#57: Stop Trying to Sleep Perfectly | David Samson

Up to half of Americans say their sleep is bad, and the rules for fixing it keep piling up. Michael speaks with David Samson, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Toronto and author of The Sleepless Ape, about why modern people sleep longer and better than hunter-gatherers yet worry about it far more, why our body clocks are the real mismatch, top sleep myths, and which sleep advice is worth following. They discuss:

(00:00) Cold open
(01:19) What is sleep?
(08:30) Is there an epidemic of bad sleep?
(15:50) Why study hunter-gatherer sleep
(18:40) How the Hadza tribe sleeps
(25:45) Bad sleep, happy sleepers
(28:44) Evolutionary mismatch of sleep
(32:40) Sleep is fine, the clock isn't
(38:49) Does sleep anxiety matter?
(43:02) Rapid fire: melatonin to curtains
(47:08) What he does to sleep better

Get David's book, The Sleepless Ape: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691259734/the-sleepless-ape

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Host: Michael Easter
Executive Producer: Robbie Hiser
Music: The Heater Manager
Graphics: Jackie Philips

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