Optimizing Your Sleep? Tips from a Certified Sleep Coach - Seth Davis | Ep 7

Seth Davis  0:00  

They did a study over the past couple of years where they had people wear sleep masks. And they found that the group of people who wore those were better at memorizing information or kind of learning things and had faster reaction times. And I think that the reasoning behind that is because they were just blocking out so much more light using those studies have shown that sleep quality and just some of the benefits of sleep are amplified when you're giving yourself that strong darkness signal during the night. Welcome

Caleb Roth  0:26  

to the stacking habits podcast with your host, David, Matthew and Caleb, our mission each week is to dig into the habits, rituals and routines of guests who are living life to the fullest. But remember, knowledge without action is worthless. So be sure to take what you hear, put it into practice, turn these words into words in your own life. Without further ado, let's dive in. Welcome to episode seven, we're really excited to have Seth Davis from sleep bubbly with us. And in terms of habits, we've been talking about a handful of different things from guardrails to the five gears to go overboard, and Seth is going to present something on sleep. So he is a I believe, a certified sleep coach. So we'll get into what that entails. But we're really excited to have him I can't think of any habit that goes more upstream, or has more of an impact on your entire day, whether you're trying to be the best version of yourself at work, or home or to your family. And so, Seth, welcome to the show. Where Where do you? Where does this episode find you?

Seth Davis  1:32  

Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. Yeah. So as you mentioned, I am a sleep coach. And I work one on one with people I work with work with organizations. And yes, it really just kind of promoting this natural thing that that makes us all better makes us feel better. It makes us more energetic and some glad to be kind of peddling something that everybody can use and makes us better.

Caleb Roth  1:54  

Fantastic. Can I saw in your LinkedIn, you've got a wide variety of previous jobs. Looks like he did a lot of writing and copywriting. Yeah.

Seth Davis  2:02  

So yeah, I actually started out as a journalist here in Denver, worked for newspaper for a few years, and then transitioned into marketing, communications, writing and editing. And that's actually for me, that's so I started out in sleep coaching because I had sleep issues myself for a long time. And a lot of them stemmed from that writing and editing work. So I just I had a, you know, when I was a journalist, I had a kind of a weird schedule where he was, you know, had late nights or just all over the place to have deadline pressure, a lot of stress around it. And so that's really what kind of started my sleep issues. And so that's, that was the beginning of my career. And it sort of led me to sleep issues. And that led me to become a sleep coach that

David Chung  2:41  

says, you know, I've had a few bad nights myself, like, two nights ago, we're going through this whole thing at work right now. But, you know, with all that stress compounding, you know, I had the worst night of sleep that I've had, in a long time, a few nights ago, you know, I went to bed at 1130 and then woke up at three, and I couldn't go back to sleep. But that, you know, I didn't wake up and decide, all right, well, I'm going to tackle this become a sleep coach, it must have taken a lot for you to make a big career pivot to go from copywriting marketing to All right. This is a matter that really is important to me, I'm gonna, you know, I'm guessing you had to go to through some certifications, some coursework, start a business, tell me about, like, the experience that you are going through? That was the catalyst that started all of this.

Seth Davis  3:40  

Yeah, so kind of, as you mentioned, it was over the course of a long period of time. So I graduated from college in 2000. So I started my career in 2005, as a journalist, and I and I had a little bit sleep issues, sleep issues before that. But I became a sleep coach in 2016. So my, my sleep issues kind of spanned that whole period of time, actually, in 2018, so, so, so yeah, 12 1314 years of sleep issues, on and off. And so a lot of it was, you know, for example, with a newspaper, I would have a deadline next day. So I had to write this article, or I had to lay out this page for the newspaper. And so I have dreams about okay, I have to, I have this problem to solve, how do I write this article. So I spend a lot of time awake at nights or have problem solving dreams. And so that, you know, started out just maybe one or two days a week, led into three or four days a week. And so just so going through that on and off for over the course of 12 years, and not being able to, you know, to having the stress in my life, and just not knowing how to deal with these nights away. So, like you said, I'd be awake during the night not sure what to do tossing and turning worrying about it during the day, you know, trying to figure out how to solve this problem. So it really was just a long standing issue that I just didn't know how I was going to going to deal with that. So I've tried all the sleeping pills, sleep supplements, tried buying different products, and finally got to the point where I was like, I need to solve this, I need to solve this naturally. And so what am I going to do about it? Was

Caleb Roth  5:20  

there a moment that sort of broke you where you just said, Hey, I can't take it anymore? I have to do something? Or was it kind of a slow progression to get to that point?

Seth Davis  5:29  

I think it was a slow progression. And I think that it was there was a number of days at work where I'm sitting there, like, I can't focus right now. I'm so tired. And even waking up in the morning and being like, I can't wait to just get back into bed and try this again, like so. So when you're waking up in the morning, and the first thing you're thinking about is going back to bed. That's not a good way to start out your days. No, not at all.

Caleb Roth  5:55  

I had just a small period, probably about a year and a half. When I was going through divorce, I had a lot of just stress and anxiety. And that's really the only time I've had trouble sleeping. And I just assumed that was you know, normal. Unfortunately, it corrected itself. I never went down the path of of supplements or trying too many things. Matthew, have you had any issues sleeping, not

Matthew Osborn  6:15  

necessarily going to sleep and staying asleep, I feel like I've always been fine. There's always times where I wake up. And some days I feel very rested. Some days, I do not feel like I got a good night's sleep at all. Even though I didn't wake up a lot during the night, granted certain stage with kids have actually kept me up quite a bit throughout the night just because of the kids, which doesn't help at all. But more so than that, I figured out that there's certain nights where I just feel like I have way more energy throughout the day and other nights. Mornings, I wake up. And even though I felt like I was asleep all night, I'm just tired all day long. And so I know it has something to do with my sleep. But I'm not like one of those that wakes up and they can't get back to sleep, I could wake up as many times as I want, I can fall right back to sleep, it's just a matter of how good that sleep was that I was actually getting.

Caleb Roth  6:53  

It's interesting. So Seth, I'm a, I tracked too many things, I've got a whoop. And I've got a garments, I track my sleep, I know there's different mattress pads and whatnot to do you track your sleep.

Seth Davis  7:05  

So I did for a while and then I just decided not to do it. You know, I think that as a sleep coach, there's just kind of this fine line with technology where, you know, a lot of people are interested in optimizing things to the max and making sure that you know that we can use technology to track that optimize it. But for a certain amount of people that do start to get sort of either they go overboard with it. And they start to develop this kind of anxiety around it. And there's just too much data and they're worried about what the device is telling them. And so, so for some people, I have to kind of, you know, kind of slow it down and say let's, let's go based more on how you feel about your sleep. And let's put the, let's put the whoop whoop, or whatever in the drawer and just kind of go based on how you feel. So for myself, sometimes I'll track it just out of curiosity. It's kind of say like, Okay, where am I at this week, but for the most part, I don't, I do have a couple of I have a SleepScore bedside device that I can use some times where I have Apple Watch. So I've you know, I do it on occasion. But for the most part, I just go based more on how I feel.

Caleb Roth  8:06  

Yeah, it's really fascinating because I've actually heard that from a number of people I actually stopped wearing my whoop for for a while and then just brought it back as I've already paid for it for you know, another few months. So it might as well. But I've actually heard that were one you have a little bit of paranoia knowing that it's being monitored. So it almost feels like somebody's watching you. And then the other part of that which I've experienced is some days I'll wake up and I feel great, I feel refreshed. I'm very energized. I don't feel like I need much coffee in the morning. And I look down and it gives me a very poor sleep score an average sleep score, and I'm like, What the heck. And other days I'll wake up, you know, maybe I drank the night before. And I feel just terrible. And it'll say like, I got 95% I'm like what's going on. So sometimes the numbers don't jive. And I'm learning like you said just to sort of be more in touch with my own body and just listen in to what it's telling me. Exactly.

Seth Davis  8:55  

And that's actually that's a good point to make is that they have done studies showing that people sometimes will, will give too much credence to what the device is telling them so you know, you wake up you feel great, but it says well, my My score was like a 70 or 65 or whatever. And so they'll they'll believe that more but over how they feel. Yeah, I think they actually did a study where they had people who were who were slit you know, they they brought them in and they had them sleep and then they told them the wrong numbers. So maybe they actually they actually got a 95 on there. But they're like you actually got a 70 like your person is like oh man well what's what's wrong and started kind of worrying about so so just Yeah, so technology can be good for looking at trends and things but we don't need you know, we take it with a grain of salt I think is the point to make there.

Caleb Roth  9:41  

I like that sort of a an inner working of manifestation if you slept poorly, but it said he slept great and you're like, Yeah, I feel amazing. Like you can almost trick yourself into just having the energy and being good. Exactly. Alright, so sleep is a quite there's a lot of nuances. is related to it and how much sleep should the average adult get? And what time? And what are some of the habits related to it? So I'm sure that we're going to sort of dig up a lot of habits related to sleep. But before we get into that, can you set any sort of base parameters in terms of are there any commonly accepted length of sleep for adults, or, you know, certain things like that, just so we're on the same term, as we define the term starting off?

Seth Davis  10:25  

Sure, yeah. So the most commonly, so. So start start out with the thing we see in the media the most often is eight hours, you see eight hours, eight hours, eight hours. And that's sort of something that a lot of people become focused on. And if they're not getting eight hours, they get worried about it. But so they've kind of one of the more commonly accepted things now is between seven to nine hours is sort of the healthy range for adults. So that's kind of what you might aim for. But a lot of people do fall outside of that. So I think they've done a large studies showing that people around the world average, more like six and a half hours or closer to that. So you know, and those are the people who are getting that amount and it fulfills their sleep needs are perfectly healthy. They're getting the amount they need to function for them. So I would say, you know, seven to nine hours is sort of the widely accepted range. But some people fall a little bit outside that lower a little bit higher. And that's, that's okay, if it's if that's what your body is needing

David Chung  11:22  

Seth says, Does geography play into the length of sleep? Is there any research so

Seth Davis  11:29  

off the top of my head, I feel like I've I've known at least for people who, let's see, I'm trying to remember the exact numbers. I know, they've done studies in different time zones, like in the United States. And so you have on the one end, so in the same timezone, you have some people on the early end of that some people in the late end, and they have shown that one of those groups was getting a little bit less sleep than the other end of timezone. So even within that, and then around the world, there are places where they get exposed to more light or less light, especially the places where, you know, the sun stays up for six months out of the year, or whatever. So that plays a part in it. And then there are parts places where, you know, they have more artificial light than other places. So it's so it can depend on just the environmental circumstances, the time zones, and so yes, so geography can play a part in and sleep timing.

Caleb Roth  12:21  

Are you referring also to someone that lives closer to the equator? I think I think he mentioned that, roughly. But

David Chung  12:27  

yeah, so yeah, for me, I'm thinking like, you know, people who live in Alaska, we're just like, generations of people who lived in like, sort of the northern region, regions of the world, or I guess that's southern most regions of the globe, compared to the equator, you know, I just wonder like, if, you know, generations of patterns of maybe not even just sunlight, like, you know, some people may be close to the equator, maybe they're more agricultural communities. And so they had to get up early before the sunrise. And, you know, I guess that leads to a follow up question, which is like, how much of sleep and sleep quality and behavior is genetic? Yeah,

Seth Davis  13:11  

so they they have done studies, they have shown that genetics do play a part in it. You'll hear a lot of people say my, you know, my grandfather was terrible sleeper. My mother is terrible sleeper. I'm a terrible sleeper. And so there there is a genetic component. And I think there may be some debate over how strong that is how, how strong and that can be so so yes, there is a genetic component, but a lot of it does come down to behavior too. So I think they've they've shown that behavior can influence sleep a lot. And even if you do have some genetic things that can negatively impact your sleep, you can somewhat make up for it with keeping better behaviors around it.

David Chung  13:48  

Yeah, how far back does have we as a civilization been studying sleep? Like do we have records from like the 17 or 18 hundred's?

Seth Davis  13:58  

So I don't think I mean, so I think the study of sleep is relatively newer, and just really diving deep. And I think they just discovered REM sleep, rapid eye movement, sleep, and, you know, earlier in the 20th century, so it was, so it wasn't that long ago. And so I think that they there are records of how people tended to sleep, for example, I think around like the 14 and 1500s, they had what's called biphasic sleep, which you might have heard of where they, you know, they people would sleep for a period of, you know, four hours or so wake up, they would eat a little bit, talk to their neighbors do do such things and go back to sleep for another chunk of time. So we do have records that, you know, people did sleep differently during those periods than we do now. But I think the kind of the focus study of it is only relatively in the last century or so. And

David Chung  14:45  

in that last century, have, have we noticed any changes in sleep patterns or behaviors like even in the last 20 years, like smartphones didn't exist 20 years ago? Yeah,

Seth Davis  14:58  

I think that They have shown that they're that the amount of sleep that we get nowadays is less than people were getting before. Not necessarily by a huge amount, but we might be getting less sleep these days. And yeah, we do have I mean, we, our technology has changed, we have more artificial lights, street lights, we have light devices that put out a lot of lights. So I don't Yeah, I think the I don't know the some of the exact numbers about how it's changed since in that last century. But I do know that we have a lot more stresses in our lives, we have, we have, you know, our schedules have changed are now we now we have, you know, remote work and all these things. So, sometimes you don't have to get up as early as they did, like you said, for farming and things like that. So I think just life has changed. And so our sleep patterns are changing and things like that. What's interesting

Caleb Roth  15:45  

to me is I know there's a lot of studies around chronotype. And when you function best, so some people are going to sleep, you know, a traditional 10, a, you know, 10pm to 7am, or whatever, other people are going to sleep better, you know, their night hours, they're going to sleep, you know, three 4am through, you know, 10 Matthew likes to wake up, we're used to around four in the morning and go for a hike and journal and do all kinds of crazy morning routines. So in relation to that, I know some people can't adjust their schedule, but one of the benefits of working remote is that in a lot of cases, you're able to do you sort of work with clients and try to figure out what that is? And how can somebody sort of figure out when they are most, you know, when they should be sleeping? Yeah,

Seth Davis  16:27  

and you're right, there is a genetic component to watch time, a lot of time to that chronotype. So some of us are just kind of genetically wired to be the early morning type, some of us are kind of late nights and then wake up later types. So that does have a definite genetic component. And so some of it is kind of looking at when do you feel your best? So when does it feel best for you to go to sleep? Does it feel best for you to wake up? How does that fit with your job and with your, your family and lifestyle? And how can we sort of compromise enough to find this sweet spot where you can, you know, be at your best, but also, you know, perform well at your job and do all your obligations. So I definitely work with clients who are doing that, for example, I have a 17 year old client right now who, you know, his his whole sleep schedule is different because his teenager needs more sleep, and he's just wired to go to sleep later and wake up wake up later. So when you have to sort of square that away with having to wake up earlier for school, and perform well at school, and then have after school activities and all these things. It is kind of about compromise. It's about how can we change our routines, move our schedules around, make sure we're giving our bodies the right signals for quality sleep and things like that. So it's yeah, it's definitely personalized to each person's situation and their chronotype as well. Yeah. So

Caleb Roth  17:44  

you had a 17 year old that recognize they weren't sleeping well enough. And in college you are did their parents sort of pull the trigger their

Seth Davis  17:50  

parents did but he prompted it just because he had gotten to the point where he's he's like, I'm always sleeping a couple hours a night. So a lot of times, I'm like falling asleep at school, I am not able to focus. And so he was at the point where as he was like I you know, I like to be a good student I like to perform well. But I can't do that with with the sleep that I'm getting right now.

Caleb Roth  18:11  

Lots that's incredibly self aware for a 17 year old.

Seth Davis  18:14  

I'm I sometimes I underestimate teenagers. But when you actually talk to him, it's like, wow, there's there's some very smart kids out there. So

Caleb Roth  18:21  

selfishly, I have a 12 year old girl who prides herself on not sleeping, she brags that she doesn't need much sleep, she said she claims she can stay awake for three straight days, which I know is not really possible, and probably incredibly dangerous. So for someone like that, selfishly, how do you how should I even think about the problem in terms of you know, do I let her just get to the end of a rope and then realize that she can't do it? Or is there something I can you know, get in front of it with studies or some kind of tick tock videos or something to kind of say, hey, sleep does matter, because I preached that to her I know it's important. And she just she hasn't accepted that as her own truth yet? Sure.

Seth Davis  18:59  

Yeah, it's hard when people I mean you know, teenagers do and adults do it. So a lot of entrepreneurs and people do it kind of wear that as a badge of honor or I only need more hours of sleep or or this or that or I can do pull an all nighter no problem. And so sometimes I and sometimes it's kind of hard to break through that. So I think sometimes a good thing to do is to look at the why behind it. So for example if you know if they're into sports or they're into you know, they're trying to do really well academically or they you know, whatever it is they care about kind of pointing out that you would be so much better at that if you are getting the amount of rest that you need. So you know if it's if it's sports, you can be faster you can your decision time can be quick your reaction times can be quicker you're less likely to be injured when you are getting enough sleep so if you can kind of get to the point where just kind of showing them that when you're sleeping well you're just a better version of yourself and whatever pursuit that is, that can be part of it. And then you can go to the scare them straight tactics. So you You can start to look at, well, you know, if you, it's probably hard with a 12 year old because they think they're gonna live forever die, they think that's, you know, they're just invincible. But just showing the long term effects of sleep deprivation can include everything from, you might get sick more often, it can expose you to some more serious, possibly diseases, cancer, diabetes, things like that makes it harder for you to control your weight. So you might might might gain weight more quickly. So if there are things that and even, you know, if they are into their looks, you can tell them, you know, it's more likely to lead to, you know, kind of bags under your eyes and wrinkles and all this other stuff, too. So it's kind of just appealing to whatever's going to also have the negative consequences that might scare them straight a little bit, had

Caleb Roth  20:47  

some some great tactics. It's interesting, because, you know, we're, all of us are entrepreneurs, and you are as well, obviously found in sleep probably. And I think our culture is making a good shift in terms of moving away from that hustle mentality, and just, you know, I work all the time, and I'm burning, you know, burning the candle at both ends. I know that Europe has placed a pretty good focus on work life balance, where they're not working closer to 30 to 32 hours a week, I hope that trend comes to the US, it'd be interesting to see if some of the sleep trends follow that as well. Have you noticed different trends, kind of to David's original question in different geographies and different countries in terms of how they value sleep? Let's

Seth Davis  21:27  

see, I think that I think that I'm pretty US centric in terms of what I've seen around sleep. But I have had people reach out to me on LinkedIn, and things who, you know, from other countries who are interested in sleep, and who want to kind of bring that into their companies to kind of promote that culture of sleep. So I think that, as far as I know, like there is that that value that placing on kind of the work life balance, which I think is going to is going to spread into sleep, and it may be already but I haven't seen anything too specifically about that. But I just know, like on LinkedIn, I have some contacts internationally who are who deal with sleep, and they've been really active in promoting it to, to organizations and to people around there. So I think that the I think there's a growing movement, at least, that's happening right now.

David Chung  22:13  

Seth, do you think there there will ever be a point in time where like, you know, employers monitor, employees sleep, and that becomes part of their performance metrics, like the quality of their? Because like, I feel it too. I mean, we all feel it, like when we're tired, we're less productive? Do you think there will ever be a reality? Now we're in a dystopic future where everyone's forced to wear a whoop, and they're paid based on quality of sleep? Well, I

Seth Davis  22:40  

think that can be counterproductive, in a way, because so I think that brings it, there's a study that they did where I think they had a group of people and then divided them up. And they told one, one group of people will pay you like $100, if you could fall asleep in 30 minutes. And the other people, they didn't incentivize like that. And the people who were had the pressure on them to financial pressure to try to sleep did worse at falling asleep, it took them longer. So I think that can be counterproductive if your compensation is based on zero sleep, but I do know, I think there are some kind of at least pilot programs going on where, you know, they have the insurance companies, who there they track how many steps you take, and things like that. And they're also tracking sleep. And I think that people are possibly able to save on their insurance when they're getting, you know, when they're giving themselves a certain amount of time to sleep or think there's some kind of sleep based metrics that are factored into this kind of wellness insurance program

Caleb Roth  23:32  

training, because that's sort of like the State Farm or Allstate does it where they put the tracker on your car or on your phone. And so when you're driving, they're monitoring sudden stops your speed. I don't I don't know all the metrics, they measure. And it's optional, you can opt into it. And if you do and prove that you are a lower risk driver, then you can pay lower premiums. Of course, if you are you crazy driver driving like a madman and go in nuts. I think that's, that's, of course counterproductive. So that just that thought kind of intrigued me, it's like, I wonder if there's a business to be built in that space. Sort of an opt in sleep performance?

Seth Davis  24:08  

Yeah, I think that I think this maybe if you tracked metrics, like are they getting giving themselves enough opportunity to sleep? So not necessarily, are you sleeping well, but are you giving yourself enough opportunity to sleep to fulfill your needs? And if you know, if they're doing at least that much, then I think that would be worthy of of some recognition? Or incentivizing?

David Chung  24:28  

A lot of what we've talked about so far, seems to have this common thread of the mental game of sleep. Right? And there's this whole psychology aspect to sleep. Would you agree with that set?

Seth Davis  24:41  

100% Yeah. So I work with a lot of people who I kind of divide them up. There's people who they sleep pretty well, but they want to optimize things and just for performance and how they feel and everything. And then there's a group of people who are not sleeping well, which is probably the the larger group of people I work with. And so a lot of times with their issues It's not so much in the sleep hygiene part of it, it's not, you know, it's, it's not that much, but it's the mental part of it. So it's, they have developed these worries about sleep, they're kind of anxious about sleep, they are not dealing with stress very well. So that's kind of leaking into their, their nights. And so it is part of kind of helping them to reframe thoughts about sleep and reduce anxieties about sleep and deal with stress better. So the mind is a huge driver of whether you're sleeping well or not. And so it's kind of helping to unravel some of those, those things we've built up that are making it harder to sleep in the mind. What

David Chung  25:35  

are guess? What are some of the most difficult types of clients that you've had in the past? Where, you know, I'm, I'm thinking, like, I personally be a difficult client, like me being stressed and stubborn. Like, I feel like that makes for a difficult client, you'd probably make a lot of money off me, because I'd use you for years. But, you know, is there like a type of client that you run across that, you know, may strike you as like, unusually difficult to sort of, like, get back on track to good sleep? Yeah,

Seth Davis  26:12  

I think, let's see, I think that there's a couple so so one of them, that I found really hard to work with is people who are dealing with with who are dealing with trauma in the past. And so, you know, they're, they're probably working with a psychiatrist or a psychologist already and working through those things. But that the trauma makes it harder to get through some of that the sleep related negativity or their fears around sleep or things like that. So I found that the people who are kind of processing trauma from the past are really hard to kind of kind of get to the point where they're, they're not worried about sleep anymore, they can kind of make it through the night. So so they're kind of hard group of people. And then some sometimes this the really stubborn people, they like, you know, they, sometimes I enjoy working with them to kind of breaking through those walls.

David Chung  27:01  

You don't have to be nice, that you would never be his ideal client.

Seth Davis  27:05  

I, I mean, sometimes yeah, sometimes there's kind of this little, this little push and pull where it's like, I really think we should do this. And there's some resistance like, oh, you know, that's not going to work for me, or, I've tried that before or whatever. And so there's kind of this push and pull. And so I have to kind of navigate that. But there are there are some people who are just too too stubborn. And a lot of people are just like, you know, I already know, that's not going to work for me, or, you know, I don't want to do that or whatever. And so I do you know, there's flexibility involved, and people don't have to do everything that I recommend. But there has to be a certain level of, you know, trusts, trust your sleep coach, and, and sometimes people are just too resistant to that. So I think those are two of the groups that are a little bit difficult to work with.

David Chung  27:48  

How about people who are dependent on supplements, such as melatonin and maybe they want to stop taking melatonin to go to sleep? Do you ever work with people like that? And what are some of the challenges that you face as people wean themselves on? Supplements? Yeah,

Seth Davis  28:06  

so the there are a lot of those people, some of them, you know, some of it is melatonin, some of it's harder sleep medications, some of it is has somebody who was who was on just kind of NyQuil or things like that, Benadryl and so some of the a lot of the challenges are sort of very psychological, kind of in the minds, there are some physical so when some people try to get off of these things, you do have a lot of times withdrawals. So it's hard to see you kind of get off of it for a few days, your sleep suffers, and they come running back to it just to try to avoid that discomfort. So there's some physical parts of it, but a lot of people do start to find it as a crutch. So it's, I'm taking this melatonin, I'm pretty sure it's not even doing anything for me at this point. But I'm afraid to let it go. Because I'm afraid that my sleep will do this. And so that's kind of what leads people to take these some of these supplements for years, he's because they're afraid of what's going to happen when they let them go. So part of it is building people's confidence up that, you know, our body can handle sleep, it can handle helping us to fall asleep and to stay asleep, we don't need this thing. So we're gonna work on those thoughts around sleep, kind of build up that confidence, make some adjustments, so that we're giving our body the right signals. So it's kind of those two things at the same time, sort of building that confidence, making sure we're doing the right things biologically, and making those adjustments and kind of doing everything in concert so that we can help them to gradually let go of that. And a lot of times it does involve just kind of a gradual approach rather than cold turkey. So we're kind of kind of do this gradual approach and let it go a couple times a week and then and then every other day. And so it's a kind of a gradual, tapered approach to letting go them. I

David Chung  29:46  

just saw an article yesterday actually on the BBC and it was talking about that increase, you know, they, it was editorialized a bit so it was talking about the shocking increase Have kids under the age of 18, or 14, where their parents are giving them melatonin? To sleep? I think it's increased in this study, like nearly half the kids are getting melatonin to sleep. And then in some of the comments that I read, you know, of teachers were talking about, oh, we used to do like overnight, you know, at, you know, overnight stays at school or whatever. And they don't do that anymore. Because the number of students that couldn't fall asleep without melatonin was just shocking. What are your thoughts on? I guess, parents, or I guess we as a society using the supplements on young children? Kind of sounds like a leading question. I'm guessing you have a pretty strong stance on though.

Seth Davis  30:52  

Yeah, I think there's a lot of concern about it within the the kind of sleep community, just because, and it goes for adults to like, where adults are using this stuff, and very, very widespread use, and there's no real long term term studies over what the long term use of melatonin is going to do to us because it is actually it's a hormone. And so a lot of people, we see it in the drugstore, or you see it, you know, we can grab it anywhere. And so we think it's Oh, it's just you know, it's safe, it's natural. But it is a hormone. And so there's, there's no real long term studies over what this is going to do to us, a lot of us are taking it a lot as a lot higher levels than than our body actually makes. So I think that our body actually produces naturally around 0.1 to 0.3 milligrams, so a very tiny amount. And so we're going to the drugstore, and we're getting one milligram, three 510 milligrams, so hundreds or 1000s of times more than then our body is actually producing, and just trying to kind of hammer ourselves to sleep with this or doing that to our kids as well. Um, so I think that if we can focus more on sort of the behavioral aspects of it, and the cognitive aspects of it, that's, that's kind of the longer term solution than just feeding ourselves this hormone and just kind of expecting it to magically make us sleep better for for a long time. Seth,

David Chung  32:09  

the last time I heard you speak, you were talking about a study that found that in those melatonin supplements to like the advertised amount was often off drastically from the actual melatonin inside the supplements. Yeah,

Seth Davis  32:23  

so yeah, they looked at some bottles of ones you can buy pretty widely available, I think they found that it was anywhere from like, less, so negative 80%, all the way up to around 400% times more than than was actually stated on the bottle. So we can't even really trust what the what the labels are telling us. So it's just another kind of thing to be wary about. It's interesting

Matthew Osborn  32:46  

when you have a new client come in, and they tell you they're not sleeping, well, they wake up, they're tired. Is there like one thing you always go to with them to start off with first? Or is it different for every client? Do you like very first go to their nightly routine? Do you very first see how long they're sleeping? Is there like a system you go to right away to check off these few boxes before you start getting into the more detailed aspects of their sleep? Yeah, so with

Seth Davis  33:09  

F with every client, I like to get a good look at where they are right now. So I have sort of a general sleep intake form that looks at their routines, their stresses in their lives. They're sort of sleep hygiene, and and sleep environment and all those things just so I can see all the factors that are possibly influencing their sleep. And I have them track their sleep for a week, just with a sleep diary just to see, you know, when are they going to sleep waking up? You know, waking up during the nights and things like that. So I use all that information to start to narrow in on what are their roadblocks for that specific person. And usually, some of the first things I will check on are, what's their sleep schedule look like? Because that's a really important piece to dial in to take a look at, you know, if they are having awake periods, what are they doing during those times? So those are a couple of the big ones. Just those are some of the things that usually there's a lot of room to work around with those.

Matthew Osborn  34:02  

Gotcha, that makes sense. So normally, one of those things you can kind of pick off on the intake form of this is probably the problem area to focus on with this specific client type thing.

Seth Davis  34:10  

Yeah, exactly. So I'll look at everything to see where I can pinpoint. But those things I mentioned a couple of the ones that I'll look at first and be like, Okay, let's, let's see if I can identify any problems with those, because those are gonna be pretty impactful. So

Caleb Roth  34:21  

we are a podcast all about habits and tactics. So let's let's dive into some of the more specific tactics. I imagine there's two groups of people that are listening. There's one group that goes Yep, I'm in the I think there's like 35% of people, according to the CDC that don't get the recommended amount of sleep. So they probably have some sort of sleep, debt deprivation. So it's probably one group people that says, I hear you I struggle with sleep, I'm not doing all that. Well, I need help. And there's probably another group that's like, I don't have any issues with sleep. This this episode doesn't even matter. What are some of the some of the tactics that you would say that maybe most people overlook, or maybe are doing wrong, that would either apply To everybody if that, if that's true, or to each of those individual groups. Yeah, so

Seth Davis  35:05  

I would say, kind of going back to the sleep schedule, since that's one of the things I look at first, with a lot of people, there's a lot of mistakes that we can make within that. So, for example, you may have heard the advice to try to keep the same sleep schedule throughout the week, even on weekends as much as possible. And that's for a good reason for just to keep our circadian rhythm our internal clock just set so it just knows the appropriate times for us to fall asleep and to wake up. So a lot of times, we sort of mess with that by either, you know, just having a variable sleep schedule throughout the week, or we wake up at a certain time on the weekdays, and then on the weekends, we sleep in by three hours or, or something like that. So so the first thing to do is just just check in and see, are you keeping consistent sleep schedule as often as possible, kind of allowing for flexibility. But the better we do with that, the better we tend to sleep and feel. So I would say that's, that's one of the kind of the first things to check in with yourself about,

Caleb Roth  36:00  

it's a good one, are there other like routines that you find are helpful, like putting screens away, or spinning in a circle five times before laying down in bed? Are there are there any sort of practical things that again, apply to most people? Yeah,

Seth Davis  36:14  

so I would say just kind of an overarching theme, because within this, there's a lot of individuality. But I would say, just make sure that you're giving yourself enough time to wind down before bed, because a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, but a lot of other people too, like to try to be productive, right up until it's time to try to close your eyes or sleep, whether that's doing chores, whether that's doing work, or finances, or whatever it is. And so when we do that, we're not fully ready for sleep. So it might be harder to fall asleep, or you might just kind of struggle during the night because you didn't give yourself that time to disconnect from the day. So what you do during that, that hour or so before bed is sort of up to you. But I always kind of advisors calm and enjoyable things. So for you that could be reading a book or doing some stretching podcasts, hobby, talking to your spouse, whatever it is. But it's something that allows you to kind of let your mind rest and focus on kind of enjoyable and calm things. And I find that that's pretty universal, that we all benefit from giving ourselves that that buffer zone between the day and the nights, so that we can just kind of relax, relax, and it's kind of fallen asleep, rather than try to force it. So

Caleb Roth  37:26  

an hour is kind of that magic window. That's that's sort of the sweet spot.

Seth Davis  37:30  

That's kind of the sweet spot for a lot of people. That's enough time that we can just fully disconnect. Some people like to do more, some people like to take a closer to 30 minutes if they're real, you know, they don't want to give themselves that much time. But I would say an hour is kind of the the recommended time. Okay,

Caleb Roth  37:44  

how about in the morning, first thing when you wake up, I know some studies say go outside and look up at the sun or not directly at the sun, but try and get vitamin D and sort of help with the circadian rhythms. It does the morning routine, or some of the actions that you take first thing in the morning really kind of embellish what you've done while sleeping, or does most of that not matter. No,

Seth Davis  38:04  

I think it does matter, especially the sunlight is a huge portion of it, just you know, because when we get that morning sunlight fairly soon after we wake up, that does keep our internal clock set. So it's just kind of a biological reminder that it's daytime, time to stop producing cortisol or melatonin because you don't need that anymore. Stop producing cortisol because that does help us to become alert during the morning. And just kind of start that that chain reaction of things, it gets us alerts and tells our body that's, that's awake. So I think that's a really important piece of it. And it also just the morning routine kind of sets the tone for the day. So if you kind of, you know, you press the snooze button and you drag yourself out of bed and you just you're just not looking forward to the day, I think that kind of sets the tone for how things are going to go. Versus if you you kind of wake up with intentionality and you wake up you know, get some sunlight, tell your body you're awake, maybe get some some physical movements, just get the get everything loosened up, maybe have a breakfast that you are looking forward to maybe a cup of coffee or matcha tea or something else that you just whatever it is that you kind of look forward to maybe we'll podcast, I think that that kind of makes it easier to wake up. And and it kind of makes it Yeah, it makes it easier to keep that routine in the morning. Versus because I've talked to a lot of people who they are just kind of struggling every morning and the mood is low and they don't look forward to waking up. So I think if we can switch that around mentally and add things to our mornings that you know kind of fulfill us It does. It does help to just make our routines within look forward to yeah

Caleb Roth  39:35  

love love how you mentioned the podcast a couple of times we'll we'll sneak in stacking habits podcast right before every every one of those mentions just for some shameless plugs. If someone's in the other camp and says Hey, sleep is pretty good for me. It's not something I struggle with. I usually feel pretty rested. I've got a great morning routine. I've got you know my checklist of 87 things I do. I'm incredibly disciplined. I have lots of intention. Have you any of those clients that are trying to take to the next level or just, you know, make one little subtle shift. Is there one or two habits that you found that that most people overlook in that camp? Oh, let's

Seth Davis  40:08  

see. Yeah, usually when those types of people come to me, my first reaction is, it sounds like you're doing pretty well, like, you know, but you know, we can take a deeper look. And we can, I can just look at my kind of go through my intake forms and to see if there are things I can identify. That could be useful for you. But let's see. So I would have to look and just take a look at you know, when are you getting your sunlight during your days, when you know, your, your stress levels? Are you are you dealing with that pretty well. And it's kind of just get a look at everything that's going on, just really see for that person, what might might kind of move the needle a little bit, I would say, for those types of people, maybe just looking at, you know, the comfort of the sleep environment, there's something we can do to make it more comfortable, make sure that the, you know, kind of the environmental things are doing well. But off the top of my head, it is so individualized, it's hard for me to come up with something that's kind of universal for those people.

Caleb Roth  40:59  

Let me ask this, have you ever had a client come to you that you've gone through the entire intake form and just said, I can't help you? You're already doing perfect? And you should just keep doing what you're doing?

Seth Davis  41:09  

No, because generally those people who are who are at that level aren't approaching me. They're they're usually pretty satisfied with things. So I haven't had anybody with that. But I have had people who have come to me for could we do discovery calls where we just do like a free 30 minute discovery call to find out more about what's going on. And I have had some people who during that conversation, and I'm just like, you know what it sounds like you're doing incredible. So just just keep that up. If you do encounter any problems, let me know. But it sounds like you are operating at a high level. So just keep doing what you're doing. So I think verbally I have had those conversations like,

Caleb Roth  41:44  

yeah, I've met so many habits that are related to it so many variables that I doubt anybody's fully mastered the art of sleeping. No,

Seth Davis  41:53  

no. And I think that two part of it is some of the best sleepers. They just don't even think about it. Like it's just that's just something that happens. They don't they don't think about I have to do this have to do that. And it just it just happens. And so there's there's some of the best sleepers and a lot of people who I work with are the people who have begun thinking about it a lot. And so it's, it's kind of this fine line of we have to improve things we have to think about it during this time. But the ultimate goal is to get you back to the point where you're not even thinking about it. It's just something that happens so so some a lot of the people who you know, are the best sleepers, they're just, you know, they don't even need anything because they're just letting it happen. Does the mattress

Matthew Osborn  42:30  

people sleep on have any impact on what you do? Do you ever go towards what mattress people are using?

Seth Davis  42:36  

Yeah, especially if there's if there's pain issues you might look at if the mattress is supporting them, if you know based on their sleeping position, if you're a back sleeper side sleeper, my see if that's supporting you, and pillows too, are a big part of it as well. So we'll take a look at the mattress. And then also just is the mattress supporting your temperature needs as well because some some if you're a hot sleeper some mattresses amplify your heat. So might be looking if there's a mattress that has kind of cooling properties or a cooling mattress pad or things like that. So So yeah, I think looking at the comfort levels, pain levels, temperature and seeing if if the mattress is right for them, or if we need to make an adjustment viewer

Matthew Osborn  43:16  

tried yourself or had clients try the Sleep mattress that changes the temperature you can adjust to sleep warmer asleep cold or has that pad that changes temperature. Have you ever used that yourself?

Seth Davis  43:26  

I have not used it myself, but I recommended it to people because I deal with a lot of hot sleepers and and people who do they have different preferences than their partner. So a lot of them have dual zone temperature controls. And so for the people who are hot sleepers, that being able to adjust the the core body temperature through your mattress pads is a big win. And I've seen pretty much pretty much everybody has tried those has just had a lot of success with those.

David Chung  43:54  

I wonder how much sleep compatibility has to do with overall partner compatibility. Because I was gonna say, Seth, if sleep probably doesn't end up working out there might be a future and like sleep dating app, you know, match to your ideal sleep partner.

Seth Davis  44:08  

I think there's a lot of potential in that actually. Because I think I want to say that the last number I saw was that at least 25% of people in the US sleep in different rooms and their partners just because there's just so there's incompatibility, one person's makes too much noise. One person likes it cold. The other person's like hot fight over bed covers, things like that. And so a lot of people just say, You know what, screw it. I am going to have my own sleep environment. And we'll I'll see in the morning. How much

Caleb Roth  44:37  

are you running into sleep apnea issues because I know that that's a really growing epidemic. Yeah,

Seth Davis  44:43  

I think that in the past there's just hasn't been a lot of awareness about it. So a lot more people are starting to get go seek out diagnosis for it, but it's very, very common. So a lot of students eat a lot of in, in men, not as much in women, even some kids are dealing with sleep apnea. Now So so yeah, it's kind of a growing thing where a lot of people use us to kind of dismiss it as Oh, I snore or whatever. And now it's realizing, going back to the why of it, that when you have sleep apnea, most of the time you are, you don't have a lot of energy during the day, it affects your health. And so when you can get that taken care of you just tend to be a better version of yourself. How

Matthew Osborn  45:22  

important Have you found the light level in a room to be? Yeah,

Seth Davis  45:26  

so So light levels are very important. And some people will tell you, I like to sleep with some lights on or whatever. But I think studies have shown that that universally, the darker, the better at ICE, because even small levels of light can kind of leak through our eyelids while we're trying to sleep. And you might not notice it so much, but it could affect your sleep quality, make a little bit harder sleep and um, so. So yeah, usually the darker, the better. And they've even they did a study over the past couple years where they had people wear sleep masks kind of asleep eye masks during the night. And they found that the group of people who wore those were better at I think memorizing information or kind of learning things, and possibly had faster reaction times. And I think that the reasoning behind that is because they were just blocking out so much more light using those. So you don't necessarily have to have to have those. But I think studies have shown that sleep quality and just some of the benefits of sleep are amplified when you're giving yourselves that strong darkness signal during the night. That's great.

Caleb Roth  46:29  

Well, as we do wind things down, I do have one last question as it relates to travel. So a lot of a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs and make travel for work or for fun. Hopefully, I know that travel can definitely throw things off between waking up early kind of really the only time I struggle to sleep is when I know I have a really early flight and I've got to wake up on time catch an Uber drive to the airport. So do you just have a couple of general tips? Is melatonin something that can be considered when you are crossing time zones or going out of the country? What are just some of the general generally accepted tips for travelers?

Unknown Speaker  47:03  

Yeah, so

Seth Davis  47:04  

that is one of the cases where melatonin can be helpful. And so that was kind of give the disclaimer, it's good to check with your doctor and make sure that it's safe for you to take and it's kind of a general disclaimer, but that is a time where if you are trying to adjust to different timezone, then you can sort of use melatonin as a to help your body sort of adjust to that you're gonna have this new sleep schedule. So. So that's definitely something that you can look into. And then some of the things we've talked about as well. So lights exposure and kind of adjusting the timing of your light exposure is going to be useful for helping your body to adjust to to time schedule. exercise or physical activity is another kind of signal we can use adjusting your meal timing. So those are all cues that basically instruct our circadian rhythm or internal clock on the timing of things. And so if we're going to new place and we if we adjust those things, that helps us to adjust more quickly generally.

Caleb Roth  47:59  

So pragmatically, as it relates to changing time zones. Let's say I'm going from East Coast to West Coast, a three hour time change, should I be adjusting my my daylight my meals to adjust to the timezone I'm headed to. And if I'm doing that, do I need to do that one day in advance two days, three days.

Seth Davis  48:15  

Yeah, so it kind of depends on the length of your trip. So if it's only going to be a one day trip or a two day trip, then usually it's not, it's not worth making that adjustment, because you'll you know, it's not even worth doing that, if it's going to be a longer trip, then you might want to just gradually do it. So just over the course of, you know, maybe four or five days, just just change things by 15 minutes or so just get yourself closer to that that time zone. So probably spending some time there that can be helpful.

Caleb Roth  48:42  

I like that a lot, something that I've struggled with specially bouncing around for a couple day trips at a time. And usually you're trying to pack in as many client visits and you know, fun activities as possible. And you definitely feel that so I'll I'll be taking some notes there and trying to implement some of that. As we as we do leave the listeners, do you have a book or two that you'd recommend for people that do want to kind of study more about sleep and its impact?

Seth Davis  49:07  

Sure. So I think one of the ones that's gotten a lot of attention over the past few years, is why we sleep Matthew Walker. That is one it just it gives such a great general overview of sleep. And in the way he describes it's very poetic and a lot of ways. So if people are looking to get just a good understanding of why sleep is important and kind of what's happening with sleep, then I recommend that one. Let's see another one that I really like. I'm just looking at my bookshelf here. I have a lot of sleep books over here. I really like the see one of your legs called The Power of when by Michael J. Bruce, Dr. Michael J. Bruce and that one really gets into the chrono type thing and so it looks at you know, if you're a morning person or night person or in between, it takes a look at when is the best time for you to eat your meals or to take a test or all these things in your life. So I kind of just liked that he goes so deeply into the timing of things. It's really interesting. Excellent.

Caleb Roth  50:03  

Well, we will link to those books in the show notes at stacking habits.com. And Seth, if anybody's listening and says, Man, I really resonate with what you're saying, and I need the time to take some action. How can they contact you reach out to you and inquire more about sleep coaching? Sure.

Seth Davis  50:19  

So the easiest way would probably go to our websites, which is sleep Hubley that sleep ABL y.com. And they can just schedule a free discovery call. So just have a chat with myself or we have pediatric sleep coaches, well, if there are parents out there whose kids are struggling. So I'm always glad to have that conversation. And I mentioned to you that we do things with with corporations and organizations too. So if anybody out there wants to educate their employees about sleep and kind of help them to sleep better for the company's sake, then we do that as well.

Caleb Roth  50:49  

Fantastic. Well, I may take you up on it with my 12 year old if I can convince her that it matters. That's yeah. Well, Seth, thanks so much for your time. You obviously well researched you quoted several studies throughout and you've got a great podcast voice as well. So that may be something in your future, but we really appreciate you coming on and have a great week ahead.

Seth Davis  51:11  

Thank you. You too.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai