Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie oh in Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
Speaker 1: I never told your protection if I heard ideas how
Speaker 1: stuff first? Did they get you? You kind of like
Speaker 1: you're going to start laughing A little bit? Did, but
Speaker 1: I held it to be and then you called it
Speaker 1: because it's fun. Always trying to mess up on my No.
Speaker 1: I love a good in sponts in spontaneous, impromptu, spontaneous,
Speaker 1: that's what I was trying to do. I liked it.
Speaker 1: You can find in spontaneous laughter. Yes, yes, always good
Speaker 1: to fix up the intros, you know. Yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 1: it for our Classic Today listeners. As you probably know,
Speaker 1: we recently did an episode on sleeping or the difficulty
Speaker 1: the lack thereof. Yes, and it's a proposed for me
Speaker 1: because last night I think I got one or two
Speaker 1: hours what I did, I only got five hours last night,
Speaker 1: surpresently because I stayed up doing word searches. I got
Speaker 1: a new book. I got really excited and just started
Speaker 1: kept going and typically it helps me go to sleep.
Speaker 1: Now I got rebbed up. Oh man, I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta hang out with you. I don't bother you, but
Speaker 1: I gotta see this word search thing go down. I
Speaker 1: feel really old when I talked about it, because I
Speaker 1: mentioned it with the Daily Slight guys, then they were
Speaker 1: like what. I just think it's a very unique hobby.
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it, and I want we'll
Speaker 1: hang out and maybe so you'll do crafting of your
Speaker 1: costumes and I'll do word searches as we have some
Speaker 1: kind of Marvel or Harry Potter movie going on, or
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about heathers again. Okay, if we want heathers,
Speaker 1: you have to pay attention. You're making this into I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make it Marvel. You're trying to do heathers.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a weird crossover thing, could you imagine.
Speaker 1: I find it very funny that word searches does not
Speaker 1: like help your sleep. It makes sure. Typically I usually
Speaker 1: do it to calm down and just get my mind
Speaker 1: off things, so I need I'm one of those that
Speaker 1: if I'm sitting listening through a lecture or something, I
Speaker 1: need to be doodling. Um. I hear and process things
Speaker 1: that way because I need to. And it's of course
Speaker 1: nonsensical patterns or something that I'm just or outlining things.
Speaker 1: But it's also one of those that I hear things
Speaker 1: and associate things together. I don't know why, but the
Speaker 1: words such asn't one of those as well, that I
Speaker 1: could just sit and kind of blank out but pay
Speaker 1: attention at the same time. I don't know what I
Speaker 1: get that. That's the kind of like hiking. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I can like move and blank. Oh see, I have
Speaker 1: to pay attention or I die, literally like I fall.
Speaker 1: If we've talked about the rolling down the hill things,
Speaker 1: I've twisted my ankle so many times, so many times. Sucks.
Speaker 1: It's bad, and it becomes a bigger problem when you
Speaker 1: are sleep deprived. Oh yeah, that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Get back to that. Yes, um. As we mentioned inside,
Speaker 1: we recently did insomnia, which is kind of what both
Speaker 1: of us are alluding to suffering from. Right, um, is
Speaker 1: a big problem among women. It's a bigger problem among
Speaker 1: women than men. And our past, our predecessors, Kristin, Caroline,
Speaker 1: the legends, the legends, we going there. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: unfortunate for me because Caroline is one of my closest
Speaker 1: friends and I'm like, damn it, that shadow is so
Speaker 1: huge it just lingers everywhere. Well, we keep bringing back
Speaker 1: the classics, so it's true, but it's worth it. It is.
Speaker 1: It is that absolutely is. They did an entire episode
Speaker 1: devoted to the female insomniac, so we thought we would
Speaker 1: share it with you today. Enjoy. Welcome to stuff Mom
Speaker 1: Never told you. From how stupp works dot com. Salman,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin, and
Speaker 1: today I really wanted to bring our listeners and authentic
Speaker 1: and genuine experience. Kristen, I am coming into this topic
Speaker 1: of insomnia completely sleep deprived. Oh no, I I do
Speaker 1: suffer abouts of crazy insomnia. Nothing like chronic, nothing long term,
Speaker 1: nothing health issue related. It's more anxiety. I tend to
Speaker 1: suffer from anxiety on and off, and it causes these
Speaker 1: spirals of sleeplessness because whatever makes me anxious, whether it's
Speaker 1: work or personal stuff, I suddenly lose the ability to sleep.
Speaker 1: And then the more tired I get, the more panicked
Speaker 1: I get that next night about sleeping, and a vicious
Speaker 1: cycle of insomnia is created. Well, Caroline, I you're really
Speaker 1: a method podcaster. Do what I do what I can.
Speaker 1: It's immersing yourself in the topic, and I'm sure that
Speaker 1: there are so many listeners who can relate to that
Speaker 1: very cycle of insomnia the you experience. Well, I would
Speaker 1: assume there are a lot of listeners out there who
Speaker 1: could relate to it, because insomnia is something that I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people. It's a health issue
Speaker 1: that a lot of people talk about, a lot of
Speaker 1: people experience. Certainly here in the U S 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 sources,
Speaker 1: and sleep deprivation was also estimated to cost US businesses
Speaker 1: one hundred fifty billion dollars annually in lost productivity. I
Speaker 1: believe it like when you come to work sleep and
Speaker 1: I don't mean you, like you Kristen Conger, Like when
Speaker 1: Kristen Conger comes to work sleep deprived, but when the
Speaker 1: general you comes to work sleep deprived, and me specifically,
Speaker 1: and and me, let's be honest, I mean it is
Speaker 1: so easy for instance, I don't know to like find
Speaker 1: yourself staring out the window and realize you've just been
Speaker 1: sitting there for ten minutes not doing anything, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: your brain is just shutting down. Um. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: they're actually eighty eight known sleep disorders and insomnia. Even
Speaker 1: though we're probably all familiar with what it is, in general,
Speaker 1: it's one of the least understood scientifically speaking, Like doctors
Speaker 1: still aren't entirely sure what causes insomnia. We know what
Speaker 1: it does. Yeah, Well, I mean when you when you
Speaker 1: look at the causes and effects of insomnia and the
Speaker 1: fact that they are underlying health conditions, but it's sort
Speaker 1: of it gets into a chicken and the egg thing like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: insomnia can cause things like depression and anxiety, but it's
Speaker 1: also caused by depression and anxiety, and it leads to
Speaker 1: some some awful things during your day that you have
Speaker 1: to deal with. Yeah. And the big reason why we're
Speaker 1: talking about insomnia on the podcast is because it overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: affects more women than men. So first, why don't we
Speaker 1: just talk about insomnia in general, which is a sleep
Speaker 1: disorder characterized by difficulty falling and or staying asleep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And some other symptoms include just being sleepy during the day,
Speaker 1: feeling tired when you wake up, that feeling like you're
Speaker 1: never refreshed, irritability, problems with concentration and memory tension, headaches,
Speaker 1: and of course mine, which is like ongoing worries about sleep,
Speaker 1: like will I will I ever be able to sleep again? Well,
Speaker 1: would you characterize here insomnia then as the acute insomnia
Speaker 1: or chronic insomnia? Well, I would say that about that
Speaker 1: I had a couple of months ago, I would say
Speaker 1: that was definitely acute because it's short term and versus
Speaker 1: chronic which is at least three nights a week for
Speaker 1: a month or longer. Um, it was awful, and it
Speaker 1: was constant, and then it was and then it was
Speaker 1: just gone. It fixed itself over a Memorial Day weekend,
Speaker 1: thank goodness. And that insomnia that I was suffering from,
Speaker 1: that acute insomnia, I'm pretty sure it was primary insomnia
Speaker 1: versus secondaries. So primaries like just regular run of the
Speaker 1: mill can't sleep because you're feeling crazy, versus secondary which
Speaker 1: is actually sleep problems caused by a health condition. So
Speaker 1: it's like if insomnia comes into your bedroom just on
Speaker 1: its own like, hey, it's just if it's just man,
Speaker 1: it is a kool Aid man of insomnia of sleep disorders,
Speaker 1: then that's primary. But if it's say, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: say depression walks into your bedroom, is like, hey, also
Speaker 1: I brought along, Uh, it's really cool friend of mine insomnia, Yeah,
Speaker 1: have fun with both of us, then it's secondary. Oh man,
Speaker 1: what a great medical doctor. I wouldn't make well In
Speaker 1: speaking of secondary insomnia, depression, as I just mentioned, is
Speaker 1: often linked to it also things like anxiety and stress,
Speaker 1: And according to a recent study that came out from
Speaker 1: the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, it's not just the
Speaker 1: stress itself, it's also how we react to stress, which
Speaker 1: can exacerbate insomnia. Yeah, if you're not dealing with your stress,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure a lot of people out there familiar
Speaker 1: with us, I'm certainly familiar with us. If you're not
Speaker 1: dealing with your stress and you're using poor coping mechanisms
Speaker 1: to try to work around it, like turning to alcohol
Speaker 1: instead of stress reduction techniques, We're all guilty of a
Speaker 1: glass of peno grigia now and again, and that can
Speaker 1: actually contribute to your stress induced insomnia. And there are
Speaker 1: also a number of medical conditions such as issues with
Speaker 1: chronic pain, breathing difficulties, or needing to urinate frequently that
Speaker 1: can provoke insomnia because you know you're having to you know,
Speaker 1: it's waking you up constantly during the night. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then of course there are things like poor sleep habits,
Speaker 1: medications and things like caffeine, which is an obvious one, nicotine,
Speaker 1: and also alcohol. And you know, I think that this
Speaker 1: is common knowledge, but it's worth repeating that a lot
Speaker 1: of people do kind of turn to alcohol to wind
Speaker 1: down at the end of the day. But anyone who
Speaker 1: has ever gone to bed after having a little too
Speaker 1: much to drink might be familiar with the phenomenon of
Speaker 1: waking up suddenly and being like, oh, well, the alcohol
Speaker 1: were off, and now I'm not sleeping well at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or you might sleep through the night, but it's not
Speaker 1: RESTful sleep, it's just drunk sleep. And then which is
Speaker 1: not good, I guess. But that's something completely different from insomnia,
Speaker 1: but it can contribute well. It can also contribute in
Speaker 1: relation to alcohol. Speaking of alcohol, is your good old
Speaker 1: handy dandy period. It's so handy and dandy, both so
Speaker 1: during your period, your progesterone. Your hormone progesterone is highest
Speaker 1: around ovulation and during your luteal or post ovulation phase,
Speaker 1: and 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 hormones. I just picture like a giant crowd of
Speaker 1: hormones all waving like penance. They're like at a football game,
Speaker 1: like I'm not gonna let you sleep. So, now that
Speaker 1: we've established all the myriad ways that we can be
Speaker 1: robbed of our sleep, the next question is, well, what
Speaker 1: does insomnia do to you? And it's no big surprise
Speaker 1: that it's a host of not so fun things like
Speaker 1: 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 weighting
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 at all. Cylinders. There was a
Speaker 1: study in two thousand 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 that'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
Speaker 1: they after like two good solid nights of sleep, recover
Speaker 1: better 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 difficulties 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 apnea as men are,
Speaker 1: But once they get past menopause they catch up to
Speaker 1: men in those lucky ladies. Yeah, and after menopause too,
Speaker 1: as we'll talk about more, the rates of insomnia among
Speaker 1: women escalate as well. Right, Well, what's dangerous about this
Speaker 1: whole sleep apnea depression insomnia link is that because doctors
Speaker 1: are kind of programmed to use not the best term,
Speaker 1: but kind of programmed to think that it happens more
Speaker 1: frequently in men than in women, they might overlook the
Speaker 1: signs of sleep appnian women and so, oh, you're just depressed,
Speaker 1: you're just tired, But really, she has possibly a serious
Speaker 1: health issue going on. I'm programmed to say this. I'm
Speaker 1: a doctor, robot Dr Kristen, Yes, Chris and robot um. Well,
Speaker 1: now that we've talked about a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: external factors that interact with insomnia and promote cycles of insomnia,
Speaker 1: in women. Let's really focus in now on sleep and
Speaker 1: how that interacts with gender, because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of different gendered patterns. It turns out of how we rest,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about that when we get right
Speaker 1: back from a quick break. So to first kick off
Speaker 1: this closer look at gender and sleep, I just want
Speaker 1: to toss out this historical tidbit from Insomnia, a Cultural
Speaker 1: History by Elena's Summers Bremner, who talks about how in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century there was at least one doctor who
Speaker 1: claimed that women need more sleep because we're prone to
Speaker 1: nervous excitability, while another doctor in the nineteenth century thought
Speaker 1: of insomnia as a morbid deficiency of the brain, which
Speaker 1: was why women need more sleep. There has for a
Speaker 1: long time been a lot of focus on women and sleeping,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, just not for such fantastic reasons.
Speaker 1: In the past. There there was also this guy named
Speaker 1: s Weir Mitchell Um who in the late nineteenth century
Speaker 1: developed what he called this rest cure for women's hysteria,
Speaker 1: And essentially he would lock up women in a room
Speaker 1: and just force them to do like absolutely nothing whatsoever
Speaker 1: to try to just I guess, break them down and
Speaker 1: cause them to be less hysterical. Yeah, look, you're expressing
Speaker 1: your opinion way too much. We need you to go
Speaker 1: in this room and just rest. Yeah, I know, and
Speaker 1: rest care sounds so nice. I would love to take
Speaker 1: 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, according
Speaker 1: to research from the Pew Center, you take more naps.
Speaker 1: Thirty eight percent of men reported napping versus of women,
Speaker 1: So not a major difference there. But when it comes
Speaker 1: to who needs more sleep, doctors say women be needing
Speaker 1: some sleep because of our hysterical uterus is no caroline, No,
Speaker 1: it's actually at least agreeing to professor Jim Horne, who's
Speaker 1: director of the Sleep Research Center at Lowborough University in England.
Speaker 1: It has to do with our tendency to multitask. Yeah,
Speaker 1: women do multitask more than men do. That's on any
Speaker 1: blog you'll find out there that'll tell you that. But
Speaker 1: apparently women need twenty minutes extra deep sleep in order
Speaker 1: to rest our core text. The cortex during the night
Speaker 1: needs you to sleep so that it can disengage from
Speaker 1: 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 though sometimes Caroline, Well, sure,
Speaker 1: 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 undiagnosed adult a d D kicks in and I'll
Speaker 1: just I'll start something over here, and then I'll move
Speaker 1: over here and do something else, and then by then
Speaker 1: my cortex is just like we don't even know what's
Speaker 1: going on? Go to sleep? And then he just just
Speaker 1: face plant on your cubicle. Yes, if you ever walked
Speaker 1: by me and I'm just like face down the cubicle
Speaker 1: with the space bargain owing 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 when 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 ountain
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 gus 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 of
Speaker 1: these things that insomnia 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 and 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: late doing that 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 in 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 adolescence 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: bloat 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 proges their own rises and actually chills out
Speaker 1: our sleep. Patterns a little bit. Progesterone is more strongly
Speaker 1: related with good sleep, So hooray progesterone. But then a
Speaker 1: few days before your period starts, when both progesterone and
Speaker 1: estrogen levels drop, you have a spike in insomnia. And
Speaker 1: then during the follicular phase, which is menstruation to ovulation,
Speaker 1: you have energy supplementing estrogen building up until ovulation, which
Speaker 1: is also when you see levels in insomnia rise. So
Speaker 1: we have like a brief window during our menstrual cycles.
Speaker 1: What is that right after ovulation when progesterone is like, hey, friends,
Speaker 1: here are a few nights over risk. Progesterone comes along,
Speaker 1: sprinkling fairy dust on your eyes, and then es estrogen
Speaker 1: bust into the bedroom is like, oh yeah, well, so
Speaker 1: so does birth control? I mean, do different types of
Speaker 1: birth control then effect insomnia. We did not look into that, Caroline,
Speaker 1: But I just want, I mean, I wonder it must
Speaker 1: it must I feel like and this could be mental,
Speaker 1: this could be a total coincidence. But when I switched
Speaker 1: from the pill to an I U D, I feel
Speaker 1: like I experience more intense insomnia. I'm on a hormonal
Speaker 1: iu D, so I I don't know maybe, so maybe
Speaker 1: someone out there can tell us. I would only imagine
Speaker 1: that if you are on some kind of hormonal birth
Speaker 1: control that it must influence your sleep because progesterone and
Speaker 1: estrogen are so commonly linked to it. Yeah, well so,
Speaker 1: But speaking of not being on birth control, during pregnancy,
Speaker 1: especially in women's third trimester and after childbirth, women experience
Speaker 1: these profound fluctuations in their steroid related hormones and those
Speaker 1: hormones that are involved in the whole hypothalamic pituitary adrenal
Speaker 1: grouping of hormones that produce significant physiological changes. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: apparently during the third crimemester, not only are you having
Speaker 1: some hormonal fluctuations that contribute to insomnia, but it's also
Speaker 1: the fact that your belly is so large and you
Speaker 1: have to go to the bathroom more often that will
Speaker 1: again wake you up. Yea, So that sounds more like
Speaker 1: like a secondary insomnia that it's caused by not a
Speaker 1: not a health problem, but a body issue. A baby.
Speaker 1: It's caused by a growing baby. Oh that's what it is,
Speaker 1: all right. Well, so, once you've crested that hill and
Speaker 1: you're coasting into menopause, of course your sleep is also
Speaker 1: going to be disrupted then, because why wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: because menopausal women experienced wonderful things like hot flashes and
Speaker 1: night sweats. And this is during this time you get
Speaker 1: things like a diminished production of estrogen and particularly pro
Speaker 1: just aone that affects your sleep. Yeah, it in fact
Speaker 1: does not get better when it comes to insomnia as
Speaker 1: we age. Right, And like we mentioned earlier with the
Speaker 1: sleep apnea stuff, menopause is when women really catch up
Speaker 1: to men in terms of experiencing that really bad health
Speaker 1: issue that doctor. You should definitely go to a doctor
Speaker 1: and get checked out. But yeah, so you're experiencing night
Speaker 1: sweats and hot flashes and you probably are developing sleep apnea.
Speaker 1: And I mean, man, your body is just throwing you
Speaker 1: for a loop. Thanks a lot, body, And well, speaking
Speaker 1: of a time when your body kind of throws you
Speaker 1: for a loop. If you're wondering when this gender gap
Speaker 1: in insomnia really starts to widen, it is during puberty.
Speaker 1: This is from study in pediatrics that came out in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six looking at gender differences in insomnia
Speaker 1: among adolescents, and it found that when girls started getting
Speaker 1: their periods, they became two and a half times likelier
Speaker 1: than boys to have insomnia. So yet again we have
Speaker 1: hormones and specifically progesterin, estrogen, etcetera, being strongly related to
Speaker 1: our sleep or lack thereof. Yeah, so leading up to puberty,
Speaker 1: there's really no huge significant gap between boys and girls
Speaker 1: in terms of having insomnia, but that onset of a
Speaker 1: girl's period is associated with a two point seven fivefold
Speaker 1: increased risk for insomnia. Now, one other gender gap that
Speaker 1: also emerges during puberty that we've talked about before on
Speaker 1: the podcast is how among girls rates of depression and
Speaker 1: anxiety also increased. So one thing that these researchers looked
Speaker 1: at was whether or not it was puberty related onset
Speaker 1: of depression that might have been fostering cycles of insomnia,
Speaker 1: and it and another study that we looked at examining
Speaker 1: adult female insomniacs both concluded that it is not specifically
Speaker 1: the depress shan and anxiety that are to blame for
Speaker 1: these higher rates of insomnia. Again, it always goes back
Speaker 1: to those hormonal factors. So all of us to say,
Speaker 1: the research that we found states that it is not
Speaker 1: depression and other kinds of psychiatric issues that are causing insomnia.
Speaker 1: They're sort of they're interrelated, but they aren't codependent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one doesn't necessarily have to depend on the other one happen. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, we were just talking about menopause. So if
Speaker 1: we're if we're looking, if we're continuing to look at
Speaker 1: age groups and insomnia. Uh. The American Journal of Geriatric
Speaker 1: Psychiatry INN looked at about three thousand each of men
Speaker 1: and women sixty five and older, and they performed a
Speaker 1: meta analysis and found that elderly women were at the
Speaker 1: highest risk of insomnia. So, like christ and said, it
Speaker 1: just darnwell never gets better. They out that more than
Speaker 1: sevent 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 were 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 guzzle that olive oil, drink it up,
Speaker 1: 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: preached against in every other I mean, I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess in moderation, but I don't. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe these women were really enjoying a
Speaker 1: Mediterranean diet that included a lot of red wine. Well,
Speaker 1: and you know what, when I'm post menopausal, I will
Speaker 1: I my coffee and wine if I want it. I
Speaker 1: earned it. But yeah. They also cited hormonal replacement therapy
Speaker 1: as another protective factor, which they also noted was a
Speaker 1: bit of a controversial suggestion because not everybody is a
Speaker 1: fan of hormone replacement therapy. But it makes sense because
Speaker 1: of yet again, those hormonal connections to insomnia. Because this
Speaker 1: was the one thing that I didn't find in our
Speaker 1: research was like, okay, well, scientists seem to know that
Speaker 1: our menstrual cycles have a large influence on insomnia. So
Speaker 1: is there any any kind of treatment for that, any
Speaker 1: kind of way to Nope, I saw nothing. It was
Speaker 1: basically just like, well, here here's the information. Uh take
Speaker 1: 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 was 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: in the premise for it was researchers being like, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we hear all the time about how women are,
Speaker 1: you know, have a harder time with insomnia, But is
Speaker 1: that really true? Is just just sort of a methodological trick?
Speaker 1: Are women just more likely to seek treatment for it?
Speaker 1: Is it because women are more depressed? Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: they concluded that okay, actually yes, they looked at twenty
Speaker 1: seven studies. Yes, women actually do have legitimately a worse
Speaker 1: time with insomnia, except in Japan. Yeah, this is so interesting.
Speaker 1: The study authors think that the lack of gender differences
Speaker 1: in insomnia, the fact that it's pretty much even Stephen,
Speaker 1: is based on the fact that there's less variation in
Speaker 1: Japanese society's sociodemographic and psychological characteristics. But see, that's curious
Speaker 1: to me because when it comes to at least gender
Speaker 1: roles in Japan, from what I've read and also heard
Speaker 1: from people living in Japan, um, it's less progressive. It's
Speaker 1: more their generals are more traditional than they would be
Speaker 1: in the West. Well, I think, I mean, in my brain,
Speaker 1: not having like gone into this very deeply, that kind
Speaker 1: of actually makes sense because if people are very set
Speaker 1: in their roles and they're comfortable with their roles, and
Speaker 1: nobody's trying to, like, you know, cause a revolution or anything,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a feminist revolution or anything. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe people are just sleeping better if if things are
Speaker 1: very set in your society. And I'm, of course I'm
Speaker 1: painting this all with a very broad Well, Carolyn, I
Speaker 1: think we've figured it out down with feministinism is ruining
Speaker 1: everyone's sleep. Please don't write me letters. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't believe that I'm writing you a letter right now, Carolin,
Speaker 1: I'm multitasking. God, your cortex is going to need so
Speaker 1: much rest tonight. But I am curious then if there
Speaker 1: are any listeners in Japan who can give us some insights,
Speaker 1: please let us know, because this was even something that
Speaker 1: the researchers couldn't explain in the study. They were like,
Speaker 1: there's something about Japan, and they even broaden it to
Speaker 1: just East Asia in general. So I wonder what it
Speaker 1: is about sleep patterns there, because if you look at
Speaker 1: the history of sleep, like in the West, the way
Speaker 1: that we sleep has changed since the Industrial Revolution, where
Speaker 1: 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, sitting naked in
Speaker 1: his armchair reading. I'm picturing it. I'm picturing it too.
Speaker 1: I bet it was refreshing. Well, I don't have to
Speaker 1: be awfully chili. Yeah, well, well we now need to
Speaker 1: talk about treatments for insomnia. Perhaps the cold air bath
Speaker 1: will do you. Um, when it comes to acute insomnia,
Speaker 1: those brief windows of sleepless nights, it might happen. Treatment
Speaker 1: just might not be required. It will probably go away
Speaker 1: on its own, Yeah, exactly. For the chronic insomniacs out there, however,
Speaker 1: you might want to seek treatment, and that could include
Speaker 1: treating underlying causes of insomnia. For instance, Um, a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, I was like not sleeping at all,
Speaker 1: I was really stressed out, and my doctor prescribed me ambient,
Speaker 1: when really I probably should have been going to a
Speaker 1: therapist and dealing with my incredible levels of anxiety, because
Speaker 1: once you treat that anxiety, that tends to chip away
Speaker 1: at insomnia. Yeah. And speaking of therapy, they're all sorts
Speaker 1: of behavioral therapies developed for helping sleep and curing insomnia,
Speaker 1: as such as relaxation exercises, something called sleep restriction therapy,
Speaker 1: which is on the more extreme end of these behavioral
Speaker 1: therapies where if you say, can't ever fall asleep until
Speaker 1: like four in the morning, then, according to sleep restriction
Speaker 1: therapy P, you would make yourself stay awake, not get
Speaker 1: in bed until four in the morning, and make yourself
Speaker 1: sleep through the night. And so it would basically be
Speaker 1: like training your brain to say, oh, well, I got
Speaker 1: in bed and then I fell asleep. Yes, it was
Speaker 1: four in the morning, and then you gradually like step
Speaker 1: 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 would 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: it 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 of not sleeping, well, I knew that if I did,
Speaker 1: I would just lie there and sweat, just sweat the bed.
Speaker 1: I should I sweat the bed um. But also, like
Speaker 1: you know, we we've mentioned um sleep ap 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 c
Speaker 1: PAP machine. I have a friend who got a c
Speaker 1: PAT machine and he sleeps like a baby. Now, my
Speaker 1: mother was prescribed a CPAP machine, but she refuses to
Speaker 1: use it because she's too proud. What does a c
Speaker 1: PAP machine look like? It's it's a big, old robot
Speaker 1: looking thing. Like you don't want it. You don't want
Speaker 1: to have sleep at me, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: have to use a c PAP machine. But it can
Speaker 1: be life changing for people who use it. It It
Speaker 1: involves um putting like a mask over your mouth and 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 that 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 explodahiyah. 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: in all the way back, but in nineteen seventy you
Speaker 1: have del Maine, which was the first benzo diazepine explicitly
Speaker 1: approved by the f d A as a sleeping pill.
Speaker 1: Fast forward all the way to two thousand six and
Speaker 1: prescriptions of sleeping pills hit forty nine million. Ambience Manufacturer
Speaker 1: estimated that that pill in particular had been taken twelve
Speaker 1: billion times worldwide. Now, the number of pizzas that have
Speaker 1: been sleep eaten on ambience still unknown, And according to
Speaker 1: data from the CDC as of two thousand thirteen, around
Speaker 1: four percent of Americans we're using prescriptions sleep aids and
Speaker 1: are used more commonly surprise among women and older adults.
Speaker 1: But the trouble with these sleeping pills is that they
Speaker 1: might not actually be improving the quality of sleep that
Speaker 1: you get. There was one study that was cited in
Speaker 1: The New York Times talking about how and I don't
Speaker 1: have the exact figures in front of me, but it
Speaker 1: was something along the lines of taking a sleeping pill,
Speaker 1: and it helped the people fall asleep less than fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes faster than the people who didn't take that. And
Speaker 1: then it's the question of, well, what kind of sleep
Speaker 1: are you actually getting when you pop an ambient or
Speaker 1: a lamask or something like that, because you might not
Speaker 1: be getting as deep of asleep as you would otherwise. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: the whole thing with ambient, and I am someone who
Speaker 1: takes ambient now, and again, it's not so much that
Speaker 1: it's knocking you out cold for the whole night, especially
Speaker 1: if you're taking a really low dose like I do,
Speaker 1: because that's more of the placebo effect. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: The thing with ambient and other pills like it is
Speaker 1: that it gives you temporary amnesia. So when you wake
Speaker 1: up during the middle of the night, Let's say you
Speaker 1: roll over and you can't go back to sleep, and
Speaker 1: you're panicked about it, and you wake up the next
Speaker 1: day and you're like, God, I just know I slept
Speaker 1: terribly and um, so I'm going today is going to
Speaker 1: be awful. With ambien, you forget that you ever rolled over,
Speaker 1: or you forget that you had that moment of like
Speaker 1: waking up and looking out the window or something crazy,
Speaker 1: or you know, getting up and eating a pizza. It
Speaker 1: just kind of gives you the impression when you wake
Speaker 1: up the next day that oh, I slept okay, and
Speaker 1: today is going to be great. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: some mind trickery going on, total mind trickery. And and
Speaker 1: in that New Yorker piece, they were talking about drug
Speaker 1: reps who were working on medication that would be more
Speaker 1: like keep you more consistently asleep throughout the nights, so
Speaker 1: not just be that sudden, sudden onset of sleep and
Speaker 1: then you sort of toss and turn you just don't
Speaker 1: remember it. They're trying to work on pills that actually
Speaker 1: keep you asleep, but there's all these questions of safety
Speaker 1: and so we'll see. Well, and then there's the whole
Speaker 1: factor of lifestyle issues related to how we sleep. I mean,
Speaker 1: clearly when it comes to you know, sleep on the
Speaker 1: hormonal level and insomnia and all of that. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't think that you know, don't look at your cell
Speaker 1: phone an hour before you go to bed is really
Speaker 1: going to cut it. But there are so many different
Speaker 1: behavioral tips and tricks that are endlessly cycled and recycled
Speaker 1: on the internet that I don't think we even need
Speaker 1: to go through on the podcast. They're so common, such as,
Speaker 1: you know, limit your screen time, make your bedroom cool,
Speaker 1: only use your bed for sleep or sex, etcetera, etcetera. Right,
Speaker 1: and there's some good behavioral suggestions that I hadn't really
Speaker 1: thought about. I mean, this seems like it's common since now,
Speaker 1: of course, And it's just exposing yourself to sunlight as
Speaker 1: soon as you can to sort of tell your body
Speaker 1: and your brain and all those pesky hormones that it's
Speaker 1: time to get up. They even suggest getting in an
Speaker 1: early morning walk with a friend as because you're combined
Speaker 1: social stuff, so you're using your brain to interact with
Speaker 1: your friend and then getting sunlight and exercise. And to me,
Speaker 1: I just, um, I'd rather be asleep. I socialized with
Speaker 1: NPR in the morning. I do too, sometimes I answer them.
Speaker 1: But the there was a question, though, posited in the
Speaker 1: New York Times article that we've been siding throughout the
Speaker 1: podcast as to whether we are now just fighting our
Speaker 1: ancestor's way of sleeping, which was you know Ben Franklin
Speaker 1: and his cold air baths, of sleeping in these four
Speaker 1: hour blocks and then waking up in the night, doing
Speaker 1: a few things and going back to sleep. Maybe we are,
Speaker 1: you know, forcing ourselves into unnatural sleep patterns. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a cultural global idea that you get in
Speaker 1: your pjs and you brush your teeth and you go
Speaker 1: to sleep for exactly eight hours and then you get
Speaker 1: up and you go be a very good citizen al
Speaker 1: in the world and work and and behave yourself and
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. But yeah, maybe we are just
Speaker 1: completely fighting nature, because it's not as if, you know,
Speaker 1: these ancestors who were getting up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, they'd sleep for hours, get up, do whatever,
Speaker 1: go back to sleep. It's not like they had it
Speaker 1: so so great. You know, we have all these temper
Speaker 1: pedic mattresses and these pitch black rooms and don't don't
Speaker 1: use any blue light. Oh god. But I mean they
Speaker 1: were sleeping, you know, thirty five people to a bed.
Speaker 1: They had like mice and who knows what mice and life.
Speaker 1: So let's bring back the mice. Let's get the thirty
Speaker 1: five people if we can just go back to the
Speaker 1: dark ages. But one thing that hasn't changed though through
Speaker 1: all of this is the menstrual cycle. It seems like
Speaker 1: I wonder if no matter what, if you know, all
Speaker 1: other factors controlled for if it's still like regardless, if
Speaker 1: women would have still have trouble with insomnia more than
Speaker 1: men because of our periods. Yeah, all those hormones fled
Speaker 1: down of the stadium being like peace out, see you later,
Speaker 1: see you went back when you can sleep again. I
Speaker 1: hope this was illuminating, though for not not too illuminating.
Speaker 1: They want people to be able to sleep calmly. I
Speaker 1: hope this shed a calm dim light for women in
Speaker 1: particular who do have trouble sleeping. And we want to
Speaker 1: hear from you. What's been your experience with insomnia and
Speaker 1: have you successfully overcome it and how did you do
Speaker 1: that to let us know so we can share your
Speaker 1: insights with everybody else. Mom Stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com is our email address. You can also tweet
Speaker 1: us at mom stuff podcast or messages on Facebook. And
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of messages to share with you
Speaker 1: right now. I've had a Facebook message here from Caitlin
Speaker 1: in response to our Explorer series episode on Seafaring Women,
Speaker 1: and she writes, Ladies, I am a marine scientists and
Speaker 1: literally whooped for joy when I saw your Seafaring Women
Speaker 1: podcast title. The timing is especially appropriate as I just
Speaker 1: returned from a research expedition at sea. I work in
Speaker 1: a deep sea research lab, and part of my job
Speaker 1: entails going out to sea to collect samples and study
Speaker 1: sites that can exist thousands of meters deep. When I
Speaker 1: tell friends and family that I'm heading to see the
Speaker 1: general consensus is that I'm sitting on deck sipping mohitos
Speaker 1: while waiting my turn to blaze shuffle board. Many folks
Speaker 1: have a hard time understanding why in the world I
Speaker 1: would even want to be stranded on a ship for
Speaker 1: multiple weeks at a time. It's true, even in this
Speaker 1: day and age, ship life can be challenging. No phone service,
Speaker 1: interimittent Internet, absolutely no Netflix. It's enough to send even
Speaker 1: the most adventurous person crazy after a while. I, however,
Speaker 1: embrace the isolation for one with no phone to serve
Speaker 1: as a distraction. People actually converse at meals. I've developed
Speaker 1: long lasting friendships with people I have sailed with because
Speaker 1: we were forced to look at each other in the
Speaker 1: eye and communicate without the assistance of emails, texts, and
Speaker 1: Facebook messages. Also, there's something absolutely breathtaking about looking around
Speaker 1: you in all directions and seeing no indication of human life.
Speaker 1: Some of the best star gazing I've ever done has
Speaker 1: been on a ship, and a huge incentive from the
Speaker 1: science perspective is that when I'm at sea, I am
Speaker 1: privy to something that not many people have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to see, the deep sea. I've traveled a couple of
Speaker 1: thousand feet deep in a submersible to a site that
Speaker 1: was little explored, and I can't even begin to describe
Speaker 1: what it feels like to know that you're seeing something
Speaker 1: that no one has ever seen before. It's surreal and
Speaker 1: it sounds surreal. She goes on to talk about how
Speaker 1: Rachel Carson and Sylvia Earle or Deepness have been long
Speaker 1: standing heroines of mine, and when I had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to meet Sylvia Earle, it took me thirty minutes to
Speaker 1: work up the nerve to talk to her, and she
Speaker 1: is amazing. As just a few resources if you're interested,
Speaker 1: I did outreach for deep sea research crews so you
Speaker 1: guys can read about life see at acid Horizon dot
Speaker 1: tumbler dot com. And for those of your listeners who
Speaker 1: are interested in exploring the deep sea from the comfort
Speaker 1: of their homes, check out nautilus live dot org. They
Speaker 1: have a live feed running from their ship and viewers
Speaker 1: can watch and listen to the scientists explore the sea floor.
Speaker 1: That is so cool, Caitlin, and thank you so much
Speaker 1: for writing in. And I have a letter here from Whitney,
Speaker 1: who is a woman after my own heart. She wrote
Speaker 1: us to share a story about her family history, particularly
Speaker 1: one woman named Penelope Um. She says the story is
Speaker 1: not exactly related to exploring, but to female perseverance in
Speaker 1: the settlement of North America. She says, I had remembered
Speaker 1: vague details about Penelope van prince Stout as a child,
Speaker 1: but recently found a family history book that went into
Speaker 1: much more detail around Penelope and her first husband set
Speaker 1: sail from Holland for New Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the ship they
Speaker 1: were on somehow sunk just off the coast of Sandy Hook,
Speaker 1: but most of the party made it to shore. Once
Speaker 1: on land, the party was attacked by Native Americans in
Speaker 1: the area, killing Penelope's husband. Penelope suffered major stomach wounds
Speaker 1: and hid in the hollow of a tree until another
Speaker 1: group of Native Americans founder. She lived in the natives
Speaker 1: village and was nursed back to health by them. Sometime later,
Speaker 1: she married Richard Stout and they moved to New Jersey
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty five. However, hardship was not over for Penelope.
Speaker 1: She had become close to the native tribe that saved
Speaker 1: her life, and when they heard of a planned attack
Speaker 1: on her settlement, they came to warner her husband, Richard
Speaker 1: either didn't believe her warnings about an attack or chose
Speaker 1: to stay in fight. As we can tell from her
Speaker 1: previous experience, as Penelope was not one to give up.
Speaker 1: Despite having one bum arm, she took her ten children
Speaker 1: in a canoe to safety without Richard. When I learned
Speaker 1: the story of Penelope, I felt honored to be distantly
Speaker 1: related to her. She was an explorer in her own right,
Speaker 1: living in a new land at a time when women
Speaker 1: were not allowed to be strong willed. I sincerely hope
Speaker 1: I inherited some of those traits along with her good genes.
Speaker 1: As she lived to be a hundred and ten years old, Whitney.
Speaker 1: That is so cool. Thank you so much for sharing
Speaker 1: your history story, and thanks to everybody to share their
Speaker 1: stories with us. Mom stuff at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com is our email address and for links to all
Speaker 1: of our social media as well as all of our
Speaker 1: blog post, videos, and podcasts which include our sources so
Speaker 1: you can follow along. There's one place to go, and
Speaker 1: it's stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com