Tom Bilyeu REVEALS His Ultimate SLEEP ROUTINE for High Performance

What's up, everybody? Welcome back. We're doing another routine video. I'm going to walk you through all the things that I do for one of the most complex and important things that I do every single day of my life. And that's get ready to sleep. So, here we go. I'm going to walk you guys through all the things that I do to get my sleep hygiene right. And I think that this is incredibly important, and even with fellow entrepreneurs who are burning the candle at both ends and trying to do something extraordinary with their life, I'll have one piece of advice. Prioritize sleep. So, number one is to remember that your night sleep begins the morning before. And one of the most important things that you can do is get direct sun exposure into your eyes and on your skin first thing in the morning. Now, I know a lot of people live in northern latitudes, and you're stepping outside, and it's basically just a gray day, but even that helps. It's better than nothing. You want to get out. You want that sunlight to hit your eyes. You want that sunlight to hit your skin because it helps to set your circadian rhythms. It's one of the most important things you can do for actually getting a good night's sleep, but it starts the morning before. And by the way, as a pro tip, when you're traveling, this is one of the critical things that you want to do to adjust to the new time zone. The second you wake up, get out, go outside, and get that sun exposure. And I try to look up into the sky, not at the sun, as that will burn your eyes out, but I try to look up into the sky to make sure that I'm getting the maximum amount of sunlight into my eyes. I'm not wearing sunglasses. I'm not wearing blue blockers like I'm wearing now, which is part of the night routine. But in the morning, when I'm trying to get all that sunlight in to set my circadian rhythms, then I'm making sure that I get that exposure. Make sure that you're using your body throughout the day. It's incredibly important to actually be physically active to burn that energy off to make sure that you earn your night's sleep. In a modern lifestyle, so often we're spending so much time sedentary that we don't actually tax our body in any meaningful way, which means that by the time we're trying to lay down to go to bed, we don't have the impulse to sleep. And so, doing things that are physically taxing throughout the day is an extraordinarily useful way of being ready to actually go to bed. Hey everybody. Most of you probably didn't know what the letters NFT stood for at least up until a few months ago, and I can tell you neither did I. Now, I've done my research and NFTs are going to change the world. I believe that so much that I'm building the future of Impact Theory around NFTs. NFTs are literally the very foundation of everything that we're doing moving forward, and on October 13th, I am launching the most valuable product, probably that I will ever create. 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Now, I get up very early, which we'll cover as we get later in my day around what time I go to bed, but I typically get up very early, somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. So, my day already is skewed that way, but my last meal I eat usually around 1:15 to 1:45 p.m. And that is the last meal I will eat for the day. I won't have anything after that, literally nothing. I don't even have a water after 2:00 p.m. Now, the reason that I don't eat after 1:45-ish is because I want to do intermittent fasting and it's much easier for me to get through the rest of the evening without intaking any more food than it is to spend the whole morning hungry until say 12:00 or 1:00, which I know a lot of people do. It's dealer's choice, whatever works better for you, but having an extended fast is very, very helpful. Now, also, another reason that I end it early is that I think you will notice a massive difference in how you sleep if you have your last meal at least at least, bare minimum, 3 hours before bedtime. So, if you go to bed at 9:00 p.m. like it's a religion, like I do, then your last meal is going to be at 6:00 p.m. anyway. So, you're going to want to get that out of the way and I wouldn't start chewing at 6:00. I would try to be done chewing at 6:00 so that you actually have a full 3 hours rest between when you had that last bite and when you go to bed. Your digestion stops in the middle of the night so it can create discomfort if your digestion stops sort of mid-process and you're sitting with something sitting either still in your stomach or in your upper intestines. So, that can be very uncomfortable. So, that disrupts people's sleep and makes it hard for them to get to sleep and remember that you have trillions of microbes inside of you and when they're being asked to sit in all the things that they're digesting, it can create issues. So, I find that I sleep way better by not just eating 3 hours before bedtime, but taking that all the way back to where I'm done chewing it about 1:15, uh 1:45, excuse me. So, that's worked out really, really well for me. And if you're worried that you're going to get hungry, remember you're taking in a normal amount of calories, you're just having your last meal later. And what I have heard said before and I think is really clever and brilliant is that as I get hungry, I have sleep for dinner. And uh I love that. I love that idea of right when I'm about like, "Mm, yeah, I could eat now." I brush my teeth, which for whatever reason the taste taste of toothpaste kills hunger. So, just as I'm thinking I want to eat, I brush my teeth, and then boom, I go to bed, I fall asleep with no problems, and I'm able to stay asleep. Now, the reason that I stopped drinking at 2:00 p.m. is I find that if I have any substantial amount of water, cuz I'll still have a sip of water here and there, uh but sips. And the reason is that I'll wake up in the middle of the night to pee if I And by the way, if I'm eating too close to bedtime, same thing, cuz there's so much water in the food that you eat. Uh but I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night if I can at all avoid it. So, the times where I eat later, drink late, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night to pee, and then my brain kicks back in, and I start problem-solving, and it makes it impossible for me to fall back asleep, and I was losing two, sometimes three hours a night of productivity because I wasn't sleeping. I was trying to fall back asleep. I wasn't doing anything useful other than tossing and turning and ruminating over everything that had happened during the day, that I need to do, that I could have done better. It was nightmarish. So, not only are you fatigued, suboptimal cognitively, but it's just really a lame way to spend time. Because there's an interesting part of your brain that shuts off in the middle of the night that makes fears seem way bigger than they will as soon as you're up and are actually attacking your day. It all feels very manageable. But in the middle of the night, it feels terrifying, it feels overwhelming, feels like, you know, just absolute stress-inducing. And so, that makes it even less likely that you're going to be able to fall asleep. So, anything that I can do to mitigate waking up in the middle of the night and starting that death loop, I'm going to do. So, that's one of the reasons that I stop eating and is definitely the reason that I stop drinking at 2:00 p.m. every day. Okay, the next thing that I do for sleep hygiene, as it's called, is as the evening wears on, I make sure that I'm not getting a substantial amount of blue light and bright light into my eyes. So, I'm going to dim my computer screen. I'm going to put my computer screen on screen on night mode. So, you can go into your phone, you can go into your computer, and set them to just automatically at a certain time. I think I set mine for 6:00 p.m., if I remember right, and it just automatically flips over to an orange-er light. I dim the screen, so I'm not getting super bright light. Happens again both on my phone and my computer. And then, on top of that, just to make sure, I put on blue-blocking glasses to make sure that I'm not getting too much in my eyes. And there are some days, if I'm going to be at the computer for a really extended amount of time, I'll wear blue blockers even during the day, just so I'm not getting an overwhelming amount of the artificial blue light from my screen. So, that's how I curb that. And then, another thing that I do around my computer is I try not to do any work that I think will be stress-inducing for the final hour before my bedtime. So, I'm still going to work right up until I go to bed. My rule in life is Monday through Friday, if I'm awake, I'm either working or working out. Now, I love my work, so this isn't a torture chamber. I'm sure some people are imagining that and thinking it's horrible, but for me it's completely joyful. And I do, though, have to acknowledge that there are some things that I work on that stress me out. And so, I don't check test text messages after 8:00 p.m. I'm not looking at emails after 8:00 p.m. Um I'm doing things that are work, but enjoyable. Now, I'm not religious about it. There are definitely times where I feel that something really just has to be done in a timely fashion, and so I will break that rule light um occasionally, but I try not to because I do find that I sleep much better if for the last hour before bed I'm doing fun things, I'm doing things that um give me energy, that make me feel light, that are part of that passion, that feel good, and I can feel a difference in my stress and anxiety levels. There's a lightness to it that I don't know. I don't have a better word for it, but as I'm going to bed, I just feel relaxed, I feel um joyful, I have a sense of purpose, and it's like I can let everything go for the day, and when I climb into bed, I remind myself that I only have one job now that I'm going to bed, and that job is to sleep. And that mantra, the only job I have now is to sleep, has helped me a lot, especially when I wake up in the middle of the night. Hey, thank you so much for watching this episode. 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So, when I lay down, then I have a host of different mechanical things that I do. One of them is to make sure that I have my own blankets. I use a two blanket system. So, I myself have two blankets. That way if at any point during the night I'm getting cold, I can pull the other blanket up. So, I start it down where it's basically just covering my shins and below. And then if I'm getting cold, I can pull that up to my waist if I'm a little cold but not too cold, or I can pull all the way up if I'm really cold. And that allows me to better control my temperature. And then this is the one that people think is weird, but I've been doing it forever, so it seems so normal to me. I do not ever under any circumstance share blankets with my wife. Now, the reason is when they move, it becomes your movement. Or you're playing tug-of-war for the blanket. Or worse, the other person might actually pull the blanket off you. Or you might pull the blanket off them and give them a bad night's sleep. So, that was a lesson I learned very early on because for whatever weird reason, I like to sleep with the blankets up over my head. I like to be completely cocooned. Feels so nice. There is no light, which by the way is another thing. Make sure your room is dark. Make sure your room is dark. So, no light, no light leaks, no phones, no nightlights, nothing. As dark as you can get it. Cover up if things have like little LED power lights, cover those up. Do whatever you can to get the room actually dark. For me, I have another layer, which is I sleep under the blankets. Now, if you're like my wife Lisa, the last thing you're ever going to do is cover your head with a blanket. She absolutely hates it and feels like, you know, she's just claustrophobic and has to get it off of her. But for me, it just feels like I'm in a womb and it's so wonderful. So, I love it. So, I have slept with the blankets over my head for decades at this point, which is another reason why I need to have my own blankets. So, get my own blankets, I can meter them based on the temperature in the room, which brings me to another point. One of the best signifiers to your body that it's time to go to bed, that's going to kick you into sleep mode, is making sure that your room is cool. So, we keep our room somewhere around 67° to 68°. It should be cool enough that when you go to take your clothes off and get in your pajamas, you kind of don't want to because it's that cold. So, that's the right temperature. So, whatever that temperature is for you, you want to get it there. Get under the covers, you're nice and warm. It's not like you're sleeping cold, but you want the room to be cool to signal to your body that it's night time, right? We've come up through evolution with all of these signals from daylight, from the brightness, the color temperature, the difference between firelight, which is dim and orange, to daylight, which is bright and blue. And so, we have all of these subtle signals, including a drop in temperature. So, as the temperature comes down, it's yet another signal to your body that it's time to go to sleep. So, from setting our circadian rhythm with getting that sunlight directly in our eyes, on our skin, actually being outside, to the temperature dropping, the color temperature of the light changing, uh the brightness of the light changing, all of these are signals that keep your circadian rhythm where you want it to be so that you can fall asleep. Now, there's one last thing that I advise that you do, and that is to tape your mouth closed. And I mean that literally. So, next to my bed, I keep this little roll of tape. Um it is surgical tape, so it's sticky, but it's not crazy sticky. It's not like duct tape. And I peel off a little piece about that long, long enough just to go from not quite totally covering my lips, but the middle bit. And that what that's going to do is force me to breathe through my nose. Now, if you haven't seen James Nestor and his thoughts on breathing through your nose, I highly encourage you read his book. His name is James Nestor. I think the name of the book is just Breathe. Uh but check it out. James Nestor, a book on breathing through your nose, really makes a difference. I sleep so much better now that I tape my mouth closed because what would happen is I would start breathing through my mouth, which has all kinds of physiological knock-on effects, which he covers in his book. Uh but also, my mouth and throat would end up getting dry, and that would wake me up, and you know, you're trying to like get your mouth uh moist again, and it is extremely distracting, and yet another thing that wakes you up. And then I would just do it again. I'd fall asleep. My mouth would go back open. I'd start breathing through my mouth again. A lot of this because I have allergies, and so I found that by taping my mouth closed and having an air filter in my room so that my allergies aren't being triggered, I breathe wonderfully, nice and easy, and always through my nose. And it's made a huge difference in terms of the amount of unbroken sleep that I get. That was a real game-changer. So, shout out to uh James on that one. There is one secret that I have when I wake up in the middle of the night that many of you may never have heard of. And that is I use my iPhone headphones. And I put it, and this is very important, I put it on a fiction novel. Ideally a long fiction novel because what I found is and I'm using Audible. So, Audible boom, I put my headphones in and I pick a fiction book that isn't too crazy, right? That there's not going to be some murder scene where people are screaming which will wake you up. I've tried using the timer on Audible for I've tried 45 minutes, I've tried an hour, I've tried 2 hours and I find as soon as the book stops, it would wake me up. I would find if the narrator started speaking more loudly, it would wake me up. And so I was like, "Oh man, like it's helping me fall back asleep, but then it creates like this moment where I eventually wake back up." And so is there anything that I could do? What I have found, put your headphones in and then take your phone out, access the app, go to the book, hit play and before I go to bed, I've got my book ready, it's right there. So, all I have to do, open my phone and hit play. I've got the brightness turned all the way down, it's all orange light. I hit play on the book, it's already cued up. And the key is this is the advanced class stuff. I turn the volume down so low that I have to put an ever so slight amount of pressure on my ear against the pillow to hear it properly. But if I put that pressure, I can hear it perfectly, I can follow the narrative. When I say that I will fall asleep in 30 seconds, 90 seconds like at the most, I am out like a light. Now, as soon as I fall asleep, what ends up happening is I let the pressure off my ear and I can no longer hear it. Well, you can hear that there's something happening, but it's so soft. And because it just keeps being there, there's never a moment where it wakes me up because it just keeps going and going and going and I'm able to then just stay asleep for usually I'll wake up one more time uh and then I'll start hearing the book again, and then I'm back out. This is the closest thing to magic I've ever come up with. It works so well. I went from tossing and turning two to three hours a night if I woke up to being able to fall back asleep in seconds because there is something about a novel, a story that shifts your brain out of problem-solving mode and puts it into a story mode, passive mode. Now, I've tried things like the Calm app, where it's like somebody narrating a story. I haven't found it as useful as just picking a random book that I'd actually be interested to listen to. And then because they're so long, so I pick books that are, you know, say 15 hours long. And then by the time we get down to say there's only five hours left in the book, then I pick a new book and then I'll finish that book as I move around the house or whatever. This really is the closest thing to magic I have ever come across, ever. I've been using it now every night, seven days a week for four or five months. It works like a charm every time. It's absolutely amazing. There's one more important part of this step, and that is to never set an alarm. Now, of course, there's going to be edge cases, you have to catch a really early flight or something like that. But for the most part, if you can avoid setting alarm, you're going to be way better off. One, you know in the back of your mind, oh god, I've got that alarm coming, is it time is it time? And then also, you want to get as much sleep as your body will allow you to get. So, if your body needs eight hours, get eight hours. If your body needs nine hours, get nine hours. So, I find that I naturally sleep about six and a half to seven hours a night. That's just my rhythm. No matter how sort of relaxed and stressed I am, that's just where I wake up. It's perfect. I feel well-rested. My cognition is absolutely optimized. So, find your number, but make sure that you don't have an alarm staring you in the face that you get whatever amount of sleep you need. And that's me saying that as somebody that's run big companies, is very busy. I work 93 hours a week. And yet, I still manage to get sleep. Now, I fully understand if you have kids, there are extenuating circumstances, but you want to do everything else right. You want to get to the point where at least the only thing that's going to disrupt your sleep is the kids. So, that you do all the things that you can around sleep hygiene to make sure that you're ready. So, get out, get the sunlight on your face and skin immediately. Make sure that you're exercising, so that you're able to actually earn that sleep. Make sure that your diet is right, which is something that's beyond the scope of this. Getting your diet right is very important, and getting the timing of your diet is very important. Figuring out when you need to stop drinking if waking up in the middle of the night to pee is an issue for you, that's going to be an important thing. And then controlling the amount of blue light, the intensity of the light in general, and then doing things that you can to lower your stress, lower your anxiety. In fact, there's one secret tip that I forgot. When I first lay down, I think of and shout out to Doc Amen, who was the one that encouraged me to try this. I think of three things that I'm truly grateful for. I make them different every day, and I really envision them. So, that whatever stress I may have coming into going to bed, I'm now putting myself in this grateful place. I'm in a way better mental state. It just feels awesome. And as I'm thinking about those things, I drift off to sleep. And so, just recognizing that you can shift your state and get into that much more pleasant place is really powerful. And to even do that on your worst days is incredibly beneficial. And Doc Amen talks a lot about that. Even on the day that his father passed away, he did the same thing, and And said three things that he was grateful for. And he said even on that day it helped him fall asleep on a day where he did not think he was going to get sleep. Um little things like that make a big difference. All right, I hope that you guys all found that useful. And now, without further ado, I will show you the last little trick here and then I will bid you farewell and up on you we and hope that you all sleep incredibly well. And as my wife and all of the Greeks in the world would say kalinihta.