Sleep Like a Caveman

For several decades, people's reported sleep quality has declined. This, despite the fact that specially optimized sheets, mattresses, and sleep trackers have emerged during that time, and despite the fact that the amount of time people are sleeping hasn't decreased for over fifty years.

In other words, people aren't sleeping less than they used to, but are less happy about their sleep than ever before.

My guest would say that to improve our experience of sleep, we'd be better off looking past the reams of modern advice out there and back in time — way, way back in time.

Today on the show, Dr. Merijn van de Laar, a recovering insomniac, sleep therapist, and the author of How toSleep Like a Caveman: Ancient Wisdom for a Better Night's Rest, will tell us how learning about our prehistoric ancestors' sleep can help us relax about our own. He explains that the behaviors we think of as sleep problems are actually normal, natural, and even adaptive. We talk about why hunter-gatherers actually sleep less than we think we need to, how their natural wake periods during the night might explain our own sleep patterns, the methods they use to get better sleep, and why our modern efforts to optimize sleep could be making it worse. Merijn shares when it's okay to use a smartphone before bed, the myth that you have to get eight hours of sleep a night, how to intentionally use sleep deprivation to improve your sleep, and more.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• AoM Article: 22 Ways to Get a Better Night’s Sleep
• AoM Article: What Every Man Should Know About Sleep
• AoM Article: What to Do When You Can’t Sleep
• AoM Article: The Importance of Building Your Daily Sleep Pressure
• AoM Podcast #661: Get Better Sleep by Stressing About It Less
• AoM Podcast #736: Could Sleeping in Separate Beds Improve Your Relationship?
• Study: Hadza sleep biology — Evidence for flexible sleep-wake patterns in hunter-gatherers

Connect With Merijn van de Laar

• Merijn's website