#113: Todd Anderson: Your Sleep Problem Isn’t Sleep

25:46It's like, I was just talking to my friend, Sam, she's here today. And she, we were talking about just like social media and just like putting it out there and, you know, doing the things you want to do and just like how it just amplifies your voice. And I think like people realize, I think it's such, you know, like Gary Vee always talks about just putting yourself out there and posting stuff and like not caring, but I think it's one of the most, what's the word I'm looking for? Not lightening, but it's one of the most, one of the best exercises you can do to remove your ego, but then actually understand like, how much impact you can have because you stop caring, you realize how people respond and you just start putting yourself out there and you really learn a lot about yourself.

26:31So I think just like that fear of starting is, is for 90 % of people, the biggest hurdle will never overcome. And it's the saddest hurdle because I think if they did it, they would be immediately overjoyed in the outcome. Yeah. Or they won't be overjoyed in the outcome, but what's the alternative? Yeah. Well, they'd be overjoyed in the outcome eventually. Yeah, if they stick at it, right? Yeah. Or what they learn from it. It might not necessarily be a great experience, but I think you're going to at least learn something that's really valuable. It's like, you know, I think life is like stairs.

27:06And, you know, people talk about success being up and down, like not a straight line. And I actually would disagree with that. I think life is a lot like stairs. And so you can't skip steps. You can't skip to two steps. You have to take every single step along the way. And so when there is a failure, that's still a step. And I think it is linear. And I think when you try to start skipping those steps, things fall apart. But, you know, for every failure, it's still building another step. Yeah, that's a cool way to put it. It's the whole thing around you can't skip chapters. No. It's not how life works.

27:37Some chapters suck. Yeah, but you need to read every line and meet all the characters and, you know, get slammed on your face a couple of times and realize that, okay, well, that's actually part of it. because now I've course corrected a little bit and I know a little bit more about myself. The thing is about momentum, what you were saying before though, there's a new fear that I've obtained now that I've built the momentum and the fear is losing the momentum because you realize how hard it was to obtain the momentum. And so you go through this quite dark tunnel of starting and throwing yourself in the deep end and realizing how hard it is.

28:14It's so much harder than you expected. And then you finally reach some light and you go, I don't want to lose the light. And so there's this fear of losing the momentum. And then for me, having this fear of losing the momentum is resulting in probably not enough sleep. Maybe certain things in my routine lacking, certain things in my life where I'm actually probably very under-optimized and I know it, but then there's this underlying fear that's kind of lurking with me when I try and optimize because I go, I'm wasting time, I'm doing all this stuff. have you ever worked with people that have been in that state to help them in terms of like being able to regulate and make sure that they're staying on top of those things to optimize for longevity well i mean in full transparency i mean i i deal i have that issue too sometimes i think everybody naturally anybody that's accomplishing things they want to accomplish i think has the feeling of not wanting to lose that and i think that's an example of a stress that can be valuable i think is something that is, you have to be honest with yourself about it, think it's something that can be useful, it's something that if you didn't care about it, it wouldn't be there, right?

29:21And so that's a piece of it. But I also think it's always circling back to why you started. And when you say you got some light or you have, you know, momentum towards what, right? So like, I guess going back to that purpose, like, why did you start? I'm asking you. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, Yeah. I mean, I guess the goal is being realized and maybe it's course correct and it's not exactly what I thought it was going to be, but it's a variation of what I actually set out to achieve. And so I've now obtained an element of that. I'm still, I mean, as any type A person, the goalpost does get extended, but there's a sign of progression because of all of the period in time in which there was no progression.

30:02And I would consider that being dark. And the reason for that is because it's not the plan. Like you don't want it to not be, you don't want it to be stagnant. But what I've realized more and more, and it applies to everything in life, is that this stagnant part is actually the only reason the light exists. Because everything would just be normal. But there's this element of going, looking back at all of that and realizing how hard and how lonely and how isolating and how much uncertainty and sleepless nights I genuinely had because of what it took to get me to where I am today. I'm like, fuck, imagine losing what I've just obtained and then have to do it all again.

30:47But do you think you're worried about losing the things that are happening or the feeling of obtaining it? yeah well i guess if you if you look at in that in that lens it it actually the the feeling of obtaining it is the thing but but also the only reason it feels good is because of the dark like if everything's just winning all the time you become numb to the winds but because you have that polarity and that comparison point in the low that's why the high feel feels high so when when you're explaining it, there's this element of going, even if you do lose it good, it means that when you actually get to the thing you're trying to get to, it's going to be worthwhile.

31:29Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think this relates a lot to an athlete's leave their sport. And you know, what happens is, is, is people, they get this, this spike that's higher than 99.9 % of people ever experienced, right? You, you, like that feeling of success is amplified in front of 100 ,000 people, right? And so that gets so high at such an early age. And then your baseline for that feeling gets raised. But then you leave your sport and you're trying to figure your life out. And then you're trying to create that same feeling, that same feeling of progression. But your baseline is now so far adjusted because of the things you went through early in life.

32:07Most people, the goal is, like you're talking about, like, you know, you progress as life goes on and that feeling is relatively consistent, but it's not too far out of reach. so i think you know with the mental health side of athletes particularly it's when that baseline is so high and then and then you're starting your life over and it's so far out of reach i think it's it's a recipe for disaster yeah there's also an identity piece that comes into play here right yeah you're identifying as the athlete and that becomes your life and then when that gets stripped away from you with an unforeseen injury or whatever it might be you go oh i am this guy i'm being perceived as this guy and now I'm not.

32:44Did you face that when you had all these injuries in sport? Did you ever have any identity problems? Well, you know, my injuries were earlier, so I didn't even get to the point where I felt my identity was that high. But when I left, honestly, my wife had a pulmonary embolism and stopped her swimming career. She was a two-time Olympian. and we were going through that at the same time. And so it kind of delayed my, you know, my chance. No, not my chance. It delayed me actually working on myself in a good way because I was more worried about her and wanted to help and be supportive. So mine came a little later and I definitely had a moment where I was like, you know, what is my purpose?

33:26What am I doing? And I think you always have that thought to some extent. I don't think that ever fully goes away, but I've gained clarity. And I actually, I don't know, I think with the identity thing, I think it's more about feeling like, I think it's less about the identity of the athlete and more about the identity of I am doing something that fulfills me, I'm excited about, I have goals that I'm trying to reach, and that goes away. I don't even know if it's necessarily the athletic side of it because when people build themselves back up on the business world or, you know, different competitions, whether it be a high rocks, whatever they seem to get that fulfillment again relative to the to the medium it doesn't matter what you're doing so yeah i think it all has to do with what you're talking about like that feeling of progression and success and what how you define success and having that consistent growth along the way but i also think it's important to recognize you are going to lose that feeling if you continue at the same pace right like this naturally like like we were talking about earlier the brain responds to change and so you know if that's the feeling you're chasing you're always going to have that stress so it's i think it's also diving a little deeper of figuring out on another level like what is purpose for you when that that progression ends because at some point you're not going to be able to keep progressing like that forever and and that's kind of like when the lights turn off what does that look like yeah it's a hard question it's a hard question to reflect on.

34:52Yeah. I speak about this topic a lot. The idea of the more you progress towards mastery, the less you can progress. And most of us walk through life and we have happiness tied to the amount we're progressing. But the problem there is the goal is mastery. And as we get closer to it, the less we can progress. So if our happiness is tied to the progression, the more we get closer, the less happy we'll be. So we're progressing towards a goal that is going to result in less happiness so what's the point of the goal and so it's developing an intimate relationship with loneliness and being okay with not progressing because you're tied to a greater mission and something that's maybe bringing you closer to i don't know life fulfillment i guess you could say there's so many pillars to it but uh i like this idea and what you keep bringing back to like thinking that one step deeper i feel like there's a lot of things in everyone's life where we are being a little bit short-sighted with our views and how we're acting and maybe we want something and we want it now but perhaps obtaining it's not even going to get us what we want and if we just ask a step deeper and a couple of questions deeper we'll actually come up with answers that are more long-lasting yeah well and i think a lot of those questions you're talking about are asked at three o 'clock in the morning when people can't go back to sleep and that that's why it always comes full circle of you know that's that's most of people that talking about their sleep it has nothing to do with their actual sleep damn yeah this let's unpack this a little bit more so but there are a lot of things you can do though like to you know on on the physiological side to combat the psychological stresses i think that's like using those tools is useful what do you mean by that like breath for example you talk about doing breath work all the time it's like there's nothing that's more impactful immediately to your nervous system than your breath and so it's not like you know i think it's learning the techniques and strategies to reel back in your brain and use like psychology combined with like the physiological response of these different protocols to help keep you, you know, between the lines.

36:59And I think that's where people just unravel. If they don't understand like how the body works, breath, exercise, all the different things that can bring you back closer to midline, then things get out of control. You diving deeper into the topic of sleep and psychology and just understanding how people work and what we can do to optimize our life. Has there been a point where you feel like the rabbit hole is quite deep? And is there any like increased amount of pressure that you've had in your life by diving deeper? We talk about like, you mentioned on another podcast, can't remember what it was specifically, being addicted to your progress of your sleep.

37:37There was a word for it. Orthosomniac. Orthosomniac. There's also orthorexia, the addiction to eating whole foods and eating clean. And, you know, a lot of the time they end in the same sort of outcome as say anorexia or whatever these extremes are, right? It becomes a mental illness in a sense, right? There's this fascinating thing that I always like to ponder and check in on myself if I'm taking things too far. Because being a high performance person, we want to optimize all these things. don't want to eat carbs before my, before I record, because I want to be more, I want to increase my creatine.

38:14I want to do all these things. And I wonder when I look back at my, um, high level athlete days, um, when I was trying to become a professional athlete, I was looking at the people that performed the best and they were the ones that mucked around a lot all the time and they didn't take it as seriously. Whereas I would be doing all of the extras and doing all of this stuff. And there's got to be something in that if we apply it to life, where we look at an athlete that performs so well on game day, which is when it matters, Dennis Robman, all these people that - Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan, where they are a bit lighthearted.

38:46My good friend Hunter McIntyre, who's the High Rocks world champ, he will like do a massive camp and train just insanely for four months straight. And then he'll just have a massive night on the beers a week before his competition. Not sure how optimal it is, but his thought behind it, is, and he doesn't have to do that every time, but he's done that a lot of times. His thought behind it is it just releases the pressure of like being so serious. I wonder if there is something with that and the psychology behind that. For sure. I mean, stress will cripple any athlete. So the best athletes are the ones that are, the best athletes are always stress-free.

39:29They're not thinking about the performance. They're not thinking about the stats. They're not thinking about the plays, they're reacting, they're in a flow state. And I think that's why a lot of the athletes that don't take things serious actually are the best athletes. I don't mean don't take it serious like in the game. When I said Michael Jordan, I mean by like he, outside of basketball, like he was not taking care of himself, you know, but he was just determined and he wasn't overthinking things. And I think with sleep, it's similar to like fitness, right? When you first started lifting or whatever, it's like you're obsessed with like what exercise is the best, what's the sets and reps.

40:02And the more you dive into that world, you realize, you know, there's a lot of gray. All the stuff kind of works. You don't have to be as granular. Same with nutrition. Sleep's no different. So most of the time, I'll spend most of the time talking to teams and athletes about sleep, actually deterring them or pushing them away from overthinking their sleep, having them take their trackers off before competition. Because sleep's one of the things where it's almost like checking the box. It's not something, it's not like fitness. You can get more fit, have more endurance, and continue to progress almost forever, or at least close to it.

40:34Sleep is something where if you're getting eight hours, if you feel good in the morning and you have energy, check the box and move on. You should not continue to optimize it forever because it's just going to walk you down a bad thought process. You're going to become fixated on it. It's going to create stress instead of take away stress, and you're going to be in a worse place than you started. So sometimes sleep trackers aren't for everyone. I think they're amazing to like reflect on, but you know, to wake up and look at a number and have that dictate how you feel is the worst approach you could have to sleep.

41:02Yeah. Feeling first and then go to the, uh, like with my whoop, the only reason I would like really track things is when I'm trying something new to see if it actually affects me positively or negatively. But for the most part, letting a number on a screen dictate how you feel over actually how you feel is a pretty slippery slope. And this is what, when I was promoting them, what I would recommend to people is like, if you are overthinking the numbers, take the damn thing off. Yeah. Like look at it and help it be a guide, but take the thing off. You mentioned their flow state just before and how the best athletes are in flow state.

41:36When we look at every athlete, especially professional athletes or anyone that's an expert in any field, they're an expert, which means they know what they're doing. Yeah. maybe when they are in training they can hit 100 free throws at once and never miss but then in the game day they fail which shows it's not a skill issue no they're actually not in their parasympathetic and they're in fight or flight which means they can't access muscle memory probably a lot of the time they're probably uh in this state where when you look at the best people and they're in this flow state they're doing the free throw and they can't even hear all the noise around them they're literally just so locked in just like they're at training yeah and so how do we do things in our life to make us access this flow state and once we have it like maintain it as long as we possibly can i think flow state is just the ultimate form of presence i think when you they are present to a level beyond belief there's not another thought in their mind when you think about anyone that that starts to have an issue with performance it's usually thoughts creeping in the lack of presence more and more so that the less present they have the more external thoughts and predictions of what's going to happen, the less of a flow state they're in.

42:49And so I think, um, I think, you know, even in psychology, when you, when you strip it down, when people are dealing with anxiety issues, just going to therapy, they do things to bring them back to reality, bring them back to being as present as possible to reduce anxiety. So stuff like rubbing your, your fingers on your leg and like bringing that sensory impact to your fingers. And, and so I think that the sport is no different. Like when you, when you hit that flow state, all it means is like you are fully in the moment. You are thinking about nothing else. You're thinking about no other outcomes or things that could happen other than you performing the task at hand.

43:23And so I think the more things you can do that gets you in a mental place, that you do forget everything going on in your life, the more you can start to be aware of that and then apply that to other things. And that's just my personal view on it, but I think it could be useful. I think you apply that to every area of your life. Presence really is a superpower. Yeah. You know, even, um, I've spoken about this a little bit, but Led Hamilton, uh, I, when I asked him where his happy place was, he, and I was talking about being in a big barrel, uh, on a wave, he was like, well, sex isn't bad. And the thing is, where he talks about is where we, where we got to in the end was wherever you can be at most peace and in the, in the moment, as much as you can possibly be, that's the superpower.

44:07That's where you can be happy. You can't be happy anywhere else. because it's filled with thoughts, worries, concerns. And so accessing presence in everything has to be the superpower. Yeah, that's how I define flow. When I think of flow state, that's how I would define it. Presence. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder why it's so hard for us to do the things we know will make us present. Like think about this first, like the breathwork, for example, five minutes of breathwork will literally fully alter your state and you'll be so here, right here, right now. But playing a four-minute or five-minute guided breathwork seems to have so much friction before we're doing something big.

44:48Like one of the, I think it, I forgot who it was. Maybe it's Marcus Aurelius. He's like, I've got a busy day today. I'm going to meditate for six hours instead of three. And it's something like, how can we just, how can we put us, we need to almost like put ourself in our future self shoes after we do this little task that's going to access more presence in our life. and how can we like hold ourselves accountable? Because for me, I struggle. I do the breaststroke before the pods. But other than that, I don't really do it. And so I wonder like what does get in the way? Maybe it is this like driven nature of, oh, we need to go, go, go.

45:22We can't do that. I think it's the nature of protection too. I think that as we evolved, like those stresses were mostly things that kept us alive. And so you wouldn't want to forget about those things. But I think as society's evolved, now we've created these stressors that feel as imminent as getting attacked by an animal but they're all throughout our life like money and you know relationship stressors all these different things social media all these things that didn't exist a long time ago I think we interpret the same as like existential threats back in the day and so it's counterintuitive to our brain to turn those things off because it was protecting us like you should be on high alert like when you sleep in a different environment going back to sleep the first night you're 50 % more sensitive to sound the first night like you sleep in a hotel room or a new environment.

46:13But that makes sense because you're hyper aware. If you were sleeping in a new cave as we evolved, like that's a huge benefit to be hyper aware, be aware of your surroundings and basically reduce risk. And so I think it's the same thing going on in the day to day. It's like we've created all these stressors that we deem as impactful as existence back then. and they're treated as such. And so your brain doesn't want to turn off because that means you're walking away from something that's a threat. And so I think it's naturally difficult to do. How important is routine when it comes to sleep? You know, I would say routine is important, but I would say your mindset around it.

46:55And the biggest thing, if there's one thing with sleep that outweighs everything else, is the consistency in your bedtime and your wake time. You could put every other thing associated with sleep on this side and the consistency will outweigh all of it on the other side. So like that's, that's the biggest thing you can do. Seven days a week, 365 days a year. That's the most impactful thing. The routine can be extremely impactful for a lot of people, but again, it has to be something that works for you. It has to be something that actually reduces your stress. It has to be something that you buy into, that you enjoy, that you can be consistent with, that you look forward to that is creating the right mindset surrounding sleep.

47:34There's some people where they create this four-step routine, but it's actually stressing them out because they start to think about how not sleeping well is going to impact them and they have to get all the things done. And when it's thrown out of whack, then they don't sleep because they didn't do step A, B, and C. And all of a sudden it becomes a negative. So I think in life in general, being rigid means being fragile, right? Like skyscrapers, they sway back and forth for a reason because you need some give in order to be strong. And so I think a routine is the same way. Like it's good to have certain things that wind you down, but whenever you're so rigid, you become super fragile and that shatters when something gets thrown out of whack.

48:11As soon as you have to travel, as soon as you run out of your supplement, as soon as the electricity goes out and it's warm, like things fall apart. So I think it's about picking your non-negotiables, the thing that truly center you and bring you uh to a place of peace and a peaceful mindset and and those are the non-negotiables you implement but don't create a routine just to create a routine yeah by creating the routine you're just adding more things that you're dependent on yeah which means like we don't want we don't want those we don't want to be dependent on all these things because then it would just dictate our mood yeah and an example of like how individualized a routine is too, is that, you know, but the blue light, blue light's a very trendy topic, right?

48:49Blue light, it invigorates your brain, it wakes you up more than the other light. But now they're finding that it's individual in the sense of what you do before bed. So when you look at a TV screen, right, tons of blue light, everyone would say it's horrible for your sleep, but they've done studies now on people that have grown up with the TV on at night. And that's something that actually brings them peace and actually creates this environment that they're used to and their brain associates that with sleeping and so it can actually be a positive for certain people depending on what they're used to and so it's just very dependent on your mindset and what brings you to a place that you feel like you can totally relax and that's what it's about okay yeah this this makes a lot of sense the the i guess the the ultimate thing is yes we shouldn't do blue light yes we shouldn't have yeah there's certain there's certain rules that we should not be having these at the times that we're recording right now.

49:47But I guess at the end of the day, how can we access the most calm and at peace in our life? And if we can have our eyes shut when we feel the most calm, we'll be able to get the most sleep. So things like this and red light and the glasses that help block all the blue light and the green light, they're allowing us to, our body to signal that it is nighttime. You're not going to be worse off wearing things like this, but having things that will access probably deep down our subconscious and how we're actually being operated, like the cogs that are in motion. How can we access the thing that aligns with that the most?

50:27I wonder though, if there's a way that maybe there's been so many things in our upbringing maybe that have served us negatively and maybe they're adding more fears and uh i wonder if there's a way that we can reprogram those so that we don't need all of those things we don't need the tv on at night like i was speaking to someone and they said that they're like this this woman had to sleep with the tv on all night and he was lying in this bed waking up every 10 minutes going like why is there a t why are we listening to a cartoon before bed like i wonder if there's a way but then she goes i need it to sleep i wonder if there's a way we can reprogram these things that we feel like we need because perhaps they are actually probably negatively impacting for sure yeah i think you definitely can it just takes time you know and i think it's it's it's important to realize what's realistic and not expect immediate results with those things but as far as sleep i think the environment like your environment is more impactful than people realize And it's like your bed needs to be a place for two things, sleep and then one other thing.

51:34Those are the only two things. That's a different podcast. We'll talk about that. But those are the only two things you should do in your bed. And so anytime you're doing anything other than sleeping in your bed, your brain is associating that feeling, right? So answering text messages or emails, those are small level stressors. And now you're starting to associate stress with your bed. You wake up in the middle of the night and you start to feel like you can't go back to bed. The more and more often you have that feeling in your bed, you associate your bed with that feeling. And now it's not a good place for sleep.

52:02It's a place of stress and anxiety for not being able to sleep. And so when you start having those feelings, the best thing you can do is get out of the environment. Protect that environment. Protect your bed with your life because that's a sacred place for sleep and sleep only. And once people create that space for themselves, that usually elicits a pretty big change. perhaps there's a level of agency that needs to be had to be able to check in on yourself and see how you're feeling do you think a lot of people just live in denial they they maybe wake up feeling sluggish they wake up not feeling very good and they just go like oh no it's it's a problem here i'm fine or whatever it is and people aren't even being aware of all of those things which is making them feel like shit yeah i don't know if it's i don't know if denials are what i'd use i think is a lack of awareness.

52:47I think because it happens gradually over time, that that's just the norm. You're talking about years and years of issues that build up and you don't even recognize the change. And it's hard to have a big perspective ship in how you feel. There's only a few things you can do that actually allows you to feel how you used to feel. So I think it's more of a lack of awareness. I think people don't realize how good they could feel. Maybe they never did feel that great. But oftentimes when you ask someone to think about how they slept as a kid, all of a sudden things start to come back. You sleep through the entire night, you wake up, you have energy.

53:24And I just think that people let it go on for so long. And it's death by a thousand cuts. It's not like, oh, I have sleep issues all of a sudden. You're talking, oh, a couple of disturbances. And all of a sudden over the course of five years, you're sleeping four hours a night, waking up multiple times, having a whole bunch of anxiety surrounding your sleep. And so I think it's just a gradual progression that's often, you know, slips under the rug. And where did Dream, your company, come into play here? Where did that get started? What sparked the idea? And tell me a bit more about the messaging and kind of the reasoning behind creating Dream.

54:04Yeah, so I, it came, the birth was from me speaking about sleep. So I was speaking about sleep. Then my partners were on a similar journey and they had had a pretty life-changing experience with sleep masks, just them helping their sleep and they had a bunch of sleep problems. So we had met and I was going to start doing things with the mouth tape and breathing stuff. And so, you know, we were super aligned and we teamed up. But it came from a place of just being asked a thousand times what people should use. And when we looked out in the marketplace, there wasn't a brand that was for high performers.

54:38They were for athletes that had the messaging of, listen, if you want to be the best version of yourself, you need to focus on sleep. And it's okay. It's okay to prioritize sleep. It's not selfish. You're actually, it's actually selfless. You're pouring yourself into other people. You need to take care of yourself and be that best version. And there wasn't really anything like that at the time. And so we started making things like the mouth tape and the nasal strips and the sleep mask, and they were geared towards high performers. We have a lot of pro teams and college teams that, you know, five years ago, you couldn't even find the sleep mask that a college football player would probably wear.

55:13There were pink silk sleep masks all over the place. And so it was more about just communicating that message. And then it was also about the education. Like that's, we were always built on the education of just, uh, the understanding of how, how important sleep was, especially for a high performer. And so, you know, we pushed the education side and then the products kind of followed along. And they're just, you know, our goal is really, if we can educate the population on how much better you'll feel when you're sleeping well, hopefully we have the best products when they seek things to support that.

55:42But that's our goal. Like if we can change the night, eight hours or change the world, eight hours at a time, every single night, that's the goal. And I think it's our responsibility to have the best products when they seek those out. Yeah. I feel there's a level of confusion, people getting into it because they see some maniac with a nose strip on, mouth tape, some glasses and an eye mask on their forehead, ready to go to bed. And that's me. And people just think, what's going on? And it is getting more and more acceptable and normal. Where do you tell people to start? because they'll go on your website and they'll see all these great products and there'll be people like me that use them all.

56:25But what's one? What's one that you always tell people like, just try this? I think the sleep mask is the most underrated product. Okay, because I have never woken up with it still on my face. You've got to tighten it up. Really? But then I feel like it's too tight. I always wake up with it up here. Well, that probably doesn't even matter. Okay. The reason I think it's so impactful is it's, the easiest, cheapest, consistent routine. Like I think when you think about sleep, you want things that are easy to replicate no matter what's happening, right? So you can take it with you anywhere you go, complete blackout.

56:56And then the other side is like the psychological component of just triggering yourself to sleep. So when you put that thing on, you know, boom, it's time to go to bed. I think that's what it's about. So when you start to build that, you talk about routine, like that's a piece of the routine that is so easy, so fast, is so easy to replicate no matter what's going on. like that is something that can be impactful. Like that's probably the most, when I talk to athletes, in particular college athletes, when they start using a sleep mask, it changes their life because most of them are just on their phone, they're scrolling.

57:29There's no wind down, there's no separation of their bed and phone and all this stuff going on. And all of a sudden you're consciously committing to going to bed and they fall asleep way faster and they stay asleep. And it's hard to have something that has that big of an impact. Mm. There's something, there's something in that there's this element of going like, this is allowing me to unlock routine peace easier by having that thing. So being able to develop a norm of, okay, I'm putting a sleep mask on. That means bedtime and your body signals it probably even feels the thing around your head.

58:07The tactile side. And so I love this idea of, of like, it doesn't actually matter if I wake up with it off. yeah you're already asleep it's like okay well it helped me get to sleep and that's what matters yeah and for me honestly the most life-changing ones it has to be the nose strip and the mouth tape and i think my nose is just clogged and it it really is and honestly when i track my sleep on my whoop it's day and night difference yeah when i wear wear those and so maybe there's this element of, okay, the eye mask is going to help build this routine of helping my body get to sleep. It signals to me that it's time for bed.

58:46And whether I wake up with it on or off, doesn't matter. I still got to sleep easier because of it. But then improving actually efficiency of sleep, making sure that you're breathing through your nose, X, Y, and Z, and then you're implementing those things. And I mean, you've got all the rest of the things, but that's kind of where my brain's going. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the most impactful for for your actual, like on the physiological side of your sleep. Yeah. The mouth tape and the nasal strips. I mean, I, I've been mouth taping for seven years. Uh, I had mild sleep apnea, did a whole bunch of sleep studies.

59:18I had no idea, but I started mouth taping. James Nestor released his book. Uh, and I started mouth taping felt night and day better immediately. And that never happens with sleep. You know, like rarely do you have that perspective. And so did all these sleep studies and had mild sleep apnea, started doing the mouth tape and the nasal strips and and it all went away. And so, you know, when you think about sleep, right, it's really the most relaxed your nervous system will be. When you think about your nervous system, there's a direct link between your nervous system and your breathing. Your breathing is the steering wheel for your nervous system.

59:51So when we start talking about sleep, it's crazy not to speak on your breath as one of the first things we address. And I think just bringing awareness to your breath before bed goes a long way because you start to realize how impactful it is. And I think breathing has become so over complicated there's so many protocols this that and the other thing but at the end of the day if you compile every single protocol there is out there if your inhales are longer than your exhales you're going to ramp your nervous system up if your exhales are longer than your inhales you're going to down regulate your nervous system so if you just start focusing on long breaths long slow exhales breathing through your nose that's the other piece like nasal breathing is extremely powerful like so many so many positives of nasal breathing everyone should read James Nestor's book, but.

1:00:37Breathe is the book. Yeah. And it's like, I don't know how that's not thought of right away because on the clinical side, the first thing people test for is sleep apnea, which is a breathing related clinical issue. And so, you know, there's this disconnect, but I think, you know, when you're breathing well, when you're breathing to optimize your nervous system, you're producing the nitric oxide or nitric oxide in your nose, you're, you're, you're basically aligning yourself for sleep. And so start with breath and then work yourself back. yeah i think the common denominator with this conversation though is accessing presence yeah when you're got an eye mask on and then you're thinking and you're like feeling the air and to your nose and then you're consciously trying to slow down the breathe on the exhale you can't you're not thinking anywhere else you can't right yeah and so like all of these i i love this because it's it's it's de-supermanning all of these modalities and everything yeah it's like go and buy the dream the mouth tape and the nose strip and the eyeglasses do it all i highly recommend game changer life changing for me but at the end of the day if you can't do any of that yeah just shut your eyes put your phone out of your room maybe open up a book i don't know and just focus on what you can control be there be there yeah breathe 100 i i feel like there's this conscious awareness that we could have that would actually change and solve most of our problems like if we can just stop being here or there and everywhere we can do we can just be like right here when we're trying to do something in our life like so important that's like sleep well that's the that's the trick is how do you flip that switch because being here and there is super useful trying to accomplish a goal like you need to be there and be thinking about being there but then it's can you turn that off when you need to yeah and recognizing that the sleep is actually getting you close to the goal because then your waking hours are going to be impactful.

1:02:33And I actually think that connection, like people are making that connection and they're fully believing in that connection. And that's the reason why you're seeing the shift. People are buying into that fact. So if they can relate what they're trying to accomplish to sleep, then it's actually achievable. When they're thinking about accomplishing this thing and then they start to actually believe that sleep is gonna pour into that, then it happens. And before that, it will never happen. And it hasn't happened. A lot of people still battle, like, will it really make me better? Will it really allow me to make better decisions, be more efficient, actually get more done?

1:03:08And I think once enough data or whatever, whoever communicates it to them, once that light turns on, then the changes happen. And you're seeing that starting to happen across all the CEOs, the entrepreneurs, like they're starting to buy in and actually do it because you wouldn't be able to turn it off if you didn't fully buy into it. Yeah. And so it's really important to have the mission and have the thing that we're striving towards. But I think realizing that like you trying to sprint in every way, shape or form doesn't actually necessarily result in you getting the outcome as quick as you could.

1:03:43Or are you actually sprinting if you're not sleeping? Yeah. Or are you just on a brisk walk? Yeah. You're jogging. I think people think they're sprinting, but they're actually like, you know, they're just out for a run. yeah yeah it could be sprinting i think it's like you know defining what that looks like yeah so so like when you're on a run when you're hung over it's quite hard but you're not moving as fast as when you're fresh but you still feel like it's very hard and so maybe people confuse hard work with being depleted yeah i think people confuse hard work with accomplishing goals you can work hard and be really inefficient and make bad decisions and waste your time and it can be really hard you know it's like a workout you can go do a thousand push-ups it'll be super hard but it's probably not going to help you get to what you're trying to accomplish in the fitness space yeah you just have some sore elbows that'd be strategic it's about like doing things the smart way the efficient way the the scientific way damn i i love this perspective of uh how we think we're sprinting but maybe we're just unoptimized and tired and it's harder when it shouldn't be if there's anything sleep does is it impacts your perspective your perspective of how you feel your perspective of how you're performing your perspective of your emotion your your perspective of even reading people's emotion like like you become literally a different person like you literally will speak differently you won't be able to read facial expressions as easily um you'll be more emotional uh like everything starts to break down and so like those are all the things you need to be successful whatever you're doing or you'll just be more you yeah you know you're your true self when you're well slept and when it's like the snickers commercial like you're not you and you're hungry you're actually not you and you're not sleeping yeah damn what's exciting you at the moment what's what's something that you're excited about in life um well we're in two weeks, we're going through the embryo implant for IVF.

1:05:47So hopefully we'll be pregnant. Yeah. My wife will be pregnant. Congrats. It's been a journey. So, but I'm excited. What part of that journey has been the hardest? You know, I mean, just the time, you know, we're, I'm 37. So it's taken a couple of years to like sort it all out, but it's been a blessing because, you know, we did, we went through the IVF process because we did this genetic test and we had this crazy match for these certain genes that would have been an issue for our child. So we're able to, you know, utilize science and do testing for it. And then you eliminate those genes for future children.

1:06:22Like, you know, they're able to look into those prior to her being pregnant, which is really cool. And prior to the embryo. And so it was a blessing to like learn that because that would have been, you know, a really hard process to go through. So the hardest thing is to spend the time, but, um, you know, it, there's a lot worse things and, and, you know, having the resource to be able to go through it has been a blessing. Um, but that's exciting. It's also slightly scary. It's 50 % exciting, 50 % scary. I was talking about bad sleep. That's going to be some bad sleep. What's scary about it? Um, I mean, just the responsibility of it, the unknown, you know, like I think everyone's just trying to figure out themselves and now you have a human being completely reliant on your guidance in life and i think that's that's a big responsibility but i think it's exciting and and it's something that will i can already tell it will make me better as a human being i feel like it's one of those things where i'm keen to chat to you like a year after i'll probably have bags under my eyes you'll be like i scrapped the sleep thing i haven't had a child yet yeah i'm done sprinting but just on that note what's what's interesting is speaking to people around us sleeping while they have children.

1:07:36Night nannies, interesting enough, the ability to be able to afford a night nanny is so powerful because perhaps waking up eight times throughout the night to look after the baby is actually not being there for the baby because then throughout the waking time, you're depleted and tired, so you're not giving them your full self. So being able to afford a night nanny allows you to actually show up for the baby when it matters, not just while it's sleeping. And it was an interesting thought where someone was like, I can see why wealthy people can have babies easier because they could have a night nap.

1:08:07Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I went, wow, like that's an interesting perspective. Is there anything you want to share before we wrap up? No. No? That's great. I'm going to shout out Dream. If you guys are struggling with your sleep or you're looking to optimize your sleep, honestly, it's quite literally changed my life. I don't know if I actually have a deviated septum. Probably. 75 % of people have deviated septum. Yeah. I mean, look, I got knocked a fair few times playing football. So perhaps it is like that. But I feel bad for any woman that's in my bed because my snoring. But then the mouth tape.

1:08:42Just the snoring or other things? No, definitely not the other things. But the mouth tape and the nose strips have quite literally changed my life. When I started putting these on, I remember when I first discovered them when I was living back in Bondi, I was with one of my friends, Jake, Elastaboy, and we put this tape that we got sent and this nose strip and these glasses, and we were just laughing at how ridiculous it looked. Yeah, no, it's wild. And then I looked back at a photo of it, and I went, hang on, that's me every day now. And I was laughing at how stupid that was back then. Me and my wife are quite the scene, because we both do it all.

1:09:21Yeah. So it's like, if someone walked in and robbed us, they would be like, what are you guys doing? Yeah, but honestly... like it's day and night difference when i track it it's a game changer these glasses as well there's also a black uh sorry a red pair um and they have a combo deal on the website i recently discovered because ali bought the over there and she was like oh yeah they have a combo deal i'm like get the combo deal get get both of these and try out some mouth tape and even the second if you use code griffin you can get a discount off your order and um yeah i i love the brand i love what you guys are doing we're coming out with in december uh it's like the it's a recovery blanket.

1:09:57So we got the rights to this patented material called salient that converts thermal energy to infrared energy. So it's a 25 pound weighted blanket, but your body heat is reflected as infrared waves. And so that's never been done before in a blanket. And so, so there's like great research on one weighted blankets for sleep are great. It's like a sense of security and there's really good data, but then with this salient material increases blood flow to soft tissue, reduces soreness like it's it's legit so it's like a self-powered recovery blanket uh that's a weighted blanket that you'd throw on your bed over the top of your comforter damn it's sick exciting time super exciting i think when i was aligning with a brand it was looking at the longevity of what they're doing and they're actually you guys are actually building a brand and you're not just hopping on a trend and and just kind of drop shipping some shitty stuff um in the same packaging as the other 80 million different brands and you're building something really cool and i think uh i think i i love what you guys are doing and i'm here to support wherever i can so um i appreciate you coming on the show i feel like there's this this the one key takeaway for me is how do we access presence in our life and knowing that when we can access presence everything else starts to flourish yeah all of the things that we seem to have hold us up in our life probably come from not being right here yes right now and and especially especially like when it comes to a fulfillment standpoint, a peace, joy, fulfillment, overarching, like happiness, feeling, we can't have it when we're living somewhere else.

1:11:30And I think there's got to be this element of being able to be full within ourself where we're at right now. When we can do that, our sleep can thrive and all the other areas in our life can thrive. And that's what's really inspired me about today. I appreciate you coming on. Thanks, man. It's a blast. And this set's pretty sick. It's pretty cool. For everyone that's still tuning in, this is a tobacco barn in the middle of Nashville, a bit outside of Nashville. A little north. A little north. It smells amazing. It smells amazing. So yeah, I'm grateful to have you here and thanks for coming on the show.

1:12:02I appreciate your time. Thank you, bro. Thanks, Todd. See you later. See you later.

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