Hollywood actor John Cena is proud of his unique ability to function without sleep for up to 40 hours straight. Opening up about his intense schedule this year, Cena has been jet-setting around the globe to balance his wrestling and film commitments.
When asked how he manages to find time for sleep during an appearance on the “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” podcast, he shared, “I get rest. I used to, it’s a thing from the Right Now (music) video where I have a sign that says ‘Sleep is not mandatory’. I should cross out the ‘not’. Sleep is mandatory, and I fashion my days around that.” Cena explained that during exhausting travel sessions, such as flying from Budapest to Indianapolis and back, he often intends to sleep on flights but frequently doesn’t. “I know I need 12 hours on the backend. I know I can operate for, like, 36 straight, maybe 40,” he remarked.
He admitted that things start to get “blurry” around 18 hours in, and again at 28 hours. However, Cena pointed out, “You ask people who work double shifts, medical professionals, this, a lot of them will say the same thing; you do get a second wind. But after that, I need, like, three days – like, 70 hours of sleep. So, I will carve it out.”
Cena mentioned he aims for 10 to 12 hours of sleep in blocks to recover from missed rest, coordinating this with his wife, Shay Shariatzadeh. He described the routine: “I will get home from work, fall asleep in the car, stumble to a room, not even say hi to the wife, but we plan on this beforehand. I call it asking for grace. ‘We have a tough run come up, I need to ask for grace at these three points.’”
He elaborated that this means temporarily adjusting their usual morning check-ins: “Normally, it’s in our values for me to check in on you in the morning and us to get together for at least 90 minutes, talk about our day and what went on, what happened. If nothing happened, what are you thinking about? Just 90 minutes of us being there with each other.”
“In asking for grace, it’s really about survival and my well-being. I just gotta get right back to being good. Because me being in debt is doing nobody any favors. And she understands it,” Cena added.









