Speaker 1: In order to be able to cover news twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven. It means people have to work at all
Speaker 1: strange hours of the night. And even if you think
Speaker 1: about a program like Good Morning America, everyone who works
Speaker 1: on that show is waking up at two, three, four,
Speaker 1: maybe five in the morning if they're lucky.
Speaker 2: Diane Mercedo is a journalist, author, and news anchor who
Speaker 2: co hosts ABC News Live. From the anchor chair of
Speaker 2: early morning news shows to field reporting for overnight news coverage,
Speaker 2: Diane has done it all. We rely on journalists like
Speaker 2: her to be there to deliver the stories and information
Speaker 2: that we need to know, and Diane is one of
Speaker 2: the most trusted voices in the industry. On an average day,
Speaker 2: she's reporting the news to roughly eight point one million viewers.
Speaker 1: The ultimate reward is relaying this information that I think
Speaker 1: is really important, and I do you consider news of
Speaker 1: public service. And I'm a very sort of principled, idealistic person.
Speaker 3: Even still in my career.
Speaker 2: Things don't stop happening just because the sun goes down.
Speaker 2: Reporting the news is a twenty four to seven job.
Speaker 1: I've had shifts where I went in at noon, i
Speaker 1: went in at three thirty in the morning. I went
Speaker 1: in at one thirty in the morning, camera ready. I've
Speaker 1: gone in at ten or eleven pm and come out
Speaker 1: of work at nine am, And then you try to sleep.
Speaker 2: If the news never sleeps, what does that mean for
Speaker 2: the journalists to report it and how do they disconnect
Speaker 2: from the intensity and severity of current events to onewine
Speaker 2: for healthy sleep. I'm Anahad O'Connor and this is Chasing
Speaker 2: Sleep and iHeartRadio production in partnership with Mattress Firm. As
Speaker 2: a best selling author and a health call with the
Speaker 2: background in psychology, I've spent a lot of my time
Speaker 2: studying and writing about sleep. Sleep is so essential to
Speaker 2: our overall health, but often it's something we overlook and
Speaker 2: it's the first thing we tend to neglect. And each
Speaker 2: episode we'll meet people living and working in extraordinary circumstances.
Speaker 2: I want to learn how they rest and recharge their
Speaker 2: bodies and minds to perform at their very best. In
Speaker 2: this episode, we'll uncover what working through the night to
Speaker 2: bring you the news does to the brain and how
Speaker 2: to slow things down to be able to get some
Speaker 2: much needed rest.
Speaker 1: Breaking news is the most challenging part of my job. Now,
Speaker 1: But it's the part that I love the most. It's
Speaker 1: when there's no prompter to rely on, there's no script
Speaker 1: to rely on, sometimes very little information to rely on,
Speaker 1: and you kind of just have to go with your gut.
Speaker 3: It's you and the audience and nothing in between.
Speaker 1: As you're actively getting in this new information, how do
Speaker 1: I best relay this to the audience in a way
Speaker 1: that everyone's gonna understand and be able to take in
Speaker 1: and to be able to capture.
Speaker 3: What the important parts of this story really are.
Speaker 2: There's something deeply exciting about the world of reporting and
Speaker 2: fitting in all the pieces of a story to give
Speaker 2: the public a full picture.
Speaker 1: I think I've just always had this intense curiosity about
Speaker 1: wanting to know what was going on in the world
Speaker 1: and wanting to figure it out, like everything was a
Speaker 1: giant puzzle, and the more information I could get, the
Speaker 1: more I could figure out how it all comes together.
Speaker 2: There's no shortage of difficult moments in journalism. Sometimes the
Speaker 2: bigger the story, the bigger the emotional toll it can
Speaker 2: have on the public and the journalists delivering the story.
Speaker 2: I wondered about some of those bigger moments in Diane's
Speaker 2: career and how she's learned to process the weight of
Speaker 2: the news she's reporting.
Speaker 1: One big one for me was working on the Eric
Speaker 1: Garner case. I was in Staten Island talking to his friends,
Speaker 1: people who were there, who witnessed the police put him
Speaker 1: in a chokehold. They were all telling me, you know,
Speaker 1: they're saying he died at the hospital. As far as
Speaker 1: we could tell, he died in front of us. And
Speaker 1: being able to talk to people like that firsthand, see
Speaker 1: additional videos that they took. Regardless of your opinion on
Speaker 1: the case, when you see how any serious news story
Speaker 1: actually touches the people who are directly involved, it affects
Speaker 1: you differently. And that's one of those stories that you
Speaker 1: know even now, I go home sometimes and I find
Speaker 1: myself at midnight watching the video again, listening to the
Speaker 1: audio again.
Speaker 3: Can I do anything about it?
Speaker 1: No. But in the instances like that, your brain doesn't
Speaker 1: always let you sleep because it's so consumed by something else.
Speaker 1: And then you hit a story that just consumes you
Speaker 1: to the point where you can't fall asleep as easily
Speaker 1: as you would like to.
Speaker 2: Journalism requires those in the field to be able to
Speaker 2: manage high levels of emotional stress along with the intense
Speaker 2: pressure of being the first to break the news, no
Speaker 2: matter the hour. At a certain point, that all starts
Speaker 2: to take a toll. And when you're pushing through on
Speaker 2: high levels of adrenaline, how do you come down from
Speaker 2: the reporting high?
Speaker 1: Little by little, I just saw my sleep deteriorate more
Speaker 1: and more and more and more. And I think I
Speaker 1: did what most people do, which is you just assume
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 3: Power through it.
Speaker 1: And one of the perks of having a job like
Speaker 1: this is that you love it and when you're doing it,
Speaker 1: your adrenaline is pumping and you kind of find a
Speaker 1: way to perform. Your body just goes into showtime mode
Speaker 1: and you dig deep and you do it. I think
Speaker 1: the problem comes around after. It's when you get home
Speaker 1: and now you're trying to un plug from showtime mode,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to tell your body work time is
Speaker 1: over and now it's time to relax and unwind and
Speaker 1: go to sleep. I think, for myself and for a
Speaker 1: lot of journalists who are used to that kind of quick,
Speaker 1: fast paced, fast thinking life, it's when you try to
Speaker 1: step back from that that then you start to have
Speaker 1: a problem because you lay down in bed and you're
Speaker 1: trying to tell your body it's time to go to sleep,
Speaker 1: and your body's still in go mode.
Speaker 2: We all know at this point that stress can really
Speaker 2: do a number on our bodies. But I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to an expert to learn more about how stress
Speaker 2: and anxiety impact our sleep. So I decided to catch
Speaker 2: up with doctor Jade Wu. She's a Board certified sleep psychologist, researcher,
Speaker 2: and author of the book Hello Sleep, The Science and
Speaker 2: Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications. And so, with the
Speaker 2: high stress environment of working in a newsroom like Dianda's,
Speaker 2: could you walk us through how stress affects sleep. We
Speaker 2: know that not getting enough sleep can be stressful, but
Speaker 2: how does having high levels of stress effect your sleep?
Speaker 4: Yeah, stress and sleep are not good friends. So when
Speaker 4: we experience a lot of stress, especially chronic stress, hour
Speaker 4: after hour, day after day kind of stress, the message
Speaker 4: that's sending to our bodies is there must be a
Speaker 4: predator on our tail, because otherwise, why are you so
Speaker 4: high octane all the time, Why are you going, going, going,
Speaker 4: Why is your heart rate up and your cortisol levels
Speaker 4: are up? You know, all of this is telling our
Speaker 4: bodies there must be a predator. So if there is
Speaker 4: a predator, obviously the last thing you want to do
Speaker 4: is sleep. So it's really hard to turn on and
Speaker 4: off that switch to say, Okay, now I'm on, i
Speaker 4: am reporting breaking news, I am you know, chasing down leads,
Speaker 4: I am in front of the camera in front of
Speaker 4: millions of people, and then switch it off like Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm alone in my quiet room and I want to
Speaker 4: sleep now. It's really hard to just, you know, switch
Speaker 4: on and off like that and get into sleepy mode.
Speaker 2: So, if we're going about our days and tackling the
Speaker 2: challenges that life throws at us, how can we tell
Speaker 2: when stress is reaching a point where it's actively impacting
Speaker 2: our sleep.
Speaker 4: So one of the most common things I hear is
Speaker 4: tired but wired. So someone is exhausted, they're dragging, they
Speaker 4: can't concentrate, they don't feel well. They just want to
Speaker 4: crawl into bed like everything in their body is screaming
Speaker 4: for rest. But when they get into bed, they can't sleep.
Speaker 4: They have insodom. Yet they're staring at the ceiling, They're
Speaker 4: tossing and turning, their mind is racing, you know, and
Speaker 4: sometimes they even feel like panicky feelings in their body.
Speaker 4: That racing mind needs some sort of release. You know,
Speaker 4: you can't just keep kicking the can down the road.
Speaker 4: Your thoughts, your mind really do need your attention. So
Speaker 4: if all day long you're saying, Okay, I'm busy, I'm distracted,
Speaker 4: and I don't have time to process my thoughts or emotions.
Speaker 4: If the first time in your day that you have
Speaker 4: a chance to us your thoughts your emotions is at bedtime,
Speaker 4: when you lay down and it's finally quite and dark,
Speaker 4: then of course your racing mind is going to come
Speaker 4: out to play. It's like been waiting patiently all day,
Speaker 4: like a child talking at your sleep. Okay, now I've
Speaker 4: got your full attention. Let me tell you all of
Speaker 4: the things. This is the tired, bit wired phenomenon that
Speaker 4: a lot of high stress jobs will bring, because then
Speaker 4: your body and mind are really confused about what is day,
Speaker 4: what is night? You know what is on time, what
Speaker 4: is off time, so it has a hard time keeping
Speaker 4: up that. You know biological rhythm to help you up
Speaker 4: regulate when you should be awake, down, regulate when you
Speaker 4: should be asleep. We really should set aside time during
Speaker 4: the day to process our thoughts, to review what we're feeling,
Speaker 4: what we're doing. Let your mind stretch its wings so
Speaker 4: that your mind isn't like jonesing to go at bedtime.
Speaker 4: So this tired but wired feeling is definitely a telltale.
Speaker 2: Sign stress plus crazy hours. Diane was feeling the weight
Speaker 2: of her job and I was impacting her sleep, and
Speaker 2: the little sleep she was getting was starting to impact
Speaker 2: other aspects of her health as well.
Speaker 1: When I first started experiencing issues, I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: they were tied to my sleep. But the first thing
Speaker 1: I noticed was I had horrible acid reflux almost as
Speaker 1: soon as I started working in early morning news. So
Speaker 1: I saw all these doctors about my acid reflux. They
Speaker 1: put me on all this different medication. I started making
Speaker 1: all these dietary changes. Nothing helped, and in fact, I
Speaker 1: started pushing my dinner time earlier and earlier and earlier,
Speaker 1: because I kept reading that you have to have a
Speaker 1: big space between your last meal and the time that
Speaker 1: you go to sleep in order to prevent acid reflux.
Speaker 1: What I didn't know, and what no one ever talks about,
Speaker 1: is that for some people, it's really hard to go
Speaker 1: to bed when you're hungry, and lack of sleep can
Speaker 1: cause acid reflux.
Speaker 3: The other symptom I noticed was dry eyes.
Speaker 1: I started feeling just this, this is comfort in my
Speaker 1: eyes that I had never felt before, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know what was causing it. I started feeling foggy at times,
Speaker 1: mentally foggy, like I couldn't focus, and I felt exhausted,
Speaker 1: but not sleepy. I think the breaking point for me
Speaker 1: ended up being when I developed a tolerance to ambient
Speaker 1: So I called my doctor and her advice to me was,
Speaker 1: you know, you're only taking half of the lowest dose,
Speaker 1: so just take.
Speaker 3: A full pill.
Speaker 1: And I kind of decided right then and there that
Speaker 1: this is not going to be the way forward for me.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of my big Eureka moment of
Speaker 1: I need to find a better solution.
Speaker 2: Doctor Wu has seen many struggle with sleep the same
Speaker 2: way Diane has, and she recognizes that when you get
Speaker 2: to this breaking point, it can be hard to see
Speaker 2: the path out of poor sleep.
Speaker 4: To see patients who are really struggling and who really
Speaker 4: feel like they've tried everything then feeling kind of hopeless,
Speaker 4: to be able to turn that around for them, to
Speaker 4: give them optimism and to really help them to re
Speaker 4: connect with their sleep really kind of changes their whole life.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a famous saying among really busy people,
Speaker 2: I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Speaker 4: Yep, I heard that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure you get that a lot. What are
Speaker 2: some of your big highlights for why sleep is so important? Ted?
Speaker 2: Do you what do you say to people who say,
Speaker 2: you know, I can skimp on sleep and focus on
Speaker 2: other things.
Speaker 4: Well, to me, sleep is not just the empty space
Speaker 4: in between your days, right. Sometimes we think of it
Speaker 4: as like, oh, it's just filler. It's just like quiet time,
Speaker 4: and if I can squeeze more into my day, how
Speaker 4: awesome would that be. But the problem is that if
Speaker 4: you don't sleep well, then you don't have that nourishment,
Speaker 4: you don't have that basic foundation for health and well being.
Speaker 4: I don't think of it as empty space. I think
Speaker 4: of it as water in between continents. You know, it's
Speaker 4: the very thing that makes life possible. So we do
Speaker 4: need to fill our oceans and make sure that, you know,
Speaker 4: we have the rest that we need, we have the
Speaker 4: sleep that we need.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how interconnected all of these pieces are within
Speaker 2: our brains. It's like a car engine. When everything is
Speaker 2: going well, you can just cruise on down the street.
Speaker 2: But if you have a bad radiator or one of
Speaker 2: your spark plugs is out of whack, well you might
Speaker 2: still get the car from point A to point B,
Speaker 2: but it will be a struggle and one that can
Speaker 2: become dangerous. So how do you solve a serious sleep
Speaker 2: problem like a journalist, Well, you report on it.
Speaker 1: I sat down with my producers at World News Now,
Speaker 1: and given we were an overnight show, I knew our audience,
Speaker 1: many of them, presumably were struggling with a lot of
Speaker 1: the same issues. I knew a lot of my coworkers
Speaker 1: were two for that matter, and so I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to set out on this mission to fix
Speaker 1: my sleep. Do you guys want me to document it?
Speaker 1: And I will find doctors and do whatever they ask
Speaker 1: me to do, and we can put together the story
Speaker 1: of the things that I try and what works and
Speaker 1: what doesn't, and then we'll bring it to our viewers
Speaker 1: and so they can learn from it.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a brief message from our
Speaker 2: partners at Mattress Firm, and now back to chasing sleep.
Speaker 1: In my quest to find a doctor to work with
Speaker 1: me to do this whole news story and document my adventure.
Speaker 1: I had learned that cognitive behavioral therapy is the gold
Speaker 1: standard treatment for insomnia. Once we finally got this test done,
Speaker 1: I got the official insomnia diagnosis. So I started reading
Speaker 1: more and more about CBTI because I knew that that's
Speaker 1: what was going to be coming next for me, and
Speaker 1: in the effort to be a very prepared journalist, I
Speaker 1: wanted to get ahead of the game as much as
Speaker 1: I could and understand what it is that I was
Speaker 1: going to be covering and talking about.
Speaker 3: And part of the reason we.
Speaker 1: Experienced insomnia over and over and over again is because
Speaker 1: we spend so much time awake and frustrated in bed
Speaker 1: that your brain starts to learn that bed is not
Speaker 1: a calm, safe space where we go to be sleepy.
Speaker 1: Your brain starts to learn, oh, bed is a stressful
Speaker 1: place where we have to be alert. And so going
Speaker 1: to bed triggers this arousal that keeps you awake. It's
Speaker 1: why you feel like you're dozing off on the couch
Speaker 1: one second, and then all of a sudden you go
Speaker 1: to go to sleep and boom, you're wide awake and
Speaker 1: your brain is going a mile a minute. That's something
Speaker 1: called conditioned arousal.
Speaker 2: You don't need to be a news anchor to have
Speaker 2: experienced this feeling. Your muscles are sore, your body is
Speaker 2: begging for sleep, but you just lie on the bed
Speaker 2: and stare at the ceiling. More often than not, this
Speaker 2: is the manifestation of the effects of stress on your
Speaker 2: sleeping cycle. So now the question is how do we
Speaker 2: fix this? Is there anything we can do from our
Speaker 2: otherwise comfortable beds to get our minds into sleep mode.
Speaker 4: Actually, most of what we can do about this is
Speaker 4: what we do outside of bed. So for example, leading
Speaker 4: up to bedtime, we really need to have a nice
Speaker 4: wind down routine, a buffer zone between the day and
Speaker 4: the night, or for people who are working nights between
Speaker 4: you know, they're on time versus off time. That might
Speaker 4: be the best way to describe it. So leading up
Speaker 4: to bedtime, we need to be switching from doing mode
Speaker 4: to being mode. So doing mode is like getting our
Speaker 4: chores done, crossing off to do lists, getting the kids
Speaker 4: ready for bed, preparing for work, checking emails, you know,
Speaker 4: doing all of these things that are goal oriented and
Speaker 4: very active. We want to be switching from that mode
Speaker 4: to being mode, which is more like getting in touch
Speaker 4: with our body, getting in touch with our emotions, kind
Speaker 4: of winding down from the day and putting a way
Speaker 4: to do lists, putting away sort of goal oriented activities
Speaker 4: and really switching more to a grounded, centered kind of mode.
Speaker 4: And to do that, you know, we can really design
Speaker 4: our own wind down routines. Often people will have a
Speaker 4: nice you know, like bath or shower, skincare routine, get
Speaker 4: into Pj's, cuddle off with the dog, maybe read the
Speaker 4: book for a little bit, chat with your partner, but
Speaker 4: save you know, big conversations for tomorrow because we're winding
Speaker 4: down out. So having that buffer in between your really
Speaker 4: on go, go go kind of day versus your relaxing
Speaker 4: and sleepy night is very important.
Speaker 2: The driving forces that push us to calm down and
Speaker 2: actually get some rest are so strong, and the unique
Speaker 2: stresses of journalism require unique solutions. I was curious, how
Speaker 2: do journalists like Diane take some of the more tragic
Speaker 2: or emotional parts of the job and release them in
Speaker 2: order to get the amount of rest that they need.
Speaker 1: So I think I've just sort of naturally, through the
Speaker 1: course of doing this job for so long, learned that
Speaker 1: I need to create a separation to be able to function,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that you know, there aren't some
Speaker 1: stories that do affect you in that way. And I
Speaker 1: think for me, it's been a lot of just about
Speaker 1: just acceptance.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It's okay if I'm not shedding tears about every story
Speaker 1: that I report on air, even if they are a tragedy,
Speaker 1: And it's also okay if every now and then there
Speaker 1: is one where I do shed tears on air about it.
Speaker 3: And you know, if I was.
Speaker 1: Crying over every story, that would probably be fine too.
Speaker 1: I just think a lot of it is just sort
Speaker 1: of accepting what your body needs to do to process
Speaker 1: those emotions, and just to make sure you are acknowledging
Speaker 1: them and processing them, which I think I do a technique.
Speaker 3: That I have used.
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily about separating the sympathy and empathy part
Speaker 1: of things, but more about organizing my thoughts and my
Speaker 1: worries and my feeling. Sort of processing all of that
Speaker 1: and realizing what I can and can't control. I think
Speaker 1: has been a huge part of my sleep recovery. And
Speaker 1: this is a practice called constructive worry, and I often
Speaker 1: just refer to it as a worry list or a
Speaker 1: brain dump because it sounds so silly, but you just
Speaker 1: you take a notebook and you divide a page down
Speaker 1: the center, and on the left hand side of the
Speaker 1: page you just write down anything that's on your mind,
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that would keep you awake at night,
Speaker 1: or that might wake you up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. And now your brain starts racing. Write any
Speaker 1: of that stuff on the page, and then on the
Speaker 1: right hand side you write down the very next step
Speaker 1: toward resolving that issue. The exercise itself also gets you
Speaker 1: focused on solutions instead of problems. And when you're stuck
Speaker 1: in this sort of insomnia cycle where you get into
Speaker 1: a pattern of going to bed and suddenly your brain
Speaker 1: starts racing, we often at that time are more susceptible
Speaker 1: to catastrophic thinking, and so we often will ruminate on
Speaker 1: problems and it will feel like there's no way out
Speaker 1: of this. And so by doing this exercise, you sort
Speaker 1: of retrain your brain into thinking, Okay, problem, solution, what
Speaker 1: are we going to do about that, instead of just problem, problem,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, problem. And part of the reason why
Speaker 1: we cauldastrophize, at least one of the leading theories on
Speaker 1: it is that the areas of our brain that focus
Speaker 1: on things like rational thinking turn off while we're sleeping.
Speaker 1: They kind of sleep as well, and so if you're
Speaker 1: awake in the middle of the night, let's say at
Speaker 1: a time that you're normally sleeping, that part of your
Speaker 1: brain is still asleep. So now you're thinking about your problems,
Speaker 1: but without the part of your brain that controls the
Speaker 1: irrational thought. That's why it's so much easier to go
Speaker 1: into that spiral in the middle of the night. And
Speaker 1: often I found by writing things down, when I look
Speaker 1: at them the next day, it seemed absurd that I
Speaker 1: was so worried about this thing. And I think just
Speaker 1: knowing that helps the next time you're in that position
Speaker 1: to realize, wow, I think it's the end of the
Speaker 1: world that this thing happened, But it's probably just because it's.
Speaker 3: Two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: And I bet, just like last time, when you know
Speaker 1: it's nine am, I'm going to realize that this really
Speaker 1: isn't so bad. And sometimes just knowing that can help
Speaker 1: turn the temperature down on that anxiety that's keeping you awake.
Speaker 2: Diane's journey to find better sleep took her down a
Speaker 2: path of a lot of research and reporting, and ultimately
Speaker 2: she wrote a book. It's called The Sleep Fix Practical,
Speaker 2: proven and Surprising Solutions for insomnia, snoring, shift work, and more.
Speaker 2: Her goal in writing the book was to help others
Speaker 2: learn from her struggles and discoveries so they could find
Speaker 2: fixes to their own sleep problems.
Speaker 1: I think one of the hardest parts for me was
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was anxiety that was keeping me awake.
Speaker 1: I was reading all of these articles and all of
Speaker 1: these things about the temperature in the room and the
Speaker 1: perfect bedtime routine and swearing off screens and quitting caffeine,
Speaker 1: and I was trying all of these things. And I
Speaker 1: don't consider myself an anxious person in general, and so
Speaker 1: I had no idea that it was anxiety that was
Speaker 1: playing such a huge role in.
Speaker 3: Why I wasn't sleeping.
Speaker 1: If I had known that, I probably would have sought
Speaker 1: out therapy or some you know, other techniques to address that.
Speaker 3: But that's not what I was looking for.
Speaker 1: I was looking for sleep solutions, and generally sleep solutions
Speaker 1: don't address anxiety. And really, textbook insomnia just means your
Speaker 1: arousal levels are too high. It essentially my layman's translation
Speaker 1: for it is Insomnia is when you can't sleep because
Speaker 1: you can't relax, and there are a number of things
Speaker 1: that can do that for you. It can happen if
Speaker 1: you're too excited about something, but of course it can
Speaker 1: also happen if you're really stressed and worried about something,
Speaker 1: and normally if it happens for a long time, it's
Speaker 1: the latter. So for me, the anxiety, you know, in
Speaker 1: addressing this sort of fast paced lifestyle and just the
Speaker 1: way that my brain works was something that I kind
Speaker 1: of stumbled into accidentally.
Speaker 2: So for our listeners who may be curious about their
Speaker 2: own sleep, he adventure, do you have any advice for
Speaker 2: how people can assess and may get a better understanding
Speaker 2: of their own sleep.
Speaker 4: I do recommend that if you're struggling with your sleep,
Speaker 4: consult with a sleep specialist, even just to get an
Speaker 4: assessment to figure out, you know, is it because of
Speaker 4: shift work or do you have another sleep disorder. There
Speaker 4: are so many things that we don't know that we
Speaker 4: don't know about sleep, So I really caution folks not
Speaker 4: to just go down that internet rabbit hole of reading
Speaker 4: loss and lots of articles and self diagnosing. There are
Speaker 4: people who also work too hard on their sleep. I
Speaker 4: have lots of insomnia patients, for example, who say they
Speaker 4: have the perfect sleep hygiene routine from all these articles
Speaker 4: they've read, but now they're trying so hard to perfect
Speaker 4: their sleep routine that they are kind of psyching themselves
Speaker 4: up and almost creating insomnia anxiety in the evenings for themselves,
Speaker 4: and they end up with orthosomnia, which is the condition
Speaker 4: of having insomnia because you're working too hard to track
Speaker 4: your sleep. Everyone's situation is different, and that's why I
Speaker 4: think seeking help from a sleep professional is so important. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: I think listening to our bodies and trusting our bodies
Speaker 4: to tell us, like if you feel sleepy, that's your
Speaker 4: body trying to tell you something important, and if you
Speaker 4: feel awake, that's also a sign that maybe it's not
Speaker 4: time to force sleep, it's not the right timing, or
Speaker 4: you just don't have enough sleep drive yet. So I
Speaker 4: think listening to your body is a good start, and
Speaker 4: consulting with a sleep specialist can kind of take you
Speaker 4: all the way. As a news anchor, of course, you
Speaker 4: have to be really on right for the cameras, and
Speaker 4: you have to be really sharp mentally, you have to
Speaker 4: ask challenging questions to whoever you're interviewing. All of those
Speaker 4: things require mental focus, being alert, It requires being to
Speaker 4: switch gears in your mind very quickly. All of that
Speaker 4: improves when you have better sleep and better circadian functioning.
Speaker 4: So if we can stay on track with our rhythms
Speaker 4: and have that good quality sleep, then we can definitely
Speaker 4: function better as a news anchor or a whatever we
Speaker 4: do with our lives.
Speaker 2: The drive and determination that allowed Diane to thrive in
Speaker 2: the high octane field of journalism is also what allowed
Speaker 2: her to fix her sleep when it was veering dangerously
Speaker 2: off track. And with the return of good sleep came
Speaker 2: all the health benefits too.
Speaker 1: Once I just started to sleep better, all of these things,
Speaker 1: like a flywheel now turning in the right direction, started
Speaker 1: getting better.
Speaker 3: My acid reflux went away.
Speaker 1: My eating habits improved, because when you lack sleep, your
Speaker 1: hormones for feeling hungry and feeling satisfied get completely thrown
Speaker 1: out of wax. So suddenly I just started eating better
Speaker 1: without even trying, as opposed to before I was trying
Speaker 1: all these diets and all these different things to improve
Speaker 1: my eating habits. That just sort of fell into place.
Speaker 1: My dry eyes went away, my thought process felt clearer.
Speaker 1: I started making better decisions and feeling less tempted by
Speaker 1: things like screen time at night. And you just start
Speaker 1: to realize how much it all ties together, and if
Speaker 1: you can just pull on one thread, sometimes that's enough
Speaker 1: to get everything then moving in the right direction. So
Speaker 1: much of this journey for me has been learning to
Speaker 1: surrender in many ways.
Speaker 3: I can't be.
Speaker 1: The doer, the fixer, the perfectionist here in many ways
Speaker 1: I have to learn to let go and now the
Speaker 1: ability to sit at this seat for ABC News Live
Speaker 1: and have people invite me now not only into their
Speaker 1: homes every day, but their offices every day, the gym
Speaker 1: every day, wherever it is that they are watching.
Speaker 3: Do you really feel like you form a relationship with
Speaker 3: the viewers.
Speaker 1: I don't take that lightly, and I feel really privileged
Speaker 1: to be able to do it.
Speaker 2: That's all for this episode. Join me again next week,
Speaker 2: when we learn about how healthcare professionals prioritize and schedule
Speaker 2: sleep while they're saving lives. We'll hear from an er
Speaker 2: doctor in New York City about how he chases sleep
Speaker 2: through the stress of changing work schedules and life and
Speaker 2: death scenarios.
Speaker 5: During residency, I had to do ICU rotations that did
Speaker 5: have twenty four to twenty seven hour shifts. Doesn't sound
Speaker 5: possible and I didn't think it was, but somehow you
Speaker 5: make it through it.
Speaker 2: We want to hear from you. Leave a rating or
Speaker 2: review for our show on your podcast player of choice.
Speaker 2: You can find me on Twitter at Anahad O'Connor. Until
Speaker 2: next time, hoping you're living your best while sleeping your best.
Speaker 2: Chasing Sleep is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 2: Mattress Firm. Our executive producer is Molly Sosha, our EP
Speaker 2: of post is Matt Stillo, our producer is Sierra Kaiser,
Speaker 2: and this show is hosted by Anahad O'Connor.