This 20-Second Sleep Hack Stops Racing Thoughts (Try Tonight)

I think for a lot of people, the major issue with falling asleep is that they can't forget about the position of their body. And this is where the data becomes super interesting. Imagine a sleep mask that could put you to sleep. [music] How would it do that? This works for many, many people who are having trouble [music] falling asleep or getting back to sleep. You can try this tonight. I do this often. It works for me. What would you say to people who are struggling to fall asleep? Maybe they've done most of the things sort of through the day that you're supposed to. They're not taking caffeine too late at night. They're maybe having a hot shower. The room's cool. It's quiet. It's dark. They've seen some morning sunlight. But calming down a racing mind at night is a challenge that I think a lot of hard charges will deal with. What are some strategies for slowing that down? >> Yeah. Well, one thing that I think is really important is that if somebody's very health consscious and a hard charger, they're they're very likely eating pretty clean. And one of the challenges for many people, not all, uh, to falling asleep is that their starchy carbohydrate intake is just not high enough. You know, if you go on a very low starch diet, like let's say you just go, you know, meat, fruit, vegetables, or you go pure keto, you'll have a lot more energy. Some people who follow that kind of regimen can sleep well. Some people like myself find that unless I have some rice or oatmeal at some point during the day, especially if I'm doing resistance training, it's actually very hard to fall and stay deeply asleep. And if I just add, you know, I guess you call it porridge, we call it oatmeal. Um, but have a a a small amount of starch in the form of whatever starch is fine for you. I I eat starches. I realize this is heretical in the in the in the health and wellness space, but you know, have some rice or some homemade pasta or some sourdough bread or, you know, or oatmeal or something. If you're having trouble falling asleep, take a look at how much starch you're having. I don't recommend gorging yourself with starch late in the day, but having some starchy carbohydrates in your final meal, which probably comes what, 2, three hours before sleep or something like that, can certainly help a number of people fall and stay asleep. I've heard that many times. >> If you are carnivore, meat and fruit, keto, I wonder what the net effect is when you account for what's happening to sleep. And I'm sure that many people can sleep well on low carb of different stripes, but I I for one couldn't. >> And then I'm like having to weigh this up like how how much carbs can I have before brain inflammation makes me feel a little bit more sluggish, more tired, and well, I need to have some in order to make me. So that was a >> Yeah, it becomes a little bit of a of a devil's dance. I mean, if we return to our discussion about cortisol from earlier, cortisol's job is to deploy energy into the body and for the brain under conditions of stress or just getting up in the morning. I mean, the transition from sleep to awake is a massive state shift. It's a normal healthy one, but it's a massive state shift in terms of mobilization requirements and thought requirements and just the ability to linearize your your thought, which is nerd speak for the ability to think, not dream, right? Or be unconscious essentially. So when you have low circulating glucose or energy stores, cortisol's job is to mobilize glucose. So when you're on a low carbohydrate diet, your baseline cortisol is a little bit higher. This actually has been examined. Okay, so here's the deal. If you're on a low carbohydrate diet for a period of time, I think in this case it was 3 weeks or more, your cortisol curve, that high in the morning, low in the afternoon, and evening kind of normalizes a bit. It's still a little bit higher at every point than it normally would be. But if you suddenly switch from eating carbohydrates, when I say carbohydrates, I mean starchy carbohydrates, okay? Well, let's leave aside sugar and fructose and etc. which of course is a form of sugar. But if you shift from a sort of standard macronutrient distribution of, you know, 40 30 or whatever it is where you're eating starches to a low carbohydrate diet, your cortisol levels go up >> significantly. This has been explored over time. They normalize. So, the I think the important thing for people to remember is when we talk about comfort foods, people have taken that that phrase to mean uh junk foods. Pizza, ice cream. Uh-uh. Those aren't the comfort foods that were originally described as comfort foods. The comfort foods that were coined comfort foods are starchy, warm foods, which guess what? Suppress cortisol. Because when those foods are available, your your brain and essentially your adrenals know that you don't have to mobilize from stored sources. it's already circulating. So, it makes perfect sense. So, I mean, this is just one kind of uh you asked for like what people could do. I say take a look at your nutrition. Are you exercising too late in the day? Can you move that to the morning? Can you re you never want to tell people reduce the intensity? Because frankly, you know, as Dorian Yates has been saying so beautifully late uh lately, like reps in reserve are results in reserve. You know, we could talk about that. Uh um but you know I think most people are probably not pushing hard enough but some people are just pushing way too hard in the gym way too late and then their cortisol levels are elevated. Makes perfect sense why you couldn't sleep. So I would say look at look at your diet. Make sure you're getting enough starches at some point throughout the day. Maybe even taking in a few starches in the couple of hours before sleep and just see how your sleep does. There's some other things too. you know, look at your lighting environment, of course, but I think for a lot of people, the major issue with falling asleep is that they can't forget about the position of their body. And this is where the data becomes super interesting. There are some technologies that are being spun up right now, some of which I've had the opportunity to dabble with. Um, and I have no financial relationship to, but I sure wish I did because it is so cool. Imagine a sleep mask that could put you to sleep. >> Okay. >> Okay. How would it do that? Well, it turns out that eye movements are not just present during rapid eye movement sleep, but one of the prerequisites for falling asleep is that you forget about your body position. You're not like, "Oh, this is uncomfortable. That doesn't belong there." You shut down what's called propriception, your awareness of body position. So, there's actually some interesting data and here I'm cluing from a few places. I want to be fair cuz what I'm about to say sounds kind of kooky, but this works for many, many people who are having trouble falling asleep or getting back to sleep. You can try this tonight. I do this often. It works for me. You keep your eyes closed or you close your eyes. You move your eyes relatively slowly to one side, then the other side, one side, then the other side. Then you move your eyes in a counterclockwise circle, and then a clockwise circle, then up, then down. And then you sort of do a kind of faux crosseyed attempt. You sort of look down towards the bridge of your nose, and you exhale, which is going to slow your heart rate down. Now, what is all this nonsense about eye movements? Did I just do this as a joke to to uh see if you would do it? The the truth is, if you do this when you're trying to fall asleep, your vestibular system, which is essentially in working in concert with your eyes, uh, for reasons we could talk about, but your cerebellum and your vestibular system are essentially transitioning from where you need to be very aware of your body position and make adjustments all the time to one in which you're forgetting about body position. And we know and there are great data showing that a very slow rocking of a bed will help put you to sleep. When you rock back and forth, your body doesn't have like a little metronome in it. It says I'm rocking. It's your eye movements that compensate in the opposite direction which tell your cerebellum, hey, we're rocking. This is why if you're on a boat and this and the horizon's going like this, your cere you get seasick because you can't orient to kind of dead zero for, you know, pitch, yaw, and roll. And so anyway, I don't want to get too technical here, but if you have trouble sleeping, try what I just described a few times. Many people find that it helps them fall asleep because you stop thinking about your body position. >> And of course, bed coolness, room coolness, all can help. But what I just described can be very, very helpful for a number of people whose minds are racing because if their mind is racing, you also need need to give people something to do with their mind. You can't just say like don't think about it or stop thinking or just go to sleep. It doesn't work. You can say just wake up, but you can't say just go to sleep. There's a weird asymmetry built into our autonomic nervous system that way.

Can’t fall asleep because your mind won’t shut off? This science-backed sleep routine explains why racing thoughts happen at night, and a simple eye-movement trick that can help you fall asleep faster. Subscribe to RESPIRE for more science-based health tips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyNaCRf6Aaljcm9ZWARawXw re·spire (verb) – (1) to breathe (2) to recover hope, courage, or strength 🌟🌟🌟 NEW VIDEOS EVERY WEEK 🌟🌟🌟 00:00 Stop Fighting Sleep 00:48 Fuel Your Nervous System 01:55 Don’t Let Cortisol Run the Night 03:05 Rethink “Comfort” Foods 04:15 Train Earlier, Sleep Deeper 05:20 Set the Environment to Power Down 06:05 The 20-Second Eye Movement Routine This video is a condensed and highly edited version of the full 185 podcast from @HubermanLab and @ChrisWillx. For more information, watch the full episode (link below) and follow the podcast. Andrew Huberman is an American neuroscientist and tenured associate professor in the department of neurobiology and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. Podcast Host: Chris Williamson Podcast Guest: Andrew Huberman YouTube: @ChrisWillx Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvWU4Zd-IMc&pp=ygUgYW5kcmV3IGh1YmVybWFuIGNocmlzIHdpbGxpYW1zb24%3D Fair Use Disclaimer 1. Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. 2. We do not own the rights to all content. They have, in accordance with fair use, been repurposed with the intent of educating and inspiring others. We must state that in no way, shape or form are we intending to infringe rights of the copyright holder. 3. Content used is strictly for research and education, all under the Fair Use law. #sleep #andrewhuberman #chriswilliamson #sleepbetter #sleeptips #healthtips #healthylifestyle #fitness