Dr. Christopher Winter has been involved with sleep medicine and sleep research since 1993. Currently he is the owner of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine clinic and CNSM Consulting. He is the author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It as well as The Rested Child: Why Your Tired, Wired or Irritable Child May Have a Sleep Disorder – and How to Help. In addition to working with numerous professional sports organizations to help their athletes optimize sleep (including the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and NBA Champion Oklahoma City Thunder), he is the host of the podcast Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris Winter which has consistently ranked as one of the most popular medical podcasts in the country.
Dr. Christopher Winter has been involved with sleep medicine and sleep research since 1993. Currently he is the owner of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine clinic and CNSM Consulting. He is the author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It as well as The Rested Child: Why Your Tired, Wired or Irritable Child May Have a Sleep Disorder – and How to Help.
In addition to working with numerous professional sports organizations to help their athletes optimize sleep (including the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and NBA Champion Oklahoma City Thunder), he is the host of the podcast Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris Winter which has consistently ranked as one of the most popular medical podcasts in the country.
SHOWNOTES:
😴 Why can sleep anxiety make bedtime harder?
😴 What if being awake in bed is okay?
😴 Why doesn’t one bad night mean trouble?
😴 Could high performers bring too much pressure to sleep?
😴 Why can forcing sleep make it more elusive?
😴 How does morning light support better sleep timing?
😴 Why should your routine cover the whole day?
😴 Could your child’s chronotype affect school performance?
😴 Why aren’t sleep supplements meant to fix everything?
😴 How can meditation and breathwork support better sleep?
😴 Why does your attitude matter so much?
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The information contained in this podcast, our website, newsletter, and the resources available for download are not intended to be medical or health advice and shall not be understood or construed as such. The information contained on these platforms is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
Welcome to the Sleep Is a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep Is a Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex-sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about sleep.
Each week, I'll be interviewing world-class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian-aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and, by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before
Welcome back to the Sleep Is a Skill podcast. Dr. Chris Winter is back, and if you caught our first conversation on sleep myths and misconceptions that keep you from achieving recovery and great sleep, you already know he has a way of challenging how we think about sleep. This time, we're taking that conversation somewhere new.
Dr. Winter is a sleep medicine expert, author of The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child, and host of Sleep Unplugged. We unpack why trying too hard to sleep can actually work against you, how sleep anxiety and performance pressure can keep us stuck, and why being okay with the occasional bad night might be one of the most powerful sleep skills you can develop.
We also explore the role of mindset, daily routines, light, movement, and where sleep tools and supplements actually fit into the bigger picture. So if you've ever found yourself chasing perfect sleep, stressing about tomorrow after a rough night, or wondering what actually moves the needle, tune into this episode.
This conversation might just change your relationship with sleep and remind you that great sleep is not about perfection. So remember , sleep is a skill and you can train it. Let's jump right into the episode. And welcome to the Sleep Is a Skill podcast. I am very honored to have Dr. Chris Winter here today.
Yay. If you're not watching, we got a fist pump right off the bat. You know that's gonna be a good conversation. So Dr. Winter, thank you for taking the time to be here. I appreciate it, Mollie. Uh, appreciate the invitation. It's, it's always a pleasure to be on your amazing podcast. Aw, well, right back at you.
I was just, uh, waxing on about my appreciation for your podcast and making sleep interesting and thoughtful, so you're doing the work. So maybe a little bit about how you got into this field of sleep. Yeah. I got into it very accidentally. This... I grew up, at some point figured, thought that it would be a good idea to be a doctor, and that seemed to get a lot of- positive energy from my family.
Most of my family on both sides were not people who went to school, so the idea of maybe even going to school and being a doctor seemed like a great thing. And, and so, but it, it, you know, when you don't have medicine in your family, you don't really know what that is. You, it's just kind of a conceptual thing that you say when you have to write down on a form what do you think you'd like to do when you grow up.
So when I got to my undergraduate university, I went to my advisor and said, "I think I would like to be a doctor, but I don't know much about it." And he said, "You should go work for a doctor and, and see, you know, whether you like that lifestyle." And, and he gave me a bunch of doctors who were looking for undergraduates to help them with research, and one of them was a pulmonologist who was the head of the University of Virginia Sleep Center who is, uh, Paul Suratt, amazing person and an incredible mentor.
And it's so great when you, like, talk about these people. Like Paul Suratt trained at Case Western under this guy who was under Bill Dement. Like, it's all this kind of six- instead of Kevin Bacon, it's always- Yeah ... Bill Dement or Nathaniel Kleitman. So you know, worked with this guy who really, you know, exposed me to sleep.
I thought it was awesome. Uh, if, for the listeners, we were just talking, Mollie and I, before we, we started interviewing about the recent sleep meeting that we have every year. I think, you know, I, I went to, I believe, the fourth meeting they ever had- Oh, God ... the sixth meeting. I can't remember. Paul gave me a membership to the American Academy of Sleep Med- Medicine, which I thought was the coolest thing ever.
Or no, I'm sorry, Sleep Research Society. But they all used to- Yeah ... meet at the same time. Yeah. And so he sent me to that meeting. And I s- I swear, Mollie, my memory of that meeting was it was, like, in a classroom, and there was 30 people there- Wow ... and me. Like some random, like, you know. I almost got elected secretary treasurer, I think, you know, just 'cause I was there and physically present.
But I remember thinking- Because I was there ... "Well, this is cool." But, you know. And it's so different now. I just got back from Baltimore. I know you were there. Yeah. And it's just- It's like Lollapalooza now. It was like this little club where Bob Dylan played to five people, now it's a concert festival kind of thing.
But anyway- Yeah ... so I started working for him, never really thinking it would be a career, but you get into it, you go to a little meeting like that, you meet some people. I went to medical school down at Emory and got introduced to the two gentlemen who ran that lab at the time, Bill Rye- or, uh, Don Bliwise and Dave Rye, and started working in their lab while I was in medical school.
And just, you know, at some point you have to make a decision. Do you wanna, like, be a lung surgeon, or do you wanna keep doing this thing? So I went into neurology and eventually sub-specialized in sleep, 'cause I could never really bring myself to, to leave the field. So I started in sleep early '90s, first Bush administration.
It's been a long it's been... Like, before I could legally buy alcohol I was doing the... You know, so it, it's been a long time. So it's been kind of fun to accidentally fall into your field of work as a teenager. Yeah. You know? And it's been really cool to watch it. I, I just went to a meeting up in New York with a bunch of sleep doctors, and I might have been the third oldest person there.
I was kinda trying to do the math of f- c- at one point I went up to somebody and was like, "So it sucks being in your 50s," he goes, he's like, "I'm not in my 50s yet." I'm like, "Oh, okay. Well, I can cross you off the list," so it's down to me and these other two people. So- Yeah ... it's fun to see in a weird way you get passed.
Mm. Like, kind of left behind. You know? Or if it's not, if I'm not there yet, like, it's on the horizon. Like, smarter, more energetic, more capable, more innovative people are, like, right behind me, so I'm like the point guard that Might be able to find a team next year somewhere in the NBA. But, but maybe. Might be heading towards coaching.
This analogy- And not, and not playing anymore ... is insane. I- So we'll see. I can't. Well, I have so much to say to that. So number one, fascinating just the jour- like, all that you've seen. I just read, I don't know if you've seen the book Mapping the Darkness. So fascinating. It's kind of giving us the whole landscape of sleep as an area of study.
And to your point, it's really hitting the key players along the period of time. It's a great title. So good. And it's real- highly recommend. And you're just presenting me to what have we seen, and, and you're just a perfect spokesperson for this. What have you seen evolve over the years when we think about sleep?
Like, how do you think differently about sleep today versus back then, you know, the first sleep meeting and how we were kind of navigating the type of language that was happening back then versus today? Like, what has changed with someone like you with such a great vantage point? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just kind of exploded.
And, and I'm, you know, it's funny, I, I just pulled up that book that you were mentioning. Yeah. You know, for a long time I thought we need to sort of capture the stories of The development of sleep as a field before these people pass on. Sure. Because we are losing some of the pioneers in this field. Yeah.
And my thought was, "I'd love to read that book. How many random people would like to do it?" Uh, so I'm so excited that that book exists because I think I've never sat down and talked to somebody, one of those people, and not just been fascinated by, "Well, we got started in a closet- Yeah, exactly. ... in the basement of the university- Yeah
'cause we, they wouldn't give us any space, and we were making our own EEG devices and making people sleep on a clot, cot in the closet- Yeah, yeah ... and studying their brain. I mean, it's just so fascinating. So I mean, I think to answer your question, it's really gone from a non-field. Mm. And that's what I remember when- Sure
when this advisor said, "Chris, what about, you know, working for Paul? He does sleep research." I'm like, "No, actually I'm interested in medicine." He's like, "Oh yeah, he is med..." You know what I mean? Like- Yeah ... "No, he's a pulmonologist kind of guy." Like, and so I at that time was kind of shocked that it even was a real thing.
Mm. And then you get into it. I remember very early on saying to Paul, "It'd be really cool to do like a research study on baseball players and travel and stuff." And he's, and he, I remember him turning around looking at me, he said, "Yes, that would be a great idea. That's the great thing about sleep is it's totally undiscovered."
He goes, and then he made some comment. I wish I could remember. He's like- Yeah ... "Unlike the heart," which we know everything there is to know about the heart at this point. Oh. "It's a pump." He said something like, "It's a pump. Who cares?" But like- True that ... sleep, this is, you know. And, and, and so to me, it's really evolved from nothing.
And then I think the first wave was I'm dreaming I'm on a date with my mother. What does that mean, psychiatrist? And the psychiatrist- Sure ... you know, thinking about dream interpretation, Freudian kind of stuff. Sure. Okay, great. Then Colin Sullivan in the '80s, let's take a jacuzzi apart and glue it to your face if you have breathing disturbances when you sleep at night.
Which was lit. Fantastic. Suddenly we have sleep apnea, treatment for it, and pulmonologist- Yeah ... pulling up to the table of sleep. And then, you know, with the, you know, better neuroimaging and looking at neurotransmitters and understanding the brain, watching neurology and psychiatry kind of merge into one field- Sure
it's just kind of taken off, and then you add in the consumer, um, Fitbit, Jawbone, uh, what was the, the- Oh ... Zeo that you wore on your head or whatever. Yeah, I had one of those. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, suddenly- Yeah ... all these things are kind of... So you got the consumer market coming in. You've got medicine adopting it in all different kinds of specialties, ENT, dentistry, whatnot, and then it just kind of captures the imagination of people who are just generally into wellness.
Like, we think about- Mm ... what we eat. Sure. We think about whether we exercise. Is it gonna be Zumba or Pilates or just get a gym membership at Crunch? Like, what are we doing? And then now it becomes, oh, sleep, yeah, that's another modifiable risk factor or health variable that we can look at here. So now it just all three of these things kind of converge, and it's like this giant mushroom cloud of excitement and weirdness.
And so I love it. I think- You know, it's just kind of always think about To- I think his name was Thomas Cade, the guy from University of Florida who developed Gatorade. And just thought, hey, you might want to think about hydrating and maybe some electrolytes before you work out on the, you know, football field or play a game.
And now if you go to a gas station, there's 20 different flavors of Gatorade there. Oh, yeah. So like, I think sleep is moving to that place where, I don't know, maybe when I retire it's like, ah, nobody really... I mean, everybody sleeps and thinks about sleep and worries- Yeah ... about sleep. Like it's, it's... Yeah, of course.
Like, it's not no- even with the teams I work for, it's not novel anymore. Sure. It's almost expected. Yeah. Which is just amazing. Sorry, go on. Yeah, you make me think of... We had a Dr. Michael Grandner on the podcast ages back, and one of the things that he had said was, um- Is he really a doctor? Oh, that's a good point.
That's a good point. It might be- I'm kidding. Is it? I don't know. I don't know if it- No, no. He is definitely a d- If they call him- That was a joke. Um- Okay, okay ... yeah, I love Michael. But do we need to- Michael- Do we have a different title for him? Michael could think circles around me. No, I d- d- that was a joke, Michael.
Okay. I don't know if the- I hope you're listening ... with the lab or something- No ... if we have a different way. No, no, no, no. Yeah. Love Michael. He is- Progressing ... he's brilliant. He's fantastic. I know. One of the things that I felt was so cool is that he had said, um, "For so many years I was just felt like I was the guy, like, holding a sign about this topic, just, you know, shouting into the blackness."
And now he's like, "I just feel like there's all these new people that are talking about the thing I love." And, you're just with such a cool inclus- you can see you're so generous and great. And just a neat way of looking at sleep over the years. 'Cause to your point, I mean, there's just, uh, still you could argue the numbers, still relatively small given the area of study, everyone sleeps.
But it's, like you said, mushrooming with so much more interest today. Yeah, I had a conversation one time with Michael that was so... I mean, Michael is a real scientist. Oh. Like, I think of him as the general. So he's discovering things in his lab, and he sends a little radio communication to me, I'm like a private in the battle.
Like, "Hey, you need to do this in order to win the war." So I mean, he's disco- Amazing. So it's interesting to talk to people like Michael because he's been through it as well on the back end of, "Hey, NIH, I would like a grant to study this." And, you know, it seems totally logical in 2026, but back when he got started, he was the guy sitting there holding the sign like, "I think sleep matters, and I would like money to study it, 'cause I think it's really important."
And people are like, "No, I don't think it's really important." You know, like this was going back to, like, remember SnackWells? You know, like, you know- I do ... you see... I just, for some reason that popped in my head. Like- I think about that mentality of health and nutrition and what it meant to be healthy back in those days.
Yeah. And people like Michael and Don and all these, Brad Vaughn down at, fighting that like, yeah, the amount of sugar in your cookie is maybe important, but there are some really fundamental things about sleep and health that are really important, and maybe we should study them. And, and so I think those things are...
It's so fun to listen to them talk about their journeys. I know. So- They're fascinating. Yeah. Well, I'm fascinated by your journey, and so one of the things I always think of when I think of your name is I was struck with your, a part of your book which I loved around sleep anxiety, and your call-out around your concern when people often will start with some of this way of talking about sleep around, "I can't sleep."
Or just like setting them right out of the gate. Yeah. You know, just this limiting beliefs. And I really have loved your bluntness and your, you know, just directness on some of these topics to really shake up some of the ways that people might be shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to sleep and some of their goals, especially around sleep anxiety.
Any call-outs around that? My first call-out would be how much I like the title of your podcast. Oh. The idea that it's a skill. You can... I mean, it's sort of like saying, and I got to do this one time, and I'll never do it again, which was I kind of ran my mouth to a baseball player, and I was like, "I think I'm..."
Yeah, I used to play baseball in high school. I was like, "I think I can get a bat on your ball," meaning if you're pitching to me- Yeah ... I don't know if I can get a base hit, but I think I could foul something off. Yeah. And I couldn't come close to hitting the ball that he was throwing to me, and I don't think he was throwing all that hard.
So my point would be to say, "Oh, I can't hit a curve ball," maybe I can't now- Sure ... but I'm sure there are some Major League Baseball coaches, I'm reasonably fit and got pretty good reflexes, I bet if they worked with me over time, I could get to the point where my bat speed could improve, I would know what to look for with certain pitches, then I could probably make contact with a few here and there, even though I couldn't in the moment.
In other words, there is no gene on your 15th chromosome that says, "Oh, you've got the gene where you can't hit a baseball." It's sort of the same thing with sleep. Like, "Oh, I can't sleep. I've always been a bad sleep, it runs in my family." Oh, really? What on earth are you talking about? Like, where, where is this science coming from?
Because sleep is, it's a skill. It's a mental mindset. I mean, if somebody asked me, "Sum up your best sleep advice in one sentence," it would be, "Be happy in bed, awake or asleep- Mm ... comma," still same sentence, "both are beneficial." Yes. So i- i- if you change the mindset from, "I need to get into bed and go to sleep right away, I gotta be unconscious right away, or else I'm doing something wrong, a bad sleeper, bad things are gonna happen with my health," that's a problem.
So I love the idea of sleep being a skill because it is. It, it absolutely is. Uh. You've got, you've got dominion here, and, and power over it. Now, will every night be perfect? No. Could you make sleep that's already pretty good better? Yeah. Like, I take supplements. I take Natural magnesium every night because I got a little bit of restless leg, so.
Sure. But, you know, the idea, "Well, I tried the magnesium you recommended, Chris. It didn't work." Well, how are you defining work? "Still can't sleep." Well, then we've got to go back- Yeah ... and do a lot of fundamental work, and I think that you s- having a podcast- Where it's over and over you're talking about it.
These are... You know, my biggest frustration with my work as a clinician is I got 30 minutes to solve your 20-year-old sleep problem. Right. It's not gonna happen. We can plant some seeds, get some things rolling here, but it needs to be a message that you're hearing from somebody you like- Mm ... and somebody you trust kind of over and over and over again.
It's almost like a cult programming. Like, we've got ... You don't, you don't get into the cult and get completely brainwashed on day one. No, it takes some time. You gotta be eased into it, right? Yeah. Before you start dismissing your entire family and giving all of your money away to somebody you just met six months ago.
Like, that takes, takes some time, and you've got to find the right cult. So, you know, to me, uh, it's kinda the same thing, right? Like- A topic I did not expect for us, yep. Yeah, really. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. Um- I love it ... so anyway, so but yeah, but like, you know, so to me, I think that top-line message- Mm
is really important for people. And, you know, the book rubbed people, some people the wrong way. They felt like I was making fun of a problem- Oh, I loved it ... or diminishing it. Yeah. And, and it really isn't that. It, it's the... Sleep's important, but we need to take a breath and understand you have control over it, and if Tuesday night's not your best night of sleep, it's okay.
You, you're, you're gonna, you're, you're all right. So it's, you know, it's for the person who's got a lot of anxiety around sleep, maybe not for the person who doesn't feel sleep's important and feels like as long as they get four hours sleep, they're fine. Maybe Matt's book's better for that, where you need a little bit- That's true
of a, you know, "Hey- Yeah, it does depend on the person ... you, you need, you need a little more anxiety, not less anxiety." Yeah. Well, and naturally, that's why I s- what you said spoke to me because my origin story was my own insomnia, was my own freakout around sleep and trying so desperately to get it. As we know, the more you try to force sleep, it's like the more elusive it becomes.
And it's interesting hearing you speak too because it really beautifully leads into the parallels around performance and sleep. And so when we think about this concept of kind of anticipatory anxiety, which often we'll see for people with sleep, can spill over into things like performance. And are you often working with people on that, on these kinda high, these very important moments for them, and how to manage these thoughts in lead up to that and maybe allow for sleep to not look exactly how they might want it to look before important moments in their life?
Yes. I wanna go back to one thing you said- Yeah, please ... about you're coming to this through, through your own personal journey, which I think is very powerful. In fact, I just read, I think it might have been, I, I don't, I don't r- it might have been, like, with, uh- Every one of my podcast episodes I record, like you, on Zoom, and I just put the video up of me talking.
Yeah. I'm not sure why anybody would want to watch that, but people consume stuff through YouTube, so they do. Yeah. And one of the comments under it was, "I'm not sure why this guy is talking about insomnia when he sta- he stated himself he's never had it," which is really interesting. You know, as, as a doctor- Yeah
you can only operate on pancreatic cancer if you, you have yourself had pancrea- A lot. It's an interesting thought, I thought. Yeah. So but I think it's really powerful when somebody comes through it themselves, it does lend itself a certain degree of credibility. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
He says he sleeps great. So I wanna listen to her because she's had a journey. I think there's an automatic credibility there. Yeah. That said, um, speaking of credibility, I do work with a lot of high-performing people. I would imagine most people, even people like Michael Graner, we work with a lot of people.
I bet a lot of listeners to your podcast are high-performing people because high-performing people often carry with them a lot of sleep problems because- Oh, I see ... their high performance is awesome. They're making all the money, and they are driving the great cars, and they're investing properly, and they are thinking about ways to better themselves and, and make more money all the time, and then when it's time to go to bed, they can't just be that person who shuts it all off.
Right. You know, that's, that's a tough thing. So, you know, I think a lot of people are very successful. I don't meet a lot of people who sell hockey socks at Phish concerts. You know what I mean? Like, they're... That person's already like, "Oh, dude, if I sleep tonight, great. If I don't, no problem." Like, you know, they're already of that mentality.
Yeah. So to adopt hockey sock mentality when you're the CEO is tough, or you're a Major League Baseball player. And now I can't say to that baseball player what I say to my kids, "It doesn't matter if you strike out. Nobody cares," because they kinda do. Yeah. Like, if you strike out enough, you're not gonna have a job anymore.
So, uh, the high-performance thing is, is, is a big thing and, and, and rightfully so. People do associate sleep with high performance. What I try to do is introduce the idea that sleep's important. Tonight's sleep's kind of irrelevant. Mm. In fact, I was just writing a, a report- I bet ... right before I was talking to you about What, what do we do after we have a bad night's sleep?
I don't know that we need to do anything. You had a bad night's sleep because your team lost, your girlfriend broke up with you, you didn't like the ending of a show you've been watching for eight years. I, I don't know, like, people come to bad nights of sleep through all different avenues. So to me, if it's like, no, the last 29 days were awesome, but last night was really bad, okay, well that's, to me, that's normal.
That's a normal human existence. Right. So, you know, to me, it's sort of kind of helping people understand when is there a problem that we really need to deal with, so the big red flag. Mm. For the people in the middle who are doing okay, how can I take okay and make it a little bit better? Yeah.
Supplementation, like we were talking about. Yeah. You know, I, I love the, the Natrol products that, that I, that I endorse- Yeah ... because I think that it allows you to kind of pick and choose exactly what might make your sleep a little bit better. Um, the bedroom environment, you know, whatever. And then for people who are doing really well, what do we do to sort of anticipate the future breakup or the future game where you go out and throw seven pitches and six of them are home runs, and you're upset with yourself?
Like, how do we bulletproof that person against it? So those are the ways I kind of think about performance, but, you know- Yeah ... sleep's important there. We, we wanna, we wanna maximize that, for sure. But also, how do you take care of your body? How do you think about yourself? What's your mental outlook like?
What do you fuel yourself, the way you exercise? All those things are really important. So good. Yeah, and just underscoring again what you had said about being okay with being awake or asleep in bed, I'm, I'm s- assume there's probably some element of that in performance of, you know, knowing that there's...
We can be okay with different results and not crumble, so really like some of the points you're making there. And maybe shifting over from these topics to performance as it relates to back to school, things that are coming up right when we'll be releasing this, and performance for families. Any call-outs for people that, you know, they've been in summer mode, and they're going to bed late, and the light is lighting and all the things.
Any ways to kind of shift, or is it just kind of holding things loosely and not getting too stressed about all of it? I think it can be both. You know- Good ... I think about Roxanne Prichard, who's this amazing sleep researcher up in Minnesota. She always takes her kids camping- Ah ... a few days before school starts to really expose them to the light up and down, the temperature changes, and things of that nature that can really help cir- you know, our circadian rhythm.
I, you know, I'm- I'm a big fan of melatonin when melatonin is used for what melatonin is supposed to be used for, which is I'm a pilot and I fly back and forth to Singapore, and so my days and nights are all screwed up. Mm-hmm. I'm a shift worker who works 7:00 A, 7:00 P for a couple weeks, and I'm on the 7:00 P to 7:00 A, or a night shift nurse and his crazy schedule.
Sure. I think that there is an intelligent algorithm for using melatonin in exactly the situation you talked about with kids who are... I mean, I've had three kids, and I know what happens in the summer. They go to bed at 4:00 in the morning, and they get up at, you know, 2:00 in the afternoon. And there's not a lot you can do to stop it, um, outside of bringing the vacuum cleaner into their bedroom at 8:00 o'clock- Ugh
in the morning and opening up blinds and- Yeah ... listening to the, the, the hateful words that emerge from their mouth that some reason they don't remember two hours later. So to me, I mean, I think these are really intelligent ways of my child already struggles to get up early. How can we get them off and...
This is what we do for Major League baseball players. They're off doing their fun thing, and then they come to training camp. Training camp gets going early. Like- Mm-hmm ... I get to the training centers before the sun comes up, and the players are not that far behind. So using something like the Natrol brand of melatonin, they have it for kids too, selectively.
Hey, we're not gonna- Sure ... dose them with melatonin every night of their life, but when we're trying to make these transitions, they can be really important. And if you've got a child who really struggles with mornings, I would think of two other things. Number one, there are ways to assess if you're a more of a morning person or a night person.
I always use something called the Horne-Ostberg. If you look up morningness, eveningness questionnaire, there's even one online if you type in Auto, A-U-T-O, MEQ. Ask your kid about 26 questions, and they ge- You get a score. Mm. And if you're a high, your score is high, you're a very morning-oriented person.
If your score is very low, you're very night oriented. So I like to think about those things, A, in terms of strategies for getting them going for their, you know, school year coming up. B, there is a, you know, first period calculus class, and then there's a seventh period calculus class. If you've got a kid who's super night oriented- I would really make an argument for, "I need my kid in that afternoon calculus section, not the morning."
I've even recommended to parents, then do it through the community college if you can't get into that. Mm. Because taking that test at 8:00 AM versus 3:00 PM can be a dramatically different result for your child based upon their circadian rhythm. So the unfortunate thing is high school is built for morning types.
Teenagers- Oh ... in general are not morning types. I'm not sure wh- I mean, I've heard horror stories about school start times. I know you've talked about that before. Mm-hmm. So just being aware of it, like no, I don't know how to change your high school school district to start at 10:30 and end at, you know, 5:00.
But you can say, "Well, could I have first period study hall for my kid? Second period gym class." That might be a great time for gym to kind of get them kind of revved up and woken up. Yeah. And then the more difficult things later on. And if you walk in, "Well, my Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire score for my 15-year-old is a 17."
Yeah. And they're gonna be like, "What's a Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire?" Like, "It's an assessment of my child's chronotype. He's a very circadianly delayed individual, so I really feel like I need this." That you might kind of be able to strengthen your case. But if you're really struggling, I mean, this is where melatonin, light therapy, temperature therapy can make a difference in sort of pushing them to be a little bit later.
Or military school, that does a good job. Having somebody scream at you at 5:30 in the morning, go right out to a field, and run around until you throw up, that'll, that'll make somebody more of a morning person. But there are some steps in between- True enough ... where you're at right now and the local military boarding school.
You've given us lots of options. I love that. On the melatonin front, a couple questions on that, 'cause I know a lot of people say, "Well, okay, this melatonin, like, what do I do for dosage?" Uh, I've heard highs, I've heard lows, I've heard in between. Any guidance there? Yeah, I mean, for younger... I mean, you always wanna consult your pediatrician- Sure
or doctor. Sure, sure, sure. I, I, I will put a little asterisk by that. Okay. I think it's a fair question to ask your, your clinician, your pediatrician, your family care provider, "How much training have you had in sleep?" Mm-hmm. Uh, the answer is probably gonna be zero, or, "Yeah, I got a lecture in sleep about three years ago," um, but, but not really any.
So make sure you're talking to somebody. I mean, if somebody asked me, "Tell me more about delivering babies," I know nothing about delivering babies. I did it for my daughter when I was in medical school a couple times in my OB rotation, but I was really interested... Everybody who was... I, when I did my OB rotation, I already knew I was gonna be a neurologist.
I had no interest in OB. And I remember the nurses were really into this soap opera, and I was really into it with them. And so the OB residents would be like, "Hey, Chris, you know, we got twins getting ready to b- delivered. Do you wanna come and help with the delivery?" I'm like, "Actually, I don't, because Justin has just now broken up with Veronica-
and it's like a whole thing, so I don't really wanna miss this soap o- or, or, you know." I did not know that. Yeah. Okay. Which is why I got a C in obstetrics, um, but I'm okay with that. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm okay with it. I've come to- Yeah ... accept the C. But anyway. Yeah. So, um, melatonin, I mean, generally with kids, one to three milligrams, to some degree weight based.
If you're an older individual, it's probably gonna be somewhere around three to five milligrams, and that's why... T- the big thing, too, and you might be aware of, there was some research done, it was a Canadian study, it was an American study about- Mm-hmm ... hey, the melatonin that you're giving yourself- Yeah
or giving somebody Yeah ... may have no melatonin in it. It could be, like, 300 times more than what's written on the label. In fact, my favorite line from one of those studies was, there was a pediatric brand of melatonin, had no melatonin in it, but it did have TH- it did have, like, a cannabinoid, like THC in it.
Oh, perfect. So I, I think it's really important to get a brand that is very reputable- Yeah ... which is why I reach out, um, you know, reached out and, and communicated with Natrol and, and think their product is fantastic. So even if they're like, "You know what?" Yeah. "We didn't appreciate the cult reference. We no longer want you to talk about our brand," then I would still use Natrol.
'Cause I, I think it's a fantastic brand. I love it, I love it. So this is where, you know, understanding what these things do can really make a difference. That's what these drugs are kinda out there for. And so if you've got- Sure ... that kid who- I mean, I, I've talked to parents before, like we have to take a bucket of water essentially- Oh
and drop it on our kid to get them out of bed in the morning. Right. This can make a huge difference, especially if you're- Mm-hmm ... pairing it with the right light, the right diminishment of light at night. You know, all these things- Yeah ... can really push that needle towards making mornings not so stressful.
Oh, I like that. That's a really good point. Well, maybe that's a good segue for us to kind of delve into some of the ways that you're thinking about sleep in your household, and then we can maybe extract other, you know, call-outs for people along the way. So the first question that we ask everyone that comes on the podcast is what is your nightly sleep routine looking like right now?
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that I would... I'll tell you, I'll answer the question. Sure. I would invite your listeners to think about that question as what is your 24-hour sleep routine? Yes. I think that's, that's a really powerful way to think about stuff. In other words, the consistency of your breakfast and walking the dog right before breakfast every morning outside in the sunlight in your little loop is a real message to your brain that, oh, it's morning time, bagel, orange juice, walk the dogs, say hello to neighbors every day at this time.
I love it. I think dogs are wildly underrated- Oh ... as sleep supplements. I think the- I couldn't agree more. I would say that ... you know, they, they, they don't care. Yeah. Like sleet, they don't care about sleet- Yeah ... because it is walking time. Yeah. Um, so get your raincoat on 'cause we're going out in sleet. So to me, like thinking about consistency of breakfast, when do you exercise, can you get up and do something in the morning, even if it's not setting the world on fire in a, you know, body pump class, like just doing a 20-minute yoga stretch to get your back ready for the day, whatever.
Like I think those things are great. So when I think about my evening, um, I kind of think about evening starting when my clinic ends, usually around 4:30 or 5:00 And, and speaking of dogs, my dogs know... I must be saying it differently, plus there's probably a timing element. When I say, "Okay, well, I'll see you in four months," like I'm saying it now, my dogs are sitting next to me, nothing's happening.
But there must be something about the way I say it. Information. Yeah. There must be an excitement in my own voice- Uh-huh ... like, "Oh, thank God. Clinic's over. We get to go, you know, do some fun stuff." When I say it, they're, like, ready to go outside. We gotta check the mail, see if the mail person left a dog treat, et cetera.
So my evening star- starts with clinic being done. I usually go immediately to the gym and lift weights. Mm. Um, I'm a big believer in strength training. Yeah. It's fun. You know, it's something- Yeah ... to do. I find it very objective. As I progress, I can lift more. I find myself, you know, uh, taking care of my back a little bit more and, and, and making that a nice thing.
So come home. Great. Sun's starting to go down. That's when I walk dogs, so I do a little, we do a little route with the dogs outside, and that's a nice time because the sun's generally going down around that time, so I'm exposing myself to that diminishment of light, diminishment of temperature. Come home, eat dinner.
Um, and then evening is usually sort of dimmer lights. We have particular lights that we kind of turn off. I'm a big fan of tea. I like coffee more, but I will drink tea in the evening, and find that a lot of times I just- I want to eat or drink something almost just to busy myself. Yeah. I get it. Like, I'm not
If you ask me, "Chris, are you really that hungry? Do you need those cookies?" I don't, but I wanna sit there and watch my episode of whatever, you know, munching on something. Yeah. So I find tea to be nice because it's allowing me to do something. I'm sipping on the chamomile or whatever. Mm-hmm. And, um, it bec- a- and, and that aroma, I only smell chamomile at night.
Mm-hmm. The warmth of it and sweetened with a little honey or whatever, and so I find that to be a nice little trigger- Yeah ... sensory trigger for, ooh, sleep's getting ready to come. And then I take a magnesium, a Natrol magnesium chew. I've got a little bit of restless leg. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's right. And I
It's not bad. Yeah. I don't treat it pharmaceutically at this point, but I'm not opposed- Sure ... to it if it ever got really bad. Um, when it's really bad, I will be in bed, and I just can't sit still, so I gotta get out of bed, go to the guest bedroom, and I put these weighted blankets on that I have, and it really helps.
I can't remember the last time I've done that. It's been a while. Hmm. So I think the magnesium, which is an, e- a approved treatment for some people- Yeah ... with restless leg, I find that to be helpful. I have a Natrol GABA. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a rest and restore that does not have melatonin in it. Hmm.
But then I have an Ultra Sleep with melatonin for the first few days after I travel. I just went to Ireland. Ooh. So the first couple days I'm there, took some, some of my Natrol with the, the melatonin. Mm-hmm. And then the first few days when I get back, which is often harder for me depending on d- direction I'm traveling- Mm-hmm
first few days I'll take that, and then after three days, that gets put away in the bottom drawer, and I pull out my, the almost the exact supplement without the melatonin. Great. Um, and then I've got a little bit of a noise machine, which I think is nice because if I'm breathing kind of heavily or something, it doesn't disturb my partner.
I'm not a big believer- Yeah ... that a white noise machine necessarily elevates sleep in general- Mm-hmm ... over silence. But if you've got noisy pets or something like that, traffic noise, I think it's really nice. Um, I've got a pillow. I always like to ask patients or when I lecture, "How many people thoughtfully can- chose your pillow?
Like, you can name the kind of pillow you're sleeping on right now." Nobody ever raises their hand. So I'm currently sleeping on a, a pillow that I really like and yeah, so that, that's the routine. Then lights out after a, a episode of Ted Lasso. Oh, I just was watching a Ted Lasso clip today with the dart-throwing moment, like the- Ah, barbecue sauce.
Oh good. So good. He wrote that apparently. I got... Maybe we saw the same clip, but- Yeah ... apparently he does a lot of the writing for the Ted character. I mean, I, it's- Good ... it's a, it's a really brilliant show. I like darker kind of stuff. Yeah. But when I watch that show, I'm like, "I love this show." I know. It's so good.
Even though it's not the kind of thing that I would typically like, I think it's outstanding. They do a really good job. So good. And then real quick, when... 'Cause you're someone that does so much travel and, you know, these conversation around performance, do you do even those, like, same things, the chamomile tea and all of those things- Yes
when you're on the road? Okay. That's a fun thing to do if you're somebody who likes, somebody who likes to travel or travels a lot is- Sure ... what can you pack- and take with you easily that allows you to kind of have that same sort of sensory experience. So- Right ... in my travel bag, besides the razor and deodorant and toothbrush, I've got the, I've got two little containers.
One is the melatonin, plus the one is melatonin negative of my Natrol supplement. So if I'm just traveling, I just went up to New York and back, that was no big deal. I, I stayed with the non-melatonin because I wasn't switching- Mm ... time zones- Sure ... or doing something weird schedule-wise. I have a little lavender spray that I keep on my bedside table, but a separate one in my travel bag so I don't have to pack it.
So I'm always smelling the same thing I smell at home as I do on the road. Uh, chamomile teabags, very easy to travel with. They're dry, so you're not running into TSA security kind of stuff or anything like that. I travel with a little portable noise machine. Mm-hmm. Me too. Yeah. It's made by a company called Yoga Sleep.
Mm-hmm. It's like a hockey puck. So that way I can use the noise machine and have my phone away from me. I don't like it when people are like, "I'm using my phone as the noise machine. I downloaded some app." A, I always worry I'm gonna run the battery out, you know- Yeah ... my plug, phone will become unplugged. B, I always worry about the, will the sound of the alarm work- Uh-huh
with the noise machine? Yeah. So I just, it just kind of freaks me out to have that. I get that. So, and I always k- I have a little alarm clock that has a battery in it. Mm. So I'm setting my alarm- Smart ... in the room. You know, I'll use my phone sometimes, wake-up call from the hotel, and I've got this. Mm. So like if I, if I oversleep all four of those things- We're in trouble
then it was just never meant to be- Yeah ... right? So- Yeah ... and that never... And so I find a lot of people, and a lot of athletes do this to young athletes, they have anxiety where the flight, you gotta be up at 4:30 tomorrow to catch the flight. Mm-hmm. And it's your best friend's wedding, and those are some rough nights of sleep.
Yeah. You wake up and you're like, "Oh my God, overslept, overslept." And then you look, and it's 1:30. You're like, "Oh, God, thank God it's- Mm ... you know, my alarm clock's set for 4:30." So now it's like, only have three hours to go back to sleep. And so I find that when I have all these alarms all over the place, which looks crazy-
if you were to look at the other, like, what are all these alarms everywhere? Yeah. So, but it really creates a sense of peace that- The statistical, uh, idea that I'm gonna sleep through all these ala- it's just not gonna happen. Exactly. Yeah. So it, it, it creates a much better sleep before that rough 4:30 in the morning awakening.
I will say I've got a device on my bed that changes its temperature. Ah, so good. That is an awesome, awesome thing. Oh. And, and they all have great return policies, so- Yeah ... if you do it and you're like, "Oh, my God, I bought this thing 'cause Chris said to buy it and I hate it," which I've never heard anybody say- Yeah
send it back. But, I mean, the idea that it can warm you up right before your 4:30 alarm goes off, I am not a morning person, but, you know- Yeah ... warming up my core before the alarm goes off is great. Oh, I know. So I put that in my schedule, too. Yeah, those are so good. Makes such a difference. Okay, well, you already pretty much answered, I think, our second question, which is what does your morning, quote-unquote, "sleep routine" look like, with the idea that how we start our day can impact our sleep.
And I love that, well, as such a pro, right out of the gate you're like, "Listen, we need to look at the whole day." So was there anything we missed in your daytime or morning? No. I, I always tell people in sleep- With light, movement, and food. Mm. So if you're somebody who likes to take a nap, great. How does the nap end?
You get up from the couch or wherever you're at, your bedroom, and grab a little something to eat, get outside and walk around or get on your exercise bike or treadmill and walk for 10 minutes, um, and, and get some light. So I always start the day off with walking my dogs. I- Mm-hmm ... my, my wife works very close to our house, so I throw her in the car, drive her to work at where, at the museum where she works.
Oh, yeah. I come back, walk the dogs every day. Mm. And then if I'm traveling and away from them, I always try to get up and go to the hotel gym in the morning. I, I don't, I don't go really hard in the morning, 'cause I, I always feel a little cold and not great. Mm-hmm. So I think that I, I feel very close to injury in the morning.
I get it. I don't feel that way at 3:00 in the afternoon. Yeah. So but I like to do a little something, kinda lightweight or walk on a treadmill. Yeah. Maybe watch some news. I love to listen to The Daily. Ah. So I usually- Good one. Yeah ... listen to that podcast or- Yeah ... I, you know, sometimes listen to my own podcast and I'm like, oh my God.
Yeah. These... I, I'm sitting like mentally, that's a mistake. I didn't mean to say that. Even just my last one, I, I, r- the title was Disillusionment, and I said delusion- Oh ... which is a totally different thing. So, so I'm usually like, okay, on next podcast I need to correct all these mistakes I made or whatever, so.
Oh, yeah, you do have your corrections. That's so in favor. I do. Yeah. I like that. I'm always disappointed more people don't- I think that's great ... I like criticism. Yes. Like, I don't believe that, or I don't think, I think you're- Yeah ... misinterpreting that research or something. Sure. But, um, usually it's more like, no, that wasn't the third Jane's Addiction album, 'cause they released a second one that not many people knew about in German.
Like, so those are the usually- That's good ... the corrections I get, which I'm like- Yeah. Yeah ... wow, you're really paying attention if you're at that level. So good for you. That is great. Okay. I love that. And another shout-out to dog owners. I so agree. It's such a- Yeah, yeah ... yeah, an unappreciated sleep support.
So good. So also visually, what might we see on your nightstand or in your sleep environment? Yeah. We did a rate your nightstand. That, that was, that was a fun thing to do. That I, I really enjoyed. Oh. So people started sending me pictures of their nightstand and we just for fun- What? ... we would just kind of rate it.
I love that. So my nightstand you would see it's, uh, we've got sort of a mid-century modern thing going on, 'cause our house was sort of a, a little atomic house built in the '50s. Yeah. And so we've leaned... So it's a little m- so picture the mid-century modern, teak wood nightstand, a little lamp on it. We've got the plug-in noise machine on my side of the bed, uh, because nightstand on the other side has a little more stuff on top of it.
We've got the lavender spray. Mm-hmm. We have got, uh, uh, somebody sent me this little device, I think it's called Halo- Ooh ... and you put it next to your bed. And when you try to open up your phone All the social media is gray. Now you can get around it Sure ... but it's kind of a cool reminder, like- Yeah ... yeah, I'm, I'm not gonna go into it and do all the stuff I need to do to get out of it.
So that's kind of stuck behind. You can hide it in your... So it's a great way to, you know, control your kids' phones or if you have a little bit- Yeah ... of a problem, which I wouldn't say I have a... I don't really care for my phone a whole lot outside of, like, Wordle and, uh, Spelling Bee. I'm kind of obsessed with Spelling Bee sometimes.
I get a little bit- What a great addiction to have ... crazy about that. I, I don't know. So I, I cut myself off on Spelling Bee- Wow ... that I am not allowed to seek the title of Queen Bee every day. That once it hits genius, if I hit genius, I can't go any further because then it's like there's four more words, and that becomes...
And my wife was like, "Chris, enough." We, we cut off. You know, because I was, like, hiding it. She's like- Yeah ... "What are you looking at on your phone?" Ah. Like, "What is going on here?" I'm like, "It's Spelling Bee and I'm obsessed with it," so we had to kind of cut that, you know. So but anyway, um, these little things are kinda- This is gonna be great for that niche population, the Wordle- That's right
the Wordle fans. Right, right. They're like, "Whoo!" That's right. That's right. Wordle I like because it's pretty quick. Okay. Like, you got it or you didn't. Okay. Spelling Bee it's like there's two more words until you hit genius. Oh, okay. And you're like, "Oh, my gosh." Got it. I'll, I'll literally sometimes it will come to me in the night.
Attribute Yeah ... at- it's attribute Yeah. And you log in and A-T-T-R... You know, there. Yeah. So, um, what else? I've... Inside, I've got a book to read. I always have, like, a pleasure book. Mm-hmm. I'm reading a book about the making of Diamond Dogs, which is a David Bowie album. Ooh. Um, so it's, like, fun to read, but not stressful in the least.
Sure. And I think, uh, we've talked about the supplements. Yeah. I've got different ones for if I'm coming back from a trip or just- Mm-hmm ... business as usual. Yeah. Got the ChiliPAD- Mm, like- ... uh, controller thermostat there. Yeah. And then I've got a alarm clock made by a company called Lofty that has a very dim light that I can turn off.
I like the alarms that it uses. And then I've got a couple, like, noise-canceling earbuds that I can sleep in there if for some reason I, I want to listen to, like, a l- I, I just started using these earbuds that will let you play, like, a Bluetooth, a little Brian Eno or something. Mm-hmm. And then after 30 minutes, it just cuts...
It fades the music out, and then they just become sort of noise-canceling, and they're easy to sleep in. So I thought that was kinda cool. I love that. Those are great stacks. Oh- Yeah ... god, really, any of those cooling mattress toppers can make such a difference. And so I always say how I have, you know, just...
I'm sure you must have this over the years, like, this gadget graveyard, it feels like, of different, you know- Yeah ... companies that have sent things and, you know, maybe well-intentioned, but half the time, do these things make that much of a difference? You know, some of these things just collect cobwebs. But I will say, cooling mattress toppers, whoo.
Like, just- That's a great one. Uh, Ben & Jerry's, if you go to their, their main place up in Vermont where they make the ice cream, they have an ice cream flavor graveyard Like the flavor that just did not catch on Yeah, it- And- Oh, funny. I've read that one. Yeah ... I think I like the, the, the- Yeah ... the gadget graveyard.
Yeah. There's probably a lot you could sort of learn from that. Um- Yeah. Okay, but- You know, what did you expect would happen? Why did it hit... Why did it become a graveyard thing? Mm-hmm. Never worked, or it worked but you got tired of doing it. And the nice thing about the ChiliPAD that I use is it's just kind of thoughtless.
Totally. You just get in bed. Yeah. In fact, I, you know, I run mine 24 hours a day just because I'm so impatient. I think I saw one- I want that cold- ... of your posts about that. You were like, "I don't know if that's supposed to do." Yeah, it's probably... The, the electrical grid is probably not thrilled with me. But it- Yeah
doesn't take a lot of electricity. No. But I also just... And I was even, I even told them one time. I'm like, "Oh, it'll cool really fast. You don't need to do that." But sorry. Well, you know. Like, I want to get in. It's like a cold plunge. Like, as soon as I get in- Totally ... boom, it's... there it is. Yeah. You know? So I, I, I like that a lot.
Um, but yeah, that one is still going. I mean, I started using those devices, I think, a decade ago, maybe longer. Yeah. Like, that's really stood the test of time. The brain sensing headband didn't quite make it that long. I know. The Zio was really- ... just a little, a little ahead of its time, I guess. No, it's funny.
Yeah, I don't know if this is just my own way of thinking about or, like, making sense of why we would need, you know, something so extra like a cooling mattress topper, but I feel... This is my reasoning. I feel like you could make the argument that, like... So for instance, there's this great book that just came out, The Sleepless Ape, that's really fascinating, looking at kind of hunter gatherer tribes in our sleep and what have you.
Professor David Samson. And one of the fascinating things it would point to is for so many years in our history we would've been sleeping on the ground, which you could argue is one of the coolest parts in the environment. So almost kind of like its natural cooling mattress topper, if you will. And so this is the way I like to rationalize as to like why would we need some sort of extra gadget to sleep on?
This is how I think about it. And then there's another argument, this is all hypothetical, but could part of the reason why we might like weighted blankets be because of akin to, like, heavy hides or something that's kind of tactile? I don't know if you have any thoughts on any of these theories, but very much theoretical.
Any ideas? Well, you know, it's interesting. Need. Th- there's n- there's so many buzzwords in sleep. Yeah, yeah. Need, work. We don't need anything to run around a track and jump over a hurdle. Yeah. You know what I mean? But if you're... What's that woman's name? Sydney McLaughlin, the one who's just- Oh, yes ... unreal at running hurdles.
Uh-huh. Like, within half a, a track she's ahead of everybody and you're never gonna catch her. Yeah. So she could probably do very well barefoot, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Yeah. If the idea is do you need it to sleep, no, and that's something- Yeah ... I talk about a lot. You don't need to do anything. Mm-hmm.
Sure. But when we think about a ChiliPad or a melatonin supplement or some magnesium or GABA or whatever- The, the problem I think that we have in our heads, "Oh, if I sleep really poorly, I've got a lot of problems with my sleep, I'll get the cooling device or I'll get the Natrol Ultra Sleep and that will fix my problem."
No, these are supplements. It's kind of like, "Hey, Sydney, you're running really well in those shoes, but we've come up with a carbon cleat that is 53% lighter than what you use right now, and grips the turf of the track 20% better. I think it might be able to shave .5 seconds off your best time." And her really knowing her body and how she run...
I don't know this woman. I've, I've never met her. Yeah, yeah. I just, when I think of dynamic athlete- No, no, yeah ... I think of this woman for some reason. Yeah. And plus, I like timed sports. Mm-hmm. It's very objective. You ran the time- Right ... or you didn't. Or you didn't, yeah. So to me, did the cleats work for her?
Yes. Mm. They helped her shave .5 off. Was she a great s- runner before the cleats? Oh, gosh, yes. Mm-hmm. We just enhanced it a little bit, and that's where I think about the ChiliPAD, the Natrol- Yeah ... supplement, the noise machine. If you're struggling- Mm-hmm ... with truly awful sleep, I, I wouldn't really necessarily waste your time.
You've gotta, you've gotta learn how to run, how to stretch properly, how to navigate hurdles, get faster and faster, move up through the amateur ranks. And when you get to those higher levels, "Oh, okay, I used to be a bad runner. Now I'm a good runner. Now I'm a really good runner," now is the time to think about the aerodynamics of the outfit you wear and the- Mm
specific cleats for that track you're running. So we have to be very careful. Those cleats don't make you a great runner. But if you're already a pretty good runner, they might make you a little bit better. And so I like to think about all the things that we often talk about with people that are in that category of supplements or tech, is they're gonna make you a little bit better.
If your expectation is they're gonna knock you out or something like... No, no. Yeah. In fact, I, you know, I would, I would think about things like melatonin and supplements, this is not what they're for. Yeah. They're not fast sedation. No. "I got a kid who can't sleep. I'm gonna give him melatonin, knock him out."
This, this, no, no, no. No. It's wrong on so many levels. Yeah. But my kid's a pretty good sleeper, but sometimes at the beginning of the school year, he struggles. That's, that's the, the Natrol melatonin product right there. Mm-hmm. That's, that's why you do it. You've got a product that you know has melatonin in it, that they've tested it - Yeah
and this is the reason you do it. And once they get on that school, then maybe you back off and do some other kinds of supplementation, or not, you know, depending on what you need. Oh, 100%. It makes me think of, I work with a lot of high-stakes poker players on their sleep, and they are s- I know Surprise.
And what's special- That's awesome ... they're such a great group because they know so clearly that they're all dealt particular cards, and so it's all with how we're playing the cards that we're dealt, a lot of parallels to life. And with the cards that they're dealt, what kind of edge could they bring into that situation?
Sleep, of course, being one of them, what they're eating, their mindset. There's all kinds of cool things that they could pile on, but there's certain limitations of what's actually at the table. So I love what you're saying about this edge really. That's a great model because you could probably argue that maybe that group of elite performers are at the most balanced, um...
Their, their advantage over one of th- one another might be the, the most minimal. Mm-hmm. So when you think about a person who's gone three nights with insufficient sleep, not, not sleep, just insufficient sleep, and they're making three times more mental lapses, I imagine that those are the kinds of edges that they're really interested in.
And, and again- I bet ... it like Sydney running the track- Yeah ... it's very objective. You won, you did not win. Mm-hmm. It's very binary. It's a one or a zero. Yeah. And you're trying to accumulate more ones than zeros by a certain fraction. So that's really cool, actually. I, I, I really like the idea of the elite poker player thinking about their sleep because there's something about whenever I watch, like, a poker thing on TV, I'm like- Yeah
that environment looks... I mean, every time I go to Vegas, I'm like, "This is bad sleep." That's exactly it. "This is just nothing but bad sleep and weird ideas of things that might be good uses of my time that are not good uses of my time." I literally use them as, like, my avatar because they are the group that is literally in an environment designed on purpose to confuse the circadian rhythm, you know?
No windows, no clocks. Yes. You know, all the stimuli. Pumping in oxygen, you know? Oh, yeah. Right? It's just a mess. Can I interest you in a steak- Yeah, exactly ... at 4:00 in the morning? What? Is it 4:00 in the morning? You know, I, I, I always felt that way working in the hospital when I was on call. Ah, totally. Like, at some point, you just lose all sense of where am I and what is going on outside- Where am I?
in the real world. And yeah, so- Ugh. That's- I can imagine those things are really, really rough, so. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes for the high stakes players, they might have millions of dollars on the line. They've been playing for 12 hours, you know? There's, like, a lot pinging at them. And I also like the idea...
Somebody told me one time, I, I remember one time, this was way back when I was talking about going to one of those sleep meetings. Mm. A couple years later, this would've been when I was in my first year of medical school, I... No, sorry, first year of residency Uh, I think it was medical school. I went to the sleep meeting when it was in Vegas.
Ah, yes. And the, my residency program, whatever I was in at the time said, "You have 24 hours. Go out there, present your research, and come back because you've gotta be here." So I flew in, landed at 9:00 at night, got to the hotel at, you know, 10:00, and I was like, "I wanna play poker where they're really playing poker."
Yeah. So I went to Harrah's and, you know, put my $40 in and got my chips and sat down and played for the next four hours and got out with 20 bucks. Okay. So I, I lost $20. I still have that poker chip, by the way. And I like the idea, and I was talking to somebody one time who did that professionally.
They're like, "Yeah, you're never gonna be a good player because you've got to have no fear of losing." Yeah. "And you walked in, and you were on a budget, and you didn't really wanna lose your $40, so you play a different way." Yeah. But I like the analogy of the high-stakes poker poker player and the sleeper.
Mm. I'm going to bed at night, you're going to bed at night. Every poker player, Sydney, all the people we've talked about, everybody's going to bed at some point this evening. Sure. You've gotta play the sleep game where you're not afraid to not fall asleep. So if you're, like, trying to scare me, you're not gonna scare me with, "Well, you're gonna go..."
I've seen the future, and you're going to bed at night, and you're gonna be awake for two hours from 11:00 till 1:00 before you go to bed. Great. I love being in bed awake. So that, that's, that is not the threat- Okay ... you think it is. Mm. So I think that we could probably learn a lot from poker players when it came to sleep of that- Fearlessness.
Ugh. If you're scared to lose a million dollars, you do not belong at that table. You need to be playing at the Lion's Club. You know what I mean? Like- Yeah. ... $5 buy-in. Like, that's... You, you, you are n- out of your depth. Yeah. And the nerve that these people have to not only feel that, but to hide it. Yeah. 100%.
You know, is really quite incredible. No, it's fascinating. So anyway, I think you're in a really symbolically cool place you're operating in. It's really fascinating, yeah, 'cause so much... They, you know, speak to tilt, managing tilt, and managing the stress, whether kind of new stress, like the excitement around, "Oh, well, we're up.
We're up so much," and we're down, and being able to handle that. And then in between, especially for multi-day tournaments, you might be up a crazy amount, down a crazy amount, but either way, you gotta go home at some odd hour and go to sleep and do it all over again each night after night, especially the World Series or what have you.
And it is just a fascinating area. I feel like you would do really well with that. Oh, you should write a book, Mollie. It, it's like, you know, All In: What Poker Has Taught Me Ab- what High Stakes Poker Has Taught Me About Sleep. Well, I appreciate you saying that because so much of my journey has been around this fear topic because I, you know, had so much fear around sleep when that happened for me, that period of acute insomnia.
And it really was one of the breakthroughs is exactly what you're saying, being okay with not sleeping. And there was a period of time when it was like, "This is not possible." I'm like, "I- I'm just not okay." Yeah. You know? And- Yeah, so that, that's the thing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So you've gotta, you gotta sit down at the table and think that in 30 minutes I might be completely naked.
I'm okay with that. Yeah. That's not gonna affect the way I play. You- these lines are so perfect. I love it. Which goes right back to my nighttime routine, but I'll leave it at that. Yes, exactly. Exact- well, to round it all out, it was so good. The last question, Dr. Winter, is so far, to date, what would you say has made the biggest change to how you're thinking about your sleep?
Or maybe said another way, biggest aha moment in the way you're relating to your sleep? Yes. I think the way I would answer that question is if I think back to myself in 2004, when I graduated from my fellowship in sleep and started practicing, to where I am right now in 2026, so 22 years later, I think the biggest realization that I've come to is the importance of things like meditation, breath work- Stuff that I think if you had shown, if we, if we had had a conversation about these things when I was in my training before, soon after, I would've said something like, "That's fine, but I, I'm more of a medical sleep person."
Sure, sure. And I think it, what I would've been saying to you was, "I'm a real sleep person." Yeah, I get it. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Your knee hurts, you wanna rub an energy crystal around your knee, go for it. But I'm gonna replace your ligament with a cadaveric ligament, and I'm gonna do an amazing job of it, and you're gonna be up and running in, you know, eight weeks or pitching again.
So this idea that the medicine and then there's all the other stuff. And I mean, if you wanna raise a, put an energy crystal on your head before you fall asleep, I have no problem with that. I think I've come to a place of It might be the most important thing. Mm. So not only do I accept it- Mm-hmm ... it's if you're not accepting that and thinking that the stuff that you learned in medical school is sleep, not saying it's not important, the way we treat narcolepsy, the biochemistry behind vigilance and cataplexy is extremely important to understand.
And, and that's all fine. But what do I deal with the most in my clinical practice? It's sleep apnea and it's insomnia. And, and it's- Mm ... and third place not even close. Yeah. So understanding that mindset and outlook and psyche and all these things we bring to it, somebody mentioned, and, uh, it wasn't me, and I did a whole podcast on it 'cause I was like, "This is great."
So somebody said, you know, "It's, it's helpful to think of insomnia as a little mini PTSD." And I remember thinking how impactful that was that, yeah, it, it really is. And so if you're thinking you can get treatment on somebody without addressing the PTSD nature of it- Mm-hmm ... you're crazy. Ugh. You're, you're out of your mind.
And so Chris, okay, what did you learn in your four years of medical school, your, uh, four years of undergrad, your one year of internship, your three years of residency, one year of fellowship about dealing with the PTSD of insom- zero. Mm. Yeah. Didn't learn a thing about it. Like, you learn from, from others and, and people who are really cognitively tied into this kind of stuff.
And so that to me was... Not that I ever thought sleeping pills were awesome, I, I figured that out a long time ago. Yeah. But there was still this element of these other things are not part of what a sleep doctor who has MD at the end of their name does. Right. Yeah. Of course it is. Yeah. And if you don't recognize that, you're, you're missing 80% of insomnia care- Mm
which is I've got a... You've got to come to the mind... You know, I've got two kids, and they both played baseball. And one, they just approach things differently. One was a little bit older, more analytical. I could see him getting up to the plate thinking, "Okay, if I strike out once today, that's gonna drop my average below 400."
Like, you know, and then all of a sudden he struck out. Mm. Because he's thinking about like, "Oh, I don't want to strike out more than once because I want to keep my average above 400." And so all these things are going on. And then my youngest one, he'd strike out 40 consecutive times. But if you looked at his face when he was sitting there getting ready to hit the ball, he thought he was gonna hit a home run.
Aw. Like it was this kind of amazing- Yes ... sort of ignorance- I love that ... of, no, you're striking out for the 42nd time. But I love your attitude about it. Yes. And so- Tenacity, yes ... you know, I just think attitude is everything. And- Adjusting attitude is hard, but it, it can be done. Yeah. I love that. That's such a good and wise, wise point.
Such a good place to kind of start to wrap things. And this is such a fantastic conversation. I feel like we went in so many cool directions. Was there anything that I left out that we wanted to, that's important to underscore when we're talking about all these different things around sleep and mindset and beyond?
Was there anything we didn't touch on? I don't think so. Okay. I mean, I think that, that we're in a, in a really good place. Yeah. So you know, I, I think one thing maybe with the kids and going back to school and stuff- Sure. Yeah ... I, I do like to think about school start times and daylight saving time. Ugh, yeah.
That's kind of an interesting situation as well too, that, you know, we're trying to push for permanent standard time, and we're kind of getting saddled with threats of permanent daylight saving time, which I think would be a real mistake for kids. Mm-hmm. I would say if you're listening to this and you are a parent Forget your political leanings.
Just listen to me as a scientist or listen to Mollie as a, as a, a, as a person who knows a lot about sleep, and that I like evening sunlight when I walk the dogs and want to go to the picnic or whatever, do something fun in the evening. Morning sunlight to me in my own life may, may or may not be as important, but it's extremely important populationally for us to have morning light over evening light.
We want our kids to wake up, see the sun if they can, as much as they can when they're going out there to catch the bus and go to school because starting a day in the dark, even though you have light at the end of the day for their travel soccer tournament, it really does make a difference. And that's why we really want to encourage people to talk about adopting permanent standard time.
Call your representative, call your senator and say, "Look, I don't really want to go back and forth between daylight saving time and standard time." And even if you're somebody who likes evening daylight, you want to have a little light... Somebody wrote me and said, "I don't like standard time because I want to at the end of the day have some daylight to play catch with my kids before they go off to college."
I understand that. Mm-hmm. But we also want to look at the health of your kids. Your kids have to want to play catch with you, and if they're depressed 'cause they're never getting any sunlight in the morning, they're not going to play to pr- catch with you anyway. So trying to put aside what we like... I like tequila.
It's not healthy for me, so I don't drink it- Right ... but I like it- Yeah ... if you're saying, you know. Yeah, yeah. So put aside what we like for what's important and healthy. I really think that we need to really push people to say, "Look, let's adopt permanent standard time like so much of the rest of the world."
Yeah. And if we get stuck with the flip-flop or the daylight saving time, another great reason to use melatonin, like the Natrol products- Mm-hmm ... we were talking about to help- Yeah ... you if you're struggling with that transition, um, especially if it's pitch black outside when you're waking up with your kids.
Oh, I couldn't agree more. I know. That, that topic really gets me going. Yeah, I think it's also just so confusing for so many people. It is. I've spoken to people that are really intelligent, wonderful people, and they're still like, "Wait, what is this thing?" And it's... And the names for it and, you know- Yeah ... oh, the Sunshine Bill.
It was, it was confusing. Yes, it was- Yeah. The whole topic was confusing- Yeah ... to a lot of people, confusing to me- It was, yeah ... this idea that especially if you're somebody who it doesn't really affect you that much. Yeah. I always tell people what you feel affects you and what's actually affecting you are really two different things.
So- Totally ... does drinking coffee at night affect me? No, by my own perception. Ask the person I've committed my life to, "Hey, what's it like sleeping next to that guy when he's had a couple coffees at night?" Not fun. Yeah. So, um, anyways, yeah, so just- I love it ... paying attention to those kinds of things. This is something we could do.
If we care about populational health- Yeah ... making America healthy again, this is an easy thing to do that our Congress has the ability to do, so let's, let's do it an- and, and really, you know, help with- All kinds of things. And there's all kinds of studies that show when people adopt permanent standard time, things g- test scores get better- Yeah
mental health gets better. So to me, I, I don't really... Outside of if you own a golf course, I get it, sorry, but that doesn't trump what I think should be the right call, which is permanent standard time. Yeah. And the, you know, even looking at places like Arizona, the, it's not as if they're devoid- Correct ... of sunlight, right?
They're like, no, no. They're doing just fine. Like- They've got, they've got plenty. They- And they're kind of, and they look at everybody else like- Like- ... why are you not just doing this? Yeah. Like, what is the big problem here? Exactly. And, and it is worth noting, we tried it back in the- We did it ... Carter administration.
We did it. And- Yeah ... they reversed it pretty quickly because it- Right ... was such an abject failure. Yeah, so good. Ugh, well, I would love to keep ta- I, I, selfishly, I would love to keep you going. I want to get more analogies out of you. You have the best analogies. But I want to be respectful of your time. So in wrapping up, any other closing things or places to direct people to?
Yeah. I know you mentioned your podcast. Anything else we want to call out? Yeah, podcast, sleepunplugged.com. It's a weekly podcast. Wherever you find your podcasts, you can find it. And if you want to see what I'm wearing that particular evening when I record it, you can find it on YouTube. Yeah. I don't think it, there's li- a lot of added benefit with that, but if you want to go for it, go right ahead.
If you want to learn more about Natrol, who was really instrumental in helping me, uh, set this up with, with you- Yeah ... you can find them at natrol.com. It's, like I said, a brand I've used for a long time and, and trust. And, uh, I've really resisted aligning myself with supplements in the past, but- Yeah
they're so wonderful in terms of- Oh ... the way they want to educate the people in terms of proper uses of supplements as well as making a supplement that's really, really, really precise. In fact, an academic person at a university I won't mention said, "Oh, I saw you did something for Natrol. That's what we recommend our patients."
And I thought- Hmm ... that was really awesome. And a lot of our sports teams use them, so just something- That's great ... to be aware of. Oh, it's so good. We'll make sure to put that in the show notes, too, along with your podcast and all these other important call-outs that you touched on throughout this podcast.
Really so appreciate the time, the excitement, the different, always unique ways of looking at sleep. So it's just fascinating. You bet. Yeah. Anytime, Mollie. Awesome. Thank you so much. You've been listening to the Sleep Is a Skill podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level.
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