Speaker 1: Hi. My name is Kelly. I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: the podcast, so it's a real treat to be here
Speaker 1: sharing my story about sleep, or, in my case, lack
Speaker 1: of it. I was nearing the end of my final
Speaker 1: quarter at college, and I'd spent my finals week living
Speaker 1: off caffeine pills and no sleep in an effort to
Speaker 1: cram for my tests. The day after my last presentation,
Speaker 1: I decided to go cold turkey on the caffeine to
Speaker 1: spend a few hours at my internship and then head
Speaker 1: home for some uninterrupted napping. My internship, I could feel
Speaker 1: the heaviness of my week of all nighters pulling at me,
Speaker 1: so I asked to leave early and got in my
Speaker 1: car to battle the early developments of rush hour traffic.
Speaker 1: As I sat in my car, the stop and go
Speaker 1: movement slowly lulled me to sleep, and the next thing
Speaker 1: I knew, I was jolted awake by a thud as
Speaker 1: my car had rolled forward and struck the jeep in
Speaker 1: front of me Because we were going so slow, The
Speaker 1: only damage done to the jeep was a cut in
Speaker 1: his wheel cover. The driver was so nice and checked
Speaker 1: on me to make sure I was okay, and then
Speaker 1: drove off than being incredibly embarrassed. I was fine, but
Speaker 1: my car, Betty, the cute little blue car I'd had
Speaker 1: since I was sixteen, had damaged to her frame and
Speaker 1: was totaled. Now that I'm older, I'm incredibly cautious of
Speaker 1: driving fatigued. I was so lucky my wake up call
Speaker 1: didn't hurt anyone except poor Betty.
Speaker 2: Wow, I mean, what a harrowing. What a harrowing and
Speaker 2: also like relatable.
Speaker 3: I know who.
Speaker 4: Hasn't stayed up way too lately, many nights in.
Speaker 3: A row too often?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, terrifying. Glad you're okay. I'm sorry about
Speaker 4: your car.
Speaker 2: I know, I know.
Speaker 4: Kelly. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 3: We really appreciate it. We do. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Hi. I'm Aaron Welsh.
Speaker 2: And I'm Eron Alman Updike And this is this podcast
Speaker 2: Will kill You.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Sleep Part two.
Speaker 4: Sleep Part two.
Speaker 2: If you didn't listen last week or watch, you should
Speaker 2: because it's really great.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of criep out of it. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: A last episode we discussed sort of like what is sleep?
Speaker 2: What are the different stages of sleep? A little bit
Speaker 2: about what sleep does for us, for us and how
Speaker 2: we fall asleep, et cetera. We talked about sleep and animals,
Speaker 2: very cute stuff in hemispheric sleep and Love to Sleep yep.
Speaker 2: And this week we're going to go in more into
Speaker 2: how humans have slept over history and also like what
Speaker 2: sleep disruption means, what sleep quality means.
Speaker 4: And what are the consequences of not getting enough sleep.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of them. There's a lot.
Speaker 3: We'll get into all of it.
Speaker 4: We will, but first it's.
Speaker 3: Quarantiney plusy perrita time.
Speaker 4: It is. What are we drinking this week?
Speaker 3: We're still drinking.
Speaker 4: We are pillow talk.
Speaker 3: Pillow talk.
Speaker 4: Should we do the whole episode in a whisper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that everyone I can fall asleep. It's Camma
Speaker 3: meal tea Camra meal tea ginger, ginger, honey, and a lemon.
Speaker 3: I can't do it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to lose it. That's enough for me.
Speaker 2: We will post the full recipe for pillow talk on
Speaker 2: our social media at the very least, and uh maybe
Speaker 2: on our website, which is where you can also find.
Speaker 5: So many things that you really really want trust trust,
Speaker 5: like merch. Yeah, we've got that. We've got transcripts from
Speaker 5: all of these episodes. We've got a good Reads list,
Speaker 5: a bookshop dot org affiliate account. We've got links to Bloodmobile,
Speaker 5: who does the music for every one of our episodes.
Speaker 5: We've got sources from them all. We have a contact
Speaker 5: us form and a first hand account form, and much more,
Speaker 5: much more.
Speaker 4: I don't even know.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't even know, because I kind of zoned
Speaker 2: out when you were talking too, I know, while we're
Speaker 2: discussing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this podcast will kill you dot com.
Speaker 2: This is a YouTube video that you are like, we're
Speaker 2: filming this.
Speaker 4: We are in the exactly right studios. It's really cool.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us, Yes.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And so if you would like to watch the full
Speaker 2: thing it is there that is impossible to do.
Speaker 3: Thank you. If you are watching it, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: If you're not, you know, you can always rate reviews,
Speaker 2: subscribe on various platforms.
Speaker 3: All the platforms, yeah, that you like to use.
Speaker 2: God, it's like, we this is our first time doing this,
Speaker 2: every single time, every time.
Speaker 3: So on that note, break time, I need one already.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break, and when we get back,
Speaker 2: there is so much to discuss about Sleep in Humans.
Speaker 2: That was great, thank you, I said a lot for
Speaker 2: the book club.
Speaker 4: Oh with that? Yeah really?
Speaker 2: Oh no, not really, okay, okay, okay, break time starting now.
Speaker 2: Earlier this year, I bought myself a smart watch.
Speaker 4: I know that, you do know that, and.
Speaker 2: I started wearing it overnight. When I woke up in
Speaker 2: the morning, I would check out how my watch that
Speaker 2: I slept right, how many hours did I get? How
Speaker 2: much deep sleep? What was my percentage? How many wake ups?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, only six and a half hours of sleep?
Speaker 2: Only five percent deep sleep? Oh yep, that's when I
Speaker 2: woke up because my dog was licking himself excessively. Always,
Speaker 2: no wonder, I'm so tired today. And on the rare
Speaker 2: occasion that I hit my eight hour sleep goal, my
Speaker 2: phone would send a little congratulatory notification.
Speaker 4: Like yay, does it really? You did it?
Speaker 2: You hit your goal, and I would be I would
Speaker 2: like got. I started to get really annoyed, like I
Speaker 2: don't know why, but I was just like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: hit it today. Once every two months, thank you for
Speaker 2: reminding me what a failure I am when it comes
Speaker 2: to sleeping. My god, and a little bit like I'm exaggerating,
Speaker 2: I know, but still, but it would just be like, oh,
Speaker 2: you hit it today, and I was like, what about
Speaker 2: yesterday when I got seven hours?
Speaker 4: Like was that okay?
Speaker 3: Clearly is not good enough, right Siri?
Speaker 2: And then I was like, okay, am I actually tired?
Speaker 2: Or it was my watch sort of creating this self
Speaker 2: fulfilling prophecy where I convinced myself that I was more
Speaker 2: tired just because I had X number of wake ups
Speaker 2: or I didn't hit.
Speaker 4: Eight hours or whatever. Yeah, and I kept wearing it.
Speaker 2: But then I was like, you know what, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to check what it recorded until later in the day,
Speaker 2: just to see, like how tired am I to die?
Speaker 4: I feel?
Speaker 3: Before I have the watch tell me how I should feel.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent? Right, And it didn't always align. Of course,
Speaker 2: this is all anecdotal. This is an end of one.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: This is my personal introduction to the story, right, And
Speaker 2: I know that these watches, like you talked about last week,
Speaker 2: they are not substitutes for professional sleep devices, and they
Speaker 2: can be very inaccurate. And what mine did for me
Speaker 2: was kind of, in a way increase my sleep anxiety,
Speaker 2: or like the anxiety that I feel about not getting
Speaker 2: enough sleep or not getting quality sleep. According to my watch,
Speaker 2: I was rarely getting quote unquote enough sleep, Like what
Speaker 2: does enough mean? It was from public health guidelines seven
Speaker 2: to nine hours. And also alarmist headlines also would talk
Speaker 2: about how much sleep you should be getting. And these
Speaker 2: headlines every day are always proclaiming some new connection between
Speaker 2: a lack of sleep and chronic disease or mental health
Speaker 2: issues or dementia or poor life satisfaction or just sudden death.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I know, believe me.
Speaker 2: And even when I try to go to bed early
Speaker 2: and practice good sleep hygiene, I rarely hit that solid eight.
Speaker 2: What was wrong with me? Oh, I was sleeping myself
Speaker 2: into an early grave or not sleeping.
Speaker 4: Or not sleeping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was awaking myself into an early grave. But
Speaker 2: one third to one half of American adults aren't getting
Speaker 2: enough sleep according to those guidelines. Okay, fifty to seventy
Speaker 2: million Americans have a sleep disorder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have that same stat.
Speaker 2: And one in five Americans aged nineteen to thirty use
Speaker 2: alcohol or cannabis as a sleepaid.
Speaker 4: One to five. That's a problem. One in five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not medical advice, but that's a problem.
Speaker 4: It's bad news.
Speaker 2: We are struggling though, like all of this speaks to
Speaker 2: a desire for sleep and not getting enough of it,
Speaker 2: And so many aspects of our modern society are blamed
Speaker 2: for bad sleep. Our screens, artificial lighting, stress, diet, lack
Speaker 2: of exercise, and bad sleep has been in turn blamed
Speaker 2: for everything. If only we could turn back time and
Speaker 2: sleep the deep, unbroken, RESTful sleep of our ancestors. They
Speaker 2: must have been so refreshed just laying down to sleep
Speaker 2: when the sun dipped below the horizon and gently awakening
Speaker 2: as the first rays of light softly caress their faces.
Speaker 4: If only that.
Speaker 2: Were true, If only, But what do we actually know
Speaker 2: about how our ancestors slept and what bearing might that
Speaker 2: have on our relationship with sleep today?
Speaker 4: Sleep, since it's.
Speaker 2: Behavior, unfortunately does not leave behind a fossil trace, learn
Speaker 2: as I learned, I mean, even poop leaves behind.
Speaker 4: A fossil trace.
Speaker 2: We love a copper light, We do love a crop
Speaker 2: re lite, crop re lighte crap.
Speaker 4: O, my god.
Speaker 2: But there are a couple of ways that we can
Speaker 2: speculate about what sleep might have been or might have
Speaker 2: looked like for pre industrial humans.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: One way is by asking how modern day, pre industrial
Speaker 2: humans sleep like certain hunter gatherer groups right. And another
Speaker 2: is by searching historical writings for mentions of sleep or
Speaker 2: the nighttime experience.
Speaker 4: I love this so much. Okay.
Speaker 2: In eighteen seventy eight, a twenty seven year old Robert
Speaker 2: Louis Stevenson, still a few years away from his from
Speaker 2: Treasure Island and fame. Okay, he was hiking through southern
Speaker 2: France with his donkey Modestine as his only companion.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, sorry, I love that.
Speaker 4: He was just like, I'm gonna take a gap here,
Speaker 4: take my donkey.
Speaker 3: How do you just have a donkey? Just to think
Speaker 3: you had?
Speaker 4: You can buy a donkey today. I know that, but
Speaker 4: you might have a donkey.
Speaker 3: I couldn't have a donkey. I really like donkeys.
Speaker 4: Don't think my landlord would allow it. We met a
Speaker 4: donkey recently.
Speaker 3: It was lovely.
Speaker 2: We have more to talk about with donkeys than I anticipated.
Speaker 2: So as Stevenson crossed across the land with his donkey,
Speaker 2: he set up camp wherever he felt like, I'm done
Speaker 2: for the day, I'll just camp here, he noticed something unusual. Quote,
Speaker 2: there is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell
Speaker 2: in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the
Speaker 2: sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their
Speaker 2: feet at what inaudible summons.
Speaker 4: Are all these sleepers thus recalled.
Speaker 2: In the same hour to life. Even shepherds and old
Speaker 2: country folk, who are the deepest red in these arcana,
Speaker 2: have not a guess as to the means or purpose
Speaker 2: of this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning, they
Speaker 2: declare the thing takes place, and neither know or inquire
Speaker 2: further end quote.
Speaker 3: So He's like, everyone's awake at two am, bro, did
Speaker 3: you know that?
Speaker 4: Did you know that? No one knows why, but it happens.
Speaker 4: Everyone's sleeping in the country, everyone in the country. Everyone
Speaker 4: is doing it. Everyone's doing it.
Speaker 2: But in fact, this midnight awakening or two am awakening
Speaker 2: was only unusual to Stevenson and his contemporaries that were
Speaker 2: living in rapidly industrializing areas Okay. For centuries before, many
Speaker 2: societies across the globe slept in two chunks, separated by
Speaker 2: about an hour or so, by phasic or segmented sleep.
Speaker 5: I learned that Aaron in researching this, and I want
Speaker 5: to know everything.
Speaker 2: I can tell you a lot give it to me.
Speaker 2: Not everything, Wow, I can tell you a lot.
Speaker 4: No one knows everything. No.
Speaker 2: So evidence for this segmented sleep comes from a huge
Speaker 2: variety of sources, and there's of course a bias towards
Speaker 2: English language sources, but there is evidence for this beyond
Speaker 2: just the British Isles, which is where most of the
Speaker 2: sources are concentrated. And many of these references are made
Speaker 2: in passing, right, like not about the sleep itself. They're
Speaker 2: not like we sleep in this way, right, because who
Speaker 2: talks about that, right, Like it's not.
Speaker 4: A part of it's just it's just okay.
Speaker 2: But there would be writings like after my second sleep,
Speaker 2: after my second sleep, or after my first sleep, you know,
Speaker 2: things that showed that it wasn't particularly noteworthy or like interesting.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like oh I need to highlight this, and
Speaker 4: it was like like.
Speaker 5: Hey guys, just so you know, oh I'm sleeping in
Speaker 5: two chunks. It was just like like first breakfast, second breakfast.
Speaker 4: Yes, even after my.
Speaker 2: Second breakfast, yeah I went to mordor yeah exactly, yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you, you're welcome. The first sleep was often called
Speaker 2: something like first sleep, duh or dead sleep.
Speaker 4: Oh well.
Speaker 2: The second was second sleep or morning sleep. Oh, interesting,
Speaker 2: and they were split pretty evenly. But I think it's
Speaker 2: interesting dead sleep because that's when deep sleep, deep sleep
Speaker 2: is happening. We learned last episode.
Speaker 3: We check it out.
Speaker 2: If we did, we did, and the intervening break was
Speaker 2: referred to as watch or watching. In the Canterbury Tales,
Speaker 2: a character sleeps soon after evening fell and woke up
Speaker 2: in the early morning after her first sleep. And then
Speaker 2: there was a sixteenth century book called a Treatise of Ghosts.
Speaker 4: Which like why, I want to know more and more?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that refers to quote about midnight when a man wakes.
Speaker 4: From his first sleep.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Even medical books made reference to first and second sleeps.
Speaker 2: They recommended that on your first sleep you lay on
Speaker 2: your right side, and on your second sleep lay on
Speaker 2: your left side.
Speaker 4: I don't know why, I don't. So typical of a
Speaker 4: medical textbook to be.
Speaker 2: Like, this is what must be done. You have to
Speaker 2: do this, yes on what I know?
Speaker 4: I know it's your feelings.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sorry, I just we know based on science, we
Speaker 6: know period the end, okay, But waking up in the
Speaker 6: middle of the night, it seems to have been like
Speaker 6: a routine thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you woke up at two am. Nowadays,
Speaker 2: would you be like, oh, okay, well I've gotten my
Speaker 2: first sleep, might as well do some dusting and sock mending.
Speaker 3: Sock mending, no one does. Wouldn't know where to begin.
Speaker 4: I doubt it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how to sock mend. But that
Speaker 2: is exactly what it seems like many people used to do.
Speaker 2: Maybe they would lay in quiet reflection, they would get
Speaker 2: up to use the bathroom, they would smoke a pipe,
Speaker 2: they would start some bread dough, do the washing, even
Speaker 2: visit neighbors.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, the idea of starting bread dough is genius,
Speaker 5: I know, right, Like I could have biscuits every morning,
Speaker 5: and if I just had a double two sleep regimen, yep,
Speaker 5: I might be changing my life after this episode.
Speaker 4: I think you could.
Speaker 2: I think you are entitled to do that, okay. A
Speaker 2: text from the seventeen hundred says that students should study
Speaker 2: after the first sleep so they're more refreshed, which sounds like.
Speaker 4: A literal nightmare.
Speaker 2: It's not happening, no, no, no, so side note, though,
Speaker 2: segmented sleep might help explain why today many people have
Speaker 2: sleep maintenance insomnia, where you wake.
Speaker 4: Up in the middle of the night and you're like,
Speaker 4: I can't fall back into sleep.
Speaker 2: It's like might be a remnant. People think it's a
Speaker 2: remnant of segmented sleep.
Speaker 4: I love this.
Speaker 3: I know I'm gonna have so much more to say
Speaker 3: about this.
Speaker 2: Eluginary origins of sleep disorders. Okay, so these by phasic sleepers,
Speaker 2: were they going to bed super early in order to
Speaker 2: get all the sleep?
Speaker 4: It doesn't seem like it, Okay.
Speaker 2: I think there's this idea that like, oh, suns down,
Speaker 2: nothing to do but sleep, right in the olden days,
Speaker 2: and it's possible that some people could not afford the
Speaker 2: same amount of can or oil lamps as the wealthier classes.
Speaker 4: But like you, most people had a hearth to provide light, and.
Speaker 2: So you could like read, you could you had to
Speaker 2: take care of your entire home mending, spinning, read, praying,
Speaker 2: other activities by the fireplace. We humans, we are a
Speaker 2: social species, and so there was also socializing at taverns
Speaker 2: or gathering halls or just at your neighbor's house. So
Speaker 2: this is a painting from the eighteen hundreds called Evening
Speaker 2: in the Village, and it's like it shows kind of
Speaker 2: like this is what evening was like there was. It
Speaker 2: was a boisterous time. Often it wasn't just like, oh
Speaker 2: the sun's down, time to turn to turn out the lights.
Speaker 2: But it's not like people stayed up all hours of
Speaker 2: the night. They valued their sleep very much. Sleep was
Speaker 2: written about as like a peaceful respite from the worries
Speaker 2: and the pain of waking life. A diary entry from
Speaker 2: Sarah Cowper in the late seventeenth century said that, with
Speaker 2: few exceptions, quote, this family goes to bed between nine
Speaker 2: and ten. Yeah, okay, and then this I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: this and hang this in my house. There was an
Speaker 2: inscription over the parlor of a Danish pastor's like in yeah,
Speaker 2: over his parlor in his room, from in the house
Speaker 2: of a Danish pastor and from around the same time,
Speaker 2: late seventeenth century that said stay till nine you are
Speaker 2: my friend. Till ten that is all right, But if
Speaker 2: you stay till eleven you are my enemy.
Speaker 4: I love that so much. It's like you got it
Speaker 4: go please like you you don't know how quickly yes
Speaker 4: this could turn.
Speaker 2: There is an Italian proverb bed is a medicine, and
Speaker 2: another proverb that was one hour's sleep before midnight is
Speaker 2: worth three after fascinating, And there's a Welsh saying that
Speaker 2: men thrive by sleep, not long but deep.
Speaker 4: What is long?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Recommendations on how much sleep to get back then, you know,
Speaker 2: historically varied but echo a lot of what we hear today. Okay,
Speaker 2: six to eight hours is usually what I've seen. Eight
Speaker 2: during the summer and nine during the winter. One guy
Speaker 2: recommended a mere three, and you can always you can
Speaker 2: already see them moralizing in another guy's belief that quote
Speaker 2: nature requires five, custom takes seven, laziness nine, and wickedness eleven.
Speaker 4: Oh mg, Like, calm down, like dude, it's sleep, bro
Speaker 4: It's okay.
Speaker 2: But it seems clear that unless you were in the
Speaker 2: wealthier classes, you were lucky to get seven hours of sleep. Okay,
Speaker 2: that was like a pretty like a norm, okay, and
Speaker 2: everyone seemed to do the most that they could to
Speaker 2: make their sleep as RESTful as possible. By the sixteenth century,
Speaker 2: the bed became the most expensive piece of furniture.
Speaker 4: In the home.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yep ornate softer ornamented with pillows, the first
Speaker 2: thing that newlyweds bought, and the most desirable item in
Speaker 2: a will.
Speaker 4: Like if you were left the bed, you were the
Speaker 4: first favorite child around me.
Speaker 3: Nephew, yep, Oh wow, that's fun.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, who's gonna get the bed?
Speaker 2: Who's gonna get the bed? Bedtime ritual was also a
Speaker 2: big deal. It might involve removing flies or lice or
Speaker 2: bedbugs from bedding and clothes. Like, there's another painting that
Speaker 2: I didn't put in here, but it's I'll show you.
Speaker 4: It's very cute.
Speaker 2: It has like they're hunting for either fleas or bedbugs
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Around the bed, around the bed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the beds were warmed with hot coals or stones
Speaker 2: wrapped in rags. Windows were shuttered, and curtains were drawn.
Speaker 2: You washed your feet, you combed your hair, and you
Speaker 2: set out or had your servants set out your chamber pot.
Speaker 2: You donned your nightgown and nightcap if you could afford
Speaker 2: one to avoid catching your death from the cold. And
Speaker 2: maybe you had a little dream of whiskey or a
Speaker 2: few drops of laudanum to help.
Speaker 4: You sleep on the way back then all the way
Speaker 4: back then.
Speaker 2: And finally, the head of the household would lead everyone
Speaker 2: in nighttime prayers. It seems like a recipe for a
Speaker 2: really wonderful, RESTful sleep, right, Like everyone was gonna get
Speaker 2: really great sleep. I'm obviously leading you to say no,
Speaker 2: I can guess no. I mean, like they must have
Speaker 2: slept so much better than today, with like our screens
Speaker 2: and our stressful jobs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but also they're picking lace out of their bed
Speaker 5: bro exactly, yeah, exactly, men.
Speaker 4: Their beds are made of what like hey, if you
Speaker 4: even had that right? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Many descriptions of sleep from this era use words like
Speaker 2: restless or troubled. People across the board were less healthy
Speaker 2: than we are today. Trying to get a good night's
Speaker 2: sleep when you're sick, or you're injured, or you have
Speaker 2: a chronic disease, it can be really challenging. There's a
Speaker 2: painting by the artist William Hogarth from seventeen fifty called
Speaker 2: Francis Matthew Shuts in his Bed. It features a man
Speaker 2: sitting up in his bed vomiting into a chamber pot, Like,
Speaker 2: was he commissioned to paint this?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I love that he like Francis Matthew Shuts, was like,
Speaker 2: please paint a painting of hatred.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna pay barfing Yeah yeah, I mean we had
Speaker 5: a barf bowl growing up next to we had a
Speaker 5: barf bucket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hated it. But even the sight of it,
Speaker 2: it was a popcorn bowl. That's a no. No, I
Speaker 2: don't like that very much.
Speaker 4: No, thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh maybe I shouldn't mention that.
Speaker 4: It's in there. We are not cutting that, sorry, mom.
Speaker 2: But France is here. He was lucky to have his
Speaker 2: own bed. Yeah, many many it was a It was
Speaker 2: a rare luxury. Many of the poor classes couldn't afford
Speaker 2: good blankets or comfortable beds, and so the whole family
Speaker 2: would sleep in one bed, sometimes with animals.
Speaker 4: Not a great way to get sound sleep.
Speaker 2: I mean, my dog sleeps in my bed, and he's
Speaker 2: sometimes really a lot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Oh my gosh. If the cat or the dog
Speaker 5: gets in there, it's a disaster. Though the toddler is
Speaker 5: the worst, I will say, I love him.
Speaker 4: I believe that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And this is also like the fact that people people
Speaker 2: did not get sleep is evidenced by frequent references to
Speaker 2: daytime napping.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 2: And I think that people did probably get RESTful sleep
Speaker 2: from time to time. But I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: like we've talked about with the Food of yesteryear, people
Speaker 2: tend to romanticize sleep in the past, like oh before
Speaker 2: screens before social media, before this, and that there must
Speaker 2: have been such unbroken You just had so many hours
Speaker 2: a night to sleep.
Speaker 3: What else were you going to do?
Speaker 2: Right, And it sues that's not the case. But with
Speaker 2: the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of artificial light, shift
Speaker 2: work well lit streets, and the growth of cities and
Speaker 2: nighttime entertainment and socializing, segmented sleep began to fade from
Speaker 2: memory interesting, and by the turn of the twentieth century
Speaker 2: it was a relic of the past, Like Stevenson was like,
Speaker 2: I've never heard of this, that's common in the countryside.
Speaker 2: And then that just started to slowly fade more and
Speaker 2: more and more. How interesting, and this eight eight eight
Speaker 2: rule became dominant.
Speaker 4: Eight hours for work, eight for sleep, eight for yourself.
Speaker 2: That was after shifts kind of shrank from like twelve
Speaker 2: to eight, twelve to eight. And then it was like,
Speaker 2: I honestly I tried to find like more of an
Speaker 2: origin than that, Like, was there a scientific guidance that
Speaker 2: led with this eight eight eight, And I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't think that there was, Okay, I think it was
Speaker 2: just like this seems like a nice.
Speaker 4: Easy division, Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it was really only much later, like
Speaker 2: we forgot about segmented sleep, and it was only in
Speaker 2: the nineties and two thousands that people kind of rediscovered it.
Speaker 5: Do we know if when people were getting segmented sleep,
Speaker 5: how many total hours they were getting?
Speaker 4: Well, that's what I think.
Speaker 2: I think it was around six, like seven, six to seven, set,
Speaker 2: six to.
Speaker 4: Eight, okay, roughly?
Speaker 5: Ok?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was just like hurts a lot,
Speaker 2: it was broken up, right, yeah, yeah, but yeah. So
Speaker 2: in the nineties and two thousands is when this idea
Speaker 2: of segmented sleep kind of returned, ok the surface with
Speaker 2: work especially by Roger Ekirch two thousand and five book
Speaker 2: At Day's Close, and there's like an earlier paper two
Speaker 2: Seek we have.
Speaker 4: Lost I think.
Speaker 2: And so then these this research led a lot of
Speaker 2: people to wonder, you know, is segmented sleep the true
Speaker 2: ideal for humans? Has it just been stolen from us
Speaker 2: by industry and artificial light?
Speaker 4: Should we be sleeping in chunks?
Speaker 3: Should we?
Speaker 4: Should we?
Speaker 3: Should we?
Speaker 4: The answer is yes, and the answer is no.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems clear based on a wealth of
Speaker 2: historical evidence that segmented sleep and daytime napping was commonplace
Speaker 2: throughout much of pre industrial Europe, and in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: research psychiatrist Thomas Weir conducted an experiment where he deprived
Speaker 2: people of artificial light at night for a few weeks,
Speaker 2: over which time their sleep did become segmented.
Speaker 3: I saw that. I saw that people lay in.
Speaker 2: Bed for a bit, sleep for four hours, wake for
Speaker 2: a couple and sleep for another four Yeah, but is
Speaker 2: it universal segmented sleep?
Speaker 4: What about among humans? Among humans? Yeah?
Speaker 2: What about quote you know pre industrial societies today, like
Speaker 2: certain hunter gatherers or a hunter horticulturalist groups, do they
Speaker 2: have by phasic sleep?
Speaker 4: Do they? Research is mixed.
Speaker 2: Some groups do seem to have segmented sleep, while others
Speaker 2: include So the ones that were studied in this one
Speaker 2: paper that I read were living in Namibia, Tanzania, and Bolivia,
Speaker 2: so like quite distributory globally. Yep, they don't show any
Speaker 2: segmented sleep or frequent napping.
Speaker 5: Okay, So they're just sleeping in one chunk, one chunk,
Speaker 5: how many hours be talking?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 2: So there was a study in twenty fifteen by yeddish
Speaker 2: at All and it was published that upset this assumption
Speaker 2: that everyone used to sleep in segmented chunks. They found
Speaker 2: that the three groups that they observed slept on average
Speaker 2: five point seven to seven point one hours of sleep.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: People went to bed at varying hours, but woke up
Speaker 2: roughly the same time.
Speaker 3: Interesting, that they.
Speaker 2: Slept an hour longer in the winter than in summer,
Speaker 2: and that they stayed up about three hours after the sunset.
Speaker 5: Okay, so that's why they're getting a little more in
Speaker 5: winter because of some I'm going down a little earlier,
Speaker 5: down a little earlier.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Much of those evening hours were spent socializing, and people
Speaker 2: stayed up as long as they found something interesting going
Speaker 2: on or they wanted to participate in, like storytelling or
Speaker 2: singing or whatever it was. If they went to bed
Speaker 2: and something caught their attention, they would get back up, okay,
Speaker 2: like they you know, oh i'm gonna I'm not going
Speaker 2: to sleep yet. There was no enforced bedtime for children. Interesting,
Speaker 2: nor was there shushing if people were loud while others slept, Like,
Speaker 2: there was no anxiety about like you're going to wear
Speaker 2: them up.
Speaker 4: They're sleeping. It's their sleep time. Interesting, Okay.
Speaker 2: And it's important to remember that these you know, small
Speaker 2: scale subsistence societies they're not living history, right, but they
Speaker 2: along with these historical sleep analyzes, can provide some interesting
Speaker 2: insights into the effects of industrialization on sleep, insights which
Speaker 2: I think force us to question some of our current assumptions,
Speaker 2: like artificial light negatively affecting sleep duration. If pre industrial
Speaker 2: societies living without artificial light or sleeping five point seven
Speaker 2: to seven hours a night, what does that mean for
Speaker 2: artificial light? Is that the problem? Is it a contributing problem?
Speaker 2: Is it a problem in some situations and not others?
Speaker 2: But there's these like blanket statements that like it is evil, yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's just are destroying You're destroying your sleep?
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe they are.
Speaker 2: Is it the screens or is it the content that
Speaker 2: you're doing? We talked about that scroll. But if we
Speaker 2: are sleeping similar amounts as pre industrial societies, both historical
Speaker 2: and modern, what's the issue? Like?
Speaker 4: Are we all sleep deprived?
Speaker 2: Have we as a species been sleep deprived for millennia?
Speaker 2: I mean, but like really maybe? I mean, when you
Speaker 2: consider what we know about sleep in humans, segmented, non
Speaker 2: segmented go to beds soon after sunset or later in
Speaker 2: the evening. There's one thing, there's one rule that comes out.
Speaker 2: We are predictably unpredictable sleepers.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: Flexibility is built into our sleep, especially when it comes
Speaker 2: to sleep timing, and that is key to what makes
Speaker 2: us human.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, okay.
Speaker 2: Over our species evolutionary history. We spent those evening hours socializing, storytelling,
Speaker 2: exchanging ideas, building relationships, philosophizing, becoming more human. Research has
Speaker 2: shown that the topics of nighttime conversations tend to be
Speaker 2: more abstract and creative.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's so weird and interesting.
Speaker 2: Using things like storytelling. I mean, like think about when
Speaker 2: you're like sitting around a fire.
Speaker 5: Right, the weirder things get the longer you're awake. Huh,
Speaker 5: even when there's not alcohol.
Speaker 2: Involves even but during the day, the topics are more
Speaker 2: you know, they are more like practical immediate concerns.
Speaker 4: How do we solve this problem? Right now?
Speaker 3: What are we going to eat for dinner?
Speaker 4: Exactly? Not like what does dinner mean?
Speaker 3: What is the meaning of life?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And maybe in the winter months we wanted to turn
Speaker 2: in early, and in the cool summer evenings we hut
Speaker 2: around a fire. We stay up late one night and
Speaker 2: squeeze in a nap the next day. We have different chronotypes.
Speaker 2: We have daylarks and night owls. This is probably a
Speaker 2: part of this. It was beneficial to have people sleeping
Speaker 2: and awake at times offset from one another in continuous
Speaker 2: predator watch, childcare things like that. As a species, as individuals,
Speaker 2: we are flexible sleepers, but that flexibility is no longer
Speaker 2: serving us well because we live in an inflexible society.
Speaker 5: You have to be at school at seven twenty am
Speaker 5: or you're getting a tarty slip yep.
Speaker 2: And this in the society, we are also constantly told
Speaker 2: and constantly feel that we are not getting enough sleep,
Speaker 2: that it is the source of all of our mental
Speaker 2: and physical health issues, and we need to prioritize sleep.
Speaker 2: Even though many of us work eight to five or
Speaker 2: longer and need to commute and need to find time
Speaker 2: for family and friends and self care and healthy home
Speaker 2: cooking and exercise and taxes and home maintenance and a
Speaker 2: second job, sleep is often the first thing to go,
Speaker 2: especially since sleeping long hours is seen.
Speaker 4: As such a moral failing.
Speaker 2: It is yeah so Echoing the tech bros of today
Speaker 2: was Thomas Edison, who wrote at the turn of the
Speaker 2: twentieth century quote most people over sleep one hundred percent
Speaker 2: because they like it that extra.
Speaker 4: Yeah, dare you like it to sleep? Oh my god,
Speaker 4: that extra.
Speaker 2: One makes them unhealthy and inefficient. For myself, I never
Speaker 2: found need of more than four or five hours sleep
Speaker 2: in the twenty four I never dream it's real sleep. Like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Edison, I know, I know. We are
Speaker 2: always hearing people talk about loss of sleep as a calamity.
Speaker 2: They better call it loss of time, vitality and opportunities.
Speaker 4: God, yeah, I'm so over him.
Speaker 2: Okay, but the thing is he had cots in every
Speaker 2: room of his office building so he can do it.
Speaker 4: All the time.
Speaker 5: Are you serious? Because he was only sleeping four or
Speaker 5: five hours a night, bro.
Speaker 2: Right, and he was getting the other four or five
Speaker 2: around his office.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But it is like that sentiment is such an American
Speaker 2: business industrial sentiment with Protestant roots, Like if you aren't
Speaker 2: working or praying, your commuting with the double for sure.
Speaker 2: There's so much toxicity surrounding competitive sleeplessness, like oh, I
Speaker 2: only need to get this many hours, And I think
Speaker 2: that sacrificing sleep has not only become normalized but idealized,
Speaker 2: Like we can function on this, But what is the
Speaker 2: truth is that we are set to fail right from
Speaker 2: the beginning. Who genuinely feels most days that they are
Speaker 2: getting enough sleep and have enough time to do everything
Speaker 2: that they want and need to do, all while not
Speaker 2: feeling utterly exhausted.
Speaker 4: No one, does anyone feel that way?
Speaker 3: Someone might.
Speaker 2: The medicalization of sleep, where sleep became an object to
Speaker 2: be managed or optimized or treated, rather than the restorative
Speaker 2: process it once was. This happened over the course of
Speaker 2: the Industrial Revolution, and it is in full swing today.
Speaker 2: During the eighteen hundreds, sleep grew more interesting to those
Speaker 2: titans of industry who wanted to maximize worker productivity and sleep. Capitalism, labor,
Speaker 2: and medicine all became intertwined. Medical discussions of sleep took
Speaker 2: on a more industrial tone. So it would be like,
Speaker 2: the more act of the mind, the greater the necessity
Speaker 2: for sleep. Just as with a steamer, the greater the
Speaker 2: number of revolutions the engine makes, the more imperative is
Speaker 2: the demand for fuel. Okay, it's like, let's talk about trains, steamers.
Speaker 4: Whatever, because that's what we are. Machines. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sleep transformed from a personal issue to a matter of
Speaker 2: public health, something unruly to be brought to heal. Interesting
Speaker 2: you're staying up too late, you're sleeping in too long,
Speaker 2: you are going to bed too early, You're wasting It's
Speaker 2: the video games, it's the cell phones, it's the you know,
Speaker 2: the books.
Speaker 4: Oh, the books.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, although I do I have stayed up way
Speaker 2: too late reading books.
Speaker 3: Okay, but when they're really good, you have to.
Speaker 2: And then with the development of the EEG in the
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, it became something that you could objectively measure.
Speaker 2: You could assess sleep duration before, of course, but like
Speaker 2: this was a whole new dimension, and with that came conflict.
Speaker 2: How do you determine sleep quality? Is it based on
Speaker 2: the EEG or how well rested someone feels? Is it
Speaker 2: based on their duration or whether they feel like they
Speaker 2: got enough sleep?
Speaker 4: How do you.
Speaker 2: Define insomnia sleeping less than the recommended amount, or wanting
Speaker 2: to sleep more but not being able. To the medicalization
Speaker 2: of sleep, which continued over the twentieth century, it led
Speaker 2: to this very narrow picture of normal sleep, and with
Speaker 2: that in place, medicine could now number one identify pathological
Speaker 2: deviations from that norm, and two develop treatments or therapies
Speaker 2: with the aim of returning someone to quote unquote normal sleep.
Speaker 2: At the same time, the EEG had shown a sleeping
Speaker 2: person to be really a world unto themselves, not influenced
Speaker 2: by environmental stimuli, meaning that interventions needed to be at
Speaker 2: the personal level. They were someone's personal responsibility.
Speaker 4: Ah, this is a you problem. It's a problem. It's
Speaker 4: not an US problem.
Speaker 2: Forget the inflexible eight to five. Forget capitalism wanting to
Speaker 2: extract every drop of productivity out of their workers. Forget
Speaker 2: the moralizing over too much sleep, Forget the extremely narrow
Speaker 2: definition of what ordered sleep feels like. If you don't
Speaker 2: fit that picture, you either need to change something about
Speaker 2: yourself or get a special lamp or take meds or something.
Speaker 4: But it is you.
Speaker 3: It is on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the sad reality is that society is unlikely
Speaker 2: to change to accommodate human sleep flexibility, the non pathogenic
Speaker 2: variation within our species.
Speaker 4: We have variation.
Speaker 2: It does not mean that you are wrong or broken
Speaker 2: or disordered. Yes, and there is disordered sleep, oh, definitely,
Speaker 2: not saying that there isn't. Yeah, But what I'm saying
Speaker 2: is that like we have do we feel like we
Speaker 2: have to fit ourselves into that rigid structure of going
Speaker 2: to bed at ten waking up at six feeling super
Speaker 2: well rested, not having any naps, because who needs naps?
Speaker 4: Naps are for the lazy, right, I.
Speaker 3: Can't wait to talk more about naps.
Speaker 2: I mean they're also like I didn't get into this,
Speaker 2: but there are like there was a big push for
Speaker 2: certain companies to adopt like napping flexibility to increase productivity.
Speaker 7: Of course, productivity, yeah, yeah, but also I think it
Speaker 7: did have a relationship so much good data that allowing
Speaker 7: increases productivity.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, just like working from home. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But when we when we fail to get that solid
Speaker 2: eight hours uninterrupted sleep, when we feel tired, when we
Speaker 2: struggle to fall asleep, we might feel like a failure.
Speaker 2: And the medicalization of sleep has been a great thing, right.
Speaker 2: It has helped us to diagnose and treat people who
Speaker 2: are suffering from disordered sleep. It's allowed us to define
Speaker 2: what disordered sleep is, and it gives people solutions when
Speaker 2: they are especially desperate to actually get some sort of rest.
Speaker 2: It's been a real lifesaver when it comes to sleep apnea,
Speaker 2: for example. Huge It has helped us to better understand
Speaker 2: the negative consequences of sleep deprivation, which are very real
Speaker 2: and serious and the importance of getting adequate sleep, but
Speaker 2: it has also given us this very narrow definition of
Speaker 2: normal sleep, leading us to overpathologize and overtreat, especially with
Speaker 2: a direct to consumer marketing of sleep medications that convince
Speaker 2: us that we're all over tired or not getting enough sleep.
Speaker 2: What even is excessive daytime sleepiness?
Speaker 4: Anyway?
Speaker 3: It actual definition?
Speaker 2: I know that it does, but it's like the commercials
Speaker 2: don't say what it is. They're just like, are you tired,
Speaker 2: yeah by this medication?
Speaker 4: Ask your doctor about Yeah?
Speaker 2: Exactly, Yeah, I know, exactly, I know. And we start
Speaker 2: our obsession with sleep from a very young age, Like
Speaker 2: what proportion of kids books are about sleep and needing
Speaker 2: to sleep?
Speaker 5: I've read so many of them, so many Hello, I
Speaker 5: was tracking my child's sleep yep, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And so it consumes it's consumed.
Speaker 5: The parents of newborns, especially right now because there's such
Speaker 5: a marketplace, so there's such.
Speaker 3: A baby's weak window, et cetera.
Speaker 4: It makes me like viscerally upset.
Speaker 2: Well, I think because sleep is and should be a
Speaker 2: RESTful thing. It's a restorative process, but now it has
Speaker 2: become a stressor rather than a stress reliever, and it
Speaker 2: creates the cycle where the more that we worry about sleep,
Speaker 2: the worst sleep we get.
Speaker 4: Yep. And it's clear that.
Speaker 2: Many people around the world struggle with sleep, myself included.
Speaker 2: And maybe those issues are the result of our genetics,
Speaker 2: our individual choices, our life stage, our stress levels, are
Speaker 2: inflex society, or all of the above. But I feel
Speaker 2: like one thing that I really took away from this
Speaker 2: and found helpful is that achieving society's definition of ideal sleep.
Speaker 2: Quote it night after night after night. It's probably a
Speaker 2: losing battle. And variation is normal. It is the norm.
Speaker 2: The average is not necessarily the ideal. Just like how
Speaker 2: few people actually have twenty eight day menstrual cycles? Who
Speaker 2: actually gets eight hours of sleep on average a night
Speaker 2: with this much deep sleep and this much rem and
Speaker 2: so on and so forth erin maybe you'll tell me
Speaker 2: the answer, Well, no, Well tell.
Speaker 4: Me some things anyway.
Speaker 5: I can't wait to especially to get more into naps
Speaker 5: and split sleep and how we define good What is
Speaker 5: quality sleep?
Speaker 4: What is it? Let me tell you? Who gets to
Speaker 4: say that?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you.
Speaker 5: Okay, Since the nineteen eighties, it's estimated that, on average
Speaker 5: in the US, sleep duration has declined from closer to
Speaker 5: an average of seven and a half hours per night
Speaker 5: to just over seven hours, so we've lost half an
Speaker 5: hour of sleep in that same time period. The prevalence
Speaker 5: of adults who report sleeping less than six hours per
Speaker 5: night has increased from twenty two percent to thirty two
Speaker 5: percent between nineteen eighty five and twenty seventeen. So more
Speaker 5: people are sleeping less than six hours a night, and
Speaker 5: on average, we're sleeping thirty minutes less than we used to.
Speaker 5: And like you mentioned at the top, as of twenty twelve,
Speaker 5: at least it's estimated that between fifty and seventy million Americans,
Speaker 5: which if you extraply that out globally, is billions of
Speaker 5: people worldwide are estimated to have some type of chronic
Speaker 5: sleep disorder. But is that true globally, I don't know,
Speaker 5: because there was a paper from the UK that actually
Speaker 5: suggested that we haven't changed or at least there they
Speaker 5: haven't really changed much in their sleep duration between the
Speaker 5: nineteen seventies and now. If anything, sleep duration maybe increased
Speaker 5: by a few minutes on average, what is that sleep
Speaker 5: duration around that seven and a half hour mark, seven
Speaker 5: and a half still around that seven and a half
Speaker 5: hour mark, but studies out of Finland and Sweden are
Speaker 5: slightly more in line with US numbers that maybe over
Speaker 5: the last thirty forty years we've lost a few minutes
Speaker 5: of sleep on average per night. Sleep duration is getting
Speaker 5: quote unquote worse rather than quote unquote better. Now, there
Speaker 5: is no doubt, and I don't want to under emphasize this,
Speaker 5: that there are substantial individual and public health consequences of
Speaker 5: a lack of sleep.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: So you were asking, like, what do we like, why
Speaker 5: is this eight hours? Why is this and magic number?
Speaker 5: It's really I think it mostly comes from the data
Speaker 5: that we have that when people get consistently less than
Speaker 5: seven hours of sleep per night, they have some negative
Speaker 5: consequences in both the short term and the long term.
Speaker 5: But this is a U shaped curve, so we see
Speaker 5: that people who are consistently sleeping less than seven hours
Speaker 5: or more than eight or nine hours all have long
Speaker 5: term health consequences.
Speaker 2: But Aaron like, what about what is normal for one person?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, It's going to depends exactly.
Speaker 5: And that's why it's always also arranged like it is
Speaker 5: all of the literatures like it is arranged. Oh, I know,
Speaker 5: And it's a lot of the data on like people
Speaker 5: who are getting short duration sleep, the people who are
Speaker 5: getting short sleep are actually usually getting less than five hours,
Speaker 5: even though they then lump them with people who are
Speaker 5: getting less than seven hours. If that makes sense, Yes,
Speaker 5: so they get lumped together as this less than seven hours,
Speaker 5: but most of them actually getting less than five.
Speaker 2: I mean, I okay, I understand all that, but it
Speaker 2: like it again, we are like a last episode, you
Speaker 2: talked about how how much sleep one individual person needs
Speaker 2: is highly variable and is very an individual the lifetime
Speaker 2: and lifetime and blah blah blah. But we're still making
Speaker 2: as like these public health guidelines that are like, if
Speaker 2: you are getting more than eight or nine hours of sleep,
Speaker 2: that's bad for you. But what if someone like there
Speaker 2: are people who is that what they need well at
Speaker 2: an individual level or in their life stage.
Speaker 5: That's also that also is we think that a lot
Speaker 5: of that, especially when it comes to long sleep, like
Speaker 5: people who are sleeping longer than nine hours on average,
Speaker 5: is that actually reverse causation. Is there something going on
Speaker 5: that is a health consequence and the sleep is a
Speaker 5: consequence of that health like problem or whatever, rather than
Speaker 5: the sleep being the causes of any of these health problems. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so we don't really know, but there has even been
Speaker 5: studies that have shown just an increase risk of all
Speaker 5: cause mortality with sleep less than five hours and with
Speaker 5: sleep more than nine hours.
Speaker 4: I mean less than five is very short.
Speaker 5: It's very short exactly, but again they often lump it
Speaker 5: is less than seven or less than five, so they
Speaker 5: like in these studies, they kind of cruit them in.
Speaker 4: That way, big boxes.
Speaker 5: Acutely, we know that twenty four hours of sleep deprivation
Speaker 5: is equivalent to a blood alcohol level of like one
Speaker 5: hundred milligrams per DESTO leader, which is like a point
Speaker 5: one on a breathalyzer. A reminder that legal limit in
Speaker 5: the US is point eight, and you are impaired at
Speaker 5: like point oh five for the most part. But the
Speaker 5: long term effects are also very serious. So I want
Speaker 5: to kind of get into a little bit of what
Speaker 5: we see these like, what are these? Okay, I said
Speaker 5: there's negative health effects of short sleep, what are they really?
Speaker 5: We definitely see increases in fatal accidents, especially car accidents,
Speaker 5: but also workplace accidents, whether that's like making mistakes at
Speaker 5: work that put other people at risk, or getting your
Speaker 5: arm cut or like having an accident in your workplace,
Speaker 5: and these are largely driven by impairment in performance and
Speaker 5: awareness that comes with this sleep deprivation. Right, we talked
Speaker 5: about how it affects your ability to react to things.
Speaker 3: And all of that attentiveness exactly.
Speaker 5: But we also see big increases in risks of cardiovascular disease,
Speaker 5: so that's heart attack, stroke, heart failure. We see increases
Speaker 5: in high blood pressure, we see increases in diabetes. We
Speaker 5: don't know the exact mechanisms of this, but we think
Speaker 5: that it's related to effects on our metabolism as well
Speaker 5: as insulin resistance, and then maybe something about like variations
Speaker 5: in blood pressure and things that happen with sleep. So
Speaker 5: if we're getting short sleep again that less than five
Speaker 5: ish five to seven hours of sleep per night, we
Speaker 5: see increases in risk of all of these diseases. We
Speaker 5: talked in our Circadian Rhythm episode about the very strong
Speaker 5: associations between shift work, which tends to result in sleep
Speaker 5: deprivation and increased risk of cancers, and we don't really
Speaker 5: know the mechanisms there, but we also see we know
Speaker 5: that sleep has a huge effect on our immune system,
Speaker 5: and so a lack of sleep can increase inflammatory markers
Speaker 5: and things like that, and we see sleep affected in
Speaker 5: a variety of ways in a variety of psychiatric and
Speaker 5: neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, bipolar, anxiety, and dementia. Sleep architecture
Speaker 5: is hugely affected in dementia is a consequence exactly. We
Speaker 5: have no idea, right, but we know that it's like
Speaker 5: very involved.
Speaker 2: That's like, and that's what Yeah, there's like, ah, this
Speaker 2: is where the headlines I feel like are really frustrating
Speaker 2: because it's like, we know, for instance, in Perkinson's disease,
Speaker 2: that sleep disruption is one of the earliest symptoms, yes,
Speaker 2: and it's usually.
Speaker 4: Something that you only look back on and go, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Yep, just like constipation actually.
Speaker 4: Just like constipation.
Speaker 2: But I feel like there are headlines that then suggest
Speaker 2: that like if you aren't if you are getting sleep,
Speaker 2: you are.
Speaker 4: At risk of these disorders.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's like, is that is that true? We
Speaker 2: don't does it play right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yes, you're right, Like we don't really know, especially when
Speaker 5: it comes to like causal versus consequence and things like that.
Speaker 5: I also do want to just point out that there's
Speaker 5: also a lot of data that shows, especially in the US,
Speaker 5: that there's huge socioeconomic and racial disparities in who is
Speaker 5: getting quote unquote enough sleep.
Speaker 2: Who's having to work two jobs, three jobs, and how childcare.
Speaker 5: It's like, right, yeah, so who is at risk for
Speaker 5: sleep deprivation or having short sleep? And because we know
Speaker 5: that short sleep is associated with a lot of the
Speaker 5: same health outcomes that we see huge disparities in terms
Speaker 5: of race and socioeconomics when it comes to things like
Speaker 5: heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure, these things that are also
Speaker 5: related to sleep. Like, you can't really disentangle those things
Speaker 5: very easily. But there's a few big caveats, I feel
Speaker 5: like to all of this, and you pointed out so
Speaker 5: much any of them already in what you were talking
Speaker 5: about first, is that whether we have this number of
Speaker 5: seven to eight hours, because again that is what this
Speaker 5: kind of large scale data all converges on that less
Speaker 5: than seven ish hours, more than eight ish hours, we
Speaker 5: see more negative health consequences. So that means that the
Speaker 5: ideal for adults is seven eight ish hours. Does it
Speaker 5: have to happen all at once or can a split
Speaker 5: sleep schedule ken cs does or naps or repostas can
Speaker 5: that count?
Speaker 4: And there's not a ton.
Speaker 5: Of data on this, but the data that has actually
Speaker 5: looked at it, studies that have looked at like a
Speaker 5: split sleep schedule or looking at naps, they absolutely count.
Speaker 5: So it is not about getting seven uninterrupted hours of sleep.
Speaker 5: It is seven total hours of sleep in a twenty
Speaker 5: four hour period. And we know that, especially in the
Speaker 5: cases of things like shift work where you can't avoid
Speaker 5: the fact that you only have this number of hours
Speaker 5: between work or whatever, that having naps can have a
Speaker 5: huge increase in performance, decrease in accidents, like it really
Speaker 5: improves outcomes. But the other thing is that if we
Speaker 5: need seven to eight hours, it needs to be good
Speaker 5: quality sleep too. But all of the data that we
Speaker 5: have on the negative effects of sleep really rely largely
Speaker 5: with a few exceptions, on total duration of sleep. It's
Speaker 5: all about sleep deprivation, right where it's like, we know
Speaker 5: that if you're not getting enough hours of sleep, you're
Speaker 5: having these negative health income outcomes. We don't have nearly
Speaker 5: as much data on what makes.
Speaker 4: Good sleep good.
Speaker 2: Sleep, Okay, but I have like just a question or
Speaker 2: a thought to because we're talking about how sleep deprivation, duration,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And I think that there's and you pointed
Speaker 2: this out that there are people who are at risk
Speaker 2: of sleep deprivation because of life, life circumstances, because of jobs,
Speaker 2: because of et cetera, like all these different aspects. So
Speaker 2: they are not able to achieve eight hours.
Speaker 3: Eight hours at least not eight hours continuously.
Speaker 2: Right, they like, let's say those eight hours are not
Speaker 2: available to them. But there's a difference between that person
Speaker 2: who's sleeping six hours or is there a difference, I
Speaker 2: guess is my question between that person who can only
Speaker 2: sleep six hours because of external life circumstances versus someone
Speaker 2: who can only sleep six hours even though they want
Speaker 2: to and have the space to sleep eight.
Speaker 3: That's a great question, Aaron.
Speaker 5: We don't have that level as far as I found
Speaker 5: in the literature. We don't have that level of disentanglement.
Speaker 2: Because I feel like this is where some of it
Speaker 2: comes into play. Whereas like not being able to achieve
Speaker 2: those eight hours is it why?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: Is it because you are dealing with insomnia and you
Speaker 5: are trying to fall asleep but you cannot Or is
Speaker 5: it because you get home at ten pm and your
Speaker 5: next shift starts at five am?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right, I don't know. We don't have it because again,
Speaker 5: these are like, yeah, it's a really good question. It's
Speaker 5: just so much because those are two different that is,
Speaker 5: two different issues that we're dealing with, and yet the
Speaker 5: outcome is the same. You are getting less hours of sleep.
Speaker 2: You're getting less hours. But is the consequence of that
Speaker 2: outcome like does that.
Speaker 5: Might have the same effect as far as far as
Speaker 5: we know on the big scale data, yes, just period,
Speaker 5: it's like you're not getting enough hours.
Speaker 4: Ok, well, let's talk about quality. So how do we.
Speaker 3: Define quality sleep? According to Big Sleep.
Speaker 5: Just kidding, I just want to call that's the National
Speaker 5: Sleep Foundation, but you know everyone's.
Speaker 3: Into Big so and so.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, So according to the National Sleep Foundation, there
Speaker 5: was a paper I think it was from twenty seventeen.
Speaker 5: I'll have to check my notes, but they came out
Speaker 5: with this big guideline basically on like how are we
Speaker 5: going to define quality sleep?
Speaker 3: How do we actually do this? What counts as quality
Speaker 3: good quality sleep?
Speaker 5: And I'm not going to go nitty gritty in the details,
Speaker 5: but you can read the exact paper to really because
Speaker 5: they go line by line on like what do you
Speaker 5: need to have for this to be good sleep? Or
Speaker 5: what metric would qualify as poor quality sleep. The gist
Speaker 5: of it is like big scale, we should be falling
Speaker 5: asleep relatively quickly, which means within fifteen to twenty minutes,
Speaker 5: not too quickly, Like if you're falling asleep within two
Speaker 5: to five minutes or less than eight minutes, that might
Speaker 5: be a sign that you had sleep deprivation and so
Speaker 5: your sleep drive is too strong, so you're falling asleep
Speaker 5: too fast.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, annoy it's just like I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just am still on the whole like should, should, should,
Speaker 2: here's the ideal. You are wrong lett, you don't do this?
Speaker 3: What can we keep going? Because it's gonna get even better? Please,
Speaker 3: meaning you're gonna get even.
Speaker 4: More I'm annoyed. Yeah.
Speaker 5: We we should be falling asleep relatively quickly. We should
Speaker 5: not be waking up more than once per night. Certainly,
Speaker 5: we should not be awake for more than twenty minutes
Speaker 5: total after we fall asleep.
Speaker 3: Just let me finish and then we'll get into it.
Speaker 5: Our rem sleep. This gets a little more into sleep
Speaker 5: architecture and who's able to measure this? Our rem sleep
Speaker 5: should be about twenty to thirty percent of our total
Speaker 5: sleep duration, and our deep sleep should be about fifteen
Speaker 5: to twenty percent. Okay, fifteen to twenty fifteen to twenty percent. Now,
Speaker 5: these are the consensus guidelines. This is the consensus. These
Speaker 5: are the average that they came to. Even in this document,
Speaker 5: they have these like graphs for each of these and
Speaker 5: they have dotted like it's like a barograph where it's
Speaker 5: like filled in versus dotted versus blank, and the dotted
Speaker 5: area is the quote unquote disagreement. And that's like most
Speaker 5: of these graphs, meaning that even among the experts they
Speaker 5: could not agree on like should it be twenty percent
Speaker 5: or should it be thirty percent? Should it be fifteen minutes?
Speaker 5: Or should it be twenty minutes? Like we really don't know.
Speaker 5: And yet they are trying to come up with these
Speaker 5: guidelines on how what counts as good quality sleep? How
Speaker 5: are we going to measure this in like clinical studies?
Speaker 5: Not how should you be measuring it on your rings
Speaker 5: and things?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, can I there's one more?
Speaker 5: There's one more, because this I think is so important
Speaker 5: in the context of everything that you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 5: According to these guidelines, if you are napping during the
Speaker 5: day and you're not a baby, that is an indicator
Speaker 5: of poor sleep quality, especially if you're napping for more
Speaker 5: than like ninety two one hundred minutes aka one full
Speaker 5: sleep cycle.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, go ahead. So here's the thing. Uh huh?
Speaker 4: Where do I begin?
Speaker 3: Where do you begin?
Speaker 2: They have different all of these different metrics.
Speaker 4: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: And this is what you should do, and this is
Speaker 2: what you shouldn't do. Yes, And why shouldn't you do
Speaker 2: those things? That means that you get bad sleep? What
Speaker 2: does bad sleep mean? How is this measured? What about
Speaker 2: the piece? What about the picture?
Speaker 4: All of all of these things together? Correct? Why is
Speaker 4: napping bad?
Speaker 2: That feels very like industrial revolution more moralizing?
Speaker 5: And you should not be awake for more than twenty
Speaker 5: minutes at night. So that means that a split sleep schedule,
Speaker 5: a bi phasic sleep schedule, would be an indicator of
Speaker 5: poor quality sleep according to these guys.
Speaker 2: Lass, I don't it just there's something about sleep that
Speaker 2: makes me feel So I think maybe because like I
Speaker 2: feel such anxiety about sleep that I am because all
Speaker 2: of these things, like I'm not getting good quality sleep
Speaker 2: on the center these metrics. But there are days when
Speaker 2: I feel great and I feel super well rested. But
Speaker 2: I'm like, but is this going to make me more
Speaker 2: vulnerable to infections? Or am I going to get dementia
Speaker 2: or whatever? All these different things, and it just feels
Speaker 2: like so much pressure to do.
Speaker 4: The right thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and there's no there's no solution. There's like very
Speaker 2: few solutions, or there's solutions in the forms of pharmaceuticals
Speaker 2: which like work for some people, don't work for.
Speaker 5: Others, and most of them are highly addictive where you
Speaker 5: cannot then sleep without it. They're also altering our sleep architecture,
Speaker 5: Like there's a lot of downsides of a lot of
Speaker 5: the medicines that we use to help people sleep, and
Speaker 5: most of them are not indicated to be used in
Speaker 5: the long term.
Speaker 2: At the same time, like there is okay, at the
Speaker 2: same time, many people aren't getting the sleep that they
Speaker 2: should be getting, and part of that is maybe it's
Speaker 2: individual choices, but part of it is also because because
Speaker 2: of the had the way that sercie sience function. Yep,
Speaker 2: and so's there is no solution, right, but it's so
Speaker 2: I just think.
Speaker 5: That these guidelines in particular are so interesting if we
Speaker 5: really pull back and look at this like big picture
Speaker 5: of evolutionary context, and they still largely are driven based
Speaker 5: on data about sleep deprivation and things, because we see
Speaker 5: that like if people are sleep deprived or they're not
Speaker 5: getting a lot of deep sleep or things like that
Speaker 5: during a sleep, then they're going to have say an
Speaker 5: increased or rather a decreased sleep latency, so like the
Speaker 5: next night, they're going to fall asleep a lot quicker, right,
Speaker 5: And so that is where it's not like this data
Speaker 5: comes out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: They're not making it up, but it is.
Speaker 5: It's all very messy, and it's all based on how
Speaker 5: we live today. And I read one paper that was like, honestly,
Speaker 5: to look at how humans sleep today is like looking
Speaker 5: at lab rats in a lab. It's not like looking
Speaker 5: at natural rats in their habitat because we live in
Speaker 5: labs basically, which I thought was so inter well, And.
Speaker 2: So much of the sleep treatments or how sleep disorder
Speaker 2: is defined or characterized, or how people feel like they're
Speaker 2: not getting enough sleep is because I can't fall asleep
Speaker 2: at this time the way that I that everyone else
Speaker 2: thinks I should, yes, right, And a lot of the
Speaker 2: treatments then, like I was, I didn't talk about any
Speaker 2: of this, but there was a book that I read
Speaker 2: that discussed this and did a lot of case studies
Speaker 2: and kids who like, there were a few kids that
Speaker 2: were like I can't they could not stay awake during
Speaker 2: the day, and their tactic was to make them go
Speaker 2: exercise during that time. It would be like you have
Speaker 2: to walk on a treadmill, you have to go on
Speaker 2: this exercise bike instead of like letting.
Speaker 3: This kid take a nap.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: And same thing, like somebody was like I had to
Speaker 2: quit my job and find a more flexible job because
Speaker 2: I could not wake up or I could not sleep
Speaker 2: it whatever, it is, right, But it's like in those
Speaker 2: situations or like I was on this medication that allowed
Speaker 2: me to sleep during these times when society was telling
Speaker 2: me to sleep.
Speaker 4: Yep, that I had to sleep then.
Speaker 2: But it's just like it shows such a bias towards
Speaker 2: what we diffrene is ideal sleep, right, the way that
Speaker 2: medicine and and capitalism are.
Speaker 5: Yeah in hand in this oh one hundred yeah, it's
Speaker 5: so it's so so so interesting, Like I I I
Speaker 5: feel like this has changed the way that I think
Speaker 5: about sleep totally.
Speaker 3: It was really interesting.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, at the same time, there
Speaker 5: are quite a lot of sleep disorders. Yes, and again,
Speaker 5: we do need sleep, and it seems that on average,
Speaker 5: on average, we need somewhere between seven and eight hours
Speaker 5: as adults.
Speaker 3: You could maybe say six to eight hours.
Speaker 4: I just find that so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yees, six six eight, But like historically and then you
Speaker 2: know pre industrial societies today getting getting five to seven
Speaker 2: or five point seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's pretty close to six to seven, but like.
Speaker 2: Six to seven today is like that would be low
Speaker 2: I think in medicine.
Speaker 5: In medicine, that's usually considered pretty reap. But you were
Speaker 5: talking about short sleep being less than seven. Well, again
Speaker 5: because they lump most of them are getting less than five.
Speaker 5: I feel like seven is the number that is most common.
Speaker 5: So you're right, six would be probably considered.
Speaker 4: Not enough today. Yeah, but.
Speaker 5: It's all on average too, right, And if they're getting
Speaker 5: more in the winter but we're not, because why is
Speaker 5: it the fluoresza lights, I don't know. It's a little
Speaker 5: bit of a mess. But there are a lot of
Speaker 5: sleep disorders and they're all really important and they all
Speaker 5: deserve their own episode, which we're not doing narklepsi.
Speaker 2: We will be doing insomnia, we will be doing sleepy,
Speaker 2: We should do that one soon.
Speaker 5: We should because we can, like you're saying, kind of
Speaker 5: group those those are three of the big categories really,
Speaker 5: or they fit into three categories of sleep disorders. So
Speaker 5: I'll mention a few of the biggest ones just so
Speaker 5: that people know, like how we define these big scale
Speaker 5: Insomnia is probably the first one that people think of
Speaker 5: if we think of like sleep disorder. Maybe I don't
Speaker 5: know a lot of people, and there's different ways to
Speaker 5: define it. If you're dealing with, you know, a little
Speaker 5: bit of insomnia, meaning like a cute insomnia jet lag
Speaker 5: versus chronic insomnia, But usually it's either not being able
Speaker 5: to fall asleep or not being able to stay asleep
Speaker 5: once you're asleep, which again is so interesting in the
Speaker 5: context of this idea.
Speaker 4: Of faces sep so omnia.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, And it's estimated that at least in the
Speaker 5: US anywhere from ten to twenty percent of adults have
Speaker 5: either chronic insomnia or intermittent issues with insomnia, so chronic
Speaker 5: twenty percent, intermittent. We talked again in our Circadian Rhythm
Speaker 5: episode about circadian rhythm sleep disorders, which is you know,
Speaker 5: whether you whether it's just a mismatch between what your
Speaker 5: job or your environment requires, or because you have to
Speaker 5: do shift work, whatever it is, whether you're a teenager
Speaker 5: and your school starts at seven am, but you have
Speaker 5: shifted to be a night owl, So that that's a
Speaker 5: whole nother set of sleep disorders. Then there are sleep
Speaker 5: related breathing disorders like obstructive sleep apnea, which and this
Speaker 5: is where I think we can get a lot of
Speaker 5: data about sleep quality because sleep apnea is not necessarily
Speaker 5: changing your sleep duration at all, but it results in
Speaker 5: fragmented sleep because you are frequently arousing during sleep and
Speaker 5: you're basically going from non rem sleep to awake for
Speaker 5: very short periods. You might not even ever be aware
Speaker 5: that you're doing it, but your brain is doing it
Speaker 5: on top of the fact that you are not breathing,
Speaker 5: so your body and brain are not getting oxygen alert alert.
Speaker 4: That's why you wake up.
Speaker 5: And so that has huge consequences, especially on things like
Speaker 5: cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, all those things.
Speaker 5: So obstructive sleep apnea is a very serious disorder, and
Speaker 5: it's estimated to effect close to fifteen percent of adults
Speaker 5: in the US. Fifteen percent such a high I know number.
Speaker 5: And then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, which
Speaker 5: are disorders of central hypersomnia, like narcolepsy, which is the
Speaker 5: most well known, and that results in sleep attacks during
Speaker 5: the day and this interrupted more fragmented and less consolidated
Speaker 5: sleep at night. We also see, especially with narcolepsy, we
Speaker 5: see what's called cataplexy, where you have the muscle atonia.
Speaker 4: The we usually associate it with rem.
Speaker 5: Sleep that is associated by emotional arousal or sometimes just
Speaker 5: happens randomly inappropriate times, meaning not while you are asleep.
Speaker 5: And then we have there's other hypersomnias as well. And
Speaker 5: then there's things like parasomnia's which we see with things
Speaker 5: like Parkinson's, or we have sleep related movement disorders like
Speaker 5: restless leg like. There are a lot of sleep disorders
Speaker 5: that are affecting people's duration and quality of sleep, even
Speaker 5: though we don't have great metrics to kind of look
Speaker 5: at all of that. Yeah, and then what I think
Speaker 5: is interesting is part of what you were saying, Aaron,
Speaker 5: is that there's often a disconnect between what our watch
Speaker 5: says and what we feel.
Speaker 2: What feels normal, and how we can I feel like
Speaker 2: that is something that I struggle with sometimes, like, is
Speaker 2: the tiredness I'm feeling excessive?
Speaker 4: Is it excessive daytime sleepiness?
Speaker 5: Or am I just like is it fatigue which is
Speaker 5: different from sleepiness?
Speaker 2: Or am I just like you know it's a down
Speaker 2: period or whatever?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are so many things.
Speaker 2: Am I just sitting at my desk for twelve hours
Speaker 2: a day? Right?
Speaker 5: And we can often see big disconnects in terms of
Speaker 5: how much sleep someone is getting if we're measuring it,
Speaker 5: and how much sleep they feel like they're getting, how
Speaker 5: rested they feel in the morning. So, like, all of
Speaker 5: that is is hugely important. And the less sleep that
Speaker 5: we get actually, especially acutely, we know this more from
Speaker 5: acute data. We are less good at recognizing our own deficits.
Speaker 5: Much like with alcohol, Right, once you're drunk, you don't
Speaker 5: realize how drunk you are. Once you are sleep deprived,
Speaker 5: you don't necessarily realize how sleep deprived you are. Interesting, Yes, especially,
Speaker 5: we have a lot of data on that in the
Speaker 5: acute term.
Speaker 4: Can you say more about that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, like someone who has been sleep deprived for
Speaker 5: let's say twenty four hours or something like that, we
Speaker 5: know that they're like blood, It's like they are drunk, right,
Speaker 5: But they think often that they are perfectly capable of
Speaker 5: making sound and rational decision and that there is no
Speaker 5: impairment in their decision making. And it's not because they
Speaker 5: don't logically know that it that sleep deprivation affects them.
Speaker 5: It's because in that moment there's like a disconnect. You
Speaker 5: are not recognizing your own impairments, probably because of those impairments, right,
Speaker 5: Like that's why you have to hide the bowl of
Speaker 5: keys so that you even though you know you shouldn't
Speaker 5: drink and drive, someone is going to grab those keys,
Speaker 5: because once they are drunk, they're impaired in their.
Speaker 4: Decision make rational decision making, right.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have a question about sleep deprivation and trends.
Speaker 4: So like one night is not.
Speaker 2: Sleep deprivation if you can get sleep the following like
Speaker 2: it is, it's a cute sleep deprivation. But like, I
Speaker 2: guess I'm wondering about, like what is chronic sleep deprivation
Speaker 2: When we talk about, oh, you should be getting this
Speaker 2: many hours of sleep and night, is that average over
Speaker 2: months over you know?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a good question. I don't have a perfect
Speaker 5: answer for that. We have I think more strict definitions
Speaker 5: on that. If we're talking like insomnia, right, so like
Speaker 5: chronic insomnia would be like there are months, there's like
Speaker 5: certain thresholds, and like they're kind of arbitrary, but like
Speaker 5: someone had to make a threshold, I guess, But yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't have as much of like a
Speaker 5: on average.
Speaker 4: It's just on average. Sorry, I know average is not ideal.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, so it is, it's all I mean, I
Speaker 5: I think, what is my conclusion, Aaron, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Sleep?
Speaker 5: I think I think we learned from last week's episode
Speaker 5: that sleep is quite essential. Yeah, and we know from
Speaker 5: sleep deprivation and short sleep and these and these that
Speaker 5: sleep is essential and maybe many of us aren't getting
Speaker 5: enough of it. Maybe on average we're doing okay, But
Speaker 5: a lot of this is probably not down to individual stuff.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 4: It's I wish that.
Speaker 2: I had like spend more time trying to articulate this
Speaker 2: because they're many different components.
Speaker 4: Question though, what is excessive daytime sleepiness? What's the threshold?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so there's like different scales that you can use
Speaker 5: to kind of define it. So there's like the one
Speaker 5: that I use most often, in clinic is called the
Speaker 5: Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and so it's like a set of
Speaker 5: questions that you ask on like how likely would you
Speaker 5: fall asleep in these scenarios?
Speaker 4: And if you score I think it's like a ten
Speaker 4: or greater.
Speaker 5: That's like that would be considered excessive compared to like
Speaker 5: there are some scenarios like if you lay down in
Speaker 5: the afternoon to take a nap and you are able
Speaker 5: to fall asleep, that's not necessarily excessive sleepiness if that's
Speaker 5: the only thing. But if you are like falling asleep
Speaker 5: while you're stuck in traffic, and you could fall asleep
Speaker 5: while you're reading a book, and you're going to fall
Speaker 5: asleep no matter what. If you sit down to watch
Speaker 5: a movie or you're a passenger in a car, Like
Speaker 5: those are the kinds of things, And I think there's
Speaker 5: other like thresholds in other ways to kind of define
Speaker 5: it too. Then there's other tests that you can use,
Speaker 5: like the multiple sleep latency test how quickly do you
Speaker 5: fall asleep? Or the I forget the name of it now,
Speaker 5: but it's like you sit in a quiet room and
Speaker 5: how long can you stay awake for.
Speaker 4: Just by yourself? Yeah, boy, thank you?
Speaker 5: And so based on like time, you know, there's like
Speaker 5: averages of what is typical versus what would be disordered.
Speaker 5: So that's like kind of how you make those those distinctions.
Speaker 4: I just find that there's so much, like, ugh, there's
Speaker 4: so much.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 4: Also, John falls asleep in literally under ten seconds.
Speaker 3: I mean I maybe ten seconds, but I'm very fast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it takes me a long time. I wish I
Speaker 4: could nap. I can't. What does that mean? What does
Speaker 4: that mean? Does that mean? But I mean I think
Speaker 4: that it's all like I don't know, and.
Speaker 5: So much too goes into it, right, Like there's I
Speaker 5: didn't even get into this, but there's like data on
Speaker 5: like what you eat for dinner, what time you eat dinner,
Speaker 5: the concentration of glucose versus fats versus this in your food,
Speaker 5: how much caffeine you're drinking, what time you're drinking that caffeine,
Speaker 5: how your individual body metabolizes that caffeine. Are you drinking alcohol?
Speaker 5: Did you drink alcohol yesterday?
Speaker 2: There is so much like are you stressed, do you
Speaker 2: have stressed?
Speaker 4: Do you live next to traffic?
Speaker 2: Like there are so many things that are working against us,
Speaker 2: and at the same time, it's also like, I think
Speaker 2: part of what's working against us is this emphasis on
Speaker 2: like the right.
Speaker 5: Sleep, the right the quote unquote right. And I think
Speaker 5: that that really does. I think that you're very right
Speaker 5: that like when we blanket statement anything, which like in
Speaker 5: some regards we have to from a public health perspective,
Speaker 5: absolutely give this guidance sleep is a public health issue.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 5: But does that mean that every single person needs to
Speaker 5: be getting exactly seven hours every night?
Speaker 3: No, that's not what that.
Speaker 5: Means, right, But it's very hard because then that's an
Speaker 5: individual level communication of like how how rested do you
Speaker 5: feel in the morning, are you having sleepiness? Are you
Speaker 5: having issues at work? Like how do you feel like?
Speaker 5: And that's not something that you can do in a
Speaker 5: set of public health guidance, right.
Speaker 2: I think it just it makes a further creates this
Speaker 2: disconnect between being able to ask yourself how you feel
Speaker 2: about the sleep that you're getting and what you are
Speaker 2: comfortable with, and then also like what is the ideal
Speaker 2: are you achieving? That you don't look like this picture
Speaker 2: of normalcy? And it's this nonpathogenic variation, yes, human species
Speaker 2: that does exist, and that also exists to our detriment
Speaker 2: because of the way that society functions.
Speaker 3: Right, drop that mic.
Speaker 2: Tell them where they can learn more many places. Okay,
Speaker 2: actually really there were some very interesting parts of the
Speaker 2: book that I read called The Slumbering Masses, Sleep Medicine
Speaker 2: and Modern American Life by Matthew Wolfmeier, and then that
Speaker 2: at at Day's Closed Night in Times Past by Roger E. Kirsch,
Speaker 2: And then that paper by yettish at Off from twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: Natural Sleep and its Seasonal Variations in three Pre Industrial Societies.
Speaker 2: And then there's a paper by Schultz and Salzarulo twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: The Development of Sleep Medicine A Historical Sketch, and many
Speaker 2: more on the website.
Speaker 4: Actually not that many more.
Speaker 3: For this one, I had a number of papers.
Speaker 5: One that I really liked was from two thousand and
Speaker 5: seven from Cellular and Molecular Life Signs that was titled
Speaker 5: Sleep and Sleep Disturbance, Biological basis and Clinical Implications. There
Speaker 5: was one from Sleep Medicine Clinics from twenty twenty four
Speaker 5: that was titled Sleep Deficiency, Epimiology and Effects. There's another
Speaker 5: one that I actually really enjoyed from twenty twenty four
Speaker 5: Nature Human Behavior that was titled individual sleep need is
Speaker 5: flexible and dynamically related to cognitive function.
Speaker 4: How about that?
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 4: But we have a lot.
Speaker 3: More on our website, this podcast will kill You dot com.
Speaker 4: Under the episode's tab, we do a.
Speaker 2: Big thank you to Kelly again for taking the time
Speaker 2: to share your story with us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do, We really do.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Bloodmobile for providing the music for this
Speaker 2: episode and all of our episode.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you so much, so much.
Speaker 5: To Boomer and Sabrina and Tom and Leanna and Brent
Speaker 5: and Pete and everyone. I've read exactly right, Corey, Jessica, Christina,
Speaker 5: There's too many, there's everyone, everyone.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: I had a big thank you of course, to our listeners,
Speaker 2: to our watchers, to anyone who enjoys this podcas as
Speaker 2: in anyway or doesn't enjoy it and just has to
Speaker 2: watch it for a class, thank you for watching it.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate it. And a big thank you also
Speaker 2: to our patrons. Your support really does mean the world
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Well. Until next time, wash your hands, you
Speaker 4: feel the animals, and get some sleep.
Speaker 3: Get some sleep.