clearly delineate my entrepreneurial work energy and my father husband energy. At around 5:55 I stop my truck halfway up my driveway. I shut it off, I put my hands on my legs, I close my eyes and I do some box breathing. And I'll do five rounds of box breathing, which takes me no time at all. And box breathing is very simple. It's four breaths, four second breath in through my nose, four second hold at the top, four seconds out breath through my nose and four seconds hold at the bottom. And I go through that five times. I open my eyes after doing five rounds of box breathing and if I still feel a little friction from the day, if I still feel a little fuzziness from the day, I'll do five rounds of the double inhale long Slow exhale, which is basically an inhale through my nose into my stomach. Deep. And when I feel like I've filled my body and I've expanded to the max with air, I sip one more fast breath. It's like this. So long, slow inhale into my gut. I sip one more fast breath and then I let it all out through my mouth. Long and slow. I'll do that five times and by the time I'm done with those two things, five rounds of box breathing and five double inhale. Long slow exhale. I am totally recalibrated and ready to be a father and a husband. Pull my car into my spot, I shut my phone off and I walk into the house and typically my wife and kids are ready for dinner. It's around 6 o' clock and we sit down and we have dinner all together as a family and we just jam, you know, we talk, we have a good time. After dinner we will go outside if the weather's nice and we'll go sit by the fire pit or we'll, if it's cold, we'll play some board games or we'll do a puzzle or my kids will, you know, pick up a book and start reading. Sometimes I pick up a book and start reading. But really that is the beginning of my wind down routine with the every single night. And then at around 7:38 is when we start prepping the kids for bedtime. My wife and I will go every other night, who puts the kids down? The kids go up to bed at 8:15. If my wife takes them up. I will prepare my creatures sleep at around 8:15 and sip on that and wait for her to be done putting the kids down. If I put the kids down, I will have my creature sleep when I'm done with that at around 8:45. And then we curl into bed. My wife and I, we go into bed at around 8:45 pretty much every single night. And that's obviously after I brush my teeth, floss my teeth, rinse my mouth through my skincare routine, which is I use a skincare brand called Caldera Lab that I absolutely love. It's a very simple skincare routine, but it makes me feel really good and like I'm taking care of my skin and, and then, and then we get into bed and typically we watch a show. Some people will say that's not the greatest thing to do. I personally love watching a show with my wife for about an hour before bed. And so we watch a show and the tools that I use for my Sleep system. So I have an eight sleep mattress cover that keeps my mattress nice and cool so I don't overheat at night. I tend to run hot. And so that eight sleep mattress cover is really, really nice for me. I have blackout shades in our bedroom, so our room is pitch black dark. There are no lights around in the, in the room. And I use a sleep guard from airwave. I have a sleep guard that I put in my mouth every night. And I use Oslo sleep buds. And these things are the most incredible newest addition to my sleep routine. These are little earbuds. Earbuds or earbuds that fit really, really seamlessly into your ear and they're super tiny and flat, so you don't feel them in your ear at all. You can sleep on your side and you still don't feel them. And the beauty of them is that you can stream an audiobook, a podcast, music, sleep meditation. You can stream that into the earbuds. Excuse me, into the Oslo earbuds and whisk a way to sleep. And one of the coolest things about them is that they actually know when you have fallen asleep. And they go from. They switch automatically from whatever you're streaming to a sleep sound. Like white noise for me. Or I sleep really well with white noise. So the air, the earbuds go from, you know, whatever I'm streaming and an audio book to the sleep sound. And then I also wear a sleep mask even though my room has blackout shades. I've just gotten so accustomed to sleeping with an eye mask that I wear one every single night. And I'm typically out cold within 2 minutes max of turning on my Oslo earbuds. And I sleep from around 9:45, 10 till 5:15 every single night. And I get really, really great sleep. I get probably on average four to four and a half hours of a blend of slow wave and REM sleep every single night. And that just re energizes my body. If I don't get at least seven hours of sleep a night, I really do struggle. If I get six hours of sleep, I feel it. So I just want to put a massive emphasis on sleep. That's why I created Creatures Sleep, our sleep support Hot Chocolate. Because all the sleep supports that I used to use had melatonin in them and I was waking up groggy. I felt like I needed to up the dose all the time because I became somewhat reliant on melatonin, which ultimately left me with a groggy morning. And so I spent a long time developing Creature Sleep to be a melatonin free sleep support. We actually introduced a new formula where we brought in a few new ingredients that have been clinically studied to really, really help with sleep. But this isn't me trying to sell you creature sleep. This is me trying to sell you sleep. Sleep is so important and go, you know, consistency in the time you go to bed and the time you wake up is almost as important as the amount of sleep you get. Some people say that consistency in sleep is, is more important than the amount of hours you get. So 9:45 is typically the time that I am shutting my eyes every single night and I automatically wake up between 5:05 and 5:15 every single morning. I don't have an alarm. And that's because my body has gotten so accustomed to this routine. Sleep is everything. Sleep is the number one anti aging protocol you can in implement into your life if you are not sleeping well. You might want to take a little tip from my routine that starts at six. You know, I really do believe that my sleep wind down routine starts the minute I walk into my house or the minute I stop my car in the, in, you know, halfway up the driveway and start my little breath work routine because I take it seriously and it's be and there and it's all little habits that I've, you know, created and stuck to because of how important sleep is to me and should be for you. So if you're not sleeping well, I promise you pick up some of these habits and implement them and stick to them. You know, I always say to people, one of the greatest habits you can introduce into your life is the go to sleep alarm. Forget about the wakeup alarm. If you have a go to sleep alarm that you actually stick to, like when that alarm goes off, you just go to bed. Waking up in the morning is not going to be a challenge. And I really try to stick to this routine even when I'm traveling. Obviously I'm not having dinner with my family, but I am eating at 6 and I try not to put food into my body after 7pm so there you have it guys. I really believe in sleep. I really believe, I really believe in sleep. And I think everyone else in the world of wellness, the wild, wonderful world of wellness, will agree that sleep is critical for longevity, for health, for recovery, for life optimization. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with someone that you think will also enjoy it. It means the world to us for you to share these podcasts, subscribe and give us a five star rating and write a review this podcast? I do, because I love it. I love bringing value to you guys. I love talking to the community, and I want to keep it going for as long as possible. And the only way to do that is to grow, is to grow the podcast. So please subscribe, please give us a five star rating and a review and, and share the podcast with your friends, because you know, this is just free value for your life. I love you guys. I really appreciate you tuning in. Until the next one, y'. All, Peace.