WEBVTT - The Science of Sleep

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<v Speaker 1>And let me tell you that sleep is a misnomer.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, sleep actually is a catch all term for

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<v Speaker 1>what is really a dramatically diverse collection of different brain states.

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<v Speaker 1>And they are so different electrophysiologically, and chemically and hormonally

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<v Speaker 1>that they bear very little relationship to one another. They're

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<v Speaker 1>all a different type of consciousness. In fact, you're not

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<v Speaker 1>unconscious while you're sleeping. A Science of Happiness, Appreciating modern painting,

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<v Speaker 1>dilemmas of modern medicine. Abraham Lincoln at the Civil War,

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<v Speaker 1>History of the artistic genius, Michelangelin When intuition changed American

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<v Speaker 1>mystic psychology of religion. One Day University. The most acclaimed

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<v Speaker 1>and popular professors from top colleges. They're best lectures, fascinating conversations. Hi,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm Richard Davies. Let's learn the fact that here we

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<v Speaker 1>are in and we are still needing this process called sleep,

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<v Speaker 1>the fact that it is been demonstrated in every single

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<v Speaker 1>animal speech. My name is Jessica Paine, and the name

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<v Speaker 1>of my lecture is the science of stress and sleep,

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<v Speaker 1>how they affect creativity, concentration, and memory. And our ancestors

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<v Speaker 1>did in fact, as we build more tissue in the

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<v Speaker 1>fernal cortices of our brain, which is the most recently

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<v Speaker 1>evolved part of our brains. We may be actually sleeping

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<v Speaker 1>a little bit more. In your one day university lecture,

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<v Speaker 1>what do you hope people take away from it? You know,

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<v Speaker 1>if there's one thing I'd like them to take away

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<v Speaker 1>from it, it's understanding that the sleeping brain is highly

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<v Speaker 1>intensively active. Because if you go out and you talk

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<v Speaker 1>to your average person on the street and you ask

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<v Speaker 1>him what is sleep, what does it do? You'll inevitably

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<v Speaker 1>get answers like, well, it's just a time where the

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<v Speaker 1>brain is sort of switched off and it's recovering, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>it's rejuvenating. And that's partly true. But what they don't

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<v Speaker 1>understand is that the sleeping brain is actually busily at work.

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<v Speaker 1>For you, the hippocampus, which is important for memory, the

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<v Speaker 1>amygdala parts of the pre final cortex, are actually highly

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<v Speaker 1>active during rapid eye movement sleep, and then there's an

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<v Speaker 1>actual communication that goes on during non realm sleep between

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<v Speaker 1>cortical areas and hippocampal areas, which we know are essential

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<v Speaker 1>for memory consolidation. So if people respect that, they're not

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<v Speaker 1>wasting time when they're sleeping, that they're sleeping brains are

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<v Speaker 1>actually doing something for them, something important, helping them remember,

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<v Speaker 1>helping them process emotions, helping them make creative connections. Then

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<v Speaker 1>the last thing we should do is curtail sleep and

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<v Speaker 1>have be the first thing to go. And we get

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<v Speaker 1>stressed out and busy, but it should be one of

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<v Speaker 1>those things we retain because it's where incredible feats of

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<v Speaker 1>cognitive prowers happen. It's some of our most creative ideas

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<v Speaker 1>come from, and it's absolutely necessary to truly learn and

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<v Speaker 1>remember things in the long run. So when when people

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<v Speaker 1>think about sleep, very often they think about length of sleep.

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<v Speaker 1>Is that the most important thing? Or is it type

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<v Speaker 1>of sleep? Actually it's a little bit of both. The

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<v Speaker 1>length of sleep is important. Although I object to this

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<v Speaker 1>idea that everybody needs to get their eight hours. I

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<v Speaker 1>just want you to shout it out at me. How

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<v Speaker 1>many hours when we talk about sleep, how many hours

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<v Speaker 1>do human beings need to get at night? Okay? So eight?

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<v Speaker 1>All right, that's what I'm hearing. And you know something,

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<v Speaker 1>I'll tell you that that's both true and false, And

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<v Speaker 1>it's not that advice necessarily, but sleep, like many human variables,

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<v Speaker 1>is actually normally distributed. It just turns out that between

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<v Speaker 1>seven and nine hours and night is with the vast

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<v Speaker 1>majority of us needs somewhere between seven and nine. But

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<v Speaker 1>that doesn't mean that you have to, you know, get

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<v Speaker 1>exactly eight hours. It's also true there are lucky souls

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<v Speaker 1>out there who literally only need and I don't mean

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<v Speaker 1>you can get buy on, I mean need four hours

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<v Speaker 1>of sleep. But they statistically so rare that when somebody

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<v Speaker 1>tells me that this is what you know they need,

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<v Speaker 1>I don't believe them. When I meet people who say

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<v Speaker 1>that they are just fine on four hours, usually we

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<v Speaker 1>look at their performance in the lab and in terms

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<v Speaker 1>of objective performance that are terrible. Uh. And when I

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<v Speaker 1>hear people saying that they need twelve hours, that is possible,

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<v Speaker 1>but more often than not, it actually raises the specter

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<v Speaker 1>of sleep apnea. Tell me about sleep apnia. What is that? So?

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<v Speaker 1>Sleep apnea is a complete cessation of breathing. So each

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<v Speaker 1>time you have an apnea, you stop breathing, which means

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<v Speaker 1>that your brain is deprived of oxygen. And every time

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<v Speaker 1>you have an apnea event, your brain has to wake

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<v Speaker 1>up or arouse in order to get a breath and

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<v Speaker 1>so when people talk about, well, hey, Dr Pain, I

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<v Speaker 1>think I might be one of your long sleepers. I

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<v Speaker 1>think I might need twelve hours. And when I ask

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<v Speaker 1>them why they think that, they'll say, well, because I'm

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<v Speaker 1>constantly sleep being a lot, and yet I never feel

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<v Speaker 1>well rested. In many cases, when you look at those

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<v Speaker 1>people's sleep, the reason they feel that way is because

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<v Speaker 1>their brains are actually waking up over and over and

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<v Speaker 1>over again, sometimes up to a hundred times or more

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<v Speaker 1>an hour in severe cases of sleep apnea. What's really

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<v Speaker 1>disturbing about this is every time that happens, your brain

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<v Speaker 1>has to wake up to get a breath, but the

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<v Speaker 1>person doesn't remember that, So their perception is that they're

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<v Speaker 1>just sleeping all the time and they never feel rested.

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<v Speaker 1>You bring them into the sleep lab and you see awakening, awakening, awakening, awakening.

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<v Speaker 1>Of course, they're exhausted and their sleep is shattered. And

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<v Speaker 1>what the reason I like to talk about this that

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<v Speaker 1>these events is that we now know that there is

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<v Speaker 1>a very strong and very real relationship between sleep apnea

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<v Speaker 1>and heart attack and stroke. It's very common to hear

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<v Speaker 1>people say, oh, I only need four or five or

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<v Speaker 1>six hours of sleep. Does that kind of talk drive

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<v Speaker 1>you crazy. As a sleep researcher, it does drive me crazy. Well,

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<v Speaker 1>on one hand, I find it fascinating, and I'm still

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<v Speaker 1>looking for a group of people that really are functioning

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<v Speaker 1>at their best on only four hours. When you get

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<v Speaker 1>to six, that's a little bit more possible. But yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>it drives me crazy because where I think that really

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<v Speaker 1>comes from is this cultural message. The problem there is

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<v Speaker 1>that we live in a puritanical culture. We live in

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<v Speaker 1>a culture where there's this first one in, last one

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<v Speaker 1>out mentality. There's this idea that you know, in order

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<v Speaker 1>to work better, you always have to work longer, right,

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<v Speaker 1>And you know students they wear their sleep deprivation as

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<v Speaker 1>a badge of honor. You hear it all the time.

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<v Speaker 1>This drives me crazy as a sleep scientist. Oh well,

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<v Speaker 1>I only got two hours of sleep last night because

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<v Speaker 1>I was studying. Oh well, I pulled an all matter. Well.

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<v Speaker 1>As a memory researcher, there's nothing that makes me more

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<v Speaker 1>crazy because the two things you want to do if

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<v Speaker 1>you want to consolidate memories, which is literally the ability

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<v Speaker 1>to sort of store them long term and actually be

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<v Speaker 1>able to remember them later. You don't just visit something

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<v Speaker 1>once you need to actually sort of inter leave your practice.

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<v Speaker 1>You want to revisit a concept over and over again.

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<v Speaker 1>You don't want to cram and you espect actually don't

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<v Speaker 1>want to cram across the night of sleep deprivation. Instead,

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<v Speaker 1>you want to be sort of revisiting this concept and

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<v Speaker 1>you want to sleep on it right after you study

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<v Speaker 1>it for the last time. And yet students across the

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<v Speaker 1>United States do this exactly the wrong way. So, yes,

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<v Speaker 1>it drives me absolutely crazy. What does sleep deprivation due

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<v Speaker 1>to us? If if we are sleep deprived, what happens? Well,

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of really bad things happen, increased traffic accidents, lapses,

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<v Speaker 1>and concentration to memory impairment over time. I think most

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<v Speaker 1>of us have experience with temporary payers of sleep deprivation,

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<v Speaker 1>and our brains are plastic, you know, and we really

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<v Speaker 1>are rugged. We've evolved to tolerate some amount of sleep deprivation.

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<v Speaker 1>So I'm not worried about the person who has one

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<v Speaker 1>poor night of sleep or goes through a difficult patch,

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<v Speaker 1>or even think about new parents. They're going to go

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<v Speaker 1>through several months of poor sleep. We're designed to be

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<v Speaker 1>able to handle that. What I worry about are the

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<v Speaker 1>people who are doing that for these long periods of

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<v Speaker 1>time where people aren't sleep being that kind of sleep

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<v Speaker 1>deprivation actually builds up. You accumulate what's called sleep debt,

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<v Speaker 1>which is a pressure that your brain actually has to

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<v Speaker 1>pay back this depth that it's accumulated. The more sleep

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<v Speaker 1>deprived you become, the more your performance is going to suffer,

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<v Speaker 1>in the same exact way that the more alcohol you consume,

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<v Speaker 1>the more your performance suffers. And what's interesting is that

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<v Speaker 1>in both of these cases people don't have awareness of it.

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<v Speaker 1>People are not necessarily aware that they're impaired when they're drunk,

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<v Speaker 1>and people are definitely not aware that they're impaired when

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<v Speaker 1>they're sleep deprived. You have to bring them into the

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<v Speaker 1>lab and show them their their own data. So we've

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<v Speaker 1>all met that person who thinks they're fine to drive

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<v Speaker 1>after drinking, but we know they're not. It's the same

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<v Speaker 1>exact relationship for sleep deprivation. And then what I fear,

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<v Speaker 1>especially somebody dealing without a lessons and people in college,

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<v Speaker 1>is when you mix those things, you can get into

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<v Speaker 1>a really deadly situation. So if you have even a

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<v Speaker 1>little bit of alcohol but you're sleep deprived on top

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<v Speaker 1>of it, then your risk for traffic accidents and a

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<v Speaker 1>whole host of other mistakes skyrockets. So how do you

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<v Speaker 1>know if you're sleeping well or if you're getting enough sleep?

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<v Speaker 1>There are two ways I can answer that question. The

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<v Speaker 1>first is if you feel like you're at your best.

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<v Speaker 1>Most of us have a sense of when we're at

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<v Speaker 1>our best, and one way to look at that is

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<v Speaker 1>to is to do what I urge everybody to do,

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<v Speaker 1>which is to put twenty extrements of sleep into your

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<v Speaker 1>daily routine, which most of us can benefit from, even

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<v Speaker 1>people who are sleeping pretty well. And if that makes

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<v Speaker 1>you feel better, makes you feel happier and more positive,

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<v Speaker 1>then that's one way to tell the But the real

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<v Speaker 1>answer is I think we should have a sleep study done.

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<v Speaker 1>This is where you go into a sleep laboratory. There

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<v Speaker 1>are physicians that are trained in sleep medicine, and I

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<v Speaker 1>think everybody ought to get a baseline when they're saying

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<v Speaker 1>years old, so that we actually have an objective measure

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<v Speaker 1>of how we're sleeping, so that we can screen for

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<v Speaker 1>things like apnea, so that we can address insomnia before

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<v Speaker 1>it gets bad and difficult, because that's a in part

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<v Speaker 1>A learned cycle that can be very difficult to undo.

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<v Speaker 1>And it blows my mind that when you go to

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<v Speaker 1>your doctor that's not even a question most physicians ask

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<v Speaker 1>is how are you sleeping? Which is crazy in my

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<v Speaker 1>mind because sleep is a real barometer of health, both

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<v Speaker 1>mental and physical health. Talk about naps and why you

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<v Speaker 1>think they're important. Yeah, I actually think we never should

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<v Speaker 1>have stopped napping in kindergarten. The first thing that I

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<v Speaker 1>really want you to try to do, this is the

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<v Speaker 1>single most important takeaway, is just try to get twenty

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<v Speaker 1>extra minutes a day on as many days as you can.

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<v Speaker 1>And there are, obviously there are three different ways to

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<v Speaker 1>do that. You can either go to bed earlier, you

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<v Speaker 1>can sleep later, meaning don't hit the snooze button, which

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<v Speaker 1>is a very bad idea actually just let your brain

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<v Speaker 1>stay locked in. But you're going to get the most

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<v Speaker 1>bang for your buck if you start to incorporate daytime napping.

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<v Speaker 1>But the idea here, okay, is that when it comes

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<v Speaker 1>to napping, you do not want to nap any longer

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<v Speaker 1>than twenty minutes. And I am mean set your alarm

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<v Speaker 1>for twenty minutes, because I don't even want you to

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<v Speaker 1>sleep that long. Because if you're sleep deprived and your

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<v Speaker 1>brain is built up the sleep debt, you're going to

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<v Speaker 1>run the risk of going into slow wave sleep, and

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<v Speaker 1>if you wake up out of that, you're gonna be groggy,

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<v Speaker 1>feel terrible. It's not gonna help. Napping is a great

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<v Speaker 1>way to recharge your brain in the middle of the day,

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<v Speaker 1>and depending on the length of the nap, you can

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<v Speaker 1>do anything from boosting memory and cognition to rejuvenate in

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<v Speaker 1>the brain and cleaning the cash if you will. I'm

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<v Speaker 1>a big advocate for nap pods in corporate culture because

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<v Speaker 1>people actually, we know that they perform better if they're

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<v Speaker 1>able to get even a very brief nap. I envisioned

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<v Speaker 1>a world will where one day, you know, somebody told

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<v Speaker 1>me recently that they could get fired. It's in a

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<v Speaker 1>contract that they could get fired for sleeping on the job,

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<v Speaker 1>and that to me, it's just so backward. I imagine

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<v Speaker 1>one day companies will want to actually harness the power

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<v Speaker 1>of the sleeping brain. So if you can imagine people

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<v Speaker 1>in their cubicles with little signs that say sleeping brain

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<v Speaker 1>at work, innovation and progress, that's the world I imagine

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<v Speaker 1>where it's okay to go offline, whether that's taking a

0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.760
<v Speaker 1>twenty minute nap, or just getting out for a relaxing

0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:13.160
<v Speaker 1>walk or reflective walk, or doing a meditation or relaxation exercise.

0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.280
<v Speaker 1>All of these ways of taking the brain offline actually

0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:18.840
<v Speaker 1>allow their brain to perform better and people will be

0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.520
<v Speaker 1>much more productive, not to mention, happier and and just

0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.839
<v Speaker 1>in a better mood. You make a really compelling case

0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:32.679
<v Speaker 1>for sleep helping your creativity, helping your memory. What about emotion?

0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:37.280
<v Speaker 1>Does it help regulate your emotion? Calm you down? Sleep

0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:41.560
<v Speaker 1>absolutely helps regulate emotion. In fact, it's a built in

0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.439
<v Speaker 1>stress and emotion regulator. So as I just mentioned, if

0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.800
<v Speaker 1>you're sleep deprived, if you're not getting enough sleep that

0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.240
<v Speaker 1>is a stressor your body will secrete stress hormones like cortisol.

0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:57.880
<v Speaker 1>When you're sleeping, that system gets regulated number one and

0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.959
<v Speaker 1>number two, you tend to it. It doesn't just calm

0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.600
<v Speaker 1>you down, but it regulates the way that you process

0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.520
<v Speaker 1>difficult to negative things that happened during the day. So

0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.000
<v Speaker 1>we like to think of sleep doing two things. For

0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:16.600
<v Speaker 1>emotional experiences, Sleep actually helps you remember the emotional, even

0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:18.840
<v Speaker 1>the negative, which, if you think about it, you need

0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.240
<v Speaker 1>to do because you need to be able to learn

0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.360
<v Speaker 1>from your mistakes. It's also incredibly adaptive at a species level.

0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.520
<v Speaker 1>But you also want sleep to help strip away the

0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:32.800
<v Speaker 1>emotional tone of that experience. The amigula is incredibly important

0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.400
<v Speaker 1>for emotion, and especially for negative emotion motions like fear

0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.920
<v Speaker 1>also more active during sleep than wink, which is both

0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.680
<v Speaker 1>good and bad. Right, Like, you need to process emotion

0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.280
<v Speaker 1>in order to be healthy, but you don't want to

0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.280
<v Speaker 1>process it without also regulating, which is why it's also

0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.679
<v Speaker 1>a good thing that parts of your what we call

0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.640
<v Speaker 1>medial prefernal cortex, Okay, in here in the front of

0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:59.080
<v Speaker 1>the brain, there's a region within that called the anterior cingulate.

0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.840
<v Speaker 1>It's job is to literally put a break on the amigala,

0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:04.760
<v Speaker 1>so they kind of talk to each other, and when

0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.360
<v Speaker 1>the imigia leaguets out of control, it breaks it so

0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.280
<v Speaker 1>that you don't actually get out of control in terms

0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.520
<v Speaker 1>of your emotions. So there's a cross top going on

0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.080
<v Speaker 1>between these two structures that allow you to process emotional

0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:19.360
<v Speaker 1>experience that you've had, but while also regulating it. Okay, well,

0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:20.840
<v Speaker 1>when I like, what I like to say about this

0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:22.880
<v Speaker 1>in terms of memory, for example, is you don't want

0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.840
<v Speaker 1>to forget all of the negative experiences that happen to you,

0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.360
<v Speaker 1>because you'd never be able to learn from them. You

0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.840
<v Speaker 1>need to be able to remember the most negative things

0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.280
<v Speaker 1>from your life, but you also need to regulate the

0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.640
<v Speaker 1>negative emotion that comes along with that, so you don't

0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.680
<v Speaker 1>develop an anxiety, right, so that you don't develop depression.

0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:43.359
<v Speaker 1>So you're not only processing your emotions and your emotional experiences,

0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.920
<v Speaker 1>but you're regulating your affect or your emotion to them.

0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.240
<v Speaker 1>So that's one of the reasons we think that most

0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.520
<v Speaker 1>many actually mental health conditions, and definitely affective disorders like

0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:59.200
<v Speaker 1>depression and anxiety are often associated with sleep deficits. In

0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.400
<v Speaker 1>your lecture, your talk about memory, and I know that

0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.680
<v Speaker 1>as people get older, especially over the age of fifty

0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.720
<v Speaker 1>or sixty, they worry about will I suffer from dementia?

0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.560
<v Speaker 1>Will I be someone who gets Alzheimer's? Is there any

0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:19.240
<v Speaker 1>relationship between getting your eight hours a night and lowering

0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.120
<v Speaker 1>your risk for dementia? Well, again, it's early days, you know.

0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.160
<v Speaker 1>As a scientist, I like to see data replicated over

0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.400
<v Speaker 1>and over again. But there is a link. It's preliminary,

0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.160
<v Speaker 1>but it's important. One. There are two lines of evidence

0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.440
<v Speaker 1>that suggesting there's a correlation there. One, it is true

0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.400
<v Speaker 1>that people who have a history of poor sleep are

0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:42.680
<v Speaker 1>at higher risk for developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. So

0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:44.480
<v Speaker 1>we've known that for a long time that there's a

0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.280
<v Speaker 1>link there. Now that's just a correlation. Correlations does not

0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:52.280
<v Speaker 1>imply causation. But that's one link. The other link is

0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.920
<v Speaker 1>new research showing that you need to get sleep, especially

0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.400
<v Speaker 1>deep slow wave sleep, which again is the deepest stay

0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.440
<v Speaker 1>of sleep you get in order to literally clean out

0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:07.680
<v Speaker 1>the brain. So your brain produces metabolite, right, I mean,

0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:09.200
<v Speaker 1>as you go about your day to day, your brain

0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:11.640
<v Speaker 1>is working away and all the by products, all the

0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.640
<v Speaker 1>waste of that metabolism needs to get cleaned out somehow.

0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.800
<v Speaker 1>Beta amyloid is one of the waste products that needs

0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.280
<v Speaker 1>to get cleaned out of the brain. So when you sleep,

0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.120
<v Speaker 1>when you achieve especially the deep slow wave sleep that's

0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.720
<v Speaker 1>so important also for memory consolidation, you're also getting the

0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.760
<v Speaker 1>benefit of cleaning out what's called the interstitial space, So

0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.040
<v Speaker 1>cleaning out the spaces and the blaine. You can really

0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.440
<v Speaker 1>think about it is cleaning out the gunk, you know,

0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.800
<v Speaker 1>or taking out the trash, and sleep is clearly linked

0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:42.880
<v Speaker 1>to the ability to do that. So if you don't

0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.440
<v Speaker 1>clean out the beta amyloid, the problem, obviously is that

0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.960
<v Speaker 1>that is what causes the plaques. That's what the plaques

0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:51.800
<v Speaker 1>are made out of, and that's one of the defining

0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.720
<v Speaker 1>characteristics of Alzheimer's disease. So I'll say they're preliminary, but

0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.360
<v Speaker 1>I think that this is a very interesting line of

0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.520
<v Speaker 1>work that's going on now, looking at poor sleep in

0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.879
<v Speaker 1>its relation to dementing diseases on the one hand, and

0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.800
<v Speaker 1>of course you can flip that are good sleepers at

0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.320
<v Speaker 1>much less risk for dementing diseases, and that those data

0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.280
<v Speaker 1>are coming And as I said earlier, it takes a

0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.439
<v Speaker 1>long time and a lot of replications for me to

0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.639
<v Speaker 1>become convinced of something. But that's certainly a story I'm

0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.760
<v Speaker 1>paying attention to. I like that cleaning out the gunk,

0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.959
<v Speaker 1>taking out the trash. You talk about how good sleep

0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:32.000
<v Speaker 1>helps creativity in what sort of ways. There are a

0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.679
<v Speaker 1>whole host of different theories about that, and the truth

0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.639
<v Speaker 1>is we don't know exactly how it works. We do

0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.800
<v Speaker 1>know that it does, so it's very clear that sleep

0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.880
<v Speaker 1>is one means to reach creative insight. There have been

0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.439
<v Speaker 1>many studies showing that I can tell you what I

0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:48.600
<v Speaker 1>think is going on, and this is shared by other

0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:53.480
<v Speaker 1>sleep neuroscientists, is that during sleep, especially during rapid eye

0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:58.480
<v Speaker 1>movement sleep, you have areas of the brain communicating in

0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:04.359
<v Speaker 1>ways that they simply don't during wakefulness. And I just

0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:05.880
<v Speaker 1>can't resist it. I have to tell you that there's

0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.879
<v Speaker 1>another area called the Doris lateral prefrontal cortex and it

0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:14.080
<v Speaker 1>is completely deactivated. It is literally switched off during rapid

0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.680
<v Speaker 1>eye movement sleep. And what's fascinating about this is that

0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:18.760
<v Speaker 1>this structure of the brain. We literally call this the

0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.040
<v Speaker 1>executive control center of the brain. It is the CEO

0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.280
<v Speaker 1>of the brain. Yet it's a very it's a very

0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.359
<v Speaker 1>sort of literal and linear CEO. This is not a

0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.399
<v Speaker 1>This is like not a CEO CEO who thinks outside

0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:32.359
<v Speaker 1>of the box. Okay, this is the We're gonna do

0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.240
<v Speaker 1>it in exactly the same way we've always done it.

0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.480
<v Speaker 1>This is logical, this is rational. It's also good though,

0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:39.359
<v Speaker 1>because it tells me like I can't walk through that

0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:40.879
<v Speaker 1>wall and I can't fly out to the back of

0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.240
<v Speaker 1>the room, So this is good, right. However, it also

0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.080
<v Speaker 1>keeps you kind of contained in terms of your creative thinking.

0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.080
<v Speaker 1>So during rapid eye movement sleep, with it being switched off,

0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.000
<v Speaker 1>while all the while you're doing all of this cognitive

0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.840
<v Speaker 1>and information processing, you're you're allowed to kind of run

0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:02.199
<v Speaker 1>them up and have ideas and activate neural representations and

0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.040
<v Speaker 1>combine them in new and novel ways in a manner

0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.560
<v Speaker 1>that you simply can't do when you're awake. And this

0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:11.120
<v Speaker 1>is one of the reasons why people have Aha moments

0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.280
<v Speaker 1>when they wake up from sleep. So it may be

0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:19.520
<v Speaker 1>that all of these different modes of communication, all of

0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.520
<v Speaker 1>the ways that your memories are being processed, the information

0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.439
<v Speaker 1>that you've learned in the past, is being processed in

0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.320
<v Speaker 1>rem sleep is occurring in a way that's really different

0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.440
<v Speaker 1>than the way it occurs during wakefulness or even other

0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:38.000
<v Speaker 1>stages of sleep. And because of this regional pattern of

0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.080
<v Speaker 1>activation that occurs only in rapid eye movement sleep, it

0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:45.560
<v Speaker 1>really allows us, we think, to take different types of information,

0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:52.040
<v Speaker 1>different fragments of memory, and recombine them in totally novel ways. Now,

0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.359
<v Speaker 1>does that lead to the completely bizarre, fragmented nature of

0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.919
<v Speaker 1>our dreams? Probably, But those dreams may be a bip

0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.640
<v Speaker 1>product of a process that's incredibly important because it can

0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:09.280
<v Speaker 1>also at least at times lead to creative connections, lead

0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:13.640
<v Speaker 1>to insights, and really just new novel ways of looking

0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.760
<v Speaker 1>at things. So the best thing to do if you

0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:18.840
<v Speaker 1>are at an impasse, if you're trying to solve a

0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.119
<v Speaker 1>problem and you're at an impast you're stuck, is to

0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.919
<v Speaker 1>take the brain offline. So in other words, if you

0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.439
<v Speaker 1>have a big decision to make that phrase go and

0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.000
<v Speaker 1>sleep on it, you should take that literally. You should

0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.400
<v Speaker 1>take that literally, whether it's a good problem like you're

0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.520
<v Speaker 1>trying to decide which job to take, an emotional problem

0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.000
<v Speaker 1>like how to deal with an issue having with your

0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.040
<v Speaker 1>spouse or your child, And even if you're trying to

0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.159
<v Speaker 1>achieve creative insight, one of the best things you can

0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.760
<v Speaker 1>do you have to put the hard work in, but

0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:53.359
<v Speaker 1>then go offline, take that break, and ideally get some sleep.

0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.159
<v Speaker 1>That's a great way to end. Jessica Payne, thank you

0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:05.360
<v Speaker 1>very much. Well, thank you very much. I'm Richard Davies.

0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.520
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