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This episode Visit one Peloton. is brought

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to you by Soundcore

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from Anchor. Do you sleep

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Tonight, every night, grab your pair

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my bedside table and I have

2:19

one, two of three eye masks.

2:21

I have some melatonin, I have

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some zalpodem, in case of emergencies,

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I have a bag full of

2:28

earplugs, a fear to not be

2:30

a great sleeper. This is our

2:33

editor, Sarah. Lately, I wake up

2:35

in the middle of the night

2:37

and I think, am I sleeping?

2:40

Am I sleeping? The anxiety can

2:42

absolutely take over, and then it's

2:45

like a rock rolling down a

2:47

hill. So why did you start

2:49

worrying about your sleep? You know

2:52

what might have started me getting

2:54

stressed out about sleep a little

2:56

bit? I had, like many people,

2:59

a fit bit some number of

3:01

years ago, and it had a

3:03

kind of sleep monitoring aspect, where

3:06

it would tell you, like, how

3:08

you were sleeping, how you had

3:10

slept. I do think sometimes I

3:13

woke up and felt like I'd

3:15

slept fine, and it said that

3:17

I'd tossed and turned a lot,

3:20

and then I think I started

3:22

worrying. Like, oh, am I not

3:24

sleeping well when I think I

3:27

am? It made me not trust

3:29

my sleep my sleep. Why are

3:32

you worried about how you sleep

3:34

and not how you sweat? Maybe

3:36

because I'm not conscious for when

3:39

it's happening. Like maybe because it

3:41

is a mystery? Yeah, it's a

3:43

mystery. Sleep is mysterious. It's also

3:46

easy to worry about because it's

3:48

so important. We can't sleep. We

3:50

feel awful and are desperate for

3:53

help. But lately, it feels like

3:55

our Accination with sleep has gone

3:57

too far. Do a quick internet

4:00

search and you'll find a slew

4:02

of articles about how to make

4:04

your sleep perfect and productive. Even

4:07

worse, you might find claims that

4:09

if you're not sleeping right, you

4:11

won't live as long. You'll get

4:14

all kinds of diseases. So stay

4:16

away from blue light. Don't drink

4:18

caffeine in the afternoon. Buy this

4:21

supplement. Get that fancy alarm clock.

4:23

Try this pillow. This mattress. It

4:26

goes on and on and on.

4:28

And if you're already struggling with

4:30

sleep, it's hard to get clear

4:33

guidance on what will really help.

4:35

Honestly, I'm a doctor, and it's

4:37

hard for me to sort through the

4:39

noise. I'm Dr. Jen Gunter, and

4:42

from the TED Audio Collective,

4:44

this is body stuffed. In

4:46

this episode, we're getting to

4:48

the bottom of sleep, from

4:50

circadian rhythms, to Puritan witches,

4:52

to the bat signal in

4:54

your brain. It's all coming

4:56

up. after this. This episode

4:58

is brought to you by

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At checkout. I'm

7:21

just going to confess, I'm a bit

7:23

of a stalker of your research and

7:25

your writings. I'm a stalker too. That's

7:27

funny, I feel like I already know

7:29

you because I feel like you're a

7:31

Twitter friend. You're a feisty one too.

7:33

Kindred spirit there. Dr. Colleen Kearney is

7:36

a psychologist and the director of

7:38

the Sleep and Depression Lab at

7:40

Ryerson University in Toronto. Sleep medicine

7:43

is a relatively new field,

7:45

and studying sleep is kind

7:47

of like peeling back the

7:49

layers of an onion. There's

7:51

always more to understand.

7:53

Researchers like Dr. Kearney are

7:55

grappling with some really big

7:57

puzzles, like what is sleep?

8:00

The nerd answer is that we don't really

8:02

know what sleep is. And you can

8:04

think of sleep as more of an

8:06

idea that changes based on how you

8:08

measure it. Is it your fit bit

8:10

telling you that you are asleep?

8:13

Is it your experience? Because people

8:15

with chronic pain will tell us

8:17

they're awake when we think they're

8:20

asleep. So is it the EEG

8:22

telling us that they're sleep, their

8:24

brain waves? So the idea of

8:26

sleep is actually this incredible... Mystery,

8:29

in a way. We know that

8:31

we need sleep, but we're still

8:34

figuring out all the amazing things

8:36

it does for us. We don't

8:38

have a universally accepted explanation of

8:40

what sleep really does. We know

8:42

that it restores tissue, right? That's

8:44

where we get most of our

8:47

growth hormone release, so that makes

8:49

good sense, and it helps us

8:51

also when we're growing as kids.

8:53

Our brains do lots of organizing

8:55

and maintenance work while we're sleeping.

8:57

Sleep helps us learn and

9:00

form new memories. But what's

9:02

really cool is we're also

9:04

getting some pruning. The important

9:06

stuff's getting pruned away and

9:08

forgotten. So we sleep to

9:10

remember, we sleep also to

9:13

forget. I like to joke that

9:15

I've learned so much in medicine

9:17

over the years that one day

9:19

knowing how to tie my shoes

9:21

will fall out of my brain.

9:23

But sleep is making sure my

9:25

brain keeps what I need and

9:27

gets rid of what I don't.

9:29

It's kind of like your

9:32

internal Marie Condo. While we

9:34

sleep, we cycle through different stages.

9:36

Each one has its own patterns

9:38

of brain activity. Stage one. Sleep

9:40

is a stage of sleep in

9:42

which you might tell me you're

9:45

awake because you have a memory

9:47

of that time. You have some awareness

9:49

of what's going on in your

9:51

surroundings. One time I was in this

9:53

half-awake, half-sleep state and talking with

9:55

my son, and when he asked

9:58

me a question, I responded, Franklin

10:00

chicken sausage, which seemed to make

10:02

perfect sense to my half-sleep brain.

10:04

So in my house, that's what

10:07

we call the sleep stage. Stage

10:09

two sleep is probably the stage

10:11

we spend the most time in.

10:13

And you're going to be less

10:16

aware of your surroundings during this

10:18

one, but if you hear an

10:20

alarm or your name or something

10:23

meaningful, you can be roused out

10:25

of it. In fact, we can

10:27

actually see your brain responding to

10:29

things in the environment, even if

10:32

you don't wake up, which is

10:34

really kind of cool. Stage 3

10:36

is deep sleep. Sometimes called Delta

10:38

or slow wave sleep. The majority

10:41

of this stage is really this

10:43

deep non-responsive. growth hormone recovery type

10:45

sleep. What's going to be about

10:47

20% or less of your entire

10:50

night, but it's really important when

10:52

it happens. And it happens closer

10:54

to the start of your sleep.

10:57

So in the first half of

10:59

your sleep period. And then you've

11:01

got your wild rem sleep. Used

11:03

to be called paradoxical sleep because

11:06

it looks like wake. And this

11:08

is where most people are going

11:10

to have an awareness of dreaming.

11:12

And it's because there's all this

11:15

transition sleep interspersed. So you see

11:17

some REM activity and you see

11:19

stage one and two sandwiched all

11:21

around it and throughout it. And

11:24

that's actually how you know you're

11:26

dreaming is that you have these

11:28

awakenings either right after or throughout.

11:31

So how does our body know

11:33

when it's time to sleep? There

11:35

are two internal biological mechanisms that

11:37

guide us. First, sleep drive. The

11:40

longer we're awake, the more our

11:42

sleep drive increases. Second, circadian rhythm,

11:44

which is like a clock ticking

11:46

inside us. I want you to

11:49

imagine that you're going to have

11:51

a dinner party and you're going

11:53

to invite a friend over who

11:55

has a toddler and you say,

11:57

you know, bring, bring little Johnny

11:59

dinners. eight. And imagine what

12:01

the mom's face would be like.

12:03

It would be like, no, because

12:06

you would disrupt when they are

12:08

going to have their regular meal

12:10

and their bedtime and Little Johnny's

12:13

going to be a monster and

12:15

like ruin your dinner party,

12:17

right? So why? Well, it's because

12:19

we are clocks. So we have

12:21

rhythms all throughout our body in

12:24

our gut, in our muscles. in

12:26

our brain, our supercosmatic nucleus, it

12:28

keeps time, and it coordinates itself

12:30

with the environment with the sun.

12:32

So when we travel and we feel jet

12:34

lag, it's like we're a little jawny, right?

12:37

Because it's like, basically there's a

12:39

mismatch between the timing that's expected

12:41

in our body and the timing

12:43

in the environment. What's most important

12:46

to know about these clocks is that

12:48

they crave regularity. We spend a lot

12:50

of time creating routines for kids to

12:52

keep their clocks happy. Little Johnny goes

12:55

outside every day to play, eats his

12:57

meals at a certain time, and has

12:59

a regular bedtime and wake time. But

13:01

adults often don't know that they need

13:04

a schedule too. And even the

13:06

sleep problems that we experience are

13:08

actually related to the fact that...

13:10

Our clock is always trying to

13:13

catch up to the environment because

13:15

you're, you know, you're throwing like 10

13:17

p.m. at it, certain days, and then

13:20

2 a.m. certain days, and then no

13:22

meal, so nothing to regulate it. And

13:24

I mean, COVID has been the worst

13:26

for this because people have been

13:28

inside. They don't have a regular

13:31

work schedule anymore. And just like the

13:33

going out to the gym, going

13:35

out to a job, having regular

13:37

meal times, it's just all. out

13:39

of wax. So some of the

13:41

fatigue that people are feeling is

13:43

actually really just circadian rhythms. Oh,

13:45

that is fascinating. So I have

13:47

a question about people that live

13:49

in the extreme north. What happens

13:51

to your circadian rhythm where you

13:53

have these days that become incredibly

13:55

short and you even have, you

13:57

know, a month with very little

13:59

sunlight? What's... happening to them. It's

14:02

what we would call a

14:04

social Zitgaber. So Zitgaber is

14:06

a Q-giver-to-the-clock, and the most

14:08

powerful Q-giver to the clock

14:11

is absolutely light. But behaviors,

14:13

like eating, these things can

14:15

actually help with free running,

14:17

circating rhythms. So when you're

14:20

up north, they have ways

14:22

of adapting to that, and

14:24

they maintain a routine despite.

14:28

So we have this biological system,

14:30

this clock telling us when it's

14:32

time to sleep, and time to

14:34

wake up. One of the biggest

14:37

worries we have about sleep is

14:39

that we're not getting enough. We've

14:41

all heard about the magical eight

14:43

hours, but there's a range of

14:46

how much sleep we need. We

14:48

would want adults to sleep somewhere

14:50

between six and nine hours in

14:52

terms of norms. But there are

14:54

a few people who we call

14:57

short sleepers who are actually short

14:59

sleepers. They're not deluded or not

15:01

deluding themselves. If in their heart

15:03

of hearts they actually do feel

15:05

good and they don't fall asleep

15:08

ever during the day, then they

15:10

probably the exception to that health

15:12

rule. Not getting enough sleep is

15:14

associated with serious health problems, like

15:17

high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes,

15:19

and depression, but Dr. Kearney says

15:21

the aggressive messaging about getting eight

15:23

hours, or its certain doom, is

15:25

not exactly true and can be

15:28

really counterproductive. One of the things

15:30

I love to say to people

15:32

with insomnia is it is true

15:34

that we have to sleep to

15:36

live, but we don't want to

15:39

live to sleep. We've got people

15:41

on the other end of the

15:43

spectrum too. All of the myths

15:45

about you have to sleep eight

15:48

hours, you have to sleep eight

15:50

hours, we do that because we

15:52

have to reach people from a

15:54

public health perspective who are not

15:56

prioritizing sleep, right? But then we're

15:59

throwing people under the bus. who

16:01

over prioritize sleep because they're the

16:03

ones listening to that message and

16:05

they're the ones getting anxious. Figuring

16:08

out if you're getting enough

16:10

sleep is pretty straightforward. Do

16:12

you feel reasonably well rested?

16:14

Well, then Dr. Kearney says

16:16

you're probably getting enough. Do

16:19

you fall asleep involuntarily

16:21

during the day? Then you probably

16:23

need more sleep. But lately we've

16:25

started worrying about our sleep.

16:27

It's sort of the weirdo who says,

16:30

I don't know, I, you know, sleep

16:32

like a baby. People look at them

16:34

like, what is wrong? You must be

16:36

shallow or you must be, you know,

16:38

something is, something's off there. How did

16:40

we get here? Dr. Ben Reese

16:42

is an English professor at Emory

16:44

University and the author of Wild

16:47

Nights, how Taming Sleep created our

16:49

Restless World. He says we've been

16:51

fascinated by sleep for millennia, but

16:53

the way we manage it has

16:56

changed a lot over time. For

16:58

most of human history, sleep was

17:00

a religious matter, not a medical

17:02

one. We can see that very clearly

17:05

through ideas about dreaming, you know,

17:07

dreaming as being prophecy and so

17:09

on. But even the idea of

17:11

being able to manage sleep, to

17:13

stay asleep, to sleep at the

17:16

right time, was often interpreted in

17:18

religious terms. You do your prayers at a

17:20

certain time and if you don't do it,

17:22

the kind of the right way, maybe you're

17:24

susceptible to the snares of the devil. Puritans

17:26

were really focused on this kind of thing.

17:28

And the witch, you know, the witch trials,

17:30

I was women getting out of bed at

17:32

night and going and meeting. And when they're

17:34

supposed to be sleeping. So going out at night to

17:37

meet with your gal palss was a sign you were

17:39

a witch because you were up at which

17:41

because you were up at night. for

17:43

women to be getting up and doing

17:45

much of anything outside of the home.

17:47

And so that itself became evidence that,

17:50

you know, the devil was after you,

17:52

because why would you be up at night if

17:54

you were to witch? In the 1800s,

17:56

sleep started going through a big

17:58

shift. It wasn't a... about sins

18:00

and wishes and visions anymore. It

18:03

became a medical problem. Dr. Reese

18:05

looked closely at the story of

18:07

one woman, Jane Ryder, who experienced

18:09

this change firsthand. Jane worked for

18:12

a wealthy family in Massachusetts. Strange

18:14

things were happening, and so they

18:16

started to observe her and saw

18:18

that she was rising from her

18:21

bed and seemed to be in

18:23

some kind of trance. So there

18:25

was a local physician who was

18:27

interested in kind of curious. psychological

18:30

behaviors who started to interview her

18:32

and follow her. Eventually, poor Jane

18:34

was sent to a state asylum.

18:36

They subjected her to a kind

18:39

of dizzying array of drugs and,

18:41

you know, leaches and blistering her

18:43

scalp. I mean, it's a really

18:45

extreme case, but about like, just

18:48

the magnitude of the shift from

18:50

thinking about sleep as a spiritual

18:52

phenomenon. to thinking about it as

18:54

a medical phenomenon. You would think

18:57

that doing it the latter way

18:59

would be an improvement? Not always.

19:01

Dr. Reese says the people who

19:03

ran asylums, like the one Jane

19:06

was sent to, were obsessed with

19:08

their patient's sleep. They would write

19:10

things like saying, you know, there

19:12

is no form of madness that

19:15

can be cured without getting good

19:17

sleep. And so they had patients

19:19

in these separate rooms with very

19:21

thick walls. and put them on

19:24

a very strict regimen and order,

19:26

often keeping track of exactly when

19:28

they went to bed and when

19:30

they got up. And there were

19:33

sometimes fairly severe punishments for people

19:35

who would try to wander out

19:37

or who would call out in

19:39

the night. But it wasn't just

19:42

these asylum physicians who became fixated

19:44

with sleep. Through the Industrial Revolution,

19:46

industrialists and factory owners wanted to

19:48

figure out how to control the

19:51

sleep of workers. During this era,

19:53

people worked long shifts with small

19:55

chunks of time left over for

19:57

sleep. In 1890, by some estimates,

20:00

the average workweek from manually manufacturing

20:02

workers was 100 hours. Industrialists used

20:04

the strategies of enslavers to

20:06

make sure no one fell

20:08

asleep on the job. Enslaved

20:10

people were deliberately worked to the

20:12

point of and beyond the point

20:15

of exhaustion as a way to

20:17

ensure that when they were off

20:19

labor, they didn't have a lot

20:21

of energy left over. and then

20:23

they were punished very severely if

20:25

they overslept in the morning. And

20:27

so one of the things that

20:30

was developed under the system of

20:32

slavery became a favored technique of

20:34

industrialist, which was the kind of

20:36

random surveillance, the spot check. A

20:38

few decades after slavery was

20:40

abolished, many descendants of people

20:42

who were enslaved worked in

20:44

the railroad industry, often as

20:46

porters, and they had horrible

20:48

sleeping conditions too. You could be

20:50

doing 10, 12, 14, 20 days in

20:52

a row where you're only catching a

20:54

little bit of sleep at a time

20:57

because you could be thrown off if

20:59

the train jolts. And so one

21:01

of the really powerful union

21:03

organizing campaigns from that

21:05

period was the Pullman Carr

21:07

workers who were organized and

21:09

testified about the health detriment

21:12

of being forced to work and

21:14

sleep under these kinds

21:16

of conditions for extended

21:19

periods. Sleep even became part

21:21

of the labor campaign for

21:23

an eight-hour workday. It was

21:25

eight hours for work, eight hours for

21:27

rest, eight hours for what you will.

21:30

So, you know, the model that we

21:32

think of as sort of natural and

21:34

normal, it's really tied to some of

21:37

these industrial developments

21:39

and struggles around them. While

21:42

sleep used to be treated

21:44

as mysterious, even divine, When

21:46

it became part of the

21:48

industrial world, it turned into

21:51

something to be managed, tinkered

21:53

with, made more productive, and

21:55

that's grown into our current

21:57

obsession with optimizing our sleep.

21:59

After the break, how to figure

22:02

out if you actually have a sleep

22:04

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22:06

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and palaton.com. Everyone

24:53

has trouble sleeping sometimes,

24:55

but if you struggle

24:58

at least three times

25:00

a week for at

25:02

least three months, and

25:04

if this leads to

25:06

difficulty functioning, you have

25:08

insomnia. It's really common.

25:10

33% of adults in

25:12

the United States suffer

25:14

from insomnia sometimes. So

25:16

did 20 to 40% of

25:19

kids and teenagers. which

25:27

you might make up for by

25:30

napping the next day. But your

25:32

body actually has a way of

25:34

compensating for lost sleep by producing

25:37

more deep restorative sleep. Most people

25:39

don't know that. Then if you have

25:41

trouble sleeping the next night, maybe

25:43

you panic. You start canceling activities

25:45

and plants, all to create more

25:48

time during the day for sleep.

25:50

And that throws your whole system

25:52

off balance. Our time in bed

25:54

tends to go up, our activity

25:56

level tends to go down, and

25:58

it moves that. sort of homeostatic

26:01

system, the set point about how

26:03

much deep sleep you're going to

26:05

get, it kind of moves it

26:08

down and down and down unintentionally.

26:10

Over time, this also creates low

26:12

sleep drive, which means it's harder

26:15

and harder to fall asleep at

26:17

night. The other thing that's happening

26:19

is they are laying awake in

26:21

bed, frustrated. And so it's kind of

26:23

like their bed becomes paired with

26:25

wakefulness. So where the bed used

26:27

to be the place where you

26:29

slept, now the bed is the place where

26:32

I don't sleep. So conditioned arousal happens.

26:34

And you know if you have this,

26:36

if you're sitting downstairs and you're

26:38

like kind of nodding off, you feel

26:40

ready to go, you get into bed,

26:42

and a switch goes off and you're

26:44

wide awake, you have conditioned arousal.

26:47

And eventually, some people with insomnia

26:49

stop going to bed and waking

26:51

up at their usual times. Because

26:54

although we normally would get up, we'd

26:56

set our alarm at 6 and get

26:58

up. When you feel exhausted, you're not

27:00

going to do that, right? So you'll

27:02

try and hit the alarm a couple

27:04

times, you'll call in sick maybe. So

27:06

the timing of when you get into

27:09

bed and out of bed, we often

27:11

will find like hours of difference between

27:13

the earliest and the latest and the

27:15

latest within one week. That's really the

27:17

equivalent of what you would feel if

27:20

you traveled that many time zones, and

27:22

you would have that much sleep disruption.

27:24

To treat insomnia, doctors like

27:27

Dr. Kearney try to break

27:29

this downward spiral. They try

27:31

to address the root causes

27:33

of insomnia by getting your

27:35

clock back on track and

27:37

re-associating your bed with sleep.

27:40

And the best way to do

27:42

that is cognitive behavioral therapy, or

27:44

CBT. People track their behaviors and

27:47

their experience for two weeks on

27:49

a sleep diary so that we

27:51

can come up with a schedule

27:53

that is going to be right

27:55

for their particular body. And then

27:58

a set of rules called... stimulus

28:00

control. So essentially, we ask people

28:02

to wait and tell they are

28:04

showing the behavioral signs of sleepiness.

28:06

Sleepiness for us is not feeling

28:08

tired. It's when you're literally falling

28:10

asleep or nodding off. And that

28:12

if you get into that bed

28:14

and that switch goes off and

28:16

you're wide awake, then to say,

28:18

well, I'm not, I'm not falling

28:20

asleep anytime soon right now. So

28:23

I'm going to go do something

28:25

enjoyable until that's that feeling comes

28:27

back. While you're out of the

28:29

bed, it actually you're building drive

28:31

for deep sleep. It's going to

28:33

create some sleep deprivation almost like

28:35

what we're doing for Europe when

28:37

we're trying to adjust to local

28:39

time. We're going to use that

28:41

to our advantage. CBT can help

28:43

people in just two sessions and

28:45

is very effective. To give you

28:47

an example, I just I'm having

28:50

trouble right now because I wanted

28:52

to study relapse after CBT. So

28:54

I treated 300 people or my

28:56

students did 300 people and we

28:58

tracked them over a year and

29:00

no one relapsed. Oh, wow. So

29:03

we were like, well, that

29:05

is a weird problem to have

29:07

because I said that I

29:09

was going to study what is

29:11

the characteristics of those relapse

29:13

and no one did. That's remarkable.

29:15

I wish more patients and

29:17

doctors knew about CBT. Dr. Carney

29:19

says CBT is recommended over

29:21

sleeping pills because it's safer and

29:24

so long lasting. But she

29:26

says sleeping pills can provide relief

29:28

and shouldn't be as villainized

29:30

as they are. They certainly have

29:32

a place in treating insomnia. There

29:36

are a few big things

29:38

we hear about as treatments

29:40

for insomnia that are not

29:42

effective. First up, melatonin. Melatonin

29:45

supplements are touted everywhere

29:47

from the wellness industry to

29:50

physicians. But

29:52

these supplements are marketed based

29:54

on a complete misunderstanding

29:56

of how melatonin works. Melatonin

29:58

is a hormone secreted

30:00

by the pineal gland in your brain.

30:02

It's released when the sun goes down. And it's

30:04

kind of a signal that many hours later

30:06

you're going to be ready for

30:08

sleep. I mean, that's kind of,

30:10

that's basically it. Taking more melatonin,

30:12

when it's already circulating through your

30:15

brain, will not help you sleep.

30:17

It's kind of like the bat

30:19

signal, right? You know, Commissioner Gordon,

30:22

like, flashes up the bat signal

30:24

for Batman to come. And Batman's on

30:26

his way, and then he's like flashes

30:28

it again. It's like, well, he's already

30:31

on his way, like that the signal

30:33

has already been thrown. He knows to

30:35

come. It's not he's going to like

30:37

extra come, right? And there's

30:40

no melatonin problem in insomnia

30:42

either. Some people really feel

30:44

that melatonin supplements help them,

30:46

and that's likely a problem.

30:48

in them and found the

30:50

neurochemical serotonin in more than

30:52

a quarter of the samples

30:54

that can be dangerous. So

30:56

when you take melatonin you

30:58

don't even know what you're

31:00

putting in your body. How about melatonin

31:03

for jet lag? Well here's a

31:05

joke for you. A group of

31:07

sleep researchers flies from North America

31:09

to Rome for a conference. What

31:11

do they pack? We all have the

31:13

same plan and not a one is

31:15

going to take melatonin. Oh, okay, I love

31:18

this. I just want to say, so

31:20

all the sleep researchers are traveling internationally.

31:22

Yeah. And not one of them is

31:24

going to take melatonin. Of course not.

31:26

Why would we do that? I mean,

31:28

the best thing to do to adjust

31:30

jet leg is to use sleep deprivation.

31:32

So we fly all night, you get

31:34

off the plane in the morning, and

31:36

then we spend all day, we've booked

31:38

all kinds of tours, whatever, in the

31:40

sunlight. So we will build a strong

31:42

sleep drive. by staying up all night

31:44

and being awake all day. And we

31:46

have very clear input into the clock

31:48

from the daylight. And then that night

31:50

when we go to bed, the last

31:52

time we did it, we were in

31:54

Spain and we were only like 90

31:56

minutes off the cycle the next day.

31:58

That is fascinating. Accept. Except we were

32:01

a little naughty on the plane. The

32:03

deal is you shouldn't really drink on

32:05

the plane because it does thwart your

32:07

attempts to stay awake. There was some

32:10

poor adherence there that was alcohol related.

32:12

The study subjects did not adhere strictly

32:14

to the trial. No, no, there was,

32:16

I mean it was French wine, it

32:18

was free. Whether you struggle with

32:20

insomnia or not, there's another piece

32:23

of advice you've probably seen all

32:25

over the internet. Maybe you've even

32:27

heard it from your own doctor.

32:29

Sleep hygiene. I even badgered my

32:31

own son about sleep hygiene

32:33

when he started struggling with

32:35

insomnia, but the American Academy

32:38

of Sleep Medicine recommends against

32:40

using sleep hygiene as a

32:42

standalone treatment. Dr. Kearney says

32:45

she even uses it as

32:47

a placebo control in studies

32:49

because she knows it won't

32:52

work, but people believe that

32:54

it will. When researchers like Dr.

32:56

Kearney say sleep hygiene, they

32:59

mean focusing on how substances

33:01

and the environment affect our

33:04

sleep. Might include advice like,

33:06

don't drink alcohol before

33:08

bed. Exercise, but not in

33:10

the evening. Set your room to

33:12

a particular temperature. Block out

33:14

blue light. Not one of

33:16

those recommendations were ever

33:19

developed clinically. And Dr.

33:21

Kearney says blue light is

33:23

actually important for your sleep

33:25

cycle. Sunlight and light from

33:27

screens are both forms of blue

33:30

light, and they keep you alert

33:32

and awake during the day. By

33:34

the evening, melatonin has been released

33:36

and your body knows it's time

33:39

to sleep, so it's not likely

33:41

that blue light can cause insomnia.

33:43

That means you can skip all

33:45

the blue light filters people

33:47

are selling and the other

33:50

products marketed to optimize your

33:52

sleep. We have a whole group

33:54

of people who are biohacking

33:56

right now with their fitness

33:58

trackers and they're getting stressed

34:00

out about their sleep because their

34:02

wrist is telling them that they're

34:05

moving in a particular way that

34:07

would suggest that they're sleeping poorly

34:09

or well or that they're getting

34:11

at this stage of sleep or

34:13

that stage of sleep and they're

34:16

adjusting their lifestyles around it they're

34:18

they're deciding whether or not they

34:20

feel good during the day because

34:22

of it. And in fact it

34:24

creates a problem we call orthoinsomnia

34:26

this sort of preoccupation. with the

34:29

measured self and somebody telling us

34:31

what our sleep is. That's right.

34:33

All this tracking and optimizing, like

34:35

what our editor Sarah was doing,

34:37

can actually cause insomnia. So can

34:40

an overinvestment in rituals. I spent

34:42

all day with a group teaching

34:44

them how to treat insomnia. And

34:46

I said, you know, where are

34:48

my good sleepers on this call?

34:50

And so they raised their hand.

34:53

I said, could you teach eight

34:55

hours like I just did on

34:57

how to sleep well? And he

34:59

kind of laughs and he said,

35:01

I don't like, I close my

35:04

eyes. And I was like, yeah,

35:06

I mean, I said, you know,

35:08

the thing is, is that if

35:10

the stage is set, that's really

35:12

what we need for sleeping. But

35:15

when we make it complicated, when

35:17

we decide I'm going to have

35:19

this tea, I'm going to have

35:21

this supplement, I'm going to smoke

35:23

up, I'm going to get blackout

35:25

blinds, I'm going to have whale

35:28

singing to each other. It is

35:30

the effort, it's all of the

35:32

sort of rituals that actually make

35:34

insomnia worse, because then you require

35:36

all kinds of things in order

35:39

to sleep poorly. All of these

35:41

monetized ways of trying to make

35:43

sleep more difficult really get people

35:45

out of touch with how amazing

35:47

their body is. She says not

35:50

to buy into messaging about needing

35:52

a particular product for a good

35:54

night's sleep. Don't get me wrong,

35:56

I love a high threat counter

35:58

machines. Right? Like there's... There's not

36:00

a, it's not like you can't

36:03

create a beautiful sanctuary in

36:05

your room to sleep, right?

36:07

No problem. But I'm not doing

36:09

it to sleep better. I'm doing

36:12

it because it makes me feel

36:14

better. And I think there's a

36:16

difference. Right. So if you get

36:18

pleasure from something, that's fine. Like

36:20

life is about enjoying it. Yeah.

36:22

And I think that. Yeah. Yeah.

36:25

Yeah. I think, you know, like

36:27

I like wearing jammies. I love.

36:29

Yeah. It just makes me happy.

36:31

Yeah, you know, and... But if you

36:33

are wearing a copper-lined

36:36

jammy that reeked of lavender

36:38

to sleep better, then I

36:41

suddenly don't love your

36:43

jammies anymore. And Dr.

36:45

Kearney's advice for all

36:47

of us is to act like

36:49

toddlers. Go outside every day. Have

36:51

a routine, and have a wind-down

36:53

period before bed. Like I put

36:55

away my phone in the hour

36:57

before bed and the reason why

36:59

it's not blue light, it's because

37:01

I'm going to be tempted. I'll

37:04

be tempted to answer an email.

37:06

And who I am the hour

37:08

before bed, I want to just

37:10

be calling. I don't want to

37:12

be Dr. Kearney. And so I'm

37:14

going to watch trashy TV or

37:16

whatever it is I'm going to

37:19

do, play video games. I'm not

37:21

afraid of blue light because melatonin

37:23

has already been released. in the

37:25

hour before bed, so I'm fine.

37:28

I'm going to unwind and set

37:30

the stage. And we all have

37:32

different things that make us unwind,

37:34

right? That's... Exactly, exactly. From my

37:37

wind down, I put on my

37:39

favorite jammies. I call it Jammy

37:41

Time. And I go over the

37:43

New York Times spelling bee with

37:45

my partner to see if we

37:48

made genius or not, and if

37:50

together we can get the queen

37:52

bee. Next

37:58

time on body staff. Should

38:02

you worry about yeast? The

38:04

vagina is not a sterile

38:06

environment, and yeast is part

38:08

of the environment of different

38:10

organisms that can be in

38:12

the vagina. From hygiene wipes

38:14

to boric acid to probiotics,

38:16

we take on the biggest

38:18

myths about yeast. Body stuff

38:21

is brought to you by

38:23

the TED Audio Collective. It's

38:25

hosted and developed by me,

38:27

Dr. Jen Gunter. The show

38:29

is produced by Ted with

38:31

transmitter media. Our team includes

38:33

Mitchell Johnson, Ponzi Rutch, Greta

38:35

Cone, Michelle Quint, Ban Banchang,

38:37

Sammy Case, and Roxanne High

38:40

Lash. Phoebe Wang is our

38:42

sound designer and mix engineer.

38:44

This episode was written and

38:46

produced by Camille Peterson and

38:48

edited by Sarah Nix. Fact-checking

38:50

by the Ted fact-checking team.

38:52

We're back next week with

38:54

more body stuff. Make sure

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39:09

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