441 - Arianna Huffington On The Sleep Revolution That Will Transform Your Life

0:03Hey there, I'm Marie Forleo and for the last 20 years I've helped millions of people transform their businesses and lives. If you're ready to make the difference you were born to make, get ready because this is the Marie Forleo Podcast. Now, you may have heard people say, I'll sleep when I'm dead or sleeping is for sissies. And maybe you've even thought that yourself. Well, my guest today has a very different perspective on the power of sleep. Ariana Huffington is the co-founder, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group and the author of 15 books. In May 2005, she launched the Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely read, linked to, and frequently cited media brands on the internet.

0:49In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. She has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people and the Forbes most powerful women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an MA in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. Her 15th book, The Sleep Revolution, Transforming Your Life One Night at a Time on the Science, History, and Mystery of Sleep became an instant New York Times bestseller. Ariana, thank you so much for coming back on the show.

1:28Marie, thank you so much for having me. Everything looks so beautiful. And you have my favorite flowers here too. Yay, they're mine too. So tell me, because last time you were here, we talked about Thrive. What inspired you to devote an entire book to sleep? So I went around the world speaking about Thrive. Actually, I did the first ever interview about Thrive with you before the book was even out. And then as I went around speaking about the messages of Thrive, redefining success to include well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving, sleep was one of the foundational principles. And I realized that was what people wanted to talk about more than anything because no matter where they are in their lives, no matter whether they want to meditate or not, they have to sleep.

2:22So sleep is kind of our unifier. And I just realized that in the same way that in my life I had collapsed from sleep deprivation, millions of people were burnt out, exhausted, and sleep deprived. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that we've been living under this collective delusion that sleep is optional. that, in fact, in order to succeed, to achieve, we had to sacrifice sleep. And it even became like a badge of honor. People, especially men, but then women started emulating them, would brag, you know, I only need four hours sleep, or I'm too busy to sleep, which became like code for I'm too important to sleep.

3:11And as a result, we had a greater and greater number of casualties of sleep deprivation in terms of health, in terms of productivity, and in terms of our mental health and happiness. You know, there is this cultural notion that you write about in Sleep Revolution, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Yes. Or, you know, sleep is for sissies. What do you say to those people who are like, you know, I want to hack everything and get as most done as possible? How do you combat that? Well, I think the most important thing is to give people the data and the new scientific findings about sleep. And that's why I've structured the book this way, you know, to start with a crisis so that you give people a clear awareness of the dangers of sleep deprivation.

4:01Then move on to the science. You know, what gives me optimism is that the new science of sleep, and it's relatively a young science because the first big scientific sleep center was not founded until 1970 at Stanford. But it's so conclusive about how sleep is a performance enhancer, how it affects every aspect of our health from diabetes to cancer to heart disease to Alzheimer's. And then the history of sleep. You know, we need to understand how did we come to devalue it? Going back to the first industrial revolution, when we began to think that we can treat human beings like machines and just minimize downtime.

4:49And one of my favorite chapters is the chapter on dreams about the mystery of sleep and how it can become a gateway to a more spiritual dimension of ourselves. All that is the first half of the book. And before we get to the hacks and the best practices and tips and techniques, I really want to urge people to read the first half because if we don't change our minds about the importance of sleep, it's going to be much harder to change our habits. Yes. We need to convince ourselves of sleep's importance. I kind of convinced myself the hard way by collapsing from sleep deprivation, but I'm hoping that people can convince themselves without having to go through a painful wake-up call, as I did.

5:35And frankly, Marie, I'm really grateful that I did. It could have been so much worse. Yeah. One of the most shocking chapters for me was about the sleep industry. And I was literally, I couldn't believe what I was reading for folks who take medication, sleep aids to go to sleep, and the devastating impact of the things that they don't know that they're doing. Getting up in the middle of the night and driving a car. I mean, this is insane. So I was curious, have you had any pushback from Big Pharma? No, you know why? Because there's nothing they can say. Right. And in fact, America is the only country in New Zealand allowed to advertise sleeping pills.

6:23and so you have all these ads of happy beautiful people frolicking in the fields while a cheerful voice reads 92 devastating adverse effects including you may get in your car and drive without being aware of it and it doesn't say that but it has happened you may actually kill or hurt someone. And then a lot less serious. And sometimes people consider them amusing, but still stunning things. You may eat yourself. Into a stupor. Into a stupor without even having any memory of it. A friend of mine received 10 days after she apparently ordered them an entire packet of clothes, which all turned out to be hooker clothes that she had ordered without having any recollection of it.

7:21And so some of these things are funny, but the idea that you can do all these things without any memory or consciousness and the fact that people nevertheless continue to be chronically dependent on sleeping pills. I'm not talking about you went through a traumatic event and you need to take a sleeping pill. I'm talking about people who literally cannot go to sleep without one. And the impact on their health is devastating. I was in shock when I read that. And frankly, sometimes if I'm watching TV and I catch one of those commercials, and you're right, there's butterflies all over the place. And it's like, you may have an increase in suicidal thoughts.

8:01And I'm like, what? This is insane. But I love that you painted that picture so graphically in the first part of the book, because I think it wakes us all up. Well, and it also prepares us for the second part of the book where I walk us through all the natural alternatives. Yes. It's not like we don't have hundreds of natural alternatives. Yes. Including if you have like some extreme case of insomnia, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is incredibly effective and much more effective long-term than any dependence on sleeping pills. It's just that we can't be lazy about it. Yes. And we need to experiment with what works for us.

8:45And for me, the key thing, Marie, is creating a transition ritual between our day life and sleep. You know, most of us right now literally are on our phones until the last moment, you know, texting, emailing, checking, social media. and then we turn off the light and we may go to sleep right away because our bodies are exhausted but our brains have not slowed down so they wake us up in the middle of the night which is normally not a problem except we can't go back to sleep easily because then we start processing our day or worrying about tomorrow and if our phone is by our bed we are very likely to pick it up and start responding to texts or checking notifications, et cetera.

9:38And that's why I say in the book that the most essential part of this transition ritual is turning off all our devices and gently escorting them out of our bedroom. And for me, my ritual now is 30 minutes. But, you know, start with five. Yeah. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. You know, start wherever you can. I'm a big believer, as I know you are, from all your work in micro steps. Yes. But for me, it starts with turning off the devices and moving them outside my bedroom, having a hot bath. I love the kind of ritual of water. Yeah. It's almost like a purification ritual, washing away the day.

10:27And every day, however blessed we may be in our lives, is a mixture of good things and not so good things, you know, obstacles, incompletions. There has to be a clear demarcation line between all that and the time to recharge. And I love having Epsom salts in my bath, having candles nearby, low lights. It's also like a way of rekindling your romance to sleep instead of how many people see it. And let me tell you, Marie, everything I'm saying I've done, you know, for years and years, you know, basically seeing sleep like enemy territory. How can we, how long can we avoid crossing that border? Yes.

11:19Oh my word. Is she not fantastic? We're going to dive back into this extraordinary interview after a word from our sponsor. I'm Marie Forleo, and I quit writing boring copy after I discovered nobody wants to read that shit. If you have problems writing in a way that's true to your voice and helps convert browsers into buyers, The Copy Cure may be right for you. Check with your health professional. And after she says she doesn't care about your writing skills, sign up for our free seven-day writing class at thecopycure.com. That's thecopycure.com. I loved hearing about your rituals. I think one of the other things that I really found fascinating in your book was this idea that our brain is like a dishwasher and all of the toxins that it removes while we're sleeping.

12:16Again, this is nothing that we're ever taught. No. No one ever tells us. And you know, it's all relatively new science again. We really used to be told that sleep is a time of inactivity for the brain. In fact, one of the metaphors was it's like putting your car in the garage and turning off the ignition key. And now we know that sleep is actually a time of frenetic activity for the brain. It's more like your car becoming a driverless car and running essential errands for you. And one of the most essential errands is cleaning up the toxins that accumulate during the day. I actually also found that one of the most fascinating scientific findings.

13:06And as you know, the book has 50 pages of scientific endnotes, not because I expect anybody to read them from beginning to end, but I want to convince even the greatest skeptic that this is not like one woman's opinion. This is conclusive scientific evidence. and when it's almost like, you know, we used to believe that smoking was glamorous. In fact, you had doctors advertising cigarettes in the 50s and saying things like, you know, I smoke mentals because they refresh my throat. And then the scientific evidence about the dangers of tobacco became too overwhelming to ignore. I think we're reaching that tipping point now for sleep deprivation.

13:53I'm really happy that you're talking about this so much and that you're such a sleep evangelist and that you're bringing it out because one of the other bits of the book that I appreciated, and it actually got me thinking, was about pilots and drivers and all of us, whether it's an Uber driver, a taxi driver, or ourselves with our families taking a road trip and the extreme danger that we can put ourselves in and that our society, we kind of force upon each other, work, work, work, work, work, nonstop. It's unbelievable. It's so important that we do start shifting our cultural ideas about what it means to be well-rested.

14:29Well, in fact, that's why we launched a partnership with Uber to raise awareness about drowsy driving. Because we've raised awareness as a culture about drunk driving, and we have halved the crashes because of drunk driving, because of the designated driver campaign, friends don't let friends drive drunk. We need to do the same around drowsy driving. Yes. Because last year, there were 8 ,000 deaths because of drowsy driving and 1.2 million crashes. And I think, in fact, what is even worse is that it's pretty hard not to know when you're drunk, unless you are unconscious. But very often people think they can power through when they're tired.

15:21Well, I'm going to get a Coke or a coffee and power through. And it can take literally two seconds of micro-sleep for tragedy to follow. So scary. So I'm curious, what are some of the biggest changes you made? I heard about your sleep ritual that I love. What I'm curious about though now is you're Arianna Huffington. You're this amazing powerhouse of a woman. Have you bumped up against any struggles for yourself? You know, like, Arianna, can you speak here? Can you come here? And started to change your decision-making based on what you've learned from all the research. I've definitely changed my decision-making.

16:01But what is interesting, Marie, is that, I mean, I know we follow each other on social media, so you know that I'm very active. Yeah. I think the question is, what do I say no to in order to be able to get my eight-hour sleep, which is what I need? Yes. You know, the consensus is that the vast majority of us need seven to nine hours. You know, you may do great on seven, or you may need nine. Yeah. unless you're a short sleeper, which is a small minority of us who can do great on four or five hours. They have a genetic mutation though, and you can't train yourself to have a genetic mutation. You either have it or you don't.

16:46So I like tonight is a good example because after we finish our conversation, I'm going to do the daily show with Trevor Noah. And after that, I was going to go to the Public Library Spring Gala, which is a beautiful event. But tomorrow morning, I have to get up really early to go to Minneapolis. So I canceled going to the public library. So, you know, these are really the trade-offs. But I don't have any sense of sacrifice about it. Because the alternative would have been for me to get up at 5 in the morning to go to Minneapolis tomorrow and be a zombie for the whole day. And I can't stand myself now when I'm sleep deprived.

17:31I really don't like to be around myself, and there's nothing I can do. You know, I become irritable and moody, and you look at me a certain way, and I take it personally, and I'm not creative, and I just go through the motions. And I don't want to be that person. And I also now really value so much loving my life. You know, I feel we're so blessed. And that doesn't mean there are no problems in our lives or things we're dealing with. But on the whole, you know, just being healthy and doing something you love is just something to be constantly grateful for. And I don't want to take it for granted.

18:17And I don't want to just move through the motions and get stuff done. I really want to bring joy into what I'm doing. And so it's become really much easier to just make decisions based on prioritizing my sleep. I love it. And it gives you a really easy way to keep yourself in the state that you want to be in, which is happy and joyful. I know for me, anytime I do a cleanse and I'm like, oh, I'm not going to be eating dairy, I'm not going to be doing that, my decision-making process just gets a million times easier. Sure. So for anyone listening, hopefully we know they're going to get the book, but what are three things, if you could advise anyone, okay, if you could just try these three things to start to prioritize sleep, what would they be?

19:04So let me just talk about a couple more elements of the transition. Sure. Because the transition is the key, the first key thing. And anybody watching with children knows that that's what we do with our children. You know, when they're babies, we don't just drop them in bed. We give them a bath. We put them in their PJs. We tell them a story. So we have to think of the child in us needing also a ritual, a sacred ritual before going to sleep. And beyond everything I said, I think it is very important to have no screens in bed. It's okay if you have a TV in the bedroom, fine. Just don't watch it before you go to sleep.

19:50And read real books, physical books. In fact, if anybody's reading The Sleep Revolution and it helps them fall asleep, I'll take it as a personal victory. and then I love ending the night that's like you told me three so the third the second thing is giving the closing scene of the day to what you're grateful for because you could give the closing scene of the day to what didn't work that day or the mistakes you made or the worries about the next day and then that's going to wake you up in the middle of the night and you'll be processing it. So just focusing on what we're grateful for as the last thing of the night.

20:38So, you know, if you have a partner, you can share it with them verbally. You can write it down. You can just tell yourself whatever works for you. And the third thing is to have like a sleep kit ready, whether you are traveling or at home. And my sleep kit includes an eye mask because being in a dark room is really important. If you are traveling, they often give you an eye mask, but it's often harsh and plastic. So have a beautiful eye mask. Invest in something silky and yummy. I have a pink one, a pink silk one. Just have fun with your sleep kit. I have noise-canceling headphones, if you prefer earplugs, whatever, something industrial strength, though.

21:32Yeah. Lavender spray. I have soothing teas like licorice and lavender and chamomile. And I have a kit that I travel with, no matter what, even if I'm going on the shuttle for an hour because I may just want to take a nap. If I'm tired. Yeah. That little kid is tiny. It's not like it takes a lot of room. And I also have a dedicated sleep iPod. Because I don't want to have my phone by my bed, I have all my meditations that help me sleep on the iPod. In fact, Agapi, my sister and I, wrote a meditation that she recorded, which is on my website, arianahuffington.com, if people want to download it. And so if you wake up in the middle of the night or you're on a plane and you can't sleep easily, play a meditation.

22:32I have two meditations that I mentioned in the book that I've never heard to the end because they always put me to sleep. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing the great work that you do in the world and for taking such a strong stand for sleep because we all really do need it. Thank you so much, Marie, and thank you for what you are doing. Now, Ariana and I would love to hear from you. What is one thing that you could do to make sleep a higher priority in your life? And most importantly, what action are you committing to take starting tonight? Take a screenshot of this episode and let me know on social at Marie Forleo.

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