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Carlee
You're laying in bed, scrolling through social media, and you suddenly realize it's way later than you intended it to be, another night where you're going to bed way too late. Has that ever happened to you? It certainly happened to me. Hi, I'm Carlee Myers, your friendly stress management expert. And this month we are talking about media overload and time management and back by popular demand. I have two amazing sleep experts excuse me two amazing sleep experts to talk about media overload and how it impacts our sleep. Welcome to the show.
Amanda
Thank you.
Jacqueline
Thank you.
Carlee
Awesome, so I would love if you could take a second for those of us who don't know you just to quickly introduce yourselves.
Jacqueline
Hi, I'm Dr. Jacqueline cos I am a clinical psychologist and I am in a private practice in Bryn Mawr. And my specialty is behavioral sleep medicine, which means I look at the behavioral factors that affect our sleep health and specifically treat things like insomnia, which many people struggle with. I'm also co-founder of Behavioral Sleep Medicine Associates. And I'm here with my colleague, Amanda Swain. Dr. Swain. And I'll let her introduce herself.
Amanda
Hi, thanks. My name's Amanda Swain, I'm a board certified family medicine physician and I've done training specifically in behavioral sleep medicine, as Jackie mentioned, I too focus on insomnia. And I have a practice at the University of Pennsylvania where I really see students. And surprisingly or not surprisingly, students have a lot of struggles with sleep. And we talk a lot about media and screen time. So this is a really great topic to focus on.
Carlee
Yes, I was so excited when we talked about this, like doing this on the show, because I do think it's so important. And and by the way, I'm not shocked, not shocked at all. So why I'm curious for both of you, why is media overload such an important topic or such an important thing to be discussing right now?
Amanda
Well, I think we as a culture spend a tremendous amount of time on our screens, and that can be for the purposes of work or education, but for a lot of us, especially during quarantine, it's really as a way to distract and that can have a lot of effects on our sleep, as Jackie and I will happily talk about with you.
Carlee
So I'm curious. Tell me a little bit more about how you ended up here.
Amanda
So our mission statement, which we, of course, spent many, many hours crafting, reads empowering people to live their best lives through healthy sleep practices. And Jackie and I came to this idea for both personal and professional experiences. We're both doctors, but we're both mothers, which means we know what it means to have disrupted sleep, to struggle to manage daytime sleepiness and to be truly sleep deprived. And because of our professional backgrounds, as Jackie mentioned, she has a PhD and is a licensed clinical psychologist and myself in the field of family medicine. We've seen the effects of poor sleep on patients for many years, early in both of our careers and relative practices, we came to realize that sleep is pivotal to both physical and mental well-being. It's no surprise that insufficient sleep puts people at risk for a multitude of diseases and mental health struggles. And sleep is really a struggle for many of us at various times throughout our lives. But we know that poor sleep is a modifiable risk factor for all these issues. And one modifiable risk factor is the time we spend on screens.
Jacqueline
So what we want to bring to you today is our understanding and some tips about how media overload can affect sleep. And the one of the most important things I think we realize is that media overload can serve as a psychological stimulant. So, as you know, the stimulation for media is visual, it's emotional, it's even physical, depending on what you're watching. And think about lying in bed with all of this going on, it's not exactly compatible with sleeping. It's not hard to see how stimulating this can be and how this directly interferes with your body's ability to slow down and disconnect both literally and figuratively at that time. But we also want you to think about powering down right before or while in bed. It's not only an issue about that of keeping your screens or your phone on during the night also means that at some level you're very aware that someone can reach out to you at any time, even during much needed sleep. We've all got push notifications, emergency alerts, fear of missing out. Has she ghosted me or has he texted me back yet? You get the idea. So in keeping the social media turned on even at night, keeps us on guard and that can disrupt our ability to sleep.
Amanda
Well, there's also a really interesting aspect of the light from our screens and its effect on melatonin. Most people have heard of this hormone called melatonin. It's also called the hormone of darkness. It's levels rise as we approach bedtime and it acts as a cue for our body that sleep is on the horizon. Unfortunately, we can alter our melatonin levels artificially by exposure to bright light. Two hours of exposure to a bright tablet screen at night has been shown to reduce melatonin levels by about twenty two percent, which can actually trick your brain into thinking it's morning. So when we lie in bed with our screens in our faces, we're working directly against our biological need for sleep and our natural sleep rhythm also called our circadian rhythm.
Jacqueline
Right. And so Amanda playing off of you said I mean, I think we have to think about these things both in terms of the media being a psychological stimulant and the effects of melatonin, the effects of screen time on melatonin. Next question comes up so well, what's the risk? What's the harm? Not only does media exposure cause psychological stimulation and lead to these melatonin levels from bright light, but it can also literally displace or disrupt sleep so it can affect our sleep quantity. It's easy to push past bedtime just by being distracted by social media, and that can affect the amount of hours we allot for sleep. And this is especially dangerous for teenagers who are likely to use their screens for schoolwork, socializing and entertainment, alarm clocks, et cetera. It can also lead too to unintended wake ups. The use of multiple electronic devices at the same time has been associated with less sleep at night and a greater degree of sleepiness during the day. So it affects our nighttime sleep and also our daytime functioning. In fact, a National Sleep Foundation poll found that children who left electronics on at night just having them on are more likely to fall asleep in school.
Amanda
So we just want to leave people with a few countermeasures and number one is a good idea to institute a screen curfew, so think about powering down your device at least an hour before bed. Two try to make your bedroom a media free zone. If both adults and kids can keep screens out of the bedroom, sleep is much more likely to be of an improved quantity and quality. And that might mean using an old fashioned alarm clock. Heaven forbid.
Carlee
Oh, no!
Amanda
I know it's hard to imagine if I mean, I'm sure you can find them somewhere. And choose an alternative wind down method in your hour before bed. Don't rely on the screen. Perhaps even consider more media free downtime during the day. Really start to train yourself that it can wait because media never sleeps, but we all must. And the news in your social media feed will be there for you when you wake up.
Carlee
Oh, my goodness, this was this has been such a powerful episode, so jam packed with incredible information. I love your tips of instituting a curfew with the screen time, creating a media free zone and really creating and choosing that alternate wind down method. Because I think these are tools that we hear about how media overload affects us all the time in terms of comparison and in terms of I'm addicted as a casual joke. Right. But we're not really talking about how this really can create a ripple effect in our lives. So I just want to thank you guys one more time for coming on the show. This has been incredible.
Jacqueline
It's our pleasure. Thank you, Carlee.
Carlee
So for those of you who are listening, we want to know which of these tips are you going to use to heal your sleep cycle from social media? Now, I want to know, are you feeling overworked and exhausted if you are? I've got great news for you. The Stress Less company works with high achieving CEOs, business owners and managers just like you to find that sense of peace and freedom they desire. And as a result of our work together, they learn how to properly manage their time, tasks and energy so that they can experience more free time, efficiency and prosperity. Sounds pretty good, right? Apply for a complimentary stress less clarity session today to start the conversation to working together about working together. Visit stress less CO dot COM slash apply. This concludes this episode of the Stress Less Show. If you've enjoyed this week's episode, let us know by giving us a big old thumbs up and hitting that follow or subscribe button. Thanks for listening, Share if it resonated and we'll see you next week.