Transcription:
Busting Sleep Myths

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Gabby Cinnamon: Welcome back to the Well Within Reach podcast brought to you by Riverside Healthcare. I'm your host, Gabby Cinnamon.

Getting quality sleep is vital to our overall health and wellbeing. For most of us, when we don't get enough sleep or quality sleep, we don't feel ourselves. There is a lot of information available on how to get better sleep and some of it's valuable, but a lot of it is misleading or completely false. Kathleen Gallagher, manager of the Riverside Sleep Center is joining me today to debunk some of the most common sleep myths and hopefully get us on the path to better sleep. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast today, Kathleen.

Kathleen Gallagher: Thanks, Gab. Happy to be here always.

Gabby Cinnamon: You by far are our most frequent podcast guest, which I think says two things, that people love you and also sleep is really important. And so, that's why you're here today. You're going to help us debunk some common sleep myths that we hear.

Kathleen Gallagher: Absolutely.

Gabby Cinnamon: So, our first, I guess, true or false is your body gets used to getting less sleep.

Kathleen Gallagher: So, I'm going to say false on that one. So, I always talk about how our body likes to be in balance. And one of the things that can knock it off balance is not having enough sleep. So, imagine you have a backpack on and, for every hour of sleep debt you have, you're throwing a brick inside that backpack. And eventually, it's going to get too heavy to the point where you need to go to sleep. So over time, if you keep depleting your sleep, your body's going to want to make up for it. So, you really don't acclimate to getting less sleep. And if somebody does think they're acclimating to getting less sleep, over time, what it does to your body with issues with metabolism, blood pressure, weight, cardiovascular issues, you name it, everything that I always say. If you're not doing it correctly when you're sleeping at night, it affects every part of your waking day.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. I feel like the people I know, I have some friends who, you know "I only get five hours of sleep, like most nights of the week and I'm fine." And I'm like, "Are you actually?" I feel like the people that say that are really not fine with only getting five hours. They seem to think so because they've maybe tricked their brain into thinking that they're fine with that little sleep, but I don't really think that's the case.

Kathleen Gallagher: No. And the brain is the key thing because it's your brain that really suffers.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. So, our next myth is some people only need five hours of sleep. So, there are some people who don't need six to eight hours. They only need five and they're fine.

Kathleen Gallagher: So along with that first question, you're right. There is some truth to that because scientists have identified a gene that can be found for people who can actually live on less sleep.

Gabby Cinnamon: That's really interesting.

Kathleen Gallagher: But that's only about 3% of the population. So, it's really not everybody who is involved in that. So again, still better off to get your seven to nine.

Gabby Cinnamon: Next one is true or false, you can catch up on sleep. For example, one night, you know, you only get three hours of sleep. And then, the next night, you get 12 hours of sleep, so then you average out to seven and a half hours, and that makes it okay even though you only got three nights of sleep before. Is that true or false?

Kathleen Gallagher: That's false. I've talked before on podcasts about how important your different sleep stages are. So if you shortchange yourself any of them along the way, it's not going to do any good. And the main ones are your deep sleep and your dream sleep because your deep sleep helps save those memories from the day and the dream sleeps helps you connect those dots with those memories. So if you're shortchanging yourself today, you can never make up for what your brain lost on that night.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good to think about, because I think that especially younger people, if you're in college or I don't know, even you have young kids or babies, who's keeping you up at night, it's unfortunate. But it doesn't equal out if you get little sleep and then sleep the day away the next day, it's not really going to fix it.

Kathleen Gallagher: No. And especially, let's say, college students, so you're stuck up cramming for a test and everything, and you really need those stages of sleep, like I said ,to remember what you actually just learned. So to stay up really late, cram, get less sleep, you're really not going to be the greatest at retaining come the morning.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah, that's good to know. True or false, if you have been told you snore, it's probably nothing and you should not be concerned.

Kathleen Gallagher: False. I should say, if you're really light snore, it might not have an effect on you. But if you're kind of that raging storm snore, you really want to get that checked because that's an airway obstruction limiting your air flow. So, that's really something to take a look at. A lot of people sleep alone. They have no idea what they're doing. I still push having that sleep study just to make sure, you know, what you're doing. And it could potentially lead to sleep apnea in the long run.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think sometimes, which you've actually talked about in other episodes with us, but sometimes people are embarrassed and they don't want to admit that they snore or they've been told by someone that they snore, but they just brush it off. But it's nothing to be embarrassed about. You'll get better sleep if you go get this figured out, at least figure out the root cause of your snoring.

Kathleen Gallagher: Let's stop the stigma already, seriously. Have you ever noticed there's so many commercials out there about sleep and the importance of it? And so, why harm your body over the long-term? So, it's true. And I know I talk about, especially with women. Women don't like to admit when they snore. It's not ladylike. So women out there, if you're listening, just admit it and do something about it.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. We're going to take a quick commercial break. Have you been told that you snore or stop breathing at night? As Kathleen just talked about, snoring is something that you should talk about with your primary care provider. Riverside knows that health is your greatest asset and that your primary care provider is your partner in health. Find a primary care provider that fits your needs at riversidehealthcare.org/primary care. Now, back to the podcast with Kathleen.

Our next true or false, all that matters is the number of hours you sleep at night.

Kathleen Gallagher: So, number of hours is important, but what's really more important is are you getting the quality of sleep that you need? So if you're getting up frequently to take trips to the bathroom, that's not great quality sleep. If you're getting awoken by other things, that's not quality sleep. So, like again, we talked about the snoring. Snoring sometimes doesn't give you quality sleep. So if you're going to get your seven, eight hours, make sure it's uninterrupted, peaceful. You're not thrashing the covers all over the place, sometimes that's a good indication and that you're getting a good consolidated sleep, especially for that brain function like I talk about.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. Quality is just as important as quantity it seems. If you can not fall asleep at night, you should stay in bed until you do, true or false?

Kathleen Gallagher: False. Experts recommend that if you're unable to fall asleep, don't remain there. A lot of people get frustrated. They keep looking at that clock. If you can't fall asleep, get out of bed for about 20 minutes, do something boring. Read a book of poetry. Don't turn on your TV or look at your laptop. Don't play around on your phone because some of these things will turn off that melatonin production. However, I will say I do recommend to people try a guided meditation, because usually it's people can't sleep because their mind's got a lot of chatter going on. So guided meditation, well, these take your mind off of what you're thinking about because you have to focus on what this person is telling you to relax along the way. For some people, this is a chronic thing. So, they really need to train themselves to do something better, but ideally don't lay in bed.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. You're right. It is like you just lay there and I know that I just get angry. I'm like, "Why can't I fall asleep?" Especially if sometimes I know I've done it to myself. If I had coffee too late in the afternoon. But, you know, sometimes it just happens where you can't fall asleep and you just lay there and you get angrier and angrier.

Kathleen Gallagher: I know. I've spoken to the people who get up and like, "Well, I start cleaning the house and doing stuff." No, it's not designed for that. Get up for those 20 minutes and just do something calming, relaxing, and try and go back to sleep.

Gabby Cinnamon: Our next true or false is drinking alcohol before you go to bed will improve your sleep.

Kathleen Gallagher: That's a big false. So, I know a lot of people think if they have a little nightcap, it'll help them fall asleep.

Gabby Cinnamon: Take the edge off, not really.

Kathleen Gallagher: Alcohol is a sedative. So yeah, it'll put you to sleep. However, alcohol during the night will actually disrupt your sleep. Not only that, it knocks out your dream sleep. So when we talk about why it's important for our deep sleep and our dream sleep, to make the connection with all our memories. If you don't have your dream sleep, you're not going to have those memories to retain. And not only that, by the time the alcohol burns off in your brain, now you're awake because that's what happens too. It even has a potential to cause nightmares in people. So, no, if you're going to have alcohol, have it at least four hours before you go to bed.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. Okay. So, everyone cut the nightcaps.

Kathleen Gallagher: Yes, cut the nightcap.

Gabby Cinnamon: They're not going to help you. True or false, you only dream during REM sleep.

Kathleen Gallagher: No, that's not true. You can dream in any of your stages. However, your dream sleep are those crazy whacked out dreams that are just...

Gabby Cinnamon: Nonsense.

Kathleen Gallagher: Nonsense, yeah. More of the mundane things where you're kind of working things out or thinking about stuff or it can happen at other stages.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. Interesting. True or false, older adults don't need as much sleep as young adults. So, like someone who's 80 doesn't need as much sleep as someone who's 22. Is that true or false?

Kathleen Gallagher: That's false. Adults still need the same amount of sleep even as we age. But the thing is the aging process sometimes causes an issue with people. I've seen in some people who are older, maybe they don't have as much to do, they get a little bored, so they retire to bed early, sometimes six o'clock in the evening, and then they get up at three in the morning. Or people who stay up, they're really late night owls and won't go to bed until 12, one o'clock in the morning, and then they want to sleep in for most of the day. So, it's not necessarily that they're getting less sleep sometimes, it's just they've even changed the time of their clock. So, the circadian rhythm is really something that we want to keep in check, so getting outside like four o'clock in the afternoon, especially today it's beautiful, bright sunshine, it kind of helps reset our clock.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. I think that, yeah, like you said, sometimes people just think that, because I think if we think about like our grandparents or, you know, they're up early in the morning, but they probably went to bed early as well.

Kathleen Gallagher: They might have went to bed early, right.

Gabby Cinnamon: Our last true or false is napping during the day can make up for lack of sleep at night.

Kathleen Gallagher: Napping through the day cannot make up for what you're missing out at night. It can help, because I know that for every hour of sleep that you lose, it could take so many nights to make up for it. I do know that people will take a nap. I say, don't take it too late in the afternoon or make it as long as your sleep cycle, so you really benefit from the whole thing. But it really doesn't help with any lack of sleep at night.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah, it's kind of similar to the earlier one that we talked about, I think, where one night you get three hours of sleep, the next you get 12, as in balanced out.

Kathleen Gallagher: It will take sometimes up to nine or 10 days actually to actually catch up on sleep that you've lost over time. So, it's not just a real quick fix.

Gabby Cinnamon: Yeah. Is there anything else you would like to leave us with before we go?

Kathleen Gallagher: I just say, if you think you have a sleep problem or you want somebody to talk about with it, call us either at the sleep center here at Riverside or reach out to our awesome physicians who can help with any kind of sleep problems you think you might have.

Gabby Cinnamon: Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Kathleen. It's always a pleasure to have you on. And thank you listeners for tuning into well within reach brought to you by Riverside Healthcare. Make sure to leave a review and check out our other episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show.

Kathleen Gallagher: Thanks.