Speaking of Psychology - Psychologically Sound Tips for Better Sleep with Robin Haight, PsyD

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

Do you remember the last time you woke up during the work week without an alarm clock? When you didn’t need caffeine to get going? If you can’t, you’re certainly not alone. Most of us fall short of the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep nightly and an estimated 50 million to 70 million Americans of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds suffer from sleep-related problems, according to the American Sleep Apnea Association. Our guest, Robin Haight, PsyD, a clinical psychologist in private practice, will give practical tips for getting a good night’s sleep and explain how common mental health disorders can interfere with our much-needed shut-eye. Join us online August 6-8 for APA 2020 Virtual. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We can't live without it. Most of us don't get enough of it. And when we don't, we get cranky, less productive, and more prone to health problems. I'm talking about sleep, of course. Hello and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a biweekly podcast from the American Psychological Association that explores the connections between psychological science and everyday life. I'm your host, Caitlin Luna. Do you remember the last time you woke up during the work week without an alarm clock when you didn't need caffeine to get going? If you can't, you're certainly not alone.

Most of us fall short of the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep nightly, and an estimated 50 million to 70 million Americans of all ages in socioeconomic backgrounds suffer from sleep-related problems, according to the American Sleep Apnea Association. Our guest for this episode will give practical tips for getting a good night's sleep and explain how common mental health disorders can interfere with our much-needed shut-eye. Dr. Robin Haidt is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Virginia who specializes in treating anxiety, depression, and sleep issues. Welcome, Dr. Haidt. Thank you for having me.

We're very happy to have you on the show today. Can you explain some of the most common sleep issues you see with clients in your practice? By far, the most common complaint that I hear is that people have trouble falling asleep. That's called sleep initiation. And most of the time, they're saying that they have racing thoughts. are just not being able to shut off their brain. So how do you address that? I mean, how do you shut off your brain

when it's just going a million miles an hour? Do you get up? Do you change positions? Read a book, turn on the TV, start texting your friends. Well, let's back up maybe 30 minutes before all of this happens because a lot of times when I hear people talk about falling asleep and I always ask about sleep

when someone comes in to talk to me about anything. I always ask, you know, how are you sleeping these days? What I often find out is a lot of people have very poor sleep routines or get sleep hygiene, we tend to call it, you know, preparing for sleep. Or they may have sort of different kinds of attitudes about sleep, such as thinking that sleep is optional, not integral to mental health or physical health. And so I start to uncover some of these problems. that happen even before they get into bed in terms of their attitudes or their sleep hygiene.

So what is good sleep hygiene? Well, again, we have to back up at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour before you really want to go to bed or before you want to go to sleep, let's say. And having a good routine that kind of helps you separate the day from bedtime. And that doesn't include watching a scary movie and then turning it off and then expecting to go right to sleep. Yeah, right. That makes sense. You know, things like that are going to really jazz you up are going to be overstimulating, things that are going to kind of, you know, maybe having an intense conversation with your partner, with your kids, or, you know, things like that. Really, you got to keep that stuff in mind

when you think about sleep and, you know, really being protective of your sleep. I hear a lot about not using a screen before bed. So, you know, putting your smartphone thrown away, maybe even putting it in another room might be helpful. So do you tell people to really minimize screen time as you approach that hour before you go to sleep? Definitely. I mean, this is now, you know, five years ago, I was sort of informing people about this. Now people seem to know that screens, you know, and now you can buy blue light filtering glasses so people can still be on their phones right before bed because they think that if they just filter out the blue light, that that's good enough. But I really do try to get people to get off their screens, a good 30 to 60 minutes before

going to bed. But the problem is a lot of people use their phones for their alarm clock. So it's probably not realistic to say, leave your phone in the kitchen. But, you know, sometimes it's just reminding people, like, get off your phone. Don't watch videos on your phone. Don't watch videos on your phone until you until right before bed or don't watch TV shows on your computer, on your laptop right before going to bed because those kinds of things really do suppress the melatonin that you, that your brain produces to help you start to feel sleepy. So it really is important to not have any close screen devices right before going to bed. Right. And you said it can be difficult as you, you know, if you do use it for your alarm clock, if it's the only clock in your room,

you might be thinking, oh, I have that last text message I need to send before I go to bed, but as much as you can, just try not to have your phone. Yeah, just as much as you can. I mean, I even look at my phone right before I go to bed sometimes that I think, I know I shouldn't be doing this. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard. But I want to check out this Instagram feed, you know. Yeah, right.

I mean, just like I think of things as you're about to go to bed for the night. So you talk about how you, when then you're, see your clients, no matter what they come in, you ask about sleep. So can you talk about the mental health benefits of sleep? Sleep is still not entirely understood and why we need sleep. I mean, it's been studied for a long, long time, and then the research is ongoing. But what we have seen in some recent research is how sleep helps us build up long-term memories and helps us sort of consolidate our learning during the day or to process what we've been through during the day.

It also helps it build cognitive and emotional reserves. We also know that if you don't sleep, you have a lot of physical problems too. Like there was this research, a study done where animals that were deprived of entirely, deprived entirely of sleep, lost all immune function. And they died within a matter of weeks. Now, we couldn't necessarily deprive a human of sleep entirely to cause them to go, you know, to lose all of their immune function. But sleep is such an important thing for learning, for keeping emotional regulation. And all of us know how if we go to bed and we're in a bad mood, we're thinking about something that's upsetting.

some if we have a good night's sleep it may not be that is that upsetting the next day yeah i definitely do feel like that you also kind of feel like you've kind of feel like you've a clean slate when you wake up in the morning if you've if you've if you've slept well of course of that whatever it was bothering you didn't keep you up in the night i notice a physical feeling which is i'm sure many people do as well like you just feel better in the morning knowing your your brain just like you said consolidated your memories kind of processed what you went through during the day and you feel more refreshed yeah yeah it's It's kind of mysterious, isn't it? You know, in eight hours, you could have a completely different perspective.

And sometimes a good night's sleep even helps you think of alternatives to problems that you didn't even, you weren't even able to see the night before. I don't want to be like, oh, just get a good night's sleep and all your problems will be solved. But, you know, sleeping does help with giving us the energy and the just sort of this emotional. space to allow for other options to enter our minds. Yeah, absolutely. And on that note, I did an episode in January of 2019 about dreaming. So we were just very focused on dreaming. And the psychologist I interviewed Dr. Deerja Barrett.

She talked about how people say, how can I remember my dreams more? And she said, what I tell them is just you get more sleep. If you want to remember dreams, you have to get more sleep. You allow your brain to get into REM, to get into the really deep. deep sleep. And so that's talked about the importance of that in terms of being able to remember your dreams and, you know, take advantage of what they might be trying to tell you. Given how you are, you treat a lot of clients or an expert on anxiety and depression. Can you talk about the relationship between depression and sleep and anxiety and sleep? Yeah. You know, there's actually a lot of

overlap in the symptoms between insomnia and the symptoms of depression or anxiety, like fatigue being one, obviously that's an obvious one, but loss of interest in stuff you're normally, you know, interested in, worrying, poor concentration, loss of motivation, even kind of suicidal thoughts or thoughts of like, I can't go on. Those symptoms can appear in both insomnia and depression or anxiety. And in fact, 80% of people with depression report problems with sleep. So it's really, important to tease out whether it's we're dealing with insomnia or if we're dealing with some sort of depressive episode. So what do you recommend if you are experiencing insomnia? Do you recommend that someone go see their primary hair physician? Should they seek out mental health services?

You know, most people wait months or even years of having poor sleep before they even seek help. They just learn to live with it or they tell themselves, you, you, you, you, probably have heard people say, I'm not a good sleeper. And they think that that's an okay thing to say. So they have this narrative that they just sort of live with, like, yeah, you know, I toss and turn, or my partner says that I wake up a lot at night. And they just live with it. So after folks have really decided that they want to address their insomnia, which for many people can take months or years for them to get to that point. I always start with, you know, how long has it been since you've seen your doctor? Or have you seen your doctor? Have you told your doctor about this? Because I

definitely want their physician to rule out any medical issues. And there can be some medical issues. Or medications can affect how you're sleeping. There are antihistamines that can affect your sleeping. Some people are taking antidepressants and that can affect their sleeping. And asthma medicine, steroids, these things all can affect sleeping. And it's not that you shouldn't take any of those drugs. It's just maybe you just need to tinker with when you take them. So I definitely want the medical side of things to be kind of in order so that we can start talking about their beliefs and their attitudes about sleeping and their sleep hygiene, their preparation for sleep. because that would be my role in helping people to address any problems that they have with

insomnia. A couple of things I want to do is, are they going to bed, do they have good sleep hygiene, and are they going to bed at a regular time, do they have a pretty regular sleep-wake schedule? The other thing that I would want to address is, are they getting enough light during the day? That may sound sort of odd or weird to some people, but having being exposed to natural light throughout the day, at least a few, you know, a few minutes, a few times a day really help set your biological clock. And people who go from their house to their car, to a garage, to their office that may not

have a window, and back again to home may not be getting enough natural light. especially in the winter yeah especially in the winter exactly and people don't tend to go out for walks in the winter but one thing i do tell people is i don't care what the temperature is or what the even if it's raining you know just go stand outside under you know under an awning or something even just for 10 15 minutes or walk around the block it's really important because that natural light sets your brain to this is when I'm awake. And being awake, being fully awake during the day and having your brain register that is going to help you fall asleep at night. Yes. What I'm hearing is that it's important to recognize that your issues with sleeping may be for a variety of reasons.

And that's important to figure out exactly and drilled on exactly what is causing the issue. Yeah. Yeah. And first and foremost, we need to get any kind of medical issue sort of taken care of people who don't sleep very well and who sort of live with it may not be going to their doctor or may not tell their doctor. But once all of that stuff is squared away or is being addressed on the medical side of things, I definitely want to make sure that their behaviors are conducive to having good sleep. And then after the behaviors, we also want to talk about what attitudes they're having about sleep. Is sleep optional for them? Or do they keep telling themselves this narrative like, oh, I'm just not a good sleeper?

Or my mother was never a good sleeper. My dad was never a good sleeper and neither am I. Or that having these faulty beliefs that if they have a bad night sleep that, you know, that's going to make them really anxious and they're not going to be able to function. And so they might be laying there at night trying to fall asleep and then realizing that they're not falling asleep and then start getting themselves really anxious about not falling asleep, which in turn makes them less likely to fall asleep. And it becomes this really kind of maladaptive kind of pattern and a cycle, just a bad cycle to get in. So a lot of work I also do is in addressing those faulty beliefs about sleep and helping them to not become anxious about being anxious about their sleep.

So how do you do that? Because I find myself doing that as you look at the clock, you're like, oh my gosh, if I don't fall asleep now, I'm only going to get five hours of sleep. Or, you know, you start off with eight hours. I'm only going to get eight hours. Oh, I'm only going to get seven. Only going to get six. How do you calm your mind during those moments when it's just running crazy, running a million miles a minute? The first thing I tell everybody who tells me that they have sleep problem, a sleep problem is don't look at the clock. And in fact, if they can turn the clock away from them or turn it, some clocks have a brightness feature where you can just turn it all the way down so you can't see it. Because looking at the clock and doing the

calculus about, oh, I have five hours and 36 more minutes before the, you know, it's not going to help you. Even if you have only 36 more minutes before the alarm goes up, it's still not going to help you to continue resting. And then a recent piece of news came out just this week or last week about the fitness trackers that people sleep with that monitor how much they're sleeping and so on. I don't wear one of them so I don't know exactly what they monitor. That actually those sleep tracker functions have become a source of stress for some people. Really? Yeah.

And so any of this sort of monitoring, I think, actually is counterproductive for a lot of people to getting restful sleep. Or I should say from getting non-anxious kinds of sleep. Anything we do to increase our anxiety about sleeping is not going to help you be sleepy. So not turning the clock, you know, not looking at the clock, are there other things you could do? Like, what other relaxing things can you do to calm your mind that don't involve something that would stimulate you like looking at a screen? Yeah. Well, doing things like reading before bed, as long as you're not reading something too scary or too upsetting, you know, just. And that's something that people do that I think really does is very helpful. Even if they do, even if they do, just read for 10 minutes, look at a magazine, read a novel. Some people do like puzzles in bed, like little Sudoku puzzles or sort of like mildly stimulating but, you know, not too taxing kind of thing.

Maybe even crossword puzzles for some people could be relaxing. Really the important thing is to have a pretty regular schedule, which I think is hard for a lot of people. You know, especially if you have kind of an erratic work schedule. Some people have work shifts and then they have to shift back on the weekends. So it is a hard thing to do. But that's when using light therapy can reset your schedule. Yeah, I did a recent episode as well on seasonal affective disorder. And the expert I spoke with Dr. Kelly Rowan, she talked about how with light therapy you do really need to be,

in terms of a manufacturer light, not natural light outside, but she talked about the importance of going through a mental health professional for that to make sure you're getting the right appropriate doses and not making keeping yourself up too much or being too stimulated by too much light. Right, right. Yeah, it is important to, and I'm guessing she covered this on that episode that that you use those light devices at the appropriate time of day, that you don't use them too late in the day. unless you're really trying to shift your sleep schedule. But that's a different topic altogether. Yeah, she talked about just making sure you're going through. I mean, she was talking about people who have seasonal affective disorder. So it's a little bit different.

But it's like in relation to like making sure your, you know, your body's natural rhythms, you're getting them getting your body on a better schedule. So you can get up and go about your day and get out of the house. And so it's related to sleep, but it's kind of a different area. You know, some people think that if they take, for example, if they take, you know, if they have a drink before bed, like a glass of wine or a nightcap. People used to call it that that will help. And it actually does make you sleep for a couple of hours, but alcohol actually can backfire. And it tends to wake people up in the middle of the night

because it increases their metabolism. And it really is a thing that I try to recommend people avoid before bed is, you know, drinking alcohol, you know, kind of cut that off at least a couple of hours before bed. The same thing with having a heavy meal. You don't want to have that too close to bedtime because it's going to increase your metabolism. Yeah, as you're digesting. What about other sleep aids, like the more mild things that can get over the counter like melatonin or something that require a prescription? Do those help you sleep? Melatonin is a really safe thing. I do recommend that people check it out and see if it can help them. Many people do think it does help them. And there really are no side effects from using melatonin.

So that's a pretty low risk first step if you feel like you do want to take something. A lot of the prescription medications, the hypnotics or the benzodiazepines that you can get from your physician can have, I think that they're really useful for a short-term use and monitored use. you know, I've seen a lot of people take things like Ambien or other sleep aids for years and years and years and years and you can become dependent on them or there are those side effects where people have, you know, sleep walking or, you know, just some sort of other kinds of sleep problems because of the long-term use of those things. But I think the doctors generally say that using a prescription sleep aid, is sometimes really important if you're going through some stressful periods in your life or if you have certain medical issues that are interfering with your sleep, as long as you're just not becoming dependent on it for a long, long time. Because actually sleep is more important than it's a cost-benefit analysis in a lot of situations.

Because if you are a very anxious person, if you're going through a really anxious time of life, it's better to have good sleep so that you can deal with the stresses and then deal with the medication later on. But that's not something I can prescribe so I don't get into the prescription medications very deeply with my clients. I try to focus on the more holistic, the sort of cognitive attitudes that they have about sleep, making sure that they value sleep, making sure they don't become anxious about losing sleep, making sure that they do other healthy behaviors that will promote sleep like exercise. I don't know about you, but I know that on the days when I exercise, I always sleep better. And so to me, that's a no-brainer.

And it doesn't take a lot of exercise. Even if you just go on a walk for 10 or 15 minutes, that can make a difference. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, for someone who might, sleep aids, it sounds like they might help in the short term, long term, not a good idea. But it's still important for people to see a primary care physician or a psychiatrist, something who could prescribe the medication. Exactly. But I think it's important, as you mentioned, too, you're focusing not just on the acute issue, but also the, you know, thought patterns that are interfering with sleep likely. So that's really important in terms of long-term success and getting a good night's sleep. Yeah, definitely. So I want to go back to what you're saying before about the importance of having those same sleep going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time. I know in theory that sounds great. I know you just mentioned some challenges people might have who work different shifts or, you know,

or maybe you just simply want to do something that keeps you out later in the night on the Saturday. So is it realistic to have those same, you know, same sleep and wake times every day? It's probably not realistic, actually. I mean, you know, if you're wanting to go out with your friends and you're, you know, out until midnight or two or whatever in the morning, and you don't want to get up at 8 a.m. after doing that necessarily. I think you have to really just trust your body on these things. Your body is really going to be your best guide. And actually, people who sleep in on the weekends, even if you're not staying up late, you might just want to sleep in on Saturday morning or Sunday morning or whatever days. your weekend falls.

And sleeping on the weekends might actually help you catch up on the quality of your sleep, even more than the quantity of your sleep. So there is a way to catch up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, people, during the work week, sometimes people are a little less restful in their sleep. And they might not get the quality, the deep, you know, the good deep sleep, the deep REM sleep that they need. and being able to have that extra hour in the morning or hour and a half on a Saturday or Sunday morning can make a lot of difference.

What about naps? Do you think are naps beneficial and can they count towards your night's sleep? Okay. So naps are a little bit tricky because if you do suffer from insomnia and that is a whole diagnostic thing, we do need to sort of make sure are you, is this insomnia? is this anxiety, is this depression, is it some other medical issue, is it mere medication? And that's a process. But if someone is really suffering from insomnia, then I, the naps are actually counterindicated. Because what you want to do with someone who really has insomnia is build up their sleepiness so that they fall asleep at night. But for the rest of us, it's

fine to have a nap. In fact, I think a lot of research has shown that a short nap, and what I mean by short nap is 20 to 30 minute nap, you know, helps improve alertness and energy. I mean, the Mediterranean people have been taking siestas for, for eons. So, you know, there's a lot of data there that taking a short nap in the afternoon, the early afternoon is a good thing. I would say avoiding long naps, and some people do, if they slide down for a nap, it ends up being a two-hour nap. That's actually not a good thing either. Because for some people, that's when your day starts over from the beginning, when you wake up from that nap. And then that's going to push your bedtime later. And then you're going to not maybe have good sleep that night. And that can start a bad cycle

if you have a very long nap. But short naps are very good. Yeah, I definitely, I've worked some shifts before where I worked an early morning shift. And at first, I just could not figure out a good sleeping schedule. So I would take a nap in the afternoon and then I have a hard time sleeping at night. It was kind of a vicious cycle until eventually I said, okay, no naps, except for Fridays, because I worked on that shift Monday through Friday. So what I would do is come home and just stay awake, especially Mondays were hard because it was coming off a weekend. And then just go to bed at like 730, PM. Yeah.

And that seemed to work. Exactly. Exactly. But it is hard because it was very challenging to stay awake some of those days. I just wanted to take a nap. But then when I would do that, it would throw my body off completely. Yeah. It can.

I mean, it just starts your day from zero. It's as though that's when you woke up. Yeah. Yeah. But a short nap. I mean, there's been a lot of research and a lot of talk about this in recent years. And I do, I do tell my clients, like, can you just take like a 20 minute nap in the middle of day. Yeah, power nap. Yeah, power nap. That's awesome. Yeah, that always helps me

a little bit just to kind of like, I'll actually fall asleep maybe for five minutes or something. I wake up, but I usually feel a lot better. So power naps. I know the, not everyone can do them, but if you can, it's helpful. Yeah. Yeah. So there are times in your life when sleeping well is likely going to be a challenge. And we would touch on a little bit of a few of those, like, you know, during a stressful time in your life, maybe a job loss, a death of a parent, or with new baby, and that's something I'm currently in right now. And so it's pretty much unavoidable that sleep is going to be a challenge on a regular basis. So what can you do to sleep well during these life change times? How can you get the best sleep possible given these extenuating

circumstances? Yeah. I mean, who hasn't had that period of time exactly what you're describing, having a baby or dealing with some stressful life situation. And that's, it is going to affect your sleep. And so we have to be able to adapt to this new stressor in our lives. And, you know, adapting to stress is called resilience. So we have to really be able to build up our resilience to deal with those periods. And one of the things that are several things help build resilience. And that's communication.

So you want to really communicate what you're needing if you're not getting enough. sleep and you're having, especially like with a new baby, maybe you take turns, waking at night, take turns kind of dealing with the stressful situation. You have to really set good boundaries, like if it's something really stressful. Again, this is like don't answer stressful emails right before going to bed, don't have a stressful conversation right before going to bed. So you set boundaries around that to the extent that you can. And really looking for opportunities when you can get some sleep. Like we talked about naps. If you if you need a nap, take a nap. Your body can be a guide for that. And also just setting realistic expectations. You know, this just may not be, you may just be

walking around a little bit more tired for a little while. And to not take another, you know, three or four or ten steps forward and saying, you know, making yourself anxious and upset about that. It might just be, this is the way it is for now. And it's not going to be, it's not going to be forever. It's just for now. So really setting a boundary around the, even the anxiety, around the attitudes about losing sleep. But really making sure if you can get sleep, that you do get sleep, you know, instead of answering emails or cleaning the bathroom or, you know, yeah, absolutely. Or, you know, or like checking your social media feed, you know, if your baby's asleep, the doctors always say, take a nap then.

Right. So just being aware that, you know, perhaps this is a time in your life where sleep needs to take precedent over other things. At the same time, you might need to just realize that it might be in short supply, you know, occasionally, but just I think having that mentality might be helpful in terms of calming your anxiety instead of going to the extreme catastrophizing saying, I'm never going to sleep again. Exactly. Because that's very, you know, and that would probably set you up for a vicious cycle.

So yeah, that's a good way of looking at it, just saying this isn't forever, this is the time period right now. I'm going to make sleep a priority over other things and here's how I'm going to do it is helpful. Yeah. And, you know, and talk to the people in your life about what you need and try to negotiate. how to get a little bit more of a little bit more sleep if that's what it is. So if you do work an overnight shift or some kind of shift work that involves you being up, you know, the graveyard shift as it's often called, how can you get the optimal amount of sleep

when you're in that situation? That is always going to be a challenge. And I have actually worked with a few people over the years who've had that kind of not just the graveyard shift, but the shifts that. that rotate are the worst. Yeah. So, you know, like, it'd be one thing if you work every day from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. or something, then you could adjust your lifestyle around that.

But if you're doing that for three weeks and then doing another shift for the next three weeks and so on, that's actually that has been shown to have severe health consequences. But even more, the psychological consequences of that kind of thing are, things that we, you know, we've just been talking about like depression, anxiety, even dark, dark thoughts, you know, because you just feel bad all the time. But if that's your life, you know, and you can't do anything about it, how can you adapt to that? Well, again, we're going to, you know, this is a stressful situation. So you're going to listen to your body even more than you may think you should. take opportunities to rest or to have naps when you can.

Light therapy, if you really need to shift back and forth, like let's say you have children and you need to kind of adapt to their schedule on the weekends, but they go back to your work schedule. That might mean that on the weekends, when you don't want to be awake, you might need to be sort of mindful of being in bright light, sort of maybe even shifting your eating, schedule so that your metabolism kind of shifts a little bit too. And then a nap, if you have to be awake at a time when you would normally be asleep, I think like you did, you take a, you take a nap, and then you can then go on with the next half of your day if you need to be awake.

It seems like a theme that's sort of we've discussed is really making sleep a priority and making it more of an integral part of your everyday life, no matter what situation you're in. Absolutely. You know, sleep is not optional. Sleep is not a luxury. Sleep is a necessity. And yet a lot of people live for years and years with just getting five or six hours of sleep and they get used to it and think that that's normal until it really doesn't feel normal at all. And do you have any tips for traveling if you jet lag? I mean, there's also a lot of jobs where people travel and they're doing international travel. So then they're dealing with that. How can you manage jet lag and try to get yourself adjusted to the new schedule well? Or do you stay on your old, you know, where you came from? What suggestions? Yeah. Well, if you're going to go to a different time zone for just a couple days, you might not be able to do much about that. You just sort of power through those, you know, those 48 hours of meeting, but if you're going on a vacation for a week or 10 days, you can start actually shifting your body clock to the new time zone a couple of days in advance. And it's going to be hard, but that might mean forcing yourself to wake up at five in the morning instead of seven in the morning.

If you can do that, you can really improve your chances of having a smoother or having less jet lag and a smoother transition to the new time zone. I think they say it's easier to fly west than to fly east because you can always stay up later. Yeah. And, you know, people can tend to be able to stay up later more easily than to wake up earlier. But let's say you are planning to fly east, five, six, seven time zones. If you can force yourself to wake up earlier an hour or two, like a week leading, into the trip, you'll really help yourself. Also, shifting your, again, your eating and your sort of

daytime activity, you know, activity level shifting those into the time zone that you're going to. Yeah. The other suggestion that's worked for me is just sort of managing it and just maybe trying to keep yourself up to the nighttime wherever you're going and then just sleeping. Yeah. Every long time. It's hard, though. It's really hard. It's much easier to say what the, you know, how to do it, then it is to do it. You can't force yourself to go to bed at 8 p.m. if you're used to going to bed at 11 p.m.

It's hard to do that. Yeah, exactly. So sort of like, you know, either try it, maybe even adjust a little bit before or just wait until you're there and then just force yourself to stay up for a while. Your first day and on your vacation might be a little challenging, but then hopefully you can get a good night's sleep. So we've offered some really great tips about sleep. And to sum this all up, it's that sleep is not optional.

I like how you said that because I think you said a lot of people like, you know, we usually a lot, most of us usually don't skimp on eating and doing other things, but like we do on sleep. But as you've said, sleep is a necessity. It's not optional and we need to make that more of a primary part of our everyday life. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's flu season. Sleep helps you with your immune system. It's not that it just feels bad when you're sleepy.

it makes you sick and it makes you, gives you less energy to deal with the stresses of life and gives you less emotional ability to regulate your emotions and to think clearly and to concentrate. There's just a whole host of things. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Hayd. Really appreciate it. It was my pleasure. If you have any comments or ideas to share, send us an email to Speaking of Psychology at APA.org. That's Speaking of Psychology, all one word.org. And also please consider giving us a rating in iTunes.

You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You can also go to our website speakingof psychology.org. I'm Caitlin Luna with the American Psychological Association. Thanks for listening.