Ologies with Alie Ward - Smologies #21: SLEEP with Chris Winter

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

A G-rated, kid-safe Smologies edit all about getting your Zzzzzs. Neurologist and somnologist Dr. W. Chris Winter is an expert on sleep, and since his first interview, he’s released a book called ��The Rested Child” all about sleep and kiddos! So parents, kids and anybody else can dive in to learn about different sleep stages, what sleep does to the brain, insomnia, ideal bedtime conditions, brain performance and how doctors often overlook pediatric sleep disorders. You’ll learn so many facts that will help you get to dreamland. (And for the adult version, the full-length episode is linked below.)Dr. W. Chris Winter's website and sleep clinicHis books: The Rested Child, The Sleep SolutionFollow Dr. Winter on Twitter or Instagram or listen to his podcast Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris WinterFull-length (not classroom-friendly) episode + tons of science linksMore kid-friendly Smologies episodes!Saatva is the exclusive sponsor of this episode! Head to Saatva.com/ologiesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramSound editing by Steven Ray Morris, Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio, and Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam MediaMade possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Emily White, & Erin TalbertSmologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

A special shout out to our sole sponsor, Saatva Mattress. So this is coming to you without a bunch of ads, just sponsored by Saatva. Saatva sponsored our series on dreaming the honorology episodes, which were so good. And since this one is also about sleep and I sleep on a Saatva, I also read books on a Saatva and lay around

and look at my phone on a Saatva, but the sleeping part's the best. A Saatva is like getting a first class ticket to slumberland for the price of a middle seat and coach. They're that good and they're also that affordable. Since I have gotten a Saatva, several of my friends and my niece have one too. It's been the most comfortable, the easiest to purchase.

So if you are in the market for a new mattress, get the one I have, get the one I love, Saatva. See for yourself at saatva.com slash ologies. That's S-A-T-V-A.com slash ologies. Thanks Saatva, we love you. Oh hey, it's your little step brother who tries to trade you their calcified banana flavor now and later for your mini Reese's peanut butter cups

and you're like, little dude, step all the way off. That's not how life works. Alleyboard, back for another episode of ologies. So let's get deep into something that happens usually in the dead of night. If you're lucky, sleep. You do it every day or night, probably. Okay, some knowledgey, very much a thing.

It's the study of how we sleep. And I looked up the etymology of it just after I wrote that intro and holy smokes you guys, Somnos is the Roman god of sleep and yes, the brother of death. I had no idea when I wrote that a few minutes ago. So there you go. Also, Somnos probably a remake of the Greek myth of Hypnos

who was the Greek god of sleep, also the half brother of Thanatos death. So Hypnos lived in a dark grotto in the underworld. What a bachelor, but was kind of a helper of humans. He was a good dude. His dad was darkness and his mother was nicks or night. And even Zeus was afraid of her, but I respect that. And so Somnos is the study of the god

that comes in darkness to recharge us. And it seems to vex us more and more. I'm determined to help fix your sleep. And by your, I mean our. I appall my own friends, physicians. I appall my own Fitbit with my poor sleep habits. And as a result, I sometimes forget which month it is. And I have eaten more stickers on produce

than you need to know about. So you're gonna learn the difference between deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep, what aspects of sleep hygiene are important, how much sleep you really need. Sleep information specifically about kiddos from the author of the book, The Rested Child, why you're tired, wired or irritable child

may have a sleep disorder and how to help the molecular janitors that live in your skull. This guest has been called the sleep whisperer and works with professional athletes and normies alike to perform better and to remedy their sleep issues. He has literally written the book on sleep. So get cozy, zip up your onesies and get ready from neurologist and somnologist,

Dr. William Chris Winter. Neurologist? Solgist? Neurologist? Neurologist? Neurologist. You are a neurologist, but you're also a somnologist. Correct.

Because you study sleep. Correct. Now, tell me a little bit about what is sleep? I mean, that's like the golden question, because it does seem crazy that for eight hours of the day we're so vulnerable to predation, we just clock out. Like what is sleep exactly?

Yeah, I don't think people really know. I mean, there's all kinds of theories in terms of sleep being something important for energy balance. There's a metabolic sort of pathway that sleep is very important for. So I don't know that we necessarily know exactly what it is, but it's a very important thing for sort of reestablishing balance within our body throughout organ systems.

And every organism does it. They do it differently. Some fish that have to continue to always swim, they'll sleep one half their brain, and then the other at other times, and really fascinating things like that. But it's this very preserved process that kind of allows us to sort of reset

and go forward about our day. But to answer that definitively, I don't think anybody really can, which is shocking. It's something like you said so basic that we don't really know why we do it. We don't know? Is this true? I fact checked it.

And yes, pretty much all legit scientific papers start with, even though how and why we sleep is a mystery for real. But we do know that there are different stages of sleep. Can you go through the different stages of sleep really quick and when they happen to you in the night or the day? So it's easy to think about sleep in terms of three stages. There's light sleep, deep sleep, and dream sleep.

Again, those three stages were light sleep, deep sleep, and dream sleep. So a lot of people think dream sleep and deep sleep are kind of the same thing. They're not. So very distinct. So we spend about half of our night in light sleep. Half in light sleep is normal.

That just blew me away. And that's sort of the sleep that sort of moves us through all the different stages. So we're awake and we fall into light sleep and from there we might dream and then we'll go back to light sleep and then we might have deep sleep back to light sleep and maybe wake up and go to the bathroom.

So light sleep is not only the sort of the foundation of our sleep, but it's also the portal through which we move to the different stages. About 90 minutes after we fall asleep, if we're on a schedule and relatively well rested, we'll have dream or REM sleep. So REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, and dream sleep are the same thing.

So generally, at nine minutes after you fall asleep, you'll have your first dream. It's a very short dream, typically very fragile. So if you're in an uncomfortable situation and a lot of anxiety in your life, if you're sleeping in a bad hotel, you may drop that first cycle quite a bit. And then every hour to hour and a half,

we'll have another cycle of dreaming. Usually lasts somewhere between 25 to 45 minutes and those get longer and longer as the night goes on. So light sleep starts as a stage called N1 as you're starting to drift off and you might have like a quick, funky dream that kind of like, yay, I'm falling asleep. Nothing is real feeling.

And then your brain waves slow down and then a little deeper light sleep is called N2. When your breath and your heart rate slow down. Almost half of your night is spent in N2, but it's not terribly restorative. Now what is with this N1, N2? What are the Ns? They're short for non-REM sleep.

So all stages of sleep that aren't REM are called non-REM, which is like if you had four kids and you just named the best, most interesting one Jeremy and then all the rest were just like, non-Jeremy one, non-Jeremy two, that one's non-Jeremy three. Like sure, they all have their place in this family.

Your life wouldn't be the same without them, you know, but they're not as interesting as Jeremy. Now let's totally switch metaphors. So think of light sleep as your day-to-day shoe. Nothing fancy, but it works. Now another kind of shoe in your sleep closet. Let's say the ug of the shoes is deep sleep. Now also called slow wave sleep or delta sleep

or N3, not REM3. This stage of deep sleep happens more at the beginning of the night. And during this deep sleep stage, our bodies repair and they heal themselves. We release human growth hormone, which is dope for free. And the more of this deep sleep we get,

those first few hours in bed, usually around 25% of the night, the more chipper and refreshed and not sleepy or groggy or crawling toward a triple espresso we feel. And REM sleep has a lot more to do with focus, concentration, mood, even pain perception. So it's a little bit more of a finesse sort of situation,

which is probably why it's second in the night. Your brain really needs the deep sleep to make the motor go to find the food, to get through your day. The second half of the night, it's a little bit more detail oriented. So if light sleep is like an everyday sneaker and deep sleep is a comfortable ug,

REM sleep is like the shimmering dress shoe, full of dreams, increased breathing and heart rates, more blood in your brain, and our eyes are just like darting around like kittens under our eyelids. So in this state, our brain is as active as when we're awake. And REM sleep, they think, is supposed to help with memory and concentration

and also mood. So the dress shoes takes care of memory and mood and it happens for about 25% of the night. The cushy, comfy, ug, deep sleep, or N3, also 25% of the night, repairs your bod and keeps you from feeling sleepy. So yes, that light sleep is the majority of the night at 50%, but what does it do?

And then what is happening during light sleep? So light sleep is important. Again, like I said, it's sort of the foundation of sleep. There are a lot of processes going on. I don't want to use the word filler, but it's a lot of sort of just the general rest of our body. Our body is being inactive for a period of time. And interesting about light sleep

is for a lot of individuals who struggle with their sleep, they will misperceive light sleep as being wakefulness. And I know this is still, I feel like this is still such a basic question, but what is the big difference, like in brainwaves or whatever, when we are awake and talking and functioning and like dodging things coming at our heads?

But then the difference between that when we're stone cold out. And why does that sometimes happen in literally the blink of an eye? One of the things I always tell people is that sleep always wins. I mean, if you push yourself hard enough and get yourself sleepy enough, it's not something that you really have a lot of control over.

So sleep can sleep, sleep happens. We're not in danger of not sleeping. I think that for a lot of, when you look at sleep in terms of the wavelengths like you're talking about, what's interesting is when you look at somebody's brain activity when they're awake, it looks very different from somebody who's in deep sleep. Deep sleep, you can see the sort of the consciousness part of your brain

taking a backseat to the more primitive parts of the brain we share, like with an earthworm. A worm? But when you look at REM sleep, it's almost impossible to discern the brain activity of somebody dreaming versus the brain activity of somebody who's awake. Really?

Yes, which is why it's really interesting when people say REM sleep or deep sleep, they could not be more different. In fact, one of the only ways you can tell that somebody is dreaming if you're just looking at their brain is to look at their muscle tone because when we dream, we're paralyzed. So it's obvious from looking at a videotape, oh, she's dreaming and she's awake.

That's pretty obvious. But to purely look at the brain's activity, it's very difficult to discern. And not to mention there's eye movement. It's the usual bold eye movements that happen when we're dreaming that we don't see when we're awake. But really that muscle tone is the biggest way we differentiate somebody

electrographically as to whether or not they're sleeping or they're awake, which is fascinating. So when you dream, you're sitting there taking a test or whatever, you're being chased by wolves or whatever you like to dream about, you actually can't move when those things are happening, nor can we really regulate our body temperature, which is kind of interesting too.

One thing that's fun to think about is sleep is not a light switch. It's not a wake, and then the light switch goes off and now we're asleep, like it's a state on off. It's really sleep as a mechanism in our brain, but then vigilance or wakefulness is too. So it's really two switches. So when you're awake and we're sitting here talking, our wake switch is turned on, our sleep switch is turned off.

And when we sleep vice versa, now sleep paralysis is the wake and the sleep switch being turned on at the same time. Oh my God. Isn't that cool? Are these switches kind of like, instead of binary switches, they're more like levers that go up and down and continue? Absolutely. And they're affecting each other.

So as the sleep switch gets turned on, it's like the, I don't know if you've ever been like a water park, like an indoor water park often has this massive bucket in the middle of it that's constantly getting filled with water. And every seven minutes, it just dumps it on everybody. So that's kind of how sleep, sleep and wakefulness, as we are awake and talking, we're accumulating chemicals that are making that sleep bucket wanting to tip over more and more,

which is why we are a lot sleepier at 11 p.m. than maybe 11 a.m. And so what happens in sleep that is kind of like a janitorial system? Like I read something about how with Alzheimer's and other brain diseases that your brain kind of like rinses off plaques, perhaps. I don't know. Absolutely. What kind of things are we cleaning? And I'm also asking you this as a way to get myself to sleep more.

So yes, when I was in medical school back in the late 90s, I remember the lecture on the lymphatic system with an L lymphatic, which is the cleaning janitorial system of our body. It's getting rid of waste products, kind of flushing it out. And I remember our lecture saying, but interestingly, the brain doesn't have one. And then we went on to the next topic. And I remember sitting there thinking, wait a minute, the most important organ of our brain or our body does not have this janitorial system.

So it turns out that he in science was wrong. This fantastic researcher in Maryland, she discovered it. And I'm blanking on her name right now. Nettagard, I believe, was her name. Danish neuroscientist Dr. Macon Nettagard in 2013 for anyone who just wants to get a tattoo of a new science hero. She not only discovered it, she named it the glimphatic system with a G and realized very quickly that not only is it pumping out waste products,

but it's 10 times more active when we sleep at night than when we're awake. Now, what exactly, what other things are we cleaning out other than the plaques? How does that affect our memory and our motor coordination and our ability to think quickly by having a cleaner brain? Yeah. So all those things you mentioned are true. And you can look at science in one of two ways. You can look at the science that either deprived or restricted sleep. Or you can look at sort of newer science where you force people to sleep longer

and even just rest longer. But even if you just restrict sleep, those things to me are much more meaningful. I think most people believe that if you stay up all night, you don't work that well the next day. But what if you got four or five hours of sleep for several days in a row? I use a Fitbit and this was actually me all last week. Averaged four hours at night for an entire week. I was so foggy that I confused my itinerary.

I missed my first flight in 10 years. And then I cried in an airport bathroom out of frustration at myself. Like a big, weepy, cranky baby. So does lack of sleep make me a weak person though? Well, physically, yes. It's been shown that bench press drops by 20 to 30 pounds. We make three times more attention errors. We have a much more impaired ability to read the emotions and cues of others.

Now the flip side is what if you do sleep? What if you do spend more time in bed? What if you're forced to spend 10 hours in bed, no matter what, sleeping or resting? And it shows that people run faster. They swim faster. They react to things quicker. Their accuracy in terms of aspects of their life improved. They're happier.

They have better ideas. It's just amazing. And yes, so you may know Dr. Winters first book, The Sleep Solution, but he's since published another called The Rested Child. And I asked him if kid's sleep tends to be an overlooked issue. And he said yes, and sent me back an excerpt from The Rested Child, which he said I can read to him. So it says, sleep disorders in children are on the rise,

and all too often these disorders are undiagnosed. And it's been estimated that 10% of children have a diagnosable sleep disorder, but more than half of all the children who display signs of a sleep issue are not diagnosed properly. And every year, children are treated for diseases like diabetes, learning disorders, and chronic pain, when the root cause of their ailment may actually be a sleep disorder for which they're not being treated.

And he writes, even if a child happens to be lucky enough to receive a proper diagnosis, only 5% of those with a recognized sleep problem or disorder received any therapy for their condition according to one study. For children struggling with mental health issues, the percentage of those dealing with sleep disorders balloons up to as much as 75%. And often the sleep disorder is contributing to or masquerading as the psychiatric problem.

He continues, the nation's sleep foundation estimates that two out of every three children in the United States will experience some type of sleep problem before they reach adulthood. So again, that was an excerpt from his book, The Rested Child, which I'll link in the show notes in case it's of interest. And we recorded the main interview from this episode in 2018. And since it aired, it's now five years later, I've completely changed my relationship to sleep.

I used to fall asleep on the couch with the lights on four or five times a week because I had no sleep hygiene. I never thought I deserved rest. And so I just dozed off in the middle of working late. But now bedtime is honestly my favorite time of day. I get great sleep. I've completely changed this really big problem in my life because of this episode and Dr. Winter.

So what are better sleep habits? The CDC has some hot tips. Centers for Disease Control, who apparently considers not sleeping enough kind of a disease, says be consistent, go to bed at the same time each night, including weekends if you can. Make sure that your bedroom is quiet, dark and relaxing and at a comfortable temperature.

We've learned colder is better. Who knew? Remove TVs, computers, smartphones from the bedroom. The CDC says to throw them into the simmering caldera of a volcano if you have one. Also avoid big meals and caffeine before bedtime. We all kind of know that we're supposed to do those things. I'm trying to shift the way I'm thinking about sleep

to thinking of it as a free thing you can do to make your brain sharper and your skin glowier and your future less addled with disease. So if sleep hygiene were a thing you could buy and just not do, we would all be so pumped for it, but really it's just a behavior. So we have to see value in the behavior. How much does sleep hygiene affect how much you actually sleep? I would say that in terms of its ability to solve a problem, 20%. So I would say of the people out there who are struggling with their sleep

that 20% of people if they did something related to sleep hygiene could make their problem much better or solve it. So I think sleep hygiene is important. We want to set the stage for good sleep. We want to have positive thoughts about sleep. So I think that we need to cultivate that attitude but understand that it has its limitations. And now how dark and quiet should your room be though?

You know, again, I think that if you're struggling with your sleep really dark and really quiet. And what if you're in a cool, dark, quiet room and you still can't catch any Z's? Well, your grandpa Ma can help. But what's my mom's big insomnia trick? Here it is. I feel like it deserves a soft drum roll. Okay, good.

We're going to call it the Sleepy Fancy Nancy Technique. My mom does this thing. She taught me that works like a charm where you think of a category like fruits or boys' names or electronics. And then you go with something that starts with A, okay, Apple, B, Blackberry, C. And then you go down and I never make it past like L, I'm out.

But do you have anything else like that? I think that's awesome. Some sample categories you can use for this alphabet game. Types of fruit, boys' names, girls' names, gender neutral names, cities, snacks, vacation activities, clothing brands, cereals, items you would keep in a purse, animals, really anything.

You've struck upon something that's very important. Give yourself a task that's not trying to sleep. A thing like, well, I'm going to leave now and it doesn't mean you don't love them or want to be with them. And all I have hates me being anywhere near her at night. And for some reason kind of gravitate over to her side of the bed and she's like, get away.

I just don't want that. I don't think it means she doesn't love me. But I think that people just need to sleep and do what's right for their sleep and not necessarily have some guy breathing and hanging over top of you. So yes, we have cars and antibiotics, but when it comes to sleep...

And not so good. But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors, why sponsors? You know what they do? They help us give money to different charities every week. So if you want to know where Allergies gives our money, you can go to alleyword.com

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Listen, I'm not a mom, but I've got one. Her name is Fancy Nancy. Here's my only problem with Mother's Day. They get one day, they birthed and or raised the people all over the planet. And they get one day for us to give them a handful of carnations and a blouse that was on sale. You know what they really need? Sleep.

They need some rest. Give them a nap. And they deserve something that they'll really cherish and appreciate. Not just one day a year. Every day. The gift of sleep made possible by a Saatva luxury mattress. Take it from me. I sleep on one.

I sit on one. I read on one. I cling to one when my alarm clock goes off. I can tell you firsthand, I don't know your mom, but I have a feeling mom's going to sleep better than ever. Saatvas are plush. They're sumptuous. They're incredibly comfortable.

And best of all, because they're sold online, they cost half as much as the top retail brands. So give your mom a Saatva mattress. What if you did that? Oh, she'd never stop talking about it. Let her know that to you every day is Mother's Day. And by Mother's Day, I mean Mother's Night. Go to bed.

That's your dad's words advice. Right now, you'll save $200 on $1,000 or more at saatva.com slash oligies. That's S-A-A-T-V-A.com slash oligies. Okay. Your questions. Here we go. So I'm just going to run through.

Megan Yance wants to know, why do some people have different circadian rhythms? So Megan, Megan, that is a genetic trait you probably inherited from your mother and father as either being a night owl or what we call delayed sleep phase or a morning person or morning larka. So probably the simple question is

you acquired it from a parent. Now it is modifiable. So there may be aspects in your life that allowed you to change it, but it's kind of always there. And I'm a believer to sell it as an aside that our sleep need, how much sleep do we need?

And our timing as Megan's describing, when do we like it? Night or late or early tends to push us into certain careers. Entering night shift. I got a lot of questions. Corey Navas, Sophia Garbos, GX Barnett, Paul Hawk, Katie Spino, Maria Kumro, Abigail Campbell,

all asked, how can some people sleep for five or six hours and feel fine and other people need eight or 10? Like, why do some people seem to need less? So that, once again, kind of goes back to the earlier question about how come some people are night-oriented and some people are day-oriented.

So when you think about your sleep, everybody who's listening to this has a certain amount of sleep that they need that's individual to them. Not only that, but it's also individual to you at that time. So if you're a 20-year-old, that time might change when you're a 70-year-old. So not only do we have a time that we need

or a duration we need, but we also have a timing. So those are the two variables I want you to think about. And so what the answer to the question is, there are some people out there who need eight hours of sleep. And we talk a lot about that in the media being sort of an average.

I think the average is probably closer to seven, seven and a half, but we can agree to disagree. So whatever that average is, it is an average. We need to get outside of this idea that eight hours of sleep is somehow magical. It is if that's what you need. We're all different. So if you're getting six and a half hours of sleep

and you feel great and you don't feel like falling asleep in movies or in meetings or things of that nature, then you're probably doing exactly what your body needs to be healthy. Okay. And what's your favorite thing about your job? My favorite thing about my job is the idea that sleep, everybody likes to talk about sleep.

Everybody's got a story to tell. People love it. It's fascinating. It's cool to talk about. The brain's awesome. So to me, it's just the diversity of different things. You can do with sleep or so much fun. You get to talk to people like you and hang out

and talk to a baseball pitcher. It's like every day is different. It's so much fun. Well, I'm so excited you did this. Thank you so, so much. It was my pleasure at any time. So ask smart people sleepy questions because they can help you rest easy

with the right information. You just have to ask. And links to Dr. Chris Winter's website or in the show notes as well as links to his books, The Rested Child and the Sleep Solution. He also has a podcast about sleep called Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris Winter. And those are all linked in the episode notes

as our more Smologies episodes, which are all kid-friendly. You can find those also at alleyward.com slash Smologies. We're on social media, at oligies, on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at alleyward on both. And in an effort to keep these episodes small, we have the full credits in the show notes, but huge thanks to Mr. Sleeper himself, Jared Sleeper of Mind Gen Media

and Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio for editing these Smologies episodes. And if you stick around until the end, you know, I give you a piece of advice. And this week, it's that when you have to be somewhere on time, it can be really stressful. So instead of focusing on what time you need to be somewhere, think about how long it takes to get there

and focus on the time you need to leave your house and then add on an extra 10 or 15-minute cushion because you might need the cushion, but if you don't, it's way better to be somewhere early and relaxed than on time and frazzled or even worse late and really anxious. So just add 10 to 15 minutes on to the time that you have to leave the house

and think of that as your deadline to get ready. Kind of think of it like a favor to future you. Just a super chill way to get from A to B. I've started doing that and it's helped a lot. Okay, until next time, Smologites. Bye-bye. Good night. Smologies. Smologies.

Smologies. Smologies. Smologies. Just one final word of thanks to our sole sponsor for the show, Safa. They are our sleep crush. We love them. And if you want to start prioritizing sleep and rest,

please do as someone who used to think I was too tough for sleep and have learned that sleep is one of the best things you could do for yourself and it is worth the investment of time and the investment of a new mattress. You deserve a mattress that is top of the line without having to take out a second mortgage while you're at it. Safa mattresses are for you.

So visit satva.com slash oligies right now and you can save $200 when you purchase $1,000 or more. That's S-W-A-T-V-A.com slash oligies. And thank you again, Safa. Sweet dreams. Bye-bye.