Improving Your Sleep | Nick Riell, "The Sleep Guy", Nutrition & Fitness Coach

Welcome in to the platform podcast. This week's episode is with Nick real. He is a nutrition coach and a personal trainer out in Las Vegas and I know him as a sleep specialist within the field. So it is definitely an area that I sometimes struggle with. I especially have struggled with in my past. And it's something that I have made a concerted effort to improve on and continue to work on and starting to incorporate some of the the habits that are that are talked about in this episode and some of some of the simple changes that you can make as well as some of the the less easy changes to make. But you know Nick is a great resource and he dives into some of the some of the root cause issues and you know we could obviously speak on sleep in depth for an extended period of time. But I think Nick did a great job of of taking some high level stuff and breaking it down in simple in simple terms and making it pretty accessible as well as leaving leaving with some tips to help you improve your sleep. So I hope that you enjoy the episode. I'll put links to his ebook in the show notes. And if you have any questions you can reach out to me or you can reach out to him and we will be happy to get you connected with resources to help you get a better night's sleep because it will make a huge difference in how you're feeling. So without further ado let's get into this week's episode with Nick Reel. Welcome in everyone to the platform podcast live streaming in the kettlebell fat blast Facebook group and my guest today is Nick Reel. He is a nutrition coach in fitness coach out in Las Vegas, Nevada, correct? That is right. And he is also known as the sleep guy just kind of casually because apparently he knows a lot about sleep which is the reason I brought him on my podcast today. So you know spoiler alert we're going to get into we're going to get into some sleep secrets and some of the tips and tricks that he has to help you actually actually understand why sleep is important how it works some of the things that are probably fucking up your sleep as we speak. And some things you can do to fix that but but first Nick thank you so much for taking the time to come onto the podcast. Dude it's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Yeah man I'm stoked to have you so tell the people a little bit about you know who you are what your backstory is you know give people the Nick Reel origin story how did you come to get into this industry and you know what's what's your background for sure so I'm going to take you guys all the way back to my I think it was my fourth grade year when my parents decided that they're very hyperactive child who has very aggressive tendencies needed an outlet other than pushing people down on the playground. So they threw me in flag football so that was it for me once I started playing football that that was like the name of my game all throughout high school I was totally engrossed in football baseball golf I played it all now during those years one of the football coaches realized that I was pretty good at this whole weightlifting thing and I was helping a lot of people out just naturally me being me so he's like hey Nick guess what you're doing you're going to be the strengthy conditioning coach of the football team so you're in charge of everything in the white room you make sure everyone's doing their exercises properly they're actually making progress the whole men yard so how old are you old are you going to ask me to be that oh she's maybe think 17 so you're still a player on the team and also the strengthy conditioning coach that's right awesome what certifications did you have at this point none zero not a not a not a I don't even know what a personal training certification was yet they said okay well you're doing it inherently why they did that retrospect being an adult was now they didn't have to sit there babysit everybody they can go off and do other things like drink all about Gatorade or do whatever coaches do stand there and talk but anyways so they had me do that job my sophomore year my junior year and my senior year so that's what I did now when I graduated having all this like experience I did learn along the way that you could get a degree in all this type of exercise stuff and I was like well hell yeah I really like that because that my like 18 year old head I wanted to have fun there's only two decisions for me to basically go have fun either I join the military or I go to college to get the degree so I did choose college and get the degree at the time I was like yeah I'm pretty sure that college is what's gonna actually get me forward and might get a formalized education and this stuff and actually I truly like know and understand what I'm doing not in terms of just theoretics but also application so I got a bachelor's of science and comprehensive kinesiology and biomechanics and my what was it can't remember what year it was I think it was my sophomore year of college that is when I decided yo let's do this whole personal training I got certified started working with people and absolutely hands down phone love with it I love helping people and just being able to see people completely change their life not only physically but mentally and emotionally that drives me like nothing else seeing those transformation seeing those light bulbs come on seeing things click and people's finally like oh fuck I finally get why this is actually important I absolutely love it so fast forward a little bit after that I graduate college and I decided to go ahead and really just throw myself into the industry of personal training and I got myself a gig helping airline and airport employees inside of a fitness and wellness facility in my care and international airport located inside of Las Vegas wow at the time like I know right it's a it's a novel concept no other airport has something like we do right now now at the time that I got hired on my off suite I got a job the whole nine yards a little did I know that I was thrown from a frying pan not into a fire but just a literally a volcano holy shit because when I was like doing all like the personal training in college it's like oh yeah let's do squats do bench press bro it's too deadliest it's all fun talk to career like basically government people and airline people about this stuff and give a fuck about that so I had to figure out what they really cared about and it took a couple years to me to like wrap my head around say okay this whole like you know bodybuilding like thing isn't what they want what are these people want there's two things that they really really wanted of the hundreds of clients that worked with over there they wanted improved energy levels they wanted to get out of pain and they wanted to actually drop away and keep it off not shred down for bodybuilding content does not do let's try to conditioning me but just elevate their quality of life and throughout lifestyle like legitimate just lifestyle clients yes lifestyle only they couldn't care they none of them cared about having washboard abs like peeking biceps and quasi tear your shorts or your shorts or whatever it's called they didn't care about any of that so that was like really huge me like completely transforming my way of thinking from okay hey let's get jacked and shredded I mean that's fun but let's face it nobody wants to get jacked and shredded all the time to okay let's just elevate your overall life quality and that's why I ran into some challenges how's I going to get someone to lose weight who doesn't eat right it all hasn't eaten right in over a decade at least and most of them were they were vlogging sub thousand calorie diets yes sub thousand calorie diets a lot of them had comorbidies attached to it so how do I really like make an impact on their lives and give them wins that will keep them coming back because you and I both know as personal trainers coaches that wouldn't you have a good decade or more of mistreating your body it's not gonna come off in one month so come off in three months and I'm gonna come off in a year come on aren't you gonna take it what you do I I want it I want I want this now I want this I want this in two weeks is wake up call you're not gonna get it in two weeks if you put on all that weight in two weeks which I would have no idea how you would do that sure you could probably get rid of it in about that time span but you spent 30 years treating your body like garbage it's gonna take a few years to get it back to where it needs to be if that so maybe me and I'm huge on really identifying the problem of the problem not just treating symptoms okay they're they're all over with why okay they're all in pain why let's go solve the root of the problem and one of the things that I found myself doing with all my clients is more of a prerequisite was fixing their sleep and at the time fixing their sleep was making sure that they're honestly just going to bed on time and they're waking up at consistent times that's pretty much the brunt of it and I got all into like pain management I have a few certifications with my skeletal linemen get people paying the whole nine yards so fast forward all this to about a year and a half ago when I met my business partner mentor coach Jason Phillips and we're talking about okay well what do you want to really do at this point in my time you know I was burned out with personal training doing one-on-one it it's a lot it's a lot and I did not want that to be my final resting place and this we're just going to industry that can cause sleep issues being a personal trainer man up it up it up it for up at 4.30 working until noon maybe maybe sometimes taking a three hour break and then coming back for the evening sessions and working until eight o'clock nine o'clock at night sometimes like the personal trainers I see some of them have just some brutal routines like I did an up down when I was at lifetime fitness for a while one day I would be in at six a.m. and the next day I wouldn't be in until three p.m. and I did that alternating for I did that for a few months and that was I mean that was brutal talk about you know destroying your circadian rhythm I mean there's a lot in the personal training industry that that actually is really really hard on lifestyle absolutely and I've had my own issues with sleep very similar to that I wasn't working like the opposing schedules I was just plowing from about I think like 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. 5 or 6 days a week either I was booked on the hour every hour or I was double or triple stacked on the hour every hour so I wasn't creating any time for myself they're like lunch I didn't know what that was breakfast didn't know what that was there's all about serving my clients serving my clients well you can only do that so long before your body starts to fight back and say fuck you then I started developing sleep problems and my problems were sleep weren't necessarily ones that you know like kept me up at night but I would constantly wake up feeling like I got ran over my train unrefresh dreading the next day hooked on caffeine like two venti ice coffees a monster and pre-workout was like the norm I was stimming the shit that's like 1200 milligrams of caffeine in a day y'all that's a lot yeah it was a lot and I did this for two years just you know serving my clients doing things that I thought everybody thought that I should be doing which was exactly what I didn't need to be doing but it got me to the point where I literally almost destroyed my own business and then it slapped me in the face it's like dude how the fuck are you leading people to a better state when you're in a fucked state yourself yeah yeah and I had a hard conversation with myself and the end result of that hard conversation was okay instead of like turning on Netflix every night trying to escape your miserable last reality you're gonna go to sleep you're gonna turn it off you're gonna go to sleep and that one night of quality sleep flicked in my head like this is this is what needs to happen for everybody to open up from a survival mode to a thriving mode this is a prerequisite to help this is what I need to be focusing on because nobody is placing any emphasis on this all the emphasis that's out there in the sleep related industry right now is okay hey focus on hygiene or get a different pillow or get that way to blanket okay well if you have sleep problems I guarantee you that way the black is not gonna help you if you're having issues falling asleep staying asleep or waking up feeling unrefresh pillow nine times out ten is not what you need you need something else so again going back to I like to actually go to the root of the problem rather than this rip off to actual leaves of the problem a little gardening in a window there I sought out to truly understand this subject and go to the heart of it because everybody I know has had issues with sleep my mom who I love her to death she's had sleep problems for a good majority of my life and I've seen what it's done I've seen what's done to my clients I've seen what's done to me nobody should have their life dictated based off how much energy they have or how much sleep they got there's so much more to life when it comes to more on the coaching side of like weight loss and physical transformation if you don't have that down you're gonna be running in circles for a very very long time it's the longest it's the longest lever we have to pull when it comes to transformation so like I told you before we got on this is part of the the series I've been doing on the on the levers of transformation and sleep is right up near the top for a reason so we start with we start with just clarity around goals and we were talking nutrition periodization and talking about some of some of those things and consistency with the habits but this is the first like we're starting to get into the actual meat of levers that you can pull that have a physiological effect I think sleep honestly is the longest lever that we have because it's something that regardless of what phase you're in whether you're in a fat loss phase whether you're in season preseason postseason doesn't matter you're gonna sleep like that's the one thing that transcends all seasons right is is sleep and we we need it whether we're pursuing a goal or not you need to sleep like it is a physiological human need it's really I think one of the longest levers we have to pull and I don't think people give it enough attention which is why I ask you to come on yeah nobody likes to give this attention when you think sleep oh fuck who cares I'll sleep when I'm dead I love that crowd oh god I love that crowd I love to make fun of them not because I hate them not because I think lowly of them they're just confused people just like I was why I think you realize you become the walking dead like if you if you go long enough with terrible sleep like I had I had sleep apnea that that was not caused by being overweight like I first I thought it was from being overweight I lost a bunch of weight right you know et cetera and I finally went back and got a sleep study then we'll found out I had like tonsils stones that were like making my tonsils block my airway so they took out my tonsils and they're like oh by the way you also have a deviated septum so I couldn't breathe out of one nostril which I didn't know until the guy tested me and then I was like basically suffocate I took him one finger to basically suffocate me told me to close my mouth you know I was like oh god they fixed that and it was like oh my god can everybody else breathe like this and then I went from and then I also went from getting like eight hours of terrible sleep to eight hours of actually restorative sleep and I was like holy shit does everybody else just feel like this all the time this is amazing like who knew right who knew it's you've had that light bulb click and it's like you never go back once that clicks you don't ever go back to what was and that's what gets me with the I'll sleep with I'm dead crowd is there literally zombies I was once one of those zombies you were once one of those zombies yeah and they're always it's always a good intention but good intentions was to say what the road to hell is paved with good intentions yeah if you're not for my mom once or twice right right if you're not like taking care of yourself it doesn't matter what you're doing the why you're doing it it's all going to be for nothing because if you do not have your health wealth doesn't matter relationships won't matter connection won't matter your sense of higher purpose won't matter because you're not giving yourself the most basic human need need which is rest and recovery we need that not to mention your sleep cycle literally influences every single one of your bodily processes yeah so let's let's dig into that a little bit because we've alluded to we've alluded to the importance of it right but give people some education around kind of like sleep basics 101 like why do we need sleep what are the what are the things that it ties to and like what are the stages of sleeping I guess I mean you can go as I'll just shut up and let you and let you let you drop bombs here because I know this is this is your this is your area so you know just take us through the basics of sleep sure yeah sleep it goes well beyond I mean well beyond just closing your eyes and then waking up and it's the next day I wish it was that simple it's not guys I will do my best to take some very high-end neuroscience and dump it down to a preschool or kindergarten level where everybody can understand that even even myself some of the stuff that's out there I'm like what but anyways so a lot happens with sleep but the main thing that happens when you shut your eyes and you go through the different sleep cycles and stages is your body repairs itself it heals itself it gets rid of all of your metabolic waste whether that's in your GI tract whether it's in your brain your muscles your kidney your liver it doesn't necessarily matter it is literally regenerating itself and it's resetting itself everything runs on cycles there's a very intricate clock system inside of your body that inherently runs all of your bodily processes and the main driver or the master clock so to speak is your sleep wake cycle so it does the circadian rhythm is that is that the the clinical term for the circadian rhythm yes there's circadian rhythm and the specific part in your brain that controls it is your super chasmic nucleus that's a very big mouthful of term for a very small part of your brain that inherently tells your body when it should be doing what in terms of activity or rest and the gene that influences that is also the gene responsible for your chronotype have you ever heard of that term before I'm a bear you're a bear okay so we're going to be speaking the same language most people are bears are I like to calm the type two chronotype they rise with the sun and set with the sun now me I'm a type one which is the lion I'm up at zero dark 30 and I'm done for in about three hours so what a chronotype it's to everybody who's listening and maybe you don't know what this is it's your genetic preferential to a certain sleep time and wake up time this is much different than your circadian rhythm you can train or sink your circadian cycle to whatever your lifestyle is whatever you're doing consistently your body will adapt to your chronotype is your body's predisposition for when it wants to do things when it wants to enter activity levels when it wants to start relaxation and repair and everything in between and understanding how those two work is key with having sleep quality long-term not just here and there sporadically so like if you had all the money in the world and you didn't have to work you didn't have to take care of kids like all of those things were all those things were removed this is just what your body would just default to right it's like that's what you're that's what you're talking about with your with your chronotype whereas your circadian rhythm like I used to get up at 5 a.m because that's what I needed to do for work and I I got to the point where because it was habitual enough and I made myself go to bed at 9 10 o'clock every night to make sure I got some level of sleep it was it was okay but you're saying because you know once I but once I left that job it was like yep sleep till 9 back you know go to sleep at 10 11 o'clock right like that's that's what you're talking about is that natural predisposition to that to that certain rhythm yep that is that natural predisposition and everybody has one of those predispositions we've already talked about two of them there's two others there's a type three which I call the evening preferential this particular type they're up later in the morning around like 10 ish ish there's a lot of issues with chronotyping and they go to bed typically around 11 p.m to 12 a.m and then you have your type four which is called the dolphin or I call it basically the wonky chronotype or the very it's the late evening preferential these are your insomniac so to speak the night hours my brother-in-law is actually one of these people he will not wake up until noon to 2 p.m. and he will not go to sleep until about 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. that is his preference and he owns and runs his own business so that is truly his preference we don't see a lot of those in society we also don't see a lot of type ones we do see like the cave watchers right well everybody else was sleeping they were the ones outside with the spear by the fire watching to protect everyone yes and that's important to understand everybody who's listening is are like millions of years of evolution that's encoded in our DNA your type four had a purpose they were they were on watch guarding everybody while everybody else slept your type ones your early ones were out well before the sun was up huntering and gathering thing and then you have your two generalized ones which were active during the day to which big bomb everybody humans are meant to be active when the sun's out and they're meant to rest and recover when the sun's not out modern society kind of fucked that up thanks Edison it's all good it's okay we're benefiting from some of some of that technology being able to live stream you know being thousands and a thousand miles apart and you know there are definitely some some benefits to it as well but technology has definitely wreaked havoc on our especially our light exposure right which they're there are consequences to that do you dig in on that a little bit yes so there's a few things that will sink your sleep cycle and all of your other like bio rhythms inside your body it's a fancy term term that is often referred to as entrainment light and dark are the biggest sinkers of your sleep wake cycle so with tech it exposes you to light specifically a type of light called blue light most people know what blue light is it's some sort of invisible spectrum light that's emitted from all devices with the screen and really the problem with blue light is we're so entwined with technology that we get massive amounts of doses with it the problem arises is when let's say the sun goes down and we're still getting this light exposure that's going to tell our circadian rhythm to push itself back a little bit more we're still basically artificial sunlight is that is that yeah pretty much if you get enough of it your body will treat it as artificial sunlight and everybody's different there are some people like me who are not terribly sensitive to it unless you're an idiot like me and leave a TV on all night with you facing it that's terrible don't do that and then there's some people who are super super super sensitive to it my girlfriend is very sensitive to blue light whenever we watch like movies late at night if she doesn't fall asleep I give her my pair of blue like blocking glasses because it's a tool that is very useful for those who have to stare the screen all day a lot of people are on the computers like anywhere from about four to eight hours a day that's a lot of blue light exposure and that will desync your circadian cycle and you will exhibit characteristics of a different type of sleep white cycle a different chronotype and if it's different from yours and you consistently do it you're gonna break that alignment of all your bio rhythms and that is where problems usually arise okay and so when you say sync you mean s-y-n-c right like syncing up not syncing like s-i-n-k like you're syncing synchronization yes okay so when you said it's gonna sink sink your your sleep wakes like I honestly thought of like you know sinking a ship like these are the things that I'm content you're gonna mess you up okay okay you will sync yourself in a bad way like so is it is when you say when you say you break that synchronization but it's something that can be repaired right because like like that's one thing that drives me crazy and I'm sure it does you too as a nutrition coach when you hear people say oh you broke your metabolism it's like no your metabolism adapted because you didn't things to it that that caused it to adapt is it I'm assuming it's very similar in the same fashion where like you can you can get out of sync and you can break that synchronization but you can't break your I mean you can't break your ability to sleep right or how I mean how how much consequences there too if you do it long enough like can you break I guess I'm now I'm doubting myself like can you break your ability to to be able to sleep or how long does it take to restore that does depend can you hear oh my sleep is broken I don't like using that term but I know what somebody is trying to say when they use this kind of like all I want to tone up oh you want to add on the muscle lose body fat duh of course when somebody comes to me and like oh my sleep is broken okay you're not your sleep quality is very low and there's three places where that'll be located in either you have issues falling asleep staying asleep or having energy the next day all of them work with each other but usually one of them will rear it's ugly head more than the others when someone comes to me and they say they have broken sleep there's circadian cycle and their lifestyle are not working in tandem they are working against each other and they that person's done it long enough to where the physical consequences are starting to manifest themselves so that's usually the end result and if you don't address it then the sleep issues will not go away they will turn into different types of insomnia you will have dysregulated blood sugar levels you will gain weight you will have very altered hormone profiles that will affect how you operate and feel every single day and it's a very vicious cycle that's tough to break and the I'm just going to tell you guys the truth they end result of that is usually a very nasty commodity or death if you really just let it go I don't see that too too much but I do encounter a lot of people with comorbidities this ties back into me working with a lot of people with comorbidities the issue was sleep they had one night of bad sleep somewhere in their life and that altered their behaviors the next day we all know if you have a terrible night sleep your food choices are good more likely going to go out the window if you're not disciplined you're going to have different decision making capabilities usually not as great you're not operating in an optimal state you're operating a survival state and a lot of people don't recognize that and they just live 10 20 30 years in survival that's when the problems arise nice so what what do you think is the and I know this is you're the answer is going to be it depends but what is what is the what would you say is generally the the right amount of sleep for people for people to target I'm not a fan of saying 79 hours because that's an average based off of a meta analysis of hundreds of thousands of people what that says is most people will sleep that long there's a big difference between sleep duration and sleep quality for example somebody like me I can sleep six and a half seven hours and feel like a billion bucks the next day take my sister on the other hand if she gets less than 10 hours she's a mess so clearly duration is not that answer their answer is the amount of sleep that you need to wake up and feel refreshed and maintain your energy levels throughout the day and then on the flip side of the day you're able to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night for most people that's going to be about six to eight in my experience six to eight there are some people who are nine and ten but most people about six to eight okay and and I'm not sure how much you want to dig down into the to the types of types of sleep but I there's four stages of sleep right and is there so let's just say for the sake for the sake of easy math that somebody's doing six hours right you know it's your it's or actually we'll say eight since there's four stages should it be two should it be two hours per stage or like what how should that look right like what is what is a normal sleep rhythm look like and what are the quantities that that people you know that that you would expect a healthy person to see that's getting a lot that's getting the right amounts of sleep and the right the right restorative sleep so that in my experience and this is my experience the only way to deduce if someone's getting the right amount of the different cycles of sleep is to track it over an extended period of time everybody's a bit different and my good rule from is if you're cycling through all four stages sleep around I think on average it's about two or three times a night you should be fine should be fine but again you need to be able to track that to see what's going on for example let's say if my like deep sleep phases usually over the course of the night let's say it's let's say it's two hours it's not but let's just say that's what it is and let's let's say I stop paying so much attention to my sleep quality let's say I kind of like start eating my crap I'm not sticking my routines and then my two hours went to 45 minutes and I'm waking up feeling kind of crappy the next day with low energy those are the abnormalities you're looking for and how I usually track sleep quality with my clients unless they want to go by a loop strap which I have some that do and it's a very helpful tool I have them track their biofeedback and that's term that we use a lot and biofeedback is the signals that your body gives back to you there's a few different markers that I use while sleep quality is the first one were you able to fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time you weren't just lying awake for hours on end did you stay asleep the whole night and you wake up feeling good the next day so if you got all three of those awesome how's your appetite was it normal was it voracious was it non-existent we're looking for stress on either side of that mood focus overall energy levels more subjective this is where you need to know yourself as well if your mood was all wonky and you were had brain fog and let's say you didn't wake up feeling refreshed chances are your poor sleep was a problem and then sex drive this is the most variable one that I talk about I have an easier time tracking this with women than men mainly because men don't want to track that whatsoever women will track that we'll look in first ability in that particular area especially with women since they're circadian cycle ultimately influences their cycles of ovulation as well so if there's any issues with ovulation there's going to be some sort of sleep issue that needs to be resolved as well so once we established a baseline of what's normal for the client then we go and make the changes that's how I track okay yeah I just I just got an order ring like a few a few a few like a month and a half ago and I the thing that I've probably loved the most is having the sleep data right like just it's a it's a convenient way you mentioned whoop hashtag not a sponsor for either of those we're not we're not affiliated we're just they're they're just tools that we happen that we happen to like you know he like he likes loop I haven't had much experience with the whoop strap I've I've liked the order ring so far I know it's not probably the most accurate valid measurements like we're not going and getting diodes hooked up to our heads like the sleep studies but you know at least it's a consistent it's a consistent consistent measurement methodology it's better than better than nothing yeah and just like tracking like macros and calories it's a good tool it is not the end result it's not what we rely on for engaging like dietary success sleep quality the whole nine yards I mean when I first got my whoop I did what every what I tell everyone not to do yeah I do this stuff I went out late I had a few drinks late at night with a good friend we were celebrating something like number one but I didn't get home till when I am not to be up except I only got like five and a half hours to sleep but I woke up feeling like billion bucks my sleep quality was insanely high so clearly the numbers don't mean everything but for those of you that are really into like data tracking and the whole nine yards and you really want to see the numbers getting one of those devices is a very helpful tool to track sleep quality yeah the biofeedback I say this with my clients too where it's like the biofeedback always trumps the numbers and that's true whether it's macros whether it's a recovery measurement whether it's a sleep quality measurement right like how you're feeling is because the body's incredible and there are some things that you just can't like some things that aren't aren't always easily explained but like I had you know my whoop or my my order ring told me my recovery one day was like at a 69 and told me to take it easy and I was like well second I've got practice tonight and I went and I went out and smashed one of my best by Athalon sets in a long time and I was like hey go you know I was like okay well I felt good so I felt fine I was like it says I'm tired it says I need to recover but I'm like I feel all right so I'm going to go after it and by the time practice rolled around I felt pretty good and you know so you know it's a tool like you said it's a tool it's not the end all be all you know I don't let it like dictate but if it's like you know it can raise a red flag sometime or raise like or at least a yellow flag like hey your your HRV's elevated body temperatures elevated you might not be as recovered as you think like and then that makes me check in I'm like is that accurate and I'm like yeah I do feel kind of I do feel a little tight and that then I might adjust right but I use it as a like directional right like it's like I can I can I can choose to take it under advisement or I can ignore it because you know you're not the boss of me or a ring but you know right yeah I use it that way oh yeah me too I use it as more of a guidepost or a ballpark of okay here's where I'm at and I very very seldomly get the oh I'm 100% recovered on the loop strap but I know physically like how I feel I know my body very well that I am 100% recovered so when it gives me down to like that I'm like hmm interesting but fuck it I'm gonna do what I want to do and I do use it as like a good directional tool but other than that I don't it's it's not my learn it's not my boss yeah it's not it's not my version of Jesus telling me what to do it's not my code it's just it's just a guide guys it's some useful tool when you use it right a lot of people don't use these things right and that's a problem but one I'm not gonna dig on right now yeah thanks for tuning into this episode of the platform podcast we'll get back to the episode shortly but first I wanted to share a few exciting updates about the Twin Cities catabell open happening here October 23rd in Little Canada Minnesota please go to our website Twin Cities catabellclub.com to register our list of sponsors so far include two belts from bellevator six pairs of ursa's barefoot athletic shoes as well as two caddy rock custom built maces from camberin customs other sponsors include pro catabell cuspire nutrition and 27 degrees apparel so we have some awesome prizes and I am very very excited to welcome you here at the athlete lab for our first annual competition please take the time and go register and I look forward to seeing you there all right so I I do want to get into some of the practical steps because I mean you just wrote like a 30 plus page guide on on sleep on sleep secrets and you know it goes into a lot of this stuff even at a deeper level than we're going to be able to cover here in just an hour of podcasting and even you know 30 plus page guides sounds like a lot but when it comes to sleep like there are literally textbooks on it so even even the guide you put together is still is still only scratching the surface but there are like there are several really I think important pieces of information that I saw there that I really like you know so let's let's give some people some some just like practical you know I think you've got like seven tips and you're in there like here are some here are some easy to implement things that can help you get a better night sleep yeah absolutely yeah there are seven of them and albeit I don't remember every single one on top of my head like in in order but I do know which ones that I really like and which ones that most people need to take away and apply immediately the first one is find your caffeine guys like come on I'm coming from a former caffeine item over here and a caffeine user still like you you know when enough is enough for some people that might be one cup of coffee for some of that might be four if you're having issues with your sleep specifically being able to fall asleep or what we like to call sleep latency and you're a heavy caffeine user cut back on that because what caffeine does is it delays your bodies like production of a certain I cannot remember the name of this particular chemical maybe you do that picks up fatigue and it keeps your cortisol levels elevated longer and when your cortisol elevator cortisol levels are elevated for too long that will delay the timing of which melatonin is decreed in which will alter when you're able to actually fall sleep yeah it's a fatigue inhibitor it's not it's not it you don't actually get energy from caffeine it just it just prevents you from getting fatigue right so that's that's the precisely yeah precisely it's gonna talk about a 12 hour half life I think is that right 12 hour half six hour six hour half life 12 hour total life so you consume 600 milligrams of caffeine it's going to take 12 hours for your body to process it or cycle it and get it all out of your system yeah so that so that mid afternoon shot of a double shot of espresso 300 milligrams of 150 of that are still in your in your bloodstream six hours later so if you did that it's that's 3 pm by 9 pm you still got 150 milligrams of caffeine in your bloodstream so that might be why you're not being able to fall asleep by 10 o'clock 11 o'clock correct and a lot of people have different tolerances like I have a very high tolerance for caffeine I can literally have a cup of coffee and go to bed it won't bother me usually usually it won't bother me I don't make this a regular practice and then there's some people are highly sensitive of it and my advice for people to figure out like okay well how much caffeine is enough for me you want enough to where you still feel good but you don't want to have more because you know it's going to negatively affect you like I know where that boundary is with me and this takes you know the unsafe truth of you getting in tune with your body your body will tell you everything you need to know you just have to slow down enough to listen yeah so tip number one easy one you're in control of it mind your caffeine people you know generally nothing nothing within six hours of bedtime right there there's a good as a good rule of thumb or you know it could again mind your own individual sensitivity all right so that's tip number one what's number two get off your ass I'd say that's tip number three or four the second one I usually tell people to do is yeah reduce your screen time put your fucking phone down I guarantee you what Becky's doing on Facebook is it can wait till tomorrow it's not as important as your health you having the true relaxation recovery that your body needs I know that you might think that what Becky's doing is more important by promise you it's not and we live in a world where we're always in front of the screen I mean this is how we're being this is how we're able to really give you this information guys so it's an amazing tool just understand that if you're having a lot of excessive exposure to screens doing it late at night is only going to create a problem it's not going to solve any of your problems and a lot of people honestly when they take away the caffeine not even all of it just some of it and they reduce their screen exposure specifically nighttime screen exposure that's usually what triggers a resinking of their circadian cycle to something that actually works for them for a lot again a lot of people everybody's a little bit different a lot of people just need to implement a couple of these and they'll see amazing results yeah I think you alluded to one earlier too you said the first thing you do is get everybody getting up and going to bed at the same time right so setting just setting a schedule right yeah I think you alluded to that earlier that that's what you start with yes that's I don't think that's listed at all in the in the ebook that's listed in my program the final slip solution but consistency with your bedtime your wake up time your body does everything based off of consistency everything that's how it's exactly it loves routines if your routines are like just non-existent don't be surprised if your slip quality is in the apps this is in the shit or if your routines are the exact opposite of your lifestyle don't be surprised if you have issues on that end as well and go to bed when you're tired do it consistently if you're consistently crawling about at 10 p.m consistently crawling about at 10 p.m if you're consistently waking up at 6 a.m consistently wake up at 6 a.m or whatever's working for you which do you think is all more important the consistent go to bedtime or the consistent wake up time because I've heard both from from varying perspectives I'm just curious from your experience what do you think is is more important the consistent go to bedtime or the consistent wake up time I find that in today's society the bedtime is usually what people push around but one will lead to the other you can go to bed like late as hell and wake up at the same time yeah you might be tired for sure but that's going to affect when you're going to get tired later that day and eventually your body's going to apparently push you there's a dog right there it's going to push you to go into sleep when it's ready to go to sleep so with either one of those you're going to have success you just need to have consistent eat consistency with one to start okay I like that I like that answer okay cool so set a schedule mind your caffeine we mentioned getting moving right so I know that's one that I was I was I was push people when you say that what do you what do you mean because it's also like I have the problem sometimes where like I do kettle after dark as a hashtag I've literally used because having two having two kids and you know being a full full-time full-time job and an entrepreneur like you you end up sometimes being like okay it's 9 p.m. and I haven't gotten my session and I'm gonna go hit I'm gonna go hit the bells at nine o'clock at night and then my core temperature is is super high so you know that's what I do as I say not as I do but when you say get moving what do you mean when you say like you know get moving get some exercise literally just get in some physical activity every single day you don't have to necessarily do a workout but you have to be active physical activity is one of the big entrainer's or the sinkers not sink is then go down to the bottom of the ocean but synchronizing triggers for your circadian cycle for a lot of people that have sleep problems their activity levels are low and it corresponds with the type of jobs that they have I don't necessarily see this problem too much of people who are active but for a lot of people they do need to get some sort of physical activity in their day-to-day activities and one of the things I usually promote is taking physical activity outside getting the sunlight sunlight again guys that is your main sinker of your circadian cycle sunlight so if you're not getting enough sun exposure because you're inside sitting in an office all day take your lunch take a 15-minute power walk outside it'll do wonders for your sleep like that alone we'll do wonders for your sleep nice what about what about like I mean food food intake and water intake right like those are obviously other factors that we can control right and that's in there as well so like where does I mean you can start with one or the other you know where does hydration come in I guess well if you dehydrated that's a stress on your body sleeping stress do not get along you're either gonna have one of the other and whichever signal is loudest is going to superimpose the other one so if you're dehydrated don't be surprised if you have issues going to sleep and staying asleep because your body needs water your body is made up of 80% water it's a catalyst in every single bodily process that we do nutrition on the other hand that greatly affects your sleep quality because what you put in your mouth directly influences every aspect of your body and specifically your circadian cycle and most prolonged sleep disruptions are the result of poor nutrition and nutrition that's not aligned with your circadian cycle yes nutrient timing does matter in the sleep game all right I'm gonna pull on that like I want you to explain to people because cortisol melatonin are inversely inversely related right and one of the things that people I think one of the the worst myths in the fitness industry that the refuses to fucking die is the no car no carbs after sundown right so tell people why that's stupid because that drives me crazy okay so where this all came from and there's there is evidence that suggests that when you eat after dark your body will not process the food the way it should that is true to a point remember that any type of food ingestion and digestion digestion that is all going to tell your circadian cycle that we're still in the activity phase so prolong it so if you eat enough to give that signal it will superimpose melatonin production and it will delay your sleep timing onset that's usually the big problem with late night eating is people tend to eat too much and too much of the wrong things like sugar sugar will disrupt your sleep cycle galore when taken in high quantities when it comes to eating after dark okay if you live in the cave your body would know generally what time it is even though there's no light that's because food timing and physical activity are the other two big sinkers are for circadian cycle if it knows that when it stops eating and let's say it generally speaking let's say you have three meals a day and after that third meal your body is this smart it's going to expect about 8 to 10 hour window of not getting food when you give it that time it's gonna go in and do all this repair process it's gonna think that it's sleeping even though you could be awake so food timing on on that one you can use it to sink your circadian cycle that's why it's so powerful and what a lot of people end up doing is they eat all day and they don't give their body enough time to actually go in and do all the repair work because they ate all day that disrupts the quality yeah and and I'm gonna I'm just gonna tack on that of course if you eat at night you're going to gain weight if it puts you over your calorie sir it puts you in a calorie plus right like if you've managed your intake throughout the day and you're and you have an appropriate you have an appropriate feeding schedule you know having mashed potatoes with dinner is not going to harm your sleep if you're oh I mean it's not gonna harm your harm your goals either if you've managed your intake appropriately right like I've just I've had so many clients tell me like oh I can't have carbs with dinner because it's you know we eat dinner at 7 pm and I'm like like okay uh cortisol insulin response you know and we need we need we need cortisol low insulin lowers cortisol so you know we we want we want we actually want carbs at after later in the day because it will actually lower your cortisol which then increases your melatonin so then so long as it's not too close to bedtime you actually get tired because your melatonin levels come up your cortisol levels go down you know so though and that's where that's where understanding the interplay between nutrition and yeah and and and how the body chemistry actually works is something that that unfortunately is not easy to communicate on an infomercial at 2 am and so people and so people get soul plates soul things that are you know myths fitness myths so exactly exactly and in the hierarchy of like nutrition in terms of like nutrition and like slave it's called corona nutrition and fun fact I do have a program that's going to be coming out in the next three or four months that is all about that there's a hierarchy to this first you have to make sure that you're actually getting your energy requirements calories do matter if you're not getting enough calories I don't I don't give a fuck when you're eating them at this point not too much I don't give a fuck if your meal structure is all over the place we need to make sure you get the calories once you get into calories and now we care about the distribution of macamutrients in accordance to your lifestyle that does matter once you got that then we can worry and concern ourselves with timing does nutrient timing matter yes that's going all back to chronotypes and fast feeding cycles which regulate your sleep cycle and all the other bodily processes but without those other two requirements being met it's not going to mean much in a weight loss strength gain performance gain setting cool and you also you're a big fan of nighttime routines as well right I know that's a big thing so that let's what's your what's your favorite what's your favorite tips for people to set up a nighttime routine how do you how do you recommend they do that so there's multiple ways to do it the first thing I say for everybody is set a hard cutoff time to end your day you're done after blank PM or blank AM if you're a shift worker give yourself about one to two hours between your hard cutoff time and the time that you go to sleep to wind down and relax again the whole thing with poor sleep issues there's too much stress a lot of that stress comes from people's routines it comes from their environment so what we're looking to do is take away the stress and put in things that will relax people once you do that be consistent with your bedtime and your wake up time do those two things that that is huge on the morning routine make sure you guys give yourself enough time to wake up wind up and start your day how you want to we all know the saying if you start your day off on the wrong foot don't be surprised if the rest of your day goes south okay we want to minimize that as much as possible when you start in the day the way you want to it's going to translate all over your day and into your next night sleep so you're setting up a cycle of high quality sleep and you're breaking the cycle of low sleep quality with just those two things nice that's awesome thank you very much all right well I want to be respectful your time and I know you blocked an hour so we got just a few more minutes left I'm going to give you a couple I want to do do some I'm stealing from from from my man Brad Jensen I love the I love the overrated underrated appropriately rated so I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a few things that are sleep sleep related and I want you to tell me whether they're overrated underrated or appropriately rated so we'll start we'll start with let's say specialty pillows overly overrated okay overly overrated how about how about how about mattress pads like like cooling mattress pads like the ones that control the temperature if they're dual key and cooling very underrated if it's just cool and let's say you live in Vegas very underrated but if you live in a cooler environment let's say and like I said I said well your summers you guys get pretty steamy I'd say they're where you're at they're probably appropriately rated but for the vast majority at least in my experience they are underrated tools how about blue light blue light blocking glasses appropriately like rated for sure okay and do you have it that do you have a brand that you recommend for your clients because I know like this is one of those you kind of get what you pay for sometimes but like you do I've seen I've seen some of the people saying like you know the cheap ones don't actually block blue light so as there ones that you recommend or yeah I do feel it's grace feel it's grace okay there you go again not a sponsor I'm just I'm just asking I'm asking yeah we're not affiliated not a sponsor just you're just just putting this stuff out there okay how about CBD oh I'd say that's becoming the next melatonin I'd say that's right now becoming a little too overrated a little overrated okay the whole band-aid you touched the other one a melatonin your body produces it naturally and if you take too much of it it'll stop producing it and screw your sleep cycle up that's often used as a band-aid for sleep problems overrated okay okay um what about alcohol to help put put people to sleep highly overrated highly overrated alcohol is going to disrupt your sleep cycles it's going to cut out you're sedated right here you're you're sedated but alcohol inhibits your body's ability to actually cool down enough to go into deep sleep so you will not go into deep sleep as much as you need to so you will wake up feeling like a train hitch if you have enough alcohol okay and how about how about uh like sleep sounds white noise pink noise uh underrated for sure now not everybody will find value with them like I need the room like dead quiet but for some of my clients they need that ambient noise and they really want that like white noise get get a soft white noise machine or use an app for it uh brain FM I'm not affiliated with them as well but they have an amazing sleep sound that really helps or any type of sound that relaxes you will work as well but very underrated awesome all right thank you very much man I appreciate I appreciate it uh is there anyone that I miss that you're like I want to tell people this is really overrated don't waste your money because this was off the top of my head any type of a lot herbal supplement because it seems like in the sleep industry everybody wants to take a pill if it's coming in a pill there's two things that can happen one it's going to band-aid an issue or number two it's actually it's going to help because you're in a position already at a foundation of quality sleep and it's just going to give you that extra edge I think and this is my this is my opinion take it or leave it I don't really care if you're reliant on a pill to get you to sleep or some sort of substance to get you to sleep you have a problem that's much deeper seated than that and it's just a band-aid and those are ticking time bombs those problems do not age well and when they're time when their time is to blow they're ugly so just don't go don't go down that road and if you're on that road catch yourself and start going to the root of the problem and resolving it there that way pharmaceutical pharmaceutical sleep aids I should I should have asked about so I am going to ask about that hot extreme of all the ones they are the most overrated I do not like those whatsoever not a fan I was that was that was what I that was what I figured it was going to be but as you're as you're mentioning mentioning band-aids right and things that can have you know downstream ramifications like prescription prescription sleep aids are probably even even even even more so and supplements can be useful again like but like you said that's the peak of the pyramid it's only if everything underlaying it is already is already taking care of nutrition is solid your routines are solid exercise is solid right then yeah can can like an adrenal support supplement or something like potentially help you with with getting that 95 on your sleep recovery score right that you know that might that might that might be the thing I'm coming for you Bobby Hicks I'm gonna I'm gonna get I'm gonna get my nine my 90 plus sleep scores my buddy Bobby and I like the text each other back and forth with our sleep scores so he's always he's always beaten me but I did get it I did get a 95 this week one day so I'm like I've been a lot more I've been a lot more mindful of it recently and a lot of the things that you're talking about our habits that I've started to implement so I really appreciate you coming on tell people where they can find you how can they how can they get it your information I'll put a link to the to the sleep secrets group and in the episode notes but where else can people find you oh I'm really easy to find it's my first and last name Nick and S.A.K real R.I.E. O.L. Facebook Instagram those are the two places I'm active on the most I have a YouTube account coming out it's I've no idea what I'm gonna call it probably Nick Nick real to start I'll come up with some fancy term later down the road I do have a Twitter as well real fitness solutions there there you go there you go there you go I like that a real sleep solutions even better look at that I'll give you credit for that one I take 3% on the back now all right cool hey that's fine with me especially monetize YouTube anyways I am on Twitter but full transparency I only use Twitter to post out content that I repurpose not on there whatsoever other than to do that so Facebook and Instagram guys I do have a private group that he's gonna be linking in there if you want more of what I got you want my ebook you want to have your sleep fixed that is a place to be do not miss out on it awesome thank you Nick I really I really appreciate it so Nick the real deal thank you for coming on and we will we will talk soon man all right thank you for having me and thanks to everyone who tuned into this episode I appreciate you guys see Nick take care thanks for listening to this episode of the platform podcast I'm Jordan Kunde-Wright we'll be back with a new episode for you next week please don't forget to register for the twin cities kettlebell open on our website twin cities kettlebell club dot com and if you have a question or a suggestion please email me at twin cities kettlebell club at gmail dot com and don't forget to follow us on social media at twin cities kettlebell club and if you want to step under the platform and competing kettlebell sport please reach out to me until next time