The Fitness Scientist: "Even A Little Alcohol Is Hurting Your Health!" Kristen Holmes

what the research says is that people. who are having sex within a few hours. when they sleep have better markers of. sleep and recovery so does masturbation. not have the same implications well what. was so interesting about this research. is that Kristen Holmes is the vice. president of performance science at wo. who has access to health data from. hundreds of thousands of people and her. groundbreaking research will tell you. the secrets of achieving perfect health. and performance the key to your health. is your tradan Rhythm which are physical. mental and behavioral changes that.

happen in a 24-hour cycle one of the. most known circadian rhythms is being. asleep during the night and it has. massive Health consequences for example. we know their shift workers on average. are going to die 15 years sooner but if. you're awake for 2 hours between 10: p.m. and 4:00 a.m. 2 days per week for. 25 days of the year you qualify as a. shift worker you are putting yourself at. increased risk for cancer cardiovascular. disease mental health issues you can. have trouble having children I mean.

that's terrifying we know that we. haven't adapted to Blue Light the light. we get from screens yes if you're. viewing light between the hours of 10. p.m. and 4:00 a.m. it actually has a pro. depressive effect it this goes on and on. and a lot of people are like I have to. go to bed at 1:00 a.m. because I'm a. night owl total BS you're making a. choice and if you want to perform. consistently increase your tolerance for. stress and take control of your life you. need to we want to eat and most. importantly we need. to quick one this is really really.

fascinating to me on the back end of our. YouTube channel it says that. 69.9% of you that watch this channel. frequently over the lifetime of this. channel haven't yet hit the Subscribe. button I just wanted to ask you a favor. it helps this channel so much if you. choose to subscribe helps us scale the. guest helps us scale the production and. it makes this show bigger so if I could. ask you for one favor if you've watched. the show before and you've enjoyed it. and you like this episode that you're. currently watching could you please hit. the Subscribe button thank you so much. and I will repay that gesture by making.

sure that everything we do here gets. better and better and better and better. that is a promise I'm willing to make. you do we have a. [Music]. deal. Kristen why do you do the work that you. do I am uh irrationally passionate about. human flourishing and the Frameworks. policies basically determinants of of. human flourishing and um yeah I've kind.

of dedicated my life. to understanding um how the physiology. and and psychology work together to help. people take control of their health um. so they can understand how to apply. their energy and and attention in a way. that's truly rewarding what is your job. title I'm the vice president of. performance science principal scientist. at uh whoop which is a technology a. physiological monitoring technology. company and what does that mean so I'm. trying to make sure uh whoop is a.

thought leader in human performance so. trying to see around the bend to. understand you know what's going to be. important for tomorrow in terms of. understanding uh how we can take control. of the directory of our health you know. what are the markers that are important. that we need to be tracking um what are. the behaviors that we need to be. engaging in in order to move those. metrics around in a way that is Health. promoting I look at a lot of the high. stakes high stress environments so. professional athletes um Frontline. Healthcare CL Ians um and uh you know.

military operators so kind of. understanding some of these extreme. professions and and crafts and and what. the physiology and the psychology looks. like we can then kind of abstract and. and and I think in some ways generalize. what that means for the regular. population um who are experiencing less. extreme demands on on their time and. their energy and and their cognitive. bandwidth and you conduct um your own.

studies yes yeah so I'm a principal. investigator on um on many studies um. which means that I'm kind of leading. those experiments from kind of A to Z. and I have a team that is you know kind. of supporting that research um and from. various aspects of of expertise um but. yeah I mean one of the studies that we. published in in May was looking at uh a. thousand paratroopers in Army Alaska so. super extreme you know environment you. know harsh but the the Army came to us. they were you know if if you you know.

Alaska in general has a very high. suicide rate um this base in elor Alaska. has a lot of mental health issues a lot. of suicide and um they're trying to. understand you know what is actually. going on here and we were able to run a. study where we showed that there's. actually one. Behavior one behavior that was surfaced. that was the most predictive of positive. psychological functioning in these um in. these soldiers and that one Behavior was.

sleep wake. timing so the more consistent and more. stable the sleep wake the Sleep onset. and offset of these soldiers um the. higher levels of positive psychological. functioning so work place resilience um. uh less homesickness more feelings of. control more positive social networks it. bubbles up in every single piece of of. research that we do at whoop sleep wake. timing I think is the mother of all.

performance optimization behaviors sleep. wake timing so is this the same thing as. your Cadian Rhythm or yeah so this is. one of the most I think when we think. about circadian rhythms which is just. physical mental and behavioral changes. that happen in a 24-hour cycle um and. your biological clock is kind of. orchestrating these rhythms right and. okay so I'm going to have to pause and. take this right back to Monkey level. stuff yeah what is a Arcadian Rhythm as.

if you're expending it to a 10-year-old. yeah so it's basically physical mental. and behavioral. changes that happen over a 24-hour cycle. okay so here's my read on it and correct. me if I'm. wrong there's a clock in my head yes the. the the supermatic nucleus yeah is a is. the Master Clock okay which is somewhere. in my body it's in the it's in the.

hypothalamus so it's in my brain and. this clock regulates every cell in my. body cell tissue organ okay and it. releases it controls the release of a. chemical which makes those cells organs. every part of my body do stuff yeah so. it is your hypothalamus so the superism. nucleus it responds to light and it. responds to Darkness okay okay so that's. like the most pronounced entrainment cue.

for this master clock and it then tells. it sends signals to every cell tissue in. your body as to what it needs to be. doing in the presence of light in the. presence of darkness and when we are. viewing light at a phase of the natural. light dark cycle that is if I am awake. when I should be sleeping or I am. sleeping when I should be awake when my. body anticipates that it causes huge. amounts of stress in the system if we do.

this once or twice not a big deal but if. we're doing this. chronically okay it has massive Health. consequences you know cancer um. metabolic disease um you know. cardiovascular disease 100% of mental. health issues there will be some level. of circadian disruption okay so when. this inform this light information comes. in.

and tells these clocks to what to do if. I am going outside of my natural. biological. preferences that is circadian. disruption and if and if you think about. how many folks are walking around. circadian disruption it is mind-blowing. I mean basically the the kind of the. definition that's been thrown out there. is if you are awake from the hours of 10. p.m. to 4 a.m. if you're awake for 2.

hours between 10: p.m. and 4:00 a.m. for. 2 days per week for 25 days of the year. you qualify as a kind of card carrying. shift worker and you likely have. significant circadian disruption which. means that I have you are at risk for. some of the and it you know it's not. going to happen tomorrow but if you. continue on that pattern that I just. described red you are putting yourself.

at increased risk. for cancer and cardiovascular disease. metabolis dysfunction um you know you. can have trouble having children it. impacts fertility mental health. psychiatric disorders there isn't. disease or disorder that circadian. disruption doesn't. touch so a way of thinking about this um. so that I and everyone else can. understand is there's this master clock. in our um hypothalamus look at me um. hypothalamus and this Master Clock.

regulates all of the other clocks. throughout our entire body and there's. millions of them right basically yes and. the thing that's the Master Clock is. using as a signal the clock in our brain. is light and darkness that's its most. reliable yes that's the signal it cares. about it listens to the most but there's. other signals as well and if that Master. Clock if so if I'm if I'm up at 4:00. a.m. and I'm looking at a a light at. 4:00 a.m. that Master Clock is going to. start firing off chemicals to all the. other clocks um and then all the clocks.

are going to be out of sync because then. when I wake up it's light and then you. know you're confusing I'm confusing my. body and it's firing off in all kinds of. different ways so I need to form an. alignment which means basically sleeping. at the right time exposing myself to. Darkness at the right time etc etc your. body loves regularity and and that's and. the problem is modity is not set up for. that you know we have access you know I. think all the Circadian research um. unfortunately was done after the Advent. of electri electricity so so we're kind.

of fighting you know this access to. constant light um and you know we're. starting to see the the I think dilar. effects or the the negative consequences. of exposure to light really after the. sun goes down we haven't adapted to blue. light after dark right after the sun. goes down we have not adapted to blue. light blue light being the light we get. from screens yes there was a study that.

looked at the timing of light and its. impact on um mood and and brain circuit. circuits and they saw that if you're. viewing light between the hours of again. this is kind of this magic window of. time 10 p.m. and 4: a.m. it actually has. a pro depressive. effect so it impacts your dopamine. system reward motivation right so when. we wonder you know oh why are why what. is this Mental Health crisis I mean we. have to look at light first and I and I.

just don't know and and I think what's. hard about the discussion and hard about. this behavior is. that you know it it's really hard for. people to not engage with their phones. you know before bed um that has its own. addictive properties right but we just. have to understand that these our our. relationship to light will directly. influence the trajectory of our health. there's just no question about that. to understand this from a more sort of.

prehistoric ancestoral lens if we go. back I don't know tens of thousands of. years to how maybe some of our ancestors. used to live they would have food at. certain times and they would have light. exposure at certain times they didn't. have artificial light right they had. invented that yet the modern world is. very much the antithesis of that it is. we have food whenever we want it we can. order I can order a cookie at 3:00 a.m. if I want to eat cookie at 3 a.m. and I. can watch YouTube video the D CEO for.

example like And subscribe at any hour. of the day um so is this kind of like a. misalignment issue with our the way our. body was designed by nature and the. world we now live in yeah we have not. evolved to to to digest food in the. middle of the night or or to view light. in the middle of the night um or to be. super active in the middle of the night. which just happen and it does it creates. this it creates this misalignment and. you know I think what's interesting if. we are to kind of look at individuals.

you know or societies currently that. don't have. electricity it's it's really interesting. to to I think see some of their. behaviors some of their sleep wake. behaviors and this is fascinating there. is a study done looking at um kind of a. hunter gatherer type of society who. don't have access to any electricity and. when you observe their sleep wake times. they all fall asleep within 15 to 30. minutes of each other and they all wake. up between 15 and 30 minutes of each. other so this whole notion of.

chronotypes is like kind of like total. BS It's like because I think that's you. know I think that's the reason a lot of. people are like oh I I I have to go to. bed at 1: a.m. because I'm a night owl. no you're you're making a choice. generally speaking now this is in. healthy populations not people who have. circadian you know disorders and and. things like that um generally speaking. like if you were to throw everyone in. this building on a mountain in Colorado. and this experiment has actually been. done with no electricity we will. literally all fall asleep within 30.

minutes of each other after 48 Hours. like that is how powerful these light. dark signals are to our body and I I. think that just those two examples are. really compelling in that you know we're. we have evolved to kind of wake up and. fall asleep in relation to This Light. Dark cycle so what are this stuff we say. to ourselves because I say that to. myself all the time I told I've told. myself I'm a nightow yeah and I've given. myself the whole chronotype Spiel yeah. that's be. yeah in my opinion the way I interpret.

the. literature it it seems that you know the. the variability that I think is talked. about or how we think about it in as a. as a society in terms of there's. chronotypes that are you know very you. know you're you fall asleep you want to. you you're genetically predisposed to. fall asleep at 1:00 am and I'm. genetically predisposed to to fall. asleep at 9:00 P p.m. yeah I I don't. think it's that kind of variability I. think the variability maybe is an hour. at the most maybe an hour and a half. obviously it's age related as well um.

but for the most part I don't I don't. think this variability is is as. pronounced as as as what um what we say. it is sleep yeah so conventional wisdom. says it's all about how many hours you. spend. sleeping we already this has already. been shown to be not true sleep. duration is is important right we can. put a pin in that um but sleep. regularity predicts all cause mortality. and this is just recently published.

actually um not by my team but um. looking at it was actually UK uh uh. biobank 60,000 people 10 million sleeps. objective measure of sleep and they. found that sleep regularity predicted uh. mortality and independent of sleep. duration so it it's not to say that. sleep duration doesn't matter but that. is absolutely incomplete advice how much. time you spend in bed does doesn't. necessarily predict how long you live it.

is the degree to which you stabilize. when you go to bed and when you wake up. that predicts mortality what did they. find what what was the conclusion of. that was there a sort of a percentage. variance in those that have irregular. and regular sleep yeah so the Sleep. onset offset times I'm I'm not sure but. actually this is research that my team. is doing and that we have not published. yet so this is preliminary data but we. are we're actually able to determine. down to the. minute what is a tolerable level of.

variability so for the most elite. athletes on the planet the. 0.001% 18 to 23 year olds we know that. um 70 minutes of onset offset. variability at 70 minutes we will see a. sharp decline in markers of recovery. heartly variability resting heart rate. which is a indicator of how you will. adapt to load the next day to stress the.

next day to stress the next day so life. load so sleep awake time is really. important and we're we're we're doing. research across across every age bucket. and and but you can imagine that if. these are the most robust humans on the. planet and they have 70 minutes of of. variability that is tolerable within. that population some are a little bit. sooner um in terms of the or uh can deal. with less variability others can deal. with slightly more variability but the.

mean is 70 70 minutes so you can imagine. for individuals who are more vulnerable. who have less are less robust physically. mentally emotionally their tolerable. level is going to be much. narrower what's going on inside of the. body when we increase the variability or. that we don't have a regular sleep and a. regular wake up time what's actually. going on from like a chemical. physiological perspective yeah so one of. the things that's suppressed is.

melatonin. and circulating reductions in. circulating melatonin have been shown to. be linked to every disorder and. disease in the. body every disorder and disease in the. body when we have suppressed or reduced. circulating melatonin that is going to. impact us on every level and make us. more vulnerable to disease and and. disorders so that is probably one of the.

most important thing when we have super. unstable sleep awake time we are going. to uh have cell suppressed melatonin. production um which leads to. inflammation in the body it's melatonin. I think is is one of the big players in. the story growth hormones yes yes and uh. typically you know if you're not going. to sleep uh if you're going to sleep. late you will not release a human growth. hormone um as uh you'll get less of a. Bolis of of release and why does that.

matter that's when all the physical. restoration happens so all the. Regeneration physically so for bypassing. that we're basically all the work that. we did in the gym or you know everything. that we did during the day um we're just. not going to recover um from that in in. the same way that we would if we were. getting that sleep is growth hormone. essentially the thing that causes our. sort of muscles to grow and repair. essentially so I sometimes think this. because I think if I'm sometimes in my. life because I'm quite busy I have to. make the decision whether to go to the. gym or get a great night's sleep yeah.

and the more I've learned about growth. hormone in the body and whoop and all. those things I've started to make the. decision towards sleep versus going to. the gym because my brain now goes well. you're not going to get the recovery and. sort of restoration anyway benefits yeah. the benefits of going to the gym if. you're poorly slept that night yep I. think if it's um if you're consistently. getting you know decent sleep and. consistently getting you know going to. bed and wake up some more times um you. know I would say it's okay to prioritize.

exercise sometimes um but sleep is is. very important um and is probably the. thing that needs to be prioritized. first how consistent are you with your. sleep I'm very consistent I heard that. in 2017 you started trying to sleep. within sort of 25 to 30. minutes um every single day y the same. sleeping window that's right yeah and. yeah it was a it was a paper that came. out uh by Andrew Phillips actually in in. the summer of 2017 and it basically was.

a four-year study um that was conducted. at Harvard University looking at. students and they were basically. students sleep and they're trying to see. okay you know what aspect of of sleep is. is predictive of things like GPA and um. other uh you know measures of of kind of. uh flourishing and uh what they found is. that basically sleep weight time. predicted. GPA what's GPA for people oh sorry grade. point average yes so it's the difference. you know they more regular you know it's.

the difference between getting an A and. A B um by just stabilizing sleep awake. time and so at that time I was working. with you know tons of Collegiate. athletes so nc2a athletes professional. athletes so eppl um you know NBA NFL. MLB you name it like the biggest high. performers like in the world and and I. started tracking this you know just. manually at the time at whoop we didn't. actually track this uh this wasn't. automated I had to like you know kind of.

do this in Excel and then sure enough. you know sleep wake time started. predicting all these performance metrics. that people care about and um we started. rolling in some subjective measures um. we had internal load we had external. load of course so all the objective. measures but I started rolling in some. subjective measures and sure enough. sleep awake time just continued to to to. ladder up to all these performance. variables that people care about so I. started of course you know because I. have access to all these these data I. start I'm like I need to I need to.

like start stabilizing my sleep wake. time and sure enough summer 2017 I just. like that's basically like my. non-negotiable and yeah I mean I I. haven't I haven't been sick since. 2017 I had a little tiny head cold that. lasted 48 hours but since then I. literally have not had a sniffle a. stomach ache I didn't get covid like I. literally have not been sick and you. know there I do a lot of other things.

well but that has been the single. biggest change just sleeping and waking. up at the same time that's it what is. your routine there how do you ensure. that happens because yeah so the the key. to that is stabilizing when I wake up so. even when I travel and I do travel and I. I travel internationally I travel to the. West Coast um I try to maintain my home. time zone as much as I can as long as I. can fulfill my business commitments and. and social you know there might be a. social element as well but for the most. part um I stabilize when I wake up so I.

keep that consistent even if I can't go. to bed at the same time I ensure that I. wake up at the same time and that. basically sets my circadian rhythm so I. will then feel sleepy at the right time. and I can kind of keep that virtuous. cycle going if I um have short sleep I. just basically try to build in a nap. prior to 1:30 for 30 minutes to an hour. so I don't accumulate sleep debt is. another thing that we can talk about. sleep DT is wild in some of its.

correlations like psychological safety. and executive function and um but but. yeah so I kind of that's how I manage. short sleep um but I I always try to. wake up at the same time so I'm getting. that Bolis of light at the same time. every single day and what time do you. wake up and go to sleep so I go to bed. um around I kind of get into bed usually. around. 9915 9:30 I read for a half an hour 45. minutes. a book um printed page dim light um and.

then I fall asleep usually around 10 and. then I wake up um like at 6 uh 14 no I'm. just kidding like around six around 6. you know whenever I talk about these. subjects the rebuttal I get is one you. might be able to predict it's from a. group of people that I can't yet relate. to yeah do you know who I'm talking. about um parents oh yeah yeah well. I've had I have two kids so I totally. understand the whole parenting thing so.

yeah I mean there's no question there. are going to be times in your life where. you're literally a shift worker because. you're caring for a sick parent or a. sick child or you just literally have. kids and they're young um you're a shift. worker I mean there there are things um. you're making decisions to go out and. and and socialize in in times that maybe. maybe aren't optimal for kind of human. functioning but yes there's there's no. question that there are periods in your. life where it's going to be harder um. that said there are some things that you. can do to mitigate some of the negative.

effects of both Direction and timing and. one of those those things is um is. dialing in your feeding window which is. another kind of circadian Behavior so. the timing of when you eat is is pretty. important um and can at least check some. of the boxes in terms of its impact on. uh metabolic functioning and and her. health and things like that so let's. talk about that then meal timing mhm. what is the what do I need to know about.

when I should be eating what I should be. eating um and the implications that has. on yeah my circadian rhythm my body. yeah so it's it's in the. literature there's time restricted. eating and there's time restricted. feeding um and time restricted feeding. generally if you're reading the. literature is going to refer to Mouse. models time to eating will refer to. human uh studies Mouse models being. studies they yes sorry um yeah mice the. studies done with with mice are just. time restricted feeding and and. uh humans would be time restrict to. eating and not to confuse this with.

intermittent fasting which I know is a. Hot Topic and people love talking about. it um Tim restricted eating basically. has a cading component so it's really. about the timing of when you're eating. your food in relation to the light dark. cycle intermittent fasting is basically. just reducing calories and so tempting. does not have a calorie um uh component. to it it's more about the the timing and. there's been some a lot of interesting. studies um that have been done that show.

if you eat you know within uh you know. kind of 8 to 12h hour window uh you will. have uh much better metabolic outcomes. and this is pretty this is well. established um and I and if we see in. the whoop data that if you're um if you. stop eating three hours prior to when. you sleep to when you fall asleep. markers of sleep and Recovery are are uh. exponentially better um so timing of.

meals really really does matter and. there's no question that uh and we we. know this from from other research. you're more primed to metabolize food um. closer to when you wake up in the. morning so earlier in the day you're. going to be much more primed to utilize. the the nutrients that you're um that. you've digested so does that mean we. should be eating we should have sort of. an earlier EA window yes yes you know. Brian Johnson of course yeah I know he.

stops eating at 11:00 a.m. which is. crazy so which is insane and not super. practical but I think if you can stop. eating around when the sun sets you'll. position yourself to improve your. metabolic health and I and I would go so. far to say that you know regardless of. what it is you're eating because a lot. of folks cannot afford to you know eat. high quality food that's just a reality. and a lot of those folks do suffer from. you know at higher rates of C CIO. metabolic dysfunction but if if we can.

just consolidate our eating window to 8. to 10 hours we get ourselves like 60% of. the way to our our kind of metabolic. goals again it's not to say that content. and quality does not matter it. absolutely does but if we aren't going. to if if we if we can't focus on that. for whatever it might be consolidating. our eating window so eating every single. one of our calories between you know an. 8 to 12 hour window we will improve our.

health and what's your eating window so. I do about 10 hours okay yeah so I I. definitely I pretty much don't eat after. the sun goes down when you say the sun. goes down sun sets yeah is that like. 5:00 p.m. I mean now it's early yeah so. I give myself like an hour window yeah. like four right now it's it's definitely. early but um but for the most part I can. kind of get away with it based on my. lifestyle so ideally between sort of 7: a.m. and 4 p.m. and then to make sure.

you're not eating you know two to three. hours before you fall asleep yes that's. the big key I think um is is you want a. nice big buffer. between uh yeah when you when you have. your L calorie and and when you go to. sleep because. that they're both so digestion is a. parasympathetic activity what does that. right so that means so your autonomic. nervous system has two brand is your. parasynthetic and and your sympathetic. your parasynthetic is your rest and.

digest right um we also want to be in a. parasynthetic state when we're sleeping. so when we are digesting food we're. basically kind of confusing our system. in terms of where it should apply its. resources right so it basically diverts. resources away from you know the sleep. and the restoration and and that's what. you know if you have a big meal you'll. notice your heart rate is really is a. lot higher right and your stress score. is higher right some of the features on. on the whoop app and when you are not. having to digest you'll see your stress.

score is lower you'll see your heart. your your heart rate is lower your heart. rate variability would be higher in. those situations we want to make sure. that when we're sleeping we are not. diverting any resources away from sleep. I mean alcohol is another one right like. you just to metabolize alcohol you're. diverting all you know significant. resources away from the Regeneration and. the recovery that needs to happen during. sleep um by bouncing you out of deeper. stages of sleep so same sort of effect. happens with food and we see this you. know at population levels on the app.

it's just very apparent that meal timing. and alcohol are are really the two. biggest disruptors to a good night's. sleep so interesting because I've always. wondered there was a time in my life. where I routinely ate super late at. night because I would work very very. hard during the day I would basically. forget to eat I'd get home. maybe 9 or 10 at night I would then. order the food yeah at 9 or 10 which. means it comes at 11 12 and then I'd eat. at 11 or 12 yeah it's very stressful for.

your system yeah tell me about it the. interesting thing that I started to. notice was when when I did that I woke. up feeling like I hadn't slept yeah and. I've always wondered why so I arrived at. this own sort of self self constructed. conclusion that if I put food into my. body at midnight it basically keeps my. body on for a couple of hours yeah. that's exactly right that's a perfect. way to describe it I would see the the. exactly that in the loop data which is I.

would see that my heart rate went up to. about 70 beats per minute for the first. 3 hours it was almost like my body was. was still walking around or something. still and then 3 or 4 hours in it would. start to fall again back to I don't know. 45 the food yeah and we know you know. there's there's a really nice study that. looked at basically everyone is eating. the exact same meals and they're. relatively the same age like it was a. really beautiful design um and they. basically looked at folks who are eating. after after 3 p.m. and folks who are. eating before 3 p.m. and the folks who.

ate a bulk of their calories before 3. p.m. had um significantly better. metabolic outcomes and lost more weight. um so again there's no calorie. restriction component here you know. they're all kind of eating similar diet. similar macronutrient distribution. similar calorie content and um and it's. the folks who were eating bulk calories. prior to 3 P.M who had the best outcomes. exercise. one of the issues that I have sometimes. in my life today is one of those days.

where because I was up very early this. morning it meant that I didn't go to the. gym this morning which means I'm. probably going to get home after being. in the studio being at the office today. at maybe 78 p.m. and I'm super hungry. then usually right and I also need to. work out so sometimes what happens is I. choose to work out first and then. obviously it makes the meal late at. night but there's also days in my life. where I end up working out and I'm known. for this at like 11: or 12: p.m. at. night wow.

and there was this old train of thought. that that was a good thing to do because. people would say oh you're going to be. tired when you get in bed but that's. doesn't seem to be what happens yeah. does it do you feel more energized I. feel more energized yeah well not. surprising right you know adrenaline. cortisol like all of the kind of. hormones and chemicals that you need to. kind of get to a place where you can. exert that energy are are kind of. flowing through the system and it takes. time for them to go back to to normal.

levels so to kind of get back to. homeostasis is going to take some time. and and so yeah I mean it would make. sense that you're um you know kind of. activated um after exercise so for some. folks there is a lot of individual. variability I think with exercise timing. some people are impacted more but I. honestly think that it has more to do. with the light you know usually if we're. in a gym it's generally well lit right. you're not in a dark gym so you're.

getting exposure to um to light which is. going to make you feel like more. activated and it's again telling your. body that it's time to be awake and. alert on that point of light there's a. school of thought that says you should. look at lights when you wake up in the. morning my my partner always gets up in. the morning walks out into the balcony. and sits out there for 10 or 20 minutes. in morning I love that yes I love to. hear that yeah she's the best so. annoying she gets everything right oh I. love it um yeah but but for sure that. you want to get Light Within you know.

100,000 lucks is is pretty much what you. want to get within you know 5 to 20. minutes of waking up to tell your body. like it's time to go 100,000 more oh Lux. so just like Photon energy so pretty. much if you're outside for five to to 20. minutes it sounds like your girlfriend. is like nailing this protocol you'll get. all of the photon energy that you need. to tell your system that it is time to. be awake can't you just go look into a. lamp or something um it will just take.

longer because it doesn't have the same. light intensity but if you're waking up. you know prior to when the sun gets up. yeah Turn All the Lights you know you. want to try to mimic day as much as. possible and then once the sun does come. up it's good to get outside and before. you get in bed you referenced that you. read books versus being on an iPad or. screens Etc. um does the same philosophy and. principle apply to light exposure before. sleep as to food exposure before sleep.

oh no question right absolutely um we. want to try to restrict light basically. after the sun goes down we want to dim. our home environment to the degree that. we can um we want to try to minimize all. artificial light in the lead up to bed. all artificial light yes yeah you want. to make it as dim as possible so you. know they're a lot of night like blue. light blocking glasses the filters that. you can put on your iPad and your phone. activate all of those um but but again. like we don't we want to protect our.

melatone release right and for all the. reasons I kind of have explained when we. don't have it is linked to every disease. and disorder right so we we know this so. we want to protect our melatonin release. and the only way we can Rel. melatonin is by Darkness we we need to. be exposed to to Darkness in order for. that Master Clock in our brain to know. that it's time to go to sleep um and. again be able to tell our body our. tissues and organs and cells and our and.

our body what it needs to do at that. moment when I was at the. headquarters in Boston um not so long. ago I saw them working on sleep masks. and I think I've always been quite. dubious about sleep masks you know you. get on those planes and they hand you a. sleep mask in the little bag I always. what a bunch of weirdos you know like. putting that strapping that thing to. your face how embarrassing I'm one of. those weirdos now yeah I mean it's hard. even the Little Dot on your you know. from your alarm clock or your TV is. going to emit enough light we're so.

sensitive to. light artificial light so natural light. like the moon totally fine but any other. type of light is really going to impair. our ability to get into these deeper. stages of sleep where all the restor. restoration and regeneration happens do. you use a sleep mask I do yes what's. your sort of routine there um yeah just. when I start to feel sleepy I just put. it on and go to bed do you listen to. anything when you go to sleep no I don't.

is there are you aware of any research. that might indicate that listening to. serial killer documentaries at 3:00. a.m. I think in principle anything that. activates you uh stimulates. you cognitively or um makes you energize. you probably want to avoid reading yeah. interesting I think there's a group of. us out there I'm yet to meet them but I. but I know that I'm not alone that I. like to listen to Horror and Thriller.

and serial killer stuff at um you know. very late at night and it helps us to. sleep or at least that's what we tell. ourselves I think if you perceive it as. helpful it probably is you know and I. think that's where and if your objective. data shows that you're getting you know. the requisite time in these deeper. stages of sleep then go with it I think. I think what is actually there's. definitely the cold dark quiet right you. need your room to be cold you need to be. dark you need to be quiet so there's. environmental stuff you need to um you.

know stop eating a few hours before bed. ideally um you need to have stable sleep. wake time ideally these are all things. that are going to drive getting into. these deeper stages of sleep but the. other thing that you probably do really. well is you manage stress throughout the. day you know like you I think that's. another like the things that we do. during the day how we you know whether. or not we're living our values right do. our behaviors align with with things. that we care about are we thinking about. the things that we want to be thinking. about are we managing our relationships.

effectively so all the things that can. manifest as stress negative stress um. will invariably rear its head during our. sleep but if we're managing those things. during the day proactively and. relatively well generally speaking like. sleep should happen you know pretty. naturally there's a huge group of people. who listen to podcasts like this and as. they listen to these podcasts they just. feel more depressed about their. situation you know because they've they.

believe they're trying their very best. and they're still struggling especially. as it relates to sleep and I think I've. always wondered what the message one can. send to them and also you know I think. there is a huge component of sort of. personal responsibility and choice that. you speak about as well and that I. believe in as. well but what is the most compelling. message for those people that do have a. choice they they know deep and side much. of it is a lack of discipline they know. they could not watch YouTube they know.

they could put their phone away at 9:00. p.m. they know they could not eat the. cookie super late at night they know. they could deep down they know they. could make a different set of choices. but they listen to these podcasts over. and over again whenever I have the. health experts on maybe they even take. notes but they just don't do it yeah. what is the most. compelling thing you can say to those. people that do have a choice but. continually choose a bad option to get. them pushed over the fence to. the positive circadian rhythm body clock.

loving side yeah so if people are trying. to. develop new habits you have to. understand how that new habit links to. your values so the things that you. believe in the things that you say you. care about right if I know growth and. impact are my two most important values. presence is another one how what do I. need to do every single day to back into. that so I can align my behaviors with.

the things I say I care. about and I think when folks are. struggling um they don't really know who. they want to be in the world and they. don't maybe understand exactly what it. is that they value they're fuzzy about. their desires about their values and I. think you end up when you're fuzzy about. your desires and things you value end up. you're flinging yourself in all sorts of. directions emotionally physically. mentally right and and I think that's.

kind of the project is figure out what. you care about and then align your. behaviors and create outlets in your. life and that frankly might. mean getting rid of people you know who. don't support those values and and I. think we're way too lenient on our. circle of friends um and in the sense of. you you know I think. we we keep people around in our life who.

don't NE necessarily help us become a. better version of ourselves have you had. to shed some people yes. absolutely why did you shed them because. it it didn't really support who I wanted. to be who did you want to be um I wanted. to be able to wake up at a very simple. level with as much joy and energy as I. as I could and I I want to be present. for my kids and. um yeah.

so and and and so I think and and I. think folks are. engaging in behaviors that. um I think you know create um a. situation. where. yeah I don't know how to say this that. like just say.

it yeah I. mean I think you know for me um you know. I I grew up in a in a household where. you know my mom was an. alcoholic um you it was a tough. environment and um you know she ended up. you know dying of therosis and um you. know it's not easy you know. so being in that kind of environment so. I think for me you know you end up.

um it's it's crazy how when you when you. live that life you end up repeating. those patterns and and I. think you know I had I had. to you know even though for me. personally I made choices where you know. I I I really have never drank alcohol. right because I saw how it destroyed my. family. and but yet I was still hanging around.

with people who were engaging these. behaviors and and it just was impacting. me at my core and um it didn't mean that. I didn't love those folks but I had to. get away um you know and a lot of this. was you know related to you know I was. an environment at at a university where. you know that was just like the norm. like it is just wild to me how. educational institutions normalize binge. drinking at a level that is just so.

destructive and you know and just to be. I suppose to just be around that all the. time like was just really not allowing. me to to show up daily as the person. that I wanted to be even though I wasn't. engaging in that behavior like it's. still like it just yeah it just made me. feel um um like I couldn't be the. version of myself that I wanted to be so.

yeah just it's a lot of hard decisions. you know but um but I let go of a lot. you know to to be able to create an. Environ and infrastructure that. supported who I wanted to be in this. world when I talk about being able. to change your behavior and break a. habit it is nothing in the context of. someone who is INS snared by an. addiction of sorts it is nothing it's a. completely different conversation yeah.

what is it like growing up with a mother. who You observe at a very young age you. how old I mean my whole life your whole. life yeah like. she as a child when you when you see a. parent someone you. love that is in that is sort of grip by. addiction what is that. like yeah I mean I think at a at a. fundamental level. um you just feel deprioritized I think.

generally you know like you you know I. think you. feel. um you know you're you're you're. unsupervised number. one there isn't a lot of supervision you. know so you end up like really having to. to offend for yourself um my dad worked. a lot you know he was definitely. workolic um such a good man um so much. integrity and and but I think that was. his form of Escape but it kind of leads.

you know you got to figure out how to. eat you got to you know you got to. figure out how to do a lot of the basic. stuff on your own so you develop a lot. of Independence I think but it it's hard. to um you know form emotional. attachments I think um as an adult. unless you really work through that you. know because you're you're afraid that. you're not going to be taken care. of what did you come to understand about. your mother's addiction and what she was.

struggling with if anything at. all yeah I mean I think what was so sad. about that time period is is you know I. think it was well understood you know I. think um a lot of those behaviors I. think to degree are normalized and I. don't know that there the connection. between depression you know she was no. she she had massive seasonal effect. disorder which one of the reasons why.

I'm so interested in you know um kind of. everything related to to light and and. just the opportunity there for for for. health but um you know she had major. depressive disorder and you know was not. diagnosed Pro properly I don't even. remember I have no idea if she ever even. went to the doctor to you know to try to. get treated um so you know I I think the. the biggest. thing that I learned is that we can.

actually make choices um and and I know. that there are you know when you look at. regions of the brain we understand that. people are predisposed but I think. there's a lot of things that we can we. can actually control to reduce our. vulnerability to um to some of these. diseases how has that experience defined. and shaped you when you look back and. connect. dots yeah I mean I just always you I was. very competitive high level a athlete.

representing um the US and and so. there's definitely trying to understand. my own body and my psychology so I could. perform my potential but there's no. question that like this whole everything. that like underpins the work that I do. is is trying to to understand you know. how we. can improve our own situation so we can. um you know self actualize and and live. our potential and um so that was I.

always you know. felt um so bad you know for my. mom. why you know that she wasn't able to. become the. version of. herself like I wasn't able to realize. her. potential and she had so. much. I can't believe you did this to.

[Laughter]. me would you like a tissue. thanks you're very um you're a very. special person and it all makes makes. ton of sense why you've got such an. incredible incredible drive and Mission. to you I didn't I didn't know any of. those what You' just said but I've never. talked about that public so I'm just. yeah what a what a wonderful way to have.

channeled such a. unimaginable pain to then sort of fix. you know hundreds of thousands of. people's other lives and help them get. closer towards their own potential yeah. I and I I never want to like project my. values onto other folks. but but I think that's always been like. a the core of like why I do what I I do. is and the reason why I coached for so.

long is I just love seeing people like. realize their potential or understand. their potential knowing that we're. always of course a work in progress but. I just like I want like everyone to be. able to wake up and. feel you know be energetic and and be. able to like really really live the. things that you you care about you know. and and just and understanding I think. the path to that you know requires some.

work you know in terms of making sure. that you're attending to some of these. non-negotiables that we're talking about. and I think sometimes it takes folks. time to connect those dots and there's a. lot of wonderful learning that comes. with that but I think if I can kind of. help accelerate some of that wisdom and. keep people from experiencing I think. some of the pain that I felt you know. it's worth it to me it's the most incred. incredible incredible thing that you've. committed your life to because me and.

you are both aware that there's going to. be a ton of people who are either on a. path towards such an addiction or are. currently enthralled by such an. addiction and the work that you're doing. the message you're spreading is going to. prevent and lift some of those people. out of that situation which has has a. wonderful karmic effect on the world and. I think if there's anything that we can. convert our pain into it is it is. exactly that I want to talk about. alcohol I've recently quit drinking. alcohol I think it was about 3 to four.

months ago now um it was so interesting. I had a conversation with some of my. best friends I said this on a podcast a. couple of couple of months ago and one. of my friends was an alcoholic so he. managed to um quit alcohol and he's. writing a book about it and then as I. look across the group of my other. friends none of them are alcoholics but. they're all sort of casual Drinkers and. we were sat there together around this. table having dinner and he was telling. us about this he's writing about. quitting alcohol and I was at there. thinking that book that he's writing.

doesn't necessarily resonate with me. because I've never had I've never felt. like I've had an addiction or really to. be honest any problem with it yeah I am. such I was such a casual drinker I would. have maybe one glass of wine a week if. that there's probably months I've gone. without any alcohol at all so I couldn't. think of a reason to quit so really I. was saying to him is there another book. that someone else could write for me. that just takes those people that are. those casual drinkers that are right on. the fence and just gives us a reason to.

nudge over the other side and because I. have this podcast I thought you know. I'll just try and quit and see if see. what the implications are for my. life alcohol Health circadian. rhythms what are you what's your. perspective on all of this well I I like. to think about it I love this the the. principle of non-neutrality. right and and this is. is how I like to think about behaviors. and and how I've kind of always thought.

about it is if you've got a series of. behaviors we talked a lot about about. sleep um and and you know physiological. things and you've got the psychological. things and they're either going to. support your your values kind of who you. want to be in this world or they're not. and and I think that's the lens with. which I look at alcohol you know in what. way is this supporting my values of. growth and impact and and presence and. compassion and um tolerance you know the.

the things that are like core to who I. want to be in this world and and I think. when you look at it through that lens. the choices become really clear to me um. if you're honest with yourself and you. have some degree of. self-awareness understand what you care. about I think choices become a lot. clearer like there's way way more. clarity about how to live your life um. in in the micro which is really what. we're talking about these just many. choices throughout the day does it does.

it does it support who you want to be in. the world or does it not and and there's. very little gray actually and the gray. are excuses in in my view and and we can. rationalize and make stuff all you know. all day long right to to to make. ourselves feel better but when you can. step back from all of that and look at. it really you know taking yourself kind. of out of the equation and look at it. from a a very objective standpoint um.

you know I think a choice like alcohol. becomes very. clear but it helps me to socialize. Kristen yeah if if you need alcohol to. bond or. to you know form a. connection there's probably something. else going on that is unaddressed in. from my perspective is that such a thing. as such a small dose of alcohol that it.

doesn't. matter in your opinion yeah I mean I. think it depends on who you are um and I. I think there's a lot of individual. variability there as as well I know R. Resveratrol is is something that's. talked about a lot and there's. uh you know suppose there's in wine and. grapes there's ratol and that's been. linked to um enhanced uh health and. well-being but I think you'd have to. drink like 10 b or something to get the.

amount of resp respirol to actually make. a um uh to to make a dent I don't think. that's the argument um so yeah I don't. know that really any amount of alcohol. is is going to be is going to be helpful. and we know from the literature that. just one to two drinks per week uh will. can have you know negative implications. um on on health so um it's actually I. don't know that any like even in a. moderate amount of alcohol is good for. you what's the implications for our.

Cadian rhythms that we've been talking. about yeah it's mainly because it. impacts sleep it's going to impact when. you go to bed and when you wake up um so. I think that's the biggest the biggest. impact and I think again when we go back. to. melatonin um you know it's when you're. disrupting that that sleep onet offset. um that's going to uh obviously have all. the downstream negative effects that we. we've already spoken about so I suppose. if we're drinking we're staying out. later so we're exposing ourselves to to.

light um so yeah there's lots of uh. we're going to be eating later uh. there's other um behaviors that. accompany drinking that kind of you know. pile on the the negative effects I was. reading some research from the Sleep. foundation and it says that a 2007 study. with 29 young adults found that moderate. doses of alcohol up to 1 hour before. bedtime reduced Mel Onin production by. nearly. 20% that's the study on alcohol and. melatonin in young adults a 2018 study.

of. 4,908 Finnish participants found that. Sleep Quality was was reduced by. 99.3% after one glass of wine and by 24%. after two glasses of wine and by almost. 40% 39.2% after three or more glasses of. wine or an equivalent amount of alcohol. yeah which is is really really. staggering that your Sleep Quality will. could di 40% after three glasses of wine.

oh yeah it's I mean we see it is we just. finished this analysis actually looking. at alcohol and markers of recovery so. heart rate variability and heart rate. and literally with every drink it is. just there's a linear relationship in. the decline like and it is significant. um so I mean yeah it's we're talking. even one drink um will produce. clinically significant reduction in. heart rate and heart R variability this. was maybe the most. compelling motivator for me to quit.

alcohol was when I got my whoop the. first time and then I think it was. someone's birthday or something so we. went out and I had a glass of wine or. something I woke I woke up the next day. looked at my heart rate variability. which is the a measure of how well I'm. going to be able to deal with stress and. load and all those things the next day. how well my body's going to be able to. deal with life and it was flashing red. which is like a warning and and it says. on there when I clicked on the flashing. red thing it was like like did you have. a really stressful day are you sick or.

did you drink alcohol last night and I. felt so targeted I was like how does. this thing know that I had one glass of. wine last night with my friends why is. something flashing red with inside of me. people keep Diaries on whoop don't they. they keep like the whoop Journal I it's. called yeah so it's a go mine of. information actually really yeah what. have you learned from that in terms of. alcohol I imagine that's where a lot of. the conclusions yeah mean we see a six. per reduction in next day recovery after. alcohol on average so this is you know.

one drink to 10 drink you know it's just. basically looking at the the average is. 6% okay so theage of okay recovery so if. someone's having if someone was B Bing. drinking it they could have a 30 or 40%. reduction yeah but it kind of and we we. might and and that specific data point. might we might have controlled for you. know the the 30 drinks or you know it's. it's probably somewhere in the range of. five drinks you know per night and and. the average recovery reduction is six 6%.

and that's relying on self-reporting. right so I wonder if there's biases in. what there might there might be yeah. people that had 10 drinks think they had. four but I think yeah exactly I don't. really remember how many drinks I had so. yeah any drinks I had interesting super. interesting the other thing we obviously. drink is coffee yes caffeine surely. there's a correlation between circadian. disruption and CA that's definitely one. of the Circadian kind it definitely can. disrupt circadian rhythms if we're. having caffeine you know.

within eight to 12 hours I would say of. when we intend to sleep um it's going to. impact our sleep onset of course um and. even if we're you know tired enough. where we have you know we're sleep. deprived um we might might fall asleep. but it will invariably end up disrupting. or fragmenting our sleep so we're not. kind of getting into that deeper stages. of sleep we're not achieving the sleep. quality that um that is going to Le you. know allow us to wake up feeling. restored and refreshed so timing of.

caffeine is really important what of. this conversation makes me have a huge. amount of empathy for shift workers oh. and when I say shift workers I don't I. don't mean people working you know. warehouses I mean doctors nurses. firefight. firefighters the police um truck. drivers people that are baking yeah. anyone who's up between the hours of you. know for more than two hours between the. hours of 10 P p.m. and 4 a. is. considered a shift worker so it's yes.

there's a lot of a lot of individuals. walking around who are shift workers but. people who are you know literally up. during the biological night um you know. it's it's a huge sacrifice we know those. folks on average are going to die 15. years sooner it is you know shift work. is considered a carcinogen by the World. Health Organization it's you know shift. work is um those folks make an enormous. sacrifice they're going to die 15 years. sooner on. average I mean that's terrifying I.

know is anybody is anybody trying to Sol. for that yeah I mean that's a lot of the. work that I do is is looking at shift. work you know and trying to understand. you know what other levers you know can. we deploy to offset some of the the the. impact of of being awake during the the. biological night and you know time. eating as a lever you know really. thinking about when we're eating protein. um you know when we're viewing light.

um you know what what do the what's the. Cadence of of of you know on off um so. we minimize the disruption dadian. rhythms I mean the fact is like the. roster size at these hospitals are just. simply not big enough to be able to uh I. think deploy schedules that mitigate. some of the the risk associated with. this disrupted circadian rhythm but it.

is frightening and um you know there is. a lot of work to try to understand how. we can mitigate some of the the negative. effects but it's it's it's it's a tough. problem to solve it's not just I guess. it's not just that those individuals. will die you know on average 15 years. earlier but their quality of life I. imagine won't be as good because if. they're not sleeping yeah consistently. it'ser.

fol these profs you know who are having. to operate counter to the Natural Light. Dark cycle so let's talk about that then. mental health depression. suicidality what's the correlation there. between yeah so there's a lot of. interesting research I mean you know one. is just you know we talk about just the. lay person so getting outside of shift. work we come back to shift work you know. if you look at um this most folks. experience social jet lag right which is. basically characterized as um you know a.

a big a difference between our weekday. sleep schedule and our weekend sleep. schedule right so pretty much anyone you. know between 20 20 to 30 probably is you. know kind of falls into this bucket of. of having social jet lag but one of the. things that we one a research study we. saw looking at specifically a social jet. lag in and college students they saw. that for every hour of variability.

between week day and weekend schedules. they saw a 177% increase in non-suicidal. ideation so these folks aren't. committing suicide but they're. fantasizing about committing suicide and. that increases 17% and this was more. pronounced than individuals who were. already. vulnerable so kind of coming back to. circadian disrup ion being present in. 100% of mental health issues we can see. where shift workers would be extremely.

vulnerable right to mental health issues. given that their variability and we look. at the whoop data it's basically random. in terms of looking at their sleep wake. time it's so variable that it it's like. we can't even see a patter it's. random which is frightening why is that. frightening because you know the more. variability you have like the more. psychological and. physiological uh you know negative. consequences there'll be is there a.

correlation here between how we deal. with stressful events in our lives as. well because I'm assuming there must be. absolutely managing stress throughout. the the day uh and and the degree or. even during the night um can uh. definitely increase your tolerance for. stress so you know deploying breath work. for example um as you know on demand. self-regulation tool to pay down in the-.

moment stress can be and to activate the. parastic branch of the nervous system. can be really powerful so you know I. kind of call these mini moments of. deactivation so doing that proactively. for folks who are in these high St. Stakes high stress environments is an. amazing strategy um because lots of. those folks again if you think about. just Baseline when you are engaging in. shift work and you're awake during the. night your system is humming at a uh a a. kind of a stress level that is above.

what would be normal right like your. your system is having to work so much. harder to maintain homeostasis because. you're doing exactly the opposite of. what your body wants to do so all the. kind of biological preferences are being. um bypassed right when you're up during. the the biological night so to pay down. some of that stress you know these many. moments of deactivation are absolutely. critical for that. population so that means uh just. literally taking 30 seconds where you're.

doing the physiological sigh for example. which we know has emerged as being the. most efficacious breath work technique. in the moment to reduce not only in the. moment anxiety and stress but actually. you know your perception of anxiety and. stress like in the future what is that. sign the physiological sigh it's. basically a double inhale followed by an. extended. exhale perfect it's exactly. right so basically like when you're. crying um it it you know you kind of do.

that double double inhale all B extended. exhale but that like reduces stress in. the moment in a really powerful way and. if you do that you know five 10 times um. you're end up activating the parastic. branch so you're reducing your heart. rate um and uh and and you know kind of. doing that throughout the day is is a. great way to um mitigate Nega negative. stress accumulation there's a pretty. unfortunate Paradox a pretty tragic. Paradox in the fact that our shift.

workers some of them like doctors. especially are the people that we need. to be most focused firing on our. cylinders exactly yeah but those are the. people that are from what I've learned. today about the Circadian rhythm most. likely to suffer with things like focus. and sleep and all of those things that. are imperative to showing up well yeah I. mean there's a relationship you know we. know that with every 45 minutes of sleep. deprivation acur on the W platform we. see a 5 to 10% next day decrease in. mental control mental control executive.

function so we we measure this um with. an MC and a Stroop so these kind of uh. performance tests to measure executive. function and we see for every 45 minutes. of sleep dat AC crude we see up to 10%. decrease or decline in next day. executive function and what does. executive function mean for people that. are our ability to make. decisions okay use the word there sleep. debt what is sleep debt so that's.

basically what you need versus what you. actually got and that's highly. individual right and and that's one of. the kind of beautiful things on the wo. platform is that we learn your your body. we learn how efficient sleeper you are. we learn what your optimal sleep wake. time should be and we basically tell you. how much time you need to spend in bed. so a lot of the work that my my team has. done specifically at whoop is to try to. understand you know what is this. relationship to of sleep debt to other.

performance metrics that we care about. right that tell us a story about. someone's ability to kind of function in. their environment and one of the studies. that we did um was looking specifically. at business Executives so CEO types um. and we we basically looked at um it was. this this one was a six-month study um. looking at two different cohorts uh. both you know I think equal distribution. between men and men and women and and. what we saw was for every 45 minutes of.

sleep debt acred in these Business. Leaders we saw a 5 to 10% decrease in. next day executive function so the. leader's ability to make decisions in. the presence of sleep debt um you know. gets gets worse the more sleep debt you. acrew we did a follow-up study and this. one was wild so we basically looked at. um it was roughly it was about 70 uh. business executive CEO types and we. looked at um all of their objective.

markers sleep at being one of them and. we look at the psychological safety of. their direct reports during team. meetings and Define psychological safety. you're how um how safe you feel to show. up in your environment as your true most. authentic. self and what we saw is again for every. 45 minutes of sleep that the leader had. there was a significant decrease in.

psychological safety of the direct. reports so they felt less safe in their. environment to show up as their true. self when their leader had 45 minutes of. sleep debt acred and and some of these. folks were carrying a couple hours of. sleep debt so and there was a linear. relationship between the amount of. psychological safety and the amount of. of sleep that the leader had so and what. was so interesting and compelling about. this research is that the leader had no. idea they couldn't perceive their own. cognitive physical and emotional.

declines right but that's what's so. Insidious about sleep deprivation is. that you can't really tell when you're. operating at a lower. level you just adapt to that lower level. of. functioning but everyone around you can. feel it right just with how you hold. hold your face how you emote um the kind. of eye contact you make how tolerant you. are um and you you think about how sleep. deprivation you know it and I think this.

is really what this research surfaces. it's just it's not just sleep. deprivation just doesn't impact me right. it's going to impact every single person. I come in contact with and from a. business perspective just from a sheer. like numbers perspective Google um did a. study called Aristotle and they looked. at psych they looked at a bunch of. different metrics related to team. performance and what emerged in that. study is being most predictive of team.

performance was the degree to which the. team had psychological safety felt safe. in their environment to kind of show up. as their as their true self and they. brought in to the tune of $4.5 million. more than teams who are lacking. psychological. safety so this is like a really. important concept that I don't think a. lot of people talk about but when we go. back to this concept of the principle of. non-neutrality right and what are. behaviors that promote enable you to. live your values and and kind of show up.

as as your your best self as. consistently as possible minimizing. sleep debt is right there at the top of. the list it's fascinating and as it. relates to sort of accident and injury. is there a correlation between sort of. injury of oneself and accidents you. commit on others correlation between. that and sleep debt it's very well. established that um the more sleep that. you're you're carrying you know the more. accident prone you are um you know the. the the the more risk you're going to.

take um and uh yeah we see this in in. the medical field we see this um you. know in in you know just car accidents. and yeah it the list goes on and on car. accidents a 2016 study by the foundation. for Traffic Safety found that drivers. who reported that they usually sleep. four to 5 hours per day had. 5.4 times the crash rate of drivers who. usually sleep for seven hours or more a. day which is horrifying yeah I know it's.

it's uh yeah I mean we look when we. think. about you know sleep it's it's we're not. getting better at it as a society and I. and I think we're we're kind of coming. at this conversation from the long the. wrong lens you know we're telling folks. just to spend more time in bed without. addressing the behaviors that are. actually enabling us to fall asleep and. stay asleep you know that's to me that's. that's the conversation and and it's not. about spending more time in bed and yeah.

that might be what needs to happen but. it's it's about you're not going to get. there for folks who who are not thinking. about all the Circadian things that. we're talking about and um you know some. of the environmental stuff the cold dark. the quiet yes that matters but um but at. a foundational level I think folks are. not engaging in the behaviors that are. going to enable us to pay down the sleep. deprivation the other study that I found. that was super interesting um was that a. 2021 study found that less than seven.

hours of. sleep is associated with increased risk. of injury and if this is sustained for. at least 14 days the risk of muscle and. bone injury is 1.7 times almost two. times higher yeah so as someone that. goes to the gym a lot and likes to work. out if I have a high sleep debt then I'm. much more likely to get an injury almost. two times more likely get injury if. that's sustained that's right which is. crazy yeah it is yeah and you know I'm. so grateful that I think folks are.

finally realizing that sleep is the. greatest natural performance enhancer. that we have on this planet um yeah it's. and that is certainly super evident in. all the research that we're doing what. about sleep and. sex sex with a partner is a health. promoting behavior and we have found. that in our in our. research when what research have you. done yeah I we just we actually haven't. published it yet so this is preliminary.

preliminary data but um but we people. who um are reporting that they're having. sex uh before bed so within a few hours. of of when they intend to sleep with a. partner have um better markers of sleep. and Recovery you said with a partner. very intentionally there I did yeah we. don't we don't see the same effect um. when folks are are having sex with. without a partner in reporting it how do. you have sex without a partner I mean. that all right I should say a partner. like a spouse or a boyfriend or you know.

someone who you're consistently with so. we're not we're talking about I guess. not one night stance sorry I should have. clarified it I thought you meant with. without a human at tool oh God yeah. we're I'm talking about human sex here. yeah does masturbation have the same. implications do I um we didn't we didn't. see big effects with masturbation are. people reporting that they're onop they. sure are they are I should say that it. is complet completely optional to track. so people can opt into tracking these. things again it is completely. deidentified we have no ability to to.

know who's doing what in terms of. Journal tracking and behaviors um but uh. yeah so we don't actually see uh any big. effects with with masturbation and any. markers of sleep and recovery so no no. strong no strong effects there we said. something earlier about exercising. before bed now if I have sex before bed. and you. know it lasts a long time time. yeah is that not then going to produce a. ton of adrenaline and wake me up again.

so after so it depends if you. ejaculate then um you will then release. oxytocin which is kind of a. calming chemical so guys typically after. they ejaculate feel sleepy because of. the release of of oxytocin but then that. goes back to my point about masturbation. don't you really oxytocin when you. masturbate yeah I think I think the. oxytocin is about connection okay right. so it's it's that's I think that's and.

that might be why we see these strong. effects when you're having sex with a. partner or a spouse. um is is that you're you're getting this. benefit of this this beautiful. connection with your partner and and. spouse provided it goes well um and then. you release this oxytocin which is you. know kind of makes you feel uh connected. and safe and um so all of those I think. those that kind of condition uh helps I.

think you fall asleep and and. potentially stay asleep it does make. sense because I do get very very tired. after I've had sex with my partner and. I've always wondered why that is I don't. know that women uh it seems to have. women want to maybe stay up and snuggle. and talk a little bit more after sex. so but but guys it seems get sleepy and. want to fall asleep. and all want to run off a bit of a. stereotype that goes back quite far. prehistorically as you know this podcast.

is sponsored by whoop and people often. ask me why I chose whoop over all of the. possible wearable options and I've tried. many of them but whoop for me stands out. for several reasons a because of its. noninvasive design B Because of its. unique analytics and C a membership. model that continually evolves with the. product but the biggest GameChanger for. me which is reason d is wop's ability to. Foster meaningful Behavior change for me. with whoop I've been more attuned than. ever before on how my daily activities.

can impact my sleep and stress levels. and their features like the whoop coach. feature which they recently announced. and the journal and the weekly planner. Have Been instrumental in helping me to. maintain health and fitness habits that. I previously struggled to achieve. consistency with if you're looking to. improve your health and fitness this. year Beyond January then you've got to. give whoop a try go to join. whoop.com /. CEO and you'll be able to get whooped. for 30 days risk-free with zero. commitment and let me know how you get. on quick one we are working with an.

exciting new sponsor on this podcast. Shopify I'm sure you guys have heard of. Shopify if you haven't been living under. a rock but for those that don't know. Shopify is a Commerce platform. revolutionizing millions of businesses. worldwide it is pretty incredible they. provide everything you need to start. your business and it's super simple to. get started and to get your business out. there here at the D SEO we've used. Shopify for a variety of our different. product drops the latest being the. conversation cards and without the help. of Shopify that wouldn't have been. possible it's mine and my team's goto.

website for all things Commerce related. so I'm giving you guys the chance to. trial Shopify for $1 that's right $1. sign up for a $1 trial for a month by. searching shopify.com. Bartlet all lowercase keep it to. yourself and let me know how you get on. the other thing I I would love to talk. to you about because it's become a huge. Obsession in my life is this word guess. it's not a word it's an acronym HRV.

heart rate variability been become. absolutely obsessed with it maybe a. little bit too obsessed with it one. might argue I just check it every day so. the first thing I do when I wake up in. the morning is I look at it yeah um just. to understand how my body has recovered. from the night before right um what is. HRV it's most simply the time interval. between Heartbeats. and um it's a function of the heart but. it uh originates in the autonomic. nervous system and as we talked about.

the autonomic nervous system has two. branches the parasympathetic and the. sympathetic Paras sympatic thr and. digest sympathetic is you know fight or. flight and they're both competing to. send signals to the heart when you are. super recovered your your heart is going. to be responsive to both branches of. that autonomic nervous system in a very. kind of um Dynamic way so so whatever. you want to do and what's happening in. your environment you're able to. basically make a match the more.

recovered you are that makes sense so um. you're be able to respond and react to. environmental stress and in kind of a a. more High performing way I suppose is. the best way to say it so um heart. variability is is kind of a measure of. that ability to adapt to your. environment in a functional way and a. high har variability which is more. varying beats. heartbeats is is better yeah more.

variability the better so higher hearty. variability should be correlated with uh. a better adaptation to environmental. stress so a low heart rate variability. would sound something like this boom. boom boom that's exactly right very very. consistent not good right a high heart. rate variability will sound like bum bum. bum bum boom so really varied perfect. beautiful paral that variation is is. better yeah You' think that if something.

was consistent yeah it would be better I. know in all other cases it is but in the. case of heart R variability it's very. counterintuitive and what's great is. hearty variability is is modifiable to a. degree um you know what's what's a good. what's an average heart rate variability. so it's all based on genetics it's. really tough right cuz I don't know what. your heart rate ability was when you. were born right so I don't I don't know. like what your. potential for heart R variability is and.

and I think. that's the only thing that I think we. can say and I think how people need to. think about it is when you come on to a. you know the woot platform for example. you're going to get your your hearty. variability you're going to develop a. baseline And I think what people need to. understand is that every Behavior you've. every choice you've kind of made leading. up to that moment is going to determine. like your Baseline hearty variability so. if you you know drink and take drugs and.

have a lot of childhood trauma um that. might actually yield a lower Baseline. heart variability relative to your own. potential right um so it's it's it's. very hard to compare because of all of. that um but then just genetics heart. size um gender like all those things a. biological sex all those things have an. impact on. um on your heart variability on your. Baseline so you don't want to compare. there's no good um that said I think the. higher the better generally what what's.

the average well it depends on age so it. decreases you know every year your heart. variability is going to decrease um much. a bit I think it's like 3 to four% or. something that's terrifying I really. which is kind of a lotas the average on. Theo platform you know from the 20 to 30. year olds is somewhere in the tune of of. kind of 65 70. 30 to 40 year olds a little bit lower 40. to 50s you it's kind of in the 50s range. I think so definitely gets worse as you.

age but I think why people are obsessed. about it is it's just it is a really. good marker of just the overall state of. your mental physical and emotional. health do women and men have variance in. their heart they do yeah so generally. men would have um uh higher heart R. variability than women I think at. Baseline your heart size I'm trying to. get my heart rate variability. up what what are the most important. things for me to be thinking about CU.

I've it seems to be a bit of a mystery. this heart rate variability thing so. there's definitely some things that will. directly impact your heart rate. variability sleep wake time so. stabilizing when you go a to wake up. yeah um wake wake onset being kind of. the number one priority you want to wake. up at a regular time every single day. you want to get a huge ballus of light. as soon as you wake up you want to get a. lot of natural light during the day okay. all these things are going to impact. inflammation and cortisol like all the. the things that are kind of circulating. in our body that um we need to be.

circulating and we're not doing some of. these behaviors they're not circulating. in our body which have negative. Downstream effects um you want to. mitigate stress throughout the day so um. you know stress is not bad um but we. need to proactively uh manage bouts of. stress with appropriate levels of rest. right when we are. going going going and um we can only. sustain that for so long so just being. proactive with stress rest Cycles.

throughout the day really important as. we go we want to eat a bulk of our. calories in the morning you know lots. and lots of protein um we want to make. sure that we get lots of protein I think. folks don't probably get enough protein. um want to get lots of protein um bias. early in the day um stop eating a few. hours before bedtime make sure you're. hydrated throughout the day um yes. absolutely so I can go down a very deep. Rabbit Hole in terms of optimal training.

protocols but but in some um we want to. make sure that we're uh polarizing our. training in that we're doing you know. zone five which is you know kind of Max. effort where we're out of breath a. couple times a week okay two to three. times a week and then we want to do zone. two which is kind of um um you know just. a a lowlevel you know 60% of our max. heart rate we want to do that for you. know 200 to 300 minutes per week which I.

know sounds like a lot the the. recommendations 150 minutes I think it's. a little I don't think that's enough. frankly but um if we're talking about. optimizing heart variability that would. be the protocol we want to strength. train a few times a week that would be a. way to maximize interplay between the. cardiovascular and the nervous system. right there is definitely way to train. to do that and what I just described. will kind of get you there roughly so we. talked about time restricted eating or. stopping our feeding with know three.

times before uh three hours before we. intend to sleep huge um no alcohol. obviously again if we're interested in. optimizing our ability to adapt to. environmental stress that is and improve. our Harry variability um really. important we we we obstain um for. alcohol and then I would say you know. spending sufficient time in bed is be. really important that is not. accumulating uh sleep. debt what about having friends yes. connection you know folks being around.

individuals who support your values um. is absolutely essential we talked a. little about exercise there but there's. also just like the general sedentary of. Our Lives I I I was looking at some. research a couple of years ago which I. included in my first book which shows. that we're get in the Western World. we're getting increasingly more sedent. it's kind of like this downward graph. that just shows every year people move. less because we've got Ubers now and we. have we're working more in offices and.

we're working even more from home now. and we're optimizing activity out of our. lives and surely that has an implication. for heart variability as well there's no. question that sedentary Behavior you. know I think where we go wrong is we. think I can wake up and work out for an. hour and then that gives me license to. sit for the rest of the day but but we. know that for individuals who are. sitting for more than 4 hours in a row. so Consolidated sitting for 4our.

blocks um is associated with increased. mortality rates so four hours of. sedentary Behavior which you know. Consolidated right so the ideal protocol. if we want to um you know basically uh. improve all these parameters of Health. that we're talking about specifically. card variability you want to break up. your sedentary time so every you know. half an hour to an hour you'd want to. get up move around for 5 minutes or so. and then get back to your.

work in 2020 you wrote an article where. you offered five ways to improve our HRV. and HRV as I say is super important. because it's linked to all of these. Health markers it's linked to immunity. it's linked to all of these things that. really really matter um and one of the. there was a couple of sort of surprising. suggestions you made in that article one. of them was about practicing. gratitude yeah I mean I think I think. what the research says is that. actually receiving gratitude um has the.

most uh powerful effect on our on our. mood and our feelings of well-being so. if I were to receive a thank you letter. for example and really internalize that. like that's going to have the biggest. long-term effect on my feelings of of of. well-being um but there's also great. resarch that shows giving um thanks as. well and expressing gratitude um also. has you know lots of positive. implications for our psychological.

functioning and I guess this brings into. Focus the psychological element of. health and HRV and all and sleep and all. these things that we've talked about. like Stress and Anxiety you're currently. finishing a PhD in Psychology right. that's right. yes and again it links to something that. was written in that article as well. where you talk about a growth mindset. again that's psychology yes why does. this matter this growth mindset thing. this you know gratitude psychology why. does that matter yeah I mean it I think.

it relates to just our you know whether. or not we feel that growth in the future. is. possible you know do we do we feel like. we have the potential to grow and to. learn and do we feel optimistic about. the future I mean that's really what. growth mindset is right right and and. you can imagine if you don't feel. optimistic about the future you don't. feel like growth is possible you feel. really Limited in your capabilities.

right and you feel Limited in your your. happiness so I think that yeah there's I. think a really strong connection between. you know believing that the the future. is is positive and and that is going to. manifest in in in a measure like heart. variability you know it's going to it's. going to manifest. physiologically I there's this um author. called sha Anker oh Shan Aker yeah from. Harvard his name yeah AER he does a lot. of work on this idea of growth mindset.

as a way to sort of counteract stress. which I find fascinating he does yeah he. found that doctors in a positive State. of Mind perform diagnoses 19% faster and. more accurately than doctors that are. neutral and he also found that positive. employees are 31% more. productive than negative. employees. yeah and I and I and I think our life. circumstance you know kind of certainly. can tilt us in one direction or another.

but I I do think that we have a a. genetic predisposition to you know the. cup is uh half empty versus half full. you know I think there's something to to. that to that research and that. literature but all the things that we're. talking. about I think provide a foundation right. so a lot of the physiological stuff that. we're talking about this Cadian stuff. the sleep stuff the recovery stuff right. the Stress Management you know when. we're eating our food the how we're. training right all of these things kind. of position us to I think.

leverage our our mindset um in in a way. that is the most productive right when. we're not kind of taking care of these. physiological things you know we don't. feel like we have purpose talked about. this we don't feel the skills and. resources to do the things that we want. to do in our life um it's really hard to. talk ourselves into a better future. right um and and and it's it's hard to. kind of move around our our mindset but. if we can just kind of attend to some of. these physiological and psychological.

things we can actually start to take. more control of our mindset so I think a. lot of times this is I think frustrating. in the field of psychology we we talk. about how we talk about grow mindset. without actually talking about the. behaviors that actually underpin that. you know and and and that's I think a. lot of the work that I'm trying to do is. is that you know there's there's these. core influences physiological and. psychological that if we can understand. and build an infrastructure to allow.

those those kind of behaviors to come to. life in our every day we're in a. position then to have like a growth. mindset right but without that that that. Foundation of good habits and good. behaviors good habits and behaviors it's. hard to believe that the the future is. is bright brings into question something. that I know a lot of people think when. they hear conversations like this they. think oh but I just don't have the. motivation Christen you know and there's. this ongoing conversation about which.

comes first is it the action or is it. the motivation there's clearly in my. life I've seen this clear two-way link. by through what I do and how I feel and. how I feel and what I do yeah so if I. want to influence the other I do the. other I if I want to feel great I have. to focus on my actions and if I want to. act great I have I focus on how I feel. for example you know what I mean. um cuz people hear you know the. discipline that you practice in your. life and they go God you must have so. much motivation you know the people that.

are watching junk TV at 3:00 a.m. in the. morning and eating junk food at 3: a. in. the morning they look at you and go just. got just she just got something I just. haven't got so I can't relate you know I. can't become a. Christian what is the message those. people need to hear the ones that feel. like motivation is their problem m. I mean I think it's. understanding how do we actually produce. energy right because that's.

really at the core of what motivation is. right it's it's it's it's the energy. right and and a couple things influence. our energy production or put a ceiling. on. motivation it's called um well it's. appraisal so how we um how relevant we. think a task. is. and and then how we are perceiving the. task is it hard is it easy is it.

challenging right so appraisal and. perception are going to work together to. put a ceiling on your potential for. motivation okay so appraisal I hear is. being like the why like why this matters. totally that's how relevant is it to me. so interesting because in my book I. wrote this thing called the discipline. equation and I think. you know I think you've kind of. summarized it a little bit there yeah. yeah yeah definitely I mean this is well. understood right in the field of of. psychology and and Physiology that yeah.

you you we all have potential motivation. and the and the two things that move. around is how we appraise a situation. and how we perceive it so in my. discipline equation this is the equation. discipline equals the strength of one's. y plus the reward of the pursuit minus. the cost of the pursuit perfect I love. that yeah that's beautiful um and and I. think that would hold that holds up. clearly um book yeah than glad. you said that yeah no it for sure but I.

I think and I I I would I say you know. one of the reasons why I think my teams. were always so successful is I just. deployed that principle over and over. again in my environment how I helped my. my athletes understand the why their. personal why like why were they showing. up every single day to the field how is. that attached to their individual values. not my team values to their personal. values right and then I made the. environment challenging right so they. get get excited about the work that.

they're doing every day right and I try. to do that on an individual level and. that's why a lot of teams underperform. frankly is that they don't leaders don't. understand the relationship between um. appraisal and perception like I. literally think if you can understand. that and you've written a book about it. right so people can read this book and. if leaders can adopt that and understand. the importance of setting of creating an. infrastructure where you tap into the. person's individual values and how that.

relates to the task you have motivation. like you will you will increase the. ceiling for potential motivation it. makes me think in some ways that people. listening to this right now are without. knowing it in a upward. reinforcing spiral towards the person. they want to be or in a downward. reinforcing spiral away from the person. they want to be because if if you're. showing up and acting in the right way. then you're going to release energy. you're going to feel good which means.

you have a better chance of showing up. and acting in the right way and that. Spiral goes upwards but if you're. showing up in the wrong way it means. you're probably going to be a little bit. depressed you're you're going to be have. a lot of circadian disruption you're not. going to feel great which means you have. less chance of showing up in the right. way the energy low energy all of those. things it's a downward spiral so if. you're in that downward spiral I would I. would guess the way the only way to. break out of it I mean is you listen to. a podcast but that's not going to help. you break out of it alone it's gonna. start with you T making one different.

decision yeah at one point and that can. be a tiny tiny tiny decision yeah and. and I think that's like a lot of the. work I I'm doing right now is trying to. figure out what is that actual taxonomy. though if someone really wants to make. change where do they start where did. they start you know I'm going to say it. sleep wake time like wake up at the same. time every day and get as much as light. as humanly possible within that will set. the tone for the rest of the day and put.

you in a position where you can fall. asleep at a regular time night after. night like you have to address that the. second thing is I would consolidate your. eating window you know keep it within a. 10-hour time frame eat all of your. calories within a 10-hour time frame and. try to leave a couple hour buffer. between when you attend to sleep and. your last calorie like just those two. things things are pretty low barrier to. entry right and that will increase mood. you'll improve your body composition. right just by naring that window you.

will you know all the effects that we. talked about in terms of the cardio. metabolic effects from just stabilizing. sleep wake time the mood effects from. stabilizing sleep awake time that will. back you into having a better. relationship with light right which we. know light is at the core of human. health and. functioning so those two things I would. I would say is the place to start um and. there and I think the downstream effect. of just those two things is is is pretty. profound and then I you know I think in.

in parallel just figuring out who who do. you actually want to be in the. world like what is your what do you want. your identity to be you know and I and I. don't know that. people actually think enough about that. you there's so many distractions in this. world I mean we can just drown ourselves. with just stuff that's is just coming at. us content all the time and we we can't. discern we haven't done the work to be. able to discern what what is what is.

actually important to us like we don't. have the capacity to direct our thoughts. and our attention in a way that's. rewarding right because we we haven't. built that skill or that muscle so I. think like getting that under control is. another way is is like really figuring. out what is my relationship with. technology like what do I want that to. be you know how do I actually want to. spend. my my my. time have you written that down for sure.

absolutely and what format does that. take or what medium did you use is that. a vision board or something oh just like. yeah pen and paper I mean I have yeah I. mean I Evernote you know I I I revisit. this quarterly um you know what do I. value what do I care about how do I want. to spend my time and that has been the. basis for which I make all my decisions. what does your Evan note say oh I mean. in terms of like my how I think well I. have my list of of values right that it. always starts there right is what are.

your values so growth impact tolerance. compassion and presence um those are my. top five values and I and I I meditate. on those I whenever I you know I'll look. for I have some of my favorite authors. that have written extensively about all. those different things like you know. James Baldwin on compassion and. tolerance and um um Ein ran on on impact. and and growth I I love her work but. yeah I mean I think really connecting to.

what do those beliefs and values. actually look like in action right if I. don't know what what what growth looks. like if I don't know what tolerance. looks like in action how do I actually. play that out in my in in my in my. day-to-day right so you have to you have. to write about it you have to. internalize it and then have to practice. that behavior right so in in my Evernote. is it's I have a kind of like what does. this look like in action like what are. the things that I can do that I can.

practice to live these values and then. it's having an outlet for those things. what what kind of things do I need to do. you know like my PhD that's not a goal I. don't have any goals like goals are. total BS in my view it's it's like. living your values like the P my PhD. allows me to live my values of of growth. and impact right if if I want to be if I. want to impact Health at scale I need to. have the credibility I need to know how. to run experiments I need to be a. scientist right and and so it's not yeah.

the I'm reaching this goal of getting a. PhD but it's allowing me to live my. values of growth and. impact and and I think that's where. folks kind of get it wrong is they're. like I want to run a 10K and then what. happens after you run the 10K and and I. use that principle in in my life like. I'm not it's it's like I'm always just. trying to live my values and I and I and. I don't evaluate success on like. achieving something it it's all about my.

scorecard is am I living my values to my. fullest like that to me is a win and. that's how I evaluated my environment. when I was coaching collegiately it was. like are we living our. values and when you do that you you kind. of always you always win you. know and I it has a you know kind of. second order effect in terms of how you. think about competition right like. that's another area where like I don't.

compete I stopped competing a decade and. a half ago like we wouldn't even like. our when you know my team at Princeton. like these are just little things but. when we talk about going back to like in. infrastructure to support your values. like we didn't even list our opponents. like I didn't want want them thinking. about how I don't want them like. changing how they acted throughout the. week how they trained the quality what. they did behaviorally based on our.

opponent that didn't matter right if you. want to perform. consistently you need to you know show. up every single day with quality right. and and being willing to apply yourself. in a way that um is going to you know. create the output um that leads to the. kind of quality that allows you to. replicate you know performance levels. and it's it's about Learning and.

Development and it wasn't about an. opponent right and that's why that's why. teams. underperform right that's why. individuals underperform is they've got. this arbitrary kind of metric that. they're or like team that they want to. beat that they're focused on right or. person that they want to be that they're. focused on instead of looking okay what. is my bar like and and going back to. question am I actually living my. values I think everything kind of works. itself out if you can just do. that Kristen we have a closing tradition.

on this podcast where the last guest. leaves a question for the next guest not. knowing who they're going to be leaving. it for the question that has been left. for. you what is the last thing that you. would say and I imagine the context. there and this is just me taking a guess. is that if there was a last thing that. you had to say what is the last thing. that you would say I think figure out. who you want to be in the. world and. then set up your life so you can be that.

person Kristen thank you so incredibly. inspiring in so many ways I you know I. would I would promote whoop but I feel. like you already have um just by being. so inspiring so smart so wise and that's. I mean everything that whoop is in a. nutshell. um there's so many thank yous that I. want to give you for so many different. reasons but I think the most important. thank you that I'll give you is for both. the hundreds and thousands of lives that.

your work has nudged in a better. Direction and transformed in many cases. but also for the millions and millions. and hundreds of millions of lives that. you're going to nudge in a much better. Direction over the course of the next. decade and decade and decade and decade. um it's a a tremendous service to. humanity having the potential service to. humanity having the skills the. storytelling abilities the wisdom and. that deep innate sense of drive that you.

have and it is a service to humanity. that Humanity increasingly unfortunately. needs um and I'm so excited to to watch. that play out for you I I deeply believe. this is the very start of your journey. in many respects even though you're. several decades into the work that you. do but there something tells me that. this is just the beginning so Kristen. thank you for your generosity thank you. for your wisdom and thank you for your. time appreciate you I appreciate you so. much Stephen thank you for all your good. [Music]. work as you guys know I'm a big fan of.

hu I'm an investor in the company and. they sponsor this podcast and what I've. done for you is I've put together for. those people especially that haven't yet. tried H but for all of those also that. have but haven't tried my favorite. products I put together what I call the. hu Steven bundle which is a selection of. my favorite products from hu including. the Black Edition salted caramel flavor. which is super high in protein and has. 17 servings per container the bundle. also comes with their ready to drink. product which is one of my all-time. favorite products from hu it is.

convenient it is nutritionally complete. and on those days when my life just gets. very very busy it is my go-to product. you've got your hu bars which are. absolutely gorgeous and in there you. also get this incredible t-shirt which. is apparently according to lots of my. friends the best quality t-shirt they've. ever had and I don't really know why but. there's something about this t-shirt. that's incredibly flattering this hule. shaker the link is in the description. below in this podcast episode wherever. you're listening to it there'll be a. Stevens bundle link and check it. out do you need a podcast to listen to.

next we've discovered that people who. liked this episode also tend to. absolutely love another recent episode. we've done so I've linked that episode. in the description below I know you'll. enjoy. [Music]. it m.