Put Your Phone Down
At the beginning of Summer, I restarted my fitness journey after spending the last two years completing my Master’s in Exercise Science. Mind you, I did this while coaching the inaugural Varsity Weightlifting Team at Lenoir-Rhyne University, winning two National Championships in a row, and coaching 8 athletes to various Team USA spots for USA Weightlifting including arguably the best male lifter in America. Not to mention, I am a father of four, and I still run my business Mash Elite Performance. Suffice to say, I bit off more than I could chew landing me in the emergency room twice during that period. I was stressed, not working out, and started the first argument in over a decade with my beautiful wife.
It was the argument that woke me up. I said something to my wife that I totally didn’t mean, and I knew that I didn’t mean it as I was saying it. It was as if I was out of control, and the worst part was that I had let my relationship with God slip drastically. My pride was the real enemy because I couldn’t accept the fact that I had bitten off too much. When I hurt my wife’s feelings with my words, I realized that I had gone too far. I was human, and I had gotten myself into a fix. I couldn’t serve my clients online (Philipp I hope that this can serve as my apology), and I wasn’t the coach that I had been in the past. Now this moment was about 15–16 months ago, and I am still a work in progress. However, I have made massive strides since the summer, and this article is to explain some of those strides. I write this in hopes of helping some of you struggling right now, or even better, I hope this keeps some of you from ever making these mistakes.
I actually wrote a massive article at the end of last year laying a lot of the mistakes out on the table, and I even wrote some steps that I intended on taking. Not all of those steps were taken right away, but I have sure taken some big ones over the last six months. It all started with correcting my walk with Christ. I have found that there is no better place to worship and communicate with Christ than on a walk or run. I start with prayer, and prayer is followed by reading or listening the Bible followed by a closing prayer. For all of you that aren’t believers, the remaining nuggets are for you. However, if you ever want to talk more about my walk with Christ, I am here to talk. I am not John Piper by any means, but I can tell you what I know. I still have a way to go, but I am surrounded by some awesome Brother in Christ at Hickory Bible Church with the best pastor ever spitting lyrics behind the pulpit, Adam Ashoff. He’s hilarious, keeps you captivated from the beginning to the end, and he’s a guy I would hang out with regardless.
Now, I am going to skip a few steps because what I am about to tell you has changed my life unlike any other habit I’ve ever started in the past. Ladies and Gentlemen put your phones down! I’ve heard it so many times before, and simply disregarded it as insignificant. However, I am cohost of the Barbell Shrugged Podcast with my friends Doug Larson, Anders Varner, and Dan Garner. Sometimes Dr Andy Galpin graces us with his presence. If you don’t know who Andy Galpin and Dan Garner are, you should because some of the best athletes in the world trust them to oversee their training. Folks like Sugar Sean O’Malley and PGA Tour Golfer Jon Rahm Rodrigues trust them with their overall health, nutrition, and fatigue management. You all should check out their new company, Rapid Health Report to see how they use the latest in testing (blood, urine, saliva, hair, and feces) to perfect each client’s nutrition and lifestyle down to the very last micronutrient. I can attest to the superior results of this company as two of my top athletes are also their clients.
Ok this is not a commercial for my friends, but I had to tell you all of that to help you understand the importance of putting your phone down. Let me explain this step a bit more to open your eyes to the importance of this advice. Every night, I put the phone down at 8pm, which is one hour before I intend on going to bed. All blue light is ended at that point, which means no laptop, no tablet, and no television. Some of you are probably laughing at me because this sounds impossible to you. If so, I am talking directly to you. Let me explain why blue light is wrecking the health of humans around the world. Here’s why!
Problematic cell phone use is evident from the research performed by Tugtekin, U., Barut Tugtekin, E., Kurt, A. A., & Demir, K. (2020). The amount of time spent on a cell phone is directly correlated to social media fatigue, problematic cell phone use, and depression. There’s something else that is problematic about increased cell phone use that is even more related to athletic performance, and that is blue light waves at night. Gradisar, Wolfson, Harvey, Hale, Rosenberg, & Czeisler (2013) found that nine out of ten Americans reported the use of technology within an hour before bed with television being the most popular. As you will see, any light can cause disturbances, but blue light waves as from a cell phone are dramatically worse. Interactive blue light devices like laptops, cell phones, television, and video games used in the hour before bed caused more difficulty to fall asleep and led to more unrefreshing sleep.
In all, cell phones, lap tops, television, and video games are affecting bedtime aka our circadian rhythm is being interfered with causing a suppression of melatonin along with several physiological disturbances that come along with disturbed sleep. Maybe you are thinking that it’s not a big deal. You should think again because cognitive and physiological arousal from blue light and electromagnetic transmissions from your fancy tech devices are interrupting the maintenance of nocturnal sleep. All of this can be linked to fatigue, depression, cognitive dysfunction, and even the performance of athletic movements.(Gradisar, et al. 2013).
Sadly, I have known this. Part of my literature review from my thesis clearly shows the negative effects from blue light before bed. Any light can disrupt sleep, but blue light puts a smack down on circadian rhythm disturbing the normal phases of REM and Deep Sleep. I finally took Dan Garner’s advice after one of our podcasts, and I put my phone down at 8pm. I also wore my blue light blocking glasses for any laptop, iPad, and iPhone use after 7pm. What happened has been nothing short of a miracle in my life.
By 9pm I was fast asleep. I slept through the night, and I woke up at 6am without an alarm clock. I don’t think that I have ever woke up that early feeling refreshed and wide awake. Since then, I have been able to work out every day sometimes twice per day. I have been in much better moods, and I have been more loving than ever to my wife, Emily Drew, and our children. I have also been more efficient at work, completed more projects, and performed more research that I have in the last two years. Here’s the truth. I would get in bed at 9pm, and I would lay there wasting time until 11pm or midnight endlessly scrolling through my phone. This would make waking up early almost impossible. Then I would find myself staying up all night to complete a project that was due because I wasn’t able to complete the work during normal working hours. Not anymore!
This blog is long enough as I am sure many of you didn’t make it this far, so I am going to leave you with some tips to get you started on crushing your sleep:
· Blue Light glasses on 2–3 hours before bed
· All screens off at least one hour before bed
· Read a book with just a lamp (I am looking at ways to offset even that light exposure so standby)
· Complete darkness is key, so blackout curtains with zero lights on in the house
· Temperature 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 Celsius)
· When the alarm goes off, get up instead of grabbing the cell phone
There are many other steps I am looking into, so I will write a follow up to this blog in a few weeks. All I can say is that this step has allowed me to take back control of my life. I am healthy. I am writing. I am crushing my work. Finally, I am training, and I can officially say that I am ready to compete again. I was starting to think that I simply couldn’t fit it in again, and it was breaking my heart. I didn’t want to throw in the towel, but I didn’t see another option. Who would have thought that putting my stupid phone down would change my life so immensely? I knew that it would be healthier, but I wasn’t expecting a miracle.
I am at the beach this week with my family, so hopefully I will be writing a bit more. I am also going to be training hard, and implementing new habits that I hope will be an impact. I promise to fill you in as I experiment with each of these habits. If implementing new habits is hard for you, I recommend the book Atomic Habits by Author James Clear for a little direction. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions of new habits that I should tryout, please let me know.
Coach Travis Mash
USA Weightlifting Senior International Coach
