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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bogobam Here. Since n every odd numbered year,

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Speaker 1: sailors from around the world have gathered in France for

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Speaker 1: a wildly arduous race the Mini trans At. They hop

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Speaker 1: into their many six fifty yachts, which are tiny boats

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Speaker 1: at a maximum of twenty one feet that is six

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Speaker 1: point five meters long, and then head west as fast

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Speaker 1: as they can, hoping to be the first to reach

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Speaker 1: Lamarine Bay Martinique in the Caribbean, some four thousand watery

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Speaker 1: miles away that's about six thousand, four hundred kilometers. The

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Speaker 1: race has two legs, France to the Canary Islands and

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Speaker 1: the Canary Islands to Martinique. Race is set to begin

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Speaker 1: on September. But the biggest catch the eighty odd sailors

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Speaker 1: who undergo this journey must do it alone. But how

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Speaker 1: does sailors complete an endurance race that lasts three to

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Speaker 1: four weeks and that prevents them from sleeping for more

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Speaker 1: than twenty minutes at a time during it? And that's

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Speaker 1: the question behind a study conducted by researchers of the

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Speaker 1: University of Bologna in Italy. The scientists wanted to better

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Speaker 1: understand how sailors manage their sleep cycles and whether certain

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Speaker 1: people have inherent biological advantages that aid them during this

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Speaker 1: physically demanding race. Their results were published in May in

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Speaker 1: the journal Nature and Science of Sleep. In the weeks

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Speaker 1: leading up to the race, researchers asked forty two of

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Speaker 1: the sailors to document their training In preparation, they also

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Speaker 1: recorded crucial data like sleep quality, desire for sleep, and

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Speaker 1: their chronotype, which essentially means whether they're early morning types,

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Speaker 1: night owls, or somewhere in between. Only half of the

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Speaker 1: sailors consciously prepared sleep strategies. Professor Gazeppie Plazi, the study coordinator,

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Speaker 1: said in a statement, expert skippers often make this choice. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: expert sailors with a track record of miles and miles

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Speaker 1: of offshore sailing are more mindful of the importance of

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Speaker 1: sleep management. Of those with a strategy, a little more

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Speaker 1: than half opted to sleep more before the race in

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Speaker 1: hopes of banking sleep, knowing that they'd have to make

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Speaker 1: serious withdrawals from that account soon. About a quarter opted

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Speaker 1: for polyphasic sleep instead, hoping that short cat naps throughout

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Speaker 1: the day would get them through the last chose a

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Speaker 1: gradual descent into sleep deprivation, with the idea that even

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Speaker 1: though they'd be exhausted by the end, they could hold

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Speaker 1: on for the finish line. The sailors, by the way,

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Speaker 1: use autopilot to keep their vessels on track while they

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Speaker 1: take these naps. Prototype data showed that about forty of

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Speaker 1: the sailors were morning people, early to rise and early

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Speaker 1: to bed. The other sixty were hummingbirds, those who fall

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Speaker 1: in the middle ground. There were zero night owls, who

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Speaker 1: may be at a disadvantage in these types of endurance competitions.

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Speaker 1: According to the researchers, the sailors who were early birds

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Speaker 1: were less likely to use a pre race sleep management

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Speaker 1: strategy than the hummingbirds. Regardless of their sleep strategies or

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Speaker 1: lack thereof, The researchers found that there were no real

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Speaker 1: differences in arrival times for either leg of the race.

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Speaker 1: Applause said, our next step will be to closely monitor

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Speaker 1: sleep wake cycles both during the training and during the race.

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Speaker 1: In this way, we'll be able to devise increasingly effective

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Speaker 1: and precise sleep management strategies. Today's episode is based on

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Speaker 1: the article how do You Sleep when Sailing? Solo for

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Speaker 1: four thousand miles on how stuff works dot Com, written

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Speaker 1: by Nathan Chandler. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and

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Speaker 1: it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,

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