Speaker 1: The Alaska Peninsula is one of the densest populations of
Speaker 1: bears in the world. I've spent a lot of time there,
Speaker 1: you know, thousands of days out there over the years,
Speaker 1: and many many nights as well. On one particular shoot
Speaker 1: we did for the BBC, we were sleeping out there
Speaker 1: for probably four months, over four months in total intent
Speaker 1: in the middle of bear country, thousand pound carnivores and
Speaker 1: did tons at your tent in the morning and there
Speaker 1: could be two, three or four bears in view. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of precautions you can take, like practical considerations,
Speaker 1: and then you just got to remember the bears really
Speaker 1: aren't looking for trouble.
Speaker 2: Chris Morgan travels to remote corners of the planet to
Speaker 2: film animals in the wild. He gave us a glimpse
Speaker 2: into what it's like to sleep during these expeditions and
Speaker 2: the hypervigilance that it takes to capture a one of
Speaker 2: a kind shot of an animal with its own unique
Speaker 2: sleep schedule.
Speaker 1: I was camping alone on this one particular little beach,
Speaker 1: but I was having a lie in one day and
Speaker 1: at five point fifteen in the morning.
Speaker 3: I hear this sleepingly Yeah, yeah, but I hear.
Speaker 1: This outside the tent and it was a wolf. So
Speaker 1: I was my alarm clock was a wolf at five
Speaker 1: point fifteen in the morning. Usually I've been getting up
Speaker 1: about four point thirty. For some reason, I didn't and this.
Speaker 3: Wolf woke me up on my arm.
Speaker 1: It was mind blowing. But I packed up my tent
Speaker 1: that day I had to move sites, and as I
Speaker 1: turned back to look at the site to sort of
Speaker 1: bid farewell to this beautiful spot in the trees on
Speaker 1: this little beach, this cove, the wolf came out. It
Speaker 1: was amazing because I didn't expect to see one of
Speaker 1: these elusive creatures. But yeah, there he was, keeping me
Speaker 1: on the on the on the wolf sleep pattern. You
Speaker 1: know it time to get up.
Speaker 2: You know, you might think that an ecologist and filmmaker
Speaker 2: with a passion for sharing nature's hidden splendors would be
Speaker 2: immune to the effects of long term, uncomfortable sleeping arrangements
Speaker 2: as a condition of his job. But as he'll tell us,
Speaker 2: that hasn't necessarily been Chris's experience.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I am I'm a big fan of sleep,
Speaker 1: so it didn't necessarily make the most sense, you know,
Speaker 1: to go into this line of work.
Speaker 3: So, how exactly and when do Wildlife Documentary and sleep
Speaker 3: while they're out on assignment, and how do they balance
Speaker 3: getting enough sleep with capturing the perfect footage at just
Speaker 3: the right moment. We'll go behind the scenes in this
Speaker 3: episode Sleep in the Wild.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Anahad O'Connor and this is Chasing Sleep and
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio production in partnership with Mattress Firm. Nature documentaries are
Speaker 2: incredibly popular. They're an immersive, easily accessible kind of escapism
Speaker 2: and given the rate of habit tat loss, there's never
Speaker 2: been a more important time to spread awareness. Chris Morgan
Speaker 2: has hosted and narrated Emmy Award winning TV productions and
Speaker 2: he's the co founder of Wildlife Media. It's a nonprofit
Speaker 2: that produced Bear Trek, a documentary that follows Chris's journey
Speaker 2: by motorcycle to some of the most incredible places on Earth,
Speaker 2: places like Alaska, Peru.
Speaker 3: The Canadian North, and Borneo.
Speaker 2: But for someone who values a good night's rest, Chris
Speaker 2: spends a lot of time sleeping on the ground under
Speaker 2: the stars. On a recent assignment, Chris joined renowned Korean
Speaker 2: photographer and naturalist Sue Young Park in the northeastern forest
Speaker 2: of Russia to capture images of the elusive and beautiful
Speaker 2: Siberian tiger. The Siberian tiger is one of the rarest
Speaker 2: animals on the planet. Just four hundred are estimated to
Speaker 2: live in the wild, all of them hidden within this
Speaker 2: incredibly remote, frozen landscape. Park spent five years filming for
Speaker 2: months at a time in negative twenty two degree weather.
Speaker 2: Chris observed the stamina and sleep process required for this
Speaker 2: remarkable feat firsthand, as Park recreated his experience for the
Speaker 2: PBS documentary Siberian Tiger Quest.
Speaker 1: We've lost about ninety seven percent of tigers around the
Speaker 1: world just in the last one hundred years.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wherever they are, they're special. And then these ones are
Speaker 1: particularly special because they're out there on their own in
Speaker 1: this little corner of Russia, in an area about the
Speaker 1: same size as Washington State.
Speaker 2: The physical and emotional effects of around the clock work
Speaker 2: schedule and hostile environments can really take its toll, and
Speaker 2: hiding in plain sight from one of the planet's most
Speaker 2: lethal predators is no easy feet. As Chris learned from Park.
Speaker 1: He had a four x six hole in the ground
Speaker 1: that was his hide, a tiny little space that you
Speaker 1: couldn't stand up and you could just about sit up
Speaker 1: straight in And in the first year that he was there,
Speaker 1: he spent seven months in that hole in the ground
Speaker 1: and it was his hide way to film and see
Speaker 1: capture on film for the first time Siberian tigers. No
Speaker 1: one had done it before. But then he goes on
Speaker 1: to say that he was doing this in the winter months,
Speaker 1: which is the best time to see the tigers. There.
Speaker 1: At one point, I say, and how long was it
Speaker 1: till you saw your first tiger? And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: two or three months. I just learned so much from
Speaker 1: the guy. He must have had some on off switch
Speaker 1: where he could sleep at a moment's notice and be
Speaker 1: able to just wait out the hours until a cap
Speaker 1: showed up. And he has insane stories of more than
Speaker 1: one getting onto the roof of his hide. At one
Speaker 1: point one of them swiped past his camera on his hand,
Speaker 1: and he had some really up close intense experiences with him.
Speaker 2: Well, you have to be tough as nails to camp
Speaker 2: out perfectly still in this little hide for five months
Speaker 2: at a time. So how did he sleep in there?
Speaker 1: He didn't get much sleep, but he had plenty of
Speaker 1: warm sleeping bags and enough to get him through the winters,
Speaker 1: you know, but of course no fire, because he didn't
Speaker 1: want to give his cent away or the s of
Speaker 1: anything sort of human like. Right, he'd be able to
Speaker 1: stretch out there, you know, it's about six feet long
Speaker 1: this hole in the ground, so we could stretch out straight,
Speaker 1: you know, and take naps. He sort of talked me
Speaker 1: through the process of this and left me to it.
Speaker 1: I built a platform in the woods where I could
Speaker 1: try and sort of recreate a little bit what he
Speaker 1: did and how he did it. I don't know how
Speaker 1: he pulled it off, you know, but the proof is
Speaker 1: in his footage.
Speaker 2: I think at one point you said that your mustache
Speaker 2: felt like it was freezing, and when you were sleeping
Speaker 2: out there on that platform in the middle of the night,
Speaker 2: you had to wake up because it was so cold,
Speaker 2: and I think you said, put on warmer clothes. What
Speaker 2: is it like, you know, for you sleeping out there
Speaker 2: in the dead of night in Siberia? And do you
Speaker 2: have to do anything to be able to sleep out there?
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing is making sure you've
Speaker 1: got enough layer so you can add them and lose
Speaker 1: them as you need to. But I ended up wearing
Speaker 1: everything I'd got because it was damn cold, you know,
Speaker 1: So just a really good down sleeping bag, a really
Speaker 1: good thermal mattress, you know, just at least a couple
Speaker 1: of inches thick that keeps you off the ground, or
Speaker 1: in this case, keeps you off this wooden platform that
Speaker 1: i'd built in the forest. I had a tent around
Speaker 1: me as well to keep off some of the cold.
Speaker 1: But there's not much you can do much more than that,
Speaker 1: other than just making sure that you wear and really
Speaker 1: good thermals, you know, and it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: it is like really good wool thermals. There's nothing better
Speaker 1: than a sheep to keep you warm at night. You know,
Speaker 1: they've learned over thousands of years out of stay warm.
Speaker 1: I also use those chemical handwarmers a lot. I actually
Speaker 1: get really quite bad circulations, so that often wakes me up,
Speaker 1: you know, my fingers or toes are cold. So just
Speaker 1: having those chemical handwarm as handy is really good. And
Speaker 1: you keep all your clothes on and you're ready for
Speaker 1: action to jump out of a tent or sleeping magot
Speaker 1: any moment if something happens, to film or watch or record.
Speaker 2: Round the clock vigilance, disrupted sleep routines, and less than
Speaker 2: ideal conditions create a world of challenges for professionals like Chris.
Speaker 2: Doctor Jade Wu is a board certified sleep medicine specialist
Speaker 2: and a research at Duke University School of Medicine, and
Speaker 2: Chris's story reminds her of another population.
Speaker 5: What this reminds me of is actually people with a
Speaker 5: military background, because when people are deployed, for example, they
Speaker 5: really do need to be up at a moment's notice.
Speaker 5: It can be any time of night or day. You know,
Speaker 5: there's not much preparation for it, not much advanced notice,
Speaker 5: if any at all. And the pattern that I see
Speaker 5: when they get home when they're living a civilian life
Speaker 5: now is that they're more on high alert. So even
Speaker 5: when they intellectually know that all is safe and they're
Speaker 5: not on duty they don't have to do anything at night,
Speaker 5: their body is still wired to be more on high alert,
Speaker 5: more easily woken up. And I think this is probably
Speaker 5: similar for Chris because he's also used to having to
Speaker 5: just pop up into consciousness and be ready to function
Speaker 5: right away. So yeah, I can see how it would
Speaker 5: be more difficult to sleep long stretches more difficult maybe
Speaker 5: to relax into deep sleep and maybe more easily woken
Speaker 5: by small noises or lights.
Speaker 2: While Chris has a lot of experience filming at night
Speaker 2: in a state of hypervigilance, his heightened awareness of his
Speaker 2: surroundings and dedication to the wildlife that he's there to
Speaker 2: research has a big advantage when it comes to establishing
Speaker 2: a sleep pattern that won't compromise the shoot. One of
Speaker 2: the things I've noticed from a lot of your films
Speaker 2: and your shows is you do a lot of work
Speaker 2: at night. Are you naturally a night outl Is that
Speaker 2: sort of a prerequisite for the job?
Speaker 1: I am a bit more of a night owl. I'm
Speaker 1: not an early morning guy, but I have found that
Speaker 1: I which sounds weird, doesn't it? For a while? Left guy,
Speaker 1: But I'm able to adjust quite well, and especially on
Speaker 1: longer trips into the wilderness where I kind of get
Speaker 1: a chance to just start to flow with the rhythms
Speaker 1: of nature, and the rhythms of nature or what the animals,
Speaker 1: the wild animals that we are there to see, research, film, record,
Speaker 1: whatever it would be there, of course, tuned into that
Speaker 1: rhythm of nature really well. Because of there're thousands of
Speaker 1: years of uninterrupted history with that natural circadian rhythm right
Speaker 1: of sleep cycles, whereas we've lost touch with it, you know,
Speaker 1: with alarm clocks and TV till late at night, and
Speaker 1: you know, changing our clocks and all kinds of disruptions
Speaker 1: to that natural cycle. But these wild creatures do it well.
Speaker 1: And I've noticed that I can kind of switch. If
Speaker 1: I'm given enough days, I can kind of switch into
Speaker 1: the same rhythm as the animals that we're they're looking for.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a brief message from our
Speaker 2: partners at Mattress Firm, and now back to chasing sleep.
Speaker 2: If you think about your own bedtime routine, maybe brushing
Speaker 2: your teeth out a sink in a bathroom, adjusting the
Speaker 2: temperature in your bedroom, or putting on pajama, you're giving
Speaker 2: your brain cues that it's time to go to sleep.
Speaker 2: Doctor Wu says that ideally you'd create as much separation
Speaker 2: as possible between your waking life and sleeping life for
Speaker 2: your best chance at a good night's rest. But what
Speaker 2: about someone like Chris who's been living with a heightened
Speaker 2: state of awareness of his surroundings and all kinds of
Speaker 2: disruptions to sleep for weeks or months at a time
Speaker 2: and can't give his brain those traditional signals.
Speaker 5: When he is out on a project and you know,
Speaker 5: he can't have home mode and these relaxing sort of
Speaker 5: cues for the body. I would say, really using napping
Speaker 5: strategically is good.
Speaker 2: Funny Doctor wo should mention that, as Chris did mention
Speaker 2: his non traditional method for napping.
Speaker 1: Once you've been really focused on your target, it can
Speaker 1: get mentally, unphysically really exhausting. And if you're out there
Speaker 1: long enough, you're able to figure out when the animals
Speaker 1: are active and when they're not, and when they not
Speaker 1: you can take a nap. So I've got really good
Speaker 1: at taking literally sometimes a two minute nap. I can
Speaker 1: put my head down and incident situations out in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere and be asleep in sixty seconds. Take
Speaker 1: a two or three minute nap, you know, fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: if you're really lucky. I've learned to do that, and
Speaker 1: I've learned different positions. I heard the military has this
Speaker 1: as well. You know, guys in the military are taught
Speaker 1: if they sleep on their backs with their knees bent
Speaker 1: and their calves up on a chair, apparently having that
Speaker 1: blood drain from your legs into your core is good
Speaker 1: for sleep. So I try to do that, put my
Speaker 1: feet up, take a nap, get a quick powerkip in
Speaker 1: whenever I can, especially if there's like between action and
Speaker 1: it really works.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's a really good strategy for when
Speaker 5: you can't get more than two minutes at a time.
Speaker 5: Hate two minutes is better than nothing, right, So absolutely
Speaker 5: I support that. As a parent, just coming out of
Speaker 5: the haze of newborn life, I can absolutely say two
Speaker 5: minutes will do something for you. It'll refresh you, It'll
Speaker 5: give you your body a little bit of a refresh.
Speaker 5: It's certainly not enough to only sleep in these little
Speaker 5: chunks throughout the day. We do need to come back
Speaker 5: down to earth and really replenish our body with deeper, longer,
Speaker 5: more restorative sleep. But you know, when you're in action mode,
Speaker 5: you know, if that's what you can get, that's what
Speaker 5: you can get.
Speaker 3: So are there any advantages to these conditions?
Speaker 2: I mean, I have my memory foam mattress, my white
Speaker 2: noise machine, my fan cooling bamboo sheets to help me
Speaker 2: get my quality sleep. So why is it that someone
Speaker 2: lying on a frozen platform or in a hole in
Speaker 2: the ground could still sleep well.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, even with a difficult sleep schedule.
Speaker 5: When he's out there, one major advantage that he has
Speaker 5: is that he is living by the sun and the moon, right,
Speaker 5: so he has a much stronger circadian system probably than
Speaker 5: you or I do, because we work indoors, we work
Speaker 5: in an office, and we have to be conscious to
Speaker 5: make sure we have enough light exposure during the day
Speaker 5: and not too much screens and you know, light at
Speaker 5: night to maintain this day night contrast, whereas he just
Speaker 5: gets that in space. He's out in the sun all day.
Speaker 5: He's you know, at the very least getting natural broad
Speaker 5: spectrum sunlight all day long, and then at night he
Speaker 5: has maybe his campfire, maybe some devices, but probably not
Speaker 5: as much as the average person. So you know, in
Speaker 5: this way, no wonder he is able to function so
Speaker 5: well even with disruptive sleep is that, you know, his
Speaker 5: circadian rhythm is at least really really solid, and so
Speaker 5: whatever sleep he is getting is really good quality sleep.
Speaker 1: You definitely sort of get into this process of going
Speaker 1: to sleep when it's dark and then waking up when
Speaker 1: it's light, and it's exactly what the animals are doing.
Speaker 1: You just sort of start adapting to that, and there's
Speaker 1: no reason to stay awake at night at camp in
Speaker 1: the wilderness after dark, nothing to see do what you know,
Speaker 1: you might as well just sleep and you're bloody exhausted anyway.
Speaker 1: So it depends what time of year, though, you know
Speaker 1: in Alaska up north is it's perpetual daylight a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, and that whole different subject of like, wow,
Speaker 1: what do you do then?
Speaker 5: For Chris or for anybody else that does a lot
Speaker 5: of traveling or sleeping and unfamiliar or not perfect environments,
Speaker 5: if you can have like one object that's kind of
Speaker 5: your like comfy, reliable, Lucky sleep hat or Lucky Sleep
Speaker 5: iomask or Lucky sleep blanket, then you have something familiar
Speaker 5: to qe. That sleepiness, that ritual of falling asleep, whether
Speaker 5: you're in the jungles or you know, in a hotel
Speaker 5: room or wherever.
Speaker 1: You've got to have these routines while you're out there.
Speaker 1: You know, breakfasters at this time, lunches at this time
Speaker 1: unless something gets in the way of it, and then
Speaker 1: you're evening ritual as well. I just love, you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm in that mode and I'm up at five
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and watching the sun come up,
Speaker 1: and you know that the world, the natural world, is
Speaker 1: coming alive as well. And you know, whether it's wolves
Speaker 1: or bears or targets, you know they're doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know they're in their day beds or in their
Speaker 1: dens and they're stretching and slowly waking up. And you're
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. And you fire up that stove
Speaker 1: and you hear the boiling water and you see the
Speaker 1: steam in the early morning, and you pour your cup
Speaker 1: of c I can hear it and smell it now,
Speaker 1: you know, just talking about it, and it's just you
Speaker 1: kick back and you're like, this is the start of
Speaker 1: my day. It's like, I don't know, it's like the
Speaker 1: best possible coffee commercial you could imagine when you're out
Speaker 1: in nature doing it. I just love that part of
Speaker 1: the day.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: So, even when you're out there, you know, in the
Speaker 2: middle of you know Siberia or you know, the jungle
Speaker 2: or wherever it is, there's still structure and routine involved
Speaker 2: in your daily schedule.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, yes, it does depend for the longer shoots. Definitely,
Speaker 1: if you're out there for weeks or months, you've got
Speaker 1: to have that routine, I think, but then always be
Speaker 1: ready for something to completely disrupt it and get in
Speaker 1: the way of it. And it's usually an animal. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got to be ready to jump up at the
Speaker 1: foot instant, you know, without a moment's notice, with gear
Speaker 1: and the wherewithal to get into the right spot if
Speaker 1: someone's spotted an animal, or if we know that something's
Speaker 1: happening or you hear something. So it's kind of that
Speaker 1: blend of like having a routine but be ready to
Speaker 1: break it a moment's notice.
Speaker 2: What would you recommend, generally speaking, are some good things
Speaker 2: to add for an adult to wind down routine and
Speaker 2: things that may be like that you can do on
Speaker 2: the road. So for someone like Chris who's out there
Speaker 2: in the wild.
Speaker 5: If you're Chris, you're out there in the wilderness, you
Speaker 5: can do a body scan, which you can also do
Speaker 5: at home, which is where you just walk your attention
Speaker 5: through your body from head to toe or from toe
Speaker 5: to head, and you know, without judgment and without trying
Speaker 5: to change anything. So even if you have pain or
Speaker 5: discomfort or something like that, just very non judgmentally ask
Speaker 5: your body, how does it feel you know, like, hey,
Speaker 5: little toe on my left foot, how do you feel,
Speaker 5: haven't talked to you all day? And you know, moving
Speaker 5: to the other toes and to your feet, your ankles
Speaker 5: and slowly and gradually up. And often my patients will say,
Speaker 5: you know, I did the body scan and by the
Speaker 5: time I didn't, you know, I'd never even made it
Speaker 5: up to my shoulders and I was asleep on the couch.
Speaker 5: So whatever you can do to signal that switch, I
Speaker 5: think would be really helpful to have in the bedtime routine.
Speaker 1: Sleep never feels so good after a trip like that.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I love I love traveling, and I love
Speaker 1: being out in wild places, and I feel lucky and
Speaker 1: privileged to be there and experience them. It's my life,
Speaker 1: you know. I love these places deeply, so I put
Speaker 1: my all into it when I'm there, and then when
Speaker 1: I get back, oh my yeah, it just feels so
Speaker 1: luxuriant to have a bed and to have curtains that
Speaker 1: you can close, and to need an alarm clock to
Speaker 1: wake up, and it's like I just kind of hit
Speaker 1: the sack and don't want to get out of it
Speaker 1: for a few days on some back, and it's really
Speaker 1: really nice feeling because you feel like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: just a but.
Speaker 2: That's all for this episode. Join me again next week
Speaker 2: when we learn about sleeping in the Final Frontier, how
Speaker 2: astronauts get the rest they need while working in conditions
Speaker 2: no human was made to be in.
Speaker 4: So imagine being so excited to be in space for
Speaker 4: the first time, looking at the Earth floating you with
Speaker 4: in this weird environment, feeling a little weird, and four
Speaker 4: hours after launching into space for my first time, I
Speaker 4: had to go to sleep.
Speaker 3: We want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Leave a rating a review for our show on your
Speaker 2: podcast player of choice. You can find me on Twitter
Speaker 2: at Anahad O'Connor. Until next time, hoping you're living your
Speaker 2: best while sleeping your best. Chasing Sleep is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and partnership with Mattress Firm. Our executive producer
Speaker 2: is Molly Sosha. Our EP of post is James Foster.
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer is Keia Swinton. Our producer is Sierra Kaiser.
Speaker 2: This episode was written and researched by Eric Leijia and Jazscapatia.
Speaker 2: This show is hosted by me Annahar O'Connor,