Ask Me Anything Part 21: Sleep Debt, Snooze Button, Naps & Sleep Myths

The Matt Walker Podcast

Dr. Matt Walker

Medicine, Science, Social Sciences, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 995 Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt and Dr. Eti Ben Simon join forces once again to answer all of your top sleep questions. This time around, they break down the science behind the snooze button, why you might be falling asleep during passive activities like watching TV, and the truth about sleep fads like consuming salt before bed or using "grounding sheets." The episode also explores the frustrating issue of sleep fragmentation - waking up multiple times a night - and why it undermines sleep quality even if you fall back...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast and welcome back to one of our AMA
0:08.6	episodes, the Ask Me Anything episodes.
0:11.9	And I am joined here as my partner in Slumber Crime, that is Dr. E.T. Ben-Simon.
0:19.2	E.T. welcome back to the show.
0:21.3	Master Sleep Crime.
0:23.3	Yes, I'm ready.
0:25.6	All right, let's see if we can leave no DNA, no fingerprints behind on this one.
0:31.3	Let's just dive straight in.
0:32.9	First question.
0:33.6	First question.
0:35.1	Have there been studies done on the difference in quality of sleep
0:38.7	between individuals who wake up at the last minute versus those who hit the snooze button? I'm guilty of
0:44.6	that. And then have disrupted sleep for their waking hours. Yeah, it is a good question. And there have
0:52.0	been some studies done looking at the impact of the snooze button,
0:56.2	essentially. And so one of the classes that you and I were doing at Berkeley, I think a couple
1:02.0	years ago, we did in favor versus against using the snooze button. Do you remember that?
1:09.0	Yeah, we did kind of a pitch competition. Yeah,
1:11.7	pitch competition. You'd take two sides of a scientific argument and you'd, no matter what
1:17.3	your own belief was, you would try to find it's sort of like lawyers in test court where they
1:22.7	try to argue both sides. So setting that aside, waking up with a single alarm is generally better for your
1:30.2	sleep quality than hitting the snooze button multiple times. I don't disagree with the dopaminergic
1:37.3	pleasure that is your alarm going off 15 minutes before you have to wake up and thinking,
	...

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