Sleep Hacks & Tools with Scott Donnell

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How do you improve your sleep?

Sleep is one of the most important things you can do to take care of your brain. It cleans out damaging beta-amyloid plaques, converts short to long-term memories, and boosts your creativity while dreaming. But getting quality sleep can be challenging when you’re stressed, burned out, or overwhelmed.

Today, I’m talking to Scott Donnell. He’s the founder of Hapbee, a company that makes a wearable device that lets you choose how to feel. Using state-of-the-art technology, Hapbee helps with everything from focus to sleep.

Creating good sleep habits is vital to getting a good night’s sleep. Listen in as Scott shares his favorite sleep hacks and how Hapbee technology can help you achieve deeper, more restful sleep.

To learn more about Hapbee, go to hapbee.com/kwik.

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Break The Bad Sleep Cycle

It’s a common misperception to believe that if you’re exhausted, you’ll be able to sleep.
But if you’re stressed or burned out, your sleep gets hit the hardest, even if you’re exhausted.
When stress hits, it’s like a downward spiral, taking everything with it.
It can be hard to let go of your thoughts and worries when your head hits the pillow.
Stress also throws off your natural rhythms, making it even harder to sleep.
Sleep is one of the best nootropics ever created.
But exhaustion leads to you passing out and waking up, or getting restless sleep.
It isn’t healthy or sustainable.
When you get a bad night’s sleep, you start the day wrong.
You can suffer from brain fog, and it impacts your ability to be productive, which then leads to more stress, and spirals into another bad night’s sleep.
It’s a terrible cycle.
And if you have other things in your life disrupting your sleep—like small children—it can all add up and become overwhelming.
You go into survival mode.
Sleep is so vital for a healthy brain.
It’s when your brain cleans out damaging beta-amyloid plaques that cause age-related brain challenges.
You convert short to long-term memories.
And dream states are when you can unlock your creativity and innovative ideas.
Getting good sleep is absolutely necessary for everyone.

Creating Good Sleep Habits

Before going into the technology, it’s important to talk about your sleep habits.
When it comes to education, the best way people can learn quickly and effectively is getting a good night’s sleep.
There is no better drug, no better system or strategy you can deploy other than having healthy sleep habits.
These habits don’t have to be complicated. In fact, the best sleep habits are pretty simple.
There are different levels to getting good sleep.
You have to set your environment, know what you can and can’t ingest before bed, and develop a rhythm and routine that puts you into sleep mode.
One of the biggest factors in setting up a good sleep environment is light.
Try to block out as much light as possible.
Even alarm clocks. Put them in a drawer, or facing down.
You want your room as dark as possible.
Blackout curtains or using a sleep mask can be helpful in creating a dark environment.
Sound is also a big factor.
If you live in a populated area with a lot of traffic, white noise can help block that out.
When you have a quieter environment, it helps trigger a parasympathetic safe response so you can relax.
Light and sound are the two of the biggest things that impact your sleep.
The next thing to be aware of is what you’re ingesting.
Diet is different for everyone.
Caffeine, nicotine, or metformin are all strong nootropics that have positive benefits for your brain and your neurons.
But you have to be careful with them.
For example, if you smoke a cigar before bed, nicotine is a stimulant, so it doesn’t help you get ready for bed.
Even though nicotine gives you a relaxing buzz, it’s actually stimulating you instead of relaxing you.
On the other hand, some relaxing tea while stretching or doing yoga helps you unwind.
It’s important to know what you’re ingesting and how it impacts your body.
Caffeine has a long half-life and everyone has different sensitivities.
Digestion also affects sleep dramatically.
If you overeat at dinner that can disrupt your sleep.
Or eating too much of a certain type of food.
Carbs produce sugar and replenish your glycogen stores which produces energy.
Alcohol can knock you out, but it isn’t quality sleep.
Your liver produces formaldehyde as a byproduct of processing alcohol.
Pumping out formaldehyde all night is not going to be conducive to good sleep.
Remember: passing out is not the same as quality REM sleep.
And then there’s getting mentally ready for sleep.
Writing down your daily gratitude can help calm your mind.
When you’re stressed, it’s common to have a million things running through your mind.
Keeping a journal helps stop the rumination. It puts your thoughts on paper and out of your brain.

Enhancing Sleep Through Technology

Sleep is a skill.
You have to think of sleep fitness in the same way you would a fitness routine.
Get rid of things that interrupt your sleep like a bad diet, alcohol, or too much caffeine.
You don’t want to pass out from exhaustion or substances.
Instead, you want to develop really good circadian rhythm cycles with plenty of deep sleep.
One of the things Hapbee does is help develop these rhythms naturally.
When people use Hapbee and track their sleep, they find their deep sleep increases from ten or twenty minutes to several hours.
There are over 40 patents for this technology.
Hapbee allows you to choose how you want to feel.
You can use it to increase your focus without dealing with the long half-life of caffeine.
It can help you feel calm throughout the day or you can choose a more relaxed state to help with deep sleep.
Every molecule has a magnetic imprint.
Hapbee’s team of scientists—including Dr. Kenneth Ferguson, inventor of Cialis—have captured these magnetic imprints in a device that you wear to change your physiology.
You can get the benefits of caffeine, melatonin, CBD, adenosine, etc. without the half-life issue.
These magnetic signatures make your body feel as if you’ve ingested specific substances without having to actually take them.
You don’t get any of the side effects.
This means you can use productivity or alert or focus signals all day without interfering with your sleep.
When you’re ready for bed, you can use adenosine and melatonin signals to shift your cells into a tired state.
These signals are sent to the Hapbee device through an app on your phone.
Adenosine is a hormone that makes you feel tired, so you’d play that signal right before bed.
It helps you relax and then you shift to melatonin.
You can put the Hapbee device under your pillow all night.
There’s about a foot and a half range for the signal to reach your body and trigger your protein receptors in your cells.
This makes your body believe it’s getting melatonin naturally.
Most people use Hapbee for deep sleep and deep focus.
Scott and his team are doing studies on how Hapbee impacts people.
One of the bigger studies right now is watching how it affects deep REM sleep.
Scott has personally watched his own deep REM sleep go up 30%.

Going Beyond Sleep

Scott didn’t invent this technology.
A team of doctors and scientists have been working on this for over eighteen years.
Right now, they’re doing clinical research in FDA trials for brain cancer, pain management, and other medical applications.
Hapbee is the consumer side that helps you get better sleep, more energy, be more productive, and relax.
It gives you choice.
You don’t have to hope you’re going to have focus or get a good night’s sleep.
It’s proactive and passive. You don’t have to think about it but it allows you to reclaim your ability to choose.
Scott knew this technology was life-changing when he had his Grandma Joyce try it.
She struggled with pain and soreness, and hadn’t slept more than five hours a night for about twenty years.
She was the first person to try the CBD relax signal.
Scott didn’t tell her anything about it, he just handed her the prototype and asked her to wear it and tell him how she felt.
Within ten minutes she was moving around and felt great.
That night, she played the sleep signal for about twenty minutes before bed and slept eleven hours.
The next morning, Scott’s grandpa gave him $100,000 to start the business.
Grandma Joyce passed away recently, but the device made her life much better for the last several years.
It’s been Scott’s mission to make this technology accessible and improve the quality of life for billions of people.
Again, sleep is the best nootropic out there.
Be sure to check out the unedited, extended episode on YouTube, here.

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For more tips on sleep and to find out more about the science behind the device, visit Hapbee, here.
As a thank you for being a loyal listener, we’re offering you an exclusive discount at www.Hapbee.com/Kwik.