Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Redefining Sleep: The Key to Overall Wellness
Drawing upon the wisdom of neuroscientist Matthew Walker's book, "Why We Sleep," we delve into the serious consequences of skimping on sleep - anything less than seven hours. Walker's research reveals a strong correlation between disturbed sleep cycles and a host of health issues such as sickness, disease, mood swings, and fatigue.
Beyond exposing the dangers of inadequate sleep, this episode equips you with practical strategies to achieve improved sleep quality. I share tips like training your body to sleep and wake up at the same time, reducing exposure to devices before bedtime, and creating optimal sleep conditions like keeping your bedroom cool. We also scrutinize the role of substances like alcohol and medication in the quality of our sleep. For those struggling with sleep, I propose maintaining a sleep diary or considering a sleep study. I also recommend seeking help from a medical provider or therapist if stress, depression, or anxiety are disrupting your sleep. Improving sleep isn't always easy, but with persistence and these proven strategies, it can be within your reach. So tune in, and let's transform your sleep routine together for the better.
As always, don't use this as a replacement for therapy or medical treatment! This is meant to add to your health and should be used in conjunction with other treatment providers - for information only!
Here are the resources I shared on the episode!
https://youtu.be/lRp5AC9W_F8
Sleep-Diary-Template-Color.jpg (1700×2200) (returnoftheshuteye.com)
Everything you need to know about sleep, but are too tired to ask | Berkeley
www.bethtrammell.com
All right, listener, welcome back. I'm your host, dr Beth Tramal, my licensed psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University East. I'm also the director of the master's of mental health counseling program, where I talk a lot about this topic with my students, with my clients. We're talking about sleep. Today and on Monday I talked a little bit about how much sleep matters to our kids, and today I want to just briefly talk a little bit about what it means for us as adults, and some of this has always been true in the work I do. Right, I mean talking about sleep hygiene, that sort of set of behavioral strategies to try to increase the quality and quantity of our sleep. But another piece of sort of my understanding, my push for us to pay attention to sleep, came when I read Matthew Walker's book why we Sleep. So Matthew Walker is a let's see what is his official, our neuroscientist at UC Berkeley, and he has written this book on sleep. But he's also done a lot of studies on sleep and there are lots of folks who've done studies, and so I'm just sharing one example. He has a TED Talk and some work that he's done with NPR, also a link to some additional resources from him, but at the heart of his many discussions or presentations has been that we cannot skimp on sleep, and when he talks about skimping, he talks about less than seven hours, and so if you're a listener who is really struggling to capture seven hours, you really want to pay attention to some of the resources that we're going to talk about today and find some additional resources, either by searching up sleep hygiene, thinking about additional behavioral strategies not necessarily using medication or substances to get better sleep and, in fact, matthew Walker has talked before over and again about how those things are not necessarily helpful to getting better quality sleep. Now, if you're a person who has been diagnosed and is being treated by a medical doctor with medical treatment for sleep, then obviously follow your doctor's advice. Please don't take this as hey I'm saying stop all of your medications. That is certainly not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, there are some behavioral things that we have found to be helpful, and so your goal is to make sure that you can consistently get good quality and quantity of sleep, and a lot of this comes by training your body right going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time and trying to be within 10 or 15 minutes of that, so that your body can be trained on when to go to sleep and when to wake up. Another huge part of this and Matthew Walker talks a lot about this is recognizing that sometimes waking up earlier, staying up later, thank you is not going to be a better answer, even if you might be able to get some extra work done or get that early morning workout in. Sleep matters a lot, and so disrupting your REM and non-RAM sleep cycles can have very negative impacts. His research has found that it is connected to sickness and disease can be linked to mood swings. If you're struggling with fatigue or kind of that afternoon can't make it through the day, I'm gonna fall asleep at my desk, sort of thing. Trying to focus on getting better quality sleep may be a big part of that. Trying not to have devices or media that you are engaging in before bedtime is really critical. In fact, he would recommend, an hour before bedtime, dimming the lights, turning off all the screens, using blackout curtains can be really helpful, because essentially what we're doing is we're training your body to recognize hey, it's nighttime, I should go to sleep.
Speaker 1:I read another book no, I can't remember what it was called, but it talked a lot about kind of seasons that our ancestors didn't have light switches. They didn't have electricity and lights, and so the changes that have happened in our bodies because of having artificial light has already disrupted that which our ancestors had mastered, which was when it's dark our bodies go to sleep and when it's light our bodies are awake. Now, even when it's dark outside, you can turn on a light and trick your body into believing it should still be awake. So thinking about especially if you're a person who struggles to get that seven hours in, maybe trying an hour before bed, turning off screens, dimming the lights maybe you have a book that you can just sort of flip through keeping your bedroom cool. Perhaps the recommendation of 65 degrees Fahrenheit might be optimal.
Speaker 1:Wear socks if your feet get cold, and these are all recommendations. I can share the link for these, but essentially these are all recommendations around sleep hygiene. Try not to have caffeine after one o'clock. Never go to bed when you're drunk or tipsy. Alcohol, but it's a sedative and sedation is different than sleep, so that will get in the way of you getting better quality sleep. If you can't go to sleep, get out of bed. Do something quiet and relaxing. Maybe you stretch a little bit, you get on the floor until the urge to sleep comes back and then you can go to bed after that. So a few things to just think about.
Speaker 1:As you're a person who recognizes I really need to sleep, maybe you can try some of those things. If you're really struggling with sleep, using a sleep diary would probably be really helpful in conversations with your medical provider, so you might consider keeping a diary of when you go to sleep, when you wake up, how long, how many times you woke up in the middle of the night. Just roughly, maybe you can rate the quality of your sleep on a scale of one to 10, anything that can kind of provide some additional information to help your medical provider. Perhaps doing a sleep study, although those are not fun, but doing a sleep study might be something to talk with your doctor about as well. Obviously, as you are talking about anything related to your physical body, I'd recommend reaching out to your medical provider and seeing if there might be other things going on for why you might not be sleeping. They may recommend seeing a therapist, particularly if it's related to stress, depression or anxiety and a part of your therapy may be, yeah, getting better sleep and practicing some of these sleep hygiene things.
Speaker 1:This is obviously not always the easiest thing to do, and so I'm presenting this brief episode, not because it is a simple task to get better sleep.
Speaker 1:I know that I have had encounters with folks that are very frustrated with their bodies for not being able to stay asleep. I know it can be really hard to have that initial insomnia where it feels like you just can't get your body to fall asleep, and so all of those things may be a part of sleep challenges, and so, like I said, if you're having kind of chronic sleep disturbance and none of the things that we've talked about have helped, then it's probably time to see your doctor or find a therapist who might be able to talk you through with some relaxation strategies, some meditation, some guided visual imagery. All of those things may be helpful and are things that you could also search up and find some great resources for. Hopefully, this might have given you just a few ideas, and if you have more questions or interest in learning more about this, I will connect to those TED Talks and those resources, and until then, stay safe and stay well, friends.
