Dr. Matt Walker
Professor of Neuroscience, UT Dallas. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
academicscientistauthorhost@sleepdiplomat ↗LinkedIn ↗sleepdiplomat.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
He is the author of the international bestselling book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams and host of The Matt Walker Podcast. His scientific research explores the impact of sleep on human health, memory, and disease.
1shows
1appearances
35statements
22resolved
19supported
0contradicted
86%fully supported
Everything Dr. Matt Walker said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Dr. Walker: Sleep-deprived employees are more likely to act unethically
“One of the more surprising facts is that the less and less sleep that an employee has had, the more and more likely they are to lie become unethical. So for example, falsify data in a spreadsheet.”
Walker: Almost nobody is resilient across all health domains on six hours of sleep
“When you take a holistic view, what you find is that there is almost nobody who is completely resilient to that diet of six hours of sleep on all of those different measures. So some people are resilient to a lack of sleep in some domains, but they will be vul…”
Walker: Morning coffee's immediate wakefulness comes from drink temperature, not caffeine
“They say within a couple of minutes, you know, five minutes later, oh gosh, you know, I feel so much better. All right. I'm ready to face the world. And you think that that's the caffeine. That's nonsense. The caffeine isn't probably, you know, working within …”
Walker: Falling asleep immediately is a sign of accrued sleep debt
“Sleep is not like a light switch. Sleep is much more like landing a plane, that it takes time for you to descend down onto the terra firma of healthy, good sleep at night. And the reason I'm nervous when people say, look, I get into bed and I, you know, as soo…”
Walker: Sleep Loss Doubles Risk for Specific Cancers, Not All Cancers
“A lack of sleep can double your risk for Certain forms of cancer, and then name those cancers, and those, for example those cancers would be thyroid cancer, lung cancer, ovarian cancer myeloma, which is a form of a blood cancer linked to, it's in the ilk of so…”
Dr. Walker: Subjective self-assessment under sleep deprivation fails to predict real performance
“Your subjective assessment of how well you're doing with insufficient sleep is a miserable predictor of objectively how well you're doing”
Dr. Walker: Leader charisma ratings fluctuate based on prior night's sleep
“The more or less sleep that a business leader has had from one night to the next, The more or less charismatic and inspiring that employees will rate that business leader, even though the employees know nothing about how much sleep that their boss has been get…”
Walker: Being struck by lightning is more likely than being a genetic short sleeper
“Statistically, you're far more likely to be, for example, struck by lightning in your lifetime than you are to be one of those genetic short sleepers. The lifetime odds of being struck by lightning is one in 12,000, just if anyone, if anyone's interested.”
Walker: Average US sleep dropped from 7.9 hours in 1942 to 6.5 hours
“There was a Gallup poll that was performed back in 1941 or 1940, I think it was 1942, sorry. And what they found was that On average the human adults in that survey reported sleeping 7.9 hours a night on average. But now, based on data from the National Sleep …”
Walker: Evening coffee can cut deep sleep by 20% to 40%
“What you don't realize is that caffeine can actually decrease the amount of deep sleep that you're getting, stages three and four. And in fact, what we found is that even just one to two cups of coffee in the early or late evening can decrease the amount of yo…”
Walker: Falsely telling people they slept poorly degrades cognitive performance
“And then you have them perform a set of tests, and lo and behold, despite both groups having, on average, about the same amount of sleep, the group that was psychologically informed as to having insufficient sleep performs insufficiently on the cognitive level…”
Walker: After a bad night of sleep, 'do nothing' to compensate
“If you've had a bad night of sleep, here is my following best advice. Do nothing. And what I mean by that is after a bad night of sleep, firstly, don't try to sleep it off by waking up any later than is natural. Don't sort of say, I'm going to then sleep in fo…”
Dr. Walker: Underslept employees consistently choose less challenging tasks
“Firstly, underslept employees defined as getting six hours of sleep or less, they will select Less challenging problems that you give them.”
Walker: Waking two hours early can cost up to 70% of REM sleep
“You may have lost 25% of your total sleep, but you may have lost 50, 60, even 70% of all of your rapid eye movement sleep. Because rapid eye movement sleep comes in those last couple of hours of the night.”
Walker: No single stage of sleep is more important than any other
“And what we've discovered is that no one stage of sleep is more important than the other. Different stages of sleep do different things for your brain and your body at different times of the night.”
Walker: Sleeping under seven hours causes measurable cognitive and bodily impairments
“What we found is that once you drop below seven hours of sleep, for most people, we can measure objective impairments in either your brain and your body.”
Walker: Habitual 7.3-hour sleepers stabilized at 8.5 hours in sleep experiment
“They were sleeping about 7.3 hours every night, and they said subjectively, I feel fine. I feel well rested. So then they brought them into the laboratory for eight nights straight, And then they gave them an extended amount of time in bed. I think it was almo…”
Walker: Lying awake conditions the brain to associate the bed with wakefulness
“I would say it's very dangerous to stay in bed awake for long periods of time. And it's especially dangerous to do that and force yourself to try and sleep and become frustrated with not being able to sleep. And the reason is the following. We are very Pavlovi…”
Walker: Coffee's health benefits come from antioxidants, not caffeine
“The reason that coffee provides those health benefits is not because of the caffeine. It's because the coffee bean provides, for most people, because our diets are not really very good, the standard American diet, for example isn't ideal in its nutritional pro…”
Walker: Coffee health benefits turn negative past 3 to 4 cups daily
“Once you get past about three or four cups of coffee a day, then the health benefits start to go in the opposite direction. It starts to become a negative trending direction in terms of health, but also in terms of sleep too.”
Walker: Alcohol sedates the brain rather than inducing natural sleep
“What you're doing with alcohol is sedating your brain, and sedation is not sleep.”
Walker: Peak testosterone release occurs during REM sleep, not exercise
“And we produce our peak levels of testosterone release, not during the day, or even after the gym, or just as we're working out during the gym, we produce our peak levels during REM sleep, just before and throughout that period of REM sleep.”
Walker: Evening alcohol consumption cuts nighttime growth hormone by 50%
“In fact, there was a frightening study that demonstrated that a couple of doses of alcohol in the evening, sort of getting you, not really tipsy, but kind of close to that, resulted in a 50% five-zero decrease in growth hormone at night.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Dr.'s full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Professor of Neuroscience, UT Dallas | 1 | 35 | 86% 19/22 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |