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CNN Live At Daybreak
Getting Back in Swing of Early Mornings
Aired September 03, 2001 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Do you feel sluggish and a little cranky after a holiday or a long vacation? Well, we woke up a sleep expert early this morning to help get your body back in the groove.
Dr. Russell Rosenberg is the director of the Northside Hospital Sleep Medicine Institute in Atlanta. Good morning.
RUSSELL ROSENBERG, SLEEP EXPERT: Good morning.
LIN: All right, well, we got a good night's sleep. That is the good news. But in the meantime, a lot of kids are waking up and getting back to school. What's realistic for parents in terms of, you know, these kids sleeping, you know, going to bed very late in the summertime and now having to get up early for school?
ROSENBERG: Well, it's important to start an early wind down routine, starting to read a book to them or getting them to just relax and then getting morning sunlight can really help. In fact, today would be a great day to get the kids out in the morning for a little exercise, a little bright light, which really resets our biologic clock earlier to get our sleep clock so we can wake up on time.
LIN: Does it really?
ROSENBERG: It really does.
LIN: OK. You mentioned something about a sleep clock and a bunch of us got together this morning and talked about some questions we really wanted to ask you because we work overnight shifts. For example, I go to bed at seven o'clock at night and I have to get up at three in the morning and even if I get eight hours of sleep, I still feel really tired and jet lagged throughout the day. Does it matter when you get your eight hours of sleep?
ROSENBERG: Well, it turns out it doesn't matter exactly when you get your eight hours. But people have different sleep needs. Most Americans are working longer and here we have Labor Day, working longer hours, sleeping less. And it may be that you're a longer than eight hour a night sleeper. About 63 percent of Americans get less than eight hours of sleep and it's really important because it's a chronic sleep deprivation that has a profound effect on how you feel during the day time.
LIN: But, see, I know somebody who works an overnight shift and she says when she gets eight hours of sleep she feels tired. She feels better on five hours of sleep.
ROSENBERG: Yes, the eight hours you work on overnight you may not be getting the deep sleep that you might normally get if you're sleeping at night. So the quality of sleep is oftentimes interrupted because of the timing of sleep. Our best sleep, and it's no accident we sleep at night, is really for most people at night and you're really fighting an uphill battle if you're a shift worker.
LIN: So if you're a shift worker and you're shifting over on the weekends and you want to get on a more normal schedule, you're saying that sunlight can be your friend. How much exposure to light does it take to reset your body clock?
ROSENBERG: Well, it's good to get a half an hour to an hour of very bright light. You go out and just enjoy the day without sunglasses in the morning time. Obviously don't look at the sun or look near the sun. It's actually bright enough outside just looking away from the sun on the horizon to reset your clock.
LIN: How much sleep do we really need?
ROSENBERG: Most people need eight hours or more. Unfortunately, most Americans get much less and even try to make up for it on the weekends. And there's really a lot of information on sleep needs on the sleepfoundation.org site. The National Sleep Foundation has really done a full survey of sleep needs across both men and women.
LIN: What about splitting your sleep? Like if you can't get eight hours all at once, what if you get five hours one shift and maybe three hours and a nap? Is that the same?
ROSENBERG: Well, split shifts are really not that good for sleeping. It's better to consolidate it all. But when you've had a night where you've only had four or five hours, taking an occasional nap can be real helpful, unless you have an ongoing insomnia problem where you can't get to sleep regularly or you can't stay asleep, because that nap might detract from your ability to sustain an eight period at night.
LIN: And if you have insomnia, what should you do? Should you get up? Should you get active again, even if it's in the middle of the night?
ROSENBERG: Well, here's a few tips. If you can't sleep, get out of bed. Don't keep tossing and turning. The harder you try the less likely it is to come. Don't look at the clock at night. Try to keep a regular wakeup time and if, despite your best efforts, after three or more weeks of an insomnia problem, then you really ought to see a family doctor because there are a lot of things that can be done for an insomnia problem today, even beyond just taking a sleeping pill.
LIN: Can you die from insomnia, from lack of sleep?
ROSENBERG: Well, the vast majority of people are not going to have that sort of serious kind of problem. But it turns out that sleep loss over a long period of time can have a negative effect on our health and there's more and more research and data to support this contention.
LIN: And more research to show that women are more effected, aren't they, because of hormonal fluctuations?
ROSENBERG: Well, women experience more insomnia than men but men have more sleep apnea and snoring and problems with breathing. So it tends to even out in terms of the number of people having sleep disorders. But women actually need a little bit more sleep and are more vulnerable to difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep.
LIN: That's because we work so hard.
ROSENBERG: We're all working harder and sleeping less, unfortunately.
LIN: Look at that, we're working on Labor Day. Thank you so much. Good tips and advice.
ROSENBERG: Thank you.
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