[Matt]: One thing that's I think fascinated me, though, about the benefit of exercise...so
exercise also has a really nice, powerful benefit on sleep, although it's a two-way
street, and remind me to talk about that, in a good way.
But something else has occurred to me with saunas, too.
And I was thinking about this, because I think I know that you're a fan.
I think you've mentioned this before.
One of the ways that you can induce sleep is that you can increase a lot of the immune
factors, things like cytokines, you know, things also like TNF-alpha, or...
[Rhonda]: IL-6.
[Matt]: IL-6.
IL-1 even more so, but IL-6 is part of that equation, too.
We've known this for some time that if you infect an animal, it will create an immune
antibody response, a cytokine cascade.
Those cytokines have a direct communication pathway into brain structures, including things
like the hypothalamus, which regulates sleep.
And it's that immune cascade that is actually a trigger in dialing up the amount of sleep.
So when animals get sick, just like when humans get sick, the thing that you want to do is
just curl up in bed and go to sleep.
And in fact, you get sleepier as a consequence of being infected.
Why is that?
The reason is because there is nothing better...Sleep is the Swiss Army knife of health, that no
matter what the ailment...
[Rhonda]: That's so cool.
I don't know...
[Matt]: You know, there is something more than likely in the armament of sleep toolbox,
sort of as it were, that will deal with that, and so, and I promise I'm not going off an
a tangent here, so the idea is that these immune factors are sleep-instigating.
[Rhonda]: This is awesome.
Wow.
[Matt]: They are sleep, sort of, you know, they're somnogenic, you know.
Somno-sleep-genic increased genesis improvement.
So what I've been thinking about is whether or not the sauna, the benefit of the sauna,
is both thermal, but is also, by way of this powerful immune pathway...
[Rhonda]: It does.
[Matt]: ...that you get this.
[Rhonda]: That's phenomenal.
[Matt]: And I've read some of the studies, and I'm blanking on his name, you will probably
remember his name, they've looked at some of essentially sort of, you know, the sauna-induced
immune responses.
[Rhonda]: Yeah, so that Charles Raison has been doing that work.
[Matt]: Thank you.
Yeah.
[Rhonda]: Yes.
[Matt]: Thank you.
Brilliant.
Yeah, so I've read some of Charles's papers.
[Rhonda]: Yeah, we had him on the podcast.
He was talking about how the sauna induces IL-6 and some of that stuff.
And the same thing that happens with exercise.
So that's...
[Matt]: Yes.
So that's why I mentioned exercise, which is that I think...
[Rhonda]: Wow, that's so fascinating.
[Matt]: So now we're all starting to sort of, you know, realize how the sleep system
is augmented, one of those paths, you know, is light.
The other is darkness.
The other is temperature.
But here's a fourth one.
The immune system.
And we know that you can inject, you know, some of these cytokines into animals, and
you can almost induce sleep.
It's that powerful.
[Rhonda]: That's so cool.
[Matt]: So now I'm starting to think, I wonder if some of the sauna-based benefits and some
of the exercise benefits, because when you exercise, you also typically get some of these
pro-inflammatory cytokines that sort of get released to perhaps deal with some of, you
know, the essential distress.
And, you know, I think we've both spoken about this that...
[Rhonda]: So that way, like if you're exercising a lot, you do seem to require more sleep,
or you sleep more?
[Matt]: Well, we don't know that, but that's my current theory...
[Rhonda]: Yeah, it's a great hypothesis.
[Matt]: ...which is that, you know, you possibly...
[Rhonda]: Are you gonna test that?
That's awesome.
[Matt]: Yeah, we're going to test.
So we've just actually been looking at studying not with exercise or with saunas but we've
had been looking at sleep and pain.
And when you deprive people of sleep, you get a chronic release of these pro-inflammatory
cytokines, which is not a good situation.
Acute, great, somnogenic, good for the body.
But chronic long-term, we're starting to piece together a brain-body-sleep-pain interaction,
which I think has, we haven't published this yet, but should have marked implications for
the hospital environment.
Because the one place where you do not get a good night of sleep, where it's architected
against the night of sleep, is the one place where you need sleep the most, and it's usually
the one place where you are in pain the most.
And I want a revolution to happen regarding sleep in hospitals.
And I'm desperately trying to work with folks.
For example, the NHS in the United Kingdom, National Healthcare System there.
I would love to work with any hospital system in the U.S. to solve this crisis, I think,
of sleep in the hospital environment.
But, to come back to your point, this is a great experiment to do.
You know, is exercise-induced acute inflammation, and is sort of, you know, heat/shock sensitive,
you know, induction of immune responses by way of saunas or hot baths, are those a pathway
triggering good sleep?
And if so, can we find novel therapeutics for, you know...
[Rhonda]: I'll put you in touch with Dr. Jari Laukkanen too.
He's in Finland.
[Matt]: Okay.
[Rhonda]: He's, like, the leading researcher on saunas and...
[Matt]: Has he done some of the stuff on longevity?
[Rhonda]: He's the guy doing all the longevity, Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease...
[Matt]: Yes, yeah, yeah.
I've read some of his work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Rhonda]: Yeah, I mean, and he's a friend of mine as well.
So I'll put you in touch with him.
[Matt]: Okay.
[Rhonda]: Because that would be really cool if you guys could...
[Matt]: If we can start tracking their sleep, you know, and see perhaps.
And you can sort of put this into a statistical sort of triangulation, which is called the
mediation analysis.
And you could see, you know, what's causing that longevity benefit.
Because we know for example that the shorter your sleep the shorter your life, that short
sleep predicts all-cause mortality.
It's also probably one of the most significant lifestyle factors determining whether or not
you'll develop Alzheimer's disease.
And all of these things I know have been linked to, for example, sauna, which is longevity,
decreased susceptibility to development of dementia and cognitive decline, is part of
that...I'm not trying to say it's all about sleep.
But, the part of it about sleep, you know...
[Rhonda]: Really, you know, one of my major interest is aging, increasing health span,
as well as performance, without the trade off, and every time I always come back to
sleep.
The studies, I mean, it just constantly coming back in my face how important sleep is for
all those things.
[Matt]: It's the superordinate lever that transacts all health benefits, you know.
It's the tide that rises all of the health boats.
And I think it's wonderful that folks, you know, here in Silicon Valley are going after,
you know, individual pathways of disease, trying to manipulate, you know, immune pathways
or trying to manipulate mTOR for sort of, you know, longevity.
But I think what's been missing in this equation is that there is, you know, an Archimedes
lever here.
There is one superordinate node, that if you pull that lever, all of the other pathways
are instigated, activated.
And that superordinate node or lever is this thing called sleep.
You know, there is no physiological system that we've been able to measure that isn't
wonderfully enhanced by sleep when you get it, or demonstrably impaired when you don't
get enough.