🦍David is an anthropology professor, research, writer, and thinker on the topic of sleep & evolution. If there were such a thing as the rockstar of evolutionary biology & sleep...he would be it. He brings a fresh, fun, and tirelessly researched look at the link between human evolution and sleep. He truly lives his brand of investigating the relationship between sleep, health, and cognition in human and non-human primates. In this podcast, he even gets in the weeds on how to fit all of life into a circadian paradigm. Where should you put alcohol & video gaming from a circadian perspective? He’s got you covered. Samson helps us understand how stress and anxiety (think, COVID-19), have roots in our history and sleep. 🦍Have you ever considered sleep’s role in evolution? Prepare to be fascinated.
In this episode, we discuss:
🦍David Samson’s origin story. How did he become the rockstar of sleep & human and non-human primates?!
🦍Investigating the link between sleep, health, and cognition in human and non-human primates
🦍How the stress and anxiety are at play for so many right now have a role in our history and our sleep
🦍Detailed discussion on the topic of chronic fears and chronic anxieties, and how we can powerfully navigate this in 2020
🦍Concept of that hunter-gatherer sleep and what it is that we in our modern-day society can learn from
🦍Discussion regarding sleep quality
🦍How sleep is a superpower
🦍How to structure your life around strengthening your circadian rhythm
🦍Taking the candlelight challenge and why it is fundamental to getting great sleep
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David R. Samson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He has performed field research on wild apes in Uganda, captive apes, and small-scale human societies in Madagascar, Tanzania, and Guatemala. His main research focuses on primate behavior, with a specific interest in the evolution of sleep and cognition in the human lineage.
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00:04
Welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. My name is Mollie McGlocklin. And I own a company that optimizes sleep through technology accountability and behavioral change. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from doctors, innovators and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Let's jump into your dose of practical sleep training. Welcome to the sleep as it skill podcast. My guest today is David Samson, an anthropology professor and I first stumbled upon David's work last year when researching sleep through the lens of evolutionary biology. And I had the opportunity to connect with him and his passion for this topic is unparalleled. He truly truly lives his brand of investigating the link between sleep, health and cognition in human and non human primates. So on In a practical and fun level, he even gets into the weeds on how to fit all of life really into the circadian paradigm. So think, where to put your alcohol your video game usage, he's got you covered. So beyond this, he helps us understand how the stress and anxiety that are at play for so many right now have a role in our history and our sleep. So a little bit about him. David Simpson is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He has performed field research on wild apes and Uganda, captive aids and small scale human societies in Madagascar, Tanzania and Guatemala. His main research focuses on primate behavior with a specific interest in evolutionary of sleep and cognition in the human lineage. Let's dive in. And welcome to the sleep is a skill Podcast. I am so grateful to have my guest David here today, David, thank you so much for taking the time.
02:00
Well, thank you for having me, Mollie, we had a conversation several months ago, and it was a blast. So I'm really looking forward to this.
02:05
Yes, me too. You know, when you have those things on your calendar, and you actually are really excited to dive into them, this was one of those for me. Because, yes, yes, I love it. I literally am raising the roof with that, Steven. So I completely agree. My mind was just blown on our conversation that we had those, you know, few months back and you were able to really shift this conversation around sleep for me in a way that I hadn't heard other people do. So I am excited for our listeners to be able to have that similar experience with all the knowledge that you have. So I think it's good to or could be a great place to start to start at the beginning and a bit of your origin story around how it is that you got into this area. You know, you've lots of things to deliver for people, but particularly one of the areas of sleep and with that how you've brought your own unique perspective. to it.
03:01
Yeah, the origin story is an interesting one. Because if you were to rewind time and ask graduate school, Dave, whether or not he would be, have some type of specialization or expertise in sleep and the evolution of sleep and human cognition, say five or six, seven years later, he would have been pretty nonplussed by it. I don't think he would have understood and understood what was going on. I originally so I started as a primatologist, and I am a primatologist, you can wear multiple hats in academia. And I did my dissertation work out at the Toro sim Leakey wildlife reserve in Uganda and I spent nearly a year several months out there working on chimpanzee material culture, and that what that actually entailed was really long days, sometimes 13 hour days, hiking 15 kilometers in the day to habituate the chimps to follow the chimps observe their behavior, but also My dissertation question was looking at the evolution of material culture in the great apes. And what I was interested in was sleeping platforms. So what I did was I climb these African sino metros, their ironwood trees, essentially. And these are preferred trees out of some Leakey, where the chimpanzees will build a nightly sleeping platform, just think of it like a canopy bed. They'll spend five to eight minutes sometimes interweaving these frame supporting branches into this beautiful nest and I I've been up there so I've tried to make these myself and I simply don't have the wrist strength, but I can nap in them and I did all the time when I when I was out there measuring them sometimes 20 meters above the air. So I was out there measuring finally about 72 I got an nF 72 at sim Leakey, measuring their sleeping platforms, and then analyze this data within an ecological context came back to the States. And that was basically one part of my dissertation. The second part was when I went to the Indianapolis zoo, Work with Dr. Rob Shoemaker, who is the director of Life Sciences there. And he has worked with orangutangs in captivity, well, since his really his entire career, so since the 80s. And I basically was interested in the ultimate causation of sleep. So what are the evolutionary reasons? What are the evolutionary functions of why we sleep, not just how we sleep and what the mechanisms are. And so I our team was the first to measure orangutangs sleep architecture, we used infrared videography, to capture REM and non REM and about five or Ranga Tangs, and that was eventually published in the journal behavior and animal behavior. And after that, I had ensconced myself in the literature to a certain point in which I began to realize there was this really big deficit in our understanding of sleeps role, particularly in human evolution. And I once you Defend your dissertation which I did soon after the publication of those papers, defend your dissertation. You have this really weird moment where he you've been focusing on this one question for sometimes several years. And you have a brief moment of respite where it's essentially what's next. And I was really lucky because after that stint at Indiana University where I got my PhD, I landed a one year position at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And Alyssa Crittenden, who has worked with the hodza hunter gatherers, her entire career was my office, mate. So she was right down the hall for me. And the first time I ever met her, I had already known her background in her work, which is exceptional. And I pitched her the idea of hunter gatherer sleep and we began the conversation that ended up me taking a total, basically 180 degree and into the world of human sleep evolution. And, and measuring sleep, using our ticker free in an evolutionarily relevant context like places like East Africa.
07:09
Wow, wow.
07:11
That's incredible. And so so this has taken you all over the globe, you've had different insights on how to, you know, channel this information, different paths to take partnerships that you've made. And with that, I think one of the things, you know, I was taking so many notes as you're speaking but one of the things that I would love to go a bit deeper on with you is this concept of that hunter gatherer sleep and what it is that we in our modern day society can really learn from that because it's something with this concept around sleep being a skill in our modern day society, is my belief that it can fit today, but that you know, in in the past, it might have had a whole different world to it. So I'm just wondering if we can go deeper on that because I know you've such insights on what that looks like and as it relates to Sleeping xiety I remember you had a lot of really interesting information on that, too.
08:04
Yeah, so the reason why sleep is interesting to study in hunter gatherers is because in the West, we've been sleeping, we've been setting sleep for 6070 years, and we've gained a lot of critical information on function of different sleep architecture stages, and lots of things that are that go on under the hood. But what we have not been able to capture our data that would allow us to test evolution or hypotheses, because when you sleep in the West, you are masking all the variables that would influence your natural circadian rhythm. And this is actually a really critical point. You and I are obviously indoors right now because we're talking but but everyone is indoors and more than usual because of COVID-19. Yes, everyone is spending a lot of time indoors. So we're even, you know, remove the pandemic. Our culture is masked and blocked from light, natural variation and oscillations in light and temperature throughout the day that I'm sure your listeners are very familiar with the fact that these are critical drivers to sleep wake regulation. And so what better place to go instead of sleep but in populations that have 24 seven I mean there's no escape from their environment which is outdoors all the time. They sleep the hodza specifically sleep in Acacia huts that take the women who is this their hunter gatherer so there's sexual division of labor, the women will make the huts when they prop up a new camp and it usually takes about four hours to make. And so as you can imagine, if it makes for if it takes four hours, it's not that insulated from the outside environment. You do see because you have the control the use of fire in these societies do see that there is a reduction of the variation in temperature inside the hut itself, which is something that I outlined in a publication in the Journal of human evolution. But it's nothing like walking into a temperature regulated home that has a thermostat that doesn't deviate from one degree the entire time that you are alive living in, you know, so this is why this is a really critical population to study sleep, and notwithstanding the fact that, of course, they're also hunting and gathering, they are gaining a living by finding all their calories in their environment. So they have a life way that is very traditional, and they have a exposure to their environment that is basically on parallel to Western populations.
10:50
Wow. Yes. And, you know, I was fascinated when we were able to briefly you know, discuss this a few months back and I'm so excited to go into this But more for for listeners, because I felt it was really interesting what you were able to point out because so many of us might, you know, there could be the tendency to then look to that example and be like, okay, that is where you get the best sleep, this is how it should be. And you one pointed to that there's a whole other level area of concern around the sleep quality that is there. So to not glorify, you know, the back to nature element a bit too much. And then
11:29
secondly, asleep is actually not sleep most Westerners would envy.
11:34
Right, right. Yes. I thought that was really interesting to hear more about. Yes, yeah. Got that. And then so for that, so understanding because I think you are able so elegantly to paint that picture of what that looks like and, and then on the on the opposite side of understanding the distinction between the robustness of their circadian rhythm, and how there can be these different pluses and minuses where they might have that robust Acadian rhythms. We don't have they might be lacking and sleep anxiety, but then have difficulty in sleep quality.
12:05
Yeah, it might be worth just recapping what we talked about last time. Yes, there's that are listening to it originally on this podcast. So there's a little bit of attention in the data that we find from these populations. And I should include the data that we generated in Madagascar. We did, we looked at data in a small scale agricultural population and then denna in North Eastern Madagascar. And so they to have a lot of exposure to their environment. So they're a wonderful group of people to work with on this topic. So basically, there's attention in that, yes, they are sleeping less. And their sleep quality is, in fact, quantifiably poor than people, even in 2020. And I know that there's this huge push in the media to get everyone to think that there is some type of sleep epidemic going on. This is pre pandemic or right so we'll talk about post pandemic But there's a narrative out there that gets people clicking on news stories because fear is a beautiful driver, monetary driver for people to listen to stories. So there's this idea that with cell phones and with technology, we are getting the poor sleep we've ever gotten. And I think that this is actually false. I think that our ancestors got good sleep relative to every other prime on the planet. We can talk about the comparative perspective too. But that, in fact, we have a trade off here where these populations that I've studied have higher circadian rhythms because they are in their environment, but poor sleep and shorter duration sleep. But the interesting caveat here is that they don't problematize their sleep, even though they have short sleep. And they have fragmented sleep and their sleep efficiency is pretty low relative to Western populations. They when asked on surveys and survey instruments, they will Respond essentially unanimously that they're perfectly happy with their sleep. So that's sort of the state of play, as far as I can tell that interesting tension between circadian rhythms and sleep and then just not really problematizing it.
14:14
Hmm. Yeah, you know, I love the step point for me it really stuck out because I shared with you my story and how much sleep anxiety I was going through when I wasn't getting my sleep. And so, and how many people are coming, you know, to sleep as a skill and just freaked out when their sleep is what they thought to be great.
14:36
Let's, if you don't mind, I think that's a perfect Yes. bridge to the topic of COVID. Because, yes, please fear is on everyone's mind, right? Yes. So everybody's experience if we were to, if we had a fear monitor, right, a thermometer that could check the populations, anxiety levels, that'd be pretty cool. But if we had it, we would probably see it. elevated temperature, right? Maybe not like a fever, like during World War or something you might see it spiked to a fever level, but it's definitely up there. It's like it would people would be like, okay, watch it, you know if it gets any higher go into the doctor. And what's going on here, this is a perfect opportunity for us to talk about acute fear versus chronic fear. Now, acute fear is good. Robert sapolsky has talked about the differences between acute fear and chronic fear from an evolutionary standpoint, he's an evolutionary biologist, acute fears is awesome. It keeps you alive. If there's a lion stalking you in the jungle, or the savanna, or there is a human threat out there, maybe a group that's about to take your resources. Acute fear is going to upregulate your neuro endocrine system and allow you to combat that challenge in your environment. And that's going to overall increase your fitness and fitness is the evolutionary point of the realm. So to Speak, right? fitness is what is going to allow you to survive and reproduce. So fear is good from that level, when things get tricky is when fear becomes chronic. And when that what's called a failure of fear extinction, and we see a host of negative outcomes that can happen when that fear becomes chronic. And insomnia, I think is a perfect example of this. And myself and some colleagues just published a paper entitled failure of fear, extinction and insomnia and evolutionary perspective, and it talks about this and disentangle these ideas. So what I think is going on here is that the general population has an increased fear temperature. And what is happening is it's up regulating chronic fear. Chronic fear is then interfering with the ability for people to get to sleep with ease, so is probably increasing sleep latency and probably making the sleep more fragmented. On top of that, I'm sure you are going to probably go this direction. But there's been a really interesting narrative about the shift in dreams. Have you been keeping up on this?
17:08
Yes, I actually just did a newsletter on that one. Yeah. I want to hear your thoughts on that. Go ahead.
17:13
Yeah. So when I heard this, and National Geographic had this beautiful Expo, say on this topic, when I heard this, I instantly clicked it with a paper I'd read several years ago, from Renzo and colleagues, it was a 2001 paper. And it's all about threat simulation theory. And the idea is that the evolutionary reason why we dream one of the functions from an evolutionary standpoint of dreaming, is to rehearse threats for next day action. So a lot of events would help explain why a lot of dreams are anxiety driven 80% of dreams, on average are going to have some type of anxiety component to it. And this is at least an elegant explanation of why that might be particularly when it comes to the social realm. A lot of people were hurt. Less things like lions eating them right and more like interactions with other people, and how those would go if they went negatively. Right. And so this is a very common visit statistically they've done Dom Hoff has has made a career out of analyzing dreams. And this is one of the most common dream elements out there, at least in western populations. So with this COVID-19 threat, what I think is going on here is that we're again running into a mismatch scenario. This time, though, the threat isn't visible. And humans are not adapted for invisible threats were destined for threats in our environment, we can see that we can, we can hear, we can hear stalking us, right. And so we're simply just not evolve or invisible threats. And what we do when we are threatened is we double down on, on being social. We actually have the impulse the instinct to become more social, not less social, when we're under threat. So this is like Like an evolutionary double whammy, right, we're getting hit on all fronts. And I think it's having an impact on the at least the qualitative reporting of our dream content.
19:12
Wow. So this is such an interesting and just nuanced perspective on this. And I think this this helps really provide so much insight for people and to understand what what they are up against to your point that then this, you know, pervasive sense of now. There's concerns there's chronic fear and paired with the loneliness paired with being inside. So we're kind of, you know, got some things against us arguably. And yet with that, I thought it was really interesting how you were able to point to this concept around sleep and discipline and how it's can almost become like the superpower when you're super discipline. So I'm wondering if you could share with us how we could begin to unravel now that In this situation, from your perspective, what would be some of the best ways? evolutionarily speaking, if we are kind of all inside, and we got these things against us, what how can we bring in that level of discipline? What are some of the things we need to do? I know you had mentioned a cultural, how did you put it something around cultural bank, you know, like investing in your social bank, and the importance of that even for grade sleep. So from that perspective, what do you see as a as a way for people to help navigate this and bring in some of that superpower to still ensure that they're getting rich sleep and all that?
20:38
Yeah, I think we got to double down on the basics here. Yeah. But also, keep in mind that a lot of this stuff we can still do, while social distancing. So just when I say the basics, the two pillars are light hygiene and sleep hygiene. And I'm sure that Yeah, you know, your listeners are about as educated on these topics as anybody, but it's worth reiterating that don't sleep hygiene you want a room that doesn't have a lot of distractions, a room that brings to you mental calmness. And you want it that your routine to be very, very consistent before, before bedtime. And so in my mind, what I tell my students is that consistency is king. Because your circadian rhythm knows. And if you give it more information, it's only going to serve you better. And on that note in terms of doing things that you can still do while your social distancing a light hygiene, you can still go out and get a good dose of natural vitamin D and in fact, by the way, vitamin D is one of the one reliable things that people are saying is good to supplement right now and that has benefits in terms of your ability to fight off COVID-19 and so this is vitamin D does strengthen the immune system, particularly the respiratory tract. So this is you know, obviously supplements are key, especially if you're in Northern latitude, but getting the natural stuff is always the best. And so going out at the bare minimum getting, you know, having lunch by yourself or with your pair bond or your family or whatever the people you're already exposed to, and soaking in as much light as you possibly can during the midpoint of the day. And then when you're indoors, obviously, as soon as the sun goes down, turning those lights down, because that's going to help regulate melatonin. And we all know Melatonin is that principal hormone that that drives sleep weight regulation. So doing that, and on the discipline side of things, meal timing is super critical. since our last conversation, I've been doubling down on really locking in on my meal timing. Yes, yeah. And it's it's key. And before COVID Actually, I've been doing a little bit of traveling, and I really found it was straight up the best hack for any type of jetlag. Because if you queue in that you're mealtime is always no matter what, three hours before bed, right? Just whatever that time is that you're dedicating to going to the act of sleep. Minus three hours is when you need to be eating. And then even when you switch time zones, that is a an entirely different circadian pathway with which to indicate to your body that it's time to prepare for bed despite the fact that the light is all wonky, right? Yes, it's been so powerful. I've been really loving that one that was a game changer for me, in terms of traveling because I generally, even with melatonin supplements and everything it was still, it would be days, sometimes, particularly if I was traveling to Southeast Asia or something, it'd be days before I could get back to normal. So that's meal timing is critical, but it takes Believe it or not, especially if you're a family, it's going to be hard to always get meal time at the same time. So that takes a little discipline. It's got to be something it has to be intentional. You have to build it in to your routine. Just Like you would your sleep hygiene routine an hour before bed. I'm a real big fan now of day gaming. So I'm a video gamer. I don't know if Do we have about this last time? No,
24:09
I don't think so. Okay,
24:10
all right about this. Okay, yeah, it's totally new topic but I'm a gamer I mostly just socialize with my friends online who live in different parts of the of North America. And I am in the same way that I'm trying to leverage my circadian rhythm for just about everything even drinking even drinking alcohol. I'm be just becoming a day any if I have a vise, I just do it during the day. And the effect is like 10 times less the next day I knew this like you know between you being the listeners, I can be with my my friends and we can drink all day. And if I cut myself off by I don't know by the time the sun starts going down. Yes, I have no there no hangover. I have a completely productive day. The next They, and it just takes a, like an orientation of a reorientation and a renegotiation of, of when you're going to be social. Yeah. And so and what you do when you're social. And so I've applied that for other things too, like video games. So I'll do a video game. And this is it's way better on your system than say, playing, you know, Call of Duty an hour before bed. There's just no way that your body is going to be able to down regulate after you've been working in a group competitively. You're acetylcholine spiking right. So you're highly motivated, your cortisol spiking because you're stressed out, and then you turn the computer off and you think you're gonna fall asleep. Right? There's no way there's no way. So you just give yourself time I only do the vise stuff before dinner. And it seems like once a dinner hits, then your body's like, Okay, this is your time for the circadian rhythm to lock you into when it's time to wind down. And it's been it's been really fantastic. So I've been leveraging that. Oh, the other One, huh? This is another one and I just thought of this the other day, a social media intake, or even just when you click on your COVID-19 report, yes, do it midday, or do it over coffee. And as soon as noon hits, start decreasing the hits, that by the time the sun goes down, just say I'm just not gonna do it anymore, right? And you'll notice that there's a circadian rhythm. It's like your body can tolerate crappy stuff better when it's totally up regulated for the day. And it's incompatible for that kind of stuff at night. So I've been just doing this with everything that I don't like in life. I'm like, do it when you have peak circadian rhythm, right?
26:47
Yes, I love that. Yeah. So with sleep as a skill we call it thought timing and putting that thought timing in strategically Yeah, absolutely. And creating a whole calendar for the day, circadian crafted day. We'll ensure that we are, you know, dealing with it so that they have to be dealt with if they're, you know, big conversations or just things we don't want to deal with. But then they kind of haunt us in the evenings in bed instead you know tackling those during the day I love that even the big conversations thing Yeah, I you know, having a critical conversation with say, you know, your loved one before bed is just that's such a dumb idea.
27:28
cognitively pencil time to do it. Overwatch, right? Mm hmm. Otherwise, you're you're risking your entire night's sleep.
27:36
Yeah, I even got that on the flip side just a little bit ago I was sharing the story of them with my boyfriend he gave my stuff right back to me even from a positive stress conversation because he was we do this nightly great thing. So we say our top three things that we're grateful for, and one and he was what much more tired than I was at that moment. So he was like, okay, a quick grateful he went through. One of them was Gary Vaynerchuk Video went out something like that. And so I'm like, Oh really? What's what was the video about? Oh, I want to hear and I'm, you know, clearly going to be all engaged and excited and and then connecting, you know, for so much of my life I had spent been connected to stress that was what I would think of is real stress like a negative stress and yet to also get connected to that will actually get me fired up and arguably positive stress
28:24
positive way.
28:25
Yeah, but it's still gonna keep me up for you know, a period of time.
28:29
Absolutely. It's up regulating neuro endocrine systems that are designed to make you more engaged, not less, right. Yeah. So not to down regulate. So that's that's a really good way of putting it.
28:41
Yeah, yeah. And I also appreciate you calling out some just real life tips around alcohol, having fun being social and instead of completely abstaining, how to then have a life where you have it all and just kind of reshuffle things and be
28:57
careful. Yeah, we can we can eat our have our cake and eat it too. We just need to be really strategic about it and use the latest science to be able to maximize it, you know, good.
29:07
So in relation with some of the concepts you had, there's one that has stuck out with me and I've actually mentioned it in my newsletter, you know, giving you a shout out about this because and I continue to mention this one, which is what you've coined the candlelight challenge and I'm wondering, share more about that, but that was brilliant. Oh,
29:25
absolutely. And in fact, I think had I taught my first 400 level course by then or I by the time we had our last conversation I don't feel
29:33
like you would mention that. Yeah, yeah. You were telling like you're like not many people take me up on this is like they won't show me like students
29:41
do it.
29:43
They had to get they were getting graded for it. Yeah. And and I had them were or rigs. So I have because I'm asleep lab. I have 55 or a rigs and I put deck I put all of them on my students. And we actually found the issue was compliance. Because, you know, I can't be there at night telling them to do things. But we did find on several different measures, there was some movement particularly with mood, and with REM. So we found that the candlelight challenge which I will go ahead and just go ahead and share it now is two weeks where as soon as the sun goes down, all the lights in the house go out. And you can only use natural lighting or if you need tech to help bolster that because sometimes, you know, candles are expensive, or they're, you know, I don't know, a hazard or something. Right? Go ahead and just use a portable lamp that uses the really warm tones, the warm who's in just no blue light, right? So whatever you can do to eliminate blue light in your home, do and if you have a roommate, so some students had roommates obviously, and they were pretty, really robust blue wave light blocking classes, and they had a they had a sleep hygiene routine, etc. And that's the Kindle I challenge two weeks of that so if you can do that That you should after the end of two weeks, there should be no way around it, there should be an enhancement of your circadian rhythm. And you should see your sleep measures move. So in a positive way. And so I think now more than ever, especially in terms of using that idea that consistency is king and discipline, this would be a great time for families to start doing this challenge. And at the very least, what you could be doing if you have a large family or several children, you're showing them a that sleep is important and that routine is important. And just think of it if you teach them good sleep, hygiene and good life hygiene at that age, you could add say 1000 hours of high quality sleep to their life. Now imagine that life versus a life without those thousand hours. And I would rather live the thousand hours with the high quality sleep personally. Knowing how to influences my cognition, my mood and my head. ability to interact with challenges in my environment.
32:03
Hmm. And I'm wondering if you could kind of draw parallels real quick between the importance of that because, you know, oftentimes when explaining why that's important, I'll kind of you know, go back and forth oscillate between, you know, hunter gatherers is is kind of this blueprint as far as just at least this the robustness of the circadian rhythm, certainly not all the other difficulties that are up against them. But why it is that this part is so important of the post sunset and how life likely was for them, which we would assume not much extension, right fireplace or fire and that's it.
32:40
Well, gosh, Molly, when we get to the topic of circadian rhythms, that's when evolution really shows us how critical our rhythms are. And in fact, I might even argue it's definitely a more ancient trait is definitely the more what we call an evolutionarily conserved trait, meaning that the common ancestor Going back to a very, very far gate. And I'll say what that date is pretty soon was pretty bizarre how deep circadian rhythms go in terms of deep time. But when was the last time a common ancestor had this trait and hence all other lineages have this trait, right? That's the idea of a conservative trait from an evolutionary standpoint. And so, sleep has undergone lots of transitions. You look at sleep amongst mammals, amongst primates amongst different orders, it'll find a way to move within the niche that it needs to adapt to. Its plastic in that sense, but circadian rhythms really aren't. And that's because there is just simply a fundamental advantage to all organisms fitness advantage to all organisms that can time appropriate behaviors in their environment. And this goes back to we think probably about half a billion years ago, perhaps 300 years. years ago, the first eukaryotic organisms on this planet perhaps prokaryotic. eukaryotic being multicellular organisms had organelles that had a perimeter around it with a cell wall. And we know this because planetary means do Marella is one of the most ancient worms in the planet. And we share an ancestor with this worm that goes back like 500 million years. It times its its flagellum, which allows it it's like a motor that allows you to propel upwards towards the water surface, it times it to where when it's dark out, and so you can have flip circadian rhythms. It could be advantageous for one organism to be active at night versus the day. That's why we have differences between animal organisms that are not turnovers diurnal versus ephemeral, meaning your active at some points peaking at night end day, but this puttering is doing really well time it to where it's feeding at the top of the ocean when The sun is not out and there are no predators, and then it will start when the sun comes up, it'll start sleeping and resting and it'll float back down to be able to be hidden. And it does this with guess what hormone. Molly, what hormone might might drive this regulate regulatory system?
35:18
Oh my god their own rhythms.
35:21
Yeah. And Melatonin is the hormone. Yes. The same hormone,
35:24
right? That
35:26
is hormone. Sure. That's it. That's it. So I think that circadian rhythms are has been this thing that we don't necessarily associate with sleep and when people read these articles about how to improve your sleep, sure, really, I think the fundamentals are how to enhance your rhythm. Yeah, I think that's that's where we need to be looking. And sleep will come. Right if we just pay more attention.
35:51
So So why do you really you brought us back to the beginning. Yeah, preach. I love it. Amazing. Okay, so I I mean, I could talk to you for hours. So for our listeners, I'm imagining that there are you piqued their interest. So I'm curious of how they can continue to follow all your just fascinating work. And you know what's next for you all the projects and all the things that are coming, what's the best way for them to continue this conversation with you?
36:19
I'm pretty active on my, my Twitter and my Instagram. So my Instagram is primal primatologist. And then my Twitter account is at primal primate. And that's a that's a good way the Instagram account is me trying to engage my students. So I've got a lot of pictures of field work and things like that. It's a visual medium, right. And then every once in a while, I'll post the work that comes out from my graduate students in my lab, in that Twitter account as well. And of course, there's always Google so you could just google David Sampson University of Toronto, anthropology and you'll come across my academic page and my CV and all that stuff. At You'd like it.
37:01
Oh, amazing. Well, I gotta say, I'm so grateful for you taking the time during this kind of extraordinary time and helping one enlighten us and to really help quell some of these fears for people around how to take on this topic of chronic fears and chronic anxieties, and how we can powerfully navigate this and how to make meaning out of it. So I really, really appreciate that.
37:24
Well, Molly, it is always a pleasure. And I love the title of your podcast, and it's just great content. And it's good stuff. So I'm really happy to be a part of the collaboration to help better.
37:37
Thank you. Yeah, you've been a part of this journey, for sure. And I'm grateful to have that continue. So thank you so much.
37:43
Absolutely.
37:45
You've been listening to the sleep is a skill podcast, number one podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday I send out something that I call Molly's Monday obsessions containing everything that I'm obsessing over in the world. Sleep, head on over to sleep as guild calm to sign up