Sleep is essential for overall health, yet many struggle with getting quality rest. From the impact of light exposure and screen time to the role of proper nutrition, this episode explores practical ways to improve sleep. Establishing a consistent routine, reducing artificial light before bed, and ensuring the right nutrient balance can make a significant difference in restfulness and recovery.

Beyond just feeling tired, poor sleep can lead to serious health issues, including memory loss, mood imbalances, and even sleep apnea. Understanding the science behind sleep and making small lifestyle adjustments can drastically improve well-being, cognitive function, and overall performance.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:04 – The Importance of Sleep

01:12 – Establishing a Sleep Routine

02:19 – The Role of Light in Sleep

05:14 – Relaxation Techniques Before Bed

06:19 – Nutrients & Sleep Quality

07:44 – Sleep Apnea & Health Risks

12:08 – How Sleep Affects Overall Health & Fitness

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] All right, let’s talk about sleep. You know, every time I talk about sleep, I get this, that this. I have this memory of talking to one of my buddies. This job is giving me lots of opportunities to meet all sorts of cool people. You know, professional athletes, politicians, high end, you know, business leaders and some paramilitary guys. And I was talking to these guys about waterboarding this guy. This is this is a long time ago, this back when waterboarding was on the news. And I was like, have you ever, you know, and he was like. And he was like, I don’t like waterboarding. I know why. He’s like, it’s uses takes time and it’s you kind of pointless is is if you want to get information out of somebody is all you got to do is keep him awake for 72 to 80 hours. And he was like, I’ll tell you everything they know is, or they’ll go crazy. One of the two. And I was like, really? Here’s a guy. He’s like, that’s all you have to do is cause I’ve done I’ve been part of lots of different interrogations. You just keep somebody awake for 80 hours. And he was like, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. And I was like, awesome. So that kind of gives you the impression of an impression of how much, how important sleep is and how damaging to the psyche into the person.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:12] Lack of sleep. So for all of you guys out there with insomnia, I feel very, very bad for you. A couple of these different things, like I want to go through is, you know, as far as getting to sleep. And the problem is, I’m not gonna be able to cover everything for everybody in this because there’s giant numbers of reasons and techniques and things you gotta add together to get these things to really kind of calm down, but a couple of different things that can help out. The number one thing that I’ve seen help as far as getting to sleep, singing sleep, getting deep rustle sleep is setting a routine. So what happens a lot of times is that people will talk about this all the time. Like if they get up at a certain time every morning, they’re like, and now I just wake up for my alarm goes off. Yeah. It’s your body sets a clock. It’s a routine. So if you can get in bed at a certain time and then wake up at a certain time, and you can make sure you do that on a regular basis, that’ll help. Probably more than anything you’re going to do. So that’d be the first thing I tell you to do. The other thing is that getting ready for sleep is a big deal. People don’t know this, but light your body runs on light. And I realize how silly that sounds. But you’re right.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:19] It does run on light. And so if you’re staring at your phone or an iPad, or you’ve got 5000 K LED lights in your house that are technically strobing but you can’t see them. What ends up happening is your brain always thinks it’s noon and so produces all the serotonin instead of melatonin. And so what ends up happening is that you body just stays awake. And so if you can start getting those lights, you’ll start getting to sleep a lot easier. So I would want her to start trying to set the lights down a little bit lower so that she can start getting to sleep and stop looking at your phone about 30 minutes before you go to bed. So that’ll kind of help out. One of my guys that I work with is a military guy, and he was telling me about the we were talking about waterboarding. This is a long time ago, and he told me that the best way to get information out of people is just keep him awake for about 72 or 80 hours. He’s like, I’ll tell you everything I know is like, or they’re going to start to go crazy. So they kind of shows you how important sleep is. So one of the things that we talk about a lot and again, there’s sleep is so varied. It’s going to be difficult to get kind of everybody’s issues pinned down. It seems like what that means is slightly different than that. Yeah, they’re they’re varied. But a couple easy things. If you guys will set a timer, set a schedule right. If you get to bed at a specific time and you wake up a specific time, your body really, really kind of likes that. It kind of gets everything set, kind of keeps that moving.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:44] Lot of times a lot of happening is that you’ll see people who they’ll tell you like, oh yeah, I’ve been waking up the same time every day, and now I wake up before my alarm even goes off. And so yeah, because your body kind of sets a timer. If you can get your body used to going to sleep at a certain time, it’ll it’ll start to kind of wind down and get ready for that time as well. One of the big things that is a really, really big player in this is light and light helps run your whole body. And I realize how silly that sounds, but it does. And so one of the things if you guys are staring at your phone, at an iPad, at, you know, if you have your lights or 5000 K in your house, they’re, you know, they’re strobing, you don’t really know, but they are. It keeps you awake because your first is your body to produce melatonin instead of, I’m sorry, produce serotonin or something. And so it keeps you awake instead of letting you go to sleep. So one of the things that is a highly beneficial is put your phone down or your iPad down or whatever, but those things down, the dim the lights in the house type of thing, get ready for bed that way. Oftentimes I’ll have people do is sit in kind of a dim room with maybe just like a light that is like a candle or something to dim natural light and just kind of relax and meditate. We’ll go through like how to actually meditate through and relax your feet, relax your legs or relax your core. And, you know, just focus on your breathing and get deep breathing in through the nose, not through the mouth, and just kind of slowly and relax. And so that type of thing helps kind of get people ready for it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:14] And oftentimes they’ll have to do is they’ll do this for, you know, 2 or 3 weeks a month, six weeks before they get ready for bed. And as long as they’re they’re setting their time and they’re getting a bed at the same time and waking up at the same time, they don’t have to do this nearly as much or even at all afterwards. So that’s one of those big things melatonin works taking melatonin, and that’s fine. I’m a bigger fan of trying to get your body to produce all these things on its own, which is what the schedule is for, and bringing in all the nutrients. Now, one of the big ones that people are starting to miss. You know, we talk about methylated bullet, methylated B vitamins all the time, but methylated B vitamins are going to help a lot with getting your brain and everything kind of back where needs to be. That’s only B two, monthly B six are really big and and sleep and longevity and function like that. So getting those is going to be very big. We’ve got catecholamines issues which minerals help play a lot with. There’s a whole variety of different minerals that you can take, you know, different sea salts and different things like that that are beneficial. If you’re if you’re if you’re wondering which ones to take, take all of the normal minerals.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:19] Because unless you get ridiculous amounts like you’re trying to be something, do something silly, you’re not going to have any issues with. So, you know, selenium and sodium chloride, another type of stuff. Now when we talk about sodium chloride and salts, people are like, well, I can’t take salt cause my high blood pressure. You can take good clean crystal salt, the hydrophilic salt or that or the the like, the white molten salt that’s been melted into a glass bead. Those are ones you don’t want to take, but natural, good clean sea salt and stuff like that. Those are fantastic. So get those minerals and it help somebody kind of re reset and kind of get everything backwards. Supposed to be if you’re waking up between 2 and 4 in the morning, that is typically a liver issue. And so the first thing I always like to do for any liver issues is anti-parasitic stuff, because there’s lots of liver flukes and lots of things, the liver anti-parasitic stuff, and then lots and lots of methylated maybe six. The liver detoxifies between 2 and 4 in the morning. And so if yours is congealed from extra bile salts or from whatever, you’re going have problems doing it. If you have a parasitic infection, sometimes it wakes you up because that’s a raise the metabolism so high to get this process done that will actually wake you up. So that’s one of those big pieces. The other thing for those guys who are on testosterone, if you’re on a lot of tasks or got a lot of androgens that can create some issues and wake up as well. So you don’t necessarily have to drop your test levels. You have to manage your androgen function.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:44] Androgen estrogen function. And that is one of those things that you can do pretty well. A lot of times with testosterone where you guys are adding that tested, we’re adding in these, you know, the peptides, whenever you’re having trouble sleeping, it’s because you’re nutrient deficient, because your body’s trying to build and create and clean and heal and regenerate, but it doesn’t have the nutrients it needs to do it. So it’s stealing it from other parts of the body. So getting your nutrient levels up before you go too bad. Is is a great way to help with that. So those are pretty solid ones now. The big one that I see all the time is sleep apnea. Now there’s two main kinds of sleep apnea. There’s obstructive which where you’re storing where your jaw kind of pulls back and your throat collapses. You snore. That’s one. And then the second one is centralized apnea, where you just stop breathing. And a lot of people have both. And so the easiest way to tell is if someone’s snoring, they they just stop. And they kind of jump back into it. That’s centralized apnea. And so if if you’re a wife and you hear this, it’s mostly men who have it because we’re larger and we’re not or any of the women have it. If you hear this definitely 100% in a sleep study, notate it. See where it is. Monitor it so we can see if we get that primary when we oh, here’s where it happened. Or we can do this. We can go back and we can do a secondary sleep study after we do a resolve and see if that helps. So. Obstructive sleep apnea. You can use a mouthpiece for. And those worked pretty well. Pulls the bottom jaw forward opens up the airway. So you can you can actually breathe. So those are great. CPAp also kind of works for that. Centralized apnea CPAp worked great for as well. You just gotta get the pressure well proper. So I have both.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:34] And I got mine because it was damage from vaccine. So all you guys who have been seeing all these people die after the Covid vaccine in the middle of the night, nobody knew why it was acquired. Sleep apnea. Because the inflammation that was created on purpose from those vaccines damage the ponds. And the ponds, is what was responsible for autonomic respiration, where the reason you breathe, where you’re asleep. Now, I’m not saying the vaccines were designed to kill people. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. That’s that’s still out. But what I am saying is that the purpose of the vaccine is to cause systemic inflammation, which means your entire body and yes, your brain. If it doesn’t cause inflammation of the brain or encephalitis, it is not systemic, which mean because specific means the entire body and the goal of a vaccine is to create systemic inflammation that creates an immune response. And then the idea is that the immune response to the vaccine will then create antibodies that you can then use against everything else, which has never been proven. And I don’t think works. We’ll find out, though, because RFK is going to do those studies and we can actually finally start talking about it. So yeah. But anyway, so that’s where I got my sleep apnea was damage from a vaccine. It’s a long story. I won’t bore you with it.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:45] So that’s where mine came from. And I had epilepsy because I had sleep apnea. So that when I got my CPAp, it went away because I started breathing at night. And breathing is really good for the brain. So we’re talking about dementia. We’re talking about all summer. We’re talking about lack of lack of just memories, you know, and attitude and, you know, all sorts of mood issues. Get your sleep checked because if you’re not breathing, you’re not going to feel the brain with the oxygen you need. And that’s could create massive amounts of problems. So could you sleep checked? Now I have a CPAp, but I have a connection to a ten liter oxygen concentrator, so my oxygenation ignites 100% all the way through. My oxygenation at night is better than when I’m awake. So it’s that’s been really fun. The other thing that I’m using is I have a sleep eight system and it heats and it cools and it does all those things, but it also tracks your Ram. It tracks your your deep sleep. It tracks all those things, your heart rate variable, like all that stuff. So that’s how I kind of do mine. It gives you a text every morning and say, hey, here’s how you slept. And routine is part of it. And, you know, deep sleep and like all those things are part of your score. So it’s a great, great system if you’re looking to do that, if you’re really wanting to maximize your health, your mental state, your your, your gains, the gym, especially your games in the gym, you heal, regenerate at night.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:12:08] So like if you’re not getting the muscle development, if you’re not getting, you know, the athletic development, you wake up saw a lot, man. Check your sleep. Get your sleep studies done. You know, really, really kind of lean in your sleep, get those things checked out. I also have a sleep number bed. And people always ask me like, what’s the best bed man? That’s entirely dependent on your person. So like, my wife has a temper because that’s where she gets the best sleep. And I have a sleep number. And that’s kind of cool because two twins make a king, and you just put one big sheet over them and it’s one bed again. And so I highly recommend this is the way I tell everybody when they ask me mattress questions, go get go get all the high end mattresses that have that 9030 day money back guarantee. Get it in writing, make sure you’re all good, but keep it for 60 days or so and then take it back and go through them all. Go through the sleep number. Go through the timber, paint it, go through the purple, go through the Serta black through all of them, and figure out where you get the best sleep because you’re like, man, like I felt so good in the morning, I was rested, I was this was that great? That’s the mattress.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:13:11] Then once you get that done, go to your health care professional and tell them that you need a prescription for the bed, and then you can save the sales tax on it. We were like, well, I don’t know. That seems like no sleep is really, really, really critical to your health. So a health care provider should be able to write you a script that says, for your health, you need better sleep. This bed helps you get the better sleep. So the government should not be taking money from you just because you’re trying to get healthier. So you’re not scamming anybody. You’re not doing anything dirty. Like legitimately, I get it. Like people go health care provider. I go when I’m sick. No, those are sick care providers or drug dealers. Health care providers are people who are going to help increase your health, help push you in the right direction as far as your health goes. So a health care provider will write your prescription for it. Save the sales tax on it. So definitely go back once you buy it again. Have the sales tax guy and have your provider send you a little letter and you get your sales tax off, which could be a decent amount of money. Some of these bets. So start with that. And see kind of where you go on that one. There’s a lot there’s a lot of little tiny, you know key things in there that you know our individualized like get a DNA methylation test. And there’s several different DNA tests that you can do that will help with all sorts of things in your body. But specifically with sleep.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:14:31] Because if you don’t get good, high quality sleep, you’re going to fall apart sooner or later. It’s that it’s it’s massive for aging. It’s really, really, really a big deal for athletic performance and mental performances like that. So, you know, getting good sleep is really, really important. And you can’t just decide, well, tonight, tonight I’ll get good sleep. But the other night you’re just kind of whatever. That’s not really how it works. You guys set your body into. It’s like training. You know, you can’t just decide to go play. You know, one great game of football or basketball or soccer or whatever. You gotta train for it. And so get your body used to sleeping. You guys have other questions for this. Have [email protected] or drop in the comments. Thanks for your time.

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