Dr. Gina Poe: Use Sleep to Enhance Learning, Memory & Emotional State | Huberman Lab Podcast

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast,

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where we discuss science and science-based tools

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for everyday life.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor

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of nNeurobiology and ophthalmology

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at Stanford School of Medicine.

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Today, my guest is Dr. Gina Poe.

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Dr. Gina Poe is a professor in the Department of Integrative

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Biology and Physiology at the University of California Los

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Angeles.

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Her laboratory and research focuses on the relationship

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between sleep and learning, in particular

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how specific patterns of brain activity that

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are present during specific phases of sleep

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impact our ability to learn and remember

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specific types of information.

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For instance, procedural information-- that

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is how to perform specific cognitive or physical tasks,

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as well as encoding of emotional memories

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and discarding emotional memories.

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Indeed, her research focuses on how specific phases of sleep

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can act as its own form of trauma therapy,

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discarding the emotional tones of memories.

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In addition, her laboratory focuses

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on how specific phases of sleep impact things

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like the release of growth hormone.

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Growth hormone, of course, plays critical roles

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in metabolism and tissue repair, including brain tissue repair,

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and therefore has critical roles in vitality and longevity.

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Today you will learn many things about the relationship

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between sleep, learning, emotionality, and growth

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hormone.

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One basic but very important takeaway

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that you'll learn about today, which was news to me,

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is that it's not just the duration

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and depth of your sleep that matter,

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but actually getting to sleep at relatively the same time

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each night ensures that you get adequate growth hormone release

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in the first hours of sleep.

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In fact, if you require, let's say, eight hours of sleep

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per night, but you go to sleep two hours later

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than your typical bedtime on any given night,

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you actually miss the window for growth hormone release.

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That's right.

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Getting growth hormone release in sleep,

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which is absolutely critical to our immediate and long term

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health, is not a prerequisite of getting sleep,

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even if we are getting enough sleep.

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As Dr. Poe explains, there are critical brain circuits

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and endocrine, that is hormone, circuits

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that regulate not just the duration and depth and quality

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and timing of sleep, but when we place

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our bout of sleep, that is when we go to sleep each night,

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plus or minus about a half hour or so,

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strongly dictates whether or not we

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will experience all the health promoting, including mind

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promoting, benefits of sleep.

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Today's episode covers that and a lot more

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in substantial detail.

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You will learn, for instance, how

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to use sleep in order to optimize learning, as well

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as forgetting, for those things that you would like to forget.

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So during today's episode, Dr. Gina Poe

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shares critical information about not just neuroscience,

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but physiology and the hormone systems

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of the brain and body that strongly

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inform mental health, physical health, and performance.

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So by the end of today's episode,

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you'll be far more informed about sleep and how it works,

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the different roles it performs, and you'll

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have several new actionable steps

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that you can take in order to improve

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your mental health, physical health, and performance.

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Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize

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that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research

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roles at Stanford.

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It is, however, part of my desire and effort

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to bring zero cost to consumer information

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about science and science-related tools

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to the general public.

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In keeping with that theme, I'd like

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to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

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Our first sponsor is LMNT.

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The electrolytes are critical to the function

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the neurons, the nerve cells.

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So I've talked about before on this podcast,

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neurons, nerve cells, require adequate sodium and potassium,

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as well as magnesium, in order to fire

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Now, sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health,

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When we are sleeping well, all of those things

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Now, again, sleep is the foundation

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And I should just mentioned that the library

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of those supplements is constantly expanding.

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Again, that's livemomentous.com/huberman.

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And now for my discussion with Dr. Gina Poe.

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Dr. Gina Poe, welcome.

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GINA POE: Thank you.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: I've really been looking forward

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to this conversation because I'm familiar with your work,

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and I know that many people are going

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to be excited to learn about your work

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as it relates to sleep, as it relates

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to problem solving, creativity, addiction and craving, relapse,

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and a number of other important topics.

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So to start things off, I would love

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for you to educate us a bit about this thing

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that we are all familiar with and yet very few of us

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understand, which is sleep.

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And if you would, could you describe the various phases

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of sleep that exist?

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What distinguish them?

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And perhaps frame this within the context

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of what would a perfect night's sleep look like?

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GINA POE: OK.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: How long would it last, more or less,

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and what would the biology look like?

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What is a perfect night's sleep?

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GINA POE: Yeah, that's a great question.

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All right.

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So sleep is really different from wakefulness,

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and in fact can't be replaced by any state of wakefulness

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that we've been able to come up with so far.

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Our brain chemistry is completely different.

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And in the different stages of sleep,

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which there is non-REM and REM are the two major states

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of sleep, and every animal we've studied so far

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seems to have both of those states.

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Anyway, those two states are entirely different from one

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another, too.

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And even within non-REM, there are three states.

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Stage one, which is what you slip into when you first

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falling asleep-- it's dozing.

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There's kind of an interesting rhythm

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that goes on in the brain.

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It's kind of a fast, gamma rhythm.

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And then there's stage two, which

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is a really cool state we sort of used to ignore,

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sleep researchers, because it was a transient state

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between wakefulness and the deep stage

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three, slow wave sleep, which is the most impressively

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different.

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And between that and REM sleep.

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So stage two, I'll talk a little bit more about.

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And then the deep, slow wave sleep state,

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which is when big, slow waves sweep through our brain.

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And now we realize that it cleans our brain.

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One of the things that those big, slow waves do

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is cleans our brain and does other really important things

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to restore us from a day of wakefulness.

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And then REM sleep, which is the most popular

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because that's where we have the most active dreams.

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And when you wake up someone out of REM sleep,

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they'll almost always report having dreamed

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something really bizarre.

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That's called REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep.

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So those are the four states of sleep, of human sleep,

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and we cycle through them every 90 minutes or so.

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When we go to sleep, say 10:30, 11:00,

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our first REM sleep period comes about 105 minutes

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after we fall asleep and lasts about 20 minutes.

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Actually, it comes about 95 minutes

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and lasts 10 or 15 minutes.

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And then we start over again.

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And we have about five of those per night for a perfect night's

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sleep--

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four or five, something like that.

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So a perfect night's sleep is seven and a half, eight hours.

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There was a really great study that

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put people in a semi-darkened room with nothing

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but the bed for 12 hours every day for a month.

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And what people did initially, because we're

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in a sleep deprived nation, is that they

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slept a lot more than usual, like 10 or 11 hours of the 12.

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And then they leveled off after a week or two

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to about eight hours and 15 minutes of sleep.

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So you actually can't oversleep.

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I mean, they had nothing else to do but sleep,

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and they would round off to an average eight hours and 15

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minutes a night and then spend the rest of the time twiddling

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their thumbs, humming tunes--

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: Interesting.

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GINA POE: --daydreaming.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: I want to get back

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to the contour of a perfect night's sleep,

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but I'm intrigued by this idea that people can't oversleep.

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I'm often asked whether or not we can get too much sleep

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and whether or not sleeping too long can make us groggy

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the next day.

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Is there anything to that?

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And how does one determine how long

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they should sleep on average?

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GINA POE: On average, yeah.

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Well, that's interesting because different people seem

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to need different amounts of sleep,

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but we don't really even know exactly what sleep is for.

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So what they need is kind of--

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it's murky.

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So we do know a lot of things that sleep does now for us,

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but we don't know how long those things take.

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So how long we need to sleep is also just a big question mark.

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But some people don't feel rested

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until they've slept nine hours.

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Some people don't feel rested after three or four and a half.

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But most people, if they consistently deprive themselves

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of sleep so that they're only sleeping

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for four and a half hours a night,

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build up a cognitive deficit that just builds up over time.

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The more nights you have with sleep deprivation, the more

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cognitive deficit you have.

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And so you need sleep, again, to sleep more to recover.

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Now, the question you had about um--

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: Can you oversleep--

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GINA POE: Can you oversleep, right.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: Can you sleep to the point

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where it's too much?

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You know, growing up, when I was in high school,

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my girlfriend's dad had this belief

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that no one should sleep in past 6:00 AM.

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So he would wake all the--

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there were two children in the home.

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He would wake up the kids in that house.

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He had this thing against oversleeping,

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regardless of when people went to sleep,

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and I always thought that was an interesting mentality.

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GINA POE: Yeah.

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It's not terrible, actually, because what that will do

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is it will make you sleepier the next night

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to get to bed on time.

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So it'll build up your homeostatic need

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if you wake up too early.

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But so I don't think you can oversleep.

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But people who sleep a lot, like people

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who sleep over nine hours, it's probably

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indicative of some other problem because in fact,

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if you have a lot of different conditions,

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it will cause you to sleep a lot more.

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Probably because what it does is it

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interferes with your efficient sleep,

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the efficiency of your sleep.

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So if you find yourself sleeping consistently nine hours

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plus every night, then you might want

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to consult a doctor about maybe what else it might be.

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It could be cancer.

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It could be sleep apnea, which affects a lot of people.

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It could be that your sleep is super inefficient

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because you're snoring a lot more than you know,

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or you're waking up a lot more than you know every night.

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So you might want a sleep study just

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to see how your sleep is, and then

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see what else might be causing you to sleep so much.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: And that wouldn't

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be if somebody is sleeping nine or 10

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hours every once in a while.

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You mean if they're consistently sleeping

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for more than nine hours.

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GINA POE: If they feel like they need it in order

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to function cognitively the next day,

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it might be that your sleep is just not efficient,

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and you might want to look into why that's the case.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: Interesting.

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Forgive me for the anecdote, but I can't resist.

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Years ago I went to an acupuncturist,

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and he gave me these red pills, of which I

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don't know what they contained.

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GINA POE: Uh-oh.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: But I took them because he told me

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they would help with my sleep.

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GINA POE: OK.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: And I would fall asleep

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about 30 minutes after taking them,

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and I would have incredibly vivid dreams.

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And I'd wake up four or five hours

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after having gone to sleep feeling completely rested,

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something that I've never really experienced

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on a consistent basis.

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I want to do mass spec on these pills.

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I still have no idea what was in them, whatsoever.

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GINA POE: I want to do mass spec on those pills, too.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, exactly.

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Some people thought perhaps they had GHB, gamma hydroxybutyrate,

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which is, by the way, an illegal drug.

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It can kill you.

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It's not something you want to take.

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GINA POE: No, that's not good.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: But anyway, if ever someone can figure out

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what the red pills were, I'll be very--

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GINA POE: That's really great.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: And this is not a red pill of the other sort

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red pill.

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This is just the red sleep pills.

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GINA POE: Interesting.

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I mean, it could have been even a placebo effect

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because placebo is extremely strong.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: Although, I don't know.

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There was really something to these red pills.

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So shout out to the acupuncturists

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in Eastern medicine.

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But to return this to this idea of the architecture

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of a perfect night's sleep.

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So you said we fall asleep.

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The first 90 minutes of sleep.

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REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep,

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will arrive at about 95 minutes in.

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Does that mean that the rest of that 90 minutes

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is consumed with slow wave sleep?

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GINA POE: Yeah, non-REM sleep.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.

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And what about the sleep where we are lightly asleep,

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and we might have a dream that has us somehow

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thinking about movement or that we jolt ourselves awake?

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That often happens early in the night, right?

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GINA POE: Yeah, that's the first stage--

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stage one and stage two of sleep.

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And stage two sleep is really cool

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because that has something called sleep spindles

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and K-complexes.

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And what sleep spindles are are a little bit of activity that's

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10 to 15 hertz in frequency.

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It's a conversation between the thalamus and the cortex.

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The thalamus is the gateway to consciousness,

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and the neocortex processes all our cognition.

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And so it's these spindles.

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They're called sleep spindles.

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And if you wake up out of that state,

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you will often report a dream, like a hallucination style

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dream.

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It won't be a long dream report like you have out of REM sleep,

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but it will be some hallucination state.

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And while we're falling asleep, one

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of the reasons we call it falling asleep

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is because in stage one and stage two

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our muscles are relaxing.

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And if there's part of our brain that's conscious enough

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to sort of recognize that relaxation,

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we'll feel like we're falling, and we'll jerk awake.

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So often that hallucination-- it's called hypnagogic

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hallucination-- will feel like--

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it'll include some falling aspect

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that we'll wake up out of.

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ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's really interesting to me.

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I've long felt that sensation of almost, like,

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dropping back into my head.

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So much so that if I elevate my feet just slightly

Time: 1008.81

and I tilt my head back just slightly in order

Time: 1011.33

to go to sleep, I find that I fall asleep much faster.

Time: 1013.715

GINA POE: Interesting.

Time: 1014.27

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But it does feel

Time: 1014.78

as if I'm going to fall, like, almost going

Time: 1016.16

to do a backward somersault. I actually really like

Time: 1018.41

the sensation and usually because it

Time: 1020.598

precedes falling deeply asleep.

Time: 1021.89

GINA POE: Yeah, that's really interesting.

Time: 1023.78

Somebody has to do a study of elevated feet and--

Time: 1026.99

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, there's a little bit on body position

Time: 1030.378

and sleep in some of the washout that we'll talk about.

Time: 1032.67

So early in the night you've got these lighter stages of sleep,

Time: 1036.89

less rapid eye movement sleep.

Time: 1038.9

What can we say about the dreams that occur during the,

Time: 1041.75

say, first and second 90-minute cycles of sleep.

Time: 1046.73

Are they quite different than the patterns

Time: 1049.04

of sleep and dreaming that occur later in the night

Time: 1051.53

or toward morning?

Time: 1052.43

GINA POE: Well, OK, that's an interesting question,

Time: 1054.67

and there's a lot of facets to it.

Time: 1057.03

There is some evidence that the first four hours of sleep

Time: 1061.22

are very important for memory processing.

Time: 1064.28

And in fact, if you've learned something new that day

Time: 1069.96

or have experienced a new sensory motor experience,

Time: 1074.73

then your early sleep dreams will

Time: 1078.36

incorporate that experience much more than the later sleep

Time: 1081.06

dreams.

Time: 1082.2

Later, as that memory gets consolidated

Time: 1084.33

from the early structures, which are

Time: 1087.3

the hippocampus deep in the temporal lobe to the cortex

Time: 1090.33

in a distributed fashion, that memory

Time: 1093.57

seems to move from that hippocampus to the cortex.

Time: 1097.2

And also the dreams that incorporate that memory also

Time: 1100.53

move later in the night.

Time: 1101.67

So nobody knows why, but it does.

Time: 1105.87

There was a great study by Siddhartha Ribeiro

Time: 1109.23

who studied the consolidation of memories from the hippocampus

Time: 1113.94

to the cortex in a rat across the period of a full day's

Time: 1119.31

sleep because rats sleep in the daytime.

Time: 1121.56

And he found that each subsequent REM sleep period

Time: 1125.31

moved that memory from the hippocampus

Time: 1128.01

to the first area that projects to it,

Time: 1131

and then the second area, and then the third area.

Time: 1133.41

And you can see the memory moving throughout the sleep

Time: 1137.93

period.

Time: 1138.43

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Cool.

Time: 1138.78

Very cool.

Time: 1139.64

I have to read that study.

Time: 1141.34

So there's a number of different hormones associated

Time: 1145.32

with the different stages of sleep.

Time: 1146.97

We know that melatonin is a hormone--

Time: 1149.132

GINA POE: Of nighttime.

Time: 1150.09

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --of nighttime that makes us sleepy.

Time: 1152.76

What about growth hormone release?

Time: 1154.26

When does that occur during sleep?

Time: 1155.86

GINA POE: So growth hormone release

Time: 1157.318

happens all day long and all night long,

Time: 1159.12

but the deep, slow wave sleep that you

Time: 1161.58

get the very first sleep cycle is

Time: 1165.3

when you get a big bolus of growth hormone release,

Time: 1168.54

in men and women equally.

Time: 1171.04

And if you miss that first deep, slow wave sleep period,

Time: 1174.87

you also miss that big bolus of growth hormone release.

Time: 1178.5

And you might get, ultimately across the day, just as much

Time: 1182.37

overall growth hormone release, but endocrinologists

Time: 1185.31

will tell you that big boluses do different things

Time: 1188.37

than a little bit eked out over time.

Time: 1190.63

So that is what we know.

Time: 1193.26

There's also a big push to synthesize proteins.

Time: 1198.97

So that's when the protein synthesis

Time: 1202.05

part that builds memories, for example, in our brain

Time: 1205.08

happens in that first cycle of sleep.

Time: 1208.17

So you don't want to miss that, especially if you've

Time: 1210.48

learned something really big and needs more synaptic space

Time: 1214.14

to encode it.

Time: 1214.752

ANDREW HUBERMAN: How would somebody

Time: 1216.21

miss that first 90 minutes?

Time: 1217.548

GINA POE: Sleep depriving themselves.

Time: 1219.09

Yeah.

Time: 1219.99

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So let's say I normally

Time: 1221.657

go to sleep at 10:00 PM.

Time: 1224.16

And then from 10:00 to 11:30 would

Time: 1226.41

be this first phase of sleep, and that's

Time: 1228.18

when the big bolus of growth hormone would be released.

Time: 1231.52

Does that mean that if I go to sleep

Time: 1233.28

instead at 11:30 or midnight that I missed

Time: 1235.86

that first phase of sleep?

Time: 1237.18

Why is it not the case that I get that first phase of sleep

Time: 1240.33

just simply starting later?

Time: 1241.89

GINA POE: It is a beautiful clock

Time: 1244.11

that we have in our body that knows

Time: 1245.79

when things should happen.

Time: 1246.99

And it's-- every cell in our body has a clock.

Time: 1249.51

And all of those clocks are normally synchronized.

Time: 1252.69

And those circadian clocks are synchronized.

Time: 1256.02

And so our cells are ready to respond to that growth hormone

Time: 1261.63

release at a particular time.

Time: 1263.41

And if we miss it-- and it's a time in relation to melatonin

Time: 1266.82

also--

Time: 1267.48

so if you miss it, yeah, you might get some growth hormone

Time: 1270.94

release.

Time: 1271.44

But it's occurring at a time when your clock has already

Time: 1274.5

moved to the next phase.

Time: 1275.91

And so it's just a clock thing.

Time: 1278.143

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

Time: 1279.06

I don't think we can overstate the importance of what you just

Time: 1282.09

described.

Time: 1282.63

And to be honest, despite knowing a bit

Time: 1284.76

about the sleep research in circadian biology,

Time: 1286.92

this is the very first time that I've ever heard this

Time: 1290.58

that if you normally go to sleep at a particular time and growth

Time: 1294.208

hormone is released in that first phase of sleep,

Time: 1296.25

that you can't simply initiate your sleep out

Time: 1298.62

later and expect to capture that first phase of sleep.

Time: 1301.68

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 1302.43

ANDREW HUBERMAN: That's incredible

Time: 1303.847

and I think important and as many

Time: 1306.78

listeners are probably realizing also highly actionable.

Time: 1309.24

So what this means is that we should

Time: 1310.74

have fairly consistent bedtimes in addition

Time: 1313.11

to fairly consistent wake times.

Time: 1314.747

Is that right?

Time: 1315.33

GINA POE: Exactly.

Time: 1316.08

And in fact, one of the best markers

Time: 1318.87

of good neurological health when we get older

Time: 1321.72

is consistent bedtimes.

Time: 1324.415

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Wow.

Time: 1325.29

OK.

Time: 1327.03

I don't want to backtrack.

Time: 1328.41

But I did write down something that I

Time: 1330.42

think is important for me to resolve or for you to resolve.

Time: 1334.5

So I'm going to ask this people that

Time: 1336.39

sleep nine hours or more perhaps that reflecting an issue--

Time: 1340.62

some underlying issue, perhaps, is

Time: 1343.8

being a teenager or an adolescent

Time: 1345.66

and undergoing a stage of development

Time: 1348.42

where there's a lot of bodily and brain growth

Time: 1350.37

and exception to that, because--

Time: 1351.57

GINA POE: Yes.

Time: 1352.11

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --I don't recall sleeping a ton

Time: 1354.11

when I was a teenager.

Time: 1355.24

I had a ton of energy.

Time: 1356.61

But I know a few teenagers.

Time: 1359.07

And they sleep a lot.

Time: 1360.677

GINA POE: Yeah

Time: 1361.26

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Like they'll just sleep, and sleep,

Time: 1362.46

and sleep, and sleep.

Time: 1363.09

Should we let them sleep, and sleep, and sleep?

Time: 1364.8

GINA POE: Let them sleep.

Time: 1365.67

ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.

Time: 1365.97

So that's the one exception.

Time: 1367.05

What about--

Time: 1367.41

GINA POE: Just like babies.

Time: 1368.28

ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.

Time: 1369.113

GINA POE: When you're developing something in your brain

Time: 1371.61

or the rest of your body, you really

Time: 1373.53

need sleep to help organize that.

Time: 1376.32

Sleep is doing really hard work in organizing our brains

Time: 1379.71

and making it develop right.

Time: 1381.39

And if we deprive ourselves of sleep,

Time: 1383.76

we will-- actually, also just like I said,

Time: 1386.56

we have a daily clock.

Time: 1388.26

We also have a developmental clock.

Time: 1390

And we can miss a developmental window

Time: 1392.61

if we don't let ourselves sleep extra like we need to.

Time: 1396.455

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What other things inhibit growth hormone

Time: 1398.83

release or other components of this first stage of sleep?

Time: 1401.41

In other words, if I go to sleep religiously

Time: 1403.72

every night at 10:00 PM, are there

Time: 1406.09

things that I, perhaps, do in the preceding

Time: 1408.76

hours of the preceding day like ingest caffeine or alcohol

Time: 1412.51

that can make that first stage of sleep

Time: 1414.37

less effective even if I'm going to sleep at the same time?

Time: 1417.07

GINA POE: Alcohol definitely will do that because alcohol

Time: 1419.8

is a REM sleep suppressant.

Time: 1421.18

And it even suppresses some of that stage two

Time: 1423.37

transition to REM with those sleep spindles.

Time: 1425.392

And those sleep spindles, we didn't

Time: 1426.85

talk about their function yet, but they're

Time: 1428.6

really important for moving memories to our cortex.

Time: 1432.64

It's a unique time when our hippocampus,

Time: 1435.75

like the RAM of our brains, writes it to a hard disk which

Time: 1441.49

is the cortex.

Time: 1442.36

And it's a unique time when they're connected.

Time: 1444.92

So if you don't want to miss that,

Time: 1446.84

you don't want to miss REM sleep when it's also

Time: 1448.96

a part of the consolidation process and schema changing

Time: 1453.16

process, and alcohol in there before we go to sleep

Time: 1457.538

will do that.

Time: 1458.08

Until we've metabolized alcohol and put it out of our bodies,

Time: 1461.95

it will affect our sleep badly.

Time: 1464.65

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So probably fair to say

Time: 1466.93

no ingestion of alcohol within the four to six

Time: 1470.72

hours preceding sleep?

Time: 1471.85

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 1472.15

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Given the half life?

Time: 1473.2

GINA POE: Given the half--

Time: 1473.71

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Or at all-- or at all would be better.

Time: 1475.36

But I know some people refuse to go that way.

Time: 1477.52

GINA POE: And maybe a little bit is OK.

Time: 1479.56

I don't know what the dose response is.

Time: 1481.72

But there are studies out there you can look at.

Time: 1484.392

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Great.

Time: 1485.35

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 1486.31

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So we're still in the first stage of sleep.

Time: 1488.26

And I apologize for slowing us down.

Time: 1489.79

But it sounds like it's an incredibly important,

Time: 1492.94

first phase of sleep.

Time: 1494.47

What about the second and third 90-minute blocks of sleep?

Time: 1497.59

Is there anything that makes those unique?

Time: 1500.75

What is their signature besides the fact that they come

Time: 1503.71

second and third in the night?

Time: 1505

GINA POE: There's more and more REM sleep

Time: 1506.8

the later the night we get.

Time: 1508.9

There's also a change in hormones.

Time: 1511.6

The growth hormone and melatonin levels are starting to decline.

Time: 1516.7

But other hormones are picking up.

Time: 1518.93

So it is a really different stage

Time: 1521.74

that you also don't want to shortchange yourself on.

Time: 1524.74

And I think that's the stage many studies are showing

Time: 1527.65

that those are the times in sleep when

Time: 1530.02

the most creativity can happen.

Time: 1532.21

That's when our dreams can incorporate and put together

Time: 1535.45

old and new things together into a new way.

Time: 1540.04

And our schema are built during that time.

Time: 1542.63

So yeah, we can change our minds best

Time: 1546.34

during those phases of sleep.

Time: 1547.6

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Could you elaborate a little bit more

Time: 1549.85

on schema?

Time: 1550.515

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 1551.14

ANDREW HUBERMAN: No one--

Time: 1551.5

I don't think anyone on this podcast

Time: 1553

has ever discussed schema.

Time: 1554.47

I'm a little bit familiar with schema

Time: 1556.36

from my courses on psychology.

Time: 1558.473

But it's been a while.

Time: 1559.39

So maybe you could just refresh mind and everyone--

Time: 1561.64

GINA POE: Well, it's still a concept.

Time: 1563.213

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Sure.

Time: 1564.13

GINA POE: Schema--

Time: 1564.61

ANDREW HUBERMAN: How do you-- how do you define schema?

Time: 1566.27

GINA POE: Right.

Time: 1567.07

I think of schema as--

Time: 1571.03

like we have a schema of Christmas, right?

Time: 1574.03

We have all kinds of ideas that were so together

Time: 1577.63

and called Christmas, a holiday season.

Time: 1580.33

In the northern hemisphere, it's cold.

Time: 1582.55

We have Santa Claus, and reindeer, and jingle bells,

Time: 1586.72

and even things that are false but we normally

Time: 1590.77

associate with Christmas presents, family gathering when

Time: 1593.86

it is.

Time: 1594.43

All of this stuff is sewn together into one--

Time: 1597.16

there's a thread linking them all.

Time: 1599.02

And we can just give ourselves a list of words, and none of them

Time: 1604.33

contain the word Christmas.

Time: 1605.8

And then ask people later, give them another list of words

Time: 1610.24

and include the word Christmas.

Time: 1611.59

And they'll say, oh, yeah, that word was there,

Time: 1613.78

because in their minds they brought up

Time: 1615.49

that word, Christmas, because it's part of that whole schema.

Time: 1618.89

So that's what-- it's sort of a related--

Time: 1622.36

lot of related concepts, I guess.

Time: 1624.43

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I think about the desktop of my computer

Time: 1627.64

would scare some people.

Time: 1628.91

But it's just a ton of folders.

Time: 1630.4

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 1630.64

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But each of the folder names

Time: 1631.84

mean something very clear and specific to me.

Time: 1633.753

GINA POE: Right.

Time: 1634.42

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And inside of those

Time: 1635.92

folders are collections of things that make sense

Time: 1637.97

in terms of how they're batch.

Time: 1639.22

Is that one way to think about--

Time: 1640.54

GINA POE: No, that's a great way to think of it.

Time: 1642.54

And when you're in REM sleep in the later parts

Time: 1644.92

of the night and that transition to REM,

Time: 1647.2

that's when your computer of your brain

Time: 1650.05

is opening folders and comparing documents, seeing if-- is there

Time: 1653.53

anything the same?

Time: 1655.12

These two documents look very much the same,

Time: 1657.13

but there's a little bit of difference.

Time: 1659.62

And it can link those conceptually.

Time: 1661.84

So that's probably one of the origins of creativity

Time: 1664.72

is finding things that are related,

Time: 1667.3

maybe just linked a little bit.

Time: 1669.34

And you can find that link and strengthen it

Time: 1671.68

if it makes your schema interesting and different.

Time: 1676.03

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, very interesting.

Time: 1678.01

Many people, including myself tend to wake

Time: 1680.65

up maybe once during the middle of the night

Time: 1682.93

to use the restroom.

Time: 1683.83

I've tried to drink less fluid before going to sleep.

Time: 1686.665

I've heard also that the impulse to urinate, forgive the topic,

Time: 1692.538

but a lot of people deal with this, so the impulse to urinate

Time: 1695.08

is also dictated by how quickly you drink fluid, not just

Time: 1697.85

the total volume.

Time: 1698.67

So I've switched to sipping fluids

Time: 1700.31

more slowly from my last beverage of the day which

Time: 1702.77

seems to help.

Time: 1703.537

But the point here is that I think a lot of people

Time: 1705.62

wake up once in the middle of the night oftentimes

Time: 1707.703

to use the restroom but oftentimes just around 3:00 AM

Time: 1710.6

and might be up for a few minutes,

Time: 1712.487

hopefully not on their phone or viewing any bright light which

Time: 1715.07

can cause more wakefulness, but then go back to sleep.

Time: 1718.31

Is there any known detriment to this middle of the night waking

Time: 1722.81

or should we consider it a normal

Time: 1724.31

feature for some people's sleep architecture?

Time: 1726.575

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 1727.2

I think we shouldn't worry about it actually.

Time: 1729.35

I think sleep is really incredibly well homeostatically

Time: 1733.34

regulated.

Time: 1733.97

And so really, don't worry about how much you're sleeping,

Time: 1737.21

as long as you're not intentionally

Time: 1738.92

depriving yourself of sleep by doing something really

Time: 1741.26

rewarding and exciting because even that is

Time: 1743.63

stressful to your body and deprives you of a lot of things

Time: 1746.27

we're talking about.

Time: 1747.54

So don't worry about it.

Time: 1750.33

It's absolutely normal to wake up at least

Time: 1752.99

once in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

Time: 1755.39

And as long as you can get back to sleep

Time: 1757.31

in a reasonable amount of time or even

Time: 1760.37

if it takes you an hour, don't worry about it,

Time: 1762.68

as long as you have a lifestyle that allows you to then make up

Time: 1766.43

that sleep either the next morning or the next night

Time: 1769.91

or going to bed a little earlier.

Time: 1771.66

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So if I understand correctly,

Time: 1772.73

there's a little bit of asymmetry to sleep that

Time: 1774.86

catching that first phase of sleep it's like you either get

Time: 1778.04

it or you don't.

Time: 1778.89

And you have to get it by going to sleep

Time: 1780.56

essentially the same time each night, maybe plus or minus

Time: 1783.71

15 minutes or so.

Time: 1784.675

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 1785.3

ANDREW HUBERMAN: But then if I wake up in the middle

Time: 1787.467

of the night and go back to sleep I cannot catch up,

Time: 1789.77

but I can gather all the sleep that I would have gotten had I

Time: 1792.418

just slept the whole way through the night.

Time: 1794.21

Is that right?

Time: 1794.72

GINA POE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Time: 1795.845

And we don't know actually the answer to

Time: 1798.11

whether or not the sleep in the middle between that early sleep

Time: 1801.14

and the late sleep is, in fact, different for another reason.

Time: 1804.98

And whether depriving yourself of sleep from say,

Time: 1807.62

1:00 to 2:30 in the morning is bad in a different way,

Time: 1811.38

we don't know.

Time: 1812.27

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, I suppose I

Time: 1813.23

am the experiment in that case, because I do

Time: 1815.06

tend to wake up once per night.

Time: 1816.352

And I've come to recognize it as part of my normal sleep

Time: 1820.338

architecture.

Time: 1820.88

I don't obsess over it.

Time: 1822.08

I do notice that when I go back to sleep

Time: 1824.06

and especially toward morning that my sleep is incredibly

Time: 1827.82

deep.

Time: 1828.32

My dreams are incredibly vivid.

Time: 1829.822

GINA POE: That's great.

Time: 1830.78

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I don't always remember them.

Time: 1832.697

But what is unique, perhaps, about the architecture

Time: 1835.91

of dreams and sleep in the, let's

Time: 1837.86

say the last third of the night or the second half

Time: 1840.708

of the night?

Time: 1841.25

GINA POE: Right, yeah.

Time: 1841.66

In the second half of the night, we

Time: 1843.118

have longer REM sleep periods.

Time: 1844.97

And those are considered the deepest sleep,

Time: 1848.3

even though slow wave sleep, big slow wave is considered deep.

Time: 1852.38

It is deep.

Time: 1853.22

ANDREW HUBERMAN: They call slow wave sleep deep sleep

Time: 1855.428

and REM sleep rapid.

Time: 1856.261

But now, you're telling me that REM sleep is actually

Time: 1858.47

the deeper sleep?

Time: 1859.22

OK.

Time: 1859.73

There needs to be a new nomenclature

Time: 1861.2

of sleep researchers.

Time: 1861.965

GINA POE: You really shouldn't call it deeper night.

Time: 1863.78

ANDREW HUBERMAN: No, please.

Time: 1864.71

GINA POE: The reason why they call

Time: 1865.38

slow wave sleep deep sleep is because it's

Time: 1867.41

difficult to arouse people out of that state.

Time: 1870.92

And when you do arouse them out of that state,

Time: 1872.93

they are most often confused and just want to go back into sleep

Time: 1876.65

and can go back pretty easily.

Time: 1878.99

If you arouse someone out of REM sleep,

Time: 1880.74

they're more likely to report something that was

Time: 1882.74

really almost like wakefulness.

Time: 1884.71

It was so vivid.

Time: 1886.43

But in fact, if you give someone a non-threatening kind

Time: 1892.58

of stimulation like somebody dropping keys, or a ping,

Time: 1897.47

or something like that, instead of waking--

Time: 1899.48

that same volume will wake someone up out of non-REM sleep

Time: 1904.07

but out of REM sleep and instead lengthen the amount of time

Time: 1907.61

or make it even more dense--

Time: 1909.68

your rapid eye movements more dense.

Time: 1911.27

And often people will incorporate that sound

Time: 1913.64

into their dreams.

Time: 1915.007

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So the body and brain are somehow

Time: 1917.09

conscious of the of the sound.

Time: 1920.36

And I've heard also smells can even make it

Time: 1922.46

into our dreams in REM sleep.

Time: 1925.08

But that it doesn't rouse us--

Time: 1927.338

GINA POE: It doesn't arouse us as often, yeah.

Time: 1929.255

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Interesting.

Time: 1929.9

GINA POE: And maybe one of the reasons why REM sleep

Time: 1932.42

is deeper especially in adults and older people, that deep

Time: 1936.02

slow wave sleep goes away.

Time: 1937.56

So it's not as deep.

Time: 1939.29

It's not as big.

Time: 1940.37

The slow waves aren't as large which is probably problematic,

Time: 1943.67

but we are not sure.

Time: 1944.9

And so then REM sleep becomes the deepest stage.

Time: 1948.68

Actually in children, it's kind of a toss

Time: 1951.86

up, because it's really hard to wake them up out

Time: 1954.2

of that deep slow wave sleep.

Time: 1955.46

And in fact, fire alarms don't wake them up,

Time: 1959.87

even really loud fire alarms out of that state of sleep.

Time: 1963.48

So that's why they're trying to change fire alarms so

Time: 1966.86

that instead of something that the kids don't associate

Time: 1971.27

with anything like the, whatever, they don't associate

Time: 1974.72

them, it says their name or something else

Time: 1977.27

that may be less loud but more salient to them

Time: 1981.92

and will wake them up.

Time: 1982.88

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I don't know having carried

Time: 1984.05

sleeping children in from the car,

Time: 1985.573

I don't know that I want children to start waking up

Time: 1987.74

from sleep because that's one of the best things when

Time: 1989.6

we get home and the kids are asleep in the backseat.

Time: 1991.79

You can literally throw them over your shoulder,

Time: 1993.89

gently of course, and put them to sleep.

Time: 1996.45

They are completely out.

Time: 1998.028

GINA POE: Yeah, it's wonderful.

Time: 1999.32

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It is wonderful,

Time: 2000.76

one of nature's gifts.

Time: 2002.38

I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge

Time: 2004.63

one of our sponsors, Athletic Greens.

Time: 2006.82

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Time: 2011.11

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Time: 2014.47

I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012.

Time: 2017.23

So I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast.

Time: 2019.51

The reason I started taking Athletic Greens,

Time: 2021.343

and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once

Time: 2023.59

or usually twice a day is that it gets me the probiotics

Time: 2027.1

that I need for gut health.

Time: 2028.72

Our gut is very important.

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It's populated by gut microbiota that

Time: 2032.4

communicate with the brain, the immune system, and basically

Time: 2034.9

all the biological systems of our body

Time: 2036.61

to strongly impact our immediate and long term health.

Time: 2040.15

And those probiotics and Athletic Greens

Time: 2042.1

are optimal and vital for microbiome health.

Time: 2045.853

In addition, Athletic Greens contains a number

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of adaptogens, vitamins, and minerals

Time: 2049.389

that make sure that all of my foundational nutritional needs

Time: 2052.03

are met.

Time: 2052.659

And it tastes great.

Time: 2054.657

If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,

Time: 2056.199

you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman.

Time: 2059.38

And they'll give you five free travel packs

Time: 2061.57

that make it really easy to mix up Athletic Greens while you're

Time: 2064.238

on the road, in the car, on the plane, et cetera.

Time: 2066.28

And they'll give you a year supply of vitamin D-3 K-2.

Time: 2069.85

Again, that's athleticgreens.com/huberman

Time: 2072.46

to get the five free travel packs and the year supply

Time: 2075.04

of vitamin D-3 K-2.

Time: 2076.81

So this enhanced volume or proportion

Time: 2081.46

of rapid eye movement sleep in the second half of the night

Time: 2084.46

relates to more elaborate dreams.

Time: 2087.13

We are paralyzed during REM sleep, correct?

Time: 2089.56

GINA POE: Yes, normally paralyzed.

Time: 2091.239

And that's really good, because that's

Time: 2093.88

the time when we're actively dreaming storyline dreams.

Time: 2097.03

And we could hurt ourselves.

Time: 2099.4

We're actually really cut off from the outside world

Time: 2103

in terms of responding to, say, this table,

Time: 2107.59

or window, or a door.

Time: 2109.67

And so different from sleepwalking which

Time: 2112.78

is out of slow wave sleep.

Time: 2113.98

And out of slow wave sleep, that sleepwalking

Time: 2115.855

is a mixture between sleep and wakefulness.

Time: 2118.052

So you actually will respond to the door,

Time: 2119.76

or you can cook a full meal, drive your car while you're

Time: 2123.75

in deep slow wave sleep.

Time: 2124.75

It's scary, because you never know what you're going to do.

Time: 2127.49

You don't have voluntary, involuntary control over it.

Time: 2130.24

You have no conscious control over it.

Time: 2131.9

But you can actually safely navigate

Time: 2134.8

some situations in sleepwalking and actually have

Time: 2139.06

a conversation.

Time: 2140.05

Although, it may not make much sense when you're sleep

Time: 2142.3

talking.

Time: 2143.11

In REM sleep, you're not processing the outside world.

Time: 2147.19

And instead, when you're acting out your dreams,

Time: 2150.34

you could be doing things like walking through a plate glass

Time: 2153.31

window or falling off of down the stairs, things like that.

Time: 2158.36

So you really want your muscles to be

Time: 2161.68

inactivated during REM sleep.

Time: 2163.66

Otherwise, you will act out those dreams

Time: 2165.7

and really hurt yourself or your bed partner.

Time: 2168.94

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What about sleep talking or talking

Time: 2171.4

in sleep?

Time: 2172.66

I don't know how many relationships have

Time: 2174.94

been saved by sleep talking.

Time: 2176.32

But I'm guessing a few have been destroyed.

Time: 2178.97

And I'm guessing that talking in sleep could have meaning

Time: 2182.74

or perhaps has no meaning just as dreams

Time: 2185.05

could have meaning or no meaning, as we recall them.

Time: 2187.485

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 2188.11

Do not take sleep talking seriously no matter

Time: 2190.87

what people say.

Time: 2191.95

It doesn't necessarily reflect truth.

Time: 2194.08

So it's not like you're being more truthful when

Time: 2196.51

you're sleep talking.

Time: 2197.5

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You just saved a number of relationships.

Time: 2199.917

GINA POE: I hope so.

Time: 2201.1

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm not directing this at anyone

Time: 2202.27

in particular.

Time: 2202.93

But I guarantee you just did.

Time: 2205.93

Noted.

Time: 2207.7

So as people start to approach morning or the time

Time: 2211.51

when they normally would wake up,

Time: 2214.25

I've heard that it's important to, if possible,

Time: 2217.87

complete one of these 90-minute cycles prior to waking up.

Time: 2221.26

That is if you set your alarm for halfway

Time: 2224.02

through one of these 90-minute cycles that come late

Time: 2226.45

in the night of sleep, that it can lead to rather

Time: 2231.1

groggy patterns of waking.

Time: 2233.92

So I'll just ask you directly.

Time: 2235.84

Do you use an alarm clock?

Time: 2237.61

GINA POE: I do not.

Time: 2238.78

Thankfully, I'm in a line of work

Time: 2240.61

that doesn't require me normally to do anything

Time: 2243.46

at any particular time.

Time: 2244.6

I do it when I do it.

Time: 2245.855

Unless I have to catch a plane and then

Time: 2247.48

I always set my alarm just in case.

Time: 2249.29

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, as a fellow academic,

Time: 2250.75

I can tell you there are plenty of punishing features

Time: 2252.958

about being an academic scientist that

Time: 2255.43

offset the fact that you don't have to use an alarm clock.

Time: 2257.9

But it is nice that you can often set your own schedule.

Time: 2260.62

So would you recommend that if possible

Time: 2262.66

that people not use an alarm clock?

Time: 2264.25

GINA POE: Yeah, absolutely.

Time: 2265.72

If you can just listen to your body

Time: 2267.31

and wake up when you need to wake up, that would be great.

Time: 2271.13

But one of the reasons why we have such a grogginess, it's

Time: 2275.2

called sleep inertia when we wake up

Time: 2276.82

out of the wrong state which is deep slow wave sleep,

Time: 2280.51

is because--

Time: 2281.41

I liken it to like a washing machine cycle.

Time: 2284.68

This 90-minute cycle is like a washing machine cycle.

Time: 2287.69

And the first part is to add water, right?

Time: 2290.89

And then your clothes are soaking wet.

Time: 2293.25

You don't want to open the washing machine

Time: 2295

and try and function, put them on, and wear them around

Time: 2298.488

while they're soaking wet and full of soap.

Time: 2300.28

So you have to wait until the cycle is through

Time: 2303.31

before you can, well, actually, let's put it in the dryer,

Time: 2307.15

too, before you want to wear them.

Time: 2310.21

So yeah, you can function.

Time: 2314.05

It just takes a little while for those clothes,

Time: 2316.69

that brain to dry out, so you can actually function well.

Time: 2319.93

But it's better to wait through the whole cycle is complete.

Time: 2323.66

And so that's why you want to set

Time: 2326.95

that 90-minute, alarm clock.

Time: 2329.5

And again, that's around 90 minutes

Time: 2331.75

because the first stage of sleep, the first cycle of sleep

Time: 2335.35

is actually a little longer, more like 105, 110, minutes.

Time: 2339.79

But then the second ones and third ones,

Time: 2341.5

they get shorter and shorter as the night goes on.

Time: 2344.2

And in the last few cycles, you're

Time: 2346.18

just doing the end to REM sleep cycle which takes less time.

Time: 2350.77

And if you wake up out of REM sleep,

Time: 2352.27

there's usually no problem cognitively.

Time: 2354.67

You're good to go.

Time: 2356.65

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Are you a fan of sleep trackers?

Time: 2360.52

GINA POE: Sure, yeah.

Time: 2361.395

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Do you use one?

Time: 2362.728

GINA POE: I have one on.

Time: 2363.76

I don't take--

Time: 2367.01

I don't live my life by them, because they

Time: 2370.58

are-- the best ones right now are about 70%

Time: 2373.22

effective at staging your sleep.

Time: 2375.53

So 70%, it's OK, it's OK.

Time: 2378.41

But take it with a grain of salt is what I'm saying.

Time: 2380.643

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

Time: 2381.56

I've tried various ones.

Time: 2382.56

And I compare the mattress based one to--

Time: 2385.04

actually wear it on my ankle instead of my wrist.

Time: 2387.43

And I do find it informative.

Time: 2389.03

But a colleague of mine at Stanford,

Time: 2391.67

Ali Crum, who works on mindset and belief effects talked

Time: 2395.48

to me about a study they did where people often

Time: 2397.94

will bias their sense of daytime wakefulness

Time: 2401.45

based on their sleep score more than their subjective score.

Time: 2405.145

In other words, if they were told

Time: 2406.52

they got a poor night's sleep, even if they

Time: 2407.87

got a great night's sleep--

Time: 2409.19

and this was of course measured in the sleep lab

Time: 2411.23

so they were able to compare-- people

Time: 2413.24

report feeling more groggy.

Time: 2414.86

And the opposite is also true that if it says 100% or 90%

Time: 2418.21

on your sleep score, then people go, oh, I

Time: 2419.96

feel great, even though they might not have slept well.

Time: 2421.95

So this speaks to the, I don't want to say placebo effect,

Time: 2424.4

but the belief effects that are woven in with a score.

Time: 2426.92

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 2427.548

That's right.

Time: 2428.09

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So it seems to me

Time: 2429.507

that combining subjective and objective data

Time: 2431.96

is probably best.

Time: 2432.86

GINA POE: And I do believe that you should trust your own

Time: 2436.46

physiology and the way that your body is telling you to feel

Time: 2440.72

because in fact, it used to be that people with insomnia

Time: 2445.22

weren't--

Time: 2445.79

were often not believed because you put them in a sleep lab,

Time: 2448.88

and they look like they slept great.

Time: 2450.38

And you wake them up in the morning,

Time: 2451.59

they say, oh, I didn't sleep very well at all.

Time: 2453.78

And that's because probably we just came out

Time: 2456.29

with a paper that shows that subcortical structures can

Time: 2459.92

be in a completely different sleep state

Time: 2461.84

than cortical structures which is what we measure in the sleep

Time: 2464.96

lab what the cortex is doing.

Time: 2466.282

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Interesting.

Time: 2467.49

GINA POE: So it might be that people

Time: 2469.22

who say, I did not sleep all night long even

Time: 2471.56

though the cortex is saying, oh, no, you had great sleep,

Time: 2474.6

was because they're monitoring their subcortical,

Time: 2479.15

hypothalamus, hippocampus, thalamus, other structures

Time: 2484.31

that the sleep lab just can't access

Time: 2487.46

unless you have depth electrodes which nobody really wants.

Time: 2490.67

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right.

Time: 2491.628

Because that requires holes in the skull and wires.

Time: 2494.28

Wow.

Time: 2494.78

So does that mean that the last 50 plus years of sleep science

Time: 2499.19

is potentially flawed in some way,

Time: 2501.62

because they're only recording from--

Time: 2503.485

I guess this would be the analogy

Time: 2504.86

would be-- it's like recording from the surface

Time: 2507.29

of the ocean as opposed to the depth of the ocean.

Time: 2509.833

GINA POE: Right.

Time: 2510.5

And trying to ascertain the life moving down deep in the depth--

Time: 2514.997

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Brace yourselves colleagues

Time: 2516.83

at Stanford sleep lab and elsewhere.

Time: 2518.6

But please just tell us because I think scientists

Time: 2520.88

want to know the truth.

Time: 2522.05

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 2522.98

It's not for nothing that you want

Time: 2525.2

to know what the cortex is doing.

Time: 2526.82

The cortex is really important for a lot of things.

Time: 2529.26

But it doesn't necessarily tell you

Time: 2531.14

what a lot of other really important parts of the brain

Time: 2533.84

are doing in terms of sleep.

Time: 2537.35

But there's hope, because in fact, it would be great.

Time: 2541.44

I think that's possible, from the paper if you look at it,

Time: 2544.55

it's in PNAS this year, that you could detect subtle changes

Time: 2550.43

in the cortical EEG that might be

Time: 2552.71

able to tell you what the subcortical structures are

Time: 2555.32

doing.

Time: 2555.98

Things like the absolute power in that sleep

Time: 2559.46

spindle band, that sigma band would change

Time: 2563.09

if the hippocampus is in REM sleep and the cortex

Time: 2566.96

is in that sleep spindle state and vise versa.

Time: 2570.06

So there is some hope that we can

Time: 2573.38

gain from people with depth electrodes or animals

Time: 2577.13

with depth electrodes that we could backwards machine learn

Time: 2581.63

what the cortex might be able to tell us

Time: 2584.81

about subcortical structures from the cortical EEG, so.

Time: 2587.892

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Interesting.

Time: 2589.1

This is going to be a stimu-- yes, stay tuned.

Time: 2591.628

It's going to be a stimulus for development of new technology

Time: 2594.17

which is always going to assist in scientific discovery.

Time: 2599

There is one more thing I wanted to ask

Time: 2600.98

about the architecture of the night sleep

Time: 2604.4

in terms of early part of the night.

Time: 2606.47

Earlier, you mentioned the washout

Time: 2609.17

of debris and the so-called lymphatic system,

Time: 2612.41

I think is what you're referring to.

Time: 2613.91

Could you tell us a little bit more

Time: 2615.368

about the washout that occurs in the brain during sleep,

Time: 2618.425

what that is, and what roles it's thought to serve,

Time: 2621.83

and perhaps if there are any ways to ensure that it happens

Time: 2624.83

or to ensure that it doesn't happen,

Time: 2626.81

and obviously we want this to happen?

Time: 2628.58

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 2630.26

All right, great question.

Time: 2631.97

We talked about the circadian clock

Time: 2633.77

and how certain things happen at certain times.

Time: 2636.14

Well, one of the things that happens

Time: 2637.64

when we're awake and talking to each other

Time: 2640.16

is that there's a lot of plasticity.

Time: 2643.07

There's something that I'm learning from you today.

Time: 2645.38

And you're learning from me.

Time: 2646.85

And that changes our synapses, and it

Time: 2649.34

changes the way our proteins are going to be folded and changed

Time: 2654.38

during sleep.

Time: 2656.52

It unfolds.

Time: 2657.41

This process actually uses a lot of ATP, the power structure

Time: 2662.42

the fuel of the brain.

Time: 2663.86

And it unfolds also proteins while we're doing this,

Time: 2668.09

while we're using them.

Time: 2669.69

And so during that first part of the night, when we first

Time: 2673.04

fall asleep in the first 20 minutes or so,

Time: 2675.32

we're building that adenosine back into ATP.

Time: 2679.46

And that's probably why power naps

Time: 2681.89

are called power naps, because we're actually

Time: 2684.35

rebuilding the power.

Time: 2685.79

And then we're also cleaning out through the deep slow waves

Time: 2691.418

of slow wave sleep.

Time: 2692.21

We're cleaning out all those misfolded proteins,

Time: 2694.85

unfolded proteins, and other things that

Time: 2698.18

get broken down and need to be rebuilt

Time: 2703.04

when we're asleep because of its use during wakefulness.

Time: 2707.7

So I liken that to having a big party during wakefulness.

Time: 2711.74

And you need all those partygoers to leave in order

Time: 2714.2

to do the cleanup.

Time: 2715.25

And so what I think the mechanism is, and this is still

Time: 2718.25

something to be tested, is actually

Time: 2719.78

slow waves themselves which is bad news for us

Time: 2722.863

as we get older.

Time: 2723.53

And those slow waves get smaller.

Time: 2725.3

And so your sleep goes away.

Time: 2729.83

So what happens when a neuron is firing is that it expands,

Time: 2734.51

the membrane expands a little bit, becomes more translucent.

Time: 2737.39

That's how we know-- one of the ways

Time: 2738.89

we know that neurons expand when they fire.

Time: 2741.65

And so every action potential, the membrane

Time: 2744.5

expands a little bit, as sodium brings water into the cell.

Time: 2748.7

And then when they're silent, they contract.

Time: 2751.41

And so during slow waves, the cool thing

Time: 2753.89

is that the reason why you can measure them

Time: 2756.08

is that all the neurons at the same time--

Time: 2758.3

not all of them but a good portion of them--

Time: 2760.85

are firing at the same time and silent at the same time.

Time: 2763.74

And so you think about that as contracting and expanding

Time: 2767.3

all at the same time.

Time: 2768.65

It's like a bilge pump of the brain.

Time: 2771

So that can pump out--

Time: 2772.4

glia are also really important for this

Time: 2775.6

in terms of cleaning up debris and transferring it

Time: 2779.72

to where it needs to go.

Time: 2781.91

So I think of it actually as a bilge

Time: 2783.98

pump cleaning out our brain.

Time: 2786.312

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Interesting.

Time: 2787.52

I've heard about the lymphatic system and lymphatic wash out.

Time: 2790.28

I've never thought about the mechanical aspects of it

Time: 2792.74

before.

Time: 2793.25

I always thought that for some reason that now it's

Time: 2796.67

obvious to me, there had to be something mechanical but only

Time: 2799.82

now that you've educated me about this.

Time: 2801.95

I thought that for some reason the cerebral spinal fluid just

Time: 2805.07

starts washing through.

Time: 2806.22

But here, you're talking about literally an expansion

Time: 2808.73

and a contraction of the neurons in unison

Time: 2811.07

and pushing the fluid through, cleaning out

Time: 2814.25

any misfolded proteins or debris that

Time: 2816.47

might occur on the basis of these metabolic pathways.

Time: 2819.89

And the consequence of that is to, what,

Time: 2823.01

to leave the brain in a state of more pristine action

Time: 2829.325

for the next day.

Time: 2830.16

is?

Time: 2830.66

That right?

Time: 2830.99

GINA POE: Yeah you think of it, again, like a party.

Time: 2833.157

And if you don't clean up after that party

Time: 2834.94

and you try and hold another one the next day,

Time: 2837.08

it's going to get more clogged.

Time: 2839.42

People have a harder time moving around and enjoying themselves.

Time: 2842.72

And if that builds up day after day,

Time: 2845.6

it's going to be cognition.

Time: 2847.49

That would be the partygoers moving around

Time: 2850.49

becomes hard, yeah.

Time: 2853.79

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And so this bilge

Time: 2855.32

pump that you describe is associated

Time: 2856.91

with the big slow waves of deep-- well,

Time: 2861.38

of slow wave sleep.

Time: 2863.265

So this is going to occur more or less in the first third

Time: 2865.64

of the night, is that right?

Time: 2866.78

GINA POE: That's right.

Time: 2867.738

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And are there things

Time: 2869.3

that inhibit this process and are there things

Time: 2872.09

that facilitate this process?

Time: 2873.98

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 2875.99

So well, one thing to inhibit is not to get it but--

Time: 2879.742

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right.

Time: 2880.7

And here, too-- sorry to interrupt but--

Time: 2883.4

and is this similar to the case with growth hormone

Time: 2886.07

where if you go to sleep later than you would normally,

Time: 2889.16

you miss the washout?

Time: 2890.635

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 2891.26

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's not you don't delay it.

Time: 2892.34

You miss-- you missed the washout.

Time: 2894.035

GINA POE: That's right.

Time: 2894.56

That's right.

Time: 2895.19

So if you go to sleep at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning,

Time: 2898.16

your sleep is still going to be dominated by N2,

Time: 2900.83

NREM sleep not by slow wave sleep.

Time: 2903.32

So you need to--

Time: 2905.09

you need to get that first bit of sleep.

Time: 2907.1

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Would a caveat to that

Time: 2908.725

be if somebody normally goes to sleep at 1:00 or 2:00

Time: 2911.06

AM and wakes up at 10:00 AM if that's their normal sleep

Time: 2914.81

cycle--

Time: 2915.32

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 2916.52

That should be OK.

Time: 2917.87

It should be OK.

Time: 2920.39

You would probably want to do--

Time: 2922.49

somebody would want to do a sleep study with people

Time: 2924.77

who do that normally and see if also the melatonin release is

Time: 2928.19

later and the corticosterone rise that happens normally

Time: 2932

in the morning also happens later.

Time: 2934.17

So if everything shifted, good.

Time: 2936.867

ANDREW HUBERMAN: OK.

Time: 2937.7

Yeah.

Time: 2938.2

There are a few studies I've come

Time: 2940.43

across that really do argue for the fact that waking up

Time: 2945.02

circa sunrise, that doesn't mean at sunrise but within an hour

Time: 2948.8

or two, maybe three hours of sunrise

Time: 2950.54

and going to sleep within four hours after sunset

Time: 2955.31

or so is actually better for the health of all human beings

Time: 2960.917

than is being a night owl.

Time: 2962

And the night owl, there's almost

Time: 2963.38

like a night owl posse out there, especially

Time: 2966.103

on social media.

Time: 2966.77

They get very upset when you say that you should

Time: 2969.2

see morning sunlight that after 10:00 AM,

Time: 2971.93

you kind of miss the boat.

Time: 2973.67

They get very upset, because I think

Time: 2975.56

there are about 20% or 30% of people perhaps

Time: 2979.32

who really feel like they function better staying up

Time: 2981.7

late and waking up late.

Time: 2982.7

And they function much less well waking up early

Time: 2985.672

and going to bed early.

Time: 2986.63

But the data on health metrics suggests that, sorry night

Time: 2990.56

owls, that they are wrong.

Time: 2992.388

GINA POE: Yeah, sorry me because I'm a night owl.

Time: 2994.43

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Oh, boy.

Time: 2994.85

OK.

Time: 2995.35

Well, then I'm apologizing directly.

Time: 2996.89

Here, I'm not a really early morning person.

Time: 2999.3

I'm more typical.

Time: 3000.43

I wake up naturally around 6:30, somewhere between 6:30 and 7:30

Time: 3004.24

AM, go to sleep somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00 PM.

Time: 3009.55

These are averages.

Time: 3011.53

But I do notice that when I force

Time: 3013.42

myself to get up a little earlier

Time: 3014.89

and go to sleep a little earlier, that my mood

Time: 3019.72

and alertness and just overall productivity is much higher.

Time: 3022.67

And there could be other variables to that, too.

Time: 3024.67

GINA POE: You're absolutely right.

Time: 3025.54

I'm a night owl.

Time: 3026.72

I love staying up late at night doing you know,

Time: 3029.29

writing grants, writing papers, watching movies,

Time: 3032.115

whatever it is.

Time: 3032.74

I love it.

Time: 3034.03

But like you and like every human being on earth

Time: 3038.47

would do better if I go to bed earlier and wake up earlier.

Time: 3042.23

So one good thing for night owls is

Time: 3044.92

to have a child, because they will wake you up.

Time: 3047.77

Their circadian rhythms are so strong.

Time: 3050.59

They will wake up.

Time: 3051.55

And even if you deprive them of sleep

Time: 3053.23

in the first half of the night they

Time: 3055.15

will still wake up like clockwork,

Time: 3057.1

because their circadian rhythms are so strong at 6:00 AM.

Time: 3060.01

And so what you've-- you haven't done anything good

Time: 3062.53

for your kid.

Time: 3063.25

You haven't moved their cycle to later and be more in line

Time: 3066.04

with yours.

Time: 3066.67

In fact, you've just sleep deprived them

Time: 3068.5

and made them miss a window and made them cranky the next day

Time: 3071.073

and made your life more miserable.

Time: 3072.49

So go to bed soon after your kids go to bed and wake

Time: 3076.06

up with them.

Time: 3076.67

That's the way to do it.

Time: 3077.71

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Great.

Time: 3077.98

The child alarm clock, another reason to have children.

Time: 3080.29

GINA POE: Yes.

Time: 3081.13

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I got a dog, a puppy,

Time: 3083.23

and then that became a dog, specifically, well,

Time: 3086.83

for many reasons.

Time: 3087.77

But one reason was I wanted to be one of those early morning

Time: 3090.27

rides, 5:30 AM every morning.

Time: 3092.17

But I ended up getting a bulldog that would literally

Time: 3094.6

sleep 16 hours if he could.

Time: 3096.94

A nuclear bomb could go off, and he wouldn't wake up.

Time: 3100.19

But what I started to learn was that Bulldogs actually

Time: 3103.3

have sleep apnea.

Time: 3104.97

As far as I know, they're the only species

Time: 3106.72

that has a genetically--

Time: 3109.57

they're essentially an inbred sleep defect.

Time: 3112.36

And so I actually don't encourage

Time: 3113.95

people to get bulldogs because it's kind of a cruel breed.

Time: 3116.41

They suffer a lot in that body that they're born into.

Time: 3118.81

Anyway, a dog can accomplish some of this.

Time: 3122.35

But get the breed of dog that is going to wake up early.

Time: 3126.183

So in other words, don't get a bulldog or a mastiff.

Time: 3128.35

GINA POE: Well, interestingly, all predatory animals

Time: 3132.97

like dogs, and cats, and lions, and us--

Time: 3136.54

well, more dogs, cats, and lions, then us,

Time: 3139.63

well, can sleep 16 hours a day.

Time: 3143.2

Ferrets are predatory.

Time: 3144.52

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I had a pet ferret.

Time: 3146.02

I used to-- and sadly, I also used

Time: 3148.24

to work on ferrets, published a number of papers,

Time: 3150.31

delightful animals.

Time: 3151.155

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 3151.78

And great because you can study development.

Time: 3154.48

It's really cool, because they're

Time: 3156.28

born very artricial like we are with brains that

Time: 3159.43

are not very well developed.

Time: 3160.81

And so you can see what happens through development

Time: 3163.66

and how important these different phases of development

Time: 3166.69

really are.

Time: 3167.68

But yes, yeah, maybe we're not as much predators

Time: 3172.75

as we think because in fact, our sleep is somewhere

Time: 3175.84

between the prey and the predators

Time: 3179.74

in terms of the amount of sleep that we usually need a night.

Time: 3182.68

But those predators can sleep 16 hours, napping all day long.

Time: 3187.69

And they're more crepuscular, perhaps,

Time: 3189.82

like their prey are, more--

Time: 3190.96

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So dawn and dusk active.

Time: 3192.79

GINA POE: Yeah, dawn and dusk active.

Time: 3195.82

Yeah.

Time: 3196.66

But anyway, yes, children and dogs--

Time: 3200.05

actually, there was a poll done by the National Sleep

Time: 3202.93

Foundation to see what the number one thing is

Time: 3205.42

that wakes people up at night.

Time: 3206.83

And number two is going to the bathroom.

Time: 3209.65

Number three is children, because--

Time: 3212.522

when your children are young.

Time: 3213.73

But that only lasts a few years that they'll wake you up

Time: 3216.34

when they're babies.

Time: 3218.11

But the number one thing is pets.

Time: 3220

And pets needing to go out or cats

Time: 3223.36

wanting to curl up with you or whatever

Time: 3225.1

it is, pets' needs will wake you up more

Time: 3227.5

in the middle of the night than anything else.

Time: 3229.45

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Another reason to not get a nocturnal pet.

Time: 3232.33

People who get hamsters, pretty quickly

Time: 3234.433

realize that they are nocturnal, and they want

Time: 3236.35

to run on their wheel around.

Time: 3237.48

GINA POE: Yeah, you got to put them in the living room

Time: 3238.75

away from where you sleep.

Time: 3240.16

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I vote fish tank, folks, freshwater fish

Time: 3243.15

tank.

Time: 3243.65

There are all sorts of reasons to not get a salt water fish

Time: 3246.108

tank or a child.

Time: 3248.56

[LAUGHS]

Time: 3249.76

I appreciate that vote.

Time: 3250.763

And I appreciate you mentioning ferrets.

Time: 3252.43

And by the way, folks, they are carnivores.

Time: 3254.222

They are not rodents.

Time: 3255.1

And they are-- they have very elaborate brain structures.

Time: 3258.61

They're very smart, in the same family as the honey badgers

Time: 3262.75

and the other mustelids.

Time: 3263.83

Anyway, I shouldn't geek out too much on the mustelids

Time: 3267.22

or else I'll take the remainder of all our time.

Time: 3271.06

I'd love for you to tell us about REM sleep

Time: 3274.27

and the sleep later in the night as it relates

Time: 3276.64

to dreams and emotionality.

Time: 3278.29

And this is probably the appropriate time for you

Time: 3281.23

to introduce us to this incredible structure

Time: 3283.42

in the brain, which is the locus coeruleus a difficult structure

Time: 3288.4

to spell but a beautiful-- a beautifully named structure.

Time: 3293.77

I find locus coeruleus to be just fascinating.

Time: 3296.26

And I know a small fraction of what it does.

Time: 3299.292

And I'm hoping you're going to educate me

Time: 3301

and our audience more about what it does and hopefully

Time: 3304.66

tell us a little bit about its relationship

Time: 3306.46

to epinephrine a.k.a.

Time: 3308.74

adrenaline.

Time: 3309.31

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 3309.94

I am so glad you brought this up,

Time: 3311.92

because I can totally geek out on the locus coeruleus.

Time: 3314.245

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Please do.

Time: 3315.37

GINA POE: Locus, meaning spot or place and coeruleus,

Time: 3318.16

meaning blue so you could just call it the blue spot.

Time: 3320.608

That's the easiest.

Time: 3321.4

Every animal with a brain has a blue spot and--

Time: 3327.43

yeah, and I mean, every other animal

Time: 3328.93

with a brain because of course, there

Time: 3331.24

are animals with nervous systems that are not

Time: 3333.58

centralized like jellyfish.

Time: 3336.04

But anyway, we're digressing there.

Time: 3339.04

So the local coeruleus is filled with neurons

Time: 3341.86

that have in them norepinephrine which

Time: 3343.96

is the brain's version of epinephrine or adrenaline,

Time: 3347.32

is also called noradrenaline.

Time: 3348.97

And what it does is, just like adrenaline

Time: 3351.79

and the rest of our bodies, it helps

Time: 3353.29

prime us to respond to our environment.

Time: 3356.81

So when locus coeruleus neurons fire and fire in a burst,

Time: 3361.39

we can switch our attention.

Time: 3363.28

And they will fire in a burst if, for example, a loud noise

Time: 3366.76

happens in the middle of your concentrating on something.

Time: 3369.31

So you can-- it helps-- it fires.

Time: 3371.59

And it helps you switch your attention to that thing

Time: 3373.84

and then learn quickly from it.

Time: 3375.53

So it's really important in a stress response.

Time: 3378.04

It helps us do quick one trial learning.

Time: 3381.97

And then tonic activity during the day

Time: 3384.64

when you're just doing normal going

Time: 3387.52

about your normal concentration activities is really

Time: 3391.66

good for sustained attention.

Time: 3395.22

It works with the cholinergic system of our basal forebrain

Time: 3399.158

which is really important for learning and memory

Time: 3401.2

also to help us learn about things and put things together.

Time: 3406.99

But just tonic levels are signature

Time: 3410.17

of wakefulness and alertness.

Time: 3412.34

So too much is panic with a locus coeruleus activity.

Time: 3416.38

A burst is switching attention.

Time: 3419.14

And then tonic levels are sustained constant attention.

Time: 3423.19

And then when we go to sleep, the locus coeruleus

Time: 3425.65

slows and goes from about on average two

Time: 3430.03

Hertz to about one Hertz, one cycle per second, tonically.

Time: 3435.52

And then when we go into REM sleep,

Time: 3437.02

it's the only time when it shuts off completely.

Time: 3439.39

And it appears that, that complete silence

Time: 3443.2

is really, really important for a number of things.

Time: 3446.36

And the main thing that I think it's important for

Time: 3449.26

is the ability to erase and break down synapses that

Time: 3454.03

are no longer working for us.

Time: 3455.32

So they encode things that are false now,

Time: 3458.32

or they are encoding things that we learned in the novelty,

Time: 3463.33

encoding pathway of our brain that have now been consolidated

Time: 3468.49

to other pathways.

Time: 3469.613

And so we need to now erase them from the novelty encoding

Time: 3472.03

pathway.

Time: 3472.72

And that is really, really important

Time: 3474.67

for being able to continue to learn things all of our lives,

Time: 3479.15

so like erasing that REM or that--

Time: 3482.56

what you call those, disks that you stick into computers that--

Time: 3485.522

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Hard drive--

Time: 3486.73

no, thumb drives.

Time: 3488.23

GINA POE: Yeah, erasing your thumb drive.

Time: 3490.03

So that thumb drive is what you carry around all day long.

Time: 3493.06

And then during sleep, you write that thumb drive to the cortex,

Time: 3496.87

to the long term memory structures.

Time: 3498.61

And you need to refresh that thumb drive.

Time: 3500.8

And that's what happens during REM sleep

Time: 3502.9

when the locus coeruleus is off, because whenever it's on

Time: 3505.48

and noradrenaline is there, it helps

Time: 3507.31

us to put things together.

Time: 3508.81

It helps us to learn and strengthen synapses.

Time: 3511.09

But it does not allow us to actually weaken

Time: 3514.06

synapses that are also a really important part for life--

Time: 3517.37

important part of lifelong learning.

Time: 3520.63

Yeah, so much more I could say about that.

Time: 3522.893

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, locus coeruleus sounds fascinating.

Time: 3525.31

So it's connected to the basal forebrain cholinergic system.

Time: 3529.78

The neurons in locus coeruleus, if I'm not mistaken,

Time: 3532.87

release norepinephrine, perhaps epinephrine as well?

Time: 3538.85

GINA POE: Well, no, the brain's version of epinephrine

Time: 3541.37

is norepinephrine.

Time: 3542.6

The other thing it also--

Time: 3544.79

the precursor to norepinephrine is dopamine.

Time: 3547.43

And so the source of dopamine in the hippocampus

Time: 3551.21

seems to be the locus coeruleus.

Time: 3552.62

And it's still a mystery is under what conditions

Time: 3555.62

the locus coeruleus also releases dopamine.

Time: 3557.9

But it's really important when we're learning something new

Time: 3561.11

to also release dopamine or to at least activate

Time: 3564.02

the dopaminergic receptors in our hippocampus.

Time: 3566.66

So yeah, so dopamine, norepinephrine,

Time: 3570.3

and then there's also galanin which

Time: 3574.04

is important for releasing when we're stressed.

Time: 3576.74

And it helps also without rapid learning.

Time: 3580.16

It works in concert with norepinephrine

Time: 3582.44

and in doing what it needs to do to strengthen synapses so

Time: 3585.62

that we learn really quickly.

Time: 3587.6

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love that there

Time: 3589.79

are multiple molecules involved, because that signals us

Time: 3593.99

to a principle which is that even if people can't remember

Time: 3597.34

all the names, that rarely in biology

Time: 3601.43

is something handled by just one molecule or pathway.

Time: 3604.1

That redundancy is the rule because signaling attention

Time: 3609.39

to specific events is so important.

Time: 3611.44

So that-- I'm going to use that as just a story.

Time: 3614.13

I always say I wasn't consulted at the design phase.

Time: 3617.04

But it makes sense to me as to why redundancy

Time: 3619.2

would exist in this system.

Time: 3620.36

GINA POE: Absolutely.

Time: 3621.235

And in fact, when we form a hypothesis about the brain,

Time: 3624.25

we are always wrong.

Time: 3625.758

And the reason why we're always wrong

Time: 3627.3

is because it's more complicated than we'd like to think.

Time: 3630.15

And because in our brains when we're forming hypotheses,

Time: 3632.73

it's we fail to account for all of the factors that

Time: 3636.09

are involved, the glia, the neuropeptides,

Time: 3638.97

the neurotransmitters, the physical structure of synapses.

Time: 3642.96

And so when I was going through grad school 35 years ago, we--

Time: 3648.54

the dogma was that every neuron contains one neurotransmitter

Time: 3651.953

and releases one neurotransmitter.

Time: 3653.37

And you had excitatory neurotransmitters,

Time: 3655.2

and inhibitory neurotransmitters, and neuro--

Time: 3657.12

modulatory neurotransmitters.

Time: 3658.56

But that's as complicated as it's got.

Time: 3660.48

And then we started talking about neuropeptides.

Time: 3663.12

And people said, oh, no, please don't complicate it.

Time: 3666.06

And then we started talking about how neurons contain

Time: 3668.4

both neuropeptides and neurotransmitters and maybe

Time: 3670.59

more than one neurotransmitter--

Time: 3671.61

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Maybe even hormones, too.

Time: 3673.36

GINA POE: And hormones and-- oh, Lord, it's just so complicated.

Time: 3676.42

But I've got to admit that's why it works, right?

Time: 3679.11

And every time the brain teaches us something new about itself

Time: 3681.96

that we didn't hypothesize, we say,

Time: 3683.76

oh, of course, that wouldn't work if the way I hypothesized

Time: 3687.36

it-- with it.

Time: 3688.11

We actually need redundancy.

Time: 3689.76

We need all of these systems to work together.

Time: 3692.4

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

Time: 3693.54

It's daunting sometimes, but it also

Time: 3695.7

insures many careers in science and neuroscience in particular.

Time: 3699.76

So note that aspiring scientists,

Time: 3703.65

there's plenty of room for discovery.

Time: 3706.098

GINA POE: Do you want me to talk about norepinephrine--

Time: 3708.39

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

Time: 3708.66

So what--

Time: 3708.99

GINA POE: Emotion and--

Time: 3709.77

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yes.

Time: 3710.28

Well, what I'd love-- what I'd love for you to tell

Time: 3712.62

us about is what role this lack of norepinephrine release

Time: 3717.75

during rapid eye movement sleep is thought to achieve?

Time: 3721.89

And maybe you can also review some of your work,

Time: 3725.22

describing conditions under which norepinephrine invades--

Time: 3728.92

GINA POE: Yeah, invade sleep.

Time: 3730.17

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Rapid eye movement

Time: 3731.16

sleep and other patterns of sleep

Time: 3732.72

and how that can be detrimental.

Time: 3734.1

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 3734.73

So a lot of this is hypothetical but based

Time: 3737.04

on a lot of good evidence that we're sewing together

Time: 3739.5

into a schema from which these hypotheses come,

Time: 3742.33

so a model schema from which the hypotheses come.

Time: 3745.69

But one thing that happens to people

Time: 3747.72

with post-traumatic stress disorder

Time: 3749.88

is that there is a lot of evidence

Time: 3752.43

that the locus coeruleus doesn't stop firing in REM sleep.

Time: 3756.01

So-- whereas their levels of norepinephrine

Time: 3759.6

might be similar to people without PTSD

Time: 3763.08

during the day and even during the first part of the night,

Time: 3766.92

during the wee hours of the morning.

Time: 3769.09

And when you measure norepinephrine levels

Time: 3771.15

from metabolites in the blood or the cerebrospinal fluid,

Time: 3775.35

you see that people with PTSD, it's

Time: 3777.582

during the wee hours of the morning

Time: 3779.04

when you have the most REM sleep that they

Time: 3780.79

have their norepinephrine levels differentiate most from those

Time: 3784.59

that don't have PTSD.

Time: 3786.3

And so that's evidence that the locus coeruleus is not

Time: 3789.21

shutting down during REM sleep like it should.

Time: 3791.64

Other evidence is heart rate variability.

Time: 3793.95

When our locus coeruleus is firing,

Time: 3797.19

our heart rates are generally a little higher.

Time: 3799.62

And they don't vary as much as they

Time: 3801.84

do when the locus coeruleus is not firing.

Time: 3805.08

So during slow wave sleep, normally,

Time: 3806.97

have this big, juicy variability in heart rate with every breath

Time: 3810.09

in and breath out because our noradrenergic levels

Time: 3813.36

or norepinephrine levels are lower during REM sleep that

Time: 3816.54

goes away entirely.

Time: 3817.53

And our heart rate is dominated by parasympathetic rather than

Time: 3825.36

sympathetic activity and also what our brain is driving,

Time: 3829.08

what our dreaming about.

Time: 3830.08

For example, if we're dreaming we're running,

Time: 3831.955

our heart rates will go up.

Time: 3833.1

But norepinephrine levels still should be low or off.

Time: 3837.51

So people with PTSD that noradrenergic's we're

Time: 3842.04

studying these in rats, too, is it true

Time: 3844.02

that our locus coeruleus doesn't shut off

Time: 3846.96

when we have post-traumatic stress disorder?

Time: 3849.33

And the preliminary evidence is yes, it's

Time: 3851.85

true that it doesn't shut off.

Time: 3853.29

So what that would do is norepinephrine would

Time: 3856.98

act at synapses to prevent that weakening that you really

Time: 3861

need for example of novelty encoding structures.

Time: 3863.94

And it keeps memories in that novelty encoding structure

Time: 3867.99

even once it's consolidated to the rest of the brain.

Time: 3871.15

So in the hippocampus which is important for remembering

Time: 3875.16

things throughout our lives and it's that thumb drive,

Time: 3881.175

we need it to be erased so that we

Time: 3883.77

can learn new things once it's been consolidated

Time: 3887.13

to the hard drive of our cortex.

Time: 3890.28

And so if we're not able to do that,

Time: 3892.89

we fill up that RAM really quickly

Time: 3896.22

or that thumb drive really quickly,

Time: 3897.7

and we're not able to learn new things.

Time: 3899.92

So for example, after a trauma, I

Time: 3902.13

talked about the locus coeruleus responding

Time: 3904.14

in stressful situations.

Time: 3905.248

That's great.

Time: 3905.79

It's very adaptive.

Time: 3906.96

But then you need it to stop.

Time: 3908.48

Once you've learned what you need to learn from it

Time: 3910.7

and you want to go to sleep, you need the locus

Time: 3912.658

coeruleus to calm down.

Time: 3913.91

And during REM sleep, you want it to stop,

Time: 3915.68

because then when you consolidated

Time: 3917.93

that traumatic memory to the cortex,

Time: 3919.49

you need to erase it from the novelty encoding structures,

Time: 3922.34

for example, in the hippocampus so that then when

Time: 3925.22

you're in the context of safety, you

Time: 3926.78

can learn those new things, those new contexts

Time: 3929.93

and stop responding to those same stimuli

Time: 3935.51

as though you're in that original situation.

Time: 3938.34

So if you're not able to erase that thumb drive,

Time: 3941.73

you will always feel like that trauma happened

Time: 3945.29

that same day, earlier that same day

Time: 3948.17

and respond as you would to an early--

Time: 3953.36

a recent trauma which is with beating heart and all of that.

Time: 3957.87

So even memories that are years past,

Time: 3960.95

if you're never able to downscale that novelty encoding

Time: 3964.67

structure and purge it from that traumatic memory,

Time: 3967.91

it will stay fresh, and new, and then become maladaptive.

Time: 3972.842

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'd like to just take a brief moment

Time: 3975.05

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Time: 3976.98

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Time: 3978.17

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Time: 3980.75

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Time: 3983.33

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Time: 3989.15

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Time: 4051.49

What approaches are you aware of that

Time: 4054.19

can turn down the output of locus coeruleus

Time: 4058.24

during these phases of sleep?

Time: 4060.43

And for that matter, what things can

Time: 4063.31

cause ramping up of locus coeruleus

Time: 4065.2

during this phase of sleep?

Time: 4067.81

We've had a couple of podcast episodes, solo episodes

Time: 4070.54

and with guests talking about trauma.

Time: 4072.13

We had Dr. Paul Conti who's a Stanford trained, Harvard

Time: 4074.8

trained psychiatrist who talked a lot about trauma

Time: 4077.59

wrote an excellent book on trauma

Time: 4078.97

and certainly sleep was emphasized as a key thing like

Time: 4083.782

get enough sleep.

Time: 4084.49

But here, you're saying even if somebody with trauma

Time: 4086.657

gets enough sleep, if locus coeruleus is

Time: 4088.78

hyperactive during sleep, those traumas are going to persist.

Time: 4091.575

And most of the trauma treatments that I'm aware of

Time: 4093.7

are everything ranging from cognitive behavioral therapy,

Time: 4097

talk therapy, drug therapy, EMDR, hypnosis.

Time: 4100.72

Nowadays, there's a lot of interest and attention

Time: 4102.939

on clinical studies on exploring psychedelics, high dose

Time: 4107.319

psilocybin, and MDMA.

Time: 4109.27

So it's a vast landscape, none of which, as far as I know,

Time: 4112.7

is really focused on sleep specifically.

Time: 4114.547

GINA POE: No, they're not.

Time: 4115.63

And they should be, because actually, psychedelics

Time: 4118.96

is a sleep like state.

Time: 4120.43

And it's a REM sleep like state.

Time: 4122.529

Although of course, there are some major differences.

Time: 4125.24

So yeah, so much to talk about here.

Time: 4129.02

So antidepressants are often noradrenergic or serotonergic

Time: 4134.439

reuptake inhibitors.

Time: 4135.76

So they leave norepinephrine actually

Time: 4138.189

out there in the synapses.

Time: 4139.6

And what that does is it inhibits REM sleep.

Time: 4143.42

And if you're able to get REM sleep,

Time: 4144.939

it would probably be REM sleep with

Time: 4146.8

some noradrenergic activity.

Time: 4148.279

So actually, I think--

Time: 4150.1

anyway, I'm not a physician-- that antidepressants

Time: 4153.399

are counter indicated.

Time: 4154.729

You don't want to take them if you've experienced a trauma

Time: 4157.99

and you're experiencing PTSD, because if anything,

Time: 4160.96

it's going to make it worse or at least

Time: 4162.85

prevent the type of adaptive REM sleep

Time: 4164.95

that you really need in order to resolve those emotions

Time: 4168.37

and move on.

Time: 4169.743

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Is that statement

Time: 4171.16

specific to antidepressants that tickle

Time: 4173.95

the noradrenergic pathway?

Time: 4175.34

So the one that comes to mind is--

Time: 4178.18

can never pronounce it, buproprion, which is what--

Time: 4181.06

I think brand name is Wellbutrin.

Time: 4182.77

It's a dopaminergic and noradrenergic agonist.

Time: 4186.382

So that's the net effect as opposed

Time: 4187.84

to the Prozac, Zoloft variety which are SSRIs.

Time: 4190.899

GINA POE: Yes, yes.

Time: 4191.859

But SSRIs themselves also are problematic,

Time: 4195.557

because-- we didn't talk about it yet,

Time: 4197.14

but the dorsal raphe nucleus which

Time: 4199.33

produces serotonin which specific serotonin-- specific

Time: 4203.32

serotonin reuptake inhibitors block from being reuptake

Time: 4207.31

and leaves too much serotonin out there.

Time: 4210.19

And what serotonin also is another noradrenergic-- sorry,

Time: 4214.09

another neurotransmitter that's downregulated during REM sleep.

Time: 4218.29

That's specifically off during REM sleep.

Time: 4220.87

And what serotonin does is it weights all of our cognition

Time: 4225.4

to being able to recognize novelty again.

Time: 4229.15

So it weights our brain away from a sense of familiarity

Time: 4234.85

and toward novelty.

Time: 4236.17

And it might be one reason why it's

Time: 4238.9

an effective antidepressant because it makes the world feel

Time: 4243.34

fresh and new again, right?

Time: 4245.74

But you-- when you have too much, you're

Time: 4251.14

holding a novel traumatic memory in your novelty encoding

Time: 4256.33

structure too strongly already, you

Time: 4259.36

don't want to, again, weight things toward novelty.

Time: 4262.27

You need that absence of serotonin

Time: 4264.13

also to help you get that sense of familiarity

Time: 4268.12

and to start erasing the novelty encoding structures.

Time: 4271.16

So you need both to be absent.

Time: 4272.532

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's really interesting.

Time: 4274.24

We hear a lot about serotonin.

Time: 4276.01

And it's not often discussed in terms of its features related

Time: 4280.18

to novelty enough I think.

Time: 4282.31

And what you just described cues me to something

Time: 4285.43

that Dr. Paul Conti and others have said in terms of trauma.

Time: 4288.76

And here, I'm paraphrasing, so my apologies to them

Time: 4291.1

for not getting this exactly right,

Time: 4293.06

that an effective treatment for trauma

Time: 4295.96

does not erase the traumatic memory.

Time: 4298.21

But it causes a transition of what once was disturbing,

Time: 4302.2

and invasive, and maladaptive to eventually just become

Time: 4308.59

a boring old story that has a fuzzy texture to it as

Time: 4313.3

opposed to this sharp high friction texture that

Time: 4317.29

invades our thinking and obviously,

Time: 4320.02

our sleeping states as well.

Time: 4321.59

So again, and I appreciate the disclaimer,

Time: 4325.57

the caveats around not being a clinician, et cetera.

Time: 4328.088

But I do think that there's a lot of interest now

Time: 4330.13

in whether or not antidepressants are

Time: 4332.05

effective for trauma or not.

Time: 4333.38

And I think these aspects of neuromodulation

Time: 4336.37

as they relate to, let's call it, erasing traumas or changing

Time: 4340.48

the emotional load of traumas during sleep

Time: 4343.09

is something important to take note.

Time: 4344.59

We also have a lot of clinicians that listen to this podcast.

Time: 4347.132

So they should also take note, please.

Time: 4349.43

So if I want to reduce the amount of norepinephrine

Time: 4354.67

released from locus coeruleus during rapid eye movement sleep

Time: 4358.72

to eliminate the troubling or maybe even traumatic memories

Time: 4363.52

and allow late stages of sleep each night to have

Time: 4368.35

their maximum positive effect, is there anything

Time: 4371.23

that I can do besides avoiding--

Time: 4374.26

avoiding traumas, avoiding serotonergic or noradrenergic

Time: 4377.8

compounds?

Time: 4378.55

GINA POE: Well, I would also avoid anything just prior

Time: 4381.52

to going to sleep that might excite those systems,

Time: 4384.68

so a lot of novelty, a lot of the exciting stress

Time: 4390.22

inducing video games.

Time: 4392.71

Try and enter sleep with as much calm as you can,

Time: 4398.45

so maybe deep breathing exercises.

Time: 4400.12

That's a beautiful way to calm your sympathetic fight

Time: 4404.23

or flight system is deep breathing.

Time: 4406.12

And we haven't been able to test this with rats

Time: 4409.48

because we can't ask them to do a deep breathing exercise.

Time: 4413.68

There might be a way we can do that.

Time: 4415.18

But I haven't found out or figured it out yet.

Time: 4418.45

But if there's a way you can make your sympathetic system,

Time: 4422.71

nervous system calm down before you go to sleep,

Time: 4425.65

might free for you meditation, or deep breathing

Time: 4428.17

exercises might be for some, a warm bath,

Time: 4431.02

or a comforting book, nothing too exciting but also nothing

Time: 4435.76

too boring, perhaps, just something

Time: 4438.64

right in the middle which makes you feel happy and calm

Time: 4442.3

is what you should do.

Time: 4443.48

And if you instead go to sleep while you're anxious

Time: 4446.53

or you're hyped up, then your sleep could become maladaptive.

Time: 4452.5

Another thing that happens in rats that we have yet

Time: 4455.89

to know if it happens in women is

Time: 4458.68

that female rats have three phases of their estrus cycle

Time: 4463.33

that their locus coeruleus doesn't seem to calm down

Time: 4466.57

during REM sleep as much.

Time: 4467.86

And we don't know why, but during the high estrogen phases

Time: 4472.18

of their estrus cycle, the locus coeruleus shuts down

Time: 4476.11

just like it does in male rats.

Time: 4477.46

But in the other three phases, it doesn't.

Time: 4479.83

So one thing that might work and in fact, there

Time: 4483.97

are a few studies that show it could work really well

Time: 4486.97

is giving women after a trauma event,

Time: 4493.73

something that contains estrogen,

Time: 4495.34

because estrogen somehow is protective against PTSD.

Time: 4499.57

And they know that through a retrospective studies,

Time: 4502.36

where they gave women in emergency room either a pill

Time: 4505.93

with estrogen and/or without.

Time: 4507.73

And those that had the pill with estrogen in it

Time: 4510.04

were much less likely to get PTSD from that trauma

Time: 4512.92

as measured a year later than those

Time: 4514.66

that had the pill without.

Time: 4515.98

So there's really good studies by Bronwyn Graham--

Time: 4522.17

she's out of Australia-- to really hone in

Time: 4524.47

on how much estrogen do you need and also testosterone

Time: 4528.13

just so you know, gets converted to estrogen in the brain.

Time: 4531.11

So testosterone also can be protective,

Time: 4533.38

because it gets converted to estrogen.

Time: 4535.69

But there's something about estrogen

Time: 4537.19

that's really helpful and protective

Time: 4539.23

about from the high locus coeruleus firing.

Time: 4543.97

And this is, again, preliminary data that we don't have full--

Time: 4547.27

we don't have all the answers yet.

Time: 4548.8

And we are looking into it actively right now.

Time: 4552.34

But it's really important.

Time: 4553.667

The other thing about women is that we

Time: 4555.25

are two to four times more susceptible to anxiety related

Time: 4559.33

mental health disorders including post-traumatic stress

Time: 4561.91

disorder.

Time: 4562.73

So if we could figure out what's happening to locus coeruleus

Time: 4566.17

during sleep in women and then figure out a way

Time: 4569.92

to normalize that so the locus coeruleus is silent

Time: 4573.7

when it needs to be silent, I think

Time: 4575.26

we could go a long way in helping

Time: 4577.87

women be more resilient to stress related disorders.

Time: 4582.91

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What are some other sex differences

Time: 4585.22

as they relate to sleep?

Time: 4587.265

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 4587.89

That's a really good question.

Time: 4589.28

There have been very few studies, unfortunately,

Time: 4594.34

of women and sleep, women and estrus cycle or menstrual cycle

Time: 4598.84

and sleep.

Time: 4600.7

But what we have found which actually largely replicated

Time: 4604.84

a study in 1960 is that women or females

Time: 4611.02

rather at high estrogen, high hormonal phases

Time: 4614.14

of their estrus cycle or menstrual cycle sleep

Time: 4617.38

a lot less.

Time: 4618.31

But that sleep is more efficient.

Time: 4620.45

So that sleep is more dense in those sleep spindles, which

Time: 4624.232

I haven't gone into what they might

Time: 4625.69

do except this connection between the hippocampus

Time: 4628.66

and cortex.

Time: 4629.38

But those sleep spindles are more dense and more coherent

Time: 4632.23

across the brain areas.

Time: 4633.97

The theta cycle which is 5 to 10 Hertz

Time: 4637.24

in the hippocampus important for one-year learning

Time: 4639.82

and also important during REM sleep

Time: 4641.47

is also bigger and juicier during

Time: 4643.96

the high hormonal phases.

Time: 4645.91

So even though there's less sleep,

Time: 4647.53

it's more efficient and better.

Time: 4652.48

So all of that efficiency seems to be reduced

Time: 4655.81

in those other hormonal phases.

Time: 4659.44

So even though you might sleep a little more,

Time: 4662.89

you might need more sleep, in fact,

Time: 4665.62

in order to accomplish the same thing that you

Time: 4668.05

can get with that short very efficient sleep

Time: 4673.09

of high hormonal phases.

Time: 4674.103

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Very interesting.

Time: 4675.52

I think there is a growing trend,

Time: 4678.53

at least among NIH-funded grants to require

Time: 4683.47

that as they refer to it in the grants of biological sex

Time: 4687.19

as a variable.

Time: 4687.947

And here, we're talking-- nothing here

Time: 4689.53

about sex, the verb, although, I'm

Time: 4691.505

sure there are studies about that, too.

Time: 4693.13

But biological sex is a variable,

Time: 4694.57

because there is a dearth of studies exploring sex

Time: 4697.33

differences in most everything.

Time: 4700.683

There are all sorts of reasons for that.

Time: 4702.35

But more importantly that fortunately,

Time: 4704.5

the trend is shifting.

Time: 4705.86

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 4706.93

And even when you study males versus females, a lot of people

Time: 4710.83

just say include females in their studies

Time: 4713.86

but then don't track the estrus cycle or menstrual cycle.

Time: 4717.52

And hormones have huge effects on our behavior.

Time: 4721.6

Just think about-- when you said sex before our hormones come

Time: 4725.828

in, we're not interested in it.

Time: 4727.12

And suddenly, that's kind of a main driver of behaviors.

Time: 4730.99

Hormones can definitely change who we are and what we do.

Time: 4734.66

So we should be studying hormones not just sex.

Time: 4737.872

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I always say that puberty is perhaps

Time: 4740.08

the most massive transformation and rate

Time: 4742.443

of aging that any of us go through in a short amount

Time: 4744.61

of time.

Time: 4745.15

An individual, their cognition changes.

Time: 4746.91

Their worldview changes.

Time: 4747.91

And that's largely hormonal-driven.

Time: 4749.83

And obviously, neural architectures change, too.

Time: 4753.1

I'm very happy that you mentioned--

Time: 4755.89

I'm trying to get into calmer states

Time: 4757.63

prior to sleep and some ways to do that.

Time: 4760.58

I'm a big fan and I've talked a lot before on this podcast

Time: 4763

about things like yoga nidra which is a non-movement based

Time: 4766.6

practice, sometimes called non-sleep depressed where

Time: 4769.33

people actually take some time each day to practice how

Time: 4771.97

to go into a more parasympathetic a.k.a relaxed

Time: 4774.55

state deliberately, because it's a bit of a skill.

Time: 4777.015

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 4777.64

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It's-- and there there's some good data

Time: 4779.973

really, mostly out of a laboratory in Scandinavia

Time: 4782.17

showing huge increases in nigrostriatal dopamine when

Time: 4787.6

people go--

Time: 4789.1

basically, engage in a practice of deliberate non-movement

Time: 4793.69

and that the brain actually enters

Time: 4795.13

states of a very shallow sleep.

Time: 4796.87

So it's sort of nap-ish.

Time: 4799.51

But the idea is to actually stay awake but motionless.

Time: 4801.94

And it does seem to restore a certain number of features

Time: 4804.61

of neurochemistry.

Time: 4805.36

But perhaps more importantly, it teaches

Time: 4807.7

people to relax which is something that most people are

Time: 4811

not very good at.

Time: 4812.68

But in any event--

Time: 4815.038

and people who listen to this podcast

Time: 4816.58

have heard me say this over and over again,

Time: 4818.12

so I sound like a broken record, but this practice

Time: 4820.203

as a zero cost practice that doesn't require

Time: 4822.19

any pharmacology does seem to really enhance people's ability

Time: 4826

to fall asleep more quickly and to fall back

Time: 4828.447

asleep if they wake up in the middle of the night.

Time: 4830.53

So in any event, another plug for NSDR, yoga nidra.

Time: 4833.68

GINA POE: Well, I just also want to add

Time: 4836.23

to that, that's one of the reasons why insomnia

Time: 4838.36

is so insidious is because when people feel like they haven't

Time: 4841.24

gotten enough sleep, and they're not getting enough sleep,

Time: 4842.95

and they become anxious about getting enough sleep,

Time: 4844.63

and then they're anxious before going to sleep,

Time: 4846.588

like I'm not going to fall asleep,

Time: 4848.005

it's going to be 45 minutes, and then that's

Time: 4849.88

a positive feedback loop.

Time: 4851.45

So you need to break that loop, say, OK,

Time: 4854.23

my body is going to get as much sleep as it needs,

Time: 4856.33

I needn't worry about it, and then practice this relaxation

Time: 4860.47

to say, hey it's all OK, it's going to be all right,

Time: 4864.94

and then concentrate on things that relax you,

Time: 4868.36

whether it's concentrating or not

Time: 4869.89

concentrating, whatever it is.

Time: 4872.35

You mentioned yoga nidra.

Time: 4875.59

And that reminded me of transcendental meditation

Time: 4880.76

which is something that also hasn't been studied well,

Time: 4883.42

largely because we can't ask nonhuman animals to do it.

Time: 4886.76

And so we don't know what's happening

Time: 4889

with our neurochemistry and our brain activity

Time: 4893.71

in a deep and meaningful way.

Time: 4896.45

But one thing that has been shown

Time: 4898.75

in those that can do it really well

Time: 4900.25

is that, that theta activity that I said

Time: 4903.04

happens when you're learning something

Time: 4904.87

or when you're in REM sleep, it's well established

Time: 4909.25

and increases during the transcendental meditation.

Time: 4913.54

So it might be that some states of meditation

Time: 4917.29

could in some ways replace or mimic

Time: 4921.28

some functions of, for example, REM sleep.

Time: 4923.71

But again, we don't know if all the neurochemistry

Time: 4926.573

is right to do, for example, the thing that I was talking about,

Time: 4929.24

which is erasing the novelty encoding structures

Time: 4931.928

of the brain.

Time: 4932.47

That needs an absence of norepinephrine and serotonin,

Time: 4935.96

which we don't know if that goes away

Time: 4938.38

with transcendental meditation.

Time: 4940.3

We just don't know the answer to that yet.

Time: 4942.49

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah.

Time: 4943.407

The studies on yoga nidra and sleep replacement

Time: 4945.91

are interesting.

Time: 4947.59

It does seem to be the case that nothing can really

Time: 4950.71

replace sleep except sleep.

Time: 4952.31

But that if one is sleep deprived

Time: 4954.083

or is having trouble falling back asleep

Time: 4955.75

that these things like--

Time: 4959.11

and I hear it's--

Time: 4960.19

I acknowledge this is essentially like yoga nidra,

Time: 4962.59

but we now call it non-sleep deep rest or NSDR,

Time: 4965.14

because oftentimes, for names like yoga nidra

Time: 4967.75

act as a barrier for what would otherwise be people

Time: 4971.59

willing to try a practice.

Time: 4972.7

It sounds mystical.

Time: 4973.87

GINA POE: --and yoga.

Time: 4974.35

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It sounds like flying carpets.

Time: 4976.308

And it sounds like you have to go to Esalen.

Time: 4978.21

By the way, Esalen is a beautiful place.

Time: 4979.877

But it sounds like you have to go there or live in the West

Time: 4982.335

Coast to believe in this stuff.

Time: 4983.76

But it's simply not the case.

Time: 4985.03

These are practices that are really

Time: 4987.21

just self-directed relaxation as a practice that allows people

Time: 4992.16

to get better and better at directing their brain

Time: 4994.89

states towards more relaxation.

Time: 4996.84

And most people have an asymmetry.

Time: 4998.46

Like for instance, most people can force

Time: 5000.23

themselves to stay up later.

Time: 5002.34

But they have a hard time going to sleep earlier.

Time: 5004.73

And that just speaks to the asymmetry

Time: 5006.44

that's probably adaptive in survival-based

Time: 5008.93

that we can ramp ourselves up far more easily than we can

Time: 5012.05

tend to calm ourselves down.

Time: 5013.28

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 5013.905

And actually to appeal to other Christians like me,

Time: 5017.99

prayer can be a wonderful way to calm yourself down,

Time: 5021.68

because through prayer you're giving your carries to God

Time: 5026.15

and saying--

Time: 5027.65

and then you are relaxed, more relaxed.

Time: 5031.2

And I just want to say that because, the same reason

Time: 5034.4

that yoga might put some people off.

Time: 5036.05

It might put some people off to talk about prayer,

Time: 5040.19

but it's the same process of being able to relax, and yeah.

Time: 5047.165

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And get outside our own experience

Time: 5049.29

a little bit.

Time: 5049.94

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 5051.02

Back out get a world view that might actually

Time: 5053.57

also help us to relax.

Time: 5055.845

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, you might be surprised

Time: 5057.72

at how many clinicians and scientists who've

Time: 5059.72

come on this podcast have mentioned things like prayer

Time: 5062.99

from various perspectives, Christianity, Judaism,

Time: 5065.57

Muslim traditions, and others that--

Time: 5068.555

as a parallel to all of these things.

Time: 5070.38

And I think what it speaks to is the fact that, ultimately,

Time: 5073.64

the biological architectures that we're all contending with

Time: 5076.55

are going to be identical, right?

Time: 5078.05

And so different ways to tap into them and ones

Time: 5080.21

that are congruent with people's beliefs, I think are great.

Time: 5085.64

GINA POE: Yeah, because anything,

Time: 5087.02

non-congruent with your beliefs is also stressful.

Time: 5089.103

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And feels forced.

Time: 5090.52

And that's why this idea of calling it

Time: 5092.51

non-sleep deep rest in addition to yoga nidra

Time: 5094.7

was not to detract from the naming or the history

Time: 5097.25

around yoga nidra.

Time: 5098.3

But I was finding that it was a barrier.

Time: 5100.83

Likewise, yoga nidra tends to include things like intentions

Time: 5104.42

whereas NSDR scripts.

Time: 5105.58

And by the way, we will provide links to some NSDRs and yoga

Time: 5108.08

nidra scripts.

Time: 5108.71

But NSDR has no intentions.

Time: 5110.96

It's simply a body scan deep relaxation-based.

Time: 5113.51

So it's the scientific version of all of this stuff.

Time: 5116.09

And actually, we study it in the laboratory

Time: 5118.325

and some of the brain states that people go into.

Time: 5120.41

But that's a discussion for another time.

Time: 5122.718

GINA POE: This is hard not to--

Time: 5124.01

My mother used to tell me when I would complain,

Time: 5126.41

I can't go to sleep, she'd say, well, start with your toes

Time: 5130.04

and relax.

Time: 5130.94

So you would clench your muscles around your toes

Time: 5133.85

then relax them and do that all the way from your toes

Time: 5136.588

all the way to your head.

Time: 5137.63

And I don't know where she got this,

Time: 5138.95

it might have been her own common sense

Time: 5140.6

or she might have gotten it from this NPR shows

Time: 5144.74

called The Mind Can Keep You Well she used to listen to.

Time: 5147.98

But that's another intentional relaxation

Time: 5150.68

that focuses on the body rather than

Time: 5154.04

on your own mental processes, but.

Time: 5156.538

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I do a little bit of work with the military.

Time: 5159.08

And there's a method within certain communities

Time: 5161.99

of Special Operations in the US military,

Time: 5163.88

where if they can't sleep or they're having challenges

Time: 5166.79

sleeping, they will deliberately try and relax

Time: 5170.15

their facial muscles in particular like drape

Time: 5173.12

the facial muscles and use long or exhale

Time: 5177.14

emphasized breathing does seem to increase

Time: 5180.62

the probability of transitioning back into sleep.

Time: 5183.08

And those are hallmarks of yoga nidra, non-sleep deep rest,

Time: 5187.19

body scans.

Time: 5188.293

And so I think all of these things

Time: 5189.71

converge on a common theme.

Time: 5191.6

As neurobiologist, we can say, all of the things

Time: 5194.42

that we are describing certainly move the needle away

Time: 5198.2

from locus coeruleus activation.

Time: 5199.88

And we haven't done the experiment

Time: 5201.44

to really look at that.

Time: 5202.398

But it seems all these things are counter to noradrenaline

Time: 5205.38

release.

Time: 5205.88

GINA POE: Right.

Time: 5206.547

Another one is yawning.

Time: 5208.04

Yawning in itself is, in fact, kind

Time: 5210.32

of tensing of all the muscles in your face

Time: 5213.74

and then relaxing them.

Time: 5215.1

So it might be why we yawn.

Time: 5216.92

We don't know why we yawn yet.

Time: 5218.21

But it might also-- it would be really great.

Time: 5221.27

Actually, animals yawn, too.

Time: 5223.24

ANDREW HUBERMAN: My bulldog was a-- perpetually.

Time: 5225.24

If he wasn't sleeping, he was yawning.

Time: 5227.565

GINA POE: And it would be interesting to see what yawning

Time: 5229.94

does to the locus coeruleus.

Time: 5231.107

Does that also calm and switch the locus coeruleus activity,

Time: 5234.08

because it's an interesting that facial nerve

Time: 5237.35

like trigeminal nerve through the vagus

Time: 5240.38

connects indirectly to the locus coeruleus

Time: 5243.86

and has a powerful effect on that.

Time: 5245.63

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Interesting.

Time: 5246.838

A common, I think friend of ours and direct colleague of yours,

Time: 5249.47

Jack Feldman was a guest on this podcast telling us

Time: 5252.107

about all the amazing structures he and others have discovered

Time: 5254.69

in respiration and breathing.

Time: 5256.617

It sounds like we have a collaboration

Time: 5258.2

brewing the three of us should definitely carry out.

Time: 5261.925

I'd love for you to share with us a little bit more

Time: 5264.05

about the spindles that have come up a few times.

Time: 5267.23

And I don't know if it's relevant to this.

Time: 5269.25

So if it's not, let's separate it out.

Time: 5271.52

But I'd love for you to tell us a little bit

Time: 5273.83

about the role of sleep in problem solving and creativity.

Time: 5277.625

And if spindles are involved, then I'll

Time: 5279.25

consider myself lucky for batching them

Time: 5280.995

in the same question.

Time: 5281.87

And if they're not involved, simply

Time: 5283.24

feel free to separate them out.

Time: 5284.572

GINA POE: I think they could be involved.

Time: 5286.28

And the reason why I think they could

Time: 5287.59

be involved because we now know a lot more about spindles.

Time: 5290.007

First of all, the first thing that we knew--

Time: 5291.88

first of all, we ignored them.

Time: 5293.35

Then we thought they had something

Time: 5294.88

to do with keeping us asleep.

Time: 5296.11

And that was their function is when an external stimulus came,

Time: 5298.965

they would keep us asleep because they would arise.

Time: 5301.09

But now, we know that the density of our sleep

Time: 5303.79

spindles, the number that we produce per minute

Time: 5306.43

is well correlated with our intelligence

Time: 5308.86

in the first place and that no matter

Time: 5310.48

what your intelligence is and no matter what your sleep spindle

Time: 5313.84

density is, if you're learning something during the day

Time: 5316.84

and increase your sleep spindle density,

Time: 5318.97

it's really almost perfectly correlated with our ability

Time: 5322.42

to consolidate that information and incorporate it

Time: 5325.51

into the schema that we already have in our brain.

Time: 5327.98

So if you try and learn something new,

Time: 5330.56

even if your sleep spindle density at baseline

Time: 5332.5

is great, if you don't increase your sleep spindles that night,

Time: 5335.86

you're not going to use sleep to really incorporate.

Time: 5339.61

Interestingly, sleep spindles are

Time: 5342.25

poor in those with schizophrenia.

Time: 5344.29

It's one of the characteristic signatures

Time: 5347.23

of sleep is that sleep spindles are very few and far between,

Time: 5350.5

which might mean that people with schizophrenia

Time: 5354.88

might not be able to incorporate new information into already

Time: 5358.3

existing schema.

Time: 5359.26

And instead, it flaps in the breeze out there

Time: 5362.47

and can be accessed erroneously at times when you

Time: 5366.34

don't want it to be involved.

Time: 5368.81

So I digress, so sleep spindles and creativity.

Time: 5372.35

So one of the things we now through some great studies

Time: 5375.22

by Julie Seibt and Anita Lüthi is that sleep spindles

Time: 5379.39

are accompanied by an incredible plasticity

Time: 5383.32

out in the distal dendrites, the listening

Time: 5385.99

branches of our neurons that listen to other cortical areas.

Time: 5390.89

So there are proximal dendrites in our neurons

Time: 5393.34

that listen to the external world

Time: 5396.07

and are conducted through the thalamus.

Time: 5398.2

And then there are distal dendrites

Time: 5399.83

which listen to an internal conversation that's

Time: 5403.81

happening in our brains.

Time: 5405.25

It's kind of our internal state, really.

Time: 5408.34

And during sleep spindles, that's

Time: 5410.05

when those distal dendrites are able to best learn

Time: 5414.61

from other cortical areas and from the hippocampus.

Time: 5418.24

It is during sleep spindles that the hippocampus and the cortex

Time: 5420.94

are best connected and when that incredible plasticity

Time: 5425.11

can happen.

Time: 5425.89

When I talk about schema, that's a cortical, cortical thing.

Time: 5428.96

That's when the image of Santa Claus and presents

Time: 5432.52

comes together.

Time: 5433.33

It's not through some external thing.

Time: 5435.01

Once we learn those things together,

Time: 5437.06

it's our cortex that encodes that and brings

Time: 5439.81

those images back up together.

Time: 5441.85

And that's during sleep spindles when

Time: 5443.95

that's happening, when that--

Time: 5445.87

there's big surges of calcium into those distal dendrites,

Time: 5451.06

and where plasticity happens in just huge amounts.

Time: 5455.56

During that sleep spindle stage of sleep which is N2 stage,

Time: 5459.55

there's also another excitatory event

Time: 5463.062

that comes all the way from the brainstem

Time: 5464.77

and projects everywhere in our cortex which

Time: 5467.53

is called PGO waves.

Time: 5469.36

That's P for pons, G for geniculo nucleus

Time: 5472.967

of the thalamus which is where they're first discovered,

Time: 5475.3

and O for occipital area which is

Time: 5477.67

our visual area which is, again, where they're first discovered.

Time: 5480.55

But in fact, it's now been shown that PGO waves, which we should

Time: 5484.27

generalize to P waves because they come from the pons

Time: 5486.7

and go to the thalamus and then the cortex,

Time: 5489.1

happens all over the brains.

Time: 5490.6

And that is where glutamate, which is a major excitatory

Time: 5494.83

neurotransmitter involved in learning and plasticity

Time: 5497.8

is being released in big amounts,

Time: 5499.96

also in those distal dendrites.

Time: 5501.65

So P waves and spindles work together

Time: 5503.89

to cause plasticity and sew our schema together

Time: 5507.14

which could be the origins for insight and creativity.

Time: 5511.12

Now, when PGO waves or P waves were first discovered,

Time: 5514.57

it was thought to be random, because this small area that

Time: 5519.01

generates P waves all over the brain

Time: 5522.64

projects all over the thalamus and causes P waves all over.

Time: 5526.51

And you don't measure P waves all over the brain

Time: 5529.72

at the same time.

Time: 5530.57

In fact, it's just seems sporadic and random.

Time: 5533.33

So that's probably-- and P waves also happening even more

Time: 5537.31

during REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep.

Time: 5539.41

So that's why people think that REM dreams are

Time: 5545.02

so random is because these P waves are random.

Time: 5547.78

And they could generate dreams because they're

Time: 5550.84

an internal source of excitation that replaces the outside world

Time: 5557.17

during our dream state.

Time: 5558.61

And so these P waves, if they are random, could function--

Time: 5563.83

could be the underlying reason why

Time: 5565.75

REM sleep dreams are random.

Time: 5568.18

And it might also be why creativity can happen there

Time: 5572.26

because we're randomly activating--

Time: 5574.57

co-activating different things in our brain

Time: 5576.82

that we can then sew together.

Time: 5579.04

But it might not be as random as we think.

Time: 5581.11

So that's the caveat there.

Time: 5582.512

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I just learned a lot from you,

Time: 5584.47

because I teach brain stem to medical students.

Time: 5587.96

And I talk about the pons.

Time: 5590.16

And the pons is like this dense collection

Time: 5591.91

of all these different nuclei involved

Time: 5593.68

in a bunch of different things.

Time: 5595.07

And it's close by a bunch of interesting things.

Time: 5597.52

And it's still a mysterious brain area.

Time: 5600.46

But when I learned about PGO waves,

Time: 5602.5

I thought pons-geniculo-occipital,

Time: 5604.62

because occipital is most commonly associated

Time: 5606.76

with visual cortex, I thought it was

Time: 5609.43

the origin of the visual component of dreams.

Time: 5612.475

GINA POE: And probably is.

Time: 5613.75

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm very happy to learn

Time: 5615.417

that they should be called P waves, because they include

Time: 5618.178

lots of different areas of the brain.

Time: 5619.72

And it makes really good sense to me

Time: 5622.06

why the pseudo randomness of dreams

Time: 5625.93

especially these late night and early morning--

Time: 5629.17

later in sleep I should say and early morning dreams

Time: 5632.29

seem to be cobbled together from disparate experiences.

Time: 5637.285

You walk through a door and suddenly, it's

Time: 5639.19

a completely different context and landscape.

Time: 5641.3

GINA POE: Yes, beautiful. beautiful.

Time: 5643.013

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I like this idea a lot.

Time: 5644.68

It makes intuitive sense it makes biological sense.

Time: 5647.133

It also gives me something to talk

Time: 5648.55

about to the medical students next quarter

Time: 5650.3

when I talk about pons.

Time: 5651.31

GINA POE: Right.

Time: 5651.43

You want to talk about where in the pons,

Time: 5653.138

it's right below the locus coeruleus.

Time: 5654.79

It's called the sub coeruleus.

Time: 5656.32

They're glutamatergic.

Time: 5657.67

It's also called SLD, sub lateral dorsal nucleus, so.

Time: 5663.94

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So note to any aspiring neurobiologist,

Time: 5666.97

there's a vast landscape of yet to be undiscovered structure

Time: 5671.167

and functions in the pons.

Time: 5672.25

You want to work on something that

Time: 5673.75

is sure to reveal something novel, work on the pons

Time: 5676.18

because it's in every textbook.

Time: 5677.63

It's clinically very important structure.

Time: 5681.04

Sadly, gliomas and other cancers of the brain can sometimes--

Time: 5686.68

can often surface in the pons.

Time: 5688.72

But we still know very little about it.

Time: 5692.17

I read a paper this last year or-- and I

Time: 5694.93

think it was covered in a bit of popular press,

Time: 5697.09

that during rapid eye movement sleep,

Time: 5700.36

people can solve problems or respond to external stimuli.

Time: 5704.708

For instance, they would give them math problems.

Time: 5706.75

They'd whisper in their ear while they were

Time: 5708.542

in REM sleep, what's 2 plus 2.

Time: 5709.992

And then people would say, even though they were paralyzed,

Time: 5712.45

apparently they could still move their mouth,

Time: 5714.325

because they'd say four or something like that.

Time: 5716.86

Or they'd say, what's your name.

Time: 5718.498

And people could respond.

Time: 5719.54

And so that in REM sleep, perhaps, people--

Time: 5722.14

some elements of cognition are still active.

Time: 5725.47

GINA POE: I'm glad you brought that up.

Time: 5727.48

ANDREW HUBERMAN: What are you thinking--

Time: 5729.147

and I don't know the authors of that study and--

Time: 5731.65

listen, if ever I say something wrong,

Time: 5733.66

it's great on this podcast because someone will tell us

Time: 5736.3

in the YouTube comments.

Time: 5737.38

It's one of the great uses of YouTube comments.

Time: 5739.75

But I'd love to know your thoughts on that study.

Time: 5742.24

Is that just kind of an odd feature that or does

Time: 5747.49

this have meaning.

Time: 5748.24

Should we actually care about this result?

Time: 5749.83

GINA POE: There is no just about it.

Time: 5751.33

It's really actually intriguing and interesting

Time: 5753.91

and might relate to this paper that I

Time: 5755.89

talked about where we said different areas of the brain

Time: 5758.44

can be in different states at the same time.

Time: 5760.67

So lucid dreaming is another thing

Time: 5763

we can't ask animals to do or can't ask them

Time: 5765.4

if they've done it.

Time: 5766.36

But we can certainly ask humans to do it.

Time: 5769.6

And some people can do it really well.

Time: 5771.49

And it would be really interesting to see

Time: 5773.62

in those people who could lucid dream really well whether they

Time: 5776.74

spend more or less time in this asymmetrical state

Time: 5781.3

where one area of the brain is in one state

Time: 5783.097

and another area of the brain is in another.

Time: 5784.93

And it might be that those people can respond to questions

Time: 5788.74

during REM sleep.

Time: 5789.79

Best are those that have the most asymmetry or dissimilarity

Time: 5795.1

or dissociation between subcortical and cortical

Time: 5797.89

structures.

Time: 5798.49

Or it might be that they're the ones with the most symmetry,

Time: 5800.99

we don't know.

Time: 5802.69

I do worry a little bit about lucid dreaming,

Time: 5805.24

because people are-- it's a fad.

Time: 5806.59

People are really excited about it.

Time: 5808.048

And to be able to remember one's dreams

Time: 5809.77

is fun often unless there are nightmares.

Time: 5812.983

But it's really interesting.

Time: 5814.15

Or to be able to direct one's dreams if they are a nightmare

Time: 5816.67

is really a wonderful power to have,

Time: 5819.28

to be able to redirect a nightmare that

Time: 5821.83

has been repeated to something else

Time: 5823.48

and then kick yourself out of that.

Time: 5825.58

Repetitive nightmare is really nice.

Time: 5827.8

But I worry a little bit about it,

Time: 5830.11

because we know so little about what's

Time: 5833.14

actually going on in the brain.

Time: 5834.59

And if this lucid dreaming state is preventing us

Time: 5838.6

from, for example, from the locus coeruleus from calming

Time: 5841.15

down or the serotonergic system from silencing like it should,

Time: 5845.65

and maybe what we're doing during this state

Time: 5847.96

is Yeah we're activating the learning and memory structures

Time: 5850.75

but in a way that's maladaptive in terms of the erasure

Time: 5854.8

that we need to do.

Time: 5855.73

So maybe one of the reasons why most people don't

Time: 5857.98

remember most of their dreams is for good reason.

Time: 5861.17

Your hippocampus is in a state where

Time: 5863.05

it's not writing new memories.

Time: 5864.59

In fact, it's writing out its-- the memories it learned

Time: 5867.55

during the day to the cortex.

Time: 5869.11

And it's immune from incoming new information.

Time: 5874.27

So maybe lucid dreaming is bad, because you're

Time: 5877.96

activating the hippocampus in a way that's

Time: 5879.73

writing new memories.

Time: 5881.14

And it might be really maladaptive

Time: 5883.09

for things like PTSD.

Time: 5885.25

On the other hand, let me just argue myself right out of this,

Time: 5889.42

when I used to have a repeated nightmare when I was a kid,

Time: 5892.48

my mother who was so wise would tell me, well, listen, just--

Time: 5897.19

next time you're in that dream, say, hey, I'm in a dream

Time: 5901.51

and then change something about it.

Time: 5903.17

So she and I rehearsed what the horrible

Time: 5905.68

dream that it was, big monster running after me.

Time: 5908.71

And my legs were like mud, and I couldn't run away.

Time: 5911.12

And it was just terrifying.

Time: 5912.43

And that was a dream I would have time and time again.

Time: 5915.61

She said, OK, next time what are you

Time: 5917.68

going to do when that monster comes after you?

Time: 5919.733

I'm going to run away.

Time: 5920.65

No, that's what you do every time.

Time: 5922.45

And it's always the same outcome.

Time: 5923.86

You can't run.

Time: 5924.65

So let's do something different.

Time: 5926.485

What could you do that's different?

Time: 5928.01

So I came up with all--

Time: 5929.02

I could turn around and punch it in the nose.

Time: 5932.02

Yeah, that's great.

Time: 5933.1

And so the next time I had that dream--

Time: 5935.62

I did recognize this is that same old dream which

Time: 5938.86

means that there's part of my brain

Time: 5940.33

that's conscious enough to know that I'm in a dreaming state.

Time: 5944.2

And then I didn't have the courage in my dream

Time: 5947.08

because I was still terrified to punch or touch

Time: 5949.66

the monster in any way.

Time: 5950.89

But I did have the courage to turn around

Time: 5952.84

and look it in the eye and say no.

Time: 5955.113

That was enough.

Time: 5955.78

I said no.

Time: 5956.65

And that was enough to knock me out of that rut of that dream

Time: 5960.43

so that I never had it again.

Time: 5962.45

I never had that same dream again.

Time: 5964.54

And in fact, it gave me peace about dreaming,

Time: 5967.18

because I knew that if ever there

Time: 5969.58

was a nightmare that was just too scary,

Time: 5971.44

I could probably do something to change it and knock myself out

Time: 5975.25

of it.

Time: 5975.89

So even though, I don't recommend lucid dreaming

Time: 5978.67

on a normal day-to-day basis, if it's enough that can knock you

Time: 5983.53

out of a rut--

Time: 5985.39

one thing that happens with people with PTSD

Time: 5987.43

is they have the same repeated horrible nightmare which

Time: 5990.76

is often a reliving of the days trauma that had.

Time: 5995.84

So maybe lucid dreaming can be used on occasion

Time: 5999.79

to be a powerful tool, because there's so much plasticity that

Time: 6004.29

happens during REM sleep to knock you out

Time: 6006.78

of that rut of reliving that event and just change it.

Time: 6011.43

And you could probably practice that during wakefulness,

Time: 6015.24

rehearse the event that happened that was so traumatic

Time: 6018.52

and then just introduce a new element like, now, I'm safe.

Time: 6023.91

Now, the sound that was associated with that really

Time: 6027.21

traumatic thing, I should now associate with something else.

Time: 6030.54

And the next time I have that dream,

Time: 6032.07

I'm going to change it so that sound is now

Time: 6034.35

this new thing that it should be associated with safety.

Time: 6037.23

And that might be enough, maybe, I

Time: 6039.39

hope, to knock you out of that repeated nightmare

Time: 6043.56

and maybe even start you on the path to recovery,

Time: 6045.63

because if you can calm down about those nightmare

Time: 6048.33

states of sleep, then maybe your local coeruleus which

Time: 6051.36

is involved in stress can also relax.

Time: 6053.67

And you can do the erasure parts that need to be done.

Time: 6056.865

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I love it.

Time: 6057.99

I seem to recall a paper--

Time: 6060.06

and I'll have to find the reference and send it to you,

Time: 6063.32

we will also put in the show note captions--

Time: 6065.34

that described a protocol essentially matches this idea.

Time: 6070.59

And I think what they had people do was either cue themselves

Time: 6073.59

to a particular smell or tone in wakefulness

Time: 6076.32

then to try and recall a recurring nightmare.

Time: 6080.01

Then during the night sleep, they

Time: 6082.218

had the tone playing in the background which would then

Time: 6084.51

cue them to the wakeful state-- they're still asleep,

Time: 6086.85

mind you, but in the pseudo lucid or lucid state,

Time: 6089.43

and then try and change some variable as you're describing.

Time: 6093.27

Some either look the predator in the eyes

Time: 6095.97

or do something different.

Time: 6097.47

And then in the waking state, take a little bit of time

Time: 6100.65

to try and script out a different narrative altogether.

Time: 6104.55

And it took several nights, as I recall,

Time: 6106.29

or more but that they were able to escape this recurring

Time: 6108.84

nightmare.

Time: 6109.34

GINA POE: It's like a week or something, yeah.

Time: 6111.12

ANDREW HUBERMAN: So you're familiar with the study?

Time: 6112.26

GINA POE: That's a beautiful study.

Time: 6113.37

I loved it.

Time: 6114.15

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, we will put a reference to that.

Time: 6116.715

I need to revisit that study.

Time: 6118.2

It was pretty recent, but I need to dive into it again,

Time: 6121.32

because I think I didn't go as deep into it as I should have.

Time: 6123.99

GINA POE: No, no but the one thing that you-- you

Time: 6126.992

said many right things.

Time: 6127.95

But one of the things you said is

Time: 6129.325

that they were able to cue the dreamer when they knew-- when

Time: 6133.77

they were going to REM sleep.

Time: 6135

And then they played the sound or had the odor.

Time: 6137.76

Now, when you're normally asleep alone in your bed,

Time: 6140.157

you're not going to be able to cue yourself.

Time: 6141.99

But it might be that rehearsal enough before you go to sleep

Time: 6145.92

is enough to help cue you to that repeated nightmare,

Time: 6149.82

remembering what the nightmare is and then figuring out

Time: 6153.36

how to cue yourself to do something different.

Time: 6156.215

ANDREW HUBERMAN: For years, I had

Time: 6157.59

the same recurring nightmare over, and over, and over again.

Time: 6161.44

And it was so salient and so clear.

Time: 6163.15

And I'm not going to share what it is, because it's not

Time: 6165.442

that it's that disturbing.

Time: 6166.525

It was just--

Time: 6167.13

I think it was the emotional load of it

Time: 6169.47

and just how salient certain features were,

Time: 6172.05

like one person who's a real life person had

Time: 6175.68

a particular clothing on.

Time: 6179.14

And it's like, and that just served as this cue.

Time: 6181.14

And I don't know if I ever did any direct work to try and deal

Time: 6183.77

with it.

Time: 6184.27

But now, it almost seems silly to describe it.

Time: 6186.198

GINA POE: Oh, yeah.

Time: 6186.99

Well, dreams are usually silly to describe.

Time: 6188.782

ANDREW HUBERMAN: It pretty silly.

Time: 6190.157

But it was a pretty violent dream.

Time: 6191.58

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 6192.205

And your emotional system is so geared

Time: 6194.88

up during REM sleep which is another thing we

Time: 6197.22

could talk about.

Time: 6198.45

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Yeah, please.

Time: 6199.823

I would love to.

Time: 6200.49

Yeah, so locus coeruleus is ideally suppressed.

Time: 6203.43

So we can't release norepinephrine.

Time: 6205.17

We can't act out our dreams during these very emotionally

Time: 6209.76

laden thoughts and storylines during sleep.

Time: 6214.27

This almost starts to sound like a little bit of a built

Time: 6217.2

in while sleeping trauma therapy,

Time: 6221.13

because most trauma therapies involved

Time: 6222.78

trying to get people into states of counter

Time: 6225.867

to what most people think you actually

Time: 6227.45

want to get close to the trauma in terms of the narrative

Time: 6230.12

or try and suppress the emotional activity of it or--

Time: 6233.853

I guess that's the motivation for ketamine-based therapies

Time: 6236.27

for trauma--

Time: 6237.05

or I've also heard, and this is still perplexing to me,

Time: 6239.9

that other waking-based trauma therapies involve

Time: 6242.99

taking people the other way, making it very cathartic,

Time: 6245.24

take them to the peak of the emotional response

Time: 6247.52

but then allow that to finally cycle down

Time: 6249.92

into a more relaxed response.

Time: 6251.64

So please, if there's anything about locus coeruleus

Time: 6256.82

and dreams and that can help people basically extinguish

Time: 6260.99

traumas or traumatic features to real life events,

Time: 6263.877

we definitely want to know about them.

Time: 6265.46

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 6266.085

Well, I think one of the things that people

Time: 6269.09

thought might help after a trauma like a school shooting

Time: 6272.48

or whatever, car accident, is to talk about it.

Time: 6276.86

But in fact that ended up being counterproductive.

Time: 6279.082

And I think one of the reasons why it was counterproductive

Time: 6281.54

is because it didn't take them back down.

Time: 6284.99

It brought them up and continued to reactivate

Time: 6287.87

the emotions of it but then didn't

Time: 6291.05

emphasize the safety of the fact that it's over

Time: 6294.53

or help them work through how they might avoid it again

Time: 6298.01

in the future to calm the sympathetic nervous system down

Time: 6302

again before they went to sleep.

Time: 6303.62

And none of these studies has sleep ever been considered.

Time: 6306.86

But to me, that's the key part, is bringing down

Time: 6310.76

your sympathetic nervous system before you

Time: 6312.59

go to sleep so that your sleep can be adaptive,

Time: 6315.08

your locus release can shut off like it normally

Time: 6317.42

does or should do and then able to erase the novelty of it.

Time: 6323.37

The other thing that I just mentioned a minute ago

Time: 6327.2

was that the emotional system is highly activated in REM sleep.

Time: 6330.41

And that's definitely true.

Time: 6331.98

And that might seem counterproductive

Time: 6334.07

in terms of the nightmares and how

Time: 6337.52

to help REM sleep be a therapeutic thing

Time: 6341.66

rather than reinforcing the emotionality of the trauma.

Time: 6347.9

And I think the key to that again is

Time: 6350.54

the absence of norepinephrine.

Time: 6352.35

So even though the emotional system is in high gear,

Time: 6356.93

without norepinephrine, you can actually

Time: 6362.15

divorce those highly activated emotions

Time: 6365.99

from the cognitive parts of the memory

Time: 6369.65

that you have just written out in that N2 stage of sleep

Time: 6373.04

when the sleep spindles are going.

Time: 6376.85

So you've just now consolidated the information

Time: 6379.73

that you'll need to survive and to make that adaptive.

Time: 6383.36

And now, you need to divorce from that schema

Time: 6387.41

and from that semantic parts of memory, the emotional part,

Time: 6391.37

because whenever you remember something,

Time: 6393.86

it's fine if you remember the being emotional at the time.

Time: 6397.97

But you don't want to bring back and sew into that memory

Time: 6401.27

all of the same emotional systems.

Time: 6402.92

You don't want to bring back the heart rate

Time: 6405.59

changes, and the sweating, and all of that.

Time: 6408.53

You want to be able to remember all the parts of it

Time: 6411.11

and even remember that you were traumatized

Time: 6413.39

and that you did cry and that you did have--

Time: 6416.525

your heart was racing.

Time: 6417.74

But when you're talking about it years later,

Time: 6420.74

you don't want to have to relive all that, otherwise who

Time: 6423.12

would ever want to recall a traumatic memory because you're

Time: 6426.477

basically putting yourself through the same trauma which

Time: 6428.81

is what people with PTSD have.

Time: 6430.91

They don't want to recall this traumatic memory,

Time: 6433.46

because it's reliving it.

Time: 6435.14

Like it's just happening again.

Time: 6436.92

So that's what we're thinking is that the emotional parts are

Time: 6441.89

no longer-- are not able to be divorced

Time: 6444.44

because the norepinephrine system is not

Time: 6447.26

downscaled during REM sleep.

Time: 6448.82

And so that REM sleep serves to instead reinforce and in fact

Time: 6453.95

amplify the emotions because your emotional system is up,

Time: 6457.97

locus coeruleus is high, re-sewing

Time: 6461.12

in every night the emotionality of those memories

Time: 6464.63

and with the memory itself.

Time: 6466.79

ANDREW HUBERMAN: You've told us a lot about locus coeruleus

Time: 6470.45

and norepinephrine from locus coeruleus.

Time: 6472.16

Is there any role for norepinephrine, epinephrine,

Time: 6476.91

and cortisol released from the adrenals?

Time: 6479.67

My understanding is that norepinephrine and epinephrine

Time: 6484.2

will not cross the blood brain barrier which is probably

Time: 6486.75

why we have a brain-based noradrenergic system,

Time: 6490.32

locus coeruleus, and other neurons.

Time: 6492.81

Actually, that's a question I should ask you.

Time: 6494.95

Are there other sites in the brain

Time: 6496.05

where norepinephrine is released from

Time: 6497.592

or is it just locus coeruleus?

Time: 6499.29

GINA POE: So there are seven, nine different adrenergic.

Time: 6503.94

Yes, there's nine different adrenergic structures.

Time: 6506.813

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I'm sorry I didn't ask.

Time: 6508.48

But it just occurred to me that in some cases like with raphe,

Time: 6512.73

there are other sources of serotonergic drive

Time: 6515.518

in the brain.

Time: 6516.06

But raphe is like the main side.

Time: 6518.37

GINA POE: Yeah, that's the one that goes to the cortex

Time: 6521.09

and the locus coeruleus is also the one

Time: 6522.96

that goes to the cortex.

Time: 6524.19

But there are other adrenergic sources, some that--

Time: 6526.8

from the brainstem that descend and help us to ignore pain,

Time: 6530.46

for example, when we're stressed and needing to run away

Time: 6534.18

from the tiger, right?

Time: 6535.298

We don't want to be thinking, oh, my ankle hurts.

Time: 6537.34

You want to just be able to ignore it

Time: 6538.882

and go do what you need to do.

Time: 6540.45

So yeah, so there are lots of other noradrenergic nuclei.

Time: 6545.82

But the locus coeruleus is the main one that

Time: 6547.8

projects all over the brain.

Time: 6549.135

Actually, the only place that doesn't project

Time: 6551.01

is the dorsal striatum.

Time: 6552.54

You talked about ventral striatum and addiction.

Time: 6555.13

The dorsal striatum is the only place

Time: 6556.89

the locus coeruleus doesn't project to.

Time: 6559.23

And that's involved in procedural learning and motor

Time: 6562.29

learning, kinds of learning that take over

Time: 6565.26

when your hippocampus, for example, is compromised.

Time: 6568.173

Bilateral, if you don't have good hippocampus,

Time: 6570.09

you can still do procedural learning and do--

Time: 6572.28

and it's great.

Time: 6573

It's a redundant system.

Time: 6574.54

And so if your locus coeruleus is not

Time: 6577.5

working, if you don't have it anymore, you can still do a--

Time: 6580.608

if you don't have a good hippocampus,

Time: 6582.15

you can still do learning through this dorsal striatum

Time: 6584.37

on the structure.

Time: 6585.09

So it might be for those kinds of learning functions,

Time: 6590.82

sleep deprivation where you never

Time: 6592.56

let the locus coeruleus stop firing is OK,

Time: 6595.74

because it doesn't have any receptors for norepinephrine

Time: 6599.05

anyway.

Time: 6599.55

So yeah.

Time: 6601.08

ANDREW HUBERMAN: And what about bodily like adrenals.

Time: 6606.21

I often remind people there's no such thing as adrenal burnout,

Time: 6609.12

per se, that adrenals don't actually burn out.

Time: 6613.11

But some people have adrenal insufficiency syndrome.

Time: 6616.17

Other people have adrenals that are just

Time: 6618.06

chronically cranking out epinephrine, norepinephrine,

Time: 6622.32

and cortisol at the wrong times in particular.

Time: 6625.47

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 6626.79

So that-- those are great questions.

Time: 6630.15

And I think the answers to them have yet

Time: 6632.61

to be discovered, the connections

Time: 6634.05

between our periphery and our central nervous system.

Time: 6636.82

But we know that there are beautiful connections.

Time: 6639.12

And it's untapped source of being

Time: 6642.27

able to manipulate our brains is to work through our bodies.

Time: 6645.78

And so our adrenals do great things.

Time: 6649.32

They constrict our blood vessels,

Time: 6651.19

causing higher blood pressure which helps blood rush out

Time: 6654.42

to all the extremities that need blood, our muscles for example,

Time: 6659.28

for running away from the lion, or the tiger--

Time: 6663.087

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Or meeting a grant deadline

Time: 6664.92

or catching a train.

Time: 6667.26

GINA POE: Or catching a train, yeah.

Time: 6669.09

The adrenals help our hearts pump faster.

Time: 6671.46

Our muscles get perfused with the blood it needs.

Time: 6676.14

It diverts blood and everything away

Time: 6678.6

from our parasympathetic system which is rest and digest.

Time: 6682.84

We don't really need to digest that croissant

Time: 6684.898

when we're running for a train.

Time: 6686.19

We can do that later.

Time: 6688.18

So it's doing really important things.

Time: 6691.49

What we don't know, because it doesn't cross the blood brain

Time: 6693.99

barrier, is how that affects the brain and whether our--

Time: 6697.8

if we can independently activate our adrenals, when a time when

Time: 6703.5

our brain thinks that we should be fine and calm and asleep,

Time: 6707.52

how our brain detects that.

Time: 6710.1

Is it a feedback through heart is racing?

Time: 6712.68

And then our brainstem says, what's going on,

Time: 6714.9

my heart is racing, and then wakes us up.

Time: 6717.15

And then our hearts were racing together with our brain racing.

Time: 6720.9

We just don't know the answers to these questions yet.

Time: 6724.11

There are some good studies, old studies.

Time: 6727.35

But we need a lot more.

Time: 6730.02

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I will-- another nod to the fact

Time: 6732.12

that there's lots of great work ongoing and still to do.

Time: 6735.407

I'd love for you to tell us about some of the work

Time: 6737.49

that you're doing more recently on the relationship

Time: 6739.615

between sleep and opiate use, withdrawal

Time: 6744.9

relapse, and craving, just addiction, generally.

Time: 6749.76

I get a lot of questions about people trying

Time: 6752.82

to come off benzodiazepines or people's challenges

Time: 6756.9

with benzodiazepine and other types of addiction.

Time: 6761.19

What is the role of sleep in addiction and recovery

Time: 6764.1

from addiction and opiates in particular?

Time: 6766.2

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 6767.01

This is a very young area.

Time: 6769.17

And in fact, my laboratory has just started.

Time: 6771.33

I have a graduate student who's been in my lab

Time: 6774.03

for just one year.

Time: 6774.9

She's done amazing work already but completely groundbreaking

Time: 6779.11

work.

Time: 6779.61

And what she has discovered already--

Time: 6781.8

we don't have the paper out yet, but we're working on it--

Time: 6784.83

is that when animals withdraw from opiates--

Time: 6789.69

and this has been replicated in other ways

Time: 6792.51

with other types of things--

Time: 6795.03

our sleep is disturbed.

Time: 6796.41

Our sleep is terribly disturbed.

Time: 6798

And the amount of sleep disturbance

Time: 6799.89

predicts relapse behaviors.

Time: 6802.62

And you might think, well, of course,

Time: 6804.3

you're going to relapse if you can't sleep

Time: 6806.07

because opiates calm you down.

Time: 6807.48

Well, then one of the reasons why opiates calm you down

Time: 6809.772

is because the locus coeruleus, again, the blue spot,

Time: 6812.16

is covered with opiate receptors that

Time: 6815.61

are normally really responsive to our endogenous opiates.

Time: 6819.6

And so what happens when we are pleased,

Time: 6823.38

for example, or laughing or whatever,

Time: 6825.57

endogenous dodges opiates activate

Time: 6828.57

those receptors in the locus coeruleus and calm it down.

Time: 6831

It actually suppresses locus coeruleus activity.

Time: 6835.08

It makes us happy and relaxed.

Time: 6837

One of the things, reasons why opiates are so addictive

Time: 6839.61

is because it also calms us down and makes us relaxed.

Time: 6843.9

But the problem with exogenous opiates

Time: 6846.48

is that they really strongly bind these receptors

Time: 6850.68

on our locus coeruleus.

Time: 6851.95

And if you take exogenous opiates again and again

Time: 6855.268

like you're recovering from surgery, for example,

Time: 6857.31

and take these pain medications is

Time: 6859.44

that our locus coeruleus struggles

Time: 6861.09

to do what it's supposed to do which is keep us awake,

Time: 6863.94

and learning, and concentrating on things.

Time: 6866.22

So it will down regulate.

Time: 6867.96

It will internalize these receptors

Time: 6870.03

that are normally only occupied by endogenous opiates.

Time: 6873.06

And it will do this-- it will change

Time: 6875.49

our genes that are associated with producing these receptors.

Time: 6878.92

So you actually have very many fewer receptors.

Time: 6881.333

So the locus coeruleus, at least, during wakefulness

Time: 6883.5

can fire and to help us to do these things learn

Time: 6886.65

about our environment.

Time: 6888.16

And so if you long term reduce the number of receptors

Time: 6891.6

out there, then when you withdraw the exogenous opiate,

Time: 6895.14

there is not enough of your endogenous

Time: 6897.36

opiates to be able to occupy those few receptors that

Time: 6902.41

are there.

Time: 6902.91

And our locus has nothing to calm it down anymore,

Time: 6905.43

no pacifier.

Time: 6906.48

And it just fires, and fires, and fires.

Time: 6908.85

And that physic and tonic high activity

Time: 6913.35

stresses us out, because it's normally

Time: 6915.57

associated with stress.

Time: 6917.13

And so any exogenous stressor that adds to that

Time: 6920.16

and also activates our locus coeruleus,

Time: 6922.44

there's nothing to calm it down again.

Time: 6924.61

And so it just keeps firing.

Time: 6926.4

It disturbs our sleep.

Time: 6928.35

And that's why maybe sleep disturbance

Time: 6930.72

is an indicator of hyperactive locus coeruleus

Time: 6935.58

and such a good predictor of relapse

Time: 6939.93

behaviors because nobody likes to live in that high stress

Time: 6943.2

state.

Time: 6943.89

And they will do anything to get back to normal.

Time: 6948.04

So the problem with taking these drugs

Time: 6952.68

is that it leaves you excited--

Time: 6956.93

I'm sorry, excited, relaxed and happy.

Time: 6959.495

But then when you come off of it,

Time: 6960.87

you're worse than when you were at baseline.

Time: 6964.17

You take it again.

Time: 6965.92

It only brings you up this far, because you

Time: 6967.8

have fewer receptors.

Time: 6968.91

When you come off it, you're down, even more depressed

Time: 6972.09

and anxious and--

Time: 6974.19

depressed is a word I use loosely,

Time: 6976.32

and that's not what I--

Time: 6977.61

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Certainly, central nervous system

Time: 6979.693

depression, sleepier, less motivated, lower mood.

Time: 6983.16

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 6983.91

Our locus coeruleus is actually--

Time: 6986.025

it's a anxiety kind of depression actually,

Time: 6988.65

the anxiety related depression.

Time: 6990.09

So yeah.

Time: 6992.31

So we don't know yet what--

Time: 6994.725

and there's some good research going on right now--

Time: 6996.85

what could restore our own endogenous receptors so

Time: 7000.95

that our endogenous opiates can properly calm our locus

Time: 7004.61

coeruleus once that they have been tamped down

Time: 7008.24

by exogenous opiates.

Time: 7009.59

But that would be really one way that you can access the sleep

Time: 7013.53

disturbance.

Time: 7014.03

So we talked about sleep and the importance of sleep

Time: 7016.362

in terms of learning and memory, the importance

Time: 7018.32

of the structure of the 90-minute cycle for all

Time: 7021.14

of that.

Time: 7021.78

So you can imagine if your sleep is disturbed by too much

Time: 7024.38

locus coeruleus activity.

Time: 7027.305

The structure and the function of those sleep spindles

Time: 7030.92

and that theta during REM sleep and the lack of norepinephrine,

Time: 7034.85

all of those structures, all those functions for learning

Time: 7040.22

something new, like a new behavior that doesn't involve

Time: 7044.06

the drugs becomes compromised.

Time: 7046.94

And so that's something that Tania Lugo, in collaboration

Time: 7050.18

with Pamela Kennedy at UCLA, that we're

Time: 7053.27

looking at how is learning and memory affected by the sleep

Time: 7056.15

disturbance.

Time: 7056.75

If there's a way we can--

Time: 7058.85

in animals that are coming off of opiates.

Time: 7061.01

Can we restore their sleep to normal

Time: 7063.32

so that then they are less likely to do

Time: 7067.13

relapse kinds of behaviors.

Time: 7069.462

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Fascinating.

Time: 7070.67

And I will certainly have to have you back on to tell us

Time: 7074.242

the results of those studies.

Time: 7075.45

Meanwhile, I think for anyone who's

Time: 7077.13

trying to come off opiates, exogenous opiates

Time: 7080.79

and restore these systems, what I'm hearing

Time: 7083.25

is that it's going to take some time but that any and all

Time: 7086.49

things that people can do to buffer

Time: 7088.38

their healthy normal sleep architecture like morning

Time: 7091.8

and daytime sunlight, limiting bright light exposure,

Time: 7094.17

lowering the temperature at night, a number of things

Time: 7096.378

that we've talked about in this podcast--

Time: 7098.19

GINA POE: Breathing exercises, meditation,

Time: 7100.465

whatever it is that helps you calm yourself before sleep,

Time: 7102.84

yeah.

Time: 7103.14

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Right.

Time: 7104.098

Would facilitate not just sleep but perhaps even accelerate

Time: 7107.16

the recovery and shorten this period

Time: 7110.46

of withdrawal, which from the questions I get

Time: 7112.92

and from what I hear can be absolutely brutal.

Time: 7116.64

GINA POE: Yeah.

Time: 7117.3

Oh, I can imagine.

Time: 7118.53

I had to take opiates for--

Time: 7120.99

I only took it for three days after giving birth

Time: 7123.45

to my first son, I think, second son, one of them.

Time: 7128.832

And just-- I just said after three days, this is enough.

Time: 7131.61

I'm just going to try Tylenol.

Time: 7133.11

And so I weaned myself-- not weaned,

Time: 7136.41

I just did a sudden sharp cut off.

Time: 7138.42

And even though I felt--

Time: 7140.43

I didn't get the high of opiates when I

Time: 7142.98

was taking the Tylenol codeine.

Time: 7147.48

When I went off it, boy, it was like PMS times 100.

Time: 7151.14

I was so anxious and upset at little things.

Time: 7155.25

And thankfully, it only lasted a few hours.

Time: 7157.06

But if I had taken it for a week or two weeks,

Time: 7159.51

who knows if my endogenous opiate receptors would

Time: 7163.2

have been permanently downregulated

Time: 7164.94

and I would have been an addict--

Time: 7167.37

or an addict-- I would have been addicted.

Time: 7169.2

I shouldn't say an addict.

Time: 7170.49

There's negative connotations.

Time: 7171.9

It's just a very physiological state.

Time: 7173.7

So no judgments at all associated with it.

Time: 7177.34

So yeah, They're powerful, powerful painkillers

Time: 7181.29

but can also alter your entire brain and rewire it.

Time: 7185.22

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Well, all the more reason

Time: 7187.11

why I and many others are grateful that you're

Time: 7189.027

doing this work to figure out ways

Time: 7190.68

that people can recover more quickly and more thoroughly.

Time: 7195.88

I must say you've taught us a tremendous amount

Time: 7199.51

in a relatively short amount of time

Time: 7201.73

about the architecture of sleep, the different phases,

Time: 7204.55

the relationship between sleep and dreaming

Time: 7206.56

and this incredible structure, locus coeruleus.

Time: 7208.6

And I'm so happy we also got into the pons.

Time: 7210.55

That just delights me, because we rarely talk

Time: 7213.43

about the pons on this podcast.

Time: 7214.87

It's such an interesting structure.

Time: 7216.82

Sex differences that are important in creativity

Time: 7219.79

and problem solving and trauma sleep spindles, just such

Time: 7223.69

a wealth of information.

Time: 7225.07

And much of it that's actionable for people.

Time: 7227.41

So first of all, I want to say thank you

Time: 7229.223

for taking the time to sit down and have

Time: 7230.89

this conversation that so many people are

Time: 7232.9

sure to benefit from.

Time: 7233.805

I also want to thank you for doing the work you do.

Time: 7235.93

Even though I'm a fellow neurobiologist,

Time: 7238.13

I think that it's not often that we take a step back and realize

Time: 7243.64

that it's really the work of hard--

Time: 7247.93

thinking hard, strongly motivated PIs--

Time: 7252.94

it stands for principal investigator

Time: 7254.53

by the way, PIs like yourself, graduate students,

Time: 7256.63

and post-docs that really drive the discovery forward

Time: 7258.91

and that lead to these new therapeutics.

Time: 7261.07

Physicians are wonderful.

Time: 7262.33

Clinicians are absolutely wonderful.

Time: 7264.05

But clinicians don't develop new treatments.

Time: 7266.26

They only implement the ones that researchers discover.

Time: 7268.9

So thank you for being a brain explorer

Time: 7272.62

with a focus on growing the good in the world.

Time: 7276.65

I know I speak for everybody when I say thank you so much.

Time: 7280.21

GINA POE: Thank you so much, Andrew.

Time: 7281.71

Thank you for being an amazing interviewer.

Time: 7283.72

You brought a lot out of me in a coherent fashion

Time: 7286.78

that normally I can't do when I'm speaking in public.

Time: 7289.45

ANDREW HUBERMAN: I don't know about that.

Time: 7290.14

I've heard your lectures, and they're superb.

Time: 7291.73

We'll direct people to some of the other ones.

Time: 7293.47

GINA POE: Well, thank you.

Time: 7294.29

And I also want to put a plug-in for graduate students

Time: 7296.62

in general and the key and amazing role

Time: 7299.38

that they play in research.

Time: 7301.93

I'm a PI, as you said.

Time: 7303.67

I used to be a graduate student and a post-doc trainee myself,

Time: 7306.79

doing all of this on the ground hands on experimentation.

Time: 7310.3

It's so hard to do.

Time: 7311.797

It's so hard to do, right?

Time: 7312.88

It's so hard to think through all of that.

Time: 7314.63

Now, I'm a PI, I get to be an idea person

Time: 7317.14

and just say, hey, why don't you do this

Time: 7319.09

and hey, what do you think about that.

Time: 7321.16

And they, of course, intellectually

Time: 7323.68

contributes so much to these planned experiments.

Time: 7328.33

But they also do the really hard work.

Time: 7330.53

And so I just want to say thank you graduate students.

Time: 7334.245

Thank you to my graduate students

Time: 7335.62

and all graduate students out there.

Time: 7337

Thank you post-docs.

Time: 7337.69

ANDREW HUBERMAN: --underpaid.

Time: 7338.898

And listen, and to the major institutions, Stanford UCLA

Time: 7342.28

and all other major institutions, pay them more,

Time: 7344.3

please.

Time: 7344.8

GINA POE: Yes.

Time: 7345.1

ANDREW HUBERMAN: We need them.

Time: 7346.35

And they need to have a standard of living.

Time: 7348.43

I'm not afraid to say that despite my primary employer.

Time: 7351.04

Pay them more.

Time: 7351.708

They need it.

Time: 7352.25

They deserve it.

Time: 7352.917

GINA POE: They deserve it, absolutely.

Time: 7354.85

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Great.

Time: 7355.808

Well, we will absolutely have you back again

Time: 7357.715

if you'll be willing.

Time: 7358.99

And meanwhile, we will direct people

Time: 7361.15

to where they can learn more about you

Time: 7363.1

and your exciting work.

Time: 7364.06

And once again, thanks so much.

Time: 7365.59

GINA POE: Thank you so much.

Time: 7366.88

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Thank you for joining me today

Time: 7368.02

for my discussion about sleep, mental health, physical health,

Time: 7370.603

and performance with Dr. Gina Poe.

Time: 7373

I hope you found it to be as informative and as actionable

Time: 7375.93

as I did.

Time: 7376.43

In fact, I'm already implementing the regularity

Time: 7379.18

of bedtime plus or minus half an hour

Time: 7381.22

in order to get that growth hormone release.

Time: 7383.26

And I can already see both my sleep scores

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improving and my feelings of daytime vigor

Time: 7388

and focus and other markers of sleep health improving as well.

Time: 7391.51

If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast,

Time: 7393.95

please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Time: 7395.63

That's a terrific zero cost way to support us.

Time: 7398.02

In addition, please subscribe to the podcast

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on both Spotify and Apple.

Time: 7401.59

And on both Spotify and Apple, you

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can also leave us up to a five-star review.

Time: 7405.298

If you have questions for us or comments or suggestions

Time: 7407.59

about guests you'd like me to include on the podcast,

Time: 7409.67

please put those in the comments section on YouTube.

Time: 7411.837

I do read all the comments.

Time: 7413.5

In addition, please check out the sponsors

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mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode.

Time: 7417.85

That's the best way to support this podcast.

Time: 7420.28

On the Huberman Lab podcast, we often discuss supplements.

Time: 7423.13

While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,

Time: 7425.35

many people derive tremendous benefit from them for things

Time: 7427.84

like enhancing the quality and duration of sleep,

Time: 7430.03

for enhancing focus, and for hormone support.

Time: 7432.73

The Huberman Lab podcast is proud to announce

Time: 7434.83

that we've partnered with Momentous supplements.

Time: 7436.83

We've done that for several reasons.

Time: 7438.33

First of all, Momentous supplements

Time: 7439.84

are of the very highest quality.

Time: 7441.41

Second of all, they mainly focus on single ingredient

Time: 7444.07

formulations which is absolutely key if you

Time: 7446.29

want to develop a supplement regimen that's

Time: 7448.6

most biologically and cost effective.

Time: 7450.67

It, for instance, allows you to alternate dosages across days

Time: 7453.61

to change the dosages of individual ingredients,

Time: 7455.83

so on and so forth.

Time: 7457.12

In addition, Momentous supplements

Time: 7458.59

ship internationally, which we know

Time: 7460.198

is important because many of you reside outside of the United

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States.

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If you'd like to see the supplements discussed

Time: 7465.25

on the Huberman Lab podcast, please go to livmomentous,

Time: 7467.89

spelled o-u-s, so that's livmomentous.com/huberman.

Time: 7471.76

You can get a 20% discount on any of those supplements.

Time: 7474.37

Again, it's a livmomentous.com/huberman.

Time: 7477.34

The Huberman Lab podcast has a zero cost newsletter

Time: 7480.28

that includes summaries of podcast episodes and toolkits,

Time: 7483.64

so checklist of actionable tools that you

Time: 7485.86

can use for all aspects of mental health, physical health,

Time: 7488.41

and performance.

Time: 7489.34

You can access this completely zero cost

Time: 7491.53

by going to hubermanlab.com, go to the menu,

Time: 7493.75

and scroll down to newsletter.

Time: 7495.42

Just put in your email.

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We do not share your email with anybody.

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And you will get our monthly newsletter

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and there are also some examples of previous newsletters

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You're not already following me on social media,

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it is Huberman Lab on all platforms, Instagram, Twitter,

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Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Time: 7511.92

And at all of those places, I cover

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science and science-related tools, some of which

Time: 7515.67

overlap with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast

Time: 7517.89

but much of which is distinct from the Huberman Lab

Time: 7520.015

podcast content.

Time: 7520.98

Again, that's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

Time: 7523.812

Thank you again for joining me for today's discussion

Time: 7526.02

with Dr. Gina Poe all about sleep and its relationship

Time: 7529.59

to mental health, physical health, and performance.

Time: 7531.81

And last but certainly not least,

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thank you for your interest in science.

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