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allergy. Thanks a lot. We love you.

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Oh, hey. It's your invisible aligners.

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You don't wear anywhere near twenty two

0:53

hours a day, and they know it. And you know

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it. Alie back with another episode

0:58

of Ologies. I'm alive y'all. I

1:00

slept so many hours over

1:02

the last couple of weeks. Dealing with this flu.

1:05

Who? When are you listening to this?

1:07

Are you turning the coffee pod on and

1:09

feeding the dog? Are you on the seven

1:11

AM train to work? Is it your lunch

1:13

break and you have half a burrito, spending

1:15

slowly in the microwave? Maybe the sun

1:18

is setting while you walk to your car. Are you

1:20

nursing a human who has decided to snack on

1:22

your boobage at four AM? At least once

1:24

a day, it seems we look at a clock.

1:27

And we're cranky about it. Myself, very

1:29

much so all the time. So we

1:31

are here to talk about why. But first, we're gonna

1:33

talk about you saying thank you so much for supporting

1:35

via patreon dot com slash for

1:38

sending in your questions. That way, for

1:40

wearing Ologies shirts and hats from

1:42

allergies merch dot com. We have some great

1:44

new designs up. By the by and for

1:46

telling friends and maybe foes

1:48

in laws about Ologies, keeping

1:51

it up in the charts By rating it and subscribing

1:53

on all of your devices, and, of course, for

1:55

leaving a review. You know, I'm gonna work them just

1:57

like a gentle happy creep. So I can read

1:59

one back to

2:00

you. And I'm just gonna sneak in here with a fresh one

2:02

from twenty twenty three, from Ken Yari

2:04

Ruth fourteen who wrote Listening to

2:06

this podcast makes me feel like I'm meeting my after school

2:08

PBNJ and watching my favorite Disney

2:10

Nat Geo Animal Planet Show. Thank

2:13

you, Ken Yohri Bruce fourteen. That

2:15

is exactly how I want it to feel. Also, I would

2:17

like a sandwich currently. Also, as long as

2:19

we're doing a little bit of fresh info,

2:22

Just a side note, if anyone is going to WonderCon

2:24

in Anaheim this month, I will

2:26

be there Friday, March twenty fourth

2:29

twenty twenty three for a six PM

2:31

panel about climate change and art

2:33

with my friends from the organization functional magic,

2:35

who make collectible climate solutions,

2:38

gig posters, and donate proceeds to reinforce

2:40

charities. And we have a whole episode with

2:42

my friend, Andy Hall. I'll link on the show notes.

2:45

So I'll be there leaving a

2:46

panel. So if you're at WonderCon or you're thinking

2:48

about going, come to our panel Friday, March twenty

2:50

fourth at six PM and say hello. Okay. Anyway,

2:53

Chronobiology comes from, you guessed

2:55

it, our Greek friends. Always putting things

2:57

in our word holes. So Kronos means means

3:00

the study of life. So it's a very real branch

3:02

for science dedicated to understanding

3:05

how temporal rhythms affect

3:07

life. And that can be such as

3:09

daily or weekly or seasonal

3:12

or annual rhythms. And circadian rhythms,

3:14

spray that down. Cerca means around

3:17

Dia a day. So those are the kind

3:19

that a lot of us might be most bent

3:21

about because those are the daily rhythms. We're

3:23

gonna get into it. So this Alie I

3:25

know from Twitter, she hosts the podcast Endocrine

3:28

Disruptors, which dives into things like

3:30

your adrenal glands, and your ovaries

3:32

and your nards and how your hormones

3:34

get checked. So she got her bachelor's

3:37

degree in biology at the University

3:39

of Tennessee focusing on Biochem

3:41

and her Masters at Northwestern's Chronobiology

3:45

With the focus, unevenness, sex differences

3:48

and circadian influence on alcoholic induced

3:50

Alie weakness and implications for alcoholic liver

3:52

disease. She loves this stuff. So since

3:54

this interview, she's gotten her PhD at

3:56

the University of Illinois at Urbanix campaign

3:58

and scored a job at the National Institute

4:01

of Alie and Infectious Diseases

4:04

as a health science policy

4:05

analyst. And she says her

4:07

first research love is circadian

4:10

Ologies, but she's also fascinated by

4:12

how hormones affect and are affected

4:14

by daily patterns. So we get into

4:16

it. Now, I wasn't able to make it

4:18

to Illinois to record this, but I was

4:20

thirsty as hell for this topic. Quite frankly,

4:23

I needed to be scared straight. When it came

4:25

to my shitty sleep patterns. They're so

4:27

shitty. They're so bad. So

4:29

she graciously crammed herself into

4:31

the world's tiniest sound booth in Illinois

4:33

on a hot July day and we chatted

4:35

over video screen about what happens

4:37

in our brain when we sleep when we

4:39

don't sleep, we talk about jet lag and alarm

4:42

clocks and how rest affects your gonads

4:44

and phenotypes and giraffes

4:46

and eye masks and early birds,

4:48

and night owls, and botox, and

4:50

light pollution, so go tuck yourself in.

4:52

And let's wade together into the comfortable

4:54

darkness. With Chronobiology, Now,

4:58

doctor Catherine Hatcher.

5:18

Hi. You're here. Hey.

5:21

We've put you in a tiny booth across the

5:23

country. Yeah. And it's

5:26

Midwest Summer, which means it's pot as

5:28

balls outside. I'm so

5:30

sorry. It's alright.

5:32

Both character. Yeah. Brain.

5:34

Yeah. Brain. Brain. Brains. And

5:37

so now you are a

5:39

neuroscience. Student.

5:42

Correct?

5:42

Yes. Are

5:44

you you're getting your PhD in neuroscience? Yes.

5:46

I am. Oh, my god. How did that

5:48

happen? Oh, jeez. So

5:51

I was one of those kids in

5:53

college who thought I wanted to go to medical

5:55

school and I joined this lab that

5:58

they were studying the impacts of

6:00

different compounds on circadian

6:02

rhythms and looking at very basic science

6:05

questions. And so

6:07

I joined this lab and I just wanted

6:09

to do it to boost my resume. And

6:13

I got about halfway

6:16

through that semester and I was Alie screw medical

6:18

school. I don't like people. And

6:21

I realized how much I really enjoyed scientific

6:23

research while The world did not

6:25

agree with me and I didn't get

6:27

into graduate school when I first applied.

6:31

I know I do, like, six. Schools

6:34

and nobody accepted me.

6:37

And that happens. And so I

6:40

went and taught high school actually for a couple

6:42

of years. And then

6:44

decided to go back to school to get my

6:46

master's, so I did a master's in neurobiology.

6:49

And during that time, I applied to PhD

6:51

programs again, and got in

6:54

to two out of the four I applied. Nice.

6:57

And one of them was one that I had applied

6:59

to originally, and I was you guys didn't

7:01

sent me the first time. I'm

7:03

the same person. But

7:06

I knew that I wanted to this was actually my

7:08

top

7:08

program, so I'm at the University of Illinois.

7:11

Down in organic campaign, which is

7:13

basically just a bunch of corn fields

7:15

and soybean fields. So Katherine's

7:17

worked on various neurobiology projects

7:20

while there. But her PhD dissertation

7:22

by the by is studying this class of compounds

7:24

found in plastics and polyvinyl

7:27

chloride and in makeup and fragrances

7:30

to see how exposure to them affects

7:32

sleep quality and depression in

7:34

women who are starting to go through the

7:36

menopause or like myself whose

7:38

ovaries quit early randomly. So

7:40

these compounds are called Thalates,

7:43

and that word starts with a PHTH,

7:46

and phthalates appear to

7:48

be just potentially terrible for

7:50

your body and your ecosystem. But

7:52

they are awesome for a game of scrabble

7:55

when you just had so many h's.

7:57

Going back, you couldn't

7:59

have always been interested in neuroscience as

8:01

tight because you can't really poke brains as

8:03

a as Alie

8:04

one. When did you get interested in science?

8:07

So I'll be hundred percent honest. I wasn't,

8:09

like, the worst one

8:11

of the worst people for this story because

8:13

I hated science for a very long

8:16

time. So this is great.

8:19

Yeah. I guess it's interesting. But

8:22

I I've always been fascinated

8:25

by animals and I've always loved animals and

8:28

I should Hatcher I think, my

8:30

sophomore year of high school

8:33

at my school district we took

8:35

biology so I remember taking

8:37

biology and doing dissections and

8:39

stuff, and we got to dissect

8:41

fetal pigs, and this is almost,

8:43

but whatever. So

8:46

it was myself and two other people in a group

8:48

dissecting this fetal pig. And then

8:50

the teacher was if you get the

8:52

brand out and like, good quality,

8:55

then you get bonus points. So there I have,

8:57

like, challenge accepted. And

9:00

then I just the two

9:02

guys that were in my group, they were, like, nope, not

9:04

touching that. And I was, like, fine. It's

9:06

gonna be me. So then it was me

9:08

doing it. But then III

9:10

thought at the time or

9:13

I by the way, I did get the brain out and

9:15

it was beautiful and my teacher was impressed.

9:18

How did you do

9:19

it? Did you have to crack it Alie a coconut?

9:21

Yes. There's Alie an art to cracking

9:23

skulls.

9:27

Are you ready for Katherine Hatcher? Get

9:29

ready for Katherine Hatcher? So you got this

9:32

pig brain out? Yes. I so I got this pig

9:34

brain out. That's my first remembrance

9:36

of like anything related

9:38

to brain that fascinated me, but it was

9:40

more from a curiosity mechanical

9:43

standpoint. But I was also one

9:45

of those kids that was super fascinated

9:47

by, like, weird medical mysteries and

9:49

stuff. So I had this interest

9:51

in medicine and physiology

9:54

and and this curiosity about it,

9:56

but I thought that I

9:59

didn't think that science was anything

10:01

beyond medicine? Like, I didn't understand

10:03

what science was. My parents I'm

10:06

like, my dad's a lawyer. My mom's an art teacher.

10:08

They have no idea,

10:09

like, anything about science. So

10:11

Katherine loved writing and being creative,

10:13

but took an undergrad class in

10:15

how muscles work and thought, well, this shit's

10:18

cool. I'll just go to medical school. Which

10:20

turned into Mhmm. I'll study biochemistry,

10:22

which turned into weight. I love psychology and

10:24

human behavior too. So maybe neuroscience

10:27

is like all of that.

10:28

Yeah, I thought the questions were fascinating. I

10:31

have some people in my family who have

10:34

alcohol addiction, and so this

10:37

concept of, like, how does alcohol affect

10:39

the brain has been something that's been really interesting

10:42

to me. Mhmm. Just as for from

10:44

a more personal standpoint, And

10:46

so I was kind of trying to slowly

10:48

pursue those questions and then real it

10:50

was this realization that, oh, science

10:52

can be a career. You don't just have to be about

10:55

a local doctor or a veterinarian or

10:59

a pharmacist or something to be

11:01

in science. You can do so many other

11:03

things. So time, as always,

11:05

is taken. So let's get to the nitty gritty

11:08

of chronobiology. What is

11:10

a circadian

11:10

rhythm? How do you describe that to someone? So

11:13

my favorite way to describe circadian rhythms

11:15

is that they are they

11:18

are behaviors or biological processes

11:21

that exhibit some sort of twenty four

11:23

hour pattern, which means we

11:25

see the same approximate

11:28

peak and trough in that pattern

11:30

every single day. So some

11:32

examples of what these would be, I

11:34

think the most common people think of as sleep

11:37

and wake activity because that's

11:39

obviously the most interesting

11:41

to us just immediately, we

11:43

quote unquote Alie at the same time

11:45

every day and quote

11:48

unquote, get up at the same time every day.

11:50

Humans are weird because we can be

11:52

conscious and make choices about when we get

11:54

up or go to sleep. But generally

11:57

most species, they go get up and

11:59

go to bed at around the same time every

12:01

day. Is that just because that's when

12:03

night falls and their kind

12:05

of more vulnerable?

12:08

Yeah. So there's some thought that,

12:11

you know, your circadian rhythm at least with

12:13

a lot of wild species or wild

12:15

animals is gonna depend on whether

12:17

or not you're a predator or prey

12:20

and what you are hunting, what

12:22

food is of interest to you. So an owl

12:24

is going to be awake at night because

12:26

it hunts mice, which are also up at night

12:29

for the most part, most of them. And

12:31

so the owl is gonna, of course, be

12:34

nocturnal because that's when it's food

12:36

is available. Guys, soup's

12:38

on. Humans, you

12:41

know, I think we have

12:43

not adapted to be functional at

12:45

night. Most of we're kind of weird.

12:48

We've evolved to be able

12:51

to make the choice of when we wanna get up or go

12:53

to bed? But

12:55

for the most part, our

12:56

food, we were able to hunt during

12:58

the day or, you know, at the

13:00

late parts of the day or now you just take

13:02

the Yelp app and you just toggle

13:05

open now. Yeah. You're like, what are my

13:07

options

13:07

here? Seven eleven? Fine.

13:10

Yeah. What's what's on Uber Eats today?

13:12

What's whose

13:14

delivery fee is the cheapest right now.

13:19

I know. I wonder if that means it people

13:21

say in New York where they have more open

13:24

late options tend to have a

13:26

different sleep cycle than people and say,

13:28

sedona, which I visited and

13:30

their late night eating options are shit.

13:32

I ate fruit salad from Circle k after

13:35

a

13:35

wedding, stocked Sedona

13:37

on blast. So, like, did you get

13:39

married in Sedona have a late night food

13:41

option at your wedding? Oh, god.

13:44

Yes. Oh, my god. Starving.

13:48

Yo. I drove around Sedona, Arizona at

13:50

ten PM. Nothing was open. I went

13:52

back to my hotel. I had to eat the inside

13:54

of a soggy tuna wrap with

13:56

a spork in a cocktail gown.

13:58

It was a beautiful wedding, though. They're still married.

14:01

I still like them. Also, a circadian

14:03

rhythm is something internally driven,

14:06

but diurnal rhythms are just regarding

14:08

the day or night cycle. So an

14:10

outside factor light or

14:12

temperature that affects your internal circadian

14:15

rhythms, that's called a light

14:17

keyboard which sounds like an Austrian

14:19

word for like a wool bonnet or an

14:22

analope saddle. But yes, okay,

14:24

light. But do you think that

14:26

our environment even in the city versus

14:29

a rural area changes the way that we Alie?

14:31

Absolutely. Alie? I

14:33

think and I don't I

14:36

there's probably some evidence in

14:38

some research done looking

14:40

at the differences between rural and urban

14:43

populations. But I

14:45

think there's kind of two major

14:47

drivers, one of them being light,

14:49

and then one of them being food availability. But

14:51

I think Probably the biggest

14:54

difference especially with humans is gonna be the

14:56

difference between light exposure. While there

14:58

might be some light

15:01

out in the country. It's not gonna be as

15:04

intense and bright as

15:07

you know, in the city where it's everywhere.

15:10

You can't get away from it.

15:12

Okay. So I ventured into the wilderness of research.

15:14

And I stumbled onto one twenty

15:17

fourteen Portuguese study titled

15:19

differences in circadian patterns between

15:21

rural and urban populations. An epidemiological

15:24

study in the countryside. So after analyzing

15:27

sleep questionnaires of a few thousand people,

15:29

these Portuguese scientists found that Compared

15:31

with the urban population, the rural population

15:34

had earlier sleep patterns, Nudoy.

15:37

Rural folks also tended to have less

15:39

what scientists call social jet lag,

15:42

which is when you sleep in later on your

15:44

days off and then you feel wrecked on

15:46

a Monday morning. But they did

15:48

find higher light exposure in the

15:50

rural population, a higher prevalence

15:52

of psychiatric disorders in the

15:54

rural population, but fewer metabolic

15:56

diseases. There was also a

15:58

Bengali study and their sleep questionnaires

16:01

revealed that urban adult populations had

16:03

crappier sleep than the world. And the ladies

16:06

slipped the worst So here we are

16:08

thinking that the youth with their gaming devices

16:11

and meme screens and late night shenanigans

16:13

have the crappiest but really we got

16:16

a world of zombie moms. In woozy women.

16:18

Hormones to blame? Who knows? Now,

16:20

worse city in the US for light pollution?

16:23

I looked into it. And according to study done

16:25

this year by the website, Alie chunky

16:27

Washington DC is the most

16:30

light polluted. Sound pollution, you're

16:32

wondering. Look no further than my home. Los

16:34

Angeles, which was rated the least

16:36

peaceful place to live in

16:38

America. I'm no data scientist.

16:41

But is it any wonder that

16:43

LA also ranks, and I look this up,

16:45

the highest in the number of group on

16:47

sold for BOTOX. Let's just

16:50

stay up all night. Tossing and turning,

16:52

and then easy peasy inject botulism

16:55

in our faces to look

16:55

rested. What could go wrong? There might be more of

16:57

an inclination or maybe who are night

17:00

hours are more attracted to city life

17:02

because there's nothing to

17:03

do. Yeah.

17:05

That's a good point, correlation. Non

17:07

causation. Yeah.

17:10

And so why do we need circadian

17:13

rhythm? So Do they

17:15

Does regularity make

17:17

us healthier? So,

17:20

I'll answer first question. So, why do we

17:22

need circadian rhythms we know that our

17:24

bodies have evolved, all species

17:27

have evolved with

17:29

this twenty four hour pattern of light and

17:31

dark. And

17:35

circadian rhythms are more so related

17:37

to the twenty four hour day. We

17:39

think of this twenty four hour pattern

17:41

of sun Sunrise and sunset.

17:45

And so we've evolved to these conditions.

17:48

So Alie, we

17:50

think that it's a way to optimize

17:53

our biology and our behavior so that

17:55

we can be the most successful

17:58

in fitness and the most successful in

18:01

in terms of

18:03

our reproductive ability, in terms of

18:05

our survival. But the

18:07

biggest thing is that we know

18:10

that there's some sort of indirect

18:12

or direct connection between

18:14

circadian disruption and health.

18:17

Mhmm. What kinds of,

18:20

say, negative effects happen when your

18:22

circadian rhythm is screwed up? How am

18:24

I gonna die? So there's

18:27

thought that there's increased risk of cancers.

18:29

And yeah. I'm mainly

18:32

interested in, like, reproduction. And reproductive

18:34

capacity. So I know that there's some

18:36

changes in fertility. There's

18:39

changes in Increased

18:41

risk of reproductive cancers, there's

18:44

increased risk of metabolic disorders

18:46

Alie type two diabetes, there's increased

18:49

risk of obesity, but Hatcher or not that's

18:51

a bad thing, we're not a hundred percent sure.

18:54

There's increased risk of

18:56

stroke and heart attack So

18:59

I've even seen as things as

19:01

crazy as if we disrupt and

19:04

these are in animals, a lot of these are in animal

19:06

models. But when we disrupt

19:08

circadian rhythms before an

19:10

animal gets pregnant, the

19:13

offspring has immunological

19:17

deficiencies. Oh my god. So

19:20

Oh my

19:21

god. Yes. Oh my god. Why

19:24

is this happening? What

19:26

types of protein

19:28

messengers? Like, what is

19:30

do you have any idea from a structural

19:32

chemical standpoint why this is? So

19:36

there's this this idea of

19:39

internal synchrony among

19:41

our different clocks. So we like

19:44

to say clocks in the field, of course, because we're

19:46

talking about time. It's about time.

19:48

So it's thought that each

19:52

Like, there's one part of your brain that's

19:54

considered the quote unquote master clock.

19:56

That is called the super chiasmatic

19:59

nucleus. So if you saw me on

20:01

Twitter, my name is super charismatic.

20:04

There's

20:04

a reason for that. I'm

20:07

I am a little bit of an urge. Again,

20:09

that Twitter handle at supercosmetic. She's

20:12

committed to this tiny, tiny piece

20:14

of brain

20:14

anatomy,

20:15

and I respect that. But

20:18

so this this part of the brain actually

20:20

sits right above the optic

20:22

chiasm, and so it's in the part of the brain

20:24

called the hypothalamus which is involved in regulating

20:27

a lot of very basic

20:29

systems in the body. So

20:32

this little brain area receives direct

20:34

information from light,

20:36

it receives direct information from the retina,

20:39

which gets stimulated when light

20:41

hits it so then that communicates

20:44

chemically to that part of the brain, then

20:46

that part of the brain sends signals all

20:48

over. To other areas in the hypothalamus,

20:51

to other areas outside of the

20:53

hypothalamus in the brain to the brain stem,

20:55

which then those brain areas communicate

20:58

to the body.

20:59

So the hypothalamus side note is a small

21:01

area in the center of brain that's partly

21:04

responsible for hormone release

21:06

and the suprachiasmatic nucleus

21:08

SCN is a teeny tiny part of that

21:10

and it registers info about

21:13

light and dark and it sends signals

21:15

everywhere just to let your mod know

21:17

what's up out

21:18

there. So there's this main clock

21:20

in the suprachiasmatic nucleus or

21:23

SCN, and that

21:26

is thought to orchestrate everything

21:28

going on in the body when it comes to light exposure.

21:32

But then yeah. Yeah. So when

21:34

light exposure goes wrong, But

21:38

then outside of the body, there

21:40

are outside of the brain. There are other

21:42

clocks. Like, there's a liver clock There's

21:44

a clock in your gut, there's a clock in your

21:46

stomach, there's a clock in your muscles. And

21:49

when we talk about clocks, we're generally

21:51

referring to a set of

21:53

proteins and genes that have been

21:55

shown to be rhythmic. And

21:58

almost every single cell in the body

22:00

expresses these same genes, but

22:03

we don't know their function in every area of

22:05

the body. In the part of the

22:07

brain I mentioned before, the SCN, again,

22:10

suprachiasmatic nucleus SCN.

22:12

We know that they respond to light,

22:14

and then their their rhythms change and

22:16

respond to light. Which is

22:18

thought to lead to downstream changes

22:21

in other proteins and hormones and

22:24

other signals. That would communicate to

22:26

the brain, the rest of the brain. But

22:28

we don't know exactly their role in other

22:30

body parts. So that's one thing

22:33

that a lot of people are trying to figure out. So

22:35

the concept of internal synchrony

22:38

is that this SEM

22:40

is at a specific pattern

22:43

and all of your other organs and tissues are

22:45

out of a specific pattern every day. Mhmm.

22:47

But when something goes wrong, they get

22:49

out of whack and they quote unquote desynchronize.

22:53

And so it's thought that this desynchrony is

22:56

somehow kind of tugging

22:59

body certain body functions

23:01

to be performing when they

23:03

might not supposed to be performing, or

23:05

the brain is trying do something when the brain

23:08

shouldn't be doing something. Alie, not

23:10

now. It's probably

23:12

much more complicated than that,

23:14

but we don't and I like, I know there's some

23:16

hormones are thought to be involved in regulating

23:18

it. So melatonin is a big

23:20

one that a lot of people hear of. So

23:23

when you're circadian rhythms, or

23:25

when light you're exposed to light at night, your

23:27

melatonin rhythms get screwed up.

23:30

When you're exposed to light at night, your

23:32

cortisol or what's thought as your

23:34

stress hormone that gets messed up.

23:36

So it's thought that those signals can also

23:38

attach to different body areas and

23:41

signal, hey, something's going wrong.

23:44

And it's likely that the chronic

23:47

exposure to circadian disruption is

23:49

what's pausing all of these issues. So

23:52

pretty much anybody in a city or

23:54

suburban area. It's supposed to

23:56

light at night. God.

23:58

Yeah. Wait. What is your tell me about

24:00

your sleep hygiene. That

24:05

with it. Oh, god. So

24:07

it's kind of ironic because I actually,

24:10

like, run an

24:12

Instagram account that's dedicated to

24:14

self care and like mental health for graduate

24:16

students. And I'm

24:18

Alie, one of the worst people

24:20

to ask about this. No. That's

24:23

the bad news. First of all, like,

24:25

I have what I like to call sleep procrastination

24:27

and I don't I didn't make up that term.

24:30

I think this is a problem with a lot of people

24:32

where we're oh my god, I have

24:34

so much to do and so

24:36

you watch Grey's Anatomy for twelve

24:39

hours instead of doing anything. And

24:41

then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, it's

24:43

ten thirty, eleven o'clock at night. I

24:45

need to get stuff done so that

24:47

you work until two or three or four in

24:49

the morning. Yes. You've read my

24:51

diary. You're reciting my diary.

24:55

So I I'm definitely one

24:57

of those. I try to sleep better. And honestly,

25:00

like, my sleep hygiene only needs to be adjusted

25:02

when I start to get stressed out. That's when I tend

25:04

to need to hone in. But

25:06

most of the time, I'm in my I'm on

25:09

my phone in bed. I'm watching TV in

25:11

bed. I'm I'm

25:13

I'm so bad. But,

25:14

honestly, Alie, blue light? Yes. It's

25:17

everywhere. It's everywhere. Okay.

25:19

So big cities have more light

25:21

pollution, but what about the light you

25:23

curl up with and personally jam

25:25

into your retinas before bed? The blue stuff.

25:28

Should we all be wearing glasses like Banno? Katherine

25:30

says that the SEM is most

25:32

sensitive to blue light.

25:34

Whereas, red light, it's not

25:37

picked up as well in in the brain, so

25:39

you're you still sense it, but it's not

25:41

gonna stimulate those cells

25:44

that contribute to this

25:46

light signaling in the brain. So we

25:49

we see it. It probably has

25:51

a minor effect but it's not as dramatic

25:53

and as intense as blue light.

25:55

So now what happens if, let's

25:58

say, hypothetically, you're a person who

26:00

falls asleep with the lights on? Five

26:02

nights a week. It's me. What

26:04

is happening in your coconut?

26:08

So I was thinking

26:10

about this I saw your

26:13

question and

26:18

I think it would be because when we close

26:20

our eyes, we still see the light. The

26:22

light is coming through our thin

26:25

little strips of eyelids. So

26:27

you're probably being exposed to dim

26:29

light at night, which is

26:32

maybe not as bad as bright

26:34

light at night, but it's bad. So all

26:36

the things that you would expect to come from

26:39

light at night are gonna be coming from

26:41

having your light on while you sleep. So

26:46

there Yeah.

26:48

And the fact that you're doing

26:49

it, like, The fact that

26:51

you're doing it all almost all of the

26:53

time

26:55

Yeah. Yeah. I got it.

26:57

And maybe you could get around it and, like,

26:59

put the orange lights or whatever

27:01

they are in your bedroom

27:03

instead, and it wouldn't be as

27:05

bad, but then it's hard to see things.

27:08

That's very generous that you think this is occurring

27:10

in a bed and not on the couch

27:13

with a laptop under my face.

27:15

So sleep procrastination, I'm

27:18

gonna okay. I'm gonna research an aside

27:20

on how to, like, stop sleep procrastination.

27:23

Okay. So side out, about five years ago,

27:25

a group of scientists from the Netherlands

27:27

identified this phenomenon of

27:30

or bedtime procrastination and they defined

27:33

it as, quote, failing to go to bed

27:35

at the intended time while no

27:37

external circumstances prevent

27:39

a person from doing so. So

27:41

that last half of the sentence is it's your

27:43

own damn fault. So what causes

27:45

this? They think deficits in

27:47

self regulation or having ADHD

27:50

or anxiety or perfectionism or

27:53

work compulsion. I did some digging

27:55

and one, it twenty nineteen Turkish study

27:57

entitled Life Is Short. Stay

27:59

awake. Death anxiety and bedtime

28:02

procrastination. Found that a fear

28:04

of being a corpse eventually is

28:06

one cause for sleep procrastination. So

28:09

less time awake means less time to

28:11

be conscious. To experience life's

28:13

rich pleasures such as watching

28:15

dog videos and going down social

28:17

media rabbit holes to see where your ex

28:19

boyfriend went on vacation. So I

28:22

read roughly seventeen thousand different blogs

28:24

and websites about how to stop.

28:26

And there was advice take a nice

28:29

bath at night and Stop using

28:31

your devices in the evening. Give

28:33

yourself an hour window to get ready

28:35

for bed. Or on your to do list for the

28:37

day, set a bed time first and then work

28:40

backwards scheduling your entire

28:42

day. In essence, the advice

28:44

is like suck it up. Realize your

28:46

brain hates you for doing it and then knock

28:48

it off. Dipshit, or maybe

28:50

you could just go banish yourselves to the

28:52

woods for a while. What about people

28:54

who go on like, circadian

28:57

cleanses and they go camping or

28:59

they don't use artificial lights for,

29:01

like, a

29:01

week. Does that reset anything? Does that

29:03

help at all? Probably temporarily resets

29:06

things, but let's be honest. If you go straight

29:08

back to what you were doing before, your the

29:10

purpose of circadian rhythms is to be able

29:13

to adapt to changes. Mhmm. So

29:15

we don't quite know if like one

29:17

small disruption of circadian rhythms

29:19

has last effects on the

29:21

body. It probably doesn't. It's probably

29:23

the chronic exposure I mentioned before.

29:26

This is the chronic. So if

29:28

you only go away for a week and you're

29:30

living in the wilderness with the moonlight,

29:33

it's probably not gonna be

29:35

as beneficial as just

29:37

making more permanent changes at home

29:39

on a regular basis.

29:41

That makes sense. Yeah. Now what about animals?

29:43

Are there any most that have really weird

29:45

circadian rhythms that

29:46

are, like, up and down and up and down. Cats

29:48

basically don't have they have

29:50

circadian rhythms but not in sleep wake activity.

29:53

Really? Yeah. How does that work?

29:56

They just sleep all the time. They're carnivores. They

29:58

don't have to worry about it. They eat whatever the heck they

30:00

want. Well, house cats, they're

30:03

they're lazy and they'll eat whatever food

30:05

you give them. But, like, if you think about

30:07

cats, they, you know, they've evolved to be

30:09

just eat whatever the heck they want whenever

30:11

they can get it. They're kind of at the top of their

30:13

food chain. They don't have to worry about what

30:16

food is available and when, so they can kinda

30:18

just be lazy and Alie, like,

30:21

all the time. I think they

30:23

like, sixteen hours a day or something.

30:25

God. I know. Right? But they're

30:26

Alie koalas or something. Don't koalas

30:28

and sloths sleep like sixteen, eight,

30:31

twenty hours a day. They

30:31

sleep a lot. I don't know the exact numbers, but

30:34

they do sleep a lot. Yeah. Side note,

30:36

of course, I Google the animals that sleep

30:38

the most, and giraffes apparently

30:40

all have cocaine problems because they

30:42

sleep four to five hours at night get up

30:44

and take a spin class or some shit, I don't know.

30:46

But giant armadillos get this. Apparently

30:49

sleep eighteen hours a day, and koalas

30:51

and little brown bats have been observed

30:54

snoozing for almost twenty hours

30:56

a day. But they were curious about slabs,

30:58

so they fitted wild ones with

31:00

little tidbits or something, and they showed

31:02

they only sleep nine and a half

31:04

hours a day. This is not too shabby. Slaws

31:07

are yeah. Remember that time you needed

31:10

a word for laziness, so you just

31:12

called it us. Okay.

31:14

What about some circadian flam?

31:17

Any

31:18

pervasive Alie. Yeah. That was so far

31:20

too long. So excited about this question.

31:24

So let everybody know.

31:29

Circadian rhythm is not

31:31

a thing. There

31:35

is not a circadian rhythm. Not

31:38

singular. It's not singular. Circadian

31:40

rhythms Alie The word circadian

31:43

literally means about a day.

31:45

It's referring to rhythms that occur

31:47

about a day. It's any rhythm in the body.

31:50

You don't have a circadian rhythm. You

31:52

have circadian rhythms because there are

31:54

so many different rhythms in the body that

31:57

act on completely different patterns, so

31:59

we can't just refer to one thing. Now,

32:01

I get most people are referring to sleep wake

32:03

activity that's generally what people think

32:05

of. But that's just one

32:07

example. So

32:10

if you say go

32:12

potty at the same time every morning, that's

32:14

a circadian rhythm in and of

32:16

itself. Yeah. There is actually there's,

32:18

like, circadian rhythms in a lot

32:20

of things. You think of it, there's probably

32:22

one. Oh my god. Can

32:26

I ask you Patreon questions? Yeah. Oh

32:28

my god. Okay. I'm getting to them little bit early

32:31

because we have so many. And I

32:33

highlighted a lot. And there are

32:35

so many questions that I wanna ask, but I want the

32:37

patrons to be able to ask

32:38

them. So I'm just let's get into it. Okay.

32:40

Okay. But before we get your questions,

32:42

let's make some dreams come true and

32:44

donate some money to charity of the doctors

32:46

choosing. And this week, she asked that it

32:49

go to the society for advancement of Tucano's,

32:51

Hispanics, and Native Americans in science.

32:53

And this organization aims to further those

32:56

student success in obtaining advanced

32:58

degrees, careers, leadership positions,

33:00

and equality in the STEM field. They are

33:02

linked in the show notes to find out more about

33:04

them that is just society for the advancement of

33:06

Tucano's Hispanics and Native Americans

33:09

in Science. And the donation was made possible

33:11

by a very special sponsor this

33:13

week. Today's episode doesn't

33:15

have a bunch of ads because it's exclusively sponsored

33:18

by Sapha. I love our sleep episodes.

33:20

I love our dreaming sides. I love this circadian

33:23

rhythms episode because sleep is so

33:25

important. And even though we don't understand

33:27

everything about it, we can all agree that

33:29

we need it literally to live And with a

33:31

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33:33

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33:36

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33:38

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33:40

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33:43

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33:45

is why I have a soft felt luxury mattress.

33:47

It is the most sumptuously comfortable

33:49

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33:51

sumptuously comfortable, that sounds prohibitively

33:54

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33:56

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34:00

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34:09

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34:13

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continue there.

34:40

Okay. Your questions. Okay.

34:42

Patreon questions. So many millions

34:45

of them. Forrest Dotts. High

34:47

forest says, why is mine

34:49

so fucked

34:50

up? And what can I do to fix it?

34:53

Just straight up.

34:56

So I have to say hashtag same.

35:01

So I would say our

35:03

circadian rhythms, most likely

35:06

referring to sleep wake activity like I was

35:08

just saying, they can

35:10

get really screwed up for a lot of

35:12

reasons, but I think the most common

35:14

for most people is lack of structure.

35:17

So this might be an answer

35:19

to a lot of questions, but having a

35:21

very consistent routine especially

35:23

with when you're getting up and when you're

35:25

going to bed, and then when you eat

35:27

food, those are gonna be like

35:30

the biggest two most

35:32

important scheduled things

35:35

to have to help improve

35:37

your rhythmicity This

35:39

just didn't I looked it up in ethnicity, is

35:41

a real word. Our body

35:44

loves consistency. Our

35:46

brain loves schedules. Even

35:48

a lot of us think that we don't, but, like,

35:50

we have circadian rhythms do.

35:53

You know, you have similar circadian rhythms

35:55

to a mop. So you're not gonna be

35:58

you're you're not as complex as you wanna

36:00

think you are. So

36:03

having a consistent schedule especially with

36:05

light and food and

36:06

Alie. Those things are gonna be

36:08

the most beneficial for fixing your rhythms.

36:11

Oh my god. I feel very attacked. Very

36:14

safe. Alie Barber

36:16

wants to

36:16

know, what's the best way to get blue light

36:18

in the mornings when you wake up? Before

36:21

the sun comes up. Is Alie light in

36:23

the morning good for waking us up? It

36:25

looks like there's some evidence for

36:27

what they call dog

36:29

simulation. So it's similar

36:31

to those fancy alarm clocks that you can buy

36:33

that, like, slowly bring light

36:36

or using like a bright light simulator

36:39

so you can have those desktop ones that people

36:41

use for seasonal effective disorder. Using

36:43

something like that in the morning, can kind

36:45

of trick your brain into thinking, oh, the

36:47

sun's up. It's morning. It's time to,

36:49

like, do stuff. So there's

36:51

been some evidence to show that that improves

36:54

our attention and improves our cognitive

36:56

performance in the morning as opposed to not

36:58

using them.

37:00

Our alarm clocks kind

37:03

of evil when it comes to circadian rhythms,

37:05

or are they just a tool we need to stay on track

37:07

to circadian

37:07

rhythms? I think they're a tool we need. Now

37:10

I've noticed mine has a really bright

37:12

light that I can't dim. So

37:15

I should probably get rid of it and get

37:17

a new one. Because I actually,

37:19

like, can see it through my eyelids when

37:21

I'm trying to sleep. But

37:24

but, yeah, I think they're more so as cool

37:27

to kind of keep you consistently on schedule,

37:29

especially when you have to get up and

37:31

go to sleep at a specific time of day

37:33

and you don't have as much flexibility.

37:36

Man, we need what we really need.

37:38

Hear me out. We need alarm

37:40

clocks that are sleep clocks that are like,

37:42

and you're in bed. You

37:45

know what I mean? Yeah. Like,

37:47

we need a ten thirty alarm that's

37:49

like, okay. Alright. Fuck her.

37:51

Time to brush your teeth. Hatcher you tried

37:53

doing that on your phone? No. But

37:55

tonight's might be night number one.

37:58

Okay. Side note, when it comes to waking

38:00

up if you're in the market for a

38:02

new morning alarm clock, I looked for the

38:04

weirdest for you and there's one called clocky

38:06

that's on wheels and it runs away

38:09

from you until you catch it and turn it off

38:11

or I guess set it on fire if you want to.

38:13

There's another that requires you to

38:15

shoot a laser pointer at a target

38:17

before the alarm shuts off. There

38:19

are bedside mats you have to

38:21

stand on before they'll stop wailing.

38:24

There's the terrifying sounding shock

38:26

clock. This seems to zap your wrist.

38:28

Maybe with an electric current until you

38:30

accept that it's a new day. There's

38:32

another that's called the sleep squad that

38:34

utilizes a police siren

38:37

every morning. I don't know why they called it sleep

38:39

squad when they could have named it the Waykeeper

38:41

Gate. Alie, I found a four hundred and fifty

38:43

dollar option that makes pour over coffee

38:45

at your bedside. And I I don't know why

38:48

you couldn't just use a thirty dollar black

38:50

and decker coffee pot with timer instead

38:52

instead of my business. But in terms of

38:54

the most potentially sculptural,

38:56

there is a contraption called a dream

38:58

time water alarm. And it relies

39:01

on you filling it at night and then

39:03

a steady drip of Hatcher. All

39:05

night changes the balance on a scale

39:07

until like a soft bill. It's

39:10

hit in the morning. It does not however spray

39:12

you in the face, which is what I was looking for when

39:14

I stumbled upon it. Oh, when it comes

39:16

to light based solutions, there are

39:18

all manner of sunrise alarm

39:21

clocks. They have great reviews. There

39:23

are higher end ones by Philips. That

39:25

are a couple hundred bucks to, like, the twenty

39:27

dollar home labs options because

39:30

all of us know too well that

39:32

the sound of an iPhone alarm.

39:36

Brings deep, terrible morning

39:38

dread. Now, what about if you use

39:40

it the night before you wanted to know?

39:43

Logan Laveau

39:44

asks, is using my phone for a while before

39:46

sleep actually fucking me up like my dad

39:48

insists? Oh. Mister

39:51

Laveau? Honest. Because

39:54

we also have light and TV on.

39:56

Just your phone is probably not as

39:59

bad as we wanna think it is. There's

40:02

a lot of other light factors that

40:04

are fucking us up. Let's be honest.

40:07

But there is some thought that because of how

40:09

bright it is and how close it is to our faces

40:11

that it might be more stimulating than a

40:13

TV like across the room, more

40:16

a dim white light in your

40:18

way up with a layer of shade. So it

40:20

is possible that it's more

40:22

fucking

40:23

upleness, but we're not hundred percent

40:25

sure. New words, rhythmicity,

40:28

and fucking upleness. So put

40:30

those in your pocket. Now, a few of you

40:32

had sleep mass questions. I'm looking

40:34

at you, Emily Reed, Julie Bear and Amanda

40:37

j while I'm looking your direction,

40:39

but I don't see anything because of the mask thing.

40:41

Do you have a sleep mask that you prefer?

40:44

Do sleep with the sleep mask. I do sleep with

40:46

the sleep mask, and I bought whatever was

40:48

relatively affordable on Amazon. As

40:51

long as it blocks out all the light and doesn't,

40:53

like, fall on my face -- Mhmm. --

40:55

I sleep with a blanket on top of my head there to

40:58

be honest with my partner's snores. So

41:02

Yeah. And I'm, like, going to my own machine and

41:04

two fans because I'm a mess.

41:08

I have a travel fan that I actually

41:10

fly with me when I go places. Oh

41:13

my god. I love how prepared

41:15

you are.

41:16

I'm very picky when it comes to so

41:19

I try to do as much as I can to make

41:21

it happen. There's this

41:23

great invention. I covered our own innovation

41:25

nation in its called a b fan, and it's a

41:27

fan that sits at the foot of your bed, and it goes

41:29

up in the bottom of your

41:32

covers. And it it

41:34

targets just one person in bed. So if

41:36

one person isn't hot and the other is, and it goes

41:38

up and it just goes under

41:40

your covers, it's so magical.

41:43

It feels like you're in a marshmallow and yeah.

41:45

It's called a beef amp. The guy who invented it invented

41:47

it for his mother-in-law who was going through

41:49

menopause. That was

41:50

awesome. Yeah. I know. And it's I've

41:53

been in a bed with it, and I'm like, oh, that's really nice.

41:55

Yeah. This is a side note, but it's relevant to

41:57

what we're talking about. Temperature is

41:59

very important for sleep. Like, people who are like,

42:01

I like to be hot when I Alie. And like, no.

42:03

Your body actually decreases its

42:05

temperature at nighttime so sleep

42:08

better. Like, it's actually

42:10

better to have a slightly cooler space

42:12

when you're trying to

42:13

sleep. Do

42:14

you think that's because evolutionarily, we

42:16

just got used to night being cold? Probably.

42:19

Mhmm. Like, it's always relatively cooler at

42:21

night than it is. I shouldn't say always, but most of

42:23

the

42:24

time, relatively cooler at night than it is during

42:26

the night. Ugh. K. Some of you

42:28

wanted to know if sleeping under a

42:30

tree outside might help your screwed

42:32

up circadian rhythms in a thompson

42:34

monster cat and Anita

42:37

Storozynski asks, at home, I'm a night

42:39

out. When go camping, I so easily

42:41

fall into the rhythm of sleep when it's dark,

42:43

awake on its light. Why does this happen

42:45

so readily? And is that what my body

42:47

actually wants? Yes.

42:52

And you're probably away from a lot of

42:54

light pollution and, you

42:56

know, you're you're our develop

42:59

with this, our brains develop with this light

43:01

dark cycle. So if it we go

43:04

back to again, we're we

43:06

can easily adapt to the light

43:08

cycles, but this is naturally

43:10

what we would normally be around.

43:12

Now, will it be the same in a

43:15

thousand years if the planet still

43:17

exists? When

43:20

when, you know, we've adapted to

43:22

light pollution, I have no idea. But

43:25

at least for now, you know, we

43:27

adapted and we evolved to

43:29

normal light dark cycles being the sun and the

43:31

moon. In the sun and lack

43:33

of sun. So of course, we're gonna

43:36

feel comfortable and happy and at least

43:38

our sleep will when we're back with

43:40

nature.

43:42

Mhmm. That makes me wanna go camping

43:44

and recover myself indeed. Just

43:46

do me a favor. Check your crevices.

43:49

Thank you. Now Alie of us, I'm

43:51

sure, wanna know about the blues and

43:53

the blue light and anxiety and sleep

43:56

such as Evan Jude, CRISPR, Heath

43:58

Allen, Becca B, Meghan Lushen, Hannah

44:00

and Sarah Wingfield, Crenovation, Hassan

44:03

and Sarah Clark, Casey Rose, and

44:06

Becky Baker says why do I need to sleep

44:09

fourteen to eighteen hours a day when my depression

44:11

flares up? Yeah. Also asking for a friend,

44:13

is that why some people have clean houses

44:16

and obedience children.

44:21

So, oh, this is a good question.

44:24

I think that, I'm

44:27

not a hundred percent sure, but I think

44:29

that with depression, one of the symptoms is

44:31

fatigue. So it might be that we're

44:33

trying to combat fatigue with

44:35

more Instead

44:38

of our normal Hatcher If

44:41

you're Alie, probably three hours of if

44:43

you're if you're

44:45

me, like, maybe six

44:47

or seven hours of you know, normally,

44:49

that's what we get, but then we try to

44:52

make up for feeling fatigued when we're

44:54

depressed by sleeping more. Depression and

44:56

sleep are very, very, very

44:58

tightly tied together. And

45:01

so it's really hard to figure out which

45:03

comes first. Are you depressed because

45:06

you're lacking sleep? Or are

45:08

you lacking sleep and

45:10

feeling fatigued because you're

45:12

depressed? It's likely a sun

45:14

combination of the two. Okay. So I don't I

45:16

looked into this, and I'll give you just the gist.

45:18

Mental health and sleep are

45:20

very late. Sometimes sleep issues

45:23

are a symptom of mental illness, and

45:25

sometimes they can cause mental troubles.

45:27

Often, they just keep cyclically making

45:30

the other worse. So what can you do?

45:32

You'd see a doc. But before you go in, you might want

45:34

to keep a sleep journal for two weeks to show

45:36

them when you slept, for how long, what

45:38

troubles you had. Doctors also suggest a

45:40

bedtime schedule and a routine. Of

45:42

course, very helpful as is limiting

45:44

stimulants altogether or at least in

45:47

the afternoon. They suggest getting plenty of sunlight

45:49

or using a light box that mimics the

45:51

sun if you have seasonal depression,

45:54

especially up here in the US where we're

45:56

in the darkest days. Not

45:58

talking politically. I just mean winter

46:00

in the northern hemisphere. Speaking of which,

46:02

some patrons had seasonal and latitude

46:05

questions such as Missy Clardy, Montana

46:07

cousin Nathan Branick. Hi, Michelle

46:10

Lee, Deli James, and first

46:12

time question asks her, Evan Jude, asks

46:15

How many humans, plants, and animals

46:17

who live closer to the poles and experience

46:19

continuous daylight and nighttime? Around

46:21

the winter and summer solstice Alie white nights

46:24

in Russia. How have they adapted

46:26

or evolved

46:27

differently? How do they deal? And

46:29

have you seen midsummer?

46:31

I haven't seen midsummer. Do I need to see

46:33

it?

46:34

I think it's about a

46:35

white night. I think it's a horror movie that

46:37

it takes place you know, like continuous daylight

46:39

night. So

46:43

my friend is actually one of those

46:45

people that's lucky and gets to go to Antarctica.

46:48

So I've tried to ask her like, yes.

46:50

Yes. She's boss. I

46:54

tried to ask her, you know, what is it like

46:56

there in terms of because

46:58

they go during the Antarctic summer,

47:01

which is our winter. But

47:04

then it's light all the time down there.

47:07

And, you know, she said that

47:09

yes, it's harder to get but most

47:11

of time they, you know, they have ways to

47:13

control the light and dark in their facilities.

47:15

But there's really not a lot of research

47:18

done on the people

47:20

that live in these polar areas.

47:23

And I think I

47:25

recently saw an article that their finally

47:27

starting to do studies on the resident

47:30

scientists that live in Antarctica, which

47:33

is like that's the perfect population of

47:35

people. It's very controlled environment, very

47:37

controlled food, a lot of

47:39

controlled factors. So I think they're

47:41

finally gonna start looking into it because

47:44

my educated guess would be that there is

47:46

probably higher rates of

47:49

depression. There's probably higher rates

47:51

of things that we associate with continuous

47:54

light exposure. We haven't

47:56

adapted to those areas yet. As

47:58

far as I know, I could be wrong, but

48:00

there's probably increase

48:02

risks of all these morbidities

48:04

that we associate with, light at night

48:07

exposure, and these people that are

48:09

at the higher or lower ends of

48:11

the earth? Alie, like,

48:13

during the long or

48:15

during the winter, there were expected

48:17

winters, I think that's probably where the

48:20

increased depression might poke itself through

48:22

because they're not getting enough

48:23

light. Like, we need light. Mhmm.

48:26

Even if it's not warm outside, we need

48:28

light exposure. Quick aside, I poke through

48:30

some reports about mental health and Hatcher

48:32

tooted and found one really fascinating study

48:35

which looked at how rare suicide

48:37

was in pre colonization greenland.

48:40

Versus modern lifestyle. And apparently,

48:42

birth month and birth season tended

48:44

to affect those kind of mental health issues

48:47

And while those types of deaths increased

48:49

a lot. Post colonization, the

48:52

seasons had less of an impact because of the introduction

48:54

of artificial light. So knowing

48:56

the amount of light and darkness that our

48:58

suprachiasmatic nucleus receives

49:01

can have major impacts on our hormones

49:03

and mental health what about when

49:05

we fuss with the clock itself and

49:08

throw the whole system off

49:10

twice a

49:10

year? Julie Bear asks Daylight

49:12

savings time, abolish or keep. Abolish.

49:16

Okay. She says we can't be friends if

49:18

you say keep. Actually,

49:21

the Society for Research

49:23

on BiologicalRhythm, they just released

49:26

a statement about

49:28

why we should abolish the daylight

49:30

savings time, but they

49:32

so the people who are in charge of studying

49:35

circadian rhythms and other biological rhythms

49:37

are, like, get rid of it. So

49:39

It's a waste. Like, we don't need it anymore.

49:42

Mhmm. And don't they say that

49:44

when they kind

49:47

of shave off an hour of sleep. There's

49:49

a lot of heart attacks and a lot of health

49:51

problems occur that, like, the following week after I've

49:53

read that somewhere. It's

49:54

basically jet lag. We're forcing jet lag

49:56

on people.

49:57

That sucks. Oh, and

49:59

I know that there are questions about jet lag.

50:01

Okay. We're gonna get to those in a

50:03

sec. But first, just a twenty twenty three. Update

50:05

for y'all. So, no, you did not hallucinate stories

50:07

about the abolishment of daylight savings time.

50:10

Let's go back though. Ever since it was implemented

50:12

in nineteen eighteen, to save fuel

50:14

during World War one. It's been

50:16

contentious. So for decades,

50:19

states and towns in the US Alie least talked

50:21

amongst themselves and decided to

50:23

adopt it or

50:24

not. Until the Department of Transportation

50:26

was can we just be on the same page about

50:28

this and pass the Uniform Time Act of

50:30

nineteen sixty

50:31

six. But then in nineteen seventy two,

50:35

big sigh, the act was amended, and

50:37

Arizona noped out Hawaii

50:39

was Alie not into it. Many other island

50:42

territories also do not observe

50:44

daylight savings time, but a bipartisan group

50:46

of lawmakers are like let's just ditch

50:48

this once and for all folks and got the

50:50

Sunshine Protection Act passed

50:52

in the Senate, but it died in the House

50:55

And I asked Katherine what her take on this

50:57

recent news was, and she wrote me yesterday

51:00

to say no major updates despite

51:02

the Sunshine Protection Act, which has yet to pass

51:04

the House. There are no plans

51:06

to either maintain daylight savings or

51:08

end it. Proponents of permanent daylight

51:10

savings time say it's better for the economy,

51:13

whereas most people in the research

51:15

and medical communities agree that

51:17

permanent standard time aligns

51:20

best with our normal sleep and wake

51:22

rhythms and is likely to be better

51:24

for our overall health. So that's

51:26

the latest. And yes, in the US,

51:28

we just turned the clocks forward

51:30

on Sunday, so you're not imagining

51:32

it. You might feel a little wonky adjusting

51:35

even to the one hour shift. But

51:37

I like to use daylight savings

51:39

time as an excuse through, like, September.

51:44

Still adjusting But first,

51:46

another very important question.

51:48

Alie Bear also wants to know, do you giggle and snort

51:50

when you hear and say the word diurnal because

51:53

it sounds like pair of urinals next to each other?

51:56

Yes. Good then.

51:58

It's a fun word. It's a fun word.

52:00

That makes you feel better. Patrick Alyssa

52:02

also asked his next question. Palti

52:04

Simmons says I have read that

52:07

folks who are blind even with no light

52:10

perception still have melatonin cycling

52:12

and diurnal rhythms. So

52:15

what alternate mechanisms other than visual

52:17

perception to our bodies have to regulate our

52:19

circadian

52:20

rhythm? does our skin know that it's light out?

52:23

Our skin doesn't know, but I'm actually really

52:25

excited about this question because we didn't get

52:27

to talk about these little guys. So

52:30

It's not actually the visual cells

52:33

in our retinas that recognize light.

52:36

So they do, obviously, but not

52:38

force circating rhythms. They are just

52:40

doing it for visual perception. So

52:42

there's actually these other little guys.

52:45

They're called intrinsic basically photosensitive

52:47

retinal ganglius cells. What?

52:50

IP RGC is basically

52:53

god. But there are these I think they make

52:55

up less than five or ten

52:57

percent of the cells in your retina, and

53:00

they sense light, which

53:02

most of the cells in your retina do. But they

53:04

sense light and send it specifically to

53:07

that suprachiasmatic nucleus or

53:09

SCN. So they're the ones that are

53:11

hey, master clock, light

53:13

is happening right now. So

53:15

they're the ones that are

53:18

communicating directly to that brain area.

53:21

Now depending on why an individual

53:23

is blind, there are different reasons why a person

53:25

might be blind. If those

53:27

cells are still intact, they're still gonna

53:29

have circadian rhythms. They're still gonna

53:32

be fine when it comes to perceiving

53:35

light and dark in the sense of regulating

53:39

biological rhythms in that way. Howard

53:41

Bauchner: So if there's a different

53:43

reason in those cells are no longer intact,

53:45

they will actually no longer exhibit

53:47

circadian rhythms. Well, they will, but

53:50

their bodies are basically constantly in

53:52

what we call free running, which

53:54

is as if you were to throw somebody in a

53:56

cave, in the back of a cave and have them

53:58

be completely isolated from environmental

54:01

cues. Oh, wow. So it depends

54:03

on why an individual is blind, but

54:06

some individuals who are blind can still

54:08

have sensing of light through

54:10

those specific cells.

54:12

Oh, whoa. That's that's crazy.

54:14

That's cool. New question asked her, Lauren

54:16

Marie asked why do I feel like a sack

54:18

of shit in the mornings when I've had eight

54:20

hours? Oh,

54:23

jeez. I mean, there could be

54:25

lots of things. So

54:27

things that make you feel like sex of shit

54:30

even if you get enough sleep or

54:32

what we think of as enough sleep. Maybe

54:35

you consumed something some

54:38

substance that major sleep

54:40

crazy. So alcohol

54:42

puts you to sleep but does not help

54:44

your circadian rhythms at

54:46

all. So it makes your sleep cycles

54:48

kind of wonky. I don't know the specifics, but

54:50

I know it's not good. Hello, fast.

54:52

I looked this up and alcohol can inhibit

54:55

rem

54:55

sleep, which is

54:56

the most restorative type of rest.

54:58

It can also wake you up in the middle of night and make

55:00

you go potty. I mean, it could be that

55:02

this person needs more or less sleep

55:05

that could be a fun experiment to

55:08

give give a try. Mhmm.

55:11

Some people do better

55:13

with exercising

55:16

at specific times of day, so depending on when

55:18

this person's exercising, I've

55:20

read some places that, like, heavy

55:22

exercise in the evening is

55:25

not good, but then I can I

55:27

know anecdotally, I can, like,

55:29

go to a boxing class and be fine? But

55:32

it does I think it just depends on your needs.

55:35

I don't think there's a straightforward answer

55:37

for why, specifically, eight hours

55:39

of sleep makes you feel screwed

55:40

up. If probably depends on a lot of factors.

55:44

That's a good call. And so

55:46

many patrons asked

55:48

and I will put their names in his side,

55:51

and I will read them quickly. These folks are

55:53

Knowles, Don Schwartz, John Urick,

55:55

Renee Jennings, Meghan v Pearson, Catherine

55:57

Hirschman, Mark James, Michelle Lee,

56:00

Becca Decker, Celyaford, and Alie,

56:02

who all asked about naps and

56:05

About segmented

56:07

sleep. And this notion

56:09

of Alie sleeping and then waking

56:12

up in the middle of the night for a couple hours and going back to

56:14

sleep, is that really a thing? I

56:16

have not found any definitive evidence

56:18

indicating that that is actually beneficial.

56:21

Go on. At the same time,

56:23

I haven't found any definitive evidence

56:26

saying that it is hurtful. Now,

56:28

the only thing that I could think of that would

56:30

make this bad would be as

56:32

if you're exposing yourself

56:35

to more light at night

56:37

because you're waking up in the middle of the night.

56:39

So if you're getting up in the

56:41

middle of the night, it probably is not a good

56:43

idea to then get on your phone

56:46

or, like, go

56:48

watch TV for three hours

56:50

and then go back to sleep. I don't know

56:52

what you could do. Well, I do

56:54

know a few things that you could do in the dark.

56:59

But, you know, you

57:01

know, I think, you know, you'd have to

57:03

maybe try something that's not getting you

57:06

exposed to more light. There

57:08

is some evidence that things like

57:10

napping during the day as long as you don't take

57:12

long naps, that that is like

57:15

a normal aspect of, like, human

57:17

sleep patterns, especially

57:19

because we eat a lot during the day. It's hotter

57:21

during the afternoon, generally. And

57:23

so those types of cues are like

57:26

making us And so we

57:28

take a little quick nap and then we're

57:30

fine. We can get up and move on. But

57:33

I haven't seen a lot of evidence about segmented

57:35

Alie, especially at night, saying

57:37

that I've heard a lot of people talking about

57:39

lately. I think it was a historian or

57:42

somebody who brought this

57:44

concept up. Mhmm.

57:46

And then

57:48

that's kind of all we've gotten

57:50

since then. Okay. So

57:52

alongside rhythmicity and

57:55

fucking uppiness, this is another

57:57

good pocket word and it means of the

57:59

dawn or dusk of the gloaming.

58:01

It's great, crepuscular. Eira Gray

58:04

wants to know what is up with crepuscular

58:06

animals? How does that work? And how

58:08

is that cycle advantageous to them?

58:10

I think it comes back down to

58:12

what are these animals eating? What are they

58:15

foraging for?

58:16

I love this question from Vitipang. Does

58:18

going early to bed and early to rise

58:20

make you healthy, wealthy, and wise?

58:24

I'm gonna say it depends. So

58:27

depending on what your chronotype is,

58:30

prototype is whether or not

58:32

your traditionally, we say Night Owl

58:35

or DayLark. Whether

58:38

or not you are a person who

58:41

functions better during the evening or functions

58:43

better during the morning or somewhere in between,

58:46

that's probably gonna make you more

58:49

wise sticking to that schedule.

58:52

Healthy Probably

58:55

depends on your light exposure again. It's

58:57

Alie, like, all coming back to light. And

58:59

then, wealthy, good

59:01

luck. That's all. I would just say.

59:03

But yeah. I would think the biggest

59:05

thing is gonna be related to prototype, but then

59:07

also depending on what job you choose

59:09

and maybe there's some correlation

59:11

between our kind of type and what jobs we tend

59:14

to gear toward. But

59:17

yeah, I would say, chronotype

59:19

is probably gonna be the biggest determining

59:22

factor, which is a thought to be potentially

59:24

genetic. So Yeah.

59:26

And so many patrons

59:28

asked that question. Many of you

59:30

little birdies had a prototype questions,

59:33

I e, night owls versus morning

59:35

larks. Such as Stephanie Brehardy's,

59:37

Sergeant James, Chelsea, FruitFly, Molly

59:39

Henning, Jasmine McLean, Michelle Miner,

59:42

Anna Thompson, Anna Claire, Rachel Mount,

59:44

Sophie Cosanoe, Emma Glide's game, Teresa

59:46

Passanova, Justin m Kifford, Charlotte,

59:48

Fjelkigard, Henny Bergstrom, Kelly Brokinton,

59:51

Aaron Pandora two, First time question

59:53

ask her, Lara Dergovich. Erica Butler,

59:55

Madeleine Winter, Brie Johnson, Charlie Wong, Heather

59:57

Woodford. Beatrice, Bella Quanta. He's

59:59

Alie, Kayla Perez. Sarah Sexton

1:00:01

and Erica. Is there such a

1:00:03

thing as a night owl and an early

1:00:05

riser? Is that a thing? Yes. It is a thing.

1:00:08

And it's a thing too depending on

1:00:10

age. So our prototype actually

1:00:13

does change as

1:00:15

we age. So obviously, like, children

1:00:18

tend to be more deluxe. Teenagers

1:00:21

are night owls. That's not a lie.

1:00:23

It's it's oh my god. Thing. And

1:00:25

then as we get older, we move more and

1:00:28

more toward day larks, and older

1:00:30

individuals tend to wake

1:00:33

up earlier in the day, but their sleep is all

1:00:35

screwed up anyways. Wait. Why is their sleep

1:00:37

screwed up? So one thing is change in hormones.

1:00:40

So lack of hormones or

1:00:43

extreme levels of hormones compared to

1:00:45

what would normally be occurring during,

1:00:47

quote unquote, reproductive age. But

1:00:50

then also it's thought that the areas

1:00:52

that are most involved in regulating circadian

1:00:55

rhythms age as well. We don't know

1:00:57

what that aging looks But

1:00:59

it's thought that those brain areas just like other

1:01:01

brain areas could potentially be aging

1:01:04

and not functioning as properly as they normally

1:01:06

would.

1:01:07

Oh, wow. Yeah. Because one patron asked

1:01:09

about older folks

1:01:11

and why they get up so early. Greg

1:01:14

Wallach asked ever since I got a weighted blanket, I

1:01:16

fall asleep with lights on constantly. Is that bad?

1:01:19

But Greg Wallach wants to know also Do

1:01:21

you like the song day sleeper by REM

1:01:24

where Michael Stipe actually cares about circadian

1:01:26

rhythms? Is

1:01:42

it bad that I haven't heard it? I'm

1:01:44

gonna have to send it to you. How dare you? How dare

1:01:47

you? Not getting a PhD until

1:01:49

you can carry okay that entire

1:01:51

song. I know, like, the really popular REM

1:01:54

song. But Well,

1:01:56

this is about to be perhaps your

1:01:58

favorite. I'm gonna send it to you. Oh, I

1:02:00

do wanna get to one more that so

1:02:02

many patrons asked Patrons, I'm

1:02:04

looking at you, Barb Wilkinson, Amanda Rinken,

1:02:07

Sarah Gachesi, Sam McCarthy, Jim

1:02:09

Spigger, Danny Q, James Capaldo, Riley

1:02:11

Mckinist, Emily Toudarache, Raymond

1:02:13

j Deutsch. Rachel Fallon, Yanavu

1:02:15

snusky, Joey Taub, Heather Denzel Moore,

1:02:17

y'all had some real jet laggy questions.

1:02:20

Mainly, how not get this?

1:02:23

What strategies for combating jet

1:02:25

lag are there without using medication?

1:02:28

Do we just have to suffer through it? Or are there behaviors

1:02:30

we can do adjust faster and more Alie.

1:02:32

Like, what is jet lag? What's happening? So

1:02:35

jet lag, I think, is generally thought

1:02:37

to be, again, the desynchrony between

1:02:41

our internal pattern and what we are

1:02:43

used to versus whatever is happening

1:02:45

outside of us. We are basically going

1:02:48

from, hey, I'm used to East Coast

1:02:50

Time or Central Time or Hatcher,

1:02:52

your use of that light pattern and then all

1:02:55

of a sudden, literally within a few hours,

1:02:57

you're in a completely new lighting

1:02:59

pattern and completely new

1:03:02

social cues, completely new food cues,

1:03:04

So all of sudden your body is oh, shit. What's

1:03:06

happening? Mhmm. And so, you

1:03:08

know, that's the actual scientific term. Uh-huh.

1:03:15

And so it's

1:03:18

thought that maybe there's this the

1:03:20

brain is slowly but surely trying to

1:03:22

catch up. And different parts of our bodies

1:03:24

can catch up with this new timing at different

1:03:26

rates. So I would

1:03:28

say there's kind of two, maybe

1:03:30

three things that seem

1:03:32

to hold the most weight in

1:03:35

terms of re synchronizing

1:03:37

yourself to your new environment. Depending

1:03:40

on how long you're gonna be there honestly. If you're only gonna

1:03:42

be somewhere for a couple days, it's not worth your time.

1:03:44

Just deal with it and go back home and

1:03:46

go to normal. But if you're gonna be somewhere

1:03:48

for, like, a week or so, I would recommend

1:03:51

trying to re synchronize your schedule

1:03:54

to whatever your new schedule is but

1:03:56

doing so in smaller increments,

1:03:58

Alie, if you could change your schedule

1:04:00

every fifteen minutes, every couple

1:04:02

of days, that's probably gonna be

1:04:04

more beneficial than you just trying to make it

1:04:07

all happen at once. Yeah,

1:04:09

there's some thought that we can adjust

1:04:11

to Fifteen minutes is some

1:04:14

magic number that it's easier to

1:04:16

adjust to that change than an hour

1:04:18

or two hours or three hours. Now

1:04:21

that's hard to say when you jump from, like,

1:04:24

New York to Sydney.

1:04:26

Like, God, your brain is probably a

1:04:28

mess. But and

1:04:32

then eating on a regular schedule, trying

1:04:34

to sleep on a more regular schedule, even

1:04:37

socializing on regular schedule that

1:04:39

will help

1:04:40

cue your brain and your body to know

1:04:42

what time it is or what the new time is.

1:04:45

Oh, and I realized later that we didn't touch

1:04:47

on circadian rhythms and shift work

1:04:49

enough. And bunch of you, many

1:04:51

of you, too many of you, to list head questions.

1:04:53

Mink manasore, Michael, Don Ewald,

1:04:55

Nelson Pietoro, just a few of you. So

1:04:58

many others asked, essentially, what

1:05:00

can shift workers do or how bad

1:05:02

is shift work And I wish we'd talked about it more,

1:05:04

so I emailed Katherine, and I asked, How

1:05:06

fucked are shift workers? She wrote it right back.

1:05:08

And I shall read it verbatim. She says,

1:05:10

generally speaking, Shift workers are

1:05:12

fucked. We don't quite understand why,

1:05:15

but when looking at disease risk, shift

1:05:17

workers have increased risk of developing

1:05:19

a multitude of diseases, including cancers,

1:05:21

metabolic disease, cognitive decline,

1:05:24

etcetera. We don't know why. It's likely

1:05:26

a mix of our physiology going out of

1:05:28

whack. Like your hormones go crazy, your

1:05:30

immune system goes nuts, so on.

1:05:32

This is obviously mediated by sleep

1:05:34

disruptions, but we don't know to what extent

1:05:37

interesting tidbit she says is it's not just the

1:05:39

light exposure during shift work that's fucking

1:05:42

us up. So our brain and our body are

1:05:44

like, what time is it? So your

1:05:46

liver thinks it's noon because you're eating,

1:05:48

but your brain thinks it's two AM because it's dark

1:05:50

outside. And yeah, we don't know exactly what's

1:05:53

going on here, but shift workers are a

1:05:55

mess. Physiologically speaking, at

1:05:57

least. So shift workers, heart goes

1:05:59

out to you and your heart. I know

1:06:01

it's so hard. Now we did a two part

1:06:03

symptomology up sewed last year. And

1:06:05

as we noted in that one, shift work is

1:06:07

listed as a carcinogen. The

1:06:10

yikes. And I don't know what the answer here

1:06:12

is because shift workers are literally

1:06:14

saving people's lives and oftentimes you don't

1:06:16

have a choice as to what your schedule is

1:06:18

for work. You have to go where they pay you.

1:06:21

So be nice to a shift worker. I think

1:06:23

there should be a national shift worker's day. We

1:06:25

should all have to get up and give you presence in the

1:06:27

middle of the night just to see what it's like one time.

1:06:29

So I don't know, but I want everyone

1:06:32

to take care of themselves as best they can.

1:06:34

So the main point, let's get

1:06:36

control of our sleep people. Do

1:06:38

what you can. A lot of folks asked about, how

1:06:40

much control though is too much? Like,

1:06:42

what about sleep

1:06:43

hacking? Rebecca Windle, Joey Tabb, and

1:06:45

Ron LeBLanc wanted to know.

1:06:47

What do you think of all the tech pros that are

1:06:49

trying to hack their sleep and intermittent fasting?

1:06:52

Are you come on?

1:06:54

I'm sure there might be some small

1:06:57

benefit to it, but it's

1:07:01

I've heard recently of, like, people

1:07:03

trying to fertility using

1:07:05

white. And I'm

1:07:08

I think I'm, like, maybe

1:07:11

Maybe I would say if it doesn't

1:07:13

hurt you, sure why not, but I

1:07:17

There's not enough evidence to say that

1:07:19

it actually works So that would be my one

1:07:21

caveat is go into

1:07:23

it knowing that we

1:07:26

don't know if it works at all. I've

1:07:28

heard of people like trying to acarcating

1:07:31

rhythms or force themselves to be one way

1:07:33

or another. To some extent, we

1:07:35

can, but we only have so

1:07:37

much control over what our body naturally wants

1:07:39

to do.

1:07:40

PS. I just went down a rabbit hole reading about

1:07:42

people who sleep on magnetic pads

1:07:45

and they tape electrodes to their face

1:07:47

and nap for a few hours at a time all

1:07:49

day and all night. Folks who strap ice

1:07:51

packs to their body sounds like a

1:07:53

giant pain in a biohacker's ass.

1:07:55

PS, do you need to fall asleep quickly? I

1:07:57

shared this in the symptomology episode, but

1:07:59

my mom taught me a brain trick where

1:08:02

you think of category fruits

1:08:04

or movie titles or things you'd

1:08:06

find in a purse, and then think of something that

1:08:08

starts with an a, and then something starts

1:08:10

with a b, and a c, and on and on

1:08:12

alphabetically until you drift off. We

1:08:15

call this the Fancy Nancy. So

1:08:17

I hope it helps if you need a tactic

1:08:19

to lull you into Dreamland. I use

1:08:21

it all the time. Thanks, mom. Okay. Moving

1:08:24

on. Mhmm.

1:08:25

And last picturing question, Alie Cooper

1:08:28

wants to know, blackout shades, friend or

1:08:30

foe.

1:08:30

I would say, friend.

1:08:32

Okay. So even if the light doesn't come

1:08:34

in in the morning,

1:08:36

is

1:08:36

it better if you use black out shades and then you just,

1:08:38

like, wake up at six. Like, alright, light.

1:08:40

Here we come. I would say if

1:08:42

you maybe in an ideal world,

1:08:45

if you could have black out shades

1:08:48

red or amber light bulbs

1:08:50

in your house at night. And

1:08:53

then maybe one

1:08:55

of those fancy Sunrise

1:08:57

alarm clocks -- Uh-huh. -- and

1:09:00

things like that that can slowly simulate

1:09:04

a normal light dark cycle, that's probably

1:09:07

gonna be the most beneficial

1:09:09

to us than just like one

1:09:11

thing. If you just put blackout shades

1:09:14

you're right. You're gonna be blocking out the daylight

1:09:16

in the morning, so it might be harder to wake

1:09:18

up. But then if you add a little sunrise

1:09:21

simulator, that's gonna wake your little butt

1:09:23

up easier in the morning. So,

1:09:25

you know, where we could all just sleep on

1:09:28

the porch.

1:09:29

With no light

1:09:31

collection. Yeah. There we

1:09:33

go. This big old ugly street

1:09:36

lamp that's, like, right outside my bedroom

1:09:38

window. That just makes me sad every

1:09:40

time I see it. You can't

1:09:42

me slowly. What else

1:09:45

just kills her? Okay.

1:09:47

Worse thing about your job, shittiest

1:09:49

thing about your job. What sucks? Okay. Other

1:09:51

than me cramming you into this

1:09:53

like, tiny hot recording booth in July.

1:09:56

Honestly, the recording booth isn't that bad.

1:09:58

It's the literal. I don't know if you can

1:10:00

see it, but, like, foot stool that they put

1:10:02

in here. My butt is

1:10:05

so sore. It's fine.

1:10:07

It's it's basically stimulating a squat

1:10:09

for an hour and a half. But

1:10:12

my thighs will be glorious. So

1:10:16

I wanted to say emails because

1:10:18

they suck. But I'll be honest, I'm somebody

1:10:20

who I check my email, like, thirty times a day because

1:10:23

there's something satisfying about getting an

1:10:25

email. I feel like I'm wanted. Mhmm.

1:10:28

So Alie the thing and this

1:10:30

is, you know, anybody who's potentially

1:10:33

interested in doing circadian rhythms research,

1:10:36

there's this running joke that in

1:10:38

order to study circadian rhythms, we have

1:10:40

to fuck up our own. So

1:10:43

my master's experiments I would

1:10:45

have to go in from, like, ten to eleven at night

1:10:48

and then be back in lab at six AM

1:10:50

in order to run my experiments. But I've done

1:10:52

experiments here at Illinois where I

1:10:55

had to be in lab from, like,

1:10:57

seven PM to, like, five AM,

1:11:00

checking animals. Circadian rhythms

1:11:02

research be prepared to not

1:11:04

have any more circadian

1:11:05

rhythms, like just so much. Oh, god.

1:11:08

So That does

1:11:10

I mean, this is, like, doctors. Doctors have, like,

1:11:12

the worst health. Yep. What is the

1:11:15

best thing about what you

1:11:16

do? What do you love the most about

1:11:17

it? Or

1:11:19

about circadian rhythms? So I'll

1:11:21

I'll answer this with two things,

1:11:23

so I'm gonna cheat. So -- Mhmm. -- my favorite

1:11:26

thing about being a scientist in general is

1:11:28

like that moment where like

1:11:30

your data start to slowly make sense.

1:11:33

And they never really fully make sense because

1:11:35

that's life. But -- Mhmm. --

1:11:37

when you start to create

1:11:39

a story with your data. It's some

1:11:41

of the most exciting, exciting

1:11:44

moments of your life as

1:11:46

a researcher. And then you get to

1:11:48

talk to people about it through

1:11:50

podcasting or through social

1:11:53

media or through conferences.

1:11:56

Or writing papers at some of the most

1:11:58

exciting times of being a researcher.

1:12:00

And then Alie you start to develop new ideas

1:12:03

and new questions because science never ends.

1:12:06

About circadian rhythms in general. We

1:12:08

didn't get to talk about this, but circadian

1:12:11

rhythms don't just regulate hormones.

1:12:13

But they are also regulated by hormones

1:12:16

themselves. So, like, things

1:12:18

like estradiol or

1:12:20

estrogens and testosterone and

1:12:22

cortisol and all those fun hormones

1:12:24

we like to talk about, those actually feedback

1:12:26

and regulate circadian rhythms too.

1:12:29

So, like, circadian rhythms don't just

1:12:31

do things but they also then

1:12:33

get feedback and get regulated by

1:12:35

not just environmental cues, but also

1:12:38

internal cues too. And I think it's just so

1:12:40

fascinating. It comes back to my love of

1:12:42

homeostasis

1:12:43

again. I don't know why, but it exists.

1:12:46

So I'm realizing in summation,

1:12:49

I can't treat my body like

1:12:51

a robot. I'm a

1:12:53

human organism. Mhmm. And I have

1:12:55

to treat it at least as nicely as

1:12:57

I would my dog. Yeah.

1:13:00

Love your dog. Love you. Right?

1:13:02

Yeah. I mean, I would never expect

1:13:04

a poor dog to, like, not

1:13:07

eat for most of the day because it was working

1:13:09

and then just give it a bunch of doughnuts

1:13:11

and Pepsi and then keep it up

1:13:13

all night and be what? Why do you feel shit?

1:13:16

You would never do that too at the animal? No.

1:13:18

No. We're not

1:13:19

machines. This is interesting. I feel like

1:13:22

the takeaway from this is that we're fragile

1:13:24

beings.

1:13:25

We need to be in tenderness and

1:13:28

sleep and

1:13:28

food and schedule

1:13:31

and schedules and routines even though

1:13:33

we hate them.

1:13:34

Oh my god. So routines are our

1:13:36

friends. Oh oh,

1:13:39

I've I've really fried my business. I have Alie.

1:13:41

And now insomnia is a completely

1:13:44

different beast. Mhmm. Insomnia

1:13:46

needs tender love and care from a different perspective,

1:13:49

but just like, sleep procrastination,

1:13:52

general sleep difficulties,

1:13:54

like trouble getting to sleep that's not related

1:13:56

to

1:13:56

insomnia. Get a damn

1:13:58

schedule. Get a damn

1:14:00

schedule. Thank you. Almost

1:14:03

doctor. Almost doctor's

1:14:05

orders.

1:14:05

Yes.

1:14:08

So for more on Catherine Hatcher and the podcast

1:14:10

Endocrine Disruptors co hosted by

1:14:13

Shreepetal. Go to endocrine pod

1:14:15

dot com Catherine is on Twitter

1:14:17

as super charismatic. There's

1:14:19

a link in the show notes. There are also links to

1:14:21

all the sponsors and to the charities. I'm

1:14:23

Alie Ward with 1L on Twitter and

1:14:25

in Instagram, say hi over there.

1:14:28

We are at Ologies on both.

1:14:30

You can check out the show notes for more links, including

1:14:32

links to merch. Thank you Bonnie Dutch and Shannon

1:14:35

Phelps's for managing the merch. They have podcast

1:14:37

called UR that they're so charming and funny.

1:14:39

And to Erin Talbert for adminning

1:14:41

Ologies podcast Facebook group. Thank

1:14:44

you to assistant editor, Jared of

1:14:46

Mine Jam Media, and the Mental Health podcast,

1:14:49

I'm a good, bad brain. Thank you to

1:14:51

Emily White and all the transcribers in

1:14:53

the Ologies transcribers group. I see

1:14:55

you, I love you, bleeped episodes for

1:14:57

kiddos and transcripts of some of the episodes

1:14:59

are available at Alie dot com slash

1:15:02

Ologies dash extras, a

1:15:04

link in the show notes. And of course, thanks to

1:15:06

who was guided not by light or by dark,

1:15:08

but by the beacon of ambition from

1:15:10

his mustache lead editor Steven Ray morris,

1:15:13

who also hosts the podcast and

1:15:15

see Jurassic. Right? Please get some more sleep, Stephen.

1:15:18

The theme song was written by Nick Thornburne

1:15:20

of The Band Islands, which is gray band.

1:15:22

And at the end of the episode, you know, I tell you a secret.

1:15:24

And this week, I woke up. And I was I

1:15:26

love the smell of a Christmas tree in the house. And then

1:15:28

I remembered, we don't have one. And that I

1:15:30

had left a pine scented candle burning.

1:15:33

All night in my office, I'm very lucky

1:15:35

nobody died. It smelled so good.

1:15:37

The palettes literally likely

1:15:40

killing me. So please get some sleep.

1:15:42

Please do not do it with any candles

1:15:44

burning. Let me be a lesson I got

1:15:46

very lucky. Get some shut eye. Your

1:15:48

suprachiasmatic nucleus is begging

1:15:51

for it as am I, so be good to yourselves,

1:15:53

little monkeys. I'm so glad to be back. I

1:15:55

slept so much when I had the flu. And that

1:15:57

coupled with this episode, perhaps

1:15:59

has changed me forever. I'm kinda like sleep.

1:16:02

It's cool now.

1:16:03

I get it. Okay. Provide pack

1:16:05

of dermatology together, cryptozuology,

1:16:09

lithology, immunology, metrirology,

1:16:16

serology,

1:16:25

You went up all night. Of course, I've been up all night,

1:16:27

not because of caffeine. It was insomnia. I couldn't

1:16:29

stop thinking about coffee. I'm needing

1:16:30

that. Just one final word

1:16:32

of thanks to our sole sponsor for the show,

1:16:35

Safa. They are our sleep crush.

1:16:37

We love them. And if you wanna start prioritizing

1:16:40

sleep and rest, please do as

1:16:42

someone who used to think I was too

1:16:44

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more. That's s double ATVA

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dot com slash Ologies. And

1:17:10

thank you again, Tapa. Sweet dreams.

1:17:12

Bye bye. Bye.