Why Women Struggle With Sleep: From Adolescence to Menopause | Dr. Shelby Harris

What we see with girls and boys preadolescence is that the rates of sleep issues, trouble going to sleep and falling asleep, is the same. But then once girls start to hit adolescence, they get their period, that's when things actually change. And that's when young women start to have a higher rate of insomnia. Why? Because of hormonal changes.

And then moving into pregnancy, a new pregnancy can throw everything off, then the baby comes. And then you're up and you're having broken sleep. Your hormones are all over the place. And then you hit perimenopause. So it's like one thing after another.

Welcome back to The Parenting Pair Podcast. I'm Dr. Annalise Caron.

And I'm Dr. Suzanne Allen. And I don't know if it's just me, but my social media feed at this point is all Jennifer Aniston workouts and information about menopause and sleep, which is why I am so glad to have our esteemed guest, doctor Shelby Harris, here today. Not because she's gonna discuss Jennifer Aniston workouts, although she is an expert in so many if you have any intel or suggestions on that, I'm I'm all ears. But instead, to speak truly to her expertise, which is sleep and sleep throughout a lifetime. And in particular, we're going to ask her today to speak a little bit more about sleep related to girls and women.

So Dr. Harris is a practicing clinical psychologist, a well respected author of several books, a familiar face on the Today Show and other media outlets, including Instagram where you may have seen her before. And in full disclosure, she has been my personal go to sleep expert for over twenty five years. And and I really mean that if I went back

to very old text messages. I've done that as well.

Oh, yes. For clients, and I actually begged her once to see me with a family member many years ago, and she appropriately should know. Held that clinical line of not doing that. It's the only time in my life I ever tried to make someone break it. But but she gave me a great referral.

And so, you know, I went back to bed, which was lovely. She is one of the most respected voices in our country in behavioral sleep medicine, and we are thrilled to offer the listeners of the Parenting Pair Podcast her expertise and advice today. So Dr. Shelby Harris, thank you. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me, ladies. I still can't believe how long I have known both of you for at this point. It's kinda I mean, it's a fan. I was telling my husband yesterday. I was like, we we've known each other since even in grad school.

We had a job together over the summer. It's like Our

summer job while in grad school. Yes. So before we were both officially psychologists, we knew each other. Yeah.

Yeah. I know.

Been a long time.

Random. Yes. So but I'm very happy to be here and talk with you. Thank you. And thank you for that very kind intro.

You two are pretty badass, dare I say, as well. So I'm happy

to be talking Thank you, doctor Harris. We'll take

it. We'll take it.

I'm gonna go with badass. Well, yeah, I have to say, what I found the start of your book extraordinarily validating. I know it when Suzanne was introduce introducing you, she may have mentioned your two books. One that we'll largely focus on today is The Women's Guide to Overcoming Insomnia. She also is a co author on The Essential Guide to Children's Sleep.

And we have had her co authors on other episodes related to children's sleep, so we can link that in the in the show notes. But I was so validated because you started by outlining the different stages in the life course and how sleep changes, but then you highlighted how men are different. And the manner in which you described the different stages and that that's really different for men was so validating. So I wondered if we could just start there with basic, quick kind of summary of how sleep changes over lifespan for women, but also particularly in that perimenopausal, you know, going to menopause stage, because a lot of our listeners are there with tweens and teens and who may be staying up later and managing their own sleep issues themselves. It's like a tough moment.

Oh, it is. And I think also for the listeners who might be going through perimenopause and menopause, with the tween and teen, it's good to know what might be happening in their tween and teen as well.

Yes.

So what we see with girls and boys pre adolescents is that the rates of sleep issues, especially like insomnia, trouble going to sleep and falling asleep, is the same. It's actually the same. But then once they hit when when girls start to hit adolescence, they get their period, that's when things actually change. And that's when young women start to have a higher rate of insomnia, especially in comparison to boys. Why?

Because of hormonal changes. So what we see happen just before someone's back to menstruate, those three to five days before you get your period, we see that there can be for some women insomnia that happens. Interestingly on the flip side, it can actually go to hypersomnia, so excessive sleepiness. We see that once in a while in the field too. But that broken sleep, oftentimes your body temperature is off, so you're having more warmth, which makes it harder to sleep.

That happens. And then moving into pregnancy, I mean pregnancy can throw everything off. And then nowadays, a lot of people are doing IVF, hormonal treatments that can throw off your sleep. Trying to get pregnant throughout the stages of pregnancy, there's more broken sleep, first trimester especially, and then third trimester, really broken sleep. Then the baby comes.

And then you're up and you're having broken sleep. Your hormones are all over the place. Maybe you're breastfeeding, which can also make your hormones really just shift. You're having a lot more I know for me, I was having a lot of sweaty nights when I was postpartum. And then it starts to ideally settle down a little bit, and then you hit perimenopause.

So it's like one thing after another. And especially when women are having babies a lot of times later, they kind of go from one stage into the next. So in perimenopause, we start seeing drops in estrogen, drops in progesterone that happen at varying times. And it's those shifts that happen, those drops that then throw off your body temperature, lead to more night sweats, hot flashes, the racing brain, I hear more and more. And that kind of stays steady for a lot of people through perimenopause.

And menopause, it tends to even out for some people, for some people it stays. And that's why we want to think about different interventions. And then there's also an increased risk because of the hormonal changes we see during pregnancy and perimenopause, we see increased restless leg syndrome. So it's not just your legs, it's also your arms and your chest. The name is a misnomer.

So it's this kind of, I can't get still, I have it myself. And it gets misdiagnosed as insomnia a lot of times because if you're just like antsy and you can't sit well, that you have trouble falling asleep. And then also when you hit perimenopause and menopause, the other thing that changes is we see a higher rate of apnea in women, gets missed day in and day out. The rates actually get much more equal to men. So all these lovely things hag.

Just going through that, you're functionally saying, from around when a young person gets their first period, really till around, I don't know, your early mid fifties, women have a few moments in there where just just in in normal kind of lifespan development, there's a few moments of possible sleep peace, but there's a lot of sleep disruption or risk of that. And a lot of different reasons for that, you know, hormonally, situationally, in their lives, with their babies, with their the stress of their life. It's I found that very validating. And that is not seen to that level in men, correct?

No, not to that level. We see other sleep disorders in men, apnea when they're younger, things like that. But insomnia, which is the big thing that most people are complaining about, insomnia rates are are higher in women for sure.

Is there anything positive that comes, like, in menopause or, like, down the line of menopause, like, with regard to sleep? Like, our listeners, because I also think of, like, sleep architecture changing then and maybe you sleeping less. So is there anything to look forward to? We need to provide hope, Doctor. Harris.

Like

There are treatments available. That's the thing. Okay. Is that we have lots of things. It just because it happens doesn't mean we have to accept it.

And then there's also the other thing is like everyone now because everyone's I mean, my whole feed is just because of what I do. It's all like menopause. And and actually don't get as much of the sleep stuff because I don't want to see it all the time. But it's a lot of just everything's bad. We have to treat it.

There can be bad things. But there are plenty of people, my mother is a good example, went through menopause with no issues whatsoever. So it doesn't mean that the writing's on the wall. But if you do have disruptions, then you should actually get it evaluated. And one thing to add to what you were saying, Annalise, is that if you are getting a lot less sleep or it's much more disrupted, or you're feeling like there's an issue with the timing of it, definitely get it evaluated.

It's not something we should just accept. So it might happen, but don't accept it.

Well, this is such an interesting point. Definitely get it evaluated. There are so many different ways to get sleep evaluated. Right? And so I wonder It's confusing.

It's very confusing. And I wonder if we could almost step back and just briefly, if you could explain to our listeners, because we're talking about all different types of things that impact sleep naturally. When we talk about sleep disruption, or specifically insomnia, what does that mean? And where might we get that assessed?

Yeah. And I love the question of what does insomnia mean? Because this is a huge pet peeve of mine nowadays with optimizing everything. So things that normally happen, too, is that our sleep does get lighter as we get older. That is totally normal.

And we have awakenings. It's just we shouldn't be up for a lot throughout the night or have very broken sleep. So what is insomnia? So it's, by definition, it is trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up earlier than you want. And it has to happen at least three or more nights a week.

Okay? So what does that say? It actually is normal to have a bad night here and there. I don't sleep perfect every single night. So at least three or more nights a week.

And it has to go on for three months. Three months to be considered chronic. One month is kind of shorter term. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do something shorter, but it takes into account what is normal. Right?

Everyone many people have stress here and there. We have a stressful week. We have a stressful period that can happen. We might have a a week where we're not sleeping well five nights, but it doesn't necessarily cross the line into really chronic insomnia unless it's going on for at least three months, which is kinda crazy to for most people to hear.

So it sounds like we we shouldn't catastrophize if we have a bad night here or there, or just a night. Yeah. You know, there may be things for us to do, you know, if that happens frequently, but but we shouldn't, you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater, and and maybe maybe tomorrow night will be just fine.

Right, exactly. And I think some of the messaging that's out there of if you have poor sleep, you're gonna have all these negative health outcomes. One of the biggest referrals I'm getting over the past few years is I'm afraid I'm gonna develop dementia. Which, yes, we know there is a link between sleep issues and cognition. But a night here and there does not mean that that's going to cause all those problems.

And the more you worry about these things, the more you're actually going to create insomnia for

Well, it's an interesting balance to strike. Right? Because I think years ago, right, there were so little information that anyone had about anything, which isn't helpful. Right? Because then people don't know that something's a problem or how to access help about it.

Right. But now we've kind of flopped to this other side, and I find this a lot even with teens and young people I work with. Right? And I think about sometimes, the skincare industry is the perfect example of this for me. Right?

That, like, now four year olds can have full blown skin routines that are being marketed towards them. And I feel like there is this full blown marketing push around sleep or around menopause. Right? Where maybe your mom wouldn't have needed any of these things, but she might have been told that if she didn't start all those supplements and, you know, like, it was all gonna fall apart. I think for sleep also, like, have a lot of young people, which I'm glad I mean, I was never thinking about my sleep when I was a teenager.

Like, these weren't things that occurred to me. You know? But I so I'm grateful that they have some awareness of kind of their own health and well-being and that that relates, you know, to levels of depression and anxiety because often those are the teens I might be working with. But there becomes kind of a little bit more of, like, hysteria almost around if you have a night or two of bad sleep that you need to start right away, like, being obsessive about your sleep hygiene. And everyone in the household has to be quiet at a certain time or else there's you know, like, lot of rigid rules kind of built around it.

Well, the thing I'm seeing more and more is all the trackers. I think they have their place for certain people. But I have couples and families that have a ring. And they're like, oh, what was your sleep score? They have competitions about getting better sleep scores.

This is not uncommon. Like, it's just becoming more pressure that then sleep falls apart under pressure. Yeah. And that's that's what I just see happen all

the A lot of things do. Lot of

things fall apart. Too much pressure. Right. Yeah. I I think that that would breed anxiety if I was in a competition around my sleep.

I mean because I wouldn't win. I was gonna say,

I might not be because I'd already know I lost.

Yeah. So but One of the things I think

about is girls, right, at a younger age starting around the first menstrual cycle, right, have, you know, poor sleep maybe in general or more challenges with sleep along the way.

Yeah.

Do you find in any way that that might impact kind of help seeking over time? Because I could almost imagine that if you're kind of used to something or you go through so many years, you know, and I I think so many women I know, you know, make doctor's appointments for everyone else in their family. They're on top of it You know? And then I'll ask them, when's the last time you went to the dentist? Or the last you know?

Like, I wonder if you see that at all kind of impacting because women are more likely to kind of accept this because it's a a longer standing struggle we have.

Yeah. I definitely see that. It it it becomes a pattern that I can see. I mean, there are a lot of people that I talk with that are like, yeah, I first noticed this. Even not even in, like, after I had kids, but way before then, they can see, like, a little kernels of it getting starved at that time and in early adolescence.

So given how you, you know, explain to us what is what, you know, sort of chronic insomnia is, when is it that you usually would advise people to get their sleep assessed? Would that be when you reach that three month mark? Would that And be where? I forgot about that.

Where? I didn't answer that question.

I'll bring you back. No, but, you know, because I think that the when is this, you know, something that I should, you know, seek a provider or practitioner to help me with this? And then whom should I see? Because there are many different impacts on sleep, or different places people can end up getting their sleep assessed.

Totally. So the other part of the definition is it has to create a problem for you somehow, too. There are some not many, but some people are just naturally short sleepers. So if it's creating a problem for you, it's causing distress, and it's not getting better, usually what I recommend, sleep hygiene alone, limiting coffee, limiting alcohol before bed, all the stuff that now is ad nauseam online. If you do that stuff and you're very good with it for two weeks, and that has not cleaned up any of the behavior, and now you're getting closer to a month where it's been going on consistently, I would seek help sooner than later.

So don't wait the three months. Earlier is usually better. But one or two weeks in, maybe it will resolve itself. Just try to keep the consistent sleep wake schedule. A lot of people just start getting loose with stuff.

They start using more caffeine to stay awake during the day and all that stuff, that it might actually worsen it. So tighten stuff up two weeks. Now, where do you go if it's not working? So if it's more of a straight insomnia issue and you're like, I don't know, I don't really want to do medication. Medication in sleep medicine and primary care, and actually in the menopause societies, it's actually not the first line treatment for insomnia.

It's CBT for insomnia and any sort of hormone therapy is also recommended a lot. So we actually try to start with CBT for insomnia. So you might want to go to someone who is a specialist in that. So going to an MD at a sleep center doesn't necessarily guarantee that you're gonna get someone who is actually well versed in CBTI. So when I worked at Montefiore for ages, I was the person there.

The MDs who were there really treated more of the medical side of things. So really finding someone you can go to the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. That's where you know you're going to get people who are well qualified. And if you really want the gold standard, you find someone with a DBSM after their name like I have. It's a board certification in behavioral sleep medicine.

Not everyone is, many people aren't, but just go and get someone who's really had good training in it. I ideally love someone who's even with some supervision in it. So that's always the first place. And then if you think that there might be any breathing issues, you think that maybe restless legs, or you wanna have yourself more medically checked out, going to an MD at a sleep center is ideal. You can also talk with your primary care because they can sometimes do home sleep studies.

Home sleep studies are good to evaluate your breathing, to look at apnea. They're not always the most accurate for women. Just keep that in mind. But then going in, kind of upping the level from there with MDs, it can be helpful. And they're the ones who very well do medication.

I think that's really helpful to really look. And just for our listeners who may not know what CBT is, which seems hard because it's everywhere, but cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. So that's not just cognitive behavioral therapy, because there's practitioners who do

Yeah.

Cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety or depression Yeah. And may know things about the sleep hygiene that doctor Harris was talking about. However, people who do CBTI, there are other components to it, other very important behavioral components that just CBT therapists may not be familiar with. So you want to see to be sure that someone has expertise in that. I like starting there.

Then if there are more issues where you know you have restless legs every night, maybe getting that support. I before this before we, you know, came on today, just thought, let me write down all the different types of providers that someone could end up with. And I I think I came up with, like, 11, you know, because you could go to all different types of therapists. You could go to a psychiatrist. You could go to your internist.

You could go to the endocrinologist. You could go, you know, to a, you know, menopause specialist. You can go to, you know, a neurologist or a pulmonologist at a sleep center. That's the MDs that Shelby was talking about.

I was like, this is a

lot of people, so no wonder it's confusing for people. Yeah.

Totally. And even sleep centers, right? So I worked at Montefiore. We were a neurology based sleep center. So all the docs I worked with were neurologists who were board certified in sleep medicine.

There are ones that are in some academic centers within the psychiatry department. Some are pulmonary. So it's even like, I tend to send more sleepwalking, narcolepsy cases to neurology based sleep centers. So even that is confusing within itself.

And having a family member who's affected by narcolepsy, I can tell you, and he's a very knowledgeable person, his initial sleep study was with a pulmonologist. And of course, there's an additional sleep latency test for narcolepsy that he didn't get. So he was told there was no problem. Right? And so then it was two years later.

This is years and years ago. But Yeah. It was two years later that he had another sleep study that was the proper kind because it was done by a neurologist. But if you're an the average person, it's hard to know all of this. So I don't wanna be fearmongering, slamming all of this information out there.

I like the place to start. If you have insomnia, try to find a practitioner who does CBT for insomnia. Right? And if you can't find that person, call your internist and see. They may have a recommendation as a place to start.

And those practitioners hopefully can direct you based on what you're saying. I I I wanna jump in with your thought about the home sleep studies, but I first because it is your expertise. Could you just briefly take a moment and and explain what CBTI is just so we can ground that? And then we'll move on to another couple of nuances, questions I have.

Totally. So CBTI, cognitive behavior therapy, for insomnia, a lot of people think it's like a typical kind of therapy. It couldn't be further from the truth. It's very different. I think calling it CBT sometimes can be a little bit of a misnomer.

So there's the cognitive part, the behavioral part. What we really start with is the behavioral part. So what it is is essentially, it's a grouping of different individual treatments for insomnia that have all been very useful over the years. And they kind of just found a researcher named Charles Marin, kind of just put them all together and said we're going to get more bang for our buck if we do it this way. So I don't do all the modules, though, with every patient.

Sometimes I don't need to. So the behavioral part, there's always the sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene is the control group in most insomnia studies. It really doesn't actually move the needle for most people. And almost everyone comes to me nowadays being like, I do everything right, sleep hygiene.

I'm not surprised. It doesn't change it. So sleep hygiene, but I want to make sure you're not drinking a two liter bottle of Diet Coke before bed. Then there's something called sleep restriction. So this name is terrible.

My old mentor I mean, still my mentor Amontefir Michael Thorpey was one of the people who came up with the name. And I argue with him all the time. Because people think that we're mega sleep restricting people, where they're getting super sleep deprived. It's not really that. You might get a little less sleep at the beginning.

But what we're trying to do is limit your time in bed so you get more sleepy during the day. We want to make you sleepy enough that you fall asleep faster faster and stay asleep more or wake up and go back to sleep. So it's hard. But limiting the time of bed. And then also what do you do in the middle of night?

Are you lying there scrolling on your phone, tossing and turning, trying to force sleep to happen, making that effort happen, which is just going to make it worse. So those are all things that we do in the beginning. And then we add, and if we need to, the cognitive component. And this I see in probably eighty percent of my patients. So it's that if I don't sleep tomorrow, x, y, z is going to happen.

I'm worried like the cognitive stuff, I hear this all the time. I'm worried that I'm going to get dementia. I have a lot of people who are up in the middle of night worrying about the health consequences that might happen because of the poor sleep. So it's ways to challenge those thoughts. Sometimes it's doing mindfulness.

I'll do mindfulness practice during the day with patients. And then there's another type of newer kind of therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy for insomnia, which is a different way of looking at it. But for some patients I might use more acceptance strategies to not for sleep or sometimes I combine it a lot of times I combine it with CBTI in a more thoughtful way. So it's really a short term for generally four to eight sessions. Sometimes I see patients for longer because they're tapering off medication slowly.

It depends, but it's generally a very short term treatment, and it's very, in my opinion, much more behaviorally focused than a lot of the other CBTs.

I think that's really important to highlight, because when people hear going to therapy, I think they think, Oh, well, I'm going to be in therapy for you know, months and months or even years. And CBTI is a is a very organized and, you know, individualized depending upon the client's needs. But, like, you can see a lot of progress really quickly. And so I think that's really hopeful for people.

Mean, that's what I love about what I do, is when someone's responding and they've had insomnia for thirty years and in four sessions, they're starting to get better. It's like the thing you were saying about people go to all these different providers, that is a story I hear almost every single day. It's like, where were you? I didn't know about this type of treatment until I saw it in The New York Times or something. It's really interesting that it still doesn't get referred as much as it should at the beginning.

Right. Right. I'm going to pivot just briefly to something you said you talked about, because I'm just just the the nuance of women and sort of how women are impacted by sleep when you were talking about apnea, that that's something that's missed I a actually was recently diagnosed, and they told me I was on the on the edge between mild and moderate sleep apnea. Okay. And so I said I said, do I do about that?

And I was I was given and now, you know, I have two family members. Both my parents have sleep apnea, and but they're in their eighties. And they, you know, wear their mask, their what's that called? The sleep Yes. And I thought, oh gosh, I really am not ready for that.

And the response was, oh, no. You don't you don't need that. What you need to do is sleep on your side and lose weight. And I thought, well, isn't this just wonderful? Because I was like, I'm 51.

I'm very money paws.

I'm just like Isn't that a

great time to lose weight? Well, that's the thing. I mean, yes, we all need to lose weight. But I know it is so difficult. But it's so difficult.

Worst time. And so it was Right. It was just interesting. And I did have I had in my thirties done a sleep test that came back with no no concerns, but I went to a sleep center, and it was all controlled. It was the best sleep of my life because it was cold, and it was dark, and it was incredible when I went to the sleep center.

It was it was You're right.

Honest with what other people I never have heard anybody say that.

Would have slept there.

Sleep lab. Every night.

Think yeah. I had young children at the time. No one could reach me.

You had all the worms?

It was I know I did. Okay. So I may be an outlier in that situation, but it was interesting when they diagnosed. When I recently was diagnosed, they had me do what you just described, an in home sleep test. And I thought that was so interesting because I was worried.

I was thinking, did I put the thing in the right point on my neck? What if I did it wrong? And then what the feedback was that I and I tried very hard to go to sleep laying on my back because I thought, I can't move because this thing is here. And then they said, we can't get a good read because you didn't sleep on your side. And if you sleep on your side, you may not have sleep apnea.

So I feel like I got this diagnosis, and I have very little guidance with it. Yeah. I don't want it to get worse, though. Right? Like, I think it's at a point where I can do things to probably improve it.

But I just I guess I wanted your thoughts on that and also how that might be, I don't know, different for men and women. It's just an interesting thing.

So when it comes to I mean, I could talk about this for days, this topic. When it comes to women, the screener, like just the questionnaire that they use for apnea, the most common one is called the stop bang questionnaire. And that has a bunch of questions about sleepiness, snoring, things like that on there. But the screener is actually not as accurate for women as it is for men. One of the questions on it is literally, are you male?

You get a point if you're male. So women are already a point down on scoring on anything on that plate. So I know, it's crazy. And then neck size, neck circumference is another thing on there. So there's a lot of things that just make it more weighted in men's or male.

Interesting.

So that's the first thing. So a lot of times, use that scooter still, and it's not great. So then when you have a home study so the difference between a home study and an in lab study the in lab, like you were talking about, Anneliese, is it has all you have an EEG, you have a heart monitor, you have nasal cannula, which you can get on a home sleep study too. It's also like for some people, when I had a in lab study, was looking at my legs, leg movements. It's just much more your eyes movements, all this stuff.

So it really is telling your sleep stages. It's much more accurate than a home one. A home one is really, there's different ones, I don't know which one you had. There are ones that are more like a pulse ox that has a watch, that's called a watch pad, those are really like pretty cool. That's all it is.

And then there are other ones like the one I had for a home study once was just over my chest, and then on my nasal cannula. You might have like a box kind of here. There's all different ones. And then a pulse ox. Yeah.

What did yours have?

Mine had a pulse ox, I think, on my finger. And then I just stuck something here right at the base of my neck.

That's those are newer.

Yeah, right at the base of my neck. So it's just interesting. It felt like a lot less information.

But they're not actually they're approximating. It's not really measuring sleep. It's measuring breathing. So they're fine for apnea. But for women, they do miss apnea a lot of times in women or under diagnose the severity of it.

So that's something to keep in mind. But if you get that you have apnea on it, then we're pretty sure you have apnea. It just misses it more often than Now, when it comes to the treatment side, so the whole lose weight thing, that has been just very hard in the sleep apnea world. Because yes, weight loss does help with apnea severity, not for everyone. And a lot of women also do not have weight to lose and still can have sleep apnea just because of changes in estrogen and what it does for your muscle tone.

So with women, when we say lose weight, if you're not getting quality sleep because you're not breathing well at night, it actually makes it even harder to lose weight. Right. So one of the things that's actually been a big game changer for a lot of us in the field is the, it's not for everyone, but the approval of Zepbound, so one of the GLP-1s, for apnea, because it's good for moderate to severe apnea. If you are overweight, you don't have to be in an obese BMI. But what it is, is it helps people to lose weight easier so that it brings down.

And I think they're starting to use that more and more in sleep medicine for some people, because that weight loss recommendation has been horrible for so many of us. Because we're recommending it, but it's almost impossible for a lot of people to do it. Now, the positional oh, go ahead. What were you saying?

No, I was just going to validate exactly what you're saying. Right at this stage of life, I may be overgeneralizing. But I think a lot of women, given the hormonal changes and everything, it's very hard, you know, to to lose weight. I worked very, very hard for about four months, and I think I literally lost, like, four and a half pounds. And I thought, you know, like, it's it's it's hard.

And I imagine making an assumption here. I do not have the research, and Doctor. Shelby Harris can tell me. I imagine for some men with extra weight, it might be easier to drop more than the four and a half pounds. You know, the It can be in life, not to juggle.

The weight loss can be a little easier, yes. Maintenance is always the challenge.

Yeah.

So it's really like, Okay, you lose it. You have it off for a year. And then you get a year older. And then you're gaining it back. And then you're acting like, forgive it at worse.

And then the one other thing to add that you said was, is that possibly positionally influenced for you? And for some people, they are lucky enough that it is only in one position. So what we will recommend is don't sleep on your back. Easier said than done, but there are ways to train yourself. So there are fun pillows, there's actually FDA approved products that you put around your waist and it vibrates a little to make you go onto your side.

Really? Yeah. Old school way that we've done for years, put a tennis ball in a fanny pack. Now that fanny packs are in style again. It's easier to recommend.

So you put it in a fanny pack. You wear it backwards Or you take a pocket tee, and you wear it backwards. And you put a little lacrosse ball in that. It's annoying at the beginning, but it trains you to not sleep on your back.

So interesting.

Or

this is why you really need to speak to a sleep expert because they know all sorts of things. I just brought up a random topic, and they can bring you information

that Talk and talk and talk about it all day.

Yeah. I have a question that's maybe like a jump over, but I I will acknowledge this is something I really struggle with, and I feel like a lot of women that I know struggle with as well. But revenge bedtime for I would love to hear a description of what that is and your thoughts on that.

Yeah. So I wrote about it in my book. I called it Momsomnia. Yes. I'm like, Okay.

But that was what all my friends that's what all my friends were calling it, was Momsomnia. So I was like, all right, fine. But it's an age old problem, revenge bedtime, whatever you Yeah. Yeah, That's the it's not easy. It's this age old problem of, I don't have any time for myself during the day.

I'm working. I'm taking care of my family. Work is also not always nine to five anymore. It usually isn't. And then finally, when your kids go to bed at night, and people don't need anything from you anymore, it's like, what can I do to steal back some time for myself?

It is delicious. But what happens is you start getting sucked into stuff that you cut into the amount of sleep that you should be getting at night, that you're actually sleep depriving yourself. So it can create less sleep for people. Sometimes it can worsen insomnia if you really get sucked into something. You just can't sleep even when you want to.

But that's really what the idea is behind it. I get sucked into it myself. Like, it's yeah.

It feels like me too. You know? It feels like all day long, you're running, you're going for other people, for your job, for your teenagers, your children, whatever. And then you get that me time, but you're getting that me time later in the evening and probably when you should be sleeping and

Exactly.

Yeah. I'm curious if you have any tips for how because I I I think it's one of those things that even when sometimes you know the long term consequences and you know the next day you might be tired, the urge in the moment to just finally have a few moments to yourself to do what you wanna do Yeah. Is is really strong.

So if if you have

any thoughts, I would welcome those I for

I think we also have to be realists. Right? And that we deserve time for ourselves. Not even deserve we need time for ourselves to be able to turn our brains off and just chill. Like, we we need that.

So to say, okay, you should go to sleep, then you can start resenting sleep more and more. So it's about finding balance of, Okay, I'm going to have some time for myself. And I'm also going to make sure that I am trying to make sleep as much of a priority as often it's not going to be perfect every night, but as often as I can. So what I encourage people to do first and foremost is a lot of times at least this is what I do. I get sucked into shows on Netflix.

So one of the first things I always did, I'll watch The Great British Bake Off over and over again. I've been doing it for a decade. And so I will if you look at a lot of the streaming platforms, they have autoplay, so it goes right into the next episode. Turn that off. Turn autoplay off because then it makes you watch an episode, but then you have to actually make a conscious decision if you're going to watch another one.

So it gives you a little bit of a pause as opposed to automatically deciding for you. And then keep in mind that social media, especially like Instagram, TikTok, this is addictive, so addictive. So really try to put limits. I've had patients get the brick, other things where it just turns off at a certain point. So if you want to put some limits on there, great.

Timers are great. Sometimes just putting a timer on saying another twenty minutes, then you put it down, and writing, it sounds so cheesy, but writing your why, like I want to be better for this tomorrow, just to remind you why you want to put it down. And then having a timer when you should put it down. I do like the night shift mode, things like that on the phone to kind of give you little reminders. But also, this one's really silly.

It's that if you're going to be on your phone in the bedroom, some people do this and most don't, standing up on it. So stand up, don't lay down in the bed. So you're allowing yourself to do it. It's so ridiculous, but actually

No. No. No. I love

But I don't want to do it.

I'm going to so if you really are like, I'm going get in bed, I'd be on my phone. Stand up

instead. Wow. I've never heard that one.

This do know what it's making me think of? And this is a minor distraction. But when I met my now husband, I had gone on two dates with another guy. And the only time I ever did what, Doctor. Shelby's talking about I'm sorry, keep calling her different things.

Shelby, Doctor. Shelby Harris, Doctor. Harris, she's she's No,

that's what my husband says. Don't call me late for dinner.

-MICHAEL: I did that, and it was so effective because I went on two dates with this other guy, and then I went on one date with my husband my now husband. And I was like, Uh-oh, I've really got to cancel this upcoming date with that other guy. And I really get anxious doing things like that. And I told myself I had been out, and I came home. And I told myself that I couldn't sit down until I called him.

So I stayed standing for two hours until I called that guy and said, I'm canceling this date. Because I knew. I knew. I was like, I'm I'm more interested in that guy. It's the right thing to do.

I can't keep seeing this guy, the other guy. And so I paced and I paced and I paced. I was like, this is getting old. And so two hours later, I called the guy. And that's the only time that I've done but it helped me get it done and be be appropriate and not continue.

But that's the only so I love that because it's so effective and it's so frustrating. So if I had to stand up to use my phone, this is this is life changing.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like you think about like what you were like like, I'm gonna do it anyways, and I'm gonna stand up, and so you're gonna make it more hard difficult for yourself. Yes. If you really want the phone, you're gonna do it that way.

So that's another really big one for revenge bed. I But the timers, yeah, there's a lot of things that you can try.

Very interesting. Yeah. If you're listening to this episode and thinking there were some good tidbits here, there's some good advice, or there's good information that I can really help to take to make decisions for myself, I can tell you that Sleep Talk Shelby on Instagram, Doctor. Shelby Harris, has so much more information for you. And so I wonder, Shelby, could you share with us, people listening, where they can find you?

We, of course, are showing your two books here, The Woman's Guide to Overcoming Insomnia and The Essential Guide to Children's Sleep. But where else might listeners be able to find you?

Sleep. Shelby, online, on Instagram. I really most only do Instagram, little LinkedIn. And then I have an office, mostly virtual. But I am in Westchester, New York.

But I see people from all over New York state. So can you reach me at my website, drdrshelbyharris.com. You can go there, and you can schedule an appointment there with me. And then every week, I do a Ask Me Anything on Instagram that I don't give personal advice. But a lot of what I do is actually people write to me, and they're like, I don't know what kind of doctor to see for something like this.

I'll give people the societies to go to so they kind of, like, funnel where they need to where they wanna get some treatment.

I've seen you put those up in your story, and I've seen a bunch of those, the questions and then your answers, and that can be very help really helpful. And you can search those. I've brought clients directly to it when questions will come up. I'm like, let's search and find out

what doctor Shelby says. Like, let's go to it. Those questions are very, very helpful that you put up. So I think that's a great I'm glad that you mentioned that for people.

And for most of the questions I get, there's usually three or four others that are the exact same. So it's there are always questions that many, many people have. Yeah. But those are the main places where you can find me.

Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much for for coming on today. We know that you have a very busy life and are between You clients yourself. But I think this has been a really informative discussion with a lot of good information.

We will certainly link your social media so people can find you in the show notes and your book.

Can I add one more thing? Please. Because we're talking about adult sleep a lot, but you also you guys specialize in teens. Mhmm. I am a big fan of modeling for your kids when it comes to phone use and tech use in the room at night.

Modeling for them almost every parent, like, cringes when I mention this. But if you aren't going to have your teens keep their phones in their room, you shouldn't be keeping your phone in room. A lot of times, a teen will walk in, and then you're on your phone in front Model of your that behavior. Have a family charging place. You can get things to put the phones in in the middle of the night.

Really, it's not always ideal, but really try to model that behavior.

I think that's really important advice.

And many of us at this age have elderly or aging parents, and so I do prefer to keep my phone closer in case something comes up in the middle of the night. But I I hear exactly what you're saying. One thing that I do when I'm being mindful and doing you know, living by my values is I'll put it in a drawer next to the bed so it's not sitting there. Or I'll put it in my around the corner in the bathroom, but I have the volume up loud so I can hear it.

Like, I similar sort of thing. Mine is, like, nearby enough that I can hear it.

But Yeah.

Then people say, well, I need an alarm. How am I gonna get up? Like, here are alarm clocks. Alarm clocks are great. I don't have to be at the phone.

So really just try to keep it not right next to your head, which is what most people do Yeah. So that you're modeling that behavior.

And it's just so

much easier to pick it up in the evening and pick it up first thing in the morning. And I I read something once that said, you know, really think about how you start your day, the first few things you do kind of shape the day or how you wanna look at the world. And and that's been a real practice of mine to not pick up my phone first thing in the morning because Yes. Is the first is the way I wanna look at the world kind of the horrors of Mhmm. The daily news or emails that are stressful from work, or would I like to get up and see if the sun is shining outside and brush my teeth and think about something that I choose to think about versus what's being fed to me.

So I think also when we kind of remove the phone from our direct, you know, where we're able to see it and grab it so easily, It's kind of that next point, like you said, turning off the streaming thing. Like, it's that point of mindfulness of, do I wanna open the drawer and take this out? You have to think about it.

Mhmm. Yeah.

And it's also it's interesting too with with teenagers. A lot of them are staying up later than we are, just because their sleep has shifted or their pressures with their schoolwork or the many things that they're So they will have an opportunity oftentimes, or in many families, to see what you, the parent, are doing. And so it's an opportunity to model that behavior, which is a good Yeah.

I needed that. Thank Totally.

Yeah. You're welcome.

Well, thank so much for coming on the Parenting Pair Podcast. If anyone listening, you know, has a friend or knows someone that maybe is having some difficulties with sleep, what you know, of any age, please pass this episode along to them. We'll have all of Shelby's information in the show notes. And I think this is good, sound, science informed from a truly, you know, behavioral sleep medicine certified clinical psychologist who's giving you information that can really be helpful and not just, you know, a tip that may not get you anywhere. Yeah.

All right, Doctor. Harris, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you, ladies. Thanks for having me. Was a pleasure.

All right, everyone. Have a great week. And now a quick word from our lawyers. The Parenting Pair Podcast is designed for informational and educational purposes only. Do not rely on the information presented in this podcast as a substitute or replacement for professional psychological or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

If you have concerns about you or a family member's well-being, please contact a licensed mental health professional or physician.