Why We Sleep | Matthew Walker, PhD

This episode of Books for Men features Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, PhD. A book that provides a full exploration of the most valuable yet (often) most overlooked aspect of living a healthy life—sleep. This book will help you. Listen for more!

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. As always, I just want to thank everybody who has supported the initiative thus far, both by listening to the podcast and sharing it with friends and family. It means a lot, I think, not just to myself because obviously, I do the podcast, I host it and it's a big point of interest for me, but to society as a whole, I do really believe that supporting and being an advocate for young men, especially reading at an early age, and then men continuing to read throughout their lives, is something that will make a big difference. And it may not seem like it on the surface, especially when there are so many different things that we could be tackling as a society, but I always feel like you've got to pick your thing and that thing is probably going to be a small sliver of a much bigger pie.

(01:06)

But if you do your part and what you could bring to the table in order to push that thing forward, then you're doing your part to society as a whole. And I don't want to make this sound like it's something much bigger than it is, but to me, the fact that less men are reading than ever before, especially in the fiction realm, and that's due to a plethora of factors that I addressed in the trailer episode, which you can go back and listen to. But yeah, the fact that this is a reality, it's a bit concerning and I hope that we can continue to draw awareness around men reading more and bringing together men who do read. And so that's what we will continue to try to do here. With that being said, let's jump right into today's episode, which is a non-fiction book and it comes in the genre of science.

(01:57)

So we haven't featured a pure science non-fiction book yet. In an earlier episode, we looked at a big idea book, but I look at science books as something a little bit different, right? I think a big idea book. You're utilizing case studies, data, research, and empirical evidence to prove a point around one central big idea. And it's not always written by a doctor or a researcher, right? It's written could be written by anybody, and I do enjoy big idea books, but a science book is more something that is just reporting back on the research that has been conducted around a very specific subject matter. And that's exactly what today's book is, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, which is really a full examination of sleep. What is it? How do we sleep? Why do we sleep? And yes, what makes better sleep? Although he's not a physician, so he's not prescribing any kind of ways that you could sleep better, you will still get a lot of tips on how you could sleep better given the research.

(03:04)

I will definitely share some of those as we get toward the back half of this episode. But I wanted to just tie a bow on what I had just mentioned and say, look like there are strengths and there are weaknesses of this type of book, a book that is purely based in research and science, and one of 'em, let's call spade a spade, is that it's very susceptible to being boring. You're not reading a story, you're reading in-depth about a very specific subject matter. However, in this case, I think that it is worth it to read based on the subject matter alone. I think that sleep is probably the most valuable thing that we could do in our lives, and yet simultaneously, it's also the most neglected thing that people do in their life. And why I say that is because how many people value sleep the same as nutrition or exercise or socializing or any of the other various factors that make up a healthy life.

(04:10)

And you're probably either in one or two camps, you're in either the I'll sleep when I'm dead camp or the I value sleep a ton camp. And for me personally, I'm in the, I value sleep a ton camp. So that's why this book was really important to me just because look, if something is of high interest to me, I want to go pretty deep into it. And so that's just how I am. And interest drives engagement and excitement. Something I've already talked about on this podcast a little bit. Additionally, I think that most people don't realize how sleep-deprived they actually are, and they assume that it's just their natural state and it affects the way that they perform on a daily basis. And they might say, well, I only sleep five, six hours, I only need that much sleep. And it's true, the body and the mind are very adaptable, and you could very easily make do with a certain level of anything or anything could become normal in your life.

(05:07)

But what are the cumulative effects of that? And I think that this book and the research will point to many problems that sleep could be at the, or lack of sleep could be at the root of these of things like obesity or increased risk of cancer or injuries or car crashes. And this all has to do with blood sugar levels and the effects on the immune system. And I'm not saying that these are causal events. I'm saying they're correlated, and then the research will indicate that. But additionally, I think that you could just use empirical evidence or an N of one, and that is you as a sample size to say, when I sleep better, I perform better. And when I say perform better, I mean perform better in relationships, perform better at work, perform better in my life, perform better in every aspect. Sleep is fundamental to that.

(05:58)

And I could tell you from experience that when I don't sleep well or when I'm going to have a lack of sleep, my performance is I'm basically worthless to put it in layman's terms. I am just not the same person at all. Even though on the surface level, I am still dug and I'm still walking through life and I'm still operating and still going through the motion, so to speak. I'm not doing it with vigor, I'm not doing it with concentration. I'm not doing it with any kind of zest. I'm not doing it with any kind of acuity or precision at all. And you're almost just trying to get through the day so that way you could get back to your bed and hopefully get a good night's sleep. It's funny, in the book, Matthew Walker says that “Star Wars required more than 40 years to amass 3 billion in revenue. It took Ambien 24 months to amass 4 billion in sales profits.”

(06:50)

And so basically he is just saying that we have a sleep problem and the world, and most people want to sleep. Ambien obviously is a drug that helps people get to sleep, which he's not a huge supporter of. And the data doesn't really support ambient or any medication for that matter, as being a viable long-term option to help you sleep better. Although I could probably contend that there are use cases for anything. There are probably much better ways that you can look to solve your sleep problems than going straight to medication. And I'm not going to get too much into this because I'm obviously not a physician at all or a researcher at all. And so if you want more information on that, you could definitely read the book because it goes into great detail, but it is what it is.

(07:45)

People want short-term fixes and they want things now. And that's why I think you see a spike in stuff like medication, in pharmacological ways that people induce themselves to go to sleep even though it's not real sleep. Because as Matthew Walker will say in the book, there are many different types of sleep, are REM sleep, non-REM sleep, and what it means to actually be sleeping and what it means to actually get a good night's rest. It goes very, very deep into all of that. But I don't want to go too far into that. Let's stay on the tips and tricks for helping us sleep a little bit better. And so one of the big things is he says the number one piece of advice to sleep better is to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. And I think that this is a really useful piece of advice.

(08:30)

It's one that I certainly have done and tried to do in my life because your body builds up consistency and it understands that when you wake up, you wake up at a certain time, you go to bed at a certain time, and many of us have a natural state, which this is something else that he'll talk about in the book, which you have. Some people are night people, some people are mourning people. And so I kind of have a weird reaction when I hear people say, oh, you got to wake up early if you want to be a highly productive person, or you got to go to bed at a certain time or da da da da. And the reality is some people are just more conducive to waking up early and some people are more conducive to waking up later. Now, I get it, there are going to be a lot of situations in our lives that make it not possible for us to do certain things, and that's a whole different subject matter, but that doesn't change the fact that you're either a morning person or you're not a morning person.

(09:22)

For me, I just happen to be a morning person, so I wake up at five o'clock in the morning and I do it easily. In fact, my body gets up a little bit earlier than that some days, and it's just because that's my natural state. And also that's what I've compounded now over the years, right? I've been waking up at that time for a very long time, and one of the things that Matthew Walker will say is that your sleep cycle is something that the research will point to as being largely hereditary and not always something that you can control. And so trying to figure out how you can maximize that is really, really important. I remember when I interviewed Daniel Pink, this was a couple of years back about his book when one of the topics that came up was, it's not about what you do or how you do it.

(10:07)

The more important thing is when you do it, and what we talked a lot about was that the natural rhythm or the natural periods, given who you are as a person will allow you to be more productive, more awake, more alive, more zestful. There are different types of people, and I think that this goes into that same type of category where it is what it is, and so you kind of have to figure out the way that you're going to be able to best manipulate that to get a good night's sleep. So the other thing that he talks a lot about is never releasing your sleep pressure because, throughout the day, your sleep pressure will accumulate, and when you release that via different things like napping or something of that nature, it will make it harder than potentially to go to sleep. I've always been in the napping camp just for the record.

(10:57)

I take a 20-minute nap every day. I make that trade-off so that way my body kind of resets and I get that boost of productivity in the back half of the day. Now, I do have a rule where I won't go to sleep after or won't take a nap after three o'clock because I think that that is the borderline where it starts affecting my night sleep when I'm going to go to bed at night. And so I really pay attention to that, but I do make that trade-off early in the day because I do feel like I get that extra boost, especially being a morning person. With that being said, sleep pressure is something that you should probably be aware of. Also, the time of how long you nap if you are going to take naps, because yes, it might be good for productivity, but it also might not be good for sleeping.

(11:44)

And so for me personally, I think a 20-minute nap, it's more of like a power nap, is that sweet spot where I get the benefits of productivity, but not the negative side effects of lack of sleep or affecting my sleep. The next thing that Walker talks about is the cooling of your inner core. So this is really, really important to sleeping better throughout the night. And this is something that I've actually adopted since I read this book a couple of years back, which is taking my showers at night, so I'll take a hot shower at night now, as opposed to showering in the morning for my whole life, I was pretty much a shower in the morning person, but the hot shower at night, what it does is it actually makes your inner core cool. Most people think that you get warm, but it's really all the heat driving from the inside of your body to the outside of your body, and the inner core is getting cool.

(12:36)

And so this in effect helps you sleep better at nighttime. I found it to be something that has been beneficial to me. So I've done it since I read this book, which was, I don't know, three years ago now, four years ago. And the other things that I have adjusted since then are things like caffeine. Now everyone's going to have a different caffeine sensitivity, but I don't drink caffeine after, call it three o'clock, two thirty, three o'clock, around the same time of my napping cut off because I do think that it does affect my sleep negatively. Sometimes I'll catch myself where I'll be out or something of that nature, and I'll have more caffeine, and I'll notice it as I am trying to go to bed at night. Maybe it's in my head or maybe it's actually something that's happening to my system, but at the same time, I can't sleep.

(13:24)

So what's the difference? It's affecting me in some way. Alcohol is another one that's a big topic. A lot of people think that the nightcap is beneficial. Matthew Walker will contend that it isn't, and alcohol has an adverse effect on your sleep. I think that this is definitely something that's been popularized now for a while, so it's not a new insight really. It just makes sense. Fortunately for me, I've kind of gone away from alcohol in my life, and so I'm actually on almost 90 days now of no alcohol, and that's a whole nother topic, one that maybe I can get into at a later date. Lastly, I want to talk about the one thing that I think is probably the most fundamental to getting a better night's sleep, and it's something that you don't hear a lot of people talk about. Matthew Walker definitely does talk about it in the book.

(14:16)

And again, this is only some of the stuff that he talks about in the book, and a lot of this is research-based, and these are just some of the conclusions based on the research. With that being said, the thing that I think is the most important is what I call the wind-down period. So most people, I feel like have unrealistic expectations with their sleep, and they want to hop right into bed and just fall right asleep, or they want to play around on their phone, watch their iPad, or watch their TV screen, turn it off, then fall asleep. It's almost like they have these unreasonable demands when they can go to sleep, but the reality is, is your body needs time to settle down. Your body needs time to kind of get into the mode of sleeping. I watched this with my dog when you put him into his pen, sometimes yips and yips and yips, and then it takes some time to settle into the fact that, okay, it's time to rest.

(15:09)

It's the same thing with humans. We need a wind-down period. This is something that I've done for a lot of years, and my friends, they laugh at me. They always joke, well, you can't get Doug on the phone after seven o'clock at night. And it's pretty much true at any time after seven, I don't really answer my phone. I try to avoid contact with my cell phone. I try to avoid any kind of contact with people as far as communicating because I get worked up very easily. And then it takes me time to settle down. I see this all the time when I go to like a concert. I go to a concert. I love the show. I'm all excited. I come home. I can't go to sleep. Why? Because I'm so activated. And I think that that's what a lot of devices do as well.

(15:53)

And again, this is something that Walker's research will point to. They have a very activating nature to them. And a lot of people talk about the blue light effect, but I think it's more about the excitement that your body gets into and the activating nature of all these devices and whatnot. And your body really needs a time period where it could wind down and some people might not need two hours. I kind of am a little bit excessive in that regard, but maybe 30 minutes of quiet time or an hour of quiet time in order to get your body ready for sleep. I think that that's probably the most effective thing that's happened in my life that's enabled me to sleep better. And so I don't know, these are just some of the things that Matthew Walker talked about. I'm sorry, I kind of made this episode a lot about me, but obviously, I have a lot of experience in this, as do you as a human who tries to go to sleep every single day.

(16:44)

And so it's something that I think a lot about. And I also think it's really, really important to, as I've already mentioned, the performance of your life and how you perform inside your life in all the different various facets of that. So I tried to talk fast. I covered a lot of different stuff here. I want to wrap it up with one quote from the book, and that is one that I think is extremely beneficial. The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep. So that's how I want to leave you. That's how want to leave this. Thank you so much for listening. I want to remind you that this is a show that is designed to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And I would love nothing more than for you to share the podcast with friends and family, whether it's men or women. We need everybody to help continue to push the initiative forward, which is the most important thing. For more information, you could visit BooksforMen.org where you can also sign up for the newsletter, a monthly roundup of all the books and authors that you hear on the podcast.