Listen to my latest podcast episode:

847: 3 ESSENTIAL Keys to Heal Your Body & Transform Your Fitness

TMHS 225: Paying Off Sleep-Debt, the Truth about Naps & Sleep Tips for Parents

When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap. That’s how it goes, right?

More and more today, napping is being considered acceptable by societal standards. There was a time when being caught “sleeping on the job” was frowned upon. Now, today, innovative companies like Google actually encourage their employees to nap if they feel the desire to. The results?…

Higher employee work output, higher levels of job satisfaction, and lower levels of stress. Can a good nap do all of that? Well, maybe.

One thing for certain is that simply having the ability to catch a few z’s during the day is comforting. Life happens, and even the tough get sleepy. But, as you’ll discover in this episode, you don’t want to let the smooth nap fool you.

There is a lot more to napping than meets the eye. Also, there is a growing amount of national sleep deficit that we are currently trying to find a way to pay off. The need for a nap might just be a symptom of a bigger issue… and all of that we’ll be rolling the covers back on today.

Plus, no one knows the seduction of a good nap like the folks who have small children. In this episode we’re going to provide some crucial insights to help parents (and their kids) to sleep better at night. Let’s do this!

In this episode you’ll discover:

  • Which medicinal mushroom is clinically proven to enhance deep sleep.
  • What the 2 different types of sleep debt are.
  • How time at a casino caused me to take a major mortgage on sleep.
  • Which health problems are associated with even a small amount of sleep debt.
  • What just one week of sleep debt can do to your testosterone.
  • How sleep debt affects weight loss.
  • Practical tips to help you prevent sleep debt in the first place.
  • What the best form of melatonin is (and the optimal way to utilize it!).
  • How sleep debt influences your food choices.
  • What the underlying reasons for napping are (this might surprise you!).
  • Whether or not naps help you to recover from prolonged sleep debt.
  • What the optimal amount of time for a nap should be (more than meets the eye!).
  • How a certain type of nap can influence your memory.
  • When the best time of day to take a nap is.
  • Whether or not you release enough melatonin during the day for better sleep.
  • The differences between monophasic, biphasic, and polyphasic sleep.
  • The major keys to making biphasic sleep work for you (if you choose).
  • Why the time you go to bed matters.
  • What it really means to sleep like a baby.
  • The most important factors to helping your small children sleep through the night.

themodelhealthshow-foursigmatic

Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Model Health Show. If you haven’t done so already, please take a minute and leave a quick rating and review of the show on Apple Podcast by clicking on the link below. It will help us to keep delivering life-changing information for you every week!

Transcript:

Shawn Stevenson: Welcome to The Model Health Show, this is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson here with my amazing co-host and producer of The Model Health Show Jade Harrell; what's up Jade? 
 
 Jade Harrell: What's up Shawn? 
 
Shawn Stevenson: How are you today? 
 
Jade Harrell: Today I'm womanishious. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Womanishious? Okay, tell me about it, let's see what this is.  
 
Jade Harrell: It's ridiculously wonderful and delicious to be a woman today. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Oh to be a woman, I like that; what's that about, a little extra spice? 
 
Jade Harrell: Yeah, well we've been all off into New Edition-  
 
Shawn Stevenson: Oh yeah, you are so right. 
 
Jade Harrell: And one of my favorite songs is "Delicious" so I am womanishious. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: I see, that's one of those low key songs on the album that you like, why was this a single?  
 
Jade Harrell: Because it was for me. It was really for me, they put it on there, but they knew it would get to me. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, what she is talking about is we were just vibing in the studio, listening to some New Edition before the show going through, some songs, it's so crazy, you know, they had the biopic and which was just kind of like a little phenomenon, but it got the younger culture involved. And I'm not exaggerating, every single morning and this was months ago when it came out my, five year old son asked if we could play a New Edition song in the morning on the way taking him to school. 
 
Jade Harrell: That's how i know you've done your job. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, and the same thing, my 16 year old, like his favorite song is a New Edition song right now; so no disrespect to the Lil Uzi Vert, and Lil Yachty, and Lil Kim, and Lil Wayne, all the lils- no disrespect to them, you know, but just having that variety in music I am thinking is really cool to see. 
 
Jade Harrell: That's the band that unifies us, that's the bond between us. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, the music is sort of like a soundtrack of our lives, like you share the story with Delicious, like you appear almost in tears, thinking about that story, and so it's something that connects all of us, and so definitely big shot out to music today! But, this episode today, oh my goodness, powerful stuff that's going to last you a lifetime. Today we're going to be talking about paying off sleep debt, the truth about naps. So many people since the birthing of Sleep Smarter and just seeing that kind of phenomenon all over the world in different countries is published in, even doing talks in different places, people ask about naps, like when I did I talk in the Philippines, people coming up to the microphone asking in the Q&A session about naps. 
 
Jade Harrell: They were coming to you for that permission, it's almost like going to the pope, just grant us the okay.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: So we're going to do the truth about naps today, and also sleep tips for parents, so very valuable information today and I'm very excited to share this with you. I know it's going to change your paradigm, also provide you with some  insight, some strategies that you can utilize on a daily basis. Before we do that though I want to give a quick shout out, since we're talking about sleep. I've got to share the study with you, there's a study that was published in the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, had found that the renown medicinal mushroom reishi was able to significantly decrease sleep latency, that means basically you fall asleep faster, that's just one thing it does, they found that increases overall sleep time and they also found that it increases non rem, aka deep sleep time and also light sleep time, which is more of the rem sleep. So it was found to do all of those things clinically- why are you not hearing about this, why you know about Ambien, but you don't know about reishi. Ambien came out last week. Reishi came out five thousand years ago. One of them has been tested a little bit longer. All right, now the reason that I think this is so important and valuable today is that it's easily accessible, but the quality matters, and this is why I use the reishi from Four Sigmatic, and I use their medicinal mushroom elixirs and or coffee, the mushroom coffee every day. I switch them in and out, but for the evening wind down definitely reishi is the go to, and the reason that I love them is that they do a dual extraction, this is so important, because most supplement companies, we're talking about 99 percent of them, are using one extraction method, so they're not getting the complete range of compounds that are available in that mushroom to you. So for example if you're just doing a hot water extract, which many do, then you're just getting the beta-glucan type compounds right, so we're looking at some antioxidant capacity, that's all great, really good stuff, not to say that it's not good.  
 
But we want all this stuff, and Four Sigmatic does that plus an alcohol extraction that gets the triterpenes, these kind of more hormonal compounds out of the mushroom as well, and you get all of that in a simple easy to use little serving size packets. And this is the key though, so I want to share this- some of the medicinal mushrooms are pretty strong, right, their flavor is pretty intense, and so how do you actually cut that bitterness that you can see; and so what I like to do is fat- fat is really the key in cutting the bitterness, so throw into your blender the medicinal mushroom elixir, so in this case we're talking about reishi, then add some fats of your choice, it could be grass fat butter, this could be coconut oil, this could be mct oil or a combination of any of these; I really love reishi with strawberry mct oil or pumpkin spice mct oil, all right, and/or throwing in a little bit of grass-fat butter as well. And blend that up together- fantastic. Those two different fats adding a little bit of flavor and if somebody you want to add maybe a couple of drops of some liquid stevia, something like that, you can go there, but generally it's going to taste really nice with a simple formula like that. So that's just one way to use it, or if you're hard core, you can go just with the packet and some hot water and it will be all good, but that's the medicinal aspect is also how it interacts with your palette, so definitely check them out. Head over to foursigmatic.com/model, and you're going to get 15 percent off the reishi, the mushroom coffee is definitely something to check out, so head over there and check them out asap. And on that note, let's get to the iTunes review the week. 
 
Jade Harrell: Let's see here, let's go with- Love me so Model Health, five stars, "I discovered you through a friend. I can't thank her enough for sharing your ideas and podcast with me. I've only been able to listen to a few podcasts so far, I am looking forward to many, many more; as I approach my fiftieth birthday in just under two weeks, I realize I've let myself go, this became more apparent after a major car accident that destroyed my car and left me feeling the pain even more than normal. I just finished your sleep routine podcast and know that this is a great place to start, but I want more, I want to be at a healthy weight, fit enough for the Fourth of July and pain lowered or gone. Thank you for the work you do, next on the book schedule- Sleep Smarter.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: Perfect, I love that, and I love you, thank you so much for sharing that with us. And that just speaks too, this is something that I've been talking about over the years- as we grow older, one of the tendencies is a slower recovery when injury takes place, right, and strength training is one of the big defenses against that. You see, equal levels of somebody who might have an injury in their sixties, recovering like somebody who's in their thirties, who doesn't work out, right, and so that's one of the most important things that we have to add to the mix here is making sure that we're physically literate, right, taking care of our body, being able to do body weight exercises, specifically, and also some additional strength training can be really helpful in our later years and buffering and protecting us from this additional stress that can come in the form of injury. But on that note, I want to thank everybody for heading over to iTunes and leaving us those reviews, please keep them coming, it means the world to us and make sure that you're subscribed to the show on iTunes, if you have iPhone make sure you hit the subscribe button, Stitcher. We're on Spotify now if, you've got your playlist going on Spotify you can also listen to The Model Health Show there as well. 
 
Jade Harrell: You can check us out on YouTube, and not just the video but if you are playing other videos and audio, you can get us that way too. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Definitely, so make sure to subscribe to stay up to date, because we've got so many amazing shows coming for you. But none more important than today, so let's go ahead and get to our show topic. So today we're talking about paying off sleep debt the truth about naps and sleep tips for parents. So first, we are going to talk about this interesting new phenomenon in our culture called sleep debt. 
 
Jade Harrell: Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work I go.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: So this concept of sleep debt, to put it simply, is the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep, you are building up, you are adding to this bank account of sleep debt, all right. Now, there's two different kinds of sleep debt- one results from something called partial sleep deprivation, the other results from something called total sleep deprivation. Now partial sleep deprivation occurs when someone sleeps too little each night for several nights or even weeks. That's partial sleep deprivation, not getting enough sleep each night for several nights in a row. Total sleep deprivation means being kept awake for 24 hours or more. Now, many of us have found ourselves in this situation where we've experienced both of these at one time or another, I'm sure.  
 
And me personally, I remember my time working at a casino, when I was in college, and even still, the first thing that pops to mind when I think of this job is how crazy my dreams would be in my sleep, because I could hear that ding, ding, ding, ding, even in my sleep, it was so intrusive right. And I did this work for a couple of years, and I was actually in this department called hard count department, also soft count counts the paper money, and chips, alright, a little bit easier job; hard count, we go and gather all the coins from every machine in the entire casino, so we're like hands and knees sliding across the floor, I had the stuff down to a science, eventually became hard count manager, I was the manager. And I'm a young, young guy you know, and I'm in charge of some people who are older than me, and it created this whole new dimension of understanding for me, even at this young age, like the reason that we do some of the things that we're doing today it's like, life qualifies you for them, you know. And so I had to work through a lot of stuff and figuring out how to approach that, but that's a whole other story- bottom line was this, with hard count you literally, we get locked into a vault basically, we get locked into this room that we cannot get out of all right, unless we call somebody to come and get us out, and we have to count all of these coins, you know and basically put them through machines where they can get wrapped up. Now, coin dust like I'm walking around, like I sparkle 24/7, alright, looked like one of the vampires from it from the Twilight series, I've got sparkles in my skin, and of course inhaling this is definitely not healthy, but this was a very difficult manual labor job, right. Now, here's the reason I bring this up is that my shift started at 3.30 a.m, 3.30 a.m is when my shift started, and the trip to get there from my place was about 45 minutes, so we're talking you know from Saint Lewis to Saint Charles, 45 minutes, and so every day doing that was just like, it really takes a toll on you. 
 
Jade Harrell: You were full time? 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, I was full time, and so doing that work because you know, I had a kid, you know I had to take care of, and so doing that work, I had a continuous that kind of partial sleep deprivation, and I kind of make it up on the weekends, my so called weekend and you know, getting by with six hours, five hours of sleep and it definitely took its toll. But also I did the total sleep deviation, because I was still young you know, so we're talking maybe 20 years old and I would like- this is a true story, alright, I'm ashamed, but I'm going to tell you. I will go to a club on the east side which you already know, which you already know, we're looking for trouble, good trouble, and so I would leave the club, because they don't close until six in the morning, some of them, you know, so I would leave the club, go straight to work from there, all right so I left the club at we'll say 2.30, 3 o'clock, get to my shift. I remember one time I literally you know, after gathering all the money, standing there like with a hand on the side of the cart in the middle of a casino, I fell asleep standing up. If you want to have something freak you out, fall asleep standing up in the mill casino. I woke up like, I just got him planted here from another planet, you know. So I did this multiple times as well, so I know what it's like to accumulate both of these. 
 
Jade Harrell: The accumulating both of them, but the amount of debt you would have accrued over that time... 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, and as you'll discover today, it doesn't work like we think it does. So short term sleep debt can lead to increase insulin resistance, higher blood pressure, elevated stress hormones, fatigue, reduced activity in the pre-frontal cortex, reduced testosterone and more. And now to give you an example of this, on episode 187, How your sleep life impacts your sex life, that we did recently, there was a study that we reviewed that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that found that young men who put themselves in a sleep debt for just one week, just one week of getting five hours of sleep per night, saw their testosterone levels dropped by up to 15 percent, just one week of the sleep debt. Now again, I've said this multiple times on the show, this might not sound like a lot, 15 percent drop in testosterone, it didn't sound that bad. What that means is, what that translates to me and according to these experts is that it was as if the people were suddenly 10 to 15 years older, as far as their testosterone production. Jade Harrell: So from 24 to 34 just like that. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yes. 
 
Jade Harrell: Now, is that cumulative too, so you know, like a guy like you, you were at this for a couple of years, so then you're 15, does that add up to 30, is it compounded? 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Guess what- this was all right before the time brewing when I get this diagnosis of the degenerative spinal disease, right, several things contributed to my body, my accelerated aging process that took place. 
 
Jade Harrell: Exactly, and what did they tell you about your back- that you had spine of an 80 year old.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yes. 
 
Jade Harrell: Wow.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: And, but the good news is, look where am I at today, so you can, all of these things can be cleared up, we have to be aware, but I just want to share what can happen even with a short term sleep debt, so definitely go back and check out episode 187, if you happened to miss that one, super powerful, how your sleep life impacts your sex life. Now, long term sleep debt, let's talk about this; long term sleep debt can increase your risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, cancer, obesity, mental illness and all cause mortality. And there is science, thick, thick science, lots of research backing up all of these particular issues.  
 
And I'll just share a couple of them with you, so there is a study that was published in a Canadian Medical Association Journal, that showed that continuous sleep debt is directly related to inability to lose weight, even with the exact same diet and exercise program as it controls who got adequate sleep. Test subjects who got less than six hours of sleep per night consistently, lost less weight and less body fat than those who were not accumulating the sleep debt. So it's right there, in black and white. There was another study, and this was published by the world health organization that track the results of 657 men over several years, and this was a study that I sided my book Sleep Smarter. And they found that man who accumulated long term sleep debt were twice as likely to have a heart attack, and up to four times more likely to have a stroke during the study period. Alright, so again, this is looking at long term sleep debt, you are building this up as you go along and at a point, it doesn't become very viable to pay this thing back- 
 
Jade Harrell: Sure, because then it became your lifestyle. And then you missed that stroke that one time, huuh, you got lucky, but if it's four times more, you better look left this time.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: So what I want to do is point people to the fact that number one, the human body still, we're very resilient, we're very very resilient, especially with short term payback, you know, if you are experiencing a few days or even a tough couple of weeks, your body is very resilient, and bouncing back. Now, long term sleep debt, that's the dangerous zone, alright, we're talking about sleep debt and if you put this in terms of like when we think of debt we think about banks and money, things like that- 
 
Jade Harrell: I think about the casino too, now that you've brought that up.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: But that long term sleep debt, life will foreclose on your health, very quickly. And, the short term side effects of sleep deprivation might be troublesome, but again, there is this great snap back ability of the body, especially when we're talking about a day or two, so don't be neurotic about that, don't worry about that at all. After that though, when we get into the longer periods, the sleep loan sharks start to send the muscle, they send in the muscle to come rough you up a bit, alright, so what are some tips and strategies that we can employ here? So that we can bounce back and really express that resiliency when we have a couple of days or even up to a week or a little bit longer of sleep debt, because again, things happen in life, how can we bounce back?  
 
So here are some tips: a lot of times, we can actually foresee when sleep debt might be coming. And we can take action to buffer it. For example, for many years, and this was back in the day, when traveling my family specifically my wife, we would have issues with packing late, right, we got to get up early for a flight, and it's like eleven, and we just started to get packing and we got to get up and be out of the house at six in the morning, and of course, especially when you're packing late and you're rushing, you are going to just be bouncing all over the place. I've been guilty of it too, no disrespect honey if you listen to this episode. 
 
Jade Harrell: I'm just saying says the one who is packing the bag. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: But, I am packing as well, you know, we self pack, she is not picking out my socks or whatever. And so, this would happen over and over again, but for her, again, we see this coming, I know that it's coming, so creating a strategy and employing more assistance and help for her to make sure that she is getting the packing done early in the day, and myself included, you know. So I know that the debt is a potential issue, so I learn to adjust and fix that mistake that would happen. The reason that it didn't matter so much to her is that she could sleep on the flight, she is like I'll sleep on the plane; she can sleep anywhere, I mean, any time, anywhere, she could sleep through an earthquake. I am not kidding, and she did, she actually did, we had earthquakes, I woke up, I'm like I'm transforming into a superhero, something like it's finally happening, the earthquake, like am I doing this, and I am like looking over, I do feel this, and she is just like so gone, I mean, like hibernation. And so, but for me, I am as far as doctor Bruce, doctor Michael Bruce the Chronotypes, I am definitely more of a lie in, I am early riser, so if I am staying up late, I still have a tendency my body wants to get up early, so it doesn't really work for me, and also sleeping on flight has not been my forte either. So for me, I really wanted to, I foresaw what was going to happen, and so I created strategies for us to get our packing done early, simple as that.  
 
Jade Harrell: What did it look like? 
 
Shawn Stevenson: This was simple stuff, like when we take the kids to school in the morning and we go and do our workout, coming back and getting that thing done, immediately, or putting it on my calendar that after I finish these particular tasks, then I'll go and get our packing done, right, so it's just a simple scheduling. Rather than like I know I got to pack, at some point today.  
 
Jade Harrell: That's how we operate.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: So it's really simple as that.  
 
Jade Harrell: And there is the other stuff, you know, because there is just so much stuff.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: And that's just one example. Now, another important thing with paying back the sleep debt is to get back on routine as soon as you can, because what can happen is that it can become a little bit of a habit, very quickly, when you're being sleep deprived, and so as soon as you have a rough couple of days, or whatever the case might be, get back on track, right, get yourself right back on track and understand that I can feel so much better, because what tends to happen is your body being that it's so resilient, it will get adjusted, and especially when night rolls around, because you are like I am going to go to bed early tonight, I am definitely going to go to bed early tonight, but then, it rolls around ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, and especially if your hormones are a little bit off, from being sleep deprived, cortisol  is going to be a little bit higher and you will be like, I am good, I am just going to go ahead and get this work done, I'll do this really quickly, next thing you know- twelve o'clock, one o'clock, and you're in that pattern again. So, if you have this happen, where you have a couple of days of sleep debt accumulated, get yourself back]on track. 
 
Jade Harrell: Break the cycle.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: Alright, now, another thing that we can add to the mix here, and this is what I employ, especially when I am traveling, or just if there is a couple of nights of rough sleep, whatever is going on, I'll use some supplemental melatonin, which I am not a fan of people using melatonin on a consistent basis, this is key and I wrote about this in Sleep Smarter, because there was a study done they found that consistently taking melatonin especially in higher doses which people tend to do, you're going to see a reduction or downregulation of your receptor sites from melatonin. That means your body can still produce melatonin just fine, but it won't be able to use it, it won't be able to use the melatonin that you are producing, or taking in in an optimal way, which that is a problem.  
 
So what we want to do is it's amazing, when we have this in spot cases, right, we have couple of days to get to your body on track or you're changing time zones, traveling, things like that, I think it's wonderful, and so I use the melatonin, the sprayable melatonin, because taking it sublingualy it absorbs faster into your blood stream when you spray it under your tongue. The sprayable melatonin from Onnit, that is what I utilize, so if you guys aren't using that, this is just a great tool to have in your back pocket, I always travel with it, so go to onnit.com/model, and you will get 10 percent off of the melatonin, and so that is another thing that you can employ, you know, add tot he mix. Also, you want to focus when you've got a little bit of sleep debt built up, you want to focus on good food, healthy snacks, smart supplementation.  
 
Now, why am I saying this is that when you are sleep deprived, even a couple of days of sleep debt, you have to really be crafty with your food, and your food choices because when you are sleep deprived, there is a tendency for the gremlin, the pop up, the snacky poo, alright. So what we want to do is understand that this is going to happen, youa re going to have a tendency more of a draw and a craving for higher carbohydrate food specifically, so you want to be mindful of that, understand clinically, like so we look at studies from Stanford and how they found that sleep deprivation, just 24 hours, again this total sleep deprivation for example they did in the study, suppreses leptin, which is your body's satiety hormone, that makes you feel like you're good like when you eat food, and also we see a corelated increase in ghrelin. Ghrelin- gremlin, which is your body's glorified hunger hormone, right.  
 
So be more crafty and conscious about your food choices because you don't want to spin this thing out of control because what this is going to do when you make those poor food choices, and you are sleep deprived already, you are going to have issues with blood sugar, you are going to have issues with stress hormones, it is just going to add more fire, more wood to the fire.  
 
Jade Harrell: More fire to the fire.  
 
 
Shawn Stevenson: It's going to add more fire to the fire, let's go and add this gasoline on the fire, this is a liquid. So, you also need to be aware that you will need to support your immune system and not trash it, so that's another valuable aspect when we're talking about our food choices as well, because the immune system, the vast majority of immune system is hanging out in your gut, so what goes in there matters. So we want real food, real whole foods, healthy snacks, and system boosters and I just traveled recently and we were able to have on hand the recovery protein from Onnit,  I love it, and their trilogy butter, walnut, almond, cashew butter, put that in the blender with some ice, half a banana this is post workout of course. 
 
Jade Harrel: I know you guys got it with it you, you have to talk about that too. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: And it's like slushies, like vanilla ice cream slushy, it's so good.  So definitely head over check them out, onnit.com/model, 10 percent off, they've got so much good stuff.  Now, also with the sleep debt you want to line up things to go to bed on time. We should be doing this anyways, but when you're experiencing sleep debt, you have to foresee it, you have to have some structure, you have to be adamant about it, to line things up. 
 
Jade Harrell: You have to know what it is, as it's coming towards you. Is that a bowl or is that a sleep deprivation? 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Alright. So one of the ways also, to kind of shift gears, now the big takeaway sleep debt small amounts easily paid back. A little payday loan. One thousand percent interest, you know, you pay it back next week, you're good, right. Go a little bit longer, that's a problem, before closure starts to take place. So, one of the ways, so again, just understanding the human body is very resilient, if you experience that which you will from time to time,  crazy stuff is going to happen from time to time, but there's a great ability for your body to bounce back, and bounce back effectively and with strength, grace and you're going to feel good in no time. 
 
However, if you allow that to be stretched out for longer periods we can get into some real trouble spots. So one of the ways that people tend to try and pay off sleep debt is through naps. Naps, now we're going to talk about the truth, we're going to get into the truth about naps. The first thing I want to cover is what are some common reasons for napping?  
 
Jade Harrell: Because we're tired? 
 
Shawn Stevenson: That's obvious there, let's dig a little deeper, dig in, okay. Let's get the shovel. So common reasons for napping- number one, poor sleep quality the night before. Poor sleep quality at night, that's one of the underlying reasons for napping. Boredom, that's another reason for napping; also tipping point on stress, so meaning excessive physical and/or mental and/or emotional stress and so, just for example, that moment when you have so much to do, that you decide to just lay down and take a nap instead, it is just too much stress or it might be a physical stress, you know maybe you went through a really exceptionally tough workout, or whatever the case might be or something like an emotional, big emotional stress for the day, it can really kind of pull your system down and draw you into nappy time.  
And so that's another important reason or a thing we tend to look pass for napping. 
 
Jade Harrell: Sure, some people miss thoughl even for a positive stress, I've got the cutest entrepreneurial friend who just started her business, and it really took off, she's getting noticed, you know getting new contracts and articles written about her, and every time she talks about something great that happens she is like oh I got to take a nap. It's just so overwhelmingly great that she wants to go lay down.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: You know what's so interesting, it's that there is going to be some assimilation from what you covered, which we are going to talk about in just a second, so the nap might be actually beneficial in a way, you know, but at the same time, it's like chill a little bit.  
Jade Harrell: Like that goat, they get startled and they just fall over. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: I don't know a thing about goats. 
 
Jade Harrell: I got to share that with you.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: I know, I've seen that the goat video, but I don't know what's going on with this sudden napping. 
 
Jade Harrell: They are just overwhelmed. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: So, also another, and so we covered the the tipping point on stress; another reason is misreading biological cues. So what I mean by that is we have, we talked about it before on the show, biological rhythms, and there are natural times this kind of ebb and flow states of certain hormones being produced and your energy being up and down throughout the day, and that's natural. So we might see it as, we kind of feel a little bit more tired and body is k ind of nudging us to just relax and slow down, but we're just like oh I just need to go to sleep. Right, so just misreading the cue, because there is something called afternoon quiescent phase, this afternoon quiescent phase that humans are seen to have if you look at our cortiso rhythm for example, there's a little drop in cortisol in the afternoon and this depends on your chronotype when this is happening, but this might draw you into a little nappy time. Now, you also notice that when you get sleepy during the day within twenty or thirty minute and if you can't sleep, within twenty or thirty minutes you're ok again.  
 
Jade Harrell: It's like you get past that little ridge there. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: And so, this doesn't necessarily mean you need to take a nap, but maybe just relax, wind down, you know just kick back, kick your heels up, maybe do some meditation, breathe, have a little social time, whatever the case might be.  
 
Jade Harrell: Just pulling out the pillow and blanket. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Right, also one other reason behind the scenes- unstable blood sugar. 
So we see this consistently with the strong afternoon crash after lunch, right if we're eating we're at the olive garden right, we get fancy and they bring out the bread sticks, pasta, my jam is, I've only been there a couple of times my jam was the pasta house, they bring you this bowl of flaming lasagna and I eat myself, I get itis, I get the food coma.  
 
Jade Harrell: And just just say that I get the itis, like it's a natural statement, like I'll get the check and I've got the itis. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: I'm going to need a bed over here at table three. So, that unstable blood sugar can be another draw, another reason that we want to take a nap. Now after looking at some of these reasons, let's shift gears and I want to share some information because I want to say don't let the nap fool you, don't let the nap full you. There's a study that was conducted by the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, that found that napping during prolonged sleep loss may serve to prevent sleepiness much more than it helps to actually recover from the sleep loss. So having that nap might help with the sleepiness you're feeling, but it's not necessarily helping you to recover from the poor quality sleep you're getting. So I don't want you to let the nap fool you. You're not better, at a deeper level you're not better from the nap, but we just want to get past the sleepiness, so we can continue our day.  
 
Now, let's talk about the ideal amount of time to take a nap, because naps are going to happen, let's not deny what is so, how can we optimize this thing? 
 
Jade Harrell: Not in the middle of a casino floor, standing up. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: That's how you do it wrong, all right, congratulations you played yourself falling asleep standing in the middle of a casino, all right, waking up like you're in a straight up nightmare. I thought I woke up from the nightmare , and I am in a nightmare to dream within a dream. Inception myself on accident. So, scientists have found that a 10 to 26 minute nap can be most beneficial if you're sleepy, 10 to 26 minute nap. Now this quote power nap, right, everybody's heard of the power nap, has been found to increase alertness, concentration, elevate mood, and even enhance motor skills.  
 
There is a study and this was published in clinical neurophysiology that was conducted on young adult test subjects, and found that a short 20 minute nap improved subjective sleepiness, performance level, and self confidence of their task performance, i.e. their mood improved. So we see a clinical boost in mood and getting past that sleepiness from that power nap. Now, let's move a little bit further; here's what the research says about napping for 30 to 60 minutes. That might sound seductive, like I'm going to get a good 30, but this can actually result in feelings of grogginess and feeling out of sorts that can last for even half an hour or more, now this happens because you inherently start teetering into the deeper stages of sleep. That's really the issue.  
 
And there's something called sleep inertia, right sleep inertia that gets stronger here and it's basically if you've ever had the experience, if you're napping for a while and you just can't seem to pull yourself out of it, right it's just pulling you in, it's like you're in the sunken place or something, like I just can't get out, right you're reaching up and you just can't get out. And even though this happens, this is something where we're experiencing this grogginess after napping which you would think that you would feel better, there is some clinical benefit seen here.  
 
And so, in this time frame it's not necessarily boosting your energy as far as your experience, but there is a statistical boost in memory. Now there's a study that's published in the journal of neurobiology of learning and memory that had participants in the study try to learn 90 single words and 120 unconnected word pairs such as milk taxi, just unconnected word pairs. Some of them then after studying these words trying to learn them, some of them either then watched the dvd, while others slept.  
 
Ok, so the study was they have them try to learn these words then some of them they have going watch the dvd, others sleep. Now when they were retested those, who had slept remembered more word pairs than the movie watching counterparts. Now researchers at Sarlin university in Germany say that a 45 minute nap can produce up to a five fold improvement in information retrieval from memory.  
 
Now, what that means is this is looking at, it's not saying that just because you nap your memory is better, this is if people are tired and then trying to work. So you can have a five fold benefit if you're tired and you get this nap, you can come back better, that's what they are saying.  
 
Jade Harrell: So I am going to assume that means not at night when we should naturally be sleeping.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: We'll talk about that in a second. 
 
Jade Harrell: Ok, and then I would probably add the other caveat that you know how we have curfews where we stop an activity, and then rest or we're falling out as we're doing the thing and we need to stop and take this time to rest. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: So yes, definitely we're going to cover the ideal time to nap for people as well, but it's just important to understand some of the background of what's happening with this and also so that's a time frame, what actual time of day matters as well, which we'll get to in just a second. So again, there's a nice benefit here, but again, you're going to be much more likely to experience strong sleep inertia with a nap that's this long. Now, if you're actually sleep deprived and you're able to do this without getting fired what I am about to share, then you may want to opt for a 90 minute nap, give or take a few minutes, and here's why- this is actually the time needed for full sleep cycle, on average, so this can be anywhere from 75 to 120 minutes depending on your unique biology, and this complete sleep cycle would include some deep sleep and rem sleep.  
 
Now this is found clinically to lead to improved emotional and procedural memory and creativity. Also, there's some body and brain repair that can take place here as well, and you can generally move past that strong sleep inertia when you get a nap of that length, you know, because you're getting a complete sleep cycle, alright. So, again you're not going to get fired, you might want to look at 90 minutes or a power nap. All right, now let's shift gears and talk about the best time of day to actually nap. For everyone across the board, it's going to go ahead and throw us out there, before 4 p.m, if you're planning on sleeping normally at night, nap before 4.  
 
This is a great time to bring up the conversation we have with Dr. Michael Bruce and this was episode 175, Discover Your Chronotype And Leverage The Power of When, and he talks about these biological chronotypes and how we're unique, but we're also kind of classified in the four different categories and he uses mammals, instead of being a night owl which is the bird, he uses a mammal, the wolf right, and so the lion is the early riser, and then we have the bears who tend to be- that's kind of what societies built on the bear schedule, right and the wolves tend to be more "night owls" right, and then there is dolphin who are just on all over the place right. What'd you say? 
 
Jade Harrell: [dolphin sound] 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, I thought so, when I looked over at you that is what I thought you were going to say. Jade Flipper Harrell. 
 
Jade Harrell: That was one of my favorite animals and I thought I wanted to be an oceanographer growing up, because I wanted to be with dolphins.  
 
Shawn Stevenson: Well, I learn something new every time, every day. And so if you wanted to get some more information on how to discover your own chronotype definitely go back and listen to that episode, because there is clinically he's looking at what are the ideal times for you to eat, for you to go to sleep, to get up, to nap, to have sex, you know it's like really interesting stuff, and so you check out that episode but just to give you the long and short of it, what he recommends when we're a lion is that generally is, we're talking about early risers, so waking up somewhere around 6 a.m and he said and he sent me this in a text as a reminder, I'm looking at my phone right now, he said that the ideal nap time is 1.30 if you're going to nap. If you need it, that's the key. For a bear, my wife is a bear, we knew this already, going into to the study a wake up time is closer to a seven a.m, best nap time is around 2 p.m. Looking at wolves who tend to be more of the night folks, he recommends not napping a little bit more for the wolf, but if it is desired it's best to do it around 2.30. So that's what the expert on this power of when says about that, and so, and you might notice biologically like experientially that those are the times your body is kind of winding down a little bit, and wanting to take a nap.  
 
But again, we've got to get to the core of this, and understand this is the big takeaway here, is that the number one driver for the desire, the number one reason for strongly needing a nap is poor quality sleep at night. Alright, so we want to focus on getting great sleep at night, it's like a nap is like a supplement, alright, your sleep at night is the real food, you don't want to mistake the two, so make sure that you're getting optimal sleep at night so that you don't feel this draw and it's kind of socially, it's looked down upon, a little bit, like you sleeping on the job. 
 
Jade Harrell: Yeah, like, sleep when you're dead. When you die. 
 
 
Shawn Stevenson: So here is the key, and I don't want that, kind of because a great nap is a great nap and it can be very helpful, so we're changing that paradigm right now, and society is also changing as well, and not looking down on somebody who's napping, like you can actually perform better at your job. Google, when I did a talk at Google I got standing desk, the sleep pods, right they have these sleep pods for employees to go and take a nap, right, because they know that this is going to improve their work performance, so why not let support it instead of having people just punish themselves if their body really needs a nap. But what we do want to do first and foremost is make sure we're serving people so they have the strategies to get great sleep at night in the first place, so we can change culture, so we can actually have the health and fitness that we all really desire because that is found in getting great sleep. 
 
Jade Harrell: So then, if I'm getting the great sleep, is there no need for the nap, or is that kind of like the dessert? 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Again, simple, it's a supplement. Generally, and I've experienced this, I shared the story working at a casino, I perpetually felt naps were great, just anywhere if I could tuck in and get a nap, all good. But for me today, I don't really have that draw, I don't have that strong pull to take a nap; every now and then of course I might just want to wind down, there is time to kick back, you know have a seat, because I'm generally working at my standing desk you know, have a seat, relax maybe you know have a conversation on the phone, talk to my wife, just kind of cool out for a little bit, go play a little pool, right and so just something to just kind of chill, kick back, and not  force myself to try to work and beat myself to the ground, I don't have to do that, but I don't feel that strongly like I got to go lay down. 
 
Jade Harrell: And it doesn't occur to you that it brings some additive value either? You're not drawn to it, and you are not necessarily needing it to cap off anything else either. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, but again, if somebody does need a nap, especially you know if they are getting up really early and they're not naturally an early riser, because of their work structure, because of their hustle, we want to have permission, give yourself permission to take a nap for sure, but again, don't mistake this supplement for the real food. Also, melatonin during the day- this is another important subject matter here, melatonin is this glorified sleep hormone, it helps to really optimize those sleep cycles and when you're seeping through the days question is, is melatonin getting released? No it's not. The [44:14 inaudible] only releases melatonin when two conditions are satisfied- one it is biological night, biological night, and two light levels are low. You need to satisfy both of these conditions.  
 
So what do I mean by biological night? Well there's people who work the night shift, right they do shift work and they are sleeping during the day, all right, so if your body gets intrained because again we're very adaptable, you can produce melatonin during the day. However, we need darkness, so this is a call to action to make sure you're sleeping in like a cave, like you get black out curtains, you get your room as dark as possible, like it's night time in your bedroom; do the best you can there's even hacks from the health weirdos out there, I might be in that camp a little bit, but you know, if you don't have access to the blackout curtains, go get some aluminum foil, not to make a hat, like the aliens are reading my mind, not like that, but to put on your windows, you can just cover up your windows with some aluminum foil. So there's different little hacks that you could do to create your little sleep cave, your little sleep sanctuary. This will enable you to produce melatonin which is a very powerful anti cancer hormone, very powerful fat regulating hormone, it's not just for sleep, these are important things that this hormone does that you are not producing, you're not secreting, if you're not getting a dark cycle, alright, so those two things need to be satisfied. So true deep sleep, that's going to happen at night, alright, so again, the map is a nap, you're not getting the same benefit.  
 
Now let's talk about these concepts called biphasic and polyphasic sleep. Biphasic sleep- polyphasic sleep. Biphasic sleep is a practice of sleeping during two periods, over 24 hours, so there's two sleep periods, alright. Polyphasic sleep prefers sleeping multiple times throughout the day usually more than two. What most people are accustomed to in our culture is monophasic where you have one sleep segment in the evening. So, if we look at evolution based practices, humans evolved being up during the day and sleeping during night, because it was just safer to do so, that's how we made it this far, all right, there was a time not too long ago when being out in the wilderness in the evening was very dangerous as a volatile situation, so this was a time to seek shelter to be quiet, your most quiet time even if you're a whisperer is when you're actually sleeping, okay, so that you're not getting found out. Because, nocturnal creatures like, there are some animals that can see you in the dark very clearly but you can't see them, all right so all of a sudden you're the prey. We are at the top of food chain, human- well get out there rummaging around in the evening, and so it's just understanding that.  
 
So, speaking from evolutionary biology, sleeping at night is what we have a tendency to do now. The biphasic sleep is something that has been noted with indigenous cultures, right and I don't, this is not true across the board, please don't believe the hype that humans always, every culture, every human as we evolve had two sleep phases, right that's not proven. What we can see is that there are some sub-cultures that do have that as an aspect, and so what that looks like is they go to sleep for a first sleep, during the night, wake up, maybe for an hour and they have their second sleep during the night, that's the key, right so maybe they sleep for four hours, they are up for maybe thirty minutes or an hour, they sleep for another three hours or whatever the case might be. 
 
Jade Harrell: I think I'm from that tribe. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: What that looks like to share, is what they might do and so we'll just go back even 2,000 years ago, we've got fire, we don't have iPhones, right. So what would you do if you woke up for that first phase, your first sleep is over, you might grab a snack, you might talk, might have sex, and then you go back to sleep. I saw the eyebrows pop up. Was it the snack or the sex. So, that's what you might do throughout our evolution right, we get up and we have those options. Today- wake up, internet on your phone, turn on the lights, very different and how your body responds as well, so we're going to start secreting more daytime hormones as soon as we do those activities. So you can't use the argument of I'm going to be biphasic sleeping and you're getting up and getting on your iPhone. 
 
 
Jade Harrell: No, because SnapChat, snack and sex weren't the opts. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Triple S, today is triple S. Now, looking at this in you know more of a meta perspective, and being able to zoom out and look at the bigger picture, biphasic sleep could be something that's an option for you, you know, and some people are concerned that they might wake up during the night, and I want to put to bed your concern, because there can potentially be some underlying reasons why, but there's also some potential peace here to understand that there are tracks of cultures who have woken up in the night, up for a little bit, and then go back to sleep.  
 
The key though, and this is really important is that the time you go to bed matters, and it matters a lot, you need to go to bed early enough so you have time to get a first and second sleep, that is the key. Again, if you try to do this you're going to bed at one o'clock in the morning, and that's defeating the purpose. A great example of this is Eric Thomas, right, ET, who we've had on the show a couple of times, just an amazing individual good friend, and I truly feel like he is one of the most enlightened and empowering humans walking around, and he accidentally, I did their show recently, The Secrets to Success podcasts, they titled the episode Death of the Dad Bod. So check out that episode if you listen to their show, and definitely check out their show.  
 
So what was so interesting is that I mentioned because his kind of claim to fame is that I get up before you to beat you, right, I'm not the smartest person but I'm going to outwork you, I'm up at three o'clock, what time do you get up? But, he goes to bed early too, that's the part that people don't really pay attention to, and also this whole no sleep thing, he is not saying don't sleep, he's just saying don't sleep too much because that other aspect that we talked about earlier- boredom, right, boredom or this intrinsic stress that we allow to happen instead of taking action.  
 
Okay, that's what you don't want to sleep on, but as far as your health and your longevity, and you being able to crush your goals- you got to get the adequate sleep, so he'd go to bed at eight or nine o'clock, okay and plus that's an anabolic window there, that I talk about in sleep, this "money time sleep" where we're getting a greater secretion of anabolic hormones if you're sleeping between 10 p.m and 2 a.m in the evening, that block is this anabolic window, very anabolic state to be in, where you're getting more benefit than sleeping other times. 
 
Jade Harrell: I remember he said it was like double, ten to twelve. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: It can be looked at like that, you know some of the hormonal benefits. Now we're definitely hard wired to sleep much more during the night than during the day, so to be clear when we're talking about the truth about naps. And the function of melatonin tells us that, that's how you know that this is the case, you're not producing melatonin during the day, unless you're meeting those two requirements we talked about earlier. We produce melatonin which makes your sleep fully optimized when you're going through all the stages effectively, going in and out of them, getting full recovery, when melatonin is produced and you don't get that during the day, so this tells us again we are more hard wired to sleep during the night than during the day; but, nap if you need it, nap if you need it, just follow these basic guidelines that we talked about today, and look to ensure that your nighttime sleep is optimized in the first place, because that's really the biggest key. And the stigma around napping that we talked about is getting removed from organizations, so because "nobody wants to get caught sleeping", all right but a good nap is a good nap, a good nap is a good nap. And again, naps are like supplements, remember that, naps are like supplements, the real food comes during high quality sleep at night, so we don't want to mistake the two.  
 
And on that note, we're going to shift gears, and we're going to talk about this other, and this was because of the messages that I've been getting and you know, out there on the road and hearing from people, you wanted to know about these things- what about as a parent, what do you do with sleep when it comes to like having a family, especially when you have a new baby, right how do you manage that, how can we actually stay healthy, get adequate sleep as best we can in that situation, so that's what we going to talk about now. So, I've been there first and foremost, we have to establish that fact I have three children, I've done this multiple times now, all right, so I know what is like when you are adjusting to a new human showing up on the planet, and you are fully responsible for their well-being. 
 
Jade Harrell: And they are completely at a loss about what they're here for, and what's going on. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Right, and you know, there's this saying in culture sleep like a baby, and somebody is like they must not have babies then, well let me clarify what that actually means- when babies sleep, they sleep, they're not thinking about paying a phone bill or they are not thinking about I got to get up and get to work, that's what sleeping like a baby means, that means peaceful, restful, letting go unclutching, that's what sleeping like a baby means. We can all achieve that and we could admire our children for being able to do this. We have to understand this is the fundamental principle guiding his whole thing with sleep tips for parents, when you have a new child you know, we'll you say your baby is a few weeks old, maybe a couple of months old, your child wants to sleep too, they actually want to sleep, but we're hardwired to believe that they're against us, they don't care about our needs, the child wants to sleep and they just want their conditions met, so that they can get to sleep that they really want to have too.  
 
So we have to have that as a fundamental underlying, understanding now, there's a whole lot of different variances that this can look like as far as the strategies, which we don't, this is not the place to cover this, but there's cosleeping, there is the self-soothing methodology, parents response just basically your kid is in the other room, you get up when they cry kind of thing, there's a lot of different modalities and we're out here to debate those. So it's understanding what feels right to you, if you want to cosleep and just be able to have your child there easy access to feeding, if you are breast feeding, that kind of thing or if they are sitting in the bassinet next to you, whatever that structure looks like, or if your child is sleeping in another room close to you where they got the sleep monitor whatever it might be, that is most important, you have to decide what works best for you. So after that's established, we're moving on to what really at the end of the day, what we want to look towards, it just depends on when this is going to happen, if you're doing cosleeping, this isn't going to happen as soon.  
 
But we want to first and foremost, you have to create a neural association for our child, a pattern, their brains are looking for patterns, it's hard-wired to do so, our brains are doing the same thing even we are just big adult babies, our brains are always looking to automate behaviors. So we want to create a structure, we want to create a strong neural association for sleep, so there is a critical need for an actual bedtime ritual, as soon as you can start to employ that with your child, no matter what, this is the key though, no matter what, usually it's us, who are not creating the ritual for our kids, because our stuff is crazy. So again, understanding the foundational thing the child wants to sleep too, and we have to make sure their needs are met.  
 
Now, last little caveat before we get into these strategies, the first couple of weeks when a child is born, I mean, you can kind of forget about getting an eight hour sleep, this is not going to work that way, all right it doesn't work like that, but your child again is seeking already to establish a pattern and you find over the days and weeks that they're sleeping for longer periods at a time, that's the time for what tends to happen especially even in the evening, you put the baby down, okay I got some time, me time- you need a sleep time, sleep when the baby sleeps, generally you know, of course you still have to handle stuff with life, right, but generally you want to sleep when the baby sleeps, especially at night, when it's not your work time this is your Netflix time, all right. Sleep when the baby sleeps, you got to establish that piece.  
 
Now, so my story, I just want to share this- so people say like my baby is a good sleeper, or my baby's not a good sleeper, right I've seen both and I realized that it was me influencing that more than I recognized, like my sleep pattern was all over the place, I didn't know these things when I was dealing with what I called a baby that's not a good sleeper. My son my youngest coming into the world, I already knew, I was like bro, we're doing this, all right, and so, after the first six weeks he was sleeping through the night, eight to ten to sometimes eleven or twelve hours sometimes, it's like how is that even possible, isn't he hungry, right doesn't he need to eat? This boy he's the biggest kid in his class, alight, he's like some kind of little monster, little giant monster, beautiful monster, and he is incredibly healthy and robust and even then he was growing well.  
 
So what we did was I came into it and we created the neural association, he get the wash up, then we would read, so this is even when he's very, very little to see it sitting there on my lap, and much stronger of course as he became a few months old. We played this very specific music every single night, put this music on and he got his biggest feeding, like my wife would keep a little bit for the feeding prior, like okay that's good enough little guy, he'd be a little bit hungrier, and like he ate a lot right before bed, so he's nice and full, nice full belly, nice and warm, and that's what we saw, that is my experience.  
 
And I remember being, we went to get a movie and this is when we go to get movies still, it wasn't that long ago but still it's like we're at the checkout, we're getting a movie and we know we're holding him in his little car seat thing, I'm holding him, and a couple came over and they are like oh he is so cute, but you guys are sleeping still hard, you and he's probably six months old at this point, or maybe eight months, I think he was eight months old, and I'm just like you have no idea who you're talking to, because of coming into this knowing that my child wants to sleep and we have to establish this neural association now, this is the key, it was hard sometimes, when you are tired to go through with the ritual you just kind of want to just put the baby to bed and just get away, right but you have to stick to the ritual, it's us, we have to stick to the ritual.  
 
And with that sad, and in parentheses kids again they're still going to throw curve balls, it's not going to be perfect, and sometimes you know and some people listen to are like my kid still did this or that,  this is still going to be individually based, we've got to find those things and stay true to that, make it more of a priority because what we tend to do is we're just so tired that we just like forfeit it like, I'll just get a couple of hours of sleep, even when the baby is a year old, and he's doing the same thing. 
 
Jade Harrell: It also takes getting to know that baby, so maybe three of the five things worked, and then you're thinking well these two things didn't work, it may be something entirely different altogether than what you thought of and babies have a real good way of letting you know no that's not it, you know, and even one of ours it was they wanted to ride in the car, we had to take a trip around the block and by the time we got back to the house, we were done but it took some time, it wasn't what we had done with the kid before, or what we had expected to just be a simple bath and song and rub down, which worked for a couple of them but it's just really like you said, on the individual basis per kid, in your house. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: We got to try the thing and then be consistent with it, that's the key, because what we do as adults is we tend to find something that works and we stop doing it. 
 
Jade Harrell: And we keep doing the thing that doesn't work and wondering what's wrong. 
 
Shawn Stevenson:  Why aren't you submitting to this music I'm playing, Shawn said he is a sleep expert right, he said play this music, right. So, you have to own it, you have to drop the preconceived notions about our kids wrecking our sleep, even if you're getting a strong five hours of sleep, that's a huge win, we want to repeat the practices even when it doesn't turn out being five hours, maybe it's three and a half the next night or four, repeat the practices that got you that five, stick to it all right, and also again understand foundational understanding your kid wants to sleep too, they just want the conditions to do so. 
 
Jade Harrell: Where were you thirteen years ago. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Evening Routines That Enhance Sleep, Accelerate Fat Loss And Supercharge Your Brain, that's episode 216 for all of us, we all need to go back and listen to that episode, there is some powerful strategies there to optimize your sleep and also you can pull some of these things in for your kids as well. But really quick and closing there's some components here Jade mentioned getting out and driving car flash back- you know 200 years ago you might have got out and drove around or rode around in the buggy, right the horse and carriage, maybe you know, there's been random things humans have done I'm sure to try to figure out how to get their baby to go to sleep, but some basic components a bath or wash up, pajamas, putting on pajamas, neural association, right, neural association, brushing their teeth, reading, music these are just some basic things, some things you can pull and employ but there are dozens of other things that can be put into the mix here. Of course 
we're talking about a smaller child, a feeding as well will be there close to bedtime. 
 
Jade Harrell: It would be good for the both of you actually, you know maybe the baby likes you being fresh before bed and being in different clothing and energy and mood. So you got a routine that you and the baby and the young child are going through,  and that may set the tone, you could be administering like he said, giving the routine to the child but not incorporating yourself and that may be a missing piece. 
 
Shawn Stevenson: Right, you need to change your clothes, you got on your work clothes from yesterday, and your baby in the baby's head going you're stinky mommy, right, you're stinking mommy, or stinky daddy, you know we have to again, self care is important because that gives us the energy to be able to employ these things in the first place, this is so much more difficult to do these things and to be patient, to be attentive when you don't feel good and a big hug and love to all the parents out there who've been through this experience or who are going through right now, or who are about to go through it, because we are all still a human family, we're all in this together and everything is figure outable, you know there is a strategy, there's something there, there is a lesson to be learned, it's a gift, this is a great gift and trying to figure this stuff out with our little babies and helping to raise strong healthy individuals.  
 
So, everybody, thank you so much for tuning in to the show today, I hope you got a lot of value out of this, we talked about paying off sleep debt, the truth about naps and sleep tips for parents, now if you know anybody that this could be helpful for, make sure to share this out on social media, share this on facebook, on twitter, instagram you can shoot them an email with the link to the show, this is something really valuable for a lot of people and the truth is in our society right now, this information isn't very well known, especially when it comes to subject like napping exactly, you know when I saw that when I got out there and I was able to talk with people. So I wanted to provide you with a really definitive, powerful guide to help you to make some more intelligent decisions and to utilize this stuff for your benefit. So thank you so much for tuning in to the show today, I appreciate you immensely, we've got some incredible guest an incredible show topics coming up very soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. 
 
And make sure for more after the show you head over to themodelhealthshow.com that's where you can find the show notes and if you got any questions or comments, make sure to let me know, and please head over to iTunes and give us a five star rating and let everybody know that our show is awesome and you are loving it, and I read all the comments, so please let me a comment there and take care everybody, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help transform your life, thanks for tuning in. 
 

Maximize Your Energy

Get the Free Checklist: “5 Keys That Could Radically Improve Your Energy Levels and Quality of Life”

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Pingback: TMHS 304: Maximizing Fitness To Stand Out In Hollywood & The Baseline Of Happiness - With Guest Tom Hopper - My podcast website
  2. I’m desperate for advice. My third child is 18 months and has been waking my husband and I up multiple times each night since she was born. Have you done any research into different sleeping methods for babies and have you found one that makes more sense to you? I would love a podcast about babies/toddlers/young children sleep.

  3. Im a nutrion student i just passed my thesis. Almost graduating. I really look up to you and Jade. You guys have affected my life in so many positive ways. I dont have alot of positive people around me and in you I saw rolemodels I needed to push through. I just wanted to say thank you and bless you. I have overcome and am still going through alot. It took me 13 years to get a higher education degree due to not knowing how to value my life because of bullying, depression, a sense of hopelesness..i am an introvert but also an extrovert when it comes to doing the right thing, like visiting orphans or widows or family. Otherwise i like to be by myself. I have been really scarred but your show made me want to reach out and help others overcome struggles with humor and good content. I really grew up quite isolated i come from a war traumatized family and i was always feeling responsible for my parents wellbeing. It is only now that i flapped my smwings at 31 and decided that i want to live for me too not just for others when i finally broke through some final educational breaks. I overcame bulimia, depression, bullying, anxiety and an abusive marriage. It is all because God is love and i believe He uses people like you. Blessings to you both, you are like the friends i urround myself with and strive to be like by hard work and genuine love for improvement in my life as well as others🙏🏾

  4. Shawn, I have to mention that not all magnesium products are the same as I’m sure you know. Mg-chelated is one of the most disturbing to the gut with associated consequences! One that doesn’t cause stomach issues (i.e., diarrhea) but helps immensely with muscle cramps is Magnesium L-threonate. I buy the “Life Extension Neuro-mag Magnesium L-threonate” on Amazon and my cramps are rare to disappeared now. I am well hydrated, eat well with sufficient greens and stretch, but I still had leg and foot cramps several times per day until I added this to my supplement plan.

  5. I love your show! And your book! I have a question about melatonin supplementation: is there a good way to “quit” after extended use that won’t make you feel awful due to lack of/poor sleep? Years ago a naturopathic Dr recommended I take it for insomnia, and I’ve been taking it pretty consistently since. At the time they said it was natural and perfectly healthy to take up to 20 mg/night. I’ve been reducing the amount I take, but I find it very difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep without it. Since I don’t function well (see: at all) without enough sleep I end up going back to it over and over. My sleep hygiene isn’t perfect yet, but I’ve been working at it and was hoping it would help me quit the melatonin, other than for travel etc. Are there any other strategies to use to quit it and get your receptors back up to snuff? Thanks!

  6. Such a great episode! One of my main goals for the year was to get into a good sleeping schedule/ routine. I’ve always been big on naps and never new if it was a good or a bad thing. You talked about Onnit melatonin spray & other products. What are your thoughts on their New Mood supplement? Is it safe to use regularly, or really only better when absolutely needed like the melatonin spray?

HEALTHY MEALS EVERYONE WILL LOVE

The Greatest Gift You Can Give Your Family is Health

When you gather your family around the table to share nutritious food, you’re not only spending quality time with them - you’re setting them up for success in all areas of their lives.

The Eat Smarter Family Cookbook is filled with 100 delicious recipes, plus the latest science to support the mental, physical and social health of your loved ones.

Eat Smarter Family Cookbook

DELICIOUS MEALS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

The Eat Smarter Family Cookbook is filled with 100 delicious recipes + the latest science to support your family’s mental, physical, and social health all in one place.

A family that eats together, thrives together.

Order the cookbook and get an amazing bonus today!