Better Sleep in One Night | Sleeping With Friends

**Sanitized Transcript:**

(Vanessa): Over the past four nights, we’ve seen our contestants supercharge their sleep. Your score from night two is… 90!

– Oh, my God! I am so excited that I improved! I don’t recall waking up as much.

– And the winner of round two is… Mitch!

– Congratulations! Good job.

– In a twist, Mitch can’t return from Canada to the sleep house due to travel restrictions. So Melissa and Donna will go head-to-head to win the competition and be crowned our super sleeper. But in the final round, will they be able to sleep in the middle of the day?

– The nerves are really there. I’m not gonna lie, I did horribly.

– Welcome to our final round of Sleeping with Friends.

– Hey, I’m Melissa Maribel, and I teach chemistry on YouTube for high school and college students. I’m coming back to the sleep house to figure out if I could actually get a better score and get the best sleep possible. And to win!

– My name is Donna, I run a YouTube channel called PsychIRL, where I explain trending topics in a very psychological way. And I’ve been at the sleep house before. Oh no, I’m cringing.

– It’s like you’re having a pillow fight with yourself. I know. I’m thinking about how I can improve my sleep because last time it was just so bad.

– I have no idea what her last score was, so I’m a little bit nervous.

– Welcome to the final round. I’m your host, Vanessa Hill. We set out to make a reality show about science, and reality caught up with us. Mitch, our contestant who won the last round, can’t return to the sleep house because of travel restrictions.

– Hi, guys, it’s Mitch. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t be there, but I hope you have a great sleep in the final round, and I wish you both the best of luck.

– So we’re giving Donna a second chance.

– Mitch, I didn’t improve on my sleep for two nights, so thank you for giving me this chance to improve it.

– For sure. You know, we were so close in points anyway that I hope you do really well.

– Mitch, are you getting more deep sleep now that you’re sleeping at home?

– I am still practicing everything I was told there, so it feels like I’m having much better sleep now, yes.

– That was awesome. Well, thank you, Mitch.

– Thank you. (all): Bye!

– Analyzing your sleep will be our judges: Dr. Ali Mattu and Trace Dominguez.

– Donna, your and Mitch’s scores were so close; your sleeping was neck-and-neck. Mitch, your score for night one is… 65! (Mitch laughs) Donna, your score is… 68!

– Wow, we were so close! And we can’t wait to see what happens on this night.

– It’s not that different from any other person, right? You can have a bad night of sleep any night of the week, but you can make it up hopefully later in the week, and so I’m really happy that we’re able to have you come back. Hopefully, people can learn from this.

(Vanessa): They will be scored by how long it takes to fall asleep, their percentage of deep sleep, how restless they are overnight, and on a series of wake-up tests.

– Since I didn’t improve on my sleep at all, I’m excited to actually try and improve.

– Mine is kind of the opposite here. I feel like I got an A in Sleep 101, and now I gotta get an A plus. So I have to figure out how I can even improve a score of 90.

– Donna, I see you’ve come ready to sleep.

– Oh yeah, I’m a night owl. And this night owl’s gonna be an early bird. (laughter)

– Melissa, I see you’ve brought back a new pair of melatonin pajamas.

– This is my luck, right here. So I had to bring back melatonin because, I mean, I won last time.

– Sleepers, it’s time for your first challenge of our final round. You will both be attempting… to nap.

– Oh, no. (laughter)

– We’ll be scoring you based on if you fall asleep and how you perform in our reaction time tests. But this is not any old nap. We have some neon LED lights that we will be attaching to your pajamas, so we can track your movement across your beds. So you could call this a good old-fashioned disco nap. (laughter)

– I’ve never been a good napper at all. And I typically stay away from naps because I can’t just fall asleep for 20 minutes. I’ll be there for two to three hours. I feel like it takes me 20 minutes just to fall asleep.

– This is gonna be tough because I used to take a lot of naps, but the result was me staying awake at night.

– You will both have 30 minutes. Please proceed to your respective bedrooms.

– When Vanessa said that we were going to be taking a disco nap, I almost died. I am so bad at naps. We put on these LED lights around our waists, around our ankles, and our wrists, but hey, we looked good.

– I’m probably gonna fail because I haven’t napped in years. And I typically avoid napping because I’m not very good at it.

– Okay, it’s naptime!

– I’m really curious to see how this is going to play out. Some people describe themselves as nappers, and some don’t. Neither of them seem to be too excited, so I’m really curious.

– Yeah.

– Looks like they’re both settled into their beds.

– So, we’re using these LED lights so we can track how they’re moving. They look really cool with the lights on.

– Yeah.

– I agree. It makes our job a lot easier, too, to follow them.

– It seems like they think they’re gonna do poorly, but I’m confident that they’re gonna fall asleep. We can see on Melissa’s EEG here, she has entered light sleep.

– Yes!

– Wow, yes! We’re in nap territory now.

– We are in nap territory.

– So we can see on Donna’s EEG here, she’s also entered the light stages of sleep. I’m so glad because you don’t want to be sleep deprived. A lack of sleep can slow down reaction times even more than driving while impaired. Researchers have found that young adults who sleep for six hours or less are more likely to crash their car. So what can we do when we’re not getting the sleep we need? Naps boost your mood, attention, and reaction time. Perhaps naps are the answer. Experts recommend keeping naps to 20 minutes or less and not having them after three o’clock in the afternoon because that could disrupt your nighttime sleep.

– You know, they both had a stressful morning. And naps can also be a good way to distance yourself from a difficult emotional experience. And there’s data to suggest that not only is it good for your mood, but it also can be good for your attention and motor control.

– Sure.

– True. A short nap, like less than 30 minutes can help for two, three hours after you wake up.

– Naps can increase students’ performance on exams as well.

– Yep, yep.

– So, for all the students out there, naps are a winner.

– It looks like Donna is settling down. Donna has really come from behind, and she’s in it to win it. It’s amazing.

– I’m so proud of both of them; they thought that they couldn’t nap, and we’re really seeing some awesome nap performance, you could say.

– Yeah, I’m really proud of both of them too, especially considering how pessimistic they were about napping in the first place.

– Okay, how was your nap?

– I think I fell asleep at the very end.

– I actually feel like I didn’t nap at all.

– Oh, no.

– …so we’ll see what happens.

– We’ll be able to tell you the results soon, but first we have a reaction time test for you to do. You’ve done this before when you’ve woken up, and we did it before your nap to see how it changed after the nap. So tap the screen as fast as you can when you see a number come up.

– Alright, let’s go.

– Yeah.

– Come on. (laughter)

– Okay, there we go. (Melissa laughs)

– We’ll see you upstairs for the results of the challenge.

– Sounds good.

– I’m excited.

– Great. See you soon.

– Hi, Kati.

– Hi, Donna, how are you?

– Good to see you again, I’m good.

– Tell me how your sleep has been. Has the thought-stopping helped at all?

– I think the tools really helped a lot. When I’m in that moment, where I’m spiraling out of control, thinking about work, and I can’t fall asleep, I used your technique to think of a pleasing memory. In the beginning, when I started doing that, it felt like work.

– Yeah, it is like a new muscle, right? We’re trying something we’ve never done before.

– Mm-hmm. But… Pretty soon, I kind of forgot that I was doing that, and I kind of just dozed off, I think.

– Yeah, it sneaks you into sleep.

– Yeah!

– And then also something that I would encourage is not mixing your spaces. I don’t want you doing work in bed, or your brain and body are going to associate bed with work. And then when you try to go to sleep, it can be really hard to turn that off. Your bed should only be for sleep and relaxation, and nothing else.

– Alright.

– Hey, Kati.

– Hi, Melissa, how are you?

– A lot better.

– That’s wonderful. So how is the sleeping going? Breathing exercises?

– I feel like I’ve actually been getting a lot of sleep now, and falling asleep a lot faster.

– Yay!

– The simplicity of counting to four…

– Mm-hmm.

– …has made my mind just stop constantly worrying and thinking.

– Yeah.

– I’m just focusing on that. But I was able to fall asleep within, like, 11 minutes.

– Wow!

– Yeah, that was like a new record.

– That’s amazing! Has there been anything else you’ve been using that’s helped you fall asleep?

– Last night I tried stretching before going to bed, and I felt like I was more loose and relaxed, and typically I have a lot of tension in my shoulders, and I didn’t feel that this time.

– We don’t talk about this enough, but our neck, our jaw, our shoulders, are all muscles that are activated when we’re in a stress response. So if we’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed, if there’s a lot going on… life.

– Yeah.

– We can find those things really tense, and if we take the time to relax them, we feel better. It lowers our stress response, calms our system down, we can fall asleep and hopefully stay asleep.

– Awesome, thank you!

– Yeah, of course!

– Nappers, I hope your afternoon snooze was refreshing. Melissa, how do you feel?

– I think I fell asleep a little bit, but I’m honestly not sure. So we’ll find out.

– Oh man, I am not confident about this because I feel like I was awake the whole time.

– Well, we’re about to take a look. Melissa, let’s start with your nap.

– Oh boy. (all): Whoa!

– That’s cool.

– Definitely moving a lot.

– Yeah.

– I too am observing movement.

– I mean, I clearly was moving around a lot, so I don’t know if I actually got much sleep.

– I’m not feeling too confident. I feel like I was awake the whole time.

– We’ll find out. (laughter)

– Yeah, there’s a lot of movement; this was pretty expected because I feel like I didn’t do so well. I’m shifting from my side, to my back, to my other side; I was doing that the whole time.

– You look like you’re getting a little sleep here.

– I really didn’t feel like it.

– Our judges have been analyzing your nap data in the sleep lab.

– Donna. You did fall asleep…

– What?!

– …after 11 minutes.

– Whoa. Dang.

– Melissa, you also fell asleep.

– Okay.

– Within ten minutes.

– Ooh!

– That’s close! Okay.

– You both had a pretty similar nap. You slept for just over 20 minutes. But we were looking for how that time of sleep affected your behavior. Your performance on the reaction time tests improved after your nap. But for one of you, it improved significantly. And that person received the higher nap score. Let’s take a look at the scores for our challenge. Melissa, your score is… 14!

– Okay.

– Nice.

– Donna? Your score for the nap challenge is…

– Oh!

– …18!

– Yes!

– Donna, you have won the nap challenge.

– Well done.

– I’m surprised because I swear I didn’t fall asleep. I was aware of everything. And 18? That’s… That’s crazy.

– Donna, as the winner of the nap challenge, you will get to select two sleep aids first, to help improve your sleep tonight. Thank you, Trace. In the first two rounds, your sleep score was measured compared to your baseline to see how much you improved. Tonight, you’ll be competing directly… against each other.

– Oh.

– Oh. Okay.

– Your sleep aids to choose from are two weighted blankets, one 25 pounds, one 15 pounds, a sleep robot, which is a breathing pillow, smart pajamas, a red sleep lamp, and orange-tinted glasses. Donna, as you won the nap challenge, you get the first choice.

– Alright, let’s go, I’m ready. I’m gonna choose that red light.

– Melissa?

– The 25-pound weighted blanket.

– And I’m gonna go with that lighter blanket.

– Melissa, your final sleep aid?

– My final choice is the glasses.

– Okay, so we have blanket versus blanket going into our final night.

– Oh, yeah.

– Excellent. Well… You’ll find your respective sleep aids in your bedrooms, which brings us to bedtime. I hope you have a restful night’s sleep.

– Alright. (Vanessa): Tonight, we’ve created an extra challenge for our contestants. We left a temptation basket in their rooms. Some of the items may help their sleep, but others may hurt it.

– This basket of treats… I think it’s a trick. You should never have anything with sugar because it’s literally gonna keep you awake. That’s what it’s meant for.

– I’m heading into the final night; I’m so scared. I’m scared that I won’t improve at all. Maybe I’ll even head into the negative.

– I was trying to unfold that 25-pound weighted blanket, and let me tell you, that was a lot heavier than the 15 pounds, so that was a struggle in itself. But once I got into bed, I felt pretty cozy, pretty comfortable. I didn’t actually feel the 25 pounds; it wasn’t much of a difference.

– Oh, it’s our last night in here; I can’t believe it’s come so soon.

– I’m a little sad.

– But I’m happy that it’s gonna be some good night’s sleep for us.

– Yeah, tell me about it. (laughter) So we can see in Donna and Melissa’s bedrooms, we left a temptation basket for them that has a lot of stuff that helps and hurts their sleep.

– Oh, it looks like Melissa might be grabbing the sleep mask, which hopefully will help her. She’s been a pretty good sleeper so far.

– One of the most common ways that people disrupt their own sleep is by drinking caffeine too late in the evening, by having sugar before bed. We’ve all done it. And I think for people to get out of that habit is really important to improve their sleep.

– Looks like Donna’s trying to figure out how to use the weighted blanket.

– I’m concerned about the weighted blanket because Melissa had a fantastic night’s sleep with it when she was here last time, and she’s gone too hard on the weight of the weighted blanket. It’s recommended to be ten percent of your body weight, so Donna’s on the right track with the 15-pound blanket, but 25 pounds is way too much for Melissa, and when it’s that heavy, it can actually stress your body more so than calming it.

– If we look at Donna’s EEGs, it looks like she has fallen asleep!

– Oh, she did it! She really struggled those first two nights to settle down; she wasn’t comfortable in this environment, and here we are in the final round. She’s learned strategies, like the memory technique. All of us, if we focus like Donna has, we can find ways to improve our sleep.

– Donna keeps underestimating how much sleep she’s getting when her EEG shows that she’s been sleeping. This is actually a phenomenon called sleep state misperception where you think you barely slept, but you were actually asleep. The thought because you think that you were awake all night, you feel worse the next day.

– Looks like Melissa is struggling to settle down.

– She’s known for being a good sleeper. She slept great through this whole competition. And then on her last night, she grabbed a heavy blanket that was too much for her. Sometimes if you’re really good at sleeping, just do what you know.

– There’s no movement from Melissa or Donna. It did take them longer to fall asleep than it has in previous nights, so I wonder if the stress of the competition, the final night, got to them a little bit. Right now, their brains are cleaning themselves up, trying to understand everything that happened the day before, and preparing them for the day to come. That’s amazing.

(Vanessa): Sleep is amazing! Its superpowers include boosting our immune system. Researchers have found getting seven or more hours a night improves our resistance to infections from viruses, including one that causes the common cold. Yup! Sleep helps your body target infection and inflammation. And it can lower your risk of other health issues like obesity and heart disease. I’m so happy that they’re having what looks like a very relaxing night tonight.

– She is rocking this night of sleep! It’s amazing!

– They’re both in it to win it. (laughter) Melissa, it’s time for your final wake-up tests. Donna, how are you feeling?

– I’m feeling actually pretty good today.

– Okay. Hit start, and then hit the screen as fast as you can.

– Alright. I feel like I’m actually getting better with this test.

– Oh, shoot.

– Your first word is “cash”.

– Ace.

– Ace.

– Hat. Blue. And print.

– Okay. Nine. Cash.

– Print.

– Oh shoot. Oh, my God.

– Turn. Bike.

– I’m gonna hate myself after this, oh man.

– Ace. Blue.

– Your score is six.

– I don’t remember the last one.

– Nine is an excellent score. The word that you missed is “cash”.

– Grouchy? Mmm… I’d say, for once