696 Sleep Smartly with Shawn Stevenson

YOUR BODY IS WIRED TO WORK WITH NATURE. Sleep is so important. So why do we do so many things that keep us from getting the sleep we need? If we want to optimize our performance and our life, we have to think about sleep. Humans used to sleep when it was dark. Now so many of us do the “laptop lapdance” at night, keeping our bodies awake with unnatural light. We can change our schedule and environment to get a deeper rest at night. To help you understand more on the topic I wanted to bring you this clip from a conversation I had with the King of Sleep: Shawn Stevenson. Shawn’s health podcast- The Model Health Show- has millions of listener downloads a year. He’s a bestselling author, has been featured on many major media outlets, and is an in-demand keynote speaker. He’s the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance which helps people and companies with health services worldwide. Like Shawn says in the episode, “We are infinite beings.” We have the power to have a great night’s sleep. Learn how to change your habits to change your sleep in Episode 696. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why laptops can hinder sleep (0:54) The biology of light and sleep (1:44) The difference between going to sleep and passing out (2:47) The best time to work out for good sleep (3:38) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

  Shawn Stevenson, and he is a bestselling author and creator of The Model Health Show, which is one of the top nutrition and fitness podcasts on iTunes. With a background in biology and kinesiology, Shawn went on to be the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance, which is a successful company that provides wellness services for both individuals and organizations worldwide. He's also a dynamic keynote speaker, who's spoken with TEDx, universities, and numerous organizations with outstanding reviews. And he is the king of sleep. He's the king of mastering your sleep to optimize your health, your performance, your mind, your body, for the best experience.

• 0:54Shawn Stevenson?

  People will notice this, when they tend to get to bed a little bit earlier, they're just like, wow, I slept really great.

• 0:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 0:59Shawn Stevenson?

  You know, I see your face, I'm like, yeah, well, that happens, but it rarely happens. That's the kind of money time window, but it's not, again, it's not about being perfect. If this doesn't fit your lifestyle, stack the other conditions, do the other things. The timing does matter because your body's wired up to work with nature. And only recently can we basically manufacture second daytime. Our genes are expecting a night cycle for us to get cozy, to get sleep, but we can throw on the, do the laptop lap dance all night long today, you know, watch YouTube videos and Netflix and be on our social media. But our genes are not different from our ancestors even, you know, 100 years ago, let alone thousands.

• 1:37Lewis Howes?

  I hear that, man.

• 1:38Shawn Stevenson?

  So, we can evolve through this stuff, you know, like some X-Men stuff, but it's going to take a little bit of time. Your skin has photoreceptors that pick up light.

• 1:46Lewis Howes?

  Even the littlest amount of light.

• 1:48Shawn Stevenson?

  Yeah, there was a study I put in the book, that the room was otherwise pitch black, but they put just a tiny light behind somebody's knee.

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:56Shawn Stevenson?

  And it was enough, yes.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 1:57Shawn Stevenson?

  It was enough to take them out of their normal stage of sleep. It's crazy, right? It's crazy.

• 2:03Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 2:03Shawn Stevenson?

  And so, because again, we evolved in darkness. And it's not all light, it's unnatural light. Like moonlight.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 2:10Shawn Stevenson?

  If you look at the lux, and I put a lux chart in the book, it's not even a problem, but that unnatural light. And so, your skin has photoreceptors that pick up information and basically send it to your brain to secrete more daytime hormones, namely cortisol. All right, so, your neighbors... Uh porch light, you know, streetlights outside, that kind of stuff. This unnatural light, it's been dubbed light pollution now. So getting your room pitch black can keep that stuff out of your room, but also the internal light too. So if you've got an ugly alarm clock staring at you, you know, that kind of stuff. You might want to consider, you know, getting a dimmer shut off or, you know, throwing a blanket over it or something like that.

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 2:46Shawn Stevenson?

  I think a lot of people know that a good workout can help you sleep. However, there's a difference between going to sleep and passing out, you know, as we've mentioned. So a lot of people, you know, I just, I talk with Rich Roll and if he doesn't do one of his, you know, he's like running for days, you know?

• 3:04Lewis Howes?

  He's crazy.

• 3:04Shawn Stevenson?

  If he doesn't do one of his workouts, like he says, his sleep isn't, isn't the same. It's because of his cortisol rhythm, which he's changed, but that's a whole nother story. Bottom line is there's a difference, number one, between going to sleep and passing out. And here's how to do this the right way. So this study done with Appalachian State University, they brought exercise up into three groups. Group A, exercise at seven AM in the morning, group B, one PM, group C, seven PM at night. Group A spent up to 75% more time in deep anabolic sleep.

• 3:34Lewis Howes?

  Earlier in the morning.

• 3:35Shawn Stevenson?

  So early in the morning, if you can get a workout in, it doesn't mean it has to be the time you hit the gym. You can work out in the afternoon, but that initial morning activity is important because going back to our evolutionary biology, it encourages that normal cortisol spike.

• 3:48Lewis Howes?

  So getting up and taking a walk.

• 3:50Shawn Stevenson?

  Yeah, you could do a power walk, you can do a four minute Tabata session, do some body weight stuff, or you can do your full workout.

• 3:55Lewis Howes?

  Squats, yes, stretch, yoga, stretching, whatever it may be.

• 3:58Shawn Stevenson?

  Helping encourage that normal cortisol.

• 4:00Lewis Howes?

  First thing in the morning.

• 4:01Shawn Stevenson?

  Yeah.

• 4:01Lewis Howes?

  First hour or something.

• 4:02Shawn Stevenson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 4:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. And then what about the full workout? What about if you're like, okay, I'm gonna do my hour workout today, when should that optimal time be?

• 4:10Shawn Stevenson?

  If you want to do it in the morning, perfect. If it is, and there wasn't much benefit to the afternoon as far as sleep is concerned, but in the evening, there was some benefit. But it has to be the early evening, alright?

• 4:20Lewis Howes?

  So if I do work out in the evening, it's okay?

• 4:23Shawn Stevenson?

  If it's the early evening, so.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  Six, seven?

• 4:25Shawn Stevenson?

  You need about four hours. So if your planned bedtime is 11, you need about four hours for your cortisol to get normalized and your core body temperature to come back down, which we talked about how important that is.

• 4:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, cuz I'll, I'll work out and then I'll take a cold shower, but I'm still sweating an hour later.

• 4:39Shawn Stevenson?

  Yeah, a cold shower is a great, great help though, to help to lower your body, your core body temperature as well.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  Still the, you know, the burn is just like, you know, a big guy, just still sweating, so that makes sense. Okay, so four hours after the workout. You should take before you go to sleep.

• 4:54Shawn Stevenson?

  Right, right. And some people are like hitting, you know, their jujitsu class at like 8pm and then trying to get to sleep at 10.

• 5:01Lewis Howes?

  That's not optimal.

• 5:01Shawn Stevenson?

  Yeah, it's not.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  But it is good. You still get benefit if you go up till 7 o'clock or four hours before. It's okay.

• 5:07Shawn Stevenson?

  Just try and time it different. You know, a lot of times that we get in issues with this is because we tell ourselves there's not another option. You know, we're infinite beings that have plenty of different ways that we can change things.