So let's say the person listening is thinking, Oh, man, I don't have a consistent bedtime. I'm not looking at the UV. I'm all over the place. I got to get my circadian rhythm back in place. How do you shift or reset your circadian rhythm to a healthy 24-hour cycle?

Really good question. I think one of the key questions to ask yourself is, where can I find some normalcy in my personal schedule? If you're keeping what we call a yo-yo schedule, falling asleep at one time, one night, another time the next night, another time the next night, is that in your control? Is it maybe that just the hours fly and you're leaning in, and maybe you're watching another episode on streaming, and then you got an Instagram alert, and then suddenly it's way past your bedtime and you're looking at a short sleep window. Really ask yourself, are you doing this and is it in your control? If you're willing to try this out, What you could do, if you do have control over your schedule, look at your typical week. What is the earliest time that you have to wake up? Is it, say, seven o'clock for an 8:00 AM meeting, and that allows you time to get ready and do your commute?

And get your light exposure.

Yes, so let's make it 6:45. Sun might not be up then unless it's summertime. So pick that time, and that's your wake time. And ideally, that's your alarm clock seven days of the week. Because if we sleep in, we really recommend no more than an hour, much more than that throws that internal circuitry out of whack.

Wait a minute. So if I sleep in on the weekend more than an hour, I'm throwing my circadian rhythm off.

That internal system. Much more than an hour. And we all know this. We just went through daylight saving time. And that One hour is enough to throw all of us out of sync, right? Yeah. So much more than an hour is not recommended. So if you look at your typical week and say, What is my earliest wake up-time? And then you've hit your target wake up-time for the week. Again, If you're sleeping in an hour, absolutely fine, but much more than that, try to avoid. But then count back, give yourself a full nine hours, because our biological need for sleep is individual. Some people do very well on seven, and some people do much better on nine. And it's in part, genetically hardwired. And so if you had two parents that were longer sleepers, you're truly sleeping eight or nine hours a night, you might be a longer sleeper. And then if you had two short sleeping parents, you might be lucky and really truly only need closer to seven. But if you count back nine, that could maybe add a little bit of time for your wind down routine. Okay. And so those nine hours, count down, and that's your target fall asleep time, or I should say, get ready for bed time.

Got it.

I want to make sure that you hear this because this is the advice That as you're listening or watching us, somebody's going to be like, Okay, yeah, nine. But this is critical because you got to stop and think about what is the wake up-time that sets me up to be able to do some of the things that Dr. Robbins is going to tell us, based on the research, makes us a better sleeper because we are learning that better sleep begins with what you do once you wake up. So she's saying, once you know your wake up-time, and I'm going to do some math here because I think it's really important. Let's say it's just 6:00 AM. That's what you need, 6:00 AM. She says, Count So you don't back nine hours. And so that means, where are we? 9:00 PM, right? And that is the time that you now need to start the wind down routine based on research that will help you start to get the sleep that you need so that when you When you wake up, you feel refreshed. You aren't so tired. You got the benefit of sleep. I love what you're teaching us because this is within all of our power if we choose to follow it and we choose to try it.

And so we've talked about circadian rhythm, and consistency was a huge takeaway. And we've talked also about how one of the big things that we need to do is get this light first thing in the morning or that blue spectrum light if you need to get it from a different source if you're not getting outside. But can we talk more about light the rest of the day?

It's a really great question. Morning light exposure is helpful and good, but actually getting exposure all across the typical day is vitally important. Actually, in the afternoon, it's just as important as the morning. I didn't mean to privilege the morning over the afternoon, but instead, getting exposure to fresh air and natural light over the course of the day is extremely important to help our body get information Okay, we're still in the wake phase. It's not quite sleep yet. Then going into darkness is equally as important as exposure to light during the day because that absence of light does the converse. It allows for the secretion of melatonin for the brain to say, We're approaching bedtime. Let's start to power down. Unfortunately, many of us have bright blue light emitting devices all around us, not only our light bulbs, but also the devices that we carry carry around with us, our smartphones, our tablets, our computer screens. Now, in a perfect world, we would be able to unplug, even give me 15 minutes before bedtime. Start small. If you find that you're a little bit addicted to your phone, it's hard to put it down, start with maybe five minutes.

If you could swipe to airplane mode, amazing. I think there's something also powerful about that to say, I'm off for the night. I might be receiving messages, but they can wait until the morning. And think about all day long, we things for other people in our careers, in our personal lives. We care for children, we care for older adults, we're spouses, we help and support people in the workplace. And another mindset is, this is my time at night for me and really consciously purposefully turning your phone off. So if you find yourself a little bit addicted to your phone, start small. Try just five minutes before you want to be falling asleep. Switch your phone off. Try to give yourself at least a little bit of a buffer, and then maybe work up to 15, maybe work up to 30 minutes. Now, if you're telling me, Look, I'm a student. I have work to do. I'm a busy professional. I have stuff I need to be doing up until the minute I fall asleep, I would implore you just to ask yourself, Is there anything off screens that I can do at night? Do all your screen work during the day.

If it's reading a couple of emails, even, and you can print them out, or reading a book, or anything that you can shift from your workday into non-screen time and do that at night. I think there's even a way to meet even the busiest The worst of people where they are. Dr.

Robbins, you're nice. I'm not going to be nice. I think that's a bunch of garbage that you have to be on your phone or on your laptop until you collapse into bed as if you're just going to collapse or fall asleep in bed with your laptop open because you don't have time between the stopping of work and the falling asleep. Complete and utter garbage.

I really agree with you. I think for all of us, even, the most busy person.

Honestly, if If you can't put your phone on an airplane or stick it in the other room and give yourself five measly minutes, then don't be coming here and complaining about how tired you are. That's the thing that you have to understand is that the research is very clear, and it's going to be very simple. I didn't say easy. It's going to be simple to put into your life, but you've got to want to get a good night's sleep. You've got to want to stop waking up tired and exhausted. And so really stop and think if this is you, that you're that addicted to work or that addicted to your phone, that you cannot carve out five minutes, you're never going to change this. And so I also am going to come back to the math. Because this is why it becomes really important to get very specific with yourself. If you're going to wake up at 6:00 and you're going to back up the nine hours like Dr. Robbins is telling you to do, and she's also saying, you got to have a buffer. You got to have a buffer from the last screen time to When you're going to start falling asleep, then maybe you need to put an alarm on your phone at 8:45 because that's the time you got to stop looking at the darn thing.

Anyway, you're nice. I am not. I'm just like, you can't complain about something Totally. And expect it to change. You got to do something.

Totally. It comes back to this idea that good sleep actually does take a little bit of work, and it's not going to come easy, but we get so frustrated when we're like, I'm here, I'm trying, I'm doing everything. But being really critical, I love your points about what Really be honest with yourself, right? Do you really need to be on social media for 20 minutes before bed time? No. You don't. You don't.

Totally. And that's the thing. I know we're all tired, and there's periods of your life where there are very real things going on that are beating you up. But I think for most of us, most of us need to have a moment of honesty with ourselves, that we are making ourselves exhausted. We are giving our attention and our brainpower over to the phone and social media and all of these screens, and we are not taking the wine down routine seriously. And so if you are serious about wanting to feel more energized, if you're serious about getting better sleep, you got to try what Dr. Robbins is telling you, and you're not going to like it because you're used to just going through the thing.

It's not sexy. I'm not here to say, drink a couple of glasses of wine and then spend some time on social media. But what really works when it comes to sleep is old It's cool stuff. It's getting off of our screens. It's powering down, making a cup of tea. I love the Swedish tradition of huga, this idea of warm, cozy time before bed. The Swedish culture has a word for this. I think as Americans, we think, I'm just going to write reports, I'm going to send emails until the moment that I want to be falling asleep. Then so many of us wonder why we struggle. But even just a couple of minutes, and then maybe build up to 10 minutes, and then maybe 15, and maybe 30 off of your phone or your screens or your laptop before bedtime can do a world of good because all those devices are engaging the prefrontal cortex, the planning, the thinking part of the brain, and in many times, giving you exposure that mimics the sun right when you want to be falling asleep. So it's this cocktail of sleep inhibitors, really, when you think about it. Only one in three Americans make healthy, sufficient sleep a priority on a night-to-night basis.

Anywhere between 20 and 50% of Americans one of two difficulties, and that's either struggling to fall asleep or maintain sleep.