← Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Sleep Is Your Superpower: Optimizing Brain Health & Performance with The Silva Method PART 2 with Dr. Shane Creado
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Welcome Back to season 14 of the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast where we connect the science based evidence behind social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence training for improved well being, achievement, productivity and results using what I saw as the missing link since we weren't taught this when we were growing up in school. The Application of Practical Neuroscience.
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I'm Andrea Samadhi and seven years ago launched this podcast with a question that I've never truly asked myself before and that is if productivity and results matter to us, and they do now more than ever, how exactly are we using our brain to make them happen? And most of us were never taught how to apply neuroscience to improve productivity, our results or our well being. About a decade ago I became fascinated by the Mind Brain Results connection and how science can be applied to our everyday lives. And that's why I've made it my mission to bring you the world's top experts so together we can explore the intersection of science and social and emotional learning. We'll break down complex ideas and turn them into practical strategies we can use for predictable science backed results.
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This week we move on to part two of our review of episode 72 with Dr. Shane Creato and his book Peak Sleep Performance for Athletes that was recorded back in July of 2020. In part one of our review last week we covered how strategic napping, morning brain habits and even the Silva method all work together to reset your brain, boost performance and transform your health from the inside out. Today Part two will we'll continue with our review diving a bit deeper into sleep deprivation and its impact on performance, whether you're an athlete or just someone looking to improve productivity. And then part three next week we'll go a bit deeper into the impacts of concussions and brain injuries on our sleep and performance. And just a reminder, Dr. Creato is a double board certified sleep medicine doctor and psychiatrist who practices functional sleep medicine, integrative psychiatry and sports psychiatry. He brings all these specialties together to uncover the underlying factors that sabotage our sleep and then treats them comprehensively, helping people to achieve their health and performance goals with sleep at the forefront. And as we work through our reviews, we'll spend a considerable amount of time on on this important health staple that's scientifically proven to boost our physical and mental health. So for Today's episode number 379 and part two of our review of our 2020 interview with Dr. Shane Crieto, we'll cover why sleep is a core pillar of health according to Dr. Shane Crieto and why sleep Deprivation is a national crisis and and that kids pay the highest price. We'll look at seven well known tips for improving sleep. These will be a review for us because I know we've heard them already. But then we're going to apply the Silva method to reset and improve our sleep. And finally, sleep tips for athletes and high performers to end out the episode. So let's go back to early 2020 and revisit what Dr. Creato had to say about sleep. Now, in our next video clip from Dr. Creato, I ask him to dive deeper into optimizing our brain health with a quote from his book that reads, your brain health and sports performance cannot be optimized unless your sleep is optimized. And once this is achieved, your quality of life will skyrocket. When you sleep well, the fabric of your life will change. And when this happens, it will have a ripple effect. And this sounds like a simple concept, but for those of us who've been working on improving this pillar, we know it's one of the concepts that's easier said than done. So let's hear Dr. Creato's thoughts on my question. Your brain health and sports performance cannot be optimized unless your sleep is optimized. And once this is achieved, your quality of life will sky skyrocket. When you sleep well, the fabric of your life will change, just like what you said just there. And when this happens, it will have a ripple effect.
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Sleep is one of the pillars of brain health, along with exercise and nutrition, and we need to make sure we're getting the right amount of sleep. Most adults and most teenagers don't know about this, but a vast majority, 70 million Americans, suffer from a sleep problem. And way more than those suffer from sleep deprivation, chronic sleep deprivation. If a child is deprived of sleep, their growth hormone levels will be suppressed because deep sleep is where growth hormone levels peak. So basically, you're gonna be stunting your growth. Over 80% of kids who are sleep deprived go on to develop obesity. There's a huge overlap between kids who are chronically sleep deprived who manifest mental health conditions later on in life.
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Now some key takeaways from Dr. Creato's clip. We'll review these takeaways and many are well known. They're just a reminder to close any g we might have with our sleep. And then we'll add a new spin as we tie in the popular Silva method into these tips for all of us to take our sleep to new heights. Now, we've just received our 2025 spotified wrap statistics and this gives us insight into what our listeners tune into via the Spotify app over the past year. And the Sylva method recorded in 2022 holds the top spot again for listeners for a third year in a row. And this is important for me to notice what's important to you, the listener. So when appropriate, we'll link the popular Silva Method to our content. So our Tip 1 Sleep is a core pillar of brain health. Along with exercise and nutrition, sleep forms the foundation of cognitive health. And without optimized sleep, you cannot optimize brain function, learning, focus, emotional regulation or performance. Tip 2 from Dr. Sleep deprivation is a national crisis. 70 million adults suffer from a sleep disorder. Many more live in a state of chronic sleep deprivation without even realizing it. And it wasn't until Dr. Creato looked at my brain scan from Amen Clinics. It was just a few months after this episode in 2020 and he told me that I had the pattern of a sleep deprived brain. I would get up early and exercise because of the weather in Arizona, but I didn't realize this was evident from a brain scan. And it was only at this point did I start to get serious about improving this important health staple. Tip three from Dr. Children pay the highest price. Kids deprived of sleep have suppressed growth hormone which literally stunts physical growth and 80% of sleep deprived children develop obesity. Chronic sleep loss in childhood is strongly linked to later mental health challenges. So this is important for us to see for our children. Tip 4 Sleep changes the fabric of your life. When sleep improves, every system of the body and brain recalibrates. Relationships, mood, decision making, energy, learning and performance all rise. Some tips to put these ideas into action. Number one Target the right amount of sleep. For adults it's around 67 to 9 hours. For teens it's a bit more 8 to 10 hours and for kids 9 to 12 hours. Now to look at this track one week of your sleep and see what you notice. There are many different ways you can track your sleep. You can use a wearable device or even track your sleep through your iPhone. Tip 2 Build a pre sleep wind down ritual about 20 to 30 minutes before you go to sleep. It's a short, consistent routine that signals to the brain that it's time to shut down. For an example, dim your lights, do some light stretching, have a hot shower, read a book, do some breathing and don't have any deep emotional conversations. And definitely shut down your brain from any rumination from the day. Tip 3 Protect your light environment. Light controls melatonin so in the morning, we all heard it from Dr. Andrew Huberman, his protocol of getting out into the sunlight. So at least five to ten minutes of natural sunlight if you can. And then at night, reduce screens or use night mode one to two hours before you go to sleep. And keep that bedroom dark and cool around 65 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. And keep it quiet. Tip four, keep a consistent sleep and wake schedule, even on weekends. This stabilizes your circadian rhythm and improves the quality of deep sleep. And this is definitely what I'd say is my area of strength with sleep. I go to bed the same time every day, Monday through Sunday, and wake up the same time no matter what day of the week it is. On the rare days that I stray from this routine, everything turns upside down for me. So I work hard on keeping the sleep consistency even. Tip five. Strengthen deep sleep. And this is where the magic happens. Deep sleep boosts growth hormone, memory consolidation, emotional regulation and cellular repair. So to increase your deep sleep again, you can use different types of apps to measure it. Try to keep exercise in the early morning or early afternoon. Make sure you cut off caffeine if you have it by 2pm don't eat any heavy meals late at night and keep that room cool. Tip six, Watch for red flags, especially in our children. Those red flags are difficulty waking up. If you notice mood swings, falling asleep in class for students or feeling sleepy in the day for adults. Attention problems, weight gain and frequent illness. These are sleep issues in disguise. And finally, use a simple nighttime audit each night. Ask yourself, what time did I go to bed? Did anything disrupt my sleep? And what will I change tomorrow? So now let's take our sleep to the next level by applying Jose Silva's Silva method. Many of these tips we've heard of already and the key is to keep track of everything where you're able to make improvements. Now let's add the popular Silva method to our sleep reset routine and see how we can take our sleep even deeper. Now, the Silva method was covered in Our most downloaded 4 part series based on the work of Jose Silva. And this series was streamed 999% more than any other episode that we've created in the past seven years that we've been hosting this podcast. So let's see what the Silva method suggests to reset our sleep. Tip one. It's that alpha entry. So you're going to count down 3, 2, 1. And this will shift your brain from beta to Alpha to theta for natural sleep pathways. So close your eyes, breathe in, breathe out and count down. 3. My body relaxes. 2. My mind becomes calm. And 1. I enter my ideal level for sleep. On 1. Imagine a warm wave of relaxation dropping you into the Alpha state. When I'm tired and I lay down to go to sleep. And after practicing this method for many years now, I can actually feel when I hit that alpha sleep state. This is a magical place. And if you don't do anything else with this state, it's a great place to find a place of calm before you drift off to sleep. Tip 2 with the Silva method, it's subconscious programming. Use intention based language to direct the mind. Say to yourself, tonight my brain resets. I will wake restored. And then think of whatever it is or problem that you want to solve or work on and let the intention sink deeply into your subconscious. Tip 3 with the Silva method is release and clear. Use the Silva command technique. I now release the day all tension dissolves, only calm remains. And picture the entire day evaporating away like mist. Tip four is deep sleep visualization. Guide your brain towards deep restorative sleep. Use visualization. Think of your body sinking into your mattress. Your breath becoming slow and rhythmic. Brain waves shifting you towards deep delta sleep and cells repairing your mind. Rebooting yourself from your head all the way down to your toe. And say to yourself, I sleep deeply, my brain resets and I wake renewed. Tip five is your morning installation. Anchor tomorrow's outcome. See yourself waking up calm, clear, sharp, energized and productive. And say calmness, peace, clarity. A sharp and energized mind and body is my reality. And then drift deeper. Take three slow breaths and with each time you exhale, whisper to yourself, deeper, deeper, deeper. As you float down like you're in warm sand, easing naturally into theta and delta for true restorative sleep. And if you haven't yet listened to the four part series on the Silva method and its benefits, I highly encourage you to do this so that you can implement these tips into your daily routine. Deeper sleep is only one of the benefits of the Silva method. Also I included the Silva method reset for your children. I put the script in the show notes. I'm not going to read through it, but see, since Dr. Creato mentioned that our children pay the highest price for sleep deprivation, I thought it would be important to cover how any of us can teach the Silva Method to our kids. So I'm not going to read it out loud, but you can go to the show notes if you'd like to apply this method to your children for their Bedtime routine. Now moving on to our second video clip with Dr. Creato. In our second clip, Dr. Creato reminds us that if you are sleep deprived and you're an athlete, for example, your brain is already running on fumes, basically, he says, and your reaction times will be reduced if you're chronically sleep deprived. And he says, I mean, that depends on how much sleep each person needs.
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Let's hear what Dr. Shane Creato says for the athlete or even the high performer who's sleep deprived.
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If you are sleep deprived and you're an athlete, for example, your brain is already running on fumes basically, and your reaction times will be reduced if you are chronically sleep deprived. And I mean, that depends on how much sleep each person needs. So if you're getting seven hours at night and you think you're great, but your brain needs nine hours of sleep a night, you're still sleep deprived, so you'll have more inflammation. You're almost twice at risk of getting injured compared to someone who's getting enough sleep. More inflammation, less protective hormones, more stress hormones, lower pain tolerance. So you, if you perceive pain to be 5 out of 10, if 10 is the worst pain that you could have with sleep deprivation, you'll perceive it to be 8 or 9 out of 10. All these factors are already there in someone's chronically sleep ripe and then their reaction times are reduced. They don't see the guy coming at them out of the corner of their eye, Boom, they're hit. So their brain is more vulnerable, already more fragile, and then so their symptoms will be more severe.
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Some key points from Dr. Credo's clip 2.
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Sleep deprivation slows brain reaction time. When you're chronically sleep deprived, your brain operates on reduced capacity. Reaction time, awareness and peripheral vision are all impaired, raising the risk of injury, especially for athletes. Some tips to improve this Track reaction based mistakes, so miscues slower responses during training or on work days. Treat reaction errors as a sleep signal, not a skill problem. And adjust your training intensity on low sleep days. Prioritize recovery over performance point number two. Dr. Crieto reminded us that sleep needs are individual, not universal. Feeling fine on seven hours of sleep doesn't mean that your brain is fully rested. If your brain needs nine hours, anything less than that is still sleep deprivation. So how do you implement this? Identify your true sleep need by tracking your energy levels, your focus, your mood and your pain sensitivity. Aim to get the minimum amount of sleep or where all four of these improve your energy, your focus, your mood and your pain sensitivity and then Increase sleep in 15 to 30 minute increments for 7 to 10 days and find out where your optimal sleep range is. Now I noticed that when I've been doing heavier training days, so when I run more than seven miles off in the mountains or days that my stress levels come in higher than usual, my WHOOP tracker, the wearable device that I use tells me that I need more sleep to compensate for the extra stress or extra strain that day. This was one of the most eye opening concepts to me while tracking sleep. If you overtrain it will show up eventually with injury, but also as I started to track my blood results. Inflammation from overtraining also showed up in a couple of my biomarkers. I saw my DHEA sulfite reading and DHEA sulfite is an adrenal hormone that acts as our stress buffer. It balances cortisol and supports recovery. When your DHEA is low, you can worry about burnout. If it's robust or even slightly elevated, it tells us the body is still adapting to sustained challenge. So for me this reading showed up on a blood test from May of 2025 as out of range and I wondered why is this test out of what is considered to be the healthy range? And this new feature on the Whoop app that we'll revisit on another episode told me that my blood test being out of range was a reflection of chronic stress or over training symptoms. Both of these factors were impacting my sleep need. And a third tip from Dr. Creato in clip 2 chronic sleep loss increases inflammation and stress hormones, so lack of sleep elevates inflammation like I saw with my blood test suppresses protective hormones and increases cortisol, putting the brain and body in a constant stress state. So a tip to improve this Protect sleep and think of it as an anti inflammatory tool, not just a luxury. Pair sleep with like we've said already consistent sleep wake times, reduce late night screen exposure and have that pre bed routine and think of sleep as your primary recovery supplement. Reminder 4 from Clip 2 Sleep deprivation amplifies pain perception Pain feels significantly worse when sleep deprived. A moderate pain stimulus can register a severe pain due to reduced pain tolerance. A tip to improve if pain feels unusually intense, check sleep first before assuming injury progression. Prioritize sleep during injury, recovery or high stress periods and avoid pushing through pain after poor sleep. This increases risk, not resilience. And finally, a tired brain is more vulnerable to injury. Slower reaction times means missed visual cues. The already fatigued brain is more fragile leading to more severe symptoms when injury occurs and a tip to implement in this case on low sleep days reduce exposure to high risk situations. Emphasize form awareness and safety. Coaches and leaders should screen for sleep, not just symptoms and build sleep checks into return to play and high performance decisions. A big picture takeaway from this Sleep deprivation doesn't make you tired, it slows your brain. It amplifies pain. It increases inflammation. It weakens reaction time and makes injury more severe. Sleep is protection. Sleep is performance. Sleep is prevention. So to review and conclude this week's episode 379 part two of our review of Dr. Shane Crieto's peak sleep performance. In this episode we return to our 2020 interview with Dr. Shane Crieto. He's a double board certified sleep medicine physician and psychiatrist who works at the intersection of functional sleep medicine, integrative psychiatry and sports performance and his central message, now more relevant than ever, is clear. You cannot optimize brain health, athletic performance or quality of life unless sleep is optimized first.
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And just to review, on our last episode we explored how strategic napping, morning brain habits and the Silva Method work together to reset the nervous system and support peak cognitive and physical performance. And today in Part two, we went deeper into why sleep is not just helpful, but protective and why sleep deprivation has become one of the most urgent and under recognized public health crises of our time. And what this episode today reinforces. Dr. Creato reminds us that sleep sits alongside with exercise and nutrition as a core pillar of brain health. When sleep breaks down, everything else follows. Focus, learning, emotional regulation, reaction time, recovery and resilience. We revisited the reality that 70 million adults suffer from sleep disorders. Millions more are chronically sleep deprived without even realizing it and children pay the highest price with sleep loss impacting growth hormone metabolism, weight and long term mental health. And Perhaps most powerfully, Dr. Creato explained that sleep deprivation doesn't just make us tired, it slows reaction time, it increases inflammation, it amplifies pain perception, increases injury risk and makes brain trauma more severe. A tired brain is a vulnerable brain and this applies not only to elite athletes, but to students, parents, educators, leaders, anyone living in this high pressure, always on world.
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So why did we bring the Silva Method into this conversation? As we reviewed familiar sleep tips, consistent schedules, light management, wind down routines, we added a powerful layer mind training. The overwhelming response to our Silva Method series, now our most streamed content a third year in a row shows us something important. Listeners want tools that help the brain to shift states quickly and intentionally. And the Silva Method does exactly this it guides the brain from beta to alpha to theta, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, it reduces stress hormones, and it prepares the mind and body for deep restorative sleep. So when paired with Dr. Creato Science, the Silva Method becomes a bridge connecting knowledge to action and intention to biology. Sleep becomes something we train not to, something we hope for. And why this matters for our children. One of the most important takeaways from this episode is that children are the most vulnerable for sleep loss and yet the least protected from it. So we've got to teach our kids how to calm their minds, how to release their day, and how to visualize rest and safety. It's not just about sleep, it's about self regulation, emotional security and long term brain health. Whether through the Silva method or simple bedtime intention setting, we're shaping the internal environment of our children growing up night after night. And ourselves too if we think about it. And the big picture here. And this two part review, with our third part coming next week, brings us back to something worth repeating. Sleep is not a luxury. Sleep is not optional. Sleep is the foundation. So what is sleep? Sleep is protection against injury and burnout. Sleep is performance, fuel for focus, learning and resilience. And finally, sleep is prevention against long term physical and and mental health challenges. When sleep improves, the fabric of your life changes and the ripple effects touch everything. As we continue building our roadmap through the top health staples, sleep remains the pillar that holds them all together. And if there's one thing to take away from this episode 379, it is this. You don't need to do everything perfectly, you just need to start protecting your sleep. And when science and mind training work together better, sleep becomes not just possible, but repeatable. And we'll see you next week with part three of our review with Dr. Shane Crieto as we dive just one touch deeper into our sleep. If you're enjoying the neuroscience meets social and emotional learning podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll stay up to to date with our new episodes. While you're there, please feel free to give us a review or a five star rating as it helps others find us. For more information on our programs, books and tools for schools and the workplace, Visit us at www. AchieveIt360.com.