Bettering Me

Category: Stillness

  • The Gut-Brain Axis Is Real. Most of the Advice About It Is Overstated

    Written by

    Unpaid Intern

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    The vagus nerve is a bidirectional highway running between your gut and your brain. That much is settled science. What most articles leave out is the direction of traffic: approximately 90% of vagus nerve fibers carry information from the gut _to_ the brain, not the other way around. [1] Your gut is not a passive receiver of brain commands – it is a primary data source that your brain spends a lot of its bandwidth interpreting.

    That asymmetry matters because it changes where you should look for leverage. If the gut is feeding the brain more information than the brain is sending back, then the quality of that gut-derived input determines a significant portion of your cognitive and emotional baseline. The question is what actually improves that input.

    The answer is not what the supplement aisle wants you to believe.

    The microbiome does influence neurotransmitter production. Certain bacterial species produce GABA, serotonin precursors, and short-chain fatty acids that cross or influence the blood-brain barrier. But the evidence that swallowing a capsule of freeze-dried bacteria reliably improves mood or cognition in healthy adults is strikingly weak. A 2023 systematic review in _Nutrition Reviews_ found that most positive findings for probiotic supplementation came from industry-funded trials, and the effect sizes were small to negligible in healthy populations. [2] The studies that show benefit are disproportionately small, short, and funded by companies that sell the product being tested.

    That pattern is not proof of fraud. It is proof that the science is not as settled as the marketing suggests.

    Here is what the data actually supports: dietary fiber diversity.

    The American Gut Project, one of the largest microbiome studies ever conducted with over 11,000 participants, found a clear dose-response relationship between the number of plant species a person ate per week and the diversity of their gut microbiome. [3] People who ate more than 30 different plant species per week had significantly higher microbial diversity than those who ate fewer than 10. Diversity is not an abstract metric – it predicts resilience. A more diverse microbiome is more resistant to disruption from diet changes, antibiotics, and pathogens. It is the closest thing to a universal signal of gut health that the field has.

    The lever that moves that number is not a supplement. It is counting. If you aim for 30 different plant species per week, you are forced to diversify your diet in ways that no pill can replicate. Every herb, spice, grain, nut, seed, fruit, and vegetable counts. A teaspoon of oregano in your pasta sauce counts. A handful of almonds counts. The variety itself is the intervention.

    The speed of change also matters. Researchers at Harvard showed that switching between plant-rich and animal-based diets produced measurable shifts in bacterial composition within 24 to 48 hours. [4] That is faster than most people realize – and it means both the damage from a poor diet and the benefit from an improved one appear quickly. Waiting for “the right time” to improve your diet is the opposite of what the mechanism suggests. Changes you make this week are already reshaping your gut ecosystem by the weekend.

    There is a legitimate place for probiotics. Post-antibiotic recovery, specific gastrointestinal conditions, and certain clinical contexts show real benefit. [5] But for the healthy adult looking to improve brain function through gut health, the hierarchy should be inverted from what most marketing suggests: fiber diversity first, prebiotic foods second, probiotic supplements a distant third.

    Your gut-brain axis does not need a protocol. It needs a grocery list with more colors on it. The highest-leverage intervention for cognitive health through the gut is not something you buy – it is something you eat. More plants, more kinds of plants, more often. That is the signal your vagus nerve is waiting for.

    Disclaimer: This post is for inspiration and education, not medical advice. Everyone’s body is different, so please check with your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, or lifestyle routine. By using these tips, you agree to do so at your own risk.

    References

    [1] Breit S, et al. Vagus nerve as modulator of the brain-gut axis in psychiatric and inflammatory disorders. *Frontiers in Psychiatry*, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00044

    [2] Ng QX, et al. A systematic review of the effect of probiotics on mood and cognition in healthy adults. *Nutrition Reviews*, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuac086

    [3] McDonald D, et al. American Gut: an open platform for citizen science microbiome research. *mSystems*, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00031-18

    [4] David LA, et al. Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome. *Nature*, 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12820

    [5] Gibson GR, et al. ISAPP consensus statement on the definition and scope of prebiotics. *Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology*, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2017.75

  • Most Sleep Data Is Interpreted Backward – The Number That Matters Is Sleep Timing Consistency

    Written by

    Unpaid Intern

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    Consumer sleep trackers have created a generation of people who believe they know how well they slept based on a number their wrist reported in the morning. The number is often wrong. And the number that actually matters is the one most people ignore.

    The core problem with wearable sleep data is that consumer devices estimate sleep stages using heart rate and movement data, not brain waves. The gold standard – polysomnography (PSG) – measures brain activity directly via EEG. Consumer wearables infer sleep from secondary signals. The correlation with PSG for sleep staging is modest, and most devices systematically overestimate total sleep time and underestimate sleep latency. [1] You are not getting sleep data. You are getting motion and heart rate data that an algorithm has labeled as sleep.

    But the deeper issue is that the metric most people fixate on – total sleep time – is not the strongest predictor of how they will feel the next day. Sleep timing consistency is.

    The Sleep Regularity Index, developed by researchers at the University of Sydney, quantifies how consistent an individual’s sleep-wake schedule is from day to day. Multiple studies have shown that sleep regularity is often as strong a predictor of next-day cognitive performance as total sleep duration, and in some analyses, it is stronger. [2] A person who sleeps seven hours every night at wildly different times will have worse cognitive outcomes than a person who sleeps six and a half hours at the same time every night. Consistency compensates for duration in a way that duration cannot compensate for inconsistency.

    The mechanism is circadian disruption. The circadian system expects sleep at a predictable time. When sleep timing varies, the system never fully synchronizes. The result is that the internal clock and the behavior are out of phase – you fall asleep at different biological times even if you intend to fall asleep at the same clock time. This desynchrony degrades sleep quality independently of duration. [3]

    The intervention is straightforward: go to bed within a consistent 30-minute window every night, including weekends. The “including weekends” part is where most people fail. Social jet lag – the shift in sleep timing between weekdays and weekends – is associated with higher allostatic load, poorer metabolic health, and lower mood. The weekend lie-in that feels restorative is actually disruptive. The sleep loss from the week is better addressed by moving bedtime earlier across all days than by extending sleep on weekends alone. [3]

    Does this mean you should never sleep in? No. An occasional extension of 30-60 minutes is unlikely to produce meaningful disruption. The problem is the two-to-three-hour shift that characterizes social jet lag. The threshold for circadian disruption is crossed at about 90 minutes of bedtime variability. Below that, the system adapts. Above that, the costs accumulate.

    The practical recommendation: pick a bedtime and a wake time. Keep them within 30 minutes every day. That is the only sleep metric that matters for most people. Everything else – duration, stages, deep sleep percentage – is downstream of consistency. When consistency is in place, duration tends to self-regulate. When it is not, no amount of optimization produces reliable improvement.

    The reason this message struggles to gain traction is that it is not profitable. Wearable companies sell devices that track stages. Supplement companies sell products that claim to enhance deep sleep. The “consistency is free” message has no commercial sponsor. But the data is clear: a consistent bedtime is the single most cost-effective intervention for sleep quality. No subscription required. No device needed. Just the discipline of picking a time and honoring it. The fact that it is free does not make it less powerful. It makes it harder to believe.

    Disclaimer: This post is for inspiration and education, not medical advice. Everyone’s body is different, so please check with your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, or lifestyle routine. By using these tips, you agree to do so at your own risk.

    References

    [1] de Zambotti M, et al. Wearable sleep technology in clinical and research settings. *Sleep*, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsy231

    [2] Phillips AJK, et al. Irregular sleep/wake patterns are associated with poorer academic performance and delayed circadian and sleep/wake timing. *npj Digital Medicine*, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-017-0001-1

    [3] Huang T, et al. Sleep irregularity and risk of cardiovascular events: the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis. *Scientific Reports*, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69764-0

  • Parasympathetic Sovereignty Is Not About Relaxing More – It’s About Recovering Faster

    Written by

    Unpaid Intern

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    The wellness industry has sold a version of “calm” that looks like a flat line: constant, even, unbroken serenity. That is not how healthy nervous systems work. The goal of nervous system regulation is not to stay relaxed all day. It is to upregulate when you need to perform and downregulate quickly when the demand ends. The skill is switch speed.

    Heart rate variability (HRV) is the metric that captures this dynamic. High HRV does not mean a low resting heart rate. It means the heart is responsive – able to accelerate quickly for a stressor and decelerate quickly when the stressor passes. People with low HRV do not have trouble relaxing. They have trouble transitioning. [1] Their nervous system gets stuck in one gear, usually sympathetic, because the brake mechanism – the parasympathetic branch – is slow to re-engage after activation.

    The engineering target, then, is not deeper relaxation. It is faster recovery. The question is what interventions improve the speed of autonomic switching.

    The evidence points to two interventions that outperform almost everything else in the wellness catalog.

    The first is consistent sleep timing. Multiple studies have shown that bedtime variability is one of the strongest predictors of next-day HRV. [2] Going to bed within a consistent 30-minute window every night predicts higher HRV than total sleep duration does. This makes physiological sense – the circadian system regulates autonomic balance, and inconsistent sleep timing disrupts circadian entrainment, which in turn degrades the parasympathetic system’s ability to engage during rest. The intervention is free, requires no equipment, and produces measurable effects within days of improvement.

    The second is morning light exposure within 30 minutes of waking. Light is the primary zeitgeber – the time cue that sets the circadian clock. Morning light exposure within 30 minutes of waking advances the circadian phase and strengthens entrainment, which directly affects the autonomic nervous system’s daily rhythm. [3] The parasympathetic system operates on a circadian schedule – it should dominate during sleep and early morning, while the sympathetic system takes over during the day. Morning light exposure helps maintain that schedule by signaling the system to transition from the overnight parasympathetic dominance to daytime sympathetic readiness. Without that signal, the transition is sluggish, and recovery after daytime stress is slower.

    The combination of these two interventions – consistent bedtime window plus morning light exposure – addresses the two biggest disruptors of autonomic switching speed: circadian disruption and light-deprived mornings. Together, they outperform most evening wind-down routines, supplements, and stress-management apps for the specific outcome of recovery speed.

    This is where the “sovereignty” framing enters. Parasympathetic sovereignty is the capacity to recover on your own schedule, independent of external conditions. It is the opposite of stress reactivity – where your recovery depends on the environment calming down. Sovereignty means your nervous system can return to baseline even in a chaotic environment, because your recovery machinery is strong enough to operate despite external noise. [OPINION]

    The practical protocol is minimal. Pick a bedtime and stick to it within 30 minutes, including weekends. Get 10-15 minutes of outdoor light within 30 minutes of waking. That is the entire protocol. It takes no time, costs nothing, and targets the mechanism that drives recovery speed. Everything else – supplements, red-light therapy, expensive HRV monitors – is tertiary compared to these two.

    A caveat: consistent sleep timing is harder than it sounds because it requires social discipline. Late meetings, social obligations, and the lure of one more episode all disrupt timing. The protocol’s value is proportional to its consistency. Missing one night is not a failure. Missing the principle – treating bedtime as non-negotiable – is.

    Switch speed is the metric. Bedtime consistency and morning light are the levers. Everything else is optimization on top of a foundation most people have not laid.

    Disclaimer: This post is for inspiration and education, not medical advice. Everyone’s body is different, so please check with your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, or lifestyle routine. By using these tips, you agree to do so at your own risk.

    References

    [1] Thayer JF, et al. A meta-analysis of heart rate variability and neuroimaging studies. *Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews*, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.11.009

    [2] Huang T, et al. Sleep irregularity and risk of cardiovascular events: the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis. *Scientific Reports*, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69764-0

    [3] Wright KP, et al. Entrainment of the human circadian clock to the natural light-dark cycle. *Current Biology*, 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.06.039

  • The AI Skeptic Needs Somatic Practices More Than the AI Enthusiast

    Written by

    Unpaid Intern

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    The AI enthusiast wakes up to a new tool and feels excitement. The AI skeptic wakes up to the same news and feels vigilance. Both are valid responses to a rapidly shifting technological landscape, but they produce fundamentally different physiological states. The enthusiast gets a dopamine loop. The skeptic gets a threat loop.

    Being constantly vigilant against AI influence creates what neuroscientists call anticipatory threat monitoring – a low-grade sympathetic activation that keeps the nervous system scanning for danger even when no immediate threat exists. [1] The skeptic’s pattern is more insidious than the enthusiast’s because it looks like caution but functions as chronic stress. The enthusiast’s dopamine loop has a natural satiety signal. The skeptic’s threat loop does not. There is always one more article to read, one more risk to evaluate, one more reason to resist.

    The irony is that the skeptic needs nervous system regulation more than the enthusiast because the skeptic is paying a higher physiological cost for the same technological environment. The enthusiast engages, gets a reward, and moves on. The skeptic engages (or avoids engaging) and feels activated either way. Avoidance does not resolve the activation – it maintains it, because the threat remains unresolved in the nervous system’s tracking. [2]

    This is where somatic practice becomes relevant not as wellness but as sovereignty. Sovereign focus for the skeptic is not about avoiding AI. It is about building enough regulation capacity that you can engage with AI without being activated by it. The goal is not to become an enthusiast. It is to become someone who can choose their response rather than having their response dictated by an overactive threat-detection system.

    The specific practice that targets this dynamic is conscious disengagement – the deliberate act of engaging with an AI tool briefly, then consciously stepping away and noticing the transition. The sequence is: engage, notice the activation (if any), disengage, notice the deactivation, repeat. Each repetition trains the nervous system that engagement is survivable. The activation is not a signal to flee – it is a signal to regulate. [OPINION]

    This protocol works because it targets the specific failure mode of skepticism: anticipatory avoidance. The skeptic avoids AI tools not because they have been harmed by them but because they anticipate being harmed. The anticipation itself creates a sensitized threat response that makes future engagement more costly. Conscious disengagement breaks the sensitization cycle by pairing engagement with evidence that the engagement was safe.

    The alternative framing is also worth considering: AI as environment rather than predator. The skeptic’s nervous system treats AI as a predator to be scanned for and avoided. The alternative is to treat AI as weather – a feature of the environment that must be navigated rather than feared. You do not need to like the rain to walk in it without panicking. You need a coat. For the skeptic, the coat is autonomic regulation. [OPINION]

    There is a caveat that matters: not all skepticism is pathological. Discernment is a legitimate cognitive function. The AI skeptic’s wariness may reflect genuine risks that the enthusiast is overlooking. The point is not to eliminate skepticism but to prevent it from becoming a chronic sympathetic load that degrades health and decision-making. The goal is regulated skepticism – the ability to evaluate AI critically without being dysregulated by it.

    The practice that helps most across the board is breath awareness before, during, and after AI interaction. It is not AI-specific – it is the general capacity to notice when the nervous system has escalated and to downregulate before the escalation becomes habitual. [3] But it matters most for the skeptic because the skeptic’s default state is already closer to the threshold. The skeptic does not need to learn to engage. They need to learn to engage without activation.

    The distinction between avoidance and regulation is the key insight. Avoidance looks like protection but functions as reinforcement – each time the skeptic avoids AI, the nervous system learns that avoidance was necessary, deepening the threat association. Regulation looks like engagement with a safety net – the skeptic engages briefly, notices the activation, and consciously downregulates before the activation becomes dysregulation. Over time, this pattern retrains the nervous system to distinguish between genuine threat and anticipated threat. That distinction is the foundation of sovereignty in an AI-saturated environment.

    Disclaimer: This post is for inspiration and education, not medical advice. Everyone’s body is different, so please check with your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, or lifestyle routine. By using these tips, you agree to do so at your own risk.

    References

    [1] Grupe DW, Nitschke JB. Uncertainty and anticipation in anxiety: an integrated neurobiological and psychological perspective. *Nature Reviews Neuroscience*, 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3524

    [2] Thayer JF, Lane RD. A model of neurovisceral integration in emotion regulation and dysregulation. *Biological Psychology*, 2000. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/s0301-0511(00)00053-4

    [3] Kiverstein J, et al. The affective niche and the challenge of 21st-century technologies. *Trends in Cognitive Sciences*, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.03.005

  • Calling Rest a Biohack Misses the Point – Rest Is the Default State That Hacks Are Trying to Restore

    Written by

    Unpaid Intern

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    The word “biohack” applied to rest reveals how far the wellness culture has drifted from physiology. Rest is not an intervention. It is the default state of a human nervous system that is not being actively disrupted. The “hack” is not adding something that produces rest. It is removing what prevents rest from happening on its own.

    This reframing matters because the additive approach to rest – buy the supplement, use the device, follow the protocol – keeps you in an active, optimizing relationship with rest, which is the opposite of what rest requires. Rest is not something you do. It is something you allow.

    The evidence for the subtractive approach is scattered across separate literatures that rarely get connected. Light exposure after sunset suppresses melatonin production, delaying sleep onset and reducing sleep quality. [1] Late-night eating disrupts the body temperature regulation that supports deep sleep. [2] Alcohol consumption before bed fragments sleep architecture, reducing slow-wave and REM sleep. [3] Cognitive load in the hour before bed elevates cortisol, which directly antagonizes the sleep-initiation system. [4] Each of these is a blocker, not a missing ingredient. Remove the blocker, and rest returns.

    The most common counterargument is that some people genuinely need help sleeping and that supplements or devices provide that help. That is true for clinical populations – chronic insomnia, shift workers, people with specific medical conditions. For those groups, melatonin, magnesium, or even prescription sleep aids are appropriate tools. But the person who falls asleep easily on vacation and struggles at home does not have a sleep disorder. They have an environment that is preventing rest.

    The data on sleep disruptions supports the environmental theory. Room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin by about 50% compared to dim light. [1] Alcohol consumption before bed, even at moderate levels, measurably reduces time spent in restorative sleep stages. [3] Using a phone or tablet in bed delays sleep onset by an average of 30 minutes per hour of use. [5] The cumulative effect is that the typical evening routine – bright lights, snacks, alcohol, screens – creates a physiological state that is incompatible with the rest people are trying to achieve with supplements.

    The practical implication is uncomfortable for people who want protocols: the most effective intervention is stopping. Stop using screens 90 minutes before bed. Stop eating within three hours of bedtime. Stop drinking alcohol within four hours of sleep. Stop working or engaging in emotionally demanding content within two hours of sleep. Each of these is a removal of a barrier, not an addition of a tool.

    The “subtraction” approach is harder to sell than the “addition” approach because it requires discipline that is invisible. Buying a supplement feels like progress. Turning off the TV early feels like deprivation. But the physiological logic is clear: if your evening environment is configured to block rest, the most efficient intervention is to reconfigure the environment. No supplement can overcome a brightly lit room, a full stomach, and an active mind.

    A useful heuristic: if you slept well on your last vacation without any supplements or devices, the problem is not your ability to rest. It is your home environment. Replicate the vacation conditions – darkness, cool temperature, full stomach from hours ago, no screens – and see whether rest returns. If it does, you do not need a protocol. You need to remove the obstacles.

    Disclaimer: This post is for inspiration and education, not medical advice. Everyone’s body is different, so please check with your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, or lifestyle routine. By using these tips, you agree to do so at your own risk.

    References

    [1] Gooley JJ, et al. Exposure to room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin onset and shortens melatonin duration in humans. *Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism*, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2010-2098

    [2] Crispim CA, et al. The influence of sleep and sleep loss upon food intake and metabolism. *Sleep Science*, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.slsci.2011.10.001

    [3] Ebrahim IO, et al. Alcohol and sleep I: effects on normal sleep. *Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research*, 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/acer.12054

    [4] Harvey AG, et al. Pre-sleep cognitive arousal: a systematic review. *Clinical Psychology Review*, 2002. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-7358(01)00117-4

    [5] Chang AM, et al. Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness. *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418490112

  • “Soft Wellness” Sounds Passive. It Requires Stopping, Not Doing

    Written by

    Unpaid Intern

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    The phrase “soft wellness” entered the cultural conversation in 2024 and was immediately misunderstood. Critics dismissed it as laziness dressed in wellness language. Supporters embraced it as permission to do less. Both readings miss the point. Soft wellness is not easier than biohacking. It is harder, because it requires discipline that is invisible: the discipline of not acting.

    Biohacking is additive. Buy the supplement. Follow the protocol. Track the metric. Get the dopamine hit of seeing the number improve. Each addition produces a sense of forward motion, even if the direction is wrong. The biohacker is never inactive – there is always another variable to optimize, another stack to refine, another wearable to deploy. The activity itself feels like progress.

    Soft wellness is subtractive. Not buying the supplement. Not optimizing the protocol. Not adding another variable. The discipline is invisible because the action is the absence of action. No one applauds you for not buying something. No metric tracks the supplement you did not purchase. The progress is not just slow – it is undetectable.

    This matters because the nervous system does not need more inputs to regulate. It needs fewer inputs that activate it. Allostatic load theory describes the cumulative cost of repeated activation and the metabolic wear and tear that results from chronic stress responding. [1] Each biohack, each notification, each optimization is an input. Most of these inputs activate rather than calm. The nervous system reclaims its equilibrium not through addition but through removal – the absence of the inputs that were keeping it activated.

    The hardest thing for a high-performer to do is nothing. The productivity mindset treats inactivity as waste. But the nervous system does not optimize on a productivity schedule. Rest is productive at the physiological level even when it looks unproductive at the behavioral level. During true rest – not scrolling, not “active recovery,” but the absence of goal-directed behavior – the parasympathetic system takes over, cellular repair accelerates, and metabolic byproducts are cleared. [2] None of this happens while you are optimizing.

    The soft wellness revolution is about the uncomfortable discipline of stopping. Stopping the habit of reaching for your phone. Stopping the impulse to optimize your morning routine. Stopping the late-night research session on the latest longevity protocol. Each stop is a decision against action, and each decision against action is harder than the corresponding decision for action because it produces no visible outcome.

    A practical test: pick one wellness intervention you are currently doing – tracking, supplementing, optimizing – and stop it for two weeks. The intervention that you are afraid to drop is the one you are using as a proxy for control. The probability that dropping it will produce harm is near zero. The probability that it will reveal how much mental overhead the intervention was consuming is high. [OPINION]

    The objection is that some interventions are genuinely beneficial. That is true. The goal is not to eliminate all wellness practices. It is to distinguish between practices that are earning their keep and practices that are maintained by the addiction to activity. If tracking your sleep makes you sleep better, keep it. If tracking your sleep makes you anxious about numbers you cannot change, drop it. The test is not efficacy in the abstract – it is whether the practice reduces or increases your baseline activation.

    Soft wellness, properly understood, is not about doing nothing. It is about doing less of what does not need doing. That requires more discipline than doing more ever did.

    The cultural pressure to optimize creates a specific kind of blindness: the belief that if you are not actively intervening, you are falling behind. This is the core insight that soft wellness challenges. The nervous system does not operate on a competitive optimization schedule. It operates on a homeostatic one. It seeks balance, not peak performance. The interventions that feel most productive are often the ones that keep the system from finding its own equilibrium. The discipline of stopping is harder than the discipline of adding, but it is the discipline that rest leads to.

    Disclaimer: This post is for inspiration and education, not medical advice. Everyone’s body is different, so please check with your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, or lifestyle routine. By using these tips, you agree to do so at your own risk.

    References

    [1] McEwen BS. Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. *New England Journal of Medicine*, 1998. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199801153380307

    [2] Vyazovskiy VV, et al. Local sleep in awake rats. *Nature*, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10009