178: Dr. Kirk Parsley, Navy SEAL Veteran & CEO of Doc Parsley Sleep Remedy, Helping High Performers Move From Sleep-Deprived To Sleeping-Pill Free!

Welcome to the Sleep as a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as a Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world behaves.

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Sleep. Each week, I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle. Style is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health.

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And by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

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Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast today of the honor and privilege of bringing to you a guest that we have had on in the past and is an hour return guest and had the opportunity to interview him live in my space here in Austin, Texas, and just had a blast going in deeper with Dr. Kirk Parsley on many topics around sleep.

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So I think you're going to really, really enjoy. What he has to share and his unique kind of perspective on sleep. So a little bit about him, Dr. Kirk Parsley completed SEAL training at the age of 19  and served as a 60 gunner on SEAL team five in Coronado, California. He left the SEAL community in 1994 to pursue a college education.

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Later, he re entered the U S Navy to attend the military's medical school in Maryland, where he was commissioned as a Navy officer in 2000.  After completing medical school, internship and residency, Kirk returned to the SEAL community. Seal teams as a position for the West coast seal teams. Kirk was tasked with helping the world's most elite warriors optimize and maintain their performance after eight years of sustained combat.

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It was during this period that he noticed a significant gap between healthcare and true health. Kirk was compelled to delve into extensive alternative medical literature, synthesizing and applying it effectively and practically to ensure the seals could perform at their peak 365 days a year.

Performance and fitness are related components of the seals ability, but they are not synonymous due to the limitations and restrictions of medical interventions available. In these austere environments with limited medical support, Kirk had to develop plans that relied minimally on pharmaceuticals, supplements, or gadgets.

His unparalleled success led him to become a sought after medical human performance expert, not only for Navy SEALs, but also for various military special forces commands. He parlayed this experience experience into private consulting for professional sports teams, international corporations, law enforcement, first responders, and department of justice, entrepreneurs, and executives.

We get into a lot of topics in this conversation, but you can certainly hear in his bio, the unique perspective that he's coming from that can help support people.  High stress load situations. And even if you're listening and saying, well, you know, maybe I'm not a Navy SEAL or something. We certainly can all relate to the challenge that can be posed on us of how to balance our stress load and get sufficient sleep as well as some of the conversations we get into around pharmaceuticals and dependence on sleeping aids and beyond.

So let's podcast. I know you're going to be fascinated with his. Take and perspective. And if you are interested in learning more, you can go back to our first episode with him that we did a few years back. That was also chock full of lots of information. So let's jump into the podcast, but first a few words from our sponsors.

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We have a returning guest and this is very exciting because the last time we had this conversation we spoke about, we particularly discussed a number of things first. sleep aids for sleep and how many people are struggling with finding themselves either questioning do I get on these or they've been on them?

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How do I get off of them? You know, this whole world and then if they are embarking in how to get off of some of these more prescription based supports for their sleep, they're really struggling and you've come along and shared certain ways and help support people in exactly that. Yeah, I mean, that's really how I got.

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That's really how I got my start and, and sleep in general. So, um, you know, when I went, when I was the physician for the West Coast SEAL teams, about 85 percent of the command took Ambien on a nightly basis. Uh, thought that it was completely benign. The pharmaceutical industry had taught the physicians that, and it's like, it's totally fine.

As compared to benzos, because benzos were more addictive, and they could repress respiration, and you could die, or suppress respiration, I guess, and you die. Um, and so now this is completely harmless, uh, no side effect, perfect sleep aid, and so everybody was taking it. And, uh,  And it destroyed, you know, all their sleep architecture essentially.

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Um, and because they were young, young men,  uh, young, those kinds of men, you know, young agro sort of seal guys, uh, they were taking it with alcohol, which, you know, ambient, ambient wrecks, uh, rim like 80, 80%, and alcohol wrecks deep about 80%. So when you take those two together, you come back with a, uh, Polysomnograph that says 99.

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9 percent stage two sleep.  And then I go, I,  how are you living? They've been doing it for 10 years. Right. And the  sleep scientists will tell you, well, that's not possible. They, they can't, you can't live that long. Right. But they do it. Right. It's like one of the. One of the many things in physiology and medicine where they tell you, you know, things can't be done.

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This is the way it is. And it's like, no, people go way past those limits all the time. And that was horrible. Yeah. So I spent,  uh, most of my time there getting guys off of Ambien took a while to figure out how to do, but then, and then we did it, you know, so I still get clients with it, but it's,  It's, uh,  you know, thankfully it's not nearly as common that people  think that that's benign.

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Yes. In  2006, seven, eight, nine, like everybody just thought, yeah, no big deal. What's the problem? Totally fine. There's nothing wrong with it. And nobody knew anything about sleep. Like there was nobody talking about sleep. Exactly. Like the, and now the  health sphere is full of sleep experts and people getting the message out.

Yeah. So. Okay. Yeah, totally different world. So it's a different conversation now. It's a totally different world now, yeah. And so what are you seeing out there as far as, are you seeing less people, like, so less kind of going down on those numbers of the amount of people on different types of Z drugs, but regardless.

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still, it's certainly out there more than we would like, and a long term use is certainly we like to see it used on short term, if at all. But then we're unfortunately seeing people on these long term dependencies being developed. And so when you're out there now, and I know you've put together a sleep supplement to support this, because I think I remember you saying before it was like in little baggies to kind of get this all together.

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So it was kind of, yeah, it as a handout. Exactly. Like, here you go. Go buy this stuff. Yeah. Uh, this, you know, pre Amazon Prime. Yes. And, uh, so, you know, they were having to get in their cars and drive to the three or four different health food stores and vitamin shops to get the right things. And some were capsules and they came in 120 and some were tiny little 30 packs and some were liquids and some were powders.

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And it was just a pain to acquire and a pain to travel. Yes. Uh, and so they just harangued me into making a product out of it, you know, so, um, like the supplement itself  is exactly that. I mean, it's just, it's just a nutritional supplement. There's no trick. There's no magic. Yes. Like if you aren't doing it, if you're doing everything wrong and you take my supplement, you're wasting your money.

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It's just like,  all right, you did everything wrong. It's not going to help. Right. Just like, uh, you know, I don't know, like taking your multivitamin and living off of pizza and watching television all day. It's like. That's not going to work. Yes. Um, you know, so all it is is, you know, all my supplement is, is the melatonin production pathway.

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Tryptophan, 5 hydroxy tryptophan, you need vitamin D3 and magnesium to make that into serotonin. Serotonin becomes melatonin, melatonin produces GABA, L theanine helps GABA.  And then recently I added phosphatidylserine because it lowers cortisol. Sure. Okay. That's it. So like nothing magic, but the seals like helped me to figure out what the, what was the right dose and what was like the right, you know, sort of the right form of each medication.

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And then we did this terrible job because I'm a doctor and not a marketer. And uh, we call it the sleep cocktail cause that's what the seals called it. Uh, like my moniker, Doc Parsley comes from the seals. Okay. Uh, yeah. If you're in the military and you have eight weeks of medical training or 18 years, you're a doc, like, Hey, doc.

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So I was doc Parsley and they called it  doc Parsley sleep cocktail because it's just a bunch of stuff. Yeah. Right. And So we called it Doc Parsley Sleep Cocktail, which is a terrible marketing name because everybody thinks it's a cocktail or it has something to do with cocktails or you're supposed to put it in your cocktail.

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And, uh, firewall, it was firewall, you know, block universities and DOD and all this stuff. So we changed it to sleep remedy,  but, uh, yeah, so. You know, I worked out with them  because basically I needed to get them off of Ambien. Yes. Um,  which it took me a long time to know that I needed that because, again, I didn't know anything about sleep.

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Sure. Nobody was talking about sleep. They still don't teach sleep in medical school. Yes. Um, so I knew nothing about sleep. I didn't know anything. The SEALs didn't know. Right. I didn't even know what happened really when you slept. I was just like. Yeah. No, you need it. Yeah. And I knew Ambien was a GABA analog, but I didn't know what the hell GABA had to do with sleep.

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So that didn't really help me. Right. And I'm like, okay. So we figured out how much to take, uh, by working with them, you know, and just like, let's try this. Let's try that. You know? And we kind of zoned in. I mean, we had some idea. Like I used super conservative resources. It was like. Cochrane database and PubMed like I just like what actually works and figuring out why and then just kind of guessing the dose and then we worked in on that.

Um, but I had to give them something to take them off of Ambien because they were taking Ambien because they couldn't sleep, right? So I couldn't just say.  No Indian and suck it up, right? Right. So, uh, you know, they did, they did that. Um,  and again, nothing magic. It's a nutritional supplement to like prep your brain for sure, to do the work it needs to do.

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Uh, you know, there's only two micrograms of melatonin in there, so it's only enough to initiate. It's not enough to keep you asleep. So it's like, there's nothing in there that's like makes you sleep. It just like gives you the tools, right? As long as your brain's doing the work,  then, uh,  you know, I converted all their ambience to serum.

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I had a compounding chromium, which is due to serum. So a dropper full is 10 drops and that was a full dose. And just every week they went down a drop. So 10, 90, because yeah, they down regulate GABA receptors. Yes. And so it takes six to eight weeks to get that back. So you start titrating off, it takes you 10 weeks to get down.

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And that's if everything goes ideal, right? Some guys get down to six and they're like, I can't sleep at all.  They got to go back to seven about three. Yeah. So it took, you know, 10, 12, 14 weeks to titrate people off. Um, and then I just had them doing that, um, you know, supplementation to make sure that everything was there for their brain to do the work when their brain needs.

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Relearned how to do what it needed to do. Mm-Hmm. . And of course we did a ton of sleep hygiene, which was,  uh, voodoo,  , in those days. And yes, it was not, it was not well received. I'm sure initially, uh, being is that, um, you know, part of our training is we go week without sleep. Yes. Just to prove that sleep's optional and not necessary at all, and a complete luxury.

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And so that's what seals think of it, right? Yes. Um, but.  Yeah, once I got them, once I got,  you know, 40 or 50 guys off of Ambien and their testosterone tripled and their growth hormone quadrupled and their inflammation went down seven orders of magnitude and that, right, and like, and they felt better and they started getting stronger and like, oh, then I started getting buy in.

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Yeah. Um, and then they actually took me around to like the training sites. Uh, And I, I worked with the training, um, not at, uh,  we call it a land warfare site. Um, and, and so it's like a hundred and  180, 190 degrees or something out there.  The California desert, it's not really that it's crazy. It's, it's crazy hot.

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And so you have, you can only train. Um, you know, like you got to start training at like 6am  and then, you know, it's a hundred hundred plus by eight and then, you know, so you do like a block for training in the morning and then mid middle of the day when it's literally 120, 130 degrees outside, you go back inside for a while and then you do a block for training at night.

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Um, and so I convinced them to like actually convert that to like taking a nap during that time.  Uh, because of the learning curve, right? Sure. Right? Because if, because you'll consolidate what you learned. Yeah. So if you, if you train and then you go do at least one sleep cycle, you consolidated all that learning.

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Yes. You learn twice as fast and of course it improves their recovery and all that other stuff. Yeah. And so they converted, uh,  like all the living space to red light during that period and black, you know, blacked out all of the windows. And when was this, too? And the sleeping spaces. Um, when was it? Yeah.

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Yeah.  That was probably 2010. Oh my god, that must have been because at least now it's a little bit more understood But back then that must have been so wild Oh the first time  the first time I went into leadership's office  and told them so we had known for at least a decade That we had these huge hormonal deficiencies and seals.

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Yeah.  And nobody could figure out why. And they're like,  and a lot of, a lot of the leadership thought, well, it's because at one point they abused steroids. Right. And so sure. That's why. And it's like,  It's not, not that likely.  There are, of course, always going to be guys that do that, but that's not even close to the majority of guys.

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And if you know anything about that, it's like, well, it doesn't shut you down forever.  Because there's a period of time that it takes you to get past that. So, um, so I knew that wasn't the problem. Uh,  and it was only because like I was forced to learn about sleep, and then I learned, oh, I was like, oh, well all your hormones are reregulated while you sleep.

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Mm-Hmm. I wonder if that would make a difference. Like, let's see if we do that right. Yeah. And so you get 'em to quit drinking, you know, six pack of beer and taking three Ambien and IC like magic. All a sudden the magic. Yes. All of a sudden they feel great again. And, uh, I went like I, I was going into the leadership office and saying.

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You know, the reason for all these physiologic changes we've been noticing is I think because of sleep deficiency and like our guys aren't getting enough sleep. They literally laughed me out of the office, like told me to leave and laughed at me and said, doc, you need to go back to medical school.

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That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I was like, all right.  And, uh, so I just kept doing what I was doing. Of course it worked for the seals. And by like, when I say leadership, that wasn't seal leadership. That was medical. That was medical leadership. Sure. And so I kept working with the SEALs and they kept getting great results.

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Um, and so I didn't care because I was there to help the SEALs. I wasn't there to impress the leadership. But then sort of like, uh,  the biggest best I told you so.  And my life, uh, five, but somewhere around four or five years after I got out,  um,  Socom hired me to come in and lecture,  uh, all of their medical staff on like all of this voodoo that I had been doing vindicated and I had gotten into so much trouble for, uh, and then they, and then they recorded it and like, They still use that.

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And I went to still team six, which is like, like our tier one. And I did the same thing for them and it's still on their portal and like all, and I've trained all their physicians and all this stuff. And I was like  there, right? You know, like, okay, like I won that battle. Yeah. Um, so good. Um, and now like,  now it's so rare that I meet somebody who doesn't know that, right.

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It's almost impossible to meet somebody who did who goes hormones and sleep. Right. Like I think everybody knows that now. And I wonder too, if We could just further underscore that. I know you already mentioned testosterone, but just underscoring a little bit. We had Dr. Allison Brager on the podcast, who's active duty at the U.

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S. Army and one of the few women in the U. S. Army. And one of the things that she was pointing to was part of her positioning is who to kind of help change the narrative and culture around prioritizing sleep. And so one of the things that she's spoken to is that she'll speak in kind of, you know, bro science terms and yet, but it's even on the ground of the direct, clear, reliable, repeatable results with testosterone.

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when you suppress sleep time and time again in order of magnitude of often in half at least on certain studies and then pointing to what they've called the point of no return is, had been part of the verbiage that I heard where if you continue to suppress sleep for an extended period of time, eventually there's a point where you just can't get your testosterone back to the levels that it had been at.

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Um, so anyway, I'm curious if, okay. Because since you've seen so many labs and the difference, you know, for people in such high stress situations, like what are some of the repeatable things that you see with testosterone? Once people start sleeping again? Yeah, well, interestingly, I was shocked that we were the first to document it.

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Um,  but when What, like, you know, so, so when I was doing all of this at the SEAL team, like I said, the SEALs were very grateful, they trusted me and they were very happy with the treatment. The medical leadership above me was not happy. I was outside, I was practicing outside of my scope and I was doing I was doing, uh, untested, unproven things like Meijer's cocktails and, you know, things like that.

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Yes. Um, and I, I put somebody on cancer drugs. Did you know that? And I'm like, arimidex is not a cancer drug. You moron. It's like, it's an estrogen suppressing drug  for women with estrogen since September. It has nothing to do with cancer, right? But anyway, uh, yeah, I mean that, that was just, that was so frustrating.

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Um.  But, uh, you know,  that so that was a leader. That was a shift. It was down to me that the seal, the seals were always on board and they were always thankful. And that was, that was, um, supported me. Um, so The, there's an organization called Naval Health and Research Center, which is just a bunch of PhDs that are, they work for the government and they do research for the Navy.

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So, whatever needs research, uh, um,  and may, it's mainly, you know, physiology things, right? And so, A handful of they, a handful of them got wind of this and came over and said, Hey, what is it that you're and I said,  here, so I spent like six hours on a whiteboard. Here's everything that I've been finding. Sure.

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And they went away and built, uh, I don't want to say like 14 or 16 research projects out of that. And one of the first things they did was document, uh, a direct correlation.  0. 87 correlation between total testosterone and sleep.  And that was the first time that had ever been published, which was crazy because  anybody who had studied sleep science knew that those were related, but nobody had documented it.

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Yeah. Um, so  yeah, I mean, the, the,  the point of no return, you know, and, and like  that, that, that point doesn't exist wholly.  Um, because like, With very careful,  rigorous medical intervention, you can always get it back,  but getting it back by just like starting to do the right things, yes, there's, there's a tough time there, right?

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Like obesity, right? Yeah. You get to a certain point. It's like you're so metabolically broken, the odds that you're just going to like bounce right back, quit eating and exercise, you know, and like, that's pretty, pretty unlikely. Like you're going to need some help. So, um, what, you know, what, what happens with Men, you know, the biggest problem with men is, of course, um, like we don't, we don't actually have, uh, testosterone receptors in the  hypothalamus.

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Well, I mean, there are, but they're, they're like one one hundredth of the estrogen receptor. So our testosterone is really regulated by estrogen. And so as our estrogen increases,  our brain thinks we have more testosterone and it decreases luteinizing hormone. And then we decrease testosterone, right? And then that decrease in testosterone leads to more.

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Adipose tissue, which has more aromatase in it, which turns more of your testosterone to estrogen. And so, men can actually get to a point where they've suppressed their sleep for so long,  they've suppressed their testosterone. So when you suppress anything in the body, right, you start losing it. Sure. Yeah.

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Start losing the function of it. So,  you know, the testicles actually atrophy and then you get like you do 10 years of that. You may have lost like 50 percent of the volume of your testosterone or of your testicles. So when you go, when you, even when you shift back to a normal LH, well, now you're going to reduce half as much testosterone as you would before.

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Sure. Um, another impact on men. You know, men are supposed to wake up with an erection every morning. That's part of the process. Right. And that actually maintains the vascularity of the penis. And so every morning you don't do that, you start losing that and you can start getting fibrosis in there and you actually lose volume of the penis.

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Right. And so like there, there are some longterm consequences if you don't do it early. Right. Uh, women do not seem to have  the same problem with like ovarian erection. Atrophy,  um, and ovaries actually do produce testosterone, not, not estrogen, but it's all the aromatase around it that converts it. And so that's why women lose, uh, testosterone first, right?

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Cause you're only, you're only getting testosterone to the extent that your ovaries can produce more than the aromatase can convert.  And so as soon as the ovaries slow down a little bit for, which is women, it was like early thirties, early to mid thirties. And that's when cellulite starts. Yeah.  Cause that's when the neuro.

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Because the testosterone sets the neuromuscular tension and those muscles that are attaching the skin to the fascia. Yes. That, that, there's your cellulite. So that's kind of the women's first sign. Yeah. Um, but of course, you know, testosterone is the dominant sex hormone for both men and women. Yeah. So when you start losing the testosterone, of course, you, you know,  the,  the simplest thing I've ever heard, uh, and, and it's, it, I mean, it's really close to being accurate.

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It's hard to be this simplistic and be accurate. Um,  testosterone makes hard things seem easier. Mm.  Yeah. That's such a great way to think of it. I, Andrew Huberman said that on a podcast. I was like, yeah. I was like, wow. That's like probably the best thing I've ever heard you say like that. That was right.

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That was like straight on can do it. Attitude. I always have. Yeah. I always have a hard time. Like, well, it increases verbal fluency and it increases something we call like intellectual vigor. So it's like your, like your drive to, and it's like why men are interested in things. That's why men become engineers because like the testosterone, like, I'm really interested in this zoom in thing and like these screws and like getting these and you know, women have less testo options than that.

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Like, I'm not so interested in that thing. I'm interested in people and things like that. Sure. Um, yeah, but to answer your question, like the,  I think you know, all, all of the things that we know.  Here, here's, here's a really interesting thing. When you talk about cognition with sleep,  uh, go to,  are we at five now?

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DSM five,  go to DSM five and look at the diagnostic criteria for ADHD or ADD  and then look at  the symptoms of sleep depression or sleep deprivation. Sure. Indistinguishable, completely indistinguishable, which I think for that reason alone, like every child who gets diagnosed with ADHD should first have to be sleep adapted, right?

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Yes. Because if you sleep adapted, I would say, I mean, first of all, the educational system is stupid. It's like set up for, you know,  Kids to sit in a desk for kids,  kids are not designed to do that. Right. And especially little boys, like little boys learn by pushing things over and falling and breaking things like that.

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It's like, that's how their brains work. Right. Um, so there's that problem, you know, that's, that's a big problem, but the most sleep deprived people in the country and our country are kids. Right. Right. And by a long shot, um, you know, the schools start at, you know, what, seven 45. 8 o'clock in the morning or something.

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So if kids are taking the bus, well then they gotta wait 30 minutes maybe before that, maybe 15 minutes before that, so it's like, okay so, the latest your kid's getting up at 6.  Ugh! You get that phase shift when you hit adolescence? Sure!  And like, it's almost impossible to fall asleep before midnight. So like maybe you're getting six hours of sleep  and when you're at that age, you need nine to 12 hours of sleep.

And so like they're critically,  uh, critically, uh, and that overlaps with the rising rates of ADHD and then medication for it with stimulants. Yeah. You're medicating that, which You know, is overstimulating the prefrontal cortex, norepinephrine, right? Um, so,  and, and we know, of course, like the prefrontal cortex isn't fully formed until you're 25 years old in some cases, you know,  that's kind of the norm for men and women a few years younger than that, but still, like all of those years  when you're designing the machine that, You're designing the part of your brain that interprets the world for you.

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Right. Like that, like, okay. You have sensory input of your eyes and motor, like you have all like all that sensory and motor, but the interpretation of that, what to do with that and what it means and what your options are, that's all prefrontal cortex.  And that's, that's what's forming. When we're sleep, depriving our kids and then dragging 'em.

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Right?  Totally. And then, and then anybody's surprised that our, all the kids are in Xanax and Right, and Ben, like different benzos now. Like that's not at all surprising. Uh, if you just understand a little bit about neurophysiology, that's not at all surprising. It's exactly what you would predict if you, right, if you slept, deprive  the kids, and then if you do it for.

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Generations.  I don't know what the outcome of that's gonna be, but we're seeing part of it right now, right? I mean, there's some big shifts in the way. people behave in the world. Absolutely. And I think a lot of it's from that. If you've tuned into the show or followed any of our content here at Sleep is a Skill, you may have heard that everyone that we work with wears the Oura Ring.

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And as a result, we have amassed a very large database of Oura Ring users and get to see what really moves the needle for people when it comes to their sleep. measurably. Now, because we have so much data around sleep optimization, many ask what they can do to improve their sleep quality. And for years, my answer has been that one of the few things I've seen makes such an overnight difference is the use of a quality cooling mattress topper, not just any ordinary topper that claims to be cooling with like gels or what have you, but an actual cooling topper that uses water and can be dynamically adjusted Your unique needs and preferences.

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So head on over to B mineral spelled B E A M. today and use the code sleep as a skill, all one word at checkout to get a special discount on your order. Your body and your sleep will thank you.  Okay. So you've been in the sleep sphere for longer than I think, uh, certainly a lot of people in pioneering as you, as you pointed to, and maybe met with kind of apprehension to say the least.

or disbelief at that sleep could be this paramount to performance. And you've brought this in particularly in a performance conversation, which is really, I think, unique because we don't always see that. It's kind of just like, Oh, well, do you have a sleep disorder? Or can we get you to sleep? But not like sleep to fulfill on being your best version of yourself.

So given your vantage point, what are some of the  Things that you find particularly impactful areas for us to really address for sleep and sleep optimization right now. Is it for kids? Is it like you pointed to? Are these some of the areas that you're particularly concerned about? Or what are some of the things that you're seeing for trends and direction with sleep?

The thing I'm most concerned about is the kids. Yeah.  Uh,  it's hard to, it's hard to say I have integrity and, and make that same because I don't work, like I'm not doing anything about it, like other than bringing attention to it. Well, that's helpful. Yeah. Getting that conversation out there. So, you know, where I specialize professionally is with performant men, right?

Like, um, I used to treat men and women, but after a while I'm like, Hey, let's be honest. Like there's women who are way better at this. This than I am sure. Yeah. Um, so experiential, experientially alone. Yeah. I've never been a woman, so I don't understand a lot of what you're going through. Yeah, right. Um,  so I work with private clients, um, but, but about 70% of my time is still working with former seals.

Okay. Uh, retired seals and seals got out and, you know, some other special forces and military kinda mixing in there, but that's primarily the focus of it. And then I, I work with, my private clients are like, usually, you know, they're. Um,  40 to 50 and forties and fifties, they kind of traded their health for wealth for like 20 to 30 years.

And, uh,  Now they have a hundred million dollars or whatever and they don't care about the money because they're like a broken like whatever and they're Shattered and they can't yeah, they can't enjoy their life So it's like so we I work with them and like annual programs kind of like this huge health makeovers and it's all lifestyle medicine Yeah, and it's all performance medicine, of course, but sleep is the is a huge foundation of it.

Yeah  but  You know, I occasionally I'll you know, occasionally I'll work with somebody's teenager. Occasionally I'll work with Uh, some women occasionally I'll, you know, work with people from my church or just, you know, normal folk. Um,  but I can tell you, uh,  I mean, I wouldn't, I don't want to say a hundred percent ubiquitous, but it's pretty damn close.

Almost everybody,  almost everyone I see with sleep difficulty, it's stress is a major component of it, whether they know it or not. Totally. And 90% of the time they don't know it. Yes. And they will argue with you that it's not true. No, I don't feel stress. It's de efficiency. It's something in the blood work, it's the environment.

Yeah. And it's like, uh, no. Like I don't feel stressed. I'm like, that doesn't matter. Yes. Because people associate stress hormones with this freaked out anxious feeling. Oh yes. It's like, no, that's not what that means. Right, right. It's like they keep stress, womens keep you alert and proportion to your environment.

And I tell like, so this is what I tell all of them are like,  the whole reason I'm going to sleep tonight  is to repair all the damage that I'm doing to myself. Like right now I'm catabolic right now. I'm eating myself. Right. Uh, and then when I work out, I'm over stressing muscles and tendons and ligaments and all this other stuff.

Um, so I need to repair and then I've like depleted a bunch of resources and I need to restock those and I need to flush out waste products that didn't get flushed out during the daytime. Right. So the whole reason I'm going to sleep tonight is to repair and to prepare. Yeah. For tomorrow. And if I could do that, a hundred percent, I would wake up exactly the same every day and I would never age.

Right. That's exactly the same. Right. That's something to think about. Because if you say, because the contract you're appointed to, it's like it takes eight hours to recover for being awake 16 hours. No matter what your middle name is. Yeah. Like, you know, How much butter you put in your coffee or whatever, like it takes eight hours to recover from being away for 16 hours.

That is just the way the world works.  They're very small, you know, you know, being, I'm being general there, but it's a very, very small variation. So, uh, and of course if you run an ultra marathon, it's more than eight hours. And if you sit around on your couch and do nothing, okay, maybe it's seven hours, but you know, it's like the contract is that's all it takes.

And if you think about it, if you put somebody in a, and there's, of course, this research has been done, you put somebody in a cold, dark cave and all the, all the lights artificial and they have no cues and there's no sounds and there's nothing to tell them when to be asleep, when to be awake. And that's how we, you know, we've noticed, we studied that circadian drift across time and all that stuff,  but they always, once they're sleep adapted, they always sleep eight hours.

And nothing wakes them up. So what's waking them up? Well, stress hormones are waking them up. Why? Because that's what keeps you alert in proportion to your environment. Yeah. And so now, like when you go to, when you go into deep sleep, slow sleep cycle is the lowest stress hormone you'll have in any 24 hour period.

There's almost, you have almost no measurable blood cortisol when you're in deep sleep. And then as you. You know, as your glymphatic flush out waste products and you start building adenosine into ATP and you start restocking the shells with nutrients and you, you know, uh,  your cortisol starts going back up with each sleep cycle.

And then at some point it's high enough to wake you up, just high enough to wake you up normal. And like, this is enough to be normal and be alert in proportion to your environment. Something really stressful happens, bam, you have the opportunity to go into fight or flight, right? Somebody kicks you in your door, start shooting a gun, like, bam, like.

Stress hormones way up here, but stress hormones really just need to be slightly higher than stress hormones are when you go to sleep Yeah, it's like they have to be a little higher than what allows you to fall asleep  And then that as we know creeps on through the day and peace somewhere on three or four and then kind of starts keeping back down well  if I don't recover  If I don't completely repair and I don't completely prepare, I don't restock the shelves.

I don't fix this. I don't get rid of this waste products. Tomorrow still comes exactly the same time. Now I don't wake up automatically because of my body's not ready. No, my body and brain aren't ready, right? So how am I going to, I'm going to wake up with an alarm clock, right? Yes. Um, but. How so how am I going to do tomorrow if I'm not repaired if I'm not prepared  I'm going to compensate by secreting more stress hormones  So brilliant.

Yeah, and now my stress hormones are higher and stress hormones are catabolic and stress hormones to, to the stress hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine are in like, right. I have adrenaline and my prefrontal cortex and I'm shutting down my prefrontal cortex. This is where my willpower comes from, my problem solving abilities, my anxiety, all of that.

I'm encouraging that because now I have higher stress hormones  and I have higher stress hormones because I'm not ready for today. Yes. But now today seems way harder. Ugh. Right. And now we're gonna compound and vicious cycle. Now I'd be more stress hormones. Yeah. And now I can't go to sleep tonight because my stress hormones are three times higher than they should be.

'cause that's what it took me to get through my day. Oh my gosh. And now I can't sleep because my stress hormones are too high. Yes. And I keep getting higher stress hormones because I can't sleep well. And now I'm in a vicious, now I'm in a vicious cycle. Mm-Hmm. . So that's, that's more the point of no return than the hormones.

Well, the sex hormones, right? Yeah, sure. People get themselves into this spiral and then they don't recognize it. They're like, well, I just feel really wide awake at 9 p. m. I'm like. Well, yeah,  I'm not arguing. Yes. I'm not stressed. I didn't like no you have your stress hormones by definition  Saying I feel really wide awake.

Yes. I have really high stress hormones. That's what that means. Okay, those are the same sentences, right? But and so it's like I know I just feel really awake Because your stress hormones are too high right or they'll say I get I get up at four my alarm clears off I get up at four. I feel great.  Yeah, you're I mean, you're you're you're Cortisol, your serum cortisol 26 cause that alarm clock shattered you and you're worried about this workout you're gonna do and like your stress hormones are going out of the sky and of course you feel great.

When you're in fight or flight, do you like, how do people feel? I feel great, like your body's superhuman, right? Lungs dilate, you take in more oxygen, your pupils dilate, you take in more, your cardiopulmonary increases, pain threshold goes up, reflexes get faster, you're stronger, more enduring, like, yeah, this feels great.

Right. Until it doesn't. And so like you've run out of the ability to do that anymore. And you know, stress hormones are catabolic. So there you are eating yourself as the fuel source to get through the day. And so  everybody I work with, I make sure that that's out of the way first and that  But that's a bugger  that there's a messed up.

Now I have no, interestingly enough, uh, like I said, I work with private clients and I work for sales and I kind of do, I kind of do the same thing with both of them. Um, but I work with like everything you've ever heard of, right? Like any kind of gadget, any type of measurable wearable hyperbaric psychedelics, lasers, magnets, like you would whatever the hell you want to do, if it fits in our,  It's in our goals and we want to do it.

We'll do it. Right. Yeah. Um, but the most powerful thing I do is the stress worksheet  and it's,  and it's comical. I mean, it's comical to me that I'm like  all of these years of doing this and this is really the best thing I have. Uh, and we'll, we'll give it to you. Um, Oh yes. We'll give it to your audience.

We'll do. It'd be great. We'll do what we're going to do. Doc Parsley. We'll just, we'll just do a landed doc parsley forwards. Doc parsley. com forward slash Sleep as a skill. Sleep as a skill. That would be perfect. That's it. So we're doing it. So the basics, the basics of this really is like we have to get stress out of the, out of the bedroom.

Yes. Right? We have to get that out of the bed.  And we know that's a problem. And a lot of the CB, I know you've heard this with the CBT. Sure. Yeah. Well, you don't want to make the bed into a stressful place. Yes. So you leave. Stimulus control. Sure. Okay. Well, you leave for how long  and when do you come back?

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Exactly. So I've never liked that, but I did that for years and like I followed a lot. And so what, what I figured out, and most of this will be stuff you've all heard of, but I know you've heard of this, uh, just, I've heard a lot of your work and I know you've been in this world forever, but so it's the whole thing, right?

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And now, at least an hour before bed, you start preparing for bed, right? The three stimuli, the blue light, the activity, and the body temperature, right? So, that sleep hygiene, handle that. That for, right, so there's alarm clock. That alarm clock is the exact same importance as the morning alarm clock, right?

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They're both, they're equally important. Because what are they blocking off? They're blocking off The time in bed, right? The time in bed is the recovery, the restoration, but it's also the performance tool. Sure. Right. And I think that sells well to a lot of people. You say,  anything you want to get better at, you get better at while you're asleep.

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Period. You don't get better at anything while you're awake,  only when you're asleep. If that doesn't motivate people, they don't have performance goals. You just go in pub med, put in sleep and anything you care about and read until you're petrified. Right. Because it's like,  you're going to die younger, you're going to be fatter.

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You're going to be more miserable. You're going to be a worse parent. You're going to be less money. Like whatever, like geek out. The research is that like your life is worse unequivocally. So motivate yourself to like this eight hours in bed, this time in bed, eight hours is just for that.  It's just for that.

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It's for nothing else under any circumstances, nothing else.  Just like your gym time is your gym time, your eating time, your eating time, your time with your spouse is that, and your work time is your work. You're like, it's just as important.  In fact, it's more important because it's what everything else is built on.

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So the alarm clock an hour before bed, you get into bed. Of course, now you never look at the clock again. It doesn't matter what time it is, because when that alarm clock goes off in the morning is when you're done with your time in bed. Yes. And when that alarm clock goes off in the morning,  that's when you get up and you handle your day.

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Yeah. And you have to have an alarm clock in the morning, even if you think you don't need one. Because if you don't set one, there's a part of your brain going, what if I oversleep? Right. And so that's a stressor. So we're taking away all the stressors. Yeah.  So during the day I have people like at this time of day when they're hopefully not super stressed.

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I have them to do a to do list and a to worry list.  The to do as long as far out as you're likely to worry about things you need to do. Yeah. For me, that's. Six hours like whatever like I don't think I don't think that's later today. Yeah, some people that's six months. So whatever is that?  Yeah, anything that you might think about when you're in bed is written down on there now the to worry list  These are all the things that you might think about while you're asleep, but are going to keep you awake that you don't have any control over.

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Yeah. But you know, you're, you might worry about it. Like it's probably going to go there. Right. So, so, okay. You have a to do list and a tutorial list. Now here, here's the key to all of it. This is the CBT. Like, you know, the CBT is like at one point it clicks. At some point it's just this little, and people, Oh, I get it.

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Right. Yeah. However they get it. So that's the thing that takes a little time. This is mechanical until that click happens. But once that click happens, you go, Oh.  The best I will ever be at handling this list  is after my eight hours in bed.  And the better that eight hours in bed, the better I can handle that list.

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So there's no other time I should be thinking about this other than when I'm not in bed for eight hours. Right. So  That's a different way of phrasing it. Sure. Instead of saying, don't think about this. Like, no, the only time, the only, the only important time to think about it is like when you're capable.

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Right. If I gave you, you know, if I gave you eight weeks to prepare for something stressful, would you go,  that's been two weeks. I'm just going to go do it. Right. No, you would spend all eight weeks getting ready. Right. So it's like everything that's important to you. Spend the eight hours. And so here's what I tell people.

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This is where I differ.  You lay in bed and you do whatever you can do to relax. Right. Yeah. All of the autonomic tricks. Right. So I don't care what, what you like. Yeah. Box breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, prayer, whatever, whatever it is that works for you. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me.

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That laying in bed, And a comfortable bed, non stressed doing that is doing what it's lowering stress hormones. Yes. Box breathing, prayer, progressive muscle relaxation. All of it. You're lowering stress hormones. You're less catabolic. You're relaxing. Your autonomics are shifting. Yeah.  Do that or sleep until the alarm goes off.

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That's it. Yeah. You don't get out of bed and go read. Like, no, you just lay there and you don't look at a clock. So you don't know how long you slept. Yeah. You're like,  I don't know, because if you're like, if you wake up one o'clock in the morning and you have to go pee, you go to the bathroom, you get back in bed and you go, I'm just going to lay here and start doing my breathing and my prayers or whatever it is, my meditation, whatever I do,  and if your alarm clock is not going to go off for six or more hours, you're going to fall back asleep.

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Right? You just are. Yeah. And if you did that at 7 30 in the morning and your alarm clock goes off 15 minutes later, it's like, all right,  We got your seven and a half hours of sleep and you got 15 minutes of meditation. Now go get them, tiger. Um, and when you, once people do that, once that click happens and they quit worrying about the fact, well, I'm meditating and so sleeping or I'm relaxing and so sleeping or praying and stuff like, no, no, no, no.

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Still getting value. Those things are allowed during that eight hour time in bed. Those are the only two things that are allowed sleep or do that because that's That's the next best thing. Yes. Reading a book in the other room is not the next best thing. Watching television and stretching, you know, that's not the next best thing.

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I agree. The next best thing is the closest thing to sleep you can do. Yes. Really, really good meditators can come pretty close to looking like they're asleep with the EEGs, right? Sure. Like, they can get into a good theta brainwave, their pulse rate can go down, like, and you know, that's pretty, you know, look pretty close to sleep.

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And so you're getting regenerative sleep. You're getting some regeneration because you're keeping your stress hormones low. So good. And it's such a relief I think for so many people that they have that performance anxiety and they have it that they're failing because they're not asleep right if you're changing that paradigm by saying No, you're still getting value.

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It's, we get it. It's not exactly sleep, but there's still, there's some benefit that's happening. And I completely agree. We have people look into things like ACT, A C T for insomnia. So then, and can be complimentary to CBTI. Great. But one of the things I really like about ACT is then part of the thinking is you're just accepting, you're training yourself to accept, oh yeah, okay, I'm up, like, what's the big deal?

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And in that accepting, then you're not kind of strategizing, okay, I'm going to go outside for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I find that often, and some people, they love it and it's great, fantastic. But I've often found myself included when I went through my own sleep breakdown was that the anxious among us can overcomplicate and be like, well, am I tired?

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I don't know. And I'm trying to assess that. And then the, you know, interoception is then waking you up. And right. So just remove all that. It gets so messy. Yeah. And what always happens. I mean, this is, like I said, it's comical to me that this is the most powerful thing I do. Everything I've done,  the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent learning how to do things and all these gadgets and all the stuff I have, all these tools I have.

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And this is like, this is the most powerful thing. And like I said, it's mechanical for at first, at first. And it's like  two weeks, three weeks, maybe worst case scenario, you're a real stress case. And it's six weeks before that little, Click happens.  But then once, once people that like, you're talking about the acceptance part, once people are sitting in there going, well, this is fine.

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Like they're not even thinking about this is fine anymore because they're like, these are the two things I do in bed. I meditate and I. I meditate and I sleep and that's it. And when my alarm clock goes off in the morning, I feel as good as I'm going as I can possibly feel. Whether I slept five hours and meditated three or slept nine hours or meditated zero or like it doesn't matter.

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Yeah, you aren't measuring it. You aren't looking at the clock. You don't know how long you meditated. Yeah. You don't know how long you slept. All you know is the alarm clock went off. Yeah. And this is the most prepared you're going to be today. Yes. Now get up and go. Yes. And what always happens is that little, those waking periods just get shorter and less frequent and shorter and less frequent, shorter and less frequent.

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And I've like, once that click happens, that just plummets that all that plummets. And the next thing you know, they're like, yeah, I sleep eight hours a night. I sleep eight hours a night straight through the night all the time. Um, and I, and it's the only way I've ever been able to get people to do that. I mean, I've tried so many different, you know, I mean, you, you've, you've seen, you've heard of them.

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Yeah. There's so many different approaches to that. That there's very few things that I can say have been 100 percent 100 percent successful in my practice, but that is 100 percent successful. Well, it makes a lot of sense to, you know, the self efficacy of a sense that, okay, I'm not failing by whatever the night looks like.

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And we're still going to go and accomplish all the things we got to accomplish. I'm sure. Given that you're working as well with so many seals and they've still got stuff they got to do the next day It's no like, you know, you can't compromise on it and to be able to know that we're still doing those things No matter how the night looks and really be a sense of empowerment When anything on that list comes in your head?

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Yeah, that's when people stress, right? Yes, and that's when people can't get back to sleep and you say you say to yourself It's on the list. And the only, the only time it's acceptable to do something other than sleep or meditate is when you realize there's something not on the list and then you have, then you have the permission.

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So that's why it needs to be a physical list. Yeah. So you're going to sit up and go, okay, add that to the list. Don't forget to worry about IRS auditing me in 10 years, like whatever, like whatever, just kind of crazy thing. Like, you know, I've been thinking about this. You put it on the list.  And then like that, that little click happens when people go, Oh, the, Oh, I not only is that interfering with my goal right now of sleeping and meditating,  it's also interfering with my goal of handling that list.

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If I think about the list now, I'm interfering with my ability to handle it  later on in the day. Right. So once that, once that shift happens, it's solid works, works every time. Okay. So.  In the examples of the seals that are dealing with a lot of stress, uh, presumably at certain points, are there any things that you have them do differently, or it's just always go to that list?

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I'm asking because we have so many clients, especially in high stakes poker, that are, you know, little different stressors, but certainly still dealing with stress. And they'll come back after, you know, a late tournament, like, you know, on the table and they're stressed to the max because there's certain decisions that they're making that are Costing them millions, either ups, downs, or all arounds.

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And so they're dealing with their certain form of stress. And so they'll have this narrative that, okay, well, they've got extra stress than maybe the average person. They can't possibly manage it in the same way. It's going to be hard for them to fall asleep. And given your people are in some real, potentially life or death situations at certain points, do you find that it's, you don't have to overcomplicate it.

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It's still go to the list, get it out of your head, or there's certain other things you bring in. So I, I always try to shoot. for and coach all my clients around the Pareto distribution because it exists everywhere in the world, right? Everything you look at. And so that's what we're shooting for, right?

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That 80 percent that 80 percent consistency, 80 percent quality, 80 percent direct, like we've got that 80 percent of the time that makes us resilient enough for the 20 percent of the time that we aren't doing it. Yes, same thing with everything else. It's like the goal is to be like 80 percent ready, right?

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Like I've done, I've done. I've done what I should do 80 percent of the time. That's 10 percent I'm not doing the time is now not nearly as detrimental to my health. Right. Now, if you, you know, like I, I, I work with long a lot of law enforcement and first responders and they do shift work and they're like, well, what can I do about this shift work?

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I'm like, quit doing shift work. I mean, like that, that's it. That's honestly. But Hey, I want you out there. Like, thank you. Like, right. You know, criminals are out at night and like, we need you out there at night. And like, you know, ER doctors and like, like they, there are people that have to do that. Um, and honestly, they're like, there's no great solutions for it.

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Right. It's just like going  to war gets people killed and people lose limbs and like, it really sucks. But like, what's the alternative? Like, I don't know. Like, we have to do it. Yes. And so, um, if you're, like, if you're in a shift work position, um, and you have some control, I re like, I always tell people I recommend that you work all like, that you get off of shift work and you don't do it consistently.

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Yes. Right? Like, you rotate it. Uh, get, you know, get a Stronger and resilient and go back on your shift work, like, you know, and I've, and I've worked with hospitals with their physicians to try to build  enough, you know, enough time. Because if you're, if you're taking somebody, if you're taking somebody 12 hours out of phase  every three days, that doesn't like, they're never, they're never getting ready.

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It's like, If you're going to take them out of phase for that long, you got to take them out of phase for a longer time. Yes. So that they have a time to adapt, and then you step home, right? Totally. And so, so the shift work, if you can do something about it like that, okay, great.  I don't know the life of a professional poker player, but I imagine that's really chaotic.

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Uh, that's really the problems with sleep, with seals. Um, they have super, super chaotic sleep cycles, right? Because it's like,  surprise! You aren't sleeping for the next three days. Like, because we got stuff to get ready for, and then we're going to go out, like, and then there's just no sleep for her. Hey, you remember how you said we were Remember how we said we were going to do this the next week?

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Well, actually, we're not going to and instead of, you know, instead of sleeping at night, you're going to sleep in today and we're going to do this. And then like, and so that chaotic nature is really, really hard to deal with. Um,  you know, the,  as far as  sort of bullet statements or layman advice, uh, what I always tell people is like, get with it.

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As much sleep as you can possibly get as early as you can possibly get it. Yeah. Right. And then you just teach people the techniques to do that. Right. So it's like,  I want to bring bedtime closer than I do right in the bright light and then exercise and stuff in the morning. I suck it towards me. I want to push it off.

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I do that in the evening. you can just push it away. Like there's not a whole lot you can do around that. Sure. When you're, you know, going across time zones and all that. And I assume the poker players are kind of like that, right? They're kind of like, um, probably traveling time zones. And then as well as like, well, I'm going to stay up all night because that's how the poker is going to go.

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And then like, and I'm going to go try to work a normal job or something. I was like, I don't, I don't, I don't know what they do, but like that, that chaotic nature, like the best advice is  get as much as you can, as early as you can, because you know.  Yeah, once you, once you, once you get past that 16 hours of wakefulness, you know, the beta amyloids are measurably increasing, right?

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Yeah. And that's just a marker for damage, right? So that you're, and you can reabsorb and, you know, diminish some of that beta amyloid by getting, you know, getting some sleep, right? So that if you can, so that, but.  The more that's built up the harder it is. I always give people like the example of  Like a like a broken leg.

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If you break your leg and you just go I don't have any time to deal with it. I'm just gonna carry on. Yeah, I'm gonna limp around on it for a while Whatever. It's like, okay, it's gonna eventually heal For whatever degree it's going to be, right? Might be crooked. You might have a limp. Might hurt forever. I don't know.

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Versus, okay, I broke my leg. I'm going to go do everything I can right now. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to get it perfectly aligned. I'm going to get it casted. I'm going to take all the right medications. I'm going to do all the right precautions. And then, yeah, 10 years from now, if I do an x ray of your leg, I can tell, I can still tell you broke your leg, but you may not, you may not perform like you've ever had a broken leg.

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Right. It might feel totally normal to you. Uh, but I, okay. There's still evidence and, and sleep, you know, chronic sleep deprivation is the same thing. It's like, it's damaging your brain. It definitely is. There's no way around that.  But. The faster you can repair that, the faster you can remove all those detrimental behaviors, the less damage there is in the long run.

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So good. And that's really kind of the best advice I have and it's, it's not great advice, but it's like, it's not super consoling to people, but, uh, hopefully, You're really good at this poker thing and you only have to do it a few years.  Wouldn't get on out of that. You're doing this for 30 years. Like, things are looking bad for you.

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I don't really know what to do. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, no, I love that. Well, I think people, one of the things we've seen is that people are always very interested in when people have spent a lot of time thinking about sleep, how they're managing their own sleep. So we ask four questions to everyone that comes on.

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And I think a long time ago, we asked. Okay. So we'll see if anything's up, you know, changed or what's going on. We'll see how good my integrity is, because I don't remember the question. Perfect. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and these are always dynamic, evolving. Go back and compare them and find out if I'm a liar.

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I think so. I think so. We'll investigate. What have you added on? What did he say? Let's, let's there. And okay. And I don't remember your answers actually at this point. So this is going to be very fun. So let's see. All right. So the first question is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now?

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So my nightly routine is very similar to what I typically do. I just said about  my wife and I probably spent about two hours getting ready for bed. Um,  I'd say  something I'm not super proud of is, uh, the last, I'd say the last six months or something we've gotten to where we, we watch television shows and we used to read, uh, we, we used to read or just sit around and talk.

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Uh, cause she's a nurse practitioner and she treats females and does exactly what I do for men.  So like.  We have endless things to talk about. And like, we all think, we think about the same things all day and redo it, read the same things and whatever. So, uh, we used to, we used to just kind of like dim the lights of the house and, uh, you know, and, and sit back and, uh, you know, catch up on whatever reading, whatever, but definitely stay away from work.

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Right. Because the work will dry  stress hormones out. Right. And I mean, just that, that, that concentrated effort because things matter and you, you know, you have to make decisions and all that. Um, so we spent about two hours getting ready for bed. We get in bed. My, I mean, you can't see your hand in front of your, you can't see your hand in front of your face in my bedroom.

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Uh, we sleep at 62 degrees, which is probably a change. I think we were doing, I used to do 64 for a long time, but 62 is my new, is my, is my new temperature. Uh, And, um, we, we, we kind of live  a little bit rural, so there's no streetlights or anything. So yeah, my bedroom is completely dark, but I don't have blackout curtains.

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I just have like curtains,  but when the sun comes up, It leaks. Yeah. So I wake up around sunup. Love it. I mean, that's just the way it works. That is perfect. Well, actually, that leads us to the question that we added in, which is, what is your morning sleep routine with the argument that how you start your day can impact your sleep?

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So it sounds like it's starting with the sun. Yeah, uh, definitely. So we, uh, We're fortunate enough to have like a really great deck in the back of the house. Nice. Overlooks  what used to be a body of water, which is now more of a puddle. Uh, it used to be a lake. Good old Texas. Now it's a little bit of a stream now.

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Yeah. But. The back of my house faces exactly due east, uh, and the deck faces exactly due east. Uh, and so our bedroom, uh, windows face like, and actually, uh,  uh, he can, uh, Zach can attest, the whole back of my house is glass. And so there's no getting away from the sun in the morning. Uh, so whether I sit on my couch or I sit out, we have a nice couch outside, we have a table outside and we usually just.

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You know, have coffee, uh, sit up in the morning, do some reading, uh,  meditation, prayer, or kind of whatever our thing is. Um, and then, um, we, and then we've gotten, uh,  primarily cause I wanted to do some research on it. I'm not a hundred percent convinced on these yet, but, um, we've recently gotten an ice bath.

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So now we've added an ice bath to our morning routine. Um,  It's because it seems like that's the right time of the day. If it, if it is, if there is going to be like,  I think there's gonna be an autonomic component of it. That's going to be interesting to us. I know there's some anti inflammatory stuff that's unequivocally, uh, that's definitely true.

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I mean, um, to the degree that works, I'm not sure we'll, we'll find that out, but we're working with, uh, Morosco. Oh, sure. Yeah. So, um, I, I met their founder years ago when he was just launching that. Yeah, he's great. And so we're, we have a conference in Arizona here in a couple of weeks. We're going to them and we're going to plan a bunch of research for 2025.

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I'm obviously going to go primarily towards performance stuff. Yes. Um, But, uh, I think there's, I think there's going to be some good autonomic benefit to it. And so that's what, that's kind of why we're doing it in the morning, um, to see if that, to see if that shifts there. Right. Um,  just like the bright light, right?

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If it's, if it is causing that,  that spike to be sooner or higher or both, you should, you know, you should have lower stress hormones when you go to sleep, hopefully. Right. And, and hopefully lower stress hormones throughout the day. I don't know. That'd be an interesting. I'm very curious. Even if it's a 10 percent quant.

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Like that would be huge, right? Because I, like, I firmly believe that, um, all, all disease is stress related, right? Like it's all, it's all stress hormones because, um,  I mean, that's the manifestation of anything. Any physiologic stressor is stress hormones, right? And stress hormones are catabolic and they do impair your brain and your organomics and your immune system and everything else.

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Like acutely, they. Right, of course, make your immune system better, but chronically they make your immune system worse. And so like if you're chronically stressed, you're more susceptible to every day, every disease and death from any cause.  And what is aging other than being more susceptible to disease and death?

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Like that's really kind of, that's really kinda the point we're trying to avoid with the aging. Like the skin wrinkles are one that's not that big of a deal, but it's like, I don't want, I don't want to die and be decrepit and capable.  Right. And you're like, you were sharing your. well versed in all these different gadgets and trackers and what have you.

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I'm curious if given your focus on stress, which makes a lot of sense when we're trying to help support sleep, any thoughts on the daytime stress features for whoop or aura? Are you a fan of those? Do you think people get too stressed? Ironically about them? I  think, I think ironically, most people get neurotic over their wearable devices.

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Um, um, I do have clients that just really love them and want to use them. Um, and I, I think they're okay as long as, as long as you're not using them as though they're infallible or they're absolutely true.  They're revealing patterns. And as long as you're just like.  I can believe the pattern, right? If you say  the mornings I feel the best, my sleep score is between 75 and 85.

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Okay. I buy that. Uh, but  can you have a sleep score of 65 and feel great and the thing just didn't work, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Can you have a sleep score of a hundred and feel like crap? Yeah. All the time. Uh, HR, HRV  I think, um, is,  It's a, it's for me, it's a good tool because, uh, you know, I work with a lot of really type a hard driven folks.

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One of the things that I, um,  one of the things I commonly say to my patients would say, Hey, is that if you didn't get a good night's sleep, you shouldn't exercise.  And most of them are neurotic about exercise and like, well, what about this and the health benefits of that? And then it's like,  no,  because right.

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If I go, when I go to the gym today and I work out. Do I get stronger or weaker?  I get weaker. When do I get stronger? When I sleep? Well, if I didn't sleep, should I go to the gym again? No. Right. Okay. That's an absolute, but what if I only slept 70%? Should I go to the gym again? Probably not. Right. It's like, give yourself another day to recover.

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And I'll still be active. Right. Sure. Like still take the stairs, you know, park a few blocks away, like whatever, mow your own lawn, clean your own house, wash your own car, wait, still be active, but you don't need to exercise with intensity towards a goal, like something like that.  And so the HRV is a. Good tool for me because it kind of  proves my point.

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I'm like, look, see, even that says, even that says you're not ready. Right? Totally. Yeah. So, um, but you know, I have older clients. Well, I have older and younger clients that just  don't like wearables. Like they're just not into gadgets. They don't want any more technology than they have to have. And you can do the same thing with the sleep journal.

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Totally. What time did you go to sleep? Yeah. How'd you feel today? Yeah. Do you, when you wake up, what time do you wake up? Like  Do you remember anything from your sleep? You know, and you'll see the patterns. They see the patterns. They're just the same. Um, and so you, you can do it high tech, low tech, but  do not  think that there do not, do not, you know, do not drive your life by these, by these devices as though they're infallible because they are not, they're a hundred percent, you know, they are, They're, they're taking bits and pieces.

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So even, even a polysomnograph, that's not infallible. That's just the best thing we have. That's the gold standard.  But your polysomnograph can change from night to night to day to day. And it might not correlate with how you feel or how you perform the next day. So that's, that's not, like, that's not an exact thing.

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It's like, well, this is the best we have and what all these devices are doing is they're taking bits of pieces of that and they're building an algorithm and saying, well, that this is true and that's true. And that's true. Well, then you're probably right. This, this was probably what the polysomnograph would be showing, or this is the phase you would be in,  you know, which is plausible and probable, but it's not ideal.

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It's not. So I wouldn't get too under on the axle with them. Totally. Okay. That's so good. And then our third question is, what might we visually see in your environment on your nightstand or, you know, maybe if you're traveling, things that you might bring with you? A pistol.  Texas represents a  really, really nice pistol, Zach.

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Yeah. I mean, a really, really  nice pistol. How are you supposed to relax and sleep? I have a pistol, a journal and a flashlight and a bottle of water. Oh my,  that is the first time I think I've tried to remember. Did you say that last time? I don't know. But okay. I don't think it's changed. I think that's probably actually now it does feel like it's coming out of the recesses of my brain.

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Yes. That is amazing. Because if you did before, I can't think of a single one. single other person that said that and I love it. Okay, so good. All right, so we've got our clear environmental supports. And the last question would be, to date so far, what would you say has made the biggest change to how you're managing your sleep or said another way, maybe biggest aha moment in managing your sleep?

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Well, the biggest aha moment, uh, that I had  is embarrassing. I love it. Did you ask this question before? So, I've kind of metaphrased it a little differently. I think, I think I probably would have said the same thing on this one. Okay. Um,  so I don't know, probably three or four years after I had figured this out with the seals and started getting them all to sleep and taking them, you know, get them to quit drinking alcohol around bedtime and then like all the stuff,  um, I did my own labs.

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My own labs were terrible. And I was like, I was like, you know, I should probably do what I told those guys to do. And then I started behaving in a way that I was coaching all of them to do. Get it. Yeah, I would say that was my biggest aha moment. Um, but,  um, that sleep journal that we, that we just discussed,  let your people download.

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Um,  uh,  the, I had, uh,  I can't remember.  She might've been in her early eighties or definitely in her late seventies, um,  swore that she had not slept more than four hours in 30 years.  And that, that worksheet, like the concept of that worksheet, which wasn't a worksheet yet, um,  got her sleeping eight hours, eight hours a night at that age.

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And that  was the aha moment when I said, wow, this is like the most powerful thing because I had been doing that. I hadn't done it as systematically. So she lived out of the country. And so I was having to, I was having to like, um, Write everything down like and make it  and she was older and like a lot of this stuff.

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So I had, I had to make it super simple and I had to communicate it over email.  Uh,  and when that worked for her, I was like, Holy  smokes, there's some magic here.  I'm gonna, I'm gonna make note of that and like start using that more. And then I, and then I made that into something much more organized. And then, and then finally we, like, we just produced something on the, like on the website one day, I think we, you know, whatever.

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Got the graphic artist involved. It kind of made it like into a workbook thing. I love it. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to get it for people because I love what you said too of so often out of the gate people will say, No, it's It's whatever. It's the mold in the bedroom. It's this. It's something else. And, you know, maybe it can be multifaceted.

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Maybe there are some things. It's all there. Right. It's all, it's all true. It's all true. Like, and I'm not telling you don't have mold in your room and I'm not telling you that you don't have a family genetic issue. I'm not telling you don't have leaky gut. I'm not telling you don't have insulin sensitivity.

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Like, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But just like I do with,  you know, my SEALs or my private clients, everything I can control. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everything I can measure, let's optimize that first and then let's see what's there.  So that's how we handle it. Because I know what ideal looks like, we're pretty damn close.

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Really when I say ideal, I know what a 25 year old looks like. Let's make it look like that.  Let's make you look like a healthy 25 year old. And then let's see what your problems are. And then we go, Oh, actually, maybe, Oh, look at like, we can't get that done. Maybe that, maybe there is some environmental toxin.

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Like, let's look in that or whatever. Right. You know, or maybe there's some, maybe there's like, I don't know, but let's do that first. Yes. It's worth the big pieces first. Pareto distribution, 80%.  Right. 80 percent of the success comes from 20 percent of the work, 20 percent of the concepts. Yes. Yes. So wise.

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Yeah. Okay. So, so those have been some of your aha moments and people listening, I'm sure are going to want to know how can they follow you? How can they? Yeah. Try out the supplement, all the things, where do they go to do those things? Yeah. So doc  short for Dr. D O C. And then last name partially like the herb.

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Yes. P A R S L E Y doc parsley. com that has, uh, lots of stuff on it so that you can get to the sleep remedy there. You can go, you can go to sleep remedy. com, but it's really all kind of the same page. So doc parsley. com. Sleeper mini. com. If you just want to go straight there and then, but doc Parsley, there's either some blogs or some lectures or some worksheets.

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So those types of things, I don't know, my Ted talk, my media appearances, those types of things on there, all that social media link stuff is on the website as well. Yeah. Okay. We'll make sure that for your audience, just, you know, tell them do the doc parsley. com forward slash sleep as a skill. Yes. And then that'll get them there.

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Like that'll be the intro. Okay. Amazing. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I really truly because, you know, this is a mission driven kind of thing for me is to get people back in the driver's seat with their sleep. You know, I feel like I dodged a bullet in my own sleep journey where I went to the doctors left with sleeping pills and could have very easily gone down a path of long term pharmaceutical use.

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I had close family members that nearly died getting off of these things, the things that you're doing to educate people and get them a whole new experience of life is so important. So I so appreciate you, you know, taking the time. Yeah, the sleep drugs I think are probably one of the most pernicious health problems out there.

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Yeah. I mean, in general, Western medicine sucks, like, you know, it doesn't have.  There's usually not an exit plan for anything when they started  all of like, you know, even the, even the pharmaceutical industry tells you that there should be an exit plan for these things and nobody ever has it. Yeah. And they, um, and a question you asked earlier, I meant to bring up is like, you know, now that, now that people have kind of seen the,  the lack of.

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Truth to this, uh,  how benign Z drugs are, well, now it's Soma and now it's Trazodone and now it's Abilify. I'm like, you're giving an antipsychotic for, I mean, it's crazy the number of things people are doing. I know. And I'm like.  You don't have an ambient deficiency. You don't have a trazodone deficiency.

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You don't have a, like, like this is not your problem. These are not your problem. Your problem is not a pharmaceutical deficiency. I promise you that like it's some sort of lifestyle thing, right? Like that's the primary thing and you just have to put in the work. And, uh, you know, I think the most comforting thing,  um, it's not true with anything else I work with.

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So like, You know, I focus on sleep. I call that the foundation, but the  three pillars of health, you know, exercise, nutrition, and stress mitigation, they sit on the, they sit on the platform of sleep. Like that's the foundation. They all sit on, they're all heavily impacted by sleep. Right. And sleep heavily impacts all of them.

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Um, but  Sleep is the one thing that like, once you get it, you're done. All you gotta do is just keep doing that. Everything else you have to keep changing and keep growing and like, You don't do the same exercise forever. You don't do the same nutrition forever. You don't do the same stress mitigation forever.

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The world isn't like that. You travel, you don't have access to the same food. You don't have access to the same equipment. The weather is bad. You have an injury. Like whatever, like all that stuff changes. But sleep is like, Sleep. Learn it, get good at it, and you're done. Like, it's so, it's such a great feeling, and that's the foundation for everything else.

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So good. Well, thank you for underscoring that, and for all the work you do, and for taking the time for the second episode. This is amazing. I so appreciate it. And more to come,  you've been listening to the sleep as a skill podcast, the top podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level.

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Every Monday I send out the sleep obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun facts. I've never missed a Monday for over five years and counting. And it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to sleep as a skill.

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