Episode 145 - If I Had To Fix My Sleep in One Week, I'd Do THIS

If I had one week to fix my sleep and I wasn't allowed to buy a single supplement, gadget, or a $3,000 mattress, I'm telling you right now, I'd be sleeping better by next Wednesday. And it's not because I have some sort of secret. It's because the things that actually improve sleep are usually free, they're old, but almost nobody does them in the right order.

You know, most people treat sleep as a shopping problem, but it isn't. It's a signal problem. Your body is waiting for instructions it evolved to read, and the modern world quietly stopped sending them. So in today's episode, I'm gonna share with you what's actually broken, why, and the one change that gives you the biggest return this week.

Welcome to the Primal Shift Podcast. Before we get into it, I have to ask you a favor. If you're watching this on a platform supporting comments, let me know. I really wanna hear from you. Which part of sleep is your struggle? Is it falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up after a full night's sleep, uh, feeling exhausted and just not the way you want to feel?

You know, let me know in the comments or just shoot me an email if you're listening to this and you cannot type a comment. You know, I read all of those comments, all of those replies, all of the feedback, and the best ones usually shape then future episodes. Now, I wanna s- just spend a very brief moment on why all of this matters, because sleep is the master lever.

You know, you cannot out-train it, out-supplement it, or out-discipline it. And even a few nights of short sleep have a dramatic impact on your metabolic health. For example, just after a few nights of not sleeping enough, you have a blunted insulin sensitivity. And what that means is that as a result of that, your body responds worse at handling dietary carbohydrates.

It also shifts your hunger hormones. You get hungrier more often, you're less satisfied, you eat more, you crave junk. You know, that's all biochemistry. It's not a lack of willpower or something that you need to, "Ah," you know, "I just need to, uh, overpower it with my mind and I'll be a- all right." No, that's biochemistry.

That's how your body has evolved to respond to sleep deprivation. And especially if you're deprived in deep sleep, you know, one of the most important restorative phases of sleep, REM sleep being the other one, that has a dramatic impact on your physical repair and hormone release. You know, there's not enough growth hormones being released.

Uh, your glucose and immune regulation are impacted negatively, and your recovery just tanks over time. And there is nothing you can do about it in the sense of supplementing and, you know, doing this and that, or going to work out. None of that is gonna make up for the lack of proper sleep. And to frame this a little bit from an ancestral pers- perspective, you know, uh, one of the things that are important to understand is that the way you sleep and when you sleep and how much you sleep, that's not a willpower or discipline failure.

You know, our bodies or the clocks inside of every cell, the circadian rhythm, it runs on light and dark. It basically is influenced by either sunlight or lack thereof, meaning darkness. Those are the signals that trigger certain things, including regulating our sleep. The problem is that our modern life feeds the wrong ones.

You know, we get light exposure, bright lights when there's not supposed to be any, like after sunset, and we get dark or darkened rooms, you know, during work time that... where we are supposed to be exposed to, to sunlight. You know, even if it's cloudy, the amount of sunlight, it's still brighter on a cloudy day than it is in most indoor environments, you know?

And the pattern that we are- our bodies are evolved or have evolved with are bright days outside and dark nights or fire lights than, you know, once we figured out how to make fire on purpose. And those are different light frequencies than the blue lights we're usually exposed to and overhead lights.

You know, our modern life flips all of that. You know, dim days indoors, you know, and, uh, incandescent lights or LED lights and bright nights from screens and, again, indoor lighting, etc. None of that makes sense to our biology, you know? And so this is something to pay attention to. Now- Here is how you can fix that.

The n- the very first step is not necessarily doing something, but not doing something. You know, I want you to in, to remember what not to do, and the first thing I would recommend you do is skip pharmaceuticals and, and, and supplements. You know, melatonin. You know, don't buy new mattresses. Don't, you know, fancy ring for sleep tracking.

You know, all of those things, you know, they have their place, but to get started, forget all about that. You know, skip that, and instead, what I would like you to do is Understand, maybe write down and be honest about what is not working for you right now as far as sleep is concerned. Do you have trouble falling asleep?

Is it a sleep onset problem? Do you have trouble staying asleep? You know, maybe waking up at 2:00 in the morning and being wide awake. You know, that could be a sleep maintenance problem. Or do you generally sleep enough? You, you know, you fall asleep easily, you wake up the next morning, but you still feel wrecked.

You know, those are three different problems that potentially require a different intervention. So write down what it is that you're truly struggling with. And maybe, you know, now would be the time again, you know, leave me a comment, you know, and, and I'll respond and see if I can provide a little bit more information than what I'll cover in this video.

If after, after watching it, you still feel like, you know, you, you need more or you have a- additional questions. So once you under- once you have clarity about what the problem really is, and you could have multiple of those problems. You know, a lot of people, you know, they have trouble only falling asleep, but once they're asleep, they, they sleep fine.

But others, you know, have trouble falling asleep and maintaining their sleep and then, you know, waking up wrecked in the morning. So there are-- might be a combination of all of that. Step number two is assess how your daily routine looks like and be honest about the factors that you think could potentially negatively impact your sleep and cause those problems you've identified in the first place.

For example, if you have trouble falling asleep, you know, think about, are you exposing yourself to bright or blue lights, you know, which could blunt your melatonin release, you know? And, you know, classic examples are, you know, from TV, from the phone, from LED lights that you have in the house. Are you maybe drinking or consuming caffeine late in the day?

You know, caffeine blocks adenosine, and it has a half-life of five to seven hours, and there are genetic differences in how quickly we metabolize caffeine. For some people, it lingers. It lingers forever. So even if you have a coffee at noon, it might still negatively impact your sleep if you try to go to bed at 8:00, you know?

So keep that in mind. Late coffee, maybe. Are you drinking coffee at two, you know, 2:00 or 3:00 in the, in the afternoon? You know, I've-- I used to when I was younger, we would go out for dinner, and then I would have a coffee after dinner. Thinking back, I'm like, "No wonder, you know, I had some trouble falling asleep."

Do you have, you know, are you maybe wired but tired? You know, is your, maybe your nervous system in overload? Are you having racing thoughts? You know, those could be causing you from not being able to fall asleep. Do you have maybe an inconsistent bedtime, so your body doesn't really know when it's time to get tired because your melatonin release is not consistent because your bedtime is never consistent?

You know, think about those things. Now, if you can't stay asleep, you know, it could be that you're consuming alcohol with dinner or before bedtime. And the thing is with alcohol, even though it appears to help you fall asleep, when the body metabolizes it, that some of those metabolites act as stimulants.

So that could be one of the reasons why you then wake up maybe two or three hours into your sleep and suddenly you don't feel sleepy anymore, you know? Or maybe your bedroom is too warm, you know, or maybe it's too cold in the second half of the night. There could be temperature issues that work against what your body is naturally trying to do, meaning that you need your, your core temperature needs to drop by about two degrees Fahrenheit so you can fall asleep.

If there is anything in the way of the temperature drop, you might have trouble falling asleep. But then later on, as your body maybe, you know, warms up again in the second half of the night, you might be too hot. Or if you're too hot, you know, in the beginning, you might wake up two hours after falling finally asleep.

There are, you know, a lot of temperature issues that could be a, could be a, a cause. Maybe it's a late meal. You know, if, if there is a lot of digestion going on, that could also release stress hormones like cortisol, and then, you know, you have a spike and you wake up and you're suddenly wide awake and don't feel tired anymore.

Um, yeah, also might be light leaks. You know, if maybe you have your TV in your bedroom with, you know, the, the s- little status LED or there might be a, you know, your house might be close to a street and when cars drive by, you know, you might have the light in your room. There might be a- any light basically that when you briefly wake up, which is completely normal, you know, and you get that light into your eyes, that might be enough of a signal for your body to say, "Oh, it's time to wake up," because light means it's day.

If you're getting generally enough sleep but you wake unrested, you know, it could be that you're, you're not exposing yourself to morning light, um, and your cortisol release is off because of that. You know, normally cortisol should be high in the morning and low in the evening. There could be something causing that, which is very often associated with your light exposure.

Could also be stress, but very often it's just light. No light in the morning is a major issue or a major factor for not feeling With energy in the morning. It could be, of course, an inconsistent wake time. You know, if you, if you sleep in on the weekends, that means on Monday morning you likely have a jet lag because you're...

It's, it's like traveling across time zones, right? Suddenly, you know, you sleep for longer and then the next day you're expected to be, you know, energetic two hours before you woke up the night, the night before. That, that's not how it works, you know? It could also be hidden fragmentation, you know, again, from alcohol, from heat, from noise breaking your sleep.

Um, lot of things, you know? One thing is, you know, if, if you wake up and you're not rested at all, but you feel like you're sleeping well and none of the other factors apply, it could be that you're snoring or gasping and having respiratory issues like sleep apnea. And if that's the case, there is definitely...

I would definitely have that checked out because that, over time, can significantly increase your risk of, or cause mortality and of, you know, cardio- uh, respiratory issue and cardiovascular problems. So if that's the case and you're not sure, there's an app, I think it's called SnoreLab or something, you can have on your phone, and you can have your phone record the noise at night basically, and that can give you an indication of whether or not you're snoring and how loud and how often.

And some of those gadgets, again, not, not telling you to go out and buy a gadget, but if you suspect something, a medical condition like sleep apnea, there are, you know, some of those wearables like this can monitor your blood oxygen saturation overnight and tell you if either your respiratory rate changes, if you're not breathing for extended periods, if your oxygen saturation drops, etc.

So that's a whole, that's a whole other issue. You know, we're not talking about medical concern in the show. It's mostly about lifestyle, uh, choices that, that you can fix yourself without seeking advice from a medical professional. And now, you know, putting that all together. So you first identified, okay, what is it really that I'm struggling with as far as sleep is concerned?

What are some of the factors? Be really honest and say, "Okay, you know, maybe that 4:00 PM coffee, you know, is... I really like it. It's a ritual, you know. We're doing this, you know, maybe the whole family gets together and have afternoon coffee, whatever." My wife used to do this in Costa Rica. In my family in Australia it was a big deal.

But maybe, just maybe, that's causing it. But once you have those lifestyle factors identified and mapped them to the sleep issues that you're having- then it's time to do something about it. And I would recommend... We have to interrupt this episode for an important message from your feet.

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And now back to the episode. To pick the lowest hanging fruit, something that you feel comfortable, you can implement right away without, you know, waiting on something, without having to buy something.

S- something that is... that you feel like, "Okay, I can do this. I can start doing this right now," or tomorrow morning, whatever the case might be, whatever it is, and stick to it for at least a week. You know? So pick one goal, maybe two if you feel like it. It doesn't have to be 10 And, and do it for one week.

You know, for example, if sleep onset is the problem, maybe you kill bright lights, you know, after sunset. You know, turn the lights off, use candles, use red lights. There are many ways of what you can do is or, you know, just let your eyes get accustomed, you know, to seeing in low light situations. Like, there is no need to turn on the light if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

You know, just wait a few seconds, let your eyes adjust, and then you go to the bathroom and turns out you, you'll be able to perfectly see with just the ambient light that's there from stars, from, you know, whatever the case might be. Or if it's caffeine, maybe, you know, cut it off eight to 10 hours before bedtime.

You know? Pick the worst offender. Um, if you-- if, if there are several worst offenders in, in your, in your daily routine, you know, pick whatever you feel like you can do and sustain for at least a week. If sleep maintenance is the problem, maybe cut alcohol for a week. You know, maybe drop your bedroom temperature.

Again, if you only can pick one, you know, alcohol is probably the bigger factor than temperature. And if you feel unrested, try to maintain a consistent bed and wake time for the week and get into sunlight the first thing in the morning. One of those things, do it for a week and then honestly assess after a week how do you feel.

You know, it's not about what the numbers on a sleep tracker say if you have one, you know. Don't get anxious about if those numbers don't change or whatever. Just honestly assess how you feel. What is your clarity at 10 in the morning? How do you feel at 3 PM? How do you feel before going to bed? How do you feel the first-- maybe not the first second after waking up, but give it maybe half an hour or an hour or so, and then assess, "How do I feel?

I just woke up an hour ago. Do I feel better than I did a week ago?" And by the end of the week, you know, you should be able to tell whether or not that one intervention or those two, whatever you, you decided to change, did they move the needle? If so, keep them. If it didn't, well, I guess you could rule them out.

I would still keep them because li- there's a good chance that those changes are positive maybe in other areas that you haven't discovered yet. And then pick the next one that you can also implement for a week. So week number two then, you do something else. And, you know, just to set expectations, if you make one change and one change only in week one, that is likely not going to fix all of your sleep issues.

But you should be able to tell the difference. There should be a measurable improvement. And as you keep then stacking week over week another fix, another lifestyle change, all of that layering will, in a few short weeks, get you to h- where your sleep should be It's fairly simple. There is nothing really, I mean, once you have all of that figured out, you know, yes, think about, you know, magnesium supplementation, maybe sleep tracking, maybe this or that, maybe a, you know, bed cooling system and all of those things is fine.

But really start with the basics. Figure out what it is you're struggling with, be honest about what lifestyle factors could be impacting your sleep issues, and then make a change, something that you can do right now for at least a week to see if it works. Then pick the next thing and do it week by week.

And at some point, in just a few weeks, you're not patching your sleep anymore, you've actually dialed it in. And once that has become a routine, it's significantly easier moving forward. Any change in the beginning is difficult. You know, just that one thing of putting away your phone or h- not having a phone in the bedroom can be incredibly challenging.

But know that it is possible if you just keep doing it for a while, it becomes second nature And if there is only one thing that you take away from this episode, you know, tomorrow morning, get outside within an hour of waking up and let your eyes see real daylight. No sunglasses, no windshield, no phone.

Just go outside and look at where the sun is rising. You don't necessarily have to stare into the sun, depending on what time it is that you wake up and how high the sun and how strong the sun is already. But look in the direction of the sun. Let that light get into your retina, because that sets the tone for the following night.

You know, if the morning is not where it should be, the night's not gonna be, is not gonna be where it should be either. You know, your sleep starts with what you do in the morning. But again, do it for a week. Pay attention to how you feel, and I promise you, if you keep making those weekly adjustments, you'll get to a sleep where you wake up, where you fall asleep quickly, you sleep through the night.

There is a nuance to that I covered in a previous episode. You know, for some people it's perfectly normal to wake up once at night and be maybe awake for an hour. There are those, you know, biphasic sleep is a real thing, so don't freak out too much about it. But the point is that once you're ready to get up, then in the morning, within half an hour or an hour, you should feel energetic and your energy labels, energy levels should be good throughout the day.

There is a natural dip in the afternoon. That's all perfectly fine, but you should not be falling apart at 4:00 PM and then be wide awake at 9:00, you know? So do that. Let me know how it works. Again, maybe come back then. Leave me another comment. Shoot me an email, uh, or reply on social media if you see maybe a part of this clip somewhere on social media.

I'd really like to hear from you how it works, how it's been working for you. And, uh, maybe if you know someone who could, you know, use those tips as well, share this episode with someone. Uh, spread the word, um, and, you know, let's do it together. Until next time.