"Sleep is highly affected by placebo. Every culture has sleep aids. In Western culture, there's chamomile tea or a glass of milk before bed. A lot of it is purely the placebo effect, disparage the treatment, the herbs or whatever it might be. It's just that the placebo effect is super effective because again, the number one cause of insomnia is worrying about insomnia. So if you have something that gives you a sense of agency and control, Oh, I did something about it. was up at four o'clock in the morning. And I popped a melatonin pill. It actually doesn't matter if the melatonin is working. The fact that you took something gave you agency and control and power over something that you felt powerless over is very soothing, is very calming and lets your mind relax. They're called open label placebos. It turns out placebos work, even when you know they're placebos." - Nir Eyal
"People always want a pill. They want an easy solution. There are so many risks that we don't think about. Many sleep medications can be habit forming, if not all out addictive. Even if they're not, just the mental wiring of thinking you have to take a pill every time you want to fix the problem, isn’t good. Sometimes medication is a good idea after you've exhausted all of the non-pharmaceutical options, because all pharmaceuticals have side effects. I'm not anti-medication, but I am anti this ‘just prescription’ pill mill that we have." - Nir Eyal
"We have to be very careful with any source of media and make sure that it serves us, as opposed to us serving it. The reality of the modern world is that we have to learn these skills and specifically teach our kids these skills. One of the things I rally against is having any kind of technology in a kid's bedroom. We see there are lots of benefits to technology, and a lot of it gets a bad name. There are a lot of potential benefits to appropriate technology use, but the biggest downside is not the technology itself. It's what technology comes at the cost of, which is sleep. Again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with allowing your kid to have access to technology, but as a parent, we do not want anything in our kid's bedroom that interrupts sleep. That can be anything that beeps, buzzes, or boops, anything that lights up, or anything that makes noise at night that could potentially interrupt kids’ sleep should not be in a kid's bedroom and in the parents’ bedroom." - Nir Eyal
In this episode, Jeremy Au speaks on sleep habit fundamentals, adding friction for mindful technology usage, and the future of optimized rest.
Keywords: Sleep Habit Fundamentals, Adding Friction, Mindful Technology Usage, Future of Optimized Rest, USA, Thought Leadership
