Sleep To Win: How Navy SEALs and Other High Performers Stay on Top

Kirk Parsley, MD, inventor of Sleep Remedy, has been a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine since 2006 and has served as Naval Special Warfare’s expert on Sleep Medicine. A retired Navy SEAL, he is currently a performance consultant, helping others to achieve the highest quality of life possible while realizing their health, performance, and longevity goals.

In this interview, Greg Potter, PhD talks with Dr. Parsley about the critical role sleep plays in cognitive, emotional, and physical health. They discuss the best supplements to help with sleep and some good reasons to avoid pharmaceutical sleeping pills. “Doc” Parsley shares why he recently reformulated Sleep Remedy to be even more effective, not just for falling asleep but also staying asleep at night.

Here’s the outline of this interview with Kirk Parsley:

[00:00:08] Greg Potter’s previous podcasts: How to Entrain Your Circadian Rhythm for Perfect Sleep and Metabolic Health and Morning Larks and Night Owls: the Biology of Chronotypes.

[00:00:28] Doc Parsley's previous podcast: How to Get Perfect Sleep with Dr. Kirk Parsley, MD.

[00:01:30] Book: Sleep To Win: How Navy SEALs and Other High Performers Stay on Top, by Kirk Parsley.

[00:02:25] Sleep and the endocrine system.

[00:02:44] Karen R. Kelly, PhD; Research with Navy SEALs.

[00:05:36] Who should take supplements to improve sleep.

[00:10:06] History behind Sleep Remedy; the rationale for changing the formulation.

[00:20:21] Over the counter Melatonin can vary range from -83% to +478% of the labeled content. Study: Erland, Lauren AE, and Praveen K. Saxena. "Melatonin natural health products and supplements: presence of serotonin and significant variability of melatonin content." Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 13.02 (2017): 275-281.

[00:30:54] High doses of melatonin, chronically, could decrease receptor density.

[00:33:15] Sleep maintenance insomnia; Circadin (time release melatonin).

[00:33:36] Who benefits from Sleep Remedy?

[00:33:55] Sleeping pill use associated with earlier death; Study: Kripke, Daniel F. "Hypnotic drug risks of mortality, infection, depression, and cancer: but lack of benefit." F1000Research 5 (2016).

[00:34:30] The World Health Organization: Shift work is a type 2A carcinogen.

[00:36:53] Robb Wolf’s risk assessment program in Reno, NV: Part 1, Part 2.

[00:38:53] Phosphatidylserine decreases adrenal hormones during intensive exercises; Studies: 1. Monteleone, Palmiero, et al. "Blunting by chronic phosphatidylserine administration of the stress-induced activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis in healthy men." European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 42.4 (1992): 385-388. 2. Starks, Michael A., et al. "The effects of phosphatidylserine on endocrine response to moderate intensity exercise." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 5.1 (2008): 11.

[00:43:40] Using Sleep Remedy during jet lag.

[00:46:56] Jet Lag Rooster; Dr. Simon Marshall, PhD.

[00:50:28] Magnesium: involvement in regulating sleep and wakefulness.

[00:51:25] Magtein (magnesium L-threonate).

[00:53:50] L-theanine and GABA.

[00:58:00] Tracking sleep; Oura Ring, Whoop strap, Garmin watches.

[01:00:01] Blood testing to measure effects of improved sleep.

[01:01:12] Lumosity for neurocognitive testing.

[01:01:44] Sleep deprivation reduces Emotional Quotient (EQ); Studies: Van Der Helm, Els, Ninad Gujar, and Matthew P. Walker. "Sleep deprivation impairs the accurate recognition of human emotions." Sleep 33.3 (2010): 335-342; 2. Nota, Jacob A., and Meredith E. Coles. "Shorter sleep duration and longer sleep onset latency are related to difficulty disengaging attention from negative emotional images in individuals with elevated transdiagnostic repetitive negative thinking." Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry 58 (2018): 114-122; 3. Killgore, William DS, et al. "Sleep deprivation reduces perceived emotional intelligence and constructive thinking skills." Sleep medicine 9.5 (2008): 517-526.

[01:03:02] Sleep deprivations causes contagious social withdrawal and loneliness; Study: Simon, Eti Ben, and Matthew P. Walker. "Sleep loss causes social withdrawal and loneliness." Nature communications 9.1 (2018): 3146.

[01:03:30] Effects of sleep deprivation on couples: Troxel, Wendy M. "It’s more than sex: Exploring the dyadic nature of sleep and implications for health." Psychosomatic medicine 72.6 (2010): 578.

[01:04:38] Start School Later: organization advocating for later school start times for adolescents. Many studies indicating teens aren’t getting enough sleep.

[01:06:37] Kirk’s TEDx Talk: America's biggest problem | Kirk Parsley | TEDxReno.

[01:06:52] Peptides. Epitalon synthetic peptide.

[01:16:00] Sleep enhancing tips.

[01:20:50] Bed rocking improves deep sleep and memory; Study: Perrault, Aurore A., et al. "Whole-night continuous rocking entrains spontaneous neural oscillations with benefits for sleep and memory." Current Biology 29.3 (2019): 402-411.

[01:22:36] Doc Parsley’s website.