The Berman Method
The Berman Method
Episode #186: Simple Tip To Improve Your Sleep!
Could your protein intake be sabotaging your sleep? After speaking with a business owner who hadn't slept well in two decades, we uncovered a common but overlooked connection between nutrition and sleep quality that affects countless individuals.
The truth is that many people unknowingly compromise their sleep by not consuming enough protein throughout the day. When we restrict ourselves to just one or two meals or skimp on protein, our blood sugar destabilizes, triggering cortisol spikes that make restful sleep nearly impossible. The consequences extend far beyond feeling tired—during quality sleep, your body has the remarkable ability to regenerate 330 billion cells nightly. Without this cellular renewal, you're at increased risk for compromised immune function, cognitive decline, and chronic disease development.
Women particularly struggle with adequate protein consumption, often consuming less than half the protein they need daily. The fear that more protein leads to weight gain persists despite evidence showing the opposite—proper protein timing supports metabolic function, appetite regulation, and healthy body composition. The simple practice of consuming protein every 2-3 hours throughout the day can transform not just your sleep quality but your overall health trajectory.
Like the persistence demonstrated by the Florida Gators basketball team who led for just over one minute before winning the national championship, or Rory McIlroy finally claiming his Masters victory after years of coming up short, sometimes the key to breakthrough is simply not giving up and making consistent, strategic adjustments. Try increasing your protein intake for just five days and witness how this simple shift might transform your sleep and overall wellbeing.
Ready to transform your sleep quality? Share your experience with protein timing in the comments, or reach out for personalized guidance on optimizing your nutrition for better sleep and health.
This is the Berman Method podcast, featuring Dr Jake Berman and physician assistant Jenny Berman. We are here to treat problems and not symptoms. Disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not to treat anyone or to give medical advice. If you are interested in any information that we are giving and would like to use this for yourself, we recommend that you contact your primary care physician or reach out to us and ask us questions about yourself specifically. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:And we are back, baby with a baby in Jenny's arms, with the Berman Method podcast, Dr Jake Berman, here with my co-hostesses.
Speaker 1:Jenny Berman, physician assistant.
Speaker 2:Walker, ryan Bermanator, drinking some delicious milk.
Speaker 1:He's looking at you like Dad, come on.
Speaker 2:Cheese Louise. Lock it up, dad Cool. How's everybody doing Great? Good question, good response. I'm glad that this is an interactive thing and we're going back and forth we're doing great yes, we're doing great, really good treating problems, not symptoms. David going against goliath, goliath being the corporate medical system, big pharma, health insurance holy, the amount of frustration I'm hearing with people trying to battle their health insurance companies in the past few weeks, it's just astronomical. The tides are changing, people are getting smarter and things are going to change. They have to change.
Speaker 1:It's true, I think I revised an invoice for a client six times last week and finally I was like that's all I got. I can't do anything else. That is all I've got. Their job is to deny you, and every time we send in this invoice, they're going to come back with something else that they need and something else that they want. And this needs to be different. And you can't have 12 codes. You can only have four codes, but then that fourth code doesn't cover what needs to be covered. Like it's crazy.
Speaker 2:I just went through the same exact thing with one of my other clients that I really, really cherish, and we got halfway through one of his programs, one of his packages, and he wanted to submit halfway through just to get the process going. We went back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth and it got to the point to where I was like, listen, I cannot spend any more time on this. This is the reason why we don't take insurance. It's because if we did, we would have to have at least one full-time provider just battling health insurance companies revising codes, and we're just not going to do it Like that is literally their job to deny.
Speaker 1:Well, and then it gets to the point that you start like I mean I had to say, look, if I make any more changes I could be up for like fraud against trying, you know, trying to figure out a way around the system. I can't, I can't do that.
Speaker 2:Same exact thing, so not doing it. So anyways, on a better note, a higher note holy cow, what a two weeks it's been. So we're talking about this two weeks later just because of the nature of recording these things, but, man, we had a really fun week, started off with going to Austin Texas for one of our quarterly mastermind meetings. That's where the location was this quarter, austin Texas. So we're out there. Two weeks ago and it just so happened to be the weekend of the Final Four which the Florida Gators were in. And come to find out I didn't know my Texas geography the Final Four was being played in San Antonio, texas, which is only about 80 miles away from Austin Texas. So we're there for this business meeting and I'm talking to Jenny, I'm going, we're skipping the meeting and we're going to the final four.
Speaker 1:And I was like Jake we're here for a business meeting with networking with our business entrepreneur friends. We came all the way to Austin, texas, left our children to network.
Speaker 2:And you want to go to a game and make business decisions. And make business decisions on how to make money, not spend money, right and you want to go to the final four in san antonio so I end up saying, okay, we're not going saturday until the gators won saturday.
Speaker 2:Now they're playing for the National Championship Monday. And I'm going oh my gosh, we're supposed to fly out Monday into Atlanta so that we can drive to Augusta to go to the Masters practice rounds Tuesday and Wednesday. And I'm going wow, talk about first world problems. What am I going to do?
Speaker 1:We're supposed to fly out Monday night, land in Atlanta, watch the game on TV, drive to Augusta, and then we had tickets to the practice rounds Tuesday, wednesday for the masters and to network with some other golf people of yours.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:On more business decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this was a giant dilemma giant dilemma week full of full of business decisions that was interrupted by the Florida Gators going to the national championship basketball national championship.
Speaker 2:So I talk with my business coach been my coach for almost 10 years now. Right after the Gators won Saturday night, I'm like this is the situation, this is what it's going to cost me to buy tickets to the national championship. This is what it's going to cost me to buy different tickets to fly into Atlanta first flight Tuesday morning so that we can make it to Augusta for our tickets Tuesday. And he just looks at me and he goes and what are you asking me, he?
Speaker 1:was like what's your question?
Speaker 2:He goes you're not buying these tickets for a three-hour game, you're buying these tickets for a lifetime of memories and that's the return on investment that you should be looking at. So, long story short, I end up buying tickets to the national championship. Jenny and I go to we Uber to San Antonio Monday. And, a fun side note our brother-in-law and his nephew our nephew, sorry, his son end up getting last minute tickets there. So meeting us there and the Gators win the national championship.
Speaker 1:It was awesome.
Speaker 2:it was awesome, it was awesome so it was one of the best returns on investment that I've ever done especially because you haven't stopped talking about it. Two weeks later here we are so we uber back to Austin and pretty much go straight to the airport. No sleep at all. Get into Atlanta, go through rental car hell trying to get a rental car. Oh my gosh, If you've ever rented a car from Routes.
Speaker 1:Don't do it.
Speaker 2:Don't do it. Oh my gosh, I'm publicly saying this. Talk about the worst things you can do in business. I don't even know how they're still in business. They didn't do anything right. I don't even know how they're still in business. They didn't do anything right. I mean, it was just a disaster. There was not a single happy customer in that place.
Speaker 1:There wasn't.
Speaker 2:It was insane, absolutely insane. So, anyways, we get the rental car, drive to Atlanta or to Augusta have an amazing day, zombified Tuesday, walking around the Masters on zero sleep, essentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you guys understand. We literally had zero sleep. We got back into Austin in our Uber around 2 am. We had to be on the shuttle bus to the airport by 345 am, so we literally got to the hotel, took showers and got dressed to go back to the airport again and went to the airport and then flew to Atlanta. So that's kind of the summary of that. No sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is actually sleep is going to tie into what we're going to talk about here in a couple of minutes after I finish boasting and bragging about how amazing of a week that we had. Again, we're kid free. This is first time being away from Walker.
Speaker 1:So it's the first time being away from all three kids, with just the two of us in almost five years, with just the two of us, like where we weren't with another group of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a friend like an adult's trip type thing yeah. Yeah, so that was fun connecting with my beautiful wife. It was so amazing.
Speaker 1:It was well needed. I encourage it for all couples to just take a solo trip, without children, without friends. Yeah, it's necessary. We should have done it before five friends. Yeah, it's necessary. We should have done it before five years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:But yes, first time leaving Walker.
Speaker 2:So there we are walking around like zombies. Tuesday at the Masters, taking it all in, we got tickets from one of our really good dear friends, daniel, who's been a King rep for a very long time, so he's the one that ended up getting us the tickets and it was absolutely amazing. We went Wednesday to the Par 3 contest and the Par 3 contest holy cow, talk about an amazing experience. All the players walking around with their wives caddying for them, chasing around their little kids and toddlers and babies Talk about a really human, down to earth experience. 10 feet away from Scheffler and Justin Thomas and just sitting on the ground playing with their kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a really cool experience, Really cool to see real people, I mean on TV. You just see, I said to Jake on Tuesday when we were at the practice rounds. I was like you know, it's amazing to see these players actually talking to each other and being friends, because when you watch the Masters on TV or any golf tournament on TV, you almost think that the players are enemies to each other, Like they don't show on television any of the interaction or friendliness between the players. But they really are friends. They are teammates, especially, you know, like the, the American ones.
Speaker 2:So it was really cool to see that side. I want to say about this before we get into sleeping is the gators won in the national championship and mackleroy won in the masters is two examples of never, ever, ever give up, like never give up. So, theators, when they played the national championship game, they only led one minute and six seconds of the entire game, right Of 40 minutes 20 minutes in the first half, 20 minutes in the second half. The Gators only led one minute and six seconds. 17 of those seconds was in the first part of the game. So they essentially did not lead at all until the last 45 seconds of the game and then won it and won the national championship, right, right. That's just an example of never, ever give up. Just keep chipping away. Just keep chipping away and keep yourself in the game. You don't have to be winning the whole time, just keep yourself in the game so that you can make a move.
Speaker 1:And knowing that progress is not linear, I mean progress. The progression that the Gators had throughout the national championship game was not a linear progression to getting up and winning the game. I mean they were at one point down by 12, I think.
Speaker 2:At least 12.
Speaker 1:Before they came back and won the game. So progress is not linear. Never, ever give up. Know that as long as you have the focus and the discipline, you can still always come out on top.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and the same thing for McElroy. I mean, how many times did he try to win the green jacket? I think it was 17 or 11 or 17. Don't hold me to that stat. It was at least 11 times that he came up short and didn't win it. And this was the last big major win to complete his career grand slam and he just kept getting kicked in the face, punched in the face, kicked in the gut and just couldn't pull it off.
Speaker 2:And this tournament was a perfect example of it, where Justin Rose led the first two days and then, out of nowhere, mcelroy and DeChambeau have this ridiculous day on Saturday that puts him in the lead. And then, saturday, he starts off horribly with a double bogey on number one but then bounces right back then has the worst shot of his life on number 13,. Should be a chip shot. Any professional golfer on that stage should make that 100, I think it was 100 yards or 125 yards should make that shot 99.9 times out of 100. And he duffs it right into the water, shanks it and I'm going, man, I can do that. But then he kept chipping away, chipping away, chipping away until it came down to number 18. And all he had to do was sink a putt that again, professional golfers on that level will make 99.9% of the time out of 100.
Speaker 2:And he pulled it, has to go into a playoff, ends up being rose in the playoff in the first hole and wins the Masters. And it was one of the greatest accomplishments, he says of his entire career, and those were actually his words to his daughter never give up, never, ever, ever give up on your dreams. So there's two really good examples. We had an amazing week. We learned a ton, made a ton of business connections, met some really amazing people and one of the people that we actually met in the bar after the masters on wednesday so after wednesday went to not the bar, sports bar to eat yeah but we're sitting at the bar.
Speaker 1:We're sitting at the bar.
Speaker 2:It was a restaurant, yes and these two guys come and sit next to us and super long story short. He just starts talking. We start talking about business and what Jenny does and sleep comes up and he goes. I haven't slept good in 20 years.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And that's where I wanted to tie all this into is because one of the best I'm going to paraphrase you I'm going to talk for you for a second One of the greatest positive side effects to doing a program with you, jenny, is that sleep improves.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people that don't realize how bad their sleep is until they start working with you for gut issues or autoimmune disorders or whatever it is, and then ultimately start reporting. My sleep is so much better.
Speaker 1:Right, most definitely. And that was the first thing I said to this guy at the restaurant. I said you know I'm not going to sit here and treat you right now I'm off the clock at the moment but my one tip for you to take away from our conversation right now, right here, that you can start doing over the next four or five days until we can talk again, is to eat more protein. And I actually asked him first. I said, let me guess you eat one or one or two meals a day. And he was like you're absolutely right, I'm watching my weight. One or two meals, that's all I can handle.
Speaker 1:And I said there's your sleep problem. You're not eating enough. You're not eating enough protein to stabilize your blood sugar, to help cortisol control, especially being a business owner and having a high stress job. So for the next four to five days, focus on eating protein every two to three hours, and we'll talk again Monday days. Focus on eating protein every two to three hours and we'll talk again Monday.
Speaker 1:So and that's the most common thing with sleep issues is, even those who come in for gut issues, they're not eating enough because they're afraid to eat or they don't know what to eat, or if they're coming in for weight management issues, they're trying to eat less, especially calorie dense meals, so that they can lose weight, and you're just not eating enough protein to stabilize blood sugar and cortisol levels. And sleep has such a big impact on so many things. I mean, we saw it Tuesday when we didn't sleep nearly enough Monday night into Tuesday with the traveling. We not only obviously we were exhausted, but we were craving, we were hungry, we were grazing all day long. It seemed like all we did on Tuesday was eat the whole day.
Speaker 2:Well, the masters made it easy. I mean, come on the chicken salad sandwiches.
Speaker 1:But sleep does impact so much. It's your body's ability to regenerate healthy cells. If we're getting adequate restful sleep, we can regenerate 330 billion cells a night. Your body's made up of cells, so we have the ability of regenerating 330 billion. What does that number even mean? It's a big number, but if we're not getting that restful sleep, we're regenerating unhealthy cells or not regenerating cells at all. We're either regenerating the antibodies that our body's fighting against, injuring the immune system, causing autoimmune disease, increasing the risk of cancer cells regenerating, or our body is just worn out because we're not regenerating the healthy cells. It affects our brain, brain fog, mental capacity, our patients, our dopamine and serotonin, which are our happy upper hormones, our blood sugar, our appetite.
Speaker 2:And something as simple not easy something as simple as just increasing your daily protein uptake can positively affect that.
Speaker 1:Most definitely, Especially. You know there is more to it. Of course you have to have that protein intake balanced with the right carbohydrates and fats, so your total macro count. But the one focus I would tell you right now is am I getting a lean source of protein every two to three hours, and it doesn't have to be animal based protein. We can use the plant-based yogurts, we can use dry roasted edamame, we can definitely use vegan and vegetarian alternatives if you're not somebody that just loves to eat meat all day, but focus on protein within an hour of waking up in the morning and then every two to three hours throughout the day.
Speaker 2:And the ladies are the ones that have the hardest problem with this, because they usually come in eating less than 50 grams of protein a day and you're like, listen, you've got to get a hundred. I'm paraphrasing right now you got to get a hundred grams of protein in a day. You just have to. And they're like there's no way that I'm going to be able to do that. And the biggest battle is the psychological component, especially with women. They think that if they consume that much, that they're going to gain weight, and I, to an extent, was guilty of this myself just a few years ago We've talked about this on the podcast multiple times where, when I transitioned from being jacked, ripped, nasty, shredded and not having to work for it at all, I could eat whatever I want. I could eat 15 cookies in a two-minute spurt. I could eat a whole pizza and still just be shredded.
Speaker 2:Once I got into my early 30s, that started to slip away. I started getting a little fluffier around mid-30s, 35, 36. And I'm going what the hell, man, I'm still working out the same hard, not the same hard. I was working out hard doing cardio and I was getting fluffier and fluffier. So I just started eating less.
Speaker 2:My portion size got less and less, and it wasn't until Jenny finally forced me to put a CGM on continuous glucose monitor where I could see it in real time, where my blood sugar was staying high, high, high, high and you're not going to lose weight when your blood sugar level is staying high until I forced myself to eat a significantly larger portion of protein and veggies for dinner one night and my blood sugar comes way down and I'm going what the hell this is like double. This is like double what I thought was the right amount of a serving. So the problem is, if you don't know what you don't know and you can't figure it out by yourself. And one of the biggest contributors to poor sleep is not enough protein intake. So one of the simplest not easy, one of the simplest things that you can do is try eating more protein every two to three hours.
Speaker 1:You got it, like it yes.
Speaker 2:Good, Like, subscribe. Share this episode with somebody that you know does not sleep well and go Gators. Congratulations to McElroy on the Masters and never, ever, ever give up.
Speaker 1:Ciao for now. Thank you for subscribing on your social media and podcast platforms to the Berman Method Dr Jake Berman with Berman Physical Therapy and Jenny Berman, physician Assistant, with Berman Health and Wellness. You can find more information on our website wwwbermanptcom for physical therapy. Wwwbermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. Wwwbermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. You can also find us on social media Facebook, instagram and on your podcast platform, so be sure to follow us, like us, subscribe to us and, if you would like any further information, definitely visit our website and reach out to us. You may also find our free reports on the websites as well, where you can download this free information for yourself. Have a great day.