Episode: 116
Dr. Gina Poe: How to Get Better Sleep and Boost Your Learning, Memory, and Energy
with Dr. Gina Poe, PhD
Improve your sleep tonight.
Dr. Gina Poe is an accomplished researcher and trained neuroscientist.
Currently a professor at UCLA, Dr. Poe has been researching the functions of sleep for over 30 years and has authored nearly 200 publications on the topic.
Dr. Poe shares 5 practical, science-backed steps to help you achieve the perfect night’s sleep.
Listen on:
Sleep is great for the immune system, it's great for cognition, it's great for the emotional system. It's great for growth and repair.
Dr. Gina Poe, PhD
Featured Clips
Transcript
Mel Robbins (00:03):
So you're one of the most renowned sleep researchers in the world. What is your sleep routine?
Dr. Gina Poe (00:11):
That's a great question.
Mel Robbins (00:12):
Can you explain why we sleep and why it's so important?
Dr. Gina Poe (00:16):
Sleep is great for the immune system. It's great for cognition. It's great for the emotional system. It's great for growth and repair.
Mel Robbins (00:25):
Who knew sleeping was so complicated?
(00:30):
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Today you and I are going to learn all about the science of sleep from one of the world's leading neuroscientists and researchers. I'm talking about UCLA's Dr. Gina Poe, and before I jump into her credentials and everything that we're going to cover, I just want to thank you. Thank you for being here because when you're here with me, I know it's not about me, it's about you. You listen because you want to learn, you want to feel inspired, and you're investing time in yourself right now, and I don't take that lightly because I love you for being interested in improving your life. I mean, that's why I'm here too. So I'm proud of both of us, and today we have a private class with one of the most renowned experts and researchers in the science of sleep.
(01:17):
Dr. Gina Poe is here now. Dr. Poe is a neuroscientist at UCLA. She's been studying the science of sleep for 30 years. Her lab has done pioneering research. Right now she's looking to the connection of sleep and healing mental illness. Dr. Poe is going to cover the fundamentals today and questions like, why do you sleep? What is your brain doing as you sleep? What is REM sleep? What are sleep cycles and how many do you need? If you've been hearing about circadian rhythms, she's going to break it down and explain what they are and why they matter. And you're going to leave with five recommendations from Dr. Poe's extra research recommendations on how anyone including you can improve your sleep. And if you're sitting there thinking, Ugh, mal sleep, this sounds like a snooze fest. I think I'm going to skip this one, don't you dare, because I thought I knew what I needed to know about sleep too.
(02:11):
And then I started preparing for this episode. I learned so many things that I didn't know, but you and I need to know. We should know. I'm talking profound, profound information about how sleep is critical for your memory, for neuroplasticity, for locking in new habits, for creativity, for healing, for so much more. This is one of the fundamental pillars for better health and for a better life. And so that's why I'm excited. That's why I'm glad that you're here. Classes is in session, sleep is on the docket, and guess what? The amazing Dr. Gina Poe, she's not only smart, she's super in demand. This woman is hot off a plane because she's been lecturing at conferences all over Europe, but she is here right now for you and for me. So Dr. Gina Poe, I am so excited to be here with you. So with that introduction, I got to tell you on YouTube, I'm so excited that you are here because classes in session, sleep is on the docket, and I'm going to throw this to the studios in Los Angeles because we recorded this in LA because Dr. Gina Poe had been all over Europe lecturing about sleep, and she had flown back to LA and jumped right in the studio for you and me. So without further ado, let's go. Thanks so much for having me. I am so thrilled that you're here. And I want to start off with what might sound like a really stupid question. I'm sure not.
Mel Robbins (03:38):
Can you explain why we sleep and why it's so important?
Dr. Gina Poe (03:42):
It's a great question. Actually, not stupid at all. It's something that we've been looking for an answer to for the last 50 years, probably 70 years and actually longer than that. But it's not easy to come up with an answer because there are so many answers. There's so many things happening during sleep that can't happen at any other time. That new answers keep bubbling up. So sleep is great for the immune system, it's great for cognition, it's great for the emotional system, it's great for growth and repair.
Mel Robbins (04:22):
What is the difference between being awake and being asleep? Is there a physiological or neurological like difference between the two?
Dr. Gina Poe (04:31):
Yeah, it's huge actually. So when we fall unconscious and into sleep, neurotransmitters, chemicals in our brain completely change their composition. So there's a set of neurotransmitters that are associated with wakefulness and being able to intend to the environment, have conversations, think thoughts, and they just completely switch when we fall asleep. So that one main one, which is called acetylcholine, which is really important for attention to the environment, switches off, and that's very characteristic of non-REM sleep, which is the first states we normally go into when we fall asleep. So acetylcholine turns off in animals that sleep hemispheric, okay,
Mel Robbins (05:19):
That's a big word. What Is uni? I can't even see the thing feed seriously.
Dr. Gina Poe (05:25):
Hemispheric means one hemisphere at a time. We have two hemispheres in our brain, and each hemisphere controls half of our body, and so the right hemisphere controls the left half of our body. So one hemisphere of the brain is asleep and the other hemisphere is awake, and the hemisphere that's asleep switches off the attention acetylcholine neurotransmitter, the chemical which your brain is doing, all kinds of essential things that can't be done during wakefulness. It's another work time. It feels quite different than waking work. Then you can justify, Hey, I need this. I'm going to feel better. I'm going to be able to tackle my next day better.
Mel Robbins (06:08):
Never even occurred to me that it goes way beyond rest. Because what we're about to learn today is there's all these really critical health and mind health functions that can only happen when part of the brain is in sleep mode. Is that right? That's right. Absolutely. Holy cow. So why don't we start with what the perfect night's sleep based on your 30 years of research, what is a perfect night's sleep look like? Just so that we have a benchmark for what would be ideal?
Dr. Gina Poe (06:38):
I think if you just look at a 10-year-old, you'll get what the perfect night's sleep looks like. They sleep beautifully. They have a beautiful homeostatic, which means it responds to what you're doing during the day response and how long you've been awake. They have a beautiful circadian, which means their body knows what time of day it is and what time they should go to sleep and what time they should wake up. And so the 10-year-old sleep is perfect. Don't ever wake up a 10-year-old if you can possibly help it. They're doing a lot of really important things. And after that, our sleep changes during our teenage years, and we need just as much sleep as a 10-year-old, which is about 10 hours or nine or eight to 10 hours for sure. But teenagers circadian rhythms change a little bit so that they fall asleep a little later and want to wake up a little later. So it's also a beautiful night's sleep if they are calm and not too engaged with social media at the wrong times. But anyway, that's a great night's sleep. Our sleep is actually pretty great until we're about 40 or 50 years old. And then varying depend on the individual, your sleep can start to become less efficient. And so what does a perfect
Mel Robbins (08:05):
Night's sleep look like in terms of how long you sleep, the various phases
Dr. Gina Poe (08:11):
Of sleep? Right, okay. So the perfect night's sleep for health as an adult is something around seven and a half, eight hours plus or minus an hour, something like that.
(08:24):
You should be awakened by the sunlight essentially. So that's something that resets our clock every day. And then so you kind of work back from there from the time you need to awaken to get at least seven and a half, eight hours of sleep a night. Different people need different amounts of sleep. Some people need more like nine, some people are fine with six for a while. How do you know? You just have to know from your own body. Some people, if they get six hours of sleep, they know already immediately when they wake up and going throughout the day, it wasn't enough. And so your body will tell you and other people wake up at six hours and they're fine. They feel great, and one way to know is how sleepy you feel during the day. Okay, yeah.
Mel Robbins (09:14):
You already said one takeaway that I want to make sure that you listen and got from us, which is you start with the time that you want to wake up and then you roll the clock backwards and you're basically saying that it's seven to eight hours, give or take an hour. So you roll the clock backwards, probably seven to nine hours, and that's when you need to fall asleep. That's right. And what happens when you fall asleep? What are the phases that we go through as we're sleeping?
Dr. Gina Poe (09:42):
The very first stage is of course, dozing, and we don't really know when we're dozing except that we sort of come conscious once in a while and say, oh, wow, okay. What happened in the last couple minutes? I don't know. Because our memory starts not recording what we've been doing. And that lasts on average about two minutes. For example, if you're reading a book and you fall asleep reading the book, you won't remember the last two minutes of reading. Or if you're listening to a podcast, you won't remember the last few minutes of the podcast before you actually fall asleep.
Mel Robbins (10:17):
Or if I was talking to my husband, and next thing you know he's snoring, he doesn't remember the last minute and a half of what I said. Exactly, exactly. So there's that dozing period, which I rather, I love that you kind of drift from your mind spinning to all of a sudden almost like you're floating in a pool that only lasts two minutes.
Dr. Gina Poe (10:40):
No, stage one is variable, it's about two to five minutes, something like that.
Mel Robbins (10:46):
And you need that sort of stage one of dozing to get into stage two. What happens next?
Dr. Gina Poe (10:52):
Then stage two is really an exciting stage. So between stage one and stage two, there's something called hypnagogic hallucinations, which I'm not even going to try. Hypnagogic sos hall hallucinations. Okay. It's our brain losing hold of reality and all kinds of imaginary imagination things happen. For example, it can be as boring as feeling like you're falling off a step because not all of parts of your brain are asleep at the same time as you kind of drift into it. And so you feel the muscles relaxing and part of your brain says, ah, I'm falling. And the hallucination is incorporated into that feeling of falling. And so you think you're falling off a step.
Mel Robbins (11:41):
Wait, is that why they call it falling asleep? That makes so much sense, and I have had that experience before where I do that dozing, my favorite part can drift off into the pillow, but then I every night have a jerking sensation and it is like falling. It's almost like you're moving into the phase where your body is clumsily trying to turn your muscles off so you can drift into the deeper one. That's pretty cool. Now I know why I do that.
Dr. Gina Poe (12:11):
Or it can be as horrifying as feeling like there's a monster jumping on your chest and shaking you, and it can be very, very disturbing as well if you wake up from it. So they're pretty vivid hallucinations, almost like the dreams we have in REM sleep only. You don't have the atonia, which is all your muscles being inhibited to prevent you from acting out the dream. So oftentimes people, if they have a vivid hallucination that's scary, can wake up from that and then feel like, oh, what just happened? Was there a monster in my room? Really? I think that's the idea of nightmares comes from that idea of just the hallucinations, the weird hallucinations that
Mel Robbins (12:56):
Come, and this is as your brain is sort of trying to drop itself into a deeper state of sleep.
Dr. Gina Poe (13:04):
Yeah.
Mel Robbins (13:04):
Oh, interesting. I didn't know that.
Dr. Gina Poe (13:06):
And not everybody, and most people in fact don't wake up from that N two. It's called N one is dozing, N two is that state of sleep, which has pretty vivid dreams kind of, but they're not long story-like dreams like we have in REM sleep, but we'll get to that in a minute. So then from N two, which our brain is very active, we go into N three, which is also a time of activity, but it's really synchronous activity, like waves of activity going through our brain, and it's disconnected in time, one wave from another, so consciousness can't be maintained, and if you wake someone up out of N three sleep, slow wave sleep and ask them what they were dreaming, they will not report having dreamed anything. It'll be a blank slate, and it's actually pretty hard to wake someone up out of that state. It's a deep, it's called a deep sleep.
Mel Robbins (14:04):
And what's the purpose? You use the word wave. What is actually happening in your body when you're in that third phase and the wave is happening?
Dr. Gina Poe (14:14):
Yeah, so that's a time when we know that our brain is cleaning itself. Actually, wait, what? Yes, it's cleaning itself. Yeah, it's cleaning itself of what? Of all the junk that builds up during the daytime when we're awake and alert, what kind of junk builds up? Well, proteins get unfolded, so things break down, energy is used, all of that gets restored in that deep state of sleep. What
Mel Robbins (14:44):
Would happen if you didn't get that deep stage of sleep and the wave, the cleaning wave? I'm seeing somebody coming in after a big party and cleaning up all the cups.
Dr. Gina Poe (14:53):
It's like this wave comes through your brain. It's like a wave cleansing the brain. Yes. And there's one per minute or so, actually one per second actually. So a lot more often than that, and it sweeps from front to back and it just pushes all the junk into your cerebral spinal fluid and out into your, is that why my back hurts? I don't think so, but yeah, that's a good question. So if you don't get it, you actually don't get a chance to clean your brain like that, so you really need it, and that's the sleep you get mostly in the first half of the night after you fall asleep. So you go from N one to N two to N three, N three lasts 20 to 30 minutes or so, and then you go back into N two briefly and then into REM sleep, which is called REM sleep.
Mel Robbins (15:50):
How is that different than the wave?
Dr. Gina Poe (15:52):
It's very different. It's actually also called paradoxical sleep because if you look at brain activity, it looks just like someone's awake.
Mel Robbins (16:00):
Really?
Dr. Gina Poe (16:01):
Why? And thoughts are going through and dreams are happening. It's really strong imagery in your dreams, and if you wake someone up out of that state of REM sleep, they'll always report a dream 90% of the time. Even people who if you ask say, oh, I never dream or I never remember my dreams, if you wake them up out of that stage, they'll remember. It's the reason why I think the reason why people don't remember their dreams is because they are solidly asleep and don't wake up out of that state. So don't worry, you are dreaming.
Mel Robbins (16:41):
What is your brain doing
Dr. Gina Poe (16:44):
When you're dreaming in that REM stage? Yeah, well, first of all, you're creating dreams. It's also important for the process of creativity and for changing your mind. It's actually an extremely plastic state, so it's paradoxical because electrically it looks like wakefulness, but chemically it's very different. Two of the neurochemicals that are off during dream state are two neurochemicals that keep you attuned to things that are novel, and they're coming in from the outside world and help you learn from things in the outside world. And those are norepinephrine and serotonin. They're off during REM sleep. So you instead, you're attuned internally to internal thoughts and internal images, and so you can actually build your own schema from the things that you learned during the day that are now registered in your brain. It's not a time for new learning, it's not a time for listening to new podcasts and getting that information in. It's a time to assimilate the things that you've already learned into coherent patterns that make sense.
Mel Robbins (17:54):
I want to see if I can give that back to you to make sure that you listening are tracking, because I just had a big like whoa, aha kind of moment here. So you said that the first four hours of sleep are critical for creativity, and I've also I think, read in your research that it's also critical for the making of memories,
Dr. Gina Poe (18:20):
For the assimilation of memories.
Mel Robbins (18:24):
Guess what is the difference between
Dr. Gina Poe (18:25):
Making and assimilation of memories? So making memories requires us to pay attention to things in the outside world and put 'em together. And assimilating means you've taken those things from the outside world and now you're putting them together into packets we call schema, which are related pieces of information. And it's good for creativity because these new pieces of information get assimilated into different schema in ways that we can't do when we're awake. I think I'm actually getting this. Okay.
Mel Robbins (19:03):
You're basically saying that neuroplasticity isn't happening when we're learning, the neuroplasticity is happening when we're sleeping. There's that saying in the exercise world that your abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym because of food being medicine. And what you're basically saying is habits are made in your bedroom while you're sleeping, not while you're out in your life living, because that's when your brain locks in all the learning that you did today. That's so freaking cool. The chemicals, or I don't know if that's the right word, but the chemicals in your brain, which are serotonin and neurophine or however you say it,
Dr. Gina Poe (19:43):
Norepinephrine, noradrenaline. If you
Mel Robbins (19:44):
Do noradrenaline, that's easier for me to say noradrenaline. They're not present, which means you're only tuned into the information that is in your brain and your body from your experience today. And because those two chemicals aren't present during this sleep cycle, your brain is locking in these new patterns and habits and skills and memories. You're calling them from an academic standpoint, like each one of these memories or this new skill or this new neurotransmitter that gets created is a schema.
Dr. Gina Poe (20:19):
It goes into a schema. Schema are things like, what is Christmas? There's a whole host of things that are associated with Christmas or what does summer mean? There's a whole host of things, and that's a schema into which a lot of things get built.
Mel Robbins (20:35):
Yeah. Oh, I understand. So it's almost like our own internal search architecture. I think about it like Legos Summer Lego box has a whole lot of little Lego cubes in it of different colors, and you can create things. This is really cool. And so neuroplasticity and habit formation. One of the huge takeaways that you've already given us is that sleep is critical for that to happen. You have to have sleep in order to have that formation happening in your brain and
Dr. Gina Poe (21:09):
Body. That's right. Because during the day, you can assemble, you can collect these Lego pieces, but you don't assemble them into a coherent schema.
Mel Robbins (21:19):
Wow.
Dr. Gina Poe (21:20):
Yeah. I think if you think of sleep as laziness or a time when you're not doing anything, then it's harder to justify in our workaholic world of that time we spend asleep. But instead, if you know that your brain is doing all kinds of essential things that can't be done during wakefulness, it's another quote, work time, even though it's a pleasant work time and it feels quite different than waking work, then you can justify, Hey, I need this. I'm going to feel better. I'm going to be able to attack my next day better. And so you can schedule it in just like you schedule everything else into your life.
Mel Robbins (22:03):
I'm sorry. I just think this is so cool. Now, I also read that sleep cycles last about 90 minutes. What does that even mean and what is in a sleep cycle and why should we care? Right?
Dr. Gina Poe (22:16):
Yeah. On average, it's 90 minutes, and that's when you go from N one to N two to N three to N two to rem, and that whole process takes on average in US about 90 minutes. In other animals, it's shorter or longer. So we don't know why it takes the amount of time it does, but it seems to be important that it happens in the order that it happens because if you disturb that order, if you get rid of one element of it, the whole process does not work nearly as efficiently or at all. So for example, if you just eliminate the REM sleep part, you can't consolidate your memories and put them together. If you eliminate the deep, slow wave sleep part, the N three state, the cleaning part, you'll wake up with a junky brain and not be as efficient and able to handle the day.
Mel Robbins (23:07):
Well, that kind of makes sense because if you haven't brought the Zamboni into your brain to clean out all the junk, then you're not working with a clear palette when it comes to locking in the things that are new.
Dr. Gina Poe (23:19):
Yeah, that's right. Exactly. And
Mel Robbins (23:20):
So how many sleep cycles do we do in a night?
Dr. Gina Poe (23:23):
About five. A five would be ideal, actually. So that's
Dr. Gina Poe (23:29):
4, 5, 6 and a half, seven hours of sleep, something like that. The first sleep cycle is a little longer than 90 minutes probably because that N three state is a little longer and you don't have as much of it in the later part, the last half of the night, you don't have nearly as much N three sleep. So if you miss the first half of the night, you'll miss most of that N three sleep, which is the cleaning stage. So you don't want to miss that first half.
Mel Robbins (23:59):
How would you miss the first half?
Dr. Gina Poe (24:01):
Well, staying up too late, staying up three hours later than you normally do. If you go to bed at 11 and now it's two in the morning and you're falling asleep, you'll get lots of that REM sleep, but you won't get near as much if at all, any of that cleaning state.
Mel Robbins (24:16):
Okay,
Dr. Gina Poe (24:17):
Hold on. Now I'm confused. Okay.
Mel Robbins (24:19):
Because I thought that if you fall asleep, that's like, let's just say the clock's at zero. You fall asleep, whether it's at nine o'clock at night or one o'clock in the morning, that's hour zero.
Dr. Gina Poe (24:33):
No,
Mel Robbins (24:33):
No, wait, what?
Dr. Gina Poe (24:35):
Your body knows what time it is of day. It is. So your body knows the difference between nine o'clock at night and two in the morning.
Mel Robbins (24:43):
So if you chronically go to bed late, your brain is jumping to the second half of sleep.
Dr. Gina Poe (24:50):
No.
Mel Robbins (24:51):
Okay. I don't understand how you would miss the wave coming through and cleaning your brain out if it typically happens in the first.
Dr. Gina Poe (24:59):
So if you go to bed late chronically and wake up late chronically,
Dr. Gina Poe (25:03):
Then your body says, okay, it's aligned with your wake up time. It's actually what it aligns with best is the light that you're exposed to during the day. What is the purpose of the second half? The second half is for, I like to think of it as more creative. It's creative part, it's emotional resolution and creative building of new schema. So the first half of the night is let's do a little correction. It's more for kind of locking in, like you said, strengthening and sealing the things that you learn during the day, but the second half of the night or REM sleep, more like every REM cycle is more for building new schema and making new connections and changing your mind and resolving the emotional aspects of your memory. So for example, if you remember a painful event, whether it's emotionally painful or physically painful that happened a year ago or 10 years ago, you will want to remember that because it's adaptive and it's good to have those memories, but you won't want to recall when you're remembering the event, the actual pain.
(26:24):
You don't want to feel the pain again, either emotional pain or physical pain that's not adaptive. You don't need that part of it. And so in our research right now that we're doing in collaboration with a few other laboratories, we're discovering that it is that REM sleep period, specifically the REM sleep period, and you get much more of it in the second half of the night. That helps to separate out the novelty and the immediacy and the physical reality of the emotions of those memories from the facts, the semantic facts that you put together that you can recall for the rest of your life. And that's what happens normally, but people who have insomnia and they don't have good quality of REM sleep, their norepinephrine or NORAD adrenalin is too active because they're too anxious while they sleep, then they don't have that distancing from the immediacy and the saliency and the sense that it just happened today. So that's what we're looking into. That's
Mel Robbins (27:36):
Really profound and exciting in terms of that kind of insight, because if you think about it, I would imagine it's also applicable to somebody that has a lot of trauma. It's somebody that has a lot of chronic pain, that all of that is a very real lived, stored experience in your body. And if your brain is not able to get that seven to nine hours of sleep where it can do all of this functioning for a health and a mindset and plast, I mean, I think the implications of that, because what you're basically saying is that having good sleep habits and consistent sleep habits actually can help you heal.
Dr. Gina Poe (28:27):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Not
Mel Robbins (28:29):
Only can help you, but it's necessary. It's
Dr. Gina Poe (28:31):
Necessary to heal. It's necessary to heal.
Mel Robbins (28:34):
Could you explain what the circadian rhythm is to us?
Dr. Gina Poe (28:40):
Right. So every cell in our body has a clock in it, and these clocks are aligned by a master clock in our brain called the super chiasma nucleus CN for short. And that nucleus is reset every day by light coming in through our eyes. And is our
Mel Robbins (29:02):
Clock running on a 24 hour cycle? Roughly?
Dr. Gina Poe (29:06):
Roughly. And that's why it needs to be reset every day because everybody's clock is a little bit, the period is a little different. And how do you
Mel Robbins (29:14):
Intentionally reset this internal circadian rhythm?
Dr. Gina Poe (29:18):
Yeah. Well, there are many ways I talk about light, that's the strongest one.
Mel Robbins (29:22):
Okay.
Dr. Gina Poe (29:22):
Bright light in the morning. And so that tells you that time zero.
Mel Robbins (29:27):
Oh. So when you wake up in the morning, whether it's raining or it's cloudy or it's a bright sunny day, that is the clock hits zero in terms of your brain going, okay, the day has started.
Dr. Gina Poe (29:42):
So you really do need to control your light exposure to make sure your timekeeper sets it to the world that you need it to be. So if
Mel Robbins (29:51):
You were to use this research around circadian rhythms to improve your sleep, how would I go about figuring out what's the first thing I need to do in the morning to reset my clock now to start training myself to get a better night's sleep?
Dr. Gina Poe (30:09):
If you want to reset your clock so that you're up, say at six in the morning or whenever the sun comes up, get outside and expose yourself to that sun. Eat your breakfast, and then do the same with lunch and do the same with dinner. Don't expose yourself to bright light at night, especially blue light. If you expose yourself to a lot of the strong blue light at night, then the circadian system will say, wait a minute, is it morning time? I guess it's morning time, and we'll shift you forward. Did everybody hear that? So
Mel Robbins (30:36):
There are some very free and specific steps there, which is get some bright light exposure. And I take it, even a cloudier or rainy day is going to suffice. So much brighter than indoor light, even a cloudy day. And how long should we be standing on our porches or sticking our heads out the window?
Dr. Gina Poe (30:54):
It doesn't even take that long. 20 minutes is plenty of time to give your clock, and if you can be exercising during that time, all the better. So get out and walk. If I can only get out for two minutes, would it make a difference? Yeah, two minutes. Make a difference. Yeah, it makes a difference.
Mel Robbins (31:09):
Okay. And then you also heard everybody that based on the exact same research and principles staring at your phone, your computer screen, your television in the evening is a big no-no. Unless you've got the blue light blockers. Right? Because it is signaling to your brain that it's not time to go to bed. Right? That's right. Which makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It says it's
Dr. Gina Poe (31:32):
Morning, I should
Mel Robbins (31:33):
Be awake, which is why you're screwing yourself up with
Dr. Gina Poe (31:36):
This
Mel Robbins (31:36):
And why you're getting a bad night's sleep. Who knew sleeping was so complicated? And I love that you're elevating the fact that this isn't about getting rest. This is about your brain health and your overall health and your body functioning and you being able to live a better life. And we have a circadian rhythm for a reason, because our body functions better when you track to morning light and you start getting yourself ready to go to sleep again when the sun sets. One of the things that I found really interesting in your research is the importance of a consistent bedtime
Mel Robbins (32:20):
And a growth hormone that gets released, and why is that connected to a consistent bedtime?
Dr. Gina Poe (32:30):
Right. Well, growth hormone is the thing that helps you repair your muscles, build proteins involved in consolidating your memories and just rebuilding damaged parts of your body that gets released in little spurts, if anything, all day long and while you're awake. But when you go to sleep and your circadian system is aligned, in other words, you're going to sleep at the right time relative to your clock, which means that melatonin is being released. Melatonin and growth hormone together gets the release of growth hormone to be 10 times higher than it is when you're awake. So it's a big spurt of growth hormone that can do things that little spurts can't do.
Mel Robbins (33:19):
What does a growth hormone do?
Dr. Gina Poe (33:20):
Growth hormone helps you build proteins. All those amino acids that you eat during the day need to be built into proteins and proteins that get broken down during the day when we're, and misfolded can get built back up during sleep, and it's really only sleep if you delay sleep so that it's past the time when your melatonin surge is going, then the growth hormone surge can't be nearly as big. You know what question I'm
Mel Robbins (33:51):
About to ask next, right? Does a melatonin supplement help spike that? Is that a way or not really? Or
Dr. Gina Poe (33:59):
We don't know him? Actually, we don't know, but I doubt it because it's not just melatonin. There's a lot of other things that are happening simultaneously with that melatonin, and it signals other parts of your body. The other thing about melatonin supplements is that they're not regulated by the FDA. So in any one melatonin supplement, there may be zero melatonin, or there might be 10 times. What you need can actually help all of the processes that happen normally in the first few hours of sleep. I am fascinated
Mel Robbins (34:35):
By this, and I start to see how now the inconsistent bedtime now is also screwing up the signaling. Imagine, I think about it this way, when our three kids were little, they had a bed night routine, same bedtime, the same routine. We're winding down, we're picking up the toys, we're saying goodnight. We're going up for the bath, we're reading the bedtime story. You're in your pajamas. You have the little song or prayer, whatever, the kiss on the forehead, you turn off the light. And it was this intentional pattern that was training our kids. It's time to wind down and sleep.
Dr. Gina Poe (35:18):
That's right.
Mel Robbins (35:18):
And it sounds like that's exactly what we need as adults.
Dr. Gina Poe (35:22):
Yes. We need the same thing as adults. Exactly. You've put it really well. And in fact, you mentioned a bath.
Mel Robbins (35:29):
Yes. I take one every night.
Dr. Gina Poe (35:30):
Yeah. It really helps you sleep better. Why? It's thought to be because you are warming your periphery and vasodilating your hands and feet because they're, that's not sexy vasodilating. That's what I'm going to
Mel Robbins (35:45):
Say to Chris. Chris, I'm going to go vasodilate my hands and feet in a hot
Dr. Gina Poe (35:51):
Path, honey, right? Yes. And vasodilation is good because what that does is it then helps cool your core, which is something that happens as you fall asleep. The core of your body cools by half a degree, something like that. People get the best night's sleep if they can have warm hands and feet out there exposed to the air, helping to cool your core. So that's great. Also to have a great night's sleep exercise during the day. Our bodies are made to exercise, they're made to move. And if we get a good time of exercise where our blood is racing and our hearts are pounding and our breathing is deep, then for some reason, and we don't know exactly why, it might be due to adenosine buildup or needing growth hormone, and the signals your body gives you says, we need to repair ourselves. It gives you a really wonderful night's sleep. So those two things are beautiful.
Mel Robbins (36:53):
A bath and exercise, you heard it here, and bright light in the morning and a consistent bedtime. Those four things that you are giving everybody for free based on decades and decades of research, and not too much caffeine, too late. Oh yeah, that's right. That's number five. Not too much caffeine, everybody. Thank you for explaining that, Dr. Poe. And one of the things that I love as I listen to you is I'm realizing you're designed to sleep well. This is part of your hard wiring, your natural intelligence, your DNA, your run on a circadian rhythm, and sleep is a critical function. So this is something that we can all learn how to do better. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. So you're one of the most renowned sleep researchers in the world. What is your sleep routine? What time do you go to bed? When do you stop looking? Walk us through your evening, you've had dinner, then what do you do for your optimal
Mel Robbins (37:32):
So you're one of the most renowned sleep researchers in the world. What is your sleep routine? What time do you go to bed? When do you stop looking? Walk us through your evening, you've had dinner, then what do you do for your optimal
Dr. Gina Poe (37:48):
Sleep? That's a great question. So sometimes I have to work after dinner in the evening, but the best time for me to go to sleep is around 11 or 10 30 at night. And so if I can put away my work by an hour before that, that's the best time for me. Take a shower, that would be amazing and usually good. And then in bed, what works great for me is either just prayer and relaxation, deep breathing, or I can distract my racing brain with a really dumb little game on my phone with my phone set to non blue
Mel Robbins (38:38):
Light. Wait. I'm like, wait, wait, did the sleep researcher just tell me she's playing a game on her phone? Right. But
Dr. Gina Poe (38:45):
I turn off the blue light. I feel like I need to delete this. It's a dimmer screen and is non blue light. See, now you look
Mel Robbins (38:52):
Embarrassed that you're actually saying, I am proud of you for admitting it. Everybody was just like, she's normal. God, thank God.
Dr. Gina Poe (39:00):
I play a game
Mel Robbins (39:00):
Called How do you block the thing on the
Dr. Gina Poe (39:03):
Blue light? Oh, it's a setting on my phone. Just you can take away the blue light. Oh my.
Mel Robbins (39:07):
Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Gina Poe (39:08):
And so the dumb game is, so I don't recommend this, by the way, everybody, the dumb game is something that's not mentally challenging. And of course if I lose, it's okay. So it is threes where you stick numbers together to form three, and then, anyway, so yeah, and within 10 minutes I'm usually, I'm out. Wow. Yeah. I don't even bother putting my phone all the way on my nightstand. I just don't drop it. Okay. I don't even like to have the phone in the bedroom. No. It's better to have it not in the bedroom. And of course, my phone is set to do not disturb mode so that it's not disturbing me and it doesn't. Yeah. Alright. It's better to have it not in the room. And for some people, actually, what works great also is reading a book or whatever it is, just relaxing. And within 10 minutes, 12 minutes, you should be
Mel Robbins (40:00):
Asleep. Wow. Well, I could talk to you for hours, obviously, Dr. Poe, I just want to thank you so much on behalf of everybody listening for really breaking this down for us and sharing simple things that we can do. As I said from the very beginning, my mission in having this conversation with you is to help you get the best sleep of your life. And there were so many takeaways from Dr. Poe, and I want you to try three of them. That's all that I'm asking. And I'm going to share with you the three that make the biggest difference for me. Number one, bright light first thing in the morning, whether it's raining or it's uv, I get my self outside first thing in the morning to reset the circadian rhythm. It's made a huge difference. Second, get serious about going to bed earlier. The happier I am, the more successful I am.
(40:48):
I notice the earlier I am in bed at night, and the more I prioritize my sleep. And third, I'm hanging my hat on the bath. I'll tell you what, just like I would train my kids to go to sleep, I take a bath or a shower at night, it, it's part of the routine. And so I want you to find three things that you're going to implement based on what you just learned from the renowned researcher, Dr. Gina Poe. And of course, let me know, know how it's working for you, and one more thing in case no one else tells you. I want to be sure to tell you that I love you, I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to apply all this science to make your life a little better. And in the meantime, I'll talk to you in a few days. If you love this, I want you to hear about how to hack your hormones for better sleep. Let's just continue the sleep dream.
Key takeaways
Your brain cleans itself during deep sleep. Dr. Poe says a wave moves through your brain, pushing out toxic buildup so you can wake up clear and sharp.
Sleep is essential for neuroplasticity. Your brain doesn’t lock in new habits while awake; it cements them overnight through structured sleep cycles.
REM sleep isn’t just dreaming, it’s where you process emotion, build creativity, and separate trauma from memory so it stops feeling fresh.
Circadian rhythm resets every morning with bright light. Dr. Poe says two minutes outside is enough to tell your brain, “The day has started.”
A consistent bedtime triggers a 10x spike in growth hormone, crucial for repairing muscles, consolidating memory, and rebuilding your body.
Resources
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- CDC: Current recommendations for the amount of sleep you need, by age.
- National Inst. of Neurological Disorders: What happens when you sleep.
- Sleep Foundation: How sleep works.
- National Inst. of General Medical Sciences: What are circadian rhythms?
- The Lancet: Sleep deprivation and growth-hormone secretion.
- Columbia University: How sleep deprivation impacts mental health.
- Oregon Health & Science: Sleep may help to heal traumatic brain injuries.
- ABC News: How sleep eases emotional trauma.
- National Ctr. for Integrative Health: What you need to know about melatonin.
- UCLA Health: Sleep problems in teens.
- Johns Hopkins Medicine: Teens and sleep, how much is enough?
- Henry Ford Health: Lack of sleep can impact gut health.
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