Body · 26 episodes
Sleep & Circadian Rhythm for entrepreneurs
Nearly every guest who touches performance eventually lands on the same floor: sleep. Not as a wellness nicety but as the mechanism underneath cognition, hormone regulation, decision-making, and whether burnout arrives in year two or year twenty. The data points are blunt. A single bad night measurably drops next-day cognitive performance to the equivalent of legal intoxication. Poor sleep is the strongest predictor of burnout across large working populations, stronger than hours worked. And a single night of objective sleep data can now predict risk for over 130 health conditions. This is not a soft topic dressed up in health language. It's operational.
Where guests converge: consistency matters more than duration, and wake time is the lever, not bedtime. You can't force yourself to fall asleep on schedule, but you can force a wake time, and that anchors circadian rhythm more reliably than any amount of willpower applied at night. Where they push back on each other: one guest argues that fighting your chronotype is a losing game and you should sleep according to your natural rhythm; newer research cited by another guest suggests the opposite, that going to bed before roughly 1am improves outcomes for evening types too, even against their preference. Both agree that irregular, chaotic sleep timing is worse than either extreme done consistently.
A second layer, less discussed but recurring: environment and inputs matter as much as behavior. Alcohol suppresses sleep architecture even when it feels like it 'knocks you out.' EMF exposure from phones charging near the bed keeps the nervous system in a low-grade sympathetic state that blocks deep sleep stages. And the newest wrinkle is psychological: sleep tracker obsession, orthosomnia, can make sleep worse by making people anxious about their own data, and simply being told you slept badly can tank next-day cognition even when the sleep was fine. The tools meant to optimize sleep have created a new way to sabotage it.
What holds across every conversation
- •Fix your wake time first, not your bedtime. You can control the alarm; you can't force sleep onset, so a consistent wake time is the real circadian anchor.
- •Treat sleep debt as non-recoverable. You cannot 'catch up' on a weekend; the body doesn't bank sleep the way that myth suggests.
- •Get morning light exposure early and keep screens/phones away from the bedhead; both blue light timing and EMF proximity affect how deep your sleep stages actually get.
- •If you use a sleep tracker, use it for trends over weeks, not nightly verdicts — obsessing over a single night's score can itself worsen next-day performance through a nocebo effect.
- •Cut or seriously limit alcohol before assuming any other sleep intervention will work; it suppresses sleep architecture even when it feels like it helps you fall asleep faster.
- •Stabilize blood sugar during the day (protein and fiber at meals, especially breakfast) before troubleshooting nighttime sleep hygiene — daytime glucose swings are a leading cause of middle-of-night waking.
Sleep as the burnout predictor
Multiple guests independently point to sleep, not workload, as the variable that actually predicts whether an entrepreneur burns out.
“There was also a 2012 study in Stockholm where they found that the strongest predictor of burnout across about 500 working individuals, it wasn't work hours or demands. It wasn't thoughts of work on days off or leisure time. It was too little sleep, right? Sleeping less than 6 hours.”
Sleep Science for Entrepreneurs with Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 17:08· listen →
“I'd rather have the surgeon who slept 9 hours that maybe didn't go to the best medical school over the Harvard surgeon who is only working on 2 or 3 hours of sleep. That's how much I know about the effects of sleep deprivation on cognition, on performance.”
Sleep Science for Entrepreneurs with Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 21:23· listen →
“It's the Sleep Foundation that has a study that says that every single night of poor sleep can reduce cognitive performance the next day by 25%. And it's the equivalent of a blood alcohol level of 0.05%.”
Dr. Emilie Laplagne: Functional Medicine for Entrepreneurs · 34:38· listen →
“And by the way, bad night's sleep have a lot of an effect the day after. You make a bad decision. You are more grumpy. You have a higher chance to have higher rates and high glucose and your testosterone usually is lower. And so you are also, your cortisol, your stress is higher. You are more prone to get injured.”
Biomarkers, Biological Age & the Science of Healthspan · 32:58· listen →
Wake time over bedtime discipline
The most repeated tactical claim in the archive: you control your alarm, not your ability to fall asleep on command, so anchor the morning, not the night.
“This idea of a sleep deficit, it's a farce. It's not how the body works. You cannot make up this sleep deficit. So it means that every single day, we want to wake up at the same time and go to bed at the same time, within reason.”
Nutrition, Sleep & Pacing for Entrepreneurs | Jenn Trepeck · 28:11· listen →
“Your wake time is in your control. You got an alarm for that. So you can't force yourself to fall asleep at the same time every day, but you can force yourself to wake up at the same time every day. This is your sort of circadian anchor.”
Sleep Data, AI & Orthosomnia With Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 33:50· listen →
“Evening types, strong evening types who went to bed early, in other words, against their chronotype, had reduction in risk of diabetes and obesity and hypertension, circulatory disorders compared to evening types who followed their natural late schedule.”
Sleep Data, AI & Orthosomnia With Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 46:43· listen →
“There's not much difference from you biologically than, if we think about it, than a plant, right? A plant needs water, it needs sunlight, it needs nutrients from the soil... But if I give it more water and I tell the plant, listen, I'm going to give you extra water this week, but I'm going to put you in a dark closet. How's that going to work out? There's no amount of water that you can give a plant to make up for a lack of sunlight.”
The Doctor of the Future Is You with Sachin Patel · 15:44· listen →
What quietly wrecks sleep architecture
Alcohol, blood sugar swings, and electromagnetic exposure near the bed each disrupt sleep in ways that feel invisible but show up in the data.
“You wake up with anxiety because the body wants that activation. It's like, well, you've suppressed me, but now I need to reactivate it. I need to go to the other side, right? Everything that goes up goes down. So it's the same.”
Redefining Your Relationship with Alcohol | Silvia Subirana · 25:25· listen →
“Alcohol is the worst... it's still a poison, you know. It's terrible for your liver. It's just a poison for your arteries as well. And more than that, you know, it also really messes up your sleep.”
Dr. Emilie Laplagne: Functional Medicine for Entrepreneurs · 28:12· listen →
“Blood sugar is the number one thing for quality sleep. Blood sugar balance is the number one thing that will affect quality sleep.”
Gut Health, Real Food & Detox Truths for Entrepreneurs · 26:51· listen →
“Your body is an electrical system. And, when you have this man-made radiation that literally couples with your very gentle delicate electrical system, You get all sorts of interruption. And charging your phone next to your bedhead is one of the biggest mistakes that people can possibly make in their health journey.”
EMF Exposure & Sleep: The Hidden Bedroom Health Risk · 1:54· listen →
“So, the AirPods while you're sleeping are the same situation as people using vagal nerve stimulators while they're going to bed or there's all these sleep masks that play little visuals for you or sweet dreams meditations or all these things, they have a biological cost.”
EMF Exposure & Sleep: The Hidden Bedroom Health Risk · 16:38· listen →
The data-anxiety trap
Sleep trackers can help, but a real and growing number of people develop orthosomnia, an anxious preoccupation with their own sleep scores that makes sleep worse.
“There is this kind of like maladaptive preoccupation with optimizing or perfecting your own sleep and that it's most often organized around sleep trackers... Baron then coined the term orthosomnia, which, you know, Latin ortho for correct and then somnus for sleep.”
Sleep Data, AI & Orthosomnia With Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 10:21· listen →
“The group that was told that they slept poorly, their cognition went, it was quite poor, right? They felt, they thought they were told that they're sleeping poorly. So their cognition matched that. The other group that was told that they were sleeping well, the opposite happened.”
Sleep Data, AI & Orthosomnia With Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 16:20· listen →
“First, accept that acute sleep loss is physiological rather than pathological. It's your axis that's doing its job. Your cortisol is elevated. Your arousal system is in high gear. The worst thing you can do in a high stress sprint is then add performance anxiety on top of that.”
Sleep Data, AI & Orthosomnia With Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 32:55· listen →
“Based on just one night of that objective sleep data, this Sleep FM model can predict your risk for over 130 health conditions. One night, cancers, dementias, you know, heart failure, chronic kidney disease. It was impressive, not just in the scale, but also in the level of accuracy.”
Sleep Data, AI & Orthosomnia With Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 1:23· listen →
Sleep, leadership, and social cost
Poor sleep doesn't stay private. It degrades self-control in leaders and makes people more isolated, and that isolation is visible to others.
“They found that the sleep deprived individuals had increased social withdrawal. They reported higher feelings of loneliness. But what I thought was the most interesting part was that the independent observers, they perceived the sleep deprived individuals as lonelier, and they themselves felt less inclined to interact with them. And worse yet, the perception of this made the observers feel lonelier themselves.”
Sleep Science for Entrepreneurs with Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 25:01· listen →
“Sleep doesn't become a chore. It just becomes a clear physiological process that you just do.”
Sleep Science for Entrepreneurs with Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 32:17· listen →
“For a long time we thought sleep is for the weak when in fact it couldn't be further from the truth. Sleep is for winners.”
Sleep Science for Entrepreneurs with Dr. Elie Gottlieb · 40:56· listen →
“And also, it doesn't mean that if you work 15 hours every day, you are more productive. It might be that 8 hours that you are more focused is better than 15 hours that you are less focused. So, don't come say, I'm an entrepreneur, I have to work 15 hours a day. It doesn't— it's not true.”
Biomarkers, Biological Age & the Science of Healthspan · 34:29· listen →
Blood sugar, food timing, and rest
Several guests trace sleep quality back further than the bedroom, to how meals are structured during the day.
“Protein and fiber at every meal makes removing fat no big deal. Protein and fiber at every meal makes removing fat no big deal. And frankly, whether removing fat is your health goal or not, it makes health no big deal.”
Nutrition, Sleep & Pacing for Entrepreneurs | Jenn Trepeck · 11:38· listen →
“Blood sugar is the number one thing for quality sleep. Blood sugar balance is the number one thing that will affect quality sleep.”
Gut Health, Real Food & Detox Truths for Entrepreneurs · 26:51· listen →
“My recommendation for anyone that is experiencing those things is first shake out your body, like completely shake everything out. You can even go through some tapping, through some stretching, move your body, do like a little like 5-minute yoga flow.”
Burnout as a Mirror: Karenna Soto on Somatic Healing · 31:15· listen →
The companion guide
Reading about sleep & circadian rhythm is one thing. Changing it is another.
John’s companion guide turns what these conversations cover into something you can actually work through.
More moments worth hearing
Everything else these conversations turned up on this subject.
“A very easy scientific test you can do at home is put the powder on a plate and add some iodine to it. And if that powder turns black, purple-black, then that shows up for starch.”
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking · 8:16
“When you think you're buying a lion's mane capsule or powder, you're actually buying 68% of blended rice, blended grain. So that's almost criminal and it's really bad for the industry.”
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking · 22:52
“It's the discipline for the morning routine is easy. The discipline for the evening routine is the one everyone needs to nail.”
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking · 13:46
“It never makes sense until you look backwards.”
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking · 28:18
“Why win one prize and then lose 3 others, whether it's your health, relationships, friendships? I'm more of a pro the balanced entrepreneur, not the extreme entrepreneur that burns other boats that are actually really valuable for a meaningful life.”
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking · 35:37
“Business people is that they get a second chance or a third chance and you can reinvent yourself in your 40s and your 50s and your 60s. As an athlete, you have a finite window.”
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking · 38:54
“Provide the master chef with the ingredients and let the master chef do the cooking.”
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking · 43:06
“I had shown up and fixed this exact problem I was having for so long here in Central New York, but I fixed it for everybody else. And I was very much building, the founder of a startup company, and I was not prioritizing building a support system for myself and making sure that my own social-emotional needs were being met by the people around me.”
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout · 5:46
“The beauty of events is that if your guests didn't plan the event, they don't know what's wrong. So, if something goes wrong, just cover it up with a smile and ask for forgiveness if you have to. At that point, there's nothing you can do.”
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout · 10:19
“If I don't move every day in one way or another, things get bad, so I always make that a huge priority.”
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout · 14:12
“I eat the same thing every day. For the most part, like down to a T. And that might sound like a little much, but honestly, it's made my life significantly easier and less stressful.”
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout · 19:55
“As a leader, as an entrepreneur, you're constantly having to make quick decisions all day long. You're having to solve everyone's problems. And it's just nice to have one less problem to solve.”
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout · 23:28
“There's just something so therapeutic about getting your thoughts out on paper and just leaving them there, you know, and not letting yourself ruminate on anything. It's been huge for me.”
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout · 30:07
“None of it matters if the relationships in our lives don't feel good. So that's something that I'm very proud of, that I can say that I've made that a priority.”
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout · 35:19
“It really is simply an invitation for us to see within ourselves where we're not honoring our unique capacity or where we have the opportunity to mature.”
Burnout as a Mirror: Karenna Soto on Somatic Healing · 1:34
“We are the life source of our business, right? We are the thing that gives it pulse. And if we're not taking care of ourselves, then that's, then what's the point, right? That this thing that we're creating, we won't be able to sustain it.”
Burnout as a Mirror: Karenna Soto on Somatic Healing · 5:30
“The lion chases the giraffe and the giraffe is running away and gets away. They immediately do this huge body shake and then they go back into rest and digest.”
Burnout as a Mirror: Karenna Soto on Somatic Healing · 25:16
“The challenging question that I ask a lot of entrepreneurs or people that are dabbling in their habits, I'm like, do you wanna waste 2, 3, 4 years down the line? I'm like, time is everything.”
Burnout as a Mirror: Karenna Soto on Somatic Healing · 29:34
“There absolutely is some added levels of pressure because a lot of the retainer sort of agreements that I look at, people's income can be based off of how many views they're getting. And that's a really kind of difficult position to be put into where a certain amount of money is not guaranteed to you. That can put a lot of strain on you mentally.”
Creator Economy Burnout: Staying Sane as a Content Creator · 15:49
“The first one that I always say is you really do have to create for yourself. If you can find a way for you to be able to feel comfortable in saying that this is an extension of yourself, this isn't— instead of you posting content, you're sharing content, you're extending yourself to people. That can be a place where you find validation regardless of views, regardless of engagement, regardless of traction.”
Creator Economy Burnout: Staying Sane as a Content Creator · 19:19
Every episode on sleep & circadian rhythm
26 conversations, oldest to newest.
Julian Mitchell on Functional Mushrooms & Biohacking
Mushroom supplement quality varies wildly because many mycelium-based products contain high starch/grain filler, which can be tested at home with an iodine test.
Alex Canavan: Building Community Without Burnout
A dance background instilled discipline, self-accountability, and the ability to perform even when things go wrong, which translates directly into entrepreneurship.
Burnout as a Mirror: Karenna Soto on Somatic Healing
Burnout is not just physical exhaustion but a mirror showing where you're dishonoring your unique capacity or abandoning parts of yourself.
Creator Economy Burnout: Staying Sane as a Content Creator
Creator-entrepreneurs face added psychological pressure because their income and self-worth get tied to unpredictable algorithm performance.
Dr. Emilie Laplagne: Functional Medicine for Entrepreneurs
Traditional Western medicine is siloed and reactive, treating symptoms after disease develops, while functional medicine looks at the whole body and root causes.
Success Without Stress: Vedanta for Entrepreneurs
Stress comes not from desire itself but from losing control over desire, which turns ambition into greed or addiction.
From Burnout to Balance: Dr. Lynise Green on Wellness
Deferring self-care until after success is achieved is unsustainable, and prioritizing wellness actually improves performance and decision-making.
Jack Adler on Building Out2Win and Raising $1.3M Young
Jack pivoted his NIL agency into a scalable AI athlete-marketing intelligence platform after recognizing brands lacked data to evaluate athletes as marketers, not just performers.
Holly Conti: Scaling to 7 Figures with Mindset Work
Businesses are a physical representation of the inner work founders do on themselves, so scaling requires addressing limiting beliefs, not just tactics.
From NFL to Entrepreneurship: Justin Pugh's Playbook
Justin Pugh built NFL Biz Week to teach players financial literacy and deal-vetting skills because most athletes retire with no plan and high bankruptcy rates.
Dr. Julie Causton on ADHD, Burnout & Remote Business
Leaving a secure tenured position for entrepreneurial uncertainty paid off because the pull toward consulting work had become unsustainable to ignore.
Conscious Leadership: Deciding from Presence, Not Fear
Decisions made from fear and survival mindset produce competition and destruction, while decisions made from presence and abundance mindset align with purpose and values.
Biomarkers, Biological Age & the Science of Healthspan
Longevity should be measured by healthspan, the years lived in good health, not just raw lifespan.
Longevity As a Competitive Edge: Jesse Levey on Health Strategy
Most longevity advice is overly individualized or dogmatic, but reducing alcohol and optimizing sleep benefit almost everyone.
Redefining Your Relationship with Alcohol | Silvia Subirana
Moderation, not just abstinence, is a valid and often more achievable goal for changing your relationship with alcohol.
Reverse Biological Age: Dr. Kara Fitzgerald on Diet & Sleep
Fitzgerald's randomized controlled study showed men reduced biological age by over 3 years compared to controls in just 8 weeks using a diet and lifestyle intervention.
Dr. Mao Shing Ni on Energy, Qi, and Longevity Secrets
Energy, not time or intelligence, is the entrepreneur's true currency, produced through mitochondrial ATP, regulated by the nervous system, and channeled as qi in Chinese medicine.
Sleep Science for Entrepreneurs with Dr. Elie Gottlieb
Chronic sleep deprivation, not workload itself, is the strongest predictor of burnout and undermines the long-term success entrepreneurs are chasing.
Fitness for Busy Entrepreneurs with Eric D'Agati
Physical health works cumulatively like compound interest, not through occasional intense bursts, so consistency beats intensity.
Debt Strategy for Entrepreneurs: Leverage Without Crushing
Debt is leverage that helps a business grow when used within its cash-flow cushion, but becomes the primary cause of business failure when it exceeds what the business can safely service.
The Doctor of the Future Is You with Sachin Patel
The healthcare system only measures disease markers, not the circadian rhythm, nervous system state, and rest/recovery patterns that actually determine health.
The EDGE Framework for Longevity With Sandy Martin
Toxic mold exposure can cause severe brain dysfunction that mimics other conditions and is often misdiagnosed by conventional doctors.
Nutrition, Sleep & Pacing for Entrepreneurs | Jenn Trepeck
The quality of food, not just calories in/calories out, determines whether the body is set up for health or disease.
Gut Health, Real Food & Detox Truths for Entrepreneurs
Gut health underlies nearly every system in the body, from brain function and mood to skin, lungs, and joints, so poor digestion can manifest as brain fog, fatigue, or anxiety.
Sleep Data, AI & Orthosomnia With Dr. Elie Gottlieb
AI models like Sleep FM can predict risk for over 130 health conditions from a single night of sleep data, and consumer wearables are moving toward similar predictive screening capability.
EMF Exposure & Sleep: The Hidden Bedroom Health Risk
Cell phones, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth devices emit pulsed non-ionizing radiofrequency radiation that couples with the body's bioelectric system and disrupts deep, restorative sleep.