YouSaid · the spoken record

Matt Walker

lines on the record

154

first

2021-08-11

most recent

2021-08-11

sittings or episodes

1

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podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “and we have many answers right now. In some ways, the question of why we sleep was the wrong question too. It's, you know, what are the pluripotent many reasons we sleep? We don't just sleep for one reason. Because from an evolutionary perspective, it is the most idiotic thing that you could imagine. When you're sleeping, you're not finding a mate, you're not reproducing, you're not caring for your young, you're not foraging for food. And worse still, you're vulnerable to predation. So on any one of those grounds, especially as a collective, sleep should have been strongly selected against in the course of evolution. But in every species that we've studied carefully to date, sleep is present.”

   2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “And there is a good example where we have, which is called the Adipose Cell, the Fat cell, because during our evolutionary past, we had famine and we had feast. And Mother Nature came up with a very clever recipe, which is how can I store caloric credit so that I can spend it when I go into debt? And the fat cell was born. Brilliant idea. Where is the fat cell for sleep? Where is that sort of banking chip for sleep? And unfortunately, we don't seem to have one because she's never had to face that challenge.”

   2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “And then bring the calf back. And during that time, the mother will undergo sleep deprivation. And then the third one is during migration when birds are flying trans oceanographic to 3,000 miles. But for the most part, it's never seen in the animal kingdom, which brings me back to the point, therefore, Mother Nature in the course of evolution has never had to face the challenge of this thing called sleep deprivation. Therefore, she is never created a safety net in place. To circumnavigate this common influence.”

   2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Sleep researchers. You know, no one as I recall in the classroom when you're sort of five years old and the teacher says, what would you like to be when you grow up?”

   2021-08-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #210 – Matt Walker: Sleep · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source