Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: It's well on this Wednesday, and we have sleep scientists,
Speaker 2: doctor Rebecca Robbins here to help us enhance our sleep quality,
Speaker 2: which ultimately means improving our overall health and well being.
Speaker 2: She's revealing the best time to go to bed and
Speaker 2: whether it's possible to catch up on sleep after a
Speaker 2: late night. It's Wednesday, July twenty fourth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3: And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side
Speaker 3: from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together
Speaker 3: to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 2: Simone talking about a bright day, I have to tell
Speaker 2: you the only way I have a bright day is
Speaker 2: when I sleep well.
Speaker 3: Are you a good sleeper. I'm a legendary sleeper. I
Speaker 3: grew a reputation in college for being the girl that
Speaker 3: could fall asleep anywhere. Like I could fall asleep in
Speaker 3: the middle of a party and wasn't. I wasn't like
Speaker 3: drunk or anything.
Speaker 1: I just want what do you mean sitting on a couch?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, totally. I fall asleep in movie theaters, Broadway shows,
Speaker 3: and I'm a voracious consumer of pop culture. But I
Speaker 3: will fall asleep if the environment is right at the
Speaker 3: temperatures right, the pillows are soft. Yeah, I can fall
Speaker 3: asleep anywhere. How about you.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you and I could win an Olympic
Speaker 2: gold medal in sleeping. I'm wondering if we can institute
Speaker 2: it as a sport.
Speaker 3: Sleeping would be a great sport.
Speaker 2: Honestly, if I don't get a good night's sleep, I
Speaker 2: feel it in every single way possible. I crave sugar,
Speaker 2: even caffeine doesn't help. I get headaches. I know that
Speaker 2: I'm not going to have great ideas or be creative
Speaker 2: like my grammars off in emails. From the little things
Speaker 2: to the big things. It affects my whole life.
Speaker 3: To be honest, I know the importance of a good
Speaker 3: night's sleep, like I know that this is essential for us. However,
Speaker 3: I have just had to push through a lot of times,
Speaker 3: pushing through a work schedules, working early hours as a reporter,
Speaker 3: or being a mom of two under two. Like, the
Speaker 3: reality is, there are sometimes when I just haven't been
Speaker 3: able to get in a good sleep pattern, and I
Speaker 3: find myself just surviving. So I want to learn some
Speaker 3: tips and some science based information to really get the
Speaker 3: most out of my sleep, which is why I am
Speaker 3: so excited to chat with our guests today doctor Rebecca Robbins,
Speaker 3: who is a professor researcher who anchors her sleep research
Speaker 3: in the science of circadian rhythms.
Speaker 2: I actually quit a job one time because of my
Speaker 2: circadian rhythm. You and I both know what it's like
Speaker 2: to wake up in the middle of the night for work,
Speaker 2: so that's when I learned about it. A circadian rhythm
Speaker 2: is basically the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow
Speaker 2: our twenty four hour cycle.
Speaker 1: So TLDR, it's our internal clock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And a big part of understanding that internal clock
Speaker 3: has to do with chronotypes. So a chronotype is our
Speaker 3: natural inclination for sleep preferences and the timing of other
Speaker 3: activity throughout the day like eating, sleeping, working. And each
Speaker 3: chronotype has an animal assigned to it. So there's the bear,
Speaker 3: the lion, the wolf, and the dolphin. And we both
Speaker 3: took the quiz. I can't wait to find out what
Speaker 3: you are, Danielle.
Speaker 1: I know same. I love a quiz.
Speaker 3: This is fun me too, Okay, So here's the breakdown
Speaker 3: of the four animals. So the bear follows the sun.
Speaker 3: It rises with the sun, it sleeps when the sun
Speaker 3: goes down, so pretty straightforward circadian approach. The lion is
Speaker 3: a morning person. They love an early start. They also
Speaker 3: love turning in early. The wolf is a night owl,
Speaker 3: and the dolphin is a light or inconsistent sleeper. They're
Speaker 3: always tired and they have trouble falling and staying asleep.
Speaker 3: Which one are you?
Speaker 2: I didn't even have to take this quiz to know
Speaker 2: what I am. You could have just said that, and
Speaker 2: I know that I am the bear. My ideal wake
Speaker 2: up time if I don't have an alarm, is seven am.
Speaker 2: My ideal bedtime is around eleven PM. And I feel
Speaker 2: most most creative, most inspired, and energetic mid morning to
Speaker 2: mid afternoon.
Speaker 1: You know what's so funny about this?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 2: The quiz will give you sort of characteristics that go
Speaker 2: along with your behavior, and mine says likely to avoid conflict,
Speaker 2: aspires to be healthy and happy, and takes comfort in
Speaker 2: the familiar.
Speaker 3: Is that true?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: My god? One hundred percent true? And I love that.
Speaker 2: It also gives you other famous bears, So we have
Speaker 2: Lebron James, Serena Williams, and Jennifer Lopez, who famously talks
Speaker 2: about loving sleep.
Speaker 1: I feel so similar to that.
Speaker 3: Oh you got some good ones, you got some good
Speaker 3: famous friends in your category. Okay, so I am actually
Speaker 3: the lion chronotype, and I gotta be honest, this kind
Speaker 3: of surprised me. My ideal wake up time, according to
Speaker 3: this quiz is five am. My ideal bedtime is nine pm.
Speaker 3: I'm an early riser who wakes up bright eyed, often
Speaker 3: falls asleep easily. That part is definitely true. My big
Speaker 3: question with the chronotypes is do they change as we
Speaker 3: get older, because I feel like I've lived different chronotype
Speaker 3: personalities in different seasons of my life. But as far
Speaker 3: as the lion, which is apparently what I am right now,
Speaker 3: I'm most productive in the early morning, overachiever, prioritize health
Speaker 3: and fitness, seeks positive interactions, and is optimistic but practical.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is so you. I don't even have to
Speaker 1: ask you if this is you.
Speaker 2: What I think is funny is they've all these Meyers
Speaker 2: Briggs personality tests and we've been missing this chronotype test.
Speaker 1: This one's it.
Speaker 3: Maybe this is the one the truth teller of them all.
Speaker 3: And if you want to take this quiz and find
Speaker 3: out whether you're a bear, a lion, a wolf or
Speaker 3: a dolphin. We're going to drop it in our show notes.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to get into chronotypes and sleep quality
Speaker 2: and so much more with doctor Rebecca Robbins.
Speaker 1: So a little background on her.
Speaker 2: She's a sleep scientist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital
Speaker 2: in Boston and an assistant professor in medicine at Harvard
Speaker 2: Medical School. Her research focuses on circadian health, and she's
Speaker 2: been published in Sleep Health, The Washington Post as well
Speaker 2: as The New York Times. She's also the co author
Speaker 2: of Sleep for Success, a book on tools and techniques
Speaker 2: for how to get good sleep. So after the break,
Speaker 2: we're getting into chronotypes, sleep quality and all of the
Speaker 2: questions about sleep that you want answers to.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with doctor Robins.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rebecca Robbins, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: We're really excited to chat with you. Simone knows I
Speaker 2: am a sleepy girl. I love sleep, I value it
Speaker 2: so heavily in my life, and I'm so excited to
Speaker 2: chat about how we can maximize the quality of our
Speaker 2: sleep today.
Speaker 1: What is the wildest fact you know about sleep?
Speaker 4: The biggest thing that always does my mind about sleep
Speaker 4: is just how rich and complex it is. I think
Speaker 4: the biggest myth number one is that we fall asleep,
Speaker 4: our head hits the pillow, and we enter this kind
Speaker 4: of monolithic stage of sleep. But all of our evidence
Speaker 4: points to the contrary that sleep is in some cases
Speaker 4: a highly active process with tremendous amounts of activity in
Speaker 4: the brain and the body. And then the most fascinating
Speaker 4: is what happens in the brain during sleep, and in
Speaker 4: certain stages of sleep, such as rapid eye movement sleep,
Speaker 4: we are almost as active, if not more active in
Speaker 4: terms of our brain activity than we are during our daytime,
Speaker 4: which is wild.
Speaker 2: To your point, doctor Robbins about brain function. What happens
Speaker 2: to our brains and our bodies when we don't get
Speaker 2: enough sleep.
Speaker 4: When we're falling short of our physiological biological sleep needs,
Speaker 4: so many things fall off the rails. When we're not
Speaker 4: getting enough, good quality sleep, we're less able to regulate
Speaker 4: our emotions. The research has shown that the kind of
Speaker 4: emotional powerhouse of the brain is just more engaged when
Speaker 4: we're sleep deprived as compared to well rested, So you're
Speaker 4: more reactive, more likely to snap at loved ones, So
Speaker 4: mood is one of the first things, but unfortunately that
Speaker 4: can rear its ugly head if gone unchecked over time,
Speaker 4: and for that reason, we see a strong bidirectional relationship
Speaker 4: between poor sleep and mental health concerns. We also see
Speaker 4: a host of benefits to our heart health from our sleep,
Speaker 4: and when we're not getting enough sleep, we've shown that
Speaker 4: increases our risk for hypertension and cardiovascular disease because there's
Speaker 4: so much activity that's going on in the brain in
Speaker 4: this certain stage of sleep, and we're finding that that
Speaker 4: activity has a really important implication for our ability to
Speaker 4: retain memories, to take them from short term things that
Speaker 4: you learn today and integrate them into longer term storage.
Speaker 4: We're also more able to achieve insight that light bulb
Speaker 4: going off. We see more of that after a night
Speaker 4: of sleep that's allowed for enough sleep and enough rapida.
Speaker 1: I'm of mid sleep, doctor Robbins.
Speaker 3: A lot of your research and approach and philosophy around
Speaker 3: having quality sleep comes from understanding our circadian rhythm. So
Speaker 3: can you talk about the evolutionary purpose behind the circadian
Speaker 3: rhythm and why that's the key to getting good sleep
Speaker 3: every night?
Speaker 4: Great questions about circadian It's Latin circa das or about
Speaker 4: a day, and it refers to physiological processes that operate
Speaker 4: in an approximate kind of twenty four hour rhythm, where
Speaker 4: some cells are firing during a certain period of time
Speaker 4: and then retiring or resting during other times. And it
Speaker 4: turns out that almost every cell of the body does this.
Speaker 4: Now that serves us from the standpoint of our evolution
Speaker 4: to not have to be on all day long. The
Speaker 4: strongest input to the circadian rhythm is sun light exposure
Speaker 4: blue daylight spectrum light that helps our internal rhythms match
Speaker 4: themselves to a twenty four hour day. So sleep is
Speaker 4: one such circadian rhythm. There are times during the day
Speaker 4: where we're asleep and times where we're awake. That's the
Speaker 4: reason we can't keep different sleep schedules from one day
Speaker 4: to the next. Some people say, oh, I fall, say
Speaker 4: some nights at ten pm, the next night two am,
Speaker 4: the next night eleven pm, and then nine am, because I'm.
Speaker 1: Desperate for sleep.
Speaker 4: But if you're keeping different schedules, you're limiting your internal
Speaker 4: circadian rhythm's fundamental ability to know when it should be
Speaker 4: tired and secreting the related sleep hooromone melatonin and when.
Speaker 1: It should be awake.
Speaker 4: And that's why one of the most important recommendations not
Speaker 4: only getting enough sleep, but consistency of sleep is as important,
Speaker 4: if not more than getting enough sleep. But how does
Speaker 4: this work in practice?
Speaker 2: Because in theory, I get it, and parents know this
Speaker 2: better than anybody because they practice rituals and routines for
Speaker 2: their children's sleep schedules. But in my adult life, I
Speaker 2: don't know if my schedule allows me to go to
Speaker 2: bed at the same time every night.
Speaker 4: Danielle, I fundamentally believe that you can have your cake
Speaker 4: and eat it too, because if you understand that, okay,
Speaker 4: consistency matters, then we could talk about your daily routine.
Speaker 4: One of my first questions I like to ask is
Speaker 4: what's the earliest wake up time? If you have a
Speaker 4: six am workout class, you've hit your target wake up
Speaker 4: time for the week.
Speaker 1: And I know that staks.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna, you know, say get out of bed
Speaker 4: at five am on a Sunday, but meet me halfway.
Speaker 4: So if you're saying, okay, six am is the earliest
Speaker 4: time that I have to get out. So the vast
Speaker 4: majority of adults need between seven and nine hours, and
Speaker 4: we can talk about how to find your personal sleep
Speaker 4: need in a minute. If you give yourself ape, you're
Speaker 4: generally setting yourself up for success. But then at another
Speaker 4: thirty minutes because we need to power down and unwind
Speaker 4: prepare for sleep. And so if you can do that
Speaker 4: mental mouth of okay, earliest wake up time, count back
Speaker 4: eight hours, maybe at a buffer of twenty minutes, and
Speaker 4: then you've hit your target fall asleep time. Now that's
Speaker 4: really important because I think as a society we're so
Speaker 4: focused on our alarm block when we're going to wake up,
Speaker 4: we sometimes lose track of our fall asleep time. And
Speaker 4: let's be honest, what are we doing at night? It's
Speaker 4: all you've had a long day and you're watching Netflix,
Speaker 4: and suddenly you're like, what's one more episode? I might
Speaker 4: be the price of a little little bit. But one of
Speaker 4: the worst things kind of related to this is sleeping in.
Speaker 4: Some people say, oh, I sleep in for two, three
Speaker 4: four hours on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but unfortunately
Speaker 4: you're throwing that internal circadian rhythm completely out of whack.
Speaker 4: And being mindful of these principles allows you to say, look,
Speaker 4: it's Friday night, I'm going to go out, and I'm
Speaker 4: going to enjoy it. And after that fabulous night out,
Speaker 4: you're going to be like, I made some great memories,
Speaker 4: I had a great time, And try to get up
Speaker 4: as close to the normal time as possible. If you're
Speaker 4: exhausted in the afternoon, take a nap and that won't
Speaker 4: hinder that circadian rhythm and the fundamental kind of ability
Speaker 4: to know when we're tired for a primary sleep episode.
Speaker 4: Naps will help you pay back that lost sleep and
Speaker 4: that sleep debt and then get you back on track
Speaker 4: the next night.
Speaker 2: So sleep debt is a real thing. That's not just
Speaker 2: something we tell ourselves to feel better.
Speaker 1: Sleep debt is a real thing.
Speaker 4: And if your biological need for sleep is closer to
Speaker 4: seven or closer to say eight hours, and then every
Speaker 4: night the past week, you've been falling short of that
Speaker 4: biological need. But we're all at a different place along
Speaker 4: that continuum. So the best way to figure out where
Speaker 4: you are is find a time, maybe it's on vacation
Speaker 4: when you can kind of get back to neutral, go
Speaker 4: to bed it with plenty of time, give yourself plenty
Speaker 4: of time, and then after a couple of nights, if
Speaker 4: you've been sleep deprived for weeks month. It's going to
Speaker 4: take time to get you back to baseline. But once
Speaker 4: you're there, really finding yourself in a consistent, healthy sleep routine,
Speaker 4: and then if you can really answer truthfully, I feel great,
Speaker 4: You've probably hit your physiological sleep need and do your
Speaker 4: best to meet that night in and night out.
Speaker 2: There was a study from the American Academy of Sleep
Speaker 2: Medicine where they discovered that centenarians, so people that are
Speaker 2: over one hundred years old or above, slept an average
Speaker 2: of seven point five hours a day, including naps. And
Speaker 2: I am obsessed with longevity. I'm hoping to be like
Speaker 2: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and planking when I'm ninety something years old.
Speaker 2: So for years I have been thinking about these centenarians,
Speaker 2: and I always say this quote to myself that sleep
Speaker 2: is the secret of superheroes, and you know, I put
Speaker 2: those centenarians in the superhero category.
Speaker 3: Love it.
Speaker 2: Aside from sleep studies, how does a person at home
Speaker 2: evaluate their own sleep quality? Are there any specific markers
Speaker 2: that we can look out for on a day to
Speaker 2: day basis?
Speaker 1: This is a really great question.
Speaker 4: I think that sleep trackers that are increasingly low cost
Speaker 4: and accessible are a great way to get some insight
Speaker 4: into just how much did I sleep last night and
Speaker 4: how was my sleep quality? And sometimes that can be surprising.
Speaker 4: You can wake up and be like, I feel okay,
Speaker 4: but wow, I did not get a lot of sleep.
Speaker 1: So awareness is everything.
Speaker 4: Sleep trackers can help with that, but the oldest school,
Speaker 4: lowest cost method is how did you feel when you
Speaker 4: woke up? Do you feel energized? The second time to
Speaker 4: ask yourself that question is the afternoon, because if you
Speaker 4: are sleep deprived, you're going to feel the impacts of
Speaker 4: sleep deficiency the most, simply because of this midday dip
Speaker 4: and alertness that we all experience, facilitated in some ways.
Speaker 1: By media, heavy lunch, but also not getting enough sleep
Speaker 1: the night before.
Speaker 3: Doctor Robbins, there's so much information online these days about
Speaker 3: sleep and how to improve the quality of your sleep.
Speaker 3: So we're hoping to cut through the noise for our
Speaker 3: bright side besties and bring them your expert opinion. Do
Speaker 3: women need more sleep than men?
Speaker 1: This is one of our myths.
Speaker 4: There is a small difference that we see in sleep duration,
Speaker 4: but this is one of our things that is sleep experts.
Speaker 4: We're trying to debug because there been a couple things
Speaker 4: slanging around the internet about this.
Speaker 1: Women do not need hours more sleep than men. It's moments.
Speaker 3: It's like twenty minutes, is what I read? Is that
Speaker 3: is that accurate?
Speaker 1: A little bit less? I think it's closer to seven.
Speaker 3: Oh. Interesting.
Speaker 4: So unfortunately, this disparity we do see in sleep between
Speaker 4: gender is sleep quality. So women report far worse sleep
Speaker 4: quality than do men. And that's the issue that's important
Speaker 4: I think to draw attention to, because why is that
Speaker 4: the case? Women typically wear two hats, one inside the
Speaker 4: home and one out. Even in the most seemingly equal
Speaker 4: marriage or partnership, women generally children more, childcare responsibilities of
Speaker 4: household responsibilities often shouldered above and beyond professional obligations, and
Speaker 4: so therefore those factors cut into the time that they
Speaker 4: would be able to sleep. The other aspect is women
Speaker 4: typically are managing the smaller tasks in a household of
Speaker 4: scheduling doctor's appointments, calling the plumber, checking an insurance bill,
Speaker 4: and those things then eat into sometimes the time that
Speaker 4: we would be able to sleep, but also can increase worry,
Speaker 4: worry for children, for pets, for the people for whom
Speaker 4: they provide care, and not worry can really loom large
Speaker 4: in terms of difficulties falling asleep and maintaining sleep as
Speaker 4: compared to men. So women face a much greater risk
Speaker 4: for those insomnia like symptoms doma, and that's the disparity
Speaker 4: I'd love to highlight, not the duration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great, Thank you so much for that insight.
Speaker 2: How about sleep aids like melatonin, magnesium or tart cherry juice?
Speaker 1: Are those effective at all?
Speaker 4: Now? Just be wary that the store shelves are ripe
Speaker 4: with products, gadgets, gizmos that offer the promise of a
Speaker 4: good night's sleep, because that's the holy grail. It wouldn't
Speaker 4: be so nice to take one of these and drift
Speaker 4: off in the most peaceful sleep and wake up refreshed.
Speaker 4: So just be mindful as a consumer that these companies
Speaker 4: will often make claims it might not necessarily be backed
Speaker 4: up by science, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: the secret to getting a good night sleep is behavior change.
Speaker 4: It's stuff that's not glamorous, but it's keeping a consistent
Speaker 4: bedtime schedule. It's making time for safe, making time for exercise,
Speaker 4: being mindful of when you're eating. One of our key
Speaker 4: recommendations the Internet and fasting literature actually came out of
Speaker 4: a circadian biology laboratory when that whole air area of
Speaker 4: the literature talks about just restricting the time that you
Speaker 4: spend eating in a typical day, and there are different
Speaker 4: ways to do it. Some people try to delay breakfast
Speaker 4: as long as possible and are able to start eating
Speaker 4: at twelve pm and then stop eating at maybe five
Speaker 4: or six pm. Other people prefer an early breakfast and
Speaker 4: are fine having their last meal at four four thirty,
Speaker 4: So that is one thing to try. The other recommendation
Speaker 4: is trying to just not be eating in the three
Speaker 4: hours before bedtime. Sometimes that's a little bit easier for people.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of individual preference within this, and
Speaker 4: then also what works for you and your family.
Speaker 3: On the subject of sleep aids. What are your thoughts
Speaker 3: on edibles, because they're very popular right now.
Speaker 4: There is not a lot of good equality scientific literature
Speaker 4: on connabinoids. To be honest, I know they're widely used,
Speaker 4: but the literature is just pretty farce on these, or
Speaker 4: if there have been studies, a lot of them have
Speaker 4: been sponsored by edible companies. So the bottom line is
Speaker 4: we just have a lot of good science on some
Speaker 4: of these components. So I will just say, you know,
Speaker 4: talk to a medical provider. There is a time and
Speaker 4: a place for some of these. I think in a
Speaker 4: perfect world with all of this, kind of the umbrella
Speaker 4: of sleep aids is thinking about these as really good
Speaker 4: bound aids, things that can get you to a place
Speaker 4: where then you're able to implement healthy sleep strategies, building
Speaker 4: in time to relax and unwind, keeping a consistent sleep schedule.
Speaker 1: Those types of things.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about power naps. There's this
Speaker 3: running joke in my circle of mom friends that something
Speaker 3: happens when a man becomes a dad. He just automatically
Speaker 3: becomes a napper. If he was an apper before, he's
Speaker 3: an even more consistent napper now that he's a father.
Speaker 3: So I'm really curious about if there are any gender
Speaker 3: differences when it comes to capability for napping and just
Speaker 3: the effectiveness of napping overall.
Speaker 4: I love talking about napping, and the research really is
Speaker 4: kind of awesome on dapping. Some research recently for my
Speaker 4: colleagues at Harvard Medical School and MIT Road they found
Speaker 4: even moments seconds in a nap can allow you to
Speaker 4: wake up, be refreshed, more creative, more able to achieve
Speaker 4: insights and kind of solutions to problems, thinking creatively and
Speaker 4: how to solve them fascinating. The bottom line, when it
Speaker 4: comes to napping, if you're open to it, the afternoon
Speaker 4: is the best time.
Speaker 1: There are two strategies.
Speaker 4: If you are exhausted, and I'm talking you got three
Speaker 4: four hours, your new mom and new dad, I've sleeped
Speaker 4: the night before, and you are wrecked and you really
Speaker 4: need to recover, then the ninety minute nap is great.
Speaker 4: The kind of classic Spanish siesta is wonderful. Ninety minutes
Speaker 4: allows you to get enough sleep to get back to
Speaker 4: mutual after a night of really poor sleep. But if
Speaker 4: you're not particularly sleepy, but you're just dragging in the afternoon,
Speaker 4: you're not as creative as you were in the morning.
Speaker 1: You're underperforming.
Speaker 4: You're looking at your computer screen, You're like, what have
Speaker 4: I done for the last hour? Close your computer, lie down,
Speaker 4: and set your alarm for twenty minute, and worst case,
Speaker 4: you've got a couple minutes of sleep within that worst
Speaker 4: case right, or you just switched off your brain for
Speaker 4: twenty minutes and weren't stimulated the entire time. So all
Speaker 4: of those are great things.
Speaker 2: We're learning so much, but we have to take another
Speaker 2: short break. We'll be right back. We're back with doctor
Speaker 2: Rebecca Robbins. Doctor Robins, this is going to be the
Speaker 2: most difficult question of the whole conversation because it's so
Speaker 2: hard to synthesize all of the research into one answer.
Speaker 2: But if we all walk away from this conversation today
Speaker 2: and make one change to improve the quality of our sleep,
Speaker 2: what would be your recommendation.
Speaker 4: I think one of the first easiest things to do
Speaker 4: is to start small and think about the time that
Speaker 4: you're falling asleep. Now, whatever that number is, subtract fifteen minutes,
Speaker 4: and now set it all on your phone, a relaxing
Speaker 4: alarm for that time tonight, and whatever you're doing, pull
Speaker 4: yourself out of that activity and go do something relaxing.
Speaker 4: Start the process moving towards bed. Turn off the lights,
Speaker 4: light a candle, read a book, take a warm shower,
Speaker 4: and create little mini rituals that you could potentially sustain
Speaker 4: most nights before bedtime to help your body understand. And
Speaker 4: I think that starting small, being a little bit more
Speaker 4: mindful about falling asleep at a consistent time, being mindful
Speaker 4: of the things that we do before bedtime can then
Speaker 4: be like a gateway drug right into some of the
Speaker 4: other things, because then that gets you just a little
Speaker 4: bit further towards understanding just how powerful it is to
Speaker 4: wake up and feel energized.
Speaker 2: I started doing this ritual because I have a hard
Speaker 2: time having a routine at bedtime, and I started just
Speaker 2: saying thank you before I go to bed, which is
Speaker 2: I think maybe like an easy prayer, right, and then
Speaker 2: I go through the list of what I feel thankful
Speaker 2: for that night, that day, and it's helped me fall
Speaker 2: asleep more quickly. I've noticed sometimes I fall asleep in
Speaker 2: the midst of my thank you.
Speaker 1: I love that so much, Danielle.
Speaker 4: There's actually research on that a gratitude practice before bedtime
Speaker 4: is associated with better sleep outcomes. And it's so powerful
Speaker 4: because there's just a lot of bad news out there
Speaker 4: right now, and I think our lives are very different
Speaker 4: than they were even ten or fifteen years ago, and
Speaker 4: so sometimes all of these things that we've been exposed
Speaker 4: to can hit you because all day long you've been reacting,
Speaker 4: and then suddenly your day comes to a halt, and
Speaker 4: all of that noise around you can really loom large
Speaker 4: and seem more scary, uncertain, upsetting than maybe it would
Speaker 4: otherwise be. And so mindfulness practices are so powerful for
Speaker 4: all of those reasons before bedtime, and whether that's gratitude
Speaker 4: journaling or just even meditating on the things that you're
Speaker 4: grateful for like you do Danielle, or simple breathing technique
Speaker 4: four seven eight breath technique is one of my favorites.
Speaker 4: Inhale for four through yer nose, bold for seven, and
Speaker 4: then excel slowly for eight through your mouth, and suddenly
Speaker 4: you've taken control of your emotions, of your heart right
Speaker 4: and better prepared for sleep. That took thirty seconds.
Speaker 3: That's so much better and cheaper than a twelve step
Speaker 3: skincare routine.
Speaker 1: That's way better.
Speaker 4: Practicing these exercises kind of trains you for falling asleep.
Speaker 4: Because falling asleep or free from cares, from worries, it's
Speaker 4: hard in today's world, but these breathing exercises give you
Speaker 4: the tools to reach that state, or at least something
Speaker 4: close to it.
Speaker 2: Doctor Robbins, thank you so much for sharing your time
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rebecca Robbins is an Assistant Professor in medicine at
Speaker 2: Harvard Medical School and a sleep scientist at the Brigham
Speaker 2: and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Speaker 3: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, Giada dal Laurentis, celebrity
Speaker 3: chef and Food Network veteran, is here to talk about
Speaker 3: taking risks and embarking on a new chapter.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Simone Boye.
Speaker 3: You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro Bay.
Speaker 2: We'll see you tomorrow. Keep looking on the bright side.