On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Sleep Expert Matthew Walker: Do THIS to Sleep Through The Night And Never Wake Up Tired Again
Mon, 02 Jun 2025
How well did you sleep last night? Do you wake up feeling rested? Today, Jay welcomes renowned neuroscientist, sleep expert, and bestselling author Dr. Matthew Walker to unpack the profound importance of sleep and how it shapes every facet of our health and wellbeing. Bestselling author of Why We Sleep, Dr. Matthew Walker brings scientific rigor and heartfelt clarity to one of the most misunderstood and underestimated aspects of our lives. Matthew opens the discussion by challenging the myth of the 'eight-hour rule.' While the average adult does best with seven to nine hours of sleep, the focus quickly shifts beyond just duration. Instead, Matthew introduces a more holistic four part framework—Quantity, Quality, Regularity, and Timing, or QQRT. This framework highlights how sleep is not simply about how long one sleeps, but also how deeply, how consistently, and how well it aligns with our natural biological rhythms. Jay and Matthew's conversation also tackles common disruptors of restorative sleep, including caffeine, alcohol, and excessive exposure to artificial light. Dr. Walker discusses how these elements can interfere with the brain’s ability to enter deep and REM sleep, the latter being especially important for emotional processing, hormonal regulation, and memory consolidation. Sleep, it turns out, influences far more than individual health. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Know If You’re Getting Enough Sleep How to Improve Sleep Using the QQRT Formula How to Align Your Sleep With Your Body’s Internal Clock How to Avoid Waking Up Tired Every Morning How to Optimize Your Evening Routine for Better Sleep How to Fall Back Asleep After Waking Up at Night How to Diagnose Sleep Apnea at Home With scientific insight and practical wisdom, the episode paints a vivid picture of how sleep, when prioritized and protected, can serve as a catalyst for healing, clarity, and sustainable energy. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Join Jay for his first ever, On Purpose Live Tour! Tickets are on sale now. Hope to see you there! What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:12 The Four Metrics That Define Great Sleep 06:03 Can You Actually Change Your Sleep Cycle? 09:45 Why You Wake Up Tired—Even After a Full Night’s Sleep 14:29 What Sleep Apnea Really Is and Why It’s Often Missed 19:21 The Body-Wide Damage Caused by Sleep Loss 23:20 The Hormone That Increases Late-Night Cravings 28:42 Best Types of Food to Eat Before Bed 33:48 How Late-Night Eating Disrupts Your Sleep Rhythm 37:23 The Truth About Melatonin Supplements 40:47 Should You Give Melatonin To Your Children? 44:25 The Evolution of Sleeping Pills Explained 52:36 The Best Nighttime Routine For Optimal Sleep 55:07 Three Practical Tricks to Fall Back Asleep 01:04:58 What It Really Takes to Clear Caffeine From Your System 01:08:01 Surprising Health Benefits of Drinking Coffee 01:10:02 How Alcohol Quietly Ruins Your Sleep 01:13:06 Can Sleeping Well Actually Make you More Successful? 01:16:40 The Real Risks of Losing Just One Hour of Sleep 01:21:16 What Regular Sleep and a Digital Detox Can Do For Your Life 01:22:45 Why Weekend “Catch-Up” Sleep Doesn’t Work 01:24:09 The Overlooked Link Between Sleep and Mental Health 01:27:32 How Poor Sleep Fuels Loneliness and Disconnection 01:30:58 Why Self-Forgiveness Might Be the Ultimate Sleep Tool Episode Resources: Matthew Walker | Website Matthew Walker | Instagram Matthew Walker | LinkedIn Matthew Walker | X The Matt Walker Podcast Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and DreamsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: How much sleep do we actually need?
my husband has a secret son from a past partner hold up sam how do we know have we done the dna test well john luckily it's mother may i have a dna test week on the okay story time podcast so we'll find out soon and this wife writes my husband received a facebook message from a woman saying that he is the father of a five-year-old whoa at first he didn't remember her but then he realized they had a one night stand right before we started dating
Wait, but do we have proof he's the dad? Well, the author says there's no confirmation the kid is even his son, but the woman from Facebook has a meeting with her lawyer soon. I think she's going after our money. If the kid is actually my husband's, she would be entitled to it too. So what's the husband got to say about this? This could be his kid.
Well, apparently he broke down in the middle of the living room apologizing, but this is what scared me. His first instinct? if the kid is his son, is to pay the child support but not be an active father in the kid's life because he only wants a family with me, his wife. Oh, this is a mess.
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Hi, this is Ruthie Rogers, host of our podcast, Ruthie's Table 4.
I like all sorts of things that aren't good for me. Fried chicken.
Fried chicken.
Donuts.
Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, fell in love over food.
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Chapter 2: What is the QQRT formula for better sleep?
And we know that there is this epidemic of loneliness happening. We didn't realize how much a lack of sleep was contributing to that. Worse still, when you interact with someone who is sleep deprived and you are well-rested, having had that interaction with the sleep deprived person, when we ask that person, do you feel any more or less lonely in this moment?
They rate themselves as now feeling more lonely themselves having interacted with a sleep deprived individual. In other words, the loneliness that a lack of sleep creates is contagious and it is transmitted from one person to the next. The second thing that we looked at was perhaps one of the most fundamental components of us homo sapiens, which is that we help each other.
It's what we call pro-social behavior. And I cannot imagine any modern civilization that has emerged without pro-social helping between individuals. It's a fundamental ingredient. We help each other. And what we found is that when you are underslept, you withdraw your natural tendency to help other human beings. We observed it at the level of me helping other people.
We observed it at the level of entire groups helping each other. And we also found it across entire nations. And you think, how do you figure that one out? There is a global experiment that's performed on 1.6 billion people across 70 countries twice a year, and it's called Daylight Savings Time. Yeah.
And what we did, we looked at the national donation database across the United States, which is in some ways a measure of selfless giving. I give to charity, I give to other people. And what we found is that in the days after the spring daylight savings time, when we lose one hour of sleep, there was this huge dent in proactive giving by way of donations to charities. we become more stingy.
We become more self-centered. So I would say that it's this new wave of sleep science that goes beyond the DNA nucleus that we spoke about. It goes beyond cells. It goes beyond physiological systems. It goes beyond entire brain networks. It goes beyond the organism themselves. It now translates to a lack of sleep impacting our interrelationships and impacting the very fabric of society itself.
That to me has been stunning and quite the surprise.
Yeah, that is a surprise. I was not expecting that. Fifth and final question we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show, Matt. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
Self-forgiveness.
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