GUEST SERIES | Dr. Matt Walker: How to Structure Your Sleep, Use Naps & Time Caffeine

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab guest series, where I and an expert guest discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today marks the third episode in our six episode series, All About Sleep, with expert guest, Dr. Matthew Walker. During today's episode, we discuss how to structure your sleep for optimal mental health, physical health and performance. We discuss monophasic sleep schedules, which are the more typical sleep schedule where you go to sleep at night and then wake up in the morning. So sleeping in one bout, as opposed to polyphasic sleep schedules, which are when you sleep in two or more bouts, either at night or perhaps a shorter bout of sleep at night and another bout of sleep during the day. We also discuss naps, including how to nap, how long your nap should be, whether or not naps are good or bad, in particular, whether or not they're good or bad for you. It turns out this varies according to individual. We also discuss how your needs for sleep and naps vary across the lifespan. And we discuss body position during sleep, which might seem excessively detailed, but it turns out that body position during sleep is critical for ensuring that the sleep you get is optimally restorative. As with the first two episodes of this six episode series, today's third episode is filled with both science, that is the biology of sleep and napping and body position and how those relate to one another, as well as practical tools that you can use to vastly improve your sleep. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out online. I've been doing therapy for well over 30 years. Initially, I had to do therapy against my will, but of course, I continue to do it voluntarily over time because I really believe that doing regular therapy with a quality therapist is one of the best things that we can do for our mental health. Indeed, for many people, it's as beneficial as getting regular physical exercise. The great thing about BetterHelp is that it makes it very easy to find a therapist that's optimal for your needs. And I think it's fair to say that we can define a great therapist as somebody with whom you have excellent rapport, somebody with whom you can talk about a variety of different issues, and who can provide you not just support, but also insight. And with BetterHelp, they make it extremely convenient so that it's matched to your schedule and other aspects of your life. If you'd like to try BetterHelp, you can go to betterhelp.com/huberman to get 10% off your first month. again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman.
Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means plenty of the electrolytes, magnesium, potassium and sodium and no sugar. As I mentioned before on this podcast, I'm a big fan of salt. Now I want to be clear. People who already consume a lot of salt or who have high blood pressure or who happen to consume a lot of processed foods that typically contain salt need to control their salt intake. However, if you're somebody who eats pretty clean and you're somebody who exercises and you're drinking a lot of water, there's a decent chance that you could benefit from ingesting more electrolytes with your liquids. The reason for that is that all the cells in our body, including the nerve cells, the neurons, require the electrolytes in order to function properly. So we don't just want to be hydrated, we want to be hydrated with proper electrolyte levels. With element, that's very easy to do. What I do is when I wake up in the morning, I consume about 16 to 32 ounces of water, and I'll dissolve a packet of element in that water. I'll also do the same when I exercise, especially if it's on a hot day and I'm sweating a lot, and sometimes I'll even have a third element packet dissolved in water. If I'm exercising really hard or sweating a lot, or if I just noticed that I'm not consuming enough salt with my food. If you'd like to try element, you can go to drinkelement, spelled lmnt.com/huberman, to claim a free element sample pack with your purchase. again, that's drinkelement, lmnt.com/huberman.