Speaker 1: I think sleep has certainly come a long way, particularly
Speaker 1: as very many luminaries in the field have gone from
Speaker 1: the basic mechanisms of what's going on in the brain,
Speaker 1: what circuits and what neurotransmitters are being released and at
Speaker 1: what times all the way up to well, how is
Speaker 1: sleep actually affecting us? How does it affect our mood
Speaker 1: or decisions to what we eat during the day, How
Speaker 1: does it affect our metabolism.
Speaker 2: Logan Schneider is a medical doctor and board certified clinician
Speaker 2: who specializes in the treatment of sleep disorders that includes
Speaker 2: things like sleep apnea, narcolepsy, insomnia, restless leg syndrome, sleepwalking,
Speaker 2: and ramsleep behavior disorder. He's earned awards and honors from
Speaker 2: the American Academies of Sleep Medicine and Neurology. I sat
Speaker 2: down with Logan to get a better idea of exactly
Speaker 2: how sleep research is done and its real impact on
Speaker 2: patients who struggle with sleep.
Speaker 1: The nice part about being a sleep specialist is that
Speaker 1: you get to benefit from a community of all these
Speaker 1: different types of clinicians that are interested in sleep. I
Speaker 1: went by path of the neurology residency training, but you
Speaker 1: can come through internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, and a sociology.
Speaker 1: Then once you've done your primary training in residency, you
Speaker 1: then typically do a year or maybe two year sleep
Speaker 1: in research or just sleep clinical sleep fellowship that specializes
Speaker 1: you by learning everything there is to know really about
Speaker 1: sleep in that one year, and then go and take
Speaker 1: your examinations and get certified, and then you start practicing
Speaker 1: sleep hopefully.
Speaker 2: I also reached out to Chris Winter. He's a medical
Speaker 2: doctor with years of experience in the field. He's a
Speaker 2: neurologist and a sleep specialist who authored two books, The
Speaker 2: Sleep Solution and The Rested Child. He gave us some
Speaker 2: additional insight into this field and how it continues to evolve.
Speaker 3: One of the nice things about the changes in technology
Speaker 3: is that has taken different shape as time has passed.
Speaker 3: So the original sleep studies we did, I mean, if
Speaker 3: you talk to all the people who were sort of
Speaker 3: the first generation sleep doctors, and we're not that far
Speaker 3: removed from them, those sleep studies were very primitive. I
Speaker 3: mean they were sort of experimenting with this. They were
Speaker 3: trying to figure out where there are ways to capture
Speaker 3: information about sleep. And that's changed to the point where
Speaker 3: a lot of the sleep assessments that we do in
Speaker 3: individuals happens in a person's own bed.
Speaker 2: We've had an interesting journey so far talking extensively about
Speaker 2: the science of sleep and showcasing examples of people with
Speaker 2: very unique sleeping patterns and challenges. Today, we're going right
Speaker 2: to the source, to the sleep researcher. We'll find out
Speaker 2: what it's like being at the forefront of one of
Speaker 2: the newest and most interesting fields in healthcare.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Anahad O'Connor, and this is Chasing Sleep and iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: production and partnership with Mattress Firm.
Speaker 3: About a year ago, I decided I was going to
Speaker 3: visit a Mattress firm in every state of the Union.
Speaker 3: I'm really interested in the perspective on the ground. Mattress
Speaker 3: Firm sleep experts. They see it all and you never
Speaker 3: know what new nuggets of sleep you'll learn about. In fact,
Speaker 3: that a great conversation with the manager from one of
Speaker 3: their locations in Texas.
Speaker 4: My name is Raoul Davila. I'm a senior store manager
Speaker 4: for Mattress Firm out of Houston, Texas. It's interesting because
Speaker 4: throughout the years, right you start to see all walks
Speaker 4: of life and all the different issues that are out there.
Speaker 4: So actually seeing guests come in with those issues saying
Speaker 4: that they're not sleeping at night, that they're not getting
Speaker 4: the recommended amount of hours of sleep, that they're being
Speaker 4: impacted at their jobs firsthand. Hearing those stories from my
Speaker 4: guests really puts it in perspective. People are not sleeping well,
Speaker 4: and it all starts with what you're sleeping on. I
Speaker 4: mean that has a huge advantage on getting the sleep
Speaker 4: that we all need.
Speaker 3: So I find it really interesting to talk to the
Speaker 3: sleep experts about and what do they see, What kinds
Speaker 3: of problems have they been confronted with. These individuals are
Speaker 3: using their pretty profound expertise. I mean, they get hundreds
Speaker 3: of hours of sleep training to do more than just
Speaker 3: sell a mattress. They're really trying to help people solve
Speaker 3: sleep problems.
Speaker 2: Whether your sleeping habits are common or uncommon. We have
Speaker 2: the curious researchers to thank for blowing this relatively new
Speaker 2: science completely open. When I sat down with Logan, he
Speaker 2: was enthusiastic about his work and eager to tell me
Speaker 2: all about it. So put us in your clinic, I'd
Speaker 2: love to know what it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's a mostly outpatient clinical practice, which is
Speaker 1: really nice about sleep medicine, Like, there are virtually no
Speaker 1: sleep emergencies that I can think of and certainly don't
Speaker 1: get called in. The nice part about sleep is you
Speaker 1: get to I feel that you get to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking to people about their history because
Speaker 1: that's a significant portion of the evaluation of sleep disorders. Right.
Speaker 1: There isn't much of an examination that you can do
Speaker 1: for sleep other than the actual in lab or home
Speaker 1: sleep study or some other diary or other measures. So
Speaker 1: it's really gathering a story getting to understand people's experiences.
Speaker 1: And the things that we do in our sleep are
Speaker 1: really astounding, eating tubes of toothpaste or driving cars, all
Speaker 1: sorts of crazy stuff. So it's really interesting to hear
Speaker 1: people's experiences with sleep that we never thought possible. We
Speaker 1: all experience sleep a lot of it, and so we
Speaker 1: think we're quite expert at it, but every day I
Speaker 1: get a surprise.
Speaker 2: Very interesting to think about how important the story behind
Speaker 2: each sleeping problem is, which makes sense considering how specific
Speaker 2: and unique each person sleeping circumstances are. Chris found the
Speaker 2: same thing to be true in his own practice.
Speaker 3: Getting the patients side of the story is one of
Speaker 3: the most important techniques for finding out what's going on
Speaker 3: with their sleep. It won't give us the whole picture,
Speaker 3: of course, but if it just rules things out, it's useful.
Speaker 3: We do this from a medical standpoint. But Roll told
Speaker 3: me how sleep experts at mattress firm use the same
Speaker 3: methods with customers as we do with patients.
Speaker 4: When I have a guess that comes in and they're
Speaker 4: looking for me to solve a problem, I mean it
Speaker 4: almost comes down to the support or lack thereof. For
Speaker 4: some reason, they are not happy with the current sleeping situation.
Speaker 4: So it's my job to really ask those questions to
Speaker 4: make sure that we're going to find the right mattress.
Speaker 4: If I'm not asking the right questions, I'm really not
Speaker 4: solving the right problem. When you go see a doctor,
Speaker 4: they're asking questions to try to diagnose something the just
Speaker 4: randomly throwing darts out aboard. They're going to ask the
Speaker 4: right questions to make sure that they can make the
Speaker 4: right recommendation. It's just listening to the guests and really
Speaker 4: hearing them out.
Speaker 2: When you are studying patients, in their sleep. What are
Speaker 2: you typically looking for? What tools are you using?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are all sorts of tools that we have
Speaker 1: at our disposal. Some of them are pretty rudimentary. The
Speaker 1: classic sleep diary where people print out the sheet of
Speaker 1: paper and fill out their sleep diary. Maybe that could
Speaker 1: be supplanted by some helpful objective monitoring through various technologies,
Speaker 1: things like an actigraph which is a watch almost like
Speaker 1: a standard sports or sleep fitness tracker, where it tracks
Speaker 1: movement and light. Sometimes that helps us understand patterns over
Speaker 1: time that can complement a sleep diary. But then the
Speaker 1: major diagnostic tools we have are those things like a
Speaker 1: sleep study, and the sleep study in lab requires a
Speaker 1: specialized technician. Those are the people who are there overnight
Speaker 1: to help make sure that things are going well because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of wires, a lot of tubes,
Speaker 1: a lot of things to monitor various body signals, from
Speaker 1: brain wave activity to eye movements, to muscle activity in
Speaker 1: the face and muscles of the legs, to looking at
Speaker 1: heartbeat and oxygenation and pulse and breathing effort. So that
Speaker 1: we're really gathering a very rich data set to understand
Speaker 1: all of the different things that could be going on
Speaker 1: in sleep.
Speaker 2: These sophisticated ways to measure our bodies and our brains
Speaker 2: while we sleep clearly require equally sophisticated training, but it
Speaker 2: seems like there are also multiple ways to dive into
Speaker 2: this field. I mean, I personally have learned a whole
Speaker 2: lot about the science of sleep just by doing research
Speaker 2: as a journalist and by interviewing experts like yourself.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, they're obviously doctors like Logan and myself who specialize
Speaker 3: in the medical realm of sleep. But the beautiful thing
Speaker 3: about this science is there are multiple avenues to approach
Speaker 3: it from a journalistic approach, as you mentioned in a
Speaker 3: number of other ways. In my conversation with Roll, he
Speaker 3: told me how he and other in store sleep experts
Speaker 3: complete over two hundred hours of training. Can you tell
Speaker 3: us more about your training as a mattress firm sleep
Speaker 3: expert and what it involves.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, so. When we use the term sleep expert,
Speaker 4: we don't use it lightly at all. There's hundreds of
Speaker 4: hours of hands on training that we do here in
Speaker 4: the store, and we talk about the quality of sleep,
Speaker 4: we talk about the type of mattresses we have, how
Speaker 4: we can connect the two, how a mattress can help
Speaker 4: increase the quality of sleep. We're the only ones that
Speaker 4: are really diving in to learn about sleep, and you
Speaker 4: know how that can benefit you and what can happen
Speaker 4: if you don't get the right amount of sleep. There's
Speaker 4: so much out there on sleep that we still don't
Speaker 4: know about. But if we can pair what's happening with
Speaker 4: my guests to a certain mattress and a cert and feature,
Speaker 4: I think that's when we get that aha moment where
Speaker 4: you know, that's exactly what's happening to me and this
Speaker 4: is exactly what I need.
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 2: Doctor Logan Schnyder broke down the different types of sleeping disorders.
Speaker 1: We have a set of about six disorder categorizations that
Speaker 1: we can then subdivide into. You have a breathing disorder.
Speaker 1: Is it a breathing disorder because of a blockage like
Speaker 1: obstructive seatp apnea? Is it central meaning that your brain
Speaker 1: is not triggered to breathe, maybe because of a medication
Speaker 1: you're taking. We have all of these different signals that
Speaker 1: different chunks of them can tell us different things about
Speaker 1: your sleep. If we don't need all of that, we're
Speaker 1: not looking for a more complicated disorder, but something more
Speaker 1: run of the mill. Sometimes we can farm that out
Speaker 1: to like a home based diagnostic study where we just
Speaker 1: look for breathing effort problems and oxygen problems where the
Speaker 1: blood is not getting enough oxygen because the breathing is impaired,
Speaker 1: to something like for just substructive sleep apnea, a little
Speaker 1: bit easier to descend to the home. But if you
Speaker 1: need a more in depth diagnosis looking for more complicated
Speaker 1: sleep disorders, then we want all of those signals, and
Speaker 1: we have video to accompany it to make sure we
Speaker 1: know what's going on. Like when people sleepwalk, you can
Speaker 1: actually see their behaviors and try and differentiate was that
Speaker 1: actual sleepwalking from non dreaming sleep or was this guy
Speaker 1: of a dream based sleep disorder. It's important to know
Speaker 1: what stage of sleep you're in to know what's going on.
Speaker 2: So there are different types of sleepwalking based on the
Speaker 2: stage of sleep that they're in.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and it could even not be standard run of
Speaker 1: the mill sleepwalking, which is a relatively benign disorder unless
Speaker 1: it causes problems like somebody driving a car. We all sleep,
Speaker 1: but then we are trying to differentiate what's going on
Speaker 1: in your sleep. Right, people come to us and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this weird thing, and we don't know. We
Speaker 1: can't know unless we're actually looking at what your brain
Speaker 1: is doing. And that's really worth capturing it on a
Speaker 1: video and also looking at all these bios all at
Speaker 1: once can help us differentiate that.
Speaker 2: And with insomnia, for example, what are some of the
Speaker 2: sort of common things that you see causing that. Is
Speaker 2: it going to be a person's you know, their sleep environment,
Speaker 2: or is it typically stress or anxiety or their job,
Speaker 2: or do you see common sort of themes underlying people's insomnia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a lot of commonalities in general and sleep,
Speaker 1: and particularly for insomnia. There are various constructs, various groups
Speaker 1: described to different ways of thinking about this, but one
Speaker 1: common model is called a three P model, where somebody
Speaker 1: might be predisposed. It might be your genetics that predisposes
Speaker 1: you to having sleepwalking similar type of thing here, So
Speaker 1: that's the predisposition, and then you have a precipitating factor.
Speaker 1: Often one big precipitating factor for a lot of people
Speaker 1: actually happen to be the pandemic. Was it the stress
Speaker 1: of the pandemic? Was it the change in your schedule,
Speaker 1: even the opportunity to sleep more that actually cause you
Speaker 1: to develop an insomnia. So then there's that precipitating event
Speaker 1: that causes the insomnia happen. And then after that, when
Speaker 1: we see insomnia eventually come to us in the sleep clinic,
Speaker 1: often because that's an acute in Zombia, something triggered it.
Speaker 1: You had a bad night. Everybody has a bad night
Speaker 1: here and there, but when it becomes chronic, it lasts
Speaker 1: for a long period of time, and that's where we
Speaker 1: have to worry about these factors that perpetuate it. That's
Speaker 1: the third p Things that people are doing in response
Speaker 1: to their insomnia that then keep it going on. So
Speaker 1: some people will stay in bed a lot longer hoping
Speaker 1: that sleep will come, and unfortunately that inherently induces in insomnia.
Speaker 1: If you need six hours of sleep and you're in
Speaker 1: bed for eight hours, we'll guess how much insomnia you
Speaker 1: have two hours. So people will do different behaviors or
Speaker 1: even have thought patterns. Even the bed alone will make
Speaker 1: them anxious about going to bed, and so they're terrified. Oh,
Speaker 1: oh man, am I going to be able to sleep tonight?
Speaker 1: So it's these thought patterns and behaviors that keep it
Speaker 1: kind of rolling on.
Speaker 2: That sounds like Pavlovian conditioning.
Speaker 1: I was just want to say that, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say one of the most common things that's referencing poun
Speaker 1: Love's dog is people create this association with bed that
Speaker 1: is actually both physically activating as well as cognitive emotionally activating,
Speaker 1: so they actually just even being in bed. Stimulus control
Speaker 1: is one of the things that we use is to
Speaker 1: separate the stimulus of the bed from the sense of wakefulness.
Speaker 1: And if we can effectively do that, people then start
Speaker 1: to get used to, oh, the bed is for sleep again.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's exactly Pavlovas dog. You got it.
Speaker 2: So you have to retrain their brains to view their
Speaker 2: bed as not a place of stress and anxiety and insomnia,
Speaker 2: but a sanctuary of sleep. A sanctuary of sleep is
Speaker 2: definitely my new favorite term for my bedroom, and it
Speaker 2: really highlights just how important being physically and mentally comfortable
Speaker 2: is to our health. Throughout this series, one of the
Speaker 2: most fascinating aspects of sleep science that we've looked at
Speaker 2: is the amount of power that our brains have to
Speaker 2: perform certain functions completely on their own. And one of
Speaker 2: the best examples of how overwhelmingly strong our mental capacities
Speaker 2: can be, even on autopilot is the disorder that many
Speaker 2: people suffer from known as sleepwalking. You know, what are
Speaker 2: some of the common things that you see when people
Speaker 2: are sleepwalking? And what is the cause of sleepwalking? Generally speaking?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we don't know what the underlying cause of
Speaker 1: sleepwalking is. It just is that some people have a
Speaker 1: tendency to do it and others don't, which would suggest
Speaker 1: that maybe there's a underlying genetic predisposition. It might be
Speaker 1: that their body doesn't do a good job of suppressing
Speaker 1: motor activity or doesn't do a good job of waking
Speaker 1: up fully when it starts to do motor activity, for example. Right,
Speaker 1: So it could be something in that kind of pathway,
Speaker 1: because to sleep, you have to maintain sleep while you
Speaker 1: might actually have brain activity that would suggest wake for example.
Speaker 1: But what can trigger sleepwalking typically or the things that
Speaker 1: you might see like I had in residency, So excessive
Speaker 1: amounts of deep slow wave sleep that can come from
Speaker 1: chronic sleep deprivation, sometimes drinking alcohol can be a trigger
Speaker 1: for it. Another thing that makes it more likely to
Speaker 1: have a sleepwalking event, for example, is being a kid.
Speaker 1: They have an awful lot of slow wave sleep, and
Speaker 1: so probability would be if you have more of the
Speaker 1: slow wave sleep and your brain hasn't matured enough to
Speaker 1: have all of these systems working together to promote stages
Speaker 1: of sleep or states of sleep, then there's a higher
Speaker 1: chance that they might actually have an event where they sleepwalk. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: the trigger could be in them a bladder feeling full
Speaker 1: and they have to go to the bathroom, but it
Speaker 1: happens to be right in the middle of the deepest
Speaker 1: part of sleep where they're the most inactive. Well, that
Speaker 1: triggers them enough to become awake but not conscious. You
Speaker 1: have to be in the right state. So if you
Speaker 1: have more of that state, the deep sleep, then you're
Speaker 1: more likely to have an event. And if you have
Speaker 1: a trigger in that state, well, then it's more likely
Speaker 1: that you're going to precipitate an event. About ten percent
Speaker 1: of people that will have a sleepwalking event about once
Speaker 1: a year or so.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, and does it usually the person themselves who's
Speaker 2: becomes aware of it or is it sort of like
Speaker 2: sleep happneing like with myself, where it's a partner or
Speaker 2: you know, bed mate who brings it to the person's attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about a mix. If somebody has something very
Speaker 1: clearly out of place or out of order, that might
Speaker 1: be a good indication. For example, with the sleep eating,
Speaker 1: some people come into their kitchen they're like, who cooked
Speaker 1: this meal in my house last night? Or they wake
Speaker 1: up and unusual contents like crumbs are in their bed
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, I don't know how these got here.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good indication to people that something
Speaker 1: happened at night and it doesn't make sense. They'll check
Speaker 1: their locks and think that they're going crazy. It's a
Speaker 1: great build up for a sci fi thriller, right, and
Speaker 1: then we now get this bed partner who is somebody
Speaker 1: who can finally observe our sleep for us again, And
Speaker 1: that's when typically these things come to people's awareness, is
Speaker 1: that they have somebody who's like, hey, you did this
Speaker 1: crazy thing last night, or hey you punched me in
Speaker 1: your sleep as everything okay, it sounded like you were
Speaker 1: fighting off like a wolf or something. So it oftentimes
Speaker 1: most of our sleep disorders are recognized when people are
Speaker 1: sleeping in context. That's when you know, even if you're
Speaker 1: sleeping alone, you might catch it on these intermittent cases.
Speaker 1: But oftentimes it's things that are reported that are completely
Speaker 1: out of whack and people think is something wrong with them,
Speaker 1: but they're not likely to report it, like I don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on. Normally it's a bad partner who's like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's weird, go check that out.
Speaker 2: The more we learn about sleep science, the more interesting
Speaker 2: it becomes. Now, Chris, I'm curious as a medical doctor,
Speaker 2: what do you look for and what are your goals
Speaker 2: when it comes to getting good quality sleep?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the idea of sleep metrics. I think
Speaker 3: the best way for people to really assess their sleep
Speaker 3: is are you still awake listening to this podcast? Meaning
Speaker 3: that do you struggle with excessive sleepiness during the day?
Speaker 3: So to me, looking at fatigue and sleepiness levels during
Speaker 3: the day, I think is probably the best way to
Speaker 3: determine whether or not somebody's a good sleeper. Somebody says
Speaker 3: to me, I'm so unsleepy that I can't nap. I've
Speaker 3: never taken a nap in my life. It's hard to
Speaker 3: paint them as a bad sleeper. It's kind of like
Speaker 3: want a sandwich, Nope, want a strawberry nope? I want
Speaker 3: a cookie nope. Well, you're probably not hungry, so hard
Speaker 3: to paint that person to somebody who's starving to death. So,
Speaker 3: you know, to me, I think it's really about exploring.
Speaker 3: Sleep studies are awesome, but it all starts with communicating
Speaker 3: with doctor Schneider and sitting down and having questions for
Speaker 3: him and exploring the things that are concerning you about
Speaker 3: your sleep and how sleep interconnects to other parts of
Speaker 3: your health. And you know, sleep studies are often very appropriate,
Speaker 3: but not always, so I don't think everybody should have
Speaker 3: a sleep study. I think the secret to good sleep
Speaker 3: and my secret is I don't worry about it because
Speaker 3: I've learned enough about sleep to know that it's impossible
Speaker 3: not to. It won't be perfect all the time. We
Speaker 3: will have sleepless nights, but sleepless nights are a normal variant.
Speaker 3: That's what happens to people. It only becomes insomnia when
Speaker 3: you're scared of it. So understanding that I'm going to
Speaker 3: set aside a proper amount of time to sleep, I'm
Speaker 3: going to use it tonight or I won't. But that's
Speaker 3: not something that I can really control. And you know,
Speaker 3: always tell people the secret to grade sleep is feeling
Speaker 3: as happy in bed awake as you are asleep. So
Speaker 3: I think that when you release fear from the process
Speaker 3: of sleep, it's incredibly empowering. So after you've done that,
Speaker 3: you create a schedule that gives you an ample opportunity
Speaker 3: to sleep. Start your time off every day at the
Speaker 3: same time you gotta exercise, you got to eat, write.
Speaker 3: Mindfulness is not something the younger sleep doctor Winter would
Speaker 3: have told you was that important, but the older sleep
Speaker 3: doctor thinks it's everything.
Speaker 2: So between sleep studies, communication and sleep metrics, it sounds
Speaker 2: like you have a lot of different techniques at your disposal, a.
Speaker 3: Lot of tools, and the techniques are constantly evolving. The
Speaker 3: take of sleep study has become very popular versus strictly
Speaker 3: in lab studies, and the culture of sleep has changed
Speaker 3: a lot too, and I get a first row seat
Speaker 3: to that when I talk to sleep experts in my
Speaker 3: work with Mattress Firm.
Speaker 4: I think throughout the years, the only thing that's really
Speaker 4: changed that we're now what we used to joke about.
Speaker 4: We're no longer joking about it, right. So we used
Speaker 4: to joke about and almost brag about how little sleep
Speaker 4: we need to function right, And now I feel like
Speaker 4: instead of joking about that, we're taking it more seriously
Speaker 4: than we have in the past. It's still there, we're
Speaker 4: still saying the same thing, but instead of being proud
Speaker 4: that only got three hours of sleep, now it's I
Speaker 4: only got three hours of sleep, and it's not like
Speaker 4: you can make that up. It's lost, right. So I
Speaker 4: think making it more of a focus taking it serious.
Speaker 4: I think that's the big difference.
Speaker 2: Besides the tools we talked about, both doctors had interesting
Speaker 2: ways to bring that extra bit of care to their practices.
Speaker 2: Logan explain that when doctors undergo sleep studies themselves, it
Speaker 2: helps them empathize with their patients.
Speaker 1: Anytime you have a chance to walk in your patients shoes,
Speaker 1: I think is helpful, and doing a sleep study gives
Speaker 1: you a real understanding of what we're asking people to
Speaker 1: go through to help us understand what's going on in
Speaker 1: sleep and help them improve their lives.
Speaker 2: And Chris shared how traveling the country and talking to
Speaker 2: people like Raoul helps him working with his own patients.
Speaker 3: I think visiting mattress firms. Talking to sleep experts helps
Speaker 3: a lot with what I do. So I see patients
Speaker 3: every day, and I'm getting a certain group or collection
Speaker 3: of complaints. Either a patient had a complaint and they
Speaker 3: came to see me, or they saw a doctor who
Speaker 3: referred their patient to me. I don't know that I
Speaker 3: get to see the full array of problems that people have.
Speaker 3: In order for somebody to see me, it has to
Speaker 3: boil up to a point where somebody has arrived at
Speaker 3: the decision to go see a doctor. So I feel
Speaker 3: like you're getting a much more organic swath of complaints
Speaker 3: and problems when you talk to somebody at a mattress
Speaker 3: for a meaning that somebody's not satisfied with their sleep,
Speaker 3: the sleeps. It's an interesting dynamic, and it's private. It's
Speaker 3: a very personal topic. You know, if I'm buying, you know,
Speaker 3: a new frying pan because my old ones is kind
Speaker 3: of gross, that's not necessarily a personal communication I'm having
Speaker 3: with that store, you know, that manager or that clerk
Speaker 3: or that that sales representative. But when you're talking about sleep,
Speaker 3: it gets personal very quickly. So I find that the
Speaker 3: purchase of the bed product is the entry point. So
Speaker 3: I just find the stories that these sleep experts tell
Speaker 3: me endlessly fascinating. So wherever I go, always try.
Speaker 2: To stop it. We've learned a lot about sleep from
Speaker 2: experts and from people with very unique sleeping habits, and
Speaker 2: as this journey was coming to a close, I wanted
Speaker 2: to know what Logan and Chris considered to be a
Speaker 2: major component and find and keeping good sleep.
Speaker 1: So the most important thing is keep a consistent routine.
Speaker 1: As long as you budget it enough time, your body
Speaker 1: will take what it needs. And then sometimes that might
Speaker 1: actually be less than you think. Right if you budget
Speaker 1: seven hours and your brain is only getting six hours,
Speaker 1: and then it wakes up and it's good to go,
Speaker 1: you might be lucky and get an extra half hour
Speaker 1: if you're finding that that extra hour of opportunity is
Speaker 1: not necessary, And then really set that routine, at least
Speaker 1: in the time before bed. If you can't like structure
Speaker 1: your entire day, which is very difficult, but at least
Speaker 1: in that time before bed, say what are some things
Speaker 1: that can help me wind down? And always adhere to those.
Speaker 1: Make sure that the things that you enjoy so that
Speaker 1: you're wanting to do it, add things that help you
Speaker 1: sleep and pull away things that don't help you sleep,
Speaker 1: but make sure that the things that you add are
Speaker 1: enjoyable and budget that routine in because that's again just
Speaker 1: like kids, we all rely upon routines. It's what structures
Speaker 1: our lives and makes our bodies and brains ready for
Speaker 1: the next step. And so make sure that you start
Speaker 1: at wake time, build backward, and then build a routine
Speaker 1: that promotes sleep.
Speaker 3: With all the issues being studied, one thing is key.
Speaker 3: What you sleep on makes a difference. Roll you mentioned
Speaker 3: having a strong focus on quality sleep. Why do you
Speaker 3: think that's important? I mean, how does that affect performance?
Speaker 4: I mean, we're all working hard. We all have to think,
Speaker 4: we all have to perform on our toes. Sometimes we
Speaker 4: have to make very important decisions, sometimes at the drop
Speaker 4: of a dime, so to be able to maximize that
Speaker 4: potential right go to work and really perform at that
Speaker 4: elite level. I think that's the difference waking up and
Speaker 4: not getting the quality of sleep and going to work
Speaker 4: and having to make these decisions when you're not at
Speaker 4: one hundred percent or at your true potential. That can
Speaker 4: have devastating consequences, right, especially if you're in a position
Speaker 4: where you know you have a big responsibility. People think
Speaker 4: about health when you eat, health when you work out,
Speaker 4: But if you're not sleeping, right, I see it more
Speaker 4: as a triangle. If you're not sleeping, well, then it's
Speaker 4: it's It doesn't matter what you're doing in the gym
Speaker 4: or what you're eating.
Speaker 2: That's all for this episode. Thanks for joining us this season.
Speaker 2: If this was your first time tuning in, make sure
Speaker 2: to check out our earlier adventures, where we looked into
Speaker 2: the sleeping patterns of a marathon runner, a journalist working
Speaker 2: around the clock, a form an er doctor whose normal
Speaker 2: workday is someone else's emergency, a streamer who spends his
Speaker 2: nights reaching a global audience, a video game enthusiasts, a
Speaker 2: wildlife documentarian, and we even spoke to an astronaut and
Speaker 2: someone who lives in the Arctic Circle, where it's day's
Speaker 2: day for months at a time. We want to hear
Speaker 2: from you. Leave a rating or review for our show
Speaker 2: on your podcast player of choice. You can find me
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Anahad O'Connor. We'll be back with more
Speaker 2: episodes of Chasing Sleep in the new year, but 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 James Foster. Our supervising producer is Keia Swinton.
Speaker 2: Our producer is Sierra Kaiser. Our researcher and writer is
Speaker 2: Eric Leijia. This show is hosted by me annahad O'Connor