Dr. Allison Brager is a neuroscientist, American soldier, and author of Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain. As a neuroscientist specializing in sleep, she offers some insight into setting up a sleep schedule, and how consistency in sleep can affect our circadian rhythms. She illustrates the importance of circadian rhythms and relates that to habits that she has implemented in her own life that we all can easily apply to our own daily lives.



Brett Gilliland: Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I'm your host, Brett Gilliland, and today I have Dr. Allison Brager. Alison, how you doing? 

Allison Brager: Oh, it's great to be here. 

Brett Gilliland: Awesome. It's good to be with you. You are, uh, out in Fort Bragg. So how's everything going out there today as you're an active American soldier? So thank you for your service.

Brett Gilliland: We are very thankful for people like you. Uh, also a neuroscientist and author of 'Meathead: Unraveling The Athletic Brain'. So we'll dive into all that stuff, but how's everything going out there at Fort Bragg today? 

Allison Brager: Oh, it's great. Uh, you know, back to the cold weather, I've been out traveling to our different schools, which are, uh, in more tropical places out in the, uh, desert of California and down in Key West.

Allison Brager: So, uh, I I, I wouldn't say it's great to be back. But I'm, I'm surviving.

Brett Gilliland: But you're back. You're back.

Allison Brager: I'm back. 

Brett Gilliland: Well, that's good. Well, uh, if you could give us a little lay of the land, what's made you, the woman you are today? I mean, there's tons of stuff you're doing. You know, obviously writing a book, uh, becoming a doctor of neurosciences uh, American Soldier, serving our country, uh, CrossFit, I mean, all the things that you're doing out there.

Brett Gilliland: Uh, maybe give us a little lay of the land on what made you the woman you are today. 

Allison Brager: Yeah, so, I um didn't grow up in the, the best city. Um, I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. Okay. Which at the time growing up was, uh, the most dangerous city in the country. We had the highest murder rate per capita. 

Brett Gilliland: Wow. 

Allison Brager: Uh, so I always kind of knew early on that.

Allison Brager: Being good at sports is my ticket out of town. There's uh, quite a few prominent athletes and coaches who come from the area I grew up. Uh, so I sort of always made it my goal to be good at sports growing up just like everyone else I grew up with. Um, I also knew that getting a good education was important.

Allison Brager: Uh, so that's more or less what set my. I was fortunate enough to go to Brown University for undergrad. Um, it was there, I was competed in D one track and field. Um, but I also just fell in love with sleep research, uh, and I've always been a big fan of, uh, planning your career around your lifestyle and not your lifestyle around your career.

Allison Brager: Um, and so I went along that path of staying dedicated to focusing on sleep research. And I'm lucky enough that I still get to live that life today. Uh, so I basically study sleep health across the entire army. Uh, military, bring new sleep solutions, problem sets to them. Um, and then of course, you know, being.

Allison Brager: The army, I get to still be an athlete, uh, full-time because we're, we're always having to do physical training. So yeah, it's been good. 

Brett Gilliland: Awesome, awesome. And that's where I, uh, came across you is through the 'Whoop' I wear the 'Whoop, Whoop' bracelet. You wear one as well. Uh, I heard you on that podcast. It was amazing.

Brett Gilliland: I was like, I gotta have her on here. So let's talk about that. Some of the things that you're learning, not necessarily just from 'Whoop', this isn't a 'Whoop', uh, uh, podcast, but if you can about the sleep and what you're learning, cuz I know the Army has, uh, I think a relationship with 'Whoop', where a lot of the soldiers can wear those and, and understand their recovery, their strain.

Brett Gilliland: Uh, all the stuff. If you haven't ever listened or people listening to this, had never seen one, check it out at 'Whoop'. Um, but tell us about that. So, I wanna start with circadian rhythms. Um, 

Allison Brager: Sure.

Brett Gilliland: People have heard that before, but let's start with that and let's maybe kind of set a baseline level of why the importance of that and what that is exactly.

Allison Brager: Yeah. So, um, It, I'm really thankful for this 'Whoop' army collaboration because I think just having awareness over what your recovery is like and things in your life that impact recovery is most important. Um, so the reason why in the military sleep is such a challenge is because the circadian rhythms, uh, it's not so much the sleep loss.

Allison Brager: It's the sleep loss at unanticipated times. Um, so circadian rhythms are these basic biological rhythms that pretty much tell us when to eat, sleep, train, and when we perform at our best. But, um, sometimes when you have sleep deprivation or you're asked to do work, or you're asked to train at a time you're not normally conditioned to, it can really disrupt the entire system.

Allison Brager: Uh, so that's why it's really important for the Army to invest in these platforms that give people awareness of what their recovery's going to be like when they can't be on their exact schedule, which, you know, ends up being a lot of our job. 

Brett Gilliland: Sure, for sure. So, but talk about that. So those of us maybe that aren't in the military, that are living a, a different life where we can kind of control our, you know, go to beds and, and get up and, and that's the point of circadian rhythm, right?

Brett Gilliland: The, the more close we can be to going to bed at the same time every night and going to get up at the same time every day, that's healthier for us, right? 

Allison Brager: Yep. Yeah. So these, um, these clocks thrive on consistency and the more consistent we are, um, the better it is. 

Brett Gilliland: Yeah. So why, why is that, do you think? 

Allison Brager: Oh, so...

Brett Gilliland: What's the science behind that?

Allison Brager: Uh, yeah. Yeah. So what I should say is that there, these, um, Circadian rhythms are controlled by these biological clocks that basically determine when we eat, sleep, and train. So they are programmed to time. Um, and so when the time doesn't line up, um, we have clocks in our fat cells, our muscle, our liver, our heart, our brain, pretty much every single tissue of the body have has these clocks.

Allison Brager: And so when the clocks get disrupted because things in our life aren't happening. at times they want 'em to then that's when we get sick. That's when we're not gonna have like a great training session. That's when we're mentally gonna be in a fog. Um, that's when all these things happen. 

Brett Gilliland: And so you, knowing what you know, if you have the time when you can control, when you go to sleep and when you wake up, are you, are you pretty consistent with that?

Brett Gilliland: Like seven days a week, is this something we need to be focusing on? Is it, you know, four days a week is good? Like what, what helps us? 

Allison Brager: Uh, the more, the better because, , uh, our body sort of remembers when we're good to ourselves and then when we aren't so good to ourselves, we're in a better position to adapt more quickly. Uh, it's the same thing with sleep loss too. That's why it's good to like actually bank on sleep in anticipation of sleep deprivation is because it, um, it can protect us when we're actually sleep, sleep deprived. And so it's the, the same thing with these body clocks too, the less disruptive we are, uh, then when they are disrupted, they're gonna be in a better position to be okay. , and recover from it quickly.

Brett Gilliland: Yeah.

Allison Brager: And I know it's, it's all very abstract, but 

Brett Gilliland: Yeah. But I think it's important for our listeners that may not study this stuff or, or follow, or, or pay attention to it, is, is the key to this is at the end of the day, right, if, if your normal bedtime is, whatever, 10:30, I mean, you need to stay as consistent as you possibly can to get into bed at 10:30.

Brett Gilliland: And if you get up at whatever, six o'clock in the morning, then you need to get up at six o'clock in the morning. So even when you don't want to, Uh, I think that's the importance to it. And I've also seen something, I had, uh, Sean Stevenson on, he's a, uh, 'Sleep Smarter' is the book he wrote and he talked about...

Allison Brager: Oh yeah, 

Brett Gilliland: ...he, yeah.

Brett Gilliland: And the guy, I mean, it's amazing. And, and so he used to live here in St. Louis. He's out in California now, but doing amazing things. And, but anyway, he talks about even there's a 90 minute clock, right? Every 90 minutes our body is cycling through. Um, through our sleep. And so, you know, sometimes when you wake up on your own and you're wide awake and then you're like, oh, I'll, I'll just go back to sleep cause I've got another 45 minutes.

Brett Gilliland: Right, til' your alarm goes off per se, but then you wake up in 45 minutes and then you're exhausted. So yeah. What do you know about that and what can you share with our listeners there? 

Allison Brager: Yeah, so that is exactly what it is, is, um, these sleep cycles, they, um, oscillate in 90 minute periods. Um, that's why we say it's better to wake up out of a dream than not out of a dream, because that is the last state of sleep of this 90 minute sleep cycle is we go from a state of restorative sleep called non rapid eye movement, sleep to REM sleep, which is the state of sleep we dream in. And so if you're waking up out of a dream, it means you've completed a full sleep cycle. Um,

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