In this episode, Cheryl McColgan interviews Vitalijus, co-founder of Pulsetto, discussing the importance of sleep, stress resilience, and the role of the vagus nerve in health optimization. Vitalijus shares his personal journey into biohacking, including a 200-night sleep experiment that revealed key insights into improving sleep quality. The conversation delves into the science behind stress resilience, the vagus nerve’s function, and how devices like Pulsetto can aid in relaxation and recovery. Vitalijus emphasizes the significance of personal experimentation in health and the growing importance of mental health in today’s world.
Read more about Pulsetto and purchase with our 15% off discount here or use code HEALNOURISHGROW15.
Takeaways
Vitalijus conducted a 200-night sleep experiment to improve his sleep.Key factors for better sleep include darkness, temperature, and minimizing disturbances.Stress is a major factor affecting sleep quality and melatonin production.The vagus nerve plays a crucial role in connecting the brain to internal organs.HRV (Heart Rate Variability) is a key metric for measuring stress resilience.Biohacking allows for personal experimentation to find what works best for individual health.Mental health is increasingly important in managing stress and overall well-being.Using devices like Pulsetto can help activate the vagus nerve for relaxation.Athletes can benefit from vagus nerve stimulation for recovery and performance.Small changes in sleep habits can lead to significant improvements over time.
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https://youtu.be/YGxZvO67bLM
Cheryl McColgan (00:01.07)
Hi everyone. Welcome to the Heal Nourish Grow podcast. Today I’m joined by Vitalius and I got the first name going pretty good. I’m not even going to attempt the last name, so I’ll let him share that. And of course you will have heard it in the bio here prior to the recording. But welcome to the show today. We’re going to talk about all things kind of Vegas nerve, what that even is, why it’s relevant to you as a person out there listening to this. And Vitalius has a big interest in sleep and kind of a past with some
things where he was super into biohacking. this is really pretty interesting. So, Vitalius, all that being said, we start by you just sharing a little bit about yourself and your background in the biohacking? And I would love to really chat about that sleep experiment you did, because that was quite impressive what you did with that.
Vitalijus (00:45.603)
Yeah, so before I created Pulsetto, am one of the co-founders of this company. I was working in corporate world and basically in the sleep industry. I was working in different countries, in different locations and I was responsible for sleep products.
So naturally, sleep topic was always somewhere near, you know, but you know, one day I decided to go deeper to this topic. I had some issues with sleep also. So it was like, I was working in sleep industry, but at the same time I was sleeping bad, you know, I was working like a crazy for 16 hours and etc. And then when I was 29, I got panic attacks and Xanax and it was terrible experience.
Cheryl McColgan (01:10.178)
Yeah.
Vitalijus (01:34.605)
that I remember that I said, okay, I need to change something. And the starting point was sleep, yeah, because I was near this field and topic and etc. So what I did basically at that moment, I just took around 70 factors, which has some kind of scientific
publications, know, and etc. 70 things. I will explain what those things mean. And I took those things I just listed. And then, you know, I started this kind of 100 night experiment, which means that I took one thing from those 70 lists. Yeah. And then three evenings in a row, I consume this thing. And I was imagining my aura at that moment, was like, what users
It was not like a scientific study, but you know I saw some trends and how it’s affecting my trends and etc So the first thing what I tested it was kiwi as a fruit Don’t ask me why but there are some scientific studies which show that if you will eat kiwi before sleep You will sleep better
Cheryl McColgan (02:22.83)
It wasn’t bad.
Vitalijus (02:39.855)
Yeah, so I ate kiwi for three evenings in a row and I just wanted to understand is it really somehow improving my like sleep, friends and etc. So this was like a starting point. So this kind of things like a 70 things I tested during 200 nights basically. It was a lot of bullshit, sort of to say a lot of
To some point my wife in the beginning looked at me very crazy, for example because I turned the bulbs to the red light bulbs in the bedroom. Then I was surrounded by some specific flowers because there are some studies about some specific flowers that are cleaning the air etc. I was consuming
caffeine, three evenings in row, huge amount of caffeine. I just wanted to see how badly it’s affecting my sleep. I was consuming alcohol for three nights in a row. I was doing a lot of supplements, a lot of food things, a lot of bedroom changes, a lot of body changes, know, and et cetera. So from those 70 things, some of them was really nonsense, but some of them was really big game changers, you know, and…
And after this experiment, I realized that, you know, how better I can sleep. You know, because before I thought that, you know, okay, my sleep is like normal, something like that, you know, I have some issues. In general, I am sleeping better. But only when I started to test, you know, myself and I saw what kind of changes can make a big difference, you know, then I realized that it’s a big gap between normal and good. From good to great, you know.
And after those 200 nights, I really understand that you can improve your sleep very much and then it’s completely affecting your productivity. It’s completely affecting your energy levels, your sharper mind, etc. So this is how I went to biohacking. After sleep, was more topics. It was stress topics, was food topics, was physical activities. But sleep was the starting point of my journey to the biohacking.
Cheryl McColgan (04:45.166)
I absolutely love that you did. That sounds like something I would do. I haven’t done it yet, but that’s very interesting. When you were doing the 200 nights of the different things and doing three nights in a row, was there any specific thing that you tried that you could see like on your aura ring that it had a really big impact on either your HRV or your REM or your deep sleep? What was the thing that you found that was like, of like, whoa, this might be the thing?
Vitalijus (05:08.059)
So it was something like five big conclusions from my side. The first, I mean, let’s start from that there are game changes and there are nice to have things. A very good example of this is that, for example, you can read on Google somewhere that, for example, you need to eat pistachios, yeah, as a nut, because in pistachios you can find melatonin and melatonin is good for the sleep and et cetera. But I calculated.
You need to eat 400 grams of Piscata, 400 grams, which is already seems impossible in order that you will accumulate around 25 % of melatonin. What you can do naturally. So for example, two hours before sleep to reduce the light.
Cheryl McColgan (05:38.766)
Cheers.
Vitalijus (05:54.477)
makes the bigger difference on melatonin than 400 grams of pistachios. So this was one of the first conclusions that there are game changers like those two hours before sleep to maintain the darkness and etc. And there are nice things like
I don’t know, flowers, kiwi and etc. but they are not changing your sleep area. And basically I’m always saying to my friends or those people who are asking about sleep, so there are five things. First of all, the bedroom must be…
Good. So it means the darkness and the cooling effect is very important. Temperature around 18, 19 degrees and I saw a lot on my data. So whenever I dropped the temperature or whenever I was sleeping in the cooler room, know, automatically let’s say the level of deep sleep was increasing, you know. The darkness of the bedroom is also very, very important. So if you have some kind of light coming from the outside, you need to, I mean…
to cover completely the first is bedroom the second is the disturbances you need to minimize the bad things or maybe you don’t need to create new things but you just need to minimize bad things so one bad thing is the light very big game changer huge game changer even now for example in winter time with my wife we have tradition one day per week we are completely dark mode completely dark mode I mean
We have candles and then some kind of this real light, I mean, no lads, no nothing. Once per week, it’s a perfect, perfect, let’s say, day for the relaxation, for the switching off your mind completely and et cetera. So this is the one disturbance, caffeine and alcohol are two other disturbance. So you can reach a lot of improvement of sleep just…
Cheryl McColgan (07:27.342)
that.
Vitalijus (07:46.587)
Yes, cutting those disturbance just if you will do just this, know, it will be huge. The third point is is stress. Because it’s a huge antagonist of melatonin, which means that if you have higher level of stress, the evening you will not produce enough melatonin and then you know, you will have issues with stress. So stress is huge topic. There are a bunch of ways to reduce the stress.
Cheryl McColgan (08:04.878)
I don’t want to stress.
Cheryl McColgan (08:12.354)
without what makes a power.
Vitalijus (08:15.291)
Baby-stir stimulation is one of the ways, you but it’s not only one way, know, you have you can meditation, can breathe, can do cold showers, you can go to sauna, there are routines, know, what you can do. The fourth, you need to have routine. You’re like a three, two, four things what you’re doing before sleep. I have my own routine, it’s like a 10, three, two, one. It means that 10 hours before sleep, three hours, two hours, and one hour before sleep.
Cheryl McColgan (08:18.702)
Bye.
Cheryl McColgan (08:22.796)
Get out!
Cheryl McColgan (08:37.442)
Thank you.
Vitalijus (08:43.099)
So for example, 10 hours before sleep, I’m not consuming alcohol, caffeine. Three hours before sleep, I’m doing some physical activity, like just no need to run a marathon, but just walking and something. Two hours before sleep, I’m trying to be in the dark mode and then cooling the temperature of the room. In my case, I have climat, so I’m just decreasing the temperature of the room to 18, 19 degrees. And then one hour before sleep, some sleep.
Cheryl McColgan (08:57.152)
Cheryl McColgan (09:06.721)
Vitalijus (09:08.411)
doesn’t matter, or you will be able sit for five minutes or you will meditate for 20 minutes. mean, something that is related to the stress reduction. So this is the fourth, you need to have a routine and the fifth, the morning, basically routine, but basically it means that you need to get the sun light. I mean, this is one of the most important things in order to, to let’s say, maintain a good balance of the circadian rhythm, etc. So those five.
Cheryl McColgan (09:22.018)
you
Vitalijus (09:35.387)
are like game changes I saw in a lot of my data because after those during those two hundred nights I started to make stacks you know I just started to combine things and I saw huge improvements in sleep quality and sleep quantity you know for example if you’re combining let’s say the dark mode with let’s say some stress management you know exercises so but at least something from this five list if you will do
Cheryl McColgan (09:42.254)
you
Vitalijus (10:05.083)
you really can improve little bit, little bit, know, and etc. Because with sleep the most important thing that you don’t need to think that you need to improve drastically. For example, if you add 15 minutes every day to your duration of sleep, just 15 minutes longer you will sleep or 15 minutes earlier you will go to sleep. In one week, it’s more than two hours. So, I mean, this is the point that you don’t need to…
Cheryl McColgan (10:10.798)
.
Vitalijus (10:31.811)
make a revolution in your life and start to do those all five things. Just one thing from this five list, what I mentioned previously, can make this kind of small change and then this small change can accumulate to the big differences.
Cheryl McColgan (10:37.774)
you
Cheryl McColgan (10:44.814)
Yeah, those are some really amazing suggestions for sleep. I think that, you know, the fact that when people do it is interesting, like having the aura or a tool like that, where you can kind of see what changes you make really affect things. agree with you. One of the biggest things for me was, and I’m at the age where I was starting to, you know, get a lot of hot flashes and be sleeping really hot. And I got the cooling mattress, like the Oolar. There’s a couple of them. There’s like eight sleep. I have an affiliation with one of them, but man, getting that coolness.
in the room, like on the bed, that improved mine amazingly. So that one I think is one of the most important.
Vitalijus (11:18.511)
But this is the big happiness of being this biohacker, which means that you will test on yourself. Now, for example, in the last year, I test a lot with CGM, with the continuous glucose monitor. mean, also, you cannot imagine how many things you can test on yourself because this is very personal. I will eat banana and you will eat banana. Our glucose spice will be totally different because it depends on our genetic, on our gut brain, know, gut microflora, you know, and etc. So,
Cheryl McColgan (11:31.118)
Mm-hmm.
Vitalijus (11:49.091)
I mean, you can test a lot of things, you know, for example, I was consuming different carbohydrates on my empty stomach. I just wanted to see how, let’s say, how it’s affecting me in the long term of the glucose. I was eating like, I don’t know, this bread.
For me personally, example, is spiking glucose to such a huge amount of level and even after two hours the spice still exists at a very high level. So for me the rice is not good and this I know only from this biohacking.
testing and experimenting with myself, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not good for you. Yeah, because maybe it’s you are totally different, you know, and etc. So this is the greatness of the biohacking that you can use the tool like a CGM or like, I don’t know, or whatever, and to see the changes in the data, you know, on your personal data. So I think this is the most, you know, amazing thing.
Cheryl McColgan (12:45.804)
Yeah, totally agree. you so you mentioned that you were working at a very stressful corporate job and you mentioned stress is one of the things for sleep. And I think before we before I hit record, we were talking about something recently that you got into more release related to stress and also, you know, with using the pulsed set of how that can affect it. So I’d love it you could share a little bit more about what you’ve been learning about the stress part. And you have a specific name for it, I think.
Vitalijus (13:11.387)
Yeah, I mean the last three and a half years I’m quite deep in this topic is a stress resilience basically. For me the stress was always like this kind of mysterious thing, you know, because everybody blames stress. Yeah, everybody. I mean you’re bad at work, it’s stress. You have illness, it’s stress, you know. Everybody blames stress, yeah, but not so many can track it, can measure it, you know, can…
Cheryl McColgan (13:18.062)
Stress resilience.
Vitalijus (13:39.803)
somehow feel it, know, and etc. And for me, I am always this kind of person, you know, that what you cannot measure, cannot improve, you know, and you cannot control, you know, so I want to somehow to, so this is my big...
