Dealing with Insomnia: Sleep Solutions for Crisis Times with Greg Potter

Boomer Anderson: [00:00:00]Welcome to decoding superhuman. This show is a deep dive into obsessions withhealth performance, and how to elevate the human experience. I explore thelatest tools, science and technology with experts in various fields of humanoptimization. This is your host Boomer Anderson.

Enjoy the journey.

Today we are chatting about stress induced, insomnia,behavior change, and resilient nutrition with Greg Potter. Let's go back to2019. Greg Potter, Colonel nutrition, one of my top 10 most downloaded episodesof the year, and actually in the history of the podcast. I guess you guys liketalking about sleep time, restricted feeding, and of course, nutrition.

So I have to double down on my winners and I brought Gregback show today to discuss stressed, induced insomnia, and what to do about it.Hey, intrepreneurs executives out there. I'm looking after you, Greg Potter,PhD, his work at the university of Leeds on sleep diet and metabolic health.Has been featured all around the world by the likes of BBC world service,Washington post and Reuters.

Greg has his bachelor's and master's in exercise physiologyfrom a school that no American can really pronounce called Loftburrowuniversity, where he coached a sprinter to four gold medals at the Europeanchampionships. So he has practical experience as well. Greg has also workedwith groups such as the United States, Naval service, special warfare commandon health and performance optimization.

And he is now the chief scientific officer for resilientnutrition. You can guess. What we get into when I said stress induced insomnia,we talk about how the current COVID crisis is impacting people's sleep, whatyou can do about it. And perhaps a lot of action tips for you guys today. Atthe end, Greg talks about his new startup resilient nutrition and why it isgoing to change the endurance nutrition world.

You can find all the show notes for this one atdecodingsuperhuman.com/greg2, shout out to Lynn Richard for today's five starreview. Listen to learn. Love decoding superhumans. Boomer brings on some ofthe lean experts in human optimization. I've been following the quantified selfmovement for quite a long time now, and boomer provides some of the highestquality content in this space.

Lynn Richard, thank you so much for the review and. Look, ifthe podcast grabs you in a good way, guys, head on over to iTunes or Applepodcasts as it's called now and leave a five star review. It only takes acouple of seconds and it really, it really helps the podcast. It helps me putsa smile on my face and who, who knows.

I'll probably read yours very soon. Greg Potter and AliMacdonald have done a fantastic job of tackling the endurance nutrition space.I remember when I was going back to run the Brussels marathon and I was lookingat the options for fueling during the race. I was surprised by the lack of realfood, but also things that supported me during my run, enter resilientnutrition.

Allie. And Greg have developed a formula which is calledlong range fuel, and there's several choices for you, which now I use foreverything from cognitive endurance to my physical endurance. When I decided togo out for a little bit of a trot around shut down, you can head on over toresilient nutrition.com and get yours today because.

Damn they taste so fricking good. Let's get on with theshow,

Greg. Welcome back.

Greg Potter: [00:04:09]Hey Boomer. Good to be back.

Boomer Anderson: [00:04:11]So before we jump into this, what's your go to beverage first thing in themorning,

Greg Potter: [00:04:19]it depends on whether it is a caffeinated day or not. If it is generallydefault to coffee at the moment. Which is interesting because I was never acoffee drinker until 2019.

And my current girlfriend is apparently a bad influencebecause now I can't help, but find the stuff quite addictive, but my favoritedrink for its effects on how my brain works normally Coco. And I think I'veshared that with you previously. Yeah. And even dabbling with cocoa yourself.

Boomer Anderson: [00:04:54]Yeah. A little too much.

Like that's one of the things that you've introduced me to,that I would classify in the addictions category. So that's, I'm very handybeverage first thing in the morning, actually it's one, sometimes my firstmeal.

Greg Potter: [00:05:08]Yeah. And ironically, a lot of people have historically consumed at late in theevening, but Coco is quite concentrated in many methods and things, includingcaffeine.

So it's probably not the ideal time of day to consume it.

Boomer Anderson: [00:05:23]Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like something I would want to consume afterdinner. It's quite stimulating. All right. So speaking of stimulating, we're inthis period of history now called COVID-19 and. A lot of people, as a result ofthis are struggling with essential oils like sleep.

So I thought it was a good time to have you back on the showto talk about this. And when it comes to COVID-19, what are some of the thingsthat you're hearing that people are getting as it relates to sleep?

Greg Potter: [00:05:56]Well, I think there are really two different categories to consider. One is howsleep itself has changed.

And a lot of people will have experienced so-called COVID-19dreams and basically. People are experiencing very low and vivid and intensedreams. And I think the reasons for that, probably two fold one is just that.Whereas a lot of people previously would have been waking to alarms. Now peoplehave more control over their schedules, so they're more likely to get morecompleted sleep.

And because REMS the butcher's the state age of sleep inwhich people dream predominantly. Because later in the sleep period. People whosleep in longer are more likely to awake from that stage of sleep, which meansthey're more likely to remember their dreams, but then the other reason peoplemight be dreaming more is the REM sleep seems to be especially important toemotion, regulation, and making sense of our current circumstances.

And given that it's such a testing time for other people, Ithink that might influence the salience of dreams. And then the other categoryis COVID-19 induced sleep disruption. He, people are. Quite stressed at themoment. And that can really, yeah. It's several different things. So one is,there's lots of negative news.

One would be their personal circumstances. So maybe forexample, people have kids which is posing lots of difficulties at the moment.Another might be bereavement. So people will have been directly affected by thepandemic itself, but then there are changes in our behaviors too. So during.Social isolation or sheltering in place.

People might be exposed to less lights for instance, whichcould affect the people might be drinking more alcohol than previously. Andpeople are, it seems exercising less too. Also affects the, and all of this isa problem, of course, because sleep is so important to immune function.

Boomer Anderson: [00:08:09]So along these lines, I just want to double click on a few of these itemsbecause social isolation in general, and this idea, you know, you and I arekind of shelter in place with our significant others, but other people that aresocial isolation by themselves, how does this kind of, what are the knock oneffects there with sleep?

Is it just. You know, I'm lonely, so I don't sleep or I'mlonely. And I play video games all day long kind of situation.

Greg Potter: [00:08:40]So it's, it's probably two fold. And I think social isolation itself is ofcourse. Bad for health. And there've been numerous matter analyses showing thatin recent years, it seems the loneliness and living by on cell for example, areassociated with something like 30% increased risk of dying from any cause inyears to come that's okay.

One consideration, but there has been a little bit of workrecently showing that the amount of social support that people have. Does havea bearing on their sleep during this pandemic. So specifically there was somewhite published on medical staff working in Wuhan, who were treating patientswith COVID-19 in the first two months of the year.

And basically they found that the staff who had greatersocial support. Were more likely to experience higher quality sleep. And theywere less likely to be anxious and overly stressed. So there's potentiallysomething direct effect there. But then as you say, if people are stuck insideand they are perhaps abusing stimulants, consuming more alcohol and notspending lots of time outdoors during the day, But also spending lots of timeat night, maybe consuming negative news late in the evening, maybe using deviceslater in the evening, then those things will tend to disrupt sleep.

Boomer Anderson: [00:10:14]Yeah. In our conversations. You're always really good about the tacticalelements here in terms of people, what people can do, uh, during periods likethis, but just to better their sleep in general, uh, when it comes to COVID-19,what do you find yourself tracking and what do you generally recommend otherpeople track in order to just kind of keep an eye on their own health andpotentially their own sleep.

Greg Potter: [00:10:40]Yeah. So I guess split that in 2 one would be tracking sleep and you gotta betracking health in general, with respect to tracking sleep. Lots of people nowuse wearable devices. I'm sure many of the listeners use these too. And I thinkthese are really helpful for tracking things like step count, however, fortracking sleep.

I'm not so convinced that they're helpful. And I think thatpeople can read too much into the data that they get from their devices to thepoint at which that can become problematic. So when it comes to tracking sleep,which is something that I recommend for most people do periodically for acouple of weeks at a time using sleep diary makes a lot of sense.

And there are lots of ones that are available out there. My favoriteis actually the Sleepio app. CPO is an online cognitive behavioral therapyinsomnia program, which is available for free to people in some UK postcodes,but otherwise people would probably have to pay to get access to CPO. And youonly get access to the app.

If you have access to the program. So that rules it out.Lots of people. But I do like that. However, if somebody can't access Sleepio,then I really liked the consensus sleep diary. And there's a version of thatsurveillance, but the better sleep project.com and the reason I like sleepdiaries is the it's not just sleep duration.

For example, that's important to sleep health three poweris. Dependent on several dimensions of sleep. So one is how long you sleep. Oneis the timing of your sleep. If you try and sleep at the wrong. In invertedcommerce time of your biological day, then you will find it hard to sleep well.And shift workers will have experienced this.

Of course, if they try and sleep during their biologicaldaytimes, their sleep quality will be much lower. No feel like their sleep isless restorative, then that is sleep quality, of course. And that's somethingtoo difficult to measure objectively. And I think that both. More objectivemeasures of sleep quality, which include things like sleep efficiency, which isthe proportion of your time in bed.

You're actually asleep as well as subjective measures ofsleep quality are important. And then that is the variability of your sleep. Sospecifically when the timing of people sleep shifts from one day to the next,the greater the degree to which that happens, the more likely they are toexperience some negative health outcome.

And the reason I mentioned all of that is that. Whereas thesleep trackers of the world. So smart rings and smartwatches, and so on.They're quite useful for assessing sleep duration seems to do so quiteaccurately. They, it might not be so good at assessing sleep quality. And sleepvariability and sleep timing.

So they will, of course assess things like sleep timing wellis whether they displayed that information in a way which is useful in a waythat helps people sleep better. And I see this all with a caveat, which is thatit's really hard to judge how effective these devices are right now, becausethe manufacturers are always updating the algorithms and so on.

And I'm confident that. These devices are getting better andbetter and are ever more likely to help people with their sleep, but I justwanted to make it clear that in clinical practice, when people are trying tohelp individuals with insomnia sleep better. Or individuals with other sleepdisorders sleep better.

Practitioners will still typically default to using sleepdiaries first and foremost. So that's a long way of saying that. I think usinga sleep diary to track sleep for a couple of weeks at a time is a good way togo for lots of people. If somebody is acutely or chronically experiencinginsomnia, then they might need to track sleep more frequently.

So that would be a quick response to the sleep question interms of. General health. However, I think there are different ways to thinkabout this. So one is you can track behaviors and you can track outcomes. And Ithink. It's useful to track behaviors first before. And the reason is that youcan connect  whereas you can influenceoutcomes.

You can't control them directly with respect to behaviors. Ithink that there are very obvious things that people should track. If they're.Health is important to them. If you're a smoker, then given that smokey, has itexceptionally strong predictor of disease risk? I think tracking smoking makesa lot of sense.

I think for everybody tracking the step count provided thatthis person walk is a really useful thing to track. I think wearable devices,especially, yeah, risk worn wearables. So things like Garmins and fit bits.We're very good at estimating step counts. And I also think that for everyonetracking that diet, at least once as a useful thing to do, just because a lotof people don't really have a good idea of what the nutrient composition or thetiming of a diet is.

And it can be quite an illuminating exercise to just trackdiet, which you could do using something like my fitness pal for a week. Whenpeople track diet in research settings, they might keep a three day food diary,something like that, which would typically include a weekend day because peopleoften eat slightly differently.

The weekend. Then I would say the. Tracking your values. Asfunny as that might sound is a really smart thing to do.

Boomer Anderson: [00:16:40]Does it operate on that one? That's that's very

Greg Potter: [00:16:42]interesting. Yeah. So this is something. Think I've only fully appreciated inthe last couple of years, but. I think breaking down your life by differentdimensions of it.

So you could, for example, break it down into your socialrelationships and your mantic relationships and your work and so on. And thenassessing the degree to which you want to focus on a given dimension at yourcurrent stage of life. And how well you feel you're doing in each of thosedifferent dimensions can help you identify what your.

Most likely to benefit from changing in your life. And thereare some simple exercises out there, so Tobias Lundgren, and for example, howdoes the bullseye exercise being, which you might be familiar with, but you caneasily find that online if you just search learn bull's eye exercise, and thatwill take you through identifying your values, whether you're living inaccordance or discordance with them at the moment.

And then I'd also say that it's probably. Worth monitoringcertain things that are more relevant now during the day current pandemic. Sofor example, you could, it's a certain social interactions, so important to youto be in touch with loved ones. Then you could simply keep track of howfrequently you call loved ones, for example, and you could also monitor thingslike.

How often do you go to shops? If you're trying to be a goodcitizen and minimize your exposure to the virus, as well as the likelihood ofyou spreading it around. So those are some of the behaviors that I would sayare worth tracking, but then there are lots of outcomes. Of course, soon. Idon't know Beamer if he wants to jump in at the end of the pavers or

Boomer Anderson: [00:18:45]no, no, no, this is perfectly fine.

I think there's one thing. Oh, I guess this kind ofdovetails more in the outcomes and maybe it'll get into it. But I found in myown life, just kind of having a scale nearby to make sure that I don't go offthe input on the COVID so to speak. It has been very useful, but let's talkabout outcomes. I would love to hear more about that.

Greg Potter: [00:19:08]Yeah. And the scale was interesting, cause it can really fall into bothcategories and it's a behavior, but it gives you an outcome. So I completelyagree with that. And I'd say tracking weight probably a couple of times a weekfor people. Trying to maintain similar weighing conditions. So preferablyweighing first thing in the morning after going to the toilet without anyclothes on is a really useful things to do.

And then there are some other anthropometric measures thatpeople might find useful. So simply measuring the conferences wastedconference, for instance, as well as maybe upper arm thigh calf shoulder chestpossibly could do well. Basically give you an idea of whether changes in yourbody weight corresponds to changes in your fat mass or your fat free mass.

So if your body weight is going up, that your waist measureis going down. Then it's probably fair to assume that you're gaining muscle andlosing fat. So I think those are useful when I think about this question ofwhat to track with respect to health, like try and default to looking atstudies that have.

In an untargeted way, look to the different predictors ofrisk of dying from any cause there's a nice study published about five yearsago by some Swedish researchers. And they took the UK biobank data, which avery rich data set. Containing lots of health and behavior information aboutpeople in the UK.

And they did this analysis, this in which they try to assesswhat the strongest predictors of all cause mortality were. And interestingly,About the strongest predictor was just self-reported health, which was assessedusing a really rudimentary question. So simply measuring self-reported health,using a standardized questionnaire, perhaps every month to every year, sixmonths is a reasonable things track.

And there are lots of different questionnaires people douse, but I like for who five. And the SF 12 questionnaires, both of which youcan find online for free. Then I would say, if you look at it, that particulardata set, other things pop out as being useful. I think resting pulse rate,which you can assess using a wearable is a useful measure to track.

If you have a blood pressure monitor, then. Hypertensionpotently increases risk of dying from any cause. So I would definitely look tomonitor that, but it's less relevant if you know that your blood pressure isrelatively good. So if you're young and healthy, for example, And then thereare some other measures which people might consider performance measures, butwhich are very much health measures too.

So I think assessing physical function is really importantand you could look at strength, fitness. There are lots of different categoriesof that you can look at and depending on where you're looking along the forcevelocity. Spectrum. And also how that ties into in journey along that spectrum.And then there are different movement patterns.

Then you can look at those different things, both inabsolute terms, but also relative to how heavy someone is. So you could lookfor example, maximum strength, which is an absolute measure. So how much canyou bench press once, but you could also look at. Relative strength, whichwould be how much do you bench press relative to your body weight?

And I think relative strength for function is especiallyimportant. And you see this an elderly people when they start to find it,simply lift that body weight. All of a sudden they're faced with mobilityrestrictions, which can be critical to therapy city to live by themselves. Andalso critical to their risk of passing away prematurely.

So I think measures of relative strength are particularlyhelpful and it depends on how strong somebody is as to which of these is mostimportant to assess. But if you're a young person, for example, there may be,you look at something like how many strict pull ups or chin ups you can do ifyou are.

Quite heavy and he wants to assess your leg strength andmaybe using something simple, like body weight, split squats, and the number ofreps that you can do in that exercise would tell you a lot about thatparticular metric. So it's difficult to give standardized recommendations forthat. I think strength and relative strengths are very important to track andthere's cardiorespiratory fitness.

So people often look specifically at VO two max whenassessing this and to get an accurate VO two max tests, you need laboratoryequipment, but you can. Approximate VO, two max using some simple at-homemeasures. So for example, the Cooper test, which is basically a test of how faryou can walk or run in 12 minutes is quite strong.

Predictor of VO two max, I think occasionally using that.Whether it's every six months or so, or every year, is it useful things totrack? Because again, it's strongly predictive of risk of various diseases andrisk of passing away from any cause. And then there are more invasive measures,which I think a very illuminating at certain times.

So blood tests specifically had been very well studied. Weknow how to interpret those data. We know how to act on them. And they're alsodifferent things that you can look at, but simple measures like full bloodcounts and liver function tests, public records, blood glucose, electrolytes,then possibly certain hormones and some inflammatory markers can be verytelling.

And then finally, in addition to those, which I would saycan all be helpful for pretty much everybody. There are person specific thingsthat I would track too, depending on. What somebody's health history is. Solet's say for example, that someone has previously been diagnosed withdepression, then that person might use something like the back depressioninventory to assess how the symptoms are changing over time.

And then there are also certain physical Formance outcomesthat people might track. Depending on what their interests are. So if you are astrength faculty, for instance, that maybe you would occasionally want to trackyour front squat, one rep max. So that, that I think overviews, the main thingsthat I would recommend that most people track there are additional things, butthey are more esoteric and I'd be less likely to recommend those or just usethem in very specific.

So I can start answers.

Boomer Anderson: [00:26:08]Okay, so you gave us a shitload to do there. Greg. Now I just, if I were to tryto take like three markers out of all of that, three to five, which ones wouldyou focus on that people can do on an everyday basis at their home?

Greg Potter: [00:26:23]Well, I wouldn't recommend tracking any of them on an everyday basisnecessarily, but I know that you were saying that the one that I wouldrecommend tracking on a daily basis, but just monitoring the trend over time,especially at the moment is step count.

If I was giving two to four other items, then I would sayself-reported health. It'd be one of them. Yeah. Then I would probably saythat. A measure of physical performance would be in there. And I know thatsomething like the coop test, isn't so practical for lots of people to assess.I probably use a measure of relative strength and that would depend on theperson.

If you're young and fit, I probably use strips that hangpull-ups or chin-ups if your shoulders and upper limbs are healthy. If, if youare heavier, for example, when you wants to assess your upper body strength,and maybe you would do something like a push up from the knees, the importantthing of course is to standardize the conditions in which you assessed these.

So you want to assess them at the same time of day under thesame feeding circumstances. So maybe it's after breakfast, for instance, justto try and make sure that your. Tracking is as accurate as possible and notconfounded by changes and some confounding variables that could influence theresults. So I think, I think if it was just two or three things probably bestep count, self-reported health and a measure of physical function.

And actually I'm going to add one more in there and thatwould be body weight.

Boomer Anderson: [00:28:02]All right. So for those out there who want to just geek out on all the thingsthat Greg just mentioned in terms of measurement,

I'm going to link to all of this in the show notes, but

Greg Potter: [00:28:11]Greg, let's talk about,

Boomer Anderson: [00:28:13]so if you're suffering from anxiety induced insomnia, or let's say you justhave sleep issues in general around this whole concept of COVID-19.

Okay. Are we just screwed or what can people do to kind ofmitigate some of these issues?

What should people be doing in terms of both behaviorchange? But I know you and I have talked about, um, potential nutrient add-ons

would love to get into some of those.

Greg Potter: [00:28:43]So. First thing I'll say is that it is possible for people to sleep better thanthey were previously during this pandemic, because we have more control overour schedules.

And I'm speaking very general times. Of course, most peopleare better able to sleep in alignment with that chronic type. So whetherthey're more of an early bird or a night owl, And most people's lifestyles area bit more regular at the moment than they once were. And both of those thingsare conducive to sleeping well, so just want to preempt my answer by sayingthat I could give you a fairly long answer to this one, Boomer.

So just interrupt me.

Boomer Anderson: [00:29:22]I will, I will cut you off if you go too long, but I'm sure people want toknow.

Greg Potter: [00:29:27]So, I guess the first place to start would be to identify whether somebody hasany clinical sleep issues and. There were some simple question as out that,which would give you some idea of that. I like the questionnaire called the sleep50 questionnaire, which is very easy to score.

And if that flags, you might have a Frank sleep disorder,then you can get in touch with a practitioner about that and seek. Some morepersonalized guidance, but if we assume that someone is experiencing some sortof trans in insomnia, probably release stress during the pandemic, then I thinkthere are lots of things that you can do.

And I'll dive in some of those now. So one is, I said is youwant to begin by tracking your sleep to work out. How well are you sleepy atthe moment? And I'd say, keep sleep diary for a couple of weeks and to make iteasy, to keep that sleep diary. Keep it early in the morning and maybe pair itwith your breakfast so that you ingrain that particular habit with respect toimproving sleep.

One perhaps counterintuitive thing for people to apply is toavoid napping. Okay. And the reason is that even a brief nap can pay off someof the passions asleep this accumulates with prior wakefulness. And as a resultof that, when people try and sleep that evening, though, maybe find it harderto fall asleep, and they'll find that their sleep is more likely to break up inthe night and it's less deep and it's less restorative.

So I would say if you're struggling to sleep well, thenavoid napping during the day. I think at the moment it's very important tomoderate use and take. And there are lots of different dimensions of that. Ofcourse there's how long you expose yourself to the news for does the quality ofthe news that you expose yourself to?

And I think for COVID-19 related information, the JohnsHopkins resource center is the one that I would generally recommend to people.And. Obviously, you don't want to be able to touch it. What's going on in theworld. So as a heuristic, I would say maybe cap pure news and take 15 minutesor so per day.

And do so in the first half of your waking day. So you don'twant to be up late at night, looking at the news and take, if it's going tomake you stressed and thereby, perhaps interfere with your seat with respect toexercise. At the moment, a lot of people are less physically active than theywere. And Fitbit published a blog about this back in March, which wasinteresting.

And they basically found that if you look at Europeancountries, then people were taking between 7% and 38% fewer steps during theweek ending March 22nd, relative to the same week in 2019. And for that reason,I think keeping an activity monitor and being aware of your step count isreally helpful.

Exercise is of course very important to immune function. Andas an research named Dave Neiman, who came up with a somewhat controversialhypothesis, which basically describes the relation between exercise and risk ofacquiring upper respiratory tract infections. And he basically plotted risk ofinfection on the Y axis.

And then the amount of exercise on the X axis. And drew itout as a J shaped curve. So if you take someone that's completely sat in preand you have them engage in moderate activity, then they're less likely todevelop infections. But then if they do too much exercise, then eventually theybecome more likely to get an infection than someone who's completely sedentary.

So I think an appropriate dose of exercise is key to immunefunction. That exercise is of course keep sleeping well, too. And becauseexercise influences sleep. It's probably sleep is probably one of the mediatingfactors between. Exercise and how well our immune systems work. And what Iwould say is if you were trying to increase the physical activity that you haveto exercise while you're at home, because the gym is shot or whatever, thendesignated space in your home specifically for exercise and nothing else.

And you'll thereby find it easier to engage in exercise whenyou're in that space, I'd say if possible, Intersperse exercise, right? Yourday in the form of so-called exercise snacks. So you could do a few reps of abody weight exercise between meals, for example, and this doesn't have to beanything too strenuous when people do relatively low intensity exercise, theytend to experience quite dramatic improvements in metabolic regulation aftereating meals.

And I think in terms of the content of exercise, does.That's strong rationale to think that people who have higher cardiorespiratoryfitness. So the max or something similar to that are less likely to experiencesevere consequences as a result of contracting COVID-19 because COVID-19 isfirst and foremost, the respiratory syndrome.

So I think doing some cardio, spiritual fitness training.Once a week for someone who doesn't do any of that at the moment, if not morefrequently than that is probably a really smart thing to do. And the trickything of course is that. Exercising at home is not something that many peopleare used to. So if it's possible to do things, to increase accountability, thenthat's likely to be beneficial.

And one way to go about this is scheduling group exercisesonline, and then you get the benefits of social interaction that way too. Andthat can be something like a body weight session done over zoom with somefriends. Lots of people are doing yoga online too. At the moment, I have somereservations about lots of yoga postures, but that's a conversation.

Okay.

Uh, what about timing on exercise in general? Like, shouldwe be having this earlier in our circadian day or later? Cause I know laterthere's a little bit of potential for disrupting sleep, right?

Yeah. There is. And. There's been some work on that, whichhas been. Brought together in so called matter analysis, which is the studythat assesses all of the studies that have been published on that topic todate, and then weights them recorded according to the quality of the studies.

And that particular matter analysis found that exerciselater in the day actually has relatively little influence on sleep, but itdepends on things like the content of exercise. If you're doing low intensityexercise, 19 minutes before bed for 15 minutes. And it's not a brightly litroom and you're not listening to really loud music.

Then I don't think that would influence your sleep much. Butif you, uh, in the gym, slinging I, and under bright lights, listening to heavymetal and hour before your bedtime, then that's probably not what you want tobe doing if you want to sleep well. So I think it depends on why you'reexercising. But in general, finishing exercise at least three hours before yourplan bedtime and starting exercise.

At least an hour off the way he up both makes sense. Thereason I say an hour after waking up is really two fold. So one is that thecardiovascular system tends to be more reactive to exercise and reduce stressin the early morning. So if you look for example, heart rate responses andblood pressure responses to exercise, then they're accentuated earlier.

The other reason is that. The spine specifically might bemore risk of injury early in the day, during the overnight period, while peopleunload their spines while lying supine, they tend to experience an increase inthe hydration of their desks, the discs between their vertebrae. And what thatmeans is you then take the spines and range of motion, especially underloadthen the discs more likely to herniate early in the day when the.

Pumped up like balloons. So I'd say provided the exercises.Between an hour after waking and maybe three or four hours before bedtime.You're probably okay. If you're trying to maximize rack size performance anddoing strength and power exercise, but later in the day is probably ideal. Thebest time of days to endurance exercise is less clear and it's quite dependenton the particular person, but I think in general, for most people, for generalhealth, Spacing exercise relatively evenly throughout the day, and preferablydoing it outside of possible makes a lot of sense, because if you do itoutside, then you also get the beneficial effects of it's exposure.

No, that light's experience important. The thing is likemood cognition, and perhaps even cardio metabolic health, too, blood pressure,that type of thing. And that really brings us to light exposure to some of theother things that we could discuss here.

Boomer Anderson: [00:39:00]Awesome. So let's, let's talk about that lead exposure.

Cause if your shelter in place right now, and if light issome of our biggest determinants of that sleep wake cycle, are there ways thatpeople can artificially get this? Or is it just best to use that time thatyou're allowed to go outside and spend 20 minutes in the sun? If you live in asunny area?

People spend a lot of time analyzing morning routines, but Iwould argue that the evening routine is almost as important. And one of theessentials to my evening routines every other day, that is, is the Vielighteither the neuro alpha. And I find it as an excellent 20 minutes suspendmeditating, and really just taking my brain into an alpha state for allowing meto relax.

Yes, they're not cheap, but they are certainly damneffective. And hell I get better sleep with them. And we're talking about sleephere. So why not? If you head over to vielight.com. That's V I E L I G H T. Usethe code boomer. You're going to get 10% off your device. Check it out. Let meknow what you think.

vielight.com use the code BOOMER and let's get back to thediscussion on stress induced insomnia and what the hell you can do about

Greg Potter: [00:40:22]it. I'd rather people got it from spending time outdoors if possible, but forsome people that's just not practical or it's even forbidden at the moment. Andif that's the case, then I would just say that you want to make your rooms aswell as, as possible during the day and spending your time by a window,preferably with a window open is one way to go about that.

If that's tricky, for whatever reason, then using a lighttherapy lamp could be useful. It's typically been studied in the context ofseasonal affective disorder and people who experienced that tend to find thattheir mood improves when they use a light therapy lamp for perhaps 30 minutesor so each day.

And you want to get one that admits at least 10,000 Lux, andhe probably wants to be in quite close proximity to maybe within a meter or soof it. So I think that's helpful. Then there are people who maybe have somespace, which is exposed to light, but they don't have a garden or something.And I think for those people eating out side is a really smart things too, atthe moment.

Okay.

Boomer Anderson: [00:41:34]So, but at night we need to regulate our light almost in terms of Lux theopposite direction. Right. So rather than 10,000, we wanted probably one 10battery. Is there any sort of guidance that we should

Greg Potter: [00:41:46]follow?

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about specific numbersbecause it's a difficult thing to track.

But what I would say is that the spectral composition or thecolor of lights is important and specifically. Blue green wavelength light willmost potently affects your body's clock. And the synthesis of melatonin in thebrain and melatonin is the full mane of darkness. If you like the tells theclocks throughout your body, that it's the nighttime and therefore to engage innighttime activities.

So minimizing your exposure to that type of light, which cancome from very bright indoor lights. It was a good thing to do. So simplyDeming lights within a couple of hours of bedtime makes a lot of sense. I thinkif you were using a laptop or a phone within that time period, then using afilter. On the device makes sense.

That could be something like F dot Lux. If you're using alaptop, it could be night shift mode if you're using an iPhone. And then also,yeah, reducing the brightness settings on devices when possible is a goodthing. If you don't have much control over some of those factors and I thinkwearing blue blocking glasses, Is likely to achieve many of the same benefits.

It's just the question of whether you're comfortable wearingblue blocking glasses and don't feel like too much for Wiley.

Boomer Anderson: [00:43:11]Well, then you should just labeled meal Wally.

Greg Potter: [00:43:16]So then I would just say, get light-emitting devices out of your bedroom. Ifpossible. If you must have devices that emit light, then get ones that redlight, because red light is less disruptive to your body's clock.

And. Also it's less alerting light has some alertingeffects, which are independent of the effects of light on our bodies clocks. SoI think that makes sense. And that actually brings up another thing toconsider, and that is use of devices around the fleet period. And what I wouldsay is that using phones and social media and laptops around the sleep periodsof maybe beginning.

An hour before planned at time until natural wake up time inthe morning is something that you definitely want to avoid if you can. Andthere's an increase large body of data showing that device use around the sleepperiod probably negatively affects sleep. It probably depends on things likethe content yeah.

That you're exposed to as well as perhaps some demographic.Differences between people, but as a rule of thumb, I think not using devicesfor getting an hour before plan bedtime until wake up time in the morning is asmart thing to people steep.

Boomer Anderson: [00:44:37]Yeah. And. You know, just for those listening out there. One of the things thatwas a game changer for me was just avoiding the social media, but also email inparticular.

Cause I know there's a lot of people that listen to thisthat are constantly tied to email and avoiding that email before an at least anhour before bed will certainly help modulate some of that anxiety. Yeah, goahead.

Greg Potter: [00:45:04]And there's been some research specifically looking at. What happens whenpeople limit their use of email and.

Surprise surprise. It's been shown that when people do saythat tend to experience improved quality of life and improvements and someindices of mental health too. I know that some people need to be rested, buthaving measures in place to restrict access, access to emails is something thatpeople couldn't do to make that process easier.

And I think batching emails makes a lot of sense for a lotof people.

Boomer Anderson: [00:45:39]Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna ask you for that study later, but uh, alongthe lines of sleep related or sorry, COVID related anxiety, behaviormodifications before bed in bed. Anything in addition that we should add here,we've talked a lot about light, but

Greg Potter: [00:45:56]yeah.

Boomer Anderson: [00:45:56]Journaling seems to be very helpful for some.

Greg Potter: [00:46:00]There, there are quite a few different things that we could discuss. So the respectis journaling. I think a lot of people at the moment has lots of worries. Andif they're busy during the day times, then that busy-ness can suppress theworries. And then later in their days, what they might find is that whenthey're less busy, those worries start to bubble up to the surface.

Which can interfere with their ability to sleep well. Andfor that reason, scheduling some worry time, preferably in the late afternoonis a really useful strategy. It's something that's used quite commonly. How canpeople who have insomnia and one way to go about this is just to keep a thoughtdiary.

And in that thought diary, you can just. Diarize yournegative thoughts and your worries, and then also make columns for evidencethat supports those worries and their presence and evidence that refutes them.And a lot of people who have sleep problems reality when that happen duringthose sleep problems, they might think, for example, if you don't sleep well,then I'm going to be useless at work tomorrow when that might not be true.

And so the, the goal of this exercise is really to over timedevelop a more accepting stance and to frame those negative thoughts in a morepositive light, recognizing that lots of those things aren't necessarily true.And then also I think a separate exercise that's very helpful is just making usdo less for the next day.

Maybe maybe an hour or so before bedtime, preferably using aphysical diary as opposed to a digital one. And in that you might just listeverything that needs to get done the next day in as much detail as isnecessary. And this is also a great time to keep a gratitude diary if yourinterested in doing that.

And there's plenty of evidence showing that that seems to bebeneficial for certain measures of mental health. So. If you use that strategy,I would say take the diary to your bedside during the sleep period. And then ifyou realize that you've got to lift something and it's playing on your mind,you can simply jot that down in your diary.

And then that will probably help you fall back to sleep. Andthere is evidence showing that that type of, to do less thing. Tends to helppeople, you have insomnia sleep better. So I think diaries are really helpful.And then, and then there are a bunch of other strategies that I can touch on ifyou want.

Boomer Anderson: [00:48:35]Yeah, sure. I'd love to hear that gun.

Greg Potter: [00:48:38]So some of these relates to just preparing for the sleep period. And I had avery apt analogy recently, which was that trying to go to bed after a stressfulday. And just switching off the lights without preparing for bed is a bit likedriving along the motorway and then trying to change direction.

90 degrees. You need to slow down. In anticipation ofbedtime. And so having a pre-bid relaxation ritual is really important andthere are lots of different things that you can do at this time. But the thingsthat seem to have lots of people include things like listening to relaxingmusic and. Possibly doing some fun, but not too stimulating distracting tasks.

You could make a puzzle, something like that. Or you couldread a book, not a business book and Beamer at the moment. I'm reading,crossing the chasm, which I have here in front of me

Boomer Anderson: [00:49:42]before bed. Right.

Greg Potter: [00:49:45]I know when he finished off an album full, but I don't find it so stimulatingthat it interferes my sleep.

Boomer Anderson: [00:49:51]I totally disagree with you. I find it very stimulating, but that's differentsides of the spectrum that we sit on.

Greg Potter: [00:49:58]Yeah. So I think those strategies can be helpful. And then there are also somethings around the sleep period, which are really important. So one of thesewhich might be the most important sleep tip for a lot of people listening is toapply the principle of stimulus control of behavior.

And basically among people who are experiencing poor sleep.They have a lot of sleep related to negative thoughts. And what can happen overtime is they learn to associate their beds with being awake and being stressed.And so they might find themselves really sleepy towards the end of the day. Butthen when they get in bed, all of a sudden they're wide awake and it's.

This type of conditioned arousal, which can be ruined us forsleep. What I would say is, so those people it's really important to only go tobed when I'm really sleepy to save a bed for sex and sleep only. And then alsoif they wake up at night and can't get back to sleep and then 15 minutes or so,and I'm not recommending that people watching the clock or anything like that,I'm just saying if they've been in bed for approximately 15 minutes, And theycan't get back to sleep, then get out of the bedroom and do something relaxingin a different room, something relaxing and not too stimulating could bereading a book, could be doing a meditation.

It could be watching a, not particularly stimulating, butquite fun TV program with blue blocking glasses. For example, whatever you do,you just want to keep the environment. As relaxing as possible. So don't switchthe lights on or anything like that, you know, do these things in a day

Boomer Anderson: [00:51:51]and definitely don't check your email,

Greg Potter: [00:51:53]right?

Check your email, don't check social media and only returnto bed when you're sleepy. Then of course, waking up in the night can be due tolots of different things. And we could go into lots of different things here.You know, you've got. Ben did you want to jump in?

Boomer Anderson: [00:52:11]Yeah. So rather than jumping into a few more of these, because we've covered alot of ground here, I want to talk a little bit more on the nutrients andsupplements side of things, because I have the benefits of being able to talkto you about this stuff in some of the, uh, esoteric things that I uncover inthe vast, random parts of the world, but are there things or general.

Guidance as we can give people in terms of, uh, nutrients orsupplements that are supportive of sleep, uh, and in particularly sort ofanxiety, uh, moments or anxiety, uh, written sleep.

Greg Potter: [00:52:55]Yeah. That, uh, what I would say is that the quality of this evidence isgenerally not that high. And it's more important to attend the other baby orthings first, but if somebody has dotted their I's and cross their T's on theother stuff first, then parasites and supplements.

So I think can be useful for some people some of the time.And the important thing is to consider somebody's overall phenotype. So notjust their sleep, but what else are they struggling with in general? Becausethe supplement mental CPAs that are available, don't just affect sleep. Ofcourse they affect lots of different things.

So if somebody is struggling with anxiety, which isaffecting their sleep, then. The supplements that I think can be helpful,include healthy eating there's little bit of evidence showing that perhaps twomilligrams, $200 grams of healthy eating might help people. Feel less anxiousand my improve sleep in certain clinical populations.

The nice thing about is that it has an excellent safety profile and it might have some otherbenefits, other beneficial effects, I think. Maybe 80 to 160 milligrams oflavender. And this is a specific form of lavender named selection can behelpful for people who have anxiety. And this doesn't have to be consumedorally.

Using lavender aroma therapy seems to have similar effects.I think. Using KSM 66 ashwaganda no, which is a standardized form ofashwagandha and the helpful, and the thing that I liked about ashwaganda isthat it seems to be beneficial for so many different things. So it seems tosupport adaptations, to strengthen power, exercise training, it might boostcardio or spiritual formals.

It has some positive effects to metabolic health. And peoplewith mild cognitive impairment, it seems to enhance executive function forpeople who aren't very fertile. It seems to improve certain parameters relatesto fertility. So I think 600 milligrams of KSM 66 ashwaganda. With a male isreally helpful for a lot of people.

And then I would say if the different sleep AIDS that areout, that that's how you, it is probably the most potent, which isn'tnecessarily a prescription pharmaceutical. A melatonin has a really strongsafety profile it's been used for eons and. It's used in certain clinicalconditions, but for people who are experiencing jet lag, one milligram ofWildtime melatonin is really helpful.

And my favorite form of that is the Swanson one milligram ofmelatonin products to people who just have some difficulty falling asleep atthe start of the night. I think 300 milligrams of melatonin. And I like lifeextension products can be very helpful and outfall bed for people who arestruggling to sleep through the night.

Perhaps because of anxiety, but also perhaps because of someother issue, two milligrams of time release melatonin can be helpful. Timerelease melatonin has a longer half life. It's cleared less quickly from thebody. And thereby help seems to help sustain sleep through the night can behelpful. And there's a version of fat named rest.

Well, which is one word with an E on the end, which. I thinkis helpful for lots of people and is widely available online. But of coursethere are some countries in which you can only be prescribed melatonin. That'sthe case in the UK. And if that's the case where you are, then I'd look forsome of the other things first.

So those are some of the supplements that I've mentioned.And then how nutrition affects sleep. Is something that needs to be betterstudied in the future. And I can give you a really long answer about this, butI'd say the key principles are you don't go to bed hungry or foe. You probablywants to finish your final calorie intake of the day, at least two hours forbedtime.

You of course want to avoid caffeine too late in the day.And as a rule of thumb, I normally say stop consuming any caffeinated items, atleast nine hours for bedtime. Alcohol was key, of course. And I'm sure Itouched on some of this in our previous podcast, but finishing alcohol and at leastfour hours for bedtime and preferably capping intake and no more than maybe acouple of units, which is something like pints of beer or immediate glass ofwine is a good way to go.

And then there are some. Diet composition influences onsleep. So for example, having a high glycemic load carbohydrate at the finalmeal of the day might help support melatonin synthesis. And sleep qualityovernight, but there's like,

Boomer Anderson: [00:58:01]can you just reset and say that, because that seems counterintuitive to me thatlike high glycemic index eliciting, higher blood sugar response, I guess youwere going to get to the trade off, but

Greg Potter: [00:58:12]yeah, sure.

And that's the reason why it actually might help sleep, butthere's been some work showing that when people consume high-glycemic loadcarbs late in the day, They might increase melatonin synthesis and the way thatthis plausibly works. Although there haven't been studies showing that this isthe mechanistic basis of it, is that when you consume lots of high-glycemicload carbohydrates, your pancreas will synthesize more insulin in response tothose.

And that incident will then drive certain amino acids intothe muscles. So specifically it will tend to drive the branch chain amino acidsin skeletal muscles and thereby support skeletal muscle anabolism proteinsynthesis. And what that means is that because there are fewer of those branchchain amino acids in the circulation, there are fewer of those amino acidscompeting for space on the large neutral amino acid transporter, which shuttlesout tryptophan into the brain.

And when you then have more ultra to find going into thebrain, you have. More ultra to fan available, to act as the precursor formelatonin synthesis. And you might thereby synthesize more melatonin andsupport sleep. The trade off is that if you look at metabolic responses tofeeding throughout the day, then as I discussed in the previous podcast, thingslike oral glucose tolerance tends to be worse earlier and earlier, it tends tobe worse later in the day.

And so while consuming high-glycemic closure carbohydratesmeal late in the day might be beneficial for certain sleep parameters. It mightnot be good for other aspects of your health. And so for that reason, I don'tnecessarily recommend that strategy unless somebody exercises relatively latein the day, in which case, I think it makes a lot of sense.

So. That's how carbohydrate might affect sleep. And thenalso there are some other foods which have been studied for their effects onsleep. So tart cherry juice, for example, contains some substant vitaminmelatonin and might there by effects the beef tomatoes and Kiwi fruits. Havebeen shown by a couple of studies to positively affect sleep, but I wouldn'tput too much stock in any of those studies.

And I would just say that it's more important to attend todiet, timing, and minimizing caffeine and alcohol intake and consuming thosetwo leads in the day. And then making sure you go spend neither hungry Norfolk.

Boomer Anderson: [01:00:49]So if you were to introduce some of these, uh, let's say let's just take, forexample, Kiwi fruits.

Cause that's something I played around with in the past.Would you still have those. Two hours before bedtime, or is this something thatyou would, you know, throw down the hatch right before you hopped in

Greg Potter: [01:01:04]the bed? Definitely have them couple of hours before bedtime still. And therehasn't been a study.

That's looked at whether the timing of Kimi fruitconsumption is important. And of course we don't really understand themechanisms by which QB fruits might affect sleep. And it might be that thereare. Later multiple studies show that Kimi fruits don't positively affect sleepor. Maybe they only affect sleep and a subset of people.

So I just wouldn't read into those data too much right now.I don't think it's the most important thing to do, but if you want to try it,then I see no harm in doing so. And I'd have them actual final meal of the dayand still finish that meal. It needs to ask for your plan bedtime,

Boomer Anderson: [01:01:54]Greg, this is incredible. And you've given us just a lot of information arounda behavior change. And I do want to stress to people that think about thebehavior first, before going into the nutrients, but then also the nutrientsand other ways that we can even look at the data around COVID-19 and be a moreinformed person.

The last thing I want to talk with you about today issomething that, uh, well, I alluded to some of the foods you've suggested to meearlier and with relation to cacow in terms of how addicting that can be.Another one that you're involved in is resilient nutrition and these beyond nutbutters that I have the pleasure of trying.

Can we talk a little bit about that? Just in closing? Sure.

Greg Potter: [01:02:45]Yeah. Very happy to.

Boomer Anderson: [01:02:46]So, well, first off, how did you get involved with resilient nutrition? And Iwant to talk a little bit about the clinically, uh, you know, the clinicallysignificant doses in there.

Greg Potter: [01:02:59]Yeah. So. Resilient nutrition is a food and eventually supplement company thatmy friend and colleague Allie McDonald.

And I started earlier this year and I'd been helping Alliefor a couple of years with various different projects. And one of the thingsthat we were doing last year was helping two guys get ready to row theAtlantic. And the Talisker whiskey Atlantic challenge. And as people might beable to imagine when you're a big, heavy guy and you're rowing round the clockfor nearly 40 days, you get through a lot of calories.

At that time. And so they needed these delicious and caloriedense and easy digest Macs to support that performance. And of course, ideallythey'd be consuming foods which still supported their health and resiliencetoo. And my mother helping them, we began concocting these prototypes of what.Eventually became our first product, which you're leading to beam.

And the first products is named long range fuel. So westarted making these for them and they then relied on those products duringthat crisis. And they did really well, which is great. And then while werelating those products, we started using them ourselves in different contextsand with our friends and some of the athletes that you work with.

And we found that they were really helpful both to supportphysical performance, but also cognitive performance. And so what long rangefuel is, is basically a really, really tasty whole food based nut butter, whichwe've enhanced by the addition of. Certain nutrients in order to boost yourstamina and keep you calm them and support your resilience.

And this long range, fuel product is available in multipledifferent forms, which radio best suits, different times of day, depending onthe effects that you want. So for example, we have a form which is. Whichcontains caffeine and caffeine, of course, and answers numerous aspects ofcognitive function, as well as physical format, Senator and sex size andintimate, and next size and strength, the Parex size.

And this form also contains suntheanine L feening, whichbasically helps people stay calm while consuming the caffeine and helps themcope with stress and might have some cognition enhancing effects too. So theymight reduce mind wandering, for example. And I think this particular form isideal for work and exercise and possibly extended travel too.

So if someone needs to drive a very long period of time,they need to stay vigilant. Or if they're a pilot, then I think it's reallyuseful in those circumstances. Then we have a form which helps people. Recoverfrom exercise and also is a very effective meal replacement products. And thisone contains whey protein, isolate and Luc.

And it does. So in order to support skeletal muscleregeneration, and also to enhance appetite regulation. And I think that versionis idealism meal replacement. So if you were heading to the office for a longday at work and you needed a snack to pick up on the go, you know, you pick upa coffee, Version containing whey protein, isolate and Ellucian.

It's perfect. Suited perfectly suited to that particularscenario. I have a more calming version. Yeah. Strong range for you, which isideal. Later in the day in this version contains KSM 66 ashwaganda. Which Imentioned earlier. And what's important to note is that all of these productscontain clinically proven doses of the best studied forms of these specificingredients.

And there's no rubbish in any of the products. They're allbased on mixes of artisan nut butters, no cheap peanut butter or anything likethat. And we have different versions that are different people. So. Most ofthem are vegan friendly. We have a version formulated specifically for peopleon keto diets and.

That generally biopsies to people on paleo diets. Althoughsome of them contain dairy protein, so someone's excluding dairy, then thosearen't ideal for them. And then we also have four different flavors of them andI'm biased, but

Boomer Anderson: [01:07:35]they were ready. Okay. Just to add to that for those listening, they areridiculously good.

And I've had the pleasure of trying numerous amounts ofthem. And going back to what you said earlier about work, I find myself. Latelyin days where I'm on back to back calls and it's not always conducive, even inthis whole shelter in place environment, it's not always conducive to sit downand make a meal, et cetera.

And so if you're looking for, or that meal replacement andsomething that can really hold you through and keep your brain churning along,this is great. This is kind of like my ideal knowledge worker food. And so, uh,Greg, uh, to you and Ali, thank you for creating this.

Greg Potter: [01:08:20]Oh, pleasure. It's nice to hear that you find them helpful.

I actually had some for breakfast today. If I'm, if I'mmaking any sense that I'm going to chalk it up to long range, if I'm not makingany sense, then I apologize.

Boomer Anderson: [01:08:32]Where can people find out more about resilient nature,

Greg Potter: [01:08:37]resilient, nutrition.com. And we also are on social media, which is atresilient nuts.

And we're on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn andpossibly elsewhere too. But I think if people go over to residentnutrition.com, then they'll find everything they need and range fuel wascurrently available in the UK, but we have designs to subsequently move intoother European markets. And then I was the U S as well.

Boomer Anderson: [01:09:07]Beautiful. And Greg, what if people wanted to find out more about youspecifically? Where should they go?

Greg Potter: [01:09:15]I am on Instagram, which is at Greg Pasa PhD. And I have a website which isCraig Potts, a phd.com, which I desperately needs update, but you can contactme by either of those. And I will eventually get back to you.

But resilient nutrition right now is consuming a lot of mytime. So if I'm a little bit tired in doing so then forgive me.

Boomer Anderson: [01:09:39]Greg. Thank you so much for taking the time. This has been an absolute pleasureas always, and I've got pages and pages of notes to type out now for people. So

Greg Potter: [01:09:47]thank you. Sorry, today.

It's all good

Boomer Anderson: [01:09:52]to all the superhumans listening out there. Check out the show notes for thisone. Check out resilient nutrition and of course have an Epic day. Thank you.

All right. So I have my work cut out for me with these shownotes. If you want to head on over to decodingsuperhuman.com/greg2, I did mybest to really jot down everything that Greg mentioned throughout this podcast.

If you want to check out resilient nutrition, head on overto resilience, nutrition.com. The discount code that I have is going to be inthe show notes. And you guys can use it to get yourself some amazing, amazingthings that I'll simply describe as way beyond nut butter. Again, show notes onthis one are decoding superhuman.com/greg to let me know what you learned,share it on the Instagrams on the tic talks.

I'm not really there, but you can also share it on LinkedInwhere I am. And I want to hear from you guys. So if you love the episode, headon over to iTunes, leave a five star rating and. I appreciate you all have anEpic day.