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#23 Why Choose Sleep Part 2: Realistic Pro Tips for Getting Great Sleep in College · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

a lot of college culture, whether it's social, or academic these things are very commonly geared towards the nighttime with the notion of the all-nighter (Hi everyobody, sarah here, you just heard some very true words from Max, one of our badass student ambassadors. You heard from him a bit last week as well. Max took a sleep course at NYU so knows all the does and don'ts. and he's been such a great voice for sharing how hard it can be to priortize sleep, even when you know it's the right thing to do.  Last week you heard from Shelby Harris, and she got into the nitty gritty of some of the tougher sleep issues like insomnia and the impact of sleep deprivation and the basics of good sleep hygeine, a term I hate bc/ it sounds like you're giving yourself a rigourous shower in your dreams, but the sleep experts didn't ask me my opinion when they coined the term so there you go ANYWAY . Today we're going to hear from another smarty pants Dr. Ellie McGlinchey who also hates the controversioal sleep/friends/or academics triangle. She's going to share some realistic ways to manage sleep in college.Think you know the rules around naps, blue light, morning routines and snoozing? Well, I thought I did but Ellie is on the front lines of the latest research so she proved that when you assume you make an ass..well, you know the rest. So happy to share her insights and pro tips iwth you this week) )  (add basic intro) We're very lucky today that I have a friend and colleague with us. Her name is Ellie . She is the assistant professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University, she directs the REST lab. Oh, I love an acronym. Research on health, emotions, sleep and Treat. She has over 46 peer reviewed articles primarily on sleep, so she knows what she's talking about.Okay, so let's get started. What do we know about college students in their sleep? Allie, tell us what the research shows us.Well, I mean, in a lot of ways it's not the same as adult sleep. , or like, you know, older adult, I would say. Because. , you're kind of coming out of that child adolescent phase where you can't choose your sleep time. Now you can actually take a minute to decide, do I really wanna take an 8:00 AM class? So in some ways it's nice in, we do see that sometimes college students actually get more sleep than they did at a, a teen adolescent in high school. But sometimes they get less. So I'd say that that's actually more the name of the game is that it's variability, like from day to day, from week to week. We know when it's like finals and, you know, end of the semester you might not be getting much sleep at all, and that is pretty normal.But we also know that some people can adapt to that and it's pretty easy for them. And that's, you know, I, I guess probably something that a lot of people do is they just deal with it and then sleep a lot over the holiday break and then come back and do it all over again. Talked to students who tell us about the triangle, right? You know, actually my friend had this was from a couple years ago in high school. It, it always interested me the way she did this. She drew a triangle and on the three corners there was a, there was like school and friends and sleep, and she was like, you can pick two I hate that.okay, oh, well, tell us why.Well, because they're all important and I think that that's not, not really fair to say, like you're gonna have to give up your friends if you wanna sleep, or you're gonna have to give up your academics if you wanna sleep. I think that actually one thing that I try to talk to people about is just, yeah, recognize what, what you are giving up.and I think sometimes it is appropriate to say, okay, , I am consciously saying I'm going to give up on sleep for this period of time because I, I do think that studying for my exams is important, or I do think that this ho these holiday parties or whatever it is, are important to, to spend time with my friends. but I, I do want people to be conscious about it. You know, I think a lot of times we just give away our sleep because we think that's what we're supposed to do. And I, I try to push back on that a little bit because I, I think in college, especially in probably starting more in high school, there does start to be this shift. you're in order to make it whether it is socially or academically career wise, you have to make sacrifices or like, you know, sell your soul to whatever it is. You know, whether it's your school or your social status or your social media, whatever it might be. You kind of have to give up some part of yourself, and it seems to be that.It is a big one that people give up on. And that means, you know, maybe physically you'll feel okay during the day. And we do know that like circadian, your circadian rhythms will kind of boost in during the day to help you get through the day and you will function fine. Like you'll be fine, but you won't be great.Like you won't actually be thriving at the way that you probably could. So I actually think that. Not really fair to expect yourself to do that all the time and to just say, okay, I have decided eternally that sleep is gonna be the point in that triangle that is always, is always gonna suffer. Because a, as we know, then everything else suffers.Like actually your relationships will suffer, your academics will suffer if you don't get enough sleep. And over time you won't be thriving. I think you need all three to be thriving. Okay. I thought maybe we could talk a little like lightning round. Should college students be allowed to nap? And if they do, what are your recommendations?So I used to be super anti nap, but I gotta say I, I've changed, I've changed my ways a little bit because, well, and I kinda, I'm, I'm sorry to say not because I, I mean, okay. So I, I do have some rules around it though. Don't nap after. Ideally after lunch. I mean, take a morning nap. I, I know that sounds weird because most, most of the time it actually might not work with your schedule.But actually it's way better if you could do it earlier in the day. Just circadian rhythm wise, like that 24 hour cycle, it'll help so that you can actually fall asleep at night still. the other part of that, if you're gonna go for like a restorative nap, and that's, we'll, we'll kind of, you know, make a distinction between those. So a restorative nap is you're giving yourself at least two hours. And it has to be over two hours because you are an adult. And adults need at least, at least an hour and a.To go through the entire sleep cycle. So that means getting, you know, the lighter stages of sleep and then going into like slow wave sleep, which is the restorative sleep and REM sleep, which is your dream sleep. And so, You do kind of need that entire cycle or entire time to be able to get through the whole cycle.But if you don't have that kind of time, then shop yourself off at half an hour, ideally more like 20 minutes. But don't go longer than half an hour because then actually you might be going into those deeper stages of sleep and then you're gonna feel terrible. Hmm.So those are my rules around it. Try and I like keep it short, 20 minutes or two hours and do it earlier in the day as early as possible.I am takingso many notes for myself in this moment. Well, and that gets me to the next question that I would get a lot, which is, look, love, caffeine. I think it's just, you know, God's gift. And if I was gonna wake up after an hour in that slow wave sleep, my next step might be to go and run and grab some caffeine, try to wake myself up. (or say ... "and max agrees with me" / music here underlying max chat?)  As bad as I know it was Monster Energy and, and Starbucks group got me through a lot of that which I'm sure is like the most shared, the most commonly shared experience for college-aged people. isStarbucks and Monster Energy DrinksOh yeah.Starbucks and um, monster Energy drinks. If you'd like to contact us to sponsor our podcast, reach us at college is fine. and she podcast gmail.com.So talk a little bit about the pros and cons of caffeine.So I also, I love coffee.  And I know that if I have it later in the day, it's gonna, it's going to mess with my sleep even if I can fall asleep. We actually see that, you know, over time. it doesn't fully leave your system, so you're not getting as deep asleep and it's kind of changing some of your sleep actually when, when you've had caffeine later in the day. The other thing that I think a lot of people might not realize is don't have it right away when you wake up. Give your body a chance to have your own like hormones, chemical, like all of that to wake yourself up so that your body knows how to do that Other.it actually caffeine. You can become very dependent on it. You can become dependent to the point where that is the chemical you need in order to wake up. And so if you give yourself like an hour or so after you wake up to, to just let your body wake up, even though you might feel groggy , that's actually very normal.Sleep inertia is the term to just. Yeah, I'm not fully awake yet. My, my body is still waking up. But let your body do that and then have your caffeine because it will be much more of just an enjoyable thing. Something that does give you a little extra boost, but you're not dependent on it to wake you up. I am gonna try that out Okay, one of my, supervisors made this analogy that, I was sharing that like a patient, Didn't sleep all week.And then they were like, it's fine, I'm just gonna, like on the weekend, I'm basically just gonna like sleep through Saturday and Sunday.  (does this need a primer or ok to just leave in) it's so easy on, let's say a Sunday before an exam week where you, you want to get ahead on things, but it's not urgent yet, and it's just hours and hours pass throughout the day and you haven't like, and I haven't started that studying just yet, and then it's getting late.I'm like, okay, now's a good time to start. And then I get into the rhythm way later than I expected to because of that procrastination. by, by the time I check the clock again, it's two or three in the morning.And I remember my supervisor was like, you need to tell them that hours of sleep are not like a squirrel hoarding acorns. Like you can't just like hoard hours of sleep over the weekendare there any dos and don'ts and particularly if like a student is really noticing that their sleep is kind of wacky so again, it's if, if you're noticing your sleep is wacky, then yes, it might be timeto .that's a total clinical term. Yes. If you have wacky sleep, then just try it, like, try for two weeks to, maybe not 8:00 AM but try to keep it within. Less than two hour window.  I've actually found that's sometimes like the first thing I try with people is let's just try to keep, just for two weeks try to do a reset of your sleep timing. Because the timing sometimes fixes things that we might not realize that have. Wacky. So I would say try that for a little bit. Try to make a fun.Wake up routine. I think that that's something that nobody really talks about. Like we talked a lot about the wind down routine and how to like fall asleep more easily and do relaxation, but waking up is not that fun most of the time. It's like you kind of have to roll out and like go, go and, and again, like. Who are you giving this up to? Try to think about what you're sacrificing yourself to when you're doing something that's like, kinda sucks, like, you know, so, so try trying to think about that. Like if you could have even just built in something more, more enjoyable in your morning routine, even if you do have to beat a class by 8:00 AM Just to have it be less, yeah.Less of a burden. Less of a sacrifice and then, and then hopefully that's something that you could keep with you even on the weekends. And I will say at the same time. There actually is some newer research that if you are chronically kind of sleep deprived, and this is only true for like adolescents in young adulthood.as you get older, this becomes less true that there, there is something to having some sort of makeup sleep. So not so much that, right? You, you can't be an acorn hoarder in that, in that analogy, it's not gonna work to make everything up. It's not like, oh, I lost, cuz. Think about it. If, if we're saying like, you should get at least ish eight ish hours, you've now lost eight times.Who's gonna gimme that number? , I, I dunno what that is. 40. So you've lost 40 sleep, 40 hours of sleep. Are you really gonna sleep 40 hours on Saturday and Sunday? No way. Like that's And, and you, and, and that's not gonna feel better anyway, so. That math doesn't work and like bodily biologically that that doesn't work either.So, but it might make sense actually to give yourself some sleep extensions. So either going to bed earlier, sleeping in at a little bit, like I said, like trying not to make it like an all day. And then taking time. I, I think there is something to saying, okay, I took this period or this week to really focus.My academics and if we're looking at that triangle saying like, okay, I did make a conscious sacrifice to my academics this week, and now I'm making a conscious effort to prioritize my sleep this weekend. I think that that is, is good. That is can be a helpful practice to saying, you know, I am. Purposely taking rest back now. I think the most realistic response that I've found is to mitigate it in the best way that I can to say the, this is over.  And so this past weekend has been really restful. I I haven't overly stimulated my body, by going out or doing anything crazy and I have been trying to calm my mind as well. Right. So we've covered a few of the basics, but let's say we were to put up sort of a tip sheet on a dorm bulletin board. Right. What would you say would be some we haven't covered yet? I mean, honestly, the, the best you could probably do is like try to get morning light.  So if that means like.Going onto your devices and your screens first thing in the morning, that's potentially not a bad thing. It actually is triggering some of that biology that will help you to wake up. And you know, even better if you can get outside in the morning, . Oh, the big one that I think ends up being a game changer if you can, is to stop snoozing. So I'd say that's been a huge thing that I've worked with people on is they have like a very elaborate snoozing system. So like having, you know, multiple alarms set on their phone. Maybe they even have like some, some other device that's, that's waking them up as well. But if you think about it, you've now just lost like how long, like how long do you snooze for?For some people it's like hours. Even if it's just an hour, think about that. You could have that whole hour back if it's going on for five days a week, that you get five extra hours of sleep in your week if you stop snoozing. Then after that, your body is going to adapt to it and it's gonna be so much easier to get that. I mean, you'll have extra sleep, like I said, five extra hours into your week just by not sn.So these are all really hard things and I'm sitting here hearing this being like, wait, what? I have to wait for coffee. My coffee, I hear the grinder at 5:00 AM so I don't have to do anything but pour the cup. You know? And I have, so I'm, I'm imagining our students are listening and they're hearing like, okay, this sounds like even if I bought in, and this sounds really hard, what do they get in return for doing all these hard things?Yes. And, and that is where it ha it has to come down to what can you do today? I would say don't try to, you know, delay coffee, stop snoozing and figure out your sleep timing all in one week , I mean, it might feel possible, like in theory like, oh yeah, that sounds like things I can do.But, but it, they are hard things and I think recognizing that they are hard and might take some time is, is probably more helpful than trying to change them all at once. So. , maybe just make one small change, even if it's, you know, I, I usually actually go for the snoozing first because you automatically get more sleep.Like with the caffeine and the changing your sleep timing, that kind of thing, that you might not see the positive effects of that for a while. Like you might, you know, it might be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna get diabetes when I'm 55. You don't. Care that much in the moment. But with the snoozing, yeah, you will get that extra sleep right away. Ellie, so let's say they do all this. What is like the carrot that we're dangling, you know, in terms of physical or mental? Like what do we see? Well, you know, that person that like can kind of go with stuff and like go with the flow, kind of can roll with things. You, you can become that person. Maybe not completely. Yes, we all have our different traits and personalities, but you can become that version of your. To where things that used to feel like a really big deal and used to like really crush your day will start to feel like, okay, I, I could deal with this.Because everything feels easier when you've slept enough. I, I know that. , it might not, you might not see that the day after, but it, you might actually , you might actually, the day after, you start to implement some things that help you to get more sleep. It might, you know, next day feel like, oh, this is what I'm supposed to feel like this is, this is how it, how it can go.And I think also having more control over your day-to-day feeling like I am not just letting. You know, selling my soul to my school or, or, or selling my soul to my social media or whatever it is. I, I now have more, you know, agency in my own life. And, and that means that I am prioritizing what my body and my brain needs. Yes, you will get all of those health benefits. You will be. Hungry for sugar and like carby things, you will feel more energy to be able to take on like physical activity and and academics and you will be able to, you know, Talk to people in a way that feels natural and less, like you're constantly searching for the words, and, and you might be able to do eight times five a lot faster all right, so the elephant in the room, alcohol and sleep, and if we can include other things in that, things that people might be taking, assuming that they're really good for you, things like melatonin, sleep aids, you can get at, you know, the local drugstore, that sort of thing. Talk us through those. So for alcohol, It's, it's great. It'll, it'll help you fall asleep at first and you can pass out really easily.Especially for somebody who has some sleep problems. They might start to become dependent on alcohol as a way to fall asleep. And you might have already seen then that it actually doesn't work in the long term. And so what we know about it is that once it starts to metabolize, it actually will wake you up.So you fall asleep, you pass out. It's not good sleep. You're actually not really getting into deeper stages of sleep or dreaming in the same way. It's, it's not like it, it doesn't feel good. You have passed out, but now you've woken up, you know, usually like four hours later. So middle of the night. and now you're awake and you can't get back to sleep.So alcohol actually is one of, one of the worst. So I'm a big proponent of day drinking and as much as you can like push, push these things earlier, like, ha, have a nice a day session and then your, your body will have already metabolized it by the time you're ready to go to sleep. , but that's also hard to do.So to actually like stop drinking in order to preserve your sleep. So think about that, like again, you might be your soul to something that is not, is not doing you any good. With marijuana and other all kinds of things that we can now use before bed, I'd say we have less research on it.What we do know is that it's, it seems to be pretty similar actually to alcohol. Like it'll help you to kind of relax and fall asleep, but it doesn't actually. It's, it's not a sleep aid in the way that we might hope that it could be. And the research that we've done so far on other, other types of marijuana or thc, C B, D, all of that, it's, it doesn't really work.So it doesn't it doesn't help someone with sleep problems and it doesn't help us to fall asleep and stay asleep. For somebody who does have like, you know, pretty severe anxiety or something like that. Could potentially be helpful just to, just to help relax, but there's a lot of different ways we can, you know, relax.So that's probably the best it's going to do. The other one is like vaping and other types. You know, you can vape a lot of different things, but. I think what ends up being, you know, have using stimulants or some sort of stimulant at at night is obviously not gonna be helpful for your sleep.  So again, trying to do those things earlier in the day. And then ideally getting help if you do need to reduce the amount of substances you're using, any of these substances. And then just quickly on melatonin, actually I wonder if you did a poll of everybody. Does melatonin actually help over time? It doesn't because it's not a sleep aid.It's actually a timekeeper. So our bodies produce our own melatonin, and if you start taking what they, you know, sell at CVS or Walgreens or whatever, it's over time, your body is just gonna produce. So, again, similar to caffeine in the morning, your body will just say, cool, I've got, you know, I'm gonna get five milligrams of this, which actually is a lot.Your body does not need that much at night, and you over time will just stop producing your own. I mean, not completely. I, I shouldn't be so dramatic. But yes, it will reduce the amount that you're producing on your own. And then it will stop working. It's, it's not a good sleep aid because it's, it's not actually a sleep aid.All it does is tell your body it's time, the timing is right, such that it's nighttime, basically. So if you are gonna use melatonin, like say you're coming off of. Two weeks of giving your sleep away to academics or whatever it is, and then finding that now it's hard to fall asleep. That can be useful to take like a one milligram or even a half a milligram of melatonin like four, three or four hours before you want to fall asleep.That will then kind of help your body get, get kind of in a reset phase. And that'll help you then to be able to fall asleep at the time you want to. So it's helpful for things like shift work or jet lag where the timing has gotten messed up in some way.Well, it's pretty clear to me. I hope so. Do you, Sarah, too, that like there's a science behind sleeping and we will definitely share some resources on ways to access support if you feel like you need more help navigating your sleep. , but hopefully you have some tools when you leave this episode on how to I , improve your sleep game., my biggest takeaways from this are that I still get to have my 5:00 AM coffee and that Dr.McLin endorses a DartyA Dardi. Dardi is, DDIs are the way to go.More Dart guys.Yeah.El Ellie, this has been wonderful. I hope we didn't creep into your morning nap. I'm good. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me. (OUTRO)