147- How to Use Sleep to Enhance Your Performance with Dr. Shane Creado

Bryan Carroll: [00:00:14] You've heard me say it before on previous shows. Sleep for most of us seems to be a chore. We don't have any enough time in our busy lives to actually get adequate yeah, sleep.

However we know we have to get some unforeseen. Finally, this mindset around sleep causes a lot of issues in our health and performance. What's up everyone. I'm Bryan Carroll and I'm here to help people move more, eat well and be adventurous. And I have Dr. Shane creado on the show to teach us how to get fantastic sleep, to enhance our performance.

Now you might be put off by the word performance thinking only high level athletes need to be on top of their game, but that is far from the truth. Our entire lives are built around how well we are performing from the quality of work we produce to having the energy, to keep up with kids. So in reality, all of us can work to enhance our performance.

So in this episode, get ready to learn a lot about sleep and different ways to improve the quality of sleep that you are getting every single day. And if you enjoy this episode, then jump on over to your favorite podcasting app and follow our show. We have 146 other amazing episodes, just like this one.

Now let's get into my conversation with Shane. Dr. Shane creado is a board certified brain health specialist, sleep specialist, sports psychiatrist, and integrative psychiatrist. He works on the treatment of sleep disorders and perfectly am perfecting and optimizing sleep, which helps to boost sports performance and workplace productivity.

He consults with sports teams and hosts, sleep retreats to organizations and companies. Thank you, Shane for coming onto the show. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:01:58] Thank you, Bryan. Happy to be here today. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:02:00] Of course, and I'm really excited to chat with you about sleep. It seems to be one of those those areas of health that people always have issues with, but no one really knows how to fix their own sleep issues.

So first off, tell us a little bit about you and then what got you so passionate about sleep. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:02:17] Okay. So I started off in the medical field doing physical therapy, actually because my grandfather, my maternal grandfather had a stroke and I saw how beneficial it was to him. But then I felt that I was limited because all my patients had mental health issues with depression and anxiety and disability.

And so I decided to go into medicine and psychiatry. And then in psychiatry, I found that a lot of them had sleep issues and they were not being adequately treated. Everyone was being thrown ambient like candy or Tramadol and the buzzwords and in psychiatry. And I thought that was in inadequate. So that's what led me to do an additional specialization in sleep medicine while simultaneously getting more involved in sports psychiatri.

So I joined the international society for sports psychiatry. Bryan, I got on the board now working with the us Olympic committee and the NBA players association and the PGA tour Europe blessed for those opportunities. And even in the elite sports world, there's really no consolidated game plan when it comes to sleep optimization.

That horrified me as well, because the more I learned about sleep, the more I learned about how it can. Adversely affects sports performance, overall wellbeing, but also how you can harness, sleep as a weapon, as a performance enhancement tool. And that's, what's been my passion ever since. In fact, today's the one-year anniversary of my book being published on St.

Patrick's day 2020. So excited to talk about how we can help people and our listeners today on improving your sleep. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:04:05] And congratulations on that one year of the book release. And you were talking about how a lot of sports, they don't really have a systematic way of approaching sleep. And for whatever reason, that popped a Michael Phelps into my head, because there was a rumor is that he would sleep in like a pod of some sort that was in water.

And he would utilize that for like Removing distractions while he slept. And I don't know what else was involved with it, but have you seen any of that type of sleep? Hacking done before. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:04:38] Yes. So there's some of that that I use in my practice with my elite athletes, especially since athletes are so unique, right?

Bryan, they're always crossing time zones, they're training schedules and competition schedules that vary, greatly travel schedules. All that stuff needs to be factored in when you harness your sleep. Strategic napping is a really great hat that I like to use with my patients. I use hyperbaric option therapy.

I use sleep pods and certain sleep environments. You don't want to travel to another part of the world and then have a completely new environment. Other than the cave. I always talk about the bedroom as a cave. It's not an extension of the living room. You want to take as much. Stuff from your cave as possible so that you have multiple anchor points for sleep and safety.

When you travel, because sleeping is the most vulnerable thing we do in a new environment, it can disrupt your sleep, especially for athletes who travel. And then the next day they have a big game on their head. So yes, Michael Phelps does use different techniques, Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer player. He's he sleeps in 90 minutes, sleeps like over 90 minute naps, five naps a day, which works really well in the 24 hour period, because if feels to travel across time zones, he knows when he's getting his 90 minute naps and he's always ready to perform at his peak.

Bryan Carroll: [00:06:08] Amazing. So 90 minutes nap. And then how long in between the next nap? 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:06:14] It depends. So it depends on how much sleep you need. And typically athletes who train a very high levels. We always look at sleep as a recovery too. And a lot of my elite athletes need around nine to 12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.

So the reason I said 90 minutes, why I say nine hours, 12 hours is because I count sleep. In terms of sleep cycles of 90 minutes each. So five sleep cycles, seven and a half hours, six sleep cycles, nine hours. And so that's the way we go about calculating someone's sleep need in a 24 hour period based on what their peak performance looks like, but also the timing and the quality of their sleep.

Some peoples get 10 hours of sleep and they wake up feeling like they've been hit by a truck. And then you've got a wonder, is it a qualitative sleep issue? Interestingly, Bryan, there was a study done two months ago that compared quality sleep versus exercise versus nutrition seem what's the most effective.

We all know that all three are important in all interact with one another, but the most important factor, the foundational factor is quality weight. Hmm. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:07:40] And that seems to be the problem is a lot of people don't have that quality of sleep. So what are some causes for why someone's sleep? Quality would be depressed?

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:07:50] Okay. There are sleep conditions or sleep problems that lead to what we call sleep fragmentation or poor quality sleep, but just restless legs syndrome or sleep apnea. Or anything like sleep seizures that disrupts your sleep in terms of sleep disorders, then there are things that's where the integrative sleep stuff comes in.

And my book, I talk about the pyramid of peak sleep performance. We need to identify anything that sabotages your sleep. Most people may not be aware of this, that low vitamin D levels have a big impact on. Your quality of sleep because vitamin D works more like a hormone. And I want to see it in optimal levels.

Over 60, not even within normal ranges. It affects the quality of your sleep, the regularity of your sleep movements while you're asleep. Magnesium promotes deep sleep. I want to look at this magnesium levels as well. Toxins people think, Oh, I have lead poisoning or exposed to lead in the water. I can Flint, Michigan, but led blocks.

Iron and iron is needed to make dopamine. So through understanding underlying factors like pain is a big one. Anxiety is a huge one because anxiety is danger mode. Sleeping is the most vulnerable thing you can do. So if you are in danger mode, it's going to be nearly impossible for you to fall asleep.

Lifestyle factors can sabotage your sleep, like anything that stimulates your brain at night, nicotine, caffeine, or alcohol, which may help you fall asleep. Okay. But you will wake up in the middle of the night when your brain is undergoing a partial withdrawal from the alcohol. I care about hormone imbalances.

Think mez, menopausal women who have hot flashes wake up in the middle of the night, but there's many other hormones that are implicated in quality sleep as well. So the that's the way sleep issues should be thought about when it comes to the quality of sleep, meaning not knocking a brain out with heavy doses of Ambien.

But quality sleep, meaning how can we allow your normal sleep cycles between deep and dream sleep to be consolidated? 

Bryan Carroll: [00:10:20] Yeah. And when you mentioned pain that could reduce your quality of sleep, I was again, thinking of athletes and, you know, just finishing a game, I'm sure they're hurting quite a bit. So that's got to be rough on them trying to.

Have quality asleep right after a game. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:10:37] Yes. So a few of those athletes, especially the, the evening games, the NBA, they use apps or meditation to quickly calm their brain down because the adrenaline is going, it's pumping and it's about lowering the heart rate. Calming the stress circuits down, lowering the adrenaline to allow your brain to fall asleep.

It's not about going to sleep or trying to sleep. There's a reason why we say fall asleep. It's about allowing yourself to be vulnerable in order to sleep. So yes, pain is a big factor, sabotaging sleep. That's where the elderly have sleep fragmentation. They may have arthritis and chronic pain issues. But interestingly, Bryan, it's important for us to remember that quality sleep can also reduce pain.

Quality sleep actually reduces your perception of the intensity of the pain. So if I have a headache and I'm also sleep deprived, I may perceive the headache to be eight out of 10 with super bad. Whereas if I am well rested, I will consider it. I will perceive it to be five out of 10 or maybe three out of 10.

And also inadequate sleep is going to lead to more stress. Hormone response is more inflammation, thereby more pain. In fact, according to a study on high school athletes, athletes who had less than eight hours of sleep every night, they were almost twice as likely to get injured compared to those who got more than eight hours of sleep.

1.8 times. In fact sleep is the number one risk factor for injuries or lack of sleep? Not over-training. So when I work with athletes or anyone I work with with pain, they say I constantly because of pain. Okay. It may be one aspect. It may be, it's not the root cause. Trees have thousands of roots, right? So we can help with dealing with the pain as best we can with physical therapy, the right kinds of exercises, but also.

Working on your sleep simultaneously can allow quicker recovery, less inflammation, less stress, hormone surges, and better outcomes overall. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:12:57] So how much damage does a one bad night of sleep do for your performance in 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:13:03] terms of athletic performance or work performance or both? Both. Okay. So in terms of athletic performance, We've seen data in terms of just well there's sleep deprivation.

And it's hard for researchers to tell elite athletes, by the way, we're going to sleep deprive you because, and we will look at how bad your performance is. No. So most of the time it's about getting a little more sleep. Stanford university has done a lot of studies looking at 30 minutes increases in the amount of sleep an athlete gets.

So we're just talking about. The quantity of sleep, right? So just increasing the quantity of an athlete sleep. 30 minutes can boost tennis, serving speeds by up to 40% and improve that's big, right? I mean, in, in the sports world, 100th of per second is an issue you mentioned Michael Phillips can not forget that.

Cavage versus Phelps 100th of a second in the 2008 Olympics, I believe. So those margins are big. When it comes to basketball, shooting accuracy, you can boost your accuracy by 9.2% shooting accuracy. You can boost your start times in swimming by 17%. We can boost your hundred yard dash times a 40 yard dash times, but 0.1 to 0.2 seconds.

Those are big numbers just in terms of sports performance, but also we think about what would happen if you're not getting adequate sleep your reaction times with one night of sleep loss. The reaction times can drop by 300%. That was, that was a really cool study done a few years ago that compared sleep loss in terms of hours versus alcohol consumption.

And they found that people who got four hours of sleep every night, it was as if they'd consumed four to six alcoholic beverages, those who got six hours of sleep, but it's as if they consumed five. Or three to five alcoholic beverages. Interestingly on brain scans. When we look at brain functioning, the same areas that are affected by alcohol use are the same areas affected in traumatic brain injuries and concussions and the same areas that are implicated in chronic sleep loss.

So the way I work with my patients is I tell them if you are going on a binge or if you've got a head injury, Well, if you're not getting your right sleep it's as if you're being concussed every night, it's the same. That's amazing. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:15:44] That's also unfortunate. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:15:46] Yeah, it is unfortunate. But the cool thing is that sleep is free.

It is our tool. It is our weapon. We just need to know how to use it. So that's, as far as the sports performance is concerned, just to throw out a few numbers there, I could go on a rant about sports performance, but when it comes to work performance, right. When they did studies, the medical interpreter, medical trainees, I was a training once upon a time, they found that those trainees too, had an overnight shift.

They committed this add in a 16 hour shift. It was really bad as well. So when you have a huge percentage in medical errors, over 300% more errors in terms of diagnostic errors, Dangerous stuff can happen. People's lives can be lost. That's just, as far as the medical profession is concerned and they will talk about 16 hour versus overnight shifts.

I know I had to do 26 hour shifts and so far, so far so good, but that's a dangerous kind of dilemma to deal with. And the fact is our population is sleep deprived. It is a severe long-term ongoing cultural issue in our country. And the proof is in the pudding. If you think about the highest number of deaths in this country, do you do any cause they tend to be car accidents over 6,400 fatal car accidents.

Every year you think about cardiovascular disease or heart attacks, strokes, dementia cancers. All of them are directly linked to sleep. Sleep is a major risk factor. For each one of those causes of mortality or debt 69% of  students and 35% of adults did not get adequate sleep in this country. And it shows, 

Bryan Carroll: [00:17:50] yeah, it's, it's crazy because like you mentioned this study with the high school athletes I don't know of any high schoolers that get.

Adequate sleep at all. They're all staying up super late, playing on Tik TOK or whatever social app is a big deal at that time. And then they have to wake up early, go to school. They have long days of school. Then a lot of them play sports or extracurricular activities afterwards. Hallmark. And then they keep doing the same rat race over and over and over.

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:18:20] Exactly. Exactly. Bryan, in fact, there's so much tools, data from project rest, the NCAA, the NCAA engineers association, task force and sleep and wellness. The goals study the PAC 12 study. It is so much data time and time again, showing college athletes have inadequate sleep. They are stressed to the, to the limits and nearly three quarters of them reported receiving no education and managing sleep difficulties.

On average, they get six points to seven hours of sleep, according to those studies. Whereas my elite athletes need 10 to 12 hours of sleep. And the older you get, the less sleep you need. That's fine. So those college athletes, those high school athletes. Really needed more than 12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, it is not happening.

And we also know that that can lead to a direct increase risk of dropouts lower GPA's dropping courses is 90% overlap with depression, increased suicide risk with sleep loss is a major risk factor, mental health issues like anxiety and PTSD. Not to mention of course work performance because of the brain regions involved.

And I could talk about that at length as well. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:19:43] So if you are sleep deprived to, let's say you have one bad night of sleep, we've already established that most people have more than one bad night of sleep or inadequate night of sleep. How long does it take to Recover that lost sleep. Like, can you sleep for 24 hours the next day and recover or does it take longer than that?

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:20:02] Okay. So that's what some people do, right? The weekends they sleep in, we call it social jet lag because people are playing catch up on the weekends over that does Bryan is that actually forces your brain into jet lag mode. You're sleep deprived for the weekdays. We're getting too much sleep. On the weekends.

And the latest research shows that people who sleep too much as well, have the same risk factors in terms of heart attack, strokes, dementia, seven death cancers as people get too little sleep. So when it comes to catching up on sleep to get to your question, it depends on how much sleep you need. So let's say someone needs nine hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.

And now they've been getting seven hours of sleep every night for 10 years. So every week they're actually sleep deprived 14 hours. You cannot make that up. And it shows you in a brain scans like the concussion patterns, same thing. But what I do with my athletes is, and all the patients I work with is figure out how much sleep you need.

And I, as I said, the timing, the duration and the quality. So the timing is determined by a fixed wake up time every single day. That's your anchor point and you count backwards. So if my wake up time is 6:00 AM and I need nine hours of sleep. Then my bedtime is supposed to be 9:00 PM. Now, if I decided to go to my friends or party, I'm going to be sleep deprived and I get back home at 12:00 AM.

But my wake up time is 6:00 AM. How do I make up for that three hour deficit? Well, I will keep my wake up time. 6:00 AM, because if I push it too late, then I'm disrupting my circadian rhythm. I will wake up at 6:00 AM, but I will strategically nap in a window of opportunity. Typically for the average person, there are two windows of opportunity in their circadian rhythm.

For most of us, one window is between 12 or 1:00 PM. And the other window is between four or 5:00 PM. So yes, I will be sleepy in the day because I am sleep deprived, but I'm not going to feel sleepy at 6:00 AM because I just got a six hour nap. I may feel sleepy around 10 or 11, but I will strategically get the three hour nap, 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM because it's most likely going to be a weekend.

So guess what? In that 24 hour period I've made up what I know I need every night. Which is nine hours. So that nap at a fixed time, fixed duration is not going to affect my ability to fall asleep the next night, because I'm only compensating for my deficit. Does that make sense? That does make 

Bryan Carroll: [00:22:58] sense. So then that brings up the question when you are working with athletes that have to travel across the country.

So let's say their normal wake up time is West coast, time, 6:00 AM they traveled to the East coast, which is three hours ahead. Are you still having them get up at 6:00 AM West coast 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:23:17] time? No, it depends. It's tricky because there's many factors that have to consider there, ideally. Yes, but practically, no, because in practical terms, I want to know when they are flying there, because if I can control it, I will determine when they fly and I want them to fly when they're fresh, not impinging upon a time, they usually nap the prior to the flight.

I want them to be really well-hydrated. Planes are as dry as the Sahara desert hydration is key for recovery. If it's just three hour deficits between the West and the East coast, that's fine, but longer durations. I will need them to use iron masks, use light therapy strategically to shift their rhythms quicker, but it also depends on their training times and the competition time.

So say they wake up at 6:00 AM every day in LA and the flight is at 9:00 AM. Snugger, effectors sleep. They land there maybe four hours later. So the land there. 1:00 PM, which is 3:00 PM in New York. And they have a training session at maybe five. They have the game at 7:00 PM. That's fine. No issue there, but on the plane ride, I want them to walk around, do their stretches, not to doze off on the plane.

If they've already had the total sleep need met because. Planes can be cramped sitting in one place. I want them to be stretching, flexible, hydrating, walking around as if they would on land. And then when they get there, they're ready to perform. Sometimes if someone is super sleepy or they napped on the plane, that's fine.

You're going to have strategic caffeine. You may need a 30 minute nap, not more at least three hours before game time. And I say strategic caffeine is because caffeine should not be used every day. It should be used in conjunction with performance as a performance enhancing tool, but it is something that is legal, what has not been caffeine, but you can use it strategically.

For example, some of my long distance runners may use Katharine only when they're running in competition every three hours or so just to keep them going. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:25:50] So it definitely gets complicated, especially when you're jumping time zones. So it it's really neat to see how you strategically lay that out and you know, business people or anything that travel across the country for work and stuff, they could kind of.

Kind of take some of these and apply it that way as well. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:26:08] Correct? Absolutely. In fact, in my book, there's a whole section on travel strategies and yeah, it is, it is oriented toward athletes, but it's all the tools I use use of my Olympic athletes for anyone to access this isn't rocket science. But if you say I'm just going to nap and then wake up there and it's all over the place, then you're doing yourself a disservice.

So my business folk need to arrive in Munich and they have a meeting as soon as they land. So then I need to know their schedule, their sleep timings, what works for them, what doesn't work for them. And then I tell them, okay, this is what you do before your flight. This is what you do during the flight.

Even eye masks, headphones, what time are you going to set your alarm to wake up? What time are you going to have your meals, regardless of what the airline decides you need to eat and when you should eat it. So that they can arrive at their destination at their peak, as well as light boxes to suppress their melatonin, depending on how long they are flying the time zones involved and how long they're actually going to be in the different time zone.

Bryan Carroll: [00:27:16] So what ways are you using to actually track sleep? Like I know of aura ring. Is that something you're using or do you have other devices? 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:27:27] I use the body's awareness and I there's a lot of controversy about different trackers. Some people swear by them. The fact is no tracker is perfect. No tracker is completely accurate when it comes to dream versus deep sleep.

And personally, I haven't bought a single sleep tracker and I won't, because I believe it's a waste of money. And time and they're inaccurate. There was a study on 10 different sleep trackers a few years ago that looked at their ability to detect dream sleep. They were accurate three out of 10 times. Wow.

Yeah. Worse than flipping a coin. So I use the old fashioned sleep diaries with my folks. I have no problems with sleep, thankfully, so I don't need to track it. I know I need seven and a half hours of sleep most nights, and I can work around that. Most people are just fine with doing a sleep diary in the morning when they wake up as an estimation without clock watching.

And that's good. That is good enough. You have an estimation in terms of how much sleep you need in a 24 hour period, how much you're getting. And then you can find unit. If you're starting to exercise a train for a marathon, you might need to extend that sleep in terms of keeping your wake-up time fixed, but just going to sleep.

30 minutes earlier each night, depending on the level of training you have depends on the exercise or training intensity, the duration, the humidity, the calorie intake, those factors come into play. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:29:07] So how do you determine what your number of sleep cycles is? Is that trial and error paying attention to how your body feels afterwards?

Okay. So 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:29:17] a quick way of going about that is. The AA S M American association sleep medicine has a free PDF sleep diary. You can download. That's the one I use for my patients, my clients, my athletes choose whatever. Wake up time. You want to start with say 6:00 AM. And then in the absence of a qualitative sleep issue, Bryan like sleep apnea, pain, or restless leg syndrome, and the absence of those things.

If you are an adult, you in the absence of DNS at first, you may need seven and a half hours of sleep or five sleep cycles. So if it's 6:00 AM that shoot for a 10:30 PM bedtime, which means at nine 30, you're going to start a calming, winding down routine. I always advise my patients. To dim the lights at home in the evening.

When Sunday goes down the shades, go up, the lights go down as well. You can wear sunglasses at home, pretend you're bono from U2 a little way. And it doesn't matter. The fact is that's going to allow your melatonin levels to rise naturally. And then the, what are before bedtime is when your many vacation starts in many sleep vacation starts writing down your to-do list for the next day and writing down your worry list.

Calming music, a warm shower, maybe a sauna hyperbaric option therapy, meditation breathing exercises, like the three, three, six breathing technique, and then getting to bed only when you are sleepy, not tired, but sleepy. That's key. Otherwise you're going to lie in bed, not sleeping mind, racing, worrying. So have a good wind down routine.

And for seven and a half window of sleep. See how you feel the next day, the next day, you can track your sleepiness. There's another  10 word, sleepiness scale. Download it. You just circle asleep. You are every three hours, like 6:00 AM. 9:00 AM to PM. 3:00 PM, 6:00 PM, 9:00 PM. Just circle asleep. You are. If you're super sleepy that day, like, Oh, maybe I should shoot for the nine hours.

If I'm super sleepy or wedding apps, keep the wake up time. Same. And then track your sleepiness the next day through the Stanford sleepiness scale on my YouTube channel peaks with performance of describe this procedure exactly. To determine how much sleep your brain needs, just quantitatively speaking.

Awesome. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:31:55] And so what are some other ways to improve the quality of the sleep? So you have your wine down, which helps you to fall asleep. What if you're one of those people that wakes up in the middle 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:32:05] of the night? Okay. It depends on what's waking you up

out of the room. Some people have allergies. It's always important to use high hypoallergenic bedding and covers. It's also important to have blackout blinds, blackout curtains. I've had some elite athletes who invited me to their houses to look their sleep environment. And it's ridiculous there.

Multi-millionaires and they're spending that money that they've earned by working very hard on sabotaging their sleep and their performance with banks of flat-screen TVs and all that stuff in their room. So another study showed there's a 68% effect in terms of quality of sleep and be both who have when.

There was going to have slats and the light comes through even streetlight. So we're super sensitive. We just don't realize it. A dark room. Your bedroom is your cave caged in a flat-screen TVs. Caves do not have windows caves in our smartphones. Same thing applies here. Great environment, comfortable bed, dark room, no snoring spouse, no jumpy pets.

And. If that doesn't work and you're waking up in the middle of the night, it's probably a trained response is probably happening, been happening for a while. The worst thing you can do is try to get back to sleep. Trying wakes your brain up. Bryan trying is a surefire way to fail. So clock watching will make you try harder, no clock watching.

If you estimate that you can't fall asleep and it's been over 20 minutes, Then get out of bed, go to a little cubby, use a nice weighted blanket or something. Dim lights, read something, super boring. Listen to some music that's boring meditation. Don't try and get any chores done. If you try and get any chores done, or look at emails or Instagram is going to activate your brain.

If you lie in bed, trying too hard for a long period of time. You're telling your brain, Hey, this is cool. This is okay for me to lay in bed awake. That's fine. That's what we're supposed to do at three in the morning, you're training your brain. How powerful of trained his dogs with the bell and the meals and the saliva.

Right? We all know that experiment with training your brain to do that in the middle of the night. It's by staying in bed too long. So avoid doing that. Perfect. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:34:49] And then I wanted to go back real quick to the Ronaldo the five cycles of 90 minutes. So if, if he's doing seven and a half hours of sleep split over, you know, five naps, does that mean he's waking up in the middle of the night and he's doing whatever interesting.

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:35:09] That's exactly what it means. So you might seem partying, but he's not going to drink a lot of alcohol and that's is. Wait window. That doesn't mean it parties through the night and loses asleep. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:35:21] Wow. That's amazing. So then he, obviously he travels a lot or he was traveling much more when he was you know, playing on top-notch teams.

So for that, like he would figure out where, where he's going to travel, what the time difference is, and then plan his sleep around that 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:35:40] schedule. Yes, I haven't worked with him. I know someone who's worked with him, so I know that that's how it goes so that when I work with my teams who travel or my athletes to travel that's exactly what we do.

I look at their entire regimen. I look at their sleep needs. I looked at training schedules and timing and look at their competition schedules. I look at their. Games are there matches that they have to play in different time zone, calculate where their training schedule is going to look like in the guest country?

I do all that stuff. And then I say, okay, well maybe this form of transportation at this time, these times would be the best for this athlete for this reason, because each one, even your circadian rhythm, for example, night, hours versus morning birds. They perform at their peak at different times for a morning bird, you're going to have your peak performance.

When I talk about speed reaction times power output five hours after your wake up time. So if I'm a morning bird and I wake up at 6:00 AM, my peak of physical athletic performance is going to be around 11:00 AM. Whereas if you're a night owl, Your peak performance is going to be 11 hours after you wake up.

So if you wake up at 9:00 AM, your peak performance is going to be at 8:00 PM. Now there's ways to shift that when people travel across time zones through strategic napping, strategic melatonin, light blocking, light therapy, certain supplements, certain things to boost your wakefulness. Like I. I have something.

I call peak performance coffee, which involves black coffee, but also red chili powder, a teaspoon of that and a teaspoon of cinnamon powder because it helps burn fat quicker in the morning helps promote more wakefulness basal dilation. So your blood flow to the brain increases wakes you up much bigger than normal caffeine would do.

And that performance difference is really profound. Those night hours. When they perform 11 hours after they wake up versus earlier in the morning, there's a 26% performance difference. So you see what I'm saying? Right. See where I'm going with this. If there's an NBA team that has a 7:00 PM game and the coaches think about who to put on court next, if we know.

That between these two equally skilled NBA players, one is a morning. Bird. One is a night owl. Who am I going to put on the court and night owl? Exactly. Makes 

Bryan Carroll: [00:38:28] sense. Wow, this is so fascinating. And so briefly wanted to touch on, you had mentioned there's visual ways of seeing sleep impact on the brain.

Can you talk about some of that, like brain science that you do with using some sort of way to see what's actually happening within the brain? 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:38:47] Yes. So there's a number of ways in which we can look at what's happening inside the brain. One of the really cool ways of doing that, but refers to fall.

We need to be attuned to our bodies. As I said, we need to gauge how much sleep we need, what we need to do, and then figure that out. But if you want to actually see the effects we do at amen clinics, we do SPECT imaging, single photon, emission, computed tomography, really just a fancy way of saying we look at blood flow and activity in different brain regions.

And those brain regions light up, depending on whether they're overactive, they don't light up as much. If they're underactive and we can see other they're functioning, we map it to neurobiology. So the front part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex is one of the main regions impacted by sleep loss.

And it's responsible for concentration, attention, basketball, organization planning, multitasking, motivation, drive, social connectedness, leisure, rational thinking, suppressing impulses. So if it's not working properly like sleep deprivation or social jet lag or poor quality sleep procrastination, concentration problems, brain fog, slowed processing speed.

More impulsivity and irritability, difficulty getting stuff done. Lowered reaction times the sides of your brain are also one of the main regions impacted by sleep loss. What we call the temporal lobes for the temples they help with regulating your emotions, your emotional pendulum, new learnings, memory dreams.

Word-finding. So if they're not working properly are sleep deprived. You will be more irritable, have a shorter fuse, more likely to snap at somebody. And that has profound impacts, not just in the athletic arena where we're talking about mental resilience, mental conditioning coaching, but also the workplace.

Imagine what happen if someone snaps at their boss or doesn't really pick up on social cues because more studies have shown that people cannot pick up and sort of took used properly when they're sleep deprived. That stuff can happen. So think jet lag, you know, how you feel when you jet, like you don't want to focus, you don't want to concentrate.

You don't want about dust. You don't want to deal with anyone who gets on your nerves and those areas of the brain scan. The front part of the brain, the temporal lobes, also the top part of the brain Q with depth perception, think traffic accidents, calculations, right left discrimination, and also the back lower part of the brain called the cerebellum, which is responsible for coordination balance.

Again, think faulty. Sports technique when you're playing and you're sleep deprived, higher risk of injuries. Think when a cop pulls a drunk driver over and they asked them to put their finger to their nose or walk in a straight line, it testing the same area of the brain is affected with sleep loss and that those collective symptoms can we have not just on, not just on your immediate functioning the next day, but have long-term implications.

Because chronic sleep deprivation is directly associated with, as already mentioned, dementia, obesity, diabetes, risk, heart attacks, even one night of sleep deprivation like the spring time and just deal dealer Sammy's time. Right? The next day there's a 24% increase in heart attacks. Versus when you get an additional hour of sleep, there's a 21 to 24% reduction.

In the incidence of heart attack, there's one hour of sleep deprivation can have such a profound impact on our health. Yeah, the, 

Bryan Carroll: [00:42:55] a sleep change has definitely been kicking my butt this week. It's been annoying. My last question for you is in regards to alarm clocks, are, is it better to naturally wake up or use an alarm clock?

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:43:12] We have. Jobs and lives to live. And I say we can regulate or shift your rhythm to any pattern you want. I always ask my patients. Okay. Your sleep is all over the place. What time do you need to wake up at 6:00 AM? Is it 8:00 AM. Is it 9:00 AM. That's going to be your anchor point. We can train your brain to wake up naturally at whatever time you want.

So I'm a fan of alarm blocks because that's the time you have to get out of bed, not hit the snooze button and then get that shallow sleep. Some people feel more refreshed when they set this news on a few times, and that's only because they're not getting adequate sleep upfront at the beginning of the night.

So keep that alarm get out of bed. Do some jumping jacks to get the blood flow going, do 30 deep breaths in the morning, get some sunlight. That's going to allow your natural melatonin levels to be suppressed and avoid anything activating or stressful. In the first hour after you wake up like work emails or talking to a spouse, that's getting on your nerves.

Because if you do that, you're going to fuel your stress hormone release. Very quickly, cortisol is a stress hormone. It tends to be secreted between four and 6:00 AM for most people. So if you wake up in the morning and then quickly go to your work stuff at 6:00 AM, you're boosting it further. But what kicks in at around 8:00 AM, your testosterone levels can be affected so that as an hour to wake up.

We can work on stressful stuff, but in that clarification, so to say calming, deep breathing hydration, and some light exercises light, and then you start your day. Otherwise you will be running on fumes chasing the day. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:45:22] So machine well, are there any final things you want to touch on about sleep that you want to make sure the audience hears?

Sleep 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:45:29] is free. It is your weapon. It is your performance enhancing tool and it is the anchor of our lives. If your sleep is anchored well, the rest of your day will go well, when we are anxious, when you have to work from home, the first thing to fall off is sleep. But when you know the benefits of sleep, when you know that the right timing, quality duration of sleep is more effective.

Then medications more effective than illicit substances for performance enhancement, more effective than antidepressants antianxiety meds. In many cases, you will know that sleep will be the foundation of your life. And it is a fountain of youth because it actually provides or prevents your DNA from aging.

Reduces inflammation, reduces stress, hormones, boost your testosterone levels prevents early menopause. Sleep is your fountain of youth 

Bryan Carroll: [00:46:28] awesome. Shane or people can find you at  dot com. You'll also have your book peaks, peak sleep performance book. You want to talk about that real quick? Yeah. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:46:39] So the book I released exactly a year ago and it was written because I was appalled at how even in the elite sports world, sleep is all over the place.

There's no official training. It's only addressed when there is a problem. It's like saying. Okay, go play in this NFL game. And then if you get injured, will rehabilitate you, or maybe if you're obese or very weak or a slow runner will physically train. You doesn't make any sense. At least focusing on nutrition, they focus on their exercise and training, but sleep is only addressed when there's a problem.

So the goal was to provide the book as a first step to establishing sports guidelines in the sports world in different. Sports teams, sports organizations, knowing that not only can we boost performance, we can reduce the incidence of mental health problems, increase the longevity of their careers, improve the quality of their personal social professional lives.

And that's why I wrote the book. It's quick, it's easy, it's accessible. And to build on that in the next couple of months, I'm going to be releasing a video series. To train nutritionists doctors who work with teams, sports psychiatrists, and psychologists trainers, PTs who work with athletes to train them on how to educate athletes, screen athletes for sleep problems, and do some of the basic stuff that I'm laying out.

And then if there's more serious problems that are uncovered, then they can send those athletes. My way or the way for qualified sleep sports doctor, because it is the wild West in terms of your some sleep hygiene and sleep hygiene. I don't like that term at all, because one size does not fit all. So the book is a great resource.

We will get started to understand the impact of their sleep on their lives, and then exactly what to do about it. Practical. Actionable tips. They'll get everything from choosing the right mattresses and pillows to the bed environment, the best foods fiercely the best sleep supplements rather than, Oh, let's just try this without knowing the doses or the timing or where you can get those nutrients from.

Bryan Carroll: [00:48:56] Awesome. And can people find that at any bookstore or a specific ones? Amazon, Amazon, 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:49:02] perfect Johnson, Kendall, and people can also reach out to me on my Instagram peak sleep performance. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:49:09] Awesome Shane. Well, thank you so much. I'm super excited for your program that you'll have for professionals because like you said, it's one of those those things that we all need more of is sleep.

So having more people trained and being able to help others get adequate sleep, that's going to be very, very important. 

Dr. Shane Creado: [00:49:27] Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Bryan, it's been a pleasure. Most 

Bryan Carroll: [00:49:31] of us are lacking in the sleep department. So I really hope that you are able to take some of this information and apply it to your own sleep habits.

If you want to learn more than check out Shane's peak sleep performance book as well. Next week, I have Dr. Brett sure. On the show. Let's go learn who he is. I am here with Dr. Brett. Sure. Hey Brett, what is one unique thing about you that most people don't know? 

Bret Scher: [00:49:56] One unique thing that people don't know. I don't know.

Maybe that I love baseball like right now is, is literally time. And I just love playing baseball with my kids and being out there on the field with them and watching them grow and enjoy the game. And I, you know, I, I talk so much about exercise and I love to mountain bike and run and lift weights.

And I do love doing those things, but, but to be without, with, to be outside with my kids, playing baseball is probably one of my biggest joys as a parent. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:50:25] Yeah, you can't really say or complain about going out and throwing a ball at someone it's always fun. Both people are having a good time. That's true.

Yeah. Well, what will we be learning about in our interview together? 

Bret Scher: [00:50:39] Well, we're not going to talk about baseball in the interview, unfortunately, but that's okay. We're going to talk a lot about heart health and about lifestyles for heart health. What heart-healthy means, how we got it wrong. How maybe the message has been misguiding people about what to focus on for heart health.

We used to see it differently in shorted, the bigger picture and ways that you can change your lifestyle now to really impact your heart health. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:51:03] And what are your favorite foods or nutrients that you think everyone should get more of in their diet? 

Bret Scher: [00:51:08] Yeah, that's a good question. I think everybody needs to get more above ground, fibrous, vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, spinach brussel sprouts, zucchini.

There's sort of an endless amount of above ground vegetables that you can definitely find some that you like. And you know, it always. I'm always interested when people say, Oh, I can't stand broccoli. I don't like cauliflower. And to me, that just means you haven't had it with enough salt and enough butter.

And I think that's the problem. We expect people to eat dry steamed broccoli and yuck. I wouldn't eat that either, but we'll cook it right. Put some salt on it, put some butter in it, put some olive oil on it and you're going to, you're going to taste a completely different meal. So, so that's one. The other is fish low low level fish, like fish low on the food chain, like sardines.

Sam and herring mackerel some of the. And also some seafood like oysters and clams and mussels and crab. I think those are definitely foods that we should eat more of because of their mega three content, their high protein content. And you can definitely find wild versions of them. The lower on the food chain.

They are the less likely they are to be contaminated with some toxins. So I think that's a big one. And next is properly raised meat. And you know, there's a big push of meat is bad. Meat's bad for the environment. It's bad for your health. Well, meat is not bad for your health. I think the science is pretty clear about that.

And and the environmental question is very complicated, but when, when an animal is properly raised in taking care of focusing on the animal and the soil then not only are you helping your health by eating that. Me, but you're also helping the environment. I've been fortunate enough to work with some ranchers.

Some people who really take care and prioritize the care of their animals and the care of their land. And that's where we should be getting our meat for anybody who can choose that and afford it. I highly recommend people eat more of that. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:53:02] Yeah. We raise a lot of our own food or the stuff that we don't raise.

We'll get locally from people that are raising the animals themselves. And it's, it's so good to know exactly where that food is coming from. 

Bret Scher: [00:53:15] Yeah. I mean, there's something about, you know, for me being on a ranch, being on a horse, having my boots on and just having fun, riding the horse, but also knowing that I'm taking part of the bigger picture, the taking part of helping feed the world and take care of the soil and doing it properly.

It's, it's really very special and meaningful for me 

Bryan Carroll: [00:53:36] What are your top three health tips for anyone who wants to improve their overall wellness? 

Bret Scher: [00:53:40] Move your body, lower your carbs. And manage your stress. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:53:45] Everything we have been taught about cardiovascular disease will be put to the test in the next episode.

So until then keep climbing to the peak of your health.