Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 949 is my conversation with Dr. Peter Martone, the chiropractor and founder of the Way Better Sleep Academy. We get into how the position you sleep in affects your overall health, why he believes side sleeping can drive shoulder and back pain, and how you can use the third of your life you spend in bed to retrain your body and hold proper spinal alignment. It is a deep, practical conversation about sleep, posture, and pain.
Listen now: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · Listen in the player · Press play in the audio player on this page.
Dr. Peter Martone is a chiropractor and sleep-and-posture expert who founded the Way Better Sleep Academy. He developed a neurostructural approach to health centered on spinal alignment and the position you sleep in, and he created a special pillow designed to help people restructure their neck and spine while they sleep. His work focuses on using the one-third of your life spent in bed to retrain the body.
Dr. Martone's central argument is that the position you sleep in has a major effect on your overall health, and that sleep is governed by your neurology and spinal alignment. He believes you can use your time in bed to retrain the body and hold proper alignment, so that even with limited sleep duration you can get higher-quality, more restorative sleep and perform better the next day.
Dr. Martone, a former side sleeper with a shoulder and hip problem himself, argues that side sleeping can contribute to shoulder impingement and back pain. He recommends shifting away from side sleeping and into a position that arches the neck back, which takes pressure off the psoas major — the only muscle in the body that attaches directly to a disc — and can relieve back pain.
The Way Better Sleep Academy is Dr. Martone's program, broken into multiple parts, that helps people figure out what kind of sleeper they are through a series of tests and then implement his strategies — including a special pillow and changes to sleep position — to improve sleep quality and spinal alignment over time.
Dr. Martone explains that if you spend a third of your life hunched over a computer, you have to use the third you spend in bed to retrain the body to align properly. He pairs sleep-position changes with chiropractic adjustments and proprioception work — balance and body awareness — to hold alignment, break up scar tissue, and address shoulder and back issues at the source.
Dr. Martone emphasizes retraining the neurology through proprioception, the brain's sense of balance and body awareness. He describes development work on a wobble board designed to quantify cognitive functioning, and argues that without maintaining alignment through adjustments and sleep-position changes, you lose balance and accumulate problems over time.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 949 with Dr. Peter Martone is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. Press play in the audio player on this page to hear the full conversation about sleep position and spinal alignment.
I have tried just about everything to sleep better — darker rooms, earplugs, every sleep podcast out there. What I had not really focused on was sleep position, and that is exactly Dr. Martone's specialty. As a guy who needs to be sharp on the water and still have something left for my family at the end of the day, I came into this one as a student, wanting him to explain how the way I lie down at night could be quietly working for or against me.
Press play in the audio player on this page to hear the whole conversation.
Dr. Martone's core message is that the position you sleep in has a big effect on your overall health, because sleep is controlled by your neurology and spinal alignment. He argues you do not necessarily need more hours — you need better-quality sleep, and the right position helps you get it. He explains how he thinks about duration versus quality, and why position is the lever most people ignore. Listen to that part of the episode.
Dr. Martone was a side sleeper himself, with a shoulder and a hip problem, and a history of back pain going back to lifting a snowmobile as a kid. He explains how he forced himself into a new position that arches the neck back to take pressure off the psoas major — the only muscle in the body that attaches directly to a disc. For anyone with shoulder impingement or chronic back pain, this is the section to hear. Press play.
This is the idea that reframed it for me. If you spend a third of your life hunched over a computer, Dr. Martone says you have to use the third you spend in bed to retrain the body to align properly. He pairs sleep-position changes with chiropractic adjustments and his special pillow to hold that alignment over time, rather than fighting it every day. Listen to how he puts the pieces together.
Dr. Martone goes deep on proprioception — the brain's sense of balance and body awareness — and describes development work on a wobble board designed to quantify cognitive functioning. His point is that alignment, balance, and neurology are all connected, and that without maintaining them through adjustments and better sleep position, you slowly lose balance and pile up problems. Press play in the audio player above to hear it.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or press play in the audio player on this page.
The day after talking to Dr. Martone, I caught myself paying attention to how I was lying down for the first time in my life. That is the value of this conversation — it makes something you do every single night, and never think about, suddenly visible.
The bigger idea is that you cannot out-supplement or out-hack bad alignment. If you spend your days hunched over and your nights in a position that reinforces it, the body learns the wrong shape. Using your time in bed to retrain it is one of the few levers that is completely free.
Press play in the audio player on this page, or grab Episode 949 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Dr. Peter Martone is a chiropractor and sleep-and-posture expert and the founder of the Way Better Sleep Academy. He developed a neurostructural approach to health that centers on spinal alignment and sleep position, and created a specialized pillow designed to help people restructure their neck and spine while they sleep. His work helps people use their time in bed to retrain the body, hold proper alignment, and address chronic back and shoulder pain at the source.
Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 950: Dr. Peter Martone
In this episode: how the position that you sleep in makes a massive difference in your overall health, why 90 percent of shoulder impingement is a side sleeping issue, retraining the neurology to help your posture, five minutes a day on a wobble board, and the difference between quantity of sleep and quality of sleep — in the exact words spoken.
Tom Rowland: If you want everything you need to take care of your boat, StarBright's got the solution. It's called boat care in a bucket. That's right. One three and a half gallon bucket packed with essentials, vinyl bright, deck cleaner, marine polish, a wash mitt, hull cleaner, and boat wash. That one kit will keep any boat clean and protected, but that's just the start. I also use StarBright's salt off, which is incredible for rinsing salt off after a day on the water. Their brushes and cleaning products work just as well on your RV and patio furniture and anything else that lives outside. It is a company that gives back. That's one of the things that I really like about StarBright. StarBright supports marine conservation through Project Sea Safe, and that means a lot to me personally. You're getting performance and purpose. Visit starbrite.com. That's starbrite.com, and get your boat dialed in for the season. From The Seychelles to The Keys, I trust Nikon binoculars to find fish fast. Visit nikonusa.com and upgrade your line of sight. I thought I was covered, but I wasn't. HH Insurance showed me that my old policy did not cover The Bahamas or nighttime navigation, two major gaps that could have cost me a lot. Jake and Landon fixed it fast. They know charter policies better than anyone I've ever worked with. Call (727) 498-5551 or visit hhinsgroup.com and tell them Tom Rowland sent you. Trusted enough to go with me to The Seychelles, my Danco pliers are a staple in my kit. Check out dancopliers.com and build yours today. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Tom Rowland podcast brought to you by StarBright. One of the things that I have tried to do over the years, is to improve the quality of my sleep because as a working fishing guide, you don't get a lot of sleep. So if you don't have a lot of duration of sleep, you can have better quality of sleep, and you can be ready for the next day, and you can perform well on the water, and you can make it through the day and still have stuff left for your family when you get home. That's the idea. I've read a bunch of different books on sleep, including doctor Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep, another book called Lights Out, few others. You listen to a whole bunch of podcasts, and whether it's improving the sleep environment, improving your environment by making it darker and darker, maybe even, wearing earplugs or anything that can help with the the quality of sleep, I pretty much tried it. And I can tell you that as the quality of sleep improves, the next the performance the next day improves. That's my experience anyway. So as I see little benefits, it's like, well, what if I could sleep a little bit better? So I have been researching this. That led me to our guest today who who has something slightly different to add to the equation. This is doctor Peter Martone, and he is a chiropractor that also is an expert in the sleep field. And what he talks about is how the position that you sleep in makes a massive difference in your overall health and your overall quality of sleep at night. And so we're gonna dive into that as well as his background and how he ended up doing what he's doing and, and helping a lot more people to sleep. He is doctor sleep right on Instagram. He has something called the way better sleep academy, and, it it has, these different tests that you can take to determine what kind of sleeper you are and then try to implement some of his strategies, including a special pillow that he has to sleep better. I thought it was a great conversation. I learned some stuff. I'm gonna try it tonight and see if it improves my sleep. So here we go. Doctor Peter Martone.
Dr. Peter Martone: I'm doctor Peter Martone, and this is the Tom Rowland podcast.
Tom Rowland: Alright. Peter, how are you?
Dr. Peter Martone: Unbelievable. Just woke up from a nap, and I'm ready to go.
Tom Rowland: So that's what we're gonna talk about today is sleep and, specifically, like, how to get better sleep and then how and then what you're working on or what I know your work of is sleep positions. And but before we get there, I did some research on you, and I wanna ask you about a couple of things. First of all, seem to be an avid mountain biker.
Dr. Peter Martone: Yes. I am going tonight. Correct.
Tom Rowland: You're going tonight? Yes. So, where do you like to mountain bike?
Dr. Peter Martone: I like to mountain bike, North Shore Of Boston, Lynn Woods.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Dr. Peter Martone: Right around that area. Really technical, almost like free ride type mountain biking.
Tom Rowland: Alright. Full suspension or what?
Dr. Peter Martone: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Full suspension. It's it's pretty nasty. A lot of air, a lot of jumping.
Tom Rowland: Nice. Okay. My son just, he he was riding a, I guess it's what he called it, downbar mountain bike. Downhill. More like a well, no. It's like it's got, like, 10 speed, you know
Dr. Peter Martone: You would get killed on a bike like that where we are.
Tom Rowland: He did it. Not not he's not riding like like you. He rode from Virginia to Florida. Yeah. And mostly on gravel and stuff like that. But he had a great time. It was really cool. There's a the Eastern Divide Trail.
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah, another trail.
Tom Rowland: Really good. So you also said that you lived out of a backpack.
Dr. Peter Martone: I did through Australia. Correct.
Tom Rowland: Oh, through Australia?
Dr. Peter Martone: Yes.
Tom Rowland: So what how how did you pick I mean, you hear of a lot of people that'll do the Appalachian Trail or the or the, you know, one of our trails that we have or maybe go across Europe or do things like that. How did you pick Australia?
Dr. Peter Martone: So I was a rugby player at UMass Amherst at the time, and I wanted to play rugby. And I was going to school for exercise physiology and kinesiology. So I, went to school out there and was a trainer, for a rugby team. And then I once school finished, I'm like, you know what? I loved it. So I stayed there, for a few months afterwards and lived out of my backpack and went up and down the, the coast of Australia. It was phenomenal.
Tom Rowland: Which coast? One with with the cities?
Dr. Peter Martone: The cities. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane.
Tom Rowland: That's the only place in in Australia that I've been I've been on that coast all the way up to the very, very tip top of, Carpentaria, which Darwin? Florida. Well, I don't I don't know if I went to that. We we flew all the way to the end, and then we got on boats, and we we did a fishing trip up and down that. And that's incremental that hangs off of, the Northern portion of Australia called Carpentaria is a lot like our Florida. Right? But upside down. It it extends towards the towards the Equator where Florida is extending towards the Equator going south. But it was cool because, like a lot of the vegetation was very, very similar to Florida, like,
Dr. Peter Martone: oh, wow.
Tom Rowland: And crazy trees and everything. And then the fishing was was really similar. But man, Australia is just such an incredible place. Just love that. How did you end up without getting cauliflower a year?
Dr. Peter Martone: What's that? Cauliflower a year?
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Dr. Peter Martone: No. From wrestling?
Tom Rowland: Well, from rugby. A lot of rugby players have it too.
Dr. Peter Martone: Oh, yeah. No. I, no. I was outside fast. I was really fast. Outside, out in the wing, and, I'd run up and down. I wasn't in the scrum in the middle. The scrum typically forms around you, you know, when, you know, if the ball's dropped or or something like that. But, yeah, we're our swings were pretty protected.
Tom Rowland: That's great. Well, rugby is a that's a sport that is tough, man. That's a that's a tough sport. I enjoyed watching it on the Olympics this year, both the men's and the women's rugby. Yeah. It was fun to watch. Really good. So out of your athletic background, that's where you get interested in exercise physiology. And then how do you lead up to where you are today?
Dr. Peter Martone: Oh, boy. So, life zigzags you, you know, kind of where you are. So then I was in exercise physiology, can go to medical school. I had met a chiropractor at the time, and he's like, what do you think about doing? I'm like, I'm I'm, you know, fulfilling my requirements of going to medical school. He's like, you ever think about chiropractic? And I'm like, well, no. I went to chiropractor when I was younger. I really didn't jive with it. And he's like, well, tell me about it. And I'm like, well, it was in an auto accident and, and I just went in a million times and I really didn't feel like it helped, but I had always had stomach issues after that accident. And he's like, you know, that could be because, you know, the nervous system can is in the spine and the nervous system goes to the stomach and the digestive tract at your age, you shouldn't have it. I'm like, no. I'm fine. He's like, let me adjust you. I'm like, no. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. So long story short, he adjusted me. My stomach problem went away in, like, a week. I never had it again. And the hands, I'm like, woah. You know, when when something hits you that close to home
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Dr. Peter Martone: It really opens up your eyes to there's a lot more to your health or that there's a lot more to your structure than just pain and posture. It actually can directly affect your health. So that's really where I started opening up my eyes to to posture. Now we say that posture is a is a blueprint from your neurology's battle with gravity. You see, gravity is always working on your body. Your neurology or your nervous system and your brain's always trying to keep you straight up. And your posture is a battle between that. So by looking at somebody, we came up with this neurostructural protocol where we can just look at people and tell them what's going on internal because of that blueprint.
Tom Rowland: Wow. So let me ask you about the stomach issues because my daughter has stomach issues and, and, she was in an auto accident as well. What kind of stomach issues were you having?
Dr. Peter Martone: So the stomach is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system, which is then also controlled by the vagus nerve. So it's a female having stomach issues. She probably had ear infections or strep throat when she was a child. Or she's also has high anxiety or high anxious state. So, are any of those true?
Tom Rowland: Well, ear and strep probably more so than anxious.
Dr. Peter Martone: Okay. So the ear infections as a child tells you that there's parasympathetic inhibition due to Atlas alignment. So when, when there's a top bone in the human body, it comes out right underneath your ear. And when you have that bone, that's out of alignment. It puts pressure on a nerve affecting the muscle in the ear canal. Doesn't open well. It doesn't allow it to drain because the canal doesn't open. Well, the Atlas, when it's out of alignment, also puts pressure on the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve controls digestion, immune system, and hormones. So when a child has ear infections, there it's just inevitable before they have digestion issues, hormonal imbalances, and, immune system dysfunction. So for your child, she has an issue more, more than likely she sleeps curled up in a ball because she wants to feel protected because her neurology is what's controlling sleep. And then that reinforces that atlas misalignment so they never are able to get over their stomach issues.
Tom Rowland: Wow. And so, a chiropractic, adjustment one time could fix that?
Dr. Peter Martone: A chiropractic adjustment is like having a hard let let's say you have hard clay, hardened clay. Yeah. And you can take that clay and you can put it in water.
Tom Rowland: Sure. Doctor.
Dr. Peter Martone: That breaks up the scar tissue that makes the clay more moldable. If you don't, and this is what I found out and this is why now I'm in the sleep industry. I never entered the sleep industry to help people sleep. I entered the sleep industry to fix their structure while they slept because I had herniated my own disc. And so, so if you get adjusted to maintain that alignment, you change, you couple that with changing your sleeping position, doing both of those things together is how you hold the alignment.
Tom Rowland: Okay, cool. Well, we're we're going to talk about the sleep position because I have a lot of, a lot of questions about that, and that's what your work is on right now. But you're are you still a chiropractor?
Dr. Peter Martone: I am three days a week.
Tom Rowland: Three days a week. Okay. But you're moving more and more and more into sleep, but you're using chiropractic to to help people, with their position, with their posture? So that The
Dr. Peter Martone: chiropractic is my sandbox. So that's where I build all of my, unfortunately, it's practice. I practice on my patients for the last twenty five years. So when I come up with, protocols, I run them through my my patients, and then I come up with a protocol for my sleep systems. So, I use my time in practice for hands on, I guess you can say education to be able to do my research and then be able to extrapolate that through my programs.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Understood. So what we're talking about now and what you what your work is is, centered around is your position, how you're positioned in sleep, how how you sleep in your position that you choose to sleep in or end up in has a big effect on your overall health. Right? And your overall sleeping, the ability to sleep soundly?
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. Let's let's look at it as a it it it goes way beyond that. So we we call it getting way better. So we have a way better sleep academy. And within a way better sleep academy, we identify who do you need to become to do what you need to do to get the outcomes you want. So the Way Better Sleep Academy is broken up into three three areas. Mindset, right? Who do you have to be? Healthy habits to do what you need to do. What do you want? I'll come basically a better life, but we call it, you know, getting way better sleep. So most people think that they can close their eyes. If they want to be healthier, they're going to close their eyes and wake up and have better sleep. It does not work like that. There's a mindset change that needs to shift, and then you need to shift your daily habits. And then you're able to start to get way better sleep And way better sleep is broken down into, we call it the triune of sleep. It's broken down into, there are three variables at play for anybody in order to get better sleep. It's the body's needs, it's the subconscious needs, and then it's the conscious brain's wants. The conscious brain, which screws everything up all the time. It's the brain that isn't it thinks it's in control of everything, but is in control of nothing. Right? It's the stupid brain. It's the thinking brain. Think in the opposite of thinking is remembering. The opposite of thinking is sleeping. You can't think yourself to sleep. So, so when you say, Oh, I can't do that or I do this or I do that and you're making those those conscious decisions as to how to implement your outcomes in your life, you've already lost. So, so what the conscious brain thinks it is like the conscious brain thinks it's comfortable when it falls asleep. So I always ask people, oh, what, how do you sleep? Oh, I sleep in my right side is the most comfortable position. It has nothing to do with comfort. What the conscious brain mistakes as comfort is safety for the subconscious brain. So the two things that are at play is the body. All it wants is alignment. It wants his weight distributed over the greatest surface area, and it doesn't want to be in pain. That's all the body wants. The subconscious brain needs to feel safe in order to sleep, and then the conscious brain needs to get out of its own way. So that's the triune of sleep. Put the body first in alignment, create safety for the subconscious, and then get the conscious brain out of its own way. We have it reversed. We use our conscious brain to put ourselves into what we think is a comfortable position so everybody gets screwed up. So that's kind of the, you know, the the the whole the work that we're working on.
Tom Rowland: Wow. So let's talk about the positioning first, of of you you said getting yourself in the where you're where you have the greatest surface area. So that would probably be on your back or your stomach. Right?
Dr. Peter Martone: It it's on your back, and then your head cannot be supported. Because anytime you support something in the body, you weaken it. Like all these supports in their beds and these surgical support pillows and all that type of stuff, they all weaken the structure. They make things worse. You need to use a stress at night, like a distraction is a type of stress. And distraction will gently stretch a curve back into the neck. So for instance, we created this pillow. It's called a neck desk. But you take it and it goes under your neck, but then the weight of your head hangs off of the back. So basically, what you're doing is you're you're using the weight of your head to gently stretch the neck. And when you slowly and gently stretch over a long period of time, it's where you get the greatest benefits in structural change.
Tom Rowland: So how did you figure this out? It's been over a long time. I can tell. But how how did you
Dr. Peter Martone: Alright. So I was adjusting people. I had back pain my entire life up to the age of when my disc finally herniated. I think it was 38 years old. I'm 51. Right?
Tom Rowland: Cause of, of was there one traumatic event or just all the
Dr. Peter Martone: I had it all the time backpacking through Australia. My whole life, I had pain. I can remember as a kid lifting a snowmobile when I was young and my back went out on me, you know, so I always had back pain and I always attributed to, oh, I just it's, I live with it, you know, I, and, you know, I'm, I'm very athletic. Oh, you know, it's all the impact that it is in my body and I just do a lot. But then I'm adjusting people and I'm trying to get them out of their pain. But I myself had pain the entire time. And it wasn't until I finally, you know, I went off a jump wrong on my mountain bike and tweak something. I'd done that a 100 times before, and I'm like, oh, here we go. But this time was different. The days that followed ended up putting me into the emergency room because I couldn't feel my leg. I was screaming in pain, involuntary pain. The type of pain I mean, I've broken my arm. My seat broke. It came out my leg. And and, I mean, that's pain. But this was, like, unrelenting involuntary pain. I never had anything that bad before. I got when I got to the emergency room, they asked they gave me so much morphine, and I asked for so much morphine. They asked my wife if I was a drug addict. You know, that like that's how bad the pain was. So I'm sitting in the emergency room, you know, hooked up onto lauded. I just couldn't even imagine that my life would have come to this at 38 years old as a chiropractor. So I, you know, being a real competitive individual, I'm like, I got to figure this out. I got to get to the bottom of this. I get adjusted. Why doesn't it work? And so I started reviewing x rays. I reviewed at the time 3,000 x rays and I came up with the pattern that there are three things, body posture, adjust to head position. That's a law that's called the righting reflex. Davis's law, tissue remolds based on the stresses applied in Wolf's law, bone will remold based on the stresses applied. So I had a loss of cervical curve and I'm like, how the heck? I get adjusted. But I'm like, I sleep on my side curled up. And he said, well, the only way to really know to really stretch well is to put my neck in a position. And I was a side sleeper at the time with a shoulder problem and a hip issue, put myself in a position and force myself to stay in that position with the intention to arch my neck back. And then hopefully that takes pressure off my psoas major, and which is the only muscle in the human body attaches directly to a disc and that takes the pressure off of the psoas and maybe I'm able to get some relief from my back pain so I can practice again because I wasn't going to have surgery. And that's what I did. My why was big enough because my why was I may never be able to, you know, bend over again because of, you know, the pain I was feeling. So I started putting myself in a position, jamming towels under my neck at the time just to be able to get my neck arch back. And after about four weeks, I was completely pain free in my lower back.
Tom Rowland: Really? Yeah. So two things that you said there, you you had a shoulder impingement and a hip problem. Was that on the same side that you normally slept on?
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. You give me a shoulder problem, I'm gonna give you a side sleeper. You give me a hip issue, and I'm gonna give you a side sleeper.
Tom Rowland: There are, like, in the type of fishing like this, most of the, the audience here is like an outdoor audience, and I was a fishing guide for a long time. And the type of fishing that I would do would be on a on a small boat, and we'd have a push pull. And the guide stands in the back and pushes, almost like climbing a rope. You're pushing the boat all the time. It's an incredibly physical activity. It's almost like being a professional athlete. You do it for ten hours a day. And a lot of not all, by any stretch of the imagination. But it's not uncommon to see a fishing guide doing that work that has shoulder problems. But not everybody has those shoulder problems. And so that has been something that people have really been looking at, like, what's going on with this? Is it? And and the the common thing is it's just overuse injury. But I don't I don't believe that because I didn't have it myself. And in fact, when I did have shoulder problems, it was a lack of use issue because I wasn't doing pull ups and everything else. And then when I started doing a lot of pull ups, it all went away. But I just wonder if what you're talking about isn't also a sleeping issue. Because if you're a side sleeper and you're doing all these different things, wouldn't that aggravate it even worse?
Dr. Peter Martone: Ninety percent of all of my shoulder impingement and shoulder tears are side sleeping issues. I mean, that was my research in undergrad is it was on the shoulder. And we found that the issue was the inferior trip trap. So you said something very, very interesting, right? Right now, when you go to a PT and you have shoulder issues, they do near classification of shoulder impingement near, or he's a, he was a physical therapist and they do these exercises and these exercises and these exercises. Well, with, with the researcher that I work with was trying to not just prove that, but come up with a better solution. And he found the inferior trap is one of the only muscles that inserts below the ax, the rotation point of the scapula. And then the only way to get the inferior trap, your arms have to be above your head and you have to pull down. So when you were doing chin ups, you were working on the inferior trap because that's the opposite of this. It would be this and that pulls the shoulders back and opening up the space. So most people that have shoulder issues have an inferior trap issue and it's stretched out because they roll, they sleep on their side. So you change their sleeping position, bring those shoulders back, bring the head alignment back, fix a C6 degeneration that's also occurring because of that. Because You
Tom Rowland: fix that.
Dr. Peter Martone: That would be a chiropractic adjustment. You add movement, breaking up the scar tissue, and then you stretch that neck back, and then you work on that inferior trap, that's gonna get rid of eighty percent of all shoulder
Tom Rowland: problems. Wow. Now hanging is also something that that can be very, good for shoulder problems. And it's like a I mean, I don't know. If somebody has a shoulder problem, you tell them to hang. It's like, dude, no. That'd that'd be the worst thing to do. But there have been a lot of books written and a lot of stuff talked about about the benefits of hanging, and it seems like what you're doing actually when you're hanging is you're you're you're training that muscle, the inferior. Doctor.
Dr. Peter Martone: Inferior trap. That's exactly what you're doing. I just did something with Doctor. Joe Mercola and, I'm doing a sleep stuff for his, his brand. And, and we did some cervical exercises and within it, he talks one of his greatest exercises that he does is extended hanging. Doctor.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, I mean that, like, when I did have what I thought was an impingement in my shoulder, that's what fixed it. And then that was so beneficial that then more and more and more pull ups, I don't have shoulder problems. Like they've just kind of gone away. But the one thing, if I do have any kind of shoulder problem, it is left shoulder. And I think that it's because of the side sleeping now, which is really interesting. So if somebody does have, a shoulder issue, you're thinking that the the best advice you could give them is to stop side sleeping and and start to get into a better sleep position. Let's talk about what a better sleep position is. We've already talked about being on your back. But and with your neck in that in that position, obviously, you you have a product that does that. But what how does somebody start this? Like, if they can't come see you, do they go see a a chiropractor in their in their own town? Or, like, what what does somebody do?
Dr. Peter Martone: I'd see a chiropractor in their own town, get adjustments. Adjustments is gonna be like taking clay and putting in water. That will make things more moldable. Now it's time to set up for the molds. So you're going to lie on your back just like you're in a coffin. Hands down by your side, Don't support the lower back because it needs to go into extension. And then put the arms down by your side. Put a pillow under your neck so that the head arches over. Don't almost like picture like a a rolled up towel or a down pillow instead this is what I was using at the beginning. Instead of a down pillow sleeping like this, put it like this Mhmm. So that your head goes over it and your head hangs off the back of it.
Tom Rowland: And you want the back of your head resting on the bed or whatever you're on the floor?
Dr. Peter Martone: Is this gonna be a video? Yeah. Alright. So let me show you. It just so happened to have a bed right behind me. Alright. And I'm in my pajamas. So alright. So basically, you're gonna come down here like this. Take the pillow. And then you want your head just off of the back of the bed. I mean, off of the they're hanging off the back so it's not resting on the bed slightly.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Dr. Peter Martone: And then your hands are down. Now that's alignment. So you're you're starting with alignment in mind. And and that's why it's so important. You wanna start with your hands down. This is alignment. This is not alignment. If you think you're comfortable in that position, what I tell people to do is try to fall asleep. I mean, try to watch a two hour movie in the position you fall asleep in. It's not possible. The number one reason people toss and turn 20 to 40 times a night is because their body's in pain. Because you're starting out in an unsustainable position and you're holding the shoulder in in, you know, in internal rotation. And then you're buying a bed that's more comfortable holding you in that, which is further complicating the problem. So no wonder why when we look at people, they're all structurally distorted. It's because of the way that they're sleeping. That you spend one third of your life at night sleeping. And if you're spending another one third of your life at a computer all day hunched over, you have to take advantage of the time you spend in bed to re train the body how to how to sleep different. You wanna reverse the damaging effect of the modern day lifestyle.
Tom Rowland: And so just stretching yoga, other things are not enough?
Dr. Peter Martone: No. Because need to extend
Tom Rowland: No.
Dr. Peter Martone: Because time
Tom Rowland: in that position to reverse what you've done.
Dr. Peter Martone: And that's a great point. No. You can't. Because the next thing you have to do is you are not consciously in control of your posture, the subconscious brain is. And so so it when you're consciously trying to control your posture, you can do this. But then if you get a phone call immediately when the the the subconscious brain is out of it, your your body is gonna go back into its its position. So you have to retrain the neurology. So once you stretch the neurology back, what's preventing, once you stretch the structure back, what's preventing the muscle structure to reengage the same way? That's proprioception. That's balance work. So that's the next step in our life, a healthy lifestyle. Because, yes, sleeping position is super important, but the neurology is controlling the muscle structure. So you can't retrain the neurology by consciously doing exercise. You have to retrain the neurology by working on proprioception in the brain, which is balance awareness and kit like so so you buy a we're working we're in development right now in a wobble board that that that, is able to quantify cognitive functioning. So you put yourself on a balance board and you and you try to work on your balance. So by maintaining that balance, you retrain the neurology to hold the spine upright.
Tom Rowland: Okay. And you would do that, like,
Dr. Peter Martone: at Five minutes a day.
Tom Rowland: Day or right before bed or, like
Dr. Peter Martone: Five minutes a day every day. Just get on a wobble board, buy one online and and work on balance.
Tom Rowland: Well, a lot of people as they age, they lose their balance badly.
Dr. Peter Martone: And But why?
Tom Rowland: Well, I I think because I would say because they're not training. Because I know that my friends that are training at an older age have really good balance. But I don't know what that I don't know if that's what it is or something else is going on.
Dr. Peter Martone: So they're doing they're losing two things. They're losing balance, and at the same time, they're losing cognitive functioning. So the balancing cognitive functioning is tied into a specific portion of your brain called your vermis. The vermis is in the cerebellum, which is in the back portion of your brain. And what one of the, one of the functions of the vermis, I worked with people with ADD for years and years and years and years. And one of the functions of the vermis is that it builds the prefrontal cortex, which is where you're thinking your executive function is. Well, how do you build the vermis to build the prefrontal cortex? That's built through a proprioception. Well, 80% of all proprioceptive signals are in the spine, and then 80% of those are in the cervical spine. So as you lose cervical function and range of motion, you degenerate the vermis and you degenerate the prefrontal cortex and you lose your posture. So spinal biomechanics is critically important to maintain to maintain good, balance. And then that is that that so so you want to make sure that you do not have degeneration, arthritis. Any degeneration or arthritis in the body is not normal. It's there's nothing about normal. Oh, it's normal. You'll be fine. Oh, it's your age. It's not your effing age. It's a reaction to intersegmental loss of movement due to damage. And if you don't maintain that, like, do a chiropractic adjustment and or changing your sleeping position, breaking up that scar tissue, you're going to have loss of balance. And that's why balance is so important to me. And while for the first time, a product's gonna be able to put you on wobble board, interact with the computer. You're you're gonna be able to see you balancing, and it's gonna give you brain points. And then as you progress, you'll be able to use different bases.
Tom Rowland: So training your balance is as easy as five minutes on a wobble board.
Dr. Peter Martone: That's it. And it's so difficult and frustrating for me. So if
Tom Rowland: you're saying a wobble board, is that are you talking about one that's round and has kind of a half ball and on the ground? Yeah. Not like, an endo board. No. Like, you know what an endo board is? It's like
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. Not one that just goes this way. I want it I want the ball in the middle. I want a three-dimensional challenge.
Tom Rowland: Okay. And stand on that for five minutes and that will help you sleep.
Dr. Peter Martone: Yes. That will help you sleep. No. It will retrain the neurology to help your posture, which will improve your, vagus nerve function, which will help your nervous. So technically, yes. Over a period of time, it will help you sleep. But ultimately, we sleep through our nervous system. So we're improving the balance between our sympathetics and our parasympathetics by working on balance. So it will help you be able to engage the parasympathetic so you can get better sleep, but you still need to know how to engage that parasympathetic nervous system.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. So are there other ways to, like, to train the balance that would be that would be even better? Like, for athletes, you could throw something into a workout, like like a balanced type thing. Like, you know, I'll do a lot of CrossFit and different types of things where there'll be a lot of different movements into into a single workout. It would be really easy to just throw in some balance type things in there that people are getting a benefit that they're not even realizing. They're like, wow.
Dr. Peter Martone: You should always add in, like, you know, cables or free weights versus doing, you know, isometric type of type of stuff. We have plenty
Tom Rowland: of that.
Dr. Peter Martone: Because you train the balance. But not that you need the balance, you need that you need to use the wobble board as as a predictor on how your balance is doing. The wobble board is critical. Nothing replaces it. A bosu ball doesn't replace it. We're doing one leg squats and doing those types of balances. That that's good, but it doesn't challenge it enough to train the neuro to, challenge the neurology
Tom Rowland: Right.
Dr. Peter Martone: To change your posture.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, that's interesting. You know, the old man test where you where you you stand on one foot and then you pick up the other foot and then you put your you pick up the other a shoe with your other foot and then you put a shoe on. That's a that's a good predictor of your balance, too, because some people just they're they're not even close. Like, they can't even do it. And then when you can do it, it's like, what? Why can't you do that? But I guess I guess it's because you're I've always just thought that you're not training balance at all and and probably also not getting upside down. Do you think getting upside down has a, like, like, in a handstand or a handstand push up or a forward roll, anything? People tend to lose that skill when they go over 30 years old. They stop going upside down at all. And I've always thought that that has something to do with your balance. Like, I don't know what, but if you can go into a handstand or you can do handstand push ups, doesn't would that have anything to do with your balance?
Dr. Peter Martone: That has to do with your vestibular system. So not the balance I'm trying to challenge to change your posture. Does it improve, you know, the crystals in your ears to be able to allow those to move and become more fluid? Yes. But not what I'm trying to accomplish, by doing what we're doing specifically to the to the, to the we're trying to reverse forward head posture to take pressure off of the atlas so that you improve the function of the vagus nerve so that you, are able to sleep.
Tom Rowland: Right. And so today with phones specifically, this position is you you gotta be seeing more and more of this. Okay.
Dr. Peter Martone: I see 10 year olds with degenerative changes in their spine now. 10 years old. Right? And it's because of that modern day lifestyle, and nobody is addressing sleep. They're just saying, oh, dear, go to sleep. Oh, as long as you sleep, you're fine. No. You're not. They're like, okay, here's the deal. I'll be very nice. Sleep experts, they have great advice. Right? They get great advice. They all own a piece of the pie. Right? Talk about core temperature. Talk about, you know, breathing and talk about, you know, brain function and deep sleep, but they're missing the crust. That's the missing the glue that holds everything together, which is the nervous system. We sleep and live our life through our nervous system. And if you don't look at the structures impact on that, you're missing everything because you're you it all sleep isn't created equal and they don't realize that the sleep is controlled through our parasympathetic nervous system. So the opposite of being awake is healing. Right? In recharging.
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Dr. Peter Martone: So so, you know, you can't it's like it's you can't just like it's not like a phone where you can plug in and be on your phone at the whole time. You're either plugged in, recharging, or you unplug and now you're using the body. Right. So it's a it's a balance between these two systems. And and because we live in such a sympathetic dominant world, which is a survival, stressed, anxious, I'd say our nervous systems are controlled by the way we think. So hate, fear, anger, uncertainty, that these are all sympathetic, awake, survival emotions. Love, gratitude, caring, respect. These are all parasympathetic emotions. We have such a dominance like an over developed muscle. The parasympathetics never turn on fully to be able to give us that recharge at night. So so so when you're not looking at it as a holistic thing where you're just looking at sleep, but you're not looking at mindset, you know, get having way healthier habits to then have way better sleep, you're missing the whole the whole the rest of the pie. Right?
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Dr. Peter Martone: Does that make sense? And the pie is the nervous system.
Tom Rowland: No. I'm I'm following you. So so I'm following you. I'm thinking I mean, as I've gotten older, I'm 56 years old, 56 years old, train five days a week, sometimes six days a week. And sleep has become more and more and more important because the either the more I'm sleeping or the better quality of sleep that I'm getting, not only is my next day more productive and beneficial to everyone that's around me and everyone that I'm responsible for, but also, I'm recharging. And I am healing and getting better, right, at this at this age. But I have I have paid more and more attention to the sleep. And not just like how much, but like the whole sleep environment. I read Matthew Walker's book. I was fascinated with with that. And and then I'm listening to what you're saying. And so I'm in. I'm listening to you, and I'm sure that there's lots of other people that are listening to this right now, and they're fishing guides, or they are living an active lifestyle, or they are trying to be the best that they can be, and they're in too. So what do we where do we go from here? What do we do from here to to follow your program and get better? To tie all the things that I've learned about, you know, from the book Lights Out to Matthew Walker's book to several others and all the different podcasts you listen to that people are talking about how important it is, to get good sleep. And people are trying to get good sleep, but you have a you have what you call the glue. That is if we want to put that into our program, what is it that we how do we do it?
Dr. Peter Martone: Alright. We could do it. If if you use us as a resource, it's very simple, doctorsleepright.com. You take your animal sleep avatar test. It's a free test to take, and I quantify which animal you sleep like. Are you a gorilla? Are you a armadillo? Or are you an ostrich? And then based on taking that test, when you get the results of that test, it is going to give you the understanding on how much safety you need to create for the subconscious brain in order to sleep. Now, why do I say that? Why do I say it like that? Well, the first thing we have to do when we when somebody wants to get started, start with alignment. That's it. With a you can get a neck nest. You can get your pillow. You can roll a towel. If you're a guide and you're sleeping, you I I've used shoe. I shoe underneath my neck. I've built up sand and put it under my neck, you know, under my sleeping bag. You just need to get that neck back. That's it. So you start with alignment and you don't have to stay like that. You're not in control. I only want to be in control with how you fall asleep. I'm not in control with how you stay asleep. I want to put your body into the best position to give your body the best chance for way better sleep. And way better sleep is awaken the full potential, but well rested aligned you. So so you you start with alignment. And the sub the conscious brain is gonna look at that and say, screw you. I'm not gonna be able to do it. It's gonna come up with all of these these fears in these emotions because the subconscious brain is telling the stupid conscious brain that's not safe. I can't do that. But when you take your animal sleep avatar test, it will tell you, okay, you're a gorilla. You're gonna be able to just be self disciplined. You don't need any safety because you're the king of the jungle. You don't require safety. Your body is going to be able to be put into that position, and you'll be fine. Eighty percent of the well, I would say seventy percent of the population are armadillos. They require some sort of curled up protection. Well, you going from your side sleeping to back sleeping, that's unsafe. So we use pressure on your forehead. We use pressure on your chest. How you use your covers changes. So that's kind of the Way Better Sleep Academy. It gets people to change their mindset, elicit way healthier habits to have a way better life. And we do that through the bed.
Tom Rowland: Okay. Alright. That's I can I can get behind that? I can actually fall asleep pretty well on my back. I think it's the neck position that I would need to work on as opposed to, you know, being.
Dr. Peter Martone: Yes.
Tom Rowland: With the nose behind. And
Dr. Peter Martone: And most people that have bad balance have they don't they don't balance in that plane, so you're gonna feel like you're falling backwards. Some people reported that they feel like they're falling off a cliff because they don't have any safety back there. That's why we work on the balance first sometimes with people, and then we build the pre the we build the vermis, then we're able to get that neck into extension.
Tom Rowland: So what about what if you snore? Like, a lot of people snore really bad on their back.
Dr. Peter Martone: Well, they snore on their back when a pillow's under their
Tom Rowland: head.
Dr. Peter Martone: Right? Because remember, a pillow is defined as a support for your head. Whenever you support the head, you're doing this. You're gonna snore because you're closing down the airway. When you put a pillow under your neck and it's arched back, you open up the airway and you don't snore. So because your tongue cannot fall back enough. That's that's the research that was done by opening up the airways with anesthesiologists to have the neck into extension so that the airway stays open. So that's, like, that's one of the biggest misconceptions is that when you sleep on your back, oh, it's no worse. Oh, yeah. You do because you're not managing airway effectively enough.
Tom Rowland: And that's all you you could fix that with a rolled up towel or another pillow or your pillow?
Dr. Peter Martone: Putting the neck into extension. Correct.
Tom Rowland: Okay. And then so what about somebody that has already been diagnosed with sleep apnea? And they're using a CPAP or whatever? Do you suggest that
Dr. Peter Martone: you're using a CPAP? Sleep on your back with very effectively with sleep apnea machines.
Tom Rowland: Okay. And then so you get in that good position, and then I'm assuming that you you go along with all the other advice, you know, the dark room. The one thing that seems to be different with what you're talking about is sleep temperature. Like, what are you what are your thoughts on sleep temperature? Should you be in a cold room? Like, what?
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. So the temperature if if we're in a body temperature issue, you have other issues that are going on. It's you know, if you look at your body temperature being too high, then there's detoxification that's happening. Food's too late. Your body's artificially stimulated. You worked out too late. There's other issues. That's why I recommend going into some sort of educational program to understand that. Ultimately Do
Tom Rowland: you have the the at your doctorsleepright.com? That's
Dr. Peter Martone: We do. Yeah. We have all of that education for people. And, but what happens is is they can just lie on their back, have their hands and their feet out of the covers so that the body can temperature regulate out non vital extremities. And then that won't affect any of the core temperature reactions that happen when the core is too warm. I mean, too cold, like for putting like a chili pad under there or something like that. So, you know, you want to make sure that if you do use something to cool your core, that it stops by, like, midnight. And then and then allow your body to heat up on its own so it doesn't go into a survival state.
Tom Rowland: I mean, there are beds, I think, that Eight Sleep or something that that will, like, regulate, like, it it supposed to be I've never used one, but it's
Dr. Peter Martone: I don't want AI doing it. I wanna set it to when I know my body's tied into the circadian rhythm in through hundreds of thousands of of people. They have a heat chart of when the body heat patterns change, you know, and then you get tired after dinner, not because you ate, but because you have a drop in core temperature between noon time and 01:00. And then that's the best time to take a nap and in your body will be able to nap in specific times easier than other times, but it's all follows body core temperature. And when you look at those charts, you can set a bed up to help you if you exercise too late or you ate too late, but you're going to mess up those night sleep anyways. It's going to be so difficult to come back.
Tom Rowland: What about naps? What are your thoughts on naps?
Dr. Peter Martone: It like the reason why I took a nap today is because my brother had a Christmas party last night. So I had I had a two glasses of wine, and it's gonna destroy you. So I don't care. It it just destroys my deep sleep. And I slept eight and a half hours, but I didn't get any good deep sleep. So I'm run down the next day. And for me to have performance to be able to bike tonight, which is gonna keep my core temperature up and it's gonna keep my metabolism up. So I'll get another bad night sleep tonight. So I may nap tomorrow. So I use naps when you'd when you have a bad night sleep. You shouldn't need naps all the time. You shouldn't use naps to just catch up.
Tom Rowland: Wait. When, when I was guiding all the time, one of the things that we would do is occasionally we take night trips. And it would be, you know, you fish all day. You wake up at four. You fish all day. You come back. You wait for the sun to go down. And then if the tide's right, you go out again at night. You come in at midnight or something, and I would be wrecked for a week. How long does it take? Like like people talk about a week hang up.
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. I like a week. A week to catch
Tom Rowland: up from something like that.
Dr. Peter Martone: Like Yeah. Because most of the time, if you, let's say, go out on the weekend or you you do something on a Saturday night and you're up late, late, late, or, you know, you do that on Friday. You're gonna be if you're gonna be sick, you're gonna be sick five days later. You're gonna be sick on, like, Wednesday or Thursday. You'll be like, I don't know what happened. I think it was the plane. It wasn't being on the plane. It was because you went to Vegas and you didn't sleep and you came home five days later, five to six days later, you're usually sick. It takes that amount of time for your immunosuppression to happen, for the virus to stop making copies and then to rebound with an immune system reaction. So so it takes a good week to catch up. And if you're if you're sleep deprived and you don't catch up, then you'll slowly degradate your health over the next couple weeks.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Okay. So what about, I'm sure that you have opinions on you you already mentioned alcohol. That was one of the things I wanted to talk about. But alcohol, sleeping pills, marijuana, CBD, melatonin, what about those things that people are relying on, for what they think is better sleep?
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. So they're they're mistaken quantity of sleep and quality of sleep. So it just falling asleep and then waking up nine hours later does not give you a healthy stages of sleep. So alcohol, THC, those things, they drop you into a comatose state, keep you there, and then you have what's called REM rebound. That's why people have vivid dreams after they use a lot of these products. Melatonin, same thing can happen. Well, if you're traveling and you can't get to sleep because it's time changes, well then that's a place to use melatonin. But other than that, I like things that calm the system like magnesium, like a non THC, CBD, you know, something that allows you to relax. And then we have things that are called spare breathing. We have breathing techniques, we have mindset techniques. We have visualization techniques because you can't think yourself to sleep. You have to remember yourself to sleep. So we have people create a sleep memory that they focus on. And then and then by focusing on you can either think or remember. And by by focusing on remembering, you're able to put yourself into that sleep state.
Tom Rowland: Wow. That that remembering that that was one of the things I heard you talking about on another podcast. Like, you were talking about the difference between, like, counting sheep or or, you know, whatever the trick somebody might have or thinking about, like, I gotta do this tomorrow. That generally results in not good sleep for me, anyway. And when I was when my mind was racing like that, when I was starting my business and different things, my mind was always racing. And I I had a, I think, I don't know, somebody I read it somewhere. Put a put a notepad by your bed. And then when that's happening, just just jot down what you're talking about. And then, you know, it's out of your head, but you're you know, like this person, I think, or whatever I read was saying that the thing the thing that makes your head spin like that is you're afraid you're gonna forget this. Like, I've got to get lost to
Dr. Peter Martone: my Yeah. It's exactly what it is.
Tom Rowland: I gotta do this. And if you write it down, you're like, okay. I'm not gonna forget it. So now you can go back and relax. And I don't know if that's bro science or whatever, but it helped me. It helped me a lot. And I had that by my bed for years. Now I don't have to do it anymore, but I've I've learned how to go to sleep a lot better. I don't have any problem going to sleep. I need to work on the the, probably, the position and getting better sleep, but I can fall asleep very fast, which is which is good. And then the magnesium that you mentioned, I take like a it's a blended magnesium that has you know, there's many different types of magnesium. I know that, like, Huberman believes, in his his sleep, little cocktail that he has is ApoGen, magnesium threonate, and something else. I can't remember what the other one is. But magnesium threonate is supposed to be the only one that goes through blood brain barrier. Is that one that you particularly,
Dr. Peter Martone: or do you have a different And one of the things is is a lot of times the magnesium, right, it only relaxes. It does it doesn't really relax your brain. It calms you. It kinda makes you a little bit relaxed. But if you it it the the biggest thing to think about with sleep is forget about the products. Think about the nervous system.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Dr. Peter Martone: Think about retraining the nervous system on on how to become more parasympathetic dominant or how to engage the parasympathetic nervous system. Meditate, relax. If you're a guide, go into a guide, walk a stream. And anytime you do that and you put yourself in an environment like that, that's a that's a calming, relaxed state, do it with a scent. So have a scent in your bag and then always touch it to your nose when you're when you're calming or you're in the sun or you're doing something like that. Then you'll retrain your nervous system. Anytime it smells that scent, it will calm down. So then you can use that scent at night when you go to bed. And when you focus on the neurology and you don't focus on external things to try to create things within your system and you truly understand who you have to become to get better sleep and it's not what you need to take, then that's how you get closer to getting great sleep. That's kind of really where my gym is. I'm a I mean, I, you know, I didn't share a lot of my past history, but I was a mental mess. And, you know, having a ADD and a highly addictive personality and having your best friend die right in front of you in a tragic accident because you guys are adrenaline junkies. And how do you come back from that state is a lot. It's in your mind. It's how you internalize things, how you think about things. You know, you can either go enthusiastically to jail or enthusiastically to move your life for the purpose and live a rewarding life. It's easier to go off the deep end because you have stimulants and things that can fill a void versus being able to put the time and the work in, becoming somebody different to do what you need to do to get what you want.
Tom Rowland: And so when you were having all of those issues and and anxiety, your sleep was a mess?
Dr. Peter Martone: A mess.
Tom Rowland: And and so, like, what what would you what what is a mess? Like, when you describe a mess
Dr. Peter Martone: Just thinking all night, going to bed, then wake them up in the middle of the night thinking, not being able to go back to sleep for hours.
Tom Rowland: Yes.
Dr. Peter Martone: It just I hear people
Tom Rowland: talk about I hear people say that all the time. All the time. Even my friends that I'm training with that are healthy people, sometimes they're like, man, I just I woke up at 01:00 last night. I couldn't sleep. And, you know, what do you what do you I mean, that
Dr. Peter Martone: There are tips and stuff for all of that. You have to understand. It's not it's if if if they knew what the there's it's complex. Right? So I can't give you one thing. It's they have to it's a journey. Right? It was a a couple year journey for me to get to where I am now, like, back then. So so our way better sleep protocol is a roadmap. It's a twelve month roadmap. It's building a framework of life to get shit back on track that you can stay within the rails for twelve months. Every month is a different lifestyle change. Every month is a different mindset shift. Every it just says your nutritional needs change. So don't your supplement needs. So don't you exercise regimens. So it's a it's a program I put together. Like, I live a lake life, on Winnipesaukee. I fish. I I bought. I I love doing that stuff, but I also like to have drinks while I'm on the boat, you know, hanging out. So then I detox at the end of the summer. So I have a very systematic way that I live my life framework. And it's so I can keep myself on the rails. And that's what I teach through the way Better Sleep Academy.
Tom Rowland: That's really cool. So when you got your own personal sleep back where you feel like it was not a mess, it was actually very healthy, how much does your life improve?
Dr. Peter Martone: Every aspect of your life improves because you're recharging. You're you're ready for the day. I wake up, I have enormous amounts of energy from the second I wake up to the time I go to bed. That doesn't matter if I'm doing double workouts, if I'm not eating the whole day, if I'm intermittent fasting, if I'm doing a twenty four hour fast with workouts. I have a ton of energy now. And and it it's it's greatly changed my relationships with myself more importantly. And then when you're able to change your relationship with yourself, then everything else improves.
Tom Rowland: Man, that's awesome. Well, that gives a lot of people hope, I think, to go check out all of your work at the Way Better Sleep Academy. Right? Right. That's
Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. So it's at doctorsleepright.com. But there is there is a link to directly to the Way Better Sleep Academy. It's called Way Better Sleep Academy.
Tom Rowland: You're on Instagram too?
Dr. Peter Martone: I am doctor Sleep Right.
Tom Rowland: Doctor Sleep Right. That's cool. So, when you, as you know so much about sleep and the damage that bad sleep does to you, it seems like it might be tough to be like, well, I'm a stay up a little bit late tonight, but I know I'm gonna pay for that for a week. Like, do you think about I would be thinking about that all the time. I mean, I I don't know any any
Dr. Peter Martone: Ask my wife. I think about it way too much.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. But, I mean, I don't know much about I mean, I'm trying to sleep better, and I'm trying to to get better all the time. And I think about it all the time. Like, if I stay up, I'm I'm gonna pay for it for a while. But as much as you know about it, it would seem like
Dr. Peter Martone: But as long as I have a structure of naps built into my week, which I do, then it doesn't matter what I do the night before because I'm making it up the next day.
Tom Rowland: What's a healthy, duration of a nap?
Dr. Peter Martone: It all depends whatever the body needs. I I tell everybody to say, put your give yourself one hour. And whether it takes you fifteen minutes to go to sleep, then you sleep for fifteen minutes, then you wake up, or you sleep for twenty minutes, twenty six minutes, that research is all. It's anecdotal. I mean, you are looking at one variable ignoring another variable. You get let your body decide what it needs based on its structure. And that's why we have the roadmap blueprint. It's build a blueprint that works, and then what you do once in a while will never matter.
Tom Rowland: So if I feel like I need a nap, is that necessarily bad or is that like I am training a lot a lot for my age. A lot of training.
Dr. Peter Martone: If you're if you're if you're tired, sleep.
Tom Rowland: If you're tired, sleep. Yeah. That's that that's a really, luxury position to be in for most of your life. Like, you're obviously, you know, if you can just go to sleep whenever you're tired, that means you're probably not an entrepreneur and you're not working on
Dr. Peter Martone: your your I have five companies
Tom Rowland: There you go.
Dr. Peter Martone: That I'm running right now. And but I have one hour on Wednesday, and then on the weekends, one hour on Wednesday, sometimes on Thursday, and then, a Sunday nap, if I need it.
Tom Rowland: Well, I mean, if you can show up a 100%, you can get more done in fifteen minutes than you can in
Dr. Peter Martone: Absolutely. And that's what I I'm all about. Improve your performance at night in bed so you improve your performance during the day. Right? So become more productive while you sleep to improve your performance during the day. It's a game changer.
Tom Rowland: Right on. Alright. Alright. Sleep right. Way better sleep academy. I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try the, the the pillow first thing and just see see how that feels. What about the one thing I forgot to ask you was about, like, training your neck. Like, you know, with a with a harness, I was a wrestler, so I was always training.
Dr. Peter Martone: It's it's not really a knee. It's just range of motion is what you need to go through. You can do things with isometrics by just using pressure. But other than that, don't you don't need to go crazy. It's only using the weight. It's only designed to support the weight of your head.
Tom Rowland: I gotcha.
Dr. Peter Martone: So we're good.
Tom Rowland: Okay. Alright. Well, doc, I appreciate you coming on, man. I learned a lot about about sleep, and I'm definitely gonna check out your stuff. I'm sure everybody else will as well or plenty of these people will. Some are hardworking fishing guides that don't get in don't get much sleep anyway no matter what. But maybe you can improve the quality. Can't help you with the duration, but might be able to help you with the quality.
Dr. Peter Martone: That's better. I love that. Alright. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
Tom Rowland: Thank you. Alright. We'll be back with another great guest next week. Go check out doctor SleepRight on Instagram and doctor SleepRight on at the website. Alright. Thanks. See you, Pete.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes, show notes, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.