Welcome to she persisted I'm your host Sadie Saxton a 19 year
old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of
Pennsylvania. She persisted is the Teen Mental
Health podcast made for teenagers by a team in each
episode. I'll bring you authentic
accessible and relatable conversations about every aspect
of mental Wellness. You can expect evidence-based,
Tina, proof resources, coping skills, including lots of DBT,
insights and education. In each piece of content, you
consume, she persisted Offers you a safe space to feel
validated and understood in your struggle.
While encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and
build your life worth living. So let's Dive In.
Hello, hello, and welcome back to.
She persisted today's episode is all about sleep.
One of my favorite things, I'm still struggling with my sleep,
which you will hear about in this episode, but this
conversation was so helpful and enlightening, and I had so many
tips that I've implemented since this conversation and will
continue to implement. So our guests today are Heather
turgeon and Julie, right? They are marriage and family,
therapists that specialize in sleep training.
They wrote one book for sleep training, for infants, and
newborns and another for teenagers.
And Why teens struggle so much with sleep.
That one's called generation Sleepless.
I highly recommend you check it out.
And also follow them on Instagram.
All of the links will be in today's show notes, but let's
learn about sleep. Thank you so much.
Julie, and Heather for joining me today on.
She persisted, I'm so excited to have you on the show.
Thank you for having us. Thank you.
First, of course. So to start off, I'd love to
hear about your background and how you started working in the
field of mental health and specializing in sleep.
So Julie, if you want to start and then Heather as well.
Sure. Sure.
Yeah, Heather. And I are both psychotherapist
marriage and family therapists and we met.
We were talking about this the other day we must have met
around 16, 17 years ago, we were both leading classes.
We were each leading our own class for like moms with new
babies and we kept meeting each each other outside the
classroom. And we kept saying we should
have coffee. We should have a copy.
Yes, I'm finally one day we had coffee and that was that was the
end of it. I could not stop talking, we
were both really interested in sleep.
We were really like-minded on why we thought a new book about
sleep, for babies and young children, which was our first
book, we wrote a book called The Happy Sleeper, why why it was
needed? Because there's tons of, I don't
know if you know this but there's tons of books on that
already written, but we really felt like there was something
new to say. And that the Sleep sort of wars
that parents were engaging. Aging in or being a victim to
were necessary. So it's relevant to our
discussion today to that one of our main messages is that sleep
is natural. Our bodies are built to sleep,
our bodies want to sleep. The reason main reasons we don't
sleep is that something external is getting in the way and we
just need to get that out of the way.
So our bodies can do what they're already very hard wired
to do. I love that how they're how did
you start working in the mental health field?
Being a psychotherapist and specializing in sleep as well?
Well, we I started writing about sleep for the national sleep
Foundation, as a columnist, and then I was doing a lot of
research on sleep and then I had kids and Julie and I started
working with young families on sleep.
But the more we got into our practice and started working
with families of young kids and then slightly older kids and
then our population grew, the more and and also looking at the
research on sleep and sleep deprivation, the more it became
clear that Teenagers are the ones that are suffering.
The most they suffer far worse, sleep, deprivation than any
other population on the planet and anyone ever in human
history. So, when we started to gather
that data and just see how sleep declines, so sharply when kids
hit really Middle School is when it really picks up and becomes
pretty. And then it becomes most acute
in high school and it's happening all over the globe.
And, you know, we just felt like, oh my God.
And we have to write this book. We, you know, babies sleep is
easy. Yeah, you need yours that really
need the help. Why do you think it is?
That there are such a sharp decline?
I remember anecdotally experiencing that where I got to
middle school and it wasn't that it was like cool to not be
sleeping but I was like, there are better uses of my time.
I can text my friends. I can be on FaceTime.
Like it almost felt like it was like a secondary thing that I
had to do and the priority was schoolwork, it was connecting
with other people and it That was definitely around like
middle school, high school that that came up and even into
college, it's still something where it's like, well I have an
assignment, do I have something that I have to have ready at
8:00 a.m. the next morning when I show up to class.
So why do you guys think that is that teenagers do experience
that decline universally So, we describe in the book, what we
call a perfect storm, and you've mentioned quite a few of the
factors just then. So, one of the first one is
biological starting in adolescents, teenagers have a
natural shift in their body clock, meaning, their melatonin
and other sleepiness, hormones released later in the evening.
Just not tired yet, he's not tired yet.
But, of course, because the body is not ready to go to sleep
until a little bit later by needs to sleep a little bit
later. So, so we have this natural.
Shift. And then we have increased
homework, ballooning homework for some students, increased
activities, you know, some, some kids pile on activities just to
show up well on their college, you know, applications, then you
add. So this is pushing bedtime later
and later, all these activities, all this homework, this natural
shift in the biological clock, then you add technology to that.
Mix bedtime is getting later and later, and later, and later.
And then on the other side, Side of the night, High School's,
most high schools in our country, start too early.
So the seat gets squeezed from both ends making.
It just mathematically impossible to get even close to
the even the, you know, just the the sort of Baseline amount of
sleep that that teenagers can get by with.
We would love to see teenagers sleep between 9 and 10 hours a
night. I know that sound like pie in
the sky. But so there's this perfect
storm of factors that are really From rising teen sleep.
And it's not, you know, some of these are societal factors like,
you know, school start times and too much, homework, and
ridiculous. Expectations from college
admissions. Those are things that we want
Society to change, but we also because because it's what we do,
we also can help people a lot with making change in the home,
you know, right away. Before we dive into that, I have
a random question about baby toddler sleep.
Whenever I've taken, Intro to psychology the Sleep unit, and
the attachment Styles unit are pretty close, because they're
jamming so many things together. And there's like this anecdotal
story that I've heard twice now where when you're doing sleep
training and the baby just cries and cries and cries.
The cortisol levels in the parents decrease, when the baby
stops crying after a couple of nights of doing sleep training
but it doesn't decrease in the baby.
So the baby just learns to not express like cry and be like
please come get me out of the crib, whatever because it knows.
No one's going to come and get it out of the crib, and then it
just gets linked attachment Styles and it's like there's not
a response, there's not a parent that's like responding to that
concern is that like accurate to say that sleep training in that
way is not effective and it leads to attachment style shifts
later on. Or is that just like total
random Psychology 101 stuff? That's getting your absolutely
getting to the heart of our first book that Happy Sleeper.
Okay, you I mean we could do a whole podcast episode on baby.
If an attachment, but I think what you're describing in terms
of cortisol levels is more of a theoretical based on abuse and
neglect. And what happens if babies are
chronically not responded to versus just not wanting to go to
sleep. Purse is not wanting to go to
sleep. No wanting to say good night not
you know, preferring to sleep with the parent or preferring to
stay you know and having the frustration of not having what
they want in the moment. Yeah.
But why? We help parents with is very
repetitive and almost hypnotic response.
So we never have parents do not respond to the VA but we have
them respond in a really predictable way.
So that the baby goes, oh, okay, I get it.
This is you doing yeah, okay, so interesting random question.
So interesting. Yeah, we have the parent
respondents such a predictable way that the baby is not happy
for sure. Yeah, there they protest.
But what they never feel is wondering where you are now.
I'm now, I'm getting worried now I'm getting fearful.
So we keep them far away from the, the worrisome emotions.
And just after a while, they know you're there because you
respond in this very pretty frequent way.
It's almost like they get mad because they know you're there.
Yeah. But it's different from the kind
of what you're talking about in true.
What was called, like cry. It out Reactions where people
just, you know, where their parents are told to just shut
the door and not go in. And yeah, we wrote the book
because one of the main reasons we wrote the book was we really
wanted parents to know that there was a way to get the child
sleeping independently. That did not involve anything
even close to that. Yeah, yeah.
So we touched a little bit on sleep deprivation and how that's
not a great thing to happen and there are consequences for that
14s. What happens when we don't get
enough sleep, whether it's just like chronically in high school.
You're getting 1 to 2 hours, less forces on the other end to
the extreme when you're pulling all-nighters and cramming for
exams and really disrupting your sleep schedule.
Yeah, so while the average amount of sleep that a high
schooler needs is a, ideally would be 9 to 10, but we
described we say, eight is adequate.
And that's because under eight hours a night, you start to see
correlation with a lot of negative effects.
So the risk of depression goes up, anxiety, stress.
Hormones are the, the body goes into a stress response when
you're low on. And but the average high
schooler gets about six hours a night.
So, we're talking about two to three hours, chronically of
sleep deprivation throughout the course of the week piling up to,
you know, 12 hours by the end of the week and that level of sleep
loss. What I mean?
There's so many things that it does one is that while you're
awake your brain releases. A lot of byproducts of activity.
So we that's like waste or toxic, you know, toxic buildup
in your brain and then when you fall asleep, This kind of
cleaning mechanism gets turned on and it starts to wash that
waste away throughout the time that you're asleep.
So when you don't sleep enough, essentially you've got waste
buildup in your brain that is not properly, you know, cleansed
out and that kind of makes sense right.
When you think about how you feel when you are sleep
deprived, yes, like fog and you're sick so sick, right?
And that that really for me that's kind of like an aha
moment of who. Wait.
That's how it feels to be sleep deprived.
So, imagine that in a chronic way over the course of the week.
So the risk of, you know, kids who sleep 6 hours a night are
twice as likely to have symptoms of depression.
It really changes the lens that you see the world through.
So you're more likely to have a negative assumption about, you
know, somebody does something you're more likely to interpret
it in a negative way, you're more likely to feel hopeless
about the future and just not feeling like the creative.
Juice of, I can solve this problem.
I can do this. So the ties to mental health are
just there so many. I really, and I really feel
strongly that if we could get teens more sleep, it would go a
long way towards solving the Mental Health crisis.
That we hear so much about right now as sleep.
Also helps with processing emotions through dreams when we
dream our brains, consolidate positive memory, And sort of
dampened down, more negative memories.
And when teenagers have to wake up, you know, hours before their
bodies want to wake up the Sleepy.
Most miss out on is dream sleep. So, they're missing out on this
really important, emotional processing, filtering things out
organizing. There's so much that happens
during sleep how memories are formed and how memories are
stored. So we forget things more easily
when we got, it makes me think of the like, in inside out where
they're cataloging, all the memories, some are going to
long-term some going to like core memories when you're
sleeping. That's yeah, that's exactly it.
Yeah, kind of love that. I think that's so interesting
and anecdotally from my own experience.
There are so many things that you're mentioning that were
true. When I was in residential
treatment, one of their biggest priorities.
The beginning was to get my sleep back on track because I
was super and I was a major insomniac.
I would like just sit in bed and read all night.
Couldn't fall asleep and then I would just nap all day because I
didn't want to engage. I was tired.
I was lethargic from depression and I was isolated.
And so there was like this, like double issue of, like, not being
able to fall asleep and then sleeping way too much during the
day. And as soon as I was able to get
like a consistent night routine down, where I could go to bed at
a reasonable time and then get up in the morning and have
somewhere to go and have that sense of purpose and go to
therapy during the day, it was like night and day and it was
really quickly. That I saw a decrease in how how
intense my suicidal thoughts were how frequent they were.
Whether I was waking up feeling depressed, or if I just maybe
felt a depressive moment throughout the day and so that
is something that now I'm always paying attention to.
And it's funny like, I noticed like if we have an early
wake-up, when my family and I are traveling, like, there's
been times at the airport and I'm like, crying.
I'm like, I just want to go to sleep.
Like I'm so emotionally vulnerable because it's
something. I'm so sensitive to and work so
hard to prioritize. But as a teen, as a college, And
it can be so hard to do that. Based on those societal
pressures, like, you guys mentioned, I would love to dive
into what your tips are that things that people can change,
things. People can prioritize and shift
to get better sleep. I know there's the basic things
that you always are, like, less electronics.
Don't be in bed, minimal naps. But I'd love to hear what you
guys recommend and the research of why those things work.
Well there's there's a lot to say one of the places to start
is to try to make and I think you experienced this in your, in
your treatment is what we know about the internal clock and our
circadian rhythms is that our bodies love regularity.
It's not, it's not doesn't seem to cooler.
Seems kind of boring to be a super regular person but our
bodies really love it. So even as a college student, if
there's any way you can organize your class, Is so that you get
up at the same time, each day and from that, get from that
wake up time, you figure out your bedtime so I don't know.
If you say, you have to get up it at 8:00, you know, we'd love
for you to get in bed. You know, maybe around 10:30
10:45 and fall asleep. Close to 11.
That would be amazing. And then what happens to help
that to help you fall asleep more easily at 11 in that
scenario would be to get up every morning.
Earning at a even on the weekend as close as you could.
You have a sword. I was going to ask, like, your
thoughts on teenagers, that will just like sleep till 3:00 p.m.
on the weekend and it feels like it.
Like catches up to you that sleep deprivation.
Yeah, it feels a little good in that moment.
But what happens is you you need to be awake.
A certain amount of time in order to fall asleep.
That's why you couldn't fall asleep.
Before when you were sleeping during the day, you are really
sabotaging your ability to sleep at night because, you know, it
was just sort of cycle where you slept during the day.
So, In order to fall asleep in our little scenario at around,
11:00 getting up at eight, helps your body be awake, long enough.
See when we're awake pressure builds and you have to build up
to a certain level of pressure to fall asleep.
So when you combine that with a regular bedtime and then also,
we combine that with what we call a wind down and a bedtime
routine. I know that sounds like
something you do with babies but we think that all people could
really use them. It's Really one of our favorite
sleeps sleep. Scientist says, you know, your
you shouldn't go to bed, like your Landing a plane.
Yeah. Or no, you should go to bed like
you landed play again. No plane crashes.
You would have crashed into a stress-free Zone, with whatever
that means. No intense content.
No intense conversations. Sending signals to your body,
making sure your your home is getting cool.
And then moving into a bedtime routine that ideally doesn't
include you know, phones or close held Electronics.
You could, you can watch a TV show from a distance or read a
book or we like to replace technology with, with fun
pleasurable things, so that you're, you're giving yourself a
nice routine. Maybe you take a warm shower,
which helps, you know, helps you fall asleep but having a routine
that you really look Forward to so that you have this little
sort of Prelude to sleep and then when you get into bed, it's
much easier to fall asleep. If you do all those things,
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Essentials. If people are struggling with
insomnia, what is your advice there?
Do you just like kind of not sit it out but like, lay it out,
count sheep. Are you supposed to get out of
bed? Then try to like, do the whole
routine again? And do you just write off the
night? Gotta wait until morning.
Like, what's your advice there? Yeah, it really depends on where
the insomnia is coming from, and how long, how many nights and
what's going on during the day, we really try to get people to
think about the daytime and how it affects your nighttime.
Because, like, Julia was alluding to people think that
sleep starts when you get into bed.
And, and when you get out of bed, and that's really not true
sleep, the chemicals for sleeper being sort of the stage is being
set all day. Day long.
So if someone has insomnia and the most common sleep issue for
teenagers definitely is difficulty falling asleep.
That's absolutely. The most common thing that
teenagers struggle with, and that's partly because what Julie
said about the shifted biological clock.
So the main thing that we get teens to do is wake up at the
same time on the weekends, don't sleep in more than one hour
that's ideal. So if you are so sleep-deprived
that you have to sleep in two hours, do that for one day
during the weekend but not So don't pay you know, Saturday,
you could sleep two hours past your regular wake up time and
then Sunday just one hour and then go outside.
Even the through the clouds on a cloudy day.
The sun is a thousand times more powerful than your indoor lights
and it has we could go in to detail on why but sunlight
presses, go on the internal clock.
So it's a timing q that tells your brain.
Okay, the day has started now get ready for the The night to
come. So it's amazing.
What your brain is telling you in the morning has to do with
your nighttime sleep. So get 5 to 10 minutes of son,
even if it's cloudy it's really intense done.
Hmm and I think those two pieces of advice for teenagers are
sometimes and the cut off of caffeine like those other
question like, what time to okay?
Person to? It, just depends the half-life
of caffeine is way longer than most people think.
So, if you're really having trouble falling asleep, The
waking up within an hour of your morning, wake-up time 5, to 10
minutes of sun and to p.m. cutoff for for caffeine along
with that, wind down, that Julia was recommending, is is going to
do a lot. And then if you're lying there,
I think what you're wondering about is like, if you're lying
there, what do you do? Do you get up, do you?
And I just think, you know sometimes I think if I can't
sleep, I think to myself, my body will take care of this
later. Like I don't have to worry, I
try not to worry about it because that's Definitely Ike.
I don't look at my phone and I don't have a clock that I can
see the numbers on because I don't want to track it.
I don't want to know, it wasn't to know what time it is.
Just living in, you know, ignorance is bliss.
Like you don't know what time it is, don't stress.
Your body is so smart at making up for lost sleep.
Just think about it, like oh my God, tomorrow night, I'm going
to sleep extra well because your body is really smart.
I mean, I think you know this but one of the hardest things
about insomnia is are the negative W.
Yeah and then you like stress yourself out more about not
getting enough sleep which makes it harder to fall.
It's like a cycle. Yeah, it's a cycle.
So you know, some people everybody has their way some
people do better by getting up and, you know, sitting in
another room and reading until they feel sleepy.
Making sure you're not, you know, again on a closed held
device or doing anything stressful.
Another thing we write about in the book is using what we call
passive distraction so lying in bed and maybe listening to a Not
super interesting podcast or something like that, something
that's it has to be dug hurting enough to take your mind off
your sort of I like listening to the office.
That's what I'll do. I call it like my personal
podcast because I've seen it like six times so it's like,
there's no like what's happening next.
I just in listening to like Michael Scott making terrible
jokes and like good night and it's just interesting to listen
to. Yeah, I like put the phone down
laying there, whatever pot in waiting to, go to sleep,
listening to the bad jokes. And it Looks right.
It does it really really does Julie, you have?
What's your passive distraction? Julie?
Is it, is it PBS? Well, I feel bad saying this
because it's a podcast that I really do love but like, you
know, I like Sadie. I've listened to a lot of the
episodes. Yeah, a lot.
So it's this podcast called how I built this.
So, I choose have already heard and their long and I love them
so I lived it and I fall asleep. So fast.
Yeah. When I use a passive distraction
like that. I mean, it's really something.
Times overwhelming to try to just use pure meditation, which
has the same goal, the same goal to push your perceptive thoughts
out of your mind. So using passive distraction, if
you're struggling is really, really helpful.
Yes, some people. This is, yeah, that's there's a
ton of podcast. Also, the one that I like for
like bedtime stories that I'd never would like label myself.
As I love a good bedtime story, like when I remember when I was
younger and being read to, I was like I just want to read it
myself because I can't get through the material faster.
I could get bored and even now with audiobooks I'm like trying
to get back into it. But it's like I just want to
read it because it's faster than listening to it but there's a
podcast called Welcome to Night Vale and it's just like odd
utopian town and it's literally they do these hour-long episodes
about absolutely nothing and you just like talk about the news of
the town and sometimes there's like, weird aliens but it is a
bedtime story with like such minimal plot points that you are
bored, but it puts you to sleep. And the, the narrator's voice is
like very like my monotonous, and so you're not like peaked
with interest, and that's another good one.
If you're looking, is that how grown-ups is that one?
That's me. Yeah, yeah.
I think so. Definitely is like an adult
Target on. Yes, it sounds a little creepy
for little kids. Oh perfect.
Yeah, do not put this on for your children.
What is that 10 year? Old would be, definitely for
adults. I want to check that out.
Yeah, but it's I would never listen to it during the day.
Ever like I would not feel like I'm going on.
My walk time to listen to Welcome to Night Vale, but I'm
like, if I cannot fall asleep and nothing is working.
I'll put that on for 20 minutes and it's like, there we go.
Good to go, but then story, go to sleep.
But yeah, for the waking up it for teens that are struggling to
not just push news on the weekend when there isn't that
reason to get up. What are your guys is tips?
Is it like, mind over matter? You just force yourself to get
out of bed. What do you recommend if that is
difficult to do? We had, we were just, we did a
talk at Yale like a month ago and some of the kids had really
like one of one of them said that she puts her phone across
her across the room, with the alarm on.
So that and she has a roommate and that.
And so she feels so bad that And so you can trick yourself that
way, I think for younger teens, you know, I have a young teen
and I actually wake him up because I feel like I saw I
sneaked in, and I open the blind.
So if you can get sunlight on your team.
Yeah. Parent and nicotine will hate it
from. First of all, I hate when they
opened the blinds. I was like, please, stop Sadie,
get vertical. And then, ya know I'm stay
gorizontal, really? It's yeah, we had a lot of
times, I was, Talking to a some parents about this that their
their teen was chronically late for school and stressing out the
whole family and the sister relied on him to drive her to
school too. So, you know, and no one could
get him out of bed in the morning and it's, you know, so
you can, you can do things like, pull the blinds, you know, if
you have don'ts news, because news is really not good quality
sleep, and it can make you groggy or so.
Yeah. Putting the alarm across.
The room is probably a better idea or just enlisting the help
of your, your family or Like I let the dog in sometimes to jump
on my Smart. Yeah, yeah, that's good.
But it usually has to do with not being able to fall asleep.
Right? I mean, it's and and also talk
to your school. You have to tell your school
board that it's not acceptable to have school started. 7:45?
Yes. The other piece.
Yeah, I can't speak from experience, I haven't tried this
before but I did have a tic toc come up on my for you page where
it was a girl and she was creating content and she was
like people ask as a deaf person.
How I wake up in the morning because you can't A normal alarm
and they make these alarms that they put on the bed and it
vibrates the bed. So if you're really struggling
and you need your bed to be shaking, like an earthquake,
this could be an option for you like really, really vile like
really intense like style. Yeah, yeah.
So might be your solution if you're struggling.
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
But we did touch briefly on naps.
I know it's kind of like mixed feeling.
Some people are like if you keep it under 30 minutes or an hour,
it's okay. Okay, what are your guys is
thoughts there? Yeah you're on the right track
there. Not only should not be fairly
short I think it's Heather's like between 10 and 30 minutes
it's ideal. The other thing you want to make
sure is that it's not too late in the day for the same reason
that I was describing earlier. If you not too late in the day,
it's going to push your bedtime because that pressure will not
have time to build up so that you can fall asleep.
So you know it's probably not as relevant.
And in college, or it might be if you have a particularly late
night. But for high school students,
often there's just it's impossible for them to get the
sleep. They need.
So we have this sort of vision of a like a nap room for for
high school students where they can go at like 1:00 or 2:00.
For some people is like the math class.
Right. Exactly, exactly.
I used to fall asleep in biology, but, but, yeah, I mean,
we, these things were talking about difficulty waking up in
the morning and the urge, you know, Sleepiness, during the
day, these are signs of sleep deprived kids.
You know, this is, you know, this is what we're hoping to to
work against. Is that struggle at being?
Let you know, ideally, we sleep and wake up naturally, you know,
that's an Ideal World or at least it's not so hard to wake
up and ideally, we don't feel so sleepy during the day.
But, you know, before we get all the societal change to happen,
you know, taking a nap is Be helpful to some people as long
as it's not too long or too late.
Yeah, if you guys could give like a perfect day, that's
optimizing for Sleep. Hygiene.
Like what time are you exercising?
What time is your last meal? One is your cup of coffee, what?
Time are you shutting off Electronics?
How would you set up your schedule?
I guess if I can think about, you know, a younger high
schooler who would need to wake up at really, it's all kind of
based on when they have to get up for school.
So let's just suppose that they have to wake up at seven.
That's pretty. That's, that's a pretty good.
You know, healthy, reasonable time to wake up most would
prefer to wake up around 8 or 9, but until we get high schools to
start it, you know, 10:00 a.m. I should be friends that would
do like zero period and they were like starting at 7:00.
Yes. Like I could never.
Well that's the thing that's in such an extreme and it
definitely happens all over the country.
So but let's say in a kind of healthy world where they wake up
at seven and they you know get some sun or some cloudy son, you
know, and go to school and actually see the sun come up and
sorry, don't see the sun come up but like experience on before
they get into class because a lot of kids don't.
So getting some sunlight before going into class is really
important. And so then Exercises kind of.
So I would say cut off caffeine by to me and hopefully, you
know, high schoolers aren't really drinking a lot of
caffeine, but I definitely see a lot, you know, having like Coke
and things that do really impact your sleep.
So cutting that off by 2 and then exercise, it's almost
impossible to dictate because Sports practice and Dan you
know, dance and things like that are going to dictate to at least
sometimes it's yeah, 9:00 10:00 p.m., it's insane.
Yeah, so again if we're talking ideal Old.
All that would probably wrap by 7, you know.
So you could eat dinner and then have wind down time.
And then Electronics, I think it's reasonable.
If you're waking up seven and your bedtime is, let's say ten
thirty. That's when you turn off the
lights. They want to have your wine down
time, meaning your device's, kind of all your personal
devices, go off by, let's say 9:30, you just put your phone
plug it in in the kitchen. If you're really trying to
protect your sleep, which is definitely a mean, it's so worth
it. With it, if you just put that in
practice, in in place and say good night to your friends, and
just shut down your electronics at 9:30, plug it into the
kitchen. And then go watch a movie on the
couch, in the living room, or go write in your journal or do
something. You know, and then turn off your
light at let's say 10:30. Hmm, I love that.
I'll, I think it's very reasonable, you definitely have
to be intentional and make the commitment to prioritize, your
sleep. But if it really is important to
you and I think especially once you see What?
It's like to feel rested and to feel like you have more energy,
it's something that you're motivated to do and it does feel
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I'll just add a little more yumminess to your morning
routine. Have you guys heard of aura?
Rings. Hmm, what are your thoughts?
There? I have one and I have mixed
feelings because every single night, I get terrible sleep
scores because I get like one minute of deep sleep like this
is Open multiple times, and I don't know if I should like
email and be like, am I really sleeping this badly?
It should I get a sleep study or it's, you're bringing a really,
really good point, but I don't, I don't know enough about the
technology or how the report goes, like what it looks like to
you. Do you see how much light sleep
and deep sleep and REM sleep? You get.
Yeah, so it'll hours. Yeah, I will say that, I feel
like it's accurate and that I, when I wake up, feeling more
rested, I do feel like the data reflects that.
But I'm generally like the data shows that I'm chronically not
sleeping well, which I think might be accurate.
I just didn't have the data beforehand, but like last night,
my total duration is bad. I'm exposing myself was seven
hours, 17 minutes, but I was only asleep for five hours and
38 minutes. And I was awake for an hour and
a half in rem, for an hour and a half light sleep for almost four
hours in deep sleep for a week, 27 minutes.
And then it'll like rate your percentages, mmm.
And then, it also So shows you're like little map thing.
Yeah, but I just thought how does that relate to other nights
that you is that an average night?
Or is that a more pretty standard?
It's interesting because I feel like the percentages are all the
same. Even if I'm sleeping for like 14
hours, which is insane. I'm still getting minimal deep,
sleep, like this night. I slept for 10 hours, and 35
minutes, I was in bed for 12 and a half hours, but I only got
twenty seven minutes of deep sleep, the whole night.
So I remember Doctor I will follow up in a future podcast
episode, but if you do like having the data and being able
to see how different shifts reflect how you sleep, I
definitely enjoy. And if you like to track your
steps and stuff it's great because you don't have to like
carry your phone with you but yeah, I think it's definitely a
personal thing. I don't like to track my sleep
because like I said kind of related to what I was saying
about if you're awake in the middle of the night.
It's better for me. I feel like it's better not to
have any data or any information.
I don't want to know what time it is.
Yeah, yeah. I trust my body and I trust that
it will. If I hold the boundaries of my
wreck, my bedtime and I do all my sleep habits and I take care
of my part, my sleep will do what it needs to do.
Yeah, but I know I mean I think it's if if you find that it
doesn't make you anxious and it makes you track like, okay, I
got this amount of deep sleep, right?
Slept this amount and I can tell because I cut off my caffeine at
two o'clock instead of having a coke with dinner.
Oh, I can see where it took me long, you know, you can.
Yeah, if it's helpful. On that way.
But I would also say that having a smaller amount of deep sleep
is, is normal it. I mean, you definitely want to
check in with your doctor, but we have more deep sleep at the
beginning of the night and less have noticed that.
Yeah. So you'd usually you have a lot
of deep like deeper sleep in the first half of the night and the
second half of the night is mostly Ramen light sleep.
If people are going to sleep later and they're having that
really short window, Oh, that they are asleep.
Are they still getting deep sleep?
Or it's like they just skip to the rampart and miss that
restorative Sleep part, Heather. I think it's the combination of
both, isn't it? Don't they miss out on some deep
sleep and they also miss out on some REM dream sleep.
And at the other end, is that, is that right?
I think mostly the answer is that you miss the part.
I think mostly your brain clock is telling you what to do, so
that you might have some deep sleep when you first fall
asleep, but you're going to shift into REM and that early
Morning style of sleep. Yeah, quickly.
So you can see all the deprivation all around.
Yeah, it's yeah, that's interesting.
It might be interesting with the track or if it doesn't make you
more anxious to isolate some variables and make a few
changes. Yeah, if there's anything that,
you know that we talked about or that you see in the book and
maybe just don't change a whole lot of things and just sort of
see like if I cut off caffeine, or if I try to make my bedroom
or regular, if I guess, Like get Morning Sun.
Just see if you can like it would make me anxious to do it.
I don't think I would do it. But if you're interested and you
want to sort of experiment a little and then C is your, you
know, are the percentages changing based on some shifts in
your your sleep habits? Yeah I think it's the type A and
me but I like wake up and I'm like I can't wait to see my
sleep score. How did I do today?
Great. Yeah I do look forward to it and
it's also like it's nice because it's not like you Saying the
clock does stress me out, especially when I'm out of town.
And especially if it's like, I have to be up early or like, if
I haven't a test in the morning and I'm like, I'm losing
minutes. I'm losing hours.
It's so late. It's too late.
Where is this? You can't check your score.
It won't give you a score until you slept through the night and
wake up in the morning. So it's like, you can't yeah.
Mentally sometimes I'm like, oh, I really wish I would have
started my bedtime routine earlier.
I wish I was asleep by this point but it won't really change
anything less. You really make an effort to go
sleep. So if it's something that sounds
like, it wouldn't stress you out.
I agree. It does is interesting but also,
I feel like doing an actual sleep study would be more
accurate if you do have questions about your sleep.
Yeah, that's definitely true. Yeah, and we have in our book,
we have a chapter 9 is called the sleep challenge and I think
that would be a good place to do if you want to do a little
experiment. Yeah, about different variables.
Like Julie was saying to modify them that there's a Tracker
there that, you know, it kind of like brings the whole book
together. And it's you know you do like a
7 or 14 day challenge. I will I would do that.
I will report back everyone follows social media so you can
see the updates because I love playing around with sleep and
it's definitely like this year. That was the biggest thing that
I coming home for summer. I was like I want to get better
at this because I do notice that that's the biggest thing that
impacts how I show up in my classes.
What I have energy to do and how burnt out I get and how long it
takes to get to that point. And I think that's true for a
lot of teenagers, like when your sleep is struggling, Saying, you
just have a really short fuse and it's understandable because
like, you guys were saying, it's like 12 hours a week of sleep
deprivation. If you're pushing your bedtime
back later and later, and you're still getting up early.
So it really is a universal experience.
In many ways, what year are you? I just finished my freshman year
of college. Okay.
And how did you see your sleeps if I can ask you one question,
how did you see your sleep change between high school and
your freshman year? So it definitely my high school
wasn't By early like the most, not realistic, but we were in
covid. And so, for the second half of
junior year, we didn't even have zoom classes.
It was just like you turned in an assignment.
So there wasn't that structure, senior year.
We did show up and have zoom classes, but it was also like,
you could have your camera off. You didn't have to be up and out
of bed, like the level of Engagement wasn't totally there.
So I would say that going into college when I had a good
structure of my classes, like you guys talked about with
having Something in the morning that you get up for versus
having a class at, like 3:00 p.m. and there's no motivation
before then to do anything. If I had that structure in
place, I felt great about it because I could push my bedtime
back earlier. It wasn't like I had after
school activities that I was bouncing, but getting it like 4
p.m. which is really hard enough in high school.
So I feel like it did get better, but I also noticed
around finals that it was a lot more difficult to stay on top of
the sleep schedule. Like I had a lot more cramming
in Should I didn't High School just based on the material and
just volume of work that you're being tested on.
But in general, I think the schedule allows you to optimize
for exercise and eating more balanced and walking around
campus and getting outside. I feel like that does allow
sleep hygiene to be favored but final season is rough for sure
on sleep. Yeah that makes a lot of sense.
I think you in college, you have more control in high school.
You I feel like the thing is everyone else's is Sizing your
to like everyone's pulling your time.
Yeah that so much obligation to other people and other.
It's almost like the grown-ups are kind of dictating the
schedules. Yeah.
In college you have a lot more
control but you also have a lot more.
You have a lot of responsibility.
Still, I was really when we, when we spoke at a college I was
it made sense to me when the students were saying that
they're the most sleep-deprived that they were was in high
school. Yeah.
At the end of high school. Yeah.
I have seen a lot of tech talks about this and I've also It
myself or you're like, how did I even managed to do that with
waking up at 7 a.m. doing eight hours of school going to sports,
Practice still doing homework studying for a test doing family
dinner. Like it just doesn't feel
humanly possible and I do want to say also like for college
students that do feel like you're struggling with your
sleep, it's very possible because there's less structure,
there's, you have that freedom. So it's very easy to get into a
pattern of not sleeping, pulling all-nighters going out a ton,
but if you're prioritizing Sizing your sleep.
It's simple to set yourself up for Success, like the
foundation, is there, you have the freedom with your time.
You have the opportunities to do these habits throughout the day
that you guys mentioned and it's realistic to implement.
I feel like you could help us make sleep cool.
I want I want to try. We're gonna we're gonna do our
best because I love sleeping. I anytime I can sleep.
I love napping. I love sleeping in.
I am definitely a night owl, but I do love getting into bed at
night, so it's, I completely agree with you.
It is something teenagers need to be doing more of and I wish
it was more of an intentional priority, not that they focused
on yeah, that that sleep challenge on Tick Tock I think
is the way to go and we I like wanted you to I can pull up the
date and I'll be like, guys. This is what I tried yesterday.
Here's what happened. So, I'm definitely gonna
Implement that, especially the weakest episode comes out to, to
share all the tips. And I think it'll be fun to
follow along with. Yeah.
And teenagers want to die.
Think this is the thing. We think that teenagers want to
feel good and feel healthy and they want to learn about their
brains, so many of them are interested and they really feel
the difference and they wanted they want to feel healthy and
they want to feel happy and energetic.
So So yeah, yeah. And I just got this something
you see the overnight difference, it's not really a
pun but you, you notice immediately whereas like I feel
like with if you're trying to exercise, you're trying to build
a new habit, it takes a certain number of times and routines and
days to see a difference with sleep.
If you get a good night's sleep, it's night and day.
You immediately feel better, you have more energy, so it's very
reinforcing. Mmm, it's really true and you're
more efficient. You can get your work done, you
can study, you can remember better.
So there's so many things that make, you know, all that
procrastinating and taking really long time to do things,
kind of really improves when you sleep, well, you feel like your
skin looks better. You you you relationships
improve because like you said, you're not a short-tempered and
your you see people in a more positive way and you want to be
around people. So all the things that teenagers
are staying up late, trying Trying to achieve.
They can actually achieve better and more efficiently.
Yeah. If they sleep well, and not only
teenagers, but young, you're still in our Target Zone because
you're, you're a young. Yeah, you're a young adult
adolescents goes all the way to about 25.
So yeah. What are your guys?
Thoughts on the, don't go to bed angry but hash out the argument,
before you go to sleep, I assume the answer would be, absolutely
not go to sleep recharge and then come back at it again.
But what's your thought on that? I would, what would you say
Julie? Oh I would say I mean a lot of
people cannot would not be able to fall asleep if they're angry.
Yeah. So I would say, don't start
talking about anything stressful for two hours before bed.
So you don't get an aside doctors place, you don't even
say it. I've been my kid just pile.
On the conversation, I do that with my family.
My, my sister's such 00, such a night owl.
Yeah. She if I would say to her, you
know, call me at 11 and let's talk Fuck, and it's not anything
terrible. But it is some something
anything, you know. I'm just like I can't even talk
about the news. You're like, no, no, no, yeah, I
just can't do it. And she's learned like she
knows, I'm she was enough for me to chat with her and two hours,
but I tell you, I can't talk about this.
This thing because I won't be able to go to sleep because my
for me, it's office. Little is Miss day is today?
Yeah anxiety and I can't fall asleep.
Doesn't even have to be something huge.
Just be tiny. You so yeah, that's interesting.
And I don't think I've thought about that before of like
setting boundaries with like what conversations you're
having, what content you're consuming because if you're just
like texting your friends are like oh I'm relaxing.
But it really does open the door to anxiety to potentially
ruminating about interactions and making it more difficult to
fall asleep, which is a huge thing for teenagers hundred
percent because the teenage brain is a socially wired brain.
Yeah, and you are primed to wonder what other people are
doing. And everyone of all ages is
social, but especially teenagers.
So yeah, we call it the Sleep bubble in the book that you
really want to create a bubble around your sleep and it starts
with that. That's why I like saying good
night to your friends, an hour before you go to bed, it's
really helpful. Yeah.
If there is one thing that people could leave this episode
and Implement to improve their sleep, what would it be?
Well, going back to what we said at the very beginning.
I think if you just really trust your body and believe in your
body and brain and know how capable they are of helping you
sleep, well, and knowing how much sleep you need.
I think that's a really great way to sort of, think about it.
Not like, oh, I have to do this, but yeah, my body wants to do it
and it can, and I just need to clear the way a little bit so
that my body can get the sleep. It needs.
And like, I think, you know what you said, About even just after
a few nights of good sleep, the difference is so profound and
just give yourself that gift of feeling that way.
Yeah, but even reframing and being like, I got to have this
amazing break from stress, from thinking, about homework, from
going from point, A to point B to point C from worrying.
Like you get to have this time that you've carved out for
yourself to relax, to get ready to, for bed to sleep to
recharge, and then show up as a better version of yourself.
I think that's a really We simple, like, mental shift.
You can make that makes it more attractive.
Almost deprioritized. Awesome.
Well, where can people get your books?
Continue to follow along with your work and consume your
content you? So our website is the Happy
Sleeper.com, and the books, we have the Happy Sleeper and then
our new book is Generation Sleepless and those are
available everywhere. And our social media is the
Happy Sleeper cost and then you can start hashtag generation
Sleepless. The sleep challenge.
I will, I literally, well, I love it and I will make sure to
link all of those things in the show notes.
If anyone wants to join me on the sleeve challenge, it's gonna
happen. We can all that prove, our sleep
together to hear. Can't wait to hear how it goes.
Well, thank you guys so much. I'm so glad we got to do this.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of.
She persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to
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