In his book Why we sleep, Matt Walker explains that sleep is vital for memorizing before and after we study, it has immense effects on reproductive health. When we sleep only four hours, the activity of natural killer cells decreases by 70%, raising the risk for various cancers.

After 20 years of individual problems with poor sleep, Richard Jacobs decided to take a research approach to the problem. He visited a sleep analysis center. “These centers require an overnight stay so researchers can analyse your sleep. I usually go to bed very very late, around 3 am, and consequently get up late in the morning. For the evaluation, I was told to come to the center at 9 pm, so I can leave by 6 am. This was unreasonable for my case. It did not take into account my daily routine and would generate meaningless results,” says Jacobs.

The basics of sleep hygiene

Various factors affect sleep - our environment, which needs to be cooler rather than warmer, mattress, light, noise, daily stress, amount of caffeine consumed during the day, etc. Additional basic sleep hygiene advice is not to use electronic devices before sleep and avoid caffeine after lunch. 

Since Richard Jacobs is the host of Future Tech Podcast and Future Tech Health Podcast, he conducted over a hundred interviews about sleep with various sleep experts. He later turned his knowledge in The Good Night’s Sleep Project, making custom-tailored-pillows based on an individual’s 14 personal characteristics.

After the misfortunate experience with the sleep center analysis, Jacobs tested various recommendations for sleep improvement. Among essential changes in his sleeping routine were dark curtains to prevent light entering the room in the morning and consistency in avoiding heavy meals before sleep.

His main advice to anyone having trouble sleeping is: introduce changes, monitor their effects, and don’t give up, simply because this requires time and effort.

Tune in for the full discussion:

Some questions addressed:

• Before The Future Tech Podcast and Future Tech Health Podcast, which have been running since 2016, you were a marketing specialist. More specifically, working for attorneys and law firms. Speakeasy Marketing helps solo attorneys and small law firms attract more potential clients, cherry-pick the best cases, and grow their practices – by making sure that, when someone in their metro/practice area searches online for help with a legal problem, they are the law firm that gets found first. How did you go from law to healthcare?

• Richard, you started podcasting three years ago, in 2016. If I understood correctly, it was out of curiosity about all the next technologies - from artificial intelligence, stem cells, 3D printing, gene editing, bitcoin, blockchain, the microbiome, quantum computing, virtual reality, and space exploration. What caught most of your attention

• Given your expertise in marketing and the rising number of digital health and healthcare startups and companies - how do you assess what you read and stumble upon - how can one differentiate between good companies and just well-marketed companies?

• After research in sleep studies, you started your own Good Night Sleep Project. You did 110 interviews with sleep experts. When you talked to sleep experts and asked them, “Why can’t I sleep through the night, like everyone else?” What answers did you get?

• What changes did you introduce in your personal life?

• Your custom-tailored pillow is created to 14 of your body’s unique measurements. With all the new technologies assessing brain waves, stimulating brain waves - pillows? 

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