← Am I Doing It Wrong?
Loading summary
Transcript231 lines
- [00:00]
Gab Advertiser
The youth mental health crisis is growing and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised. And studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media. Tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time or tech in steps. From GPS tracking enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com getgab and use code getgab for an exclusive offer. That's G-A-B-B.com getgab Gab tech in steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents. We all prefer things a certain way, like groceries. If you want groceries just how you like them, you gotta try Instacart. They have a new preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences upfront, helping guide their choices. Because when it comes to groceries, the details matter. Instacart get groceries just how you like.
- [01:17]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
On Big Lives, we take a single
- [01:19]
Kai Wright
cultural icon, people like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Little Richard, and we pull apart
- [01:24]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
the story behind the image.
- [01:27]
Kai Wright
And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archives, discovering forgotten interviews
- [01:32]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
that change exactly how we see these
- [01:34]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
giants of our culture.
- [01:35]
Kai Wright
We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes.
- [01:39]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I'm Emmanuel Joci.
- [01:41]
Kai Wright
I'm Kai Wright.
- [01:42]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And this is Big Lives.
- [01:44]
Kai Wright
Listen to Big Lives wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:03]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi Johnson, head of identity content at HuffPost.
- [02:06]
Noah Michaelson
And I'm Noah Michaelson, head of HuffPost Personal.
- [02:09]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Welcome to Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
- [02:15]
Noah Michaelson
So, Raj, I have to tell you, if I'm a little bit kind of zombie esque today, it's because my sweet puppy Jumi, who we've talked about before, he started to sleep in my arms like we're spooning. I don't choose this. No, but it's so cute that I can't not let him do it. And Benji thinks he's just cold. I don't know what it is, but.
- [02:39]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
No, he just loves you.
- [02:41]
Noah Michaelson
But I get like an hour and a half of sleep.
- [02:42]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
He's a big boy.
- [02:43]
Noah Michaelson
He's 60 pounds. And so it just means I am. Yeah, my life is a nightmare right
- [02:49]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
now, okay, I can totally relate because Grizz, my kitten, has a new habit. He's a big boy too. Now. He sleeps on top of the covers, but in my crotch. Like right, right at the angle. He feels very happy and safe there. And I refuse to move him because he's purring and sleeping. So I also have been struggling a little bit and I think a lot of you can relate. Like, who would move your little baby?
- [03:15]
Noah Michaelson
No. Inhumane.
- [03:16]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah. Wrong.
- [03:18]
Noah Michaelson
But it makes sense in some weird, sick way that this has been happening. Because today I have to ask you, have you been napping wrong?
- [03:26]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Oh, for sure. The only times I've really ever tried to take a nap have been, you know, turned into like a seven hour nap. I don't, I'm not doing it right. I would like to learn. What about you?
- [03:38]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah, I don't do it anymore because I wake up from them feeling awful.
- [03:41]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah.
- [03:42]
Noah Michaelson
Like I feel like the creature from the black lagoon trying to like drag myself out of the muck and then I just have the muck on me all day.
- [03:48]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
No, I, I absolute.
- [03:50]
Noah Michaelson
But I'm like, am I doing something wrong? Am I just not a napper? So I want to find out.
- [03:55]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And we will. Today we have with us Dr. Sarah Mednick. She's a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, and author of two books, the Hidden power of the Downstate and take a nap, change your life.
- [04:08]
Noah Michaelson
We're gonna try. Sarah, thank you so much for being here with us.
- [04:14]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Thanks for having me.
- [04:16]
Noah Michaelson
We love to start at the beginning and so we're going to do just that. What is a nap? Especially like scientifically, medically, is it any time that we are sleeping outside of normal sleeping hours or is there a real definition?
- [04:32]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, I think it's not been particularly defined by anybody other than maybe me because you know, I wrote a book about it, so I thought I had to define it. But also right now there is a question by the National Sleep foundation is also trying to define what a nap is. And in general I think that one could say it is a daytime sleep period that you know that there's nocturnal sleep and then there's time in the day that you might sleep. And I think that that would be considered a nap. And timing wise, duration wise, I think it would be anything past five minutes and then up to three hours.
- [05:13]
Noah Michaelson
Okay.
- [05:13]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
But within that structure, I think, of course, if you are taking a disco nap before you go out to party or you're working an all nighter shift and you're allowed to nap at work or napping in preparation for something, depending on it doesn't really matter what time of day it is. If you're taking a short sleep episode, I think that we could call that a nap. It's just that there's this kind of distinction between nighttime sleep and daytime sleep.
- [05:44]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Okay. And as a person aspiring napper, I want to know what, because I feel like successful people nap. What do naps do for us? What benefits can they have?
- [05:56]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Well, napping is sleep, right? So if you think about what does sleep do? It's the same stuff. So if you, you know, there's all sorts of health benefits to napping. Balancing between your autonomic nervous system, your sympathetic arousal, which is that fight or flight response, the second that you're going to sleep, you actually tuning down that fight or flight sympathetic arousal, and you're tuning up all of the healing restorative processes that occur during sleep, which is run by your parasympathetic system, which is the rest and digest system. Right. So all of those things include cardiovascular benefits. You know, you're reducing your heart rate, you are slowing down blood flow so there's less of a rush in the, in the brain, you're reducing your stress levels. It's really good for metabolism. You're balancing out all of your, your hunger and satiety hormones so that you don't have these kind of weird levels of hunger at different times of day. So there's metabolic benefits, there's cardiovascular benefits. And then of course, in my lab, what we study is all the cognitive benefits. There's benefits to memory, creativity, emotional processing, executive function, you know, kind of working memory, attention, that kind of frontal lobe stuff. So everything that you think about, that you like about sleep, you can also get from a nap.
- [07:29]
Noah Michaelson
Is it like, but less so because you're sleeping less or are you, are you saying that the benefits can be just as good from a nap as from getting a night, a good night's sleep?
- [07:40]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Well, my second paper on napping, the title was A Nap is just as good as a Night for Perceptual Learning. So weirdly, the thing about nighttime sleep is that in order to get the big, you know, the big essential aspects of it, you need to have slow wave sleep, which actually is at the very beginning of the night, you've got this big bolus of slow wave sleep at the beginning of the night. And, and then you gotta have REM sleep. That's the other rapid eye movement sleep. That's the other stage of sleep. That's really important. And that occurs in the morning. And so interestingly, you kind of have to sleep an entire night to get the full benefits of a night of sleep. But in a nap, curiously, there are some times of day where you actually have equal amounts of slow wave sleep and rem and that's usually when people get tired. You know, it's between 1 and 3 o' clock and it's usually when siestas occur historically. And that nap, if you nap for like 90 minutes at that time, you're going to get equal amounts, about 20% slow wave sleep, 20% REM sleep. And there's a bunch of research, including my own, that's shown that a nap at that time can actually have the same magnitude of benefits as a full night of sleep.
- [09:01]
Noah Michaelson
Wow.
- [09:02]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I love that. Yeah, I need that in my life. Okay, now this is the perfect time to dive into the anatomy of a nap. Right? Because 90 minutes. I'm really happy you said that because everywhere, every corner of the Internet says a twin, your nap needs to be 20 minutes. And if you do it for 19 minutes or 21 minutes, you're screwed. How, how much truth is there in this? Because it takes me 45 minutes to go to sleep. So a 20 minute nap doesn't feel realistic to me. Please tell us about this.
- [09:28]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, so any of this kind of stuff, I know that there's something out there like a 27 minute nap or something. These are just data points that come out of averages. There's nothing about 19 or 21 or anything. The reason why we talk about the different times of durations of nap that could be more beneficial is we have to get into the stages of sleep that occur when you start, start to fall asleep. Should I go there?
- [09:57]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah, let's do it.
- [09:58]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Okay. So right when you're falling asleep, you're going into this very short transition period. And they're not very excitingly named, they're different stages of sleep. So stage one sleep is this stage of sleep where you're kind of, your body is just beginning to relax and you have these myoclonic jerks that can kind of suddenly, you know, and people start to do twitching and things like that. That's all in that stage one sleep. And that lasts for about 5 to 2% to 5 minutes of your nap. And then you go into what's called stage two sleep. Now stage two sleep is really excellent sleep. It is sort of the, it's 60% of all of your sleep. So it's the stage of sleep that all of the other sleep stages are kind of bathing in. You can go, it's a transition stage of sleep, or you can go into deeper stages of sleep from stage two sleep. But you can also go into more lighter stages of sleep, like REM sleep through stage two. So you're always kind of passing through stage two sleep. And there's some very important features of stage two sleep, which is it's really where you start to lose consciousness of time around you. But you can still have a little bit of feeling of hearing things going on around you or feeling like you're still attached to your thinking. So your brain hasn't totally dislodged itself from consciousness. And then you have these specific things that occur in the brain that are very important for memory and they're called sleep spindles. There are these little quick shout outs from an area of the brain called the thalamus. And when you see a sleep spindle in the eeg, this is the electrodes that we place on the head to look at the electrical activity occurring in the brain. You know that the brain is trying to reactivate memories, trying to recall things and trying to sort of rehearse what it knows and deal with your memories at that time. If you think about a 90 minute cycle, that is what a full cycle of sleep is, right? So you're going to go like two to five minutes of stage one sleep and then you're going to go into what's called stage two sleep for about half an hour. So that first 30 minutes of your 90 minute nap is going to be mostly stage two sleep. The reason why everyone says to take a 20 minute nap is because that stage of sleep is the safest bet in terms of you still get sleep and you get nice sleep spindles and you get this really nice alertness quality. The power nap, all the benefits of the power nap. But you're not getting into what we call slow wave sleep. Because slow wave sleep occurs in the second 30 minute chunk of a 90 minute cycle. And slow wave sleep is really great for deep processing. You know, this is where you have protein synthesis that you could not at all do in. You know, this is when you go into a slight kind of torpor. Your body temperature goes to an all time low. It's like the factory engine just completely turns down, right? And it's very like power saving mode, right? And you have these things called slow waves where the entire brain is synchronized to this very, very slow rhythm. And literally you have periods of this rhythm where the brain is not active at all. And Then suddenly it activates together and then it gets super quiet and it activates together and it's super quiet. So these are these slow waves and we call. And my second book, the Power of the Down State, is all about this idea that you have this very important restorative processes that go on in these slow waves. And the downstate is that period of that deep rest.
- [13:37]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Sarah, is this the stage that I'm like drooling in, like that good drooling stage?
- [13:43]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Exactly, exactly. And you don't really have. You have some kind of mentations, but you don't really remember them and they're not very fanciful. So that's. And that really is where like the deep memory processing occurs. You know, you have increased in growth hormone. With slow wave sleep, your heart rate, all the parasympathetic activity really is amplified during that time. So all the restorative work for your brain and body occurs at that time. That is the second 30 minute chunk. Once you're satisfied that quality of your need for slow wave sleep, you pass through stage two again and then into what we call rapid eye movement sleep or REM sleep. And that is a completely different brain state, totally different body state. Your brain is suddenly extremely active. The EEG looks like waking activity because your brain is so active. In fact, it used to be called paradoxical sleep because it looked so much like waking. And the only way that you could tell that people were asleep was because their muscle tone was completely flat. So when you're in REM sleep, you're paralyzed. And that's a good thing because it's also when you have all your crazy, fanciful dreams.
- [15:00]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah. You don't want to be thrashing around.
- [15:01]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be running through windows or thinking that, you know, you need to kill somebody who's like, you know, chasing you or something like that, which some people with REM behavior disorder actually do. So when you're waking up from REM sleep, right. And you're done with your 90 minute nap, this is where it's really easy to wake up from REM sleep because your heart rate is really high, your brain activity is really high. It is so similar to waking that when you wake up you're just like, oh, that was fun, like I just had rem and then you just kind of go off with your day. But when you wake up from slow wave sleep, since it's basically like being in a hibernation state, it's very hard to wake up from that. Right. So the advice about the 20 minutes is sleep up until you get, you know, before you get into slow wave sleep. But what they don't say is that you can also just sleep through slow wave sleep and wake up at 60 minutes or anywhere between 60 and 90 minutes, and then you're golden.
- [16:03]
Noah Michaelson
So if you can do a little math and, you know, calculate the different cycles, that's what you want to concentrate on. Because you're right. I've never heard anyone say, okay, if you're not going to do $20, 90. Yeah, that seems great.
- [16:16]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah. I mean, not everybody has time for that. I mean, you could do. I would say, do, you know, 20 to 30 or 60 to 90? Because even if you got like two minutes of REM sleep, that would be great.
- [16:28]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [16:28]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
This is actually really clarifying for me because, you know, our next question was about why I don't feel rested when I take a nap. I found this quote on Reddit that someone, it's like, nap Reddit, why don't I feel good from napping? And the person said, if I take a nap, I have to call off all my responsibilities for the day. I can't function after a nap. I wake up in a different dimension. That's me. And I think I'm waking up in that deep sleep and literally I look like a Muppet that doesn't know where she is. And now that makes sense. Okay, is that possibly happening? That is the thing.
- [17:01]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
So when I published the first book, it was after I had done my dissertation and we got so much press around this dissertation about napping that I thought, oh, I should write a book about it because everyone's so hungry for this. And it wasn't until after the book came out that I started hearing from people who don't like to nap. And then they came out in droves. And the people who don't like to nap don't like to nap with such a passion that I've never heard of anything physiological that people hate more.
- [17:35]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
That's right.
- [17:36]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
People either love napping, like me, I love napping.
- [17:39]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Or.
- [17:40]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Or they hate napping and they feel like they want to murder when they wake up. And they just are so upset.
- [17:47]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Nauseous and.
- [17:48]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, nauseous. Yeah, everything. So then we started doing some research on this question about, you know, habitual versus non habitual nappers. And it turns out we asked two questions of this really big study that we did with my old grad student, Elizabeth McDevitt, and she basically recruited a bunch of people who said that they were bonafide Nappers and people who said that they never nap. And we had one question, which was, do non nappers get the same benefits that we've seen across many studies? We've shown naps is as good as a night. Do non nappers get that benefit? We never separated our data like that. We wanted to get them just a regular nap study, get them in the lab and see if, you know, who benefited more or did they benefit the same. And then we asked the question of, well, could we train people to nap? And so we gave them like a month of nap training, and then we retested them to see if they got any more benefit. Well, the first question that we were shocked to hear to see, really, is that non nappers did not show any memory benefits from a nap.
- [19:03]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah.
- [19:04]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
So I was really surprised by that. You know, like, I thought, oh, this is just obviously so universal because I like to nap. So I thought everybody would like to nap. And it turns out, no, that. And it's about getting back to those spindles. It looks like the spindles in with nappers are. Are actually really helpful for memory. And the spindles were lower in non nappers, and they were also not very helpful for memory. So daytime sleep for non nappers did not seem to really help people's memory in the same way that it did for nappers. We thought, well, maybe it's just because they hadn't adapted to it and if we train them, we'll be able to see a growing benefit, maybe not as large with just a month, but, like, maybe some change. So we had them napping three times a week, and we made sure that they were napping. And we have them wear actograph watches to make sure that they were napping at the time. And we had them doing sleep diaries to record everything. And then we just kept looking at whether they would have any benefits, you know, cognitively speaking. And they never did. Wow. Yeah. Shocking. I know.
- [20:18]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Weird how to wrap my head around that.
- [20:21]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah. I think that there is. There may be some pretty strong genetic differences, particularly in terms of circadian rhythm. So if you're somebody who can sleep during the day, I think that you may have a different circadian composition than if you are not a sleeper during the day. Right. If you're not asleep during the day, the idea of sleeping during the day just seems like, why would, you know, why would I do that? That it's not in my system to do that? Whereas if you're kind of built for it, you are able to kind of go in and out of these short pieces, you know, short bits of unconsciousness and wake up and feel great. And I. And so my. I haven't, you know, followed through with these studies to see if they're. Because it would be a lot of work. But the genetic. I think that there must be something genetically different. It may not be that you get it from your parents hereditary genetics, but there may be something genetics in terms of the programming of your circadian rhythm.
- [21:24]
Noah Michaelson
Okay, I have two things to say. First of all, you have such a cool job. I know, like I am not good at science and I could never do your job, but I love the idea of your job.
- [21:33]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Aren't you imagining like a kindergarten classroom with sleeping bags though?
- [21:36]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah. Or just like rows of bunk beds, like super cool job. But so are you saying then there are some people that just are not going to get any benefits from naps and they just shouldn't even try to take naps?
- [21:49]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
I think that there's a lot of people who wish that they were nappers because they hear about all these benefits and then, and then if they try to take a nap and they feel like crap and then they keep trying and then they feel like crap because they feel like crap. I think that that is a waste of time.
- [22:07]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [22:07]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
And so if, you know, like everybody's got to figure out what is actually working for them and not necessarily listen to these general experts that tell you what to do. I really think that napping is. Maybe 50% of the population should try napping. And if it works for them, great. And you'll know it when it works for you. But the second book, the Power of the Downstate, the whole point of that book was to say you need to rest, but you don't necessarily. It doesn't need to look the same. Rest is so many different things. Rest could be exercise. Rest could be taking a walk in nature. Nature. Rest could be doing deep breathing. You need to have that parasympathetic boost. And some people can get it with napping.
- [22:55]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [22:55]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
But there's a million other ways that you can be getting it.
- [22:58]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I love the permission. It's such a motif in this show. I love that, you know, you don't need to be a napper to be successful, but if it works for you, it works for you. Okay, I just have a follow up to that. Sometimes I will have a moment to lie down for 20 to 30 minutes and, and shut my eyes and I don't fall asleep or I'm just like, you know, almost meditative and I feel daydreaming Daydreaming. And I don't fall asleep, but I'm resting and I feel very refreshed after that. 20 to 30 minutes. Can we get nap, like benefits from just resting?
- [23:30]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think that, you know, whether you can get the same sort of memory consolidation effects. So think about this like you learn something and then if you're, you know, if you're thinking about, you know, maybe you're on a sports team or you're playing an instrument, or, you know, you're trying to memorize something, you can rehearse it during waking. Okay. Or you can rehearse it during sleep. And those are, those are the two times where you would be practicing. Right. You would either be practicing, you'd be lying there daydreaming, practicing. If you're a dancer, you might go through imagining all the different moves or practicing the piano in your head or, you know, playing pool or whatever it is that you're doing. You can do that in your waking time or you can dream about it during sleep. Right. So that's, that's the, that is the way we would get better on something is to have it reactivated. I mean, that's sort of, you know, what science is telling us is that the brain reactivates the exact same sequence over and over and over again, and then we get better. So it does look like if you reactivate it during sleep, there may be some deeper, stronger, long term connections that are being made that are more complex. There's more connections between this new memory that you're trying to form and all of the other memories that you have in your life. So there may be some added benefit to, to getting into that deeper sleep reactivation than if you just do it lying there while you're awake. So I'm not going to say that of course, wake is just the same as sleep, because I don't think it is. But there's so much benefit to lying down or sitting up, whatever it is, and just doing deep breathing. Yeah, just, just getting yourself out of the grind and the rat race and just getting your body to switch into parasympathetic mode is so important to do. Whether it's by meditating, whether it's by taking a walk in nature, you know, and, or just, you know, getting out with your dog, whatever it is that you're doing, holding somebody's hand and having a deep conversation, any of these things that make you feel relaxed and safe and that you can kind of breathe nice and slow, those are all incredibly important for our physiology and for our well being. So I think that for sure what you're doing is great for you.
- [26:17]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Before we had AT and T Business Wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn. An influencer even livestreamed the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business wireless routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53 new followers though.
- [26:42]
Kai Wright
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes Everything when people want the truth about a product, they don't just search, they go to Reddit. Whether they're debating the best espresso machine or the right B2B software, redditors are there to make a decision. With Reddit ads, you can reach these high intent buyers right where their research is happening. Join the conversation and grow your business@business.Reddit.com Podcasts valid for new Reddit ad accounts only. Only valid once per business. Additional terms apply. See business.Reddit.com for more information. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking. With Capital One, if he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1NA member FDIC.
- [27:51]
Noah Michaelson
I want to say that I wish when I was sleeping I was dreaming about something that was fun and useful to rehearse. I had a dream the other night that I was doing literally an Excel spreadsheet and I couldn't get it to work and I'm like, this is what I'm dreaming. I mean, I know it's a stress dream. We're going to actually do an entire episode about dreaming coming up soon. But I was like, this is useless.
- [28:15]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
You don't know if it's useless. I beg to differ. Dreams are very useful.
- [28:21]
Noah Michaelson
Okay, but I wish it were then. Okay, then I wish it were more exciting. I wish I weren't doing Excel spreadsheets in my dreams. But that's a me issue if we are getting bad sleep at night for whatever reason. I was telling Raj earlier when we did the intro that my dog has decided to sleep in my arms lately and it's adorable, but I am Getting horrible.
- [28:43]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
How big is your dog?
- [28:44]
Noah Michaelson
He's 60 pounds.
- [28:45]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
He's a big boy.
- [28:46]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
That's a big, big boy. Yeah.
- [28:49]
Noah Michaelson
So let's say I'm not getting as great of sleep at night. If I nap during the day. Am I making up for that or are those two completely different things?
- [29:00]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yes. So for sure there's, there's, you know, when people have sleep problems, one of the first things that sleep doctors tell them is oh, no napping. And I always think that that's, that's a real pity because if you are not sleeping at night and you're not sleeping in the day, you're not sleeping. And the sleep that you get in the nap is just as good as the sleep that you get at night. So the idea of kind of imagining that there's something bad about napping to me seems really wrong headed because it could save your life. Like if you're falling asleep at the wheel, if you're not functioning during the day, you really, you need to take a nap. This is, and it's also, you know, there's nothing worse than waking up in the morning and being like, oh, I slept so bad, I'm gonna have the worst day.
- [29:50]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Right?
- [29:51]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
But if you say to yourself, I slept so bad, but I have like this half hour period or an hour period, you know, I'm gonna take my lunch break and go to my car and nap or after work, between this thing and the other thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get there early and nap in my car. And those are my strategies. It just feels so great and it changes your whole day because you realize like I'm not going to suffer. I'm going to replace my lost sleep with daytime sleep. And then you're, it's, it's like you're done. You know, you don't need to like over dramatize the sleep problem that you had because so much of these kind of feeling bad during the day is in your head.
- [30:33]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, I kind of love that. If any of her students, you know, are looking for, they'd be like, Where's Dr. Mednick? She might be napping in her car.
- [30:39]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah, exactly. Go check her car.
- [30:44]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Okay, so you told us a little bit about when a good time to nap is like maybe between 1 and 3pm can you tell us about like what the ideal conditions are for a nap? Like how should the lighting be? Should be lying down or sitting up. What should the temperature be like on Shark Tank? There's this new thing where there's an eye mask that you wear that has like a timer on it that'll wake you up. So, like, people are looking for ideal nap conditions. Can you tell me what you know?
- [31:12]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah. So it's funny because when I saw the title of your podcast, you're doing it wrong, I was like, that's a terrible title because I hate, especially just for sleep, but not for anything else. I'm sure there's many ways that people are doing things wrong, but the thing about sleep is that it's such a psychological process, and so the second you feel like you're doing it wrong, you're not going to be able to sleep right. So I think that there's something about what, whatever you're doing, just do it, just keep doing it. And there's no wrong if you're getting to sleep. So in that way, I don't want to, like, have this idea that when people hear this, they think, oh, I need to do it this way. And if it doesn't work that way, then I'm doing it wrong. I would rather have it be that, well, this is the way I do it and it works for me. And so screw you. You know, kind of, you know, whatever it is that, whatever it is that works for individuals, they should stick with that because everyone has their own biorhythm. They have their own way of sleeping. They have all the different accoutrements that they like to sleep with at night. And the same thing goes for napping, right? You know, there's people who need to, like, you know, Winston Churchill was famous for, like, taking these naps where he had to take off all his clothes, get into bed and just have a full, you know, naked sleep in the middle of the day.
- [32:37]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
It's really the best sleep though, right?
- [32:39]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
I mean, that would be great if we all had that, but like, a lot of us work and, you know, we don't. We're not going to get naked in a Starbucks when we're sitting in one of their chairs. Like, so I think it's really just a matter of like, well, what works for you? You know, like, can you just sit in your car? Put the seat back a little bit. In China, where it's very, very big napping culture, the students, you know, have like a two hour lunch period and they're supposed to have a short half hour lunch and then they just put their heads down on the desk and the kids just sleep there in the classrooms. Right? So, so the, of course, nighttime sleep is different. There's many, there's. There's Sort of more of an understanding of, you know, you want to be a cool room, you want to have a good blanket, you want to feel safe. Locked doors and all dark and no, no sound and all those kind of things that we tell people. But naps are kind of. They're more of a free for all. You know, it's really. You can nap with sun in your eyes. You can nap in a park when you're, you know, you couldn't sleep if you had light in your eyes at night, right? You would, it would drive you crazy. But naps have this highly adaptable space where you can really just do whatever you want as long as it's getting you to sleep.
- [33:53]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I have to say, this is so wonderful because I'm thinking about the only time in my life I've had great naps was when I was with six of my girlfriends in Havana a few years ago. We had gone on vacation and it was so lovely. Our cottage was in the midst of a lot of young people and they're playing very loud salsa music all day. And we would come back from the beach and it would be blaring salsa music. And I fell asleep in two minutes. Every day. I could never. It was bright sunlight and loud salsa music. And I went to sleep like this and woke up 30 minutes.
- [34:25]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
It's funny if that's what you just made your nap tradition like blasted salsa music and had like an all spectrum light on your face, you know.
- [34:32]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
But I'm sitting here asking you like, how dark does it need to be? But it's very personal. Maybe I nap to music.
- [34:38]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [34:39]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Oh, God, yeah.
- [34:40]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I am reborn.
- [34:41]
Noah Michaelson
Here's my question. If we know that we don't want to hit that stage of sleep that's gonna be hard to get out of, is it ideal then to set an alarm for a certain amount and not just try and do free napping where we just lay down and we wake up? When we wake up, is it better to do it for 30min?
- [35:02]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Absolutely. I mean, I really think that the alarm. I know there's people who are like, oh, I never use an alarm. And there's something sort of superior about them. But I think that really alarms are so important, particularly for napping, because it just gives you the safety and security to know you're not going to miss any meetings, you're not going to oversleep into slow wave sleep, like whatever it is that you want to get out of your nap. I think, I think the alarm is great and I'm a full supporter.
- [35:31]
Noah Michaelson
Is there A better alarm when we wanna wake up than other alarms. I've always wondered about this. Like now iPhones give you 45,000 alarm tones.
- [35:40]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
They're all jarring. They're all jarring.
- [35:42]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah, but I'm always like when we're waking up from a nap, is there a better way to wake up or does it not matter?
- [35:49]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Well, I mean, you know what's nice about the phone, right, Is that you can actually choose music too. Like I used to have this great Kim Deal song that was really just so, so relaxing to kind of have it slowly, slowly, slowly wake me up. And then I, it somehow like left my phone. I don't know why. And now I have this really jarring alarm. But I think that it's, it is a really great thing if you know that there's a certain sound that you'll be pleased by.
- [36:22]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [36:22]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
You know, that's I think choosing pleasure that is like, oh, I'm gonna feel so nice and cozy and warm and lovely, you know, to have this be the thing that wakes me. I think that's a great idea. I mean, of course like a teenager, you know, typically probably needs to have like a really blaring alarm. Something that is just awful. But as you get older you can kind of, you know, be more thoughtful and I think do, do what you like.
- [36:51]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [36:52]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Is there anything we should be doing right after a nap that would be beneficial? Like splashing water on our face or. You know, there's a lot out there about getting yourself to a sun, sunlit place so you can like wake up.
- [37:06]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, I mean that is true for morning as it is for night. Right. So. Or a nap. So the sun is the best kind of rooster. Like call for your circadian rhythm and the particular light that you get from the sun, this all spectrum, very blue light is what is keeping your brain in on mode and in alert mode. So it's a great idea to get outside. It's a great idea to move your body around either slowly or just, just remember, you know, if you're waking up from slow wave sleep, right. Your pulse is significantly slower. Right. Your blood flow has slowed down. Your thinking is actually like the, the brain signals are traveling in a much slower, more synchronized way. And, and you know, when we're awake, our blood flows fast, our heart rate is responding really quickly. It's able to, you know, get like recruit oxygenated blood to all the different muscle groups that you need in your brain. And your thinking is very fast and you're multitasking. Right. So it is the exact opposite state. When you're in slow wave sleep, like in every possible way, right. It's closest to death that you'll ever come. So you have to really think about, like, if you wake up from a deep sleep, that is a different experience than waking up from, say, stage two sleep or REM sleep, right, where you could kind of just. Just go off and jump into your day and, you know, do all those active things. So you, you kind of want to check in. How do I feel? What did I just experience? You know, how. And, and I think that the reason why people who hate napping, you know, when they wake up from slowly sleep is because, you know, there isn't a strategy, a good strategy for how to deal with waking up the body in this very slow, soft way where you. Where the heart rate will slowly and the blood flow will increase as well. And so, you know, and that you can kind of move into the jarring ness of daytime with, with a little bit of ease. So I think, you know, for that, maybe do a little bit of stretching, you know, get the blood moving a little bit. Don't do any fast movements and drink some water, you know, do some breathing. That kind of, you know, something that, something that just helps you transition into
- [39:43]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
waking life, you know, my, my kitten, when he wakes up from a really long sleep, he will get up and stretch and then he'll take another little light snooze. He'll like, just, just like hang out there for like a minute. He's waking up. We joke about it, but that's kind of lovely.
- [40:01]
Noah Michaelson
I like that too.
- [40:02]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Like, he transition and then he'll be up and running around. But I think he has the right idea. Yeah, he woke up from deep sleep, he's like, I need a minute. Let me transition. I'm gonna start doing that.
- [40:12]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, I think so. I think that we really need to think a lot about transitions. I think that that's, you know, like, it's an interesting thing, you know, in life in general. I think that the transition state is the hardest place across the lifespan, right? Like transition between adulthood and childhood, like that puberty, transitional adolescent is just painful, right? And then transitions, you know, in the women's menstruals, like, I think about this a lot. Transition between the high hormone state to suddenly no hormones in menses, like that pre menses thing is really can be quite annoying. And then the transition in menopause, right, like transition to menopause for women can just be. It's a lot, right? There's a lot of changes occurring. And you really are. You have to, you have to be gentle with yourself and understand that this is not, you're not in a stasis, you're in a. You're in a change place. And that change place needs to have a lot of consideration.
- [41:16]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I think that's beautiful. That's like very philosophical. I think every transition from relationships or whatever.
- [41:22]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, right, right, right.
- [41:25]
Noah Michaelson
Okay, this is a. Probably a stupid question. I, I say this a lot on this show where something just comes to me. But I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna ask you anyways.
- [41:32]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
There are no stupid questions.
- [41:33]
Noah Michaelson
Well, just wait you hear it. Let's say I'm working on my Excel spreadsheets and I'm very tired. Would you recommend that I take a 20 minute nap or that I have a cup of coffee? I'm like, I have another 30 minutes to get done here, but I'm just exhausted. What do you think is better?
- [41:55]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
I Recommend Taking a 5 minute nap.
- [41:58]
Noah Michaelson
Oh, okay. Tell me about that.
- [42:00]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Talk about transition. The biggest transition that you have every day is the transition from wake to sleep. It is such a huge physiological change that like you go from, as I said, high heart rate, you know, fast breathing rate, tense muscles, to suddenly everything slowing down and your sympathetic arousal system just goes down and your parasite sympathetic goes up. That transition, just being within that for just five minutes and having just a little bit of stage one sleep and just a touch of stage two sleep can actually reassert your waking alertness state. So. So when you start falling like it's happening, exactly the same thing happened to me. I think it was yesterday. I was at the computer and I just closed my eyes and I found myself asleep for probably five minutes. And I woke up and I'm like, okay, I'm ready. I can, I can go back to. So I highly recommend trying these very, very, very, very short naps. And this is also something that Edison, I think it was Edison was the. He talked about this, that he had this idea, he had this way of doing this where he would have something in his hand, like a spoon or some, you know, metal balls or whatever, and he would hold them in his hand and when he would go atonic, right, like, you know, your muscles become paralyzed, he would drop what was in his hand and it would clatter to the floor and he'd wake up. And he felt that that was a very creative time for him. Was, was this hypnagogic dreaming time, right when you're right as you're falling asleep and you start to have these hypnagogic dreams. And this has always been this kind of question, like, well, is this time of this kind of sort of stage one dreamy state that you kind of have these like images and stuff like that. Is that helpful? And a woman in Paris, a sleep researcher in Paris, she has done this research now and she's shown that these two, these like five minute naps where you're literally holding something in your hand and then you let it drop when you finally lose consciousness and people see a massive increase in creativity. On creativity tests where, you know, it's either just stay awake and try to be more creative or have one of these five minute naps, she shows that that is a very creative space. So there's a lot of mystery going on in how all of this works. Like, we really don't understand the mechanisms of it, but we do, you know, we can measure that. There are benefits. So I would, you know, if you take, take caffeine, the problem there is that what if it's like 4 o' clock and then you won't be able to sleep at night and all that kind of stuff, right? So having a five minute nap is not going to impact your nighttime sleep. But it could have just this really great reset. It could give you better creativity. It could just. To me, it's a no brainer, okay?
- [45:11]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Brain science is so cool. I love that. Speaking of caffeine, there's, you know, there's this trend that's been talked about for like the last five to 10 years about the coffee nap that allegedly if you drink a coffee and take a nap right after that, you'll have this great nap and wake up refreshed. And I feel like there's some science behind it. Can you tell me what, you know,
- [45:37]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
is there science behind it? I mean, if there is, I'm not familiar with it.
- [45:41]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Is it real? Does it sound like it would work?
- [45:43]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
I mean, people talk about it a lot and I always get asked about it. I don't know. I mean, to me it has the same problems of caffeine afternoon at all. Right? Because caffeine afternoon after the, after, you know, the 12:00pm when I say noon is, you know, if caffeine's in your system for like four to six hours, it can definitely affect your nighttime sleep.
- [46:10]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Sleep.
- [46:10]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Okay? So these naps that you take, say at 3 o' clock and you have a sip of, you know, you have some espresso and then you take a nap and then you are supposed to be, you know, Help. It's supposed to. The caffeine is supposed to help you with waking up and not sleeping so long. And then you're going to be alert. Like, why don't. Why, why do you even need the caffeine? You just took a nap. Yeah. And then you're not. And then you're not getting, you know, then you have this problem with having afternoon caffeine. So it just doesn't seem, it seems like a biohack or brain hack that just feels like it's gone awry. Like it's trying to put together kryptonite and protein powder or something like that. It's like, maybe just choose one.
- [46:53]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, it's a Red Bull and vodka situation. Like, don't do both.
- [46:56]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
You don't need both.
- [46:57]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Also, it would never work for me because this has to be psychosomatic. But when I drink coffee, it goes like straight into my veins and my spirit. So I wouldn't fall asleep.
- [47:06]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, I wouldn't fall asleep either if I knew I had been having caffeine. Yeah, yeah. There's a huge placebo effect with caffeine. Absolutely.
- [47:13]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I'm doing cartwheels. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [47:15]
Noah Michaelson
Do you have any tips for falling asleep? Like, let's say we want to take a nap or are you going to be like, if you can't fall asleep, then you don't need to take the nap? Oh, you know, what are your thoughts on that?
- [47:26]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
There's one that is this progressive muscle relaxation technique. And I, I did a recording of it. It's in the Power of the Down State book. And it's just a, you know, you're going from whatever you start at the top or the bottom of your body and you just clench, you know, on the inhale and then you deep relax on the exhale. Each body part and you just progressively go through all the different muscle groups. And this we've shown in, it increases sleep onset time by 10 minutes, which is great in a nap because that's really, that's the kind of advantage that you need for napping because you don't really have a whole night. Right. So you need to really try to. And 10 is on average. Right. So there's people that got even more benefits from it. So that's one that I really like. And it's just this breathing and muscle tension relaxation process. There's another one that I also really like that's also in the power of the down state. And it is. Oh, I forgot what it's called. But it's basically that you are breathing. You're. You're bringing warmth and heaviness to different body parts. And what it's really doing is just increasing blood flow to those body parts. But it's really moving the. The thinking awareness, you know, that's getting all the blood flow and taking all that blood and moving it into your belly or your legs or your arms or your erogenous zone.
- [49:06]
Noah Michaelson
You're visualizing. Visualizing that.
- [49:08]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, yeah, you're visualizing it, but you're also like. Yeah, it is. It's. It is visualizing. It's. It's a meditation. Yeah, it's a guided meditation. But. But you kind of have to do it yourself. Like, if somebody tells you to do it, it's not the same thing as really. And you have these chants, I believe it's like, my legs are heavy and warm.
- [49:30]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Now, can you listen to a guided one? Because in. In yoga tradition, this is called Yoga Nidra, and we do it, you know, almost every class I go to, and I sometimes will go to someone's Instagram and I will, like, download one or I will listen to one, and it's really helpful.
- [49:45]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
For sure. Okay, for sure. Yeah. Again, if it works for you, you can do it.
- [49:51]
Noah Michaelson
You know what really puts me to sleep? Reading more than one page of a book. I cannot stay awake. So even books I love, I just have stopped trying to read at night. Someone else told me one, too, where you. You pick a word like elephant, and you visualize it in your head, and then you start spelling words for every letter. So elephant. Then you would say E, and you would say elevator. L, like lima bean. And just because you're sort of working your mind and seeing these letters and spelling things. Yeah. That. That can help you drift off to sleep, too, which I thought was interesting.
- [50:29]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah.
- [50:29]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah. Another one I really like is, you know, if there's a place that you really know very well, like your street or something like that, take yourself on a walk in your mind and, like, literally every brick, think of every sign, think of every car, think of every plant, and you just take this very slow walk in a very known place that's also.
- [50:57]
Noah Michaelson
I love that I would. I would even love to do that in a place that. That is nostalgic. Maybe, like, maybe, you know, somewhere that you don't get to go anymore, maybe like your childhood home and spend a little time there before bed. Like, that's beautiful.
- [51:08]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
It is.
- [51:09]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah.
- [51:09]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah.
- [51:09]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
It has a kind of a savoring vibe.
- [51:11]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [51:12]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Now, I think I know what you're gonna say about this, but how do you feel about, like, nap pods and napping rooms in people's offices?
- [51:20]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
I mean, it's great if, if that's. I, I just think having nap spaces to make it okay for people to, you know, to me, it's like, if you, if you don't trust your employees to be able to, you know, self regulate in terms of their napping, that doesn't really say a lot in terms of you as an employer. You know, Like, I think sleep is one of those things where you just have to, you have to trust that people aren't going to take advantage of you and that they're going to be taking care of themselves and they're going to be doing better for the company. You know, in that same way that, you know, people are trying to incentivize exercise and incentivize good eating habits and incentivize no smoking, you know, for, for health insurance reason, I think employers should be incentivizing sleep habits.
- [52:08]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Oh, yeah.
- [52:09]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
And napping and, you know, and that they should be getting the same financial benefits or, you know, shout outs to people who are taking naps regularly or sleeping really well or, you know, using their cpap, you know, for the, for sleep apnea. Like, this should really be something that is just as lauded as any other health behavior that we have.
- [52:30]
Noah Michaelson
Can I just say that? So very famously, we work for HuffPost and Arianna Huffington, her big thing was sleeping. She had a phrase, sleep your way to the top. She had a book about sleeping. And we did have nap rooms.
- [52:42]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
She wrote a quote for my book.
- [52:43]
Noah Michaelson
See, there you go. Such an expert. But let me just tell you that people had sex in the nap rooms at HuffPost.
- [52:52]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Oh, no.
- [52:52]
Noah Michaelson
And no one was changing the sheets in the bed and. Yeah. So.
- [52:57]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
But, you know, the thing about sex.
- [52:59]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [53:00]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Is that it's great for sleep.
- [53:02]
Noah Michaelson
There you go. So maybe they were having sex and then they got their nap and then they were so productive when they came back to their dad.
- [53:08]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
I think it's awesome. There should be a little space where people can go for sex. Free napping, for sure.
- [53:15]
Noah Michaelson
Yes, yes.
- [53:16]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I strive for your lack of judgment.
- [53:18]
Noah Michaelson
And then. But then you have to do your sheets when you're done, you know, you have to launder your own.
- [53:24]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
No, but I get it cleaner than when you found it.
- [53:26]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, yeah, Just like the earth.
- [53:27]
Noah Michaelson
Exactly.
- [53:30]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Or like German toilets. They're so good about cleaning up after themselves.
- [53:36]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
All right. I mean, you're right.
- [53:39]
Noah Michaelson
Yeah.
- [53:39]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Change the sheets, Sarah. Have your sex together.
- [53:41]
Noah Michaelson
Anything else that we didn't get to. About napping that you think people should know or like the one takeaway that if someone's listening, they love napping, they hate napping. What. What would you say?
- [53:52]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Well, I think that the thing about us is that we're creatures of habit. And so if you want to, you know, have any kind of a, of a, of a system that works for you, you have to do it pretty regularly and you have to be dedicated to it and you have to sort of, you know, give it, give it time and space and, you know, and honor it. Right. So the way that you can create a napping kind of regular system is that you do it at the same time, you know, of day, you do it potentially with the same accoutrements or the same, you know, maybe salsa music every single time or whatever. Whatever it is. Right. You need to be regular about it. In the same way that you're not supposed to be eating at random times of day, you're not supposed to be exercising all the time, you know, different times a day, you need to set your body and brain up for success. You know, in the same way that you would try to sleep at the same time of day, at night, you. It's helpful to have that kind of a rhythm for napping as well. And I think that's something that, you know, over time, your body then learns like, oh, this is the time that I have lunch and this is the time that I nap and this is the time that I do exercise. And, you know, all these different pieces, your body's really listening and trying to, Trying its best to keep up, up. So I think giving it as many, you know, cues and clues for how to do that is real helpful.
- [55:17]
Noah Michaelson
Maybe Sarah just going to make nappers out of us.
- [55:19]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I know, I'm. I'm very tempted.
- [55:21]
Noah Michaelson
I am very tempted. Yeah.
- [55:24]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Well, get back to me. Let me know how it goes.
- [55:26]
Noah Michaelson
We sure will. Thank you so much for being here. This was amazing.
- [55:29]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I'm a little sleepy.
- [55:30]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yeah, it was super fun.
- [55:35]
Kai Wright
Finally, car shopping made for you. Meet Cargurus Discover, a new search feature where you can look for vehicles based on the way you think, using your own words. No more being boxed in by filters. Whether you want great gas mileage for road trips or extra trunk space for the whole crew, simply type it in and Cargurus Discover will give you real shoppable listings that match. It's the smarter way to find the car that best fits your life. With Cargurus Discovery, you can skip the filters and describe what you're looking for in your own words. Simply type what you want and Cargurus discover instantly surfaces real listings that match your exact needs. It's no wonder Cargurus is the number one most visited car shopping site according to SimilarWeb's estimated traffic data. Buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus@CarGurus.com Go to CarGurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R G U R U S.com cargurus.com with no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1na member FDIC
- [57:05]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
the
- [57:05]
Gab Advertiser
Youth Mental health crisis is growing and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media. Tailored to every age, offering right tech at the right time or tech in steps. From GPS tracking enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com getgab and use code getgab for an exclusive offer. That's G-A-B-B.com getgab Gab Tech insteps independence for them, Peace of mind for parents.
- [58:01]
Noah Michaelson
Okay, it's time for better in five. These are the top five things that we just learned.
- [58:05]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Number one, if you're not a napper by nature, do not force it.
- [58:10]
Noah Michaelson
Number two, 20 minute naps are great, but other durations can be great too. You just don't want to wake up when you've been in that slow wave
- [58:18]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
sleep cycle, I can attest. Number three, a nap can actually restore as much as a full night of sleep.
- [58:27]
Noah Michaelson
Number four, if you are torn between a nap or a cup of coffee, choose the nap. Even five minutes can be super restoring.
- [58:34]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And number five, everyone's nap will be different. So find what works for you. For me, it's blaring salsa music and do it. Okay so, Noah, were you indeed napping wrong?
- [58:45]
Noah Michaelson
Absolutely wrong. Here's the thing, though. I don't know that I'm gonna nap fair after all of that. I mean, Sarah blew my mind. And there were so many things I love the idea of, like set an alarm. Like maybe you're just bleeding into that. That stage of sleep that's just. You're never gonna get out of cleanly.
- [59:02]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah.
- [59:03]
Noah Michaelson
But I don't know, it's just been so bad in the past.
- [59:07]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
She gave you permission to not.
- [59:09]
Noah Michaelson
She did give me permission to not. So maybe I will take that. Yeah. My association with naps is just like, yuck.
- [59:15]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah.
- [59:17]
Noah Michaelson
I'm gonna have to do something, though, because Jumi doesn't seem to be moving anytime soon. So if I don't get sleep at night, I have to get it sometime.
- [59:23]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Yes.
- [59:24]
Noah Michaelson
Maybe I'll come over to your house and get in your car and sleep in the front seat like Sarah does.
- [59:29]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I happen to think that might be the place where we can sleep.
- [59:32]
Noah Michaelson
Car keys. And I will use your car as my nap.
- [59:35]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yes.
- [59:35]
Noah Michaelson
What about you?
- [59:36]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
You're welcome to.
- [59:37]
Noah Michaelson
Have you been doing it wrong?
- [59:38]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I have definitely been doing wrong. Same as you. Like waking up in a different dimension when I try. I am fascinated with this micro nap she speaks of because I love the idea of not fully going to sleep, but just having a moment of rest. And to me, it's escaping. I would love that.
- [59:54]
Noah Michaelson
And also the idea that maybe it's gonna supercharge your creativity. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, I do think about that, like when I. Even when I'm going to sleep at night, like sometimes those first dreams or that in between state. Really cool stuff happens there.
- [60:07]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Agree.
- [60:08]
Noah Michaelson
So I would like to be there more often.
- [60:10]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
So little known fact. The hypnagogic stage. I remember from psychology 101 in college, that's when most people report alien abductions.
- [60:19]
Noah Michaelson
Oh, that makes sense.
- [60:21]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah. And they say that, like, they swore that an alien, like, came and did whatever, and it's. They found out they were, like, half awake and half asleep. Wild, right?
- [60:30]
Noah Michaelson
I mean, that's when the aliens come. That's. It's not because they were halfway captive.
- [60:34]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
It has nothing to do with. Yeah, because you're not paying attention.
- [60:39]
Noah Michaelson
Perfect.
- [60:39]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I love it.
- [60:41]
Noah Michaelson
Anyway, until next time. As long as there are things to get wrong, Raj and I will be right here to help you do them better.
- [60:47]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
That's right. Love you guys. Am I doing it Wrong? Is a co production between HuffPost and Acast.
- [60:54]
Noah Michaelson
Our producers are Eve Bishop, Carmen Borca Carrillo and Malia Agudelo.
- [60:58]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutter.
- [61:02]
Noah Michaelson
Special thanks to HuffPost's head of audience,
- [61:04]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Abby Williams, Head of Video Will Took,
- [61:06]
Noah Michaelson
as well as Kate Palmer, Marta Rodriguez and Terry d'. Angelo.
- [61:10]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And we're your hosts Raj Punjabi Johnson and Noah Michelson. You're locked into a lot of things you can't change. Weather, traffic. Hey, stay in your lane. Your wireless carrier's latest price hike, but you can unlock a better way. Unlock the savings at Boost Mobile and save up to $600 a year. Switch to the $25 a month unlimited wireless plan. No contract, no price hikes and you keep your phone. Stop being locked into their games. Unlock the savings@boostmobile.com unlock based on average annual single line of payment of AT&T, Verizon and T mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited wireless plan as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com Boost Mobile is now sending experts nationwide to deliver and set up customers new phones.
- [61:55]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Wait, we're going on tour? We're delivering and setting up customers phones? It's not a tour.
- [61:59]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Not with that attitude.
- [62:00]
Dr. Sarah Mednick
Introducing store to door switch and get
- [62:02]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
a new device Device with expert setup
- [62:03]
Kai Wright
and delivery Delivery available for select devices purchased@boostmobile.com with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Term supply see capitalone.combank Capital One NA member FDIC
- [62:37]
Gab Advertiser
Spring is here for a limited time. Get a free Pura 4 diffuser when you subscribe to 2 cents for 12 months. Layer in fresh transportive scents for a brighter, lighter spring. Visit pura.com and refresh your space today.