Surprising Strategies to Help You Fall and Stay Asleep. Hint: They're Not The Usual Stuff | Chu Zhu

I’m so excited to bring you this wonderful interview with Mr. Chu Zhu. He is the founder of a company called Somnus Lab, and they make an amazing mattress cooling sleep system to help you regulate your body temperature during sleep.

Chu is a scientifically sophisticated guest who explains some fascinating aspects of circadian rhythm and the hormonal processes governing sleep, including the role of the suprachiasmatic nucleus—the “light control tower” in the brain—and the buildup of adenosine that creates sleep pressure. We talk about why outdoor light is such a powerful signal for your body clock, why indoor lighting doesn't come close to matching it, and how caffeine masks the buildup of adenosine rather than eliminating your need for sleep.

We then get into the surprising role of body temperature. You need to cool down to fall asleep, stay cool to stay asleep, and warm up to wake up. Chu explains the surprising reason a warm shower before bed can actually help lower your core temperature, why getting too cold can backfire, and why temperature regulation becomes increasingly challenging as we age.

I’ve also been beta testing the Somnus system myself, so we talk about how it can automatically regulate the temperature of your mattress throughout the night, customize each side of the bed, and track sleep without requiring you to wear a device. And if you’re someone who loves your sleep-tracking data, we have an important conversation about why more data isn't necessarily better.

This episode will make you think differently about what you're doing to get better sleep: we get into the technology, but also the general behaviors that can help us get things right—including the effects of caffeine and alcohol, how sensitive the body is, and how sometimes we can simply get out of the way. It’s a great reminder that getting better sleep and better health may be less complicated than we think.

TIMESTAMPS:

Chu discovered some surprising things when he got in to the sleep system technology research. [04:40]

Circadian rhythm is very important in regulating how we use sleeping time. [05:49]

The hypothalamus is the control center of the brain that receives the light and dark cycles governing our sleep cycles. [07:33]

Caffeine is able to take the spot of the brain's receptor that is supposed to take in adensoine to tell you if you are tired. [08:30]

If we look at the evolutionary timelline, we see how the sunset and sunrise used to determine our sleep patterns, whereas now we have the lights and screens that don't allow these mechanisms to work naturally. [11:23]

Also the access to processed foods and sugars, the empty calories are causing problems nowadays. The difference between direct sunlight and the indoor blue light we are exposed to also makes a big difference. [12:16]