Sleep
As someone who took the misleading statement “you can sleep when you die” at face value for years, it was rather alarming to learn how damaging my decades of poor sleep might have been to my well-being. The knowledge also hit hard, because I first heard Dr. Matthew Walker on the Joe Rogan Experience weeks after I had, in my infinite wisdom, taken a job as a Hotel Night Auditor with the idea that I would be able to spend roughly five hours of my eight-hour shift working on personal projects(namely, my NFL projection model).
So, what did I do? Well, I transitioned out of that job a few months later - I was correct regarding the five-hour assumption, and I stuck around long enough to see the clock wind backwards, twilight-zone style, on Daylight Saving Time - and I started to leverage the information provided in the podcasts and books I’ve linked to below, even when it was working around the less-than-ideal night shifts.
Fast-forward some years, and these days, I look at sleep as the START of my day - it’s when I get fully charged for what lies ahead. And many of the shifts in my behavior were relatively easy to implement; it was more about shifting my awareness than engaging in any sort of demanding practice.
With that said, let’s get into a few experts who can help us sleep better: Shawn Stevenson, Dr. Matthew Walker, and Professor Satchin Panda.
Shawn Stevenson, host of The Model Health Show, is a go-to resource on all things health and wellness. He is an exceptionally well-read individual who does a beautiful job laying out how all the different aspects of health (and being human) come together.
Shawn’s book, Sleep Smarter, is an incredible source of information on all things sleep; my favorite thing about Sleep Smarter is that while it provides the necessary background knowledge to understand why sleep is important, it also does an exceptional job laying out actionable steps you can take to upgrade your sleep - assuming Shawn’s reasoning convinces you!
If you’re looking to get the information in audio form, you can catch Shawn talking about Sleep Smarter on Episode 637 of The Model Health Show, and The Model Health Show Archives also have an entire category of conversations devoted to sleep.
Shawn Stevenson
As mentioned previously, Dr. Matthew Walker - The Sleep Diplomat - is the individual who first opened my mind to the importance of sleep.
In addition to providing background on the importance of sleep and steps we can take to improve sleep, Dr. Walker poses interesting questions about the very nature of sleep, as the title of his book, Why We Sleep, suggests. I found this line of inquiry to be particularly interesting; for instance, Walker makes the observation that animals are exceptionally vulnerable when asleep, so evolution should have selected against it were that at all possible…which probably that sleep is rather important.
If you aren’t ready to dive into the book, you can catch Walker on most health podcasts - in addition to his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience (#1109), I enjoyed Walker conversation with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee on Feel Better Live More #147.
Walker also has his own podcast, The Matt Walker Podcast, if you want to take your sleep knowledge to the next level!
Dr. Matthew Walker
Some of the information from Professor Satchin Panda is a little bit “next-level” - I think it is fair to describe Panda as a thought leader in how Circadian Rhythms, Meal Timing, Gut Health, and Sleep integrate with other systems to create optimal day-to-day rhythms - but whether or not you have some basic information under your belt, Panda’s perspective is fascinating.
In his discussion with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee on Feel Better Live More #306, Professor Panda explains how your all of your body clocks time up based on meal timing, light exposure, exercise, and a variety of other factors to run the proper “programs” at the proper time of day. I found his thoughts on how we can create virtuous cycles of sleep, light exposure, and meal timing - or how it can go the other way - as tremendously useful as I continue to work to optimize my own schedule.