As a property manager, you know how stressful the industry can be. It’s often a difficult and thankless job. On this podcast, we like to share ways for property management entrepreneurs to take care of their physical and mental well-being, but the importance of sleep is often overlooked…
In today’s episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull sits down with Bijoy John A.K.A. Dr. SleepFix to talk about how to achieve high-quality sleep to reduce stress and improve overall health.
[01:47] Why sleep matters more than you think
[06:43] Mythbusting sleep hacks
[16:19] How stress and worrying is slowly killing you
[20:52] The 7 proven sleep strategies
[27:51] Daily planning to reduce stress
“Sleep is a superpower.”
“I've never seen anybody sleep better by having too much information.”
“Worrying about anything is probably not an effective way to get to sleep.”
“You cannot data mine yourself to sleep.”
[00:00:00] Bijoy John: People say "I can sleep when I die." But I tell people, "if you're going to go on this path, you're going to die."
[00:00:07] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings.
[00:00:34] Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:11] And I have a special guest today. This is Bijoy John. Welcome to the show, man.
[00:01:17] Bijoy John: Hey Jason, how are you? Thanks, man.
[00:01:18] Jason: I'm great. So we met at a mastermind because we both invest in ourselves and work on growth and he builds himself out as Dr. SleepFix I saw on Instagram. And so we've got Dr. SleepFix in the house with us today. So we're going to chat about sleep and I'm excited to get into this.
[00:01:38] Because you know, we geeked out talking during the mastermind about sleep a bit, but this is something I've put some attention on because it has a serious impact on us. And why don't you give us a little about your background? And tell us a little bit about how you got into focusing on sleep.
[00:01:55] Bijoy John: Thank you, Jason. Thanks for having me. So sleep is a superpower. We don't take it seriously because it doesn't hurt like a toothache or grow like cancer, so we put it off, but with years, it just catches up with you, right? So my background is in pulmonary critical care. I've been practicing sleep medicine for over 25 years, there are patients who have pulmonary problems and lung problems takes precedence.
[00:02:16] To see me was like six months wait to see me in clinic. So finally I decided, as time goes, you change your perspective and, I thought we'll do something preventative for people. So I saw many problems, like blood pressure, diabetes, memory problems, people are in a fog, which can all be prevented by sleeping better.
[00:02:37] So I left my the whole shebang of the ICU, the big flying critical care doctor and started my own clinic three years ago called Sleep Wellness Clinics and then I wrote a book and then I started by a company called SleepFix Academy to reach the masses. So sleep is the superpower. We pay a lot of attention on diet and fitness, but sleep is the foundation on which the other two are built.
[00:03:01] So I just want everybody to find it within themselves and discover the superpower and be the best version of ourselves. That's my goal.
[00:03:08] Jason: Got it. That must have been frustrating to see all these problems in the medical industry that could have just been prevented by sleeping better.
[00:03:17] It seems like such a silly, simple thing that we don't even pay attention to sometimes. Like we just take it for granted. We're like, "yeah, I sleep every day. No big deal." But the difference in quality of sleep can be pretty dramatic.
[00:03:29] Bijoy John: Especially when we talk about mental health, sleep and anxiety and depression have a bidirectional relationship when you don't sleep while you're in a fog, and then you feel anxious, and then you feel depressed. Then when you're more anxious, you don't sleep. And then it's just a vicious cycle. So a lot of people can feel better by just focusing on their sleep. You feel more vitalized and energy. You know how it is when you wake up after a good night's sleep. You're ready to conquer.
[00:03:56] I had my own struggles. I was terrible sleeper in medical school. And then as a father raising children and then my career. And then of course when I lost my mom and then when I started my business, but I have found a way. I found the joy in the power of sleep.
[00:04:12] So I just want this foundation to be built and I want to share this information to as many people as I can.
[00:04:18] Jason: Got it. So you mentioned mental health. What are some of the problems that people might be having that could be prevented by better sleep? Because a lot of people are thinking, "I sleep all right. And it's probably not that big a deal," but then they're dealing with all these health issues and these challenges. And they're like, "yeah. Sleep probably isn't even related to this.:
[00:04:36] Bijoy John: Like I mentioned, we don't have, like a pain, if you have a pain, we're going to take care of it. So what happens is if you wake up in the morning after like seven or eight hours of sleep, if you feel good that day, then mostly you're doing all right. But if you're still feeling tired. then you have a sleep problem. And of course, if you snore, then for sure you have a sleep problem. So this is my simple question I ask people, "are you tired? Or do you snore?" So once I have that answer, then we can go into the depths of what might be causing the problem.
[00:05:10] Jason: Got it. Okay. So snoring is basically choking, right? While they're trying to sleep.
[00:05:15] Bijoy John: Snoring... it's like water going through a pipe. And if I'm going to narrow the pipe.
[00:05:19] The water creates turbulence. Same thing with snoring is air going through an obstructed pathway. So your back of your throat when the tongue falls down is narrowed and then air is not able to get in. And the reverberation and the vibrations that happens around it is the cause for the snoring. Of course, men snore more because the larynx or the voice box it's like a trumpet. So your sound is amplified in women is smaller and it's the, so women don't report that much snoring. So we have to pay particular attention for snoring in people.
[00:05:52] Jason: Got it. Okay. So what are some of the simple hacks that people can do to quickly improve their sleep? And how do they know when it's time to reach out to Dr. SleepFix?
[00:06:07] Bijoy John: So the two complaints that is "I don't sleep enough" or "I sleep too much." So these are the two common complaints in the world of sleep. So if you do not sleep enough, that's the condition called insomnia, right? So that's a time to reach out. People get all the information from the internet most of it is not right and then they try to do half of it and then they get stuck right and then also like I mentioned snoring is a main issue you have a very serious condition called obstructive sleep apnea if you're snoring.
[00:06:39] So what are the hacks? You want me to get right into it, Jason?
[00:06:43] Jason: Yeah. How about I share some hacks I've learned and you tell me if they're valid
[00:06:47] Bijoy John: Correct.
[00:06:47] Jason: Yes. Perfect, man.
[00:06:48] Yes. Because I've geeked out on some of this stuff.
[00:06:50] One of the things, I wear orange glasses at night to block blue light.
[00:06:55] Bijoy John: You wore it during the meeting.
[00:06:57] Jason: Yeah, my eyes were getting tired, so I put them on during the meeting. Yeah, you remember. I wear them at night or in the evenings after sundown so that I'm not being exposed to artificial light, which has blue light in it. Which I've heard disrupts sleep patterns and causes your circadian rhythm to get off track and causes you to have poor sleep.
[00:07:17] So what I find is when I wear the orange glasses, usually within maybe about three or four hours, I start to naturally feel sleepy if I wear them. So if I put them on during the day, I have to be careful because if I forget and I have them on for like three or four hours, I'm like, man, I'm starting to feel tired.
[00:07:33] Right, which is, I think melatonin starting to get produced naturally, which is like the brain starting to clean itself naturally, and then body's getting ready for sleep, right? So am I correct on that?
[00:07:46] Bijoy John: Your hack is right. So we are creatures of light. We wake up because of sunlight.
[00:07:51] If you look at small children, they wake up at the crack of dawn. And so in the evening, we don't want that much sunlight or especially at night, I should not in the evening sunlight is actually good for sleeping, but the night. So what are we doing? We are having our phones, especially with COVID people are bringing the work into the bedroom and the light from the electronic devices. Maybe it's the tablet, it's a phone, the computer. Especially in the bedroom where there's no ambient light. It's just, it sends a signal through our eyes into our brain saying, "Hey, it's not time to go to sleep." So that's one major thing, especially in the bedroom. So melatonin, melamine is darkness, right?
[00:08:30] Melatonin is only secreted in darkness. So we have our own tons of melatonin, which does not secrete because the exposure to light. So you're right. That hack is right.
[00:08:40] Jason: Okay, got it. So that, so the other thing that I do is I have my phone's home screen change to... I can change it to red. I set up a hack and you can set this on your phone where like if I click on it three times, one, two, three, it changes the red. So if I'm in the dark, because sometimes before bed, I'm looking at my phone in the dark or something before I fall asleep, but it's then not affecting my sleep. I also have lights in my room at night, like when I'm going to go to sleep where it's just red. So I can just make it red. So then if I put on the orange glasses or take it off, everything looks exactly the same. So then I don't need to wear the glasses as I'm going to bed. Because it's hard to fall asleep with glasses on your face. I don't want to do that.
[00:09:25] Bijoy John: Yeah. So the bedroom has to be dark.
[00:09:27] So that's an, again, an indication for our body. "Hey, the body is taking the cues from the external environment and from within." See that the pressure to sleep is building throughout the body, but it is counteracted by. But the external influences, the sun, the noise so that's what, sometimes around 1:30-2:00, we feel that lull because your inner body is in a natural lull because of the, the sun goes down a little bit and the noise level is not that much and your body's pressure to sleep is building up.
[00:09:56] So that's why we are tired sometime in the afternoon. So that's a good hack. You're doing great with that with what you're doing there.
[00:10:02] Jason: So as far as the bedroom some of the things that I've also focused on doing is like you mentioned light. Besides light hitting our eyes, let's say our eyes, like we're wearing a sleep mask, we can't see any light, which I have done, like I'll sometimes travel with a sleep mask so I can block out all the light if I'm in a hotel room that it just doesn't have good blackout curtains or whatever. So with our bedrooms Where we're sleeping regularly. I think it's important to kill all the led lights So there's black stickers that you can put over led lights I've used a paint pen to black out some leds on some of the things that are in my room because a lot of these things Like are just and they're always they always make them blue.
[00:10:39] I don't know why but all the leds of all the devices they put in your room. It's like they're trying to give you blue light and hurt your sleep I don't know if there's a conspiracy there. What do you think?
[00:10:49] Bijoy John: No, see Jason, you know why the cops lights are blue There is a reason for it because blue is the first thing that our eyes sees and the lights in the stoplights is red because the red is the farthest you can see. So there is a science behind it. So blue light in the bedroom in the color blue in the bedroom is not good. Yeah. The blue lights is terrible idea to have in your bedroom. So anybody who's listening bedroom blue is not good.
[00:11:15] Jason: Yeah. So related to this orange glass in the evening, the other hack I've heard if you want a lot more energy and you want to get your circadian rhythm in sync is to just get sunlight at the beginning of the day. Is to get a decent amount of sunlight like expose your eyes to the bright blue sky and the sunshine and like be outside for the first maybe 20 30 minutes of the day if at all possible
[00:11:37] Bijoy John: That's a great hack because you're telling your body, "hey is ready to go." So you're putting all the sun in the morning So see I said we are all creatures of the sunlight without modern invention we just revolve around the sun, right? So that is a great hack. But you have to be careful here. There are some people whose circadian rhythm is completely malaligned, and they should not be having sun in the morning.
[00:12:01] Especially, this is a syndrome I call advanced sleep phase syndrome in people who are 70 or older, who tend to sleep earlier than the, accepted norm. They go to bed around seven, eight, and they wake up at three for those people, you should not expose sunlight in the morning. It's going to have an opposite effect.
[00:12:20] So they have to get much more sunlight in the evening. So I see a lot of people walking in the evening. They feel like they're doing really well because they exercise. It's also not only the exercise that makes them sleep better. It's the sunlight. The evening sunlight is really actually really good for people to go to sleep.
[00:12:35] Jason: Interesting. Evening sunlight. Okay. Yes. And then I guess because the evening sunlight triggers a different response in our brain.
[00:12:43] Bijoy John: Yeah, the radiation is a little different. The wavelengths of the light in the evening is is not only the exercise, it's the rays that helps you to fall asleep. Especially people who are in the 60s, retired, they walk more. Our older adults tend to walk in the evening. That's the time they do. That's actually great for them. So yeah, they actually moving the clock forward. So you have to be careful when you get exposure to light.
[00:13:04] Jason: Got it. Okay. Now, question related to that. We're wearing a sleep mask, but we're laying in the sun. Just an extreme example is our body perceiving light in other ways besides just our visual perception that could be affecting our sleep, I'm just curious.
[00:13:20] Bijoy John: No the only way the light goes into the brain and tells us is through our eyes. So once you cover the eyes, it's over, there's no, input to the brain for sleeping. The direct contact to the area in the brain called suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is the master gland which is controlled, that's the one that is important for the circadian rhythm it gets the influences through the eyes.
[00:13:43] Jason: Okay. Interesting. I vaguely remember hearing this weird, like case study in the, or something in the past where they, it said they were helping the military reset and eliminate jet lag by shining like blue light on the back of their legs, but so I don't know if that there's any, maybe I made that up, but I thought I remember reading that.
[00:14:02] I was like, that's super weird. So I didn't know.
[00:14:04] Bijoy John: Legs don't have the lighting on your leg don't have any input to the brain. And of course, we have a new theory saying, we always say, It's the people who work in the farm, they're still working so hard, they tend to sleep better. It's actually the muscles also, now we are knowing, create chemicals and reactions to help us to sleep.
[00:14:21] We always thought brain was the only, source of the chemical reaction to put us to sleep. Now we also know all the muscles can also contribute. This is like new data. I think it'll take a few years for it to come to fruition. Get more details of what muscles help us to sleep.
[00:14:35] Jason: Yeah I've heard some people mention on social media that they have recently found out that you know putting the muscles to work and doing things like weight training stuff like that actually releases chemicals that help the brain right stay sharp.
[00:14:52] Bijoy John: A lot of it, you know information coming through, we know exercise is good for many reasons, even to prevent cancer, because you are moving the lymphatic system, which helps us to clean our cancer producing cells and keeps it moving.
[00:15:03] But the one caution here, when you exercise, you are also secreting endorphins, which are stimulants. So I tell people, make sure you don't exercise at least four hours prior to going to sleep. So the best time is in the morning, but if you can, if you do it in the evening, if your bedtime is 10, make sure you don't exercise past 6 PM.
[00:15:22] Jason: So evening. To afternoon, but not, morning to afternoon, but not evening.
[00:15:27] Bijoy John: You don't want to be close to bedtime because you're going to be up.
[00:15:31] Jason: Got it. So flexing our muscles in the evening is like a mild form of caffeine or something.
[00:15:37] Bijoy John: Correct.
[00:15:38] Jason: Got it. Okay. So that's not going to give us great sleep.
[00:15:41] I've noticed. So another hack, I've got the Oura ring, which tracks my sleep. And then I also have the eight sleep bed, which does something very similar, but it might be a little bit more accurate on the data, but I really liked the eight sleep bed because it keeps me cool at night. So what about temperature and sleep?
[00:15:58] Bijoy John: Perfect question. The, again, the melatonin is secreted in lower temperature. So I tell people to experiment between 65 to 70 degrees at night so that a melatonin can be optimally secreted.
[00:16:10] So it's secretes well in darkness and lower temperature. So having thermostat at a lower temperature is the key at night going to sleep. Great question. I bought the Oura ring. I was laughing and the Oura ring is one of the number one causes of referrals to my clinic and any devices. What happens, people are getting all that information from these devices, but they don't know what to do with it.
[00:16:32] And they start to worry about it, so that actually affects the sleep. So I tell people to wear it, get the data, do something about it, and then see if it's improved. Don't do it every night and then just get on this rumination process.
[00:16:48] Jason: Worrying about anything is probably not an effective way to get to sleep.
[00:16:52] Bijoy John: Too much data. It's out of our brain, I think. Yeah, you cannot data mine yourself to sleep. You cannot do this. So sleep is one thing you have to do gently, right? It's like our golf swings. I tell you, you can't swing it too hard, you're going to have a mulligan. You might have to do it gently and smoothly. That's one thing, everything in our life in the hustle culture. Is great, but sleep is counter hustle culture it is against the grain of our culture and the hustle culture.
[00:17:18] Jason: You can't hiho silver for great sleep.
[00:17:21] Bijoy John: You cannot. Everybody is going the other way and getting too much information. I've never seen anybody sleep better by having too much information. You cannot do it.
[00:17:29] Jason: Got it. I went to my doctor. He's a functional medicine doctor. And he was like, he was asking me questions. He's like, "how's your sleep?" And I said, "I don't know. I have no idea. I'm asleep." And he says get an Oura ring so you can see. And it has been pretty insightful. Like I noticed patterns.
[00:17:43] And so over time you start to notice trends with your sleep, like, "Oh, like if I eat late or if I work out late or, if I do pretty much anything late, like it's messing up my sleep," it's like, Oh, your heart rate was weird, like, stuff like this. And so I don't get as good of sleep.
[00:17:59] Bijoy John: Yeah, eating late, what happens is you have a full stomach. Food stays in the stomach for about two hours.
[00:18:03] Just that uncomfortable feeling. And then also you're at risk for acid reflux. There's tons of acids secreted around two in the morning. And so you have heartburn. And and also eating well late, what happens? The end product of any process is the energy. The end product of any energy is heat.
[00:18:21] It's not very conducive for sleeping. Like I mentioned, melotonin secretes in the lower temperatures. So many reasons you're right. So you'll get all that information. But what mistake people are doing is they don't put it through. You may be the exception. You're doing something about it.
[00:18:37] You know what I'm saying? So with data, you have to act on it. And it looks like you're getting the right information too, Jason.
[00:18:44] Jason: All right, so another hack I've noticed when I sleep really well, so I don't want to work out in the evening, but what I do notice if I do the sauna, which almost is like a workout like for my body, I've noticed, because it shows like a workout sometimes, but if I do the sauna and then I do a cold plunge or a cold shower, afterwards and I get cool myself back down, then I sleep really well.
[00:19:09] So what's going on there?
[00:19:11] Bijoy John: When you do the sauna, there is the release of oxytocin, the Greeks and the Romans, they figured it out there, that they're big proponents of the sauna. So you release oxytocin, oxytocin the peak lasts about four hours. And the cold plunge also does the same thing.
[00:19:26] You are releasing oxytocin, which is the love hormone, but also puts people to sleep. So that's where you are. So it does the sauna does help you the heat from the sauna and the cold. It creates oxytocin. That's where you're sleeping. That is a true fact.
[00:19:40] Jason: Interesting. Yeah. Oxytocin I've heard called the trust hormone. It just feels safe.
[00:19:46] Bijoy John: It's got many name.
[00:19:47] Jason: You get it when you hug people, and when you pet a dog, so four hours of oxytocin. Okay. That's pretty good. So a lot of people, myself included, have noticed like if I have sex before going to bed, then I sleep pretty well after that as well.
[00:20:01] So is that similar? Is this the oxytocin release? Correct.
[00:20:04] Bijoy John: Bedroom is for sex and sleeping, but most people are worrying or snoring, right? So after sex, you have the release of oxytocin and that is the cause of for you to sleep better. Of course the act of lovemaking has a lot of other good components to it, but the chemical or the medical explanation is oxytocin release helps you to sleep better.
[00:20:25] Jason: Okay. Great. So like we want to maximize oxytocin before bed is, it could be a goal, right? Because that's the perfect way to go because if you're anxious, that would be the opposite, right? If we got it, we might get anxious and be concerned and worrying and yeah. And oxytocin is the chemical that says, "Hey, you're okay right now."
[00:20:44] yes. Good. Trust hormone. Love hormone. So some love, peace, and trust. All right, cool. This is good stuff. Is there anything weird or unique that's been shown to affect sleep that people are just not thinking about? That we haven't mentioned,
[00:20:58] Bijoy John: I developed the 7 sleep proven sleep strategies.
[00:21:01] I also have an acronym for this. It's called sleep now. So the 1st hack. So S.L.E.E.P.N.O.W. So that's the 7 combine and NO together. So the 1st thing is the mistake, but people don't. The first is, S is a schedule, right? So for every plan to succeed, we all have plans in our lives. So the correct time to sleep is between 10 p.
[00:21:23] m. and 6 a. m. That's a rough time. You can go 30, whatever. But this is the mistake. If somebody goes to bed at 10, they can't fall asleep till midnight. Guess what most people do? They go to bed 9. So now they're suffering for three more hours. They're getting frustrated. They take the phone, do whatever.
[00:21:43] But I tell people, if you can't sleep, you don't fall asleep till midnight, go to bed at 1130, but make sure you wake up at 6am. So this is called sleep restriction. But you have to wake up at, 6am. So if you do this consistently for a few, at least about one to two weeks, you will start seeing, then you go to bed at 11: 15, 11, you move it the other way, but you have to wake up.
[00:22:08] Another thing I see people when I tell folks to do this, they hit the snooze, 6: 15 you have to wake up at six. Then the L is low light. Low noise, low temperature. We touched on it. Melatonin is only secreted in low light, low temperature, and low noise.
[00:22:27] We touched on it. Next E is electronics. So I tell people not to have electronics at least 30 minutes prior to going to sleep because of the light and of course the dings and the notification. I have my cell phone away from me. I keep it in the bathroom. I have an alarm for 6 or 6: 30 and I wake up.
[00:22:46] I literally wake walk there and I'm done for the night. So what happens is. When you wake up in the middle of the night and you have a tendency to look at your clock and it's three o'clock, you're like wondering, wow, it's three o'clock already? It's only three o'clock or two o'clock. It increases the cognitive.
[00:23:00] One thing will improve your sleep by at least ten, twenty percent is removing all clock, any time pieces, And your phone, even if there's a phone, when you go to a hotel, I angle it or try to unplug it. I trust my phone and keep it away from.
[00:23:16] Jason: Especially if the clock is blue light.
[00:23:19] Bijoy John: Exactly. Blue light clock.
[00:23:21] How many red LED clocks are there anymore? But yeah, you don't want a blue or a white light led clock. That's going to be the, even the worst, right? So just don't look at the clock. Okay.
[00:23:31] So moving along, the next E is exercise we talked about is exercise at least four hours prior to going to sleep.
[00:23:37] Then the P is powering off your mind. So now you're preparing your body, you calmed your body by not exercising you've given your mind a chance to rest, but not having your cell phone. I like, like meditation, some apps and listening to apps on the phone, but what happens, you're taking your phone with you to bed.
[00:23:55] I tell people to meditate or do something. away from the bed. Just unplug your phone, get in the meditative mind, and then hit the bed. So the two techniques I always implement, these are my own, is the first technique to calm your mind is vivid imagination. I do this every night. I am the director of my show.
[00:24:15] You don't want to take your stress into bed. You don't want reality in your bed. You want the abstract. So I watched a show, you went last night. I thought about it. I said, how's the show? It's going to end tomorrow. I'm going to watch it again. So I'm the director. I go into this trend and then, my imagination, that's the vivid imagination for sleeping.
[00:24:32] So I'm the first guy to promote for sleeping. That works really well. And then in the same technique about powering off your mind is something called yoga nidra. Yoga nidra. Nidra means nothingness in Sanskrit. You lay down with your hands up. It's called the shavasana or the corpse pose, where you're laying down like a, corpse and just completely letting go.
[00:24:52] You can also start thinking about the different muscles starting from your head to your face. This is the cognitive behavioral therapy. One of the techniques is muscle relaxation. You just go down to your feet. So now you're given a chance. But you have to prepare. Going to bed is is a process.
[00:25:07] Everybody wants it to be an on and off switch station. It doesn't happen like that. It has to be a timer. You have to slowly work your way. You can't hustle it. So these are the two techniques I use. So the vivid imagination and yoga nidra. You had a question?
[00:25:21] Jason: This is interesting. I remember I was talking about this when we were hanging out at the mastermind.
[00:25:25] And what really stood out to me is this after chatting, that was a new thing for me was the idea that how we get into sleep dictates how good the sleep is. And I thought, man, if I just do this and do that and do the right things and then jump in bed and lay down real quick and close my eyes, then it should be good.
[00:25:46] We, you can't. Do it quickly. You can't force it. And so calming the mind and getting to a calmer place. And I like the idea of vivid imagination and getting into the abstract, right? Like getting more into that dream state.
[00:25:57] Bijoy John: I've been doing that for almost 20, 25 years. So continuing on so I combined NO together, no to worries, right?
[00:26:03] As humans, we worry. I want everybody to worry, but worry between 6 p. m. and 8 p. m. So let's be done with worrying around that time. So from eight on, if your bedtime is 10, you're preparing also give this example. It's like a seven course meal. You have to have the music. You have to have the wine or cheese and salad.
[00:26:23] You just can't go to the meat, right? You have to work your way. So your preparation for bed starts around 8 p. m. I've already started giving up my phone. From 7 p. m. as of as of December. So that was my resolution to be off electronics. I go hard at it from 7 a. m., but I'm at I'm done by 7 p. m. I'm not even have access to my phones. So no to worries. So we have to worry, but write it down after 8pm. Just write things down for the next day, right? So I do that, as a business owner, it was terrible, all these, employees, bills all this stuff. I write it down and done.
[00:26:57] So then the last one is, W. This is the easy part. Win by losing. This is one thing you have to lose yourself. And so you lose yourself by keeping your bedtime ritual very simple. You are the master of your sleep. Life happens to all of us. It happened to me. It happens to you.
[00:27:16] It happens to everyone. But if you have this foundation, if you have the principle and knowledge, you can do it. Win by losing, taking it easy. That's the SLEEP NOW acronym. The S is for schedule. L is for low light, low temperature. E is no to electronics. The next E is not exercise 4 hours. P is powering off your mind. NO is no to worries. W is win by losing. That's my acronym. That's the seven, strategies I teach people. And of course, there are people who ask me about medications. I do prescribe sleep medication, but that'll be the last resort. I take people off the medications. That's my goal. I do this holistic approach for sleeping.
[00:27:51] Jason: Very cool. Yeah, I love the idea of getting rid of the worries at the end of the day. I usually can shut that down, but I know a lot of my clients, they have a difficult time with that. And so what created this process that I would use in the mornings, but a lot of my clients find it's even more effective to use at night, which is Daily planning exercise.
[00:28:10] So for those of you that are listening, you can check that out at doorgrow.com/dailyplanning, one word. And you're welcome to just use that daily planning exercise that I use with clients to just get everything unloaded from your day to be prepared for the next day. And that will just give you a greater sense of calm and allow you to go to sleep without ruminating on a bunch of scary thoughts or worrying about what's going to happen the next day.
[00:28:31] You'll feel like you have a plan. And I think that lets your unconscious kind of unravel and relax. So very cool. Yeah, this is super helpful. Really fun to have you here on the show. Dr. SleepFix. You have a book, correct?
[00:28:46] Bijoy John: Oh, I have it right here.
[00:28:47] Jason: Nobody's sleeping seven proven sleep strategies for better health and happiness. All right. Bijoy John. All right. How do people get this book? Everywhere?
[00:28:56] Bijoy John: Yeah, it's available everywhere. It's official launch date is March 12th. So it's ready to pre order and you can pick it up from your favorite bookstore.
[00:29:04] So it's coming up. Okay, cool.
[00:29:06] Jason: And how else can people get in touch with you or follow you on social or what do you want people to do?
[00:29:12] Bijoy John: So I'm new into this process, so I don't have many social media followers, but I do post a lot of the important things. My website is sleepfixacademy. Com. You can have all the information. I have a quiz. I have free downloads. I have a sleep assessment if you have a problem. So I also have a sleep now course which is ready. So all and all my social media handles I'm known as Dr. SleepFix. So this mission is to sleep is the super power.
[00:29:37] It's a very underrated. People say "I can sleep when I die." But I tell people, "if you're going to go on this path, you're going to die" because you have a uncontrolled blood pressure, heart rate and, of course we didn't go into the sleep apnea part. You're snoring and if you're sleep apnea, make sure you take care of it.
[00:29:52] That can add 10 years to your life. So I'm on this mission to teach the world. If many people can just understand and just keep a pause, you are a better version. You feel better, you're more energetic, and you can discover the joy and have this fruitful full version of yourself.
[00:30:07] Jason: Yeah. I remember when I really used to get really terrible sleep and you know I wasn't sleeping enough because I thought I would just be more productive if I just worked more I thought it was just work. And what I found was my body started breaking down, my joints were not recovering from stress or from workouts.
[00:30:24] I started having a lot of back pain and back problems because the body was getting experienced stress every day and it was compounding, it wasn't recovering. And so recovery is a super important thing related to sleep. And then also cognitive function. I had my clients do time studies and one of my clients did a time study And we started chatting about sleep afterwards, but he said, "I'm noticing that after three o'clock, it's taking me an hour to do things that take me 10 minutes in the morning."
[00:30:51] And he's like, "why is that?" I'm like, "your brain's running out of chemicals. Let's talk about your sleep." sleep is when we produce the chemical cocktail that we're going to use the next day. And when our brain cleans itself so that we can be productive and effective. And a lot of people tap out by lunchtime.
[00:31:06] Bijoy John: There's lymphatic system that I talked about in the body, but the brain has something called a glymphatic system. So that is the system that is activated in the deeper sleep. That's the one that clears all the muck. The muck is the one that's causes dementia, so that's when it, it moves it.
[00:31:22] Like exercise, how exercise moves the lymphatic system in the body. The deep sleep moves the Glymphatic system to move all the muck. So that's why you're more rejuvenated and we heal in our sleep. We grow in our sleep. The human growth hormone that is needed of course, for children and babies, but for adults, for muscle building.
[00:31:43] That is secreted maximally in deep sleep. The thyroid functions alterations. There is increased catecholamines when you're not sleeping well, like norepinephrine, that causes you high blood pressure and diabetes. So if people have uncontrolled diabetes, if you have uncontrolled blood pressure, if you're in a mental fog, you're anxious, you're tired, you're depressed, and if your sexual function is low because sleep also affects one of the common, see, I see most of the time the low libido is associated with untreated sleep apnea.
[00:32:10] So all this function, it affects you from head to toe, your heart, your brain your digestive system. So it is if you sleep well, you can optimize all this bodily functions.
[00:32:21] Jason: Okay. So you mentioned a couple things and I know a lot of people are concerned nowadays because a lot of people are fat and not healthy. Weight gain, water retention, cortisol spiking? Yes. Like stress, like all these things are related to poor sleep. And what did you say? What causes low libido?
[00:32:40] Bijoy John: Have a sleep apnea there's less oxygen to the genital organs. Like the test is don't get enough oxygen.
[00:32:46] So that they don't produce much testosterone. So that's one of the treatable conditions or sexual dysfunction and you and also the weight. What happens, the weight is controlled by two hormones called leptin and ghrelin. Leptin lowers the appetite, ghrelin increases the appetite.
[00:33:03] What happens when you don't sleep, this ratio is altered. You have less of a leptin and more of ghrelin and you gain weight. And also by just by the mere fact that you are being awake, you have more chance to eat. So you're snacking, guess what you're snacking? You're snacking high glycemic foods like potato chips, sugary drinks, chocolate.
[00:33:25] Guess what? If even if you consume that four hours prior to going to sleep, your quality of sleep is affected that night. So that's why shift workers have a tendency to gain more weight because they are more awake compared to the people who don't work shifts, especially the night shift workers. We have not even gone into the accidents, the errors, sports, academics.
[00:33:44] We have the whole slew of things we can talk about, Jason.
[00:33:47] Jason: Yeah. When you get into that, like not getting enough sleep, you are functioning almost like a drunk person. They found like driving tests and stuff. We could talk about this stuff forever. I love the biohacking stuff. I love health. I feel like it's a superpower to be able to focus on this stuff.
[00:34:02] Yeah. Again, really appreciate you coming on the show. This was really fun, super interesting. I hope this was really helpful for all of you property management business owners that are out there listening, that are stressing out and not getting enough sleep. Sleep might just very much like change your life and help you cope with more, help you function more, help you get more things done.
[00:34:21] It's a secret hack that I coach clients on in helping them add more doors and grow their business. And if you want to help growing your business, reach out to us at DoorGrow and Bijoy. Thanks for coming on the show.
[00:34:32] Bijoy John: All right. Thanks, Jason. Sleep well. Be well, my friends. So let's go sleeping.
[00:34:36] Jason: All right. Bye, everyone.
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