Ask Me Anything Part 20: Sleep Under the Influence

The Matt Walker Podcast

Dr. Matt Walker

Medicine, Science, Social Sciences, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 995 Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In their latest Ask Me Anything episode, Matt and Dr. Eti Ben Simon delve into the complex relationship between common substances and sleep. They first tackle cannabis, explaining that while THC may initially help with sleep onset, its chronic use is detrimental, leading to tolerance, withdrawal insomnia, and a powerful suppression of restorative REM sleep. The discussion then moves to two other major sleep disruptors: caffeine and alcohol. You'll learn how caffeine's long half-life can reduc...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to another AMA episode, another Ask Me Anything episode.
0:11.8	And the brilliant, the dazzling, the lively, the sparkling, the glimmering, glittering, shining, smart twinkling individual who is asking
0:25.1	me the anything part of that is, of course, the wonderful Dr. Eti Ben-Simon.
0:32.7	Eti, welcome back.
0:34.3	Hi, everyone.
0:35.1	Great to be back.
0:36.3	So let's just dive straight in.
0:39.3	As the kids say, hit me up with the first question.
0:41.3	I'll hit you up.
0:43.3	The first question is about cannabis.
0:46.3	What is the intersection between cannabis and sleep health?
0:50.3	It's right.
0:51.3	You wanted to dive in.
0:52.3	We're diving in.
0:53.3	Okay. Talk about a third rail, lightning rod topic. You know what? It's a timely question.
0:59.5	I get asked this question a huge amount. So let me give you the high-level contours and sort of key messages here.
1:08.9	Really, this is me going to focus on THC,
1:12.4	which is the principal psychoactive component of cannabis.
1:18.6	It's the thing that gets you high.
1:20.4	And it's the thing that most people will target and use
1:23.7	and historically have used when it comes to sleep.
1:30.7	So really, this is, yes, cannabis, but it's probably more THC info-specific, and I will speak about CBD at a later point. For THC, the reason that
	...

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