← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Loading summary
Transcript180 lines
- [00:00]
VRBO Narrator
A vacation rental should come with support, not surprises. That's why VRBO comes with a VRBoCare guarantee and 24. 7 life support from real people. So if something goes sideways, VRBoCare can help. If the host cancels Verbocare if the listing says heated pool but there's actually no pool to heat. Definitely a verbocare thing.
- [00:17]
Grainger Narrator
If my teenager starts calling me Leslie
- [00:19]
VRBO Narrator
instead of mom, that's a family thing. Leslie.
- [00:21]
Grainger Narrator
That makes sense.
- [00:22]
VRBO Narrator
Sorry. Book with support, not surprises. Verbo Care and 24. 7 Life Support. If you know you're verbo terms apply. See for details.
- [00:30]
Grainger Narrator
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [01:00]
Host
Hey everybody. Welcome to Health Theory. Today's guest is Harpreet Rai. He's a former investment banker turned entrepreneur who is the CEO of Oura Ring, a sleep tracking company that is doing its best to help us all live our best lives. And Harpreet, what I want to know about is why exactly does sleep matter?
- [01:20]
Harpreet Rai
It's a loaded question. A great way to start. I think sleep matters for a bunch of different reasons. I think Sean Stevenson said it really, really well. You know, to your overall well being and your health and your performance. Sleep probably does have a greater impact than both diet and activity combined. But the reality of it, we all know it. When we get a bad night of sleep, we feel like crap, right? We're not productive, we're sort of grouchy to the people around us, can't perform well in the gym, right. And oftentimes just have low energy. So there's a whole host of reasons on the health side, but also just literally how you feel and how you feel about life and your mood. A lot of that has to actually comes back to sleep.
- [02:06]
Host
If you had to push beyond what we know, cause I know people are super tense about what I'm about to ask you. If you had to push beyond what we know and went into hypothesis or what you suspect, what is it exactly that you think is happening when we sleep? Like, sure, so we know that the brain is cleaning out things, but what else is going on?
- [02:25]
Harpreet Rai
I think if you one way I like to think about it is your body actually is operating mainly because of release of certain hormones at certain periods of time. And a lot of that is governed by something called a central clock to your body. So we call that kind of science circadian biology. And it's a relatively new science. So as you pointed out, there's not a lot we know. But if you want to think about actually, hey, what time do I get tired? And then when I get tired and I go to bed, what's actually happening? Why are certain fluids moving through my brain and removing toxins? Right. Why are actually memories throughout the day being sped up at three times the speed during REM sleep? To help you learn why is certain hormones being released to actually bring your heart rate and your blood pressure down? You know, probably for you to recover a bit. Right. And why is more testosterone and growth hormone released? All these things are happening because of this master clock. Right. And sleep is actually one of the governing factors that sets the time for all those things to happen and for the next day as well. So, you know, I think if I were to theorize that having disrupted sleep or starting this clock or your engine, you know, if you want to think about that at different times or fragmented times, doesn't allow your body and your mind to recover and function the way it should to lead a normal life or, you know, a great life where you can achieve your potential. Yeah.
- [03:45]
Host
So one thing, like in today's society where, and I'm certainly somebody who talks a lot about this, like, working your ass off, grinding hard, like, really pushing. Part of the reason that I'm so into talking about sleep and I want people to really understand how powerful it is, is I worry that people think when I say that, that I'm saying sleep doesn't matter and when, in fact, I'll say that it's probably from an experiential standpoint is one of the most important things from a cognitive optimization standpoint.
- [04:10]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [04:12]
Host
What drew you to sleep and, like, what's the background with the investment banking and all that stuff? I think it's pretty interesting.
- [04:17]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah. I mean, I would say I was always interested in technology. That was probably like a passion of mine, along with performance. So I did study electrical engineering in college and worked on, actually a lot of the sensors that go in these type of devices. I got distracted, as most people do in life, and I decided to go into finance, really, because I had a lot of debt and I thought it was a cool thing to do. Right. And I guess what I just experienced firsthand Was in my first year of investment banking. I came in weighing about 140 pounds and I'm like five, five on a good day, maybe five, six in my turbine. But like, you know, I went from 140 pounds to about 185 and about. Yeah, and about 50 weeks. So almost a pound a week. And I actually, even back in college was probably like more health conscious than what I ate. Right. Didn't really drink that much, you know, was actually eating a lot of plants. My parents are vegetarian, grew up vegetarian. And my diet didn't really change a lot. And so I'm sitting there thinking, well, I'm basically eating the same. In fact, I'm eating less. Right. I'm not moving around much. So yeah, I'm not working out, but I'm eating less. Why am I gaining a pound every week? And that's actually when I started to realize, like, well, okay, I'm gaining a lot of weight. I'm actually losing hair. You know, you can't see it, which is great, but I'm losing hair, right. And you know, my skin is actually starting to look grayish. Like I literally had friends who I hadn't seen from college see him after the year and they're like, like, dude, we know you got a great job at, you know, on Wall street, but like, looks like you've gained 40, 50 pounds and like you look like crap. So that's when I started actually just researching a lot and learning about sleep. I just started to like, remember forgetting things and that never happened to me. So I, the more and more I learned about, you know, the issues, you know, the correlations with lack of sleep and weight gain and you know, same thing with skin and how you look and also how you feel. It became obvious to me how, how important sleep was just from experiencing it. Right.
- [06:12]
Host
So what, what is some of the, the biological disruption that happens when we don't get sleep? Like, I know that there's some pretty crazy, like if you're just looking at somebody's data and they had a bad night's sleep in terms of them looking like a pre diabetic from their insulin response levels. Yep. What else is going on at a biological level that that sleep affects?
- [06:33]
Harpreet Rai
So, you know, there's tons of studies out there, not just one, but literally probably close to a hundred, showing that the lack of sleep associated with elevated glucose levels. I think that happens for a series of reasons. There's two hormones that we know today are pretty popular in controlling your appetite and also how full you feel after you eat, those are ghrelin controlling your hunger hormone, right? Like, how hungry do you get? How hungry do you feel? And then leptin, right? How satiated are you after you eat? How full do you feel? And so I think one of the studies that was done showed that basically a four hour versus eight hour night, and you know, it was almost like your, your leptin levels, right, went down by 50%. So even after you eat, you still feel hungry. And then your ghrelin levels, right, are actually, you know, shooting up. So you feel hungrier. You eat and you feel, you know, less full. And, you know, I think probably the reasons that's happened in the past is if you, if you think about the times maybe, you know, historically in a Paleo era, Paleolithic era, where we were probably operating on very little sleep, they were probably under extreme conditions. Maybe we were being hunted, maybe we were hunting, right? And so I think some of that was designed, and this is designed for your body to happen that, hey, under periods of stress, like you're looking for food more, you're trying to eat more, store more, right? But in today's world and society, right, those same conditions of less sleep aren't applied in the same way. So it might have been designed for a good reason, but in fact, now it's probably hurting us.
- [08:05]
Host
Going back to that first year in investment banking and thinking about the modern context for when we're not getting sleep, I know that while I am a huge proponent of sleep, there have been times where my OURA ring has told me off for not getting enough sleep. And I'll say that 20% of the time I am knowingly reducing my amount of sleep. And how do you think about that as the CEO of a sleep betterment company? Are there times where you'll intentionally, intentionally not get sleep because there's a bigger priority? It's sort of like goals versus sleep. Where do you fall on that?
- [08:42]
Harpreet Rai
I think there's definitely periods that we all will have to go without getting enough sleep, right? I think that's inevitable. The question is, how do we make people more aware of it and more conscious of it, right? And how do we also then, once that awareness and consciousness happens, choose to act on it? Even while on Wall Street, I ended up going from an investment, I was at Morgan Stanley for a year and investment banking group. I ended up going to a hedge fund for nine years and I still worked really hard there, got more sleep, luckily. But there it used to be, hey, I want to work out, I want to get Fit. So I'd wake up at 4:45 to be in the gym by 5:15. So I often battled, okay, getting enough sleep to work out. And that probably actually led to a lot of injuries for me over the years. I also think it's about social activities with friends. You know, it's natural to want to spend time with people. And oftentimes, you know, everyone's sort of sacrificing their schedule a little bit to do it. I think if you have families or loved ones, that can be another area where, like, hey, you got to take the kids to an event or you got to take them out to a party and they may throw your schedule off. But the big one, I do think is work. I think it's. There's a lot of people, you know, probably a lot of your audience, right? Even, even me, like, we want to kick butt, right? We want to get in. We want to work hard. As the CEO of a company, a sleep company, I'm like, do I want those guys sleeping an hour less and working on this to get it out on time or, you know, there's always a balance. And I think, you know, we're not going to be able to, I would say, change people's lives and, you know, not say prioritize those projects or not, but we want to make people more aware of it and that they can see the impact when they are choosing to do it and then frankly, come back and recover. I'll. I'll have people now that tell me, hey, man, I still go on those business trips where I am back to. Back to back meeting, right? Nine to nine, right? And then like, maybe I brush my teeth and maybe I don't because I'm that busy that night, right? But then when I get back, I see, hey, it takes me a week or two to get back and recover, and then I take it a little bit easier. I book less meetings in, right? I tend to try to actually get that extra hour of sleep. And I'm not saying that kind of behavior is great, but at least you become a little bit more conscious and don't try burning the candle on both ends forever. So I think it's. There's a lot of things that have happened that we have abundance of information, right? You know, look at Google's mission statement, right? Organize the world's information and provide access to it. Sign me up, right? I want to. I want to always be learning. I want access to information, you know, Facebook, right? Like, bring communities together, bring people together, right? There's more people that we can meet through social media, right? Follow and learn from. Sounds amazing. But I think also in those two things, right, we are getting a little bit pulled away. And it, in fact, is hurting our sleep, which eventually actually hurts our productivity in the long run.
- [11:24]
Host
And in what ways do you think that that kind of stuff is hurting our sleep? Is it just that we're allocating time to it, or is there a whole other host of problems?
- [11:32]
Harpreet Rai
I think it's much deeper than just time. Let's take Facebook as an example. All right? Let's say when we were all in high school and hung out in one friend's basement, right? Or you have a couple friends over, all right, we're hanging out. We're shooting the shit, right? We're talking about whatever. We're catching up on some cute girl in math class or sports or some. The New York Knicks game that just happened. But think about it this way. Every 10 minutes, the doorbell's ringing, you're hosting, you're going up and letting that person in, making sure they're comfortable, making sure that they have a drink, right? Making sure that they have a place to sit and hang out with friends, introducing other people. What if that happens every 10 minutes? Not just for the first hour, but for the next 12 hours? What happens to you? What happens to everyone else in the room, right? Just think about that as a human. I'd be like, man, you never even get a chance to see how you feel. You never get a chance to really spend time with, right? You're constantly being bombarded. So I think that's part of it. I think the same could go true for Google. Like, I love learning, right? I would say that's, like, one thing I've always been passionate about and why I like doing different things. But if every 10 minutes, something new pops up where, like, hey, I was learning about this. I didn't get to go that deep and understand it. And something else comes in, like, you're just getting distracted. And so I literally look at the numbers. I'm a numbers guy. You know, there's. You touch your phone, the average person does about 150 times a day, right? So if you're awake for 16 hours, that's about 10 times every hour. That's, you know, once every six minutes, right? So I think there is a deeper level of, hey, there's some satisfaction. Just like the buzz you get at the party when you say hello to someone that you haven't seen in a while and you're excited, but that constant bombardment, right, is is actually, you know, increasing anxiety. Right. It's. I don't think it's, you know, we have abundant access to information and people and I think that's great. But also let's, you know, look at some of the other numbers. Depression, all time high. Suicide rates all time high. Lack of sleep, all time high. Right. Obesity, all time high. And so I think it's not just that you're spending the time doing it. I do think it's a little bit in the way we were designed as humans that's distracted us. And I think it's ultimately taking us away from our being conscious and being focused.
- [13:48]
Host
What do you mean really fast? What do you mean that the way that we're designed as humans is part
- [13:51]
Harpreet Rai
of what distracts us. So I mean, I don't think as humans, you know, when they look at some of the network theories out there on the brain and how it compartment information, you know, really more than 50 people in your immediate circle like that you interact with tends to be overloading. But like, you know, you have these different groups. Right. It might be immediate group family and really close friends. Then maybe one degree of separation, then it may be another host of work. Right. But now that that has 5x10x20x. Right. And I think like it becomes harder for the human mind. Right. And even just from a social anxiety perspective, whether you have it or not, to manage that as all these networks grow so much.
- [14:28]
Host
Yeah. When I think about what really plays on people's sleep lifestyle definitely comes up. One thing that I think a lot about and partly because I guess I am so like it doesn't work for me is how many people now smoke weed.
- [14:43]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [14:44]
Host
And its effect on REM sleep.
- [14:46]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [14:47]
Host
So I've looked at the oura ring stats of people that I know smoke weed. Dude, it's fucking crazy. Like their REM sleep is next to nothing. Walk me through some. Like, what are the phases of sleep and what are some known lifestyle stuff that people may not be thinking about that have like that big impact like weed does on our REM sleep?
- [15:09]
Harpreet Rai
Sure, yeah. I mean sleep scientists aren't that imaginative so they numbered the stages of sleep. But I guess aside from the numbers, the way most people now know them as sort of light sleep, REM sleep and deep sleep and then the fourth stage or one of the other stages being awake. So I'll focus on REM and deep. I think there's been more research done there. And actually what happens so in deep sleep, what we know is that this period happens in the earlier part of the night, it tends to be when more things are related to your physical body, right? Like your testosterone and growth hormone are mainly released during deep sleep. Your muscle repair, even your skin and collagen repair is happening in deep sleep. REM sleep, from what we know, and a lot of this is a very new science, right? A lot more about memory consolidation, right? That that's actually when your brain is playing things, you know, at 3x, the speed to help you remember them, you know, by repetition.
- [16:08]
Host
How do we know what's happening at 3x?
- [16:11]
Harpreet Rai
So that's by looking at just fmris and various other EEG type equipment. There's even some new work being done. And one of the things that they're showing is if you can actually implant a thought during the early phases of sleep, you know, actually you can almost potentially trick your brain to work on it during REM sleep.
- [16:34]
Host
Go on, tell me more. What do you mean? How do you implant the idea?
- [16:37]
Harpreet Rai
Well, this is very, very experimental. So I think the idea is, hey, can you actually bring a thought either through a visualization, either through an audio
- [16:44]
Host
before you go to bed, or you're
- [16:45]
Harpreet Rai
saying in those immediate minutes while you're falling asleep?
- [16:48]
Host
Whoa.
- [16:49]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah, sort of like Inception. It's starting to get pretty nuts out there.
- [16:52]
Host
Okay, so finish that because this is so interesting. So what have they done in the studies? Like, what methods are you putting your headphones on? Is it someone saying something to you?
- [17:01]
Harpreet Rai
Are you saying it to yourself? Yeah, this is super experimental. Like, nothing's published yet. They just had a conference all about this. Like, basically helping people dream and have certain thoughts during REM sleep that can help them solve problems in their lives. So some really cool work. But, yeah, I wish I knew more, but it's literally happening as we speak. But getting back to sort of like, why these things are happening and what. So deep sleep, your physical body being restored, right? REM sleep, think about your mind and your memories and your consolidation. Now, we also know deep sleep has some other things that are happening there that are also related to your brain. So I think actually Matthew Walker talked about this. He runs Berkeley Sleep Lab. That there's certain proteins and inflammation that's actually cleared away at certain periods during deep sleep. High prevalence of that plaque has been shown to correlate with Alzheimer's and early Alzheimer's. So during deep sleep, it turns out that actually certain types of these fluids are actually clearing your brain, which is pretty cool. So there's a lot we're still learning about the different stages of sleep as certain things that help or hurt the different stages. I would say excess use of cannabis or alcohol definitely hurt sleep across all stages. I have seen actually though, on the other side, specifically with cannabis, that certain types, whether it's CBD and actually cbn, that actually have been shown in small amounts to actually help improve sleep. So I think there is different stages
- [18:37]
Host
or it improves one stage.
- [18:39]
Harpreet Rai
It looks like it helps people a just fall asleep and stay asleep. So some people that may have trouble falling asleep, which is almost greater than 15% of the population now.
- [18:49]
Host
Whoa.
- [18:50]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah. And then also helps with specifically deep sleep from. But this is early research. Again, hard to do just because of the rules with cannabis today and doing academic or medical research. Some of the things we see though from our data is being consistent in time helps your body gets used to that clock, that circadian clock and you know, that master clock that's governing everything. So then you start, if you go to bed at a certain time, you end up waking up at the same time, even without an alarm like yourself. That's one big thing. I think timing of food happens to be another.
- [19:22]
Host
Dude. I will tell you from my wife's experience who has had massive microbiome issues. Yeah, I totally discounted food timing. I was like my entire life I'll eat, then go right to bed and never once thought about it. So when people first started saying that, I was like, yeah, whatever. Like there's no way it's that impactful.
- [19:40]
Harpreet Rai
It's not impactful. I mean, your vagus nerve is connected to your brain and your stomach. And so if you think about those first few hours of digestion that happen in your happen, you know, when you eat, it's sort of hard for your vagus nerve to relax. Right, right. During those first few hours. So if you just eat an hour or two before you go to bed, like your brain is actually not going to be really relaxing and so hard to get actually a lot of deep sleep. So we. That's one of the biggest hacks we've seen. Sort of people change, right. And see an immediate impact in their data. I would say also, you know, timing of caffeine. So trying to get your caffeine in, you know, almost like more than 12 hours before you go to bed. Whoa. So I think that's another big one just given the half life of caffeine. And now not everyone's sensitive to caffeine, but I would say 80% of the population is. And then also getting enough sunlight, you know, we sit a lot indoors, like right like we're. And that affects us at certain points at night. If we're looking at our screens, looking at a blue screen, right. That, that doesn't help us produce melatonin the way we used to. But also the opposite is true. Just getting light exposure during the day, Right. Lets your brain know, hey, it's daytime and you're alive. Right. And you should start releasing these hormones. And so I think that's, that's another big thing that probably would help a lot of people.
- [20:52]
Host
It's really interesting. What do you think about blue blockers?
- [20:54]
Harpreet Rai
I think blue blockers are excellent.
- [20:56]
Host
Um, I think all day or just at night?
- [20:59]
Harpreet Rai
Uh, so if you look at sort of the reason as to what happens, you know, when sun goes down, there's no longer any blue light out there. And so that's actually signaled to your brain to start producing melatonin, which helps you feel drowsy, which helps you go to bed. And so if you have exposure to that blue light at night, your brain doesn't get the same reaction to release that melatonin. And so I, as a result, I would say, hey, when the sun goes down, you know, put on those blue light blockers. Some people, I think if you're under certain light conditions, like, you know, which most people unfortunately are with certain types of fluorescent light or really close working to screen, you may want to try a blue blocker during the day as well. But we've seen that have a huge impact on our users data.
- [21:41]
Host
So if we were going to optimize the shit out of our sleep and we were going to become like Olympic level sleepers, get the most recovery, which is something that we should definitely talk more about. Yeah, what, what's like that optimal. Forget that I have a job, forget I have a life outside of sleeping. Just like. Yeah, my job in life. Your job is to optimize sleep.
- [22:01]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [22:02]
Host
What would I do? So start me, I wake up now.
- [22:05]
Harpreet Rai
You wake up. And let's get the consistent time of waking up.
- [22:08]
Host
Okay.
- [22:09]
Harpreet Rai
So get that exposure to sun and light in the morning immediately and within the first hour.
- [22:15]
Host
What if I wake up? Like I wake up typically two to three hours before the sun comes up. Is that actually bad? Should I be trying to change my sleep cycle?
- [22:22]
Harpreet Rai
No. There's probably still ambient light out there from the sun, even though you can't directly see it. Interesting.
- [22:28]
Host
So go outside, even if it's dark.
- [22:30]
Harpreet Rai
I would say, especially as the sun starts to rise, it'll be more effective.
- [22:34]
Host
So at sunrise, I'm going outside, get some sun exposure. Stand there, lay there, walk, run, doesn't matter.
- [22:40]
Harpreet Rai
Just any exposure your skin's gonna like, whether you walk, whether you sit.
- [22:44]
Host
What if I'm clothed? Do I need to? Am I standing out naked no matter what?
- [22:47]
Harpreet Rai
I mean, I would say the less clothes the science would say the better he. But at the same time, I think a lot of it is, you know, built into sort of your face and specifically. Right. Your glands behind the eyes. So I think just getting exposure to your eyes is really important as well. Okay, so get some sunlight.
- [23:02]
Host
How much sunlight should I get? So the sun is rising. I say for an hour.
- [23:05]
Harpreet Rai
I would say at least.
- [23:06]
Host
This is my job.
- [23:08]
Harpreet Rai
This is your job. As much as you can. If this is your job.
- [23:10]
Host
So I should be outside, literally, I'm assuming in the shade to not burn, but out in the sun as much as I can.
- [23:16]
Harpreet Rai
Out in the sun as much as you can. Okay. I would say second, if you're gonna have caffeine, have it within those first two days.
- [23:23]
Host
What's my job? Should I avoid caffeine?
- [23:26]
Harpreet Rai
I'm not gonna tell people to avoid caffeine because I think most people won't. I also think coffee tastes phenomenal, and there's also antioxidants in coffee. So I'm actually a believer of everything in moderation. But have that first cup or second cup greater than if I can. If it's your job, 14 hours before you go to sleep. So within those first two hours of waking up, I would say next after that, getting exercise, specifically getting exercise earlier in the day and not in the late afternoon will help seven days a week. This is an exercise. That's an exercise conversation, not a sleep conversation. I think there's certain days you want to go hard and certain days you're going to want to go light. I think the problem is most people go hard all the time, which doesn't help either. Light activity especially can help improve sleep.
- [24:12]
Host
And not to complicate this, and I don't want to get distracted from our optimization conversation. Knowing when to work out, I know is one of the things you guys talk about in the app. So the heart rate variability, is that going to be my ideal thing to look at to know whether I should be working out or is there something else I should pay attention to?
- [24:30]
Harpreet Rai
I would say, in terms of when to work out, the best way we tell people to do is try different things and then see what happens to your data. Like, I used to play a lot of soccer growing up. Whenever we had away games, I never knew why the next day I was so tired normally because the game was later and I got home later and I slept later. And even if I got seven or eight hours of sleep, I still felt like shit.
- [24:50]
Host
Because of the timing.
- [24:52]
Harpreet Rai
Because the timing was thrown off. Right. And also most likely because like your body gets all jacked up playing under the lights. Right. Right before you go to bed. So that. Yeah, that would affect that. That definitely affected it a lot. So I think ideally what we've seen is some people have rhythms where they want to work out, you know, early in the morning, which is fine. Other people tends to be sort of right after that afternoon lullaby. So, you know, not seven, I would say generally not seven or eight, that's typically too late. But if you want to think about from like 4 to 6, that might be more ideal. But better yet, what we've seen from our data is people who work out earlier tend to sleep better. So even in those first, call it, you know, five hours to six hours of waking up, if you can fit it into your schedule. Right.
- [25:33]
Host
But just really fast on the data point. So what do I look at that would tell me whether today is like a day to go hard in the gym or a day to take it easy or even not work out. What actual data?
- [25:46]
Harpreet Rai
What data? So we actually have come up with a score called a readiness score.
- [25:49]
Host
And that's based on.
- [25:51]
Harpreet Rai
That's based on actually your rolling two week average of both your sleep and your activity. So if your heart rate is really elevated at night, that'll actually impact your readiness score the next day.
- [26:00]
Host
Interesting.
- [26:01]
Harpreet Rai
So there's a bunch of different factors in the app and you can click on each one and actually see it. So the time of your resting heart rate, like how when that happened, that lowest curve happened, and the absolute value is something that'll affect it, and that's impacted by when you work out and when you eat. You know, we also look at respiration rate as well throughout the night as another indicator. But I would say it's a combination of like your rolling sleep average. Right. Plus some of your heart rate and physiological data and your general activity balance that will tell you to like, work out hard or not. So if you're pretty sedentary and all of a sudden you go work out quite a bit, that one day you're gonna feel tired the next day and you should take it easy. Cause your body's not used to that load. And you'll see that reflected in the readiness score. Okay, so that's what we've used and we've created to help people sort of figure out what day they should work out and what day they should push hard. I would say generally some other things, like data within the data like that people look at are the amount of deep sleep to see, like, hey, do I feel physically really good, right. To actually work out hard today. And then also heart rate variability what impacts deep sleep.
- [27:02]
Host
So if weed is one of the things can. It is so pronounced. And that's why I keep harping on this in terms of like, you could compare my REM to somebody who smokes weed.
- [27:13]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [27:13]
Host
And it, it is night and day, the amount of REM that they're getting.
- [27:17]
Harpreet Rai
Right.
- [27:18]
Host
So what's something that impacts deep sleep?
- [27:22]
Harpreet Rai
I would say all these things we've talked about, they, they impact both stages. So eating late will impact both your deep and your rem. Smoking too much marijuana will impact both your deep and your rem. Right. Shifting off the timing of when you go to and you know how punctual and regular that is, will impact your deep in rem. So I don't know if there are certain things specific to certain stages. I do tend, from what we see, people that have late meals tend to impact the deep sleep more than rem. But I don't think there's been a lot of studies done yet with certain phases of sleep and certain activities. So if you tend to be extremely athletic and work out a lot, we have seen those people actually have more deep sleep. So when we had some Tour de France riders who were willing to share their data without revealing their names and the teams and stuff like that, and it was phenomenal, the amount of deep sleep they got, Even in their mid-30s, some of them even later. I mean, these guys were getting two hours a night. And we'll often see that even in some of the pro athletes as well. And so I think if you think about what's happening during deep sleep, all that muscle reconstruction and repair, growth hormone release, testosterone release, your brain is adjusting to what you need. Right. On the other hand, if you're super creative, you are focusing a lot on, you know, maybe concepts, type of work, artistic type work, you know, maybe even just, you know, guys thinking with numbers all the time, sitting behind a desk, trading stocks, you know, you might see lower deep sleep and higher REM sleep. So, you know, your brain, because of the lack of physical activity and also probably the more, the more mental load as well.
- [28:55]
Host
Interesting.
- [28:55]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [28:56]
Host
Okay.
- [28:56]
Harpreet Rai
So your brain is realizing that you probably need to consolidate those memories more. Right. There's more to remember there's more things you were trying to learn during the day. So, you know, your brain's pretty smart.
- [29:07]
Host
Yes. Okay, so we got through exercise. What are some other things, type of diet. Do we see that there's any influence on sleep with that?
- [29:16]
Harpreet Rai
I generally do think that heavy sugars and carbs late, too much in excess to bed can really hurt you.
- [29:24]
Host
Carb wise, specifically.
- [29:26]
Harpreet Rai
Sugar wise, specifically.
- [29:27]
Host
Interesting. So, and what data do you have? Like, that feels right to me, but it just feels right. Is there any data that backs that up?
- [29:34]
Harpreet Rai
There's been a lot more studies on food timing and sleep as far as the actual particular macro contents of that meal. You know, carbs, protein, fat. Haven't seen that. Proteins and fats do take longer to digest. So, you know, in that sense, like as we talked about with the vagus nerve in your digestion, maybe that's probably not helpful if it's within a short amount of window. So if you were to eat something closer to bedtime, you might be better off with like a lighter carbohydrate meal, but not too much sugars, but, you know, not too much fat or, you know, or protein. Interesting.
- [30:07]
Host
But what makes you think and then that it sugar plays a role in disrupting sleep?
- [30:13]
Harpreet Rai
Well, I would say most people tend to eat desserts, and when they eat desserts, they eat them late. Right. And so the other thing we know also about sugar is there, there tends to be a pretty big correlation with sugar consumption and heart rate variability.
- [30:28]
Host
It lowers heart rate variability.
- [30:30]
Harpreet Rai
Yes.
- [30:31]
Host
So interesting. Why do we want heart rate variability? Like, I get it and I've heard it a million times, but I don't actually understand why that's good. So first of all, I guess, explain to people what heart rate variability is. Sure. And then giving some numbers, I think it'd be helpful. I know you guys are a little cagey about telling people exactly what their number should be, but generally with heart rate variability, the higher the better, the higher the better.
- [30:54]
Harpreet Rai
Okay, so what is heart rate variability? Your first question, like the name says, it's the variability within your heartbeats. So what does that mean? You and I are sitting here, you know, let's say we're at 60 beats per minute. Every single beat on every second is slightly different. So maybe one beat, there's one second between the two beats. Maybe the next one there's 1.1, maybe the next one there's 0.9 seconds. But over a minute, it'll average to this 60 beats per minute. So high variation tends to actually Be a sign it's counterintuitive of low stress. Right. So, yeah, it is. It is counterintuitive. Right. Versus if each beat is super succinct. Tends to be. You know, individuals tend to have, like, a lower HRV score, which means you're more of a sympathetic state within your autonomic nervous system. Meaning you react quickly to your surroundings.
- [31:49]
Host
Overreact.
- [31:50]
Harpreet Rai
Overreact.
- [31:51]
Host
Like the fight and flight way.
- [31:53]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah, right. Exactly. So you might actually freeze. So versus if you're in a very fluid movement. If you think about it, all of a sudden, I don't know, a tiger jumps out there. Right.
- [32:05]
Host
Which would be weird.
- [32:06]
Harpreet Rai
It would be weird in your house. Right. We'd be freaking out. Right. But someone who probably has higher heart rate variability, that's more of a parasympathetic state, controlling themselves. Right. Would be like, okay, I'm gonna push Tom away and run that way. Right. The tiger's there. Cool. Right. Like, but I'm gonna. You know, I might think on my feet a little bit quicker. I'll grab this mug when I'm running away so I can chuck it at the tiger's face. Not that that'll help.
- [32:28]
Host
I would appreciate that more than throwing me in front of it, but thank you.
- [32:32]
Harpreet Rai
But you know, someone in a fluid state, if you think about it, when you're fluid, like, something happens and you're just able to shift around it. Right. But if you're. If your heart rate is like, in that very. In a mechanical beat, you almost. You're. You're, like, stressed. You're frozen. So that comes. And you just like. Like you're. You're stiff. Right. You're not able to shift. And so that's the best way I can sort of describe.
- [32:52]
Host
It's super interesting. Okay, so how. How does one drive their heart rate variability higher?
- [33:01]
Harpreet Rai
Sure. I think, you know, a lot of the things we talked about. Sleep tend to also help.
- [33:07]
Host
Sleeping itself will change your heart rate variability.
- [33:09]
Harpreet Rai
Most people will have higher HRV during. When they sleep versus during the day. There tends to be lots of micro stresses during the day. You know, whether you have two cups of coffee, you have to go to the bathroom, it's a stressor. You're in traffic, it's a stressor. And actually, it's how you, you know, sort of your body and your mind, like, accumulates all that stress and reacts to it over the course of the night. So sleep definitely. Like, you'll tend to see your HRV dip in the early part of the night and go up towards the morning. So meaning like you're recovering throughout the night. So most people, I would say what we do know, there's been a lot more research done on meditation. So in the beginning actually bad meditators are stressing out, so their HRV tends to go down. But more experienced meditation meditators tend to actually raise their HR stressing out if
- [33:54]
Host
they're bad at meditation.
- [33:55]
Harpreet Rai
I mean, it's like you want to focus on certain, you know, not. You want to focus on not, you know, having all these thoughts come to your head. Right. So you tend to like try to focus and think too hard almost and you're like, wait, I shouldn't be having that thought, I shouldn't be having that. And it tends to be stressful. So I think that's like what we've seen. So we have a meditation mode coming
- [34:14]
Host
out soon that we have stoked on that.
- [34:16]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [34:16]
Host
So what are you guys looking for in that?
- [34:19]
Harpreet Rai
In the meditation?
- [34:20]
Host
Yeah, like heart rate variability.
- [34:21]
Harpreet Rai
We're looking at heart rate variability. We're looking at heart rate. We're also looking at actually peripheral body temperature. Your core and your periphery tends to be pretty correlated at night. So we look at that change every single night in the oura ring. But actually even during meditating, very good meditators, and this has been documented even with some Tibetan monks, are able to actually increase the circulation and the blood flow and actually have a positive impact on their, on their temperature. It's another metric that we will report to people where you'll be able to track your meditation.
- [34:58]
Host
Do you get biofeedback in real time so that I could see what I'm doing?
- [35:02]
Harpreet Rai
We're trying to do it after the session. I think, you know, one of those things, you don't want to be distracted during it. But we're going to play around with it and we'll see what people want and how they feel. But I do, you know, one of the things we're looking at is doing different types of modes of meditation, seeing if that has an impact on different types of people, you know, whether it's, you know, TM or Vedic or whatever it might be. So maybe mindfulness sessions. Right. Just having self gratitude and breathing right over trying to focus on a specific meditation type might be pretty interesting. So no, we're excited to release it. We should have it out. You know, I would say before the end of April.
- [35:39]
Host
Whoa.
- [35:39]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [35:40]
Host
One thing I will say that I was, I was, I was sad by is that if I take a nap, you can't Tell me if I like what my things were. It just shows up as rest.
- [35:51]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [35:52]
Host
Without the breakdown.
- [35:53]
Harpreet Rai
Most people during naps, first of all, you don't tend to go into REM and deep sleep. Really? Yeah.
- [35:59]
Host
Just light.
- [35:59]
Harpreet Rai
Just light. I would say that's the first reason.
- [36:02]
Grainger Narrator 2
If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing, support supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [36:32]
Harpreet Rai
The second reason is whenever we, you know, when we created the Oura ring, right. And we, what we actually did is, you know, like all these other devices do, you go in a sleep lab, you get the full EEG equipment and you put some your devices on them and you calibrate the algorithms. And so trying to do sleep studies for naps is actually a lot harder. There isn't a lot of good data on that versus overnight sleep labs. So that's another reason we are trying to make it more apparent in the app that you are having a nap versus just that rest feature. But we're working on it and maybe even for certain people, maybe. Getting back to your question of, hey, if we want to be professional sleepers, don't nap late, Right. If you nap late later in the day, you know, I would say like after four or five, you actually end up hurting your sleep most often that night as well. So I think if you do look at some of the older cultures who would nap, you know, they tended to actually nap. Even some of them in the, in the early, like in the. Call it mid morning, like before noon. And then I think also that's more in some. In Africa, if you look at some of the old cultural, you know, just sort of how, you know, anthropologic type stuff. But then also I would say in the Latin culture, you know, tends not to go too late, right. So like you want to hit that siesta time period, not at 5 or 6, but, you know, maybe at 2 or 3. Right.
- [37:49]
Host
What are some things you can't track right now that you think would be super meaningful if you could.
- [37:53]
Harpreet Rai
Ooh, it's a great question. I do think there's a lot of work being done on emotional, like tracking motions, emotions. There's some work being done in St. Louis. I forget which university that shows using HR and HRV, mainly HRV data being able to, with some self input, be able to track emotions. I think that's pretty cool.
- [38:15]
Host
So one, one of the things that's super interesting about oura ring and wearables in general, quite frankly, is the amount of data you must have is really incredible.
- [38:24]
Harpreet Rai
Sure.
- [38:24]
Host
So would you start associating and saying, okay, these like three or four metrics in this pattern equal anger, frustration, sadness, like that kind of thing.
- [38:33]
Harpreet Rai
So the way you would have to typically do that. Right. Is again, you'd have to do it with the gold standard first. Right. So you would have to a certain amount of participants or subjects set up a study where you have 50 of them and get them to report certain emotions and see if there's changes in that physiological data that you can now create an algorithm against. And then you go and you predict it on another cohort, let's say another 25 people, and see if it's true. Like, hey, show certain screens, videos or audio. Is this causing anger? Right. And if we see anger on the algorithm, wow, man.
- [39:06]
Host
I really think that would be pretty extraordinary. So going back to what you were saying earlier, we've got all this data coming in and. But we didn't, we didn't even dive deep on this. And you mentioned like the suicide rates are like the highest they've ever been and all this stuff and.
- [39:20]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [39:20]
Host
And you know, we touch our devices 150 times a day, which is once every six minutes, which is really, really terrifying. And when I think about some recent changes that I've made in my life for many, for a different reason, but I'm seeing the impact that it has on my wellbeing, which is really, really interesting, is to shut off all alerts so that no one can ring the doorbell when I'm trying to have the party with my friends. Yeah, basement. Nice analogy. And that like being able to give people feedback on their emotions. Like I'm even thinking, okay, as a CEO, one of the things I think about are, are my, is my team thriving? Like, is this the right place for them?
- [39:57]
Harpreet Rai
Yep.
- [39:58]
Host
And because I'm well aware that this is not going to be the right place for every human being, totally knowing that they're able to like, yo, you've been. 70% of your day has been spent in frustration or anger or sadness. Like, that would be so usable. And I think people get so blind to where they really are. Like, when I think about that, my phone constantly like pinging Me, it didn't dawn on me how corrosive that was to my productivity for years. So to think that I could have had or am currently having the same kind of blindness to an emotion or that my teammates are having the same kind of blindness to their emotion, like, wow, that would be really, really powerful.
- [40:37]
Harpreet Rai
I guess we think about this internally, right? And so one of the things we think about is our mission statement, right? So our mission statement is to empower people to own their potential ownership, meaning, you know, what you need to do to actually be in a peak state. Right. Or have high potential. And what does high potential mean? It can be sort of mental productivity, it can be emotional, it can be physical, it can also be dietary as well. And so if we think about those states of sort of potential or even health, right. These four pillars of health, mental health, physical health, sleep and diet, we want to help people achieve and figure out what actually works for them in those different states. Right. In those different areas of health and well being. And so I think what's interesting is, you know, there's been a lot done in activity and a lot in diet. I think the reality is only about 10% of people in the US work out every week. 99.9% of people sleep every night.
- [41:37]
Host
Wait, wait, wait, go back. What percentage work out every week?
- [41:40]
Harpreet Rai
10% every week. Every week. Whoa. Yeah. Now ironically, it actually is those who work out like it ends up being, they end up working out like three times plus a week. So the ones that are working out are actually working out pretty consistently.
- [41:53]
Host
I didn't really realize it was that bad.
- [41:54]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah. And then if you, you know, but just thinking about those four things on sort of health and well being. So there's activity, there's diet, sleep, and let's call it cognitive, mental. Right. But 99.9% of people sleep every night and 99.9% of people have some type of emotion or cognitive performance as well every day. Right. And I would say, you know, trying to get people to eat a certain way is pretty hard from a product, you know. And I think think we're going to get there in the future, that we'll have better AR and VR to make it easier to ingest what you're eating passively without typing everything in. My fitness pal. And then working out too. I think there's been a lot done that was the first side of wearables. So I think as to where I would love or things, I would love to be able to help measure sleep because that's sort of how you start your day, how you wake up, how you feel. There's a lot built on that 30 seconds you spend with yourself in the morning when you're in bed, deciding to get up or not. I think that sort of sets the day. And then also, you know, your feelings, whether most of us realize it or don't anymore, because every six minutes we're distracted, also have an impact on sort of how you feel and perform throughout the day. Right. And so I think if we think about what can go into a wearable that has an impact on your daily life, like, those two areas to us as a company, are extraordinarily interesting. I think emotions is hard, and it's also scary if you start to think about if you had that information, if you were an advertiser, think of. You could design the perfect ad for the perfect person to have them feel seduction or arousal. Right, Right. So that gets a little scary. But now I think there'll be a ground truth of, like, hey, actually, no, this is how I feel. You know, the Ben and Jerry's carton of ice cream was designed for me to finish the whole thing in that pint. Right, right. The Sour Patch Kids had, you know, hundreds of engineers, you know, figuring out exactly how to make it feel great, no matter sort of who you are and what your taste buds are. Right. And so I think at the same time, like, if you do have this type of technology, there are going to be parties that are using it for their own profit. But I also think at the same time, this technology is needed so people understand that, hey, this is what's happening to me. Wearing a continuous glucose monitor is awesome because when you eat that pine and Ben and Jerry's, you see that data and you're like, holy cow, I am beyond diabetic when I eat that whole pint. So. So I think data is empowering, and so can we be a platform that helps you connect with yourself and the lifestyle choices that you're making during the day that have an ultimate impact on how you know what your potential is.
- [44:24]
Host
Yeah. What do you think about blood monitoring? Have you worn a continuous glucose monitor?
- [44:28]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [44:29]
Host
It's dope, right? What should people be doing now to go out of their way to find that stuff? Or should they? Or maybe it's lifestyle. Like, what do you. You wore a continuous glucose monitor, so I'm assuming that you put some value personally in blood measurements. Sure. What else do you track in?
- [44:45]
Harpreet Rai
Own life, man. My own life. I. There's definitely been periods in my life when I Do track what I eat, my body composition, my weight. Just as someone who gained a lot of weight and then wanted to lose it, I found that extremely helpful for me to learn what was working with my body and what wasn't. And so like I did, you know, I probably tracked everything in a spreadsheet for three years. Every single meal at one point, you know, and because after banging I got up to 185, almost 190. And then I got, I got, got back, I got down to 135.
- [45:17]
Host
How do you. What was your protocol for losing the fat?
- [45:21]
Harpreet Rai
Oh man. A lot of experimentation with spreadsheets. You know, did you do it all
- [45:25]
Host
through diet or were you working out
- [45:28]
Harpreet Rai
and working out but and still wasn't focused on sleep? I wish I'd known more about it because that helps a lot too. So yeah, I tried. First I did keto. I probably did keto for a period of two years.
- [45:39]
Host
Straight, straight, straight, always in constraint.
- [45:41]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah. And again, something I just didn't know at the time, right. That hey, it might be actually beneficial to cycle. I probably lost the first 20 pounds doing keto and working out, but then plateaued. I actually shifted to then just like carb cycling. So, you know, more or less trying to be keto most of the time. But the days I work out really hard, have more carbs and just moderation and caloric, you know, having caloric deficit. So someone just tracking like if you don't know and you struggle with weight, you know, like Peter diamond is saying that he has on your rules, right? Like if you don't have a target, you're guaranteed to miss it, right. So I think that helps. Blood work, I think is interesting. I think as we age especially like there can be early indicators there of long term health that are interesting to look at. I think sleep is like the leading indicator from everything we know about sleep and the impact on your hormonal stasis and mental cognition as an individual like that to me became like this is actually one of the easiest things to track that can actually end up not just impacting how you sleep, but your whole day, the next day. So that's why I was super fascinated by it. And you do it every night, right? And I think it's harder to think of because it's not. Most people don't think of it as something that it's an active state because it's a passive state dieting. You gotta make a food decision when you walk in that salad bar or do you grab the burger and fries and the soda. Right. So it's an active decision, working out. Do I do, you know, high intensity workout, CrossFit? Do I do aerobic? Again, an active decision. I think the sleep, one of the reasons why it is now becoming popular but has taken some time to focus on it is because most people just think of a just go to bed. I don't think about it, I just, I turn off the lights and I lay in bed and you know, but now as more people are struggling with it, I think now attention is coming to how can I improve it and how can I sleep better. But I do think sleep is a really good leading indicator to track and one of the easiest ones. Less painful than writing spreadsheets. You don't even have to work out, you know, you can just wear a device like ours and start to get, you know, figure out some small changes that might lead to big changes in how you feel and perform.
- [47:49]
Host
Do different types of exercise have different effects on sleep? So if I'm just like for instance, I lift, I almost never do cardio.
- [47:56]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [47:57]
Host
Is that going to have one sort of sleep pattern versus if I do just cardio but I don't lift or.
- [48:03]
Harpreet Rai
So you know what the best exercise in the world is, right. Do tell the one you're not doing. Interesting. Why?
- [48:08]
Host
Just because variation matters, I think.
- [48:10]
Harpreet Rai
Well, I think in terms of just like mechanical structures and whether you're flexible or strength. Right. Changing it up helps a lot. I think what we see from our data that I can speak about is that later in the evening or even just in general having light types of workouts mixed with heavy hard workouts, again, that variation do actually help you recover. So we've even seen it with some pro sports teams we're working with. They'll end up actually seeing that, hey, you know, and let's take ProFootball. Their HRV and their sleep may be totally terrible come come Sunday night. And so when they look at on Monday, what we're seeing, some of the teams start to do is alter the actual exercise protocol. So what they'll start to do is actually let's not go super heavy on the weights, let's do some light cardio, maybe 30 minutes of cardio with like some intervals in there, right. And do a lot of stretching and mobility work. Right. To help open up, recover. And that actually then improves their sleep, which means they can hit it harder on Tuesday or Wednesday. And so I think we've seen that in our data that these light workouts and specifically probably more cardio and you Know, sort of call it, you know, mobility or flexibility, you know, yoga or even just foam rolling, stretching do. Can actually really improve your sleep quite a bit because it gets back into that same recovery state that you're in. Yeah.
- [49:32]
Host
So recovery, that's really interesting. And I've heard you talk about how, God, it was Brady and somebody else who were Talking about clocking LeBron maybe I think like 10 hours or something crazy like that.
- [49:42]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah, something crazy. And using the hyperbaric chamber. I mean, he does interesting.
- [49:47]
Host
Now that I didn't hear. So tell people what hyperbaric oxygen is and then tell me why that's helping you sleep.
- [49:53]
Harpreet Rai
I actually haven't experimented much with hyperbaric, so I, I can't speak to that one. I've seen it being used by a couple different people, athletes also other certain types of individuals that are just super high performers. Super quantified cell for biohackers where they use it for periods of time to almost cause that stress, which then causes you to sleep better and recover better. But yeah, I think it's, it's really, really interesting. I think, you know, if you think about it, you don't get stronger in the gym. You get stronger actually out of the gym. And in the gym you're actually getting weaker. Right. You're breaking that muscle down. Right. It's that recovery process. Right. That actually happens. It allows the muscle to grow stronger and take a more continued load. And so I think people are sort of messing around with different types of stressors that might cause then greater recovery. So I think that's why hyperbaric chambers, like as you put from a science perspective, are really interesting.
- [50:44]
Host
Super interesting.
- [50:45]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah. All right.
- [50:46]
Host
Speaking of more interesting stuff, where can these guys find you online?
- [50:49]
Harpreet Rai
Oh, website is oraring.com just www.o r a ring r a n g dot com.
- [50:58]
Host
Nice.
- [50:59]
Harpreet Rai
Yeah.
- [51:00]
Host
If people could only change one thing to have the biggest impact on their health, what would you want them to change?
- [51:07]
Harpreet Rai
Well, I would say sleep, but in order to change your sleep, I think it's a couple of different things that we talked about. I do think when you just look at the science, I think there's a great analogy that Matthew Walker had. If I could give you a pill and this pill would improve your memory, help you live longer and fight off cancer, reduce your blood pressure, increase the quality of your skin and your hair and how you look, also your testosterone production and your muscle repair. Who wouldn't want to take that pill? Everyone would. Right. And that pill is sleep. Right. Yet 45% of us get less than six hours a night. And. Yeah. And so it's sort of crazy what's been happening, I think with modern technology and the change in our lifestyle as humans that now we're using technology to help bring some of that lifestyle and consciousness back.
- [52:01]
Host
Awesome. Well, guys, sleep. I. I obviously cannot recommend this one enough. You can find more information on Harpreet and everything they're doing at Oura Ring Dive in. Check it out. It's so powerful. Like you said, it's the biggest change that you could make. I really believe that. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Thank you so much for coming on, man.
- [52:23]
Harpreet Rai
Appreciate it.