Sleep Like a Caveman
Episode Stats
Summary
Dr. Moran Vandalar, a recovering insomniac and the author of How to Sleep Like a Caveman: Ancient Wisdom for a Better Night's Rest, will tell us how learning about our prehistoric ancestor's sleep can help us relax about our own.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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For several decades, people's reported sleep quality has declined.
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This, despite the fact that specially optimized sheets, mattresses, and sleep trackers have
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emerged during that time, and despite the fact that the amount of time people are sleeping
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In other words, people aren't sleeping less than they used to, but are less happy about
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My guests would say that to improve our experience of sleep, we'd be better off looking past the
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reams of modern advice out there and back in time, way, way back in time.
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Today on the show, Dr. Moran Vandalar, a recovering insomniac, sleep therapist, and the author of
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How to Sleep Like a Caveman, Ancient Wisdom for a Better Night's Rest, will tell us how
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learning about our prehistoric ancestor sleep can help us relax about our own.
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He explains that the behaviors we think of as sleep problems are actually normal, natural,
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We talk about why hunter-gatherers actually sleep less than we think we need to, how their
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natural wake periods during the night might explain our own sleep patterns, the methods
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they use to get better sleep, and why our modern efforts to optimize sleep could be making
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Moran shares when it's okay to use a smartphone before bed, the myth that you have to get eight
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hours of sleep a night, how to intentionally use sleep deprivation to improve your sleep, and
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash cavemansleep.
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All right, Moran Vandalar, welcome to the show.
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You got a new book out called How to Sleep Like a Caveman, and what you do for a living
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is you help people who have sleep problems, like insomnia.
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What's interesting about your background is you yourself experience sleep problems throughout
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Can you tell us about your troubled sleep and how it influences your approach to helping
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I think I was 28 years old when I first developed insomnia, chronic insomnia.
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So I was suffering from chronic insomnia for three years.
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And while the main thing I found was I was feeling very hopeless and helpless because I
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was trying to control the sleep problem and checking my alarm clock, and it actually pushed
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So at one point, I even tried taking a sleeping pill, and it didn't work.
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But I think hopelessness and helplessness were really on the foreground.
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When you experienced your sleep problems, was it having trouble falling asleep or staying
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It would take me about one and a half hours before I fell asleep.
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And at other points, I was having difficulty maintaining sleep.
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So I woke up in the middle of the night, checking the alarm clock, not able to get back to sleep
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So with your book, How to Sleep Like a Caveman, you look to our evolutionary history to figure
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out, well, maybe there's some things we can learn from our ancient ancestors about how
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Starting off, how do we know what cavemen slept like?
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Yeah, that's a good question, because we don't exactly know.
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Because if you want to study rhythm, sleep rhythm, you have to have people that are alive.
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So it's very difficult to find any clues on how people really slept like a rhythm from
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But what we can do is we can look at people that still live in the same circumstances like
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So a lot of research is done in the Hata tribe.
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And they have been studied a lot and also looking at sleep.
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And their rhythm is much more influenced by their environment, their natural environment,
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And you also talk about some of the sleep problems we have today, a lot of people experience today.
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They might have their origin thousands of years ago with our caveman ancestors.
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Well, I think one of the main problems nowadays is insomnia.
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So problems in trying to fall asleep or maintaining sleep.
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And actually, if you look at evolutionary theory, then they say that being awake during the night
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Because when you're awake during the night, you could wake and you can see whether there's
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And so what we see in the Hata tribe as well is that they're awake for over two hours on
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And I think that's a thing that we've lost during the past hundreds of years.
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Okay, so let's dig in deeper into what we can learn from hunter-gatherer sleep and how
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And I think this question I'm about to ask piggybacks off of what you just said about
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they're awake in bed for two hours sometimes while they're sleeping.
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If you read most articles about sleep these days, it's like you have to get eight hours
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And if you don't get eight hours of sleep, you're going to have health problems.
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So how many hours do hunter-gatherer tribes sleep?
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Well, I think first of all, there's a big difference between popular articles and scientific
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So what we usually see in the scientific articles is that actually seven is the magic number.
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And between six and eight is quite average if you look at sleep duration.
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But if you look at the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, then they sleep between 6.2 and 6.5 hours on
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And once in two days, they nap for like on average 17 minutes.
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So they're in bed, you said about eight hours, and they sleep actually for six hours?
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Yeah, they're in bed maybe above nine, actually.
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So during the night, it's like two, two and a half hours awake.
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And that discrepancy between hours in bed and then how many hours you actually sleep, that
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produces what's called sleep efficiency, right?
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So if you sleep most of the time while you're in bed, you'll have a higher sleep efficiency.
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But if you sleep less than you are in bed, then you have a lower sleep efficiency.
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And I think what we've done in the past couple of years, we've put a lot of emphasis on the
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And in the media, they usually say that you have to have a sleep efficiency above 85%.
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But that would mean that the whole Hazard tribe would actually be a bad sleeper, while they
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themselves don't see themselves as bad sleepers.
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So I think that a lot of that sleep efficiency is also based on what we think is good around
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sleep, but that's not what everybody experiences.
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And you cannot generalize that to other people and other countries.
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For us, you know, living in the West, we want to compress all of our sleep and just one,
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So our goal in the West typically is something like, I go to bed at 10, I'll fall asleep in
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10 minutes, and then I'm going to stay asleep for the rest of the night until my alarm goes
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And that's what is frustrating because a lot of people don't get that.
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It's like, well, I'm in bed, but now I'm sitting here staring at the ceiling for an hour,
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And then I wake up an hour, hour and a half before I actually wanted to wake up.
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And it's also, I think a lot of things are caused by the things we read in the media and
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what is coming towards us when you look at information.
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Well, let's talk about definition of insomnia we've been talking about.
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I think people have an intuitive understanding of what insomnia is.
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Is there like a subjective insomnia and an objective insomnia?
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Well, usually if you look at insomnia disorder, then it's actually always a subjective complaint.
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So what you see is that people have difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep.
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To speak of chronic insomnia, you have to have three bad nights during the week.
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So three nights with sleep problems and also suffer from daytime consequences, because if
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you don't suffer from daytime consequences, then we don't speak of insomnia.
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And I think there's a very big difference between subjective and objective sleep, because objective
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sleep is actually the sleep measured by polysomnography or actigraphy.
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So we measure brainwaves, but also other indices, body indices.
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And an actigraphy is a wrist-worn band in which you can see what the activity level is.
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And it's a medical device, so it's not to be compared to like an app or a watch.
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And it can give an indication of how somebody has slept.
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And there is often a big discrepancy between the objective and the subjective sleep.
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Some people who have sleep problems, they go to a sleep doctor.
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And the results say, yeah, you slept seven hours.
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And the thing is that they did a research a couple of years ago.
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It was actually from the town that I'm from in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
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And what they found was that in general, it takes about 20 to 30 minutes for a person to
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realize that they are sleeping if they are sleeping.
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So if you wake people up before those 20 minutes, then more than half of people say, I wasn't
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So our brain is sometimes playing tricks on us.
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So the Hasda tribe, do they experience insomnia?
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If you look at, there's been a study by Samson and he asked whether they experience sleep
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problems and between 1.5 and 2.5% actually experience sleep problems regularly.
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But if you look at the West, that's around 20%.
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The amount's 10 times bigger than in the Hasda tribe.
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And that's because the Hasda tribe, if someone's waking up for an hour or two, they don't see
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And then in the West, we're like, oh my gosh, I wake up.
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So you have more people reporting sleep problems than the Hasda tribe.
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And so in the Hasda tribe, when they do wake up, what do they do?
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Well, sometimes they talk with tribe members or they stay in the bed usually, so they don't
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Sometimes they do, but it's not like they're really, really active during the night.
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So they're quite low in activity level usually.
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And so what's the takeaway from that for us, you know, someone experiencing insomnia and
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getting really frustrated that they can't sleep or stay asleep?
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I think if you're in the bed awake and you feel quite relaxed, then I think a good thing
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is to be aware of the fact that being awake is actually quite normal.
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So it is easy to say, but don't frustrate immediately.
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But if you feel frustrated or if you feel that your tension builds up, then sometimes
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it's best to go out of the bed and do something else that really relaxes you and then go back
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So I think that's really good advice because I know earlier this year, well, it was actually
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last year in 2024, for some reason I just started waking up, sometimes at 4.30 in the
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I started waking up at 4.30 and sometimes it's 5.30 and I remember it freaked me out.
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I was like, oh my gosh, something's wrong with me.
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I might have to go see a sleep doctor and I was worried I wasn't getting enough sleep.
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But then I got to the point where I was like, you know what?
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If I get up and I do something kind of relaxing and then I'll fall back to sleep and I feel
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And that gives a lot of reassurance and that's why you don't have the buildup that usually
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They really fear the night before they go to bed.
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So one takeaway from hunter-gatherers is don't stress out if you wake up in the night because
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And another takeaway with sleep duration is that you don't need to obsess about getting
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The Hadzda, I mean, they're getting just about six hours of sleep and anywhere between six
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and eight for most people, you're going to be fine.
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I think it's very important to look at your sleep need.
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I mean, it's also very important to give yourself enough opportunity to sleep.
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So some people say, well, I only need five hours and then they're sleepy during the day.
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So on one end, you have to really look at your sleep needs.
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And really give yourself enough opportunity to sleep.
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But if you're tense around sleep and if you can't sleep and you experience insomnia, then
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sometimes it can help to really shorten your bedtimes.
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So that's one of the strategies you do to enhance your sleep.
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So that's something I saw with my own sleep this past year when I started waking up earlier.
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I just kind of embraced it because like I would wake up at the end of the day.
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5.30 or 5.00 and I would feel fine during the day.
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And I just kind of like, well, maybe I don't need as much sleep as I thought I did.
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And I think one of the things, one of the things too, I had to embrace, you talk about
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this in the book, as you get older, you know, I'm in my forties now, you have a natural
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Like why do we have this tendency across humanity to sleep less as we get older?
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I think the main difference when you're getting older is that your quality of your sleep changes.
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So what you see is that people who get older, they actually have less deep sleep and they
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And there's, there's one hypothesis, it's called a sentinel hypothesis.
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And it says that as people age, they're actually better able to wake during the night.
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So if older people lose their function of more hunting and gathering, then they have
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more function during the night because they're more awake during the night.
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So I'm waking up early because I'm looking out for my family.
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I'm going to, I'm going to reframe it that way.
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So we've talked about the fact that you don't necessarily need eight hours of sleep, but
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in the media and, or online, you see these articles saying, if you don't get those eight
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hours, if you don't get enough sleep, there's all these dire health consequences.
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You know, it can increase your chances of getting diabetes.
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It can increase the chances of getting dementia.
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If you don't get those eight hours of sleep, are the consequences as dire as you often hear?
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Well, if you look at mortality, then you see that people who sleep less than five to five
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and a half hours and more than nine hours are actually at risk of dying sooner.
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So it's not like if people sleep less than eight hours, this happens.
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They say that seven is actually the magic number here again.
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So around seven, the mortality is lowest, but those are only associations.
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So we don't know anything about causality because these are big population studies.
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And if you look at chronic disease, then you see a very clear association between objective
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sleep problems like sleep apnea, which is a sleep disorder in which you have breathing stops
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So lower oxygen in the blood, and that is really associated with things like higher cancer
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risk, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease.
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But if you look at insomnia, then this association is not there or much lower.
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And what you usually see in the media is that it is said sleep problems lead to, but they
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don't define what kind of sleep problems they're talking about.
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So this is a lot of confusion going around what they are talking about when you say sleep
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Oh, I think that's heartening for people who, you know, their sleep problem is they just
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have a hard time getting to sleep or staying asleep.
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They have insomnia and they think, oh my gosh, I'm going to die of a heart attack.
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The research says, yeah, there's not really an association.
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If your sleep problem is insomnia, you don't have to worry as much.
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But if you have a sleep problem, like sleep apnea, where you basically stop breathing while
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Well, tell me more about the dementia thing, because I'm getting in my forties now and that's something
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I'm thinking more about and I'm like, oh my gosh, what can I do to make sure I don't
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What does the research say about the connection between sleep duration or sleep quality and
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Here it also says that if you suffer from sleep apnea, then the dementia risk might be bigger.
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So I think it's always important if you snore very loudly, if you have breathing stops during
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the night, it's very important to see a physician because sleep apnea is actually a disorder that
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is often not recognized and it has very severe consequences, very severe physical consequences.
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So if you do have sleep apnea, you might have to get like a CPAP machine, help you breathe.
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So I think this is actually really good information because I think a lot of, one of the things
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that can contribute to the stress of wanting to get to sleep and stay asleep, you know,
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the stress of insomnia is that these headlines are going through people's heads like, oh my
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So it just kind of calms you down a bit and you won't freak out as much if you're having
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Let's talk more about cavemen and hunter-gatherers sleep and what we can learn from them.
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You mentioned at the beginning that hunter-gatherers and potentially our cavemen ancestors, their
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sleep schedule was guided more by their environment.
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So we're talking light, temperature, even seasons affected their sleep.
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Well, what we see is that, for example, in the Hatha tribe, there's a bigger difference
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So what you see is that there is almost an hour difference between the seasons.
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And what we see in the West is that actually that difference is not that big.
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And I think that's also because we use heating.
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So the differences between the seasons are not that big for us.
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But what we can learn from these people is that, for example, in the morning, they get a lot of bright
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And in the early afternoon, they get a lot of bright light and you get more bright light
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if you go outside, because outside light is much brighter than the light you get when
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And I think that what a lot of people do is they go to their work, they're in the office,
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and then at night they put the lights on in their living room.
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And there's not that much difference between the evening and the morning or the afternoon.
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And I think that we can work with light by being more outside.
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I mean, and even a walk of 20 to 30 minutes might do.
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Just not sitting behind your desk eating your sandwich there, but going outside might do
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So it's not like you have to be outside all day.
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And another thing is dim the lights in the evening is very important.
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So don't make it too hot, the ambient temperature too hot during the evening, because that is very
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Okay, so get more light in the morning and then in the afternoon.
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And if you live in an area where there's not much light, so if you live in the extreme northern
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parts of the world during the winter, there's things you can do.
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So the amount of light that comes from the light lamp, and if it's, usually we say at least
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And something you talk about too, another myth about sleep that you debunk, you hear
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a lot of people say, well, if you want to improve your sleep, you have to wear blue light blocking
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And the research says that actually doesn't do much because your smartphone doesn't emit
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And you need more than 10 lux usually to stimulate your biological clock.
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So, I mean, the light is more blue and we are more sensitive to blue light.
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But the amount of light that is emitted from a smartphone is just too little to stimulate
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Now, if you look at light around you, so that is very important and also to make it not too
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But I mean, you can also dim the lights a bit so that it doesn't really have effect on your
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You don't have to wear orange glasses to have the same result.
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And you still recommend people not to use their smartphone right before bed because it's
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It's just that smartphones can get you amped up and kind of stretch you out and get you
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And that can help, that can prevent you from falling asleep.
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And a recent review in 2024 by Gratisar shows that actually for some people, using a smartphone
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I think it really depends on what type of person you are.
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If you're very busy in your head and you have difficulty finding enough rest, then sometimes
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And that might help you sometimes to fall asleep.
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But that's, it's always, you always have to look at the personal circumstances.
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Well, you talk about in the book, one thing that you did when you're having sleep problems
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that helped, I think a therapist or a doctor recommended you like, turn on the TV.
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We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
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So going back to temperature, you want to keep it cool.
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Is there an ideal temperature you want to keep in your room to help facilitate sleep?
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Usually in your bedroom, they say between 16 and 18 degrees Fahrenheit.
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I think it's like 68 degrees Fahrenheit is the number that I hear.
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And so something that's helped me is I've got a chili pad.
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It's a thing you put underneath your mattress and kind of runs cold water beneath you.
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Something I noticed though is I'll, right before I wake up, so like 4.30, I'll wake
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But then as we get closer to wake up time, we actually want it to be warmer because it
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And also, it's very good to have a cooler environment before falling asleep.
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But sometimes people have very cold feet and hands, and that might prevent you from falling
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asleep because then you have this vasoconstriction.
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So the blood vessels, they really contract and that creates more difficulty for the body
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And that's why some people with cold feet and cold hands cannot fall asleep properly.
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So if that's you, wear socks, maybe wear some mittens to bed.
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I mean, you mentioned that in the West, our seasons are pretty much the same, but I've
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noticed I tend to sleep more during the winter because it's darker and longer because I just
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want to go to bed earlier than I do during the summer.
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So people tend to sleep like 12 to 25 minutes longer during the winter because it's more dark.
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So they get less active during the evening and their biological clock also gets less stimulated
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So that's why they fall asleep earlier or lie in the bed longer in the morning because the
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Again, that's useful information to know because if you feel like you're sleeping less as it
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progresses through spring and summer and you think, oh my gosh, something's wrong with me.
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Like this is just your natural rhythm where you want to sleep less because it's lighter out longer.
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So another thing you talk about hunter-gatherers do is they move a lot during the day.
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Well, if you look at the relationship between exercise and sleep, then you can say that being
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more active builds up more adenosine and adenosine is a neuromodulator and it creates sleepiness.
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So if you have higher levels of adenosine, then you get more sleepy.
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And so being more active actually makes you more sleepy and tends to give you more rest.
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So you fall asleep more easily and have less problems maintaining sleep.
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So adenosine, that builds up what's called sleep pressure or sleep drive.
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And so something you can do to increase the sleep drive is just move more throughout the
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What about something I read a lot about when it comes to sleep is that you shouldn't exercise
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Well, studies show that if you exercise too much, like one to two hours before going to bed,
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that might create more problems falling asleep.
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And when it going back to movement and sleep, I know if I look at my life, the times where
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I've slept the best, it's when I've moved the most.
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And I think about it still, I'm chasing that high.
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I'm still chasing it is when we, my wife and I went to Rome for vacation and, you know,
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It's not like here in Tulsa where you have to drive everywhere.
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And I remember we got back from a day and we just laid on the bed and we both just fell
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I mean, I'm sure there was some jet lag going on with that, but it was the, I think the movement,
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like the amount of physical activity we did that day, it just, it was like the best sleep.
00:26:25.640
And so, yeah, I've noticed in my own life when I don't move a lot, I tend to not sleep
00:26:30.600
So I just try to make sure not only keep my regular exercise up, make sure I'm getting
00:26:35.180
up throughout the day from my job and doing some pushups, taking walks because that, it
00:26:43.520
Let's talk about the sleeping environment of hunter gatherers.
00:26:47.980
They slept on beds of leaves and grass on the ground.
00:26:54.960
Yeah, actually we think, well, if you look at the Hatha tribe, they sleep with 20 to 24
00:27:02.100
And we think that the same thing happens in the past.
00:27:07.880
So yeah, I think they slept with a lot of people and they could easily take watch during the
00:27:17.580
Well, if you look at the research on sleeping together with a partner or with somebody else,
00:27:22.300
then you see a very, very interesting thing because on the one hand, people subjectively
00:27:29.380
But sometimes if you sleep with your partner, they find that objectively you sleep worse.
00:27:34.160
So there's a big difference in how people experience sleep and how sleep objectively is.
00:27:39.740
And possibly that has to do something with safety, with built-in safety.
00:27:43.620
When you sleep with somebody else, then you feel more safe.
00:27:48.160
But then it can also mess up your sleep because your sleep partner elbows you or takes all
00:27:56.540
Let's say your spouse, the person you sleep with, like they're just a really restless
00:28:04.340
Yeah, I think it depends on what the restlessness is because if it's like turning and tossing and
00:28:09.880
turning, then you might think about two mattresses, possibly two duvets.
00:28:15.080
And if a person really snores, sometimes earplugs might help.
00:28:19.200
But in some cases, I've seen patients who were so tired because of the sleep problems
00:28:28.980
And I think there's really a stigma on that in Western society of not sleeping together.
00:28:34.780
But then again, if you have a partner that's totally tired and worn out, then I think
00:28:41.180
So I think it's very important to discuss that with your partner to see whether you can
00:28:46.360
make arrangements on that or maybe sleep a couple of nights separately from each other.
00:28:52.520
But I think it's very important to discuss it with each other.
00:28:55.340
Let's talk about sleep hygiene and what hunter-gatherers do to improve their sleep hygiene.
00:29:01.420
An important part of sleep hygiene is winding down before bedtime.
00:29:06.400
Do hunter-gatherers kind of have a wind-down time before they hit the sack?
00:29:12.560
They actually sit by the fire, tell stories to each other.
00:29:17.400
There are stories that are not too upsetting, so not about conflicts or things.
00:29:22.180
And what you see is that a lot of people have different rhythms like we have.
00:29:26.180
So we have morning people, evening people, and everything that's in between.
00:29:30.620
And yeah, so they really wind down before going to bed.
00:29:36.060
And I think sometimes the thing with us is that we run to the bed and then expect for us
00:29:44.960
So what do you recommend to patients you deal with who are having sleep problems?
00:29:49.560
Like how early should they start getting ready for bed?
00:29:55.680
Yeah, usually I say one to one and a half hours before going to bed.
00:29:59.200
So don't do anything anymore that has to do with work.
00:30:07.880
Maybe watch a series, something that's a bit boring maybe, not too exciting.
00:30:15.580
All right, and then dim the lights and cool down the house or your bedroom.
00:30:20.700
Something that's come up more with people in sleep, when they're paranoid about sleep,
00:30:25.860
something they'll often do is resort to a sleep tracker.
00:30:28.500
So maybe on their Apple Watch or they'll get the Aura Ring or something like that.
00:30:33.060
Do you recommend people use sleep trackers to improve their sleep?
00:30:36.980
Well, it depends on what kind of person you are.
00:30:39.380
If you're a bad sleeper, I would not recommend it.
00:30:41.980
Because first of all, if you look at the measurements of sleep, these trackers are completely
00:30:48.280
So sometimes they say you had 30% deep sleep and 20% REM sleep.
00:30:54.260
And the thing is that they are very inaccurate when it comes to measuring types of sleep.
00:30:58.660
What they can do in people who sleep well is they can make an estimation on how long you've
00:31:08.720
And that's actually the only thing they can really do well.
00:31:12.000
So I would not recommend them to people who are already experiencing insomnia.
00:31:17.660
Because they can actually exacerbate the problem.
00:31:24.920
Be like, oh my gosh, my sleep score was terrible.
00:31:27.380
And they just freak out even more and it makes sleep even harder.
00:31:32.240
I've used some of those sleep tracking devices.
00:31:34.860
I just kind of used it as I just wanted some information about my sleep.
00:31:40.920
But I had a few moments where the device said I had really poor sleep.
00:31:49.620
And then there was moments where it said I had great sleep.
00:32:00.980
And so for some people, it's very important that sleep score and it really leads the day
00:32:06.280
And then if you have a poor score, then it can really influence your day negatively.
00:32:11.340
Do you recommend maybe keeping a sleep diary in some cases, you know, just like kind of
00:32:20.220
I think one of the treatment steps we do in cognitive behavioral treatment is using a
00:32:25.860
So sleep diary and it is to create a better picture of how somebody is sleeping, at what
00:32:32.040
time they go to bed, at what time they wake up and how many times they wake up during the
00:32:37.300
So I think a sleep diary, sleep log may help very, very well.
00:32:43.380
Let's say someone's listening to this and they're having a hard time sleeping.
00:32:47.400
I think oftentimes people resort to, okay, is there a supplement I can take?
00:32:52.300
Is there a new mattress I can get, a new pillow, you know, whatever, even sleep medication.
00:32:58.340
But what you found is the most effective tools to help with insomnia is cognitive behavioral
00:33:09.660
And then sleep restriction, which you mentioned earlier.
00:33:13.460
What does that typically look like for a patient in broad strokes?
00:33:18.520
So the full cognitive behavioral treatment sleep restriction is usually a part of the
00:33:24.740
And the full cognitive behavioral treatment starts with psychoeducation.
00:33:38.700
And then you start looking at behavioral techniques.
00:33:41.120
And the behavioral techniques are things that people can do to really give their sleep a
00:33:46.860
boost and not be awake, stressed out during the night.
00:33:50.560
So the first one is a sleep restriction method.
00:33:56.760
That's going out of bed when you're really tense, doing something that relaxes you and go
00:34:01.600
And what we see is that sleep restriction is actually highly effective.
00:34:07.260
And that's shortening your bedtimes to create more sleepiness.
00:34:11.800
You get a better buildup of adenosine or adenosine.
00:34:15.880
And what you see is that people have less difficulty falling asleep and maintaining sleep.
00:34:25.360
So you look at light, you look at temperature, and especially not watching the clock.
00:34:29.920
I think not watching the time is also very important.
00:34:33.120
So CBT-I, you're going to start with psychosocial education.
00:34:36.000
So this is the things we've been talking about today.
00:34:40.620
You're not going to die if you get less than that.
00:34:44.540
Even if you get five hours occasionally, you're going to be okay.
00:34:47.780
And it's just reassuring people like you're fine.
00:34:52.140
And then, and also just telling people like, you know, it's normal to wake up.
00:34:59.100
And then the sleep restriction aspect, once you start helping people under reframing their
00:35:04.300
problem, what they think is problematic sleep, the restriction is like, you're actually telling
00:35:08.560
people, okay, instead of going to bed at 10, we want you to go to bed at maybe midnight.
00:35:17.800
The goal is to actually make you sleepier during the day, the next day, because we want to
00:35:29.780
It's like, yeah, you're actually going to be tired for a couple of weeks to improve your
00:35:35.120
Especially the first three to four days are very, very intense because for a lot of people,
00:35:40.880
the problems, they get bigger during the first three to four days.
00:35:45.560
People tend to get more sleepy during the day because of the buildup of sleepiness.
00:35:49.820
Sometimes they get more tired, more concentration problems, that kind of thing.
00:35:54.160
And then after four to seven days, you usually see slight improvements in sleep.
00:35:59.240
So people have less difficulty falling asleep and have less problems maintaining sleep.
00:36:04.320
And then after two weeks, usually people say that they sleep much better.
00:36:10.100
And you also see that the daytime consequences of the sleep problem, they disappear after
00:36:15.980
So I think it's a very powerful method that usually works within a couple of weeks.
00:36:21.260
And then as you're, what's interesting about the sleep restriction, you're gradually over
00:36:24.780
time, maybe after two weeks, you're going to increase the time you're in bed.
00:36:29.040
So maybe you start off going to bed at 12, waking up at six, and then two weeks later,
00:36:34.940
it might be, well, you're going to go to bed at 1130 for a while.
00:36:40.820
So you expand the time with a quarter of an hour.
00:36:44.000
So this process could take a few months, correct?
00:36:50.360
Well, usually what we see is that people, what I've seen in practice is that sometimes
00:36:54.580
people come in, they're in the bed for like nine hours and they sleep for five and a half
00:37:00.840
And then what you usually do is you start out with total bedtimes that are similar to the
00:37:07.560
So if they say I've slept for five and a half hours, then they go to the bed for a maximum
00:37:17.200
So they're in the bed for a maximum of six hours.
00:37:20.620
Then you wait a week to two weeks, usually sleep improves in 80 to 85% of cases.
00:37:26.700
And then you start expanding the bedtimes again with a quarter of an hour.
00:37:30.920
And sometimes people feel that when they're in the bed for maybe seven, then they've actually
00:37:36.700
reached their optimum because if they go past those seven hours, they have more sleep problems
00:37:42.600
So actually, usually it takes about four to six weeks to treat a person with insomnia.
00:37:49.640
Any advice on how to figure out how much sleep you need to get?
00:37:55.440
Yeah, I think the most important thing to do is to look how you sleep when you're on
00:38:02.580
So the second week of your holidays, you have to find out at what time you start getting
00:38:08.620
sleepy and at what time you spontaneously awaken.
00:38:12.920
If you do that and you find that out, then you really know how much sleep you need, but
00:38:20.840
So whether you're a morning person or an evening person or somewhere in between.
00:38:25.300
What do you do if your chronotype, like let's say you're an evening person, but you have
00:38:30.900
a job that requires you to be a morning person.
00:38:33.640
Anything you can do to mitigate the consequences of that?
00:38:36.680
Yeah, I think I think there are some things you can do is you can work with bright light in
00:38:44.020
So that really pushes your rhythm a bit more back.
00:38:48.020
And what you can do is you can create a more dark environment before going to bed and go
00:38:55.460
So I think that's very important because for evening people, it's sometimes very difficult
00:39:01.160
But still, your natural rhythm will always be leading.
00:39:04.720
So you can do something with that, with these methods, but it will never change you to being
00:39:12.420
So what people sometimes do in the weekends is they're in the bed a little bit longer,
00:39:17.100
so one to one and a half hours to compensate a bit for the hours that they miss during the
00:39:22.820
And sometimes this may help, but it's very important to not overdo it.
00:39:28.380
You don't want to sleep in too much because that's just going to throw off your sleep schedule
00:39:33.400
But we've talked about a lot of things people can do to help them get a better night's sleep.
00:39:38.960
Is there one thing you recommend people start doing today that will immediately improve their
00:39:48.140
We know from research that if you watch the time, then it takes up to 20 minutes longer
00:39:57.000
And a lot of people with insomnia find it very difficult to not watch the time when they're
00:40:02.160
But I think it's a very, very powerful method to decrease insomnia.
00:40:09.720
And for me, the big takeaway from the book is like, just don't freak out as much about
00:40:13.420
your sleep if you are having problems with sleep, because that just causes more problems.
00:40:18.300
And when you wake up at 4.30, it's like, oh, okay.
00:40:22.240
Well, you should know it's 4.30 because you don't have a clock in your room in the first
00:40:27.020
But if you do wake up earlier, you're just like, okay, it's okay.
00:40:30.080
I'm going to pretend like I'm a Hasda tribe member and just kind of sit here and relax and
00:40:36.600
Just let the perfectionism go a little bit and yeah, be more relaxed around being awake
00:40:43.060
We need to be more relaxed about being awake during the night.
00:40:47.840
Well, Marijn, this has been a great conversation.
00:40:49.260
Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:40:52.040
Well, first of all, the book, I mean, you can already order the book, so it can be ordered
00:40:58.960
And I also have a website, Marijn van der Laar.
00:41:01.920
I think you have to spell it out in the details.
00:41:07.100
So that's where they can find more information.
00:41:16.760
He's the author of the book, How to Sleep Like a Caveman.
00:41:18.920
It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.
00:41:21.220
Check out our show notes at aom.is slash cavemansleep.
00:41:26.200
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.
00:41:36.860
Make sure to check out our website at artofmanless.com.
00:41:38.880
We find our podcast archives and check out our new newsletter.
00:41:46.360
As always, thank you for the continued support.
00:41:49.660
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