Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans podcast. This is episode 45. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with the protein deficient vegan. Do you want to say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:07

Hello.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:08

Hi, everybody. This week, we're going to talk about how to improve your sleep environment. And then we'll also cover our myth of the week this week, which is that for lifting weights, high reps tone and low reps bulk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:19

I've heard that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:20

Yeah, I think that's pretty common. So we'll talk about it. But first up, new news. New news. So the first piece of news we have is that a Swiss court ruled that the word milk cannot be used on plant-based products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:33

That's so stupid.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:34

Yeah, it's really kind of silly. I guess they said also you can't use variants of the word milk, like M-Y-L-K, or one of the products that was involved in the lawsuit actually used M-Asterisk-L-K. It was kind of like, I can't believe it's not butter. I think it was called like, this is not milk with a star, something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:51

I just feel like this is so dumb because if it says oat in front of it, I'm going to assume that doesn't come from a cow. So I don't really know how it's taking business away from dairy milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01

No, I agree. I don't know who's like being impacted here. People just go into the milk aisle and grab things randomly. I don't get it really. Like every other food in a grocery store, you have to read the label and see what it is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14

So where's the confusion even come in here?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:16

Right. And it's like, are they going to come after cheese and like chicken, plant-based meat?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23

Right. And then how does like coconut milk and stuff roll into this?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26

Yeah, because coconut milk's been around for a while.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:28

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:29

So. It just doesn't make sense to me. I don't really see how it's harming anyone. Yeah. I don't know. The dairy industries are wild the way they can lobby for the dumbest shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:39

Yeah. So, anyway, yeah, that is the new Swiss law, apparently.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:44

Nice.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:44

Yeah. Next up, Impossible Foods was ordered to pay an endurance influencer just over $3 million for trademark infringement.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:53

Yeah, I saw this. I think it's a non-vegan endurance influencer, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:57

Yeah, I think so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:59

You don't mess around with trademarks.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:00

Yeah. So, I guess he had been using Impossible as a brand name for a little while. Yeah. And then Impossible Foods came around, and he ended up sending them a cease and desist. And he was like, only use, you can only use Impossible for like plant-based food because I don't make those, whatever. But then I guess they expanded and it kind of turned into a lawsuit. And a jury decided that Impossible did kind of intentionally infringe on his trademark and awarded him.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:23

Yeah, that feels like a little bit icky, you know, just because like you're a smaller like influencer and then this large brand is going to come and just like, like you already filed for trademark and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:34

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:35

Not that I'm like siding with non-vegan influencers, but like, I don't know. We have protein-efficient vegan trademarked and I'd be pretty pissed if a company came out and started trying to use it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:45

Yeah. And apparently Impossible was aware of his trademark and they had filed, I guess, before a lawsuit to try to basically hijack it and say they had superior rights to it and that it

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:54

Worked out for them. Oh, that's shitty. Yeah. Impossible is not even that good of a name. Just come up with a different name, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:00

Right. So, yeah. They had a different name. They actually changed to Impossible.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:03

Oh, I remember this. Yeah, what was their original name? It wasn't very good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:08

Noxolotl, something like that,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:10

I think. Oxolotl?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:11

Something like that. It was something really strange.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:14

Yeah. I don't know. I feel like Impossible's not even that good of a name to get in a battle over. Yeah. Lots of good name options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:21

Yeah, especially, I don't know. It's kind of the trend of starting your company as a single word. You have to know you're going to run into trouble at some point.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:29

Oh, for sure. You know, one that's not very popular that I like is Unmeat. They sell like those canned meats. I think that's kind of fun, Unmeat. Yeah. I also think, like, beyond isn't the greatest.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:42

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:43

I don't know. It doesn't really tell me what you're doing. Right. I feel like there are better words you could have used.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:49

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, good for that guy. You know, trademarks are good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:52

Get your money.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:53

And he went through all the trouble to file a trademark way before this impossible thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:56

Yeah. I think it's kind of, like, shitty that they had already gotten a warning from him and then, like, intentionally went and broke it because they thought they... had a bigger dick they could swing, I guess.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:06

Yeah. Jury agreed, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:08

You reap what you sow.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:10

And then last up, there's a company called Plant Ahead that made a new vegan fresh mozzarella. So they've been making a, I guess, normal mozzarella. I don't know what the opposite of fresh mozzarella is. But a normal mozzarella for about a year now. And they were working with a bunch of pizzerias. I think they said they had it in like 30 different pizza shops. And it was really well received. So now they've made a fresh mozzarella, which there was a quote in the article that said, we're the first company with a vegan fresh mozzarella

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:35

Yeah which they're definitely not because we we buy cheese and thank you's fresh mozzarella and whole foods which is really good by the way yeah and it's chicago based so we're always excited to support her right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:47

Yeah and even in the article it said that there's other companies doing this in europe already it's kind of new to america but we've definitely

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:53

Seen it i mean yeah maybe cheese and thank you is just a smaller company so they didn't think about that but they they are in whole foods yeah um but if you're wondering what fresh mozzarella is it's like the ones in the ball yeah the ball mozzarella, the fresh mozzarella is like a little softer yeah yeah it's the mozzarella they use on like a margarita pizza right the the dollops yeah the dollops margaritas i love margarita pizzas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:18

Speaking of dollops of mozzarella uh you know we're near chicago and we just tried a pizza place in chicago that we hadn't tried before because we didn't realize they had vegan pizza and it is demos

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:27

It's so good they have.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:29

Really good dollops of vegan

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:31

Mozzarella oh my god okay there's been a kitchen 17 sized hole in my heart since they closed which was.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:38

Another vegan pizzeria in chicago

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:40

And this is like kind of filling it yeah it's really good and they have a i think they have a couple restaurants so if you're in chicago it's good it's not a fully vegan restaurant but they have a whole vegan menu pretty extensive menu yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:52

Kitchen was like the deep dish style pizza

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:55

It reminds me of Sbarro, like mall floppy pizza.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:59

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:00

It's thin floppy crust. Yeah. And it's really good. And they make their own, it's like house-made vegan burrata. I think it's cashew-based. Yeah. Anyways, if you're ever in Chicago, you should go to Demos.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:12

Yeah. Okay. So let's get into the main segment here, which is about improving your sleep environment. Now, this is mostly around like actually where you sleep and not necessarily habits leading up to sleep, although there is a little bit of that included. First of all, why would you even care about improving your sleep?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:27

I mean, me, I think sleep's pretty important.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:30

Yeah. It definitely feels important, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:33

It does, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:34

I do like sleeping.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:35

I love sleeping.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:37

Mm-hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:37

I love it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:40

So there are a lot of reasons. One of the big ones is that chronic lack of sleep, and lack of sleep is considered less than six or seven hours every night.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:46

I think that's for men, because I've seen recent stuff saying that women actually need more sleep than men. But, you know, we don't study women, so this is new information.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:54

Right. Well, if you're a woman getting six to six hours, you're definitely in chronic lack of sleep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:59

Yeah, you're so screwed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:01

But that is associated with higher risk of many diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and then just generally all cause mortality, which means like dying in any way, basically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:14

Dying earlier.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:15

Yeah. Yeah. It also can impair your immune function. There was a couple of studies that people with the chronic lack of sleep were four times as likely to catch a cold when they were exposed to a cold.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:27

That's crazy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:28

Yeah. This also extends to a vaccine response. So if you have chronic lack of sleep, vaccines won't work as well for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:34

Wow. That's crazy. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:36

It's really important. Huh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:39

I never knew that. Every time I get a vaccine, though, especially the new COVID ones, they knock me out for a few days. So I'm definitely getting sleep when I'm getting my COVID vaccine.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:50

Yeah. Lack of sleep also causes cognitive impairment. So things like working memory, decision making, reaction time and emotional regulation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:57

You know, what's funny about this is like, so I've worked at refineries and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:02

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:03

And, you know, the hourly workforce is on 12 hour shifts, but it really ends up being like a 12 and a half to a 13 hour shifts with handover and whatnot. And then you have like commute time. Yeah. But this has always blown my mind because it's like, you're making your hourly workforce basically have like 14 hours total of like commuting and being at work. And then they have like no time to get actual sleep and they're performing these like super important functions to prevent huge safety events. And I'm just like, why are we on 12 hour shifts?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:33

I think that happens with hospital staff too. Yeah. Long shifts back to back.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:36

Oh yeah. Yeah. It's like, why are we doing this to all these important jobs? Especially because like they're also swapping between night shift and day shift and all that stuff. Yeah. Anyway, corporate greed is real. Yeah. Continue.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:48

There was a study that showed even just restricting to just six hours of sleep, which I bet a lot of people listening to this think six hours of sleep. That's like good. That's normal. That's what I sleep. So six hours of sleep produced a cognitive deficit, which basically means like your ability to think that was comparable to being legally drunk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:06

That's crazy. That's really crazy. Yeah. I think also like a lot of parents. Yeah. They're not getting a lot of sleep. For sure. Wow.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:14

Yeah. Very impactful.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:16

This is why we're not having kids. I like sleep too much.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:21

And then long term, there's an association with accelerated cognitive decline and even Alzheimer's. Wow. So it can be really like chronic lack of sleep over time potentially could lead to Alzheimer's.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:32

Yeah. Okay. So I think we've established you should be getting your sleep, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:37

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:37

Now, how does napping work? Does that add to the hours or does that not really count?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:43

I think it helps. I think it's better so that you really want to get like deep sleep. So as long as you can get into deep sleep and a nap, I think it's good. Yeah. I remember reading once like if you're going to nap, try to do like 45 to 50 minutes to make sure you make it through all the sleep cycles.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:56

Okay. So. Well, I don't have trouble with napping for 45 or 50 minutes. It's more of like, can I keep in under two hours?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:02

Yeah. It's definitely better than not napping if you're running behind on sleep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:07

Did your parents ever nap when you were kids?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:10

No, I don't think so, actually. Really? Yeah, mine were always up and at it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:13

My dad is like a prolific Sunday afternoon napper. Yeah. Like, that was like his thing. Like, there was always going to be a nap on a Sunday afternoon.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:21

I don't think my parents ever napped. Really? I'm trying to think. I can't remember a time where my parents ever took a nap.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:26

That's so funny. Because I remember it was like every Sunday my dad was like taking a nap and we were all like, be quiet. Dad's taking a nap. And now I'm like, no, I get that. Yeah. I get napping now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:37

I think in a lot of cultures it's the norm. I just, and I'm sure a lot of people here do it, but I just, you know, I've never been a big napper either. Maybe it's just because of our family never took a nap, so I never really got in the habit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:46

I'm a big fan of naps.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:50

Yeah. And then kind of the last, the last reason, the last set of reasons you should care about improving your sleep are for exercise recovery and muscle building. Now, these are a little less important than, you know, Alzheimer's.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:02

Cognitive function.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:03

Vascular disease.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:04

Not walking around like you're drunk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:06

It's still important. So when you sleep, growth hormone is released during deep sleep. And growth hormone helps with tissue repair, muscle protein synthesis, which basically means creating new muscle tissue, and fat metabolism, which is how your body lets go of the fat to burn it off. So all those things are helped by the growth hormone that's released during deep sleep. So if you're not getting enough deep sleep specifically, then some of those things are going to be impaired. Sleep restriction also causes a drop in testosterone for men. you have more muscle breakdown with sleep restriction. So your muscles are kind of constantly in a state of like adding muscle tissue and breaking down muscle tissue. And so if you're in a deficit, as you're losing weight, you're trying to make sure that you're not losing any more muscle tissue than you need to. So make sure muscle weight you're losing is coming from fat. So if you're missing out on sleep, more of that weight loss could be coming from muscle mass and not from the fat where you want it to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:02

That would suck if you're working out. Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:05

Also, kind of obviously, probably this is the most common thing people see if they're actually working out is it causes reduced training performance. Yeah. So if you're not getting a lot of sleep, you're not doing very well in the gym, your strength is down, how fast you get tired is, you know, worse, your reaction time is worse, which can also lead to increased injury risk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:23

Oh, yeah, I can see that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:24

Yeah. Reaction time and then something called proprioception, which is basically you know where your body parts are and what they're doing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:30

What a big word. Yeah. I've never heard anyone use that word. Yeah. Did you have to look up the definition? Did you know this word?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:36

I knew that word. So that was part of the personal training courses or whatever. So I've heard of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:42

Sounds like they could shorten it. I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:43

Yeah. It's basically, I know what my arm's doing. But you have less reaction time and you're less aware of your body. So you increase your injury risk. They said there was a study that said sleeping less than eight hours was associated with a 1.7 times more likely to get injured.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:58

Wow. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:59

That's pretty significant. Yep. And then the last thing is worse delayed onset muscle soreness. So when your muscles get sore after a workout and slower recovery between sessions. So sleep, very important for trying to keep your gym progress up. So you can make it to every session without being injured or tired or sore, whatever.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:16

Well, let me ask you this question. Yeah. Okay. As a personal trainer, like there are a lot of people that wake up first thing in the morning and they go work out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:24

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:25

What if you went to bed like two to three hours late? would you say skip that session and sleep in and get the extra sleep or what would you what would you say.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:32

Yeah i guess it depends on if it's a one-time thing i would definitely probably say that like get to sleep um but if it's something that's like a habit i'm not sure i mean you have to be working out and if that's the only time you can work out

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:46

You're going to choose working out over getting good sleep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:49

No, I mean, I guess if you're in a position where you're like, do I sleep or do I never work out? I think the sleep is the more important thing for your overall health. And then you just, I guess you just never work out. I don't know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:59

That's interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:59

You have to try to be active as you can. But if you can't actually go to the gym and get in a session because it would cut three hours out of your sleep every night, then I don't think that's a good trade off.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:07

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:07

Yeah. Yeah, hopefully you don't end up in that position.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:11

Yeah, I don't know. I just think of people on shift work. I feel like, or like people with kids, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:15

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:15

Where they just don't have much free time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:17

That's hard. I don't think the benefit of a gym session would make up for like sleeping that much less on a regular basis. Yeah. But I'm not 100% sure. I wouldn't think so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:27

Interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:27

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:28

Something to ponder. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:30

So now that you know why you should care about sleep a little bit, let's talk about some of the things in the sleep environment that you can control and, you know, how they affect your sleep. So the first big one is light. some of the things you want to try to do now this one is a little bit of behavior is minimize screen use or blue light use right before you go to bed and the reason for that is that blue light specifically suppresses your melatonin production melatonin is kind of what makes you get tired and know when you're going to go to sleep so if you're looking at blue light for a couple of hours before you go to bed your melatonin production doesn't really start ramping up until you stop looking at the blue light and so you get tired later basically

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:09

Hmm. I can be watching TV and get tired always.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:12

Yeah. I mean, it's not shutting it down. It's just depressing it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:16

My melatonin production must be high.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:20

So yeah, minimize screens. Some electronics have the option to remove blue light at a certain time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:25

Yeah, make sure your screen look kind of like weirdly orangey red.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:28

Yeah. So that can help. You can also use blue light blocker glasses, but these are kind of...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:34

A gimmick, man.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:35

They're a little bit of a gimmick because a lot of the ones they sell are basically clear lenses, which don't really block a lot of blue light. And they're actually mostly sold for like eye strain and stuff, which they don't actually have a lot of evidence for.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:46

Yeah. No, I've tried some before. Yeah. Didn't see much of a difference.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:50

Yeah. So the one good thing they might be used for is sleep, but you actually have to get the kind that are like pretty, pretty amber or amber or like an orange. So it's like it really changes the tone, kind of like what the screen does.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:02

And I know you young people aren't getting those because I've only ever seen men over like 60 wearing those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:08

So if you are going to try to use those for your blue light blocking at night, they have to be like the actual amber lens.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:14

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:16

Also in rooms you use after sunset, you can use warm tones on your lights, which is if you look on a light bulb case, they have like the temperature. Make sure it's under 2700 K to be a warm light. So that'll help you feel like you're, you know, more ready to go to sleep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:29

Yeah we have christmas lights hooked up to like um an alexa switch yeah and those are warm lights yeah so we turn those on at night and.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:38

Then last uh pretty common i think people know about this is use blackout curtains or sleep

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:42

Masks oh yeah blackout curtains come in clutch especially if you're you know sleeping during the day working night shift or something yeah and.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:50

Apparently even like one led in a room is enough to kind of throw you off a little bit

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:54

So that's interesting yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:57

Um, next up is temperature. So controlling the temperature in the room, uh, cooler temperatures improve sleep quality and duration.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:05

Oh, I believe that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:06

So ideally you would want the room to be around 65 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:11

Yeah. Yeah. Which we do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:13

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:13

Now growing up, my dad, he got cold, like he got really cold cause he worked in a factory, which was hot all the time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:19

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:20

So he like, especially in the winter, he would like crank the heat up to where it was like, I don't know like mid 70s in the house yeah and I could not sleep with it that hot and so I'd wait till he was asleep and open my window a crack even though it was like snowing outside, so I could fall asleep because it was so hot yeah so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:45

Interesting that you mentioned your dad works in a factory so he liked it a little warmer but research has shown your body doesn't actually get used to sleeping hotter. Really? Yeah. So even if you feel like you're more comfortable, you're getting less quality sleep at those temperatures.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:59

That's why he likes Sunday naps.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:00

Yeah. What I saw was basically people in countries where it's warmer and they don't have air conditioning, stuff like that, they basically just continuously have impaired sleep because of the high temperatures and they never really get used to it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:12

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:13

So it's interesting. There's kind of a trick you can do with a warm shower or a warm bath. There was a big meta analysis that showed that a warm shower or bath and warm by their terms means 104 to 109 degrees fahrenheit which is like 40 to 42 and a half celsius uh one to two hours before bedtime significantly shortened uh basically how long it takes you to fall asleep that's interesting yeah i

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:37

Fall asleep in less than five minutes so i don't think i've ever picked up on any of.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:41

This i don't think everybody's quite that lucky so i am lucky if you're somebody that takes a long time to fall asleep, maybe try a warm shower an hour or two before bed. The shower can be as short as 10 minutes. It doesn't need to be a long, drawn-out thing. Basically, the warm water dilates your blood vessels in your hands and your feet, reducing the temperature in your core. Hmm. Which is similar to the way we talked about on the last podcast about how glycine helps. So, kind of the same mechanism.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:07

Interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:07

Some ways to adjust the temperature in your room. So, you can use fans. This also doubles as white noise. And it's also good for places that don't have, like, central air conditioning. You can use cotton or linen bedding to make sure you stay cool. Open a window is a big one and also good for something we're going to talk about here in a second. Separate blankets if you sleep with a partner.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:28

Dude, this one, this one's a good one. Yeah. We've been sleeping with separate blankets forever because I require a very warm blanket and you do not.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:36

Right. I basically don't need a blanket.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:38

You just like want a sheet essentially.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:40

And then there's also some technology if you want to go that route. There's the eight sleep bed thing where you can basically put it over the bed and then you can set the temperatures differently on different sides of the bed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:51

I know this is expensive, but this is my favorite thing in our entire house.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:55

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:56

It is just the greatest invention of all time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:58

Yeah, it's really interesting. It'll adjust. It'll kind of like smart adjust overnight to your body temperature. And also it does like heart rate and respiration and stuff. And it kind of adapts. And then it also adapts to the room temperature. Um, so it can kind of keep you in the sweet spot of the sleep zone all night long.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:14

Yeah. And it'll give you information on how your sleep was and stuff. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:17

So you could go that route. If you're in an environment where you like, you can't get the room cooler, no matter what you do, you can't really open the windows for whatever reason.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:24

Yeah. Or like you're sleeping with someone and they're completely different than you. Cause like, basically I think you keep yours kind of cold, but like, I have to get mine warm because we keep the room cold and then I'm like dying.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:36

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:37

I'm like freezing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:38

Yeah. And a general rule of thumb for the temperature of the room is if the room feels comfortable when you're just standing around in it, it's probably too warm for sleep. You should feel a little cold when you're just standing around in there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:50

Yeah. That thing is expensive, though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:52

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:53

But if it broke tomorrow, I'd buy it again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:56

Yeah, it is definitely expensive.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:57

I require it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:00

Mattresses are pretty expensive, too. But I heard something once that was don't be afraid to spend money on things that go between you and the floor, like chairs, shoes, tires, beds.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:08

Especially you're sleeping one third of your entire life. So like you'd probably want it to be pretty okay. Right. I don't know. Like if it's something you're doing 33% of the time, like think of all the stuff you spend money on that you're maybe really spending like 2% of your life doing and you're willing to spend a bunch of money on that. And it's like sleep is probably more worth it than most things.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:29

Yeah, for sure. Um, another factor that could affect sleep that doesn't get talked about as much as actually the air quality. So a lot of bedrooms, especially in older homes are not well ventilated. So two people in a closed bedroom, um, can increase the carbon dioxide overnight to something like 2000 to 3000 parts per million, which you don't have a frame reference for that is like too high for a room. Uh, outdoor levels, if you're just outside is like right at 400 parts per million carbon dioxide. Uh, so if your room is, you know, six times that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:00

Maybe not amazing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:01

Not great, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:02

You should have less oxygen in the air.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:04

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:05

Did you just put plants in your room?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:06

No. Specifically, they tried that and said that basically does nothing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:10

What? Yeah. What if I put a lot of plants in my room?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:13

They said that it does not work.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:15

Wow. Yeah. That's really interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:17

I saw that specifically mentioned.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:19

Maybe because humans breathe out way more CO2 than plants breathe out oxygen? Yeah, maybe. Interesting. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:25

So there was a 2016 study that showed that sleep quality was objectively better at 600 parts per million, which is a little higher than outside, than it was at 2,500 parts per million. And 2,500 was kind of the common for a normal, not ventilated room, two people. If you have some animals, it's probably even higher. Some ways you can adjust for this are, the best one is just open a window, even just a little bit. That's the easiest and best way to kind of balance out the CO2. You can also keep your bedroom door open to improve airflow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:55

You can't keep your bedroom door open because monsters.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:58

Right. You can also use a fan to circulate the air. This doesn't really help much if the door or window are both closed, but it's better than nothing. Because really, you're just circulating it in the same room. Yeah. You're not doing a whole lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:09

I'm recirculating the 2,500 part per million air.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:12

Right. If your house has an air conditioning heating system that pulls in air from the outside.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:17

Yeah, like an external intake.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:18

Yeah. Then you're probably fine. You're not going to really have this issue. but that's mostly only a thing in kind of newer construction so

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:24

Yeah this may also not be a thing if you're like in an apartment yeah yeah for sure.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:30

And then you can just get a little CO2 monitor to check the room and measure any adjustments and see how it is. They're actually not that cheap. I think they're like $25 for a little monitor. But if you just want to get it and make sure you're in good shape.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:43

That actually seems pretty cheap to me. We used to wear around these personal H2S monitors and it would monitor other things as well. But those things were like well over $1,000.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:52

Oh, at work?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:53

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:54

Yeah, that's crazy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:55

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:56

I guess it's good to know if you're going to die, though.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:58

Yeah. Yeah, because like hydrogen sulfide. H2S, it smells like, if it's in lower amounts, it smells like eggs. Like you get this eggy smell, but like basically your nose stops smelling it almost immediately. Oh, wow. And also, I think if it's over a certain amount, you maybe like don't really smell it at all anyways, and then you just like die.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:19

Yeah, nobody wants that. $1,000, small price to pay for that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:23

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:24

Yeah. So, that's one thing you might look at if you, and I would really only even think about this if you know that you're in kind of an enclosed room, you don't get a lot of fresh airflow, you know, you close the door, stuff like that. Maybe think about it. If you don't have any of those things, this is probably not an issue for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:40

Or if your sleep is just amazing. Yeah, sure. Maybe you don't care. Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:45

Um, then another one is the noise. So even small noises can cause something called a micro arousal where you kind of wake up a little bit,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:52

Even if you don't. A micro arousal? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:57

Sounds like Friday night. But that can disrupt your sleep a little bit, even if you don't notice it. The most common fix for this is a white noise machine or a loud fan. Or we also use like sleep stories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:10

Oh man, I love sleep stories. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:12

That doesn't help all night long though. No. That's just to help you fall asleep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:14

We have the fan, and then we do thunder sounds all night, and then a sleep story.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:19

Yeah. It's like a whole thing. We have a ritual. Earplugs can also be good, but make sure you use either the single-use foam ones or clean, reusable ones pretty regularly. Yeah. You can get, like, an ear infection. But overall, as long as you're using clean ones, it's pretty safe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:36

Yeah. I always feel like when I've had to use earplugs for sleep, they always make my ears hurt.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:43

Yeah. I've tried it once or twice and they hurt my ears too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:45

It's like eight hours of having those in your ear. And I have my tragus pierced, so like earplugs in general don't feel amazing in my ears. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:53

Also, if your partner is snoring loudly, that can be disruptive.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:56

Yeah. So punch them in the face.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:58

Could be a sign of sleep apnea. So if your partner really snores a lot, you should probably have them go to the doctor because they could have sleep apnea. And if you have sleep apnea and you go get treated for it, it's going to change your life. So I would recommend that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:11

You would know, right? Yeah, plus like sleep apnea, you stop breathing, right? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:17

In the middle of the night. You basically, sleep apnea is basically you suffocate 20 to 30 times a night for a couple of seconds at a time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:24

Yeah, that's probably not amazing for your sleep. Yeah. I wouldn't think.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:27

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:28

Not great. Also snoring is really loud. Yeah. I think like snoring is, makes me more angry than almost anything. Like if I hear someone snoring, I'm like, It takes everything in me to not be homicidal. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm like, okay, okay, I can do this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:48

And then something else for noise is you can use rugs, curtains, and soft furniture to absorb sound. This mostly only helps with inside sounds, like if you've got, you know, creaky pipes or stuff going on in your house. But it can help a little bit with outside sounds.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:02

Speaking of outside sounds, our neighbor, he has an above-ground pool, and it's not full of water. And we had a huge windstorm. And so now it's like completely dislodged and crumpled, like the lining yanked out. And like now the pool is crumpled. And so it's just like loose sheet metal. And every time the wind hits, it sounds like the craziest thunderstorm ever. And this has been like four weeks. And it does disrupt my sleep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:30

Yeah, it's woken me up a couple of times. It sucks. Sucks for a fool. Hopefully he gets it figured out.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:38

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:38

And then a couple of things that aren't really environment related, just really briefly, I wouldn't use caffeine after like somewhere around noon to 2 p.m. This really depends on your sleep time. So the real rule is coffee should be at least nine hours before bed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:51

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:52

So this is kind of dependent on the dose of caffeine. So something like a pre-workout, they say should really be like 13 to 14 hours before bed, which if you do the math on that, sounds like you probably shouldn't use a pre-workout with caffeine too much.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:04

Unless you're working out first thing in the morning, I guess. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:07

And so, you know, I stopped using caffeine quite a long time ago, and it definitely helps with, like, my sleep regulation, I've noticed. But, yeah, I mean, technically, the dose they have in a lot of pre-workouts, the half-life one, it takes almost 14 hours to get out of your system. And the thing about caffeine is, like, even if you can fall asleep, the caffeine is still, like, keeping you from getting into the deeper sleep. Right. So, a lot of people, most people probably, like, have caffeine all day and, like, even into the evening. And they're like, I fall asleep fine. I sleep fine. Well, it's like your sleep is really impaired a little bit. You just don't know it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:38

So, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:40

Um, also a consistent sleep schedule helps a lot with, uh, you know, your sleep quality. So just falling asleep around the same time every night, getting up around the same time every morning, even on the weekends, if it doesn't sound miserable to you, uh, can really help with the quality of your sleep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:56

And then, like, there were a couple of supplements, right, that'll, like, help you kind of fall asleep easier. Like, magnesium is one of them, isn't it?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:06

Yeah, potentially. The ones we talked about last time were, like, magnesium with glycine, magnesium glycinate, that can help potentially with sleep. L-theanine can kind of promote relaxation. Ashwagandha can kind of help with sleep. I think they're all, like, on the study front, they're like, eh, it kind of sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't. It really depends on the person. And sometimes it doesn't seem like it does anything. But, you know, I use them. They seem to help me at least fall asleep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:30

I feel like I notice a difference when I'm taking magnesium and when I'm not taking magnesium.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:34

Yeah. So there are a couple of things like that that can, you know, you can use. If you're having a little bit of trouble falling asleep, maybe just mess around with some stuff that's not, you know, risky or anything.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:42

What are your thoughts on, like, fitness trackers that give you sleep data? Do you think that's useful for, like, troubleshooting?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:50

I think it's useful for a couple of things. I know one of the big things people have when they start wearing a sleep tracker is they notice how much even a little bit of alcohol really wrecks their sleep. So if you're somebody that drinks, that could be pretty eye-opening for you. And I guess also like if you're somebody who drinks caffeine pretty late in the day, I bet you'd see some of those similar trends. So that could be helpful. But in general, like if you feel like your sleep's okay, it's probably not doing much for you to track your sleep. But it could be helpful. Maybe you're having like wake-ups you don't know about. It is helpful from the standpoint of usually gives you, if you're tracking your sleep metrics and stuff, it will usually give you a day or two morning if you're getting sick. That's true, yeah. Your body temperature goes up, your heart rate goes up, your respiration rate goes up, and then most of those devices or apps will flag you and say, hey, something's going on here. And then that's usually an indication that you're,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:38

You know, sick. But it does give you, like... how many hours in light sleep and then deep and then REM sleep, that kind of stuff. I don't know how accurate that is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:48

It's pretty accurate. It's just a matter of like, how much of that can you control? And you can do, like, if you notice you're not getting a lot of deep sleep or you notice you have a lot of wake-ups throughout the night, then maybe you can try some of these things and see if any of them make that better, like lower the temperature in the room. And you're like, oh, suddenly my sleep score has gone up 10 points, something like that. So it can definitely help with troubleshooting some stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:06

Yeah, because I feel like there's like different things that could be making your sleep not great, whether it's like how long it takes you to fall asleep, which is probably a separate issue than some of these other things. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:15

The flip side of that is I've read some things that seem to say like the tracking your sleep score actually gives you a little bit of anxiety that makes your sleep worse. Oh, that's crazy. Because you'll wake up and you'll be like, oh, I feel like I slept really good. And you look at your score and it's like 30. Yeah. And you're like, oh, I guess I didn't sleep good. And then you're like stressed on the next night, but like, oh, I want to really sleep good tonight. So apparently there's like an actual mental impact there of using those in some

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:40

Cases that's funny um as as a woman i've never trusted them because my resting heart rate actually drops like about six to eight beats per minute like right before my period yeah so when i'm like most tired because it's my time of the month my sleep score is always super high because my resting heart rate's really low and i'm like Like, you're a freaking liar. I'm exhausted. I always just think that's funny. Like, I guess they haven't figured that out yet for some reason, but that's a thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:10

Or maybe it just really does give you better sleep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:13

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:16

All right. That's pretty much it. To summarize some of the kind of actionable takeaways here, cool down the room, 65 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit, 18 to 20 Celsius, maybe with a fan, open window, or lighter bedding, something like that. You can do that really cheaply. Make it darker, blackout curtains or a sleep mask. Use warm tone lights in the room. Try to ventilate the room, open a window, open a door to keep the carbon dioxide down. Keep the noise interruptions out. So with a white noise machine or a fan, or if you have like really specific issues, or maybe you're like third shift and you have noise issues, earplugs could be a good way to go. And then try the warm shower one to two hours before bed for about 10 minutes at 104 to 109 degrees Fahrenheit. Not that you have a shower thermometer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:58

It feels cold to me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:00

Well, yeah. Your idea of a warm shower is whatever the maximum of the hot water heater is. Molten lava.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:08

Yeah. We did turn up the water heater to account for how hot I need a shower.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:13

Yeah. And now I have to try not to burn myself for some reason. I don't know. Your skin is different than anybody else's skin for some reason. And you can do kind of the top four things on the list for under $50. So this is not something you have to invest a lot of money into. It's just little tweaks you can make here and there. That's a better return on investment than anything you're going to find in like the supplement.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:36

Oh, yeah. That's true. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:39

All right. So let's get into our myth of the week this week, which is that high reps tone and low reps bulk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:46

This is what they tell women.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:48

Yeah. So there's a general thought process of like... toning muscle, which I guess a lot of people think, you think of like long, lean muscles.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:58

Like Pilates body is like what the vibe is, right? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:03

So, I mean, like toning isn't really a thing, but when you're thinking of, like when you think of tone, everybody knows kind of like what you're talking about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:09

It means that you have low fad, but you don't have any muscles that are like definable.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:14

Basically. It's like your muscle isn't like...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:16

You look like you eat, but not that you work out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:18

Yeah. There you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:19

No, wait. You look like you don't eat, but you also don't work out. That's what toned looks like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:25

Right. And then low reps, bulk, means like people think that if you do lower reps, which is heavier weights, then you're going to turn into like a power lifter, bodybuilder type.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:34

Yeah, they really like to scare women with this one. Yeah. Like, don't lift or you're going to get so bulky.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:39

Which is crazy. Because that's like saying, don't go outside and go for a run and you'll end up in the Olympics.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:45

Don't read or you'll end up in Mensa.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:47

Right. So high reps, tone, low reps, bulk is pretty much entirely nonsense. The studies show that anything between five-ish reps and 30-ish reps is pretty much equivalently effective for building muscle, as long as you're within a couple reps of failure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:02

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:03

So with the high reps, tone thing, what a lot of people will do is they'll get a very lightweight. They'll do high reps, but they won't be anywhere near failure. So they're just not really building muscle.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:11

If you're only using a two-pound dumbbell, you can do 5,000 reps, and you're probably still not close to failure because that's just like lifting your arm. Yeah. But that's what they have us doing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:21

Yeah. And, I mean, that basically turns it into kind of a slightly weighted cardio session is all it really does.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:26

Oh, yeah. I've always felt that way about a lot of girl workout.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:28

You're burning a lot of body fat. You're also burning some muscle because you're not really building muscle. Mm-hmm. So that lean look, in a lot of cases, is like just low muscle mass and low body fat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:38

Yeah. So, yeah. Which, wayfish look is back, apparently. What is that? Like, you know, like the look of being emaciated seems to be trending in Hollywood.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:47

Yeah, that's unfortunate.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:48

So we need to stop that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:50

Makes me uncomfortable.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:51

Makes me uncomfortable, too. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:53

Um, yeah, so high reps tone, low reps bulk is, is not a thing. Um, five to 30 reps does pretty much the same thing. Just get all your sets close to failure. So if you want to use a heavier weights, you'll use lower reps. If you want to use lighter weights or you're like your dumbbells only go so high, shoot for higher reps, but always make sure you're getting, you know, a real challenge and, and you're only two to three reps away from not being able to do the thing anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:16

Yeah. And even lifting heavy will not make you bulky.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:20

No.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:20

And being strong is cool. Yeah. You don't want to be weak as a girl.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:25

Especially for a female because you just biologically put on muscle flow. So, I mean, you would really have to do everything perfectly for several, several years and intentionally try to build muscle to get anywhere near, like, the thing you think of in your mind as a bulky woman.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:42

And honestly, since it's so slow, you will notice if you're getting to where you don't like. And then you can adjust your course if you're like, oh, no. oh, no, I've put on 80 pounds of muscle, which would never happen, by the way.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:55

Yeah, that's another thing that's always been interesting to me is, like, it's not going to happen in two weeks. So, like, you're 18 months in, two years in, and you're like, okay, I'm getting, like, a little more muscle than I want. Just stop.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:06

Yeah. The patriarchy wants you to be weak. So do the opposite of that. There you go.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:13

Yeah. So I think that is pretty much it for this week. if you could, you know, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That really helps us out. Also, you can leave comments on Spotify and YouTube. We like seeing those as well. And then we have our Deficient Vegans Discord, which is linked in the show notes along with our Instagrams and the websites and all that stuff. So come chat with us in the Discord. We'd like to hang out with you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:35

If you have any questions about sleep, send him a message.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:39

Or jump in the Discord. We can all talk about it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:41

Oh, yeah. We like talking about sleep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:43

Yeah. All right. I think that's it. You want to say bye? Bye. Bye, everybody.