Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too, lingering, which makes this stuff you
Speaker 1: should know, right, And can we quickly just say a
Speaker 1: brief thank you to everyone that came out on the
Speaker 1: first three show leg of our nine show tour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you to everybody in Seattle, to everyone in Portland, yay.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone in San Francisco yeehall. And that's
Speaker 1: the three so far. Yeah, and they went great. I
Speaker 1: think we were both a little nervous. Could it's been
Speaker 1: a while And it was like putting on an old
Speaker 1: shirt all right with a bunch of moth holes in.
Speaker 1: It was awesome, perfectly placed. So just one nipple sticks
Speaker 1: out through one of the Oh wow, that's what it
Speaker 1: felt like to me. I think going out on stage
Speaker 1: in that year, you did so good, my friend. I
Speaker 1: was very proud of you. You were funny and engaging
Speaker 1: and doled out the information. It was just vintage Josh. Well.
Speaker 1: I have to say that is great to hear because
Speaker 1: I feel the same way about your performance, which you delivered. Chuck,
Speaker 1: you did great too. Wilson. Either one of us screwed
Speaker 1: it up. I don't think so. No. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: both of us screwed up plenty of times, but not
Speaker 1: the whole shebang, you know what I mean. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I feel like we're really kind of overselling things. I
Speaker 1: don't want everybody to come out expecting a lot based
Speaker 1: on what we just said for the next six shows.
Speaker 1: But we are going to be touring some more this year,
Speaker 1: so heads up, keep an ear out for where we're
Speaker 1: going to be. I think we've already kind of said
Speaker 1: mostly right. Yeah, And and big thanks to everyone for
Speaker 1: as always doing their best to keep a lid on
Speaker 1: the topic because it's it's not like the front Door
Speaker 1: combination to Fort Knox or anything, but it's always nice,
Speaker 1: I think, to be surprised when you show up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to see the look on people's faces and they're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I was not expecting this. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's the Pinto right, what's that? Never even heard of it? All? Right?
Speaker 1: So on with the nap say, oh yeah, nap. So um,
Speaker 1: I have to say, chuck. When I was researching this,
Speaker 1: I got very very tired, and I still didn't nap.
Speaker 1: As you know I am a non napper. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's funny. We were talking about the tour
Speaker 1: because on tour you probably just adrenaline and nerves and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. You had some trouble sleeping and then
Speaker 1: could not nap to catch up, and you know my deal,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about it through the episode. But I
Speaker 1: started taking a daily nap about probably about a year ago.
Speaker 1: I used to you know, I called it sneaking a
Speaker 1: nap every now and then. My whole life, i'ven't enjoyed
Speaker 1: a nap, but then I was. I started to own it,
Speaker 1: and which means basically, let Emily no like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna nap and I'm not gonna feel bad about it tonight.
Speaker 1: And she got behind it and was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: you do better, She said, you don't get as much
Speaker 1: sleep as I do. You do better with with like
Speaker 1: a forty five minute lay down in the afternoon, and like,
Speaker 1: go for it. It's great, that's awesome. So I felt
Speaker 1: like there was something wrong with me because I couldn't nap,
Speaker 1: because it does seem like that's something that everybody should
Speaker 1: be able to do, especially as beneficial as it is.
Speaker 1: But After reading this article and doing research, Ed helped
Speaker 1: us with this one, by the way, so thanks Ed.
Speaker 1: I've come to realize like I'm just a non napper,
Speaker 1: probably on a genetic level. Yeah, some people just don't
Speaker 1: nap and some people do, and there doesn't mean anyone's
Speaker 1: right or wrong. I am good at it. I get
Speaker 1: a lot out of it, and you're not great at it.
Speaker 1: And who knows if you would get anything out of it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know, who knows? I mean, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Who knows. I might just wake up even worse off
Speaker 1: than I have been before, but I really really can
Speaker 1: try and it just does not happen. So it's just
Speaker 1: have you ever I mean I know obviously kids nap
Speaker 1: and stuff, but like as an adult, have you ever
Speaker 1: ever napped? Or not? Really? I'm sure I have, but
Speaker 1: I can't remember when, if ever, and if I if
Speaker 1: I ever, Like my my propensity is to just stay up,
Speaker 1: keep staying up, and then go to bed at your
Speaker 1: normal bedtime and just try to reset everything. To me,
Speaker 1: taking a nap is like, oh no, everything's even more
Speaker 1: out of whack than it was before. You know, like
Speaker 1: if you if you've missed out on a bunch of
Speaker 1: sleep tonight before rather than taking a nap, I just
Speaker 1: stay awake until the next sleep time and then hopefully
Speaker 1: that everything gets back to normal. Yeah yeah, my um.
Speaker 1: I just remember my brother in law, the Marine Corps
Speaker 1: General is has a as you would imagine a pretty
Speaker 1: rebbed up motor sure as a human in life, just
Speaker 1: to accomplish things. And I live with him in a
Speaker 1: Zona for a year and I saw him take a
Speaker 1: nap one day and I was worried. Head up to
Speaker 1: my sister. I was like, Michelle s Cartson, Okay, I
Speaker 1: was like, I think we need to call somebody. Does
Speaker 1: he take him regularly? No, not at all. So it
Speaker 1: was it was really disconcerting to see him not awake
Speaker 1: and like building a new deck or a swing set,
Speaker 1: or cleaning cleaning something curiously, especially since when you lean
Speaker 1: closer you could hear him go, this is my rifle.
Speaker 1: Oh what a great Stanley Kubrick joke. So let's let's
Speaker 1: talk napping. We could just sit here and share napping
Speaker 1: anecdotes for the rest of the episode. Yeah good. I
Speaker 1: suspect most people would be turned off by a significant portion.
Speaker 1: Would a lot of people come for the science the statistics.
Speaker 1: The explanation me screwing up the word statistics all that
Speaker 1: stuff combined. That's a tough word, it is. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: but we should talk a little bit about sleep. We
Speaker 1: have a quite a few episodes on sleep, but one
Speaker 1: just on sleep and kind of the different phases. So
Speaker 1: if you want a full, a deep dive into that,
Speaker 1: go check that one out. But briefly we'll go over
Speaker 1: the stages of sleep again. Right. Yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: basically have to talk about napping because spoiler alert, napping
Speaker 1: is a type of sleep. It's just abbreviated and there's
Speaker 1: actually a clinical definition agreed upon definition of a funny one,
Speaker 1: I think you should take this one. A nap is
Speaker 1: any sleep period where a duration with a duration of
Speaker 1: less than fifty percent of the average major sleep period
Speaker 1: of an individual. So if you sleep eight hours a
Speaker 1: night and you took a three hour and forty five
Speaker 1: minute sleep during the afternoon, that would be considered a nap.
Speaker 1: That's a nap and then a weird big one. It's
Speaker 1: odd that there's a definition out there, but it makes
Speaker 1: sense even though everyone knows what a nap is. Yeah, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to talk about sleep because we don't actually
Speaker 1: understand why we sleep still. It's one of the great
Speaker 1: fascinating things about humans, and we've talked about it plenty
Speaker 1: of times, more than in just some of our sleep episodes.
Speaker 1: But there's theories that your brain is clearing out like
Speaker 1: detritus and junk, that you are consolidating memories and making
Speaker 1: new connections between memories like remember our Sleeping on It
Speaker 1: short stuff that we released recently. Yep, we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about that. There's basically forcing your body to lay
Speaker 1: still so that it can repair and grow and do
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. And then another another theories that
Speaker 1: we're actually saving energy, we have less we have less
Speaker 1: energy needs or fewer energy needs because we sleep about
Speaker 1: six to eight or six to nine hours a day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what do you get these days sleepwise? I get, oh,
Speaker 1: usually on the nose, eight hours, maybe nine sometimes. But
Speaker 1: you're an early riser, so you're going to bed at tennish,
Speaker 1: tennish ninish. Okay, all right? If the beds sounding really
Speaker 1: like comforting of eight eight thirty, I don't care. I
Speaker 1: have nothing to prove to anyone. My life is into
Speaker 1: it too, So no, no, no, there's the older you
Speaker 1: get the less aim you have about just saying like
Speaker 1: I'm going to bed, everybody good exactly. Yeah, because as
Speaker 1: as you get older, when you say it at like eight,
Speaker 1: you like raise your fists in triumph. Right, I get
Speaker 1: to I completed everything I needed to complete today, and
Speaker 1: now I get to go to bed at eight thirty, right,
Speaker 1: right right. I generally stay up later and still get
Speaker 1: up kind of early. That's why the nap really helps
Speaker 1: me out, because I feel like I get probably seven
Speaker 1: and under every night. I go to bed at eleven
Speaker 1: or twelve, and I usually get up around six thirty
Speaker 1: or seven. Yeah, that's the best time to do it,
Speaker 1: to get up really early. I've not been much of
Speaker 1: a night owl for many, many years. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: early rising thing I really I can dig on for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was in San Francisco actually on sort of the
Speaker 1: big night out, which was after our Friday show when
Speaker 1: we were completely done. Yeah, I sort of got into
Speaker 1: it with some old friends Hodgman and some guys and
Speaker 1: Adam Pranica and Ben Harrison and our buddies, and I
Speaker 1: was up. Adam and I were the last ones up,
Speaker 1: and I looked at my watch fully expecting it to
Speaker 1: be maybe twelve forty five or one fifteen at the latest,
Speaker 1: and it was like two forty five, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh boy, I'm in trouble that in a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, that's a feeling of dread when you go
Speaker 1: to bed like that. And I took a legit three
Speaker 1: hour nap the next day. Nice. Well, that's we'll get
Speaker 1: to why that probably helped. I'm sure when you woke
Speaker 1: up after that three hour nap you felt good. I
Speaker 1: felt good in that I had got given my body
Speaker 1: what it needed. But it was definitely like waking up
Speaker 1: from real sleep like I was. I was pretty groggy.
Speaker 1: And we'll again, we'll get into all that. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we were talking about a tuck about the stages of
Speaker 1: sleep are explaining sleep and sleep is divided into stages.
Speaker 1: There's really two big ones, and then one of the
Speaker 1: big ones can be subdivided. But you've got rapid eye
Speaker 1: movement RIM sleep or REM sleep if you're in the
Speaker 1: sleep biz, and then you've got non RIM sleep or
Speaker 1: n REM, and NREM is what you can divide into
Speaker 1: further subsections. There's stage N one, N two, and N three.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know this chuck. But you put N one,
Speaker 1: N two, N three followed by rim sleep. You've got
Speaker 1: a full sleep cycle, and that you cycle through those
Speaker 1: multiple times, five six times during a night's sleep. Did
Speaker 1: you know that? You knew that because we've talked about it.
Speaker 1: You just forgot it. I plumb forgot because yeah, it
Speaker 1: seemed like brand new infoto me. Yeah, you go through
Speaker 1: the complete cycle five or six times, and when you
Speaker 1: start looking at the breakdown of the minutes, it makes
Speaker 1: sense because N one is that first little light sleep stage.
Speaker 1: It's only about five minutes per cycle. So again you
Speaker 1: will go through that five minute stage five or six
Speaker 1: times in a night. Yeah, and this one, you know
Speaker 1: you'll wake up very easily from N one, whereas in
Speaker 1: two obviously is a bit deeper. Your body is going
Speaker 1: to be pretty much completely relaxed and into your body
Speaker 1: temp drops, your heart rate drops, your respiration drops a
Speaker 1: bit arousal threshold are the words ed use. That sounds
Speaker 1: both like a band and like something dirty. That's an
Speaker 1: album to me, not a band. Okay, well the band
Speaker 1: would be Sleep Architecture then right, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: roxy music album. Okay, yeah, I guess, I guess the
Speaker 1: band would be sleep architecture. That's a good name for anything, really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a term that comes up later, but this, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: The N two cycle is about ten to twenty minutes
Speaker 1: on the first run or the end two stage, and
Speaker 1: the first cycles ten to twenty minutes, and then each
Speaker 1: successive cycle it gets a little bit longer. Yeah, eleven
Speaker 1: to twenty one, twelve to twenty two, probably more teen
Speaker 1: to twenty three, right, Yeah, and then after that you've
Speaker 1: got N three sleep, slow wave sleep. It's your arousal threshold.
Speaker 1: It's very high, meaning it's very difficult to wake you up.
Speaker 1: I saw that people will commonly sleep through hundred decibel
Speaker 1: noises in N three sleep you were just out, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's great. N three sleep you're getting all sorts
Speaker 1: of like your cells are repairing themselves. You're actually literally growing,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a younger human. Yeah, and you'll stay
Speaker 1: in it for anywhere between twenty to forty minutes. But
Speaker 1: it's the opposite of ND two. It gets shorter with
Speaker 1: each cycle. There's a problem with N three sleep in
Speaker 1: that if you wake up from N three sleep, you
Speaker 1: are extraordinarily groggy. That grogginess can last like two to
Speaker 1: four hours, where like you're essentially suffering a temporary cognitive impairment.
Speaker 1: And they call it sleep inertia. It's another way to
Speaker 1: put it, just just the grogginess from waking up at
Speaker 1: the wrong time, and that is what happens when you
Speaker 1: don't complete an end three cycle, but you wake up
Speaker 1: in the N three cycle. That's where you're groggiest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what I'm curious about. And we've even had one of
Speaker 1: these as a sponsor. I can't remember which one, but
Speaker 1: where you'll wear like sleep bands to kind of log
Speaker 1: how your sleep cycles are working. Yeah, do any and
Speaker 1: the one that we use may have even had this,
Speaker 1: I don't remember, But do any of them have an
Speaker 1: alarm integrated well, they where they can wake you up
Speaker 1: in the best part of your sleep, You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I would guess, so they're probably don't think
Speaker 1: this is like new research here, So I'm guessing that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're going to make something like that, you would
Speaker 1: have to make it so that you wake up at
Speaker 1: the best optimal time. I'm curious. And then the last
Speaker 1: one is the RM sleep. This is where you're dreaming.
Speaker 1: Of course, your brain is going to be obviously a
Speaker 1: little more active. Your arousal threshold is even higher than
Speaker 1: in three. But it's a bit of a paradox because
Speaker 1: if you don't have an alarm or whatever, and you
Speaker 1: just awake from a dream spontaneously and you've had, you know,
Speaker 1: a regular good night's sleep, then it doesn't have the
Speaker 1: kind of sleep inertia as in three, so you wake
Speaker 1: up easier. Right, And I've found this to be kind
Speaker 1: of both. When I wake up from a intense dream,
Speaker 1: sometimes I am really out of it. But that's rare
Speaker 1: because I'm generally a very awake waker. Right you sit
Speaker 1: up like, oh my god, No, not quite like that.
Speaker 1: But I've never been one that's just like, oh what,
Speaker 1: I'm always just like okay, I'm awake. So when you
Speaker 1: watch movies where people wake up, you're like, that is
Speaker 1: so fake. That's fake for me. So um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that if you naturally, if when you wake
Speaker 1: up without an alarm, which I guess it is called
Speaker 1: a wake getting spontaneously, which makes sense. I've actually chuck,
Speaker 1: I've got a talent here where so I'm still like
Speaker 1: LOGI from the jet, Like for some reason, the jet
Speaker 1: like just killed me on this West coast trip, like
Speaker 1: I've never had it before. We might as well have
Speaker 1: gone to Japan and come back over the weekend. It
Speaker 1: was like pretty bad, so I'm still suffering from it.
Speaker 1: So I woke up to my alarm. But normally, when
Speaker 1: I have like a good level of sleep going, I
Speaker 1: can calculate how long I have to sleep and what
Speaker 1: time I need to wake up, and I will wake
Speaker 1: up every time a couple minutes before my alarm goes off. Dude,
Speaker 1: me too. I talked a bit this on our sleepep.
Speaker 1: I have a natural alarm. If I tell myself the
Speaker 1: night before what time I have to wake up, I'm
Speaker 1: within like five minutes of that. That's just so cool.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the circadian rhythms or one of
Speaker 1: the biological rhythms that we have. We have like an
Speaker 1: inner several inner clocks of different types, and apparently one
Speaker 1: just as there and count it's the seconds. What a
Speaker 1: terrible job that would be. Yeah, I mean, I haven't
Speaker 1: used I don't think maybe some real weird outlier nights,
Speaker 1: but I know for a fact, I haven't really used
Speaker 1: an alarm since we did the TV show Wow and
Speaker 1: generally never use an alarm because I just I wake up.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those who will just sleep the
Speaker 1: day away. I still set my alarm on days where
Speaker 1: we're studying recording, days where I have to get up early,
Speaker 1: but I still usually wake up before it. So well.
Speaker 1: Pets and human children also serve as natural alarms, either
Speaker 1: from a pet usually like it's time to get that
Speaker 1: morning feeding or let me out and go pee or whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: but yeah, once you once you have a human kid,
Speaker 1: you're you're waking when they wake right. Okay, So we
Speaker 1: basically just explained sleep again. And the reason we did
Speaker 1: that is because now that we know the different stages
Speaker 1: of sleep and how long each one lasts and when
Speaker 1: you want to wake up or don't wake up, you
Speaker 1: can actually use this information to optimize your nap. And
Speaker 1: I think we should take a break and then come
Speaker 1: back and teach everybody how to optimize their naps. Let's
Speaker 1: do it all, right, So how to Nap Better is
Speaker 1: how Ed titled this section, which I just love that
Speaker 1: the way that sounds in my ears. Yeah, and Ed
Speaker 1: made up a couple of terms that he didn't tell
Speaker 1: us until after this section that he had made up
Speaker 1: because they sound right on the money to me, and
Speaker 1: so we're going to go ahead and use his terminology,
Speaker 1: and that is partial cycle naps and full cycle naps YEP.
Speaker 1: A partial cycle nap being the power nap what people
Speaker 1: call a disco nap or a power nap, or a
Speaker 1: cat nap or a cat nap, and that's at ten
Speaker 1: or twenty minute nap where officially you will or scientifically
Speaker 1: you'll be entering into sleep, but you're waking up before
Speaker 1: that in three sleep or the RM sleep, right, so
Speaker 1: you're not going through a full sleep cycle, but you
Speaker 1: still get the n one and the end too sleep.
Speaker 1: And this seems to be, as we'll see, like the
Speaker 1: nap that you want to take depending on what you're
Speaker 1: trying to do. If you're catching up on sleep, a
Speaker 1: longer nap is typically recommended. But if you're trying to
Speaker 1: be like the most productive worker possible, then this is
Speaker 1: what you want to do. Is a partial cycle nap
Speaker 1: is egg calls it. And in his defense, I looked
Speaker 1: up to see if there were any and strangely there isn't,
Speaker 1: So there was actually a lot of room for him
Speaker 1: to make up these terms. There was a void for
Speaker 1: him to fill. Yeah, I think I could see the
Speaker 1: the industry jumping on this. Sure, partial cycle NAP, full
Speaker 1: cycle nap. It sounds very scientific. He should trademark that stuff, definitely. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll email him before this comes out so we can
Speaker 1: get it in the works. Make some money off a
Speaker 1: big mattress. So there are some studies here and there.
Speaker 1: We're going to mention there are lots of nap studies
Speaker 1: and sleep studies and they're not the most consistent across
Speaker 1: the board. So kind of the net net of all
Speaker 1: of this is, like we kind of mentioned at the beginning,
Speaker 1: we tease it out. You know, some people can nap
Speaker 1: and get a lot out of it and some people don't.
Speaker 1: And there isn't a definitive study that says like everyone
Speaker 1: should do this or not do that. It can help
Speaker 1: certain people, for sure. It seems like study wise and
Speaker 1: data wise, the partial cycle nap, the twenty minute or
Speaker 1: so nap is the one with the most measurable benefits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one study I I didn't see where it
Speaker 1: was from, but they found that the ten minute nap
Speaker 1: is actually ideal. Get out of my face with that.
Speaker 1: What is that ten minutes that's not even a nap,
Speaker 1: I know. But apparently the ten minute nap showed that
Speaker 1: there was a reduced sleepiness, increased mental ability, and that
Speaker 1: people tended to have a better memory consolidation just after
Speaker 1: a ten minute nap, and that it was even better
Speaker 1: than a twenty minute nap in this one study. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing. There are a lot of sleep stays out there,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them contradict one another's findings, but
Speaker 1: there does seem to be enough studies that some you know,
Speaker 1: fairly definitive answers have risen to the top, and it
Speaker 1: seems to be that ten minutes is a pretty sweet
Speaker 1: spot twenty minute. Sometimes I will say this, I have
Speaker 1: worked in I've developed the ability to take a super
Speaker 1: super short nap if that's the only thing I can
Speaker 1: do that day, Because some days you just can't do it,
Speaker 1: you know. I try to build it into my schedule
Speaker 1: and I it's pretty much successfully have, But sometimes life
Speaker 1: happens and you just can't do it, and I'm really
Speaker 1: tired in the afternoon, and I've developed the ability to
Speaker 1: lay down and sleep for like eight or ten minutes,
Speaker 1: and I do feel super refreshed. So you lay down.
Speaker 1: You're not one of those people that can just nap anywhere.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can nap on a plane, but I don't,
Speaker 1: like I'm not at the old man stage yet where
Speaker 1: I'm sitting up right in a chair, right, I get horizontal.
Speaker 1: You reminded me of Japanese school kids. In Japan, if
Speaker 1: you ride the subway, like almost all of them will
Speaker 1: just fall asleep, sitting up and just be on the subway,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden it's their stop, and
Speaker 1: they just stand up and walk off the subway like
Speaker 1: just they're sleeping and now they're not, They're walking off
Speaker 1: the subway. It's really impressive. But they apparently can sleep
Speaker 1: absolutely anywhere. Well as if you can sleep on the subway,
Speaker 1: and I like ten in the morning, you can sleep anywhere.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I was gonna say trains and boats
Speaker 1: and modes of transport can kind of lull people to sleep,
Speaker 1: but I think Japanese subways are known for being fairly crowded.
Speaker 1: They are crowded, very loud. But I mean, also, like,
Speaker 1: how do they know it's their stop? Like that's just amazing.
Speaker 1: That is pretty great. I love that. Yeah, I mean too,
Speaker 1: So next we've got the full cycle nap, Chuck, And
Speaker 1: that's one that's I mean basically not a partial cycle NAP.
Speaker 1: The goal here is to make it through ND one,
Speaker 1: end two, and end three and then into rim sleep
Speaker 1: because remember rim sleep is where we normally naturally wake up,
Speaker 1: so you're not nearly as groggy as if you woke
Speaker 1: up and three sleep. The problem is it's really difficult
Speaker 1: to pinpoint your individual sleep cycles. Like even if you
Speaker 1: did a sleep study, if you start new medication, if
Speaker 1: you age as most people do, there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: different factors, how much sleep you had the night before,
Speaker 1: you put all that together and whatever that sleep studies
Speaker 1: said you your sleep cycles go through, like the time
Speaker 1: or length of each one that can be altered, but
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to guess essentially what you would what
Speaker 1: it takes you to go through a full cycle one
Speaker 1: sleep cycle and Ed suggests starting with sixty minutes and
Speaker 1: then depending on whether you're groggy or not when you
Speaker 1: wake up, like moving it downward or upward, but usually
Speaker 1: they're between forty five and ninety minutes. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is what I shoot for, but it's never over an hour.
Speaker 1: It's what I'll usually do is set the timer for
Speaker 1: an hour, and I will wake up naturally about forty
Speaker 1: five minutes later. That's pretty neat. Yeah, I rarely make it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not true. Sometimes I make it to that full hour,
Speaker 1: but never beyond that because just there's too much going
Speaker 1: on in life for me to go longer than an hour.
Speaker 1: But if you know, if you need that ninety minutes,
Speaker 1: I mean they say that you're if you can get
Speaker 1: to that RM stage, you know you're going to have
Speaker 1: the benefits of waking up without the grogginess. But like
Speaker 1: you said, it's it's complicated unless you really have done us,
Speaker 1: either done us leap study or just super in sync
Speaker 1: with where you think your cycles are. Yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 1: if you really want to become like a pro napper,
Speaker 1: you could do worse than saying like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take this week or the next two weeks to study
Speaker 1: my deep cycles and yeah, start with sixty minutes and
Speaker 1: adjust it from there. Yeah, I think that's respectable. Anybody
Speaker 1: who takes themselves that, I guess seriously, I don't know
Speaker 1: where they're like, I'm going to improve my life and
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it scientifically. I appreciate that. I
Speaker 1: think that's cool. Well, I talked to my friend Eddie
Speaker 1: into napping semi recently. Huh with you like then a
Speaker 1: friend's episode, come over and have a guttle I would
Speaker 1: do that. I'm sure Eddie's a great spooner. But he
Speaker 1: got on board, and the last I heard from him,
Speaker 1: he was like, I'm doing it now, built it into
Speaker 1: my day and it's like made a huge difference. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, even though I know I'm not a nap or,
Speaker 1: I'm still a little envious. So please stop talking about
Speaker 1: how great it is. Okay, it's so great. So there's
Speaker 1: another nap you can take two that's supposedly, from what
Speaker 1: I can tell, the ideal nap. Yeah, it's called a
Speaker 1: coffee nap, and it's not a ten minute napisode a
Speaker 1: ninety minute nap. It's a twenty minute nap and it's
Speaker 1: sounds kind of awesome. But basically, you drink a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee. Ostensibly, this is the only coffee you've drank,
Speaker 1: or at least your morning coffee has long worn off
Speaker 1: by now, so you're basically at your set point for
Speaker 1: caffeine and take. You drink a cup of coffee, you
Speaker 1: go lay down and you go to sleep, and then
Speaker 1: twenty minutes later, after the caffeine has entered your bloodstream
Speaker 1: and started to take effect, you wake up. But not
Speaker 1: only do you just wake up like, oh, I've got
Speaker 1: some caffeine, Like, there's a whole bunch of neurochemistry going
Speaker 1: on that really makes this coffee nap something special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this sounds like a great nap for if you're doing
Speaker 1: a long road trip and you're you're smart enough to
Speaker 1: pull over and take a little rest stop nap, drink
Speaker 1: the coffee, and then you're you're up. You start that
Speaker 1: car back up, and you're fired up and ready to
Speaker 1: hit the road again. Right. So the reason why it works, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is because of aDNA scene. That's a neurochemical, it's a neurotransmitter,
Speaker 1: and one of the things a DNA sing does is
Speaker 1: it tells your body that you're tired. The thing is
Speaker 1: is caffeine can attach to aDNA sine receptors, So when
Speaker 1: there's less places for your aDNA scene to attach, there's
Speaker 1: less chance for those ADENA scene molecules to tell your
Speaker 1: body that you're tired. So not only do you have
Speaker 1: the benefits of waking up with the cafe, like the
Speaker 1: whole caffeinated energy boost, You're feeling less tired because the
Speaker 1: caffeine has literally like elbowed out. Yeah, well maybe not
Speaker 1: literally elbowed, but you know what I mean. Sure, this
Speaker 1: chemical that makes you feel tired. So it's like the
Speaker 1: best of both worlds put together. Yeah, and not only that,
Speaker 1: but if you're in too sleep, you're going to be
Speaker 1: flushing a DNA scene in that stage from your brain.
Speaker 1: So that's just going to open up more garage space
Speaker 1: for the caffeine to come park. And you're just, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds pretty great. I'm not the biggest caffeine guy.
Speaker 1: Caffeine I will have sometimes in the winter, as you know,
Speaker 1: I'll have like lattes and stuff. It's like a cold
Speaker 1: weather thing for me, sure, but always it always makes
Speaker 1: me excessively tired after. Like, the caffeine come down for
Speaker 1: me is pretty pretty big. Right. That used to be
Speaker 1: the same for me, but now I'm just so used
Speaker 1: to it I don't even notice, right. Yeah, there is
Speaker 1: something that I have noticed, though, I think everybody's noticed,
Speaker 1: which is the post lunch dip. Yeah, that's what I
Speaker 1: take mine. Yes, Okay, So This actually makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense because there's entire cultures that are dedicated to
Speaker 1: napping during the post lunch dip. But there is a
Speaker 1: is a period, and apparently it's not due to having
Speaker 1: lunch or a big lunch. It's just a natural period
Speaker 1: of sleepiness that humans tend to experience in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day, the early afternoon about for about three
Speaker 1: hours from early to mid afternoon. It's called the post
Speaker 1: post lunch dip. And a lot of people just say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm taking a nap right now. And they have found
Speaker 1: that there's actually an optimal time to take a nap
Speaker 1: in an optimal length. And it sounds like if you
Speaker 1: took a coffee nap at this time, you would wake
Speaker 1: up with some sort of superpowers in that time. Drumroll please?
Speaker 1: Is what two pm? Right? Yeah, it's just fourteen hours
Speaker 1: two pm. Your brother in law would know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the twenty minute nap. And these were studies and researchers
Speaker 1: have done, like you know, looked over the metadata of
Speaker 1: lots of studies, and they found that a twenty minute
Speaker 1: nap at two pm produced greater and longer lasting benefits
Speaker 1: to mood, fatigue, objective performance, self rated performance and objective
Speaker 1: alertness compared to that same nap at noon. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there you have it, if you ask me, Like we've
Speaker 1: just told everybody, if you're going to take a nap,
Speaker 1: this is when and how to do it. Yeah, go
Speaker 1: forth and sleep at that. Cista agreed. So, Chuck, we're
Speaker 1: not through with the DNA scene yet. Now we're not.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? I think we should take
Speaker 1: a break, and then we're going to talk more about
Speaker 1: a DNA scene. All right, I'm gonna have a two
Speaker 1: minute nap and I'll be right back. Okay, I mentioned
Speaker 1: a DNA scene, said we weren't done with it, and
Speaker 1: by god I was telling the truth, because there's a
Speaker 1: whole other segment about a DNA scene that I find
Speaker 1: just absolutely fascinating, and that is that it's essentially like
Speaker 1: almost a mechanical um What am I thinking of, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So it's almost like, okay, it's it's
Speaker 1: almost like a little bit, but more like you have
Speaker 1: like a tray, and the tray is on like a scale,
Speaker 1: like a balancing scale, but attached to that scale is
Speaker 1: like a stick, and when enough, a DNA scene builds
Speaker 1: up on that tray and the scale that stick goes up,
Speaker 1: and yes, it throws a switch and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden for you, it's lights out, that's right. So sort
Speaker 1: of the takeaway from this is the longest it's a
Speaker 1: byproduct of cell cheese, cellular breakdown of the energy that
Speaker 1: you use. So the longer you're awake and the more
Speaker 1: active you are, the more a DNA scene you're gonna have.
Speaker 1: And again that's your body saying you're tired. So it
Speaker 1: sounds obvious like, hey, if you're a wake longer and
Speaker 1: you're working harder, you're going to be more tired. Sure,
Speaker 1: but that's how it works. But this is why. There's
Speaker 1: actually a reason why, and it's because the DNA sne
Speaker 1: builds up in your in your body, and a DNA
Speaker 1: scene is part of that currency that all cells us
Speaker 1: as energy ATP a DNA scene triphosphate. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: it's just so neat that it's like it's part of
Speaker 1: this energy package. And then once that energy package is
Speaker 1: broken open and the energy is removed from it, what's
Speaker 1: left over builds up. This ADENA scene builds up and
Speaker 1: then makes you tired. And then when you're sleeping a
Speaker 1: DNA scene is cleared out, which which which stage was
Speaker 1: it in? Three? Well, I think if you have a
Speaker 1: lot of a DNA scene, meaning you were up longer
Speaker 1: and you're super tired, you're going to be deeper and
Speaker 1: N three and r mum, But I don't know where
Speaker 1: it's cleared out, but that that is a theory that Um,
Speaker 1: if you wake up in your groggy, then you didn't
Speaker 1: clear out enough of the ADENA scene, right. But if
Speaker 1: you do get a good night's sleep and your body
Speaker 1: goes through its normal stages and cycles, um, aDNA scene
Speaker 1: is cleared from your body, and after it reaches a
Speaker 1: certain threshold, you wake up because that tells your body
Speaker 1: that you're gonna start to need some more energy soon.
Speaker 1: So wake up, dummy and start eating brain flakes. Right.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I love it, like you know it again,
Speaker 1: it's intuitive, but it's always it's always kind of I
Speaker 1: think empowering to know like what's going on in your body. Yeah, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: it is intuitive, like you're but to to say this
Speaker 1: is the thing that's doing it when it rises or
Speaker 1: raises and lowers, I just for some reason I can't
Speaker 1: put my finger on I am just enthralled by it.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that would help you nap knowing the
Speaker 1: function behind it. That's a lot of people. Well, they
Speaker 1: proposed a DNA scene as like a sleep aid, but
Speaker 1: the problem is is you have ADENA scene receptors all
Speaker 1: over your body, including your heart, and it can actually
Speaker 1: affect your heart's rhythm. And they're like, you don't want
Speaker 1: to mess with your heart's rhythm using a DNA scene,
Speaker 1: so it's not worth it as a sleep aid. Oh
Speaker 1: that's they've synthesized it. Yeah. Yeah, Actually, if you go
Speaker 1: to your doctor and they put it, put you through
Speaker 1: a chemical stress test, they're introducing a DNA scene into
Speaker 1: your system. And then what's the other thing. They actually
Speaker 1: use it to correct a regular heartbeat too, So it's
Speaker 1: a powerful heart squeezer. Okay, so were you my friend?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Thank you. So now we're at the point
Speaker 1: where we kind of go over whether or naps are
Speaker 1: good for you, And again I've kind of already ruined that, Like, sure,
Speaker 1: they can be great for your functioning if they work
Speaker 1: for you and your memory and your alertness and your
Speaker 1: your recall and things like that, if they work for you,
Speaker 1: but they aren't for everyone. They will if you're not
Speaker 1: getting enough sleep, Like if you're doing it because you
Speaker 1: have a sleep deficit, then it will for sure improve
Speaker 1: your performance and help out. And I think the long,
Speaker 1: full cycle nap is probably what you want if it's
Speaker 1: just one of those deals where you just didn't get
Speaker 1: enough sleep last night because of one reason or another
Speaker 1: and you need something more. But like Ed said, this
Speaker 1: is more like, hey, this is sort of an emergency
Speaker 1: thing and need this nap. Right. The thing is is
Speaker 1: there does seem to be benefits from people like you
Speaker 1: who take naps as part of their everyday routine. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's just like I'm missing out
Speaker 1: on those benefits or I just don't need a nap
Speaker 1: to have those benefits. Who knows. But they have shown
Speaker 1: that people who are even well rested who take regular
Speaker 1: naps show consistent benefits like an improved mood, reduced impulsiveness,
Speaker 1: you're better able to deal with frustrating situation, that's meat
Speaker 1: to a t yeah, for sure. And what's funny enough
Speaker 1: is I'm the opposite of that, So maybe I should
Speaker 1: start napping. And they also improve performance on memory tasks, right, So,
Speaker 1: and this is from people who are getting plenty of
Speaker 1: sleep during the night but still take a nap during
Speaker 1: the day. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, on the downside, and
Speaker 1: you knew there would be one, Dear listener, but there
Speaker 1: have been and I don't think that they've like proven
Speaker 1: direct links, but there have been some correlative is that
Speaker 1: the word. Yeah, I think so correlative links between regular
Speaker 1: naps and the length of naps if you are elderly,
Speaker 1: and things like dementia and heart disease. Yeah, they've shown
Speaker 1: that napping for more than an hour every day was
Speaker 1: tied to a forty percent greater chance of developing Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: disease among older people. And they're like, Okay, well that's
Speaker 1: pretty scary. But they haven't figured out whether that's a
Speaker 1: symptom of developing Alzheimer's or it's actually a contributing factor
Speaker 1: to developing Alzheimer's. Either way, that's definitely something to chew on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I wonder I'm very sort of dementia aware lately,
Speaker 1: not for myself or anything like that, just you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's come up quite a bit with like friends
Speaker 1: and family in recent years. As you get to be
Speaker 1: our age and our parents get older, like everyone starts
Speaker 1: to face those things in your family. So I'm just
Speaker 1: very aware of, like, all right, keeping the brain sharp,
Speaker 1: not just settling down until like, of course we're not
Speaker 1: retired or anything, but one day when if that eventually happens,
Speaker 1: your tongue stings. Al that hurts staying active brain wise.
Speaker 1: And you know, Emily's dear grandmother Mary, he just passed
Speaker 1: away at one on one was up until the last
Speaker 1: year where you know, she had the stroke and things
Speaker 1: like really went south. Was she was just a word
Speaker 1: puzzles all day and saduko and or sadoku which is
Speaker 1: it sidoku and crosswords? And did not just fall into
Speaker 1: that routine that I think so many folks as they
Speaker 1: get some age on them do, which is you sit
Speaker 1: around and watch TV. Because that is that's a just
Speaker 1: a prolonged slow death sentence. Basically, Yeah, sitting around watching
Speaker 1: TV is not a good way to keep sharp. No,
Speaker 1: not at all. So anyway, a long way of saying,
Speaker 1: I had just been thinking a lot more about dementia
Speaker 1: over the last few years, and I'm like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe one day I'm gonna have to give up this
Speaker 1: this nap. Yeah, maybe, But I mean this was an
Speaker 1: hour or longer every single day, and it was just
Speaker 1: a forty percent greater chance. So you're probably fine, thanks buddy.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about you possibly being a natural
Speaker 1: born napper and how I am not. They have actually
Speaker 1: done genome wide associated studies where they survey hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people to ask them, you know, hey, do
Speaker 1: you nap every day? How long do you nap for?
Speaker 1: Do you nap sometimes? Rarely, never? And then they look
Speaker 1: at those respondents genomes, their entire genomes, they scan them,
Speaker 1: and then they look for commonalities. And from doing those
Speaker 1: kinds of studies, they found one hundred and twenty three
Speaker 1: different regions in the genome that are associated with daytime napping.
Speaker 1: I have zero of them, really, they I'm sure I did.
Speaker 1: I haven't. Actually I have had my genome scan, but
Speaker 1: I don't know what if I have them or not,
Speaker 1: I would I would assume not. But that raises the
Speaker 1: question like are humans designed to nap? Are we genetically
Speaker 1: programmed to nap? Or not? And I feel like the
Speaker 1: fact that some people seem to be genetically predisposed to
Speaker 1: it and other people not. There's your answer right there.
Speaker 1: I think some and some not, but I don't think
Speaker 1: it appears to be a through trait that humans all
Speaker 1: had at one point, right, you know, And you can
Speaker 1: kind of come up with the answer by comparing us
Speaker 1: to other other groups. Yeah, Like I think the idea
Speaker 1: is that did we is this modern life that we
Speaker 1: live where we go to work for forty plus hours
Speaker 1: or so and we're up during the day and we're
Speaker 1: doing things like did we force that upon ourselves or
Speaker 1: were we supposed to have evolved differently? And it really
Speaker 1: doesn't seem that way. It seems like kind of the
Speaker 1: other way around, like circadian rhythm wise, that humans were
Speaker 1: probably evolved to sleep at night over a reasonable you know,
Speaker 1: period of time and then do things during the day
Speaker 1: during the daylight. That just kind of makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And if you look if you say, well, what about
Speaker 1: some of our evolutionary cousins like primates. If you look
Speaker 1: at primates, some sleep during the day, others don't. If
Speaker 1: you look at hunter gatherer society, some sleep during the day,
Speaker 1: others don't. And then culturally speaking as well, some cultures do,
Speaker 1: others don't. Like you know, Spanish and Latin American cultures
Speaker 1: are famous for taking siestas and apparently that is not
Speaker 1: some sort of genetically ingrained thing that was originally something
Speaker 1: that they did during their agrarian days to escape, to
Speaker 1: take a break from the hottest hours of the sunshine. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: and then I mean you're just sitting around hanging out
Speaker 1: after you've just eaten lunch, the chances are you're probably
Speaker 1: going to fall asleep. But that's not the case with
Speaker 1: all cultures who are exposed to heavy sunshine during the
Speaker 1: daylight hours either. It just seems to have kind of
Speaker 1: developed among some cultures. And by the way, the Spanish
Speaker 1: are trying to abandon that. Yeah, it has a real
Speaker 1: detrimental effect. My friends Laurel and Braden lived in Spain
Speaker 1: for a little while and they came back and they're like,
Speaker 1: that's siesta, man, it's a killer because everything just stops
Speaker 1: for a little while, an hour or two hours, and
Speaker 1: then to make up for it, they end up working
Speaker 1: until like seven eight at night every night. It's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for weirdly, the society, the modern version of like
Speaker 1: Spanish society, is still trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: reconcile the tune. What they finally come up with is like,
Speaker 1: we're just we should not be doing this anymore. Oh,
Speaker 1: they should do the Chuck method, which is nap and
Speaker 1: don't work until eight o'clock at night. There you go,
Speaker 1: there's your solution, Spain. Yeah, people work too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, you know, for sure, Chuck, they do. I
Speaker 1: know that. The sad thing is is you have to
Speaker 1: to keep up these days. I know. All right, let's
Speaker 1: not get into that right now, I know. So that's
Speaker 1: it for naps. Everybody, go forth and test yourself. Maybe
Speaker 1: try a coffee nap and see how that does. You
Speaker 1: go from there? And since I said coffee nap, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener man, all right, I'm gonna call this honey.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it. What was in the subject line,
Speaker 1: Honey saved my pooch's leg. Nice And this is from
Speaker 1: Travis will Grin in Texas, and accompanied were some pretty
Speaker 1: gnarly pictures because Travis's dog got bit by a rattlesnake yow.
Speaker 1: So here we go. Hey, guys, just wanted to drop
Speaker 1: a line and tell you how Honey saved my dog's leg.
Speaker 1: A long story short. My three year old chocolate lab
Speaker 1: Scout got bit on his back leg by a timber
Speaker 1: rattle snake here in Texas three days and five vials
Speaker 1: of anti ven and later the necrosis had stopped, but
Speaker 1: they were worried that his joint was compromised and wanted
Speaker 1: to amputate. Being a paramedic, I knew of honey for
Speaker 1: wound care, so we took him to our local backwoods
Speaker 1: vet did wound care, changing the bandage every two days,
Speaker 1: putting Manuka honey only on the wound, and within two
Speaker 1: months his leg was healed up with no adverse effects
Speaker 1: and he's now a happy pup and attached or some
Speaker 1: pictures look at your own risk. Also, we just relocated
Speaker 1: the snake because it wasn't his fault, just a snake
Speaker 1: being a snake. Wow. And that is Travis Wilgrin. And
Speaker 1: there was one, two, three, four pictures of the initial
Speaker 1: wound that was really hard to look at, and then
Speaker 1: getting better, better, better, and then two very happy, sleepy
Speaker 1: dogs and then a rattlesnake with his neck pin to
Speaker 1: the ground by you know, someone who knows how to
Speaker 1: do that kind of thing. So as a gift to you,
Speaker 1: I printed them all out like quality photo papers or
Speaker 1: made you a collage. Maybe that could in the wallpaper
Speaker 1: my bedroom. Thanks Travis, that was an amazing story. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen the pictures yet, but I will probably be
Speaker 1: looking at them later. Yeah. Check it out. If you
Speaker 1: want to be like Travis and share an amazing story
Speaker 1: about something we've talked about. We love hearing about those things.
Speaker 1: You can send it in the email to Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.