445: The Science of Sleep | Dr. Sara Mednick

10% Happier with Dan Harris

10% Media, LLC

Dan Harris, Health & Fitness, Mindfulness, Dharma, Mental Health, Meditation

4.6 • 12.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2022

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you’re trying to improve your sleep, thinking about doing so right before you get into bed might not be the best approach.

Dr. Sara Mednick, is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of the new book The Power of the Downstate. This episode is part of our month-long “Mental Health Reboot” series to mark Mental Health Awareness Month.

According to her research, Dr. Mednick says that we need to take a more holistic approach to getting better sleep, and that sleep is just one of the ways that our bodies rest and restore.

In this conversation, we talk about:

The nuances of napping
Dr. Mednick’s definition of the “downstate”
Whether there are practices that can compensate for poor sleep
Why heart rate variability is an important measurement of health
Why sex is so helpful for sleep
And when to take melatonin to best effect

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the 10% happier podcast.
0:05.9	I'm Dan Harris.
0:09.1	Hey, gang, if you're interested in getting more and better sleep, there may be a temptation
0:17.8	to think about this as a strictly nighttime endeavor.
0:22.0	But my guest today says you can't think about improving your sleep just in the minutes
0:26.0	before you go to bed.
0:27.8	Her neuroscientific research has led her to conclude that we need to think about sleep
0:31.9	more holistically as just one of the body's ways of resting and restoring.
0:38.2	Dr. Sarah Mednick is the author of the new book, The Hidden Power of the Downstate.
0:42.7	She's a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California Irvine.
0:47.1	Her seven bedroom sleep lab works literally around the clock to discover methods for boosting
0:52.8	cognition, by napping, stimulating the brain with electricity, sound, and light.
0:57.7	And pharmacology.
0:58.7	In this conversation, we talk about the nuances of napping, what the science says about
1:04.6	who should and should not indulge.
1:06.8	Her definition of the downstate and why it includes more than just sleep, whether there
1:11.8	are practices we can do that would compensate for poor sleep, why heart rate variability
1:18.0	is an important measurement of health, why sex is so helpful for sleep, and when to take
1:24.0	melatonin for the best effects.
1:27.0	If you missed the first part of our sleep series, go back and check out Monday's episode
1:30.2	with my friend and former colleague, Diane Maseito, and ABC News journalist who wrote a rather
1:35.6	comprehensive book about what she learned on her own Odyssey in the land of insomnia and
	...

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