Sleep Talk
You snooze you win?
Book of the Week: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams By Matthew Walker
Explaining why we are comatose and hallucinating 6-8 hours per day.
“AMAZING BREAKTHROUGH! Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes. You’ll even feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious. Are you interested?” - Dr. Matthew Walker theatrically alluding to sleep’s potential health benefits.
Tripping In Bed
Have you ever thought about how weird the concept of sleeping is? In any other context, we would consider confining ourselves in a roughly 60”x 80” box where we hallucinate random events — most of which we forget — for 6-8 hours an odd or uncomfortable idea at best; yet, every night we turn off the lights, bundle up under the covers, and hop on this bizarre and near psychedelic ride. On top of the first-glance peculiarities of sleeping, phenomenons, like sleep-talking (somniloquy), sleep-walking (somnambulism), and sleep paralysis, make this event even more outlandish. So why do we do it?
“Humans are not sleeping the way nature intended. The number of sleep bouts, the duration of sleep, and when sleep occurs has all been comprehensively distorted by modernity.” - Walker contrasting our ancestors’ sleep habits with those of the modern world.
Restful Night
In his book, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Dr. Matthew Walker, neuroscientist and director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Human Sleep Science, dives in deep on this question. By dissecting the foundations of sleep, such as its different phases; exploring complex neuroscience topics, like the potential evolutionary basis for our need to sleep; and revealing the effects that modern activities, such as alcohol and marijuana use, have on our sleep, Walker provides insightful information for neuroscience novices and experts alike. In addition, he outlines the ways that sleep impacts the different aspects of our health; specifically, (spoiler alert!) he addresses how it impacts all of them, and why this means we should take our sleep more seriously. Through his various appearances on renowned podcasts, such as The Joe Rogan Experience and The Rich Roll Podcast, along with his work at UC Berkeley, Walker has made a name for himself as one of the world’s utmost experts in sleep science and left a significant impact on PTSD treatment, Alzheimer’s Disease research, and the public view on sleep. If you are looking for a deep dive into the bizarre phenomenon of sleep that is as entertaining as it is educational and useful, then Why We Sleep is the book for you.
“They discovered that naps as short as twenty-six minutes in length still offered a 34 percent improvement in task performance and more than a 50 percent increase in overall alertness.” - Walker detailing the power of napping.
Walking Early
I imagine that some of you might be shrugging off the importance of sleep, believing that you can sleep when you’re dead or that you’ve been doing just fine on your 6 hours every night. I understand where you are coming from because I used to endorse similar ideologies myself; particularly, I espoused this thinking in high school when I used to go to the basketball gym before school, stumble through my classes on 4-6 hours of sleep, participate in my extracurriculars, stay up late completing my homework, then rinse and repeat the next day. I defended my poor sleeping habits with phrases like, “sleep is a waste of time,” and, “I can sleep when I’m dead,”; however, in hindsight, I realize that I was actually losing time by operating suboptimally and — as Walker emphasizes — bringing myself closer to death by disregarding my sleep.
“Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic.” - Walker unearthing the dramatic effect that sleep has on the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose.
Clear Brain
After reading Walker’s book, I discovered that by allocating a couple of extra hours to sleep every day, as well as following a healthy and simple sleep-hygiene routine, I could boost my productivity and progress in athletics and school, while simultaneously improving my health. Whether it be following a consistent sleep schedule, avoiding bright light before bed, or properly timing my naps, following Walker’s suggestions has made a noticeable difference in my life. By engaging with his book and utilizing his tips and tricks, not only will you understand the biological conundrum that is sleep, but I think you will experience similar improvements in your health, work-life, physical performance, cognitive abilities, and emotional control.
“The second evolutionary contribution that the REM-sleep dreaming state fuels is creativity. NREM sleep helps transfer and make safe newly learned information into long-term storage sites of the brain. But it is REM sleep that takes these freshly minted memories and begins colliding them with the entire back catalog of your life’s autobiography.” - Walker describing how sleep and dreaming influence creativity and learning.
Podcast of the Week: Dr. Satchin Panda on FoundMyFitness #65
Addressing the relationship between your belly and your clock.
“One of the outside inputs that influences almost all of our organs is food because when we eat it changes quickly the levels of many hormones. It even changes the nutrient level, and all cells in our body have to process, store...break down, [and] interconvert all of the molecules that we get from our food.” - Dr. Satchin Panda outlining the widespread metabolic impact of eating.
Butter-pan
Whether it be homemade white chocolate chip pancakes, sunny-side-up eggs with bacon, everything bagels from SPoT!, or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I have always been a big breakfast guy; however, as much as I love breakfast foods, something about eating them any time other than the morning just doesn’t feel right. I do it all of the time — how could I not after experiencing Trader Joe’s “Everything But the Bagel” seasoning on my eggs? — but, although it is tasty as ever, something about breakfast at 6:00 PM invokes an internal clash. Thinking about this might get you wondering why we eat those foods for breakfast in the first place. Why not wake up to a turkey and cheese with chips and save the french toast with syrup for lunch?
“When we eat, it takes at least 5 hours for our stomach to digest that food, and after 5 hours, then our intestine might take several hours to absorb nutrients...and then send them to our liver and other parts of the body. So, that means if you finish your dinner at 6 o’clock in the evening, then your stomach is still working until 11:00 PM or even later...subtract at least 5 hours from [the period of time when you are not eating, and] that’s the number of hours your organs are [actually] resting, repairing, and sleeping.” - Panda detailing the physiologic repercussions following a night-time meal.
Chip-drop
Although there is some biology that explains why we might eat certain foods for certain meals throughout the day, like the theoretical hangover relief from the cysteine content in eggs — more to come on this topic — unless we are following some diet or performance protocol (like the ones discussed by Dr. Andrew Huberman in this podcast), which foods we eat and when we eat them seems mostly arbitrary and socially based.
“Social scientists, they agree that night time is the time of freedom, human expression, [and] human creativity…and that becomes a challenging issue: where to draw the boundary between personal freedom of expression and enjoyment versus your personal duty to nurture your health.” - Satchin Panda recognizing the conflict between optimal circadian health and enjoying social and personal leisure late at night.
Cake-flip
On the other hand, if we travel back 10,000-20,000 years in time, I suspect we will find that the opposite was true for our ancestors, in that when, what, and how they did anything was dictated by how it affected their survival. Dr. Satchin Panda, professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has built a career on this evolutionary concept, in which he explores the impact that timing has on our physiology. During his conversation with Dr. Rhonda Patrick on her podcast, FoundMyFitness, Panda elaborates on his research around circadian rhythms and nutrition timing, revealing how when we eat, sleep, view light, and more has significant effects on our physiology. In particular, Panda and Patrick dive into the former’s philosophies and findings with time-restricted feeding, or the practice of confining caloric intake to a certain period of time during the day. For a sneak peek at the information they discuss or further elaboration on Panda’s work, you can look into his Ted Talks here and there. If you are interested in biohacking, passionate about biology, trying to improve your health, or even looking to shave off a few pounds, then this podcast will be a good listen for you.
“We didn’t want to use the word fasting because fasting usually refers to reducing calories for one or more days; whereas, the term time-restricting generally refers to eating within X number of hours, where the X can be somewhere between 8-12 hours in experimental models [and] pre-clinical models...without explicitly reducing calories, and that’s a big caveat between...intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding.” - Panda explaining the pivotal difference between his definitions of time-restricted feeding and fasting.
Munch-time
I previously introduced Dr. Rhonda Patrick on my Best of JRE post, but I do not think I properly expressed how much I value her input. Although her academic background is impressive, including work at St. Jude Children’s Hospital and research alongside the renowned Bruce Ames, there are plenty of PhDs and MDs with big names in their bio’s. Patrick sets herself apart with her abnormally thorough investigations of scientific literature and deep dives into various health topics, both of which are supported by her elite grasp on biochemistry, organic chemistry, and biology. For these reasons, and many more, Patrick is one of my most trusted resources for scientific information, and she is also the source that lead me down my journey with time-restricted feeding, intermittent fasting, and prolonged fasting about 3 years ago. Anybody who knows me can tell you that I have enthusiastically continued this journey and become a strong proponent of fasting; however, through the improved digestive health, athletic performance benefits, and mental clarity that I have found with longer bouts of intermittent and prolonged fasting, I often forget about the benefits that come from the circadian aspect of nutrition timing. As far as I can tell, Dr. Satchin Panda is the leading expert on this topic, so I look to his eloquence and wisdom to remind me of the great benefits of this lifestyle intervention. I could go on for hours talking about fasting and time-restricted feeding — I know this because I’ve done it many times — and I will likely complete a deep dive on these topics in the future. For now, I will leave you with this podcast, along with the rest of Panda’s work, as one of the best resources to get you started in the world of nutrition timing.
“Only 10% of adults eat [in a time period of] 12 hours or less.” - Panda addressing the lack of time-restriction in most adult Americans’ diets.