WEBVTT - Sleep and Age 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.240 Hey, Adam, do you remember when we were talking with 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.640 doctor Wendy Troxel in our first episode I Do and 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:06.160 how she. 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:07.760 Mentioned that guys. 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.719 Who only get four to five hours of sleep per 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.440 night have testosterone levels of someone ten years older. 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:14.360 How can I forget that? It was terrifying. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.720 Well, guess what. The news isn't any better for women. 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:22.400 Researchers at Duke University found that women who reported unhealthy 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.520 sleep are at an elevated risk for type two diabetes, 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.760 heart disease, and even depression. 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.520 Oh wow, that is also terrifying. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:32.920 Yeah, Adam, it's like, if we want to enjoy our 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.440 later years, we need to get good sleep. Now, it's 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.800 just science. Hi, I'm Katie. 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:40.520 Low's and I'm Adam Shaviro. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.520 And this is Chasing Sleep, a production of Ruby Studios 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:48.199 from iHeartMedia in partnership with Mattress Firm. This episode is 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:53.040 about sleep and age when it comes to longevity and 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.440 quality of life. Study after study shows that the better 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.240 you sleep, the better your overall quality of life. We're 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.840 also going to look at how our sleep changes as 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:03.440 we get older. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:04.800 Doctor Jennifer L. 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.960 Martin has done extensive research on sleep and aging. Just 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:12.200 this year she studied how best to treat insomnia among 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:13.200 older veterans. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:14.720 She co authored the. 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.839 Definitive statement on the recommended amount of sleep healthy adults 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:19.600 should get? 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.000 How much should we get? What is? 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:22.560 Hold on? 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:27.280 Hold on, Adam? We can just ask her. Yeah, hello, 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:28.880 doctor Martin, Hi. 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:30.240 Thanks so much for having me here. 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:31.520 Thanks for being here. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.920 Also joining the conversation is Sarah Brown. She spent most 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.000 of her health care career working with seniors, first as 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.120 a nurse and then as the executive director of Emperi 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.920 Systems home care in Minnesota. While Sarah was there, she 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.040 introduced a revolutionary program to help nursing home residents get 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:51.720 more and better sleep. 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:53.640 Sarah, welcome to Chasing Sleep. 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:55.600 Thank you so much for having me. And I just 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:57.480 want to give credit where credits do. I was part 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.880 of a team that did the sleep program. Can't take 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:02.000 all the credit for myself. 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:02.520 Awesome. 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.040 I can't wait to hear about that. That sounds absolutely amazing. 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.280 Okay, doctor Martin, you wrote the book on this. How 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:12.640 much sleep should we get? 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.200 The magic number is at least seven every day, every day, Katie, 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:18.360 not just once in a while. 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:20.880 I'm curious, does the amount of sleep that you need 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:26.160 actually evolve with age. So like, let me toss out 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:27.840 an age and you tell me. 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:29.920 Oh, yeah, let's just throw out a couple numbers. 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.880 Thrown out numbers, Yeah, Like, how much should a sixteen 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:33.640 year old get? 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.480 A sixteen year old probably needs somewhere between eight and 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.079 ten hours of sleep. Anyone out there with the high 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.760 school kid knows how hard that is. But through development, 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.960 kids need less sleep over time until really early adulthood, 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:51.960 and then it's pretty consistent from there on out. So 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:53.680 from now on, when you throw out a number, I'm 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:54.919 probably just going to say seven. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:03:01.239 So thirty five seven, seven, fifty five seven, okay, three, 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:03.520 forty three seven, okay, cool? 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:05.639 What about eighty fives? 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.680 So it's really interesting. There was a bit of a 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.520 myth floating around when I first started my training a 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.280 long time ago that as people get older they need 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.080 less sleep, and that was based on studies where they 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.880 didn't account for the fact that older people take more naps. 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.040 Oh interesting, So the other. 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.520 Thing that happens with aging is the quality of our 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.480 sleep changes, so it's harder to get that full night 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.120 of sleep. I think our best estimate now is that 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.560 if you, let's say, you feel really good on seven 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:34.840 and a half hours of sleep when you're thirty five. 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.360 By the time you're eighty, maybe seven hours and ten minutes, 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.640 So maybe your biological need drops by say twenty minutes 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.000 or so, but it's not really a big difference, Like, Oh, 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:47.720 I used to need seven and a half and now 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.920 I'm great with five. Right, that's not really what happens 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:51.440 with aging. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.080 And what about is it a quality question or quantity? 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:56.560 Which one is more important? 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:58.800 That's an impossible question to answer. 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.080 Stumped, you know, I'm kidding gay ladies and gentlemen. 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.200 If people like me and Sarah knew the answer, we'd 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.480 have Nobel prizes, right, like, because not all sleep is 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.560 the same. There are different types and stages of sleep, 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.400 and the only way to get them all and the 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:16.120 right amount is to sleep well. 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.040 Right, And I'd like to just add to that. 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.480 What with the sleep program that we found is that 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.479 it wasn't time in bed or time of sleep like 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.520 it's it was consolidated sleep. So someone listening might think 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.600 you're saying consistently like every night seven hours, but really 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.119 it's you want seven hours uninterrupted to allow your body 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.799 to go through all the sleep stages and cycles. Without 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.000 that fragmentation. And I think with older adults, with all 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.640 the napping they end up the time that there is 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.160 sleep in a twenty four period might be higher, but 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.400 the quality is really low because they never got into 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:48.559 that deep, restorative sleep. 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:49.919 Do I have that right, doctor Martin? 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:51.239 That's perfect, Sarah. 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.240 Can you tell us a little bit about the research 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:54.520 and the work you've done at Impira. 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:54.920 Yeah. 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.800 The resortive sleep program actually stemmed from a falls program 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.680 in which we were trying to identify the root cause 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.640 of falls and one of the things that kept coming 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.000 up is that these residents were reporting they were tired, 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.000 or staff were reporting they were weak or tired. 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:09.680 So we're like, well, maybe they need more sleep. 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:11.920 So Pierre I was able to get a grant from 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.040 the Department of Health to look at residents over twenty 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.600 five different nursing homes. What we did is we went 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.480 and got tigraphy watches, which is a gold standard for 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.360 measuring sleep, and we measured the amount that residents were sleeping. 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.440 And the more we learned about sleep is where we 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:30.400 really learned that they weren't sleep deprived, they had sleep fragmentation, 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.680 and that the sleep fragmentation was actually more harmful than 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.719 the sleep deprivation. 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:36.000 We thought they had. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.080 You know, one of the big things we found is 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.839 sleep is all about your twenty four hour cycle. It's 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:42.680 not just when you sleep at night, but what you 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:44.960 do during the day to help get that resortive sleep 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:46.840 at night. And from that we were able to create 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.760 what we called a sleep program or a sleep initiative 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:51.839 that really involved every department. 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:53.360 Everything we did. 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.599 Had an impact on someone's sleep, because again, it was 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.039 at twenty four hour day, so it was like looking 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.359 at things of signing contracts with vendors, all the labs 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:03.120 want to come in and draw labs first thing in 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.240 the morning for residents before they go to the hospital. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.880 We looked at shift change, we looked at meal times, 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.160 we looked at activities throughout the day, we looked at napping, 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.000 and we looked at the mattresses on the bed. So 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.840 how can we let them sleep longer uninterrupted. So that's 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:18.919 kind of like a snapshot of it. Really, sleep was 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:23.360 the fountain of youth or the foundation of healing and 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.599 restorative Sleep was a basic human need. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.040 That's the line of this episode. 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.880 Yeah, the felt like my drop right there, Sarah. 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.400 Once you pulled all of this research together. What was 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.000 the big takeaway for you? What needed to change for 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:40.039 seniors in your care? 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.080 I think the big summary of it is that people 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.039 need a night and a day care plan. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.320 Right in long term care nursing home. 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.320 It's so easy to just create the care plan based 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:51.080 on what you do as a nurse on the day shift, 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.320 who made the care plan, and then the night shift 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.960 comes and it's their daytime really or they're awake time, 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.760 so they're still turning and repositioning every hour, every two hours, 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:04.239 toying rounding every hour, waking residents and following that exact 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.000 same care plan. And that's just not good for our bodies, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:07.240 you know. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.280 I think it's so interesting, Sarah, because I also got 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.520 interested in sleep, actually studying sleep in nursing homes like 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:14.960 in the early nineteen nineties. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:15.960 Oh, that's very cool. 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.880 And the interesting thing is the napping is not napping. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.560 It's not like, oh, we have lunch and then everyone 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:24.720 goes in their room and puts their head on their 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.600 pillow and they have this sweet little afternoon siesta. Sure 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.040 what happens in nursing home. And Sarah, you pointed this 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.160 out so eloquently is that like sleep is just distributed 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:34.480 all over the twenty four hour day. 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.120 So when you say connected seven hours of sleep, do 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:39.880 you mean for all of our listeners out there, do 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.880 you mean I fall asleep at ten and I don't 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.120 see anything, remember anything. I don't get interrupted to p 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:48.000 or be with my kids or anything like that until 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.000 you know, five thirty six am. 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:52.640 Not quite that perfect, Okay. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:54.880 But okay, so it might it might be a wake 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.040 up and a head and go back down, but it's 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.520 short wake up. It's not like and we're up in 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:00.880 our brain spinning for an hour. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:01.200 Correct. 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.600 Katie's a big napper. God, I love a napp But 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.240 are those naps fragmenting her sleep too much? 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:06.440 You know? 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:08.040 Is she getting too long of a nap in the 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.240 afternoon so that when she does go to sleep at night. 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.760 It's why she's not getting the same kind of connective, 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:15.200 restorative sleep. 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.640 If napping is part of the plan and you do 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.000 it at the right time of day, which biologically for 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.680 us is in that afternoon time, it's great. But most 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.800 people don't have a life in the US at least 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.480 where they can protect that time. Most people have kind 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.079 of a nine to five ish gig going on, and 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.439 so being able to protect the time is a big problem. 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.920 Right, So I'm a weekend napper because I'm so used 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:42.800 to being on a more kids schedule. 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.120 I just want to go back to and ask doctor 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.240 Martin to clarify because when I was heavy in the research, 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.000 really we saw that napping, like that siesta kind of 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.560 nap what could be healthy. But that was like we 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.559 would recommend less than thirty minutes because if you sleep 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.440 longer than that, what happens is you start to get 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.600 into your deeper stage sleep and then you kind of 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.079 rob from your nighttime sleep bag. Is that still an 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:05.000 accurate statement? 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.520 I mean, I think now we talk about there's two 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:09.960 ways to nap. There's that short kind of power nap 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.320 where you don't get into deep stages of sleep. And 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:13.960 then there are people who do well with like a 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.360 long nap like hour and a half, but then they 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.600 spend less time in bed at night. So again, if 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.320 you add it all together, and you know, it's a 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.440 consolidated a bout of sleep in the afternoon, not like 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.680 dozing off in your car, you know, or in front 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.640 of your television. It's like a planned sleep cycle. But 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.560 in general, most people feel that little burst of energy, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.040 just as Sarah said, with a short nap like thirty minutes. 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.880 So you asked a great question to start with, which 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:42.800 is how much sleep do you need? And I said 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.960 seven hours? And that number actually is based on health outcomes, 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.080 things like development of type two diabetes, heart disease. There's 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:55.400 actually some evidence that because sleep has anti inflammatory properties, 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.800 that if you're chronically sleep deprived, that inflammation might even 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.160 make its way to your brain and increase your risk 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.200 of Alzheimer's disease later in life. Oh wow, Sure, he's 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:06.880 kind of still out on that one. I don't want 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.800 to overstate it, but there is a plausible physiological mechanism 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.560 for that. And when we look at research with animals 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.960 that have risk for Alzheimer's disease, that's what we're seeing. 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:20.000 I think it's your overall entire health, not just like 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.000 Alzheimer's and heart disease, but pretty much any chronic condition. 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.400 There's research to back that sleep has a contributing factor. 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:29.840 And if you think about sleep at its core, what 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.280 is it doing is sleep is really our body's medicine 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.840 and our body's opportunity to let the body do what 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.480 it's supposed to do to heal, to regenerate, to balance hormones, 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.320 to process memories, to process stress. 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.320 So you know, I think it's not irreversible, but fix 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:45.800 it now. 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.960 So, Sarah, both you and doctor Martin have worked a 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:54.080 lot with seniors. Let's talk about chronotypes. I have heard 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.480 of those early bird larks and night owls, you know, 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.880 I mean early bird special That's a thing we've all 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.000 heard about. Do we all turn into early birds as 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:05.400 we age? How does that work? 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:07.400 I could nerd out on this for like the rest 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:07.840 of the time. 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:09.760 Let's do it. That's what the podcast is for. 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.440 I love this, I absolutely love this. So there's this 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.840 funny thing about humans. First of all, our circadian timing 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.160 system is genetic, and like I feel like I'm calling 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.880 myself old. But I remember when like the first genes 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.960 related to circadian timing were discovered, and it would like 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.360 blew our minds because we didn't really know how all 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.160 of this worked. But we did know that these German 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.800 scientists who went and lived in caves away from time 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.000 cues didn't have a twenty four hour sleep cycle. It 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.840 was about twenty four hours and twenty minutes. So we 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.400 need the sun to like reset us every day. 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:44.760 We're all diurnal. 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.920 It means diurnal that we should be up during the 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.000 day and sleep at night. And so nobody can really 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.680 flip and become a nocturnal. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:53.720 Like an owl. 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.040 So whether you are more of an early riser or 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.520 a night owl or somewhere in between, there all still 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:02.480 our body does best when we sleep when the sun 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:03.000 goes down. 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.960 So Sarah mentioned like night owls, that is a genetic thing. 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.640 And some people are on the far extremes, so you 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:12.720 can tell them go to bed early and get up early, 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.319 and it is impossible for them to do that. 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:16.240 That's my husband. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:20.080 That's my husband, that is me right there, right now. 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.600 Most people are in the middle. That's where the vast 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.520 majority of people, probably well over like ninety ninety five 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.280 percent of people have some ability to adjust. There is 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:34.439 this age related change where during adolescence we become more 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.920 night owl ish and as we age we become more 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.080 lark ish. So if we take out those people on 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:46.840 the far extremes, there is this pretty consistent age related adjustment, 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.400 which is why senior dinner specials are at five and 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.960 why again high school shouldn't start at seven. O'clock in 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.920 the morning. So your chronotype is your internal tendency, and 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:58.760 I always say the best thing in the world is 0:12:58.800 --> 0:12:59.839 to respect your clock. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.200 One thing that we had learned and we usually advise 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.360 people is like, when you're twenty five years old and 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.720 you're in your healthy time, when you can go to 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.840 bed at will and wake at will and wake up 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:11.560 and feel refreshed, how many hours is it? 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:12.920 And kind of pay attention to that. 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:15.080 So I think we just have a lot of segments 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.600 of society where we try to get people to do 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.040 something that messes up their sleep, and then we just 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.040 like kind of shrug our shoulders and say, gee, why 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.280 can't they get it back on track. We just publish 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:30.400 a paper recently looking at people in the military where 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.880 they're followed over time. There's a large study called the 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.960 Millennium Cohort, And what we saw actually is that sleep 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:42.679 problems pre date things like post traumatic stress disorder and depression. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.320 So it's a predictor if you're not sleeping well that 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.000 after you're exposed to some kind of a traumatic event, 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.040 that you'll go on to develop mental health symptoms later. 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:51.640 Wow. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:53.679 I just want to share one kind of little thing 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.960 that we had learned so in long term care, if 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.920 you look at the manifestations of sleep deprivation, sleep fragmentation, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.360 and they line up perfectly with psychosis and the reasons 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.400 that we're putting people on antipsychotics. So we had this 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.640 huge aha that like these people came into the nursing home, 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.680 they were not psychotic their whole life. They didn't have 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.320 these mental health disorders, and all of a sudden, they're 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.360 all having them. We have to look at the systems 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.680 around them and what we're doing to actually cause psychosis, 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:23.640 and it was the sleep fragmentation. 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.720 Yeah, this is a complete reversal about again what I 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.480 learned in my training, which is sleep problems are a symptom. 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:31.680 And I think, Sarah, what you're getting at is we 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.000 have to change our mindset and start thinking about the 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.880 role that sleep plays now at any point in life, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.280 if you chronically sleep deprive yourself, it changes your body. 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.480 This is a fascinating discussion and we are not done 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:45.040 more to come. 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.840 Welcome back to chasing sleep. We're all getting older and 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.440 we all want to stay healthy as we do. So 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.400 we're talking about sleep and aging with doctor j Jennifer 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.840 Martin and consultant for senior healthcare providers, Sarah Brown. 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.040 What about sex, Katie, No, I'm just sorry. Was that 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.720 totally out of the blue. I just was thinking about this. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:15.120 No, not at all. 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.400 We've been Yeah, we've been headed in that direction for 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:17.840 a while. 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:22.600 And is the rumor true working in senior facilities, the 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.320 rumor is that everyone's having sex in those places. 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:27.240 I'm not answering that question. I don't know if Sarah 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:27.800 will either. 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.760 I've heard I'll answer it by saying, you're still a 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:33.400 human when you're older. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:34.720 It doesn't matter what age you are. 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:35.120 Good. 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.160 I'm giving so many collaps for that. 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.960 But if you're not sleeping, well, can it contribute to 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:44.560 having a poor sex life? 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.920 So, yeah, you know, this is an area where so 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.160 there is a sleep disorder called sleep apnia, which is 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.600 a condition where people have a hard time breathing when 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:58.360 they sleep. These people snore, they stop breathing. It's very common, 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.720 especially in men, and it contributes to high blood pressure, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.680 and it contributes to a rectile dysfunction, both directly and 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.320 because then people end up on anti hypertensive medications and 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.600 that can affect create problems with the rectile dysfunction. So 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:22.520 that specific sleep disorder is directly linked to problems with 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:23.280 sexual health. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:28.080 I just can't believe every single woman I know who's 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:32.440 in a heterosexual relationship with a man at a certain 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.720 age is complaining to me about how bad they're snoring 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.600 is keeping them up, and the older they get, the 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.960 snoring is the worst, and the sleep apnea. 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:47.400 I mean, I think it's also when we are sleep deprived, 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:54.120 we over interpret negative experiences emotionally and we under interpret 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.160 positive experiences emotionally. So I think in your relationship, kind 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.400 of think about that, like, what's the probability that you'll 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.720 be interested in sex with your partner if you're sleep deprived, 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.120 because again, all those positive emotions tend to be kind 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:07.720 of blunted. 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.639 So one of the things you mentioned earlier, how do 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.159 you see what you learned in these studies with older 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.240 veterans to the average person and how we age. 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:22.320 Let's think about the military culture as a subset of society. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.960 So what I hear a lot from the folks that 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.240 I work with and in my research is that they 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.600 are trained to stay awake all the time except when 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:33.800 they can sleep, and then they're supposed to fall asleep 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.080 at the drop of a hat, that's not how life 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:40.440 really is. So a lot of folks have to relearn 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.960 how to sleep well. So one of the myths that 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.040 we're also trying to get past is that just because 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.600 someone is older, that doesn't mean if they have insomnia 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.879 disorder sleep apnea, that we should just leave it alone, like, 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:52.880 oh they'll be okay. 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:54.960 Yeah, it's a wash. We actually look, that's your thing, 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:56.960 that's your narrative. 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.639 You know, yeah, no, it's I mean, older pe respond 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.639 just as well to treatment of sleep disorders as younger people, 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:05.960 so age shouldn't be a factor. 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.520 Oh that's good to know. I've always wanted to ask 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:10.359 this question. Every time I have a really early flight 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:12.840 and I don't get a lot of sleep. I'm talking 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:14.879 like two hours, three hours, and then I'm up and 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.400 I'm heading towards the airport. I get a really bad 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.800 cold for like twenty four hours after that, Katie, that 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.520 doesn't really happen to you, But like I every time 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:26.960