July 4, 2023 • 30 mins
Each year, Americans spend an estimated $64 billion on sleep supplements. In this episode, Katie and Adam ask Danielle LaFata, Director of Performance Nutrition for the NBA's Phoenix Suns and renowned sleep specialist Dr. W. Chris Winter to unravel the science behind popular sleep aids like melatonin, magnesium, and CBD. How do they work? Do they safely improve sleep or is it merely a placebo effect? How can sleep supplements contribute to the four major pillars of health (nutrition, fitness, mindfulness and sleep)? Learn how sleep aids could affect your waking life, physical and mental performance, and when to take them if needed.
“Chasing Sleep” is a production of Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia in partnership with Mattress Firm.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Anyone that comes over to Shapi Low's residents. By the way, listeners,
that's our ship name, Shapiro Low's. If you come over
to our house, there's a few cupboards you could open
up if you're like looking for a wine cup or whatever.
That just supplements are going to come poor house.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, you know, eight percent of Americans use some sort
of sleep aid, according to the National Center of Sleep Statistics.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And Nielsen says that we spend over a billion. Yeah, baby,
that's a billion with a B dollars a year on
melatonin alone.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
WHOA. People will do just about anything to get a
good night's sleep.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It's the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Hey, it's Katie Low's and I'm Adam Shapiro and this
is Chasing Sleep, a production of Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia
in partnership with Mattress Firm.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
On this episode, we want to talk about nutrition and
fitness and quality sleep. Let's just call it the holistic
health triangle.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We are busy people, actors, entrepreneurs, parents, podcast hosts, and
sleep is like really really important to us.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yes, And because our health and our families health is
so important. That's why I've been looking forward to this episode.
Our guests include doctor Chris Winter, a sleep neurologist and
scientist who has authored.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Two books about sleep.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Chris is at the forefront of research and studies about
the science behind sleep supplements.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Welcome Chris.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I'm excited to be back. This is a fantastic topic.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Chris advises a lot of athletes and professional sports teams
on how quality sleep can help maximize performance.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yes, and I even understand that you worked with my
hometown heroes, the Philadelphia Phillies.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And Danielle la Fata is also with us. She's director
of Performance Nutrition for the Phoenix Suns. She figures out
what these top athletes need to be eating to be
their best and making sure that they get good quality
sleep so that they can return to the play offs
again next year. Welcome Danielle, so nice to meet you.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
It's nice to meet you guys as well. Thank you
for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Thank you so much Danielle and Chris for being here
to talk about sleep and supplements, which is a hot
button topic amongst me and all my mom friends and
my mom herself included.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Chris, We're gonna get started with you, nutrition, fitness, sleep.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Let's talk about the holistic health triangle.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
As I recall my high school geometry, is this an
equilateral triangle?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Hold on a second, Adam, you took high school geometry
and you remember any of it?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yes? I did, Katie, Okay, I didn't say I did
well in it.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Chris, tell us about this holistic health triangle.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I always think about it as four legs of a table,
so I'm more of a quad guy. I think about exercise, nutrition, mindfulness,
and then sleep. I think mindfulness really starts with trying
to understand not only your own sleep and maybe issues
you may be having with your sleep, but also the
(03:03):
emotion that you're bringing with it. Those are sort of
my four I think. You know, if you take one
of those legs away, the table collapses.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Chris, how do you define sleep supplements?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I think the best way to define supplement is something
that's taking a process that's hopefully already pretty healthy and
making it even a little bit more healthy. So what
we're looking at is a biochemical reaction that starts from
the time we ingest food to the point we're actually
making chemicals in our brain that support sleep. Serotone and
melatone and dopamine or rexin. There's a bunch of them,
(03:37):
and along each pathway you're taking the proteins in milk
and breaking them down to an amino acid. That trip
to fan gets converted into something else, and eventually you
get melatonin. And there's all these steps and all these
cofactors and minerals that are important to support that process.
And for an elite athlete like Danielle's working for, that
matters a tremendous amount. But if you're listening to this thinking, oh,
(03:58):
how much magnism do I need to get so I
can get some sleep, there's a reason why we don't
call them treatments. We understand very clearly how these things
are best used and where they're not going to be
particularly helpful.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And Danielle, you help manage all three or even four
of these, which Chris has mentioned the mindfulness part. The
three I'm talking about are the nutrition, fitness, and sleep
you manage. These were top athletes who compete at their
physical and mental best. Let's just like get into this.
Do you recommend supplements?
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yes? I do.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
I am still food first, supplement second, but I always
talk about being smart with our supplementation. Chris can talk
to this a little bit more, right, they're also phases
of sleep. Are you having a hard time falling asleep
or are you having time staying asleep? And so then
that's where food, nutrition, hydration at a potential supplement could
come in. So just really understanding what's going on and
(04:53):
what's needed.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
What would you say are the connections between nutrition and
quality sleep.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Well, it's finding that sweet spot for people where you
can have a light snack one to two hours before
going to bed if needed. When I speak with my athletes,
whether it's my bench guys, and they didn't play very
many minutes, but they still had a warm up, and
they still went in earlier in the morning, and they're
still not going to bed until one or two o'clock
after the game.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
They still need to eat.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
So maybe it's more of an in between meal, not
so much as a real heavy dinner, but it's not
a light snack somewhere in between for them, whereas my
starters or my high minutes players.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Yes, they'll need to eat post game.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
So it's explaining to them that because they're like, oh,
I shouldn't eat late at night, I can't eat late
at night. Well, you've been active for the last five
six hours and now you're not going to go to
sleep for another couple hours because you're all revveed up.
So it's looking at each individual and seeing where you're
at your physical activity or non activity throughout the day,
and how we could adjust your meal patterning.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I'm just getting flashbacks to Adam in my honeymoon in Italy,
where we romantically thought it was going to be amazing
and it was. I mean, honey, don't get me wrong,
it was amazing, but we had to sleep sitting up
for so much of it because we were eating.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Red wine and red sauce and red tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
You just pasta red wine meals and like trying to
lay down on it. I mean, I still like it
rises up into my throat when I even think about
It's so grossy.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yes, we should have done those big Florentine steaks at lunch.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yes, sure, Chris.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
The athletes you work with and me too, like we
love to travel. In your experience flying with athletes in
and out of different time zones and dealing with different
types of sleep schedules to get them on the right
sleep schedule, what do you do with all of the
teams that are flying around and changing time zones constantly.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
It depends on a couple things. The first is what
is your mission. If the mission is to fly to London,
give a lecture and go right back home, then you
may not really want to acclimate to the time zone right.
A great example is, you know a lot of times
a team will play a preseason game in Mumbai, India.
They want people not to get hurt, not to lose
a player, and just reacclimate to that time zone they've
(07:12):
come from as quickly as possible. Or you're trying to
get to a place and actually enjoy it, like Italy,
you know, and the meal is so interesting. It's like,
let's all meet back here at three o'clock in the
morning on this zoom call and have like heavy alfredo
and see how our bodies adjust to it. It's like
we could do it if we did it every night,
(07:32):
three m alfredo, big pasta dinner, we'd eventually get used
to it. But this is kind of what we're looking at.
We're trying to adjust to a different timing for our athleticism,
a different timing for our eating, and a different timing
for our sleep. So there's all kinds of interventions you
can use to speed that process up. But it's different
for every athlete. But there's all kinds of interventions that
(07:55):
can adjust our circadian rhythm a little bit faster than
it would typically if we did nothing in the direction
of travel matters. It's easier for us to stay a
little bit later than to go to bed early right
before we're ready, so that that kind of plays a
role in it as well too.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
This is like an example. We love our whole families
on the East Coast. We live on the West Coast,
so I always say, bring your kids to New York.
Instead of giving them dinner at five o'clock, which is
what we do here, you know, let them eat at
eight pm with the whole family, and then they sleep
later too.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
We love an East coast trip.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
What would be some examples of ways that you could
supplement if you were going to intervene and try to
change someone's sleep schedule for a different time.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, I think there's lots of ways to do it. Now,
I like to be thoughtful. What are you giving your
child right before they get on the plane. I love
there's little hummus bowls with the little pretzel chips. Hummus
is a ton of trip to fan in it. So
we always talk about trip to fan and the Thanksgiving turkey.
There's way more trip to fan in chickpeas and hummus
than there is in a traditional store bought turkey. So
(08:57):
I like cam and meal tea. Like you got to
be careful, you know, want to give the kids, you know,
green tea or caffeinated tea, but maybe you make a
little thing of you know, camimeal tea or ice it
and you have that in their sippy cups. And Okay,
we're gonna drink our relaxing teas before we get on there.
I mean, none of those things are going to hurt.
And again, might you know, create a little bit more relaxation,
(09:18):
a little bit more sedation that this sort of helps
the plane flight a little bit.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
So one easy thing is not even a supplement, but
a juice. Right, tart cherry juice is blown up all
over the place. I've been using it for about ten
years with my athletes.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
What I've never heard of this?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Did you say tart cherry juice?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Tart cherry juice, not the sweet bing cherries. It has
to be the tart Montmorency cherries.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
Yes, the science shows us that it's fifty cherries, whether
they're frozen, dried, or squeezed into an eight ounced juice.
There's naturally occurring melatonin in the cherries and it's kind
of like a time release, and then there's also some
extra antioxidant, so that could really help. I do want
to say, if you're having issues with your sugars and
there's some pre diabetes or anything, you're definitely going to
(10:05):
want to figure out how to blend that with you know,
some proteins and some fats and fibers so that sugar
doesn't dump right into your system.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
But yes, that's a really easy thing to do.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
And a lot of my athletes and non athletes, they
swear by it.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
I swear by it. It works really well. Whow Yes.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
Yeah, you can take it anytime to day. You can
take it at night, you can take it in the morning.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Where do you buy it? Any grocery store, Any grocery store.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
And you know, I worked with the US men's national
soccer team and I introduced it to them as well.
So there were a few of us with soccer. We
would come together in different cities or countries, and so
we would do a nightcap and we would do little
shots of tar cherry juice.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
So that was our way of getting it.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Very different than what I've ever done experienced. I'm interested
that was our nightcap in this on this same subject.
And please both of you feel free to answer. What
are the minerals, vitamins, nutrients that people could try or
that you suggest before resorting to a sleep supplement. This
tart cherry juice is one of them. Yes, what are
(11:11):
other things on the list?
Speaker 6 (11:13):
Yes, I'd recommend camin meal tea would be fantastic. High
magnesium foods, so your nuts, in your seeds, magnesiums are great,
just overall relaxing.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And then Chris, when we're resorting to the supplements, what
is that? Are we talking like natural like magnesium powder,
magnesium pills? What are people doing?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I would say that magnesium is important for the support
of good sleep. Neurologists that used to work with said,
you know what, brains love magnesium. So to me, what
I would say to a patient who may be struggling
with sleep is have you had your magnesium checked. I've
been educated by a lot of dieticians and nutritions out
there that say, you'd be surprised how many elite level
(11:58):
basketball players show up at training camp and they're magnesium deficient.
So I would say this is a great thing to
test for, and the people who are deficient, maybe magnesium
supplementation could be helpful or you're not going to get
into a lot of trouble just taking a reasonable supplement
of magnesium yourself. To me, it's all about expectation. I
think where we run into trouble is I have been
struggling with sleep for years. I am lucky if I
(12:20):
get two hours of sleep. I have this terrible, anxiety
fraught relationship with sleep. How about magnesium. I don't think
magnesium is going to touch that.
Speaker 6 (12:31):
I think Chris brings up a great point, right, you
want to get to the root of what it is
and where in your sleep what's happening, and then that
way you can start little things and maybe a supplement
is or is not part of your program, but it's
just a band aid.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Really, Okay, I went on a huge melatonin kick. I've
been on the magnesium powder kick. I've been on the
CBD kick. I'm trying to think. I think that might
be Adam, you think that's it. I feel like those
are my three.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Well what's the sleepy tea? Is that a high magnesium.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Tea Cammeo passion flower, Valerian.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Usually, Oh yeah, Valerian Root.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
There's another one, yeah, Valerian Root. But how are those
things working?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I mean, what about nighttime rituals, something that you can
put into your routine that may help with your sleep.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Are you a tea person?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Oh yeah, My wife's a big tea person. In fact,
I grow camrameal. I think it's fun to grow it
and dry it out and grind it up and stick
it a little thing. So I think that's great. I mean,
I think when you're looking at well, Chris, I'd like
to know more about supplements and figure out ways to
integrate them into a healthier sleep lifestyle. I think bedtime
routine is a huge place for it. So there's the
(13:42):
tea Camimeo passion Flower, Valerian Root. I think nothing's better
than every evening you're settling down to watch your episode
of whatever or read your chapter of whatever, and you
enjoy your camerameal tea. We used to do that with
our kids, like we would make you tea and kind
of deliver it to their bedrooms when they were doing
homework and calculus just kind of Okay, let's dim some
(14:04):
lights here, let's get the phones hooked up downstairs. Here's
your tea. Just this kind of it kind of creates
this rhythm, ah, when you smell the tea and you
feel the warmth and you taste the cammeal. Maybe the
cammeal has some sort of relaxing property improves your sleep,
but it does always serve as that queue to oh,
tasting the cam meal, it's about time to go to bed.
It's like the lavender spray on your pillow. I love
(14:27):
lattes and I would drink a latte every night if
it didn't screw up my sleep. So my newest one
is it's got all kinds of different eshwagandha and all
these different alfhienine I think in mushroom optogens and all
these things that sort of support sleep no caffeine. So
I think that's where you can really find a solid
hook into the supplement world. Is trying to kind of
(14:49):
build these things into a routine to support not only
better sleep, it's better health.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I think this is a fascinating discussion, and we are
not done more to come.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Welcome back to Chasing Sleep. In this episode, we are
aiming for peak performance. We're talking about sleep and supplements
with Danielle Lafata, who helps the Phoenix suns eat well
and get good sleep, and sleep specialist doctor Chris Winter,
who works with lots of pro athletes too along with
regular people like us. What do you think, Chris, what
(15:21):
should our listeners consider when looking at supplements.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Yeah, it's a tough thing. And I'll say right off
the bat, you know, I tend to be pretty much
a stickler for research, but you know, in terms of
great research behind sleep, I would say that's a little lacking.
I think it's important to understand that just because there
isn't research behind something doesn't mean it's not true. It
just means we can't stay with a lot of authority
about that. You know, certain ingredients maybe in my non
(15:47):
latte latte may kind of fall into that category of
maybe in five years we're talking about, Wow, the adaptogens
were so important. I think this is where consumer technology
sort of comes in and really works at its best
when you're asking it a question. So why he says, us,
sleep's terrible? So I bought this thing. I'll put it
on my wrist. Do the experiment. Hey, Okay, take the supplement,
(16:07):
the magnesium. I like to change one variable to time,
So pick some weeks that things are pretty steady at work,
and for this two weeks you're going to take magnesium,
and for these two weeks you're not. And see what
happens with your sleep.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Tracker, Daniel. Are these supplements safe to take?
Speaker 6 (16:23):
The supplement industry is wild. It's the wild wild West.
So anything you pull off the shelf, don't think that
what it says on the bottle is actually what is
on the bottle. And I've been preaching this for over
fifteen years now. In the sports world, we have NSF
Certified for Sport or Informed Choice or Informed Sport certified,
(16:45):
so they're a third party company and they make sure
that what it says on the label is actually in
the bottle, and then they test it against all of
the two hundred band substances on the World Anti Doping
Agency list. I only recommend those supplements to my athletes,
and the FDA doesn't have enough manpower and they don't
(17:07):
have them enough money to regulate this industry. So you
have to be the sleuth or find the professionals that
will do that for you.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Not to get too far off. There's a great study
that just came out that supplemented another study from twenty
seventeen in Canada. So basically, if you're taking melaton, you
have no idea what's in it. They took thirty commercial
brands and actually looked at them, and the variance was comical.
In fact, one had no melatonin. It just had CBD
in it.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Okay, I think we have to ask what's the story
with CBD? Okay, it is everywhere, literally everywhere I look.
Is there any research on this? What is CBD all about?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah? So I did a deep dive on this, you know,
right before I went to Major League Baseball training camp
to have that ready for every baseball player that asked
about it. You know, CBD, cambinoids, THCHCCBN. You know. My
takeaway is this, we can't really say a lot about
it right now because it's just known in relationship to sleep.
I actually feel like in certain chronic pain sort of situations,
(18:07):
even something like generalized anxiety, I think there's some promise there,
and I think that when we are in any one
of those subjects, I feel like I'm a little bit
out of my expertise realm. If I'm talking about general
as anxiety as where I'm a sleep specialist tenurologist, I
think we can say pretty definitively at this point there's
not any real great data support chronic use of any
(18:30):
of these products as something that would relate to better sleep. Now,
where you get into the weeds a little bit is,
as we've talked about before on the show, great sleep
kind of relies on mindfulness. I think for individuals who
have struggled for a very long time with their sleep,
there's an inevitable anxiety about sleep, and so it's hard
(18:51):
sometimes to separate out. If you can control anxiety, specifically
anxiety around the process of sleeping, you'll often and either
facilitate maybe a marginally better sleep, but almost always a
better perception of the sleep.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Obviously, falling asleep is so much different, I guess than
staying asleep, because I have tons of friends that can
fall asleep right away, but they can't get connective sleep.
You know, if they wake up the middle of the night,
their mind starts racing, it's over and then they're up
from you know, two am to seven am, versus my
friends who lay there for one hundred hours can't turn
it off. Are there supplements that are helpful for one
(19:29):
problem versus the other? Which supplements and if any would
be needed?
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Again, this is not That's probably not a process or
a problem that I would look to, Oh, you have
trouble staying asleep with then you should take this supplement
versus that. I mean to me, that problem starts with
the conversation of how long has this been going on,
what is it that wakes you up? How many times
are you waking up? How do you feel the next day?
So in that sort of flow chart of working through
(19:54):
that problem, if supplement is in this flow chart, it
is very very near the bottom. It's not the initial
thing that I would try. So it's like we were
always taught as a neurologist about headaches. A new onset
headache or a change in headache character needs to be
evaluated immediately. I would kind of say the same thing
about sleep versus well, I'm not going to get any evaluation.
(20:16):
I'll just try to find a supplement that sedates me
through this issue. I mean a lot of times, you know,
going right to some sort of treatment like that obscures
the actual problem. And that's the reason why probably the
average personal sleep out and is taken three to five
years to get treatment because they're not going right to
the source. They're like, well, I started taking melatonin and
(20:37):
that seemed to work for a while, or I was
taking more sedating drug that I used in the past
for anxiety. Well what are you doing? So to me,
anybody who's in that position of struggling to fall asleep,
struggling and stay sleep o, you know, getting some professional
help for the problem first might actually eventually involve a supplement,
but that's not what I would jump straight to.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Also, because I was curious, like do I need this
because it's actually helping, or do I need this because
now I'm so stressed? So I do understand this cyclical problem.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
What about the prescription drugs?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Though I've mom, this one's for you and every woman
who's ever gone through menopause. Honestly, yes, Like my mom
gets on a soapbox saying, if you are a woman
of a certain age and you have dealt with hot
flashes for fifteen years, you have tried every supplement and
done prescriptive drugs. Because I shouldn't be driving behind the
wheel of a car. That's how little sleep I've gotten
(21:31):
because I'm so hot and my hormones are so messed up.
You're welcome.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Mom.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
She really wanted you all to know that.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
She did. She left us note this morning.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Yeah. I mean that's a massive it's a massive topic,
and you throw menopause in there. It's its own separate issue.
It's a very very meaningful and problematic thing to people.
And we give terrible advice to individuals who are struggling
with sleep with menopause, and the advice usually becomes some
sort of sleeping pill. And when you start can get
sleeping pills, they don't really change sleep that much. You're
(22:04):
gonna fall asleep, what five minutes faster sleep in additional
seven minutes Like that's the data. But more importantly is this,
There's never been a sleeping pill that shows improve performance.
So when patients come to see me, well, listen, Chris,
I don't want to take the ambient, but I've got
to perform at my best or terrible things happen. Well,
while you're looking for that study that shows that the
pill you're taking, whatever it is, makes you perform better,
(22:25):
I'll finding twenty studies to show it doesn't. So this
idea that we needed to perform our best.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
No.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
And this is a terrible sort of thought pervasive thing
that's in medicine in general about sleeping pills, because so
many clinicians have no real training in sleep. Even though
of the top seven complaints you will find in a clinic,
one is I can't sleep and two as I'm too
tired during the day. So again, that perception can be
(22:51):
really problematic if we don't ask some questions, if we
just assume, oh, well, she doesn't sleep, so let's give
her a pillar, a supplement that can be the beginning
of bad things. Sleep is a skill we're trying to
build that there's no shortcut to it.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And Danielle, how would you rate some of these supplements
or let's say, do you personally suggest meditation versus a prescription?
Speaker 5 (23:18):
I start with have you done a breathing exercise? Have
you journaled?
Speaker 6 (23:21):
I start with all the sleep hygiene. Again, I'm not
on Chris's level. I'm more of like a look at
me as like I try to screen for these things
and I know the basics. So you breathing technique or
a yoga or a meditation huge for me.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Calming things like althenine.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
That's why teas are great, you know, doing a couple
of green teas in the morning, or you know, camo
meal at night because of this protein or amino acid
called althenine which helps us to get in two hour
rest and digest or parasympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
So I'll kind of start there with something light.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Magnesium is always good, especially if you're deficient in magnesium.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
It will really you'll really feel that relaxing.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
And I think that's why after a couple of weeks
it kind of stops, because you might have your stores.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
All all bound up with with that. I don't go
right to melatonin.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
There are a lot of sleep products for us on
NSF and that Informed Sport certified, but everything has melatonin
in it, and I don't think everybody needs melatonin. And
a lot of times my clients that I see the
bet their wits end and they've been doing so much
and they are stressed out and the mind is going,
so they're looking at every they want a little bit
of the brain and the body relaxation, you know, to help.
(24:31):
They'll do the meditation and they'll do everything, and they
know that it's just for a short period of the
time until they can get going back again. It's not
something that they hang on and that they need to
do every night.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Right, right, everything that we just talked about.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
It works just the same for us as it does
for my elite athletes. Also, it's what they're willing to
work on, right. Are they willing to meditate? Are they
willing to journal? Are they willing to get in some yoga?
Are they willing to just do exercise in general? So
just helping them create a behavior, picking one thing to
work on to start working towards that.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
And of course it's also working with people.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
That want to look at the root cause or want
to find what the problem is and then want to
make those gradual steps to get to a place where
they don't need these crutches.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
What do you see down the pipe?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
What's in the supplement future, Chris?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
What are you seeing? What does the future of supplements
look like?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
That's a great question in terms of I always think
that you can answer any question about what does the
future of X look like by evaluating the past. And
so you know, in the time that I've been in
this space since the early nineties, is there a supplement
that has come along that has changed everything, like for
(25:44):
the positive. Now that's different from you know, MELTONA came
along and everybody's on it. Is it truly meaningfully changing
things for the positive or is it just sort of
a distraction until the next thing comes along? You know?
I think that magnesium could certainly be in there for
some people. I think that generally, when you eat well
and you eat a relatively normal diet, you get what
(26:05):
you need. Science has a way of surprising people. But
as of right now, I think it'll just be sort
of or more.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
What it is right Is the supplement future just looking boisterous.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
I think supplements there just there's always going to be something.
The CBD is really huge, but still in its infancy.
I thought years ago I got a handle on there's
always something new coming out. We do talk about these
supplements that are out there, the ones that are a
combo products of magnesium and alpenine and another compound GABBA,
which is a brain transmitter.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Is that a pill?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Yeah, you could take it as a pill, And that's
controversial because it's this big molecule that whether we take
it through supplements or you can't really get it in food,
it's what the body makes inside by a bunch of
different vitamins and amino acids and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Wait, what brain transmitter? Okay, Chris, can you break this
down for us?
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Gabba compounds. That's a tricky one. Gabba is an intermediate
in the synthesis of things like serotonin and melotonin. Problem is,
it's also not entirely clear if the preparation that you're
consuming is able to cross the blood brain barrier. These
are real chemicals and they're important in that sort of
biochemical cascade. The real issue is are you consuming enough
(27:24):
to make a difference? And number two, is it really
even bioavailable getting absorbed into your bloodstream making it to
your brain to make any kind of difference. Those are
the questions more for a chemist, I think I.
Speaker 6 (27:36):
Would say keep coming back to are you doing it
safely and smartly and using something that you know is
real and not just a bunch of you know, rice
powder and pixie.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Dust, snake oil.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Snake oil.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yes, love this, look at them. We could live like
an athlete tonight, Honey, Danielle and Chris. This is massive.
I mean, every single person I know is struggling with
anxiety around sleep, getting sleep the quality of sleep. What
should they be taking. Is it supplemental? Is it natural?
It's a lot. So thank you for being on Chasing
(28:11):
Sleep and for spending time with us and getting into
it same.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
It's a lot of fun, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Huge takeaway from today's episode four legs holding up the
table that is you. One of those legs is nutrition,
one is fitness, one is mindfulness, and one is sleep.
I mean, that's the holy grail, is it not?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
It is really important to take a step back and
really think about what we're saying here. We're saying supplements
are supplemental things.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
The words that Danielle used were like crutch band aid.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
We need to think about what is the root problem
and if the root problem is not a super easy
thing to take care of, then yeah, there are supplements
that can help while we're trying to figure out the
root problem.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
So for example, when we're traveling.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
That's a great time to supplement our needs. And sleep
is a skill.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
That we can actually work on.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
We have to develop it like any other skill.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It takes work, it takes time, that's right. We hope
that this podcast has become a supplement to your other
podcast listening.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
See what I did there?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Gain eight Adam, sometimes your jokes could be classified sleep supplements.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Whatever I can do to help people sleep better.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
We hope you'll go into your podcast player, rate and
review the show and tell us what you think you know.
You can always find me on the instagrams at ktq.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Low's and you can find me at Shabby Shafts, and
don't forget to follow or subscribe to make sure that
you get our next episode.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
When we commune with nature.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yes, or like we live in Los Angeles and maybe
we should be playing ocean sounds when we're sleeping instead
of hearing city sounds or birds chirping. I think nature
has a huge effect on quality of s.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I'd like it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Next time it's sleep and Nature on Chasing Sleep. Until
next time, hope you are living your best while sleeping
your best.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Chasing Sleep is a production of Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia
in partnership with Mattress Firm. Our executive producer is Molly Soshia.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
This show was written and produced by sal Matt Brands,
Dave be Sing, Jason Jackson, and Michelle Rice.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Chasing Sleep is hosted by Katie Lows and Adam Shapiro,
that's us.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Thank you to our partners at Mattress Firm,
Anyone that comes over to Shapi Low's residents. By the way, listeners,
that's our ship name, Shapiro Low's. If you come over
to our house, there's a few cupboards you could open
up if you're like looking for a wine cup or whatever.
That just supplements are going to come poor house.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, you know, eight percent of Americans use some sort
of sleep aid, according to the National Center of Sleep Statistics.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And Nielsen says that we spend over a billion. Yeah, baby,
that's a billion with a B dollars a year on
melatonin alone.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
WHOA. People will do just about anything to get a
good night's sleep.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It's the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Hey, it's Katie Low's and I'm Adam Shapiro and this
is Chasing Sleep, a production of Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia
in partnership with Mattress Firm.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
On this episode, we want to talk about nutrition and
fitness and quality sleep. Let's just call it the holistic
health triangle.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We are busy people, actors, entrepreneurs, parents, podcast hosts, and
sleep is like really really important to us.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yes, And because our health and our families health is
so important. That's why I've been looking forward to this episode.
Our guests include doctor Chris Winter, a sleep neurologist and
scientist who has authored.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Two books about sleep.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Chris is at the forefront of research and studies about
the science behind sleep supplements.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Welcome Chris.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I'm excited to be back. This is a fantastic topic.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Chris advises a lot of athletes and professional sports teams
on how quality sleep can help maximize performance.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yes, and I even understand that you worked with my
hometown heroes, the Philadelphia Phillies.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And Danielle la Fata is also with us. She's director
of Performance Nutrition for the Phoenix Suns. She figures out
what these top athletes need to be eating to be
their best and making sure that they get good quality
sleep so that they can return to the play offs
again next year. Welcome Danielle, so nice to meet you.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
It's nice to meet you guys as well. Thank you
for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Thank you so much Danielle and Chris for being here
to talk about sleep and supplements, which is a hot
button topic amongst me and all my mom friends and
my mom herself included.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Chris, We're gonna get started with you, nutrition, fitness, sleep.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Let's talk about the holistic health triangle.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
As I recall my high school geometry, is this an
equilateral triangle?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Hold on a second, Adam, you took high school geometry
and you remember any of it?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yes? I did, Katie, Okay, I didn't say I did
well in it.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Chris, tell us about this holistic health triangle.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I always think about it as four legs of a table,
so I'm more of a quad guy. I think about exercise, nutrition, mindfulness,
and then sleep. I think mindfulness really starts with trying
to understand not only your own sleep and maybe issues
you may be having with your sleep, but also the
(03:03):
emotion that you're bringing with it. Those are sort of
my four I think. You know, if you take one
of those legs away, the table collapses.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Chris, how do you define sleep supplements?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I think the best way to define supplement is something
that's taking a process that's hopefully already pretty healthy and
making it even a little bit more healthy. So what
we're looking at is a biochemical reaction that starts from
the time we ingest food to the point we're actually
making chemicals in our brain that support sleep. Serotone and
melatone and dopamine or rexin. There's a bunch of them,
(03:37):
and along each pathway you're taking the proteins in milk
and breaking them down to an amino acid. That trip
to fan gets converted into something else, and eventually you
get melatonin. And there's all these steps and all these
cofactors and minerals that are important to support that process.
And for an elite athlete like Danielle's working for, that
matters a tremendous amount. But if you're listening to this thinking, oh,
(03:58):
how much magnism do I need to get so I
can get some sleep, there's a reason why we don't
call them treatments. We understand very clearly how these things
are best used and where they're not going to be
particularly helpful.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And Danielle, you help manage all three or even four
of these, which Chris has mentioned the mindfulness part. The
three I'm talking about are the nutrition, fitness, and sleep
you manage. These were top athletes who compete at their
physical and mental best. Let's just like get into this.
Do you recommend supplements?
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yes? I do.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
I am still food first, supplement second, but I always
talk about being smart with our supplementation. Chris can talk
to this a little bit more, right, they're also phases
of sleep. Are you having a hard time falling asleep
or are you having time staying asleep? And so then
that's where food, nutrition, hydration at a potential supplement could
come in. So just really understanding what's going on and
(04:53):
what's needed.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
What would you say are the connections between nutrition and
quality sleep.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Well, it's finding that sweet spot for people where you
can have a light snack one to two hours before
going to bed if needed. When I speak with my athletes,
whether it's my bench guys, and they didn't play very
many minutes, but they still had a warm up, and
they still went in earlier in the morning, and they're
still not going to bed until one or two o'clock
after the game.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
They still need to eat.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
So maybe it's more of an in between meal, not
so much as a real heavy dinner, but it's not
a light snack somewhere in between for them, whereas my
starters or my high minutes players.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Yes, they'll need to eat post game.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
So it's explaining to them that because they're like, oh,
I shouldn't eat late at night, I can't eat late
at night. Well, you've been active for the last five
six hours and now you're not going to go to
sleep for another couple hours because you're all revveed up.
So it's looking at each individual and seeing where you're
at your physical activity or non activity throughout the day,
and how we could adjust your meal patterning.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I'm just getting flashbacks to Adam in my honeymoon in Italy,
where we romantically thought it was going to be amazing
and it was. I mean, honey, don't get me wrong,
it was amazing, but we had to sleep sitting up
for so much of it because we were eating.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Red wine and red sauce and red tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
You just pasta red wine meals and like trying to
lay down on it. I mean, I still like it
rises up into my throat when I even think about
It's so grossy.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yes, we should have done those big Florentine steaks at lunch.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yes, sure, Chris.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
The athletes you work with and me too, like we
love to travel. In your experience flying with athletes in
and out of different time zones and dealing with different
types of sleep schedules to get them on the right
sleep schedule, what do you do with all of the
teams that are flying around and changing time zones constantly.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
It depends on a couple things. The first is what
is your mission. If the mission is to fly to London,
give a lecture and go right back home, then you
may not really want to acclimate to the time zone right.
A great example is, you know a lot of times
a team will play a preseason game in Mumbai, India.
They want people not to get hurt, not to lose
a player, and just reacclimate to that time zone they've
(07:12):
come from as quickly as possible. Or you're trying to
get to a place and actually enjoy it, like Italy,
you know, and the meal is so interesting. It's like,
let's all meet back here at three o'clock in the
morning on this zoom call and have like heavy alfredo
and see how our bodies adjust to it. It's like
we could do it if we did it every night,
(07:32):
three m alfredo, big pasta dinner, we'd eventually get used
to it. But this is kind of what we're looking at.
We're trying to adjust to a different timing for our athleticism,
a different timing for our eating, and a different timing
for our sleep. So there's all kinds of interventions you
can use to speed that process up. But it's different
for every athlete. But there's all kinds of interventions that
(07:55):
can adjust our circadian rhythm a little bit faster than
it would typically if we did nothing in the direction
of travel matters. It's easier for us to stay a
little bit later than to go to bed early right
before we're ready, so that that kind of plays a
role in it as well too.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
This is like an example. We love our whole families
on the East Coast. We live on the West Coast,
so I always say, bring your kids to New York.
Instead of giving them dinner at five o'clock, which is
what we do here, you know, let them eat at
eight pm with the whole family, and then they sleep
later too.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
We love an East coast trip.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
What would be some examples of ways that you could
supplement if you were going to intervene and try to
change someone's sleep schedule for a different time.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, I think there's lots of ways to do it. Now,
I like to be thoughtful. What are you giving your
child right before they get on the plane. I love
there's little hummus bowls with the little pretzel chips. Hummus
is a ton of trip to fan in it. So
we always talk about trip to fan and the Thanksgiving turkey.
There's way more trip to fan in chickpeas and hummus
than there is in a traditional store bought turkey. So
(08:57):
I like cam and meal tea. Like you got to
be careful, you know, want to give the kids, you know,
green tea or caffeinated tea, but maybe you make a
little thing of you know, camimeal tea or ice it
and you have that in their sippy cups. And Okay,
we're gonna drink our relaxing teas before we get on there.
I mean, none of those things are going to hurt.
And again, might you know, create a little bit more relaxation,
(09:18):
a little bit more sedation that this sort of helps
the plane flight a little bit.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
So one easy thing is not even a supplement, but
a juice. Right, tart cherry juice is blown up all
over the place. I've been using it for about ten
years with my athletes.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
What I've never heard of this?
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Did you say tart cherry juice?
Speaker 6 (09:37):
Tart cherry juice, not the sweet bing cherries. It has
to be the tart Montmorency cherries.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
Yes, the science shows us that it's fifty cherries, whether
they're frozen, dried, or squeezed into an eight ounced juice.
There's naturally occurring melatonin in the cherries and it's kind
of like a time release, and then there's also some
extra antioxidant, so that could really help. I do want
to say, if you're having issues with your sugars and
there's some pre diabetes or anything, you're definitely going to
(10:05):
want to figure out how to blend that with you know,
some proteins and some fats and fibers so that sugar
doesn't dump right into your system.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
But yes, that's a really easy thing to do.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
And a lot of my athletes and non athletes, they
swear by it.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
I swear by it. It works really well. Whow Yes.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
Yeah, you can take it anytime to day. You can
take it at night, you can take it in the morning.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Where do you buy it? Any grocery store, Any grocery store.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
And you know, I worked with the US men's national
soccer team and I introduced it to them as well.
So there were a few of us with soccer. We
would come together in different cities or countries, and so
we would do a nightcap and we would do little
shots of tar cherry juice.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
So that was our way of getting it.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Very different than what I've ever done experienced. I'm interested
that was our nightcap in this on this same subject.
And please both of you feel free to answer. What
are the minerals, vitamins, nutrients that people could try or
that you suggest before resorting to a sleep supplement. This
tart cherry juice is one of them. Yes, what are
(11:11):
other things on the list?
Speaker 6 (11:13):
Yes, I'd recommend camin meal tea would be fantastic. High
magnesium foods, so your nuts, in your seeds, magnesiums are great,
just overall relaxing.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And then Chris, when we're resorting to the supplements, what
is that? Are we talking like natural like magnesium powder,
magnesium pills? What are people doing?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I would say that magnesium is important for the support
of good sleep. Neurologists that used to work with said,
you know what, brains love magnesium. So to me, what
I would say to a patient who may be struggling
with sleep is have you had your magnesium checked. I've
been educated by a lot of dieticians and nutritions out
there that say, you'd be surprised how many elite level
(11:58):
basketball players show up at training camp and they're magnesium deficient.
So I would say this is a great thing to
test for, and the people who are deficient, maybe magnesium
supplementation could be helpful or you're not going to get
into a lot of trouble just taking a reasonable supplement
of magnesium yourself. To me, it's all about expectation. I
think where we run into trouble is I have been
struggling with sleep for years. I am lucky if I
(12:20):
get two hours of sleep. I have this terrible, anxiety
fraught relationship with sleep. How about magnesium. I don't think
magnesium is going to touch that.
Speaker 6 (12:31):
I think Chris brings up a great point, right, you
want to get to the root of what it is
and where in your sleep what's happening, and then that
way you can start little things and maybe a supplement
is or is not part of your program, but it's
just a band aid.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Really, Okay, I went on a huge melatonin kick. I've
been on the magnesium powder kick. I've been on the
CBD kick. I'm trying to think. I think that might
be Adam, you think that's it. I feel like those
are my three.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Well what's the sleepy tea? Is that a high magnesium.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Tea Cammeo passion flower, Valerian.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Usually, Oh yeah, Valerian Root.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
There's another one, yeah, Valerian Root. But how are those
things working?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I mean, what about nighttime rituals, something that you can
put into your routine that may help with your sleep.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Are you a tea person?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Oh yeah, My wife's a big tea person. In fact,
I grow camrameal. I think it's fun to grow it
and dry it out and grind it up and stick
it a little thing. So I think that's great. I mean,
I think when you're looking at well, Chris, I'd like
to know more about supplements and figure out ways to
integrate them into a healthier sleep lifestyle. I think bedtime
routine is a huge place for it. So there's the
(13:42):
tea Camimeo passion Flower, Valerian Root. I think nothing's better
than every evening you're settling down to watch your episode
of whatever or read your chapter of whatever, and you
enjoy your camerameal tea. We used to do that with
our kids, like we would make you tea and kind
of deliver it to their bedrooms when they were doing
homework and calculus just kind of Okay, let's dim some
(14:04):
lights here, let's get the phones hooked up downstairs. Here's
your tea. Just this kind of it kind of creates
this rhythm, ah, when you smell the tea and you
feel the warmth and you taste the cammeal. Maybe the
cammeal has some sort of relaxing property improves your sleep,
but it does always serve as that queue to oh,
tasting the cam meal, it's about time to go to bed.
It's like the lavender spray on your pillow. I love
(14:27):
lattes and I would drink a latte every night if
it didn't screw up my sleep. So my newest one
is it's got all kinds of different eshwagandha and all
these different alfhienine I think in mushroom optogens and all
these things that sort of support sleep no caffeine. So
I think that's where you can really find a solid
hook into the supplement world. Is trying to kind of
(14:49):
build these things into a routine to support not only
better sleep, it's better health.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I think this is a fascinating discussion, and we are
not done more to come.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Welcome back to Chasing Sleep. In this episode, we are
aiming for peak performance. We're talking about sleep and supplements
with Danielle Lafata, who helps the Phoenix suns eat well
and get good sleep, and sleep specialist doctor Chris Winter,
who works with lots of pro athletes too along with
regular people like us. What do you think, Chris, what
(15:21):
should our listeners consider when looking at supplements.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Yeah, it's a tough thing. And I'll say right off
the bat, you know, I tend to be pretty much
a stickler for research, but you know, in terms of
great research behind sleep, I would say that's a little lacking.
I think it's important to understand that just because there
isn't research behind something doesn't mean it's not true. It
just means we can't stay with a lot of authority
about that. You know, certain ingredients maybe in my non
(15:47):
latte latte may kind of fall into that category of
maybe in five years we're talking about, Wow, the adaptogens
were so important. I think this is where consumer technology
sort of comes in and really works at its best
when you're asking it a question. So why he says, us,
sleep's terrible? So I bought this thing. I'll put it
on my wrist. Do the experiment. Hey, Okay, take the supplement,
(16:07):
the magnesium. I like to change one variable to time,
So pick some weeks that things are pretty steady at work,
and for this two weeks you're going to take magnesium,
and for these two weeks you're not. And see what
happens with your sleep.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Tracker, Daniel. Are these supplements safe to take?
Speaker 6 (16:23):
The supplement industry is wild. It's the wild wild West.
So anything you pull off the shelf, don't think that
what it says on the bottle is actually what is
on the bottle. And I've been preaching this for over
fifteen years now. In the sports world, we have NSF
Certified for Sport or Informed Choice or Informed Sport certified,
(16:45):
so they're a third party company and they make sure
that what it says on the label is actually in
the bottle, and then they test it against all of
the two hundred band substances on the World Anti Doping
Agency list. I only recommend those supplements to my athletes,
and the FDA doesn't have enough manpower and they don't
(17:07):
have them enough money to regulate this industry. So you
have to be the sleuth or find the professionals that
will do that for you.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Not to get too far off. There's a great study
that just came out that supplemented another study from twenty
seventeen in Canada. So basically, if you're taking melaton, you
have no idea what's in it. They took thirty commercial
brands and actually looked at them, and the variance was comical.
In fact, one had no melatonin. It just had CBD
in it.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Okay, I think we have to ask what's the story
with CBD? Okay, it is everywhere, literally everywhere I look.
Is there any research on this? What is CBD all about?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah? So I did a deep dive on this, you know,
right before I went to Major League Baseball training camp
to have that ready for every baseball player that asked
about it. You know, CBD, cambinoids, THCHCCBN. You know. My
takeaway is this, we can't really say a lot about
it right now because it's just known in relationship to sleep.
I actually feel like in certain chronic pain sort of situations,
(18:07):
even something like generalized anxiety, I think there's some promise there,
and I think that when we are in any one
of those subjects, I feel like I'm a little bit
out of my expertise realm. If I'm talking about general
as anxiety as where I'm a sleep specialist tenurologist, I
think we can say pretty definitively at this point there's
not any real great data support chronic use of any
(18:30):
of these products as something that would relate to better sleep. Now,
where you get into the weeds a little bit is,
as we've talked about before on the show, great sleep
kind of relies on mindfulness. I think for individuals who
have struggled for a very long time with their sleep,
there's an inevitable anxiety about sleep, and so it's hard
(18:51):
sometimes to separate out. If you can control anxiety, specifically
anxiety around the process of sleeping, you'll often and either
facilitate maybe a marginally better sleep, but almost always a
better perception of the sleep.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Obviously, falling asleep is so much different, I guess than
staying asleep, because I have tons of friends that can
fall asleep right away, but they can't get connective sleep.
You know, if they wake up the middle of the night,
their mind starts racing, it's over and then they're up
from you know, two am to seven am, versus my
friends who lay there for one hundred hours can't turn
it off. Are there supplements that are helpful for one
(19:29):
problem versus the other? Which supplements and if any would
be needed?
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Again, this is not That's probably not a process or
a problem that I would look to, Oh, you have
trouble staying asleep with then you should take this supplement
versus that. I mean to me, that problem starts with
the conversation of how long has this been going on,
what is it that wakes you up? How many times
are you waking up? How do you feel the next day?
So in that sort of flow chart of working through
(19:54):
that problem, if supplement is in this flow chart, it
is very very near the bottom. It's not the initial
thing that I would try. So it's like we were
always taught as a neurologist about headaches. A new onset
headache or a change in headache character needs to be
evaluated immediately. I would kind of say the same thing
about sleep versus well, I'm not going to get any evaluation.
(20:16):
I'll just try to find a supplement that sedates me
through this issue. I mean a lot of times, you know,
going right to some sort of treatment like that obscures
the actual problem. And that's the reason why probably the
average personal sleep out and is taken three to five
years to get treatment because they're not going right to
the source. They're like, well, I started taking melatonin and
(20:37):
that seemed to work for a while, or I was
taking more sedating drug that I used in the past
for anxiety. Well what are you doing? So to me,
anybody who's in that position of struggling to fall asleep,
struggling and stay sleep o, you know, getting some professional
help for the problem first might actually eventually involve a supplement,
but that's not what I would jump straight to.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Also, because I was curious, like do I need this
because it's actually helping, or do I need this because
now I'm so stressed? So I do understand this cyclical problem.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
What about the prescription drugs?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Though I've mom, this one's for you and every woman
who's ever gone through menopause. Honestly, yes, Like my mom
gets on a soapbox saying, if you are a woman
of a certain age and you have dealt with hot
flashes for fifteen years, you have tried every supplement and
done prescriptive drugs. Because I shouldn't be driving behind the
wheel of a car. That's how little sleep I've gotten
(21:31):
because I'm so hot and my hormones are so messed up.
You're welcome.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Mom.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
She really wanted you all to know that.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
She did. She left us note this morning.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Yeah. I mean that's a massive it's a massive topic,
and you throw menopause in there. It's its own separate issue.
It's a very very meaningful and problematic thing to people.
And we give terrible advice to individuals who are struggling
with sleep with menopause, and the advice usually becomes some
sort of sleeping pill. And when you start can get
sleeping pills, they don't really change sleep that much. You're
(22:04):
gonna fall asleep, what five minutes faster sleep in additional
seven minutes Like that's the data. But more importantly is this,
There's never been a sleeping pill that shows improve performance.
So when patients come to see me, well, listen, Chris,
I don't want to take the ambient, but I've got
to perform at my best or terrible things happen. Well,
while you're looking for that study that shows that the
pill you're taking, whatever it is, makes you perform better,
(22:25):
I'll finding twenty studies to show it doesn't. So this
idea that we needed to perform our best.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
No.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
And this is a terrible sort of thought pervasive thing
that's in medicine in general about sleeping pills, because so
many clinicians have no real training in sleep. Even though
of the top seven complaints you will find in a clinic,
one is I can't sleep and two as I'm too
tired during the day. So again, that perception can be
(22:51):
really problematic if we don't ask some questions, if we
just assume, oh, well, she doesn't sleep, so let's give
her a pillar, a supplement that can be the beginning
of bad things. Sleep is a skill we're trying to
build that there's no shortcut to it.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And Danielle, how would you rate some of these supplements
or let's say, do you personally suggest meditation versus a prescription?
Speaker 5 (23:18):
I start with have you done a breathing exercise? Have
you journaled?
Speaker 6 (23:21):
I start with all the sleep hygiene. Again, I'm not
on Chris's level. I'm more of like a look at
me as like I try to screen for these things
and I know the basics. So you breathing technique or
a yoga or a meditation huge for me.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Calming things like althenine.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
That's why teas are great, you know, doing a couple
of green teas in the morning, or you know, camo
meal at night because of this protein or amino acid
called althenine which helps us to get in two hour
rest and digest or parasympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
So I'll kind of start there with something light.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Magnesium is always good, especially if you're deficient in magnesium.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
It will really you'll really feel that relaxing.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
And I think that's why after a couple of weeks
it kind of stops, because you might have your stores.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
All all bound up with with that. I don't go
right to melatonin.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
There are a lot of sleep products for us on
NSF and that Informed Sport certified, but everything has melatonin
in it, and I don't think everybody needs melatonin. And
a lot of times my clients that I see the
bet their wits end and they've been doing so much
and they are stressed out and the mind is going,
so they're looking at every they want a little bit
of the brain and the body relaxation, you know, to help.
(24:31):
They'll do the meditation and they'll do everything, and they
know that it's just for a short period of the
time until they can get going back again. It's not
something that they hang on and that they need to
do every night.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Right, right, everything that we just talked about.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
It works just the same for us as it does
for my elite athletes. Also, it's what they're willing to
work on, right. Are they willing to meditate? Are they
willing to journal? Are they willing to get in some yoga?
Are they willing to just do exercise in general? So
just helping them create a behavior, picking one thing to
work on to start working towards that.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
And of course it's also working with people.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
That want to look at the root cause or want
to find what the problem is and then want to
make those gradual steps to get to a place where
they don't need these crutches.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
What do you see down the pipe?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
What's in the supplement future, Chris?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
What are you seeing? What does the future of supplements
look like?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
That's a great question in terms of I always think
that you can answer any question about what does the
future of X look like by evaluating the past. And
so you know, in the time that I've been in
this space since the early nineties, is there a supplement
that has come along that has changed everything, like for
(25:44):
the positive. Now that's different from you know, MELTONA came
along and everybody's on it. Is it truly meaningfully changing
things for the positive or is it just sort of
a distraction until the next thing comes along? You know?
I think that magnesium could certainly be in there for
some people. I think that generally, when you eat well
and you eat a relatively normal diet, you get what
(26:05):
you need. Science has a way of surprising people. But
as of right now, I think it'll just be sort
of or more.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
What it is right Is the supplement future just looking boisterous.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
I think supplements there just there's always going to be something.
The CBD is really huge, but still in its infancy.
I thought years ago I got a handle on there's
always something new coming out. We do talk about these
supplements that are out there, the ones that are a
combo products of magnesium and alpenine and another compound GABBA,
which is a brain transmitter.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Is that a pill?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Yeah, you could take it as a pill, And that's
controversial because it's this big molecule that whether we take
it through supplements or you can't really get it in food,
it's what the body makes inside by a bunch of
different vitamins and amino acids and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Wait, what brain transmitter? Okay, Chris, can you break this
down for us?
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Gabba compounds. That's a tricky one. Gabba is an intermediate
in the synthesis of things like serotonin and melotonin. Problem is,
it's also not entirely clear if the preparation that you're
consuming is able to cross the blood brain barrier. These
are real chemicals and they're important in that sort of
biochemical cascade. The real issue is are you consuming enough
(27:24):
to make a difference? And number two, is it really
even bioavailable getting absorbed into your bloodstream making it to
your brain to make any kind of difference. Those are
the questions more for a chemist, I think I.
Speaker 6 (27:36):
Would say keep coming back to are you doing it
safely and smartly and using something that you know is
real and not just a bunch of you know, rice
powder and pixie.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Dust, snake oil.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Snake oil.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yes, love this, look at them. We could live like
an athlete tonight, Honey, Danielle and Chris. This is massive.
I mean, every single person I know is struggling with
anxiety around sleep, getting sleep the quality of sleep. What
should they be taking. Is it supplemental? Is it natural?
It's a lot. So thank you for being on Chasing
(28:11):
Sleep and for spending time with us and getting into
it same.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
It's a lot of fun, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Huge takeaway from today's episode four legs holding up the
table that is you. One of those legs is nutrition,
one is fitness, one is mindfulness, and one is sleep.
I mean, that's the holy grail, is it not?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
It is really important to take a step back and
really think about what we're saying here. We're saying supplements
are supplemental things.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
The words that Danielle used were like crutch band aid.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
We need to think about what is the root problem
and if the root problem is not a super easy
thing to take care of, then yeah, there are supplements
that can help while we're trying to figure out the
root problem.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
So for example, when we're traveling.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
That's a great time to supplement our needs. And sleep
is a skill.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
That we can actually work on.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
We have to develop it like any other skill.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It takes work, it takes time, that's right. We hope
that this podcast has become a supplement to your other
podcast listening.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
See what I did there?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Gain eight Adam, sometimes your jokes could be classified sleep supplements.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Whatever I can do to help people sleep better.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
We hope you'll go into your podcast player, rate and
review the show and tell us what you think you know.
You can always find me on the instagrams at ktq.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Low's and you can find me at Shabby Shafts, and
don't forget to follow or subscribe to make sure that
you get our next episode.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
When we commune with nature.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yes, or like we live in Los Angeles and maybe
we should be playing ocean sounds when we're sleeping instead
of hearing city sounds or birds chirping. I think nature
has a huge effect on quality of s.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I'd like it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Next time it's sleep and Nature on Chasing Sleep. Until
next time, hope you are living your best while sleeping
your best.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Chasing Sleep is a production of Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia
in partnership with Mattress Firm. Our executive producer is Molly Soshia.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
This show was written and produced by sal Matt Brands,
Dave be Sing, Jason Jackson, and Michelle Rice.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Chasing Sleep is hosted by Katie Lows and Adam Shapiro,
that's us.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Thank you to our partners at Mattress Firm,
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