#58 – AMA with sleep expert, Matthew Walker, Ph.D.: Strategies for sleeping more, sleeping better, and avoiding things that are disrupting sleep

The Peter Attia Drive

Peter Attia, MD

Health & Fitness, Medicine, Fitness

4.7 • 7.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2019

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the first three parts of our series with sleep expert Matthew Walker, Matt revealed the many reasons why we need sleep as well as the many short- and long-term dangers of not sleeping enough. In this special AMA episode, Matt comes back to provide a dissertation on listener’s questions about HOW to sleep. He answers questions from subscribers that largely focus on the practical and tactical ways we can improve our sleep in terms of duration, quality, consistency, and avoidance of the common things that are standing in the way the best sleep possible.

We discuss:

Matthew’s TED Talk, and his favorite public speakers [7:45];
How good are the current sleep trackers like Oura, Fitbit, etc.? [10:45];
Is it bad to eat food too close to bedtime? [15:30];
How does exercise impact sleep? [17:30];
How is appetite affected by our sleep quality? [21:30];
Anxiety, cortisol, and weight gain: An awful feedback loop of sleep deprivation [23:30];
How to optimize your wind down routine: lights, temperature, & relaxation [26:10];
How alcohol disrupts sleep (and contributes to Alzheimer’s disease) [46:00];
Sleep’s impact on sex hormones, and romantic relationships [50:00];
Performance, accuracy, and minimizing the damage of shift work [55:30];
Bed partners: How to sleep in separate beds and retain a good relationship [59:30];
Can we use sound machines and electrical stimulation to improve sleep? [1:02:40];
Will we ever be able to “supercharge” our sleep stages using technology? [1:08:30];
Why sleep is the best insurance policy for lifespan and healthspan [1:11:45];
Melatonin: How (and how not) to use it for sleep improvement [1:19:00];
The dangers of sleeping pills, useful alternatives, and cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia [1:28:30];
Can CBD and THC be used for sleep? [1:43:30];
Why haven’t we been able to develop a really effective sleeping aid? [1:50:40];
Can you get too much sleep? [1:55:50];
What to do (and not do) immediately following a terrible night of sleep? [2:09:15];
Why a consistent wake up time is king [2:14:30];
Does poor sleep speed up the aging process? [2:16:00];
Can different people be more (or less) resilient to sleep deprivation? [2:22:50];
Finding your optimal sleep schedule and determining your sleep chronotype [2:27:45];
Defining sleep efficiency and how to improve it [2:33:25];
Correcting insomnia: A counterintuitive approach [2:35:45];
How can parents improve the sleep of their kids? [2:41:30]; and
More.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atia Drive. I'm your host, Peter Atia.
0:10.0	The drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking,
0:15.7	along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working
0:19.6	with some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world, and this podcast
0:23.8	is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality
0:28.3	more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's
0:32.4	episode and other topics at peteratiamd.com.
0:36.1	Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of The Drive. I'd like to take a couple of
0:45.6	minutes to talk about why we don't run ads on this podcast and why instead we've chosen
0:50.2	to rely entirely on listener support. If you're listening to this, you probably already
0:54.8	know, but the two things I care most about professionally are how to live longer and
0:59.7	how to live better. I have a complete fascination and obsession with this topic. I practice it
1:05.1	professionally, and I've seen firsthand how access to information is basically all people
1:09.9	need to make better decisions and improve the quality of their lives. Curating and sharing
1:14.8	this knowledge is not easy, and even before starting the podcast, that became clear to me.
1:19.6	The sheer volume of material published in this space is overwhelming. I'm fortunate to
1:24.0	have a great team that helps me continue learning and sharing this information with you.
1:28.9	To take one example, our show notes are in a league of their own. In fact, we now have
1:33.6	a full-time person that is dedicated to producing those, and the feedback has mirrored this.
1:39.0	So all of this raises a natural question. How will we continue to fund the work necessary
1:44.0	to support this? As you probably know, the tried and true way to do this is to sell ads,
1:49.4	but after a lot of contemplation, that model just doesn't feel right to me for a few reasons.
	...

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