Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Shane Creado. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Shane, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
There were a few.
One was to get into the healthcare field, as I saw my maternal grandfather (who was a public official, lawyer, judge, stage actor) get struck down by a stroke, and the physical therapist worked on getting his life back.
Another was in the course of my physical therapy training, realizing my training was inadequate, and did not provide me the skills I needed to also help my patients with their motivation and depression that were severely impacted by their injuries and disabilities, which spurred my trajectory toward medical school and psychiatry.
Another was my growing awareness of how sleep problems impacted mental health issues, and were not adequately addressed, which necessitated my sleep medicine training and specialization.
Another was my growing interest in sports psychiatry and how sleep strategies could be a performance enhancing tool, which motivated me to publish my best-selling book, ‘Peak sleep performance for Athletes’.
Yet another was realizing that the tools we were provided in medical training (basically limited to medications), were very insufficient, which spurred my growth and development in integrative/ holistic medicine.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am Dr. Shane Creado. I am a double board-certified sleep medicine doctor and psychiatrist. I practice functional sleep medicine, integrative psychiatry, and sports psychiatry.
I completed an undergraduate degree in physical therapy (BPT, graduating at the top of my class). I then went on to do an MD, graduating at the top of my class, and being awarded the gold medal ( for obtaining Honors in every subject in medical school).
I completed my psychiatric residency training at the University of Wisconsin where I was awarded the graduating resident award for academic achievement.
I then went on to a f ellowship in Sleep Medicine at the University of Wisconsin because of the huge overlap between sleep and
psychiatric issues.
As a sports psychiatrist and sleep performance doctor, I have been on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Sports Psychiatry (ISSP) for several years, and work with a number of elite athletes, CEO’s and business leaders.
I am/has been affiliated with the Amen Clinics, the PGA tour Europe, the NBA Players association, the Australian Football League, US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Miami Heat, Sun Belt Conference, Chicago Blackhawks, the Rafa Nadal Academy and more.
I am now the Delegate for the USA for the International Summit on Advancing Sports Psychiatry, chair of the Sleep Performance Committee for the International Society f or Sports Psychiatry ( ISSP), as well as the Chairman of Innovation and Technology for the ISSP working toward the integration of sleep and performance metrics in the technology space.
Sleep optimization is the last frontier in peak athletic performance.
It was this realization, that drove me to write the book ‘Peak Sleep Performance for Athletes’, The cutting-edge sleep science that will guarantee a competitive advantage. It debuted #1 in Sports Medicine on Amazon on March 17th, 2020.
I am also a contributing author to 6 principal books in Sports Psychiatry.
In addition to working with individual patients on a case by case basis, I consult with and provides sleep workshops to sports academies, sports organizations, sports teams; to design team- specific and athlete-specific sleep guidelines and strategies off- season, in-season and pre-season, to boost performance.
I provide ‘Sleep Retreats’ to organizations/ companies, which involve education on sleep and performance, screening for sleep disorders, and specific strategies to improve sleep and workplace productivity.
I am the host of the Overcoming Insomnia course, available on Amen University, which teaches the best evidence-based strategies to improve sleep, and designed a best-selling sleep supplement for BrainMD, called Put Me To Sleep.
I have been endorsed or mentioned by a host of elite clients/ colleagues such as Dr Daniel Amen, International Society for Sports Psychiatry board (Team USA’s Dr. Todd Stull, Team Canada’s Dr. Carla Edwards, Team Australia’s Dr. Ranjit Menon), Mike Bryan (tennis), Jim Kwik, Erik Spoelstra, Hannah Brown, Hulda Quebe, Nick Hardwick, Washington University mens basketball, Danni Wyatt (female British professional cricketer), Team Body Works UK (triathlete academy) and many elite current/ retired athletes.
M Y JOURNEY:
As a sports psychiatrist and sleep medicine doctor, I know that elite athletes are supposed to account for every calorie consumed, every movement and vector, and rigorous training protocols, all with a view to peak performance. Athletes don’t wait for an injury or a setback to start training, so why should we wait for a problem to arise, when it comes to sleep?
One of the most important variables for optimizing performance is sleep.
For too long, sleep has been neglected, or is only addressed when there are clear problems.
As Casey Smith said (Head Athletic Trainer, Dallas Mavericks) “If you told an athlete you had a treatment that would reduce the chemicals associated with stress, that would naturally increase
human growth hormone, that enhances recovery rate, that improves performance, they would all do it. Sleep does all of those things.”
Most sleep ‘experts’ you may see on TV or read about online, are not sleep doctors. They are usually self-described sleep coaches ( Mattress CEO Nick Littlehales) or researchers (Matthew Walker) or psychologists (Michael Breus).
Those who are sleep doctors, are not trained in the gold-standard treatment of insomnia: CBT-insomnia. Those who are trained in CBT-insomnia are usually psychologists, who have no training in medicine or underlying factors contributing to insomnia/ sleep problems.
My dream is to create a sleep revolution in sport!
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Authenticity.
I would rather under-promise and over-deliver.
I tell my clients exactly what I can do, and what I may not be able to do.
I have built trustworthy networks of specialists who can do things that are beyond my skill set, and vice versa.
If I commit to something or a task or a client, I only give 100%.
I hold my professional networks and colleagues to the same standards.
At the end of the day, integrity and authenticity are the foundations of my life, not just my professional life.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
In the medical field, we are taught that medications are just about the only thing we have, to help our patients.
Very little time is spent on preventative health strategies, understanding how to critically review medical journals (including who funds certain studies), how to question the status quo, exploring the roots of chronic disease, autism rates, toxins in our air, soil, water, and so much more.
As they say, ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything will look like a nail.’
So I had to unlearn that one-dimensional approach, zoom out, and start looking at a human being as a WHOLE, as a collection of systems, working in synchrony or disharmony.
How to look into root causes and multiple contributory factors.
How to look beyond treating a downstream symptom like insomnia or anxiety, and understand that those are signals that something is being disrupted upstream.
At the end of the day, if we start working the way the Toyota model works, when an issue is found, they go all the way up the production line to fix what is causing the problem down the line, everybody wins.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shanecreado.com
- Instagram: @peaksleepperformance
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peaksleepperformance/
