3020: How Much Sleep Do You Need Each Night and How Does Biphasic Sleeping Impact You

[00:00:01] Wenn jemand Charles und Melanie gesagt hätte, dass sie nach ihrem Tinder-Match gemeinsam einen Channel mit crazy Aufgaben starten, also wirklich crazy, fünf Tage auf einer einsamen Insel verbringen, eine Zipline an einem Gurt runterrasen, eine Million Views knacken, eine Wand mit Saugnöpfen hochklettern und Falschirm springen in Ägypten? Das hätten die beiden niemals geglaubt. Aber das ist das Ding mit Tinder. Es führt dich an Orte, die du nie erwartet hättest. Wohin es dich aufführt. It starts with a swipe. Tinder.

[00:00:28] Tinder-Match

[00:01:00] It's another Q&A edition of Optimal Health Daily and I'm Dr. Neal Malik. Hey there, happy Friday. You made it through another week. Welcome to another Q&A edition of Optimal Health Daily where I answer your health questions related to fitness, diet and nutrition and lots more. You send in the questions and I answer them for you.

[00:01:18] As I always say, I want this to be a place where you can learn the truth, where we cut through some of those myths and I try and do that by looking at what the actual research says. What do the data say about your particular question? So with that, let's hear today's question as we optimize your life. Hello. I just wanted to say thanks for all your podcasts. They're really interesting and I enjoy listening to them.

[00:01:47] My question is on sleep. So there's a lot of controversy on how much sleep you really need with the average being around about seven to nine hours for an adult. So I was wondering what happens if you sleep or you happen to fall asleep on the sofa for two hours, wake up and get yourself to bed and then fall back asleep.

[00:02:10] So overall you've had eight hours sleep but you've disrupted it two hours within. Do you know if this has any bad impacts? Thank you. Thank you for your question, caller, and thank you so much for listening. I'm so glad you enjoy our family of podcasts. Now I can actually relate to your question. My family has taken pictures of me asleep on the couch in the evening. This usually happens after a particularly long week and usually the pictures do include my cat resting on me while I sleep.

[00:02:40] He likes to leech my body heat when I'm sleeping. Luckily, this idea of me falling asleep on the couch late in the evening doesn't happen all that often. This is because, as you mentioned, when this happens late in the evening, it can impact the quality of your sleep. And when sleep gets interrupted, it can lead to other potential negative health effects. Taking regular afternoon naps, though, I want to be clear here, can promote health.

[00:03:05] This is because when you nap, your body's not preparing for that seven to nine hour hibernation. But if you fall asleep on the couch near bedtime, your body might think it's hibernation time. It's preparing for you to sleep for seven to nine hours. And it's this long, deep, restorative sleep that our bodies need so badly. So if you interrupt it by getting up and moving yourself to your bed, it may influence the overall quality of your sleep.

[00:03:33] As human beings, we have two stages of sleep that our bodies fluctuate in and out of throughout the night. There's the rapid eye movement or REM phase and the non-rapid eye movement or NREM phase. To make things just a bit more complicated, the non-rapid eye movement or NREM phase actually has four stages, where stages one through two are what we would call light sleep. And stages three through four would mean the person is in deep sleep.

[00:04:01] Now, when someone is in stages one and two, the slightest sound might wake them up. But in stages three and four, it may be harder to wake them up. And stages three and four are most important for our health. And in case you're wondering how scientists identified these stages, they had people come into sleep labs where they hooked them up to these machines that read their brain waves and body temperatures while they slept. Now, that's just NREM sleep. REM sleep is also important for feeling our best.

[00:04:32] For most of us, it takes about 90 minutes to get to this deep REM sleep. Now, overall, we need a minimum of seven hours just to allow our bodies to go in and out of all of these stages of NREM and REM sleep. When that happens, we wake up feeling refreshed. But when that doesn't happen, that's when we may not feel as refreshed and when we may start experiencing negative health effects. Okay, so huge digression there, I know. So why did I bother explaining all of that?

[00:05:01] Again, it's because to truly understand this concept, you needed to know some of this background information. What we're learning is that when there are interruptions to the progression of these stages, our hormones begin to change. These hormones range from those related to stress to those related to appetite and even growth hormone. In fact, researchers have discovered that fragmented sleep may be more important than sleep duration for regulating our appetite.

[00:05:28] Meaning, if our sleep gets interrupted, we may end up eating more the next day. Some researchers believe that this happens because the body is somehow trying to compensate. By increasing food intake, we're trying to promote sleep. Sleep researchers have also found that interrupted sleep can increase stress hormone levels in the blood. An increase in stress hormones can lead to other not-so-great health effects like increased fat storage, particularly around the abdomen,

[00:05:54] decreased sensitivity to insulin, which may increase the risk for developing type 2 diabetes, poorer brain functioning, and a poorer working immune system. Other researchers have found that disrupting sleep for even just a few seconds leads to a temporary increase in heart rate and blood pressure. The body thinks that it's time to wake up and tries to get your heart rate and blood pressure back up to the levels it normally experiences when you're awake. So, if sleep gets interrupted over and over,

[00:06:21] this increase in blood pressure may become permanent. This is one of the reasons why it's been theorized that interrupted sleep may lead to high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. But here's the deal. All of this news doesn't sound great, I know. In fact, it can be pretty distressing. But if we start obsessing over the minutes of sleep we're losing every night, that's probably going to cause you to lose even more sleep. So, what I recommend is this. When you start to feel sleepy,

[00:06:49] move to your bed before you actually fall asleep on the couch. Now, I get it. Sometimes getting off the couch to tuck yourself into bed may wake you out of that sleepiness you are experiencing. If that happens, have a snoozy time book on your nightstand. You know, the one that's not super interesting. And then, start reading. That should get your mind and body back into sleep mode. And hopefully you'll hit that deep restorative sleep in no time.

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[00:08:35] Plus, Wonderful Pistachios comes in a variety of flavors and sizes. Perfect for enjoying with family and friends, or taking them with you on the go. So, get snackin' and get crackin' with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit wonderfulpistachios.com to learn more. Thank you again so much for the question, caller. Now, if you want to get your hands on our Optimal Living Daily Workbook, and have your question answered right here on the show, send one in.

[00:09:03] You can email your question to health at oldpodcast.com. Now, if you want to send one in via audio, just come by oldpodcast.com slash ask to record your question straight from your computer. Or you can do it the old-fashioned way and call in your question. The number is country code 1-61-ILOVE-OHD. That's 1-614-568-3643.

[00:09:32] And that'll do it for another Q&A edition of Optimal Health Daily. Thank you so much for listening every day and all the way through. I hope you have a great start to your weekend, and I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits. I hope you have a great start to see you next time. I hope you have a great start to see you next time. Thank you.