696 - Science Backed Ways To Improve Sleep (Research Review w/ Dr. Brandon Roberts)
Choose Hard with Cody McBroom
Cody McBroom
4.9 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The average person needs 7-8 hours of sleep per night. The easiest way to improve your sleep is to focus on sleep hygiene.
Sleep hygiene is a set of behavioral and environmental recommendations intended to promote healthy sleep, and was originally developed for use in the treatment of mild to moderate insomnia, but is now used for all populations who have trouble sleeping. Because sleep hygiene is an inexpensive lifestyle intervention, it serves as a first-line intervention for people who want to improve their sleep but are not likely to qualify for, or seek, more substantial clinical treatment.
Reduce Caffeine Intake
Blood levels of caffeine peak approximately 30 minutes after oral administration, and the half-life of a single dose of caffeine is 3-7 hours, though this is influenced by individual differences in sensitivity, metabolism, and accumulation. Interestingly, studies have found that large doses of caffeine close to bedtime have an acute disruptive effect on human sleep, but the effects of lower doses of caffeine are smaller in magnitude and less consistent. The long-term effects of caffeine abstinence in habitual caffeine consumers are not yet known, but the limited evidence to date suggests caffeine abstinence may be more beneficial for light or intermittent caffeine users than for habitual users. If you find that you have difficulty sleeping, caffeine is something to stay away from in the afternoon
Refrain from alcohol intake
Alcohol consumption near bedtime is associated with decreased sleep onset latency and increased slow wave sleep during the first part of the night. You might think this is beneficial and some people use alcohol as a way to fall asleep. However, once the alcohol is metabolized in the first few hours of sleep, later sleep becomes lighter with increases in Stage 1 and REM sleep and more arousals. Even a few drinks at happy hour can cause you to sleep worse.
Exercise
Exercise is associated with modest improvements in sleep. According to one meta-analysis, exercising 4-8 hours before bedtime has the most robust effects on subsequent sleep compared to all other times of day, including decreased PSG-assessed sleep onset latency and wake after sleep onset.
Other supported sleep hygiene tactics:
- Reduce noise
- Avoid nicotine
- Have regular sleep/wake times
- Manage stress
—-
Apply to join the TCM Team HERE
Apply for our World Renowned Coaching Program, RIGHT HERE.
Remember to join our private FB community, RIGHT HERE.
As Featured on: Huffington Post, Bodybuilding.com, The PTDC, Dr. John Rusin, Muscle For Life, HLHL, iN3, OPEX Fitness and More…
—-
Join The Tailored Trainer (TCM's Membership Site) to gain full access to daily programming and a private coaching forum for guidance. Get a 7 Day FREE Trial HERE
ASK CODY YOUR QUESTION FOR THE PODCAST HERE
Check Out Free Guides and E-Books HERE
Head over to http://buylegion.com/boomboom enter code boom boom at checkout to sa
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the tailored life podcast, the one and only fitness and nutrition podcast that goes way beyond just training and nutrition. |
| 0:13.4 | I'm your host, Cody McBroom, and today with me I have Dr. Brandon Roberts, the chief science officer of tailored coaching method. |
| 0:20.3 | What you were about to hear is this |
| 0:21.7 | week's research review. Every single week, we're going to bring you a short 10 to 20 minute podcast |
| 0:26.8 | breaking down one specific topic, diving into all the research and teaching as much as possible |
| 0:32.1 | and giving you application takeaways to use this for a science-based approach. So stay tuned and get ready for this week's |
| 0:39.6 | research review. All right. So today we're going to be talking about sleep, which is the least |
| 0:47.0 | sexy topic to learn about, but one of the most important things to learn about. It's one of those |
| 0:52.0 | things that I think we all need to improve, yet none of us actually commit to doing so i've had a lot of sleep issues over the |
| 0:59.9 | years so i'm excited to hear what you say about this um and there's two sides of the coin i've heard |
| 1:04.0 | people um i think i've said this to you before like i think gregg knuckles was the one that was |
| 1:07.8 | just like i'm not convinced there's enough research to show me that sleep does anything, you know, for hypertrophy or strength in the grand scheme of things. |
| 1:14.3 | And then there's other people that are like, I mean, you're going to have no testosterone, you're going to die, you're going to not be able to think, you won't be able to train, you need sleep, right? |
| 1:22.5 | And there was, there's a book, I can't remember what it's called but the author was on joe rogan and that scared |
| 1:28.4 | the shit out of a lot of people because it was like really detrimental how how much negative impact |
| 1:34.2 | can be had when you don't sleep enough but i think i've heard that a lot of his claims were kind |
| 1:39.6 | of iffy and not fully supported so hopefully we can clear this up and maybe not fearmonger people |
| 1:45.5 | but just remind them how important sleep is so what would you would you put together for this one |
| 1:49.6 | yeah so i've done a couple presentations on sleep i had this really good one i think i gave |
| 1:55.5 | it a coach a while back um but basically you know average you need about seven to eight hours of sleep per night. |
| 2:04.6 | Like there are some people who, you know, the sleepless elite who could get away with like |
| 2:08.8 | five or six hours. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cody McBroom, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Cody McBroom and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

