AMA #16: Sleep, Vertigo, TBI, OCD, Tips for Travelers, Gut-Brain Axis & More

This is perhaps the most important thing for everybody listening to this really to think about is QQRT, which is... quality, quantity, regularity, and timing ... QQRT is what you really need to think about when you think about your sleep.

When you get out past 1g of the EPA form of omega-3... per day, it's clear there's a either mild to moderate antidepressant effect—so much so that one can, in some cases, talk to your psychiatrist or psychologist [to] partially offset the dosage of any antidepressant.

If you feel pretty good throughout the day and you have enough mental and physical energy and focus to complete the activities you need to complete, then I wouldn't worry so much about 5-6 hours ... Everyone has different sleep needs.

Here's what I would do... I would take that 5-6 hours [of sleep] and before getting out of bed each morning, I would do a 10-30 minute NSDR (non-sleep deep rest protocol) which will allow you to feel deeply rested and, frankly, to recover whatever bits of sleep that you perhaps missed during the night.

For many people who are early-to-bed/ early-to-rise types, if they go to bed around 9 PM/9:30 and they only get 6 hours of sleep, they feel great. Whereas if they get the equivalent amount of sleep but go to bed at 11 PM or midnight, they feel lousy...

I take the fish oil from AG1 or from Momentous. That's just me. There are a lot of other great sources out there, but I will say this—that's when I'm traveling, and I take capsules. Typically, I like to take it in liquid form.

I take anywhere from 1-2 grams of EPA per day, even if that requires taking 6 rather than the suggested 3 capsules per day or taking a full tablespoons or even 2 tablespoons of fish oil.

If you find that you workout in the morning, and then you're really really sleepy in the afternoon and the next day, you might be working out too long or too hard—so maybe ratchet back the intensity a little bit or the duration. It's amazing how great we can feel when we workout to, like, 80 to 90% of our maximum output and duration.

Really the 'quadfecta' of shifting your circadian rhythm in a new place or becoming an early-riser if you want to do that is morning sunlight, movement, social engagement, and in my case, caffeine.

There's some really interesting evidence that 5g, 10g depending on your body weight, of creatine monohydrate per day can enhance creatine phosphate metabolism in the forebrain and enhance brain function under conditions of high altitude or TBI. I take 5-10g of creatine—just creatine monohydrate powder.

There's real beauty in learning to love working out hard but leaving the gym or ending the run with 10-20% of the gas in the tank and knowing that you can come back and do more and you actually kind of want to do more. It increases vigor as opposed to taking yourself over that cliff even a slight 10-20% and then finding that you're kind of depleted.