Family sleep culture app — routines, star charts & adherence tracking

This is my sleep from last night: + asleep < 2 min + no wake events + no sleep stress + 3 hr 52 min restorative sleep Waking up to this is a euphoric feeling. I want to convince you to also build your life around sleep. First, let's consider what happens in the body on a night's sleep like this: Cleaning the brain: during early night deep sleep, glial cells shrink by up to 60%. This creates tunnels for cerebrospinal fluid to power wash the brain, clearing neurotoxins including β-amyloid, tau, synuclein, lactate, and oxidized metabolites at 2 to 4x daytime rates. Every wake event stops the cleaning process. Last night I had 8 hours of uninterrupted glymphatic cycling. Cellular clean up: autophagy turns on, repairing mitochondria and DNA, lowering inflammation and increasing natural killer cell (cancer killing cells) activity. There’s up to 50% fewer DNA double-stranded breaks compared to fragmented sleep. Endocrine health: growth hormone surges 10 to 20x driving muscle repair, tissue remodeling, collagen restoration and fat metabolism. Cortisol (stress hormone) drops to its lowest point allowing for testosterone production to crank up. Your appetite control strengthens with leptin rising and ghrelin suppressed. Insulin sensitivity improves 20-40%. Cardiovascular: blood pressure lowers, arteries relax, and adrenaline drops, improving endothelial function and lowering inflammation. Gut/microbiome: the parasympathetic dominance (the chill nervous system) stimulates improved digestive processes and builds a healthier microbiome. Brain balancing and integration: brain networks stabilize, memories consolidate and learning integrates. Improved mood stability, reactivity and decision making follows the next day. Next I’ll share how to achieve this high quality sleep. First though, I’m going to share my biomarkers with you now you understand the power of sleep. My body is a good example of how systems perform when given consistent, high quality sleep. I am 48 years old and yet my body runs like an 18 year old in many ways. Sleep is your body’s best friend. It is the foundation of your existence. my biomarkers + muscle: 98th percentile (all men) + fat: 98th percentile optimal (all men) + bone mineral density: 99th percentile (all ages) + resting heart rate: elite athlete level + fertility: top 99th percentile (all men) + sexual function (NTE) 99th percentile (all men) + blood pressure, lower than 90% of 18 years old + vascular function: late teen / early 20s + VEGF: top 1% healthy individuals + sleep: top quartile for 18-29 year olds + DNA biological age markers: + telomeres: age equivalent 10-15 yr old + telomeres regenerating rate: 12 yr old + epigenetic speed of aging: 0.48 + grip strength: top 5% of all ages + lower blood glucose than 98% of 18-25 + better blood sugar control than 99% of 18-25 Ok, to avoid overwhelming you, I’m going to give you a few power laws. Those of you who have been with me for the past few years have probably heard me say these things 100 times. That’s about as many times as it takes many people to do it for the first time. 1. Final food of the day 4 hours before bed. 2. 60 minutes before bed, screens off. 3. In that 60 minutes, you need to relax your nervous system. Go for a walk, do a hobby, journal, breathwork, hang out with family, meditate. Literally almost anything other than being on your phone. Reading a book is my favorite. 4. No caffeine after noon. 5. Avoid blue light in the evening, try to have red and amber light. 6. Go to bed at the same time every single night. Respect yourself and be on time. In all of these things, you’re trying to drive down your resting heart rate. The lower your heart rate, the calmer your nervous system, the better your sleep. Behind all of this is a mentality that you’ll need to adopt. You need to treat sleep like you would your workout, work, parenting, or anything else you take seriously in life. It’s a skill and you need to work hard to get good at it. It offers perhaps the biggest payoff of any activity you could invest in. If you have children, sit the entire family down and establish the rules and systems for a family culture that makes sleep a family priority. List the rules and put them on the wall. Create a star chart so that every day everyone get's 1 to 5 stars based upon their adherence to the family sleep norms. It's never too early to start. If you have serious sleep issues, the above may not be enough to get you of the situation you're in. Still, they are very strong foundational habits that benefit everyone. If you're not doing them today, try to make them solid habits to see if they can help even alleviate some of your sleep challenges.