Speaker 1: Hey, Katie, do you think I'm creative?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Of course you are.
Speaker 2: I don't see too many other people coming up with
Speaker 2: everything flavored pretzels, do you.
Speaker 1: No, I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, though, Adam, have you ever thought about how
Speaker 2: a good night's sleep impacts your creative choices as an
Speaker 2: actor and a pretzel maker?
Speaker 4: Well, ever since I became an actor and a pretzel maker,
Speaker 4: I haven't really gotten that much sleep.
Speaker 1: But I should check that out. Yes, I'm Adam Shapiro.
Speaker 3: And I'm Katie Lowe's.
Speaker 2: This is Chasing Sleep, a production of Ruby Studios from
Speaker 2: iHeartMedia in partnership with Mattress Firm. In this episode, we
Speaker 2: explore the relationship between sleep and creativity. I always think
Speaker 2: that creativity is so linked with sleep for me, Like,
Speaker 2: at night, I'll read my lines for the next day
Speaker 2: and think a lot about the character and where they
Speaker 2: come from and what their parents were like and things
Speaker 2: like that, and I'll go to sleep, and really I
Speaker 2: feel like it's just sort of subconscious being digested in
Speaker 2: process somewhere in my dreams, and when I wake up,
Speaker 2: not only are my lines better put in my head
Speaker 2: for memorization.
Speaker 3: But I feel like my creativity has been sparked. Do
Speaker 3: you ever have that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean absolutely.
Speaker 4: If I get a good night's sleep before I show
Speaker 4: up on set, I'm a monster. And then also the
Speaker 4: other thing is like, you know, when I know that
Speaker 4: I'm improving a lot, if it's a comedy or I'm
Speaker 4: playing a character and a drama, that's got to improvise
Speaker 4: a lot, I have to be sharp exactly.
Speaker 2: Our guests are both creative people too. Doctor Sarah C.
Speaker 2: Mednick is the author of the Power of the Downstate.
Speaker 2: She's done extensive research on the link between quality sleep
Speaker 2: and our ability to be creative.
Speaker 4: Welcome Sarah, thanks for having us. We also have respective
Speaker 4: composer Andrew M. Edwards joining us. You may not know
Speaker 4: him by name, but you've probably heard his musical scores
Speaker 4: in films and TV. He often gets the call when
Speaker 4: a show needs creative music that helps build.
Speaker 1: Some mystery and suspense. True.
Speaker 5: Welcome, Thank you.
Speaker 3: This is so exciting.
Speaker 2: I mean, as two creatives as Adam and I are,
Speaker 2: that we are actors, and I guess what you would
Speaker 2: call creative people.
Speaker 3: Although everyone's a creative person, right.
Speaker 2: I like to think so, yeah, I think that it
Speaker 2: doesn't even matter what line of work you happen to
Speaker 2: be in or what your day to day is. I
Speaker 2: feel like giving your brain creative space to exist in
Speaker 2: is helpful for.
Speaker 3: Everyone in any way.
Speaker 2: Sarah, this seems like a silly question, but we got
Speaker 2: to start with the basics. Okay, So when you research
Speaker 2: the relationship between sleep and creativity, like, what are we
Speaker 2: talking about? How do you even define and measure creativity?
Speaker 6: I mean, creativity can be actually defined in so many
Speaker 6: different ways, and so I've chosen a definition that actually
Speaker 6: my father worked on years ago in the sixties. It's
Speaker 6: called the remote Associates tests. And the reason why it's
Speaker 6: about association is that that creativity really comes from creating
Speaker 6: associations between things that are disparate ideas, you know, things
Speaker 6: that don't really have a lot to do with each other.
Speaker 6: But you can of course create connections between anything. Creativity
Speaker 6: isn't just oh I just made a connection between things
Speaker 6: that aren't usually associated. His definition was that they have
Speaker 6: to be new and useful. And I think that that's
Speaker 6: the part that I think is really interesting for creativity
Speaker 6: is not just that you're creating sort of oh, I,
Speaker 6: you know, made these this new connection between these two,
Speaker 6: you know, the elephant and my grandmother. But it's actually
Speaker 6: that somehow that the that that connection has been able
Speaker 6: to solve a problem.
Speaker 7: It's useful.
Speaker 6: So that's really how I've explored the idea of creativity.
Speaker 2: So you're not measuring overall problem solving. Like Adam's mom,
Speaker 2: she does a crossword puzzle every day. Like, give me
Speaker 2: an example of what you mean in terms of like
Speaker 2: a creative associate that would be useful.
Speaker 6: It could be something like a crossword, but really crosswords
Speaker 6: are sort of learned behaviors that you can figure out
Speaker 6: what the answers are and you just have this whole
Speaker 6: store of knowledge. I think that the important part of
Speaker 6: being able to have a creative idea is that it's
Speaker 6: an original idea that you actually are seeing all the
Speaker 6: elements of the problem and somehow you figured out how
Speaker 6: those elements of the problem can conform together to create
Speaker 6: a new and interesting, potentially useful idea. Like solving the
Speaker 6: problem of a vaccine or solving the problem of how
Speaker 6: to write a song. You found a way to put
Speaker 6: them together that is new and useful and original.
Speaker 3: Really really cool.
Speaker 1: That's fast. I never really thought about creativity that way, Katie.
Speaker 2: I mean I haven't either, but I know the zone
Speaker 2: you're talking about, Like I know the zone.
Speaker 6: It's the same idea. It's the aha moment that we're
Speaker 6: getting to.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like when you're in flow and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you're like, oh my gosh, I just my brain
Speaker 2: fired on like a really sort of inspir tired kind
Speaker 2: of way. You know.
Speaker 4: Sometimes when I'm getting a lack of sleep, sometimes I
Speaker 4: feel a sort of creativity flow through me, you know,
Speaker 4: when it's like the middle of the night, I'm completely exhausted.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I find that that's a creative space for me.
Speaker 2: When Adam and I started dating, I would be asleep
Speaker 2: at eleven PM and we lived in one room, and
Speaker 2: he would have his computer up with music going and
Speaker 2: headphones and he was just like making websites and making
Speaker 2: short videos and all this stuff till four o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning.
Speaker 6: Like yeah, but you know, that is the thing about
Speaker 6: creative people. A lot of the time they are night people,
Speaker 6: because it's a space where you have sonic and visual
Speaker 6: and just attentional privacy. And I think, you know, whether
Speaker 6: you really are biologically night people or whether it's just
Speaker 6: a space where everyone else is asleep and your brain
Speaker 6: can just go I but I have a lot to
Speaker 6: say about exactly those two points that you made about
Speaker 6: the relationship between REM sleep and creativity and the relationship
Speaker 6: between sleep deprivation and creativity, because they're actually very similar
Speaker 6: brain states. You know, when we go through sleep, we
Speaker 6: go through several different stages of sleep, and at the
Speaker 6: end of one sleep cycle, you go through this rapid
Speaker 6: eye movement sleep or REM sleep, and it's a period
Speaker 6: where we have all of our dreams, you know, these
Speaker 6: kind of crazy, fanciful dreams. We dream in other types
Speaker 6: of sleep as well, but these are the real wild ones.
Speaker 6: They're very emotional and they're inspired dreams. But they also
Speaker 6: have one particular aspect is that your brain at that
Speaker 6: time has high amygdalah content, a lot of this kind
Speaker 6: of emotional motivational content from the singulate and different areas
Speaker 6: of that, but you also have very low prefrontal cortex input.
Speaker 6: And the prefrontal cortex is kind of you can think
Speaker 6: of it as the executive at the front who is
Speaker 6: sort of making all the smart decisions, or you could
Speaker 6: think of it as sort of rational mind, the rational
Speaker 6: super ego, the parent, whatever it is that tells you, no,
Speaker 6: don't think that that's a stupid idea.
Speaker 7: Don't make those connections.
Speaker 6: And so in rem sleep you actually have this brain
Speaker 6: state where your creativity can flower. You can make these
Speaker 6: wild associations, which is why when you're in your sort
Speaker 6: of wild middle of the night whatever it is that
Speaker 6: you're doing while everyone else is asleep, your brain is
Speaker 6: also your frontal cortex is also at its ebb. You know,
Speaker 6: sleep deprivation first hits the frontal cortex and you see that,
Speaker 6: you know, that whole brain area you start to stop
Speaker 6: having as much glucose drawn to it, and this is
Speaker 6: why you're more likely to, you know, eat bad foods
Speaker 6: at night, meaning that that whole brain area is kind
Speaker 6: of shutting down. It's tired, and so you can have
Speaker 6: that same kind of creativity. You see these kind of
Speaker 6: brain states as actually being pretty similar.
Speaker 4: Wow, Katie mean, does that sounds exactly like? WHOA, I'm
Speaker 4: just literally at my creative Oh.
Speaker 2: My god, he's working most creative self wild crushing ice cream.
Speaker 4: And I'm showing on Yeah, ice cream Sundays and cookies.
Speaker 1: Drew.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you something because I am the opposite, right,
Speaker 2: I like to equate.
Speaker 5: I'm the opposite too.
Speaker 2: Oh good, see Drew and I verse Shapiro over here,
Speaker 2: so like right, yeah, like so we're the creative.
Speaker 5: We can all co exist happily.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Katie, I'm married to one.
Speaker 3: We're married.
Speaker 1: This is literally what we do.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about, Like, what is the link
Speaker 2: exactly between quality sleep? Thank you, Drew and Katie team
Speaker 2: over here and creativity.
Speaker 8: So I'm a composer and before I went to graduate
Speaker 8: school in the mid Zeros, I was a tortured middle
Speaker 8: of the night like candle light eating bad food, you know.
Speaker 5: A composer.
Speaker 8: And I assumed because that was how it was, you know,
Speaker 8: an undergraduate where you'd never sleep and you're just up
Speaker 8: all the time. And I just assumed that that was
Speaker 8: how it operated. And I got to grad school and
Speaker 8: there was a point in there where we you know,
Speaker 8: we have to churn out a lot of music every
Speaker 8: week just to get the discipline going. And sure, I
Speaker 8: found that I was up at three in the morning,
Speaker 8: and I go to bed, and I get up at
Speaker 8: eight and look at what I'd written, and I hated
Speaker 8: all of it.
Speaker 5: And I had to rewrite.
Speaker 8: It for like two hours, and I talked to one
Speaker 8: of my classmates and she's like, oh, I just go
Speaker 8: to bed at the same time every night, and if
Speaker 8: I have to get up a little earlier to like
Speaker 8: fix stuff, I do that. And my head exploded. I
Speaker 8: was like, that's an option. Like I just didn't even
Speaker 8: realize it. So now it's since then, my husband and
Speaker 8: I both go to bed at ten thirty every night
Speaker 8: and get up at six every morning, and every day,
Speaker 8: seven days a week. And I mean sometimes we'll stay up,
Speaker 8: you know, if we go out or whatever. But like
Speaker 8: I have discovered since then that I hit peak flow
Speaker 8: state at like eight am, and I go from like
Speaker 8: eight to twelve, and I can write more efficiently in
Speaker 8: those four hours than I ever could before because my
Speaker 8: schedule is so regimented now me too, and I don't
Speaker 8: even have to think about it. I don't have to
Speaker 8: think about when I'm going to bed, I don't have
Speaker 8: to think about when I'm getting up. I just I
Speaker 8: just kind of go with the day and I'm always.
Speaker 2: That's the schedule, and that's when this is allotted for. Yeah, Sarah,
Speaker 2: can you talk? You said, I heard you say, yup,
Speaker 2: me too, so can you speak to Is this also
Speaker 2: true that quality sleep is connected to creative output, that's quality?
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I mean it's really interesting because I think that
Speaker 6: that is part of what it's like to be in
Speaker 6: our twenties and being graduate school and be doing the
Speaker 6: crazy life of wanting to be either the crazy scientist
Speaker 6: or the crazy artist or whatever it is. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 6: the tortur itself, right, and then suddenly you hit a
Speaker 6: wall and realize, wait a second, maybe this is actually
Speaker 6: not working. And you know, we are superheroes when we're young,
Speaker 6: and we have unbelievable amounts of energy, and we can
Speaker 6: overcome any amount of sleep deprivation and any amount of
Speaker 6: junk food, and we can just be eating at three
Speaker 6: am and doing all that kind of stuff. And then
Speaker 6: suddenly you hit like your thirties, and everything just kind
Speaker 6: of stops right and it stops working as well. And
Speaker 6: I think that's when people really get into the idea
Speaker 6: of hmm, when am I actually functional? And that is
Speaker 6: for a lot of people the morning hours. So there's
Speaker 6: the other part of sleep that's really important is called
Speaker 6: non rapid I'm non rem sleep, or really the slow
Speaker 6: wave sleep, and that stuff happens in the first period
Speaker 6: of the night. So we have these two big bookends
Speaker 6: of your night. Right when you get to sleep, you
Speaker 6: go into this very restorative state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my jay exactly, my favorite part.
Speaker 3: I crushed the first half of a disaster. The second half.
Speaker 7: Oh that's great.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's really the one that is all doing
Speaker 6: all the brain cleaning and doing all the memory consolidation,
Speaker 6: and doing all your protein synthesis and all this really
Speaker 6: important restorative stuff that keeps you young. And it actually
Speaker 6: can only really happen in the first period of the night,
Speaker 6: which is if you're a night person and you go
Speaker 6: to bed at three and you probably are not getting
Speaker 6: that actually driven by your circadian rhythm, So you really
Speaker 6: want to try to get to sleep early because that
Speaker 6: mixture of having this kind of non REM first and
Speaker 6: then REM is actually very very important for being able
Speaker 6: to process these creative ideas but also process your emotions
Speaker 6: and process your memory and really learn from yourself in
Speaker 6: a sort of a healthy creative way. If you have
Speaker 6: too much REM, people with depression have too much REM,
Speaker 6: or they have too early onset of REM, they stay
Speaker 6: in REM for too long, and it's a very emotional
Speaker 6: state that doesn't.
Speaker 7: Have that.
Speaker 3: I would say processing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: It's like non REM is teaching you what actually is reality,
Speaker 6: and then REM comes in and starts to make all
Speaker 6: these creative associations between what really happened. So if you
Speaker 6: don't have that non rem first and then you just
Speaker 6: have too much REM, you can kind of be in
Speaker 6: a state where you're really associative, but you're not necess
Speaker 6: necessarily tuned into reality.
Speaker 2: Okay, so hold on a second, Like, Okay, Drew, you're
Speaker 2: a composer, would you say that some of the greatest
Speaker 2: rock stars of all time are spending too much time
Speaker 2: in the rim cycle? Like, for example, Keith Richards the
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones wrote that guitar riff of I Can't Get
Speaker 2: No Satisfaction, which is like one of my most favorite
Speaker 2: songs ever.
Speaker 3: And I read that this dude.
Speaker 2: The story goes, he woke up in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night, but he gets up and he writes, I
Speaker 2: Can't Get No Satisfaction and.
Speaker 5: He wrote the yeah, and he wrote the guitar riffs
Speaker 5: in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: Okay, if it is true that Keith Richards woke in
Speaker 2: the middle of the night wrote the guitar riff or
Speaker 2: I can't get no satisfaction.
Speaker 3: Wrote it down.
Speaker 2: I believe that completely, wrote it down real quick, went
Speaker 2: back to sleep, woke up, played what he had written,
Speaker 2: and was like, dang, this is.
Speaker 8: Good, the opposite of my grad school experience. But yes,
Speaker 8: do you think that that? But that's why he's Keith
Speaker 8: Richards And I'm not.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, come on, Drew, you are chasing sleeps Keith
Speaker 2: Richards my friend. But wait, do you think that that
Speaker 2: is someone who just operates Sarah in getting a lot
Speaker 2: more of the rem sleep.
Speaker 6: So I think that there's a real strong stereotype about
Speaker 6: artists that they're the Jackson Pollock or Keith Richards who
Speaker 6: goes absolutely NonStop and never sleeps. And I think, for
Speaker 6: the most part, that's kind of.
Speaker 3: Bull I love this that.
Speaker 6: Many of the most famous artists are the most standardized
Speaker 6: in terms of their schedule. They wear the same clothes
Speaker 6: every day, they eat the same foods every day, they
Speaker 6: stick to the same time to take a walk every day.
Speaker 6: Because when you stick with their rhythm, which is you know,
Speaker 6: the whole book that I wrote last year, The Power
Speaker 6: of the Downstate is all about our rhythms and The
Speaker 6: truth is is that artists that I know who are
Speaker 6: successful artists, they're up in the morning and they're in
Speaker 6: their studio. They take their morning walk, you know, the
Speaker 6: constitutional or they take in the afternoon, and they eat
Speaker 6: the same foods, and they wear a uniform and they
Speaker 6: stay inside this space of creativity while not being fettered
Speaker 6: by all of the craziness of all the you know of.
Speaker 8: You're creeping me out, Sarah, because you're describing my life.
Speaker 1: But anyway, is that right, Drew?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, wait, absolutely, Drew.
Speaker 3: Take us through. So your day to day.
Speaker 2: You're such a creative person, do you like wear the
Speaker 2: same so tell us?
Speaker 5: Tell us, yeah, well, like.
Speaker 8: I have five of the same jacket and a bunch
Speaker 8: of the same shirts, and a bunch of vests and
Speaker 8: a bunch of the same pants. And then I, you know,
Speaker 8: I wear this if I'm going out. It's my armor
Speaker 8: and I can just put it on and I feel
Speaker 8: great wearing it, and so, uh yeah, I don't have
Speaker 8: to think about it. I get up every morning at
Speaker 8: the same time, I feed the cat, I make coffee,
Speaker 8: I do the crossword puzzle, if my husband make his lunch,
Speaker 8: send him off to work, and then I go in
Speaker 8: the studio or I do a podcast, which is what
Speaker 8: I'm doing this morning. But I regimented every every morning,
Speaker 8: like I don't even have to think about it, and.
Speaker 5: That frees me up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's a point where you have to realize in
Speaker 8: order to be a professional as a composer, I have
Speaker 8: to be able to deliver X amount of music every
Speaker 8: day at X quality level always. And so I figured
Speaker 8: out at some point that that helps me get out
Speaker 8: of my own.
Speaker 5: Way in terms of being creative.
Speaker 8: It's like I do this for a job, and once
Speaker 8: you get into the pattern, it's like my brain is
Speaker 8: ready for me to get into the studio at eight
Speaker 8: in the morning, like it's excited to.
Speaker 5: Be in there.
Speaker 4: This has been a great conversation and we're going to
Speaker 4: pick it up soon more Chasing Sleep in a moment.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Chasing Sleep.
Speaker 2: We've been exploring how sleep is related to our creativity
Speaker 2: with psychologist, author researcher Sarah Seed, Mednick and Andrew Edwards.
Speaker 2: Who needs to be at his creative best just score films,
Speaker 2: TV shows and video games. I want to move on
Speaker 2: to something called the twilight zone, which Adam, you got
Speaker 2: to talk all about the twilight zone. I feel like
Speaker 2: that's your space.
Speaker 4: This is what some people call it. It's that time
Speaker 4: between sleep and wakefulness, when you're sort of asleep and
Speaker 4: you're sort of awake. But can you just tell us
Speaker 4: a little bit about what is happening to our brains
Speaker 4: and our bodies during this time? And then, Drew, I
Speaker 4: want to ask you kind of what your experience with
Speaker 4: this zone is.
Speaker 7: You start to.
Speaker 6: Have what are called hypnogogic dreams, these very vivid experiences, right,
Speaker 6: things that are salient for you, things that are on
Speaker 6: your mind. And it's called stage one sleep, and it's
Speaker 6: really just what most people think of as a transition
Speaker 6: between wake and sleep. You can get into that kind
Speaker 6: of crazy overthinking mind.
Speaker 8: Is is that when you step on the stair that's
Speaker 8: not there.
Speaker 6: And you're those are called hypnic jerks, which I think
Speaker 6: is a great line.
Speaker 1: I always get those every night.
Speaker 4: I get one jerk before I sort of fall asleep.
Speaker 1: One yeah, I do too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And it's a very vivid dream, right where you
Speaker 6: feel like you're falling or something right, and you suddenly yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for just like a second exactly.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And so the thing that's interesting about stage one sleep
Speaker 6: is that you have the same sort of brain activity
Speaker 6: as you have in REM sleep, but you just don't
Speaker 6: have that atonius. So when you're in REM sleep, you
Speaker 6: have is no muscle control. You're totally paralyzed, which is
Speaker 6: good because it means that you're not going to act
Speaker 6: out all your crazy dreams. But in stage one sleep
Speaker 6: you still are able to move right. You have that
Speaker 6: kind of sudden jerk experience.
Speaker 1: Oh that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right, Drew.
Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you about that, like you do
Speaker 4: you have experience with that sort of zone.
Speaker 8: I feel like I get into that zone when you
Speaker 8: just have to stay up and keep working, where when
Speaker 8: you're super tired, you lose your you know, your.
Speaker 7: Frontal frontal cortex.
Speaker 5: Cortex control element.
Speaker 8: I feel like when I get into that space, you know,
Speaker 8: I'm just knocking the wall down with my head. I'm
Speaker 8: definitely not at my optimal there, and if I get
Speaker 8: any random ideas, I tend to forget them.
Speaker 6: Right, you also need your frontal lobe to form memory,
Speaker 6: so that's why you forget that.
Speaker 8: I think that just comes down to the fact that
Speaker 8: I'm so used to working when I'm like sharp and focused,
Speaker 8: you know, in the morning with a good night of sleep.
Speaker 4: Here you also came up with an accidental great band
Speaker 4: name called Cortex Control Element.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is good.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 8: It's an industrial band, into industrial totally.
Speaker 7: I also like Hypnic Jerks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hypnic Jerks is a good Yeah.
Speaker 6: I always thought that was a good like punk band.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a punk band for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, sleeping and napping is a huge component to my creativity.
Speaker 2: It's like, if I am having a trouble memorizing a
Speaker 2: line or really feeling inspired about an acting scene, we
Speaker 2: would get an hour lunch break, Let's say on the
Speaker 2: set of Scandal, I would go back to my trailer,
Speaker 2: which Adam would call my like nap sanctuary. Even if
Speaker 2: it was fifteen minutes or twenty minutes. I would read
Speaker 2: the scene. I would think about it, and I would
Speaker 2: sometimes completely conk out. And sometimes I'd be in this
Speaker 2: weird sort of meditative sleep and I would wake up
Speaker 2: from that and I would have ideas that I didn't have.
Speaker 3: The lines would be.
Speaker 2: There, which is weird, and when I would wake up,
Speaker 2: my perspective would have shifted.
Speaker 6: This is straight out of my own laboratory. I work
Speaker 6: with an artist named Lyla Friedland, and we did a
Speaker 6: show at the Scope Art Fair called the imagine Aption
Speaker 6: where we did exactly as you said. We built this soundproof,
Speaker 6: beautiful soundproof room and we had this really nice bed.
Speaker 6: We'd have people lie down and we'd go in there
Speaker 6: with them and we'd say, okay, think of a problem.
Speaker 6: Think of all the elements of the problem. We'd write
Speaker 6: it down for them on this board and then we
Speaker 6: would say, okay, it's time for a nap, and then
Speaker 6: we would have the light and it was you know,
Speaker 6: it was a sunrise when they woke up, and it
Speaker 6: was a sunset light situation when they went to sleep,
Speaker 6: and then we would let them nap for maybe twenty minutes,
Speaker 6: maybe a little bit longer, and then we would turn
Speaker 6: on the lights so it was a sunrise. And then
Speaker 6: we'd just walk in there and say, okay, what were
Speaker 6: you thinking about? And then we would put together this
Speaker 6: the thoughts that came up with them so that we
Speaker 6: could have them sort of figure out problems for themselves.
Speaker 7: It was a really great project.
Speaker 1: But it's straight that's a really cool story.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was straight out of my lab, because that's
Speaker 6: exactly what we're finding is that if you really can,
Speaker 6: you know, put put the elements of the problem up
Speaker 6: at the forefront of your mind and then take a nap,
Speaker 6: you can wake up and have potentially have some solutions there.
Speaker 8: I was just gonna dovetail off of what Sarah was
Speaker 8: talking about. This sort of thing I did that really
Speaker 8: has helped me immensely is splitting when I'm writing, like
Speaker 8: being purely creative, and when I'm editing myself. I made
Speaker 8: those completely separate things, like I do one in the
Speaker 8: morning and I do the other in the afternoon, with
Speaker 8: like a break in between.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, because then when I'm in my flow.
Speaker 7: State, what do you do in the morning?
Speaker 5: I just write, you know.
Speaker 8: And so if I write five notes, this is the
Speaker 8: thing any writer or composer will know. You write five
Speaker 8: words or five notes, and then you sit there for
Speaker 8: three hours wondering if those are the right five notes,
Speaker 8: instead of like are those the right five words? Instead
Speaker 8: of just keeping on right, like just keep writing and
Speaker 8: then see what you have when you're done, you know,
Speaker 8: when you're tired and you need to go take a nap.
Speaker 8: And yeah, so yeah, splitting those two things made it
Speaker 8: so that I can just crank in the morning on
Speaker 8: music because I'm just playing and it's just coming out,
Speaker 8: and then in the afternoon I can go back and
Speaker 8: look at it and be like, oh, that would be
Speaker 8: better there, and that would be better there, and then
Speaker 8: I'll erase that and.
Speaker 7: Take a nap, Change Your Life was my first book.
Speaker 3: Take a Nap, Change your Life. This is all me,
Speaker 3: This is all me.
Speaker 7: It's all about that. It's basically, you can get two
Speaker 7: days out of your day.
Speaker 6: That was my whole graduate work was all about napping
Speaker 6: and showing that people could be twice as creative, and
Speaker 6: they could have twice the memory consolidation effects they and
Speaker 6: they twice the perceptual changes, Like you know, you didn't
Speaker 6: need a whole night of sleep. You could take a
Speaker 6: nap in the middle of a day and get the
Speaker 6: same benefits as a night of sleep and then have
Speaker 6: you know this, the second part of your day just
Speaker 6: be as effective.
Speaker 3: No, I'm losing my mind.
Speaker 2: I think this is the most important podcast that's ever
Speaker 2: been created since the beginning of time, Drew, Have you
Speaker 2: ever had something like that where you've come up with
Speaker 2: an idea or solution in your great quality sleep schedule
Speaker 2: that you have or have you ever like, put out
Speaker 2: a creative question before going to bed and wake up
Speaker 2: with the answers.
Speaker 8: I have to be careful about doing that because I
Speaker 8: am prone to go through one rem cycle, get up
Speaker 8: at three in the morning and start making lists in
Speaker 8: my head.
Speaker 2: Have you ever written music? Do you write music in
Speaker 2: your sleep?
Speaker 5: I have?
Speaker 2: Like, I just think being a composer must be the
Speaker 2: coolest thing in the world.
Speaker 8: I don't do a lot of sort of dream got
Speaker 8: it conceptual. I did write a piano concerto in my
Speaker 8: sleep in college and then immediately forgot it when.
Speaker 3: I wrote when I woke up, so frustrating, I write.
Speaker 8: I remember that vividly it was there because I can't
Speaker 8: remember it. I remember it because I can't remember it.
Speaker 6: But I mean what you're saying, it takes so much focus, right,
Speaker 6: It takes so much being so present, and if you're
Speaker 6: sleep deprived, it's really hard to go with a thought
Speaker 6: whatever it is, right, So I think that no matter what,
Speaker 6: it's going to require a well rested mind.
Speaker 7: I mean, that's you know.
Speaker 8: Well, otherwise it's really hard to get out of your
Speaker 8: own way, like you're the problem. Otherwise, Like if I
Speaker 8: can't focus. It's because maybe I went out the night
Speaker 8: before to a party or whatever, and I get up
Speaker 8: in the morning and I'm not going to start writing
Speaker 8: till ten, you know, because I'm like, I'm gonna sit
Speaker 8: and play video games for an hour.
Speaker 1: Yeah whatever.
Speaker 6: I think that concept of getting out of your own
Speaker 6: way is so critical. I think that that's such a critical,
Speaker 6: important thing.
Speaker 1: Very cool, Drew.
Speaker 4: I would love to hear your score for this podcast episode.
Speaker 5: Oh me too, It's what I do you know?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 1: Where would that go?
Speaker 4: Me?
Speaker 1: Three?
Speaker 5: I hang on just a second.
Speaker 1: You can't swing a cat and Drew's place without hitting.
Speaker 4: This is so exciting, And Sarah, I wanted to ask
Speaker 4: you what do we not know still about creativity and sleep?
Speaker 4: You know, if you if you could jump into a
Speaker 4: new study right now, what would that study be?
Speaker 7: Oh so much.
Speaker 6: I would love to know are there individual differences that
Speaker 6: ideas everybody creative or are there some people who can
Speaker 6: actually put themselves into a zone and then what is
Speaker 6: actually happening in the brain? So I think that would
Speaker 6: be really the forefront. Is it actually seeing the neural
Speaker 6: mechanism of creativity and action would be a really exciting
Speaker 6: next step.
Speaker 5: I have a good turn.
Speaker 1: I'm going to set you up.
Speaker 4: This is Chasing Sleep, a production of Ruby Studios from
Speaker 4: iHeartMedia in partnership with Mattress Firm.
Speaker 8: Honestly, it would be very I mean, there wouldn't be
Speaker 8: a lot there because we're talking a lot. I don't
Speaker 8: want to get in the way of the dialogue. The
Speaker 8: dialogue is the dialogue is another line of counterpoint.
Speaker 2: Oh see, okay, Let's say Drew, you were going to
Speaker 2: take us into a really nice quality night of sleep
Speaker 2: or a sleep creative nap.
Speaker 3: What would you play us? What would what would sound nice?
Speaker 5: Dreamy chords?
Speaker 3: That sounds so nice?
Speaker 2: Okay, Now, if you were going to be the hypno jerk,
Speaker 2: is that what it's called hypnic jerk?
Speaker 3: If you were the hypnic jerk.
Speaker 7: Hypnic jerks?
Speaker 8: Oh no, if I know, if you see, if it
Speaker 8: was hypnick jerks, you see, I broke a string on
Speaker 8: this guitar just now, so like, so yeah, we're ready
Speaker 8: for hypnick jerky.
Speaker 5: It's hard to say.
Speaker 8: It's hard to make a twelve strings sound angry.
Speaker 2: So yay, Drew, yay, Sarah, creatively awesome.
Speaker 4: Katie and I just really want to thank you guys,
Speaker 4: Sarah and Drew for being here. This has been another
Speaker 4: mind melting episode of Jason Sleep.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being.
Speaker 7: Here, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 4: I thought this would be the episode that we sort
Speaker 4: of connected with the easiest, but that being said, it is.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 3: All signs in this episode pointed to you getting.
Speaker 4: On a better sleep schedule and a better routine, which
Speaker 4: is so funny because I've always thought of creativity as
Speaker 4: the opposite, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: If she didn't nail it by saying, artists we think
Speaker 2: of as dark and brooding and up all night and
Speaker 2: wild and all of this stuff, and she's like, no, Actually,
Speaker 2: like the most creative people are wearing the same things,
Speaker 2: are on a sleep schedule and getting quality sleep.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I thought really inspired me
Speaker 4: about what dr was saying was the fact that he
Speaker 4: knows so well when he's at his most creative and
Speaker 4: how that relates to his sleep. His routine has enabled
Speaker 4: him him to be able to schedule and depend on
Speaker 4: his creativity in a way that I've never been.
Speaker 1: Able to do.
Speaker 3: Honey, You're going to try this week.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, now that I'm a parent and I'm a husband,
Speaker 4: and I got two full time jobs, and I host
Speaker 4: a podcast. I think scheduling my creativity would really I'd
Speaker 4: really benefit from something like that, and getting to know
Speaker 4: exactly when it is that I'm at my most creative
Speaker 4: could really help me sort of organize my day a
Speaker 4: little bit.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Also, weren't you mind blown by the actual definition that
Speaker 3: she gave of creativity?
Speaker 4: Yes, that was really I never really thought of creativity
Speaker 4: as problem solving.
Speaker 2: And also just taking two ideas or plans or whatever
Speaker 2: that aren't necessarily associated with each other, which is what
Speaker 2: we do when we sleep and dream.
Speaker 1: We make these associations.
Speaker 3: You make an association that is original.
Speaker 1: Well, working in a creative environment.
Speaker 4: I'm excited because our next episode is going to be
Speaker 4: specifically about sleep and work. So we can get our
Speaker 4: ducks in a row with our sleep and then we
Speaker 4: can start talking about sleep and work.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to hear about that.
Speaker 2: And we are several episodes in now, Adam, So we
Speaker 2: really want your all's.
Speaker 3: Uses use guys's.
Speaker 2: Opinions about the podcast, So please go to your podcast player,
Speaker 2: give us a rating, or maybe even write a short review.
Speaker 4: Please or hit us up on our socials. You can
Speaker 4: find me on the Gram at Shappy Shapes.
Speaker 3: And me too on the Gram at kt q Low's.
Speaker 1: And Another Thing.
Speaker 4: Follow or subscribe to Chasing Sleep on your apps so
Speaker 4: that you never miss an.
Speaker 2: Episode until next time. Hoping you're living your best while
Speaker 2: sleeping your best. Chasing Sleep is a production of Ruby
Speaker 2: Studios from iHeartMedia in partnership with Mattress Firm. Our executive
Speaker 2: producer is Mallisosha.
Speaker 4: This show was written and produced by Sound That Brands
Speaker 4: Dave Beasting, Jason Jackson, and Michelle Rice.
Speaker 2: Chasing Sleep is hosted by Katie Lows and Adam Shapiro.
Speaker 3: Thank you to our partners at Mattress Firm.