Matthew Walker
Sleep scientist · author of Why We Sleep
Neuroscientist and sleep researcher at UC Berkeley, author of Why We Sleep and host of The Matt Walker Podcast. His public advice is deliberately narrow and repeatable: regularity, darkness, cool temperature, and honesty about alcohol and caffeine. He is notably cautious about sleep supplements and sleep trackers.
- Entries
- 18
- Does
- 1
- Recommends
- 12
- Discusses
- 5
The gear and products they use
All 4 products in this stack
- BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Why We Sleep
Set out the case in his own book for sleep as a non-negotiable biological necessity rather than a lifestyle preference.
Source: sleepdiplomat.com, his own siteView item: Why We SleepBacked by 8 of 44 stacks - SupplementDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Melatonin
Consistently lukewarm about melatonin for healthy adults with ordinary insomnia, though he accepts its usefulness for jet lag and circadian shifting.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #654 transcriptView item: MelatoninBacked by 4 of 44 stacks - GearDiscusses$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Oura Ring
Orthosomnia is his warning about consumer sleep trackers: anxiety about the score itself making sleep worse.
Source: The Matt Walker Podcast: wearable sleep monitoringVisit ouraring.com (opens in a new tab)Backed by 4 of 44 stacks - GearDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Blue-light blocking glasses
Softened his position on blue light publicly, arguing that the alertness a device creates costs more sleep than the color of its screen.
Source: The Drive: AMA with Matthew WalkerView item: Blue-light blocking glassesBacked by 3 of 44 stacks
Protocols
6 entriesRepeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.
Same bedtime, same wake time, every day, weekends included and even after a bad night: his single most repeated piece of advice.
Source: The Matt Walker Podcast: optimising your sleepBacked by 19 of 44 stacksRegular aerobic exercise is one of the most reliable non-drug improvements to sleep quality, he says, provided it is not too close to bedtime.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #650 transcriptBacked by 12 of 44 stacksDaylight in the morning anchors the circadian clock, and he points it especially at people struggling to fall asleep at a reasonable hour.
Source: The Matt Walker Podcast: melatoninBacked by 10 of 44 stacks61 to 65F, or 16 to 18C, and genuinely dark: that is the bedroom he asks for, because core body temperature has to drop for sleep to initiate and deepen.
Source: The Matt Walker Podcast: temperature, part 2Backed by 8 of 44 stacks- CBT-I (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia)Recommends$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
CBT-I rather than sleeping pills for chronic insomnia, and he notes it outperforms medication with effects that last after treatment stops.
Source: The Matt Walker Podcast: a practical guide to insomniaBacked by 2 of 44 stacks Body-scan and relaxation practices lower arousal before sleep, he has said, though he is clear they are not a substitute for sleep.
Source: The Matt Walker PodcastBacked by 2 of 44 stacks
Habits
8 entriesDaily practices held long enough to become default behavior.
Skeptical about meditation once, he now sits for ten minutes before bed every night, and points people whose problem is a racing mind at lights-out towards the same.
Source: The Matt Walker Podcast: sleep and CBDBacked by 17 of 44 stacksReading a physical book in dim light is the wind-down he suggests, with a move out of bed to read elsewhere if sleep has not arrived.
Source: The Matt Walker PodcastBacked by 19 of 44 stacksRejects the idea that a nightcap helps you sleep, and describes alcohol as one of the most powerful suppressors of REM sleep.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #654 transcriptBacked by 12 of 44 stacksDimming half the lights in the house in the hour before bed, plus staying off screens, is his instruction, since evening light holds back melatonin release.
Source: The Matt Walker Podcast: melatoninBacked by 6 of 44 stacksAdvises keeping the bedroom for sleep only, with the phone charging elsewhere and no working from bed.
Source: The Matt Walker PodcastBacked by 6 of 44 stacksCaffeine's quarter-life reaches into the night, he points out, so an afternoon coffee can strip deep sleep even when you fall asleep easily.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #650 transcriptBacked by 4 of 44 stacksRecommends a hot bath or shower before bed, because the heat loss afterwards drops core temperature and speeds sleep onset.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #650 transcriptBacked by 3 of 44 stacksNaps are useful but conditional in his account: fifteen to twenty minutes and early is fine, long or after 1pm eats the sleep pressure needed that night.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #654 transcriptBacked by 6 of 44 stacks
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“The problem is that’s not how people use melatonin, that people are using it for six months, 12 months, five years. And therefore I don’t think we’ve got any scientific data to meaningfully tell the public that they should not have these concerns, in my humble opinion too.”
The Tim Ferriss Show #654 transcript (opens in a new tab) · 10 Feb 2023 On Melatonin
“The current recommendation is something called cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBTI. And as you can tell by the term, it works on two things, cognitive things, in other words, your thoughts and your beliefs about sleep and then your behaviors.”
The Tim Ferriss Show #654 transcript (opens in a new tab) · 10 Feb 2023 “So trying to aim for darkness, not just in the last couple of hours before bed, but also darkness when you’re in bed. Blackout curtains, eye masks, all of those good things.”
The Tim Ferriss Show #650 transcript (opens in a new tab) · 21 Jan 2023
Latest episodes
All of The Matt Walker Podcast (opens in a new tab)- The Night Ferryman: A Sleep Story Read by Matt Walker (opens in a new tab) · 35m
- #149 - The 11 largest Sleep Myths (opens in a new tab) · 27m
- #148 - Psychedelics for Mental Health (opens in a new tab) · 32m
- #147 - Does Sleep Really Clean Your Brain? (opens in a new tab) · 25m
- #146 - How Sleep Changes Across the Human Lifespan (opens in a new tab) · 21m
Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.