Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker

[Liberty]

https://www.amazon.ca/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316

 

I'm 50% through the audiobook of 'Why We Sleep' (Matthew Walker, director of UC Berkeley’s Sleep & Neuroimaging Lab). It makes a pretty convincing case for the multi-faceted powers of sleep. I came in thinking it was *really* important, but it's even more important than that. Huge demonstrated effects on physical performance, mental performance, health & diseases of aging, mood/happiness, memory, etc.

 

Kind of obvious when said like that, but as I said, I also would've said this was all obvious, but it's more matter of degrees than anything else, and learning about the science has recalibrated my views and - hopefully - it helps me make sleep a higher priority in my life.

[Cigarbutt]

The value of rest appears to be underestimated.

On a related note, in sports science, you may appreciate the concept of supercompensation that can only happen after an adequate amount of rest, regeneration and recovery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercompensation

http://skitrax.com/supercompensation-what-is-it-good-for/

 

The best time for a competition or an investment decision is after a good night's sleep.

In the building on previous work domain, I think Newton called this phenomenon standing on the shoulders of Giants.

[rawraw]

My life revolves around sleep. No artificial lights, no alarm clocks, weighted blankets, you name it I've tried it.  When I had a Nest thermostat, I even varied the temperature through the night to maximize the temperature effect on the sleep cycle. I haven't used an alarm clock in five years but wake up between 3 AM to 5 AM every morning perfectly rested.

 

And Matthew Walker's interview with Joe Rogan made me scared I wasn't sleeping enough - and I get a full night's sleep every night!!

 

[Liberty]

My life revolves around sleep. No artificial lights, no alarm clocks, weighted blankets, you name it I've tried it.  When I had a Nest thermostat, I even varied the temperature through the night to maximize the temperature effect on the sleep cycle. I haven't used an alarm clock in five years but wake up between 3 AM to 5 AM every morning perfectly rested.

 

And Matthew Walker's interview with Joe Rogan made me scared I wasn't sleeping enough - and I get a full night's sleep every night!!

 

 

At what time do you usually fall asleep?

[DCG]

With 3 kids ranging from 1-7, sleep is at a premium in my house.

[pbi]

I finished this one recently as well.

 

Adapting your lifestyle to suit your particular chronotype rather than the other way around certainly seems to pay dividends. You're likely to make better decisions, maintain better health and reduce the risk of degenerative disease later in life. Also some very interesting info on how your ability to retain information is affected by your REM and NREM sleep patterns.

 

 

 

 

[Liberty]

Yeah. I've been learning from multiple sources in recent years the importance of the immune system when it comes to cancer, and the impact of sleep on the immune system certainly should be taken seriously in that light.

[boilermaker75]

I finished this one recently as well.

 

Adapting your lifestyle to suit your particular chronotype rather than the other way around certainly seems to pay dividends. You're likely to make better decisions, maintain better health and reduce the risk of degenerative disease later in life. Also some very interesting info on how your ability to retain information is affected by your REM and NREM sleep patterns.

 

Not only how well you remember, but how well you comprehend.

 

Scullin, M., McDaniel, M., Howard, D., & Kudelka, C. (2011, June). Sleep and testing promote conceptual learning of classroom materials. Presented at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC, Minneapolis, MN.

 

Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen, et. al., “Human relational memory requires time

and sleep,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007.

 

Ulrich Wagner, Steffen Gais, Hide Haider, Rolf Verleger, & Jan Born, “Sleep Inspires Insight, Nature volume 427, 352-355, Jan 22, 2004.

 

Mednick, Nakayama, and Stickgold, “Sleep-dependent learning: a nap is as

good as a night,” Nature Neuroscience, 2003

 

At the 5:40 point in this video the role of sleep on learning is discussed,

 

 

[Liberty]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-it-comes-to-sleep-one-size-fits-all-1540481975

[Liberty]

I've finished it. Glad I read it. Maybe a bit overlong (like most non-fiction books), but important-enough stuff to make it worth reading.

 

As I said earlier, I already thought sleep was very important, but I was under-estimating it a lot... And now notice a lot more of the crazy things that our society does that are extremely counter-productive (financially, health-wise, etc).

[Liberty]

https://podcastnotes.org/2018/04/29/why-we-sleep/

[Liberty]

Looking forward to this series of podcast interviews!

 

[Liberty]

Podcast interview with the author on Kevin Rose's show:

 

https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/matthew-walker

 

(great interview, I recommend you forward it to friends and family that you know won't read the book. The health implications of sleep that science has been uncovering lately as well as the tips to improve should definitely be more widely known)

 

A new one that came out today:

 

https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/matthew-walker

[LongHaul]

https://podcastnotes.org/2018/04/29/why-we-sleep/

 

This was excellent Liberty.  Thanks so much for posting. 

I would also highly recommend these notes (~10 minute read)

 

Liberty,

 

1.  Have you confirmed the sleep notes at all? 

 

2.  Do you subscribe to podcast notes and what do you think of the site?

 

thx,

Ron

 

 

 

[Liberty]

https://podcastnotes.org/2018/04/29/why-we-sleep/

 

This was excellent Liberty.  Thanks so much for posting. 

I would also highly recommend these notes (~10 minute read)

 

Liberty,

 

1.  Have you confirmed the sleep notes at all? 

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean if I know the notes to be accurate? I've listened to the podcast but haven't read the notes, so I can't say. But if you meant something else, please let me know.

 

2.  Do you subscribe to podcast notes and what do you think of the site?

 

I don't subscribe, I'm not sure where I found the site... Maybe just Googling for the podcast to post it here. Seems like a good resource.

[LongHaul]

https://podcastnotes.org/2018/04/29/why-we-sleep/

 

This was excellent Liberty.  Thanks so much for posting. 

I would also highly recommend these notes (~10 minute read)

 

Liberty,

 

1.  Have you confirmed the sleep notes at all? 

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean if I know the notes to be accurate? I've listened to the podcast but haven't read the notes, so I can't say. But if you meant something else, please let me know.

 

2.  Do you subscribe to podcast notes and what do you think of the site?

 

I don't subscribe, I'm not sure where I found the site... Maybe just Googling for the podcast to post it here. Seems like a good resource.

 

Sorry, that was not clear.  I'll try again.

 

Is the sleep research on the podcast accurate with research studies?

[Liberty]

Sorry, that was not clear.  I'll try again.

 

Is the sleep research on the podcast accurate with research studies?

 

As far as I know, yes. Matthew Walker runs what seems to be one of the leading sleep labs:

 

Matthew Paul Walker is a British scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.[2] His research focuses on the impact of sleep on human health and disease. He was previously a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. He has received numerous funding awards from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He has published over 100 scientific research studies.

 

Walker is the founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science, which is located in UC Berkeley's Department of Psychology, in association with the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the Henry H. Wheeler Jr. Brain Imaging Center. The organization uses brain imaging methods (MRI, PET scanning), high-density sleep electroencephalography recordings, genomics, proteomics, autonomic physiology, brain stimulation, and cognitive testing to investigate the role of sleep in human health and disease. It researches Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cancer, depression, anxiety, insomnia, cardiovascular disease, drug abuse, obesity and diabetes.

[Liberty]

I've really been testing what's in this book in the past week. We've been sleep training our kid, and I'm the one who's been waking up between about 10 PM and 6 AM... Really hard to get into more complex reading and consolidate complex memories, which is why I've been watching videos of DeepMind AIs playing Starcraft II against pro-gamers* and reading lighter stuff today.

 

Sleep is probably the most underrated way to boost someone's investment performance (as well as general life performance).

 

 

*https://youtu.be/cUTMhmVh1qs

[compounding]

 

Sleep is probably the most underrated way to boost someone's investment performance (as well as general life performance).

 

 

I agree with this. I think part of the problem is that a lot of people think they know about the benefits of good sleep, so they discard a lot of the nuance and emphasis that someone like Walker tries to bring to the discussion. Also, it seems like it's hard to fully appreciate the effects from things that have small, regular costs but long-term, non-linear effects. Things like saving money, reading, diet/exercise and sleep all fall into this category in my view.

[Cigarbutt]

Sleep is probably the most underrated way to boost someone's investment performance (as well as general life performance).

I agree with this. I think part of the problem is that a lot of people think they know about the benefits of good sleep, so they discard a lot of the nuance and emphasis that someone like Walker tries to bring to the discussion. Also, it seems like it's hard to fully appreciate the effects from things that have small, regular costs but long-term, non-linear effects. Things like saving money, reading, diet/exercise and sleep all fall into this category in my view.

Likely because of evolutionary reasons, humans seem to be poorly wired to accept short-term pain in order to harvest long-term gain. One could use higher cognitive skills (slow thinking) to overcome this "natural" tendency. An alternative would be to realize that good sleep may even have short-term implications:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25772315

"Analyses revealed that longer sleep duration was related to greater next-day sexual desire (b = 0.32, P = 0.02), and that a 1-hour increase in sleep length corresponded to a 14% increase in odds of engaging in partnered sexual activity (odds ratio = 1.14, P < 0.05)."  :)

[Liberty]

This should be good. Part one of three:

 

https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker1/

 

Update: I've had a chance to listen to it and it's great. Highly recommended. Can't wait for part 2 and 3.

[Liberty]

Part 2 of Attia's interview:

 

https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker2/

[Liberty]

Part 3: https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker3/

[Vish_ram]

I found that I had the best sleep when I was on Keto diet. if I wanted, I could sleep for 9 hours.

 

if you are struggling with weight loss, Keto is a good place to start. I lost 22 pounds in 3 months, going from BMI of ~26.5 to 23.8.

 

Vegetarians find Keto hard, but there are lots of options. PM me if you want to know more.

 

 

[Cigarbutt]

Many valuable insights form Mr. Walker.

 

I like the way he suggests that there is more than correlation between sleep and other mental parameters, that there may a cause and effect going in two directions and that the causality from quality/quantity of sleep to other endpoints has been vastly underestimated.

 

Sleep needs of children is another interesting topic and the following reference ties together several concepts (figures 5.4 and 5.5): correlation versus causality, potential confounding variables and the Easterlink paradox.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2019/WHR19_Ch5.pdf

 

A nice correlating feature found in figure 5.5 is that the listed happiness-related activities help to balance the caloric balance.