ATHE_Transcript_Ep 545_Devin Burke
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] Hey, I'm JJ Virgin, PhD Dropout. Sorry, mom. Turn four time New York Times bestselling author. Yes. I'm a certified nutrition specialist, fitness Hall of Famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe, but I'm driven by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking.
Digging for answers and sharing the information I uncover with as many people as I can, and that's why I created the Ask the Health Expert Podcast to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive in each episode. We'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to healthy aging and prescriptive fitness.
Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now [00:01:00] and have the energy to play full out at a hundred. All right. Now, if you've been around my podcast and my community, you know that I am absolutely fanatical about getting a good night's sleep. Holy smokes. And I tell this story on this podcast about when I first met my husband in his sleep habits and what we had to shift there.
And I, I track my sleep. I do it a couple different ways, but I'm always looking for new information cuz it is a topic that has a lot of difference of opinion here. But the thing I know about sleep that's most important is if you are working on getting healthy and as we know you have to get healthy to lose weight and have a have, you know, a great body composition, you don't lose weight to get healthy.
And so you have to heal your metabolism. First place that you start healing your metabolism is with sleep. Now I have a great guest [00:02:00] today and I'm super excited about him because he brought in some new concepts that I had never heard before that are gonna give you permission to incorporate something into your day that will be a game changer.
I'm not telling you anything else. That was a provocative tease. So you'll go, oh my gosh, I have to, I have to. So, and a couple new techniques that you can employ that are gonna have a dramatic impact on your sleep and health. So let me tell you about Devin Burke, who is our guest. He's an international TEDx speaker, the best-selling author of the Sleep Advantage, the founder of the Sleep Science Academy, and one of the top health and sleep coaches in the world.
And I was like, Devin, like, how'd you get into this? You'll hear that too. He has books, keynotes, programs, and videos that have inspired thousands of people to improve their sleep, their energy, and their life. He literally, like, this is his life's work and he has got some new information, different takes and great explanations on why you need to get a good night's sleep.
And then things that you can [00:03:00] do that I'd never heard before. That can make a big. So I will be right back with Devin. Stay with me.
All right. I am always one to want to talk about sleep and see if we can get some, some, first of all, compelling information, get people to realize how much they have to prioritize it, but then also some new information to help people. Do it better. So Devin, I am super excited to have you with
Devin Burke: us. I'm excited to be here.
Thanks for having me.
JJ Virgin: Well, why did you get so into sleep?
Devin Burke: Well, to be honest, it was kind of, it's kind of an interesting story. I, I sleep great.
JJ Virgin: It was, I'm so happy for you. Yes. .
Devin Burke: Yes, I know. Yes. I'm one of the lucky ones. Applause. Yeah. I sleep, actually, I sleep so well that my family used to call me Narco as my, like narcoleptic.
Wow. Yes. So [00:04:00] it wasn't outta my own struggle that got me into this jj it was actually somebody else's struggle. So I, I don't, I don't, it's a long story, but the short version is I was working with a lot of high performing entrepreneurs. Coaching them more like a life coach. Well, none of 'em sleep well, , none of them sleep well.
And I didn't know anything about sleep and they kept asking, Hey, like this is a huge issue. What's, can you help me with it? So I looked into what was available and I found two things, sleeping pills, and I found what's called C B T I, which stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia. So, I mean, first and foremost, when I looked at what was available, I was like, ah, I'm not, you know, The sleeping pills, that's not a solution.
That's, that's a bandaid. Right. The CBTI…
JJ Virgin: Right. Well, and here's the thing with sleeping pills, I think it's important for people to understand is they actually don't fix the problem . Exactly, exactly. You don't get quality sleep from 'em. Right. And they don't fix whatever is the reason you weren't getting sleep in the first place.
So like, there isn't really any reason for 'em that I can see. [00:05:00] Well,
Devin Burke: they're, they're dangerous actually. Most of them are addictive. They're habit forming and they're linked to. The major diseases, Alzheimer's, dementia, I mean, it's, it's bad. And actually on the inserts, funny enough of, it's not really funny, but of Ambien, which is the most popular one, insomnia is listed as a side effect.
Go figure I mean, it's
JJ Virgin: like, wow. So, so,
Devin Burke: so, I, I scratcher, yes. So head, total head scratcher. But I was, so, I, I looked, I started to look into what was available. I was like shocked at. Couldn't find. And then I started to study it myself. I started to get very, very interested and the more I learned about it, the more interested I got.
So I started to read all the books take certifications and I, you know, I had a sort of a what
JJ Virgin: are certifications for sleep ,
Devin Burke: like good questions. So sleep sci, I'm a certified sleep science coach, a certified. Sleep specialist. So there's all different types of certifications, right? You could go to you know, there's, there's a ton of 'em out there, [00:06:00] but really most of my experience was self just learning myself through reading the books, experimenting and then getting, starting to get results for the people that I was working with and learning what worked from working with, from them, with them.
So it was really interesting sort of starting to notice, okay, what works and what doesn't. And taking all of my education, which was in holistic health which is in, in psychology as well. Learning about mindset and mindfulness and awareness and, and sort of taking all these different things and, and really applying them to, specifically to sleep.
And that's what we do at Sleep Science Academy. It's, it's really helping people holistically look at their sleep and understand how to really address the root cause, which in most cases is stress.
JJ Virgin: So it's stress. You must have had a field day over the last couple years. You must be a very busy person.
Devin Burke: Oh my gosh.
super busy. Yes. It's it's been interesting the last couple years the, my, my, literally [00:07:00] our business has doubled in the last couple years. Oh boy. I will,
JJ Virgin: I will share something interesting. So, when I first met my husband seven years ago, he slept five and a half to six hours a night. I'm like, this will not do
You know, this will not do. We have to fix this. But then, You know, he was a corporate guy, so he's never been with an entrepreneur who, when things are going sideways, there's stressful stuff. Bing. You know, I'm up in the middle of the night cuz everything's coming outta my head and I have to sit down and, and, and you know, I know I'm not supposed to do that.
So like we know, but it's kind of one of those entrepreneurial curses when you're under a lot of stress. It's like the middle of. Your eyes are wide awake. Thing, and he's like, what the heck is
Devin Burke: that? You know, . Yeah. And then it can become a pattern and then it become, it can become a pattern. And then, and this is where it becomes really dangerous for a lot of people, a lot of these psychological patterns then become physiological and the body gets in these rhythms where it starts to then release adrenaline and cortisol in the middle of the night because you're, you're kind of training your body to do that by not having the mental.[00:08:00]
And restoration throughout the day. And so it's, it, that's where this actually becomes a real issue for so many people, especially high performers. Well,
JJ Virgin: let's, let's start first with, cause I think you can never hear this enough. And again I, you know, Thinking of my husband when he was like, okay, well I can just get by with this so I can get more things done.
And then I was recently speaking in an event and one of the speakers was like, you know, all the research, you know, meta-analysis shows that six and a half hours is the optimal amount. And I'm like, , I don't think, like everything I'm seeing does not say that. And moreover, I just know personally that if I don't get my good eight to nine, where it's like I know I'm getting embedded eight, so I'm not getting eight hours of sleep
Cause obviously in like right, fall over in bed and then wake straight up. But I know what I need in terms of that to feel great. So I'm like going, I don't know. You know, is that research just based on, they are in bed for eight hours and actually six and a half of that was actually sleep. But what's the actual, like, you know what's, so [00:09:00] why is sleep so important?
I work a lot in weight loss, and I know there are huge, huge issues if you're not getting sleep for weight loss. But let's, let's go through that so we can convince people that this is the, I think I would say like the number one thing that impacts your health
Devin Burke: is sleep. Thank you for saying that, and I'm glad that's where we're starting because there's not an area of your life that.
Either negatively impacted or positively impacted when you focus on the foundation of health, which is. So literally from a, from a physiological standpoint, you, we could talk about weight loss. You know, you're, you're gonna, you could have the perfect diet, you could be exercising, but if you're not sleeping, your body's not recovering, you're gonna, your cortisol levels go up, your body starts storing belly flat, and that's the worst place to have it.
Right. That's where, so you're not getting into the, the, the restoration. So there's so many things that happen that people have no idea during the night. It's insane. There's certain stages of sleep where, Our body is, is, seems like it's sleep, but it's, it's not. There's so [00:10:00] much going on the glimpse system, which is like the lymph system for the brain.
That's when the beta amyloid, the tile, the plaque that builds up, that creates Alzheimer's and dementia. That's when that gets cleared out. That's get flushed out. It's like you know, our, the cells and our brain sort of shrink and this fluid washes over our brain removing that plaque. We all have cancer in our, in our bodies.
Everybody has cancer in their bodies. Right? It's during the night. When the immune system is most active in clearing out those damaged cells. So when you're sacrificing that, your body, you're putting yourself in there. And the, the studies show this higher risk of heart disease, higher risk of cancer, diabetes, dementia, anything that you could see that you, you wanna like stay away from that.
The, in the, when you sacrifice sleep, you're heading straight towards that direction from a, from a longevity standpoint.
JJ Virgin: Well also, you know, the, let's, let's stop one second cuz it's just interesting when you look at intermittent fasting and why people wanna do it now and they wanna do it for autophagy so your body can do [00:11:00] that self-cleaning.
Yes. So when I heard that, I'm like, all right, well, Could you undo the positives of intermittent fasting if you weren't sleeping well? Because you know, your body needs to be able to go through the process of self-cleaning through rest and restore, right? So that is interesting. I haven't, I hadn't heard that part before.
So underscore there. All right. Mental health. Okay.
Devin Burke: This is, this is a huge one. Now, there's a lot of studies again that show relational studies. When you are not sleeping, you're irritable, you're on edge, which leads to what conflict in your relationship. Think about the last time you had a fight with your husband.
Probably you were a little bit tired, right? It's so emotionally we're, we're, we we're not able to read people's emotions. We, so you might be walking down the road, somebody looks at you and you think that they're looking at you in a weird way. Just because you're under slept, you're not able to emotionally regulate that [00:12:00] become, that creates a lot of issues especially in relationships.
And everyone's kind of experienced this. You know, you're at a party late at night or whatever it is, and the next day you just feel off emotionally, you. You feel off. Mm-hmm. , and then you start making bad decisions because cognitively, you know, the prefrontal cortex that's important to make decisions that also isn't working optimally when we're under slept.
So it's sort of a cascading effect. And then our, our bodies crave sugar and fat like crazy because that's the source of energy. Right. So we're, and ghrelin and leptin, those hunger and full hormones, they're, they get dysregulated. So we're just, you become a hot mess. Yeah. When you don't, I would
JJ Virgin: say you're hungrier.
You're better at storing fat and you're hungrier. And you're not hungrier for salmon. Yeah, exactly. Like no one's really slept crappy and said, gosh, is there some broccoli around ? Doesn't
Devin Burke: happen that. You a hundred percent. You go for the quick, easy, sugary foods and it's, the willpower is just [00:13:00] not there cuz you're fatigued.
JJ Virgin: So. So, okay, so mental stuff. Any other things to hit? To hit on? I would
Devin Burke: say, you know, memory, there's a lot of studies now that show when you're not sleeping, that's what, during the night, that's when short-term memory gets shuttled to long-term storage. So there's a lot of, especially for kids and for young adults and for college students, there's a lot of studies that show mentally we're just not able to remember things as well or learn.
Thanks. So if you, if learn, if you're a lifelong learner, if you're, you know, engaged with life and you wanna retain information so that you can improve, sleep's pretty darn important
JJ Virgin: and get my mom, you know, it just shows you how your moms are always right, . So I hope my kids are aware of that, but, You know it, it's always that cramming for a test and they're going, you're better off getting a good night's sleep.
And you're like, no, I need to stay up all night and do this. And it's like it never worked. So there's the reason why, because your short-term memory is not going into your long-term storage [00:14:00] area. So, big question here cuz it is such a hot debate, you know, especially in the biohacking world where it's like, you know, can we shortcut things?
I always feel like you can't shortcut exercise, you can't shortcut your diet and you can't shortcut sleep. No, you can't shortcut 'em. But is that the case or can you shortcut your sleep? There are
Devin Burke: certain people that have genetic mutations, let's say, on certain genes that sort of can, so there are these lucky people that have, you know, for whatever reason God gave him the gift of being able to get away with less sleep and, and how
JJ Virgin: many people is that?
I heard it's. Point of like half a percent of the population.
Devin Burke: That's, I mean, how, how do they really know that? Who knows? But it's a very, very, very
JJ Virgin: small one. Have you? In all my years, yeah. And all my years of seeing clients, I had one client who needed four hours of sleep a night. Literally like, cuz I would do the test of, okay, like we're on vacation, go to sleep whenever.
Nope. That was it. Four hours. She's done it since she was a little kid. I was like, wow, imagine your life if you [00:15:00] only had to sleep four hours a night. Yeah. That's the, but that. It one client now almost 40 years. . .
Devin Burke: There you go. I mean, it's, it's, most people wish they had this, and it's unfortunately, I mean, it's like literally a superpower.
So for most people listening to this, like I would say probably 98%, you don't have this superhuman ability. You need to get sleep, you need to get rest. And if you're not prioritizing, protecting, it's not just about the. You know, the, the quantity of sleep. It's also about the quality. And this is where it got really interesting for me because I thought I was such a great sleeper until I really started to measure and track my sleep over several months and years and see, okay, well, You know, no, these devices are not a hundred percent accurate.
Of
JJ Virgin: course not. But I was just gonna ask you, so which thing I'll tell you, I don't know if you remember the sleep, the very first sleep tracker home use one that came out, it was called a, a [00:16:00] Neo something and you wore it on your forehead. And I actually went to the launch of it in New York. The problem was they were supposed to wear it that night and come in the morning with it and give our report, report our data, and they were gonna, well, I was coming in from California.
And you know, we're supposed to be down there at, you know, eight in the morning. Well, that's five in the morning my time, which means now I'm getting up at four and I'm not sleepy, you know? So now I'm sitting there and then you start to get stressed out, you know, , that whole like a fly, go to sleep. Now I'll get this many hours of sleep.
Yes. And then I finally fall asleep and throw the thing off my forehead in the middle of the night, . I was like, I tend to sleep with an Oura Ring and an Apple watch, mainly because I've gone through eight freaking Oura rings now, Oura because they keep breaking and I'm like, you know, it's ridiculous, but I, it feels like the Oura Ring reports better than the Apple Watch.
It does. And the Apple Watch seems to give me like, Better scores. And I'm like, yeah, I don't believe you . [00:17:00] So, but sometimes I just want to take the Apple watches scores just to, cause I feel better about myself. But you sleep better taking those scores, right? ? So what would you, so first of all, what are we looking for?
What really designates a quality night's sleep? And what's the best way to track?
Devin Burke: Yeah. So right now the Oura is is the most accurate.
JJ Virgin: Like I just have one every couple months I'm like, it broke. It broke again. It's ridiculous. You just have to have
Devin Burke: backups, honestly. So yes, they've had some real growing pains over the years with their technology and their customer support, but
JJ Virgin: now they are.
Yeah, I didn't even wanna mention the customer service for Oura Ring. We don't wanna, we're hating on
Devin Burke: Oura
JJ Virgin: ring
right. But I lovethe technology. Damn. Get your act together..
Devin Burke: I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. It's crazy. But they, out of all the devices that one is, is the, the, the best one for tracking sleep And the algorithm is getting better, the hardware's getting better.
And especially now that they had a huge influx of money the things are even getting more better. So [00:18:00] anyway, so the Oura ring for tracking sleep. And when you're looking at, here's the thing, it is the ordering. The Oura ring is not a hundred percent accurate, but this is, it doesn't matter because what you're looking for is you're never looking at one night or one week of sleep.
You're looking at your sleep over several months or even several weeks, several months, to really make any decisions to see like, Hey, I did this and it affected the quality of my sleep. And when we, when we look at quality of sleep, we're looking at Delta Deep sleep, which happens mostly in the first half of the night and rem.
Which is, which is usually happening in the fourth quarter, like right before you wake up. I said like the first quarter of the fourth quarter if it was a football game. But these, you want about 20% of your total sleep time in deep sleep, and about 20 to 25% in REM sleep. And your sleep architecture is gonna depend on so many factors.
It's unique to everyone. It's, it's as unique as, you know, your finger, your, your, you know, your fingerprint. It really is This is where you have to be open to [00:19:00] experimenting and trying different things to see, okay, I did this. This is how it affected my sleep, and this is how I felt as a result of my sleep being affected.
So there is, there, there is a a, a really important thing to, to, for everyone to understand. You have to be open to experimentation here. There's not a one size fits all for sleep. Just like there's not a one size fits all for exercise or nutrition, really. Right?
JJ Virgin: Well so for experimenting, cuz you just said something and I realize I've been doing something really stupid where I'll go, I'll try something and I'll watch it for a night and I'll go, oh, okay.
But you just, what you said was you have to watch it over weeks, over months, which I'll. Try, okay, I'm gonna try a sauna before bed. Let's see what happens. And then I just assume that that information is like, that's the information.
So if you are experimenting before we get into next, I wanna know like, what are the absolute, like don't do this before bed and don't do this early in the day and don't do this instead. [00:20:00] Like how long do you need to watch something to really get a. .
Devin Burke: So it it, this the, it depends. . Oh, come on. I, I know, I know.
So, so here's, so here's the thing. I would say give something at least a week before you say, Hey, this is, this is definitely either improving my sleep or really destroying my sleep. Give it at least a week and, and be consistent with whatever it is. So like, if you're gonna do a sauna two hours before bed, so your, your body temperature starts to drop, do that consistently as much as you can, and then, and then look at the data and look at how you felt.
Most importantly, because our body is the most intelligent machine, you know, that's what you, you need to always tune into how. Feeling not just the, the data on your No,
JJ Virgin: but you could do, and I'll tell you one thing, and I was laughing, I was like, when I saw this, I'm really careful about not eating right before bed.
Like I cannot stand eating and going to sleep. And you know, every once in a while you end up somewhere, you're like, oh my gosh. Like it's, we haven't eaten [00:21:00] dinner, it's. Nine. And I remember something happened, I ended eating up dinner at like nine and going to bed at 10 and my Oura ring literally the next morning was like, looks like you ate late last night.
And I'm like, are you kidding me? Oura ring. But you know, it just, it was a, you know, an N of one, but it was so clear cut. I mean, you, you see those things, you know, that's good data, right? A hundred percent. I don't need to test that one out again. It's just like, you know, drink a bottle of wine, go to. Wake up in the middle of the night.
Don't need to test that one again. . Right.
Devin Burke: Exactly. I mean, those are, that's the lowest hanging. The low hanging fruit is caffeine, alcohol in food, but meal timing is if you eat too late, it's absolutely, without a doubt gonna disturb the quality of your sleep without
JJ Virgin: doubt. What, what do you think, what time do you think people should be like having their last meal before?
Like, what's the
Devin Burke: span? I'm not gonna say it. But it does on your metabolism. , I would give it, at least I need that like AK button. I know, I know. We need that. So three [00:22:00] hours, I would say three. Three hours. Some people actually. Is is for most people, so we're just gonna say most people, some people it's actually longer.
They need four hours. Some people can get away with a little bit less if they have a really quick system and they're eating certain foods that are able to metabolize quick.
JJ Virgin: Yeah. I would imagine if you ate , we, we were in Italy this summer. We went to some restOurant and got, we wanted to get a steak Florentine, and it was like, it was like, A cow they brought out to us and we, we ate that.
And then we were like, both looked at each other and I was like, I need to go lie down. Like I need to curl up in a fetal position. And we just went and we walked and we walked and we, cause we were like, there's no way we can go to sleep after eating that amount of . But you know, something that is so slow to digest, like protein with fat, I would think, you know, versus, I'm not advocating ever.
to have like non-fat milk and cereal before bed. But that type of thing I would think wouldn't be as much, except you'd have a hijacked blood sugar. So don't do that either. , [00:23:00] very important. Very I. So food, alcohol, caffeine. Let's dive into those a little bit more, cuz I just want to reiterate those ones.
As to why they're so challenging for people in sleep, what they do.
Devin Burke: Yeah, so, well, caffeine is, you know, the half life of caffeine is about six hours. So it's in our system for 12 and there's something called sleep pressure, and it's this, this chemical called adenosine that builds up, that creates the sleepiness and caffeine, unfortunately blocks adenosine.
So it's sort of, that's why you feel. And we, we don't wanna block that. And so if you block it too late, and again, this depends on how fast you metabolize caffeine, and you know, people can get away with a cup of coffee in the morning and that's, that's fine. But if you have caffeine too late, it's go again.
It's gonna be in your system and it's not gonna allow that adenosine to, to really build up. And then you're gonna have sleep debt. So caffeine timing. If you can wait an hour after you wake up to let your cortisol start to come down and then have your cup of coffee, that would. [00:24:00] Like the right time.
Really? Yes. Because your cortisol's highest in the morning, so you don't want caffeine. Is is like dumping gasoline on a, on a fire.
JJ Virgin: That is so good. So we get up in the morning now and meditate and we don't have coffee for an hour. So you're doing it right. It's an easy solution. We didn't used to do that though.
It used to be like, roll outta bed. You know? I was like, how do we get the Bluetooth and then like a Roomba or something to bring us the coffee, you know, . But, so that's interesting. Okay. Wait an hour to have your coffee and if
Devin Burke: you can have it with a little altheine, that would also help buffer the caffeine and the the, the sort of the effects on the adrenal glands.
Cause it. Stress inducing. You know, caffeine creates adrenaline and neuro adrenaline and hyper alertness. So if you can use that with Altheine, that's a great little, little hack, if you will.
JJ Virgin: Wow. To, wow. Is there a coffee with Altheine? Someone needs to make one. I, you
Devin Burke: know what I think there is, if you go into Sprouts or Whole Foods, I'm, [00:25:00] I don't know the name, mind Boost maybe.
But there there is somebody that does that. That's great. But if there's not yeah.
JJ Virgin: Hello? Hello. Someone make it for us. Tell
Devin Burke: us Ding, ding, ding. . That's, that's a million dollar idea. So yeah, so, so the other thing it's important to mention here, JJ, is we lose a liter of water throughout the night through sweat and respiration.
Some people lose even more if you're having really good sex. Wow. .
JJ Virgin: Yeah. Wait, some people lose even more if what you're having. Really good sex. Wow. How much do you lose then you lose
Devin Burke: off the two liters. , you can lose up. Wow. So, so, so holy smokes. Yeah. So you're, you know, if you're really breathing hard and you're, it's sweaty in there, you're gonna, you need to hydrate.
So first thing in the morning, get some, some. To hydrate, to get and with some, maybe some electrolytes in it, to, to really replenish and start to build up the hydration bank so that you're not drinking so much toward the end of the day. And then you have to wake up and go to the restroom. Yep. Simple. It's so easy.
Wow.
JJ Virgin: That's great. It's a good one. [00:26:00] Okay. All right, so there's the caffeine. What about. ,
Devin Burke: yes. Alcohol is, is, is unfortunately something that can make us sleepy and fall asleep, but it raises our body temperature and it's, it's alcohol's a toxin. So depending on the quality of alcohol, this is really important cuz I've, I've known, I, I've experimented with this.
You can drink biodynamic organic, low alcohol wine, like Dry Farm. Like our friends at Dry Farm, like
JJ Virgin: Todd, we love you Todd,
Devin Burke: like, like. And Dave. Yep. And so here. So, so it's really important to understand that quality matters. But yes, it's gonna, it's gonna heat your body up. You're gonna wake up. It's also diuretic, so you're gonna, unfortunately it's gonna , you know, do the opposite of what you want to be hydrated while you're sleeping, cuz you're already losing, like I said, a liter water and some people more.
So if you can have quality alcohol, at dinner, not before you go to bed, like not a [00:27:00] nightcap, which is unfortunately what's a lot of people end up doing because that's how people manage their stress. They're like, oh, I just need a drink. I need a beer or a whiskey, or whatever it is. And that's really the last thing you wanna be doing if you're using alcohol to manage your stress , which is where most people, because it's so easy, cuz it works really well.
You know, you feel good. I
JJ Virgin: know it happened to Todd's business during the pandemic. So , I mean, it was like they, they couldn't keep up with the demand. I'm sorry. Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny, not funny. But, you know, you do that is, that is again another bandaid.
Devin Burke: It is, it is. So, you know, and so it's important for people to understand that there are other ways of releasing.
Stress and that needs to be happen all throughout the day because if it doesn't happen all throughout the day, you're building up this tension and pressure in your mind body system. You can't expect for that just to be discharged and then, oh, I'm, I'm able to, to sleep. That's not how it works. It's not, [00:28:00] and this is the so, so important for understand if people are not resting throughout the day, even micro rests.
you're gonna have issues with your sleep. What is a micro rest? It could look like a walk. It could look like a, you know, doing 10 deep belly breaths. It could look like dancing, listening to music that is a form of active rest, but it's resting. It could look like anything that's gonna allow your mind sort of to stop trying to solve the problems.
Got it. Okay. And that needs to happen literally throughout your day because your mind is just revving up and that's revving up your body. And then you're gonna have to have a lot more space at the end of the day to allow that body and mind to simmer down so that sleep can happen. Cuz sleep is a result.
It's never the problem. Sleep is a result. And people treat it like it's a problem. It's not. It's just a result. That's it. Your body knows how to sleep.
JJ Virgin: Okay, so. . If you are having challenge sleeping and you've dealt with the [00:29:00] caffeine, alcohol, food situation, then what the heck do you do? Then you hire
Devin Burke: me. . No.
So then,
JJ Virgin: then what you do
Devin Burke: and your phone number is . I'm not gonna give my phone number, but the, the truth is, if you're doing all the sleep hygiene things and you're still having issues with your sleep, Number one, you definitely want to get, if you haven't got blood work done, if you haven't seen a doctor, please go do that.
Just to rule out anything physiological that might be going on. In most of the cases though, honestly, it's between the ears, it's stress related, and I
JJ Virgin: would think that it's probably either stress related. What I've seen with a lot of people is they just. Don't realize it's a big deal. So they don't make it a priority.
Right. So that's, they don't protect it. I've seen they just go, oh I, you know, you know this statement. I'm sure you hate this statement. I sleep when I'm dead. You know that statement. So worst. I'm like, I'm like, well, yeah, you're gonna die faster. You will be sleeping . So
Devin Burke: you know, you snooze you lose. That's
JJ Virgin: another one I hate.
Right? Oh my gosh. You [00:30:00] hear that all the time. So, , you know, assuming that that's like they're prioritizing. There's that. It's it. What I've always seen is yeah, stress is the biggest, biggest culprit. So any ideas there? Yeah,
Devin Burke: I do have lots of ideas. So one of the things you mentioned earlier is what you do in the morning is, you know, having a mindfulness practice, massive.
Massive, massive, massive. Having training your, your mind to see that you're not your thoughts to under, to create some emotional intelligence and self intelligence to understand the thoughts that create the stress, the stories, all the, all the psychology. If you can master your psychology, you can master your stress.
And so a mindfulness practice is sort of, I think, foundational for people to step back and really understand that a, they're not their thoughts. And also to understand the thoughts that create stress and how to kind of process and deal with those thoughts. So that, that's one thing. [00:31:00] Foundational.
JJ Virgin: Could you imagine if, you know, if in elementary school this was one of the foundational things that was taught, like how different things would.
Devin Burke: Yeah. It would literally, the world would be a different place. Right? It's like, it blows my mind how it's not, it's that it's that important. It's like, it's as important as brushing your teeth as, you know. It's, it's, it's so important and it people just, until you actually experience it and consistently practice it and make time to do it, It's just kind of one of these things like, ah, meditation's not for me.
I don't know how to do that. It's like some esoteric yoga thing that, you know, it's just not for me. You have to find a way to connect to some sort of practice that creates mindfulness, that creates this awareness that you can understand that you're not your thoughts and, and learn how to process your emotions and understand what emotions [00:32:00] you're having.
Most people, and I've worked with thousands of people at this point that I work with, they never had training in any of this. They don't understand how their mind works. They don't understand how to deal with emotions. They don't even know what emotions they're experiencing. It's like it blows my mind and it creates so much suffering and stress that then leads to the sleep issues.
So, so that's foundational. Having space, I mean, this is a big. And jj, I know you're, you know, high performer, entrepreneur. It's hard when you're a go-getter and you're, you've running businesses, you're running families, but if you don't have 10 minutes in between whatever it is you're doing, you don't have a life literally.
So it's like you need to create the space. People go from one thing to the next and they're just nexting all day long. And that is a form of stress. Even if you're nexting with things that you love, that you enjoy, that you're excited about, that's still a form of stress and there needs to [00:33:00] be space.
And it's so interesting when people actually honor rest and rhythm and create the space throughout their day and they do these little practices, they, they're able to get to. Sleep doesn't become an issue.
JJ Virgin: I, you know, it's very funny. I've on another interview today and they were asking me something around like, you're sitting next to someone on a plane.
What's the advice you give them, you know, further life? I'm like, white space . And, and you've said something that I've never heard anyone say before and it, it is. It, it's so profound. So you said micro rest and you know, people think of taking little naps or doing a little quick meditation, but I think of it, and as you said that I went, oh, that's like, I just, we just got the cutest little puppy ever.
And I think the little bit of time that I'll stop and like, goof off with the puppy, there's a micro rest. Yes. Right. Yes. And it's funny because you, you, you need. [00:34:00] like, and you're not being less productive. You're being more productive when you schedule in a burst of work and then you go goof off a hundred percent.
But like I can't tell you the joy that I have watching these two dogs now playing together. It's so good. And that is it. Those are my micro rests, and I think that's like the coolest thing. to build into your day so that you don't get to the end of the day and now all of a sudden you're trying to unwind , you know, and you're wound up so tight, it's too late that there's no way you can't unwind that
Devin Burke: That's a hundred percent right. And and it's interesting you said that cuz my micro rests are with my mini Bernadoodle tule, oh,
JJ Virgin: wait a minute. Mini bernadoodle. Yes,
Devin Burke: she's, oh, the name's Tule her. Her name's Tule. Yeah, she, oh, okay. And, and this dog is you know, you say you have the cutest dog. I, I'm gonna disagree.
I have the cutest dog and she, how much does she weigh? She's about 28 pounds. Oh. She's
JJ Virgin: big. A minor five and six pounds. Oh yeah.
Devin Burke: So [00:35:00] those, those are little ones, but yeah, so just, you know, those micro rests, it's game changing. It really is. And that's, that's a great example of something that could be a, a micro rests for, that's a great example.
And there are actually real studies in science that show that when you pet an animal, even if just for a couple of minutes, it helps release certain chemicals to relax to, yes.
JJ Virgin: It is the best, like holding onto a little. I mean, it's the best, you know. Yes. One more thing about my. And then, and then we're gonna talk about this great ebook you're giving everyone, just cuz I can talk about this.
So one of the fun things about Chihuahuas is they were bred to be water bottles, hot water bottles. And so they sleep next to you under the covers. . Wow. They absolutely burrow in there and do. It's so cute. It can get a little hot sometimes, but you know, it's very cute. Anyway, you have an ebook, cuz I know we've just scratched the surface.
My big goal today with this interview was to help people just if you have still not fully committed [00:36:00] to getting quality sleep to finally go, I'm doing it already, , I'm gonna do it. And I now, I know you have the tool to have them do it with your ebook. So we are going to give everyone the Sleep Advantage ebook and that will be at jjvirgin.com/SleepAdvantage.
Now that you know what you must do if you don't feel a hundred percent with your sleep. And, and I think too, tell me if I'm wrong, I really feel like if you're not tracking it, You know, you can judge it by how, how you feel, but I really feel like you need to tie that with tracking, don't you think? Yeah.
You
Devin Burke: can't, you can't manage what you don't measure. You can't master what you don't measure. So, you know, if you're, if you're wanting to improve something, you have to measure it. So, so absolutely I'm in
agreement
JJ Virgin: with that statement. And is there an ideal number of hours? Cause boy, there's a debate all over the place on ideal number of hours, and I would think it would depend on the REM and deep.
as well. But is there an ideal quantity in there too, or is it all all dependent on their REM and deep? Yeah,
Devin Burke: I mean, so they say between seven and eight hours. [00:37:00] Some people need more than that. Some people can get a little bit. Less than that. And that that's gonna change with the seasons. That's gonna change with your age, with how much you train.
So that's gonna change. Your sleep. Architecture over your life is gonna change. So the, the key is if you wake up refreshed, if you, if you're waking up and you feel. Fatigued and tired and groggy, and it's just you are just dragging all day long. You're not getting enough sleep or you're not getting enough quality sleep.
Got it. So always check in with how are you feeling? That's a great question to ask when you wake up. Like, how am I feeling right now? Do I feel rested? Do I feel like, you know, do I feel rested? That's a great question to ask. Even, even throughout the day, do I feel rested? And if you don't, if the answer's no, then do something.
Do micro arrests, do something that's gonna allow your, your, you to get what you need so that you then you can sleep. .
JJ Virgin: Yes. Do those micro rests. That's the other, the biggest takeaway from here, again, I wanna remind you to grab the [00:38:00] ebook, jjvirgin.com/sleepadvantage, but incorporate in some of those micro rests.
I've been doing it, but I've been feeling guilty, so now I'm having guilt-free micro rests. Thank you so much, Devin . You're
Devin Burke: so welcome.
JJ Virgin: Happy to help . Alright. Thank you so much for everything you've done today. I really appreciate it. And again, everybody make sure you grab the ebook at jjvirgin.com/SleepAdvantage.
Okay, so it is all about the micro rests. Micro rests, micro rests. And for me that is petting the doggy is my biggest micro rests I that, that like makes me so ridiculously happy to, to hear that. That's like a health hack. It's like, holy smokes. And so a couple things that I really loved here was waiting to drink your coffee in the morning.
Now I've been doing meditation with Dr. Joe Dispenza. We'll put that in the show notes. How to get started with Dr. Joe. So I've been doing that first thing in the morning and then having coffee. So it's naturally been [00:39:00] happening. So that's great news. And then also starting instead. Some electrolytes. And remember I have electro replenished.
So you can start your day with a little electro replenish, bam, and then do your meditation with Dr. Joe. We'll put the link in for that, and then have your coffee and I gotta find out this coffee altheine thing that's like super cool. And then just remember you're gonna build those micro rests in throughout the day.
That could be a little workout, that could be a little quickie. Quickie med. That could be a little like laughter, deep breath work, whatever micro rests, it's all about the micro rests. All right, I will see you next time. If you've not yet subscribed to the show so you never miss any awesomeness, it's subscribetojj.com.
See you next time.
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