作为一名神经科学家，我专注于研究睡眠，特别是睡眠恢复力——如何在各种情况下提高睡眠效率和效果。我的研究涵盖了从运动员跨州旅行到南极洲和太空环境中军事人员睡眠的方方面面，也包括普通人的睡眠模式。
西海岸球队常规赛优势？ 一项研究表明，在常规赛中，西海岸球队往往更有优势。原因在于他们的比赛时间更符合其队员的生物钟高峰期，这与东海岸球队形成对比。这并非偶然，因为运动员的运动选择与其生物钟类型（早起型、晚睡型或中间型）密切相关。一个团队成员生物钟类型多样性越高，其在不同比赛时间下的适应性就越强，胜算也可能越大。
基因、习惯与睡眠： 儿童时期的睡眠习惯会深刻影响成年后的睡眠模式。虽然基因在决定生物钟类型方面起着重要作用，但后天环境和习惯的影响也不容忽视。试图长期违背自身生物钟类型进行作息，会对身心健康造成负面影响，甚至导致疾病。
性别差异与睡眠机制： 我利用转基因小鼠模型进行研究，发现染色体性别对睡眠的影响比激素性别更大。染色体性别决定了睡眠压力的累积速度和日间嗜睡的倾向。 男性更容易出现日间嗜睡，而女性则更容易在晚上入睡困难，但其睡眠质量和效率通常更高。
这些发现与过去的研究结果相符，但令人遗憾的是，这些关于男性和女性睡眠差异的重要研究结果长期以来被忽视了。男性和女性睡眠压力的差异与大脑中腺苷的产生速度有关。男性入睡速度快，但女性进入深度睡眠（非快速眼动睡眠第三阶段）和快速眼动睡眠的速度更快。男性和女性的总睡眠时间也存在差异，但这种差异在临床上是否具有显著意义，仍需进一步研究。
午睡的策略： 大多数情况下，午睡时间应控制在30分钟以内，以避免夜间睡眠障碍。但对于夜班或长期睡眠不足的人，90分钟的午睡可以帮助完成一个完整的睡眠周期。午睡前适量摄入咖啡因可以改善午睡后的困倦感。长期睡眠不足的人，应该通过午睡或白天短休来缓解累积的睡眠压力。
多阶段睡眠与现代生活： 历史上，人类曾采用多阶段睡眠模式，即在白天也进行较长时间的睡眠。然而，现代社会节奏加快，这种模式已不常见。倒班工作对健康的影响尤为严重，研究表明，倒班工作会显著缩短寿命，增加患各种癌症的风险，甚至被世界卫生组织列为二级致癌物。
夜班工作的应对： 对于需要上夜班的工作，应该优先选择那些生物钟类型更偏向“夜猫子”的员工。通过基因检测，可以评估个体的生物钟类型，从而帮助他们选择更适合自身生物钟类型的职业。大多数人属于中间型生物钟类型，只有少数人是极端的早起型或晚睡型。
极端环境下的睡眠： 在极端环境（如南极洲）下，睡眠结构会发生变化，但总睡眠时间通常保持不变，这体现了人类睡眠系统的强大适应能力和稳健性。
睡眠恢复力与应对策略： 睡眠恢复力是指在各种情况下都能获得有效睡眠的能力。短期睡眠不足的影响是有限的，但超过72小时就会对健康和表现产生严重影响。在周末，应该有意识地调整睡眠时间，以弥补工作日的睡眠不足，为下周做好准备。
太空与火星探索中的睡眠： 宇航员在太空中的睡眠情况因人而异，这可能与微重力环境对前庭平衡系统的影响有关。对于未来的火星探索，宇航员的健康，特别是睡眠质量，将至关重要。我们甚至需要考虑利用基因编辑等技术来提高宇航员的健康水平和适应能力。
短睡眠者与睡眠效率： 有些人即使睡眠时间短，也能保持良好的认知功能和身体机能，这可能是因为他们的睡眠效率更高。这种“短睡眠者”的特性可能与DEC基因有关，他们能够快速减少睡眠压力。
长期睡眠过多（嗜睡症）的危害： 长期睡眠过多（嗜睡症）与睡眠不足一样有害，可能与抑郁症等精神疾病有关。嗜睡症和抑郁症之间的因果关系尚不明确，可能存在双向影响。轻微的脑外伤也会导致长期的睡眠结构改变，可能引发其他与生活方式相关的问题。
提高睡眠效率的实用策略： 规律的作息时间和环境线索（如光照、饮食和活动）可以帮助提高睡眠效率。 在改善睡眠方面，除了常见的睡眠卫生建议外，还可以考虑以下策略：
总而言之，优化睡眠是一个复杂的过程，需要考虑个体差异、环境因素以及长期的生活习惯。通过科学的方法和策略，我们可以提高睡眠效率和恢复力，从而提升身心健康和整体表现。
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02:33 常规赛期间，西海岸球队在比赛时间上更有优势，因为比赛时间更符合他们的生物钟高峰期。
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05:33 运动员在非最佳生物钟时间段比赛会影响表现，因为这会影响皮质醇的分泌，进而影响警觉性、注意力和能量水平等。
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07:02 运动员的选择与他们的生物钟类型有关，例如夜猫子更适合夜间训练的运动。
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08:00 团队成员生物钟类型的差异会影响团队表现，例如橄榄球团队成员生物钟类型差异大，胜率更高。
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10:31 儿童时期的睡眠习惯会影响成年后的睡眠习惯。
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14:20 生物钟类型很难改变，即使改变，也难以达到最佳状态。
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16:27 长期违背自身生物钟类型会影响健康，例如被迫早起后经常生病。
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18:37 利用转基因小鼠模型研究染色体性别和激素性别对睡眠的影响，发现染色体性别对睡眠压力的累积和日间嗜睡的影响更大。
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19:46 男性更容易出现日间嗜睡，而女性更容易在晚上入睡困难，但睡眠质量和效率更高。
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24:24 过去的研究已经发现男性和女性的睡眠差异，但这些研究结果被忽视了很长时间。
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25:24 男性和女性睡眠压力的累积速度不同，这与腺苷的产生有关。
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26:45 男性入睡速度比女性快，但女性进入深度睡眠和快速眼动睡眠的速度更快。
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31:02 男性和女性的总睡眠时间存在差异，但这种差异在临床上是否显著还有待研究。
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34:29 大多数情况下，午睡时间应控制在30分钟以内，但夜班工人或长期睡眠不足的人可以午睡90分钟。
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36:28 睡前喝咖啡可以改善午睡后的困倦感。
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37:46 长期睡眠不足的人应该午睡或在白天进行短暂休息来缓解睡眠压力。
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39:43 人类历史上曾采用多阶段睡眠模式，在白天也进行较长时间的睡眠。
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41:37 倒班工作会显著缩短寿命并增加患癌风险。
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46:38 对于需要上夜班的工作，应该优先选择夜猫子类型的员工。
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47:37 可以通过基因检测来评估个体的生物钟类型，从而选择适合其生物钟类型的职业。
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49:08 大多数人属于中间型生物钟类型，少数人是早起型或晚睡型。
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52:31 在极端环境下，睡眠结构会发生变化，但总睡眠时间保持不变，这体现了睡眠系统的稳健性。
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55:43 睡眠弹性是指在各种情况下都能获得有效睡眠的能力。
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58:02 短期睡眠不足的影响是有限的，但超过72小时就会对健康和表现产生严重影响。
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59:17 周末应该调整睡眠时间以弥补工作日的睡眠不足，为下周做好准备。
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01:02:10 宇航员在太空中的睡眠情况因人而异，部分原因可能是微重力环境对前庭平衡系统的影响。
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01:07:20 火星探索需要关注宇航员的健康状况，包括睡眠质量，考虑利用基因编辑等技术来提高宇航员的健康水平。
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01:12:32 有些人即使睡眠时间短，也能保持良好的认知功能和身体机能，这可能是因为他们的睡眠效率更高。
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01:13:07 短睡眠者能够快速减少睡眠压力，这与DEC基因有关。
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01:17:05 长期睡眠过多（嗜睡症）与睡眠不足一样有害，可能与抑郁症等精神疾病有关。
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01:18:04 嗜睡症可能与抑郁症等精神疾病有关，但两者之间的因果关系尚不明确。
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01:20:59 轻微的脑外伤也会导致长期的睡眠结构改变，可能引发其他与生活方式相关的问题。
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01:23:58 规律的作息时间和环境线索可以帮助提高睡眠效率。
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01:28:00 睡醒后立即摄入咖啡因可以有效缓解睡意。
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01:28:49 在皮质醇分泌高峰期进行训练可以优化训练效果。
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01:29:45 白天可以根据需要补充咖啡因，但睡前6-8小时应停止摄入。
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01:31:35 使用蓝光阻挡眼镜可以帮助促进褪黑素分泌，从而改善睡眠。
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01:32:30 某些食物，如猕猴桃和温牛奶，具有促进睡眠的作用。
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01:33:17 长期服用褪黑素可能会对睡眠结构产生负面影响。
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01:34:58 睡前热水澡可以帮助降低体温，促进睡眠；睡前不要冷水浴。
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01:36:09 白天练习鼻呼吸可以改善夜间睡眠。
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01:37:10 旅行时，可以使用褪黑素等辅助手段来调整生物钟，但应避免长期服用。
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01:42:02 睡眠延长应循序渐进，每次增加20-30分钟，避免对生物钟造成过大的压力。
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01:43:37 睡眠延长可以帮助改善睡眠不足带来的负面影响，但需要循序渐进地进行。
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01:44:42 在进行睡眠剥夺实验前，延长睡眠时间可以减轻睡眠剥夺带来的负面影响。
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01:47:43 人们更容易通过晚睡来延长睡眠时间，而不是早起。
Edit:2025.03.27
Andy Galpin博士欢迎听众收听《Perform》播客，介绍其旨在分享科学见解以提升运动、娱乐和生活的表现。他介绍嘉宾Allison Brager博士，一位在睡眠领域深耕多年的神经科学家，尤其关注睡眠韧性——即如何在不同情境下实现高效睡眠。Galpin提到，Brager的研究涵盖了运动员跨时区旅行、军人在南极和太空中的睡眠，以及普通人的睡眠优化。他期待通过对话揭示睡眠的科学本质，帮助听众不仅生存，而是蓬勃发展。
Brager博士被描述为一位杰出的科学家，拥有丰富的实地经验。Galpin强调，她的研究不仅限于实验室，还直接应用于现实场景，例如军事和极端环境。他希望听众能从中学习如何成为更具韧性和高效的睡眠者。
睡眠迷思与地理优势
对话以Galpin博士提出的一个睡眠迷思开场：东海岸体育团队是否因地理位置享有优势。他戏称西海岸团队常被忽视，希望Brager证实东海岸更有利。然而，Brager博士却给出了相反的结论。她引用1990年代斯坦福睡眠医生的经典NFL研究（2000年代末被她团队验证），指出常规赛中西海岸团队更有优势。原因是西海岸团队的比赛时间更接近其生物钟高峰（circadian peak），如上午或傍晚，而非低谷（circadian trough）。这与东海岸团队相比，使西海岸团队受伤风险降低约五倍，尤其在防守和进攻线球员中。
Galpin对此表示怀疑，半开玩笑地说Brager被“东海岸体育巨头”收买，但她坚持数据可靠。她提到，这一优势不仅限于NFL，还在NBA、NHL和MLB中得到验证，与生物钟的稳健性有关。早晨皮质醇上升提升警觉性、注意力和能量储备，而比赛时间若与此吻合，表现更佳。她澄清这些是相关性而非因果关系，但现象已被广泛认可。
生物钟类型与遗传影响
讨论转向生物钟类型（chronotype），即晨型（morning person）或夜型（evening person）。Brager博士认为，遗传在其中起关键作用，某些人可能因基因倾向选择适合的运动。例如，她小时候是体操运动员，训练多在夜间，符合她的夜型基因（经23andMe确认）。她推测拳击、MMA或NBA等夜间运动可能更吸引夜型人。
Galpin询问，若生物钟类型与环境不匹配会有何影响。Brager引用《Current Biology》的一项橄榄球研究，发现队伍中生物钟类型的多样性可能提升胜率，因比赛时间分布广泛（早、中、晚）。反之，NBA等夜间为主的运动可能更适合统一选择夜型选手。她建议未来可通过基因筛选优化团队配置。
关于遗传与环境的比重，Brager承认尚无明确数据区分天性（nature）与养育（nurture）。她以自己为例，父母是东欧裔夜型人，晚餐常在8:30后，这种习惯可能塑造了她的偏好。她还提到，童年的睡眠习惯会延续至成年，因此父母应从小培养良好的睡眠卫生。
生物钟类型的可变性
Galpin询问生物钟类型是否可改变，例如夜型人因工作需早起。Brager倾向于“天性胜过养育”，用转基因小鼠模型说明，即使通过光照或食物等时间线索（zeitgebers）调整节奏，一旦线索移除，小鼠会恢复遗传固有的节奏。她分享军中经历，作为夜型人，她曾为与晨型指挥官同步，每天4点起床锻炼，但若不严格控制作息（如8点入睡），她常生病，表明强行改变未能让她“茁壮成长”，仅是“生存”。
她认为，军事和学术等机构常偏向晨型文化，夜型人可能被视为懒惰。她坚持科学支持的立场，选择晚到晚走，保持效率，而非迎合传统。
性别差异与睡眠压力
Brager博士分享了她在博士后研究中使用的“四核基因型”小鼠模型，探讨性别染色体与激素对睡眠的影响。她发现，睡眠压力的积累与睾丸决定基因（SRY gene）相关，生物雄性因腺苷（adenosine）更快积累，更易白天嗜睡；而生物雌性入睡较难，但睡眠质量和效率更高（更快进入第三阶段非快速眼动睡眠和REM睡眠）。
Galpin对此感到惊讶，提到该研究曾被美国国情咨文批评为“浪费开支”。Brager对此表示遗憾，认为这反映了公众对科学价值的误解。她推测，女性睡眠模式可能与育儿责任进化相关，需保持日间警觉性（乙酰胆碱驱动），而男性则倾向快速入睡。她承认，人类数据尚不足，主要依赖动物模型和80年代研究（如斯坦福的Rachel Manber和耶鲁的Terry Lee）。
睡眠时长与昼寝
关于性别间的睡眠时长差异，Brager提到80年代研究显示女性比男性多睡25-30分钟，但她质疑其临床意义。社交媒体常夸大此差异，建议女性需9.5小时，男性8小时，她认为这可能引发睡眠焦虑。她确认，男性更易昼寝，与腺苷快速积累有关，跨文化（如午睡文化）均有体现。
Galpin询问昼寝的趋势，Brager认为过去十年其污名有所减少，但军事中仍视为懒惰。她与沃尔特里德同事发表论文，引用高级军官匿名言论，凸显职场昼寝的负面看法。她提到历史人物如艾森豪威尔在二战中每日昼寝，表明其益处。
关于昼寝的最佳实践，Brager建议普通人昼寝不超过30分钟，以免干扰夜间睡眠；夜班工作者或慢性睡眠不足者可延长至90分钟完成一个睡眠周期。20-30分钟的昼寝可立即改善情绪、运动和认知表现。她估计昼寝比例较低，但在运动员等特定群体中更普遍。
昼寝策略与特殊人群
Galpin提到自己难以昼寝，若睡着会感觉糟糕。Brager建议尝试“咖啡昼寝”（nappuccino），即睡前摄入咖啡因（源于1970年代卡车行业）。咖啡因需20分钟影响腺苷受体，配合短昼寝可减少睡后倦怠。她推荐，慢性睡眠不足者（如少于7-9小时）可考虑20-30分钟非活动时间缓解睡眠压力，技术如Shiftwave可助进入深度休息状态。
对于户外工作者（如猎人）常睡3小时的情况，Brager认为这类似多相睡眠（polyphasic sleep），是前工业化人类的自然模式。土著社区常在夜间睡4小时，日间补3-4小时，符合生物钟的两个高峰和低谷（凌晨2-4点和下午2-4点）。她认为这无健康风险，反倒是现代社会对抗生物节律导致慢性疾病。
夜班工作与健康风险
讨论转向夜班工作，Brager引用研究显示，夜班或轮班工作者寿命减少15年，癌症风险增加，世界卫生组织将其列为二级致癌物。她将其归因于对抗生物进化，建议通过基因筛选（如PER2基因）选择夜型人从事此类工作。现有工具如唾液检测可识别晨型或夜型倾向，80%人群为中间型，10%晨型，10%夜型。
极端环境中的睡眠
Brager分享了在南极和太空的研究。在南极阿根廷海军基地Belgrano II，她团队用活动记录仪（actigraphs）追踪一年睡眠数据。冬季睡眠次数少但时长长，夏季反之，但每日总睡眠量稳定，生理指标（如血压）和认知表现（心理运动警觉性测试）未受季节影响，显示睡眠系统的稳健性。
在太空，国际空间站的Frank Rubio报告睡得很好（超过一年），但其他宇航员称睡眠较差，返地后REM睡眠受影响。她推测微重力通过前庭系统和丘脑影响睡眠结构。NASA通过模拟光照管理昼夜节律，宇航员被固定在垂直位置睡眠，避免漂浮。
火星睡眠与基因编辑
展望火星任务，Brager认为睡眠管理至关重要，需研究极端环境下的生理差异（包括性别）。她建议将健康和基因稳健性作为宇航员筛选标准，并提出用CRISPR等基因编辑技术优化睡眠效率（如针对短睡者基因DEC），以适应火星的独特挑战。她强调，火星不是火箭问题，而是生理问题。
短睡者与高效睡眠
Brager讨论了短睡者（4-5小时睡眠仍高效者），如特朗普、奥巴马和军事领袖Stanley McChrystal。她提到DEC基因使腺苷消散更快，慢波睡眠更高效，但此类人群的长期表现研究不足。她认为这是天生的神经回路差异，无法通过训练实现。
超长睡眠与健康
对于睡10-11小时者，Brager引用亚利桑那大学Michael Grandner的研究，称超睡症（hypersomnia）与失眠同样有害，增加死亡率和疾病风险。这可能因睡眠效率低下，或与抑郁、慢性疼痛等共病相关，因果方向尚无定论。
高效睡眠策略
针对需在6小时内高效睡眠的高管案例，Brager建议：早晨立即摄入200毫克咖啡因并接受阳光，训练安排在早晨利用皮质醇高峰；白天每4-6小时补充咖啡因（最晚睡前8小时）；晚上8-11点工作时戴蓝光阻挡眼镜，促进褪黑激素分泌；睡前避免冷水浴（用热水澡降温）和大剂量褪黑激素（可扰乱睡眠结构），可选助眠食物（如温奶、猕猴桃、酸樱桃提取物）或镁补充剂。她强调一致的时间线索可巩固高效睡眠模式。
时差与睡眠扩展
对于每月跨3小时时区的旅行者，Brager分享个人策略：飞行中用蓝光阻挡眼镜，抵达后1-2天服用1毫克褪黑激素调整节律。她警告高剂量（如20毫克）会导致数天认知迟钝。睡眠扩展方面，她建议以30分钟为单位逐步延长（如提早上床或晚起），每周调整一次，最多延长2小时。10天额外睡1小时可减缓随后40-62小时觉醒的认知下降。
家乡运动基因
最后，Galpin好奇Brager家乡Youngstown, Ohio为何盛产运动员（如Maurice Clarett、Kelly Pavlik）。Brager回忆高中毕业班（711人）有60-70人进入一级运动，归因于当地“拼搏精神”和体育作为脱离贫困的出路。她虽自认普通，但在外才发现自身天赋，可能是遗传与环境的结合。
Edit:2025.03.27
00:00
The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life. Welcome to Perform. I'm Dr. Andy Galpin. I'm a professor and scientist and executive director of the Human Performance Center at Parker University. And today I'm speaking with Dr. Allison Brager. Allison is a neuroscientist who has spent most of her career focusing on sleep and specifically sleep resilience.
00:24
which is one way of thinking about how do we come more efficient and effective with sleep regardless of the situation. Classic examples of that, her research has looked at everything from athletes traveling from one coast to the other coast, military individuals sleep on Antarctica and in space, as well as just a ton of research for life
00:45
regular people, and how do we just become the most effective we can? What effective sleep is, is actually something I learned a lot about today and something that you will pick up on as Alison shared what that actually means, how you determine it, how you can actually become more specific and precise to your individual sleep needs, and overall, how to better think about sleep for not only surviving, but thriving. Alison is a fantastic scientist. Her publications are numerous.
01:11
But she spent so much time in the field dealing with individuals that I think the true value you're going to get out of this episode is understanding how that information that she has gleaned from her research actually manifests itself in the practical real world scenario. And so I learned a ton. I know you're going to learn a ton about becoming a resilient and highly effective sleeper.
01:33
So with that all said, I hope you enjoy today's episode with Dr. Allison Brager. Dr. Allison Brager, thank you so much for coming out. There's a lot of cool stuff I want to get into today. I was hoping we could start off actually with dispelling a huge sleep myth. I'm from the West Coast. You're from the Midwest. As you are well aware, there is a huge East Coast bias for sports teams. We all know that. The West Coast gets no love. We get unfair placements and
02:01
and things. Can you please confirm and share with the rest of the world that there is in fact a huge advantage for East Coast teams, that it is easier, that they win more, that everything is better, and the West Coast teams are truly at a disadvantage?
02:15
It's actually the opposite. No! No! During the regular season, it's actually the opposite. So that's the classic NFL study that was done by some famous Stanford sleep physicians in the 90s that we sort of reconfirmed.
02:33
in the late 2000s. But this idea that West Coast teams, at least during the regular season, are playing games that are more attuned to their circadian peak than their circadian trail. So basically what that means is if you just control for biological time, they're playing games more in their mid-morning or early evening. And
02:58
And so that's what gives them this advantage in terms of performance, which has been correlated with injury risk. So they're five times less likely, especially if you look at like defensive linemen, offensive linemen, less likely to get injured compared to the
03:16
New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles and all the above. So I'm sorry. I can't help you with this. All lies. I refuse to believe your data. You're clearly bought by Big East Coast Sports. I get it. I don't trust it. Hey, I'm actually a huge San Francisco 49ers fan myself. Even worse. Even worse. Get out.
03:37
I coach Fred Warner. He's a good friend of mine. But outside, and I tell him, he knows this. He knows I hope he loses every game of the year, but that he wins the MVP. Just like, I'm open with my rooting on that one. In terms of the injuries, actually, this is sort of interesting. Is
03:53
Is there a particular type of injury? Is it brain injuries or soft tissue or hamstrings, or did it sort of just be across the board with types of injuries or something like that? That's a great question. So we more or less just looked at number of weeks spent on injury reserve. That was the only available to us at the time.
04:10
but we actually were able recently to get some of the concussion data because that was something that came out of the NFL lawsuit is they had to start publicly recording when players had gotten concussed during a game and stuff. So no pressure to my wife. She's trying to help me with those types of analyses now. She's much better at statistics than I am. Well, I hope she doesn't screw it, and I hope she's not bought by Big East Coast like you are. We get some real data out of this.
04:37
She's a Miami Dolphins fan, so I don't know. She can have it. No one's scared of the Dolphins. Why does it actually matter? How much of a winning advantage is it? What are we talking about? And any insights into… We don't have to necessarily go into deep molecular mechanism, but you're welcome to. Sure. Why in the world would someone playing a few hours outside of their optimal range actually matter? How does that transfer, I guess, into…
05:06
winning a game. That's a big leap from small thing to winning a football game. Right. I mean, that's a great question because these are correlative. They're not causative relationships. But it does speak to the robustness of the circadian clock, right? So in general, regardless of if you're a morning person and evening person, for the most part, the circadian clock and the daily rhythms of
05:33
endocrine function, behavior, and all the physiological processes associated with the circadian clock are predictable. And a lot of these performance attributes have to do with rising levels of cortisol in the morning, right? Upon awakening, that's when cortisol begins to rise and
05:52
And the circadian clock begins to reach peak levels of alertness. And then peak levels of alertness are reached roughly around 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., depending on who you are. And so if you are training, if you are competing during that time, you're capitalizing on that peak of cortisol, which is obviously going to mobilize energy reserves and
06:18
and contribute to those aspects of attention, vigilance, focus, and all the above. So it's probably a combination of every physiological factor, physical, performance, recovery, cognitive, that's all combining. And I appreciate you saying that was just correlation. But those correlations have been shown in the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball. Yep.
06:40
I think it's pretty well established at this point that that is a real phenomenon. Yeah. I mean, I also think too, right, there's a huge genetic component and that's a lot of what I've studied my whole life is the genetics of sleep physiology and circadian physiology is I do believe people select for their sport based on if they're a morning person or evening person. Interesting. I grew up a gymnast.
07:02
We always practiced at night. We didn't necessarily compete at night, but I was always coming home from gymnastics practice at 9 p.m. doing my homework, going to bed. My parents are both night owls. And I know I did the 23andMe raw data analysis. I'm a night owl. But I bet it's like that with other sports as well, like boxing, MMA, probably pre-select for night owls. Same with NBA, MMA.
07:31
and NHL players, you know? How much of an effect does it have if you are mismatched? So there actually is data to show that there is a significant effect. There was a study that came out, I can't remember how many years ago, but it was in Current Biology, and they were looking at rugby players, and they were looking at it in relation to chronotype. And they essentially found that if you had greater information
08:00
inter-individual variability and chronotype on a team, you are more likely those to win rugby matches because… You weren't as sensitive. I get it. Yeah. Yeah, because you're not just playing games at night, like an NBA or an NHL team. You're playing games either in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening. Now, I imagine it would probably be the opposite for…
08:23
NBA or NHL teams, I don't know if anyone's actually done this analysis, you probably want less inter-individual variability and chronotype and you want to pre-select for more evening types. So we got to start genetically screening people for our draft process. I mean, you know, Gattaca is one of my favorite movies. I'm not going to say it's like the be-all end-all, but every, you know, I try to, every student that I teach, I always try to expose them to a
08:52
you know, that movie for that reason. Yeah, it's super interesting. When it comes to chronotype, there's clearly, as you talked about, there are some known genetic components to that. I've always been interested, though, of how much of that do we know at this point? We may not know much regarding habituation throughout life, right? So if your parents were night owls, do you simply become a night owl because of genetic components or because you just simply got brought up in a culture that was like that?
09:23
Language that was like that, you know, your parents say, oh, I'm just a night person, things like that. Do we have any insights into like how much play is genetically predetermined versus systemically grown into the person's behavior? I don't know of any data that exists, but…
09:38
I mean, I could say that would make sense, right? Because if you're used to being in a household who eats dinner extremely late. My parents are Eastern European, so we never do anything on time or early, right? So dinner was around 8.39, and guess what? I'm still an 8.39 person.
09:58
p.m. eater. Like I go to the gym and then I eat really late. But I also go to bed really late and then sleep in and, you know, wake up late too. And whether or not that's nature versus nurture is
10:10
Yeah. I mean, we do know at least from adult sleep habits, for example, that the sleep habits that are instilled in you as a child, whether good, bad or ugly, do carry on with you into college. And then when you are an adult and able to make your full decisions. So a lot of…
10:31
Behavioral sleep physicians will tell you that, that's why it's so important for parents to establish bedtime routines and be the examples of good hygiene for their children because that will have a lasting impression when those kids do become of age and can make their own decisions.
10:50
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11:05
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11:32
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12:14
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12:28
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12:55
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13:11
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13:37
Do we have any insights on how changeable chronotype is, right? So if you, say, got a job and they said, Alison, like you have to be into work at seven and whatever the case is, and you had to change that, how long would it take you
13:51
to shift in a position where you didn't feel horrible getting up at 5 a.m. versus 8 a.m. or wherever it went over time? You normally, are you like a midnight to 8 sort of person? I am. Yep. My preferred is 1130, wake up around between 730 and 8. So if that got shifted by two or three hours, I guess two-part question, can you actually change your chronotype? And then obviously you can adjust to that time independent of changing chronotype. So the second question then is how long would it take you to truly, I mean, it'd probably take you a few days or a week to
14:20
to where you're like not waking up feeling terrible, but you would not be optimized would be my assumption. How long would that take? So I come from the camp of researchers, you know, nature over nurture. And I'll use preclinical animal models as an example. We have engineered transgenic mice to be
14:42
Extreme early morning owls or extreme early morning larks or extreme night owls, all through manipulation of the circadian molecular clock.
14:54
And you can present them with different stimuli in the environment. In the circadian world, we call them zeitgebers. So you can present them with repeatable, predictable photic information or non-photic information such as food, some type of rewarding stimulus, exercise, social stimulation, et cetera. But as soon as you remove that predictability of that zeitgeber or time queue, you're
15:20
then the organism will revert back to its genetic natural rhythm. And I think the same is true in humans. I'll use, you know, again, anecdotal evidence, but…
15:32
Being in the military, at one point, I was a company commander in a leadership position. And in order to establish rapport and camaraderie with my brigade commander, he is an extreme morning person and he works out at 5 a.m. So what that meant is I had to wake up every day at 4 a.m. to then get to the gym to work out with him at 5 a.m. Again, it wasn't mandatory, but I knew it's, you know, just…
15:59
part of the process of being his subordinate. And during that time, I would find myself, if I didn't go to bed exactly at 8 p.m., if I didn't keep all those other non-photic things in my life stable, such as when I ate, how much I was hydrating throughout the day, etc., like, I got sick pretty often because my body just biologically fights against being a morning person.
16:27
So in that particular case, again, you were able to get through it, but you were not thriving. Exactly. Oh, I was not thriving. I wasn't even optimizing. I was just trying to stabilize. Surviving. Survive. Exactly. Getting through the day. Exactly. I mean, that's why I tell people like…
16:42
At the end of the day, I will never be anyone important ever in the military, even if I wanted to, because I am a night person and things such as the military pre-select for morning people. And I am not that person and I will never be. One of the issues with those historical events.
17:01
organizations, right? Academia is its own little thing, right? Oh, yeah. That's why I thrived actually in academia, right? It's a land of night owls. Yeah. I'm the opposite. Like, I'm a morning person big time. And I would hate, I'd hate the 11 p.m. meetings. I hate just all that stuff, right? I'm like, but I'm actually wondering if we've done ourselves quite the disservice in those organizations of saying, no, like, I mean, obviously, hopefully we're past the point
17:27
We are waking up early as a badge of honor and do those things. But is that actually, is that culture still pretty true in the military? I would say it's pretty true. I think people who are night owls are considered to be lazy. Yeah, I still, I know I get judged for being a night owl in the military. But you hold your ground pretty good, right? I do. Well, I mean, it's mind supported by science. You know, I take no prisoners. I'm not going to, I don't care what other people think. Yeah.
17:54
So you're going to roll in four hours after everybody else, but you'll stay there four hours later. Exactly, exactly. And get your stuff done. Yep, yep. Going back to your mouse studies, we were laughing earlier this morning about how you got a little bit of a shout out during the State of the Union. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
18:13
Maybe it'd be easier. Would you mind sharing a little bit about what I'm talking about? Because it's quite funny. Yeah. So one of the transgenic mouse models I worked on as a postdoc at Morehouse School of Medicine was the four-core genotype mouse line. It was a mouse line created by Art Arnold out here, actually, in UCLA. And what it is, is it's a divergence of chromosomal sex.
18:37
with hormonal sex. And the purpose of developing this mouse line is it presents a unique way to look at the influence of chromosomes, so sex chromosomes, versus hormonal release of testosterone and estrogen on just physiology and behavior. So it actually worked out to be an elegant mouse model. It's very elegant. Exactly, to look at sex differences in sleep. So to understand how…
19:05
sleep pressure builds differently amongst biological males versus biological females. And, you know, bottom line of doing, using this sophisticated mouse model is we know that a lot of sleep traits are
19:21
are due to this, it's called the SRY gene. So the testes determining gene, that is responsible for sex differences and the accumulation of sleep pressure across the waking day and then the presentation of daytime sleepiness. So bottom line being that biological males are more prone to daytime sleepiness
19:46
Whereas females are not. And then biological females, although they have greater difficulties entering sleep itself at night, the quality and the efficiency of their sleep is greater than males.
20:00
How could you have answered that question without that model? I mean, we were only answering the hormonal piece of it, really. How would you do without it? So my postdoc mentor, that was his, I guess, landmark study as a postdoc at Northwestern with Dr. Fred Turek. So Dr. Katema Paul, that's who I worked with as a postdoc, he essentially would remove the gonads of these adult men.
20:26
mice, right? So stopping circulation of estrogen and testosterone.
20:31
But you couldn't see these nuanced differences. And it's like, that's why you needed the chromosomal sex in the genetic manipulation piece of it. And it's important to realize that biological sex differences are really complicated. It's not just hormonal sex. It is also chromosomal sex that seems to play the greatest role on physiology and behavior. I actually want to go back to some of those findings about sleep pressure and sex differences. But
20:59
The reason this came up, I guess, in that speech was this was one of the examples of wasteful spending. Is that a fair way that it was characterized? Correct. Yes. And you and I, and I'm sure many people on your team had a good laugh at that, right? It's really unfortunate, and we're not going to spend too much time here, but it's very unfortunate that a title of a paper, a title of a study section can get cut when really there is tremendous value for all of us behind that.
21:27
With very little attention paid to who's doing it, what's happening, and its categories. I mean, you know, social, political…
21:36
norms aside like men and women are different and like these animal models exist to understand biologically why men are and women are different and then when it comes to treating things such as sleep disorders or managing sleep disturbances which you know 70 of the world if not more suffer from that's how you target and to address them is through the lens of biology but
22:02
I mean, that's just my own humble opinion. And now you can't even study it. Yeah. Because great. Okay. Let's get back to some of those findings. That was an animal model. Do we know anything about how much or how little that is actually going to transfer over into human models? Do we have any data on sleep pressure, sleep inertia, some of those other things you brought up that look like they're different based on chromosomes alone? What do we know about the impact on humans? So honestly, I haven't really seen much data.
22:33
In the literature, I mean, I'm sure you can look at like single nucleotide polymorphisms in the SRY gene, for example. But honestly, I don't know if anyone has investigated that per se. I mean, I guess you can look at…
22:53
like, intersex individuals, so someone who has, like, for example, androgen deficiency syndrome, something like that. But I don't think that's been characterized enough in humans. Tough study to pull off. I will say, so a few months ago, when was that? It was about a year ago, I presented at the NSCA conference that's geared towards tactical populations.
23:19
And I did this whole deep dive lecture. I'm sure some people appreciated it, but a lot of people were like, okay, where's she going with this? But I started with the four core genotype model, and then I transitioned into the studies we know about women and sleep. And what's crazy is like all this work that was done by Dr. Rachel Manber at Stanford University and Dr. Terry Lee at
23:48
at Yale University is like, it was done in the 80s and it just stayed in this vault forever.
23:54
for like 45 years until quite honestly wearable companies and, you know, I'll give a shout out to Whoop, like recognize that we need to focus on like female differences in sleep. And a lot of people think that that research is unknown or unheard of, but actually it was done in the 80s. Yeah. And it was done in a very robust, controlled nature. But, you know, it was just forgotten for like 45 years. What do we actually know about
24:24
about sleep differences between men and women. And what I actually want to know about is chromosomally. So when you tease out the hormones, how is it that a particular, whether it's a polymorphism or some other activity at the level of the genome, how is that actually manipulating, manifesting itself into sleep? Any idea what mechanisms deposit there if it's not endocrine? So in terms of mechanism of action, um,
24:54
We know that, again, there's differences in sleep pressure. And if you unpack…
24:58
the onion, sleep pressure is manifest from increasing levels of adenosine production, extracellular adenosine production within the brain, particularly the basal forebrain, which is a weight-promoting area. So if sleep pressure is accumulating quickly, which seems to be the case in biological males by way of the testes-determining gene,
25:24
then there's more rapid accumulation of extracellular adenosine. And the only way to pay off that increasing sleep pressure is through daytime sleep. And so with females, right, it just essentially means their rate of accumulation of sleep pressure is lower, which means that the production of extracellular adenosine would be lower. Now, whether that's been studied,
25:53
It hasn't, but hypothetically, just knowing with all the myriad of studies around accumulating sleep pressure and extracellular adenosine, we predict that's the mechanism of action. I mean, that's the closest we can come at this point, right? Is it fair? Is it a trope? I certainly know that it feels like the guys that I know versus the girls that I know, you…
26:20
Guys fall asleep fast. Yep. Oh, yeah. Is that actually been demonstrated? Do we know that? So that's been demonstrated again in these preclinical transgenic mouse models using the four core genotype. It's also been demonstrated in human studies. So in those studies that were done in the 80s by Terry Lee and Rachel Manber, that's exactly what they found is sleep onset for men is much quicker than
26:45
But then when you look at time to restorative sleep, so that entry into stage three non-REM and then REM sleep, it is the latency is quicker for females. So it might take them longer to fall asleep, but to get that restorative sleep, it's much quicker and then much more efficient across the night. Do we have any teleological or evolutionary guess as to why?
27:10
That setup is there. I mean, I think it all goes back to child rearing, right? Like who's responsible for children, right? Men are responsible for propagating children, but, you know, women, like they are the caretakers. And I think these are these built-in neurochemical, neuroanatomical circuits that exist because of, you know, relationships between who actually takes care of the child. How much of it is, if you know, psychology versus biology there?
27:39
So the classic thing you'll hear is like, oh, women ruminate more. They think about stuff more. They're paying attention. Or is it simply any host of cascades haven't kicked off yet? The pressure isn't high enough. Do we have any idea what – I'm sure it's both are contributing. Well, I think that's the psychological aspect from my lens is a part of that biological blueprint, right, is because –
28:06
Females are going to have greater vigilance across the day. Well, what neurochemically is vigilance? It's increased acetylcholine release and activation of acetylcholine areas of the brain, like the basal forebrain, that are going to lead to that. But again, I see the world from the lens of nature versus nurture. So I'm not a very good…
28:32
colleague in departments of psychology. Well, you have a degree in psychology. I have an undergraduate degree in psychology, but really it's… Neuroscience. It's all neuroscience. I was fortunate enough that, you know, I did go to a university that really…
28:49
bribed on its neuroscience curriculum. Well, nonetheless, I heard you're a psychologist and what I just heard you say was psychology is just misunderstood physiology. I get it. I get it. That's what you said. Dr. Brigger said it. Hold my stamp to that. Acetylcholine. Is that a total concentration issue that generally is higher or is it a receptor density or is it both? Do we have any idea what are actually the sex differences between acetylcholine? That's a good question. I mean,
29:20
The studies that I know exist on sex differences focus on one particular area, which is the basal forebrain. That is the seat of major acetylcholinergic production and release and activation within the brain. And then there's cascading effects on other areas as well.
29:41
But no, I actually think this is the land of great unknown. I mean, there haven't been a lot of studies on sex differences and physiology and behavior. And if there were, they were done again in the 80s and 90s. And now, you know, you got me curious about going back onto PubMed and Google Scholar and looking this up. But yeah, I mean, the stuff that has been done since then, a lot of it is
30:06
questionnaires. It's pretty low fidelity stuff, which is good and helpful. I mean, you need self-report. I mean, with our sleep studies that we do in humans now, right, we always have an objective endpoint endocrine or…
30:21
behavioral cognitive measure, but it's always paired with self-report. And sometimes the self-report data is what lends the more interesting findings. So women, men fall asleep differently. We get that. What about total duration and waking up time? Any sex differences that are notable there? So I'm happy you asked that because I feel like there have been…
30:45
That data has been taken a little bit too far on social media that men, excuse me, that women need more sleep than men. There is a difference in total sleep time between men and women that was found again in these studies in 1980s.
31:02
And it's about 25 minutes to 30 minutes different. But I come from this lens, is that clinically significant? And that, I can't answer that. But I feel like in social media, that has been, people have taken that information and have run with it that, you know, women need to spend. You think I saw something recently like, because women take this long to fall asleep, they need to be in bed for nine and a half hours.
31:30
versus a guy who, you know, falls asleep quickly. They only need to be in bed for eight. And I think at a certain point, like that's just going to create anxiety around the act of sleeping that it's going to be more harmful than helpful. I assume then also based on this, men nap more.
31:51
Than women do. Yep. Yeah, yeah. No, we know that. Like, we know that experimentally. We know that anecdotally. You know, you just look at cultures around the world that have siestas and are, you know, it's adopted and celebrated that, like, people nap during the day. We know that men…
32:12
In general, cross cultures are more prone to daytime sleepiness. Do you know if… And transgenic mice too. Oh, yeah. Name there. Are people napping more or less or the same than we have historically? That I don't know. I mean, I feel like at least in the last 10 years, that stigma around napping has been…
32:37
Uh, reduced, I would say. I mean, it still exists in the military. I don't think it's going away. We actually, um, my colleagues and I from Walter Reed, we have a paper that we published in the, um, flagship journal of sleep about around, it's called the stigma of workplace napping. Yeah.
32:53
And we strategically, anonymously took quotes from senior leaders in the military. And I mean, we were flabbergasted. They were like, no, if my employees nap, they're lazy. Like they're not productive. And I'm like, you're okay. Just whatever. No comment there. But yeah, I feel like the stigma has been reduced. But I would say, I would argue that
33:23
earlier in, you know, generations, decades earlier that napping was still more celebrated than it is today. I mean, I know, for example, President Eisenhower, then General Eisenhower, used to nap. Like in the middle of worldwide conflict in World War II, he took a nap every day. Probably very beneficial. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. What do we know about successful versus unsuccessful napping?
33:47
In terms of a nap, it has to be 30 minutes or less. We do know that with the exception being a night shift worker or someone who has chronic insufficient sleep, right? The recommendation there is 90 minutes to complete a full sleep cycle. But-
34:08
historically what the clinical data has shown is if you are someone who normally gets sufficient sleep and you take a nap that is longer than 30 minutes, then you're more likely to have issues with sleep onset that night or just have issues with regularity in your sleep.
34:29
But there's also data to show that a 20 to 30 minute nap is sufficient for immediate improvements in mood, athletic performance, even cognitive performance. Do you have any sense of what percentage of people nap? I don't. I would imagine it's fairly low, right? Yeah, I would think it's fairly low, except when you're talking about these microcosms of cultures, right? Like professional athletes, it seems to be
34:56
completely acceptable and celebrated of napping. And I'm sure there's a few ringleaders like, you know, I know LeBron James, you were just talking about that. He's a huge proponent of daytime naps. And I've heard that he takes multiple naps across the waking day. But
35:15
It depends on the culture, right? I can tell you in my workplace, very, very few people nap, you know. I struggle napping. Like it just does not work for me at all. Yeah, it doesn't work for me either. If I have had a string of nights of insufficient sleep or if I'm traveling, I will lie down and like close my eyes for a bit. But I think it's just the nature of being like a highly functional ADHD person. I can't. Yeah.
35:42
If I happen to fall asleep accidentally or even on purpose during the day, I'm going to just feel horrific the whole rest of the day. I'm going to feel terrible. Yep. Is that just a good indication that I just shouldn't do it? Or are there ways that I could change that so I feel better when I wake up? Or should I just avoid it?
35:59
So it's interesting you say that because one of the things that has become more popular is this idea of a nappuccino or like having caffeine prior to a nap. And I learned anecdotally that this was adopted by the trucking industry in the 1970s. And the reason behind it is, right, like a cup of coffee or any caffeine, preferably not an energy drink, before a nap is
36:28
It takes about 20 minutes for the adenosine receptors in your brain to be impacted. So in that 20 minutes, you can take a nap and then wake up feeling boosted or less groggy than you otherwise would without the caffeine. And that has been experimentally tested in the lab too.
36:51
What circumstances need to happen for somebody, for you to say, hey, you should consider napping, right? How does somebody know that they should think about napping? Is there anything that you say, hey, if A, B, and C is going on, you might be a good candidate for napping? Or is this something they just need to go figure out? So, I mean, and
37:09
And the populations I work with, right, like I work in a world where most people, I'd like to think I'm a good example. But again, that's also why I'll never really amount to any, you know, position. Well, I think you've already, I think you've already amounted to plenty of pretty good positions within the military, but…
37:26
Most of which we can't even talk about. Yeah, exactly. Is chronic insufficient sleep, right? If you are not getting sufficient sleep, so most people between seven and nine hours a night, depending on who you are, you need to nap or you should nap or engaged in
37:46
some sort of like 20-minute non-activity throughout the waking day to help offset that accumulating sleep pressure, right? Because you're already waking up in the morning with a high level of sleep pressure because you weren't able to effectively release it at night when you sleep. Well, we do recommend in those populations like, hey, try to get 20 to 30 minutes of
38:11
I understand that some people can't get in that mental headspace, but that's why we have things like technology now to assist. I mean, I'll give a shout out to our dear friends at Shiftwave. I think that is going to be a great tool, especially for the tactical populations I work with, to help them get into that headspace of just turning their brain off and
38:35
And getting into that meditative deep rest state, even if it's for like 10 to 15 minutes. I spend most of my recreational time paying attention to wildlife. It's a huge passion of mine. If we can go out and where I live, black-tailed deer and elk and like that's what I spend most of my passion time on.
38:55
If you hang around people that do that, hunters and conservationists and outdoors and biologists and stuff, they can take a three-hour nap in the middle of the day like nothing. Just nothing. They can go lay down and they're just gone for hours. Every time I try that, I lay there on the side of a mountain and it's like rolling around. It's like zero chances happening. I think I know your answer here, but I would assume that not a healthy behavior that they have was sleeping for three hours a day.
39:23
In the middle of the day, is that a fair characterization of a poor sleep strategy? So I'm going to actually challenge you on that because that's how humans used to sleep before Thomas Edison commercialized electricity. So that was like multi-phasic sleep was what
39:43
through the course of human evolution, used to practice. And honestly, if you look at indigenous communities, they still practice that, where they have like four hours of sleep at night, and then there's four hours of wakefulness, and then they have morning, you know, sunrise activity, and then they have a three, four hour period in the middle of the afternoon. Now, it makes sense when you look at the circadian clock, right? Because there's
40:10
Two circadian peaks and two circadian troughs throughout the 24-hour period. The first dip, obviously, is in the middle of the night. That's when core body temperature driven by the circadian clock is its lowest between 2 and 4 a.m. But then there's a second dip in the circadian alertness signal in the middle of the afternoon for most people between 2 and 4. And so that's why it is good to…
40:38
push people towards sleeping or napping during this time but and people who you know live off the land and live a more indigenous lifestyle they're just catering to their natural circadian rhythm pre you know industrialized exposure and do we think that those people can be
41:01
perfectly healthy? Is there any reason to think that that is actually a problem? No, I don't think there's an issue at all, to be honest with you. I mean, you're not fighting against human evolution and biology, right? Because if you look at most chronic disease states in the country, it's because of fighting against evolution and biology. And also too, it goes back to your point of
41:23
I think there is evidence for as limited as there is between people who are one chronotype and then tried to be the other chronotype and looking at morbidity and mortality. Perfect example, shift workers, right?
41:37
People who do night shift work have an estimate of a 15 years decrease in their lifespan. Fifteen. Fifteen years. So there's a large-scale epidemiological study that looked at cancer rates as well as longitudinal study of lifespan of night shift workers or rotating shift workers. And
42:00
Their lifespan was reduced by 15 years. They had significant increases in cancers across the board. So not just a particular cancer, but all different types of bodily cancers. And then even the World Health Organization has labeled shift work as a level two carcinogen. And it goes back to fighting against our evolution in biology and what
42:26
Our genetic program is. How do they generally define shift work or what hours of work or is it overnight or is it like swing shift? Like what counts as shift work? When we say shift work, we're usually talking about people who start work at 11 p.m., work the graveyard shift, right? 11 p.m., get off 7 a.m.
42:44
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43:03
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44:22
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44:44
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45:10
exhibit hall, nightlife events, plus a learning and lifting in the gym with myself and Dan Garner. To see the exact schedule, full list of speakers, and get signed up, visit parkerseminars.com. One more time, that's parkerseminars.com. I can't wait to see you there. We have dealt, actually, in a number of our companies, we've dealt with a lot of surgeons, emergency medicine, nurses, firefighters,
45:40
police, and they have to work at some point. There are better and there are worse policies for that. We've seen some people where they like four days day shift, four days night shift. You can't design a worse possible setup for those individuals. So if somebody has to work night shift, because we need it, right? We need surgeons, we need physicians and nurses and so on and so forth. Military, right? We win our nation's wars at night. We need people who can operate at night. How do you then set them up
46:08
for least amount of failure if they have to work night shift. So it's funny you ask that because I feel like I'm back in my dissertation defense in graduate school. Do it. But I think that's where the power of genetics and like are these genetic screening tools come into play is in this circumstance, why not pre-select people who are more optimal at night for these types of positions? I know like,
46:38
In medicine, like that might be a little bit more controversial. But again, like going back to communities like where the ones I work in is like, I would want to have people who are good at operating at night to win our nation's wars, to reduce casualties, to, you know, increase combat effectiveness, things like that. Are there tools to screen for that? Do you know, are there markers? Are there tests? Can we do where if somebody wants to just do this on their own, so they want to figure out, hey,
47:05
I'm considering taking this job. It's a night shift job or not. Like I want to know…
47:10
Do you know of any effective tools for that stuff? I mean, you just spit in the tube and send it off to the lab for analysis. That's all it is. I mean, there's robust known genetic markers, you know, single nucleotide polymorphisms that are linked to being a morning person, an evening person. I mean, we know those PER2 SNPs. That's the gene, the circadian clock gene, PER2. PER2. And that can be any genetic company or is there particular ones that sell kits that
47:37
test for these that are better than others? To the best of my knowledge, most of these genetic screening companies will test for this SNP. Okay. And it's almost as simple as that one marker. Yeah. Well, it is because that's what's been identified in preclinical animal models and, again, has been shown in large-scale genomic-wide studies in humans is
48:01
Yeah. Changes in the circadian clock genes. Which one was that one again? Just per two. Per two. OK. So per two is associated with an evening chronotype and per one is associated with a morning chronotype. What percentage of people are evening versus morning versus somewhere in the middle?
48:21
So we know most of this not from the genetic work, but from this robust questionnaire that's been around for, honestly, 40 years. It's called the Morning Eveningness Questionnaire. I mean, there's a newer modified version of this that Dr. Till Ronenberg has created to include social influences in.
48:41
But based on just, again, large scale epidemiological population based studies of this questionnaire, about 80 percent of us are intermediate types, meaning we normally go to bed or prefer to go to bed around 10 p.m., wake up around 6 a.m. You have 10 percent of the population who are like me, who are more evening types. Now, I'm not an extreme evening type. I feel like I used to be.
49:08
But as I've gotten older, my clock is now phase advancing like most people when they age who prefer to go to bed around midnight, 1230, wake up 8, 830. And then the other 10% are these people like you who are the morning types who prefer to go to bed at 9 and wake up at 4 a.m. That's how my wife is. I would like to go to bed earlier than that. 9 o'clock. We'll just say 9 o'clock. Yeah. If you ask my wife, she'd be like…
49:34
Is your wife a night owl? No, she's more of a night owl. She was when, like when we first met, she was 1130, like 11, right? Wake up at six sort of thing. And now over the years, like she's drifted way down towards me where she's there. I'm definitely like, if I, especially if I didn't have kids, like eight o'clock I'm in bed. Yeah. Like a thousand percent. Yeah. And she's just like, no, like not going to happen. Like get up. We have to go do whatever. Yeah.
49:59
But the likelihood of us like watching a movie or something after the kids go to bed, zero. It's just not going to happen. It's funny because, well, I'm a geo bachelor, but like when I do get to spend some time with my wife, it's the same way. It's just I have to like motivate her to, I am your wife essentially. Like I have to motivate my wife to. Like a four hour shift between you guys. When you want to get up and do stuff. Where I am in North Carolina and she's in Florida. Yeah.
50:26
Um, by the time she's going to bed, I am, which is around like seven 45, eight, I am just leaving the gym to go home and eat dinner and have an extra two, two and a half hours of my day before I go to bed. Are you like my wife where we will be silent for like 30 minutes, like in bed or whatever. And I'm like, finally, like time to go to sleep. And then some, like, there has to be some deep conversation happen. Like, it's just like a quick blast to like talk about some big thing. I'm like, Oh my God. Like,
50:55
But she's like always does that. Yeah. It's a bad cliche. You know, it's true. Are you like that too? No, I am. Yeah. And she's just like, stop. Like, stop talking to me. And then I'll just like drift off into sleep in the middle of the conversation. Oh, I'm gone. Like, I'm definitely gone in that conversation. Yeah. Yeah. So many times I've fallen asleep in the middle of her story because I'm just like, I can't. Yeah. I'm done for. Yep. No, that's yeah, that's me too. All right. I fit that stereotype. Fantastic. Yeah.
51:24
I was asking you earlier about people that have this not quite polyphasic but multiple sleep, several hours of sleep during the day. Yeah. In the world I come from, that's often because of sunlight, right, where you're out doing stuff. Yep. You head back towards camp. And by the time you get back and do stuff and then you only have four hours or five hours where you got to get back up again, feed the horses, do things. Yeah. So you can get out before sunrise, right? Yep.
51:51
So then you have three to four hours of sleep and you're going to sleep more there. Yeah. I know you've done a bunch of work in, of course, the military. Tons of groups in there. You've done stuff with astronauts. Right. You've done stuff in Antarctica. Right. So how do you handle it when you have when light comes?
52:10
is either not the cue, it's not there at all times, you're up in space, it's there at all times. How do you manage a sleep schedule when light is completely eliminated from the equation or maybe not eliminated, but you know what I mean? Like it's completely off the schedule. Yeah. So that's actually what speaks to the…
52:31
robustness of the sleep system is like work in these extreme environments. And I'll use our study in Antarctica as an example. So honestly, to date, that is probably the coolest project that I got to be a part of. How could it not be? So we did essentially a year-long longitudinal assessment of sleep down. It was actually in collaboration with the Argentinian Navy. So they have this Navy base down there called Belgrano II. And it's actually the southernmost point in the world.
52:59
And what's interesting is six months of the year, like they have access. It's kind of like being stationed on the International Space Station is you have access to food, water, resources, and then medevac. But the other six months of the year, if something happens medically, they have to figure it out. Right. So there's a lot of stress during the winter, right?
53:19
Because they don't have access to food resources or any contact with the outside human world. You can't get a plane in and out because of weather. You can't, yeah, because of the weather. And so what we did was we used actigraphs, which, you know, still are clinical grade measures of sleep. Two weeks worth of actigraph data translates to a night of sleep.
53:42
In a sleep lab, so a night of polysomnography. Yeah, this is a wrist wearable. Exactly. And it's extremely durable. I mean, we've taken these wearables out into combat zones and they've come back working completely fine. So they're made to withstand these extreme conditions. And what we found is…
54:02
The structure of sleep across this time being stationed in Antarctica does change from the summer to the winter. So, for example, in the winter, there's fewer sleep episodes, but the sleep episodes are longer. And then in the summer, there's more sleep episodes, but the sleep episodes are shorter. But when you look at overall daily 24-hour sleep amounts…
54:26
They're the same, winter versus summer. And what's really interesting is that also lends to changes in physiology, blood pressure, and cognitive performance too. So we also measured blood pressure down there so that we did –
54:45
four times a day they did blood pressure measurements because they wanted to catch like, you know, predicted times of the circadian peak versus circadian trough. And then same with the gold standard for vigilance, which is the psychomotor vigilance test. Like none of these parameters change seasonally. And I do believe it's because of the fact that like under, you know, complete observational study that the sleep system changes
55:15
didn't change regardless of what was changing in the environment. Like that's just how robust our sleep system is. Biology figured it out. Exactly. Yeah. It got there, right? Yeah. We talk a lot about when we coach people, we try to avoid using sleep optimization, right? What we really try to go after is sleep resilience. Yeah. I want you to be able to have effective quality sleep independent of all these things. I think one of the things we have helped people with a lot is
55:43
I don't want you to have to have a 90 minute routine and a 45 minute breath work session and have everything perfect for you to have a reasonable night of sleep. You become super sensitive, right? We want you to be more resilient against that.
55:55
Sounds like that's exactly what you're talking about, that NIR study. Yeah. And so, I mean, so back in the military sleep lab, we've done these types of studies too, right? Because we've done very well-controlled either acute sleep deprivation to mimic combat operations, like what we're exposed to when we're deployed or chronic sleep loss. And we actually find, when you go back to self-report, even if someone had a really poor night of sleep objectively, right? Right.
56:23
but they are convinced that they got restorative sleep or that they have high sleep resiliency, their next day performance on objective tasks, such as the psychomotor vigilance tests, will be better than someone who rates themselves as not being resilient to sleep deprivation. So…
56:42
You know, you go back to that debate of biology versus psychology. I mean, yes, I still sit in the biological camp, but I understand there are psychological influences. Don't you waver on me, Dr. Breger. No, no, no, no. How long is that tale going to last? In other words, I mean, you've been outspoken about this.
57:04
There's a difference between clinical deficiencies, right? Whether this is because you have a sleep disorder or because you're in a special situation where you legitimately have sleep restriction, whatever's going on. Going from that to okay sleep is not the same thing as going from good to great sleep. And there's huge performance advantages of going from good to great sleep. But at the same time, you've also just told me, even if I have a terrible night of sleep,
57:28
If I think I'm okay, I perform the best. So if I sleep like shit all the time, if I just think I'm fine,
57:34
Am I going to be okay? Like, where's the line here? You know what I mean? Like, where's the breaking point? I would say with confidence, just from the studies we've done, the breaking point is 72 hours. So yeah, yeah. It is a very short-term effect, I will say. And, you know, to quote like the godfather of sleep medicine at Stanford University, Dr. William C. DeMent, who passed away two years ago at the age of 98, he used to say, like, sleepiness makes you stupid.
58:02
Because it is true. It's like this false sense that you're okay, but objectively you're performing horribly. And that's really what we see in studies we've done and then even those endocrine studies where you're getting insufficient sleep and there's an immediate drop-off in circulating levels of testosterone.
58:20
By day three, the system is at its max. I mean, we even found that with a study my colleague, Dr. Tracy Jill Doty did back at Walter Reed, where essentially caffeine will help stabilize your cognitive performance under insufficient sleep up to three days. And then after that, caffeine stops working. Like there's no amount of caffeine that can replace lost sleep. Only sleep can replace lost sleep.
58:50
So it would be fair then to characterize it as saying, if you have a bad night of sleep or two, don't worry about it. Yeah. Past that, though, we need to start making changes. Exactly. Yep. And that's, you know, I get asked this question all the time. Is it good to keep the same sleep schedule? Like, say you're getting insufficient sleep on the weekdays versus, you know, keeping that same schedule on the weekends. I come from the camp that, like,
59:17
I believe in sleep banking and trying to replace sleep pressure or build up on anticipated sleep pressure as much as possible. So for me, I work with populations where they're getting insufficient sleep during the work week. And so they need to disrupt their circadian rhythm on the weekend to bank on that sleep to make up for lost sleep, but also prepare them for the week ahead.
59:46
And there is some data now. I know there's a study that came out a few months ago, again, large-scale population study that found that people who sleep in on weekends, if they are getting insufficient sleep on weekdays, have a 20% reduction in risk for cardiovascular disease. Are there frameworks in which you can do it where it doesn't mess up circadian rhythm? So the obvious example would be—and you're not saying this to be clear—
01:00:14
If you wake up at five in the morning during the week, then, hey, it's okay to stay up till four o'clock at night on the weekends as long as you sleep till noon. That's not what you're saying. No, no, I'm not. Clarify what you mean by like banking or extending out on the weekend so we don't get misinterpretations here. Yeah, that is true. So what I mean is you're going to keep one of those things the same usually, right? You hope so. So
01:00:41
In this circumstance, if you're waking up at 5 a.m. and say you're going to bed at 11 p.m. on the weekday, send…
01:00:51
if you go to bed at 11 p.m. on Friday night and Saturday night, but now you're sleeping in until eight or nine. That's what I'm talking about. So you're keeping one of the two things consistent. Now, I don't think this would probably work in people who use Friday night, go to the club, stay up really late, and then try to sleep in. I mean, I know in the clinical world, when you look at cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, for example,
01:01:20
When those behavioral sleep medicine physicians are trying to extend sleep, they do it in 30-minute intervals. So that is something we do know about the circadian clock is that you can do things in 30-minute increments over an extended period of time to reduce the amount of physiological stress on the system. I wanted to actually ask about, on a similar note, sleep in space. Okay. Yeah.
01:01:47
I know you're in the process of hopefully becoming an astronaut yourself. Hopefully, yes. You're waiting back on that. We'll see. Maybe we'll have you back after you spend a year in space. But how do you think about how do we handle sleep in space? And we've lost not only light, but a thousand other cues. Yeah. So first question on this, do people in space sleep okay? Yeah.
01:02:10
Is it a huge problem? What's it look like up there? So anecdotally, from what I've heard, it depends. So, for example, Colonel Frank Rubio, we had him. He actually gave a leadership lecture to those of us at work from the International Space Station when he was waiting to come home because, as you know, he was up in space for years.
01:02:35
the longest of any human ever at the International Space Station. He said he slept great in space. How long was he up there for? It was over a year. Way over a year, yeah. Yeah. I understand the psychological demands the current astronauts are facing right now is difficult, but he talks about that as well, just missing important family events and whatnot. But he said that he slept great in space.
01:03:03
I've met a few other astronauts who said that it was the opposite for them. And then there's lingering effects back on planet Earth, such as difficulties with entries and maintenance of REM sleep, for example. It makes sense to me in terms of a microgravity environment impacting sleep because we're
01:03:28
Just like with other sensory systems of the nervous system, what is the epicenter of sleep maintenance and sleep continuity is the thalamus, right? The thalamus is the gateway for sensory information. And there's a direct connection between your vestibular balance system and the thalamus that's going to influence sleep states. I mean, again, this hasn't really been…
01:03:57
studied at a deep physiological level in space, but hypothetically what we know about the circuitry of the vestibular system and how it synapses on the thalamus. That's what I predict is…
01:04:10
influencing these changes in sleep architecture with microgravity? They have light taken care of for the most part. Correct. Yeah, they have. I mean, that's one thing is a lot of what we know about the influence of light and photic information on human physiology, behavior and performance actually comes from, honestly, NASA.
01:04:32
They have a really fantastic crew and they always have of like sleep and circadian fatigue scientists. My friend, Dr. Erin Flynn Evans, she's one of the main fatigue scientists for NASA. And she comes from that body of training at Stanford and Harvard who have been –
01:04:53
the founding fathers and mothers of sleep physiology and medicine. What do they do for physical sleep? Are they tying them down to the side of the space station so they're not floating around? Like what is actually happening? Because to your point about the thalamus, when you just look at pressure differences, right, there's a physical pressure that changes when you spend your entire day erect and you go horizontally, right? Fluid shifting, you have a whole host of things that are happening.
01:05:20
This is one of the things that's actually I've seen in the research recently about problems with sleep related to obesity. They're not just airway blockage. Right. You have fluid shifting. You have other things that are going on that are real problems. So how do they handle that stuff? Do they sleep horizontally? That wouldn't matter, right? So my understanding is they're sleeping vertically and it's like you're Velcroed in essentially. So that's my understanding of it. I'll report back to you once I'm up there. Yeah.
01:05:49
I want direct report. We want to actually do a follow-up episode from the space station. Well, they do. So when I went for a selection the first time and we went to mission control, there is a phone. And, you know, their day is very structured and scheduled, but they do have time where they can use this phone in the space station and call down to, like, their family. Oh, cool. And they'll use it to, like, watch a movie and stuff with their family. Nice. Yeah, I'll use that time for a podcast. Yeah.
01:06:19
Perfect. Well, I'm going to hold you to that. Have you thought at all about sleep in Mars? Yeah, I mean, I have. So that's why I think it's going to be personally more important than ever for NASA. If we want Mars to actually be a viable, feasible thing, you are going to need space.
01:06:41
and you're going to need scientists and obviously engineers, right? Makes sense. Behind that to lead that mission. Because…
01:06:52
You know, physiology and extreme environments, as we just talked about with the work we've done in Antarctica, even all the work we've done in active combat zones in the military, it is very different. And we need to understand those nuanced differences and also understand nuanced differences between men and women, right? Because it's going to have an impact there. Do you think it can be part of the screening process for those folks that go out there? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think…
01:07:20
when it comes for training for Mars and in full disclosure, so the class of astronauts that I was part of in 2020, like that first class selected is hypothetically the first class to prepare for Martian exploration. I think they're going to look at health above all else. I mean, skill set and talent is important, but,
01:07:48
But I feel as if the talent is less important than finding an incredibly healthy person who does not have any family history of any disease whatsoever or just is, you know, genetically very healthy. I've been saying for a long time, Mars is not going to be a rocket problem. It's a physiology problem. It's a physiology problem. Absolutely. Yep. What would you do?
01:08:14
personally, to prepare for that? Would you just figure it out along the way? Or is there any sleep resilient stuff you could do? Is there any different training or any other stuff you would do in preparation for Mars? I don't know if this sounds far-fetched, but I wouldn't treat it any differently than these preclinical mouse model transgenic studies we used to do, right? Or I have done. Is
01:08:41
you have to first understand the physiology and behavior. You have to break it down and then, again, study sex differences in this behavior because it's going to impact males and females differently. And then that's where you use the power of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and genetic interventions. I mean, even to the point of
01:09:05
I think it's necessary and sufficient at this point to use things like CRISPR and gene editing to like, I mean, it becomes like the ultimate biology, physiology problem. Having that opportunity to explore Mars. I mean, sure, you want these people to live long, healthy lives after they're done with the space program.
01:09:27
But at the end of the day, you also have this person who has this mentality that they're willing to be like yeeted off the planet into the unknown. So, you know, I feel like people like me who are willing, you know, who have wanted to be an astronaut like their whole life, you know, we're willing to accept that.
01:09:49
some pharmaceutical or nutraceutical or genetic interventions in order to get the job done. Yeah. I mean, I guess what you're saying is if you're 95% of the way there and there's just a couple of things that are stopping you, why not take those and get all that out there? Exactly. Well, I fully support that. Do you know of any animal models that are doing things like that, like gene editing, probably obviously not for Mars, but for other
01:10:15
aspects of sleep. Are you aware of any clinical trials happening or people tinkering with that or labs that are working on stuff? So in regards to space exploration, I don't know that, but I will say like CRISPR and gene editing to better understand sleep physiology has been a thing. I think that's really what you see now when you look at like the evolution of using preclinical animal models to understand mammalian physiology as behavior, right? It's like
01:10:44
I came from the generation where we were still working with these transgenic mouse models, you know, just…
01:10:51
through sophisticated breeding of heterozygous and homozygous mice to hope and pray you get the genotype based on Darwinian, you know, hereditary genetics that you're hoping for. But now we can actually go in and directly manipulate the genome through gene editing or like as a postdoc, when we were doing that skeletal muscle physiology project, we were using a
01:11:16
a transgenic mouse model where we just had to give the mouse doxycycline, so the antibiotic, to either turn on or turn off genes. Oh, because you had already put something in there and you just had to activate it. I didn't put it in there, but the group at Southwestern that had created these genetic mouse models. Yeah.
01:11:35
That's a whole other world of molecular genetics that I don't understand. And I just really appreciate that they're clever and intelligent enough to do something like that. There are a number of people who sleep poorly, and there's a select number of people who sleep horribly but somehow get away with it. And you talked about earlier, and I know that there's plenty of studies that look at a lot of people who think they're getting away with it aren't.
01:12:02
So cognitive function is way lower, even despite people's perception of their cognitive performance. They're significantly lower. That's been shown many, many times. So we argue this all the time. If we look at your data and your numbers are not great, but you think and your perception is high, there's a good chance that it's not actually as high as you think. But there are those select few, right? Those people who can get away with a few hours of sleep per night, four or five is probably more appropriate. Right.
01:12:32
Do you think it's realistic at all for us to be able to engineer something like that? So could we figure, how much do we know about the
01:12:39
genes behind those… Is there a phrase for people that sleep for four hours a night and actually get away? What do we call them? I mean, we could. So they're short sleepers. Short sleepers. Yeah. So that gene was isolated and discovered in a preclinical mouse model. And again, population genome-wide study in humans, I'd say 10, 15 years ago. It's called the DEC gene, D-E-C. So those are individuals who
01:13:07
are able to sleep four hours. Again, hypothetically, what I think is going on is like they're reducing their extracellular adenosine really quickly because that's really what it is, is like how quickly…
01:13:21
can you reduce sleep pressure? That's what determines your physiological set point for sleep. So I need, for example, myself, I'm like an 8.2, probably eight and a half hour sleeper. So I know my sleep pressure dissipates very, very slowly. But in these individuals, it dissipates very quickly. How much actual work has been done on those individuals in terms of physical performance?
01:13:43
obviously we know like long-term they don't die earlier. That's like the clinical markers we have. Yeah. But are they really physically performing at their best? Are their cognitive functions high? Like, has there actually been reasonable research on that? No, there hasn't. I mean, I would love if I had money to do that work, I would. I mean, like U.S. presidents are a great example. Like just historically, anecdotally, what we know about most U.S. presidents is they don't really sleep a lot. But again, they were sort of
01:14:09
Self-selected. I would say the same with military leaders. They're self-selecting because of genetics. When you get to that level, I think we know this in sports too. That's why one of my favorite books is The Sports Gene because it really talks about how your genetic blueprint can sort of
01:14:30
guide you into what sport you play and what sport you excel in. I know that there was actually some stuff that came out recently on President Trump, and they were able to assess his sleep,
01:14:41
duration simply by his online activity. Oh, yeah. I do remember that. Yeah. Right. So like he's one of these guys that apparently legitimately does. And I know there's lots of people talked about President Obama as well as like working these. Right. Stanley McChrystal, like Admiral McChrystal, he was known to be a two, three hour sleeper. I mean, I see that even in my own workplace too. Right. Like folks you work with. Yeah. Yeah.
01:15:05
Is there a way that you could get to that? Right. So kind of what I'm getting at on the back of that thing is saying like, hey, can we, number one, be more resilient, be more efficient? And then will that actually allow me to shorten my hour demands down to a reasonable? Is that what's happening with these residents? Are they just hyper efficient? Is your sleep architecture? Is there sleep resilience? Is your sleep stability just way higher?
01:15:27
Or are they kind of the same? And it doesn't matter if it's actual presidents, right? It's just people that get away with it. Or are they just the same and they just can get away with way less hours? No, it's more efficient, right? Because that's what, again, these preclinical animals that we can glean into is like the sleep pressure is dissipated really quickly. So there's…
01:15:46
a significant increase in slow wave activity very quickly. And it's extended for a period of time because at the end of the day, that's the manifestation of dissipated sleep pressure is stage three non-REM sleep or slow wave activity. But I do think it's one of those things, again, it has to be guided through the lens of biology and it can't be trained, right? It is because it breaks down to
01:16:13
differences and the architecture of the neuronal circuitry and the neurochemistry. And I don't think any amount of training or behavioral intervention could lead to a physiological change of that significant capacity. Too much just endogenous natural function. Exactly. That have to be manipulated. Yep.
01:16:38
Let's go the opposite direction. Okay. Sleeping a lot. You have made the case, I have made the case that high performers are probably looking at more like eight and a half to nine, maybe nine and a half hours of sleep, right? That's been shown many, many times. Yep. I'm going to spend a lot of time on that. But before we get there really quickly, what about past that point? What do we know about people sleeping routinely nine and a half hours, 10 hours, 15,
01:17:05
assumption is that's not a good thing. Yeah. So actually my buddy, Michael Granier at the University of Arizona, he's looked at that, right? It's like, it's not good to be on either tail end. So insomnia, hypersomnia, as it's called, is just as bad as insomnia. And if you look at morbidity and mortality in those individuals who get, who need 10, 11 hours of sleep because their rate of dissipating sleep pressure is just so low, like
01:17:33
they suffer from the same health outcomes as someone who obviously willingly short changes their sleep because of life. Why does somebody need 10, 10 and a half, 11 hours of sleep? Is that a insanely inefficient sleep pattern or are they sleeping that because of other reasons? I guess another way to think about it is when they wake up the next day and they still feel tired, right? It's like I slept nine hours. I still feel tired. Yeah. Probably something's happening, I assume, right? Yeah. I mean,
01:18:04
My assumption is there's a physiological disruption there mixed with, for example, we know people who are clinically depressed, for example, do fall in this category of hyperinsomnia. Yeah.
01:18:22
And some of that, again, is physiologically rooted, but compounded by life trauma, too, that could be contributing to that clinical depression. But that's where I think we most oftentimes see these issues with hypersomnia is they're usually…
01:18:43
also associated with some sort of mental health condition as well, particularly clinical depression. Interesting. Or someone with chronic pain like fibromyalgia, for example. Yeah, that makes sense. How much do we know, if any, about cause and effect there? Which direction? Oh, that is still to this date a constant debate in the sleep medicine community. So
01:19:08
I've been going to the annual Sleep Medicine Conference now since 2006. I've only missed one. That was the year I was competing in the CrossFit Games. But besides that, like, that's still one of the centerpieces of…
01:19:23
the meeting is like, is chicken or the egg? Is it the sleep manifestation of then depressive symptoms or do the depressive symptoms contribute to the sleep symptoms? And every year there's new data presented, not just in preclinical animal models, but in human studies as well, that it's so complicated and nuanced. And even with, you know, the ability to
01:19:48
effectively treat clinical depression now, not just with pharmaceuticals, but also with, for example, transcranial electrical stimulation or transmedic stimulation. There's still just not a consensus in terms of, you know, is it the sleep or is it the depression? Yeah.
01:20:09
More than likely, it's a combination of both. It's got to be, right? Yeah. In some people, you could certainly see a bunch of chronic poor sleep led to poor health effects. And certainly you can see the opposite. Something else happened in life, created mental health concerns, and then because of that, you can't sleep. Like you could certainly see the only reality here is there's room for both. Yep.
01:20:30
Like both are potential causes. So trying to isolate and say one is always driving the other one is it's honestly, it's quite nonsensical right now where we're going to go. Yeah. I mean, we see the same thing, you know, use in my community with traumatic brain injury is like we know from the clinical studies, like this one study we did at Walter Reed, that if you have a mild, even just a mild traumatic brain injury, it's going to lead to long term changes in sleep architecture. Right.
01:20:59
But then you have all the lifestyle factors that
01:21:03
also are influenced by that, right? Like using alcohol to cope with the lack of sleep or difficulties with sleep now that weren't in existence prior to traumatic brain injury. The inability to regulate stress and how because of that inability to regulate stress, that's going to impact sleep. You can never have things in isolation, right?
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01:23:16
Allison, I've got A and B job, whether it's going on like six and a half, seven is just the most realistic thing. Can I get more efficient in that time? Yep. And I'll give you a little bit of a pass here. You can skip past all the basic hygiene stuff, right? Like cold, dark room. Yeah, we get it. All that. Yeah. Yeah. What past that can we do?
01:23:34
I mean, I think that's where the circadian system really takes over, right? I talked earlier about these time cues or zeitgebers. Yeah. When you have predictable time cues in your environment, and this isn't just a human. I mean, we see this in mouse and rota models as well. Once that time cue is presented, that behavior will then follow that time cue. So if…
01:23:58
you are eating at a particular time. If you are engaged in social stimuli at a particular time, if you're viewing sunlight at a particular time, then at night, right, if you're now exposed to dimmer light at a particular time, you have eaten dinner at a particular time, and then whether you have a sleep hygiene routine or not, but
01:24:23
You are now going to bed at a particular time. Like your brain will now consolidate sleep into that period of time. I work with a bunch of entrepreneurs, a bunch of business owners, executives for sport teams and things like this. Right.
01:24:42
We get this question constantly. So let me frame you with a theoretical that's actually not at all a theoretical. I just don't want to say the person's name. Example. And I'm going to give you a ton of incomplete information. Okay. But just do your best to what something could look like. I will also give you more caveats for you. This is maybe not the optimal system or best system, but hopefully what you'll provide for us is just one example of what it could look like. Yeah. Fair game? Sure. All right. Awesome.
01:25:10
So you got an individual and they're going to flat out say, midnight is when I'm going to go to bed and I got to be up at six. Okay. That's the rules of the game, period, right? Whatever it takes. I will get into bed at about 11.50 and the alarm is off at six and I'm getting up and out of bed, period. Yep. I have hundreds of millions of dollars, closer to billions actually, on the line. So I need my cognitive function to be at its highest. I want to perform well physically. Okay.
01:25:41
But that's my second year priority. You're right. Yeah. So cognitive function is this person's top, but will not accept low energy, will not accept terrible physical performance in the gym. Yep. Is going to train every day. We'll do some conditioning. We'll do some lifting, do a variety of stuff. Right. Also has children. Right. So we'll pay attention to children from like three to eight o'clock or so.
01:26:06
And then because he's working with kids from 3 to 8 or playing with his kids and being very present, he's definitely going to go back to work at 8 o'clock. Yeah. It's going to happen, right? 8 to 10, 30 or so, maybe up to 11 is back to work. And then 11 to midnight is shower, wife situation. Mm-hmm.
01:26:24
Before I start asking you questions, any more critical information you have to know about this person? I do want to know if they think they're a morning or evening person. This person will tell you, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Okay. Whatever it's going to take to make this as a schedule. Gotcha.
01:26:39
But I would say he's certainly self-induced himself to be a morning person, whether he is there or not. Gotcha. That's the thing very much military business. You got to be in the office by 7. That's just what you sort of do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Stimulants are on board. Pharmaceuticals are on board. Don't care. Doesn't drink alcohol excessively. But whatever it takes to perform the best, doesn't want to compromise long-term health, doesn't want to die earlier, any of those things. Yeah.
01:27:09
Um, but if you say take a, take melatonin, great. If you say don't take melatonin, great. You say drink caffeine, great. Like doesn't care whatever it's going to take to get the job done. Okay. So that said, um, let, let me just do like a theoretical kind of high level thing. Waking up at six, anything that he should particularly take, do, don't do for the first, I'd say he'd give you 45 minutes in the morning, right? Anything that would jump out on your list of like critical stuff to do at that timeframe to get going cognitively.
01:27:38
Well, since stimulants are allowed, I mean, caffeinate, right? Because what we know from our clinical studies is the easiest way to reduce sleep inertia in the morning, that grogginess, is to caffeinate as soon as possible. As soon as possible. Less than 200 milligrams. Okay. Because 200 milligrams, we know from our randomized clinical trials we've done,
01:28:00
Numerous circumstances under conditions of acute sleep deprivation, chronic sleep deprivation, even looking at genotype, for example, 200 milligrams is the ceiling effect for caffeine. So like two cups of black coffee. So if you go to 300 or 400, you're just hitting the gas pedal and you're not going any faster. Exactly. Yeah, it's right. Okay. So 200 within the first few minutes of getting up. Correct. Anything else? I mean, obviously sunlight. Yeah. Right. That's a given. Yeah.
01:28:27
He'll work out whatever time. He'll work out in the morning. He'll work out in the afternoon, whatever. When should he train? So that's why I asked if morning person, evening person. I mean, if I was him, I would probably train in the morning, right? Because now you're capitalizing on that rise in cortisol. So you're going to optimize your training.
01:28:49
more so than you would in the afternoon. And then you're going to get that extended, you know, cognitive mood energy to be more productive in the
01:28:59
the latter half of your morning as your cortisol continues to rise. Okay. Makes sense. Anything else we should consider in the morning or should we move throughout the day? I would say during that time too, depending on where this individual lives, like vitamin D supplementation. I mean, even if you are getting natural sunlight, if you're up in Boston or New York, like a lot of Wall Street executives, it's not
01:29:27
you know, it's good to supplement with vitamin D. Okay. Anything he should be doing specifically throughout the day or not doing until that three o'clock goes, gets kids and sort of all there. So again, with strategic caffeine dosing, that's why
01:29:45
You know, we had done all those studies in randomized clinical trials. So you can supplement with 200 milligrams of caffeine every four to six hours as needed. You can even do two to four hours as needed, stopping at least six to eight hours before bedtime. Okay. So he'd be good to take, he could have his six o'clock caffeine and then maybe have it again at noon. Or even like nine o'clock in the morning if he wants. So I can do it again at noon, right?
01:30:12
And then maybe even again at like 3 or 4? Mm-hmm. Yep. As long as, yeah, because that's within the 8-hour time window before midnight. Okay. He's going throughout the day. He's going to go back to work, like I said, at 8 o'clock. Yep. And he's not going to stop until an hour before he goes to bed. Are there any best practices, any things he can do either during that 3-hour work window or right after it? What can he do to make sure that when he gets into bed at 11.50…
01:30:43
he is asleep by midnight or close to it and has the highest quality six hours possible. Well, so that's why like he's not going to have it like a full on sleep hygiene routine. And here's the thing that sleep hygiene routine, that 90 minute routine isn't necessary if you're keeping everything else in your environment consistent. But in order to help facilitate that sleep, so you have like a 10 minute sleep onset. That's where I,
01:31:08
Blue light blocking glasses, right? As you're working, that's what I would have this individual wear because now you're still promoting that dim light melatonin onset to then let that individual go to sleep. So while he's still aroused from work activity, he can mitigate some. Exactly, right. Because you're still going to have brain activity and gamma beta activity. It's not going to be anywhere close to alpha, but at least…
01:31:35
you're not disrupting the dim light melatonin onset through not having blue light blocking glasses. Anything that he should take from a food or a supplementation or drug or anything, maybe you don't have to go too far in the drug without knowing more medical history there, but like anything that he should take either, you know, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, midnight or right before bed or just
01:32:00
sort of stay away as much as you possibly can? So it is okay to eat. There are, believe it or not, sleep-promoting foods. So very recently, there was isolated a protein factor in, believe it or not, warm milk. Warm milk. Warm milk that is sleep-promoting. Other sleep-promoting foods that have been studied in randomized clinical trials include things like kiwis. Yep.
01:32:30
Well, we already talked about tart cherry extract. That's good for skeletal muscle recovery. So that's something I would take in addition to working, right? Yep. Or what do you call a slow-release protein, like a casein whey protein. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And any other – are there any common mistakes that they're making?
01:32:53
That are maybe disrupting the sleep. You know, we talked about melatonin earlier, right? So what about chronic use of melatonin for someone like this? It's like, hey, I want to make sure I get to sleep quickly. So I'm going to take 10 mg of melatonin every night. Yeah, you don't need melatonin. And actually that melatonin will prevent you from entering the restorative stages of sleep. So not a good idea. So yeah, at night, like…
01:33:17
If you want to take anything to help influence sleep maintenance, it would be magnesium biocarbonate. So a powdered form of magnesium, it's going to have greater bioavailability, but that would be a good thing. That also helps offset loading of the central nervous system throughout the day, especially if this individual is doing strength and conditioning as part of their physical fitness routine.
01:33:41
But no, melatonin does not work as a nighttime sleep aid. It acts as a phase shifter. Yeah. But not as a nighttime sleep aid. Yeah. And it can have negative impacts on sleep architecture if not dosed appropriately. What about any tools or technologies, any –
01:34:01
brainwave stuff he could do or not do. You mentioned the shift wave chair earlier, but anything else like that? Or you feel like as long as you're like, this would be a pretty good setup for this person. If they keep having these time cues and keep working in this environment, environment, night after night, like again, the brain will remember and consolidate those time cues to then help promote efficient sleep. So just build the pattern. Yep, exactly. Patterns are everything.
01:34:30
I mean, I would say the last hack, right? Like we talk about the cool, dark, quiet room. But believe it or not, taking a hot shower before, even like a five-minute hot shower before bed, that's going to, right, compensatory mechanism is to cool you. So don't cold plunge before bed. I always tell people that. That is one social norm that has become popular and, you know, that mouth taping. Okay.
01:34:58
Tell me about the cold plunging and mouth taping. Big fan of it, but it has to be the right time of day. If you think about it, right, you take a hot shower, compensatory mechanism is your body wants to cool down. Yep. Right? If you cold plunge, compensatory mechanism is your body wants to warm up.
01:35:15
You don't want to go into bed warm. You want to think of sleep as a state of hibernation. And essentially that's what happens at sleep, right? Is like there's a significant drop in core body temperature. And the greater the drop in core body temperature, the greater the propensity to spend in deep restorative non-REM and REM sleep. Right.
01:35:34
So mouth taping, like general consensus, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, like understand that nasal breathing is promoting the parasympathetic nervous system. That's fine.
01:35:48
But if you're going to mouth tape, like do it during the day to train your diaphragm to activate appropriately to then be able to breathe through your nose at night and not your mouth when you're asleep. The idea is right when you're asleep. I mean, you're not unconscious, but you're in a subconscious state. Yeah.
01:36:09
And you need every bit of air you can get into your system. And depending on what sleeping position you're in, especially if you're sleeping on your back or if you're sleeping on your stomach, you're not going to have the full capacity to activate your diaphragm to breathe.
01:36:24
take in air. So if you're limiting the ability to take in air through your mouth because you don't have a well-trained and strong diaphragm, then you're setting yourself up for risk of apnea-like episodes. Right. What about nasal dilators? Oh, those are great. Yeah. Any reduction in mouth breathing and increase in nasal breathing will promote restorative sleep.
01:36:50
And nasal dilators can help with that process. Okay. So if you're going to use something up there, opt more towards just helping airflow through the nose rather than blocking it through your mouth. Exactly. That's a better approach. How did you handle the jet lag last night, right? How would this guy or anybody else, when we're, let's just say that the normal person is
01:37:10
you know, traveling once a month or so for two or three days, right? And let's just assume at least a three hour change. Obviously if you're going a one hour difference, it's not a big deal, but, um, what, what can we do best to enhance if you don't want to call it jet lag? Fine. Like, cause it's probably not that, but you get a time shifting like that multiple hours and I still got to do my business meeting. I had to do my work. I got to do whatever I perform the next day. Well, it's a whole process, right? And, uh, you know, I'll give a shout out to my friend, Andy, uh,
01:37:38
who is the CEO of Flykit or Fount Bio. Actually, his chief science officer, Clayton and I, we started in the same sleep lab as undergraduates at Brown University. It's always such a small world in human performance. But it was an intentional process, right? So what's in this Flykit is there are a certain pack of supplements that promote –
01:38:03
Or that reduce inflammation. So combination of fish oil, high dose vitamin B, part cherry extract, things like that. I also wore the blue light blocking glasses that are in the kit on the plane. Mm-hmm.
01:38:20
You know, I don't really watch TV or movies. That's I know that seems like I'm a weird like psychopath. I just use them and I was reading. Right. And then when I got to LAX on the way to the hotel, that's when I took drugs.
01:38:37
the melatonin. But I only ever take melatonin when I travel, and that's only within the first day or two to help focus my system into adjusting. But once I'm adjusted, I stop taking melatonin. How much do you take typically? What's an effective dose for you? So effective dose for me, honestly, is one milligram. But like anything over three is…
01:38:59
is that we find to like not it's the ceiling effect really we've seen a lot of people you'll see a lot of recommendations of like five to ten yeah when we use it one would be about the high end yeah as well like it actually really much more than that you're not getting right really anything we stay pretty low it also stays around it's supposed to have a half-life
01:39:23
Like everything does. But when you consistently dose it, it stays around for a long time. Yeah. Oh, well, I will tell you. So I'm one of those believers. Like I think Oliver Sacks is like this. Like he always, in order to believe the things he studied neurochemically, he would take them themselves. So I went into, since you went out to North Carolina, I went into one of those country dollar general stores, you know, on the drive to work. And I found a 20-
01:39:55
Oh, a 20 block of melatonin. Oh, I took it. Oh, my God. I was fucked up for like two days. Oh, I believe. Yeah.
01:40:03
I don't, yeah, I do not care. I was worried. I was actually worried at first about taking it because I, again, I live alone. So I called my wife. I was like, oh honey, if I don't wake up in the morning, like call 911. But I, but they literally, it was a two block pack too. So like some idiot could have taken 40. Yeah. Like 40.
01:40:26
That's so much. Yeah. But I took the 20 and I was, it took me, I was like brain dead for two days. We used to measure, I was telling you this morning, like we used to measure urinary melatonin. So this is a metabolite, right? It should be metabolized. It should be very minimal. We don't need more, but we did it. And I would probably say, I don't know, over 10 times.
01:40:46
We saw people that were 20 to 30x upper range, reference range values for melatonin. And you're like, whoa. Like we don't have any sleep problems to fix here. The reason you feel like a zombie all day is because you're sedated. Yeah. Like you are sedated with melatonin constantly. Yep. And just removing melatonin from them, all of a sudden all their years of sleep testing issues. Yeah. Gone. Right. It's like just gone. They're like, oh.
01:41:12
You're just walking around sedated. Yeah. And plus, too, they probably weren't getting the effective entries into deep restorative non-REM and REM sleep, you know? Nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Like they were on the classic stimulant sleep drug cycle. Yep. Feel like terrible. Oh, yeah. Take a load of stimulants. Yep. Then you can't get to bed. So you take a load of sleep aids. Alcohol or yeah. Yeah. Just break that cycle. So. Yeah. Let's talk about sleep extension. Sure. Sleep banking. What's the proper way to think about this?
01:41:41
Why do I even care about it? When is the best way to use it? Who should be thinking about it? Obviously, all of us want to extend our sleep, right? Right. Yeah. You have parents. It's like, yes, I would love to sleep more. Not going to happen. So make your most convincing arguments for how much do I need here and what are the best principles around sleep extension?
01:42:02
So again, it's that 20 to 30 minute rule, right? Because if you're extending sleep within a 20 to 30 minute period, then it's not providing additional physiological stress to the circadian system, right? Because that's a delicate balance of…
01:42:21
maintaining or satisfying the sleep homeostatic system, which is sleep amount, and then circadian system, which obviously influences sleep quality. So that's the one way to start. Now, sleep extension, we use it in many different forms. So napping serves as a form of sleep extension, right? You use napping essentially to repay off sleep debt. So if you're in an insufficient sleep state,
01:42:49
Typically, we'd start with, OK, take a 20 to 30 minute nap. Now, if you can't nap because you aren't that person, then that's when we go to, OK, let's either put you to bed 30 minutes earlier or extend your sleep by 30 minutes earlier or later in the morning.
01:43:09
Again, that's done in a 30-minute interval. So typically what's practiced and folks who do cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia who are trying to extend somebody's sleep is they'll have that individual go to bed earlier 30 minutes or wake up later 30 minutes for a period of a week or two. And then after that period of time, they extend it by 30 minutes here and there. I know you've talked about this before on the protocol. It's…
01:43:37
physiologically impossible because the circadian timing system will not let you go from five hours to eight hours. It is not that simple. You know, I see this a lot with soldiers who I've commanded and stuff who are now out of the army. And that's the question they usually hit me up the most about is like, hey, ma'am, like,
01:43:55
I'm trying to get eight or nine hours. I know I need that. And like, why can't I just get eight or nine hours? And so I have to like explain to them this whole gradual process. And they're there now, but it took, you know, months, you know, six, seven months for them to get there. So usually, is it fair to say 30 minutes per four weeks or 30 minutes per week? Like how- 30 minutes per week, yeah. Is something to take out. Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah. But even to that, that's going to have-
01:44:23
A ceiling effect where at most you're probably looking at extending sleep by two hours at most. The other form of sleep extension, and this is something that we've studied in the lab, again, like we do lab studies to mimic what possibly could happen in combat situations, is sleep.
01:44:42
Letting people sleep in for as long as they want past their normal bedtime. So usually we find that most people, if they have like a two-week period to be on their own, you know, or essentially like say they're on vacation or the equivalent of being in a scientific study on vacation, they'll sleep for about anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour past their normal bedtime.
01:45:08
bedtime. And then when you put those individuals through a period of full-on sleep deprivation, so we're talking about 40 hours of wakefulness all the way up to 62 hours of wakefulness sustained, the rate of decline in their cognitive performance, even their physical performance, the rate of decline is less because they had that sleep on the front end to help
01:45:35
offset the sleep pressure. How long do they have to bank that for? Is that a two week? It's a two, it's a 10 day protocol we are using. So sleep an extra hour or so for 10 days. And then if you were then to go into a situation when you are literally awake for 40 or 50 or 60 straight hours,
01:45:56
that sleep deprivation is going to have consequences. But what you're saying is that sleep extension prior to means you won't drop as far. Exactly. Now, if you're chronically insufficiently slept before that point, you're definitely going to drop. I can tell you that from when I was deployed. So we did a…
01:46:14
As long as I was awake, it was almost three days. But yeah, we were outside the wire with some people. And I was awake for legitimately two days. But that's where I used the strategic caffeine dosing strategy for the most part. I mean, I still felt like I was completely drunk the last day.
01:46:36
24 hours of being awake. But I used caffeine gum and even tried dipping for the first time, which is disgusting. I hate that habit. I remember hearing old stories of people, pilots. I think this was in World War II, where they would take tobacco and put it like in their eyes. Oh, wow. But you know what? I mean, I'm not going to lie. I felt like
01:46:59
ill after I dipped for the first time. And I felt like I had a little buzz, but then that sleep deprivation kicked in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How does the military handle it in situations like that? It's just get through it. Just do whatever. It is just get through it. You know, they are getting smarter about it. I think that's great about…
01:47:16
You know, the team of individuals I've worked with over the years is that knowledge has now been taken out to the field. And I mean, there's commanders out there who are now using all these, you know, evidence-based, science-based, DOD-backed science principles to like be more effective in combat. So it is, it's been really cool. When it comes to sleep extension, do people typically have an easier time sleeping in or going to bed earlier? Yeah.
01:47:43
So that's actually where I think chronotype comes into play, right? So for me, my sleep extension would be, right, sleep in later. For you, you might want to go to bed early. That's where I think. I would pick that a thousand times over a thousand. Yeah. Every time. Sleeping in is a struggle to me. Now, albeit—
01:48:06
So one of the things you just mentioned earlier is something we hear consistently, which is when people say, oh, I can't sleep in, it's usually because they think that that's going to happen tomorrow. Yeah. Right? It's just like, oh, this thing happened. I'm on vacation. Then, like, I woke up early. Well, of course you did because you've been sleeping. You've been waking up at that time for 400 consecutive days. Yeah. It's going to take a few weeks to wake up.
01:48:27
For you to really consistently be able to sleep in, right? Right, yeah. So sleep extension protocol is unlikely to be like, again, sleep in tomorrow. Yeah. When we've worked with people and we're trying to truly extend their baseline sleep. So say they're getting an average of six and a half hours. Yeah. We want to get them to an average of seven. That is at least a two-week thing that it takes to get to that. Of discipline, right? Night after night. As soon as you get off that schedule, you got to restart, you know? We have yet to find anybody who couldn't do it.
01:48:55
If they zoom out on time frame. It is usually I tried it, couldn't sleep in. I tried it again today, didn't work at all. I just can't sleep in. Like, no, your physiology takes some time. Right. Yeah. To adjust. I mean, that's the thing, right? A lot of people want the quick fix. Right. You know, just like it takes dedicated time to build muscle. Yep. You just have to trust the process. Right. Excellent. I got one more question for you if you'd be so kind. Sure. Maurice Claret. Oh, okay. Yeah.
01:49:26
Boom, boom, Mancini. I could go on and on. What the hell is in the water, in the air? What is it about Youngstown? Like you come from this place. You were, I mean, you're still active. You still do the CrossFit competitions. First pole vaulter, female pole vaulter. In the state of Ohio. In the state of Ohio. Yep. I'm assuming then first to go compete collegiately. Knocked on the door of the Olympics. Yes.
01:49:54
What is it in that city? You guys just produce super athletes for this random little city in Ohio. What's going on there? It's so funny you say that. Well, because, you know, there's that 30 for 30 documentary, Young Sound Boys, right? With Jim Trestle. Yeah, of course.
01:50:08
I don't think I realized the community of athletics I grew up in until I went to college. Like I thought I was an average athlete, right? But then, okay, let's unpack my high school. Like I went to a big football feeder school, Youngstown Boardman. Bernie Kosar went to my high school, right? Yep, yep. Quarterback. In our strength and conditioning room in high school. And we didn't have like really phenomenal strength and conditioning and equipment. In fact, I would say it was kind of like
01:50:39
very bare bones equipment, but you go into that strength and conditioning room and you'll see like 50 people from my high school who played in the NFL. I mean, my graduating class alone, I graduated with 711 kids. I would say 40 of them went on to play division one sports, male and female. Actually, that's an underestimate, probably like 60 or 70. Uh,
01:51:07
One almost made it to the Olympics in swimming. We had a WNBA player. And then, oh, we had three kids in my graduating class who did actually play in the NFL and won Super Bowl rings. Yeah, it's outrageous. My brother's class had an NFL player. I mean, so my great uncle was a Golden Gloves boxer. He actually…
01:51:29
He roughed a Mike Tyson fight years ago. My other great uncle, Lucille Slaby, he's a linebacker for the Giants. But yeah, it's like one of those things you don't realize until you go to college. You're like, shit, I actually, I guess I am an elite athlete, but I always thought I was average because of growing up there. It's insane how what you think could be your baseline, you go out into the world and you're like,
01:51:56
Wow. I guess I, you know, in this one capacity, I am better than other people and I had no idea. I'm demanding more answers here. Yeah. My wife went to Long Beach Poly, right? Modern day. There's these schools in different areas in Florida and stuff. Oh yeah. They put out 40 or 50 division one athletes every year. Great. Well, you're in LA. Yeah. Right. There's 3 million people in a 20 mile radius. Yeah. Youngstown, Ohio. Like what in the world? How is it? Kelly Pavlik, like the list goes on and on. My
01:52:23
So my dad is a butcher and he used to sell meat to Kelly Pavlik. So that's my Kelly Pavlik got all his meat from my dad. There you go. I want genetic tracing. I want some answers out of that city. You know what? It's the grit mentality, right? No, it's not. No, it's not. You're drugging kids. You're genetically CRISPRing them. You're doing something.
01:52:48
I don't care what you say about, I grew up in the country. I grew up, my graduating class was like 70 kids, not 700. And we probably had, I don't know, three or four kids ever in my high school played college football. Oh yeah. I was like the second, probably the first or second person to ever do it. Yeah. Second or third.
01:53:03
You got, you got 50 NFL players every year at your school. Yeah. It's unbelievable. In the area. Right. You know, like, um, cause that's just Youngstown Boardman where I went. There's, you know, five other schools, Maurice Claret, right. It was like Warren Harding, um, Colonel Mooney also produced phenomenal athletes. Um, yeah.
01:53:21
I mean, that's what I think you're taught early on growing up there, probably still now. But back when I was in high school, we had the highest murder rate in the country. Like people never believe me. Yeah. But when I was a sophomore in high school,
01:53:37
We literally had the highest murder rate in the country. And my mother, like she worked for welfare. So she was like in the center of that on the east side of Youngstown. Yeah. In this plaza she worked in. It's like that's where most of these murders happened. So I think you learn early on that like your ticket out of I mean, because really to that area, too.
01:53:59
I mean, what is considered middle class in Youngstown is considered poverty everywhere else. So like I, you know, in all honesty, like grew up like lower middle class. And so you learn that your ticket out of town is being good at sports. Like, yes, I love school. And so that helped.
01:54:20
But at the end of the day, like my goal in life was to be an astronaut or an athlete. Right. And I was able to at one point accomplish that and be an athlete. But that's all you think about growing up there is like it. Well, LeBron too, right? Yeah. That whole man, you know, sports is king there. I get it. Well, I, uh, when next time when you tap in here from Mars or wherever else you come in, I want answers about Youngstown. Yeah.
01:54:48
I'm not letting you know. Well, just ask, uh, what's his name? Bruce Springsteen, since he has that song. Yeah. Um, thank you so much for coming out here. I know it was a long trek and, uh, really appreciate everything is fascinating stuff. And, uh,
01:55:04
It's been a long time. We've known each other for many, many, many years. Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, it's all through science, right? And then we all went our separate ways in academia and then outside of academia. And it's always nice to see another scientist who's a true meathead. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I embrace being a meathead, right? That's my book. Thank you so much. Of course.
01:55:24
I hope you enjoyed that conversation today with Dr. Alison Breger. If you want to see more about Alison, read more of her work, grab her book, or follow along with any of her resources, please check out the show notes for direct links. Thank you for joining for today's episode. My goal as always is to share exciting scientific insights that help you perform at your best. If the show resonates with you and you want to help ensure this information remains free and accessible to anyone in the world, there are a few ways that you can support.
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Edit:2025.03.27