I just got back to the US of A from a first world country with universal health care, strong economy, and virtually no homelessness. This Scandinavian jaunt required me to experience jet lag to the magnitude of 7 time zones and deal with a sun that never fully set while I was there. So in my sleepless stupor I was inspired to break down the real science of sleep and how ‘sleep hacking’ is not a Hack but Whack.
‘Sleep hacking’ is the idea you can sleep far less if you just do a series of short, structured naps throughout the 24 hour cycle instead of one long sleep session at night. As far as biohacking goes, this one is less insidious as no one is directly trying to sell you anything. All you need is an alarm clock and a misunderstanding of how sleep works.
But it’s still problematic when you look at the reason behind it. It’s promoted as a way to work more, to maximize your means of production by handing your precious sleeping hours over to your rich bosses. Fuck that. I’m getting back on that plane to that place where rest is a national value. Which brings me to another issue with so many bio and life hacks. They put the focus on ‘fixing’ the individual while giving social structures a pass. We are all tired AF, but instead of questioning our poor working conditions and obsession with schedule filling, we instead search for ways to adapt to the unjust.
I’m about to say something that is legitimately controversial among the experts; Sleep’s Dopesmoker is one of the best metal albums of all time. Cue the drama. I’m now about to say something that is not at all controversial among the experts; sleep hacking is total bullshit. What’s the difference? Well, individual preferences are subjective. Plenty of metal heads would argue to death that stoner metal like Sleep is not technically sophisticated, which may be true. But if someone likes it, they can’t be wrong because there is no objective truth to find in subjective preference. I can say sleep hacking is bullshit because there are measurable facts to how our brains and sleep cycles work. While everyone has slightly unique circadian rhythms that doesn’t make you that special of a snowflake and it does not negate the clear facts when looking at whole populations. We as a society need some real fucking help with this one; your subjective opinion never overrides known objective truths. I can say Sleep is a great metal band and you can disagree. Neither of us are wrong there. You can not say Dua Lipa is a better metal band. She is only the best god damn pop diva right now! But really, she’s objectively not metal. So you are off your rocker to make such a claim.
Why do we sleep? Well, it’s not to tap into your unconscious to get dreams about why you wanted to smash with mama. Dream analysis is totally debunked and based in bad old non-scientific Freudian horseshit. Sorry, this is true no matter what that hot SoCal Tinder date in yoga pants is trying to tell you over Yerba Mate. But it is multifaceted. We sleep to minimize caloric expenditure, to solidify and consolidate memories, and to allow for housekeeping to do its thing to maintain overall brain and body health. Our consciousness just tries to make sense of all that.
Let’s start with the fun beep boop gadgets that gave us our current understanding of sleep. This comes from EEG or electroencephalography. Sounds like more of a handful than Jim Jordan clinging to false realities in congressional hearings, but it’s actually quite simple if we break down the word. Electro- equals Electrical. -Encephalo- equals Head. -Graphy equals Measure. It measures the electrical activity on your head.
Hold the fuck up? Electricity on my head? No this ain’t a 5G conspiracy segway. I’ll get to that another week.
In a very simple nutshell, the entirety of our brain activity are the 87 billion odd neurons that are constantly firing off electro-chemical signals called action potentials which aid them in communicating with one another. We are talking billions of tiny single cells each firing off 70 millivolt shots fairly consistently. All this chatter is happening all the time, but when different stages of consciousness occur, or you have different thoughts, or see different stimuli, these neurons create waves of patterns in their chatter. They sync up a bit into mass wavelengths and become measurable on your scalp which can be measured in corresponding stages of your sleep cycle.
Sleep was heavily researched using this technology back in the 50’s and 60’s before we had fancier doodads like MEG and fMRI and NIRS and whatever other expensive acronym machine your grant funding could get its hands on. So our definition of sleep cycles is based on how we first measured it. For further discussion about this idea of operational definitions in science, read about my circumcision here.
Ultimately your sleep/wake cycle (circadian rhythm) goes like this
You cycle from awake down into deep sleep then back up to REM sleep (cue dad rock joke here.) This is defined as Rapid Eye Movement sleep because the doctors were like, “Holy fuck, this person’s eyeballs are moving around all crazy! And their electrical readings on this doodad are almost off the charts!” This is when you are dreaming. You then drop back down into deep sleep and do a few more cycles typically equaling 8ish hours of sleep. While the length of sleep varies by person, and the older you are the less overall sleep and overall REM sleep you need, we all need to get about 5 cycles in a 24 hour period to get the maximum benefit of sleep. That’s the frequency, Kenneth.
Now here is the M. Night predictable twist that you may have already figured out- you don’t have to have all your sleep at once. That was created by the industrialization of society and the need to exploit your labor. The fat cats need you at the assembly line/cubicle/pointless Zoom meeting from 9-5 for order and productivity. This forced you to fit your circadian rhythm to that mold in between your work commutes and picking your crotch goblins up from soccer practice.
This is where the biohack drivel comes in. The idea is then, why can’t we just spread our cycle across the whole 24 hour range? Proponents claim that sleep also becomes more efficient, meaning you need less. Proponents also argue that they can train their REM cycles to be optimized and sped up thus only having to trim total sleep down below 4 hours a day. But sorry, REM ain’t RAM you nerd.
They may think that it’s fine in the short term, but it has long term negative health consequences. And for what? Not one of these asshats are promoting this to make more time to read or ride bicycles or get laid, all the things I need more time to do. This trend exists only in high-stress overly exploitative spaces like the tech sector and grad school. It’s only a way to get you to fuck with your own biology for the purpose of extracting more labor.
In the short term, with 1-2 days of sleep debt you are going to experience pissyness, extra hunger, more stress, difficulty concentrating. But as long as it’s rare, you’ll be fine. I mean, I got out of the Rave era alright where the motto was Sleep Is For The Week … I think…
In long term lack of sleep, you’ll have a stronger stress response, more memory issues, and severe cases can cause hallucinations, which is part of the reason meth heads get delusional. Years of not sleeping much because of kids, work, stress, mental illness, or doing a stupid ass tech bro fad is going to increase your risk for neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s, hypertension, substance dependency, and even tweeting racist shit apparently.
Sleep Hacking is Whack and your boss is exploiting you. But here are some other things you can do that are actually based in science to get better sleep. Which you are doing for yourself, no one else. These are also general guidance that does not necessarily apply to people with sleep disorders. Go talk to a doctor if that’s your sitch. Why the fuck would you read a blog to get medical advice anyway!? Have I taught you nothing!?!?
Now we as humans evolved to be diurnal, meaning most active during the day. That’s why we can’t see shit at night while your cat can. But we also evolved to rise and fall with the sun and to have a lull in the middle of the day. Notice how you have to suck down caffeine around 2pm to compensate for the fatigue of your soul sucking job?
Your fat cat capitalist boss is finally figuring out you are a pissy little bitch that’s not all that productive come 2pm. Google brags they have nap pods for employees and K-12 schools are starting later to accommodate kids need for more sleep. This is good and science supports nap time for everyone. The siesta model is the way. You could and often should knock out one REM cycle mid-day. This means you don’t have to sleep quite as much at night. And you don’t have to rely on caffeine to add meaning to your shit office life every 2pm. Your nap should either be only about 20 minutes to only get into Stage 1 then back up (power nap) or it should be about 70-80 minutes to complete a full REM cycle. In between these ranges causes sleep inertia which makes you more groggy than before.
Lay off biohacking your brain with stimulants like caffeine to stay alert. Downers like alcohol and marijuana will get you to sleep. But in heavy doses, the sleep is poor quality. You don’t go through full cycle but instead shallow cycles when you go to bed fucked up. This is why you don’t dream after partying hard and partially why you are tired when hungover.
There is a disputed theory about how artificial lights might be tricking our sleep cycles by making our pineal glands think we are looking at sunlight. So you can buy blue blocking glasses and turn screens to ‘Night Mode’ to help prevent this. The mechanism at play is real, but how much these lights are really having an effect is not clear. You are likely more alerted not by some range of the electromagnetic spectrum, but by the emotional arousal you are experiencing by arguing with strangers or looking at porn. Either way, put the screens down. But orgasm does induce drowsiness. So finish what you started!
Melatonin pills are popular but the research is very inconclusive. And no herbal tea off the shelf is going to knock you out either. But the ritual helps you calm down via classical conditioning. You can cue yourself to start cycling with repetition of nightly calming rituals, like a nice cup of tea or banging one out.
You should try your best to keep a consistent sleep schedule. This goes to what is called social jet lag. We tend to be sleep deprived all week due to our shitty proletariat lives and then try to both catch up on sleep and party all night to blow off steam. This is the equivalent of traveling across the globe and back every weekend. You are giving yourself jet lag, which gives us a case of the Mondays and no one likes it when you are a pissy little bitch.
Be sure to subscribe here for free and become a paid subscriber if you can. It helps me fight capitalist incursions on our nap time!
And speaking of capitalist incursions, follow me on Twitter and Facebook @biowhack
Or argue with strangers here
And share my shit with your office coworkers.
Authors note: I unfortunately found out after I posted the link in this piece to the Dua Lipa song that the whack rapper Da Baby featured in that song is homophobic. So I want to put it on the record that I always though Da Baby was a shitty rapper and his verse was a clear example of some fat white bald record exec that should have been #metooed by now shoehorning in some weak rap project. Classic example of mediocre man riding the coattails of a women's talent, only dragging her career down. Da Baby clearly ruined that song, but I choose to link to it anyway because it's great when she's live and without him. Anyway, Dua- since you are freed up, lets collab: DuaDeBunka. It'll be dope.