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Why I'm Never Tired

2021-06-09 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 8:44 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health, sleep and habits · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Evidence-based framing, Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present

Ali answers people who ask how he is never tired with six sleep tips: only a Kindle on the bedside table with the phone across the room, a physical alarm clock, no caffeine after 2 p.m., blackout curtains, a bedroom at about 19 degrees, and a pilots' technique for falling asleep in under two minutes by relaxing the face, legs and arms and then following the breath.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — People ask how he has so much energy: six tips on how he is never tired

  • ★★ Asked how he has so much energy and never seems tired, Ali says his secret is six tips, all about how he sleeps more productively. — 00:00:00

00:00:17 — Tip 1: a Kindle on the bedside table and the phone across the room

  • ★★ When his sleep used to be terrible and he was tired all the time, Ali took his phone into bed and scrolled Instagram, Twitter and, very occasionally, Tinder with its bright light in his face. — 00:00:17 · Instagram, Twitter

  • ★★★ Ali calls keeping his phone across the room, wirelessly charging on his chest of drawers, with only his Kindle on the bedside table, probably the most game-changing thing he has done for his sleep. (hedged) — 00:00:29 · Kindle

    “the most game changing thing that I did for my sleep”

  • ★ Ali's Kindle Oasis has a warm light, though he is not sure it makes any difference. (unsure) — 00:00:40 · Kindle

  • ★★ Ali reads on his Kindle before bed for about 20 minutes to half an hour, until he feels his eyes closing, and then falls asleep very quickly. — 00:00:40 · Kindle
  • ★★ Since he stopped having his phone's blue light shining in his face before sleep, Ali says, he rarely feels tired in the morning. — 00:00:50

00:01:04 — Tip 2: a physical alarm clock

  • ★★ Ali calls a physical alarm clock a game changer: he actively decides when to wake, and its unpleasant sound forces him out of bed to turn it off. — 00:01:04
  • ★★ When his alarm was on his phone, even with the phone across the room, Ali found it far too easy to tell Siri to turn the alarm off. — 00:01:20
  • ★★ A physical alarm clock makes Ali more mindful about his sleep: he sets his wake-up time by hand and sees on the clock face how many hours of sleep he is getting. — 00:01:30

00:01:45 — Tip 3: no caffeine after 2 p.m.

  • ★★ Ali's third tip for sleeping well, which he picked up from Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep, is no caffeine after 2 p.m. — 00:01:45
  • ★★ Ali says caffeine stays in the bloodstream for ages and, however immune we think we are, acts on the brain's neurotransmitters, stopping us from sleeping or from sleeping well. — 00:01:55
  • ★★ Ali drinks a lot of coffee and tea before about 2 or 3 p.m. and only decaffeinated drinks after: decaf tea, and sometimes decaf Diet Coke with an evening takeaway. — 00:02:10

00:02:28 — Tip 4: blackout curtains

  • ★★★ Ali recommends blackout curtains as one of the best-value changes for massively improving sleep quality; even his current curtains, not fully blackout, block most of the light. — 00:02:28
  • ★★ Ali says a lot of evidence shows that the darker your room, the better your sleep overall. — 00:02:32
  • ★ Ali sleeps incredibly well in hotels with really good blackout curtains. — 00:02:45
  • ★★ Getting proper blackout curtains for his room has long been on Ali's to-do list; he says he will do it straight after recording this video. — 00:02:50

00:03:00 — Tip 5: the optimal sleeping temperature

  • ★★ Citing research in Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep, Ali says the best sleeping temperature for most people is around 19°C, much colder than room temperature of around 23 to 25 degrees. — 00:03:01
  • ★★ Ali says part of what happens during sleep is that core body temperature falls. — 00:03:15
  • ★★ A cool room, snuggled in a blanket, massively improves Ali's sleep: he keeps his bedroom cold with a Dyson fan circulating the air and the windows wide open, especially in winter. — 00:03:15

00:03:43 — Tip 6: the pilots' strategy for falling asleep in under two minutes

  • ★★ Ali's sixth tip is a strategy for falling asleep in under two minutes, found on the internet, which airline pilots apparently use so they can sleep at will wherever they are. (hedged) — 00:03:43
  • ★★★ The pilots' technique as Ali uses it: in bed, eyes closed, relax every facial muscle, then the legs, sinking like lead weights, then the arms and shoulders, and finally focus only on the breath. — 00:04:00
  • ★★ Ali says the pilots' technique works for him about 90% of the time; he often falls asleep by the time his legs are relaxed, and in 70% of cases within a minute. — 00:04:00
  • ★ Ali first read about the pilots' technique, he thinks on Lifehacker, and thought there was no way it would work until he tried it. (hedged) — 00:04:48
  • ★★ If the pilots' technique has not worked after a minute or two, Ali reads a bit more and tries again, which gives him basically a 100% success rate. — 00:05:25
  • ★★ Before the pilots' technique Ali used to lie in bed for ages thinking he needed to get to sleep; now he falls asleep really quickly and fully recommends trying it. — 00:05:35

00:05:45 — Why sleep matters for body, mind and learning

  • ★★ Ali says sleep makes both body and mind healthier, because learning happens during sleep as the brain consolidates the neural connections between information. — 00:05:45

00:06:05 — Brilliant sponsor read and pointer to his morning routine video

  • ★ In June 2021 Ali's crypto portfolio is doing very well: by his estimate it is up 25%. (hedged) — 00:06:24

00:07:05 — Outtake: the coffee with 18 spoons of instant coffee made for the video's hook

In the description and comments

  • ★ Answering a viewer pained to see him make Nescafé with his Stagg kettle, Ali says he did it only for banter and does not normally do it. — creator comment

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Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Kindle

Also: People: Matthew Walker · Sheen

Works: Why We Sleep

Organizations: Brilliant · Instagram · Lifehacker · Twitter

Concepts: caffeine

Products: Dyson fan · Siri · Tinder

Only in the description or credits: Stagg EKG

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