Transforming Life Fulfillment Through Quality Sleep and Energy Awareness - Tim Thomas

What if unlocking the secret to a more fulfilling life was as simple as prioritizing quality sleep? Join us as we welcome Tim Thomas, a passionate sleep advocate and wellness warrior, who shares his unique insights into how restful sleep can transform every facet of our lives. Drawing from his rich background in special forces and veteran recovery, Tim unveils how sleep serves as the foundation for our well-being, from enhancing our work performance to deepening our human connections. Discover the profound impact of proper rest in fostering self-reliance and resilience, and learn how fatigue can hinder our ability to connect with others. Through Tim's experiences, we explore the pathway to becoming a more connected and fulfilled version of ourselves.

Embrace the concept of living like an "energetic millionaire" as we discuss the societal undervaluation of rest and its implications on our self-worth and relationships. Tim reveals how consumer culture's relentless push can leave us fatigued and dependent on external validation, but reclaiming our rest can redefine pleasure and boost intimacy. With energy abundance, we're able to foster meaningful connections, while energy scarcity can lead to disconnection. 

GIFT FROM TIM FOR ALL

Free for the first 20 people! This is my Breathwork in Bed audio book, narrated by myself;
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V98IW0DdoH_-k4xZGRpokolXMLXhwEP4/view?usp=drivesdk

This is the links to the Breathwork in Bed app. The app will guide you to sleep with peace and out of bed with power.
Links are for Apple/Smart phones & Google/Androids

Apple link: https://apps.apple.com/app/breathwork-in-bed-app/id6575362285

Google Link:

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Chapters

• 0:04 The Power of Quality Sleep
• 10:38 Reclaiming Energy for Fulfilling Relationships

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

hey, everyone, welcome. Another episode of pleasure principles, art and science of pleasure. So today's episode is all about unlocking the life-changing potential of rest. Yes, you heard it right it's rest. Because, let's face it, pleasure isn't just about the grand or big moments, it's all about the quiet and restorative ones. So to help us explore this essential topic'm thrilled to introduce tim thomas.

Speaker 2: 0:47

So welcome to the show tim avik, so great to be here. I'm really looking forward to diving in this fascinating subject for the next 30 minutes lovely, great, great.

Speaker 1: 1:01

So, tim, like before we start our conversation, and I would love to introduce you to all of our listeners. Dear listeners, tim is not just a sleep advocate, but he is the warrior of wellness. So, with a background in special forces and years dedicated to veteran recovery and the mental health advocacy, he has transformed countless lives through the power of rest, resilience and the connection. So today we are asking like how does better sleep fool? Better pleasure, better health and, ultimately, a better you? So stick around for a conversation that's bound to change how you think about the nightly ritual. So let's dive in. Welcome to the show again, tim.

Speaker 2: 1:54

Well, look, I love what you were saying there, because what I encourage people to have a look at because sleep isn't a particularly obvious thing but I invite all the people listening to think of all the, the, everything you have in your life. You know the work, the pleasure, the human connection, um, you know all the animal connection, whatever you have that you value in your life. The quality of those things is actually relevant to the quality of your things, is actually relevant to the quality of your sleep. Okay, exactly so. The saying is sleep is the soil from which everything in our life grows, and we're a very visual um society, you know, if you don't see it, it almost doesn't exist. Society, you know, if you don't see it, it almost doesn't exist. And if you look at the sort of the soil from which everything grows, people will often go oh, my trunk is not in the right shape, I need to buy something to fix my trunk. I don't have the fruit in my life that I want, you know, and I've got to buy something to fix my fruit. But someone who really knows about growth goes into the soil, into the unseen, and if you show me the soil, I can very accurately predict the fruit. So sleep is one of those things that, if you improve, everything in your life improves. Conversely, in the special forces, we used to weaponize sleep. We used to attack our enemy's sleep because we knew if we took out their sleep for three nights, it would mess them up better than a bullet.

Speaker 2: 3:41

And if you look at your own human experience, there's two completely different types of people in this world, and they're both you and they're both me. If I don't get enough sleep, I usually eat more. I'm a bit of a cranky person, I'm a lot more reactive, I don't think above the situation. But if I get well-rested, I'm a lot more sovereign. I don't need to consume as much. I can get in touch with my own power. And and this is what I love about quality sleep is it helps you see the resources that you have inside yourself and it stops you leaning into all those other resources outside of yourself.

Speaker 2: 4:21

Nothing wrong with having resources. But if I'm in a state of fatigue, I believe other people a lot more easily when they say to me oh, you need a pair of shoes to feel a certain way, you need a certain car to feel a certain way. And if I'm fatigued, I'm like oh yeah, maybe that's supposed to be the case, but if I'm a sovereign, well-rested and connected individual who knows his value and can improve it and develop it, then all of a sudden I'm like no, your opinion stops there and I start here. So there's a lot in this and I want the listeners just to sort of start putting attention to this, because this is not. You. Don't hear about this sort of stuff, because no one's really making money from this, because if you become a truly powerful and sovereign individual, all the commercial consumerism crap that we get fed becomes redundant really quickly.

Speaker 1: 5:21

I understood, so okay, okay, understood, understood, so, um, okay, okay, uh, so this thing, this thing is coming to my mind. I mean, um, how, how do you see the connection between, uh, the quality sleep and how to express the quality sleep and the ability to experience the pleasure? Yeah, sure, the emotion, mental, physical, yep, yeah, yep.

Speaker 2: 5:55

I can and that's a really good question is powerful connections inside your own skin have a higher likelihood of creating powerful connections outside of your own skin? Okay, so, um, I believe in generosity, being generous to others, and I had this. I had this, um, I've worked in the veteran recovery space. I went through my own PDSD, my own sleepless nights. I discovered what it is to go without sleep, and I wanted to connect to others that have gone through the same journey and in my case, it was veterans with PTSD and I had this goal of saving 40 veteran lives from suicide, and I didn't care if it took me the rest of my life.

Speaker 2: 6:46

I was going to do that, but that was actually achieved within 12 months, because there was two things I saw, one of which was, when you're in a state of fatigue, you can't connect to other people, you start feeling very alone and we go into protection mode. We protect the energy that's left. So, simply, uh, getting people out of fatigue allowed them to connect to others, because that's the most enjoyable and powerful part of being a human is connecting to other humans. So, and I put it to you, um Avik, if you knew, I had your back 100 fricking percent and I knew you had my back a hundred percent. Everything else becomes a very small detail when we have that trust and connection. You feel that.

Speaker 1: 7:40

Exactly, Exactly, that's that's a trust, that's a, that's a belief. Uh it, uh uh, work medley. Exactly, that's a trust, that's a belief it works medley.

Speaker 2: 7:48

Yeah, and the thing is, though, we can be. What nobody knew was I was doing all this good work in the veteran space and I was connecting to others, but I was giving of myself. I wasn't giving of my abundance. I was actually putting myself into fatigue trying to connect to other people. So if I'm just adequate, if I'm just at a hundred percent and I'm wanting to connect to others and it takes me 10%, part of me is like well, I'm down to 90%, you better do something with that 10%. I have an expectation attached to that, right, and people often disappoint you, people hurt you, right. So you think, well, I never want to do that again, but if I so, these days, my saying is I don't give of myself anymore, I give of my abundance. So if I'm at 500, I can give 20 away each day, and people can love it, hate it, tell me to f off, it doesn matter. I'm in touch with something so much greater than that, okay, so, um, when you actually and that's quite a powerful thing to say when you're in touch with something so much greater than what can be taken, because we've all been taken from, then we can connect without that fear of hurt, cause we're we're. We're connected to something so much higher. You know which.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Some people say our own sovereign nature, some people say a divine nature. But if people want to, I've noticed myself if I want to connect with others, I'll spend the time to powerfully connect inside my own skin and then I can be generous and fearless when I interact with other humans. And other humans pick up on that pretty quickly, because I know I'm just as human as the next person. If I don't have enough stuff, enough money, enough sex in my life, then when I interact with people, then I'm trying to control the outcome. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 9:41

If I'm not in abundance, if I'm just adequate, I'm thinking well, how can I interact here and get an exchange for my, you know, get a return on my investment? So I encourage people if you want to increase the amount of connection you have in this world, think of your energy like a limited resource. Okay, energy is like money. How you invest it is how you get it back, and if you spent money like you had an unlimited resource, you'd end up in debt. Okay, and a lot of people spend their energy like that. There are things that you can do with your physical body that might cost you $100, but you get $1,000 back. There's people in your world that you can give energy to and you get $1,000 back. And then, conversely, there's people that you give $100 to and they take another $100. So start creating a world where you've got an energy portfolio.

Speaker 2: 10:38

So my, my goal for anyone I interact with, is that they live life like an energetic millionaire. And and this ties into as humans we've all been hurt, we've all been taken from. Okay, and if I've only got, say, 50 cents worth of energy and someone takes 25 cents, then that's's a big withdrawal and I'll spend the next week trying to get that 25 cents back. But if I've got a million dollars and someone takes 25 cents, I'm like well, you can stay here and play with it, I'm going to make another million dollars tomorrow. So you see how that works, because a lot of human interactions is sculpted around the hurt we've felt and we don't want to feel it again, and we end up sort of protecting ourselves and not living life like the energetic millionaires we were born to be.

Speaker 1: 11:32

Exactly Perfect, perfect. That's really lovely. And did you think that modern society undervalues the rest as an important or essential part of the well-being and the pleasure?

Speaker 2: 11:49

Awesome question. I want you to picture this In a consumer society. The goal is for you to consume, right, that's kind of obvious. But imagine you had two groups of people. One group knew its value, was well-rested, could develop its value, and they felt that what they had was enough. The other one didn't know their value, was really tired, didn't know how to develop their value. Okay, which group of people would consume more stuff when they were told that, hey, you can't feel good about yourself unless you have sneakers or a car or a house or whatever? It is Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:33

So, whether it's by design or default, consumer society wants us to be in a state of fatigue, because then we buy more stuff. You know, don't talk to me till I've had a coffee. Energy drinks, consumption. You know, consume, consume, consume.

Speaker 2: 12:48

You know your sovereign nature is under attack from pretty much the day we were born. And you know, in in, in Afghanistan, in a war zone, we would aim to attack the enemy's center of gravity. So the one thing that you can attack that would off-center them, and then they would essentially be so fatigued that they'd be more worried about what was going on outside of them than their own thoughts. And I come back to the Western world and I notice that our center of gravity, the thing that's getting attacked, is our sense of self-worth. Okay, and that's a really powerful thing to to, to, to, to wake up to, because once you start seeing that that our, our sense of self-worth is, is under attack, because if you can attack that, then all of a sudden that oh, I didn't know I had an ugly elbow. I didn't know that, look, shut up and take my money, fix this thing. I don't want people thinking I've got an ugly elbow. So so this is, this is the sort of our center of gravity is under attack and what ends up happening is we, we end up leaning into the stuff, the value that's outside of us, you know, thinking that that's where the value is, as opposed to the value inside of us. And to even think that way, you know you need to have your sleep, your rest, your recovery, um, you know, really sorted. So you know, people don't get the guts of this sort of stuff until they have like a chronic mental illness or their performance is suffering, have like a chronic mental illness or their performance is suffering. So, just to highlight this, when I'm working with corporates, I'll get them to see that performance, because they're all about performance make it bank, hitting targets.

Speaker 2: 14:28

Think of performance like, think of a pyramid. Top of the pyramid is your kicking ass. You're making bank, you're hitting your targets. That's the top of the pyramid, right, but the bottom of the pyramid is your rest, recovery, healing, art forms Okay, how you recover, recycle your energy and sleep, and you could do the same thing with your uh, with pleasure and human interactions.

Speaker 2: 14:55

Top of the pyramid is, wow, I'm getting that pleasure, I'm getting that connection, I'm getting that intimacy, I'm feeding my soul. But underneath that is your own rest, recovery and and accessing your own energy systems, recycling that so you can get back up the top of the pyramid and connect with you at a hundred percent. Because if you're at 50%, you'll have an expectation on others and they're humans too. You know, like two half cups of water, trying to argue and trick each other out of each other's water. That's what like, that's the dark side of human nature trying to fool someone out of their energy. But what's there for all of us? And what I really encourage people to do is you know, get in touch with their own sovereign nature, which is, you know, get in touch with their, with their own sovereign nature, which which is you know what I've dedicated my life and my company to.

Speaker 1: 15:43

That's amazing. I mean, uh, I, I, I have to say like I bet many listeners are nodding right now that uh, yes, yes, yes, realizing how much, how much uh, uh have sacrificed rest for that hustle culture every time. So, um, yeah, so so listeners like, let's dig deeper into how reclaiming the sleep can redefine pleasure in our everyday life. So, uh, that's very, very important. And also, uh, because sleep also impacts our hormones, our mood, our overall energy, like you mentioned about being cranky as well, if you can explain how poor sleep might affect the intimacy and connections in the relationships.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Sure, connections in the relationships, sure. So I I spoke about this before there are two completely different types of people in this world and they're both you. There's the you with an abundant amount of energy, and energy naturally seeks connection when people feel good, they want to feel better. And energy naturally seeks connection when people feel good, they want to feel better. And then there's you without the right amount of energy, and you still need energy Right. And if you don't give it to yourself, you often look for it outside of yourself. You become dependent. You know, in a relationship, people can become dependent on others because there's something that they can't do or won't do for themselves, so they expect the other person to do it for them.

Speaker 2: 17:26

And quality sleep and my access to quality sleep is breath work and and I'll share that when I was going through my PTSD, I said I was fine, but I was super low energy, I was imbalanced. And before I spoke to my then wife and I call her my then wife, not my ex-wife, because I stand for a positive future Before I spoke to my then wife, I had to drink about 12 beers, you know, and I didn't know why. I just had to because I didn't have energy. I was imbalanced, and so I I looked for an external source to counterbalance that, and you can. Can you imagine, um, if I was in that state of imbalance and I'm trying to interact with another human being? They would just pick up very rapidly that there was something that, um, I was trying to get from them. Um, and breath work is something that I wish I had back when I was drinking lots of alcohol so I could connect with my then wife. So I've got online resources for your listeners.

Speaker 2: 18:45

In the Breathwork in Bed app, there's actually couples breathwork where you simply hold hands with your partner and you breathe a certain way and you just melt and connect into each other. And I'm going to get a little ethereal here. When we breathe, we take on the nature of air. Okay, so if you just wave your hand in the air, you can't grab the air, right, the nature of air is it can't be held. So when you do breath work, that doesn't allow you to hold any tension, it doesn't allow you to hold those blockages that would normally be there, that I would usually drink away before I connected with another human my then wife than wife. So, doing breath work to relax yourself, remove the tensions and allow you to connect with another.

Speaker 2: 19:41

Human being is super, super powerful and, without knowing it, we're always aware of each other's breath. So if you saw somebody and they were, you know, shallow, breathing rapidly and I'll just make the noise you know they're about to freak out and everyone's like what's going on, something's wrong here, okay. So what we need to be aware of is as we breathe, we're actually impacting other people's state of being. So imagine this, imagine and I'll sometimes do this in meetings I'll breathe into the other person and I'll relax the room, the space that I'm in, and you start seeing the power of your own breath isn't just for yourself, it's for others.

Speaker 2: 20:26

So, just like, if I was a cranky, angry dude, I'd be affecting everyone in the room. If I was a cranky, angry dude, I'd be affecting everyone in the room. When I'm a relaxed, focused, sovereign, loving man, everyone feels safe and everyone just relaxes, and it all starts with that breath. So you see that sort of I sort of weaved a bit of a trail in there, but you see how your own state creates connection with others, and the beginning of all that is your breath. Chinese have been saying for thousands of years control your breath, control everything.

Speaker 1: 21:15

Lovely. That's really, really great. And so breathe work is a major part of your work, and how can integrating breathe work into our evening routines improve the sleep and, by extension, our overall pleasure and the well-being?

Speaker 2: 21:40

So I believe that the amount you can enjoy life is relative to how much you block it. Okay, there's so much good stuff out there, but we tend to block a lot of the good stuff. So, breath, work, relaxing your own body, nourishing yourself, getting rid of all that physical and mental tension. So, if I'm going to be technical, it's the PNS parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system is essentially the brake in the car. If you don't, you know, if you've just got all throttle and no brake, you're going to crash and burn. So activating the parasympathetic nervous system release gets rid of the cortisol in the brain, okay. Improves your heart rate variability.

Speaker 2: 22:26

It gets you in a state that is back in your body, because what ends up happening is if you're so focused on achieving something outside of your own body or it could be a threat that you're worried about outside of your own body You're so connected to that thing outside of your own body You've disconnected from your own body, okay, and then you end up using other people, as this dopamine hit like a, like a Panadol for a broken leg. So so when you actually nourish yourself, calm yourself, connect to your own body and just relax, that other person knows when you're in the room with them. Okay, just like you know they're talking to you but your head's somewhere else. Your body's there but your head's somewhere else. So when you get, get fully present, that's a wonderful gift to give the other person, because that's what they want to be. They want to connect with all of you and they want all of you in the room.

Speaker 2: 23:19

True, but it's really hard if you don't have that break in your you know. You know the, the thing that slows your vehicle down, and so breathwork taps into the parasympathetic nervous system, which then gets you back into your body. You know, oh my gosh, I never knew my shoulders were tense. I can relax that, you know I was. I was spending 20% of me, without knowing it, into tenseness in my shoulders, which then only gave me 80% to give to my partner or the people around me. See how that works.

Speaker 2: 23:51

To give to my partner or the people around me See how that works, and so I, you know, and I would I would self-medicate with a bunch of alcohol. So, oh, I can relax my shoulders now. Well, I didn't need to do that, I could have tapped into my own breath, and so so, with, with, with my company Breathwork in Bed, we just ask when you want to sleep, when you want to wake up, and you'll guide it into the most peaceful sleep and then you guide it out of bed. Now that's the game changer.

Speaker 2: 24:17

Getting out of bed is often quite hard and you've got, you know, a lot of stuck energy. You kind of feel like lead, but breath work in bed before you get out of bed, turns that lead into gold. It's a completely different way to wake up. That lead into gold, it's a completely different way to wake up. Uh, and it's. It's quite surprising how good you can feel with just five minutes of breath work and body activation before your feet hit the floor.

Speaker 2: 24:39

You know, my whole life I was associated, waking up with just feeling terrible for the first one or two hours, drinking a heap of coffee, having all these things and substances that I was dependent on, you know, and then, if I'm not a sovereign person. I start um having expectations on other people, Like when I'm driving through traffic, you're supposed to do this and you're supposed to do that, and I'm wasting all this energy on stuff that is outside of my own skin. So, uh, breath work done right has you in a position of strength. Uh, so when you're in any sort of exchange, you can be generous, you can be yourself, and that other person picks up on that and drops into that space really quickly okay, exactly yeah, and I I really love this conversation.

Speaker 1: 25:30

That has been an eye opener and for understanding the science of sleep, to uncovering its profound impact on our pleasure, relationships and the resilience. So you have definitely shared so many actionable insights for the listeners. Shared so many actionable insights for the listeners I'd love to mention, like what's one small change that you can make tonight is to prioritize your rest. So maybe it's trying that breathing exercise or maybe setting a bedtime ritual, so, whatever it is, remember that better sleep leads to a better you, as I already mentioned. So if you have found value in today's episode, share it with a friend or family or someone who you, uh, you feel that they need to listen to this. It's really gonna a game changer and, uh, leave us a review and do not forget to subscribe for more episodes on pleasure principles and, until next time, variety as you rest, your pleasure and cure well-being. So till then, thank you so much you.