30 The Power of Sleep for Entrepreneurs and Elite Athletes with Ameer Rosic

Do you get enough sleep? Or do you constantly feel drained, tired, and find yourself yawning throughout you day? Sleep might be the most important aspect of building a great business, and having a high performing body. It is also, one of the most overlooked aspects considering the focus on diet and working out. What […] 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 episode number 30 with Amir Rosic.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Hey greats, welcome back to episode number 30. Thanks so much again for just being a subscriber and for giving me all the love you guys have given me online, the emails you guys send me. Again, this is number 30, so it's a little milestone here. 3-0, that's how old I am actually, and 30 episodes, I'm pretty pumped about that. And I cannot wait to share with you this episode and many more episodes to come. I've got big plans for the School of Greatness and I've got big plans with you being a part of it. So again, thanks so much for all your love, guys. It really means a lot. And you really are the reason why I continue to come back and do these each and every week.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  And I'm thinking about actually doing this twice a week. So if you actually would like to hear this more than once a week, feel free to send me a message over on Twitter, @lewishowes, or over on my Facebook page, Facebook slash Lewis Howes, and let me know, would you like to hear this twice a week? Or just once a week? Again, I love your feedback and you're the reason I do this. So if you guys want more, I may just have to give you some more greatness, if you know what I'm saying. Anyways, guys, this one is gonna be a great episode. Just did this interview with my man Amir Rosic. And I used to think that sleep was for those who were broke.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  But now, my thought process has changed. As I've turned 30, actually, this is all kind of tying perfectly together. It's the 30th episode, I'm 30 years old. And my thought process continues to grow and improve and shift a little, right? I still hustle my butt off in a lot of areas. But what I've realized is you have to find the win-win in every situation. And that actually took me a long time to figure out that you could find the win-win in every situation. And one of the most important things for productivity, for health, for uh, living an optimal lifestyle, for getting things done, for making

• 2:44Lewis Howes?

  a lot of money, building the business that you want, but also having it all. And one of the big things is, is sleep. As simple as this sounds, is sleep. And in today's episode, Amir is going to break down why sleep is important for entrepreneurs. Uh, why sleep and health is, you know, comes hand to hand. You can't just eat well and work out and not sleep. How sleep actually cures disease, cancers, and other illnesses. How sleep will cause better decision-making. And help you create actually a bigger business in the long run while actually sustaining your life and your health.

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  And I used to think that I could just work all day and all night, train really, really hard, eat whatever I want, and get these amazing results, when reality was, I can maybe do that for a while, but I remember feeling actually in college, playing football. Almost every other day, I would be like yawning on the football field. And it's because we were trained so hard in this heat. And I would go eat two Chipotle burritos, right, with double meat, and have tons of bread and pasta. And then I would stay up until about 3:00 AM, just goofing off. And then wake up early for 5:00 AM lifting. And I realized, why am I yawning so much? But really, it comes down to just getting the proper amount of sleep. And Amir is going to break down exactly.

• 4:13Lewis Howes?

  Why sleep is important? How to sleep the right way? How to create the better habits for yourself? And everything you need to know about sleep and being productive. Sleep is not for those who are broke. It's really for those who want to live a long time and want to live a balanced lifestyle. And again, you see some very successful entrepreneurs, people who are making tens of hundreds of millions of dollars. But then you see that they're really out of shape or that they lack relationships. So they have these bags on their eyes and they really aren't living an energetic, fulfilled lifestyle. But there's a way to have it all. And that's why in this episode, we're talking about the importance of sleep and how to have it all with the proper sleep that you give.

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  So with that, guys, I want to introduce you to Amir Rosic.

• 5:07Lewis Howes?

  What's up everyone? Thanks again for tuning in today on the School of Greatness. Got a recent friend of mine, Amir Rosic, on the call. What's up, brother? How you doing?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  I'm doing good, Louis. How are you doing, my friend?

• 5:19Lewis Howes?

  I, you know, life is amazing. I'm super blessed and super grateful. And one of the reasons why it is amazing is because I take care of my body. And that's what I want to talk about today with you is the importance of taking care of your body. But something I think a lot of people overlook as well, which is sleep. And you are, you know, a top expert on health and nutrition. And when I met you a couple of months ago in Toronto at a conference, we, we kind of wrapped it out. And I learned, I feel like I learned a lot in about 10 minutes from just listening to you. So I thought it'd be important to bring you on and kind of share your wisdom and your insights.

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  And really some of the things you've experienced because when we talked, you told me that you were kind of like in a dark place I don't know, years ago with your health and with your body. And can you talk about that a little bit?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. And that's the whole reason why I'm doing what I'm doing today. Because I went through the journeys and struggles myself. So my whole history and my journey to reach optimal health started roughly around five years ago. And I was in a very dark place. I mean, depression had took me over. I had dark, I mean, these immense dark clouds following me everywhere I go. My outlook in life was absolutely horrendous. I wasn't the statue of perfect health. I mean, I was drinking every weekend, doing extracurricular substances, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And it wasn't fun at all. And I had no meaning in life at all. I felt like there was a dark hole and abyss in my heart.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  And through certain life events, the life hit me in the head with a hammer. I finally woke up and I had an epiphany in my life. And this epiphany led me to my position in my life and today. And I'm blessed to help so many people. And through proper circadian sleep cycles, through proper nutrition, I transformed my body. I increased my IQ. I became a champion in a national sport here in Canada. I'm helping people worldwide achieve optimal health. I have, I've somehow encapsulated so much passion in my, in my soul and my being. And it's because of the way I sleep, the way I eat, and the way I treat my body. Because when you treat yourself first, everything else follows and everything else is greater, right?

• 7:39Speaker 01

  So if you want to run a business and if you want to do good in this world, if you want to deliver value in this world, it's all about treating your vessel. You know, one cell first. When you treat yourself first and you create that perfect vessel, you then have the ability to then affect so many more people globally.

• 7:58Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. So, so, so let's jump into why sleep is important. And I'm going to talk about sleep is important for, you know, two of the kind of the aspects that I live my life in, which is as an athlete, why is sleep important when you're training constantly, when you're working out? And then also, why is it important as a working business professional, an entrepreneur that has a lot of creative ideas and that puts a lot of output into the world? So why is it important to people that are working their minds and body so frequently?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  That's a fantastic question. Well, everybody needs to really realize that we're like batteries, to make it quite simple. And without proper sleep, and you might hear me referring to sleep in circadian rhythms. Basically, what that means is clocks. We all have 24-hour clocks, give or take, in our body. And these clocks dictates how your hormones, your energy levels, and how you actually behave in everyday situations. And why sleep is so crucially important in your life, guys, is recharges you. It actually increases hormones in your body, increases your immune system, gives you clarity, gives you focus, and so much more. And the problem in today's time is, you hear all these people, day to day,

• 9:13Speaker 01

  from, specifically entrepreneurs, because they're so driven about, you know, their business, and they love what they do, but they're pulling all-nighters. They're not going to bed for like 48 hours, and they get burnt out very fast. And they're wondering, what in the world happened? When in reality, you need sleep. And, I've got something really simple over here, Lewis. And I want people to really pick this in their mind. A new study came out not too long ago, and roughly it was about, I think maybe two years ago the study came out. And it showed that people who stay up 48 hours or more, which many people do in this crazy stressed-out days that we're living, have the same blood sugar as a diabetic.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Now, I just want everyone to pause for a second. And take that information in. As a diabetic? Now, can you imagine now what happens when this is compounded? Day in, day out, year by year by year? I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but it's gonna end up in something not very beneficial for you, right? So, sleep is the pivotal thing in order to achieve optimal health. Lewis, you asked me at the conference, I'm here. What is the number one thing that you think in your eyes is the first starting point for achieving optimal health? And you heard me, I said sleep.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Before diet, before anything, sleep is the number one thing you have to do. Because it dictates how your hormones behave in your body. It dictates how your energy levels are gonna behave your body. It dictates how you're gonna concentrate. And there's so many people having issues today. For I've done many videos talking about the sleep and ADD connection. Sleep and growth hormone connection. Sleep and concentration connection. And people need to really drill in the message that without a healthy sleeping cycle, all these three factors I just talked about actually increase. So you're gonna now lose your hormones, your concentration goes out the window, and you develop ADD.

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  Now, what is the optimal amount of sleep? And first off, let's say you've been sleeping horrible for years, maybe even your entire life. And you're 40 years old. And you're thinking to myself, you know, holy shit, I've just been sleeping like four hours a night. I've been doing drugs, I've been having horrible diet. Is there hope for me? Is there, you know, can I recharge my battery enough so that I have the energy for and to live a healthy, long life now?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a fantastic question. Yes, there is hope, plain and simple. But I do wanna stress one thing. We are like banks and there's a mechanism in our brain called sleep debt that actually accumulates the seconds, the times, the days that you actually missed out on sleep. And just like a loan, the bank will come knocking on your door and saying, hey Louis, well you owe us about two, three years of catch-up time, right?

• 12:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's serious stuff. Uh, there's certain protein in your body called ceratine pathway. It's an ancient longevity pathway. And this pathway is actually connected to a healthy circadian cycle. And going back to this gentleman, for example, who just had an avatar, this gentleman who's a 40-year-old entrepreneur, has been busting his balls all his life and all of a sudden he's like, god damn it, my hormones suck, I'm 40, nothing's going right. Okay. But now he has the epiphany moment that he wants to reverse the situation, optimize his health, and obviously he's gonna start with sleep. There is tremendous hope over here because...

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Like anything in nature, your body wants to survive. So if you give a healthy environment to your body, meaning proper environment for your body to sleep, proper food for your body to heal, proper mindset, you'll be quite astonished at how fast the body actually heals itself. And for this gentleman, yes, simple stuff because what you and I are going to be talking about in today's podcast. And what I always drill my message to all my listeners around the world is I like to make things simple. A great legend and idol of mine, Bruce Lee, always has a quote, simplicity is the key to brilliance. So if you make things complicated, making a person do backflips, et cetera, et cetera, it's not a sustainable approach.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  So we want to make simple, easy steps that everyone can take in order to optimize your sleep, their health and their being.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I love it. I like that quote a lot. And you know, actually, I always talk about keeping things simple so much because I feel like the key to my success is just really being simple, having a simple plan and then taking action as opposed to trying to complicate so much. And so I'll take that I feel like I'm brilliant now since I am simple. So, okay, perfect. So there are some steps you can take to rejuvenate the sleep. What is it? The sleep debt bank? Is that what it's called?

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just call it the bank. You have a sleep bank in your brain and the more you actually, you know, go against the clock, this bank is putting you in debt and just cashing in boom, boom, boom, boom.

• 14:23Lewis Howes?

  So what do we have to do? Do we have to oversleep for years? Do we have to sleep an extra hour a day? What are the things we need to do?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  That's a great question. So people think, oh, don't worry, Amir, I slept eight hours today. I'm good. Eh, wrong answer. That's not good at all. I'm sorry. You know, you can't fight nature and I'll explain to you exactly how in the most simplistic way possible. Obviously, we have huge environmental cofactors that dictate our sleeping pattern.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  And that cofactors is the sun. When the sun comes up, it shines photons, which are wavelength photons or light. And this light stimulates hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol, and growth hormone. And this keeps you up during the day and makes you active. When the sun goes down, there is no blue light, none of these wavelengths. It increases a hormone called melatonin. Everybody's quite familiar with this hormone and actually puts you to bed. That's the natural laws of nature. So when I hear somebody telling me, "Oh yeah, I slept eight hours. I went to bed at 4:00 AM in the morning." It doesn't work because you're going against the actual natural circadian clocks.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Every single cell in your body has a clock. That cell communicates with your organs. Your organs communicates with your brains. They are controlled by the photons outside from the sun. Pause for a second. I'm going to tell you guys a study and really picture this in your mind. Melatonin puts you to bed. Cortisol keeps you active. Okay, just remember that. They had participants in a pitch black room that they could not see their hands in front of their faces. The only thing that was exposed was their kneecap, or I should say, behind their knee. Researchers and scientists took a laser pointer, a standard laser pointer, and they pointed it behind the knee.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  That one little dot was enough to raise cortisol levels and decrease melatonin levels. Now, can you imagine when an individual stays past 10:00 PM and is on their computers, watching TV, or maybe in the office, bathing in this white light all over the place? Can you imagine what is doing that to your biochemistry?

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  So what you're saying is when the sun goes down, you shouldn't be in front of a lot of light.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. I actually consider carcinogenic, meaning light is poisonous. It can be connected to many things as of late that causing diseases. And one of the greatest tips I'm gonna tell you guys right now, and I try to make it quite simple, as I mentioned already, is obviously, we live in a society that maybe, no, even person myself, I can't go to bed at 7:00 PM. For example, same in winter time here in Canada, the sun sets around even earlier, like 5:30. Well, that's not happening. But I can make a consistent time from January to January that actually falls in the window of a healthy circadian cycle. And that timeframe is 10:00 PM. So that's 10:00 PM in January, 10:00 PM in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  All months of the year, you can do that consistent. Because our body likes consistency. It doesn't like having random nights all different. It likes consistency is programmed that way. Second of all, because of this information, we know of light. Light is poison for you. Since you're going to bed at 10:00 PM, 9:00 PM is a shut off. Like, there is no light around you at all.

• 17:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Nothing at all. So for one hour time, I like to call this the download time, where you give your body the care it deserves. Why do you have to be on your laptop? Why do you have to be on Facebook? Why do you have to be sending emails at 9:00 PM at nighttime? Why don't you give your body the care it deserves? Why don't you sit down in a nice hot bath with Epsom salt? You know, relax, you know? You and I can relate to this because we're in sports, right? You know how good that feels, right?

• 18:23Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  It feels amazing. It restores your magnesium levels. Why don't you now have, you know, like a small candle or an amber light? Since amber lights don't shine blue light, but in small amounts, you're okay. Why don't you have a small amber light and read a great book? Why don't you educate yourself? Why don't you talk to your spouse? Hey, honey, how's the day going? Or talk to whoever, one of your partners. Why do you have to be around technology, literally, one hour before bedtime?

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Uh, you know, people are just conditioned that way, I guess. That's what people would say, I think, right?

• 18:58Speaker 01

  It is, but then you just hit a key point. If you're conditioned to be that way, you can be deconditioned to be another way.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  Very true.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Right? Because we're, we're quantum computers. We are programmed by our environment. Our environment dictates how we behave. If I'm in a city that's, you know, hustling and bustling, you better believe it that that city's attitude is gonna rub off on you. Now, if I'm living in a household full of entrepreneurs and three of them stay up to like 4:00 AM and I'm the only one that cares about my sleep, there's gonna be some conflicting issues over here, right? So it really is crucially important that, you know, your husband, your wife, your partner, or whatever environment you're living in, that you guys all educate each other together and try to do this together as a tribe.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Because that's how humans function. We function as a tribe. And there's no individualism over here. It's about tribal connections.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Now, let's just say, okay, this is the perfect way to do it. We all wanna go to bed by 10 o'clock. By 9 o'clock, no lights, only amber light or candlelit in your, in your area. Turn off all technology. We understand that that's the optimal way. And for most people, they may think that's a little extreme. And I live in New York City. I don't get off work till 7:00. And then I like to go out and have fun with friends till 9:00 or 10:00, and then I come back and, you know, do my thing. And then I have to wake up at 6:00 every morning to go to work. So let's say for the person that may be in an extreme environment

• 20:34Lewis Howes?

  and doesn't have the option right now, or they're just not making the decision or the choice to leave that option right now, that they stay in it. So what can someone who's in that situation, who is, doesn't wanna leave their environment, but they wanna get a better increase on sleep and they wanna feel like they're paying back the debt bank of sleep? Uh, what are some things they can do? Can you have a cheat day, or I guess a cheat night, where all week you're, you know, you're going to bed, let's say at 11:00 as opposed to 10:00, and you're doing the best you can, but on Saturday night you stay up, you, you don't sleep at all. Is that okay? And how do you make that back? Or what are some other things that you can do?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. I get this question a lot and I usually tell everybody is, "Well, you can't cheat nature." Let me put it that way. When you go against the natural tides of circadian cycles, environmental stimulus, nature will crush you. Lack of sleep will equal out to type 2 diabetes. Actually, there's connections now to Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis. But yes, if you're in a certain environment that's not really healthy for a healthy lifestyle, there are certain different modalities you may implement. Such as, if you have to go out, think about even, you know, it's a great idea. I see some people, Dave Asprey does this from the Bulletproof Executive. He's big on this.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  And you can use blue light blocker glasses and they come in very stylish type of shapes and everything. I do stress they're very expensive for a good pair, highly expensive. Yeah. Uh, but that's something that can block out the blue light from entering your retina to mitigate the effects. Uh, you can take certain herbs such as St. John's Wort to increase serotonin in your body, therefore increase melatonin if you're staying up late. Uh, some people like to use actual supplement the melatonin. I'm not a big fan of it. Uh, instead, if you have to use any melatonin, you can use something called time release. When you actually take it, when the sun starts setting down and you actually mimic natural laws of nature. Also, okay, the next day, it's really important.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  So if you, this is huge, this is a great tip to cost no money at all. Uh, but you can't sleep in on this tip. So say, say Louis, you, yeah, you can't sleep in, so you'll sleep again.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  So if you want to stay up late one weekend a night, I, I will lie, a person do it sometimes. That's life, right? Right. Uh, but I don't sleep in. Really? Yeah, I don't sleep in. It's really, really important that you wake up on that same timing. You gotta keep a clock, you need half the clock going. So say you're up to like 3 a.m. that night, maybe you're in New York doing the nightlife thing and maybe you're wearing these glasses and you're taking the time release melatonin or St. John's Wort. You wake up, my friend, and you watch the sunrise. What? I kid you not, it's called solar gazing. You act, okay, you familiar with Superman? Of course. Of course. So Superman gets his energy from the sun, right? Right. We are no different.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  It's called the photoelectric effect discovered by Einstein himself.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  And what it does is the photons and the wavelength of the sun and also the color spectrum, which is blue light spectrum, actually increases electrons in our body. These electrons go to a mechanism in your body called the mitochondria, which gives you something called ATP liforce, the very essence of our coexistence on this planet. So when we actually look at solar gazing, this is only half this part of solar gazing. True solar gazing is watching the sun rise and sunset. So when you watch a sunrise after a night of, you know, partying or whatever, the night of socialization, it's a great way to recharge your cells and mitigate the effects of the previous night.

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, interesting. But when does the sun, when does the sunrise, like 5:00, 6:00 AM?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Depends on your geographical location.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  Right, of course.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Right, so New York, uh, New York's the same as Toronto over here, so yeah, roughly around that time.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. That's pretty early. Is that what, what time, do you wake up around that time every morning?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  No alarm clock right now. Natural cycle for me is I wake up at 5:45.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  You go to bed at 10:00 every night or most nights and you wake up at 5:45 with no alarm clock?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  No alarm, bing bang boom. I quickly go downstairs, make my special super energy water drink to rehydrate my cells of H2O. Then I go outside, I do joint mobility in my field and I watch the sun rise almost every single day.

• 25:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's pretty impressive.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, it's one of the greatest things I've ever implemented in my life. I feel like a million dollars when I do it. If, if I miss like a day or two, I actually notice a huge difference.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow, now let's talk about lack of sleep, what it does to people now. I think you mentioned that lack of sleep also is the main cause of ADD. Is that what, something you would?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so I've done many videos and articles about this and think about this for a second. There's so many kids and people prescribe like Prozac and Ritalin. Oh my God, the whole world has ADD. Give me a break. That's not the case at all, right? That's, that goes in a different podcast all along with pharmaceutical profits, right? What's happening over here is simple. Let's, let's revert back to some geeky science. Bear with us, people. For a healthy levels of concentration, meaning you know, Lewis and I in our sport, or if I'm working with clients, looking at their laboratory results, I'm knee deep in it and I'm laser focused and I'm crushing what I gotta do. And the only reason why I'm doing this is because I have an hormone called dopamine, right? Or some people call it neurotransmitter, whatever you gotta look at it.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  But dopamine is responsible for controlling the levels of concentration you have in your body, right? So when you have healthy levels, you're laser focused, you're crushing stuff. Now, when you have lack of sleep, because of lack of sleep, you have lack of melatonin. And melatonin is actually responsible in a cycle, because melatonin is like a parent. And melatonin comes around and is like, hey, dopamine, wake up, it's time for you to recharge, because we need you the next day to stay alert and stay focused, right? But since you have lack of sleep, you're not sleeping proper, there's no melatonin, there's no parent to say, hi, dopamine, wake up. And dopamine never wakes up. So you got low levels of dopamine, you know, you have this like, you can't concentrate,

• 26:53Speaker 01

  you're all fidgety throughout the day, no wonder, because your body doesn't have the actual fuel to keep you concentrated. And then you go to the doctor, and the doctor prescribes you Ritalin or Prozac, and it's a perpetual cycle that doesn't go anywhere. It actually ends up in a very bad spot.

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow. That's no good. I think there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there who always say they have ADD because they're constantly focusing on social media, Twitter, Facebook, always pop-ups. Every idea they have, they go and try to create it, but they never actually finish something. I think not everyone, but I hear this theme coming across a lot of entrepreneurs is their lack of focus. And, you know, there's obviously lots of factors that come into play with eating habits and probably having sugar at like 2:00 a.m. before you go to bed and not sleeping consistently through the night, a lot of different things that affect.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Sugar, I'm gonna pause there for a second. You wanna know something about sugar and sleep?

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Alright, I'm gonna tell you one thing. There's a enzyme called amylase is responsible for digesting all carbohydrates and sugars in your body. It's found in your saliva, right?

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Okay, there's another hormone called leptin, which is responsible for saying, "Hey Louis, you had enough to eat." Okay?

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  These two are very important. Lack of sleep, brand new studies, and there's many coming out, more and more, every single day. It's a great field of research. Lack of sleep increases the actual enzyme, amylase, in your mouth. Okay, that increase of amylase therefore makes your sugar cravings go through the roof. At the same time, destroys the signaling of leptin to say, "Hey Louis, you had enough to eat." And it goes even down deeper. It goes into ancestral pathway. Why do we have sugar cravings when we don't have sleep? It's quite simple. Your body wants to put you in a hypoglycemic state, meaning Louis is gonna eat a shitload of sugar, and then his blood sugar is gonna crash, making him go to sleep. In fact, that's your body's mechanism, trying to put you back to bed.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, so you're just screwing yourself over, and over and over and over when you do that?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 28:57Lewis Howes?

  I did some research on sugar a couple of years ago, cuz I realized that I was pretty addicted to it, uh, my whole childhood. And a couple of years ago, when I moved to New York, I was doing some research on it, and I just saw all this negative research on how sugar affects your mind, your body, your energy levels, sex drive, everything. So I did a test. I said, "Okay, at least I'm aware of this, that I'm pretty, uh, sugar crazy." I pretty much had to have sugar all the time. Like after every meal, I needed like some type of dessert. I needed something. And so I went off sugar for two months. I still had some natural sugars. I still had like, uh, I would have like a banana every couple of days and um, I'd have some coconut water every now and then, which also had a lot of sugar, but no like refined sugars, no candy, no sweets, no

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  milkshakes, cakes, nothing, for two months. And in the first, I think it was 25 days, I lost 25 pounds. And I wasn't doing anything differently. I was just not eating sugar. I was still, I was doing CrossFit and working out before, and I was doing the same thing during, but I'd literally just cut out sugar. And I felt like this surge of energy and focus. I was, I would say I was probably eating healthier because I wasn't having sugar as well, and I was drinking green juice and doing a few other things, but... Taking out sugar was a huge benefit to me and now I still eat sugar but it's very controlled and balanced I would say. But it definitely saw this like surge of energy, focus, my body was transforming.

• 30:26Lewis Howes?

  Uh, my skin was clear. It was kind of amazing what this, you know, poison was doing to my body. By having so much of it and I can only imagine having so much sugar, what that did to my sleep.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  God, it's crazy. Anybody listening right now, do yourself a favor and one day at a time. Take away sugar, high fructose corn syrup, table sugar, uh, white flour, flour in general, all this stuff is carcinogenic to your health. The human body, plain and simple, is not meant to digest the sugar. It's not. We actually have a mechanism in our body that we prefer something called ketone fuel. Meaning these ketones are much more bioavailable and more efficient. At giving us ATP and energy in our body compared to glucose. So think about that for a second, like.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Babies are born in this ketone state and they feed on mother's breast milk for months, some for two years. And the mother's milk is full of healthy fats, you know, from CLA to the omegas and the baby thrives on this. And you keep on hearing right now, I'm just gonna. Fast forward to something that people can more relate to is you hear people eating coconut oil a lot, right?

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  The high, the high value of coconut oil, why coconut oil is so beneficial. Was quite simple. Coconut oil. Creates MCT, medium chain triglyceride. It fuels your body with ketones and that's why you feel better. And that's why you Louis, you felt a million times better because your body was slowly adapting to a ketogenic state. Instead of relying on sugar and I find it funny because people be like, oh my God, I can't go three hours without eating. Are you kidding me?

• 32:10Speaker 01

  What? I, I, I'm gonna show, I personally, my girlfriend, she's done seven day water fasts. I, I train professionally, I have to see clients all day, I'm speaking around, I can go sometimes forty-eight hours without eating, it doesn't, doesn't pass my mind, I walk around year round with like, probably, I don't know, seven percent body fat, I don't even try that hard with it, like people looking to lose weight, uh, there's tribes in Africa that have, literally, Louis, literally have to hunt a lion for like, I think six days straight without eating, and they are ripped to shreds and powerhouses, right, but yet over here, three hours, a guy's gonna have a heart attack.

• 32:44Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, so why, why is it, why is the mindset that people have to eat so much here? And what is the optimal amount of food that you need to bring in every day?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Uh, it depends on your metabolic, uh, demand, for any individual, to keep it simple, I'll say, start your morning with a high protein, high fat, like, for example, great pasture raised eggs, great vegetables, you know, give yourself maybe some blueberries if you like, that's a great breakfast, when you give your body like high protein, high fat in the morning, you stabilize your blood sugar levels throughout the day, you give your body healthier amino acids, and that's what you want, the reason why people have these hunger cues is twofold, one, lack of sleep, remember I mentioned, it causes your leptin, your hunger signals to be like, bye-bye, throws it out the window, so you don't have proper signals for hunger, you don't know when you're hungry, you don't know when you just stop eating, right?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  And then, when you actually give your body this like healthy breakfast, you stabilize everything, second, have healthy lunch, so, the same thing you have for breakfast, you can have for lunch, the same thing you have for lunch, you can have for dinner, don't think as breakfast as breakfast meal, think of each meal as a meal per se, and when you divide that, wake up, great breakfast, lunchtime, great lunch, dinnertime, a great dinner, this is a simple protocol that anyone can start following, that can greatly see improvements in their blood sugar levels, and greatly see improvements in their concentration, and greatly see improvements in their focus, energy levels, libido, loss of weight, et cetera, et cetera, right, so these are simple tips, you can take home and start right now.

• 34:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, now, let's talk about decision making, when you lose sleep, as an entrepreneur, let's say, and as an athlete, because it's really important to make great decisions on the playing field, on the court, whatever, but when you lose lack of sleep, how does that affect your decision making and risk-taking abilities and?

• 34:39Lewis Howes?

  Everything under this, under the

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, that's a great question. It's huge, right? So obviously, we have our left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain, right? And they like to communicate with each other through the cerebellum. Now, when you have lack of sleep, certain neurotransmitters in your body from, you know, once again, GABA, dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine. These neurotransmitters actually are responsible for right choices, making instinctive, natural, ancestral right choices because you heard the feeling, oh, you gotta follow your gut feeling, right?

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  There's many evolutionary theories on that fact, but in my eyes and through the studies and research that I've found, this gut feeling more correlates to safety, right? So we make smart decisions to protect us. We don't want to die. We don't want to be hurt. We don't want to be injured, right? Now, when you have lack of sleep, these proper neurotransmitters, these communications between left hemisphere and right hemisphere of your brain goes out the window. And you're left with irrational thinking. You're left with, your brain doesn't have the ability or the necessary building blocks to even think normally. And that's one of the reasons why alcohol does the same thing. It actually depletes your body of all the B vitamins in your brain.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  It destroys something called a methylation cycle in your body, and then all your inhibitions and smart, proper decision makings go out the window.

• 36:03Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Right? So it's crazy. People really, if, if, if you want to get better decisions, you want to get better focus, you want to lose the weight, you want to just improve everything in your life, something so simple, as Lewis and I have been talking in this podcast for the last like forty minutes, is go to bed at ten o'clock. Right? It sounds so simple, right? Just go to bed at ten o'clock, right? But uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. But it is. I swear, swear to God, guys, it's that simple. Just go to bed at ten o'clock. That's a great way to start. And then from there, you slowly build up. It's like, okay, Amir, how do I get better sleep? Like actual REM sleep, stage five sleep. Okay, that's the next stage, you know? Amir, I want this or that. Like, but you gotta start at the bottom. Like, if I want to move to my beautiful house somewhere, I can't move in unless the foundation is there,

• 36:49Speaker 01

  right? So you gotta start somewhere, and that's a great way, a great spot to start.

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. It's uh, it seems simple, you know, we don't need to have all these diets and pills and tricks and hacks. We can really just go to bed, get some sleep and feel energized and rested to make the great decisions, have focus, be productive throughout the rest of the day, right?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  That's, that's how easy it is. And I'll tell you something, I had some serious ADD issues back in the day. I mean, I couldn't even read a book. I'm like, what the hell is this? Throw this in the garbage, right? And when I, when on my journey of optimizing my health a couple of years ago and decided to become a health practitioner and go back to school and help people worldwide is uh, I noticed huge changes in my concentration. Like right now, I'm crushing like two books a week. I'm crushing like two audio books a week. I'm ferocious appetite for like assimilating and digesting information and knowledge possible. Louis, if you ask me this question five years, hey Amir, what's the last book you read? I'll start laughing and be like, what book?

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  What about the entrepreneurs that say sleep is for those who are broke? And if you want to make it in business or in life, you gotta hustle. And you gotta hustle early in the morning, you gotta hustle all day and all night when people are asleep. And that's the only way to get ahead. What do you say to those people?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I tell them the story about the tortoise and the hair. You know that story?

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So who won that race?

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  The tortoise.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  That's right. So I'm in this for the long run. I want to be here when I'm 120 and I want to help as many people around the world as possible. So if you are an entrepreneur, and obviously since you are an entrepreneur, you have the passion, purpose and desire to help as many humans as possible worldwide. Well, do you want to help maybe a thousand in one year? Or do you want to help 10 million in 10 years, right? So I'm in this in the long run. I don't care what you want to achieve in two years. I want to achieve what I'm talking about. I want to achieve in 60, 70 years, building a legacy, building a dynasty, building something that affects the whole world after I'm gone. And the only way I can do this

• 39:05Speaker 01

  is if I respect my body now and I give it the care it deserves now. Right? So for these entrepreneurs that think that it can survive on no sleep.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, but I'm the one that's gonna say, "That's not true, my friends." I will burst your bubble. If you want to be here till you're 100 and help as many people around the world, really readjust your paradigm and your thinking and start focusing on yourself.

• 39:33Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. Well, where can people learn more about you? And about your coaching and about all this stuff you're talking about in detail?

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, they can head over to ameerrosic.com. That's A-M-E-R-R-O-S-I-C dot com. Check out my YouTube channel, same thing, Amir Rosic. I have a huge following there as well. My podcast, Optimal Health Show. Just reach out to me if you're interested in anything or any advice. Please don't hesitate to give me a ring. I'm here to help you guys.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  I love it. And you also do, when we were talking about in Toronto, you also do like special, complete total body testing and hormonal testing, I believe it was, to figure out, again, okay, once you get the good sleeping patterns, how can we optimize what your body has and take it to the next level? And I forget what that was called, but you offer that service as well, correct?

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's my specialty. I specialize in functional diagnostic testing from, I'll test your genetic profile to see exactly what you're predisposed to, what certain supplements that your body can work with and cannot work with, because not all supplements are equal. Each person has a different set of genetics and biochemistry. I'll test your circadian biology, hormones, certain organic. I pretty much x-ray your body from genetics, biochemistry, and I design a specific nutritional diet, lifestyle regime for you, just for you and nobody else, because everybody worldwide is unique. So what works for Lewis doesn't work for Amir and vice versa.

• 41:03Lewis Howes?

  I love it, I love it. So if you guys are interested in that, go head over to ameerrosic.com or rosic, I believe it's pronounced, dot com. And you can just click on the work with me or just opt in there and you can learn more about that program that he puts together. Obviously, it's gonna be very detailed and specifically tailored to you and your life and your goals. So if that's something you're interested in, go check it out. Other than that, Amir, what would you say is your definition of greatness?

• 41:35Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness. I really like it from the movie The Pay It Forward, you know that concept?

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness is an individual that can make people's emotions light up, and an individual that can make a person cry, and an individual that can give a person hope. That's greatness in my eyes. It's not about money, it's not about success. If I, I've had so many tearful moments in my life when I have emails from clients saying, "Amir, I've had this health issue my whole life and because of you, my life has turned around and I feel amazing." And that brings joy to my life and brings tears to my eyes and I love it. And I love that whole aspect of, you know, small things that you can do that can change so many people's lives and lives. And that's greatness.

• 42:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. I love it, man. We'll leave it with that. Thanks so much for coming on, brother, and everyone make sure to go check out amirozic.com.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Thank you, Louis.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  Again, very important topic to learn about, the importance of proper sleep. Now, again, Amir is a little extreme for some that may seem, but really it's about how do you find a balance that works for you? And what are some things you can do a little bit differently to shut down the computer or the iPhone or whatever may be an hour before you go to sleep? To start dimming the lights down lower, maybe you're not just living a candlelit light all night, but really start to approach your sleep as something very important in your life, to be productive during the day, when you are awake, when you are working on your business or traveling the world. Think about it like that. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Again, please leave your feedback and comments

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  over on iTunes. Would love to get a review from you guys over there. And you get all the show notes over at schoolofgreatness.com. Continue to head back there for all the goodies, resources, tips, and tricks that we give out. With that, guys, you know what time it is. It's time for you to step up into your greatness. It's time to unleash that beast inside of you that's been wanting to step up for so long. It's time to go out there and do something great.