Short Stuff: Sleeping On It

John Growhole. I think that's how you say his name, but he's CEO and founder of psych Central and Live Science apparently said doctor grohole, why don't you come over and write about sleeping on it for us? And he said sure, and that was one of the sources we used. I bet it's a grohole. That's what I said. Grohole, no groal basically roll. Yeah, you're probably right, but I mean the extra O between the H and the L is what's throwed me off. But maybe the good doctor

did not say, Chary, I'll do it. Maybe he said, oh, let me sleep on it and I'll let you know very nice. What word are we not going to say in this episode, Chuck, don't grow whole? So um, it is kind of interesting if you stop and think about it. I mean, basically all of us have had, if not by design them, probably by accident, a period where we were facing some dilemma, some big decision, and we slapped

on it. We slept before making the decision, and after we slept, it was just way clearer the next day, and we probably made the right decision from that point on. That's what everybody calls sleeping on the decision, right, But why would that actually happen? Like that's an actual, like a fascinating, amazing component of human life that I just

think is the tops. Yeah, and there's Here's the thing is, there's more to it than like we all know sleep is just great for everything, but there's more to it than like, but it is also this and like, you know, you shouldn't send that email, that angry email, like sleep on that sleep on the maybe sleep on the argument that you're in the middle of having with your significant other or your friend or whoever. Supposedly not going to bed angry as a rule is not actually a very

good rule. We go to bed angry all the time every night, not every night, but man, like you gotta sleep, and if you're still angry, what are you gonna do? Right? Exactly like it is for in the morning. We got to works as out right, but there is more to it than that, because just human sort of intuition would tell you that, you know, you get some sleep, you clear your head out, you make a better decision in

the morning. It just makes sense, but it's it's more specific than that, right, Yeah, And we should say that this pretty much applies as far as the research goes to important, tough, complex decisions, like if you're at a deli and you're like, should I have roast beef or past me on rye? And you go and curl up in the corner for thirty minutes and then wake up with your answer. It's actually not going to help. You're probably going to have the same answer. It's complicated decisions

that this works for. And most people say the reason why is because when we sleep, we organize our memories and process information during that period, and that we're probably taking all this different information, new information, connecting it to old information, cementing these neural pathways so that we understand it better after we've slept than we understood it before, and that we can gain clarity from sleeping on a decision.

And that's how that works. Yeah, and they've also found and this comes from cal Berkeley, from doctor Matthew Walker that who was a sleep scientist, which I'm fascinated by that job that you know at getting good sleep helps you learn, Like that's why you probably learn better, Like right when after you wake up in the morning, your morning classes in school, you're sharper than those afternoon classes.

But also that going to sleep after you learn for reasons that you mentioned is a really big deal, which led me to my next topic that I'm going to do for a long form episode, which is napping. Oh okay, because I think I told you on our super secret research trip that I've been started taking a daily nap last year. Yeah, yeah, and then it's been like life changing.

So I really want to know more about why so napping, and again it has to do I'm sure in a smaller way the reason a good night's sleep is good for you. I would think so for sure. So napping is coming soon, is what I'm saying. Okay, for me personally, right after I record and then we'll take a breaking you can take a nap and then we'll come back. How about that. Okay, let's do it. Okay, Chuck, it's forty five minutes later. I've been standing here waiting. Well,

I spoke up nap. I feel gratefully this is an even better episode had you not napped. All right, So we're moving on to some even more specifics which I found super, super fascinating about sleeping on it, which is the way your conscious mind and your unconscious mind works. Right. Yeah.

They think that maybe it doesn't really have much to do with the actual act of sleeping or cementing memories or new information, but that while we're sleeping, we're using unconscious thought rather than conscious thought, and that you could actually, if this is true, you could do the same thing um as sleeping on a decision without actually having to go to sleep, if you can engage an unconscious thought

about it. And that sounds hard, but actually I think it amounts to, um, just stopping thinking about and chewing over the decision and going and doing something else, building a model airplane, doing your tax It's just something else

because while you're doing that, um this this um. The guy doctor Groholm points out that you um that that unconscious thought is like not just zoning out, and it's not not thinking, it's just a different mode of thinking, and that you're you're still engaging an unconscious thought about this problem, this dilemma, it's just not in the front

of your mind. And by removing it from the front of your mind, putting it into unconscious thought, it seems that that actually can produce really good decisions, just like sleeping on something can too. Yeah, and it seems like one of the big reasons why is buy it if you are And I think this is where where overthinking, like if you say, oh, you're overthinking it, or if you think something to death or something uh, that is that is concentrating so hard on something on a decision

that your biases are creeping in. You're thinking about all these different angles and you're quite literally just sort of overdoing it. And apparently when you're just using your unconscious thought and kind of parking it for a second in the forefront of your brain, those biases will fade away. And the way I read it, or at least the way it feels like in my brain, because I, you know, try to do this stuff some is it feels like it just sort of clears the table a little bit

and what's left is what's important. Yeah, because if with your biases, with your conscious biases, you're you might push yourself to a bad decision, because that's the one where you get, like a snickerdoodle cookie, you know, where if you engage it, I would do a lot for a snickerdoodle cook but like probably things I should not be doing if somebody offered a snickerdoodle, Right, But that if you just engage in unconscious thinking, your brain is like,

snickerdoodle cookie doesn't really matter that much. We're not going to use that to weight the different factors in the decision. These are all going to be fairly balanced out because the biases are removed. So you can essentially step back, look at all the different components, all the different possible outcomes pretty much equally on an equal basis, and then say, this is the one that's obviously the right decision to make.

Even though I'm not getting a Snickerdoodle cookie. I can go buy a snickerdoodle cookie and still make this correct decision and have the best of both worlds. I could have my snick snickerdoodle and eat it too. Oh man, I knew that's what you're gonna say. Did you sure you knew me, you know me. It's man, the wheels are starting to fall off of this brain. I'll tell you that there has been some study on this as far as sleeping on it. There was that one that

I guess you found from. Was this from the NIH or was this web MD? It was doctor grohol that cited this one. The Okay, let me see if I can hazard this name dister Hughes Dixterhuse. I think I nailed it that last time, Dixterhuse, d I j K S t E R h U I S And I'll bet during college everybody call them the dixter Oh sure at parties. Yeah, yeah, I don't know how you pronounce that.

That sounds about right now, Dixterhus. So this was an experiment where they would try to get results from having, you know, people sleep on a big decision or just a decision that's um. I think in this case they were talking about like choosing apartments, yeah, and like where to live. I guess. So they would choose these participants,

they would have a few apartments to choose from. They would describe what's going on in these apartments, of course, like you would with any movie real estate decision like it's scutto this one has an extra half baths. That one has a chalk body outline, that's right, I want to avoid that one unless that's your thing. Uh. And after reading these descriptions, they were asked to make their choice UM following an additional period of conscious thought or

unconscious thought. And as you would expect, the unconscious thinkers, well this is this is the only part I wonder about. It has made the better decision than conscious thinkers. But what's the better decision? Like would they be like, well,

he shows the wrong place clearly. Yeah, now you have to actually go live in there in reality because that part is subjective, right, And whether or not that was the right choice, yeah, I don't know what the what the criteria was, but clearly something was more desirable than than others in the apartments, because maybe outline probably was. But the thing that I saw there was like some other follow up UM studies or subsections to the study, and they found that experts as well are subject to

the same thing. Like you could take an expert and ask them to make a snap decision about something and they're probably going to make a worse decision than a non expert who has had time to sleep on it or engage an unconscious thought about that decision. Interesting, And you know what that tracks, because I think one of the traits of what you would call highly successful people is to be able to make the right decision quickly

and even under duress. Yes, but that is asking for a lot and a lot of people who say one of the reasons why sleeping on it or engaging in unconscious thought is just by virtue of stepping away from the problem, you are relinquishing the stress of immediacy. You're saying, I'm not going to make this decision under duress. I'm going to give myself some time and up away from it, And you are just automatically taking yourself out of a stressful situation, and then by virtue of that alone, you're

probably going to make a better decision. So I think the upshot is is unless someone has a gun to your head and is telling you to hack into some mainframe, you can probably step away from the decision. You're probably putting yourself under undue pressure, and the more likely you are to do that, the more likely you are to probably make a better decision than if you just make

a snap one under duress. The only thing I'm going to disagree with there is that people are a sort of can ask for and or afforded that luxury because I think far too many jobs when they don't need to require immediacy of action that you know, if you're like can I sleep on it, They're like, this isn't the job for you? Then? So like, give me an example, Oh, I mean any big, high stakes, sort of high pressure upper management stuff. I don't feel like there's a lot

of those people that are. I think the ones that are maybe truly successful are probably drawing those boundaries and saying like, no, we should take our time with this decision. But sure, I feel like a lot of those are like, no, we need to we need to figure this out and act on it. That's probably true. I'm not disagreeing with that, but I'll bet that they That means that the decisions that are being made at these higher echelons are probably

routinely bad decisions. Well, there may be something anythink about it, you know, you know, yeah, I want my CEOs to go sleep on things. That's my that's my game. Yeah, we should start a new corporation called sleep on It. That's a great idea. We'll have to edit that out so nobody steals our idea. It's probably out there already. Okay, well, well we'll look, we'll do a business search. Okay, Well, while we're doing a business search, everybody, this short stuff

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