November 4, 2024 • 32 mins
Ever wonder why you feel exhausted even after what seems like a full night’s rest? Join us in a compelling conversation with Dr. Vahid Yeganeh, physician and co-owner of Healthy Conditions, as we uncover the mysterious world of sleep and its vital role in our health. Dr. Yeganeh shares profound insights into why many of us struggle with fatigue, despite seemingly sufficient rest, and how poor sleep could be impacting our cardiometabolic health and mental acuity. We also dispel common sleep myths, such as the misconception that catching up on sleep during weekends can compensate for weekday deficits.
Understanding the science behind sleep cycles is crucial to unlocking the secret to feeling truly rested. With Dr. Yeganeh's expertise, we navigate the significance of REM sleep and discuss how fragmented sleep can leave us feeling worn out. Learn about the benefits and pitfalls of napping and how maintaining consistent sleep patterns can transform your energy levels and overall well-being. This episode provides clarity on why you might feel sluggish even when you're clocking in enough hours of sleep. Tune in for eye-opening advice on cultivating better sleep habits and improving your overall health.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, north Atlanta,
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, stacey Risley.
Hello friends and neighbors,welcome to North Atlanta's Good
Neighbor Podcast.
Today we are back with Dr VahidYagana.
He is the physician andco-owner of Healthy Conditions,
(00:20):
which is a concierge lifestylemedical clinic in Buckhead, and
he is our expert contributor forNorth Buckhead Neighbors and
has been for a little while forDunwoody Neighbors as well, and
we are so happy to have you back, dr Vahid.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thanks for having me back.
It's always fun to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Well, it is fun and I'm especially excited about
this topic.
This was at the end of our lastpodcast recording.
This is one that I requested.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I don't know that I've ever requested a topic for
an expert article.
This is all for you, stacey.
I appreciate it, the wholearticle.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
There should be a dedication page.
This article is dedicated toyou.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It is a great topic, it really is.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The topic that the title of your article is why am
I still tired?
And it surrounds, you know it's.
It's surrounded by sleep andsleep issues and how to correct
those.
So, Dr Raheem, thank you forwriting this, and let's go ahead
and jump in with just theimportance of sleep overall.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, actually that's a good one.
So it's probably of all of thelifestyle measures that I deal
with every day, it is the mostunderrated.
I think most people generallyunderstand that sleep is
important, you know, but theyassociate it with just yeah, so
that I'm not tired, so that I'mnot sleepy.
But the reality is that one inthree American adults don't get
(01:50):
enough sleep.
So, first and foremost, it'ssomething that affects a wide
range of people and quite a fewpeople in the US, and it will
affect so many elements of yourhealth across the board, like
cardiometabolic health, sothings with your heart health
and your blood sugar.
I'm going to just start listingall of the things that get
impacted negatively if you don'tget enough sleep.
(02:12):
I'm not going to be able tocover it all.
That's how long this list is,but if we're talking
specifically, let's say, aboutyour metabolic health, it will
increase insulin resistance, ifyou ever heard that term.
We associate that with thingslike prediabetes and diabetes,
and that's why it is alsoassociated with an increased
(02:33):
risk of developing type 2diabetes.
It's associated with anincreased risk of having weight
gain and suffering from obesity.
It will slow down themetabolism.
It is associated withincreasing your blood pressure.
It's associated with more heartdisease, more risk of stroke.
It'll weaken your immune system.
It will increase your risk ofcancer.
(02:54):
Specifically, it's been shownto be linked to higher rates of
breast cancer, and it'sOctober's Breast Cancer
Awareness Month.
Colon cancer, prostate cancers,anxiety, depression I can go on
and on and on, but needless tosay, it affects a lot that has
to do with the kind of allacross your health.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, Well, and I am the furthest thing from a doctor
that one can be, but this issomething I can really relate to
.
You know, this is somethingthat at different periods of you
know my life, I've had, youknow, sleep issues and not get
able to get a good night's rest,not getting enough sleep.
(03:35):
You know, there's just so manycomponents to it and it does
affect everything for me, youknow, and and I feel like I'm a
pretty healthy adult, I for themost part, and and when I'm not
getting regular good sleep, andit's like cumulative, like the
more nights of course in a row,it's just it will be to where
(03:57):
just I'll have like cognitiveshutdown, it's just.
I mean my mental acuity justdeclines significantly with lack
of sleep.
So let's the next part of yourand I know that I'm touching on
stuff already that I shouldn'tbe yet, but this is a
conversation- we're just goingto talk.
(04:17):
But you mentioned two commonmyths in your article about
sleep.
You know, and this I, I lovethis because I learned this
through my sleep struggles Um,this the first one, the first
one of these myths, which wastalking about the weekend.
So lead in with that.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so basically that if I'm not sleeping well
during the week, that's okay,cause on the weekend I'm going
to sleep in and I'm going tocatch up on that sleep.
So that's the myth, right?
Unfortunately, it doesn't quitework that way.
So our circadian rhythm right,so our sort of natural wake and
sleep cycle, is highly dependenton us being consistent with
(05:01):
those habits.
Right, it's highly dependent onour exposure to light, our
exposure to darkness, and we cango into detail about that maybe
a bit later.
But when we have a disruptedsleep cycle right, and I'll get
into what that looks like duringthe week and then we sleep in
on the weekend, usually whatends up happening is we will
(05:21):
probably be groggier anyway onthe weekend, but also Sunday
night, when it's time to kind ofget back to bed for an earlier
wake up the next day, we have ahard time falling asleep and we
just kind of repeat that cycle.
So unfortunately, it doesn'tmake up, so for this chronically
sleep deprived state that we'rein, like we're not getting
(05:42):
enough chronically, and it justdoesn't work that way,
unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, I've heard it referred to in the past as as
you're accumulating sleep debtyou know, and that you can't I
mean you can't get out of it,but you've missed this except
it's debt you can't can't getyour, you know, crawl out of.
So that's.
I used to try to do exactlywhat you're saying and try to
(06:06):
make up for it on the weekends,because, especially when I was a
school teacher and my daysstarted so early cause I was an
elementary school teacher, youknow had to be at work, you know
, at 650, before the kidsarrived, and I'm not a typical,
I'm not a natural morning person.
So it was tough and so I wouldtry to.
You know that was getting upsuper early and going to bed not
(06:30):
early enough, because I had myown kids to take care of.
You know, everything comesbefore your own sleep.
It seems like that's like a lotof times last on the list.
So the other myth was one thatsurprised me a little bit.
So the other myth was one thatsurprised me a little bit
because I thought that you knowit says that waking up during
the night means poor sleep, andI thought if you were waking up
(06:52):
during the night, that did meanyou weren't getting quite as
restful sleep.
So I was really happy to readabout this myth.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So with that one, I'll be very clear about what I
mean by that.
I'll be very clear about what Imean by that.
So we go through sleep,different sleep stages,
throughout the night, and thenwe cycle through those stages
several times.
So if we're waking up at theend of one of those cycles,
briefly, that's actually fairlycommon and in the case of most
(07:23):
people we don't remember havingwoken up in between, right, so
you just associate it with oh no, I was asleep the whole night.
Sometimes we'll be at the end ofone of our cycles and we'll
wake up briefly and realize wefeel like going to the bathroom,
and that's okay.
I mean, if you're going to thebathroom four or five times a
night, definitely that'll startdisrupting your sleep.
(07:43):
But one trick actually or nottrick, but I guess a thing that
I like to tell patients to do isto use lights in the red light
spectrum in their bathroom, aslong as it's bright enough so
they don't trip and fall, but itdoesn't send the wrong signal
to the back of your eye thatokay, bright lights, it's time
to wake up, and it helps yousort of get fall right back to
(08:08):
sleep.
But usually, what's that?
What happens as we're cyclingthrough these stages?
At the end of that cycle itwill be up for a second or you
know, for a little bit, andwe'll fall right back asleep.
The problems arise when wecan't fall back asleep, and so
there's different things in ourday to day that can impact that
and cause our sleep to befragmented.
But yeah, waking up is actuallysomething you're probably doing
and not remembering that you'redoing.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Very good, all right.
Well, so the next thing youmentioned is sleep cycles there.
But the next thing in yourarticle you kind of talk about
understanding the sleep cycles,starting with light sleep,
intermediate sleep, deep sleepand then REM sleep.
So you want to touch on those?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, I think it'll be a good idea to go through
that a bit.
So we can divide our sleep intotwo big sort of sections, right
?
So we have what we call non-REMsleep and REM sleep, and
non-REM just means non-rapid eyemovement sleep, right.
And when we look at thatnon-REM sleep we can divide that
further into three stages.
(09:05):
So in the article I've labeledit, as you know, light and
intermediate and deep.
These stages are called N1, N2,and N3.
You could, you know, and some ofmy colleagues will group the N1
and N2 both as light sleep.
I called it intermediate there,just because what I consider N1
, the best way I could describeit is kind of when you want to,
(09:28):
you know, you lay down to go tosleep and then you get woken up
and you feel like you didn'treally fall asleep.
Well, you're probably in thatsort of N1 stage.
So those two stages areconsidered light.
One is a little bit lighterthan the other.
And three would be the deepsleep.
That's where most of ourphysical sort of restorative
sleep is going on.
Then we go into that secondportion, the REM sleep.
That's when, you know youalluded to cognitive function,
(09:51):
right, Like having cognitiveimpairment, so a lot of those
cognitive repair functions andmemory processing, emotional
processing stuff.
All that's going on during REM,and REM is when we're having
you know, those when we'redreaming, obviously in rapid eye
movement, sleep.
So that's typically how ourcycle looks.
(10:12):
Now we will go, let's say, togo from one end to the other end
of that.
To complete that cycle isroughly around 90 minutes and
we'll do that typically aroundanywhere from four to six times
a night.
We'll cycle through oh wow,Okay, Four to six times a night.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
We'll cycle through.
Oh wow, okay, four to six timesa night.
And so how long like if you are, say, 15, and this is off topic
a little bit, but let's say youwere taking a nap, you know,
like that you had time on aSaturday afternoon for a nap how
long would you need to sleep tomake it through those sleep
cycles?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Typically, so going through the whole thing will
typically take about 90 minutes.
It doesn't mean that taking a30 minute nap is necessarily bad
for you or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
That was where I was going with.
This.
Is a cat nap a good thing?
Is that good?
Or is it just going to make mefeel worse?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
That could be a topic for another article.
Actually, we could get into thenitty-gritty about naps and the
timing of that and how that'simpacting your nighttime sleep.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Actually thanks for the idea.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I think that'll be a good thing to get into.
You can dedicate that one to metoo.
Yeah, I think that'll be a goodthing to get into.
You can dedicate that one to metoo.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
But yeah, so these cycles again.
When I say typically, I'msaying in a situation where you
know things are functioning asthey should.
It's about approximately 90minutes.
It's obviously going to varyfrom person to person.
As we get older, we spend lesstime in REM sleep, and so
there's a lot of factors toconsider, but I would say a
simple answer would be around 90minutes.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Okay, lot of factors to consider, but I would say a
simple answer would be around 90minutes, okay, and I didn't
mean to get straight off too farthere, but no, that's okay.
We are talking about nighttimesleep, so we'll get back into
that.
So one of the next majorportions of your article where
you were giving us some reasonswhy we might feel sluggish even
we feel like we are gettingenough sleep.
Why are we still feeling tired?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, I'm trying to remember what I wrote first,
fragmented sleep.
Fragmented sleep, yeah, soessentially anything that
disrupts those cycles, right?
So anything that's going toimpact how much time we spend,
let's say, in the deep sleep,how much time we spend in the
REM sleep, is going to impacthow tired you feel.
(12:25):
Basically, it's going to impacthow restorative that sleep was,
first and foremost, and thatfeels like fatigue the next day.
That feels like that grogginessand whatnot.
So again with fragmented sleep.
So, again with fragmented sleep, that can be caused by
lifestyle, but that could alsohappen when you have a
full-blown sleep disorder.
(12:45):
So it's important todistinguish here between you
know what's an actual sleepdisorder and just not getting
you know, not having good sleephygiene, for example.
So sleep disorders would bethings like restless leg
syndrome or sleep apnea or justchronic insomnia.
Those are things that you'dneed to see a sleep specialist
about and deal with because theyare serious things that have
(13:08):
their treatment protocols thatwill vastly improve your quality
of life if you respond well tothem.
So, outside of that, lifestylefactors could be.
So, outside of that, lifestylefactors could be everything from
your physical activity levels,your stress levels, all of your
habits in and around yournighttime routine, your habits
in and around the morning.
What are you doing when you'regetting up in the morning.
(13:30):
So really pretty mucheverything you do throughout the
day can impact your sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And one of the things that you touched on when you
were talking about lifestylefactors was the excessive screen
time, you know, before bed, andthat's something you know.
You know, as a teacher, I wasalways telling parents, like you
know that, because we were, youknow, guided that that really
can be an issue for kids duringtheir developmental time, you
know.
And inability to sleep, and itreally translates to us too.
(13:59):
I mean, today we are all on ourphones, you know we are, you
know I try really hard to unplugbecause I it's not good for my
mental health to be too tuned into everything else.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
By the way, there's higher incidence of anxiety,
depression, with more and moreuse of these you know of these
applications on our phones andalso just with less sleep.
And you mentioned kids.
Kids need more sleep thanadults, right?
I don't know if I mentioned itearlier, but the average adult
requires anywhere from seven tonine hours of sleep, so that's
(14:35):
what we're aiming for.
Maybe I didn't mention that.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I don't think we did yeah, so how much is the right?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
amount Anywhere between seven to nine hours of
sleep.
So that's what we're aiming for.
Maybe I didn't mention that,but I think, yeah.
So how much is the right amount?
Anywhere between seven to ninehours, yeah.
And what about kids?
Depending on their age, so thesmaller they are, the more sleep
they need.
You know, it could be anywherefrom 10 to 12 hours, and then
the much younger kids, but itcould be something like nine to
10, nine to 11 hours for, let'ssay, adolescents.
I would, I would be aiming forat least nine to 10 hours there,
yeah.
And then so having those agegroups essentially growing up in
(15:04):
an era where it's all aboutscreens is a challenging thing
as a whole.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I could not agree more on that.
You did want to touch on a noteabout caffeine and alcohol and
I this is, I'm not.
I don't drink much alcohol veryrarely, but I do like I'm a I
have, I have my coffee in themornings and I drink.
(15:32):
I mean, I don't drink.
I try not to drink caffeinelate in the day, but this is
something that's very relevantto me, so I'm very interested to
hear your take on it.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I picked these two on purpose because I feel like
there's a quite a decent numberof folks out there who will
consume either one or both ofthese things.
I personally love coffee.
That could be a whole otherconversation Me too.
Yeah, and I'll be clear I'mgoing to talk about.
You know, I'll tell you whatcaffeine is going to do in terms
of sleep, right, specificallywith regards to that.
(16:04):
But it's not me telling youthat caffeine is bad for you per
se, right?
Or having a cup of coffee inthe morning is bad for you.
It's just you know the quantityand when we're consuming it,
etc.
That's what can start impactingit.
So let's start with that.
Let's start with caffeine, andwhat caffeine is going to do is
overall, in a nutshell, it'sjust going to reduce the amount
(16:25):
of time that you're sleeping,right?
So we're reducing time both inthat deep sleep stage as well as
time in the REM sleep stage,and overall it just makes that
sleep less restorative and is itbecause of the difficulty
falling asleep?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You're going to sleep later because of the caffeine
intake.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yes, so that has something to do with it as well,
right, so that is one aspect ofit.
However, you'll have somepeople that will be like, oh no,
I can have a double espressoand just hit the pillow and I'm
done.
Hit the pillow and I'm done.
You're still causing somefragmentation in the sense that
you're decreasing the amount ofthose stages of sleep.
(17:05):
So even in those folks thatdon't have a hard time falling
asleep, it's still not the bestsituation to be in if you're
having caffeine so close tobedtime.
So what does this look like forsomeone that does like to enjoy
coffee?
Well, coffee, depending againon the person, ballpark
half-life is about, let's say,five or six hours.
(17:26):
What does half-life mean?
The time it takes for half ofthat substance to come out of
your body, right To leave yourbody.
So if it has, let's say, let'sgo with five hours, right,
because, again, your age and somany things can factor into how
you process the caffeine.
But if you think about it likethat, if you have a morning
coffee, for most people you'llbe okay.
(17:46):
By the time you go down to bedyou've gotten quite enough of
that caffeine out of your system.
But let's say you're havinglike a 4 pm coffee.
Well, five hours from thenthat's 9 pm.
Half of that caffeine is stillbanging around your system and
is going to disrupt your sleepor the quality of that sleep.
So the timing is crucial here.
Obviously, the quantity isimportant, right, if you're
(18:09):
having 20 cups of coffee a day,you know we're gonna have other
stuff to talk about maybe.
But another important thing tonote is we you know we're
thinking caffeine, coffee andtea.
There's a lot of stuff outthere that has caffeine in it.
So I would just be wary of whatI'm ingesting in terms of these
drinks that are out there.
There's a lot of things thathave caffeine and we don't
(18:30):
realize it.
So I would look at nutritionlabels, look at ingredients,
because we could be ingesting itwithout knowing it.
Yeah, because we could beingesting it without knowing it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, so in alcohol, the biggest thing that was
surprising to me on this is that, because alcohol, for me, does
have a drowsiness effect, youknow.
So I think, oh yeah, you know,if I were to have a glass of
wine before bed, that's going tohelp me sleep, and you know.
I know having a cup of coffeeisn't going to help me sleep.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
But I think alcohol could be misleading.
You're not entirely wrong.
So you're absolutely right inthat alcohol is a depressant
right, and so it's actuallygoing to make it easier to fall
asleep, that sort of initialstage of just falling asleep.
What ends up happening when youdo have alcoholic beverages?
It will fragment your sleep inthe following way In the first
(19:20):
half of the night you're goingto have less of that REM sleep,
right, you will have a bit moreof the deep sleep initially, and
you're falling asleep a littlequicker.
Now, in the second half of thenight, as your body's
metabolizing the alcohol, you'llhave what we call a REM rebound
.
So now your body's trying tomake up for the REM sleep that
it didn't have in the first half, and so you'll have much more
(19:43):
of that.
And then also in that secondhalf of the night, we become
much more prone to awakenings,we get much more of that light
sleep and we're just easilywoken up, and so that
fragmentation tends to happen inthe second half of the night
disrupts the sleep in that way.
So that fragmentation tends tohappen in the second half of the
(20:04):
night disrupts the sleep inthat way.
So, even though it helps youfall asleep, it is in terms of
quality of sleep overallthroughout the night.
It is detrimental and I wouldn'trecommend it.
I wouldn't recommend anyalcohol beverages.
You know the new data we havethere's no good amount,
unfortunately.
I just made a lot of enemies, Iknow, but I'm sorry, that's the
data talking, not me.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's right Basically, strictly talking
about the data.
It's not his fault, oh man.
Okay, so let's talk about thesnooze button trap, because I
used to be so guilty of this.
I mean, and I don't know what Ithought, hitting the snooze
button, setting my alarmintentionally now so that I
(20:37):
could hit the snooze buttonthree times, like when I was a
school teacher, I wouldintentionally do that and I knew
that it wasn't.
I mean, I knew, I knew itwasn't a good, but in my mind it
helped me get up because I washaving to wake up before, you
know, the sun came up.
Especially now that we're aboutto have, you know, daylight
savings time, that's going toaffect a lot of school teachers.
(20:58):
Especially now that we're aboutto have, you know, daylight
savings time, that's going toaffect a lot of school teachers.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
They have to get up so early before the sun is even
thought about rising.
You know how many of us havelike three or four alarms ready
to roll, cause we know the firstone, won't you know?
So it's a common thing and thesnooze button is a common thing.
Okay, so what's let me?
Let me actually start by askingyou a question.
Okay, Since you say that you,you know you've suffered from
that, how did you feel waking upafter having hit the snooze
(21:25):
button a couple of times?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Irritated.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Okay, did you feel more rested?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Definitely not.
No, I, yeah, I.
I still I can't give a goodanswer of why I did it, but I
was definitely caught in thattrap.
You know, I just I thought ninemore minutes, oh gosh, it's
going to give me nine moreminutes.
I need nine more minutes.
I'm not quite ready yet.
Okay, nine more.
And then 30 minutes have goneby and I am rushing, trying to
get ready.
(21:51):
I'm by and I am rushing tryingto get ready.
I'm not anymore rested and youknow I'm mad at myself for being
so.
I'm starting my morningfrustrated with myself for
having such a hard time gettingup, you know, like it was just a
really bad cycle.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
You touched on actually very good points there.
So, first and foremost, if ifyou hit the snooze button and it
meant you could sleep anothertwo hours, there would be
nothing wrong with hittingsnooze, right.
But typically when you'rehitting snooze it's something
like a 10 minute break I'm notsure which.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, nine Right, yeah, nine minutes.
I think that's pretty standard.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Something along those lines.
And so you can imagine, nowthat you have some knowledge
about these sleep stages and howwe cycle through them, that
that's not a whole lot of timeto really get into any real deep
sleep, right, so you're goinginto a little bit, it's not 9-0,
like the 90-minute nap, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Nine minutes is not very much.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Very light type of sleep and then you're getting
snapped right out of it again,so it's not helping you feel
more rested.
That's the first thing right.
And then we have thatpsychological component what you
said where the tone we'resetting for the day.
It doesn't work well for us.
At least for me it doesn't workwell.
I have one alarm and it goesoff once, and I know that sounds
(23:07):
kind of risky to a lot ofpeople, but you'll be surprised
if you know there's only onealarm and you're not going to
snooze it.
You'll get up.
I mean, it might take you, youmight get in trouble a couple of
times, but eventually you know,eventually you probably will
wake up a few minutes beforeyour alarm goes off.
I'm sure people listening arefamiliar with that sort of
phenomenon and that's perfectlynormal.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
So yeah, the snooze button.
I don't know if there's anydata you might.
Can you know, tell me ifthere's any data to this to back
it up?
When I stopped, when I got outof the snooze button trap and in
all fairness, it was when Istopped having to get up at, you
know, five o'clock in themorning- you know.
So when, when I didn't have toget up that early, and some
really four, 50, you know waswhat was when my first alarm
(23:51):
went off Um, I'm really 450,.
You know was when my firstalarm went off Once I didn't
have to get up that early, butstill early, you know, but the
sun was at least coming up Once.
Then I had no, no problemgetting out of the snooze button
trap, and I realized that'swhen I realized that, oh my gosh
, I woke up in a bad mood for 20years because of the snooze
(24:13):
button, if I had just, you knowlike I mean it really, because
the psychological component isreal.
You know you're starting yourday off with a fail.
You know, like the alarm wentoff and I didn't get out of bed.
The alarm went off again, Istill didn't get out of bed.
Three strikes, and that's howI'm starting my day, fabulous.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And then you feel tired throughout the day.
Then you've had a busy day.
You come home and like, well,this is the only time I get to
myself, and so you end upstaying up at a later, and then
the cycle kind of just keepsrepeating itself.
So I'm familiar, and I'm suremany people are familiar with
that.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Well, so you, you talked aboutthe hype around sleep hacking.
Is that something?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yes, the hype around sleep hacking Is that something?
Yes, that's an important one.
Actually, that's reallyimportant.
So today we have a lot oftechnology available to
everybody to measure sleep right.
So watches and things you puton your finger, like the.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Oura Ring, I think, is one of them.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I think Loop or something.
Don't quote me on the names.
I'm not familiar.
I don't use any of them.
I don't think there'snecessarily anything wrong with
them.
Inherently, we get into troublewhen we get a little bit overly
obsessive about tracking thesedifferent things right.
So you'll have folks waking upsaying oh, how much time did I
spend in deep sleep?
(25:25):
Oh, did I get enough REM sleep?
And then?
So what ends up happening?
By actually trying to improveour sleep, we get so stressed
about it, so anxious around it,that it actually has the
opposite effect.
So now we're causing our sleepquality to decrease because
we're so anxious about gettinggood sleep quality.
And you could apply the samething to food.
(25:46):
You could apply it to severalthings actually, where you get
so concerned about thatlifestyle aspect right, in this
case, sleep that now it isaffecting you psychologically,
it's affecting your mood, it'saffecting, and it will have the
opposite effect.
So I would just I'm not sayingdon't use these things, but your
(26:08):
sleep is going to fluctuate,the quality of your sleep is
going to fluctuate, and ifyou're aiming for like this,
quote unquote perfect night ofsleep, you're going to be
disappointed because it doesn'tlook like that right.
So I would just say it's animportant point, because we can
run into problems trying to fixthat very problem right, and it
(26:29):
happens.
I know people that haveexperienced this, so it's a real
thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Well, and you talked about the importance of getting
evaluated.
You know if you're having justongoing sleep issues.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
The importance of that, yeah, because there's so
many things that can impact itright, like we could be having
thyroid issues and not know it.
We could have underlyingdepression and not be aware of
it.
Necessarily.
There's so many things.
Like I said, there's thesesleep disorders that you could
be evaluated for, and, let's say, if you have sleep apnea, well,
you can get on a CPAP and allof a sudden, your sleep quality
(27:04):
improves and a lot of otherthings improve as well.
But yeah, so I would say, ifyou have any doubt, get
evaluated and just see what'sgoing on.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah Well, and then you did give some summary tips
of how to improve your sleephabits, and those were having a
comfortable sleep environment,regular sleep schedule, limiting
stimulants and alcohol, windingdown before bed and screen time
.
And alcohol, winding downbefore bed and screen time those
(27:35):
are kind of what we've alreadychatted about, but maybe, like,
maybe touch on the winding downbefore bed, you know, like that.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
That's a good point, yeah, so I like to have a wind
down routine, so something alongthe lines of an hour to two
before the time you want to goto bed.
So let's say I want to.
I want to have a bedtime of 10PM by around eight 30.
I'm already starting to dim thelights, if you have dimmers on
them, if not switching offcertain lights, just because
those are the signals that ourbody is getting through the day
(28:05):
to understand when we need to godown to sleep, when to turn,
you know, when to increase ourmelatonin and at a different
date maybe we can talk aboutmelatonin.
But essentially, melatonin istelling our body it's nighttime
and it's time to go to bed, andit increases when we're exposed
to darkness, right?
So turning down the lights,dimming those lights about an
hour and a half to two hoursbefore, is a good habit to get
(28:27):
into and then doing any activitythat relaxes you.
You know, for some peoplereading a book might be very
relaxing, for somebody else thatmight be very stimulating.
So, understanding and knowingyourself, what do I find
relaxing?
Is it a bath?
Is it some calming music?
Find those things that you knowcalm you down, sort of wind you
down.
Think about how you wouldcreate a bedtime for a child and
(28:48):
start applying that foryourself.
There's nothing wrong withhaving sort of a nighttime
routine as an adult.
It's actually quite healthy.
So that's what I mean by likesort of the winding down routine
Again around sleep.
It's all about consistency,right?
So getting the daytime lightexposure, like when you wake up,
that exposure to light thatbasically tells your body oh,
(29:09):
it's time to get up and increaseour cortisol, decrease our
melatonin, and at night, whenit's dark.
So that's why the screen timeis such an issue, because it's
sending a mixed signal to us.
It's telling our brain look atall this bright light, it's
definitely not time to go down.
But you know, then these otheraspects all the lights around
you are dark and everything elseis saying it's nighttime.
So with the phone I know it's atough one I would say if you
(29:35):
can get the phone out of theroom, that's probably the best
case scenario where you're noteven tempted to touch it.
You're not.
You know, just a notificationgoing off the light of the phone
, even if it's on silent, coulddisrupt some people's sleep.
So if you can get out of theroom, even better.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, I know that one for sure.
It's been a game changer for me.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Absolutely One.
I didn't write in there thatkind of touches on.
Something we mentioned earlierwas weekends and weekdays.
Try and have a prettyconsistent sleep time and awake
time.
Yes, you will have somefluctuations, but try for that
not to vary so much.
That's at least what I do.
People wonder why do I get upat 6 am on Saturday and Sunday?
It's just that's how my body isnow kind of trained to wake up
(30:18):
on a weekday.
So I try not to mess with ittoo much on the weekend.
Give or take half an hour anhour, not a big deal.
But you know I'm not doing thislike getting up on a 5 am
weekday and then getting up at12 pm on the weekend.
That's really going to sendmixed signals and make it very
hard to have a proper circadianrhythm.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Well, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you
writing this article in thefirst place, but you know you do
such a great job of explainingit to those of us who don't have
your expertise and I reallyvalue having you on who don't
have your expertise, and Ireally value having you on and I
do love the idea of you doingone on on how naps can be
(30:57):
helpful and how like how toimplement those.
I just, I just love these, thatyou know these topics apply and
I know that your practice alsoapplies to, to all people you
know to.
To it's a basically a familypractice type practice type
practice.
You know life's not justlifestyle, medicine, but um, but
(31:18):
everything.
So I love that that you have somuch knowledge that you're
sharing it with us and um, andthat you treat such a wide range
of of everything.
So you are, hands down, one ofmy very favorites guests to have
.
I'm so glad you're a repeatingguest to the next one.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me again.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
You are so welcome and if you guys want to have a
sleep evaluation, if you'rewanting to go and you know chat
with Dr Vahid at HealthyConditions, I just can't tell
you.
If you're wanting to go andchat with Dr Vahid at Healthy
Conditions, I just can't tellyou.
If you have not had thepleasure of having a
conversation with Dr Vahidyourself, you're missing out.
He's a great guy to get to know, especially if he's your doctor
(32:05):
.
I can't imagine.
Well, thank you so much forbeing on again, vahid, and we
will see you next time.
Thank you, well, that's all fortoday's episode.
Atlanta I'm Stacey Risley withthe Good Neighbor Podcast.
Thanks for listening and forsupporting the local businesses
and nonprofits of our greatcommunity.
(32:25):
Thanks for listening to theGood Neighbor Podcast North
Atlanta.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses, visit gnp north
atlanta.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, north Atlanta,
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, stacey Risley.
Hello friends and neighbors,welcome to North Atlanta's Good
Neighbor Podcast.
Today we are back with Dr VahidYagana.
He is the physician andco-owner of Healthy Conditions,
(00:20):
which is a concierge lifestylemedical clinic in Buckhead, and
he is our expert contributor forNorth Buckhead Neighbors and
has been for a little while forDunwoody Neighbors as well, and
we are so happy to have you back, dr Vahid.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thanks for having me back.
It's always fun to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Well, it is fun and I'm especially excited about
this topic.
This was at the end of our lastpodcast recording.
This is one that I requested.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I don't know that I've ever requested a topic for
an expert article.
This is all for you, stacey.
I appreciate it, the wholearticle.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
There should be a dedication page.
This article is dedicated toyou.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It is a great topic, it really is.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The topic that the title of your article is why am
I still tired?
And it surrounds, you know it's.
It's surrounded by sleep andsleep issues and how to correct
those.
So, Dr Raheem, thank you forwriting this, and let's go ahead
and jump in with just theimportance of sleep overall.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, actually that's a good one.
So it's probably of all of thelifestyle measures that I deal
with every day, it is the mostunderrated.
I think most people generallyunderstand that sleep is
important, you know, but theyassociate it with just yeah, so
that I'm not tired, so that I'mnot sleepy.
But the reality is that one inthree American adults don't get
(01:50):
enough sleep.
So, first and foremost, it'ssomething that affects a wide
range of people and quite a fewpeople in the US, and it will
affect so many elements of yourhealth across the board, like
cardiometabolic health, sothings with your heart health
and your blood sugar.
I'm going to just start listingall of the things that get
impacted negatively if you don'tget enough sleep.
(02:12):
I'm not going to be able tocover it all.
That's how long this list is,but if we're talking
specifically, let's say, aboutyour metabolic health, it will
increase insulin resistance, ifyou ever heard that term.
We associate that with thingslike prediabetes and diabetes,
and that's why it is alsoassociated with an increased
(02:33):
risk of developing type 2diabetes.
It's associated with anincreased risk of having weight
gain and suffering from obesity.
It will slow down themetabolism.
It is associated withincreasing your blood pressure.
It's associated with more heartdisease, more risk of stroke.
It'll weaken your immune system.
It will increase your risk ofcancer.
(02:54):
Specifically, it's been shownto be linked to higher rates of
breast cancer, and it'sOctober's Breast Cancer
Awareness Month.
Colon cancer, prostate cancers,anxiety, depression I can go on
and on and on, but needless tosay, it affects a lot that has
to do with the kind of allacross your health.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, Well, and I am the furthest thing from a doctor
that one can be, but this issomething I can really relate to
.
You know, this is somethingthat at different periods of you
know my life, I've had, youknow, sleep issues and not get
able to get a good night's rest,not getting enough sleep.
(03:35):
You know, there's just so manycomponents to it and it does
affect everything for me, youknow, and and I feel like I'm a
pretty healthy adult, I for themost part, and and when I'm not
getting regular good sleep, andit's like cumulative, like the
more nights of course in a row,it's just it will be to where
(03:57):
just I'll have like cognitiveshutdown, it's just.
I mean my mental acuity justdeclines significantly with lack
of sleep.
So let's the next part of yourand I know that I'm touching on
stuff already that I shouldn'tbe yet, but this is a
conversation- we're just goingto talk.
(04:17):
But you mentioned two commonmyths in your article about
sleep.
You know, and this I, I lovethis because I learned this
through my sleep struggles Um,this the first one, the first
one of these myths, which wastalking about the weekend.
So lead in with that.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so basically that if I'm not sleeping well
during the week, that's okay,cause on the weekend I'm going
to sleep in and I'm going tocatch up on that sleep.
So that's the myth, right?
Unfortunately, it doesn't quitework that way.
So our circadian rhythm right,so our sort of natural wake and
sleep cycle, is highly dependenton us being consistent with
(05:01):
those habits.
Right, it's highly dependent onour exposure to light, our
exposure to darkness, and we cango into detail about that maybe
a bit later.
But when we have a disruptedsleep cycle right, and I'll get
into what that looks like duringthe week and then we sleep in
on the weekend, usually whatends up happening is we will
(05:21):
probably be groggier anyway onthe weekend, but also Sunday
night, when it's time to kind ofget back to bed for an earlier
wake up the next day, we have ahard time falling asleep and we
just kind of repeat that cycle.
So unfortunately, it doesn'tmake up, so for this chronically
sleep deprived state that we'rein, like we're not getting
(05:42):
enough chronically, and it justdoesn't work that way,
unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, I've heard it referred to in the past as as
you're accumulating sleep debtyou know, and that you can't I
mean you can't get out of it,but you've missed this except
it's debt you can't can't getyour, you know, crawl out of.
So that's.
I used to try to do exactlywhat you're saying and try to
(06:06):
make up for it on the weekends,because, especially when I was a
school teacher and my daysstarted so early cause I was an
elementary school teacher, youknow had to be at work, you know
, at 650, before the kidsarrived, and I'm not a typical,
I'm not a natural morning person.
So it was tough and so I wouldtry to.
You know that was getting upsuper early and going to bed not
(06:30):
early enough, because I had myown kids to take care of.
You know, everything comesbefore your own sleep.
It seems like that's like a lotof times last on the list.
So the other myth was one thatsurprised me a little bit.
So the other myth was one thatsurprised me a little bit
because I thought that you knowit says that waking up during
the night means poor sleep, andI thought if you were waking up
(06:52):
during the night, that did meanyou weren't getting quite as
restful sleep.
So I was really happy to readabout this myth.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So with that one, I'll be very clear about what I
mean by that.
I'll be very clear about what Imean by that.
So we go through sleep,different sleep stages,
throughout the night, and thenwe cycle through those stages
several times.
So if we're waking up at theend of one of those cycles,
briefly, that's actually fairlycommon and in the case of most
(07:23):
people we don't remember havingwoken up in between, right, so
you just associate it with oh no, I was asleep the whole night.
Sometimes we'll be at the end ofone of our cycles and we'll
wake up briefly and realize wefeel like going to the bathroom,
and that's okay.
I mean, if you're going to thebathroom four or five times a
night, definitely that'll startdisrupting your sleep.
(07:43):
But one trick actually or nottrick, but I guess a thing that
I like to tell patients to do isto use lights in the red light
spectrum in their bathroom, aslong as it's bright enough so
they don't trip and fall, but itdoesn't send the wrong signal
to the back of your eye thatokay, bright lights, it's time
to wake up, and it helps yousort of get fall right back to
(08:08):
sleep.
But usually, what's that?
What happens as we're cyclingthrough these stages?
At the end of that cycle itwill be up for a second or you
know, for a little bit, andwe'll fall right back asleep.
The problems arise when wecan't fall back asleep, and so
there's different things in ourday to day that can impact that
and cause our sleep to befragmented.
But yeah, waking up is actuallysomething you're probably doing
and not remembering that you'redoing.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Very good, all right.
Well, so the next thing youmentioned is sleep cycles there.
But the next thing in yourarticle you kind of talk about
understanding the sleep cycles,starting with light sleep,
intermediate sleep, deep sleepand then REM sleep.
So you want to touch on those?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, I think it'll be a good idea to go through
that a bit.
So we can divide our sleep intotwo big sort of sections, right
?
So we have what we call non-REMsleep and REM sleep, and
non-REM just means non-rapid eyemovement sleep, right.
And when we look at thatnon-REM sleep we can divide that
further into three stages.
(09:05):
So in the article I've labeledit, as you know, light and
intermediate and deep.
These stages are called N1, N2,and N3.
You could, you know, and some ofmy colleagues will group the N1
and N2 both as light sleep.
I called it intermediate there,just because what I consider N1
, the best way I could describeit is kind of when you want to,
(09:28):
you know, you lay down to go tosleep and then you get woken up
and you feel like you didn'treally fall asleep.
Well, you're probably in thatsort of N1 stage.
So those two stages areconsidered light.
One is a little bit lighterthan the other.
And three would be the deepsleep.
That's where most of ourphysical sort of restorative
sleep is going on.
Then we go into that secondportion, the REM sleep.
That's when, you know youalluded to cognitive function,
(09:51):
right, Like having cognitiveimpairment, so a lot of those
cognitive repair functions andmemory processing, emotional
processing stuff.
All that's going on during REM,and REM is when we're having
you know, those when we'redreaming, obviously in rapid eye
movement, sleep.
So that's typically how ourcycle looks.
(10:12):
Now we will go, let's say, togo from one end to the other end
of that.
To complete that cycle isroughly around 90 minutes and
we'll do that typically aroundanywhere from four to six times
a night.
We'll cycle through oh wow,Okay, Four to six times a night.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
We'll cycle through.
Oh wow, okay, four to six timesa night.
And so how long like if you are, say, 15, and this is off topic
a little bit, but let's say youwere taking a nap, you know,
like that you had time on aSaturday afternoon for a nap how
long would you need to sleep tomake it through those sleep
cycles?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Typically, so going through the whole thing will
typically take about 90 minutes.
It doesn't mean that taking a30 minute nap is necessarily bad
for you or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
That was where I was going with.
This.
Is a cat nap a good thing?
Is that good?
Or is it just going to make mefeel worse?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
That could be a topic for another article.
Actually, we could get into thenitty-gritty about naps and the
timing of that and how that'simpacting your nighttime sleep.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Actually thanks for the idea.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I think that'll be a good thing to get into.
You can dedicate that one to metoo.
Yeah, I think that'll be a goodthing to get into.
You can dedicate that one to metoo.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
But yeah, so these cycles again.
When I say typically, I'msaying in a situation where you
know things are functioning asthey should.
It's about approximately 90minutes.
It's obviously going to varyfrom person to person.
As we get older, we spend lesstime in REM sleep, and so
there's a lot of factors toconsider, but I would say a
simple answer would be around 90minutes.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Okay, lot of factors to consider, but I would say a
simple answer would be around 90minutes, okay, and I didn't
mean to get straight off too farthere, but no, that's okay.
We are talking about nighttimesleep, so we'll get back into
that.
So one of the next majorportions of your article where
you were giving us some reasonswhy we might feel sluggish even
we feel like we are gettingenough sleep.
Why are we still feeling tired?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, I'm trying to remember what I wrote first,
fragmented sleep.
Fragmented sleep, yeah, soessentially anything that
disrupts those cycles, right?
So anything that's going toimpact how much time we spend,
let's say, in the deep sleep,how much time we spend in the
REM sleep, is going to impacthow tired you feel.
(12:25):
Basically, it's going to impacthow restorative that sleep was,
first and foremost, and thatfeels like fatigue the next day.
That feels like that grogginessand whatnot.
So again with fragmented sleep.
So, again with fragmented sleep, that can be caused by
lifestyle, but that could alsohappen when you have a
full-blown sleep disorder.
(12:45):
So it's important todistinguish here between you
know what's an actual sleepdisorder and just not getting
you know, not having good sleephygiene, for example.
So sleep disorders would bethings like restless leg
syndrome or sleep apnea or justchronic insomnia.
Those are things that you'dneed to see a sleep specialist
about and deal with because theyare serious things that have
(13:08):
their treatment protocols thatwill vastly improve your quality
of life if you respond well tothem.
So, outside of that, lifestylefactors could be.
So, outside of that, lifestylefactors could be everything from
your physical activity levels,your stress levels, all of your
habits in and around yournighttime routine, your habits
in and around the morning.
What are you doing when you'regetting up in the morning.
(13:30):
So really pretty mucheverything you do throughout the
day can impact your sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And one of the things that you touched on when you
were talking about lifestylefactors was the excessive screen
time, you know, before bed, andthat's something you know.
You know, as a teacher, I wasalways telling parents, like you
know that, because we were, youknow, guided that that really
can be an issue for kids duringtheir developmental time, you
know.
And inability to sleep, and itreally translates to us too.
(13:59):
I mean, today we are all on ourphones, you know we are, you
know I try really hard to unplugbecause I it's not good for my
mental health to be too tuned into everything else.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
By the way, there's higher incidence of anxiety,
depression, with more and moreuse of these you know of these
applications on our phones andalso just with less sleep.
And you mentioned kids.
Kids need more sleep thanadults, right?
I don't know if I mentioned itearlier, but the average adult
requires anywhere from seven tonine hours of sleep, so that's
(14:35):
what we're aiming for.
Maybe I didn't mention that.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I don't think we did yeah, so how much is the right?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
amount Anywhere between seven to nine hours of
sleep.
So that's what we're aiming for.
Maybe I didn't mention that,but I think, yeah.
So how much is the right amount?
Anywhere between seven to ninehours, yeah.
And what about kids?
Depending on their age, so thesmaller they are, the more sleep
they need.
You know, it could be anywherefrom 10 to 12 hours, and then
the much younger kids, but itcould be something like nine to
10, nine to 11 hours for, let'ssay, adolescents.
I would, I would be aiming forat least nine to 10 hours there,
yeah.
And then so having those agegroups essentially growing up in
(15:04):
an era where it's all aboutscreens is a challenging thing
as a whole.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I could not agree more on that.
You did want to touch on a noteabout caffeine and alcohol and
I this is, I'm not.
I don't drink much alcohol veryrarely, but I do like I'm a I
have, I have my coffee in themornings and I drink.
(15:32):
I mean, I don't drink.
I try not to drink caffeinelate in the day, but this is
something that's very relevantto me, so I'm very interested to
hear your take on it.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I picked these two on purpose because I feel like
there's a quite a decent numberof folks out there who will
consume either one or both ofthese things.
I personally love coffee.
That could be a whole otherconversation Me too.
Yeah, and I'll be clear I'mgoing to talk about.
You know, I'll tell you whatcaffeine is going to do in terms
of sleep, right, specificallywith regards to that.
(16:04):
But it's not me telling youthat caffeine is bad for you per
se, right?
Or having a cup of coffee inthe morning is bad for you.
It's just you know the quantityand when we're consuming it,
etc.
That's what can start impactingit.
So let's start with that.
Let's start with caffeine, andwhat caffeine is going to do is
overall, in a nutshell, it'sjust going to reduce the amount
(16:25):
of time that you're sleeping,right?
So we're reducing time both inthat deep sleep stage as well as
time in the REM sleep stage,and overall it just makes that
sleep less restorative and is itbecause of the difficulty
falling asleep?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You're going to sleep later because of the caffeine
intake.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yes, so that has something to do with it as well,
right, so that is one aspect ofit.
However, you'll have somepeople that will be like, oh no,
I can have a double espressoand just hit the pillow and I'm
done.
Hit the pillow and I'm done.
You're still causing somefragmentation in the sense that
you're decreasing the amount ofthose stages of sleep.
(17:05):
So even in those folks thatdon't have a hard time falling
asleep, it's still not the bestsituation to be in if you're
having caffeine so close tobedtime.
So what does this look like forsomeone that does like to enjoy
coffee?
Well, coffee, depending againon the person, ballpark
half-life is about, let's say,five or six hours.
(17:26):
What does half-life mean?
The time it takes for half ofthat substance to come out of
your body, right To leave yourbody.
So if it has, let's say, let'sgo with five hours, right,
because, again, your age and somany things can factor into how
you process the caffeine.
But if you think about it likethat, if you have a morning
coffee, for most people you'llbe okay.
(17:46):
By the time you go down to bedyou've gotten quite enough of
that caffeine out of your system.
But let's say you're havinglike a 4 pm coffee.
Well, five hours from thenthat's 9 pm.
Half of that caffeine is stillbanging around your system and
is going to disrupt your sleepor the quality of that sleep.
So the timing is crucial here.
Obviously, the quantity isimportant, right, if you're
(18:09):
having 20 cups of coffee a day,you know we're gonna have other
stuff to talk about maybe.
But another important thing tonote is we you know we're
thinking caffeine, coffee andtea.
There's a lot of stuff outthere that has caffeine in it.
So I would just be wary of whatI'm ingesting in terms of these
drinks that are out there.
There's a lot of things thathave caffeine and we don't
(18:30):
realize it.
So I would look at nutritionlabels, look at ingredients,
because we could be ingesting itwithout knowing it.
Yeah, because we could beingesting it without knowing it.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, so in alcohol, the biggest thing that was
surprising to me on this is that, because alcohol, for me, does
have a drowsiness effect, youknow.
So I think, oh yeah, you know,if I were to have a glass of
wine before bed, that's going tohelp me sleep, and you know.
I know having a cup of coffeeisn't going to help me sleep.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
But I think alcohol could be misleading.
You're not entirely wrong.
So you're absolutely right inthat alcohol is a depressant
right, and so it's actuallygoing to make it easier to fall
asleep, that sort of initialstage of just falling asleep.
What ends up happening when youdo have alcoholic beverages?
It will fragment your sleep inthe following way In the first
(19:20):
half of the night you're goingto have less of that REM sleep,
right, you will have a bit moreof the deep sleep initially, and
you're falling asleep a littlequicker.
Now, in the second half of thenight, as your body's
metabolizing the alcohol, you'llhave what we call a REM rebound
.
So now your body's trying tomake up for the REM sleep that
it didn't have in the first half, and so you'll have much more
(19:43):
of that.
And then also in that secondhalf of the night, we become
much more prone to awakenings,we get much more of that light
sleep and we're just easilywoken up, and so that
fragmentation tends to happen inthe second half of the night
disrupts the sleep in that way.
So that fragmentation tends tohappen in the second half of the
(20:04):
night disrupts the sleep inthat way.
So, even though it helps youfall asleep, it is in terms of
quality of sleep overallthroughout the night.
It is detrimental and I wouldn'trecommend it.
I wouldn't recommend anyalcohol beverages.
You know the new data we havethere's no good amount,
unfortunately.
I just made a lot of enemies, Iknow, but I'm sorry, that's the
data talking, not me.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's right Basically, strictly talking
about the data.
It's not his fault, oh man.
Okay, so let's talk about thesnooze button trap, because I
used to be so guilty of this.
I mean, and I don't know what Ithought, hitting the snooze
button, setting my alarmintentionally now so that I
(20:37):
could hit the snooze buttonthree times, like when I was a
school teacher, I wouldintentionally do that and I knew
that it wasn't.
I mean, I knew, I knew itwasn't a good, but in my mind it
helped me get up because I washaving to wake up before, you
know, the sun came up.
Especially now that we're aboutto have, you know, daylight
savings time, that's going toaffect a lot of school teachers.
(20:58):
Especially now that we're aboutto have, you know, daylight
savings time, that's going toaffect a lot of school teachers.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
They have to get up so early before the sun is even
thought about rising.
You know how many of us havelike three or four alarms ready
to roll, cause we know the firstone, won't you know?
So it's a common thing and thesnooze button is a common thing.
Okay, so what's let me?
Let me actually start by askingyou a question.
Okay, Since you say that you,you know you've suffered from
that, how did you feel waking upafter having hit the snooze
(21:25):
button a couple of times?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Irritated.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Okay, did you feel more rested?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Definitely not.
No, I, yeah, I.
I still I can't give a goodanswer of why I did it, but I
was definitely caught in thattrap.
You know, I just I thought ninemore minutes, oh gosh, it's
going to give me nine moreminutes.
I need nine more minutes.
I'm not quite ready yet.
Okay, nine more.
And then 30 minutes have goneby and I am rushing, trying to
get ready.
(21:51):
I'm by and I am rushing tryingto get ready.
I'm not anymore rested and youknow I'm mad at myself for being
so.
I'm starting my morningfrustrated with myself for
having such a hard time gettingup, you know, like it was just a
really bad cycle.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
You touched on actually very good points there.
So, first and foremost, if ifyou hit the snooze button and it
meant you could sleep anothertwo hours, there would be
nothing wrong with hittingsnooze, right.
But typically when you'rehitting snooze it's something
like a 10 minute break I'm notsure which.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, nine Right, yeah, nine minutes.
I think that's pretty standard.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Something along those lines.
And so you can imagine, nowthat you have some knowledge
about these sleep stages and howwe cycle through them, that
that's not a whole lot of timeto really get into any real deep
sleep, right, so you're goinginto a little bit, it's not 9-0,
like the 90-minute nap, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Nine minutes is not very much.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Very light type of sleep and then you're getting
snapped right out of it again,so it's not helping you feel
more rested.
That's the first thing right.
And then we have thatpsychological component what you
said where the tone we'resetting for the day.
It doesn't work well for us.
At least for me it doesn't workwell.
I have one alarm and it goesoff once, and I know that sounds
(23:07):
kind of risky to a lot ofpeople, but you'll be surprised
if you know there's only onealarm and you're not going to
snooze it.
You'll get up.
I mean, it might take you, youmight get in trouble a couple of
times, but eventually you know,eventually you probably will
wake up a few minutes beforeyour alarm goes off.
I'm sure people listening arefamiliar with that sort of
phenomenon and that's perfectlynormal.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
So yeah, the snooze button.
I don't know if there's anydata you might.
Can you know, tell me ifthere's any data to this to back
it up?
When I stopped, when I got outof the snooze button trap and in
all fairness, it was when Istopped having to get up at, you
know, five o'clock in themorning- you know.
So when, when I didn't have toget up that early, and some
really four, 50, you know waswhat was when my first alarm
(23:51):
went off Um, I'm really 450,.
You know was when my firstalarm went off Once I didn't
have to get up that early, butstill early, you know, but the
sun was at least coming up Once.
Then I had no, no problemgetting out of the snooze button
trap, and I realized that'swhen I realized that, oh my gosh
, I woke up in a bad mood for 20years because of the snooze
(24:13):
button, if I had just, you knowlike I mean it really, because
the psychological component isreal.
You know you're starting yourday off with a fail.
You know, like the alarm wentoff and I didn't get out of bed.
The alarm went off again, Istill didn't get out of bed.
Three strikes, and that's howI'm starting my day, fabulous.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And then you feel tired throughout the day.
Then you've had a busy day.
You come home and like, well,this is the only time I get to
myself, and so you end upstaying up at a later, and then
the cycle kind of just keepsrepeating itself.
So I'm familiar, and I'm suremany people are familiar with
that.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Well, so you, you talked aboutthe hype around sleep hacking.
Is that something?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yes, the hype around sleep hacking Is that something?
Yes, that's an important one.
Actually, that's reallyimportant.
So today we have a lot oftechnology available to
everybody to measure sleep right.
So watches and things you puton your finger, like the.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Oura Ring, I think, is one of them.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I think Loop or something.
Don't quote me on the names.
I'm not familiar.
I don't use any of them.
I don't think there'snecessarily anything wrong with
them.
Inherently, we get into troublewhen we get a little bit overly
obsessive about tracking thesedifferent things right.
So you'll have folks waking upsaying oh, how much time did I
spend in deep sleep?
(25:25):
Oh, did I get enough REM sleep?
And then?
So what ends up happening?
By actually trying to improveour sleep, we get so stressed
about it, so anxious around it,that it actually has the
opposite effect.
So now we're causing our sleepquality to decrease because
we're so anxious about gettinggood sleep quality.
And you could apply the samething to food.
(25:46):
You could apply it to severalthings actually, where you get
so concerned about thatlifestyle aspect right, in this
case, sleep that now it isaffecting you psychologically,
it's affecting your mood, it'saffecting, and it will have the
opposite effect.
So I would just I'm not sayingdon't use these things, but your
(26:08):
sleep is going to fluctuate,the quality of your sleep is
going to fluctuate, and ifyou're aiming for like this,
quote unquote perfect night ofsleep, you're going to be
disappointed because it doesn'tlook like that right.
So I would just say it's animportant point, because we can
run into problems trying to fixthat very problem right, and it
(26:29):
happens.
I know people that haveexperienced this, so it's a real
thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Well, and you talked about the importance of getting
evaluated.
You know if you're having justongoing sleep issues.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
The importance of that, yeah, because there's so
many things that can impact itright, like we could be having
thyroid issues and not know it.
We could have underlyingdepression and not be aware of
it.
Necessarily.
There's so many things.
Like I said, there's thesesleep disorders that you could
be evaluated for, and, let's say, if you have sleep apnea, well,
you can get on a CPAP and allof a sudden, your sleep quality
(27:04):
improves and a lot of otherthings improve as well.
But yeah, so I would say, ifyou have any doubt, get
evaluated and just see what'sgoing on.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah Well, and then you did give some summary tips
of how to improve your sleephabits, and those were having a
comfortable sleep environment,regular sleep schedule, limiting
stimulants and alcohol, windingdown before bed and screen time
.
And alcohol, winding downbefore bed and screen time those
(27:35):
are kind of what we've alreadychatted about, but maybe, like,
maybe touch on the winding downbefore bed, you know, like that.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
That's a good point, yeah, so I like to have a wind
down routine, so something alongthe lines of an hour to two
before the time you want to goto bed.
So let's say I want to.
I want to have a bedtime of 10PM by around eight 30.
I'm already starting to dim thelights, if you have dimmers on
them, if not switching offcertain lights, just because
those are the signals that ourbody is getting through the day
(28:05):
to understand when we need to godown to sleep, when to turn,
you know, when to increase ourmelatonin and at a different
date maybe we can talk aboutmelatonin.
But essentially, melatonin istelling our body it's nighttime
and it's time to go to bed, andit increases when we're exposed
to darkness, right?
So turning down the lights,dimming those lights about an
hour and a half to two hoursbefore, is a good habit to get
(28:27):
into and then doing any activitythat relaxes you.
You know, for some peoplereading a book might be very
relaxing, for somebody else thatmight be very stimulating.
So, understanding and knowingyourself, what do I find
relaxing?
Is it a bath?
Is it some calming music?
Find those things that you knowcalm you down, sort of wind you
down.
Think about how you wouldcreate a bedtime for a child and
(28:48):
start applying that foryourself.
There's nothing wrong withhaving sort of a nighttime
routine as an adult.
It's actually quite healthy.
So that's what I mean by likesort of the winding down routine
Again around sleep.
It's all about consistency,right?
So getting the daytime lightexposure, like when you wake up,
that exposure to light thatbasically tells your body oh,
(29:09):
it's time to get up and increaseour cortisol, decrease our
melatonin, and at night, whenit's dark.
So that's why the screen timeis such an issue, because it's
sending a mixed signal to us.
It's telling our brain look atall this bright light, it's
definitely not time to go down.
But you know, then these otheraspects all the lights around
you are dark and everything elseis saying it's nighttime.
So with the phone I know it's atough one I would say if you
(29:35):
can get the phone out of theroom, that's probably the best
case scenario where you're noteven tempted to touch it.
You're not.
You know, just a notificationgoing off the light of the phone
, even if it's on silent, coulddisrupt some people's sleep.
So if you can get out of theroom, even better.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, I know that one for sure.
It's been a game changer for me.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Absolutely One.
I didn't write in there thatkind of touches on.
Something we mentioned earlierwas weekends and weekdays.
Try and have a prettyconsistent sleep time and awake
time.
Yes, you will have somefluctuations, but try for that
not to vary so much.
That's at least what I do.
People wonder why do I get upat 6 am on Saturday and Sunday?
It's just that's how my body isnow kind of trained to wake up
(30:18):
on a weekday.
So I try not to mess with ittoo much on the weekend.
Give or take half an hour anhour, not a big deal.
But you know I'm not doing thislike getting up on a 5 am
weekday and then getting up at12 pm on the weekend.
That's really going to sendmixed signals and make it very
hard to have a proper circadianrhythm.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Well, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you
writing this article in thefirst place, but you know you do
such a great job of explainingit to those of us who don't have
your expertise and I reallyvalue having you on who don't
have your expertise, and Ireally value having you on and I
do love the idea of you doingone on on how naps can be
(30:57):
helpful and how like how toimplement those.
I just, I just love these, thatyou know these topics apply and
I know that your practice alsoapplies to, to all people you
know to.
To it's a basically a familypractice type practice type
practice.
You know life's not justlifestyle, medicine, but um, but
(31:18):
everything.
So I love that that you have somuch knowledge that you're
sharing it with us and um, andthat you treat such a wide range
of of everything.
So you are, hands down, one ofmy very favorites guests to have
.
I'm so glad you're a repeatingguest to the next one.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me again.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
You are so welcome and if you guys want to have a
sleep evaluation, if you'rewanting to go and you know chat
with Dr Vahid at HealthyConditions, I just can't tell
you.
If you're wanting to go andchat with Dr Vahid at Healthy
Conditions, I just can't tellyou.
If you have not had thepleasure of having a
conversation with Dr Vahidyourself, you're missing out.
He's a great guy to get to know, especially if he's your doctor
(32:05):
.
I can't imagine.
Well, thank you so much forbeing on again, vahid, and we
will see you next time.
Thank you, well, that's all fortoday's episode.
Atlanta I'm Stacey Risley withthe Good Neighbor Podcast.
Thanks for listening and forsupporting the local businesses
and nonprofits of our greatcommunity.
(32:25):
Thanks for listening to theGood Neighbor Podcast North
Atlanta.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses, visit gnp north
atlanta.
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