Dr. Allison Brager: Improve Sleep Efficiency & Resilience

1. Dr. Andy Galpin

   The science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life. Welcome to Perform. I'm Dr. Andy Galpin. I'm a professor and scientist and the executive director of the Human Performance Center at Parker University. And today I'm speaking with Dr. Allison Brager. Allison is a neuroscientist who has spent most of her career focusing on sleep, and specifically sleep resilience, which is one way of thinking about how to become more efficient and effective with sleep regardless of the situation. Classic examples of that, her research has looked at everything from athletes traveling from one coast to the other coast, military individuals, sleep on Antarctica and in space, as well as just a ton of research for regular people in how do we just become the most effective we can. What effective sleep is, is actually something I learned a lot about today, and something that you will pick up on as Allison shared what that actually means, how you determine it, how you can actually become more specific and precise to your individual sleep needs, and overall how to better think about sleep for not only surviving, but thriving.

2. Dr. Andy Galpin

   Allison is a fantastic scientist. Her publications are numerous, but she's spent so much time in the field dealing with individuals that I think the true value you're going to get out of this episode is understanding how that information that she has gleaned from her research actually manifests itself in the practical real-world scenario. And so I learned a ton. I know you're going to learn a ton about becoming a resilient and highly effective sleeper. So with that all said, I hope you enjoy today's episode with Dr. Allison Brager. Dr. Allison Brager, thank you so much for coming out. There's a lot of cool stuff I want to get into today. I was hoping we could start off actually with dispelling a huge sleep myth.

3. Dr. Allison Brager

   Mm-hmm.

4. Dr. Andy Galpin

   I'm from the West Coast. You're from the Midwest. As you are well aware, there is a huge East Coast bias for sports teams. We all know that. The West Coast gets no love. We get unfair placements and things. Can you please confirm and share with the rest of the world that there is, in fact, a huge advantage for East Coast teams, that it is easier, that they win more, that everything is better, and the West Coast teams are truly at a disadvantage?

5. Dr. Allison Brager

   It's actually the opposite.

6. Dr. Andy Galpin

   No!

7. Dr. Andy Galpin

   No.

8. Dr. Allison Brager

   During the regular season, it's actually the opposite.

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