September 26, 2024 • 35 mins
Do you feel like you are always tired? In this episode Justin and Eddie expore why people are feeling more tired than ever. From stress to screen time there are a lot of reasons why people are not sleeping as well as they used to. Tune in for information on sleep plus some tricks to help you feel refreshed and energized!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Well, oh, just see a little tired today, but ready
to record a podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Oh are we going to leave that in? Or is
that like it was a bit we should proably, we
should probably cut that out right.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Got it out, I'll edit it in the posts.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Don't worry.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
This is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano,
a Child and Adolescent psychiatry fellow.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And I'm Medikoreo, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is
here because we wanted to start a much neater conversation
about mental health.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Our goal is to teach you as much as we
can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in
the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders,
psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope
you enjoy. Today's episode.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I Heart Mia.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So if you couldn't tell from my very cheesy introduction,
we are talking about tiredness and probably the title of
the episode will hint you off as well. But there's
a reason why we want to talk about this, and
I always kind of try to base these podcast episodes
on something that's actually going on in real life. And
it seems like every single patient that I talked to,
(01:21):
I go out in the waiting room and I ask like, hey,
how's it going, how are you doing, And almost every
single one I'm tired.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm just really tired.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I was like, there was a day where every single
patient told me that, and I was just like, what
is going on? Why does everyone feel so tired? So
I started doing some diving on it, and yeah, it
does appear that people are feeling more tired than ever.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I feel like that's the teen emotion, like that is
even though it's not an emotion. Yeah, I get the
same exact thing. How's it going, Oh, pretty tired? How
much did you sleep last night? Well? I was up
late because and it's tough, you know. I feel for teens.
I think back to high school time. You got sports,
you got extracurriculars. Some kids have a zero period. You
(02:09):
get to school at like seven o'clock in the morning,
seven thirty in the morning, you're in school till three
thirty ish. You go to practice, or you go to work.
You don't get work, get home from work until like seven,
eight or nine, You get home, you eat dinner, it's
nine thirty, and then it's time to go to bed.
We are you supposed to do homework or are's supposed
to study? So yeah, I feel for kids, especially because
(02:31):
we might talk about it, but you know as well
as I do, justin that, like kids need more sleep
now than they probably do at other points in their life,
like as they're getting older and they're not really getting it.
So constant fatigue, for sure is out there.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, it's not just kids too. Back in February, Time
magazine released an article titled why are We more Exhausted
than Ever? And they actually called this period of time
in American history the Great Exhaustion.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh this is getting ridiculous. Come on.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
According to the article, people are feeling so tired that
they are actually deprioritizing their hobbies and things like getting exercise,
so it's actually changing their lifestyle choices.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
One source from the health and safety magazine dot Com
published a survey that showed in twenty twenty two, three
out of five adults said they were more tired now
than they ever have been. A couple other interesting findings
included working from home during the pandemic interrupted sleep cycles.
As I was reading and getting ready for this, one
thought I had was that midday nap that are probably
(03:33):
a lot of people are squeezing in. If you're not
as tired later in the day, right, that's got to
be part of it, right, Or or you stay up
a little later because I don't got to wake up
until five minutes before it's time to work. I don't
need to have my camera on for the meeting. I
don't know. That might be part of it. The other
piece is that a Gallup poll from April twenty twenty
(03:53):
four showed that more than half of Americans feel like
they need more sleep, which is the first time that
this has happened. Surveys showed that most people felt like
they were getting in sufficient sleep. So something is shifting.
Our societal culture is shifting, and we're trying to figure
out what that is.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's always hard to try and find a direct causal
relationship because it's hard to do randomized, double blind, controlled
studies on the entire population. But we have some ideas,
and there's some things that we found online that might
be somewhat helpful for if you're feeling like it's hard
to get enough sleep, like you're really tired. We're hoping
(04:31):
that this helps you.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So some of those things include things like anemia. What
is anemia.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Anemia is actually not having enough red blood cells, so
you're not getting enough oxygen to your tissues, so you
feel a little bit more tired. Some of the other
medical causes of feeling really tired. And it seems like
most people are tired not from medical causes, but it's
important to recognize that there are a lot of medical
causes that can make you feel chronic fatigue and tired.
(04:58):
Another really common one is thyroid issues like hypothyroidism. Your
thyroid is too low and your thyroid is a little
butterfly shaped gland that sits at the base of your neck,
and it's kind of like your thermostat for your body.
Too high and you got too much energy and you're
cranking all the time, and too low is you're really
slow and you don't have enough energy. I saw a
(05:18):
man who had literally taken medicine to ablate his thyroid
get rid of his thyroid, which is used they used
to do that in the past for like thyroid cancer,
and then that he forgot to take his thyroid medicine
after he had gotten rid of his thyroid and he
was literally talking like oh shit. It was like, no way,
(05:40):
that is such a crazy thing to see.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, another possible medical cause could be sleep apnea. So
that is when correct me wherever I'm wrong, justin But
when you're sleeping snoring, and then at some points, because
of like the snoring and the way that you're sleeping,
you essentially stop breathing and then you like wake and
wake up from it. People that have sleep apnea end
(06:02):
up like not having very RESTful sleep throughout the night.
Just imagine that, Like you're waking up every so often,
you're not breathing, so then you wake up, you have
all these times of waking up. You're not really falling
into those deeper stages of sleep, so you're not really
getting any rest, and then that in itself can have
a lot more longer term health problems. Does that sound
about right? That was perfect?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Hell yeah, And I have seen cases where sleep apnea
does really impact people's lives. I had a case way
back in the day of a guy with bipolar disorder
who had really bad sleep apnea, or when his sleep
apnea was not under control. So he wasn't getting enough
oxygen to his brain and he's not getting enough good sleep.
His bipolar was way out of control more than normal.
(06:46):
So it can really impact your life, especially if you
have some of these mental health diagnoses.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And then the very last one is depression. Depression definitely
can have an impact on your feelings of exhaustion, just
your overall all everything, right. I think a lot of
people will discount how much depression can impact you physically,
how much it can make you feel tired all of
the time. So you have people who end up trying
(07:11):
to sleep all day and just aren't even getting feeling
like they're rested enough because of things like because of
being depressed and feeling like no matter what you do
to get rest, it's just not enough.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So let's talk a little bit about sleep. Because people
think that your brain shuts off during sleep. That's kind
of a misconception because it's actually a very active process.
Even though we spend about a third of our live sleeping,
we still have a lot to learn about sleep. We
think sleep is a way to conserve energy, it's a
(07:41):
time to heal the body and the brain. Sleep also
helps us convert our short term memories into long term memory,
which I just learned from watching the movie Inside Out,
great Pixar film. The recommended sleep time by age are
as follows, and this is according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Children at age one to five should get ten to
(08:02):
fourteen hours per night of sleep.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You have ages six to twelve should it get about
nine to twelve hours of sleep.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Ages thirteen through eighteen should get eight to ten.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
And then eighteen up. Anywhere between seven and nine hours
is good. I will say that eight to ten hours
for that thirteen to eighteen range, the range that you
and I primarily work with. They are not hitting that.
Maybe some are, but there are a lot of kids
who are. And again for the same reasons that I
mentioned earlier. If you're in school, say you have a
(08:35):
zero period. See you don't have zero period. You get
to school at eight o'clock, you leave at three thirty,
You got practice all these things. It's ten, eleven, twelve
o'clock by the time you're done with homework and whatever
else you had to do, probably even later. You try
to go to sleep, wake up at seven, so you
have enough time to shower, get ready to eat breakfast. It's
only seven hours of sleep. You do that for an
extended period of time as a teenager, you're really missing
(08:57):
out on the amount of sleep you.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Need, and especial for teenagers and kids that sleep is
so important for your brain development too. So that's a
lot in the thirteen to eighteen range, eight to ten
hours of sleep is a lot of sleep, but oohy
is it good for you? And yeah, most people, I ask,
it's more like six to seven hours of sleep in
that age range, and that's just not nearly enough.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I had a friend in high school it's still, for
instance this day, consistently did not get a good amount
of sleep, like you would be getting text from him
at very late hours. And I think that even extended
into college of like not sleeping with He's just kind
of like one of those night our guys. But he's
like one of the fittest guys I know, biking and
running and doing all these things. So I guess that's
(09:43):
the other thing to point out is that just because
these are recommendations, there are some people that can function
really well at different amounts of sleep. And I don't
know if we can ever really explain why, but they
just are somehow able to manage and it's not really
having huge negative impacts.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
On them, just physiological gifted. Remember doctor Dave Mader, the
vet that we had on the show. In his book,
he says that he only gets like four or five
hours of sleep every night, and he's like one of
the most productive and most brilliant people I think we've
ever had on the show.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, he does it. That's crazy. How wish I would
like that? I know.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I love all his pictures on Instagram. Go check out
after Dave Mader because he's got like swimming with crocodiles,
holding giant pythons, these exotic animals. He is just the
coolest dude. We gotta go to Florida and hang out
with it.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
He did give us an open invite. We do have
to flex that a little bit. We do have an
open invite.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Because Eddie and I were just talking about how maybe
next year it's our fantasy football league's tenth year anniversary,
maybe we meet up in Florida and God.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Oh, that'd be so cool. We could involve like some
crazy animals into the into picking our draft draft. Yeah,
we got ideas, we got ideas. I love it, So
I do want to talk about some of the stages
of sleep, because there are multiple stages of sleep, and
I think it's important to understand them if you want
to get better sleep. So Stage one is usually the
(11:14):
first stage of sleep. I guess that's why they call
it stage one. It usually only lasts a few minutes.
It only accounts for about five percent of your total
sleep time, and it's considered a light sleep.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Stage two, coming after stage one, accounts for about forty
five percent of your sleep time, so it's still considered
light sleep. In this stage, your brain activity goes down
but then releases large short bursts of electrical activity. We
think that this is your brain organizing the information from
the day.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Stage three is the first stage of deep sleep. It
accounts for about twenty five percent a quarter of your
total sleep. The older you get, the less deep sleep
you get. So stage three typically is the one that
helps you feel them most rested. That's why a lot
of older people sometimes they'll sleep a long time, but
they wake up and stay I still feel tired. It's
(12:06):
when your body repairs itself and also replenishes your immune system.
So deep sleep is a really important thing for your
physical and mental health.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I know for me, I'm one of those people and
maybe it's like placebo, but like, if I'm starting to
not feel well, I have to like go to sleep
earlier and I try to like get more sleep than
I usually get, and I feel like a lot of
the time that just I feel better the next day,
and that must be part of it or it really
is placebo, and I'm just like telling you I feel better.
(12:36):
Hard to know. Yeah. The next one is REM sleep,
So this stands for rapid eye movement because early researchers
saw that people's eyes move back and forth when it's
in this stage of sleep. So REM is when you dream.
The brain activity looks a lot like brain activity of
being awake, and REM makes up about twenty five percent
(12:58):
of your total sleep time.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
So throughout the people have on average about four to
five cycles of sleep, and each one gets longer as
you go on, so your first cycle is a little shorter,
and then it gets a little longer, a little longer,
a little longer. So if you're not getting enough total
sleep time, you're not getting into those longer stages with
those deep stretches of deep sleep and REM cycles, so
(13:22):
you're not feeling as rested if you're not getting as much,
because that those last couple hours of sleep are actually
the most important.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And we wanted to bring up the stages of sleep
so you can understand them more and realize that just
because you're getting sleep, it doesn't necessarily mean that you
get in enough deep sleep and rem sleep. I will
take this opportunity to share. I always think of her
whenever I think it kind of helped me. So. Doctor
Christen Casey has been on the show a couple times.
In front of the show, definitely that time we talked
(13:49):
with her and she talked about how alcohol impacts her sleep,
like was seriously a light bulb moment for me, and
it really made it feel like so many clicked, Like
all those times that we were in college or grad
school and we were partying together and we would drink
probably too much, and then we'd go to sleep. There
(14:10):
would be times we'd sleep for hours, like go to
sleep at two, wake up at twelve, and still feel
like ass And it makes sense because the alcohol was
impacting us for me being able to really get into
that deep sleep. So you're not having that deep in
that rem sleep, you're not really resting, you're just in
light sleep mode the whole time you're having a really
shitty sleep. It made so much sense. I would feel
(14:33):
so bad the next morning and not rested because we
were just never getting in that deep sleep cycle.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, really good point. Alcohol is not great for your sleep,
and you know us, we're always talking about the hazards
of smartphones on this show, so we wanted to bring
that up and how it relates to sleep as well.
There was a study from the Journal of Family Medicine
and Primary Care Al show Bayili at All twenty nineteen
and yes I did practic is that looked at four
(15:02):
hundred and thirty five adults and this was out of
Saudi Arabia. Cell Phone use before bed led to a
decrease in the quality of sleep, So especially if that
screen time was an hour or longer, quality of sleep
and quantity of sleep goes down because you're also on
your phone for a long time. In addition, there are
a lot of other studies that I've shown that your
(15:22):
phone ringing at night, so people who either have their
ringer on or still on vibrate close to them. That
also disrupts your sleep cycle and can make your sleep
worse too.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Who has their phone like on loud. Nowadays, I feel
like I never have the ringer on.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I have to do it sometimes, like in exercise shorts,
which I mostly wear around the house, because I don't
feel it vibrating as much. Sure, yeah, and so I
sometimes will turn the ring around, especially like my wife
will call me and she'd be like, I know your
phone is in your pocket, it's just you can't feel it.
So I try to do that just to not make
my wife.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Man fair, totally fair. So, as you can imagine, there are,
unfortunately things that happen if you're not getting enough sleep.
Negative things that happen because not getting enough good sleep
not only makes you tired, there are a lot of
other symptoms that come with it. So some symptoms of
sleep deprivation are things like slowed reflexes, trouble thinking and concentrating,
(16:20):
increased irritability, headaches. I've definitely heard of that for sure,
if you're not sleeping enough, a diminished immune system. Again,
this is probably anecdotal. This is anecdotal, and it's probably
just placebo. But for me, if I'm starting to feel
like I'm not feeling well, if I get some extra sleep,
I feel like the next morning I feel at least
a little better. And then the last one being an
increased risk for type two diabetes.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And I know personally for me, if I don't get
enough sleep, I'm at a higher risk of having a migraine.
And this is totally off topic as well, but I
realize that I've been using allergy nasal sprays because my
allergies have been bad, and I think those have been
giving me my range two because I was having them
like once a week when they usually only have like
(17:03):
once a year. And I'm like, what is going on?
Why haven't I having so many? And I looked it
up and it's actually a pretty common thing that nasal
sprays actually can give you migrtes.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Good to know. The more you know, the more.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I'm sure everyone wanted to know about my nasal sprays.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's actually one of the top things we get asked
on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
So there you go. We don't have a name for
our our fans, do we like like Swifties? I was
going to say, there you go, all the mental heads.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
There's heads. I like it.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
It was just off the top of mine. Hey, some
tips for getting better sleep. This is also from the
Cleveland clinic, keep a consistent sleep schedule. Your body is
pretty much programmed to run on a slightly longer than
twenty four hour cycle. If you mess with that significantly,
(18:02):
it's kind of like jet lag. You're tired when you
should be awake, and you're awake when you should be tired.
And so the sleep schedule is a very important thing
for getting consistent, good RESTful sleep.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Making sure that you make time for sleep kind of
the same thing with a sleep schedule, but making sure
that you are trying to prioritize that as much as possible.
I know for some people, work schedules, responsibilities, all these
things play a part of like not being able to
have a consistent sleep schedule or making time but to
the best of your ability, trying to make time for sleep.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And a lot of people that I've spoken with about sleep,
they say, you know, I've got to do school all day,
I've got to do work all day, I've got all
these things after school, all these extra curriculars, like I
finally get a little bit of time that I can
do what I want and playing video games or something.
And people tend to choose the things that make sleep
the worst, and so they're getting to bed later. All
(18:52):
the screen time is bad for your sleep too, and
so I get it like I'm the same way. Sometimes
I want to stay up a little bit later and
do some something fun, but you gotta make time for
that sleep.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But it's our avoiding bright lights. We've talked about that
and electronics. For me, one thing that has kind of
been helpful, even though Kevin, I definitely watched tiktoks before bed.
But if i feel like I'm having a hard time
sleeping or i just can't fall asleep, I'll take out
my kindle and I'll read a little bit. And I
think because of the e ink and there's a night
time mode, it doesn't impact me as much as like
(19:25):
a regular screen. So I've noticed that there are times
where if I'm not able to fall sleep, I read
for like ten twenty minutes, I start to get sleepy,
and then I fall asleep right away. Nice.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
And I'm guilty of looking at my phone too much
right before bed. I think pretty much every American is,
But I notice I noticed that if I'm on that
for a long time, then it takes me a lot
longer and fall asleep, especially if I do it in
bed too.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Another tip on sleep is try not to over rely
on medications. The problem with medications is that you can
get dependent on those medicines to sleep. And I am
a bad example of this because I like melatonin. I
like taking melatonin. But luckily melatonin is an all natural
thing because your brain makes it, and a lot of
(20:13):
sleep medicines can mess with your sleep. But luckily miltonin
isn't too bad. But yeah, general recommendation, try not to
over rely on medications.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I think I've told you this, but I have a
bone to pick with melatonin. Have we talked about this.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
I know it's not ringing a bell.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Oh, it's not melatonin's fault. I had an intro to
neuroscience class in college, and like many college students, I
had a bottle of melatonin in my room. Didn't use
it that much, but I had it. It was football season,
one of those things where just all day going all
the time, didn't having a lot of time for sleep
or for studying whatever. In class, we were told that
(21:01):
like melatonin, it doesn't necessarily make you sleep longer. It
just helps you fall asleep, and that waking up shouldn't
be impacted. I said, cool, I'm gonna try this. I
took one the next day, could not get out of bed.
I'm pretty sure I missed my morning class and ever
since then I stopped taking like that was the last
day I took it.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Wow, it really hits you.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It did. I felt bamboozled.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And the stuff with the over the counter stuff is
you don't really quite know what dose is appropriate. I
talked to someone in the past who said, yeah, I
tried melatonin, but I'm just exhausted and I'm getting all
these bad headaches. And she was taking like twenty milligrams,
which I usually recommend four to five for adults, so
it's like she was taking way too much. That's the
(21:48):
thing with the over the counter stuff. They don't really
tell you what's appropriate what's not.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, have you ever heard of, like there's a chemical
in like apple juice or apples that like makes you
have weird dreams. Have we talked about this? No, I
don't know why. I just came up in my head,
but I swear I saw it on like Reddit or something,
and so I tested it out. It might have just
been a coincidence, but I've had some weird ass dreams
following apple consumption.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Buzz Meltona can make a dreams wild some other sleeping
medicines dreams pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Do you ever have a lucid dreams where you know
it's a dream and you.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Can control it, no sounds.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I get those all the time. As soon as I
realize that it's a lucid dream and I can control it,
I'm immediately like, I'm gonna fly. I'm gonna fly all
over the place. So I just start flying, loving it,
love it live. And then as the dream goes on,
it becomes harder and harder to fly and I can't
take off, and I just realized that I lose my
ability over time. I've got a lot of weird, deep
(22:53):
psychological dream And I know I've mentioned in the past too,
the dreams having to go back to junior high and
like take classes and also still be a doctor at
the same time.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I hate those.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I hate those so much.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh where are we at on this list? What are
the most with? Other tips with sleep?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Only use your bed for sleep and sects because if
you are too active in your bed, then your brain
starts to associate your bed with being active, and it's
harder to wind down and go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, especially if people in college or high school that
study or try to do homework in their bed, don't
do that. Next one was avoid alcohol or meals before bedtime.
We've talked about that a little bit. And then the
last one was having a healthy body weight, or not
the last, but another one is having a healthy body weight.
So things of like looking into a sleep study. If
other people are hearing you snore loudly or you stop
breathing in your sleep, important to look into.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
And I know we'd mentioned doctor Kristen Casey already, but
she gave us a really good resource for helping with
your sleep, and it was the CBTI coach that stands
for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy insomnia and it's actually something that
the government has paid to make free to everyone, and
it's been shown to be just as effective as taking
(24:09):
sleep medication. So it's a pretty cool thing. So check
out the CBTI coach if you want a really good
app that can help you asleep.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Another good thing that could be helpful could be like
sleep tracking devices, so sometimes they could just give you
good information. Things to pay attention to trends, things like
a fitbit or an or ring. I think we mentioned
those specifically because something like an Apple Watch, they don't
always they just don't last that long, like battery wise,
Like some of them are less than twenty four hours.
(24:37):
When are you supposed to charge it? I know they
have like the Apple Watch ultra like and I'm a
huge like Apple guy, but they just don't last that
long battery wise, So it's kind of hard. Things like
a fitbit, those things last forever, an or ring forever,
So it could be a good thing to use to
kind of help, you know, track those things. I will say,
I think now or rings you can buy them with
(24:58):
FSA or HSA spending. So yeah, if you're someone that
has that like funding. I know for me, I get
flex spending every month as part of my benefits from work.
So oftentimes when I pay cops and stuff at the doctor,
I'm not actually paying it. I'm just using the benefit
that I get from work. But yeah, something to think about.
And then according to Sleep Foundation dot org, one third
(25:20):
of Americans have tried a sleep tracker, and sixty eight
percent of surgery respondents said that it helped them change
their habits and sleep.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
My bad, I wrote the wrong word in the survey,
not surgery respond.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
So it happens when I just read word from work.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
This is what happens when you write it out on
your phone too.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
We should leave that in. I like how we're surgery,
We're real, we do this shit in one take. I
like that about us.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Another big factor with exhaustion levels we want to discuss
is stress, especially stress out of control, like out of
your control. This is another thing from that Time magazine
article we mentioned earlier that we have a lot of
stress collectively as a society, with climate change, multiple wars
going on in the world, inflation, the perceived threat of violence, politics,
(26:15):
and these are largely stressors out of our control with
no resolution in our power, so which is a lot
psychologically and increases our stress and can mess with our
sleep too.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And another piece of stress that impacts a lot of
people is financial stress. So it's something that I think
now with how much prices of raised for a lot
of things, impacts a lot of people and is on
a lot of people's minds.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
So medications, we felt like that we should probably talk
a little bit about medications. And there are a lot
of sleep medicines out there, and it's always a risk
versus reward. If you're only getting four hours of sleep
per night and you feel like you need more, it
can be pretty miserable. Getting a good sleep medicine can
help you get more sleep and can also help depression
(26:58):
and anxiety. RISI because to sleep is when your body
and brain heals itself, and sleep is a really important
thing for mental health in general. I try and avoid
sleep medicines if I if I can, especially in prescribing them,
but there are some people who just absolutely need them,
especially in things like ADHD. People with ADHD really struggle
with falling to sleep at night because their mind is
(27:20):
racing so much, and some people just have flat out
in Zombia where they just cannot get to sleep and
they want it so bad. So a lot of sleep
medicines can change your sleep cycles similar to what alcohol
can do, and they can decrease the amount of rem
sleep that you get. Medicines like Zolpidem, which is ambient,
can cause pretty severe sleepwalking or somnambulism. Always like that word,
(27:42):
and also strange behaviors, and I haven't had anyone because
I don't really prescribe that one because it is kind
of dangerous. We try and avoid it. They used to
do it a little bit in residency, but not anymore.
But I have heard stories from other doctors about people
trying to cook while sleeping, like on ambient and I
burn themselves pretty severely. So it's a big thing. Main
(28:02):
point is it's okay to ask your doctor about sleep
medicines and if you're really struggling to get sleep and
can't get any relief, it may be something that can help. Plus,
check out that CBTI coach and we are not funded
or anything by CBTI Coach. We just think they're pretty
awesome product.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Looking at everyday health dot com, we have a list
of famous people who have struggled with sleep or even
struggle with insomnia. So the first one is Ray Allen
is a former NBA Star Hall of Famer. I think
he's on the Hall of Fame by now, who has
said that he struggles with poor sleep and that this
gave him headaches.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
The other ones we wanted to mention are George Clooney,
the very handsome white guy. He has come out in
a couple of different interviews and talked about how much
he has struggled with sleep. Mariah Carey has come out
and said that she's struggled with sleep, especially after performances
with all the adrenaline going on, she found it really
hard to wind down and get to sleep. She's also
(28:55):
been diagnosed by polar disorder in twenty eighteen, which can
also like big impacts on your sleep as well.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I'll tell you what though, her struggles with sleep did
not stop her from making the Emancipation of Mimi, which
is a top top five album. At least, I just
need to share that I've told you this. That was.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
They're big, Mariah huge, huge, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Range, She's she's starting to thaw out right now. It's
almost Christmas time, almost.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Or not.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Next we have Pete Wentz from Fallout Boy. I'm familiar
with them.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
He said it started with Xanix and klonopin to help
them sleep, and also he had anxiety about flying.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
He even had some psychotic symptoms when sleep deprived, thinking
that there were bugs in his house and that people
were listening to him. And he's also been diagnosed with
bipolar disorder, which if you've listened to any of our
previous one previous episodes about bipolar disorder, that manic part
of the bipolar disorder. You hear people going a week
with two hours of sleep in the whole week, so
(30:06):
it's definitely can impact your sleep.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Sleep deprivation can lead to a lot of psychotic symptoms
like hearing voices, delusions, paranoia. And I noticed that in
the people that I would talk to in residency in
the emergency room who had done a lot of myth,
like the metho itself didn't really seem to cause a
lot of psychosis. It was when they had gone like
(30:28):
four or five days in a row without sleeping that's
when the psychotic symptoms really started to settle in. So
that sleep is a huge factor in that too. Yeah,
and the last celebrity we want to talk about is Rihanna,
and she blames her racing mind for not being able
to sleep, and she has come out in interviews in
the past and said that she's one of those people
that only gets three to four hours of sleep per
(30:50):
night and does pretty well.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Oh, I mean, good for her, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I'm a nine hours kind of guy myself, So great
if I could stay up all night hanging out stuff,
why not.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Got a couple discussion questions, One of them, I know
the answer to it. Do you use melatonin? My answer
is fuck no. After that one time. Never, I'm telling you, dude,
that one time I felt so betrayed by the melitone
and I'm like, never again. I'm never And that was
in I can tell you when around when so. I
took that class my junior year of college, So that
(31:23):
was fall of twenty thirteen. It was football season, and
I remember because that was the semester where I took
I had no Monday with Friday classes. I only had
Tuesday Thursday classes. But I was in class from seven
thirty until like four o'clock in the afternoon those days.
And I had a lab for the intro neuroscience class
(31:43):
on Wednesdays and that was the only things I had.
But yeah, fall of twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Never again, over ten years ago and you're still selling.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Oh yeah, Do you use it at all?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I do. Yeah. I like to use meltone and I
use it almost every night. I take about two and
a half milligrams. Me and my wife have our little
ritual where I bite it in half and give her
the other half. It's pretty cool, that's cute, and then
we pass out. Hell yeah, how do you feel like
(32:16):
our American lifestyle. Our culture impacts our sleep.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I mean I think of just like being in college
right and like staying up super late, studying, partying for
hours on end, going to sleep late, drinking a lot.
There's a girl on TikTok. She's a dental student and
she consistently does all nighters where she'll be like studying
(32:41):
and she'll like film it and like has a lot
of following off based off of it, and drinks a
lot of caffeine and energy drinks. So I'm just like, oh,
that is not ideal. I don't know what to do.
This feels awful, but I mean it makes me think.
I think I've done like one all nighter in all
of my college like grad school life, and it was awful.
(33:02):
So I think, I don't know. I feel like Americans
like we just moved so quickly all the time, fast paced,
maybe just the way the school system is too and
work that we have less time to do other things
that we want to do, so we try to squeeze
it in and we try to make up for lost time.
And I don't think it. I don't think sleep is
prioritized as much as it should.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Be, especially it feels like in America, sleep is kind
of looked down upon, like you can't be productive when
you're sleeping. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, there's always the people was Huberman. I don't know
if he talks about it, but I just kind of
lump them into that of like the people that talk
about like I only sleep this much. I sleep like
five hours and then this is what I do to
like biohack and get as much and I'm just like,
I don't know, man, everyone's trying to squeeze as many
minutes out of the day as they can.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And sometimes it's okay to give your brain a rest
a brain, because that's important. We need that. Sleep is
the main take home point for the day. Get more sleep.
That's mine, what's yours.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Don't use melatonin if your teacher, if your neuroscience professor
tells you do, because it just might not work for you,
and then you get upset and you never use melatonin again.
That might be too specific.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Then you talk about it over ten years later.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
On a podcast. I'll just say, yes, prioritize sleep as
much as possible.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So we hope that this episode gave you some good tips,
some things that you could use. Some good understanding of
sleep because it's important. It's important for your physical and
mental health, and that is what we are all about,
is helping you with those.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Oh thank you all for listening. We've reached the into
the show. So here's this spiel. On Apple podcast, Spotify,
wherever you get your podcast you can find us. Feel
free to leave us a five star review, share, follow, subscribe,
whatever it is that your app lets you do. You
can leave us a comment on both Spotify and Apple
Podcasts if you would like to do so. Follow us
on social media at Millennial MHC on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter,
(35:02):
and YouTube, and you can check out our website millenniumimahc
dot com. Go get some sleep and take care of
your mentals.
Well, oh, just see a little tired today, but ready
to record a podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Oh are we going to leave that in? Or is
that like it was a bit we should proably, we
should probably cut that out right.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Got it out, I'll edit it in the posts.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Don't worry.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
This is Millennial Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano,
a Child and Adolescent psychiatry fellow.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And I'm Medikoreo, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is
here because we wanted to start a much neater conversation
about mental health.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Our goal is to teach you as much as we
can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in
the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders,
psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope
you enjoy. Today's episode.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I Heart Mia.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So if you couldn't tell from my very cheesy introduction,
we are talking about tiredness and probably the title of
the episode will hint you off as well. But there's
a reason why we want to talk about this, and
I always kind of try to base these podcast episodes
on something that's actually going on in real life. And
it seems like every single patient that I talked to,
(01:21):
I go out in the waiting room and I ask like, hey,
how's it going, how are you doing, And almost every
single one I'm tired.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I'm just really tired.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I was like, there was a day where every single
patient told me that, and I was just like, what
is going on? Why does everyone feel so tired? So
I started doing some diving on it, and yeah, it
does appear that people are feeling more tired than ever.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I feel like that's the teen emotion, like that is
even though it's not an emotion. Yeah, I get the
same exact thing. How's it going, Oh, pretty tired? How
much did you sleep last night? Well? I was up
late because and it's tough, you know. I feel for teens.
I think back to high school time. You got sports,
you got extracurriculars. Some kids have a zero period. You
(02:09):
get to school at like seven o'clock in the morning,
seven thirty in the morning, you're in school till three
thirty ish. You go to practice, or you go to work.
You don't get work, get home from work until like seven,
eight or nine, You get home, you eat dinner, it's
nine thirty, and then it's time to go to bed.
We are you supposed to do homework or are's supposed
to study? So yeah, I feel for kids, especially because
(02:31):
we might talk about it, but you know as well
as I do, justin that, like kids need more sleep
now than they probably do at other points in their life,
like as they're getting older and they're not really getting it.
So constant fatigue, for sure is out there.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, it's not just kids too. Back in February, Time
magazine released an article titled why are We more Exhausted
than Ever? And they actually called this period of time
in American history the Great Exhaustion.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh this is getting ridiculous. Come on.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
According to the article, people are feeling so tired that
they are actually deprioritizing their hobbies and things like getting exercise,
so it's actually changing their lifestyle choices.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
One source from the health and safety magazine dot Com
published a survey that showed in twenty twenty two, three
out of five adults said they were more tired now
than they ever have been. A couple other interesting findings
included working from home during the pandemic interrupted sleep cycles.
As I was reading and getting ready for this, one
thought I had was that midday nap that are probably
(03:33):
a lot of people are squeezing in. If you're not
as tired later in the day, right, that's got to
be part of it, right, Or or you stay up
a little later because I don't got to wake up
until five minutes before it's time to work. I don't
need to have my camera on for the meeting. I
don't know. That might be part of it. The other
piece is that a Gallup poll from April twenty twenty
(03:53):
four showed that more than half of Americans feel like
they need more sleep, which is the first time that
this has happened. Surveys showed that most people felt like
they were getting in sufficient sleep. So something is shifting.
Our societal culture is shifting, and we're trying to figure
out what that is.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's always hard to try and find a direct causal
relationship because it's hard to do randomized, double blind, controlled
studies on the entire population. But we have some ideas,
and there's some things that we found online that might
be somewhat helpful for if you're feeling like it's hard
to get enough sleep, like you're really tired. We're hoping
(04:31):
that this helps you.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So some of those things include things like anemia. What
is anemia.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Anemia is actually not having enough red blood cells, so
you're not getting enough oxygen to your tissues, so you
feel a little bit more tired. Some of the other
medical causes of feeling really tired. And it seems like
most people are tired not from medical causes, but it's
important to recognize that there are a lot of medical
causes that can make you feel chronic fatigue and tired.
(04:58):
Another really common one is thyroid issues like hypothyroidism. Your
thyroid is too low and your thyroid is a little
butterfly shaped gland that sits at the base of your neck,
and it's kind of like your thermostat for your body.
Too high and you got too much energy and you're
cranking all the time, and too low is you're really
slow and you don't have enough energy. I saw a
(05:18):
man who had literally taken medicine to ablate his thyroid
get rid of his thyroid, which is used they used
to do that in the past for like thyroid cancer,
and then that he forgot to take his thyroid medicine
after he had gotten rid of his thyroid and he
was literally talking like oh shit. It was like, no way,
(05:40):
that is such a crazy thing to see.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, another possible medical cause could be sleep apnea. So
that is when correct me wherever I'm wrong, justin But
when you're sleeping snoring, and then at some points, because
of like the snoring and the way that you're sleeping,
you essentially stop breathing and then you like wake and
wake up from it. People that have sleep apnea end
(06:02):
up like not having very RESTful sleep throughout the night.
Just imagine that, Like you're waking up every so often,
you're not breathing, so then you wake up, you have
all these times of waking up. You're not really falling
into those deeper stages of sleep, so you're not really
getting any rest, and then that in itself can have
a lot more longer term health problems. Does that sound
about right? That was perfect?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Hell yeah, And I have seen cases where sleep apnea
does really impact people's lives. I had a case way
back in the day of a guy with bipolar disorder
who had really bad sleep apnea, or when his sleep
apnea was not under control. So he wasn't getting enough
oxygen to his brain and he's not getting enough good sleep.
His bipolar was way out of control more than normal.
(06:46):
So it can really impact your life, especially if you
have some of these mental health diagnoses.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And then the very last one is depression. Depression definitely
can have an impact on your feelings of exhaustion, just
your overall all everything, right. I think a lot of
people will discount how much depression can impact you physically,
how much it can make you feel tired all of
the time. So you have people who end up trying
(07:11):
to sleep all day and just aren't even getting feeling
like they're rested enough because of things like because of
being depressed and feeling like no matter what you do
to get rest, it's just not enough.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So let's talk a little bit about sleep. Because people
think that your brain shuts off during sleep. That's kind
of a misconception because it's actually a very active process.
Even though we spend about a third of our live sleeping,
we still have a lot to learn about sleep. We
think sleep is a way to conserve energy, it's a
(07:41):
time to heal the body and the brain. Sleep also
helps us convert our short term memories into long term memory,
which I just learned from watching the movie Inside Out,
great Pixar film. The recommended sleep time by age are
as follows, and this is according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Children at age one to five should get ten to
(08:02):
fourteen hours per night of sleep.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You have ages six to twelve should it get about
nine to twelve hours of sleep.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Ages thirteen through eighteen should get eight to ten.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
And then eighteen up. Anywhere between seven and nine hours
is good. I will say that eight to ten hours
for that thirteen to eighteen range, the range that you
and I primarily work with. They are not hitting that.
Maybe some are, but there are a lot of kids
who are. And again for the same reasons that I
mentioned earlier. If you're in school, say you have a
(08:35):
zero period. See you don't have zero period. You get
to school at eight o'clock, you leave at three thirty,
You got practice all these things. It's ten, eleven, twelve
o'clock by the time you're done with homework and whatever
else you had to do, probably even later. You try
to go to sleep, wake up at seven, so you
have enough time to shower, get ready to eat breakfast. It's
only seven hours of sleep. You do that for an
extended period of time as a teenager, you're really missing
(08:57):
out on the amount of sleep you.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Need, and especial for teenagers and kids that sleep is
so important for your brain development too. So that's a
lot in the thirteen to eighteen range, eight to ten
hours of sleep is a lot of sleep, but oohy
is it good for you? And yeah, most people, I ask,
it's more like six to seven hours of sleep in
that age range, and that's just not nearly enough.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I had a friend in high school it's still, for
instance this day, consistently did not get a good amount
of sleep, like you would be getting text from him
at very late hours. And I think that even extended
into college of like not sleeping with He's just kind
of like one of those night our guys. But he's
like one of the fittest guys I know, biking and
running and doing all these things. So I guess that's
(09:43):
the other thing to point out is that just because
these are recommendations, there are some people that can function
really well at different amounts of sleep. And I don't
know if we can ever really explain why, but they
just are somehow able to manage and it's not really
having huge negative impacts.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
On them, just physiological gifted. Remember doctor Dave Mader, the
vet that we had on the show. In his book,
he says that he only gets like four or five
hours of sleep every night, and he's like one of
the most productive and most brilliant people I think we've
ever had on the show.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, he does it. That's crazy. How wish I would
like that? I know.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I love all his pictures on Instagram. Go check out
after Dave Mader because he's got like swimming with crocodiles,
holding giant pythons, these exotic animals. He is just the
coolest dude. We gotta go to Florida and hang out
with it.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
He did give us an open invite. We do have
to flex that a little bit. We do have an
open invite.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Because Eddie and I were just talking about how maybe
next year it's our fantasy football league's tenth year anniversary,
maybe we meet up in Florida and God.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Oh, that'd be so cool. We could involve like some
crazy animals into the into picking our draft draft. Yeah,
we got ideas, we got ideas. I love it, So
I do want to talk about some of the stages
of sleep, because there are multiple stages of sleep, and
I think it's important to understand them if you want
to get better sleep. So Stage one is usually the
(11:14):
first stage of sleep. I guess that's why they call
it stage one. It usually only lasts a few minutes.
It only accounts for about five percent of your total
sleep time, and it's considered a light sleep.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Stage two, coming after stage one, accounts for about forty
five percent of your sleep time, so it's still considered
light sleep. In this stage, your brain activity goes down
but then releases large short bursts of electrical activity. We
think that this is your brain organizing the information from
the day.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Stage three is the first stage of deep sleep. It
accounts for about twenty five percent a quarter of your
total sleep. The older you get, the less deep sleep
you get. So stage three typically is the one that
helps you feel them most rested. That's why a lot
of older people sometimes they'll sleep a long time, but
they wake up and stay I still feel tired. It's
(12:06):
when your body repairs itself and also replenishes your immune system.
So deep sleep is a really important thing for your
physical and mental health.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I know for me, I'm one of those people and
maybe it's like placebo, but like, if I'm starting to
not feel well, I have to like go to sleep
earlier and I try to like get more sleep than
I usually get, and I feel like a lot of
the time that just I feel better the next day,
and that must be part of it or it really
is placebo, and I'm just like telling you I feel better.
(12:36):
Hard to know. Yeah. The next one is REM sleep,
So this stands for rapid eye movement because early researchers
saw that people's eyes move back and forth when it's
in this stage of sleep. So REM is when you dream.
The brain activity looks a lot like brain activity of
being awake, and REM makes up about twenty five percent
(12:58):
of your total sleep time.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
So throughout the people have on average about four to
five cycles of sleep, and each one gets longer as
you go on, so your first cycle is a little shorter,
and then it gets a little longer, a little longer,
a little longer. So if you're not getting enough total
sleep time, you're not getting into those longer stages with
those deep stretches of deep sleep and REM cycles, so
(13:22):
you're not feeling as rested if you're not getting as much,
because that those last couple hours of sleep are actually
the most important.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And we wanted to bring up the stages of sleep
so you can understand them more and realize that just
because you're getting sleep, it doesn't necessarily mean that you
get in enough deep sleep and rem sleep. I will
take this opportunity to share. I always think of her
whenever I think it kind of helped me. So. Doctor
Christen Casey has been on the show a couple times.
In front of the show, definitely that time we talked
(13:49):
with her and she talked about how alcohol impacts her sleep,
like was seriously a light bulb moment for me, and
it really made it feel like so many clicked, Like
all those times that we were in college or grad
school and we were partying together and we would drink
probably too much, and then we'd go to sleep. There
(14:10):
would be times we'd sleep for hours, like go to
sleep at two, wake up at twelve, and still feel
like ass And it makes sense because the alcohol was
impacting us for me being able to really get into
that deep sleep. So you're not having that deep in
that rem sleep, you're not really resting, you're just in
light sleep mode the whole time you're having a really
shitty sleep. It made so much sense. I would feel
(14:33):
so bad the next morning and not rested because we
were just never getting in that deep sleep cycle.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, really good point. Alcohol is not great for your sleep,
and you know us, we're always talking about the hazards
of smartphones on this show, so we wanted to bring
that up and how it relates to sleep as well.
There was a study from the Journal of Family Medicine
and Primary Care Al show Bayili at All twenty nineteen
and yes I did practic is that looked at four
(15:02):
hundred and thirty five adults and this was out of
Saudi Arabia. Cell Phone use before bed led to a
decrease in the quality of sleep, So especially if that
screen time was an hour or longer, quality of sleep
and quantity of sleep goes down because you're also on
your phone for a long time. In addition, there are
a lot of other studies that I've shown that your
(15:22):
phone ringing at night, so people who either have their
ringer on or still on vibrate close to them. That
also disrupts your sleep cycle and can make your sleep
worse too.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Who has their phone like on loud. Nowadays, I feel
like I never have the ringer on.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I have to do it sometimes, like in exercise shorts,
which I mostly wear around the house, because I don't
feel it vibrating as much. Sure, yeah, and so I
sometimes will turn the ring around, especially like my wife
will call me and she'd be like, I know your
phone is in your pocket, it's just you can't feel it.
So I try to do that just to not make
my wife.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Man fair, totally fair. So, as you can imagine, there are,
unfortunately things that happen if you're not getting enough sleep.
Negative things that happen because not getting enough good sleep
not only makes you tired, there are a lot of
other symptoms that come with it. So some symptoms of
sleep deprivation are things like slowed reflexes, trouble thinking and concentrating,
(16:20):
increased irritability, headaches. I've definitely heard of that for sure,
if you're not sleeping enough, a diminished immune system. Again,
this is probably anecdotal. This is anecdotal, and it's probably
just placebo. But for me, if I'm starting to feel
like I'm not feeling well, if I get some extra sleep,
I feel like the next morning I feel at least
a little better. And then the last one being an
increased risk for type two diabetes.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And I know personally for me, if I don't get
enough sleep, I'm at a higher risk of having a migraine.
And this is totally off topic as well, but I
realize that I've been using allergy nasal sprays because my
allergies have been bad, and I think those have been
giving me my range two because I was having them
like once a week when they usually only have like
(17:03):
once a year. And I'm like, what is going on?
Why haven't I having so many? And I looked it
up and it's actually a pretty common thing that nasal
sprays actually can give you migrtes.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Good to know. The more you know, the more.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I'm sure everyone wanted to know about my nasal sprays.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's actually one of the top things we get asked
on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
So there you go. We don't have a name for
our our fans, do we like like Swifties? I was
going to say, there you go, all the mental heads.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
There's heads. I like it.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
It was just off the top of mine. Hey, some
tips for getting better sleep. This is also from the
Cleveland clinic, keep a consistent sleep schedule. Your body is
pretty much programmed to run on a slightly longer than
twenty four hour cycle. If you mess with that significantly,
(18:02):
it's kind of like jet lag. You're tired when you
should be awake, and you're awake when you should be tired.
And so the sleep schedule is a very important thing
for getting consistent, good RESTful sleep.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Making sure that you make time for sleep kind of
the same thing with a sleep schedule, but making sure
that you are trying to prioritize that as much as possible.
I know for some people, work schedules, responsibilities, all these
things play a part of like not being able to
have a consistent sleep schedule or making time but to
the best of your ability, trying to make time for sleep.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And a lot of people that I've spoken with about sleep,
they say, you know, I've got to do school all day,
I've got to do work all day, I've got all
these things after school, all these extra curriculars, like I
finally get a little bit of time that I can
do what I want and playing video games or something.
And people tend to choose the things that make sleep
the worst, and so they're getting to bed later. All
(18:52):
the screen time is bad for your sleep too, and
so I get it like I'm the same way. Sometimes
I want to stay up a little bit later and
do some something fun, but you gotta make time for
that sleep.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But it's our avoiding bright lights. We've talked about that
and electronics. For me, one thing that has kind of
been helpful, even though Kevin, I definitely watched tiktoks before bed.
But if i feel like I'm having a hard time
sleeping or i just can't fall asleep, I'll take out
my kindle and I'll read a little bit. And I
think because of the e ink and there's a night
time mode, it doesn't impact me as much as like
(19:25):
a regular screen. So I've noticed that there are times
where if I'm not able to fall sleep, I read
for like ten twenty minutes, I start to get sleepy,
and then I fall asleep right away. Nice.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
And I'm guilty of looking at my phone too much
right before bed. I think pretty much every American is,
But I notice I noticed that if I'm on that
for a long time, then it takes me a lot
longer and fall asleep, especially if I do it in
bed too.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Another tip on sleep is try not to over rely
on medications. The problem with medications is that you can
get dependent on those medicines to sleep. And I am
a bad example of this because I like melatonin. I
like taking melatonin. But luckily melatonin is an all natural
thing because your brain makes it, and a lot of
(20:13):
sleep medicines can mess with your sleep. But luckily miltonin
isn't too bad. But yeah, general recommendation, try not to
over rely on medications.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I think I've told you this, but I have a
bone to pick with melatonin. Have we talked about this.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
I know it's not ringing a bell.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Oh, it's not melatonin's fault. I had an intro to
neuroscience class in college, and like many college students, I
had a bottle of melatonin in my room. Didn't use
it that much, but I had it. It was football season,
one of those things where just all day going all
the time, didn't having a lot of time for sleep
or for studying whatever. In class, we were told that
(21:01):
like melatonin, it doesn't necessarily make you sleep longer. It
just helps you fall asleep, and that waking up shouldn't
be impacted. I said, cool, I'm gonna try this. I
took one the next day, could not get out of bed.
I'm pretty sure I missed my morning class and ever
since then I stopped taking like that was the last
day I took it.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Wow, it really hits you.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It did. I felt bamboozled.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And the stuff with the over the counter stuff is
you don't really quite know what dose is appropriate. I
talked to someone in the past who said, yeah, I
tried melatonin, but I'm just exhausted and I'm getting all
these bad headaches. And she was taking like twenty milligrams,
which I usually recommend four to five for adults, so
it's like she was taking way too much. That's the
(21:48):
thing with the over the counter stuff. They don't really
tell you what's appropriate what's not.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, have you ever heard of, like there's a chemical
in like apple juice or apples that like makes you
have weird dreams. Have we talked about this? No, I
don't know why. I just came up in my head,
but I swear I saw it on like Reddit or something,
and so I tested it out. It might have just
been a coincidence, but I've had some weird ass dreams
following apple consumption.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Buzz Meltona can make a dreams wild some other sleeping
medicines dreams pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Do you ever have a lucid dreams where you know
it's a dream and you.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Can control it, no sounds.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I get those all the time. As soon as I
realize that it's a lucid dream and I can control it,
I'm immediately like, I'm gonna fly. I'm gonna fly all
over the place. So I just start flying, loving it,
love it live. And then as the dream goes on,
it becomes harder and harder to fly and I can't
take off, and I just realized that I lose my
ability over time. I've got a lot of weird, deep
(22:53):
psychological dream And I know I've mentioned in the past too,
the dreams having to go back to junior high and
like take classes and also still be a doctor at
the same time.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I hate those.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I hate those so much.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh where are we at on this list? What are
the most with? Other tips with sleep?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Only use your bed for sleep and sects because if
you are too active in your bed, then your brain
starts to associate your bed with being active, and it's
harder to wind down and go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, especially if people in college or high school that
study or try to do homework in their bed, don't
do that. Next one was avoid alcohol or meals before bedtime.
We've talked about that a little bit. And then the
last one was having a healthy body weight, or not
the last, but another one is having a healthy body weight.
So things of like looking into a sleep study. If
other people are hearing you snore loudly or you stop
breathing in your sleep, important to look into.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
And I know we'd mentioned doctor Kristen Casey already, but
she gave us a really good resource for helping with
your sleep, and it was the CBTI coach that stands
for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy insomnia and it's actually something that
the government has paid to make free to everyone, and
it's been shown to be just as effective as taking
(24:09):
sleep medication. So it's a pretty cool thing. So check
out the CBTI coach if you want a really good
app that can help you asleep.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Another good thing that could be helpful could be like
sleep tracking devices, so sometimes they could just give you
good information. Things to pay attention to trends, things like
a fitbit or an or ring. I think we mentioned
those specifically because something like an Apple Watch, they don't
always they just don't last that long, like battery wise,
Like some of them are less than twenty four hours.
(24:37):
When are you supposed to charge it? I know they
have like the Apple Watch ultra like and I'm a
huge like Apple guy, but they just don't last that
long battery wise, So it's kind of hard. Things like
a fitbit, those things last forever, an or ring forever,
So it could be a good thing to use to
kind of help, you know, track those things. I will say,
I think now or rings you can buy them with
(24:58):
FSA or HSA spending. So yeah, if you're someone that
has that like funding. I know for me, I get
flex spending every month as part of my benefits from work.
So oftentimes when I pay cops and stuff at the doctor,
I'm not actually paying it. I'm just using the benefit
that I get from work. But yeah, something to think about.
And then according to Sleep Foundation dot org, one third
(25:20):
of Americans have tried a sleep tracker, and sixty eight
percent of surgery respondents said that it helped them change
their habits and sleep.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
My bad, I wrote the wrong word in the survey,
not surgery respond.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
So it happens when I just read word from work.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
This is what happens when you write it out on
your phone too.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
We should leave that in. I like how we're surgery,
We're real, we do this shit in one take. I
like that about us.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Another big factor with exhaustion levels we want to discuss
is stress, especially stress out of control, like out of
your control. This is another thing from that Time magazine
article we mentioned earlier that we have a lot of
stress collectively as a society, with climate change, multiple wars
going on in the world, inflation, the perceived threat of violence, politics,
(26:15):
and these are largely stressors out of our control with
no resolution in our power, so which is a lot
psychologically and increases our stress and can mess with our
sleep too.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And another piece of stress that impacts a lot of
people is financial stress. So it's something that I think
now with how much prices of raised for a lot
of things, impacts a lot of people and is on
a lot of people's minds.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
So medications, we felt like that we should probably talk
a little bit about medications. And there are a lot
of sleep medicines out there, and it's always a risk
versus reward. If you're only getting four hours of sleep
per night and you feel like you need more, it
can be pretty miserable. Getting a good sleep medicine can
help you get more sleep and can also help depression
(26:58):
and anxiety. RISI because to sleep is when your body
and brain heals itself, and sleep is a really important
thing for mental health in general. I try and avoid
sleep medicines if I if I can, especially in prescribing them,
but there are some people who just absolutely need them,
especially in things like ADHD. People with ADHD really struggle
with falling to sleep at night because their mind is
(27:20):
racing so much, and some people just have flat out
in Zombia where they just cannot get to sleep and
they want it so bad. So a lot of sleep
medicines can change your sleep cycles similar to what alcohol
can do, and they can decrease the amount of rem
sleep that you get. Medicines like Zolpidem, which is ambient,
can cause pretty severe sleepwalking or somnambulism. Always like that word,
(27:42):
and also strange behaviors, and I haven't had anyone because
I don't really prescribe that one because it is kind
of dangerous. We try and avoid it. They used to
do it a little bit in residency, but not anymore.
But I have heard stories from other doctors about people
trying to cook while sleeping, like on ambient and I
burn themselves pretty severely. So it's a big thing. Main
(28:02):
point is it's okay to ask your doctor about sleep
medicines and if you're really struggling to get sleep and
can't get any relief, it may be something that can help. Plus,
check out that CBTI coach and we are not funded
or anything by CBTI Coach. We just think they're pretty
awesome product.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Looking at everyday health dot com, we have a list
of famous people who have struggled with sleep or even
struggle with insomnia. So the first one is Ray Allen
is a former NBA Star Hall of Famer. I think
he's on the Hall of Fame by now, who has
said that he struggles with poor sleep and that this
gave him headaches.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
The other ones we wanted to mention are George Clooney,
the very handsome white guy. He has come out in
a couple of different interviews and talked about how much
he has struggled with sleep. Mariah Carey has come out
and said that she's struggled with sleep, especially after performances
with all the adrenaline going on, she found it really
hard to wind down and get to sleep. She's also
(28:55):
been diagnosed by polar disorder in twenty eighteen, which can
also like big impacts on your sleep as well.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I'll tell you what though, her struggles with sleep did
not stop her from making the Emancipation of Mimi, which
is a top top five album. At least, I just
need to share that I've told you this. That was.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
They're big, Mariah huge, huge, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Range, She's she's starting to thaw out right now. It's
almost Christmas time, almost.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Or not.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Next we have Pete Wentz from Fallout Boy. I'm familiar
with them.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
He said it started with Xanix and klonopin to help
them sleep, and also he had anxiety about flying.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
He even had some psychotic symptoms when sleep deprived, thinking
that there were bugs in his house and that people
were listening to him. And he's also been diagnosed with
bipolar disorder, which if you've listened to any of our
previous one previous episodes about bipolar disorder, that manic part
of the bipolar disorder. You hear people going a week
with two hours of sleep in the whole week, so
(30:06):
it's definitely can impact your sleep.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Sleep deprivation can lead to a lot of psychotic symptoms
like hearing voices, delusions, paranoia. And I noticed that in
the people that I would talk to in residency in
the emergency room who had done a lot of myth,
like the metho itself didn't really seem to cause a
lot of psychosis. It was when they had gone like
(30:28):
four or five days in a row without sleeping that's
when the psychotic symptoms really started to settle in. So
that sleep is a huge factor in that too. Yeah,
and the last celebrity we want to talk about is Rihanna,
and she blames her racing mind for not being able
to sleep, and she has come out in interviews in
the past and said that she's one of those people
that only gets three to four hours of sleep per
(30:50):
night and does pretty well.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Oh, I mean, good for her, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I'm a nine hours kind of guy myself, So great
if I could stay up all night hanging out stuff,
why not.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Got a couple discussion questions, One of them, I know
the answer to it. Do you use melatonin? My answer
is fuck no. After that one time. Never, I'm telling you, dude,
that one time I felt so betrayed by the melitone
and I'm like, never again. I'm never And that was
in I can tell you when around when so. I
took that class my junior year of college, So that
(31:23):
was fall of twenty thirteen. It was football season, and
I remember because that was the semester where I took
I had no Monday with Friday classes. I only had
Tuesday Thursday classes. But I was in class from seven
thirty until like four o'clock in the afternoon those days.
And I had a lab for the intro neuroscience class
(31:43):
on Wednesdays and that was the only things I had.
But yeah, fall of twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Never again, over ten years ago and you're still selling.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Oh yeah, Do you use it at all?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I do. Yeah. I like to use meltone and I
use it almost every night. I take about two and
a half milligrams. Me and my wife have our little
ritual where I bite it in half and give her
the other half. It's pretty cool, that's cute, and then
we pass out. Hell yeah, how do you feel like
(32:16):
our American lifestyle. Our culture impacts our sleep.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I mean I think of just like being in college
right and like staying up super late, studying, partying for
hours on end, going to sleep late, drinking a lot.
There's a girl on TikTok. She's a dental student and
she consistently does all nighters where she'll be like studying
(32:41):
and she'll like film it and like has a lot
of following off based off of it, and drinks a
lot of caffeine and energy drinks. So I'm just like, oh,
that is not ideal. I don't know what to do.
This feels awful, but I mean it makes me think.
I think I've done like one all nighter in all
of my college like grad school life, and it was awful.
(33:02):
So I think, I don't know. I feel like Americans
like we just moved so quickly all the time, fast paced,
maybe just the way the school system is too and
work that we have less time to do other things
that we want to do, so we try to squeeze
it in and we try to make up for lost time.
And I don't think it. I don't think sleep is
prioritized as much as it should.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Be, especially it feels like in America, sleep is kind
of looked down upon, like you can't be productive when
you're sleeping. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, there's always the people was Huberman. I don't know
if he talks about it, but I just kind of
lump them into that of like the people that talk
about like I only sleep this much. I sleep like
five hours and then this is what I do to
like biohack and get as much and I'm just like,
I don't know, man, everyone's trying to squeeze as many
minutes out of the day as they can.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And sometimes it's okay to give your brain a rest
a brain, because that's important. We need that. Sleep is
the main take home point for the day. Get more sleep.
That's mine, what's yours.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Don't use melatonin if your teacher, if your neuroscience professor
tells you do, because it just might not work for you,
and then you get upset and you never use melatonin again.
That might be too specific.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Then you talk about it over ten years later.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
On a podcast. I'll just say, yes, prioritize sleep as
much as possible.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So we hope that this episode gave you some good tips,
some things that you could use. Some good understanding of
sleep because it's important. It's important for your physical and
mental health, and that is what we are all about,
is helping you with those.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Oh thank you all for listening. We've reached the into
the show. So here's this spiel. On Apple podcast, Spotify,
wherever you get your podcast you can find us. Feel
free to leave us a five star review, share, follow, subscribe,
whatever it is that your app lets you do. You
can leave us a comment on both Spotify and Apple
Podcasts if you would like to do so. Follow us
on social media at Millennial MHC on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter,
(35:02):
and YouTube, and you can check out our website millenniumimahc
dot com. Go get some sleep and take care of
your mentals.
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