World No.1 Sleep Expert: Magnesium Isn’t Helping You Sleep! This Habit Increases Heart Disease 57%!

Here's the problem with magnesium. supplementation [music]. when it comes to sleep. The first thing. to note is that most forms of magnesium. don't cross the blood brain barrier and. sleep [music] is produced by your brain. So, how can something that doesn't get. into your brain affect brain process? All you're doing is creating probably. expensive urine. However, there is one form of magnesium. that seems to have some evidence in. favor of [music] it, which we can speak. about, but it doesn't stop there. There's so much new evidence that we. have, including this myth of 8 [music]. hours, my fear about giving melatonin to.

kids, why you keep waking up in the. middle of the night, and the invention. of the first new class of sleeping. [music] medication that I actually. favor, and most people are not aware of. it. Okay, let me write this down. Matthew Walker [music] is back. And the. world-renowned sleep expert and. neuroscience professor is sharing brand. new research to combat [music] the sleep. loss epidemic and help you get the. perfect night's sleep. As a society, we. have struggles with sleep at night due. to many reasons, but no one teaches us. this stuff, and it's things like, say.

you go to bed at 11:00 one night, 1:00. a.m. the next night, then 10:30 p.m. the. next night, and it's remarkable how many. people do this. But studies have shown. that you are statistically 49% more. likely to prematurely die versus those. people who were most regular in terms of. going to bed and waking up at the same. time. And worse, they had a 57%. cardiometabolic disease [music] risk. increase. What the Science really. teaches us that there are four pillars. of good sleep. And [music] then there's. this incredible new study looking at. sleep banking. And this is remarkable.

for people who are facing a sprint at. work or a medical doctor about to go on. call for the next 40 hours, new parents, and we can go through all of that. But. if you were to push me to say the three. [music] most impactful things that you. can start doing tonight to start. sleeping better, it would be. I see messages all the time in the. comment section that some of you didn't. realize you didn't subscribe. So, >> [snorts]. >> if you could do me a favor and. double-check if you're a subscriber to. this channel, that would be tremendously. appreciated. It's the simple, it's the. free thing that anybody can do to help.

us here to keep everything going in this. show in the trajectory it's on. So, please do double-check if you subscribed. and thank you so much because in a. strange way, you are you're part of our. history and you're on this journey with. us and I appreciate you for that. So, thank you. >> [music]. [singing]. >> Dr. Matthew Walker. Here in front of me, I have these cards. which I'm going to reveal a bit later, but these kind of hold what you consider. to be the four pillars of great sleep.

But you also spend much of your. professional career just studying the. brain generally to understand human. performance and how we can. change our lifestyles and also introduce. some of these new sort of treatments to. improve how our brain performs. I want. to talk about all of that as well. But. to start, for anyone that is unfamiliar. with you and has been hiding under a. rock, how do you summarize who you are. professionally, the sort of academic references you're. drawing on, and the experiences and. research you've done so that the viewer.

listening at home. understands the full world that you. operate in, study, and have experienced. I am a neuroscientist by trade, but my. specialty is sleep, the effects of sleep. on the brain and the body, and I've. probably spent about the past two. decades trying to understand exactly. why do we sleep? Because 50 years ago, the crass answer to the question, why do. you sleep? was the following. You sleep. to cure sleepiness.

Which is the factuous equivalent of. saying, well, you eat to cure hunger. No, you don't eat to cure cure hunger, you eat to support all sorts of. physiological and biological benefits. But now, and this is not due to my. research, this is all of the incredible. colleagues whose sort of shoulders that. I stand on, we've now had to upend the question. We now have to ask, is there any major. physiological system in your body, or is. there any operation of your mind that. isn't wonderfully enhanced by sleep when.

you get it, or demonstrably impaired. when you don't get enough? And the. answer now seems to be, no, we there is. no such system, even down to the level. of your DNA. Your sleep and how you are sleeping or. not sleeping will change the very DNA. nucleic alphabet that spells out your. daily health narrative. And we can see it all the way up to. society. Sleep can change the fabric of. society, can change how we interact with.

other people, it can change our belief. systems, it can change how lonely or. sort of hyper-social we are. So, to your. question, I'm a sleep scientist by. trade, and I suppose my mission has been. trying to reunite humanity with the. sleep that it seems to be so bereft of. We had a fantastic conversation last. time and my audience. valued it tremendously. I know that cuz. we we often survey our audience and we. we get to see some of the the back-end. stats. And this conversation about sleep. is particularly personal to everybody.

listening because when we surveyed our. audience ahead of this conversation. today, about 75 or 80% of the Diary of a. CEO audience struggle with sleep for a. variety of different reasons. So, we. actually asked them, a thousand of them, their questions to ask you today. But. also, the other reason I really wanted. to chat to you is the science of sleep. I mean, as is the way of science, is. always evolving. We're learning new. things and even since we spoke last. time, there is new sleep science which. we're going to talk about today. And one. of those particular things we're going. to talk about is going to be. demonstrated using.

this jar. >> [laughter]. >> Because I always want to know what the. updated sleep science is so that I can. be a better sleeper because I agree with. everything you said about how. foundational sleep is in my life. I and um I didn't know this at the start. of my career. I didn't know this even a. couple of years ago, 5 years ago, I. didn't know. I thought sleep was one of. those things you could just. take it or leave. Yeah. I mean, and it's. not your fault in so many ways because. if you didn't know what I know, you.

would just think, well, when I sleep, my. body is dormant and my mind for the most. part is blank. So, is it so catastrophic. to lose, you know, an hour or two of. sleep? And you know, you have to then. think about from an evolutionary. perspective, it is such an idiotic idea. to sleep because when you're sleeping, you're not finding a mate, you're not. reproducing, you're not caring for your. young, you're not foraging for food, and. worst of all, you're vulnerable to. predation. So, on any one of those grounds, and.

especially all of them as a collective, sleep should have been strongly selected. against in the course of evolution. And my point is that, and it's often. been said that if sleep doesn't serve an. absolutely vital set of functions, plural, then it's the biggest mistake. the evolutionary process has ever made. And we now realize it didn't make a. spectacular blunder. But really, I guess. to the point of it is. sleep is not a passive state. It's an. incredibly active state both in the. terms of the brain and the body. And so,

you uh should not feel sort of, you. know, remiss or ashamed that you didn't. value the importance of sleep because. firstly, as a subjective sense, you just. think, well, my mind was offline for a. while. Second, we also know that we don't teach. the importance of sleep in education. And doctors themselves, you know, there's a great study and they what they. found is that medical doctors across, I. think it was about 11 different. curricula around the world, they will. only receive about 1.2 hours of.

education on sleep. But it's a third of. their patients' lives. So, there's. a collection of sort of almost perfect. storms that have happened to keep. society ignorant of the importance and. the value of sleep. I think that's why. we often so shortchange it, together. with also something terrible, which is. stigma. That people are so proud to say, well, I've been eating really healthy the past.

couple of months or, you know, I've been. going to the gym, you know, three times. a week consistently for the past year. No one is ever going out into society. and saying, you know, I I've been. getting 8 and 1/2 hours of sleep. consistently every night. Because if you. did, people would say, really? And there's a there's a slight edge to. the really, which is that if you have. time to sleep, then you must not be busy. And if you're. not busy, you must not be important.

So, can you do me a favor and for the. listener at home, can you tell me. what the different groups of people. that are listening to this conversation. right now are seeking? From the extreme. end being. sleep apnea, I get no sleep, I'm an. insomniac, to the other end where maybe. they're looking for marginal performance. gains. Like, what are the what are the. cohorts of people you see and the. reasons why they're so interested in. your work? They listen to your podcast, they read your books. What are the. cohorts? Firstly, we have the collection. of people who have insomnia.

Those people who have other sleep. disorders like sleep apnea, which we can. speak about. There's another disorder. called restless leg syndrome. It's a. terrible disorder where your legs start. to feel as though they've got this sort. of creepy, crawly feeling and you've. constantly got to massage them and move. them. It's a terrible disruptor of your. sleep. All of these disorders are. markedly undiagnosed, by the way. And. then you've got another collection of. individuals who they don't have any. sleep disorders, but they are either. doing things that will dismantle our.

sleep. So, either they're taking on. things into themselves like alcohol, caffeine, THC that aren't the sleep. helpers, even though sometimes they. think they are. And then you've got perhaps the internal. things that will prevent you from. sleeping well, things like stress and. anxiety. And then you've also just got. life itself that can get in the way. And then moving from the sleep disorders. realm to the uh I don't have a sleep.

disorder, but I'm probably not doing it. right, {quote} {unquote}, when it comes. to sleep. Then you've got the people who. are obsessed about getting it right, and. they are the bio-optimizers, this sort of the, you know, the. bio-hackers. And then you've also got, I. work with a lot of high-performance. individuals who are really trying to. just scratch out those last couple of. percentages, either at in business or. often we're working with professional. athletes. These are the people for whom.

two or three percentage point changes. can be. tens of millions of dollars, or they can. be the difference between standing on a. podium at the Olympics or not. And so, this is is a broad collection of. wonderful characters. And since we last spoke, is there now a. lot of new sleep science and. understanding as it relates to sleep. performance and these three categories. of sleep deficient, sleep disorders, lifestyle factors, and then the. optimizers? Yeah, I think there's there's a broad.

collection of new evidence that we have, but maybe let me come on to the middle. group. You know, I used to say that for. people who were deficient in their. sleep, that sleep wasn't like the bank. That you can't accumulate a debt. Oh, here we go. Okay. So, what we can see here is that the jar. used to be full. Full of sleep credit when you're. sleeping well. And then during the week, I'm short. sleeping. So, maybe I'm only getting 5. hours a night. So, I'm constantly going.

into debt. So, I'm losing all of this. wonderful sleep credit, and my system is. building up this collateral debt. And then we used to think that sleep was. not like the bank, that once you've gone. into debt, unfortunately, the lid is closed, and even at the. weekend, if you try to pay it back, you can't put back credit into the. system. However, there was a study published.

from what's called the UK Biobank, which. is this incredible data set. It's. revolutionary. And they studied in this. particular research paper over 90,000. individuals. And what they did was they essentially. split them down into those individuals. who were short sleeping during the week, and then short sleeping at the weekend. And they compared them to those. individuals who were short sleeping. during the week, but then long sleeping. at the weekend. They were doing catch-up. sleep. That's me. And that's so many. individuals, it turns out. If you look.

at the data, it's it's remarkable how. many people do this this catch-up sleep. behavior. But what was amazing is that in the. people who were short sleeping during. the week, but long sleeping at the. weekend, they had a 20%. reduced cardiovascular disease risk. relative to the people who were short. sleeping during the week, but also short. sleeping at the weekend. Now, to be. clear, both of those groups had a higher. cardiovascular disease risk than people. who were sleeping sufficiently during.

the week and sleeping sufficiently. during the weekend. So, I'm not saying. that it's a completely free lunch, but. for the first time, we realized that at. least one system, major organ system in. your body, is like the bank, which is. that if your heart. at the weekend, you can. just keep. putting credit back, and your system doesn't suffer as much.

For your heart? For your heart. Okay. But again, many of the other major. physiological systems don't show that. So, work by people like Kenneth Wright. at the University of Boulder, Colorado, he's shown that your immune system. doesn't rebound after long sleep at the. weekend, your regulation of blood sugar, your cognitive ability. So, that's. one way in which I've changed my mind. regarding sleep and the bank. But there's a very different new set of. data that has changed my mind completely. about this idea of sleep and the bank.

Now, what we've just discussed here is. to say, I went into debt, and then I was hoping to try and pay it. off with credit at the weekend. So, the. jar represents the debt that you have, the sleep direct. Yeah. And what I'm. trying to do is force more coinage. in at the weekend. to see. if I can offset the debt that I created. and get back to net net neutral by the. end of the weekend. Now, it turns out.

you can't do that. Even if you sleep for. as long as you want, but here's this new. remarkable data. It came from Walter. Reed Medical Army Institute, a. researcher called Thomas Balkin. And. what he was interested in was flipping. the direction of the question. Not if I go into debt, can I pay back. with credit, but what if I know in future I'm going. to face a debt, an upcoming debt, can I do sleep banking? Oh, so if I've.

got a big thing coming up where I'm. traveling across the world and I know. I'm going to be sleep deficient, can I. sleep a lot before it to create a. What would the financial analogy be? >> the financial analogy would be, let's. say that we're coming up to Christmas. Yeah. And you're going to spend lots on, you know, presents and all sorts of. stuff. So, I know that in October and. November, I'm going to tighten my. financial belt. I see. >> So, that when I go into the sort of. Christmas period and I'm spending a lot.

more money, my bank account isn't hit as. hard. I don't go into as much of a sort. of a debt situation because I've built. up credit. >> So, you can create sleep savings. Correct. It's a sleep saving system. So, essentially, you know, what he was able to do, not. just put. the jar to full, but he was actually packing in. even more. so that you almost got this wonderful.

overflow of sleep. How did he know? He didn't. It was the experimental. hypothesis. And And but how did they prove it? So, what they did is that they woke you up. to a period when you're going to have. two or three nights of either no sleep. or marked sleep reduction. And in the week beforehand, with these. army cadets, instead of being limited to. 8 hours of time in bed, they were able. to get 10 hours of time in bed.

And they could sleep all that they want. And so, they went from probably an. average of about 7, 7 and 1/2 hours of. sleep to about 8 and 1/2, almost 9 hours of sleep. So, they were. extending their sleep duration. And so that they had built up this. buffer. It's almost like a sort of a a. sleep safety net that's in place, so. that when you go into the tumble of. sleep deprivation, you're sort of almost bolstered and.

you're lifted higher, and therefore your. degree of impairment that you suffer. under conditions of sleep deprivation is. significantly less if you banked sleep. beforehand versus those people who were. just sleeping normally. and then face the deprivation. They went. down much further in terms of their. cognitive and mental performance. So, he. gave them challenges and tasks to do. Correct. >> in two different groups. One group had. sleep savings saved up from sleeping. well the previous week, one group. didn't. That's right. >> And they performed remarkably different.

So, both of them were impaired relative. to a sleep rested person. Okay. However, the people, it's sort of, you know, how. how much of a drop in your cognitive. performance do you suffer? And what he. found was that people who had built up. this credit, this savings account of. sleep in the days in the week. beforehand, they suffered about 40% less. of an impairment relative to the people. who had not created any savings plan.

Now, they weren't in debt, they were. just net neutral. But boy, did they drop. quickly. Whereas those people who'd had some. cash in their sleep credit system, they didn't fall anywhere near as far. But this is remarkable for people, like. you were saying, who are facing, let's. say, if I've got a sprint at work, or. I'm a medical doctor, and I know I'm. about to go on call for the next 40. hours, you're in military aviation, all. of the new parents, all of these. circumstances are places where now we.

know, athletes are a great example, when. we work with athletes, people like. Michael Grandner have demonstrated that. athletes sleep terribly, typically, the. night before a huge performance. No. matter, you know, of course, they're. nervous. Mhm. But what you can do is you. can have them bank sleep in the days. before when they're not as nervous, and. therefore their performance doesn't. suffer as much, even though they know. they're going to be deprived. Sleep is. so important, isn't it? And I think. everybody now knows that because of. people like yourself, or really, you.

know, you were the real pioneer in. pushing this subject into the world. I. remember when you first went on Joe. Rogan's show, the amount of my friends. that sent me that episode and then sent. me your book was just staggering. It was. like that was the catalyst moment, I. think, in society for the mainstream to. really start talking and caring about. sleep. However, there's still so many people struggling. um. because of all the factors that you. talked about when we were talking about. group two, who have those lifestyle. factors, the stress, the psychological. factors, the trauma, etc., etc. What can we give them,

those people, the people that really, really struggle? Maybe they haven't got. a disorder, we'll come to the people. with sort of sleep disorders later, and. we'll talk about optimizers. But what. what is the new information or advice. that we can give them. that will help them once and for all. sleep 8 hours a night and get their life. back? If you were to push me to say what are. the three most. impactful things that you can start. doing tonight to start sleeping better,

it would be the following. Digital detox. Okay, let me write this. down. Digital detox, okay. And what does. that mean? One hour before bed, try to limit. activating social media engagement, email, and text messages that are going to. trigger you. It's fine to listen to a. podcast, you know, >> [laughter]. >> You heard it here, folks. Right from my mouth. But it's also good.

to like and subscribe, would you say? I. would say that, you know, like and. subscribe and then just click here so. that you get the latest notification. You get that bell, just click on the. bell icon so that you. >> [laughter]. >> So, it's not a problem of blue light. A. quick aside, we've been taught this myth. of the blue light effect. Yeah. From. devices and it really is a myth because. an incredible Australian researcher, a. guy called Michael Gradisar, has almost. single-handedly. changed the the what I think of as being.

the zeitgeist for a while after a very. influential paper, which is a great. paper. And what they showed was that one. hour of iPad reading before bed. ended up impairing your melatonin. It. disrupted sleep. It reduced the amount. of dream sleep and even after they. stopped reading the iPad, the blast. radius impact on your dream sleep lasted. a week. It's almost like the drug needed. to get washed out the system. That even. when you you'd stop using technology for. an hour before bed, the impact of that technology, even.

though you'd stop using it, could still. be seen in the echo of sleep disruption. for a week later. It was a very. influential study in a very prestigious. channel. When was that? A while ago? That was probably about 10 years ago. But then Michael Gradisar, this. incredible Australian researcher, started to say, "Well, I can't replicate. these findings.". And what he was discovering is that it's. not the blue light that's the problem. Now, the blue light will change aspects. of your melatonin and melatonin is a. hormone. It simply tells your brain and your body. when it's night time, when it's time to.

fall asleep. It doesn't participate in. the generation of sleep. Melatonin is. like the starting official at the 100-m. race. It brings all of the racers to the. line and it begins the timing of the. race, but it doesn't participate in the. creation of the race itself. That's a. different set of chemicals. >> It doesn't make you go to sleep. >> It doesn't make you And if you look at. what we call meta-analyses, where we. gather together all of the individual. studies on a topic and we put them in a. big statistical bucket, what they found. is that melatonin will only improve the. speed with which you fall asleep by.

about um 3.4 minutes and it will only. increase the efficiency of your sleep by. about 2.2%. So, not much more than. placebo. Um so, melatonin is. it it's Now, the placebo effect is the. most reliable effect in all of. pharmacology. So, you know, maybe no. harm, no foul. I would say, and don't. forget I will come back to the three, but when it comes to melatonin, be. careful. More isn't always better. And you run the risk of.

confusing your morning brain. into a dense nighttime fog. And what I. mean by that is. 10 mg or 20 mg of melatonin is what we. call a supraphysiological dose, which. again is just a fancy medical term to. say it's a size of magnitude of. melatonin that your body would never. naturally release. It's far greater. So, melatonin is the signal of darkness. and normally by the morning hours, our.

natural release of melatonin has stopped. and you're down to zero levels again. In. the morning? In the morning. So, you. wake [clears throat] up and your body no. longer has the signal of melatonin. saying it's night, it's night, it's. night. But if you've dosed yourself with. 10 mg or 20 mg of melatonin, you run the risk of saying, "Well, yes, I know it. quote unquote knocks me out." But the. problem is in the first, you know, three. or four hours of the waking morning, you're struggling because you're in this. fog of a hormonal melatonin, a hormonal.

signal saying it's still pitch black. Now, it's not. It's bright light. outside, but your body is fooled into. thinking it's pitch black because you've. dosed yourself too high and no wonder. you're reaching for two or three cups of. coffee in the morning. So, what what dose of melatonin should I. be taking? Somewhere between probably. about 0.1. to 3 mg. And do you advise melatonin for. people? Yes, in two conditions. The first, or. circumstances I should say. The first is.

when you're going through jet lag. Wonderfully helpful, but timing is. critical. You need to create that sort. of that artificial signal of night. because let's say that you and I here in. Los Angeles, we're both going to fly. back to London tomorrow. And London is. eight hours ahead. So, we fly overnight, we arrive in London and then that first. night, let's say we decide to go to bed. or I decide to go to bed in the hotel at. midnight. The problem is here in Los.

Angeles, on my body clock, it's still. 4:00 p.m. cuz London's eight hours. ahead. So, my melatonin is not going to. rise for probably another six or seven. hours. So, I need to artificially hijack. my melatonin system and tell my brain, "Oh, no, it's not 4:00 p.m. It's instead, it's midnight." And so. there, under conditions of jet lag, very. helpful. The second is if you have a. circadian rhythm disorder. Let's say. that you're someone who has a an.

advanced circadian phase. What that. means is you're someone who really can't. get sleepy until 3:00 or 4:00 in the. morning and you would prefer to be. sleeping throughout most of the day. So, you you're almost nocturnal. Is that a. genetic disorder? And yes, it's a. genetic disorder in part. >> How many people have that? Probably 1 to 2% of the population have. a very severe. advanced circadian phase disorder. But there, melatonin can also be helpful. because once again, their melatonin part. of their problem is that their melatonin.

is very delayed. So, they don't get the. signal of "Oh, it's night" until maybe. 4:00 in the morning. You and I, we start. to get our signal of melatonin, depending on our chronotype, by. somewhere between about 9:00, 10:00, or. 11:00 p.m. They may be delayed by five hours. So, if we can give them melatonin, we can. artificially try to fool their brain. into thinking it's actually earlier in. their biological rhythm. So, they sleep. earlier and they're more in sync with. the rest of society. How does someone. know if they're that type of person, if.

they have that disorder? Is there. There's not a way to test, is there? Well, what we typically do is we will. bring you into a laboratory and we will. measure your innate levels. So, we will. shut out sort of all windows, all clock. faces are gone, and we just let you run. your natural rhythm. Mhm. And they have. the same rise and fall in melatonin, just like you and I do. Except where. it's doing that rise and fall of. melatonin on the 24-hour clock face is. radically different. Okay. For you and. I, it's, you know, 9:00, 10:00 p.m.,

11:00 p.m. at night when we're starting. that melatonin crescendo. For them, it's. 4:00 in the morning. So, we can measure. it. It's not in their minds, it's not. their choice. It's a biological edict. Are you concerned that melatonin is. becoming more and more popular as a way. to solve. lifestyle issues. that have caused sleep impairment? Because I'm seeing loads of You know, I'm an investor, so I see lots of. companies now pitching me different. products that have melatonin in them as.

a sort of day-to-day sleeping. supplement. I think I'm really torn. I've been on both sides of this argument. and. I'm cautious about it for two reasons. The first is in pediatric populations. here in the United States. Pediatric? >> Yeah, so the people's use of melatonin. in kids is increasing. So, in pediatric. populations, it's. increasing exponentially. And in fact, if you go down the sort of the. supermarket aisles here in America,

often if you go into sort of the the. health sort of food section, there's. this big purple section. That's the. melatonin section. And a large. proportion of that is there dedicated to. gummies for your children with. melatonin. And. there was a study that was published. about three years ago that showed here. in America, over the past 10 years, there has been a 503% [clears throat]. increase. in poisonous overdose admissions to. hospitals of melatonin in the past 10.

years. 503%. increase. So, firstly, we've got to be a bit. careful. The second reason is that. melatonin is a bioactive hormone and. it's also involved in reproductive. development. And there were studies done. back in the 1970s, I think, where they. were looking at juvenile male rats, which is to say male rats who were going. through adolescence. And they were dosing them with high. amounts of melatonin. And what they. found is that that stunted the. development of the testes, of the.

testicles, and it caused testicular. atrophy. Now, these were very high. doses, but we've got to be a little bit. careful. We think We say, "Well, melatonin's a natural hormone, so. anything natural is safe." Melatonin. overall, in terms of its safety profile, is very safe. It's actually a very good. antioxidant. But you've got to be careful because. things like, for example, testosterone. supplementation in males, what we know. is that if you're injecting. testosterone, after a while, after maybe 18 months or.

so, the testes themselves will stop. producing their own testosterone. And. even if you stop the administration of. the exogenous testosterone, the. injection, the testes never return their. function of producing testosterone. Now, we don't have any evidence yet that. that's the case that if you keep taking. melatonin at high dose, your body, the. fear would be, shuts down its own. natural production of melatonin. I've. seen no evidence of that. In fact, I've. seen evidence to the contrary that even.

after about 6 months or even 12 months. in certain small cities, when you stop. melatonin, the production starts again. naturally. It seems fine. Problem is, people haven't been taking melatonin for. just 12 months. They've been taking it. for years. We've got no idea what happens after. years. That was my hesitation when the. first time someone offered me melatonin. is from doing this podcast and speaking. to smart people like yourself, I've come. to learn this sort of principle that if. you start making something for your body.

in terms of a hormone, if you start sort. of. consuming something externally, like. testosterone, your body will say, "Fine, I don't need to do this." It will try. and return to that level of balance. where the quantities in your system are. maintained, which means it kind of. learns to shut down. And I always think. about the case of testosterone cuz men. know that if we start injecting. testosterone, then we're going to have. to pretty much do it forever. Yeah. Um. if we want the those levels to be the. same. Yeah, that's the worry is that. there are no free lunches in biology and. usually if you fight biology, you. typically lose. There's always a.

trade-off. And so when my friends often. like talk to me about like these miracle. things or this thing or take modafinil. and everything will be fine and da da da. da da. I go, "Yeah, but what's the. trade-off?" And I get most concerned. when they say there isn't one. Cuz then. I go, "Shit, we don't know it.". >> [laughter]. >> Yeah. You've got to be careful because. absence of evidence is not evidence of. absence. Mhm. Be very careful when you're. doing that deal with with your. physiology. So, to come back to the sort. of the three things, the first thing we.

were mentioning is digital detox and. don't worry about the blue light. Worry about light in general. I'll come. on to that cuz that's the second. But, Michael Grandner, as I was saying, what. he found is that the blue light doesn't. really disrupt your sleep. It's a combination of first, these that. we use are attention capture devices and. they are designed to fleece you of your. attention economy and they do it. ruthlessly well. They've spent tens of. millions of dollars designing these. products to do that.

So, what happens is that these devices. become hugely activating. And as a result, they essentially will. be a mute button on your sleepiness. So, you could be there, you get into bed, it's 11:00 p.m. You think, "I am so. tired. I was falling asleep on the the. the couch watching television." And then. you get to bed, you start going on to. social media, and then you start. doomscrolling, and then you get into. this what we call bed rotting, where you. just sit there. And now you look at the. clock and it's no longer 11:00 p.m. It's. 1:00 a.m. And you've just done sleep.

procrastination. Now, it turns out that. it's yes that that these are attention. grabbing devices that will mute your. sleepiness. But, you have to be of a certain. personality type, he found. Not all of. us are vulnerable to this sleep. disruption of devices. You have to be. someone who is perhaps neurotic, someone. who has high impulsivity, or someone who. is perhaps high anxious. If you are of. any of those kinds, you should be really. careful about your use of technology in.

the bedroom. Now, for me to, you know, sit here and say, "Look, put your phone in the car in the garage. and that way, you know, that's what I. would love because. what we've learned to do in this modern. era is the first thing when you wake up. What is it that you do? No no comment. >> [laughter]. >> What about you? It's just you and I, Stephen. Um I grab my phone before my eyes are. even open. And what happens is this sort.

of small tsunami of anxiety washes over. you because as soon as you unlock the. phone, it's everyone else's agenda for. your day but your own. And it's a. terrible way to wake up. Have you ever. had the experience where you've got to. wake up for an early morning flight and. it's a critical flight? You know that. that night is not going to be a good. night of sleep. It's going to be a. shallow kind of sleep. It's what we call. anticipatory anxiety. You are. anticipating an anxious event in the. morning. And studies have shown that when we.

create this anticipatory anxiety, the. amount of deep sleep that you have drops. significantly. You don't sleep as well. And therefore, if we just do this little. sort of version, this LITE version of. the morning flight, which is we know. that when we go to bed and we put our. phone down, we know that when we wake up. every morning, we're just going to open. it up to that hit of anxiety every. morning. No wonder our sleep can start. to get shallow. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say,

"Well, don't take your phone into the. bedroom because the genie is out the. bottle and no matter what I say, it's. not going back in anytime soon." And a. friend of mine, Michael Grandner, has. got this beautiful. uh framework where he says, "You can. take your phone into your bedroom. It's. fine. But, you can only use your phone. standing up. Oh. >> [laughter]. >> What's his name? Um Michael Grandner. He's from Brooklyn. >> his own business. And and what happens is that you you're.

there and you think after about 7 or 8. minutes, "Oh, I'm just I'm just going to. have a bit of a sit down here." As soon. as that phone goes away. So, I would say. that digital detox is the first friend. that will really help your sleep. The. the second is regularity and we'll come. on to regularity when we speak about, you know, what really makes for good. sleep. If you were to only do one thing, not three things, but just one thing, go. to bed and wake up at the same time no. matter whether it's the weekday or the. weekend, regularity is king. Okay, so.

that's the third pillar. That's correct. Regularity. Okay. And then I have. the T for timing. Correct. Which we'll go through these. Quantity, which we've talked a little. bit about already, and quality. Correct. So, when I looked at the. science, for me, I created this. framework of the four macros of good. sleep. You've heard of the three macros. of food, macronutrients, fat, protein, carbohydrate. To me, there are four.

macros of good sleep and it's QQRT. QQRT. And it stands for. quantity, quality, regularity, and timing. And think of it less like. pillars, but the four legs of a chair. And if any one of these becomes. unstable, the chair will topple over. So, I'll probably start with the one.

that people have heard me bang on about, which is quantity. 7 to 9 hours. This. myth of 8 hours is nonsense. It's a. wonderful range, 7 to 9 hours. And what we know is that using that. sweet spot of 7 to 9 hours, when you get. less than that, the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. [ __ ] Short sleep. predicts all-cause mortality. Now, we. say that this is the minimum of 7 hours. of sleep and some people have argued, perhaps correctly, that look, if you. look at these mortality curves, there's.

not much of a percentage difference. between sleeping 6 hours versus the 7. that you're telling me is minimum. So, 6. hours is just fine. So, all of this. nonsense and rhetoric is is is silly. from you. And I think they made a conflation. because. 7 hours. is the minimum amount of sleep that you. need to survive. because the way that we quantify what. minimum is is based on whether you die. or you don't prematurely.

The amount of sleep that you need to. survive is different than the amount of. sleep that you need to thrive. And people will conflate the former with. the latter. So, you've got to be careful. when people are sort of touting on. social media that say, "Well, no, but. look, you there's not much difference. between my sort of survival rate on 6. hours versus 7 hours.". You may have a just as much of a long. life, but the quality of your life will. be very different. So, that's quantity,

7 to 9 hours. And is that does it change. for parents, by the way, because I've. met so many parents that seem to be. functioning better than me and they've. got four they're having like four or. five hours sleep. Did evolution not give. parents any leeway or anything when they. have kids that suddenly their brain. changes and now they can survive with. less sleep? The evidence doesn't suggest. that once you go through parenthood, you. get some magic sort of, you know, immunity shot that makes you, you know, resilient and not vulnerable to a lack. of sleep. And in some ways, you could.

argue because we used to, you know, live. as a collective tribe and we would share. duties, at that point, you know, mother. nature doesn't really worry too much. about you now. because you've already procreated and. you've passed on your genetic code. So, you are now the the sort of the, you. know, the not particularly well, you. know, cared for individual through. evolution. It's your offspring that gets. So, it sacrifices you.

in a way. I mean, that's what we see in. the animal kingdom. Did you see that. documentary about the octopus? Yeah. It. it was just I mean, I thought it was. beautiful documentary, but um The TLDR. for anyone that hasn't seen it is once. the octopus and I'm going to completely. butcher this, so please ignore. Um once the octopus has given birth, it dies. Basically, it doesn't move out. of that hole and it dies. Is that rough? Well, I don't know if if it dies, but. its level of of active life I searched, "Does the octopus die after. reproduction?" And it says, "Yes. Female.

octopuses die after their eggs hatch. After laying eggs, a female stops eating. and devotes all of her her energy to. protecting and oxygenating them until. they hatch. Once they do, she dies. shortly after. A process called. semelparity, meaning they reproduce only once. This. death is triggered by hormone changes. from the optic gland similar to. mammalian pituitary glands. And males die shortly after mating as.

well, usually within a few months. That is wild. In some ways it. it's tragic and it reminds me I'm so. glad that I'm not an. >> [laughter]. >> But but coming back to it. So, for. there doesn't seem to be some, you know, magic cloak of invincibility that you. put on when you go through parenthood. Certainly what we know is that the. number of individuals who can survive on. 6 hours of sleep or less and show no.

impairment in either their brain or. their body, rounded to a whole number. and expressed as a percent of the. population, is zero. So, quantity matters, but it turns out. that we got it wrong in thinking that. was the only thing because. then came quality. So, QQRt. Quality is. defined in sleep science as two things. The first is something that your sleep. tracker will measure, which is the. continuity of your sleep, meaning do you.

sleep in one or two nice long bouts. throughout the night? That's good. quality of sleep, nice continuous bouts. Versus your sort of sleep is very. fragmented by all of these awakenings, that's very poor quality of sleep. And. the way that you can measure it in your. sleep tracker is just by looking at the. app and there'll be something called. sleep efficiency. Sleep efficiency is. defined as the following: of the time. that you're in bed, what percent of that. time is spent asleep? And what we like. to see is you north of 85% or above. So,

this is kind of like the users guide to. sleep trackers. What I want to see is 85% or more. If. you're less than that, we need to have a. conversation. That's number one good. quality of sleep. The second, which is. what sort of what these trackers can't. really do, but I can do in the sleep. laboratory when you look like a. spaghetti monster cuz I put electrodes. all over your head, >> [snorts]. >> I can measure the quality of your big. deep slow brain waves of deep non-REM. sleep. And that is a second measure, the power.

of those big slow brain waves. That's a. second measure. And quality seems to be. as predictive as quantity. in making a difference not just to your. all-cause mortality, but quality even. more than quantity when it comes to. mental health has been showing the. biggest signal. So, again, it's not that quantity. doesn't matter. You do have to get. sufficient amounts of sleep. But. quality, as much as quantity, should be.

paid attention to and I haven't said. that enough. The next is where we came to in our sort. of three things that I was saying. The. first is digital detox. Then the next. thing I said is regularity. This is somewhere where I've also. changed my mind on. I've doubled down on. regularity. There was a study that also. came out of that same data set that I. described. It's called the UK Biobank. data. And now they didn't look at 90,000. individuals, but they looked at 60,000. individuals. And they decided that they were going to.

compare and split them into quartiles. So, the most regular. to the second most regular. to then sort of the third most regular. and then the final was those who were. the least regular. And what does regular. mean in this context? >> Good question. Highly regular. individuals plus or minus 15 minutes in. terms of going to bed and waking up at. the same time. In other words, a total. wiggle room of 30 minutes. Oh, okay. So, if I'm always going to bed at 9:00 p.m. and I do that 5 days in a row, I'm. regular timing really. >> So so it's it's regularity in terms of.

when you're going to bed and waking up. So, it's you're right, it's timing in a. way, but I'll come on to why there is a. separate key for timing in just a. second, but regularity here was okay, plus or minus. So, let's say you go to. bed at 8:45 p.m. one night and then 9:00. and then 9:10 p.m. and then you're back. to 8:00. That's beautiful tight timing. I like that. Whereas the those people. who were least regular, they were 90 to. 120 minutes disparate. They were going.

to bed, let's say, at 11:00 one night. then 1:00 a.m. the next night then they. were going to bed at 10:30 p.m. and then. they were going to bed at 12:30. They. were all over the map. So, what they. found was that those people who were. most regular versus least regular, they. sort of compared the extremes of these. two, those people who were most regular had a. 49%. relative decrease in all-cause. mortality. So, they were 49% less likely. to prematurely die than those people who.

were least likely to die. They had a 39%. cancer mortality risk reduction. Great. They had a 57%. cardiometabolic. disease risk reduction. So, that was stunning that regularity. was incredibly powerful as a predictive. signal of your different forms of. mortality. That wasn't the best part of the paper, though. They'd also measured quantity as well as. regularity in these same individuals.

So, then they decided to say, "Well, I'm. going to take our measure of quantity. and regularity and we're going to put. them both in the same statistical bucket. and do a Coke-Pepsi challenge to see. which one wins out in terms of. predicting all-cause mortality." We all. bet in the sleep field, at least I did, it was going to be quantity. I was. wrong. Regularity beat out quantity in. predicting all-cause mortality and by. quite some margin. Now, that doesn't. mean that you can now go away and say,

"I'm going to start sleeping 4 hours, but incredibly consistent 4 hours." You. need both quantity and quality, but. goodness does regularity seem to carry a. massive signal. So, the coming back to. those three things, I would say digital. detox, just go to bed and wake up at the. same time. And the final thing is light. In this. modern world, we are a dark-deprived. society. We get what I call junk light at night. So, you've heard of junk DNA? Well, we. get junk light at night.

We don't need all of this light and it. fools our brain into thinking it's still. daytime outside. So, no wonder as a. society, we have some struggles with. sleep at night. Now, that's due to many. reasons, stress, too much caffeine, alcohol, THC, but excessive light is one. of the easiest things that you can do. So, for the next 7 days, just do me this experiment, if you can, set an alarm 1 hour before your normal. bedtime. When that alarm goes off, turn.

off and I I do this myself, turn off. almost all of the lights in your house. When you say all of the lights, do you. mean the little red light on my smoke. alarm or No, that's fine. But, you know, so my wife and I, 1 hour before bed, almost all the lights. We've got sort of. this little set of this sort of light. that goes around the television, the. back of the television, so it kind of. looks like the television's cool and. illuminated. I will set that down to about 5%. of brightness. and all of the rest of the lights out.

So, you can kind of just still see some. illumination, so I'm not sort of, you. know, looking desperately uncool in. in front of it when I'm tripping over. things cuz it's complete black, you. know. Then start cooling the house or. the room as best you can to around about. 67-68°. Fahrenheit or about 18° Celsius. We can. speak about temperature, but just do. this experiment for the next 7 days. 1. hour before bed, the alarm goes off, you. switch off all of the lights. and ask the following question, do you. feel sleepier? Is it soporific? Does it.

make you feel more sleepy. as a result? But don't stop there. What. you've gone and done is the first. positive experiment, which is you've. gone from the no intervention, lights. are on, to then the Matt's intervention, which is now the lights are off for 1. hour before bed. Don't just ask, "Is my. sleep better when the lights were out. for 1 hour before bed?" Once that 7-day. period has finished, go back to doing. what you were doing before, which is.

keep all of the lights on and ask. yourself, "Did my sleep get better when. I did the intervention and did my sleep. go back to being worse when I stopped?". Because I'm trying to teach you. bidirectionality in the experiment. Does. that make some sense? Yeah, so you get. to. get to basically do an AB test. Correct. You get to see both sides of the. equation and with that, it's more proof. positive than just one direction alone. cuz who knows, it could just be a. placebo effect. So, regularity, coming back to it, is. critical. So, we've talked spoken about.

QQR, quantity, quality, regularity. On. the. um. regularity. >> regularity point, why? What's going on. in our brain that's making it from a. hormonal perspective or other that's. making it important for us to sleep at. the same time? It's a bloody great. question. People don't respond to rules, they respond to reasons not rules. So, let me try and explain the reason behind. the sort of the rule. When it comes to. regularity, we have something called a. circadian rhythm that we've spoken.

about. And there's a clock that sits. inside of your brain, deep in the middle. of the brain. So, we have, it just turns out, a brain here. Lovely. Okay. So, we've got one of these hemispheres here. and then I'm just going to take out what. we call the subcortical sections. So, these are the areas that are below the. subcortex. So, here is the brain. So, this is the front of the brain, the back. of the brain, top of the brain, and. here's the brain stem. And it turns out. that right in the middle of the brain,

right here, is an area called the. hypothalamus. Now, here, this structure here, this is. the thalamus. This is the sensory gate. of your brain. So, all of your five. senses, sound, touch, taste, smell, they. all flood into this gate called the. thalamus. And then the thalamus will. decide whether it sends those sensory. signals up to your cortex. And when it. sends the signals up to your cortex, you. start processing them and you become. consciously aware of the external world. Now, as we're falling asleep, just as an.

aside, what's interesting is that this. gate, the sensory gate, the thalamus, once we start to fall asleep, the gate. will close shut. Now, your eyes are technically still. seeing, your ears are still hearing, your tongue is still tasting. But because the gate of the thalamus, the sensory gate, closes shut, those. signals that are coming into your brain. are no longer sent up to your cortex, so. you stop perceiving the outside world, which is just simply a different way of. saying you've fallen asleep.

Now, the hypothalamus, you've heard of. hypo sort of hypertension or sort of, you know, hypothermia, that means lower. So, here's the thalamus. This area here. is called the hypothalamus. And it's a tiny structure, but within. that structure contains a nucleus. And. that group of cells, the nucleus, has a. fancy term and it's called the. suprachiasmatic nucleus. But the. suprachiasmatic nucleus is your master. 24-hour clock.

Every cell in your body has a clock. inside of it. But this is the master clock. It's like. Lord of the Rings, there's one ring to. rule them all. Well, there's one clock. to rule them all. And here, in the suprachiasmatic. nucleus, you get the 24-hour rhythm of. being awake and being asleep, being. awake and being asleep. How does your. brain keep quartz-like precision 24-hour. clock time? How does it do that?

The way it does that is that it uses. signals such as light and dark. >> From your eyes? From your eye. And so, when light comes through the. retina, it tells the hypothalamus it's daytime. and therefore you should be awake. And. its rhythm starts its awesome sort of. upswing. And temperature can do this, and feeding can do this, all sorts of. different things. But for the most part, light is the principal governor that. essentially acts like electrical, I. should say, photon fingers that pops the.

wristwatch dial out and resets it. precisely to 24 hours every single day. Because if you're left in the dark with. no signals of light, your clock isn't. precise. It drifts to about 24 hours and. 15 minutes, so you start going forward a. little bit every single day. If you go. into a cave, and people have done this. experiment. The thing that keeps it. precise is light. So, you need light to keep a beautiful. 24-hour rhythm. One of those things that's under the. control of your 24-hour rhythm is your.

sleep-wake cycle. What if I'm doing. exercise? Exercise is a wonderful. entrainer of your circadian rhythm, as. long as you're doing it at the right. time. So, if you're starting to exercise at. 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, that's not good, because that's an. activity signal that's going to confuse. the brain into thinking it's the active. period, which is normally, because we're. a diurnal species, the day. And it's the same thing, coming back to. my point of regularity, using light as the best way to help with.

that regularity, because light, if it's artificial at night, fools your. brain into thinking that it's daytime. still outside. I mean, is there any such. thing as non-artificial light? I mean, I. guess with the sun, but I mean, is there. a type of light that I could use at. night, like candles or something? Or. Yes, below 30 lux Right. >> is not going to necessarily do you a. disservice. Probably below 50 lux. Now, lux, l u x, is just a measure of light. intensity. And you can download on the.

App Store a free lux meter. And if. you're an idiot nerd like me, you're. going all over the house at night and. you're sort of putting it in different. locations. You're seeing, "God, God, is. there any kind of white spots here. where, you know, the lux is too high?". But you need to drop that that lux. By. the way, it's a great way, if people. want to say, "Look, my REM sleep is. deficient. How can I get more REM. sleep?" There was a great study where. they did something similar to what I'm. telling you now. 90 minutes before bed, they turned down. the lights to below 30 lux and they.

pulled out all of the blue light. And just that trick of dropping the. lights down 90 minutes before bed, below. 30 lux, making it warm, yellow light, increased their REM sleep by 18%. Wow. It's a huge margin. So, no need for. pharmacology. But to your question, why. is regularity. important? Well, I told you that light. is one of the signals that can create. regularity. It turns out that your.

behavior. is another thing that will tell your. brain. So, meaning, when you go to bed. and wake up at the same time, it acts like an anchor. It anchors your. circadian rhythm and it tells you, almost like a scene in a movie, this. scene is now complete, a new scene. starts. This scene is complete, a new. scene starts. So, every time that you're. going to bed at the same time and waking. up at the same time, you are feeding the. suprachiasmatic nucleus, the master.

24-hour clock in your brain. You're. feeding it signals of regularity. And when it feeds on signals of. regularity, it improves the quantity and. the quality of your sleep. Your circadian rhythm likes consistency. It likes regular signals. When you feed. it signals of light, of activity, of. waking up, going to bed, you improve the quantity and the quality. of your sleep. That's the reason behind. the underlying rule. So, having a TV in.

your bedroom is a terrible idea then, because if. on that behavioral point, if I'm getting. in bed, but then I'm staying up for 3. hours watching Netflix, my brain is. going to be quite confused about like. the behavioral pattern of what what I'm. doing in my life. It's not going to associate the bed with. sleep, it's going to associate the bed. with movies. That's one of the problems. that we call it's called conditioned. arousal, which sounds a lot more. salacious than it actually is. It's a. term that we use in sleep medicine, which may explain insomnia. So, with.

insomnia, let's say that the first time. you go to this thing called the dentist. and you get in the chair and it's kind. of cool, you're reclined back and, you. know, you think this is fine. But then, after about 14 or 15 visits, when you get into that chair, you are no. longer looking forward to getting into. that chair, are you? Why? Because you've. learned the association that being in. that chair typically leads to a bad. outcome. >> [laughter]. >> Now, the same thing is true with the.

bed. If you start associating the bed. with anything other than sleep, and we. give you a pass in terms of sex, sleep and sex, anything other than that, you start to learn that this thing. called my bed is this place where I'm. awake, where I work, where I eat, where. we have conversations, where I watch. television. And so, you know, if I were. to and I'm going to I'm stealing Michael. Grandner's point, but if I were to say. to you, "Bed, sleep, bed, sleep, bed, sleep, bed, sleep, bed,

sleep." Okay, if I were to say, "Bed, scroll, bed, eat, bed, work, bed, sleep, bed, TV, bed.". You've confused. Yeah. Because there's. no predictive signal. You've never bound. an association. Now, the way this works. to your disadvantage in insomnia is the. following. The insomnia event that begins the. insomnia is typically not the thing that. maintains the insomnia. So, let's say. that I.

um had I experienced a really difficult. bereavement. and that triggered a form of insomnia. where I couldn't sleep because of the. bereavement. Gradually, the bereavement. is not the thing that's going to. maintain my insomnia. It's because every. time I have been going to bed over the. past month, I have not been sleeping. I've been wide. awake in my bed. So, now, because your. brain is such an incredibly associative. device, it learns the association that. my bed is the place where I'm always.

awake. And what do we then do? We need to break. that association in insomnia. So, what. we do is we say the 20-minute rule. If. you've been in bed for about 20 minutes. and it's just not happening for you, don't worry. Don't listen to idiots like. me that doom and gloom and disease and. sickness and one bad night is not going. to be a problem. It's just not. So, just. say, "Look, tonight is not my night. I. am not, however, going to lie in bed. awake, because very quickly my brain. starts to learn the association that my. bed is the place where I'm wide awake.".

And you need to break that association, so go to a different room in dim light, just read a book, listen to a podcast, whatever it is. And the rule of thumb is. the following. Only return to bed when. you are sleepy. And so, there's no time limit. And that. way, you gradually relearn the. association that my bed is the place. where I always get consistent sleep, because otherwise, it's the dentist's. chair. You walk into your bedroom. and you look at your bed and it's your. nemesis. And you convince yourself, even.

before you get into bed, "I'm not going. to sleep, because that's the place where. I always don't sleep." And by the way, if you suffer from the 3:00 a.m. awakenings, my first question is, "How. do you know it's 3:00 a.m.?". And that's your first problem. Looking. at the clock does two things. It makes. you more anxious. Yeah. And second, because your brain is such an incredibly. associative device, you start to then decide that 3:00 a.m. is the time when I need to wake up. If. you keep looking at the clock, you keep.

reinforcing that 3:00 or 4:00. And sleep. at 3:00 in the morning is like trying to. remember someone's name. The harder you. try, the further you push sleep away. Sleep. is something that happens to you. It's. not something that you make happen. And so, at that moment, the best advice, if you don't want to get out of bed, is. do any one of the following. Meditation. Just do a guided meditation. You can. download apps. Next, if it that's not. your thing, that's okay. Do box.

breathing. You know, you can sort of. inhale for five, hold for six, exhale. for seven. There's all sorts of. different numbers, but you can do. breathing exercises. The third, if you. don't like that, is a body scan. So, close your eyes, start at the top of. your head, feel as you know, do I have. tension in my forehead? Do I need to. relax it? What about my neck? Do I need. to move through your body and gradually. go down? How are my shoulder blades. feeling? I just relax down into the bed. And gradually down into the chest, into. the. move through and just relax.

If none of those things feel fun, the. next thing you can do is take yourself. on a mental walk. There's a great study. from my university at the University of. Berkeley, California. And we didn't do the study, Alison. Harvey did it. By the way, counting. sheep, bad idea. Makes your sleep worse. It. turns out. Why is that? Because well, with every kind of little bleating. cotton wool ball with a strange look on. its face that leaps over the fence that. you're counting, you're reinforcing. every minute of sleep that you're not.

getting, and it seems to make matters. worse. But what she found was that. there's an alternative. If you think. about a walk that you know in great. vivid detail. So, for me, it's going to. be walking the dog. So, I go over to the. shelf, I open the door, is it the red. lead or the I'm going to go with the. blue lead today. So, I clip the dog in. with my right hand, I open the door with. my left hand, I take a left down the. stairs, I look It's that level of I want. you 4K detail. in terms of granularity. And what's common about every method. I've just described, meditation, box.

breathing, sort of body scan, going on a mental. walk, all of these things have in common. that you get your mind off itself. In that particular example, where she. asks you to vividly think about a. journey that you know, what did she find. in the study? What she found is that. that increases the speed with which you. fall back asleep Uh-huh. significantly. Because, as I said, it it's so, you. know, her work to me demonstrated that.

it it is so like that name, because. the moment I stop trying to remember. someone's name, what happens? You remember. I remember it. And so, when you do these types of. exercises where you're getting the mind. off itself, the next thing that you typically. remember. is your alarm clock going off in the. morning. Is this why people listen to very vivid. sleep stories, and why I listen to. serial killer documentaries?

Serial killer documentaries, true crime documentaries, I should say. That's a bit more. uh nice to palate. I don't know of them. My suspicion is. that they may be doing your deep sleep a. disservice. Anything Stick up for me in. the comments. >> [laughter]. >> If you listen to true crime to fall. asleep, please write it below in the. comment section. If you find it. subjectively wonderfully pacifying. and calming, and there is not death, I know I'm being.

>> maiming, blood, and limbs being. distributed at high velocity all over. the scene, I would say it's great. But. if it looks like a Quentin Tarantino. movie or sounds like one, may be harm and foul, rather than. helpful. >> just in my ears. >> But yes, so, you know, we forget that, to the best of my. knowledge, the meditation company called. Calm, now I have no affiliation with. them. They were doing somewhat well, but what they realized is that they. wanted people to sort of meditate in the.

morning. When they used looked at their. usage statistics, people were meditating. in the morning, but then there was a. huge swath of usage right before bed. People were self-medicating their state. of insomnia. And then, through a stroke. of genius, they realized, when we were young, we used to love. falling asleep to our parents reading us. a story. Why is that any different when we become. adults? So, they created sleep stories, and they went from struggling as a. company, I think, to becoming the first, or one of the first, billion-dollar.

valuation health companies out there. They became a unicorn. And now they can they've got, you know, people like, you know, Matthew. McConaughey, they've got Harry Styles, and then occasionally they've got a. you know, an unfortunate British sleep. scientist with a bad voice, but you can. listen to these sleep stories, and they. are wonderfully soporific. Why? Because. they get your mind off itself. We we talked earlier on about melatonin, and there are other supplements which. people talk a lot about. One of the ones. that's become really popular.

is magnesium. I've heard ashwagandha, and I've heard magnesium a lot. Yeah. Is. there any efficacy to these? Are these. Are these useful? The first thing I would say is that if. you're suffering from sleep problems, and you're looking to supplements, you're stepping over dollars to pick up. pennies. Okay. What you need to do is think about the. fundamentals. Regularity. Watch your caffeine intake. Make sure you're not drinking too much. alcohol. Get regular, dim down half the lights, digital detox. Any one of those, but.

especially all of them combined, are. going to get you log orders of better. sleep than reaching for the. latest supplement bottle of whatever it. is. The second thing to say is, think. about it from a logical standpoint. If. there were really some supplement that. promises to be the Shangri-La of all. resplendent sleep at night, the drug. companies would have been all over it. decades ago. To put in context, it took George Lucas, I think, about 30 years to amass.

something like 4 billion in revenue from. the Star Wars franchise. It took Ambien. 22 months. That's how big a business sleep pharma. is. Ambien's what? A sleep pill? Ambien. is a sleep pill. Magnesium, if you dig into it, and I I. did a deep dive about 3 years ago, because I I kept hearing it, too, this. magnesium, magnesium. The first thing to. note is that most forms of magnesium, magnesium oxy oxide or magnesium. citrate, most of these forms of. magnesium.

don't cross the blood-brain barrier. And sleep is produced by your brain. So, how can something that doesn't get into. your brain affect. brain process number one? There is one. form of magnesium that seems to have. some evidence in favor of it. It's. called magnesium L- threo nate. But if. you look at the literature, where did. this story come from? It turns out that about 30 years ago, they started looking at people who had. disrupted sleep, and they would assess. their blood work. And what they found is.

that some of those people were magnesium. deficient. And when they supplemented them with. magnesium, and they became magnesium. normative, their sleep got better. But that's very different than saying, look, you and I were currently magnesium. normative, and then dosing myself with high volumes. of magnesium, am I imagining that that's. going to make my sleep better? The The. analogy would be, let's say I develop. this incredible new oxygen saturation.

machine, and you say to me, well, but Matt, my. blood oxygen saturation right now, looking at my device, tells me it's. 98.6%. It doesn't matter how fancy or good my. machine is, I'm not going to get you. past 100%. You're already at ceiling. level. Mhm. And that's the problem with. magnesium supplementation. If you're. magnesium normative, all you're doing is. creating probably expensive urine. at that moment in time. Now, there may be an indirect benefit of. magnesium.

in that it does seem to relax muscles. And when the body is in a state of. relaxation, it sends a signal of. relaxation back up a branch of nerves. called the vagus nerve that goes up to. the brain and signals to your brain. you're starting to relax down, and you. get the state of quiescence. And that's. very helpful for sleep. So, magnesium. may still have an indirect benefit on. sleep through its relaxation kind of. policy that it instantiates in the body.

But overall, magnesium. is not really moving the needle, if you. look at the studies. Ashwagandha. is different. Ashwagandha and another. compound called phosphatidylserine. Phosphatidylserine. and ashwagandha, both of these. supplements seem to help do one of two. things. They either ratchet down the. fight-or-flight branch of your nervous. system, and they can also reduce the. amount of cortisol that the body is.

releasing. That's important, because. I see a lot of people coming to the. sleep center where I'm at, and they have. what I call the tired but wired. phenomenon, where they come to me and. they say, I am so tired. I am so so. tired, but I'm just so wired emotionally. and from a nervous perspective that I. can't fall asleep. And let's say that. you've done let's say, you know, an. on-stage event, and it's incredible. You've got that on-stage buzz, you come. off stage at 11:00 p.m., and normally. you'd be fast asleep, but you know you.

are so wired, it doesn't matter. You are. tired as tired as can be, but you're so. wired, you can't fall asleep. That's the. fight-or-flight branch being switched. on, and you just can't fall asleep. You. need to push it back off. Phosphatidylserine and ashwagandha will. both push you back over into the more. quiescent, what we call parasympathetic. nervous system branch. That's good. However, they also will reduce cortisol, and. cortisol is a wake promoting hormone.

Cortisol is fine. We it gets a bad rap. You need to have your cortisol start to. spike a few hours before bed and it. helps with the waking up process. It's. wonderful. Every day we have a cortisol. spike that starts happening before we. wake up. It's one of the things that. helps us wake up and then it builds us. to this beautiful crescendo mid morning. Where you should be awakened. not needing caffeine. And it drops. before bed. And then it starts to peak. in a sort of middle early afternoon and.

in fact usually peaks at late morning. hours I should say and then it will. start its awesome sort of down swing. And what you see is that right before. you go to bed cortisol should hit its. lowest point, what we call its nadir, its lowest trough. Mhm. What's. [clears throat] interesting by the way. just as an aside is that insomnia we can. classify usually as at least one of two. different types. There's actually. multiple but let's just say there are. of those multiple there are two types. One is called sleep onset insomnia, I.

can't fall asleep. The other is sleep. maintenance insomnia, I can't stay. asleep. When they've looked at people's cortisol. on a 30 minute by 30 minute basis on the. 24 hour clock face, we go through just. what we described. Just before we wake. up we get this rising cortisol, it peaks. late morning and then it drops down and. right before bed our cortisol is almost. at its lowest point. With insomnia patients they show exactly. the same thing, a beautiful rise.

in the late morning hours. It starts to. come down but then you see two. anomalies. Right before bed it goes back up. And then in the middle of the night even. when it's starting to rise it will have. this abnormal spike right in the middle. of the night too. And what we believe is that that may in. part explain sleep onset insomnia. Cortisol should be coming down and. should stay low right before we go to. bed but then it jumps back up in. insomnia patients. I can't fall asleep.

And then it continues to stay low. throughout the first half of the night. but then it also spikes in insomnia. patients. I can't stay asleep. I've had so many founders speak to me. and say, "Why didn't this particular ad. that I ran on this platform work for. me?" Maybe the copy wasn't good, the. creative wasn't strong but usually the. problem is they're not having the right. conversation because that ad never. reached the right person. And if you're. in B2B marketing, that is much of the. game and this is where LinkedIn ads. solves that problem for you. Their. targeting is ridiculously specific. You.

can target by job title, seniority, company size, industry and even. someone's skill set. And then network. includes over a billion professionals. About 130 million of them are decision. makers. So when you use LinkedIn ads. you're putting your brand in front of. the right people. And LinkedIn ads also. drive the highest B2B return on ad spend. across all ad networks in my experience. If you want to give them a try head over. to linkedin.com/diary. and when you spend $250 on your first.

LinkedIn ads campaign you'll get an. extra $250 credit from me for the next. one. That's linkedin.com/diary. Terms and conditions apply. We were talking about regularity, timing. and all these things and quality and. quantity. But one of the things I learned from. your work is that that last hour is. potentially the most important hour of. me being in bed. And I I say this in. part because my my girlfriend she would. wake she'd have about six six hours six. and a half hours sleep. She sleeps very.

very well, perfect sleeper. But she'd. always get up really really really. early. And. in part that was because of the the. guilt that I talked about. But I had a. conversation with her about the guilt. and I said, "Just stay in bed as long as. you need to stay in bed. Like just have. that extra eighth hour." And in part. that's because I learned that. the further we go in sleep, the more REM. we're getting. Yeah. Okay, can you. explain that to me with these four. blocks? Why that last hour is. particularly important and why we. shouldn't be jumping out of bed or why. we should be using certain sleep devices.

to wake us up when we're at the end of. that last hour of REM. Absolutely. So. here we have the four blocks of sleep. So when we first fall asleep we go into. light non rapid eye movement sleep stage. one. This is the stage of sleep that if. I wake you up out of it you say, "I. wasn't sleeping." Mhm. Now you it's just. that you're just in that transitional. phase, this beautiful liminal state. between the windows of wakefulness and. true sleep. So this is your bridge.

between the waking world and the sleep. world and it doesn't last for very long, maybe just 10 or 15 minutes at tops. Then you get into the workhorse of. sleep. This is stage two non REM sleep. 50% of your night is spent in stage two. non REM sleep. I don't like the word. light non REM sleep. I've often used it. but it's not really it's we do a lot of. cognitive processing in stage two non. REM sleep. It's good stuff. It's not. just the stage that you have to go. through from sort of you know deep non.

REM sleep to go back to stage two in. order for you to get to REM but I'll. come to that. So we have fallen asleep. 10 minutes. >> Yeah. Now we're in stage two non REM sleep. We'll stay there for about 15 or 20. minutes. Then if it's [clears throat] in. the first couple of hours of the night. we go down into the very deepest stages. of deep non REM sleep. This is where the. brain wave patterns slow down. but the brain waves become incredibly. big. Huge big powerful slow brain waves.

This is where you get an enormous amount. of restoration recovery of many of your. major physiological systems. So physical recovery. Physical recovery. but mental too. Yeah. It's during deep sleep that you take. newly minted memories that you've. learned and you hit the save button on. those memories so that you don't forget. Deep sleep essentially is going to. future proof the information that you. just learned today. It transfers information from a short.

term storage vulnerable reservoir to a. more permanent long term storage site. It's during deep non REM sleep when we. have this communication. So think of. those deep powerful slow brain waves. like long wave radio station when you. used to tune into a radio station in the. car. You get huge ability for information. transfer across long distances across. huge paths in the brain. It's amazing. So we've gone from light non REM. Then. we go down into deep non REM. We'll stay. there for about 15 or 20 minutes. Then.

we'll start to rise back up again. We'll. go back into stage two non REM sleep. Wait, we've gone from one two three to. two. Yes. So we've gone Think about it. more. almost like a roller coaster ride. So we. go from light non REM. and then we go down into stage two non. REM. Then we go down into deep sleep and. then we're going to rise back up into. light stage two non REM sleep. We're. going to stay there and after about 70. 80 minutes you're going to pop up.

and you'll have a short REM sleep. period. Oh okay, like this. >> And this is beautiful. So this is what. we call a hypnogram. I'll put this on. the screen for anyone. Lovely. So what. I'm describing here is this roller. coaster ride. So we've fallen asleep, light stage one non REM. Go down into. stage two. Then you go down and you have. a heavy period of deep non REM slow wave. sleep stage three. And then and that's what you see on your. sleep tracker is deep sleep. This is. light sleep. This is deep sleep. Stage.

two non REM sleep, light sleep, stage. three non REM sleep, deep sleep. But. then you'll start to climb back up and. then [clears throat] you may pop up and. you'll have a short REM sleep period. here after about 70 or 80 minutes. So. you'll have about 10 minutes of REM. sleep. and then back down you go again. You go. down into non REM sleep and then up into. REM. Down into non REM sleep and you'll. go up into REM. Down into non REM sleep. and up into REM. So what's interesting however is that. the ratio of non REM to REM changes. Now.

there's a myth out there and it's a bit. of a problem. We humans have a 90 minute average non. REM to REM cycle. So we go down into non. REM sleep and then up into REM sleep. every 90 minutes. Then we go back down. into non REM sleep and then up into REM. sleep. So we go down into non REM sleep. and then up into REM in this 90 minute. cycle. The problem is that. it's on average 90 minutes. It ranges. from 70 minutes to up to 120 minutes.

from one individual to the next. So you. know these devices that you may have. seen tried to sort of you know. entrepreneurship, they say, "I'm going. to wake you up at the ideal moment in. your 90 minute cycle so that this thing. that sits on my bedside I tap it when. I'm the lights go out and then it's. going to go on its 90 minute cycle and. it's going to figure out the perfect. moment to wake you up." It's nonsense. Because my sleep cycle may be 75. minutes, yours may be 105 minutes. It's. got no idea cuz it's using a hard coded.

90 minute cycle. It's it's in some ways. nonsense. But we go down into non REM sleep and up. into REM sleep every 90 minutes. What. changes however is the ratio of non REM. to REM within those 90 minute cycles as. you move across the night such that in. the first half of the night the majority. of those 90 minute cycles are comprised. of lots of deep non REM sleep and very. little REM sleep. But as you push. through to the second half of the night,

now that seesaw balance shifts over and. you spend much more of your time in REM. sleep in the second half of the night. and particularly just as you said in the. last two hours of the night. Why is this. consequential? Well, just as you said. and you spoke about for your girlfriend, let's say that you know I normally go to. bed for argument's sake and I'm not. saying this is the ideal time but I go. to bed at midnight to make the math. easy, and I wake up at 8:00. But. tomorrow, I've got to catch my flight. back home. So, I'm going to wake up 2. hours early. So, I'm going to wake up at. 6:00 rather than 8:00. I've lost 2 hours.

of sleep. So, how much total sleep have. I lost? Well, I've lost 25% of my total. sleep, 2 hours of my 8 hours, 25%. Well, yes and no. I've lost 25% of my total. sleep, but I may have lost. 50, 60, 70% of all of my REM sleep. Why? Because REM sleep comes in the second. half of the particularly those last. couple of hours of sleep. So, that's why. it's not just academic that you. understand the sleep cycle relationship, but it's also pragmatic because it can.

impact the amount In fact, the easiest. way, if people said, "How can I get more. REM sleep?". I would say, "Just sleep 15 minutes. later into the day than you normally. would do, and you will. disproportionately bias yourself towards. getting significantly more REM sleep.". And why does REM sleep matter? REM sleep is a brain state, firstly, that is incredibly active. In some In. fact, some parts of the brain, particularly if I were to show you these. deep emotional centers of the brain, as. I pull this brain apart,

so, we've got these sort of deep. emotional centers in the brain that sit. and in fact, they sort of they're more. just underneath in here tucked in inside. just next to your brain stem at the top. of it. And these emotional centers are. called the amygdala, and you have one on. the left and one on the right side of. your brain. That part of the brain, together with a memory structure that. runs alongside it called the. hippocampus, those two parts of the. brain form what we call the limbic. system. And you may have heard of the. limbic system, so the emotional centers.

of the brain. Those can be up to 40%. more active when you're in dream sleep. than when you're awake. Dream sleep? Dream sleep is rapid eye movement sleep. >> REM sleep? So, REM sleep is the stage. now It depends on how you define. dreaming. If you define dreaming as any mental. activity reported upon awakening, then. you dream in all stages of sleep, light. non-REM sleep, deep REM sleep. So, what. would What would that sound like? Well, if I woke you up and said, "Steven, just. tell me what was going through your. head?" And you said, "Well, I was just. thinking about the next time you're. going to come in and wake me up." That's.

just a dream thought. What Most people think of dreams as the. dreams that we have from REM sleep, from. rapid eye movement sleep. That's why we. call it dream sleep. Dreams from rapid. eye movement sleep are florid, they're. narrative. In fact, last night when you. fell asleep and you went into dream. sleep, you became. incredibly psychotic. Excuse me. Now, before you reject my diagnosis of. your nighttime psychosis, let me give. you five good reasons. When you went.

into dream sleep last night, you started. to see things which were not there. So, you were hallucinating. Second, you. believed things that couldn't possibly. be true. So, you were delusional. Third, you became confused about time, place, and person. So, in psychiatry, we. call that being disorientated. Fourth, you had wildly fluctuating. emotions. Something that we call being emotionally. labile. You're all over the place. And then, how wonderful, you and I, cuz.

I'll include myself now as being. psychotic, you and I, we both woke up. this morning and we forgot most if not. all of that dream experience. So, we're. suffering from amnesia. If you were to experience any one of. those five symptoms whilst you're awake, you'd be seeking some degree of. psychological help. But for reasons that. we're only now understanding, it seems. to be a normal biological and. psychological process. So, what are the. reasons? Why do we dream? We dream for. at least two different reasons. The. first reason is emotional first aid.

REM sleep is what I've defined as. overnight therapy. And it's during dream sleep where your. brain takes difficult, painful emotional. experiences, and it acts like a nocturnal soothing. balm, and it just takes the sharp edges. off those difficult, painful. experiences, so that you come back the. next day and you have a memory of an. emotional event, but it's no longer. emotion You don't have that same. visceral regurgitation of of that same. emotional charge.

Why is REM sleep able to do this. overnight therapy, this deep. potentiation? Why is REM sleep able to. sort of strip the bitter emotional rind. from the informational orange, as it. were? The reason is the following. Dream sleep, REM sleep, is the only time. during the 24-hour period where the. brain shuts off a stress-related. neurochemical called noradrenaline. Now, you've heard of the cystic chemical. downstairs in your body called.

adrenaline. Well, upstairs in the brain, we don't have adrenaline, we have. noradrenaline. REM sleep is the only time. where it's completely shut off. And what we put forward as a theory. called overnight therapy where your. brain. has, as I told you, these emotional. centers and these memory centers, the. emotional centers, the amygdala, the. memory centers, the hippocampus. You reactivate those structures when you. go into dream sleep. So, your brain gets the chance to. reactivate and replay and reprocess. emotional experiences. However,

it's doing it in a {quote} and {quote}. safe neurochemical environment because. that stress chemical of noradrenaline is. completely shut off. So, it's the ideal. neurochemical therapy. for stripping the emotion from the. memory. And we put forward a theory that perhaps. the quintessential disorder where this. fails. is PTSD. Because when you speak to those. patients, not only do we see that their. REM sleep is disrupted, when you speak to those patients, they.

will say, "Look, I just can't {quote}. and {quote} get over the event." What. they mean by that is. the war veteran who's now going to the. supermarket and they come outside and. they're in the car park and the car. backfires and they instantly have the. flashback to the the sort of detonation. on the military field. And what's happening there is that the. brain has not stripped the emotion from. the memory. So, every time they relive. the memory, they regurgitate that same.

emotional reaction. Mhm. So, no wonder. we proposed that the brain then comes. back the following night and says, "Look, I'm sorry, sleep. I still got. this trauma memory. Can you do your. trick of stripping the emotion from the. memory?" And it fails again. So, in the. next night, it comes back and says, "I'm. sorry. to bother you, but I've still got this. emotionally charged memory. Please do. your trick of stripping the emotion from. memory." It fails again. This sounds. like the broken record of repetitive. nightmares that we see in PTSD.

Why could this be happening? Levels of. noradrenaline in the brain in patients. with PTSD are too high. And I was at a conference some years ago. where I was presenting this theory. We. just presented this theory. It was a. theory, and it was in search of data. And it turns out at the same conference, it was one of those incredible moments. you get hairs on the back of your neck. There was a psychiatrist from Puget. Sound, which is just outside of Seattle. on the West Coast of America, and he had been treating his war. veterans in the Veterans Administration.

with a blood pressure medication called. prazosin. Now, it turns out that prazosin, it's a. generic drug because it's the Veterans. Administration, so it's cheap, and it. crosses the blood-brain barrier. When prazosin gets into the brain, one. of the things that it does is shut down. levels of noradrenaline. Why was this. interesting? What he was perplexed by is. that he was saying, "I'm giving this. blood pressure medication to my war. veterans with PTSD. It's not helping too much with their. blood pressure, but they're all coming.

back saying, 'All of those repetitive. nightmares, they're starting to go away, and I'm sleeping better and I'm feeling. better.'". What he had done was inadvertently. treated their high levels of. noradrenaline, which were preventing the. brain from kind of stop dropping those. levels of noradrenaline down and. processing the emotion from the memory. It was too high in those PTSD PTSD. patients, but by treating them with this. drug, he'd inadvertently brought the. levels of noradrenaline down during REM.

sleep. And then, it ultimately became one of. the only prescribed medications in the. Veterans Administration for repetitive. nightmares. Because why? The brain had finally got. down into a {quote} and {quote} safe. chemical state because noradrenaline was. too high, but he treated them with this. drug. So, he had data that was in search. of a theory. I had a theory that was in. search of clinical data, and so, I raced. to him after he gave his presentation. I.

said, "I think I know why you're finding. what you're finding." I flew him down to. Berkeley. We spent all day together, went out for dinner together, and as I. said, ultimately, he went on to do. clinical trials in it. It's not a. cure-all for everyone, by the way. It. doesn't work for everyone. But And I would say that there is now a. better treatment for nightmares if. you're suffering from nightmares, and it's called image rehearsal therapy, or IRT. And it works through an incredible. mechanism of memory that we actually had.

discovered about, gosh, 20 years ago. now, called memory reconsolidation. So, when you learn information, it would. be Oh, let's take a Word document. Wouldn't it be staffed if you opened up. a Word document, you started typing in, you know, all this information, you hit. save, and then you come back tomorrow, and you double-click on the document, and Word has shut you out. You can't. edit the document. That's a really bad. information storage system. It's a bad. idea. Your human memories are just like this.

You form new memories, then you sleep. and you save them. But when you come back and you. reactivate that memory, when you recall. a memory, you bring it back into this opened-up. state. It's like double-clicking on the. memory, and the memory becomes fragile. and malleable once again, so you can. update and edit that memory. And then. the next night you resave it. It's. called reconsolidation. So, the first. night I save it, that's consolidation. Then I reactivate it, I modify it, and.

then the next night I reconsolidate it. So, coming back to nightmares, it turns. out that you can do this with trauma. patients who have nightmares caused by. trauma. For example, let's say that you. got into a horrific road accident, and you went through your brakes failed, you went through the red light, you got. T-boned. It was just traumatic. It's all. traumatic. And what you do with the therapist, because you're having these repetitive. nightmares of reliving that same car. crash every night,

you work with them and you tell them the. dream. You recall the dream actively out. loud. But then, working with a. therapist, what you do is you modify the. outcome. So, instead of me saying the. brakes failed, now in the new scenario. with your therapist, you say, "Well, you. look down and there's a manual handbrake. in the car." So, you realize that you. can actually just gradually start. applying the handbrake, and you bring. the car to a safe halt, and you go to. the side of the road, and there's no. accident. And what you're doing is. you're reopening back up that trauma.

memory, and you're rewriting. the narrative. And then you sleep, and you update that. memory. And by recalling and rewriting. the memory each and every waking day, you end up dissipating the severity of. your trauma nightmare every single. night. And it's called image rehearsal. therapy for nightmares. It's incredibly. powerful. It's probably more powerful. than the prazosin drug that I spoke. about. And I'm guessing.

people don't sleep and also have. nightmares for a variety of reasons. relating to trauma generally. Ah, it's a. good question perhaps, which is in some. ways. what's the difference between a bad. dream and a nightmare? Mhm. >> [clears throat]. >> Because all of us will have bad dreams. Bad dreams are usually things that. happen infrequently. Maybe you have them. once every month, every couple of. months. >> Yeah. The definition of nightmare. disorder is that you have to have these. dreams frequently, maybe at least twice. a week. They have to wake you up.

out of your sleep, and you have vivid. recall. Plus, it has to cause you some kind of. daytime distress, where you're not. feeling good about the day. It's causing. you mental anguish. And furthermore, if. it starts to lead to hopelessness. or a sense that your life is not worth. living, you absolutely need to go and. see someone. And here's what we've. discovered about nightmares.

Short sleep duration, not getting enough. sleep, sleeping less than 6 hours, predicts by about 100 to 150% higher. percentage chance of you having suicidal. thoughts, attempting suicide, or tragically. suicide completion. That's bad sleep. It turns out that nightmares, so if short sleep has a 150% higher. likelihood of suicidality, having nightmares has an 800%.

higher likelihood of suicidal tendencies. associated with it. Now, we don't think. that nightmares are causing suicidal. tendencies. That's not what we believe. We believe, however, that nightmares, much more than. disrupted sleep, nightmares seem to be. the canary in the coal mine. Nightmares. are this distress beacon that leaks from. our electrical static of sleep at night, and it is incredibly sensitive to your.

suicidal tendencies, your suicidal. attempts, and as I said, suicide. completion as well. Nightmares are a biomarker. If you are. having distressing nightmares that are. waking you up, you need to go and speak to someone. about it. It's absolutely paramount, because there are good, effective ways. that you can dissipate those nightmares. I'm trying to understand whether it's a. a malfunction or it's a signal. I guess. it might be both. It's a very good. question, which is is it adaptive or is.

it maladaptive? Is it a good thing to. have a nightmare, or is it a bad thing. to have a nightmare? We don't quite have the answer to that. But let me come back to I told you there. were two functions of dream sleep, and. we're still in the first one, which is. emotional first aid. And it turns out. that your thinking is incredibly astute. We believe that at least normative. dreams, not nightmares. Nightmares may. be the system failing, just as I spoke. about in PTSD with repetitive.

nightmares. In fact, repetitive nightmares are so. consistent in PTSD that you can't. receive a diagnosis of PTSD without. having repetitive nightmares. That's how. sort of diagnostic they are. But. dreaming, normative dreaming, even if. they're bad dreams, is beneficial. How. can I make that claim? There was a study. done by a late sleep scientist, a woman. called Rosalind Cartwright, and she was studying people who'd gone. through a difficult period, let's say. bereavement or a very bitter divorce,

and they had become depressed because of. that experience. And around the time of the experience, she was seeing them as a therapist, and. she was having them do dream recall. So, she was having them create dream diaries. every single night. And then she tracked. these patients for a year. And it turned. out that about roughly half of them, by. 12 months later, had remitted from their. depression. They got better. They'd got. past their depression. The other half. were still depressed. So then, she took.

that data, and she went back with those. two groups, and she said, "Is there. anything different about their dreams?". And it turned out that there was. Both. of those groups of people, whether they. could free of their depression or they. stayed in their depression, both of them. were dreaming at the time. Both of them. were having REM sleep. Both of them were. dreaming. What was the difference then? Those individuals that went on to gain. remission. to their depression and get get better, those people were dreaming of the events.

itself at the time that they were. happening. Whereas those other people. who didn't go on to gain clinical. remission, they were dreaming. They just weren't dreaming of the. experience itself. In other words, it's. not just sufficient to have REM sleep. It's not just sufficient to have REM. sleep and be dreaming. You need to be. dreaming of the difficult, painful. experience that you're going through to. gain that clinical resolution. Damn. So, if I have something going on in my life, I need to think about it before I go to. bed. Yes and no. [laughter].

What you have to realize is that. it's taken us, depending on who you believe, 3.4. million years of evolution to develop. this thing called hominid sleep and. dreaming and REM sleep. I think that. that evolutionary millions of years. probably understands what the correct. blueprint playlist of dream experience. is and should be for me at night. And. therefore, I don't need to worry about.

it. I shouldn't try to force anything. That's the first function of dream. sleep. Is that it's emotional first aid, and we've got good data for that. But there's a second, completely. independent benefit of dreaming. Dreaming is a form of informational. alchemy. Dreaming is creativity. Now, I told you that during deep non-REM. sleep, we take new memories that we've. learned, and we fixate them like amber, sort of setting a fossil in. And we do.

that during deep sleep. That saves the individual pieces of the. new stuff. Then comes along REM sleep, which happens after deep sleep, and the second phase of memory. processing happens. That's where REM. sleep starts to fuse all of the things. that you've recently been learning with. this entire back catalog of information. And so, you wake up with a revised. mind-wide web of associations that is. capable of divining solutions to. previously impenetrable problems.

So, you know, it's almost. it's like group therapy for memories. That REM sleep gathers in all of the. information that you've learned during. the day, and everyone gets a name badge. But unlike the waking, logical. connections that you make already, REM. sleep is like a Google search gone. wrong. That you insert, let's say, diary. of a CEO, and it takes you to page 20. This is dream sleep. Mhm. And it's about. some field hockey game in Utah, and you. think, "Hang on a second, but how on. earth is that?" Well, there was someone.

who had, you know, they'd found a diary. that'd been lost, you know, a long time. ago, and the guy who'd found it was a. famous CEO in the town of this sort of, you know, Utah as he was watching. So, it's a distant, non-obvious connection. But it turns out that that's what. dreaming is all about. It's [snorts]. almost as though we go to sleep with the. pieces of the jigsaw, but by way of. dreaming, we wake up with the puzzle. complete. And when you start to fuse things that. shouldn't should not normally go.

together, but when they do, every now. and again, cause a marked advance in. evolutionary fitness, that is the. biological basis of creativity. It's the. reason that no one has ever told you, "Look, Steven, you should stay awake on. a problem.". They don't. They tell you to sleep on a. problem. And in every language that I've inquired. about to date from, you know, from French to Swahili, that. term, sleeping on a problem or something. like it, exists. My point being is.

the benefit, the creative benefit of. sleep transcends cultural boundaries. It's a common experience of Homo. sapiens. There is an invisible tax on self people. that no one really talks about enough. The mental load of remembering. everything, like meeting notes, timelines, and everything in between. Until we started using our sponsor's. product called Pipedrive, one of the. best CRM tools for small and. medium-sized business owners. The idea. here was that it might alleviate some of. the unnecessary cognitive overload that.

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stevenbartlett.stan.store. What is the uh most important thing we. haven't talked about as it relates to. the personas of those people that are. probably listening right now, and for. the reasons why they might have clicked, you know? They're probably looking Again, we have. the optimizers, we have those that have. bad sleep habits, and then we have those. that have real sleep disorders. What is. the most important thing we haven't. talked about that we should have talked. about for them? It may be the dystopian future. Let's. talk about the dystopian future, then. >> [laughter]. >> What is a podcast if it does not.

contain, at least in this day and age, a. dystopian future? What is the dystopian. future? Probably the most spectacular discovery. that has happened since you and I last. spoke, is the discovery of what we call the. genetic short sleepers. These are individuals who, by way of a. genetic mutation, can survive on as. little as 6.25 hours of sleep, in other. words, 6 hours and 50 minutes of sleep, and they show zero impairment in the.

brain or their body. They can do just. fine on 6 hours of sleep. I know where. this is going. And we have four genes. that we've identified now. The first two. genes, the first one identified was. called the DEC2 gene, DEC2 gene. The. second was called the ADRB1 gene, which. I granted, I know it sounds like the. next Radiohead album, but it's it's not. the next Radiohead album. And these genes allow these individuals. to get away with an amount of sleep that.

normally would cause predictive disease. and sickness, just as we've spoken. about. So, at this point, probably some. people listening are thinking, I think I'm one of those people. Just to put it in context, your the probability that you will be. struck by lightning in your lifetime is. 0.0064. Highly unlikely. The chances of you. having the ADRB1 gene is 0.004.

And the AD BR1 gene is the short sleeper. gene? It's one of the short sleeping. genes. So, in other words, you are. statistically more likely to be struck. by lightning in your lifetime than you. are to have that short sleeping gene. So, the probability is is is low. By the. way, why is this the case? Why do they get. away with this? And we've discovered. now, by using sort of genetic. manipulations, we understand why. First. thing is that they have a much stronger. wake drive during the day. So, you and I.

and all the rest of our mere mortals. will have these kind of like. oscillations in our consciousness. throughout the day, where we'll have. dips, where we feel a bit sleepy and. we're dragging, and then we'll kind of. get They don't have that. They have It's. like a light switch, like a dimmer. switch. You and I, we may sort of go up. to like 80% brightness when we're awake, and then sometimes we'll flicker, and. then we'll go down, and we'll have. pretty solid sleep, maybe sort of, you. know, down to 20%, but the lights are. not quite off, you know? Our sleep is is.

good, but not amazing. These people have. an all or nothing phenomena. They are. all 100% bright light throughout the. day. And then, and they can maintain 17, 18. hours of wakefulness, no problem. And then, when they sleep, they sleep. hard. They have much more efficient. sleep. Remember we spoke about sleep. efficiency, and I wanted 85% or above. Almost all of their time at night is. spent in solid, stable, sound.

sleep. And the depth of their sleep they. have is greater. So, they're awake more. throughout the day. They build up a. stronger wakefulness. >> happens. It's not that I'm against that. idea. I would love for the burden of disease. and sickness to be reduced, and people. not to suffer from that. And if I could. find a way to do it genetically, I.

would. And you could think about people. arguing, "Well, imagine the productivity. benefits." I mean, huge upside of that. You know, people are being more. productive, and they're probably. spending more. So, from a capitalistic. society, it's the perfect It's the ad. man's dream. Because when when you're. asleep, it's antithetical to a. capitalistic society. Why? Because. you're neither producing nor consuming. That's very cynical, and I don't buy. into that, but nevertheless. So, all of these things would be. markedly better, would they not be, if. we genetically engineered this way? Why. do I fear it?

I know for a fact that as soon as six. becomes the new eight, everyone starts sleeping four. And now I'm just in back into the same. battle again. Because six is the minimum. that you need, and they say, "Well, if. that's the minimum, then I'll sleep. four." And when I find the next gene. that allows you to get away with 4 hours. of sleep, then they say, "Well, that's. great, so then I can go down to two.". And it's a form of almost this sleep. currency, you know, inflation that I'm always fighting a. battle, and at some point, I'll always.

be on the wrong side of that battle. Crazy. These people with this gene. can thrive on 4 to 6 hours sleep without. any negative effects. that most of us would experience. >> [clears throat and cough]. >> Correct. It's I'm So, you know, what is going on there? And what we're. seeing is this this incredible density. of sleep, and this. epic drive for wakefulness. They are. more efficient sleepers. They can get. done what you and I take 8 hours to do.

They can do it in six. And I guess you. Is there a way to easily test this? I. guess go to a lab and get. >> Yeah. So, if you've ever done, you know, I think um you know, all of those. genetic testing kits out there where you. and a lot of them will allow you to. download your raw data. All you need to. do is download your raw raw data and. then there's a company, I think it's. called Prometheus. Again, I have no. affiliation with them. I don't know how. valid they are. But then you upload your. raw genetic data into their model and. then it will list and it will rip it.

apart. So normally those genetic. services, they give you a nice PDF and. it's kind of like maybe 15 pages of all. of the the main stuff and it's This. Prometheus is kind of like the, you. know, the old-school kind of scientist. nerdy. They will just give you this kind. of raw just kind of janky, you know, 50-page report. The interface is terrible, but you can. go in there and you can search to see. you know, what form of the DEC2 gene do. I have or what form of the ADRB1 gene do.

I have and it will tell you are you a. genetic short sleeper or are you not? And you can find out. I've been thinking. a lot lately about. about certain diet states as well and. whether that they have an impact on. sleep. We're talking about circadian. rhythms. So I was thinking about fasting. a lot and also think me myself and Jack. over there are. in ketosis right now. I was wondering if. you. when you think about brain performance. and sleep and different sort of states, do you think much about fasting or. about ketosis or. Yeah, it's it's a mixed bag if you look.

at it. Certainly what you eat will. change how you sleep. But perhaps more powerfully is how you. sleep. dramatically changes how you eat and how. you dispose of those calories and what. happens inside of your body when you are. underslept. But So I have lots of cravings when I've. short slept. Yes, you have and there's a. reason why. is firstly two appetite hormones called. leptin and ghrelin will go in opposite.

directions. So. they sound like hobbits, I know, and. I've got some Lord of the Rings thing. here, but. leptin is the signal that says to your. brain you're full. Yeah. You're you're. satiated. Don't eat anymore. Ghrelin is. the opposite. It kind of makes your. stomach tummy growl and it says you're. hungry. You're not full. You need to eat. more. When you are underslept, leptin, which says you're full, stop eating, that hormone is impaired. It drops away. So you lose the I'm full signal and.

worse still, the ghrelin signal, which. says I'm hungry, that increases. And so now you have about a 30 to 40%. increased hunger drive. And the final. part of this is that when you are. underslept and taking on board calories, the way that you dispose of that energy. is different. Your body has a higher predilection when. you are sleep deprived to disposing of. calories as fat rather than storing it, for example, as glycogen in the muscles.

Oh, so when I'm underslept, I'm That's. why, you know, you're more likely to get. belly fat. Correct. And what's worse is. that there was a great study where they. looked at people who were dieting. and either getting sufficient sleep or. not getting sufficient sleep. What was. fascinating is that both of those. groups, whether you are well slept or. not well slept, you both lost weight. In. fact, you lost about the same amount of. weight. So you think, okay, so that's. fine. The problem was if you looked at.

what you were losing, there was an. issue. Those people who were dieting but not. getting sufficient sleep, 70% of all of. the weight that they lost came from lean. muscle mass. and not fat. In other words, when you're. not getting sufficient sleep, you keep. what you want to lose, which is fat, and. you lose what you want to keep, which is muscle. >> Oh gosh. Damn, it's important, isn't it, this. sleep stuff? But coming back to ketosis,

by the way, I would say when people go. into a fasted state, usually what we see. is that the sleep gets shorter. Mhm. And they'll say, I sleep almost. more efficiently. I'll sleep for maybe. just 4 or 5 hours, but I feel more alert. and more awake. Now, some of that has to do with the. ketosis. When you are calorically. deprived, the brain starts to realize that. something is wrong because you are. lacking calories. You're going into. starvation. So it drives on a chemical.

called orexin. Orexin is a. wake-promoting chemical and it forces. your brain to release much more of this. wakefulness chemical called orexin. So. now when you're fasting, it's easier to. stay awake for longer and your brain. will deliberately stop you from sleeping. as much. Oh. It's not because it wants. you to sleep less. It's because the only. time during our evolutionary past that. we experienced short sleep was when we.

were in a caloric deficit and the reason. came comes back again to this idea that. you have to stay awake longer cuz you're. not finding food. Now, your brain. doesn't know you've deliberately decided. to fast, which is a good thing in lots. of ways. But that's one of the reasons that when. people are fasting, they'll say my sleep. goes to Yeah, mine. >> heck in a handbasket, you know, it's. >> really, really short. So when I'm I'm in. ketosis now and I'm like in on my way in. and my sleep will reduce to about five. five, six hours. My Whoop scores plummet.

Yeah. until I kind of come out the other. end, which might take a couple of weeks. and then my sleep scores seem to. stabilize again. But that initial. transition period, it looks like it's. having a physiological shock. >> It is and it the shock is this chemical. orexin, which is this wake-promoting. chemical, which will force you to stay. awake in a very solid fashion. By the. way, case in point, people with. narcolepsy, this sleep disorder where they. inadvertently and uncontrollably fall. asleep during the day, they have the. opposite. I'm just telling I was just.

telling you that when you are fasting, your brain dumps out this chemical. orexin to force you awake and you're. wide awake. People with narcolepsy, when we've. studied their brains, they have a. deficiency of this brain chemical. orexin. So they can't stay awake in a. stable fashion. They have the opposite. of your fasting problem. You're wide. awake because you've got too much. orexin. They've got too little orexin. and they therefore they can't sustain. stable wakefulness during the day. So. they're constantly falling asleep. Mhm.

This story of orexin has led to the. invention of the first new class of. sleeping medication that I actually. favor and most people are not aware of. it. It's a new class of We're on to. essentially web 3.0 of sleep medication. Web 1.0 were the benzodiazepines, things. like Xanax and Valium. Not great for. sleep. The second wave, the web 2.0, those were. things like Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata. Both of those drugs worked in a very.

similar way where they go up to your. cortex and they tickle a a receptor. called the GABA receptor, GABA, g a b a, and it's the major neuroinhibitory. transmitter of the brain. So when these. drugs flood your brain, they just hit. the red light and they stop neural. firing of the cortex. Essentially, they. sedate you. And sedation is not sleep. But when you take an Ambien, you mistake sedation for sleep. It's not. quite the same. It's not naturalistic.

sleep. But after we. realized by way of the story of. narcolepsy that narcolepsy patients, they don't have this chemical orexin and. they're falling asleep inappropriately. during the day. Well, think about what insomnia is at. night. Insomnia is almost the opposite. of narcolepsy, which is that narcolepsy. patients, they're falling asleep during. the day when they want to be awake. Insomnia patients are awake at night. when they want to be asleep.

So what they realized is that what we. can do if this chemical orexin, this. wakefulness volume button in the brain, is a problem in insomnia patients, what. if we were to just develop a drug that. doesn't sedate the cortex like Ambien? Instead, it goes down into the brainstem. where the center for orexin is. And. these new drugs, and they're called the. DORAs drugs, d o r a small s. And. they're a class of drugs. There are. three FDA-approved.

I'll try and spell them out for you. They're called suvorexant, lemborexant, and daridorexant. Exact. Why am I synapses are filled with things. like those names, but there you go. They're three FDA-approved drugs. And what they do is they act like a. clever set of chemical fingers. They go. down into the brainstem where this sort. of orexin is being released and they. just dial down the volume on wakefulness. and then they take a step back and they. allow the antithesis of wakefulness to.

come in its place, which is this thing. called naturalistic sleep. Now, if you look at that there's clinical. data, they absolutely make you sleep for. uh not necessarily a longer period of. time, but you're awake a lot less. So. you've got nice sleep efficiency, more. continuity. But I as a scientist could be very. skeptical and I could come along and. say, okay, so this new drug, it. increases your total sleep time, improves your sleep efficiency, but I.

have four words, yes and so what? Just. because I've added sleep to your night, how do I know that that's functional. sleep? How do I know that that's useful. sleep? Couldn't it just be like junk. DNA? It could be just junk sleep. Well, they did a study where they looked. at what we call the glymphatic system in. your brain. There's a cleansing system. in your brain that kicks into high gear. during deep non-REM sleep and it flushes. the brain of all of the metabolic. toxins, two of which are things called.

beta amyloid and tau protein, which are. the culprits of Alzheimer's and that's. why we know that sleep is so important. because at night it's a good night's. sleep clean. It's a power cleanse that. washes away the Alzheimer's toxins. So, they did a study. Heavens knows how they got these people. to participate. But, they brought them. in. They were 50 years or older. And in the morning and the night before, they had a lumbar spinal puncture and. they siphoned off cerebrospinal fluid so. they could measure how much of the.

metabolic detritus was in the brain. before sleep and in the brain after. sleep, including. the metabolic waste products sort of. including beta amyloid and and tau. protein. And they either had one of these drugs, the doras drugs, or they had a placebo. And fair enough, when they took the the this new class of. medication, the web 3.0, the dora drug, their sleep got better. But, what they also found is that not. only did their sleep get better, but.

they had cleansed the brain the next. morning of more beta amyloid and tau. protein than the placebo group. In other. words, it wasn't just epiphenomenal junk. sleep. It was beneficial sleep. It was. adaptive useful sleep because that. drug-induced sleep had washed away more. of the Alzheimer's proteins. And it was. the first demonstration and they've now. replicated it in animal models. that this is a sleeping pill that isn't. disadvantageous,

which we know to be the case for things. like Ambien. In fact, Ambien there's a. recent study that showed that it. decreases the cleansing pulsing fluid by. about 30 to 40% at night. But, this is a new class of medications. that does the opposite. And this is new. And this is new. The doras drugs, d o r. a small s. The problem is that a lot of. insurance companies here in the United. States currently do not reimburse. Some. do. And I believe that it's some of these of. the three doras drugs, not all of them.

are available in Europe or in the UK. And because they're just so expensive. And if you pay out of pocket, it can be. up to $400 a month. for these medications. Now, some. insomnia patients, when I go to them and. say at the end of a shockingly bad month. of sleep, if I went to them and said, "Look, if you gave me $400 now, could I. I could wave a magic wand and eradicate. all of that bad sleep over the previous. month?" Would you like to give me $400? Most of them would say, "Absolutely. Take my money." But, still people are.

being priced out at this stage. But, the. doras drugs, please look into them if. you're struggling with insomnia as well. as CBT-I. I didn't realize there was so. much new science and research that had. been discovered on how to sleep well, what's going on in the brain, and also. some of the lifestyle factors that have. made sleeping so hard for so many. people. And with that in mind, I want to do. something that I've never done before, which is a world first for the Diary of. a CEO. Is I'm going to put a link below. because I think this is what a. particular episode where if you share.

this conversation with some of your. friends who particularly struggle with. sleep or are sleep optimizers or who. have sleep disorders, they'll get a ton. of benefit from it. So, what I'm going. to do is in the description of wherever. you're listening to this podcast right. now, there is a link. And if you click. on that link, um you'll see that you've. got your own personalized link to share. this episode. And those of you that. share this episode, whether it's on your. story on social media or in a WhatsApp. group or wherever, on email, with your. friends, you will collect points for every person. that listens. And I will reward.

um you'll see as you click on the link. who have shared it the most. I in part I. say this because so many people come up. to me in the street and they came up to. me after our last conversation and they. said, um. "That conversation you did with Matt. Walker was so amazing. I sent it to my. aunt and she now she did this and she's. changed this and blah blah blah blah and. she's now sleeping well." And then all. the downstream impacts of that have been. profound. So, I'm going to create this little system. to encourage all of you to share it with. someone that is struggling at the moment. with sleep because I do believe I do. believe that sleep is upstream from so.

many of the downstream symptoms that. ruin our lives, whether it's. relationship issues, whether it's libido. issues, or whether it's creativity. issues. I mean, I was reading through. your work and I saw your conversation. with Rogan not so long ago where you. talked about the fact that a. sleep-deprived person has their genes. fundamentally working differently. You. talked about 700 genes working. differently. >> Yeah, 711 genes are distorted in their. activity caused by a lack of sleep. Some. genes that are overexpressed that are. related to cardiovascular disease or. stress or inflammation and other genes.

that are impaired, which are associated. with your immune system so you become. immune deficient. And it can be a. downward compounding spiral if you're. such a person that's really continually. struggling struggling with sleep and. building up some of that sleep debt. So, that link is below. Check it out. And we. have a closing tradition on this podcast. where the last guest leaves a question. for the next. The question left for you. is, "What did success bring you that you. never could have dreamed of?". It brought me two things.

One. beneficial, one lesser. Beneficial is that. I have now the chance and have gifted. the chance to. fly around the world and. try to speak the word of sleep. because the physiology of it is so. silent. And I used to lament, "Why me?" Because. there's so many other much better sleep. scientists in the world than me. And a friend after I was saying like, "I.

don't understand why me? I have imposter. syndrome." And he just told me to. shut. up. and accept that it's you and instead ask. the question, "What are you going to do. with it?". And I changed how I embraced that. So, I've been so fortunate that my life. after publishing the book that you're. holding. changed forever. and almost all for the better. And I'm. so fortunate. I've lived a life of such. fortune by way of the sleep mission.

I would say though that there is. also, and I suspect you may experience. some of this too, when you raise your head above the. public parapet, don't be surprised if shots are fired. And. if you're someone who has even the. vaguest. hint of insecurity, >> [laughter]. >> comments will do you lovely disservice.

And so, I think there's a degree of kind. of vulnerability and insecurity that you. can develop by way of becoming someone. who is in the eye of the public that had. I not been in the eye of the public, I. probably wouldn't have been, you know, as self-conscious about whether it's, you know, your intellect or your voice. or your. you know, disastrous, you know, boy band. haircut, whatever it is. Um I would say that's the only slight. downside. Overall, I am the most.

fortunate human that I know. I'm so gifted by way of this thing. called sleep. It's a love affair that's. lasted me almost 25 years. And I believe it's the most beguiling. topic in all of science. And it has. treated me so well. You happy? More than you could imagine. At this moment in my life, I am. the happiest I've been. Why? I have a. a peace that I found in life.

for reasons that I can share or not. share. And Go ahead and share them. I'd. love to hear about this in my life. You. know, I found my person. Okay. And. and she is she. appeared like lightning from a clear. blue sky. Never saw her coming. And. it's interesting that. I've never been able to be more myself.

even with myself. than I have with her. Every day she makes me want to be a. better person. And. I found peace. that I've never had before. That you've never had before? No. Did you have peace last time we spoke? I wouldn't say I was. without peace. I didn't know this type of peace.

And I never believed in this notion of. the one. You know, I was a scientist, I'm a hard-nosed empirical kind of guy. And I just did not imagine it would be. such. uh I didn't think there was such a one. I would have told you if you'd told me. that 2 years ago. you'd give me your love story of. certainty, I would have thought you were. misguided and that, you know, you just need to put down whatever. substances you're using cuz you're.

delusional cuz there isn't such a thing. Um. she's a gift. And I hope I never take her for granted. I doubt it. There's also an incredibly. sad story. of a gentleman called Clive Wearing. And Clive is a famous individual in the. neuroscience world. And Clive was the man who the movie. Memento.

was based on, which is a movie where a. man has. brain damage and he has profound. amnesia. And from that moment forward, he can never make any new memories. whatsoever. He's densely amnesic. And he was a real-life individual. He. contracted a virus that destroyed his. memory centers. And from that point. forward, he could no longer make any new. memories. And he lived in just two or three. seconds of time. And that spotlight of. consciousness just moved forward in. time. He had no recollection of the.

past. He had no anticipation of the. future. And the only thing the only. person that he remembered and he would. recognize is his wife. So, he could have. spent this whole 3 hours speaking to. you. And then you would walk out the room for. 5 minutes and you would walk back in and. you'd say, "Hi Clive. Nice to meet you.". And he'd say, "Hi, what's your name?". Had no recollection. The only person. that he remembered was his wife. But the problem was he never remembered. how long it's been since he last saw his. wife. And so every time that she would walk.

into the room after being out of it for. 5 minutes, he would jump out of his. chair and he had this incredible. elation. And he would run and he would hug her. and kiss her. And I think sometimes we take our. partners for granted. And the only time we realize how. precious they are is when they're gone. And I often think about that that. complacency. can be one of the greatest negative. forces in a relationship. And I always.

think about Clive Wearing. even on the days where I'm having a bad. day or I'm in a bad mood and I knock. myself or I just don't want to be around. someone, I always try to remember his. reaction. And when my wife walks back in from work. or I see her, you know, first thing. I try to remember how his reaction was. and. how I truly feel at the time despite the. blanket of negative. stress. trying to drown that feeling out.

It's a beautiful thing. I think about. that a lot as well. In what way? Just the part of I'm way. more cognizant now. on a frequent basis, almost on a weekly. basis, of how I'm going to feel. when my time is up as it relates to my. romantic relationship. Like I think even. like mid-argument I will now think and I. mean this actually happened like a. couple of days ago. It wasn't really an. argument, we were just disagreeing about. something. I literally said mid mid uh. dispute that we were having, I said,

"We're going to regret this so much.". And what I meant was when I when that. day when that phone call rings and. someone gives me bad news that either. I'm going or you're going I'm going to. regret that this 30 minutes was wasted. doing this. Yeah. I'm really going to. regret it. How much would you give to. have that 30 minutes back? >> Exactly. And it's like, you know, we're. [ __ ] arguing about I don't know, some. chocolate, whatever it might be, some. trivial thing. It's actually really. helped me because in the midst of those. storms I'm thinking through to that. moment when you get that phone call and. like you're ill or I'm ill and some. we're not going to be around much.

longer. Um it liberates you from. the pettiness that a sense of. immortality can create and that. pettiness results in the complacency. that you're describing that like. I did I took you for granted. Yeah. So, it's a nice little mechanism now for me. to go, "Is this an important thing? Is. this really important?" And I have to. provide nuance there which is this. doesn't mean don't address things. >> Correct. Yeah, I was just about to say. conflict is critical. You've got to. fight well. But let it be me and versus.

you and the problem. Like me and you. versus the problem versus me just going. at you. Yes. You. >> You have to be fighting for each other, not fighting against each other. >> Yeah, exactly. And then you have to try. to then in that context of Clive Wearing. don't shy away from conflict if you need. to have the conversation. Often it's like the gym. If you do it. well. you even on the days when you kind of go. into the gym, you think, "I I don't want. to do this or I just I don't feel good.". You always come out feeling better than.

you did before. And with conflict, if you do it well. you typically it may not be the hour. after or even the day after, but if you. do it well, you typically are better as. a couple. after than you were before the conflict. as long as you do it well. So, I'm not. saying don't have conflict. What I'm. saying is. Clive Wearing's story to me. of how he loved his wife with an intent. that I'd never experienced before until. I met my much better half.

prevented me from resentment. Resentment is the barrier that will keep. you from reparation. and a future of I think equanimity. Because when you resent someone it means. that you haven't processed, you haven't. moved forward. And resentment usually. comes by way of I think a poor choice of. things such as, "Did I win the argument? Did you win the argument?" It's not. about point scoring at least. And I've. done that before. I've been guilty of.

all of that behavior. But now with this person that I cherish. most. you know, I think of his lessons. It's. not that we don't have conflict, we do. It's just that I value the person far. beyond the conflict afterwards. And I'll. always want to reach out with an olive. branch. Because it's not worth it just as you. said when that call comes. you know, I I think of that sometimes. when I have a bad day. Let's say. someone, you know, I come back to my car. and my car has been rear-ended when it's.

been parked. Or, you know, I was coming here to fly. out and we were. 4 hours on the. tarmac waiting. and there's a guy in front of me who's. getting all agitated and giving the the. ground staff all sorts of vitriol. And I was thinking, "Look, when you're. on your deathbed, my good fellow. are you going to look back at this day. and think, 'Gosh, you know, I remember. that one day when I was on that flight. coming out to LA and it was 4 hours.

delayed.'" No, of course you're not. So, if you're not stressing about it. when you're dying, why are you stressing. about it now? Mhm. It's just not worth it. Mhm. Live. Thank you. Thank you so much. I mean, I can't thank. you enough for the profound impact. you've had on so many millions of people. um being the. the chief torchbearer of the subject of. sleep and creating a movement around. sleep, but also a heightened awareness. of ourselves and our struggles. And that.

is something that you'll never. understand. Like you'll never understand. the full magnitude of the many millions. of people you've positively impacted. Um. but I mean, even though you'll never get. to meet them all and you'll never get to. hear all of their thank yous. they are very very real people and they. are they you they them themselves are. these little ripples through the ocean. where their children and then the. generations to come get to sleep better. and enjoy their lives and live a. happier, healthier life because of the. work that you do. So, it's um incredibly. important work, Matthew. And I hope you. long continue it and a long a long.

continue being the conduit of this very. important information to people like me. and my audience. Can't appreciate you. more. Thank you so much for saying that. I. can't lay claim to any such um. uh. affirmations, but I would say that I. stand on the shoulders of giants and. that um I am simply relaying all of the. incredible work of all of my colleagues. in the field and all of those who came. before me. Um I'm just the mouthpiece. and not a particularly good one at that. And for all of their work, it's really. the appreciation that I give to them. So, thank you for giving me the.

opportunity to say that. >> [music]. >> Make sure you keep what I'm about to say. to yourself. I'm inviting 10,000 of you. to come even deeper into the Diary of a. CEO. Welcome to my inner circle. This is. a brand new private community that I'm. launching to the world. We have so many. incredible things that happen that you. are never shown. We have the briefs that. are on my iPad when I'm recording the. conversation. We have clips we've never. released. We have behind the scenes. conversations with the guest and also. the episodes that we've never ever.

released and so much more. In the. circle, you'll have direct access to me. You can tell us what you want this show. to be, who you want us to interview, and. the types of conversations you would. love us to have. But remember for now, we're only inviting the first 10,000. people that join before it closes. So, if you want to join our private closed. community, head to the link in the. description below or go to the. DOACcircle.com. I will speak to you there.

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