Jaime Lewis (Host): According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in three American adults gets less than the recommended amount of sleep, and sleep deficit is linked to many chronic diseases that threaten our health. So, how can we get the rest we so desperately need, and why is it important?

Here to answer those questions and more is Dr. Julia Jenkins, a board-certified physician in Family Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine with BayCare, and Assistant Director of the University of South Florida Morton Plant Mease Family Medicine Residency Program.

This is BayCare HealthChat, a podcast from BayCare. I'm your host, Jaime Lewis. Dr. Jenkins, we're so happy to have you on the show.

Julia C. Jenkins, MD: I'm excited to be here, Jaime. This is a topic that I am frequently having discussions about.

Host: Well, we often hear that we need enough sleep, so let's start with the basics. Why is sleep important to our health?

Julia C. Jenkins, MD: You know, sleep is so critical to so many aspects of our health. And so, sometimes people think when we sleep we're just shutting down, and actually our brains are very active. And there's a lot of very critical functions that happen when we sleep. So, for example, we have a lot of muscle turnover. We're improving our immune system. We are helping to do processing of our thoughts and emotional processing. And so, it really is crucial that we get good quality sleep, which affects every aspect of our lives.

Host: All right. So, we've established it's important. Why isn't everyone getting enough of it? What are the obstacles to quality sleep?

Julia C. Jenkins, MD: Yeah. The statistics are pretty frustrating. And most of us are going to experience some issues with sleep. But as much as 30% of folks are meeting criteria for having what we call insomnia or chronic issues with sleep. And, you know, I think just intuitively, we know people have a lot of stress. We're battling things like social media and electronics and difficult economy and different diets that we have now. And so, there's a lot of factors that are impacting our sleep that are touching on a lot of people that we know.

Host: Sleep apnea is a term I've heard a lot. What is that and what are the symptoms?

Julia C. Jenkins, MD: So sleep apnea, sometimes it can be challenging because when it's obvious, it's obvious. You know, someone with sleep apnea will very commonly snore, or they'll stop breathing at night, because of the way that their soft tissue in their neck kind of presses down on their airway. So, these are the folks where their spouse is like, "Honey, I can't sleep. You're making a lot of noise," and that's where it's more obvious. But sometimes you don't necessarily have loud snoring. So, sometimes it looks like just feeling very tired during the day. These might be folks that have more depression or anxiety or more irritable. You can have frequent nighttime urination is another symptom, or just headaches when you wake up in the morning. So, you really do have to be suspicious, because it's not only something that affects our sleep, you won't get into deep stages of sleep when you have sleep apnea, so you're not going to have restful restorative sleep, but it can also lead to conditions like atrial fibrillation and hypertension and increase your risk for stroke and heart disease. So, it's really crucial that we identify people that have that disorder.

Host: Let's say that I want to optimize my sleep hygiene and align my circadian rhythms. How do I do that?

Julia C. Jenkins, MD: So, there's a couple crucial factors. So, we talk about sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene is just the schedule of things that we do to prepare for sleep. Now, I'll tell you, if you want to have a good night's sleep, you have to start early in the day. We're supposed to be exposed to natural light ideally during the day, and you want to be active during the day, because people that are active during the day will sleep better at night. You want to be very careful about things like caffeine and alcohol, because if you drink caffeine too late in the day, that can affect your sleep, or if you drink alcohol too late at night, it can affect your sleep. And then, your bedroom should be a place of rest. And so, where we go a little wrong is that we have TVs and tablets and we're on social media in our bedroom. And when we lay our head on the pillow, our mind doesn't necessarily know that that's the place we're supposed to wind down, because we're doing so many other things in there. So, good sleep hygiene is that your room is dark, and ideally kind of cold, and that it's a quiet place of retreat.

Host: Some folks might turn to sleep aids, we know, whether prescription or over-the-counter drugs. Are those okay to take? And if not, what are the potential risks?

Julia C. Jenkins, MD: Yeah, there's a lot of nuances there. So, certain prescription sleep aids are commonly used, and you really have to be careful, because we haven't quite figured out how to mimic a good natural night's sleep, so a lot of these sleep aids just kind of knock you out and make you groggy, but they may not necessarily help you get REM sleep and deep levels of sleep, which are critical for us being healthy. And so, things like, we call them Z-drugs, and some common names might be things like Ambien or Lunesta. They are not as risky as some of the other things, so you definitely want to be careful about drugs that we call benzodiazepines like Restoril or Valium, those can be very dangerous long term because there's research to show it can lead to memory problems and more car accidents. And some of our Z-drugs like Ambien and Lunesta also have potential risks. So, you have to be very careful with prescriptions.

The good news is there's some excellent over-the-counter supplements and more natural sleep aids that might be very helpful. So for example, something as simple as magnesium. A lot of people are deficient in magnesium. There's a lot of over-the-counter sleep aids that specifically have magnesium glycinate. And then, you have things like valerian root or chamomile that can also help you get to sleep. And another interesting one that there's been some research behind is something called tart cherry juice. So, they showed that folks that had the tart cherry juice that didn't have the sugar in it got an average of 30 to 60 more minutes of sleep per night if you drank 8 ounces of that. So, there's some good natural alternatives.

Host: Wow. I'm buying that today. Well, Dr. Jenkins, thank you so much.

Julia C. Jenkins, MD: Yeah. And I just want to quickly mention if you're looking for more information, there's a website called sleepfoundation.org that has some really wonderful resources on pillows to use if you have neck problems or more on sleep hygiene or some good phone apps that you can use for some of these tips. And then, of course, I would recommend talking with your friendly primary care provider.

Host: Perfect. Well, that was Dr. Julia Jenkins, a physician in family and lifestyle medicine with BayCare. And that wraps up this episode of BayCare HealthChat. I'm your host, Jaime Lewis. Head on over to our website at BayCare.org for more information and to get connected with one of our providers. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and all the other BayCare podcasts.

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