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Speaker 4: Oh hey, it's still your little step brother who tries
Speaker 4: to trade you their calcified banana flavor now and Laters
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Speaker 5: How dare you?
Speaker 4: That's not all life works? Ali Ward back for the
Speaker 4: second half of some Knowlogy. Did you listen to part
Speaker 4: one yet? Deep sleep versus rem versus ram versus light sleep?
Speaker 4: Which is the ug which is the glittery dress loafer.
Speaker 4: Do you regularly disco with the night Hag. How loocid
Speaker 4: is your property brothers experience to see D three po
Speaker 4: give you PTSD. If you have no idea what I'm
Speaker 4: talking about, I've exposed you as having skipped part one,
Speaker 4: So go listen to part one.
Speaker 5: Part two will be here for you.
Speaker 4: When you're done, it will make way more sense. Come on, Okay,
Speaker 4: so part twurs. It's just us now we get it.
Speaker 4: We have the basics on how sleep works, what happens
Speaker 4: when we don't have enough of it, and what our
Speaker 4: brain waves do, and why insomnia is a product of
Speaker 4: fear and anxiety. But this episode answers Patreon questions to
Speaker 4: help you get better sleep and includes yes, this secret
Speaker 4: insomnia buster from your pod, dad's mom, your pod nana
Speaker 4: fancy Nancy board. So I'm earnestly so excited to share
Speaker 4: it because I swear it works so.
Speaker 3: Well for me.
Speaker 4: Okay, but before we get to the episode, a few
Speaker 4: things we always do and you know it really quick,
Speaker 4: Los Angelinos if you happen to me in Alano. Member third,
Speaker 4: there is a comedy benefit for multiple maloma research if
Speaker 4: you listen to the hematology episode with doctor Brian Durry,
Speaker 4: which was all about blood and multiple maloma, which is
Speaker 4: a cancer that my dad has. This is a great
Speaker 4: way to support. It's a comedy benefit, so it's a
Speaker 4: whole comedy show. It's hosted by Kevin Neilan and Natasha
Speaker 4: la Jarro, Cristella Alonzo, Jim Jeffries, Gabriel Iglesis, Sashar Zamata,
Speaker 4: Shanta Wan's are all performing and I'll be there just
Speaker 4: hosting the Red Carpet live stream. But to get started
Speaker 4: at fifty bucks and they are available at comedy dot
Speaker 4: Mieloma dot org. You can also go to my instagram
Speaker 4: and I have a link to their instagram there. Okay,
Speaker 4: so thank you to everyone who supports on patreon dot
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Speaker 4: an episode gets you into that club. You get to
Speaker 4: hear what episodes I'm working on. You can submit questions.
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Speaker 4: Thanks to everyone who gets pins and shirts and hats
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Speaker 4: Spread the word also by star rating on iTunes or
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Speaker 4: like notes from the feedback fairy. And to prove it,
Speaker 4: here's a fresh one I just plucked. Great Dad Jokes
Speaker 4: wrote in If Bill Ny, the Science Guy and Dirty
Speaker 4: Jobs had a love child, it would be this podcast.
Speaker 4: It takes a deep dive into a variety of specialties,
Speaker 4: but explains things in a way that makes you super
Speaker 4: excited about things you never thought you would get excited about,
Speaker 4: like bugs, anatomy, and primate butts. Great dad Jokes, you
Speaker 4: get it.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay, So Somenology Part two, let's get your questions with
Speaker 4: Virginia based neurologist Sleep Whisperer, author of the Sleep Solution,
Speaker 4: Why your Sleep is Broken and how to Fix It,
Speaker 4: and of course somenologist doctor W Chris Winter. Can we
Speaker 4: do a rapid fire around? Oh yeah, I'm absolutely okay.
Speaker 4: So I asked for questions on Patreon. As I do,
Speaker 4: I say, patrons, hit me with your questions, and typically
Speaker 4: I get fifty to eighty questions.
Speaker 5: Maybe. Wow, I got two hundred and fifty five questions.
Speaker 3: Wow, all right.
Speaker 4: Twenty five pages worth of questions. Clearly we're not going
Speaker 4: to hit them all here we go.
Speaker 5: So I'm just going to run through.
Speaker 4: Megan Yonce wants to know why do some people have
Speaker 4: different circadian rhythms?
Speaker 6: So, Meghan, that is a genetic trait you probably inherited
Speaker 6: from your mother and father as either being a night
Speaker 6: owl or what we call delayed sleep phase or a
Speaker 6: morning person a morning larco. So probably the simple question
Speaker 6: is you acquired it from a parent. Now it is modifiable,
Speaker 6: so there may be aspects in your life that allowed
Speaker 6: you to change it. But to me, I think it's
Speaker 6: a trait like eye color that we can work to overcome.
Speaker 3: But it's kind of always there and I'm a leave it.
Speaker 3: Just sell it as an aside that our sleep need.
Speaker 3: How much sleep do we need?
Speaker 6: And our timing is Megan's describing when do we like
Speaker 6: at night or late or early tends to push us
Speaker 6: into certain careers.
Speaker 3: Teacher likes to.
Speaker 6: Wake up early in the morning, maybe needs a little
Speaker 6: bit more sleep, more consistency in their life. So and
Speaker 6: night ouls tend to travel better, deal with jet lag better,
Speaker 6: and by some studies, are smarter and interesting.
Speaker 5: Really, I didn't know that this kind of the follow
Speaker 5: up question to that.
Speaker 4: Paul Hawk and a few other people asked, I was
Speaker 4: a lifelong night owl and I just woke up one
Speaker 4: morning a morning person.
Speaker 5: How does that happen?
Speaker 3: Well, Paul, that's interesting. I don't know. For me.
Speaker 6: A lot of times things that I've involved in my
Speaker 6: life can push me one way or the other. One
Speaker 6: is like exercise first thing in the morning. I was
Speaker 6: training for like a trathlon a long time ago and
Speaker 6: meeting a group of people.
Speaker 3: To do it really early, and I hated it. I
Speaker 3: dreaded it.
Speaker 6: But after a few weeks I was waking up like
Speaker 6: at four point fifty five in the morning, an hour
Speaker 6: or five minutes before my longclock went off, and felt
Speaker 6: really good and was long asleep at ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 6: So it can be certain things in your life, or
Speaker 6: as our bodies mature, we tend to become less night
Speaker 6: oriented in general and more morning orient. So, you know,
Speaker 6: the high typical school student stays up at three o'clock
Speaker 6: in the morning watching YouTube videos, wants to sleep until
Speaker 6: two o'clock in the afternoon's really upset with mom when
Speaker 6: she comes in and opens up the blinds before lunchtime.
Speaker 6: And then you look at Grandma and Grandpa living down
Speaker 6: in Sarasota. They get the nutribullet out at three o'clock
Speaker 6: in the morning making kale smoothies, and you're like, Grandma, well,
Speaker 6: my god, what are you doing. It's three o'clock in
Speaker 6: the morning. I know this is when I wake up,
Speaker 6: isn't it great? So we have a tendency to move
Speaker 6: towards that as we get older. So maybe Paul has
Speaker 6: just moved there very quickly.
Speaker 4: So side note, like Paul, I too have recently come
Speaker 4: to enjoy waking up early when I do it, and
Speaker 4: I thought this meant like I have finally gotten my
Speaker 4: shit together. It's happened. But Paul, it looks like it
Speaker 4: just means we're old and marching ever closer to death.
Speaker 4: So we win some we lose somebody. I don't know
Speaker 4: what to tell you.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 4: The steely blue gloaming and the morning mist belongs to
Speaker 4: the old. So come join our wise wrinkle party Let's
Speaker 4: Little spoons at seven am over our third cup of
Speaker 4: percolated foltures. Tyler Ke wants to know is it possible
Speaker 4: to tell the exact point someone starts being asleep or
Speaker 4: is it just a gradual blurring of lines into unconsciousness.
Speaker 6: So you can see it on a sleep study, and
Speaker 6: there is a sense of gradual. So when you look
Speaker 6: at the brain activity, what you start to see is
Speaker 6: a slowing of the brain activity. The eye movements that
Speaker 6: characterize wakefulness becomes slow and rolling. So the answer is
Speaker 6: generally over about a thirty second period. That's how we
Speaker 6: score sleep. We look at thirty seconds of sleep at
Speaker 6: a time, and when you start to see a predominance
Speaker 6: of that intermixing of sleep with the with the light wakefulness,
Speaker 6: that's when we say sleep happens. So it's a it's
Speaker 6: a gradient, but it's a very short gradient for most people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thirty seconds is pretty short.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you could you could see it very clearly.
Speaker 6: It's not hard to find skype.
Speaker 4: A scientist wants to know why do some people make
Speaker 4: weird noises as they're falling asleep and what can we
Speaker 4: do to stop them from doing it or what can
Speaker 4: they do to stop doing it.
Speaker 3: That's a tough one.
Speaker 6: So one of my favorite weird noises at night is
Speaker 6: a phenomenon called catithrinium, which is a prolonged expiratory moan.
Speaker 5: Ps.
Speaker 4: Thanks Jay Leidiker for creeping on your vulnerable sleeping boyfriend
Speaker 4: and putting it on YouTube. So thirty six thousand strangers
Speaker 4: and counting could enjoy what sounds like a constipated puppy
Speaker 4: or a very frustrated porcupine struggling to understand tax paperwork.
Speaker 6: So for a lot of people when they go to bed,
Speaker 6: this is super super fun that you know, when you
Speaker 6: find out the person you've committed your life to does this,
Speaker 6: they will actually kind of take a b breath in
Speaker 6: and all the things that I go.
Speaker 3: Kind of like a foghorn all night long.
Speaker 6: So these can be There's also somemiloquy, which is sleep talking,
Speaker 6: which can be sort of gibberish or it can actually be,
Speaker 6: you know, fully formed sentences that people have no idea
Speaker 6: what they're talking about. These things can be treated. Often
Speaker 6: there's underlying sleep problems that are causing them. So if
Speaker 6: you can figure out the underlying sleep problem, like with
Speaker 6: the sleep study, you can sometimes get rid of the
Speaker 6: underlying You can get rid of the sound that the
Speaker 6: patient's making, but they can be kind of difficult to
Speaker 6: get rid of. Sometimes, what can the underlying problems be
Speaker 6: so for instance, like sleep sleep talking. A lot of
Speaker 6: times what happens is and individuals sleeping along, they'll have
Speaker 6: a little breathing disturbance and as they kind of they
Speaker 6: kind of wake up, they're conscious enough to have a conversation.
Speaker 6: One time, my wife woke up in the middle of
Speaker 6: the night and said, we've been watching the X Files,
Speaker 6: this show a long time ago. Much as you try
Speaker 6: to bury it, the truth is out there. She woke
Speaker 6: up and said, hey, you just go out there and
Speaker 6: go those dead bodies off the law and real quick.
Speaker 6: And I was like, what are you talking about? And
Speaker 6: then she would get real upset with you if you
Speaker 6: tried to rationalize what she was talking about. So I
Speaker 6: figured out very quickly the best thing would be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: I'll be alright, bye, I will take care of that.
Speaker 6: She'd fall asleep and not remember anything about it the
Speaker 6: next day. So, you know, but a lot of times
Speaker 6: you would hear like a little breathing hiccup that would
Speaker 6: kind of wake her up. It could be a little
Speaker 6: acid reflux, it could be a little a random leg movement,
Speaker 6: you know, coughing fit. And there's lots of things that
Speaker 6: can do it that would wake people up to do it,
Speaker 6: even seizures. There's a great video one time of a
Speaker 6: young woman who was very you know, sort of proper
Speaker 6: and you know, raised right as my parents would call it,
Speaker 6: who would wake up in the night and just say
Speaker 6: awful things, curse, make these very vile sexual references.
Speaker 5: Ps.
Speaker 4: I tried to find a clip of this video, but
Speaker 4: googling quote woman obscenities in sleep only turned up a
Speaker 4: ton of gross tutorials about how to sleep with women.
Speaker 4: And scrolling through this deluge of pickup artist DIY videos
Speaker 4: made me too sad to keep looking.
Speaker 6: So sorry, I had no recollection doing it the next day,
Speaker 6: and it turns out she was having seizures just at
Speaker 6: night and that was the manifestation of the seizure.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just thought she was a rude girl.
Speaker 3: Rude girl, that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she got that treated. But I also hope, like,
Speaker 4: let her be herself, you know what she's like.
Speaker 5: You know what I'll learn from that.
Speaker 3: To freak fagfly sister, that's right.
Speaker 4: Bob Carlton asked, and we kind of touched on this
Speaker 4: a little bit earlier. I've heard that it used to
Speaker 4: be common for folks to wake in the middle of
Speaker 4: the night, do some reading, and then go back to
Speaker 4: sleep for the rest of the night, basically bisecting nightly sleep.
Speaker 5: Is this something that really happened and we should bring
Speaker 5: it back?
Speaker 6: It did happen, and if it's a bit of a
Speaker 6: denser read, but it is absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 3: A guy named Roger Eric wrote this book.
Speaker 6: It's like a Day's End or at Night's End or
Speaker 6: something like that. It's a journey into the history of
Speaker 6: sleep or something like that. I've always butchered the title.
Speaker 6: I really apologized because it's such a good book.
Speaker 3: I shouldn't do that.
Speaker 4: Okay, the real title is at Day's Close Night in
Speaker 4: Times Past by a Roger Eckerch. I'm going to admit it.
Speaker 4: That does not roll off the tongue. So I get
Speaker 4: why Doctor Winter could not figure that out. But it's
Speaker 4: all about what happened during nighttime in pre industrialized eras,
Speaker 4: from like masquerade balls to crime, to inns and taverns
Speaker 4: and brothels, yarns, spinning circles. And I feel like now
Speaker 4: I need an episode on nocturnology maybe to shine some
Speaker 4: light on the topic. Okay, Doctor Winter explains.
Speaker 6: But he writes about sort of sleep throughout antiquity, and
Speaker 6: there was sort of this first sleep and second sleep.
Speaker 6: We would go to bed when the sun went down,
Speaker 6: we would sleep, we'd wake up. We'd walk around at
Speaker 6: night and greet neighbors and fall in holes that we
Speaker 6: didn't see in these passages that he's found during I
Speaker 6: think it took him years to write this book. And
Speaker 6: you read a page and you almost have to close
Speaker 6: the book and just think about, oh my god, it's
Speaker 6: so cool that people used to do that. So should
Speaker 6: we bring back I don't know that we should voluntarily
Speaker 6: bring it back, but I do think it does provide
Speaker 6: a little bit of this idea of hey, look, if
Speaker 6: you want to have a siesta during the day and
Speaker 6: break your wakefulness period up in a little spot of sleep,
Speaker 6: I think that's okay. And some would argue natural. I
Speaker 6: think it's okay. If your night period is broken up
Speaker 6: by a little period of wakefulness, that's not a big deal.
Speaker 6: You know what is insomnia. It's not a person who
Speaker 6: can't sleep. It's a person who can't sleep when they
Speaker 6: want to. That's part A. Part B is you have
Speaker 6: to have an emotional response to it. So if waking
Speaker 6: up in the night is kind of a fun thing
Speaker 6: for you and you don't you don't mind it, then
Speaker 6: I think it's perfectly, perfectly fine and a great way
Speaker 6: to sort of view an awakening during the night.
Speaker 3: It's not the end of the world. Just your wait,
Speaker 3: go with it.
Speaker 4: And it doesn't do the kind of damage that like
Speaker 4: a C three PO alarm clock on your butt would do.
Speaker 6: Very different terrifying screaming We'll doomed, you know, going off
Speaker 6: over and over.
Speaker 3: It made the craziest sounds. I'm like, God, I can't leave.
Speaker 3: We do that to people. C three P I always
Speaker 3: thought was funny.
Speaker 6: I was like, if we had had R two D
Speaker 6: two probably been better, But this random robot and screaming
Speaker 6: at you at three in the morning was was often
Speaker 6: just what people needed to wake themselves from a deep
Speaker 6: sleep immediately.
Speaker 4: Again, if you missed part one, the midnight terror of
Speaker 4: a mechanical C three PO does await you, But you
Speaker 4: got a lot of people who ended up not liking
Speaker 4: Star Wars after that.
Speaker 3: To be honest, it's right this kind of visceral response
Speaker 3: to the nude movies.
Speaker 4: LEVI like the jeans and Ron Smith both asked about
Speaker 4: shift work that it's awful for your health and what
Speaker 4: can you do to negate the negative effects of that?
Speaker 6: Levi and the other individual are absolutely right, ron or right.
Speaker 6: The thing that terrifies me the most about sleep and
Speaker 6: sleep science is not insomnia. It's not the person who
Speaker 6: went eighteen months without sleeping. It's the person who is
Speaker 6: the shift worker who thinks that they're doing okay with
Speaker 6: the fact that they work a day job and also
Speaker 6: have a night job to make ends meet. And these
Speaker 6: are the conversation we have our clinic. I really think
Speaker 6: you shouldn't be doing this. Great, you're gonna pick a
Speaker 6: mortgage doctor.
Speaker 3: Winner and no, I can't do that, Okay, then shut up.
Speaker 6: So we do often get into a position of they
Speaker 6: almost feel like they don't have a choice. And the
Speaker 6: World Health Organization classifies shift work is a class two
Speaker 6: a carcynogen. Now, I think it's incredibly devastating to our health.
Speaker 4: So real quick, what is shift work exactly? I wanted
Speaker 4: a clear definition, so I asked the internet. Now, according
Speaker 4: to the National Sleep Foundation, shift work is work that
Speaker 4: takes place on a schedule outside the traditional nine to
Speaker 4: five every day, so it can involve evening or night shifts,
Speaker 4: maybe early morning shifts, rotating shifts, And yes, the World
Speaker 4: Health Organization does classify shift work as a car synogen.
Speaker 4: So if you heard the Surgical Oncology episode about breast
Speaker 4: cancer and it's concern, the stats say that women whose
Speaker 4: work involves night shifts have a forty eight percent increased
Speaker 4: risk of developing breast cancer. Prostate cancer risk is also elevated,
Speaker 4: along with a host of other cancers medical ailments. Now,
Speaker 4: according to my good friend Wikipedia, this may be due
Speaker 4: to alterations in circadian rhythm. So melatonin is a known
Speaker 4: tumor suppressor and it's generally produced at night, so late
Speaker 4: shifts may disrupt the production of it. And one study
Speaker 4: I read reported that the underlying pathophysiological mechanism, which just
Speaker 4: means why does this happen though, is that exposure to
Speaker 4: light and darkness at weird times leads to disruption of
Speaker 4: normal sleep wake rhythms. It's called chronodisruption. It means I'm
Speaker 4: sleeping at the wrong times. My brain is confused. So
Speaker 4: it's like, who's afraid of the dark, Who's afraid of falling?
Speaker 4: A sleep of the lights on? That seems more dangerous now,
Speaker 4: But what can shift work, like doctor Winter himself experienced
Speaker 4: during his medical residency due to a human When.
Speaker 6: You look at individuals who are engaged in shift work,
Speaker 6: we know that they have much more difficulty with their weight,
Speaker 6: much more difficulty with the blood pressure, more heart attacks,
Speaker 6: more strokes, more mistwork, more GI issues, more psychological issues.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's just a very difficult thing to sustain.
Speaker 6: I remember when I was in residency, when we were
Speaker 6: talking about that, you know, a while back, that I
Speaker 6: felt that I was clearly at my most unhealthy point
Speaker 6: in my life and if this were my job, this
Speaker 6: is what I'll do for the next thirty years. I
Speaker 6: don't know that I felt like I would have lost
Speaker 6: ten years of my life. And I look back at
Speaker 6: even my kids when we look back at pictures of myself.
Speaker 3: During that time. Thank god, we didn't have a lot
Speaker 3: of digital cameras around at that time.
Speaker 6: But the pictures that we do have my kids are like,
Speaker 6: oh god, Dad looks terrible, pasty white, just looks really unhealthy.
Speaker 6: And I think it's because I was so If you're
Speaker 6: a shift worker, talked to a sleep specialist. There are
Speaker 6: medications that can help alleviate that, And I would say
Speaker 6: the other thing too is to talk to your employer
Speaker 6: about ways you can make the shift work more humane.
Speaker 6: I mean, hopefully you're working for somebody says, look, I
Speaker 6: don't care how you do it, we just need to
Speaker 6: cover these shifts. There's ways you can construct your work environment.
Speaker 6: There's ways you can construct you can construct the way
Speaker 6: that shifts move from day to day that are a
Speaker 6: lot easier on a body than others, And a lot
Speaker 6: of times it's a matter of doing a little bit
Speaker 6: of research or talking to somebody about.
Speaker 3: How ways to make that better.
Speaker 6: The other thing, too, is you try to work towards
Speaker 6: not being a shift worker. I mean it sounds really
Speaker 6: flip by being very genuine and that even if you
Speaker 6: like it, and there's a lot of things to like
Speaker 6: about shift work, you know, working at night for some people,
Speaker 6: there's not a lot of administration around. You just show
Speaker 6: up and do your work. It's kind of quiet, and
Speaker 6: some people feel good at that time. But just understand,
Speaker 6: just because you're good at doing it and you like it,
Speaker 6: doesn't necessarily mean it's probably a really good thing for
Speaker 6: your body.
Speaker 5: Got It same for jobs that involve a lot of
Speaker 5: jet lag asking for a friend.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Again, there are things you can do to treat
Speaker 6: jet lag.
Speaker 3: There's some really cool goggles that you can.
Speaker 6: Wear that shine green light into your eyes that kind
Speaker 6: of your brain circadian rhythm, and a lot of them
Speaker 6: have these old jet like calculators associate with them. So
Speaker 6: if you're getting ready to go to Stalkholm for three
Speaker 6: days and then over to Brussels and then back home
Speaker 6: to New York, you can use these lights at certain
Speaker 6: times of the day to help you acclimate more quickly
Speaker 6: to that.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I got a lot of questions. Corynavis, Sophia Garbo's,
Speaker 4: g X, Barnett, Paula Hawk, Katie Spino, Maria Kumro, Abigail Campbell,
Speaker 4: and Moore all asked how can some people sleep for
Speaker 4: five or six hours and feel fine and other people
Speaker 4: need eight or ten? Like why do some people seem
Speaker 4: to need less?
Speaker 6: So that once again kind of goes back to the
Speaker 6: earlier question about how come some people are night oriented
Speaker 6: and some people are day oriented. So when you think
Speaker 6: about your sleep, everybody's listening to this has a certain
Speaker 6: amount of sleep that they need that's individual to them.
Speaker 6: Not only that, but it's also individual to you at
Speaker 6: that time. So if you're a twenty year old, that
Speaker 6: time might change when you're a seventy year old. So
Speaker 6: not only do we have a time that we need
Speaker 6: or a duration we need, but we also have a timing.
Speaker 6: So those are the two variables I want you to
Speaker 6: think about. And so the answer to the question is,
Speaker 6: there are some people out there who need eight hours
Speaker 6: of sleep, and we talk a lot about that in the media,
Speaker 6: being sort of an average. I think the average is
Speaker 6: probably closer to seven to seven and a half, but
Speaker 6: we can agree to disagree. So whatever that average is,
Speaker 6: it is an average. So when you're planning your picnic,
Speaker 6: there might be a statistic out there that says the
Speaker 6: average picnic attendantly two hot dogs and a hamburger. That
Speaker 6: is awesome information to have as you are buying your
Speaker 6: supplies because now you've got a little bit of an
Speaker 6: algorithm for figuring out how to feed people. Now, that
Speaker 6: does not mean that every person who walks to your
Speaker 6: pick comes to your picnic, is going to heat two
Speaker 6: hot dogs and a hamburger. So we need to get
Speaker 6: outside of this idea that eight hours of sleep is
Speaker 6: somehow magical it is if.
Speaker 3: That's what you need.
Speaker 6: But if you're somebody who needs six and a half
Speaker 6: hours of sleep, seeking eight is going to create an
Speaker 6: hour and a half of dead time. That's going to
Speaker 6: be very unpleasant to you and might even be interpreted
Speaker 6: as being insomnia. Well, I'm trying to get my eight hours,
Speaker 6: doctor Winter. I go to bed at ten o'clock and
Speaker 6: it takes me like an hour to hour and a
Speaker 6: half to fall asleep every night.
Speaker 3: Is driving me crazy.
Speaker 6: My first question I always ask people like that is
Speaker 6: why have you chosen ten o'clock is your bedtime? And
Speaker 6: they look at you like I really never thought about that,
Speaker 6: sort of like saying, my lunch time is at ten
Speaker 6: thirty am. Wow, tell me about your lunch. Well, like
Speaker 6: ten thirty, I leave my office, I go to the restaurant,
Speaker 6: I sit down, the waitress comes, she says, what would
Speaker 6: you like? I say, I'm not that hungry, and she
Speaker 6: keeps coming back and coming back and coming back. Finally,
Speaker 6: around twelve thirty, I say I'll take a chicken sandwich please,
Speaker 6: Like that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Nobody does that. The waitress at some point it's gonna.
Speaker 6: Say, honey, leave, why do you keep coming at ten
Speaker 6: thirty and just sitting there taking at my booth, like
Speaker 6: go shop or go do some work and come back
Speaker 6: when you are hungry. So you know, for the person
Speaker 6: who asked the question about sleep duration, we're all different.
Speaker 6: So if you're getting six and a half hours of
Speaker 6: sleep and you feel great and you don't feel like
Speaker 6: falling asleep in movies or in meetings or things of
Speaker 6: that nature, you're probably doing exactly what your body needs
Speaker 6: to be healthy.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's good to know.
Speaker 4: Travis carry, Julie Noble and others asked backsider stomach, which
Speaker 4: is best and why?
Speaker 6: So it depends on how you define best. Most people
Speaker 6: would describe sleeping on your left side as being best
Speaker 6: because number one, our body's blood return comes mainly through
Speaker 6: the rights of our body if we're engineered correctly. So
Speaker 6: there's a thought that if you sleep predominant on your
Speaker 6: right side, you kind of compress that passive return of
Speaker 6: blood to your body, which can be especially important for
Speaker 6: pregnant women. So left side sort of alleviates that our
Speaker 6: airways want to collapse more when we sleep on our back,
Speaker 6: so sleeping on your side puts our airway in a
Speaker 6: little bit more of a favorable position. Although kids have
Speaker 6: big tonsils, sometimes it doesn't, but for an adult that
Speaker 6: works out well. The problem with sleeping on your side
Speaker 6: is orthopedically, a lot of people find that it hurts
Speaker 6: their shoulders, it hurts their hips or knees to sleep
Speaker 6: on their side, So orthopedically the best position to sleep
Speaker 6: is on your back. So the answer to the question is,
Speaker 6: if you're saying from a sleep perspective, I would say
Speaker 6: left side or on your back with your head somewhat
Speaker 6: elevated to keep your airway more open. But you know,
Speaker 6: there's all kinds of studies about sleeping positions. If you're
Speaker 6: worried about wrinkles, or you're a woman with larger breasts
Speaker 6: and you're worried about them sagging, then you really shouldn't
Speaker 6: be sleeping on your side or your stomach. It should
Speaker 6: be back all the way, keeps our skin looking healthier,
Speaker 6: keeps our bodies looking more tone. So it really depends
Speaker 6: on what you mean by which is best. So I
Speaker 6: would say, in my world, left side of your body
Speaker 6: is probably the best. On some sort of mattress that
Speaker 6: maybe eliminates that kind of pressure feeling from your joints.
Speaker 5: Okay, what about on your face?
Speaker 6: Sleeping on your face is tough. I mean a lot
Speaker 6: of people sleep on their stomach. It's fairly rare to
Speaker 6: find somebody who's a stomach sleeper who likes their face
Speaker 6: into the pillow. It's a little dangerous. But they do
Speaker 6: make pillows that kind of are almost like the little massage.
Speaker 6: When you have a massage and your face down, you
Speaker 6: have your little face in a little doughnut hole or whatever.
Speaker 6: So they do make pillows that facilitate that. I would
Speaker 6: say that you know, if you're going to sleep on
Speaker 6: your face is try to make sure you're not eliminiting
Speaker 6: the amount of air that you're getting or whatnot, or
Speaker 6: just gently turn your head to one side or the other.
Speaker 4: Okay, good to know. Yeah, asking for a quote, friend,
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure I sleep on my face. Okay, quick aside.
Speaker 4: Also on sleep apnea, there are a few different types
Speaker 4: with different causes. But how do you know if you
Speaker 4: might have it? Okay? Do any of these sound like you?
Speaker 4: Daytime sleepiness or fatigue, unrefreshing sleep insomnia, perhaps morning headaches.
Speaker 5: Okay, here's what you do.
Speaker 4: You throw a lavish slumber party and then over cereal
Speaker 4: the next morning, you just hand out questionnaires to your
Speaker 4: friends asking if they heard any loud or frequent snoring,
Speaker 4: silent pauses, and breathing or choking or gasping sounds. Or
Speaker 4: you could just request a sleep study. If the doc like, yep,
Speaker 4: you gots it, they might work out some treatment that
Speaker 4: involves lifestyle changes like ditching booze or cigarettes, maybe losing weight,
Speaker 4: side sleeping, or mouthpieces. Some folks have to get surgery
Speaker 4: for sleep apnea, or use a breathing device like a seapap,
Speaker 4: which stands for a continuous positive airwave pressure because it
Speaker 4: forces air past any floppy throat obstructions you might have.
Speaker 4: I was doing some digging and it may not be
Speaker 4: a cure all for everyone, but tons of folks who
Speaker 4: have finally treated their sleep apnea with a seapap say
Speaker 4: it's life changing. And also, if I were not busy
Speaker 4: making this podcast, I would go into the side business
Speaker 4: of aftermarket medical equipment and sell SEAPAP upgrades that look
Speaker 4: like glistening face huggers from Alien or maybe bane masks.
Speaker 3: Oh you think dog loses your.
Speaker 4: Allie Shannon has three questions, but I'm going to ask, well,
Speaker 4: they're all good.
Speaker 5: Can you dive from sleep deprivation?
Speaker 3: Yes or no?
Speaker 6: Yes, but it's not something that you would be able
Speaker 6: to do yourself, meaning you'd have to employ friends with
Speaker 6: you know, stun.
Speaker 3: Guns and cattle prods.
Speaker 6: So, and the reason I'm saying that is because there
Speaker 6: are people out there who have insomnia who feel like
Speaker 6: they're not sleeping, that the fear of the situation creates
Speaker 6: the situation. So I would say to this person, you
Speaker 6: are in no danger of not sleeping. In fact, even
Speaker 6: people who come to our clinic and I said, well
Speaker 6: you have to have a sleep study. Why I can't
Speaker 6: sleep in my inn bed? How can I sleep in
Speaker 6: a sleep study? I always tell them why you go
Speaker 6: to the sleep center. They're gonna look all these wires
Speaker 6: up to you, and I want you.
Speaker 3: To lie in bed. I do not want you to sleep.
Speaker 6: Just lie there awake like you normally do, for seven
Speaker 6: or eight hours and we'll see what happens. Nobody ever
Speaker 6: does it. In fact, they actually sleep more, you know,
Speaker 6: than they do at home. They'll come back and say
Speaker 6: I told you I didn't sleep, and I'll hear you
Speaker 6: slept for six hours and thirteen minutes. Whenever I showed
Speaker 6: a judge her video, and she said, oh my god,
Speaker 6: I really thought that I was awake all night long.
Speaker 6: In fact, I'm looking at this thinking maybe you super
Speaker 6: impose my face on another You know, she was kidding.
Speaker 6: But so, no, you are not in any danger of
Speaker 6: sleep deprivation. I always tell people insomnia is the worst
Speaker 6: condition in the world that has almost absolutely no medical consequence.
Speaker 4: Really it doesn't. It doesn't lead to plaques in the brain, and.
Speaker 6: So sleep deprivation does not insomnia. Insomnia and sleep deprivation
Speaker 6: are two very different things. So, yes, if you're working
Speaker 6: your a nine to five job, you come home, sleep
Speaker 6: for two hours at seven o'clock, you go off to
Speaker 6: clean office buildings all through the night, and go right
Speaker 6: back to work the next day. Yes, you are putting
Speaker 6: yourself in position of having trouble. However, is that person
Speaker 6: going to completely sleep deprive themselves. No, They're going to
Speaker 6: do that job for a period of time, and what's
Speaker 6: going to happen is they're actually going to fall asleep
Speaker 6: on the job. They're going to fall asleep in their
Speaker 6: office the next morning. So it's very difficult to sleep
Speaker 6: deprive yourself because you know, like I said, sleep always wins,
Speaker 6: you're going to sleep. And unlike hunger, which does a
Speaker 6: primary drive, and thirst, which is a primary drive, sleep
Speaker 6: your brain can actually control yourself doing that.
Speaker 4: So think of sleep as being a vital resource that
Speaker 4: you don't even have to hunt or search for or gather.
Speaker 4: You could just make it yourself if you just chill
Speaker 4: out and let it happen. So imagine if you're like man,
Speaker 4: I could really go for a lobster roll. Well, I'll
Speaker 4: just sit really still and breathe, and it'll appear. Not
Speaker 4: sleeping enough is like being hungry all the time when
Speaker 4: we could just conjure lobster rolls. Now, why are we
Speaker 4: saying no to sleep but yes to scrolling for so
Speaker 4: many hours before bed? I'm asking myself this.
Speaker 5: Ps.
Speaker 4: If you hate lobster rolls and this analogy doesn't work
Speaker 4: for you, I don't care, because it was for me.
Speaker 4: I was talking to me this aside. Was a private
Speaker 4: moment between my heart and my brain and my mouth. Anyway,
Speaker 4: So sleep happens, so.
Speaker 6: At some point it just takes the decision out of
Speaker 6: your hands and you fall asleep.
Speaker 5: Huh. Shannon also wanted to know what does lack of
Speaker 5: sleep make you fat.
Speaker 6: It does so sleep poor sleep in a lot of
Speaker 6: ways makes you fat. It makes you too tired to
Speaker 6: want to go to the gym. You're sitting around more,
Speaker 6: which creates a problem. We actually burn less calories when
Speaker 6: we're sleeping poorly. But the biggest thing is we start
Speaker 6: to create this biochemical cascade of chemicals that make us
Speaker 6: feel full go away, chemicals that make us crave really
Speaker 6: bad foods or in abundance.
Speaker 3: I always tell people when I was in.
Speaker 6: Residency and really struggling and sleep deprived, I would go
Speaker 6: to this little convenience store in the hospital and there
Speaker 6: were these little packages of Chipsway cookies, and then they
Speaker 6: had like the thirty three percent more family.
Speaker 3: Size bag, and I would lie to the fill us.
Speaker 6: This little woman who worked there'd be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: some of the doctors are wanting some cookies. I want
Speaker 6: one or two, but no more than three. But I
Speaker 6: need the family size bag. And by the time I
Speaker 6: got out of the Communian Star, I'd eat in the
Speaker 6: entire sleeve, you know. And so I look back on
Speaker 6: those days, I think, oh God, it was so driven
Speaker 6: by something. I didn't want that many cookies. It makes
Speaker 6: me kind of sick to think about right now. But
Speaker 6: oh man, I could put a herding on those cookies
Speaker 6: at the time.
Speaker 4: Then of course these cookie's put a herding right back
Speaker 4: on you. So why does this happen? Let's blame a
Speaker 4: trio of hormones, shall we. There's leptin, which tells your
Speaker 4: brain's hypothelmus like, nah, I'm good man, I'm not really hungry.
Speaker 4: So this appetite controlling hormone, leptin is supposed to peak
Speaker 4: while you're asleep, but if you've been snoozing weird, it
Speaker 4: goes a little wonky. Now there's also grellin, which is
Speaker 4: the flip side of the leptin coin, and it signals
Speaker 4: to your brain this show time and too little sleep
Speaker 4: means a veritable monsoon of this hormone. Also insulin, the
Speaker 4: third one stores fat, and yes, our insulin gets disrupted
Speaker 4: when our sleep sucks. So I am no medical person,
Speaker 4: but I can confirm this research because once I was
Speaker 4: very tired on a flight and I asked a stranger
Speaker 4: if I could have some of his sour patch kids,
Speaker 4: and he gave me the rest of the bag. I
Speaker 4: think out of pity and also fear. So there's your
Speaker 4: anecdotal evidence also they were really good. Julie Noble wants
Speaker 4: you know, I've heard that women are typically lighter sleepers
Speaker 4: in men. Is there a science behind this?
Speaker 3: I think there are.
Speaker 6: There are actually some studies that show that, and also
Speaker 6: some studies that kind of relate it to childbirth. You know,
Speaker 6: male of species going out to find food, female species
Speaker 6: protecting cubs and whatnot. So there are some studies that
Speaker 6: sort of look at that. So I think that that's
Speaker 6: that's not an unreasonable thing to think for sure.
Speaker 4: What do you tell new parents who are like, I
Speaker 4: can't sleep, this baby's crying, but I cannot just ignore
Speaker 4: the baby.
Speaker 5: What do you tell them?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I always tell parents, Look, you know, for the first
Speaker 6: few months of the child's existence, it's gorilla sleep, not
Speaker 6: grill like the animal like grill like the you know,
Speaker 6: freedom fighter in the jungle somewhere, meaning you just get
Speaker 6: it when you can, you know. I think it's very
Speaker 6: important for parents from the get go, even maybe even
Speaker 6: before the child is born, to start thinking about scheduling,
Speaker 6: not only in terms of the child, but your own schedule.
Speaker 6: So if a mother who's pregnant is exercising at the
Speaker 6: same time, every day and it is not a good
Speaker 6: schedule or self baby pops out often having sort of
Speaker 6: picked up on that too, you know, bodies shaking and
Speaker 6: the babies in there kind of moving around during the
Speaker 6: zumba class, but not when your mom is sitting still.
Speaker 6: So you know, parents can child rearing out. And this
Speaker 6: is my next books. I'm writing a book about kids
Speaker 6: in sleep, which I think is a lot of fun.
Speaker 6: But you got to be very careful because you're kind
Speaker 6: of straddling this line of sleep expert doctor and let
Speaker 6: me tell you how to raise your kids kind of thing.
Speaker 6: So I would be very careful not to step on
Speaker 6: any parents toes. But one of the fundamental questions you
Speaker 6: have to answer with the kid is are you going
Speaker 6: to schedule their life or do you let the kid
Speaker 6: kind of decide what's going on. You're going to tell
Speaker 6: them this is when they nap, this is when they nurse,
Speaker 6: or you're just going to basically pull it out and
Speaker 6: they can suck on anytime they want to, which a
Speaker 6: lot of people do, and that's that's perfectly your choice.
Speaker 6: But when you don't build in some sort of structure
Speaker 6: or a schedule to a little baby, it doesn't develop
Speaker 6: a schedule. So again, is there a baby out there
Speaker 6: that's not sleeping?
Speaker 3: No, there's not.
Speaker 6: Is there a baby out there who's sleeping so inconsistently
Speaker 6: and so unpredictably it's driving mom and dad crazy. Absolutely.
Speaker 6: So if you can predict your kids sleep or quiet times,
Speaker 6: you as a parent can get anything done. So to me,
Speaker 6: that's really the goal of those first few months of
Speaker 6: life is really being careful about the messages you're sending. Okay,
Speaker 6: naptime is from ten to eleven. What happens if the
Speaker 6: baby goes down screams? Is that off until ten forty five?
Speaker 6: What do you do at eleven o'clock? Are you gonna
Speaker 6: wake the baby up because that's the end of the
Speaker 6: naptime or do you just go ahead and let him
Speaker 6: sleep for the hour because well, they didn't sleep. They
Speaker 6: didn't say so. I would say, you wake them up
Speaker 6: at eleven o'clock and you do it with a smile
Speaker 6: and you have fun with them. Now the baby's trying
Speaker 6: to fall asleep in the car seat going to the store,
Speaker 6: and you don't let them. I always kept his little
Speaker 6: wet wash cloths in my car. And when my kids
Speaker 6: start falling asleep in the car, take their shoes off,
Speaker 6: mess around their feet, which made him cry.
Speaker 3: They hated that.
Speaker 6: And when that didn't work and they were still falling
Speaker 6: asleep as I messed with their I would just take
Speaker 6: a wet washcloth and throw it in their lap, and
Speaker 6: they would get all upset about it, Oh God, now
Speaker 6: got this cold wet thing on my lap, or they'd
Speaker 6: play with it or suck on it. I didn't care
Speaker 6: as long as they weren't sleeping, because this is not
Speaker 6: the time we've determined to sleep. You had your time
Speaker 6: by an hour ago, and you screamed and rocked your
Speaker 6: your cage, your crib the entire time. So to me
Speaker 6: get your kids on a schedule. AT's step one.
Speaker 5: Ps.
Speaker 4: Doctor Winter is not alone in seeing this visual correlation.
Speaker 4: I found an article titled quote why cribs kind of
Speaker 4: looked like cages on fatherly dot com, and it said
Speaker 4: that cribs have evolved from the seventeen hundreds. There was
Speaker 4: an Italian practice of popping a slatted half shell of
Speaker 4: an old whiskey barrel over your wee one, kind of
Speaker 4: like a protective cage so you wouldn't roll over it
Speaker 4: and kill it in bed. Oh, simpler times, eighteenth century
Speaker 4: state of the art baby technology was just a liquor
Speaker 4: soaked splinter cage for parents who care enough to provide
Speaker 4: the best. Mike Milkire and Ashland Todd McLaren all kind
Speaker 4: of asked, why can you sometimes sleep for a really
Speaker 4: long time and feel super lethargic and sluggish, Like can
Speaker 4: you not catch up on last sleep?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 5: Is it not like a bank account?
Speaker 3: So those are two different things. So you can.
Speaker 6: And there's some really interesting new research that says individuals
Speaker 6: who might struggle to get the perfect amount of sleep
Speaker 6: from time to time as long as relatively quickly to
Speaker 6: try to make it up with the nap.
Speaker 3: That's a good thing.
Speaker 6: So you're got to catch a flight, it's delayed, and
Speaker 6: you don't get home until three o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 6: and you thought you're gonna get home at ten, and
Speaker 6: you got to go to work the next day. I
Speaker 6: think it's perfectly fine to make up for that lost
Speaker 6: sleep with a nap or some sort of supplement'll sleep
Speaker 6: here or sleeping in when we sleep an unusual time.
Speaker 3: So I always like to.
Speaker 6: Look at people's schedules, and college students are the worst.
Speaker 6: You know, Monday was a Friday, I'm organ at chemistry
Speaker 6: class it starts at eight, and get anything other than
Speaker 6: eight o'clock class.
Speaker 3: It really was the pits.
Speaker 6: And then Tuesday and Thursday, I don't have a class
Speaker 6: until noon, and then on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday,
Speaker 6: I don't even go out until two in the morning,
Speaker 6: let alone you know, waffle house whatever the next morning.
Speaker 6: So when people have these schedules that are kind of
Speaker 6: all over the place, the brain adopts this position of
Speaker 6: what do you expect.
Speaker 3: Of me at nine am?
Speaker 6: On these days we're sound asleep, on these days we're
Speaker 6: already an hour into an organic chemistry lecture, and on
Speaker 6: these other days we've just gone out a couple hours ago.
Speaker 6: So your brain, I always say, this is my term
Speaker 6: makes no sense to a lot of people, but your brain,
Speaker 6: your brain just kind of goes gray. There's no black,
Speaker 6: there's no white. It just kind of adopts this. That's
Speaker 6: how people feel to live in Portland or Great Britain.
Speaker 6: It's gray all the time. There's no sunlight. So you're
Speaker 6: just kind of like, I'm not terribly depressed, but I'm
Speaker 6: also not super happy either.
Speaker 4: So unpredictable sleep patterns can give you a real case
Speaker 4: to the morisses.
Speaker 6: And you know, so you're just kind of this kind
Speaker 6: of melancholy all the time. I think people feel that way.
Speaker 6: So to me, the answer to that is probably number one.
Speaker 6: There is this entity of sleep inertia. We try to
Speaker 6: sometimes make up our sleep, and we have these massive
Speaker 6: sleep blocks, so our brain doesn't exactly know how to
Speaker 6: feel when we wake up. So a lot of people
Speaker 6: will feel worse after a night of sleep or even
Speaker 6: a nap if it sort of surprises the brain. So
Speaker 6: the best way to sleep, the best way to nap,
Speaker 6: is to try to have your sleep period end at
Speaker 6: the same time every time.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, so.
Speaker 6: It's a very difficult thing to get somebody to say, Look,
Speaker 6: you have the opportunity to sleep till noon. It'd still
Speaker 6: be better if you woke up at eight, had something
Speaker 6: to eat, went outside where the sunlight, walk the dog,
Speaker 6: all bit of physical activity, and then if you wanted
Speaker 6: to supplement your sleep, take a nap at a designated time.
Speaker 6: So that way we don't interrupt what your brain is
Speaker 6: sort of expecting. You know, we don't get hungry generally
Speaker 6: because we need food. We often get hung because our
Speaker 6: brain is saying, oh, it's noon, this is when we
Speaker 6: usually have the chicken sandwich. So here we go, let's
Speaker 6: get ready for it. It's not oh, we're calorically needing
Speaker 6: food a lot of time. So we're just trying to
Speaker 6: create a good rhythm for our brain. So for meals
Speaker 6: or in rhythm, rhythm or exercises in rhythm, often our
Speaker 6: sleep will fall suit.
Speaker 5: Oh that's good to know.
Speaker 6: So you can make up for a lack of sleep.
Speaker 6: So if you stayed up all last night doing some
Speaker 6: great project for work, as long as you can make
Speaker 6: it up pretty quickly, you'll you'll scientifically live just as
Speaker 6: long as the person who always gets the right amount
Speaker 6: of sleep.
Speaker 5: Okay, boo yah to them.
Speaker 3: Oooh yeah.
Speaker 4: Corey Navis, Michael Saidampuga, Emily Mankis, Melissa Brewer, Janella Lindauer,
Speaker 4: John Worster all asked kind of about sleep supplements, about melatonin,
Speaker 4: about ambient about taking something to sleep?
Speaker 5: Is that good or bad? What are we dealing with?
Speaker 6: So I will my disclaimer will be I'm not a
Speaker 6: big fan of sleeping pills. I think that they certainly
Speaker 6: have up their place, and I guess I would think
Speaker 6: of a sleeping pill like an appetite stimulant. You probably
Speaker 6: don't know that many people who take appetite stimulants. They
Speaker 6: do exist, they're out there. But when we all go
Speaker 6: out to lunch and we're sitting around, everybody's ordering food
Speaker 6: and you don't feel hungry, what do you do. My
Speaker 6: guess is you don't say, oh, gosh, hey, guys, does
Speaker 6: anybody have an appetite stimulant? Because I'm really not hungry
Speaker 6: for lunch right now, and I know if I don't eat,
Speaker 6: I'll starve to death. And I've seen these videos on
Speaker 6: the internet of people starving to death.
Speaker 3: It looks terrible.
Speaker 6: I don't want to do that, so please look around
Speaker 6: find something for me to take. So we don't think
Speaker 6: that way when it comes to our food. We think, huh,
Speaker 6: it's unfortunate because this food looks really good and I'd
Speaker 6: like to eat, but I'm not really not that hungry.
Speaker 6: But oh well, I'm sure i'll get hungry at some
Speaker 6: point in the future. So I think for a lot
Speaker 6: of people, sleeping pills become a crutch that is completely
Speaker 6: unnecessary and kind of this weird lie that you need
Speaker 6: something to fall asleep with other people, don't.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 6: The flip side of that is a shift worker. You
Speaker 6: work seven eight to seven p for four days, you
Speaker 6: have two days off, and you get back working seven
Speaker 6: p to seven A. So you're constantly moving backwards in
Speaker 6: four You're a traveler, you fly to Shanghai every two
Speaker 6: weeks to do business, and you have struggled to adapt.
Speaker 6: I think those are perfectly appropriate ways reasons to take medications.
Speaker 6: Melatonin in particular, because it's such a good drug at
Speaker 6: helping us adjust our circadian rhythm.
Speaker 4: Okay, so quick aside. Melatonin is that hormone. It's produced
Speaker 4: by a tiny pie sized mid brain, little nugget called
Speaker 4: your pinial gland, and it makes you sleepy, it helps
Speaker 4: you dream. And for a long time we thought only
Speaker 4: animals made melotonin, but it turns out it's in a
Speaker 4: bunch of plants, you guys. So now we have melotonin
Speaker 4: supplements and gummy vitamins and over the counter access to it.
Speaker 4: But some experts worn against using the supplements long term
Speaker 4: because it can cause next day grogginess or grumpiness. But
Speaker 4: what is a big melatonin cock blocker? You ask, good question,
Speaker 4: and it's blue light, So to boost your natural melatonin
Speaker 4: in your brain. This is why people say they lay
Speaker 4: off the screens after dusk. New fangled light sources like
Speaker 4: screens and phones blast daytime raise into your brain at
Speaker 4: the wrong times. It's very confusing. And firelight and incandescent
Speaker 4: bulbs have these warmer wavelengths that don't mess with you
Speaker 4: by the bye. Just in case you want to be
Speaker 4: like next level hipster and bring back those really long,
Speaker 4: creepy nightcaps and maybe carry a candle around from room
Speaker 4: to room. I'm kind of feeling that in between that
Speaker 4: aesthetic and whittling spoons at dawn, I'm kind of smelling
Speaker 4: a real alley Ward Instagram rebranding over here, just coming
Speaker 4: over the sunrise horizon, my friends, who's into it?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: One?
Speaker 5: Fine? Okay?
Speaker 4: So why else might someone take a sleeping pill or
Speaker 4: a supplement, death.
Speaker 6: Of a loved one, you lost your job, some emotional
Speaker 6: upset to have a big problem with the sleeping pill.
Speaker 6: I don't, but the plan should be, Hey, here's a
Speaker 6: sleeping pill. I'm really sorry this thing happened to you.
Speaker 6: This will help you kind of get to this immediate
Speaker 6: know burn the of the situation. But then we're going
Speaker 6: to do things to move us away from it, you know.
Speaker 6: So maybe that many people have talked to Right, why
Speaker 6: do you take amby, Well, I can't sleep without it
Speaker 6: when that start it started? You know it's because of
Speaker 6: the divorce. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Has that
Speaker 6: been hard? Well was seventeen years ago. Like number one,
Speaker 6: she's not coming back, you know, stop carrying that towards
Speaker 6: number two. The reason why you're taking the ambient it
Speaker 6: has nothing to do with the divorce. It's because now
Speaker 6: the divorce precipitated a problem, that something is perpetuating. So
Speaker 6: let's get down to the bottom of what that is.
Speaker 6: So if you're taking melotone every night, be careful with that.
Speaker 6: It can actually make you feel like you're constantly traveling
Speaker 6: east because most people take the melotone right when they
Speaker 6: go to bed. If you're giving your kids melatonin because
Speaker 6: it helps them sleep, I've got a big problem with
Speaker 6: that as well too. So pills and sleep, I think
Speaker 6: that they don't really belong with each other. And ask
Speaker 6: your doctor the next time, you know, what is the
Speaker 6: evidence that this medication works. It's surprising some of the
Speaker 6: answers that you'll get. Or if there's even an indication
Speaker 6: for this drug. A lot of people take the drug
Speaker 6: sarah Will, which is a heavy duty antipsychotic, to help
Speaker 6: them with their sleep, and not only is it not
Speaker 6: indicative for sleep, it's actually recommended that people not take
Speaker 6: that drug for sleep. Just be careful about the medications.
Speaker 6: Are getting doctors their hearts in the right place. They
Speaker 6: want to do something, and for you to say I'm
Speaker 6: not sleeping, they feel very compelled to do something, and
Speaker 6: often that comes in the form of a pill.
Speaker 4: Okay, So remember, blue light from our phones and TVs
Speaker 4: and laptops is just not something we've evolved to see
Speaker 4: at night. Our brains process blue light as like, okay,
Speaker 4: daytime orwakeness. Now, if blue light is the cock blocker
Speaker 4: of melatonin, then it might be helpful to block that
Speaker 4: cock block with cool blue blocker glasses. And by cool,
Speaker 4: I mean warm toned. Now, which brand of glasses should
Speaker 4: you buy? There are a million research them. First, I
Speaker 4: found an article on Consumer Reports that tested three different
Speaker 4: brands and they ranged in price from eight dollars to
Speaker 4: like fifty five dollars, and the ones that cut the
Speaker 4: most blue light, they found out, were the cheap ones.
Speaker 4: One brand called Ubex skyper rated the highest. So the
Speaker 4: most expensive ones cut about half the blue light is
Speaker 4: the cheap ones in this particular study, so look it
Speaker 4: up first. PS. If you are researching these glasses on
Speaker 4: your phone in bed right now, just let it wait
Speaker 4: till tomorrow. A couple more questions a little here's Carl
Speaker 4: and Hale's parcels asked about blue lights on cell phones.
Speaker 4: Should we be turning our phones to yellow? Should we
Speaker 4: be taking our phones and throwing them into a landfill?
Speaker 4: What should we be doing?
Speaker 6: I don't think we need to throw our phones into
Speaker 6: a landfill, although if you'd like to come to my
Speaker 6: house into my kids' phones into a landfill, I would
Speaker 6: not fight you on that one. I would actually disappoint it,
Speaker 6: but secretly be like, oh thank god Miles came over
Speaker 6: and through the phones in the landfill. So to me,
Speaker 6: I think it's just about managing our phones. Phones are great.
Speaker 6: They really help us kind of keep connected, they keep
Speaker 6: us safe. There's all kinds of fun apps and whatnot
Speaker 6: and audiobooks, etc. To me, the biggest thing is as
Speaker 6: we start moving from dinner to our bedtime, that sort
Speaker 6: of period we really want to start looking at lighting
Speaker 6: in our house, our routines, and finding a way to
Speaker 6: sort of move away from computers and cell phones at
Speaker 6: that time. Okay, it's eleven o'clock. If somebody needs me,
Speaker 6: they can get a hold of me. But I'm going
Speaker 6: to plug my phone up in a kitchen. I'm not
Speaker 6: going to take it into the bedroom with me. It's
Speaker 6: something I can do when I can look at when
Speaker 6: I'm having trouble sleeping. So I think, you know, good
Speaker 6: hygiene with our cell phones is really important if you're
Speaker 6: somebody here, you're a nurse, and you know you may
Speaker 6: get called in the night, so you can't really separate
Speaker 6: yourself from your phone at night, you know, installing things
Speaker 6: like dimmers on our phones, or employing the little night settings,
Speaker 6: or even getting little blue blocker glasses. Uvex make some
Speaker 6: Swan Wicks, make some that you can keep on your
Speaker 6: bedside table, so when you're looking at your phone, you
Speaker 6: put the little blue blocker glasses on, so those harmful
Speaker 6: wavelengths of light are not keeping you up at night.
Speaker 4: Free Johnson wants to know what's the difference between hypersomnia
Speaker 4: and narcolepsy.
Speaker 3: So that's a great question.
Speaker 6: Brie. Hypersomnia you can think of as being sort of
Speaker 6: the umbrella term of the hypersomnia's narcolepsy, it would be
Speaker 6: a specific one. And asking that question because of this
Speaker 6: term idiopathic hypersomnia, weisk has thrown about in sleep, which
Speaker 6: is essentially your sleepy He don't seem to fit all
Speaker 6: the criteria of narclepsy, and the doctor has no idea
Speaker 6: what to do with you, so they call you idiopathic hypersomnia,
Speaker 6: which kind of drives me crazy. So lots of things
Speaker 6: can make us hypersomnik. Narcolepsy is a situation where you're
Speaker 6: not making chemicals in your brain that stabilize wakefulness. So
Speaker 6: a typical narcolepsy patient will sleep eight hours, wakes up,
Speaker 6: feels pretty good, goes to his favorite art history class,
Speaker 6: sits down the front row because he thinks if I
Speaker 6: sit in the front row, won't fall asleep, and immediately
Speaker 6: nods off and doesn't even feel sleepy to begin with.
Speaker 4: This literally happened to me in an art history class,
Speaker 4: in an auditorium of six hundred people. I sat in
Speaker 4: the front row to stay awake in a sleep. So
Speaker 4: either every person on earth has done this specifically in
Speaker 4: an art history class about double barrel vaulted stealing architecture
Speaker 4: in cluineal villages. Or I'm just more and more convinced
Speaker 4: that doctor Winter guessed this because there is a glitch
Speaker 4: in the simulation. We're all living in an alternative universe anyway,
Speaker 4: So some people get tired.
Speaker 6: So these are individuals who are largely outside of control
Speaker 6: of their own sleepiness.
Speaker 5: How do you know which you are?
Speaker 6: So that would be something that would probably require visiting
Speaker 6: a sleep specialist, But we've talked about some things already
Speaker 6: that kind of indicate it. Number One, you're a hypersomnik.
Speaker 6: You're excessively sleepy, which is different from being fatigued. You're
Speaker 6: saying no, no, no, beyond fatigue. I can't read without
Speaker 6: falling asleep. I fall asleep watching shows. I don't go
Speaker 6: out on dates because always not off and it makes
Speaker 6: me feel uncomfortable. So you're expressing a lot of drive
Speaker 6: to sleep despite adequate sleep. Sleep paralysis can can somes
Speaker 6: go along with it. An entity called cataplexy can go
Speaker 6: along with it. When somebody is wide awake often feels
Speaker 6: some sort of emotional upset or elation or happy and
Speaker 6: all of a sudden feels paralyzed, like their knees want
Speaker 6: to buckle, or they can't hold their head up, or
Speaker 6: their hands become very limp. People have very vivid hallucinations
Speaker 6: as their falling asleeper waking up at a young woman
Speaker 6: with narcolepsy who had this hallucination that her husband was
Speaker 6: like rummaging around or underwear drawer, and so she confronted
Speaker 6: him the next morning and said, were you What were
Speaker 6: you looking for?
Speaker 3: Why were you in my under ad door.
Speaker 6: He's like, I was not in your underwear drawer, and
Speaker 6: she's like, I'm certain that you were. He's like, honey,
Speaker 6: I would tell you if I were. I wasn't. And
Speaker 6: she came to understand over time she was having these
Speaker 6: very vivid hallucinations as she was waking up that really
Speaker 6: weren't real.
Speaker 5: Oh wow.
Speaker 6: So a lot of people with narclepsy struggle to discern
Speaker 6: reality and something that's not meaning. I thought I did
Speaker 6: a podcast with Ali, but I ran into her and
Speaker 6: she's like, no, we haven't done it yet. It's coming
Speaker 6: up next week. So you start to doubt, did I
Speaker 6: pay the bill? Did I have the conversation with my
Speaker 6: neighbor at about barring the lawnmower or did the podcast
Speaker 6: ever happen? They sort of live in this weird place
Speaker 6: in between reality and dreaming and have this difficulty understanding
Speaker 6: which was real.
Speaker 5: Are there any movies about sleep that you love or hate?
Speaker 6: I remember a movie called Insomnia. I think it was
Speaker 6: like with al Pacino and Robin Williams that we thought
Speaker 6: was really interesting because it was mainly filmed in Alaska
Speaker 6: when it was always dark. I always thought that was
Speaker 6: kind of interesting.
Speaker 7: Are you don okay? I mean you haven't been sleeping much,
Speaker 7: Detective Dormer.
Speaker 3: Now the night up like this and you're really gonna
Speaker 3: lose it. Don't worry. Well, you can sleep when you're dead.
Speaker 4: So this movie seems kind of scary but very al
Speaker 4: PACINOI that's my official scholarly review. Also, his character's name
Speaker 4: is Detective Dormer and it's about sleep. Dormer literally means
Speaker 4: sleep in French. I only watched a trailer, but if
Speaker 4: there is not a scene in this movie where two
Speaker 4: cops are like eating apple fritters in a squad car,
Speaker 4: being like, it's so weird that this movie is about
Speaker 4: sleep and your name literally means sleep, then I refuse
Speaker 4: to see the film.
Speaker 6: Generally, Hollywood tends to treat things like narcolepsy as almost comical.
Speaker 6: You know, it's a funny character that every time something happens,
Speaker 6: he falls over. Maybe the one that I would like
Speaker 6: the most is Inception because it sort of touches on
Speaker 6: this idea of lucid dreaming, which I thought was really
Speaker 6: cool and really took it to a neat place. I
Speaker 6: think lucid dreaming is a fascinating topic, So maybe that's
Speaker 6: the one that would choose.
Speaker 5: Is lucid dreaming something you can choose to do.
Speaker 6: It's something that you can, you can it's a skill.
Speaker 6: Now some people just do it if you've never had
Speaker 6: lucid dreams. So lucid dreaming is simply being aware that
Speaker 6: you're dreaming when you're dreaming.
Speaker 4: As long as I'm so horny for entomology in this episode,
Speaker 4: Lucid comes from the root word for light or clear,
Speaker 4: and it was coined by Dutch psychiatrist Frederic van Eden
Speaker 4: in a nineteen thirteen paper called a Study of Dreams.
Speaker 4: So exploring free will in different states ofnsciousness was pretty
Speaker 4: progressive for an olden timey dude. But he also thought
Speaker 4: the demons cause nightmares, so.
Speaker 6: You know, and then dream control is sort of the
Speaker 6: next step of oh wow, I'm dreaming that I'm doing
Speaker 6: this thing. I'm staying on top of a building. Dream
Speaker 6: control would mean you could actually just control yourself jump
Speaker 6: off the building and then fly. So you can do it,
Speaker 6: and the way to do it is to really start
Speaker 6: becoming aware of your own reality. And so what I
Speaker 6: would do when I was going through this phase of
Speaker 6: trying it out and writing about it for this outlet,
Speaker 6: I would during the day, I would take my ring off,
Speaker 6: my wedding ring off. I would turn it around and
Speaker 6: look at it and kind of look at my hands
Speaker 6: and say, this is a real thing I'm doing.
Speaker 3: I'm not dreaming, and that would put it back on.
Speaker 6: So I could actually do that in my mind as
Speaker 6: I drove as I was talking to patients. And then
Speaker 6: what you start to do is you start to question
Speaker 6: reality in your dreams. And so what happened was I
Speaker 6: would have these dreams. I would one dream that I
Speaker 6: was going to a circus, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: I was like, wait a minute, and I would look
Speaker 6: at my hands and they were all distorted. I was like, Wit,
Speaker 6: this is a dream, I'm doing it, and that would
Speaker 6: wake up because I was so excited. But eventually you
Speaker 6: get to this place where you just kind of make
Speaker 6: it a habit to sort of question your reality throughout
Speaker 6: the day, and you bring that behavior into your dreams
Speaker 6: and as you start to realize, oh wait, this isn't
Speaker 6: a dream, you can do a lot of really cool things.
Speaker 6: One is, look at your hands. Our brains do a
Speaker 6: very poor job of rendering our hands and our dreams,
Speaker 6: so you'll have like twelve fingers or like two massive
Speaker 6: monster fingers or something.
Speaker 4: So side note, I look this up and there's this
Speaker 4: whole wiki site and forum on lucid dreaming wherein people
Speaker 4: shared their weird finger experiences. Here are two of my favorites.
Speaker 4: One is, I remembered to do a reality check, so
Speaker 4: I looked at my hands and realized that they're actually claws.
Speaker 4: Another person said, quote, my fingers appeared jumbled, as if
Speaker 4: I had no bones. Okay, so all Ward is no
Speaker 4: Edwardian are a mental health professional, but I'm fairly certain
Speaker 4: that these people are just afflicted by demons.
Speaker 6: The other thing you can do is, like you know,
Speaker 6: pull your skin or push your finger into the palm
Speaker 6: of your hand. A lot of times it will pass
Speaker 6: through or your skin's very flexible. If you look down
Speaker 6: at your feet, your feet often don't touch the ground,
Speaker 6: which is probably where you're not to touch the earth.
Speaker 6: Your feet don't touch the ground. Our brain has trouble
Speaker 6: rendering our body in three dimensional space. It's really cool
Speaker 6: to look up at the ceiling of your house, which
Speaker 6: often looks like the sky. Everything when we look up
Speaker 6: typically looks dark. During the lucid dream, my favorite thing
Speaker 6: is try to find a mirror in your dream and
Speaker 6: look at your face. That is absolutely a total freak show.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's cheaper than drugs too.
Speaker 6: I would imagine, so yeah, and it's and you can
Speaker 6: get better at it. I had a swim coach when
Speaker 6: my son's swim coaches told me one time he was
Speaker 6: such a good lucid dreamer that he could actually plan out.
Speaker 6: He could use the time and his dreams constructively. He
Speaker 6: would think, Okay, well, we're going to swim this team
Speaker 6: next week. I'm going to construct my relays this way.
Speaker 6: I'm going to actually sacrifice this relay because I don't
Speaker 6: think we would beat them. Anyway, and we'll put them
Speaker 6: in these events, like so we have it all worked
Speaker 6: out by the time he woke up.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, visually interesting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's billable hours.
Speaker 3: That's good. That's exactly right.
Speaker 4: And any flim flam you'd like to debunk anything, any
Speaker 4: myths that you want to dispel.
Speaker 6: Alcohol is terrible for your sleep. Have as much as
Speaker 6: you want to have it with breakfast.
Speaker 7: Do you want a mimosa?
Speaker 6: In general, you always tell people look sedation and sleep
Speaker 6: or two different things.
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger.
Speaker 6: A lot of people figure these things out the hard way,
Speaker 6: and it's always upsetting to me that I know people
Speaker 6: like that, and people out there are going to people
Speaker 6: for help, and it just seems to be this arms
Speaker 6: race of how much sedation can we give somebody, So
Speaker 6: be very careful with that.
Speaker 5: Ps.
Speaker 4: So, speaking of alcohol specifically, it can help sedate you
Speaker 4: into light sleep. But do you remember how rams sleep
Speaker 4: in the second part of the night, and it's the
Speaker 4: one that's restorative for your memory, it's good for your
Speaker 4: mood and concentration. So alcohol disrupts that. It's kind of
Speaker 4: like the friend who leads you to a party and
Speaker 4: then ditches you there and the party sucks. Do not
Speaker 4: trust it. Alcohol can be kind of a dick that way.
Speaker 6: I think the idea that if you in your dreams,
Speaker 6: if you you're falling and you hit the ground, you die,
Speaker 6: I don't think that's the way the case at all.
Speaker 6: That's not true.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 6: There's so many great questions your I feel like we've
Speaker 6: covered everything.
Speaker 4: About What about things too, like counting sheep or the
Speaker 4: method where you breathe seven in four out.
Speaker 3: Absolutely so.
Speaker 4: This breathing exercise was developed by doctor Andrew Wheel who
Speaker 4: kind of cribbed it off of pranayama, which is an
Speaker 4: ancient technique.
Speaker 5: So that gist is you do this.
Speaker 4: You exhale completely through your mouth and you make a
Speaker 4: whoosh kind of sound, and then you close your lips
Speaker 4: and hail through your nose as you count to four in.
Speaker 5: Your head, so.
Speaker 4: Four count, hold the breath in for seven seconds, and
Speaker 4: then over the next eight count in your head, make
Speaker 4: a wishing exhale from your mouth. So you practice this
Speaker 4: pattern for four full breaths. You inhale for four, hold
Speaker 4: for seven, exhale over eight. It's supposed to distract you
Speaker 4: from anxiety. And calm your nervous system. You're breathing, you're
Speaker 4: getting oxygen, you're doing math, You're not thinking about whether
Speaker 4: or not the thing you bought for the office gift
Speaker 4: exchange was too cheap. But what's my mom's big insomnia trick?
Speaker 5: Here it is.
Speaker 4: I feel like it deserves a soft drum roll. Okay, good,
Speaker 4: We're gonna call it the sleepy fancy nancy technique. My
Speaker 4: mom does this thing she taught me that works like
Speaker 4: a charm where you think of a category like fruits,
Speaker 4: or boys' names or electronics, and then you go, what's
Speaker 4: something that starts with a? Okay, apple, be BlackBerry? See,
Speaker 4: and then you go down and I never make it
Speaker 4: past like ll, I'm out.
Speaker 5: But do you have anything else like that?
Speaker 3: I think that's awesome.
Speaker 4: Some sample categories you can use for this alphabet game,
Speaker 4: types of fruit, boys' names, girls' names, gender neutral names, cities, snacks,
Speaker 4: vacation activities, clothing brands, cereals, items you would keep in
Speaker 4: a purse, animals, really anything. I've done so many of these.
Speaker 4: Let me know what some of your sleepy fancy nancy
Speaker 4: categories are. I'm here for them. I will probably use them.
Speaker 4: Next time I'm jet lagged in awake on the wrong coast,
Speaker 4: which will literally be tomorrow.
Speaker 6: So to me, what you're hitting on is something very
Speaker 6: important and without getting too crazy into it, as you
Speaker 6: get back to the idea of what insomnia is, it's
Speaker 6: really not the inability to sleep. But when people who
Speaker 6: have insomnia really start to struggle, they really start to
Speaker 6: try to sleep. If I'm sitting out watching television, I'm
Speaker 6: finishing up watching you Bachelor in Paradise. I can never
Speaker 6: make it to the Rose finale because I always fall asleep.
Speaker 2: Katie, I accidentally called out the wrong name, and I
Speaker 2: would like to extend to you the option of staying.
Speaker 2: We'll say and see how things go.
Speaker 6: Sure, thank you, But then I wake up, I get
Speaker 6: into bed and I can't fall asleep. Why is that,
Speaker 6: doctor Winnis, Because when you're watching the Batchel, what are
Speaker 6: you trying to do? You're trying to figure out if
Speaker 6: Astrod is going to stick with this guy or she
Speaker 6: gonna dump him because he sets a dog or whatever like,
Speaker 6: that's what you're trying to do.
Speaker 3: You're not trying to sleep.
Speaker 6: When you go to bed and you turn the lights off,
Speaker 6: a lot of people suddenly really start to try to sleep.
Speaker 6: So you've struck upon something that's very important. Give yourself
Speaker 6: a task that's not trying to sleep. You're kind of
Speaker 6: giving yourself sort of a complicated task. You're trying to
Speaker 6: visualize the letter of the alphabet. Okay, B what's a fruit? Blueberry? Okay, great,
Speaker 6: see cherry?
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 6: And so now you've decided you're not going to try
Speaker 6: to sleep. You're just going to relax and name fruit
Speaker 6: or named boyfriends. We tell our professional athletes all the time. Look,
Speaker 6: when you go to bed, professional pitcher, I want you
Speaker 6: to throw thirty perfect pitches before you fall asleep. Oh wow,
Speaker 6: Visualize the stadium around you, your favorite catcher, you're on
Speaker 6: the mound, everything, your coat, your pitching coach shows you
Speaker 6: your arm slot, your movement of the ball. Let go
Speaker 6: visualize the ball in real time, flying through the air
Speaker 6: and landing in your catcher's mitt. Look around, scratch yourself,
Speaker 6: catch the ball when he throws it back to you,
Speaker 6: and do it again.
Speaker 3: Once you do it thirty times, then you're allowed to
Speaker 3: fall asleep.
Speaker 6: What's so funny is they'll come back and say, man, Doc,
Speaker 6: you know I'm trying to do that thing you asked
Speaker 6: me to do and shoot those free throws before I
Speaker 6: go to bed, or throw those pitch before we go
Speaker 6: to bed, and I can only throw about four or
Speaker 6: five pitches. The next thing, I m alarm clocks going off, right,
Speaker 6: so I don't tell them.
Speaker 3: Well there.
Speaker 6: That's the point is that you know that I'm trying
Speaker 6: to get you away from this idea of let me
Speaker 6: think about trying to sleep, but oh no, I'm not
Speaker 6: asleep yet.
Speaker 3: What am I gonna do? And try to find something else.
Speaker 6: The other cool thing is that when you pick an activity,
Speaker 6: so if you're somebody who is a pitcher or a
Speaker 6: basketball player, you like to do you like to run,
Speaker 6: or you do some sort of special skill, if you
Speaker 6: visualize yourself doing that at nine, your brain doesn't differentiate
Speaker 6: practicing something and actually visualizing it that well. So if
Speaker 6: you're somebody who likes to play basketball, visualizing yourself shooting
Speaker 6: those free throws will make you a better ballplayer. So
Speaker 6: I love the idea that either way, even if you
Speaker 6: make it through your thirty free throws and want to
Speaker 6: do thirty more, it's not wasted time. There's a really
Speaker 6: cool device called meuse, which is a little headband or
Speaker 6: it's a pair of sunglasses that measures your brain activity
Speaker 6: and feeds it back to you through your earbuds.
Speaker 3: Is the form of like the sound of the rainforest.
Speaker 6: So when you sit there at lunch time, you finish
Speaker 6: up your lunch, you put your little muse thing on,
Speaker 6: you do a little meditation session. You can practice the
Speaker 6: ability of quieting your mind down, so you can learn
Speaker 6: what it takes to make the sound of the ocean
Speaker 6: get really quiet, and then you think about your mother
Speaker 6: in law, it's really loud again, so you can So
Speaker 6: now when you go to bed at night, you've gotten
Speaker 6: very good at this ability to quiet your mind, which
Speaker 6: either help you fall asleep or allows you to sort
Speaker 6: of assume this sort of meditative state, which by some
Speaker 6: studies is just as good as sleep.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 6: And the cool thing too, is I love this story
Speaker 6: you gave because you've got this little mechanism that gives
Speaker 6: you confidence, like you know what to do. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: get in bed, I'm gonn fall asleep usually no problem.
Speaker 6: But if I can't, I'll just do what you described.
Speaker 6: And what's funny is I was talking to a magazine
Speaker 6: editor one time. I was describing her the benefits of
Speaker 6: resting and how sleep's great, but resting is very good too.
Speaker 6: I just don't believe that, you know, even though you're
Speaker 6: telling me all his research. And I said, yeah, I said,
Speaker 6: if you just rest it all through the night, you'd
Speaker 6: be okay the next day. You wouldn't be perfect, but
Speaker 6: you wouldn't you know. The F word in my clinic
Speaker 6: is function. You wouldn't be dysfunctional. And she said, gosh,
Speaker 6: you know, why don't you do that, like prove it, Like,
Speaker 6: why don't you just rest all night and write an article?
Speaker 6: But I was like, sure, I'll do that. I've been
Speaker 6: trying to write this for two years, very exactly what
Speaker 6: you said. I get in bed, I'm going to like, okay,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna I want to start off with state capitals.
Speaker 6: I'll start with Maine. I think it's Augusta, Maine. I think,
Speaker 6: is that right? And then you know, by the time
Speaker 6: I get to like Virginia, I'm out cold and the
Speaker 6: long car goes off.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying really.
Speaker 6: Hard to be in a dark room with my eyes closed,
Speaker 6: but not sleep. And it's amazing how quickly sleep comes
Speaker 6: and you try not to do it.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's a very good parting words, Let's repeat that.
Speaker 3: And it's amazing how quickly sleep comes and you try
Speaker 3: not to do it.
Speaker 5: Now, what's your least favorite thing about your job? What
Speaker 5: sucks the most?
Speaker 3: What sucks the most about my job?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 6: This is a great, great question. I'll step on my soapbox.
Speaker 6: I love treating patients. I love helping people sleep better.
Speaker 6: But in our current medical climate, it is very difficult.
Speaker 6: I'm not trying to paint a sob story here, but
Speaker 6: it is very difficult for doctors to spend time with
Speaker 6: patients and get enough money from insurances to keep the
Speaker 6: lights on their clinic. I read an article in Forbes
Speaker 6: about how many doctors are literally living paycheck to paycheck,
Speaker 6: which was funny because one time my wife and I
Speaker 6: were watching The Bachelor, speaking of the Bachelor, and the
Speaker 6: host comes out and says, oh, and ladies, he's a doctor,
Speaker 6: and like all the ladies are like, oh, it's so great,
Speaker 6: and my wife literally audibly grown. She's like, Oh, it's
Speaker 6: not the cash cow you think it is. So but
Speaker 6: the issue really is that the biggest thing I struggle
Speaker 6: what sucks is that I don't feel like I have
Speaker 6: the time to devote to my patients sometimes because I've
Speaker 6: got to see a certain number of people to pay
Speaker 6: my office staff. Now, being able to lecture, being able
Speaker 6: to write a book and talk to people like you
Speaker 6: work with sports teams takes a tremendous pressure off of
Speaker 6: my clinic that a lot of practitioners, really good practitioners,
Speaker 6: don't have.
Speaker 3: So hopefully, you.
Speaker 6: Know, we'll be able to kind of work around this
Speaker 6: and make healthcare affordable but also allow doctors to practice
Speaker 6: their craft in a way that they can help patients
Speaker 6: and not feel like they got to see thirty patients
Speaker 6: in a.
Speaker 7: Day, right.
Speaker 5: I don't think patients like it either.
Speaker 6: They don't, and you know, and I talk pretty freely
Speaker 6: about it with my patients, like if I'm late or
Speaker 6: running behind or whatnot. You always try to make sure
Speaker 6: that every patient can say what they want to say,
Speaker 6: even if it means I'm going to be a little
Speaker 6: bit late. For most people, they're they're pretty patient.
Speaker 5: They're pretty patient. So thanks for your patients, patients.
Speaker 4: Fuck, do I have to do another etymology for this one?
Speaker 5: I do?
Speaker 4: I do? I can't not, Okay, So I just looked
Speaker 4: this up and the root for both patients and patients.
Speaker 4: Is the Latin for suffering. So next time someone thanks
Speaker 4: you for your patients, they're saying, literally, thank you for
Speaker 4: suffering for me, which is kind of endearingly emo. I
Speaker 4: like that patience and being able to suffer evidently is
Speaker 4: a virtue.
Speaker 5: And what's your favorite thing about your job?
Speaker 6: My favorite thing about my job is the idea that sleep.
Speaker 6: Everybody likes to talk about sleep, you know, sleep, and
Speaker 6: it's one of those things if I go to a party,
Speaker 6: introduce myself as a neurologist.
Speaker 3: You know, I got a grandmother's got parkins or whatever.
Speaker 6: But if you talk about sleep, everybody's got a story
Speaker 6: to tell. It's sort of this universal thing and I
Speaker 6: love to tease other doctors about. You know, I missed
Speaker 6: that article on Time magazine that said Mysteries of the spleen.
Speaker 6: You know, like in this poor guy's like devote his
Speaker 6: life to understanding the spleen. But you know, also, I
Speaker 6: mean there was a national geographic we subscribe to just
Speaker 6: recently there was back to back issues on athletic performance,
Speaker 6: which is near and dear to what I do, and
Speaker 6: the next issue was sleep. I mean, people love it.
Speaker 6: It's fascinating. It's cool to talk about the brain's awesome.
Speaker 6: So you know, if you're like the toa doctor, the
Speaker 6: spleen doctor, it's not fair.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, I get it.
Speaker 6: It is not fair that media does not pay as
Speaker 6: much attention to you and all the awesome things that
Speaker 6: you're doing. So to me, it's just the diversity of
Speaker 6: different things you can do as sleep.
Speaker 3: Or so much fun.
Speaker 6: I get to talk to people like you and hang
Speaker 6: out and talk to a baseball pitcher. It's like every
Speaker 6: day is different, so much fun. Well, I'm so excited
Speaker 6: you did this. Thank you so so much.
Speaker 3: It's my pleasure anytime.
Speaker 5: So what have we learned?
Speaker 4: Ask smart people stupid questions because it just might change
Speaker 4: your whole life and your dreams. So once again, Doctor W.
Speaker 4: Chris Winters is at sportsleep Doc on Twitter W Chris
Speaker 4: Winter on Instagram. He runs the Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep
Speaker 4: Medicine Clinic in Charlottesville, Virginia, and his book is called
Speaker 4: The Sleep Solution, Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How
Speaker 4: to Fix It. So if you like his voice, he
Speaker 4: also reads his own audiobook. I have a copy of
Speaker 4: his book. I bought it legit style before even booking him.
Speaker 4: It's really funny, shockingly funny and down to earth and
Speaker 4: a really great read. But it's packed with tons of
Speaker 4: neuroscience and tips, so it's really good. Ologies is at
Speaker 4: Ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I'm Ali Ward with one
Speaker 4: L on both. I'm also on did I mention Invention
Speaker 4: every Saturday morning on the CW. In case you want
Speaker 4: science content that's a little more polished, kid friendly, has
Speaker 4: zero f words or talk about butts, you can find
Speaker 4: Ologies merch at ologiesmerch dot com sales help support the
Speaker 4: making of the show and also helps you find other
Speaker 4: ologites in the wild. Perhaps you'll spot someone in a shirt.
Speaker 4: Thank you Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dootch who reached out
Speaker 4: to me after episode one to offer to help me
Speaker 4: make that reality. Also thank you to the mystery person
Speaker 4: who sent me an envelope of cash in the mail
Speaker 4: to help support the show and signed it ken damn it,
Speaker 4: I mean Steve. I'm buying rechargeable batteries for the Zoom
Speaker 4: recorder like a sensible uncle would. The Ologies Facebook group
Speaker 4: is popping off full of kind, curious, funny people. Thank
Speaker 4: you to my dear friends Hannah Lippo and Aaron Talbert
Speaker 4: for helping run that I love you both. Thank you
Speaker 4: to Nick Thorburn for writing and performing the theme song,
Speaker 4: and of course, to Sleep Deprivation poster child Steven Ray
Speaker 4: Morris for editing these episodes altogether.
Speaker 5: He also makes the.
Speaker 4: Podcasts The per Cast about cats and See Jurassic Wright
Speaker 4: about dinosaurs, so seek him out for sure. As long
Speaker 4: as we're on the topic of other podcasts, this week,
Speaker 4: I'm a guest on one called Wine and Crime. Now
Speaker 4: these are hilarious ladies, Lucy Kenyon and Amanda, They are olagites.
Speaker 4: They reached out. It was an honor to be on.
Speaker 4: I can't even see fake blood on TV without psychologically barfing,
Speaker 4: and they were kind enough to let me talk about
Speaker 4: science frauds instead of any stabbings. So if you want
Speaker 4: some heavy duty gossip about medical bambooslry, some hardcore mythbusting
Speaker 4: on the shadiest gastroentrologists the world has ever known, do
Speaker 4: take a listen to this week's episode.
Speaker 5: They are great.
Speaker 4: If somehow you're like, what is this podcast? Here's a primer, Hay.
Speaker 7: True crime fans, So have you listened to Wine and
Speaker 7: Crime Yet.
Speaker 8: We're a true crime comedy podcast hosted by three childhood
Speaker 8: friends who chug wine, chat true crime, and unleash our
Speaker 8: worst Minnesotan accents.
Speaker 7: Each week, U Scal's pick a true crime topic and
Speaker 7: pair it with the delicious wine before delving into the
Speaker 7: background in psychology behind the crime.
Speaker 9: Then we share and speculate wildly about a couple of
Speaker 9: bonkers cases related to the topic.
Speaker 8: Past episodes include necrophilia, cults, crimes of passion, cruise, ship disappearances,
Speaker 8: Exorcism's Gone Wrong, All This over a bottle of wine,
Speaker 8: or Let's be Real.
Speaker 9: Three listen anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also
Speaker 9: follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Wine and
Speaker 9: Crime Pod, and check out our website and blog at
Speaker 9: wineancrimepodcast dot com.
Speaker 4: Cheers Okay. At the end of the show on ologies,
Speaker 4: I tell you a secret, And this week's secret is
Speaker 4: that this morning I found three imasks aka pinned socks
Speaker 4: behind my bed. And my other secret is I had
Speaker 4: this epiphany the other day. Then, when it comes to
Speaker 4: doing things we've never done or are too scared to do,
Speaker 4: being scared of doing them and not doing them is
Speaker 4: way more painful than doing them. Even if you get
Speaker 4: it a little bit wrong and it's not perfect, you
Speaker 4: can always do it again. So I started a page
Speaker 4: in my notebook. I made myself write down all the
Speaker 4: things that I'm afraid to do, and I let them
Speaker 4: just kind of pour out of a pen, unjudged. And
Speaker 4: I was surprised that among them were say no, go
Speaker 4: to sleep for real. I actually wrote that, so please
Speaker 4: see part one on sleep procrastination. And then another item
Speaker 4: was do more live science and comedy events. So I
Speaker 4: will let you know how I do with tackling those,
Speaker 4: particularly the last one. And if you have a few
Speaker 4: minutes and a piece of paper and a writing utensil,
Speaker 4: will just make yourself write down what you're a little
Speaker 4: afraid to do, because it might surprise you what you
Speaker 4: write down, and maybe just give you a little gentle
Speaker 4: kick in the tush to do them, because it's so
Speaker 4: much worse to hold back than it is to do
Speaker 4: to try and fail again. So we might as well
Speaker 4: just do things as long as we're live, right, Okay,
Speaker 4: So that's my secret for you this week. I'll let
Speaker 4: you know how I'm doing on those, and meanwhile, kiss.
Speaker 5: Them sleep cool. Snooze in Okay, Bye.
Speaker 4: Bye pacadermatology, homeiology, crypto zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, patology, ethnology, seriology, ethology.
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