← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Loading summary
Transcript61 lines
- [00:00]
Grainger Advertiser
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 Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
Grainger Advertiser (University Maintenance)
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 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.
- [01:00]
Host
Welcome to Health Theory. My mission in life is to pull people out of the matrix by helping them build an empowering mindset. But the reality of personal empowerment is that while mindset is critical, the body and the mind are so interconnected that if you don't get your health in order, you will never unleash your full potential. To that end, with this show, I'm bringing on the world's most important thinkers on a wide variety of health related topics so you can learn how to maximize your potential. Today's guest is the best selling author of Sleep Smarter, host of the Model Health show, one of the most popular and longest running podcasts on health and fitness, and he's one of the top nutrition experts in the country. Additionally, he's the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance, a functional medicine clinic, and as well as someone who's been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Men's Health Magazine, and countless other major media outlets including espn. He's also a frequent keynote speaker for numerous organizations, universities and conferences. So please help me in welcoming the man who cured his own incurable degenerative spine disease, Shawn Stevenson. Shawn, thank you for being here man.
- [02:08]
Shawn Stevenson
Very grateful, grateful.
- [02:10]
Host
So I'm super stoked to have you. We've flipped before where I had a chance to be on the other side of you asking me questions, which was a lot of fun and now diving into your world and I think virtually anybody starting an interview with you would start with the sleep stuff, but I want to flip it and I want to talk about sprinting. We're coming around the corner, we hit that final stretch and your Hip breaks.
- [02:31]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah.
- [02:31]
Host
What happened? And then what were the knock on effects?
- [02:34]
Shawn Stevenson
Wow. You know, this was. Make sure that this is, this is incredibly important at track practice. I'm coming around the, the curve onto the straightaway, and I broke my hip and there was no trauma involved. Nobody hit me. I didn't fall. It just broke. Because, you know, cut to a few years later, I finally get diagnosed with this degenerative bone disease. And at the time being 16 years old, you know, you have the hormones of like a, a Greek God, you know, so, you know, you get the kind of standard of care, you know, take these NSAIDs, stay off the leg, you'll get better. And I did. But nobody stopped to ask a question. How can a young man break his hip just from running? And once I finally got this diagnosis, it was, it felt good to know what the issue was, but also, it kind of sent my world into a tailspin.
- [03:21]
Host
Yeah, that it's pretty crazy that it broke. It's really crazy that they didn't ask why it happened. But the thing that I find most interesting in the story is that you decide to ask the question, what are my vertebrae made of?
- [03:35]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah.
- [03:35]
Host
And taking that ownership, which you must have been like your late teens at that point.
- [03:38]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah. So this is cut to. So this was 20 years old when I finally get the diagnosis. And I'm in college at the time, and, you know, I went from like a chronic kind of nuisance of a pain to chronic debilitating pain over the course of a few weeks. And this is important for, and I always like to share this whenever I can. My very first physician, you know, he put my MRI up for me to see, and he told me that I had the spine of an 80 year old man. You know, I had two ruptured discs and my vertebrae were deteriorating. And so when he says this to me, you know, I'm immediately like, okay, so what do we do? Like, let's fix it, you know, and he's like, you know, I'm sorry, son, there's nothing you could do about this. And what happened? And I know you've heard about this several times. The placebo effect is something where you get a positive injunction from somebody who's an authority figure, and you proceed to have certain symptoms happen or changes in your physiology. And a lot of people don't realize this, but placebos are actually 33% effective. That's the power of the mind. But what he did for me was something called a nocebo effect. This is giving somebody a negative injunction that Something bad is going to happen, and your physiology begins to change from that. And so I spent the next two and a half years in a lot of pain, a lot of drugs prescribed and over the counter and just laying on my floor, you know, because not only was this painful, but it was embarrassing. You know, I went from kind of being one of the cool guys to like, I'm walking around campus with a back brace and just, you know, really kind of losing myself. I saw different doctors. I, you know, went through the whole gamut of, why me? Why did this happen to me? Why won't somebody help me? And really playing this victim role. And. And it wasn't until I actually decided to get well that everything changed. And most people never do that with their bodies, with their health, with their relationships. It's mostly like, I'll see what'll happen. Wishful thinking. I'll give this a try. But when you really decide something, you're cutting away the possibility of anything else but that thing. And I'm a big student of lexicon. And the word decision is from the Latin day meaning from and kaideer, which means to cut. So when you make a real decision about something, you cut away the possibility of anything else but that thing. And so I decided no matter what, I'm going to get well. And that's in me. And it wasn't like, you know, the clouds parted and like the sunshine and everything was okay. I'm a very analytical person as well. And so I put a plan together. I decided, and now it's time to do something, you know, number one, put a plan together. And that plan entailed three specific things. I changed the way I was eating, which giving my body the actual raw materials that it needed to regenerate me was important. And I was on what I called the tough diet at the time, which is typical university food. So I'm no joke. I'm eating pizza daily. My vitamin C is coming, like, from sunny D. And so it's no wonder. I was made out of, like, I was made out of terrible stuff, you know. And so I asked this really important question, which you mentioned. Okay, if my spine is deteriorating, if my bones are deteriorating, what is it actually made of? And that sent me down this incredible path of discovery, because what we hear in common culture is, you know, if you want strong, healthy bones, drink milk. And come to find out, calcium is one of the least important things. And even getting it from your diet, it doesn't exactly work in your body the way that we're marketed to because it's marketing. And so I found out that things like silica, magnesium, sulfur bearing amino acids, all these things are in some cases even more important. So I start to get all those nutrients in my body through food primarily. Once I really got it, like food is going to.
- [07:09]
Host
And was that. So how did you get that? Because that's where it's. It's becoming a lot more popular now. But when you would have been going through this feeling really think like that?
- [07:18]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah, I mean, this is around the
- [07:19]
Host
time I was thinking if I was eating licorice and it was fine because it was fat free, right? And somebody said, well, I think if you eat too much sugar, it turns into fat. And like that didn't even make sense to me. I was like, how would that be possible?
- [07:30]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah, especially I'm from the Midwest. And so like there was like a wild oats market. Whole Foods just opened. And so I think it's really important, the environment, you know. And I had some friends, they would take me to the stores and then, you know, that gradually got me into like, not just the supplement aisle. And so I just began to flood my body with all these important nutrients and also hydration. You're disc in between the vertebrae and your spine. And you would think, like, if I want these to be more hydrated, I need to drink more water. But it doesn't work like that. Your disc get hydrated through a process called remote diffusion. And so literally it's like the last place in your body that gets nutrients and hydration. And so you needed to really super hydrate yourself, make sure your body has an abundance, like an overflow of nutrients to make sure they get to the right place. So that was. Number one was nutrition. Number two was movement. And so exercise is really about two main things. Number one is assimilation. And I came across some research that showed that when you actually are doing walking while taking on specific supplements for your bones, your bone density goes even higher. All right? Because that walking helps your body to assimilate. Number two is elimination, you know, elimination of toxins. Because your lymphatic system, which especially when you're getting healthier, your body is trading out a lot of stuff. And there's a lot of dead cells, there's a lot of metabolic waste products. And so how do you get that stuff out of your system? You have to move because your lymphatic system doesn't have a pump like your cardiovascular system does. And you actually have four times more lymph than you do blood. And so that movement was so important in healing. And here's the problem is that oftentimes when you have, you know, an injury or an issue like this, we're told not to do anything. That's often the worst thing you can do because things will start to atrophy if you don't use it, you'll lose it. And so I just started to. And it's, of course, if anybody's dealing with, like, an acute problem right now, like, take a day or two off. But I encourage people to do what you can in an intelligent way. And so for me, I could barely walk properly. And so I started off on a stationary bike, progressed to treadmill. I started jogging a little bit. Eventually I picked up the weights again and, you know, just to jump really quickly to the end of the story. I had lost 28 pounds in the next six, six weeks. And the pain I've been experiencing for two and a half years was gone. But the third and most important part now I know, was the rest and recovery, right? It seems like I was resting a lot by not doing anything, but it really wasn't. You know, it was a lot of suffering. And my greatest struggle was at night going to bed because the pain was so bad it would wake me up. And so I was on, you know, various medications, and I basically had to drug myself to not wake up. And so it was like a pseudo sleep. And it would take several hours before I really, like, felt like I was awake. And the things that I was doing during the day, changing my lifestyle, showed up for me on the pillow. Because what I really wanted to promote for people is this understanding that if you're not sleeping well, you're not healing well. And this is where your body releases the vast majority of human growth hormone of the, you know, these various anabolic hormones, reparative enzymes. So when my sleep got improved, I got better so fast. And so I shifted all my coursework over to biology and kinesiology and eventually opened a clinical practice. And, you know, oftentimes I would get those people who they were told, there's nothing you can do. You know, you have type 2 diabetes, blood sugars 400. Without metformin, there's nothing you can do about it. And consistently seeing these folks be able to naturally regulate their blood sugar, oftentimes get off their medications, insulin, things like that, because where there's a will, there's 10,000 ways. But it's also understanding that, first of all, just acknowledging that it is possible.
- [11:16]
Host
And that's what I love about your story, man, that, like, Hearing you tell that the, and I've heard you quote the Einstein quote before, that the most important decision anyone will ever make is whether or not they live in a hostile or friendly universe, which a most people don't recognize that as a choice or a decision. And then to that from that then people will take action because they believe that they will get an outcome. How did you come to that decision that you live in a universe that's going to work for you when the doctor is the one telling you, multiple doctors in fact, because you said, look, I was conscious of going and getting multiple opinions. This wasn't one guy, they all said the same thing. So how in the face of that do you make that decision? One day I am going to get better.
- [11:59]
Shawn Stevenson
I think it's really valuable to understand the, the benefit of rock bottom. You know, like for me after getting those, the words from the other doctors that, you know, there's nothing, you know, the same diagnosis I had a choice to make. I'm either going to buy into this and continue to live as a victim or I'm going to do something about it. At least try, you know. But for me it's beyond try. Like it's the decision, right? And so how I got to that place really was, you know, I had nothing to lose at that point. You know, I can continue as things are and continue in this suffering. And I think it was just a matter of like realizing that I think this is really important. Even though there are other people in our lives that might care for us, they don't walk in our shoes, you know. So when the physician would tell me that, you know, there's nothing that I could do, I knew like it hit me like they're not laying at home thinking about me, I'm thinking about them and why they can't help me. I have to really take responsibility for myself. And it's just basic logic, you know, if somebody's saying they can't help, you believe them, you know. And so I made the decision like if, if I'm going to get better, I need to do it, you know, I need to take action. It doesn't mean I'm not going to have great people to support me along the way. But you know, as Jim Rohn says, no one can do your push ups for you, you know. So I really had to take action. And it became, you know, and also I want to share this is that if you really want something, you should make a study of it, you know, especially if you don't necessarily have a Blueprint for a successful relationship, make it a study. If you're not doing well with your finances, make it a study.
- [13:34]
Host
And how, what does that look like for you?
- [13:36]
Shawn Stevenson
I generally go right to the medical journals, you know, I dig through there and another quote from Einstein is that, you know, if you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough. And so I really strive to make sense of these things that can be incredibly complex, but for no reason. It wasn't until I really honored my own voice and my gift in helping these things to really make sense for people. And so I'll dig around in that data and that's the first thing I'll do. And then I'll look for some anecdotal and evidence as well, you know, people telling stories about it. But here's something else I do. I also, and this is the scary part, I also look at the problems with stuff. I also look at the things that are against what I might be believing. Most people don't want to do that. Like we believe this particular supplement is going to work and it's the best thing, you know, since sliced bread. And then there's these other things that say, hey, wait a minute, this might not be the case. You have to have the courage to look at this too and come to an a truly well evolved thought construct, you know, and we all have that opportunity, but we tend to just want to believe what we believe and look for things to affirm that, you know, and you gotta be careful with studies that do the same thing and who's funding the study as well. So I really get to that level most of the time in my research.
- [14:51]
Host
It's really interesting to me how, and look, like you said, look at the benefits of rock bottom. But it's really interesting to me how early you came to a lot of this. And I find how people tell their own story to be fascinating beyond all measure. And the opening of your bio says the beginning, the first half of my childhood was spent in an idyllic suburban neighborhood. And the second half of my childhood was in the rough and tumble inner cities around gangs and drugs. And you said the power came from both places. And it really helped me understand perspective. How much of that, if it all played into your ability to sort of see through the trappings of everyone telling you it can't be solved in a way that I. You say it's just logic, but I think most people fall prey to that and they live there for 60, 70 years. So how much of that mindset that you got from that sort of dual beginning, do you think played into it.
- [15:43]
Shawn Stevenson
Man, that really hit an emotional chord hearing you say that. You know, that initial environment was really, it lays a foundation. Well before the age of about 7, we're in like a theta brainwave state where a lot of things kind of get deep, deeper into our psyche and our subconscious, our programming. And so it's really important especially for, for parents, you know, and people who are just that can be involved in kids lives to really understand how impressionable they are. And so I really got a great formatting, kind of formatting disc for my grandmother who really kind of instilled this greatness. She instilled the value of education. I loved learning, like I love the process of learning. And so I really picked up early on that you don't want to just learn stuff, you want to become good at learning. And when I shifted my, my residency, you know, going from this very protected, safe, loving atmosphere, you know, I'm in an environment where, you know, there's a lot of abuse, you know, physical abuse towards myself and my two younger siblings, you know, abuse with my mother and stepfather and the fight, you know, physical fighting. You know, holidays were not like they are now, like get togethers and family fun. We know the holiday is going to be, police are going to show up, you know, that that environment also taught me something really, really valuable which is, you know, even though things aren't going well, even though we're short on money, there's always a way to figure it out. No matter how bad things look, we're going to be okay. So that really was a powerful seed. And combine that with the sense of greatness, the sense of the value of education, the sense of there's always a way to figure something out. Really helped that moment of insight to take place of that decision, that moment of decision. And this is the first time I've articulated this, but that's really how those two things come together.
- [17:39]
Grainger Advertiser
This is a paid message from GoFundMe. Meet Juan Naula. When his son was hospitalized for a viral infection, Juan started a GoFundMe to pay for medical expenses.
- [17:50]
Juan Naula
It was 5k to pay the bill for my son and I need only 22 hours. It was amazing. People really trust on GoFundMe.
- [17:58]
Grainger Advertiser
How did Juan raise $5,000 in less than a day? He posted a short video on GoFundMe telling his story in 30 seconds.
- [18:06]
Juan Naula
30 seconds. Be specific, be quick and tell what are you going to be using the funds for? I was nervous to do it because it doesn't feel okay to ask money. But you shouldn't be nervous. Sometimes you just have to do it and see the results. We were able to save my son's life thanks to gofundme that we still have my son with us.
- [18:29]
Grainger Advertiser
Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this message reflects one person's experience.
- [18:39]
Grainger Advertiser (University Maintenance)
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 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 Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [19:09]
Host
Dude, I'm stoked that you shared that. That's. It's so powerful. And in taking you as a whole and watching your show and watching you on other people's shows, there's this incredible zen like quality to your delivery, to your mission, to what you want to do. Like everything about it is, is so even keel, right? Because what I find with people that make that transition is it normally breaks them. And one of the things that I'm most intrigued about in life is, and we were just out of the chills, we were just talking about this before we started rolling camera. Where you were saying with schools, right? Do you go to one ultra tailored or do you go, that's going to be the hardship where my kids have to adapt and I don't know what's better because the number of people that are broken by the inner cities, the percentage has got to be absurd, right? And 80, 90, it's just crazy. But the people that make it, the ones that find that center, whether it's to be self centered or not, they find that sense of self. When you said that, that really hit me that finding that sense of self, not letting the outside world dictate who they're going to be like now all of a sudden, adversity is not such a big deal because you've got that compass inside of you and you know where you're going. That feels to me very appropriate for what you've become known for, which is sleep, which even your own publisher was like, write a diet book and you'll be huge and famous and we'll all be rich. And you were like, but that's not the truth that needs to be told. Yeah. Did that play in, like, was that a moment of Sean being. Knowing who he is and what he's trying to do and he's just going to get to that end no matter what?
- [20:55]
Shawn Stevenson
You know what? Wow. Yes, that definitely was. You know, I, I don't want to cut corners. I wanted, you know, it's. Integrity is a big word for me. And I wanted to take righteous action. You know, this was, this is all bigger than us. You know, the impact that you're making, the legacy that you're leaving, you know, is so powerful. And. And we are part of like a big change that, that's happening with our culture overall, you know, and I knew that this particular topic is. And me being a nutritionist, like, I was all like, food matters, food first, food is the most important thing. But in my practice and seeing people coming in that, you know, we've got these folks over Here, you know, 80% of the time are able to reverse type 2 diabetes, heart disease, get off their lisinoprils and all this different stuff. And then we've got this category of people who just like, literally sometimes would ironically kind of keep me up at night, like, what is wrong? Like, I'm doing all these things right? Are they lying to me? And then it wasn't until I started to ask people about their sleep that it just like it changed everything. And this was about six years ago. And so then, and here's the key, I can't just tell people they need to sleep more. You know, this, like, people don't want to change that much. Like we want change, but we want to be a little bit right. And so I found clinically proven strategies that are super easy to implement almost things that can happen on automatic to help them improve their sleep quality. Right. And once we did that, it's like the floodgates would open for people, you know, been struggling for sometimes, you know, 15, 20 years with their weight. Finally the weight comes off, you know, and seeing people struggling with heart disease or high cholesterol, you know, the so called bad cholesterol, and seeing those numbers finally get regulated once we got their sleep optimized. And I knew that this was incredibly important part of the conversation that was left out. And as we'll talk about, I know now that our sleep quality is more important than our diet and exercise combined and what it does for our health and also literally our physical appearance. Fascinating stuff, how much more fat you lose when you get optimal sleep. It's. It's insane.
- [23:10]
Host
That's a bold statement. So walk me through. What are some of the, the just core benefits that I'm going to get, assuming that I'm sleeping suboptimally? Like, why is that a problem? Since that's probably one of the most celebrated, like, things, like, when you get a little sleep, people, like, champion you. Normally, I'd sleep five to six hours a night with no alarm. Okay. I haven't set an alarm in 15 years. So that's just. That was my cycle. I go to bed early very consistently. My diet is on point, my exercise is on point. And so I'd wake up feeling awesome. And so I thought, this is cash money, but because I don't set an alarm, that my sleep cycle will change. And right now I'm getting like seven to nine hours out of nowhere and super consistently. And I literally have no idea why I'm warmer now. So I used to be freezing cold at all times. And then at the same time that my. And, I don't know, correlated causative, no idea. I've started being warmer while I sleep and then during the day. So what are like the core components of sleep? Was something bad happening to me or less than optimal when I was only getting six hours, even though I felt good?
- [24:22]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah.
- [24:23]
Host
Any correlation between the heat and the extra sleep?
- [24:26]
Shawn Stevenson
There's, there's, there's a lot to unpack there. Number one, what's so interesting is that you, you were doing something exceptionally right as far as what the research shows with improving your sleep, which is you are going to bed kind of consistently a little bit earlier than other folks might. And so what we're called, what we call this is this anabolic window or what we call money time sleep. And this is generally between the hours of 10 and 2 because it's more lined up with their natural melatonin secretion. So if you go to sleep during those times, you actually spend more time in the deepest, most anabolic stages of sleep. And you tend to produce more human growth hormone than other folks. So you are already winning with that. This is why you have a tendency to feel better, even if you're getting less sleep. Because this isn't called sleep more. Right? It's sleep smarter. And there are many people who sleep, you know, eight to nine hours and they wake up feeling like straight up, you know, hot garbage, you know what I'm saying? And they're just wondering why. It's because it's the quality of sleep. And when I say quality of sleep, what does that Mean, let's break that down. So your sleep is regulated by changes in your brain waves. It's really fascinating stuff. And we still don't know really what sleep is trying to define. Sleep is like trying to define, you know, when force gump is like. Life is like a box of chocolates. Sleep is like pretending to be dead. We don't really know. Right. But we do know the changes that happen in the brain. We cycle from kind of a normal waking state with. With gamma beta. We're probably in beta right now. We move to alpha. Theta Delta is where the deep anabolic dreamless sleep takes place. And we need all of them. And there's a certain percentage we spend in each that helps to rejuvenate our mind and bodies. And if you optimize certain things, you'll do it more efficiently. One of those gear shifts, like, if you think about your body like this kind of manual transmission, is melatonin. Like, people hear about melatonin as a sleep hormone. It just helps your body to efficiently go through your sleep cycles. And if your melatonin is suppressed by various things, you know, I'll share a couple, then you're not going through those efficiently. And you can wake up feeling like a pinata after the party the next day, even though you're spending all this time on the mattress. So that's number one. Number two, there's this interesting process called thermoregulation. There's a natural drop in your core body temperature at night to help facilitate sleep for all of us if things are running properly. But what was fascinating, and I shared a study about this, that they tested insomniacs, and everyone in this particular clinical study all had too high body temperature at night. It would not go down. And so what they did was they fit them with these thermosuits, right? That lowers their skin temperature, not even their core temperature, just one degree, and virtually eliminated all their symptoms of insomnia.
- [27:09]
Host
Whoa.
- [27:10]
Shawn Stevenson
Ambien can't do that. All right. And it's as simple as paying attention to how your body temperature influences your sleep. And so with your body temperature changing like that, it's kind of feeling more of an insulation as a result of having more sleep. There's a ton of different things that could be correlated there. So I'm not going to say that the sleep is a causative factor, but it's really interesting how your body does change in accordance to sleep. And there's a natural rise in your core body temperature as the day goes. As I'm Sorry. As the night goes on, that helps to kind of wake you up. So what I did want to share, though, when I said that kind of bold statement in the beginning, when we're talking about how sleep influences your body composition, I think everybody needs to know this. There was a study, really blew my mind. And this was done at the University of Chicago, and they took people and they put them on a calorie restricted diet. Kind of typical stuff. Again, I'm taught in college to see the impact on weight loss when they're sleep deprived or getting enough sleep. All right, so they put the people on this particular diet, monitor everything. One phase of the study, they're getting eight and a half hours of sleep, all right? Then they track all their metrics. Another phase of the study, same exact diet, same exercise, they don't change anything else. But now they sleep, deprive them and they take away three hours of sleep. So now they're getting five and a half hours of sleep versus eight and a half hours of sleep. At the end of the study, they found that when individuals were well rested, they burned 55% more body fat just by getting more sleep. And so the question is, how does this happen? Melatonin, when I talked about this a little bit earlier, it's not just that it's involved in sleep, it's also involved in fat loss. And this study that was done in the journal Pineal Research found that melatonin production helps to increase your body's mobilization of something called brown adipose tissue. Right. This is a type of fat that burns fat. All right? The reason that it's brown is that it has more mitochondria. So it's very energy dense. Right? These mitochondria, just for people who. I'm sure people have heard of this, but it's like these energy power plants in your cells that are creating the energy currency of your body, like how you experience energy, the energy exchange, something called ATP. And so when you are producing adequate melatonin, you're producing and mobilizing adequate amounts of brown adipose tissue, which just puts you in a metabolically advantaged state. Right? But if you're not getting the melatonin production, which, you've got to meet two requirements. Number one, you need a biological night. So that means this could actually be during the day, but it's a consistent cycle of when it gets produced. But the other requirement needs to be met that you need darkness. Your body produces melatonin exclusively in darkness. And so that's one also. How do you. How do they get that body fat change? HGH production, which we talked about too. Human growth hormone is muscle sparing and it's a big driver of energy. It's also known as a youth hormone. Kids have an insane amount of HGH being produced. This is why they have so much energy. We have a pretty sharp decline in our production right around 18 to 20. But my argument is that around 18 to 20, we generally, in our culture, like we leave the house, we might go to college, that kind of thing. And we no longer have structure, we no longer have rules, and we're not going to produce as much hgh. Third thing really quickly is, and this is all has to do with the diet and the food choices is leptin. All right? And I know people's talked about leptin before, but leptin is your body's kind of glorify satiety hormone. And so when you're producing adequate amounts of leptin, you feel more in control, right? You feel more satiated. But when, when leptin kind of falls off the map or you have leptin, resistance can take place, then we're going to have some pretty big issues with you regulating your cravings, your appetite. And so Stanford University researchers found that just one night of sleep deprivation radically suppresses your leptin. And now I hope folks can start to pay attention whenever you might not get the best sleep. How your cravings change. The next day you're gonna have a tendency to want to, number one, eat more, number two, to want to eat more. Kind of the starchy, crunchy, salty, sugary type things. And I remember my wife, who's actually here when we had our son and I, she's never seen me eat this food. I was sitting there like waiting for the baby to come. I was eating chocolate covered raisins. I was just like. And I didn't even realize I was doing it, you know, it was like 3 o' clock in the morning, you know, and so that's another thing, and last one I'll share. And there's so many that create that change in your body composition, but this one is incredibly important, is cortisol. Cortisol has been drugged through the mud recently. You know, it's getting blamed for everything, but it's not really a bad guy. It's just misunderstood. All right, Cortisol is incredibly important. For example, cortisol is important for your thyroid to work, right? And that's kind of like the metabolism regulator of your body. But here's the thing. Just one night of sleep deprivation radically increases your cortisol and suppresses melatonin actually as well. But this rise in cortisol has a really powerful ability to start to break down your muscle tissue, which your muscles, your body's kind of fat burning machinery. And so it can convert your muscle tissue into glucose. It's a process called gluconeogenesis as a kind of fight or flight response. Because your physiology doesn't know why you're not sleeping. You know, it must be some danger about, you know, and so understanding those major hormones and there's many others, you start to see the picture that gets painted with just how much your sleep quality impacts your physical appearance.
- [32:43]
Host
It's really crazy. I've always known you need sleep, but I didn't know why. And so getting into, or transitioning, I should say, because I always knew you needed sleep, because if I didn't get it, I felt terrible, but that was sort of the end of it. And I even let myself just stop it though. We don't really know why you sleep, but not diving into the real breakdown, which is really fascinating. So, so what are things then that people can do to actually optimize their sleep?
- [33:09]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah, this is what it's really all about. You know, I, I like to start with the low hanging fruit first. And something really, really fascinating is just simply changing or embracing the time of day that you exercise can improve your sleep quality. And so Appalachian State University did a really cool study and they wanted to see what time of day exercising at various times of day, how does it impact your sleep quality? And so they had the study participants to exercise exclusively at 7am and another phase exclusively at 1pm in the afternoon, another phase exclusively at 7pm in the evening. They compiled all the data and at the end of the study, they found that morning exercisers spend more time in the deepest, most anabolic stages of sleep. So they're producing more human growth hormone, they have more efficient sleep cycles, what we've been talking about. They also tend to sleep longer and, and this is the one that kind of can get glanced past. On average, they had about a 25% greater drop in blood pressure at night. So what's, what's up with that? That's correlated with a deactivation of your sympathetic fight or flight nervous system. Right. So you're actually able to shift gears, get to that parasympathetic rest and digest, calming down by getting some exercise in, in the morning. And so how do we employ this though? That's the question, because some people are just like, you know, I can't exercise in the morning. And there's also people who exercise in the morning who might have terrible sleep. And it's because this is not like the magic bullet. This is a thing that's stacking your condition. If you're doing this and then messing up the one I'm going to talk about next, you're probably not going to have the best sleep. So here's how to employ this. Just five minutes. And I tested this each morning I do this five minutes of exercise. You know, it might be just jumping on a rebounder. You know, a little mini trampoline for five minutes, go for a quick power walk, do some Tabata, which is just four minutes and a little mobility work.
- [35:02]
Host
And I guess most people don't know what Tabata is.
- [35:04]
Shawn Stevenson
High intensity interval training. Basically it's 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated over and over again for four minutes. And in his clinical studies, this was found in to outperform, you know, traditional cardio, like the kind of moderate intensity 45 minutes of exercise in four minutes.
- [35:24]
Host
Wow.
- [35:25]
Shawn Stevenson
The change in your cardiovascular benefits, body composition, and also changing your mitochondria as well. This is why it works. It does something called a cortisol reset. All right, and we talked about cortisol, but again, it's a good thing if it's in the right time and the right amount. Clinically, I would call these people tired and wired. That would come in looking at the hormone panels and the cortisol would be really low in the morning and high at night. Thus they have sleep problems. So you naturally, if you're, if your cortisol is on a natural hormone rhythm, it would be elevated at its peak in the morning, right around 6am to 8am and then gradually decline as the day goes.
- [36:01]
Grainger Advertiser
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger 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 Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [36:31]
Host
Does that have to do with what time you wake up?
- [36:34]
Shawn Stevenson
Sort of. I mean, the cortisol will kind of tend to nudge you out of sleep, but also will tend to notice that as the day is, your sleep goes on, it becomes lighter and lighter anyways. Right. This is when you tend to remember your dreams, like at the, at the end of the sleep. And so getting this little boost, like helping your body to propel and get your cortisol up via exercise, helps to reset that rhythm and get you back on track. So that's why it works. So that's, number one, low hanging fruit. Just get in five minutes of exercise, start in the morning. No matter what, just 5 minutes is all you need, is going to help to create this snowball effect of good things for you. You know, five minutes, if this is the time you do go to the gym and do your full workout, so be it. All good. But everybody who's not already doing that, just get that five minutes in the second one. And this one is more of the tough love and the most difficult, but this is the most important one in our culture today. And this has to do with our tech. All right, so Harvard researchers have confirmed that blue light exposure from our favorite devices, you know, our iPads, our iPhones, androids, tablets, televisions, they do in fact suppress your melatonin substantially because it, your
- [37:46]
Host
body essentially thinks the sun's out. Is that the problem?
- [37:48]
Shawn Stevenson
So we have photoreceptors that are always trying to gauge what time it is. Right? Because our bodies are wired up to be in sync with nature. But only recently, like literally just the past few decades, have we been able to manipulate and basically create a second daytime. Right? So your body's just, it doesn't really know how to figure it out. And so the blue and white spectrum specifically are the ones that are more similar to daylight. And so what it's doing is. And so here's what the researchers found. Basically every hour you're on, your device at night suppresses melatonin for about 30 minutes. All right? So if you're on your, you know, you watch a movie, a three hour movie, for example, your melatonin is going to be suppressed. Even if you go to bed right after you, you're not producing adequate melatonin for about an hour and a half. And so again, you can be unconscious from sheer physical exhaustion, but you're not gonna go through your sleep cycles efficiently. And so just be mindful of that. What I encourage people to do is to give yourself a screen Curfew. Just 30 minutes. All right, I don't wanna make this complicated, just 30 minutes. But here's the rub. We are addicted to our devices, like straight up. We just need to be honest. I am, we all are. You know, basically it's because of this dopamine loop, right? Dopamine is so powerful, so interesting. Dopamine is one of the things I truly feel has helped to create our civilization as it is, because it drives us to seek, right? Dopamine drives us to seek and to grow and to find, to discover. The Internet is perfect for manipulating this because every time you look for something, you find something, especially social media, you seek fine, seek fine, produce the dopamine. It drives you to look. But why do you keep going? Is every time you find something, you get a little bit of a hit from your opioid system. It's like this slow drip of morphine. And so it starts to, like, feel really good and to the point where you might be doing your work and, like, you've got a deadline and you just check Instagram real quick. Before, you know, it's like 30 minutes later and you fall into the Internet black hole. Just like it. It just pulls you in. So be aware of that. I'm not saying again, our connection with tech is just going to grow. So I'm not bashing that. It's just be aware of it. And that when you try to abide by this principle, which will really, really help your sleep quality, to give yourself a screen curfew, you can't just sit there and twiddle your thumbs because you'll get what I call the Internet jitters, right? You'll start getting, like, a little bit of a withdrawal effect. Like, let me just check. Why Just one, one post. What we have to do is this. You have to replace it with something of greater or equal value. It's really that simple. Hopefully. This is what I encourage people to do. This is an opportunity to connect, right? Connect with your significant other, your kids, the people, like, physical, like, have a real conversation with somebody, right? I know this sounds crazy, but it really works. It's really, really good. And also this is a great opportunity if you, you know, if you're in a relationship or not, whatever you're into, you could, you know, utilize. And I have a chapter on this as well, intimate Time. Because there's a big connection between sex and sleep. And there's also a big connection between sleep and sex and how it impacts your sex life. And so when we have an orgasm, for example, we produce a chemical, I'm sorry, cocktail of chemicals, including oxytocin, norepinephrine, prolactin and oxytocin, for example, has been found clinically to basically combat the effects of cortisol. And hopefully sex is more interesting than Instagram. But you know, I don't know, it depends on how you're doing it. And so that's what I want people to do. A screen curfew and or use these hacks, utilize some blue light block blockers. And so for your desktops, laptops, things like that, you can get an app called Flux that pulls out the most troublesome sleep sucking spectrum of light from your screen and basically cools your screen off. And it's a simple app, you set it and forget it, it's totally free. Just go to Dr. Google, type in F lux and a couple clicks and it's on your device. I've been using it for maybe five or six years. Love it. And for your telephone, you know, your cell phone we've got on the iPhones built in now is Night Shift with Androids. The best one out there from my research is one called Twilight. You know, so there's options for everybody. Then what about the ambient light at night? Or if you're watching a movie? Again, I don't want to get, don't get too neurotic about it, but if this is a problem for you and you're not sleeping as well as you could be, or your results, your body composition not changing, you're not getting that blood pressure down, you're not having that focus you need through the day, then you might want to address this. But another little hack is to get some blue light blocking glasses. The first ones I had was straight up like I just built a birdhouse, but now there's some really cool, stylish ones that you could rock. As a matter of fact, you'll create a neural association when you put the glasses on and you'll start to get sleepy. You know, it's nuts. And that is another thing right there is to create an evening ritual, right? Your brain is always looking for patterns. A lot of successful people, especially listening to the things that you're putting out there, have a success ritual in the morning. But a great morning starts the night before. You know, a truly great morning. And so a couple of quick things people can do is the thermoregulation piece, turn down your thermostat. All right, now this one's again, this is going to hit a pressure point for some people, but according to research, between 62 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal for sleep. And so for some people it's going to sound a little bit frosty, but lowering the thermostat a little bit can have incredible benefit for your sleep. But this doesn't mean you can't use your covers and put on some warm socks, that kind of thing. So, so cooling off this thermostat, making sure that your bedroom, ideally, I call it a sleep sanctuary. And so that when you walk into your bedroom at night, if your brain has a neuro association, When I go into my bedroom, I'm watching television or I'm working, those channels are going to fire because of the myelin getting laid down. Over the years of you doing that behavior, or even months, it can get laid down. And so you might have the intention of going to bed, but if your TV's in there, your brain is going to be firing, expecting to watch television and parts of your brain are going to be waking up in a way. And so I encourage people to get the tech out of your room. Have your bedroom be a sleep sanctuary, you know, or some place that's just for the double S, which is sleep and sex. Here's also a really interesting reason why there's an Italian study done. They found that couples who have a television in their bedroom have 50% less sex.
- [44:20]
Host
Really?
- [44:21]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. And you know, this is a little bit more middle aged, little past middle age than people in the study. But. And I know some people, like, that's not true. I have sex all the time. You probably do it in a snowstorm. Like it doesn't matter where you are, like you're a human rabbit, it doesn't matter. But for other people, it's like a distraction, right? It's a distraction. And it can also, you know, create all of those kind of chemical suit issues that we've been talking about with elevating cortisol and those kind of things. So ideally, get your television out of the room. The other tech. And last thing, with the sleep environment, I'll share, when I talked about melatonin, you need those two conditions, biological night. And you also need a dark environment. And so if you're in an environment where you're maybe in a suburban or city environment where there's like neighbors, porch lights coming in, there's LEDs outside, cars coming up and down the street, as crazy as this sounds, that small amount of light, what we're now dubbing, light pollution, can have a significant impact on your sleep quality. And here's why we know this. Cornell University, I think, did the best study on this. And they took a test subject and had them sleep in an otherwise dark room. And they took a light, a fiber optic cable and a light the size of a quarter and put it behind their Knee. And that was enough to disrupt their sleep cycle. Because your skin also has photoreceptors that is sending information to your brain, your nervous system, your internal organs to try to tell your body what. What time it is, is trying to figure it out, you know, so we want to get rid of that artificial light exposure. Now, does this mean moonlight and stars?
- [45:54]
Host
No.
- [45:54]
Shawn Stevenson
Humans have evolved with those things. And their lux, like I actually put a lux chart in the book is so small compared to even the weakest fluorescent bulbs. And so get yourself some blackout curtains if that external light is an issue. Internal light, you know, your alarm clocks and you know, light, you know, lamps, you know, some people still are sleeping with their lights on and things like that. Be mindful of that. And also what you can do is just change the bulb color. You know, if you still have issues with the dark, which some adults do, and that's okay, you can change the bulb cover color. And I actually had some NASA scientists or people that work with them to send me some different bulbs because folks in space, they don't have that biological clock. And so they would experience all these different health challenges, and they had to try to figure it out. They knew that it was an issue with their sleep. And so they start to give them different bulbs for different times of day in a way, you know, even though they're in outer space. So it's really cool what you can do with these little hacks, but bottom line is you want to have a dark cycle so you can produce melatonin. And, you know, those are just a few. Those are just a few of the different things people can do.
- [47:01]
Host
It's really interesting because you've talked about how, like the light behind the knee, it's. You've got these photoreceptors and they're communicating. There's a lot of signaling going on. You've said that the brain makes the body, and then you've also said that food is data. Talk to me about what do you mean by food is data. I think that's a pretty powerful concept.
- [47:20]
Shawn Stevenson
Yeah, definitely. This was a big game changer for me early on when I realized that the food that I was eating wasn't just food, it was information. And every single bite of food that I was eating, and this is something that I've been studying now for over 10 years, I absolutely love. This is something called nutrigenomics. And it's a study looking at how every single molecule of food that you eat impacts your genetic expression. Food is that powerful, you know, and several Other epigenetic factors like sleep, which might be the biggest epigenetic influence, you get to choose what kind of copies are being made of you. You know, your genes are basically blueprint to print out certain copies. And there's upwards of like 4,000 different variations that one gene can do. And you get to have a big role, a big part in how those genes are getting expressed. So understanding that when we eat a particular food, it isn't just, I'm just eating this thing, it's setting off a cascade of events. And it's incredibly empowering, but also can be really sobering. And again, I don't want to get people into the neurotic state because I've been there, but it's more like the majority of what we want to do is things that are hormone healthy, things that are healthy for your DNA, things that are healthy for your genetic expression. Because, you know, you, again, you have a big influence on that. And so, you know, early on, really kind of having that, that light bulb go off, it really empowered me to start making food decisions that can help me. Because, you know, if you really think about this, I had the spine of an 80 year old man when I, I was 20 years old. I'm, in some ways I'm like Benjamin Button, all right? Like I'm aging backwards, you know. Have you guys talked about telomeres yet on the show?
- [49:08]
Host
No.
- [49:09]
Shawn Stevenson
So telomeres are basically the most, the most valuable asset that we have currently to basically tell us how long we're going to live. All right? And so what do I mean by that? Your telomeres are like these little, the eaglets at the end of your shoestrings that keep your, your shoestrings from unraveling. That's kind of like how telomeres work. They're the end caps at the end of your chromosomes. And as life goes on, your cells divide and those, they keep getting clicked up, clipped off. Those telomeres get clipped off shorter and shorter to the point where your DNA basically unravels. Right? And so the crazy thing is that sleep, your, your sleep spectrum, you know, whether you're getting high quality sleep or sleep deprived, could be the biggest influence on your telomere length. All right? So literally aging you faster when you're sleep deprived. So because, you know, when we're younger, we're like, sleep three hours, whatever, it's no big deal. And you can, quote, get away with it and you can, but what you're doing is accelerating your aging process. I know that when this was Happening. Even before I got the diagnosis, sleep just wasn't like. I wasn't something I thought about, you know, and so I was accelerating my aging process. Little did I know another huge player in that is the information that we put into our body, you know, the food and the water. And also a big player is our environment, you know, our relationships, the people around us. And if you were to ask me, you know, sleep is the. Is more powerful than exercise and nutrition combined on your physical appearance and your health. But your relationships are the biggest governing force over all of it, because that is the most influential thing on the decision you make with your sleep, on the decision you make with the food that you eat, on the decisions you make on whether or not you're exercising or when and how you do it, you know, so it's incredibly important to be mindful of if we're looking at ways that we can stave off the aging process, stay young, vital, healthy, happy as long as possible. We need to be mindful of all of those things. And again, I don't want to create a neurosis today, but there is a way to go about it. And I think that the foundational piece is listening to people like you constantly, every day, getting that daily dose of getting your mind right, getting your inner game together, and immersing yourself in information like this, and carry that with you into the world, and do your best to get around people that are uplifting you, that are supporting you, and you being the person that you want to become.
- [51:41]
Host
No question. So before I ask my last question, where can these guys find you online?
- [51:46]
Shawn Stevenson
Awesome. So the. My big place that people find me is generally through my show. It's called the model Health Show. And so people can check that out on anywhere you listen to your podcast, and I guarantee you're going to love it. I mean, my home online is themodelhealthshow.com so they can find the show there as well. They can find sleep smarter there, too. And my social media is there. And also people can find sleep smarter just, you know, where you buy books, Amazon, all that good stuff, where you can go to sleepsmarterbook.com Nice.
- [52:14]
Host
All right, and now my final question. If you could recommend people to make one change, but only one change to their life, to have a massive improvement on their health, what would it be?
- [52:26]
Shawn Stevenson
You know what's so funny? It really does go back to the last thing I said. The number one thing, the very best thing that you can do, is to get yourself around healthy people. You know, everybody's heard this statement by now. You know, you're the average of the five people that are closest to you. It has a tremendous impact. And I always like to support everything I say with science. But Princeton University did an interesting study, and they had individuals get together and create rapport, right? Just basic little small talk conversation. And within just a couple of minutes, their brain waves synced up, all right? The frequency at which their brains are moving literally started to match. That happens all the time. You're syncing up with the people around you. So if you. The number one thing you can do to transform your health is to get yourself around healthy people, get yourself in the environment, because it's very difficult to go to McDonald's if you're with a healthy person. Like, you know, you guys are like, out. You know, just came from the gym, and, you know, they're on their way to Whole Foods or whatever. You're like, can you stop and grab me a McRib? You know, it's like, highly unlikely that you'll do that, you know, just from a logical sense, but from this kind of even metaphysical deeper level, you really are a product of your environment. And the great thing about humans is that we're not just a product of our environment. We're creative of our environment. So you can consciously choose that. And that's what's going to help you to take your things to another level. I love that.
- [53:52]
Host
Sean, thank you so much for being on the show, man. That was incredible. Guys. This is, I'm telling you, somebody that you are absolutely going to love diving into the world. The fact. The way that he answered that last question tells you everything that you need to know about Shawn Stevenson. He should have said sleep, because sleep moves more books, but he didn't. He said being around the people, getting around healthy people. He talked about relationships, because that's the truth. And when somebody is far more interested in the truth than they are in moving units, that's when, ironically, they actually move more units, because you know that you can trust them, and they really build credibility within their community. His show is amazing, and that is but the tip of a very large iceberg of somebody who cares very deeply about actually helping people. And that's what you're gonna see as you dive deeper and deeper into his world. And is not only is he trying to get things backed up by science, but this is stuff that he's experienced in his own life. He's worked with thousands of people in his clinical practice, seeing how it plays out with them. He doesn't look away from the things that disprove what he believes. In fact, as he mentioned earlier, he stares right at those things, goes after them because he wants to continually update his thinking, which makes him an incredibly powerful mind that I hope that you guys will really go and learn from because he has so much to offer. All right, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, my friends, and until next time, be legendary. Take care.
- [55:19]
Grainger Advertiser
VRBO makes it easy to claim your dream summer spot with early booking deals from homes with pools to poolside loungers. When you book a vrbo, you don't have to reserve any loungers. They're all yours. All you have to do is book early book with VRBox.