Adam and Christopher interview Dr. Allan Mishra, an alumnus of Gamma Nu Chapter at the University of Michigan. Dr. Mishra, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine at Stanford University, is a health and wellness expert who focuses on vitality and living a vital life. During the episode, Dr. Mishra talks about his Sigma Nu experience, the importance of sleep and its connection to vitality, and the Super Power Sleep program he launched in partnership with the Fraternity.
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The Gavel Podcast - Ep 17 - Sleep and Vitality with Dr. Allan Mishra (Michigan)
[Intro Music]
0:00:40.8 Adam Girtz: Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of The Gavel Podcast. I'm Adam.
0:00:44.0 Christopher Brenton: And I'm Christopher.
0:00:45.1 Adam Girtz: The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity, and it's a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you with the stories from our brotherhood.
0:00:55.3 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at sigmanu.org, you can also find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at @sigmanuhq or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.
0:01:05.6 Adam Girtz: Welcome to another wonderful episode, everyone. I'm doing great, Christopher, how are you doing?
0:01:12.3 Christopher Brenton: I'm doing well also. It's finally getting warmer. We're coming out of the deluge of rain that is so strongly associated with April. Now, unfortunately, I think for the past couple of months, we've been screaming for it to get warmer and eventually before we know it, it we will be wishing for it to be a little bit cooler again, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
0:01:37.5 Adam Girtz: It's like everyone's been asking for it so much, and then it finally was just like "Here fine, have it," 85, 90... It's literally 90 degrees outside right now. I didn't ask for this.
0:01:48.5 Christopher Brenton: My favorite part of this time of year is when you walk out, and it's like 60, 70, you're like, "Gosh, this is incredible weather," and then you get into November or maybe late October, and it starts getting into the 60s and 70s, you're like, "Oh my gosh, it's freezing."
0:02:02.8 Adam Girtz: Yeah, absolutely, it's a lot colder on the way back down than it is on the way up. That's some good old Midwest wisdom there, glad that as a national experience. Well, Christopher, a wonderful episode today, I'm excited about this. We get to interview Dr. Allan Mishra later and talk to him about sleep and vitality and how to lead a more vital life. So yeah, excited to dive into that, but... First, we've got a couple of things we wanted to talk about. Care to share, please.
0:02:40.9 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, so we are in the month of May and May, of course, for those of you who are graduating is an exciting time of year for that purpose, we have chapter brothers who basically each weekend in May and then a little bit into early June are going to be graduating from their institutions, seniors who are taking that affirmation of knighthood, who are ascending to the alumni chapter, and then hopefully continuing to fulfill their life-long commitment to the organization. but in recognition of that transition, there are two things I wanted to promote, and then I have a third promotion, but the first is, if you are an undergraduate member who has recently moved, who is currently moving or is in the process of moving, perhaps you are relocating from the city in which your collegiate institution is located to the place of your future employment, perhaps you are still an undergraduate collegiate member and will be relocating from a dorm to an off-campus apartment, or somewhere else, or maybe you're an alumnus who recently has relocated as well, or maybe you've updated your contact information, your cell phone and your email address, what have you. And...
0:04:04.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, or maybe you signed up for recruitment using your mom's email, which seems to happen so often.
0:04:12.0 Christopher Brenton: [chuckle] Yes, yes. So in any of those circumstances, we always like to promote around this time of year for our alumni and collegiate members to complete a change of address, so if you go to www.sigmanu.org/changeofaddress, all one word, that will take you to our change of address form where you can update your contact information as well as your physical address, that is incredibly important for two reasons, one, I know it sometimes can be scary, the Fraternity could potentially contact you. Yes, we do want to stay in touch with you. We do want to provide you with updates and news from the General Fraternity, but also two, this is a collective database, which means that if we have local chapters, who reach out because they want to host alumni events and reunions or networking opportunities, that collective information is also shared with them as well, and so if your chapter who wants to host a reunion in the future or wants to host an alumni event, you updating your contact information is going to make sure that your information gets to those local chapters as well, so that they can contact you in the future also, so and there's a collective need and a collective good in making sure that your contact information is up-to-date with the Fraternity.
0:05:36.0 Christopher Brenton: Also, we have our latest issue of The Delta that is pretty soon going to be released, and so updating your contact information also serves as a really great opportunity to make sure you get your latest copy of The Delta. So be on the look out for that. Second promotion, we have recently started the process of collecting registrations or sign up for a new pilot program that we're launching called Welcome to the City. This program is going to be a collective group of receptions that are going to be held at major cities across the United States. We are currently in the process of trying to identify the major cities in which we have a cluster of young alumni that will be relocating to those locations and are also connecting with all our alumni or more established alumni in those areas that could potentially host receptions and get-togethers. The idea here is we know that we have a lot of alumni that are relocating from their collegiate chapters to these larger cities, we want to make sure that those cities feel like home, that you have an established network that you can connect to once you relocate to your new city, and what better way to facilitate that process than to leverage the Fraternity’s network to do so? So we recently put out two pieces of social media on this topic today when we are recording. But if you go back and look through our news feed, you can find them, so the Welcome to the City program.
0:07:02.7 Christopher Brenton: There should be forms for you to sign up. And also too we should have sent out emails for this to our recent or soon-to-be graduates, and so keep a lookout in your inbox for communication about the Welcome to the City program as well, if that is the easiest way for us to reach you. But definitely sign up for that, state the city that you recently relocated to. Or maybe even if you're an older alumnus, if you are moving to a new city, this could still be a great opportunity for you as well, so all are welcome to complete that. So that's the second thing. The third thing, with an end comes new beginnings, I suppose. So while we do... [chuckle] While we do have alumni that are young collegiate brothers who are becoming alumni or graduating from their collegiate institution, we also have a new cycle of young men who have recently been admitted to their institution of choice and are beginning the process of enrolling for the fall, and so they will be getting ready this summer to arrive on their institution.
0:08:38.0 Christopher Brenton: And likely in August, September, October, they'll go through the recruitment process and potentially join one of our collegiate chapters. This is an all-call to all of our collegiate brothers, that if you know of a young man that you think would be a great fit for Sigma Nu, they're a legacy member, they may not have considered rushing a fraternity, but you think that they should consider it, go through the process of submitting a referral. You can do so at www.sigmanu.org/referral, that'll take you to the membership referral page where you can provide the contact information for that young man.
0:08:55.3 Christopher Brenton: This will give us the opportunity to connect with the collegiate chapter of the institution that they'll be attending to provide the contact information so they can reach out and hopefully maybe they can provide towards the campus, they can share them around, introduce them to the chapter, the chapter's facility, if they have one. And that process can really help during recruitment to make sure that they get connected with the chapter so that they can start to build affinity with the collegiate chapter if that's the right choice for them. Of course we strongly believe in the fraternal movement and the opportunity to select the fraternity that is the right fit for you. But especially for our legacy members and for general men that we feel strongly about, we want to make sure that we have good collegiate members in good, strong chapters. And so identifying really strong prospective members is obviously a goal of ours, and so we always want to promote that referral form whenever we can to make sure that we can share that information with our collegiate chapters.
0:09:53.8 Adam Girtz: Well, and what better way to start your freshman year on a new campus and likely a new city who you don't know many people at is to have you a friendly face there and to give you a local chapter the opportunity to be that friendly face. So yeah, a pretty cool opportunity. So definitely that website again is sigmanu.org/referral.
0:10:17.7 Christopher Brenton: Yes. Yes.
0:10:18.6 Adam Girtz: Christopher, how many R's are in referral and how many...
0:10:22.6 Christopher Brenton: It is three, R-E-F-E-R-R-A-L. No, that's wrong.
0:10:28.2 Adam Girtz: No, I think it's...
0:10:29.6 Christopher Brenton: R-E-F-E-R-R-A-L.
0:10:30.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, there you go.
0:10:32.6 Christopher Brenton: I got it right.
0:10:33.6 Adam Girtz: Psyching yourself out, I think you had it.
0:10:34.7 Christopher Brenton: I know. Sometimes when you're put on the spot, you start to doubt yourself.
0:10:39.0 Adam Girtz: Man, what I wouldn't do... What I would do without auto-correct is... I don't know, I'd be a mess.
0:10:45.9 Christopher Brenton: [laughter] As Director of Communications, it's important for me to know how to spell words.
0:10:49.1 Adam Girtz: Yes. Referral especially, a very important one. Well, so I'm very excited to get into our interview today. Yeah, so we were able to interview Dr. Allan Mishra. Christopher, you care to share a little bit about Dr. Mishra?
0:11:08.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. So Allan has been working with the fraternity for the last probably year or so. He is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine who is also a teacher at Stanford University, so he teaches courses there on a subject matter that's important to him, which is vitality, but he also covers how to improve your physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being, so those are all concepts that connect to this larger idea of vitality and living a vital life. We're going to get into more about that in the episode. But specifically one of the reasons why we wanted to bring on Allan is that he is kind of an expert on how sleep is connected to vitality. And we worked with him to launch this program in the fall called Super Power Sleep, it was a text messaging program that we piloted at four Sigma Nu chapters across the country. And basically, we saw an incredible amount of success from that program, where young collegiate members were kind of identifying the benefits and the.
0:12:28.7 Christopher Brenton: The positive outcomes that they received through their participation, and so we expanded that program out to this... Or we expanded the program this spring to collegiate members and alumni. I believe it was around 200 or so participants who participated in the larger program, and so it's just really cool to get to see our work with Allan come to a... Sorry, it kind of... Through our partnership with him, we developed this product that appears to be really improving the lives, the sleep quality, the vitality of our collegiate and alumni members. So we're excited to share more about that program with people who didn't have the chance to participate or are interested in learning more about that. And of course, Allan is an alumnus of our Gamma Nu chapter at the University of Michigan, and so as we do with all of our interviews, we want to hear more about his experience, what drew him, why he was drawn to join the Gamma Nu chapter at the University of Michigan, to become a Sigma Nu member, and why Sigma Nu is so important to him that he feels compelled to continue to stay engaged, just continue to support the organization and to, of course, partner with us for this Sleep and Vitality Program.
0:13:53.0 Adam Girtz: Well, well said. Let's hear it from Allan himself. So without further ado, let's dive into the interview.
[Transition Music]
0:14:19.9 Adam Girtz: Hello, guys, welcome to our interview. We're really excited to have the opportunity to bring this conversation to you all this week. So like we mentioned in the introduction, we have the pleasure of getting the opportunity to speak with Dr. Allan Mishra. Dr. Mishra is an orthopedic surgeon, but he also is an expert in the topic of vitality as well as living a vital life, and he... We have recently partnered with him to launch this new program that we have called The Sleep and Vitality Program. And so, we're going to have the opportunity to talk to Dr. Mishra today to get his insight into that program and for... To have maybe some also advice for people who haven't had the opportunity to participate, about how they can live a more vital life as well as improve their sleep. So we're really excited to welcome him. So, Allan, I'll give you the opportunity to do a little bit more of an introduction to kind of talk about your background, and of course we'd love to be able to hear a little bit more about your Sigma Nu experience as well.
0:15:28.0 Allan Mishra: Yeah, thank you so much. It's an absolute honor to be on The Gavel with you, Christopher and Adam, and I'm delighted. And maybe, I could just tell you, if it's okay, how I got to be a Sigma Nu, because it's kind of an interesting story.
0:15:41.7 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Please.
0:15:42.0 Allan Mishra: So I really didn't know much about the fraternity system. I was a freshman on the University of Michigan, and I was in an accelerated undergrad med school program, so I was pretty serious about my academics. And my buddy down the hallway came down to me on a Sunday night, and he said, "Come on, let's go rush." I said, "Well, I'm not sure I'm into that, I know what the story is." He goes, "At least we're going to get a few free beers." And so we went out on... It's... It was like Sunday to Friday was rush at Michigan. And I went out with my buddy and one other guy. And we went to a bunch of houses, and I was like, "Well, this is pretty cool." And one of those houses was the Sigma Nu house. And then the next day, the next day, the next day, we went back and back and back and whittled it down. And then Thursday morning, he and I got an invitation to go to the Sigma Chi house, which was one of the houses we were seriously considering and was one of the best houses perhaps, really connected at Michigan, so I was like, "Wow, okay."
0:16:41.2 Allan Mishra: And they invited us to go to a party. So we went to the party on Thursday night at the Sigma Chi house. And about halfway through the party, they took us downstairs, and they gave us each a bid. And I did not know what a bid was, true story. It was like they hand me a little envelope, and so my buddy looks and goes, "Are you going to join?" and I said, "Oh, I don't know, I'll think about it." We... The party continues. And that night, we did not, neither one of us went to the Sigma Nu house on Thursday night. And then Friday rolls around, and my phone rings, and it was a couple of the guys from the Sigma Nu house. Remember, this is dinosaur time, no cell phones, [chuckle] no email.
[chuckle]
0:17:17.1 Allan Mishra: So I picked up the phone, and they said, "Well, where were you last night?" I told them I went to the Sigma Chi house. And they said, "Did you accept your bid?" and I said, "No." They said, "Would you want to come over for dinner?" and I said, "Okay." And again, I'm going to be truly honest with you, I had no idea that they had to offer you a bid, I thought we were kind of choosing, okay? And so I go to the Sigma Nu house, and we went back and forth. And my friend who had already accepted his bid at Sigma Chi did not. And then I just had to think about it. I was like, "Oh my God, this is the place for me!" I thought it was an amazing combination of social and academic excellence, honesty, and later did I realize it was part of the Love, Truth and Honor. And so, you're talking to the one guy, at least in my time in the '80s at Michigan, who turned down a Sigma Chi bid to become a Sigma Nu, and I am forever grateful. So I hope there's not too many Sigma Chi's out there listening to this, if there are you can call me a friend, but Sigma Nu was the right one for me back then, and it was because of the brothers that reached out to me that I am so, so grateful.
0:18:25.0 Adam Girtz: Well, we definitely would love to hear from our intrafraternal brothers, if they're out there and are listening to this podcast, would love to hear, one why?, two, just from you. Great. [chuckle]
0:18:39.1 Christopher Brenton: It is funny, just to think about when you're going through the recruitment process, especially if you know nothing about recruitment, just how by the luck of the draw, sometimes you end up in kind of the right organization for you. I had a similar story. I think Andrew Meeks, he's a past staff member, he may listen to the podcast, he may not. But, he was running the expansion at NC State, kind of a re-colonization, similar to what Michigan just recently went through. And I met with him, received a bid, decided to accept my bid. I was completely under the assumption that recruitment had already ended, I missed the boat, that all the other organizations already selected the guys that they wanted and that I had been left to the curb, only to find out that I had actually accepted my bid two weeks prior to rush even beginning. [laughter]
0:19:39.8 Christopher Brenton: So they got me before I had the chance to choose other options, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Sigma Nu is absolutely the right organization for me, but it is funny, to think about the circumstances.
0:19:49.6 Allan Mishra: Well, we're all just young men of 18... Well, probably big boys, or young men. More probably on the big boy version. I think the other thing that had happened with me is, I was pretty insecure about it and borderline cocky, which is a bad combination. And Sigma Nu, through the time I was there and after, and to this day, has helped me become a better man. And that is probably the most important component of why I think Sigma Nu has been a good experience for me and why I would recommend people to consider joining, especially Sigma Nu, but fraternities in general.
0:20:28.3 Adam Girtz: I would tend to agree. [chuckle] Were there any memorable experiences or anything, skills you learned from your time in the collegiate chapter that you believe, impacted your career?
0:20:42.5 Allan Mishra: Well, I think the most important thing I'm happy about is, there were no cellphones... [laughter]
0:20:48.1 Allan Mishra: There weren't any recording devices. So, when you ask for memorable things, I have a few things I probably don't want to talk about. But, we had this guy called the picture man who would come to our parties, he was basically a professional photographer, and I think he probably was pretty discreet about not taking bad pictures. So there's tons of great experiences, but I think what mattered most is the conversations we had after dinner. And then sometimes, those were conversation of just fun and joy, but there were also conversations about challenging things in our lives. And the love, the support, the honesty that I received personally and then tried to give back to my brothers was amazing. And to this day. And so literally, I think when they say something, I'm just going to give Michigan a plug here, when they say if somebody goes to Michigan versus certain other schools, they're not making a four-year decision, they're making a 40-year decision. So I guess I'm going to admit this on this podcast, because you're listening... Your listeners. In September of 2022, I will... It will have been 40 years since I started going to college. So now, I'm part of that close to 40-year experience with people from college, and both Sigma Nu and Michigan have served me well, and I've tried to now, return the favor and serve back, and that's part of the reason I'm working with Sigma Nu now.
0:22:08.8 Adam Girtz: That's awesome. That's a really neat experience, and I appreciate you giving us that insight into that lifelong membership. I think that's a... We talk sometimes...
0:22:26.4 Allan Mishra: I started college when I was eight, by the way. [laughter]
0:22:26.5 Adam Girtz: Yeah, that makes sense.
0:22:27.8 Allan Mishra: In case anybody's trying to do the calculation on my age.
0:22:29.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah, I was doing the math. [chuckle]
0:22:33.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah, we always say, is, not was. And I think that's... Yeah, definitely. We are Sigma Nu's, not we were. That's really neat. No, we do really appreciate you remaining involved and continuing to support the Fraternity, and we'll dive in and talk about the program that we're able to offer with our membership here. But, what motivates you to stay involved with the Fraternity?
0:23:00.8 Allan Mishra: Well, again, it's to try to give back and literally, I think it's definitely connected to vitality in that, two years ago, we were... Gosh, we were just in this middle of this crazy beginning of the pandemic. And, if it's okay, maybe I can just tell you how I got into the vitality thing and connect it back to Sigma Nu. Alright?
0:23:21.1 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:23:21.6 Allan Mishra: So it was almost six years ago, I was on a vacation that I always wanted to go on, I was in Australia, and I always wanted to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Sort of a life-long thing on my bucket list, if you will. And so, this beach called Four Mile Beach in a small town in Northern Australia, called Port Douglas, I was running up and down that beach, and I was... I ran track in high school and I loved to play basketball. I was running up and down this beach, just in my swim trunks, it was... You guys are pretty young, so you may not know what Chariots of Fire is. But it's a movie about the Olympics from the 20s, and I just see the splashing of my feet and I come back, and I stand there, I'm underneath this 80 foot tall palm tree, it's just unbelievably amazing. Looking at the coral sea, the Great Barrier Reef is in the distance. And I'm like, "Oh, I feel vital." Back to another movie, a lot of movie analogies here. It was like Inception, it's like somebody stuck this thing in my ear and goes, "You need to figure out what that word means."
0:24:19.8 Allan Mishra: Because of course, I'm on vacation, my cell phone doesn't work, I'm with my family, of course, I feel vital. So then I came back to the Bay Area and I'm an orthopedic surgeon, Sports medicine specialist, do a bunch of clinical and some basic science research, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to figure out a bio marker for vitality." And that seems like in your blood, your bone marrow, your saliva, your genes. I did anything I could do to myself for a full year, we're talking wearables, heart rate monitors. And then I realized, your vitally, your physical vitality is part of it. And then I started putting together these notes and these ideas about vitality being interconnected. Your physical, mental, social and spiritual wellness are like a wheel, I call it the vitality wheel where... And the best example, which we're going to talk about a little bit more is sleep.
0:25:02.1 Allan Mishra: So, over the years, I started collecting and putting together things, I actually put together a little course book called The Vitality Essentials. I have been teaching a course at Stanford now, for three years, on how to enhance your vitality. And the funny story about that is, I've been on the faculty for 20 years, and I went to apply to teach a course about vitality, and they laughed at me. They're like, "Who are you? Do you have a Nobel Prize? What are you doing here? No, we don't know you." But they forced me to go through the paces of proving that what I was trying to do was scientific. So, what I try to focus on with vitality explorers, which is like a text message thing, or vitality explorer news which is on Substack, and a whole bunch of other things, including the text message courses, which we'll talk about, is to provide specific, actionable, scientific information on how to enhance your physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being.
0:25:57.9 Allan Mishra: And so, when the pandemic hit, Michigan, Sigma Nu and Stanford and a whole bunch of other places reached out to me and they said, "Hey, can you do a vitality webinar?" And I was unbelievably prepared for that moment. Because people needed to hear the message that I've been talking about in my classes, and now, for the last two years, I've been doing this for a variety of different organizations and trying to develop digital tools to help meet people where they are, to help improve their vitality. And it's just been an absolute joy. I never realized I could identify something that I... I really loved being an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist, it's a really cool job, but it's not something you could do for the rest of your life. But, pursuing and helping other people learn how to be as vital, or learn how to live their most vital life, has become my most important purpose.
0:26:54.9 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. I think that, as a society, I think we have become more focused on health and wellness. Certainly, that is... Those are some of the more popular buzz words that you hear fairly commonly. My mother was accidentally tricked into eating an Impossible Burger recently, loved it, and so... [chuckle]
0:27:16.7 Christopher Brenton: It's just like health has become a lot more pervasive into our culture, into our society. There's a focus on mental health, there's a focus on holistic living, holistic wellness. It seems like vitality kind of is a little bit of all-encompassing of those ideas and concepts, and you mentioned some of the biomarkers and some of the research that you were able to identify through your study. Can you explain a little bit more, about what you uncovered in your research? Why is vitality so important to focus on? How does it differ maybe from some of those individual components like mental health, or just general wellness? How is... For those who are unfamiliar, how does... What is vitality to you? [chuckle]
0:28:02.2 Allan Mishra: So that's... So, I've been forced to come up with my definition here, so this is my working definition. Vitality is purposeful, vigorous, and connected living. I'll say that one more time. Vitality is purposeful, vigorous, and connected living. And each of those words is very carefully chosen. And I have something I call, the dare to be vital challenge, so that's sort of the overarching umbrella by which I do all this work, and that is to use your unique talents and enthusiasm, use your unique talents and enthusiasm, to transform yourself, your community, and the world. Now, your question specifically about vitality, one word I'm allergic to is happiness. "I just want to be happy. I want to pursue happiness. I want this, I want that." It's a very selfish concept in my opinion, and I think if you pursue happiness, you become somebody who's just constantly in search of the thing that's right in front of you. But really, as soon as you get that object, and that object could be a better job, a better partner, a better car, a better place to live, then you're like, "Okay, what do I do now?" And that's... There's a big name for it, I call it the hedonic treadmill.
0:29:17.6 Allan Mishra: But it's basically, you're on his ever-increasing speed and arc of this treadmill to get more, and more, and more, and more, to fulfill your needs. And so, I was like, "Oh wow, that's terrible. It's never... You're never going to get there." So that's when I said, I want to pursue vitality, not happiness, and happiness is the by-product, and joy; I like joy better than happiness, of living a vital life. And they're interconnected, and sleep's probably the best example. So, the number one way you want... You can sleep better, is to exercise. And the reasons why exercise helps you sleep better is that you actually produce things that come out of your muscles when you exercise for a minimum, 15 or 20 minutes that help you sleep better. And then if you sleep better, you produce less of a hormone that makes you hungry. Literally, makes you less hungry. So, you will eat better, which allows you to exercise more, which allows you to sleep better, which has improved your mental health. Because your mental health is hugely connected to your physical health.
0:30:15.7 Allan Mishra: So, when we were talking about, "Where should we start?" because I have programs that are associated with time management, purpose development, stockpiling health, we chose to sleep on purpose, literally, even somewhat ironically, because college students in general, but all of us, have difficulty managing our sleep or optimizing our sleep. And who's against trying to sleep better? Maybe some people who think that sleep doesn't matter at all. But it seemed to be a pretty straightforward way to start to make a difference.
0:30:47.2 Christopher Brenton: That's awesome.
0:30:47.8 Adam Girtz: Yeah, that's interesting. It reminds me of something we used to... I used to talk about with our chapters, when I was working with them actively, and they'd asked about, "How do we improve our morale in the house?" Start with the physical layout of the house. Look around you and how does the house make you feel? If it's some place that people don't want to be, or it's messy and dirty, that's going to affect morale. So, if you want to improve morale, you clean up the house and you do all of that, but then that also steam rolls, it continues to spin that wheel. That's what it strikes me as. So, it's a very similar concept.
0:31:22.8 Allan Mishra: Yeah, getting your own house in order, is the beginning of it. So, people sometimes accuse me of saying, "Well, you're telling people what they need to do." And I hit them with this line, "In order to be vital... " I can't give it to you guys, I can't give it to anybody who's listening, your government can't give it to you, your mom, your sister. It's something you earn, by taking ownership over the choices you make with your time, talent, and treasure. And so, people kind of tilt their head, they're like, "What? What did he just say?" I said, "You can't be given it, you have to earn it." And when you do earn something, we all appreciate this. If you work for something, work towards something, you appreciate it more.
0:32:05.1 Allan Mishra: And then, I have this concept of a vitality gap. When we are not living our most vital lives, we're going to... Later in life, we're going to have this gap of how much vitality we could have had. So, I try to teach people, myself including, and I have to learn all the lessons... And that's why I call it vitality explorers, by the way, because I will forever be a vitality explorer. I'm not a vitality guru, I'm an explorer. So, I can always get better, I can always uncover something new about it. But then, taking ownership over what I do, allows me to stop binging on what I call the buffet of excuses, like, "I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that." Well, I think it's like that movie... Or it's like that TV show. Did you guys watch "Inventing Anna"?
0:32:48.5 Christopher Brenton: Yes, yes. [chuckle]
0:32:50.4 Allan Mishra: “I do not have time for this!” Okay? But I think we're all wasting about 1000 seconds a day, which is 17 minutes. So, when I teach people how to be more vital and myself included, I try to say, "Alright, I've been wasting 1000 seconds scrolling on social media, watching a bad TV show, complaining, gasping or something else. If I spend just 1000 seconds a day for the next 12 days, which is about a million seconds, what could I do?" And I call this a million-second challenge. So, there's a lot of structure around, I think, how to be more vital, and that's what people spit back at me. They go, "Well, most of what you say is not novel." And I'm like, "You're right, it's not necessarily novel." Sleep better, exercise more, eat well, be more connected to people. But it's the blocking, and tackling, and structure, and specificity based on science that I'm focused on.
0:33:43.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, so for those who are unfamiliar, we talked about it at the intro, and certainly, we want to provide more context on this now, but the Fraternity has partnered with Allan, to launch a sleep and vitality program. That program, I believe, was piloted in the fall, with a select number of chapters, and then we expanded the program out to collegians and alumni. Adam, I believe... I think you're signed up as a participant. But, Allan, for those of us or the listeners who have not participated or who did not sign up, can you explain a little bit about the program, what it's intended outcomes are? So, for those who are participating in, what are they receiving, but also what are they... How are they benefiting from the program? Just so that way, as people are listening, they can kind of understand why this is so important, and the benefits of the program itself.
0:34:43.2 Allan Mishra: Well, first of all, it's an honor to partner with Sigma Nu, and I'm very interested and excited to see how we can continue to work on the other parameters of vitality, that was... Specificity to sleep. What I do is sort of hybrid learning. So, part of it is a text message course. Now, what is a text message course? It's just a way to produce a small, what I call, Info snack. Okay? Four or 500 characters, a little bit of a nibble for 10 straight days on the parameters of how to sleep better, or why sleep is important. Let me just give you four specific tips. Number one way to sleep better other than the exercise, is to consider it and make it a very important part of your life. Make it intention or a primary priority in your life. So, the second one is to try and take a consistent sleep-wake schedule, which is difficult if you're traveling or sometimes if you're in college. A third one is to put your phone in a time out at a specific time at night, or in another room if you prefer.
0:35:45.9 Adam Girtz: Oh yeah.
0:35:46.6 Allan Mishra: And then the final one is to keep your bedroom cool, cold, and quiet if you can. Or cool, quiet, and dark, I should say. That's... Those are four things. So, you get a little bit of a nibble about that as an example. One per day, with more information, via a link to learn about it. At the end of that 10 days, or sometimes in the middle of that 10 days, we would have then a webinar, and that would be like a talking head of me for 15 or 20 minutes, going through all the data, reinforcing that data, and then having a question-and-answer function afterwards, to clarify the issue. And then maybe going back to a little bit of the text messaging course. This is based all on science, about how to optimally read or learn. People have had it with Zoom, people want to be able to consume things on their phone. The interesting thing is that I think some people hate the text messaging course, some people love the webinar or vice versa, but the idea is to again, meet people where they are, to help them with the... Get the information that can hopefully make a difference. And then again, there are parameters or programs associated with time, stock piling health also, but probably the most difficult is to identify or pinpointing your peak purpose, which is another one we could talk about if we have time.
0:37:04.0 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. I'm sure too, from the structure of the course, the fact that it's engaging you consistently over time, I'm sure plays a huge role in getting people to actually take on the behaviors that you're identifying as constructive and beneficial to their sleep, versus if you attend a webinar one time, you forget about it the next day.
0:37:30.8 Allan Mishra: Well, here's the data, this is the other part about it is, we had over 200 Sigma Nu's both actives and alumni take the course. And the people... The percentage, overall percentage of people who completed all eight... Or excuse me, all 10 days, was in the mid to upper 80s. So, if you take an online course, it's in the 20s or 30s. And so, I think we still need better ways to help people learn and my arching goal... Overarching goal for moving forward with Sigma Nu in other organizations is to say, it doesn't have to be one or the other. I think people want perhaps live, or live online in addition, live recorded online, by the way, so you can watch it at about 1.5 speed, or people may be listening to this podcast at 1.5 speed. Let me drop a tiny bit of science in for you guys, you're going to love this or maybe not love it. So, time management is another thing that I'm really interested in, and so when we go for a hike, if we're listening to a podcast or listening to a college lecture, whatever we're doing, you can listen to it at 1.5, you can listen up to 2X speed and not lose comprehension. They did a study at UCLA where they had these students listen to it at 1X, 1.5X, or 2X, and there was no difference in their comprehension on tests.
0:38:48.2 Allan Mishra: The people who actually did the best, however, were the people who listen to it, this is not surprising, but listened to it at 2x speed twice. You're doing the same amount, but you just listen to it twice. So, it's the same amount of time as if you listen to it once, but they got better scores than the people who listened to it at 1, 1X, or 2, so... 1.5X I should say. So, we're in a world right now where we have information including this awesome podcast, I hope, at our ear tips, our fingertips, and we can be double timing things. So, when I go on a hike, which is a five or 10 mile hike. I'll be listening to a podcast or listening to music, and I'm really offered an opportunity to learn something. And the interesting part is I do listen to it at 1.5, that tape at 1.5 and now I don't feel guilty about it because I know I'm... Data, science, suggest that I'm okay. I'm still picking it up.
0:39:44.1 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, so two takeaways from that one, my wife is currently... She's an attorney, she's gone back to get her LLM in tax law. And so she's listening to all of her lectures at 1.5 speed, so I now have your advice here that that's good. And she should continue doing that, maybe bump it up to 2X. And the second is, what I heard you say is that our listeners should be listening to this twice...[laughter]
0:40:13.5 Christopher Brenton: So each episode twice, just at two times speed, so hopefully...
0:40:16.8 Allan Mishra: And then giving you not a five star, but a 10-star rating.
0:40:21.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:40:21.3 Christopher Brenton: Exactly, so we need to get double the listens from our listeners out there, so I definitely appreciate that advice.
0:40:26.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah, downloaded it twice guys. Give us that boost. [laughter] We love it. So, Allan, I actually did get to participate in the text message course, and really enjoyed self-analyzing myself and realizing the bad habits I had, definitely, definitely guilty of not setting a good bedtime, not setting a good period of wind down and all of that stuff. Which I think, thankfully now, cellphones... Or I guess iPhones, maybe I'm telling myself there. But, cellphones now start to do that. They'll give you that wind-down period or everybody uses cellphones for alarms and all of that. So that's actually something that we've started doing now is, alright, we have wind down time, we have a specific bedtime that myself and my partner are trying to stay committed to and trying to stay away from that light exposure before bed. Are there any other tips or advice that you would have for listeners on how they can improve their sleep and their vitality?
0:41:29.5 Allan Mishra: This is one that's really valuable for me, and maybe you can see if it's interesting for you, is I have a lot of things I have to do, and I sometimes need to prioritize those things and then make sure I don't forget certain things. But I have had this habit for a long period of time, where I actually take a piece of paper, and one of these things for the people who are listening, this is a pen, and a pen and a piece of paper, and I will write down what are my things to do for the next day. And that may be three surgeries, that may be going to the office, that may be doing whatever it is. And my wife always looks at me, she goes, "Don't you have that on your... " My... I use Google Keep, which is a very valuable way of list-keeping for things to do. And she said, "I've already seen that on your computer. Why are you writing it down?" And I really didn't understand why I did it, and then I looked it up again, total nerd alert here guys. I said, "Okay, is that valuable or not valuable? To write down your... " Literally, write down the things you're supposed to do for the next day.
0:42:28.0 Allan Mishra: So, they did a study on this, and they said, we want... And they were in a sleep lab, and they said, "Okay, write down the things you got to do, or don't write down the things you have to do, and then go to sleep." And you're hooked up to all the electrodes and they can figure out how well you sleep. And what they found, their hypothesis was that if you wrote down what you had to do the next day, you were not going to sleep well, because you were going to think about that the next... You think about for the next eight hours. And the opposite happened. The data showed that when you write down what you sleep... Need to do the next day, in your... It's not something you can type in. How you encode things a pen and paper are very different than how you type it in your brain. So, when you physically write it down, you put it on your dresser, bathroom, or wherever it is, you're letting it go. And then when you wake up in the morning, or when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, "Oh, there it is. There's the top three or four things I got to do." And so now I do that all the time.
0:43:19.1 Allan Mishra: And now I don't... I can tell my wife, like you may get to tell your wife, that's why I'm writing it down. The other thing that's important in terms of sleep, is people... "Look, I don't have enough time to sleep." Well, then you're not managing your time. And so, there's a book called 'Essentialism'. And so that as you think about... Or here's my top 10 things I got to do for tomorrow, or whatever it is. If you had to cut off the bottom seven, what would it be? Literally, you're never going to get to 'em, so you focus on those top three. And then this book, it's by Greg McKeown, asks you to cut off the... Two of the top three and just focus on one. Brutal. But if you figure this out, you practice this, this again, is why I think vitality is a skill. That's my thesis. Vitality is a skill that you can learn. If you practice this essentialist behavior, you're going to start to think that eight, nine and 10 really don't matter. Why are eight, nine, and 10 on your list?
0:44:15.6 Allan Mishra: So now I have a thing that only allows me to write down three... I cheat and sometimes do four. But I really focus 80 or 90% of my efforts on those top three or four things, and then if I don't get to something else, I'm like, "It's not essential." And sometimes that's exercise, sometimes that's sleep, sometimes that's connecting with another person, sometimes that's serving somebody in need. And then when you realize, "Am I really focusing on being my most vital self?" Am I giving myself permission, wait for it guys. Am I giving myself permission to nourish myself so that I can be most vital? If you're a dad, you're a businessperson, you're involved in your community, if you are not putting on your mask first, you're not going to be able to execute as well as you can. So that's back to that 1000 second challenge. You want to sleep better? Eliminate something you're doing so that you can go to bed 17 minutes earlier or you can just read something for pleasure for 17 minutes and calm your mind. I can go on forever. Guys, you're going to have to tell me when to shut up.
0:45:19.0 Adam Girtz: Well, if you'd like to hear Dr. Mishra go on forever, you can... [chuckle]
0:45:29.1 Adam Girtz: Through the text message course and anywhere else that we can find your information, so I guess given that, any plugs or anything, any closing thoughts or advice you'd like to share with our listeners?
0:45:40.9 Allan Mishra: Well, first of all, thank you again. It's absolute honor to be here on your podcast, and I look forward to listening to it at 1x, 1.5x...
0:45:50.1 Christopher Brenton: That's right, or 2x speed but twice.
0:45:54.7 Adam Girtz: 2x speed, twice.
0:45:57.3 Allan Mishra: 2x speed twice and downloaded four times. So, it has become a passion of mine. I've defined my purpose as enhancing global vitality one person at a time. You can sign up at vitalityexplorers.com for the text message thing, it's free once a week, you can find all my homework on Vitality Explorer news on sub-stack, and you can look for Vitality Essentials on Amazon if you're interested in a vitality workbook. But for all the Sigma Nu's that are out there, we are... I'm going to be a plug for Sigma Nu here, we're part of one of the best organizations on the planet. I have been working diligently to help each and every one of us become better humans so that we can help other people become better humans and live our Love, Truth, and Honor code that we pledged to be when we first joined. So, this is part of an honor to be here, so thank you again.
0:46:44.9 Christopher Brenton: Excellent, well, thank you so much for spending your time with us, we really appreciate it. And yeah, hey, it adds to the mission of the organization, I think that's a really wonderful lesson for listeners to take away is bettering...
0:46:57.3 Allan Mishra: Can I say one last thought before you go?
0:47:00.4 Christopher Brenton: Yes, please, yes.
0:47:02.1 Allan Mishra: This is something I've been working on with Sigma Nu National. Sigma Nu should be the absolute leaders on the planet. But especially on the college campus for vitality. So, I was honored to be able to go and do an in-person vitality session with the Sigma Nus and the Kappa Alpha Thetas at the Stanford two weeks ago. And so, we're working on a program where Sigma Nu and perhaps the Theta's at Stanford can be vitality ambassadors on campus. So, leading people to become more vital. So, if anybody wants to connect with me, you can also find me on LinkedIn, Allan Mishra on LinkedIn, and I'd be honored to work with anybody or any organization to help enhance vitality.
0:47:43.7 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, we'll be sure to put all that... Basically, all the places that you can find Allan, in our show notes. Always a really great place to find all the resources that we talk about during the episode.
0:47:55.4 Adam Girtz: Absolutely, yeah. Like we said, Allan, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it, and we will talk to you later.
[Transition Music]
0:48:33.9 Adam Girtz: Alright everyone, welcome back. Again, huge thanks to Dr. Allan Mishra for coming in and spending some time with us. It was really awesome. I think spring into summer here, I think is a really great season, and there's kind of these natural feelings of renewal and of your spring cleaning and all of these different things that we all... We all do together as a human species, we try to revitalize and get excited for summer, and I think one great thing we can all do is just spend some time working to be more vital and working on our sleep. One thing that really struck me with what he was talking about was just picking one point in the wheel to start improving and how that's going to have cascading effects on the rest and make it easier for you to improve all the rest of those things. So, taking the time to improve the quality of your sleep just opens you up to be better able to improve all the other aspects of your health. That was a really neat takeaway, and I think it... To me, at least, and maybe some of our listeners think the same way, but it makes it easier if you just... You told me, "Hey, you go be healthier." It's like, "Okay, well, how... Where do I start? How do I even do it?"
0:50:00.2 Adam Girtz: And it makes it a more daunting task, but if you say, "Hey, take some time out of your day to set yourself up for better sleep," I think that's an easier ask and reduces that opportunity cost of doing the rest of it too, but... I don't know, Christopher, any thoughts on the interview?
0:50:20.0 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, I love this. I love, of course, all of our interviews and certainly really appreciate all the conversations that we're lucky enough to get to have, but you and I kind of get a sneak peek, of sorts with these interviews, we know a little bit about the subject matter that we're going to be talking about, we know why we're bringing in this alumnus to have the conversation with them, and so we of course know the benefits of the program and the data that has come out of the Super Power Sleep program. But I still really enjoyed the conversation with Allan and getting to hear some of those tips and best practices. I feel like I still walked away from that conversation with a lot of takeaways that now I'm like, "Oh yeah, that of course." Like that would be something obvious to implement, whether it be the one about writing all of your things to do down on a piece of paper just to kind of put it in a parking lot, so that way you can kind of get out of your mind a little bit, so you're not thinking about all of those things before you go to bed. I feel like that one's incredibly and immediately actionable. So that was one of my big takeaways.
0:51:41.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah, do the math on the 1000 seconds a day. But yeah, oh yeah, it's such an easy, simple way to just... Right away, make a difference in what we have going on. Sorry, my cat is climbing all over me. Get off of me. Alright. I'm recording. Can't you see I'm doing my job. [chuckle] So he mentioned some plugs there, that I want to make sure that we reiterate, and we'll get them in the episode notes as well, so you can follow up and find them there. So, he talked about, kind of main page, "Here's going to be vitalityexplorers.com," and I checked it out, that does have a link into his LinkedIn, if that's something you're interested in, as he offered. You're connecting with our listeners. He also has a Substack, which is just a way to you consume writing that is done by experts like this, so, believe it's vitalityexplorers.substack.com. And then, Christopher, I believe we did an alumni profile of Dr. Mishra as well?
0:52:56.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. So if you're just interested in learning more about Allan and his Sigma Nu journey, how he got connected with the Gamma Nu Chapter, at the University of Michigan, as well as what led him down this path of being interested in the topic of vitality. Of course, he talked about it during the episode, but we did run an alumni profile in August, that you can go back and check out. You can find that on the website, www.sigmanu.org. If you go over to the Delta section and look in the latest news kind of header, you can find that article. And then also, if you look through our older social media feeds, you can also find the article shared there around August 30th of last year.
0:53:42.1 Adam Girtz: Last year being 2021. For all of our listeners in 2027, this was not last year. It was six years ago.
0:53:51.0 Christopher Brenton: We punish those who don't listen to it as it comes out.
0:53:54.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, if you're not listening to it on this day, I'm sorry, man, all of the references are going to be outdated. No, I'm just kidding. I think we do a pretty good job of keeping things ever green, but yeah, "Hello, to the future." [chuckle] Hopefully, we're not using the internet by then, we've ascended, everything's just...
0:54:13.5 Christopher Brenton: Streamed right to our brains.
0:54:13.8 Adam Girtz: Yep, neuro-link, love it. Very cool. Christopher, any final thoughts? Any directives or action items for our listeners?
0:54:27.5 Christopher Brenton: No. Well, I lied.
0:54:31.4 Adam Girtz: Please.
0:54:31.8 Christopher Brenton: The last thing I would say is, this is episode 17. We have one more to finish out Season Three. So episode 18 will come out in the month of June, and then we'll be moving into Season Four, which we're really excited about. We recently finished our outline for that season, are beginning the process of lining up our interviewees, so we're super excited to bring a new season of the Gavel Podcast to your ears, or however you consume this medium. But if you have recommendations for upcoming/future episodes, never hesitate to share that with us. We're always interested in topics or subjects, for guests for the podcast as well. If you have something you want to share or you have an idea of someone that we could interview, you can do so. You can share that information with us at news@sigmanu.org. So N-E-W-S@sigmanu.org. That'll be the best way to share that information. Of course, you could always reach out to Adam and I directly, but news@sigmanu.org is the best place to share information related to the podcast. So, we always love to hear from our listeners and their suggestions on how we can continually improve this podcast and make it better.
0:55:52.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, we'd love to hear from you all. So it's very exciting, through our podcast platform, we get to look and see at some of the information on like, "Where are our downloads happening in the world?" and we literally have downloads all across the world. So very neat to see alumni or just, I don't know, maybe people who are just interested in Sigma Nu for whatever reason, popping up all over the place. But we'd love to hear from you all so, news@sigmanu.org. I think that's it. Christopher, thank you for hosting with me again, as we wrap off another wonderful episode. And I hand-fistedly close, without our wonderful closing. We should bring it back. I motion to close?
0:56:40.3 Christopher Brenton: Denied.
0:56:41.4 Adam Girtz: Denied? Oh, no. [laughter]
0:56:44.1 Adam Girtz: Alright. Well, see you guys next month, when Christopher comes up with a new and original way to end our podcast. Bye, everyone.
0:56:50.0 Christopher Brenton: Yes. Alright, take care. Bye.
[Outro Music]