150: Shawn Stevenson – Elevate Your Creativity While You Sleep

"The human mind is the most powerful pharmacy on the planet." - Shawn Stevenson Did you know that your sleep can massively impact your ability to be creative? It’s true. Our minds and bodies depend on getting good, quality sleep to do everything from produce hormones, process memories, and lower our stress levels. It’s more important than you may think! But thankfully, my guest today is here to share a ton of great information about the power of sleep. When he was just 16, Shawn Stevenson broke his hip running. Suddenly, his dreams of an athletic career were dashed, and he spent the next four years feeling hopeless. But eventually, he realized that he didn’t want to live in hopelessness and poor health. He decided to do some research and discover ways to heal his body, and since then, he’s made it his mission to communicate his research to the world and help us all achieve better sleep. I’m thrilled to have Shawn Stevenson here on ONKEN RADIO (formerly NION radio) today! Shawn’s story is inspiring, and his thorough scientific knowledge is impressive. I’m excited to get into our conversation — I hope you learn as much from it as I did.  Who Is Shawn Stevenson? As one of the world’s foremost authorities on the science of sleep (in a world that’s constantly struggling with it), Shawn Stevenson has increasingly found his insight very much in demand. But he wasn’t always an authority on better sleep, though.  Shawn set out to become an expert on all things fitness, health, and wellness after suffering some severe pain and mobility issues at 20 years old. His doctors told him he had degenerative disc disease, that it was progressive and incurable, that he had the spine of an 80-year-old man, and that he could only expect to get worse as time wore on. But instead of accepting the doom-and-gloom prognosis of his medical team, Shawn decided to take matters into his own hands. He started taking a more holistic view of his health, and incorporated some significant lifestyle changes — everything from a better diet to increased physical activity and to the one thing many treatment plans overlook: proper sleep.  By applying a total-body treatment plan, Shawn was able to not just halt his condition in its tracks, but in some cases, even reverse some of the effects. At that point, he knew he had a mission: to educate the masses on the importance of diet, exercise, and getting better sleep.  Today, Shawn is the host of the #1 podcast on Apple’s “Health and Fitness” chart, The Model Health Show, which covers everything from diet and exercise to relationship advice. His books have consistently topped bestseller and audio download charts. And he’s been hired as a keynote speaker to deliver his message of total-body health to companies such as Hilton, US Bank, Google, MasterCard, and Whole Foods. Shawn offered so much wisdom and practical knowledge in this interview. We talked about everything from sleep cycles and brain waves to the effect of physical activity on your creativity and the massive positive effects of meditation. This is an interview you don’t want to miss. Shawn’s Story: From Degenerative Disc Disease to Sleep Expert Have you ever heard of the placebo effect? It’s a term often used in medical research, and it refers to the effect we see when someone believes they’re taking a real medication or receiving a real treatment, but in reality, they’re not. It happens all the time — researchers have seen blood pressure drop and even cancer cells die just because the patient thought they were taking an effective medication. But here’s the thing — the placebo effect works in reverse, too. That’s called the no-cebo effect, and it’s where the patient thinks they have no chance of recovery and so their condition actually starts getting worse. That’s what happened to Shawn Stevenson when he was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease. “[The doctor] kind of looked at me … and [said,