Use Sleep to Enhance Learning, Memory & Emotional State | Dr. Gina Poe

(music plays) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today my guest is Dr. Gina Poe. Dr. Gina Poe is a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology at the University of California Los Angeles. Her laboratory and research focuses on the relationship between sleep and learning, in particular, how specific patterns of brain activity that are present during specific phases of sleep impact our ability to learn and remember specific types of information. For instance, procedural information, that is, how to perform specific cognitive or physical tasks, as well as encoding of emotional memories and discarding emotional memories. Indeed, her research focuses on how specific phases of sleep can act as its own form of trauma therapy, discarding the emotional tones of memories. In addition, her laboratory focuses on how specific phases of sleep impact things like the release of growth hormone. Growth hormone, of course, plays critical roles in metabolism and tissue repair, including brain tissue repair, and therefore has critical roles in vitality and longevity. Today you will learn many things about the relationship between sleep, learning, emotionality, and growth hormone. One basic but very important takeaway that you'll learn about today, which was news to me, is that it's not just the duration and depth of your sleep that matter, but actually getting to sleep at relatively the same time each night ensures that you get adequate growth hormone release in the first hours of sleep. In fact, if you require, let's say, eight hours of sleep per night, but you go to sleep two hours later than your typical bedtime on any given night, you actually miss the window for growth hormone release. That's right. Getting growth hormone release in sleep, which is absolutely critical to our immediate and long-term health, is not a prerequisite of getting sleep even if we are getting enough sleep. As Dr. Poe explains, there are critical brain circuits and endocrine, that is, hormone circuits, that regulate not just the duration and depth and quality and timing of sleep, but when we place our bout of sleep, that is, when we go to sleep each night, plus or minus about a half hour or so, strongly dictates whether or not we will experience all the health promoting, including mind promoting, benefits of sleep. Today's episode covers that and a lot more in substantial detail. You will learn, for instance, how to use sleep in order to optimize learning as well as forgetting for those things that you would like to forget. So during today's episode, Dr. Gina Poe shares critical information about not just neuroscience but physiology and the hormone systems of the brain and body that strongly inform mental health, physical health, and performance. So by the end of today's episode, you'll be far more informed about sleep and how it works, the different roles it performs, and you'll have several new actionable steps that you can take in order to improve your mental health, physical health, and performance. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means plenty of salt, magnesium, and potassium, the so-called electrolytes, and no sugar. Now, the electrolytes are critical to the function of every cell in your body, in particular, the neurons, the nerve cells. As I've talked about before on this podcast, neurons, nerve cells require adequate sodium and potassium as well as magnesium in order to fire action potentials, which are the electrical signals that allow neurons to do everything from generate focus and attention, allow you to learn, and generate neuromuscular connection and allow you to exercise or train or do any kind of skilled activity with a high degree of output. I take LMNT about two or three times per day, typically once in the morning and again after or during my bout of exercise each day, and sometimes an additional one if I've sat in a hot sauna and sweat a lot or if the weather is very hot. If you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to Drink LMNT, that's L-M-N-T.com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with your purchase. Again, that's Drink LMNT, L-M-N-T.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack. Today's episode is also brought to us by Helix Sleep. Helix Sleep makes mattresses and pillows that are of the absolute highest quality. Now, sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. When we are sleeping well, all of those things excel. And when we are not sleeping well, all of those things suffer. Now, the surface that you sleep on, that is, the mattress that you sleep on, is critical. And Helix understands that everybody has slightly different sleep needs. So if you were to go to the Helix site, which I invite you to do, and take their brief two-minute quiz, it will match your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. It will ask you questions, for instance, do you sleep on your back or your side or your stomach? Do you tend to run hot or cold during the night? Or maybe you don't know the answers to those questions. I went and took the sleep quiz at Helix and it matched me to the so-called Dusk mattress, D-U-S-K. I started sleeping on a Dusk mattress over a year ago and it's the best sleep that I've ever had. It's completely transformed the depth and duration and quality of my sleep in ways that make me feel far better during the daytime. If you're interested in upgrading your mattress, you can go to helixsleep.com/huberman, take their two-minute sleep quiz, and they'll match you to a customized mattress and you'll get up to $350 off any mattress order and two free pillows. Again, if interested, go to helixsleep.com/huberman for up to $350 off and two free pillows. Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity.Now, again, sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance, but what many people don't realize is that in order to fall and stay asleep, your core body temperature has to drop by about one to three degrees. Conversely, in order to wake up each morning and feel refreshed, your body temperature actually has to increase by one to three degrees. Therefore, controlling the temperature of your sleeping environment is absolutely key. With Eight Sleep, that's very easy to do. Depending on whether or not you typically run too cold or too hot during the night, you can program your Eight Sleep mattress cover so that it's the optimal temperature, not just for you, but for each phase, the early, middle, and late phase of your sleep and for waking up in the morning. In fact, you can even control the temperature of your Eight Sleep mattress cover differentially across the mattress if you're sleeping alongside somebody else. If you'd like to try Eight Sleep, you can go to EightSleep.com/Huberman and check out their Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout. Eight Sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, UK, and select countries in the EU and Australia. Again, that's EightSleep.com/Huberman to save $150 at checkout. The Huberman Lab Podcast is now partnered with Momentous Supplements. To find the supplements we discuss on the Huberman Lab Podcast, you can go to Live Momentous, spelled O-U-S, LiveMomentous.com/Huberman. And I should just mention that the library of those supplements is constantly expanding. Again, that's LiveMomentous.com/Huberman. And now for my discussion with Dr. Gina Po. Dr. Gina Po, welcome.