WEBVTT - Fw:Thinking Catches Some Zs 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.720 Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:16.919 the podcast and the looks at the future, and says, hey, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.480 Mr Sayman, bring me a dream. I'm Jonathan Strickling and 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:24.799 I'm Joe McCormick. And Lauren is not asleep. She's actually 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:26.920 feeling under the weather, so she's not here. She might 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.520 be asleep. I mean, if she's feeling under the weather, 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.879 I hope she's asleep. She just emailed me, so I mean, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.440 she could be a sleep emailer. But this is kind 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:37.919 of leading into the fact that we're going to talk 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.519 about the future of sleep, so it was actually on 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:45.680 topic for once. I'm hoping that in the future we 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:48.200 can just phase out sleep entirely. It's just a waste 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.120 of time. I'm one of those people who, I mean, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.320 like I I enjoy getting rest when I've been working 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.560 hard and I'm very tired, but you know, it would 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.880 be great to just have more time in the day. Well, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.920 you know, there there are I've seen people say that 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.800 if you were able to adopt a an ideal sleeping 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.360 schedule as an ideals in this is the least amount 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.959 of time that you could theoretically spend sleeping that you 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.959 would essentially have the equivalent waking hours to get eleven 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:23.000 more years of life if you started in your early twenties. Yeah. 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.880 I wonder if that's one of those things being propagated 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.839 by these weird sleep pattern enthusiasts on the internet. Yeah, 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.199 we'll get to that and talk about what those weird 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.240 sleep patterns are and uh, the implications of them. Yeah. Well, okay, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:38.959 so if we're going to talk about the future of 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.480 sleep hacking sleep, how sleep patterns can change over time, 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.199 first we should talk about sleep itself, because it's kind 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.400 of a weird and mysterious topic in science, and in fact, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.520 there's still a lot we do not know about the 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.320 sleep cycle that weird. It is weird to think that 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.160 this is something that we all do. You know, we 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.040 all do it regularly, whether or not you get good 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.720 sleep or not, you still, I assume are going to 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.480 sleep or I don't know how you're listening to this podcast. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:15.200 Um So from a survival perspective, it first seems kind 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.359 of weird because I mean, I can't imagine how it 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:23.280 would confer an evolutionary advantage to lay down and expose 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:27.720 yourself to predators for eight hours or however long. Well, 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.040 let's let's think about this for a second. So there 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.119 are a lot of different theories about what happens when 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.840 we're asleep, and we'll get into those. But one thing 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.040 I might suggest as a reason why we need to 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.920 have this this time to sleep is just purely and 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.480 this this is just a hypothesis here. There's no necessarily 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.240 science to back this up, but purely from an energy perspective, right, 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.960 it requires energy for us to be awake. We're active, 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.080 we we consume energy. That's why we have to eat 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.400 throughout the day in order to maintain that level of energy, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.680 or else we are no longer capable of being active 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.440 and alert. If we were active and alert all the time, 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:11.200 we would require to eat more frequently. And because we're 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.079 not evolved to be able to do something like, I 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.720 don't know, navigate pitch black darkness without falling over ourselves 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.520 and hurting ourselves, uh being able to gather food or 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:27.040 hunt food at night, we we can't. It's harder for 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.040 us to do that. So it may be that it's 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.480 evolutionary beneficial for us to go ahead and well shut 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.800 down during the time of day when we can't really 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.640 be effective. It's just cut your losses. It's a calculated 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.240 risk to say, like, you're not going to be doing 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.560 much useful at night anyway, and you're gonna be burning 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.560 all these calories. That's the hypothesis. And keep in mind 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.640 that when we're talking about evolution, evolution happens over the 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:55.120 course of hundreds of thousands of years, right, because you 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.400 could argue, well, today we've got artificial lights. You know, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.200 the difference between night and day is not as great. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.600 But it's not like we could evolve past what we 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.960 have already established in the relatively short amount of time. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.480 Like if you're looking on a geological scale, it's a 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.880 blink of an eye since we've had any kind of 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.760 artificial light source. Uh. Well, we we can't evolve that 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:21.920 fast as a whole species. But it might be interesting 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.599 that some certain individuals of the human race have a 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.240 certain mutation that helps them in this environment where we 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.039 have artificial light and can do things useful at night. 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.520 But first, and we'll talk about that later. Also, Uh, first, 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.839 let's back up and talk about other animals. Do do 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.600 all animals sleep? No? No, mammals, birds, and reptiles sleep 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.000 all right, So they're the higher vertebrates. You can think 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:49.280 of it that way. So when you're looking at the 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.640 animal king too, the higher vertebrates all sleep like more 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.719 complex brains. Yeah, yeah, that would be part of it. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.120 More complex nervous systems would probably be a better way 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.560 of putting it. But yes, uh, if you look at 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.840 fish and amphibians, most of those have some means of 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.839 shutting down some of their awareness, but there's still not asleep. 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.440 They're still awake, but they're kind of it's like they 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.080 go to impulse power instead of warp speed, right, So 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.760 they're able to power down a little bit and and recuperate, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.040 but they don't go to sleep. Sleep insects may not 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.520 sleep at all, but they just have periods of activity 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.159 versus inactivity, whether it's day or night or whatever. It 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:30.760 depends on the insect, but they don't go to sleep. 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.600 The other thing that's interesting this related to this is dreaming, 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:36.839 and we'll talk a lot about dreaming in this episode 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:41.480 as well. But reptiles do not dream, they don't, birds 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.040 dream a little bit, and all mammals dream. And this 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.839 is based off of various scientific studies where the scientists 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.320 were monitoring brainwave activity during sleep cycles for these various 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.600 types of animals. So the next time you see like 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.480 an alligator and you're wondering, what's that alligator dreaming of 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.799 the answer is nothing at all, because alligators don't dream. Wow, 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:06.320 not even delicious raw chicken. Nope, Nope, they just they 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.000 to them. The world just goes away for a while 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:13.039 and then it comes back. Uh so yeah, so you 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.000 know that that's the basics. But then we get into 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:18.440 some other you know, this raises some other questions, like, 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:23.600 all right, so these larger, the more developed vertebrates all 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.640 all sleep and and most of them dream to some 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:32.360 extent um. Why is this happening? Why why do your 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.279 bidies even need to sleep in the first place? Um? 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.080 Do we grow while we sleep? Well, as when we're children, 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.800 we do. Yeah, because when your kid and you are sleeping, 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.919 your body releases growth hormone, and so it's very important 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.040 in those phases. It doesn't release during your wake cycle, 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.039 So when you're awake, you know, this growth hormone doesn't 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.520 get secreted, but when you go to sleep it does. 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:02.200 Also very important for immune system. If you were to 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.560 suffer sleep deprivation, for long enough, your immune system would 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.000 start to really suffer. As a result, you end up 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.160 kind of secreting again these chemicals in your body that 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:15.960 help maintain your immune system. So sleep is very important 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.920 there too. Um And you know, also there are other 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.480 hypotheses out there that are again are are There may 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.680 be a lot of truth to them, there may be 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.040 very little truth, and maybe that all of them are true, 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.400 but things like that's when our body repairs itself. So 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.280 if you were to suffer injury, then when you're sleeping, 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.840 your body can really get onto the job of fixing 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.960 tissue and getting you know, shedding dead cells, that kind 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:43.440 of stuff. I know, there are a lot of different 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.680 hypotheses about what's going on in the brain during sleep, 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:52.200 like or they're sort of necessary internal brain maintenance tasks 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:54.960 that has been only when you're asleep. That's a big one, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:56.640 the idea that you know, there are a lot of 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.680 different theories about what's going on when you're dreaming, and 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.000 that whether or not dreaming is part of your brain 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.640 trying to make sense of the information that you've gathered 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.720 since you were last asleep. So it's kind of like 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:09.400 you know, the filing of at the end of the 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.440 day sort of that kind of thing, or that it's 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.000 just kind of getting rid of nonsense information. There are 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.760 a lot of different hypotheses out there, but there are 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.440 some things we can definitively point at. One is that 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.559 when you go to sleep, your breathing rate slows down, 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.600 your heart rate slows down, uh, and your brain begins 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.680 to generate different types of brain waves. So these waves, 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.680 you know, they have oscillation frequencies, right, are electrically measurable. Yeah, 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.600 if you put if you put in a uh, you know, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.560 you put sensors on the on the skull and you're 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.640 reading those brain waves just like you've probably seen in 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.920 some television shows or movies. You could actually monitor the 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:54.079 brain activity and normal wakeful activity. You have alpha waves 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.880 that are generated when you're kind of you know, in 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.680 a relaxed, chilled out state. Beta way waves are generated 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.679 when you're really alert. So those are the two that 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.640 are the most frequent in your in your wakeful moments. 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.400 When you go to sleep, you start to generate uh, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:16.120 different brain waves, the delta waves and the theta waves. Um. 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.160 So these are slower, they have slower or lower frequencies, 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.360 I should say, And the slower pattern kind of indicates 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.840 how deep asleep you're in, and the slower the pattern, 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.480 the deeper the sleep. So it's harder to wake someone 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.520 up when they're having uh delta wave activity. And these 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.040 are variable based on your sort of your sleep cycle, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.280 right that you go through different stages of sleep exactly. Yeah, 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.200 it's it's your activity does change. There are times when 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.680 the activity starts to spike, like an r e M 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.000 sleep that's rabbid eye movement sleep. This is when we're 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:53.160 talking about dreaming. So if you've ever been awakened while 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.600 you were in R e M sleep, then you probably 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.400 have at least some recollection of what your dream was. 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.600 It's a lot harder to member for most people what 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.800 they dreamed or didn't dream if they wake up and 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.600 non r E M sleep, it's just because the activity 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.600 is removed from when they actually wake up. Um. And 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.360 most people have between three to five sessions of R 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.360 E M sleep per night, tends to be about a 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.480 quarter of a typical good night's sleep. So you get 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:27.320 about R E M sleep and non r E M sleep. 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.120 You know it's again this also appears to be pretty important. 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:33.880 It's one of those things that if you don't get 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.560 that r E M sleep, that's considered like you can 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.800 start suffering sleep deprivation. So you could, you know, catch 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.079 little naps here and there. But if you're not getting 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.520 r EM sleep, you're not getting that RESTful sleep. You 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.240 don't you don't feel rested. That's the hard stuff. Yeah, 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.480 it's it's what's really good. It's the stuff when you 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.640 when you wake up after a really good night's sleep 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.800 and you feel refreshed, it's because you had that R 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.040 E M sleep. So it's not just because you were 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.400 inactive and RESTful, it's because this has been going on. Okay, 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.240 so this is really useful. What happens to the body 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.520 when we don't get enough sleep? And I can speak 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.600 from experience on this one. Yeah, it's uh, it's no fun. 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:12.760 I went through a lot of years in my life 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.559 when I was not getting a whole lot of sleep. Um, 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.840 it's more recent in my life that I've started getting 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.800 better sleep. Yeah. Yeah, I just in you know, college, 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.520 grad school. I don't know why. I was just one 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:31.360 of those people. So how many all nighters have you done? Oh? Uncountable? Yeah, 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.079 I I've only done a few. I am one of 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:38.000 those people who I realize what my severe limitations are 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.559 if I don't have enough sleep, because they affect me. Really, 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.120 I mean, it's just it's obvious if I haven't had 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.679 enough sleep. Have you ever had hallucinations? I have, I 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.760 have to have not not. These aren't like lucid crazy 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.319 hallucinations like I'm seeing a monster climbing out of the floor. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.959 It's more like I remember things like after going like 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.199 you know, days in a row with almost no real 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.080 sleep of any kind, seeing feeling like I had seen 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.319 something move in my peripheral vision and I turned to 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.760 look and there'd be nothing there for me. It was 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.080 a point where I could no longer read text because 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.439 it would look like it was melting to me. Um. Yeah, 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:18.800 I got to a point where I would try and 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.839 read something and then I would start to nod off immediately. Um. 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:23.920 I've also I've also got into the point where I 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:28.520 started talking without realizing what I was saying. Yeah, there's 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:30.760 a great story about a friend of mine driving me 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.440 home from the airport after a trip where I got 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:38.880 no sleep. Really, and apparently I had some entertaining, absurd, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.480 surreal things to say. I had no connection to anything 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.720 connected to reality at all, and that was because I 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.480 had sleep deprivation. So I mean, if you're talking about 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.360 going like a like a day without sleep or a 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.840 day without enough sleep, you're talking about things like maybe 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.480 not being able to focus as as much upon a 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.520 task as you normally would are. It's pretty standard for 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.200 people to report after just one bad night's sleep that 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:11.400 they lose focus and they have decreased competence at standard tasks, 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.760 right or that, And also that things irritate them a 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.360 little more easily than it might otherwise, that that their 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.160 their thresholds for being irritated as lower. Um And but 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.080 there are some serious effects that can happen, Like those 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.600 hallucinations are pretty bad, but I mean there's some even 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.719 worse effects that can happen. You can actually die from 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.120 lack of sleep. In fact, you know, this is one 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.040 of those wonderful tests that sciences has shown us, which uh, 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.400 you know, it's it's one of the things that it's 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:42.440 important to know. It's upsetting to think of the actual circumstances. 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.480 But scientists would keep rats awake and watch to see 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.560 what happened with the rats um and the you know, 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.000 it got to a point where rats that had been 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.040 forced to stay awake for several days in a row 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.000 would begin to die and uh, you know, like we said, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.680 like they're going to sleep that has what means of 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:07.040 helping regulate your immune system. So there are definite health 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.480 risks to not getting enough sleep. Uh yeah, And it's 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.440 a pretty widespread phenomenon that people don't get enough sleep 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:20.320 in the United States, at least the CDC that they 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:24.920 estimated that forty point six million American workers, which is 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.920 about thirty percent of all the people on the job, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:34.720 are sleep deprived. That's terrible. Yeah, yeah, I see, here's 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:39.160 talking about a Singapore management university said that workers were 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.040 wasting time, more time than uh than your average worker 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.280 if they got less sleep. Yeah. This is from a 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.560 from a Wall Street General report on sleep deprivation. It's 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.360 a huge problem, and it's estimated to account for billions 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:58.240 of dollars of lost productivity in the American workforce. So 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.840 just I mean just written zoning out, you know, people 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.640 not being as efficient at tasks that they do every day, 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.200 right right, having to redo something perhaps, or or just 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.320 taking extra time to be able to do something that 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.080 normally you'd be able to accomplish in half the time whatever, 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.840 Like there are measurable effects, right, So getting sleep is 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.040 important to you. It's important for your health, it's important 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.320 for just being the kind of person you want to be. Um. 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.320 But it's also important on a large scale in in 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.440 your society, Like it's important if you are a government, 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.160 you actually you want to make sure people are getting 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:39.880 enough sleep because it has large scale implications. That's that's 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.800 definitely true. So one of the things I saw that 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.720 you wanted to talk about was the kinds of sleep 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.960 patterns we see in nature. Yeah. Um, keeping all the 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.280 things that we just talked about in mind that sleep 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.200 deprivation is a really serious problem with serious health effects 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.520 and serious effects to productivity and and all those kinds 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.800 of things. It's still would be great if we could 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.720 maybe get more time, if we could find a way 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:11.760 to sleep less totally still healthy. That you're just as healthy, 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.240 just as happy, with no negative effects to your to 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:19.440 your body, your brain, and your and your quality of life. Um. 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.400 And so the first thing I wondered about is, well, 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:27.800 is the way we sleep now, the way most Westerners 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.040 sleep now, So one long chunk of sleep at night 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.720 that is supposed to be around eight hours or so 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.400 is that normal? Is that normal to the species? So? 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:41.960 Yes and no. So first of all, there there are 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.360 two main types of sleep patterns that you find in 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.760 the animal world. Monophasic, which is this idea of having 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:52.560 a big, one chunk. Yeah, and then there's polyphasic, which 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.520 is where you divide this up over multiple like sleep 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.760 sessions throughout a particular cycle. Yeah. And a lot of 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.440 these polyphasic that's actually going to be by phasic, meaning 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.480 you sleep twice. Yeah. By phasic, you would, you could argue, 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.359 is sort of outside of polyphasic polyphasic. I think of 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.440 as a what my dog does, right right. I am 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.440 a fairly recent dog owner, and I've been noticing these 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:20.160 these dog behavior patterns. My new puppy will sleep for 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.239 an hour and then get up and come look at 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.600 me and wag is sweet little tail, and then go 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:29.200 lie down and sleep for another hour and repeat. You know. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.520 it's it's very typical with canines. And then you have 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.960 other animals you have like cats that will sleep for 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.879 hours and hours and hours and then they'll be active. Um. 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.960 So those that's the difference between monophasic and polyphasic. And 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.399 then you can have depending upon the type of animal. 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.920 If it's you know, nocturnal, then it's sleeping during the day. 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.080 It may have a it may be monophasic, but it's 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.960 sleep session is in the daytime, not in the nighttime. Yeah, 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:56.560 I've um heard examples of people saying that in history 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:02.200 people didn't necessarily always sleep just one chunk. Well, yeah, 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:06.120 by PHAs is something that is fairly common, and it's 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.240 still common in some parts of the world. By phasic 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.879 is this idea to Italy and they close all the 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:16.800 shops Spain as well. Spain is also does this Yeah, um, yeah, no, 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.400 it's the the whole siesta idea. So by phasic means 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.040 that you're dividing up your sleep into two sessions, but 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.920 they're not equal, right, You've got one longer session, which 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.040 is the one at night. Tends to be between five 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:32.200 and seven hours for most of the these these implementations. 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.120 Sometimes it could be you know, five to eight hours 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.560 something like that, and then you take a second session 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.600 of sleep around the sixth hour of your day whenever 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.320 that day starts. Your day is dependent upon when you 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.000 wake up then when you get up, so it's not 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.600 like it's always going to be at this X hour, 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.080 it's gonna be six hours after you've awakened, and then 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.760 you take another sleep that could be anywhere from a 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.840 half hour to an hour and a half long nap, 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.920 and then you're awake and alert for the rest of 0:18:59.920 --> 0:19:03.359 the day. And in fact, great apes tend to be 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.800 by phasic, so humans tend to be by phasic. But 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.919 most of us work in the Western world, are working 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.879 in environments where taking a nap in the middle of 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.639 a day is discouraged, not not something you can typically do. 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.880 And if you think about humans, are not when we're 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:27.360 when we're babies, we're polyphasic. We're we're we're not, you know, uh, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.840 monophasic or by phasic. When we're babies were polyphasic, but 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.760 we gradually kind of move into a by phasic phase. 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:36.639 That's where you have the kid who will sleep through 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.159 the night but also take a nap in the afternoon. Uh. 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.200 And then eventually society pressures us into being monophasic, even 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.680 though all of us know that are on two pm. 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:46.480 It would be awesome if we could just lay down 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:48.520 and go to sleep and no one judged us, or 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.640 at least by all of us, I mean me so 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.320 um so naturally speaking, but for most people, keeping in 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.520 mind that this is you know, this is a blanket statement, 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.680 and there are all aways exceptions to rules. Most people 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:07.040 would do best with monophasic or biphasic sleep on their own. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.000 But that doesn't mean that people haven't tried two come 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.760 up with some alternatives. Yeah, so I want to transition 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.960 to talking about hacking sleep. Can we do it? Can 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:23.880 you give yourself more waking hours without hurting your level 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.720 of energy when you are awake, or your alertness, or 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.560 your competence at tasks or your health. Can you can 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.200 you get just as good a quality of life with 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:38.040 less time in bed? Well, there's some famous historical figures 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:42.480 who have been um the the the idea of getting 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.440 very little sleep or or this whole polyphasic approach where 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.200 you're taking naps throughout the day, uh, seems to have 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.600 been attributed to them, but most of them are the 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.000 questionable questionable. Yeah, the Leonardo da Vinci is a big 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.440 that's the big example. So he's the one everybody talks about. 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.760 He's a you know, great Italian polly, math of the Renaissance, 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:11.360 um painter, inventor of everything, basically at least on paper, right, 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.720 I didn't necessarily build everything, but he sure did invent 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.640 a lot of stuff. Yeah, but he is famous for 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.440 supposedly taking advantage of polyphasic sleep, so he would take 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.040 a number of naps throughout the day instead of one 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.919 long chunk, and it would total to much less time 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.120 than the average person spent sleeping in their in their 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.440 chunks at night. Um. But that he would function perfectly 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.400 well with this. I have had a hard time confirming this, 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.200 and I'm very suspicious that it's an urban legend. I'm 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.720 pretty sure it is. Uh. The the next one you 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:48.760 have on our list is actually a little bit more 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:54.320 of a credible, uh example in a way. Yeah, so 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.879 Buckminster Fuller Bucky tell us about him, Jonathan Well, Bucky 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.840 was supposedly getting by on just taking half hour naps. 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:08.520 According to Dr Wozniac. Dr Piotr Wozniak, who's a biologist 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.159 who has written extensively on the subjects of polyphasic sleep 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.360 and and monophasic sleep by phasic sleep as well, UM 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:20.240 suggest that perhaps this was a reputation that was not 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:25.200 fully accurate, that it was more that Fuller would take 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.840 naps whenever he could, but would also grab like a 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:33.240 decent six hours sleep whenever the opportunity arose. It's just 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:35.560 that sometimes the schedule would not allow it. I guess 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.440 it's hard to prove something like this. Yeah, So beyond 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:41.560 Da Vinci and Bucky, we have a few other names 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.680 that are sometimes associated with this idea of polyphasic sleep, 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.160 and they are there's some pretty pretty impressive names. If 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:50.439 only there were evidence to support the fact that they 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:55.080 were actually polyphasic sleepers. Uh, Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla. 0:22:55.240 --> 0:23:00.440 So the rivals of the Sleep Wars right after the 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:06.080