A Problem Squared - 026 = Sliding on Snow and Skipping on Sleep

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

APS 026 is here, and it's the last of the year! In this episode... * How fast could a team of penguins complete a 4 x 100 relay race? * How can you fix your sleeping schedule? * And, AOB - lot's of it! As ever, we value your thoughts on A Problem Squared so head on over to: www.thatsurvey.ilikeit.aproblemsquared.com and give us some feedback!      You can learn more about circadian rhythms here: https://www.nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/circadian-rhythms.aspx   How to change them, here: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/circadian-rhythm/can-you-change-your-circadian-rhythm    Some tried and tested sleep hacks (that really work): https://www.sleepcycle.com/how-to-fall-asleep/serious-sleep-hacks-that-really-work/   More about the B-Society, who help employers and educators to facilitate chronotypes that don’t suit early hours is here: https://www.b-society.org/about/   And, to find out which country you sleep like, follow this link here: https://time.com/4318156/sleep-countries-style/ We would also like to give a special mention to the alternative episode name that we were all very proud of: 'Antarctic Circles and Anarchic Cycles'. And an extra special mention to Bec for coming up with it.

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the problem solving podcast, which is a bit like Antarctica in that we formed many years after part of us broke away from Western Australia and we're very cool. Okay. That is excellent. Thank you very much. And I'm your host, Bec Hill, otherwise known as Be Chill, if you move the space between my first and last name.

And I'm joined by that other voice you heard, Matt Brr. You better put on a parka, which is a type of jacket. It's excellent. So I only told you that Antarctica fact that half of it used to be attached to WA like yesterday. Yeah. And you've rolled it into your introduction. I like that you're impressed that you told me a thing and that I used it as like, I'd be surprised if you told it to me tomorrow and it was in my.

Yeah. I understand how time works. I just, you know what? And I understand. I just, I figure you, you, that caliber of intro. I also just wanted to say before anyone wrote to us and complained that I'm aware that Parker, the jacket, I believe is spelt with an A and not an ER. That's why Lucy and I can't double barrel our surnames as Green Parker.

Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Why have I never thought of that? Well, that's enough pausing there. In today's episode. I solved the problem of how fast penguins can move. I solved the problem of how to fix your sleeping schedule. And you wouldn't believe how much AOB business we've got.

I mean, any. We've got any. Stick around. Well, Matt, obviously, I want to know all about what you've been up to since we last recorded an episode. But before I do, we've got some reviews. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. We've had, it's really good five stars ding from econ postgrad at or econ and they wrote lse they wrote ding and we've got

another one from mathologist 42 great name by the way that That's superb. I think we know whose fan base they came out of. They said, excellent podcast. I only just found out about this, even though I've been a fan of Matt for nearly a decade now. Podcast is excellently presented, funny and just enjoyable to listen to. I may be biased since I am a mathematician,

but I think anyone would enjoy this podcast. The topics are interesting and well explained. Well, thank you, Mythologist, and to the postgrad from LSE. We appreciate it. That's all the reviews. That's all the reviews. We did a call out in the last one. We know how many people listen to this podcast.

We know how many of you listen to this. Thanks, everyone. That's our Christmas present, Matt. I don't want to choose favorites, but those two. I went to Antarctica to solve this month's problem. And only two people went to the Apple website to review our podcast. We love you all. We do love you all.

Tell us about Antarctica. Oh, my goodness. It's amazing. It's absolutely incredible. It's a long way away and the amount of paperwork like getting to antarctica on its own is a lot of paperwork but being able to go out during during covid was just more paperwork that i've ever come across and the odds of getting there were slim Like a lot of the ships that were meant to go were cancelled. A lot of people who were meant to get on the ships still went.

Couldn't make it. Well, because it was a solar eclipse cruise. Like one ship that was meant to be leaving, everyone got there. This is one going from Argentina. We went from Chile. And four members of the crew tested positive for COVID right before they were due to leave. And so they had to cancel the whole ship.

And so hundreds of people had flown out and some of the, some of the big people in solar physics and in, in, um, solar eclipses were there and they had to cancel it then. And we had people on our ship who tested positive right before getting on board. So they couldn't come. There were people who got all the way to Chile but hadn't filled out the correct paperwork to get into the country. And I simultaneously felt horrible for them

and a little bit vindicated. A bit smug. I'd been going on to Lucy about how complicated the paperwork was. And I was like, you see? And it was possible for it to have gone wrong but it was just absolutely worth it equal parts amazing and um terrifying and the solar eclipse uh was cloudy oh no so we didn't we saw nothing you went all the way to antar Antarctica during a pandemic with multiple testing and stops and paperwork.

We were tested six times. To see some clouds. Yeah. Of all the clouds I've seen, those were the most expensive. Yeah. Now I'm the one who feels smug. Exactly. You had the same experience.

Just sat in London. 17 ships ended up in the path, most of which were public ones. There's like one private ship that was around. And of the 17 that were there, one of them saw the eclipse. Wow. The odds of successfully seeing, and they gambled. They went way further north than anyone else where the sun would barely have come above the horizon

when totality hit on the eclipse. And so they were pushing their luck, but it paid off. Absolutely. Wow. And we knew going out that at that time of year, at that location, there's like a 80 or something, 90% chance of clouds. So it was a long shot in several ways. But all of that said, an eclipse of all the astronomical things to try and see,

an eclipse is the one thing where there's a constellation prize if it's cloudy. So previously, Lucy and I, we went... As in the stars? Well, it was... there's a constellation prize if it's cloudy. So previously, Lucy and I, we went... Oh, as in the stars. Well, it was... It was a constellation prize. Sorry. Not a constellation prize. It was a constellation constellation prize where...

Well, we'd been to the Arctic Circle to see a transit of Venus. But that's just a small dot moving across the sun. And if it's cloudy, you get nothing. And a lot of things like a it's cloudy, you get nothing. And a lot of things like a comet at night, cloudy, nothing. Whereas the eclipse, it still goes dark. And for us, we hadn't had darkness for days because we'd been down by the Antarctic Circle. So we'd not had darkness for a long time.

And then during the eclipse, everything went dark for like a minute. And then it wasn't dark. And yeah, whereas you stayed in the comfort of your safety of your own home. So what did I miss? How was life here while I was out looking at clouds? Well, since we last recorded, I went to my first red carpet event. Oh, yes. How was it?

It was really cool. I saw pictures. Yeah. In fact, we'll stick some up on Instagram and Twitter. I was with you when I found out that I was doing the proper red carpet thing and panicked because I don't really have anything that is red carpet-y. In terms of like clothing? Fashion. Yeah, yeah.

You've got the attitude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I decided to make my own dress out of whatever was in my flat. And I'm not, I don't sew. I've never made an article of clothing in my life. And for some reason decided it was perfectly reasonable to make something for a red carpet event where there's going to be loads of cameras and stuff. Can I just say, very symmetric zigzags.

Oh, thank you. Thanks. The skirt was a big fitted sheet that I'd been meaning to get rid of because I'd meant to use Febreze on it, but it turned out to be Moldkiller and I ended up slightly bleaching it. Yeah, so I turned it into a circle skirt, which is exactly what it sounds like. You lie it out, you do a massive circle, and then you do a little circle in the middle for your waist. You make an annulus. What, sorry?

I just called your skirt an annulus. Your waist. What? Sorry. I just called your skirt and it's an annulus. That's the math name for a disc with a hole in it. Is that why it's called an anus? Annulus. Do they come from the same thing? I almost guaranteed they have the same origin point. I'm just going to Google annulus. There you go.

Oh, you don't want to Google that. Okay, you ready? A ring-shaped object, structure, or region. There you go. Yeah, it's true. I wore an anus. So I used some leftover packing tape to do a sort of chevron design on it. Very symmetric.

Thank you. Normally you would attach a waistband to the center of the anus, but I didn't want to do any sewing or anything. I made a top just by taking an old pair of black tights and putting them on upside down. Basically put them over my head, put a holder, stick it over my torso and then use the legs to tie up like a halter top. And then use some bubble wrap as the rest of the top. And some jiffy bags as my pockets, which I missed out on saying the joke back in a jiffy. But that was nice. So I was really nervous and I hadn't socialized much either.

So I was, I was a bit worried about how it all go. And, um, the dress ended up becoming a really good talking point. Made some friends with some lovely ladies from Coronation street. Didn't realize until after I, after we all swapped Instagram handles. They're great. Um, yeah, so it was really nice. This is your new life as a TV star. We were both following stars.

Hey! Our first problem comes from Michael, or at Moth-Ock, or at Moth-Hock, or at Mo-Thock at Mothock or at Mothock. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. On Twitter. It's for you, Matt. It says, how fast could a team of penguins compete a four times 100 relay race?

Could they field a competitive or uncompetitive Olympic team for Antarctica in 2024? Yeah, this was one of the, when we asked people to send in problems I could do while I'm in Antarctica. And we got this one just in time. And I don't want to say this highlights the differences between the problem squared listener base and the stand up mass viewership, of which there is obviously

a decent overlap. But I also asked people to support my videos, what I should do while I'm in Antarctica. And the top suggestion was calculate pi. And a problem squared is how fast can penguins do a relay race? So I feel like that really sums up the two audiences we're working with here. And I did calculate pi for the record.

So I've now done maths on all seven continents which is very pleasing that is very impressive so i think i'm just missing africa now i've only been there once i didn't calculate pi um on that continent and i did a bunch of other stuff in antarctica as well as the penguin thing so i don't want to reopen the which animal species would form the longest queue conversation. But I was in the home of Antarctic krill. So you better believe I did some krill research while I was down there. I got very excited about phytoplanktons. Saw so much wildlife.

So I definitely saw penguins. So I both spoke to a penguin expert. Wait, do you mean an expert on penguins or a penguin who is an expert? No, just a very smart penguin. Yeah. Yeah. It's not easy for a penguin to distinguish itself by dressing up more formally as the expert penguin, but they, you know, if anything, they dress, they dress down.

They just like tie dyed. Um, so, uh, no, I found there was an expert on penguins on the ship and uh and so i then spoke to the penguin expert got their view on the topic i also saw a lot of penguins tell you what antarctica after a while you're like too much wildlife it's just it's relentless yeah honestly like and don't get me wrong, love wildlife just keeps going. And whales don't have no respect for your schedule. At one point I was in a lecture and someone just came running by and went, whales, and everyone just floods out and goes and looks at the whales outside. That sounds more like my experience at school.

Yeah, yeah. No, someone bags on the window as they run by the classroom. For like magpie attacking another student. Or in the UK, if it starts snowing all of a sudden, everyone loses their mind. I mean, I was a teacher in this scenario, but my goodness. Yeah. I've seen a lot of snow now. And so snow, wildlife, you can't walk for penguins.

They're everywhere. And they're so ridiculous. I get angry that they don't appreciate how ridiculous they are. They are just the stupidest animal. I did see a penguin fall off an iceberg. Is that after you pushed it? No, just I was looking off the side of the ship and there's a bunch of icebergs floating around

and a penguin leapt out of the water, landed on the edge of the iceberg and then with its flippers icebergs floating around and a penguin leapt out of the water, landed on the edge of the iceberg and then with its flippers did the full comedy. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then plonked back into the water. Best day of my life. I want to see what happens if you

introduce a banana skin to that scenario. I mean, the comedy universe would collapse in on itself. We would reach critical mass. Now, penguins, the question was, how fast could penguins do a 4x100 meter relay? And when you just look at penguins on land, you would think not very fast at all because they are awkward, ridiculous animals. However, they are supremely suited for swimming.

And on land, they have no, well, first of all, they've got no land-based predators. So their guard is down. They would just wander up to humans. They have no fear of any creatures when they're on land. And so you're told to stay a minimum you're gonna be three or more meters away from penguins but often that involves you backing up because the penguins are just strolling around um and they've got no they don't eat anything on land so when they're on land they're just you know chilling out that's

that's that that's their downtime underwater they're all business, they're just, you know, chilling out. That's their downtime. Underwater, they're all business. And so when I spoke to the penguin expert and said, right, well, how fast can a penguin go? And Lancey, fantastic individual, said, look, the fastest penguin, because there were like 17 different species of penguins, and people argued there may be more, there may be fewer, and biologists sorted it out. And so they were like, right, fastest penguin is the Gen 2. Oh, it's even named like a fast penguin. I know.

So Gen 2 is like G-E-N-T-O-O. But I always hear it like the second generation of penguin. The Gen 2 upgrade penguin. Faster. Slicker. More penguin-y. More ridiculous than ever. And with a bow tie.

Slicker. More ridiculous than ever. With a bow tie. And so the Gen 2's underwater, officially, 22 miles an hour. Which is fast. So that's 35.4 kilometers an hour. That's 9.83 meters per second. Which means a penguin, a Gen 2 penguin going that speed, over 100 100 meters would do a 100 meter sprint in 10.17 seconds. That is fast. What is the current record for the sprint by a human?

Oh, 100 meter sprint, the record. Actually, Usain Bolt's had it since like 2009, but it's 9 point something. Oh, so humans still winning. The Gen 2 Penguin would have had their 100 meter sprint world record until sometime in the 1940s or 50s. Because that, I mean, timing back then was the nearest tenth of a second. So it's hard to say exactly when the human record went past 10.16. They have to release the Gen 3.

The Gen 3 would be back on top. And I then asked the penguin expert, I was like, first of all, they weren't sure like what kind of distance they can sustain this over, but I don't think 100 meters out of the question. For a relay though, you can't just do one sprint.

You've got to have several penguins able to take over at the right points. And the Gen 2 penguin has been observed staying underwater on a single breath for over half an hour. So you could easily get all the penguins, all the officials, the audience, or assuming everything is a penguin here, you could get all the penguins. They can all be underwater for up to half an hour. No problem. So that gets feasible now i asked them about uh carrying a baton because obviously they've got to carry the stick and then pass it on um and they

were unsure um as to if that would be feasible for a penguin or not but i figure they carry like fish in their mouth and they can regurgitate. I don't know. I feel like if it was a fish shaped, like it would, like as we use a, like a cylinder. Yeah. If they use a fish. Not even a fish shaped thing.

Yeah. Because we use a thing that's good for us to carry. They would use the equivalent, right? So carrying the object is not the difficult part of a relay. It's just a passing, passing it on. So they would pass a fish between them. And so underwater. Pass a fish.

That's why they don't fight. Oh, they're a pass a fish. Nice. Thank you. That's one of the many upgrades in the Gen 2. So if you just multiply their speed by four, they would be doing, and I've not allowed for handing over the fish in the transitions, but I'm assuming they'll get very good at that.

They would be doing the whole relay in 40.67 seconds, which means if you had male Gen 2 penguins, they would have held the men's record until the Paris Olympics in 1924, when human men's overtook 40.67 seconds, and they would still hold the women's record. So if you got four women, Gen 2 penguins, and they were all able to sustain 22 miles per hour and pass forward the fish, they would be world record holder relay penguins. They would get 40.67 seconds, and the current women's record is 40.82, which was set at the 2012 London Olympics by the US team. Wow. Absolutely.

Underwater, they could field a competitive relay team. Okay. But what if it wasn't underwater? Now, that's what I said to the expert. I said, how fast do they go on land? And he didn't know and i said can we can we how do we how do we find out and we then had a long conversation about the regulations and ethics on doing animal research in antarctica and there's a lot of paperwork it's

a short answer and you're not allowed to get close to them and you can get permission to do different types of research like you can tag them and do all sorts of things but um he didn't seem that optimistic about our chances of being able to race penguins no not race them but surely you could watch a penguin go between two points and use maths well here's the thing right yeah oh my goodness you. I was going to say too well. Anyone with a passing knowledge of me would probably do my best. And so penguins can waddle and penguins can also, hilariously, they are ridiculous animals, slide on their stomach. Oh, yeah.

They're real cute when they do that. Yeah. They flop forward and then like paddle forward with their back. It's incredible. So I got a video of two penguins one was walking and one was sliding forward i've got a solid two second clip now they're not running they're not moving with any level of urgency but i never saw a penguin move on land with a level of urgency and so this is this i would take this as a lower bound they could

potentially go faster. And I had no way of knowing the absolute distance they were traveling. So I took a, I've got a two second clip of the video. I will, we'll put this out on our social medias. So if people want to watch one penguin walking and one penguin sliding, I had to be a fair distance back. So this is a real zoomed in shot. So it's not the highest quality but the in two seconds the walking penguin walked two penguin lengths in so they go one penguin

length a second the gen 2 penguins are between 50 to 90 centimeters so if it was an average penguin at let's say 70 centimeters they're going 0.7 meters per second. The sliding penguin was faster. They did three and a half lengths, penguin lengths, metric penguins in two seconds. So they're going 1.75 meters per second. I then ran the numbers and in a four times 100 meter relay, not worrying about handing over the fish

or whatever they're carrying, relay, not worrying about handing over the fish or whatever they're carrying. It would take penguins waddling nine minutes and 31 seconds, penguins sliding five minutes and 26 seconds. I think we can safely say is not competitive. Yeah, that would not work at all. No, very slow. And have you compared this penguin swimming times to the human swimming times? I have not.

That's true. If we put a penguin in a pool. Hey, is there? There must be a swimming relay, isn't there? Yeah, there's a swimming relay for sure. You know, when they reach the end and then the other person dives in over them, it looks really cool. Oh, I think they'd have the record. They definitely swim faster than people.

Penguins are way in front. The human record is over three minutes. Three minutes and eight seconds. Yeah. Four by 100 meters. Yeah, humans swim slow. The penguins would have done the entire relay by the time in the current world record, Michael Phelps finished the first or last.

I don't know who went first or last. They would have finished before the first swimmer got to the other end. That's amazing. Yeah. Penguins for the win. Well, I think the final thing you need to work out is how much faster penguins are than people in a swimming relay race. How much faster people are than penguins in a running relay race. And then use that information to work out which is the better animal. Would you allow them to not have to ride the bike in that section of the triathlon if we put this, um, put this all together? Yes.

Yeah. Although that would be adorable. That would be adorable. You'd have to like make a special bike for them. Yeah. It'd be so cute. The little bell. Yeah.

I mean, I used to watch a lot of Pingu. He definitely had like a sort of ice scooter at one stage they could slide on their belly that counts right yeah anyway penguins they're ridiculous also fast i think that's something that could have very easily been googled however you went all the way to antarctica yeah for that answer so, I'm giving you a ding. Our next problem, which is for you, Beck, was entered on our problem posing page at problemsquared.com by someone who just goes by the name Sleepy.

I think that's a pseudonym because their problem is how can I fix my sleeping schedule? And to help Beck help them, they provided a lot of details. So they say here for the past year or so, it seems to have gotten worse and worse. I am a grad student. Oh, that explains it. And I have to work a lot often into the night, but then I wake up very late in the day. I feel guilty about sleeping and stay up even later the

next day and sleep in even later. I mean, I don't want to give them a solution too early, but just wait until that rolls back around to where it should be. Anyway, it doesn't matter how many alarms I set. I can't seem to wake up at a decent time. I've even tried multiple times to stay up all night, hoping to reset to a normal bedtime the next day, but that does not stick. P.S. As part of this endeavor, I have tried to stop looking at my phone before bed because I always hear that the changing lights stimulate your brain and prevent you from sleeping. No scrolling through social media or watching videos. Your podcast has been something relaxing that I can listen to, but not watch while getting

ready for bed. So they've ended with a little subtle insult there, implying that our podcast does not stimulate the brain. Thanks Sleepy. See if I didn't use their real name now. So, I mean I've gotten right off them. But Beck, have you got a solution for Sleepy? I do. Although I thought it was quite nice to say. I do. Although I thought it was quite nice to say.

I find it funny that they think that our voices could be relaxing. Like arguably the most shrill accents in the world. The Australian accent renowned for just. That's why there's so many Australian ASMR stars, isn't there? You can't move for them. ASMR stars, isn't there? You can't move for them. Hello there, listeners. I'm your ASMR heist.

Doesn't work. Doesn't work. Wow. Well. Like a good night's sleep, the Australian accent, you have to get up in the end. That's true. I like that. That's good. That's real good.

Adequate. That's adequate. That'll put people to sleep. Okay. I'm going to solve this problem. But first, I want you to imagine that everything in your house is connected to an intelligent hub in your kitchen, which it kind of is. I've been at your house. I house sat while you're in Antarctica.

Yeah. Well, you know that all the servers are in the entranceway. I don't want you to go in the kitchen. That's true. But I, well, anyway know that all the servers are in the entranceway. I don't want you to go in the kitchen. That's true. But I, well, anyway, I digress. And the hub ran a 24-hour automated temperature sequence, meal sequence, rest sequence, and so on. So at the same time every day, it turned on the heating or ordered pizza or set off an alarm. Love it.

Got it. That's my dream. So those 24-hour sequences are your circadian rhythms. And in fact, a lot of the time you'll hear people say your circadian rhythm because they're using it as shorthand to mean like your sleeping pattern, but that is just one of your circadian rhythms. There's quite a lot. And the hub is actually called the superschiasmatic nucleus.

And the kitchen where the hub is located is a small area of your brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus. Yeah. So hyper meaning below and thalamus meaning thalamus. So it's below the thalamus. Love it. Thalamus derived from the word thalamus. Meaning thalamus derived from the word thalamus, meaning thalamus. Circadian rhythms play a huge

role in the quality and quantity of your sleep. That's because they're all sort of connected to each other. They all, you know, rely on each other. Like think about it. If your heating normally comes on just after you wake up and your, your hub turns on your alarm at like 6am, then if you were to move that alarm time, your heating would either have to come on later or when you woke up, you'd be like, ah, the place is hot. Yeah. Yeah. You want the heating to follow with the sleeping and yeah.

Yeah. And meal. Likewise. You don't want the breakfast being served up before you're awake. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. meal. Likewise, you don't want the breakfast being served up before you're awake. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So they all sort of link in that sense. And they can be intentionally and unintentionally disrupted or adjusted by external factors, which I'll go into in much more detail later.

But I wanted to understand Sleepy's problem fully in order to solve it, because there's actually quite a lot going on. So I'm going to continue with the hub analogy. So let's say that the hub has a rest sequence, which is based around sleepy, normally going to bed at around 11 PM and then they sleep for seven hours. And I know experts actually say that you should get eight hours of sleep, but the global average is actually between seven and seven and a half hours. Oh. Yep.

So as a human race, we are slightly under sleeping. So an alarm goes off at about 6 a.m. each morning. But one night, Sleepy goes out with some friends and doesn't get to bed until 1 a.m. So that means Sleepy is disrupting their circadian rhythm. And the best way for Sleepy to get back on track is to get up at 6am so they can go to bed at 11pm, as usual. However, the hub is sort of programmed to prioritize Sleepy's seven

hours of sleep. So it pushes the rest sequence forward by two hours, which means that if Sleepy tries to get up at 6am, they have to do it without the aid of an alarm, which is why it's basically impossible. Now, some people might have a really, really good hub that remembers it and it like sets off the alarm anyway, and they're fine. But it sounds like in Sleepy's case, their hub's alarm isn't as strong. It's prioritizing the total length. It's like, and this is not something most people connect with.

If you're doing a show, you're doing stand-up spot and the show's running late and you go to the organizer and say do you want me to do my full time would you want me to finish exactly i meant to finish and and different organizers have different priorities some of them are like hey we're paying for 20 minutes you do all of it and other people are like no no if you can finish back right we do like less and finish at the right time that'd be great it sounds like and some comedians don't even ask the organizers and they go even longer and you miss your train home yeah oh that uh yep that came from a place of recognition. I think we know those people. So let's say Sleepy wakes up at 8am because their body is like, you still need your seven hours. But despite getting seven hours sleep, they still feel really rough.

Now, do you have an idea of why that might be? Is it because the other rhythms weren't told about this? Correct. Yeah. So like I was saying before, everything else is, it's gone a bit haywire. And so the hub is a bit like trying to juggle everything and understand. The bar is still trying to serve the interval drinks at the time they were told. Yeah.

Yeah. Food service is coming in, but the comics doing their full time, even though it's a mess. Yeah. Not only has the rest sequence moved forward, but the disruption to all the other sequences will affect Sleepy's productivity and stress levels. As a result, Sleepy not only doesn't go to bed at 11pm, like they would normally each night, or even 1am, which they do the night before, but instead they're staying up

till 3am because they're trying to make up for lost time. And of course that continues the disruption and it becomes a catch 22 scenario. So that's, that's the scenario that, that, uh, that Sleepy's in. However, that's the Sleepy scenario, the Sleepy scenario. However, I think the reason Sleepy is having such a tough time isn't because they're trapped in like a Sisyphean nightmare, but because they're trying to reset their rest sequence to a normal bedtime instead of just letting the hub adjust to their current bedtime. Yeah. So it's like driving a car and then trying to put it into reverse without braking first. and then trying to put it into reverse without braking first. And I actually looked up, because I was curious,

if you were to do that to a car, it could wreck your transmission, store your engine, and result in a loss of brakes and steering. In fact, it's so bad for your car and so potentially dangerous that most cars you see today are designed so that it is impossible to even try putting it in reverse while you're driving is this where all the time you save from not looking up llama puns um or spent researching videos of cars being put in reverse i couldn't find any all i found was articles from experts saying do not do it because this is what would happen yeah so that i think that's the problem is like the sleepy's trying to take too big a leap.

In fact, going back to your stand-up comedy thing, it's like if the night was running over every night of the club and then they tried to go back to the original start time of the club. You know, the shows used to start at seven, then they're starting at eight, then they're starting at nine. And then you get into like midnight shows. And then instead of going, oh, let's bring this back. They're going, okay, it's a seven o'clock show. And then none of the audience show up because they're so used to showing up. Right, right. Yeah.

So I reckon that's why it's so difficult. So I think the first thing sleepy needs to do is establish a stable sleeping schedule. It might not be the one that they want, it's a schedule nonetheless because the problem is is they don't have one right now they're acting like there's more than 24 hours in the day but they've gone the other extreme they've gone what i call the etch-a-sketch approach of they're trying to stay up all night just to shake their body clock into a state of confusion yeah but they can then read they're trying to do a hard reset. Yeah.

Which doesn't work. No, circadian rhythms do not like that. It's why you experience jet lag. And it's why, you know, you have less jet lag if you're very slowly making your way around the world with a couple of stopovers in each place than if you were to just go straight back because your circadian rhythm is on a 24 hour cycle. to just go straight back because your circadian rhythm is on a 24-hour cycle. In fact, they say that you should allow at least one 24-hour cycle for each time zone when you're adjusting.

So if you cross five time zones, it will take about five days for you to readjust. I mean, we were chatting yesterday about me coming back from Antarctica, which is all the time zones because it's the pole so the ship just picked we'll stay on chilean time and i was like oh it's you asking how jet lags me i'm like well it's like three hours what is that three days because that's like always been the kind of rule of thumb it's just a day an hour and you're fine yeah on a previous trip we got a ship from New York back to the UK, which is the wrong way around because you leave the glamour of New York

and arrive in Southampton, which is a bit less special. But they were like, oh, Wales! And they all run out. Exactly. You go, hey, Wales! Everyone runs out. Yeah, but the clocks go back an hour a day. And it's a bit weird because time, like 23-hour days for a week is weird.

Yeah, you were doing the reverse of what Sleepy was doing here. So you would have felt out of sorts. It was a bit weird, but you didn't feel noticeable jet lag. You just felt like time was running away from you yeah everything just happened a bit sooner than you expected yeah um but as you say it's a lot less crazy than if you just arrived back that would have been really and it would take you a while to adjust because there's all the other things around you that that affect the other circadian rhythms they are also going haywire. So it's

really hard for your body to quite understand what's going on. So let's say if Sleepy went to bed at 4am last night and woke up at 11am this morning, then they need to stick to that, I would say for a few days, just until it is like they've got an official, you know, regular sleeping cycle. Even if it means not getting all their work done for the day. And if it helps to know, studies have found that the impairments experienced after being awake for 16 hours are comparable to those experienced by someone with a blood alcohol level of between 0.05 and 0.1%.

And for reference, for any listeners in other countries, in Australia and the UK, it is illegal to drive if your level is over 0.05. So if you do try staying up late to get extra work done, it'll look like a drunk person did it. Yeah, when I was a student, I couldn't understand people who did like all-nighters before an exam. Like I get crming like I'm not an organized studier so I was cramming but you can do an all-nighter for an assignment but for an exam get a good night's sleep have a

cheeky beer in the morning and you're in the same position no yeah so the diminishing returns whatever you may be doing, get the sleep. Yeah. Yeah. It's not worth it. And I know a 4 a.m. to 11 a.m. sleeping schedule isn't ideal for them, but guess what? Neither is their current arrangement. Yep.

You are serving up some truths on the truth schedule. Sleepy mentioned they've already been cutting down on screens before bed which is good because the super schismatic nucleus that's the hub is very sensitive to light but there are some other things which will help them stabilize their rest sequence and all of their other sequences and these are going to sound obvious but that's because they are um main one sunlight get some sunlight on you as soon as you wake up. Like as soon as you wake up, get some sunlight on you. Now, obviously not everyone lives somewhere sunny. Matt and I certainly don't.

One thing I can recommend, which has genuinely been life-changing, is I know people talk about sad lamps. It's not so much the fact that it's a sad lamp, but I have a sad lamp alarm clock. So starting half an hour before my alarm goes off, it very gradually gets lighter and lighter until my alarm goes off and it's quite bright. That's been really helpful.

We were just obviously in Antarctica. We went to the Arctic Circle and we were like in proper 24-hour daylight. Like the sun would just do a massive circle in the sky just as a lap. The hotel we were in didn't have blackout curtains and everything was just bright sun around the clock. Oh my goodness. I remember we were sitting in a bar, but the bar was like loads of glass, like a greenhouse almost.

It's like one in the morning, you're drinking. And I remember feeling so confused because my part of my brain was like it's daytime it's fine but then a bunch of my body's like well we you know you're exhausted man you've had a bit to drink you should be going to bed and it was the most confusing weird sensation to be in just broad daylight around the clock I did look up the sleeping habits of people in places like Iceland and because they live there, generally it appears that people have sort of managed to come, come up with their own things that are like, sometimes there's rules of like, if it's really dark for ages, then they'll have like all the lights on in the house and you know, stuff like that.

But, um, yeah, so it doesn't in the house and you know stuff like that but um yeah so it doesn't have to be natural sunlight or anything like that it's just more that the your hub is will react just to light and that is why you're not supposed to look at screens or anything before bed so sunlight was one no caffeine within five hours of your bedtime because that's how long it takes to leave your system. That's less than I expected because Lucy, my wife, won't have coffee after 3 p.m. And I don't have coffee after like six. So what's that? That's like six hours shy of my bedtime.

I guess it also depends on your metabolic system. Metabolic? Metabolic. Yeah. That's one. Exercise was a big one which i know i hate when people tell me to exercise because i'll be confused sleep in a stress and blah blah blah but any long-term listeners of this know that i did start a regular like i had a regular workout routine for about three months. And even though it was, honestly, my sleeping, I slept better in those three months than I have, I reckon, in my whole life. My sleep was really regular.

I wasn't as stressed. I felt great. Like the endorphins are real. My skin was amazing. You're pleasant to be around. Oh, what a way to find out I'm not now. It was so good. And I genuinely have noticed the difference in like my concentration levels and stuff

since I stopped working out. It's been really hard. So saying that I have not restarted a regular workout schedule. So I understand how frustrating it is when people are like, you should exercise. It'll help you sleep. And it's like, oh my gosh. Like I, I know all of those things and I want to, but I won't. Yeah.

I plan on doing it for the start of new year. So by the time this comes out, I might be starting a exercise schedule. Yeah. In fact, which is a good time to mention that to mention that it's been recommended that holidays, not necessarily the holidays, but holidays when you're away from home is a really good time to start new habits. Because your body and your circadian rhythms and everything like that are already thrown into disarray a little bit because you're not in your normal setting. When you go back home, it'll be easier for you to keep them up. And you're meant to sleep in a cool room. If you're sleeping poorly or open your window,

even if it's a chilly night, a cool room is much better for good sleep. I don't know if I brought this up in conversation already, but I was recently in Antarctica. What? And I know. I've been trying to keep it on the down low. We camped on the snow for one night and we slept surprisingly well.

So I don't know if that was because it was very cold. And so the way you fix the problem of not wanting to get up in the morning because it's cold. Put on a heater. Someone banging on your tent, shouting the ship, the ship's leaving. And so that really. Oh, that'll do it.

That'll, that'll, that'll speed you up. Yeah. Was it really? Do what they did at night. They, because the whole idea, the way they sold the camping was to like connect with your inner explorer and experience what all these people did when they were discovering the continent.

And so they would reverse the ship behind a nearby mountain. So you couldn't see it. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't think the explorers put their, you know, luxury hotel behind the mountain while they were sleeping. It's a very different experience, but they, uh, yeah. So they hit the ship and then they bring it back around in the morning to pick you up.

And I suspect they've, you're not allowed to leave anything in Antarctica. So like. So it's the opposite of Las Vegas. It's exactly. What happens in Antarctica comes back with you. And so I suspect given they've got to like lug, so all the trips, you're not allowed to take any food.

You can't take, oh, you could take water for some of them, but you're not allowed to take food. No bathroom breaks for any of the trips on land. And they had, the one exception was camping. They had like a small toilet thing that they assembled, but they had to lug the whole thing back with them afterwards. So I suspect the international treaties would frown deeply upon leaving passengers about the place. So I think they are, for several reasons, they counted us back in. Yeah. I don't think they want to leave you behind. So I've still, I mean, there is still so much to

talk about, but I've already gone way over with this. So what I'll say is there's some great sleeping hacks, including an article specifically for students struggling with their sleeping cycles. Who knows? Maybe, do you know what? If enough of you mention it, maybe I'll record an ASMR track of me reading the sleeping hacks for you. Let's get this car in verse. We've got it in park. We're reversing it.

The key is to do what experts advise shift workers to do, and that is to set their alarm earlier by small increments, a bit like what we talked about earlier. I do it by 30 minutes when I'm changing my pattern. So even if you have to allow a few days for each adjustment, you could feasibly shift your bedtime from 4 a.m to 11 p.m in less than a month with minimal stress it is possible sleepy the problem is you're just trying to do it in one day just give yourself a month like go easy on yourself

and even if sleepy finds that 11 p.m is difficult to maintain and they feel like naturally drawn to going to bed after midnight, then it's possible that they're a B person, which is a chronotype. It's also known as a night owl. So there's A people and B people generally. And A person is an early bird. So your chronotype, as opposed to your circadian rhythm, is more based on genetics. So it's believed that it can't be manipulated by external factors in the same way that circadian rhythms can. And in fact, there is a group called the Bee Society, which lobbies employers and educators to be more flexible, allowing for chronotypes that don't suit early hours.

So it might just be easier for you to move country because different countries have different sleeping habits. So in 2015, the country with the latest bedtime and latest wake time on average, guess. You're getting all your research in, aren't you? Yeah, I'm so excited. Guess. Spain. Oh, so close. Portugal? It's Greece. average guess you're getting all your research in aren't you yeah i'm so excited guess uh spain

oh so close portugal it's greece greece with a bedtime of one well five past one in the morning and a wake-up time of 8 25 8 a.m so what do you think the australian one well, was at the time of this survey. Average bedtime in Australia, 11.20. Oh, super close. 11.33. Ah. Wake up time. Within quarter of an hour. 7.13 a.m.

And UK? Oh, I want to say earlier. I want to say like 10.50. Well, in 2015, it was later. It was 12.28 with a wake up time of 7.33 a.m. I think it's changed a couple of times, though, because on average, I think it's closer to between 10 and 11. Finally, before I finish this off, I want to find out what country you sleep like. So, Matt, tell me, what time do you go to bed at the moment?

I try to get head on the pillow by midnight. So, 12. Okay. And what time do you go to bed at the moment? I try to get ahead of the pillow by midnight. So 12. Okay. And what time do you wake up? Eight. Eight. Okay. Which country do you sleep at?

You sleep like a Spanish woman. I've been told that so many times. What a cliche. So if you would like to find out what your sleeping time is, there is a wonderful little widget in a Time article as in the magazine Time.

And you can find out what your sleeping time is. Mine, a Singaporean woman. There you go. And the reason that it specifies genders is women sleep slightly more than men. Yeah. So I think I've provided enough information there.

And as I said, because they could do it in less than a month. Sleepy, if you hear this at the time it comes out, by the time that we're recording the next episode, I want you to come back and tell us whether it worked. You've got until February. And before you know it, your name will be Awakey. And we'll have a ding. We will ding if Sleepy follows through. And worst case scenario, if they can't move their sleep schedule, but they got a time they want it to be, that's one time zone,

one longitude they could fly to jet lag free. That's right. Yeah. There you go. Just leave it. You're front loaded the jet lag. Good work. It's the A to the O to the B, any other business.

We have a response from Fred who used the problem posing page to provide not a solution, just a comment, really, saying that in episode 025, the previous one before this one, I solved the problem of what if everyone in the world gave you one of their local currencies, how much money would you have? And other people chipped in on this, people saying I should have used the Google Finance Google Sheets option, which maybe, but I wanted to do it the difficult Python way. They said that what I didn't factor in was that you can't necessarily give one of each currency unit to a person because there may not be a coin.

Yeah, and someone else also asked whether it's cents or pence, because you've assumed that it's cents or pence you know because you've assumed that it's the highest thing i picked the largest base unit as such so most currencies you got a standard unit and then you got the subdivisions of that and i just use the standard unit but of course that value can vary by orders of magnitude some currencies are worth thousand times other ones i just picked whatever the biggest one was and then used that. And I assumed that you could just do like a bank transfer

because there's a whole world of other logistical issues, let alone hygiene issues. If people are giving you, like you get about to get 8 billion coins and notes at once. So I figured it's all electronic transfers and i did not factor in any kind of bank fees or costs so in that regard my approach to every single human giving you one currency was a little bit um impractical so sorry fred yeah i'm glad you pointed that out because i was setting up everything.

What a pyramid scheme. And suddenly I was like, this might not be worth it with all of these fees. And we also got some feedback based on episode 022, 022 even, from Anonymous. I'm assuming that means an anonymous person and not the group. Not the Hacker Collective, no No, I mean it might be, knowing our audience And they did say late to the party, I know, because it was several episodes ago But they basically pointed out that it's essentially a very common myth That Comic Sans, the font, was developed for people with dyslexia

It's not the case And if anyone is interested, they can look it up. Anonymous told us some stuff, but then again, they also didn't give us any sources. So I can't fact check this, but I thought I should at least mention that because it's very likely that I'm wrong because I didn't fact check myself the first time I said that. Wow, to inspire confidence in our... But I did in fact ask our wonderful producer, Lauren, because she has dyslexia, and I asked her whether fonts make a difference to her, and she said no.

She said for her it's more about the colour. She prefers a black background to a white background, you know, inverted colours. Dark mode. I use dark mode when I write. Verdana, as previously discussed no i love it but they did mention the british dyslexia association which i believe is bd a dyslexia.org.uk there's a ton of information on there so yeah if anyone's interested about that

check it out thank you very much anonymous heads, we're doing our annual survey. Go to thatsurvey.ilikeit.aproblemsquared.com and answer a few questions about what you do and don't enjoy about A Problem Squared. Your feedback will be much appreciated. Now, obviously, you don't have to pay to listen to this podcast. We just appreciate that you listen to it at all. If you do want to thank us in any way do leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends and family to listen. And if you would like to support us financially we'd very much appreciate that as well.

And in fact, we're going to thank three of our Patreons randomly. Matt, use the randomizer. Yep, the top Patreon name from the random spreadsheet is Andy R. Chris Butler. And Relu, R-E-L-E-U, all lowercase. That's their name. They put it in Patreon. My random spreadsheet picked it.

Thank you, Relu. Thank you for listening to A Problem Squared. It has been brought to you by Matt Parker, myself, Bec Hill, and our wonderful producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter. Said that in a weird accent. Lauren Armstrong Carter. And finally, is this your cart?

Oh, no. No, right. Is this your post-it note? Oh, yeah, that is. I left them all around your house. Yes, you did. I wonder if you found them all. I assume not.