(inquisitive music)
- Right now, everyone seems to be having
really odd or terrifying dreams.
Like my colleague, Nick.
- There were two women circling my house
trying to get into my house.
They were wearing these pig masks.
Dreams where I am starting to jump, almost like Mario.
(video game sound effects)
- But what do dreams like this mean?
This is Dr. Britney Blair,
who specializes in sleep disorders.
- The truth is there's very little we know
empirically about dreams.
That's for many reasons,
including it's a very difficult thing to study.
- While we don't know much about dreams,
we do know they're symptoms for larger things
happening in our lives.
- I think most of our sleep has been affected
by this pandemic.
What a lot of people are reporting in the context
of the pandemic and increased stress,
is more active, stress-related dreams,
and that can show up in different ways for different people.
Even not in the midst of a pandemic,
around 30% of people suffer with insomnia.
(electronic music)
- Our sleep is worse, our dreams are weirder,
so what can we do about it?
How can you sleep through a pandemic?
If you've ever had problems sleeping,
you've probably heard some of the hacks.
(alarm clock ringing)
- Wake up at the same time every day.
Taking a warm but not hot bath.
Trying to avoid being in your bed except for sleep or sex.
I know everybody has heard this a million times,
but seriously turning your screens off right now.
- But there's one major thing that could help
everyone sleep better, and it's recognizing
that we are all experiencing symptoms
of what is called ASD.
Acute stress disorder.
(airy music)
You may have heard of a similar disorder called PTSD.
It's usually portrayed in war movies
where the character has a psychological strain
that causes them to drink or lash out
or generally be in a bad place.
ASD is like PTSD,
but it's when you're still in the moment of trauma.
- Signs of acute stress disorder can be
feelings of restlessness, irritability,
difficulty concentrating,
sometimes people feel quite anxious.
There may be feelings of hopelessness or helplessness,
depression and despair.
All of those things are signs of acute stress disorder,
including sleep disturbance.
- The ones often feeling ASD most severely right now
are people on the front lines of healthcare.
This is Yan Lu,
a nurse working in a New York emergency room.
- There was a night where I went to sleep at around 11:30.
And I woke up around one o'clock, I was sweating.
My heart was racing.
And I was like, oh my god, did I catch the virus?
So I got up, I took my temperature,
and fortunately I had a pulse ox at home
and I was measuring my oxygen and my heart rate,
and everything was normal.
I realized these are also symptoms of anxiety.
- Our healthcare workers and our first responders,
those who are on the front lines of this pandemic,
are actually really suffering more than most of us.
So not only are they dealing with the trauma
of the patients that they're treating.
They're also dealing with the trauma
of not being able to be with their loved ones.
- But Dr. Blair believes that if we can get people
the help they need right now,
then we can curb people's ASD,
and prevent them from having any PTSD,
and that's a far simpler, shorter,
and less medicated treatment regimen.
(racing music)
Dr. Blair's team helped launch a website
to connect front line healthcare workers
and first responders, with licensed clinicians.
The clinicians are providing counseling and treatment
for free, and for those not on the front lines,
all seven billion or so of us,
we need to recognize we're also enduring trauma.
In China, a reported 7% of people had symptoms of PTSD,
related to the pandemic.
If you extrapolate that for the world,
it's a half billion people.
And that's not including ASD.
- I don't think any of us are capable of fully processing
what's happening right now.
There are quite effective treatments
for acute stress disorder,
including being able to just talk to someone.
And lots and lots of doctors are available
via video medicine.
The earlier we can get on top of recognizing
that we may need support,
the less likely we are to have the impact of this pandemic
affecting our mental health, and our physical health.
We are all struggling right now.
And so giving everybody just a little bit of an extra break
at the moment, I think can be really helpful.
- Maybe if we can collectively start to take this advice,
we can all sleep a little better.
(dark upbeat music)
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