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Episode 20: How Sleep Became a Luxury: Social Determinants of Sleep Quality

Show notes:

Too often, sleep is marketed as something you need fancy gadgets and accessories to do well. Something you need an hour long wake up and wind down routine for. But most people don’t have time or money to spare for so-called sleep luxuries. In this episode, we’re taking a closer look at the social determinants of sleep. The conditions in which people live, learn, work, and age, which affect their health.

To help, we’ve invited novelist and journalist Jessica Grose. An opinion writer at the New York Times, Jessica explores culture, politics, religion, health, and the American family through her twice weekly newsletter, and is the author of books like Home Economics, How Couples Manage Their Money, Sad Desk Salad, and most recently, Screaming on the Inside, The Unsustainability of American Motherhood.

Episode-related links:

Sleep Inequality Statistics and Facts
Sleep Deprivation: Symptoms, Causes, Risk Factors, and Treatments
How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?

Transcript:

Dr. Shelby Harris: How are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? I’m Dr. Shelby Harris, licensed clinical psychologist and Director of Sleep Health at Sleepopolis, where we dive deep into all things sleep. If you like Sleep Talking with Dr. Shelby, take a second right now to like this video on YouTube or give us a five star rating through Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

It seems simple, I know. But it helps us reach a lot more people to get them the rest they deserve. And if you’re tired of hitting that snooze button, hit the subscribe button instead. A new episode of science backed sleep tips is available every other Wednesday. 

Jessica, thanks so much for being here. You know I’m a big fan. And welcome to Sleep Talking with Dr. Shelby. 

Jessica Grose: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m very happy to be here.

DS: And I really do think you have quite a unique and dare I say, powerful voice in the field. So I love a lot of the work that you’ve been doing over the years. So I hope that we can dig into some of that stuff. 

So obviously when it comes to sleep and the ability to prioritize sleep, everyone is different. And you know, on my podcast, we’ve talked in past episodes about sleep needs for older adults, for kids, for pregnant women, night shift workers, cancer patients, all these different types of patients and people.

And today I think we’re going to go a step further and talk about the conditions that really impact our sleep. So what factors for you really tend to come to mind? And how do these factors tend to impact people’s sleep quality? Quantity? Are there things that really come to mind, top of mind for you? 

JG: Top of mind for me is definitely fragmented sleep. So I didn’t really think about this until I had kids, although I was never a great sleeper myself. But just the constant awakenings at night. And this happens, depending on the family, for many, many, many years. So, you know, I remember when my kids were a little bit older, you know, I think they were like five and eight. There was one month where we got woken up every night by one thing or another, you know, like, and there was nothing really wrong. They’re pretty good sleepers, but it was just like, Oh my God, are we ever going to get a solid night of sleep again? So the fragmentation, not just from children waking at night, but also from stress, so, I think the effects of stress on sleep are just profound and obviously you’re the expert and can talk a little bit more about that, but either trouble falling asleep, frequent night wakings, you know, I have heard from a lot of people who worked in stressful jobs that they didn’t realize how tired they were until they retired.

DS: Yeah. 

JG: And once the stress of that work was no longer hanging over them. They were like, oh, this is what a good night’s sleep feels like. So those are the two sort of big ones that come to mind for me. 

DS: So how do you think, when it comes to like socioeconomic class, right, you’re talking about work and income and social status. Do you think that that plays in a lot? And do you see that being an issue maybe on social media when it comes to sleep? Like, do you notice it much? 

JG: Yes, for sure. I mean, as you said, you’ve talked about shift workers in the past, so, you know, we have a relative who worked the night shift as EMS, as an emergency medical, and she’s in her 60s. She stopped doing that 20 years ago and feels like her sleep is still affected to this day from working the third shift. Like it just was really tough having your hours flipped from everybody else’s schedule and being asleep during waking hours. 

I mean, another sort of economic determinant of sleep is noise. And so, you know, it’s not a hundred percent, but lower income neighborhoods tend to be noisier, the air quality is worse. And so there’s sort of environmental factors that may be affecting sleep, that, you know, maybe aren’t going to show up on a survey, but have sort of a long term impact on the quality and duration.

DS: Do you know if there’s anything being done to help with those sorts of aspects when it comes to maybe environmental aspects that might be impacting sleep? 

JG: Not that I know of. I mean, especially, I mean, noise pollution seems to only be getting worse and in terms of, you know, the noise of just cars and trucks and, you know, the volume of traffic, all of that. And you’re more likely to live near highways, the lower your income is. And so like all of those sort of environmental things , I have not read about them getting better, but –

DS: Yeah. 

JG: You know, I am not a completist 

DS: Yeah, it’s interesting I put a question up on my Instagram page this morning just saying does anybody have any questions about like social determinants of sleep and the noise pollution was a big one that people were asking about and I just don’t know of anything specifically that’s being done and it’s a real shame. 

JG: Yeah, light pollution is another one. I mean, especially for people in urban areas, you know, it’s very rarely talked about but just bright lights everywhere all the time. 

DS: Yeah, and those were things like when I worked in the Bronx at Montefiore, those were things that I had to think about a lot of times was living ,environment right? We have these great recommendations in sleep medicine of, you know, keep everything quiet, dark, cool, comfortable.

And we have to think about socioeconomic status as well. Like, is everyone able to get a new mattress to get these crazy expensive mattress toppers that are going to cool their rooms? There’s the noise of the subway that’s nearby. The lights, like you said, outside. And I think what frustrates me are the recommendations online that don’t take into account this stuff, and a lot of it comes from a place of privilege a lot of times.

Like, oh, we’ll take an hour to get ready in the morning. Make sure you’re getting a lot of bright light and walk around. Like, I don’t know who has the time to do those things. 

JG: Right. 

DS: Do you see a lot of that as well? 

JG: Oh, yeah. A lot of the recommendations like, wait an hour to have coffee. If I waited an hour to have coffee after I woke up, nothing would ever get done in my house.

No children would be awake. No one would leave for the day. Like, it’s just like, yes, maybe that’s optimal for, you know, my circadian rhythm, but like, it ain’t happening for me. 

DS: Believe it or not, there’s actually debate about that being true to wait an hour. So right. Drink the coffee. 

JG: Yes. On many of these things. And again, you know, you are the expert, like, I feel like the science is mixed on a lot of things. And when I do health coverage, I always try to make clear that like, yes, for the population at large, these things might be absolutely true. But that doesn’t mean that on an individual level, they will always be one size fits all. 

DS: That’s interesting. So you have to take that into account when you’re doing a lot of that coverage, I can imagine, especially like the parenting and stuff. 

JG: Yeah, I really try my hardest. I really try to caveat as much as possible. I try to be honest when the research is mixed, even if it is mostly in one direction. So a good example of this is, you know, I just did this big series on edtech on, you know, technology in the classroom. And while my overall take was that the way it is being used now does more harm than good, I want it to be very clear that, especially for kids who learn differently, who have disabilities, tech can be a complete game changer.

I mean, they’re all just tools. How we use them is the important part. But I felt like you always need to acknowledge that every person using a technology is not the same. And the way that they are using it may be really different. And the needs that they have may be wildly different. So, You know, that’s just a sort of example when you’re sort of looking at a body of research and you’re looking at, you know, the whole population, there’s almost always at least one thing that you’re like, this is an outlier that I really want to be sure to recognize.

DS: Yeah. And I think that’s actually another interesting piece is that the ed tech, like you were talking about, I absolutely love that series that you were doing. Why don’t you tell people about it? Because it’s a little bit different from the topic that we’re talking about overall, but I think it was a really important column. It can tie into sleep a lot. 

JG: Yes, I mean, the screens in sleep is huge, especially for teenagers, and you know, there are some people who believe, and again, because this is such a big topic, there are a lot of mixed signals, noise, opinions, but in terms of teen mental health, one aspect that some believe is affecting teen mental health is they are getting less sleep. Like that is true, that has been tracked that teens have been getting less sleep over time and some attribute that lessening of sleep to having screens in the bedroom being on screens later having, you know, more access to more screens. 

So again, not 100%. I am not saying like the reason that teen mental health is worse is because of screen like no, I’m not saying that. I’m saying like, it’s a very complicated issue and the data is messy and we’re all sort of just trying to figure it out. But the series that I did, you know, we’ve been hearing a lot about teenagers and screens at home and just in general and having smartphones. And I felt that there was very little research about how much kids are using screens in the classroom.

DS: Yeah. 

JG: How much time they’re spending on screens, what are they using it for. So I launched a survey of Times readers and I got about a thousand responses from teachers and parents and a couple from students.

DS: One from me. 

JG: And, you know, the overall picture, I felt suggested that since 2020 and 2021, when kids absolutely had to have screens to learn, things have gone a little bit off the rails in terms of overusing screens for tasks in school that screens are not needed for and in fact, the screens can be detrimental.

So the sort of most disturbing thing that I heard that, you know, still bums me out to think about is that in some schools, they are complete digital curriculum. K through 12. So kindergartners no longer have physical books. They’re reading on iPads. And there is research that shows that there is a cognitive process that happens when you’re reading, you know, paper books that is different from when you are reading on a screen.

And I think for those lower grades, especially, it is very important that they are not spending a ton of time on screen. So, you know, again, it’s very nuanced. I think there’s a lot more use cases for it in the older grades. But my overall feeling was that screens are being overused, and they’re being used for the wrong things.

DS: Do you think that it depends upon also the school districts, and where they are in the country, and funding? Is that at all impacting it? 

JG: Oh my god, it’s everything. I mean, a lot of it, it’s, you know, because In the United States, schools have a lot of local control. What the state’s laws are and then what the districts decide to do with those laws and how to interpret those laws and how to spend the money that is earmarked for technology has a huge, huge effect.

And I feel like I hadn’t written about this before because my kids schools, now I come to find out, are fairly low tech. Like it didn’t seem a problem to me because I was like, they seem to have an appropriate amount of screen use. My kids seem fine. So it wasn’t sort of on my radar until I started really digging into the research and talking to all of these teachers and administrators and parents across the country in all different kinds of districts.

So rural, urban, suburban, charter schools, public schools, private schools, Catholic schools. I talked to everybody. 

DS: Do you think that there’s reasons why some schools are using tech so much more than other schools? 

JG: So I mean again, it’s hard to generalize just because every school system is so different and the populations they are serving are so different.

I would say sometimes tech is being used to solve problems that they don’t have the money for humans to solve. So the biggest and most useful use of tech is often in differentiation. So you’re a teacher, you have 30 kids in your class. You cannot meet every student where they are, so the kids at the top of the distribution are going to be bored and the kids at the bottom of the distribution are going to need a lot of extra help, and you’re only one person, and so I think a lot of experts would say the problem that is being solved by tech, so having kids work independently using apps, Or, you know, some other educational programming is solving a problem that would be better solved by smaller class sizes, by having team teaching, something people are very excited about in the educational space is having, you know, two teachers, team teaching a class.

And it causes less burnout among the teachers. So, you know, that was something that I saw often. They weren’t using tech because they didn’t care about the kids. They were using the tech because there was a serious problem. That tech did help. Yeah. And there wasn’t money to have a human solve the problem.

DS: Okay. 

JG: But the human centered solution. was perhaps the better solution. And the more effective solution. 

DS: Okay, but the tech therein is creating bigger problems because it’s creating more reliance on technology, more reliance and addiction, shall we say, to it, that when they come home a lot of times it’s a bigger struggle, and sometimes if kids aren’t having someone with them all the time then maybe the tech starts to become used more, and then we see it impact sleep at night.

JG: Right. 

DS: Movement, all that sort of stuff. So, okay, interesting. 

JG: Right. And I heard about just a ton of misuse in those situations. So in the perfect world where they were all doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing on those devices and not being distracted by them, it would work, but the world is not perfect. 

DS: Creating bigger issues. 

JG: Exactly. It’s creating some other stuff. 

DS: Now, the other big topic that I wanted to talk with you a lot about when we talk about like social determinants was your book, Screaming on the Inside, The Unsustainability of American Motherhood. That book was so powerful because a lot of the people that I work with are young moms, moms in the thick of it who are really struggling with their sleep and the support aspect and social support is really a struggle. So how do you see our society either changing or not changing that’s impacting this and then therefore impacting mental health and sleep in moms? 

JG: The biggest problem is that there is just simply too much for modern parents to do. And children, historically, have not been raised in isolation by one person or two people. And in many cultures, this is still the case, where there’s more multi generational living, there’s more of a sense that children and support of families is a community wide project. It isn’t just for two parents to solve themselves and to do everything themselves.

And so that in terms of the holistic experience of being a parent and the physical pressure, especially on mothers. And birthing mothers, I think that is the biggest takeaway from my book. Like there’s just not enough support, especially in this country, especially in this culture. So, you know, just starting with things, which I’m sure you’ve talked about before, like there’s no paid parental leave.

So lots of mothers are going back to work within a couple weeks of giving birth, at most, three months after giving birth when their kids are probably not sleeping through the night. If they have other kids, you know, the kids aren’t sleeping through the night and you have additional children to take care of, but you don’t have any space in your day to rest. And the cumulative effect on your body from these periods of strain and stress and sleeplessness, like I don’t even know how one would measure that, but I assume it’s not great. So, I mean, just, just things as simple as that and that, you know, healthcare is tied to our jobs. And so, you know, something I say in the book and that I think about a lot when I do my reporting is that we’ve created a system in which parents can neither afford to work nor afford to stay home.

So they can’t afford to stay home because they have no money coming in and there’s no paid leave and they can’t afford to work because childcare is so expensive. Regardless of what their preferences might be, when the child care is more expensive than, you know, when it’s half the family budget, that’s not working for people.

And so, you know, we’ve just created a situation that is really stressful and hard for a lot of parents and making, you know, the whole process of having a family and raising a family so much harder than it has to be. Like, that’s the other thing I think about all the time. Like, it just simply doesn’t have to be this way.

And like, often I hear from international readers and their response is, like, we feel sorry for you. Like I’m doing something, uh, some reporting on the child pay gap. So this idea that in most countries, when you have a child, a mother’s lifetime earnings take a hit. And one of the studies that I’m looking at is of Danish women.

And. I found out this week that the Danish healthcare system will pay for three IVF attempts. If you get a child on the first try, you don’t get more tries, but they will pay for up to three attempts. 

DS: Oh my gosh.

JG: And I was just floored. Yeah. I had never heard that before. Like social support that is for families, for the creation of families, for the thriving of families is literally jaw dropping. My jaw, like no joke. My mouth hung open. And I was like, Really? So. 

DS: That’s unbelievable. So other countries then looking at us is the biggest thing that they see the fact that we don’t have the paid parental leave the child like what are the biggest differences? 

JG: It’s all of it. It’s all of it. It is all a system that is working together. And when a government is not funding things that support families, what they’re saying is families don’t really matter here. And so it’s not just that we don’t have a lot of the social supports that other countries have, it’s that there is almost a public disdain for families and a lack of comfort In the built environment and a lack of accessibility to the built environment.

So I once did a story about this really adorable show that’s on Netflix. It’s a Japanese show called Old Enough, and they depict really little kids going on their first errands by themselves. And when I was reporting the story, one of the things that stuck out to me was there was an article on Slate that talked about the built environment of Japan and how it is extremely walkable and it is much safer for little kids to walk by themselves and that there is this culture around little kids that expects them to do things by themselves. To go to the supermarket without a parent. And again, it’s like not just one thing. It is an entire cultural acceptance of families as having a place. 

DS: Interesting. And I think even thinking about safety, going out, doing that stuff, that even varies drastically in the U. S. as well.

JG: Yes. Yes. 

DS: And, oh my gosh, that’s really interesting. So, if you were to think about mothers in the U. S., what do you think are the biggest things that we would need for support? Do you feel like it’s equitable division of, you know, things at home to be done. Like, what do you think are the things that parents are needing the most right now to help prioritize sleep, to help reduce stress, their mental health, all the things that would impact sleep at night?

JG: Honestly, and I say this a lot. I think the biggest thing that would help parents is to have healthcare unyoked from jobs, to have universal healthcare, because a lot of job decisions made, not just by parents or caregivers, but by everyone, are to get health care. And they’re stuck working longer hours than they need or want because the alternative is kind of no job.

Right? Like, it’s a good job that has benefits and health care, or it’s freelance or it’s, you know, really low paid, like there’s no sort of flexible, decently paid opportunities. And I think part of that is because of the original sin of healthcare being tied to a full time job. 

DS: And I can speak to that. Yeah. 

JG: Speak to it. I want to hear it. I mean, I, I, 

DS: So I worked for many years at a very well known hospital in New York City and I absolutely loved my job. Absolutely loved it. But being a psychologist in a hospital in New York City, it doesn’t pay like a sustainable wage. And I worked there when I had kids, mostly for the healthcare, because my husband was at a new job and didn’t qualify yet for benefits.

And I really stayed longer, I was paying for child care even. And it was like even, it was the child care was, you know, basically my salary a lot of times and I was working for the insurance until my husband could actually get insurance so that I could then go into private practice where I wouldn’t have my own insurance right off the bat.

So it’s, yeah, it’s a decision that I had to do even as a mom in New York City, right? And whose a PhD level person, I think, and it’s something that’s so many people struggle with. 

JG: So many people struggle with it, and it is the scariest thing in the world to fear losing your health care for your family. Like it’s a horrible, horrible feeling.

So if there were universal health care and we could, choose jobs in different seasons of our lives that better fit our caregiving needs or our health needs or whatever it was. I just think it would be better for parents. It would be better for society. 

DS: Right. 

JG: There’s this idea that like Stay at home parents and working parents are some like different breed and it’s like no They’re usually the same people at different points of their lives. 

DS: Yeah. 

JG: And so the idea that like maybe you want to pull back or need to pull back when your kids are little but then when they’re older, maybe you want that very full time job because your kids are out of the house.

Like it’s just like our working lives are so long. They’re like 40 or 45 years long. Like, like the idea that like the only way to be of use to society is to have a full time job for 45 straight years. Like, people are living a really long time. We should rethink that whole thing. 

DS: Oh my god, that’s exhausting.

JG: Yeah, no, I know. Every time I think about it, it’s like, I’m like, oh my god, another 20 years? So don’t think about it. But that’s, that’s like the number one for me. Then I would say, paid leave. Just paid leave. Like, I didn’t have paid leave when my first kid was born, because I was freelance, and I went back to work when she was six weeks old.

With my second kid, I had two months of paid leave, and I went back to work. And intellectually, I actually was ready, but I was exhausted. I don’t have a physical job. I’m not, I’m not a nurse, working shifts, like my job is very physically untaxing, but you know, it would have been nice to have six months.

Like I would really like that. 

DS: There with you. 

JG: Yeah. So I think paid leave in terms of those early days is really huge. And then the cultural stuff really, really, really matters. 

DS: Yeah. 

JG: And that may be the hardest to change because it’s just really ingrained in all of us. And I think a lot of talk is about dads doing more. 100%. All the statistics show that dads don’t do enough. Obviously, not everyone’s in a heterosexual partnership, but in a heterosexual partnership, moms are uniformly doing more. But things like, I did this story about, a mom who was trying to be egalitarian and reach out to dads when she was scheduling a birthday party for her child.

And some of them acted like it was inappropriate. Like, who is this strange woman reaching out to me? And so there’s all of these cultural norms. So you can be a hundred, you know, 50/ 50 down the middle or whatever is the like appropriate thing in your house, inside your house, but you have to deal with what’s outside your house, which is very much geared towards the mother being the primary parent.

DS: Right, like who does the school nurse call first? 

JG: But the school nurses will say, yeah, we call the moms because the dads aren’t picking up. 

DS: Oh, interesting. 

JG: It annoys them when they’re like, why aren’t you calling the dad? It’s like, we don’t call the dad because he doesn’t do the thing we need to be done.

DS: Yeah, and they need something done immediately. 

JG: Right. So it’s just like this really sticky cycle, right? And so it’s like, I want to say that like, certainly dads could be doing more, but also acknowledge that like, there is so much work to be done more broadly. And so I’ll also hear about like dads who are stay at home dads, or maybe they’re gay dads, and they’re trying to like socialize in their kids social circles and a lot of times the moms will not include them because they’re like, it’s weird like it’s a girl’s night like so there are barriers for dads who want to be involved, social barriers, that I think we also need to talk about. We can’t just pretend like, oh, dads aren’t, like, a lot of dads are really trying very hard.

And so I wanted to. say that as just like, sometimes I feel like in this discussion, it’s like, dads stink. And it’s like, yeah, a lot of them do, but like a lot of them don’t. 

DS: Yeah, I, my, my daughter had a field trip yesterday at the Bronx zoo and all the chaperones that went. My husband, when he was lucky enough that he could take a day off from work, but there were actually a number of dads that went on the field trip who all took off from work, which was really lovely to hear about, because I don’t think it was that way a number of years ago. 

JG: Right. 

DS: For sure. 

JG: And so that’s awesome. But like, there’s just, there’s just like a lot going on. So even if you’re tending to your own garden, there’s just a lot of additional noise to deal with. 

DS: What about for single parents? 

JG: I mean, they are just doing it all. They are exhausted. They are completely exhausted. Again, the systems are really built for two parent families in ways big and small. They are more tired. They are more stressed. They really rely on a village more often, which is great. But yeah, you know, they’re exhausted. Do you see big cultural differences within the states about doing it all, getting everything done? Like, are there certain cultures that you think have, more collaborative ways of doing things? Like you said, multi generations in one house? Like, do you notice differences there? And people maybe having better outcomes, feeling more rested, having more support? 

I wouldn’t say, like, it’s geographic. I would say it’s –

DS: Okay.

JG: Having family. That is the superpower. People who live near their family and their family are, you know, well enough and active enough to help them or living in communities where people are close together and there really is a sense of support. But those can kind of be found anywhere, like they can be found urban, suburban, rural, like it’s very, I wouldn’t say it’s more likely to be found in any specific place, and I do think, you know, I think religious communities can be incredibly supportive and, you know, again, it depends on where, when, in what way, but, you know, often there’s sort of childcare that is church based or temple based. And so the whole sort of community grows out of that. 

DS: Oh, that’s interesting.

So Jessica, we end each and every episode with a segment called Something to Sleep On. So it’s one last point you’d like to share with anyone looking to maybe improve their sleep at night, help make time for sleep, or like we were talking about, improve their sleep quality. Considering everything that we’ve talked about today, whether it’s cultural, socioeconomic, I mean, there are so many factors, do you have one last thought for our listeners? Something maybe for them to sleep on? 

JG: Yes. So what I always tell new parents, if you feel really emotionally frayed, leave the house for a day. Go sleep someplace else, go sleep at a friend’s house, if you can afford a hotel, be away from your family for your children for 24 hours. And just sleep. Because I can’t tell you how many times when my kids were little, I truly thought I was losing my mind, I was just very tired. Like, I was just so tired and I would take a long nap or finally have an actually restorative night of sleep. And I would be like, oh, I’m not losing my mind. I was just exhausted.

So I think especially in those, you know, baby days, like the worst for us, honestly, was not my kids were pretty good sleepers as newborns. Or like regular sleepers. When my older daughter was four and my younger daughter was one, my younger daughter just decided for a couple months that she was just gonna wake up every day at 

4:30.

She slept through the night. She just was like 4:30. 

DS: Yeah. 

JG: I’m here. I’m up. 

DS: Party. 

JG: I’m here to party. 

DS: Yeah. 

JG: And when I say it destroyed both of us, like my husband and I were zombies I don’t know how like some people can wake up at 4:30 and be fine. I am NOT one of them Like and so just, you know, we both I think in that period like took nights off just to take, I don’t think we even left the house because our kids were a little older, they weren’t like baby babies, but it was like I’m going in the bedroom. I am closing the door. 

DS: Yeah. 

JG: No one is allowed to come in here. I will actually fall apart if I do not sleep. So it’s just sort of, like, taking note of your emotional state when you have really young kids and thinking like am I actually really upset or am I just… 

DS: Tired. Sleep deprived. 

JG: Very, very tired. Yes.

DS: Right. And I think also being able to have the ability to have the help to be able to do that is a big thing. Right? 

JG: Oh, it’s huge. 

DS: Talk about social determinants, right? 

JG: Exactly. So if you’re a single parent and you’re lucky enough to have a family member who will just like take Come sit in the house with the baby and let you sleep or a friend or you can swap child care, which I know again, like that is the kind of advice that I’m just like, oh yeah, that’s so easy to find someone to swap child care with. It’s not. It’s very hard. But if the alternative is just throwing up your hands and saying there’s nothing to do. You know, it’s a suggestion. 

DS: I love it. I mean, I’ll say to my husband, sometimes if I’m done mentally, and I’m just looking at what’s in, I’ll say, tag, you’re it. So that’s kind of our way of just going, one person taking over for the other person.

It can make a big difference if you can have that kind of time out for yourself. 

JG: Yes. 

DS: Jessica, thank you so much for being here. It was great really talking about this topic. A lot of topics that we actually touched upon that are really important and I really do encourage people to follow her column and her work in the New York Times and her writing.

It’s just really wonderful and really gets you thinking about where the country is going and where we need to be making some changes. So thank you again for being here. 

JG: Thanks so much for having me.

DS: My pleasure. 

Thanks for listening to Sleep Talking with Dr. Shelby, a Sleepopolis original podcast. Remember, if you’re tired of hitting that snooze button, make sure to hit that subscribe button right now in YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you are listening. And for even more sleep tips, visit sleepopolis.com. And don’t forget my Instagram page @SleepDocShelby

Today’s episode was produced by Ready Freddie Media. Our Senior Director of Content is Alanna Nunez. Our Head of Content is Molly Stout, and I’m Dr. Shelby Harris. Until next time, sleep well.

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