Dr. Matt Walker: Protocols to Improve Your Sleep | 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 marks the second episode

in our sixth episode series all about

sleep with our expert guest Dr Matthew

Walker during today's episode we discuss

the dos and the do Nots of sleep

focusing for instance on how to use

light and absence of light as well as

temperature both of your sleep

environment specifically the room you're

in your body temperature and much more

in order to regulate the timing and

quality of your sleep and we discuss how

things like alcohol caffeine and

cannabis impact sleep and the various

stages of sleep and we discuss the

various tools that exist now and that

are rapidly becoming available to

improve your sleep this episode is

essential for anyone trying to optimize

their sleep and when I say optimize your

sleep I mean trying to optimize the

formula that was addressed in the first

episode of the series which is the qqr

formula the quality quantity regularity

and timing of your sleep four variables

that combine to determine whether or not

your sleep is optimized for you and

thereby providing the most restoration

and Improvement to your mental health

physical health and performance before

we begin I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford it is however

part of my desire and effort to bring

zero cost of consumer information about

science and science related tools to the

general public in keeping with that

theme I'd like to thank the sponsors of

today's podcast our first sponsor is

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free pillows today's episode is also

brought To Us by whoop whoop is a

fitness wearable device that tracks your

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beyond that by providing real-time

feedback on how to adjust your training

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huberman today's episode is also brought

To Us by waking up waking up is a

meditation app that has hundreds of

different meditations as well as scripts

for Yoga Nidra and non-sleep deep rest

or nsdr protocols by now there's an

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free 30-day trial again that's waking

up.com huberman and now for my

conversation with Dr Matthew Walker

Professor Matt Walker welcome back we're

all so happy to have you here and in

episode one you beautifully described

the biology of sleep why sleep is

important what happens when we don't get

enough sleep and you incentivized

getting adequate amounts of great sleep

and you defined what great sleep is and

you provided some excellent practical

protocols and tools for getting great

sleep

however today you're going to tell us I

believe about the protocols for really

optimizing one's sleep both conventional

tools and protocols and some let's say

unconventional not heretical but

unconventional tools for optimizing

one's sleep so let's start with the

basics what are the basics of what I

think I've heard you refer to previously

as sleep hygiene yeah I think we many of

us can resonate with the idea of dental

hygiene but turns out there's something

called Sleep hygiene and there are

probably I would say five edicts of

sleep

hygiene I offer them as as

tools and not necessarily rules because

I don't think people respond to rules

people respond to reasons and not rules

so if it's okay I'll probably just

unpack each one of them rather than just

sort of bark them at you and hope people

assume that it's the right uh answer

I'll explain the answer so people

understand why it's

important so as I said there are

probably five things that you can start

doing tonight to try to improve your

sleep the first we've spoken a little

bit about in that first episode it's

part of the four macros of good sleep

first piece of advice

regularity go to bed at the same time

and wake up at the same time

no matter whether it's the weekday or

the

weekend regularity is king and the

reason is because when you feed your

brain the signals of timed regularity

for your sleep it will anchor your sleep

and improve the quantity and the quality

of that sleep because part of that

signal of regularity going into your

brain in terms of that repeated Behavior

night after night sleep in other words

helps train that Central 24-hour Cadian

clock that we also spoke about in the

first episode so that's the first piece

of advice try to keep it as regular as

you possibly

can the second piece of advice is

darkness in my view we are a dark

deprived Society in this modern era and

we need Darkness at night as well you've

spoken about to release a hormone called

melatonin and melatonin will help time

the regular onset of your sleep so that

sounds great but what boots on the

ground Matt what does that mean I would

suggest the following in the last hour

before bed try to dim down 50% if not

more of your lights in your home and you

will be quite surprised at how sleepy

and soric that will make you feel

I will do this in a regimented way I

have uh little reminder that pops up and

tells me now is the time to dim the

lights based on your bedtime and I'll go

around and I'll shut lights down in my

bedroom I will actually have a small

light bulb and it is way down to

probably as little as maybe five luxs

and look is just a a metric of the light

um it's way down there and it's also

very deep orange sort of red and we can

come on to why that's the case so that's

the first thing even before you're

thinking about sleep start to decrease

the

light for example if you

were there at let's say for a standard

sleep schedule at 1000 p.m. and normally

you are getting into bed at 10:30 p.m.

but you feel pretty wide awake if there

was an electrical blackout and you lost

your phone magnetic to phone goes down

lights go down Total Blackout my

suspicion is that fairly soon you'd say

gosh how you feel quite sleepy whereas

if the lights were blazing you've got

your phone television's on lots of

stimulation you're probably going to

think 10:30 no I could I could probably

push through for at least another hour

so try to dissipate that light and then

if you need to wear an eye mask blackout

curtains always good as well but we need

that Darkness at night because when you

give the brain the signal of Darkness it

releases effectively a brake pedal that

brake pedal has normally been applied by

way of light on the release of that

spigot of meel melatonin and when you

take the brake pedal off it

starts starts pumping out into the

brain you can also then of course

probably reverse engineer this trick in

the morning and this is another

component of why you've been I think so

such a wonderful advocate for light in

the morning it does many things but one

of the things that it does is reapply

that break on melatonin and therefore

you lose the signal to your brain of

Darkness that's what melatonin in some

ways is doing we often call it the

hormone of Darkness or the vampire

hormone not necessarily because it makes

you look longingly at people's necklines

and want to to to bite it which is great

if you're into that but it's really

simply about it's releasing melatonin

which tells the brain my goodness it's

nighttime but if you've got bright light

on you come from your office you're

driving home so you've got artificial

light during the day which is probably

not strong enough to stimulate you and

bring you awake you come home and you've

got again bright light but it's still

strong enough now to prevent the release

of melatonin you start to shift in your

timing and you may have problems with

your sleep so that's the second piece of

advice I would love to ask you about

that Morning Light two and the alertness

benefits I'm as a sleep researcher more

focused on the evening component of

light and decreasing it but you've done

a great job I don't know if there's

anything yeah there are a couple of

quick points that um are based on some

what I consider really nice studies uh

there's beautiful work in human showing

that bright light exposure in the

morning especially from sunlight but um

if one doesn't have access to sunlight

for whatever reason there are

commercially available so-called sad

lamps Seasonal effective disorder lamps

they range anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000

Lux very bright W but um but certainly

uh morning sunlight viewing and lamps of

the sort I just described have been

shown to increase the amplitude of the

morning cortisol Spike by as much as

50% 5 so people hear cortisol and they

freak out they think that's not good I

want cortisol low but you actually want

your cortisol highest in the morning and

lower in the afternoon and evening um

and there's a lot of reasons for that

elevated mood focus and alertness in the

morning and throughout the day and uh

ease of getting to sleep at night lower

anxiety lower depressive symptoms and so

on so that bright light also serves to

um control the amplitude of cortisol uh

it in the direction you want in the

early part of the day the other thing

that's just more of a uh underlying

dynamics of the Circadian visual system

which is a system that I worked on for

years um these wonderful um cells in the

eyes that are not for image forming but

rather for detecting sunlight and bright

light for sake of setting circadian

rhythm is that the sensitivity of that

system early in the day is actually

quite low so you need a lot of bright

light early in the day to effectively

wake up your system and shut down the

sleepiness signals such as melatonin but

later in the day it's a rather

diabolical system it takes very little

light even from artificial sources to

disrupt your circadian rhythm and quash

melatonin as little as 15 seconds of

bright light in the evening I think CH

Chuck Zer laboratory at Harvard Medical

School showed can quash melatonin in the

evening now I don't want people to freak

out and think that if they go into a

hotel bathroom which oftentimes those

are very bright in the middle of the

night flip on the light that they're

going to um completely uh screw up their

circadian rhythms but if I'm honest

they'd be much better off using um their

phone as a flashlight to navigate people

always say well wait but the flashlight

on the phone is very bright but let's

just get logical here a light shown into

your eyes if such as a a flashlight is

very different than looking at a

flashlight Beam on the ground yeah Far

and Away difference so the point is that

if you don't get enough bright sunlight

or light in your eyes early in the day

and then you're indoors under artificial

lighting you might think well this is

really bright lighting this is the kind

of lighting that could disrupt my

circadian rhythm at night and therefore

it's sufficient to wake up my system no

early in the day and throughout the day

you need a lot of bright light as much

as safely possible to avoid Sunburn and

things of that sort which you don't want

but then as the evening comes around

after Sundown you need very little

artificial light in order to disrupt

your circadian rhythm and then just very

quickly light from candles fireplaces is

okay this is kind of interesting it

seems bright it's but the but the

measurements uh indicate that that's not

going to shift your circadian rhythm

much candles are great but of course

don't burn your house down so the the

orange and red tones in the evening way

dim down that's the way to go early in

the day bright bright bright light as

bright as you safely can tolerate and

what I like about firstly your mention

of cortisol do you described how

cortisol is rising in the morning and

that's a great thing and it is a good

thing and in the evening it's starting

to drop and if you look right around

your prototypical bedtime and we're

going to speak later in this episode as

to what your real natural bedtime is

versus the one that you may be taking

right now it's very interesting cortisol

will almost hit its lowest point

something that we call its Nader it's

the lowest point in that trough of its

decline right around the time when you

should be sleeping however there's a

great study that looked at people with

insomnia and in uh subsequent episodes

we'll we'll discuss this too but one of

the ways that we think about or

conceptualize insomnia is in two

different flavors sleep onset insomnia I

can't fall asleep and sleep maintenance

insomnia I wake up I can't get back to

sleep and what they looked at was

essentially cortisol levels they had um

a catheter in the arm and they were

sampling it from the bloodstream and

they were able to do that every 30

minutes so it's a little bit like

time-lapse photography and you're

getting a data point every 30 minutes

across the 24 hour period looking at

cortisol across now a full 24-hour

period and sure enough when you look at

healthy controls who can sleep well and

insomnia patients they look almost

identical across the day but then when

it comes to falling asleep right around

that bedtime period the healthy controls

are going all the way down the insomnia

patients go down and down and down and

then they have a rise back up right

around that sleep onset period and then

they start to drop back down again just

as the control group but then they also

often will have a spike in the middle of

the night which then comes down and then

both of them are staying low throughout

the early morning period and then it

starts to rise back up so it's not as

though net net overall there is a higher

level of cortisol in people with

insomnia it seems to be right at those

trigger zones that map very nicely to

sleep onet problems sleep maintenance

problems very interesting as somebody

who wakes up in the middle of the night

and sometimes has trouble getting back

to sleep that that resonates I I have no

trouble falling asleep whatsoever yeah

knock on wood superstitious about this

at this point but I use tools like

non-sleep deep breast Yoga Nidra long

exhale breathing but you know and I

think these wakeup uh episodes seem to

happen more when I'm processing a lot of

stuff from my daily life that's right

you know it's um the unconscious brain

um

often times it's working through things

and and will wake us up yeah I often

think

that sleep maintenance insomnia that

you've just described is the Revenge of

daytime emotions

unresolved that's a great way to put it

yeah so that would be so we've spoken

about regularity we've spoken about

darkness and we've spoken about the

inverse of that in the morning which is

light a little bit of cortisol so the

third out of the five is going to be

temperature and the advice here is keep

it cool as we mentioned a little bit in

the first episode and we will go into

great detail when we speak not just

about these conventional and

unconventional tips but we're also going

to go into the future of Science and

where sleep science is taking us to in

fact optimize and even enhance our sleep

we will speak a lot about temperature

suffice to say that you need to drop

your core body temperature and your

brain temperature by a little less than

1° cus 2 to 3 Dees fhe to get to sleep

and stay

asleep the general Target that we have

in sleep science if you look across the

literature is somewhere around about the

67 Dee Fahrenheit or I'm trying to do

the calculation maybe 18.5 is degrees C

now I know that that sounds cold and

cold it it is but you can also wear

thick socks to bed you can have a hot

water bottle at the end of the bed

that's great too but the ambient must be

cold the fourth piece of advice is Walk

It Out and here what I mean is do not

stay in bed for long periods of time

awake and I think we mentioned this

perhaps in the first episode too when

you are awake in your bed for long

stretches of time because your brain is

an incredibly associative device it will

quickly learn that that this thing

called my bed is the place where I'm

awake and not

asleep and what you need to do is break

that Association if you've learned that

time and time again because you've

stayed in bed and the rule of thumb and

it's just a a rule of thumb about 20 25

minutes if you can't fall back asleep or

you can't fall asleep it's okay just say

tonight is not my night it's not a

problem it's tomorrow is not completely

shot it's fine I'm just going to get up

get out of bed if you can if you're

lucky enough try to go to a different

room and in dim light read a book listen

to a podcast whatever it is that relaxes

you just do that don't check email don't

eat because if you start eating that

again trains your brain to start waking

up and feeding at that time and only

return to bed when you are sleepy and

there is no time limit for that I don't

want you to come back after half an hour

when you are still awake and not feeling

sleepy enough why because you're going

to get back into bed and be in the same

problem again and gradually if you do

this and it's hard to do

it you will relearn the association that

you had I'm sure as a child which is

that your bed is this place of

sleepiness because often people will be

saying I I feel so tired in the evening

and then they get into bed and they say

but now I can't fall asleep at all and I

don't understand it in part it's because

of that learned Association so that

would be the fourth tip the fifth tip um

makes me um even more unpopular as a

personality and character which is try

to be mindful of your alcohol and

caffeine now in a subsequent episode

we'll go into great detail as to how

caffeine Works its mechanisms why it is

sleep disruptive and why in fact I've

even perhaps changed my mind

on caffeine and and its benefits but it

also does have significant detriment to

your sleep so the rule of thumb here

would be try to cut yourself off from

caffeine probably at least 10 or so

hours before you expect to go to bed and

you can just calculate back calculate

that and try to limit it so the dose and

the timing make the poison cut yourself

off after maybe two or three cups of

coffee coffee and then that timing

component count yourself back cut

yourself off decaffeinated coffee not

too bad if you find the right thing too

if you need that

fix alcohol is probably one of the most

misunderstood sleep aids in a quotes

that there is it is no sleep aid at all

now if I didn't understand what I know

about alcohol and and sleep I would

think that too which is look when I have

a night cap just before bed or two even

though I don't wear them um I I may

actually just fall asleep very easily

and feels like I stay asleep very

soundly across the night so it's a great

sleep aid and it really helps me there

are at least I would say three issues

with alcohol the first is that alcohol

is in a class of drugs that we call the

sedatives and sedation is not sleep

but when you take on board alcohol in

the evening you mistake the former for

the latter and you think it helps you

fall asleep the second thing is that

because it's

sedation or actually it's probably

related to sedation if I were to show

you the electrical signature of your

deep sleep when you're just sleeping

naturally versus when you have alcohol

in your system it's not really the same

it's not a naturalistic form of deep s

it mimics it it looks not too dissimilar

but if I really do my analyses and I

almost like that Pink Floyd album where

I take the white light of electrical

brain activity coming from your head as

you're sleeping and split it apart into

all of the different components there

are some components that are no longer

present or some that are abnormally

present the second issue with alcohol is

that it fragments your sleep so it will

litter your sleep with all these

punctuated Awakenings throughout the

night the danger that is that many of

those Awakenings with alcohol you don't

remember because they're too

brief but then you wake up the next day

and you think well I didn't have a

problem falling asleep I didn't have a

problem staying asleep but I just I feel

rough I just don't feel restored by my

sleep and you don't add two and two

together the final concern with alcohol

is that it's quite a potent Blocker of

your rapid eye movement sleep or REM

sleep and in subsequent episodes we'll

go into great detail as to the

incredible learning and memory

creativity benefits that come by way of

REM sleep also it's essential for our

emotional regulation and recalibrating

our

moods so for all of those reasons I

would say two things first if you are

struggling with sleep not feeling

restored by your sleep keep in mind your

alcohol intake and also just in general

be mindful of that if you are thinking

about your sleep and want to preserve it

so much of what you just said resonates

uh I confess that in my lifetime I've

had periods of um pretty spectacular

sleep I characterize myself as somebody

that could fall asleep anywhere anytime

but I've also experienced the extreme

challenges of sleep and um and that

relates to different things life

circumstances Etc in fact recently I've

had some challenges with sleep despite

using the protocols that I and uh others

suggest I hadn't heard some of the

things that you're um referring to here

and um middle of the night waking has

become more of an issue I communicated

this to uh former girlfriend of mine who

um was uh I was in relationship with

when I was a a junior Professor meaning

before I got tenure and she said you

don't remember you had a Andrew but I do

you had a pattern back then of um after

I would fall asleep you would continue

working on your laptop probably on

grants um and then I would fall asleep

working and then according to her I

would wake up in the middle of the night

and work a little bit until I'd get

tired again and then fall asleep and

then this would repeat so um really

stamping down the uh the associative

learning element that you talked about

before so that was probably the first

period of time in my life in which I I

created this um

rather uh delerious Association of work

in the middle of the night in bed right

um and then more recently I've had the

the uh experience of waking up probably

due to these like daytime things that I

I'm waking up in the middle of the night

thinking about and now because of our

discussion during the course of of

recording this series I get out of bed

after even 1015 minutes um so that I can

start to eliminate that Association and

another piece is that I've always felt

that when I get out of bed in the middle

of the night because I can't sleep and I

go to the sofa I often can sleep very

well reason being proving right it's a

control experiment proving that the

location of sleep is uh the and the

association of wakefulness at sleep in

bed as opposed to on the sofa is is a

clear component and this is in an

environment that's of equal temperature

I it's not a perfect experiment right um

it's anakata as we say but I I think

that the associative piece is oh so

strong um for many people and so this is

something to to really take seriously I

love that notion of and people will

often say I just get up I go to the

couch or the sofa and that's where I'll

wake up in the morning also they'll say

when I travel and I go to a hotel room I

just can sleep fine now for some people

it's the inverse but for those people

it's the contextual difference meaning

the change of the environment is so

unfamiliar that it has not been bound to

Association of wakefulness it's related

to sleep or at least the opportunity to

sleep sometimes even I've heard from

some people and there's no studies or

data on this even turning yourself

around now this is hard if you have a

partner in bed but you just switch top

to bottom of the bed and you take your

pillow and you pull the duvet all the

way down and you put the pillow at the

opposite end where your feet used to be

and you get into bed and even just

looking around and sort of having a

difference that alone is so subtle but

it can make a real difference so again

just keep these things in mind I know it

sounds strange or this whole sort of get

up get out of bed break the

associate and we'll come on to something

well actually I'll come on to it now

because I think it's one of the

unconventional tips and you mentioned it

a lot of people say to me that all

sounds great I the science makes sense I

just don't it's dark it's kind of cold I

really don't want to get out of bed so

give me some

Alternatives I think the the single best

piece of unconventional sleep advice I

can give you is do anything that gets

your mind off

itself the principal reason that if you

look at insomnia as a physiological

condition or current working model

mechanistically of how insomnia um plays

out is that you are in this state of

almost low-level anxiety and you are

somewhat stressed and when you go to

sleep or you try to go to sleep or you

wake back up and you try to get back to

sleep you just have this Rolodex of

anxiety in the modern world we are

constantly on reception and very rarely

do we do

reflection and unfortunately for many of

us and I've been guilty of this the only

time we do reflection is when our head

is placed on the pillow and we turn the

light out and that is the last time you

want to be doing reflection that's the

worst moment and at that point I think

everyone can empathize with the idea of

you turn the light out you're under

stress your mind goes to those few

things in the darkness of night thoughts

become almost 10 times worse than they

do in the brigh of

day and at that moment you start to

ruminate when you ruminate you begin to

catastrophize and when you catastrophize

you're dead in the water for the next

two hours so what do you do the problem

is as I said your mind is on itself and

it's going through these repeated Loops

anything you can do for example you can

do some kind of a meditation and I when

I was researching data for my book some

years ago I did look into meditation and

I wasn't a meditator I was a hard-nosed

scientist and didn't really kind of

embrace with that notion or even that um

that group of people but time and again

I read paper after paper and the data

was very strong and it was coming from

research groups that I respected very

much indeed so I thought well okay I

should probably give this a try and that

was 6 years ago and since then I now

meditate for 10 minutes every single

night before bed I do a guided

meditation because I'm not particularly

skilled so I use an app that moves me

through that but you can do whatever you

how whatever meditation you like that's

one example the second example is you

can do breathing methods because again

you're focused on your breath and what

are you not focused on your

thoughts and so anything that will allow

you to

um

explore some other Focus maybe it's a

body scan where you start at the top of

your head or you start at your feet and

you work your way up and you just say

you know moving through now my neck what

Sensations am I feeling now into my

shoulders moving down into my chest now

I can feel the ends of my fingers am I

sensing

anything and when you start doing that

or any of these types of things the next

thing that you remember is your alarm

going off in the morning because you got

your mind off itself so I would say that

that's probably one of the

unconventional tips but let me come back

to the conventional anything else I've

probably missed out or being unclear

about the um actually I should probably

say one thing in terms of these not

they're not tips I don't like the word I

know you don't either or hacks or um

these are protocols and they're

well-informed scientific protocols in

all of this discussion today

you can get all of these things in place

and still have problems with

sleep the reason is because you may be

suffering from a Sleep Disorder so the

analogy would be let's say that I'm your

athletic coach and you're a sports

Superstar I can perfect everything I can

perfect your your diet your supplements

we can perfect your Technique we can

perfect but if you've got a broken ankle

none of those things are going to alter

your performance right now you've got to

get to a doctor and get that scen to and

then we can come back to fine-tuning

your performance it's the same with

sleep if you've got a sleep disorder

such as snoring sleep apnea or insomnia

we need to get you to a doctor first and

then only after that come back once

you're resolved then we can start to

optimize that's the only other thing I

probably should mention yeah this is all

very useful discussion because I think

that um of course there will be those

folks out there that just like what are

they talking about I sleep so well at

night you know consider yourself blessed

many many people struggle with uh

challenges with sleep and I think it's

fair to say that sooner or later most

everybody experiences some challenges

with sleep for whatever reason you look

at the statistics that's highly likely

in your lifetime you are more than

likely to go through either a period of

challenging sleep or in fact about of

insomnia I'd like to take a brief break

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huberman you talked about alcohol I'm

not a consumer of alcohol anymore um nor

am I and it's not I it's not because I

have anything against it yeah many

people do enjoy it and um and know uh

we're not calling judgment on on them I

mean certainly much of the world enjoys

uh alcohol could we talk a little bit

more about um aside from demolishing

REM sleep um you know do we know that

alcohol causes these disruptions in

sleep directly meaning by changing the

um pattern of release of

neurotransmitters like Gaba things of

that sort or is this an indirect effect

you know is this like through the gut

microbiome that then impacts sleep um

and the reason I ask is maybe we could

get to some more

specific uh dos and do not protocols so

for instance if somebody wants to have a

cocktail how close to sleep can they get

and uh not diminish their rapid ey

movement sleep too much you know because

people are still going to want to drink

um and with that said if people do have

a couple of drinks and then they they go

to sleep is there is there anything they

can do prior to sleep to uh try and

rescue um their some of their quality

sleep great question so in terms of the

mechanism it seems actually not to be

the alcohol but some of the metabolic

byproducts of alcohol we think that

perhaps the main culprit may be some of

the aldah highs that are the metabolic

um separate consequences of alcohol

metabolism you make a good point though

in terms of the the the dose response

timing curve

how late or how early do I have to cut

myself off from alcohol people have done

those studies and they have found that

even an afternoon single glass of wine

if you measure sleep in the way that we

measure it at my center with High

Fidelity you can see compromises and

impairments I wish I could tell you

otherwise I would say that based on that

data the principal protocol advice I

would have for you is go to the pub in

the morning that way by the time you're

about to sleep the alcohol is out your

system and you could no no I would never

as a as a public scientist I would never

Advocate necessarily for wanting I'm

just kidding you but um that's that's

sort of one of the unfortunate

consequences there does seem to be an

impact to say that there isn't is just

me not being truthful about the data but

again if

you are think about the tradeoff here if

you're going out or you're having

friends over and you're going to make an

incredible evening of memories and

you're going to open a favorite bottle

of wine and have a couple of glasses of

wine is your sleep going to be

compromised yes it is but maybe that's

worth the tradeoff for that specific

night I would just not wish you to and

you've spoken a lot and so is our dear

friend Peter and

others there just doesn't seem to be any

safe amount of alcohol um but I would

say think about that trade-off simply

however don't make it habit that you're

doing it you know multiple nights a week

or more that would probably be the

advice

great what about food and sleep um how

close to sleep um is it okay to have a

meal if you want to optimize your sleep

um I I like to eat my final meal

somewhere around

6:30 p.m. but and I go to sleep

somewhere around 8:30 900 p.m. in an

Ideal World sometimes I go to sleep a

bit later uh sometimes I eat a little

bit later it's just you know there's

some variability with these but um put

differently what is the relationship

between food intake and Sleep Quality in

terms of timing of food intake and then

perhaps we can talk a little bit about

um food

macronutrients it's very interesting

there was somewhat of a Dogma out there

that we have to stop eating you know

three or 4 hours before bed for optimal

sleep if you look at the data the data

is quite a spread no pun intended there

is there are some people for whom that

works very well and if they eat even two

hours before bed they just get disrupted

in terms of their sleep some of that is

about people just feeling too full and

not feeling comfortable other aspects

are that when you become recumbent when

you lie down you have a higher risk of

gastric reflux coming back up and

therefore you get heartburn and that's

pretty miserable and people will

describe that too by way of closer

proximity of food intake relative to

when you're falling asleep nevertheless

if you look at the

data and I I did a recent very deep dive

on this personally myself about 12

months ago it's not quite as Extreme as

the Dogma makes out if you eat 2 hours

before bed on average it doesn't seem to

necessarily harm your sleep now that's

very different than saying what is best

to improve or enhance your sleep but the

way these studies were designed it was

looking at detriments they then went to

90 minutes before sleep onset and even

there there didn't seem to be Market

impermanence 60 Minutes you started to

see maybe some signs but on average the

effect size was somewhat weak but then

when you get close to sort of 45 minutes

or

so then things did start to deteriorate

I think it depends hugely on your

chronotype and also just on your

appetite Cadian Rhythm preferences too I

am someone who I do not feel very hungry

when I first wake up in the morning I

don't feel very hungry throughout most

of the day and I will onboard most of my

calories

probably

in the hours probably in about a 4H hour

period maybe less even 3-hour period and

then I will cut myself off about 90

minutes before sleep so I classically I

would have been considered as you know

violating this sleep dogma of of cutting

yourself off at least three hours I

think it's very personal though just

experiment with it you will know the

situation um as for macros and specific

food

components the data is a little bit

mixed certainly what we know is that if

you're eating a diet that is high in

sugar and low in protein your sleep is

worse why would that be the case well

one of the reasons that we think is that

if you onboard sugar it can be somewhat

metabolically active and when it becomes

metabolically active it can increase

your body temperature your core body

temperature even just for very subtly

but that's enough to disrupt your sleep

as we spoke about with

temperature but I think in terms

of really the you know what would be the

ideal macron nutrient and even

micronutrient um dietry recommendation

that I would have for you I don't think

we have enough data yet above and beyond

that that statement um yeah yeah I I've

experienced um when I eat a very low

carbohydrate diet which I've

experimented with in the past maybe even

even full ketogenic diet for for brief

periods of time although I'm an omnivore

so I eat meat and eggs and I also eat

starches pastas rice Etc um but we know

based on beautiful work from for example

Chris Palmer from from Harvard Medical

School uh who is a guest on this podcast

I listen to that it was great podcast

yeah Chris is is spectacular and and U

has advocated the exploration of

ketogenic diets for the treatment of

various psychiatric conditions not all

but psychiatric conditions and and it

seems and he agreed with me on this that

when people go on very low starch very

low carbohydrate diets that sometimes

they can experience a bit of hypomania

some people can and challenge this with

sleep and um sometimes there are

psychiatric reasons why um people stay

on those diets anyway and then they have

to do other things to encourage their

sleep by their pharmacology or

supplementation or some combination but

I I can say anecdotally for myself if I

if I don't eat starches for a extended

amount of time a couple of days I find

it very hard to get quality sleep as

indicated by Sleep trackers um and uh

and just uh sleep late latency to fall

asleep is longer than it is ETC um so i'

I've opted to eat most of my

carbohydrates Ates later in the evening

um which and violates you know every

rule of you know eat your carbs early in

the day and and and I think there are

some data to support that eating

carbohydrates early in the day may

actually um have certain benefits for

weight maintenance or weight loss so I

realized that but those aren't my my

goals at the moment weight maintenance

yes weight loss no so I think um I

certainly feel after eating a dinner

that has a bit more starch pasta rice

these things of that sort and a little

bit lower protein as opposed to the

inverse like eating a couple couple of

riy steaks and a salad but no starch

that um my sleep is substantially better

um and I always uh attributed that to

the relationship between some of the

starches and the

tryptophan serotonin pathway yeah there

is some data on that with the

carbohydrate intake in the evening and

of course that that tryptophan and that

carbohydrate intake um will contain the

precursor ingredients to something else

that we've spoken about which is

melatonin and so that may actually help

healthily boost that melatonin signal

and there's a little bit of data on that

to supported

to we also did a study where we um we

were looking at night to night to night

sleep and carbohydrate intake the next

day and it did seem to support what

you're describing in terms of some of

the carbohydrate benefits we also found

a strange result that was almost the

opposite prediction that we made

carbohydrate intake in the morning to

equally help people wake up and we were

a little bit uncertain as to why but

we're going to go into more detail the

reason that you mentioned

the the suggestion of not take on carbs

in the evening is in part based on the

evidence that your body's ability to

dispose of sugar and obviously when

you're eating carbohydrate you can have

a higher um Spike of sugar now that in

part depends on what you're eating with

that carbohydrate and also of course the

nature of that carbohydrate whether it's

simple or whether it's complex whether

it's simple sugars versus you know

complex more um starchy uh carbohydrate

but the idea is that your body even if

you were to eat the same amount of

carbohydrate in the morning in the

afternoon or in the evening same

carbohydrate dose and type but your

body's ability to dispose of that

without having excessive spikes of

glucose is worse in the evening better

in the morning I.E if you're concerned

about your blood sugar um and your

metabolic Health maybe that's what you

should do I think that that data is

unclear on the basis of if you are um

glycemic normal meaning that you

currently do not have signs of type two

two diabetes or you're not pre-diabetic

then that may not necessarily be the

case and so I think that's why it could

be you know beneficial for you and I

know that you've um you think deeply

about that and and um I've even been

tracking blood sugar as well I don't

have any signs of that but I'm just

fascinated by some of that data and how

it interacts with my sleep because I'm a

a sleep nerd so I think right now we

just don't have plentiful data to

recommend a particular sleep quote

unquote diet for improved optimization I

would say though that we can be a little

bit more relaxed about the timing of our

food earlier you mentioned C caffeine

and caffeine is a topic that we get into

into substantial depth in episode three

but there and now I uh I will emphasize

that caffeine is the most commonly used

drug worldwide I think the statistic

says that 90 plus perent of adults

consume caffeinated

beverages every day which is remarkable

and a few years back I recall there was

an article in The Economist that charted

the country's for which the caffeine

consumption was highest and way out on

the peak Peak peak of was almost uh

triple or quadruple what other what the

second place country um consumed each

day was can you guess the country that

consumes the most caffeine could be tea

coffee any form I'm going to suggest

it's a Scandinavian country no but uh

but they're they're up they're up there

it was Switzerland now I don't know if

that's still the case but apparently the

the reason I went I was thinking it was

because I've seen the graph I was

thinking it was Sweden but Scandinavian

and if I have that wrong um certainly

someone will put it in the the comments

on YouTube I recall the Swiss drink so

much caffeine they have uh a lot to

think about so I love caffeine I drink

black coffee black espresso and Y Bronte

um I love Yerba Monte been drinking it

since I was a little one um because of

the argentines in my family um and I

drink it in the early part of the day

typically um a couple hours after waking

or so I'll have my first um sip of

caffeine and then I try to stop drinking

caffeine somewhere around noon or 1 p.m.

occasionally I'll have a shot or two of

a espresso in the early afternoon if

there's important work to be done and I

need to do that but I I've noticed that

even that can alter my sleep in ways

that that I don't like but the afternoon

coffee for some reason tastes so much

better than the morning coffee for me I

don't know what it is so it's coffee

year bate packed early into the day and

a lot of it for me yeah I have a high

tolerance for it um but then I let it

taper is

that an optimal Contour of caffeine

intake um would Zero caffeine be better

if someone's just really committed to

sleep and they don't like caffeine would

zero be better than any and what about

that afternoon coffee or tea containing

caffeine I mean how disruptive is it for

sleep so the profile that you describe

which is high peak early on and first

thing when you wake up and then tapering

off nicely down into the sort of early

afternoon ideal that sounds great to me

as for that afternoon coffee it really

depends again on when you are expecting

to go to sleep now for someone like you

I would say I would love to look at

abstaining from that or just switching

it out to if you're using you know these

pods or however you're Brewing it let's

just switch it out and do an experiment

for two weeks and we will look to see

how much is that afternoon coffee really

impacting your sleep and will track your

sleep with some degree of High Fidelity

with a

wearable and let's test that hypothesis

because you go to sleep quite early you

are an early bird maybe bordering on an

extreme um early bird and we'll speak

about um or we have spoken about those

different flavors of

chronotype I would prefer you not to be

having that caffeine in the afternoon

based on how early you go to sleep and I

mention that preference because of what

you described regarding your sleep

maintenance insomnia one of the issues

with caffeine is that not only can it

make it more difficult for you to fall

asleep which you don't have in part

because if you're waking up quite

frequently throughout the night and

struggling to get back to sleep you're

going to be carrying a sleep debt into

every night and that debt continues to

grow and it's almost like compounding

interest on a loan so you will not have

a problem falling asleep in fact

sometimes the speed with which people

fall asleep and some of these uh sleep

trackers will almost penalize you for

falling asleep too quickly is because in

sleep science and clinical sleep

medicine if your it should take you

somewhere you know healthy sleep onset

you know 5 to 15 20 minutes but if you

put your head on the pillow and you turn

off the light and within a minute or so

you're dead to the world and you're gone

I'm exactly I'm worried that you're a

carrying a sleep dead now not

necessarily but I'm I would like to

explore it um with you and then I would

say even if you can fall asleep

fine this factor of waking up in the

middle of the night is also related to

caffeine why because caffeine not only

can make it harder to fall asleep not

your problem but it keeps you out of

that deep deep sleep and it puts you

into a more shallow state of nonrapid ey

movement sleep and when you are in this

shallow State it's a easier for you to

be woken up but be and I think more of

the problem it's hard harder for you to

fall back asleep because your brain

doesn't necessarily want to go back down

into that deep sleep and nor has it come

up out of that deep sleep so you're not

in that wonderful glorious thick

triy sort of sleepy State when you wake

up you go to the restroom you come back

and you just know this is going to be

great I'm as as long as I can fumble my

way back to my mattress I'm going to be

asleep within another two minutes going

back to it whereas for you you probably

wake up and you feel pretty Wide Awake I

would like to see what happens when we

negate that afternoon coffee on the

frequency and the duration of those

middle of the night Awakenings for you

yeah I'm definitely making the effort to

avoid caffeine intake in the afternoon

and I think um already starting to see

some of the positive benefits of doing

that great as evidenced by the days that

I consume caffeine in the afternoon and

experience the the deficits it's a real

thing and I I believe you've um about

the numbers uh on a different podcast

previously could talk a little bit about

the metabolism of caffeine and um and

maybe even some of the variations that

exist between people in terms of the

metabolic U regulation of caffeine so

how long let's say uh drink a standard

cup of coffee or a cuple of espresso and

it has a gosh I don't know 150

milligrams of caffeine is that 200 could

150 200 let's say 200 because certainly

uh you know a barista these days is

going to draw a a beverage over index

yeah so let's say 200 milligrams and and

somebody consumes that after lunch at uh

100 p.m. and their bedtime is let's

let's make them more conventional than I

uh somewhere between 10: and 11: p.m.

yeah okay so they're they're about 10 9

to 10 hours out from their bedtime

they're having a nice strong quote

unquote nice strong cup of coffee after

lunch um what what does that look like

in terms of their biochemistry and and

impact on sleep so caffeine has

something that we call a halflife of

about 5 to 6 hours meaning that after 5

to 6 hours about 50% of that caffeine is

still circulating in your bloodstream

and thus your brain that means that

caffeine has a quarter life of somewhere

between 10 to 12 hours now this is on

average and we'll come back to

variations but think of it this way if

you're taking a cup of coffee like you

described there at midday and then

you're going to bed at let's say 11: or

midnight that would be the equivalent

based on what I've just told you the

quarter life of getting yourself into

bed and just before you took yourself

into bed you Swig a quarter of a cup of

coffee and you H for a good night of

sleep and the chances are that it it may

not happen now again that's a little bit

sort of hyperbolic as a as a statement

but just try to conceptualize it in that

way you would never think about taking

off on you know a last quarter a cup of

coffee just before you put your eye mask

on no but I have some friends and um

somebody actually who works with the

podcast team and we'll go out to dinner

as a team when we're on the road and

he'll order like a big coffee right

after a 900 p.m. dinner and I was just

like can you sleep on like oh yeah no

problem and that no problem is in part

this I don't have an issue with falling

asleep but if we were to based on the

data map there electrical brain activity

you would be able to see this reduction

in the deep non-rm sleep and it can

reduce it if you look at the data

somewhere between 15 to 20% now for me

to reduce your deep sleep by 15 to 20% I

would probably have to age you by about

20 to 22 years or you could just do it

every night with a late night coffee

should you should you wish so again I've

and maybe we'll speak about this in in

later episodes I have changed my mind on

caffeine I think morning caffeine use or

coffee I should say being more specific

is fine because I think there are health

benefits and we can go into in

subsequent episodes why coffee and the

coffee be in itself can provide those

benefits so I've become a little bit

more bullish on morning

caffeine but evening caffeine I just

think it's the data is just not

supportive even if you are and there are

variations and you were very um astute

in your question some people I said on

average caffeine has a half life of

about 5 to six hours for some people

it's quicker and for other people it's

slower why is that it's based on a gene

and we know the gene it's a gene that is

part of a set of liver enzymes and the

gene is called the

cyp1 A2 Gene

and there are variations in that Gene

what we call polymorphisms and you can

do these genetic tests that you can buy

these kits and they all probably tell

you which you are are you sensitive or

you're not sensitive you probably

already know and so some people will not

be as sensitive and therefore they can

have a more compressed time frame of a

halflife because it's moving out of

their system in a quicker manner so

again I'm not trying to be skir

mongering I think you can have coffeee

in the morning and you'll be just fine

that late night coffee I would I would

like to see you obviate that if you are

someone who's doing it and the afternoon

coffee sounds like a you know maybe only

every once in a while and try and make

it mostly decaf or decaf for that matter

if it's really just for the taste yeah

if it's just for the taste go decaf if

it's not I understand that in some ways

what I'm talking about is the ideal

world and drum roll it turns out that

most of us don't live in that we live in

this thing called the real world and so

if you are facing a circumstance where

if you're under pressure at work or if

you're high performing athlete and this

is it this is the event this is you it's

all in a think understand that you you

are going to sacrifice some sleep at

night but maybe that sacrifice is well

worth it so again I'm very open-minded

I'm not trying to be um simply you know

too rigid with this I want to take a

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docomo so you've talked about alcohol

and its effects on sleep you've talked

about caffeine its effects on sleep and

we talked about food and its effects on

sleep what about THC and

CBD sometimes referred to more uh

generally as cannabis and you know it's

interesting you know gosh when I was

growing up um you

know cannabis was illegal um nowadays

it's um either legal or tolerated or

decriminalized in many places not all

but I I would would say there's been a

um a a tide shift in terms of um

cannabis meaning that many

people consume cannabis who are um

consuming it legally and consume it for

a lot of reasons that other people

consume alcohol in you know a sedative

effect a slight hypnotic effect I mean

you know the actual definition of what

these drugs do it goes by certain terms

in the psychiatric literature of course

but but in order to quote unquote mellow

out to feel more relx to reduce their

anxiety um it's it's far and away

different than when I was growing up

where I me you would get into a lot of

trouble uh if you were caught um smoking

a joint or um taking a bong rip in the

middle of the day but not and I realize

most people aren't doing that at work I

guess it depends on where you work um

but it you know Edibles tinctures I mean

the the consumption of THC and CBD is is

quite um quite robust in a lot of places

so um with all the issues of legality

and the fact that people who young

people um should not be consuming them

me people 18 and younger not just for

legal reasons but the brain is still

developing um what is the story with THC

CBD cannabis edibl smoked uh tinctures

on sleep

specifically it's very interesting if

you look firstly at the motivational

reasons why people use

cannabis based on

[Music]

the published study somewhere in the top

two

reasons sleep to fall and stay asleep

fall asleep and stay asleep obviously

usually the principle first reason is

just to get high and have the experience

and the pleasure of being high if that's

what sort of floats your um floats your

train floats your train but certainly

it's you know sleep um as and what we

call a hypnotic to put you asleep from

um the Greek derivative of the God for

for sleep that is high among the reasons

that people will

use we currently don't recommend it and

here is why certainly THC helps you fall

asleep

faster very clear in the data the

problem is that first you start to

develop a tolerance and to get that same

sleep onset benefit you need to get use

I should say a higher dose so you start

to develop dependency and your dose

regimen starts to

increase the second issue with THC is

that it's very good at blocking your

dream sleep your REM sleep in fact many

people when they come and they tell me

look I was a heavy cannabis user even a

light cannabis user for some time and

then I stopped using and one of the

strangest things happened to me I just

started to have the most wild Vivid

crazy dreams and I didn't know what was

going on and it's a very simple

explanation as you've been using your

brain has been compromised in the amount

of REM sleep it's been getting and

you've been building up chronically a

REM sleep debt and your brain is smart

in the sense that it does try to clock

to some degree a counter of how much REM

sleep you've lost and many people will

say yeah I don't really remember my

dreams when I'm using but when they stop

the brain finally because it's been

cleansed of the thing that's the

roadblock to REM sleep not only did they

go back to having the normal amount of

REM sleep that people would have they

have that plus they have what we call a

REM sleep rebound which is even more and

more intense REM sleep which leads to

more intense dreaming so it's a very I

suspect there's a lot of people who've

had that experience listening if they

have been users and they've stopped so

that's the second reason we don't

Advocate it the third third reason is

that when you stop using you also go or

go through a very vicious insomnia

withdrawal syndrome often many people

will do now that depends on you know how

much you've been using for how long

you've been

using if you look at the data and by the

way part of the um clinical diagnostic

the psychiatric diagnostic um

description of cannabis withdrawal is

insomnia that's how reliable this

insomnia problem is when you come off

cannabis and if you look at the data the

one of the main reasons that people

relapse and start using cannabis again

even though they don't want to is

because they can't deal with the

insomnia that withdrawal has given them

so you don't want to get into that

vicious

cycle should you wish again it's your

choice um so THC I think is not to be

advised right now CBD is interesting I

don't think there's enough data yet for

us to have a very strong opinion but I

can at least offer mine the data so far

is a little bit mixed in what we call

the effect size in other words how

reliable and how powerful is the benefit

of CBD on sleep but it does seem to have

some

benefit what's interesting is that it

doesn't seem to have the detriments that

I just described for or

THC you've got to be looking at the data

a little bit careful with

CBD it has what's called a u-shape

function to it which is that if you're

taking too little and again I really I'm

so mindful of not trying to be okay here

are the numbers but if you look at them

I would say you know kind of cross your

eyes squint your eyes maybe less than 25

migr you run into the danger of CBD

being wake

promoting rather than sleep promoting

but once you get past if you look is 50

milligrams and above then you start to

go in the opposite direction where it

seems to be sleep

promoting and I mention that just

because at least here in the United

States and in many places in the

world that industry is not regulated so

it may say 50 milligrams on the bottle

you don't really know now some of those

companies will have what's called

thirdparty Laboratory Testing where

they'll send it out and you can scan a

qri code and you can look at an

independent laboratory that tested it

and show you the p p uh purity of it so

that may be one way to

go so CBD I think has some favorable

evidence right now if that's the case

let's just assume that you and I speak

in another five years time and there's

really good data now for this what could

be the mechanisms I think there's at

least there's probably at least two

maybe three mechanisms the first is an

indirect mechanism CBD has been

demonstrated very nicely in some

fantastic studies to be an

anotic which is a fancy term for saying

it reduces down your anxiety and earlier

you and I discussed that anxiety and

stress is one of the things that will

keep you awake so indirectly it removes

this kind of gate that is preventing you

from moving down the Royal Road of sleep

and it opens back up the gate because

it's remove that gate mechanism which is

high anxiety and by way of being an

anxiolytic IT soften that anxiety and

it's easier for you to fall asleep I

think that's probably the principal

mechanistic bet I would have right now

another indirect

mechanism if you look at some of the

studies in rats and we do um human work

at my sleep center so we don't do animal

studies but if you look at the data in

the

rats CBD can be

hypothermic which means that it drops

your core body temperature and just as

we spoke about in earlier in this

episode you need to drop your body

temperature to get to sleep so I think

that's the second reason I think the

third reason is that it could have a

direct sleep promoting

mechanism I think it's unclear right now

exactly how it's interacting with the

Sleep Machinery of the brain we've got

some hypothesis the danger is again it's

just not a well-regulated substance so I

am actually just um full disclosure I'm

working with a company in the United

Kingdom uh in collaboration with um

King's College and The Institute of

Psychiatry there to see if we can create

an analog a clean analog of CBD but I

think the potential upside of it not

just for sleep but for a number of

different psychiatric conditions like

anxiety

um could be beneficial so I would say

that that's right now the the sort of

the skinny on THC and and CBD okay so

just to make sure that I have the basic

list of sleep hygiene factors correct I

have regularity is King yep light and

dark meaning that one should optimize or

at least seek to optimize their exposure

to light in the morning and throughout

the day and in the evening to make

things dim and dark yes temperature and

there you have a a little um it's not a

montra but what is it it's a warm up to

cool down to fall asleep and then it's

stay cool like Fonzi stay cool to stay

asleep and then warm up to wake up yep

and we will come on to that I think in a

little while again then there's walk it

out which is if I understand correctly

if you're trying to fall asleep or fall

back asleep and it's taking you longer

than about 20 25 minutes you should just

get out of bed and go elsewhere in the

house do something else maybe even lie

down on a different surface in the house

to try and see if you can sleep there

but don't stay in bed don't create a

parir Association of wakefulness and

your bed because that can lead to

problems in subsequent nights yeah and I

would only say that try to resist if you

can if you really want your bedroom to

be the place where you now become

consistently asleep try not to start

sleeping in some other location

consistently because then all of a

sudden you bond that with good sleep and

you unbuckle this notion that we're

trying to relearn which is know your

bedroom is the place of sleep so it's

fine to go elsewhere try to stay awake

and force yourself to stay awake until

you are absolutely sleepy then go back

to bed okay and then we discussed

alcohol food caffeine and THC CBD AKA

cannabis and with respect to alcohol

it's clear that none is best if you're

going to have

some uh you don't want to drink too

early in the day but you don't want to

drink too much or too close to bedtime

because it can disrupt rapid eye

movement sleep food uh seems that

creating some sort of buffer between the

uh your last bite of food and uh your to

bedtime by anyway somewhere between you

know maybe 2 three hours but for some

people it'll be more like 90 minutes and

of course that's going to depend on the

size of the meal Etc but eating a big

meal and then going straight to bed

probably not a good

idea caffeine has this long halflife so

if you're going to indulge which I

do do so early in the

day beware the afternoon caffeine yeah

do the hubman tapa is what I'm going to

call it right now which is not

interpretive dense it's simply the

caffeine tape and then um THC CBD uh

does nothing good for your sleep

architecture although some people have

the uh impression that it is good for

their sleep because it makes it easier

for them to fall asleep but what they

are unaware of is that it is disrupting

the quality and architecture of the

different stages of sleep in ways that

are not serving people well that seems

to be the case for THC and I think CBD

you

know has promise and research must try

harder including my own and you um very

uh kindly emphasize that you're not

telling people what to do they just

should know what they're doing so that

they can make uh changes uh if they so

choose that's right I would always say

that um I'm not trying to be a medical

doctor any advice that I give is simply

scientifically descriptive advice it's

not medically prescriptive nor lifestyle

prescriptive advice I'm smiling because

what I always say is um I'm a scientist

not a physician so I don't prescribe

anything but I profess lots of things so

or as my good friend who's a musician

Tim Armstrong says I'm not a cop that's

right so so do what you want um

okay what a wonderful list to leap off

into the unconventional and more

advanced tools for Sleep enhancement so

um let's go there so I think many people

may have heard of some of the

conventional but what about the

unconventional I would probably offer

five or six the first one I would say is

that if you are struggling with sleep

and you have had a bad night of sleep

the first first recommendation is do

nothing and what I mean by that is if

you've had a bad night of sleep you're

awake for 3 hours do not sleep in any

later into the morning do not go to bed

any

earlier do not increase your caffeine

intake to try to offset it and do not

nap during the day why am I telling you

those

things if you wake up later that

following morning

your adenosine clock that we spoking

about this building up of sleepiness

that happens when we wake up is going to

start later in the day so when it comes

time for you to fall asleep at what

would then be the next night at your

normal time you're not going to feel as

sleepy why because you woke up that much

later and you're setting yourself up for

failure again equally don't go to bed

any earlier if you have become a

customed and your brain has and your

Cadian clock has become accustomed to

going to bed at a certain time and

hopefully you're doing it regularly then

getting into bed 2 or 3 hours early has

the danger it's not a certainty but a

danger of you then getting into bed and

thinking well I'm I know I had a bad

night of sleep last night but I still

can't fall asleep straight away so now

you're spending another 90 minutes in

bed at the beginning because you've gone

to bed 90 minutes earlier thinking it's

a good idea to compensate don't do that

either hold out even if you do feel

tired my recommendation would be after

that bad night of sleep hold out for as

long as you can as close to your natural

bedtime as possible then go to sleep and

you'll give yourself highest chance of

success don't over caffeinate that's the

obvious one follow the beautiful hubman

taper and then obviously try not to

compensate with a nap why because that

nap as happens when we sleep is going to

remove some of that sleepiness that pene

and once again you get into bed and

you're not as sleepy as you would

naturally be so you again go through a

bad night cuz you're struggling to sleep

or you wake up and you can't get back

because you've got less weight of

sleepiness on your shoulders due to the

nap that happened earlier so I know it's

hard but I would say when the alarm goes

off after a bad night you just think I

do not want to get up it's been such a

rough night I know it's a shortterm gain

but trust me it's a long-term loss

because you're going to then just get

into this vicious cycle so that's the

first unconventional tip the can I just

pause you for a second I I'm a little

wide-eyed over here because

um I did not know any of that typically

if I get a poor night sleep I'll do

whatever I can to recover that sleep um

take a nap I'll do you know I'll adjust

my to bedtime the next evening um so I

hope everyone is paying uh careful

attention to what Matt just said I mean

the that's a important list because I

think one of the very common things is

for people to just not get a great

night's sleep and I think most people

think okay I'll drink a little more

caffeine I will um go to bed a little

earlier tonight you know maybe catch a

nap in the afternoon this kind of thing

um and I would have thought that too and

maybe even suggested that and if you

listen to the first episode and where we

you know I list in a doomsday manner the

things that can happen by way of a short

night you you would think that that's

what I would then recommend but it was

imprinted On Me by um a wonderful sleep

clinician U Michael pis um who sort of

described some of these features and

exactly the reasons sort of underlying

them and I think I've just tried to bake

that out into a formula that makes sense

again it's not about the rule it's about

explaining it because when you explain

it at first it sounds contradictory and

paradoxical when you understand it it

hopefully sounds logical and actionable

um so that would be the first suggestion

could I just sorry interrupt again my

audience hates when I interrupt but I'm

doing it on their behalf because because

because I I like to think that there's

um some value in some of at least what

you say in response um I saw a really uh

terrific post from Dr Ronda Patrick um

who we both know and admire um for her

public education work public health

education work and she described a study

whereby if people are I think it was

slightly sleep deprived Maybe by a few

hours that some of the uh disruption to

morning blood glucose regulation that is

known to accompany partial sleep

deprivation and certainly complete sleep

deprivation but um in this case partial

sleep deprivation could be offset by

still exercising in the morning that's

right um which frankly I have to say if

I haven't slept that well then you know

normally I'm like H maybe today's the

day I don't exercise but now having

heard that information I make it a point

to still exercise um sometimes a with a

little bit less intensity yeah um

because I don't want to be completely

exhausted in the afternoon um and and go

to sleep at you know 4 p.m. or something

really disrupt my schedule but I thought

that was really interesting because it's

it's a it's a sort of um partial

inoculation of of the blood glucose

disruption caused by uh sleep

deprivation I I'm so glad you brought it

up it's a fantastic study and I um Rond

and I um I think even tried to discuss

it some years ago on a show but I like

it because it does offer some degree of

actionable Hope and a

strategy blood sugar absolutely critical

it is very sensitive to sleep when you

don't get enough it goes in bad

directions you used a very specific word

cleverly so that word was

partially at first you hear or read that

study and Ronda was never suggesting

this too I'm not saying that you think

well if it offsets blood sugar and the

city was saying exercise can nullify a

lack of

sleep you conflate that single outcome

benefit with the idea that well but

maybe it doesn't actually re or does it

compensate for the deficits in immune

function or

cardiovascular disease concerns or my

hormonal health or my learning in memory

or my emotional and brain health maybe

it does but maybe it doesn't so I think

I would always just caution people to

saying when you hear a study like that

it's very natural to think oh that must

mean that it translates to everything

else in my body and everything else in

my brain it may but it also may not

be terrific so if you don't sleep that

well do your best to still get some

exercise but just be mindful of the um

the fact that you know in the winter

months especially that might if you go

too hard in the gym or on a run you

might be a little bit immune compromised

just be mindful of the fact that you're

you're a more vulnerable being when

you're sleep deprived and that but that

exercise can help adjust things in the

right direction and if it's early in the

day um presumably that's not going to

disrupt your the proper bedtime and if

it's later in the day I suppose as long

as you don't need caffeine in order to

uh to do that exercise and or um if

you're familiar with exercising later in

the day fine I you know I find if I

exercise like I'm not one of these

people think can go for a run at you

know 7:00 at night and then just shower

you're a morning type because I'm a

morning type other people can okay we'll

get into exercise a bit more in a later

episode um we'll be sure to do that but

nonetheless I just rais that now um so

what are some of the other

unconventional protocols for sleep so I

think other suggestions I would have

after do nothing would be try to think

about limiting your time embed if you

are struggling with sleep this is

something that is used in the probably

the most well validated psychological

intervention for insomnia and it's

called cognitive behavioral therapy for

insomnia or cbti for short what happens

is that you work with a clinician they

interview you they assess all of the

reasons that you may not be sleeping and

then they create from their toolbox of

many different options a bespoke

tailored sort of saval R soup

prescription for you for your treatment

if you look at the studies of that

collection of different tools in the

cbti Box for intervention of insomnia

and you ask of all of those which seems

to carry the greatest impact on insomnia

which has the greatest sort of

Gravitas it seems to be this thing that

we call bedtime rescheduling it used to

be known as sleep restriction therapy

but obviously if you come to to mean you

say look I'm not sleeping very well I've

got insomnia I say I understand and I've

got a treatment for you it's called

Sleep restriction therapy and you say no

no no you didn't understand it I I'm not

getting enough

sleep but it's not quite that here's how

it works if you are spending so much

time in bed too much time in bed you are

not forcing your brain to be

efficient and by way of constraining

your sleep window even to let's say five

hours a night to begin with i Brute

Force ruthless efficiency from your

sleeping brain after several days so

another analogy would be let's say

you're trying to make a nice thin crust

of of pizza base and you put the dough

on the table and you start rolling it

out if you roll it too thin it starts to

get gaps and holes in it why because

you've spread it out too far and you've

started to create these absences

that's the same thing that happens and

it's very natural as an insomnia patient

you would say I'm just not getting

enough sleep so I'm going to start

spending more time in bed it's the very

worst idea another way would be to say

look I go to the gym and I you know

spend about an hour and a half working

out but if I were to videotape you a lot

of people are doing the I think you've

I've coed as your phrase but um the 11th

rep where people you know do the 10 reps

and then all of a sudden there's the

selfie or there's the social media oh

yeah the texting they finish the lastup

put down and then straight away on the

TT and if you look they're only working

out for about let's say 45 minutes and

the other is wasted so what if the next

day you came to the gym and I said look

I'm sorry and there's some big bouncer

guys at the door um you are only allowed

to work out for 40 minutes and then

we're going to eject you and the first

day you go back and you do the same

thing and then you've only got through

30% of your workout so you get booted

the next day you come back in you do a

little bit more and you get booted again

after about five or six days you you've

built up such a strong desire and hunger

to get your workout in you walk in you

put your phone on silent you put it over

in the corner and you just get to it and

that's the same thing that we're trying

to do with sleep restriction therapy so

you have to be a little bit careful do

it under supervision especially if

you're driving or you're operating heavy

machinery we just want to keep an eye

it's not necessarily a big concern but

we would say Okay Andrew you're

currently spending almost total about

you know 8ish or 7 and a half hours in

bed tonight I'm going to restrict you

down to 5 hours a night and we're going

to do this for the next week and the way

that we normally do it is I don't change

your wakeup time I change your to bed

time why it's easier to stay awake

longer than it is to wake up earlier so

I put it on the front end to the

compromise and at first things don't

change but after maybe about four or

five days of going through this I build

up enough of a shortterm debt in your

system that your system all of a sudden

thinks gosh I just cannot be as lazy

anymore I can't do this thing of waking

up in the middle of the night and

spending an hour and a half awake I

don't have the choice anymore there's so

much physiological buildup and pressure

to do this and gradually what happens is

that you sleep longer you don't wake up

as much and after maybe about 2 weeks of

doing this all of a sudden you go to bed

at this later time so for you let's say

you normally go to bed at 8: I'm going

to have you go to bed at maybe 10:30 11:

but we're still going to have you wake

up at that sort of 4:30 a.m. Mark that

you would normally wake up and all of a

sudden you go to bed at 10:30 11 you're

out like a light and then again the next

thing you remember is your alarm going

off saying I'm sorry you've got to wake

up and what happens by way of that reset

is gradually we will then once you're

stable we will start to back it off

we'll start to have you go to bed at 10:

and if it stays stable then 9:45 then

9:30 and tit trate you back to where you

were and if there's any sign that you're

starting to not sleep well we zip it

back up again the goal here is in some

ways almost like hitting the reset

button on your Wi-Fi router I'm trying

to retrain your brain to better sleep

because when you are not sleeping well

you've lost your confidence in your

ability to sleep and when I do this

technique with you gradually your system

and you cognitively relearn that you are

a good sleeper and you can trust in

sleep and now your sleep does not

control you you control your sleep the

hard part however is that it's not easy

to go through and we have to be we have

to usually ask two questions with

individuals firstly what is your

motivation for better sleep um we need

to know that you really are motivated

and then second you just stay with a hi

touch White Glove frequency checking in

on individuals and motivating them to

keep going because it's very easy to

fall off the wagon so that's the the

next suggestion sleep restriction

therapy or bedtime rescheduling as we

would call it you said it's difficult

for people to go through you know it

takes a little bit of rigor a little bit

of attention means in some cases getting

less sleep than one would like but as

compared to something that you know

sadly I've experienced a lot in my life

of having challenges with sleep and

trying to get things back in order and

looking at the the bed and just going oh

my God Battle Ground you know Battle

Ground you know it's um I think it it

makes a lot of sense and I love the

analogy to the gym somehow if there's a

restriction into 1 hour in and out the

door or maybe 70 minutes in and out the

door CU you need to put your stuff in

the locker or something like that it

always at least for me gets done best

when you just have those constraints I

think there's something about the human

brain that we don't do well in um un

unrestrained systems that I I really

think guard rails are are fantastic I

love deadlines for instance yeah

discipline is essentially the hard hard

deadlines like or as they say in

Academia because we you know write

grants all the time drop deadlines which

who up that ter but like if you don't

make it that's it it's like there isn't

a hey I'll send this in tomorrow 5:00

p.m. Pacific time that website

closes and you better Bo do you get

things done all of a sudden it's

surprising how much distraction you can

you know pull out the noise and focus on

the signal it's great signal to noise

ratio yeah and I I love the idea that

you that one can control their sleep as

opposed to sleep controlling them I

think that that's um and and this notion

of sleep

confidence um one's conf idence in their

ability to sleep these are important

terms and they're more than just terms

because I think that um a a field and

and an area of Health practice and gosh

what's more important than sleep it's

the foundation of mental health physical

health and performance period um really

thrives on a common um common

nomenclature and and I really appreciate

that you're you know peppering these

episodes with it with um new

nomenclature um that captures a lot of

the essence of the protocols and the

mechanisms so there that's my editorial

please please continue I would say that

in terms of other things maybe just to

go through them um a little more quickly

we've spoken some about a wind down

routine most people underappreciate the

importance of a wi down routine we often

think that sleep is like a light bulb

that we dive into bed we switch off the

light bulb and sleep should appear just

as quickly it's untrue sleep in terms of

a process is much more physiologically

like trying to land a plane it just

takes time to come down onto the

terraferma of good sleep at night

whatever it is you enjoy as a relaxation

method engage in it could be listening

to a podcast could be reading a book

maybe it's a meditation it's light

stretching maybe whatever it is that you

do just build it into your regiment you

know you would never you know be driving

down the road and then pull into your

garage

at the same 40 mph speed you gradually

decelerate and you come to a

stop it's the same thing with sleep so

you need to find some way to decelerate

and we've spoken about methods already

as to how to do

that the next tip is a little quirky and

funny do not count sheep there's a great

study from my colleague Dr Alison Harvey

at UC berley and she put this to the

test didn't make people fall asleep

faster it made them take longer to fall

asleep however she did find an

alternative if you are not into

meditation or podcasts or sleep stories

or whatever it is that you you wish for

try taking yourself on a mental walk and

it has to be a walk that you know very

well so let's say that you walk your dog

every day and you know there's a couple

of walks that you take with your dog do

it in hyperd detail So Close Your Eyes

you go to the front door you clip in the

dog to the leash you walk out you go

down the steps out to the driveway then

you take a right but you always cross

over and you look to the left and the

right CU that's the place where traffic

always comes you cross over and now

you're walking up and there's that

strange sort of set of garbage that's

been outside of that house for a long

time and you don't know why it hasn't

been cleared and then you move that type

of High Fidelity

detail allows you to do what we said

earlier which is get your mind off

itself and when you do that again

typically you fall asleep faster and

that's what she found it was a great

great study I really enjoyed that I'm

curious as to why it works so well and

I'm not challenging that it works I I

can imagine having just closed my eyes

and kind of imagine what that would be

like it's very pleasant um there might

be here I'm just specul ating something

about engaging one's procedural memory

because that's procedural memory you're

trying to remember how you do something

as opposed to declarative memory which

is about facts you know I remember this

and this is going to happen tomorrow I

wonder whether or not there's something

about using a procedural memory um as

opposed to a declarative memory

visualization somebody should do that

study they should and I think it's

certainly possible that when you're

incorporating some aspect you know some

aspects of the scene and the information

is more sort of veridical and maybe EP

sort of episodic declarative memory but

when you're taking yourself for a mental

walk what is the fundamental premise of

that it's a walk it's motion it's

procedural memory and so maybe it's

something to do about with being more

attentive to becoming embodied because

when you're out walking and you're

moving it is a more embodied experience

than just sitting there at your desk

which is your mostly your head and very

little your body so I think it's an

intriguing idea and um I think another

tip that I now think of which also comes

from the work of Dr Allison

Harvey when individuals come up to me um

after sort of public events or they see

me at the airport they'll say look every

night for some strange reason at 2:45

a.m. I wake up and it happens three or

four nights a week

my first question to them is how do you

know it's

2:45 and they say well I look at the

clock or I look at my

phone best piece of advice next remove

all clock faces from the bedroom no

matter how bad your sleep is going to be

that night knowing what time it is is

only going to make matters worse it is

not going to make matters any

better and that can create

an anxiety trigger that you think it's

245 and then you're tossing and turning

you look back at the clock and now it's

3:14 a.m. and you think I've got to be

awake at 600 I've got that big meeting

and now it's

5:2 don't do that to yourself and I even

though I don't typically struggle with

sleep I have no clock faces in my

bedroom the phone that I use to help do

the guided meditation is an old phone

and it has

only Wi-Fi connectivity and nothing else

on it and I will only hit play and then

I will never turn it around um I will

not look at the clock face just doesn't

help me another incentive for keeping

the phone out of the room um if if one

can I I understand there are reasons

when um one would want the phone in the

room if you know it's potentially

signaling an emergency you know well I

think I think it's a very important

point and we've done some work in this

area too what that phone does is create

a a low level of anxiety it's what we

call anticipatory

anxiety one of the mechanisms separate

from that well it's related to that if

you look at teen phone use one of the

reasons that they don't sleep very well

at night is that they're constantly

checking their phones because of fomo a

fear of missing out what has gone on as

I've been asleep and it's stunning the

data but for most adults the other

reason I don't like advocating for phone

use when your alarm goes off in the

morning what is the first thing that you

do as you're in bed you swipe right or

you unlock your phone and you instantly

start checking social media emails text

messages and this tsunami of Stress and

Anxiety just floods over you it hits you

like this wall of anxiet

and I bring this up because it again

trains your brain for expectation of

that anticipatory anxiety has a

consequence on your sleep and everyone

knows this let's say that you've booked

an early morning flight and you've got

to wake up at 5:00 a.m. when normally

you wake up at 7

a.m. two things will usually happen

first you know that you're just not

going to sleep as deeply that night

because you're on edge and this is for

an interview or it's for critical like

this is a non-negotiable trip that has

to happen you've got to wake up the

second thing is that when you

are expecting that that wave of sort of

a need to wake up and maybe it's just

I'm expecting the phone again you will

wake up just a few minutes before your

alarm it's stunning how many people will

say I had this big flight the next day

and you almost know I'm going to wake up

2 minutes before my alarm goes off why

because your brain has stayed in this

shallow state of anticipatory anxiety

and you don't get as much deep sleep and

we've now demonstrated that we others

when you have that low level anxiety the

depth of your deep sleep is not as deep

you don't get the good so again not to

be trying to dictate what people do just

be aware that when you do create that

behavior and that regiment it becomes

almost like a knee Jack sort of trained

habitual response terrific let's talk

about some of the advanced tools for

Sleep enhancement you know what sorts of

methods could one incorporate um you

know what are some of the data and um

and is there any way that we can sort of

lump these into uh sort of a some

framework or categories because I know

there are a lot of different tools there

are and I suppose this would be you know

I know our friend pet has spoken about

medicine 3.0 I think this would probably

be sleep optimization 3.0 what is coming

down the pike what is in the research

and I think you know could make it to

Market or has made it to Market but yet

we're still right on the cusp we've seen

Wei again in the Royal Wii have been

able to augment human sleep in at least

four different ways there are methods

for electrical brain stimulation there

are methods for acoustic stimulation of

sleep so electrical stimulation of sleep

acoustic stimulation of

sleep thermal manipulation of sleep and

then finally kinesthetic manipulation of

sleep meaning movement based

stimulation and I maybe I can just of go

into each one of those the electrical

stimulation is probably the most well

rendered of all of those four

in part because we started there and we

and here it's not the Royal Wii we have

done a lot of work on on this and um I

can tell you a little bit about a

company emerging from that but when

you're trying to manipulate the human

brain the principal currency in which

the brain communicates is electricity

now there are lots of things that help

it do that such as chemicals but the

principal language and um verbiage of

the brain is electricity so if you're

going to manipulate the brain why don't

you speak in its currency of

electricity so we and others have

developed a method based on something

called direct current brain

stimulation and specifically something

called transcranial direct current

stimulation and I'll unpack that trans

meaning movement so if you've heard of

Transport it's about moving things from

one port to another um transatlantic

moving you know across the Atlantic so

here the start of it is moving you're

moving something from one place to the

next trans cranial means through your

skull so we're moving something through

your skull transcranial direct current

is the type of voltage or the type of

electrical impulse that we're putting in

it could be alternating current or it

could be direct current and early

methods and those we use have been

direct current so transcranial direct

current and then stimulation we're

trying to stimulate the brain

specifically the cortex

and the way that we do this is that we

apply electrode pads to your head and we

insert a small amount of voltage into

your brain now it's so small that you

typically don't feel it but it has a

measurable impact on that electrical

brain

activity so very early on scientists and

we weren't the first to do do this by

any means there was a great paper now

famous paper in my field by um wonderful

scientist yam born in Germany and they

took a group of subjects and they

applied these electrod pads and

specifically to the front of the brain

and I'll explain why we target the front

of the brain with sleep electrical

enhancement or the

electruepart slow powerful waves that

define deep sleep and what they did in

one of those groups the other group was

the placebo group they still had the

electrodes applied they still went to

sleep in the stimulation group they

waited until those individuals went into

deep sleep and I told you in the first

episode that those deep sleep brain

waves were going up and down very very

slowly maybe just once or twice a second

so they started to stimulate the brain

inputting the stimulation pulses at a

very slow Rhythm trying to match the

rhythm of the brain in fact they were

less than one Hertz less than one cycle

per second in terms of a pulse it's

almost as though we're trying to act

like a a choir to a flagging lead

vocalist and as these brain waves are

going up and down you're trying to sing

in time with those deep sleep brain

waves and in doing so you're trying to

boost and amplify the size of those deep

sleep brain waves now to begin with they

just waited until they went into deep

sleep and they started to stimulate at

that frequency and I'll come back to why

that's important in a second but sure

enough what they demonstrated they were

able to boost the electrical quality of

that deep sleep by about

60% and they were also able to almost

double the amount of memory benefit that

sleep provided wow which is very

impressive that is impressive now I

should note that there was more recently

a replication attempt of that paper and

they did very good job they really did

it to the letter and they weren't able

to replicate the effects as powerfully

however subsequent Studies have now

taken a more nuanced approach and it's

the one that we've taken too and it's

called closed loop

stimulation Clos Loop here simply means

that I'm not going to just wait until

you go into deep sleep and then just

take a chance and start stimulating your

brain not knowing of the synchrony of my

pulses into your brain relative to the

brain waves that you're experiencing

closed loop does do that so what I'm

doing is I'm measuring the electrical

brain waves that occurring and because

they're nice and slow they're very

predictable and I can program my

algorithm and my brain stimulation

machine to say I'm going to wait and

wait and as soon as you are on this peak

of your slow wave it turns out to be the

negative trough but I'll forgo that we

then try to strike at that point of

midnight when you're going through the

biggest sort of powerful sort of dip in

the the brain wave and we're trying to

sort of enhance it and same with the

peak so this is where we take a we get a

stimulus from the brain your electrical

brain activity and then we create a

timed response so it's a stimulus

response it's a call and response Loop

and by way of doing that it's a much

smarter specific method than a more

generalized I'm just going to stimulate

and hope I catch those waves at the

Peaks the reason is important because

different people have different speeds

of their slow brain waves they're all

slow but your speed of brain wave may be

a little bit different to mine and if

I'm off with my stimulation by let's say

just half a second or a quarter of a

second time and time again I may be

leaving some benefit on the table but

closed loop stimulation creates this

personalized electrical prescription of

stimulation and when you do that you get

very reliable benefits you can boost

those deep slope brain waves you get the

memory benefits but also what we found

is you not only boost those deep sleep

brain waves you boost another electrical

signature that I spoke about in the

first episode called sleep spindles and

it seems to be the combination of those

two things by way of electrical

stimulation that provides the benefits

now I should know I haven't mentioned

this before you can buy these devices on

the internet DIY style do not do that if

you go on to the internet too you can