Sleep

It’s hard to overstate how important sleep has become to me. Part of what spurred it was joining Robb Wolf’s Healthy Rebellion and going through the Fall 2021 Reset, and the deep dive into sleep they started, and then I followed. Danica and I have done all kinds of things to try to optimize sleep: cool, dark room, blue blocking glasses the last hour before sleep, not eating within 3-4 hours before shutting eyes, not drinking, and probably most importantly, just ensuring that we have the time blocked out and jealously guard it. Saying no to 10PM or 6AM meetings helps with that!

We both have Oura Rings, and it’s incredible the insight it gives you on your sleep quality. I mean, you can usually tell if you got a good night’s sleep, right? But here’s something I discovered: when I drink any amount of alcohol, my heart rate goes up and my heart rate variability (HRV, a measure of stress your body is under) goes down. I did some experimentation, and it was eye opening. Even if I drink a beer with lunch, my body doesn’t fully recover until after I go to sleep — like 11PM or so. That’s insane. Drinking with dinner or after? Forget about it — I will get noticeably get worse sleep and the next day, I’ll have less energy, not be as cognitively sharp, and just generally have less willpower to do the things I know I need to do (and not do).

Bad sleep has cascading negative effects on almost everything. Get your sleep right and it’s like get a cheat code on life. +3 to all abilities, to put it in nerd terms.

OK, time to go to bed!