Amanda: Hi guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amanda.
Laura: I'm Laura.
Kendra: And I'm Kendra.
Amanda: And before I get started, I wanted to remind you, we said a couple podcasts ago about a study that we have on sleep that we found out about at ACEP. It is a special sleep mask that they're looking for candidates to help with their study. If you work regular night shift rotations, you have access to an iOS device and you are between 18 and 65 years old, you could be eligible to help us with their shift work study. You would contact, [email protected], and we'll put a link to that. We are not affiliated in any way. We just know that shift work and sleep is a particular pain point for us, especially as ER doctors. So, on that note, I am delighted because Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown is joining us today to talk about sleep. She is a triple board certified doc that I've been following, basically stalking, on Instagram for a while on Restful Sleep MD social media platforms, and as much as physicians struggle with their sleep, I knew we had to have her on the podcast. Fun fact, in my Google search, she co-authored a chapter on “Sleep Medicine” in Netters Pediatric. So, welcome Dr. Brown to the show.
Dr Brown: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm a stalker too. I love it. I love how we're all, we're coming out clean now.
Laura: So, tell our audience a little bit about who you are, your training, where you work, all the interesting information about you.
Dr Brown: Yeah, yeah, sure. So I went to medical school in Nigeria. I did my residency in New York. I'm in Pennsylvania now. And then I did a pulmonary fellowship after that. And then I worked for a while and then I did a fellowship in sleep medicine. And so right now I split time between running my business, seeing patients who have issues with breathing and sleeping.
Laura: Okay. Awesome. So, tell us how much sleep should we actually be getting?
Dr Brown: You know, that's the big question, right? I, a lot of times when, when you think about the quantity of sleep, most times we go by the national sleep recommendations, which say seven to nine hours. But I tend to recommend you sleep in the number of hours that works for you. And so, I compare this to a shoe, right? Your shoe size is your shoe size, so you might be size nine and then trying to fit into a size 10, you're gonna slip and fall and trip and be very uncomfortable. And if you don't, if you try to fit your foot into a size eight and a half or a size eight, it'll eventually, it'll feel pretty tight, right? So, the sleeping and quality, to me, is just the tossing and turning you'll do in bed when you're trying to get more, or trying to fit in more sleep than you actually require. So seven to nine is what's recommended, but for some people, seven is fine. And actually there's some people who are genetically short sleepers and get away with six hours of sleep. That's rare though. But it's all about finding what works for you.
Laura: And so, how do you know if you are actually getting enough sleep? Are you trying to kid yourself that you're one of those six hour sleepers or how would you know for sure?
Dr Brown: Yeah. Yeah. That's an excellent question. I was gonna, you just read my mind. I was gonna go into that. So, most people swear that they are five-and-a-half hour sleepers. And the way I actually just approach that honestly, is the fact that it might be true. You might just need, you know, very few hours. Most people don't. The best way you can check that it is to just examine yourself, but be true to yourself. Like, what are you, what's sustaining you on those six hours of sleep? Is it like gallons of coffee? Is it multiple trips to Starbucks? Is it, you know what I mean? Like, if that is, if that's what's keeping you upright on six hours of sleep, then I dare say you need more. Or are you, you know, cranky, groggy, barely keeping it together, making errors and things like that, yelling at your kids, you know, because you're exhausted. Everybody's exhausted. If that's the case, then probably you need more. And the best way I would say check it out is really, first of all, catch up on all that sleep deprivation, because the likelihood is that you're sleep deprived. And then maybe, for example, you have some time where you don't need to wake up to an alarm clock. So, I don't know, a vacation where you don't have some packed schedule and then you see when you naturally would fall asleep and then when you would wake up without any alarm clock, without any schedules. And usually that will give you a sense of how much sleep you need, you know, sort of like an estimate or like on the weekends. But then I would say you have to, we have to balance that because most people try to sleep in on the weekends because they've been short sleeping all week. So that may not necessarily be, you know, true reflection. That's the thing. If you have a period of time where you can just take off, you don't have to wake up to an alarm clock, when are you naturally going to bed? And when are you likely to wake up? That will give you a true estimate.
Laura: Okay. And what are the consequences? You mentioned a couple of them, but what are the consequences of not getting enough sleep?
Dr Brown: So with that, really, I kind of put it into like four categories, right? So there's brain health? And there's our mood and emotions. There's our, you know, general physical health, and then there's personal and public safety. So, our brain is just so intricately designed, and while people usually will consider that sleep is a time where you're just like inactive. It's actually a very active stage where there is so much that's going on. Definitely less than 10 years ago we discovered this, not me, but super brilliant people. I am brilliant too, but you know, smarter than me. They discovered this system called the ** system, right? So it's similar to the lymphatic system, but it's literally the plumbing system for our brains, right? So over the course of the day, you build up products on the surface of your brain the same way we have, you know, products that are lymphatic system washes out, and then when we go into sleep, especially when we go into deep sleep, which is a stage of sleep, you essentially have those channels opening and cleaning that debris off. And some of the proteins that have been shown to be deposited include things like beta amyloid, which has been implicated in conditions like Alzheimer's. So when you start to find out that, oh my goodness, every time I don't sleep for a period of time, I either start forgetting words, or I have a weird perception to things that are said to me. It's probably a sign that you do need that sleep. So the same way we wouldn't leave our kitchen sink clogged, eventually we'll wash those dishes and rinse things out. We need that for our brains to function. Because that fog you may feel, and maybe because of that memory issues start to come in learning and development. So not just our kids, right, ourselves as well. And also, you know, human performance, working in a team, executive decision making, creativity. All those things are centered around good sleep. And then emotion regulation. So, we'll see that we may start to feel very, either very anxious, very stressed, very overwhelmed, fatigued. All those things can happen when we don't sleep. When it comes to our physical health, right? We do know that the studies looking at cardiovascular health, immune function, actually some cancers have been associated with short sleep, like chronic sleep deprivation. You know, metabolism, so the risk of obesity, hypertension, diabetes all have been shown to be related to sleep deprivation. And then the last would be the personal and public safety rate. As physicians we are making life and death decisions every day. And so the ability to first make those right decisions, prescribe the right medications, right. Or just even on the road when you're driving home from work, right? We don't wanna share the road with someone who is sleep deprived. We don't wanna share the road with a drunk driver. Right? And studies have shown that being sleep deprived and actually they looked at blood alcohol levels. When, of course, the legal limit is like 0.08 or something, and looked at someone who has been sleep deprived for about 24 hours. And it's pretty much the same as being legally drunk. And so the same way we wouldn't wanna share the street with someone who's drunk. We also, you know, don't want to be that person on the road who is super sleep deprived. Right. And the same, we don't want a pilot who is like, oh yes, I'm just coming off of 24 hours of let's go. You're like, uh-uh, no thank you. Right. So it's the same. So this really affects not just our lives, not just the lives of those that are around us, those that we love and care for, and also those that we take care of.
Laura: Yeah. Wow. That's so many good reasons to get good sleep. But the one that really sticks with me is your brain flushing out beta amyloid. That is a really motivating thing for me to wanna get good sleep. We've heard you say something like, if you want to optimize the two-thirds of the day when you're awake, you should prioritize the one-third of the day when you sleep. Will you elaborate on that?
Dr Brown: Yeah. So, you know, when we look, if we look at the recommended number of hours of sleep, right? That's 7-9 hours. That makes up a third of our day, right? If you say eight hours, that ballpark, there's a little less, there's a little more. You know, of course for kids, for newborns, for instance, are sleeping 14-17 hours, right? And the reason why they're doing that is they're going through stages of very rapid growth and development and for us as well. With all the benefits we get from sleep with our ability to perform better. Like they've done the studies on you know, athletes, on executives, on students in school. Maybe not so much on physicians actually. But the performance is so tightly related to good sleep. So even though we think about the fact that I don't have time for sleep, right? I have so much to do. I am like conquering the world. I'm doing all these awesome things. The ability to actually really harness those remaining 16 hours to really perform at your optimum does rely on getting good sleep. Learning new strategies, getting your mood appropriately regulated. We cannot afford not to sleep well.
Amanda: I don't even know where I heard this, but somebody was commenting, that's so funny that you don't think that you need sleep because evolutionarily, there is every reason why we should outgrow the need for sleep, unless it's absolutely critical. Imagine eight hours out of every day where you're not reproducing, you're not, you know, finding food. You're not, unless it was absolutely critical. We would've outgrown it and we haven't. And so that's so funny that some of us think that we don't need it. I don't think that that's right.
Dr Brown: No, that is, that is so true. And that is the thing, if you think about it, if we would've figured out a way to not sleep, and the quantity, I mean, the amount we are getting is getting less and less because of the globalization and everything else that's going on. But the need has not changed over the centuries.
Kendra: Of course we love to talk about self-care, but it also impacts those around you, your workplace, the relationships you build there as well. So, I love that you bring all that up. What about the tips for normal, non-working, like non-shift working, person for sleep that pneumonic you had, C.R.E.A.T.E. We love that. Tell us about that.
Dr Brown: Yeah, so you know, that I came up with, because when you do Google, right, “how to sleep”, “how to sleep well”, “how to sleep now”, “how to not wake up”. You can tell those are the trends, right? And it's just so all over the place and it's so overwhelming. You have this 20 tips and 15 new tips and so I just wanted to sort of, let's go to bare bones. They call it sleep hygiene. I don't really love that term. Sleep hygiene. It almost feels like, okay, it's sort of punitive, you know, or dirty like, come on. You know? So healthy sleep habits. So how do we make sure that we're establishing healthy sleep habits for ourselves? Now, it's not gonna fix insomnia, right? It's not gonna fix an underlying medical disorder, but these, I feel like are building blocks. A lot of people just assume like, oh yeah, I did all that, I don't drink caffeine anymore and I don't know what's going on. I still can't sleep. But I want us to at least start with that and then we'll build on from that. So, CREATE really came from, okay, what's actually even evidence-based, right? What's out there that makes sense? And it's not just someone saying, you know, I mean use the spray and expect your sleep to be better. And so “C” stands for consistency and that is so critical. We all have that circadian rhythm, right? And we need it anchored. And the way it can be anchored is based on the environment, right, on that 24-hour cycle. So when we stick with a set bedtime and a set wake up time, including the weekend, actually, then we're really strengthening that system. And then “R” stands for having a routine. And I love that because I feel like, especially as physicians, as high achieving people, we're just going, we are just going. We don't get to stop. And so having a routine, or sort of like a buffer or wind down period helps you transition from just the nonstop you have been experiencing all day to sort of transition to, okay, now it's time for me to wind down. And then what, what should make up a routine? Anything, really anything that works for you, anything that's coming that helps you unplug. So, it should not involve your laptop finishing up your notes. You know what I mean? So it's either something for me, it's a bath, it's reading, it's sort of journaling and just kind of just taking everything down. I'm taking notes of what my day was like. I'm processing it as well as planning for the next day. For some, it's, you know, prayer, mindfulness, reading, whatever it is. Maybe two, three things that you just really look forward to, like a ritual. And then “E” is the environment. So our sleep environment is really important. And now there's a world out there that's full of like sleep hackers and biohackers and all sorts of things. So for me it's basic, keep your room temperature cool. Make sure your room is very dark as much as possible, and make sure that it's either noise free or that the noise is consistent. So this is where either a noise machine, if you're someone who's super sensitive to noise and using a noise machine to just mask the noise. What else can you do or keep it quiet if you're someone who really doesn't want noises at all. So that's the environment. And then “A” I usually say assign the bed for sleep and sex and sleep only in bed. So instead of making that bed where, you know, our laptops on our lap with a TV on and we’re screwing it up. So your brain makes associations. So if you are, if you are in bed, let your brain know it's bed and it's sleep, not bed and dinner or bed and video games, or bed and worry, right? So if you are in bed and you're worrying, then no, that's not what the bed is for. So that's the concept of getting out of bed and doing something else, working on that worry at a different time or whatever, and then coming back into bed. And then “T” is technology, right? That's a whole episode. We all know. So you really wanna tackle technology. You know, I think it's really hard for, and, and let's just be practical. It's really hard to say, okay, you need to charge your phone out of the bedroom. If you can, please do. That would be awesome, right? But most times, if you're on call, you need your phone. You know, you can set things up in such a way that only the people that do need to reach you will reach you. And that's where boundaries come in and all that good stuff. Right? And then “E” I usually will talk about eliminate. So think through what are things that you may be doing that could be impacting your sleep. So is it something you are eating? Is it the caffeine that we're taking or iced tea at dinner? The reason why is because of that long half-life we have with caffeine, it's an incredible drug. It's a stimulant, right? But it does its job really well and it fragments our sleep and really makes it hard to sustain deep restorative sleep. Alcohol also kind of has a similar effect, not in terms of stimulating, or being a stimulant, but more by the fact that it is a sedative. It puts us to bed right away, most people, but then it's rapidly metabolized, and so it ends up fragmenting our sleep and really impacting our deep sleep. And then I think about things like heavy meals, right? You don't wanna eat that ginormous steak right before bed. One, because it's uncomfortable. And so your body shouldn't be focusing on digestion. And then exercise. I love exercise. I encourage everyone to please do so because it actually helps you get deep sleep. It increases your sleep pressure, but you really wanna avoid any super vigorous exercise about two hours or so before bedtime. If you don't have any time to exercise, then please just do it, even if it's before bedtime. It's better than nothing, but sort of, really that's, that's what it is. So CREATE.
Kendra: That's awesome. And I love how it is simple and very accessible and so anyone can relate to all and any of these things, and they're very easy, very easy to implement. Even if you take them one at a time.
Laura: I do have a question though. One of them is not particularly easy for ER doctors and that is that consistent bedtime. What advice do you have for shift workers when, you know, obviously we really can't have a consistent bedtime if we're doing shift work.
Dr Brown: Yeah, no, absolutely. And we do need like nocturnists shift workers, right? It's hard because you are, you may have, you'll have times when you are sleeping directly opposite to your circadian nadir, which is when you're supposed to be sleeping, you're working. So I usually will have recommendations, one for what to do even before the shift, because we want you to optimize performance, especially when you're on night shift. What you can do during the shift. Just to really be at your best and also what you can do after the shift so that you are set up for as much sleep as possible. Yes, you will not most likely not get eight hours sort of stretch or even when you sleep during the day, you're probably not gonna be able to sleep that stretch. My recommendation is get in as much as you can, realizing, this is reality. So in terms of before the shift, I always will recommend taking a nap. And so really trying to optimize that as much as possible because you're gonna be working for, you know, so many hours. Once you are done with that going to work, I would encourage caffeine. So strategic caffeine intake. That's one of the few times I'm like, caffeine is gonna be your friend. Right? Strategic caffeine intake. Again, because your circadian rhythm, it's really dipping down and so your body feels like it's supposed to be asleep, yet you are in the ER or wherever it is you're working. So caffeine would be helpful. I would say earlier in the shift. And exposure to a lot of bright lights. So you can see we're doing the direct opposite of what we will do at night when we're supposed to be sleeping. So, once you are done with that, somewhere probably closer to the second half of the night, you really wanna avoid taking caffeine. And then you want to start to avoid the bright light. Maybe start turning, you may not be able to turn lights down, but just avoid that direct glare. And then once you are done with your shit, don't go grocery shopping, just go straight directly home. And I recommend, once you get outside, get like the biggest, baddest, darkest pair of shades. Again, because you wanna start to set things down a little bit. So that's very helpful. And then you go home and have a routine. No matter how short. So take a shower or a bath, you know, have some wind down time and then black-out curtains are so important. Or sleep masks or things like that. In situations where we are shift workers, I sometimes will recommend melatonin. Again, because sometimes you're just so hyped up and it's hard to fall asleep. But I would recommend doing that in combination with a room that is darker, a room that is cool, and also a room that's noise free. So your “do not disturb sign” is out there. You are, you know, getting a babysitter or someone to help run things and then you save them for later. Turn your beeper off. In that situation, it's actually more helpful to keep the phone out of the room cuz nobody really should be trying to get to you at that time. It's really sacred. And you just try to get as much sleep as possible. So you end up having this, almost this system of almost like a biphasic sleep. And that's, it's not ideal, but I would rather we do that than not get enough sleep over time just with all the consequences.
Kendra: That is such great advice. Thank you, Dr. Brown. What about the snooze button? How do you feel about that?
Dr Brown: Yeah, so the snooze. Like with a lot of the things that I do, we all go back to why? Why the snooze? Why do we need the snooze button, right? So most times it's because we don't, we're not getting enough sleep. So I would rather we get enough sleep. Because what happens with the snooze is that we're usually interrupted out of REM sleep, right? It's usually at the latter part of the night. And during REM, we have so much value that we are getting from our sleep and we're suddenly getting jarred out of that stage of sleep. So, it's really not healthy. One, for just stress hormones that are released, flight vs fight. So that's really not helpful and we're constantly doing that again and again. So, it's not ideal. And then the other piece is when you snooze and you snooze for like five minutes or however long you're snoozing for. The hope is that you're getting more sleep. The problem though is, you know, we cycle through stages of sleep. So we have light sleep. You have deep sleep, you have REM sleep, right? So you are not likely to go back to like REM sleep or you maybe going back to like super light sleep. So, the quality of the sleep you are getting post snooze is like, it's not even worth it. So my recommendation instead is set your alarm for the absolute, absolute last minute you could get out of bed. So that you can really get consolidated sleep instead. You know, because for me, it's like hitting snooze is almost like having sleep apnea. Because when you have sleep apnea, right, you get sleep disruptions, you get a lot of arousal, you get your sleep fragmented. That's what we're doing. And so sometimes we may need to shift stuff to the beginning, to the, to the beginning of the night. So maybe there's stuff you need to get ready for work the next day. So try to do all that before you go into bed.
Kendra: So when we talk about the snooze button, what about when we try to catch up on sleep later? Is that a thing? When we're not getting enough sleep when we're working. So we feel like, oh, after this three or four stretch of shifts, I'll just catch up after. What do you think about that?
Dr Brown: I usually say sleep is not like a bank. So we can't fully catch up. I think though, especially when we're so sleep deprived, if you've again, coming back to your why, why are we pushing sleep until the weekend, right? If we have shifts and we've not been able to get enough sleep, then yeah, please do get some sleep. But if this becomes something that we are doing out of habit, the problem is we're not ever gonna be able to catch up. So if we're sleeping, if we do the math, it's just never gonna add up. Because on Saturday, at most, maybe you'll sleep three, four hours. You're sleeping three to four hours. It's not gonna make up for like if you're someone who's constantly sleeping like five to six hours, like do the math, right? You are not gonna try to now get, you're not gonna sleep in 10 hours over the weekend. The likelihood is not there. Really, depending on where you are, I would prefer safety, right? If you are so sleep deprived, you're not confident in driving, you feel exhausted, fatigued, then you know, try to get the sleep preferably on a consistent day to day. But if you do need to fit in from time to time, especially when you're working shifts and things like that, then I think that's fine.
Amanda: What are your thoughts about naps?
Dr Brown: Oh, I love naps. I think that's the ultimate form of self-care. So, but then I think, again, it's all back to why. Why? Why do we need a nap? If I need a nap because I feel like, yes, I just wanna rest and relax, I deserve it or something. Then I think it's fine. If you are someone who works shifts, then yes, we do need you to nap. If you are someone who's, you know, on a relatively consistent schedule, then you know if you're gonna nap, just keep it short. Keep it sweet. Keep it to about 30 minutes or so. The reason why is multiple-fold. One, we have the sleep pressure. So we have two systems that regulate our sleep. We have our circadian rhythm, right? So we have the dips in the evening and then we are alert during the day. And that's in sync with our 24-hour clock. And then we also have our sleep drive, which literally from the moment when you wake up in the morning, you start to build up on that sleep drive over the course of the day. And I attribute this to like a pressure cooker or I guess insta pot, whatever. Anyway, so what's going on is you're building that pressure and then if you take a nap, right, you're gonna, it's almost like you release that popup valve a little bit. If you release that pressure and it's very close to bedtime, you won't have had enough time to accumulate enough pressure and you might not be sleepy at bedtime. So if you do, or if you release that pressure for like, three hours, then you still won't be able to accumulate enough of that sleep drive to feel really sleepy at nighttime. So if you're gonna take a nap, take it earlier, maybe somewhere before 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM at most. And then keep it short. Because the idea behind the nap for most people is cause they're tired. And so really just to take the edge off rather than trying to use it to fulfill your entire sleep need. So that you'll still have enough time to build enough of a sleep pressure at bedtime. If you have insomnia, then you probably should not be taking a nap. And that's something that's very difficult. If you are someone who's in bed, you are tossing and turning, your mind is racing, you literally dread bedtime because of insomnia, then taking a nap is really gonna be, is gonna make things even more challenging. And so there are strategies that we put in place, and one of those is you definitely don't want to, you know, take a nap. If you can avoid it.
Amanda: So, I forgot to say at the beginning, although we all are doctors, this is for educational purposes only. We're not your doctor. But it does bring me to insomnia is a bad problem for us as ER doctors. A lot of our partners are like, I couldn't sleep at all. I've been taking Benadryl, or whatever it is. When would it be worth it to take medications to help us sleep?
Dr Brown: Yeah. Oh gosh. You know, that's actually part of why I started Restful Sleep MD because I had insomnia. I had both. I had sleep deprivation and I had insomnia. So one of the things I usually want us to start with is they're two different things. You might have both. With sleep deprivation, what's going on is that you don't have the sleep opportunity. So you are working, you are working shifts, you are, or you have, you know, something that's going on that really doesn't give you that opportunity to sleep. You are on, you know, binge watching Netflix, because we do wanna just enjoy. And so, we're not getting into bed till 2:00 AM, you know? And then at 6:00 AM we have to wake up. So that's a little different. With insomnia, there is opportunity. You are now at a point where you're like, okay, I'm ready for bed. And it's almost like a light switch turns on and you just cannot sleep. And so your mind is maybe racing or you are tossing and turning. And usually that's something that we, the actual diagnosis requires about three months. But there are times when we also have acute insomnia. If something happens at home or something happens in our lives that can also impact our sleep. We go back to why, again, like what's going on? Because there are, especially for people who have chronic insomnia, we start to engage in sort of like, self preservative behaviors that doesn't help our sleep. So we start to worry a lot or we're like, okay, I'm gonna try even harder and we stay in bed for hours. Or we're like, I need to conserve my energy so we don't exercise, we just like chill. Stay mellow and maybe take naps during the day. So we really get into this cycle and what I hear a lot of times is, of course, it would be awesome if we could just take a pill and make all of that go away. No, most times it doesn't. The two ways by which the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends treatment of insomnia. And the first is cognitive behavioral therapy. And it's really a lot of work around that mindset with our sleep, what's going on with our sleep, as well as behaviors around our sleep. And that's, that's like the gold standard pretty much. And then the second is, you know, medication. So, there is a role that medication plays, you get a better bang for your buck if you do CBTI. Because in the long term, right, you don't wanna stay on medications for X number of years. Some of these medicines are, you know, of course they're sedating, increased risk of falls. Some of them have interactions with other medicines we should be on. But if you are at a point where you know, maybe you've tried CBTI and it's not worked and you need to take some medicine, then absolutely. Another situation I would say is if you have comorbid, say an anxiety or depression or mood disorder, something else that's going on, then taking medication either to address that and a lot of those medicines also have sort of the sedating side effects. Then it's fine to use that. And then I feel like, you know, acute insomnia too is something that sometimes if you need to use medications, that's something that you may want to consider doing.
Amanda: Thank you so much. So, one thing that we did mention is that you're triple boarded. You got your sleep board, and then pulmonology, but you're also a pediatrician. And I, with my stalking, I found out you have an online sleep course for teens. Tell us all about that.
Dr Brown: Yeah. Yes. So this was the theme that I was getting first in my clinic space and just with the moms I work with, and it's the constant battle with their teenagers, right? They’re not dropping off their phone. I can't get them off the phone. They're walking around the house at midnight, like it was just this whole thing and there's like you know, constant fight. I turned off the wifi, I turned on the wifi, you know, or you know, they have packed schedules. There's just no time for sleep. At 11:00 PM we're still working on homework and all that. We see the consequences of sleep deprivation in teens. It's a struggle because I think our teens are in this perfect or imperfect storm between their physiology, where they have a shift in their circadian rhythm, so their bodies naturally are not ready to sleep cuz they just have a delay in melatonin and that's around puberty. And then on top of that, most of the schools in the US have this early school start times, right? So they're, they're caught short on both ends. And so they're angry, they're groggy, they're moody in the mornings and they're really surviving on minimal sleep. And parents are frustrated, so I really wanted to empower the teams. And so that was where that came from, from having our teens really take this on their own, to understand their bodies, understand their physiology, understand why their sleep is the way it is. Understand what happens when they're napping or sleeping until 12 noon or 1:00 PM. All weekend long, right? The social jet lag and understand, you know, the caffeine, the behaviors, the technology, all those things. Because I feel like when they get it, then they're empowered to make better choices rather than, you know, us as parenting. It's bad for you. It's bad for you. Stop, stop, stop. You know? So that's the, that's the thing and it was just such a joy to create that. And then there's also some journaling they get to do, which kind of hopefully will take them off their phone for a few minutes to write and reflect. Just such a delight to do that.
Amanda: So you mentioned you're in Philadelphia at CHOP, so you know, obviously patients could get ahold of you that way, but you also have Restful Sleep, MD. Who else do you work with? How could somebody get in touch with you if they wanted to work with you? Tell us all the things.
Dr Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So Restful Sleep MD really is the work I do with moms, high achieving moms, because I've been there. Where I needed 27 hours a day, but only stuck with 24. And still try to cram so much in and so really helping moms prioritize sleep. So it's, it's coaching. So I have a one-on-one coaching program. From that perspective, I don't, you know, provide direct medical advice. I get them connected with resources if they need and if they have sleep disruptors, aka, you know, kids. Kids are sleep disruptors. Then I teach them to coach their kids too in helping them learn healthy sleep habits as well. And then I also speak just on different platforms. I help create courses as well in organizations just to help employees understand, or employers understand how important it is to prioritize sleeping. Their employees as well as, you know, I've partnered with some organizations to create courses as well, and so yeah, those are the main platforms. And then, currently I do work in the children's hospital where I see kids from a clinical perspective as well. The best place to get in touch with me is Instagram or on my website. And so that's, restfulsleepMD on Instagram as well as on my website is restfulsleepmd.com.
Amanda: Okay. And we will definitely get links to those on this show notes, so you can just scroll down and click on that. Thank you so much for coming. Do you have any closing thoughts?
Dr Brown: Well, you know, it's super cheesy, but bear with me. Prioritize to radiate your inner brilliance. Because I feel like we all have this special gift, this passion, this drive, this mission that we feel we've been called on earth to achieve. And when we can get to a place where we understand how much sleep is a superpower. And take action to make it a priority. It really is a game changer. It's been a game changer for me. It's been a game changer for the women I've worked with. It's been a game changer for the kids who sleep better and now the moms are sleeping better. So it does help a ton.
Kendra: Thank you so much, Dr. Brown. The work that you are doing is definitely gonna produce some world changers out there. So thank you for pioneering this amazing work. We are so grateful that you found us on our podcast today. And we want you to stay connected. So go to our website, www.thewholephysician.com, and sign up for our weekly well check. It's delivered right to your inbox. And don't forget, we have our live CME course. So head on over there to the website and check it out. Until next time, you are whole, you are a gift to medicine and the work you do matters.
