Why I Pray When I Can't Sleep | Andrew Huberman — Transcript

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1. 0:00Assuming that you go to sleep sometime
2. 0:01between 10:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. You're
3. 0:05students after all, most of you. Um
4. 0:08please don't don't believe any thoughts
5. 0:10that you have between uh 2:30 a.m. and
6. 0:13and uh the time that Arthur uh referred
7. 0:16to. Just don't Just Just Just don't
8. 0:18believe those thoughts. It's a great
9. 0:20time to pray. I I'm serious. Like I Many
10. 0:23a night many a night you will find me on
11. 0:25my knees praying in the hours between
12. 0:283:00 and and 5:00 a.m. simply for peace.
13. 0:32Simply for to to get to morning without
14. 0:35additional stress. Um simply just trying
15. 0:38to listen for something other than my
16. 0:40own anxious thoughts.
17. 0:43And I I'm
18. 0:45being completely direct with you when I
19. 0:46say it's worked every single time.
20. 0:50There's times when I I can't sleep and I
21. 0:52used to and and I'll do something. This
22. 0:53is actually a really cool trick. I'll
23. 0:54teach you a really cool trick and then
24. 0:56I'll tell you what I also do. Um this is
25. 0:58this is wild. Um
26. 1:01my neuroscience colleagues are going to
27. 1:02laugh, but there's a real basis for
28. 1:04this.
29. 1:04Turns out in order to to fall asleep,
30. 1:07you need to forget about your body
31. 1:08position.
32. 1:10And there's some very interesting
33. 1:11technologies that I've had a chance to
34. 1:13sample that um take advantage of the
35. 1:15fact that there's this very slow
36. 1:16rocking, like if you were fortunate
37. 1:18enough to own a bed that that rocked
38. 1:19like this, it could put you to sleep.
39. 1:21Okay, we don't have that stuff.
40. 1:23Um and and there are people who are
41. 1:25trying to design sleep masks that will
42. 1:27generate eye movements to kind of
43. 1:28simulate that. But long ago there was an
44. 1:31article written um that uh I think it
45. 1:33was in like Reader's Digest or something
46. 1:35that came up with this uh
47. 1:37it's a hack, it's a tool, um but it's
48. 1:40very interesting and it's not uh EMDR
49. 1:43lateral eye movement, but you If you
50. 1:44can't sleep and you want to sleep and
51. 1:47you're not overly caffeinated, which is
52. 1:48important, um you close your eyes and
53. 1:51you move your eyes slowly to one side
54. 1:54and slowly to the other side
55. 1:56behind your eyelids. You look up. Then
56. 1:58you look down. Move your eyes
57. 2:00counter-clockwise. Move your eyes
58. 2:01clockwise.
59. 2:03And then you sort of semi cross your
60. 2:05eyes, and you do a long exhale. You go,
61. 2:07"This is crazy, right?" Most people
62. 2:09won't make it through more than one of
63. 2:11those cycles before drifting off to
64. 2:13sleep. And there's some really
65. 2:14interesting data on this now using
66. 2:17directly inducing these eye movements
67. 2:19through some electrical stimulation, but
68. 2:21you can do it voluntarily. You forget
69. 2:23about your body position.
70. 2:25And then it makes it much easier to fall
71. 2:26asleep. So, what I do nowadays if I
72. 2:28can't sleep in the middle of the night
73. 2:30for whatever reason cuz I do sometimes
74. 2:31struggle I don't have problems falling
75. 2:33asleep, but sometimes I wake up in the
76. 2:34middle of the night and have trouble
77. 2:35with my brain just goes on like a It's
78. 2:38like a
79. 2:39pack of pitbulls coming out like oh my
80. 2:41goodness, all this stuff to do. And
81. 2:44yeah, long exhale breathing will slow
82. 2:45your heart rate down, but that's
83. 2:46inherent to the practice I just
84. 2:48described. What I do is I get out of bed
85. 2:51uh and I pray.
86. 2:52And these days,
87. 2:54you know, again, I'm just being
88. 2:55completely direct with my practice where
89. 2:57I I just pray to God. I pray I just I
90. 2:59ask Jesus to like just would would you
91. 3:01just please hold me and bring me some
92. 3:03peace so I can rest, so I can be my best
93. 3:06self tomorrow, so I can serve the world
94. 3:07better. And I'm I'm hurting right now,
95. 3:10and I I can't seem to do it for myself.
96. 3:13>> Wow.
97. 3:13>> And then I get back in bed and I do the
98. 3:14eye movement thing. I fall asleep.
99. 3:16>> [laughter]
100. 3:17>> And uh and so um depending you know,
101. 3:20depending on who you are, you can you
102. 3:21know, pick what you want from that, but
103. 3:24um
104. 3:25you know, it in all seriousness, it
105. 3:27works.
106. 3:30>> [music]