Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris Winter

As a sleep physician, I am constantly confronted with sleeping pills and the misunderstanding that seems to be inherent to their existence. While I do feel like there are specific instances where sleeping pills are helpful, I think the vast majority of sleep experts and behavioral sleep therapists would generally frown upon their use. In this episode, we will cover:why I feel sleeping pills are largely unnecessary, particularly given the fact that everyone sleeps (Episode 2)to whom these pills are marketed and how ad prey upon fear of sleeplessness as a means to create a market for their productthe surprisingly modest sleep improvement results (sleep latency, sleep efficiency) these medications produce and how these stand in direct opposition to what the average user thinks is happeningthe risk of sleeping pillshow the relevance of these promoted benefits is of unclear significancefailure of sleeping pill research to prove health or performance benefitsthe repetitive history of the sleeping pill cycle and how history has judged the fate of many that have come beforeProduced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

In January of 2015, I spent the night in a haunted hotel in Oklahoma City and wrote about the experience in The Huffington Post. That would begin a series of articles I called "Sleeping Around" where I explored unusual sleeping situations and what they could teach us about our own sleep.In 2020, I began working with Sleep.com to create content for their new website completely devoted to sleep and topics surrounding it.  One day, Sam Bennett, their senior vice president of marketing asked me what my dream sleep project would be. Easy. I want to make a film version of Sleeping Around.A few weeks later we were filming three episodes: a few days on the road with musical artist Shakey Graves, 24 hours with the Fort Worth Fire Department, and a night sleeping on a portaledge with professional Red Bull climber Sasha Digiulian. To mark the milestone of recording our tenth episode, I wanted to record this bonus episode for listeners to take them behind the scenes of this project, and hopefully share why it is so important to me. Produced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

Alarms clocks may be responsible for the most dreaded sound in our lives. Despite their constant presence, how do you choose the right alarm for your circumstances and maybe more importantly, how does that alarm fit into a healthy morning routine?In this episode we will cover: the definition of sleep inertia and why some people struggle to wake up in the morningthe science behind the different types of sounds alarm clocks utilize and which tend to awaken individuals more effectivelythe circadian influence of alarm clocks that utilize lightsthe ‘Snooze Button’ and should you use itstrategies for utilizing escalating alarms the variety of more extreme alarms (shaking a bed, shocking a sleeper) for helping people awaken on time.the importance of a scheduled awakening and how it fits with other activities in the morningProduced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

Students everywhere are beginning to head back to school soon, so in this Back-To-School episode, I examine the ongoing school start time debate in this country. In the United States, the vast majority of middle and high school students start school early and thus do not have access to adequate sleep. In this episode, we will:identify the healthy range of sleep school-aged and high school students requiretarget the biggest threats to the sleep opportunity of school studentsexplore the nature of the school start time debate and the organizations/studies supporting the changeexplain the factors that tend to derail schools from delaying school start timesdive into the emerging research that came out of the COVID lockdown that overwhelmingly  shows that delayed start times and virtual learning tends to increase total sleep time and the percentage of kids sleeping adequately.dissect the negative psychological outcomes of virtual learning that confound the benefits of some studieslearn what can be done at a local level and beyondProduced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

In the late 1990's, Dr. James Maas coined the phrase "power nap" and since that time, there have been many trendy sleep terms. In this episode, we discuss three popular sleep concepts and the stories/science behind them.  In this episode we will:define the term orthosomnia and learn more about the concept's originsunderstand how orthosomnia applies to the greater concept of sleep monitoringexplore what a sleep divorce entails and the difficulties with the termdissect the reasons why couples may choose to sleep apart, and how this can ultimately fail to address serious underlying medical conditionstouch upon relationship power imbalances that make sleep apart not an option for some individualsunderstand the origins of revenge bedtime procrastinationdifferentiate "in-bed" procrastination from "going to bed" procrastinationwork towards ways to minimize the factors that exacerbate bedtime procrastinationProduced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

After sleep apnea, narcolepsy is the most common cause of excessive sleepiness in sleep clinics across the country. A large portion of the nearly 200,000 people who have narcolepsy in this country alone are children and teenagers. As these individuals struggle with disabling sleepiness, why is their plight (a treatable plight) largely ignored? In this episode, we will:define narcolepsy and look briefly at its originsrecast the image of a narcolepsy patient from something cartoonish and unhelpful to a real person with an unfathomable degree of sleepinesscontrast the disability of sleepiness with other "seen" disabilitiesexplore why disorders of excessive sleepiness are largely ignored by the media while conditions like insomnia are embraced and reinforced at all levelsunderstand why narcolepsy and disorders of hypersomnolence are routinely mistaken for other disorders or dismissed by clinicians entirely (even many sleep specialists)learn that these conditions are not rare and their sufferers are often unseen--they are in fact people we know and work with on a daily basis--and they need our support.Produced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

In episode 2, I talked about what insomnia was not--namely sleep deprivation. In this episode, we begin to explore what insomnia is and who is most at risk. I also explore the unique role of trauma both as a precipitant, but also a perpetuator of insomnia.  In this episode we will:revisit how insomnia differs from sleep deprivation and why confusion between the two creates therapeutic problemsexamine risk factors for developing insomniareview studies that demonstrate insomnia patients are generally sleeping relatively normal amountsuncover studies that reveal that insomnia patients generally do not share identifiable sleep study deficienciesunderstand why insomnia patients often develop negative views of their sleep and how this factor alone, irrespective of sleep quality and amount, predicts disbilityexplore how trauma can create or precipitate insomnia, but more importantly how insomnia itself, over time, can become its own form of trauma, helping to perpetuate the condition.appreciate that when a sleep specialist tells a patient that he does not have sleep deprivation when he has insomnia, she is not saying the patient does not have a problem. While  insomnia is often not the problem the patient thinks they have, it can be a tremendous burden in and of itself, and trauma is often playing a central role. Produced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

Sleep apnea constitutes the lion's share of the diagnoses sleep clinicians see in their clinics. One of the most misunderstood and poorly managed conditions I see is mild sleep apnea, or individuals who generally have 5-15 breathing problems/hour. In this episode we will:start with the basics of sleep apnea: What is it?understand the difference between obstructive and central apneadefine what constitutes and apnea (or hypopnea) and how those tallies are utilized to arrive at not only a diagnosis, but a severity designation for the conditionlook at the literature and why some experts advocate treating mild sleep apnea and while other do notunderstand how patients can sometimes get caught in a situation where they are aggressively treating a mild condition in which the benefits may be few or nonexistent.begin a much larger dialogue aimed at understanding the nuances of sleep apnea, a very common sleep disorder.Produced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

White noise is everywhere, and it's association with sleep has been discussed for decades. But what exactly is white noise, and does it play a role in optimizing sleep?In this episode we will cover: the science of white noise and what it representshow the history of white noise machines has evolvedrelationships and research looking at white noise, sleep, memory, and cognitionthe recent research linking white noise to brain damagethe emergence of pink noise and how it differs from white noisedifferences between other "colors of noise" specifically purple/violet, grey, brown, and blue.binaural beats, what they are, and the science linking them with better sleepNOTE: Your AirPods are working fine. The recording software used to record this episode completely suppressed all of the noise samples played during the episode. To hear examples of the noise colors mentioned in this podcast, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noiseProduced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!

When I wrote my first book The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How To Fix It, I made the decision to cut the chapter on menopause because of length. I have regretted that decision ever since. It is by far and away the most common question I get asked about the contents. "Is there a chapter about menopause?"No, but there is a podcast episode entirely devoted to the topic. In this episode we will cover: the basics of menopause and how it affects sleepsome data that tries to understand the impact menopause has on women's sleep architecture the consequences of hot flashes and how predictive they are regarding sleep issueshow menopause can lead to a higher incidence of sleep disordered breathingthe role of hormone replacement therapyhow other factors could influence sleep in the menopausal populationstrategies for minimizing the impact of menopause on sleepProduced by: Maeve WinterMore Twitter: @drchriswinter IG: @drchriwinter Threads: @drchriswinter Bluesky: @drchriswinter The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child Thanks for listening and sleep well!