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#HURDLEMOMENT: An Expert Answers Your Top Sleep Questions · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So most people think they should be getting into bed
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: at the same time every day, and the exact opposite
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: is true. What you should be doing is getting up
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: out of bed in the morning at the same time
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: every day, with very little fluctuation, maybe an extra half
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: hour on the weekends.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Hey, Hurdler's Emily Abadi here, bringing you another installment of
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Hurdle Moment from Hurdle. This week, I am chatting with
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: doctor Brittany Blair all about sleep. It's one of her
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: specialties sleep and sex actually, but we're keeping things p
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: G for Hurdle Moment. I brought doctor Blair all of
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: your top questions on sleep, and we wrap about everything.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: If there is an ideal time to get to bed
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: at night, to if it's problematic, if you're waking up
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: in the middle of the night, what the crazy dreams
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: you might be having right now? Mean and fun fact
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I learned today some of your sleep habits are actually genetic,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: which is kind of crazy. And now I have my
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: mom to thank I thank for being an early morning person.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Not going to make this intro super lengthy today, but
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I do want to say if you have yet to
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: rate and review Hurdle in the iTunes store. Now is
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the perfect time to do it. It takes just a
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: few seconds. The link is in the description to this episode,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: and it would mean the world to me if you'll
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: support what's happening here as always at Emily Abadi at
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Hurdle Podcast and if you have a hurdle moment of
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: your own to share or just want to say hi,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: always available for you over email. It's Emily at Hurdle
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: dot us. And with that, let's get to hurdling. Today,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I am chatting with doctor Brittany Blair. She's a licensed
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: clinical psychologist also board certified in both sleep and sexual medicine.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: How are you doing today? I'm doing well. Thank you.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So I can't tell you how much I've been looking
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: forward to this conversation. I have been hunting up for
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: the right sleep expert to chat with me for a
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: while now, and you came highly recommended from my friends
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: at Headspace. So thank you so much for making the time.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm more than happy to It's my favorite topic.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: My favorite topic, So tell me a little bit of
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: your backstory. I mean, it's so funny because when people
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: come on the show, my first question for them is
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: usually have you always had a vested interest and health
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: and wellness. So when you were growing up, did you have,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: you know, any special interests in sleep and the mind.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I've always been interested in the mind, so I knew
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: from very early on that I wanted to become a psychologist,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: but I actually had no interest in sleep other than
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you know, getting sleep myself. I always like to say
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: my two favorite favorite things sleep and sex. I ended
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: up specializing in both because I did not realize that
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: people have such a problem in both areas. So during
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: my very first year of grad school, I took a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: workshop sexual health and learned that one in two women
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and one in three men have a sexual problem, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: also learned how effective the solutions were and decided, okay,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: this is going to be my life's work. And then
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: in my third year of graduate school, I was kind
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of forced you don't really choose your training. In graduate school.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I was forced to do a rotation and a sleep clinic,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and I was like, why why sleep? You know, how
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: do you sleep? You just lay your head on the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: pillow and you fall asleep. And realized how many people
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you know, anywhere between thirty to fifty percent of people
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: have trouble falling or staying asleep, and then also learned
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: about the treatments for sleep and how effective they are.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Started treating patients in that clinic and I was just transfixed.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I was immediately hooked. So I ended up doing a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: double year long training. I did it one year long
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: training in Couples in Sex Therapy at UCLA and did
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: my post docket Stanford specializing in behavioral sleep medicine. So
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: now spend about half my time doing sleep and half
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: my time doing sexual health. And there's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: themes that kind of underlie both mechanisms physiologically, psychologically, and
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: actually inter personally.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: So interesting, so so interesting. So I'll let you in
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: on another secret. I filled in the hurdlers that I
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: was going to be chatting with a sleep expert. And
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever had so many questions
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: and thoughts and I want to know this tidbits poor
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: in so they're excited to hear from you, and I
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  Speaker 2: think first things first, I mean we can both agree
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: that right now, with everything that's going on, it is
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  Speaker 2: a time in that our anxiety levels are up, We're
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  Speaker 2: feeling a little bit anxious, We're out of our normal routines,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: although by now maybe we have a new quote unquote
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  Speaker 2: normal routine. So why is it that these stressful times
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  Speaker 2: can contribute to wonkiness when it comes to our sleep patterns. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it's a great question, you know.
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  Speaker 1: Prior to the pandemic, we saw a prevalence of insomnia,
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  Speaker 1: which is a clinically significant diagnosis.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: This means that it consistently takes you difficult, consistently takes
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: a lo long time for you to fall asleep, You
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: have difficulty falling asleep, or you wake up in the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: middle of the night can't go back to sleep, or you
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: wake up in those early morning hours and can't go
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  Speaker 1: back to sleep. All of those things are symptoms of insomnia,
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  Speaker 1: and roughly thirty percent of the population experienced these symptoms
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: prior to them pandemic. During the pandemic, we saw those
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: prevalence rates increase up to seventy percent. So for all
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of us we had some some impact. I mean, the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: pandemic impacted all of us and for many many of us,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: it impacted our ability to sleep. Many reasons for that. Right, Obviously,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: stress impact our ability to sleep. An active mind is
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  Speaker 1: not conducive to sleep and active or stressful or worried
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: or stressed out. Our worried mind is not conducive to
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  Speaker 1: healthy sleep. And then also a lot of our sleep
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  Speaker 1: schedules got wacky, right because we didn't have a normal
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: We weren't getting up but our normal on our normal time,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: normal routine. Kids weren't going to school, and so with
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: an irregular sleep schedule, the sleep was significantly impacted and
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: them pile on top of that, people being exposed to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: massive amounts of negative news and media and tons of
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: uncertainty about what's going to happen, what's happening now, what's
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: going to happen, what is the future going to look like?
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Which led to a lot of bizarre dreaming. You're getting
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: less stimulus during the day because you're stuck in the house,
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  Speaker 1: and what you are getting is just full of bad
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  Speaker 1: news or anxiety provoking news, and so people really notice
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: an uptick in bizarre, bizarre dreams or even nightmares.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Interesting. I'd love to dive into that bizarre dream tibit
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  Speaker 2: because I think that's one of the questions that came
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: in the most is why is it that my dreams
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: are a increasing and be literally just totally wacky.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of people are experiencing this. So
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of reasons. One is with an
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: erratic sleep schedule. If you're sleep, if you're not falling
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: asleep at the same time and getting up at the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: same time, the timing of your rem sleep rapidi movement sleep,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: which most of our dreaming occurs, is disregulated, and so
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: what happens is you will be waking up more frequently
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: in the night, so you may remember your dreams more.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And also you're not getting as much normally. When we
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: go out into the world every day, we have a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: barrage of different forms of stimuli, right from like walking
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: down the street or driving down the street, engaging with
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: different people. More were trapped in our house, the mind
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: is actually trying to come up with stuff to stimulate itself, right,
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  Speaker 1: So part of the reason, I think is lack of
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  Speaker 1: external stimuli in the environment because we're trapped inside or
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: we're trapped inside. And then also the elevated stress levels.
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  Speaker 1: The media that we're consuming is quite stressful, and the
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  Speaker 1: brain during dream sleep is trying to make sense of
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  Speaker 1: the external world around us in order to ensure survival. Right,
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  Speaker 1: sleep is actually a very primitive. Primitive part of the
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  Speaker 1: brain regulates sleep. It's a very primal process, and so
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  Speaker 1: the sleep part, the sleep part of your brain doesn't
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  Speaker 1: really recognize that this is not a very well and
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  Speaker 1: it has been for many people a very real threat
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  Speaker 1: to your life, but doesn't recognize that this is in
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: a very real threat right now, that's something you need
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  Speaker 1: to do something about. So doing dreams, the brain is
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  Speaker 1: kind of digesting what you feel is relevant information for
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  Speaker 1: our survival. So if there is someone lis saying to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: this who is determined to try to get some of
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: those old sleep good feelings back, is there anything that
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  Speaker 1: they can do to ease into a more RESTful and
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  Speaker 1: less maybe sometimes scary sleep pattern. Yes. Absolutely, And it's
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  Speaker 1: actually opposite of what most people think. So most people
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: think they should be getting into bed at the same
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: time every day, and the exact opposite is true. What
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: you should be doing is getting up out of bed
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: in the morning at the same time every day with
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: very little fluctuation, maybe an extra half hour on the weekends.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: By getting out of bed at the same time every day,
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  Speaker 1: your body is going to get sleepy at the same
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  Speaker 1: time every night. So the first tip would be get
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  Speaker 1: out of bed at the same time every day. It's
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: incredibly important. It's the single most important thing you can
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: do for healthy sleep and healthy sleep. A good, strong,
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  Speaker 1: healthy sleep system is going to result in a decrease
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  Speaker 1: in bizarre dreams if not only because your sleep will
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  Speaker 1: be healthier, but because you'll be waking up less frequently
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  Speaker 1: in the night. Still have dreams, especially until you can
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: get outside and your brain can have access to more
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: different forms of stimulation. But get not waking up in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of the night is going to help a ton,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and getting out of the getting out of bed the
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  Speaker 1: same time every day is the best thing you can
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: do for kind of ensuring good quality sleep. And then
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  Speaker 1: the other thing in this I know everybody has heard
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: this and I'll just iterate it here. But the other
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: thing is really reducing screen time and what you're exposing
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: yourself to in the evenings. I like to say all
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of us should be able to carve out nine to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: nine and a half hours a day. In nine into
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: nine and a half hours, we are sleeping, maybe we're
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: having some form of sexual activity or relaxing activity, but
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: we're not looking at media, We're not looking at social media,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: we're not consuming news, we're not looking at our screens.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe we're reading a good old fashioned paper book or magazine.
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  Speaker 1: So carving out a nine and a half wind hour
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  Speaker 1: window every day where you can just either be sleeping
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: or relaxing. The average adult needs seven to nine hours
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of sleep a night, so the odds that you need
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: nine and a half hours of sleep are very low.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: But by carving out that time, you have maybe an
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: hour to an hour and a half of just wind
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: down time in the evenings when you can kind of
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: prepare your brain and your body for healthy sleep.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: And I think some of the things you just said
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: will probably be applicable to this next question that came in,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: which is are there any tips to falling asleep faster?
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Right? And so the counterintuitive thing there is the best
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: tip to falling asleep faster is to get out of
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: bed at the same time in the morning.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: When people sleep schedule fluctuates, it compromises their ability to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: fall asleep. And then also recognizing that sleep our brain
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: is not like a flip switch, right, It's more like
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: a volume knob or a dimmer switch, and so it
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: takes our brain a while to wind down into sleep
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: and actually to wind up out of sleep. So most
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: people in the morning we call it sleep inertia for
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the first kind of thirty minutes to an hour in
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the morning are a little bit groggy. It takes them
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: a while to wind up and be into complete alertness
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and being kind of their brain online and ready to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: go for the day. And the same thing is true
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: in the evenings. And so that can best be done
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: by again, you know, roughly hour to hour and a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: half prior to bed, really discontinuing any activity that is
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: productive or is too activating. So you want to be
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: doing things that are calming for the mind and relaxing
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: for the body, and that ninety minutes before you'd like
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: to find you before you'd like to be falling into sleep.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: But the other thing that people underestimate is the impact
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of light. And so now we have all these small
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: smart bulbs, so training your bulbs or setting your bulbs
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: that they actually get dim so you're in a very
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: dimly lit home in those hours before bed can work
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: wonders in terms of your brain producing it's natural melotonin
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: and you're being able to fall asleep. Right.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: So two follow ups to that, the first one is
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: we keep bringing up that there's an ideal, you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: kind of waking up at the same time every morning.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: One of the questions that came in my way was
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: is there an ideal time to go to bed at night?
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: No, so the ideal time to go to bed is
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: when you're feeling sleepy. So what I would what I
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: would recommend for people is carving out your whatever your
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: sleep schedule is going to be. And this is largely
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: obviously it's impacted by the requirements of what you need
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: to do during the day. But some of us are
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: what we call neutral sleepers, meaning we get sleepy on
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: average around eleven pm at night and we'll wake up
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: around seven am. Others of us are night owls, meaning
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: we don't actually naturally get sleepy until much later one,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: maybe even two am. We find our evening hours the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: most productive time of our day, the most creative time
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of our day, and you don't want to talk to
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: us in the morning, right We're quite grouchy in the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: morning and have a very difficult time waking up before
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: eight or nine am. And then other people are morning
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: larks or what we call advance to sleep phase, where
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: they are not your party animals. These people are the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: folks that are really super duper sleepy by nine thirty
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: ten pm and are bright eyed and bushy tailed by
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: five am. That is me, Oh, yeah, you're a morning lark, okay,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And that timing is genetic. Actually, so one or both
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of your parents we're morning larks. And so the best
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: quality sleep is actually sleeping consistently with your biological clock.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: So if you're a morning lark, you're going to get
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: your best sleep if you go ahead and stay consistent
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: with that morning lark schedule. And the same thing with
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: someone who's a night owl. And so there's not a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: specific time at night that is ideal. Everybody should be
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: sleeping by midnight. It's much more about getting up in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the morning at the same time, not a specific time,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: but at the same time for you, whatever is the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: best time, and that'll lead to feeling sleepy in the
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: evening and again carving out that ninety minutes prior to
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: your desired bedtime to really allow the mind to wind
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: down and prepare for sleep.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Now you're saying that a lot of this has to
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: do with genetics, but I think one of the most
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: popular questions I get all year round. Is someone who
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: watches on social media, they see that I am a
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: morning person, and they ask, how can I also become
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: a morning person? If someone is predisposed to being a
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: night owl, is it possible for them to switch the
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: patterns here?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: It is, but it's extremely difficult. It's kind of like saying,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: what's a little bit more difficult actually than getting your
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: hair dyed? If you're a blonde and you really want
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to be a brunette, you could be a brunette, but
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: you're going to have to be extremely consistent in the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: salon every seven weeks, right, otherwise your natural hair color
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: is going to come out. And the same thing with
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: your chronotype or your biological clock. You could certainly train
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: yourself to be a morning lark by setting your alarm,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: getting up early in the morning, exposing yourself to bright
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: light first thing in the morning. You can micro dose
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: smel atonin three to four hours. In micro dose, I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: mean three hundred micrograms three to four hours prior to
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: your desired sleep time. Make sure you have really dim light,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: relaxed setting and see if your body will fall asleep earlier.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: But in order to maintain that earlier schedule, that is
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: counter to your biology. You will have to be extremely
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: consistent because going on vacation, taking time off work, anything
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: that you do is going to gradually pull you back
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to your default, your biological default. So that's the important
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: thing for people to keep in mind.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: You said a really big buzzword here, melotonin. Now, I
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: have dabbled with melotonin for years in and out. At
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a few
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: different studies that I read talking about positive correlations right
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: now in this time by taking melatonin and going to bed.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So I thought to myself, why not let's do it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: So give me some insight onto melotonin. Firstly, what does
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: it do by taking extra then the body is already producing?
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And secondly, is there such a thing as having too
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: much or using it too regularly?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, so lots of thoughts on this. First of all,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: there are the studies that we have looking at melatonin
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and its efficacy on sleep on set suggests that it
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: is a placebo effect. So people who take a milligram
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: to miligram through miligram of melatonin, they may very well
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: perceive that they fall asleep more quickly or more readily,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and that is due to placebo, not to any active
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: agent in the melatonin, So that's one thing. Secondly, melatonin
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: is produced naturally by the brain. So anytime we have
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: an endogenous production or natural production of something, putting a
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: supplement in our body of the same thing can be
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: problematic affect our own natural melotone in production. And then thirdly,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: melatonin is not Supplements in the United States are not regulated.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: It's not a regulated industry, so we have no way
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: of knowing if what you're taking in that melatonin pill
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: is a melatonin or if it is wheat or sand
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: or dirt for that matter, or hey, you know, there's
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: just no way for us to know what's actually in
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that supplement in that individual pill. And in studies that
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: have been done looking at the contents of melatonin within
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: one bottle of melatonin, we have found there's seventy percent
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: less than what stated on the bottle and four hundred
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: percent more and that's just in one bottle when looking
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: at the actual, yeah, what it actually contains. So with
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that said, there is some benefits to taking micro doose melatonin,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: which is three hundred micrograms. You can't even find it
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: at a normal drug store. So it's a little bit
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: difficult to find three hundred micrograms for jetlag and for
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: shifting your biological clock. So, for example, if you're a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: morning lark, taking three hundred micrograms in those early morning
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: hours can help gradually overtime shift your biological clock later.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: If you're a night owl, taking melatonin three to four
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: hours prior to your desired sleep time can shift your
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: biological clock earlier, if that makes sense.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: So three to four hours seems like a decent amount
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: of lead time there. It is.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So what it does is when you take a teeny
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: teeny dose of it is it almost acts like an inoculation, right.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: It causes your body's natural melatonin production to ramp up.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So it gets that little tiny hit of melotone and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the body says, oh, whoa, it's time to start producing melatonin.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And that's what makes you fall asleep earlier.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Interesting, And so there's a difference between reaching for that
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: hard to find microdose and taking what some of the
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: more readily available amounts would be, say, from your local
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: drug store.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Right, So most people will take one to three miligrams
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: of melotonin at night when they want to fall asleep
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and again, it can be quite effective for some people,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: but the effect is dutible. Ciba, the active agent melotone,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: can also create grogginess the next morning because what's happening
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: is your body naturally produces melos starts producing melotonin. When
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it starts to get dark outside, right, the melatonin production
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: goes up. When light hits the optic nerve, the melatonin
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: production stops. It sends a message to the neogland to
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: stop producing melotonin. So the body kind of naturally has
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: an on set melotonin production and offset molotonin production. So
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: by giving you something synthetic, you're screwing with messing with
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the timing of your body's natural melatonin. So unless you're
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: doing that very strategically, it's not a good idea generally.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And if there are individuals listening who are regularly taking
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: melatonin but aren't experiencing some of the negative effects are
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: possible negative effects that you are talking about, is their
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: reason for them to stop or what would you advise
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: to them?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I always advise that people sleep clean, in
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: other words, not take anything for sleep if they can,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: if they can, if they're really not able to sleep,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: or believe that they're not able to sleep without it. Then,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of the things that you take that impact sleep, melatonin
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: is certainly among the less harmful.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: But you know, sleep is.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: A natural passive process, just like breathing, and if we
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: can get to the place where we can avoid taking
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: stuff to actually impact the sleep, I think we're better off.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Got it? Okay, shifting gears a little bit. We have
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of different awesome stellar athletes that listen to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: the show and one of the questions that came in
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: is should I be increasing the amount of sleep that
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I am getting during a training cycle so someone who
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: might be taking on a little bit more activity than usual.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Actually, there was an interesting study done at
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Stanford with Stanford's basketball varsity basketball team and what we
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: did with them is we actually, very very very gradually
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: increase their total time in bed so that they were
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: actually sleeping more. That was the only thing that changed
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: about their training program. So all of the other their diet,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the drills, they were doing, everything else did the same
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: except me slowly, over two weeks increase their time in bed,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and what we found is shooting accuracy and sprinting speed
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: went up. So any professional athlete knows that sleep is
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: actually imperative to performance. So if one can again not
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: giving yourself in side by getting into bed, not being
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: able to sleep and trying to force sleep, but if
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you can very gradually increase your time in bed by
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: fifteen minute increments every few days, and that is increasing
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: your total sleep time, that is one of the best
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: things you can do to increase athletic performance for sure,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and to enhance recovery. Right.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Deep sleep.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: One of the only things that we know really increases
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the amount of deep sleep naturally that the brain gets
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: is by training, like intense exercise during the day, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: so the brain and the body need that deep sleep
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: in order to repair muscle repair, like all of the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: process the body goes through to repair and prepare for
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: performance the next day.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about that kind of angry
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: feeling you get when you cannot fall asleep and then
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: it kind of starts building up in your mind and
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: then you're frustrated and you're wondering if I have insomnia,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: and it just spirals out of control. So for someone
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: who feels like they experience that dreaded spiral on the regular,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: so to speak, what kind of advice would you offer
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: to them.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, the first thing I would say is, look,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: you're not alone. This has experienced many people, if not
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: most people haven't had at least some point in their life,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you know, stressed about a test the following day, or
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: argument with a partner, something that causes an increase in
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: what we call hyper arousal, which makes the sleep more difficult.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: So the way I think about it is sleep is
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a passive process. The more we make it active, the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: less well things are going to go. Same with sex. Actually,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: if I were to hold a gun to your head
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and tell you to clap your hands and stomp your feet,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you could do it all day long. If I were
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to hold a gun to your head and tell you
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to fall asleep and or get an erection and or
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: have an orgasm, it's never going to happen these Sleep
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: is a passive process, right, meaning the less attention that's
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: placed on it, the more likely it is to happen.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: This is why lots of folks who suffer with chronic
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: insomnia will be sitting on the couch in front of
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the television and fall sound asleep, and then they get
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: up and go into bed, and immediately their mind is
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: active and they're not able to sleep right. And that's
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: because by getting up and walking into bed a place
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: where the sleep has been very painful and difficult, all
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: of a sudden the sleep becomes active. Oh my gosh,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I've got a fall asleep. I'm not going to be
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: able to function tomorrow. I'm not getting to sleep. It's
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: taken me too long to fall asleep, and now something
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that should be very passive has become active. Pressure has
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: been put on the sleep performance pressure, and it's not
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: going to work. It's never going to happen.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: That could be Madnate, Please, I have been there, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I actually personally what I did when I started to
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: experience a string of these things was actually lean into
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the Headspace sleep casts and it was like it worked.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I think, maybe not on the first evening that this
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: happened to me, but the second evening that this happened
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: to me, it worked. And so then I had a
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: positive association with like, oh, this is going to be
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: my magic thing that I can do when I'm up
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: in the night. My head is racing, and so I'll
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: just ask Alexa to play one of those sleep casts
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: and it was so so helpful for me, and I
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: didn't have to leave my bed and I was able
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: to get back to a calm place. And so I mean,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: obviously not everyone's going to turn on headspace and it's
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: going to be the immediate fix. But for me, again
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: that positive association, it was like an easy thing that
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I could do and I could ease my way back
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: into sleep.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: That can be a great tip or technique, and I'll
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: give you like the positive negatives of that. So the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: reason that Headspace sleep cast works and I was involved
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: in working on their sleep programs, so I'm a huge
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: fan of headspace. But the reason that that works is
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: because it's focusing your mind. So a focused mind is
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a calm mind, and in order for sleep to happen,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the mind has to be calm. If you think about it,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: our bodies are most vulnerable during sleep and sex, so
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: if the mind is active in any way, things are
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: not going to go well. So it's just kind of
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: intuitive when you think about it. So if the mind
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: is focused on a sleep cast, on a story, or
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: what's going on inside of your body, then the mind
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: is calm and sleep is likely to happen. The moment
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that the mind gets activated, sleep becomes more challenging. So
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the downside with headspace is if you then create an
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: association between I have to have my sleep cast in
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: order for me to sleep, it's going to backfire on
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you because again, most sleep naturally occurs when it's just
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: when we're not thinking about it. There's no performance pressure.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: So anything external that you use, I'm not saying this
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: head cast or bad, or the sleep cast or bad.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying becoming dependent on anything external to your
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: own mind eventually can become problematic.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So then another example of possibly way that someone who
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: wakes up in the middle of the night wants to
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: go back to bed is having some trouble. What's another
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: example or a tip that you would offer them to
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: get back to sleep?
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: So it you know, I'd like to think of that
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: arousal or kind of the activation around sleep on a
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: scale of zero to five. So zero being that that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: stage where you know, right as you're drifting into sleep,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: your body's totally relaxed, your mind is calm, and you
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: kind of go over the waterfall into sleep, and five
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: being a full blown panic attack. Right, so five you're
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: very activated. There's no way you know your mind is
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: in a state of fire or flight, there's no way
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: you're going to go to sleep. So if you're a
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: two or three or under right, so you're feeling fairly calm,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: you're certainly not activated or anxious in any way, but
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the sleep isn't really coming. Several things you can do.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: One you certainly can use your head cast or your headspace.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: You can also use internal ways of meditating or focusing
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the mind, so focusing on the breath. You can do
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a body scan where you're trying to focus all of
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: your attention on your toes and kind of work your
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: way upward. For people who are more cerebral and less sensory,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: you can do something like cereal sevens, or you start
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: at one hundred and count backward by seven. Just enough
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: concentration to focus the mind. That will help calm the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: mind and help the sleep come more readily.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: So anything like that.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: If you're feeling activated, so let's say on that scale
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of zero to five, you're more in that three range,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: You're not panicking, but you're definitely kind of feeling wide awake,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: then there's no point in doing any of those things.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Then what you want to do is sit up in
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: bed and read something not on a digital device, but
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: read something only until the mind starts to calm again
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and you start to fill those heavy eyelids. Then you
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: can put the reading material down, lay back down and sleep.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: See if sleep is ready to come back. If you're
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: at a four or a five on that scale, get
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: out of bed. There's just no point. You're activated. You
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: might as well go take a shower, go turn something
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: on TV. You're really too activated, and you want to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: get out of bed, just until you feel yourself calming
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and relax down to that three to two to three range,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: and then you can get back into bed and see
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: if sleep wants to come. But the idea is you
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: want to with all of your effort, all your ability
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: not chase the sleep. You can chase having a calm
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: mind and a relaxed body and then allow the sleep
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: to come to you.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I love that tip. That's super super helpful. Okay, So
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: then as we wind down here, two more questions. First question,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: talk to me about sleep temperature. Is there one ideal
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: temperature or just like the time you go to bed,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: does that vary from person to person?
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: So your temperature fluctuates across the night depending on the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: sleep stage. That you're in. But ideally you keep your
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: sleep environment very cool, and by cool I mean sixty
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: three to sixty five degrees kind of cold. The cooler
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: your sleep environment, the sleep context you're the ambient I'm mature,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the more quickly your body is going to go into
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: deep sleep. So you don't want your sleep sleep. You
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: don't want your room to be too warm. If it's
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: too warm, your body's going to stay in light stage sleep.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So the cooler, you know, really around that sixty three
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to sixty five degrees.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, So that leads me in to the last question
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: we're going to have here. I'm earnning an air conditioner
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: now at night, I've got some definite white noise in
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: the room. Is white noise a good thing to have
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: in your environment when you're going to sleep? And why
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: is that?
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So if you think about anytime you want to think
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: about sleep, you can think about it. How we're sleeping
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: if we were in a cave.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: The ideal state or context for sleep is a cool
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a very cold or cool dark quiet environment. So during
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: light stage sleep, the brain is still processing external stimuli.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: So if you have noises in the environment that you
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: can hear during light stage sleep. Your brain is going
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to be processing those noises preventing you from falling into
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: deep sleep. So white noise could be a great hack
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: to prevent you from hearing, especially most of us that
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: are living in cities and out external noise, or you
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: have maybe roommates or housemates, so white noise can be
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: brilliant to help mask those environmental sounds or noises that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: will impact your bodies of ability to fall into deep sleep.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: So white noise can be a great tool. We don't
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: recommend using white noise too close to the too close
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: to the bed, and certainly not too close to a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: child's crib as it can affect hearing. But yes, generally
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: having white noise is a great thing because it masks
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: environmental noises that could disrupt the sleep.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I do have one last question that popped into my
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: head as we were on as you were talking about
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: ideal sleep scenarios. I remember when I was younger getting
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: personal here, I used to have this dream about going
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: to the department store and playing with a certain set
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: of dolls or something, and I would always want to
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: have this same dream over and over, and so I
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: would try to think about things before I went to
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: bed that would make me have this dream, and sometimes, honestly,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I felt like I was successful. So if someone is
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: having or wants to have a specific dream, or like
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: has had a series of recurring dreams, is that because
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: maybe their mind is back in the same place time
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: and time again.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, it could be so roughly ten to twenty percent
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: of people, or what we call lucid dreamers, meaning they
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: can actually control when and what they dream while they're
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: dreaming it, and they're aware that they're dreaming. So you
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: can develop the skill for lucid dreaming. It's absolutely something
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you can practice. And what you just described is exactly
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the way what we recommend to people is right before
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: you go to bed, try to bring to life as
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: visibly as you can. I recommend people using their five senses. Right, So,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: if you're in the department store playing with toys or dolls,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: bringing to trying to bring to mind, what does it
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: smell like in there, what do they feel like as
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: you're touching them, How heavy are they as the fabric
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: soft those kinds of things. What do you see in
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the environment, what do you hear? Really bringing to light
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: that you're using your five senses as best you're able
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to try to bring that visual into your is as
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: much as you can into your mind and then drifting
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: off to sleep kind of meditating on that visual. And
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: this is increases the odds that you can you could
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: lucid dream or decide what and when you're gonna dream.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: So you're saying that everyone listening to the podcast right
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: now can think about being in Hawaii and buy some
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: palm trees and smelling pinacoladas and maybe it'll work, and
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: that's what we'll think about.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, try to bring that image to life.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: What does that sound feel like? What does that piniccolada
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: sand feel like the sound of the ocean, the pinacolada
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: on your tongue. Yes, focus on that and say, if
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: you can't put yourself on the beach in Hawaii, that
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: sounds like come on right now and.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: I'm going to hold you to that. Doctor Blair, thank
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: you so much for your time today. If the hurdlers
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: want to keep up with you, they want to learn
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: more from you, how can they find you online on
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: social media? Give me all of the info.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can, you can find me online. My clinic
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: is the clinicca dot org or you can just google
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: doctor Britney Blair b R t n E y b
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: l a I R and you will find me awesome.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so so much. I am at Emily
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Body at Hurdle Podcast, Another hurdle conquered. Catch you guys
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: next time