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Episode 265:
Show Notes
This episode of The Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast features Dr. Barton Jennings, a sleep physician, discussing the importance of sleep, common sleep disorders, and practical strategies for improving sleep quality. The conversation covers physiological, behavioral, and lifestyle factors affecting sleep, as well as specific issues like sleep apnea, circadian rhythm disorders, and menopause-related sleep disturbances.
About Dr Barton Jennings
Dr. Barton Jennings is a specialist in respiratory and sleep medicine. His main interest is helping people improve their overall health by focusing on sleep, nutrition, exercise, and mental health. He runs a private practice in Bentleigh and Gippsland and also sees patients by telehealth
Importance of Sleep
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Sleep is essential for overall health, productivity, and well-being.
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Chronic sleep deprivation increases the risk of mortality, heart disease, depression, and anxiety.
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Most adults need 7–9 hours of sleep per night to function optimally.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation
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Leads to daytime sleepiness, poor mood, irritability, and reduced concentration.
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Negatively impacts metabolic health and can contribute to weight gain.
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Even small changes in sleep duration (e.g., daylight saving time) can have measurable health effects.
Causes of Sleep Deprivation
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Modern lifestyle factors: increased screen time, social media, binge-watching TV, blurred work-life boundaries.
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Behavioral patterns: staying up late for personal time after children sleep.
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Underlying medical conditions, such as sleep disorders.
Common Sleep Disorders
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Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA):
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Most common sleep disorder, characterized by snoring and disrupted breathing.
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Can occur in both overweight and normal-weight individuals.
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Often underrecognized; a sleep study is recommended for those with symptoms.
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Treatments include CPAP machines, mandibular advancement splints, and weight loss.
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Insomnia and Early Morning Awakening:
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Often related to stress, anxiety, or circadian rhythm issues.
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Behavioral adjustments and mental health support can help.
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Sleep state misperception: people may feel awake but are actually drifting in and out of sleep.
Circadian Rhythm Disorders
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Night Owls vs. Early Birds:
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Genetic and environmental factors influence sleep timing preferences.
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Delayed phase (night owls): need to gradually shift wake time earlier using light exposure and routine.
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Advanced phase (early birds): shift bedtime later with evening light and activity.
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Adjustments require consistency and patience, as changes take time.
Menopause and Sleep
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Hormonal changes during menopause and perimenopause can disrupt sleep.
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Symptoms may improve with hormone replacement therapy (HRT/MHT) for some women.
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Standard sleep hygiene practices remain important.
Practical Sleep Advice
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Routine is the most important factor for good sleep: consistent bedtime and wake time, even on weekends.
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Avoid excessive time in bed; match time in bed to actual sleep needs.
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Use light strategically to reset body clock.
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Minimize screen exposure and bright light before bedtime.
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Manage anxiety about wakefulness to prevent compounding sleep problems.
Expert’s Final Advice
"Routine. The more constant your routine, the better. Maintaining a regular sleep schedule is the best thing for your sleep and body clock."
Connect with Dr Barton Jennings:
Episode 265:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:16) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Lucy Burns (0:21) Good morning, my lovely friend. How are you today? It's Dr. Lucy here as I sip my very lovely warm coffee on this rather frosty Melbourne morning. I have a most spectacular guest with me today. And I already know that you guys are going to love this episode because we get questions all the time about sleep. I often think there are two camps: the sleepers and the non-sleepers. The sleepers don't care that much about sleep—they take it for granted. The non-sleepers spend a whole lot of their waking hours thinking about their sleep. So I thought we would get an expert to come and talk to us. I have with me Dr. Barton Jennings. He's a sleep physician based in Melbourne and a proponent of the low-carb lifestyle. Barton, welcome to the podcast.
Dr Barton Jennings (01:10) Thanks, Lucy. Thanks very much for having me.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:12) You are welcome. I can't wait to get into this episode because, as I said, we do get zillions of questions about sleep—as I'm sure you do, being a sleep guru. But one of the things I thought we'd start with is: why is sleep important? Lots of people think that, you know, there are all of those—I think—kind of the Kevin Rudds of the world who get by on four hours of sleep, and somehow that's to be sort of applauded. But I thought we'd go back to basics and talk about what is so good about sleep?
Dr Barton Jennings (01:42) Well, I think it's a good way to start. And firstly, I think those people who puff their chest out and tell you that they can get by on four hours’ sleep—it's probably not true. And I think that that's interesting, though, because I think for some time, getting by with a lack of sleep has been like, you know, a sign of toughness and a sign of like, “I can get more done.” And “I can be more efficient if I sacrifice some sleep for doing other things,” and maybe that would give me more time in the day. But I actually think that is not true. People actually get more done and are more productive when they sleep well. And certainly, more and more research and evidence is coming out to show us the importance of sleep, and that sleep deprivation actually has serious health consequences. Interestingly, in Melbourne, we've just come out of daylight saving, but that's an interesting time for sleep because when we go into daylight saving and lose an hour of sleep, there is a reproducible increase in the incidence of death, myocardial infarction, depression, and suicide. And the reverse occurs now, because we gain an hour’s sleep. And that's interesting. And it just shows you the importance of sleep and that little change can have a significant impact. But certainly, sleep deprivation can increase all sorts of diseases, it increases our mortality, and improved sleep has significant health benefits.
Dr Lucy Burns (03:09) So if we're talking deprivation, what sort of deprivation are we talking about? Because I think probably some people would think that sleep deprivation is, you know, only getting three hours for the night. But what are you actually meaning with that phrase?
Dr Barton Jennings (03:22) So we think that, in general—everyone needs a different amount of sleep, and it's individual for the person. In general, most people need between seven and nine hours of sleep. And the best way to know how much sleep you need is probably to determine how much sleep you need to get through the day without sleepiness. And it's also important to have regular sleep. So having, you know, nine hours one night and then four hours the next is also not good for you. Any degree of sort of chronic sleep deprivation that's leaving you sleepy during the day is probably not good for you. So it's hard to know the exact definition of sleep deprivation, but in general, we need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:04) Yeah, right. And if we don't get that, what happens to us? What happens to us with our hormones or our biochemistry or things like that?
Dr Barton Jennings (04:12) The main thing is how you feel. Sleepiness is difficult to measure, but sleepiness essentially means how easy it is for you to fall asleep. So, if you lie down and fall asleep easily during the day, then that probably suggests that you're sleepy. If you're sitting down as a passenger in a car and fall asleep, then that's excessively sleepy. If you're falling asleep, say, at work, then that's, you know, severely excessively sleepy. So there are different degrees. But it also affects our mood. So it lowers our mood, and depression and anxiety are increased with sleep deprivation. It affects how we feel within ourselves. It affects our concentration. It affects our irritability. And certainly, there are other neurohormonal things that we can measure that are all changed and affected with regards to sleep. Interestingly, our hormones with regards to our metabolic health are also changed. And sleep deprivation actually increases weight gain. So one way that people can assist in their weight loss is to actually achieve an adequate amount of sleep.
Dr Lucy Burns (05:10) Yes, we have a little module in the 12-Week Mind-Body Rebalance that we call Sleep Yourself Thin. And that, you know, literally, your job for this module is to at least go to bed. Like, it's very hard to sleep if you're not even in bed. Yes. Yes. Excellent. Which I guess brings me on to the next topic of: why do people have sleep deprivation? Like, why don't we just sleep?
Dr Barton Jennings (05:35) Oh, I guess there's lots of different reasons. And, you know, life is becoming busier and busier. And there is more and more distraction. You know, when I was growing up, there was distraction from kids and life and work and things. But now, you know, with social media, the access to the internet, and everybody has their internet in their pocket. So people go to bed and they look at their phone and they, you know, that can stretch on for hours. You know, with streaming services and people binge-watching TV, like staying up late to get through, you know, massive amounts of TV shows, you know, work is becoming busy, people are working from home, rather than just working from the office. So suddenly, there's this blurring of time between like home and office and work and home time. And so work is encroaching into our home time. And so there are so many things in life that result in people getting less sleep. And that may be that they're consciously actually going to bed later or getting up early for work or other distractions or commitments. But it also happens subconsciously. So when somebody is going to bed and realises that suddenly they go to bed, maybe at 9:30—that's nice and early—but an hour or two may disappear with a device or TV or reading or something that reduces the amount of sleep.
Dr Lucy Burns (06:49) Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things I see a lot of—particularly for women with children, and particularly when the children are small—is that, you know, the kids go to bed, and it's like, this is my time. I finally have a few hours to myself where I can just do whatever I want. And so, you know, they’ll often sit on the couch with maybe the wine and sometimes the ice cream or the chocolate and watch, you know, MAFS or whatever kind of, you know, low-concentration television, thinking again, thinking this is, yeah, their relaxation. And they don’t necessarily want to go to bed because the minute they go to bed and go to sleep, it all kind of starts again the next day. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I see that quite a bit. So these are sort of behavioural barriers at some level to sleep. But there's also pathological—or pathology, underlying pathology—that can interfere with sleep. Can you tell us a little bit about those?
Dr Barton Jennings (07:46) Yeah, so I guess the main sleep disorder that we see is obstructive sleep apnea. And so obstructive sleep apnea occurs usually when people snore, and snoring occurs because the upper airway becomes relaxed during sleep and vibrates as we breathe in and out through that airway. And that vibration causes the sound of snoring. If the airway closes enough to slow or stop our breathing, then thankfully, our brains will detect that and wake us up to protect us, so that we open up our airway, breathe, and usually fall straight back to sleep again. If that happens occasionally, it's probably not an issue. But if that happens a lot through the night, then that fragments the sleep because it causes multiple brief awakenings that sometimes people may not be aware of happening, because they may not remember that brief awakening. But that can adversely affect the sleep. So it can cause not only a reduction in total amount of sleep, but a significant reduction in quality of sleep. And it's probably the most common sleep disorder that we see, where people may get a reasonable amount of sleep but still feel sleepy when they get up in the morning, get sleepy during the day, and suffer lots of other symptoms with regards to poor quality sleep.
Dr Lucy Burns (08:55) Right. Does all snoring mean people have got sleep apnea? Can you snore without sleep apnea?
Dr Barton Jennings (09:01) You can. So the vibration of the airway can occur, but if that's not causing the breathing to slow down or stop enough to cause that brief arousal from sleep or waking from sleep, then there can be snoring without sleep apnea. And it's slightly different in children to adults, where in adulthood, if there is snoring and it's not causing problems—so snoring causes other problems such as embarrassment to the self or disruption to the sleep of the partner—and so the sound of snoring may be a problem in itself. But if the sound of snoring is not an issue, and it's not associated with sleep apnea, then it's not such a big problem. However, in children, that's different. And I'm not a pediatrician, but I do know that snoring in children is not good. And kids who snore have poorer performance at school, have more difficulty with learning and things like that. And so children who snore should really be checked out for that.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:53) And if an adult is snoring, and they're not sure if they have sleep apnea—again, they might sleep by themselves, they might not have anybody who could tell them whether they wake or don't wake—what should they do?
Dr Barton Jennings (10:04) They should probably really have a sleep study to see if there's sleep apnea, especially if there are any symptoms of sleepiness, irritability, poor mood, waking through the night, having to go to the toilet through the night. But even if there isn't, sometimes sleep apnea creeps up on you slowly. It's not like one day you sleep fine, and then the next day you have sleep apnea. So you recognise that there's a difference in how you feel. Sometimes people don't recognise that they're not feeling as good as they could, because they just sort of get used to it and acclimatise to it and work out strategies to cope with the way they sleep. Then we find out that they do have sleep apnea and treat them, and suddenly they feel great. And in retrospect, they say, "Oh wow, gee, I really didn't realise that I was feeling so average and that I could feel better." So I think if people snore, then they really should have a sleep study to see if there is sleep apnea.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:51) Yeah. And this is just a question for my own curiosity—the difference between a sleep study that people do at home and one where they go into a sleep, you know, into a hospital. Yeah, lab. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for.
Dr Barton Jennings (11:07) So the best quality sleep studies are the ones done in the hospital. They monitor more things and they have people there to keep an eye on things so that if a lead or a monitor falls off, they can replace it. Home-based sleep studies are also very good, though, but there's variability in quality. And so you can have a home-based sleep study—so we do home-based sleep studies through our clinic—and we basically do as an in-detail study as a hospital study, except the person's at home. So if something falls off, we don't know about it. But there are also home-based sleep studies that might just monitor your oxygen or might just monitor one or two things. And so they're not nearly as accurate. So there's a lot of variability in home-based sleep studies, but both can be very good.
Dr Lucy Burns (11:52) Yeah, excellent. And then the treatment of sleep apnea. So, you know, I do know that people often go, "Oh, you know, I was just told I had to lose some weight," but I think there's probably a bit more to it. Yeah.
Dr Barton Jennings (12:03) Yeah. So weight loss is always helpful, and there's lots of other health benefits for weight loss. So that's always going to be a good recommendation. Sleep apnea is not always due to weight, though. Some people are not overweight at all and can have very severe sleep apnea. So it's not just weight. The main and the most effective treatment for sleep apnea is the CPAP machine, which is the mask. The masks are a lot better these days. Sometimes they're just little tiny masks—they just sit under the nose or over the nose, much less obtrusive than the old-fashioned ones that were sort of the Darth Vader mask that people sometimes fear.
But that is the most effective treatment for sleep apnea. And what it does is it provides air pressure. It holds the airway open, gets rid of snoring, gets rid of all of the sleep apnea. And certainly in people with severe sleep apnea, they get great benefit and usually like it and feel better. And it's important because it's an Australian invention—the CPAP machine. So Australia should be very proud about that, and obviously it's used worldwide. Yeah. But there are other treatments. You can get your mandibular advancement splints, which are mouth guards that support your bottom jaw—your mandible—to hold that forward to splint open your airway. And the interesting thing I think about weight loss and sleep apnea is that if somebody has severe sleep apnea and they're symptomatic with sleepiness, they may be affected in their mood and things like that, it's actually quite hard to make the necessary lifestyle changes to be able to improve their health and lose their weight to reduce their sleep apnea because their sleep quality is so poor. And so what I find is if we treat their sleep apnea with CPAP initially, then they suddenly get very good quality sleep. They suddenly feel a lot better in themselves, in their mood. They're more energetic. They're more likely to be able to get exercise. They feel more awake during the day. Then it's actually easier to make those lifestyle changes with regards to diet, exercise, and lifestyle.
Dr Lucy Burns (13:53) Yeah, I think it's so interesting. As a lifestyle medicine doctor, I'm all about lifestyle, but sometimes—well, not even just sometimes, quite often—I see there are so many barriers to people implementing the things that they know they should or want to do. And, you know, this is where people don't want an intervention. That intervention might be something like a CPAP machine, or it might be a medication, and they don't want to take it because they want to do lifestyle. But they can't do the lifestyle until they take the medication or have the intervention. So my newest phrase is: it's not this or that, but this and that.
Dr Barton Jennings (14:28) Yeah, yeah, that's right. I agree. I think that there are aspects of health and all of them need to be addressed equally, such as same as in mental health. So, like, if someone has poor mental health, it's hard for them to make those lifestyle changes. And if they improve their mental health, it's easier to make the lifestyle changes. If they make lifestyle changes, it improves their mental health and has a positive flow-on effect.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:49) Yes, we spiral upwards. Yeah, yeah. Wonderful, wonderful. And I think sometimes people feel like a CPAP machine is expensive. "I don't want to pay for it if I'm going to just lose the weight anyway and then I won't need it." But again, I just think, like you were saying, that actually the chances of—like, if you don't need it anymore, well, yay. But, you know, so it's a good investment to get to the point where you don't—you may not need it later on.
Dr Barton Jennings (15:16) That's right. Yeah. And not everybody with CPAP needs a CPAP machine. And certainly, some people with sleep apnea, their sleep apnea is not as severe, and weight loss alone can be very effective.
Dr Lucy Burns (15:26) Yeah, absolutely. And I guess one of the other sleep conditions that we see a lot of are people waking up at 3 a.m.—so the early morning awakening. You know, tell me a little bit about that. Do you see much of that?
Dr Barton Jennings (15:40) Yeah, a lot. And it's really common. And I think it's often to do with lots of things on people's minds and life and busyness. And often it's that time when they wake up in the morning and suddenly the mind is racing, and it's frustrating. It's really frustrating. The things to do about that is sort of go through the process that I think about when I see anybody with a sleep problem. And the first step is to think, well, is there an underlying sleep disorder? So, you know, if there's snoring or something like that, then we need to do a sleep study because if there's sleep apnea, it doesn't matter what we do—we’re not going to achieve optimal sleep. So we deal with the sleep apnea first. The second thing I look at is the circadian rhythm. And so I want to see if people's body clock is aligned. And so sometimes people have a problem with their body clock where they can't fall asleep for a long period of time or wake up early. And it might be a body clock issue. You know, common in people, say, who do shift work or travel and have jet lag and things like that can affect their body clock. Next thing is from a mental health point of view. So often, like anxiety and depression can manifest as poor-quality sleep and waking at nighttime. And so trying to implement measures to help manage those things. So instead of lying in bed and looking at the phone and scrolling through social media, like maybe practicing mindfulness and things like that can help reduce that waking at nighttime. And then the next step is all about sleeping habits. And what people tend to do when they have a problem with their sleep, especially waking at nighttime, is sometimes adapt their behavior in an attempt to improve the problem, but it actually makes it worse. So, for instance, people might stay in bed for longer. And so if their normal wake-up time is seven o'clock, but they haven't slept very well and they're worried about being sleepy the next day, they'll stay in bed longer. And then you find the situation sometimes where people are actually spending too long in bed. And so, say, for instance, if somebody needs eight hours sleep, if they spend 10 hours in bed, then they're probably going to spend two hours awake. And that time might be at the start, the end, or the middle of the night. And so sometimes the thing to do is sleep restrict, which means gradually bring the wake time a bit earlier or the bedtime a bit later to get that eight hours apart. And I think that the most important thing for sleep is routine. So a regular routine—regular time to bed, regular time to wake up—that's probably the simplest, most important thing. Because you can only control what you can control, and you can't control whether you wake up. So there's nothing you can do to prevent yourself from waking up. But what you can control is the time you go to bed and the time you wake up. And so by controlling that and then trying to take away the concern about what happens in between is useful. It's easier said than done. Yes. The other thing to recognize, that I think people find helpful to recognize, is the concept of sleep state misperception. And what that means is that you can sort of perceive yourself to be awake when you're really asleep. And it happens kind of because time awake goes slowly and time asleep goes quickly. And so somebody might say that they lay awake last night for five hours. But then if that was during a sleep study, we could say, well, actually, you were really only awake for half an hour. During that time that you felt that you were awake, you've actually gone into a deep, good-quality sleep, including REM sleep, and woken up. So people can drift into sleep and out of sleep and not recognize that there's been sleep because that time of sleep, which may be an hour or two hours or three hours, goes really quickly. They perceive that time awake to be longer. And I think recognizing that's helpful because I think it's useful to tell people, if you wake up, it's OK. Just rest, lie there, do whatever it takes just to take your mind off, you know, the things that race on your mind. And so for me, it's often listening to a podcast or listening to something on the radio or listening to some music. And sometimes that's just enough to take your mind off things. And it just allows you to drift back to sleep. Sometimes I'll drift straight back to sleep. Sometimes I'll lie there for half an hour, an hour, listening to podcasts. And sometimes I'll lie there for a couple of hours, and I'll put podcasts on and I'll realize in the morning, you know what? I actually don't really remember much of what I heard. And so, you know, you do drift in and out of sleep. And so just lying there resting is really beneficial.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:55) Yes. Yeah, I think it's interesting. People get very distressed when they're awake in the night. And we use this phrase quite a lot for many situations where we call it lose twice. So the lose twice concept is where, OK, maybe the first loss is that your sleep's disrupted, so you're awake. But then the second loss is all the anxiety and the worry around that. And that's the bit that you can, as you said, control. You can't control that you've woken up, but you can control how you react to it. That's exactly right.
Dr Barton Jennings (20:24) And to try and take away that worry about waking up and that worry about how am I going to feel the next day. And it's OK to have a bad night's sleep. It happens to everyone. Tomorrow night will be better. And just keep the routine—same time to bed, same time to wake up—and just carry on.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:45) Yes. Interesting. I guess the third sort of lot of people that I tend to see are women going through menopause and perimenopause. They may not make it to your office, but I have seen many women who had good sleep and all of a sudden they don't. And it's like, hmm, isn't that amazing? So again, thinking about some of the physiological causes around estrogen fluctuations and progesterone changes and how that can impact sleep. I don't know if you've seen much of that.
Dr Barton Jennings (21:17) Yeah, yeah, I do. And it's difficult, and it's true. It's a real thing that happens, and it's very common. And due to all of the changes that are occurring physiologically, often that does manifest as, unfortunately, the interrupted sleep and waking through the night and effect on sleep. And it can be something that's actually quite troublesome for people. And it's difficult to manage because there's no easy thing. There's no tablet or there's no easy fix for that. And I think sometimes people find some benefit with some melatonin, and that sort of bit of variable benefit can be tried. If it's helpful, then that's good. But otherwise, I think it's all about just going back to the same things, just the same sleeping habits to try and improve quality of sleep.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:05) Yes. And again, it's funny how you're always drawn to the things that affect you personally. So for me, I used to always start this podcast or finish the podcast with, oh, I had a wonderful sleep because I was a super sleeper, like that was my superpower. It didn't matter what was going on. Like, honestly, you know, my husband used to say, like, there could be a murderer in the house and you wouldn't wake up. And it's like, no, I was dead to the world. And then menopause came along and bang, I'm awake, like crazy for seemingly hours at a time. But I will tell you that MHT or HRT, as it's now known, did help a lot. Yeah. So that was sort of like, oh, my God. And now I feel like I'm back to my normal superpower of sleeping, which is great.
Dr Barton Jennings (22:49) That is very good.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:50) Indeed. And I guess the last thing I just wanted to touch on is the concept of the night owl and the early bird. I'm wondering, is that pre-programmed genetically? Is it conditioned? Can we change it? Tell us a little bit about that.
Dr Barton Jennings (23:06) So, yes, to most of those questions. So certainly people who are night owls tend to have parents who are night owls, people who are night owls. And essentially what it is, is it means that your circadian rhythm has a tendency to want to move forwards. So the night owl's tendency is to want to go to bed a bit later and get up a little bit later. The problem occurs when that's allowed to happen. And the common situation is that somebody, say, goes from school where you have to get up at a certain time to get to school. So your routine is set and then takes a year off or doesn’t work for a year and then suddenly sleeps in a little bit longer, a little bit longer, a little bit longer, falls asleep later and later and later and later and then gets a job where they have to get up early again. And their circadian rhythm or their body clock has shifted so far forward that sometimes these people won’t be able to sleep until, you know, four or five in the morning, but then sleep until in the afternoon. And then they have to get up at eight or seven o’clock and it’s really difficult. And that’s what’s called a delayed phase circadian rhythm disorder. And the natural tendency or what the parents will usually say is, well, if you can’t get up early, you should go to bed earlier. And that actually doesn’t work, though, because if people go to bed earlier than their circadian rhythm wants them to, then they just lie awake. And then they lie awake frustrated because they can’t sleep and they can’t sleep because their body clock’s not going to allow them to sleep until that very early time in the morning. And so what they need to do is actually need to manipulate their wake time and they need to use light therapy to adjust their body clock. And so light in your eye turns off melatonin and tells brain this is now time to wake up. And so say if their natural wake up time was, say, midday, for instance, then what they need to do is set their alarm for eleven thirty, so half an hour earlier for three days and then shine bright light in their eye for 40 minutes to an hour. And that bright light needs to either come from outside because light from inside is not intense enough or you can get light glasses that you can wear that emit a certain intensity of light into your eye. Then they need to every three days, they bring their wake time half an hour earlier, bring the exposure to light half an hour earlier and then go to bed half an hour earlier. And then they set their time to bed and they set their time to wake, say eight hours apart, and they just move them both back half an hour at a time every three days together. And then they can use melatonin in the evening to sort of pull their sleep time a little bit earlier. But the melatonin, the common thing that I see is that people who have tried the melatonin say it doesn’t work. But the thing is, is that the change in wake time and the light is much more powerful than the melatonin.
Dr Lucy Burns (25:56) Right. OK, so yes, they need to wake, go outside and they have to go outside like straight away or it doesn't work if you go outside three hours later.
Dr Barton Jennings (25:06) Well, ideally soon after, because it's that light that's telling brain this is now wake-up time. So what they want to do is tell brain the wake-up time is getting earlier and earlier. And so the best thing to do is to go outside and exercise because then you get the benefit of the exercise and the light, and the exercise helps you wake up as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (25:23) Yes. So take the dog for a walk.
Dr Barton Jennings (25:27) Yeah. Yeah. If time permits.
Dr Lucy Burns (25:28) Yes. This is a question and it's a question without notice. So you may not know the answer, but it came up the other day in one of our momentum calls, which is if you wear contact lenses, does the light still get through the contact lenses?
Dr Barton Jennings (26:43) Yeah. Yeah. So that's still OK.
Dr Barton Jennings (26:44) Yeah. Sunglasses. So if you wear sunglasses, it does the light. And so sometimes what we want to do is avoid light. And so if you want to avoid light, then wearing sunglasses can help if you're trying to alter your circadian rhythm by using light.
Dr Lucy Burns (27:01) OK, there's a lot of talk around blue light and blue light blockers. And what are your thoughts on those?
Dr Barton Jennings (27:08) I think the blue light has more effect on our circadian rhythm. So blocking that can be helpful. But I think ultimately light is more important than what type of light. And so shining the light from your phone into your eyes throughout the night is not good, even though the phone has settings to reduce the blue light or whatever. Like that may be slightly effective, but probably way more effective is not to be shining that light in your eye at all.
Dr Lucy Burns (27:37) In the first place. Yes, yes.
Dr Barton Jennings (27:29) Concentrate on the amount of light.
Dr Lucy Burns (27:40) Yeah. Rather than getting to the types of light. Yes. And I think you're right. I say, you know, there are people that wear the maybe red glasses in the evening when they're watching telly, but then, you know, go outside all day or read their book on their phone all night and things like that. So it's not going to help, is it?
Dr Barton Jennings (28:01) No, not ideal.
Dr Lucy Burns (28:02) Okie dokie. And what about the early birds for those people that sort of wake at like five or four or something, but they don't want to be awake that early? That's too early. How do you know they're falling asleep at eight o'clock and everybody else is still, you know, out and about? How do they, you know, how do they do the reverse? Yeah.
Dr Barton Jennings (28:20) So they're essentially the opposite. So they have a circadian rhythm that tends to want to become earlier. So they’re naturally falling asleep earlier and getting up earlier. And I guess the first thing is, well, if they’re happy to go to sleep early and get up early, then there’s no need to change it. Same as the delayed phase. So if they’re happy to wake up at that time, there’s no need to change it. But sometimes it affects your life and what you need to do. And so to adjust the early bird, they want to do the opposite. And so what they want to do is gradually put their bedtime a little bit later, sort of by half an hour every couple of days. And to assist with that, they can increase the light exposure in the evening or get some exercise in the evening to help push their bedtime a little bit later. And so they want to manipulate their bedtime half an hour later every two or three days, and then their wake time will flow on. One of the difficulties with adjusting circadian rhythm, though, is that when you adjust—say you’re adjusting your bedtime, pushing it a bit later, or you’re adjusting your wake time, pushing it a bit earlier—there’s always a lag. So it’s not like you bring it earlier and then suddenly the next night you fall asleep half an hour earlier—there’s a lag. So you set your bedtime. And you have to realize that, you know, you may not fall asleep for that half an hour. Or when you first push your bedtime later for the early bird, they’re not going to suddenly wake up half an hour later. There’s going to be a lag. But the key is to stick with the program, stick with the change, and with time it will improve. But during that lag period, you essentially create a situation—a slight sleep deprivation. And that’s OK, but it may lead to some sleepiness. But it does make it a bit hard to make those changes. But the key is just to stick with it, and with time—not a day, a week, but maybe like a month or two—with time, you know, it will fall into sync and the sleep will improve and consolidate and become better quality and start to feel the benefit.
Dr Lucy Burns (30:19) Yeah. Yeah. I think it's always hard when you make a lifestyle change of any sort. And, you know, there's an initial bit of pain before you get your gain. And it’s like, so, yes, I think that’s a really good point to remember—that, yeah, you do need to just keep persisting because initially your brain will want to go, this isn’t working, I don’t want to do this.
Dr Barton Jennings (30:39) That’s right.
Dr Lucy Burns (30:41) Yeah. Awesome. But you have been a wealth of information. And I think that the non-sleepers amongst us are rejoicing with some of your information because it will be helpful to them. If people wanted to connect with you or come and see you, perhaps, where do they find you?
Dr Barton Jennings (30:56) Physically, we’re located in Bentleigh in Melbourne at Bentleigh Specialist Centre. Our practice is called Lung and Sleep. So our website is LungandSleep.com.au, and that’s probably the best way. Otherwise, also on LinkedIn.
Dr Lucy Burns (31:11) Yep. Awesome. I think that’s fantastic. And I think for anybody who’s worried about their sleep, definitely just get it investigated—like don’t put it off. And I guess before we finish up, you know, if you could give out one piece of advice for the whole world—and I know, you know, it’s hard to just give generic advice to the whole world—but what was your one, you know, the one thing that if you could give that advice to somebody, what would be the one thing?
Dr Barton Jennings (31:35) I think from a sleep point of view, it's routine. Yeah. So the more constant your routine, the better. And, you know, when children or babies don't sleep well and they go to sleep school, the thing that they teach the parents is routine. And unfortunately, that is exactly the same throughout our whole life—that maintaining a routine is the best thing for our sleep and our body because it maintains our body clock, our circadian rhythm. And it's boring and it's hard. But it is simple, and the most important thing. So working out what time is the optimal time to be going to bed, to getting up, and maintain that the same. And if you want to sleep in a little bit, I mean, that's OK. But you want to keep that to within about an hour. And so a little bit—an hour variability on either side—is probably OK. But much more than that, then it starts to upset our body clock.
Dr Lucy Burns (32:27) Ah, amazing. I love that. Thank you so much for your time. You've been very generous. I'm very, very grateful to you. Have a wonderful day. And my lovely listener, here is your little cue—go to bed. I'd love to say it's not that hard, but it is that hard. I get it. But yes, first thing—yes. Routine, routine, routine. Lovely. All right. See you next week, lovelies.
Dr Lucy Burns (32:52) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
