I've experimented with every recovery tool in the book. Cold immersion. Sauna. Grounding. Red light. Compression. All of them have value. None of them matter if your sleep is broken. Sleep is where tissue repairs, hormones reset, and the nervous system recovers from the mechanical and neurological stress of grappling. Everything else is support — sleep is the foundation.
After 40, sleep quality degrades by default unless you actively engineer it. Melatonin production decreases. Deep sleep stages shorten. Cortisol is more easily disturbed. The athlete who sleeps eight hours well adapted will outperform the one sleeping eight hours poorly adapted every single time — regardless of training volume or supplement stack.
This post covers everything I do for sleep: the environment, the circadian anchors, the supplement stack, and the timing structure that makes five to seven BJJ sessions per week sustainable at my age.
The Sleep Environment
Sleep quality begins with the environment. Your body must drop its core temperature by 1–2°C to initiate and maintain deep slow-wave sleep. A room that is too warm is the single most common and most correctable cause of poor sleep quality in athletes.
- Room temperature: 16–19°C (60–67°F) — non-negotiable
- Blackout curtains or sleep mask — complete darkness triggers melatonin production
- No screens 60 minutes before bed — blue light suppresses melatonin by up to 50% for 3+ hours
- White noise or silence — traffic, alerts, and notification sounds fragment deep sleep architecture
- Phone outside the bedroom or on Do Not Disturb — the expectation of alerts alone reduces sleep depth
Walker M (2017) — Why We Sleep. Scribner.
Circadian Rhythm — The Master Clock
Your circadian rhythm is not just your sleep-wake cycle. It controls testosterone secretion timing, cortisol peaks, insulin sensitivity, immune function, growth hormone pulsatility, and neurotransmitter balance. A disrupted circadian rhythm disrupts all of them simultaneously.
- Same bedtime every night — within 30 minutes, including weekends
- Same wake time every morning — this is more important than bedtime
- 10–20 minutes of outdoor morning sunlight within 30 minutes of waking — no sunglasses
- Avoid caffeine after 1–2pm — half-life of caffeine is 5–6 hours and it disrupts sleep architecture even when you feel asleep
The SCN in the hypothalamus is the master circadian clock. It is set and reset daily by light entering the retina. Morning light exposure anchors the clock. Artificial light at night confuses it. This single signal controls melatonin onset 14–16 hours after morning light exposure.
The majority of daily growth hormone release occurs during the first 90-minute slow-wave sleep cycle — typically within the first 1–2 hours of sleep. Miss this window through late sleep onset or circadian disruption and you lose the primary anabolic recovery signal of the night. Consistency of sleep timing is more important than duration.
Testosterone is synthesised and released primarily during sleep — concentrated in the REM phases. Shortened sleep, fragmented sleep, and poor sleep efficiency all reduce total testosterone output. Studies in young men show that one week of 5-hour sleep reduces testosterone by 10–15%.
The Sleep Stack: Magnesium and Glycine
Two supplements have genuinely strong evidence for improving sleep quality in athletes, are inexpensive, and have no meaningful side effects at therapeutic doses: magnesium glycinate and glycine.
Magnesium activates GABA receptors — the brain's primary inhibitory neurotransmitter responsible for calming neural activity. Most athletes are magnesium deficient due to sweat losses and soil depletion of dietary magnesium. 300–400mg magnesium glycinate 30–60 minutes before bed consistently improves sleep onset time and deep sleep proportion.
Glycine (3g before sleep) lowers core body temperature through peripheral vasodilation — accelerating the thermal drop required for deep sleep initiation. Peer-reviewed trials by Bannai et al. (2012) show significant improvements in sleep quality, daytime fatigue, and cognitive sharpness the following day.
Bannai M & Kawai N (2012) — New Therapeutic Strategy for Amino Acid Medicine: Glycine Improves the Quality of Sleep. Journal of Pharmacological Sciences.
Cut sleep and nothing else works. Not the cold. Not the sauna. Not the nutrition. Sleep is not a recovery tool — it is the condition under which all other recovery occurs.
— Josh Button · @thatjiujiteiroThe Bottom Line
This didn't come from a textbook or a coach handing me a protocol. It came from years of training hard, getting injured, burning out, and rebuilding — smarter every time. Everything in this post is something I do, have done, or have researched deeply enough to stake my performance on.
Start with one thing. Implement it fully. Then add the next. The compounding effect of doing the basics with precision beats any biohack or supplement stack.
Hard to Kill isn't a slogan. It's the standard.
Stay Dangerous. Stay on the Mats. Hard to Kill in Midlife.
