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