PODCAST - 2025-05-22_Did You Know Most People Are Sleep Deprived
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[00:00:00] Did you know that most people are sleep deprived or functionally drunk? Are you? Well, the C. D. C defines that one in three adults don't get enough sleep. If you are getting less than seven hours consistently every night, you are chronically sleep deprived. I didn't fully understand the importance. Of sleep and sleep quality until I heard this. Did you know that your brain without sleep functions similarly to having a blood alcohol level of 0.05 to 0.1%. And the legal limit for drinking ~for blood alcohol ~is. 0.08%. So yes, you are ~functionally drunk.~
~So yes, it is the same as being ~functionally drunk when ~you are ~sleep deprived. I
you are slower, [00:01:00] foggier, moodier, and ~you ~make worse decisions. The craziest thing about our modern society is you think all of this is normal. You think that you're supposed to feel this way? ~Well, ~I have news for you.
There are multiple reasons why the majority of us are sleep deprived.
Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve [00:02:00] your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
~AKA functionally drunk, ~it all starts with diet.
And while there are many dietary factors that can affect your sleep in a negative way, the biggest ones are sugar and carbon intake. Now I am an ultra runner and I need both of these things, especially during my races, in order to key my energy up and actually complete a 12 plus hour race. ~Okay?~
But even on a training day when I'm running 20 miles, I should not be eating sugar. After I run. So it's not just diet, it is when you are eating these things. Now, sugar specifically, I have an entire podcast [00:03:00] episode about why sugar is killing you ~and you need to stop eating processed sugar today. ~So you should definitely check out that episode.
~But sugar, typically all sugar. ~You're only supposed to have somewhere between 25 to 35 grams of sugar per day. 25. If you are a woman, 35. If you are a man. With that being said, you should really be having max 10 grams of processed sugar per day or less. ~Like 10 grams or less, you really should have zero grams of processed sugar. ~Even me as an ultra runner with asthma, I should be managing the amount of processed sugar I have during races.
For me, ~when I have fruit, ~when I have sugar from fruit, I feel way better then if I have a healthy bar with added sugar ~to it. ~Sugar is the biggest offender of why our country and our world is sleep deprived. Because when sugar isn't used, [00:04:00] it does one of two things. It either gets stored as fat in your body, ~which from a sleep deprivation perspective isn't a terrible thing ~or ~it ~bounces around. Your bloodstream for me, if I have sugar in the second half of the day, I ~am going to ~feel my heart rate beating faster, especially when I'm laying down.
I'm trying to sleep. ~And the crazy thing is sugar hides in things and the crazy thing is ~sugar hides in things when you eat certain types of food that aren't necessarily desserts. Sugar may be present The other day, my significant other and I, ~we ~went out for Chinese food and we ate it actually relatively early, around four 30 or 5:00 PM The problem was we got a lot of sweet and sour chicken.
~I. We got ~sesame chicken and a couple other dishes. ~And I'll tell you this, ~added sugar is in these dishes. I slept terribly that night. I barely got any sleep. And you know the crazy thing is you normalize this. I have normalized this in the past. ~The, okay, ~my heart rate is beating. I'm [00:05:00] not getting deep sleep.
I'm not dreaming. I feel tired the next day. I was in bed for eight hours, but I feel tired ~the next day. ~We normalize this. ~But this is why it's happening. 'cause ~sugar hides in places now. Carbs work the same way. Carbs are not as bad as sugar for sleep deprivation. ~But even a couple days ago, but even ~a couple days ago, I had a carb heavy dinner ~and we cooked it at home and I had whole grain carbs, like ~whole grain pasta, and my sleep wasn't terrible.
It wasn't as bad as ~it is or was ~when I. Had that sugar heavy meal for dinner, but I still felt my heart rate elevated at night. You want your heart rate to be at its lowest. ~For me, ~my resting heart rate is between 35 and 40 beats per minute. ~That's 'cause ~I'm an ultra runner. ~I train a lot, ~so my resting heart rate is very low.
~And ~when you're sleeping, you want your heart rate to be low. Because your body needs to relax well, when you have sugar pumping through your system, when you have carbs metabolizing into sugar ~pumping through your system, ~your sleep is ~going to be ~negatively affected.
And both of these [00:06:00] things negatively affect your REM and deep sleep, which are ~the most important parts of your sleep, and that is why. Okay? Which is ~the most important. Parts of your sleep ~now. ~Processed fats ~or ~really fatty food, eating fast food in the evening, eating fast food, super late at night. I don't know about you, but even to this day, I crave ~going and ~getting fries or getting really unhealthy Mexican food ~at night ~or a burger at night, and I tell myself.
Do you want a couple minutes of pleasure eating that thing, or ~do you want ~7, 8, 9 hours of amazing sleep ~and ~I value my sleep so much that that is enough for me to avoid these things at night. I don't always get it right, but my sleep has been so much better since I've done the things ~that ~I'm going to share ~with you ~later ~on ~in the podcast ~episode of exactly what you can start doing today ~so you can stop being sleep deprived and functionally drunk.
~Okay, ~number two, screen [00:07:00] addiction. ~I think ~this one's pretty obvious and we still spend way too much time on our screens.
Here's why screen addiction is ~so ~bad. ~Blue light you probably already know about this ~blue light is ~not good for us. It's ~not good for your eyes. And from a sleep perspective, blue light suppresses melatonin. Which your body creates to help sleep. Blue light suppresses it. Blue light also really activates our eyes, so if you're looking at your screens, your phones up until going to bed.
~If ~you're watching Netflix, watching whatever your favorite streaming service is, watching YouTube. . All the way up to going to bed, you are impacting your sleep negatively. ~Okay,~
doom. Scrolling[00:08:00]
is obviously bad. I have so many friends that tell me, you know, I didn't sleep all last night and it's probably 'cause I was doom scrolling late into the night. And then I finally put my phone away and then I went to bed, and then I actually woke up at three in the morning and ~I ~grabbed my phone again and started scrolling more.
~This is the crazy thing, ~when we struggle with ~our ~sleep, we grab our phones. And, ~uh, ~hope that that's going to distract us enough or tire us out, and then we're just up all night. Doom scrolling, increases cortisol, ~which is a stress hormone. Now ~there are healthy levels of cortisol ~that ~we need ~in our body, ~but doom scrolling is not a natural thing.
So when you increase cortisol and you decrease melatonin, you are setting yourself up for poor sleep in [00:09:00] any given night. next. Alcohol ~now, ~if you've been watching my content, ~listening to my content for a while, ~you know ~what ~my stance in alcohol is? I enjoy having fun with alcohol just as much as the next person, and I still haven't drank for 10 months. And I'm going at least 13 months without drinking because I have a race coming up and I always cut alcohol completely outta my life for at least three to four months before a race.
~And ~I've had a lot of races recently and ~just I ~wanted to try not drinking for a year. Alcohol even a little bit can completely wreck your sleep. ~Now before I even go into alcohol itself. We gotta ~remember what's in alcohol or in alcoholic beverages there's typically sugar, carbs, so that alone if there is nothing else in alcohol, the fact that sugar and carbs are in alcohol and alcohol is typically consumed in the back [00:10:00] half of the day, sometimes after dinner even, which is another crazy thing. I've been talking to my family a lot lately about the fact that in our culture, the most likely time for people to eat dessert is after dinner, which is crazy to me. ~'cause you're literally saying, I'm not gonna sleep tonight by having dessert after dinner.~
Same thing with alcohol. ~Alcohol is typically consumed either with dinner. After dinner drink, let's go hit the bars after dinner. It's actually looked down upon drink. ~It's actually looked down upon drinking alcohol in the morning. ~And ~I'm not saying you should drink alcohol in the morning. I'm just saying that you should probably eat that massive piece of amisu for breakfast and have a glass of wine with it for breakfast.
'cause at least you're gonna have all day to burn it. Now you shouldn't do that. No one should be drinking, starting at breakfast. That's the crazy thing about this is the whole situation, the whole cultural situation with sugar, with carbs, with alcohol is bad for our sleep, so along with the sugar and carb aspect of alcohol
and the crazy thing about alcohol, ~so ~you wine lovers ~out there, ~you one beer a night lovers out there. ~You ~anyone ~out there ~who says, oh, ~you know, I, you know, ~I just have ~one drink of alcohol a night, or ~one drink a night. [00:11:00] Here's the crazy thing. Even one drink
can decrease. Your deep sleep decrease. Wait for it deep sleep by guess how much? 40%. One drink. One drink. You add a second. Drink a third drink. A four drink. How are you gonna sleep at all? So now you're ~not just functionally drunk. You are ~drunk, you don't sleep, and ~then ~the next day you're functionally drunk.
~It's crazy. ~This is why I don't drink for ~at least ~three to four months before a race because the benefits of sleep, of recovery, of rejuvenation, ~of ~longevity. ~Brian Johnson, the billionaire, ~Brian Johnson, the billionaire behind the Don't Die movement, ~his number one thing that he ~focuses on, ~and he has billions of dollars to invest into this is ~sleep.
That's his number one thing. And I love that. ~That's his number one thing because ~it makes it so ~that ~[00:12:00] non billionaires, non millionaires, ~non wealthy people, ~middle class ~people, ~poor people, whoever you are, you can at least take steps towards ~having ~better sleep. When you have better sleep. Your body, ~your ~mind, ~your ~spirit, everything.
~It ~functions better,
but Johnny, when I have alcohol, I tend to fall asleep faster. Yes, and that is one of the fallacies of alcohol is people think that having a little bit of alcohol can help them sleep better, but your body doesn't recover. You don't get deep sleep. So yes, you will fall asleep faster.
And
you won't recover. You won't actually sleep.
Last one gonna be the bad guy. One more time. [00:13:00] Caffeine, ~and you all know this, okay. ~And you know this already, caffeine, halflife of six to eight hours, even a cup at noon ~of anything can mess with sleep at 10:00 PM~
~I ~can mess with sleep at 10:00 PM The cool thing though is if you fix all this and you start sleeping better, you're not gonna need caffeine. It's an endless cycle. You sleep poorly ~because most people are sleep deprived and functionally drunk.~ So what do you need? You need caffeine so you can function properly.
And then that caffeine, if it's drink too late in the days, so anytime afternoon, or if you drink too much of it in the morning, it is an endless cycle ~of even if you did the rest of this right. Well, if you do all of this right, then you won't need caffeine. But even if you did the rest of this right and you had caffeine, ~it would continuously mess up your sleep over and over and over and over again.
So what can you do?
Hey, friend, I wanted to take a [00:14:00] moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed,
so I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life. To start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to athlete [00:15:00] with asthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy.
Now let's get back to the rest of the show.
here is how I have optimized my sleep naturally, along with being aware of all these things. Here's what I do first.
Cut the triggers.
~What does this mean? ~This means
no sugar, alcohol,
or caffeine.
But Johnny, I wanna enjoy life. ~Me too. But I also don't wanna spend tens of 10. ~Me too. But I also don't wanna spend tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of millions of dollars on ~my ~healthcare in the future. So I want to enjoy life now [00:16:00] and when I'm 80 years old and not be completely broke because of all the health.
Problems I have because I have type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, ~all these things. You know, ~cancer metabolizes sugar ~or eats ~or eats 10 times ~or ~more sugar than normal cells. Cancer cells love sugar. That means cancer cells also love alcohol. Crazy. Eat dinner early.
~Now, I may be misquoting this, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. ~Brian Johnson of Don't Die and Blueprint, his last meal ~of the day that he eats ~is around ~11:00 AM Now, I know he socializes sometimes, but typically on a normal day, his last meal is at ~11:00 AM He goes to bed at 8:30 PM. ~What is that? ~Nine and a half hours before bed?
I would love to be there someday. I'm not there right now ~for me. ~I have an alarm on my phone that goes off at 6:45 PM telling me two stop eating by 7:00 [00:17:00] PM now a month or two ago. My alarm was at 7 45 and I would stop eating at eight. The problem is
I would miss that and I'd be 8 15, 8 30. If I miss seven, I'm still okay If I eat at seven 30 now I'm best ~still ~if I finish eating at ~like ~six 30 or seven, ~but this is very reasonable,~
~but this is very reasonable and really. ~The advice out there is ~typically ~you wanna fast for three plus hours before bed. I really think that you need at least three hours. I know I sleep better when it's four, so at least get three hours of fasting before bed. and this doesn't include sugar ~or ~caffeine or alcohol for that matter.
Not saying three to four hours of fasting from those things before bed, you know, a lot more time. And that brings me to [00:18:00] my next point. Optimize your day.
Here's what I do.
I am a human, which means that even though I ~really ~don't eat ~that ~much processed sugar, I still like it. ~Okay? I love cut that. Okay out. ~I love ice cream. So what do I do? ~I will set up my day where ~if I know I'm going to eat processed sugar. ~I like ice cream. ~I love ice cream. Costco, soft serve ice cream.
Best thing ever. Not for you, but it tastes so good. I'll eat the sugar and then work out. So instead of the sugar bouncing around in my system, I'm burning it.
Plan indulgences
based. On daily activity.[00:19:00]
Same ~thing ~with carbs. I can eat ~a bunch of ~pasta and ~then ~burn it on a run, but if I eat ~a bunch of ~carbs, at the end of the day, there's nothing to burn it with. ~Now, ~I've been training for a 12 hour endurance race right now where I'm actually running overnight, and some of my training is at night. And to be fair.
Another piece here is you wanna work out earlier in the day, so you wanna work out 'cause that promotes sleep and you wanna work out earlier in the day.
Working out at 8:00 PM isn't conducive to ~an ~optimized sleep routine. Working out early to late afternoon or earlier is much more conducive. For me, if I know that I'm going to eat carbs or sugar later in the day, it's just how things are happening. [00:20:00] Or if I know that I'm going to do a night run at like eight, 9:00 PM then I'm okay with having carbs and sugar, well carbs at least later in the day.
~So just ~think about what you're putting in your body as fuel. Know that sugar and carbs are fuel. And then do something to use the fuel after it, and you're going to help optimize your day for sleep. It is also important
to get sunlight, especially earlier in the day, ~and, uh, optimize your schedule around the natural light outside. So sunlight in the morning.~
One thing I've been talking with Tatiana about lately is that I learned from her to naturally get up with the sun without an alarm, and I've just decided that in the winter, that means I'm gonna get up a little later. [00:21:00] In the summer means I'm gonna get up earlier. It means that I may be up longer in the summer and ~I may be up ~shorter in the winter, ~but following that natural, that natural concept of, ~but following the natural phenomenon of the environment can be very good for us.
Now if you live in Alaska, I don't expect you to stay up 24 hours that time a year and then stay asleep for all of winter. So this doesn't work then, working out actually boosts the production of melatonin naturally in your body as well.
So the key takeaway here is optimize your day for sleep. Planning your indulgences, working out sunlight in the morning,
and tech boundaries.
This may be the biggest one as we have a screen addicted culture. ~Well, ~what I have done, ~and it started by just doing this at night, but now I do this like majority of my day. ~Is ~I ~set my [00:22:00] phone to grayscale so I'm not getting blue light from my phone all day. There's some times when I need the color. For example, when you're using your phone for GPS, it's a lot easier to do it when it's in color than in grayscale.
It's a lot safer too, so I highly recommend that the gray scale aspect, be careful when you're using ~your phone for important things like ~GPS navigation. Grayscale at night at the very least, helps out so much. You can also set a setting on your phone that eliminates blue light at specific time of day.
~So ~I have this set where ~if ~my phone isn't set in grayscale, it automatically, I think around five or 6:00 PM goes into blue light elimination, which is ~very ~conducive to sleep. Also, ~you wanna ~turn off all [00:23:00] screens. ~This is a crazy one. This is crazy. ~One hour or more before bed, ~I,~
~well, what am I gonna do for an hour? ~Sometimes I ~just ~sit ~there ~and ~I ~look ~outside ~at the stars. ~Sometimes I ~cuddle with our dog. Sometimes we just hang out and chat. Sometimes I read, sometimes I journal. Sometimes I don't do this, but I at least stay off my phone. Or I actually have a TV I got back in college that doesn't have the crazy blue light admission that our new TVs have.
So I'll watch TV on that and ~I ~stay off my phone. I 100% stay off my phone one hour before bed. That's probably the most important thing here. And then keeping technology outta the bedroom. Sleep is the primary focus of the bedroom. Recently we moved my desk outta the bedroom. All the screens outta the bedroom. Now our bedroom [00:24:00] is light free, technology free.
That alone has increased my sleep. Quality, set up the bedroom and fall asleep.
Last thing, natural sleep aids. ~I specifically,~
I use
chamomile. ~I.~
Or sleepy time tea, which ~basically ~has chamomile in it. I also take magnesium.
Great for sleep. Muscle recovery, digestion, a lot of different things, and 100% pure CB, D. Gotta be careful, even if there's trace amounts, small percentage amounts of THC, ~it ~can negatively impact your [00:25:00] sleep. ~It's what I do. ~Biggest thing for me has been optimizing my day. ~You ~optimize your day, ~you ~make sleep your job.
~That's what ~Brian Johnson of Blue Print talks about. Sleep is the most important job you have ~all day ~because it empowers everything else. Now I have a bonus for you for spending time with me today, and it is my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide. Movement tracking and accountability. So when you're integrating this into your life, and I know you're going to start integrating at least one of these four things into your life today, and that is my hope for you, is that you start integrating one of these four things that you can do to improve your sleep so you can join the team of super humans powered by ~a ~high quality night's sleep. Well, while you're doing that, tracking becomes very important. So does accountability and movement [00:26:00] is the backbone of a lot of this optimization. You're moving so ~that ~you don't have sugar hanging out in your body.
Well, I want ~you ~to ~grab, well, I wanna ~help you integrate these ~three ~pillars into your life, which is why I package them ~together ~in my Healthy Living Guide, which you can grab in the show notes or in the YouTube description, or go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy today.
It's gonna take you less than two to three minutes to read through and start putting into your life immediately. I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. I. It is about [00:27:00] progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
