Captivate Podcast: Sleeping Pills vs. Real Rest: Dr. Lucinda Sykes Shares the Science | EP034

Welcome everybody. I have a special guest here today who I'm going to have introduce yourself in just a moment. And today, the topic we're going to be addressing is sleep. If you're a caregiver, I bet that word doesn't cross your path as often as you would like. Most of us become sleep deprived pretty easily. So I was curious just how Lucinda, do we make that happen? Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what your research has been about? Lucinda Sykes, yeah,

thank you, Deborah. I'm very glad to be here. This topic and your audience, more broadly, is very close to my heart, and what I hope to do for you is to really look at the problem of sleeping pills. Now, my background is that I practice medicine for 40 years in Toronto, Canada. I in the last 23 years of my professional life, I was directing a clinic called meditation for health. I was teaching programs and mindfulness based stress reduction to patients who'd been referred to the clinic because they had all manner of medical conditions that are worsened by the stress reaction. So that's what I was doing. And then COVID came and I couldn't teach the groups anymore. I decided it was high time to retire anyway, and now I devoting my my work. I continue to work. I'm devoting my work to helping older women who are having a hard time sleeping. And my particular interest is the dangers of sleeping pills. Because, you know, the medical profession over prescribes sleeping pills, and what I hope to do for your audience is to look at all the research that shows the the dangers of sleeping pills, so that your your audience feels more equipped to make sensible decisions, to to help themselves so often, we're so devoted to other People that we maybe make a snap decision, and we, in the end, we end up harming ourselves, which is no good for anyone. Yeah,

I imagine not only asleep the problem, but also that people's needs are often discounted because doctors are busy and they have to make a decision quickly. So prescribing is easier than counseling there, or thinking about alternatives to a pill. So one of the questions I have for you is, how do I know as a caregiver, if I'm not getting enough sleep? Where? Let's start with the basic question there. How do I know that I'm not getting enough sleep?

Well, that's very interesting question. The sleep scientists would advise you to notice, do you are you sleepy during the day? So it's more than just being tired. It's about it you tend to fall asleep. That means you have not been getting enough sleep as well. You could kind of keep a running tally of the hours of sleep that you're getting. And ideally we want, uh, seven hours, seven to eight hours, that's ideal, but maybe nights go by we don't get the ideal, but overall we like to be getting seven to eight hours. You can also monitor how you are in the morning. Are you refreshed? You're waking up. You want to be able to be refreshed. That would be a way to approach Am I getting enough sleep? You can measure the time, and you can just see, am I getting sleepy during the day?

It's interesting, because I think it's hard for caregivers to say to themselves, well, I'll just try to sleep eight, eight hours tonight, or I'll try to get at least seven, maybe six and a half, because often happens during the night. You're caring for a spouse, especially, you don't really have relief, typically during the night. Yes, hard to well, worries are one thing I know what? What are some of the reasons that women over 50 don't sleep well? Well,

one may be even something biological. Wonderful paper I read recently came out of New Zealand and interviews with Maori elders and these older Maori folks, found they weren't sleeping as much, but, you know, it didn't bother them. They said, well, that's just how it is. It's fine, and I don't need as much sleep. It wasn't a big deal. Whereas the Europeans, they thought there was something wrong, they were going to go the doctor. It may be that this is something our species does, is we sleep a little, you know, fewer, shorter time when we're older. But these are very general tendencies. There's lots of room for individual variation. Hmm, and there are as well personal habits, lifestyle habits that worsen our sleep. And as you're outlining, of course, the demands of caregiving can certainly interrupt our sleep as well. Personal habits these days sometimes can include staying up late, scrolling through Facebook or watching Netflix. We call it sleep procrastination. It's, as the scientists are saying, it's kind of an epidemic in the modern world, people stay up late past their bedtime, in part because, gosh, it's such a relief. So and so is sleeping right now, I get to stay up and watch, watch, whatever I like to watch, and then in the end, we don't get the sleep we need. Think of how you care for the children. You give your child a bedtime and you want her to go to bed and get some sleep, and you want to show yourself the same respect, not just because that sounds good, but rather, the research shows you get better health outcomes. The cardiologists even tell us that it is a stress for your heart if you have irregular hours, it is much better for your heart's health and your overall health to go to bed at the same time each day and to awaken at more or less the same time too. The body likes regularity, if that's possible, of course,

yeah, I've found that sometimes, some parts of the year, I need naps. It doesn't matter if I sleep hours, I might need a nap. And I think that's okay. I get worried about myself if I'm doing the Doom scrolling and the things you mentioned, and yes, procrastinating, in other words, and yes, snap. That's not the right way to look

at it. Fantastic. That's the Yeah. Naps are a controversial question. In the sleep science world. There's a lot of different opinions, but in a nutshell, the truth is that the sleep you get in a nap is not the deep, fulfilling sleep that you get in a nighttime sleep. But there are cultures where that is the tradition, in fact, but crucially, usually you don't want it to be longer than maybe 30 minutes, maybe 40 minutes, max. But you don't want to enter into deep sleep and then wake up. That's going to be disruptive for the later sleep and further, it's not the the full, rich sleep that we get at night time.

Yeah, my mom was a nurse, and she always talked about the 15 minute nap, but she'd been down with her feet up, and she said somehow she would always wake up in 15 minutes and feel restored. They just train them well with it. So that was a side, but it's not 15 minutes. So I do if

you can do that and then sleep at night, there's no problem at all with that. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah. So whether you're working or not, caregiving or not, you need to, yes, look into

into these that could be a solution. Yeah, of

handling yourself. Now we do want to get to that the sticky subject, though, sleeping pills, they can help. I understand. They can be helpful to people, but you've opened my eyes to there being a real lurking problem here, particularly, oh, then, so could you talk about that now, please?

astonishing. I mean, you think about all the perils that come to caregivers, all the stresses and so on, and now we have to think about which medications we're taking,

because, Deborah, you see, sleeping pills do not induce natural sleep. They are a misnomer. We should not be calling them sleeping pills. And indeed, the physicians don't call them sleeping pills. They call them sedative hypnotics. The emphasis is the word sedation. A sedated brain is not a sleeping brain, right? While we are sleeping in natural sleep, the brain is very busy. It should be busy. It's at some points in the night the brain is as metabolically active as when you are awake, that doesn't mean you're, you know, thinking you're asleep, but your brain is active. It is cleansing itself. It is boosting your immune system. It is resting the cardiovascular system. It is organizing your memories. It is fostering creative thinking. That's why you wake up in the morning with fresh ideas and a new outlook. All of that is happening because your brain is active. It is cycling through the night in a series of unique brain states. But if you sedate your brain with these chemicals, you impair its capacity to to be active. One sleep scientist says that these, these chemicals, these sedatives, actually are shutting down the brain they slow brain activity. They shut it down. So that is the fundamental misunderstanding that I hope I can communicate to your audience. Sleeping pills are not an alternative to sleep. They are a sedative. On occasion we need a sedative for a couple of days, but by no means, do not think of them as a remedy for the chronic sleep problems you're having. They further if you do take sleeping pills for each. Even a couple of weeks, you run the risk now that your subsequent sleep will be worse. There's something we call rebound insomnia. You use sleeping pills for a couple of weeks, and then, by gosh, your insomnia is worse. And again, the people, the poor people, misunderstand, and they think, oh, that just means I need more sleeping pills.

Yeah, sometimes more, more seems to be better. What should you say to your physician if that's the first answer you get when you say I'm not sleeping if the pill is the automatic thing, what kind of question then?

You know, ladies and gentlemen, I am a physician. I'm retired from medical practice, but you can trust me, I am a physician, and I'm very interested in the research. This research that I'm providing you today. I can give you the names of the research papers, and in fact, you don't even need to write to me. You can even go to my blog site. I have, I guess I've got 10 blogs there now that review this research, and many of the research papers are listed there at the at the site, you can point these papers out to your physician, and you can ask Doctor, what's this about? Anyway? Why am I taking these pills? They they make, they predispose me to dementia, because that's the one I didn't even get to for you, Deborah, people who take sleeping pills again, numerous studies now showing this, are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. In fact, double the risk. And do we have the time? I'll tell you something quite exciting, absolutely, just just this past week, a research research has been released in the prestigious journal Cell which shows us that Ambien zolpidem, one of the first and still very popular sleeping pills actively suppresses the brain's capacity to cleanse itself. The research evidence is, you take this pill, your brain can't clean itself. Are we surprised that then if you keep taking this pill, you're going to be more prone to dementia? It's not surprising.

No, it seems like, as they say, a no brainer. Yes,

it's not an alternative. Yeah, you know, it's not like Lucinda, I can't sleep. I think I have to take a sleeping pill. Well, that's not the case. The sleeping pill is not an alternative. There are other ways to help yourself sleep. And you know, by the way, if you have a tough night, you didn't get much sleep. If you kind of ride with it and then give yourself a chance, the next night, you're much more likely to get some sleep, because the body wants to sleep. If you give it a chance, you'll get the sleep the next night. So

that the idea of having a sleep routine where you relax yourself, instead of worrying about Facebook or worrying about other social Yes, is a really good one, because it may obviate the need for a sleep aid of some sort, and thereby prevent you from having more serious brain consequences. Oh,

bless me. I entirely agree. And please check out my little happy sleep secrets. It's a PDF with some very practical suggestions about the regular sleep times and light and physical activity and so on, which are the foundation for good sleep. There's other strategies too, but that's a good start.

This is just wonderful, and I'm sorry our time is so short today. Yes, there's plenty more we could talk about, but you've given us a great introduction to the importance of sleep and how to make sure that you can actually have it, and preferably without the medication, because that's when you get the best sleep. So I

wouldn't even consider the medication. In fact, it is not an alternative. It they the pharmaceutical industry has encouraged us to think of it as an option, but the science shows us it is not an option.

Well, let's hope that science prevails as in the coming years, as we're looking forward to, because, well, that's

why I'm offering just the research. It's not my personal opinion. You can find the research at Lucinda research.com that'll take you to the 10 blogs that I've got listing the research. Go to Lucinda research.com, and if you want happy sleep secrets, go to Lucinda gift.com and that'll give you the PDF.

We'll make sure to put those in.

And I hope that's useful. Thank you. Respect your audience. Caregiving for others. What more noble way? Is there to spend our days?

Yes, thank you, Lucinda, and I look forward to hearing more about this subject, and I so appreciate the time you took to speak with me today. So have a wonderful day. Very good with you. Deborah, good sleeping tonight for everybody, yes, for all of us.