The Science of Sleep: Why You're up at 3AM — And Why Worrying About It Makes It Worse | Sara Mednick
5/13/202653 min
Sara Mednick is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of the book The Power of the Downstate. This episode is part of our month-long "Mental Health Reboot" series to mark Mental Health Awareness Month.
This episode is from our archives.
In this episode we talk about:
- The nuances of napping
- Dr. Mednick's definition of the "downstate"
- Whether there are practices that can compensate for poor sleep
- Why heart rate variability is an important measurement of health
- Why sex is so helpful for sleep
- And when to take melatonin to best effect
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Harris· Host0:00
[upbeat music] This is the Ten Percent Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. [upbeat music] Hello, my fellow suffering beings. How we doing today? If you are interested in getting more and better sleep, there may be a temptation to think about it as strictly a nighttime endeavor. However, my guest today says you cannot think about improving your sleep just in the minutes before you go to bed. Her, uh, neuroscientific research has led her to conclude that we need to think about sleep more holistically and as just one of the body's ways of resting and restoring. Dr. Sarah Mednick is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine. She's also written a book called The Power of the Down State. In this conversation, we talk about what the down state is, the nuances of napping, what the science says about who should and should not take naps, whether there are practices that can compensate for a bad night's sleep, why heart rate variability is an important measure of your health, why sex is so helpful for sleep, when and how and whether to take melatonin, and much more. Just to say, I first did this interview way back in, uh, twenty twenty-two, but I'm pulling it out of the archives today because we are in the middle of what we in the Ten Percent