October 7, 2022 • 28 mins
It’s said that “The news never sleeps,” but the reporters who are breaking news in this nonstop 24-hour cycle have to get shut-eye sometime. ABC News anchor Diane Macedo has worked all hours day and night in news, and while her passion for reporting has never diminished, the adrenaline and anxiety that come with the job makes getting quality sleep a challenge. Discover what sleep professionals say about that sensation of being “tired but wired,” and learn about Diane’s journey to restful sleep even on busy news days.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
In order to be able to cover news twenty four
to seven. It means people have to work at all
strange hours of the night. And even if you think
about a program like Good Morning America, everyone who works
on that show is waking up at two, three, four,
maybe five in the morning if they're lucky.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Diane Mercedo is a journalist, author, and news anchor who
co hosts ABC News Live. From the anchor chair of
early morning news shows to field reporting for overnight news coverage,
Diane has done it all. We rely on journalists like
her to be there to deliver the stories and information
that we need to know, and Diane is one of
(00:45):
the most trusted voices in the industry. On an average day,
she's reporting the news to roughly eight point one million viewers.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
The ultimate reward is relaying this information that I think
is really important, and I do you consider news of
public service. And I'm a very sort of principled, idealistic person.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Even still in my career.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Things don't stop happening just because the sun goes down.
Reporting the news is a twenty four to seven job.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I've had shifts where I went in at noon, i
went in at three thirty in the morning. I went
in at one thirty in the morning, camera ready. I've
gone in at ten or eleven pm and come out
of work at nine am, And then you try to sleep.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
If the news never sleeps, what does that mean for
the journalists to report it and how do they disconnect
from the intensity and severity of current events to onewine
for healthy sleep. I'm Anahad O'Connor and this is Chasing
Sleep and iHeartRadio production in partnership with Mattress Firm. As
(01:58):
a best selling author and a health call with the
background in psychology, I've spent a lot of my time
studying and writing about sleep. Sleep is so essential to
our overall health, but often it's something we overlook and
it's the first thing we tend to neglect. And each
episode we'll meet people living and working in extraordinary circumstances.
I want to learn how they rest and recharge their
(02:20):
bodies and minds to perform at their very best. In
this episode, we'll uncover what working through the night to
bring you the news does to the brain and how
to slow things down to be able to get some
much needed rest.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Breaking news is the most challenging part of my job. Now,
But it's the part that I love the most. It's
when there's no prompter to rely on, there's no script
to rely on, sometimes very little information to rely on,
and you kind of just have to go with your gut.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's you and the audience and nothing in between.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
As you're actively getting in this new information, how do
I best relay this to the audience in a way
that everyone's gonna understand and be able to take in
and to be able to capture.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
What the important parts of this story really are.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
There's something deeply exciting about the world of reporting and
fitting in all the pieces of a story to give
the public a full picture.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I think I've just always had this intense curiosity about
wanting to know what was going on in the world
and wanting to figure it out, like everything was a
giant puzzle, and the more information I could get, the
more I could figure out how it all comes together.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
There's no shortage of difficult moments in journalism. Sometimes the
bigger the story, the bigger the emotional toll it can
have on the public and the journalists delivering the story.
I wondered about some of those bigger moments in Diane's
career and how she's learned to process the weight of
the news she's reporting.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
One big one for me was working on the Eric
Garner case. I was in Staten Island talking to his friends,
people who were there, who witnessed the police put him
in a chokehold. They were all telling me, you know,
they're saying he died at the hospital. As far as
we could tell, he died in front of us. And
(04:22):
being able to talk to people like that firsthand, see
additional videos that they took. Regardless of your opinion on
the case, when you see how any serious news story
actually touches the people who are directly involved, it affects
you differently. And that's one of those stories that you
(04:42):
know even now, I go home sometimes and I find
myself at midnight watching the video again, listening to the
audio again.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Can I do anything about it?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
No. But in the instances like that, your brain doesn't
always let you sleep because it's so consumed by something else.
And then you hit a story that just consumes you
to the point where you can't fall asleep as easily
as you would like to.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Journalism requires those in the field to be able to
manage high levels of emotional stress along with the intense
pressure of being the first to break the news, no
matter the hour. At a certain point, that all starts
to take a toll. And when you're pushing through on
high levels of adrenaline, how do you come down from
the reporting high?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Little by little, I just saw my sleep deteriorate more
and more and more and more. And I think I
did what most people do, which is you just assume
you can.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Power through it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And one of the perks of having a job like
this is that you love it and when you're doing it,
your adrenaline is pumping and you kind of find a
way to perform. Your body just goes into showtime mode
and you dig deep and you do it. I think
the problem comes around after. It's when you get home
(05:58):
and now you're trying to un plug from showtime mode,
and you're trying to tell your body work time is
over and now it's time to relax and unwind and
go to sleep. I think, for myself and for a
lot of journalists who are used to that kind of quick,
fast paced, fast thinking life, it's when you try to
step back from that that then you start to have
(06:19):
a problem because you lay down in bed and you're
trying to tell your body it's time to go to sleep,
and your body's still in go mode.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
We all know at this point that stress can really
do a number on our bodies. But I wanted to
talk to an expert to learn more about how stress
and anxiety impact our sleep. So I decided to catch
up with doctor Jade Wu. She's a Board certified sleep psychologist, researcher,
and author of the book Hello Sleep, The Science and
Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications. And so, with the
(06:50):
high stress environment of working in a newsroom like Dianda's,
could you walk us through how stress affects sleep. We
know that not getting enough sleep can be stressful, but
how does having high levels of stress effect your sleep?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah, stress and sleep are not good friends. So when
we experience a lot of stress, especially chronic stress, hour
after hour, day after day kind of stress, the message
that's sending to our bodies is there must be a
predator on our tail, because otherwise, why are you so
high octane all the time, Why are you going, going, going,
(07:26):
Why is your heart rate up and your cortisol levels
are up? You know, all of this is telling our
bodies there must be a predator. So if there is
a predator, obviously the last thing you want to do
is sleep. So it's really hard to turn on and
off that switch to say, Okay, now I'm on, i
am reporting breaking news, I am you know, chasing down leads,
(07:46):
I am in front of the camera in front of
millions of people, and then switch it off like Okay,
I'm alone in my quiet room and I want to
sleep now. It's really hard to just, you know, switch
on and off like that and get into sleepy mode.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So, if we're going about our days and tackling the
challenges that life throws at us, how can we tell
when stress is reaching a point where it's actively impacting
our sleep.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
So one of the most common things I hear is
tired but wired. So someone is exhausted, they're dragging, they
can't concentrate, they don't feel well. They just want to
crawl into bed like everything in their body is screaming
for rest. But when they get into bed, they can't sleep.
They have insodom. Yet they're staring at the ceiling, They're
(08:31):
tossing and turning, their mind is racing, you know, and
sometimes they even feel like panicky feelings in their body.
That racing mind needs some sort of release. You know,
you can't just keep kicking the can down the road.
Your thoughts, your mind really do need your attention. So
if all day long you're saying, Okay, I'm busy, I'm distracted,
(08:53):
and I don't have time to process my thoughts or emotions.
If the first time in your day that you have
a chance to us your thoughts your emotions is at bedtime,
when you lay down and it's finally quite and dark,
then of course your racing mind is going to come
out to play. It's like been waiting patiently all day,
like a child talking at your sleep. Okay, now I've
got your full attention. Let me tell you all of
(09:14):
the things. This is the tired, bit wired phenomenon that
a lot of high stress jobs will bring, because then
your body and mind are really confused about what is day,
what is night? You know what is on time, what
is off time, so it has a hard time keeping
up that. You know biological rhythm to help you up
regulate when you should be awake, down, regulate when you
(09:35):
should be asleep. We really should set aside time during
the day to process our thoughts, to review what we're feeling,
what we're doing. Let your mind stretch its wings so
that your mind isn't like jonesing to go at bedtime.
So this tired but wired feeling is definitely a telltale.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Sign stress plus crazy hours. Diane was feeling the weight
of her job and I was impacting her sleep, and
the little sleep she was getting was starting to impact
other aspects of her health as well.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
When I first started experiencing issues, I didn't realize that
they were tied to my sleep. But the first thing
I noticed was I had horrible acid reflux almost as
soon as I started working in early morning news. So
I saw all these doctors about my acid reflux. They
put me on all this different medication. I started making
all these dietary changes. Nothing helped, and in fact, I
(10:31):
started pushing my dinner time earlier and earlier and earlier,
because I kept reading that you have to have a
big space between your last meal and the time that
you go to sleep in order to prevent acid reflux.
What I didn't know, and what no one ever talks about,
is that for some people, it's really hard to go
to bed when you're hungry, and lack of sleep can
(10:53):
cause acid reflux.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
The other symptom I noticed was dry eyes.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I started feeling just this, this is comfort in my
eyes that I had never felt before, and I didn't
know what was causing it. I started feeling foggy at times,
mentally foggy, like I couldn't focus, and I felt exhausted,
but not sleepy. I think the breaking point for me
ended up being when I developed a tolerance to ambient
(11:19):
So I called my doctor and her advice to me was,
you know, you're only taking half of the lowest dose,
so just take.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
A full pill.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And I kind of decided right then and there that
this is not going to be the way forward for me.
So that was kind of my big Eureka moment of
I need to find a better solution.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Doctor Wu has seen many struggle with sleep the same
way Diane has, and she recognizes that when you get
to this breaking point, it can be hard to see
the path out of poor sleep.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
To see patients who are really struggling and who really
feel like they've tried everything then feeling kind of hopeless,
to be able to turn that around for them, to
give them optimism and to really help them to re
connect with their sleep really kind of changes their whole life.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You know, there's a famous saying among really busy people,
I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yep, I heard that.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, I'm sure you get that a lot. What are
some of your big highlights for why sleep is so important? Ted?
Do you what do you say to people who say,
you know, I can skimp on sleep and focus on
other things.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Well, to me, sleep is not just the empty space
in between your days, right. Sometimes we think of it
as like, oh, it's just filler. It's just like quiet time,
and if I can squeeze more into my day, how
awesome would that be. But the problem is that if
you don't sleep well, then you don't have that nourishment,
you don't have that basic foundation for health and well being.
(12:46):
I don't think of it as empty space. I think
of it as water in between continents. You know, it's
the very thing that makes life possible. So we do
need to fill our oceans and make sure that, you know,
we have the rest that we need, we have the
sleep that we need.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
It's amazing how interconnected all of these pieces are within
our brains. It's like a car engine. When everything is
going well, you can just cruise on down the street.
But if you have a bad radiator or one of
your spark plugs is out of whack, well you might
still get the car from point A to point B,
but it will be a struggle and one that can
become dangerous. So how do you solve a serious sleep
(13:23):
problem like a journalist, Well, you report on it.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I sat down with my producers at World News Now,
and given we were an overnight show, I knew our audience,
many of them, presumably were struggling with a lot of
the same issues. I knew a lot of my coworkers
were two for that matter, and so I said, you know,
I want to set out on this mission to fix
my sleep. Do you guys want me to document it?
(13:50):
And I will find doctors and do whatever they ask
me to do, and we can put together the story
of the things that I try and what works and
what doesn't, and then we'll bring it to our viewers
and so they can learn from it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
We'll be right back after a brief message from our
partners at Mattress Firm, and now back to chasing sleep.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
In my quest to find a doctor to work with
me to do this whole news story and document my adventure.
I had learned that cognitive behavioral therapy is the gold
standard treatment for insomnia. Once we finally got this test done,
I got the official insomnia diagnosis. So I started reading
more and more about CBTI because I knew that that's
what was going to be coming next for me, and
(14:45):
in the effort to be a very prepared journalist, I
wanted to get ahead of the game as much as
I could and understand what it is that I was
going to be covering and talking about.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
And part of the reason we.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Experienced insomnia over and over and over again is because
we spend so much time awake and frustrated in bed
that your brain starts to learn that bed is not
a calm, safe space where we go to be sleepy.
Your brain starts to learn, oh, bed is a stressful
place where we have to be alert. And so going
to bed triggers this arousal that keeps you awake. It's
(15:18):
why you feel like you're dozing off on the couch
one second, and then all of a sudden you go
to go to sleep and boom, you're wide awake and
your brain is going a mile a minute. That's something
called conditioned arousal.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You don't need to be a news anchor to have
experienced this feeling. Your muscles are sore, your body is
begging for sleep, but you just lie on the bed
and stare at the ceiling. More often than not, this
is the manifestation of the effects of stress on your
sleeping cycle. So now the question is how do we
fix this? Is there anything we can do from our
otherwise comfortable beds to get our minds into sleep mode.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Actually, most of what we can do about this is
what we do outside of bed. So for example, leading
up to bedtime, we really need to have a nice
wind down routine, a buffer zone between the day and
the night, or for people who are working nights between
you know, they're on time versus off time. That might
be the best way to describe it. So leading up
(16:13):
to bedtime, we need to be switching from doing mode
to being mode. So doing mode is like getting our
chores done, crossing off to do lists, getting the kids
ready for bed, preparing for work, checking emails, you know,
doing all of these things that are goal oriented and
very active. We want to be switching from that mode
(16:34):
to being mode, which is more like getting in touch
with our body, getting in touch with our emotions, kind
of winding down from the day and putting a way
to do lists, putting away sort of goal oriented activities
and really switching more to a grounded, centered kind of mode.
And to do that, you know, we can really design
(16:55):
our own wind down routines. Often people will have a
nice you know, like bath or shower, skincare routine, get
into Pj's, cuddle off with the dog, maybe read the
book for a little bit, chat with your partner, but
save you know, big conversations for tomorrow because we're winding
down out. So having that buffer in between your really
(17:16):
on go, go go kind of day versus your relaxing
and sleepy night is very important.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
The driving forces that push us to calm down and
actually get some rest are so strong, and the unique
stresses of journalism require unique solutions. I was curious, how
do journalists like Diane take some of the more tragic
or emotional parts of the job and release them in
order to get the amount of rest that they need.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
So I think I've just sort of naturally, through the
course of doing this job for so long, learned that
I need to create a separation to be able to function,
But that doesn't mean that you know, there aren't some
stories that do affect you in that way. And I
think for me, it's been a lot of just about
just acceptance.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It's okay if I'm not shedding tears about every story
that I report on air, even if they are a tragedy,
And it's also okay if every now and then there
is one where I do shed tears on air about it.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And you know, if I was.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Crying over every story, that would probably be fine too.
I just think a lot of it is just sort
of accepting what your body needs to do to process
those emotions, and just to make sure you are acknowledging
them and processing them, which I think I do a technique.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
That I have used.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's not necessarily about separating the sympathy and empathy part
of things, but more about organizing my thoughts and my
worries and my feeling. Sort of processing all of that
and realizing what I can and can't control. I think
has been a huge part of my sleep recovery. And
(19:00):
this is a practice called constructive worry, and I often
just refer to it as a worry list or a
brain dump because it sounds so silly, but you just
you take a notebook and you divide a page down
the center, and on the left hand side of the
page you just write down anything that's on your mind,
the kind of thing that would keep you awake at night,
or that might wake you up in the middle of
(19:20):
the night. And now your brain starts racing. Write any
of that stuff on the page, and then on the
right hand side you write down the very next step
toward resolving that issue. The exercise itself also gets you
focused on solutions instead of problems. And when you're stuck
in this sort of insomnia cycle where you get into
(19:40):
a pattern of going to bed and suddenly your brain
starts racing, we often at that time are more susceptible
to catastrophic thinking, and so we often will ruminate on
problems and it will feel like there's no way out
of this. And so by doing this exercise, you sort
of retrain your brain into thinking, Okay, problem, solution, what
(20:02):
are we going to do about that, instead of just problem, problem,
Oh my god, problem. And part of the reason why
we cauldastrophize, at least one of the leading theories on
it is that the areas of our brain that focus
on things like rational thinking turn off while we're sleeping.
They kind of sleep as well, and so if you're
awake in the middle of the night, let's say at
a time that you're normally sleeping, that part of your
(20:25):
brain is still asleep. So now you're thinking about your problems,
but without the part of your brain that controls the
irrational thought. That's why it's so much easier to go
into that spiral in the middle of the night. And
often I found by writing things down, when I look
at them the next day, it seemed absurd that I
was so worried about this thing. And I think just
(20:46):
knowing that helps the next time you're in that position
to realize, wow, I think it's the end of the
world that this thing happened, But it's probably just because it's.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
And I bet, just like last time, when you know
it's nine am, I'm going to realize that this really
isn't so bad. And sometimes just knowing that can help
turn the temperature down on that anxiety that's keeping you awake.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Diane's journey to find better sleep took her down a
path of a lot of research and reporting, and ultimately
she wrote a book. It's called The Sleep Fix Practical,
proven and Surprising Solutions for insomnia, snoring, shift work, and more.
Her goal in writing the book was to help others
learn from her struggles and discoveries so they could find
(21:33):
fixes to their own sleep problems.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I think one of the hardest parts for me was
I didn't know it was anxiety that was keeping me awake.
I was reading all of these articles and all of
these things about the temperature in the room and the
perfect bedtime routine and swearing off screens and quitting caffeine,
and I was trying all of these things. And I
don't consider myself an anxious person in general, and so
(22:00):
I had no idea that it was anxiety that was
playing such a huge role in.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Why I wasn't sleeping.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
If I had known that, I probably would have sought
out therapy or some you know, other techniques to address that.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
But that's not what I was looking for.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I was looking for sleep solutions, and generally sleep solutions
don't address anxiety. And really, textbook insomnia just means your
arousal levels are too high. It essentially my layman's translation
for it is Insomnia is when you can't sleep because
you can't relax, and there are a number of things
that can do that for you. It can happen if
you're too excited about something, but of course it can
(22:36):
also happen if you're really stressed and worried about something,
and normally if it happens for a long time, it's
the latter. So for me, the anxiety, you know, in
addressing this sort of fast paced lifestyle and just the
way that my brain works was something that I kind
of stumbled into accidentally.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So for our listeners who may be curious about their
own sleep, he adventure, do you have any advice for
how people can assess and may get a better understanding
of their own sleep.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
I do recommend that if you're struggling with your sleep,
consult with a sleep specialist, even just to get an
assessment to figure out, you know, is it because of
shift work or do you have another sleep disorder. There
are so many things that we don't know that we
don't know about sleep, So I really caution folks not
to just go down that internet rabbit hole of reading
(23:25):
loss and lots of articles and self diagnosing. There are
people who also work too hard on their sleep. I
have lots of insomnia patients, for example, who say they
have the perfect sleep hygiene routine from all these articles
they've read, but now they're trying so hard to perfect
their sleep routine that they are kind of psyching themselves
(23:46):
up and almost creating insomnia anxiety in the evenings for themselves,
and they end up with orthosomnia, which is the condition
of having insomnia because you're working too hard to track
your sleep. Everyone's situation is different, and that's why I
think seeking help from a sleep professional is so important. Meanwhile,
I think listening to our bodies and trusting our bodies
(24:09):
to tell us, like if you feel sleepy, that's your
body trying to tell you something important, and if you
feel awake, that's also a sign that maybe it's not
time to force sleep, it's not the right timing, or
you just don't have enough sleep drive yet. So I
think listening to your body is a good start, and
consulting with a sleep specialist can kind of take you
(24:30):
all the way. As a news anchor, of course, you
have to be really on right for the cameras, and
you have to be really sharp mentally, you have to
ask challenging questions to whoever you're interviewing. All of those
things require mental focus, being alert, It requires being to
switch gears in your mind very quickly. All of that
improves when you have better sleep and better circadian functioning.
(24:54):
So if we can stay on track with our rhythms
and have that good quality sleep, then we can definitely
function better as a news anchor or a whatever we
do with our lives.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
The drive and determination that allowed Diane to thrive in
the high octane field of journalism is also what allowed
her to fix her sleep when it was veering dangerously
off track. And with the return of good sleep came
all the health benefits too.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Once I just started to sleep better, all of these things,
like a flywheel now turning in the right direction, started
getting better.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
My acid reflux went away.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
My eating habits improved, because when you lack sleep, your
hormones for feeling hungry and feeling satisfied get completely thrown
out of wax. So suddenly I just started eating better
without even trying, as opposed to before I was trying
all these diets and all these different things to improve
my eating habits. That just sort of fell into place.
(25:53):
My dry eyes went away, my thought process felt clearer.
I started making better decisions and feeling less tempted by
things like screen time at night. And you just start
to realize how much it all ties together, and if
you can just pull on one thread, sometimes that's enough
to get everything then moving in the right direction. So
(26:15):
much of this journey for me has been learning to
surrender in many ways.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I can't be.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The doer, the fixer, the perfectionist here in many ways
I have to learn to let go and now the
ability to sit at this seat for ABC News Live
and have people invite me now not only into their
homes every day, but their offices every day, the gym
every day, wherever it is that they are watching.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Do you really feel like you form a relationship with
the viewers.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I don't take that lightly, and I feel really privileged
to be able to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
That's all for this episode. Join me again next week,
when we learn about how healthcare professionals prioritize and schedule
sleep while they're saving lives. We'll hear from an er
doctor in New York City about how he chases sleep
through the stress of changing work schedules and life and
death scenarios.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
During residency, I had to do ICU rotations that did
have twenty four to twenty seven hour shifts. Doesn't sound
possible and I didn't think it was, but somehow you
make it through it.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
We want to hear from you. Leave a rating or
review for our show on your podcast player of choice.
You can find me on Twitter at Anahad O'Connor. Until
next time, hoping you're living your best while sleeping your best.
Chasing Sleep is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Mattress Firm. Our executive producer is Molly Sosha, our EP
(27:47):
of post is Matt Stillo, our producer is Sierra Kaiser,
and this show is hosted by Anahad O'Connor.
In order to be able to cover news twenty four
to seven. It means people have to work at all
strange hours of the night. And even if you think
about a program like Good Morning America, everyone who works
on that show is waking up at two, three, four,
maybe five in the morning if they're lucky.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Diane Mercedo is a journalist, author, and news anchor who
co hosts ABC News Live. From the anchor chair of
early morning news shows to field reporting for overnight news coverage,
Diane has done it all. We rely on journalists like
her to be there to deliver the stories and information
that we need to know, and Diane is one of
(00:45):
the most trusted voices in the industry. On an average day,
she's reporting the news to roughly eight point one million viewers.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
The ultimate reward is relaying this information that I think
is really important, and I do you consider news of
public service. And I'm a very sort of principled, idealistic person.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Even still in my career.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Things don't stop happening just because the sun goes down.
Reporting the news is a twenty four to seven job.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I've had shifts where I went in at noon, i
went in at three thirty in the morning. I went
in at one thirty in the morning, camera ready. I've
gone in at ten or eleven pm and come out
of work at nine am, And then you try to sleep.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
If the news never sleeps, what does that mean for
the journalists to report it and how do they disconnect
from the intensity and severity of current events to onewine
for healthy sleep. I'm Anahad O'Connor and this is Chasing
Sleep and iHeartRadio production in partnership with Mattress Firm. As
(01:58):
a best selling author and a health call with the
background in psychology, I've spent a lot of my time
studying and writing about sleep. Sleep is so essential to
our overall health, but often it's something we overlook and
it's the first thing we tend to neglect. And each
episode we'll meet people living and working in extraordinary circumstances.
I want to learn how they rest and recharge their
(02:20):
bodies and minds to perform at their very best. In
this episode, we'll uncover what working through the night to
bring you the news does to the brain and how
to slow things down to be able to get some
much needed rest.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Breaking news is the most challenging part of my job. Now,
But it's the part that I love the most. It's
when there's no prompter to rely on, there's no script
to rely on, sometimes very little information to rely on,
and you kind of just have to go with your gut.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's you and the audience and nothing in between.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
As you're actively getting in this new information, how do
I best relay this to the audience in a way
that everyone's gonna understand and be able to take in
and to be able to capture.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
What the important parts of this story really are.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
There's something deeply exciting about the world of reporting and
fitting in all the pieces of a story to give
the public a full picture.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I think I've just always had this intense curiosity about
wanting to know what was going on in the world
and wanting to figure it out, like everything was a
giant puzzle, and the more information I could get, the
more I could figure out how it all comes together.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
There's no shortage of difficult moments in journalism. Sometimes the
bigger the story, the bigger the emotional toll it can
have on the public and the journalists delivering the story.
I wondered about some of those bigger moments in Diane's
career and how she's learned to process the weight of
the news she's reporting.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
One big one for me was working on the Eric
Garner case. I was in Staten Island talking to his friends,
people who were there, who witnessed the police put him
in a chokehold. They were all telling me, you know,
they're saying he died at the hospital. As far as
we could tell, he died in front of us. And
(04:22):
being able to talk to people like that firsthand, see
additional videos that they took. Regardless of your opinion on
the case, when you see how any serious news story
actually touches the people who are directly involved, it affects
you differently. And that's one of those stories that you
(04:42):
know even now, I go home sometimes and I find
myself at midnight watching the video again, listening to the
audio again.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Can I do anything about it?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
No. But in the instances like that, your brain doesn't
always let you sleep because it's so consumed by something else.
And then you hit a story that just consumes you
to the point where you can't fall asleep as easily
as you would like to.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Journalism requires those in the field to be able to
manage high levels of emotional stress along with the intense
pressure of being the first to break the news, no
matter the hour. At a certain point, that all starts
to take a toll. And when you're pushing through on
high levels of adrenaline, how do you come down from
the reporting high?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Little by little, I just saw my sleep deteriorate more
and more and more and more. And I think I
did what most people do, which is you just assume
you can.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Power through it.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And one of the perks of having a job like
this is that you love it and when you're doing it,
your adrenaline is pumping and you kind of find a
way to perform. Your body just goes into showtime mode
and you dig deep and you do it. I think
the problem comes around after. It's when you get home
(05:58):
and now you're trying to un plug from showtime mode,
and you're trying to tell your body work time is
over and now it's time to relax and unwind and
go to sleep. I think, for myself and for a
lot of journalists who are used to that kind of quick,
fast paced, fast thinking life, it's when you try to
step back from that that then you start to have
(06:19):
a problem because you lay down in bed and you're
trying to tell your body it's time to go to sleep,
and your body's still in go mode.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
We all know at this point that stress can really
do a number on our bodies. But I wanted to
talk to an expert to learn more about how stress
and anxiety impact our sleep. So I decided to catch
up with doctor Jade Wu. She's a Board certified sleep psychologist, researcher,
and author of the book Hello Sleep, The Science and
Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications. And so, with the
(06:50):
high stress environment of working in a newsroom like Dianda's,
could you walk us through how stress affects sleep. We
know that not getting enough sleep can be stressful, but
how does having high levels of stress effect your sleep?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah, stress and sleep are not good friends. So when
we experience a lot of stress, especially chronic stress, hour
after hour, day after day kind of stress, the message
that's sending to our bodies is there must be a
predator on our tail, because otherwise, why are you so
high octane all the time, Why are you going, going, going,
(07:26):
Why is your heart rate up and your cortisol levels
are up? You know, all of this is telling our
bodies there must be a predator. So if there is
a predator, obviously the last thing you want to do
is sleep. So it's really hard to turn on and
off that switch to say, Okay, now I'm on, i
am reporting breaking news, I am you know, chasing down leads,
(07:46):
I am in front of the camera in front of
millions of people, and then switch it off like Okay,
I'm alone in my quiet room and I want to
sleep now. It's really hard to just, you know, switch
on and off like that and get into sleepy mode.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So, if we're going about our days and tackling the
challenges that life throws at us, how can we tell
when stress is reaching a point where it's actively impacting
our sleep.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
So one of the most common things I hear is
tired but wired. So someone is exhausted, they're dragging, they
can't concentrate, they don't feel well. They just want to
crawl into bed like everything in their body is screaming
for rest. But when they get into bed, they can't sleep.
They have insodom. Yet they're staring at the ceiling, They're
(08:31):
tossing and turning, their mind is racing, you know, and
sometimes they even feel like panicky feelings in their body.
That racing mind needs some sort of release. You know,
you can't just keep kicking the can down the road.
Your thoughts, your mind really do need your attention. So
if all day long you're saying, Okay, I'm busy, I'm distracted,
(08:53):
and I don't have time to process my thoughts or emotions.
If the first time in your day that you have
a chance to us your thoughts your emotions is at bedtime,
when you lay down and it's finally quite and dark,
then of course your racing mind is going to come
out to play. It's like been waiting patiently all day,
like a child talking at your sleep. Okay, now I've
got your full attention. Let me tell you all of
(09:14):
the things. This is the tired, bit wired phenomenon that
a lot of high stress jobs will bring, because then
your body and mind are really confused about what is day,
what is night? You know what is on time, what
is off time, so it has a hard time keeping
up that. You know biological rhythm to help you up
regulate when you should be awake, down, regulate when you
(09:35):
should be asleep. We really should set aside time during
the day to process our thoughts, to review what we're feeling,
what we're doing. Let your mind stretch its wings so
that your mind isn't like jonesing to go at bedtime.
So this tired but wired feeling is definitely a telltale.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Sign stress plus crazy hours. Diane was feeling the weight
of her job and I was impacting her sleep, and
the little sleep she was getting was starting to impact
other aspects of her health as well.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
When I first started experiencing issues, I didn't realize that
they were tied to my sleep. But the first thing
I noticed was I had horrible acid reflux almost as
soon as I started working in early morning news. So
I saw all these doctors about my acid reflux. They
put me on all this different medication. I started making
all these dietary changes. Nothing helped, and in fact, I
(10:31):
started pushing my dinner time earlier and earlier and earlier,
because I kept reading that you have to have a
big space between your last meal and the time that
you go to sleep in order to prevent acid reflux.
What I didn't know, and what no one ever talks about,
is that for some people, it's really hard to go
to bed when you're hungry, and lack of sleep can
(10:53):
cause acid reflux.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
The other symptom I noticed was dry eyes.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I started feeling just this, this is comfort in my
eyes that I had never felt before, and I didn't
know what was causing it. I started feeling foggy at times,
mentally foggy, like I couldn't focus, and I felt exhausted,
but not sleepy. I think the breaking point for me
ended up being when I developed a tolerance to ambient
(11:19):
So I called my doctor and her advice to me was,
you know, you're only taking half of the lowest dose,
so just take.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
A full pill.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And I kind of decided right then and there that
this is not going to be the way forward for me.
So that was kind of my big Eureka moment of
I need to find a better solution.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Doctor Wu has seen many struggle with sleep the same
way Diane has, and she recognizes that when you get
to this breaking point, it can be hard to see
the path out of poor sleep.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
To see patients who are really struggling and who really
feel like they've tried everything then feeling kind of hopeless,
to be able to turn that around for them, to
give them optimism and to really help them to re
connect with their sleep really kind of changes their whole life.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You know, there's a famous saying among really busy people,
I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yep, I heard that.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, I'm sure you get that a lot. What are
some of your big highlights for why sleep is so important? Ted?
Do you what do you say to people who say,
you know, I can skimp on sleep and focus on
other things.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Well, to me, sleep is not just the empty space
in between your days, right. Sometimes we think of it
as like, oh, it's just filler. It's just like quiet time,
and if I can squeeze more into my day, how
awesome would that be. But the problem is that if
you don't sleep well, then you don't have that nourishment,
you don't have that basic foundation for health and well being.
(12:46):
I don't think of it as empty space. I think
of it as water in between continents. You know, it's
the very thing that makes life possible. So we do
need to fill our oceans and make sure that, you know,
we have the rest that we need, we have the
sleep that we need.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
It's amazing how interconnected all of these pieces are within
our brains. It's like a car engine. When everything is
going well, you can just cruise on down the street.
But if you have a bad radiator or one of
your spark plugs is out of whack, well you might
still get the car from point A to point B,
but it will be a struggle and one that can
become dangerous. So how do you solve a serious sleep
(13:23):
problem like a journalist, Well, you report on it.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I sat down with my producers at World News Now,
and given we were an overnight show, I knew our audience,
many of them, presumably were struggling with a lot of
the same issues. I knew a lot of my coworkers
were two for that matter, and so I said, you know,
I want to set out on this mission to fix
my sleep. Do you guys want me to document it?
(13:50):
And I will find doctors and do whatever they ask
me to do, and we can put together the story
of the things that I try and what works and
what doesn't, and then we'll bring it to our viewers
and so they can learn from it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
We'll be right back after a brief message from our
partners at Mattress Firm, and now back to chasing sleep.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
In my quest to find a doctor to work with
me to do this whole news story and document my adventure.
I had learned that cognitive behavioral therapy is the gold
standard treatment for insomnia. Once we finally got this test done,
I got the official insomnia diagnosis. So I started reading
more and more about CBTI because I knew that that's
what was going to be coming next for me, and
(14:45):
in the effort to be a very prepared journalist, I
wanted to get ahead of the game as much as
I could and understand what it is that I was
going to be covering and talking about.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
And part of the reason we.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Experienced insomnia over and over and over again is because
we spend so much time awake and frustrated in bed
that your brain starts to learn that bed is not
a calm, safe space where we go to be sleepy.
Your brain starts to learn, oh, bed is a stressful
place where we have to be alert. And so going
to bed triggers this arousal that keeps you awake. It's
(15:18):
why you feel like you're dozing off on the couch
one second, and then all of a sudden you go
to go to sleep and boom, you're wide awake and
your brain is going a mile a minute. That's something
called conditioned arousal.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You don't need to be a news anchor to have
experienced this feeling. Your muscles are sore, your body is
begging for sleep, but you just lie on the bed
and stare at the ceiling. More often than not, this
is the manifestation of the effects of stress on your
sleeping cycle. So now the question is how do we
fix this? Is there anything we can do from our
otherwise comfortable beds to get our minds into sleep mode.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Actually, most of what we can do about this is
what we do outside of bed. So for example, leading
up to bedtime, we really need to have a nice
wind down routine, a buffer zone between the day and
the night, or for people who are working nights between
you know, they're on time versus off time. That might
be the best way to describe it. So leading up
(16:13):
to bedtime, we need to be switching from doing mode
to being mode. So doing mode is like getting our
chores done, crossing off to do lists, getting the kids
ready for bed, preparing for work, checking emails, you know,
doing all of these things that are goal oriented and
very active. We want to be switching from that mode
(16:34):
to being mode, which is more like getting in touch
with our body, getting in touch with our emotions, kind
of winding down from the day and putting a way
to do lists, putting away sort of goal oriented activities
and really switching more to a grounded, centered kind of mode.
And to do that, you know, we can really design
(16:55):
our own wind down routines. Often people will have a
nice you know, like bath or shower, skincare routine, get
into Pj's, cuddle off with the dog, maybe read the
book for a little bit, chat with your partner, but
save you know, big conversations for tomorrow because we're winding
down out. So having that buffer in between your really
(17:16):
on go, go go kind of day versus your relaxing
and sleepy night is very important.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
The driving forces that push us to calm down and
actually get some rest are so strong, and the unique
stresses of journalism require unique solutions. I was curious, how
do journalists like Diane take some of the more tragic
or emotional parts of the job and release them in
order to get the amount of rest that they need.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
So I think I've just sort of naturally, through the
course of doing this job for so long, learned that
I need to create a separation to be able to function,
But that doesn't mean that you know, there aren't some
stories that do affect you in that way. And I
think for me, it's been a lot of just about
just acceptance.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It's okay if I'm not shedding tears about every story
that I report on air, even if they are a tragedy,
And it's also okay if every now and then there
is one where I do shed tears on air about it.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And you know, if I was.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Crying over every story, that would probably be fine too.
I just think a lot of it is just sort
of accepting what your body needs to do to process
those emotions, and just to make sure you are acknowledging
them and processing them, which I think I do a technique.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
That I have used.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's not necessarily about separating the sympathy and empathy part
of things, but more about organizing my thoughts and my
worries and my feeling. Sort of processing all of that
and realizing what I can and can't control. I think
has been a huge part of my sleep recovery. And
(19:00):
this is a practice called constructive worry, and I often
just refer to it as a worry list or a
brain dump because it sounds so silly, but you just
you take a notebook and you divide a page down
the center, and on the left hand side of the
page you just write down anything that's on your mind,
the kind of thing that would keep you awake at night,
or that might wake you up in the middle of
(19:20):
the night. And now your brain starts racing. Write any
of that stuff on the page, and then on the
right hand side you write down the very next step
toward resolving that issue. The exercise itself also gets you
focused on solutions instead of problems. And when you're stuck
in this sort of insomnia cycle where you get into
(19:40):
a pattern of going to bed and suddenly your brain
starts racing, we often at that time are more susceptible
to catastrophic thinking, and so we often will ruminate on
problems and it will feel like there's no way out
of this. And so by doing this exercise, you sort
of retrain your brain into thinking, Okay, problem, solution, what
(20:02):
are we going to do about that, instead of just problem, problem,
Oh my god, problem. And part of the reason why
we cauldastrophize, at least one of the leading theories on
it is that the areas of our brain that focus
on things like rational thinking turn off while we're sleeping.
They kind of sleep as well, and so if you're
awake in the middle of the night, let's say at
a time that you're normally sleeping, that part of your
(20:25):
brain is still asleep. So now you're thinking about your problems,
but without the part of your brain that controls the
irrational thought. That's why it's so much easier to go
into that spiral in the middle of the night. And
often I found by writing things down, when I look
at them the next day, it seemed absurd that I
was so worried about this thing. And I think just
(20:46):
knowing that helps the next time you're in that position
to realize, wow, I think it's the end of the
world that this thing happened, But it's probably just because it's.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
And I bet, just like last time, when you know
it's nine am, I'm going to realize that this really
isn't so bad. And sometimes just knowing that can help
turn the temperature down on that anxiety that's keeping you awake.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Diane's journey to find better sleep took her down a
path of a lot of research and reporting, and ultimately
she wrote a book. It's called The Sleep Fix Practical,
proven and Surprising Solutions for insomnia, snoring, shift work, and more.
Her goal in writing the book was to help others
learn from her struggles and discoveries so they could find
(21:33):
fixes to their own sleep problems.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I think one of the hardest parts for me was
I didn't know it was anxiety that was keeping me awake.
I was reading all of these articles and all of
these things about the temperature in the room and the
perfect bedtime routine and swearing off screens and quitting caffeine,
and I was trying all of these things. And I
don't consider myself an anxious person in general, and so
(22:00):
I had no idea that it was anxiety that was
playing such a huge role in.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Why I wasn't sleeping.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
If I had known that, I probably would have sought
out therapy or some you know, other techniques to address that.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
But that's not what I was looking for.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I was looking for sleep solutions, and generally sleep solutions
don't address anxiety. And really, textbook insomnia just means your
arousal levels are too high. It essentially my layman's translation
for it is Insomnia is when you can't sleep because
you can't relax, and there are a number of things
that can do that for you. It can happen if
you're too excited about something, but of course it can
(22:36):
also happen if you're really stressed and worried about something,
and normally if it happens for a long time, it's
the latter. So for me, the anxiety, you know, in
addressing this sort of fast paced lifestyle and just the
way that my brain works was something that I kind
of stumbled into accidentally.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So for our listeners who may be curious about their
own sleep, he adventure, do you have any advice for
how people can assess and may get a better understanding
of their own sleep.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
I do recommend that if you're struggling with your sleep,
consult with a sleep specialist, even just to get an
assessment to figure out, you know, is it because of
shift work or do you have another sleep disorder. There
are so many things that we don't know that we
don't know about sleep, So I really caution folks not
to just go down that internet rabbit hole of reading
(23:25):
loss and lots of articles and self diagnosing. There are
people who also work too hard on their sleep. I
have lots of insomnia patients, for example, who say they
have the perfect sleep hygiene routine from all these articles
they've read, but now they're trying so hard to perfect
their sleep routine that they are kind of psyching themselves
(23:46):
up and almost creating insomnia anxiety in the evenings for themselves,
and they end up with orthosomnia, which is the condition
of having insomnia because you're working too hard to track
your sleep. Everyone's situation is different, and that's why I
think seeking help from a sleep professional is so important. Meanwhile,
I think listening to our bodies and trusting our bodies
(24:09):
to tell us, like if you feel sleepy, that's your
body trying to tell you something important, and if you
feel awake, that's also a sign that maybe it's not
time to force sleep, it's not the right timing, or
you just don't have enough sleep drive yet. So I
think listening to your body is a good start, and
consulting with a sleep specialist can kind of take you
(24:30):
all the way. As a news anchor, of course, you
have to be really on right for the cameras, and
you have to be really sharp mentally, you have to
ask challenging questions to whoever you're interviewing. All of those
things require mental focus, being alert, It requires being to
switch gears in your mind very quickly. All of that
improves when you have better sleep and better circadian functioning.
(24:54):
So if we can stay on track with our rhythms
and have that good quality sleep, then we can definitely
function better as a news anchor or a whatever we
do with our lives.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
The drive and determination that allowed Diane to thrive in
the high octane field of journalism is also what allowed
her to fix her sleep when it was veering dangerously
off track. And with the return of good sleep came
all the health benefits too.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Once I just started to sleep better, all of these things,
like a flywheel now turning in the right direction, started
getting better.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
My acid reflux went away.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
My eating habits improved, because when you lack sleep, your
hormones for feeling hungry and feeling satisfied get completely thrown
out of wax. So suddenly I just started eating better
without even trying, as opposed to before I was trying
all these diets and all these different things to improve
my eating habits. That just sort of fell into place.
(25:53):
My dry eyes went away, my thought process felt clearer.
I started making better decisions and feeling less tempted by
things like screen time at night. And you just start
to realize how much it all ties together, and if
you can just pull on one thread, sometimes that's enough
to get everything then moving in the right direction. So
(26:15):
much of this journey for me has been learning to
surrender in many ways.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I can't be.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The doer, the fixer, the perfectionist here in many ways
I have to learn to let go and now the
ability to sit at this seat for ABC News Live
and have people invite me now not only into their
homes every day, but their offices every day, the gym
every day, wherever it is that they are watching.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Do you really feel like you form a relationship with
the viewers.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I don't take that lightly, and I feel really privileged
to be able to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
That's all for this episode. Join me again next week,
when we learn about how healthcare professionals prioritize and schedule
sleep while they're saving lives. We'll hear from an er
doctor in New York City about how he chases sleep
through the stress of changing work schedules and life and
death scenarios.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
During residency, I had to do ICU rotations that did
have twenty four to twenty seven hour shifts. Doesn't sound
possible and I didn't think it was, but somehow you
make it through it.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
We want to hear from you. Leave a rating or
review for our show on your podcast player of choice.
You can find me on Twitter at Anahad O'Connor. Until
next time, hoping you're living your best while sleeping your best.
Chasing Sleep is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Mattress Firm. Our executive producer is Molly Sosha, our EP
(27:47):
of post is Matt Stillo, our producer is Sierra Kaiser,
and this show is hosted by Anahad O'Connor.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.