Episode 350: Sleeping Smarter: How Light, Food, and Activity Impact Your Circadian Rhythm

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Gresham.

Hey, friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self.

So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

So, then let's get to like how to optimize your health right now, especially when we're all stuck inside.

I mean, most for the most part, right?

Like, we get to go for our,

you know, our walk around the block like a dog, you know what I mean?

Maybe three times a day.

But for the most part, we're kind of like stuck indoors, right?

What can we do?

Like, give can you give us a little bit of information on how to stay healthy?

Um, and then we'll get into like how to even get better your immune health.

But overall,

okay.

So overall,

it's really the stuff that you're talking about all the time, Jen.

So number one, you've got to keep yourself moving now more than ever.

It's really easy to become a couch potato and just watch Netflix and play video games all day.

It is, it is, it wrecks your ability to fight off a virus.

You do not have adequate blood circulation to all your organs and your skin and your mucous membranes.

So you've got to keep yourself moving.

And, you know, I think, I think if you don't have a a step counter right now, you should get one.

Make sure you're getting adequate movement.

You and I, we love our walking desks.

Yeah.

All right.

You know, it's the best.

It's the best.

It is the best.

Go outside if you can socially distance adequately and get a good walk-in.

I think that's really important.

I think also, you know, the other thing that everyone now has time to do is focus on your sleep, right?

Like, right.

Actually, I don't think so, by the way.

I think if you have kids, you have kids too, but like,

I don't know who are these people that have time to be watching, like, binging on Netflix and Hulu.

And I'm busier now than ever.

Right?

You got to be homeschooling your kids.

You got to be working, but now using technology.

So now you're spending hours upon hours more trying to figure out this whole thing.

You know what I mean?

And then you have the kids to deal with.

I mean, I don't know how people are just lounging and sleeping all day.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

I think not having kids is a huge factor.

I was going to to say,

there's a massive difference between being someone who has no kids and being, because the people, you're right, the people that I talk to sometimes who have no kids, they're like, yeah, I've got nothing to do.

I'm so bored.

I'm just, why have you watched this?

Have you done that?

I'm like, watched what?

Done what?

No.

And I'm not sleeping.

Thank you very much.

So, I mean, it's worse.

Your kids and my kids are the same age.

And so there's the age where they, where when they see you, they're just like constantly want your attention.

They demand your attention, right?

You can't just be like, you know, screw off.

I want to like watch this or I want to like do that.

I mean, it's exhausting.

Right, exactly.

Yeah, I have not watched any Tiger King at all because

I'm not going to let them watch that.

So

that's funny you said that's basically the only show I did watch, I got to say.

And that's why I'm not sleeping because I'm watching it at midnight.

But then like, you know, but I watched it.

It took me like days and days to finish it.

Oh my God.

That show is crazy.

But that's a whole other podcast altogether.

It's like crazy, crazy.

But like, as I'm saying, like, this sleep is so important.

And what do people do when they are with like you or like me who have to be like on with their kids and like it's hectic and you're not able to sleep in until nine or 10 in the morning?

And you know what I mean?

So, you know, it's all about routines and finding a new routine in your life.

And then when you do get to the bedroom and you have to focus on your sleep, then it's time to focus on your sleep.

So, you know, like I hate to say it, but you got to get that TV out of your bedroom and stop watching

before you go to bed, especially those binge shows, because that will ruin your sleep.

And so, you know, at my household and many of my, you know, clients and patients that I'm advising,

your sleep routine starts the minute you wake up, right?

And you wake up, you got to set your circadian rhythm.

You got to get outside, look at the sun, be outside in nature for 5, 10, 15 minutes, whatever it takes to set your circadian rhythm to the first part of its rhythm.

And then your sleep cycle has to start an hour before you actually get into bed.

So an hour before you got to wind down, all electronics off.

And then you go into a sleep environment, which is perfectly made to get the best sleep.

No TV, no electronics,

as dark as possible, completely dark, and having no noise whatsoever and colder than 69 degrees so 67 to 69 degrees somewhere in there

that'll cool your room down and so those are the high points and you know there's a lot a lot of other things you can do for sleep but if you can just hit those high points guaranteed to get better sleep and i think tracking your sleep there's a lot of great sleep trackers out there is going to help you make those like small improvements day to day to get better and better sleep and more deep sleep so really it's the same things like overall like it's forget about being quarantined and covid but but it's like the sleep moving every day.

Do you still say 10,000 steps a day is optimum?

Well, you know, 10,000 steps is based on nothing, really.

It's just I was going to say, who's even thought of 10, why 10,000?

Like, why not?

You want to know why?

I know why.

I can tell you why.

Yeah, why?

The first company that came out with a pedometer was in Japan.

And

they based this pedometer on the pedometer.

It was like one of those little electronic digital things that just clip onto you.

Remember this?

I totally remember.

Yeah.

Totally remember that.

watches and all that stuff yeah so um they based that 10 000 steps because they called it the 10k pedometer they based it on this one study that was done on the healthiest people in japan were lived in this little town and they all worked in this factory and all those people walked to work every day because there were no roads to get to this factory and someone went there and tried to figure out why these people were so healthy why were they living to their 90s and into their hundreds and as they they figured out it's because they walk to work every day and so they walked from that village to the factory it was 5 000 steps and 5 000

oh i didn't know that that's why it was 10 000 that's why it's 10 000 steps and that's why when the first pedometer that came out of japan was called the 10k pedometer and that's and that's how they got that number oh my god well i just learned something really new i had no idea that's a great story so that's a little story right it's a great story i think that's i think because i think it's such an arbitrary thing right Everyone's like, oh, 10,000 steps.

Like, but no one's ever asked the question, like, well, why 10,000?

Why not nine?

Why not 11?

Yeah.

You know, and now we know why.

So is there an amount or

not?

It's going to be different for everybody, but I think it's a good marker.

I think it's, it's, I think it's an adequate amount of

moving around.

And really, you know, it's not about getting that 10,000 steps all in one sitting.

What you really have to do, where's my egg timer?

I have an egg timer on my desk over there, my walking desk.

I can see it.

I have to get up every 45 minutes.

You want me to run again?

I knew you'd have, you've got great little hacks like this.

Yes.

This is what I like about you, Darshan.

Remember when you first saw Walking Desk, you came to visit me in my office.

I was actually going to say, you were the first person

who I saw actually have the first walking desk.

That was so many years ago.

And I was like, oh my God, what is this?

And you told me what it was.

And then it became like kind of cool, like two years later or something.

You were like, you're ahead of the trend.

That's why I love you.

Exactly.

And that's why I love you.

You always have great information.

I always learn something from you.

Today I learned about the 10,000 step story.

And now we're going to learn about this egg timer.

So what do you do?

You're going to set it?

This is it.

It's shaped like an egg, but you can use whatever you want.

And it goes up to 55 minutes.

And it's really important that every time you sit down or you're standing on your walking desk, that you do that activity for a certain amount of time, and then you stop and do something else, and then you and then you come back and you set your timer again.

And the reason for that is any activity done in too much of a prolonged state is going to cause more damage than good.

All right.

So, walking for a really, really long time, two or three hours in a row, which I used to do when I was

when I was at my walking desk, it can cause joint problems over time.

It can cause problems over times, right?

So, so you want to do it for 45 minutes and then you want to stop and then you want to do and then sit down for 45 minutes and then go back to walking or doing something else.

It's really, it's called the pomodoro technique.

Actually, it's actually great for even your brain health to

focus for some amount of time and then defocus and then refocus as well.

And it just keeps you, it just keeps you moving just mentally and physically.

And it works for me just anecdotally, but I also know it works for a lot of patients.

There's a lot of research behind it as well.

That makes total sense.

So basically, that's a great, I love that.

I'm going to use that because does that mean that people who are marathon runners and ultra marathon guys, all these people, like that actually, people think, oh, wow,

you're able to like move that much, your cardiovascular system, your heart, but actually it's doing more damage than good.

Oh my God, I can't even tell you.

Some of the most unhealthiest people I meet are these ultra-marathoners.

They're incredible.

I mean, they're absolutely incredible, but you look at them biochemically,

it's almost like you're going to, you're going to die if you keep this up.

You need to stop.

I agree.

Like, I don't, I don't get that.

Why would anyone even subject themselves to running?

An ultra marathon runs 100 miles minimum at a time.

Even like a marathon, like I never, and I'm like, obviously very into like fitness stuff, but I never understood the reason behind a marathon because I knew it's bad for your joints.

It's bad for your back.

It's bad for your knees what's the purpose like it's just going to break down your body faster you know it's good for your

yeah they're certainly impressive and i think at a certain age you have so much reserve capacity like in your 20s to do this kind of stuff it probably doesn't matter too much but as you turn 40 and above it's been scientifically shown that um

especially in your heart your cardiac muscle it overstressed with too much exercise and you can actually die sooner if you go longer into your years with intense exercise and not just i'm sorry intense was the wrong word intense exercise is actually good for short periods of time right high intensity intermittent training but long periods of intense exercise is really bad for you like an ultra marathon or like a marathon or so okay so if you're using your treadmill desk that's a good example so every even if you're on that and you're moving even that every 45 minutes you'll jump off and do something else for 45 minutes and then go back do you have do you have to have that break being 45 minutes or couldn't it be less?

It could certainly be less.

Yeah, absolutely.

The next break, I mean, the break doesn't have to be any more than 15 to 30 minutes.

But you do want to take that pressure off your joints.

You want to take, you want to give your,

you want to give your joints some time to relax.

You want to rehydrate yourself, all of that.

That's great.

What's that thing called again?

You said it's a palmodoro test.

Palmodoro technique.

P-O-M-O-D-O-R-O.

I like that.

Thank you.

I love that.

Okay.

So then let's go back.

So sleep is obviously very important.

Moving, you know, walking, getting your blood circulating, first thing.

You're saying something about setting your circadian rhythm.

You're saying go outside first.

Is that the first thing?

You were saying that too?

Is very important.

Go outside in the sun first, right?

Exactly.

And you know, there's a lot of talk about grounding.

Have you heard about grounding yet?

Yeah.

Yes.

I've heard a lot about grounding.

Yeah.

So you know about grounding.

So, you know, you want to go outside barefoot.

But tell everybody, just because I know about grounding, tell, say what it is.

basically it's putting your feet on the ground basically and like in bare feet on the background right exactly and retaining

grass does it have to be grass or does no no it can be anything it can be it can be grass can be dirt it can be you know whatever just having some connection to the earth um helps to set your circadian rhythm as well and um then your circadian rhythm there's um there's a lot of research around the circadian rhythm right now and a lot of great articles i can send you but it has a lot to do with three different things one is light okay so getting the right frequency of light at the right times of day to set your circadian rhythm secondly yeah secondly of eating so when you eat your meals has a lot to do with your circadian rhythm as well okay and thirdly is the activity level that you have so sitting around all day wreaks havoc on your circadian rhythm because you're

your brain doesn't know that you've been moving it thinks your brain, certain parts of your brain, thinks that you're just still in bed, you know, like

you're like a couch potato.

Your brain signals couch potato and it has different biochemical pathways based on what signaling is getting.

So those are the three things that you really want to have in rhythmic control on a day-to-day basis to keep your circadian rhythm set correctly.

So do you mean you have to eat at the same time?

Do you have to put your, do you have to be doing the grounding at the same time every day?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So

I would say, you know, try to keep your meals, your grounding, your exposure to light fairly consistent so your body doesn't get confused.

I think, you know, in the evening, especially, you want to make sure that you're mostly exposed to like sunlight, sundown colors, you know, like oranges and reds versus LED lights that are really bright and white.

That tells you, that tells the cells in the back of your eye that it's morning again, and you don't want to send those mixed signals wow so what happens if someone lives in it like you know i'm canadian toronto winnipeg wherever where i was living it's dark six seven months of the year right and like especially now when people are like all you know quarantined to stay home how are they supposed to get the light to do that one step is there other ways they can

Yeah, I think, you know, I think, so I think different areas of the world, people's circadian rhythms are set differently.

And so it doesn't mean that everyone needs needs to have the same rhythm.

It just, you need to be in some sort of rhythm that's appropriate for the part of the world that you live in.

Right.

Now, what you said secondly is really important.

Now that we're all quarantined, we have to figure out like, how do we get the sunlight in the morning?

A lot of times we don't even do that in our normal life, right?

You go from your house to your car to the office and you never set a second out in the sun.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think it's just being mindful of it and making sure you have the opportunities.

Even if you live in New York City, if you can get out to the rooftop of your building or just even outside for a little while, it's really helpful for setting your circadian rhythm.