#012 – Optimal Meal Time Before Sleep & The Gap vs The Gain

Welcome to the Five to Thrive newsletter

I share 5 interesting ideas every Thursday morning to ignite your curiosity and drive your growth in productivity, business, and all things peak performance.

read time 3 minutes 

#012 at a Glance:

• Quote that will get you thinking: Pick people wisely…

• Podcast you should listen to: 13 things Alex Hormozi wishes he learned sooner.

• Mental Model: The Gap vs The Gain.

• Hack you should try: Don’t eat 2-3 hours before bed.

• Tweet I liked: The hardest thing about marketing.

Quote that will get you thinking:

Podcast you should listen to:

The Game w/ Alex Hormozi Ep 458 | 13 things I wish I learned

It’s not often you get to hear 31 minutes of genuine business/life advice from a highly successful entrepreneur in his thirties. This podcast is exactly that. No guest, no fluff, just value. Unfiltered access into the minds of one of the biggest people on social media at the moment.

13 things Alex Hormozi wishes he learned while he was in college before starting any of his businesses.

(My favourites were number 5 and number 10).

Listen on Spotify here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here.

Mental Model:

The Gap vs The Gain

Came across this concept while listening to an old Chris Williamson podcast the other day:

When we are focused on comparing where we are now with where we want to be versus where we are now with where we used to be, we are focused on what is called the “gap” as opposed to being focused on the “gain”.

With any type of self-development endeavour, we are working towards some type of ideal scenario. Whether it’s with our fitness, knowledge, abilities, etc, we are in pursuit of a forward-looking point which we are currently nowhere near.

On that journey, we tend to compare where we are now with where we want to be. And as we draw that comparison, thinking about the size of that gap can be pretty painful. “Oh my, look at all of the things I could and should be doing, look how far I am from my goal.”

And to be honest, that is okay to a point. Honest self-assessment about our own progress is super important. But it becomes a negative burden when instead of being a source of motivation, actually builds resentment towards that goal we’re ultimately chasing. Those feelings of insufficiency or inadequacy or disappointment with any progress we’ve made up until this point can produce a net negative result on your overall self-esteem.

Perhaps, a more effective way to build confidence and motivation on our self-development journey is to think about how far we’ve come. In other words, the gain we’ve experienced until this point. “Yeah, I still have a long way to go, but look how far I’ve come! This time last [week/month/year] I would have given anything to be in this position having accomplished what I have and knowing what I know now.”

Something to think about…

Hack you should try:

Don’t eat 2-4 hours before bed.

Last week, I was waking up feeling noticeably tired despite following all of the sleep protocols I normally do (no blue light 1 hour before bed, pitch black room, regular sleep pattern, room temperature around 20°C).

The one thing that had changed: I was eating dinner less than 1 hour before going to sleep. In other words, right before bed. This was mainly due to my other commitments like study, training, etc.

So I did some research, read a couple of scientific papers, and alas, the best time to schedule your last meal to optimise sleep quality is 2-4 hours.

Here’s why: eating a meal less than 2 hours before bed doesn’t provide your body with the time it needs to fully digest your food. And given your horizontal sleep position (as opposed to standing up when you’re awake), digestion is made even more difficult, meaning even more energy is expended.

This means that instead of actually resting while you sleep, your digestive system is effectively working over time. This culminates to reduce the number of sleep cycles you experience in the night and the overall quality of your sleep suffers, leaving you feeling more tired in the morning (like I was).

So from Sunday night to Tuesday night, I made sure that my last meal was no more than 3 hours before bed. Holding all other variables constant, I genuinely woke up feeling more rested than the days previous. Going to try to keep this consistent over the next few weeks and report back.

In the mean time, you should try it out. No meals 2-4 hours before bed. Could be a game-changer.

Tweet I liked:

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!

Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, & stay curious. ⚡

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