What hibernating animals can teach us about human sleep with Vladyslav Vyazovskiy

Summary

Podcast Title: Worklife with Adam Grant
Episode: What hibernating animals can teach us about human sleep with Vladyslav Vyazovskiy
Release Date: March 18, 2025
Host: Adam Grant
Guest: Vladyslav Vyazovskiy, Sleep Physiologist at Oxford University

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of Worklife with Adam Grant, organizational psychologist Adam Grant engages in a deep conversation with Vladyslav Vyazovskiy, a renowned sleep physiologist at Oxford University. The discussion delves into the intriguing parallels between animal hibernation and human sleep, exploring the potential implications for enhancing our work life and overall well-being.

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Understanding Hibernation and Torpor

Vladislav begins by clarifying fundamental concepts, distinguishing between torpor and hibernation.

• Torpor: Described as a state of reduced metabolism where bodily processes slow down. Vladislav explains, "Torpor is a state of reduced metabolism, reduced metabolic rate, when all processes in the body slow down" ([03:21]).

• Hibernation: A subset of torpor, typically lasting multiple days to months, as observed in animals like ground squirrels and bears. Unlike daily torpor seen in smaller rodents, hibernation involves significant physiological changes, including lowered body temperatures.

Vladislav emphasizes that hibernation isn't solely dependent on decreased body temperature: "Hypothermia, decreased body temperature is not a prerequisite of torpor, neither of hibernation" ([04:21]).

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Hibernation vs. Coma

A pivotal part of the conversation focuses on differentiating hibernation from medical comas.

• Coma: A pathological state often resulting from trauma or brain damage, characterized by complete unresponsiveness and the need for artificial maintenance of vital functions.

• Hibernation: A natural, regulated physiological state where animals remain responsive to external stimuli, ensuring survival against threats like predators or environmental changes.

Vladislav notes, "Hibernation, in contrast, is a completely physiological state, exquisitely regulated, very finely controlled" ([05:49]).

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Why Humans Might Consider Hibernation

Adam Grant raises a thought-provoking question about the desirability of human hibernation. Vladislav presents several compelling reasons:

1. Exploration of Alternative States: Humans have an innate curiosity to experience different physiological and mental states, akin to how animals use hibernation to adapt ([07:02]).

2. Space Travel Applications: Hibernation could revolutionize long-distance space travel by mitigating psychological and physiological challenges. Vladislav relates this to science fiction scenarios like traveling to Mars, highlighting hibernation's potential to reduce logistical and health-related constraints ([08:40]-[09:27]).

3. Medical Benefits: Slowing down metabolism could offer significant advantages in medical treatments, such as reducing side effects from chemotherapy or extending survival during critical surgeries by minimizing metabolic demands ([09:39]-[10:04]).

Vladislav elaborates, "Sleep is like a gate that opens and allows the animal to go into hibernation" ([06:43]).

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Researching Hibernation: Methods and Challenges

The conversation shifts to the methodologies employed in studying hibernation:

• Lab Studies: Most insights come from laboratory settings using animals like ground squirrels, Arctic squirrels, and hamsters, due to the difficulties in observing wild hibernators.

• Physiological Monitoring: Techniques include implanting devices to record body temperature, brain waves, and metabolic rates. Vladislav describes, "We have the cameras above their cages, and normally you see like a spot which is warmer than the environment. But when they enter torpor, they disappear" ([17:22]-[20:15]).

Vladislav highlights the complexity and precision required in such studies, noting the delicate balance between obtaining valuable data and ensuring the well-being of the subjects.

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Human Sleep: Beyond the Basics

The dialogue deepens into the mysteries of human sleep:

• Sleep as a Default State: Vladislav proposes a radical idea that sleep might be our default state, with wakefulness being an alternative. He states, "Maybe sleep is our default state. We spend our life asleep. We only wake up to do our business, get food, a few other things, and then we go back to sleep" ([26:35]).

• Discrepancies in Sleep Perception: The discussion touches on the difference between objective sleep measurements and subjective experiences, introducing the concept of "paradoxical insomnia" where individuals perceive poor sleep despite normal physiological indicators ([28:04]-[29:10]).

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The Future of Sleep and Hibernation Research

Adam expresses a desire to reduce or eliminate the human need for sleep to enhance productivity. Vladislav responds with intriguing insights:

• Genetic Mutations and Sleep Reduction: Ongoing research explores genetic factors that allow some individuals to function optimally with less sleep, potentially unlocking pathways to manipulate sleep requirements ([36:34]-[37:49]).

• Sleep Mechanisms: Emphasis is placed on understanding the core essence of sleep to distinguish between "obligatory" and "luxury" sleep, aiming to optimize sleep patterns without compromising health ([35:00]-[38:53]).

Vladislav concludes, "We are working actually right now with transgenic mice which lose three hours of sleep every day. It looks like they don't know that they are sleep deprived. [...]" ([37:59]).

---

Napping and Sleep Quality

Introducing a lighter segment, Adam shares his aversion to napping, to which Vladislav counters by advocating for its naturalness and potential benefits when approached correctly ([39:02]-[40:16]).

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Reflecting on Sleep's Purpose

In a final reflective exchange, Vladislav urges a broader perspective on sleep, suggesting that its benefits extend beyond individual physiologic advantages to ecological and social functions:

• Ecosystem Dynamics: Sleep creates temporal niches that reduce competition among species and influence predator-prey relationships ([31:27]-[31:49]).

• Social Functioning: By pausing activity, sleep allows for the smooth functioning of social and ecological systems, highlighting its integral role in maintaining balance within ecosystems ([30:55]-[31:27]).

He posits, "Sleep is something that's generated from inside. Also dreams. They're coming from your memories, from your experience, from your past" ([41:21]-[42:24]).

Adam concurs, sharing his personal struggle with finding enjoyment in sleep, yet acknowledging its necessity and the paradox of desiring to eliminate its demands ([34:03]-[43:03]).

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Conclusion

The episode culminates with Adam reflecting on the profound insights gained from Vladislav, recognizing the multifaceted nature of sleep and its enigmatic role in both individual and collective contexts. This conversation not only challenges conventional understandings of sleep but also opens avenues for future exploration into optimizing human well-being through deeper comprehension of sleep and hibernation mechanisms.

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Notable Quotes

• Vladislav Vyazovskiy [03:21]: "Torpor is a state of reduced metabolism, reduced metabolic rate, when all processes in the body slow down."

• Vladislav Vyazovskiy [05:49]: "Hibernation, in contrast, is a completely physiological state, exquisitely regulated, very finely controlled."

• Adam Grant [07:02]: "Make your case for why a human should want to hibernate."

• Vladislav Vyazovskiy [26:35]: "Maybe sleep is our default state. We spend our life asleep. We only wake up to do our business, get food, a few other things, and then we go back to sleep."

• Vladislav Vyazovskiy [41:21]: "Sleep is something that's generated from inside. Also dreams. They're coming from your memories, from your experience, from your past."

---

Produced by: Cosmic Standard
Producers: Hannah Kingsley Ma and Asia Simpson
Editor: Alejandra Salazar
Fact Checker: Paul Durbin
Original Music: Hansdale Sioux and Alison Layton Brown
Team: Eliza Smith, Jacob Winick, Samaya Adams, Roxanne Hylash, Ban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivong, and Whitney Pennington Rogers.

Transcript

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[Vladislav Vesovsky]

So it's very likely that rather than animals evolved to hibernate, probably most of our ancestors actually hibernated in some forms and some of them lost in the course of evolution because it's such a clever strategy. Actually think almost like a default state of being. Maybe we forgot how to do it because we learned how to build houses right and have central heating.

[Adam Grant]

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking my podcast on the science of what makes Us Tick with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. My guest today is Vladislav Vesovsky. He's a sleep physiologist at Oxford, where he studies why we sleep and how animals hibernate. His work has made me question many of my basic assumptions about slumber, and I bet it's going to have the same effect on you.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

We love metaphors when we talk about sleep, and this is exactly because we don't understand it. That's why we talk about the sleep depth. And nobody knows what deep sleep is.

[Adam Grant]

Today, Vladislav and I are wide awake to discuss the science of Sleep and an idea that I find fantasy fascinating. Human hibernation. Vladislav, great to meet you.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Great to meet you too. Andam, thank you. Thank you for invite.

[Adam Grant]

I've been wondering for longer than I can remember if humans could ever hibernate. And I could never find a good answer to this question until I stumbled across a wonderful article you wrote. So I have a lot of questions for you, but I guess the starting one is how does hibernating work?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Okay, let me explain what hibernation is. So we have to step back and first talk about a concept called torpor. Torpor is a state of reduced metabolism, reduced metabolic rate, when all processes in the body slow down. There is a spectrum of this hypometabolic state and we subdivide them into seasonal multi day torpor called hibernation. This is what ground squirrels do, or bears. And animals can cool down. Their body temperature can reduce a lot, sometimes even below zero, and it lasts for many, many days, even months. And then another form of torpor is so called daily torpor. And this is usually small rodents. Do they just cool down and spend just a few hours in this state of reduced metabolism? So there's a spectrum of state, and so they also have somewhat different mechanisms.

[Adam Grant]

That's incredibly helpful. If an organism is in this state of torpor, or if it's cooled down, does that mean it actually ages at a slower rate?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

There is some indication that indeed those organisms who spend time in torpor, they age at a slower rate. So maybe one thing I want to mention is that hypothermia, decreased body temperature is not a prerequisite of torpor, neither of hibernation. So there are some tropical animals that can hibernate at high temperature because they wouldn't cool down, it's warm, they just decrease their metabolic rates. And also bears, their body temperature decreases by just a few degrees. So hyperthermia itself is not important. What is important is the speed of metabolic reactions.

[Adam Grant]

Got it. And how is that different from a medically induced coma?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Oh, these are worlds apart. Although superficially it may look similar. And in general, I think we should look at torpor hibernation on a spectrum of states. Our body, our brain can assume many, many different states. And coma is a pathological state. Coma usually occurs as a result of trauma, brain damage. And this is when you lose consciousness, you become completely unresponsive, and your vital functions need to be maintained artificially. Hibernation, in contrast, is a completely physiological state, exquisitely regulated, very finely controlled, and animals are very responsive during hibernation, it's really important that even if you are in this state, you are still monitoring what is happening. Right. If there is a predator or if there is a wildfire, and you cannot wake up from coma, but you can from hibernation.

[Adam Grant]

So in that sense, hibernation is like extended sleep, not like a coma.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Okay? This is when it becomes even more complicated and even more interesting.

[Adam Grant]

I hoped it would.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah. Because we define sleep by brain and behavior centric criteria. So there are criteria for sleep. You are becoming less responsive, you are not moving. Everything is about the brain. But we define hibernation or torpor based on your bodily physiology by metabolic rate. Although we know that all animals, or most animals that we have studied, they enter hibernation via sleep. Sleep is like a gate that opens and allows the animal go into hibernation. It's very difficult to compare. It's almost like a categorical confusion. So you're comparing two states which are defined using different sets of criteria. Whether it is extension of sleep or not is not an easy question.

[Adam Grant]

Let's talk about why a human would want to hibernate. I was telling my wife that I was excited for this conversation and I've always wanted to know if we could hibernate. She's like, but why would you want to do that? And I have a list of reasons. They are probably incomplete. And you've thought about this a lot more carefully than I have. So make your case for why a human should want to hibernate.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

You know, humans, like many other animals, like to explore a variety of states. We don't like where we are, we don't like our normal wakefulness, we take drugs, we do all kinds of crazy stuff to change our mind. Right. And to change what happens in the body. To me, this is really important motivation. You can look at it from different perspective, almost like as a form of escape, of escape from adversities, for example. And this is normally what animals are using it for. It's not a response to problem that's already happening, right? So animals usually anticipate changes in the environment and they start preparing themselves and they're ready to enter torpor before it gets cold or dark, or there is no food, etc. So it's really a remarkable adaptation to prepare for and deal with adversities. Humans are a bit strange in this regard. We like to be in control of nature, of our surrounding. Right. We are changing the environment to make ourselves happy. Animals do another way around. So they enter the state where they're in A thermal equilibrium with the environment, they stop being agents. And this is how they survive. They survive by annihilating they themselves. Right. By being as close to death as possible.

[Adam Grant]

That's fascinating. Okay, so curiosity is one reason why I might want to hibernate is it's a chance to explore something different. Escaping or avoiding adversity is another. What else is on your list? Why else might I want to do that?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

One kind of hibernation is very often encountered in science fiction. So there is basically no way we are going to make it to Mars. You run into a number of logistical problems, so from psychological problems. So if you're in a very small, confined environment with other people who you get to hate, sooner or later, you may want to disconnect. And of course, it is impossible to take all the supplies, all the oxygen and water and everything and food for an extended period of time. And then you're dealing with radiation. And we know that hibernating animals are actually quite resistant to weightlessness. So your bones and your muscles would atrophy when you're in hibernation. You're protected in many different ways. And these are more kind of exotic applications of where human hibernation can be taken eventually.

[Adam Grant]

So this is for anyone who loved the book Project Hail Mary or the movie Passengers. This is basically the scientific explanation of why we need to hibernate if we want to travel long distance through space.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

And there are also many and varied applications, potential applications of hibernation on Earth. And here I'm talking about some clinical applications where you would want to slow down metabolism. And this could be some of the very same reasons. For example, even for cancer, cancer treatment, when you apply some very toxic substances or radiotherapy and hibernation could offer a very, very, very good way to reduce side effects.

[Adam Grant]

That's exactly what I was wondering, because my. My first thought from a medical perspective was that if there are diseases that we think might be treatable in the future, that maybe hibernating slows down the extent to which they cause major harm to the body, and in turn, then more likely that somebody survives in order to get the treatment or the cure. And you're saying not just that, but also the cures themselves might be less poisonous if they're administered while somebody is hibernating.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah, exactly. This is very, very easy to imagine. And this is definitely neuroprotective. You know, when you do cardiac surgery, you do this under hypothermia, and this helps to survive hypoxia for much longer. Right? When you need to stop the heart, stop perfusion. The same application be when we deal with stroke with brain damage, you need to slow down metabolic processes and then there is less room for accumulation of damage and so on.

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[Adam Grant]

We don't know how to get humans to hibernate. But you do have some hunches, some hypotheses.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Well, we don't even know how animals hibernate. And that's a really, really big mystery. Big question. But we don't have to go that far. We don't really know how we sleep. Sleep is still a big mystery. We spend one third of our life in this very bizarre state, if you just think about that, which you completely take for granted. But we still don't know how to induce normal physiological sleep. So now state of hibernation, which is much more dramatic, much more interested, and much less understood. I think we really need to study sleep more in order to understand better how to hibernate and to understand how animals, many animals, we keep discovering new species in nature that use hibernation and torpor. They are experts in that, but we don't know how they do it.

[Adam Grant]

What's your best approximation so far of how?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

My best approximation, and also this probably shared with other colleagues, that it is actually some sort of continuation of sleep process. We do know that some brain mechanisms that regulate sleep, or as far as we know, those that regulate sleep, they overlap with the very same circuits in the brain that regulate metabolism, that regulates energy hemostasis. Animals enter torpor, enter hibernation via sleep.

[Adam Grant]

Can animals dream while they're hibernating the same way we think some animals do dream while they're asleep. Do you have any physiological data to point in a direction on that?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

So we are dreaming basically all the time. The initial idea was that we dream only during REM sleep. REM sleep, now we know for sure that it's not true. REM sleep dreaming can occur throughout the night. It can happen in all sleep stages. Dreaming or some sort of dream like mentation, can happen during wakefulness. In fact, we spend most of our life dreaming. The question is, what do we call a dream? What is a dream? It can be very vivid, very emotional, very colorful, mostly is visual, sometimes much more, rarely. It's. It can have some other modalities involved, like olfactory dreams. They're very rare, but they're possible. But they happen throughout and they happen even in very deep Sleep stages hibernation is very interesting case. So I imagine that in a very, very deep hibernation, when the body and the brain are below zero and everything is completely suspended, this is where the suspended animation terminology comes from. There is probably very little mental activities or any activity. You know, animals can stop breathing for half an hour. There is very, very few heartbeats happening per minute. There is very little activity in the brain. But limited evidence suggests there is always some residual activity in the brain. So I think up to a certain point, it is very likely that there is some sort of mentation happening, some sort of dreamlike activity. What is it like is a very interesting question. It may be something like dreaming that is sometimes reported during anesthesia. It's also relatively uncommon. But dreams can happen while being anesthetized. And I cannot exclude that some sort of dreaming can happen during state of hypermetabolism.

[Adam Grant]

How do you study this? Do you hook up electrodes to animals before they dig a hole in the ground? I'm trying to get an image of what it even looks like to study. You probably don't do a lot of research with bears.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Some of my colleagues, they actually do research in bears. There is some more work in progress. I'm aware of where scientists actually manage to implant some thermistors into a bear under anesthesia to record even brain waves and body temperature, whole range of physiological parameters while they were hibernating, the dental. But as you can imagine, it's tricky, it's a bit dangerous, and these data are incredibly precious. But scientists have been recording from hibernating animals in various forms for a long time. You can take the device that can measure the content of oxygen the animal takes in and CO2. The animal exhales. You put those tubings in the barrel where you suspect the hibernating animal might be sleeping. And you can record their metabolic rates by using these readouts of how they breathe, how much oxygen they consume. And it's very, very well established that when animals hibernate, they consume much less oxygen. It can go to small fraction of the normal oxygen they consume in the wild. Of course, it is also difficult because you have to find the animals. They're really hiding very well when they hibernate. And therefore, a lot of research, a lot of our knowledge about hibernation comes from lab studies. Some labs have ground squirrels or Arctic squirrels in the labs. In my lab here in Oxford, I have hamsters. There is a species called Judian hamsters, the same size as a mouse, maybe a little Bit bigger. They're much, much cuter. This, everybody here agrees that they're incredibly cute. And these hamsters, they are not hibernators. They are torpedators. So what they do, they enter a state of torpor lasting a few hours every day. And all you need to do for these animals is to shorten their day. In my lab, there are two rooms. One is, we call. We call it summer room, another winter room. In the summer room, day last 16 hours and night is only 8 hours. In the winter room, it's another way around. So there's a very short day, very long night. So hamsters who live in the summer room, they reproduce. They are rather brownish in color. They're fat. When we move them to winter room, they think it's winter. They start losing weight, which is very interesting. It's actually very unusual. It's different from many other animals. Do who actually fatten themselves in preparation for winter? These animals lose weight, they turn white, and they start entering the state of torpor. And we record them with thermal imaging cameras. So we have the cameras above their cages, and normally you see like a spot which is warmer than the environment. But when they enter torpor, they disappear. They become the same temperature, the surrounding. Sometimes you look at the screen and where is the hamster? And you don't see the hamster because it is. Became one with the world.

[Adam Grant]

Wow. It's such an interesting phenomenon, right, that they adapt so naturally. And I guess this, this speaks to something that you were referring to earlier that, that really piqued my interest, which is hibernating is a remarkable adaptation, especially when it involves proactive planning. It's almost unfathomable to me that a squirrel has the instinct to go and start gathering nuts and then to burrow and dig this hole underground. How does an animal know to do that?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah, that's a great question. Hibernation probably is quite an ancient adaptation because we know that it is very widespread among mammals, very different lineages. But it is also common that some of the close relatives of those animals that hibernate, they lost this capacity. It may be related to what we call a circannial clock. So there could be some sort of periodicity built in our physiology that allows us or other animals to anticipate predictable changes in the environment, in analogy with this circadian clock. Circadian clock is about anticipating day and night. It's not about responding when night happened already. Right. The animals perceive some very subtle changes in the environment, and this triggers into motion like very, very dramatic physiological adaptations. Animals may not even know that winter exists because they enter hibernation before winter starts and then they emerge from hibernation when it's already sprinters out there. It's like time travel.

[Adam Grant]

Wow. So they've basically created their own Florida.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really amazing adaptation.

[Adam Grant]

Let's do a lightning round. What is the worst advice that people give on sleep?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

To get eight hours of sleep. Because it's much more complicated than that. We have very different requirements and it is more important not only how much sleep but also your sleep quality and also time when you get your sleep.

[Adam Grant]

As an expert in this area, what is your favorite recommendation for how to sleep better that most people have not heard before?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Try not to worry about not being able to fall asleep or not getting enough sleep. People may get over obsessed over worried and if anything it gets your sleep worse. And if I may, I can do another one. Be careful with various gadgets that you use to record sleep because most of them are not properly validated. They give you something that may not necessarily be true or easily interpretable. You get some kind of very like wrong idea about how much deep sleep you get. Whatever it is, it's a very kind of suboptimal terminology. And there's always an issue of privacy, right? So if you are monitoring your sleep and everything that is happening in your bedroom has been recorded and then who knows where those data go and who is analyzing it. This is something that sometimes under appreciate.

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[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

And it sounds like you share some of those concerns.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah, exactly. We need the right balance. So it's really important, some awareness, appreciation of sleep. Because we don't care about sleep up to the moment when we notice that we actually don't sleep well, which is paradoxical. It's really amazing. So we spend one third of our life in this very interesting state. We are completely vexated that it is there for our benefit. We own sleep. But then I don't think it's the right way to look at sleep because we don't own it. We don't have control. Right. So you don't have a choice. You must sleep. You're programmed, like that squirrel, to spend one third of your life in this very strange state. For reasons we don't understand, some of my colleagues actually like to think that sleep is our default state. We spend our life asleep. We only wake up to do our business, get food, a few other things, and then we go back to sleep. This as a very refreshing way to look at sleep.

[Adam Grant]

What an unusual way to think about it. It's never crossed my mind before that sleep could be the default and awake is the alternative to that.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah. This idea has been around actually for a few decades. It's not very popular because, you know, we spend again such a long time asleep that you want it to be there for a reason. Otherwise it seems like such a tremendous waste of time. Time, Right. So this is why we have so many ideas that it benefits your memories, it helps you to deal with emotions, cleanse your brain from some metabolic waste. There are quite a few theories around, but we should be also aware that there may be other alternative interpretations, like sleep with a default state. This probably explains why animals sleep in so many different ways. Right. Like why elephants would sleep only, I don't know, four or five hours. Some other animals may Sleep most of the time. So it's very difficult to reconcile with the idea that sleep is there for just one specific reason.

[Adam Grant]

Yep, that resonates well. You've. You've certainly validated my resistance to wearing any kind of device that tracks my sleep. Both because I've had my own questions as a non expert about how reliable and valid the information is, but also I just don't want to get a bad night's sleep and then look at a device and then be even more stressed from the feedback that I got than I already was.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah. Your experience of your sleep can be very, very different from objective measures. Right. We look at the difference between wake and sleep based on moment, as I was saying, based on brain waves or depending what exactly you're monitoring. But there is a huge discrepancy between objective and subjective perception of sleep. There is a condition called paradoxical insomnia or sleep state misperception. When patients wake up after objectively decent night of sleep and they claim that they could not sleep a minute, or they slept very poorly, they would wake up every five minutes. And based on the objectively collected data, they had a normal sleep, a relatively normal sleep. What is interesting here is that we created this label for the condition. We call it sleep state misperception. So we blame the patient. You don't know what your sleep is like, but we know better because we record it objectively. But maybe our objective measures of sleep are actually suboptimal. If there is such a big discrepancy.

[Adam Grant]

Is there a hot take that you have related to sleep, something you believe that most of your colleagues would disagree with you on?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yes, of course. I think everybody must have some ideas. And to me, sleep is still a very open question. We don't have a theory for sleep. So it's also refreshing to think about that in our field everybody is doing something different or something slightly different. You go to a sleep conference with colleagues, you meet colleagues who worked on sleep for decades, and you discuss with them what sleep is. This is just to give you an idea. Sometimes we don't even agree on what is it exactly that we are studying. What is shared between all theories or hypothesis for sleep function is that sleep benefits the individual who sleeps. Sleep is for us. I think we need to be also open to the possibility that true benefits of sleep are not confined within the body of the individual, but they can be found at a higher level. Because when I sleep or you sleep, it has some implications for the world around you. Right. I stop with conspecifics I stop bothering others. I give room to other individuals or other species which inhabit the same ecosystem. So it creates, like, temporal niches. So when we sleep, it has implications not only for ourselves, but also for the dynamics of the ecosystem. And I think we need to also look into this possibility.

[Adam Grant]

Oh, that's interesting. Sleep might be adaptive for social functioning or for a group, more so than it even is for cognitive and emotional benefits for the individual.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah. For example, when two closely related species that occupy the same ecological niche, they can be temporarily displaced, and this is how they don't compete. So one species is sleeping, another can do whatever they want. Or predators and prey, they can kind of chase another in time. So the prey would go outside when predators are sleeping, and predators would have to be up when their prey are up to find them and catch them.

[Adam Grant]

This is yet another idea that has just never occurred to me before. The idea that animals could chase each other in time. How interesting.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah, there are some studies on that. So this has been established. There are some modeling work which suggests that it does have this temporal organizational behavior has very important implications on the evolution of the ecosystem.

[Adam Grant]

Well, that's bringing us closer to my world. Let me turn the microphone over to you and ask you if you have a question for me.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

For you. What do you think sleep is for?

[Adam Grant]

Oh, I'm not qualified to answer that question. That's why I brought you on this show. The metaphor that's always made the most sense to me is that sleep is how we recharge the brain's batteries. It's a restorer of energy, but also a resetter of attention. And I'm sure there are many reasons sleep exists. The other one that I've found really persuasive is the idea that sleep is a memory consolidator, and it helps us forget things that we don't need to actually retain, but also then focus on and maybe organize things that are important.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

How'd I do?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah. Yeah. Very well.

[Adam Grant]

Did I pass your quiz?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

These are very popular ideas. There is definitely some truth to that. It's very intuitive. This is why probably these ideas are so popular.

[Adam Grant]

I worry a lot about people sort of clinging to the intuitive and obvious explanations as opposed to some of the factors that might not be as easy to process but still could be quite important. I think that's one of the reasons I was so fascinated by your work.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

I think we need to be more creative, more brave, more courageous, because we are dealing, again, with such a massive phenomenon. Like all animals, sleep, as far as we know all animals sleep, and it remains unexplained. There is really something wrong. Maybe we should be starting asking not why do we sleep, but why? It's so difficult to answer this question right. There is something that we are missing. Maybe it is about how we define sleep, how we approach sleep, because we define sleep by what it is not rather than what it is. So it's really elusive. And also, we apply kind of our human perspective, and we are trying to explain how, I don't know, penguins or reptiles sleep based on our understanding of how sleep it is from our own perspective, how humans sleep. And this is when it breaks down. And this is why I think we discover most interesting things when we look at unusual species, unusual animals sleeping in very, very different ways.

[Adam Grant]

And I have to tell you, I understand, obviously, that sleep has all these positive effects. And I do tend to sleep seven to eight hours most nights. My own behavior, I think, reflects that. I really appreciate the need for it. I hate it. I think sleep is a massive waste of time. I think the budding longevity movement that's trying to figure out how to extend our lifespans in the short term might be better served by trying to figure out how to reduce the need for sleep. Because if we could eliminate the need, right, if we could undo that programming, we would essentially extend our conscious experience by a third. It's one of the most frustrating things for me in a typical day that I lose a third of my day that I could spend creating, contributing, learning, connecting with other people, having conscious experiences. And sleep interferes with all of that. And I know I need it, but I don't want to need it. So tell me, is it possible that we could reduce or eliminate the human need for sleep one day?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yeah, that's a very provocative question. Very interesting, very radical question. In a way, I have a slightly opposite perspective. I think our lifespan is so long because we sleep. So one third of our life is not lost time. It's part of our life, something we don't understand and something that is there for a reason. So there could be, again, like a simple reason in analogy to hibernation, sleep can just keep you out of trouble when it's dark. So this is another very interesting, popular idea. And if you were wandering around when it's dark and you don't see well, and there are predators, your life would have been much shorter, I promise you. Adam, wait, is that true, though?

[Adam Grant]

Because it also seems to me that you're in an extraordinarily vulnerable state when you sleep, and that Might make you an easier target for predators.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yes, this is another popular idea, which I don't think I really agree because yeah, all you need to do is to hide well or climb on a tree. Right. So this is what animals do. Scientists sometimes talk about obligatory sleep, something that, like a core, core sleep, something that you must update, it's non negotiable and there is luxury sleep. So maybe there is a way to get rid of your luxury sleep and just find a way like can we distill, extract what is the really core essence of sleep and just get it in a shorter time and then we save at least some hours by not, not getting into luxury sleep.

[Adam Grant]

Oh, I love this.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Yes, love this.

[Adam Grant]

Okay. I read recently about a genetic mutation whereby a small percentage of the population, I think the estimate I read was something like 2%, seems to function well on less sleep than most people do. And I immediately thought, okay, how do I get that genetic mutation? I want to be one of those people. Do those people just have lower requirements for obligatory sleep or do they just not do luxury sleep?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Maybe that mutation? Yeah, I don't remember exactly what they found there and what's the function of the gene, but it could be a mechanism that simply monitors your time spent awake and asleep and tells you how much you still owe. Think about like sleep debt in this regard. But what if we find a system that we can trick to make it think that we have already obtained the sleep we are programmed to obtain? Right. So normally you wake up, you actually don't know how many hours sleep, you just feel okay. I feel great. Right. So what is it? If we discover this mysterious timekeeping mechanism that counts time spent awake or asleep and make it run slower, much slower, and this is probably what can allow you to stay awake for much longer. This would be a really, really interesting.

[Adam Grant]

Kind of approach that definitely gives me something to look forward to. I would appreciate it if your lab could get right on that and solve it for me in the next few months.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

We are working actually right now with transgenic mice which lose three hours of sleep every day. It looks like they don't know that they are sleep deprived. When they're tired, they stay awake for hours and hours and hours and it looks like they feel just great. They are fine. But in human terms, they would lose like 10 years of sleep in the course of their life span.

[Adam Grant]

Wow.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

So it's definitely not impossible. The more we learn about sleep and sleep mechanisms, the more likely to, we will discover how to what's the essence of sleep and how to tweak it, how to manipulate it to allow more flexibility in our sleep behavior.

[Adam Grant]

And in the meantime, I'm abandoning all luxury sleep, only obligatory sleep.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Good luck with that. Sometimes you wake up like half an hour earlier and you feel miserable, right? And sometimes you sleep like extra three hours and also you don't feel great.

[Adam Grant]

It won't surprise you that I'm also. Well, I don't know what the right term is. I think you might call me an anti napper.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Anti napper. Oh, okay.

[Adam Grant]

I hate napping. Hate napping. I have never taken a nap without feeling worse. I've read a lot of the research suggesting that you need the nap to be relatively short. Dan Pink introduced me to the idea of the nappuccino, where you consume a little caffeine about, what, 20 minutes before you want to wake up? I cannot process why anyone would ever take a nap and how that could feel good.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

In my opinion, napping is very natural.

[Adam Grant]

You just called me unnatural. I'll take it.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

We sleep in very different ways, not just one size fits all. Maybe you still haven't found the way of napping that would work for you. And I promise when you discover this, you will be very happy.

[Adam Grant]

I think the problem is I don't want to find it because then it means I'll spend even more time sleeping well.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

But you can use your wake time differently or more efficiently, right? Or maybe you will have some discovery, some great idea who to invite for the next podcast comes to you during the nap.

[Adam Grant]

I will begrudgingly concede. That's a good point. I don't want to admit it, but you're right. It's just a nap. Sounds to me like the ultimate luxury of sleep. If I don't need it, I'm not going to take it. But you're right, that doesn't mean it won't have benefits.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Maybe I should not have used the word luxury when I talk about sleep. We need to learn how to enjoy it. And not everything is happening in wakefulness. Sleep is by itself deserves attention.

[Adam Grant]

The closest I've ever come to enjoying sleep is when I've had a really vivid, interesting dream. And recently, for the first time ever, I was consciously aware that I was dreaming while I was dreaming. I remember being in the middle of a dream and saying, this is a dream. And I've never had that experience before, so I guess it took me 40ish years to get there. Do you know anything about what drives consciousness during dreaming? I've read a little bit of research suggesting you can even induce your own lucid dreams. Would love to hear you riff a little bit on that. To the extent that it's something you've.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Explored, I'm jealous because, yeah, I never had an experience of a lucid dream. What you're describing is a lucid dream.

[Adam Grant]

I couldn't control it, though. I still felt like I was watching myself play a video game as opposed to operating the controls.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

This is an example where sleep can open the door to some different and altered states of consciousness. We are too limited by thinking that our life is spent in wakefulness, even during unconscious sleep. Sleep is something that's generated from inside. Also dreams. They're coming from your memories, from your experience, from your past. I think sleep is as many other states. They are defined by the interaction with the environment. We don't exist in the vacuum. There is no such a thing as an isolated individual. We are constantly interacting. Sleep or hibernation. Hibernation is a state when you have completely abandoned your agency. You enter a state when you're in thermal equilibrium with the environment. It's all about the directionality and strength of our connection with the world outside. There's such a great variety of states which we must experience to live.

[Adam Grant]

That's such an exciting perspective to engage with. Well, Vladislav, this has been a lot of fun for me. I remember when I was first getting into the psychology field, I read some early sleep studies, and they literally put me to sleep. They were just documenting things we already assumed to be true, which is useful science, but not the kind of thing that I wake up fired up about discovering. And you definitely have kept me awake during this conversation. And you've raised so many new questions and perspectives, and I really appreciate that, and I know our audience will, too.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Brilliant. Thank you very much. It was great talking, fun.

[Adam Grant]

I think Vladislav gave us a new way to avoid stressing about a lack of sleep or a poor night's sleep. Instead of saying, oh, no, I didn't get enough sleep, I'm going to say, well, I missed out on my luxury sleep, but I got my obligatory sleep. The other takeaway from this conversation is metacognitive. Listen to the way that Vladislav thinks about his own thinking. He's one of the world's leading experts on sleep. And yet frequently throughout the conversation, he said, well, we don't know, or I don't understand that yet. It's a good reminder that the more you know, the more aware you should become of how much you don't know. Rethinking is Hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is part of the TED Audio Collective and this episode was produced and mixed by Cosmic Standard. Our producers are Hannah Kingsley Ma and Asia Simpson. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Original music by Hansdale Sioux and Alison Layton Brown. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winick, Samaya Adams, Roxanne Hylash, Ban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivong and Whitney Pennington Rogers.

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

I always loved animals. My house was full of pets of all kinds. I even had an owl for about 10 years living in my house. And then when I went to do my PhD in Switzerland, my mother was actually take care of it for several years before they gave it back to the zoo.

[Adam Grant]

Fascinating. Why an owl?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Why now?

[Adam Grant]

Oh, sorry. No, why did you have a pet owl?

[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Why owl? Oh, okay. I worked in a zoo and you know what happens every spring? These owlets, they leave the nests and they wander around, they walk around in the forest and people who go and find a little outlet, they think that they are abandoned, they're left by their parents. So they collect these outlets. And every spring it's really sad because yeah, their parents are nearby, they're watching after them. But the zoo gets like supply of outlets. And I was working the zoo, I said, give me one, I'm very happy to adopt it because there is no way you can have all the outlets that you're getting.

[Adam Grant]

Wow, that's very generous of you.

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[Vladislav Vesovsky]

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[Vladislav Vesovsky]

Roger, wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?

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