Sleep Better with Dr. Lynelle Schneeberg | Hot Flashes & Cool Topics

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/p4wj2w/lynelle_final_-_12_6_21_527_PM82aet.mp3

EPISODE SUMMARY:

As a board-certified sleep psychologist and assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Lynelle Schneeberg has used her expertise to develop helpful guides and steps to help parents teach their children how to become better sleepers. In today’s episode, we sat down with Dr. Schneeberg to discuss midlife sleep struggles, insomnia, waking up in the middle of the night, and tips to better sleep in midlife.

First, we asked Dr. Schneeberg about the sleep struggles we experience in our lives, especially during midlife. She explained that when we are dealing with something that wakes us up in the middle of the night, we begin to stress about being awake. From that stress comes an association with our bed to frustration, which can then lead to patterns of poor sleep and insomnia. Many try to solve this problem by going to bed earlier or staying in bed later, but by doing so, you’re only adding more time for your body to be in bed and stress while you’re awake. To help treat her patients struggling with insomnia, Dr. Schneeberg uses cognitive behavioral therapy. She has them log their sleep patterns for two weeks and, through a process called sleep compression, uses the results to find out what times a person tends to fall asleep and create a sleep schedule that accommodates those times. Another strategy she uses is stimulus control therapy, which consists of a person keeping something by their bed that is relaxing and distracting to help them fall back asleep. Someone can keep a book, listen to a podcast or audiobook, or even do a crossword puzzle until they feel themselves getting tired. We also asked Dr. Schneeberg her opinion on sleep apps, and she said that while they can be helpful, some sleep apps are not engaging enough for people. On sleep apps, she recommends using the feature where people read stories to help you fall asleep.

For those struggling with hot flashes, falling asleep and staying asleep can be a challenge. Dr. Schneeberg recommended that you should look at the various environmental factors in your bedroom to help with sleep. You can check what pajamas you’re wearing, if the temperature in your bedroom can be changed, if your partner is keeping you awake, etc. When asked what midlife women should avoid before bed, Dr. Schneeberg said that for those with children, ensuring your child is a good sleeper will help you have uninterrupted sleep. She also suggested having a bedtime routine and finding that window of time during the night where you feel most drowsy to try and fall asleep during.

Waking up during the night may seem like a problem, but accoding to Dr. Schneeberg, it’s normal. Everyone wakes up anywhere from two to six times a night. However, once you wake up and begin stressing about it, that is when the lack of sleep can occur. We also discussed core sleep, and Dr. Scneebergtold us that through a hyponogram, one can see the different stages of sleep: deep sleep, REM sleep, stage one, stage two, and stage three. Deep sleep can be more important that REM sleep, for it happens at the beginning of the night. The first five and a half hours of sleep a person gets are the best sleep, and if someone receives that much sleep and then is awake the rest of the night, they have gotten enough rest to function. This information helps lessen people’s sleep anxiety, for if they’ve already gotten five and a half hours, they do not awaken stressed about not getting enough sleep. Dr. Schneeberg also told us about a study conducted with good sleepers. The sleepers were taken to a sleep lab and told that whoever fell asleep first would get money. As expected, no one fell asleep, for they were all so stressed about sleeping that rest was impossible. When asked about the importance of having a sleep routine, Dr. Schneebergsaid that all the best sleepers wake up and go to bed at the same times. Everyone needs different amounts of sleep with their routines, which is why she believes high schools and elementary schools should start at different times. She also told us that the concept of “catching up” on sleep is not really realistic, for attempting to “catch up” only further throws off your internal clock.

Napping is a common way people gain more sleep, and Dr. Schneeberg assured us that taking a nap is completely fine, as long as it is at the right time and the right length. Naps should ideally be taken between 12 PM and 4 PM and be around thirty minutes to an hour long. Taking a nap too late or early can affect your sleep schedule for the entire day. For the first steps to take when struggling with insomnia, Dr. Schneeberg instructed that you first go to a sleep center to see a sleep doctor. After you’re evaluated for medical sleep disorders, you should then go to a sleep psychologist who can help you deal with any stress, anxiety, depression, or environmental factors that may be causing your sleep problems. We also asked about sleep tips for adults, and she recommended the same steps, especially since adults need help reassociating their bed with relaxation and sleep.

When asked about ways to help midlife women with young children get better sleep, Dr. Schneeberg spoke about the accidental mistakes parents make when sleep training. By laying down in your child’s bed with them until they fall asleep, you’re creating a pattern where the child cannot sleep without you there and will seek you out in the middle of the night. To help fix the problem, Dr. Schneeberg suggested a trick called the bedtime ticket. You give your child a few “tickets”, which can be anything from sticky notes to pieces of paper. When they ask for you or something else in the middle of the night, you have them give you a ticket before doing it. When they run out of tickets, they have to go to sleep. It is also helpful to keep a basket of things that your child finds relaxing by their bedside that they can use when struggling to sleep.

Finally, we asked Dr. Schneeberg for her opinion on sleep supplements. She explained that while many people try melatonin and other supplements, she prefers to fix the problem at its source. However, she does suggest the rescue protocol, which is when a person keeps a reliable sleep aid in their medicine cabinet to use if they do not sleep well for two nights in a row.

Dr. Lynelle Schneeberg

Dr. Lynelle Schneeberg, PsyD, is a sleep psychologist, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine and the director of the behavioral sleep program at ConnecticutChildren’s Medical Center. As a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, she is one of only about 200 board-certified sleep psychologists in the country and she works with both adults and children. She uses cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) to help adults sleep well and she designs behavioral sleep plans to help parents teach their kids to be great sleepers.

Most sleep books are aimed at parents of babies and toddlers but her book, Become Your Child’s Sleep Coach: The Bedtime Doctor’s 5-Step Guide, Ages 3-10, was written for the parents of school-age children. A striking 80% of preschooler parents saythat their children’s sleep needs improvement, but these parents can’t use the sleep methods that work for babies. Their children can walk and talk, and this can make the process much more complicated.

Her 5-step guide was developed from years of experience working with families and from her training in sleep medicine, so it is both evidence-based and experience-based. She enjoys helping parents teach their kids to become great sleepers and wrote the book to share her secrets with a wider audience. She is also a parent of three, so she knows both professionally and personally how important it is to help kids become greatsleepers!

In this episode, we discuss…

• [0:01] Introduction

• [0:20] Guest Introduction

• [4:18] Start of Interview

• [5:14] Sleep Struggles in Midlife

• [14:12] Thoughts on Sleep Apps

• [16:07] Other Ways to Help Insomnia

• [19:45] What Midlife Women Should Avoid Before Bed

• [22:00] Waking Up in the Middle of the Night

• [23:47] Core Sleep

• [27:04] Sunset Lakes CBD

• [29:11] Having a Routine