Dr. Matt Walker: How to Structure Your Sleep, Use Naps & Time Caffeine | Huberman Lab Guest Series

[Music]

welcome to the hubman lab guest Series

where I and an expert guest discuss

science and science-based tools for

everyday

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford school of

medicine today March the 3D episode in

our sixth episode series all about sleep

with expert guest Dr Matthew Walker

during today's episode we discuss how to

structure your sleep for optimal mental

health physical health and performance

we discuss monophasic sleep schedules

which are the more typical sleep

schedule where you go to sleep at night

and then wake up in the morning so

sleeping in one bout as opposed to

polyphasic sleep schedules which are

when you sleep in two or more bouts

either at night or perhaps a shorter

bout of sleep at night and another bout

of sleep during the day we also discuss

naps including how to nap how long your

nap should be whether or not naps are

good or bad in particular whether or not

they're good or bad for you it turns out

this varies according to individual we

also discuss how your needs for sleep

and naps vary across the lifespan and we

discuss body position during sleep which

might seem excessively detailed but it

turns out that body position during

sleep is critical for ensuring that the

sleep you get is optimally restorative

as with the first two episodes of this

six episode series today's third episode

is filled with both science that is the

biology of sleep and napping and body

position and how those relate to one

another as well as practical tools that

you can use to vastly improve your sleep

before we begin I'd like to emphasize

that this podcast is separate from my

teaching and research roles at Stanford

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effort to bring zero cost to Consumer

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huberman and now for my conversation

with Dr Matthew Walker Dr Walker welcome

back Dr huberman an absolute pleasure

let's talk about the different types of

sleep because I think most people think

of sleep as just one thing most people

sleep at night some people also nap a

topic we'll also discuss today

but turns out there are a lot of

different different types of sleep what

are the different types of sleep and

what do they do for us and um I guess

everyone's probably wondering already I

certainly am what types of sleep are we

already engaging in meaning am I

involved in or having multiple types of

sleep each night this is a fascinating

question and it comes back to something

we've discussed in a previous episode

the different stages of sleep and how

they unfold we've described that

fascinating stuff what you're already

asking though is is an incredibly sort

of subtle but relevant question how

should I be sleeping in terms of the

phases of sleep should I have one phase

should I have two phases of sleep or

should I have many phases of sleep in

some ways you can answer that question

on the basis of the lifespan because how

it is that we sleep in terms of those

chunking sessions changes as we

develop to be clear in

nomenclature I'm saying monophasic basic

polyphasic unpack that monophasic

obviously just simply means a single

phase monophasic when you say phase you

mean one bout of sleep correct so that

would be within a 24-hour period you are

having a single bout of sleep basic then

means that within that 24-hour phase you

are having two bouts of sleep and we'll

speak about how those bouts are split up

are they split up between two halves in

the middle of the night or are they

split up in terms of longer at night

Siesta like nap in the afternoon and

then we can speak about polyphasic sleep

polyphasic sleep we in sleep science

have been using for many years in the

context of infancy because there as any

new parents will know infants do not

just simply have a nice single bout of

sleep they're up they're down they're up

they're down and have many bouts of

sleep within that 24-hour period and

that's polyphasic sleep the other term

or the other application of that term

polyphasic sleep has been used more so

in the sort of interesting biohacker

movement and we can we'll come back to

that perhaps later on so how do these

different phases of sleep change across

the lifespan well we've already said

that when you're an infant and you're

first born within the first year of life

you are incredibly poly phasic and you

are probably going through wake sleep

phases every 2 hours why do you do that

why can't you just simply be born and

sleep in a monophasic way it's for at

least two reasons first an infant needs

to feed every two hours so their energy

needs and their food intake requirements

dictate that you can't sleep for very

long because you need to be awake to

feed and then you go back to

sleep Within probably the first six

months things will start to to change a

little bit but the second reason that

you are highly polyphasic when you are

first born is because your super

chiasmatic nucleus and in another

episode we spoke about this Central

master 24-hour clock that beats out your

Cadian Rhythm the rise and the fall the

wake and the sleep that has not yet

developed it hasn't been glued into

place into the brain this 24-hour clock

so the infant seemingly knows nothing

about when it's light or when it's dark

outside that just awake or sleep awake a

sleeve so that's the second reason

energy feeding needs is the first and

then an absence of yet a fully developed

24-hour clock in the brain to beat out

that beautiful dictated Rhythm by about

age one that number of phases of sleep

are starting to decrease but it's still

highly polyphasic it's not not until you

get to probably age two or three that

now you're starting to see this

consolidation of sleep what do I mean by

that sleep is now happening more

dominantly in the night phase of the

24-hour cycle and there a few abouts of

sleep during the

daytime then perhaps by the time you're

in kindergarten you may be down to just

two sleeps so now we've switched from

polyphasic sleep as infants to basic

sleep as kindergarten could you describe

that it was basic patterns I recall in

kindergarten um having nap time in the

afternoon they put out these little mats

and every every kid would just kind like

roll up it's actually sounds really nice

it's one you know wouldn't and we'll

speak about how some adults do this too

but almost every kindergarten system

that I've inquired about around the

world different nations they all have

this nap time and Any teacher will tell

you if one of those children does not

nap during that period of time they are

the Loose Canon they are the live wire

and in subsequent episodes we'll speak

about exactly how sleep harnesses and

improves our emotional and mental health

and how it falls apart when we don't so

that that's how it certainly is emerging

biologically and that's how we as a

society respect that and accommodate

that

and then probably by the age of starting

school so sort of five or six now we're

starting to see fully monophasic sleep

children sleeping long bouts at night

and then being able to sustain

wakefulness during the day at that point

you have locked in your monophasic

pattern and that will continue

throughout adulthood and into old age

with a few caveats that we'll speak

about so that's how sleep sleep unfolds

in the monophasic biphasic polyphasic

sleep across the lifespan it doesn't

quite tell you however how those

different stages of sleep change across

the lifespan so I've shown you the view

of sleep across the lifespan through one

lens of the microscope if we click down

one lens and focus more deeply on the

different stages of sleep there we see a

fascinating

story in uo for the most part you are in

a sleep likee State as a fetus once you

get to a certain point of

development in utero that sleep-like

state seems to be more so something that

looks like REM sleep now it's not fully

fledged full fat REM sleep yet but it

seems to be something very much like REM

sleep I say this because in the first

episode I told you as we go into REM

sleep

and we start to as adults dream the

brain paralyzes the body so that the

mind can dream safely those kicks and

those punches and those elbows that uh a

mother will feel from the fetus seem to

be during this dream state often and I

don't want to shatter any illusions of

you start singing or you're cing and you

get these bumps and these elbows and

these legs kicking and it's beautiful it

is beautiful but it turns out that it's

probably the REM sleep state but the

muscle sort of paralysis has not yet

developed so you're getting these

electrical burst this frenetic activity

of REM sleep that we described but

you're not getting any of the blockade

of the motor output and so it expresses

itself as these kicks and these

bumps and then during the first six

months of life and at that point in the

first 6 months those infants are

sleeping anywhere between 14 to 17 hours

a day that's it's immense isn't it I

mean it's right up there if you look

across the across philogyny and you ask

which is by the way a fascinating Topic

at some point we should do a a separate

podcast on sleep across different

species because I know like me you love

you know the whole variety of sweet but

you've got elephants who will sleep as

little as 4 hours and then you've got

the little brown bat who is the rock

star of sleep and it will sleep sleep

almost 17 to 18 hours a day it nudges

out the sloth in that sense wow can I

ask you a question about that little

brown P yeah does it sleep hanging

upside down does so it can't have sleep

paralysis in its little claws so it it

will it will not have that paralysis but

it goes through the stages of sleep very

quickly and this happens with birds as

well so birds that flock on a branch

they will sleep and they sleep in some

fascinating ways what some sometimes

with one half of the brain sometimes

with both halves but then you say well

if I'm on a branch and there's this

wonderful Force called gravity

underneath me and I go into REM sleep

and I have that muscle paralysis which

they do how does that work well they

only have very brief REM sleep periods

that last just for a few seconds and

then they regain their muscle tone got

it couldn't couldn't help but ask it's

genius the Flora and the fauna I

especially that the fauna um enchant me

that much so I don't want to draw us off

course but now we know that they can

that's why the bats don't fall that's

why the birds Don't Fall correct um so

when you are then as an infant sleeping

14 to 17 hours what's happening with

those different stages of sleep non-rem

and REM at that point we can't really

Define and separate the different stages

of non-r because it's not yet fully

formed but we have what looks like a REM

sleep active State and a a deep non-rem

sleep passive state almost 50% of the

time that an infant a newborn is asleep

is spent in REM sleep why do I say that

with some kind of wonder in my voice

because as adults we're perhaps down to

maybe 20% of our time spent asleep is in

REM sleep but 50% of the time when an

infant is asleep they are in rem why

would this be the case and across all

species that have REM and non-rem the

time when we see REM sleep in highest

volume amount is always after birth

there is something special about REM

sleep and its function during that early

period and we now start to understand

why when you are first born you are

still going through a huge amount of

brain

maturation and the recipe for the day

there unlike when we are teenagers is

exploding the brain with synapses all of

these connections throughout the brain

what we've discovered is that REM sleep

acts as an electrical fertilizer to

stimulate the growth of these

connections within the brain it's almost

as though you could think about an

internet service provider with this huge

new neighborhood and the first call of

business is to go in and wire up each

one of those homes with these Fiber

Optic Cables that's what REM sleep is

doing and if you start to deprive and

these were studies gosh done many years

ago by Howard rthor and others if you

deprive animals of REM sleep you stunt

the developmental growth of the brain

and presumably the whole animal and the

yeah as a consequence I mean if you look

at its social behavior even just that

it's profoundly abnormal because you

don't have that REM sleep developed

brain I mention this not because there

is any causal evidence but we have seen

REM sleep deep impairments in certain

developmental

disorders such as autism as well as ADHD

I don't think there is any supportive

evidence yet to come out with a claim

that part of the trajectory underlying

those conditions is abnormalities of REM

sleep but I it's a very active area of

research so it's a fascinating time

though during infancy when you get these

huge amounts of REM sleep why because of

what we call synaptogenesis is which is

simply the creation of sinapsis

Genesis then as you move from 6 months

across the next 18 months something odd

happens Total Sleep time starts to

decrease REM sleep starts to decrease

but non-rem sleep actually increases

even though Total Sleep time is

decreasing and there's a strange peak in

lighter stage nonrem what we call stage

two nonr and those sleep spindles that I

was describing in the first episode

These bursts of electrical

activity we will speak about the role of

those sleep spindles in improving motor

skill learning and we've done a many

many years of work in this area why is

that relevant to this phase of life

that's right around the time when

infants start to coordinate their limbs

in a skilled way and begin to walk and

we believe that it is part of the

process of the development of the motor

system enabling walking to begin amazing

so then things will change further sleep

time continues to decrease and by about

age five or six now the cocktail blend

of nonrem and REM is down to a stable

ratio that will remain throughout the

lifespan which is a 4:1 ratio so about

20% of the time that you're asleep will

be REM sleep and the remaining time time

will be 80% of that time will be non-rem

sleeping provided one is getting

sufficient total amounts of sleep

correct and getting it at the right

moments in time that we described in the

first episode getting that sort of that

appropriate chronotype match to the

24-hour clock that will certainly alter

those things too so that's how sleep

unfolds both at the first level of the

lens monophasic basic polyphasic and

then double clicking how the different

stages of sleep unfold and what the

reasons are behind that I then said once

we're adults we become

monophasic yes to a degree but there is

some contention about the way that we

sleep in modernity that we may not be

sleeping in the way that we were

designed to sleep which brings us back

to basic sleep in the first episode we

spoke about this strange after afternoon

dip in our alertness that happens called

the postprandial dip and it happens

somewhere between the 1 to 4:00 p.m.

region and it's measurable and it seems

to be biologically wired into

us if you look at certain cultures that

are not touched by modernity so we and

others have studied studied hunter

gatherer tribes they don't quite sleep

the way that we do and they don't sleep

the way that we do for at least two

reasons the first is that they will

often have a siesta like pattern of

behavior where especially in the hot dry

season they will take a nap in the

afternoon in the wet cooler season that

may not be the case but they certainly

have more of a basic pattern where

they'll sleep longer at night and then

have a short nap Siesta like and then of

course there are Latin and Mediterranean

cultures and they have this practice of

the Siesta like Behavior coming back to

the hunter gather tribes the way that

they also do not sleep in a similar

manner to that which we do is the timing

of sleep they don't go to sleep as the

sun goes down they will usually on

average as a group they will usually go

to sleep about 2 hours after Sundown and

then they will wake up not with the

rising of the sun they wake up just

before that and you think how are they

predictive of the light no the thing

that changes first before the sun truly

Rises is

temperature and temperature is a very

strong predictor that forces them

awake so when you think about how

they're sleeping then consider the term

midnight most of us never really think

about what the term means midnight

refers to the fact that it is the middle

of the night but for most of us in the

modern world that's the time when we're

thinking about sending our last email or

posting to social media midnight is no

longer midnight for society but it is

for them so should we be thinking about

midnight as the middle of the night in

the context of the uh extreme early

person morning person who you know

presumably likes to go to bed around

8:00 P.M wake up around 4:00 a.m. most

people hear 4:00 a.m. and they go oh

goodness you know that's early sort of

um you know like the the mighty Joo

willink is is uh famous for posting

images of his of his uh digital watch

usually I think it's 4:30 a.m. wake up

and that's when he starts his workout so

his Twitter and I guess they call X now

feed and and Instagram is a replete with

images of his watch 4:30 and people

think goodness that's early right but he

was a guest on this podcast spoken to

him before but he goes to bed pretty

early that's right most nights so in

some sense you know midnight for him or

for somebody with a similar schedule is

truly middle of the night that's right

right but for the other chronotypes for

people that uh prefer to go to sleep or

who naturally um get sleepy around 10 or

11 p.m. or even later um how should they

think about this basic polyphasic

business because um at some level um we

all have to

reconcile uh our sleep schedule with the

with the demands of work and family and

so on that's right so I was very

specific when I said the hunter gather

of tribes on average that's the way that

they will sleep but like the rest of

society there's a huge distribution and

there will be some proportion of them

who are a little bit like Joo who will

be on the early side of that on the very

early side of that but then there are

other people who are clear night owls

and they may not be going to bed until

you know 10: or 11: and waking up

later so there is a distribution there

you don't have to worry that my

statement of midnight on average that

does seem to be when we are dislocated

from all of the trappings of modernity

how a group of Representative humans on

average will sleep but there is huge as

I said differences from one individual

to the next by the way you can ask the

question why do we have these things

called chronotypes why is there such

variability in how people have a

preference for when they sleep wouldn't

it just be easier if

biology designed us all to be asleep at

the same time not so we mentioned in the

first episode that sleep is truly

idiotic in the sense that you know

you're not protecting yourself or the

people that you care about and if

everyone slept at the same moment in

time you as a collective and as an

individual would be vulnerable for an 8

hour period 7 to n hour period but by

way of this wonderful injection of

variability as to preferences for when

people sleep maybe there are some people

who are going to bed at 8:00 p.m. and

there are other people and they're

waking up at 4: a.m. there are other

people who go to bed at midnight and

wake up at 8:00 a.m. so then think about

that at some point what you've done is

that there will always be someone or

collection of people awake until

midnight and then will always be a

collection of people who are awake

starting at 4:00 a.m.

so as an individual everyone gets their

8-hour opportunity but as a collective

as a clan you are you've reduced your

vulnerability down by 50% because Mother

Nature injected the variability by way

of genetics of chronotype to distribute

that and lessen the burden does that

make any sense it does and it reminds me

of how the Circadian rhythm which we

discussed in episode one is about 24

hours not exactly 24 hours the rhythm of

the supermatic nucleus neurons that

generate the Circadian rhythm as I

recall uh is rarely exactly 24 hours

it's 24.2 or 24.4 and the idea in mind

the just so story uh is that that

variation allows for entrainment

matching to the outside light dark cycle

which changes across the year so you

don't want it rigidly 24 hours because

if there's any variation in light dark

which of course there is you know even

at the equator across the year there's

subtle variations but certainly As you

move away from the equator and so these

these uh variations in you know your

circadian rhythm uh clock scn supermatic

nucleus might be 24.2 mine might be 24.6

24 someone else

24.1 and in that sense um allows some uh

malleability to to matching the

Circadian rhythm to outside light dark

rhythms is that is that a a decent

parallel for what we're talking about

it's a beautiful demonstration that

there is always some it's almost wiggle

room in how biology is programmed

because some degree of sort of noise

almost sarcastic noise can be very

beneficial and it's much more predictive

of the way in which the world works and

it's much more adaptive for a species to

enact and to embrace that kind of

variability and yours was a beautiful

example

that it's about 24 hours but it's

certainly responsive to changes in light

duration across the year and it has to

be because we need to buckle ourselves

to the light dark cycle for optimal

survival and here is another

demonstration of where it's not about

the Cadian Rhythm but it's about the

chronotype distribution not within an

individual across the year but across

individuals at any one moment in time

and that variability once again provides

a biological

benefit in the first episode and again

now you're discussing chronotypes and

one one thing that I've been meaning to

ask is you said that chronotype is

genetically determined but that

necessarily mean it is directly

inherited from Mom Andor dad meaning if

your parents are both uh extreme early

morning types will you grow up to be an

extreme early morning type you already

established that during infancy and

development uh adolescence Etc that our

chronotype is somewhat masked by some of

the developmental uh um uh Necessities

um but once we reach young adulthood and

and our chronotype has been established

uh can we look to our parents to

determine whether or not we are more

likely to be in morning person or or

late shifted it's very unlikely to find

find anyone whose parents were both

extreme morning types who is a neutral

or an evening type and vice versa so my

guess is that people with if they know

of their biological parents and they

know of their rhythms it's highly likely

that you will at some point acquas in

your lifetime to being very similar to

them now there are certain life

conditions and contexts where you can

you know fight that um if you're really

into you know if you're someone who is

in punk rock band and you're touring all

the time even though your mom and dad

may be morning types and you may be a

morning type you're on the road you're

playing gigs there's no chance but at

some point let's say you retire and you

give yourself the opportunity to express

your natural Rhythm you will go back to

that so yes it's highly genetic it's not

enre highly genetic there is some degree

of modification that happens on the

basis of context and I've just given you

a good example of context and also your

exposure to light you can be someone who

is let's say a neutral like me but if

you're constantly invaded by Electric

Light at night you're drinking too much

caffeine and you're on your laptop and

your computer and your phone and you're

always activated by social media it's

very easy for someone like me to drift

and become a 1 a.m. to you know 9 a.m.

person that's not my natural type but

context and the environment have shifted

me but for the most part yes to your

question I'd like to take a brief break

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huberman okay so getting back to these

different uh phase opportunities for

Sleep uh clearly I'm getting the

language wrong here but vacular

monophasic basic and polyphasic um could

you give us a few more examples of

different types of biphasic and

polyphasic sleep so coming back to basic

sleep I describe one version once we are

adults which is the Siesta like notion

one long bout at night short bout during

the day and that bout during the day is

usually matching that drop in alertness

that we described it sort of hits that

sweet spot right there and it's quite

easy for some people to fall asleep in a

period between somewhere between one and

four 1 to four yeah and I know it's a

large window but that just allows us to

sort of know okay if you're someone like

yourself who's a morning type you would

probably start to want to nap a little

bit earli or if you were basic someone

like me a neutral probably an hour and a

half two hours later still

but there is a different version of

basic sleep for adults that has been

described in the literature and it's

fascinating but I don't think it's

biological it's the notion that some

people will have heard called first

sleep second sleep and now you are

splitting your sleep into two phases but

they're split across the night so the

idea is that you fall asleep and you'll

maybe have 4ish hours and then you wake

up and you then are awake for several

hours and then you go back to sleep for

another 3 or 4

hours if you look in history and the the

record of of human history it's very

clear that there were some cultures

doing this particularly if you look at

some of the European cultures Great

Britain in particular there is good

evidence that somewhere between about

the 15th to 19th century seems to have

ended during the kind of dezian

era people were describing this behavior

and they would wake up in the middle of

the night after about 4 hours they would

make food they would play music they

would write they would make love it was

a real thing and I'm not suggesting that

it did not happen it clearly did and

there's a there a great book that

outlines this but is it the way that we

were designed to sleep bif phasically

versus the Siesta like and I don't think

it is there is no good collection of

evidence if you look at the biology of

our human rhythms that argues that there

is this magical period of a huge spike

in Arcadian Rhythm that happens right in

the middle of the night that should

force us

awake there is one paper that's often

cited for this and in truth that paper

if you read it says nothing about first

sleep second sleep doesn't speak about

basic sleep at all

and that paper I think is unfairly used

as a justification of first sleep and

second sleep and the paper to me has at

least three problem it's a great paper

there's no no problem with the paper and

its hypothesis but its use as

justification for first sleep second

sleep has three

problems the first is the artificial

nature of the study they weren't

designing it to test the hypothesis but

they had individuals in bed for 14 hours

relative to a standard 8 hour period and

sure enough what they found was that

when you force people night after night

to be in bed for 14 hours somewhere

after about 6 or 7 hours they wake up

and then you can't get out of bed in the

study so you just lie awake and then at

some point I don't know if it's through

boredom or you drift back off into sleep

and that was argued as a clear

demonstration of this split sleep but as

I said they're awake usually for about

six and a half seven

hours also there was no magical

Awakening period it's a probability

distribution and what that means is if

you look at the data it's just more

likely that people will wake up after

about 6 or seven hours and they're more

likely that they will go back down into

sleep it wasn't as though the whole

experiment demonstrated a very clear

termination of sleep that everyone had

at that moment in time so that's the

first

issue um and the second issue which is

first issue it's kind of an abnormal

thing 14 hours forced in bed the second

is it wasn't a clear separation it's

just simply higher probability the final

issue is that it was a study done in

only seven individuals healthy males and

so I have yet to see it you know scaled

up did it happen first sleep second

sleep yes it did is there any strong

evidence that that's how we naturally

were designed and have evolved to sleep

I in truth I don't think so at least I

don't see good evidence right now

supporting that but remain open to it in

episode one we talked a little bit about

body position during sleep uh and how

different uh degrees of uh incline or

decline might impact uh some of the

features of sleep and I can't help but

ask now as you uh described this basic

pattern for people that were essentially

experimentally restricted to to the bed

um is there something about being

horizontal that makes us

sleepy there is and it's perhaps not for

the reasons that you would think which

is okay I'm just pre-programmed when I

lie down and my head hits the pillow it

turns out that it seems to be

temperature that when your body is

recumbent lying flat

horizontal the distribution of how your

body is able to move blood around the

different regions and decrease your core

body temperature meaning it can push

blood warm blood out of the core of your

body to these surface areas and when you

push it out to the surface areas you

release that heat it's this huge thermal

dissipation that happens when we move

Blood Out Of The Core to the surface you

emit that heat and your core body

temperature plummets when your body

temperature your core body temperature

decreases you have a higher likelihood

of sleepiness in fact it's very

difficult for you to fall asleep if your

core body temperature does not drop and

by lying down the body's what we call

vasoactive ability to distribute that

blood in a way that is permissive for

thermal dissipation of core body

temperature is superior and that's the

reason why we find it easier to fall

asleep lying down than let's say

semi-recumbent or certainly propped all

the way up and it's probably the reason

naturally we evolve just to lie down on

the floor very

interesting maybe now is a good time to

talk

about basic sleep in the context of a

about of sleep at night and the

afternoon nap you've mentioned this

postp parial dip that most people

experience between 1: and 400 p.m. that

many people try and combat with caffeine

we will also talk about Caffe

uh this episode um such an interesting

substance and I think the most commonly

used drug it is a drug after all

worldwide I think more than

90% of adults worldwide consume caffeine

on a daily basis that's correct and I

believe it is after oil it may

be perhaps the second or at least the

third most traded commodity on this

planet and it is what we call a

psychoactive stimulant is a stimulant

and it's probably one of the only

stimulants that we will readily give to

our children and you know not be too

concerned about it we'll get to caffeine

in depth uh a little bit later in this

episode but I can't help but uh just

mention that someone I think it was

Michael Polland said that you know

caffeine is one of the few drugs that

almost everybody takes just to quote

unquote feel normal yeah exactly you

know it's sort of I think sometimes you

know sleep deprivation is is

simply just the absence of of caffeine

and um so it's a very interesting

chemical which I have in truth changed

my mind on and I'm happy to speak about

why I've changed my mind but also some

God rails too we we'll we'll go there

meanwhile I'll take a sip of my uh

Triple Espresso here as we discuss as we

discuss naps are naps good for us should

we nap what if we don't like naps why do

we wake up from naps groggy sometimes

and other times we feel refreshed tell

us about

napping naps are both good and bad

depending on the situation naps can be a

double-edged sword in other words we and

others have done lots of studies on naps

and the benefits are fascinating and St

I'll tell you about one study we did we

had participants assigned to one of two

groups and at midday they all learned a

whole list of new facts so it was a

study about learning in memory and then

one group took a 90-minute sleep

opportunity sort of focused right around

that drop in alertness the other just

remained awake lying on a bed and they

just watched a nature

documentary and then 5 hours later we

had them do another learning session and

so they've woken up after the 90-minute

nap they've got through that sort of

initial lull that we'll discuss what

that is after you wake up everyone's now

back to operating temperature so in

other words I've had you try to cram in

a whole list of facts at midday and then

a whole list of facts new facts again at

5 p.m. and I can ask what is the

learning capacity of your brain at

midday and at 5:00 p.m. and is there any

difference in your learning ability when

you have had a nap in between versus not

and sure enough what happened in the

group that did not nap their learning

capacity gradually declined across the

day the nap group they were able to

sustain their learning and in fact if

anything improve it and the difference

between those two groups at 5:00 p.m.

was about

20% so that's certainly non-trivial in

terms of if you to say you know here's a

new compound that can boost your

learning capacity by 20% would you take

it I suspect it would probably make some

money so that's a demonstration of for

learning in memory we did another study

very much like that in terms of its

design but we looked at your emotional

brain and we were showing people

different types of emotional expressions

and having them rate them and we did

that firstly before an appp and then

after a nap versus um that same time in

sort of midday versus 5:00 p.m. and

another group did not nap and sure

enough the group that did not nap

by about 5:00 p.m. they were starting to

rate fearful faces and angry faces as

much more fearful and much more angry

but if you looked at the group that

napped it was different they actually

lessened the response to fear and they

blunted the normal increase in Anger

sensitivity across the day and the nap

seemed to boost how positively you rated

happy faces

so a nap there had the ability to reset

the magnetic north of your emotional

compass and there was a beneficial

almost added Rose tint to your world viw

glasses after You' napped what was also

interesting in those two studies two

different types of sleep were

transacting those benefits in the nap

group that was doing the learning the

learning benefit that they got wasn't

just about them napping and sleeping it

was about them having these sleep

spindles the more of those sleep

spindles that you had the greater the

restoration of your learning capacity

when you wake up for the emotional

recalibration that I described in the

nap that had nothing to do with sleep

spindles or even non-rem sleep it

required REM sleep to produce that

benefit so there are certainly many

benefits and we've look downstairs in

the body blood pressure cardiovascular

measures immune Health they all seem to

benefit so at that point everyone may be

thinking of course this sounds good not

to mention the basics which is your

attention your concentration your focus

and your energy all improve by way of

naps even your decision- making you said

decision- making yeah even your

decision-making is improved so your

capacity to make the correct decisional

outcomes based on this weight of

evidence that you're facing that's also

improved so almost all areas of

cognition that we've looked at and many

areas of your emotional and mood Health

we've looked at seem to benefit by way

of a nap at that point you're thinking

so then what's the problem the problem

is that when you nap you release some of

that sleep pressure that's been building

up so in the first episode we spoke

about a chemical called adenosine and

the longer that you're awake the more

adenosine that builds up the more

adenosine that builds up the sleepy you

will feel and after about 16 hours of

being awake you should have lots of

healthy sleepiness of adenosine in your

brain to put you asleep and keep you

asleep and when we sleep we are able to

clear that adenosine from the brain so

we wake up after 7 to 9 hours and if

it's been good quality sleep we're

refreshed because we've cleansed the

brain in part of that

adenosine when you take a

nap like a pressure valve on a steam

cooker you just Rel relase some of that

healthy sleepiness that you've been

building up so the the Dark Side of

napping is if you are struggling with

sleep and you suffer from insomnia the

advice is do not nap during the day

because you're setting yourself up for

an even higher probability of failure at

night why because when you nap you

release some of that good sleepiness

that we need to build up for you as

someone who is struggling with sleep to

give you the greatest chance of awai of

sleepiness on your

shoulders so if you are not struggling

with sleep and you can nap regularly I

would say naps are just fine and we can

unpack what is an optimal nap and the

protocol for what napping should

be I would say that's great the only

caveat is make sure that you're not

napping too late into the day and this

is one of the components of the protocol

of how to nap because napping late in

the day is too close to sleep and you

can think of it almost like snacking

before your main meal a nap late in the

day just takes the appetite edge off

your sleepiness so that when it comes

time for sleep you're not as hungry

anymore so just keep that in mind but we

can unpack perhaps the optimal way to

nap if you are going to nap and exactly

the dos and the don'ts of that if that

sounds of somewhat interest yeah that is

uh of immen interest to me and I know

many other people I'm a huge believer in

naps I've always enjoyed um short naps

of about 10 to 30 minutes unless I'm

somehow sleep deprived in which case I

will sleep for an hour or even a little

bit more but I make sure I set an alarm

U really based on advice that you gave

me which was to um first of all decide

whether or not a nap is beneficial for

for for me or for whoever is considering

that um but then to make sure that

however long that nap is zero to 90

minutes that it not be longer than 90

minutes because the real goal is to not

disrupt nighttime sleep that's right

which is essentially just a a more

long-winded way of saying what you just

said so how does one determine the

optimal duration of nap um and in

particular to avoid the problem of

disrupting nighttime sleep by napping

but also this uh rather common

phenomenon of waking up and feeling kind

of groggy or even I'm kind of grumpy the

post-nap face uh or we should call the

post-nap expression

right right the P NE what's your P are

do you wake up um in the and for morning

too some people wake up and they're like

that that face and then there's the like

good morning you know and I think people

that wake up with the good morning are

particularly delightful unless you're of

the post Snap expression that is kind of

the the crumpled face and then you just

you don't want to be around those people

right no absolutely

um yeah and this probably relates to

spirit animals and things like that some

people wake up like a like a cheerful

chipmunk and other people seem to wake

up like my Bulldog Costello where it's

you know um jowls still in contact with

the floor yeah so I'm P I'm trying to

hold it together and not Absol just fall

apart it's brilliant please trade market

so firstly to your question how to

optimally nap the word optimal is

interesting because is when you people

say how long should I nap what's the

optimal nap duration the question I have

back to them is what are you trying to

optimize because once I understand what

you're trying to optimize I can give you

a better prescription non-medical I'm

talking about here the a better sort of

you know protocol piece of advice for

how to nap I mentioned the study about

emotional faces in part for a specific

reason cuz I told you there the benefit

came by way not of non REM sleep but REM

sleep and in our first episode we said

that when you go through these on

average 90minut Cycles you get most of

your non-rem sleep first and then you'll

have this bout of REM sleep at the end

and it always seems to go that way when

you are a healthy normal person you go

into non-rem sleep and then you go into

REM sleep it's very rare that you ever

go directly into REM sleep there are

only two reasons when that seems to

happen the first is a clinical condition

called noopsy where you can have sleep

onset REM sleep and very rare the second

is if you are horrifically deprived of

REM sleep night after night after night

and I let you sleep then at that point

REM sleep the pressure for REM sleep has

been built to to the point of being

almost just insatiable and your brain

goes straight into REM sleep but with

those two things aside you go into

non-rem sleep first so I brought up the

emotional study of resetting your sort

of mood uh compass

because to get that REM sleep you had to

nap for a longer period of time because

you had to get through the non-rem sleep

first before you get the REM sleep but

let's come back to then assuming optimal

is for most people when they speak about

naps I just want the quick reboot I want

my alertness and concentration which are

failing because I'm staring at the

screen or I just can't concentrate on

the work that I'm doing I want my

alertness and my concentration to be

improved proved I want that sort of

slight boost in brain energy where I

know I can sustain myself for now a

longer period of time and I've got the

motivation which is really in some ways

how I like to think about energy as well

I've got the motivation the drive to

keep going which is just starting to

fail me to get those basic things which

is what most people nap for aim for 20

minute nap why 20 minutes if I thin

slice the nap duration and and those

Studies have been done where we look at

essentially what's called a dose

response curve I give you 5 minutes of a

nap 10 minutes of a nap 15 minutes 20

minutes 30 minutes 45 minutes 90

minutes after 5 or 10 minutes you don't

really get very much you will wake up

and you'll have some degree of improved

alertness and your basic reaction time

may be a little bit quicker but that

Fades very quickly and you don't sustain

that

benefit once you get past about 15 to 17

minutes now things start to look

different you get these nice benefits

for concentrational alertness and

motivation and those things sustain so

once you wake up out of that probably

really I would say 20 minute nap at that

point you've got some good wind in your

concentration and energy sales for the

brain and that will sustain you

throughout the rest of the afternoon and

into the

evening the benefit of the 20-minute nap

is that you don't get the

PNE trademark Andrew hubman you don't

get that almost sleep hangover so some

people will say it's strange I nap maybe

I'll nap 45 minutes 50 minutes and I

wake up and to be honest Matt I almost

feel worse after the nap than I did

before and I don't understand it it's

something called Sleep inertia

and an extreme version of this is in the

first two hours of your night of sleep

you get a phone call or an alarm goes

off and you wake up and you are just

kind of lost in the ocean you're looking

around at your surroundings you're just

in this groggy State you're half awake

half asleep and you can respond and you

can do things but boy does it feel

miserable and it's almost as though

you're going from the ground floor right

up to the penthouse suite but you get

stuck somewhere in between kind of you

know floor 13 and it's this rough

state if you go out into sleep light

stage one nonrem then stage two nonr and

just before you get into the very

deepest stages of non Ram 3 and four

that starts to happen around 30 to 40

minutes for most people but by cutting

your nap off at 20 minutes you still get

these nice benefits from a good chunk of

healthy non-rem sleep but you're not

going so far into the cycle so deep into

your nonr that when you wake up after 20

minutes you're not in that what we call

Sleep inertia phase that sleep

grogginess that sleep hangover phase so

it's a nice benefit that you get all of

these improvements in your brain but you

wake up and very quickly you're back up

to operating temperature and you don't

suffer that inertia now that's not to

say that when you sleep or you nap

longer

you don't start to get more benefits you

do and those benefits are both greater

in their magnitude and sustain for a

longer period of time they do it's just

that you have to understand the tradeoff

that you will suffer which is I will get

more bang for my book and I will get

more benefits but I will in the first

sort of hour or so have to understand

that at that point I may even be

functioning worse than than that which I

did before I even started napping but if

you're patient and you go through it the

rewards on the other side are

significantly better still so that's the

first piece of advice and when it comes

to how to nap I would say the dose and

the timing make the poison and poison is

hyperbole in here it's simply just the

poison being how much sleep and nurs

you're going to suffer so aim for about

20 minutes that's the do the timing

comes back to that which we described

before do not nap too late into the day

so what's the rule of thumb here for a

protocol on average for the average

adult I would say don't nap after about

300 p.m. 20 minute naps sometime between

300 p.m. and if you're struggling with

sleep don't do this at all if you're not

and you're able to get to sleep fine

this seems to be a good ingredient for

the basic return on your investment

again if you tell me what's the optimal

nap duration we need to have a

conversation to understand what is it

that you're going after here what are

the benefits and then I can sort of you

know create a finger Buffet Kaleidoscope

match to what you need and we can think

about the nap duration as a consequence

thank you that's very informative um I

have a colleague at Stanford who's a

Howard Hughes investigator which for

those that don't know is a a rather

elite club of uh academic research they

have to essentially try out for it they

can every 5 years they go up for Renewal

it's it's a lot of money which makes

gives them a greater capacity to uh take

on greater risk uh work higher risk work

um and he's also a member of the

National Academy and he was one of these

people that graduated high school at 15

years of age one of these phenoms and he

is so religious about his napping such

that when he travels to give seminars at

other schools he insists that they

schedule a nap time for him after lunch

and in his office um you know at between

12:30 and and 1: p.m. he's napping

everyone knows this and um and I mention

this because I think that um oftentimes

people think of the Nappers as the lazy

ones but um his output is um near

superhuman and he attributes U much of

that output uh to the nap not just the

post-nap work that he's able to perform

but his ability to uh just kind of

manage so many ideas he has enormous

laboratory and that's just one example I

think there are examples from sport of

um sprinters taking naps on the you know

on the side of the the track field I

mean so it seems that a capacity to nap

is also something worth considering

because I think many people listening to

this are thinking well I can't nap

should I nap you know um and can one

teach themselves to nap so that's the

question um if one would want to explore

napping and um is that something that

one should even consider doing if you

don't have a propensity to nap should

you avoid it if you want to try naps how

could one teach oneself to nap you just

mentioned earlier uh lying down uh

relates to body temperature body

temperature uh relates to sleepiness and

then as a third question I promise I'll

repeat these if we need to uh as a third

question I'd like to have a little bit

of a discussion about some of the pseudo

naap states that um I certainly am

intrigued by you know for instance just

lying down and I'm doing a progressive

bodily relaxation things like Yoga Nidra

uh non-sleep deep rest which is an

acronym icoin simply to to um make it

clear what I was talking about but it's

very similar to Yoga Nidra um things of

that sort in other words but simply

should everyone think about having an

early to mid-afternoon

protocol to reset their cognition and

their body we call it a nap but does it

have to be a nap and if we're not good

Nappers should we try and if so how

should we go about it yeah so TI your

three questions firstly if you're not a

natural Napper should you start doing it

um if you want to start doing it how

should you do it and then the third is

is there some kind of you know

substitute for a like kind which would

be these Li these I I'd love the

phraseology that you use these lional

states do they mimic that are they

different to that how should we think

about those the first thing I would say

to point number one if you are not a

natural Napper don't necessarily Force

yourself to be as long as you're getting

the sleep that you feel you need at

night and you feel refreshed and

restored during the day and you don't

have that sort of postrenal drop to the

point of thinking I almost need to nap

during the day there is no pressure

based on anything I've been telling you

for you to start napping nor should

there be any reason that you do start

napping but let's say that you want to

try what would be the right protocol to

improve and increase the likelihood

the best way you can do this is to mimic

nighttime as best you can so wherever

you are if you can shut off the

lights make sure that you can block out

you know curtains blinds if you can't do

that fully and many people won't be able

to develop an IM mask procedure um so

put an IM mask on make sure you block

out noise earplugs you can use a sound

machine if you want and we can speak

about sort of sound machines and whether

or not they're good or bad on sleep and

then you can lie down make sure that you

try to take your shoes off and get under

some kind of a blanket because we're so

Contex cued by having something wrapped

around us called a blanket or a duvet

that to do it without that if you are

not a natural Napper can help you again

that some people will say I can just

kick my feet up on my desk sit back in

my reclining chair in the office and I

can fall asleep that's great but if

you're not a natural person I'm just

trying to tell you things that increase

the probability of that and then set the

alarm I like your idea of making sure

that if you do fall asleep you don't

accidentally go too long and then just

feel miserable so mimic the conditions

that you're trying to get that you would

normally get at night that will increase

the probability mask out noise mask out

light kick your shoes off have some kind

of a blanket wrapping around you that's

probably the best and then time it based

on this sort of post pral drop you will

know yourself everyone has fallen prey

to it you know W it's usually around

about 3 4 p.m. that I do start to feel

this decline or it's around 1 p.m. try

to match it in accordance with that so

those are the first I think two

questions should you not necessarily if

you would like to and I'm not normally

doing it how can you do it the final

point I think is fascinating which is

these alternate states

of conscious brain activity the most

obvious is when we're awake and when

we're asleep those are the two most

dramatic changes in Consciousness that

we experience on a daily basis short of

anesthesia I've become like you very

fascinated by these sort of both

meditative States or these linal states

I think at some point you and I should

collaborate and we should do some work

and really unpack this but the reason I

find this interesting is because I'm

going to guess you are having sleep

likee States but you are not fully

asleep how would I Define a sleep-like

state what we've learned is that your

brain the way it sleeps isn't on mass

it's not as though your entire brain

sleeps different territories of your

brain can sleep in different

ways and what we've also known and

there's some argument even individual

brain cells seem to have a period where

they go into sleep and these individual

neurons will start to show what look

like these beautiful big powerful deep

slow waves in terms of their firing rate

at least in terms of those neurons

firing away I bring this up because if

that means that your brain can have

local sleep rather than Global sleep if

you are in global sleep you're out like

a light you are a sleep but perhaps

these Lial States the reason that they

give these benefits is because you are

still awake not Global sleep so if

you're in global sleep you're asleep but

you're awake so you're not in global

sleep but you may be having local sleep

now using special um setups in my

laboratory we can apply tens maybe

hundreds of electrodes all over your

head and we can map the the sort of the

the different places where your brain is

having sleep in much higher resolution

so rather than a you know 480 DPI movie

on YouTube I'm now in 4K resolution I

can really dismantle what's going on um

analytically in your brain I'm going to

guess that when you're going into these

states and you report coming out of

those states and I ask you on a scale of

1 to 10 how would you rate that as an

experience based on your common

experience the greater the intensity of

the Lial benefit and state that you

experienced I'm going to predict is

directly related to the extent of this

this local deep non-rem slow wave sleep

that's happening you're still awake but

some parts of your brain for maybe

seconds of time or maybe even tens of

seconds of time I'm going to bed will be

oscillating in what look like slow wave

sleep deep sleep States and if all I

would be able to look at is that one

part of your brain and that small

cluster of electrodes and someone said

to me is this person awake or asleep I

would say oh they're asleep they're in

deep sleep but then if you slowly reveal

and back out and show me the rest of the

brain and what it's doing I would say oh

my goodness no this person must be awake

but that local territory that District

up there in their brain they were having

slow wave

sleep I think that's what we could find

and that may predict some of the

benefits that you get some of the

productivity energy benefits by the way

I should note that with all of this nap

racket NASA figured this out back in the

1980s they were looking at ways to

optimize their astronauts because when

you are up in orbit depending on what

orbit you're in you are rotating around

the planet maybe 10 and 20 times per 24

hours so you're seeing 10 to you know 20

Suns sets and sunrises so your sleep is

a total mess and you can safety check

almost everything in terms of Technology

but the one weak Link in a space mission

is this thing called the human being

that's where errors typically happen so

how do you drisk a human error up in

space because if you make an error up

there I mean on the ground not great up

there kind of

catastrophic you can try to optimize

their ability to sleep and their ability

to maintain Focus concentration

alertness and productivity and what they

found was that these naps produced

almost a 20% boost in short naaps 20%

boost in their alertness and almost a

50% boost in their task productivity and

it was so powerful that it translated to

the terrestrial um employees of NASA on

the ground and it became what was known

as the NASA nap

culture and from there on we had what we

called power naaps Power naaps by the

way why are they called power naaps and

you think well just because it Powers me

up it's a good idea but it's wrong it

has a very specific story a fascinating

one two legends in my field David dingis

uh and Mark Rose kind they were looking

at how to instigate

risk mitigation not in astronauts but in

pilots who are doing long haul

flights because the most dangerous

aspect of a long haul flight is when it

is coming down to land and that's when

they can sometimes have these things

called a catastrophic hole loss which is

a euphemistic phrase for a terrible

plane crash and they were trying to say

how could you use nap

strategically to drisk that and improve

their

alertness and they asked a very

interesting question if they can nap for

only a certain period of time because

they have to be at work on the plane at

the for the rest of it when should you

place that nap should you do it at the

start of the long call flight in the

middle or towards the end and most

people would bet like they I think did

it's best to place it at the end when

you're really starting to struggle get

that boost and then you wake up you're

not in sleep in OA cuz it's been brief

and then you're energized for landing

they didn't find that they found that

the most optimal time to nap was early

on in that long haul flight and it

sustained them throughout the rest of

the flight now they took their findings

to the FAA who were funding the work um

and the Federal Aviation Authority here

in the United States and they said we've

got some great findings and we think we

should implement this and we would like

to use a term to help Pilots understand

this and it's called prophylactic

napping and of course there were many

Chuckles throughout the room perhaps

inappropriate and they just said look

you've got to understand our Pilots the

you know kind of alpha male guys and if

you're starting to say you need to

prophylactically NAB it's not going to

be adopted that's a noggo so they looked

around the room because it's an alpha

male culture it's a mostly masculine

culture at that time they said what

could we and there's a lot of beard

stroking and they said I've got it power

naaps it's got to be about power and so

that is where if you've ever wondered

where the term power naaps come from

it's not because it reboosts your power

which it does and boost it back up it's

because there was Chuckles at the time

prophylactic napping I'd like to take a

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huberman the naming of things fascinates

me especially in um the uh landscape of

health and well-being um also um and

that's one reason why um having become a

real fan and practitioner of Yoga Nidra

which I think translates to yoga sleep

which is this process of lying down for

a period of 30 to 60 Minutes Progressive

relaxation this is these are scripts

that are readily available as this is a

a uh age-old practice um in in India um

that is meant to restore mental and

physical Vig Vigor by placing one into

one of these Lial States the um and I

have great respect for the uh ner

tradition um but um sometimes the names

are a separator so people who hear Yoga

Nidra and they think oh it must be yoga

movement and that's of course not true

or they think um that there must be some

mystical component to it which is not

necessarily true sometimes they include

intentions and things like that but

often not so that's why I coin this um

uh phrase non-sleep deep rest which is

essentially maintains the

critical components of Yoga Nidra um but

doesn't include intentions and um has

these shorter uh 10 or 20 minute um

protocols so it'd be um great fun and um

I think very interesting for us to do

that project to explore what are the

brains uh activation States or

deactivation States as the case may be

in these um non-traditional or Lial

State uh practices now um along the

lines of power napping specifically and

the naming of power napping I think it's

more than than just a a um anecdote

because I think it is very important for

people to understand that um that these

protocols these tools that NASA and that

Laboratories have have developed um

often times are are for other purposes

but they translate to a kind of broader

significance and what I'm hearing and

what I'm starting to integrate as we

have today's conversation is that it

seems that there is pretty good reason

to ex at least explore basic sleep right

that that for the non-nappers to to

really think about whether or not they

would like to explore napping as you

mentioned they don't have to and then

for people who are already um napping to

really think about the placement of that

nap uh within the day and the duration

of that nap what you told us a few

moments ago suggests that I should be

doing or anyone that's doing naps or

entering these Lial States like nsdr

might want to shift them a little bit

earlier than uh the period in which they

first become sleepy to take that nap is

that right I mean like so for instance

should I do as my colleague and you know

finish lunch and and lie down for 10 15

minutes um rather than wait until 2 or 3

p.m. is that is that something that that

could make a meaningful difference I

think it could and I think it really

again depends on how much of a struggle

sleep becomes in the evening for you if

it is becoming the later that you nap if

your sleep becomes either a more

difficult to initiate in the evening or

maybe you don't have any problems

falling asleep but for some reason when

I look back I'm now starting to wake up

more throughout the night that in part

again it's not just that if you nap late

in the day you struggle to fall asleep

you may not the other consequence that

can happen which is non-mutually

exclusive is that you then stay in not

as deep as sleep and your sleep is more

some more fragile in that sense so the

probability that you will wake up

because because you had the nap so late

in the day is higher in the middle of

the night and then when you wake up like

many of us do and you go to the restroom

or It's Perfectly Natural but the speed

with which you can then fall back asleep

is compromised why because you've

jettisoned some of that sleepiness by

way of the nap and there isn't as much

to take you back down into sleep after

you've woken up so I would just say that

if you are seeing that pattern that the

later napping that you're doing if

you're doing that and again there's no

reason that you need to nap only if you

choose to nap if that's the case then

consider not necessarily obviating the

nap that may not be required just bring

it back earlier take it after lunch see

how things work out do the experiment

and when you do the experiment make sure

that you do what I would describe as the

onof on experiment which is where you're

napping as you normally do and you've

noticed perhaps some problems with your

sleep then do so that's sort of the the

well it's sort of the on off on phase so

then change your nap protocol and move

it earlier so now you've Switched Off

Your Standard protocol and you've moved

on to something different so you're on

your standard protocol and then you come

off it and when you come off it meaning

you go to an earlier nap and you say

gosh things do seem to be better maybe

he he had something there and it does

seem to

improve good but I don't trust that

because maybe it's just a placebo effect

that you you know hear some dulit

British tones and you get convinced that

maybe that would work and you've now

instead after about two weeks of doing

that and things have improved go back to

your original schedule go back on to

your original protocol I'm not as

interested about the fact that things

got better when we changed it I'm

interested in the question do things get

worse when we stop it and so when we

stop the intervention if things got

worse again now I'm I'm believing it a

lot more so just as a tip if you are a

self- tinkerer and you don't have to do

that but if you're idiotic like me and a

scientist and you want to do it with

this city riger that's the way I would

suggest doing it I don't think it's

idiotic at all I think it's systematic

and what you just described is uh both a

negative control and a positive control

experiment so you're you are a scientist

through and

through are there any individuals that

should absolutely avoid napping you know

I'm heard lore of you know um elderly

folks um folks with certain conditions

um you know can't imagine um which but

um I'm sure you'll tell us that for whom

napping is harmful to their health it's

a very I think interesting question

because the strongest evidence comes

back to that which we we've mentioned

before which is insomnia and really the

recommendation there is just avoid naps

it's and what's problematic about

insomnia when you are having such tough

times with sleep at night and you are

just dragging through the day it is

miserable and I am you know I I'm very

protective of my sleep um for the most

part I

sleep pretty well but I've I'm I'm not

immune to the vagaries of sleep I've had

two bouts of insomnia throughout my life

both have been what we call reactive

insomnia reactive to an event or

something happening and I know how just

desperate and hungry you are for sleep

and if it's happening week after week

month after month I'll just do anything

to get sleep when I can and the

Temptation therefore to nap when you are

suffering from insomnia is that much

higher and therefore the advice is that

much harder to adopt but trust me that

is one of the components that we have in

the psychological treatment bucket that

we use for insomnia which is called

cognitive behavioral therapy for

insomnia or cbti for short and you can

just look it up or um on my own podcast

I done a six-part series on on uh

insomnia so I would say try to back away

in that circumstance but you brought up

a another example which is in aging

there I think the evidence is a little

less causal so you have to be more

cautious about recommending the absence

as I was with insomnia of abstaining

from naps but the data has now become

quite strong that when you get past

about 65 years old and you look at

napping behavior in large

epidemiological studies and you say is

there a positive benefit in aging for

napping or is there no benefit at all

and they looked at that because they

thought well that perhaps based on the

work in healthy adults that I've

described that would be good for older

adults not only did they find that it

wasn't good they found that it was

deleterious that napping in older adults

was predictive of worse Health outcomes

and it also seemed to predict a higher

likelihood of early

mortality so at this point we're

thinking well how does that fit with

everything you've been telling us it

comes back to this notion of bad sleep

at night it's probably not necessarily

that napping during the day is bad for

older

adults it's that the Naps reflect a

problem with the night of sleep for

older adults and as we get older

something I didn't mention during

development was that yes we get this

sort of State Lael ratio of 4 to1 of one

part REM sleep four parts non-rem in our

7 to9 hours and I described these

changes in rem early in development I

didn't mention two things about non-rem

slow wave activity first as we go into

our teenage years and we shift our sort

of timing of sleep where we want to go

to bed later and wake up later that's

biologically determined it's not

teenagers fault something happens with

their deep sleep however their deep

sleep starts to do a

different or different action to the

brain that REM sleep was doing as an

infant I said that during infancy we

have huge amounts of REM sleep and were

growing sinapsis syap Genesis and we

wiring up all of those new territories

all of these new neighborhoods with

fiberoptic cable but let's say that

you've now run the experiment across

many years through until teenagehood of

those neighborhoods and you've been

measuring the bandwidth consumption of

each individual house and you've started

to realize well I wanted to create a big

spread across the brain and then I'm

just going to let experience over the

next years time tell me which parts of

the brain seem to enjoy that high

bandwidth and which parts don't seem to

use it very much and as we go through

into our teenage years we go through

something called synaptic pruning where

the brain actually calls and takes away

copses from certain parts of the brain

it seems to be that this change in slow

wave sleep that happens around these

adolescent years is performing the act

of final cortical

maturation that it's downscaling the

synapses and fine-tuning the brain so

you've got this beautiful efficiency and

now you've throttled back some of the

bandwidth from some of those

neighborhoods because they just don't

use it very much and you can move it

over into the territories that are

demanding more bandwidth and net net the

brain is downscaled but it's improved

its efficiency in the sense that those

regions that need it and are working

hard based on what we think this

organism has been doing over the past

you know 13 years that's where we need

to now place our bets but as we get

through into our older years and this

will come back to this issue of napping

don't

worry stick with me here folks um the

reason is that as we're getting older

our sleep de

deines but it's not just all sleep

declines deep sleep declines most

dramatically and we all think of aging

from brain perspective as cognitive

decline that our learning and memory

abilities begin to fade and Decline and

they do but I would argue that a

physiological signature of Aging is that

your sleep gets worse and particularly

your deep sleep what's perhaps

concerning for people listening to this

right now is that that decline in deep

Sleep doesn't start happening in your

60s or your 50s or even your 40s we can

start to pick up that great sleep

decline beginning in your mid to late

30s and then it just decreases and by

age 50 you are down to about 50% of the

deep non-rem sleep that you were having

when you were 17 or 18 by age 65 and

over or certainly by age 75 you are down

to about just 5% of the deep sleep that

you had when you were 17 or 18 which is

a stunning

decline what that means comes back to

the first episode we spoke about the

four macros of good sleep quantity

quality timing and regularity one of the

measures of quality that I described to

you was this electrical quality of deep

sleep the other measure of quality sleep

I spoke about was how consolid ated and

consistent your sleep is versus how

fragmented your sleep is the measure of

Sleep Quality is markedly compromised as

we get older we're waking up many more

times our sleep is much more fragmented

and therefore our sleep efficiency is

worse and we've got this huge decline in

our deep non-rm sleep so no wonder then

when you are awake during the day as an

older adult Your Sleep Quality is so

compr promised at that stage you perhaps

try to compensate by way of napping but

that compromised quality of sleep that

you're having at night is probably the

reason that you start to get sick more

that you have a higher probability of

illness and disease and why also you

probably have a higher risk of premature

mortality so in other words it's the bad

quality of sleep at night that leads to

this behavior that we call daytime

napping in older adults

that seems to indirectly suggest oh my

goodness it's daytime napping that's bad

and that causes these problems when in

fact it's that daytime napping is a

proxy for the bad sleep that's happening

at night and it's really the bad sleep

that's happening at night that is more

directly related to the health and

mortality concerns in older adults so

that's why I think right now as a field

I'm still open to evidence that napping

for some reason that we just do not

understand right now is problematic and

does causally predict worse health and a

shorter lifespan in older adults I think

the best evidence that we have right now

is that it's actually the bad quality of

sleep at night and thus we should not be

necessarily jumping to recommendations

that all older adults should stop

napping I think we need more evidence

and I'm open to both sides of that let's

talk about caffeine uh I've heard the

ter term uh is it

napino yeah I I I think it um refers to

a practice of drinking some caffeine

then laying down for a nap and then

supposedly waking up um feeling more

refreshed my understanding and you'll

tell us more of course is that caffeine

um is effectively an adenosine

antagonist although it's a competitive

Agonist and you'll explain I'm sure um

and napping as you mentioned before uh

removes some of the Sleep pressure AKA

uh wipes away some of that uh adenosine

that's accumulated um both of which

sound great but as you mentioned earlier

there's a warning there as well uh the

warning label on uh both those things

should be that having sufficient

adenosine built up in your brain is one

of the ways in which you feel sleepy at

night and fall asleep and stay asleep

yeah so what's the story with caffeine

how does it work uh to make us feel more

alert and

um what is the rationale for the

nappuccino the nappuccino also known as

the caffeine nap caffeine is a very

interesting compound in relationship to

sleep and wake obviously everyone knows

that caffeine can help you stay awake

it's no coincidence that those two words

that you've used about these chemical

compounds caffeine and adenosine sound

the same it's because the re receptor

that or the receptor systems that

caffeine Targets in your brain are the

adenosine

receptors and you think well Matt was

telling me that the more adenosine that

builds up in other words the more

adenosine that's latching onto those

adenosine receptors in your brain the

sleepier that you feel and I'm telling

you that caffeine works on those same

receptors that doesn't make sense

caffeine if it's working on those same

receptors should increase your

sleepiness it doesn't because it when it

binds onto those adenosine receptors

those welcome sites in the brain it

simply blocks them it doesn't deactivate

them nor does it activate them it simply

blocks them so think about it almost a

little bit like um a room that's full of

chairs and at some point these adenosine

which is one collection of people with

the name badges of adenosine they would

normally like to come in and start

sitting down on those seats which are

the adenosine receptors and as they sit

down on those seats you're building up

this signal of sleepiness well caffeine

which is another group of people with

caffeine badges they race into the room

and they start to hijack the seats and

they start to sit down on them and all

of a sudden adenosine can't find any

seats to sit on so your brain is still

flooding that room with adenosine so the

adenosine is still building up but the

reason that you don't feel sleepy

anymore when you've had a shot of

caffeine is because caffeine is raced in

it's latched onto the

receptors and it has essentially hit the

mute button on your

sleepiness so now your brain was

thinking gosh I've been awake for about

13 or 14 hours I'm starting to feel it

I'm just going to take a quick espresso

shot and you get that you think well

hang on a second you know 20 30 minutes

later I don't feel as tied anymore why

it's not because caffeine came in and

removed the adenosine it didn't caffeine

has come in blocked the sights but the

the adenosine is still building

up and then at some point the caffeine

wors off and therefore not only do you

go back to the same level of Denine of

adenosine that you did 2 hours ago it's

that plus the additional 2 hours of

adenosine that has been building up and

what you experience is something called

a caffeine crash and now you need even

more caffeine not just to get you back

to where you were but to recover the

crash that you've had and go

further caffeine in relationship to the

caffeine nap though the

napino is relevant because of its

timing caffeine has an instigating

action of around uh 12 14 to 17 minutes

so when you come through in the morning

and you grab your first cup of coffee

and within the first four or five

minutes you you say I just I just feel

better I've just had a couple of sips

I've had half a cup of coffee and I

already feel better I just needed that

if it's within the first five minutes

that you're experiencing that it's got

nothing to do with the caffeine because

the peak plasma concentration of your

caffeine is not going to arrive with you

until about you know 12 to 17 minutes so

why do you feel better some of it is

Placebo because you're smelling the

coffee and you associate it with the L

it's really not that though or or um

when you say Placebo I also wonder

whether or not it's possibly a a

conditioned effect you know like a

pavlovian thing because the smell of the

coffee the taste of the coffee the the

hum of the machine the walking into the

cafe

to to um and ordering it from the

Barista also creates an anticipatory

arousal like here the the alertness is

coming and in that anticipation there's

its own form of alertness I think that's

that's certainly a big component of it

the other component however if you look

at the data is that it's got nothing to

do with the caffeine in that moment it's

the temperature that most people take

their caffeine warm either it's tea or

it's coffee or it's perhaps something

else that Andrew hubman would drink but

many people yamate since since I was 5

years old I don't I don't know if I

should have been drinking uh caffeine

yerbamate so young maybe even four years

old there's a photo of me on my

grandfather's lap drinking out of the

mate gourd half my family is Argentine

and um so I was caffeinated from a young

age this brain developed in a

caffeinated millu this explains so much

about what I've known of you over these

no I'm kidding you um so um but we need

to speak later no so what's interesting

about that is it's the

temperature and I told you in the first

episode that we need to cool down

to stay asleep but we need to initially

warm up to fall asleep because warming

up at that moment I was telling you is

warming up at the periphery a warm up to

cool down to fall asleep so you need to

warm up to cool down to fall asleep then

you need to stay cool to stay asleep and

then you need to warm up to wake up the

warming up to cool down to fall asleep

is not warming up in the middle deep

core of your body it's about warming up

the hands and the feet and the head to

dissipate the heat hence warm up the

outer surfaces to cool down the inner

core to fall asleep but then I told you

you have to warm up to wake up and when

we take a hot drink in the morning

usually caffeinated the change in your

core body temperature can happen with

within a handful of minutes so the

initial benefit that you get from the

hot cup of coffee in the morning or hot

tea is from the temperature rise and

then you get this beautiful second kick

from the caffeine itself and that

caffeine can then sustain for a longer

period of

time so we mentioned this problem with

napping that even at 25 or 30 minutes of

a nap you wake up with that kind of

grogginess that sleep

inertia and what however if I could give

you the benefits of a nap and have you

come out of the nap with zero sleep

inertia and that's what some folks

started to cleverly think

about what if I could look at the timing

of the optimal nap maybe 20 minutes and

think about the timing of when Peak

plasma concentration of caffeine emerges

and I told you really starts to kick

into gear around 17 minutes and it's in

full swing by 20 what if I was creative

I'm going to withhold from saying

idiotic enough but creative enough to

get into bed just before I turn the

light out for my nap in the afternoon I

Swig a quick

espresso light goes

off I close my eyes eye mask earplugs

and I'm going to drift off fine because

the the caffeine is not going to kick in

and for another 17 20 minutes perhaps at

its full threshold so now you you fall

in to sleep and you're going down into

sleep and if you perhaps don't make it

too large in terms of its serving the

temperature change is not going to

affect you in a negative way and then

just as your alarm clock is about to go

off after 20 minutes you're on the

beautiful ascending swing of upward

plasma concentration of caffeine and you

get ejected out the other side with both

the benefits of the nap together with

the benefits of the caffeine so you get

your cake and you can eat it too you get

the nap absent the Sleep inertia and

hence this created what we call the

caffeine nap I love it the nappuccino

the the nappuccino um maybe I'll give it

a try uh this is the first time I've

ever heard the um the rationale and the

the the fine structure of the nappuccino

but it makes sense um uh at a logical

and mechanistic level I have to ask is

there anything besides caffeine and

sleep that can clear

adenosine you know can exercise clear

adenosine can uh cold shower clear

adenosine I mean and I understand that

there are a bunch of competing

mechanisms in the body like presumably a

spike in norepinephrine or adrenaline or

both is going to impact the adenosine

system I I once heard a great quote um

from a former uh

member of the National Academy of

Sciences a brilliant guy he said you

know a a drug is a substance that when

injected into an animal or a human

produces a scientific publication

meaning meaning it is it is rare to find

a paper that doesn't see some effect of

some drug especially on sleep I'm told

as I recall if you put aspirin REM sleep

into PubMed you're going to see some

effect on REM sleep people take asper

pretty much any substance that one takes

is going to to alter um some feature of

sleep or of wakeful States if one is

looking with a fine enough uh instrument

or is that an overstatement no I don't

think it is an overstatement and it

comes back to the first episode where we

described the complexity this incredible

beautiful physiological ballet certainly

one of the recommendations when people

say I get this afternoon this post

prandy will drop in my alertness what

can I do I say you could nap but another

way is just get outside and walk around

be physically active some of that has to

do with the fact that you'll probably

get some daylight and daylight can be a

stimulator of alertness as long you've

told us and educated us on we also know

that physical activity by itself can

increase the amount of endorphins and

dorphin and those are wake promoting but

none of those are really necessarily

going to be altering adenosine they're

simply overriding the adenosine that is

still building up it really does seem to

be for the most part at least as all

that I know it's only sleep and

particularly non-rem sleep that has the

capacity to or give the brain the chance

to remove that adenosine now what could

be interesting I think is two

circumstances one is where your brain

becomes less metabolically active for

another reason and I told you that it's

not joring it's not as though during

deep non-rm sleep that there is some

special pulsing cleansing mechanism for

adenosine there is a cleansing system

called the glymphatic system which

removes the toxic metabolic byproducts

of the waking day wakefulness in some

ways is biochemically low-level brain

damage and sleep is sanitary salvation

in that regard knew um but which is

again it's humoristic and it's it's it's

going too far but it makes a point the

idea here however is that it's not that

there is a special system that is

removing the adenosine during deep nonm

sleep it's just that your brain is less

metabolically active and therefore it's

not producing as much adenosine so the

natural mechanisms that are always

occurring in the background to be

clearing adenosine and degrading it

simply get the chance to do that just as

effectively as they have but you're no

longer working against the opposite tide

that is growing the adenosine now the

adenosine increase has dissipated

because you're no long longer

metabolically active during deep sleep

and you get the chance to cleanse it all

of which is to say therefore that and

that would mimic that such as for

example anesthesia my guess is that you

probably do jettison some sleep pressure

when you are in

anesthesia I also think that these Lial

States non sleep deep rest could be a

fascinating territory there because at

that point I'm going to guess and we'll

be able to see with the e G and we may

also be able to do some Imaging

depending on how we you and I design the

study to look at what changes in the

brain in terms of its activation State

my guess is that if it does put you into

something like slow wave activity

patterns that means that those

territories of the brain are

metabolically less active and that

allows the brain to dissipate the

adenosine so to your point I don't think

things like necessarily exercise or

light change a Denine level

they do give a nice alertness benefit

for other reasons but is there an

alternative way of dissipating adenosine

yes I think anything that mimics a non

or less metabolically active brain could

produce these beautiful adenosine

benefits thank you for that this brings

me to a question about the period

immediately after waking from the

nightly bout of sleep um I've been uh

touting the benefits of delaying one's

caffeine intake by 90 to 120 minutes

after waking there's a little bit of a

misconception out there I think people

um ran with the ball uh assuming that I

was mandating this or think or

suggesting that everyone should do this

and that's simply not the case uh I

actually wake up and I'll hydrate and

drink caffeine very close to waking if

I'm going to exercise soon after yeah um

which I often do um but I've experienced

and I know others um have experienced if

they are not going to exercise

immediately or they don't need caffeine

to exercise for whatever reason I've

heard these people exist I'm no such M

mutant um that delaying their caffeine

intake by 90 to 120 Minutes in some

cases can offset the afternoon crash now

I want to be clear some of that may be

offsetting the afternoon consumption of

more caffeine because by delaying your

caffeine intake in the morning then

perhaps there's less of an incentive or

requirement to drink caffeine in the

afternoon and all of which dominoes to

as we'll talk about more in the series

to better sleep at night because you

you're not ingesting caffeine close to

bedtime but at risk of taking a massive

tangent here's what I'd like to know

based on what you just told

us if

indeed

sleep and

lower metabolic activity in certain

brain regions can help reduce adenosine

levels in the

brain one could imagine that upon

waking it is either a step function from

okay you know let's say at um 5:45 a.m.

somebody is asleep and adenosine is

still being cleared away because they're

asleep and then they wake up boom does

adenosine clearance immediately stop

well for people who have that um

crumpled face uh grogginess um and they

wake up at 5:45 maybe even by way of

alarm although we don't uh suggest that

right and they stagger into the kitchen

and um ordinarily they'd make their cup

of coffee but they're in a pseudo sleep

state so it stands to reason that

they're still clearing adenosine now if

they are to drink caffeine right away

then they're as you pointed out going to

block those adenosine receptors and

there's going to be a continued buildup

of adenosine as opposed to a clearance

of adenosine so this was um part not the

entire reason but part of the rationale

for suggesting that people at least

explore delaying caffeine slightly and

then there are things like the cortisol

rise and Etc but um does that kind of

framework at least make logical sense

that doesn't mean it would hold up in a

randomized controlled trial but given

that we're talking about essentially

zero risk protocols here um what are

your thoughts on that I think it is good

advice for people to test and it's good

advice for two reasons the first is that

which you describe in some ways by

taking caffeine on early and masking

that

adenosine also caffeine can make your

brain more metabolically active which

means that you're going to build up more

adenosine during the day which means

that sleepiness is going to arrive

earlier which means that perhaps that

postprandial drop is going to be you

know harsher and you're going to perhaps

then need to self-medicate with more

caffeine to and so goes the Vicious

Cycle so I think that's one thing to

keep in mind I think that's one

hypothesis I think the second hypothesis

for me or the second reason I would

advocate for that is if you've been

using caffeine that way for a long

period of time you may also be

masking the quality of your sleep

because you wake up you immediately

medicate with caffeine and you are alert

you're awake and you think well I

looking back on my night I'm awake now

after my caffeine and now is the

important part of that sentence I'm

awake now so there's nothing wrong with

my sleep is that true maybe it is maybe

it's not maybe if you abstain from

caffeine through and you have to get

through the detox period it's not going

to this is not the right test

immediately but do it for about two

weeks and then at that point once you're

free from the detox and the withdrawal

now you're in a somewhat naive state

where you're taking your caffeine on I'm

telling you to stop caffeine you're

taking it on at 11:00 after you've woken

up let's say 7:00 in the morning at that

point we've now got this nice Clear

Window that has been consistently

happening between 7 to 11: in the

morning and I'm going to ask you now do

you feel rested restored and refreshed

and can you operate with cognitive

acumen and

skill in those first morning hours now

don't forget we've got to get past the

natural sleep and Heria period in the

first 90 minutes but after the first 90

minutes of waking up absent of caffeine

let's say by 900 a.m. in the morning are

you functioning well because if you're

not and you still think you know what I

don't feel restored by my sleep I feel

unrefreshed I want to then start asking

you let's take a look at your sleep and

let's see how we can get you to a more

refreshed state

and by using caffeine first thing in the

morning you don't give yourself the

chance to test whether or not

subjectively you sense your sleep is

good quality now you don't need to do

this forever you can just do a test for

a month and be asking that question and

if all is clear after you've got through

withdrawal and you've got past the first

90 minutes after waking up and you tell

me now in this more caffeine naive state

in the first few hours I feel rest I

feel refreshed I feel restored by my

sleep then that's great we don't need to

be concerned about your sleep so that's

the second reason I like it because it

gives you the opportunity to test out

whether or not your sleep is of good

quality or not I should also note by the

way that I mentioned I've changed my

mind on caffeine and its use and this

comes back to I just raise it because

you had said I made this suggestion and

it wasn't binary it wasn't dictatorial

you don't have to to do it I wasn't

saying that everyone needs to do it and

in fact even I will you know tweak my

schedule if I'm doing one thing in the

morning I will take on board caffeine

fairly soon if I'm not I will hold

off I came out the gate when I first

published um a book and it and I was

very dictatorial about it I and I was

very mono I was very binary you know it

was sleep is absolute and it's

it has to be this way and no other way I

was not in favor of caffeine and I was

telling people about the dangers and

there are dangers to your sleep and we

we can speak about those but it was a

little bit too

heavy-handed I've changed my mind for at

least two reasons

first that's not the way Society works

or people live so there's no amount just

like technology in saying leave your

phone outside of the room for 2 hours

before bed and don't check it for the

first 4 hours that that Genie is out the

bottle so the reason I have changed my

mind on caffeine is because if you look

at the data on on caffeine it's stunning

for

Health it on almost every metric that we

can measure drinking some degree of

caffeine is beneficial now there is a I

knew it there is a U-shaped function to

this which is once you get past sort of

three or four cups of coffee then you

start to go in the downward Direction

and things aren't so great the

contradiction however was that I was

telling people caffeine not good for

your sleep and sleep by the way is

wonderful for Health it transacts all of

these benefits that we have and will

discuss in this series but then you

compare that relative to caffeine and

caffeine transacts many of the same

health benefits so how can you explain