104. Sleep Deprivation, Insomnia, + Night Routine Tips for Teens feat. Generation Sleepless Authors Heather Turgeon + Julie Wright

Jun 23

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Today's guests are Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright—the psychotherapists, sleep experts, and the authors of The Happy Sleeper and Generation Sleepless. In this episode, we discuss why teenagers are experiencing more sleep deprivation than any other demographic, the "perfect storm" leading teens to lose sleep, what exactly happens when you sleep + why it's so important that you get enough rest, at-home steps you can take to improve your sleep hygiene, night routine tips, how to combat insomnia, tips to get up in the morning, and so much more! If you are a teen or parent of a teen who struggles with sleep (like most of us do) this episode is for you and will provide so much value!

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ The Happy Sleeper website: https://www.thehappysleeper.com/

+ The Happy Sleeper Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehappysleeper/

+ Generation Sleepless: Why Tweens and Teens Aren't Sleeping Enough, and How We Can Help Them

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

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About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

[00:00:00] Sadie: Welcome to she persisted. I'm your host. Sadie sat in a 19 year old from the bay area, studying psychology at the university of pencils. She processed. It is the teen mental health podcast made for teenagers by a team. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness you can expect.

[00:00:20] Evidence-based Tina proved resources, coping skills, including lots of DBT insights and education. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

[00:00:37] So let's dive in.

[00:00:41] Hello. Hello. And welcome back to she. Persisted today's episode is all about sleep. One of my favorite things, I am still struggling with my sleep, which you will hear about in this episode, but this conversation was so helpful and enlightening, and I had so many tips that I've implemented census conversation and will continue to implement.

[00:00:59] So. Our guests today are Heather Turgen and Julie Wright. They are marriage and family therapists that specialize in sleep training. They wrote one book for sleep training for infants and newborns and another for teenagers. And why teens struggle so much with sleep that one's called generation sleepless.

[00:01:14] I highly recommend you check it out and also follow them on Instagram. All of the links will be in today's show notes, but let's learn about sleep. Thank you so much, Julie and Heather for joining me today on she persisted.

[00:01:26] I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Of course, course, of course. So to start off, I'd love to hear about your backgrounds and how you started working in the field of mental health and specializing in sleep. So Julie, if you wanna start and then Heather as well.

[00:01:40] Julie: Sure. Yeah. Heather and I are both psychotherapists, marriage and family therapists. And we met, we were talking about this the other day. We must have met around 16, 17 years ago. We were both leading classes. We were each leading our own class for like moms with new babies. Mm-hmm and we, we kept meeting each other outside the classroom and we kept saying, we should have coffee.

[00:02:05] We should have coffee. Yeah. And so finally, one day we had coffee and that. That was the end of it. We could not stop talking. We were both really interested in sleep. We were really likeminded on why we thought a new book about sleep for babies and young children, which was our first book. We wrote a book called the happy sleeper.

[00:02:26] Why, why it was needed. Cuz there's tons of, I don't know if you know this, but there's tons of books on that already written. Yeah. But we really felt like there was something new to say and that the, the sleep. Sort of wars that parents were engaging in or, or being a victim to were unnecessary. So it's relevant to our discussion today, too, that one of our main messages is that sleep is natural.

[00:02:50] Our bodies are built to sleep. Our bodies want to sleep. The, the reason, main reasons we don't sleep is that something external is getting in the way. And we just need to get that out of the way. So our bodies can do what they're already very hardwired

[00:03:03] Sadie: to do. I love that. Heather, how did you start working?

[00:03:07] In the mental health field, being a psychotherapist and specializing in sleep as. Well, we,

[00:03:12] Heather: I, I started writing about sleep for the national sleep foundation as a columnist. And then I was doing a lot of research on sleep. And then I had kids and Julie and I started working with young families on sleep, but the more we got into our practice and started working with families of young kids and then slightly older kids.

[00:03:32] And then our population grew the more and, and also looking at the research on sleep and sleep deprivation. The more, it became clear that teenagers are the ones that are suffering the most. They suffer far worse, sleep deprivation than any other population on the planet and anyone ever in human history.

[00:03:53] So when we started to gather that data and just see how sleep declines so sharply, when kids. Really middle school is when it really picks up and becomes pretty. And then it becomes most acute in high school. Yeah. And it's happening all over the globe and, you know, we just felt like, oh my God, we have to write this book.

[00:04:12] We, you know, baby sleep is easy. yeah, yeah. With teenagers that really need the

[00:04:17] Sadie: help. why do you think it is that there was such a sharp decline? I remember anecdotally experiencing that, where I got to middle school and it wasn't that it was like cool to not be sleeping, but I was like, there are better uses of my time.

[00:04:30] I can text my friends. I can be on FaceTime. Like it almost felt like it was like a secondary thing that I had to do. And the priority was. School work. It was connecting with other people. And it, that was definitely around like middle school, high school that, that came up and even into college, it's still something where it's like, well, I have an assignment due.

[00:04:47] I have something that I have to have ready at 8:00 AM the next morning when I show up to class. So why do you guys think that is that teenagers do experience that decline universally.

[00:04:58] Julie: So we describe in the book, what we call a perfect storm. And you've mentioned quite a few of the factors just then. So one of the first one is biological starting in adolescence.

[00:05:09] Teenagers have a natural shift in their body clock, meaning their melatonin and other sleepiness hormones released later in the evening. Just not tired yet. Yeah. Just not tired yet. but of course, because the body is not ready to go to sleep until a little bit later, body needs to sleep a little bit later.

[00:05:26] So mm-hmm so we have this natural shift and then we have increased homework, ballooning homework for some students, increased activities, you know, Some, some kids pile on activities

[00:05:40] Sadie: just to show up

[00:05:41] Julie: well on their college, you know, applications. Then you add, so this is pushing bedtime later and later, all these activities, all this homework, this natural shift in the biological clock, then you add technology to that mix.

[00:05:54] Bedtime is getting later and later and later and later. And then on the other side of the night, high schools, most high schools in our country start too early. So the seat gets squeezed from both ends making. Just mathematically impossible to get even close to the, even the, you know, just the, the sort of baseline amount of sleep that that teenagers can get by with.

[00:06:17] We would, we would love to see teenagers sleep between nine and 10 hours a night. I know that sounds like pie in the sky, but so there's this perfect storm of factors that are really compromising teen sleep. And it's not, you know, some of these are societal factors. You know, school start times and too much homework.

[00:06:37] Ridiculous expectations from college admissions. Those are things that we want society to change, but we also, because, because it's what we do. We also can help people a lot with making change in the home, you

[00:06:50] Sadie: know, right away. Before we dive into that. I have a random question about baby toddler sleep.

[00:06:57] Whenever I've taken intro to psychology, the sleep unit and the attachment styles unit are pretty close, cuz they're jamming so many things together and there's like this anecdotal story that I've heard twice now where. when you're doing sleep training and the baby just cries and cries and cries, the cortisol levels.

[00:07:15] And the parents decrease when the baby stops crying after a couple of nights of doing sleep training, but it doesn't decrease in the baby. So the baby just learns to not express like cry and be like, please come get me out of the crib, whatever, because it knows no one's gonna come and get it out of the crib.

[00:07:30] And then it just gets linked to attachment styles and it's like, There's not a response. There's not a parent that's like responding to that concern. Is that like accurate to say that sleep training in that way is not effective. And it leads to attachment style shifts later on? Or is that just like total random psychology one-on-one stuff that's getting taught.

[00:07:49] Heather: You are, you are absolutely getting to the heart of our first book, the happy sleeper. Okay. You, I mean, we could do a whole podcast episode on baby sleep and attachment. , but I think what you're describing in terms of cortisol levels is more of a theoretical based on Abuse and neglect mm-hmm . And what happens if babies are chronically not responded to

[00:08:12] Sadie: versus just not wanting to go to sleep versus

[00:08:15] Heather: not wanting to go to sleep?

[00:08:16] Not wanting to say goodnight, not, you know, preferring to, to sleep with the parent or preferring to stay, you know, and having the frustration of not having what they want in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. But what we help parents with is. A very repetitive and almost hypnotic response. Mm-hmm so we never have parents do not respond to the baby.

[00:08:36] Yeah. But we have them respond in a really predictable way. Mm-hmm so that the baby goes, oh, okay. I get

[00:08:42] Sadie: it. This is what we're doing. Yeah. Okay. So interesting. Random question. I had so interesting.

[00:08:47] Julie: Yeah. We have the parent respond in such a predictable way that the baby is not happy for sure. Yeah. They're they protest, but what they never feel.

[00:08:57] I'm wondering where you are. Mm-hmm now, I'm now I'm getting worried. Now I'm getting fearful. So we keep them far away from the, the worrisome emotions. And just after a while they know you're there, cuz you respond in this very pretty frequent way and it's almost like they get mad cuz they know you're there.

[00:09:16] yeah, but it's different from the kind. What you're talking about in true. What was called, like cry it out approaches where people just, you know, where they, their parents are told to just shut the door and not go in. And yeah, we wrote the book because one of the main reasons we wrote the book was we really wanted parents to know that there was a way to get the child sleeping independently that did not involve anything even.

[00:09:41] Sadie: To that. Yeah. Yeah. So we touched a little bit on sleep deprivation and how that's not a great thing to happen. And there are consequences for that four teens. What happens when we don't get enough sleep, whether it's just like chronically in high school, you're getting one to two hours less versus on the other end of the extreme, when you're pulling all nighters and craming for exams and really disrupting your sleep schedule.

[00:10:03] Heather: Yeah, so, well, the, the average amount of sleep that a high schooler needs is a, it ideally would be nine to 10, but we describe, we, we say eight is adequate and that's because under eight hours a night, you start to see correlation with a lot of negative effects. So the risk of depression goes up, anxiety, stress hormones are The, the, the body goes into a stress response when you're low on sleep.

[00:10:28] And but the average high schooler gets about six hours a night. So we're talking about two to three hours chronically of sleep deprivation throughout the course of the week, piling up to, you know, 12 hours by the end of the week. And that level of sleep loss. One, I mean, there's so many things that it does.

[00:10:45] One is that while you're awake your brain release, A lot of byproducts of activity. So you that's like waste or toxic, you know, toxic buildup in your brain mm-hmm . And then when you fall asleep, this kind of cleaning mechanism gets turned on and it starts to wash that waste away throughout the time that you're asleep.

[00:11:06] So when you don't sleep enough, essentially, you've got waste buildup in your brain. That is not properly, you know, cleansed out. And that kind of makes sense. Right. When you think about how you feel when you are sleep deprived, it's foggy and you're sick, you're almost feel sick. Right? Mm-hmm and that, that really, for me, that's kind of like an aha moment of wait a minute.

[00:11:28] That's how it feels to be sleep deprived. So imagine that in a chronic way, over the course of the week. So the risk of, you know, kids who. Six hours a night are twice as likely to have symptoms of depression. It really changes the lens that you see the world through. So you're more likely to have a negative assumption about, you know, somebody does something you're more likely to interpret it in a negative way.

[00:11:52] You're more likely to feel hopeless about the future. and just not feeling like the creative juice of I can solve this problem. I can do this. Yeah. So the ties to mental health are just, there are so many. I I, Julie and I really feel strongly that if we could get teens more sleep, it would go a long way towards solving the mental health crisis that we hear so much about right now.

[00:12:16] Mm-hmm um, as

[00:12:17] Julie: sleep also helps with processing emotions through dreams. Mm-hmm when we dream our, our brains consolidate. Positive memories and sort of dampen down more negative memories. And when, when teenagers have to wake up, you know, hours before their bodies wanna wake up the sleep they most miss out on is dream sleep.

[00:12:40] So they're missing out on this really important emotional processing, filtering things out, organizing There's so much that happens during sleep, how memories are formed and how memories are stored. So we forget things more easily when

[00:12:55] Sadie: we don't sleep well. Yeah. It makes me think of the, like, inside out where they're cataloging all the memories, some are going to yeah.

[00:13:01] Long term. Some are going to like core memories when you're sleeping. That's yeah. That's exactly it. Yeah. I love it. I think that's so interesting. Anecdotally from my own experience, there are so many things that you're mentioning that were true. When I was in residential treatment, one of their biggest priorities at the beginning was to get my sleep back on track because I was super in, I was a major insomniac.

[00:13:26] I would like just sit in bed and read all night. I couldn't fall asleep. And then I would just nap all day because I didn't want to engage. I was tired. I was lethargic from the depression and. Was isolated. And so there was like this like double issue of like, not being able to fall asleep and then sleeping way too much during the.

[00:13:43] And as soon as I was able to get like a consistent night routine down where I could go to bed at a reasonable time and then get up in the morning and have somewhere to go and have that sense of purpose and go to therapy during the day, it was like night and day. And it was really quickly that I saw a decrease in how, how intense my suicidal thoughts were, how frequent they were, whether I was waking up feeling depressed, or if I just maybe felt a depressive moment throughout the day.

[00:14:08] And so that is something that now. Always paying attention to, and it's funny, like I notice, like if we have an early wake up when my family and I are traveling, like there's been times at the airport and I'm like crying. I'm like, I just wanna go to sleep. Like I'm so emotionally vulnerable because it's something I'm so sensitive to and work so hard to prioritize.

[00:14:26] But as a teen, as a college student, it can be so hard to do that. Based on those societal pressures, like you guys mentioned I would love to dive into what your tips are, that things that people can change, things people can prioritize and shift to get better sleep. I know there's the basic things that you always are like less electronics.

[00:14:44] Don't be in bed minimal naps. But I'd love to hear what you guys recommend and the research of why those things work.

[00:14:52] Julie: Well, there's, there's a lot to say. One of the places to start is to try to make, and I think you experienced this in your, in your treatment is what we know about the internal clock and our circadian rhythms is that our bodies love regularity.

[00:15:09] It's not. It's not doesn't seem too cool or seems kind of boring to be a super regular person, but our bodies really love it. Mm-hmm so even as a college student, if there's any way you can organize your classes so that you get up at the same time each day. And from that, get from that wake up time, you figure out your bedtime.

[00:15:32] So I don't know if you say you have to get up at at eight o'clock, you know, we'd love for you to get in. You know, maybe around 10 30, 10 45 and fall asleep, close to 11. That would be amazing. Mm-hmm and then what happens? To help that to help you fall asleep more easily at 11. And that scenario would be to get up every morning at eight, even on

[00:15:53] Sadie: the weekend, as close as you could.

[00:15:55] Yeah. That's what I was gonna ask. Like your thoughts on teenagers that will just like sleep till 3:00 PM on the weekend. And it feels like it like catches up to you that sleep deprivation. Yeah, it

[00:16:04] Julie: feels a little good in that moment, but what happens is you, you need to be awake a certain amount of time in order to fall asleep.

[00:16:11] That's why you couldn't fall asleep before when you were sleeping during the day, you were really sabotaging your ability to sleep at night, cuz you, you know, was this sort of cycle where you slept during the day. So in order to fall asleep in, in our little scenario at around 11, getting up at eight helps your body be awake long enough.

[00:16:31] See when we're awake pressure build. And you have to build up to a certain level of pressure to fall asleep. So when you combine that with a regular bedtime and then also we combine that with what we call a wind down and a bedtime routine. I know that sounds like something you do with babies, but we think that all people could really use them.

[00:16:51] It's it's really one of our favorite sleep sleep scientists says, you know, you're, you shouldn't go to bed. Like you're landing a plane. Yeah. Or no, you should go to bed like your landing plan. It

[00:17:03] Sadie: has to come in slowly, no plane crashes, but you wouldn't crash.

[00:17:07] Julie: Yes. You're not gonna crash. You're gonna like, you have to come in slow.

[00:17:10] Mm-hmm , you know, mm-hmm, so winding down, starting to dim the lights, moving into a stress free zone with whatever that means. No intense content, no intense conversations. Mm-hmm sending signals to your body, making sure you. Your home is, is getting cool. And then moving into a bedtime routine that ideally doesn't include, you know, phones or close held electronics.

[00:17:34] You could, you can watch a TV show from a distance or read a book, or we like to replace technology. We. With, with fun, pleasurable things so that you're, you're giving yourself a nice routine. Maybe you take a warm shower, which helps, you know, helps you fall asleep, but having a routine that you really look forward to so that you have this little sort of prelude to sleep.

[00:17:56] And then when you get into bed, it's much easier to fall asleep. If you do all those things.

[00:18:01] Sadie: Mm-hmm .

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[00:19:10] If people are struggling with insomnia, what is your advice there? Do you just like, kind of not sit it out, but like lay it out. Count sheep. Are you supposed to get out of bed then try to like, do the whole routine again?

[00:19:23] Do you just write off the night and kind of wait until morning? Like, what's your advice there?

[00:19:28] Heather: Yeah, it really depends on where the insomnia is coming from and how lot, how many nights and what's going on during the day, we really try to get people to think about the daytime and how it affects your nighttime, because like Julie was alluding to people.

[00:19:41] Think that sleep starts when you get into bed and, and when you get out of bed and that's really not true sleep, the chemicals for sleep are being. It's sort of the stages being set all day long. So if someone has insomnia and the most common sleep issue for teenagers definitely is difficulty falling asleep.

[00:20:00] That's absolutely the most common thing that teenagers struggle with. And that's partly because what Julie said about the shifted biological clock. So. The, the main thing that we get teens to do is wake up at the same time on the weekends. Don't sleep in more than one hour. That's ideal mm-hmm . So if you are so sleep deprived that you have to sleep in two hours, do that for one day during the weekend, but not two.

[00:20:22] So don't okay. You know, Saturday, you could sleep two hours past your regular wake up time, and then Sunday, just one hour and then go outside. Even the cl through the clouds on a cloudy day, the sun is. A thousand times more powerful than your indoor lights. And it has, we could go into detail on why, but sunlight presses go on the internal clock.

[00:20:46] So it's a timing cue that tells your brain, okay. The day has started now. Get ready. For the night to come. Okay. So it's amazing what your brain is telling you in the morning has to do with your nighttime sleep. So get five to 10 minutes of sun, even if it's cloudy, it's really intense sun mm-hmm. And I think those two pieces of advice for teenagers are sometimes and the, and the cutoff of caffeine.

[00:21:11] Sadie: Like, yeah, that was another question. Like what time around two? You, okay, perfect.

[00:21:14] Heather: Round two. It just depends. The half life of caffeine is way longer than most people think. So. If you're really having trouble falling asleep, the, the waking up within an hour of your morning, wake up time, five to 10 minutes of sun and 2:00 PM cut off for, for caffeine.

[00:21:31] Mm-hmm . Along with that wind down that Julie was recommending is, is gonna do a lot. And then if you're lying there, I think what you're wondering about is like, if you're lying there, what do you do? Do you get up? Do you, and I just think, you know, sometimes I, I think if I can't sleep, I think to. My body will take care of this later.

[00:21:49] Like I don't have to worry. I try not to worry about it cuz. Definitely. I, I don't look at my phone and I don't have a clock that I can see the numbers on mm-hmm cause I don't wanna track it. I don't wanna know. Yeah. I don't wanna know what time it is just living in, you know, ignorance is bliss. Like you don't know what time it is.

[00:22:07] Don't stress. Your body is so smart at making up for loss. Sleep. Just think about it. Like, oh my God, tomorrow night I'm gonna sleep extra well because your body's really smart.

[00:22:17] Julie: I mean, I think you, you know, this, but one of the hardest things about insomnia is, are the negative thoughts.

[00:22:23] Sadie: Yeah. And then you like stress yourself out more about not getting enough sleep, which makes it harder to fall. It's like a cycle. Yeah. It's a cycle.

[00:22:29] Julie: So, you know, some people, everybody has their way. Some people do better by getting up and, you know, sitting in another room and reading until they feel sleepy, making sure you're not, you know, again, Close held device or doing anything stressful.

[00:22:44] Another thing we write about in the book is using what we call passive distraction. So lying in bed and maybe listening to a not super interesting podcast or something like that, something that's. It has to be diverting enough to take your mind off your

[00:22:59] Sadie: sort of my brain thoughts, I, to the office. That's what I'll do.

[00:23:02] I call like personal podcast, because I've seen it like six times. So it's like, there's no, like what's happening next. I just am listening to like Michael Scott making terrible jokes and I'm like, goodnight. And

[00:23:13] Heather: it's just entertaining

[00:23:14] Sadie: enough to like engage you. I like put the phone down, laying there one ear pod in waiting to go to sleep, listening to the bad jokes and, and it right.

[00:23:23] It. It really, really does. Julie, you have, what's your

[00:23:25] Heather: passive distraction, Julie, is it,

[00:23:27] Julie: is it PBS? Well, I feel bad saying this cuz it's a podcast that I really do love, but like, you know, like Sadie I've, I've listened to a lot of the episodes a lot. So it's this podcast called how I built this. So I choose what I've already heard and they're long and I, and I, I love them.

[00:23:44] So I listen. Yeah. And I fall. So fast. Yeah. When I use a passive distraction like that, I mean, it's really sometimes overwhelming to try to just use pure meditation, which has the same goal, the same goal to push your perseverative thoughts out of your mind. So using passive distraction, if you're struggling Is really, really helpful to

[00:24:06] Sadie: some people.

[00:24:07] I love that. There's yeah, that's, there's a ton of podcasts. Also. The one that I like for like bedtime stories that I never would like label myself is I love a good bedtime story. Like when I remember when I was younger and being read to, I was like, I just wanna read it myself because I get, get through the material faster.

[00:24:22] Like I would get bored. And even now with audio books, I'm like trying to get back into it, but it's like, I just wanna read it because it's faster than listening to it, but there's a podcast called welcome to Nightvale and it's this. Odd utopian town. And it's literally, they do these hour long episodes about absolutely nothing.

[00:24:40] Mm-hmm and you just like talk about the news of the town. And sometimes there's like weird aliens, but it is a bedtime story with like such minimal plot points that you are bored, but it puts you to sleep. And the, the narrator's voice is like very like monotonous. And so you're not. Peaked with interest.

[00:24:59] And that's another good one. If you're looking for a, is that for grownups?

[00:25:02] Heather: Is that one

[00:25:03] Sadie: that's meant for grownups? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Definitely is like an adult target on you. For sure. It sounds a little creepy

[00:25:08] Heather: for little kids.

[00:25:08] Sadie: Oh, perfect. For, yeah. Do not put this on for your children.

[00:25:11] They'd be like, what is happening? My 10 year old would be like aliens. What? Yeah, no, that's definitely definitely for adults. Oh, I wanna check that out. Yeah, but it's it's I would never listen to it during the. Ever, like, I would not be like I'm going on my walk time to listen, to walk in to Nightvale, but I'm like, if I cannot fall asleep and nothing is working, I'll put that on for 20 minutes.

[00:25:30] And it's like, there we go. Good to go. Bedtime story. Go to sleep. But yeah. For the waking up for teens that are struggling to not just push news on the weekend, when there isn't that reason to get up, what are your guys' tips? Is it like mind over matter? You just force yourself to get out of bed. What do you recommend if that is difficult to do.

[00:25:52] Heather: we had, we were just, we did a talk at Yale, like a month ago and some of the kids had really, like, one of, one of them said that she puts her phone across her, across the room. Mm-hmm with the alarm on so that, and she has a roommate and that, and so she feels so bad that the phone

[00:26:11] Sadie: is making noise this last year.

[00:26:13] She's like, huh, gets up. That's

[00:26:15] Heather: good. and so you can trick yourself that way. Mm-hmm I think for younger teens, you know, I have a young teen and I, I actually wake him up because I feel like, so I sneak in and I open the blind. So if you can get sunlight on your teen, your parent

[00:26:32] Sadie: and the teen will hate it from first of all, they hate when they open the blinds.

[00:26:35] I. Please stop. It's Sadie get vertical. I think, you know, I'm staying horizontal. it's

[00:26:43] Heather: really it's. Yeah, we've had a lot of, I was just talking to a par some parents about this, that their, their team was chronically late for school and stressing out the whole family and the sister relied on him to drive her to school too.

[00:26:56] So, oh no. You know, and no one could get him out of bed in the morning and it's, you know, so you can, you can do things like pull the blinds, you know, if you have. You don't snooze because snooze is really not good quality sleep and it can make you groggier. So yeah, putting the alarm across the room is probably a better idea or just enlisting the help of your, your family, or like, I let the dog in sometimes to jump on my tongue.

[00:27:18] That's smart. Yeah.

[00:27:19] Sadie: Yeah. That's

[00:27:20] Heather: good. But, but it usually has to do with not being able to fall asleep. Right. I mean, it's, it's. And, and also talk to your school. You have to tell your school board that it's not acceptable to have school start at 7 45. Yeah. That's the other piece. Yeah,

[00:27:33] Sadie: so I can't speak from experience.

[00:27:35] I haven't tried this before, but I did have a, to come up on my, for you page. Where it was a girl and she was creating content and she was like, people ask as a deaf person, how I wake up in the morning because you can't use a normal alarm and they make these alarms that they put on the bed and it vibrates the bed.

[00:27:51] Oh. So if you're really struggling and you need your bed to be shaking, like an earthquake, this could be an option for you. Like really, really VI like really intense lifestyle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So might, might be your solution if you're struggling. Yeah. Oh my gosh, but we, we did touch briefly on naps. I know it's kind of like mixed feeling.

[00:28:12] Some people are like, if you keep it under 30 minutes or an hour, it's okay. What are your guys' thoughts there?

[00:28:18] Julie: yeah, you're on the right track there. Not only should NS be fairly short. I think it's, Heather's like between 10 and 30 minutes is, is yeah. Ideal. The other thing you wanna make sure is that it's not too late in the day for the same reason that I was describing earlier.

[00:28:33] If you nap too late in the day, it's gonna push your bedtime cuz you that pressure will not have time to build up. Mm-hmm so that you can fall asleep. So, you know, It's probably not as relevant in college or it might be if you have a particularly late night mm-hmm , but for high school students often, there's just, it's impossible for them to get the sleep they need.

[00:28:55] So we have this sort of vision of a, like a nap room for, for high school students where they can go at like one

[00:29:00] Sadie: or two o'clock. And for some people is like the math classroom. Right? Exactly.

[00:29:05] Julie: Not just me. Exactly. I

[00:29:06] Sadie: used to fall asleep in biology, but.

[00:29:10] Julie: But yeah, I mean, we, these things we're talking about difficulty waking up in the morning and that, that are, you know, sleepiness during the day, these are signs of sleep deprived kids,

[00:29:19] Sadie: you know?

[00:29:20] Yeah. This is, you know, this

[00:29:22] Julie: is what we're hoping to, to work against is, is. That struggle. It being like, you know, ideally we sleep and wake up naturally. Mm-hmm, , you know, that's an ideal world or at least it's not so hard to wake up. And ideally we don't feel so sleepy during the day, but yeah. You know, before we get all the societal change to happen, you know, taking a nap is, is, can be helpful.

[00:29:46] Mm-hmm to, to some people, as long as it's not too long or too late.

[00:29:51] Sadie: Yeah. If you guys could give like a perfect day, that's optimizing for sleep hygiene, like what time are you exercising? What time is your last meal? When is your cup of coffee? What time are you shutting off electronics? How would you set up your schedule?

[00:30:07] Heather: I guess if I, I can think about, you know, A younger high schooler who would need to wake up. It really, it's all kind of based on when they have to get up for school. Yeah. So let's just suppose that they have to wake up at seven. That's pretty that's, that's a pretty good, you know, healthy, reasonable time to wake up.

[00:30:25] Most would prefer to wake up around eight or nine, but mm-hmm until we get high schools to start at, you know, 10:00 AM. Which

[00:30:32] Sadie: we friends, friends that would do like zero period. And they were like starting at seven. Yeah. Oh yeah. I was like, I could

[00:30:38] Heather: never crazy. Well, that's the thing crazy. That's an such an extreme, and it definitely happens all over the country.

[00:30:44] So mm-hmm , but let's say in a, in a kind of healthy world where they wake up at seven. And they, you know, get some sun or some cloudy sun, you know, and, and go to school and actually see the sun come up. Mm-hmm and sorry, don't see the sun come up, but like experience sun before they get into class. Yeah.

[00:31:00] Because a lot of kids don't so getting some sunlight before going into class is really important. Mm-hmm and so then exercise is kind of, so I would say cut off caffeine by two mm-hmm I mean, hopefully. You know, high schoolers, aren't really drinking a lot of caffeine, but I definitely see a lot, you know, having like Coke and things that do really impact your sleep.

[00:31:21] So cutting that off by two. And then exercise. It's almost impossible to dictate because sports practice and Dan, you know, dance and things like that are

[00:31:30] Sadie: gonna dictate when you go late. Sometimes it's like, yeah. Nine, 10:00 PM. It's insane.

[00:31:35] Heather: Yeah. So again, if we're talking ideal world, all that would probably wrap by seven mm-hmm , you know, so you could eat dinner and then have wind down time and then electronics.

[00:31:44] I think it's reasonable if you're waking at seven and your bedtime is let's say 10 30. That's when you turn off the lights. You probably wanna have your wind down time, meaning your devices, kind of all your personal devices go off by, let's say nine 30. Mm-hmm you just put your phone, plug it in, in the kitchen, if you're really trying to protect your sleep, which is definitely, I mean, it's so worth it.

[00:32:07] If you just put that at practice in, in place and say goodnight to your friends and just shut down your electronics at nine 30, plug it into the kitchen. And then go watch a movie on the couch in the living room mm-hmm or go write in your journal or do something, you know? And then turn off your light at, let's say 10 30.

[00:32:27] Sadie: I love that. And I think it's very reasonable. You definitely have to be intentional and make the commitment to prioritize your sleep. But if it really is important to you, and I think especially once you see what it's like to feel rested and to feel like you have more energy, it's something that you're, you're motivated to do.

[00:32:43] And it does feel achievable.

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[00:33:54] Have you guys heard of aura rings? What are your thoughts there? I have one and I have mixed feelings because every single night I get terrible sleep scores because I get like one minute of deep sleep. Like this has happened multiple times. And I don't know if I should like email and be like, am I really sleeping this badly?

[00:34:12] Should I get a sleep study or.

[00:34:15] Heather: It's it's, you're bringing up a really, really good point, but I don't, I don't know enough about how the technology or how the report goes. Mm-hmm like what it looks like to you. Do you see how much light sleep and deep sleep and REM sleep you get? Yeah. So, and how total

[00:34:28] Sadie: hours?

[00:34:28] Yeah, I will say that I feel like it's accurate in that I, when I wake up feeling more rested, I do feel like the data reflects that, but I'm generally. Like the data shows that I'm chronically not sleeping well, which I think might be accurate. I just didn't have the data beforehand, but like last night, my total duration is bad.

[00:34:47] I'm exposing myself was seven hours, 17 minutes, but I was only asleep for five hours and 38 minutes and I was awake for an hour and a half. In re for an hour and a half light sleep for almost four hours in deep sleep for only 27 minutes. And then it'll like rate your percentages. Hmm. And then it also shows your like little map thing.

[00:35:09] Yeah. And how does that,

[00:35:10] Heather: how does that relate to other nights that you, is that an average night or is that a. More

[00:35:15] Sadie: pretty standard. It's interesting because I feel like the percentages are all the same, even if I'm sleeping for like 14 hours, which is insane. I'm still getting minimal deep sleep. Like this night, I slept for 10 hours and 35 minutes.

[00:35:29] I was in bed for 12 and a half hours, but I only got 27 minutes of deep sleep the whole night. So I'm emailing my doctor. I will follow up in a future podcast episode. But if you do like having the data and being able to see how different shifts reflect, how you sleep, I definitely enjoy it. And if you like to track your steps and stuff, it's great.

[00:35:49] Cuz you don't have to like carry your phone with you. Mm. But

[00:35:52] Heather: yeah, I think it's, it's definitely a personal thing. I don't like to track my sleep because like I said, kind of related to what I was saying about if you're awake in the middle of the night it's better for me. I feel like it's better not to have any data or any information.

[00:36:05] I don't wanna know what time it is. Yeah. Yeah. I, I trust my body and I trust that it will, if I hold the boundaries of my re my bedtime and I do all my sleep habits and I take care of my part mm-hmm and my sleep will do what it needs to do. Yeah. But I, I know, I mean, I think it's, if, if you find that it doesn't make you anxious and it makes you track, like, okay, I got this amount of deep sleep, or I slept this amount and I can tell cuz I.

[00:36:30] I cut off my caffeine at two o'clock instead of having a Coke with dinner. Oh, I can see where it took me long. You know, you can yeah. If it's helpful in that way. But I would also say that having a smaller amount of deep sleep is, is normal. It, it, I mean, you definitely wanna check in with your doctor, but we have more deep sleep at the beginning of the night.

[00:36:51] Mm-hmm and

[00:36:51] Sadie: less I have noticed that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:54] Heather: So you usually, you have a lot of deep, like. Deeper sleep in the first half of the night. And the second half of the night is mostly REM and light sleep.

[00:37:02] Sadie: If people are going to sleep later and they're having that really short window that they are asleep, are they still getting deep sleep or it's like, they just skip to the REM part and miss that restorative sleep part.

[00:37:16] Heather.

[00:37:17] Julie: I think it's the combination of both. Isn't it? Don't they miss out on some deep sleep and they also miss out on some REM dream sleep. And at the other end, is that yeah.

[00:37:25] Heather: Is that right? I think mostly the answer is that you miss the part, I think mostly your brain clock is telling you what to do so that you might have some deep sleep when you first fall asleep, but you're gonna shift into REM and that early morning style of sleep.

[00:37:39] Yeah. More

[00:37:40] Sadie: quickly. So you feel the, the deprivation all around and it, yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. It might

[00:37:47] Julie: be interesting with the tracker, if it doesn't make you more anxious to isolate some variables and, and make a few changes. Yeah. If, if there's anything that you know, that we talked about or that you see in the book and maybe just don't change a whole lot of things mm-hmm and just sort of see, like, if I cut off caffeine or if I try to make my bed to more regular, if I get yeah.

[00:38:07] Like get morning sun, just see if you can. Like it would make me anxious to do it. I don't think I would do it, but if you're interested and you wanna sort of experiment a little. Yeah. And then see, is your, you know, are the percentages changing based on some shifts in, in your.

[00:38:23] Sadie: Yeah. In your sleep habits.

[00:38:25] Yeah, I think it's the type a in me, but I like wake up and I'm like, I can't wait to see my sleep score. How did I do today? that's great. But yeah, I do look forward to it and it's also like, I it's nice because it's not like you were saying the clock does stress me out, especially when I'm out of town and.

[00:38:41] Especially if it's like, I have to be up early or like if I have a test in the morning and I'm like, I'm losing minutes, I'm losing hours. It's so late. It's so late. Whereas if you can't check your score, it won't give you a score until you slept through the night and wake up in the morning. So it's like, you can't.

[00:38:57] Yeah, mentally, sometimes I'm like, oh, I really wish I would've started my bedtime routine earlier. I wish I was asleep by this point. Mm-hmm but it won't really change anything unless you really make an effort to go sleep. So if it's something that sounds like it wouldn't stress you out. I agree. It does.

[00:39:13] Is interesting, but also I feel like doing an actual sleep study would be more accurate if you do have questions about your sleep.

[00:39:20] Heather: Yeah. That's definitely true. Yeah. And we have, in our book, we have chapter nine is called the sleep challenge. Mm-hmm and I think that would be a good place to do if you wanna do a little experiment yeah.

[00:39:30] About different variables like Julie was saying to modify them that there's a tracker there that you, you know, it kind of like brings the whole book together. Mm-hmm and it's, you know, you do like a seven or 14 day challenge.

[00:39:41] Sadie: I will, I would do that. I will report back everyone, follow on social media so you can see the updates because I love playing around with sleep.

[00:39:48] And, and it's definitely like this year, that was the biggest thing that I coming home for summer. I was like, I wanna get better at this because I do notice that that's the. Biggest thing that impacts how I show up in my classes, what I have energy to do and how it burnt out I get and how long it takes to get to that point.

[00:40:03] And I think that's true for a lot of teenagers. Like when your sleep is struggling, you just have a really short fuse. And it's understandable because like you guys were saying it's like 12 hours a week of sleep deprivation. If you're pushing your bedtime back later and later, and you're still getting up early.

[00:40:18] So it really is a universal experience in many ways. What year are. I just finished my freshman year of college.

[00:40:26] Heather: Okay. And how did you see your sleeps? If I can ask you one question. Mm-hmm how did you see your sleep change between high school and your freshman year?

[00:40:34] Sadie: So it definitely my high school wasn't entirely.

[00:40:38] Like the most, not realistic, but we were in COVID and so for the second half of junior year, we didn't even have zoom classes. It was just like you turned in assignments. So there wasn't that structure senior year, we did show up and have zoom classes, but it was also like, you could have your camera off.

[00:40:55] You didn't have to be up and out of bed. Like the level of engagement wasn't totally there. So I would say that going into college. When I had a good structure of my classes, like you guys talked about with having something in the morning that you get up for versus having a class at like 3:00 PM. And there's no motivation before then to do anything.

[00:41:13] If I had that structure in place, I felt great about it because I could push my bedtime back earlier. It wasn't like I had after school activities that I was balancing, but getting at like 4:00 PM, which is really hard in. in high school. So I feel like it did get better. Mm-hmm but I also noticed around finals that it was a lot more difficult to stay on top of the sleep schedule.

[00:41:34] Yeah. Like I had a lot more cramming in college than I did in high school. Just based on the material and just volume of work that you're being tested on. Yeah. But in general, I think the schedule allows you to optimize for exercise and eating more balanced and walking around campus and getting outside.

[00:41:51] I feel like that does allow sleep hygiene to be favored. But final season is rough for sure. And sleep.

[00:41:58] Heather: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think you, in college, you have more control mm-hmm in high school. You, I feel like the thing is everyone else is, is prioritizing your, like everyone's pulling your time.

[00:42:09] Yeah. You've got so much obligation to other people and other it's almost like the grownups are kind of dictating the schedules. Yeah. Yeah. Then in college you have a lot more control, but you also have a lot more, you have a lot of responsibility still. I was totally when we, when we spoke at a college.

[00:42:25] It made sense to me when the students were saying that their, the most sleep deprived that they were was in high school? Yeah. Like towards the end of high school. Yeah.

[00:42:32] Sadie: I, I have seen a lot of talks about this and I've also experienced it myself where you're like, how did I even manage to do that with waking up at 7:00 AM doing eight hours of school going to sports practice, still doing homework, studying for a.

[00:42:47] Doing family dinner. Like it just doesn't feel humanly possible. Yeah. And I do wanna say also, like for college students that do feel like you're struggling with your sleep, it's very possible because there's less structure. Yep. There's you have that freedom. So it's very easy to get into a pattern of not sleeping, pulling all nighters, going out a ton.

[00:43:06] But if you're prioritizing your sleep, it's simple to set yourself up for success. Like the, the foundation is there. You have the freedom with your time. You have the opportunities to do these habits throughout the day that you guys mentioned. And it's, it's realistic to implement.

[00:43:21] Heather: I feel like you could help us make sleep.

[00:43:23] Cool.

[00:43:24] Sadie: I wanna, I wanna try we're we're gonna, we're gonna do our best because I, I, I love sleeping. I, anytime I can sleep, I love napping. I love sleeping in, I am definitely a night owl, but I do love getting into bed at night. So it's, I completely agree you at something teenagers need to be doing more of, and I wish it was.

[00:43:42] More of an intentional priority. Yeah. That they focused on. Yeah.

[00:43:47] Heather: That, that sleep challenge on TikTok, I think is the way to go. And we just, I like

[00:43:50] Sadie: wanted do it cause I can pull up the date and I'll be like, guys, this is what I tried yesterday. Here's what happened. So I'm definitely gonna implement that.

[00:43:56] Especially the week. This episode comes out to, to share all the tips. And I, I think it'll be fun to follow along with. Yeah.

[00:44:03] Heather: And teenagers want to, I think that this is the thing we think that it, teenagers want to feel good and feel healthy and they want to learn about their brains. So many of them are interested and they really feel the difference and they wanna, they wanna feel healthy and they wanna feel happy and energetic.

[00:44:20] So, yeah.

[00:44:22] Sadie: Yeah. And I just keep it something. Do you see the overnight difference? It's not really a pun, but you, you notice immediately, whereas like, I feel like. with, if you're trying to exercise or you're trying to build a new habit, it takes a certain number of times and routines and days to see a difference with sleep.

[00:44:40] If you get a good night's sleep it's night and day, you immediately feel better. You have more energy. So it's very reinforcing. Mm-hmm

[00:44:48] Julie: I love that. It's really true. And you're more efficient. Yeah, you can get your work done. You can study, you can remember better. So there's so many things that make. You know, all that procrastinating and taking really long time to do things kind of really improves when you sleep well.

[00:45:05] You, you feel like your skin looks better. You, you, your relationships improve because like you said, you know, you're not as short tempered and you're, you see people in a more positive way and you wanna be around people. Yeah. So all the things that teenagers are staying up late trying to achieve, they can actually.

[00:45:23] Better and more efficiently. Yeah. If they sleep well, not only teenagers, but young, you're still in our target zone. Cuz you're, you're a young, yeah. You're a young adult. Adolescence goes all the way to about 25.

[00:45:36] Sadie: So yeah. What are your guys' thoughts on the don't go to bed, angry, hash out the argument before you go to sleep.

[00:45:43] I assume the answer would be absolutely not go to sleep recharge and then come back at it again. But what's your thought on that? I

[00:45:50] Heather: would, what would you say, Julie? Oh, I

[00:45:52] Julie: would say, I mean, a lot of people cannot, would not be able to fall

[00:45:55] Sadie: asleep if they're angry. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So

[00:45:58] Heather: I think, would say, don't start talking about anything stressful for two hours before bed.

[00:46:02] So you don't get in about

[00:46:03] Sadie: dress place. Don't even say I'm in my routine. Just pause,

[00:46:08] Heather: press pause on the conversations.

[00:46:10] Julie: I do that with my family, my, my sister's such oh, such a night owl. Yeah. And she, if I would say to her, you know, call me to 11 and let's talk and it's not anything terrible, but it could be some something, anything, you know, I'm just like, I can't, you've been talking about

[00:46:28] Sadie: the news.

[00:46:28] You're like, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I just

[00:46:30] Julie: can't do it. And she's learned like she knows. I mean, she would love for me to chat with her in two hours, but I, I tell her, like, I can't talk about this, this thing because I won't be able to go to sleep.

[00:46:40] Sadie: Cause for me, it's a lot of office it's the littlest business day is total.

[00:46:44] Julie: Yeah. Anxiety and I can't fall asleep. It doesn't even have to be something huge, you know, it can just be tiny. So.

[00:46:51] Sadie: That's interesting. And I don't think I've thought about that before of like setting boundaries of like what conversations you're having, what content you're consuming, because if you're just like texting your friends, you're like, oh, I'm relaxing, but it really does open the door to anxiety, to potentially ruminating about interactions and making it more difficult to fall asleep, which is a huge thing for teenagers.

[00:47:12] A

[00:47:12] Heather: hundred percent because the teenage brain is a socially wired. Yeah. Yeah. And you are primed to wonder what other people are doing. And I, everyone of all ages is social, but especially teenagers mm-hmm so yeah, we call it the sleep bubble in the book that you really wanna create a bubble around your sleep.

[00:47:29] And it starts with that. That's why like saying goodnight to your friends an hour before you go to bed is

[00:47:35] Sadie: really helpful. Mm-hmm yeah. If there is one thing that people could leave this episode and implement to improve their sleep, what would it be?

[00:47:45] Julie: Well, going back to what we said at the very beginning.

[00:47:47] I think if you just really trust your body and believe in your body and brain and know how capable they are of helping you sleep well and knowing how much sleep you need. Mm-hmm , I think that's a really great way to sort of. Think about it, not like, oh, I have to do this, but yeah, my body wants to do it and it can, and I just need to clear the way a little bit.

[00:48:09] Yeah. So that my body can get the sleep it needs. And like, I think, you know what you said about even just after a few nights of good sleep, The difference is so profound. Mm-hmm and just give yourself that gift of feeling that way.

[00:48:24] Sadie: Yeah. And even reframing and being like, I get to have this amazing break from stress from thinking about homework from going from point a to point B to point C from worrying.

[00:48:34] Like you get to have this time that you've carved out for yourself to relax, to get ready. For bed to sleep, to recharge and then show up as a better version of yourself. I think that's a really simple, like mental shift you can make that makes it more attractive almost to prioritize. Hmm. Awesome. Well, where can people get your books?

[00:48:53] Continue to follow along with your work and consume your content.

[00:48:58] Heather: You. So our, our website is the happy sleeper.com and the books we have the happy sleeper. And then our new book is generation sleepless and those are available everywhere. And our social media is the happy sleeper. Awesome. And then you can start hashtag generation sleepless the sleep challenge on.

[00:49:15] Sadie: I will, I literally will. I love it. And I will make sure to link all of those things in the show notes. And if anyone wants to join me on the sleep challenge, it's gonna happen. We can hold that, improve our sleep together, not wait to hear. Can't wait to hear how it goes. Well, thank you guys so much. I'm so glad we got to do this.

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