Dr. Matthew Walker is a neuroscientist, professor at UC Berkley, and author. Many of the mental and physical challenges you might be facing could have a surprisingly simple solution: more sleep. But why is sleep so essential? What happens when we sleep, and how can we optimize our sleep to maximize its benefits? Expect to learn what defines good sleep, how stress impacts your sleep, the keys to getting and maintaining a regular sleep pattern, the best sleeping positions, how to stop snoring, why sleeping with your partner is making your sleep worse, if alcohol, THC and other supplements actually give you a better nights rest, the evolutionary reasons why we dream, the latest science and tech for hacking your sleep and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get 10% off the world's comfiest sleep mask at https://mantasleep.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get the best bloodwork analysis in America and bypass Function’s 400,000-person waitlist at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://shopify.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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You might be the British man with the best hair that I know. I think it is the greatest cry of a midlife crisis that you are ever going to see. It's a total train wreck. I'm suggesting that no one told me the pandemic was over and that you can get your hair cut. Right.
any therapy pill uh bills that you have to uh have after seeing me and being confronted by me send them to me i will pay for them oh my goodness fantastic well uh what a good opening to it it is it is what it is um talking about sleep today we had a lot of conversations about it on the show previously but i really want to dig into some sort of more rare insights that people probably know that they need to know but don't yet know so just to get started
How do you come to think about what good sleep is? How do we conceptualize good sleep?
Yeah, it's an interesting question because I think everyone, most mornings, let's say you've got a significant other, you come down the stairs and you say, you know, how do you sleep? And they'll say, I slept well, or I didn't sleep well. So everyone themselves has a subjective estimate of what this thing called good versus bad sleep is. Science is a little different though.
And medicine teaches us that there are essentially what I would describe as the four macros of good sleep.
and so three macros of food fat carbohydrate and protein four of sleep and you can remember it by the acronym qqrt quantity quality regularity timing and there's all sorts of stuff on the internet about you know take this supplement do this particular thing and and it's the shangri-la of all good sleep and you'll have this utopian blissful night
Honestly, if you just focus on these four main principles, you're 80% of the way there. So quantity is what we used to espouse in sleep as the measure of good sleep, which is somewhere between seven to nine hours for the average adult. And there is variability. The next one is quality.
And I think this is probably... Actually, I need to jump in on the quantity before you even move on. Yeah. Quantity of sleep, time in bed, time asleep.
Astute question. Most of us conflate the former for the latter, and it's potentially dangerous. So... If you are a good sleeper, you will have what we call a sleep efficiency of at least 85%. So sleep efficiency of the time that you're in bed, what percent of that time are you asleep? And really good sleepers will have, let's say, 80% to 90% sleep efficiency.
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