Conan, Rory Scovel, & Daniel Van Kirk's Sleep Tips | Conan O’Brien Needs a Fan
(calm music) Gentlemen, let's begin. Do we have some kind of letter we should read? I hate to be the school ma'm here, but I do think we should proceed with business. Yeah, we have. We have a letter. We have a letter. Our pennies and pallers, as we call our "Pen Pals" listeners. They knew that we were gonna be getting to talk to you. So someone wrote us a letter, specifically for our time together. I'm gonna read it. Ready? M'kay. Here we go. "Hi, Dan and Rory and Conan.". Correct order, if you ask me. "A short letter from Ireland to say hi.
"Best of luck on Team Coco. "So far, it's been great. "I notice recently that I have a lot of trouble. "falling asleep. "There are nights when I purposely stay up. "until five AM, for live shows in the States, "such as 'Pen Pals' and 'Bingo'. "and 'Trivia Nights with Dan,'. "which I love doing, and don't plan on stopping. "However, every other night, "the pattern is, I lie awake until four or five AM, "and then sleep for a few hours. "Any tips on falling asleep? "From Sarah Dunne. "PS, I'm from a small town in Ireland.".
I'm gonna do my best here. "Carrick-on-Suir, which is just 35 minutes. "from where Conan's family came from,". Conan, how do you say this? Dungarvan? Dungarvan. Dungarvan. You Barbarian. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's okay. Dungarvan. Sorry. Got a lot to prove. I guess you don't care about the Irish. Yeah, Dungarvan. Dungarvan. Okay. So, she stays awake all night. How do you guys fall asleep? Are we gonna pass over that she knows. this much about Conan? I mean, that's terrifying.
That's stalker. Well, Conan, didn't you go there? "And I'm exactly 35 minutes, door to door, "from Conan's family.". Rory, I think it would be frightening. if I weren't such an icon. Seriously, if someone says, "Oh, Abe Lincoln, how's your wife, Mary Todd?". You don't go, "Oh, stalker!". It's Lincoln, you know what I'm saying? And I think I'm the Lincoln of comedy. I'm depressed. I'm six four.
Yeah. Some find me homely. And I'm trying to unite a nation, so I think in all those ways, I'm Lincoln. Well, a lot of comics say that. They go, "Uh-oh, here comes Abe Lincoln. "Heads up.". And then you walk out. Yeah. I think it's mostly because. when people see me performing at a theater, they'd like to shoot me. No! [Conan] I think that's how the whole Lincoln thing. got started. Oh, fair enough. "I'd like to put a Derringer bullet. "in the back of his head.". Anyway, we took a dark turn.
Let's move forward, gentlemen. What do you think, Rory? Do you have trouble sleeping? And what do you think we should tell Sarah Dunne, who lives about 35 minutes from Dungarvan? Dungarvan. What do you think we should tell her? You know, I'm curious what you would tell her. But I have trouble sleeping as well. I feel like, for the past, I don't know, maybe two years, I don't know if I'm getting adequate sleep, and I don't know how to know.
Don't you have a routine? And before you start, quit yelling at me. about these apps. You're gonna go, "Oh, you gotta download. "Am I sleeping? app.". Or "Sleep App.". Or "Sleepytime App.". I don't know understand those, and I don't know if I'm getting enough sleep. Rory, what's your routine? Like, do you have a system? I have several screens in front of me. going throughout the night, so that when I wake up, my emails are right there, and I can check and see if anyone's DM'd me. on Instagram within seconds.
Well, I think that's the first thing. we're gonna address. Obviously, you're making some kind of, I guess what your generation would call, a joke. Not all of us. But I would say to Sarah Dunne, first of all, is you've gotta eliminate all screens. And I think that's the point of Rory's little, I guess it's a quip. I don't know what it qualifies with his generation. Also, my generation is, I don't know what the lowest one is, but I'm 17 years old. Just to get your listeners to catch up. With the beard of a Confederate soldier. That's right. And apparently the diet.
(Rory laughs). Squirrels. What I'd like to point out. is that sleep is all how you prepare for it. So, I find yes, no screens at night. I watch some of my classic bits. And I encourage my children and my wife to watch them too. So we have, I would say, from like, seven to nine or nine thirty is watching Conan classic bits. Perfect. They've seen them before, and they're very unhappy about it, but we watch them. No, but no, no screens. No screens.
And then, if you can, read. I think reading. Do you do that every night? Yeah, I find if I read, I naturally get sleepy. And I try to read really boring books. Really dense, boring books. And that'll put you out. I think reading is good, and there are actually studies, Sarah, I'm not kidding, that the eye movement across a page. as you scroll across, as your eye darts from left to right,
unless you're reading the Torah, hello! As your eye moves from left to right, and then back again, is hypnotic. and puts you into a state for sleep. So reading's a good idea. I'd never heard that. You'd never heard reading's a good idea? No, I'd never heard about the eye movement. sort of being like a, put you into like, a trance like state of a sleeping, hypnotic. True story. Yeah, I don't travel with a box fan. I'm not one of those. But I do need like, a sound machine.
Preferably, cold. Like, if I can, 68 degrees is obviously perfect. But sound machine. And like, a mundane podcast, of like, there used to be like, an overnight radio show out of Chicago, and they would drop their show as a podcast, and they would just talk about like, general pop culture. And if I could put that on, with the sound machine, and it just kind of takes away my own thoughts. and regrets of what I didn't do today. and what I need to do tomorrow. I made a mistake. A bunch of years ago, I read that. get a sound machine is a good idea.
Or listen to a sound machine as you're falling asleep. And I thought they meant The Miami Sound Machine, with Gloria Estefan. (indistinct). I would listen on very big speakers to. ♪ Come on everybody ♪. ♪ (indistinct) bongo ♪. (Conan sings indistinctly). And it wasn't working, and I thought, "I'm not listening to it loud enough, "I'm not listening to it enough times.". So I kept going louder and more times. (Conan sings indistinctly). You definitely weren't learning the lyrics,
that's for sure. No, no, it was more of a (indistinct) vibe you had. Well, first of all, I blame the speakers. The speakers were, turns out, very bad quality. So it wasn't that... How'd the rest of your house feel? And all I could hear was, (Conan sings indistinctly). So I invested... I thought that was like, a pretty good-. Conan, can I also say that's very good scatting. What you did. Like, as much as it was bad with the lyrics, it was excellent scat. (Conan sings indistinctly).
Yes. Listen, I took what was probably a mildly amusing quip, and what I did is I put all my chips on it. I kept investing in it. Every chip. Not only that, but I called my business manager. and had him put my house on the line. My mortgage, everything. I really invested heavily in that joke. That may have put you to sleep, Sarah. The fact that I went that hard, that deep, into clearly what was just a stupid reference. to The Miami Sound Machine with Gloria Estefan.
What's your favorite... Besides "The Bible," what is your favorite book? Well, that's hard to have a favorite book. I don't have any one favorite book. I read so many of them. So when you're trying to find a boring book, how do you know what's gonna be a boring book. to know this is the one? Oh, you can tell right away. You can tell. Okay, any biography. Let's say you wanna read a biography of a great man. And let's say that man is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Okay?
What I love is when a biographer, and when I say "I love it," it's "I hate it,". when instead of just starting. with Franklin Delano Roosevelt being born, what they do is they go back 800 years before then. and go, "The Delano clan of upper". You know, "Amsterdam.". And then they take you through 17 generations. before you even get to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That's a book that'll put me right out. They'll say, "He was a simple printer,
"and then he married this person, and married that person.". And I'm gone, I'm completely out. So make sure it's a biography that starts 600 years. before the birth of our hero.
