Most Replayed Moment: Better Sleep Doesn't Always Mean Longer Sleep! Fix These Habits Today
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - DOAC
In this most replayed moment from 'The Diary of a CEO,' Steven Bartlett explores the profound impact of sleep and alcohol on health, performance, and
Key takeaways
- Sleep quality is more important than sleep duration; improving habits can enhance recovery without extending time in bed.
- Alcohol, even in small amounts, significantly disrupts melatonin production and reduces sleep quality by up to 40% after three glasses.
Main topics
- The impact of alcohol on circadian rhythms and melatonin
- Sleep quality vs. duration: why habits matter more than time in bed
Notable quotes
"Better sleep doesn't always mean longer sleep. Fix these habits today."
"Even one drink will produce clinically significant reductions in heart rate and heart rate variability."
Conclusion
The episode underscores that meaningful improvements in health and performance come not from adding more time to our
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:01) When I talk about being able to change your behavior and break a habit, it is nothing in the context of someone who is ensnared by an addiction of sorts. It's a completely different conversation. Speaker 1 (0:19) What Speaker 2 (0:20) is it like growing up with a mother who... you observe at a very young age you how old I'm Speaker 1 (0:28) in my whole life your Speaker 2 (0:29) whole life yeah Speaker 1 (0:29) like she as a Speaker 2 (0:32) child when you when you see a parent someone you love that is in that is sort of gripped by addiction what is that like yeah Speaker 1 (0:43) I mean I think at a at a fundamental level um Speaker 1 (0:49) You just feel deprioritized, I think, generally. You know, like you, you know, I think you feel, you know, you're unsupervised, number one. Speaker 1 (1:02) there isn't a lot of supervision, you know? So you end up like really having to defend for yourself. My dad worked a lot, you know, he was definitely a workaholic, such a good man, so much integrity. And, and, but I think that was his form of escape, but it kind of leads, you know, you got to figure out how to eat. You gotta, you know, you gotta figure out how to do a lot of the basic stuff on your own. So you develop a lot of independence, I think, but it, It's hard to form emotional attachments, I think, as an adult, unless you really work through that. Because you're afraid that you're not going to be taken care of. Speaker 2 (1:47) What did you come to understand about your mother's addiction and what she was struggling with, if anything at all? Speaker 1 (1:54) Yeah. I mean, I think what was so sad about that time period is, you know, I think it was well understood. You know, I think... Speaker 1 (2:05) A lot of those behaviors, I think, to a degree are normalized. And I don't know that the connection between depression, you know, she was, it's no question. She had massive seasonal effect disorder, which is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in, you know, kind of everything related to light and just the opportunity there for health. But, you know, she had major depressive disorder and, you know, was not diagnosed properly. I don't even remember. I have no idea if she ever even went to the doctor to try to get treated. So I think the biggest thing. that I learned is that we can actually make choices. And I know that there are, you know, when you look at regions of the brain, understand that people are predisposed. But I think there's a lot of things that we can actually control to reduce our vulnerability to some of these diseases. Speaker 2 (3:07) How has that experience defined and shaped you when you look back and connect dots? Speaker 1 (3:13) Yeah, I mean, I just, I always, you know, I was very competitive, high level athlete representing the US. And so there's definitely trying to understand my own body and my psychology so I could perform my potential. But there's no question that like this whole, everything that like underpins the work that I do is trying to understand, you know, how we can improve our own situation. So we can, Speaker 1 (3:42) you know, self-actualize and live our potential. And so that was, I always, you know, felt so bad, you know, for my mom. Speaker 2 (3:59) Why? Speaker 1 (4:02) You know, she wasn't able to become Speaker 2 (4:04) the version of Speaker 1 (4:07) herself. Like, I wasn't able to relapse her potential. And she had so much. I can't believe you did this to me. Speaker 2 (4:24) Would you like a tissue? Thanks. Speaker 2 (4:32) You're a very special person. It all makes sense why you've got such an incredible drive and mission to you. I didn't know any of what you Speaker 1 (4:42) just said. I've never talked about that publicly. What Speaker 2 (4:46) a wonderful way to have channeled such an unimaginable pain to then sort of... fix, you know, hundreds of thousands of people's other lives and help them get closer towards their own potential. Speaker 1 (5:02) Yeah. And I never want to like project my values onto other folks, but... But I think that's always been like at the core of like why I do what I do is, and the reason why I coached for so long is I just love seeing people like realize their potential or understand their potential, knowing that we're always, of course, a work in progress. But I just like, I want like everyone to be able to wake up and feel, you know, be energetic and be able to like really, really live. the things that you care about, you know, and just in understanding, I think the path to that, you know, requires some work, you know, in terms of making sure that you're attending to some of these non-negotiables that we're talking about. And I think sometimes it takes folks time to connect those dots. And there's a lot of wonderful learning that comes with that. But I think if I can kind of help accelerate some of that wisdom and keep people from experiencing I think some of the pain that I felt, you know, it's worth it to me. Speaker 2 (6:13) It's the most incredible, incredible thing that you've committed your life to because me and you are both aware that there's going to be a ton of people who are either on a path towards such an addiction or are currently enthralled by such an addiction. And the work that you're doing, the message you're spreading is going to prevent and lift some of those people out of that situation, which has a wonderful karmic effect on the world. And I think... If there's anything that we can convert our pain into, it is exactly that. I want to talk about alcohol. I've recently quit drinking alcohol. I think it was about three to four months ago now. It was so interesting. I had a conversation with some of my best friends. I said this on a podcast a couple of months ago. And one of my friends was an alcoholic. So he... who managed to quit alcohol and he's writing a book about it. And then as I look across the group of my other friends, none of them are alcoholics, but they're all sort of casual drinkers. And we were sat there together around this table having dinner and he was telling us about this book he's writing about quitting alcohol. And I was sat there thinking... That book that he's writing doesn't necessarily resonate with me because I've never had, I've never felt like I've had an addiction or really, to be honest, any problem with it. I'm such, I was such a casual drinker. I would have maybe one glass of wine a week, if that. There's probably months I've gone without any alcohol at all. So I couldn't think of a reason to quit. Speaker 1 (7:40) So Speaker 2 (7:41) really, I was saying to him, is there another book that someone else could write for me? That just takes those people, those casual drinkers that are right on the fence and just gives us a reason to nudge over the other side. And because I have this podcast, I thought,