Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris Winter
No holds barred, unscripted discussion on a wide range of sleep topics - from sleep disorders to current research and controversies in the field. No topic is off limits! Dr. Chris Winter is a clinician, a board certified neurologist and double boarded sleep specialist with 30 years of clinical experience. He is the author of The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child, and is a popular consultant and speaker, working for many professional sports teams. He is well known for his unique perspective and ability to demystify sleep, all of which he brings to Sleep Unplugged.
Episodes
225 episodes
#223 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: Ain’t Nobody Worried
Dr. Valerie Cacho (@drvalsleepgal) joins me for another countdown of the Top 10 Sleep Threats, and her list asks a question we should all be asking more often: Have we actually figured out what is disrupting someone’s sleep? From peptides marke...
#222 - How Much Is A Night of Sleep Worth: Break It On Down
A courtroom, an insurance formula, and a supermarket receipt don't usually belong in the same sentence — but together they answer the question this episode is built around: what does a bad night's sleep actually cost, in dollars, tonight? Not t...
Bonus - The AI Interview Experiment...UNHINGED: Wish I Knew What You Were Looking For
A few days ago, we did an experiment to see how well AI could interview me about sleep. In this bonus episode, I reveal the original attempt which was a bit all over the place. The interview was much more personal and strange which we corrected...
#221 - The AI Interview Experiment: Wish I Knew What You Were Looking For
What happens when the interviewer knows nearly everything you have said publicly and has zero fear of challenging or offending you? In this unusual episode of Sleep Unplugged, I turn over all control of the podcast to AI and let it ask the ques...
#220 - The Lindsay Clancy Tragedy: Insomnia, Overmedication, and the Psychiatric Safety Net
A Massachusetts courtroom just produced something that almost never survives into public record: a near-complete paper trail of one woman's psychiatric care in the three months before catastrophe. Her diary, her phone notes, and the testimony o...
#219 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: Trapped Inside Disillusion
Dr. Alison Kole is taking on sleepmaxxing, ChatGPT, and the sleep-industrial complex in her Top 10 Sleep Threat list. In this episode we will:Explore why patients sometimes arrive at the sleep clinic with their story and diagnosis a...
#218 - Medication Deprescribing: Get Off This
Nobody blinks when a doctor says you'll be on blood pressure medication for the rest of your life. Say the same sentence about an antidepressant, or Zepbound, and responses are quite different. This episode digs into deprescribing, the fast-gro...
#217 - Modern Night Shift and Circadian Adaptation: Up All Night
Our current gig economy did not just create new jobs, it expanded a whole new category of night worker, from rideshare drivers to online freelancers to overnight fulfillment teams. Today (or tonight rather), our bodies are struggling to make th...
#216 - Nasal Strips and Sleep: Leave Me Breathless
Nasal strips have been a fixture in pharmacy aisles and on athletes' faces for decades, sold on the promise of easier breathing, but the peer-reviewed evidence often tells a different story than the packaging does. We put nasal strips and inter...
#215 - Seqoquel and Insomnia: Same Thing From The Same Old Cause
Ten million prescriptions a year, and most of them aren't for what the drug was built to treat. Seroquel started life as an antipsychotic — engineered to quiet psychosis, not close your eyes. Somewhere along the way it became one of the most co...
#214 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: They Couldn’t See It
Most "top sleep threats" lists stick to one lane — pediatric or adult, clinical or cultural. Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown's list refuses to. It jumps from kids' airways to menopause to AI chatbots, and by the end a pattern emerges: the same symptom,...
#213 - Research from the 2026 SLEEP Scientific Conference: Something New
Every June, thousands of sleep researchers descend on one city and quietly rewrite what we think we know about a third of our lives. This year it was Baltimore's turn, for the 40th annual SLEEP meeting — and the data that came out of it hits cl...
#212 - Deep Sleep and REM Sleep: A Deeper Understanding, Lost In A Dream
Deep sleep and REM sleep get lumped together as "good sleep," but they're almost opposite states — one is the quietest your brain gets all night, the other is nearly as active as being awake. In this episode we pull the two apart: how we stumbl...
#211 - Insomnia and Sleep Apnea: Just Don’t Know
We tend to think of insomnia and sleep apnea as two completely different sleep disorders. One means you can't sleep. The other means you stop breathing. Simple, right? Not so fast. In reality, many people with sleep apnea don't complain about s...
#210 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: Stop Right Now, Thank You Very Much
This week marks the 12th month we have put out the Top 10 Sleep Threats Power Rankings, and this week, we have a special guest assessor, Upneet Chawla, MD (@sleeping.beauty_md). Upneet is an internist and board-certified sleep specialist. ...
#209 - Sleep Quantity or Consistency…which is Queen?: Your Future’s At Stake
Sleep duration has always been the headline number in sleep science, but mounting research is pushing the conversation toward something less obvious: how consistent your timing is from night to night. In this episode we dig into a debate that's...
#208 - Menopause and Sleep Update: Outside This Woman's Work
Menopause has always been linked to sleep disruption, but the story has changed dramatically since we last covered it in episode 3. Hot flashes and night sweats still matter, but newer research is pushing us to think more broadly about brain te...
#207 - Insomnia and Narcolepsy: Tired of the Same Old Story
Narcolepsy is often described as a disorder of excessive daytime sleepiness, but that description only tells part of the story. Many people living with narcolepsy also struggle with fragmented, restless, and unrefreshing sleep at night; and the...
#206 - Sleep Trackers in the Clinic--Help or Harm?: I Guess I Gotta Buy It
Sleep trackers have become one of the fastest-growing trends in modern health culture. Rings, watches, apps, and mattress sensors now promise to measure everything about your sleep, but are these devices actually helping us sleep better…or simp...
#205 - Socks In Bed: Taking All The Heat On Your Feet
People tend to have surprisingly strong opinions about wearing socks in bed. Some people swear by them, claiming they fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. Others find them uncomfortable, claustrophobic, or far too warm. But beneath this od...
#204 - Nidra for RLS: Voltage Running Through Your Skin
Restless Legs Syndrome has long been treated as a medication problem. But what if one of the most important clues was hidden in the thing patients already know: movement helps. Nidra, a prescription neuromodulation device using tonic motor acti...
#203 - What’s Next To Your Bed?: In The Dark, Try To Make It Work
What’s on your bedside table? A lamp? A phone? A book? A bottle of melatonin gummies? A tangled charging cable? In this episode we explore what our bedside environments reveal about our relationship with sleep itself. Using real listener-submit...
#202 - AI Sleep Therapists: Machines to Save Our Lives, Machines Dehumanize
Artificial intelligence is quietly moving into one of the most human spaces we have: therapy. Chatbots now deliver cognitive behavioral strategies, respond with empathy, and are available 24/7 at a fraction of the cost of traditional care. But ...
#201 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: I Should Be Scared, But I Feel No Fear
This week marks the 11th month we have put out the Top 10 Sleep Threats Power Rankings, and this week, we have a special guest assessor, Ellen Wermter FNP-BC. Ellen is a nurse practitioner and board-certified behavioral sleep specialist. ...
#200 - Sleep Reflections and Hopes: 200 More Before I Sleep
Sleep has never been more visible...or more complicated. In a world of sleep scores, optimization strategies, and endless advice, the pursuit of better sleep has quietly shifted into something more rigid, and for many, more stressful. At the sa...