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Short Stuff: Sleeping On It · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry sitting in for Dave. So that
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: makes this short stuff and this is a good one.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about it, Chuck, that's right, big thanks
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to web md, the National Institute of Health, and then
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: what Live Science. He found a cool interview from Live Science. Well,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: they had a guest post from a guy named doctor
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: John Growhole. I think that's how you say his name,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: but he's CEO and founder of psych Central and Live
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Science apparently said doctor grohole, why don't you come over
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and write about sleeping on it for us? And he
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: said sure, and that was one of the sources we used.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I bet it's a grohole. That's what I said. Grohole,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: no groal basically roll. Yeah, you're probably right, but I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: mean the extra O between the H and the L
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is what's throwed me off. But maybe the good doctor
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: did not say, Chary, I'll do it. Maybe he said, oh,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: let me sleep on it and I'll let you know
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: very nice. What word are we not going to say
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in this episode, Chuck, don't grow whole? So um, it
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: is kind of interesting if you stop and think about it.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, basically all of us have had, if not
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: by design them, probably by accident, a period where we
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: were facing some dilemma, some big decision, and we slapped
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: on it. We slept before making the decision, and after
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: we slept, it was just way clearer the next day,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and we probably made the right decision from that point on.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: That's what everybody calls sleeping on the decision, right, But
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: why would that actually happen? Like that's an actual, like
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: a fascinating, amazing component of human life that I just
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: think is the tops. Yeah, and there's Here's the thing is,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: there's more to it than like we all know sleep
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: is just great for everything, but there's more to it
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: than like, but it is also this and like, you know,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't send that email, that angry email, like sleep
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: on that sleep on the maybe sleep on the argument
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that you're in the middle of having with your significant
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: other or your friend or whoever. Supposedly not going to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: bed angry as a rule is not actually a very
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: good rule. We go to bed angry all the time
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: every night, not every night, but man, like you gotta sleep,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and if you're still angry, what are you gonna do? Right?
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly like it is for in the morning. We got
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to works as out right, but there is more to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: it than that, because just human sort of intuition would
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: tell you that, you know, you get some sleep, you
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: clear your head out, you make a better decision in
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the morning. It just makes sense, but it's it's more
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: specific than that, right, Yeah, And we should say that
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this pretty much applies as far as the research goes
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to important, tough, complex decisions, like if you're at a
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: deli and you're like, should I have roast beef or
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: past me on rye? And you go and curl up
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: in the corner for thirty minutes and then wake up
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: with your answer. It's actually not going to help. You're
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: probably going to have the same answer. It's complicated decisions
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that this works for. And most people say the reason
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: why is because when we sleep, we organize our memories
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and process information during that period, and that we're probably
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: taking all this different information, new information, connecting it to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: old information, cementing these neural pathways so that we understand
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it better after we've slept than we understood it before,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: and that we can gain clarity from sleeping on a decision.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: And that's how that works. Yeah, and they've also found
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and this comes from cal Berkeley, from doctor Matthew Walker
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: that who was a sleep scientist, which I'm fascinated by
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: that job that you know at getting good sleep helps
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: you learn, Like that's why you probably learn better, Like
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: right when after you wake up in the morning, your
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: morning classes in school, you're sharper than those afternoon classes.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: But also that going to sleep after you learn for
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: reasons that you mentioned is a really big deal, which
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: led me to my next topic that I'm going to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: do for a long form episode, which is napping. Oh okay,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: because I think I told you on our super secret
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: research trip that I've been started taking a daily nap
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: last year. Yeah, yeah, and then it's been like life changing.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: So I really want to know more about why so napping,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and again it has to do I'm sure in a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: smaller way the reason a good night's sleep is good
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: for you. I would think so for sure. So napping
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: is coming soon, is what I'm saying. Okay, for me personally,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: right after I record and then we'll take a breaking
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: you can take a nap and then we'll come back.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: How about that. Okay, let's do it. Okay, Chuck, it's
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes later. I've been standing here waiting. Well,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I spoke up nap. I feel gratefully this is an
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: even better episode had you not napped. All right, So
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: we're moving on to some even more specifics which I
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: found super, super fascinating about sleeping on it, which is
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the way your conscious mind and your unconscious mind works. Right. Yeah.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: They think that maybe it doesn't really have much to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: do with the actual act of sleeping or cementing memories
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: or new information, but that while we're sleeping, we're using
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: unconscious thought rather than conscious thought, and that you could actually,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: if this is true, you could do the same thing
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: um as sleeping on a decision without actually having to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: go to sleep, if you can engage an unconscious thought
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: about it. And that sounds hard, but actually I think
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: it amounts to, um, just stopping thinking about and chewing
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: over the decision and going and doing something else, building
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a model airplane, doing your tax It's just something else
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: because while you're doing that, um this this um. The
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: guy doctor Groholm points out that you um that that
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: unconscious thought is like not just zoning out, and it's
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: not not thinking, it's just a different mode of thinking,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: and that you're you're still engaging an unconscious thought about
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: this problem, this dilemma, it's just not in the front
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of your mind. And by removing it from the front
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of your mind, putting it into unconscious thought, it seems
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that that actually can produce really good decisions, just like
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: sleeping on something can too. Yeah, and it seems like
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: one of the big reasons why is buy it if
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you are And I think this is where where overthinking,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: like if you say, oh, you're overthinking it, or if
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you think something to death or something uh, that is
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that is concentrating so hard on something on a decision
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that your biases are creeping in. You're thinking about all
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: these different angles and you're quite literally just sort of
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: overdoing it. And apparently when you're just using your unconscious
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: thought and kind of parking it for a second in
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the forefront of your brain, those biases will fade away.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: And the way I read it, or at least the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: way it feels like in my brain, because I, you know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: try to do this stuff some is it feels like
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: it just sort of clears the table a little bit
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and what's left is what's important. Yeah, because if with
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: your biases, with your conscious biases, you're you might push
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: yourself to a bad decision, because that's the one where
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: you get, like a snickerdoodle cookie, you know, where if
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: you engage it, I would do a lot for a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: snickerdoodle cook but like probably things I should not be
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: doing if somebody offered a snickerdoodle, Right, But that if
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you just engage in unconscious thinking, your brain is like,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: snickerdoodle cookie doesn't really matter that much. We're not going
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to use that to weight the different factors in the decision.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: These are all going to be fairly balanced out because
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the biases are removed. So you can essentially step back,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: look at all the different components, all the different possible
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: outcomes pretty much equally on an equal basis, and then say,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: this is the one that's obviously the right decision to make.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Even though I'm not getting a Snickerdoodle cookie. I can
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: go buy a snickerdoodle cookie and still make this correct
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: decision and have the best of both worlds. I could
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: have my snick snickerdoodle and eat it too. Oh man,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I knew that's what you're gonna say. Did you sure
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you knew me, you know me. It's man, the wheels
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: are starting to fall off of this brain. I'll tell
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: you that there has been some study on this as
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: far as sleeping on it. There was that one that
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I guess you found from. Was this from the NIH
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: or was this web MD? It was doctor grohol that
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: cited this one. The Okay, let me see if I
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: can hazard this name dister Hughes Dixterhuse. I think I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: nailed it that last time, Dixterhuse, d I j K
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: S t E R h U I S And I'll
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: bet during college everybody call them the dixter Oh sure
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: at parties. Yeah, yeah, I don't know how you pronounce that.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: That sounds about right now, Dixterhus. So this was an
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: experiment where they would try to get results from having,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you know, people sleep on a big decision or just
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: a decision that's um. I think in this case they
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: were talking about like choosing apartments, yeah, and like where
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to live. I guess. So they would choose these participants,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: they would have a few apartments to choose from. They
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: would describe what's going on in these apartments, of course,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: like you would with any movie real estate decision like
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it's scutto this one has an extra half baths. That
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: one has a chalk body outline, that's right, I want
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: to avoid that one unless that's your thing. Uh. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: after reading these descriptions, they were asked to make their
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: choice UM following an additional period of conscious thought or
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: unconscious thought. And as you would expect, the unconscious thinkers,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: well this is this is the only part I wonder about.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: It has made the better decision than conscious thinkers. But
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: what's the better decision? Like would they be like, well,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: he shows the wrong place clearly. Yeah, now you have
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to actually go live in there in reality because that
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: part is subjective, right, And whether or not that was
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the right choice, yeah, I don't know what the what
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the criteria was, but clearly something was more desirable than
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: than others in the apartments, because maybe outline probably was.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: But the thing that I saw there was like some
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: other follow up UM studies or subsections to the study,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and they found that experts as well are subject to
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the same thing. Like you could take an expert and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: ask them to make a snap decision about something and
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: they're probably going to make a worse decision than a
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: non expert who has had time to sleep on it
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: or engage an unconscious thought about that decision. Interesting, And
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: you know what that tracks, because I think one of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the traits of what you would call highly successful people
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is to be able to make the right decision quickly
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and even under duress. Yes, but that is asking for
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a lot and a lot of people who say one
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why sleeping on it or engaging in
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: unconscious thought is just by virtue of stepping away from
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the problem, you are relinquishing the stress of immediacy. You're saying,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to make this decision under duress. I'm
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: going to give myself some time and up away from it,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And you are just automatically taking yourself out of a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: stressful situation, and then by virtue of that alone, you're
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: probably going to make a better decision. So I think
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the upshot is is unless someone has a gun to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: your head and is telling you to hack into some mainframe,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: you can probably step away from the decision. You're probably
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: putting yourself under undue pressure, and the more likely you
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: are to do that, the more likely you are to
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: probably make a better decision than if you just make
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a snap one under duress. The only thing I'm going
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to disagree with there is that people are a sort
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: of can ask for and or afforded that luxury because
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I think far too many jobs when they don't need
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: to require immediacy of action that you know, if you're
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: like can I sleep on it, They're like, this isn't
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the job for you? Then? So like, give me an example, Oh,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I mean any big, high stakes, sort of high pressure
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: upper management stuff. I don't feel like there's a lot
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of those people that are. I think the ones that
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: are maybe truly successful are probably drawing those boundaries and
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: saying like, no, we should take our time with this decision.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: But sure, I feel like a lot of those are like, no,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: we need to we need to figure this out and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: act on it. That's probably true. I'm not disagreeing with that,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: but I'll bet that they That means that the decisions
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: that are being made at these higher echelons are probably
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: routinely bad decisions. Well, there may be something anythink about it,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, yeah, I want my CEOs to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: go sleep on things. That's my that's my game. Yeah,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: we should start a new corporation called sleep on It.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: That's a great idea. We'll have to edit that out
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: so nobody steals our idea. It's probably out there already. Okay, well,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: well we'll look, we'll do a business search. Okay, Well,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: while we're doing a business search, everybody, this short stuff
• 13:51
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