Speaker 1: Hi, Hi, It's twenty twenty two, me again letting you
Speaker 1: know this is an encore of an episode everyone needs
Speaker 1: every day, and I just wanted to thank you up
Speaker 1: here for the patients with these encores as I'm spending
Speaker 1: some time with my dad helping him after brain surgery
Speaker 1: through really some of the hardest times my family's ever had,
Speaker 1: But your love and your understanding listeners has just made
Speaker 1: this so much less stressful for me on this front,
Speaker 1: and I just want to thank you for keeping us
Speaker 1: in your big brains and in your hearts.
Speaker 2: Okay, Sleep Part two? Ooh, it's a good one.
Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's still your little stepbrother who tries to
Speaker 1: trade you their calcified banana flavor now in lighters for
Speaker 1: your mani RAS's Peed and Potter cups and you're like, dude,
Speaker 1: little dude, step all the way off, How dary, that's
Speaker 1: not how life works. Ali Ward back for the second
Speaker 1: half of some Knowledgy. Did you listen to part one yet?
Speaker 1: Deep sleep versus rem versus rim versus light sleep? Which
Speaker 1: is the ug? Which is the glittery dress loafer? Do
Speaker 1: you regularly disco with the night hag? How loocid is
Speaker 1: your Property Brothers Experience. Does C three PO give you
Speaker 1: PTSD If you have no idea what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: I've exposed you as having skipped part one. So go
Speaker 1: listen to part one. Part two will be here for you.
Speaker 1: When you're done, it will make way more sense. Come
Speaker 1: onnk you Okay, So part twurs. It's just us now,
Speaker 1: we get it. We have the basics on how sleep works,
Speaker 1: what happens when we don't have enough of it, and
Speaker 1: what our brain waves do, and why insomnia is a
Speaker 1: product of fear and anxiety. But this episode answers Patreon
Speaker 1: questions to help you get better sleep and includes yes,
Speaker 1: the secret insomnia buster from your pod, dad's mom, your
Speaker 1: pod nana fancy Nancy board. So I'm earnestly so excited
Speaker 1: to share it because I swear it works so well
Speaker 1: for me. Okay, so thank you to everyone who supports
Speaker 1: on patreon dot com slash ologies. Even as little as
Speaker 1: twenty five cents an episode gets you into that club.
Speaker 1: You get to hear what episodes I'm working on. You
Speaker 1: can submit questions. I may read your name on the show. Now,
Speaker 1: this is my favorite job. You all pay my salary
Speaker 1: and you make this free to everyone, so thank you
Speaker 1: for that. Thanks to everyone who gets pins and shirts
Speaker 1: and hats and tots at ologiesmerch dot com. And you
Speaker 1: can support for no coin just by tweeting and gramming
Speaker 1: tell your mechanic, spread the word. Also by star rating
Speaker 1: on iTunes or other platforms, or leaving reviews which I
Speaker 1: read and cherish like notes from the feedback fairy. And
Speaker 1: to prove it, here's a fresh one I just plucked.
Speaker 1: Great Dad Jokes wrote in If Bill Nye, the Science
Speaker 1: Guy and Dirty Jobs had a love child, it would
Speaker 1: be this podcast. Great dad Jokes, you get it.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Somenology Part two, let's get your questions with
Speaker 1: Virginia based neurologist Sleep Whisperer, author of the Sleep Solution,
Speaker 1: Why your Sleep is Broken and how to fix it,
Speaker 1: and of course somenologist doctor W Chris Winter. Can we
Speaker 1: do a rapid fire around? Oh yeah, I'm absolutely okay.
Speaker 1: So I asked for questions on Patreon. As I do,
Speaker 1: I say, patrons, hit me with your questions, and typically
Speaker 1: I get fifty to eighty questions.
Speaker 2: Maybe.
Speaker 1: Wow, I got two hundred and fifty five questions. Wow,
Speaker 1: all right, twenty five pages worth of questions. Clearly, we're
Speaker 1: not going to hit them all here we go, so
Speaker 1: I'm just going to run through. Meghan Younce wants to
Speaker 1: know why do some people have different circadian rhythms?
Speaker 3: So mean, Meghan, that is a genetic trait you probably
Speaker 3: inherited from your mother and father as either being a
Speaker 3: night owl what we call delayed sleep phase, or a
Speaker 3: morning person a morning larco. So probably the simple question
Speaker 3: is you acquired it from a parent. Now it is modifiable,
Speaker 3: so there may be aspects in your life that allowed
Speaker 3: you to change it. But to me, I think it's
Speaker 3: a like eye color that we can work to overcome.
Speaker 3: But it's kind of always there. And I'm a believer
Speaker 3: just on it as in a side that our sleep need,
Speaker 3: how much sleep do we need? And our timing is
Speaker 3: Megan's describing when do we like at night or late
Speaker 3: or early tends to push us into certain careers. Teacher
Speaker 3: likes to wake up early in the morning, maybe needs
Speaker 3: a little bit more sleep, more consistency in their life.
Speaker 3: So and night outs tend to travel better, deal with
Speaker 3: jet like better, and by some studies are smarter and interesting.
Speaker 1: Really, I didn't know that this kind of the follow
Speaker 1: up question to that, Paul Hawk and a few other
Speaker 1: people asked, I was a lifelong night owl and I
Speaker 1: just woke up one morning a morning person. How does
Speaker 1: that happen? Well, Paul, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't know. For me.
Speaker 3: A lot of times, things that I've involved in my
Speaker 3: life can push me one way or the other.
Speaker 2: One is like exercise first thing in the morning.
Speaker 3: I was training for like a trath on a long
Speaker 3: time ago and meeting a group of people to do it.
Speaker 2: Really early, and I hated it. I dreaded it.
Speaker 3: But after a few weeks I was waking up like
Speaker 3: at four point fifty five in the morning, an hour
Speaker 3: or five minutes before my longclock went off, and felt
Speaker 3: really good and was falling asleep at ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 3: So it can be certain things in your life, or
Speaker 3: as our bodies mature, we tend to become less night
Speaker 3: oriented in general and more morning orient. So, you know,
Speaker 3: the high typical school students stays up at three o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning watching YouTube videos, wants to sleep until
Speaker 3: two o'clock in the afternoons, really upset with mom when
Speaker 3: she comes in opens up the blinds before lunchtime, and
Speaker 3: then you look at Grandma and Grandpa living down in Sarasota.
Speaker 3: They get the nutribullet out at three o'clock in the
Speaker 3: morning making kale smoothies, and you're like, Grandma, well, my god,
Speaker 3: what are you doing. It's three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3: I know this is when I wake up, isn't it great?
Speaker 3: So we have a tendency to move towards that as
Speaker 3: we get older. So maybe Paul has just moved there
Speaker 3: very quickly.
Speaker 1: So side note, like Paul, I too have recently come
Speaker 1: to enjoy waking up early when I do it, And
Speaker 1: I thought this meant like I have finally gotten my
Speaker 1: shit together. It's happened. But Paul, it looks like it
Speaker 1: just means we're old and marching ever closer to death.
Speaker 1: So we win some we lose somebody.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you now. The steely blue gloaming and the
Speaker 1: morning mist belongs to the Olds. So come join our
Speaker 1: wise wrinkle party let's little spoons at seven am over
Speaker 1: our third cup of percolated foltures.
Speaker 2: Kylerk.
Speaker 1: You wants to know, is it possible to tell the
Speaker 1: exact point someone starts being asleep or is it just
Speaker 1: a gradual blurring of lines into unconsciousness?
Speaker 3: So you can see it on a sleep study, and
Speaker 3: there is a sense of gradual. So when you look
Speaker 3: at the brain activity, what you start to see is
Speaker 3: a slowing of the brain activity. The eye movements that
Speaker 3: characterize wakefulness becomes slow and rolling. So the answer is
Speaker 3: generally over about a thirty second period.
Speaker 2: That's how we score sleep.
Speaker 3: We look at thirty seconds of sleep at a time,
Speaker 3: and when you start to see a predominance of that
Speaker 3: intermixing of sleep with the light wakefulness, that's when we
Speaker 3: say sleep happens. So it's a gradient, but it's a
Speaker 3: very short gradient for most people. Yeah, thirty seconds is
Speaker 3: pretty sort yeah, and you could you could see it
Speaker 3: very clearly.
Speaker 2: It's not hard to find skype.
Speaker 1: A scientist wants to know why do some people make
Speaker 1: weird noises as they're falling asleep and what can we
Speaker 1: do to stop them from doing it or what can
Speaker 1: they do to stop doing it.
Speaker 2: That's a tough one.
Speaker 3: So one of my favorite weird noises at night is
Speaker 3: a phenomenon called catithrinium, which is a prolonged expiratory moan.
Speaker 2: PS.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jay, Leidiker for creeping on your vulnerable sleeping boyfriend
Speaker 1: and putting it on YouTube. So thirty six thousand strangers
Speaker 1: and counting could enjoy what sounds like a constipated puppy
Speaker 1: or a very frustrated porcupine struggling to understand tax paperwork.
Speaker 3: So for a lot of people when they go to bed,
Speaker 3: this is super super fun that you know, when you
Speaker 3: find out the person you've you've committed your life to
Speaker 3: do this, they will actually kind of take a breathe,
Speaker 3: breath in and all of the things that I go.
Speaker 2: Kind of like a foghorn all night long.
Speaker 3: So these can be There's also somemiloquy, which is sleep talking,
Speaker 3: which can be sort of gibberish or it can actually be,
Speaker 3: you know, fully formed sentences that people have no idea
Speaker 3: what they're talking about. These things can be treated. Often
Speaker 3: there's underlying sleep problems that are causing them. So if
Speaker 3: you can figure out the underlying sleep problem, like with
Speaker 3: the sleep study, you can sometimes get rid of the
Speaker 3: underlying You can get rid of the sound that the
Speaker 3: patient's making, but they can be kind of difficult to
Speaker 3: get rid of.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, what could the underlying problems be so, for.
Speaker 3: Instance, like sleep sleep talking, A lot of times what
Speaker 3: happens is in individuals sleeping along, they'll have a little
Speaker 3: breathing disturbance and as they kind of they kind of
Speaker 3: wake up, they're conscious enough to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: One time, my wife woke.
Speaker 3: Up in the middle of the night and said, we've
Speaker 3: been watching the X Files, this show a long time ago.
Speaker 3: Much as you try to bury it, the truth is
Speaker 3: out there. She woke up and said, hey, could you
Speaker 3: just go out there and go those dead bodies off the.
Speaker 2: Wall and real quick? And I was like, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about?
Speaker 3: And then she would get real upset with you if
Speaker 3: you tried to rationalize what she was talking about. So
Speaker 3: you figure out very quickly the best thing would be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll be all right, bye, I will take care of that.
Speaker 3: She'd fall asleep and not remember anything about it the
Speaker 3: next day. So, you know, but a lot of times
Speaker 3: you would hear like a little breathing hiccup that would
Speaker 3: kind of wake her up. It could be a little
Speaker 3: acid reflux, it could be a little a random leg movement,
Speaker 3: you know, coughing fit. There's lots of things that can
Speaker 3: do it that would wake people up to do it,
Speaker 3: even seizures.
Speaker 2: There's a great video.
Speaker 3: One time of a young woman who was very you know,
Speaker 3: sort of proper and you know, raised right, as my
Speaker 3: parents would call it. She would wake up in the
Speaker 3: night and just say awful things, curse, make these very
Speaker 3: vile sexual references.
Speaker 2: Ps.
Speaker 1: I tried to find a clip of this video, but
Speaker 1: googling quote woman obscenities in sleep only turned up a
Speaker 1: ton of gross tutorials about how to sleep with women.
Speaker 1: And scrolling through this deluge of pickup artist DIY videos
Speaker 1: made me too sad to keep looking.
Speaker 2: So sorry, I had no recollection.
Speaker 3: I'm doing it the next day and it turns out
Speaker 3: she was having seizures just at night and that was
Speaker 3: the manifestation of the seizure.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Yeah, I just thought she was a
Speaker 2: rude girl. Rude girl, that's right.
Speaker 1: She got that treated. But I also hope she'd like
Speaker 1: let her be herself, you know what she's like. You
Speaker 1: know what I learn from this fag fly sister, that's right.
Speaker 1: Bob Carlton asked, and we kind of touched on this
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier. I've heard that it used to
Speaker 1: be common for folks to wake in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, do some reading, and then go back to
Speaker 1: sleep for the rest of the night, basically bisecting nightly sleep.
Speaker 2: Is this something that really happened and we should bring
Speaker 2: it back?
Speaker 3: It did happen, and if it's a bit of a
Speaker 3: denser read, but it is absolutely fascinating. A guy named
Speaker 3: Roger Eric wrote this book. It's like a Day's End
Speaker 3: or at Night's End or something like that. It's a
Speaker 3: journey into the history of sleep or something like that.
Speaker 3: I've always butchered the title. I really apologize because it's
Speaker 3: such a good book. I shouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the real title is at Day's Close Night
Speaker 1: in Times Past by a Roger Eckerch. I'm going to
Speaker 1: admit it. That does not roll off the tongue. So
Speaker 1: I get why Doctor Winter could not figure that out.
Speaker 1: But it's all about what happened during nighttime in pre
Speaker 1: industrialized eras, from like masquerade balls to crime, to inns
Speaker 1: and taverns and brothels, yarns, spinning circles. And I feel
Speaker 1: like now I need an episode on nocturnology, maybe to
Speaker 1: shine some light on the topic.
Speaker 2: Okay, doctor Winter explains.
Speaker 3: But he writes about sort of sleep throughout antiquity, and
Speaker 3: there was sort of this first sleep and second sleep.
Speaker 3: We would go to bed when the sun went down,
Speaker 3: we would sleep, we'd wake up. We'd walk around at
Speaker 3: night and greet neighbors and fall in holes that we
Speaker 3: didn't see in these passages that he's found. I think
Speaker 3: it took him years to write this book. And you
Speaker 3: read a page and you almost have to was a
Speaker 3: book and just think about, oh my god, it's so
Speaker 3: cool that people used to do that.
Speaker 2: So should we bring it back.
Speaker 3: I don't know that we should voluntarily bring it back,
Speaker 3: but I do think it does provide a little bit
Speaker 3: of this idea of hey, look, if you want to
Speaker 3: have a siesta during the day and break your wakefulness
Speaker 3: period up in a little spot of sleep, I think
Speaker 3: that's okay.
Speaker 2: And some would argue natural. I think it's okay.
Speaker 3: If your night period is broken up by a little
Speaker 3: period of wakefulness, that's not a big deal. You know
Speaker 3: what is insomnia. It's not a person who can't sleep.
Speaker 3: It's a person who can't sleep when they want to.
Speaker 3: That's part A. Part B is you have to have
Speaker 3: an emotional response to it. So if waking up in
Speaker 3: the night is kind of a fun thing for you,
Speaker 3: and you don't you don't mind it, then, I think
Speaker 3: it's perfectly, perfectly fine and a great way to sort
Speaker 3: of view an awakening during the night.
Speaker 2: It's not the end of the world. Just you're a wait,
Speaker 2: go with it, and.
Speaker 1: It doesn't do the kind of damage that like a
Speaker 1: C three po alarm clock under your butt would do.
Speaker 3: Very different terrifying screaming We're doomed, you know, going off
Speaker 3: over and over. It made the craziest sounds. I'm like, God,
Speaker 3: I can't believe we do that to people, But it
Speaker 3: was C three PO. I always thought it was funny.
Speaker 3: I was like, if we had had R two D
Speaker 3: two probably been better, but this random robot and screaming
Speaker 3: at you at three in the morning was was often
Speaker 3: just what people needed to wake themselves from a deep
Speaker 3: sleep immediately.
Speaker 1: Again, if you missed part one, the midnight terror of
Speaker 1: a mechanical C three po does await you, But you
Speaker 1: got a lot of people who ended up not liking
Speaker 1: Star Wars after that.
Speaker 2: It's right, it's kind of vis response to the new movies.
Speaker 1: LEVI like The Jeans and Ron Smith both asked about
Speaker 1: shift work that it's awful for your health and what
Speaker 1: can you do to negate the negative effects of that?
Speaker 3: Levi and the other individual are absolutely right, ron or right.
Speaker 3: The thing that terrifies me the most about sleep and
Speaker 3: sleep science is not insomnia.
Speaker 2: It's not the person when eighteen months without sleeping.
Speaker 3: It's the person who is the shift worker who thinks
Speaker 3: that they're doing okay with the fact that they work
Speaker 3: a day job and also have a night job to
Speaker 3: make ends meet. And these are the conversation we have
Speaker 3: our clinic. I really think you shouldn't be doing this. Great,
Speaker 3: you're going to be a mortgage doctor winner. No, I
Speaker 3: can't do that, Okay, then shut up. So we do
Speaker 3: often get into a position of they almost feel like
Speaker 3: they don't have a choice. And the World Health Organization
Speaker 3: classifies shift work is a Class two a car synogen. Now,
Speaker 3: I think it's incredibly devastating to our health.
Speaker 1: So real quick, what is shift work exactly? I wanted
Speaker 1: a clear definition, so I asked the internet. Now, according
Speaker 1: to the National Sleep Foundation, shift work is work that
Speaker 1: takes place on a schedule outside the traditional nine to
Speaker 1: five every day, so it can involve evening or night shifts,
Speaker 1: maybe early morning shifts, rotating shifts, And yes, the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization does classify shift work as a car synogen.
Speaker 1: So if you heard the Surgical Oncology episode about breast
Speaker 1: cancer and it's concerned, the stats say that women who's
Speaker 1: work involves night shifts have a forty eight percent increased
Speaker 1: risk of developing breast cancer. Prostate cancer risk is also elevated,
Speaker 1: along with a host of other cancers medical ailments. Now,
Speaker 1: according to my good friend Wikipedia, this may be due
Speaker 1: to alterations in circadian rhythm. So melatonin is a known
Speaker 1: tumor suppressor and it's generally produced at night, so late
Speaker 1: shifts may disrupt the production of it. And one study
Speaker 1: I read reported that the underlying pathophysiological mechanism, which just
Speaker 1: means why does this happen though, is that exposure to
Speaker 1: light and darkness at weird times leads to disruption of
Speaker 1: normal sleep wake rhythms. It's called chronodisruption. It means I'm
Speaker 1: sleeping at the wrong times. My brain is confused. So
Speaker 1: it's like, who's afraid of the dark, Who's afraid of falling?
Speaker 1: A sleep of the lights on? That seems more dangerous now,
Speaker 1: but what can shift work, like doctor Winter himself experienced
Speaker 1: during his medical residency.
Speaker 3: Do to a human When you look at individuals who
Speaker 3: are engaged in shift work, we know that they have
Speaker 3: much more difficulty with their weight, much more difficulty with
Speaker 3: the blood pressure, more heart attacks, more strokes, more miswork,
Speaker 3: more GI issues, more psychological issues. I mean, it's just
Speaker 3: a very difficult thing to sustain. I remember when I
Speaker 3: was in residency, when we were talking about that, you know,
Speaker 3: a while back, that I felt that I was clearly
Speaker 3: at my most unhealthy point in my life and if
Speaker 3: this were my job, this is what I'll do for
Speaker 3: the next thirty years. I don't know that I felt
Speaker 3: like I would have lost ten years in my life.
Speaker 3: And I look back at even my kids when we
Speaker 3: look back at pictures of myself during that time. Thank god,
Speaker 3: we didn't have a lot of digital cameras around at
Speaker 3: that time, but the pictures that we do have my
Speaker 3: kids are like, oh God, Dad looks terrible, pasty white,
Speaker 3: just looks really unhealthy. And I think it's because I was.
Speaker 3: So if you're a shift worker, talked to a sleep specialist.
Speaker 3: There are medications that can help alleviate that. And I
Speaker 3: would say. The other thing too, is to talk to
Speaker 3: your employer about ways you can make the shift work
Speaker 3: more humane. I mean, hopefully you're working for somebody says, look,
Speaker 3: I don't care how you do it, we just need
Speaker 3: to cover these shifts. There's ways you can construct your
Speaker 3: work environment. There's ways you can construct it. You can
Speaker 3: construct the way that shifts move from day to day
Speaker 3: that are a lot easier on a body than others,
Speaker 3: and a lot of times it's a matter of doing
Speaker 3: a little bit of research or talking somebody about how ways.
Speaker 2: To make that better.
Speaker 3: The other thing, too, is you try to work towards
Speaker 3: not being a shift worker. I mean it sounds really flip,
Speaker 3: but being very genuine and that even if you like it,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of things to like about shift work,
Speaker 3: you know, working at night for some people, there's not
Speaker 3: a lot of administration around. You just show up and
Speaker 3: do your work. It's kind of quiet, and some people
Speaker 3: feel good at that time. But just understand, just because
Speaker 3: you're good at doing it and you like it, doesn't
Speaker 3: necessarily mean it's probably a really good thing for your body.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: Same for jobs that involve a lot of jet lag.
Speaker 1: Asking for a friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Again, there are things you can do to
Speaker 3: treat JETL. There's some really cool goggles that you can
Speaker 3: wear that shine green light into your eyes that kind
Speaker 3: of trick your brain circadian rhythm, and a lot of
Speaker 3: them have these old jet like calculators associate with them.
Speaker 3: So if you're getting ready to go to Stockholm for
Speaker 3: three days and then over to Brussels and then back
Speaker 3: home to New York, you can use these lights at
Speaker 3: certain times of the day to help you acclimate more
Speaker 3: quickly to that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I got a lot of questions. Corey Navis,
Speaker 1: Sophia Garbo's, g X, Barnett, Paula Hawk, Katie Spino, Maria Kumro,
Speaker 1: Abigail Campbell, and Moore all asked how can some people
Speaker 1: sleep for five or six hours and feel fine and
Speaker 1: other people need eight or ten? Like why do some
Speaker 1: people seem to need less?
Speaker 3: So that once again kind of goes back to the
Speaker 3: earlier question about how come some people are night oriented
Speaker 3: and some people are day oriented. So when you think
Speaker 3: about your sleep, everybody's listening to this has a certain
Speaker 3: amount of sleep that they need that's individual to them.
Speaker 3: Not only that, but it's also individual to you at
Speaker 3: that time. So if you're a twenty year old, that
Speaker 3: time might change when you're a seventy year old. So
Speaker 3: not only do we have a time that we need
Speaker 3: or a duration we need, but we also have a timing.
Speaker 3: So those are the two variables I want you to
Speaker 3: think about. And so what the answer to the question is.
Speaker 2: There are some.
Speaker 3: People out there who need eight hours of sleep, and
Speaker 3: we talk a lot about that in the media, being
Speaker 3: sort of an average. I think the average is probably
Speaker 3: closer to seven to seven and a half, but we
Speaker 3: can agree to disagree. So whatever that average is, it
Speaker 3: is an average. So when you're planning your picnic, there
Speaker 3: might be a statistic out there that says the average
Speaker 3: picnic attendedly two hot dogs and a hamburger. That is
Speaker 3: awesome information to have as you are buying your supplies
Speaker 3: because now you've got a little bit of an algorithm
Speaker 3: for figuring out how to feed people. Now, that does
Speaker 3: not mean that every person who walks to your pick
Speaker 3: comes to your picnic, is going to heat two hot
Speaker 3: dogs and a hamburger. So we need to get outside
Speaker 3: of this idea that eight hours of sleep is somehow magical.
Speaker 2: It is that that's what you need.
Speaker 3: But if you're somebody who needs six and a half
Speaker 3: hours of sleep seeking eight is going to care eat
Speaker 3: an hour and a half of dead time, It's going
Speaker 3: to be very unpleasant to you and might even be
Speaker 3: interpreted as being insomnia. Well, I'm trying to get my
Speaker 3: eight hours start to winter. I go to bed at
Speaker 3: ten o'clock and it takes me like an hour to
Speaker 3: hour and a half to fall asleep every night.
Speaker 2: Is driving me crazy.
Speaker 3: My first question I always ask people like that is
Speaker 3: why have you chosen ten o'clock is your bedtime? And
Speaker 3: they look at you like I really never thought about that,
Speaker 3: sort of like saying, my lunch time is at ten
Speaker 3: thirty am. Wow, tell me about your lunch. Well, I
Speaker 3: ten thirty, I leave my office at go to the restaurant.
Speaker 2: I sit down.
Speaker 3: The waitress comes, she says, what would you like? I say,
Speaker 3: I'm not that hungry, and she keeps coming back and
Speaker 3: coming back and coming back. Finally, around twelve thirty, I
Speaker 3: say I'll take a chicken sandwich please, Like that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Nobody does that. The waitress at some point it's gonna.
Speaker 3: Say, honey, leave, why do you keep coming at ten
Speaker 3: thirty and just sitting there taking at my booth, like
Speaker 3: go shop or go do some work and come back
Speaker 3: when you are hungry. So you know, for the person
Speaker 3: who asked the question about sleep duration, we're all different.
Speaker 3: So if you're getting six and a half hours of
Speaker 3: sleep and you feel so great and you don't feel
Speaker 3: like falling asleep in movies or in meetings or things
Speaker 3: of that nature, then you're probably doing exactly what your
Speaker 3: body needs to be healthy.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good to know.
Speaker 1: Travis Gary, Julie Noble, and others asked backsider stomach, which
Speaker 1: is best and why?
Speaker 2: So it depends on how you define best.
Speaker 3: Most people would describe sleeping on your left side as
Speaker 3: being best because number one, our body's blood return comes
Speaker 3: mainly through the rights of our body, if for engineered correctly.
Speaker 3: So there's a thought that if you sleep predominantly on
Speaker 3: your right side, you kind of compress that passive return
Speaker 3: of blood to your body, which can be especially important
Speaker 3: for pregnant women. So left side sort of alleviates that
Speaker 3: our airways want to collapse more when we sleep on
Speaker 3: our back, so sleeping on your side puts our airway
Speaker 3: in a little bit more of a favorable position. Although
Speaker 3: kids have big tonsils, sometimes it doesn't, but for an
Speaker 3: adult that works out well.
Speaker 2: The problem with sleeping on your side.
Speaker 3: Is orthopedically, a lot of people find that it hurts
Speaker 3: their shoulders, it hurts their hips or knees to sleep
Speaker 3: on their side, So orthopedically the best position to sleep
Speaker 3: is on your back. So the answer to the question
Speaker 3: is you're saying from a sleep perspective, I would say
Speaker 3: left side or on your back with your head somewhat
Speaker 3: elevated to keep your airway more open. But you know,
Speaker 3: there's all kinds of studies about sleeping positions. If you're
Speaker 3: worried about wrinkles, or you're a woman with larger breasts
Speaker 3: and you're worried about them sagging, then you really shouldn't
Speaker 3: be sleeping on your side of your stomach. It should
Speaker 3: be back all the way, keeps our skin looking healthier,
Speaker 3: keeps our bodies looking more tone. So it really depends
Speaker 3: on what you mean by which is best. So I
Speaker 3: would say, in my world, left side of your body
Speaker 3: is probably the best. On some sort of mattress that
Speaker 3: maybe eliminates that kind of pressure feeling from your joints. Okay,
Speaker 3: what about on your face. Sleeping on your face is tough.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of people sleep on their stomach.
Speaker 3: It's fairly rare to find somebody who there's a stomach
Speaker 3: sleeper who likes her face into the pillow.
Speaker 2: It's a little dangerous.
Speaker 3: But they do make pillows that kind of are almost
Speaker 3: like the little massage.
Speaker 2: When you have a massage and.
Speaker 3: Your face down, you have your little face in a
Speaker 3: little doughnut hole or whatever. So they do make pillows
Speaker 3: they facilitate that. I would say that, you know, if
Speaker 3: you're going to sleep on your face is try to
Speaker 3: make sure you're not elimiting the amount of air that
Speaker 3: you're getting or whatnot, or just yelling turn your head
Speaker 3: to one side or the other.
Speaker 1: Okay, good to know. Yeah, I was asking for a quote. Friend,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I sleep on my face more on
Speaker 1: sleep apnea. After a quick break, during which you will
Speaker 1: hear about a few sponsors I like, and then we
Speaker 1: take those ad dollars and we funnel some of it
Speaker 1: toward a charity. And this week, in honor of my parents,
Speaker 1: is headed to my looma dot org and the International
Speaker 1: Maloma Foundation is dedicated to improving the quality of life
Speaker 1: of my loma patients while working toward prevention and a cure.
Speaker 1: And multiple ma loma is a blood cancer. My dad
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with multiple maloma in twenty thirteen and my
Speaker 1: uncle passed away from it as well. And the IMF
Speaker 1: has been wonderful to us and just a invaluable place
Speaker 1: of hope and research and info and support. And my
Speaker 1: dad was given two years to live in twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: and at the time he told my mom, I just
Speaker 1: wish I had ten more years. And the outreach and
Speaker 1: the research that malma dot org makes possible has kept
Speaker 1: him with us for nine and a half and we
Speaker 1: are really grateful for that. So if someone you know
Speaker 1: has multiple maloma, you can listen to the hematology episode
Speaker 1: with doctor Brian Durry and find the uncut version on
Speaker 1: my website. There's more patient specific info on that. So again,
Speaker 1: that is my loma dot org and thank you sponsors
Speaker 1: for making that possible. Okay, so I forget sappy there.
Speaker 1: Back to sleep apnea, I researched it for us.
Speaker 2: Okay quick aside.
Speaker 1: Also on sleep apnea, there are a few different types
Speaker 1: with different causes, But how do you know if you
Speaker 1: might have it. Okay, do any of these sound like you?
Speaker 1: Daytime sleepiness or fatigue on refreshing sleep, insomnia, perhaps more headaches. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's what you do. You throw a lavish slumber party
Speaker 1: and then over cereal the next morning. You just hand
Speaker 1: out questionnaires to your friends asking if they heard any
Speaker 1: loud or frequent snoring, silent pauses in breathing or choking
Speaker 1: or gasping sounds. Or you could just request a sleep study.
Speaker 1: If the doc's like, yep, you gots it, they might
Speaker 1: work out some treatment that involves lifestyle changes like ditching
Speaker 1: booze or cigarettes, maybe losing weight, side sleeping, or mouthpieces.
Speaker 1: Some folks have to get surgery for sleep apnea, or
Speaker 1: use a breathing device like a seapap, which stands for
Speaker 1: continuous positive airwave pressure because it forces air past any
Speaker 1: floppy throat obstructions you might have. I was doing some digging,
Speaker 1: and it may not be a cure all for everyone,
Speaker 1: but tons of folks who have finally treated their sleep
Speaker 1: apnea with a seapap say it's life changing. And also,
Speaker 1: if I we're not busy making this podcast, I would
Speaker 1: go into the side business of aftermarket medical equipment and
Speaker 1: sell seapop upgrades that look like glistening face huggers from
Speaker 1: Alien or maybe Bain masks.
Speaker 2: Oh do you think dog los is your lie?
Speaker 1: Shannon has three questions, but I'm going to ask, well,
Speaker 1: they're all good. Can you dive from sleep deprivation?
Speaker 2: Yes or no?
Speaker 3: Yes, but it's not something that you would be able
Speaker 3: to do yourself, meaning you'd have to employ friends with
Speaker 3: you know, stun guns and cattle prods. So, and the
Speaker 3: reason I'm saying that is because there are people out
Speaker 3: there who have insomnia who feel like they're not sleepy,
Speaker 3: that the fear of the situation creates the situation. So
Speaker 3: I would say to this person, you are in no
Speaker 3: danger of not sleeping. In fact, even people who come
Speaker 3: to our clinic and I say, well you have to
Speaker 3: have a sleep study. Why I can't sleep? Am I
Speaker 3: own bed? How can I sleep in a sleep study?
Speaker 3: I always tell them, why don't you go to the
Speaker 3: sleep center. They're gonna look all these wires up to you.
Speaker 2: I want you to lie in bed. I do not
Speaker 2: want you to sleep.
Speaker 3: Just lie their awake like you normally do for seven
Speaker 3: or eight hours, and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: Nobody ever does it. In fact, they you sleep more,
Speaker 2: you know, than they do at home.
Speaker 3: They'll come back and say, I told you I didn't sleep,
Speaker 3: and I'll hear you slept for six hours and thirteen minutes.
Speaker 3: Whenever I showed a judge her video and she said,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I really thought that I was awake
Speaker 3: all night long. In fact, I'm looking at this thinking
Speaker 3: maybe you super imposed my face on another You know,
Speaker 3: she was kidding. But so, no, you were not in
Speaker 3: any danger of sleep deprivation. I always tell people insomnia
Speaker 3: is the worst condition in the world that has almost
Speaker 3: absolutely no medical consequence.
Speaker 1: Really, it doesn't. It doesn't lead to plaques in the brain,
Speaker 1: and so sleep deprivation does not insomnia. Insomnia and sleep
Speaker 1: deprivation are two very different things. So, yes, if you're
Speaker 1: working your a nine to five job, you come home,
Speaker 1: sleep for two hours at seven o'clock, you go off
Speaker 1: to clean office buildings all through the night, and go
Speaker 1: right back to work the next day. Yes, you are
Speaker 1: putting yourself in position of having trouble. However, or is
Speaker 1: that person going to completely sleep to problem themselves.
Speaker 2: No, they're going to do that job for a period of.
Speaker 3: Time and what's going to happen is they're actually going
Speaker 3: to fall asleep on the job. They're going to fall
Speaker 3: asleep in their office the next morning. So it's very
Speaker 3: difficult to sleep deprive yourself because you know, like I said,
Speaker 3: sleep always wins. You're going to sleep, And unlike hunger,
Speaker 3: which is a primary drive, and thirst, which is a
Speaker 3: primary drive, sleep your brain can actually control yourself doing that.
Speaker 1: So think of sleep as being a vital resource that
Speaker 1: you don't even have to hunt or search for or gather.
Speaker 1: You could just make it yourself if you just chill
Speaker 1: out and let it happen. So imagine if you're like man,
Speaker 1: I could really go for a lobsteroll, Well, I'll just
Speaker 1: sit really still and breathe and it'll appear. Not sleeping
Speaker 1: enough is like being hungry all the time when we
Speaker 1: could just conjure lobster rolls. Now, why are we saying
Speaker 1: no to sleep but yes to scrolling for so many
Speaker 1: hours before bed? I'm asking myself this. Ps, if you
Speaker 1: hate lobster rolls and this analogy doesn't work for you,
Speaker 1: don't I don't care because it was for me. I
Speaker 1: was talking to me. This aside was a private moment
Speaker 1: between my heart and my brain and my mouth anyway,
Speaker 1: So sleep happens.
Speaker 3: So at some point it just takes the decision out
Speaker 3: of your hands and you fall asleep.
Speaker 2: Shannon also wanted to know what does lack of sleep
Speaker 2: make you fat?
Speaker 3: It does so sleep poor sleep in a lot of
Speaker 3: ways makes you fat. It makes you too tired to
Speaker 3: want to go to the gym. You're sitting around more,
Speaker 3: which creates a problem. We actually burn less calories when
Speaker 3: we're sleeping poorly. But the biggest thing is we start
Speaker 3: to create this biochemical cascade of chemicals that make us
Speaker 3: feel full go away, chemicals that make us crave really
Speaker 3: bad foods or in abundance.
Speaker 2: I always tell people when I was in.
Speaker 3: Residency and really struggling and sleep deprived, I would go
Speaker 3: to this little convenience store in the hospital and there
Speaker 3: were these little packages of chips away cookies, and then
Speaker 3: they had like the thirty three percent more family.
Speaker 2: Size bag, and I would lie to the fill us.
Speaker 3: This little woman who worked there'd be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: some of the doctors are one some cooks keys. I
Speaker 3: want one or two, but no more than three. But
Speaker 3: I need the family size bag. And by the time
Speaker 3: I got out of the COMMUNECE started eating the entire sleeve,
Speaker 3: you know. And so I look back on those days,
Speaker 3: I think, oh god, it was so driven by something
Speaker 3: I didn't want. That many cookies. It makes me kind
Speaker 3: of sick to think about right now. But oh man,
Speaker 3: I could put a herding on those cookies at the time.
Speaker 1: Then of course these cookies put a herding right back
Speaker 1: on you. So why does this happen? Let's blame a
Speaker 1: trio of hormones, shall we. There's leptin, which tells your
Speaker 1: brain's hypothelmus like, nah, I'm good man, I'm not really hungry.
Speaker 1: So this appetite controlling hormone, leptin is supposed to peak
Speaker 1: while you're asleep, but if you've been snoozing weird, it
Speaker 1: goes a little wonky. Now there's also grellin, which is
Speaker 1: the flip side of the leptin coin, and it signals
Speaker 1: to your brain this show time and too little sleep
Speaker 1: means a veritable monsoon of this hormone. Also insulin, the
Speaker 1: third one stores fat, and yes, our insulin gets disrupted
Speaker 1: when our sleep sucks. I am no medical person, but
Speaker 1: I can confirm this research because once I was very
Speaker 1: tired on a flight and I asked a stranger if
Speaker 1: I could have some of his sour Patch kids, and
Speaker 1: he gave me the rest of the bag. I think
Speaker 1: out of pity and also fear. So there's your anecdotal evidence. Also,
Speaker 1: they were really good. Julie Noble wants to know. I've
Speaker 1: heard that women are typically lighter sleepers in men. Is
Speaker 1: there a science behind this?
Speaker 2: I think there are.
Speaker 3: There are actually some studies that show that, and also
Speaker 3: some studies that kind of relate it to childbirth. You know,
Speaker 3: male of species going out to find food, female species
Speaker 3: protecting cubs and whatnot. So there are some studies that
Speaker 3: sort of look at that. So I think that that's
Speaker 3: that's not an unreasonable thing to think for sure.
Speaker 2: What do you.
Speaker 1: Tell new parents who are like, I can't sleep, this
Speaker 1: baby's crying, but I cannot just ignore the baby.
Speaker 2: What do you tell them? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I always tell parents, Look, you know, for the first
Speaker 3: few months of the child's existence, it's gorilla sleep, not
Speaker 3: grill like the animal like grill like the you know,
Speaker 3: freedom fighter in the jungle somewhere, meaning you just get
Speaker 3: it when you can, you know. I think it's very
Speaker 3: important for parents from the get go, even maybe even
Speaker 3: before the child is born, to start thinking about scheduling
Speaker 3: not only in terms of the child, but your own schedule.
Speaker 3: So if a mother who's pregnant is exercising at the
Speaker 3: same time every day, it is not a good schedule
Speaker 3: or self baby pops out often having sort of picked
Speaker 3: up on that too, you know, bodies shaking and the
Speaker 3: babies in there kind of moving around during the zumba class,
Speaker 3: but not when your mom is sitting still.
Speaker 2: So you know, parents can child rearing out.
Speaker 3: And this is my next book as I'm writing a
Speaker 3: book about kids in sleep, which I think is a
Speaker 3: lot of fun. But you got to be very careful
Speaker 3: because you're kind of straddling this line of sleep expert
Speaker 3: doctor and let me tell you how to raise your
Speaker 3: kids kind of thing. So I have to be very
Speaker 3: careful not to step on any parents toes. But one
Speaker 3: of the fundamental questions you have to answer with the
Speaker 3: kid is are you going to schedule their life or
Speaker 3: do you let the kid kind of decide what's going on.
Speaker 3: You're going to tell them this is when they nap,
Speaker 3: this is when they nurse, or are you just going
Speaker 3: to basically pull it out and they can suck on
Speaker 3: anytime they want to, which a lot of people do,
Speaker 3: and that's perfectly your choice. But when you don't build
Speaker 3: in some sort of structure or a schedule to a
Speaker 3: little baby, it doesn't develop a schedule. So again, is
Speaker 3: there a baby out there that's not sleeping?
Speaker 2: No, there's not.
Speaker 3: Is there a baby out there who's sleeping so inconsistently
Speaker 3: and so unpredictably.
Speaker 2: It's driving mom and dad crazy.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So if you can predict your kids sleep or
Speaker 3: quiet times, you as a parent can get anything done.
Speaker 3: So to me, that's really the goal of those first
Speaker 3: few months of life is really being careful about the
Speaker 3: messages you're sending. Okay, naptime is from ten to eleven.
Speaker 3: What happens if the baby goes down screams? Is that
Speaker 3: off until ten forty five? What do you do at
Speaker 3: eleven o'clock? Are you going to wake maybe up because
Speaker 3: that's the end of the nap time or do you
Speaker 3: just go ahead let them sleep for the hour because
Speaker 3: well they didn't sleep. They didn't say so, I would
Speaker 3: say you wake them up at eleven o'clock and you do.
Speaker 2: It with a smile and you have fun with them.
Speaker 3: Now the baby's trying to fall asleep in the car
Speaker 3: seat going to the store, and you don't let them.
Speaker 3: Always kept these little wet washcloths in my car, and
Speaker 3: when my kids started falling asleep in the car, I
Speaker 3: would take their shoes off mess around their feet, which
Speaker 3: made him cry.
Speaker 2: They hated that.
Speaker 3: And when that didn't work and they were still falling
Speaker 3: asleep as I messed with their I would just take
Speaker 3: a wet washcloth and throw it in their lap, and
Speaker 3: they would get all upset about it. Oh God, now
Speaker 3: I got this cold wet thing on my lap. Or
Speaker 3: they'd play with it or suck on it. I didn't
Speaker 3: care as long as they weren't sleeping, because this is
Speaker 3: not the time we've determined to sleep. You had your
Speaker 3: time by an hour ago, and you screamed and rocked
Speaker 3: your your cage, your crib the entire time. So to
Speaker 3: me get your kids on a schedule, let's step one.
Speaker 2: Ps.
Speaker 1: Doctor Winter is not alone in seeing this visual correlation.
Speaker 1: I found an article titled quote why cribs kind of
Speaker 1: look like cages on fatherly dot com, and it said
Speaker 1: that cribs have evolved from the seventeen hundreds. There was
Speaker 1: an Italian practice of popping a slatted half shell of
Speaker 1: an old whiskey barrel over your we one, kind of
Speaker 1: like a protective cage so you wouldn't roll over it
Speaker 1: and kill it in bed. Oh, simpler times, eighteenth century
Speaker 1: state of the art baby technology was just a liquor
Speaker 1: soaked splinter cage for parents who care enough to.
Speaker 2: Provide the best.
Speaker 1: Mike Melchare and Ashland Todd McLaren all kind of asked,
Speaker 1: why can you sometimes sleep for a really long time
Speaker 1: and feel super lethargic and sluggish, Like can you not
Speaker 1: catch up on last sleep?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it not like a bank account? So those are
Speaker 2: two different things. So you can.
Speaker 3: And there's some really interesting new research that says individuals
Speaker 3: who might struggle to get the perfect amount of sleep
Speaker 3: from time to time, as long as relatively quickly as you.
Speaker 2: Try to make it up with the nap, that's a
Speaker 2: good thing.
Speaker 3: So you're got to catch a flight, it's delayed and
Speaker 3: you don't get home until three o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 3: and you thought you're gonna get home at ten, and
Speaker 3: you got to go to work the next day. I
Speaker 3: think it's perfectly fine to make up for that lost
Speaker 3: sleep with a nap or some sort of supping that'll
Speaker 3: sleep here or sleeping in when we sleep in unusual times.
Speaker 3: So I always like to look at people's schedules, and
Speaker 3: college students are the worst. You know, Monday was a Friday.
Speaker 3: I'm an organic chemistry class that starts at eight. I
Speaker 3: couldn't get anything other than eight o'clock class. It really
Speaker 3: was the pits. And then Tuesday and Thursday, I don't
Speaker 3: have a class until noon. And then on Friday night,
Speaker 3: Saturday and Sunday, I don't even go out until two
Speaker 3: in the morning, let alone you know, waffle house whatever
Speaker 3: the next morning. So when people have these schedules that
Speaker 3: are kind of all over the place, the brain adopts
Speaker 3: this position of what do you expect.
Speaker 2: Of me at nine am?
Speaker 3: On these days we're sound asleep, on these days we're
Speaker 3: already an hour into an organic chemistry lecture, and on
Speaker 3: these other days we've just gone out a couple hours ago.
Speaker 3: So your brain, I always say, this is this is
Speaker 3: my term makes no sense to a lot of people,
Speaker 3: but your brain, your brain just kind of goes gray,
Speaker 3: no black, there's no white. It just kind of adopts this.
Speaker 3: It's how people feel. W live in Portland or Great Britain.
Speaker 3: It's gray all the time, there's no sunlight, so you're
Speaker 3: just kind of like, I'm not terribly depressed, but I'm
Speaker 3: also not super happy either, and you know, so you're
Speaker 3: just kind of this kind of melancholy all the time.
Speaker 3: I think people feel that way. So to me, the
Speaker 3: answer to that is probably number one. There is this
Speaker 3: entity of sleep inertia. We try to sometimes make up
Speaker 3: our sleep and we have these massive sleep blocks, so
Speaker 3: our brain doesn't exactly know how to feel when we
Speaker 3: wake up. So a lot of people will feel worse
Speaker 3: after a night of sleep or even a nap if
Speaker 3: it sort of surprises the brain. So the best way
Speaker 3: to sleep, the best way to nap is to try
Speaker 3: to have your sleep period end at the same time
Speaker 3: every time. Oh okay, so it's a very difficult thing
Speaker 3: to get somebody to say, Look, you have the opportunity
Speaker 3: to sleep till noon. It'd still be better if you
Speaker 3: woke up at eight, had something to eat, went outside
Speaker 3: where there's sunlight, walk the dog, all bit of physical activity,
Speaker 3: and then if you wanted to supplement your sleep, take
Speaker 3: a nap at a designated time. So that way we
Speaker 3: don't interrupt what your brain is sort of expecting. You know,
Speaker 3: we don't get hungry generally because we need food. We
Speaker 3: often get hungry because our brain is saying, oh, it's noon,
Speaker 3: this is when we usually have the chicken sandwich. So
Speaker 3: here we go, let's get ready for it. It's not oh,
Speaker 3: we're calorically needing food a lot of time. So we're
Speaker 3: just trying to create a good rhythm for our brain.
Speaker 3: So for meals or in rhythm or exercises in rhythm,
Speaker 3: often our sleep will fall suit.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good to know. So you can make up
Speaker 2: for a lack of sleep.
Speaker 3: So if you stayed up all last night doing some
Speaker 3: great project for work, as long as you can make
Speaker 3: it up pretty quickly, you'll scientifically live just as long
Speaker 3: as the person who always gets the right amount of sleep.
Speaker 1: Okay, boo yah to them, ooh yeah. Cory Navis, Michael Saidembuga,
Speaker 1: Emily Mankis, Melissa Brewer, Janella Lindauer, John Worster all asked
Speaker 1: kind of about sleep supplements, about melatonin, about ambient about
Speaker 1: taking something thing to sleep?
Speaker 2: Is that good or bad? What are we dealing with?
Speaker 3: So I will my disclaimer will be. I'm not a
Speaker 3: big fan of sleeping pills. I think that they certainly
Speaker 3: have up their place, and I guess I would think
Speaker 3: of a sleeping pill like an appetite stimulant. You probably
Speaker 3: don't know that many people who take appetite stimulants.
Speaker 2: They do exist. They're out there.
Speaker 3: But when we all go out to lunch and we're
Speaker 3: sitting around everbody's ordering food and you don't feel hungry,
Speaker 3: what do you do.
Speaker 2: I guess is you don't say, oh.
Speaker 3: Gosh, hey, guys, does anybody have an appetite stimulant? Because
Speaker 3: I'm really not hungry for lunch right now, and I
Speaker 3: know if I don't eat, i'll starve to death. And
Speaker 3: I've seen these videos on the internet of people starving
Speaker 3: to death.
Speaker 2: It looks terrible.
Speaker 3: I don't want to do that, so please look around
Speaker 3: find something for me to take. So we don't think
Speaker 3: that way when it comes to our food. We think, huh,
Speaker 3: it's unfortunate because this food looks really good and I
Speaker 3: like to eat, but I'm not really that hungry. But
Speaker 3: oh well, I'm sure I'll get hungry at some point
Speaker 3: in the future. So I think for a lot of people,
Speaker 3: sleeping pills become a crutch that is completely unnecessary and
Speaker 3: kind of this weird lie that you you need something
Speaker 3: to fall asleep with.
Speaker 2: Other people don't. Now.
Speaker 3: The flip side of that is a shift worker. You
Speaker 3: work seven eight to seven p for four days, you
Speaker 3: have two days off, and you get back working seven
Speaker 3: p to seven A.
Speaker 2: So you're constantly moving backwards and forwards.
Speaker 3: You're a traveler, you fly to Shanghai every two weeks
Speaker 3: to do business, and you have struggled to adapt. I
Speaker 3: think those are perfectly appropriate ways reasons to take medications.
Speaker 3: Melatonin in particular, because it's such a good drug at
Speaker 3: helping us adjust our circadian rhythm.
Speaker 1: Okay, so quick aside. Melatonin is that hormone. It's produced
Speaker 1: by a tiny pie sized mid brain, little nugget called
Speaker 1: your pinial gland, and it makes you sleepy, it helps
Speaker 1: you dream, And for a long time we thought only
Speaker 1: animals made melotonin, but it turns out it's in a
Speaker 1: bunch of plants, you guys. So now we have melotonin
Speaker 1: supplements and gummy vitamins and over the counter access to it.
Speaker 1: But some experts warn against using the supplements long term
Speaker 1: because it can cause next day grogginess or rumpiness. But
Speaker 1: what is a big melatonin cock blocker? You ask good question,
Speaker 1: and it's blue light, so to boost your natural melatonin
Speaker 1: in your brain. This is why people say lay off
Speaker 1: the screens after dusk. New fangled light sources like screens
Speaker 1: and phones blast daytime raise into your brain at the
Speaker 1: wrong times. It's very confusing. And firelight and incandescent bulbs
Speaker 1: have these warmer wavelengths that don't mess with you by
Speaker 1: the bye, just in case you want to be like
Speaker 1: next level hipster and bring back those really long, creepy
Speaker 1: nightcaps and maybe carry a candle around from room to room.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of feeling that, And between that aesthetic and
Speaker 1: whittling spoons at dawn, I'm kind of smelling a real
Speaker 1: alley Ward Instagram rebranding over here, just coming over the
Speaker 1: sunrise horizon. My friends, who's into it?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: One?
Speaker 2: Fine? Okay?
Speaker 1: So why else might someone take a sleeping pill or
Speaker 1: a supplement.
Speaker 3: Death of a loved and you lost your job, some
Speaker 3: emotional upset to have a big problem with the sleeping pill.
Speaker 3: I don't, but the plan should be, Hey, here's a
Speaker 3: sleeping pill. I'm really sorry this thing happened to you.
Speaker 3: This will help you kind of get to this immediate,
Speaker 3: you know, burn of the of the situation. But then
Speaker 3: we're going to do things to move us away from it,
Speaker 3: you know. So maybe the many people have talked to
Speaker 3: R why do you take amby, Well, I can't sleep
Speaker 3: without it when that start it started? You know it's
Speaker 3: because of the divorce. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
Speaker 3: Has that been hard? Well was seventeen years ago. Like
Speaker 3: number one, she's not coming back, you know. Stop carrying
Speaker 3: that towards number two. The reason why you're taking the
Speaker 3: ambient has nothing to do with a divorce. It's because
Speaker 3: now the divorce precipitated a problem, that something is perpetuating.
Speaker 3: So let's get down to the bottom of what that is.
Speaker 3: So if you're taking melotone every night, be careful with that.
Speaker 3: It can actually make you feel like you're constantly traveling
Speaker 3: east because most people take the melotone right when they
Speaker 3: go to bed. If you're giving your kids melatonin because
Speaker 3: it helps them sleep, I've got a big problem with
Speaker 3: that as well too. So pills and sleep, I think
Speaker 3: that they don't really belong with each other. And ask
Speaker 3: your doctor the next time. You know, what is the
Speaker 3: evidence that this medication works. It's surprising some of the
Speaker 3: answers that you'll get, or if there's even an indication
Speaker 3: for this drug.
Speaker 2: A lot of people take the drug sarah Quill, which
Speaker 2: is an.
Speaker 3: Heavy duty antipsychotic, to help them with their sleep, and
Speaker 3: not only is it not indicative for sleep, it's actually
Speaker 3: recommended that people not take that drug for sleep. Just
Speaker 3: be careful about the medications you're getting. Doctors, their heart's
Speaker 3: in the right place. They want to do something, and
Speaker 3: for you to say I'm not sleeping, they feel very
Speaker 3: compelled to do something, and often that comes in the
Speaker 3: form of a pill.
Speaker 1: Okay, So remember, blue light from our phones and TVs
Speaker 1: and laptops is just not something we've evolved to see
Speaker 1: at night. Our brains process blue light as like, okay,
Speaker 1: daytime or wakeness. Now, if blue light is the cock
Speaker 1: blocker of melatonin, then it might be helpful to block
Speaker 1: that cock block with cool blue blocker glasses, and by cool,
Speaker 1: I mean warm toned. Now, which brand of glasses should
Speaker 1: you buy? There are a million research them. First, I
Speaker 1: found an article on Consumer Reports that tested three different
Speaker 1: brands and they ranged in price from eight dollars to
Speaker 1: like fifty five dollars, and the ones that cut the
Speaker 1: most blue light they found out were the cheap ones.
Speaker 1: One brand called Ubex skyper rated the highest. So the
Speaker 1: most expensive ones cut about half the blue light is
Speaker 1: the cheap ones in this particular study, so look it
Speaker 1: up first. PS, if you are researching these classes on
Speaker 1: your phone in bed right now, just let it wait
Speaker 1: till tomorrow. A couple more questions in Little Here's Carl
Speaker 1: and Hale's Parcels asked about blue lights on cell phones.
Speaker 1: Should we be turning our phones to yellow? Should we
Speaker 1: be taking our phones and throwing them into a landfill?
Speaker 2: What should we be doing?
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to throw our phones into
Speaker 3: a landfill, although if you'd like to come to my
Speaker 3: house into my kids' phones into a landfall, I would
Speaker 3: not fight you on that one. I would actually disappointed,
Speaker 3: but secretly be like ill. Thank god Miles came over
Speaker 3: and through the phones in the landfill. So to me,
Speaker 3: I think it's just about managing our phones. Phones are great.
Speaker 3: They really help us kind of keep connected, they keep
Speaker 3: us safe. There's all kinds of fun apps and whatnot,
Speaker 3: and audiobooks, et cetera. To me, the biggest thing is
Speaker 3: as we start moving from dinner to our bedtime, that
Speaker 3: sort of period, we really want to start looking at
Speaker 3: lighting in our house, our routines, and finding a way
Speaker 3: to sort of move away from computers and cell phones
Speaker 3: at that time. Okay, it's eleven o'clock. If somebody needs me,
Speaker 3: they can get a hold of me. But I'm going
Speaker 3: to plug my phone up in a kitchen. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to take it into the bedroom with me. It's
Speaker 3: something I can do when I can look at when
Speaker 3: I'm having trouble sleeping. So I think, you know, good
Speaker 3: hygiene with our cell phones is really important if you're
Speaker 3: somebody here, you're a nurse, and you know you may
Speaker 3: get called in the night, so you can't really separate
Speaker 3: yourself from your phone at night, you know, installing things
Speaker 3: like dimmers on our phones, or employing the little night settings,
Speaker 3: or even getting little blue blocker glasses. Uvex make some
Speaker 3: Swan Wicks, make some that you can keep on your
Speaker 3: bedside table, so when you're looking at your phone, you
Speaker 3: put the little blue blocker glasses on, so those harmful
Speaker 3: wavelengths of light are not keeping you up at night free.
Speaker 1: Johnson wants to know what's the difference between hypersomnia and narcolepsy.
Speaker 2: So that's a great question, Brie.
Speaker 3: Hypersomnia you can think of as being sort of the
Speaker 3: umbrella term of the hypersomnia's narcolepsy, it would be a
Speaker 3: specific one, and asking that question because of this term
Speaker 3: idiopathic hypersomnia Wisk has thrown about in sleep, which is
Speaker 3: essentially your sleepy He don't seem to fit all the
Speaker 3: criteria of narclepsy, and the doctor has no idea what
Speaker 3: to do with you, so they call you idiopathic hypersomnia,
Speaker 3: which kind of drives me crazy. So lots of things
Speaker 3: can make us hypersomnic. Narcolepsy is a situation where you're
Speaker 3: not making chemicals in your brain that stabilize wakefulness. So
Speaker 3: a typical narcopsy patient will sleep eight hours, wakes up,
Speaker 3: feels pretty good, goes to his favorite art history class,
Speaker 3: sits down the front row because he thinks if I
Speaker 3: sit in the front row won't fall asleep, and immediately
Speaker 3: nods off and doesn't even feel sleepy to begin with.
Speaker 1: This literally happened to me in an art history class
Speaker 1: in an auditorium of six hundred people. I sat in
Speaker 1: the front row to stay awake, and I fall asleep.
Speaker 1: So either every person on earth has done this, specifically
Speaker 1: in an art history class about double barrel vaulted stealing
Speaker 1: architecture in cluinneal villages. Or I'm just more and more
Speaker 1: convinced that doctor Winter guessed this because there is a
Speaker 1: glitch in the simulation. We're all living in an alternative
Speaker 1: universe anyway, So some people get tired.
Speaker 3: So these are individuals who are largely outside of control
Speaker 3: of their own sleepiness.
Speaker 2: How do you know which you are?
Speaker 3: So that would be something that would probably require visiting
Speaker 3: a sleep specialist, But we've talked about some things already
Speaker 3: that kind of indicate it. Number one, you're a hypersomnic.
Speaker 3: You're excessively sleepy, which is different from being fatigued. You're
Speaker 3: saying no, no, no, beyond fatigue. I can't read without
Speaker 3: falling asleep, A fall asleep watching shows. I don't go
Speaker 3: out on dates because always, not often, it makes me
Speaker 3: feel uncomfortable. So you're expressing a lot of drive to
Speaker 3: sleep despite adequate sleep. Sleep paralysis can come someings go
Speaker 3: along with it. An entity called cataplexy can go along
Speaker 3: with it. When somebody is wide awake, often feels some
Speaker 3: sort of emotional upset or elation. They're happy and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden feels paralyzed, like their knees want to buckle,
Speaker 3: or they can't hold their head up, or their hands
Speaker 3: become very limp. People have very vivid hallucinations as their
Speaker 3: falling asleeper waking up at a young woman with narcolepsy
Speaker 3: who had this hallucination that her husband was like rummaging
Speaker 3: around her underwear drawer, and so she confronted them the.
Speaker 2: Next morning and said, what were you looking for? Why
Speaker 2: were you under her door?
Speaker 3: He's like, I was not in your underwear drawer, and
Speaker 3: she's like, I'm certain that you were. He's like, honey,
Speaker 3: I would tell you if I were. I wasn't. And
Speaker 3: she came to understand that over time, she was having
Speaker 3: these very vivid hallucinations as she was waking up that
Speaker 3: really weren't real.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: So a lot of people with narclepsy struggle to discern
Speaker 3: reality and something that's not meaning. I thought I did
Speaker 3: a podcast with Ali, but I ran into her and
Speaker 3: she's like, no, we haven't done it. Yet it's coming
Speaker 3: up next week, so you start to doubt, did I
Speaker 3: pay the bill, did I have the conversation with my
Speaker 3: neighbor about barring the lawmow?
Speaker 2: Or did the podcast ever happen?
Speaker 3: They sort of live in this weird place in between
Speaker 3: reality and dreaming and have this difficulty understanding which was real.
Speaker 2: Are there any movies about sleep that you love or hate?
Speaker 3: Remember a movie called Insomnia? I think it was like
Speaker 3: with al Pacino and Robin Williams. That was thought was
Speaker 3: really interesting because it was mainly filmed in Alaska when
Speaker 3: it was always dark.
Speaker 2: I always thought that was kind of interesting. Are you
Speaker 2: doing okay? I mean you haven't been sleeping much, Detective Dormer,
Speaker 2: Another night up like this and you're really going to
Speaker 2: lose it. Don't worry. Well, you can sleep when you're dead.
Speaker 1: So this movie seems kind of scary but very al
Speaker 1: PACINOI that's my official scholarly review. Also, his character's name
Speaker 1: is Detective Dormer and it's about sleep. Dormer literally means
Speaker 1: sleep in French. I only watch a trailer, but if
Speaker 1: there is not a scene in this movie where two
Speaker 1: cops are like eating apple fritters in a squad car,
Speaker 1: being like, it's so weird that this movie is about
Speaker 1: sleep and your name literally means sleep. Then I refuse
Speaker 1: to see the film.
Speaker 3: Generally, Hollywood tends to treat things like narcolepsy as almost comical.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a funny character that every time something
Speaker 3: happens he falls over.
Speaker 2: Maybe the one that I would like the most is.
Speaker 3: Inception because it sort of touches on this idea of
Speaker 3: lucid dreaming, which I thought was really cool and really
Speaker 3: took it to a neat place. I think lucid dreaming
Speaker 3: is a fascinating topic, So maybe that's the one that
Speaker 3: would choose.
Speaker 4: Is lucid dreaming something you can choose to do. It's
Speaker 4: something that you can you can it's a skill. Now
Speaker 4: some people just do it if you've never had lucid dreams.
Speaker 4: So lucid dreaming is simply being aware that you're dreaming
Speaker 4: when you're dreaming.
Speaker 1: As long as I'm so horny for entomology in this episode.
Speaker 1: Lucid comes from the root word for light or clear,
Speaker 1: and it was coined by Dutch psychiatrist Frederick van Eden
Speaker 1: in a nineteen thirteen paper called A Study of Dreams
Speaker 1: so exploring free will in different states of consciousness was
Speaker 1: pretty progressive for an old and timing dude. But he
Speaker 1: also thought the demons cause nightmares, so.
Speaker 3: You know, and then dream control is sort of the
Speaker 3: next step of oh wow, I'm dreaming that I'm doing
Speaker 3: this thing. I'm staying on top of a building. Dream
Speaker 3: control would mean you could actually just control yourself jump
Speaker 3: off the building and then fly. So you can do it,
Speaker 3: and the way to do it is to really start
Speaker 3: becoming aware of your own reality. And so what I
Speaker 3: would do when I was going through this phase of
Speaker 3: trying it out and writing about it for this outlet,
Speaker 3: I would during the day, I would take my ring off,
Speaker 3: my wedding ring off.
Speaker 2: I would turn it around and look at.
Speaker 3: It and kind of look at my hands and say,
Speaker 3: this is a real thing I'm doing. I'm not dreaming,
Speaker 3: and that would put it back on. So I could
Speaker 3: actually do that mind as I drove or as I was
Speaker 3: talking to patients. And then what you start to do
Speaker 3: is you start to question reality in your dreams. And
Speaker 3: so what happened was I would have these dreams. I
Speaker 3: had one dream that I was going to a circus,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: and I would look at my hands and they were
Speaker 3: all distorted. I was like, this is a dream, I'm
Speaker 3: doing it, and that would wake up because I was
Speaker 3: so excited. But eventually you get to this place where
Speaker 3: you just kind of make it a habit to sort
Speaker 3: of question your reality throughout the day, and you bring
Speaker 3: that behavior into your dreams, and as you start to realize,
Speaker 3: oh wait, this isn't a dream, you can do a
Speaker 3: lot of really cool things. One is, look at your hands.
Speaker 3: Our brains do a very poor job of rendering our
Speaker 3: hands and our dreams, so you'll have like twelve fingers
Speaker 3: or like two massive monster fingers or something.
Speaker 1: So side note, I look this up and there's this
Speaker 1: whole wiki site and forum on lucid dreaming wherein people
Speaker 1: shared their weird finger experiences. Here are two of my favorites.
Speaker 1: One is I remember to do a reality check at
Speaker 1: my hands and realized that they're actually class. Another person said, quote,
Speaker 1: my fingers appeared jumbled as if I had no bones. Okay,
Speaker 1: so all Ward is no Edwardian era mental health professional,
Speaker 1: but I'm fairly certain that these people are just afflicted
Speaker 1: by demons.
Speaker 3: The other thing you can do is, like you know,
Speaker 3: pull your skin or push your finger into the palm
Speaker 3: of your hand. A lot of times it will pass
Speaker 3: through or your skin's very flexible. If you look down
Speaker 3: at your feet, your feet often don't touch the ground,
Speaker 3: which is probably where you're not to touch the earth.
Speaker 3: Your feet don't touch the ground. Our brain has trouble
Speaker 3: rendering our body in three dimensional space. It's really cool
Speaker 3: to look up at the ceiling of your house, which
Speaker 3: often looks like the sky. Everything when we look up
Speaker 3: typically looks dark. During the lucid dream, my favorite thing
Speaker 3: is try to find a mirror in your dream and
Speaker 3: look at your face.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely a total freak show. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It's cheaper than drugs too.
Speaker 3: I would imagine, so yeah, and it's and you can
Speaker 3: get better at it. I had a swim coach when
Speaker 3: my son's swim coaches told me one time he was
Speaker 3: such a good lucid dreamer that he could actually plan out.
Speaker 3: He could use the time and his dreams constructively. Like
Speaker 3: he would think, Okay, well, we're going to swim this
Speaker 3: team next week. I'm going to construct my relays this way.
Speaker 3: I'm going to actually sacrifice this relay because I don't
Speaker 3: think we would beat them anyway, and we'll put them
Speaker 3: in these events like so we have it all worked
Speaker 3: out by the time he woke up.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's really interesting. Yeah, that's billable hours.
Speaker 2: That's good. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And any flim flam you'd like to debunk anything, any
Speaker 1: myths that you wanted to dispel.
Speaker 3: Alcohol is terrible for your sleep. Have as much as
Speaker 3: you want to have it with breakfast.
Speaker 1: Do you want a mimosa?
Speaker 3: In general, you always tell people look sedation and sleep
Speaker 3: or two different things.
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, Heath led Er.
Speaker 3: A lot of people figured these things out the hard way,
Speaker 3: and it's always upsetting to me that I know people
Speaker 3: like that and people out there are going to people
Speaker 3: for help and it just seems to be this arms race.
Speaker 3: How much sedation can we give somebody, So be very
Speaker 3: careful with that.
Speaker 2: Ps.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of alcohol specifically, it can help sedate you
Speaker 1: into light sleep. But do you remember how rams sleep
Speaker 1: happens in the second part of the night, and it's
Speaker 1: the one that's restorative for your memory, it's good for
Speaker 1: your mood and concentration. So alcohol disrupts that it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the friend who leads you to a party
Speaker 1: and then ditches you there and the party sucks. Do
Speaker 1: not trust it. Alcohol can be kind of a dick
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 3: I think the idea that if you in your dreams,
Speaker 3: if you you're falling and you hit the ground, you die,
Speaker 3: I don't think that's the way the case at all.
Speaker 2: That's not true.
Speaker 3: I don't know. There's so many great questions. I feel
Speaker 3: like we've covered everything.
Speaker 1: What about What about things too, like counting sheep or
Speaker 1: the method where you breathe seven in four out.
Speaker 2: Absolutely So.
Speaker 1: This breathing exercise was developed by doctor Andrew Wheel who
Speaker 1: kind of cribbed it off of pranayama, which is an
Speaker 1: ancient technique. So that just you do this. You exhale
Speaker 1: completely through your mouth and you make a whoosh kind
Speaker 1: of sound, and then you close your lips and hail
Speaker 1: through your nose as you count to four in your head,
Speaker 1: So four count, hold the breath in for seven seconds,
Speaker 1: and then over the next eight count in your head,
Speaker 1: make a wishing exhale from your mouth. So you practice
Speaker 1: this pattern for four full breaths. You inhale for four,
Speaker 1: hold for seven exhale over eight. It's supposed to distract
Speaker 1: you from anxiety and calm your nervous system. You're breathing,
Speaker 1: you're getting oxygen, you're doing math. You're not thinking about
Speaker 1: whether or not the thing you bought for the office
Speaker 1: gift exchange was too cheap. But what's my mom's big
Speaker 1: insomnia trick?
Speaker 2: Here? It is? I feel like it deserves a soft
Speaker 2: drum roll.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, We're gonna call it the sleepy fancy nancy technique.
Speaker 1: My mom does this thing she taught me that works
Speaker 1: like a charm where you think of a category like fruits,
Speaker 1: or boys' names or electronics, and then you go with
Speaker 1: something that starts with a okay, apple b BlackBerry, see,
Speaker 1: and then you go down and I never make it
Speaker 1: past like ll, I'm out. But do you have anything
Speaker 1: else like that?
Speaker 2: I think that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Some sample categories you can use for this alphabet game
Speaker 1: types of fruit, boys' names, girls' names, gender neutral names, cities, snacks,
Speaker 1: vacation activities, clothing brands, cereals, items you would keep it
Speaker 1: a purse, animals, really anything. I've done so many of these.
Speaker 1: Let me know what some of your sleepy fancy Nancy
Speaker 1: categories are I'm here for them. I will probably use
Speaker 1: them next time I'm jet lagged in awake on the
Speaker 1: wrong coast, which will literally be tomorrow.
Speaker 3: So to me, what you're hitting on is something very
Speaker 3: important and without getting too crazy into it, as you
Speaker 3: get back to the idea of what insomnia is, it's
Speaker 3: really not the inability to sleep. But when people who
Speaker 3: have insomnia really start to struggle, they really start to
Speaker 3: try to sleep. If I'm sitting out watching television, I'm
Speaker 3: finishing up watching bats when Paradise, I can never make
Speaker 3: it to.
Speaker 2: The Rose finale because I always fall asleep. Katie, I
Speaker 2: accidentally called out the wrong name. I would like to
Speaker 2: extend to you the option of staying. I'll say, see
Speaker 2: how things go. Sure, thank you.
Speaker 3: But then I wake up, I get into bed and
Speaker 3: I can't fall asleep. Why is that, Doctor Winnis, Because
Speaker 3: when you're watching the Batcher, what are you trying to do?
Speaker 3: You're trying to figure out if Astrod is going to
Speaker 3: stick with this guy or she gonna dump him because
Speaker 3: he set a dog or whatever like.
Speaker 2: That's what you're trying to do.
Speaker 3: You're not trying to sleep when you go to bed
Speaker 3: and you turn the lights off. A lot of people
Speaker 3: suddenly really start to try to sleep. So you struck
Speaker 3: upon something that's very important. Give yourself a task that's
Speaker 3: not trying to sleep. You're kind of giving yourself sort
Speaker 3: of a complicated task. You're trying to visualize the letter
Speaker 3: of the alphabet. Okab, what's a fruit? Blueberry? Okay, great,
Speaker 3: see you. Let's tell way cherry. I guess so now
Speaker 3: you've decided you're not going to try to sleep. You're
Speaker 3: just gonna relax and name fruit or named boyfriends. We
Speaker 3: tell our professional athletes all the time. Look, when you
Speaker 3: go to bed, professional pitcher, I want you to throw
Speaker 3: thirty perfect pitches before you fall asleep. Oh wow, Visualize
Speaker 3: the stadium around you, your favorite catcher, you're on the mound, everything,
Speaker 3: your coat, your pitching coach shows you, your arm slot,
Speaker 3: your movement.
Speaker 2: Of the ball.
Speaker 3: Let go visualize the ball in real time, flying through
Speaker 3: the air and landing in your catcher's mitt. Look around,
Speaker 3: scratch yourself, catch the ball when he throws it back
Speaker 3: to you, and do it again.
Speaker 2: Once you do it thirty times, then you're allowed to
Speaker 2: fall asleep.
Speaker 3: What's so funny is they'll come back and say, man, Doc,
Speaker 3: you know I'm trying to do that thing you asked
Speaker 3: me to do and shoot those free throws before I
Speaker 3: go to bed, or throw those pitch before we go bed,
Speaker 3: and I can only throw about four or five pitches.
Speaker 3: The next thing an m alarm clocks going off, right,
Speaker 3: So I don't tell them. Well there, that's the point
Speaker 3: is that you know that I'm trying to get you
Speaker 3: away from this idea of let me think about trying
Speaker 3: to sleep, but oh no, I'm not asleep yet.
Speaker 2: What am we gonna do? And try to find something
Speaker 2: else to other?
Speaker 3: Cool thing is that when you pick an activity, So
Speaker 3: if you're somebody who is a pitcher or a basketball player,
Speaker 3: you like to do you like to run, or you
Speaker 3: do some sort of special skill, if you visualize yourself
Speaker 3: doing that at night, your brain doesn't differentiate practicing something
Speaker 3: and actually visualizing it that well. So if you're somebody
Speaker 3: who likes to, you know, play basketball, visualizing yourself shooting
Speaker 3: those free throws will make you a better ballplayer.
Speaker 2: So I love the idea that.
Speaker 3: Either way, even if you make it through your thirty
Speaker 3: free throws and want to do thirty more, it's not
Speaker 3: wasted time. There's a really cool device called Muse, which
Speaker 3: is a little headband or it's a pair of sunglasses
Speaker 3: that measures your brain activity and feeds it back to
Speaker 3: you through your earbuds.
Speaker 2: Is the form of like the sound of the rainforest.
Speaker 3: So when you sit there at lunch time, you finish
Speaker 3: up your lunch, you put your little Muse thing on,
Speaker 3: you do a little meditation session. You can practice the
Speaker 3: ability of quieting your mind down, so you can learn
Speaker 3: what it takes to make the sound of the ocean
Speaker 3: get really quiet, and then you think about your mother
Speaker 3: in law gets really loud again, so you can so
Speaker 3: now when you go to bed at night, you've gotten
Speaker 3: very good at this ability to quiet your mind, which
Speaker 3: either help you fall asleep or allows you to sort
Speaker 3: of assume this sort of meditative state, which by some studies.
Speaker 2: Is just as good as sleep. Wow.
Speaker 3: And the cool thing too, is I love this story
Speaker 3: you gave because you've got this little mechanism that gives
Speaker 3: you confidence, like you know what to do. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: get in bed, I'm gonna fall asleep usually no problem.
Speaker 3: But if I can't, I'll just do what you described.
Speaker 3: And what's funny is I was talking to a magazine
Speaker 3: editor one time. I was describing her the benefits of
Speaker 3: resting and how sleep's great, but resting is very good too.
Speaker 2: I just don't.
Speaker 3: Believe that, you know, even though you're telling me all
Speaker 3: his research. And I said, yeah, so if you just
Speaker 3: rest it all through the night, you'd be okay the
Speaker 3: next day. You wouldn't be perfect, but you wouldn't you know,
Speaker 3: the F word in my clinic is function.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't be dysfunctional.
Speaker 3: And she said, gosh, you know, why don't you do that,
Speaker 3: like prove it, Like why don't you just rest all
Speaker 3: night and write an article? But I was like, sure,
Speaker 3: I'll do that. I've been trying to write this for
Speaker 3: two years, very exactly what you said. I get in bed,
Speaker 3: I'm going to like, okay, I'm gonna I want to
Speaker 3: start off with state capitals. I'll start with Maine. I
Speaker 3: think it's Augusta, Maine. I think, is that right? And
Speaker 3: then you know, by the time I get to like Virginia,
Speaker 3: I'm out cold and long cart goes off. So I'm
Speaker 3: trying really hard to be in a dark room with
Speaker 3: my eyes closed, but not sleep.
Speaker 2: And it's amazing how quickly sleep comes and you try
Speaker 2: not to do it.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a very good parting words, Let's repeat that, and.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how quickly sleep comes and you try not
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: Now, what's your least favorite thing about your job? What
Speaker 1: sucks the most?
Speaker 3: What sucks the most about my job is? Uh, this
Speaker 3: is a great, great question. I'll step on my soapbox.
Speaker 3: I love treating patients. I love helping people sleep better.
Speaker 3: But in our current medical climate, it is very difficult.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to paint a sob story here, but
Speaker 3: it is very difficult for doctors to spend time with
Speaker 3: patients and get enough money from insurances to keep the
Speaker 3: lights on their clinic. I read an article in Forbes
Speaker 3: about how many doctors are literally living paycheck to paycheck,
Speaker 3: which was funny because one time my wife and I
Speaker 3: were watching The Bachelor, speaking of the Bachelor, and the
Speaker 3: host comes out and says, oh, and ladies, he's a doctor,
Speaker 3: and like all the ladies are, Oh, it's so great,
Speaker 3: and my wife literally audibly grown. She's like, Oh, it's
Speaker 3: not the cash cow you think it is. So but
Speaker 3: the issue really is that the biggest thing I struggle
Speaker 3: what sucks is that I don't feel like I have
Speaker 3: the time to devote to my patients sometimes because I've
Speaker 3: got to see a certain number of people to pay
Speaker 3: my office staff. Now, being able to lecture, being able
Speaker 3: to write a book and talk to people like you
Speaker 3: work with sports teams takes a tremendous pressure off of
Speaker 3: my clinic that a lot of practitioners, really good practitioners,
Speaker 3: don't have. So hopefully, you know, we'll be able to
Speaker 3: kind of work around this and make healthcare affordable but
Speaker 3: also allow doctors to practice their craft in a way
Speaker 3: that they can help patients and not feel like they
Speaker 3: got to see thirty patients in the day, right.
Speaker 2: I don't think patients like it either.
Speaker 3: They don't, And you know, I talk pretty freely about
Speaker 3: it with my patients, like if I'm late or running
Speaker 3: behind or whatnot. You always try to make sure that
Speaker 3: every patient can say what they want to say if
Speaker 3: it means I won't be a little bit late.
Speaker 2: And for most people, they're they're they're pretty patient.
Speaker 1: They're pretty patient. So thanks for your patients, patients. Oh fuck,
Speaker 1: do I.
Speaker 2: Have to do another etymology for this one? I do?
Speaker 1: I do. I can't not Okay, So I just looked
Speaker 1: this up and the root for both patients and patients
Speaker 1: is the Latin for suffering. So next time someone thanks
Speaker 1: you for your patients, they're saying literally, thank you for
Speaker 1: suffering for me, which is kind of endearingly emo. I
Speaker 1: like that patience and being able to suffer evidently is
Speaker 1: a virtue. And what's your favorite thing about your job?
Speaker 3: My favorite thing about my job is the idea that sleep.
Speaker 3: Everybody likes to talk about sleep, you know, sleep, and
Speaker 3: it's one of those things if I go to a party,
Speaker 3: introduce myself as a neurologist. You know, I got a
Speaker 3: grandmother's got parkins or whatever. But if you talk about sleep,
Speaker 3: everybody's got a story to tell. It's sort of this
Speaker 3: universal thing and I love to tease other doctors about.
Speaker 3: You know, I missed that article on Time magazine that
Speaker 3: said Mysteries of the spleen, you know, like in this
Speaker 3: poor guy's like devote his life to understanding the spleen.
Speaker 3: But you know, all time, I mean, there was a
Speaker 3: national geographic we subscribe to. Just recently there was back
Speaker 3: to back issues on athletic performance, which is near and
Speaker 3: dear to what I do and the next issue was sleep.
Speaker 2: I mean, people love it.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating, it's cool to talk about the brain's awesome.
Speaker 3: So you know, if you're like the toad doctor, the
Speaker 3: spleen doctor, it's not fair.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, I get it. It is not fair that.
Speaker 3: Media does not pay as much attention to you and
Speaker 3: all the awesome things that you're doing. So to me,
Speaker 3: it's just the diversity of different things you can do
Speaker 3: as sleep.
Speaker 2: Or so much fun.
Speaker 3: I get to talk to people like you and hang
Speaker 3: out and talk to a baseball picture. It's like every
Speaker 3: day is different, so much fun. Well, I'm so excited
Speaker 3: you did this. Thank you so so much.
Speaker 2: It's my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Time, so ask alert people all of your groggiest questions
Speaker 1: because it might change your whole life and your dreams.
Speaker 1: So once again, Doctor W. Chris Winters is at sportsleep
Speaker 1: Doc on Twitter W Chris Winter on Instagram. He runs
Speaker 1: the Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine Clinic in Charlottesville, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and his book is called The Sleep Solution, Why Your
Speaker 1: Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It. So if
Speaker 1: you like his voice, he also reads his own audiobook,
Speaker 1: I Have a copy of his book. I bought it
Speaker 1: legit style before even booking him. It's really funny, shockingly
Speaker 1: funny and down to earth and a really great read.
Speaker 1: But it's packed with tons of neuroscience and tips, so
Speaker 1: it's really good. Ologies is at ologies on Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1: I'm Ali Ward with one L on both. I'm also
Speaker 1: on did I mention Invention every Saturday morning on the CW.
Speaker 1: In case you want science content that's a little more polished,
Speaker 1: kid friendly, has zero f words or talk about butts,
Speaker 1: you can find Ologies merch at ologiesmerch dot com sales
Speaker 1: help support the making of the show and also helps
Speaker 1: you find other allgites in the wild. Perhaps you'll spot
Speaker 1: someone in a shirt. Thank you Shannon Feltis and Bonnietch
Speaker 1: who reached out to me after episode one to offer
Speaker 1: to help me make that a reality. Also thank you
Speaker 1: to the mystery person who sent me an envelope of
Speaker 1: cash in the mail to help support the show and
Speaker 1: signed it ken damn it, I mean Steve. I'm buying
Speaker 1: rechargeable batteries for the Zoom recorder like a sensible uncle would.
Speaker 1: The Ologies Facebook group is popping off full of kind,
Speaker 1: curious Funny People. Thank you to Aaron Talbert for helping
Speaker 1: run that. Thank you to Nick Thorburn for writing and
Speaker 1: performing the theme song, and of course, to Sleep Deprivation
Speaker 1: poster child Stephen Ray Morris for editing these episodes altogether.
Speaker 2: Okay, at the end of.
Speaker 1: The show on ologies, I tell you a secret, and
Speaker 1: this week's secret is that this morning I found three
Speaker 1: imasks aka pinned socks behind my bed. And my other
Speaker 1: secret is I had this epiphany the other day. Then,
Speaker 1: when it comes to doing things we've never done or
Speaker 1: are too scared to do, being scared of doing them
Speaker 1: and not doing them is way more painful than doing them.
Speaker 1: Even if you get it a little bit wrong and
Speaker 1: it's not perfect, you can always do it again. So
Speaker 1: I started a page in my notebook. I made myself
Speaker 1: write down all the things that I'm afraid to do,
Speaker 1: and I let them just kind of pour out of
Speaker 1: a pen, unjudged. And I was surprised that among them
Speaker 1: were say no, go to sleep for real. I actually
Speaker 1: wrote that, so please see part one on sleep procrastination.
Speaker 1: And then another item was do more live science and
Speaker 1: comedy events, so I will let you know how I
Speaker 1: do with tackling those, particularly the last one.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: Hello, It's twenty twenty two, Ali word, And I will
Speaker 1: tell you I'm not doing great on the live events.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that much because when I recorded this
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, I was not aware that there was
Speaker 1: a cute little virus on the horizon just cackling all
Speaker 1: tiny at me. So maybe not so many live events
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, but we'll see. Also, again,
Speaker 1: thank you for being such sweety peace about my family situation.
Speaker 1: If you've been missing any updates. Your belived Grandpap, the
Speaker 1: original dad of Ward, has reached a bit of a
Speaker 1: bend in the road with cancer, and after emergency brain
Speaker 1: surgery last month, his doctors have told him it's time
Speaker 1: to just rest and stop treatment and just enjoy what's left.
Speaker 1: So we've had a few encore episodes while I sit
Speaker 1: on the couch across from him and we just give
Speaker 1: him anything he wants to eat, and we watch the
Speaker 1: Warriors play basketball and we tell him we love him
Speaker 1: a lot. So that is up right now with the
Speaker 1: House of Ward. But we've got some new episodes we've recorded.
Speaker 1: We're just working on him slowly behind the scenes as
Speaker 1: we prioritize other stuff, and that's why we've run on
Speaker 1: course the last couple weeks, So thanks for bearing with us.
Speaker 1: All right, back to life advice from twenty eighteen, And
Speaker 1: if you have a few minutes and a piece of
Speaker 1: paper and a writing utensil, will just make yourself write
Speaker 1: down what you're a little afraid to do, because it
Speaker 1: might surprise you what you write down, and maybe just
Speaker 1: give you a little gentle kick in the tush to
Speaker 1: do them, because it's so much worse to hold back
Speaker 1: than it is to do to try and fail again,
Speaker 1: So we might as well just do things as long
Speaker 1: as we're live, right, Okay, So that's.
Speaker 2: My secret for you this week.
Speaker 1: I'll let you know how I'm doing on those and meanwhile.
Speaker 5: Kiss him, sleep cool, snooze in okay, Bye bye pacadermatology,
Speaker 5: hobbiology or doe zoology, lithology, theology, meteorology, ecatology, ethnology, seriologyology
Speaker 2: Wize everybody, everybody e