April 28, 2026 • 36 mins
In this episode of Health vs. Hype with the American Medical Association, host Trace Dominguez uncovers the science behind viral sleep trends, and reveals what actually works to improve sleep quality.
From mouth tape and melatonin to your sleep tracker, breathwork, and sleep divorces, millions of Americans are experimenting with trending sleep hacks. More than half of U.S. adults have tried at least one viral sleep trend. But are these methods backed by science…or just social media hype?
Featuring insights from lifestyle content creator Lucie Fink, sleep storyteller Kathryn Nicolai, and sleep medicine expert Dr. Jose Colon, this episode answers the questions:
- Does your sleep tracker actually improve sleep or increase anxiety?
- Is mouth tape safe or potentially dangerous?
- How much sleep do you really need for optimal health?
- What is heart rate variability (HRV), and does it matter?
You’ll also learn why “trying harder” to sleep can backfire, how social media influences health behaviors, and which simple, evidence-based strategies can help you fall asleep faster and wake up feeling restored.
If you’ve ever struggled with insomnia, experimented with sleep optimization, or wondered whether viral wellness trends are worth it, this episode gets to the bottom of it all.
To learn more, visit: amahealthvshype.org
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I sleep with an eyemask to make it even darker.
I take my mouth closed. Then I also line my
bed and like cocoon my pillow around my head, and
I'm in a deep, dark slumber.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Sleep is one third of our life. If it wasn't
made to be important, it'd been a pretty evolutionary blunder.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's so hard to fall asleep if we don't feel safe.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
It can feel like the world is working against rest.
Endless scrolling, constant notifications, always that one more thing you
gotta check before you can go to bed. So it's
not surprising that people are looking for help, and some
turn to storytellers like Catherine Nikolai, whose podcast Nothing Much
Happens has helped people drift off more than two hundred
(00:47):
million times.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Our story tonight is called color Walk, and it's a
story about a soft way to move through the world
on the spring day.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Others, like content creator Lucy Fink, experiment with the latest
viral sleep trends, or reach for supplements like melatonin, anything
to squeeze just a little more rest out of a busy,
always on life.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I think the Ten Hours of Sleep one was just
kind of a selfish experiment I wanted to try.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
To get the facts about these trends and the best
ways to get a good night's sleep. A sleep medicine
physician like doctor jose Colgonne has answers.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I really have a lot of people that have difficulties
sleeping because something's bothering them. And what's bothering them is
that they're not asleep.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So let's get comfy.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
Lights out, friends, get snuggled down into your.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Sheets, because we've invited them all to dive into the
world of online sleep trends. Welcome back to Health Versus
Hype with the American Medical Association. I'm your host Trace Timingez.
Today we're going to uncover the truth about viral sleep
trends and answer the questions we're all curious about. Does
taping your mouth really improve sleep quality? Can sleep trackers
(02:05):
truly help to optimize sleep? And what does the science
actually say about how to get better sleep? So join
me as we find out whether recent online sleep trends
are all health or just hype. Last year, more than
(02:30):
half of adults in the United States said that they
had tried at least one viral sleep trend. That's according
to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. So to begin,
I want to understand what the latest viral sleep trends
are and why so many people are interested in trying them.
For that, I spoke with Lucy Fink, a popular lifestyle
influencer and content creator who recently got serious about optimizing
(02:53):
her sleep health. She posts about her sleep trend experiments,
which we'll get to in a second, but to set
the scene, we really I need to understand how Lucy
thinks about social media as a source of information for
sleep health.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I feel like social media for me, it's less of
a place to gather the real facts and the science
and more hearing anecdotal stories that people have about something
that maybe helped them that I could implement and try.
And I love trying things and tracking it and then
seeing how it goes. Like sometimes people in my life
(03:27):
will be like, don't you just want to live and
like enjoy instead of be constantly testing things out, And
I'm like, you don't know how much joy it brings
me to be like I am in the middle of
an experiment, leave me alone. And that to me is
fun is to be tracking and optimizing, whereas for someone
else that's overwhelming, right.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
I actually think that makes a nice transition into like, okay,
so let's talk about some of the experiments that you
mentioned that you're known for. Yeah, the five days of
learning to sleep better, the five days of sleeping on
the floor, the five days of getting ten hours of sleep. Yes,
of those, what would you say you took away from them?
What did you learn from them? Did you try any others?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I think the ten hours of sleep one was just
kind of a selfish experiment.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I wanted to try.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I wasn't going to say anything.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I was like, how cool would this be? So
I can't say I learned that much from that, aside
from the fact that I don't think I actually need
ten hours of sleep at night. It was more of
like a kitchy experiment, whereas same with sleeping on the floor,
because I would never do that.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
I love a plush, soft bed.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I'm princess in the pea style where you know, even
just a different pillow under my head is going to
give me like a kink in my neck.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
So didn't love that one.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
But Lucy's experiment that left the most lasting impression was
an overall sleep hygiene study of sorts where she tested
a bunch of sleep strategies over a short period of
time to see which worked best for her.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That was the one that probably taught me the most,
and that I took the most away from as far
as like blacking out the room, making sure you don't
have it too hot and wearing cool and clothing, stopping
eating at a certain time, stopping drinking so you're not
uppeeing all night, things like that that I really do
take into every night and try to make sure I
(05:09):
set up a sleep environment no matter where I am
as good as possible at.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, why make work? Why make it hard on yourself?
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (05:17):
It sounds like because you try so many things, was
there any specific trend that you were like, that's it.
This is persuasive because it has some science behind it
and I'm gonna try it, or because it worked for
me or both. What trend kind of stuck out to you?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I mean, I really had trouble falling asleep, and then
I was identifying as a person who had trouble falling
asleep and then getting anxious about what was coming up
the next day, and it was just making it all worse.
So one of my good friends set me up on
a course of melatonin to reset my circadian rhythm and
gave me specific things to do, and working with him,
(05:50):
I was able to really get things back in order.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Your circadian rhythm is basically your body's built in twenty
four hour clock. It's what tells you when to sleepy
or when to feel awake. Sleep supplements like melatonin are
often pitched as a quick fix for better sleep, and
we'll dig into those claims in What the Science Actually
Says with Doctor Cologne a little later, but for now,
Lucy found that her answer was a bit simpler. She
(06:15):
leaned into relaxation techniques, the kind that you've probably heard
of before, counting sheep, running through the alphabet in your head,
just giving your mind something gentle to land on. Here's
Lucy describing her version of the technique.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
You pick a word, so let's say you pick the
word apple. Then you go through the word, and you
go through letter by letter, and you start with A
and you say as many words in your head as
you can that start with A while you're visualizing those
objects or things, and then you move on. Once you're
out of that, you move on to the P and
you do it again and supposedly, like a lot of us,
(06:51):
when we're trying to fall asleep, are trying to clear
our minds and think of nothing. But when your brain
falls into sleep, it's often like a very act state
of like seeing images and thinking of things. So you
don't want to just lie there and be like think
of nothing, be blank, be gone. But if you just
like let yourself think of random objects and picture them
(07:11):
and whatever, that can help lead.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
You into sleep.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Lucy is describing something that we've probably all experienced. You're exhausted,
but somehow, the second your head hits the pillow boom,
you're wide awake. And there's actually a reason that your
brain seems to switch gears at exactly the wrong time,
and why falling asleep can feel hardest when you're trying
the most. Our storyteller Catherine Nikolai explains just how this works.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
When we're in that chaotic, spiraling spin of thoughts. It's
sort of the background static of your brain, what your
brain does when it doesn't have a job to do.
That's where it's hardest to sleep, and that's why often
you could be in bed in a really uncomfortable position,
reading your book, but you cannot stay awake, you're moving
your eyes forward, you're not absorbing what you're reading your book,
he's falling in your face. Finally you give up, You
(07:57):
put your book down, you turn the light off, You
get as comfortable you have ever been, and now you
cannot sleep. And that's because you went from the task
positive mode now to default mode, and your brain didn't
have a job to do, and it wanted away and
got into trouble.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
If you've had a bad night's sleep, the signs are
usually pretty obvious. Right we wake up and we're still
feeling tired. As many as one in three people are
exhausted before even starting their day. But there are ways
to understand what kind of sleep you're getting each night,
and this is where sleep tracking enters the picture. You've
probably seen these before, smart watches, smart rings, all promising
(08:33):
to turn your sleep into data. Lucy spent plenty of
time experimenting with different sleep trackers and now has one
as part of her regular sleep routine.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I mean, everyone needs a different amount of sleep, and
it's going to have different biometric markers. So I think
healthy sleep is sleep that the next morning you.
Speaker 6 (08:53):
Feel good like. That's purely what it is.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And the trackers and the markers can just give you
more information and more data that probably confirm things for you.
Like one thing I've tried a lot is on nights
that I do have a glass of wine, my HRV
is plummeting and I just don't feel as well the
next day. So people can say scientifically, wine's going to
give you a hangover and make you feel ill the
next day, but it's like there's the data of what
(09:16):
it's doing, and then I can feel it. And so
you know, it's hard to tell someone to be chasing
certain markers or certain metrics, But do these experiments and
see what sleep environment and what lifestyle habits the night
before make you feel noticeably different the next morning, and
that's what matters for you.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
You heard Lucy mention HRV. That is heart rate variability.
Your heart rate, how many times your heart beats per minute,
changes depending on what you are doing. If you're calm
and relaxed, it slows down. If you're stressed or active,
it speeds up. HRV is just the tiny differences in
time between each of those beats. We're talking milliseconds, And
(09:57):
here's why people care. Generally, a higher HRV means that
your body is more flexible, say it's better at adapting
to stress, and often that means you're getting more restorative sleep.
But on the flip side, low heart rate variability that
can be a warning sign. It may mean that your
body isn't adapting as easily as it could, and it
might be under more strain, which sometimes can be linked
(10:20):
to health issues.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I've had a completely new relationship with sleep where I
have just fallen in love with it and with taking
care of it, and with prioritizing it over other things.
And it's now in my life, especially with the tracker
and being able to see exactly how much sleep I
got on a morning. When I feel good, I have
(10:42):
the most clarity every morning of I know I slept
well and I feel it in my body. And when
I don't get it, I don't even need to look
at the tracker. I could tell you I didn't get it.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Catherine has a similar all though slightly more blunt, take
on sleep trackers.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I'm tired of being boss around by my watch. I
don't wear it anywhere anymore. My wife, when she wakes
up in the morning, she checks right away her sleep
score and stuff. But I often found. Then it creates
this external sort of analytical relationship did I do it right?
Did I somehow fail at sleeping? And I feel like
(11:18):
sleep isn't a performance to be optimized, It is just
a biological experience to have.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
With that, I think it's finally time to bring in
our sleep medicine experts. Doctor Jose Colonne is the medical
director of Sleep Medicine at Lee Health in Southwest Florida,
and he's triple Board certified in sleep medicine, child neurology,
and lifestyle medicine. Doctor Cologne knows his stuff when it
comes to getting healthy sleep. He also has a lot
(11:46):
to say about sleep trackers and whether all that data
is helping or hurting your sleep. But let's start with
the basics first, like why is sleep so important?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
In sleep repair our body? Our immune system is activated,
we're cleaning our brain. We're also consolidating memories during sleep,
so it's vitally important.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
What happens to our bodies while we're sleeping.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
The brain activity does slow down in the same way
that everyone has a heart rate, well, we also have
a brain rate, and our brain does slow down and
cycles every ninety minutes into a different sleep cycle.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
It's easy to think of sleep like a simple on
off switch. You're either asleep or you're not, But it's
a lot more layered than that. It's not just about
how much sleep you get, it's about the kind of
sleep that you're getting. Also, you've probably heard of REM sleep.
It's short for rapid eye movement. That's the stage where
your brain is basically doing all the overnight reset tasks.
(12:51):
It's processing your memories, it's sorting through emotions, it's tightening
up the connections between your brain cells. REM sleep is
so important that studies show getting less of it is
linked to higher risks of dementia. REM is also when
dreaming happens. Your eyes are moving, your heart rate is
picking up a bit, and your body is temporarily paralyzed.
Thank goodness, so you're not physically running from whatever's chasing
(13:12):
you in your dreams or whatever. Maybe that's just me.
REM doesn't happen only one time throughout the night. It
comes in phases, and altogether it makes up roughly twenty
percent of your night's sleep.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Now, there's another stage of sleep that's not REM, and
it's called non REM. I make things simple, and the
first half of the night is where the deepest, non
rem sleep is, where our brain is very slow. It's
called slow wave sleep.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
What can prevent people from having that good night's sleep.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
One of them really is actually irregular rhythms or daytime napping.
We go through these different cycles, and in the first
half of the night is when we have the deepest sleep,
that deep slow wave sleep. That's the part that actually
washes away all of the fatigue and sleepiness we have,
you know. So that's why daytime sleep is one of
(14:03):
the cardinal problems with regular sleep at night. I give
an example that if someone is on their way to
a restaurant and they eat a sandwich on the way
to the restaurant, they could be hungry when they get there. Sure, well,
just like we need to develop an appetite, we need
to develop a sleep appetite or a sleep drive. Now
there's a misconception that if I didn't sleep well one night, oh,
(14:26):
let me sleep after school or after work. And really,
actually this phenomenon is remarkable. What you really need when
you're sleep deprived is just a regular, normal sleep. If
our brain has a lot of fatigue, the next time
that you go to sleep, you go into that deep
sleep deeper, and you're going to stay in it longer.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
That makes so much sense when you really think about it, Actually,
Doctor Cologne, your brain kind of knows that you're going
to get sleep deprived sometimes, and it fixes it on
its own without us ever having to op or manage it.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Correct And the definition of chronic sleep deprivation is chronically
getting five hours or less. For example, all right, look,
daylight savings, all this emphasis, yep, oh my god, you're
gonna lose one hour of sleep really on a Saturday
night when people sleep in on Sunday. Anyways, you don't
even go to work till Monday. That loss of one
(15:23):
hour sleep does no harm. The serious harm comes in
the fact that you shifted the environmental cues. That you
shifted the time, and now it's light later, making it
so that you stay up later, and guess what, work
time didn't change, So now you're creating a circadian pattern
(15:45):
that increases heart attacks, that increases strokes. You're a little
bit more sleep deprived, and you're driving in the dark.
The one hour of sleep that you missed that Saturday
night is not a signficant as what society has induced
in irregularity. Going back to your question, you know, what,
(16:08):
what are some of the things that cause us to
not sleep well? Yes, you know, anxieties and racing thoughts
are one of them, but daytime sleep and irregularities is
one of the biggest things that we see.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
So should I not be you know, taking an afternoon nap.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Naps do have a place, and in particular they've noticed
this in the workplace. If someone has a twenty minute nap,
they have increased productivity. If you hit forty minutes, you
start to get that deep sleep and you get that
sleep inertia and it's hard to wake up after after
the nap. But in general, you know, we try to
(16:46):
avoid napping unless you have something that you need your
vigilance for later in that day.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Yeah, there's a term that gets thrown around a lot
when we talk about sleep, sleep hygiene, you know, setting
up your environment for optimal sleep for you. Do you
support that idea? Can you talk a little bit about
what sleep hygiene might mean?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
So sleep hygiene are a list of dos and don'ts
that nobody wants to do. Okay, what I find is
that explanations are really more important than instructions. Instructions of
sleep hygen. Go to bed on time, wake up on time,
where something comfortable, stay in the dark, have a cool atmosphere.
(17:29):
Avoid electronics, avoid television. You know, don't do anything fun.
Everyone's already read them on the internet when they can't
sleep at night. You know, I'm going to ask you
some questions, and I promise that they're not hard questions.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Okay, sure, yeah, I'm game.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Do you drive? I do all right? When you drive?
Are you trying to fall asleep? Are you trying to
stay awake, alert and look at the road.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I'm trying to stay awake, alert and look at the road.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah. When you drive, do you sometimes listen to the radio?
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Often? I listen to podcasts, and I listen to the radio.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Okay, can you see how you're learning to associate that
radio with being alert. Some people, when they're driving and
they're tired, they turn up the radio. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
That does make sense. Yeah, you turn the radio up.
You listen to something more energetic.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
All right, So let's just say that you are in
bed and that you are not asleep. Can you see
how it would be a bad idea to listen to
that stimulating radio.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yeah, I could see that that would wouldn't really work.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Okay, So do people check their work email? Do they
get on a group chat because it is a boring
thing to do or because it is stimulating?
Speaker 4 (18:47):
It's stimulating. I love being in the group chat.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So explanations. You know, we try to avoid activity that
is stimulating. I don't like to tell people do something
thing boring. Nobody wants to be bored in life, you know,
So I say do things that are calling.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
That reminds me of Lucy and her sleep experiments. I'm
going to play you a clip from my talk with her.
She has developed a pretty elaborate ritual for her bedtime.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I kind of need to set up barriers in place
and systems in place and.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
Have a routine. No computer is coming in the.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Bedroom, so I just have more of a time that
the computer is closed and I'm heading upstairs, and then
once I get in bed, we have kind of a
very select list of shows and content that we can
watch to make sure that we're not watching something that's
going to totally ruin my mind before bed. These are
not as new, these are things I've been doing before,
but like some other general sleep hygiene things that I do.
(19:47):
You know, our room, we have blackout shade, blackout curtains,
The room is dark. We set the temperature to somewhere
between sixty eight, sixty seven and sixty nine degrees. Make
sure it's nice and cool in here. I sleep with
an imap to make it even darker. I take my
mouth closed, and then I also lie my bed and
like cocoon my pillow around my head and I'm in
a deep, dark slumber.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
So, doctor coloone, do you feel that as long as
that something that's helping Lucy, it's okay? Or is that
something that you would take issue with.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
If it helps her, that's okay. Having activity that's calming
is really the key. And I'm not saying things that
are boring, eliminating things half an hour before bedtime that
you know, we feel are gonna, you know, activate your brain.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Doctor clone. I want to go to something else that
she said, and maybe you can comment on that for us.
She noticed an interesting bit of data from her sleep tracker,
and we'll get into the data in a second, but
I want to hear what you think of this one
trend that she noticed. Let me play you the clip.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
It tells you the amount of time that you slept for,
like the exact hours, which will take into account any
awake time that you had, which we have a lot
of awake time in the middle of the night, just
random pockets of it. And I would say, on average
throughout the course of a night, I'm awake for about
an hour around the night.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So is that normal?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
An awakening at night can be normal. And everyone has
an awakening, whether they remember it or not, and how
you react during that awakening is going to influence when
you get back to sleep. Nobody sleeps for the night.
Everyone has some degree of awakenings. When we have these awakenings,
everyone has to have also an individualized routine. Some patients
(21:33):
will go to the bathroom, others will get a swig
of water. Here's a trend that I'm creating. When you
go to bed at night, set your alarm for either
what time you're going to wake up or what time
you're not going to be in bed past that particular time. Okay, Now,
when you have an awakening at night, and I didn't
(21:54):
say if when you have an awakening at night, don't
look at the time. The only thing that happens when
you look at the time as more thoughts. I've only
slept for this long, I only have this much longer
to sleep. I'm going to be up for this long.
We're doing this again? What's wrong with me? We impose
self judgment. I actually do discourage both television and phone
(22:16):
during these awakenings. Okay, because both of them emit light,
which can activate your brain. But the television serves as
a surrogate marker of time. One episode has been half
an hour, a movie's been two hours.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
So what are your thoughts around sleep trackers? They are
clearly very popular. Nearly half of Americans reported using one.
Are they as helpful as people seem to think they are?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Sleep trackers are? Are they hype or are they health?
They're both. I describe them as as neat but not
always validated. And from one tracker to the next, every
technology is as different. Now I will say this, it
is through the sleep trackers that we've been able to
find out that regularity is more important than duration when
(23:04):
it comes to mortality and health.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Yeah, how accurate are they? And how should people interpret them?
Speaker 3 (23:12):
With a grain of salt? And these are always studied
and people that are completely healthy, you know, which is
not the majority of our population. Sometimes. The other thing
is that you know, they're studied for the people who
have the money for them, you know, so they're they're
studied in people who are middle aged and mostly female
(23:33):
that use these But I've listened to lectures from the
scientists at fitbit, and you know, they show the data
in a typical population about a seventy percent accuracy. And
as I say, you know, they're mostly neat, not not
completely validated. I do wake up and I take a
(23:53):
look at my tracking. I ended up getting fit been
a number of years ago just because of the amount
of people that came to me with the track, and
I'm like, I don't know what this is. But there's
been some times that I don't feel like I'm going
to go back to sleep when I have an awakening,
and then the next thing I realize is that there's
an alarm and I'm dreaming, oh wow, I did get
(24:15):
back to sleep. Yeah, and my tracker does accurately tell
me that I'm in REMP. There's also been some times
that I know for a fact I ain't go back
to sleep. I know this, but my tracker not only
tells me that I was asleep, but it tells me
that I was in the deep sleep, that deep sleep
that you get in the first half of the night.
(24:35):
It's inaccurately telling me that I'm in the second half
of the night in deep sleep when I was awake. Now,
is the tracker a damn liar? No, it's measuring heart
rates and movements.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Interesting. Okay, I want to play another clip from Lucy.
This one's about mouth taping. There are a ton of
social media influencers who promote mouth taping as a sleep strategy.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So I tried the mouth tape, and I pretty much
strictly use three M medical tape. Like it's not the
fancy mouth tape and the shape of a lip. It's
like a little piece of tape that just keeps my
mouth closed. And I started doing it mostly because I
know that I slept with my mouth open, and almost
every morning when I would wake up, my mouth was
extremely dry.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
We're meant to be breathing through our nose.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
The hairs in our nostrils filter out the air more effectively,
and that's just how we're meant to be breathing, but
a lot of us are not.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
And now, when I go.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Somewhere If I forget to bring the mouth tape, it's
a rough night for me.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
So I'm going to keep doing my tape.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Clearly, Lucy feels like this is something that works, and
I'm guessing she's not the only one. I'm curious, what
are your thoughts about this trend? Does it concern you
at all?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
You can't just give a general set of rules to everyone.
If if someone has adenoid hyperchasy or turbinate hyperchasy and
you tape their mouth, you know you can suffocate them,
you know.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I just want to pop in and define those terms.
Adenoid hypertrophy and terminate hypertrophy. Both are conditions where tissues
in your nose or throat grow larger than normal due
to illness or some other health issue. The swelling can
make it much harder to breathe, which is what doctor
Colone is talking about. Okay, back to his answer.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
If someone's mouth breathing, it could be that they have
chronic congestion, and maybe we need to get the congestion
taken care of, whether it's medical therapy or anti inflammatory diets.
I do have some patients that their mouth opens when
they have the seapap on and those patients. I do
use the mouth tape with the seapap so that they
(26:43):
have less dry mouth in the morning. And the SEAPAP
is pressure that opens up their airway and they are
able to breathe with that pressure. But mouth taping alone
as monotherapy doesn't really have any benefits.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
That I'm SEAPAP, as doctor Colone just mentioned, stands for
continuous positive airway pressure. You've probably heard of it, especially
if you've ever lived with someone who snores lake a
freight train if it's new to you. A SEAPAP machine
is basically a mask and a tube setup that gently
pushes air through your nose or mouth to keep your
(27:20):
airway open while you're sleeping. It's most commonly used for
a condition called obstructive sleep apnea, where breathing can actually
start and stop throughout the night. And yeah, as you
can imagine, that leads to some pretty poor sleep. So
if this is something that you're dealing with, it's definitely
worth getting medical support. If you can't breathe, you're probably
(27:40):
not going to be sleeping very well, which is interesting.
Almost everyone I talked to mentioned some form of breath
work or meditation to help them fall asleep or improve
sleep quality. For example, here's what Lucy had to say.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
What I've found is more useful to me than just
sitting in silence is to do ten minutes of a
specific breath work exercise.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
And when I do that, I feel.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
As if I'm a different person at the end of
the ten minutes, and I just like feel tension gone
from my body, and then that contributes to a way
better night's sleep.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Catherine also believes in the power of breath work.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Even if you did something as simple as laying in
bed and scan through your body temples to toes a
couple times, take a few deep breaths, you're just speaking
the language of your body and showing it. Hey, danger
has passed. We don't need to be vigilant. It's time
for rest and digest. I always walk people through a
couple of deep breath Do that for two minutes. Turn
(28:34):
your story on.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
I bet you I'll get you to go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Even doctor Colonne agrees that breath work and meditation help
with sleep.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I actually want to make a plug. Okay, this is
the power of meditation, and I do either an awareness
of breath meditation or a body scan meditation. And that's
the power of meditation that it can put your body
in that same quiescent state. So even if I'm in sleep,
(29:04):
you still get R and R, you still get rest
and restoration.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Doctor Cologne. Why is it eight hours of sleep? Why
is that the gold standard? Is that a number that
we should all be shooting for.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well, everybody's different, and eight hours is what you shoot for.
But one thing that before I talk about sleep timing, okay,
I need to emphasize that sleep is probably equally as
important as it is also overemphasized. And what overemphasized. I
(29:40):
really have a lot of people that have difficulties sleeping
because something's bothering them. And what's bothering them is that
they're not asleep. I can't tell people don't worry about sleep,
but I have to tell everyone the opposite. The more
that you worry about it, the less of it that
that you're going to get. More than just saying the
word eight like things that are easy to remember, and
(30:04):
I see all ages from pediatric to geriatric. A twelve
month old should get eleven plus one eleven hours of
sleep plus one nap. A ten year old should be
getting about ten hours of sleep. A ninth grader through
high school should be getting about nine hours. Adults working
(30:25):
eight hour days should be getting about eight hours. Elderly
into your seventies should be getting about seven hours of sleep.
All of this is plus or minus one hour. So
in my typical adult population, I don't always emphasize that
eight hour seven hours is more than adequate for majority
(30:50):
of adults. Some may need that eighth hour. The other
thing that's really really interesting, okay, is if you take
a look at people who have short sleep time chronically
sleeping five hours or less, and you take a look
at people who have long sleep time, they're getting twelve
(31:12):
hours of sleep or more. The long sleep time actually
has a higher mortality and they're actually dying twice more
than the short sleep time is. So more sleep is
not always necessarily better. The quality of the sleep is
more important than the quantity number.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Okay, I'd love to get your take on a bunch
of different health claims around sleep trends now, so we
can go through these pretty quickly. Think of it as
a health versus hype rapid fire around. So first one,
let's put a bow on mouth taping health or hype
hype melatonin, health or hype, a bit of both.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
You know, melotona it's safe, it's effective, it's not habit forming.
But if you're having a racing mind, then you're not
a dressing the racing mind. You know, you're not addressing
the underlying issue.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
The sleepy girl mocktail a magnesium cocktail before bed which
contains cherry juice, magnesium powder, and sparkling water. Health or hype.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
It's fine, it's health in the right person. You know,
magnesium can't help reduce anxiety, and magnesium also can reduce
symptoms of restless legs. But if you're taking a bunch
of magnesium because you're having late caffeine, you're not You're
not getting to the underlying root cause.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Okay. Blue light panic staring at a device or computer
before bed, health or hype.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Avoiding blue light before sleep is healthful, So that that's that's.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Health, okay, But being overly worried about it might be.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, I mean being overly worried about anything. Can you
know affect you?
Speaker 4 (32:52):
This one's important to me. I think sleep divorce, sleeping
in separate rooms from your partner. Is this health or hype?
Speaker 3 (32:59):
It's individual? It really is if the sleep divorce is
because there's untreated snoring and sleep apnea, you know, that's
that's that's not healthy.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Hypothetically speaking, if one of your people sleeping in a
bed it starfishes and hits everybody else in the face,
that would maybe be okay.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
But you know, patients tell me that you know, they
have their their sleep divorce with conjugal visits. That's that's fine.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
So okay.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
The Scandinavian sleep method, which if you're not aware, I wasn't,
but is separate blankets while sleeping. Is that health or hype?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
That's that's fine. That all depends on the individual, you know,
I mean, do you get less cuddling, less oxytocin being
released by by the touch?
Speaker 4 (33:44):
What about sleeping nude versus sleeping with clothing? Is there
health or hype advice behind?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
That has to be individualized. One thing is temperature. Okay,
so ideal temperature and studies is around sixty nine sixty
eight degrees, But that has to be individualized to both
the patient and the family. My wife will not do it.
We have thermostat wars at our house. She likes it
(34:11):
at seventy four.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
I'd like it at seventy What about bedtime stories? Is
that helpful health hype?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
If it's calming, Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
Now I'm going to tell you a bedtime story. It's
a soft, simple place to rest your mind, a way
to keep you from wandering.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
If you had to put sleep trends on a health
versus hype scale, it really depends on the trend and
the person. A few things do stand out, though. Sleep
quality matters just as much, if not more, as how
long you sleep for, and tools like melatonin or calming
bedtime routines they can't help for the right person. Other
(34:57):
trends may be less convincing. Mouth taping is a tough cell,
and sleep trackers can sometimes create more stress than they solve. Overall,
though most of these trends do lean more toward health
than hype. At the end of the day, it's really
about finding what helps your body and mind settle into
a deep, RESTful sleep, whether that's supplements, breath work, or
(35:20):
just a few minutes of quiet away from screens and
bright lights and the stress of your day. Sleep trends
are not a one size fits all solution, which means
you should have a conversation with your physician. Let me
know in the comments what works for you. And thanks
again to doctor Cologne for walking us through what healthy
sleep really looks like. And thanks to Lucy and Catherine
(35:42):
for sharing their stories and experiences with us. We got
to the bottom of yet another trend, but there are
many more to come. In this next episode, we're going
to explore the very popular supplement creatine and all of
the online claims surrounding the benefits of taking it. Hit
subscribe if you haven't already. For more information on all
of the topics we're covering, visit AMA Health versus Hype
(36:04):
dot org. That's AMA Health vs. Hype dot Org.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
Sweet Dreams.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Health Versus Hype is a production of Ruby Studio from
iHeartMedia and the American Medical Association. I'm Trace Dominguez. Our
producers are Matt Stillo and Pamela Lawrence. Michael Depo Wilson
is our writer. The show is engineered and features original
music by Matthew Ernest Filler. Health Versus Hype is intended
for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute
(36:34):
medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of
your physician with any questions. You may have regarding a
medical condition,
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I sleep with an eyemask to make it even darker.
I take my mouth closed. Then I also line my
bed and like cocoon my pillow around my head, and
I'm in a deep, dark slumber.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Sleep is one third of our life. If it wasn't
made to be important, it'd been a pretty evolutionary blunder.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's so hard to fall asleep if we don't feel safe.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
It can feel like the world is working against rest.
Endless scrolling, constant notifications, always that one more thing you
gotta check before you can go to bed. So it's
not surprising that people are looking for help, and some
turn to storytellers like Catherine Nikolai, whose podcast Nothing Much
Happens has helped people drift off more than two hundred
(00:47):
million times.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Our story tonight is called color Walk, and it's a
story about a soft way to move through the world
on the spring day.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Others, like content creator Lucy Fink, experiment with the latest
viral sleep trends, or reach for supplements like melatonin, anything
to squeeze just a little more rest out of a busy,
always on life.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I think the Ten Hours of Sleep one was just
kind of a selfish experiment I wanted to try.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
To get the facts about these trends and the best
ways to get a good night's sleep. A sleep medicine
physician like doctor jose Colgonne has answers.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I really have a lot of people that have difficulties
sleeping because something's bothering them. And what's bothering them is
that they're not asleep.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So let's get comfy.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
Lights out, friends, get snuggled down into your.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Sheets, because we've invited them all to dive into the
world of online sleep trends. Welcome back to Health Versus
Hype with the American Medical Association. I'm your host Trace Timingez.
Today we're going to uncover the truth about viral sleep
trends and answer the questions we're all curious about. Does
taping your mouth really improve sleep quality? Can sleep trackers
(02:05):
truly help to optimize sleep? And what does the science
actually say about how to get better sleep? So join
me as we find out whether recent online sleep trends
are all health or just hype. Last year, more than
(02:30):
half of adults in the United States said that they
had tried at least one viral sleep trend. That's according
to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. So to begin,
I want to understand what the latest viral sleep trends
are and why so many people are interested in trying them.
For that, I spoke with Lucy Fink, a popular lifestyle
influencer and content creator who recently got serious about optimizing
(02:53):
her sleep health. She posts about her sleep trend experiments,
which we'll get to in a second, but to set
the scene, we really I need to understand how Lucy
thinks about social media as a source of information for
sleep health.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I feel like social media for me, it's less of
a place to gather the real facts and the science
and more hearing anecdotal stories that people have about something
that maybe helped them that I could implement and try.
And I love trying things and tracking it and then
seeing how it goes. Like sometimes people in my life
(03:27):
will be like, don't you just want to live and
like enjoy instead of be constantly testing things out, And
I'm like, you don't know how much joy it brings
me to be like I am in the middle of
an experiment, leave me alone. And that to me is
fun is to be tracking and optimizing, whereas for someone
else that's overwhelming, right.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
I actually think that makes a nice transition into like, okay,
so let's talk about some of the experiments that you
mentioned that you're known for. Yeah, the five days of
learning to sleep better, the five days of sleeping on
the floor, the five days of getting ten hours of sleep. Yes,
of those, what would you say you took away from them?
What did you learn from them? Did you try any others?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I think the ten hours of sleep one was just
kind of a selfish experiment.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I wanted to try.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
I wasn't going to say anything.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I was like, how cool would this be? So
I can't say I learned that much from that, aside
from the fact that I don't think I actually need
ten hours of sleep at night. It was more of
like a kitchy experiment, whereas same with sleeping on the floor,
because I would never do that.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
I love a plush, soft bed.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I'm princess in the pea style where you know, even
just a different pillow under my head is going to
give me like a kink in my neck.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
So didn't love that one.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
But Lucy's experiment that left the most lasting impression was
an overall sleep hygiene study of sorts where she tested
a bunch of sleep strategies over a short period of
time to see which worked best for her.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That was the one that probably taught me the most,
and that I took the most away from as far
as like blacking out the room, making sure you don't
have it too hot and wearing cool and clothing, stopping
eating at a certain time, stopping drinking so you're not
uppeeing all night, things like that that I really do
take into every night and try to make sure I
(05:09):
set up a sleep environment no matter where I am
as good as possible at.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, why make work? Why make it hard on yourself?
Speaker 6 (05:16):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (05:17):
It sounds like because you try so many things, was
there any specific trend that you were like, that's it.
This is persuasive because it has some science behind it
and I'm gonna try it, or because it worked for
me or both. What trend kind of stuck out to you?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I mean, I really had trouble falling asleep, and then
I was identifying as a person who had trouble falling
asleep and then getting anxious about what was coming up
the next day, and it was just making it all worse.
So one of my good friends set me up on
a course of melatonin to reset my circadian rhythm and
gave me specific things to do, and working with him,
(05:50):
I was able to really get things back in order.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Your circadian rhythm is basically your body's built in twenty
four hour clock. It's what tells you when to sleepy
or when to feel awake. Sleep supplements like melatonin are
often pitched as a quick fix for better sleep, and
we'll dig into those claims in What the Science Actually
Says with Doctor Cologne a little later, but for now,
Lucy found that her answer was a bit simpler. She
(06:15):
leaned into relaxation techniques, the kind that you've probably heard
of before, counting sheep, running through the alphabet in your head,
just giving your mind something gentle to land on. Here's
Lucy describing her version of the technique.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
You pick a word, so let's say you pick the
word apple. Then you go through the word, and you
go through letter by letter, and you start with A
and you say as many words in your head as
you can that start with A while you're visualizing those
objects or things, and then you move on. Once you're
out of that, you move on to the P and
you do it again and supposedly, like a lot of us,
(06:51):
when we're trying to fall asleep, are trying to clear
our minds and think of nothing. But when your brain
falls into sleep, it's often like a very act state
of like seeing images and thinking of things. So you
don't want to just lie there and be like think
of nothing, be blank, be gone. But if you just
like let yourself think of random objects and picture them
(07:11):
and whatever, that can help lead.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
You into sleep.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Lucy is describing something that we've probably all experienced. You're exhausted,
but somehow, the second your head hits the pillow boom,
you're wide awake. And there's actually a reason that your
brain seems to switch gears at exactly the wrong time,
and why falling asleep can feel hardest when you're trying
the most. Our storyteller Catherine Nikolai explains just how this works.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
When we're in that chaotic, spiraling spin of thoughts. It's
sort of the background static of your brain, what your
brain does when it doesn't have a job to do.
That's where it's hardest to sleep, and that's why often
you could be in bed in a really uncomfortable position,
reading your book, but you cannot stay awake, you're moving
your eyes forward, you're not absorbing what you're reading your book,
he's falling in your face. Finally you give up, You
(07:57):
put your book down, you turn the light off, You
get as comfortable you have ever been, and now you
cannot sleep. And that's because you went from the task
positive mode now to default mode, and your brain didn't
have a job to do, and it wanted away and
got into trouble.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
If you've had a bad night's sleep, the signs are
usually pretty obvious. Right we wake up and we're still
feeling tired. As many as one in three people are
exhausted before even starting their day. But there are ways
to understand what kind of sleep you're getting each night,
and this is where sleep tracking enters the picture. You've
probably seen these before, smart watches, smart rings, all promising
(08:33):
to turn your sleep into data. Lucy spent plenty of
time experimenting with different sleep trackers and now has one
as part of her regular sleep routine.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I mean, everyone needs a different amount of sleep, and
it's going to have different biometric markers. So I think
healthy sleep is sleep that the next morning you.
Speaker 6 (08:53):
Feel good like. That's purely what it is.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And the trackers and the markers can just give you
more information and more data that probably confirm things for you.
Like one thing I've tried a lot is on nights
that I do have a glass of wine, my HRV
is plummeting and I just don't feel as well the
next day. So people can say scientifically, wine's going to
give you a hangover and make you feel ill the
next day, but it's like there's the data of what
(09:16):
it's doing, and then I can feel it. And so
you know, it's hard to tell someone to be chasing
certain markers or certain metrics, But do these experiments and
see what sleep environment and what lifestyle habits the night
before make you feel noticeably different the next morning, and
that's what matters for you.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
You heard Lucy mention HRV. That is heart rate variability.
Your heart rate, how many times your heart beats per minute,
changes depending on what you are doing. If you're calm
and relaxed, it slows down. If you're stressed or active,
it speeds up. HRV is just the tiny differences in
time between each of those beats. We're talking milliseconds, And
(09:57):
here's why people care. Generally, a higher HRV means that
your body is more flexible, say it's better at adapting
to stress, and often that means you're getting more restorative sleep.
But on the flip side, low heart rate variability that
can be a warning sign. It may mean that your
body isn't adapting as easily as it could, and it
might be under more strain, which sometimes can be linked
(10:20):
to health issues.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I've had a completely new relationship with sleep where I
have just fallen in love with it and with taking
care of it, and with prioritizing it over other things.
And it's now in my life, especially with the tracker
and being able to see exactly how much sleep I
got on a morning. When I feel good, I have
(10:42):
the most clarity every morning of I know I slept
well and I feel it in my body. And when
I don't get it, I don't even need to look
at the tracker. I could tell you I didn't get it.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Catherine has a similar all though slightly more blunt, take
on sleep trackers.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I'm tired of being boss around by my watch. I
don't wear it anywhere anymore. My wife, when she wakes
up in the morning, she checks right away her sleep
score and stuff. But I often found. Then it creates
this external sort of analytical relationship did I do it right?
Did I somehow fail at sleeping? And I feel like
(11:18):
sleep isn't a performance to be optimized, It is just
a biological experience to have.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
With that, I think it's finally time to bring in
our sleep medicine experts. Doctor Jose Colonne is the medical
director of Sleep Medicine at Lee Health in Southwest Florida,
and he's triple Board certified in sleep medicine, child neurology,
and lifestyle medicine. Doctor Cologne knows his stuff when it
comes to getting healthy sleep. He also has a lot
(11:46):
to say about sleep trackers and whether all that data
is helping or hurting your sleep. But let's start with
the basics first, like why is sleep so important?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
In sleep repair our body? Our immune system is activated,
we're cleaning our brain. We're also consolidating memories during sleep,
so it's vitally important.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
What happens to our bodies while we're sleeping.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
The brain activity does slow down in the same way
that everyone has a heart rate, well, we also have
a brain rate, and our brain does slow down and
cycles every ninety minutes into a different sleep cycle.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
It's easy to think of sleep like a simple on
off switch. You're either asleep or you're not, But it's
a lot more layered than that. It's not just about
how much sleep you get, it's about the kind of
sleep that you're getting. Also, you've probably heard of REM sleep.
It's short for rapid eye movement. That's the stage where
your brain is basically doing all the overnight reset tasks.
(12:51):
It's processing your memories, it's sorting through emotions, it's tightening
up the connections between your brain cells. REM sleep is
so important that studies show getting less of it is
linked to higher risks of dementia. REM is also when
dreaming happens. Your eyes are moving, your heart rate is
picking up a bit, and your body is temporarily paralyzed.
Thank goodness, so you're not physically running from whatever's chasing
(13:12):
you in your dreams or whatever. Maybe that's just me.
REM doesn't happen only one time throughout the night. It
comes in phases, and altogether it makes up roughly twenty
percent of your night's sleep.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Now, there's another stage of sleep that's not REM, and
it's called non REM. I make things simple, and the
first half of the night is where the deepest, non
rem sleep is, where our brain is very slow. It's
called slow wave sleep.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
What can prevent people from having that good night's sleep.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
One of them really is actually irregular rhythms or daytime napping.
We go through these different cycles, and in the first
half of the night is when we have the deepest sleep,
that deep slow wave sleep. That's the part that actually
washes away all of the fatigue and sleepiness we have,
you know. So that's why daytime sleep is one of
(14:03):
the cardinal problems with regular sleep at night. I give
an example that if someone is on their way to
a restaurant and they eat a sandwich on the way
to the restaurant, they could be hungry when they get there. Sure, well,
just like we need to develop an appetite, we need
to develop a sleep appetite or a sleep drive. Now
there's a misconception that if I didn't sleep well one night, oh,
(14:26):
let me sleep after school or after work. And really,
actually this phenomenon is remarkable. What you really need when
you're sleep deprived is just a regular, normal sleep. If
our brain has a lot of fatigue, the next time
that you go to sleep, you go into that deep
sleep deeper, and you're going to stay in it longer.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
That makes so much sense when you really think about it, Actually,
Doctor Cologne, your brain kind of knows that you're going
to get sleep deprived sometimes, and it fixes it on
its own without us ever having to op or manage it.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Correct And the definition of chronic sleep deprivation is chronically
getting five hours or less. For example, all right, look,
daylight savings, all this emphasis, yep, oh my god, you're
gonna lose one hour of sleep really on a Saturday
night when people sleep in on Sunday. Anyways, you don't
even go to work till Monday. That loss of one
(15:23):
hour sleep does no harm. The serious harm comes in
the fact that you shifted the environmental cues. That you
shifted the time, and now it's light later, making it
so that you stay up later, and guess what, work
time didn't change, So now you're creating a circadian pattern
(15:45):
that increases heart attacks, that increases strokes. You're a little
bit more sleep deprived, and you're driving in the dark.
The one hour of sleep that you missed that Saturday
night is not a signficant as what society has induced
in irregularity. Going back to your question, you know, what,
(16:08):
what are some of the things that cause us to
not sleep well? Yes, you know, anxieties and racing thoughts
are one of them, but daytime sleep and irregularities is
one of the biggest things that we see.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
So should I not be you know, taking an afternoon nap.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Naps do have a place, and in particular they've noticed
this in the workplace. If someone has a twenty minute nap,
they have increased productivity. If you hit forty minutes, you
start to get that deep sleep and you get that
sleep inertia and it's hard to wake up after after
the nap. But in general, you know, we try to
(16:46):
avoid napping unless you have something that you need your
vigilance for later in that day.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Yeah, there's a term that gets thrown around a lot
when we talk about sleep, sleep hygiene, you know, setting
up your environment for optimal sleep for you. Do you
support that idea? Can you talk a little bit about
what sleep hygiene might mean?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
So sleep hygiene are a list of dos and don'ts
that nobody wants to do. Okay, what I find is
that explanations are really more important than instructions. Instructions of
sleep hygen. Go to bed on time, wake up on time,
where something comfortable, stay in the dark, have a cool atmosphere.
(17:29):
Avoid electronics, avoid television. You know, don't do anything fun.
Everyone's already read them on the internet when they can't
sleep at night. You know, I'm going to ask you
some questions, and I promise that they're not hard questions.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Okay, sure, yeah, I'm game.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Do you drive? I do all right? When you drive?
Are you trying to fall asleep? Are you trying to
stay awake, alert and look at the road.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I'm trying to stay awake, alert and look at the road.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah. When you drive, do you sometimes listen to the radio?
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Often? I listen to podcasts, and I listen to the radio.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Okay, can you see how you're learning to associate that
radio with being alert. Some people, when they're driving and
they're tired, they turn up the radio. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
That does make sense. Yeah, you turn the radio up.
You listen to something more energetic.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
All right, So let's just say that you are in
bed and that you are not asleep. Can you see
how it would be a bad idea to listen to
that stimulating radio.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yeah, I could see that that would wouldn't really work.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Okay, So do people check their work email? Do they
get on a group chat because it is a boring
thing to do or because it is stimulating?
Speaker 4 (18:47):
It's stimulating. I love being in the group chat.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So explanations. You know, we try to avoid activity that
is stimulating. I don't like to tell people do something
thing boring. Nobody wants to be bored in life, you know,
So I say do things that are calling.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
That reminds me of Lucy and her sleep experiments. I'm
going to play you a clip from my talk with her.
She has developed a pretty elaborate ritual for her bedtime.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I kind of need to set up barriers in place
and systems in place and.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
Have a routine. No computer is coming in the.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Bedroom, so I just have more of a time that
the computer is closed and I'm heading upstairs, and then
once I get in bed, we have kind of a
very select list of shows and content that we can
watch to make sure that we're not watching something that's
going to totally ruin my mind before bed. These are
not as new, these are things I've been doing before,
but like some other general sleep hygiene things that I do.
(19:47):
You know, our room, we have blackout shade, blackout curtains,
The room is dark. We set the temperature to somewhere
between sixty eight, sixty seven and sixty nine degrees. Make
sure it's nice and cool in here. I sleep with
an imap to make it even darker. I take my
mouth closed, and then I also lie my bed and
like cocoon my pillow around my head and I'm in
a deep, dark slumber.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
So, doctor coloone, do you feel that as long as
that something that's helping Lucy, it's okay? Or is that
something that you would take issue with.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
If it helps her, that's okay. Having activity that's calming
is really the key. And I'm not saying things that
are boring, eliminating things half an hour before bedtime that
you know, we feel are gonna, you know, activate your brain.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Doctor clone. I want to go to something else that
she said, and maybe you can comment on that for us.
She noticed an interesting bit of data from her sleep tracker,
and we'll get into the data in a second, but
I want to hear what you think of this one
trend that she noticed. Let me play you the clip.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
It tells you the amount of time that you slept for,
like the exact hours, which will take into account any
awake time that you had, which we have a lot
of awake time in the middle of the night, just
random pockets of it. And I would say, on average
throughout the course of a night, I'm awake for about
an hour around the night.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So is that normal?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
An awakening at night can be normal. And everyone has
an awakening, whether they remember it or not, and how
you react during that awakening is going to influence when
you get back to sleep. Nobody sleeps for the night.
Everyone has some degree of awakenings. When we have these awakenings,
everyone has to have also an individualized routine. Some patients
(21:33):
will go to the bathroom, others will get a swig
of water. Here's a trend that I'm creating. When you
go to bed at night, set your alarm for either
what time you're going to wake up or what time
you're not going to be in bed past that particular time. Okay, Now,
when you have an awakening at night, and I didn't
(21:54):
say if when you have an awakening at night, don't
look at the time. The only thing that happens when
you look at the time as more thoughts. I've only
slept for this long, I only have this much longer
to sleep. I'm going to be up for this long.
We're doing this again? What's wrong with me? We impose
self judgment. I actually do discourage both television and phone
(22:16):
during these awakenings. Okay, because both of them emit light,
which can activate your brain. But the television serves as
a surrogate marker of time. One episode has been half
an hour, a movie's been two hours.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
So what are your thoughts around sleep trackers? They are
clearly very popular. Nearly half of Americans reported using one.
Are they as helpful as people seem to think they are?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Sleep trackers are? Are they hype or are they health?
They're both. I describe them as as neat but not
always validated. And from one tracker to the next, every
technology is as different. Now I will say this, it
is through the sleep trackers that we've been able to
find out that regularity is more important than duration when
(23:04):
it comes to mortality and health.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Yeah, how accurate are they? And how should people interpret them?
Speaker 3 (23:12):
With a grain of salt? And these are always studied
and people that are completely healthy, you know, which is
not the majority of our population. Sometimes. The other thing
is that you know, they're studied for the people who
have the money for them, you know, so they're they're
studied in people who are middle aged and mostly female
(23:33):
that use these But I've listened to lectures from the
scientists at fitbit, and you know, they show the data
in a typical population about a seventy percent accuracy. And
as I say, you know, they're mostly neat, not not
completely validated. I do wake up and I take a
(23:53):
look at my tracking. I ended up getting fit been
a number of years ago just because of the amount
of people that came to me with the track, and
I'm like, I don't know what this is. But there's
been some times that I don't feel like I'm going
to go back to sleep when I have an awakening,
and then the next thing I realize is that there's
an alarm and I'm dreaming, oh wow, I did get
(24:15):
back to sleep. Yeah, and my tracker does accurately tell
me that I'm in REMP. There's also been some times
that I know for a fact I ain't go back
to sleep. I know this, but my tracker not only
tells me that I was asleep, but it tells me
that I was in the deep sleep, that deep sleep
that you get in the first half of the night.
(24:35):
It's inaccurately telling me that I'm in the second half
of the night in deep sleep when I was awake. Now,
is the tracker a damn liar? No, it's measuring heart
rates and movements.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Interesting. Okay, I want to play another clip from Lucy.
This one's about mouth taping. There are a ton of
social media influencers who promote mouth taping as a sleep strategy.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So I tried the mouth tape, and I pretty much
strictly use three M medical tape. Like it's not the
fancy mouth tape and the shape of a lip. It's
like a little piece of tape that just keeps my
mouth closed. And I started doing it mostly because I
know that I slept with my mouth open, and almost
every morning when I would wake up, my mouth was
extremely dry.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
We're meant to be breathing through our nose.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
The hairs in our nostrils filter out the air more effectively,
and that's just how we're meant to be breathing, but
a lot of us are not.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
And now, when I go.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Somewhere If I forget to bring the mouth tape, it's
a rough night for me.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
So I'm going to keep doing my tape.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Clearly, Lucy feels like this is something that works, and
I'm guessing she's not the only one. I'm curious, what
are your thoughts about this trend? Does it concern you
at all?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
You can't just give a general set of rules to everyone.
If if someone has adenoid hyperchasy or turbinate hyperchasy and
you tape their mouth, you know you can suffocate them,
you know.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I just want to pop in and define those terms.
Adenoid hypertrophy and terminate hypertrophy. Both are conditions where tissues
in your nose or throat grow larger than normal due
to illness or some other health issue. The swelling can
make it much harder to breathe, which is what doctor
Colone is talking about. Okay, back to his answer.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
If someone's mouth breathing, it could be that they have
chronic congestion, and maybe we need to get the congestion
taken care of, whether it's medical therapy or anti inflammatory diets.
I do have some patients that their mouth opens when
they have the seapap on and those patients. I do
use the mouth tape with the seapap so that they
(26:43):
have less dry mouth in the morning. And the SEAPAP
is pressure that opens up their airway and they are
able to breathe with that pressure. But mouth taping alone
as monotherapy doesn't really have any benefits.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
That I'm SEAPAP, as doctor Colone just mentioned, stands for
continuous positive airway pressure. You've probably heard of it, especially
if you've ever lived with someone who snores lake a
freight train if it's new to you. A SEAPAP machine
is basically a mask and a tube setup that gently
pushes air through your nose or mouth to keep your
(27:20):
airway open while you're sleeping. It's most commonly used for
a condition called obstructive sleep apnea, where breathing can actually
start and stop throughout the night. And yeah, as you
can imagine, that leads to some pretty poor sleep. So
if this is something that you're dealing with, it's definitely
worth getting medical support. If you can't breathe, you're probably
(27:40):
not going to be sleeping very well, which is interesting.
Almost everyone I talked to mentioned some form of breath
work or meditation to help them fall asleep or improve
sleep quality. For example, here's what Lucy had to say.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
What I've found is more useful to me than just
sitting in silence is to do ten minutes of a
specific breath work exercise.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
And when I do that, I feel.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
As if I'm a different person at the end of
the ten minutes, and I just like feel tension gone
from my body, and then that contributes to a way
better night's sleep.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Catherine also believes in the power of breath work.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Even if you did something as simple as laying in
bed and scan through your body temples to toes a
couple times, take a few deep breaths, you're just speaking
the language of your body and showing it. Hey, danger
has passed. We don't need to be vigilant. It's time
for rest and digest. I always walk people through a
couple of deep breath Do that for two minutes. Turn
(28:34):
your story on.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
I bet you I'll get you to go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Even doctor Colonne agrees that breath work and meditation help
with sleep.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I actually want to make a plug. Okay, this is
the power of meditation, and I do either an awareness
of breath meditation or a body scan meditation. And that's
the power of meditation that it can put your body
in that same quiescent state. So even if I'm in sleep,
(29:04):
you still get R and R, you still get rest
and restoration.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Doctor Cologne. Why is it eight hours of sleep? Why
is that the gold standard? Is that a number that
we should all be shooting for.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well, everybody's different, and eight hours is what you shoot for.
But one thing that before I talk about sleep timing, okay,
I need to emphasize that sleep is probably equally as
important as it is also overemphasized. And what overemphasized. I
(29:40):
really have a lot of people that have difficulties sleeping
because something's bothering them. And what's bothering them is that
they're not asleep. I can't tell people don't worry about sleep,
but I have to tell everyone the opposite. The more
that you worry about it, the less of it that
that you're going to get. More than just saying the
word eight like things that are easy to remember, and
(30:04):
I see all ages from pediatric to geriatric. A twelve
month old should get eleven plus one eleven hours of
sleep plus one nap. A ten year old should be
getting about ten hours of sleep. A ninth grader through
high school should be getting about nine hours. Adults working
(30:25):
eight hour days should be getting about eight hours. Elderly
into your seventies should be getting about seven hours of sleep.
All of this is plus or minus one hour. So
in my typical adult population, I don't always emphasize that
eight hour seven hours is more than adequate for majority
(30:50):
of adults. Some may need that eighth hour. The other
thing that's really really interesting, okay, is if you take
a look at people who have short sleep time chronically
sleeping five hours or less, and you take a look
at people who have long sleep time, they're getting twelve
(31:12):
hours of sleep or more. The long sleep time actually
has a higher mortality and they're actually dying twice more
than the short sleep time is. So more sleep is
not always necessarily better. The quality of the sleep is
more important than the quantity number.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Okay, I'd love to get your take on a bunch
of different health claims around sleep trends now, so we
can go through these pretty quickly. Think of it as
a health versus hype rapid fire around. So first one,
let's put a bow on mouth taping health or hype
hype melatonin, health or hype, a bit of both.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
You know, melotona it's safe, it's effective, it's not habit forming.
But if you're having a racing mind, then you're not
a dressing the racing mind. You know, you're not addressing
the underlying issue.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
The sleepy girl mocktail a magnesium cocktail before bed which
contains cherry juice, magnesium powder, and sparkling water. Health or hype.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
It's fine, it's health in the right person. You know,
magnesium can't help reduce anxiety, and magnesium also can reduce
symptoms of restless legs. But if you're taking a bunch
of magnesium because you're having late caffeine, you're not You're
not getting to the underlying root cause.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Okay. Blue light panic staring at a device or computer
before bed, health or hype.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Avoiding blue light before sleep is healthful, So that that's that's.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Health, okay, But being overly worried about it might be.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, I mean being overly worried about anything. Can you
know affect you?
Speaker 4 (32:52):
This one's important to me. I think sleep divorce, sleeping
in separate rooms from your partner. Is this health or hype?
Speaker 3 (32:59):
It's individual? It really is if the sleep divorce is
because there's untreated snoring and sleep apnea, you know, that's
that's that's not healthy.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Hypothetically speaking, if one of your people sleeping in a
bed it starfishes and hits everybody else in the face,
that would maybe be okay.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
But you know, patients tell me that you know, they
have their their sleep divorce with conjugal visits. That's that's fine.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
So okay.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
The Scandinavian sleep method, which if you're not aware, I wasn't,
but is separate blankets while sleeping. Is that health or hype?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
That's that's fine. That all depends on the individual, you know,
I mean, do you get less cuddling, less oxytocin being
released by by the touch?
Speaker 4 (33:44):
What about sleeping nude versus sleeping with clothing? Is there
health or hype advice behind?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
That has to be individualized. One thing is temperature. Okay,
so ideal temperature and studies is around sixty nine sixty
eight degrees, But that has to be individualized to both
the patient and the family. My wife will not do it.
We have thermostat wars at our house. She likes it
(34:11):
at seventy four.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
I'd like it at seventy What about bedtime stories? Is
that helpful health hype?
Speaker 3 (34:18):
If it's calming, Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
Now I'm going to tell you a bedtime story. It's
a soft, simple place to rest your mind, a way
to keep you from wandering.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
If you had to put sleep trends on a health
versus hype scale, it really depends on the trend and
the person. A few things do stand out, though. Sleep
quality matters just as much, if not more, as how
long you sleep for, and tools like melatonin or calming
bedtime routines they can't help for the right person. Other
(34:57):
trends may be less convincing. Mouth taping is a tough cell,
and sleep trackers can sometimes create more stress than they solve. Overall,
though most of these trends do lean more toward health
than hype. At the end of the day, it's really
about finding what helps your body and mind settle into
a deep, RESTful sleep, whether that's supplements, breath work, or
(35:20):
just a few minutes of quiet away from screens and
bright lights and the stress of your day. Sleep trends
are not a one size fits all solution, which means
you should have a conversation with your physician. Let me
know in the comments what works for you. And thanks
again to doctor Cologne for walking us through what healthy
sleep really looks like. And thanks to Lucy and Catherine
(35:42):
for sharing their stories and experiences with us. We got
to the bottom of yet another trend, but there are
many more to come. In this next episode, we're going
to explore the very popular supplement creatine and all of
the online claims surrounding the benefits of taking it. Hit
subscribe if you haven't already. For more information on all
of the topics we're covering, visit AMA Health versus Hype
(36:04):
dot org. That's AMA Health vs. Hype dot Org.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
Sweet Dreams.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Health Versus Hype is a production of Ruby Studio from
iHeartMedia and the American Medical Association. I'm Trace Dominguez. Our
producers are Matt Stillo and Pamela Lawrence. Michael Depo Wilson
is our writer. The show is engineered and features original
music by Matthew Ernest Filler. Health Versus Hype is intended
for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute
(36:34):
medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of
your physician with any questions. You may have regarding a
medical condition,
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