Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
Speaker 1: and I'm Kristin, and today I really wanted to bring
Speaker 1: our listeners and authentic and genuine experience. Kristen, I am
Speaker 1: coming into this topic of insomnia completely sleep deprived. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I I do suffer abouts of crazy insomnia. Nothing like chronic,
Speaker 1: nothing long term, nothing health issue related. It's more anxiety.
Speaker 1: I tend to suffer from anxiety on and off, and
Speaker 1: it causes these spirals of sleeplessness because whatever makes me anxious,
Speaker 1: whether it's work or personal stuff, I suddenly lose the
Speaker 1: ability to sleep. And then the more tired I get,
Speaker 1: the more panicked I get that next night about sleeping,
Speaker 1: and a vicious cycle of in some is created. Well, Caroline,
Speaker 1: I you're really a method podcaster. See what I can do,
Speaker 1: what I can summersing yourself in the topic, And I'm
Speaker 1: sure that there are so many listeners who can relate
Speaker 1: to that very cycle of insomnia. The experience. Well, I
Speaker 1: would assume there are a lot of listeners out there
Speaker 1: who could relate to it, because insomnia is something that
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people. It's a health
Speaker 1: issue that a lot of people talk about, a lot
Speaker 1: of people experience. Certainly here in the US, a lot
Speaker 1: of people do. And there's a lot of money that
Speaker 1: people pour into curing there insomnia. Yeah, just to get
Speaker 1: a sense of how bad of a time we have sleeping,
Speaker 1: specifically in the US, if you look at what the
Speaker 1: so called sleep economy was worth in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: as reported on in the New York Times, we spend
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars a year on sleep aids of different
Speaker 1: source is and sleep deprivation was also estimated to cost
Speaker 1: US businesses one hundred fifty billion dollars annually in lost productivity.
Speaker 1: I believe it, like when you come to work sleep
Speaker 1: depri and I don't mean you like you Kristin Conger,
Speaker 1: Like when Kristin Conger comes to work sleep deprived, but
Speaker 1: when the general you comes to work sleep deprived, and
Speaker 1: me specifically, and and me, let's be honest, I mean
Speaker 1: it is so easy, for instance, I don't know, to
Speaker 1: like find yourself staring out the window and realize you've
Speaker 1: just been sitting there for ten minutes not doing anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because your brain is just shutting down. Um, and The
Speaker 1: thing is, they're actually eighty eight known sleep disorders and
Speaker 1: insomnia even though we're probably all familiar with what it is.
Speaker 1: In general, it's one of the least understood scientifically speaking,
Speaker 1: Like doctors still aren't entirely sure what causes insomnia. We
Speaker 1: know what it does. Yeah, Well, I mean when you
Speaker 1: when you look at the causes and effects of insomnia
Speaker 1: and the fact that they are underlying health conditions, but
Speaker 1: it's sort of it gets into a chicken and the
Speaker 1: egg thing like, Okay, Well, insomnia can cause things like
Speaker 1: depression and anxiety, but it's also caused by depression and anxiety,
Speaker 1: and it leads to some some awful things during your
Speaker 1: day that you have to deal with. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: big reason why we're talking about insomnia on the podcast
Speaker 1: is because it overwhelmingly affects more women than men. So first,
Speaker 1: why don't we just talk about insomnia in general, which
Speaker 1: is a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty falling and or
Speaker 1: staying asleep. Yeah, and some other symptoms include just being
Speaker 1: sleepy during the day, feeling tired when you wake up,
Speaker 1: that feeling like you're never refreshed, irritability, problems with concentration,
Speaker 1: and memory, tension, headaches, and of course mine, which is
Speaker 1: like ongoing worries about sleep, like will I, well, I
Speaker 1: have a beaple to sleep again. Well, would you characterize
Speaker 1: here insomnia then as the acute insomnia or chronic insomnia? Well,
Speaker 1: I would say that bout that I had a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago. I would say that was definitely acute
Speaker 1: because it's short term and versus chronic, which is at
Speaker 1: least three nights a week for a month or longer. Um,
Speaker 1: it was awful, and it was constant, and then it
Speaker 1: was and then it was just gone. It fixed itself
Speaker 1: over a Memorial Day weekend, thank goodness. And that insomnia
Speaker 1: that I was suffering from, that acute insomnia, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure it was primary insomnia versus secondaries to primaries, like
Speaker 1: just regular run of the mill can't sleep because you're
Speaker 1: feeling crazy, versus secondary which is actually sleep problems caused
Speaker 1: by a health condition. So it's like if insomnia comes
Speaker 1: into your bedroom just on its own, like hey, it's
Speaker 1: just if it's just me late man, it is a
Speaker 1: kool aid man of insomnia sleep disorders, and that's primary.
Speaker 1: But if it's say, you know, you know, say depression,
Speaker 1: walks into your bedroom is like, hey, also I brought along. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's really cool, friend of mine insomnia, Ye, have fun
Speaker 1: with both of us. Then the secondary Oh man, what
Speaker 1: a great medical doctor I would well in speaking of
Speaker 1: secondary insomnia, depression, as I just mentioned, is often linked
Speaker 1: to it also things like anxiety and stress. And according
Speaker 1: to a recent study that came out from the American
Speaker 1: Academy of Sleep Medicine, it's not just the stress itself,
Speaker 1: it's also how we react to stress, which can exacerbate insomnia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're not dealing with your stress, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there familiar with us, I'm
Speaker 1: certainly familiar with us. If you're not dealing with your
Speaker 1: stress and you're using poor coping mechanisms to try to
Speaker 1: work around it, like turning to alcohol instead of stress
Speaker 1: reduction techniques. We're all guilty of a glass of pino
Speaker 1: griggia now and again, and that can actually contribute to
Speaker 1: your stress induced insomnia. And they are also a number
Speaker 1: of medical conditions such as issues with chronic pain, breathing difficulties,
Speaker 1: or needing to urinate frequently that can provoke insomnia because
Speaker 1: you know you're having to you know, it's waking you
Speaker 1: up constantly during the night. Yeah. And then of course
Speaker 1: there are things like poor sleep habits, certain medications, and
Speaker 1: things like caffeine, which is an obvious one, nicotine, and
Speaker 1: also alcohol. And you know, I think that this is
Speaker 1: common knowledge, but it's worth repeating that a lot of
Speaker 1: people do kind of turn to alcohol to wind down
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. But anyone who has
Speaker 1: ever gone to bed after having a little too much
Speaker 1: to drink might be familiar with the phenomenon of waking
Speaker 1: up suddenly and being like, oh, well, the alcohol, we're off,
Speaker 1: and now I'm not sleeping well at all. Yeah. Or
Speaker 1: you might sleep through the night, but it's not RESTful sleep.
Speaker 1: It's just drunk sleep. And then which is not good,
Speaker 1: I guess. But that's something completely different from insomnia, but
Speaker 1: it can contribute well. It can also contribute in relation
Speaker 1: to alcohol. Speaking of alcohol, is your good old handy
Speaker 1: dandy period. It's so andy and andy both. So during
Speaker 1: your period, your progesterone, your hormone progesterone is highest around
Speaker 1: ovulation and during your luteal or post ovulation phase, and
Speaker 1: this hormonal cocktail can actually exacerbate the effects of alcohol.
Speaker 1: But we have so much more period stuff to talk
Speaker 1: about later. Yeah, because spoiler alert. When it comes to
Speaker 1: women and our issues with insomnia, menstruation often is the
Speaker 1: culprit hey hormones. I just picture like a giant crowd
Speaker 1: of hormones all waving like penances. They're like at a
Speaker 1: football game like that. We're not gonna let you sleep.
Speaker 1: So now that we've established all the myriad ways that
Speaker 1: we can be robbed of our sleep, the next question is, well,
Speaker 1: what does insomnia do to you? And it's no big
Speaker 1: surprise that it's a host of not so fun things
Speaker 1: like lower job or school performance, slow reaction times while driving,
Speaker 1: higher risks of accidents, probably due to that slower reaction
Speaker 1: time while driving. It might also, in a bit of
Speaker 1: a cycle, kickoff issues like depression or anxiety, which then
Speaker 1: might contribute to more insomnia. Yeah, it is, it's all.
Speaker 1: Insomnia is part of just a terrible cycle of awful things.
Speaker 1: Because I mean, the more you get it, the worst
Speaker 1: things get. Things like high blood pressure, it aggravates weking,
Speaker 1: and obesity, heart disease, all this terrible stuff. But at work,
Speaker 1: you know, Kristen mentioned it contributes to lower job in
Speaker 1: school performance as one would expect if you're like totally
Speaker 1: tired and not firing on all cylinders. There was a
Speaker 1: study in two thousand and six from the Journal of Management,
Speaker 1: very straightforward name of a journal that talked about the
Speaker 1: effects of insomnia on people at work. And yes, you know,
Speaker 1: as you would imagine, it's associated with increased feelings of
Speaker 1: hostility and fatigue and decreased feelings of joviality and attentiveness.
Speaker 1: But that that is actually worse. These effects are actually
Speaker 1: worse for women. Yeah, that finding in the study that
Speaker 1: women's attitudes at work were affected more by insomnia is
Speaker 1: stood out because there are also some studies that say
Speaker 1: that women actually handle sleep deprivation better than men, at
Speaker 1: least based on our performance on like computer related tasks
Speaker 1: after not getting enough sleep. But I guess that's a
Speaker 1: little bit different because it's looking at can you punch
Speaker 1: keys on a keyboard versus can you talk to your
Speaker 1: manager in the break room and not and not start
Speaker 1: crying and yelling? Yes, right well now, And that that
Speaker 1: study too that you just mentioned also was showing that
Speaker 1: like women seem to suffer more from insomnia and also
Speaker 1: believe that they're suffering from more from insomnia, but that they,
Speaker 1: after like two good solid nights of sleep, recover better
Speaker 1: than men do. Oh and on top of that too,
Speaker 1: women who are performing lots of housework, which is often
Speaker 1: the case because women perform a majority of the housework,
Speaker 1: it slows down that recovery period. If you're doing all
Speaker 1: this housework, then you have less time to rest and
Speaker 1: hopefully recover from that lost sleep. And this issue of
Speaker 1: insomnia among women really shouldn't be ignored. And this is
Speaker 1: um something that more and more medical research is starting
Speaker 1: to highlight because insomnia might be signaling other kinds of
Speaker 1: medical or psychiatric problems in lady sleepers. Right. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: women are about twice as likely as men to suffer
Speaker 1: from major depression during their lives, and it's nearly always
Speaker 1: accompanied by difficulty sleeping. And also another big health issue
Speaker 1: is obstructive sleep apnea. This is something that my mother
Speaker 1: struggles with. She snores, has sleep apnea, and it really
Speaker 1: messes up your sleep because you basically wake up gasping
Speaker 1: for air. Um. But obstructive sleep apnea is a major
Speaker 1: cause of insomnia, as you might imagine, and it's a
Speaker 1: major contributor to heart disease, and before menopause, women are
Speaker 1: about half as likely to have sleep apnia as men are,
Speaker 1: but once they get past menopause they catch up to men,
Speaker 1: those lucky ladies. Yeah, and after menopause too, as we'll
Speaker 1: talk about more, the rates of insomnia among women escalate
Speaker 1: as well. Right, Well, what's dangerous about this whole sleep apnea,
Speaker 1: depression insomnia link is that because doctors are kind of
Speaker 1: programmed to use not the best term, but kind of
Speaker 1: programmed to think that it happens more frequently in men
Speaker 1: than in women, they might overlook the signs of sleep
Speaker 1: apniaan women and so, oh, you're just depressed, You're just tired,
Speaker 1: But really, she has possibly a serious health issue going on.
Speaker 1: I'm programmed to say this. I'm a doctor, robot Dr Kristen, Yes,
Speaker 1: Chris and robot um. Well, now that we've talked about
Speaker 1: a lot of sort of external factors that interact with
Speaker 1: insomnia and promote cycles of insomnia in women, let's really
Speaker 1: focus in now on sleep and how that interacts with gender,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of different gendered patterns. It
Speaker 1: turns out of how we rest, and we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about that when we get right back from a quick break.
Speaker 1: So to first kick off this closer look at gender
Speaker 1: and sleep, I just want to toss out this historical
Speaker 1: tidbit from Insomnia, a Cultural History by Elena Summers Bremner,
Speaker 1: who talks about how in the nineteenth century there was
Speaker 1: at least one doctor who claimed that women need more
Speaker 1: sleep because we're prone to nervous excitability, while another doctor
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century thought of insomnia as a morbid
Speaker 1: deficiency of the brain, which was why women need more sleep.
Speaker 1: There has for a long time been a lot of
Speaker 1: focus on women and sleeping, but uh, you know, just
Speaker 1: not for such fantastic reasons in the past. There there
Speaker 1: was also this guy named s Weir mitchell Um who
Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century developed what he called this
Speaker 1: rest cure for women's hysteria, and essentially he would lock
Speaker 1: up women in a room and just force them to
Speaker 1: do like absolutely nothing whatsoever to try to just I guess,
Speaker 1: break them down and cause them to be less hysterical. Yeah, look,
Speaker 1: you're expressing your opinion way too much. We need you
Speaker 1: to go in this room and just rest. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: and rest care sounds so nice. I would love to
Speaker 1: take a rest here at the beach. But oh wait, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: not that kind of a rest cure, because you might
Speaker 1: still be talking and expressing opinions at the beach. We
Speaker 1: can't have that happening. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, So let's
Speaker 1: look at let's look at the gendered breakdown of sleep.
Speaker 1: Who sleeps more, who needs it more? Do women just
Speaker 1: complain or do we actually have something to complain about?
Speaker 1: Turns out that women spend fifteen more minutes in bed
Speaker 1: than men do, but we sleep eleven minutes less. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to napping, guys, at least, agreeing
Speaker 1: to research from the Pew Center, you take more napst
Speaker 1: percent of men reported napping versus of women. So not
Speaker 1: a major difference there. But when it comes to who
Speaker 1: needs more sleep, doctors say women be needing some sleep
Speaker 1: because of our hysterical uteruses. No, Caroline, No, it's actually,
Speaker 1: at least, agreeing to professor Jim Horne, who's director of
Speaker 1: the Sleep Research Center at Lowborough University in England, it
Speaker 1: has to do with our tendency to multitask. Yeah, women
Speaker 1: do multitask more than men do. That's on any blog
Speaker 1: you'll find up there that will tell you that. But
Speaker 1: apparently women need twenty minutes extra deep sleep in order
Speaker 1: to rest our core text. The core text during the
Speaker 1: night needs you to sleep so that it can disengage
Speaker 1: from all of your crazy senses and go into recovery mode.
Speaker 1: And the more you use your brain during the day,
Speaker 1: the more your cortex needs sleep. Although I wonder, and
Speaker 1: this is a bit of a side note, if perhaps
Speaker 1: another solution is to multitask less, because research also finds
Speaker 1: that multitasking is not exactly better tasking, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I know. Well it's hard to resist multitasking that sometimes, Caroly, Well,
Speaker 1: sure unless like, and I'm good at it to an extent.
Speaker 1: I'm good at multitasking to an extent. But then my
Speaker 1: like undie noosed adult a d D kicks in and
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll start something over here, and then I'll
Speaker 1: move over here and do something else, and then by
Speaker 1: then my cortex is just like, we don't even know
Speaker 1: what's going on, go to sleep, and then he just
Speaker 1: just face plant on your cubicle. So if you ever
Speaker 1: walked by me and I'm just like face down the
Speaker 1: cubicle with the space bar going forever, just leave me. Well,
Speaker 1: I certainly wouldn't want to wake you up, Caroline, because
Speaker 1: according to research out of Duke University, women are grumpier
Speaker 1: when it comes to losing sleep. They actually used the
Speaker 1: words hostile and angry specifically in the morning, and anecdotally,
Speaker 1: I've gotten better at being a morning person, but it
Speaker 1: took years of training. I know that in high school
Speaker 1: when my mother would wake me up, they would there
Speaker 1: would be like an hour long window before I was
Speaker 1: even approachable. Yeah. No, I I totally get it. I
Speaker 1: am not a nice person and I'm like super tired
Speaker 1: and I've just woken up, especially if I haven't slept well.
Speaker 1: I have been known to throw the covers back and
Speaker 1: yell I'm not sleeping, and you know, go storm mountain,
Speaker 1: try to sleep on the couch. Yeah, I'm not social
Speaker 1: for the first bit of the morning, but I think
Speaker 1: I'm not as not as hostile and angry as I
Speaker 1: used to be. Um. But we might not just be
Speaker 1: just old grumpy gusses for no good reason, because according
Speaker 1: to these same Deuke University researchers, women actually suffer more
Speaker 1: mentally and physically if we don't get enough sleep, which
Speaker 1: then puts us at a higher risk for heart disease, depression,
Speaker 1: and psychological disorders, and also podcasters referring to you as
Speaker 1: a grumpy guss apparently, but yeah, it's it's scary and
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, I mean, surely, like there's nothing
Speaker 1: so bad about this. But in addition to all these
Speaker 1: things that in ssomnia puts us at risk for, we
Speaker 1: as women end up with higher inflammation markers, and basically
Speaker 1: this indicates to a doctor that you are developing health
Speaker 1: problems and their linked to pain. So well established women
Speaker 1: need more sleep. Even though we might be laying in
Speaker 1: the bed more, we aren't necessarily getting it. What is
Speaker 1: going on because statistically, women are fifty percent likelier to
Speaker 1: suffer from insomnia, And according to a survey from the
Speaker 1: National Sleep Foundation that came out in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: single working women have it worse, which I was surprised
Speaker 1: to see because I would have assumed it would have
Speaker 1: been working moms. I would have thought so too, But
Speaker 1: it turns out that single working women are probably we're
Speaker 1: probably bringing it on ourselves because we're like staying out
Speaker 1: lay doing a thing, yeah exactly, and we're saying about it.
Speaker 1: We're just constantly throwing our hats up in the air,
Speaker 1: like Mary Tyler Moore, just like going and overdrive. Um,
Speaker 1: married working moms get about the same amount of not
Speaker 1: enough sleep as single working women do. And you know,
Speaker 1: stay at home moms, you guys don't have it much better.
Speaker 1: Three quarters of these women experience symptoms of insomnia. And
Speaker 1: why is that? Because we all have a lovely cocktail
Speaker 1: of hormones in our bodies that are really the primary
Speaker 1: culprit of all of this insomnia. It seemed like all
Speaker 1: of the studies that we read regarding gender differences in
Speaker 1: sleep patterns and insomnia from adolescents through old age, it
Speaker 1: is constantly menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, and hormones that are the
Speaker 1: common thread. Yeah, that's right. Amy Wolfson, who's the author
Speaker 1: of The Woman's Book of Sleep, a Complete Resource Guide,
Speaker 1: said that more than seventy of women complain about sleep
Speaker 1: problems during menstruation, when hormone levels are at their lowest.
Speaker 1: So imagine that stadium full of pen and waving hormones,
Speaker 1: just like clearing out of the stadium and suddenly you
Speaker 1: can't sleep. Yeah. Um, if you're listening to this and
Speaker 1: you're like, huh, you know what I seem to not
Speaker 1: be able to sleep when I'm experiencing p MS. Well,
Speaker 1: it's probably because pre menstrual insomnia and pre menstrual hypersomnia
Speaker 1: are just two of the menstrual related sleep disorders that
Speaker 1: are among those eight known sleep disorders. So there is
Speaker 1: a very strong link between our menstrual cycles and how
Speaker 1: well we sleep. Yeah. In fact, research even says that
Speaker 1: menstruating women report bloating that is significant enough to disturb
Speaker 1: their sleep at least two or three days during each
Speaker 1: menstrual cycle. And I am interested in hearing from people
Speaker 1: who may have experienced this because while I do certainly
Speaker 1: out every month, I mean, that's no big deal. I've
Speaker 1: never actually experienced it so badly that it's interfered with
Speaker 1: my sleep. So what's happening on a hormonal level is
Speaker 1: that during the luteal phase, which is after ovulation, our
Speaker 1: levels of progesterone rises and actually chills out our sleep
Speaker 1: patterns a little bit. Progesterone is more strongly related with
Speaker 1: good sleep, So hooray progesterone. But then a few days
Speaker 1: before your period starts, when both progesterone and estrogen levels drop,
Speaker 1: you have a spike in insomnia, and then during the
Speaker 1: follicular phase, which is menstruation to ovulation, you have energy
Speaker 1: supplementing estrogen building up until ovulation, which is also when
Speaker 1: you see levels in insomnia rise. So we have like
Speaker 1: a brief window during our menstrual cycles. What is that
Speaker 1: right after ovulation and progesterones? Like, hey, friends, here a
Speaker 1: few nights over risk. Progesterone comes along, sprinkling fairy dust
Speaker 1: on your eyes, and then estrogen bust into the bedroom.
Speaker 1: Is like, oh yeah, well, so so does birth control?
Speaker 1: I mean, do different types of birth control then affect insomnia?
Speaker 1: We did not look into that, Caroline. But I just want,
Speaker 1: I mean I want it. Must it must? I I
Speaker 1: feel like And this could be mental, this could be
Speaker 1: a total coincidence. But when I switched from the pill
Speaker 1: to an I u D, I feel like I experience
Speaker 1: more intense insomnia. I'm on a hormonal iu D, So
Speaker 1: I I don't know. Maybe maybe someone out there can
Speaker 1: tell us. I would only imagine that if you are
Speaker 1: on some kind of hormonal birth control, that it must
Speaker 1: influence pously because progesterone and estrogen are so commonly linked
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, well so, But speaking of not being
Speaker 1: on birth control. During pregnancy, especially in women's third trimester
Speaker 1: and after childbirth, women experience these profound fluctuations in their
Speaker 1: steroid related hormones and those hormones that are involved in
Speaker 1: the whole hypothalamic, pituitary adrenal grouping of hormones that produce
Speaker 1: significant physiological changes. Yeah, and apparently during the third trimester,
Speaker 1: not only are you having some hormonal fluctuations that contribute
Speaker 1: to insomnia, but it's also the fact that your belly
Speaker 1: is so large and you have to go to the
Speaker 1: bathroom more often that will again wake you up. So
Speaker 1: that sounds more like like a secondary insomnia that it's
Speaker 1: caused by not a not a health problem, but a
Speaker 1: body issue. A baby. It's caused by a growing baby.
Speaker 1: Oh that's what it is, all right. Well, so once
Speaker 1: you've crested that hill and you're coasting into menopause, of
Speaker 1: course your sleep is also going to be disrupted then,
Speaker 1: because why wouldn't it be, Because menopausal women experienced wonderful
Speaker 1: things like hot flashes and night sweats, and this is
Speaker 1: during this time you get things like a diminished production
Speaker 1: of estrogen and particularly progesterone that affects your sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in fact does not get better when it comes
Speaker 1: to insomnia as we age. Right, and like we mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier with the sleep apnea stuff, menopause is when women
Speaker 1: really catch up to men in terms of experiencing that
Speaker 1: really bad health issue that doctor. You should definitely go
Speaker 1: to a doctor and get checked out. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: you're experiencing night sweats and hot flashes and you probably
Speaker 1: are developing the sleep apnea. And I mean, man, your
Speaker 1: body is just throwing you for a loop. Thanks a lot, body,
Speaker 1: And well, speaking of a time when your body kind
Speaker 1: of throws you for a loop. If you're wondering when
Speaker 1: this gender gap in insomnia really starts to widen, it
Speaker 1: is during puberty. This is from study in pediatrics that
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand six looking at gender difference
Speaker 1: is in insomnia among adolescents, and it found that when
Speaker 1: girls started getting their periods, they became two and a
Speaker 1: half times likelier than boys to have insomnia. So yet again,
Speaker 1: we have hormones and specifically progesterone, estrogen, et cetera being
Speaker 1: strongly related to our sleep or lack thereof. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: leading up to puberty, there's really no huge, significant gap
Speaker 1: between boys and girls in terms of having insomnia, but
Speaker 1: that onset of a girl's period is associated with a
Speaker 1: two point seven fivefold increased risk for insomnia. Now, one
Speaker 1: other gender gap that also emerges during puberty that we
Speaker 1: talked about before on the podcast is how among girls
Speaker 1: rates of depression and anxiety also increased. So one thing
Speaker 1: that these researchers looked at was whether or not it
Speaker 1: was puberty related on set of depression that might have
Speaker 1: been fostering cycles of insomnia, and it and another study
Speaker 1: that we looked at examining adult female insomniacs, both concluded
Speaker 1: that it is not specifically the depression and anxiety that
Speaker 1: are to blame for these higher rates of insomnia. Again,
Speaker 1: it always goes back to those hormonal factors. So all
Speaker 1: of us to say, the research that we found states
Speaker 1: that it is not depression and other kinds of psychiatric
Speaker 1: issues that are causing insomnia. They're sort of they're interrelated,
Speaker 1: but they aren't codependent. Yeah. One doesn't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: depend on the other one happen. Yeah, Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: we were just talking about menopause. So if we're if
Speaker 1: we're looking, if we're continuing to look at age groups
Speaker 1: and insomnia. UH. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry in
Speaker 1: eleven looked at about three thousand each of men and
Speaker 1: women sixty five and older, and they performed a meta
Speaker 1: analysis and found that elderly women were at the highest
Speaker 1: risk of insomnia. So, like christ and said, it just
Speaker 1: darnwell never gets better. They found that more than seventy
Speaker 1: of men and women reported at least one symptom of insomnia,
Speaker 1: with difficulty maintaining sleep being the main one. So they
Speaker 1: looked at things like difficulty falling asleep versus difficulty maintaining sleep,
Speaker 1: and so they found that women more frequently reported two
Speaker 1: or three insomnia symptoms, whereas men more often reported just one.
Speaker 1: But some of the protective factors against insomnia that these
Speaker 1: researchers highlighted for women in this study at least included
Speaker 1: a Mediterranean diet, so guzzled that olive oil, drink it
Speaker 1: up um, also caffeine and alcohol. What, yeah, I don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wondered about that, because that is something that is
Speaker 1: pre against I know in every other well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess in moderation, but I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, I don't know, maybe these women
Speaker 1: were really enjoying a Mediterranean diet that included a lot
Speaker 1: of red wine. Well, and you know what, when I'm
Speaker 1: post menopausal, I will I don't have my coffee and
Speaker 1: wine if I want it. But yeah. They also cited
Speaker 1: hormonal replacement therapy as another protective factor, which they also
Speaker 1: noted was a bit of a controversial suggestion because not
Speaker 1: everybody is a fan of hormone replacement therapy, but it
Speaker 1: makes sense because of yet again, those hormonal connections to insomnia.
Speaker 1: Because this was the one thing that I didn't find
Speaker 1: in our research was like, Okay, well, scientists seem to
Speaker 1: know that our menstrual cycles have a large influence on insomnia,
Speaker 1: So is there any any kind of treatment for that,
Speaker 1: any kind of way to Nope, I saw nothing. It
Speaker 1: was basically just like, well, here here's the information. Uh,
Speaker 1: take a lunasta. I don't know. Um. There was also, though,
Speaker 1: there was another study looking at the intersection of gender
Speaker 1: and economics when it comes to sleep, and there was
Speaker 1: this is coming out of the Centers for Disease Control
Speaker 1: and Prevention in two thousand twelve, and it found a
Speaker 1: pretty strong correlation between income and quality of sleep. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The study basically found that as family income increases, trouble
Speaker 1: sleeping decreases, And that makes sense. I mean, they found
Speaker 1: that more the more people who were below the poverty
Speaker 1: line experienced more insomnia banded people who were away above it.
Speaker 1: But at every family income level, women were still more
Speaker 1: likely to have trouble sleeping. But we did glean one
Speaker 1: geographical outlier when it comes to the gender gap in insomnia,
Speaker 1: and this was coming from a meta analysis in the
Speaker 1: journal Sleep in two thousand and six. Um when the
Speaker 1: and in the premise for it was researchers being like, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we hear all the time about how women
Speaker 1: are you know, I have a harder time with insomnia,
Speaker 1: but is that really true? Is just just sort of
Speaker 1: a methodological trick? Are women just more likely to seek
Speaker 1: treatment for it? Is it because women are more depressed? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, they concluded that okay, actually, yes, they
Speaker 1: looked at twenty seven studies. Yes, women actually do have
Speaker 1: legitimately a worse time with insomnia except in Japan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is so interesting. The study authors think that the
Speaker 1: lack of gender differences in insomnia, the fact that it's
Speaker 1: pretty much even Stephen is based on the fact that
Speaker 1: there's less variation in Japanese society's sociodemographic and psychological characteristics.
Speaker 1: But see, that's curious to me because when it comes
Speaker 1: to you, at least gender roles in Japan, from what
Speaker 1: I've read and also heard from people living in Japan, um,
Speaker 1: it's less progressive. It's more their generals are more traditional
Speaker 1: than they would be in the West. Well, I think
Speaker 1: I mean in my brain, not having like gone into
Speaker 1: this very deeply, that kind of actually makes sense because
Speaker 1: if people are very set in their roles and they're
Speaker 1: comfortable with their roles, and nobody's trying to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: cause a revolution or anything. I don't know, like a
Speaker 1: feminist revolution or anything. Um, maybe people are just sleeping better.
Speaker 1: If if things are very set in your society. And
Speaker 1: I'm of course I'm painting this all with a very
Speaker 1: broad Carolyn, I think we've figured it out down with
Speaker 1: feministinism ruining everyone's sleep. Please don't write me letters. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that I'm writing you a letter right now, Caroline.
Speaker 1: I'm multitasking. God, You're cortex is going to need so
Speaker 1: much rest tonight. I know, but I am curious. Then
Speaker 1: if there are any listeners in Japan who can give
Speaker 1: us some insights, please let us know, because this was
Speaker 1: even something that the researchers couldn't explain in the study.
Speaker 1: They were like, there's something about Japan, and they even
Speaker 1: broaden it to just East Asia in general. So I
Speaker 1: wonder what it is about sleep patterns there, because if
Speaker 1: you look at the history of sleep, like in the West,
Speaker 1: the way that we sleep has changed since the Industrial Revolution,
Speaker 1: where we actually used to not just sleep in closer quarters,
Speaker 1: but we also slept in shifts. For instance, like Ben
Speaker 1: Franklin would get up and go on these like night
Speaker 1: walks in the middle. You know. You know what Ben
Speaker 1: Franklin would do. He would get up and take a
Speaker 1: cold air bath. A cold air bath. He sitting naked
Speaker 1: in his armchair reading. I'm picturing it. I'm picturing it too.
Speaker 1: It was refreshing. Well, I don't have to be awfully chili. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: we now need to talk about treatments for insomnia. Perhaps
Speaker 1: the cold air bathel do you um when it comes
Speaker 1: to acute insomnia, those brief windows of sleepless nights that
Speaker 1: might happen. Treatment just might not be required, it'll probably
Speaker 1: go away on its own, yeah, exactly. For the chronic
Speaker 1: insomniacs out there, however, you might want to seek treatment,
Speaker 1: and that could include treating underlying causes of insomnia. For instance, um,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I was like not sleeping
Speaker 1: at all, I was really stressed out, and my doctor
Speaker 1: prescribed me ambient, when really I probably should have been
Speaker 1: going to a therapist in dealing with my incredible levels
Speaker 1: of anxiety, because once you treat that anxiety, that tends
Speaker 1: to chip away at insomnia. Yeah. And speaking of therapy,
Speaker 1: they're all sorts of behavioral therapies developed for helping sleep
Speaker 1: and caring insomnia, as such as relaxation exercises, something called
Speaker 1: sleep restriction therapy, which is on the more extreme end
Speaker 1: of these behavioral therapies where if you say I can't
Speaker 1: ever fall asleep until like four in the morning, then
Speaker 1: according to sleep restriction therapy, you would make yourself stay awake,
Speaker 1: not get in bed until four in the morning, and
Speaker 1: make yourself sleep through the night. And so it would
Speaker 1: basically be like training your brain to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I got in bed and then I fell asleep. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was four in the morning and then you gradually
Speaker 1: like step it back and back and back. I've done that, well,
Speaker 1: not four in the morning, not that extreme, but I
Speaker 1: found myself, like, I think, get really sleepy kind of
Speaker 1: early in the night, at like nine o'clock. Um, but
Speaker 1: I knew that I was never going to fall asleep
Speaker 1: and actually go to bed until around midnight. But it
Speaker 1: fostered so much anxiety, especially on like a Sunday night,
Speaker 1: you know, when you know you have to go back
Speaker 1: to work the next day or whatever. And so one
Speaker 1: Sunday night, instead of getting into bed early like I
Speaker 1: had wanted to do and I had tried to do,
Speaker 1: I just stayed on the couch and read until about
Speaker 1: honestly about eleven eleven thirty and got in bed then.
Speaker 1: And it was hunky dory. So that was sort of
Speaker 1: reverse sleep training because you were wanting to go to
Speaker 1: sleep too early rather than not being able to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I was sleepy and I wanted to get in bed,
Speaker 1: but I knew that if I did, based on previous
Speaker 1: nights and not sleeping well, I knew that if I did,
Speaker 1: I would just lie there and sweat, right, just sweat
Speaker 1: the bed. I swept the bed um. But also, like
Speaker 1: you know, we we've mentioned um sleep at me a
Speaker 1: lot in this podcast episode. You might want to look
Speaker 1: into going to a sleep clinic and getting a sea
Speaker 1: Pat machine. I have a friend who got a sea
Speaker 1: Pat machine and he sleeps like a baby. Now, my
Speaker 1: mother was prescribed a sea Pat machine, but she refuses
Speaker 1: to use it because she's too proud. What does a
Speaker 1: c PAP machine look like? It's it's a big old
Speaker 1: robot looking thing. Like you don't want it. You don't
Speaker 1: want to have sleep at me and you don't want
Speaker 1: to have to use a sea Pat machine, but it
Speaker 1: can be life changing for people who use it. It
Speaker 1: involved um putting like a mask over your mouth the nose,
Speaker 1: and it's pumping air. Someone else can explain this way
Speaker 1: better than I can, but it's it's uh not a
Speaker 1: small machine. Well, something that is small but a lot
Speaker 1: of people do take in the bedroom is sleeping pills. Sleep.
Speaker 1: The market for sleeping pills has I don't want to
Speaker 1: say exploded because that's the sensational term, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of exploded. Yeah, we're taking more sleeping pills than ever before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you look back, this is coming from the
Speaker 1: new Yorker and article they did on sleeping pills back
Speaker 1: all the way back, but in nine you have del Maine,
Speaker 1: which was the first benzo diazepine explicitly approved by the
Speaker 1: f d A as a sleeping pill. Fast forward all
Speaker 1: the way to two thousand six, and prescriptions of sleeping
Speaker 1: pills hit forty nine million. Ambience Manufacturer estimated that that
Speaker 1: pill in particular had been taken twelve billion times worldwide. Now,
Speaker 1: the number of pizzas that have been sleep eaten on
Speaker 1: a still unknown, and according to data from the CDC
Speaker 1: as of two thousand thirteen, around four percent of Americans
Speaker 1: we're using prescriptions sleep aids and are used more commonly
Speaker 1: surprise among women and older adults. But the trouble with
Speaker 1: these sleeping pills is that they might not actually be
Speaker 1: improving the quality of sleep that you get. There was
Speaker 1: one study that was cited in the New York Times
Speaker 1: talking about how and I don't have the exact figures
Speaker 1: in front of me, but it was something along the
Speaker 1: lines of taking a sleeping pill and it helped the
Speaker 1: people fall asleep less than fifteen minutes faster than the
Speaker 1: people who didn't take that. And then it's the question
Speaker 1: of well, what kind of sleep are you actually getting
Speaker 1: when you pop an ambient or ALMST or something like that,
Speaker 1: because you might not be getting as deep of asleep
Speaker 1: as you would otherwise. Right, Well, the whole thing with
Speaker 1: ambient and I am someone who takes Ambien now and again,
Speaker 1: it's not so much that it's knocking you out cold
Speaker 1: for the whole night, especially if you're taking a really
Speaker 1: low dose like I do, because that's more of the
Speaker 1: placebo effect, let's be honest. But the thing with Ambien
Speaker 1: and other pills like it is that it gives you
Speaker 1: temporary amnesia. So when you wake up during the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, Let's say you roll over and you
Speaker 1: can't go back to sleep, and you're panicked about it,
Speaker 1: and you wake up the next day and you're like, God,
Speaker 1: I just know I slept terribly and um, so I'm
Speaker 1: today is going to be awful. With Ambien, you forget
Speaker 1: that you ever rolled over, or you forget that you
Speaker 1: had that moment of like waking up and looking out
Speaker 1: the window or something crazy, or you know, getting up
Speaker 1: and eating a pizza. It just kind of gives you
Speaker 1: the impression when you wake up the next day that oh,
Speaker 1: I slept okay, and today is going to be great.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of some mind trickery going on, total
Speaker 1: mind trickery. And and in that New Yorker piece, they
Speaker 1: were talking about drug reps who were working on medication
Speaker 1: that would be more like keep you more consistently asleep
Speaker 1: throughout the nights, so not just be that sudden, sudden
Speaker 1: onset of sleep and then you sort of toss and
Speaker 1: turning just don't remember it. They're trying to work on
Speaker 1: pills that actually keep you asleep, but there's all these
Speaker 1: questions of safety, and so we'll see, well, and then
Speaker 1: there's a whole factor of lifestyle issues related to how
Speaker 1: we sleep. I mean, clearly when it comes to sleep
Speaker 1: on the hormonal level and insomnia and all of that. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think that you know, don't look at your
Speaker 1: cell phone an hour before you go to bed is
Speaker 1: really going to cut it. But there are so many
Speaker 1: different behavioral tips and tricks that are endlessly cycled and
Speaker 1: recycled on the internet that I don't think we even
Speaker 1: need to go through on the podcast. They're so common,
Speaker 1: such as, you know, limit your screen time, make your
Speaker 1: bedroom cool, only use your bed for sleep, or sex, etcetera, etcetera. Right,
Speaker 1: and there's some good behavioral suggest sense that I hadn't
Speaker 1: really thought about. I mean, this seems like it's common
Speaker 1: since now, of course, And it's just exposing yourself to
Speaker 1: sunlight as soon as you can to sort of tell
Speaker 1: your body and your brain and all those pesky hormones
Speaker 1: that it's time to get up. They even suggest getting
Speaker 1: in an early morning walk with a friend as because
Speaker 1: you're combining social stuff, so you're using your brain to
Speaker 1: interact with your friend and then getting sunlight and exercise.
Speaker 1: And to me, I just, um, I'd rather be asleep.
Speaker 1: I socialized with NPR in the morning. I do too,
Speaker 1: sometimes I answer them. But the there was a question, though,
Speaker 1: posited in the New York Times article that we've been
Speaker 1: siding throughout the podcast as to whether we are now
Speaker 1: just fighting our ancestor's way of sleeping, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: Ben Franklin and his cold air baths, of sleeping in
Speaker 1: these four hour blocks and then waking up in the night,
Speaker 1: doing a few things and going back to sleep. Maybe
Speaker 1: we are, you know, forcing ourselves into unnatural sleep patterns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's definitely a cultural, global idea that you
Speaker 1: get in your PJS and you brush your teeth and
Speaker 1: you go to sleep for exactly eight hours and then
Speaker 1: you get up and you go be a very good
Speaker 1: citizen out in the world and work and and behave
Speaker 1: yourself and all that good stuff. But yeah, maybe we
Speaker 1: are just completely fighting nature, because it's not as if,
Speaker 1: you know, these ancestors who were getting up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, they'd sleep for hours, get up,
Speaker 1: do whatever, go back to sleep. It's not like they
Speaker 1: had it so so great. You know, we have all
Speaker 1: these temper pedic mattresses and these pitch black rooms and
Speaker 1: don't don't use any blue light. Oh god. But I
Speaker 1: mean they were sleeping, you know, thirty five people to
Speaker 1: a bed. They had like mice and who knows what
Speaker 1: mice and life. So let's bring back the mice. Let's
Speaker 1: get the thirty five people bed. If we can just
Speaker 1: go back to the dark ages. But one thing that
Speaker 1: hasn't changed though through all of this is the menstruals. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like I wonder if no matter what, if
Speaker 1: you know, all other factors controlled for if it's still
Speaker 1: like regardless, if women would have still have trouble with
Speaker 1: insomnia more than men because of our periods. Yeah, all
Speaker 1: those hormones fled out of the stadium being like peace out,
Speaker 1: see you later, See you went back when you can
Speaker 1: sleep again. I hope this was illuminating, though for not
Speaker 1: not too illuminating. They want people to be able to
Speaker 1: sleep calmly. I hope this shed a calm dim light
Speaker 1: for women in particular who do have trouble sleeping. And
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you. What's been your experience
Speaker 1: with insomnia and have you successfully overcome it and how
Speaker 1: did you do that to let us know so we
Speaker 1: can share your insights with everybody else. Moms Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com is our email address. You
Speaker 1: can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and we've got a couple of message is
Speaker 1: to share with you right now. Well, I've got a
Speaker 1: Facebook message here from Caitlin in response to our Explorer
Speaker 1: series episode on Seafaring Women, and she writes, Ladies, I
Speaker 1: am a marine scientist and literally whoped for joy when
Speaker 1: I saw your Seafaring Women podcast title. The timing is
Speaker 1: especially appropriate as I just returned from a research expedition
Speaker 1: at sea. I work in a deep sea research Lab,
Speaker 1: and part of my job entails going out to sea
Speaker 1: to collect samples and study sites that can exist thousands
Speaker 1: of meters deep. When I tell friends and family that
Speaker 1: I'm heading to see the general consensus is that I'm
Speaker 1: sitting on deck sipping mohitos while waiting my turn to
Speaker 1: play shuffle board. Many folks have a hard time understanding
Speaker 1: why in the world I would even want to be
Speaker 1: stranded on a ship for multiple weeks at a time.
Speaker 1: It's true, even in this day and age, ship life
Speaker 1: can be challenging. No phone service, intimate internet, absolutely no Netflix.
Speaker 1: It's enough to send even the most adventurous person crazy
Speaker 1: after a while. I, however, embrace the isolation for one
Speaker 1: with no phone to serve as a distraction. People actually
Speaker 1: converse at meals. I've developed long lasting friendships with people
Speaker 1: I have sailed with because we were forced to look
Speaker 1: at each other in the eye and communicate without the
Speaker 1: assistance of emails, text and Facebook messages. Also, there's something
Speaker 1: absolutely breathtaking about looking around you in all directions and
Speaker 1: seeing no indication of human life. Some of the best
Speaker 1: star gazing I've ever done has been on a ship,
Speaker 1: and a huge incentive from the science perspective is that
Speaker 1: when I'm at sea, I'm privy to something that not
Speaker 1: many people have the opportunity to see, the deep sea.
Speaker 1: I've traveled a couple thousand feet deep in a submersible
Speaker 1: to a site that was little explored, and I can't
Speaker 1: even begin to describe what it feels like to know
Speaker 1: that you're seeing something that no one has ever seen before.
Speaker 1: It's surreal and it sounds surreal. She goes on to
Speaker 1: talk about how Rachel Carson and Sylvia Earle her Deep
Speaker 1: Us have been long standing heroines of mine, and when
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to meet Sylvia Earle, it took
Speaker 1: me thirty minutes to work up the nerve to talk
Speaker 1: to her, and she is amazing. As just a few
Speaker 1: resources if you're interested, I did outreach for a deep
Speaker 1: sea research cruise, so you guys can read about life
Speaker 1: at sea at Acid Horizon dot tumbler dot com. And
Speaker 1: for those of your listeners who are interested in exploring
Speaker 1: the deep sea from the comfort of their homes, check
Speaker 1: out nautilus Live dot org. They have a live feed
Speaker 1: running from their ship and viewers can watch and listen
Speaker 1: to the scientists explore the sea floor. That is so cool, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for writing in. And I
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Whitney, who was a woman
Speaker 1: after my own heart. She wrote us to share a
Speaker 1: story about her family history, particularly one woman named Penelope Um.
Speaker 1: She says the story is not exactly related to exploring,
Speaker 1: but to female perseverance in the settlement of North America.
Speaker 1: She says, I had remembered vague details about Penelope and
Speaker 1: Prince Stout as a child, but recently found a family
Speaker 1: history book that went into much more detail. Around sixte
Speaker 1: Penelope and her first husband set sail from Holland for
Speaker 1: New Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the ship they were on somehow sunk
Speaker 1: just off the coast of Sandy Hook, but most of
Speaker 1: the party made it to shore. Once on land, the
Speaker 1: party was attacked by Native Americans in the area, killing
Speaker 1: Penelope's husband. Penelope suffered major stomach wounds and hid in
Speaker 1: the hollow of a tree until another group of Native
Speaker 1: Americans founder. She lived in the natives village and was
Speaker 1: nursed back to health by them. Sometime later, she married
Speaker 1: Richard Stout and they moved to New Jersey in sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, However, partship was not over for Penelope. She
Speaker 1: had become close to the native tribe that saved her life,
Speaker 1: and when they heard of a planned attack on her settlement,
Speaker 1: they came to warner. Her husband, Richard, either didn't believe
Speaker 1: her warnings about an attack or chose to stay in fight.
Speaker 1: As we can tell from her previous experiences, Penelope was
Speaker 1: not one to give up. Despite having one bum arm,
Speaker 1: she took her ten children in a canoe to safety
Speaker 1: without shared. When I learned the story of Penelope, I
Speaker 1: felt honored to be distantly related to her. She was
Speaker 1: an explorer in her own right, living in a new
Speaker 1: land at a time when women were not allowed to
Speaker 1: be strong willed. I sincerely hope I inherited some of
Speaker 1: those traits, along with her good genes that she lived
Speaker 1: to be a hundred and ten years old. Whitney, that
Speaker 1: is so cool. Thank you so much for sharing your
Speaker 1: history story, and thanks to everybody who share their stories
Speaker 1: with us. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: is our email address and for links to all of
Speaker 1: our social media as well as all of our blog post,
Speaker 1: videos and podcasts which include our sources so you can
Speaker 1: follow along. There's one place to go, and it's stuff
Speaker 1: Mom never told you. Dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics because at how stuff works.
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