554 | The Floor

Joshua and T. K. speak with Natasha Theresa about how subtraction can help us see what matters most, the pros and cons of Japanese floor sleeping, the power of a single question, and much more. Discussed in this episode: Is comfort a wonderful servant but a terrible master? (1:31) Can Japanese floor sleeping improve sleep and lower-back pain, and what should a beginner know about transitioning from a traditional mattress to sleeping on the floor? (3:29) Talkaboutable: Is floor sleeping the most minimalist form of sleeping? (9:23) What are the pros and cons of floor sleeping? (19:12) Right Here, Right Now: Joshua's appearance on T. K.'s new show, One Question. (36:16) Check out the FULI futon https://fulijapan.com/theminimalists. (Enter code THEMINIMALISTS for 15% off.) Check out the Nuropod https://nuropod.com/theminimalists. Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast

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

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn here. TK Coleman over there. Today's guest is a special guest. We have a minimalist YouTuber, mom of two, and Japanese floor sleeping enthusiast. Please welcome to the show our new friend, Natasha Teresa.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 0:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Now, the reason I wanted you to be here today is for the last year, I've been trying this thing called floor sleeping, or Japanese floor sleeping, or maybe you call it minimalist sleeping. And there are a bunch of ways to approach it, but I also wanted to bring you into our world. So on page one, we'll sort of focus on some questions around floor sleeping. But then the rest of the episode, we're gonna spend talking about minimalism, and decluttering, and donation bags, and all kinds of fun things that we have planned for you. So I've got something to chew on first. TK, I'm gonna pass this one to you. Comfort is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. What does that mean to you?

• 1:43Speaker 02

  I love it. It just means that although comfort is not some great evil to be avoided at all costs, it's also not the thing you want to lead with. So there are two different ways you can try to like determine your activity. You can say, what's worth doing? And what's the most comfortable way to do that? And that's a good way to start things. But you could also say, what's the most comfortable way to be? And then you can restrict what's worth doing to that. And when you lead with comfort, and you restrict your creative expression to what works within, what makes you feel comfortable, you tend to limit yourself. Because sometimes we have to challenge ourselves to be uncomfortable, in order to discover the most interesting parts about ourselves and others. So comfort is fantastic.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  I remember talking to an old mentor of mine, and I says, you know, I really want to do this, but I'm afraid that I just want to be comfortable. And he says, hey, man, there's nothing wrong with comfort. He's like, if we were having this conversation, like, in the middle of Antarctica right now, it'd be pretty hard to focus. It's okay to be comfortable, you just don't want to lead with it.

• 2:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I also think that comfort is perspectival. The things that make you uncomfortable right now may just be something you're not used to, and I'm sure that's gonna come up quite a bit here at the beginning of the episode, Natasha. We're gonna be talking about doing some things that maybe we weren't used to, because we're used to doing things one way, the quote-unquote "comfortable" way. And so maybe the discomfort that we experience is just a byproduct of the way that we've always done things. So let's dive right into our callers, 406-219-7839, if you'd like to join the show. Or you can head on over to our website, theminualists.com/podcast. You can record a voice memo right there on our website from your phone or your computer. Really simple and easy, theminualists.com/podcast.

• 3:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our first question today is from Jasmine.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  Hi, my name is Jasmine. I'm calling from Connecticut. I've been experimenting with floor sleeping for a few weeks, using just a few comforters with a grounding mat on top, but I'm looking to improve my sleep and fix my lower back pain. So how long did it take for you to notice the benefits? And what pros and cons have you experienced? And do you have any tips for making it more comfortable?

• 3:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Natasha, let's start with you. First off, why in the hell would anyone even consider floor sleeping? And what is it?

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Floor, okay, so, floor sleeping, for me, it's just basically sleeping on a firmer surface. It happens to be on the floor, like, I mean, technically, there's like some cushion above the floor, but it's usually a firmer surface than like our typical mattresses, you know, the ones you spend like thousands of dollars on, you know, the name brand stuff. So, like, it, um, for whatever reason, like, I decided to get into it because originally I had a very expensive name brand mattress, and I was using it for a few years, and I was convinced that this was the best for my back, but every day I was waking up more sore. Like, I would go to bed feeling all right, and then I'd wake up sore in the morning,

• 4:46Speaker 04

  like I had worked out, but I hadn't, I was just sleeping, supposedly. You know, so, I, um, I felt like there was a disconnect with that, and then that's kind of what got me down this like rabbit hole of like, are there other options out there? And somehow I fell upon like Japanese floor futons. And I was like, how are they like getting such good sleep on this thin cushion that they just put on the floor?

• 5:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And how is everybody in Japan, obviously it's not everyone, but there's a large swath of people, so it's not abnormal there, even though it's abnormal to us.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's like they've been doing that, what, for centuries, right? Like, that's just how it is. And so, western mattresses are like, they're more, that's a newer thing.

• 5:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 5:27Speaker 04

  And so, um, I, that's kind of how I got, I was like, well, the Japanese people, especially like in the blue zones, they're all very like sprightly, like, the old, the old people, like, they're like 90 years old or whatever, and they can get up and down from the ground, like, do the deep squats, everything. And I'm like, what are they doing different over there that, you know, why are we, why are we having such trouble getting out of a chair? So I was kind of like, let me just explore this some more, and that's kind of what led me down the whole rabbit hole.

• 5:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How'd you find it first? Was it Mike Chang?

• 6:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm gonna, it was, yeah, I'm gonna say it was Mike Chang. I'm gonna say, yeah, we'll just credit it to him, because he was like sleeping straight, like, really like on a rug, like a, like a, some kind of rug on the floor, and he's like, yeah, I love the floor, like, now my muscles are so hard, and he's like knocking, he's like knocking his joints all on the floor, like, yeah, and I'm like, what, how, but also, he's very muscular, I was like, well, wait, but the thing with him is, he's like, I felt, you know, I've been working out for years, and I felt so buff, and every, you know, I'm great, I feel great, I feel great, but why, why do I have trouble like, like, being on a firm surface? Because he tried sitting on the floor, and he's like, why is, why does this hurt so much? And so, he's like, you know, I'm doing all the things to be fit and stuff, but I can't

• 6:43Speaker 04

  just sit on a floor, like, why is this not, why is this not working? So I think that's why he started like experimenting with just laying on a firmer surface, and over time, he noticed that his muscles got stronger, or he felt better, and he felt more in alignment. So then that's when I was like, well, I want to be big and strong and buff like Mike Chang one day, you know, no, just kidding. I was like, well, okay, he's doing it, his whole family's doing it, like, maybe I should just try it out? Because what I'm doing is not working. If I'm waking up sore every morning, it just, I was just like, why am I spending all this money on this expensive mattress? And, yeah, so.

• 7:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I find that for me, I don't recommend it to anyone, there are two reasons. The first reason is that it's such a far leap for most people that, why? And I'm also not trying to convince anyone of anything, but I also feel like it'd be almost criminal for me not to mention it. That's why I wanted to bring you in to do an episode, because I've experienced so many benefits from doing it over the last year. And even with my family, I never told my wife, Bex, I was telling you off camera, it's so funny, if you ever want to know what Bex is like, her personality is so much like Natasha's. We were watching some of her videos on floor sleeping early on, and Bex is like, why do I like her so much? I'm like, because she's you, it's the same person, it's just on the screen.

• 8:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And my point is that she was super open to it, to having me do it, but I was never even, I never even thought that she would want to do it. She's the healthiest person I know, super fit, and I was like, I need to do this, because I've got this pinched nerve in my neck, and it's been causing this shoulder pain, and I've tried a bunch of stuff, and I need to try this out. I think it's worth trying. And I saw Mike Chang, I saw some of your videos, some other people, and I said, I'm just gonna try this out on my own. And I did, and I was just, I got a little mattress topper, put it on the floor, it was the same with what Mike Chang did. I wouldn't do that again the same way, I'd definitely just get a Japanese futon. But, and we could talk about what we use, and different tools to implement, if you're interested in trying it.

• 8:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But I started doing it, and the pain started dissipating in areas I didn't even know there was pain. And I realized, oh, I'm waking up, I need less sleep, and I'm waking up in a way that I feel more refreshed. But the best part for me, the number one reason, is I had this pain in my neck, and it's gone, it's reduced 70 to 80% at this point, and it's made it much more manageable. I played that Mike Chang video here on the podcast before, so we're not gonna play that again, but I wanted to play a different video for people who are just sort of unfamiliar with what this is, and if it sounds crazy to them, maybe we can review that. Because I wonder whether floor sleeping is maybe the most minimalist form of sleeping. Check out this video.

• 9:32Speaker 05

  This is exactly how to transition from your thick unhealthy mattress to the floor safely and without discomfort. I've made other videos on the countless benefits of sleeping on a firm surface and this video is about the tangible steps that you can take today to do it successfully. You see, most people try to sleep on the floor for one night, complain that it hurt and then they never do it again. And so they lose out on all of the benefits of floor sleeping. So instead, follow this protocol. Step number one is to remove your bed frame and place your mattress directly on the floor. This alone will improve your sleep and you will experience greater stability, no movement, sway, or elevation, and no artificial bounciness that you get from bed frames. Your body immediately feels safer and more grounded. Sleep like this for a whole week before moving on to the next step. And step number two is to transition off of the mattress. Remove the mattress entirely

• 10:16Speaker 05

  and create a comfortable bed setup on the floor using what you've got. Blankets, pillows, duvet, spare bedding, layer them to create a comfortable but firm surface. This will serve as your transition bed. Here you will experience an adjustment period where you may wake up in the middle of the night a little bit stiff from being in one position for too long. This is natural. This is your body realigning. Enjoy the adjustment period and stick with it. Step three is to reduce the padding. When you feel comfortable, start removing layers that your bed becomes gradually more firm. You may end up with just a thin blanket or a rug or sleeping directly on the carpet. Your body will start adapting and things will start to open up for you. Your shoulders loosen, your spine realigns, your hips open, your rib cage expands, your breathing

• 10:56Speaker 05

  deepens, and you drop into much deeper sleep cycles. And step four is to create the fully firm surface. By now, you are ready to sleep on a hard surface safely and without discomfort. This could look like a cotton or wool rug, a wooden floor with minimal padding, or sheepskins, which is the gold standard, which is what I've been sleeping on for years. Your sleep will now become incredibly deep and restorative. Trust in this process and you will soon wake up with no stiffness, no pain, and a level of alignment and clarity that you have never experienced. It sounds crazy, but the firm surface will now feel more comfortable than a mattress. And if you ever spend a night on a mattress again, you will notice immediately how much nicer the firm surface feels. You can never go back. Now, if you want my full floor sleeping protocol and my entire-

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Does this sound crazy to you? It sounds intriguing to me and I have a few questions about this. First, what do you all do when you travel? Particularly like if you go to a hotel and you may not feel comfortable sleeping on the floor there. I'll start with it.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  It depends how long I'm staying there. For, for, a lot of hotels, they, they have like firmer mattresses like lately that I've been noticing. So it's like not horrible. I'm usually okay for like a day or two on it, but if it gets really bad, then I will just take all of the comforters, all the blankets, and I'll put them on the floor. I'll check the floor, make sure it's safe enough, right? You know, like, but um, I might just put everything on the floor and just sleep on the floor. But usually if it's just like two or three days, I just, I kind of just tough it out. Yeah, yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  It's amazing, though. You have to tough it out. You feel that difference.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. After the first night, I feel a little more sore already. And I'm like, huh, you know, I already missed my bed at home, you know, or my, you know, my floor futon at home. So, yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Does your answer differ?

• 12:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It knows pretty much the same. I, I, I try not to be dogmatic about it. When I'm out on tour and there's a hotel, I'm gonna sleep in the bed that I have there. And it is, I've noticed, it's just slightly less comfortable because, and that's the thing about comfort. When you make that big transition, the thing that is uncomfortable becomes the new default. And now that is, is comfortable. And, and really what I did is I felt like I subtracted the excess, minimalism, and that subtraction revealed what my comfort was sort of covering up or concealing, right? The, the comfort of the bed. And when Bex noticed the benefits of me, she was like,

• 13:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  maybe I should try this out too. I'm like, hey, I don't know. And she's like, okay, let me, let me, let me see. And so she tried it out. She's like, I kind of like this. My, I didn't realize I really had a little bit of pain in my hips and that's starting to go away. The thing for her that was amazing is she started noticing that I feel safer closer to the ground. And I don't know why that is, but physiologically, she said, I feel safer. And here's the strange thing, you know, I grew up really poor. My brother and I used to sleep on the floor when we were kids. We had a futon, like a college dorm looking futon. And both of us preferred sleeping on the floor than that. And so it was kind of a treat to sleep on the floor while the

• 14:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  other one slept on the futon that was up on these terrible rails and stuff. So I, I find that, that we, I don't know, we, we, we take on this new comfort of the bed sometimes because, well, that's the thing you're supposed to do. And when that's the thing you're supposed to do, then you have to have the nicest possible one. I had a really, really, really nice mattress that eventually I got rid of because it was literally a pain in the neck.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  So it has to be the case that at one point, that's how we slept. This is how the animals don't have a bed. So how did we get to this point where we not only started sleeping on beds, but we became convinced that this is the most reasonable way to sleep? Do either of you know anything about that, the history of this?

• 14:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I know a little bit. And you tell me, maybe you can fill in some gaps here. The, the, the first thing is that there are a hundred billion people have lived on earth and what, maybe 98 billion of them, 97 billion of them slept not on mattresses. So whether that is a Japanese futon or you got this guy sleeping on lambskins or rugs or whatever, they weren't sleeping on mattresses. Now, I don't think that alone is a good enough case to say that we shouldn't have mattresses. It could be that mattresses then improved our sleep overall, right? And so I, I think that's at least worth noting. Just because most people did something one way doesn't mean that's necessarily the best way to do it in perpetuity. Although I do think it is a, it's a signal to,

• 15:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to pay attention to. Oh, wow. Okay. We kind of evolved this way to sleep on firmer surfaces. And, and so I think a few hundred years ago, from what I understand, is we started introducing like the queen and beds to avoid bugs and especially rodents to, to keep us from not getting bit by the rats that might be in the castle, so to speak.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  Yes, that, that's, well, according to the research that I did as well. Yeah, that's, that's what I was noticing. It's more of like, being able to sleep elevated off the floors, kind of like, it kind of signified your status at the time too, right? So like royalty, you know, like nobility. They, they had that opportunity to not be on the floor with the rodents and everything. So, yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  That makes a lot of sense.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. That's as far as I got with my research.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  I mean, that, that satisfies my question. That's, that's good enough.

• 16:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. Yeah. So when I see this, and he takes it even further than you and I do, I have, uh, we're actually working on making our bedroom. So eventually, we got rid of the bed after Bex decided she liked it. Here's the interesting thing. My 13 year old daughter, uh, last year when she was 12, she would come in there and she, now she's saying, oh, I want to do this too. I never said you need to do this, or I want you to do this. She's like, can I get rid of my bed and, and also do this? It's so fun for her. It's, it's play. And you realize that it's much more comfortable for her to play on that surface and it actually expands the size of the room. Do your kids-

• 16:56Speaker 04

  Yes, they sleep on the floor too. They prefer it. They prefer it. Um, like, yeah, actually, when they were like toddlers, I used to, instead of having them in the crib or whatever, or like, well, I guess what, when they're one, one or two years old, I, I felt safer having them on like a floor futon back then. But I didn't make that connection yet. I just knew it was easier for me because like, say they woke up in the middle of the night, it's easier for me to also just lay on the floor futon with them. And I think like a lot of families can, you know, they like it for that reason too, like for co-sleeping if they do that. So it made it easier for me to go in and console them. And then if I fall asleep, it's all good. We both on the floor is, you know what I mean? As opposed to like they in the crib and I'm like trying to go to sleep so that I can go to sleep. So actually it's better, it was actually a lot better for us

• 17:41Speaker 04

  back then when they were younger too. And we kind of just fell away from that because we were like, oh, well, they're older now. They should have like a cute kid bed. They should have like the bed frames. Everything should look cute, you know? And so we kind of fell away from that. But then we started moving a lot because um, at some point I got into real estate and I wanted to house hack. So we started, we had to minimize our stuff so that we could move from place to place. And so it came, it was like, well, I have to, we have too many bed frames. We're like setting up this bed everywhere. There's not enough space. So that's kind of what also pushed us back into like, here, here's like, you know, sleep on the floor here. Here's a floor futon. And so, but the kids love it because they can really easily play on the floor. Like we can have, you know, bedtime stories on the floor. Like it's easier. I don't know. It's easier. And then

• 18:25Speaker 04

  being on their level, you know, they love when their parents, like kids love when you're down on the floor with them, right? Like they love that. It's like you're, you see eye to eye with them and you can connect with them better, I feel like. So it was, it's, I think they feel the same way too, as like what, um, your wife was saying, like she feels safer on the floor. Like my son actually was like, when we got rid, we did a video like a year or two ago, where we got rid of his bed frame in the newest house. And he was like, yeah, no, I don't like having a bed frame because there could be monsters under there. But, you know, but he was like so serious about it. I'm like, okay, you know what? Yeah. We don't want no monsters. We want to make sure you safe. So that's why he likes to be on the, he's, he's older now, but yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  I think that's the best argument I've ever heard for sleeping on the floor. There are no monsters on the floor.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you don't have one less thing to worry about. So.

• 19:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let's talk about the pros and cons here. What, um, you, you talked about less pain. Are there any other pros? But also the bed frame. I imagine TK, purgatory is just, you, you're, you show up and there's an Ikea box that's a Ikea bed frame. And now you have to assemble this for the rest of eternity. And you can't get into heaven until you finally assembled this Ikea box 643 years later.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  That'll definitely be your purgatory. You'll actually get into heaven once you can start enjoying it. But you know what? This is all like, okay, I could do this forever.

• 19:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I did figure out how to enjoy it. I brought Nicodemus over and made him do most of it. And that was always my Ikea plan was to have him build my furniture while I pretended to just look confused at the instructions.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  So this is another argument for sleeping on the floor. You don't have to deal with the assembling of.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And if you like, do move a lot, like some people do move a lot, like this one less thing to worry about. Like when I was moving a lot, we used to have, we inherited this big bed frame from my, my in-laws. They're just, it's nice. It's supposed, you know, it's nice. It was like the canopy thing, but it was so big. And so we kept having to disassemble it and take it to a new place. And it's like hundreds of pounds. Like it was, it was like ridiculous, like a California king. I didn't even know what a California king was until like, I came here and inherited a California king from my in-laws. So, cause I, I lived in Cali when I first got married, but yeah, it was, it was such a pain. It was such a pain. And then it's like, also you have to think about how all of your furniture coordinates and stuff.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  And it's like, I don't, I, I personally don't have the brain space for that. When I was younger, I was like, yeah, I need to make it all like cohesive and stuff. But now I'm just like, no, just make it practical, make it functional, you know, and make it easy for me to pick up and leave if I need to. So, yeah.

• 20:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I would say it can still be beautiful. I've got this picture here. We're going to put a nice color version of it up on the screen. This is what we're working toward. Bex and I have decided without this platform, I don't like the platform, but everything else, there's these tatami mats on the floor. So we use tatami mats now. I, I buy my Japanese futon and tatami mats from a company called Fuli. And I actually emailed them yesterday. I don't know if they ever got back to me or not. I, I said, hey, I paid full price for mine. I said, can you give our listeners a discount? And if they say yes to that, I'll make sure that we put it in the show notes for folks to take a look at those mattresses. In fact, I have a picture there. We could put that up on the screen as well. You see, there's a little side note there. Savvy D says all the thumbnails, the very bottom.

• 21:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Actually, we'll just have Tomcat put it up on the screen here for us. But there is a picture of the exact Japanese futon that I use and tatami mat. But this is what we're working toward here. I'll put this back on the screen. This is a standard Japanese bedroom. What I like about the, the Japanese futon is you could pick it up and you can hang it up somewhere. You could put it in a closet. You can get it out of the way and you sort of reclaim the space to do whatever you want. You can do yoga, you can do stretching, you can do exercise. You could play with your kids. You can roll around. You could do whatever you want with the space. But that said, it's been almost all upside for me. But I want to be cautious here because I know it's not upside for everyone. Savvy D has been trying it recently.

• 22:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Savvy, you want to grab the microphone and maybe just talk about your recent experience? You're now, he's a portrait of health. He's super fit. He's 25. He's a professional skater. And eats really clean, doesn't have a bunch of pain in his body. But he's like, he loves doing these stoical experiments like floor sleeping. And so you said, I'm going to give it a shot. What happened?

• 22:52Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, I've been interested in it for months, but I was just afraid to commit. But I'm moving in like 10 days now. And so I was like, okay, I can't bring, I had like a huge plush, ultra soft avocado mattress. And it was so heavy. It was like impossible to move with. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to sell it. And this is the perfect time to try floor sleeping. So I've been, I've been sleeping on the one that you guys sent me. And it, the idea of it was better than it's been treating me. I'm definitely still in the, I'm probably like five days total of sleeping on it.

• 23:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But not consecutive days either.

• 23:32Speaker 06

  Yeah. Like I was just in Florida, so I went back to beds and I was like, oh, I missed this, but I haven't, I haven't fully adapted. So I'm like, okay, I, I still need to like, I need to give this like a solid month at least to like really know if it's right for me. And I'm open to going back to a bed, but I've just been waking up so much in the middle of the night and I usually sleep really well. But I've been waking up a lot and kind of just like be, like my consciousness is just like, why are we on the floor?

• 24:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, the very first night I did it, my calves were on fire. I know a lot of people say, oh, I hurt my back. No, my calves were screaming. And the second night, it was a lot less. By the third night, it was totally fine. I had fully acclimated in three days. I think that's because the amount of pain that was going on my neck that my body, my body was just happier with that. But I imagine the acclimation period for most people was longer than two or three days.

• 24:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say, well, for me, it was like two weeks.

• 24:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  But yeah, the first few days I was like, why am I doing this? But I, I really had no choice because I was really tired of the, I had a purple mattress for a while. And then someone, someone like my neighbor needed to, she, she wanted to help somebody that had no mattresses and stuff. And they're like, do you have anything extra? And I didn't, I, I was so over that mattress that I was like, I'll give it away. And it's still good. It was still good, but it wasn't good for me. So I had no choice, like, because I had no backup plan. So I just bought, I bought a Zoni mattress from Amazon real quick. And then I, I just had to go all in. But the first few days, I was like, why am I doing this? I, but I trusted the process because I started, you know, I was looking up online, like, how long does it take?

• 25:21Speaker 04

  And because I, I realized I'd been sleeping on a regular mattress for like, what, at that point, 40 years of my life, like a regular one. You know, like, of course it's not going to happen overnight, even with like barefoot shoes and stuff, like for whoever's into that. It's like, you've been wearing regular shoes for most of your life, like cushioned, you know, very, you know, thick, thick cushions and everything. It's not going to be overnight that now you can transition to barefoot shoes, like the thin. So, um, yeah, for me, it was like two weeks in where I woke up and I was like, huh. I feel awesome. Like I feel amazing. I don't feel sore at all. I did have like neck, lingering neck pain for a while. And it was gone by, after like two weeks. And then my lower back pain that I just had, I just got used to for a decade of my life was gone.

• 26:05Speaker 04

  And so I, I mean, it's, results may vary, right? Yeah.

• 26:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Do you use sheets, comforter? What kind of pillow do you use, if any?

• 26:15Speaker 04

  So when I'm on my back, I don't use a pillow.

• 26:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I always sleep on my back. So you sleep on your back too?

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mostly.

• 26:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I had to train myself to do that.

• 26:23Speaker 04

  I had it like, so before I was like, I think I was like 50 50 back and side. Because like, especially like in a cushioned, on a cushioned mattress, you're sinking in, right? So like, I think on my back, I wasn't always comfortable. So I would always like turn to the side. So I think I was, yeah, half and half like side sleeper. But as time went on and I was like laying on the floor, I feel like my spine was just more in alignment. But if I used a pillow, I felt like my neck was too far up on my back. So I, I just ended up taking out the pillow and then it just felt like everything was in a line. And so now, so now I can go to bed on my back and I wake up on my back and I didn't really move like the whole night. Yeah, yeah. So, but it's like, yeah, I had to train. I guess I trained myself. So it's like, I didn't feel that I needed to sleep on the side anymore.

• 27:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I use a buckwheat pillow from a company called Salbi Kawa. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. But it's relatively thin and I find it so much better than something that's filled with cotton or polyester or feathers even. It's just, it's firmer and it like adjusts, it shapes to your, to your head in a way that other pillows don't. And that's the biggest thing. When I'm traveling and I don't have that with me, I'm tempted to bring a pillow with me more than even the bed because the, the big fluffy pillows, they're not good for my neck. But yeah, the, the mattress by itself, I know several people who sleep without a pillow at all. That's, that's not my experience. But I, I do, I do enjoy having a pillow still.

• 27:48Speaker 06

  I wanted to add real quick, sorry, um, that despite everything I said, because I'm in the adjustment period, so I'm not fully giving up on it. My, my spine definitely feels better. Like instantly when you lay down on it, you feel way more in alignment. Like it feels way better for my spine. I think I'm just adjusting to it. But.

• 28:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, that makes sense. And I love what you said, like, I'm open to going back to a bed. I want to be clear about that. So am I. I just know this is working really well for me and my family right now. And I know a lot of people have pain and this may be something that I know people, I, my wife is just back with her family in Minnesota recently. She was telling them about this and they looked at her like she had three heads. And, and I'm just thinking, but this is how like everyone has done it forever. This is how a lot of Japanese people still do it. And other people all throughout the world still do it this way. It's just, we're so addicted to the comforts that we've been handed. As you said, this is the way I should do it. This is how I should sleep. This is the way you're supposed to do it.

• 28:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I, I will wrap up this question from Jasmine by saying. I've spent the last several years radically improving my sleep. And I will tell you that I sleep really well, at least six nights a week on average. And that's backed up by my ring data. I do Aura Ring. And I don't look at it every day because I find that that's a way to punish myself is, "Oh, no, I feel really good." I look at the score and it's, "Oh, it's 77. Maybe I don't feel that good." And it's the sort of placebo effect of, but it's great for long-term data. I actually review it with my doctor on certain things. And what I've noticed, there are three things that I've done in the last few years, but two things within the last year that have really dialed in my sleep. The first number one thing by far is earthing.

• 29:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  More than anything else, standing on an earthing mat right now, our audience knows about it. I wrote a whole essay about it called, "I Shouldn't Have to Deal with This." It's about like really bad chronic pain. And earthing radically changed my life. It improved my sleep too. It also improved my, my wife's sleep. I have this little mat that I'm on now. I used to sleep on a big earthing mattress cover, but since I don't have a mattress now, I just use these tiny little universal mats. The same one I can stand on when I'm working or if I'm just in the living room. We sit on the floor now in the living room most of the time. Even though we have a couch, we're usually just on the floor, hanging out on the floor and finding that's even more comfortable. But I will say that earthing by itself is the number one thing.

• 30:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And for the longest time, I said, "That was by far the number one thing." There isn't even a close second. But I will say this year specifically, I got this vagus nerve stimulation device. I brought it for TK. I actually brought my wife's in for TK because TK's been having some sleep things. And the very first day that I tried it, because I started doing this research about the vagus nerve. Are you familiar with any of the vagus nerve stimulators or anything?

• 30:48Speaker 04

  I've, I've tried a few, but I haven't been able to find one that.

• 30:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That works for you.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. So I'm in the process. Like, what do you use?

• 30:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I use something called a NeuroPod. And I paid full price for this, just full disclosure. But I did email them and ask for a discount. So we do have an affiliate discount. We could put it down in the description. But I paid full price for this, so they didn't send me anything to promote. I did some research. There were a few others, companies that I liked, but this one had the most data behind it, the most studies behind it. And it's really simple. I found it was overusing it at first, but 15 minutes a day works perfectly for me. Sometimes I'll do 15 minutes every other day. And I noticed all of these subtle improvements, but almost immediately for me. My digestion improved, my urinary tract improved, my sleep.

• 31:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The very first night I did this, TK, I had the best night of sleep. And I even tracked it with a 95 sleep score. And I slept all the way through the night. I went, went to sleep, woke up nine hours later and was like, "What? Well, I didn't get up at all. I didn't have to pee in the middle of the night." And so what happens is we live in this fight or flight. The sympathetic nervous system is often triggered in the culture. And we got the bright lights. We have a lot of noises. We have a lot of stimulation. We're overly stimulated. You know, we're like the kids on iPads all day, but we adults are on iPads and iPhones and everything else. And we're so stimulated, we overwork our, our sympathetic nervous system.

• 32:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And the, the opposite is the parasympathetic nervous system where we rest and digest. And what this does, the vagus nerve is actually not a nerve. It's a bundle of nerves, like 200,000 nerves. And it runs basically from your left ear all the way down through your, your core into your body. And what I found is that by stimulating it, it, it really activates that, that anti-anxiety parasympathetic nervous system. And I've let several people borrow this. I let Nicodemus borrow it. And immediately he, he got one because he totally knew that this, it was working for him. I let Savvy D try and he's like, "Yeah, it's kind of nice. I didn't really notice anything." And I've, I've noticed with my wife, she's like, "Yeah, I feel a little less anxious, but that's about it."

• 33:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so I don't, it's not, this is not a full recommendation. I'm just saying this is, I would feel criminal if I didn't say that this is the, the thing this year that has radically improved my sleep. And then you throw the third thing in there of floor sleeping. And those three things together, I sleep really well, six out of seven nights a week. And so TK, I'm gonna let you borrow this, but all it does is you just put it on your ear, basically. Kind of like I have this little, this little ear plug in here. It attaches to, to this part of your ear. And then it just stimulates, very lightly stimulates the nerve and you feel it immediately. And you kind of notice this sense of calm and presence.

• 33:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And, and it's not overwhelming. It's the opposite. It's removing the overwhelm. And so that has worked really well for me and my sleep has improved dramatically since I, I started using that. And I'll tell you, I was hyper skeptical about that just because it was, well, I saw a lot of reviews and they were very 50/50. And there were some people, "Oh, it was a waste of money." But then I saw there was like a 30-day money-back thing. And I was like, "I'm just gonna buy it because it's not cheap." It wasn't crazy expensive, but it's not cheap. I'm gonna buy it. I'm gonna try it out and I'll send it back because it's probably not gonna work." Exact opposite. First night totally changed the way that I sleep. And then in terms of floor sleeping, I use a fully futon.

• 34:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's two and a half inches. Is that about the size of what you use roughly? And then tatami mats. Do you want to talk about why tatami mats are often necessary?

• 34:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, you need them because typically you sweat like a cup of sweat every night.

• 34:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Wait, do you have a camera on my room? How did you know I sweat that much? That's so true.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  But like, yeah. So, yeah, we usually sweat through the night. We don't even realize it, but you gotta make sure that that moisture is not festering in, in your, in your sleep setup. So you need like some kind of like barriers to let the air circulate between the futon and the floor. So typically like that could be a tatami mat. Cause it's got, you know, it's woven and then there's air pockets. So everything can stay fresh down there. Yeah. So you, you want to do that. Then also, like you were saying before, you want to like sun it or put it outside sometimes or hang it up to dry so that you can prevent the moisture. You, you don't want to like leave your futon just on the floor every day.

• 35:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to do that because it's not gonna last very long.

• 35:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right. It'll, it can develop mold and it just gets kind of moist. You don't want that. A traditional mattress has sort of slats in, in the bed frame or you maybe have a box spring underneath it that allows that moisture to dissipate and air out. And so you need, that's why the Japanese for years, I'll put this picture back up here. But they have all these tatami mats because it's a ventilation system underneath your Japanese futon. All right. It's almost the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of colors. We're gonna bring you into our world of minimalism and decluttering, which is a world you're very familiar with. But I want to do a real quick, right here, right now segment and celebrate my good friend TK Coleman.

• 36:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So TK launched a new show. It's on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. It's called "One Question" with TK Coleman. And he was kind enough to have me on there for, I think, the eighth episode of that show. And so that eighth episode comes out tomorrow on September 1st, 2026. And you've had a bunch of remarkable people on there so far, including you had Savvy D. His episode just came out as well. But the, the premise of the show was fascinating to me. Do you want to, do you have any questions about my appearance or how do you want to handle this?

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. I mean, I would love to hear from, I'm, I'm thinking about it all the time because it's my show, but I would love to know what, what was the expectation versus reality for you when I ask you to do, do an episode and you come into the studio? What was the experience like for you?

• 37:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. When you first told me the concept, I didn't get it.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  That's a great way to begin any.

• 37:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I just didn't get it, man, at first because you didn't have the cards there in front of you. And so, but then when you explained it in practice, it made so much sense to me. I often tell people, it's like Oprah meets Hot Ones, the interview show. And, and because there's, there's a game portion of it, sort of. There's a playful portion, but then there's getting to understand the person like Oprah might. Was that your intention?

• 37:45Speaker 02

  To do Oprah meets Hot Ones?

• 37:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  To be playful, but also still maintain that intellectual integrity. It's not, it's not just reality TV. It's, it's enjoyable.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Like I, I say in the intro, it's part interview, part improvisation, you know, and exercising conversational jazz. In jazz, you have to have structure. You, you have to know where you're going. The song has to have an identity, but then there needs to be some room for play. And that's the improv. That's the riffing. And I enjoy conversations the most like that. I think sometimes we, we sort of get in our habits. And in this age of podcast interviews where like, you know, I heard Mike from Redbar joke around about so many podcasts are just people interviewing everyone that Joe Rogan interviews after he interviews them. And it's like, you know, I, I don't want something like that.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  I want to be able to talk with people, but in a way that's not merely unscripted, in a way that has structure, but in a way that brings out interesting aspects of, of what people think and feel. And so I created this card game as a way to, to give myself a wide variety of questions that I think are interesting to me. But then we, we randomized the experience. We shuffle. I don't know what I'm gonna ask. They don't know what they're gonna answer, but we're there to create an experience together. And yeah, it's, it's really fun. So I, I was going for something that would allow me to express my curiosity and get to know people. But I also wanted something that would, you know, if you come in there and you're promoting a new book, there's a way, there are ways to work that in the conversation. But I wanted something so that the conversation wasn't dictated by what you're famous for

• 39:20Speaker 02

  or what your new movie is about. It's, it's dictated by something deeper.

• 39:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was really shocked by some of the answers that I gave to your questions.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Is that right?

• 39:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. I won't spoil them, but there was one, one moment we were talking about a lyric that really resonated with me and I thought it was sort of the, the worst advice at one point. But now I think it's some of the best advice. And I never thought about that until you and I, one of your questions sort of prompted us to go in that direction. There's other question about taking things personally. And my answer to that really surprised me. And I think that you made the space to even have the person who's being interviewed be surprised by their own answers, not just by the questions. Do you want to do a lightning round, a couple, a couple of questions here?

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. So I, I actually been working on some new questions and I love to just, yeah, go over some of them with you and see what you think. All right. Which would you rather be able to do? Speak every human language fluently or communicate fluently in every animal language?

• 40:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ooh. Natasha, what's your answer to that?

• 40:27Speaker 04

  Oh, they're both really good. Okay, well, if I had to pick, I'd love to be fluent in every human language.

• 40:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Every human.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, just because especially when I go travel, I'd love to be able to instantly like connect with other people. And I always just feel like a fish out of water when I go someplace new and I don't know the language. Like, so to have that at my fingertips, that would, I would, yeah, I would like to do that.

• 40:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Nice. Give me another one.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Okay, for the next 24 hours, you have to fake your way through a career. You won't have time to learn anything new. You have to go with what you already know. Which job would be easier for you to fake? Medical doctor? Or news reporter?

• 41:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Medical doctor, for sure.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Really?

• 41:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  I totally thought you were gonna say news reporter. You make a living by talking. You totally can fake that. Why would you pick medical doctor?

• 41:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I, because from my experience with a lot of health challenges, I've found that medical doctors, a lot of them are incompetent, or they are, I, and so it's easy for me to be incompetent. That's my default setting. And, no, I think the bigger thing is if you're just doing it for a day, the best doctors are the ones that listen. They show up and listen.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  You're not performing a surgery or operation the same day, usually.

• 41:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Usually, yeah. Although I'm sure there's YouTube videos for that. I could figure that out, too.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, that's guy. All right, here's another one. But by the way, so the first one I asked is from a category of, what would you rather, what would you rather do or become? So I've got a lot of those. And then the, the second was fake it till you make it. So it's all these scenarios where you gotta fake your way through. And this is one of my favorite new categories, the alien arrival. Aliens have arrived on Earth for the first time. They know nothing about human civilization, and they've chosen you as their guide. You can take them to only one of these three places or events in order to give them your most accurate depiction of humanity. Which do you choose and why? A football game?

• 42:37Speaker 02

  A funeral? A fifth grade classroom?

• 42:42Speaker 02

  A football game? A funeral? A fifth grade classroom? You're trying to show the aliens what humanity is all about.

• 42:50Speaker 04

  Um, I, I guess, I guess a funeral. I would say funeral.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Wow. Can I take that back?

• 43:03Speaker 02

  That's fascinating, yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, because they would learn a lot about empathy, you know, or like, be, they would see what, what we mean to each other, you know, assuming that the person who died, like, everyone liked them. You know, you could, you could then, I guess that's what I would teach them about is like, yeah, here, we, we, we really love and care about one another. And when someone dies, like, we, we want to honor their life, you know, and I don't know, that's just off the top of my head. And then I would also want them to like, not kill any of us and be, be nice to humanity. Like, please don't cause us to have more funerals.

• 43:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. That's interesting, because what you, it sounds to me like what you're really asking there. But the question behind the question is, would you, would you introduce them to war? To letting go and sadness? Or to joy and play?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And, and there's no right answer to any of that, because those are all the spectrums of humanity, right? We do go to war with each other. Sometimes it's a playful war, like a football game. But they would look at that, and I imagine, say, why are these people hurting each other like this, right?

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But I think they would also show up at the funeral, why are you, why are you crying?

• 44:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Trying to understand that. And then also, how is, and so maybe in a way, if I could take them to all three, that I feel like that'd be the complete human experience.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hey, one more. And this will be for you, Josh, and I'll let you pick the category. You can pick, category one is preserve one, burn one, or give one, and give one away. That's my iteration of Mary [BLEEP] Hill.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  And the second category is czar of the universe.

• 44:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I definitely want that one.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  You want that?

• 44:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Okay. Okay, so you are czar of the universe. You get to choose one job that everyone has to work for one year at some point in their life. What job do you choose?

• 45:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's definitely not podcaster.

• 45:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So I worked in customer service for a long time, and particularly in telecom, which I think is probably the second worst place to be in customer service. I think it's that and baggage handling. Because if you lose someone's suitcase and they're going to Turks and Caicos, you just ruin their whole vacation. Even though I didn't have anything to do with it, I have to be the, the avatar of their loss. But I think that being the avatar of, of loss allows us to experience some humility, to humble ourselves in a way, and to sort of set the ego down. At least it did that for moments for me. I've got customers

• 45:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  yelling at me and sometimes throwing phones at me, realizing, them thinking I'm part of the problem, but I understood that it had nothing to do with me. That was, that was super insightful. I think we would all benefit from that.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  That's so good.

• 46:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Check out one question with my good friend TK Coleman. He's got a bunch of really great guests out there. Right now, you can find it on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. You know, Joyce had this really beautiful minimalist insight about subtraction. I'll move that to the top of page two for the sake of time, because we have a lot more to talk about. But first, let's take a quick pendiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 46:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that is the first 33% of episode 554. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two-hour maximal episode with Natasha Teresa, which includes answers to a bunch more questions like, how can parents encourage their kids to let go without, well, it says here, without disrupting the security, but really, how can we encourage them to let go without screwing them up? That's what we talked about. Why is it usually our first instinct to often find more space instead of questioning how much we're trying to fit into that space? And what is the final step of decluttering? And why is it so hard? Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private

• 47:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to our very first episode. Big thanks to Natasha Teresa for joining us today. Check out her website, natashateresa.com. You can find her YouTube channels there, her social media, and so much more. And that is our minimal episode for today. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Ben, Spire Jeff and Dave, Tom Cat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Millburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this. Love people.

• 48:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And use things.

• 48:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Peace.