#45 - AMA #4： sleep, jet lag protocol, autophagy, metformin, and more
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Summary
In this episode of The Drive, I talk about why we don't run ads on this podcast, and why we rely entirely on listener support to sustain it. If you're a subscriber, you get access to the show notes, access to all episodes, and access to special offers from companies that make the products that I already love for free.
Transcript
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah Drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah.
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The Drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking,
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along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with
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some of the most successful, top-performing individuals in the world, and this podcast
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is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality,
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more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode
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Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of The Drive. I'd like to take a couple of minutes
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to talk about why we don't run ads on this podcast and why instead we've chosen to rely entirely on
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listener support. If you're listening to this, you probably already know, but the two things I care
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most about professionally are how to live longer and how to live better. I have a complete fascination
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and obsession with this topic. I practice it professionally, and I've seen firsthand how
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access to information is basically all people need to make better decisions and improve the quality of
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their lives. Curating and sharing this knowledge is not easy, and even before starting the podcast,
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that became clear to me. The sheer volume of material published in this space is overwhelming.
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I'm fortunate to have a great team that helps me continue learning and sharing this information
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with you. To take one example, our show notes are in a league of their own. In fact, we now have a
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full-time person that is dedicated to producing those, and the feedback has mirrored this. So all of this
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raises a natural question. How will we continue to fund the work necessary to support this? As you probably
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know, the tried and true way to do this is to sell ads, but after a lot of contemplation, that model just
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doesn't feel right to me for a few reasons. Now, the first and most important of these is trust. I'm not sure
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how you could trust me if I'm telling you about something when you know I'm being paid by the company that
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makes it to tell you about it. Another reason selling ads doesn't feel right to me is because I just know
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myself, I have a really hard time advocating for something that I'm not absolutely nuts for. So if
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I don't feel that way about something, I don't know how I can talk about it enthusiastically. So instead
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of selling ads, I've chosen to do what a handful of others have proved can work over time, and that is
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to create a subscriber support model for my audience. This keeps my relationship with you both simple
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and honest. If you value what I'm doing, you can become a member and support us at whatever level
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works for you. In exchange, you'll get the benefits above and beyond what's available for free.
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It's that simple. It's my goal to ensure that no matter what level you choose to support us at,
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you will get back more than you give. So for example, members will receive full access to the
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exclusive show notes, including other things that we plan to build upon, such as the downloadable
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transcripts for each episode. These are useful beyond just the podcast, especially given the technical
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nature of many of our shows. Members also get exclusive access to listen to and participate
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in the regular ask me anything episodes. That means asking questions directly into the AMA portal
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and also getting to hear these podcasts when they come out. Lastly, and this is something I'm really
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excited about. I want my supporters to get the best deals possible on the products that I love.
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And as I said, we're not taking ad dollars from anyone, but instead what I'd like to do is work
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with companies who make the products that I already love and would already talk about for free and have
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them pass savings on to you. Again, the podcast will remain free to all, but my hope is that many of
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you will find enough value in one, the podcast itself, and two, the additional content exclusive
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for members to support us at a level that makes sense for you. I want to thank you for taking a moment
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to listen to this. If you learn from and find value in the content I produce, please consider
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supporting us directly by signing up for a monthly subscription. Welcome to AMA number four. I am joined
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again by Bob Kaplan, my head of research. This will be our first subscriber only AMA. If you're a
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subscriber, you can watch or listen to this full episode on our website. If you're listening to this
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on a podcast player, you'll be able to hear a preview on the AMA, and then you'll have to finish
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listening or watching on the website. As a reminder, we pull these questions from the AMA forum and any
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subscriber is welcome to participate. In this episode, we talk about the following blue blocking
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glasses and lighting, cortisol and sleep, my jet lag protocol, a discussion about PMS and the hormones
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around it, a discussion around autophagy, and then we close with a rapid fire, which gets into some
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issues like CME for podcasts, how to find a good doctor, interesting biomarkers to monitor if the tech
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was not an issue, and the idea of a PhD versus an MD if you wanted to study longevity. Welcome to AMA
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number four. Welcome everyone to Ask Me Anything before I guess we're starting. Peter, what's up with
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those glasses? Ah, the glasses. These are one of my two favorite sets of glasses that I like to wear when
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I'm looking at electronics in the evening. This brand, which I am neither sponsored by nor receive
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any compensation from, but I do fancy, is called Gunner, G-U-N-N-A-R. And I went through a bunch of
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these before deciding that these are the ones I liked more than the others. I started out with gaming
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glasses first, and I just didn't find that I had enough sort of coverage. So for whatever reason, these optics
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are the ones I like the most, they have a ton of stuff on there and they're not that expensive and
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they usually have sales. So when they have a sale, I recommend buying like two or three pair and then
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figure out which one you're going to like the most. There's another brand that I like whose name I'm
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blanking on now that's not a Gunner, but it's a pretty solid brand. It's about twice as expensive
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though. With these guys, you're into about 40 bucks. The main issue is if you can remember to do so,
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putting these on once the sun goes down, as you're looking at electronics, huge difference,
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especially for computer. So I'm more of a laptop guy than I am a phone guy. And I'm usually working
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on a computer, I don't know, till at least an hour before bed, unfortunately. And this is key.
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Whereas on the phone, there is a setting that like renders the phone completely red or completely gray,
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which is different from just the usual light setting on the phone. And that usually is more
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than adequate than needing these glasses. And on the laptop too, at least for the Mac,
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they have the efflux. Yeah. Which will take the light down. And that's pretty good. I do that as
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well. I kind of view the glasses as an insurance policy. And I definitely notice a difference in my
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sleep quality, at least objectively and sometimes subjectively based on my remembering to do that.
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And there are times I just, I don't know, I space, I don't do it. And I'm going to bed having just
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been blasted by that light. And it sort of sucks. Do we want to explain what's actually going on with
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when you're wearing blue blockers? It's probably taken us back a little bit with the glasses, but
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what is it actually doing? It actually seems like it's one of those hacks for lack of a better term
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that is effective in terms of light and sleep and circadian rhythms. Yeah. So, I mean,
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I think to understand sleep, you've got to think of three things. So, sleep is kind of like a
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balancing act of forces. Now, this is a gross oversimplification. And, you know, in our podcast
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with Matthew Walker, we're going to go into much more detail on sleep. But I like to think of sleep
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as a balancing act between cortisol, melatonin, and adenosine. So, we'll talk about each of those
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for a second. So, adenosine, if that sounds familiar, it's because you remember from high
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school biology that ATP, which is the currency of energy, is adenosine triphosphate. So, the way to
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think about adenosine is it's something that gets built up the more energy you've expended. So,
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if you were to measure adenosine levels in the morning, and then adenosine levels in the evening,
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they should be higher if you've been doing something. And so, that's the first thing you want
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happening when you sleep is you want adenosine levels to be high. And in fact, that's actually
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how caffeine works. Caffeine keeps you awake by lowering adenosine levels. The second thing you
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want is cortisol. Cortisol has to go down. And I've spoken about this a little bit before, but basically
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you have a cycle to cortisol. So, if the x-axis is time, and that's the moment you wake up, and that's
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the moment you go to bed, and that's your cortisol level, you want to wake up at a low level.
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And you want to go to bed at a low level. And what should be happening is in about the first
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two hours, you should have a huge surge in cortisol. Oh, for the listeners only, Peter is actually,
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as luck would have it, there's an easel behind us as we're having this conversation.
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Oh, yes. And he's drying this out. He's drying the cortisol pattern. And so, you want to have this
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uptick, gradual down, nice and low at night. And just as you're waking up, it should be just about
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to kick off. So, that's the second factor. So, you want adenosine to be high, you want cortisol to be
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low. And then the third thing you want is you want melatonin to rise. And melatonin is secreted by this
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tiny, tiny little gland called the pineal gland. And it is secreted in the absence of light, specifically
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blue light. And it's basically a signal to tell the brain that it's dark. So, it's melatonin basically
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removes the brakes of staying awake. And that's where the glasses fit in. So, if you're really
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trying to optimize your sleep, you want high adenosine. You can accomplish that by not having
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caffeine and by being active. You want low cortisol. That's probably a lengthier topic in and of itself.
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And then you want high levels or rising levels of melatonin.
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So, we got a bunch of questions around sleep. So, while we're on the topic, maybe we can cover
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a few more. One of the questions was how to minimize jet lag and sleep disruption while traveling.
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Hey, everyone. Hope you enjoyed a sneak peek of this AMA. AMAs, along with extensive show notes and
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