Sleeping Smarter, What to Eat, and Making Successful Bets

Mar 12

Mar 12 Sleeping Smarter, What to Eat, and Making Successful Bets

Two stories and a book from last week:

• If you are as confused as I am about conflicting dietary research that keeps popping up every other week, then you may enjoy this piece in WSJ. The crux of the article is that first, we instinctively know what is good for us to eat, and second, every new research adds context to the previous one and should not be read as one that dethrones the previous findings completely. The writers Bittman and Katz then go on to shed some more light on popular food choices and give some generic rule of thumb guidelines. The writers seem to favour plant based diet as the best option for us. The story may read a little bit like a rant at times, but is still informative enough for me to add their upcoming book (from which the article is adapted) to my reading list.

• Back to my favourite topic of sleep where I am teaching myself to become a pro. Just finished reading Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson. I have written about another book on sleep (Matt Walker’s Why We Sleep) earlier, which I found to be extremely educative to understand the mechanics behind good sleep. If you have not read Why We Sleep, which has all the underlying scientific explanations, and are looking for a how-to guide, then Stevenson’s book is good. Step by step, he lays down 21 strategies to sleep better. While most of them I already knew about or had learnt earlier in Walker’s book, a few stood out that I am going to try out. These include:

- Taking Magnesium: Magnesium as a supplement promotes longer cycles and less interruptions during sleep. However, this mineral is difficult to get in adequate quantities from food. Stevenson recommends applying it on the skin instead as it can be absorbed transdermally. I got myself of a cream from the local pharmacy.

- The myth of Melatonin: Melatonin is a sleep promoting hormone that the body produces naturally. However, these hormones can be bought over the counter. Last time, I had bought two bottles from a Whole Foods store in Seattle, and I kept them for use during rare occasions — for example, to fix jet lags. However, Stevenson claims that Melantonin supplement may impede body’s natural ability to produce the hormone resulting in the need to increase consumption over time. So, it’s better to avoid this hormonal supplement if don’t want to become dependent on it.

- Exercising, including strength training, is a proven way to improve sleep. However, the best results are achieved when it’s done in the morning, and certainly not close to sleeping time.

- Snake plant for the bedroom is a good choice, for it’s one of the few that gives out oxygen during the night. I have put one in my bedroom now. It’s low maintenance, i.e. doesn’t need much light or water and can survive for long.

- I need to read more about the use of cooling pads and grounding mats, which are also highly recommended by Stevenson. Grounding/earthing mats especially, for these are supposed to balance the electrical activity in the body. Alternative to this is walking in the grass or sand for roughly fifteen minutes everyday, which is difficult to do during Swedish winters.

Stevenson is coming out with another book ‘Eat Smarter’ in April this year, and I plan to read it too to check out his recommendations. Will keep you posted!

• How to transform and accelerate growth in an already established, however stagnating, brand? Bob Iger, the now ex-CEO of Disney, has managed to do revive the fortune of Disney in the digital age. He did so by acquiring outside content creators such as Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilms. This article summaries his journey at Disney and the three key lessons to learn from it, which are:

1. Quality matters most, and it shouldn’t hurt to get quality content from outside if you can’t produce it internally.

2. If you end up acquiring a business, then don’t destroy its culture. Rather, take inspiration from it to improve in-house capabilities.

3. Be open to update your strategy and take corrective actions when new facts emerge.

All basic lessons, one would say. But the simplest stuff is the most difficult to implement. For instance, the last point is intuitive, but when you are in the corner office and are brought into that office for the beliefs you carry, even if you wish to change your approach later, it’ll not be easy to do so. If this article whets your appetite to learn more about Iger’s leadership approach then you may find this long-form podcast with Tim Ferris helpful. The first 20 minutes are gold, when Iger talks about his bid to acquire Pixar and the whiteboard negotiation sessions that followed with Steve Jobs.

A quote that I came across last week: