Speaker 1: I'm TT and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 2: This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
Speaker 3: pop culture, and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 1: This week, we're continuing our new year series with the
Speaker 1: second part of our sleep episode. In part one, we
Speaker 1: talked about why sleep is so beneficial for our health.
Speaker 1: We went through the multiple stages of sleep.
Speaker 3: Today, our deep dive on sleep continues and we've got
Speaker 3: a lot to cover, so let's just go ahead and
Speaker 3: jump into the recitation. Okay, so what do we know? Well,
Speaker 3: we learned a lot in the last episode. I think
Speaker 3: there's no denying sleep has major health benefits memory pruning
Speaker 3: and consolidation. It's good for your immune system, your cells,
Speaker 3: your muscles. I mean, everybody needs sleep, that's just the
Speaker 3: gist of it.
Speaker 1: Yes, And quality sleep basically means that you're getting about
Speaker 1: seven to eight hours a night and going through all
Speaker 1: the stages, especially delta, so that's deep sleep, and that's
Speaker 1: where you have those slow brain waves and not getting
Speaker 1: enough sleep push you at higher risk for all kinds
Speaker 1: of things like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer.
Speaker 1: But Strangely, the same thing goes for if you're getting
Speaker 1: too much sleep, like over nine hours, that's also not good.
Speaker 1: Another thing that we know from part one is that
Speaker 1: society has a huge sleep debt. People aren't getting enough sleep,
Speaker 1: and especially so in communities of color. More black and
Speaker 1: Latin X people than white people report getting less than
Speaker 1: six hours of sleep regularly.
Speaker 3: So what do we want to know?
Speaker 1: So we know that people aren't really getting good quality sleep,
Speaker 1: but I want to know the reasons why. So what
Speaker 1: are common sleep disorders and other things that are keeping
Speaker 1: people from having long sleep and deep sleep?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if we're seeing this disparity in sleep, what
Speaker 3: are the psychosocial factors, so our beliefs or how we
Speaker 3: behave that are associated with it?
Speaker 1: And then I want to know what are some things
Speaker 1: we can do to improve our sleep?
Speaker 3: And you know, on that road to sleep improvement, is
Speaker 3: it okay to take medication or over the counter of
Speaker 3: sleep aids.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to know the answer. Let's jump into the dissection.
Speaker 1: Our guest is renowned sleep expert doctor Jiardane Jean Louis,
Speaker 1: who is currently the director of the brand new Translational
Speaker 1: Sleep and Circadian Sciences Program at the University of Miami
Speaker 1: Miller School of Medicine.
Speaker 3: At the end of Part one, we started discussing these
Speaker 3: sleep disparities within communities of color. Not only are these
Speaker 3: communities not getting in enough sleep, they also take longer
Speaker 3: to fall asleep and they wake up more routinely during
Speaker 3: the night. And we also know that not getting enough
Speaker 3: sleep can have some really serious health effects like cardiovascular
Speaker 3: disease and dementia. So we really wanted to dig into
Speaker 3: some of the environmental and psychosocial factors that might be
Speaker 3: associated with poor sleep. Actually, doctor Jean Louis.
Speaker 1: Is working on a study right now funded by the
Speaker 1: NIH to examine just that.
Speaker 4: So what we are looking at now is what are
Speaker 4: some of those environmental factors that are causing what we
Speaker 4: call sleep deficiency or poor sleep, or what are some
Speaker 4: of those socco social factors that are associated with poor sleep.
Speaker 4: I can't give you a falling so yet because that
Speaker 4: study is ongoing, but I can tell you what we
Speaker 4: figur're going to see. We're going to see that in
Speaker 4: mignaritis communities, we have high level of noise, high level
Speaker 4: of light pollution, high level of air pollution in the light.
Speaker 3: Where you live can have a huge effect on your
Speaker 3: quality of sleep for all of these reasons, noise, air,
Speaker 3: and light pollution, and even lack of green space.
Speaker 4: Folks while don't not normally go to the park, they
Speaker 4: have no access to green space, the steep quality is
Speaker 4: much lower and the stip diusion is also much lower.
Speaker 4: So green space, as you may know, is good for
Speaker 4: both physical healf as much as psychological helf.
Speaker 1: High levels of light pollution also disturb sleep.
Speaker 3: But how light can be a good thing, brightening our homes,
Speaker 3: keeping streets well lit and safe for driving. But like
Speaker 3: any good thing, there can be too.
Speaker 1: Much of it. Light pollution is excessive use of artificial light,
Speaker 1: and that can have adverse effects on your health.
Speaker 3: If you live near a big city and don't see
Speaker 3: a lot of stars, that's due to light pollution. If
Speaker 3: you go out of the city and you're further away
Speaker 3: from artificial lights, you'll be able to notice the stars more.
Speaker 3: All the lights in the city, all the lights from buildings, factories,
Speaker 3: billboard and street lamps, they give this effect called skyglow.
Speaker 3: It sounds pretty, but it's not good for you.
Speaker 4: Light pollution is a very important factor. A lot of
Speaker 4: people don't realize this. Life is very important because light
Speaker 4: regulates all of our hormonal cycles. So as our eyes
Speaker 4: are exposed to light on a daily basis, it regulates
Speaker 4: what we call the square gas. Many nuclears wish in
Speaker 4: terms regulate melotonin by the temperature corossoal and the light.
Speaker 4: What we find in for instance, is that we should
Speaker 4: have a high level of exposure during the day and
Speaker 4: almost no exposure at night. For some Black forks is
Speaker 4: the opposite. They get very low light during the day
Speaker 4: and high level of lights doing the night. Coming from
Speaker 4: the perspective of a corona biologist, I know what light
Speaker 4: does to a biology and also what light does in
Speaker 4: terms of depression anxiety. So when you see that that
Speaker 4: level pollution is present in our black communities, it's really alarming.
Speaker 1: And there are other environmental factors that affect sleep too,
Speaker 1: including noise, traffic, and air pollution.
Speaker 3: But environmental factors aren't the only things that affect sleep.
Speaker 3: Doctor Jean Louis explained that psychosocial factors also play a
Speaker 3: large role in sleep quality.
Speaker 4: We're also thinking about some of the psycho social factors.
Speaker 4: There's a paper that came out that showed that if
Speaker 4: you happen to be asking black and white in terms
Speaker 4: of insomnia symptoms, and we're looking at perceived racism, you'll
Speaker 4: see for black folks those which do we port in
Speaker 4: samia symptoms, many of those were associated with perceived racism.
Speaker 4: So that tells you they are psychological factors of psycle,
Speaker 4: social factors as well as environmental factors that are both
Speaker 4: causing black and band folks to have poor sleep, which
Speaker 4: in terms, we dispose them to have high ways of
Speaker 4: cardiovascy disease and high rises of dementia because of what
Speaker 4: we call poor deathtacity, a poor slow it sleep.
Speaker 3: But for some people, the reason they aren't getting good
Speaker 3: quality sleep isn't just environmental or psychosocial. Many people also
Speaker 3: have sleep disorders.
Speaker 4: There are eighty eight zero different types of sleep disorders.
Speaker 4: We have all kinds of sleep disorders.
Speaker 3: A that's a lot. Eighty I thought it was insomnia,
Speaker 3: sleep apnea, that's it.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Eighty Then we all got it.
Speaker 3: We have to Everyone has restless leg syndrome. I have
Speaker 3: heard of that. Okay, so that's three yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I know that on the right scale. I'm just
Speaker 3: telling you. That's all I know.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, let's start with the first one that I
Speaker 1: think we all know. Insomnia.
Speaker 4: Sleep quality really simply means if you go to bed
Speaker 4: for seven hours, how much sleep do you actually get.
Speaker 4: If you get close to seven hours, you'll have high
Speaker 4: se quality. If you have five out of seven, that's
Speaker 4: possely quality. In other words, anytime you're spending less than
Speaker 4: eighty five percent of your bedtime sleeping, you have post quality.
Speaker 4: And that's how we diagnose in somnia. By the way,
Speaker 4: if it's less than eighty five percent, you are at
Speaker 4: wish for having insomnia.
Speaker 1: Record scratch, Zakia, you are having insomnia.
Speaker 3: I like to count when I got in the bed
Speaker 3: and when I got up. You're telling me that.
Speaker 1: All those hours rolling from one side of the bed
Speaker 1: to the other. On Instagram and all the corners of
Speaker 1: the internet. My friend is in every corner of the Internet.
Speaker 3: I'm reading everybody's newsletter at two am.
Speaker 1: That's insomnia.
Speaker 3: Hmm, I just call it informed.
Speaker 1: Actually, those are my educational hours, my office hours.
Speaker 3: Getting my continuing medical credits at that hour.
Speaker 1: Okay, my friend is trying to get another doctor a degree.
Speaker 1: But the KIA it sounds like you're not alone because
Speaker 1: doctor Jean Louis says a lot of folks experience this
Speaker 1: on some scale.
Speaker 4: Almost everybody had experiences at one point in their life.
Speaker 4: Perhaps it's start quatic insomnia. It's short term. I mean
Speaker 4: it sense that you're anxious about any event that happened
Speaker 4: in your life. It lasts for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 4: it goes away, but it doesn't become a chronic problem
Speaker 4: because most of the time we resolve whatever the issues
Speaker 4: may be and then we get back to schedule.
Speaker 3: This short term insomnia is also called acute insomnia and
Speaker 3: usually passes in a couple of weeks, But for those
Speaker 3: with chronic insomnia, which can last for months or longer,
Speaker 3: it can really adversely affect your health and quality of life.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say exactly what causes chronic insomnia. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be caused by other medical conditions like anxiety
Speaker 1: or depression, and sometimes insomnia can be the result of
Speaker 1: side effects from other medication like antidepressants or stimulants. Insomnia
Speaker 1: is also more common with aging.
Speaker 3: Insomnia can also be caused by other sleep disorders, like
Speaker 3: sleep apnia.
Speaker 4: Sleep openiz is a condition where people go to bed
Speaker 4: and they just stop breezing. Why is that? Essentially the
Speaker 4: excep suit on the upper airway puts pressure under thought,
Speaker 4: which makes it more difficult for them to breathe. Sometimes
Speaker 4: they stop gaving completely, sometimes they stop breathing partially. So
Speaker 4: dependent upon how much occlusion you have in the upper
Speaker 4: airway you hear the person snaw.
Speaker 1: Doctor Jean Louis compared it to a garden hose. If
Speaker 1: you're water in your garden and somebody steps on the hose,
Speaker 1: you'll see that water is barely coming out of the
Speaker 1: hose or it just stops completely. That's exactly what's happening
Speaker 1: to the upper airways for someone with sleep avenue.
Speaker 3: So that foot on the hose is the occlusion all
Speaker 3: the way down, no air only down a little bit.
Speaker 3: That water's just trickling out.
Speaker 4: So essentially you snow because the brain realizes it's not
Speaker 4: getting enough oxygen, therefore send a signal to you saying
Speaker 4: that you have to wake up now and make the
Speaker 4: effort to breathe. So when you hear somebody snaw, what
Speaker 4: you're hearing is that the most of the upper areay
Speaker 4: are vibrating. The vibration is what we hear as a
Speaker 4: snowing episode. Snowing in fact, suggests that you're in deep sleep.
Speaker 4: Nothing could be further from the truth. Snowing is in
Speaker 4: fact an education that there's something is wrong.
Speaker 1: This blew my mind because so he's saying that snoring
Speaker 1: is your body waking you up because you need oxygen.
Speaker 1: Your body's like, hey, it's like the rumble strip when
Speaker 1: you on the highway, wake up, you veering off the road?
Speaker 3: Yes, the rumble strip oxygen. Yes, Well, they need to
Speaker 3: stop making those cartoons that are teaching us that the
Speaker 3: deepest sleep is when you snore and you see disease.
Speaker 1: That's exactly how I felt. I was like, but in
Speaker 1: the cartoons, all the cartoon dogs and cats that were
Speaker 1: in deep sleep or snoring, I feel wid too. I
Speaker 1: feel tricked.
Speaker 3: Yes, a little bit of snoring all right, But if
Speaker 3: you're snoring NonStop every night, that might be a problem.
Speaker 3: You might need to get that checked out.
Speaker 1: And doctor John Luis said that for some people with
Speaker 1: really severe sleep apnea, they might wake up up to
Speaker 1: three hundred to four hundred times a night.
Speaker 3: I'm not sleep long enough for three hundred to four
Speaker 3: hundred times a night. That is wild something wake me
Speaker 3: up three hundred times in the night.
Speaker 1: That thing gotta die during eight hours of sleep. That's
Speaker 1: like every one to two minutes. Oh and based on
Speaker 1: what we know about the sleep cycle and sleep duration,
Speaker 1: that is not going to feel good when you wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning.
Speaker 3: And it's not just about getting a poor night's sleep.
Speaker 3: Doctor Jean Luis says if sleep apnea isn't diagnosed or treated,
Speaker 3: it can lead to a greater risk of heart attack
Speaker 3: or stroke.
Speaker 1: The next disorder we're going to talk about is narcolepsy.
Speaker 4: The third one we talk about would be nocolepsy. You
Speaker 4: may have heard about this so often. It happens when
Speaker 4: somebody happens to be in their elite teens early adulthood.
Speaker 4: Not Colepsy essentially is a very huge problem.
Speaker 3: Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder where the brain is
Speaker 3: unable to regulate sleep wake cycles. People with narcolepsy will
Speaker 3: often feel really drowsy throughout the day, even if they
Speaker 3: wake up feeling well rested, and they can experience sleep
Speaker 3: attacks where they just fall asleep instantly. Can you imagine
Speaker 3: how scary that would be.
Speaker 1: This is a really serious condition. I know we talked
Speaker 1: about me loving sleep and being able to fall asleep
Speaker 1: really easily, but this is another level. This is not
Speaker 1: the same thing.
Speaker 3: Now, you do fall asleep really quickly, I do. It's
Speaker 3: like you press up button.
Speaker 1: I feel like I could close my eyes just like this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, m sleep is right around the corner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just are treading very closely to the alpha
Speaker 3: beta line whatever that was, from awake to sleep. I
Speaker 3: feel like you're always I'm alright.
Speaker 1: S aright there.
Speaker 4: Essentially, some of those people experienced what we call ncollectic attack.
Speaker 4: If you happen to be at a club, you having
Speaker 4: a good time, you're cracking jokes, if they become emotional
Speaker 4: to your wows.
Speaker 1: This triggers that Typically a person enters ram sleep about
Speaker 1: sixty to ninety minutes into their sleep cycle, but people
Speaker 1: with narcolepsy enter ram sleep much faster, more like fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes after falling asleep.
Speaker 3: And Narcolepsic can be caused by a lot of different things,
Speaker 3: but one of them is the absence of hypocretan, which
Speaker 3: is a chemical that promotes wakefulness and regulates rims sleep.
Speaker 1: There's one more sleep disorder that doctor Jean Luis talked
Speaker 1: about restless leg syndrome.
Speaker 4: The fourth one I would talk about is west less
Speaker 4: leg syndrome. We just a problem that happens most of
Speaker 4: the time when somebody gets to be older.
Speaker 3: Restless leg syndrome is exactly what it sounds like, a
Speaker 3: sleep disorder that causes an irresistible urge to move the legs.
Speaker 3: Is especially prevalent at night. So that's just for sleep disorders.
Speaker 1: And doctor Jean Luis said that there's over eighty that's
Speaker 1: a lot of issues that can prevent a good night's sleep. Insomnia,
Speaker 1: sleep apnea, and narcolepsy are some of the most common
Speaker 1: sleep disorders. And when we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about circadian rhythm, our body's biological clock. We're back
Speaker 1: and we're in week two of our New Year series.
Speaker 1: Next week the series continues with a lab on the
Speaker 1: immune system. We're talking to doctor Piel Gupta, an allergist
Speaker 1: immunelogists based in New York City who also had some
Speaker 1: things to say about sleep.
Speaker 3: So we've talked a lot about things that can cause
Speaker 3: poor sleep, whether it's environmental or cycle, social factors, or
Speaker 3: sleep disorders. And later in the show, we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about actual treatments and tips for getting better sleep,
Speaker 3: but first we want to zoom out a little bit
Speaker 3: and talk about the importance of sleep in the context
Speaker 3: of our body's biological clock. Last week, doctor Jean Louis
Speaker 3: walked us through the different stages of sleep. During each stage,
Speaker 3: our brains are producing ways with different frequencies alpha, beta, theta,
Speaker 3: and delta.
Speaker 1: Doctor Jean Louis is really talking about our brain activity
Speaker 1: in the context of a twenty four hour cycle called
Speaker 1: our circadian rhythm. When we're awake, our brains have certain
Speaker 1: functions and activities just like when we're asleep.
Speaker 3: And circadian rhythm is really nature's clock. Plants have it
Speaker 3: and animals have it. This twenty four hour cycle dictates
Speaker 3: everything from sleep to wake cycles, to hormone levels, body temperature,
Speaker 3: and much more so.
Speaker 1: How does that work exactly? When our eyes are exposed
Speaker 1: to light, it gives our bodies certain cues.
Speaker 4: The particular cells in our eyes in the retina that
Speaker 4: pick up that signal, they call them the retinal ganglion cells.
Speaker 4: So if you're thinking about what the eyes are actually doing,
Speaker 4: they do two things really. One is that they form
Speaker 4: an image of the environment, and that goes to the
Speaker 4: back of the head, the cortical cortext where we begin
Speaker 4: to appreciate that we are looking at a car, we
Speaker 4: are looking at a house, and the light. Light does
Speaker 4: something else. It regulates what we call the super chaves
Speaker 4: body nuclears. There is signally sent to the pioneer gland
Speaker 4: that secretes melotona. Melotoni is the best marker of the
Speaker 4: health of our circadian clock or the twenty four cycle.
Speaker 3: So really our circadian rhythm controls our lives. That light
Speaker 3: that doctor Jean Louis is talking about that causes the
Speaker 3: pineal gland to secrete melatonin also regulates our hormone levels.
Speaker 3: So without light dictating our circadian rhythm will be all
Speaker 3: over the place.
Speaker 1: This also means that when we're not absorbing enough light
Speaker 1: at the right time, our circadian rhythm and as a result,
Speaker 1: our health can be compromised.
Speaker 4: So we can imagine what's going to happen is that
Speaker 4: as we get older, some of these cells in our
Speaker 4: eyes begin to degenerate, begin to die. For instance, if
Speaker 4: you ask me about why do we have to get
Speaker 4: a dysfunction among blacks mostly than white, it may be
Speaker 4: because the weight of glaucoma is much higher in among blacks.
Speaker 3: Glacoma occurs when there is increased pressure in the eye
Speaker 3: that keeps you from being able to see properly. So
Speaker 3: if you have high blood pressure, you're more likely to
Speaker 3: have glaucoma.
Speaker 1: And that makes me think about nocturnal hypertension, which we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. Our blood pressure is supposed to drop
Speaker 1: during sleep if you're not getting enough sleep or getting
Speaker 1: good quality sleep, So getting into that delta area, your
Speaker 1: blood pressure is going to stay high, and that's nocturnal hypertension.
Speaker 4: So if you have glackoma, the cells that are supposed
Speaker 4: to picking up the signal from the light begin to degenerate.
Speaker 4: Therefore you're not able to synchronize your SCN as well
Speaker 4: as your would which when you can't synchronize, believe of melaltnin.
Speaker 4: So that's one of the reasons why you see all
Speaker 4: of those sleep problems among black box simply because we
Speaker 4: tend to develop black coma and a much higher with
Speaker 4: COMPA in all the groups. So that's the mechanism really
Speaker 4: by which light has an influence on the biology.
Speaker 3: And sometimes a deficiency in light comes from external factors.
Speaker 3: Like there's just not enough of it. During the winter months,
Speaker 3: as the days become shorter and the sun sets earlier
Speaker 3: and earlier, it can affect our circadian rhythm. The sun
Speaker 3: is retiring at three pm.
Speaker 4: Okay, therefore we're not suppressing melaton as we should. If
Speaker 4: we have excess amount of metal tonin in the system,
Speaker 4: especially if you happen to be a female, then you
Speaker 4: might experience some level of side.
Speaker 1: SAD is seasonal effective disorder, and it's a type of
Speaker 1: depression that happens during a specific time of year, usually
Speaker 1: the winter.
Speaker 4: It's a spectrum. Some people feel a little bit down,
Speaker 4: a little bit moody, a little bit aggravated. All the
Speaker 4: people are just completely aggravated.
Speaker 3: It can't function and at that point, you know, And
Speaker 3: we talked about this a little bit in Lab seventeen
Speaker 3: fall back when we talked about daylight savings time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: Is it saving time or saving time? I got to
Speaker 3: go back to that lab.
Speaker 1: It's saving no, no ass. And so I've actually heard
Speaker 1: of people buying lamps that are supposed to mimic on
Speaker 1: light to help combat ZAD. So I'm curious about how
Speaker 1: that works.
Speaker 4: Light therapy does in fact help and to some degree
Speaker 4: exagernous melotony. Melotony you're taking to have regulate your cirkainin profile.
Speaker 4: You can buy a light box and put it on
Speaker 4: the top of your desk and get about thirty minutes
Speaker 4: every morning. It would have regulate your circainity rhythm much better.
Speaker 3: But if you're thinking about light therapy, remember not all
Speaker 3: light is created equal, not all light exposure is good.
Speaker 4: There's some indication that there's a particular gene in our
Speaker 4: eyes what you call pur jeans and cryptochom crypto cooms
Speaker 4: a preferentially respond to blue light. And what do we
Speaker 4: know about the tablets and the cell points what kind
Speaker 4: of light do they emit?
Speaker 1: Blue?
Speaker 4: So if you are instead of dulling the minds, so
Speaker 4: to speak, instead of soothing the brain, so to speak,
Speaker 4: you're exciting the mind. You're exciting the brain. You realize
Speaker 4: instead of taking you about fifteen to two minutes fall sleep,
Speaker 4: it's taking you about an hour. So similarly we used
Speaker 4: to tell people before tablets, do not have a TV
Speaker 4: in your bedroom because it's going to excite the brain.
Speaker 4: You don't want to arouse yourself, you want to soothe
Speaker 4: the brain.
Speaker 3: I feel like there are so many things that can
Speaker 3: keep us from getting a good night sleep, So let's
Speaker 3: talk about what can actually help. What options do people
Speaker 3: have to improve their sleep.
Speaker 1: I've heard things like taking melatonin, but are there other
Speaker 1: options when it comes to medication and are they effective
Speaker 1: and safe?
Speaker 4: People take sleep aids mostly because of insomnia. If you're
Speaker 4: taking sleeping pills under the guide of our physician who
Speaker 4: knows what he or she is doing, that's fine. You
Speaker 4: could take some medication for a couple of weeks, that's
Speaker 4: perfectly fine. But in the long run, where we see
Speaker 4: is that you build so much toxicity. Sleep medications can
Speaker 4: in fact destroy your liver and eventually it will kill you.
Speaker 1: Doctor Jean Louis also said that sleep aid should not
Speaker 1: be used if you have sleep apnea, which we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier on in this episode. With sleep apnea, you
Speaker 1: already have a problem with your airways staying open enough
Speaker 1: to be able to get oxygen for you to breathe.
Speaker 1: When you take sleep sedatives, this can further reduce your
Speaker 1: muscle tone.
Speaker 4: Which means it's even more difficult for you to breathe.
Speaker 4: So if you have sleep atm here, you're taking sleeping pills,
Speaker 4: you can actually kill yourself, so you have to be
Speaker 4: very careful about this.
Speaker 3: Well that's out for me. What about melatonin?
Speaker 4: You could do over the countermeletonic. Unfortunately not all of
Speaker 4: them are good. You really want to talk to somebody
Speaker 4: who knows about this, or ask the farmacist very specific
Speaker 4: question about this. Has it been tested? Has there been
Speaker 4: the trial done on this? If the answer to those
Speaker 4: question is no, don't do it.
Speaker 1: So the bottom line is you need to talk to
Speaker 1: your doctor. We're not giving you medical advice. And so
Speaker 1: what if you don't want to take any medication, whether
Speaker 1: it's prescribed or over the counter, Are there any alternatives?
Speaker 4: There is this methodology or method or poetry called cognitive
Speaker 4: behavior therapy for insomnia that I like. There are no
Speaker 4: negative side effects at all. A lot of people don't
Speaker 4: want to do it, the behavioral stuff, the cognitive stuff,
Speaker 4: because it takes a little longer. If you go to
Speaker 4: do CBTI, it's gonna take you back two to four
Speaker 4: weeks to begin to feel all massive is improving, Whereas
Speaker 4: if you take some medication tonight, you're gonna get the
Speaker 4: benefit wide away. So we need behavior therapy cognitib of
Speaker 4: therapy seems to be working very successfully and there's a
Speaker 4: lot of evidence to support its use no side effects.
Speaker 3: Aside from medical and pharmaceutical help, there are definitely other
Speaker 3: things we can easily do at home to improve our sleep.
Speaker 3: Some things could be to improve of our environmental factors,
Speaker 3: so maybe blackout curtains or a noise machine, limiting screens
Speaker 3: in the bedroom.
Speaker 1: Meditation and breathing exercises are also really great for helping
Speaker 1: you get to sleep.
Speaker 3: I definitely use a white noise machine, and I listen
Speaker 3: to playlists on Spotify. There's a podcast that's White Noise
Speaker 3: and it runs eight hours.
Speaker 1: I do similar things. I have blackout curtains in my room.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I listen to the Peaceful Piano playlist on Spotify,
Speaker 1: or I'll listen to this podcast called Sleep with Me
Speaker 1: that is hosted by this man who I don't know
Speaker 1: his name because I always fall asleep in the middle
Speaker 1: of everything he's saying.
Speaker 3: He's talking.
Speaker 1: I don't know how he does it. He's talking, but
Speaker 1: it will put you to sleep.
Speaker 3: Audible had something like that, and I used it during
Speaker 3: the early stages of the pandemic because I don't know
Speaker 3: if you remember, but your girl was up okay, and
Speaker 3: there's somebody like reading these books? Did he have one?
Speaker 3: I didn't fall asleep to Diddy, But there are a
Speaker 3: bunch of different people just reading different things, and they
Speaker 3: were reading stories that really went nowhere, So you fall asleep.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's the same tactic with the guy
Speaker 1: on the Sleep with Me podcast where I think he's
Speaker 1: just rambling, but I can't make it ten minutes and
Speaker 1: I am gone.
Speaker 3: Well, Keisha, who's our mutual friend, put me on to
Speaker 3: some sleep meditations, which are like breathing exercises you can do,
Speaker 3: and I found those to be really effective.
Speaker 1: Send those to me.
Speaker 4: This is a very good point. Breathing exercises, if you
Speaker 4: do that the right way, meditation, if you have the
Speaker 4: patience to do that, these are the actual best treatment
Speaker 4: for insamia, in fact, for anxiety, for depression. But again,
Speaker 4: we happen to be living in a world or society
Speaker 4: where people want to quick fix. You may not have
Speaker 4: to learn how to meditate. That might tip me six months. No,
Speaker 4: I don't have the time for this. You may not
Speaker 4: have to do breathing exercises every morning every night. Can
Speaker 4: I just take a pill. The pills will help you
Speaker 4: for a couple of weeks and then little on didn't
Speaker 4: work anymore. But if you learn how to bend too,
Speaker 4: why if you do your breathing exercises, that's long term
Speaker 4: benefits down the world.
Speaker 3: I think considering last week's lab and this lab, it
Speaker 3: just really shows you how complex sleep is. That's just
Speaker 3: sleep on its own, you know. Eighty disorder still blew
Speaker 3: my mind. I don't know about you.
Speaker 1: Over eighty over eighty Yeah, And I think that one
Speaker 1: of the things that is a big takeaway for me
Speaker 1: from this two part series is that no two people
Speaker 1: are sleeping the same, but we all have the same
Speaker 1: goal of trying to get into deep sleep, and so
Speaker 1: we really all need to be making that a priority
Speaker 1: for ourselves, which is why I think it's really great
Speaker 1: that we have it a part of our New Year series,
Speaker 1: because this should be something that's important to everybody, because,
Speaker 1: like we said in part one, sleep is a crucial
Speaker 1: part of your overall health. So if you're thinking new
Speaker 1: year and new me, you need to also be applying
Speaker 1: that to how you're sleeping.
Speaker 3: New Year, more sleep, And another part of this that
Speaker 3: I just still can't really grasp the weight of is
Speaker 3: how much of your sleep affects your entire life and
Speaker 3: how much of it you can't really control. It depends
Speaker 3: on where you're born. Are you born in an area
Speaker 3: with a lot of light pollution. Are you born in
Speaker 3: an area with a lot of noise? Are you living
Speaker 3: in an area with high air pollution? You know, so
Speaker 3: you don't have access to green space where plants are
Speaker 3: taking that carbon dioxide and turning it into oxygen. Is
Speaker 3: that happening? Are there enough trees around you for that?
Speaker 4: So what we are doing really is we go into
Speaker 4: the barbershop, the beauty salons, and the churches where we
Speaker 4: actually engage people directly. So we talked to them about
Speaker 4: what sleep really is. So we have to make decision
Speaker 4: about how to improve their sleep health. So on occasion
Speaker 4: somebody who said, you know what, I can only do
Speaker 4: seven hours? I think I need more. Then you be
Speaker 4: into oscar. How long does they get fall asleep? Well
Speaker 4: it takes me about an hour? Whoah, about an Now
Speaker 4: that's just too long. What's happening? Well, I'm thinking about
Speaker 4: the bills, I'm worried about the kids, I'm worried about
Speaker 4: the environment, the neighborhood. Well, you see, zip code almost
Speaker 4: is destiny. If it happened to be in an environment
Speaker 4: where they're not worried about the environment so much, they'll
Speaker 4: probably have more time to sleep while they are in bed.
Speaker 3: Okay, And so then you know, when you consider all
Speaker 3: of these pieces, we layer on these other factors that
Speaker 3: are remnants of our society. Right, So, who's in these
Speaker 3: areas where that's most likely to overlap, who's working jobs
Speaker 3: that don't allow them to have sleep at night when
Speaker 3: it's actually dark outside? And what does that mean for
Speaker 3: your overall health? And so folks who are not getting
Speaker 3: a lot of sleep are probably experiencing way more health
Speaker 3: burdens right related to not having sleep. And then what
Speaker 3: does that mean for your ability to, like you said,
Speaker 3: reach the new year, new me? It just feels like
Speaker 3: this snowball effect. So something we've been doing in semester
Speaker 3: for is sharing our one thing. It could be something
Speaker 3: we've seen, something we experience that we really like and
Speaker 3: we want to share.
Speaker 1: With you guys, so Zakia, what's your one thing?
Speaker 3: My one thing this week is a paper in behavioral
Speaker 3: brain research and it's from a group at Bengarian University.
Speaker 3: In Israel and they put a goldfish in a tank
Speaker 3: and it has a tracking system that allows the goldfish,
Speaker 3: based on where it moves in the tank, to explore
Speaker 3: regular terrain and they see that the goldfish can navigate
Speaker 3: towards different goalposter, you know, like different colored paper that
Speaker 3: they put up is really cool. There's a video and
Speaker 3: the title of the paper was from Fish out of
Speaker 3: Water to Insights on Navigation Mechanisms and Animals. It feels
Speaker 3: very futurama, but I think it's really cool. I'll make
Speaker 3: sure to share a link to it in the show notes.
Speaker 1: No One thing this week is not really a thing,
Speaker 1: but it's an idea. You know, twenty twenty two started
Speaker 1: and everybody was really excited to be completely done with
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one and hoping, you know, we're turning a corner.
Speaker 1: And there's been some new variants that come out with coronavirus,
Speaker 1: and it's so discouraging and deflating because a lot of
Speaker 1: us have been working really hard to stay safe and
Speaker 1: social distance as much as we can, but still trying
Speaker 1: to get our lives back. And as we see more
Speaker 1: and more lockdowns coming into place, I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of people feeling disheartened with the state of things, and
Speaker 1: so my one thing this week is you checking in
Speaker 1: with yourself and just making sure that you're doing okay
Speaker 1: with everything that's going on in the news. Taking time
Speaker 1: for yourself to focus on self care and maybe, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that means not being on Instagram or not being
Speaker 1: on Twitter and doing something that kind of can help
Speaker 1: you take your mind off of things.
Speaker 3: That's it for Lab forty six and part two of
Speaker 3: our sleep series. I am so ready to start practicing
Speaker 3: some better sleep habits tonight. Call us at two zero
Speaker 3: two five six seven seven zero two eight and tell
Speaker 3: us what you thought about this lab, or give us
Speaker 3: an idea for a lab we could do later in
Speaker 3: the semester. We like hearing from you. That's two zero
Speaker 3: two five six seven seven zero two eight.
Speaker 1: And don't forget there's so much more for you to
Speaker 1: dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat sheet
Speaker 1: for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Plus you can sign up for our newsletter check it
Speaker 1: out at dope blastpodcast dot com. Special thanks to today's
Speaker 1: guest expert doctors jar Don Jean Louis.
Speaker 3: You can find him on Twitter at g Jean Louis.
Speaker 1: One our credits this week are being read by one
Speaker 1: of our longtime listeners and now friend, Emery Price.
Speaker 3: Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from MEGAO Media Group.
Speaker 3: Producers are Jenny rattlet Mast and Lydia Smith of Way
Speaker 3: Runner Studios. Editing and sound designed by Rob Smerciak, Mixing
Speaker 3: by Hannis Brown. Original music composed and produced by Taka
Speaker 3: Yasuzawa and Alex Sugira from Spotify. Executive producer Gina Delback
Speaker 3: and creative producer Candice Manriquez Wren. Special thanks to Shirley Ramos,
Speaker 3: yasmin A, Fifi Kamulolia, Till Kracki, and Brian Marquis. Executive
Speaker 3: producers from Mega oh Media Group are My Internet Vessies, T. T.
Speaker 3: Shodia and Zakiah Watman