DR. BRIAN GOLDMAN: Are you having trouble sleeping?
So am I.
So are one in five of us, ever since COVID made us worry about getting sick
infecting other people
worry about our jobs, worry about our businesses.
Worry, worry, worry
equals insomnia.
Hi, I'm Dr. Brian Goldman, I'm the host of the weekly health podcast The Dose.
I also happen to be a veteran insomniac.
When I was when I was a teenager, I had trouble falling asleep
and into my 20s and 30s, I had trouble staying asleep.
And I've tried everything.
And when I going to tell you are five tips
that I found out over the years
can help you have a better night's sleep and stay asleep
and get some relief from this curse of insomnia.
Tip number one: prepare your bedroom for sleep.
So, first of all, the bedroom is mostly for sleeping.
But it's certainly not for doing work and it's not for bringing in screens
like smartphones and tablets because they emit blue light.
and that makes it harder for you to sleep, fall asleep and stay asleep.
You may like it warm
but I gotta to tell you that your body prefers a colder temperature.
So turn the thermostat down a little bit.
That'll make it more comfortable for you to sleep.
It's easier to to get under the covers and warm up
than it is to try to take covers off and try to cool down.
The other thing that I do
and this comes not only from having insomnia —
for many years I've been bothered by morning light.
It makes me wake up early.
Also, as a veteran E.R. physician
I've done lots of night shifts and there are times when I've had to sleep during the daytime.
I do two things. First of all, I wear night shades
over my eyes to shield, to block out some of the light.
The other thing that I do is I have blackout curtains
over the windows
which get rid of all of the daytime light.
And really make the room dark
as dark as the darkest part of the night during the middle of the day.
Tip number two: cut out the noise.
A lot of people who have trouble staying asleep or falling asleep
Are bothered by all kinds of noises in the middle of the night.
So the first thing that I do is I wear a set of comfortable foam earplugs.
They're the kind you get on on flights. You can buy them —
you can get a pack of a dozen or two dozen of these
and you just put them in each ear.
Like that.
Don't put them in too deeply because then it's just hard to remove them.
And I find that that cuts out a lot of the noise.
In addition to that, I do something else.
Because I'm bothered by noises that come and go
I use a machine
that's basically a white noise machine.
It's quite simple. It's like a fan. It's a fan noise.
That's what it sounds like. And you can you can adjust it
to sound a little bit different.
What this does is it produces a kind of a layer of white noise that masks out
the sound of the furnace going on and off, the air conditioner going on and off.
If there's passers by outside, they're having a conversation
I won't hear any of that.
And ...
some people recommend
using an app that produces white noise.
The problem with that is that the app is attached to a smartphone or a tablet.
And I've already said I wouldn't take those
into your bedroom because they're too stimulating.
They emit blue light which disturbs your sleep.
So I like this machine instead.
I really can't sleep tonight.
And I got three more tips for you. Let's go.
Tip number three: reset your body clock.
The first thing you need to do is set a regular schedule
so that you're going to bed at the same time and you're waking up at the same time each morning.
That means that if you have trouble falling asleep at night
it means each and every day you should try to go to bed at the same time
and wake up at the same time each morning.
And that means on weekends you shouldn't let yourself sleep in.
Because if you sleep in on the weekend, it's going to make it that much harder to fall asleep
at the time you want to fall asleep on Sunday night
and you won't be able to get yourself ready for the rest of the week.
The other thing you shouldn't do is nap during the day.
If you nap long periods of time during the day
you're going to sap your sleep deprivation that you're going to need to help you fall asleep.
So those are some of the things you can do without any kind of sleep aids.
If you do want a sleep aid, the one that I recommend is melatonin.
Melatonin is a naturally occurring substance that's produced in the brain by your pineal gland.
And it is triggered by light and darkness.
So around about two o'clock every morning
under the cover of darkness
your brain's pineal gland secretes melatonin.
And what that does is it re-synchronizes or resets your body clock
so that you sleep for the rest of the night
and then you wake up hopefully refreshed and ready to go during the daytime.
This is a totally naturally occurring product.
Unfortunately, some people either don't make enough melatonin
or don't produce it at the right time.
So what you can do is something that I do. I take three milligrams of melatonin.
You can buy it at a pharmacy or you can buy it at a health food store.
And I take it about an hour before I go to bed.
Some people would recommend taking it closer to that two o'clock in the morning time
when your brain is secreting it naturally.
But I'm not going to wake up at two o'clock to take melatonin.
So I take about an hour before I go to bed. It helps me sleep
and it helps me feel more refreshed the next morning.
Tip number four: know when to quit.
I can tell you that for those times when I'm sleep deprived
I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
And the sleep experts tell us that if you fall asleep
within two or three or four minutes of your head hitting the pillow, you're sleep deprived.
Now, a lot of us veteran insomniacs use sleep deprivation
as a way to help us sleep every night, which is probably not a healthy way to go.
So for most normal people, when they try to fall asleep
it usually takes them anywhere from 15 to 20 or 25 minutes to fall asleep.
The problem with me is that I'm a natural worrywart. I have a PhD in worrying.
And I can tell you that if I didn't prepare myself to go to bed
if I had an argument
or I had some some stress or some tension before I went to bed
or I watched a TV program or read something that was just a little too stimulating
I might be trying to go to bed before I'm ready to go to sleep.
And so somewhere around 15, 16 or 17 minutes
after I've started, I put my head down on the pillow and I've turned out the lights.
I'm starting to think, 'Hmm, this ain't happening.'
I'm not falling asleep. And I start to worry.
'Oh, what if it turns into 18 minutes and I can't sleep? What if it's 19? What if it's 20 minutes?'
And a lot of people who have trouble falling asleep
let it turn into 30 minutes, 35 minutes, 40 minutes.
And they're getting more and more worried because they're starting to think
what the heck is going to happen to me tomorrow morning if I don't get a good night's sleep?
Well, make a rule for yourself: 20 minutes.
At the twenty minute mark, if I can feel it
I'm not feeling it. I'm not going to sleep. I get up and I leave the room
And what I will do is I'll go downstairs. I'll leave the bedroom.
And at that point
the kinds of things that work for me
are things that dial down the stress and the stimulation.
So I'll read a chapter from a book that I've already read.
So I know what's going to happen.
and I'm not going, 'Gee, I wonder what's going to happen next.'
Or I might watch a TV show on the PVR
that I've already seen and I know what happens.
So I'm not excited about what's going to happen next because I've seen it.
So that's one thing or two things that I can do.
Sometimes all the other techniques don't work. You need a couple of failsafes.
So I have two of them for you.
The first one is vigorous exercise.
I've been running for decades and it's my go-to
when I can't sleep, when I'm anxious, when I've got a lot of pent up energy
and no amount of talking to myself
no amount of melatonin, no amount of any of the other strategies is going to work.
So what I'll do in those instances is I'll suit up
in my jogging gear and I'll go out for a long run.
And I run, especially during COVID, I've been running 10 kilometres three times a week.
It's my go-to exercise for burning out stress
for getting rid of stress.
And it leaves you with that glow, that endorphin rush.
I'll bring my earbuds and I'll listen to a podcast
or an audio book or something like that.
And there's nothing like vigorous exercise to burn off that energy
that may be getting in the way of you falling asleep.
And usually I find
that if I exercise at that time of day
first thing in the morning or before the sunrise
that I'll be
exhausted but happy for most of the day.
And I'm usually able to fall asleep more easily that night.
Sometimes I'm nursing a running injury or the weather is just too inclement
and I can't go out and do that kind of vigorous exercise.
And what I'll do then is I'll just think of it as stolen time.
I'll actually go to my desk and start doing some work.
And the reason why I do that
is that sometimes when it comes to insomnia, you have to turn lemons into lemonade.
I've got to tell you
if you have never experienced the calm of twilight
the time when nobody's awake
when nobody is walking outside
when it's just you and your thoughts and your deep thoughts —
you should try it sometimes.
I'm not recommending it. I'm not recommending insomnia.
But you should try it sometimes because
because you'll be amazed
that this moment that you think of as a bad time can actually be turned into a good time.
I'm really tired.
I hope those five tips helped you.
Sweet dreams.