Why You're Always Tired - 7 Myths Ruining Your Sleep — Transcript

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1. 0:00if you're feeling like you're always
2. 0:01tired you're not alone surveys have
3. 0:03shown that on average adults in the US
4. 0:04feel tired for 3 days of the week and 30
5. 0:07to 48% of adults have trouble sleeping
6. 0:10but for a lot of us the problem isn't
7. 0:11how much sleep we're getting it's
8. 0:13actually the anxiety around our sleep
9. 0:15caused by believing various myths which
10. 0:17is what we're going to debunk in this
11. 0:19video now I've been looking into the
12. 0:20science behind sleep for quite a while
13. 0:22but even as someone with the medical
14. 0:24background things can get super
15. 0:25confusing and generally when I talk to
16. 0:26people in this area it's hard to figure
17. 0:28out what's actually good advice to
18. 0:30follow and what is bad advice to ignore
19. 0:32like for example Matthew Walker's book
20. 0:33why we sleep is very good but there was
21. 0:35this whole craze around oh my God I need
22. 0:36to get my eight hours otherwise if I
23. 0:38don't get my 8 hours I'm going to
24. 0:39develop Alzheimer's disease and all the
25. 0:40cardiovascular problems and all of this
26. 0:42feeds into this thing called Sleep
27. 0:43anxiety which is the feeling of being
28. 0:45scared or worried or concerned about
29. 0:47your sleep which paradoxically actually
30. 0:49further contributes to you being unable
31. 0:50to sleep and this creates this kind of
32. 0:52vicious cycle which is not very good
33. 0:53anyway recently I interviewed Professor
34. 0:55Russell Foster on my podcast Deep dive
35. 0:57he is a sleep expert who runs his own
36. 0:59Lab at the University of Oxford now if
37. 1:01you want you can check out the long form
38. 1:02interview completely for free on any
39. 1:04podcast app that you like including
40. 1:05iTunes and Spotify and apple podcast all
41. 1:07that kind of fun stuff but in this video
42. 1:08I want to talk about the seven sleep
43. 1:10myths that the interview with Professor
44. 1:12Foster debunked and so if you like me
45. 1:14have fallen into believing some of these
46. 1:15myths then hopefully this video should
47. 1:17hopefully help you out and help you get
48. 1:18a better night's sleep let's get started
49. 1:20myth number one it doesn't matter when
50. 1:21you sleep as long as you sleep enough
51. 1:23but it turns out that when we sleep is
52. 1:25actually super important as well and
53. 1:26that's all because of this thing called
54. 1:27the Circadian rhythm circadian rhythms
55. 1:30underpin almost every aspect of our
56. 1:32health and well-being and that was the
57. 1:34bit I wanted to get across within
58. 1:36lifetime so the Cadian rhythm is
59. 1:38essentially your body's internal clock
60. 1:40that signals to your body what you need
61. 1:42at a given time in the 1990s Russell and
62. 1:44his research group discovered that
63. 1:45there's a bunch of cells in our eyes
64. 1:47that are only responsible for detecting
65. 1:49light rather than helping us to see
66. 1:50images this light detection mechanism in
67. 1:52our eyes tells our brain what time of
68. 1:54the date is and helps regulate our
69. 1:55internal clock now since our internal
70. 1:57clocks are sensitive to light it means
71. 1:59that generally we want to be awake when
72. 2:00it's bright outside and we want to be
73. 2:02asleep when it's dark outside and
74. 2:03actually for the last few years Russell
75. 2:05and his research group have been working
76. 2:06on what happens when the Cadian rhythm
77. 2:08is affected I.E when you sleep at weird
78. 2:10times for example if you've got jet lag
79. 2:12or for example if you're working night
80. 2:13shifts and they found that in these
81. 2:15sorts of people that have this
82. 2:16disruption to their Cadian Rhythm you
83. 2:17get an increase in stress hormones you
84. 2:19get an increase in the risk of heart
85. 2:20disease and these people get sick way
86. 2:22more often and they're also more prone
87. 2:23to emotional and cognitive problems 97%
88. 2:26of night shift workers do not adapt to
89. 2:29the demands of work working at night so
90. 2:31they're working against an entire
91. 2:33biology which is saying you should be
92. 2:35asleep now it's important to realize
93. 2:36that even though we all have an internal
94. 2:38clock ticking away inside of ourselves
95. 2:40not all of our internal clocks are set
96. 2:42in exactly the same way and so when you
97. 2:43hear people saying I'm a morning person
98. 2:45or I'm a night owl that relates to
99. 2:47something called your chronotype based
100. 2:49on a natural inclination to sleep at a
101. 2:50certain time scientists can bucket us
102. 2:52into something called chronotypes for
103. 2:54example someone who naturally gets up
104. 2:56early and finds the morning to be their
105. 2:58most productive hours of the day
106. 2:59probably has a morning chronotype and
107. 3:01there's a questionnaire in the book and
108. 3:02on Russell's website we'll link that
109. 3:03down below where you can answer a few
110. 3:05questions and it it'll help you figure
111. 3:06out what your own chronotype is but once
112. 3:08you figure this out then you might want
113. 3:09to try as best as you can to organize
114. 3:11your activities around kind of fitting
115. 3:13around your chronotype for example if
116. 3:15you're more of a morning person you
117. 3:16might find that it's better to put your
118. 3:18creative or your kind of highest Focus
119. 3:20related activities in the morning
120. 3:22whereas if you're a Nel that's totally
121. 3:24fine if you can control your schedule
122. 3:25it's generally worth trying to tweak
123. 3:27things around so that you're doing Focus
124. 3:29stuff at night for example I've
125. 3:30personally tried really hard to become a
126. 3:31morning person I I tempted to wake up at
127. 3:336:00 in the morning and go straight to
128. 3:34the gym but I always found like I had
129. 3:36this like uh it's like absolute
130. 3:37Nightmare and so I wake up at a
131. 3:39reasonable hour I wake up around 7:00
132. 3:407:30 I think I'm a fairly middle of the
133. 3:42day kind of guy and generally I try and
134. 3:44get my book writing stuff done in the
135. 3:46morning and then do more chill things in
136. 3:47the evening myth number two everyone
137. 3:49needs 8 hours of sleep now the reality
138. 3:51is that there's actually loads of
139. 3:52variation across like how much sleep
140. 3:54people actually need one of the sort of
141. 3:56slight frustrations that that's emerged
142. 3:58is that an average value is taken as the
143. 4:02optimum value for all of us and of
144. 4:05course it isn't healthy sleep can range
145. 4:08from 6 hours maybe slightly less than
146. 4:10that um out to 10 or 11 hours yes there
147. 4:13is an average but actually there's so
148. 4:16much individual variation so rather than
149. 4:18overly worrying about the number of
150. 4:19hours of sleep that you got and then
151. 4:20looking your thinking oh I only got 7
152. 4:22hours of sleep tonight I'm going to have
153. 4:23a terrible day for the rest of the day
154. 4:24there's a few other things that you can
155. 4:26think about to optimize your sleep
156. 4:27firstly you might like to ask yourself
157. 4:28did you wake up naturally in the morning
158. 4:30or did you need an alarm to wake you up
159. 4:32generally if you wake up naturally
160. 4:33you've got a pretty reasonable amount of
161. 4:34sleep you might ask yourself did it take
162. 4:36you a long time to wake up and did you
163. 4:37feel the need for caffeinated drinks
164. 4:39when you woke up to help you become more
165. 4:41awake that might be a sign that actually
166. 4:42you didn't necessarily get enough sleep
167. 4:44and you can even check out your behavior
168. 4:45like if you find yourself doing like
169. 4:46stupid things or being mean or
170. 4:48unempathetic or just being a bit
171. 4:50annoying to people around you it might
172. 4:51actually be because you didn't get
173. 4:52enough sleep the night before myth
174. 4:53number three we should wake up at the
175. 4:55same time every day now this isn't
176. 4:57entirely a myth but what Russell said in
177. 4:59the interview is that yes it's generally
178. 5:00good to wake up at the same time each
179. 5:02day but you don't really need to be
180. 5:03overly pedantic about it it reinforces
181. 5:05all of the sort of signals that regulate
182. 5:08the Cadian system so eating at the same
183. 5:10time getting light exposure at the same
184. 5:12time that all acts to stabilize however
185. 5:15having said that you know there's going
186. 5:17to be an occasion where you have a party
187. 5:20you're going to get up late you know and
188. 5:22sleep is is is very Dynamic and the
189. 5:25other thing to keep in mind is that our
190. 5:27circadian rhythms can change over the
191. 5:28course of our life cycle so it's really
192. 5:30common for teenagers for example to have
193. 5:32more of an evening chronotype which is
194. 5:34why teenagers really struggle to wake up
195. 5:35in the morning and then as we age we
196. 5:38sort of move to a more morning
197. 5:40chronotype the time we're in our late
198. 5:4150s uh early 60s we're getting up and
199. 5:44going to bed at about the time we got up
200. 5:46and went to bed when we were 10 myth
201. 5:48number four you should avoid blue light
202. 5:50before sleep so where does this come
203. 5:51from well blue light is light that has a
204. 5:53short wavelength and short wavelengths
205. 5:55of light generally have more energy and
206. 5:56so scientists have hypothesized that hey
207. 5:58blue light reacts to the eye in some way
208. 6:00and makes it harder to fall asleep for
209. 6:02example these glasses that I have have a
210. 6:04blue light filter to them because the
211. 6:05optician that I went to said hey do you
212. 6:07want to pay an extra100 for a blue light
213. 6:09filter it's better for your sleep and I
214. 6:10was like all right then why not U but
215. 6:13apparently that's a bit of a myth so the
216. 6:14Harvard group got people to look at a
217. 6:16Kindle on its brightest intensity for 4
218. 6:20hours just before bedtime on five
219. 6:23consecutive nights and it just
220. 6:26statistically delayed sleep onet by 10
221. 6:29minutes well it may be statistically
222. 6:30significant but it's biologically
223. 6:32meaningless which was pretty nice for me
224. 6:33to hear because now I can read on my
225. 6:35Kindle with a backl on my Kindle and not
226. 6:37worry too much about like I'm getting
227. 6:38too much blue light into my eyes by the
228. 6:40way if you're enjoying these myths so
229. 6:41far I would love it if you can hit the
230. 6:42like button for the YouTube algorithm
231. 6:44apparently it really helps myth number
232. 6:45five sleep apps help you sleep better
233. 6:48now I got into this whole sleep tracking
234. 6:49thing at one point I got the houra ring
235. 6:51I currently use an eight Sleep mattress
236. 6:53which is admittedly quite good and I
237. 6:55used to kind of keep track of all of my
238. 6:57kind of sleep data but what I would find
239. 6:58is that I wake up in the morning i' be
240. 7:00like oh my sleep Readiness score is 54%
241. 7:03I was like oh but I was feeling
242. 7:04reasonable I guess I'm not actually
243. 7:06feeling reasonable I guess my sleep
244. 7:07score is 54% so I guess I should be
245. 7:09having a bad day and it's like I ended
246. 7:11up sort of weirdly Placebo affecting
247. 7:13myself in a negative way because of what
248. 7:15these various sleep tracking apps were
249. 7:17telling me about the quality of my sleep
250. 7:19but as Russell said in the interview we
251. 7:20should take a lot of this sleep app data
252. 7:22with a bit of a pinch of salt worth
253. 7:24bearing in mind that at the moment No
254. 7:26Sleep apps are endorsed by any of the
255. 7:28sleep federations or or FDA approved and
256. 7:31of course you know when you look at the
257. 7:32validation of many of these these apps
258. 7:34you'll go into the paper and you'll see
259. 7:36it work perfectly for eight
260. 7:38undergraduates you know or in California
261. 7:41and that's about it but of course the
262. 7:43point I've just made is that sleep
263. 7:45changes as we um age and between
264. 7:47individuals and so one algorithm is also
265. 7:49not appropriate for telling us what good
266. 7:52sleep is and so the bottom line that I
267. 7:53took away from this is yes it's nice to
268. 7:55see what your sleep score is if you're
269. 7:56one of those people that loves to
270. 7:57optimize every little thing about your
271. 7:58life but actually the biological and
272. 8:00psychological signals that your body is
273. 8:02giving you like how it felt when you
274. 8:04were W when you woke up did you feel
275. 8:05well rested did you need to wake up with
276. 8:06it with an alarm or without how are you
277. 8:08feeling the rest of the day those
278. 8:09signals are way more important than an
279. 8:11app telling you exactly what your sleep
280. 8:13Fitness score might be myth number six
281. 8:15melatonin helps us sleep better so you
282. 8:17might have heard of melatonin it's a
283. 8:18supplement that a bunch of people take
284. 8:20it's really popular in the US apparently
285. 8:22a bunch of people take it to kind of
286. 8:23combat jet lag but also people have
287. 8:25started taking melatonin just to help
288. 8:26with their sleep if they have bad sleep
289. 8:28the best studies ever undertaken taking
290. 8:31melatonin before you go to bed can
291. 8:33reduce the time it takes to get to sleep
292. 8:36by 30 minutes now I stress that's the
293. 8:38best study ever undertaken many studies
294. 8:41showed no effects whatsoever now this
295. 8:43best study that Russell is referring to
296. 8:44is a study that was done in 2007 on
297. 8:46autistic children and they found that
298. 8:48the children who were taking regular
299. 8:49small doses of melatonin every day for 3
300. 8:51months eventually ended up being able to
301. 8:53fall asleep 30 minutes sooner but a few
302. 8:55years later in 2013 there was a
303. 8:57metaanalysis about whether melatonin
304. 8:59really helps your sleep and the
305. 9:00researchers who did that study found
306. 9:02that on average melatonin reduces your
307. 9:04time to fall asleep to by about 7
308. 9:05minutes which is not particularly
309. 9:07impressive and if you're looking for
310. 9:08something even more recent than that
311. 9:09this book lifetime it's really good I
312. 9:10listened to an audible came out in 2022
313. 9:13I even have a nice little signed copy
314. 9:15right here uh but this talks about kind
315. 9:16of the most upto-date stuff around
316. 9:17melatonin and it's basically what
317. 9:19Professor Foster says cuz he wrote the
318. 9:20book and is a sleep Professor that it
319. 9:23doesn't actually make that much
320. 9:24difference maybe it might help with jet
321. 9:25lag but not generally in day-to-day life
322. 9:27oh and by the way if you've gotten to
323. 9:29this point in the video you're probably
324. 9:30interested in sleep and so I'd love to
325. 9:31hear in the comment section below what
326. 9:33is something that you've tried to
327. 9:34improve your sleep and did it work or
328. 9:36didn't it work like it would be cool to
329. 9:37crowdsource some different tips that
330. 9:39people have for improving their sleep
331. 9:40myth number seven polyphasic sleep is
332. 9:42good for your productivity now
333. 9:43polyphasic sleep schedules were a big
334. 9:45thing like I think like 10 years ago in
335. 9:47sort of the biohacking community they've
336. 9:49started to kind of have a bit of a
337. 9:50Resurgence basically the idea is that
338. 9:52you sleep at multiple times throughout
339. 9:54the day like maybe you'll sleep for 4
340. 9:56hours and then you'll get up a bit and
341. 9:57do some stuff and then you'll sleep
342. 9:58another 4 hours is like this is more
343. 10:00than one kind of period of sleeping you
344. 10:02you have these various patents whereby
345. 10:05there's a total of uh something like
346. 10:07four or 6 hours of sleep it maybe 2
347. 10:11hours at night with with various
348. 10:14fragmented sleep during the day and all
349. 10:17of the data suggests that this is a
350. 10:19really bad idea so even though
351. 10:20polyphasic sleep in theory gives us more
352. 10:23waking hours in which we can be
353. 10:24productive actually what Professor
354. 10:25Foster says is that the quality of work
355. 10:27that we can produce in those hours it's
356. 10:29is generally lower because we tend to be
357. 10:30more exhausted and therefore less
358. 10:32productive and less creative during
359. 10:33those hours and there's even been a
360. 10:34couple of studies that show that
361. 10:35students who are on a polyphasic sleep
362. 10:37schedule do worse in exams compared to
363. 10:39the students who are in a normal
364. 10:40monophasic sleep schedule so overall the
365. 10:42evidence does seem to suggest at least
366. 10:44according to the experts that actually
367. 10:45splitting your sleep up into polyphasic
368. 10:47blocks doesn't actually help your
369. 10:49productivity as much as blogs like life
370. 10:51hacker might like to run stories uh and
371. 10:54pretend that it might anyway if you
372. 10:55enjoyed this video you might like to
373. 10:56check out the full interview that I did
374. 10:57with Professor Foster you can check out
375. 10:59over there or in any podcast app thank
376. 11:01you so much for watching and see you
377. 11:02later bye-bye