Dr. E, the NP with a PHD, shares tips for getting enough sleep

well it is time to Spring Forward daylight saving time is now in effect and with it it's time to focus on sleep today March 10th is the first day of sleep awareness week and re research shows that a lack of sleep on a regular basis may lead to long-term health issues including diabetes high blood pressure depression even obesity to help us get some more shuty we all need it we have efro lamandre who uh known to her followers this is an incredible nickname by the way Dr E the NP with a PhD it alm

ost it comes with rhythm I love it good morning Dr e thank you for being here morning good morning thank you for having me so one of the things I'm told that you tell people all the time is to create a schedule now uh I'm sure for some people that's easy what would you say to two people you happen to be sharing a couch with whose schedules are a little unpredictable how much room for wiggle room is there in these that's a great question because you're right everyone has crazy schedules and somet

imes we travel between time zones and it's hard to set our schedule but what we need to do is set our internal clock our circadian rhythm and the way we do that is we take our Clues from the environment when the Sun rises when the sun sets so wherever you are whenever you are try to tell your brain what time it is look outside in the sun in the morning and in the evening let it know it's dark okay easier said than done cuz some of us get especially because we're the day after Daylight Saving her

e we are not even knowing when the sun's going to rise or set for a few days exactly exactly and what about caffeine because this is always m question what is the cut off for caffeine I suppose it depends on the person right right 100% right so if you don't have any trouble sleeping there's no cut off for you you're one of the lucky few but for anyone who's struggling with sleep you want to know that even though you have that 2 pm latte you're you might be done with it at 2 p.m. but your body's

not done processing it so if you're up at night staring at that ceiling wishing you could fall asleep it might be your 2PM latte and you want to cut it off at that point okay what about devices because you know this can be a point of contention right for a lot of folks and if you have kids and trying to get them off the devices what's the time frame generally speaking for people if they want to start you know that wind down routine how should they go about that and that's a hard one too you're r

ight because people really love their devices but about an hour before because that blue light that emits it actually tells your brain that it's daytime and it confuses it sends the wrong signal so you want to power down about an hour before you want to get that shut eye wow an hour without a device I feel like I'm out camping um but it sounds right it sounds like it works and I take your word for it um one of the things that also I know you discuss a lot and I've seen your podcast videos you're

so informative everybody should check out your work um shock thermal shock method can you tell us in our audience what that is and what does it do course so when we go to sleep our body automatically cools down so we want to try to mimic that to let the body know it's time to cool down and shut off so we could take a hot bath or a hot shower and when we step outside we have that automatic cool down and it sets the stage for sleep so it will work how about like having a little tea I've been tryi

ng to do this sleepy time tea is that kind of the same thing but from the inside well yeah well sleepy time tea if you have it every night is just about a routine and that's what we call Sleep hygiene getting that done every day let it's all about messaging to your body letting you know it's time to sleep okay I've Tak warm bath warm shower right before bed and some good tea apparently yeah and some good I I got a ela's raving about this sleepy time te sounds like but having a a day that starts

and has a middle and an end you're trying to tell your body okay the day is over the sun has set time to get into a different mode that's sort of what all of this is part of right exactly right it's to allow your brain to release the right chemicals to get you to sleep and the right chemicals for you to wake up in the morning yeah that's true they're connected it turns out uh Dr e thank you so much for being here I know that our audience needs the advice as badly as we do so thank you thank you

we'll be right back stay with us