What's the secret to a great night's sleep, why don't we die in dreams, what are phones doing to our brains. Sleep Psychologist Dr. Jade Wu answers your biggest sleep questions in this episode. We talk the secret to sleeping soundly, how much sleep you really need, sleep disorders, circadian rhythms and more. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Things You Should Never Get Rid Of.
Interview with Sleep Psychologist and Sleep Specialist Dr. Jade Wu
Speakers
Nick VinZant: Profoundly Pointless Host
Dr. Jade Wu: Sleep Psychologist and Sleep Specialist
In this episode we cover:
What is the key to a good night’s sleep
How much sleep do you really need
How your unique circadian rhythm can impact your sleep
How are sleep disorders treated
Why don’t we die in dreams
Why people are biologically hard wired to sleep at certain times
What are the signs of insomnia
What is the best way to get to sleep
Nick VinZant 0:13
Hey everybody welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant coming up in this episode, we're going to sleep and we're counting down the top five things that you should never get rid of
Dr. Jade Wu 0:26 During sleep. That's one of the times that the brain is kind of repairing itself is doing some important janitorial work. So it's literally clearing out toxins from the cerebral spinal fluid which is literally your brain juice. We are also hardwired to be sleeping a certain time at certain times a day. So for example, I am a biologically hardwired night owl. So for example, if I need eight hours of sleep per night, and I get it from midnight to 8am I feel absolutely great. But if I get the same amount of sleep, so eight hours, but I get it from 10pm to 6am. I feel like total crap. So we're completely messing up the brain's ability to tell what time it is. And when the brain the SCN is confused about what time it is, is not as able to regulate our bodies.
Nick VinZant 1:21 I want to thank you guys so much for joining us. If you get a chance to like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it. It really helps us out. So something that really annoys me is when you see these stories on the news, and they talk about you need to get more sleep. Sleep is really important. Yeah. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows they should be getting more sleep and everybody knows that it's important, but what are you actually going to do about it? Our first guest has some real practical tips about what you can actually do about it. And as a clinical scientist, she also has the A fascinating insight into what sleep is doing to our brains and to our bodies. And what happens in cases where she has patients that aren't getting enough sleep. This is sleep psychologist, Dr. Jade Woo. So obviously sleep is important. But why is it so important? What is it doing to the brain into the body
Dr. Jade Wu 2:25 sleep is incredibly important. It's actually doing a lot of different functions for the body and the brain. For example, during sleep, that's one of the times that the brain is kind of repairing itself is doing some important janitorial work. So it's literally clearing out toxins from the cerebral spinal fluid, which is literally your brain juice. So you know, the the stuff that accumulates during the day that your brain doesn't need really needs to be taken out during sleep, and if it accumulates too much, when there's not enough sleep, then it builds up and builds have been built up and can increase your risk for something like Alzheimer's disease. Of course, it's not like if you miss a couple nights of sleep, you'll have Alzheimer's, it doesn't work like that. But prolonged chronic sleep deprivation can prevent your body and your brain from repairing properly. And aside from repairing itself, sleep is also just important for normal growth. So for example, in kids and in teenagers, especially, sleep is doing a lot of developmental growth. That's where a lot of the reproductive hormones are doing their work during adolescence. That's where the growth hormones are flowing for kids to grow their bodies and their brains. It's doing emotional processing, it's consolidating the memories. So all of the normal functions that we do as humans really have a lot of their bases in sleep.
Nick VinZant 3:58 Does anybody actually get enough sleep.
Dr. Jade Wu 4:02 Sure, yeah. My clients after they work with me. I'm only partially kidding there. I think plenty of people do get enough sleep. And the I think the more important question maybe to ask is, how do we know what is enough sleep? Because we often see the number eight flowing around right? The eight hours, you should get eight to nine hours or seven to eight hours. But I think that's a little bit misleading, because that's like asking, you know, how many calories should you consume? Well, it depends on who you are, you know, are you Michael Phelps or are you Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you know, they both do very important jobs, but one of them probably eats a lot more than the other and it kind of works similarly for sleep. For someone who is very physically active and maybe a teenager, someone who is doing a lot of physical work, they probably mean more sleep than someone who is older, like in their 70s or 80s. And not doing as much physical work and not doing as much brain development, you know, as a child. So it really depends on your your genetic predisposition, your age, your lifestyle, your physical activity, your circadian rhythm, a bunch of different things. So it's not actually too easy of a question to answer. But I think it's an important one to start with before you tell yourself all I'm not getting enough sleep or I am getting enough sleep. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah,
Nick VinZant 5:40 I think that the question would then be like, How do I know if I'm getting enough sleep or if I've just adjusted to the pattern that I'm in?
Dr. Jade Wu 5:48 Sure, sure. Yeah. So I think the only way you can figure out if you're getting enough sleep for you, is to see how much your body can consistently sleep without getting insomnia. So that means giving yourself plenty of opportunity to sleep. So not burning the candle at both ends, you know, making sure you wind down at the end of the day. So you can let yourself feel sleepy cues, like the yawning and the eyes drifting. Making sure that you can feel those cues when your body does get sleepy. But, you know, if you start to get insomnia as in trouble falling asleep or trouble staying asleep or waking up too early, then maybe you're giving yourself too much time to sleep. So it's a little bit of a trial and error.
Nick VinZant 6:35 When I hear insomnia, I'm thinking basically, like people sleeping one or two hours a night. Like what what exactly is insomnia?
Dr. Jade Wu 6:44 You know, I've actually have had clients with insomnia who slept about eight or nine hours a night, but they still had insomnia. So your question is a really good one. It's not about the quantity of sleep that you get. It's about Whether that quantity of sleep matches your need, and whether you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. So the official definition of insomnia disorder is you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up too early, or otherwise not getting the pattern, the quality of sleep that you like, that you would like. And this is causing you problems in the daytime, not just at night. And this is happening despite having enough opportunity to sleep. So this last point is really important. Insomnia is not someone burning the candle at both ends. a college student pulling all nighters because they're studying for exams or single mom working three jobs, they don't have enough time to sleep, those those situations are not insomnia. those situations are sleep deprivation. Insomnia is not sleep deprivation. Plenty of people with insomnia are actually getting enough sleep objectively sleep, speaking But they're, they're trying, they're either trying too hard to sleep too early or they're, they keep waking up and not being able to fall back asleep, or their body and their mind are just too hyped up so that they're not getting the restful type of sleeps that they would like. When
Nick VinZant 8:18 we talk about the amount of sleep that somebody should be getting. I'll just use myself for an example. Okay, I usually get seven hours of sleep. But could I be in a situation where like, oh, if I got seven hours and 15 minutes, I could be a genius or something like that is that you know what I mean? Like, am I missing out just by not getting enough sleep? Like, could I not unlock my full potential so to speak?
Dr. Jade Wu 8:44 I would say they are okay. There are two parts. In my answer to your question. The first part, the direct answer is sure it's possible. I doubt that 15 minutes would make much of a difference, but it's possible that you're someone Who actually biologically needs let's say nine hours, but you haven't been giving yourself the chance to get nine hours. So you know, your seven hours are just not cutting it. That's very possible. And you would know that if you are, you know really cranky during the day can't concentrate can't function really well. You're running on just an empty tank all the time you feel really Draggy all of these signs could point towards you not get getting enough sleep. Now one way you could find out if you have, if you're lucky enough to be able to do this is to just give yourself free rein to sleep more or give yourself time to be in bed more just in case you could sleep more. And play with that. See if maybe you can consistently sleep seven and a quarter, seven and a half, maybe eight even. And if you can consistently do that without getting insomnia. So again without trouble falling asleep. asleep or waking up too early, then it will have turned out that you did need more sleep. But if you start trying to sleep more, but you know, you're just tossing and turning, you're waking up a lot. You're waking up too early, then maybe seven was actually the right amount for you. So that's the first part of the answer. The second part is that I think one question, that sort of underlying your question that's not getting asked is about circadian rhythm. So this is your body clock. We all have a roughly 24 hour biological clocks that we run on. And our bodies and our brains run best when we when? Sorry, let me say that again. So our bodies and our brains run best when we're running on a consistent 24 hour cycle. And when our sleep timing matches what our body wants to do, so have you heard of people being like night owls or morning Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's actually a biologically hardwired thing. That's not just people's preference. Oh, like I like being a morning person or, oh, you know, I'm a party animal. I'm a night owl. So I like to sleep in. And I'm lazy. It's not like that was partially like that, maybe. But we are also hardwired to be sleeping a certain time, at certain times a day. So for example, I am a biologically hardwired night owl. So, for example, if I need eight hours of sleep per night, and I get it, from midnight to 8am, I feel absolutely great. I jump out of bed and I'm ready to go and I'm on top of the world. But if I get the same amount of sleep, so eight hours, but I get it from 10pm to 6am. I feel like total crap for the whole day. It takes me like eight hours to boot up. So the timing of your sleep actually really matters. So when you say that you sleep seven hours a night And maybe you could be reaching more of your full potential if you got more. I'm wondering if you know, if you don't feel you're 100% maybe you don't need more sleep, maybe you need to sleep at a different time.
Nick VinZant 12:12 I had never heard that before. I never even thought of that. It's not just when how much sleep you get but when you get that sleep.
Dr. Jade Wu 12:21 Absolutely. It's such an underrated topic. I think all over the news all over, you know, these social media health campaigns. We're talking about how much sleep we need, and that is really important, but I think we're really neglecting to talk about the timing aspect. And that is actually more important than what I even just said. Did you know that out of all the list out of the whole list of probable carcinogens. The only item that is not a chemical is circadian misalignment, meaning your body not running on a 24 hour cycle. not sleeping when you should be. So this is born out of research showing that rotating shift workers and night shift workers are at a greater risk for cancer than people who would work day shifts and regular shifts.
Nick VinZant 13:14 All edit this part out but for years, I worked as a news reporter on the morning shift and I I am I am sure that I have taken years off my life.
Dr. Jade Wu 13:24 Oh,I'm so sorry.
Nick VinZant 13:28 It's just not natural. Like we should not be doing this.
Dr. Jade Wu 13:34 And I don't think you should edit that part of how or I mean, obviously it's up to you. But I think that our personal experiences are really valid. You know, when we say we feel like total crap. When we get up early in the morning. That's not just us. You know, being crybabies about it. We really truly don't function well. When we get up too early or get up too late for that matter. So knowing the timing of You need to sleep is really important.
Nick VinZant 14:01 When you see patients, what is the most common complaint, like what's usually the reason that they're coming to see you besides not getting enough sleep? Like what's the underlying cause of it?
Dr. Jade Wu 14:12 Sure. The most common complaint I get when they first come into the office is I read, insert, newspaper, article, magazine article, the book, why we sleep. And now I'm afraid that I'm going to get dementia, I'm going to die early, I'm going to have a heart attack. People are really, really anxious about their sleep, especially people who are otherwise high functioning, otherwise doing well on life. Otherwise more or less healthy. They tend to be the most anxious about their sleep. So they're the ones reading the headlines about how we should get eight hours or else and they're worried that they're seven and a half hours that's not cutting it. And because they were working They're seven and a half hours wasn't cutting it, they were doing things like going to bed too early or trying to sleep in, or trying to take naps or trying to meditate really hard. But meditating is not something you should be doing really hard. But they've sort of worked themselves up into this anxiety about sleep that ironically then fed into their anxiety. And now they've had anxiety for years. And they're dependent on some sort of sleep medication, and they would really like to come off of it. And that's why they ended up in my office.
Nick VinZant 15:33 What is all of this screen time doing to our sleep cycles.
Dr. Jade Wu 15:39 Yes, I like that. You said sleep cycles, because this goes back to the biological clock question. So our clocks run on, like I said, on about 24 hour cycle. But how do we know like, how do our brains know what time it is? Right? So the master clock in the brain called the super charismatic nucleus The cn for short. The cn is the master clock that the rest of your body looks to to see what time it is. And the only way or not the only way but the main way that the CN knows what time it is, is by how much light is coming into your eyes. So there are actually cells in the back of your eye eyes in the retina, that project directly to the brain to you know, almost directly to the CN to say, Oh, it's bright outside, or, oh no, it's dark outside. And our ancestors, you know, ones that didn't have iPads and didn't have electricity. When it was dark, it was night and when it was light it was day. So our brains had a very, very clear cue for knowing what time it was. But now we are watching our TVs and on our phones and on our iPads well into the night after sun has set and we are working indoors in offices that maybe don't have a lot of legs. Or, you know, we're working night shift or something like that. And so we're completely messing up the brain's ability to tell what time it is. And when the brain the CN is confused about what time it is, is not as able to regulate our bodies, and, importantly, not as able to regulate our sleep. And that's part of why we sometimes have trouble sleeping or don't get good quality sleep.
Nick VinZant 17:25 This night mode if like people put it on that, Does that help? Or is that just kind of like a marketing trick? Dr. Jade Wu 17:30 No, that does help actually. So if you think about it, our caveman ancestors, they did have some light after sunset, right? They had campfires or bonfires. So these fires are orangey and tone or red. So these lies actually do not set our biological clocks so having some orangey warm lights after sunset is perfectly fine. So having your phone on night mode wearing blue blocking glasses, which are basically amber colored, you know, lenses that filter out the blue lights, the blue wavelengths that do set our brain clocks. All of those things can help.
Nick VinZant 18:17 What's your recommended routine for people in terms of just getting ready to go to bed? That is better, like do they need to be doing something specific? Or do they just need to do the same thing?
Dr. Jade Wu 18:29 I think they just need to do generally the same thing more or less. As long as those things are pretty pleasant and more or less relaxing. There are no hard and fast rules about what you must do. It's not like you have to listen to rain sounds or have to read a book. Do whatever works for you for myself, I Well, right now may not be the best example because I do have a four month old so a lot of it revolves around him, but if he's sleeping Then my routine is to kind of wind down, take a shower, drink a little bit of water. And let's see, I have a little light snack, I do some reading or journaling, I hang out with my husband, I listen to an audio book, and then I go to sleep. So that's my routine. But you don't have to do that exact same thing. As long as you're doing something relaxing and pleasant. Don't try to do your taxes right before bedtime. Don't have an argument with your spouse right before bed. Or if you have to do that, don't do it in the bedroom. Try to do in the kitchen or something or saying that argument for the next day.
Nick VinZant 19:39 I've heard something that like you're not supposed to the bed is for sleeping, and for, let's say enjoyment and anything other than that you're not supposed to like be in the bedroom. Is that true?
Dr. Jade Wu 19:51 Yes. I think that's a really, really good point. And the reason is that our brains are just really good at putting two and two together. You know, like if we all ways. Let's see what's a good example. If every time you go to grandma's house, you get delicious cookies, then your mouth is gonna start watering every time you walk into grandma's house, right? Like our brains are very good at anticipating what's about to happen. So if you are arguing with your spouse in the bedroom, if you're playing Grand Theft Auto and your bedroom, if you are, you know, watching the latest political debate in the bedroom, you are now going to be relaxed in the bedroom. Because when you get in there, your brains gonna go, Oh, I know what place this is. This is the place to get all riled up and get frustrated. So then your body starts to automatically do its arousal, fight or flight thing, and you won't really be able to fall asleep. Well like that.
Nick VinZant 20:49 What's the most interesting Sleep Disorder you've ever dealt with?
Dr. Jade Wu 20:54 Huh? So there are a bunch of interesting ones called parasomnias. So this is Like the sleepwalking, the night terrors, the sleep paralysis, all of the freaky stuff that are actually quite scary and disturbing if you experience it, but are not necessarily that bad for your health. So I mean, there's a range. And I think the most interesting case I've seen is a sexsomnia case where someone Someone was having sex in their sleep and they were not aware of it.
Nick VinZant 21:30 Every time I see sleepwalking in movies, I was like, Okay one person has ever had is that actually like common stuff like that really happens to people a lot.
Dr. Jade Wu 21:41 It's not common, it's not common I off the top of my head. I do not know the prevalence, but I bet it will be less than 1% like far less than 1% in adults. It is not uncommon and children though. So I know that you have a four year old for example, it would not be super surprised. in a few years time, he has some sleepwalking episodes. And there's nothing wrong with that that does not predict sleep problems later on in life. children tend to outgrow these sleepwalking episodes and night terrors and things like that by adolescence. Sometimes I do see late teens, early 20s cases of sleepwalking or night terrors are really terrible nightmares. But usually there are some substances or mood disorders or other things involved there. So, long story short, you know, for kids, don't worry about it for adolescence, get it checked out for adults is very rare. definitely get checked out. But it's very, very unlikely to happen.
Nick VinZant 22:47 So when we go to sleep, Where are we going? Do we know what happens to consciousness like, do you do we know?
Dr. Jade Wu 22:56 Oh, that's a very interesting question. I think Think this question kind of assumes that there is a difference between the mind and the body. Am I right?
Nick VinZant 23:10 I just wonder like I'm asleep. But what's my brains not really asleep. So what's going on?
Dr. Jade Wu 23:17 Well, that part is correct your your brain is while your brain is asleep, in the sense that it's going through all of the processes, and it's exhibiting all the characteristics that we call sleep, but it's not turned off. So it's not like when you turn off computer or open a computer to sleep in a dormant state, right? It's like hibernating. It's not really on or doing anything, but our brains are actually quite active when we sleep. So there are different stages of sleep that do different things. But for example, like I said earlier during deep sleep, your brain is doing a lot of janitorial work and repair work. Releasing lots of growth hormones. If you're a young person, and another stage of sleep is called REM, which stands for rapid eye movement, sleep, and this is a very active stage of sleep is actually when you look at brainwaves during REM, it almost looks like someone's brainwaves when they're awake. And this is where your brain is doing a lot of editorial work. So it's taking snippets of information, whether it's, you know, information about, you know, knowledge that you learned or emotional things that you experienced, you know, movies that you saw interactions that you had, is taking all of these snippets that you gathered up during the day and trying to organize them, trying to prune them, you know, get rid of the ones that are not useful, retain the ones that are useful, make connections between disparate events to stitch it all together into a cohesive, cohesive whole All of this is going on while you're sleeping.
Nick VinZant 25:03 Are you ready for the harder slash listener submitted questions?
Dr. Jade Wu 25:07 Sure.
Nick VinZant 25:08 What is the best side of the body to sleep on back side or face down?
Dr. Jade Wu 25:14 Well, I wouldn't put your face directly into your pillow. Because that doesn't sound like it's good for breathing. And otherwise, if you don't have sleep apnea, sleeping in whatever position is comfortable, is fine. And you don't need to. Again, if you don't have sleep apnea, you can find yourself in any position of sleep, and there's no reason to correct it. If you're uncomfortable and change your position, if you're comfortable, stay put. Now I put in the important caveat of sleep apnea because this is a really, really serious breathing related sleep or a disorder where during sleep sometimes you stop breathing for 10 seconds or more at a time. And because your oxygen level drops, your brain wakes you up in order to breeze. So that means you're waking up a bunch during the night trying to breathe. Now this is a really serious problem because breathing is really important. And generally speaking, for people with sleep apnea, they tend to have less apnea when they're sleeping on their side, rather than on their back. So first of all, if you are a heavy snore, and if you're overweight, and if you're over the age of 50, and especially if you're a man, you should go ask a doctor about sleep apnea, chances are you have it.
Nick VinZant 26:38 What is the least amount of sleep one of your patients has ever had and operated normally?
Dr. Jade Wu 26:44 Oh, interesting. I think I'm remembering are we talking about on a consistent basis or are we talking about acutely because I've had people not sleeping All for a night and didn't find the next day. But long term, I don't think I've seen anyone sleep less than probably four or five hours consistently and be okay.
Nick VinZant 27:12 That's pretty much like that's the limit, right?
Dr. Jade Wu 27:15 When you really are generally speaking, I would definitely not recommend sleeping less than five hours consistently. If that's you, then you should definitely get that checked out.
Nick VinZant 27:26 What do you think about some of those, you know, weird or not? Maybe they're not weird, but some of those sleep patterns where, you know, I sleep for 20 minutes every three hours or something like that, that have been put out there from time to time. Is that really, is that a real thing? Like, could that really work?
Dr. Jade Wu 27:44 I will never say never, because there are genetic anomalies in almost any situation. However, I would definitely not recommend doing that. If your body is not well, let me let me say that again. I think I would definitely not recommend doing that. Because this is going back to the body clock. Once you're an adult, or even before you're an adult, once you're no longer two months old, you really should not be sleeping in little bursts of 20 minutes at all, because you should have a circadian rhythm you should have a body clock. And once your body clock is established and about the second or third month of life, that is the most healthy way of sleeping is to sleep mostly at night, and almost none during the day.
Nick VinZant 28:32 Should we take a nap is a nap good for you in the day.
Dr. Jade Wu 28:36 It depends if you're severely sleep deprived and consistently sleep deprived and there's no other way of getting you more sleep at night. Then certainly take a nap to make up for it. And I'm including teenagers and this by the way, almost all teenagers are sleep deprived because high school start way too early. Teenagers need about nine hours of sleep And their circadian clocks are biologically hardwired to be night owls. So really high school should not start until like 10am in my humble opinion so teenagers definitely take a nap if you can. People who are, you know, working night shifts, there are circumstances in which unmap could be very helpful. People who are long haul drivers take a nap, for sure take a nap. And otherwise, I would say don't go out of your way to take a nap unless you absolutely have to for safety reasons.
Nick VinZant 29:41 Can it be cumulative in the sense that like okay, what if I need seven hours of sleep consistently? Like that's more my average that's where I fit in. But I get five hours one night and nine hours the next night like does it balance out? Or if you don't get it, you don't get it and it's over with?
Dr. Jade Wu 29:58 No, it does not balance out, because this goes back to the circadian clock issue. If you're getting five hours one day and nine hours the other night, you're not sleeping on a 24 hour consistent pattern, or rather, your 24 hour pattern is not consistent from day to day. So lots of people do this, right? They sleep, not enough on weekdays because they have to get up really early for work. And then they try to make up for it by sleeping in for a few hours on weekends. So what you're doing is you're jetlag yourself. Like let's say you usually wake up at 6am on weekdays, but then you sleep in until 9am on weekends, and then you're back to 6am. On Monday, you just flew yourself from New York to California and back over the course of a weekend. And there was nothing to you know, make up for that jetlag that may even be worse than if you got on average, a little less sleep, but it was consistent all seven days.
Nick VinZant 31:00 One of the quirkier questions. How come we don't die in dreams?
Dr. Jade Wu 31:05 Ah, no, I don't know the answer to this question. That is a really fascinating question. And the, the one hypothesis that popped into my mind is that, generally our dreams are made up of at least little building blocks of things that we've experienced in real life. Often we do things like fly or swim underwater, and things are obviously not possible in real life. But we know what water is, and we know what flying is. So maybe we sort of put those together and we can create this new reality. But none of us who are dreaming have died because we're still alive. So we don't have any piece of that experience to contribute to the dream narrative. That's what I'm guessing that is not based on science at all.
Nick VinZant 31:53 That makes a lot of sense. It's actually a fantastic answer. Right? You always experience something that you have experienced before. It's never something new Dr. Jade Wu 32:02 We can't say colors that we haven't ever seen. Yeah.
Nick VinZant 32:08 I read something one time and maybe this is your area maybe it's not but that the brain cannot actually create anything new. It can only take things that is seen before and combine them in new combinations. But it can't straight up create something new.
Dr. Jade Wu 32:24 I believe that I would say it cannot create any new sensory sensory experiences. You know, like we can't see colors we haven't seen we can't hear pitches that we never heard before. And we probably cannot dream death because we don't know what that feels like.
Nick VinZant 32:46 single best thing we can do for our sleep. single worst thing people are doing for their sleep.
Dr. Jade Wu 32:53 Oh hmm single best thing Just because I'm on a circadian kick right now, and I really want to get up on my circadian rhythm , the single best thing you can do if you're asleep is to keep a consistent wake up time. That's like dropping an anchor into your 24 hour cycle that keeps you in line that keeps your body functioning on that 24 hour cycle. And the more consistent you get, the better you'll sleep, the better you'll wake. And the better you'll do pretty much everything. single worst thing you can do for your sleep is to not get your potential sleep apnea checked out.
Nick VinZant 33:38 Is an alarm clock a bad thing?
Dr. Jade Wu 33:41 No, no alarm clock is great because it keeps you consistent in the mornings. Really, I would think that it like pops you out of some cycle or something. It's actually not terrible to pop out of a cycle. I mean, sleep is not built to be this rigid set in stone machinery where you have to Do it in exactly the same way. Or else sleep is actually a very dynamic and very adaptable state of being because if you think about it, our ancestors, they couldn't just drop dead into sleeping like a log for eight hours and not wake up, right? They had to be able to be routed out of sleep if there was a predator around or if they got too cold or they got too hot. So, you know, these the, your awakening during the night is actually not a bad thing. This is natural stopgaps that your brain has built in to make sure that conditions are still good, and you're still safe. And in fact, I would hear let me ask you this. How many times do you think a healthy good sleeper wakes up during the night on average?
Nick VinZant 34:51 I mean, I would say I probably do it two times. Maybe but I would say like a healthy sleep would be none
Dr. Jade Wu 35:01 Okay, so interesting that you don't think you you have yourself as a healthy sleeper, but we'll talk about that later. So try 12 to 15 times
Nick VinZant 35:12 are you serious?
Dr. Jade Wu 35:15 Yeah, if you look at the eg, which is basically the brain, like a way of measuring brainwaves, if you look at the eg data of a full night's sleep for a healthy sleeper, you see, you know, all the different stages of sleep, you see the cycles of sleep, and you see like 10 to 15 awakenings. And that's very normal, but like fully awake or kind of a way, like their brain is fully awake, but they probably don't remember most of those awakenings because they're very brief. So they roll over, they fall back asleep, or maybe they get up to go to use the bathroom. So they vaguely remember getting up and then they roll around and go back to sleep. So it's healthy to Remember, probably, you know 123 awakening. So you're actually right on target with your two. Because you know, two or three or 112 or three, sort of more fuller awakenings that less a few minutes is totally normal. And then there's probably a bunch more brief awakenings that you don't know about that are also totally normal. If you had to pick one thing, what would you say?
Nick VinZant 36:29 Whether it's a disorder or it's something the brain the brain does or just something about sleep itself? What would you say is the single most interesting thing about sleep?
Dr. Jade Wu 36:45 Just that it happens, you know that for almost a third of our existence, we are in this interesting state of being alive and our brains are wired. Working in our bodies are working, but we're not conscious. Or at least we're not conscious in the same way that we are when we're awake. I just find that fascinating that this is built into biology that all complex organisms and some non complex organisms all have this thing that we do. And it's great, it feels great. That's what I love about sleep.
Nick VinZant 37:27 Could you imagine if we ever had something that could basically mimic all of the effects of sleep and we would have it completely normal, but we didn't actually sleep?
Dr. Jade Wu 37:37 Like we just stayed up our whole why's that would be so sad. Can you imagine that? That would be like you'd have no beginning or end to your day. It would be like a just a slog. Just there's there's no catharsis, it's like, like you hear one of those like EDM beats and the beat never drops last Like, that's how I would think of being awake for a really long time. And actually, I recently kind of experienced something like that because, as I said, I have a four month old. So, you know, as of, maybe a month or two ago, things started to get back to normal for me ish. But in the first month or two, I mean, I was around the clock I slept, but I slept in like two hour chunks, three hour chunks here and there at any time of day or night, just like my baby baby did. And that was really tough that first month felt like a year because the day never ended and I never felt refreshed. So no, if we had a technology that could mimic sleep that would make us feel that we don't have to I would not, I would not take advantage of that I would still do my sleep.
Nick VinZant 38:50 No, I wouldn't either. Um, that's pretty much all I got is what's what's coming up next for you. How can people kind of get ahold of you if they want to contact you?
Dr. Jade Wu 38:59 Sure. website is www.jadewuphd.com. So that's just my name, which is spelled j d w PhD comm I write blog posts I post on some of my podcasts episodes, which is the savvy psychologist podcast. I offer resources for sleep for both adults and children. And I show you some cool research I'm working on.
Nick VinZant 39:29 I want to thank Dr. Wu so much for joining us if you want to connect with her. We have linked to her on our social media accounts or Profoundly Pointless on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And we have also included her information on the RSS feed that's on this podcast.