February 2, 2025 • 29 mins
We all know sleep is important, but do we truly understand its impact on our overall health and well-being? In this eye-opening episode, Allison is joined by Dr. Angela Holliday-Bell, a sleep doctor, to delve into the science of sleep and why getting enough quality rest is essential for living your best life. Together, they discuss:
Whether you’re struggling with insomnia, battling burnout, or just curious about optimizing your rest, this episode has something for everyone.
Meet Our Guest:
Find Dr. Holliday-Bell below:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesleep_md
Website: https://thesolutionissleep.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drhollidaybell/
Stay Connected:
Be blessed!
- How sleep affects your physical, mental, and emotional health
- Common sleep myths and misconceptions
- Practical tips for improving sleep quality and building healthy habits
Whether you’re struggling with insomnia, battling burnout, or just curious about optimizing your rest, this episode has something for everyone.
Meet Our Guest:
Find Dr. Holliday-Bell below:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesleep_md
Website: https://thesolutionissleep.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drhollidaybell/
Stay Connected:
- Email your thoughts and feedback to us at allisonscornerpod@gmail.com
- Follow us on Instagram for updates: https://instagram.com/allisonscornerpod
- Check out our YouTube for more insight: https://www.youtube.com/@AllisonsCornerPod
- Join the conversation with our book club: https://www.instagram.com/allisonandfriendsbookclub/
- Subscribe to my newsletter on Substack for more reflections and resources: https://allisonscornerpod.substack.com/
Be blessed!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, and welcome to Alison's Corner. This is my little
corner of the Internet where we dive into wellness, personal growth, relationships,
and just other topics best suited for you. I'm your host, Alison,
bringing you fresh perspectives, inspiring conversations, and a little something.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
To spark your day.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Be sure to follow along with Alison's Corner on Instagram,
subscribe to our newsletter, and watch us on YouTube at
Allison's Corner Pod. Here you'll find more insights in community
updates of what we have going on on Allison's Corner. Now,
without further ado, here is today's episode. Hello everyone, and
(00:58):
welcome or welcome back to another episode of Owlson's Corner
with me. I have a very special guest guest, can
you go ahead and introduce yourself to the people please? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm doctor Holliday Bell. I'm a board startified physician as
well as a STARTIFI clinical sleep specialists SEEO and founder
of my sleep consulting company, The Solution to Sleep LLC.
And I work with individuals to equip them with specific,
strategic and actionable tools that they can implement to start
living happier, healthier, and more productive lives through better sleep.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Awesome. Thank you for joining us, doctor holiday Bell. We
really do appreciate it. I started following you on social
media because I do have a confession to make. I
am a night owl and I am trying to be better.
We're trying to be better here. You know, the new
year's upon us, so we're trying to get there. So
hopefully you can help fellow night owls like myself and
(01:56):
just other people who just want to get better sleep
or improve their sleep. You can let them know more information.
So we're gonna dive right in. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Let's do it all right?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So this is a very simple question. So question number one,
why is sleep so important for overall health and well being?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah? So's it's actually easier to say why sleep would
not be important than why it's important, because it impacts
every facet of overall health and well being, both mentally
and physically, starting with just your ability to, lets say,
maintain a healthy weight and have a healthy metabolism. Where
you're not getting enough sleep, er metabolism becomes deranged such
(02:39):
that the hunger hormone rellin is releasing higher quantities and
the hormone the signats are full left in is releasing
lower quantities. You have less release of the growth hormone metabolism,
and you are more likely to make poor food choices.
It's increasing the r risk of cardiovascular disease because insufficient
sleep causes this kind of consistent inflammatory state in your body.
(02:59):
So there's high light the cortisol. It increases your risk
of type two diabetes as well. You're more likely to
get sick if you're not getting enough sleep because your
immune to some functions at its peak when you're sleeping.
And then your risk of mental health conditions like anxiety
and depression increase by ten and seventeen dimes, respectively. So
there really is no facet of your overall health and
(03:21):
overall well being again mentally and physically, that is not
impacted by your sleep or lack of sleep.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Interesting. I knew some of that, but not all of that. Wow,
that's crazy. So we know when we're children we fight
against taking a nap, and as adults we want to
take a nap all the time, but sometimes that can
hinder our sleep at night. So I wanted to know
what is the ideal amount of sleep for adults and
(03:50):
can it vary by person?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Absolutely? So the range really is between seven to seven
to ten hours. Really to nine is the average most
people have heard like, oh, you should be getting seven
or eight hours of sleep, but that really doesn't apply
to everyone. A lot more people fall in that higher
range of closer to nine hours than expected, and so
everyone's sleep need, I call it is an individualized number.
(04:15):
So I always recommend that people figure out what that
number is for them. For me, as nine hours, I
know that any nine hours, seven hours is not going
to cut it. So if you're a nine hour person
that's trying to live off of seven hours, your sleep deprived.
Even though that may be what the average recommendation is.
So it is important to determine what your individual need is.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, and it's crazy because when we I mean, and
we'll go into it about like the different stages of
sleep as far as when you age, because I remember
when I was in college and I could survive off
of four hours of sleep, and then graduated college and
four hours of sleep can no longer cut it. So
I wanted to know as you age how your sleep
(04:56):
can differ from when you're younger to when you're older.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, So the interesting thing is the younger you are,
the more sleep you need. So if you start with
even babies, they sleep newborn and fin sleep up to
eighteen hours a day, so the vast majority of their
day is sleep. You get into toddler school age as
closest to ten to twelve hours at a lessons really
need eight to ten hours, And then even into college
and adulthood, the need stays the same. So we all
(05:23):
still need that seven to nine hours. We're just more
sensitive to sleep deprivation as we get older. So you
were still deprived as a college student as I was,
as most those college students are, but we tend to
become more sensitive to that deprivation as we as we age,
but the need itself is still the same.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Okay, awesome. And for people out there who don't know,
can you just explain the different stages of sleep and
why each one of them is important.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, So there are four different stages of sleep. You
have stage in one sleep, which is that very light
stage that when your first falling asleep. So during this
stage you might not even realize that your sleep. It's
one of those things where you kind of you know,
you might doze off quickly. You're like, wait, dad, I
just fall asleep. That's the end one stage. In two
was a slightly deeper stage of sleep, so all of
your vital signs starts to slow down. Your breathing rate,
(06:15):
your heart rate, your blood pressure, all of those things lower,
and we actually spend most of our time, about fifty
percent of our time in that stage of sleep. In
three is the deep slow wave stage of sleep. So
that is that really deep restorative stage. We say generally speaking,
that's the stage that is restorative for your body, so
your muscles and everything else really feel rested and you
(06:37):
feel more refreshed because of that stage. And then you
have rim sleep or rapid eye movement sleep, where most
of dreaming occurs. And we say, again generally speaking, that
stage is resortive for your mind. There's definitely some overlap,
but that's where the brain makes a lot of connections,
where your emotional regulation takes place, and so it also
(06:58):
is restorative in another way, but a little bit different
from the N three deep sleep.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Okay, interesting, and I wanted to kind of segue a
little bit. So you're talking about sleep deprivation, and you
were talking about kind of the challenges when you don't
get enough sleep. I was curious to know what are
the most common sleep disorders that you see in your practice.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So the most common, so the most common sleep disorder
is actually insomnia. That a lot of people don't connect
that as a sleep disorder, but it is. So that
is difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or maintaining sleep, or
waking up too early I'm sorry, at least three nights
per week for at least a month for what we
call a cute or short term in somnia, and for
at least three months for long term in somnia. Once
(07:45):
the transitions to that place, it is a disorder because
it is not as simple as okay, just go to
sleep earlier. Typically there is disruption and the thoughts about sleep,
the way that people may sleep, and there's like a
sleep anxiety that's often built up. More physiologic disorders, the
(08:07):
most common would be obstructive sleep apnea, and so that's
where there's an obstruction in the airway that impacts breathing,
leading to decreased oxygen while you're sleeping. Sometimes it's just
lower oxygen, sometimes that you stop breathing all together, and
that can have some pretty significant downstream consequences like high
blood pressure high boo pressure in your the vessels that
(08:29):
serve the lung, called pulmonary hypertension. It increases your risk
of stroke. It can cause abnormal heart rhythms and so forth.
So a very significant condition that unfortunately occurs a lot
more than people are aware of. And then there are
a couple others like restless leg syndrome can be a
common one, or periodic limb movement disorder is another one.
(08:50):
But I would say the two most common are insomnia
and then sleep apnea. And my dad has sleep apnea.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He has to sleep with the seapap Yeah, yeah, to
help him. So yeah, I know about that one. But
and insomnia, I guess you know you hear all the time,
oh you know, I just wake up in the middle
of the night and can't fall back asleep and things
of that nature. I didn't know insomnia was so common.
Is it common around a specific age group or not?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, So it's coming throughout the lifetime. I would say
we probably see it more and like middle aged adulthood,
and then definitely in older adulthood, especially for women as
they go through perimenopause and menopause, it tends to become
more significant of a condition, but you really can see
it at any point. Even children can have insomnia. It
(09:42):
just it occurs us likely, but I would say probably
middle adulthood is what we tend to see it the most.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, and how can someone know if they're actually dealing
with him insomnia versus they're just having a couple of
bad nights to sleep?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yes, I would say, you know it's it is normal
to have a couple to sleep. You're not going to
sleep perfectly every night. Even as a sleep specialist who's
very very serious about my sleep, very intentional about getting
good sleep, I have some nights of that of poor
sleep here and there. I would say the main difference
between insomnia though, and what people may struggle with in
terms of sleep are the is the intention behind the sleep.
(10:18):
So some people will say, oh, I go to sleep,
I stay up till two o'clock in the morning binge
watching Netflix, and then I have to wake up at
six AM's only get four hours of sleep. But it's
not insomnia because you're not trying to get eight hours.
You just you didn't go to bed until two o'clock
in the morning and you're tired, But that's because you
haven't given yourself enough sleep opportunity. But then there are
individuals who try to get themselves let's say eight hours
(10:39):
of sleep, but then they're only sleeping four of those
eight hours. And that's happening consistently, like I said, three
or more nights about half of the time. If that's
consistently happening for you for more than a month, then
you've entered the realm of insomnia.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And what about sleep apnea? What are some signs that
people should look for if they might have sleep apnea.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
The most common sign is snoring so loud, snoring positive,
and breathing so people may gasp during sleep. The tricky
part about sleep apnea is it's often a bed mate
who notices those things more than the person who is asleep.
They may not even know that they snore or that
they're taking positive, but if you were to ask someone else, like, yeah,
(11:21):
you snore very loudly, and I do see you gasping
for air, that's the most common. However, it's important to
know that not all sleep afnea looks the same, particularly
in women and to women who are of older age,
they may not even snore. So what I always say is,
if you're someone who feels that you're getting enough sleep.
So let's say you are getting eight hours of sleep,
but you're waking up with morning headaches and you're so
(11:43):
tired and you're groggy and you're falling asleep. That means
that there's something impacting your sleep quality, and at that
point it's important to get assessed to see if sleep
AFNA may be one of those reasons.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, okay, oh, okay, that makes sense now, I guess
and I wanted to go and to sleep hygiene or
some tips for those who might want to get better
quality of sleep who don't experience insomnia or sleep apnia.
What are some practical tips you have for just improving
(12:14):
someone's sleep overall.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, So, the most important thing is going to be consistency.
The way that we train our circadian rhythms is through
consistency and our actions, and the best way to be
consistent is actually by waking up at the same time
every day. Waking up at the same time is actually
more important than going to sleep at the same time
each night, because that's one of the strongest ways to
(12:37):
reinforce your circadian rhythm, which is that roughly twenty four
hour cycle that dictates when you feel awaken alert and
will you feel tired at night, and so that trains
your circadian rhythm to send cues to be alert at
the same time every day and also helps with your
meltone and release at night. Waking up at the same
time every day, including the weekends, is really the key move.
(12:58):
I'm shaking my head. A lot of people will be
consistent during the week because you have work or whatever
and are the duties within. On the weekend, we get
thrown off, but your circading rhythm doesn't take weekends off unfortunately,
so it is important to be consistent. Now. With that
being said, if you want to sleep in an hour
is okay. So if you're normally getting up at seven,
you can sleep in until eight on the weekends, but
(13:19):
you really don't want to sleep in much longer than that.
Getting some natural light exposure within the first hour of
awaking is actually super critical, and I think it's something
that a lot of people miss. Light is the strongest
factor that influences your circadian rhythm in a way that
tells you to be awaken alert again. Getting that exposure
shuts off your melatonin release right away and helps to
(13:42):
reinforce your melatone and release at night. It increases serotonin production,
which is a feel good hormone, and serotonin is needed
for melatonin at night. So that's one like hack. So
to speak back and help sleep, you can go for
a walk outside, do your morning routine by the window,
use a light therapy box if you don't have morning
right exposure, and man. Lastly, I would say, and of
(14:04):
course there are many other steps, but these three will
help other majority of people is having a consistent bedtime
routine that you do do at a consistent time. So
having a way for your body and mind to transition
from the stress and anxiety and all the things of
the day to the calmness of the night and sleep
is really key, and your bedtime routine can be a
(14:25):
way to do that. That's the void of blue lights
from electronics or stimulating activities. Relaxing activities with low lights
is going to be really important. But that can definitely
help you even to better sleep and have deeper quality sleep.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Okay, I guess I gotta gotta wake up early on
the weekends now in order to get going. Not going
to be a fan, but we gotta try it. So yeah,
so you mentioned blue light. And I know earlier you
mentioned like binging Netflix, and I have to admit I
am one of those people. Explain how does screen time
(15:02):
and blue light, how those things affect our sleep in
how people can mitigate those effects.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yeah, So, as I mentioned, light is the strongest factor
that influences your circadian rhythm in a way that told
you to be awaken alert. Exposing yourself to light, natural light,
especially during the day excellent at night, though, what you're
doing is telling your brain that you want to be
awaken alert even though you don't. The blue wavelength of
light in particular, though, has the strongest impact on your
(15:30):
circadian rhythm in terms of sending alerting signals. So blue
light is richly emitted from electronics like your phone and
tabolated computer, and so basically when you're looking at those things,
particularly at night, you're sending sickles to your brain. Oh,
let's not actually really start melatonin. I want to be
awaken alert for probably some for more hours, making it
difficult we actually want to fall asleep. So I recommend
(15:54):
just staying away from those things in general, especially within
an hour of your bedtime. It's actually how well, within
a couple hours of their bad time, though, to at
least limit the use of those things. Dim the room lights.
So a lot of people don't understand that the led
bowls that we have in our lights also e make
blue lights. So if you're just in a room with
bright lights on, it still does a similar thing. So
(16:17):
trying to limit that. But there are also blue light
blocking glasses. Some of them can be helpful at blocking
some of those. They really need to be the amber
color like orange colored lenses to be effective. But if
you absolutely must expose yourself, at least trying to block
some of that with those glasses.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Okay, okay, I didn't think the blue light glasses actually worked,
but hey.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Most of them, most of them don't, to be honest,
most of them are just Yeah, they're like clear lenses
that don't need to do anything. They really need to
be those like orange lenses, and they don't block out
all blue light. They may help to block out some.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Okay, Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. I didn't
want to know. How does diet and exercise. Does that
play a role in the quality of sleep that you
can have?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Definitely so, particularly for exercise. Research shows that engaging in
daily physical activity can increase that amount of deep sleep,
so that in three slow wave sleep that we talked about,
So it can be super important. What you eat can
im pat how you sleep, especially at night. So we
recommend generally having your biggest meal more than three hours
(17:27):
before bedtime because if your digestive system is too active,
it can be difficult to fall into a deep sleep.
And then certain things that you consume, like caffeine of course, alcohol,
things really high and sugar, spicy foods, all of that
can negatively and pactu your sleep as well.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Okay, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I'll stay away from
the bedtime snacks, all right, I did have I know
there's so many myths flying around as it pertains to sleep,
so I wanted to get your expertise on some of
those things. Is the idea of catching up on sleep
(18:07):
real or is that a myth?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, that's fake news. You cannot catch up on sleep unfortunately.
So sleep pass specific roles and functions for every single night. Right,
your body is actually very sophisticated and intelligent, and that
you will spend more time in different stages depending on
what you need based on what happened that day. And
so you can never truly make up the functions that
(18:31):
would have occurred that night by sleeping in longer another day.
The other thing is like you build up sleep debt
throughout the week from sleeping missed out on, so your
body will try to repay that to a certain extent,
but it'll it'll just never recover those functions. Sleeping in
later again also throws off against acadian rhythm, makes it
more difficult to get good sleep the following night. So
(18:52):
generally it's not a good idea. Usually when people miss
out on sleep, let's say for a night or two nights, regumment,
just getting back on your normal sleep schedule, get if
you nine hours, get your nine hours at night, and
then try to be consistent, you know, night after night
with nine hours, because trying to catch up will probably
create more harm than good.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Okay, all right, good to know. Can you explain why
some people feel more rested after taking shorter naps while
other people feel a little bit more groggy?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, definitely, So shorter naps is what we recommend. So
the nap window of time is really between like ten
to thirty minutes. But there have been researching shows that
naps are shortest like eight minutes can give you a
lot of benefit. The reason that we recommend not sleeping
longer than thirty minutes so is that when you sleep
too long, you run the risk of falling into the
(19:41):
deeper stages of sleep. As I've mentioned that slow wave sleep,
the rim sleep, and when you're awakened from those stages,
you're more likely to suffer from what we call sleep inertia,
which is that groggy, disoriented feeling that can make you
feel more tired than you did before you took the nap.
And so it really is better for most people to
limit their maps to shorter to thirty minutes to get
(20:04):
a boost of energy and creativity and mental clarity and
all those things, but without the grindy feeling.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Okay, And my last question, as it relates to the
myth or the fact of sleep, are there any common
sleep remedies like melatonin or when people play white noise
in the background, are they misunderstood or improperly used at all?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So melatonin is definitely improperly used. It is it is.
It can be a helpful sleep supplement in certain situations.
As I mentioned, I mentioned melatonin a couple times already
in this interview. We naturally produce melatonin from our pie
neal glands and our brains that sets usage for sleep.
(20:49):
So there are ways that you can increase your natural
melatonin release by avoiding light exposure and increasing light exposure
during the day, engaging in the bedtime routine, and so on.
But there are certain situations when your circadian rhythm is
thrown off that supplemental melatonin can be helpful. Jet Lag
is a very common one. So if you're traveling somewhere
(21:09):
that your new bedtime is much earlier than your bedtime
at home, your natural melatonin is not going to be
released yet because it's not on that same schedule. So
supplemental melatonin can be helpful for those reasons. During the
time change when we like when we fall back, similarly
can be helpful. I also think that in certain situations
(21:31):
for night oul, so I'm actually naturally a night oul
as well, and so naturally my circadian rhythm is shifted
such that if I just were left to my own
devices for a long time, I would go to sleep
somewhere around one am and wake up at ten am.
That's like an ideal schedule for me, but life is
not set up like that, so I can't follow that schedule.
So as I was transitioning to an early schedule and
(21:55):
trying to function more as an early bird, I took
low dose i's the key melatonin for a short amount
of time until I was basically able to train my
body to produce my natural melatone in earlier. So those
are situations which I think it can be helpful. A
lot of times people will just use it as a
sleeping pill every night and they're like, Oh, this doesn't work.
And that's because that's really not the point of it.
(22:17):
It really doesn't work like that.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, and what about white noise? Does that help?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Or Yeah, so white noise actually does help. There have
been some studies that show the white noise can create
a more comfortable sleeping environment, can help you sleep a
bit deeper, especially if there are outside noises from outside
of your bedroom space that impact your sleep. Drowning it
out with a continuous sound like a white noise can
be super helpful. And I don't think people misuse it.
(22:42):
I think if you want to use white noise every
single night, I think that's totally fine.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh okay, all right. I wanted to ask about people
who do work like the night shift and things of
that nature. How can shift workers with irregular sleep schedules
improve their sleep?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, so shift work is really difficult on sleep. It
throws out that consistency piece, which I mentioned is the
most important at the beginning of this. But there are
odd things you can do to get better sleep. For
the night shift in particular, one thing I'll often recommend
is utilizing what we call anchor sleep, which is a
four hour period of time that you've spend sleeping whether
(23:21):
you're working or off, to anchor your circadian rhythm. So,
one big problem with night shift, aside from trying to
be awaken working at night and sleeping during the day,
is that when people are off, they want to function normally,
so they try to be active during the day and
sleep at night. But your circadian rhythm doesn't flip fop
like that. It's really hard to adjust, and so they
end up being tired during their night shift and tied
(23:42):
during the day, and so it's not a great quality
of life. But let's say they work from six to six,
so six pm to six am, and they go to
sleep around seven am. Then we'd recommend on the day
after they work so they get off at six, they
go to sleep at seven, they sleep till three. On
the days that they're off, they go to sleep at
three am and sleep till eleven AM. What that means
(24:05):
is that for our period between seven to eleven, they
will spend sleeping whether they're off or they're working. So
it gives them something to anchor their circadian rhythm around,
but they're not completely switching around their schedule, and it
allows them to function more normally during the daytime when
they're off, because you're getting up at eleven am and
you still have more of your day. So having that
(24:27):
anchor sleep and then doing things like using a light
therapy box during the first half of their work shift
at night to retrain their circadian rhythm. Again, light is
gonna send signals that you want to be awaken alert.
But then conversing on your drive home when you're wanting
to go to sleep, wearing sunglasses to block out the sunlight,
blackout curtains, keep the environment icing dark. Taking a dose
(24:48):
of melatonin in this situation can actually be helpful to
again try to retrain their circadian rhythms.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Okay, all right, so I'll let my friends know because
they were curious. So definitely, what advice do you have
for parents who are trying to balance their own sleep
with caring for their children.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, so my advice for parents is to equip your
kids with healthy, independent sleep habits. It's one of the
best things that you can do. Actually, this morning had
a session with a group of parents and we were
talking about sleep training, and it really is one of
the best things you can do for your kids and
for yourselves because one of your kids may sleep. Sleep.
(25:30):
As I mentioned, it is important for every facet of functioning,
particularly growth and development when they're younger. So if you
equip them with those habits to fall asleep stay asleep independently,
there's no reason that you can't get sleep either. So
really focusing on that and focusing on modeling healthy sleep behaviors.
Just like we want to model healthy eating habits we
eat vegetables and working out and all those things to
(25:51):
who are kids can see, that same thing goes for sleep.
So model those healthy sleep behaviors and prioritize healthy sleep
for your kid, and then you can also get good
sleep as well. Well.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I understand the juggle with parenthood
and everything like that. Yeah, for sure, for sure, I
wanted to segue into something a little different. So this
is just something a little fun and we'll see what
your answers are. In the span of your career. What's
been the most interesting thing that you've learned about sleep?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Oh, that's that's a good question. What is the most
interesting thing? I mean, I think sleep everything about sleep
is interesting. But okay, so this is a little known fact.
Most people think that we like rim sleep, that rapid
eye movement sleep is where all dreaming occurs, and that's
not true. You actually dream in other stages of sleep.
(26:46):
So I personally found that very interesting because I thought
for a long time because that was the only only
time that we dreamed. So yeah, I would probably say
that was the most interesting thing to me.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And let's see. I know we busted some myths earlier.
If you can bust another myth for us about sleep,
what would it be.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Some people think it doesn't matter the timing of your
sleep as long as you get enough sleep, right, So
let's say you need seven hours of sleep. Well, as
long as I got my seven hours, I saw that matters.
But again that's really not the case. What we've learned,
especially with a lot of medical conditions, is that the
disruption of the timing of sleep contributes more to long
term health consequences than the time spent to sleep. So
(27:32):
what we call a sleep consistency is one of the
most important things you can have in terms of your health.
The amount of time you spend in sleep is also important,
but it's more important to be consistent. So if you
do nothing else, even if you can't reach your full
sleep amount, being consistent in the time you go to
sleep and wake up can benefit your health significantly in
the long run.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Awesome. And then my last question, can dreams tell us
anything about our mental or physical health? Really?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, that's uh interesting question. There's lots of ving research
about dreams and their meanings. We think that dreams are
a way for us to kind of play out emotions
or things that happen during the day. I would say
there's a lot more research that needs to occur with that,
So I think yes, but I don't have a lot
to validate that or specific to say about it. That's
(28:21):
definitely an ongoing part of research.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Hey, we'll figure it out soon, hopefully. Well that is
all that I have for today, Doctor Holiday, Bell, can
you please let the people know where they can find you,
where they can reach you.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, definitely so. My website Thesolution to Sleep dot com
is a great place to start. I also create a
lot of content on Instagram as the Sleep Underscore MD,
or you can also follow me on LinkedIn at doctor Holiday.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Be awesome, and thank you so much for joining us today.
It was super insightful. I learned so much and I'm
going to implement it in the new year, I promise
myself I will twenty two And for our listeners, as always,
God bless have an amazing day, and thank you for
listening to Alison's Corner. Thanks for tuning in to Alison's Corner.
(29:14):
If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave
a review and share it with a friend who'd love
to join the conversation. For more context and updates, follow
us on Instagram and YouTube at Allison's Corner Pod. Until
next time, be blessed.
Hey, and welcome to Alison's Corner. This is my little
corner of the Internet where we dive into wellness, personal growth, relationships,
and just other topics best suited for you. I'm your host, Alison,
bringing you fresh perspectives, inspiring conversations, and a little something.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
To spark your day.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Be sure to follow along with Alison's Corner on Instagram,
subscribe to our newsletter, and watch us on YouTube at
Allison's Corner Pod. Here you'll find more insights in community
updates of what we have going on on Allison's Corner. Now,
without further ado, here is today's episode. Hello everyone, and
(00:58):
welcome or welcome back to another episode of Owlson's Corner
with me. I have a very special guest guest, can
you go ahead and introduce yourself to the people please? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm doctor Holliday Bell. I'm a board startified physician as
well as a STARTIFI clinical sleep specialists SEEO and founder
of my sleep consulting company, The Solution to Sleep LLC.
And I work with individuals to equip them with specific,
strategic and actionable tools that they can implement to start
living happier, healthier, and more productive lives through better sleep.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Awesome. Thank you for joining us, doctor holiday Bell. We
really do appreciate it. I started following you on social
media because I do have a confession to make. I
am a night owl and I am trying to be better.
We're trying to be better here. You know, the new
year's upon us, so we're trying to get there. So
hopefully you can help fellow night owls like myself and
(01:56):
just other people who just want to get better sleep
or improve their sleep. You can let them know more information.
So we're gonna dive right in. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Let's do it all right?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So this is a very simple question. So question number one,
why is sleep so important for overall health and well being?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah? So's it's actually easier to say why sleep would
not be important than why it's important, because it impacts
every facet of overall health and well being, both mentally
and physically, starting with just your ability to, lets say,
maintain a healthy weight and have a healthy metabolism. Where
you're not getting enough sleep, er metabolism becomes deranged such
(02:39):
that the hunger hormone rellin is releasing higher quantities and
the hormone the signats are full left in is releasing
lower quantities. You have less release of the growth hormone metabolism,
and you are more likely to make poor food choices.
It's increasing the r risk of cardiovascular disease because insufficient
sleep causes this kind of consistent inflammatory state in your body.
(02:59):
So there's high light the cortisol. It increases your risk
of type two diabetes as well. You're more likely to
get sick if you're not getting enough sleep because your
immune to some functions at its peak when you're sleeping.
And then your risk of mental health conditions like anxiety
and depression increase by ten and seventeen dimes, respectively. So
there really is no facet of your overall health and
(03:21):
overall well being again mentally and physically, that is not
impacted by your sleep or lack of sleep.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Interesting. I knew some of that, but not all of that. Wow,
that's crazy. So we know when we're children we fight
against taking a nap, and as adults we want to
take a nap all the time, but sometimes that can
hinder our sleep at night. So I wanted to know
what is the ideal amount of sleep for adults and
(03:50):
can it vary by person?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Absolutely? So the range really is between seven to seven
to ten hours. Really to nine is the average most
people have heard like, oh, you should be getting seven
or eight hours of sleep, but that really doesn't apply
to everyone. A lot more people fall in that higher
range of closer to nine hours than expected, and so
everyone's sleep need, I call it is an individualized number.
(04:15):
So I always recommend that people figure out what that
number is for them. For me, as nine hours, I
know that any nine hours, seven hours is not going
to cut it. So if you're a nine hour person
that's trying to live off of seven hours, your sleep deprived.
Even though that may be what the average recommendation is.
So it is important to determine what your individual need is.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, and it's crazy because when we I mean, and
we'll go into it about like the different stages of
sleep as far as when you age, because I remember
when I was in college and I could survive off
of four hours of sleep, and then graduated college and
four hours of sleep can no longer cut it. So
I wanted to know as you age how your sleep
(04:56):
can differ from when you're younger to when you're older.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, So the interesting thing is the younger you are,
the more sleep you need. So if you start with
even babies, they sleep newborn and fin sleep up to
eighteen hours a day, so the vast majority of their
day is sleep. You get into toddler school age as
closest to ten to twelve hours at a lessons really
need eight to ten hours, And then even into college
and adulthood, the need stays the same. So we all
(05:23):
still need that seven to nine hours. We're just more
sensitive to sleep deprivation as we get older. So you
were still deprived as a college student as I was,
as most those college students are, but we tend to
become more sensitive to that deprivation as we as we age,
but the need itself is still the same.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Okay, awesome. And for people out there who don't know,
can you just explain the different stages of sleep and
why each one of them is important.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, So there are four different stages of sleep. You
have stage in one sleep, which is that very light
stage that when your first falling asleep. So during this
stage you might not even realize that your sleep. It's
one of those things where you kind of you know,
you might doze off quickly. You're like, wait, dad, I
just fall asleep. That's the end one stage. In two
was a slightly deeper stage of sleep, so all of
your vital signs starts to slow down. Your breathing rate,
(06:15):
your heart rate, your blood pressure, all of those things lower,
and we actually spend most of our time, about fifty
percent of our time in that stage of sleep. In
three is the deep slow wave stage of sleep. So
that is that really deep restorative stage. We say generally speaking,
that's the stage that is restorative for your body, so
your muscles and everything else really feel rested and you
(06:37):
feel more refreshed because of that stage. And then you
have rim sleep or rapid eye movement sleep, where most
of dreaming occurs. And we say, again generally speaking, that
stage is resortive for your mind. There's definitely some overlap,
but that's where the brain makes a lot of connections,
where your emotional regulation takes place, and so it also
(06:58):
is restorative in another way, but a little bit different
from the N three deep sleep.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Okay, interesting, and I wanted to kind of segue a
little bit. So you're talking about sleep deprivation, and you
were talking about kind of the challenges when you don't
get enough sleep. I was curious to know what are
the most common sleep disorders that you see in your practice.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So the most common, so the most common sleep disorder
is actually insomnia. That a lot of people don't connect
that as a sleep disorder, but it is. So that
is difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or maintaining sleep, or
waking up too early I'm sorry, at least three nights
per week for at least a month for what we
call a cute or short term in somnia, and for
at least three months for long term in somnia. Once
(07:45):
the transitions to that place, it is a disorder because
it is not as simple as okay, just go to
sleep earlier. Typically there is disruption and the thoughts about sleep,
the way that people may sleep, and there's like a
sleep anxiety that's often built up. More physiologic disorders, the
(08:07):
most common would be obstructive sleep apnea, and so that's
where there's an obstruction in the airway that impacts breathing,
leading to decreased oxygen while you're sleeping. Sometimes it's just
lower oxygen, sometimes that you stop breathing all together, and
that can have some pretty significant downstream consequences like high
blood pressure high boo pressure in your the vessels that
(08:29):
serve the lung, called pulmonary hypertension. It increases your risk
of stroke. It can cause abnormal heart rhythms and so forth.
So a very significant condition that unfortunately occurs a lot
more than people are aware of. And then there are
a couple others like restless leg syndrome can be a
common one, or periodic limb movement disorder is another one.
(08:50):
But I would say the two most common are insomnia
and then sleep apnea. And my dad has sleep apnea.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He has to sleep with the seapap Yeah, yeah, to
help him. So yeah, I know about that one. But
and insomnia, I guess you know you hear all the time,
oh you know, I just wake up in the middle
of the night and can't fall back asleep and things
of that nature. I didn't know insomnia was so common.
Is it common around a specific age group or not?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, So it's coming throughout the lifetime. I would say
we probably see it more and like middle aged adulthood,
and then definitely in older adulthood, especially for women as
they go through perimenopause and menopause, it tends to become
more significant of a condition, but you really can see
it at any point. Even children can have insomnia. It
(09:42):
just it occurs us likely, but I would say probably
middle adulthood is what we tend to see it the most.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, and how can someone know if they're actually dealing
with him insomnia versus they're just having a couple of
bad nights to sleep?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yes, I would say, you know it's it is normal
to have a couple to sleep. You're not going to
sleep perfectly every night. Even as a sleep specialist who's
very very serious about my sleep, very intentional about getting
good sleep, I have some nights of that of poor
sleep here and there. I would say the main difference
between insomnia though, and what people may struggle with in
terms of sleep are the is the intention behind the sleep.
(10:18):
So some people will say, oh, I go to sleep,
I stay up till two o'clock in the morning binge
watching Netflix, and then I have to wake up at
six AM's only get four hours of sleep. But it's
not insomnia because you're not trying to get eight hours.
You just you didn't go to bed until two o'clock
in the morning and you're tired, But that's because you
haven't given yourself enough sleep opportunity. But then there are
individuals who try to get themselves let's say eight hours
(10:39):
of sleep, but then they're only sleeping four of those
eight hours. And that's happening consistently, like I said, three
or more nights about half of the time. If that's
consistently happening for you for more than a month, then
you've entered the realm of insomnia.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
And what about sleep apnea? What are some signs that
people should look for if they might have sleep apnea.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
The most common sign is snoring so loud, snoring positive,
and breathing so people may gasp during sleep. The tricky
part about sleep apnea is it's often a bed mate
who notices those things more than the person who is asleep.
They may not even know that they snore or that
they're taking positive, but if you were to ask someone else, like, yeah,
(11:21):
you snore very loudly, and I do see you gasping
for air, that's the most common. However, it's important to
know that not all sleep afnea looks the same, particularly
in women and to women who are of older age,
they may not even snore. So what I always say is,
if you're someone who feels that you're getting enough sleep.
So let's say you are getting eight hours of sleep,
but you're waking up with morning headaches and you're so
(11:43):
tired and you're groggy and you're falling asleep. That means
that there's something impacting your sleep quality, and at that
point it's important to get assessed to see if sleep
AFNA may be one of those reasons.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, okay, oh, okay, that makes sense now, I guess
and I wanted to go and to sleep hygiene or
some tips for those who might want to get better
quality of sleep who don't experience insomnia or sleep apnia.
What are some practical tips you have for just improving
(12:14):
someone's sleep overall.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, So, the most important thing is going to be consistency.
The way that we train our circadian rhythms is through
consistency and our actions, and the best way to be
consistent is actually by waking up at the same time
every day. Waking up at the same time is actually
more important than going to sleep at the same time
each night, because that's one of the strongest ways to
(12:37):
reinforce your circadian rhythm, which is that roughly twenty four
hour cycle that dictates when you feel awaken alert and
will you feel tired at night, and so that trains
your circadian rhythm to send cues to be alert at
the same time every day and also helps with your
meltone and release at night. Waking up at the same
time every day, including the weekends, is really the key move.
(12:58):
I'm shaking my head. A lot of people will be
consistent during the week because you have work or whatever
and are the duties within. On the weekend, we get
thrown off, but your circading rhythm doesn't take weekends off unfortunately,
so it is important to be consistent. Now. With that
being said, if you want to sleep in an hour
is okay. So if you're normally getting up at seven,
you can sleep in until eight on the weekends, but
(13:19):
you really don't want to sleep in much longer than that.
Getting some natural light exposure within the first hour of
awaking is actually super critical, and I think it's something
that a lot of people miss. Light is the strongest
factor that influences your circadian rhythm in a way that
tells you to be awaken alert again. Getting that exposure
shuts off your melatonin release right away and helps to
(13:42):
reinforce your melatone and release at night. It increases serotonin production,
which is a feel good hormone, and serotonin is needed
for melatonin at night. So that's one like hack. So
to speak back and help sleep, you can go for
a walk outside, do your morning routine by the window,
use a light therapy box if you don't have morning
right exposure, and man. Lastly, I would say, and of
(14:04):
course there are many other steps, but these three will
help other majority of people is having a consistent bedtime
routine that you do do at a consistent time. So
having a way for your body and mind to transition
from the stress and anxiety and all the things of
the day to the calmness of the night and sleep
is really key, and your bedtime routine can be a
(14:25):
way to do that. That's the void of blue lights
from electronics or stimulating activities. Relaxing activities with low lights
is going to be really important. But that can definitely
help you even to better sleep and have deeper quality sleep.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Okay, I guess I gotta gotta wake up early on
the weekends now in order to get going. Not going
to be a fan, but we gotta try it. So yeah,
so you mentioned blue light. And I know earlier you
mentioned like binging Netflix, and I have to admit I
am one of those people. Explain how does screen time
(15:02):
and blue light, how those things affect our sleep in
how people can mitigate those effects.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yeah, So, as I mentioned, light is the strongest factor
that influences your circadian rhythm in a way that told
you to be awaken alert. Exposing yourself to light, natural light,
especially during the day excellent at night, though, what you're
doing is telling your brain that you want to be
awaken alert even though you don't. The blue wavelength of
light in particular, though, has the strongest impact on your
(15:30):
circadian rhythm in terms of sending alerting signals. So blue
light is richly emitted from electronics like your phone and
tabolated computer, and so basically when you're looking at those things,
particularly at night, you're sending sickles to your brain. Oh,
let's not actually really start melatonin. I want to be
awaken alert for probably some for more hours, making it
difficult we actually want to fall asleep. So I recommend
(15:54):
just staying away from those things in general, especially within
an hour of your bedtime. It's actually how well, within
a couple hours of their bad time, though, to at
least limit the use of those things. Dim the room lights.
So a lot of people don't understand that the led
bowls that we have in our lights also e make
blue lights. So if you're just in a room with
bright lights on, it still does a similar thing. So
(16:17):
trying to limit that. But there are also blue light
blocking glasses. Some of them can be helpful at blocking
some of those. They really need to be the amber
color like orange colored lenses to be effective. But if
you absolutely must expose yourself, at least trying to block
some of that with those glasses.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Okay, okay, I didn't think the blue light glasses actually worked,
but hey.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Most of them, most of them don't, to be honest,
most of them are just Yeah, they're like clear lenses
that don't need to do anything. They really need to
be those like orange lenses, and they don't block out
all blue light. They may help to block out some.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Okay, Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. I didn't
want to know. How does diet and exercise. Does that
play a role in the quality of sleep that you
can have?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Definitely so, particularly for exercise. Research shows that engaging in
daily physical activity can increase that amount of deep sleep,
so that in three slow wave sleep that we talked about,
So it can be super important. What you eat can
im pat how you sleep, especially at night. So we
recommend generally having your biggest meal more than three hours
(17:27):
before bedtime because if your digestive system is too active,
it can be difficult to fall into a deep sleep.
And then certain things that you consume, like caffeine of course, alcohol,
things really high and sugar, spicy foods, all of that
can negatively and pactu your sleep as well.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Okay, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I'll stay away from
the bedtime snacks, all right, I did have I know
there's so many myths flying around as it pertains to sleep,
so I wanted to get your expertise on some of
those things. Is the idea of catching up on sleep
(18:07):
real or is that a myth?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, that's fake news. You cannot catch up on sleep unfortunately.
So sleep pass specific roles and functions for every single night. Right,
your body is actually very sophisticated and intelligent, and that
you will spend more time in different stages depending on
what you need based on what happened that day. And
so you can never truly make up the functions that
(18:31):
would have occurred that night by sleeping in longer another day.
The other thing is like you build up sleep debt
throughout the week from sleeping missed out on, so your
body will try to repay that to a certain extent,
but it'll it'll just never recover those functions. Sleeping in
later again also throws off against acadian rhythm, makes it
more difficult to get good sleep the following night. So
(18:52):
generally it's not a good idea. Usually when people miss
out on sleep, let's say for a night or two nights, regumment,
just getting back on your normal sleep schedule, get if
you nine hours, get your nine hours at night, and
then try to be consistent, you know, night after night
with nine hours, because trying to catch up will probably
create more harm than good.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Okay, all right, good to know. Can you explain why
some people feel more rested after taking shorter naps while
other people feel a little bit more groggy?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, definitely, So shorter naps is what we recommend. So
the nap window of time is really between like ten
to thirty minutes. But there have been researching shows that
naps are shortest like eight minutes can give you a
lot of benefit. The reason that we recommend not sleeping
longer than thirty minutes so is that when you sleep
too long, you run the risk of falling into the
(19:41):
deeper stages of sleep. As I've mentioned that slow wave sleep,
the rim sleep, and when you're awakened from those stages,
you're more likely to suffer from what we call sleep inertia,
which is that groggy, disoriented feeling that can make you
feel more tired than you did before you took the nap.
And so it really is better for most people to
limit their maps to shorter to thirty minutes to get
(20:04):
a boost of energy and creativity and mental clarity and
all those things, but without the grindy feeling.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Okay, And my last question, as it relates to the
myth or the fact of sleep, are there any common
sleep remedies like melatonin or when people play white noise
in the background, are they misunderstood or improperly used at all?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So melatonin is definitely improperly used. It is it is.
It can be a helpful sleep supplement in certain situations.
As I mentioned, I mentioned melatonin a couple times already
in this interview. We naturally produce melatonin from our pie
neal glands and our brains that sets usage for sleep.
(20:49):
So there are ways that you can increase your natural
melatonin release by avoiding light exposure and increasing light exposure
during the day, engaging in the bedtime routine, and so on.
But there are certain situations when your circadian rhythm is
thrown off that supplemental melatonin can be helpful. Jet Lag
is a very common one. So if you're traveling somewhere
(21:09):
that your new bedtime is much earlier than your bedtime
at home, your natural melatonin is not going to be
released yet because it's not on that same schedule. So
supplemental melatonin can be helpful for those reasons. During the
time change when we like when we fall back, similarly
can be helpful. I also think that in certain situations
(21:31):
for night oul, so I'm actually naturally a night oul
as well, and so naturally my circadian rhythm is shifted
such that if I just were left to my own
devices for a long time, I would go to sleep
somewhere around one am and wake up at ten am.
That's like an ideal schedule for me, but life is
not set up like that, so I can't follow that schedule.
So as I was transitioning to an early schedule and
(21:55):
trying to function more as an early bird, I took
low dose i's the key melatonin for a short amount
of time until I was basically able to train my
body to produce my natural melatone in earlier. So those
are situations which I think it can be helpful. A
lot of times people will just use it as a
sleeping pill every night and they're like, Oh, this doesn't work.
And that's because that's really not the point of it.
(22:17):
It really doesn't work like that.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, and what about white noise? Does that help?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Or Yeah, so white noise actually does help. There have
been some studies that show the white noise can create
a more comfortable sleeping environment, can help you sleep a
bit deeper, especially if there are outside noises from outside
of your bedroom space that impact your sleep. Drowning it
out with a continuous sound like a white noise can
be super helpful. And I don't think people misuse it.
(22:42):
I think if you want to use white noise every
single night, I think that's totally fine.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh okay, all right. I wanted to ask about people
who do work like the night shift and things of
that nature. How can shift workers with irregular sleep schedules
improve their sleep?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, so shift work is really difficult on sleep. It
throws out that consistency piece, which I mentioned is the
most important at the beginning of this. But there are
odd things you can do to get better sleep. For
the night shift in particular, one thing I'll often recommend
is utilizing what we call anchor sleep, which is a
four hour period of time that you've spend sleeping whether
(23:21):
you're working or off, to anchor your circadian rhythm. So,
one big problem with night shift, aside from trying to
be awaken working at night and sleeping during the day,
is that when people are off, they want to function normally,
so they try to be active during the day and
sleep at night. But your circadian rhythm doesn't flip fop
like that. It's really hard to adjust, and so they
end up being tired during their night shift and tied
(23:42):
during the day, and so it's not a great quality
of life. But let's say they work from six to six,
so six pm to six am, and they go to
sleep around seven am. Then we'd recommend on the day
after they work so they get off at six, they
go to sleep at seven, they sleep till three. On
the days that they're off, they go to sleep at
three am and sleep till eleven AM. What that means
(24:05):
is that for our period between seven to eleven, they
will spend sleeping whether they're off or they're working. So
it gives them something to anchor their circadian rhythm around,
but they're not completely switching around their schedule, and it
allows them to function more normally during the daytime when
they're off, because you're getting up at eleven am and
you still have more of your day. So having that
(24:27):
anchor sleep and then doing things like using a light
therapy box during the first half of their work shift
at night to retrain their circadian rhythm. Again, light is
gonna send signals that you want to be awaken alert.
But then conversing on your drive home when you're wanting
to go to sleep, wearing sunglasses to block out the sunlight,
blackout curtains, keep the environment icing dark. Taking a dose
(24:48):
of melatonin in this situation can actually be helpful to
again try to retrain their circadian rhythms.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Okay, all right, so I'll let my friends know because
they were curious. So definitely, what advice do you have
for parents who are trying to balance their own sleep
with caring for their children.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, so my advice for parents is to equip your
kids with healthy, independent sleep habits. It's one of the
best things that you can do. Actually, this morning had
a session with a group of parents and we were
talking about sleep training, and it really is one of
the best things you can do for your kids and
for yourselves because one of your kids may sleep. Sleep.
(25:30):
As I mentioned, it is important for every facet of functioning,
particularly growth and development when they're younger. So if you
equip them with those habits to fall asleep stay asleep independently,
there's no reason that you can't get sleep either. So
really focusing on that and focusing on modeling healthy sleep behaviors.
Just like we want to model healthy eating habits we
eat vegetables and working out and all those things to
(25:51):
who are kids can see, that same thing goes for sleep.
So model those healthy sleep behaviors and prioritize healthy sleep
for your kid, and then you can also get good
sleep as well. Well.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I understand the juggle with parenthood
and everything like that. Yeah, for sure, for sure, I
wanted to segue into something a little different. So this
is just something a little fun and we'll see what
your answers are. In the span of your career. What's
been the most interesting thing that you've learned about sleep?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Oh, that's that's a good question. What is the most
interesting thing? I mean, I think sleep everything about sleep
is interesting. But okay, so this is a little known fact.
Most people think that we like rim sleep, that rapid
eye movement sleep is where all dreaming occurs, and that's
not true. You actually dream in other stages of sleep.
(26:46):
So I personally found that very interesting because I thought
for a long time because that was the only only
time that we dreamed. So yeah, I would probably say
that was the most interesting thing to me.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And let's see. I know we busted some myths earlier.
If you can bust another myth for us about sleep,
what would it be.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Some people think it doesn't matter the timing of your
sleep as long as you get enough sleep, right, So
let's say you need seven hours of sleep. Well, as
long as I got my seven hours, I saw that matters.
But again that's really not the case. What we've learned,
especially with a lot of medical conditions, is that the
disruption of the timing of sleep contributes more to long
term health consequences than the time spent to sleep. So
(27:32):
what we call a sleep consistency is one of the
most important things you can have in terms of your health.
The amount of time you spend in sleep is also important,
but it's more important to be consistent. So if you
do nothing else, even if you can't reach your full
sleep amount, being consistent in the time you go to
sleep and wake up can benefit your health significantly in
the long run.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Awesome. And then my last question, can dreams tell us
anything about our mental or physical health? Really?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, that's uh interesting question. There's lots of ving research
about dreams and their meanings. We think that dreams are
a way for us to kind of play out emotions
or things that happen during the day. I would say
there's a lot more research that needs to occur with that,
So I think yes, but I don't have a lot
to validate that or specific to say about it. That's
(28:21):
definitely an ongoing part of research.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Hey, we'll figure it out soon, hopefully. Well that is
all that I have for today, Doctor Holiday, Bell, can
you please let the people know where they can find you,
where they can reach you.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, definitely so. My website Thesolution to Sleep dot com
is a great place to start. I also create a
lot of content on Instagram as the Sleep Underscore MD,
or you can also follow me on LinkedIn at doctor Holiday.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Be awesome, and thank you so much for joining us today.
It was super insightful. I learned so much and I'm
going to implement it in the new year, I promise
myself I will twenty two And for our listeners, as always,
God bless have an amazing day, and thank you for
listening to Alison's Corner. Thanks for tuning in to Alison's Corner.
(29:14):
If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave
a review and share it with a friend who'd love
to join the conversation. For more context and updates, follow
us on Instagram and YouTube at Allison's Corner Pod. Until
next time, be blessed.
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