Can’t Fall or Stay Asleep? Your Sleep Questions Answered

Sleep is one of the most important and most overlooked drivers of your health. If you’re struggling to fall asleep, waking up at 2–4am, or getting a full night’s sleep but still feeling exhausted, your body is trying to tell you something. Poor sleep isn’t just about habits, it’s a signal that key systems like your nervous system, blood sugar, hormones, or circadian rhythm are out of sync. In this episode, we break down what’s actually disrupting your sleep and how to fix it at the root. Here’s what you’ll understand: • Why sleep issues are rarely just one problem and how stress, blood sugar, and circadian rhythm all interact • The real reasons you can’t fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night, or feel tired despite 7–8 hours • What actually helps (and what doesn’t)—from magnesium and melatonin to nervous system regulation • The 5 core pillars of better sleep and the highest-impact changes you can start tonight Sleep isn’t something you force, it’s something that happens when your body feels safe, balanced, and supported. When you address the root causes, better sleep becomes not just possible but predictable. Visit ⁠functionhealth.com for 160+ lab tests at just $365 a year. Have a question you’d love answered on Office Hours? Submit it here (0:00) Sleep Quality vs. Duration and Introduction (1:06) Common Causes of Poor Sleep (6:53) Addressing Common Sleep Questions (10:43) Evening Routines and Sleep Timing (12:37) Metabolic, Hormonal, and Hidden Sleep Issues (17:43) Recommendations for Deeper Sleep and Repair (19:33) Supplements and Strategies for Better Sleep (22:22) Key Takeaways and Quick Wins (26:13) Conclusion, Listener Engagement, and Closing Remarks

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

• 0:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You're doing what you're supposed to do. You're in bed for 78 hours. And yet you wake up feeling refreshed, foggy, like you could go right back to sleep. Now, in most cases, it's not about how long you're sleeping. It's about the quality of that sleep.

• 0:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Welcome to Office Hours. This is our dedicated one-on-one space to go deeper, get clearer, and explore what truly moves the needle for your health. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and each week, we're going to pull back the curtain and share the insights, the research, the lessons that don't always make it into our conversations with guests. Because at the end of the day, you are the CEO of your own health. And for many of you, your family's health too. And you might not feel it all the time, but you have far more power and agency than you realize. I'm glad you're here.

• 0:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  This episode is brought to you by Function Health, empowering you to live 100 healthy years with over 160 lab tests for just $365 a year. And use the code MARK2026 to get $50 off your membership. Sleep, you know, is one of the most important foundations of your health. And honestly, one of the most frustrating. Now, if you struggle to fall asleep, if you struggle to stay asleep, if you wake up feeling exhausted, I promise you, you're not alone. And I want to know, despite what social media tells you, poor sleep isn't just caused by one bad habit or one missing supplement. It's the result of a few biological systems that are out of sync. So in today's Office Hours, we're going to slow things down. We're going to answer the most common questions about sleep, what's actually going on in your body,

• 1:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  and what helps in your life. Now, this isn't about perfect sleep routines. It's about understanding your sleep patterns and giving your body what it needs to rest and to repair. Now, here's why sleep breaks down. This is the big picture. Sleep problems usually come from a few things. First is circadian rhythm disruption. Now, your body runs on this internal clock that's guided by light, by darkness, by consistent timing, which is really hard, particularly for me, because I travel all over the place. And when that clock is off because of late nights, because of screens, because of irregular schedules or not getting morning light, your sleep becomes harder to initiate and it also becomes harder to sustain it through the night. The next thing that often occurs that screws up sleep is your nervous system being overactive.

• 2:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  If your body's stuck in this stress response, if you're always on, right? If you've got high cortisol, high adrenaline. Your body doesn't think it's safe to power down, right? Because your body's in stress. You're chasing, running from a tiger, right? Or you're fighting or fleeing. Now, you might feel exhausted, but your brain stays alert. And that's why so many people feel tired all day and wired at night. We call that tired and wired. I have felt that, I promise you, it's awful. The next thing that often screws up sleep is your blood sugar being unstable. Now, blood sugar instability is a common overlooked cause. Now, if your blood sugar drops overnight, guess what happens? It's a life-threatening emergency and your body releases stress hormones. And that brings your blood sugar back up, which is fine.

• 3:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Except your cortisol is high and your body's like, oh, danger. Or it's wake-up time because in the morning your cortisol goes up naturally. And that often occurs between two and four in the morning. And then mind races, you're really alert. And this is true for people often have high insulin. They eat big meals. They kind of have a big spike in their blood sugar, their insulin spikes, and it crashes. And then you often get this. I had a guy who had night sweats because as a patient, and obviously he wants to go through menopause and he'd have cancer or TB, which are the other causes. And it was because he had hypoglycemia in the middle of the night. And that causes night sweats and a life-threatening emergency. The next big thing that screws up sleep are hormone imbalances. Now, these play a big role in your sleep quality. And there's a lot of hormones that are involved.

• 3:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Cortisol, as we just mentioned, the stress hormone. Melatonin, which we know affects sleep and is important for sleep initiation. Progesterone, estrogen, sex hormones. And we know a lot of women through menopause often have sleep disruption. And thyroid, it can often, if it's too high, it can make you not sleep. If it's too low, it can make you sleep too much or actually paradoxically cause insomnia. So all these hormones are like this incredible, beautiful symphony of molecules that should be in balance. When they're out of balance, they screw you up. And they all influence when you feel sleepy, how deeply you sleep, how rested you feel in the morning. And in these shift, right? They shift during perimenopause, menopause, chronic stress. All these things can disrupt sleep.

• 4:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The next big category of things that disrupt sleep are actually two different categories. One is inflammation and the other is nutrient depletion. Inflammation is a big factor because almost all brain dysfunction, whether it's depression or autism or Alzheimer's or schizophrenia or anxiety, whatever you want to call a brain dysfunction, is usually linked in some way or another or caused by inflammation. And that includes sleep disruption. So that's a big one. And there's a lot of causes for it. And often people don't realize what they are. They can be toxins and allergens, infections and the microbiome changes and inflammatory diet and stress. I mean, there's a whole list of things that cause inflammation.

• 5:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The other thing is nutrient depletion. That's the big one. And a lot of people are nutritionally deficient. In fact, at function where we test everybody for a lot of nutrients that your doctor usually does not test for, like omega-3 fats and B vitamins, homocysteine, methylic acid, B12, folate, vitamin D and many others. We find that almost 70% of our population, which is generally health-seeking people, 70% have a nutritional deficiency at the level that the RDA considers a nutritional deficiency disease. Not what's optimal, but just what's enough to get scurvy or rickets. So we're talking a massive amount of nutritional deficiency

• 6:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  or insufficiency in the population, probably over 90%. So when you have low levels of nutrients like magnesium and over 45% are low in magnesium, and we do test that. Iron affects sleep if your iron is low. And we check your ferritin level, which is really important. Again, your doctor usually never checks this. It's on function panel. And your ferritin level is less than 45, even though the normal, quote, "normal" is 16, you're gonna have sleep issues. It's one of the big hidden causes of insomnia. And a lot of the population has iron deficiency, up to half, especially children and many others. B vitamins, also a big role in sleep, and omega-3s. All these affect your nervous system and your brain and affect your ability to sleep. So really important to focus on these things.

• 6:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Now, sleep isn't something you force. It's something that happens when the body feels supported and safe. And that's the key here. All right, so let's get to it. One of the most common sleep questions. Number one, why can't I fall asleep even when I'm tired? And I, trust me, I've experienced this, so I get it. Here's the thing, you get really tired, you're exhausted all day, you finally get in bed, instead of just passing out and drifting off, your mind turns on. Or maybe it just never turned off. Thoughts raise, your body feels tired, your brain went shut down. And what's usually happening here is that your body's physically tired. But your nervous system is still in the on mode, right? You can't turn your brain off. Your anxiety, your stress response is automatic.

• 7:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And the thing about our society is that almost everything going on, whether it's our jobs, our relationships, our diet, obviously, which causes tremendous amount of stress in our system. Our inflammatory, high sugar, processed diet literally raises cortisol. Even if you're meditating all day long and you eat that, you're gonna have high cortisol. All the stresses in the world, you know, wars and traumas and, I mean, just the news, it makes me stressed. So pretty much everything going on is automatically making your nervous system on hijack. And it takes deliberate effort to turn on your relaxation system. It's not something that happens automatically, it's an active process. I do it every morning, I do breath work, I do meditation.

• 8:14Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's work. I mean, it's relaxing, but it's work. It's not just gonna happen automatically. Whereas stress, you don't have to do anything, it's just there. So what happens when you have high stress levels? Well, cortisol is a stress hormone, that goes up at night. Normally cortisol should go down at night. Your body has a basically a biphasic rhythm where it's up in the morning and down at night. Except when you're screwed up and then it goes up at night and down in the morning and you're all messed up. So cortisol is basically not functioning right. But you know, when you have chronic stress, when you're having regular schedules, when you're not having bedtime early enough, when you're staying up really late, or if your blood sugar swings because you're eating lots of carbs and sugar, it can screw up that whole rhythm.

• 8:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And that makes cortisol go up when you're trying to go down, right? When you're trying to go to bed, it goes up. So what happens? Well, your nervous system gets stuck in the on mode. When your nervous system is overactive, you know, because your day is packed with stimulation, with stress, with constant mental inputs, your body doesn't automatically know how to sort of shift down at night. Even though you're tired, your system doesn't really feel safe to let go, even though you might think you are. So, learning how to regulate your nervous system and manage your stress response is a really important part of just being alive and a human that we naturally did, you know, living in the woods, watching the sunset, the sunrises, not having constant chronic stress. There's a book by a great scientist, I love Robert Sapolsky, called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Essentially, the idea is that,

• 9:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I actually was in Africa a couple of years ago and I saw, I literally saw this. You see a lion chasing a bunch of zebras. They go crazy. They're running as fast as they can. Their hearts are racing. They're gonna die. They're scared as hell. And then the lion catches one of the zebras. And then it's literally laying there dead. And then the lion's eating the zebra and all the other zebras are just hanging around the lion while it's eating the zebra. They're just, they know it's not their turn. So they're just relaxed. So it's an acute stress. Their stress hormones go up, they discharge them, they run, and then they're fine. We don't do that. We just stay in chronic stress mode. Uh, the other big thing is blue light and mental stimulation, right? So, blue light and mental stimulation are also playing a big role.

• 10:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Now, when you're on screens, when you have bright lights, when you're dealing with work emails at night, or even having an intense conversation with your partner or spouse, that can really cause trouble. That can suppress melatonin and it basically signals the brain this is all daytime, right? Because when you raise cortisol, that's daytime. And when you have all this mental stimulation and we have blue light, it's daytime. Uh, so our, uh, there's actually a great book I read called Lights Out years ago, just talking about the initial light bulb being cause of the rise of chronic disease, including heart disease, diabetes, and many other things because of how it affects our nervous system and our hormones and so forth. Everything that's really common that causes trouble is not going to bed at the same time and not waking at the same time. It's one of the most important things, and I'm really crappy at this, but it's one of

• 11:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  the most important things if your sleep's not good, to get your sleep right. If you have inconsistent sleep timing, it matters more than most people really know. So going to bed and waking up at different times, especially on weekends, makes your whole internal clock confused and heart rate. Your body recognizes when it's time to sleep. So, given all that, what actually helps you sleep better? Well, going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. Ten and six are good, nine and five, eleven and seven, whatever works for you is really important. Next is getting morning sunlight. You've heard this before, but I can't overemphasize the importance of getting at least fifteen minutes of morning sunlight, even if there's clouds out, within half an hour to an hour of waking up.

• 11:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Now, you're, you know, in the North Pole and there's no light, they have, you know, full spectrum light boxes you can use, but aside from that, unless you live in Sweden or Norway or somewhere in Greenland, you know, probably you can get morning sunlight. Downshift at night. Do breath work, do stretching, yoga, take a hot bath. My favorite is Epsom salt bath, lavender oil, which has magnesium and lavender actually lowers cortisol. They've studied this, Justin and Josh has a baby bath with lavender in it because it works to reduce cortisol, helps the baby. Take magnesium at night, magnesium glycinate, three and eight, these are great forms of magnesium to take at night. So, if you're tired wired, your body isn't broken, it's just disgraduated. So, when you focus on calming your nervous system and supporting your natural rhythms,

• 12:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  then falling asleep is gonna get a lot, lot easier. Second big question is, why do I wake up at two, at four in the morning, like between two and four in the morning, and why can't I fall back asleep? Well, this was by far the most common sleep question that you all submitted, and for good reason. Waking up between two and four in the morning, often with a racing mind or a sudden cess of being alert, is incredibly common. And the important thing to understand is this, most of the time, it's not insomnia, it's your body sending a signal, and what are those signals? Well, the causes for this are blood sugar drops. We talked about that, but blood sugar drives a lot of wakefulness in the middle of the night because if your blood sugar drops, your dinner's too low in protein or fat, and you had sugar alcohol in the evening, and your blood sugar dips, and then what happens?

• 13:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Insulin goes up and your cortisol goes up.

• 13:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you're off to the races. Then you got hypoglycemia and you get stress hormones going up. And basically your blood sugar becomes normal, but you're awake. The second is cortisol spikes. Now cortisol naturally starts to rise early in the morning to wake you up, but chronic stress can push that rise earlier than it should right in the middle of the night. Instead of being at six in the morning, it's two to four in the morning. Alcohol, another big one, it helps you maybe fall asleep, but it screws up your sleep architecture. I have an Oura ring and I know that when I, you know, drink and I don't actually anymore, I don't remember last time I had a drink, I always see even a little bit actually screws up my sleep. So it's not worth it. So small amounts of alcohol fragment sleep and they trigger this early morning waking. As soon as the alcohol goes down in your system, then stress hormones kind of bounce up and you get,

• 14:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  you know, awake in the middle of the night. The next is hormone shifts, perimenopause, menopause. Now for many women, these hormone shifts, especially during perimenopause and menopause are a big contributor to waking up in the middle of the night. It can be just waking up, it can be hot flashes. These, these hormones affect blood sugar. They affect your temperature control, they affect cortisol. All of those can disrupt your sleep in those early morning hours. So what, what helps fix all that? Well, a good dinner with protein and fat, not a carb-rich dinner. I mean, it can have carbs, but you can't just have carbs alone and you don't want to be eating tons of sugar at night. Late night sugar or alcohol, also bad news. Even any alcohol, you want to give yourself probably at least four hours before bed. Magnesium can help as well, as we mentioned.

• 14:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And those stress responses that we talked about, how do you deal with your stress load throughout your life? Look at your life as a whole. Where can you cut out things that are stressful? Where can you introduce things that are helping you relax, not just bedtime habits, but just throughout your life? The key takeaway is this, if you wake up in the middle of the night, it's often metabolic or hormonal, not a personal failure or simply insomnia. When you address these underlying signals your body's sending, then your sleep starts to repair itself. All right. The next question we get is, why do I sleep seven or eight hours, but I still wake up feeling exhausted? It's a really common and kind of a confusing sleep question. You're doing what you're supposed to do, you're in bed for seven, eight hours, and yet you wake up feeling unrefreshed, foggy, like you could go right back to sleep.

• 15:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Now, in most cases, it's not about how long you're sleeping, it's about the quality of that sleep. One of the major causes of not feeling refreshed in the morning is not getting enough deep sleep or REM sleep. Now, these stages are when your brain and your body repair, when they regulate hormones, when they consolidate memory, when they clear up inflammation. It's an amazing system that your brain has to heal and repair, but if you're not having quality sleep, it's not doing it. If your sleep is fragmented or shallow, you can get plenty of time in bed and you don't feel restored. The next thing that can cause poor quality sleep is inflammation. Now, chronic inflammation is driven by stress, by poor diet, which is what most of us say in America.

• 16:14Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Our gut problems, poor microbiome health, infections, toxins, all these things can drive inflammation. And they can interfere with sleep architecture and they make sleep less restorative. I know when I had mercury poisoning in my 30s, I could not sleep at all. And I needed drugs. It was terrible. And, and I knew that it was the mercury, once I figured it out. But it was kind of scary and, and so toxins and all these things can drive inflammation in the brain that really interrupts sleep. The next thing is hidden sleep issues that you might not have, especially if you live alone, which is sleep apnea, which means you don't breathe at night for sure. Periods of time your sleep is interrupted by periods of non-breathing, whether you just hold your breath, snoring. You don't breathe for a bit. You've seen people like this.

• 16:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And these are really common. It can be caused by nasal congestion, allergies, by mouth breathing, sleep apnea. These can all affect your oxygen delivery and they can fragment sleep. Even if you don't think you're waking up at night, your sleep's crappy. And then, of course, there's nutritional deficiencies, hormonal issues, things like iron, B12, thyroid issues. They can cause persistent fatigue and it just might be a clue that there's something wrong that you need to track. And that's why we have Function and Function Health, and you go to functionhealth.com and it's now only a dollar a day, $365 a year to get a full panel that looks at all these things that we're talking about, including iron, ferritin, B12, thyroid, and many, many other factors, magnesium, all that affect your sleep. And these can make you feel exhausted no matter how many hours of sleep you get.

• 17:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So what helps fix this? Well, track your sleep trends, not just one night, so you see what's happening. If you're a nasal breather, you've got nasal congestion, sinus issues, allergies, it could be your diet, food sensitivities, environmental allergies, mold, check it out. Check your labs, you know, always good to get a baseline. Alcohol, if you're really not feeling rest in the morning, just cut an alcohol for a while and see how you do. The key takeaway is this, if you're sleeping enough hours, but you're still waking up exhausted, your body's asking for deeper repair, not more time in bed. When you focus on sleep quality and your underlying health, then your energy often starts to come back. Many cancers aren't caught early enough, and our healthcare system is built for reactivity. You feel something, you go in, you get tested, but so much could be developing quietly

• 18:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  before symptoms even show up. And that's exactly why I'm so excited about what's now available through Function: Scans. One scan that can look for signs of hundreds of potential conditions across up to 14 organs, including early signs of cancer before you might even feel a thing. Now, this is about finding what could otherwise go unnoticed while there's still time to do something about it. Combined with Function's 160 lab tests, this is a powerful way to check your health. Your labs, your scan, your data. Because the goal was never to live longer in a hospital, it's to live well for 100 healthy years. You can now add scans to your Function membership for an additional cost by visiting functionhealth.com/scans to learn more about it and get started.

• 19:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's F-U-N-C-T-I-O-N health.com/scans to learn more today. And if you're one of the first 1,000 people this week, use the code MARK2026 for a $50 credit toward your $365 a year membership. That's functionhealth.com/mark and use the code MARK2026 today. Next big question I got was what supplements actually help with sleep? Now, supplements can be helpful, but only when they're used in the right context. They work best to support, not as a substitute for healthy sleep habits and circadian rhythms. That's why they're called supplements, not replacements. Okay? Now, here's, here's the most helpful ones. Magnesium.

• 19:56Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Probably about 45% of the population is low in magnesium. So what causes us to be low? We don't eat magnesium-rich foods like greens and beans, that's the seeds. We do a lot of things that cause us to lose magnesium. Alcohol, sugar, stress, caffeine, all that causes us to deplete magnesium. It's one of the most consistently helpful nutrients for sleep. And you can use forms like magnesium glycinate or 3-ynate. Helps relax the nervous system, quiet your brain at night. The next is L-theanine. Now, that comes from green tea and that's why there's tea ceremonies and green tea can be relaxing. It does have caffeine, but this is without the caffeine. So L-theanine is a great option, especially if your mind races at night.

• 20:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It helps promote a calm, relaxed state, doesn't cause you to be too sedated, but it makes you calm. The next one is glycine. Most people haven't heard of it, but it's an amino acid and it can really help support sleep quality. It can help lower your core body temperature, promotes deeper sleep, more restorative sleep for some people. It's a great hack. Low dose melatonin and short term only. I don't recommend melatonin regularly, but it can be helpful in certain situations. And dose and duration matter. Low dose, even half a milligram can be used short term and it can help reset your circadian rhythm, especially if you're traveling. Like I just flew to South Africa, so I did one dose of melatonin last night to help reset my circadian rhythm, jet lag. So if you're traveling or you have a schedule disruption, it can help. And more is not necessarily better and not really for a long-term solution.

• 21:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  All right, what should you avoid? As I mentioned, melatonin is good in low doses, not high doses. So high doses, taking over a long time, can really disrupt your body's natural production, and it can lead to grogginess, vivid dreams and reboundal sleep issues. So you don't want to stay away from doing that. And then, no, random stacking supplements without a plan. So you can take lots of sleep supplements. You can be taking everything on the market and it may not help. So want to work with someone if you're really struggling to find out the cause and then not just supplements as a pile on to fix it all. So here's the takeaway. Supplements support sleep, but they don't replace the foundations of sleep hygiene. And if the basics aren't in place, like light exposure in the morning,

• 22:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  avoiding blue light at night, regulating stress response, balancing the blood sugar, having a cool environment in your bedroom, having dark blackout shades, having low noise or noise cancelling or earplugs, all those things really make a difference. No supplements are going to fix the problem if you don't address those things. But if you use them thoughtfully, then the right supplements help make sleep easier and more restorative. What are the quick takeaways that good sleep actually requires? Well, I want to kind of go over the basics here.

• 22:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Here's the big idea. Sleep isn't about being perfect. It's about a few key systems that work together and small, consistent habits matter more than a bunch of hacks. Great sleep starts the minute you wake up, not when your head hits the pillow. So what are the five pillars of good sleep? Number one, light exposure. Morning sunlight helps reset your circadian rhythm. That means getting outside, even if it's cloudy or without sunglasses, without contacts and letting those sun rays hit your retina and work on your brain to properly regulate your hormones through your pineal gland. And then at night, low light exposure. Now, that sometimes means changing your light bulbs in your house. Candlelight's cool, I like that.

• 23:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, there's a lot of ways to do this, but make sure you deal with this bright evening light, which is not good. It makes your body think it's still daytime. The next key takeaway here is stabilize your blood sugar. And this is true for everything and every disease, period. If you know my work, you know all about this. You've been writing about it for 30 years. Balance your blood sugar. That means lots of protein, fat and fiber, low refined starches, low sugar. I'm not a no guy, I'm a low guy. And especially at night, at dinner, don't eat a ton of starch and sugar without properly balancing with fat and car protein and obviously don't eat a lot of refined starches and sugars. So also don't eat sugar before bed and don't drink at night. Also, don't have late night sugar and alcohol, bad news.

• 24:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Uh, the third big idea here is to learn how to regulate your nervous system. Stress happens, relaxation doesn't, right? Your sleep happens when your body feels safe. So learning how to regulate your stress response throughout the day matters. And it can be simple. It can be a simple breath practice in the morning, meditation, some gentle yoga, stretching. It can be meditation later at night or what Andrew Huberman calls a non-sleep deep rest or often it's called yoga nidra, which is essentially an ancient practice to do a body scan and reset your nervous system. Whatever works for you, I take a hot bath, have some salt, lavender oil, get a massage, get your feet rubbed if you're lucky enough. Whatever it is, learn how to down-regulate your nervous system at night.

• 24:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The fourth big idea is get your hormones in balance. Cortisol, melatonin, progesterone, estrogen, thyroid, these all affect sleep. And if they're out of whack, you need to know. Functionhealth.com is a great way to check all these. And if they're out of whack, there's some simple things you can do to fix them. If you need to see a doctor, sometimes you need to get hormone replacement or thyroid. That's fine. And if your hormones are really messed up, you really need to get those fixed. And the fifth big idea is be consistent, don't be perfect, right? Try to sleep and wake at the same time every day. You know, consistency is one of the biggest sleep hacks there is. So try your best. I try to get in bed at 10, wake up at 6:30, 7. Really important if, if I can do it, that's the, that's my favorite way to, to live life.

• 25:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And of course, sometimes I'll stay out at night and go to a wedding this weekend. I'll be partying, but not on a regular basis. So what's the quick return on investment here? What are the quick wins? If you do nothing else, start here. Good morning sunlight, then half an hour, an hour waking up. Eat protein dinner to make sure your blood sugar doesn't crash. Reduce alcohol, even small amounts. And try consistently sleep in the same sleep window, including weekends. And use magnesium because that's the easiest, best sleep hack. Now just remember, sleep is not a luxury. It's a biological requirement. If you're struggling with sleep, it doesn't mean you're broken. It means your body needs some help. So get curious, don't be frustrated, small changes, done consistently.

• 26:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You can really transform how you rest, how you feel, how you recover. And I love to hear from you. What sleep questions do you want answered next? What's been the hardest things for you about sleep? Office hours is our space to get clear, to ask better questions, take control of our health together. You're the CEO of your own health and better sleep changes everything.

• 26:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Thanks for joining me for Office Hours. I love diving into these topics with you. Remember you are the CEO of your own health. And every choice you make can move you closer to healing and vitality. I want to keep these episodes as relevant and useful as possible. So tell me, what do you want to explore next? What questions are you wrestling with? What breakthroughs are you chasing? Share your ideas in the comments on social media or through the link in the show notes. I'm listening. Until next time, keep taking charge, keep asking questions and keep showing up for your health.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to The Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on The Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health, where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at UltraWellnessCenter.com, and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.

• 28:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  When it comes to supplements, you only want the best for your body, the kind with the highest quality, cleanest, and most potent ingredients you can get. That's exactly what you'll find at my supplement store, where I've hand-selected each and every product to meet the most rigorous standards for safety, purity, and effectiveness. These are the only supplements I recommend to my patients, and they're also what I use myself. Whether you want to optimize longevity or reduce your disease risk, or you're looking to improve your sleep, blood sugar, metabolism, gut health, you name it, DrHyman.com has the world's best selection of top-quality, premium supplements, all backed by science and expertly vetted by me, Dr. Mark Hyman. So check out DrHyman.com, because when it comes to your health, nothing less than the very best will do. That's DrHyman.com, D-R-H-Y-M-A-N.com.