203: Sara Mednick, USC Neuroscientist: Unlocking the Power of the Downstate: The Science of Naps, HRV & Rhythmic Restoration

 Welcome to the Sleep As a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as A Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world. Thinks about sleep.

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Each week I'll be interviewing world-class experts, ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.

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And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

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Welcome to the Sleep is AKI podcast. Our guest today is Dr. Sara Mednick and she's a cognitive, neuroscientist and sleep expert whose research is transforming how we think about rest, recovery, and peak performance. She's the author of The Power of the Downstate and Take a Nap Changer Life and her groundbreaking work in Sleep Science has been featured in Major Media and Top.

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Scientific journals. In this episode, we dive deep into why rest isn't just about sleep, but about how we move between high performance states and recovery. We'll explore the science behind naps, heart rate variability, HRV, and the incredible impact of the quote unquote downstate on longevity and wellbeing.

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If you've ever wondered how to optimize your energy, sharpen your brain and truly harness. The power of rest, you won't wanna miss this one. And I can tell you I have recommended the book, the Power of the Downstate personally, many, many times and throughout many of our programs, it's one of the rare gems that speaks to sleep and HRV.

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In a way that is really quite profound and gives a lot of practical takeaways on how to bring about more downstate, if you will, into your life. So we'll jump into the podcast, but first a few words from our sponsors. If you're listening to this podcast, you're likely looking to improve your sleep, and one of the first questions people ask me about sleep is what supplement they can take.

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Sleep and use the code. Sleep is a skill, all one word at checkout for a discount. Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. I know I say on just about every episode how excited I am for the guests that we're about to introduce, but I gotta tell you, I have been genuinely looking forward to this interview for a number of reasons, and one of the main ones to share is that.

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Truly one of my favorite books in the sleep space. That really speaks to some of the practical takeaways of how to optimize your health and wellbeing through your sleep, and actually incorporating things like HRV, heart rate variability, something we talk about a lot on this podcast, but I struggled personally to find many books that are.

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Interweaving these concepts together on the sleep space. But from a science-based perspective, it's just really fascinating. And the book I'm speaking about is the Power of the Downstate, just one of the groundbreaking books of our guest today. So Sara, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.

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It's so nice to be here, Mollie. Thanks for having me.

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Yes, absolutely. We had the pleasure of connecting in real life really briefly. Back in, I think it was at. Sleep 2022, you were doing, signing some of your books and what have you, and that was just such an important time for me to get introduced to some of your work.

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So really, really appreciate you putting out this information. And maybe we can start at the beginning. How did you find yourself as such a thought leader in this space? What kind of brought you here and what are some of the, the reasons that you found this passion to spread this information to the masses?

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Oh, that's a good question. I, I think that people usually study things that they're sort of personally obsessed with themselves. And I started being, um, uh, you know, I was in psychology program at Harvard and I had to find a story, you know, what, what is the thing that, you know, keeps me up at night?

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Basically, it was what my grad student advisor asked me, like, you know, what really is the thing that you're passionate about? And I always was sort of. Maybe coming from some insecure place, but like, oh, I just, how do you get smarter? You know, how do you perform better? How do you, yeah. How can we optimize ourselves so that we can get an edge?

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And um, and so that's how I looked at sleep is, is as a tool, um, to, you know, if we sleep more, what kind of sleep should we have? Um, what are the kind of performance measures? You can see increased accuracy better, you know, reaction time. Um. Uh, higher levels of creativity, better perception, all these things.

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And so, uh, you know, I knew how to study all these different kind of performance measures and then I started figuring out how to study sleep and put those things together. And that's where, you know, the books came out of. But also all the research on looking at the different. Features of sleep, the different sleep stages, the different types of events that go on during sleep that are directly related to performance.

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Well, you're in the perfect place for this sort of conversation because many of our listeners are looking for exactly that thought. Leaders that have really put in the work. Know there's stuff that can deliver information to really move the needle for their performance and get, you know, yields, extract max value cheese of poker is.

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And so how do we extract max value from sleep and really think about sleep in a way that can serve our best results? And you know, I'm struggle on today's podcast of how to get to cram all of your information into one episode, but maybe we can parse out. Two topics potentially today. One on the the NAP conversation because we had so many questions around naps and are they okay?

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Are they, you know, how do I maximize them? Am I sleeping too long? Too short? So potentially the nap piece. And then also how you are thinking uniquely about utilizing HRV and sleep. 'cause I don't feel like as many researchers are doing that. Maybe that's an overstatement, but, so two big questions. So maybe starting with the NAP conversation.

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So we started doing napping in, um. So I was working in a lab that was doing nighttime sleep and then, and all the nighttime sleep studies were showing that you needed to have six to eight hours of nighttime sleep in order to show any kind of performance benefit. Sure. And then when I looked at people who do nap, um, you know, my dad, other people were like, really?

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You know, they would take these naps and they wake up short periods of that time and wake up and feel great, and there was just no. Um, research that could speak to that, and that's sort of what made me want to go into the nap field is because, um, uh, you know, how could something such a short period of time, um, where you check out for the, you know, for like 15 minutes an hour.

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Gives such great alertness and memory benefits and decision making and all sort, you know, emotional benefits. Um, and so that's when we started a whole series of research just looking at napping. And it looks, you know, to me from now, from 20, 20 years later, we're still showing a very strong, um, performance benefit to napping.

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Yet, there's also a lot of questions that have come up. So I wrote my first book about napping, and that was right after graduate school. And it was really like I had published, you know, a handful of studies and they got so much press. I. Because people, there's never been a discussion really like a real sort of open discussion about are naps good?

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Right? Sure. There's a sort of a negative view of naps for the most part. And so, um, but a lot of people still nap even though they sort of, you know, feel bad about it. And that was where the book came from. But now there's been, you know, 20. Maybe almost 25 years of Yeah. Of research, um, since that book. And I think that there really is a call to sort of, let's reassess, um, because there's been so much new research on napping, and in some cases those studies are showing, oh, well, no napping is actually associated with increased heart attack and increased levels of dementia and increased, you know, the, all sorts of negative things in these large epidemiology studies.

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Sure. Um. Then in the laboratory based studies, we have a bunch of studies that are showing, no, they're still naps, really are benefiting performance. So you have these two really disparate findings. Um, one nap is bad and one nap is good. And so I think it is, it is time to sort of re-question that, right?

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And so to say, well then what are the naps that are helpful? What are the naps that are not helpful? Um, and that do may potentially contribute to long range health problems. So I think it's a good time to ask about that.

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Yeah, absolutely. A simplistic answer that I've had around. Naps. When people ask about, oh, naps good, are they bad?

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Has often been that commonly, you know, short and early can often be like really beneficial for many people. However, a certain group that might want to kind of abstain or for the time being from napping or take a break from napping might be that group that's really struggling with insomnia. Or, you know, just really struggling with that ability to have that strong sleep pressure by the end of the night.

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Is that overly simplistic? How would you kind of add to that more nuance there?

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I think it's a, it's a very complicated topic. I think that people nap for many different reasons. Yeah. And I think getting in touch with why the person is napping is very important If they're napping because it makes them feel really good afterwards.

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They feel they're very productive. They feel alert. They are, you know, mindful of the time and they don't just, you know, sleep for a long time. And it's not like an accidental nap where they just happen to fall asleep 'cause they're watching tv. But it's really like, no, I take my nap every day at one 30 and I wake up at two and I, this is part of my training schedule.

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Yeah. Um, those are the naps. I would say. Keep going. This is a habitual. You know, the people have been doing it for a long time or they just started, but they're finding really great benefits from it. Those are the naps. I would say. Keep going. Don't be, uh, um, you know, upset by all the other stories about napping.

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'cause that's not, that's not your story. The people who are napping. For other reasons, like, you know, they may have some sort of other issues like depression, or they may have some, you know, issues with sleep apnea or insomnia, or they're using the NAP to avoid doing other things. Or the nap is actually the first evidence of some underlying other medical problem.

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Those are the naps that, that we need to worry about, right? Those are the naps that actually, um, are related to long-term health problems. Um, and. Are, are probably, um, generated from something that also needs to be investigated.

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Yeah. Uh, so well said. And just a little bit more nuance on these naps. Is there still benefit?

'cause we'll have some people that will come our way and say, I'll take a six minute nap, you know, an eight minute nap. Are there still benefits that you've been able to see for these really just short kind of refreshers when people will work those in? Is that still worthwhile?

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It's absolutely worthwhile.

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So, so one of the amazing things that, there's been studies that have shown that these very, very short naps, even like two to five minutes, um, can have increased, can show really large increases in creativity. How is that even possible? Right. So, so one of the things, and this gets into. The HIV stuff and the sort of the difference between the central nervous system and autonomic nervous system is that the biggest shift that we make every single day is the shift from waking to sleep.

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It goes, you know, we're, we go from this period of being really revved up and activated, and we're in this kind of sympathetic arousal state where it's like highly arousals of fight or flight responses. What's driving us to a sudden shift where. Our heart rate changes, it really slows down and our temperature, body temperature changes and our electrical, um, communication between our neurons slows down and becomes more uniform.

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And instead of having like multitasking brain, we start to go into this very slow, um, kind of more uniform communication in the brain. And that can happen in the first few minutes of sleep. Um, and that really is what rest is, right? Is, is, you know, that's, you can do that with meditation, but you can also do that with falling asleep.

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It's like putting your brain into a deep form of rest. Um, and so that's where you see these kind of surprising effects of these really short naps because you are just. Turning yourself into kind of a little bit of a tor state, a little bit of a, a kind of a full rest state. Um, even in the middle of the day.

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And there's some really interesting studies by a woman in, uh, Paris, uh, Delphine Ette. And she's also showing that, um, there's this old, uh, story that people were like, is this a real story or not? Is apocryphal of, of, to Thomas Edison, who would use, um. This technique of holding something in his hand and then it would fall to the floor.

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Um, and then he would get these insights, right? And so they actually did a study where they looked at, uh, these very short naps where people were, um, holding a spoon and then they would drop it and then they would be tested again on the same creativity task. And they showed really nice improvements in creativity because not only is there this really big shift from kind of this revved up state to this more restorative state, but you also have this interesting.

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Brain active state, where you're in kind of a rapid eye movement brain state where it's very free floating, very creative, and that's why you have all these kind of what call hypnogogic dreams because you're in this sort of highly plastic creative brain state, just in that very introductory sleep stage of stage one.

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Mm-hmm. Um, and, and you can capture that in these very short naps that are like five minutes.

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So, so cool. And the knowing of this and then harnessing that power can just be such a, to your point around high performance can be such a great thing to institute if people aren't already tapping into this. So, so appreciate that.

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And you alluded to how this really nicely segues into your beautiful kind of thesis that you bring out in the power of the downstate, where it really does look at this. Natural up and down this rev and downstate that you've been able to really find through lines throughout many walks of life and how beautifully it's illustrated in our circadian rhythm and sleep wake.

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So maybe that can be a nice time for us to transition. To what is this kind of concept, this rev downstate? What do these things mean and what are the practical takeaways for any individual listening?

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Sure. Thanks for talking about that. So one of the things that I think comes up when you're looking at sleep is the fact that we do have these.

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Cycles. Yeah. Right. That we have these cycles where we have the night and the day and we have wake and we have sleep and we have, you know, and, and, and once I started seeing these cycles of, um, an active period, which is sort of, you know, the first part of the rhythm is this upstate active period followed always by this downstate, this kind of rest period, followed by another active period, followed by another rest period.

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I started seeing that pattern everywhere I look right. Which is, you know, you see that with. Exercise that there's some periods where you're very, very, um, active and then suddenly you need some sort of rest period to recover. Um, you also see that with, with wake and sleep, that you have a whole day of waking and then you have a period of sleep.

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And even within sleep, you see when you're looking at brain activity and we use, uh, EEG to look at how, uh, neurons are communicating electrically together, what you see is that when the brain is. Actively awake. It's highly, um, it's a very busy brain and, and, and, uh, um, a lot of different brain areas are kind of speaking all at the same time, um, multitasking.

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And then suddenly you go into sleep and you see that the whole brain starts to move in this very uniform shape, which is a large, these very large upstate and down states. Um, and that's really where I got the idea for the title is that we have these down states during sleep. Where our brain goes into basically like a little state followed by this big upstate where all of the brain activity starts to increase again.

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And so those rhythms across sleep also are the same rhythms that you see across the day and across, you know, the, you know, our, our autonomic nervous system where we have these active sympathetic states, and then we have these very large periods of recovery that are also really important. So those are the kind of, um.

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Uh, patterns that, that the whole book is kind of trying to pull out.

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Yeah. No, I love that. So commonly, for many years in our programs, we would talk about day mode and night mode, but I feel like yours just even brings it to that next level of truly embodying these particular states and how we can learn to live in harmony with these, not from like a Woo perspective, but from a even measurable perspective.

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Are there certain things that you're doing that are. You know, during that downstate that are taking you out of that, into that rev state. I mean, how much could all of us relate to the experience of in the evening probably doing some of the things that are taking us out of that natural down regulation rhythm and the practical applications of this.

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Now, one of the things I thought was so great is throughout the whole book you are referencing HRV as this really kind of complimentary. System or set of metrics to look at to further exemplify this. So maybe you could share why HRV, some people are, you know, new to this term or those that have been utilizing this, needing to understand it more.

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Maybe you can help us break that down.

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Great. Yeah, so HIV, heart rate variability. What that really is measuring is that you have, um, you have your heartbeats and that the heartbeats are, um, they're, it is not a metronome. The heart is not a metronome. It's a famous line about, um, heart rate is that there's a lot of variability between the heartbeats.

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And the general idea is that you actually want more variability because what that means is that when you are running super fast and you suddenly need to get away from something, or you're running a race or any of these things that are kind of stress inducing, you want to be able to speed up your heart rate really, really fast and then right when it's over because that's takes a lot of energy, it's, it's very difficult on the body to have a high heart rate for very long periods of time.

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So you wanna immediately tune it down and conserve your energy. And that requires a very quick system, a system that can very efficiently bring your heart work down. And so what you see when you're measuring heart rate variability is over periods of time. How much variability is there between these heartbeats and are you able to, um, quickly increase your heart rate and then quickly decrease your heart rate?

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People who are, you know, in the more, um, healthy range are people with high heart rate variability because they have a very strong system to be able to, once they have a, um, uh, an increase in the heart rate, they can immediately, uh, shut the, you know, slow the heart rate down and that. Increase in the heart rate is really being driven by one half of the autonomic nervous system called the sympathetic system, which is in my book, I call it the rev system.

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'cause it revs you up and it keeps you kind of, um, excited and filled with, uh, energy. And then what happens immediately, right when your heart rate, um, needs to start shutting, um, slowing down, is that you have the second half of the autonomic system, which is the parasympathetic system, what I call the restore system.

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And that comes in and it slows down your breathing, it slows down your heart rate. It's, it reduces all of your, you know, it take, takes away all your sweat, uh, responses and all, you know, it, it goes back to allowing you to start digesting your food again. All those things that are kind of more, um, vegetative state, it kind of brings you back to this low, uh, more cons.

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Energy conservation period. Um, and so what we look at when we're looking at heart rate variability is somebody with high heart rate variability is somebody that has a very powerful restorative state. Because once they get excited, they can immediately slow themselves down. Once they get revved up, they can immediately restore themselves.

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So the big insight that came out of my research is that. Sleep. This is, this wasn't just my research, but this was a, this was a big insight for me is that sleep is the. Most optimized state to have high restore, have high HIV, and have a time where you know you're awake all day long. You're in this, what we call this upstate all day long.

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Um, and what you need to balance out all of the, sort of the corrosive and the energy depleting activities that happen during daytime is to have this really big. Sort of bolus of restorative activity, which happens to be regulated by HRV or reflected by HIV. So what you want us to have high HRV during sleep, and when we were doing research, looking at what specific sleep stage we were, um, what you get this high HRV, it's during this deeply restorative sleep, which is the stuff that happens in the first part of the night.

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And then what was interesting was that then we started looking at, well, what happens across aging? What you see is like, you know, trying to understand, well, why do people age, why do people start to deteriorate as they get older? Why does their sleep get worse? Why does their cognition get worse? Why does their bodies fall apart?

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And what we found was that they just didn't have that high HIV during sleep. They actually had the same levels of high arousal state from waking all the way through to sleep. Um, and that was such a, a huge light bulb moment for me to say. Oh, uh, that big restorative state that we have as young adults, um, that is probably what keeps us, that repairs our muscle tissue, that re that repairs, that gets our heart rate back to normal, that gets us ready for the next day.

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Older adults don't have that. Hmm. And maybe what we can be doing is looking at that as like a real wake up call to say, we need to be really working on how to get. This big restore system working better, especially in midlife as we start aging. Um, because you know, so many studies show that the more you have this high HIV during adulthood, that you have a better chance of, you know, getting past a lot of these pathological aging as you get older.

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So one of the most common questions that we get around HRV is super simplified and absolutely I'm gonna recommend your book, the Power of the Downs Save for people who are asking this question. And the question is some form of help. My HRV is low. What can I do to improve this number? And granted, throughout your book, you really lay this entire blueprint of some of the things that you can do.

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To one, start becoming more aware of kind of this nice ebb and flow that you're speaking to and living in alignment with this. But are there certain things that you might suggest for people when they're asking that question or how do you relate to that?

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Yeah, I think that the real goal is to. Have very deeply restorative sleep.

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That is one of the best ways to get very high HIV. And that's because if you have deeply restorative sleep, then you're allowing the restore system to bloom it. It happens at the same time as when you have this deep sleep, but that kind of good restorative sleep is a 24 hour job, right? So, so whatever you're doing throughout your entire day is going to predict how well and how deeply you sleep at night, right?

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Yes. Um, so that's why the book. Really tries to not just talk about sleep itself, but really say What time are you eating? You know, there's a whole chapter on just eating, right? Yeah. When you are eating, what are you eating? Um, and how long are you waiting to, um. Between when you stop eating and when you go to sleep, that really allows the sympathetic system to calm down and allows you to have more parasympathetic system when you para parasympathetic arousal or restorative arousal when you go to sleep.

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So it really is trying to put that time restricted eating into. Context. And I think that that's always the reason why I, I always feel like people don't really get well, okay, yeah. Time dating, but why? Well, here's why. And I always kinda wish that, you know, I know you talked to s Penda is like, I wish that he had kind of put it into a larger context.

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Yeah. About, you know. We are a machine, and the machine works best when it is allowed to have these rest states. And that is why you wanna push your eating to an earlier time because it takes a long time for your system to get over the meal, right? And so that, and, and get into a state where it can actually rest.

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And so that's really where the timing of the meal is really important. The same thing is with exercise, you know, is, is exercise is, is, is incredibly important. We all know. Eating and exercise or in and sleep are the three big things, right, that you need to think about in terms of longevity and health.

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But, but when do you exercise? And what kind of exercise, as you know, is incredibly interesting, right? Because those, there are times where our muscle systems are just, they have a circadian rhythm to themselves, right? So that there's times where your muscles are much stronger and it's really great to be working out.

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You're, um, you know, with weights and doing muscle work, and then there's times where your cardiovascular system is actually at its peak and you should be doing more cardiovascular work and you wanna, you know, think about the rhythms of when exercise happens that. If you do an intense cardiovascular workout, it's gonna take your body a long time to get over that increased heart rate and that you know, that sympathetic arousal that you did.

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You know, you put yourself into an upstate, so that's why you want to sort of push all those intense cardiovascular exercises to earlier in the day and not so close to your sleep because it's going to really prevent you from getting into the downstate when you're sleeping. And then. There's a lot of information in the book as well about, you know, what are the kind of practices you can do that if you know, of course we can't always manage to exercise perfectly, eat perfectly, all those other things.

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So what are the daytime practices that you can do during, you know, that will. Continue to kind of facilitate that downstate and you know, there's breathing exercises, there's meditation exercises, even like things like sex can be really great to, yeah. Have this like really big excitatory response and then suddenly this really big downstate that follows an orgasm.

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Right. So, so there's many different things. Illustrate your point. Yeah, right. Totally. Totally. Right. So there's many different tools that we can use. Um, but I think really thinking about yourself as trying to push so much of that really activated stuff too. Earlier and earlier in the day so that you start to really go into your downstate before sleep.

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You don't just leave it all to like, you know, one hour before sleep. Okay, now I'm suddenly trying to get into my sleep state. It's like, right, no, no, no. This is like all day long. Think about this rhythm.

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So, so good. And I loved in your book the nuance where you spoke to certain things that might take some time for people to master like your emotions and managing those.

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I mean, we had one doctor on the podcast who referred to HRV kind of tongue in cheek as your joy score. Granted, of course, you know, there's a lot of reasons for your HRV to. Elevate or to drop, but was pointing to the psychological aspects that can show up as well. And you've even pointed on in your book the different emotional states that we might find ourselves in trauma needing to work through some of these things, which I really appreciated because obviously big topics but can't be overstepped in this journey to understand well why might so.

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'cause some of the people we work with might find themselves almost stuck in this gear of that. Sympathetic response state, and it takes really something to unravel that for them. And so you really provide kind of this map of that. There might be more to it than just, oh, well, you know, make sure you exercise or eat well or what have you.

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There might be more at play than we might realize.

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Yeah, it's, it's pretty amazing. When you look at the HIV literature, how much. Positive attitude plays a role in increasing your HIV. Um, and, and, and it, and it does, you know, and, and yeah, whatever, you could call it a joy thing or whatever, whatever it is you wanna call it.

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But, but, but to me, what it is, is, um, I think everything is very, I think in machine terms now, I really just think of us as these machines. And so I just think of it as. If you're feeling safe, to me it's a, it's a, it's about safety, right? When you're joyous, you're kind of in a safe space and you're feeling really open and you know, all that kind of stuff.

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And that's because you're not stressed, right? You're not feeling like I have to, I have to go perform something. I have to protect myself. I have to, I'm going to be judged. I'm going to be, um, in a dangerous position. All of those things are the stress state, rather. Those are the things that, that rev us up and that make us excited in a negative or positive way.

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And when you are in a, when you're in a more restorative place, it's because you have made yourself feel safe, right? Mm-hmm. And so you can either be in a safe space, literally, or you can learn how to put yourself in a safe space, right? And, and the. The strongest way that that happens is by regulating your breathing.

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Um, and that's why all of these kind of, you know, um. Restorative practices like yoga and meditation, and they all start with the breath. Yeah. Because what you're telling yourself when you are slowing your breathing down, when you're able to really decide on how you wanna breathe, it's that I have control.

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Here I am. I am safe. I'm in a place where I can not be worried. I can cool my, so those, you know, even with children, when we say like, okay, deep breaths, what is that about? It's like. No, just calm down. And then you're telling your body, you're telling your brain I'm safe. And that increases your parasympathetic system, that that is the sympathetic parasympathetic system regulating your breathing, and therefore increasing your heart rate variability.

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So, so good. And of course, from a specific, like sleep specific, when we think about the night's perspective, that safety has been a through line that we've seen with many guests on the podcast, speaking to the need to feel safe in the evenings to be able to drift off to sleep. Yeah. And yet one of, and of course that is.

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Clear. And yet what you're also speaking to is that we can practice this by day. And actually that is pertinent if we're looking to then be able to tap into that in the evenings. So, so good. And to be respectful of your time, one of the things that we do transition to is asking every guest about their own sleep.

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But before we do that, is there anything else on this huge topic of sleep napping, HRV. Beyond anything that we left out that you wanna put in or any callouts.

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I mean, we could just keep talking. There's, so, yeah, there's so much, much, I mean, there's, you know, there's like about, you know, so much women versus men.

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There's, I mean, there's just so many, you know, menopause, aging, all these things that are, you know, really important I think, uh, is just cause for another podcast, probably, I think so.

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Well then in that case, one of the things we've found is that people really seem to love learning about how people have thought deeply about their sleep, how they're managing their own sleep.

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And maybe we can learn some things through how you're thinking about your sleep. So first question is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now?

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But it, you know, so I am not, I'm as human as they come and, you know, sometimes I'm sleeping really, really well and sometimes I'm a terrible sleeper.

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Um, and it's always funny. People are always like, you don't sleep well. Like, people are shocked, you know? I'm like, well, I'm just. I know what to do, but it doesn't mean I do it, you know? And so Hundred percent. Right. So, so if I was in my best state, I can answer that. Um, yeah. And I can also answer in my married worst state, but you know, it's really getting to bed by 10, 10 30.

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Yeah. That's, that is so incredibly key for me. Um, when I, I, I see these rhythms. Um, you know, there are these, all these ultra D and rhythms, right? These micro rhythms that happen throughout the day, and you really have internal rhythms that are optimized for putting you to bed. Yeah. And if you miss that moment, I.

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It's like you have another 90 minutes to two hours before you can go to bed again. Um, and that's what I find is that if I don't hit that early night's sleep, um, that first initial, I'm getting tired, then it's really hard for me to get to sleep for the rest of the night. So I try to get to sleep around 10, 10 30, maybe sometimes even nine 30.

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Um, if I can really get everything done by then, sure. Yeah. Um, the other thing is to really chill on. The social media on news, um, on light, um, you know, just put, put in dimmers and also, uh, read before bed. Don't look at videos, don't watch tv. I really liked, and, and then the very first second that I feel myself getting a little like, oh, I missed that word.

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What? And then my eyes might, okay, that's it. Yes. And you're, you're not, you're not trying to get through the book. No. You're trying to then like hear the call. Yeah, yeah. And transition into the sleep. Yeah. So those are really the transition moments I try to pay attention to.

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Oh, I so relate to that. So well said.

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And I also love the realism too, of what I'm in my best state, and then there's other times where I'm missing the boat and some of these things, and how human is that? Totally. Totally. And I think that's so important too, because. We do see this perfectionistic trend for, and you know, myself included for some of these aiming to like get it right in the hundreds or something for your proverbial sleep abilities.

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And we find that that can be really a disordered way to look at our sleep. So I appreciate that. Kind of speaking to the resiliency that can come out. Sometimes it's working, sometimes it's not, but we're trusting.

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Always knowing that if it doesn't work out and you didn't really sleep well, you can just take a nap.

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Right, exactly.

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Okay. Not the end of the world. Like you'll be fine. Yeah,

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exactly. So good. Okay. Beautiful. I mean, that actually transitions us to what does your daytime, the morning sleep routine with the argument that how we start our day could impact our sleep because it's you. Then we could also look at, is there anything throughout the course of the day that you might.

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Point to like naps or beyond?

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Yeah. So I love to do cardio in the morning. Um, I try to go for a run or I go to the gym, um, and do something cardio in the morning. That's also really great. Um, I try to, uh, finish any kind. I drink tea. I don't drink coffee. Um, so that's another thing. Getting off coffee was a really big deal.

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Took a lot of headaches. Oh yeah. But you know, the amount of caffeine I, you know, and then I really control the caffeine. So I don't have any caffeine after, um, noon. And I also really am aware of when my rhythms, my upstate brain rhythms are. And so my writing time is incredibly important. And that's the morning.

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Mm-hmm. So, um, right after exercising, you know, you have this endorphins and there's all sorts of really good things happening for not just your body but your brain too. So I try to really jump into writing mode. I do a lot of writing, um, in the morning, and I put all of the kind of more. Emails and, um, looking at the news and all those other things that are super distracting and they, they kind of suck my energy out.

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I, I, I try to push those to a time where I've already really expended my brain upstate time.

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Love that. Oh, so well said. Okay. Fantastic. And then what might we visually see on your nightstand or maybe in your environment, in your sleep space? Ambiance, you know? Yeah. Maybe traveling proverbial nightstand.

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The biggest thing for me are earplugs. Oh, nice. Okay. That's, I mean, it's like, like it was such a big deal for me to realize like, even though I have kids, and even though I wanna make sure I'm always listening, you know, for anything, if there's something going on, I told them, you have to come to me because I need to wear these earplugs because they just, they put me into a downstate because I'm so sensitive to sound.

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Yeah. And that it makes me super, um. Difficult to go to sleep and easy to wake up. Sure. But with the earplugs, they just put me in a safe space. So that's number one. I also, I'm also a fan of melatonin. Mm-hmm. Um, and I know that that's like, you know, like, oh, maybe you should be careful how much you take and all this that, but mm-hmm.

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There are all also sorts of positive. Nons sleep related, you know, antioxidant effects of melatonin and stuff like that, so, so if I'm feeling like I travel a lot and yes, I, sometimes I'm in Europe and sometimes in New York, sometimes I'm in San Diego, right? So all of those different things mean that I'm not afraid of using melatonin, but I use very low levels.

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So those are the, and, and then there's always a book. I always have a book and not a screen.

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Yes. Oh, so good. Love that. Okay. And then, um, the last question would be to date, what would you say has made the biggest change to the management of your sleep? Or said another way, maybe biggest aha moment in the management of your sleep.

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Oh gosh. I guess the nap. Mm-hmm. I think really allowing the nap to be just another way I get sleep because I, as I said, I'm not always a great sleeper, and so Yeah. Saying to my, you know, waking up in the morning and being like, it's totally fine. Like, not having, like, I'm mean I have a terrible day. Like yeah, I will find 15 minutes to go to sleep in the middle, like in my car on the way to something, you know, like stopping early and before I pick up the kids or before I go to yoga class or before like.

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You find ways to make sure that you keep exercising even if you have a bad night of sleep. I think that those kind of insights, that it's not the end of the world. I think that's really helped me.

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That's so good. It makes me think of, um, one really fascinating guest we had on the podcast was, uh, Dr. David Sampson, who's evolutionary anthropologist and had studied the Hudson Tribe in Africa, looking at their sleep patterns and was really fascinating some of the results that he found around the consistently the grandparent.

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Oh, definitely the grandparent, totally right. Yeah. Splintered, uh, sleep. Yeah. And then also the use of naps. So naps during the day. Granted, you know, it's a very hot environment. Yeah. There could be lot of theories, but naps during the day and actually not wildly long periods of sleep, you know, it'd be in the like six, seven hour range commonly.

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So, point being that I loved your narratives because one of the things we do see for so many people is this stress response when sleep wasn't. The best or wasn't working how they'd like to have it work, and yet to know that there's, is that failsafe or that, you know, kind of catch time where we can catch up on some of that sleeve with those naps or what have you.

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So that's, and not to feel bad about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So good. That's

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okay. So having said that, how can people follow you, be a part of the research that you are putting out, books that you have created and beyond.

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Yeah, I mean, my books are available anywhere. The Take a Nap, change Your Life is the first one.

And Power of the Downstate is the second one. Um, I have a website, Sara mednick.com. I think there's, and then I have a, a lab site, which is sleep and cognition lab.org. Um, I don't really do a lot of social media. I, I find myself. Trying to avoid which Rev. Yeah. I really feel like it doesn't necessarily serve me a lot.

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Yeah. So, um, but at the same time, I know that it's, it's a great way to communicate so people can, I don't, I would say get to me through my website. I give lots of talks. I'm always good to, able to organize talks for people and things like that.

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Oh, amazing. You just made me think, I, I swear I did not plan this, but I just got in the mail and I haven't used it so I can't even speak to it.

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But I feel like this might speak to some of your stuff. It's this company for REM and apparently, so for anyone watching this video, it's just this little like hockey puck. Apparently that's what controls your phone. So it's supposed to help support getting the phone out of your bedroom because you can't use it unless it's within a certain proximity, I believe, to that little hockey puck.

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Oh, interesting. The hockey p outside of your space, and it's supposed to help with your sleep because then of course can't bring it in. But I think you could also align it with like, you know, social media use and speaking to what you're saying that it's. You're finding it's not serving your nervous system, so well think you're not alone.

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Yeah. But anyway, it makes me think of all the ways that people are trying to solve this exact problem because so many of us are clearly addicted and doing things that we know we probably shouldn't be doing. And so, and I just find that it's a waste of my time. I think that's the biggest part, is that it's like, this is not making me.

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More productive or happier?

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Uh, you make me think of, um, what was this book that, I think it was called 4,000 Weeks, this Time management book that came out fairly recently and they were speaking to like, apparently the average person is living around 4,000 weeks. And then where do you wanna put this time?

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What do you wanna fill this. Time with and making the argument exactly what you're saying, to be thoughtful about where it's going and is it really served in a little, you know, handheld box maybe.

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Totally. Yeah. Uh,

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so good. But you know, I know that clearly there's an opportunity for a part two or something because you've got tons of knowledge.

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So appreciate you taking the time to be here and really, really thankful and grateful for the research and the work that you're doing. It's. You know, really makes a difference for so many.

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Thank you so much, Molly, for having me. It's been great.

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Oh, thank you. You've been listening to The Sleep Is a Skill podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level.

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Every Monday, I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun fact, I've never missed a Monday for over five years and counting. And it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to Sleep as a skill.com/newsletter to sign up.