Links

Dr. Walker’s TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFpciGYBELo

National Sleep Foundation: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/healthy-sleep-tips 

Transcript

0:02 Intro: Hi there! Welcome to Well dukes, brought to you by the Well. Each week, you’ll hear conversations from a variety of JMU staff and students that we hope challenge the way you know, think, or do in regard to your own health and helps you be Well Dukes.

0:23 Jordan: Hey there, welcome to another episode of the Well Dukes podcast. 

0:26 Mikayla: Hey Jordan, I have a joke for you. Do you wanna hear it? 

0:30 Jordan: Uh. Yeah.

0:32 Mikayla: Alright. What do you call a T-Rex that needs a nap?

0:39 Jordan: Oh… uh… sleepy… saurus? 

0:46 Mikayla: Close. We would call that a dino-snore. 

0:51 Jordan: [Groans.] I love your jokes, Mikayla. 

0:55 Mikayla: Oh thank you, thank you. While I love to tell jokes, that is one of my favorite things to do, there is a reason for doing so. This week we have a podcast episode on sleep. So Jordan, do you want to tell us a little more about your interview?

1:09 Jordan: Yeah, I had a conversation with Luke Waits. Luke is a first year biology major and he is one of our Well Peers and we talked for quite a while on all the different topics of sleep. But for the episode, we just briefly go into the stages of sleep and REM cycles, kind of what are they, what happens when we sleep, and really why it’s important for college students and ways for people to get better sleep. 

1:35 Mikayla: That sounds great, let’s get started!

[Musical Interlude}

1:43 Jordan: Hi Luke, thanks for doing this episode with me today on sleep.

1:48 Luke: I'm really excited to be here.

1:50 Jordan: I'm curious, actually, if you could tell me a little bit more why you were interested in doing this episode or why you're interested in sleep so much? 

2:00 Luke: Well, I've always been interested in neuroscience. And last semester for a passport for HTH 100, I watched a TED talk that featured Dr. Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist from University of California, Berkeley, and he's talking about how coronavirus has affected our sleep schedules. After that I've been completely enamored with the subject. And just, it's been really interesting to me. So I learned that we're doing this and I got really excited.

2:28 Jordan: Yeah, I mean, who doesn't like sleep? I've never met someone who has been like, “Ew, I hate sleeping.” Like most people are the opposite and saying, “I wish I was getting more sleep.”

2:42 Luke: Yeah, I think my bed is one of my favorite places on campus.

2:45 Jordan: Yeah. So would you say that you yourself have a good relationship with sleep? Do you get enough sleep, Luke?

2:51 Luke: I want to say I try my hardest to, but like most college students, you know, I get busy, I have classes. I tried to, like, stick to a schedule or like, lack of better words, have like a bedtime, you know. But once a weekend hits, you know, hanging out with friends and like playing games or going out, I kind of lose track of time. And suddenly, I'm going to bed from either 12am to like 2am or sometimes later. So my sleep schedule really gets messed up from that. I think it's really tricky. But I definitely want to learn more about, like, what happens in my sleep? And like, how are you better at that. So going off of that. Jordan, can you explain like what happens when you sleep?

3:22 Jordan: Yeah. So I too find sleep and all of that kind of, like, neuroscience, I find it really interesting and really fascinating. So when someone sleeps, and for this purpose, we will talk about, we're going to kind of use the ideal time for a nighttime sleep is about eight hours for adults, especially college students. Eight to nine, as you get to adulthood, it may decrease a little bit to kind of--that, the need for sleep decreases as we get older. But for this purpose, we're going to aim for about eight hours, is the ideal time. And so during those eight hours at bedtime, there are different stages. So there's four different stages of sleep. And when we go through each one of those stages, we consider that one cycle. And on average, we go through about four to five cycles, again, through an eight hour period at night. So with those stages, the first stage is kind of when we first start dozing off, it's that very just starting to fall asleep, this is still pretty considered pretty light sleep. And then we move into stage two, which is also kind of considered light sleep. in stages one and two, it's pretty easy to still be woken up. But in stage two, that's also when we start to see some of the cognitive and metabolic changes happening. So they start, our brain activity starts to slow down, our metabolism starts to slow down. And then in stage three, we start to enter the deep sleep. And that's really kind of our body's recovery mode. And those first three stages are part of non-REM sleep. And REM is a term I think a lot of people are familiar with. REM stands for rapid eye movement. But those three first stages are all non-REM sleep. It's not until we enter the fourth stage is when we enter REM sleep and start seeing that there's activities that happen with REM sleep. So in stage four, that's when brain activity actually increases again. And I find dreams really fascinating. But this is when for some people, you experience the most intense part of the dreams. Some people don't experience dreams at all. And that doesn't mean anything is wrong with you, too. I've heard that question. But in stage four, our brain activity increases, our breathing and heart rate can start to increase also sometimes based on what we're dreaming about. And interesting enough though, our muscles essentially kind of become paralyzed. And that's why we don't actually act on the movement going on in our dreams. So when we go through all four of those stages, as I said, that's considered one cycle, and each cycle takes anywhere between one to two hours. And then as the night goes on, we tend to stay in those stages three and four longer each time. So the stages one and two start to become shorter, and then three and four stay. We stay in those stages longer. So we start to stay in that REM sleep even longer with each cycle and then kind of again based on our circadian rhythm. Once we're in that fourth or fifth one, depending on when people actually tend to wake up, we start to decrease in the amount of time staying in the REM sleep.

6:50 Luke: So you mentioned earlier about each cycle taking one to two hours. So how does that correlate with like naps? So I mean, tired after one of my online classes, I kind of just wanna, like, doze off for a bit. Should I, like, have it-- try to aim for an hour? Or like less than that...

7:05 Jordan: Yeah, good question. Yes, napping. Oh, I missed napping. I missed the undergrad days where it was really easy to, you know, sneak in a nap between classes. Naps can be absolutely beneficial. I think some people may have heard or think that they shouldn't be taking naps. Naps can be really great because they do allow for that just kind of rest to happen, especially when our body needs it. If our body's telling us that we're tired, and we're sleeping, we're able to fall asleep for a nap, it's really because our body is letting us know that it's needed. But napping ,now, it's when the napping actually turns into sleep, right? So there's not really any such thing as a three, four hour nap at that point someone is just sleeping. So with naps? Yes, you want to try to keep them. So when you're staying in the light sleep. So you don't really want to enter deep sleep, or you want to make the nap long enough so that you actually go through one entire cycle. So that can vary. So for some people, they can do this quick kind of cat naps, which means maybe just dozing off 20 minutes, ish, 20-30 minutes. So really just kind of as they are in that stage one and two. So they’re still in that light sleep, or someone may go ahead and tend to sleep for about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. And that's usually enough time for them to go through one whole cycle. And so that way, then they wake up once they start entering stage one again. So there's not-- it varies on the person. And I guess, kind of, really varies on how tired someone is or what the schedule is, if someone has the time to allow for an hour nap hour and a half nap, that can be useful. Or if someone is you know, just needing a quick nap. You want to try to aim to keep it again around like 20-25-30 minutes.

9:11 Luke: Awesome. I'm reading somewhere about how like, when you’re in REM sleep, it helps with memories. Can you comment on that?

9:20 Jordan: Yeah, yeah, so um, the REM sleep is really where we start to see the kind of the most beneficial components of when we sleep and why we need sleep. So we start to see more, like I said, the brain activity increases again, when we're in stage four, and in that REM sleep and part of that brain activity also includes the memory consolidation. So when we're able to take what we have learned our short-term memory and start to process it into long-term memory.

9:44 Luke: So a lot of people think, and like a misconception, that your body kind of turns off when you're sleeping, and like your metabolism stops, like hormones and everything. And we always just talked about how the brain does not stop when you're sleeping, you're still going, stuff’s happening. So what's happening with, like, your metabolism and your hormones?

10:01 Jordan: Yeah, our hormones are regulated while we sleep. And the hormone that's really most important is our growth hormone. And so especially for children, children need more sleep. But even young adults, like your age, college students still have that growth hormone. And so there's still muscle recovery happening. Cortisol is regulated. So cortisol is our stress hormone. Sleeping is also very conducive to our mood, and has a very reciprocal relationship with our mood. If we don't get enough sleep, we may feel tired and grouchy. But if we are getting enough sleep, we feel restful, and so very reciprocal there, we can get into that later. But even the hormones that can control our appetite, they do our metabolism that, like I said. Everything does slow down. So our metabolism kind of slows down. We're not processing food and burning the calories internally when we're sleeping, but it doesn't just fully shut down. The heart rate does decrease again, becomes very slow resting or breathing becomes even more even paced. Until someone enters that stage for that REM cycle where we may see increase heart rate, or more breathing.

11:25 Luke: Oh, so I know sometimes like, depending on how much sleep I get, I can wake up in like different moods. And is that affected by sleep? Am I just like a naturally grouchy person? What do you think of that?

11:41 Jordan: I don't think you're a naturally grouchy person. But yeah, absolutely, when someone is tired and someone hasn't gotten enough sleep, it's going to affect them the next day, they're, you know, they might feel a little bit more irritable. And they may even have physical symptoms of being tired, right, or not getting enough sleep. So even from the physical appearance, we may see puffy eyes or circles under the eyes. Just our body feels maybe a little bit more heavy, a little more lethargic. We may experience headaches, more muscle pain if we were not getting enough sleep. But then to-- Yeah, so when we were tired, our body is really kind of telling us like we need to rest and pushing our body through that can potentially cause someone to feel kind of more in that, like you said, a grouchy mood or an irritable mood, bad mood, which then unfortunately, it can affect relationships, too. So the people that were around, if we're always tired, we may be in a bad mood, we may not, you know, feel like we want to be around people, we may not be the most pleasant to be around and, and it happens. I think we've all had those days, right? The good old expression, like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Like, well, sounds like this person may not have even went to bed. But it does. Yes. So, it can make your mood, affect your mood for sure. Versus the days maybe, Luke, you can recall a day that you have had a good sleep and you woke up and you just feel really refreshed and it feels better, you're ready to kind of be productive, accomplish things, kind of take on the day. And I think what's really important there is recognizing the relationship that has with people in college, you know, and so how important it is to have a good sleep so they're able to feel ready to be productive, ready to go to class, and be able to pay attention.

13:36 Luke: So we talked about, like, how REM sleep turns short term memories into long term memories. And we just discussed about how mood is affected by sleep. So just a scenario, because I mean most college students are in it, I have a test the night before and study, pull an all nighter cramming studying, I don't get much sleep. What do you think, will I still do well on that test or like will I be affected? Will it affect me at all?

14:03 Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. All nighters, they happen. I have been there. I know the prep, trust me, I am a procrastinator. I was in college. I still do it now. So I've been there, I know the feeling of, you got a big exam or you got a paper that's due the next day and you put it off. And then you think, “Okay, well, I've got all night, I'm going to focus. You know, if I'm blocked in here, I'm in my room, or I'm at the library or something, and I am I'm just going to knock it out. I'm gonna stay up all night, dedicate all my time to this one thing.” And so especially when we talk about studying, so if someone is trying to cram or study for a final. There are… yeah, so all nighters are not a good thing. Point being they're not really helpful. I know that some students may want to argue that, you know, because they're like, well, I passed the test. I think maybe that's not giving the person just really the credit that they actually knew the information. But why all nighters are not beneficial. Aside from the fact that usually people are consuming substances, whether that be a lot of caffeine or prescription stimulants to help stay up that entire night. Aside from that, it's also that without that rest, without the person being able to fall asleep and allowing that time for that memory consolidation like we talked about earlier, we're not even really being able to process the memory that we are trying to take in. So studies have shown that people have done better on average when they do actually get to sleep because they study the information, but then that sleep allows them to kind of, like I said, process it and then they're able to recall it later on when they need it better. Versus when they are soldiers trying to force themselves to stay awake and taking it in when really their body is kind of trying to tell them. “Hey, it's time to sleep.”

16:07 Luke:  So you just mentioned some substance that people use to keep you up. So like caffeine and like other stimulants. So what about substances that, like, bring you down help you be sleepy. I know we can have a full episode on that because there’s a lot to talk about there, do you mind commenting like should people like students like me be taking substances help us sleep better, or what are thoughts on that?

16:35 Jordan: Yeah, I've heard that and you're right. There's-- definitely talk a lot more about this-- and especially when we actually do have an episode coming up on cannabis and I think they're going to talk about it a little bit there. But yeah, substances like alcohol and cannabis or marijuana, people using that to help fall asleep. And so when we talk about alcohol, alcohol is a depressant. So it can be conducive in helping someone fall asleep, but they're really not entering that deep sleep when they're not staying in those cycles as long. And so it's not causing a good night's rest. And sometimes people hear, like, “Man, I, I drank a lot last night, and I passed out, and you know, I'm waking up 12 hours later.” So they think that like, “Man, because that helped me sleep for so long. I must, you know, I'm all good. Now, like I slept for a long time. So I'm probably going to wake up feeling great.” But really, that 12 hours was not a restful sleep. And can, in turn, really just cause a person to wake up feeling almost like, like that hungover feeling. And then as you said too other substances with cannabis... Similar to alcohol, yes, it can help people fall asleep. But it is also not aiding in that kind of helping with the natural sleep cycles. And then natural alternatives like melatonin. I know some people take melatonin, which is something you can just buy over the counter. And Melatonin is something that our body does produce naturally. But some people do choose to consume more to help with that. So if someone is wanting to have a more natural remedy to help falling asleep, melatonin might be the option there. Things... I also know people like zzzquil, so it's really a sleep aid. My only advice there is. And caution really is that people that are using those substances just are mindful of how much they're using and talking to a doctor or healthcare provider about it so that they are also not becoming reliant on those sleep aids.

18:36 Luke: So now we kind of went over, like, what not to do and what sleep does for us. How can myself and students like me get better sleep? Like I understand that, like, I gotta be in bed first. But what type of, like, tips and tricks do you have? Or like habits that a student should be doing? Or try to get better sleep?

19:08 Jordan: Yeah, yeah, right. We're talking about sleep. Now people are ready to go to bed. But yeah, so we kind of call this our sleep hygiene, which is essentially, we like to call it kind of like the adult version of like our bedtime routine. There are things that we are doing and kind of setting up our environment to create the most conducive to a good sleep. And then our sleep hygiene is also something that we can kind of assess, like, are we getting enough sleep? Are we getting quality sleep? So the first thing you kind of touched on this earlier, you are feeling a little concerned, like sometimes you go to bed at midnight, sometimes it's at 2am. One of the most important things is that it's just some sort of sleep routine that is consistent. So if we are aiming for eight hours, someone's bedtime, or when they go to bed may be different from someone else's, and that's okay, as long as they're still able to get that seven, eight, nine hours. So for some people, if they are, they need to get up in the morning, or they are just naturally early people may get up at six 7am, they're gonna want to go to bed at 10-11 o'clock. But for some people, if their schedule allows it, they don't need to wake up until nine or ten every morning. If they go to bed at midnight, then that's okay, too. So there's not really this set, like you must be asleep, you know, my tip is to be asleep by eleven o'clock. That can vary for everyone. And it's really about the consistency that it's got, you're going to bed at the same time and in the same place. So meaning your bed, or wherever someone is used to sleeping. So what we don't see is falling asleep in different places throughout the night. Sure, some people may fall asleep on the couch watching TV, or in the armchair or something like that. But ideally, someone is falling asleep in the same place at the same time every night. At most college students that can become pretty difficult because I know class schedules are different. So for some people, they may have to wake up super early because they've got an 8am on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays they don't have class until noon. And so then they'll sleep in until 10-11 o'clock on those Tuesdays and Thursdays right. Ideally, we have that consistent routine. And that even means waking up at the same time every morning, including also weekends then too. So studies have shown on average, people tend to sleep much more on the weekends. And it is this kind of sense of like catching up on sleep on the weekends. I hear that a lot too. Like, “Oh. That's what-- that's what the weekends are for: sleep.” Have you heard that before? Is that something that you've heard other students say?

21:48 Luke: Oh, yeah, that's what my roommate tells me all the time. And we talked about earlier with different schedules. My roommate and I, our schedules are completely different. So I could be going to bed around twelve. I try to, but I have classes in the morning at 8am and 9am. But him, his classes don't start till much later in the day. So he's gonna go to bed at like 4am and then waking up at twelve. And like, you'll still get those hours.

22:17 Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. So I think some people try to look at it as like a math equation, and you can, but really, it's not. You really can't use the term like catching up on sleep, you really can't do that. It's more so the thought of catching up on sleep, because you're tired means you just need to kind of take that night. And, you know, as soon as possible, get a good night's rest. But there's really not this like, “Oh, I'm pulling all nighters, I'm only getting three, four hours of sleep throughout the week. But I'm just going to sleep all day on Saturday/Sunday, and then I'm kind of, it's a new week, I'm fresh and ready to go and everything's fine. It doesn't work that way. Because our body needs that consistency. So that would be one tip. Again, I know that it may sound difficult, like I am there. Also, too. I'm like, “Oh, I don't want to wake up at 8am on a weekend.” And it's okay, sleeping is okay, too. I want to say that. But ideally, it is this consistent sleep routine that it's kind of the going to bed and waking up around the same time every day as your schedule allows. And then something else you pointed out was another thing that does make it tricky as roommates, when you live with people and especially in a residence hall. So do you live in a residence hall Luke?

23:46 Luke: I do. Yeah. So the hallways… Yeah. It's not just my roommate. It's the people like next door to me or down the hall. So like, there's a lot of sounds about people that… I may be going to bed at twelve. But they go to bed at like 7am. So they're up doing the rounds. So the noise is… Yeah.

24:05 Jordan: Yeah. Yes, it is tricky. And I know that it's hard. You know, as I'm saying all of this and trying to. For some people, it's way more feasible. But when you live in a residence hall with a roommate, you’re sharing, you don't even have a wall to separate the two of you. That does make it a little more difficult because you are reliant on someone else's schedule and habits. And so that can make it really tough if, you know, one of you wants to go to bed early, but the other one is wanting to watch TV or still needs to study. So leaving lights on-- because ideally, we have you know, lights off, the ideal temperature is about upper-60s, like 68 degrees is an ideal temperature for your sleep environment. You want to have, of course little to no noise, but you can't really control that if your roommate is someone who wants to sleep with a fan on or, and you like the fan off, or the people in the hallway or yelling or next door yelling and you're trying to sleep. Right or your TV, like the roommate wants to stay up to keep watching it and you can still hear it coming through their headphones. But yeah, so some of those are some of the qualities, or I'm sorry, some of the tips for an environment. Like I said, we also want to consider not drinking caffeine right before bed. That may seem obvious, but our bodies take a little bit of time to metabolize caffeine. And so as some-- if someone does drink it right before bed, or even just a few hours before bed, that caffeine really may not fully metabolize and start to affect the body until the person has been trying to go to sleep. And so ideally, if someone is drinking caffeine, whether that be a Red Bull or Monster or whatever, you know, coffee, tea, so any sort of levels of caffeine, kind of want to cut that off at least about four or five hours before going to bed. And then also some other things too, exercise. Sometimes it can be helpful, but that also can sometimes present a barrier to getting a good night's sleep for students. When we are engaging in exercise or physical activity, that is very good for the body. But it's also something sometimes people have this thought that like oh, well if I just run that's going to tire me out, will help me fall asleep. But really, after we exercise, that's when our muscles really start burning calories and we're really exerting that energy so that it takes some time to kind of come down from that as well. So if someone is going to UREC or engaging in high intensity or any sort of cardio, you want to make sure that it's also a good couple hours before someone plans to go to bed. So some other things like yoga, stretching or engaging in kind of low impact exercise before bed that might be better just to again, kind of like, get the heart rate down and bring the body to rest. And then the last one to address is sometimes they're like, “Okay, I've checked all these boxes, and I'm just laying here in bed.” Right? And then what do people tend to do in bed?

27:01 Luke: Probably phones?

27:02 Jordan: Yes. 

27:03 Luke: That was just gonna be my question to you.

27:06 Jordan: Yeah, there's other things, but, um, 

27:10 Luke: I find myself, because you mentioned bedtime routines, and I find my phones in my bedtime routine. Like, I look at my phone, I put down ten minutes that I try to go to bed. And I see things everywhere talking about this blue light, and how it affects sleep quality. And we definitely got questions on Instagram about how does blue light even affect our sleep quality? Or even does it? Like, what? What does that do to our sleep?

27:44 Jordan: Yeah, yeah, the blue light. So essentially, like screens. And yes, it is. So it is so hard to break that habit or not, not engage in that habit of laying in bed. And looking at our phones, and I am, I am guilty of it as well. Yes, it does affect our sleep. And so we do want to try to eliminate blue lights. So that's again, cell phones, laptops, even TV screens. Some people use, like, will turn their TV on and just leave it on to help them fall asleep. But that's also really not very helpful, because our brain still does recognize that stim-- stimulation coming from the screen. So even if your TV is away from you, and you just kind of have it on, but you have it on mute, our brain is still processing, like, even though our eyes are closed, it is still picking up on that light. And it's still kind of recognizing and registering in the brain of something to be paying attention to. So, ideally trying to not have TVs on when we sleep the best. And so if anyone if you're setting a goal, it's to try to eliminate any of that screen time at least 30 minutes before going to bed. So trying to have no screen time thirty minutes before falling asleep.

28:54 Luke: So um, if I'm, like, struggling with sleep, I know a lot of students do struggle falling asleep, and you have a history of it. What can you do to help, like get better sleep better quality sleep or like, like have a habit I guess, of bad sleeping?

29:09 Jordan: Yeah, and we will share some resources in this episode description. So just from further reading, like you what you talked about. Dr. Walker does a lot of sleep studies. And there's like a whole kind of list of some things that can help create a better sleep system, and sleep environment, eating and sleep hygiene. My advice for students is first to take a look and just kind of be aware of maybe what your current bedtime routine looks like. When it comes to getting a better night's sleep, there are just oftentimes-- it is just kind of simple modifications, like we said to…  trying to eliminate some sound or noise. Sometimes it is even using, like, essential oils before bed or making sure you have clean sheets even, like, that's a big thing to telling people to wash your sheets. That absolutely can make you feel better, you know when it comes to getting in bed. And then if it is also or just trying to get more sleep. I like to say, sleep is being productive. And I think some people will think about sleep as “No there's just so much I need to do. And when I'm sleeping, I can't get anything done.” But sleep is, in fact, being productive because it's your body going to rest, it's your body rejuvenating, it's reenergizing so that you then can continue doing things too. So thinking about it from that way to that actually... allowing yourself to take a nap or prioritizing sleep. Invest in yourself and in your health. And that includes sleep. That's something-- I think sleep just often gets so low on the bottom of what college students think their needs are or really what they want to dedicate time to. You know, they definitely know they need sleep. I hear that all the time. But I also feel like it comes as competition. I hear students, too, talk about, like, “Oh, I only you know, I didn't go to bed until this time. Yeah, well, I only got four hours of sleep well, I only got three hours of sleep.” And it's almost this competition of like, who can, you know, who got the least amount of sleep. But I also think that we didn't get to talk about sleep disorders, but there are a lot of common sleep disorders that there are resources for people and I think also just, you know, acknowledging that too and seeking help, if needed.

31:47 Luke: Um, well those are all my questions. I'm, I'm really happy that I was invited to be on the podcast. Thank you so much, Jordan.

31:56 Jordan: Yeah, I'm glad you were interested in it and I look forward to hopefully, you know, some more stuff that we can start doing with sleep and JMU students and start doing some more education and programming around sleep. Yeah. I appreciate having you and you sharing your perspective too, from the college student lens.

32:17 Luke: I'm definitely gonna try these tips and tricks and see if I can improve my sleep and how that affects my social life and my academic life. Thank you so much.

32:27 Jordan: Awesome. Thanks,

[Musical Interlude]

32:31 Jordan: Well we hope that didn’t put you to sleep.

32:35 Mikayla: Ba-dum, duh. I think that was good. I thought that was a great episode full of very useful information for our students. So, speaking of students, we got a great question from a student on our Instagram asking about blue light right before sleep. So Jordan, can you shed a little bit more light on that topic?

32:56 Jordan: Yeah, so the question, and we’ve been hearing about this a lot, especially because of so much stuff being virtual right? But talking about blue light, or blue wavelengths, and they can come from the sun but also from artificial lights like LED lights and electronics. Exposure to blue light suppresses melatonin production, which during the day is a good thing because, as I mentioned earlier, melatonin is a natural hormone that makes us feel drowsy. It’s what helps us fall asleep. So when we’re exposed to artificial light throughout the day, and then we continue that exposure after sundown with electronics and screen time like cell phones in bed, it’s harder for our circadian rhythms to adjust, making it harder to fall asleep. So, there are tips for someone that, if they know that they have a lot of screen time, like the blue light filtering glasses that have become really popular. And they can be helpful. 

33:52 Mikayla: Yeah, you can actually buy blue light filtering glasses at the UHC pharmacy on campus for $3. I wish I had known this, I bought my pair for about $20 so on campus is definitely the more affordable option.

34:05 Jordan: I need to get myself a pair of those. Well, Dukes, so be sure to check us out on Instagram @JMUWellDukes. We’re gonna be posting some more tips and facts on sleep throughout the month.

34:18 Mikayla: And if you wanna learn more, we’ll have the link to the TED Talk by Dr. Matthew Walker that Luke mentioned in this episode, as well as the link to the National Sleep Foundation in the episode description. 

34:29 Jordan: If you’re listening to this for HTH 100, your passcode is “REM Cycle.” So again, that’s “REM,” which stands for rapid eye movement cycle. Remember, be well Dukes. 

34:43 Mikayla: And that’s a wrap. Boom.