“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” so the lyric goes. If you don’t sleep you will be dead sooner is more true to life: Sleep improves everything. I mean, literally everything. I've not found a single thing that I can't tie to sleep being a major component of. And if you aren't sleeping well, you're just at risk for more of anything bad. Anything bad. --Dr. Kirk Parsley, MD, sleep expert and advisor to the Navy SEALs. Selling sleep should be like selling sex, so why is it so hard for people to do? Two reasons: Humans are the only animals with electricity, and we’ve used it to maximal effect for disrupting our normal circadian rhythms. It’s not that people won’t sleep, the problem is they can’t sleep. Time is money and shift working is a sad fact of life. The main thing you must do to get better sleep is appreciate its importance. I want you to buy into the idea of sleep and strive for it as you would any other goal. The rest is relatively straightforward, and that’s what Kirk and I cover in this podcast interview. Supraphysiological testosterone. Dr. Tommy Wood and I are constantly exploring supplements that boost testosterone, it’s one of our most frequently asked questions. Hormone replacement is usually not an option because almost everything you can think of is on the WADA banned substance list. What about herbs like Tribulus? Well perhaps, but neither herbs or HRT have the power of adequate sleep, and so that’s where we always start. During this interview, Dr. Kirk Parsley, a former Navy SEAL himself, tells the story of one officer that increased his free testosterone by 500% simply by getting off the sleep drugs like Ambien and getting proper sleep. Another 42-year old went supraphysiological (above normal levels) using sleep alone. What supplement should you take for more testosterone? Easy. Take a nap. Taking a nap is probably your best bet for enhanced recovery and learning too: I recommend to everyone to take naps even if you sleep perfectly. I take a nap every single day and I have for years and years and years. But definitely if you sleep sub-optimally, which means either you don't get great quality sleep or you don't get quite enough sleep, a nap is probably the best mitigation tool. But for what I do and for what you do and for what a lot of people do, we're in a super, super informationally dense age where we're completely overwhelmed by information. The beauty of a nap is that you can consolidate memories in a nap and you can form what's called durable track memories which means that it's going from your working memory to short term memory into your long term memory. And this is true for physical exercise, physical muscle memory like riding a bicycle or doing jiu-jitsu or boxing, playing the piano, whatever that requires some sort of physical movement to be memorized and to become sort of automated. Here’s the outline of this interview with Dr. Kirk Parsley 0:00:36    Kirk on Robb's podcast. 0:01:18    Robb and Kirk have attended multiple events together. 0:04:04    Like firefighters and pilots, SEALs are worried about losing their job. 0:04:57    Kirk was the SEAL confidant. 0:05:22    The SEALs can't be dependant on medicines or supplements. 0:05:41    Doctors learn how to classify and treat disease, not how to create health. 0:06:17    Normal symptoms (for an 80 year old). 0:07:02    As a physician to the SEALs, Kirk was able to get help from pretty much anyone. 0:07:56    9/11 happened and the SEALs started doing more work. 0:08:10    Now we have night vision. 0:08:22    Kirk investigated the idea of “adrenal fatigue”, had some success with treatment. 0:08:58    Ambien doesn’t help you get better sleep, it knocks you unconscious. 0:10:45    The SEALs kept asking for a supplement to save them the bother of shopping for individual supplements. 0:11:00    500% more free testosterone with better sleep! 0:11:11    No supplements, just sleep! 0:11:20    DHEA. 0:11:27    Zinc. 0:12:29    One 42 year old commanding offic