Mike Krivka

Don’t Fear the Sleeper!

November 12, 2015 By Michael Krivka 6 Comments

Don't Fear the Sleeper by Mike Krivka

Want to lose fat and gain muscle? Want to improve your cognitive ability and decrease reaction time? Want to increase your ability to heal from illness and injury? Want to do it without taking expensive supplements or complicated diets? Sure, everyone does! Then let me tell you a little secret: Sleep is one of the key factors in losing fat, gaining muscle, staying sharper, and living longer.

We live in an environment where sleep is the enemy and something that is actively avoided and delayed. Is there a cost to this habit? There sure is, and it’s a high one at that! From the increase in chronic illnesses (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) to deaths due to sleep deprivation, we are paying a high price.

“Red Bull Nation”

Man is the only mammal that willingly delays sleep and goes to extremes to avoid it. The increase in the consumption of coffee and energy drinks (the fastest growing market segment for soft drinks) should be some indication that people are either avoiding sleep or are trying to cope with the aftermath of not getting enough of it.

If you are an athlete you may have your nutrition and exercise dialed in, but if you don’t get the commensurate recovery (i.e. sleep) it is all for naught. In no uncertain terms, sleep is just as important as diet and exercise. Consider this: your body does not make changes or adaptations during a workout; your body only makes organic changes during sleep. Repair of damaged cells, the regeneration of DNA, the release and regulation of critical hormones are all reliant upon one thing–sleep.

Too Little Too Late

In general, most healthy adults need between seven to nine hours of sleep a night; but if you are regularly training hard, your requirements might be higher. Professional athletes like Roger Federer, Lebron James, Lindsey Vohn and Michelle Wie, regularly get between nine and twelve (yes, twelve!) hours of sleep! There are many factors that contribute to the amount of sleep you will need: environment, diet, medications, stress, etc. The trick is finding the right amount of sleep you need and getting it on a consistent basis. Regardless if it is seven or ten hours, you need every minute of it to meet your potential!

The Benefits of Sleep

Testosterone and growth hormone levels, as well as other key hormones, elevate during sleep. This is part of the body’s physical and mental repair system. These hormones assist in recovery as well as strength and fitness gains. These hormones start to release after being asleep for about 30 minutes. These hormone levels elevate every time you go thru a certain phase of your sleep cycle. The longer you sleep, the more cycles you go thru, and the more of these recovery promoting hormones will be pumping through your body.

Setting the Stage for a Perfect Night’s Sleep

Hopefully it won’t take a lot of convincing to get you to devote a little more effort to getting more and better quality, sleep. So, what do you need to do to get a good night’s sleep? You really need to make the effort to “set the stage” to stack the odds in your favor. The following are some things you can do to give you the best chance at getting a restful and productive (yes productive) night’s sleep:

Go to bed and get up at the same time every day – …Even if you are on the road or in a different time zone. You should try to follow this, within reason, so that you don’t disrupt your set sleep cycle. My instructor, Guro Dan Inosanto, travels somewhere every weekend teaching workshops. He gets up at the same time every day, around 4:00AM PST, so that even when he is on the East Coast he will be getting up in time to be at a workshop that usually starts at 10:00AM. While he should be suffering from horrible sleep deprivation because of his teaching, training, and traveling schedule, he is still going strong at 78 years old.
Use “sleep aids” sparingly if at all – Some studies show promise for the use of melatonin in shortening the time it takes to fall asleep and reducing the number of awakenings, but not necessarily total sleep time. Other studies show no benefit at all with melatonin supplementation. If you are traveling or trying to recover your natural sleep cycle, then a dose of a melatonin supplement might be just what you need to get you back on track… but it might not be beneficial to take it every night. How important is melatonin? Extremely! Melatonin holds the key to not only sleep but also cellular and DNA regeneration, the release of growth hormones, and is a natural anti-inflammatory. Do you really think that missing sleep isn’t important now?
Sleep in a dark room – Block out all of the light sources in the room… and that includes ambient light from clocks, night lights, phone chargers, etc. “Black out” curtains are another option if you live in an urban environment and have a lot of “light pollution” from the outside invading your sleep space. Can’t block out all of the light in the room? Then get yourself a high quality sleep mask that will block out all light.
Eliminate sources of noise – One of the best investments I’ve made in the past few years was replacing the windows in my bedroom. The old ones allowed as much noise into the bedroom when they were closed as when they were open! Try to make your sleep space as quiet as possible, but a little noise might be a good thing. White noise from a fan or even a white noise machine (or an app on your phone) can help you drop into sleep faster. Another alternative is getting ear plugs. There are a number of different configurations on the market, from wax to foam, and you’ll need to find ones that are the most comfortable for your ear configuration and which block an acceptable amount of noise.
Cool is better than warm – Keep your bedroom as cool as possible (somewhere between 65-72 degrees is optimal). Even if you are sleeping under several blankets, you need to have the ambient air as cool as possible. This will help you fall into a deeper sleep and fall to sleep much faster.
Ice, ice baby – If you are up to something a little more extreme, try taking a ten minute ice bath one hour before bedtime. After your body has returned to normal temperature from an ice bath, the aftereffects of the cold will help you drop into a deep slumber. Another use for ice is to go bed with an ice pack, “ice cape”, or blanket. I was told by several people that an ice pack, ice blanket, or cape across your shoulders will reduce the time it takes to fall to sleep. Tim Ferris mentions this in The Four Hour Body and I’ve heard it from athletes as well.
Establish a sleep ritual – Create a routine that allows you to relax and transition into sleep mode. Turn off the television, phone and iPad–get away from all electronics. Read a book, listen to relaxing music, or do something that is not too stimulating. Remove any blue light generating items from your environment prior to sleep. Dr. Chris Hardy, author of Strong Medicine, recommends wearing “blue blocker” sunglasses in the evening as well as switching the lights in the bedroom over to “bug lights” or any type of light bulb that doesn’t generate blue light.
Just say no to drugs – Regular use of prescription sleep medications can lead to long term problems. I have talked to a number of doctors about if and when they prescribe sleep medications, and they all do so with great hesitation. Instead of prescription medication, you can always try natural sleep aids–at least they don’t come with several pages of warning and possibly fatal side effects. NOTE: Tim Ferris recommends Yogi Soothing Caramel Bedtime Tea and there are other brands that seem to work as well. I have had several people recommend aromatic oils as well.
Don’t go to the (blue) light! – Light is the most powerful stimulator of the circadian system and can have positive or negative effects. Broad spectrum light stops the production of melatonin and pushes us into a waking state. This spectrum of light, in particular blue light, has the most impact on our circadian clock. So how much blue light do you get? If you have incandescent lights going, are watching television or using your computer or phone, you are bathing in the stuff.
Sunglasses at night? – How can you minimize blue light in the evening so that you can make a smoother transition into sleep? There are two easy ways that are not only inexpensive but effective. First, eliminate your exposure to blue light 2-3 hours before your bedtime by turning off the television, phone, and computer, and by installing lights in your evening living space that have a low blue light emission. Low blue light bulbs are those that have a yellow or orange color to them and are have a low CCT (Correlated Color Temperature). Inexpensive “bug lights” work well but there are other low cost alternatives on the market that you can find with a little research. The second way is to wear “blue blocker” glasses. Yeah, I know the old “sunglasses at night-thing” sounds a little weird but they work.

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Sleep Like a Baby

There you go! Ten tips that will have you sleeping like a baby in no time at all. Try one or several to see if they work for you. I would recommend first setting up your sleeping space to be optimal, and working from there. If you have any tips or thoughts on how to get to sleep faster and easier I’d love to hear about them in the comments section below.

Until we meet again, Sleep Well!

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Michael Krivka is a Senior RKC with Dragon Door and has been training with, teaching, and sharing the gospel of the kettlebell for over a decade. As a life-long martial artist, he is a Full Instructor under Guro Dan Inosanto in Jeet Kune Do (JKD); the Filipino Martial Arts of Kali, Escrima and Arnis; and Maphilindo Silat. He lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland with his wife and two sons. He owns CrossFit Koncepts where he runs strength and conditioning classes with an emphasis on kettlebell training, mobility and longevity. Follow him on Facebook.com/CrossFitKoncepts or Instagram.com/Michael_Krivka

Kaizen and Strong Medicine

May 14, 2015 By Michael Krivka 8 Comments

Kaizen Strong Medicine Lead Photo

Strong Medicine has over six hundred pages of text and illustrations that will dramatically change how you perceive nutrition, training, and how you can effectively manage the stressors in your lifestyle. The concepts and how they can be applied are laid out in such a manner that, with the some simple planning, discipline and implementation, you will have no choice but to be successful. This blog post is going to provide you with some tools and strategies that you can use in order to implement the concepts presented in Strong Medicine in such a way that you will not only succeed, but will be able to do so with the least amount of stress possible.

Change… Sucks!

Making drastic changes in your life does not lead to dramatic results–it usually leads to dismal failure and a lot of brow beating! Anyone who has made a New Year’s resolution only to have it crumble within a matter of weeks (or in some cases, a matter of hours) knows that making changes (big or small) in your life is hard to do. Everyone starts out with good intentions and a wealth of willpower only to see the good intentions crumble and the willpower dissolve like a puff of smoke at the first impasse. With all of these bad past experiences surrounding change, I’m sure you’re convinced that you can’t make any changes in your life and might as well just quit now. Wrong! Just because you failed in the past doesn’t mean you’ll fail this time–especially if you are honest with yourself about the plans and tools you need to succeed. So… how do you begin making changes? The same way you’d eat an elephant–one bite at a time!

Kaizen = Continual Improvement Kaizen Diagram

Kaizen is a Japanese term that has been borrowed by the business world. Roughly translated, it means “change for the better” or “continual improvement”. As a business major in college (many, many, many years ago) I learned about the concept of “Kaizen” and how it was successfully implemented in the Japanese automotive industry. Kaizen gave everyone–from the guy sweeping the floor to the VP in charge of making million dollar decisions–the power to change how things were done on a daily basis. In other words, the power was placed in the hands of those who could make the most difference. Since then, the concept of Kaizen has been applied to banking, healthcare, government and other areas where complicated processes need to be considered and improved to increase efficiency and consistent outcomes.

How does this apply to you and how will it impact the implementation of what you’ve learned from Strong Medicine? You need to develop a simple but effective plan for implementing the nutritional and training guidelines presented in Strong Medicine. Your plan should be created and executed in a way so that changes can be small, easily managed, and built upon. Remember that the best plans are the simplest effective ones that also have the latitude for change and modification on the fly.

NOTE: Understand that these plans are best implemented one at a time. Trying to make too many changes too soon and with too much accompanying stress will make this process a lot harder than necessary. With this in mind, I feel that the concepts behind Kaizen are the best common-sense approaches to implementing any nutrition, training or lifestyle modifications.

“Eat like an Adult”

Strong Medicine goes into great detail about what and how you should eat–and how those choices are will effect you over the short and long term. There are many scientific theories and big words involved–which can be daunting to some people–but you will need to absorb it to understand what Dr. Chris and Marty are trying to do. They successfully make many complex ideas and concepts simple to grasp, and that’s vitally important for the subjects of nutrition and training. I admire people who can take complex problems and explain solutions in simple terms everyone can understand. For example, when Dan John said, “Eat like an Adult” during a lecture a couple years ago, it really stuck with me. His comment was simple, direct and to the point. Those four words make choosing, preparing, and eating the right foods a lot easier! I know those four words help me get in the right mindset when I’m preparing, ordering, and even shopping for food.

Start with the Beginning Small Daily Improvements

“Eating like an Adult” will help you succeed with the Strong Medicine guidelines. But first you need to know where you stand. The easiest (and the most eye-opening) method I know is to keep a food log for ten days. (Before you start grumbling and groaning, hear me out–the food log will give you some great intel into what’s going on and how to fix it!) Keeping a food log is as simple as folding a piece of paper into sections, then writing down everything that goes in your mouth. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks, etc.–it all goes in the food log. Once you have all this information you’ll be able to create a baseline for what kind of food you are eating, how much you are eating, and what is missing from your diet. Remember, keep this as simple as possible and don’t stress out about what you are writing down. It’s just information you’ll use to create a plan!

Once you have ten days of information, what do you do with it? First, find the gaps in your nutrition. For example you might notice that during those 10 days the only time you ate any vegetables (not counting the lettuce and tomato on your hamburger) was with dinner. Over ten dinners you had a handful of salads, a couple baked potatoes (not to mention French fries), and several servings of broccoli. If that was the case, then introducing more vegetables into your evening meals AND including them as part of breakfast and lunch would be in order.

Getting Started

Does this sound like a big step and a major hassle? Not really! It just takes a little forethought and preparation and you’ll have it nailed. Prepare by having the food you need on hand, and by creating and using shopping lists. Your shopping list will guide you through the grocery store. For the most part you’ll stay in the periphery, where the vegetables, meat and dairy products are found. (Stay away from the middle of the store where the Mountain Dew and Fritos are located!) Grab your list and shop either once a week or several times a week, whichever is more comfortable or convenient for you. Remember, you’re only shopping for the things on your list! NOTE: if you don’t have a shopping list, you can Google “shopping list” for plenty to choose from and modify as needed.

Now that you have all this food in the kitchen, what do you do with it? Well, you will need to start making your own meals based on the nutrition gaps in your food log. It will be easy for the most part–in the above example, we simply need to increase the amount of veggies throughout the day. We need to make this change as simple as possible. Think about this: it only takes a minute or two to cut up some peppers or cucumbers and throw them into a plastic bag or Tupperware for later in the day. Grab some veggies and prep them for the day while you’re standing around waiting for your coffee to brew in the morning!

I can hear the whining and moaning already! “Veggies for breakfast and lunch? How am I going to do that?” Easily! Just add vegetables you like to meals you are already eating. Still confused? Here’s some ideas to help you jump start the process!

How to add vegetables to breakfast:

Add avocado and salsa to your scrambled eggs
While frying your eggs, sauté some spinach in bacon grease and serve it on the side or as a bed for the eggs
Warm up some sauerkraut for a tangy side (or kimchi for something spicy) with your eggs
Brown onions, tomatoes and mushrooms and make an omelet
Slice up some hard boiled eggs with ripe tomatoes
Slice red or yellow peppers, clean out any seeds and whatnot. Put the slices in a frying pan and add an egg inside the gap for peppers and eggs over easy
Grab a container full of sliced veggies (that you prepared the night before) and a container of yogurt for a quick and easy breakfast on the go
Chop bacon into bite-size pieces and toss them in a frying pan. Add onions and peppers then simmer everything together. Drain the excess oil, then toss the bacon and vegetables on top of scrambled or poached eggs

Small Steps Lead to Big Results

I guarantee that if you take a little time and mental energy and apply it to filling in the gaps of your nutrition, it will pay huge benefits in the short and long term. I’m not proposing massive changes. On the contrary, I think the best and most effective way to ensure your success is by making small changes that you can easily adjust to before moving onto the next step. Remember what you learned in Strong Medicine about how stress (in all its forms) adversely affects the body. Adding stress by making big changes in your nutrition will be counter-productive. Keep the concepts of Kaizen in the forefront of your mind–small changes leading to big results–and you will not stress out at all!

NOTE: The training for life guidelines will be in part two of this blog post. In the meantime, I want you to start improving your nutrition. Small increases in nutrients will have a major impact on how you feel and move. By getting your nutrition plan in place now, you will establish the foundation for a successful training program.

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Editor’s Note:

Where the Strong Medicine book is the template for lifestyle change and taking charge of your health, Mike has the beginnings of a Strong Medicine Operational Manual with this first post. The philosophy of Kaizen melds so well with our philosophy of lifestyle change that I am kicking myself for not including it the book, but this is why I try to surround myself with talented people like Mike Krivka.

In keeping with the mission of the blog for a two-way exchange of information, please share your perspective on lifestyle change in keeping with the Kaizen philosophy. Fantastic job, Mike!