Todd Anderson

02/14/2026

One of the biggest mistakes people make with sleep is trying harder.

Sleep is emotionally sensitive.
The more pressure you add, the worse it gets.
You don’t need more tricks. You need less stress around it.

01/15/2026

Football taught me this lesson.

I thought being exhausted meant I was committed.
I thought pushing harder was always the answer.
But the truth is, the moments where I stayed healthy, sharp, and reliable were the moments I protected my sleep.

Sleep was never about rest for me.
It was about showing up the same way every day.
Clear headed. Calm. Ready.

That lesson stuck with me long after football ended.

If you want to understand how I think about sleep now and how I wish I would’ve approached it back then, check the last slide.

01/14/2026

Eight hours versus nine sounds almost identical.
It’s not.

That extra hour of sleep can lower injury risk and change how your body shows up the next day.
Reaction time, coordination, decision making. It all adds up.

Most people think of sleep as pass or fail.
I slept. I’m fine.

The real question is how much you’re getting and how consistent you are.
That’s where the edge is.

01/13/2026

After football, I got deep into strength and conditioning.
Sleep was barely being talked about back then.

There were small signs it mattered. Then the data started stacking up.
And what really pulled me in was watching people change when their sleep changed.

Energy came back. Stress felt manageable. Quality of life shifted fast.

That’s when I realized sleep isn’t a detail.
It’s the base everything else sits on.

01/13/2026

01/07/2026

Back at Michigan State we had a teammate who would blend chicken breasts for protein.
It was insane. But it sparked a conversation that actually matters.

You absorb way more than 30 grams of protein.
What doesn’t keep increasing is muscle building.

About 30 to 50 grams is enough to trigger repair.
The real win is hitting that dose multiple times throughout the day.

Consistency beats going all in once.

01/06/2026

Shifting the midpoint of your sleep just one hour earlier is associated with a ~25% reduction in depression risk.

Most people seek help because they “can’t sleep.”
In many cases, sleep isn’t the root issue. Chronic stress is.

Recurring thoughts at night are a nervous system signal, not a sleep defect.
Sleep often becomes the first place deeper issues show up.

Improving mental health often starts with fixing sleep hygiene and stress regulation together, not medication alone.

01/06/2026

The fastest way to fix your sleep isn’t a pill.

It’s consistency, your environment, and a few intentional habits.

Deep sleep repairs your body.
REM sleep resets your brain.
You need both.

That means 7–8 hours, same bedtime and wake time, in a dark, cool room with less light at night.

Start with one habit tonight and build from there.

Your future self will thank you.

01/01/2026

When I first started talking about sleep at companies, people thought I was crazy.

A corporate talk about sleep?
That wasn’t a thing.

Fast forward a few years and the conversation has completely changed.
Now people get it. They’re leaning in.

It’s become normal to care about how you feel, how you recover, how you show up.
And honestly, that cultural shift has been really encouraging to watch.

Taking care of yourself isn’t soft anymore.
It’s smart.

12/31/2025

People love black and white sleep rules.
Real life isn’t that clean.

Yes, TV in the bedroom isn’t ideal.
But every night, Katie and I watch one episode together.

We’ve done that for over a decade.
That time matters to me more than chasing perfect sleep metrics.

Sleep is important.
So are relationships.

Sometimes the healthiest choice isn’t optimization.
It’s connection.

12/17/2025

Most athletes chase the next supplement, the next workout, the next coach.
But your biggest performance upgrade might be the one you’re overlooking.

Sleep sharpens reaction time, boosts recovery, and improves mental clarity more than anything else.
If you get sleep right, everything else compounds.

Comment GUIDE if you want the routine I use to stay consistent.

12/15/2025

Most people think the downside of poor sleep is simply “feeling tired.”
That’s the easy part to override.

The real impact is the automatic processing you can’t control:
reaction time, decision speed, and how quickly you read the game.

Athletes who slept only five hours reacted 0.15 seconds slower.
Over a full game, that changes outcomes.

Sleep is one of the few controllable performance variables. Small improvements compound into real results.