Dr. Matt Walker

I should now be on social media.

I should be changed to sort of like sleep torturer rather than sleep diplomat.

So that's one recommendation.

Just try to stay clear.

If you're asking me, are there certain positions we should stay away from in that circumstance?

Yes, it would be.

The other comes back to something I mentioned during deep sleep, when this cleansing system starts to kick into gear in your brain and wash away these toxins from the day.

What we've found a little bit of evidence, and we in the Royal, because like you, my lab doesn't do animal research, we only do human research, but some animal researchers had discovered that when animals will sleep with their head on the side,

The cleansing capacity of the brain is superior than when the animal is sleeping on its back or sleeping on its front.

And in fact, if you look, and you would love this project, if you go onto Google and you just search for sleeping animals, look at the head position.

And I will guarantee you that many of them, if they're naturalistic, are animals with their head turned to the side.

Now, the cute ones, the funny ones are when a kitten is splayed out on its back and its head is back.

That's how someone with sleep apnea would sort of sleep on their back.

But that's very rare.

We almost never see that.

So it's very interesting.

And what they found was that when those heads were in those sort of side positions, the cleansing mechanism of the brain was a little bit better.

It wasn't night or day.

It's not as though, oh my goodness, I'm a front sleeper and I'm not getting any brain cleansing or I'm a back sleeper.

I'm not saying that.