How to get better sleep with Andrew Huberman, Ph.D

Dr. Darya Rose:  [00:00:00] Hi. I'm Dr. Darya Rose and you're listening to The Darya Rose Show where we bring a fact-based perspective to answer all those confounding questions that come up in our day to day lives, from achieving optimal health, to making conscious choices about your purchases, and raising kids that thrive. We are here to help you navigate your life with confidence.

Hello and welcome back to The Darya Rose Show. For those of you who've been following along from the beginning and anxiously awaiting the release of my Clubhouse conversation with Dr. Andrew Huberman, you're in luck. That's what we have today. So, this was a live discussion that we recorded several weeks ago, and the subject of it was how to get better sleep. Because, personally, I have had a lot of sleep problems starting in the second half of 2019. Just one day, I stopped being able to sleep well and I would wake up at two, three in the morning and sometimes not be able to fall back asleep for one, two, three hours or [00:01:00] sometimes not at all. And this would just happen day after day after day and it was killing me. I have never had such horrible, like, physical, mental, emotional reactions to anything. It was just... It was so, so devastating and difficult. And so, I did what I always do when I have a personal, physical problem like that is I went deep into the scientific literature and started changing things that I was doing to try to solve this problem.

And I wanted to talk to Andy about it because Andy has a fantastic podcast which everybody should listen to. It's called The Huberman Lab Podcast and he actually had done a whole month on the topic of sleep. And when I started listening to it, I was just like floored first of all [laughs]. It was so interesting. I listened to the whole thing in, like, a day, and... Or I'm... When I say the whole thing, I mean like all four episodes [laughs]. And what I, what I learned from it is that we had actually came up with a lot of the same solutions, which was, which was cool to see and hear. [00:02:00] And... But he actually had a few that really helped me sort of push to the next level and now my sleep problems are pretty much gone. I mean, I still can have issues here and there, but it's massively improved and I no longer feel like I'm dying all the time.

So, uh, I got Andy on. We banter about this back and forth. And I know this is common, especially during COVID. There's been a lot of anxiety. There's been a lot of sleep disruption [laughs] and a lot of... Probably a lot of people drinking too much coffee and too much alcohol [laughs]. There's a lot of, lot of things going on. Um, but I wanted to help you guys understand how I would tackle a problem like this, and so that you can see what that approach looks like. And it was just fun to go back and forth with Andy. You know, talking about the science of why something works, when something doesn't work, what to expect, how to, how to optimize for better sleep.

So, um, if you're not familiar with Andy, Dr. Andrew Huberman is a tenured professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. His laboratory studies neural regeneration and neuroplasticity and brain states such as stress, [00:03:00] focus, fear, and optimal performance. He is also active in public education, teaching neuroscience and neuroscience related tools on Instagram and The Huberman Lab Podcast. Dr. Huberman is a regular standing member of The National Institute of Health review panels, a fellow of The McKnight Foundation, and a fellow of The Pew Charitable Trusts. He regularly consults for technology development companies, professional athletic organizations, and for various units of United States and Canadian special operations.

So, uh, if you are not familiar with Andy's Instagram, it's @hubermanlab, or his podcast, The Huberman Lab Podcast, I highly, highly, highly recommend you check out both. I learned so much and it is very rare for somebody as brilliant and informative and good at translating information to the public as him that is giving away this information for free. I mean, so, [laughs], I'm a huge fan. I subscribe. You should too. And, and I hope you enjoy this. Thanks.

Uh, so, people are gonna want to know where you [00:04:00] can hear this later, and I actually wanted to announce today that I have a podcast that I would love for you all to listen to. It is called The Darya Rose Show, and you will be able to find the recording of this conversation there.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Fantastic. Can you just briefly tell us, what, what sorts of stuff you're going to cover, uh, in addition to the, um, material from today. I'm, I'm thrilled to hear. For those of you that... I'm sure that everyone knows Darya, but if you somehow don't, I followed her work for a number of years. We, we met when she was a graduate student at UC San Francisco. I think she was rotating through my friend Erik Ullian's lab. She is an absolute star in the neuroscience research field. Her expertise is vast and she has expertise that extends beyond neuroscience, of course, but I-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I'm not just saying this 'cause we're on here. I'm, I'm definitely going to listen, but maybe just tell us what the topic coverage is gonna be.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Absolutely. So, I had a podcast before. It was called Foodist. And that pretty much exclusively covered the work I'd done for the previous [00:05:00] 10 years, which was kind of personal health, nutrition, fitness, habit change, things like that. I'm still obviously interested in those things. That's still probably what I know the most about besides neuroscience and now toddlers [laughs]. But, The Darya Rose Show is going to be just m-... I mean, it's gonna be the same type of content, so I'm gonna talk to various smart people about things that are, are... The goal is to solve practical issues in your life.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Uh-huh.

Dr. Darya Rose:  It's just gonna... I'm, I'm extending beyond the realm of food and health. So, for example, I'm launching the show with a series of interviews where the goal is to decide or to explore, I should say, how do we know what's true. Because for some reason this question has gotten very confusing [laughs] to people.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Right.

Dr. Darya Rose:  And it- it's... And I don't... I feel like I can't even launch a show until we have some ground rules on how do we know what's true. So, I'm gonna be speaking with... Like, the first show is with Dr. Adam Ghazali at UCSF and we talk about, like, the process of science. Like, [00:06:00] why should you believe a scientist? Like, do scientists really have agendas? What if... If something, if something's published, how do you know it's good? How do you know it's true? And the, the process, the scientific process of how hypotheses are designed to falsify your own beliefs, how peer review works so that we can, like, rip each other apart [laughs] and make sure that only the very best work gets published.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  And I just... I really thought it was important to shed a light on how that process works, 'cause most people, I think, don't know. Like, if you're not writing grants and submitting papers, you don't necessarily know the conflict of interest rules, for example. And I think that if people did understand that stuff a little better then it would be easier to trust science. And so, you know, that's one example. I'll be c-... Talking to journalists. I'll be talking to alternative medicine, uh, folks, and we'll just be covering things like that. But we'll also, you know, still dabble in personal health stuff, and whatever, whatever happens to be interesting at the time that is a [00:07:00] problem that comes up in people's lives. I mean, I'm a mom now. Those kind of problems, I'm sure, are gonna come up, and how we can use science and facts and truth to get to a solution.

And by the way, uh, Andy, that's... I love podcasts too, by the way, so if any of my followers on here don't follow Andrew Huber-... Andrew Huberman, The Huberman Lab podcast yet, it is absolutely wonderful. It is very rare that somebody with such expertise... I mean, I don't know how many of you guys know professors [laughs]. They're not people that typically have a lot of time on their hands. So, for him to be putting out this, this content, it's so high quality. It's so good that everybody should check it out. And I'm, I'm... And I actually encourage everybody also sponsor your Patreon, because I, I just... I think that I'm a big supporter of, like, supporting p- people who provide content, and I'm, I'm a subscriber and I think everybody should consider-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Oh, well-

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... that if, if you're ca-... If you're able.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Oh, well, thank, thank you for that. Yeah, the... It's been a lot of fun and I have an amazing [00:08:00] production team. And you mentioned the Patreon w-... So, we've been translating to other languages, right now Spanish and English.

Dr. Darya Rose:  So cool.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  It takes a few days. But we'd like to get, uh, more of those up there. But anyway, I... It's great you started a podcast. I'm, I'm definitely gonna tell the world about it. I'm... I blab far and wide about things that I love, not limited to neuroscience and other scientists, bringing really good knowledge to the world. I think that people need to understand how science is done and that is great. So, you definitely have my strong enthusiasm, support, and endorsement. So, yes. Yes and yes.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Awesome. Well, thank you. Well, we can go ahead and get started. I have, I have a little agenda I wrote out. But one of the first things I want to do because I know it's important, so I wanted to chat a little bit about the difference between medical doctors and doctors of philosophy [laughs]. So, I'll get the, the han- handle doctor, but medical doctor is a doctor who prescribes medicine and is a MD. And a PhD, a doctor of philosophy, is what me and Andy are [00:09:00] [laughs]. And we... You know, we... We're scientists. We study. And I... What do you always say, Andy? That you-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I would say I'm not an MD, so I don't prescribe anything. I'm a professor, so I profess a lot of things. And I-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs]. Yeah, that's what I... I philosophize.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  [laughs]. Um, and as the medical disclaimer, [inaudible 00:09:14] I think a lot of times people think it's just boilerplate and I'll say, "You know, I think it is smart to consider... You know, anytime you're considering adding a protocol or deleting a protocol that includes medications, behavior, or supplements or anything like that, nutrition, that you can..." I always say, "Consult a board certified physician, 'cause that's I think the h-... At least in the US is that i-... The highest standard of, of training, uh, required to give people advice and write prescriptions."

But I always also say, "You know, I don't just say that to protect me, and in this case, Darya, I also say for you to protect you." You know, there's so much information out there, and I, I think what PhDs are really good at... PhDs in neurosciences in particular and bi-... Other biological sciences, so extending, you know, to immunology and all the other things, [00:10:00] is understanding, you know, how to ch-...Understand what statistics are, what journals are great, what journals, uh, are not blue ribbon journals, all that kind of stuff. And there... We take some liberties, right? We've seen this a lot in the last year with COVID, where a number of public-facing scientists have been discussing various things. And you know, there are times and instances where you can look at a study done in mice and because of what was explored, you can say, "You know what? I'm gonna adopt a practice and that's within my margins of safety."

There are other times when something's done in mice and you'd say, "Well, no, I'm gonna wait for, you know, phase III clinical trials in humans or maybe when it's FDA-approved." There's a huge range of confidence... Uh, of confidences and, and sort of margins for confidence. So, it's just... It's not just about protecting oneself. It's also that people have a huge range of backgrounds. You know, you got people who have endocrine disorders and people who have neurotransmitter systems that are really [inaudible 00:10:55]. And, and then you got people who are rock solid. You know, I have friends who could, you know, take half a jar of a [00:11:00] supplement and not feel anything.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And then other people... Like my sister takes, you know, 10 milligrams of theanine and, and passes out.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  So, it's just there's so much variation. And that- that's my long disclaimer.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, totally. Yeah. So, as scientists we understand studies and statistics and what is factually... How close we can think of something as true. Doctors are like mechanics for your body and they, they take a different approach. So, just as long as we're clear on all that stuff. And so, Andy, the reason I wanted to talk to you about this stuff... Well, first, you were on, you were on my husband, uh, Kevin Rose Show, and that was enlightening to me because at some point you mentioned that... Well, first off, I didn't know you had a podcast before that, so that was awesome. And then you said you had a whole month on sleep. So... And you also said that you were the type of person who has no trouble falling asleep but wakes up in the middle of night sometimes and can't fall back asleep, and I was like, "Oh, my God. I need to go listen to all these podcasts immediately." And I did. I listened to them all in, like, one day [laughs], 'cause I [00:12:00] do things like that.

And so, you know, for anybody who needs, like, extra, nitty gritty... Like, more than we're going in today, definitely go check out Andy's series on, on sleep. But I don't want to rehash, like, all that right now just 'cause presumably a lot of the people here-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... have already heard that. But I wanted to talk about how all that fits into kind of my personal sleep issues that I've been having and how I've gone about troubleshooting that [inaudible 00:12:23] better word.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  Um, because I think that's a really-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, great.

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... interesting way to approach a problem like this. I mean, I [inaudible 00:12:31] know about you, but I have talked to so many people who have started having sleep problems since COVID, and I think there's probably a lot of factors going in there. But I- I'm... I'll like... I'll just like... I'll see somebody... You know, I haven't seen anybody in a year and they'll be like, "Just... I wake up at like two, three in the morning and I can't fall back..." And I'm like, "Really?" [laughs]. I talked to like 17 people in the last month who said this. So, I know that I'm not alone in this.

And, and so, yeah. So, I just want to talk about, like, kinda what's going on with this and how we can approach it. So, for myself, I've, I've always been kind [00:13:00] of, kind of a tech geek and I've always monitored my sleep, but I never really thought I had sleep problems in any way. I, I always kind of thought I needed less sleep, like six and a half, seven hours seemed okay to me. But since... W- Well, well, recently what happened was I just started waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall asleep. But I have been using the Oura Ring for years, so I had a baseline, which is cool. Do you, do you happen to use any sleep tracking devices, Andy?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  No. So, what's interesting is... So, my lab is, um, doing a bunch of sleep studies now, and the folks at Whoop were kind enough to donate all those units, so I have, I have worn a Whoop before. And then I stopped using it. I have not tried an Oura Ring. You know, the main reason I don't do it is I don't like the... A device telling me how poorly I slept. I generally-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  But it's... But that's the only reason. A- And I do like those devices. I think they, they can provide a lot of insights. I've been mainly trying to, you know, tune my intuition about sleep and that's why I haven't. But I haven't tried Oura and I, and I [00:14:00] probably should.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, it's interesting. You know, one of the things I learned was, like I said, I didn't f-... Ever feel, until recently, feel like I had any sleep issues. But, Oura told me every night that I had really low REM sleep, and then I was like, "Oh, that's weird." And I... You know, I was kinda trying to think that that because I didn't notice it in any meaningful way in my life, I kinda ignored it. But... So, that was just, like, an interesting thing to know, and I've actually... With all these troubleshooting I've done [inaudible 00:14:24], I've actually massively improved my REM sleep [laughs], which is cool. Like, that's something that-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  [inaudible 00:14:28].

Dr. Darya Rose:  Like, it's actually gotten to a place where I'm better at this point. But, yeah. So... But before I go on any further, I wanted to ask you specifically, did... Do you know do sleep... What... Do you know how sleep needs change with age? 'Cause I feel like my six and a half, seven hours is just not cutting it anymore.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, so, it's interesting. Without going i-... Down the rabbit hole of too much mechanism, as you know, we have this circadian, 24 hour rhythm and temperature, where our temperature is lowest about two hours before our natural wake up time would be. And then, it starts [00:15:00] climbing up and that's actually part of what triggers the release of this hormone, cortisol, which wakes us up. H- Here's what changes: as our neuroendocrine... So, nervous system and, and hormone system... The way they interact is that system matures. Our temperature rhythm shifts, and then our circadian rhythms shift.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  So, you know, the more one looks at it, the more it's clear from the science in humans, and, and in animal studies, that the temperature rhythm is the dominant rhythm by which we become sleepy or wake up. And that turns out to be a point of leverage for things like jet lag, and, and that's not just when you're traveling, but also the use of exercise and feeding and, and ice baths and saunas and all that can become very powerful tools. But the, the short answer is yes, as we, as we age and our endocrine system changes, are hormones change, so does our pattern of, of temperature across the 24 hour cycle, and then the circadian rhythm [00:16:00] follows that, not the other way around.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Got it, got it. And I do... I definitely want to go into that temperature stuff, like, in serious detail later because I... It's confusing [laughs]. [inaudible 00:16:10].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I'll, I'll make it... I'll, I'll do my best to, to make it simple, and then... And also, if people on here are looking for the... You know, just the key takeaways, I... Before we conclude at some point, I- I'll do my best to list off what I think are... You know, the... In ascending order, the 10 kind of, uh, most important leverage points for sleep optimization.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Cool, cool. Sweet. Do, do, do, do, do. Oh, yeah. So, one more question for you too on, on the sleep front: do you have kids?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I don't. I, i-... But what's interesting is... Perhaps is interesting is I have this 90 pound English Bulldog Mastiff named Costello, and he... He's old. He's, he's very old. In fact, I don't want to depress anybody, but the right thing to do is gonna be to put him down soon and... But he's been... He has the canine version of sundowner, so I've been... In the last six months, I've been getting woken up at least three or four times a night, [00:17:00] every single night. And it's interesting because, uh, we'll probably end up talking about tools that you can use in s-... In waking to recover lost sleep and I've been relying-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... heavily on those tools in order to function. And I do believe that we can replace sleep that we don't have, you know, with certain daytime activities that bring the brain into states of recovery that are similar to sleep. But I'm guessing-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 00:17:24].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... you asked the question for, for other reasons-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... or maybe that are, are, are wonky.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, so, I mean, I mean, I know that for a lot of people sleep... Or kids are a big impact on their sleep and I think everybody knows that the reason I haven't had a podcast in the last two years is because I had, like, two babies back to back, and that's a lot. And what's interesting is when I had my first baby, I actually was sleeping better than I ever had in my entire life, which I know is totally counterintuitive [laughs]. But I did sleep 12 hours and I've just never had so much free time in my whole life [laughs]. Just like having these little nice [inaudible 00:17:55] sleep, and I'd also quit coffee. That was probably part of it. But-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Well, well al-... Look, you know, [00:18:00] lactation is by far the most metabolically demanding thing any human can experience.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  A lot of people think pregnancy or... You know, the, the metabolic demand of lactation is similar to running an ultramarathon every third day.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Oh, my God.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  [inaudible 00:18:15] ultra. I'm sure there's someone out there that's like, "Oh, ultras are anything over 26 miles," that... So, it's essentially the equivalent of running somewhere between 40 and 60 miles every, every three days. So, i- i-... And we often think pregnancy-

Dr. Darya Rose:  That's insane.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  It's insane. It's absolutely insane, and, um, gave me new perspective on, on what all of that is about, even though, of course, I've never done it, but just into [crosstalk 00:18:39]-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. Yeah. I was a g-... I was a solid producer too, so I was... That definitely probably had a... An impact on me. Um, I'm sure it's why I lost weight so fast [laughs]. It was great. But, uh, yeah, so, what happened though for me was about six months after I had my second kid, just totally one day... Like, I'd like... Could point to the day on the calendar, just one day I just stopped sleeping. [00:19:00] I would just wake up, my kid was sleeping, like, I didn't have any issues, and I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. At first it was an hour, then two hours, and sometimes three hours. And sometimes I wouldn't fall back asleep at all from, like, two in the morning. And I... Th- This was, like, seriously one of the most challenging things in my entire life. I was so tired. I just, I just had no idea what to do about it, and, and I'd always been so healthy and not had any problems and it was really shocking [laughs]. I was relying horribly on Xanax every once in a while, which I know is a terrible thing to take, but, you know, at s-... At a certain point, I just, like, needed some sleep.

And it was really scary. I mean, I- I've never felt so mortal than just going weeks and weeks without sleep. And, uh... And I also happen to be aware that I am an ApoE4 carrier, so that is one of the genes that's give you a predisposition toward Alzheimer disease, and not sleeping is, like, one of the things that exacerbates that the most and it was just freaking me out that I was having these issues. So, I just went... I, like, just did a deep dive into [00:20:00] sleep and troubleshooting for myself, feeling... And I was kinda probably being more open to experimentation than I would normally be. Like, I'm normally not, like, a supplement-type person, but, you know, I, I was seeing so many different doctors and talking to so many people about it that I was [laughs].... At some point, I was just sort of willing to try anything. So, um, that was fun [laughs].

Uh, um, but, you know, at... But today, I'm actually sleeping pretty great, and a lot of the things I've come up with are things that you talk about in your, in your show, so I wanted to sort of reemphasize those, and just... But generally just sort of talk about, like, the, the check... The checklist of things that w- were going on. Um, so, one thing that I noticed that was hard for me to admit to myself, but I had to eventually, is that reading the news was massively causing problems for me. Like, the anxiety, I think, that from just doom scrolling [laughs] the last four years-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... was really taking a toll. And I didn't... You know, I... For me, I felt like I really wanted to keep up and just [00:21:00] so I knew what was going on 'cause I was nervous that... What would happen if I didn't know what was going on. But I... You know, when I stopped doing that, like immediately felt much, much better, and then was able to get more sleep.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  That calls to mind... You know, one of the things that I think is really interesting that the science points to... At Chuck Czeisler's lab at Harvard Med did this really nice study where they looked at wakefulness across the 24 hour period and what they found was that the hour before one's natural sleep time... You know, people are always wondering, "Am I a night owl? Am I a morning lark?" You know, sleep polymorphisms and this, and it changes across the lifespan. But your peak of alertness in the second half of your day tells you a lot about when your natural sleep time is. And what they found was that the hour before your natural sleep time is actually the most active and alert you will be in the second half of your day.

And that's a little bit surprising, but the, the just-so story that's provided to explain that [00:22:00] is that, you know, b-... When we sleep, we're vulnerable, you know, and there... These are ancient mechanisms, and presumably, there was a time in which we had to tamp down our homes and our villages and stuff-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... right before going to sleep. And so, we need to do a lot of physical activity right before sleep. The other thing that's absolutely true is that it's always easier to shift your circadian rhythm later than to pull it back. This is the equivalent of it's always easier to stay up late than it is to wake up early-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... unnaturally early for, for you. You know, if you're a naturally 5 AM wake- waker upper, waking up at three is gonna be hard. But... So, we can all push that. And so... And it doesn't take much. It doesn't take, uh, much of a new story or much of an Instagram feed or much of a anything to, uh, push us past our natural sleep time. And so, there's a phenomenon that I like to call being jet lagged at home. You know, you don't have to get on a plane to feel jet lagged-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... and to throw off [inaudible 00:22:56] your brain. Yet, jet lag has nothing to do with travel. It has to do with your [00:23:00] relationship to light. And so, if you stay home and you stay up for two hours... Or let's say three hours. You know, you, you stay up reading, and then you push on a little bit further, and then you have a little bit of trouble sleeping, you just flew to New York as far as your body is concerned. It doesn't know the difference.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, so, there... And so, then something has to be done to get it back. And I think that a lot of people just assume, "Oh, you know, jet lag is only something that can happen if I get on a plane," but that's simply not true.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you know what's funny is, I'm not a, a nighttime reader, really. Like, all this was happening in the morning [laughs]. That's why I thought... You know, that's why I ignored... You know, my husband was like, "You've got to stop reading the news," and I was like, "I read in the morning. Like, it's not like I'm, like, sitting on my phone in bed at night," You know? [laughs]. But, i- it was just something I would do when I actually had to hang out with my kids and I didn't want to hear Itsy Bitsy Spider for the 17th time in a row.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  But, but, you know, still... I think it w-... I think it had just... I think it just made me... I think it just... Like, my baseline anxiety just went up. And then, COVID hit a couple months later and that didn't help [00:24:00] [laughs], you know? So... But yeah, and obviously screens at night, not, not a good call. Um-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Well, well, one of the things that- that's interesting is that, you know, I... For p-... Some people are more prone to the news than others, but you know, we've all... I've g- got a colleague in medical school who's working on this and I don't recall all the fine details, but it's very clear that if we see a couple stories about murders or we see a couple of stories about some sort of conflict, that our threshold for what's disturbing starts to shift. And then, we start... We actually start looking for that stuff. We start foraging for more of it. And this is something that people are starting to acknowledge.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right. [inaudible 00:24:35].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And, and this is not necessarily the fault of the, of the algorithms and the, the companies that provide this news, because they're basically just following people's behavior and it is reciprocal. But what's interesting... I'm always struck by the, um, enormous popularity of these, of these murder podcasts. You know, that they-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... occupy... They, they occupy 11 of the top 20 slot of the podcast.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Crazy.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And what this is telling us is that we've [00:25:00] developed a thirst for murder, car accidents, things of that sort that, that probably also have roots in, in evolutionary mechanisms where we want to understand just how... The extremes of risk around us. But, we can find ourselves starting to forage for higher and higher threshold type stuff, and it's just something to be aware of. And because we're not... Like you said, Itsy Bitsy Spider is pret- pretty exhausting in the wrong ways-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... and after the 50th time. But we, we can... The news cycle can be, uh, a self-amplifying thing where we're seeking more and more tr-... Disturbing things without really understanding why. And there's some interesting data that is starting to emerge around this.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, yeah. Actually, my first podcast guest, Dr. Adam Ghazali, wrote a book, uh, that covered a lot of that topic. It's called The Distracted Mind. Yeah, the other thing is... So, a couple other things... So, yeah, news was a, a big no-no for me and I'm so glad that that is behind us. The other thing that is crazy is I've become so sensitive to caffeine in my old [00:26:00] age. So, even half a cup of coffee, eight in the morning means I don't have a good enough night's sleep. It's, it's insane. And the same thing with alcohol. Like, I just... Especially red wine. More than two glasses of anything, but especially red wine, I just wake up in the middle of night a, a lot [laughs]. So, it's like... Those are l-... Those were like the, the three, like, biggest sort of behavioral factors for me personally that I had to get under control, which is such a bummer [laughs]. I, uh-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  I'm very, very grateful to the people at Primary Coffee because they drink the only drinkable... Th- They make the only drinkable decaf, I think, maybe in the world [laughs] for, for-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Interesting.

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... pour over coffee. It's... If I didn't have that, I don't know that I could have done it. But because I have that, it is, it is a wonderful thing.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. The caffeine... You know, caffeine sensitivity's interesting because, you know, people do vary, and as you were saying earlier, you know, sleep needs vary. The... And it's not linear. It's not like each year we need a little bit less sleep or our temperature shifts. It's... It, it looks more like a step function when these things shift.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And this is [00:27:00] the work of my colleague, Jamie Zeitzer, at the Stanford Sleep Lab. They've shown... You know, in teens, it's not like every year that you list your age as a teen your temperature is such. You can go from 13 to 17 and your sleep patterns are one way because of the way you regulate temperature. And then, you know, six weeks after your 18th birthday, all of a sudden your temperature rhythm shifts, and with it, your ideal bedtime and your ideal wake time. And of course, people aren't regulating their life on the basis of those.

There, there are some pretty impressive things that can happen when one starts to figure out what their optimal to bedtime and wake time are. And one thing I, I don't think I've discussed on the podcast is there does seem to be something special about the hours before midnight, in terms of them... Those, those being more restorative than the hours after midnight.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And it... And of course, has nothing to do with midnight. Has to do with how far you are from your lowest temperature, what we call the temperature minimum, and that temperature minimum is... Uh, you don't need a thermometer [00:28:00] to measure. It's gonna be about two hours before your natural wake up time. So, you know, if you're somebody who's p-... Who's going to sleep really tired at 11 and waking up at seven and still feeling groggy, it's very likely that if you're wide awake and feel like working out at 6 PM, that your natural bedtime is about 8 PM, and that you would do best by going to bed at 8 PM and waking up at 4 AM or 3... Even 3 AM. And hardly anyone's going to do that, right? So, I don't think any of us are really following our, our ideal schedule, but when you just shift closer to it, it... A lot of great things start to fall into place metabolically, hormonally, all that stuff.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Cool. Yeah. So, let's talk about the circadian rhythm for a second, because this was something I was sh-... I mean, I feel like I've got this down [laughs]. I... Because, I mean, I have kids, right?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Right.

Dr. Darya Rose:  They don't care that it's Saturday. They don't let me sleep in. My schedule is like, like military time in my house [laughs]. We run on the exact same schedule pretty much every single day, which was not true for most of my life. But, [00:29:00] you know, I'm having these sleep problems and I'm thinking to myself like, "How can I optimize this further?" So, I mean, to start, I get, I get up at the exact same time every day. Oh, but I did want to [crosstalk 00:29:09]-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Do, do you mind if we ask just, just for sake of example in case people are gonna map the, the protocols to something similar like just by adding or subtracting, what time is that, that you get up?

Dr. Darya Rose:  I get up 7:30.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Okay.

Dr. Darya Rose:  I know everybody hates me who has small kids right now. But, it... Sleep training is the best thing that ever happened, guys [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  So, so 7:30 AM is when you'll... You wake up without an alarm, more or less?

Dr. Darya Rose:  That's right. That's right.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Sometimes [crosstalk 00:29:31].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Okay, so your temperature minimum-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. So, I... Your temperature minimum is probably somewhere right around 5 AM or 5:30 AM, which is a great thing to know because you can, you can do a lot with that knowledge to shift your clock if you, if you wanted to or needed to.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. So, so this is something that it took me a minute to figure out. So the temperature minimum is actually not a temperature, but a time, right?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  So, time in every 24 hour cycle when [00:30:00] your body temperature is lowest, and rather than go actually measure that with a device, which would be wonderful to do, but I'm guessing most people aren't equipped with that kind of technology, you can ask yourself, "Well, when would I naturally get up without an alarm and have an interrupted night of sleep?" And temperature minimum is typically about two hours before that time. So, you know, there are exceptions to this and if you're waking up with an alarm or you're waking up in the middle of the night 'cause the lights went on or because you had to use the restroom, that is not your natural wake up time. That's a stimulus-induced wake up time, to be dorky about it. So, yours is fi-... Prob-... Let's just say 5 AM for sake of simplicity.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, sounds good. So, right. So, the... So, I get up. I do the same thing. I pretty much eat mostly at the same times every day, which is also a big part of it, right? The... Like, when you eat-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, so-

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... and when you're active, right?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. Are you a breakfast eater or are you a breakfast skipper?

Dr. Darya Rose:  I, I do better when I eat breakfast.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [00:31:00] [affirmative]. Yeah, the intermittent fasting thing is a discussion unto itself. I've been spending a lot of time with that literature lately and it's, it's interesting. I think some people do well to skip breakfast and other people don't, and they just have to try it and see.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And, and everyone suffers a little bit when you start skipping meals because of the... You know, you get that secretion of ghrelin and your, your... Makes you hungry on, on the clock, so to speak. But i-... You're... Just if people want to know, you can shift your... If you want to do a kind of timed fasting type thing, you can shift that by about 45 minutes a day without too much pain. But there's-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. So, yeah. I, I eat my first meal right around noon. My wake up time is probably about 6 AM, if all's going well, which means my temperature minimum's about 4 AM now.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Cool. When I read Dr. Panda's book about circadian rhythms, I... And, and feeding schedules, I tried some intermittent fasting for a while and it literally did nothing for me. Actually, I... I- It was one of the things I tried to try to improve my sleep because he had a section in there about, [00:32:00] you know, how it's better to stop eating at a certain time and... You know, I definitely... It's not good for me to have a big meal right before going to bed. I... You know, it's better to eat a little bit earlier. But I didn't... Unfortunately, I was hoping that I could, like, solve this problem with some intermittent fasting, but for me personally, it didn't, it didn't really work.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, yeah, so, listing off in order for folks that are thinking about this if you have... If you're thinking about your own sleep and you have a pen and paper, or whatever you, you write with, the, the four dominant ways to set in control of your sleep are going to be exposure to light, t-... Food and food timing. So, food, eh... What you eat and when you eat it, exercise, and temperature, and we could talk about each of those. But... So, the... I think a simple rule with feeding is that some people like breakfast, some people don't. I skip it 'cause it helps me stay alert in the morning and I'm not super hungry in the morning. It's my Argentine roots. I like to eat late. But I won't eat within two hours of going to sleep. That's just kind of the simple rule that I follow. And I... And there are times I lapse, but, you know, I won't eat within two hours of going to [00:33:00] sleep, and if one doesn't include enough like starchy carbohydrates or things that can create insulin... Excuse me, insulin, yes, but also serotonin in the brain-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Serotonin, yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... falling asleep can be challenging. So, the, the low carbers and, you know, the, the keto, the keto people are often challenged with sleep in ways they don't even understand because you need a sufficient serotonin to fall asleep. So, all the, like, ridiculous advice of the '90s, including, like, that fats are terrible, also included don't eat carbohydrates after 6 PM because your metabolism drops.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  There's, there's absolutely zero data to support any of that. So, I would say don't eat within two hours of going to sleep, mostly so you can get growth hormone release when you fall asleep. But... And then, carbohydrates can help you fall asleep. And low carb diets are great for wakefulness, but they're not great for sleep.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. Yeah. S-... Wonderful. So, I... Yeah. So, I eat pretty much all my meals at the same time, like, pretty regularly too. [00:34:00] I g-... Yeah, I eat dinner at 7 PM, every single night. Sometimes, like you said, sometimes it goes a little late, but I, I definitely [crosstalk 00:34:06]-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  [crosstalk 00:34:06] can imagine. And you have a beautiful family. You and Kevin, you guys have these beautiful kids. Maybe I should have kids. It will put me on a regular schedule. That would [laughs].

 Maybe, maybe at some point. Yeah, so that... But... So, if you're eating at 7:30 and then bedti-... Like, when is... And when I say bedtime, it means, like, when is lights... When would you naturally fall asleep?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, I'm... I mean, I'm really happy to... 'Cause I start... I usually start mobilizing for bed around nine, and I'm often out by 10, 10:30 usually at the latest. I mean, it's, it's happened that I've, I've stayed up later, obviously. The, the COVID has been another, another thing. It's so easy to stay on a regular schedule because there's absolutely nothing else to-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Right. And you were... When you were waking up around two or three in the morning, is that, is that... Was that just kind of a spontaneous wake up? You just wake up 10... Around two or three in the morning for... With no, no noise, no need to use the restroom, right? It just kinda happened.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Exactly.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Okay.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Exactly. And I have... Again, my, my room is... I- [00:35:00] I've, like, really dialed this stuff in. My room is pitch dark. There's no sound. There's no little lights. Like, everything is optimal for sleep in my room.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Okay. So, now obviously we don't know because we're not in the Stanford Sleep Clinic in the moment. We don't have blood draws going and all this, but I... If we were gonna just, um, speculate a little bit, I think, as you mentioned, there are a lot of people that wake up in the middle of night. There are a couple of reasons why that happens. I mean, there are many. Could be anxiety, could be... But, uh, here's some of the more common ones that are, that are tractable. One is people drink too many fluids before they go to sleep. So this, this is not glamorous neuroscience, but there's actually... There are neurons in... That innervate the bladder. And when your bladder is full, it sends a signal to your brainstem with... And these areas that, you know, Darya and I are... Probably some of the audience are familiar with, like the parabrachial region, locus coeruleus, and it wakes you up. And this is the area's that's not well developed in kids and that's why they pee their bed. And then, as we get older, this circuit develops. This is also why if you've ever arrived someplace and you have to urinate, it's like the most anxiety-provoking thing in the world. Like, [00:36:00] you will not-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And it's hard and why when you go camping and you get in your sleeping bag and you're all, like, cozy and ready to, to fall asleep, and then you realize you, you have to, you have to pee. It's the worst because you're like, "Ahh. I'm gonna get woken up in the middle..." So, drinking too many fluids late in the evening can definitely wake you up in the middle of the night. Now, assuming that one isn't doing that, then there's another thing that, uh, is interesting that I learned about from the Stanford sleep folks and from Matt Walker, whom I'm sure many of you know, which is that, you know, melatonin is this hormone that is inhibited by light, but it's the hormone that makes us sleepy and puts us to sleep, but it's not what keeps us asleep. And so, if your melatonin... If you're really good at making your house dark and you're dimming the lights in the evening and that kind of thing, your melatonin is going to start to climb up. So, if your melatonin is starting to climb up around 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, that melatonin is gonna be bottomed out somewhere around 3:00 or 4 AM. And that-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Interesting.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... might be part of [00:37:00] the reason that you're waking up. And this is why I was saying for some people they would do really well to go to bed a half hour earlier, and what they'll find is, yes, they'll still wake up really early, but that they're able to sleep through that phase when normally they would wake up. 'Cause the body's getting confused. It's like this sleepiness hormone is wearing off. You didn't go to sleep that long ago, but, you know, as far as your neuroendocrine system is concerned, it's like, "Oh, well, there's no more melatonin and, you know..." And so, there's a bit of a... They... I would say a bias toward wakefulness. And so, the smaller, smaller stimuli, like a, you know, a little noise outside or your partner turning over in bed or whatever it is, can wake you up. So, that the, the answer is not to take melatonin for reason, reasons did discuss. The answer might be to go bed a little bit earlier and definitely to limit fluid intake before sleep.

Dr. Darya Rose:  That, that is very interesting, I actually... Yeah, I've had very bad experiences taking melatonin. It definitely makes it worse. And I, I think you know that, right? You, you-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I don't like melatonin.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, I mean, i-... [00:38:00] For some people, 500 micrograms... Right? Micrograms.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Half a milligram, might... It... You know, with all this precautionary, disclaimer stuff, uh, thrown out there as we'd said earlier, might be good. But, you know, melatonin is what, um, keeps us out of puberty for a long period of our life until we hit puberty. It has a lot of interactions with the other hormones. I, I think m- most... I would say all sleep researchers that I know do not recommend melatonin, except under extreme conditions of jet lag where you absolutely have to fall asleep. And even there, they are prob- probably safer things to take. And the parents always freak out like, "Oh, I've been giving my kid melatonin. Did I mess up their puberty?" You might have delayed it a little bit, but, you know, the body's pretty resilient, and, you know, puberty [laughs]... For better for worse, puberty's gonna happen at one point or another.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs]. Yeah. The... Oh... And then, yeah. On the... So, on the fluid front, definitely it's a bad idea to drink too much, but I get... I do get really thirsty. Actually, one of the things for a while that was waking me up at night was that I would wake up [00:39:00] thirsty, and then, then I would wake up again to deal with that later. But, yeah, so, I, I sort of figured that out. That's a, that's an easy one to figure out early on. But one, but one thing that's interesting and, and I do want to get into a supplement section in a bit, but I actually have a supplement that has made me stop having to wake up in the middle of the night to use the restroom.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  What is that?

Dr. Darya Rose:  How weird is that? It's one that you recommended call... It's chamomile. Apigenin.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. Yeah, so, my sleep kit for me... I guess, was it... My buddy, David Sinclair, always says is, you know, "I can talk about what I take or what, what we take." So, apigenin, A-P-I-G-E-N-I-N, is a derivative of chamomile and is an a-... What they call a anxiolytic i-... Or hypnotic. It, it just kinda turns off thinking a little bit. It's a little mild, mild sedative. You know, as long as you... I think I was taking 50 milligrams pretty consistently for a while. I, I cycled on and off for no particular reason, but after taking it years. And yeah, it works really well.

I had... And we should probably [00:40:00] talk about that I'd made some statements about it perhaps inhibiting estrogen, but then you went deeper into the literature. This is why it's fun to do this with a scientist, 'cause they're like-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [crosstalk 00:40:12].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  "Hey, I saw this study and that study [laughs]." And so, I went back to that literature. But yeah, it works pretty well taken 30 to 60 minutes before bed. When do you take it?

Dr. Darya Rose:  I take it right before bed and it, it has been absolutely amazing for me.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Like, when... Kevin actually told me about it after having you on his show. He was like... And he bought. He didn't even ask. He just bought it [laughs]. He's like, "Here. Take this." [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Right.

Dr. Darya Rose:  And he was like-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  "Thank you. Thanks for your [crosstalk 00:40:33]."

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. He's like, "Like, Andy says this is great." And I was like... You know, I'm like, "Whatever. At this point, like, I'll try anything. I'm so tired." And I was... I... Like... But, like, I think, had you talked to me right when I started having my sleep problems, and you were like, "Chamomile," I would have laughed in your face. Like, "What?"

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  "That's not gonna help me. I'm taking Xanax. You... Give me a break."

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  But, I swear... I mean, I just... I would fall asleep and I would wake up at seven in the morning [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  It was shocking to me. And, like, not get up to use the restroom. Like, before that, especially after having kids, like, I would get up... I mean, once was a good [00:41:00] night, you know? And it'd be like two or three times and I think a lot of women have that issue. And it's funny, on the bottle it says, "For prostate health." I'm like, "Well, I don't have a prostate [laughs]."

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  No.

Dr. Darya Rose:  "But it's still working." [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  One of the things I hope happens in the US... I'm guessing people are different, um, places in the world as they listen to this, but would be if, be if supplement companies were not able to list the d-... The intended effects on the bottle, that would be so great for everybody.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  If there was an independent site where people could go and figure out what things were good for. And the site I love and I know, um, you use it as well is, is Examine.com, which is this free site that will give... You can put in essentially any supplement and it will give you information about the so- called human effect matrix, which studies done in humans, peer reviewed, links to PubMed articles, some details about was it... You know, who the subjects were. Were these kids, were these adults, were they obese, were they... Did they have Alzheimer's, you know. Great resource.

Well, apigenin... It's, it's interesting. I would have thought that was pretty wacky too. You know, the whole herbal medications thing and, you know, [00:42:00] homeopathy and all that is... You know, is always a little bit suspect to me because there's such a dearth of, of really good quality science. But, apigenin increases GABA transmission, this neuro-... Uh, neurotransmitter in the brain. Of course, Darya, you're familiar with it. It that... That acts as a little bit of a... What is an inhibitory transmitter. It, it can shut down... Just in a, in a small way can reduce the amount of activity in the prefrontal cortex that's involved in planning and action. And so, I think it just makes it easier to turn off thinking, which is what's required to fall asleep. So, I think-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And so, it's not unlike Xanax or Valium, except it's much more mild and a specificity for the GABA receptors, what's really impressive.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 00:42:45].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Whereas those other drugs hit all sorts of things. And so-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... I'm beginning... Y- you know, I, I believe in modern medicine, but I'm beginning to think there's real wisdom in all this herbal stuff, which is not to say that I eat everything that grows out of the ground.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Just to be, just to be clear. But it is, it is 50 milligrams. I was almost reluctant to mention apigenin [00:43:00] until I talked to, uh, your husband, to Kevin on the podcast, because I was afraid [laughs] that it would all get... It would all sell out. Because it's... There's only like one company that makes it on Amazon.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Swanston... Swanson makes it and I have no relationship to them, so hopefully they'll keep it in stock or someone else will start a, a company to make more of it 'cause it's really good stuff.

Dr. Darya Rose:  You're scaring me. Now I feel like I have to go, like [inaudible 00:43:25] [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I've got a, I've got a, I've got a, I've got a safe full of it. No, I'm, I'm kidding.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  But, you should be, be able to find it. So, that... Yeah, that stuff, and then I think... Do you use magnesium and theanine? Are you also a magnesium user?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Dude, I use two kinds of magnesium [laughs]. I use, uh, magnesium threonate.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yep.

Dr. Darya Rose:  And I use a gram of that. Like a full-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  .... About two milligrams of that. And I use magnesium taurate actually, which people don't-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... talk about a lot.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  But... And I couldn't find a ton of data on it to support it, but there's... I... Like, Kevin will, like, dig around in these weird Reddit subreddits and find people who have issues and swear by things, and [00:44:00] apparently a bunch of monks use this stuff to, like-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Uh-huh.

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... [inaudible 00:44:07].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  And I take 250 milligrams of that. And that's just my perfect combo for magnesium. Just those two, and it does not mess up my stomach, and it really, really helps with relaxing.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  I... It's kind of amazing how much it brings down your heart rate.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, so the, the thing about magnesium is really interesting. So, for people who are thinking about using magnesium, so magnesium citrate is an excellent laxative. Not a great sleep aid. Magnesium threonate, T-H-R-E-O-N-A-T-E, or bisglycinate are... And then the... You said it was a t-... A taur- taurate? Or taur-...

Dr. Darya Rose:  Magnesium. Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Magnesium taurate. Yeah, I don't know about taurate, but mad-... Magnesium glycinate and magnesium threonate... The reason they work as a sleep aid is because when you ingest it, it goes into the gut, but it needs a transporter to get into the relevant cells and i- i-... And, and then a metabolite of it actually crosses the blood-brain barrier. So... [00:45:00] And magnesium bisglycinate and threonate are the ones that, uh, get transported into cells most readily. I forget the name of the transporter, but there's a guy at, at UCLA, Professor Jack Feldman. He's a neuroscientist who studies respiration breathing, and he was the one who actually turned me onto this years ago. He's, he's like in his 70s now, and he was saying, "No, you have to see the data on magnesium."

There's also... Uh, and the reason he brought it up was at the time was magnesium threonate and bisglycinate... There's also evidence that they can act as neuroprotectants in aging. Not, not huge effects, right? But they, they can improve neuronal health. And i- it's because t- the pathway that gets stimulated is also... It converges with some of these neurotrophin pathways that keep neuro- neurons alive. So, yeah. I take apigenin and I take magnesium threonate. You mentioned two grams. So what you'll see on the bottle is that they'll be... It'll say like two grams of magnesium, but it'll say 366 milligrams elemental. [00:46:00] So, what you're shooting for is, like, one to three grams of the pure form, and then, the, the smaller value is usually anywhere from, like, two to 400 milligrams. Can be a little confusing just when people start looking at the bottle 'cause you're talking about, you know, a factor of 10.

But... And yeah, I, I think magnesium plus apigenin, and for me, I do take theanine, but I think it's... Th- that's been the magic combo and-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  But you mentioned heart rate. So, people who have heart conditions... You know, sometimes their, their magnesium... 'Cause it's... You know, neurons need magnesium. It can, it can change heart rate, so you want to be careful [inaudible 00:46:41].

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. Yeah, and I do take L-theanine as well. I take... Yeah, I take that right before bed as well. And it... We're also... Yeah. That's like the, the magic three. It really, truly works.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, yeah. That, that combo has cured more sleep issues for more people that I know than anything else. I have one friend who took magnesium threonate once. It gave him really bad stomach aches. He stopped taking it. They went [00:47:00] away. So, I... There, there are these... You know, people have different r- reactions to them, but you d-... And I do it 30 to 60 minutes before bed. Is that when you take it as well?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. Sometimes people ask are those addictive, are they habit forming? There are plenty of times when I've not had access to one or all of those and, and slept fine. I obviously sleep-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... better when I have them. But I wouldn't consider them habit forming. It's... But it's sorta like anything else. Like, is food habit forming? Well, if you don't eat for an entire day and you're not used to that, it's gonna be pretty uncomfortable. Would you... Are you gonna go into tremors and, and... You know, probably not. You know, so I think that it, it doesn't seem like it's addictive in the traditional sense of the word.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. There's, uh... I, I... Yeah. I mean, whenever I try something I always ramp down slowly and then take it from there. [crosstalk 00:47:54]-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  You're, you're much more regimented than I. I'm one these people... Like, the joke among my friends is: people say, "What supplements do you take?" and th-... My friends just usually just say, "All of them. He takes all of them."

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Which is [00:48:00] not true. I, I actually am pretty careful. But, uh... But I, I, I don't tend to taper or do these things. Like, kinda, you know, two pills tonight. Two, you know, three tomorrow or one the next day.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. Well, I'm so scared about ruining my sleep [laughs]. Like, if I'm...

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  That's a pain point that I'm, I'm very careful when I start and stop anything. 'Cause sometimes I, I, I end up, end up taking a lot to see if a higher dose will, will help me more.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  And that's, that's actually worked a few times. But, you know, if something... You know, sometimes I'll take... Get up to something like, "Nah. It didn't really work," and I'll just kinda go back down slow, just in case.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. The nice thing about these, these supplements and the other practices we could discuss too is, you know, they're, they're... There is this sleep anxiety that almost everybody has. Like, if you got woken up in middle the night and you had taken, you know, 200 milligrams or 400 milligrams of... You might worry that you couldn't drive to the hospital if you needed to if your kid was sick or something. Or that you couldn't respond to something in your best form. Whereas, you know, we all... And we hear every now and again of, of, you know, celebrities, like, driving into a pole or something while... Or getting pulled over, and they're not drunk. They took a sleeping pill. [00:49:00] And with what we're talking about, y- you would have no trouble snapping out of that sleep stupor into action if you needed to. And from.... For me, that- that's a big plus. Because even though my, my night times are not filled with sudden alarms, it's just kinda nice to know that nothing... At least for me 'cause it's within my margins of safety, that nothing that I'm taking is going to impair me in the morning. It's not gonna impair me if I need to be responsive in the middle of the night for whatever re-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. 100%.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  So, think that-

Dr. Darya Rose:  And I, I test that regularly [laughs] with my little ones. So...

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, I can imagine. Well, that's great. Sounds like they're sleeping through the night, so [crosstalk 00:49:38].

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, they... You know, they do until, until there's teething or, you know, there's just... Every once in a while, they have a little... Last week, actually, my youngest had a, a thing and I wasn't used to it and I was... It was very uncomfortable. But, yeah, could pop right out of bed, no problem [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  The, The hard part is going back to sleep, because it... You know, when your baby's crying, your heart rate just, just shoots up and it's hard to calm down again.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Well, yeah. And I think that there's pretty good evidence that... You know, when, when parents have kids, [00:50:00] you know, that, you know, for good reason, the majority of their brain circuitry just starts orienting toward their kids' needs and, and they have that... I- It's like they're always running an additional script. Even at a party, they're, they're monitoring in the... You know, in, in, in your sleep-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [crosstalk 00:50:20].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... you're monitoring what's going on. And I think that's def-... I always, uh, joke, but it's not really a fair joke 'cause I'm, I'm not a parent, which is that, you know, evolution doesn't care about the parents. It only cares about the offspring.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And... But that comes... You know, that rings true anytime w- we're feeling that, that kind of heightened level of responsivity. One, one thing that's for me has been a complete game changer and that my lab's working on with David Spiegel, who's our associate chair of psychiatry, is, you know, tools to fall back asleep and tools that you can use in wake... In waking periods to improve sleep and transition time into sleep. And there's a great app called Reveri, R-E-V-E-R-I. R-E-V-E-R-I. Yep, Reveri, which is a-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... A free hypnosis [00:51:00] app. It's Android and Apple, though everyone here is gonna be iPhone. But... And it has a... These 15 minute hypnosis scripts that are led by David and are backed by clinical studies and are backed by research studies. And it... They have one for sleep, one for smoking cessation, one for pain management, and one for anxiety. You can do these when you wake up in the middle of the night. You know, I have permission to announce the Reveri app here. I've been kind of sparingly mentioning here and there.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 00:51:33].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And it's really, really good. And those sorts of clinical hypnosis sessions, you know, cost, 1000s and 1000s of dollars. You have to participate in a study. They've really honed it down to something really clean. The interface is great and it's super easy and you can do it anytime of day. But if you wake up in the middle the night and you're like, "Oh, I have to sleep, I have to sleep," try the sleep hypnosis and just see what happens. And I think most people will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, what I found is those are great, but you... They don't work regularly. So it's like if I tried it, I... At one point, [00:52:00] I tried to do it, and, you know, I had some decent results at the beginning. But when I started doing it every night, it, it sort of lost its effect, so... But now I can use stuff like that and yoga nidra, which you talk about just periodically and-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  And then it, it actually works better for me that way rather than doing it all the time.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. Yeah, yoga nidra is amazing. And I, I... If anyone out there already does it, it's, it's like a non-sleep deep rest. I, I actually... I like the practice so much for stress management that my lab's... You know, got that included in one of the things that we're looking at for stress management and sleep. And if you don't like the whole thing about intentions and... There's a script. If you just go on YouTube, there's an NSDR, so that's Nancy, Sam, Dog, Rabbit. NSDR. And you can find them, and they're just these scripts. They're deep relaxation scripts. And everything I'm, you know, mentioning here obvi- obviously is cost free. I think that, eh... That n- nidra's... Is an amazing practice that they've known about in India for, for centuries. And it's, it's like [00:53:00] take some time each day to teach your nervous system how to relax, so that when you put your head down, if your mind's racing, you can lean on some of the same tools, like exhale, emphasize breathing, and stuff. So, I think learning to relax is a skill. And-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yep.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... and it's, it's probably... I mean, you would know better than I, but it's probably neural plasticity that underlies the ability to, to access that skill. And by the way, when you were doing a lot of VR stuff, maybe you still are, did you, did you guys ever develop a VR game that would teach people to relax? Like, some-... I feel like someone should do that.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm. That's interesting. No, I know that Adam Ghazali was designing, uh... It wasn't VR, but it was a... Sort of a mindfulness app that it... Had some like machine learning type, AI stuff that was... It would, like, learn-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Hmm.

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... and it would adapt to your, your level, which was really cool. I tried that for a bit, but I never... No. We, we don't... I've never worked with VR stuff. I just like to play Supernatural [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  You weren't working on VR in Adam's lab?

Dr. Darya Rose:  No, no. I wasn't. When [00:54:00] I worked... I worked with Adam actually at the, the D'Esposito lab over at Berkeley, and he... We were still doing fMRI stuff over there. When he moved to UCSF, I, I was, like, back in the molecular lab.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Got, got it. Okay. Somehow I thought that... Anyway, d- doesn't matter. I remember when Mark D'Esposito first showed up to Berkeley, when he was a junior-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... young junior professor, who wore a blazer-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... as a junior professor. Folks, you... Nobody, nobody wears blazers as a professor anymore.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  But... At least not in the sciences, but he had the, the, the dignity to do it, so he, he could do it with style. So-

Dr. Darya Rose:  I did want to talk more about the heat... The temperature stuff.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Because, like you mentioned, for me especially, like, exercise is a huge part of my day. And sauna... We do sauna a lot as well. So, when you're thinking about optimizing sleep... And this is something... I mean, I do those things, but I haven't consciously optimized my temperature. Actually, your, your, your podcast has what let me know that temperature was the bigger factor. I was just really focused on light and feeding and activity. So, I'm curious if you're, you know, trying to optimize sleep, how would you think about incorporating those things?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, so, this is... [00:55:00] Temperature is powerful and, and it makes sense, just so.... For those who are curious. Like, why temperature? So, you know, light is the main way that i- is gonna set when you're gonna be awake and when you're going to be asleep. And it's not like light goes through your skin. And you have to see the light with your eyes, with your retinas. But, but the way that it does it is that the light activates this little cluster of neurons above the roof of your mouth called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. But then, those are just neurons and they need to coordinate the activity of your entire body to be awake at a certain time and not other times. So, what it does is it triggers... If you really want to get down to, like, what are the effectors, it triggers the release of cortisol in the morning, which we all think, "Oh, gosh. Cortisol. That's terrible." No. Cortisol is wh- what wakes you up in the morning and makes you alert in the early part of the day. So, you get that cortisol release, but cortisol, its effect is to change temperature in all your tissues. And so, it makes sense when you think, "Oh, every cell in the body needs the same signal," and the, and the global signal in the body is temperature, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 00:56:03].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  That's the one thing that's [00:56:00] essentially the same throughout your body. It, it might vary a tiny bit. So, when you wake up in the morning, your temperature's going up. So, we need to think about temperature going up equates to wakefulness and getting more awake. Now at some point it peaks and you get sleepy in the afternoon. Some people more than others. And then when temperature goes down by a degree or three, then you get sleepy and you fall asleep. So, once you know that, that increasing temperature wakes you up and decreasing temperature puts you to sleep, then you say, "Okay, well, when should I do sauna, when should I do cold dunking?" You say, "Oh, this is obvious. You know, I should get in the ice bath right before sleep and I should heat up in the morning." And it's the exact opposite is true.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And the reason is that we are e- endotherms. We're not like birds or... Or we're not like reptiles, so when... Forgive me for saying birds... When, when... If you get into an ice bath, you heat up. Your internal temperature, provided you don't stay in there too long and it's not 30 degrees, you heat up. You, you [00:57:00] respond by heating up. So anytime your torso gets cold, you're gonna heat up. So, if you want to wake up, you're essentially the... W- When you take a cold shower, you get a shot of adrenaline, but you also... Your body starts to heat up. And, and that's why it gets a little counterintuitive. So if you wake up in the morning, you're having a hard time waking up, cold shower, ice baths will definitely do it.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And you'll boost your body temperature so that after you get out of that cold shower, you'll be more awake. Now in the afternoon if you're a little sleepy and you want to be awake, you could do that too. The sauna is the opposite. So when you get in a sauna and you're like, "Oh, my goodness. It's like 200 or 210," or whatever it is that you put your sauna to. 175. "Oh, my God. It's so hot." Guess what? You're dumping heat. You're vasodilating. You're actually [inaudible 00:57:46]... When you get out, and you take presumably a warm or a cool shower and you dry off, you're dumping heat like crazy and you're going to fall asleep better. So, the simple thing is, sauna in the evening or nighttime, and then cold in the morning. And of course, you can combine them, but we're... Here we're talking about as a [00:58:00] stimulus for sleep.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  So, are you screwed if you do that stuff earlier in the day? Like, how does [inaudible 00:58:09]?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  No. No, because it... And that's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. Because you're not screwed, because you're... The one thing that's absolutely true is that you've got this foundational rhythm of temperature. And so, what we're talking about is putting little blips and dips of temperature on top of that, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Or below that. So, you're, you're going to have this 24 hour oscillation in temperature. Temperature rising in the morning, temperature going down at night. And now, there are ways you can really mess it up. There... Like, for instance, if you were... If you drank a cup o- of... I've done this before. You know, you skip the morning workout and you decide, "I have to work out today," and so at 6 PM you do... You take a double espresso, or you go out and you train really hard. You know, you, you really push it on the whatever, the Peloton or in the gym or whatever. What's gonna happen is you're going to shift your circadian rhythm. But again, you're just shifting it by, you know, [00:59:00] two to four hours. It's... So, if you wake up in the morning and you do sauna and then the cold dunk, all, all I would say is end on the thing that you want. So in the evening-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Hmm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... if you did cold dunk and then sauna and then went to sleep, that's going to be better than sauna then cold dunk then sleep, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 00:59:18].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And in the morning, if you want to wake up, I would do sauna then cold dunk. Then... Or, or, you know, ice bath or whatever it is. Ice shower, whatever the... You know what I mean.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And so, when you start to realize that being in a cold environment allows you to heat up more and being in a hot environment allows you to dump heat, and that lower temperature puts you to sleep and higher or increasing temperatures wake you up, and then you basically have the logic down and you can put... And you can work with that in any, in any format. And then, you... So, it becomes very easy to understand all the other stuff. Like, eating increases thermogenesis a little bit-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Hmm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... and it puts blood in your gut. So generally, eating makes you a little bit more sleepy. And we always think, "Well, we eat for energy." We don't eat for energy. Our neurons are what give us energy, so you have to repack it. So, eating is always going to [01:00:00] slow us down and not eating will always make us more alert, even if it's uncomfortable. So that's kinda the, the... That's kinda the drill. Very few people have ever gone to sleep because they were too hungry, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs]. Right. And exercise is the same thing. Like, it... It's an increase in temperature.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  That's right.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 01:00:22].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And there are ways to play with this. So, for instance, like in the evening, if you want to work out in the evening, you can... You know, you can do light, lower intensity exercise. Or if you really have to work out in the evening, then take a really hot shower. You know, don't scald yourself, but a hot shower afterwards. Then, you know.... And then, get out, dry off, and then you will essentially have given yourself a kind of like metabolic sauna, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, I always... Like, I don't really have a lot of... That's one area I don't have a lot of leeway because I work out when I'm not gonna wake my kids up from their naps [laughs], 'cause I, I work out at home 'cause it's COVID. And so, it's like it has to be at 10 AM. Like, it just... It has to be [laughs]. So...

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  That's [inaudible 01:01:01] time because the, the best t-... I mean, I... If you're thinking about [01:01:00] performance too in terms of... Like, for those of you that are, like, um... Also thinking like how you wor-... You know, your, your performance during these workouts, it's very clear that the best performance comes from an hou-... E- Either an hour after waking up, three hours after waking up, or 11 hours after waking up. And that's-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Oh, wow.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I- It's all body temperature related. One of the things that, that the, that the Special Forces guys do, not just SEALs, but, like, other, other folks in, in Special Forces I've, I've talked to and worked with a little bit, is one of the best things you can do is teach your body to be ready to train whenever. And so, if you're on a really strict regimen and you can follow that, great. But for those of you that don't have a lot of control, it's sort of like whenever you can, squeezing it in, that's great. That- That's... That makes you a very flexible person, and what ends up happening, it's fascinating, is that your temperature, your basal temperature rhythm becomes very robust. You, you default back to it really quickly. Which is great, because that means... You know, if someone wants to work y-... Has a class you want to go to, but don't have... Or you want to work out a [01:02:00] little bit later one day, you have a meeting and i-... You're not... Y- You'll be able to just do what you need to do whenever you need to do it, and your, your temperature rhythm will be more resilient. Sort of like people that eat every three hours on the dot. You take away their, their whatever, their avocado toast and they dissolve into a puddle of tears. And kids are like that, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Kids.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Ghrelin secretion is, like, on the dot. And-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Half an hour. Yeah, like, you, you pass that, like, 10 20 minute mark, and it's all over for food.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Right, right. So, yeah. So that, you know, once, once you understand the temperature part, then, you know, the rest just kinda follows from that, and you definitely want the light first thing in the morning, but the rest just kind of dominoes out from that. And if people are having, like, really serious sleep issues, I always just say, "Okay, wh- what are you doing to shift your temperature?" Right? And, and... 'Cause the mental stuff is harder to diagnose. Oftentimes people are troubled, they've got... You know, like you said, there- there's all sorts of troubling stuff happening in the world. That stuff's, uh, psychological and [01:03:00] it, it takes other kinds of work that certainly I'm not qualified to talk about. But the physiology is really what dominates these sleep rhythms, and, and luckily for, like, this area of neuroscience, unlike other areas, like... As you know, we have... There are great tools. That... They're really-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  The tools work.

Dr. Darya Rose:  That's awesome. Yeah. I actually have one more question before we leave the temperature topic. So, another thing that has helped me, uh, tremendously, and I was just floored at how awesome it is and, uh... I swear these people [inaudible 01:03:33] paying me or sponsoring my show or anything, although they totally should, is, like, adjusting your temperature in your bed at night. So, I got an Eight Sleep. It's this sort of m- mattress cover that... It's separate on both sides, so Kevin and I each have are, are different sides. And it, it cycles you through different temperatures as you sleep. So, right when I get into bed and it... You know, at, like, 9:30 every night, it starts to warm up, which is awesome because it makes my feet warm and it just, you know... Which ends up, like you said earlier, kinda cooling you down-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  And which is good for sleep and it gets me... And I get, like, [01:04:00] amazing, deep sleep. My, my first three hours of sleep, even when I was only sleeping three hours, is like epic deep sleep. It's fantastic [laughs]. But then, a part of the... I think part of me... I wake up and I'm, like, not tired at two in the morning, but what this, what, what this device does is over the course of the night, it drops. And then it drops, and it was an issue for me that I would wake up sometimes really hot and sweaty in the middle of the night, and that has completely stopped. Like, I've dialed it in 'cause it drops me down a couple degrees, and then, kinda right before morning, it ramps... Starts ramping up again and, and it... You naturally wake up 'cause of the heat. And, like, it's been, like, shockingly awesome, but it, it... That- That's just sort of consistent, I assume, with, with what the data would...

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, yeah. I don't use an Eight Sleep, but yeah, they should sponsor your podcast. The, the, I, my, my buddy, Lex Fridman, who has a really great podcast, science podcast, they sponsor his podcast, and he loves that thing. So, the Eight Sleep, I think, is programmable in the right way. So, like, we sleep in these 90 minute [01:05:00] cycles, these ultradian cycles. Basically our whole life is carved up into 90 minute cycles, where early in the night you're getting a lot of slow wave sleep. Like, each one of those 90 minute cycles is mostly slow wave sleep. These big, amplitude delta waves, you know, for those of you that are won- wondering what that means. Just think, um, just think big waves, and then... In the brain... And then, later in the night is the rapid eye movement sleep. And and, everything you're saying now is consistent with what you said before, which is that you were getting less REM sleep than you thought. You're, you're a great early night sleeper. You fall asleep well. You're an early night sleeper. So, your slow wave sleep is great. Your growth hormone releases in slow wave sleep, which is great. That's like tissue repair, all the, all the... All that.

The, the, the temperature rhythms follow these 90 minute rhythms... Cycles. So, one of the things that's kinda cool is... No pun intended... Is that if you were interested in feeling more rested on waking, you try and do that... Uh, wake up not in the middle of one of these 90 minute cycles.

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 01:06:01].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  So, uh, the way this works is, y- you know, [01:06:00] if you go to bed at midnight or, or something... If someone went to sleep at midnight, you're better off waking up at six than at seven, 'cause it's at the end of a nine minute cycle.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And it's not exact. But, so, what I would do is, I, I would probably make the first half of the night, yeah, a little bit warmer, so there's a little toast here in the... On the bed, so that you're dumping heat. And then toward morning, you... If that thing is cooler, then you're heating up, right? And then that's going to drive you towards wakefulness. But not too cold because that's gonna push you to wake up around 3 or 4 AM, which in your, your case is-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... what you're trying to avoid.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right, right.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. It's been great and it's, it's something that is... It's cool to have a tool like that to just keep you more comfortable and to be able to, to manipulate it with what you need. 'Cause I've definitely... Yeah, I've noticed that we've had a couple of hot nights now as, like, we're moving into spring and I definitely had to adjust it, which I could [laughs]. It was great.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. And we're... Like, there was this whole thing about wearing socks, you know? Like, wearing socks, and, and it's true that... Well, we dump more [01:07:00] feet from our... Uh, heat, excuse me, from our extremities when we sleep than we do in the daytime, just 'cause of the way that blood circulates in sleep. Then, some people find benefit to elevating their feet just a little bit, 'cause of the way that it creates this clearance of debris from the brain. I guess as an Apo, ApoE carrier? I always forget that.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. Yeah, [inaudible 01:07:24].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, that might not be a bad idea. They do that now. Military, trying to prevent people-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Hmm.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... from getting TBI and post-concussion blast type stuff is sleeping with your feet flight... Slightly elevated. Um, they're actually using things like inversion tables and things like that. And those things are just fun 'cause you get to hang by your ankles and-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Uh-huh.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... [crosstalk 01:07:41]. And that basically it's all about pushing the cerebral spinal fluid in the lymph system through the brain more quickly in sleep. Anyway, it's just kind of the... There's a lot of stuff now on social media about, you know, a, uh, washing the brain, you know, and it's basically just-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  It happens when you sleep, but it happens a little bit more when your feet are elevated.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Cool. I'm gonna try that tonight. Exciting. All [01:08:00] right. So, I... It's getting a little bit late. I did want to just sort of wrap up the, the supplement thing. I think that was an awesome descript-... Uh, description of the heat and I feel like I get that now. We talked about almost everything. Magnesium, apigenin, l-theanine. And so, vitamin D.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  So, one of the things I've learned during this process is that I am super vitamin D deficient. Uh, like, like, not just insufficient. Like, I have three out of four SNPs, so basically mu-... Point mutations that prevent me from producing vitamin D very well. And, I... You know, and I love the sun. I grew up in Southern California. And I... You, you know, even when I was living in the Bay Area, I was like laying out [laughs] on the roof at UCSF by the pool-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  And, like... And I would do this and without supplements, my vitamin D is like 12 [laughs]. And-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Interesting.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, and I've no-... But I've not... Like, I'm not, like, that.... I hadn't been that great about taking it, but I've noticed that I have to take like... First of all, I have to take a [01:09:00] lot in order to g-... Even be in the normal range. But I've noticed when I do take it and especially if I take it in the morning, which I've seen zero data for and this is 100% anecdotal, but I feel like if I take it in the morning, I sleep better at night. And, you know, to me, that makes sense biologically. It sort of makes sense.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  It's a sunshine, vitamin hormone.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  That makes sense you'd be more awake and you'd sleep better if we were getting it during the day as opposed to in the evening. But I... No, it's, it's very interesting and I did find some evidence that vitamin D help... Can help people with sleep disorders, which, you know, maybe I kind of qualify because I am low vitamin D status. And by the way, a lot of people are low vitamin D status. It's something like 20% of the population or something has pretty-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Wow.

Dr. Darya Rose:  You know, some of these polyneu-... Uh, polymorphisms for, for low vitamin D production. So, it's definitely something I recommend people get tested, because then you need to... You know, you need to calibrate your supp-... Your supplements to, to get yourself in the proper range.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. That's a good point. So that the... I would... You know, and people who have heard me talk before are gonna, like, literally roll [01:10:00] their eyes, 'cause I, I... Probably if I had $1 for every time I said what I'm about to say, I'd be wealthy, which is getting some sunlight in your eyes within an hour of waking is so vital to so many important biological processes. And if it's cloudy out, you're still better off getting sunlight through clouds than you are artificial light, because it's an order of magnitude-

Dr. Darya Rose:  How 'bout the winter, by the way? I wanted to ask you about that. What... Like, where I live now, it's, it's really dark, like, in the winter. From, like-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, so what I do-

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... 4 PM till, like, 8:30 [laughs] in the morning.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. So, the morning... I mean, obviously the brighter it is, the less, you know, you have to be outside to get this. But I would say, you know, sunglasses off in the morning. Not through a window. They... There's a fun, little experiment, uh, people can do at home. There's an, there's an app called Light Meter, which is a free app that allows you to... You just hold your thumb down and you can look at how many lux is in a given environment. And you can put it right next to a really bright office lamp or overhead lamp in your house and it'd be like 200 lux. And then you look through the window outside at a... You know, at a Oregon skyline in, [01:11:00] let's say, the fall, in the morning, and it'll say 2000 lux. And when you open that window, you don't even move, and it'll say 10, 10,000 like lux.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Crazy.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  So... And that's just because there's so much photons scattered. Now if you wake up early before the sun comes out or you're in a really dark environment, so it's like rainy... Like, like, rainy, dark day, there's a great tool, which is... I don't recommend people buy these sunrise simulators for the, for the reason that they're really expensive for what they are. They're basically just a blue light and/or an LEDs. But... So, I, I found this thing and I have no affiliation to these, just called LightPad 930 LX. It was on the Amazon. I think it was like 50 bucks. And I just put it on my desk and I turn it on anytime I wake up, and I just go to my computer and it's right there. And it just... It... And it brings to mind something also important which is that people are really blue light averse. They're like, "Oh, no. Blue light, blue blockers." The last thing you ever want to do is block blue light early in the day and throughout the day. That's when you want to get tons of blue light-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Right. [crosstalk 01:12:02].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Ideally, you get in sunlight, but you want a [01:12:00] ton of blue light because that's what's gonna stimulate these wakeful circuits and they're gonna set your brain for sleep in the evening. You just want to avoid bright lights and overhead lights and blue lights and screen lights and stuff starting in the evening, around eight and definitely as much as possible between like 10 PM and 4 AM t-... 'Cause you can really mess yourself up and jet lag yourself with, with that.

But, I, I feel like the blue blocker thing has gone, like, bananas and people are like, "Oh, blue light is bad." Or that's like saying, you know, you know, fat is bad or dietary fat is bad. It's like n- no. It's a question of timing, amounts, and, and quality. And so, I would just say that D3 is simulating some of the sunlight, but it's probably... I don't think it could replace it. I mean, if anything, getting more light with the D3 is gonna, is gonna help, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  I mean, yeah. I, uh... I love the light in the morning, and, uh, we've got massive big windows that we keep open and it's great. But, yeah. No, that was just a weird thing I noticed and I thought it would just be interesting to discuss. The other supplement that I use that there's very little data for, but does seem to weirdly help me [01:13:00] is Lion's Mane.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Oh, yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  And it specifically increases my REM sleep.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  And I wouldn't even be talking about this if it... The effect wasn't so dramatic.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Darya Rose:  Like, if it was just, like, I was gaining 20 minutes of REM sleep, I'd be like, "Eh, it could just be my brain hallucinating something." I go from like 30 minutes of REM sleep at night to, like, close to two hours. That's the difference when I take Lion's Mane-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  That's great.

Dr. Darya Rose:  ... before bed. It's... Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. I take a little tincture, and I... You know, I don't know how much-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  When do you, when do you take it?

Dr. Darya Rose:  I take it, like, at... Kind of before I... In, like, winding down for bed, so it's usually about 9 PM. And then, I'm usually in bed by like 9:30 or 10.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, L-... I mean, what I know about... That's interesting. What I know about Lion's Mane is... You know, it's an anxiolytic, so it can just kinda shut down thinking and ruminating a bit. You know, that second phase of sleep, we haven't really talked a lot about is dominated by REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. And that's the time when you're paralyzed, your brain... Your dreams are really intense. It i-... It is a time when there's a heavier emotional load to the dreams, and what's super [01:14:00] interesting is, is during that time the body and brain can't release adrenaline. And so, it's a lot like exposure therapy that you give yourself every night in sleep. It's like you're... You know, different days are more troubling than others, but as you know, like, the brain has to data dump. It has to, like, decide what is unimportant. And it's really interesting. If you deprive people only of REM sleep, they start to overweigh the emotional significance of things. Like, it's hard to forget about the thing that person said-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... or the thing that was done, and you... We tend to-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Oh, you get irritated.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. Really irritate. People fall apart, right?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I mean, it's just that... It's that, like, "Oh, my God." And then when you give people REM... Sufficient REM sleep, they have a more balanced view of what's important to them. And now, obviously, trauma is kind of a extreme example where y- you need additional measures to unload the emotional container around an experience. But g- getting sufficient REM sleep, that's great that, that you can do that. I think a, a lot of people [01:15:00] are hopefully able to fall asleep and are getting that slow wave sleep, but are, are not getting enough REM. I haven't tried, I haven't tried Lion's Mane in that context, so I'm... But I'm going to.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. And I should say that I would not know any of this again if it weren't for the Oura Ring. Like, I have no idea if getting [laughs] sleep or deep sleep, but I have this-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Right.

Dr. Darya Rose:  I've had this baseline data for a long time. [inaudible 01:15:23] wearing it for years. So...

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Well, I do think we're starting to enter the era where measuring sleep, and you know, hopefully blood work will start to become more affordable for, for people and more accessible. I mean, it's just absolutely criminal that, that most people can't figure out what's going on, uh, in terms of their biology because they... You need like a... You need a problem before the doctor will do that.

But... You know, one thing that's interesting is... I've noticed that women seem to be more in tune with these biological shifts in a... And more sen-... Like more able to d-... Understand how things are affecting them, probably because they cycle and they're used to understanding shifts in temperature, shifts in hormones across each month or so. And so, [01:16:00] it doesn't take... I, I raise that point because it doesn't take long to develop an intuition about how supplements and practices are affecting us if you manipulate just like two or three things at a time. I, I don't think people have to do single variable manipulations like, "Oh, I have to do theanine for a month, and then apigenin for a month, and then light for a month." You know, if you're having trouble sleeping, nothing's more important than sleep. Like, figure out what you need and then remove things one at a time. That's what I always say for myself. But that's, that's interesting. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try Lion's Mane.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Cool. I... Andy, do you have a little bit more time for a couple of these questions?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Sure.

Dr. Darya Rose:  I have to go at 6:30, pretty sharp, but-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  You bet.

Dr. Darya Rose:  But I think we have a few in here. Cool.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Let's see. Hannah, are you still there?

Hannah:  Can you hear me?

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah, go for it.

Hannah:  All right. Thank you guys so much. Darya, I've been a fan for a long time, so this is wonderful. And Andy, this has been great. Okay. My question goes back to... You talked way back about, like, recovering sleep that you've lost during the day. I'm speaking from waking up this morning at 5 AM, not [01:17:00] my natural sleep time and couldn't fall back to sleep and I've been struggling all day. So, wondering kind of what are those practical ways to make up for lost sleep?

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 01:17:12]. Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, so... Yeah, so given that I hardly ever get enough sleep these days 'cause of this dog thing that I'm dealing with, I, I rely heavily on this. Did this today from 4 to 4:30. I found a quiet place. I lie down. I put on headphones and I either do the Reveri script on hypnosis, or I do NSDR non-sleep deep rest, or I do a yoga nidra, um, practice. There's tons of them on YouTube. You just have to find a voice that's pleasant to you. That's what I would use as my guide. And there's some names... Liam Gillen has this really nice Irish voice. My sister loves him. I think she might actually be in love with him. My... From having done so many Liam Gillen-led nidras. Kamini Desai, D-E-S-A-I. I've never met these people. I love her voice. Puts me under into this kind of hypnotic sleep state. I come out of that and people in our lab who've used these, [01:18:00] you know, as part of a study, come out of that feeling as if they've slept four or five hours. It's an amazing reset. And what's wonderful is you don't actually sleep. If you fall asleep, it's okay. But typically, the idea is to be deeply relaxed but awake or in a shallow trough of sleep.

So, if you hit the evening and you've been grinding all day, just go to sleep. If, if you're tired enough to go to sleep. But if you have to push on, for whatever reason, just try and squeeze it in at some point during the day. And I will just say one additional thing about this: if you wake up in the morning, you know, and you didn't get enough sleep. You were up too much the night before, for whatever reason, or went to bed too late for whatever reason, do the nidra first thing on waking. Or do the NSDR first thing on waking. Or do the hypnosis first thing on waking, and you will be far better off throughout the day. I'll, I'll stand behind that statement.

Dr. Darya Rose:  That's good to know. I did not know that. Thank you.

Hannah:  Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  You're both welcome.

Dr. Darya Rose:  You're welcome, Hannah. All right. Roy.

Roy:  How you doing? Great, great. [01:19:00] Fascinating stuff. I love it. I've been, uh, following you and Kevin and Tim Ferriss and sort of the bio hacking gang for a while. I'm wondering if you guys have played with Sensi. It's a vagus nerve stimulator that has kinda blown me away. It, it, it, it literally rests on your sternum, if you haven't played with it, and it, and it has an... Uh, a sound function, and then a vibratory function on your, on your vagus nerve.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Hmm.

Roy:  And it... It's just incredible and it puts me into... So, I meditate every day with a Muse headband and the Sensi puts me into something between meditation and sleep. I'm not-

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Roy:  Like, I often get... I often fall asleep with it, but I was just wondering if know about it, if you've played with it? And, and you mentioned the vagus nerve earlier, so I was just wondering how that might relate?

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  [crosstalk 01:19:49].

Dr. Darya Rose:  I'm not familiar with it, but it sounds cool.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah. It sounds very cool. I mean, the, the, the stage of, of alertness, um, that you refer to sounds a lot like what one experiences in these NSDR hypnosis [01:20:00] or yoga nidra-like states. Somewhere between sleep and awake. You know, that they're good... There's good evidence and there's a great book called Altered Traits, not Altered States, about the science of meditation, where if one has the discipline to do 20 minutes of meditation twice a day, you can really reduce your sleep need. That's been shown and, and it sounds very meditative. And you know, a lot of breathing practices associated with meditation are going to be vagal activating. But I... I'm not familiar with it, but I'll check it out and I'll just also use this as an opportunity to say that I too was brought to bio hacking through The Darya Rose, Tim Ferriss, Kevin Rose axis-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... when I was a postdoc. It was the first time. I was always just kind of pedal to the metal. I exercise, I took some supplements, but that was the first time I ever thought about doing some of this stuff seriously and, and approach... And it's actually shaped the way that... Like, the science that my lab is doing. And I think I'll just use this opportunity to embarrass Kevin and Darya and... By saying, like, thank you for being pioneers in doing what, you know, 10 [01:21:00] years ago people thought was kind of, uh, wacky. Now everybody has moved over to this thing of, like, "How can we do better by paying attention to, like, what the body needs in response to...?" So, anyway, I just wanted to use that-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [inaudible 01:21:17].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  I want to bridge off your question. You guys are-

Dr. Darya Rose:  That makes me so happy [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  You guys are [crosstalk 01:21:20]-

Dr. Darya Rose:  I'm not shouting into the wind.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  And definitely pioneers, you know? And, and I think that in the science community and in the tech community and in other communities, I think that there was a, there was a culture of just... Like, if you did something that wasn't like an FDA approved pharmaceutical, people were like, "Whoa, that's weird. That's a magic carpet thing." But that's completely changed because of the level of intellect and rigor that people like Darya and Kevin and Tim, who I don't personally know, but I know they're, they're friends with, have brought to it. So, I just want to say, you know, that, that you're, you're right. I think this... I don't like the term bio hacking because it always sounds like somebody's getting chopped up, and it, and it tends to go-

Dr. Darya Rose:  [laughs].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... in the other direction. But a-... But, but anyway, that, that's that.

Roy:  Yeah. I... The other thing I was gonna mention, which has been, [01:22:00] uh, pretty revolutionary for me is, like, I notice that, like, some of the best sleep I've ever gotten is when I'm camping and whatnot, and that classic temperature of going down and whatnot. And just opening up the window... I mean, if you live in an area, clearly, that's not like a city that has noise all night, but just cracking that window, the fresh air and the temperature dropped, that's generally natural depending on where you are, is really impactful. It's pretty good.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Super.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, you'll-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Thanks for your question, Roy.

Roy:  Thanks.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Yeah, you'll love this. There's a study done by a, a lab at the University of Colorado that we all wish we could be in where they took students and graduate students camping. And one, one night in... Sleeping in the wilderness, where they let the sun guide their waking and sleep, or even just going into their tents even though they had flashlights, reset their melatonin and cortisol rhythms for, like, two weeks. So that-

Dr. Darya Rose:  Wow.

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  ... when they went back to "normal".... Coll-... Normal college life, screens and whatnot, they... Their rhythms were readjusted. So, I think what you just described that there... You know, the sun was our... Is our... There's a reason why every cell in our [01:23:00] body has a 24 hour rhythm. It's 'cause the Earth spins once every 24 hours.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Yeah. Awesome. Well, I wish we could take more questions, but I gotta go put my little monkeys down for bed. But in case you missed it at the beginning, I launched a new podcast. It's called The Darya Rose Show. You can learn more about it at daryaroseshow.com, and that is where... It'll probably be a couple weeks before I get this up, but that is where you'll be able to hear the recording of this. And you can also go over there even now and... Or tweet at me or whatever. If you have questions, you can tweet at Andy or I or ask on Instagram, and I'm happy to answer any questions later. I just have to [laughs]... I just have to go deal with some stuff now. And then... Yeah. Um, I'm really excited. Thank you, Andy, for talking with me about this. I think we should do this all the time. [crosstalk 01:23:46].

Dr. Andrew Hub...:  Well, I... Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on. I'm super excited about your podcast and I... It's especially fun for me to chat, uh, bio hacking, for lack of a better word, sleep and sleep optimization in science with, with a fellow scientist, so thank you. And, and thanks to you and to Kevin for the technical support and [01:24:00] we'll do it again anytime you want.

Dr. Darya Rose:  Sounds great. All right, everybody. Thank you for joining us. And, uh, yeah. Keep an eye out for the show recording. It'll be out in three weeks.

Thank you so much and I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to learn more from Andy, I highly recommend you subscribe to his podcast, The Huberman Lab Podcast. There is so much there to learn. It's amazing information. And the lightweight version, of course, is his Instagram, which is @hubermanlab on Instagram. And it's super fun, super easy to digest, and fantastic information for free.

I'd also love to hear from you about how you liked this format. So, we recorded this episode on the Clubhouse app. And when we recorded it, uh, several weeks ago, it actually wasn't available yet to Android users, which was a total bummer, but it actually is now. It's opened up to Android. So, we could do more of this. I could have Andy on and we could talk about different things, or I could talk to someone else [laughs] and banter about something else. I thought it was really fun and one of the things I really [01:25:00] like about it is there is this Q&A format. We didn't get a ton of it in this episode 'cause we ran out of time, but potentially we can do episodes with a lot more Q&A live. So if that's interesting to you, please let me know. Shoot me a, a message on Instagram. I'm @daryarose on Instagram. Or on twitter, I'm @summertomato. Or shoot me a, a note on my contact form on daryaroseshow.com. Thank you so much guys and I'll see you next time.