Secret #83: Sleep Myths with Dr. Sue McCurry
episode
Life's Dirty Little Secrets Podcast | Breaking Silence Around the Secrets We All Carry
1h 1m
3 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why is trying to force sleep considered a myth?
We're all very human and fallible, and yet we live in a society that rewards pretending we're not fallible, or the range of acceptable fallibility is narrow.
We are constantly comparing our insides to other people's outsides and feeling inadequate and guilty, even ashamed.
Trying to blend in means parts of ourselves must disappear and we must then live in fear that we will be found out.
Here, together, we will create a space where we can laugh, cry, and carry our suffering and hurts lightly in the service of being deeply human. This is life's dirty little secrets.
Welcome to Life's Sturdy Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington.
And I'm Chris McCurry. And today we are very pleased to be welcoming as our esteemed guest, my wife, of almost 37 years, Dr. Sue McCurry. Sue is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine and cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBTI. She is research professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Nursing and works in private practice here in Seattle. Her clinical work draws on behavioral gerontology and acceptance and commitment therapy. She has published two books and over one hundred and eighty peer reviewed journal articles and thirty plus years of research covering insomnia in older adults, sleep disturbance alongside chronic pain such as osteoarthritis, menopausal sleep and sleep problems in people with Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers.
Welcome to life's dirting little secrets, Sumperry.
Thank you so very much, Chris and Emma. I'm surprised and delighted to be here.
Well, it seems like sleep is big these days. It's big in the news. It seems like every week or so I see another article, New York Times, Washington Post or whatever saying sleep hacks, how to optimize your sleep. It seems like it's becoming another big wellness trend. We have devices that will track our sleep and we're under surveillance even when we're trying to sleep. Um and and yet there's there's a lot of misunderstanding, or what I think of as myth understanding about sleep that we'll unpack today. Where should we begin with our understanding of sleep so that we can Oh get the sleep that we need and not stress quite so much about it.
Well, in thinking about that, I I suppose the the one message I would give to our listeners is that the big mistake people make about sleep is they expect sleep is something that I should be able to do whenever and wherever I want and for as long as I want that it's under my control. And the reality is it is not under your control. And we need to shift people to the perspective there are things that I can do uh to promote and support good quality sleep. And those are the practices that we want people to establish.
So how did we get to this point? Where people are so crazed about sleep. I mean, give us something of the history of of sleep in our culture.
Well, it's pretty interesting. I I sent ahead to you all a very fun interactive link from Harvard that goes through the history of human sleep. all the way back till eight hundred BC in Homer's Odyssey. But but it takes us up through twenty twenty. And it's a f it's a fascinating fun thing if if you're interested in the history of sleep to look at. But we'll we'll have that in the show notes for the this episode. That would be great. But what's what's interesting about sleep in the modern era is up until the eighteen hundreds, really until the Industrial Revolution. At least in Western cultures, the tendency was for people to sleep in two chucks. It was called the first sleep of the second sleep. So people were often going to bed at say nine, ten o'clock.
And they were sleeping till midnight one. And then they'd be up for an hour or two? And then they go back and they get their second sleep. The two sleeps were about the same size in length. And in between people did all sorts of things. They read. They laid in bed and meditated and prayed. They got up and chatted with their neighbors. They had sex. They that this was a time that everybody did this.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is trying to force sleep considered a myth?
0:02–8:08
2
How did historical changes like electric lighting reshape human sleep patterns?
8:08–15:27
3
What are the three‑P factors that trigger insomnia?
15:27–22:33
4
How do homeostatic sleep drive and circadian rhythms interact?
22:33–29:54
5
Why does waking up during the night become more common with age?
29:54–37:38
6
What are the pros and cons of using melatonin for sleep?
37:38–44:39
7
How can CBT‑I and mindfulness help break the cycle of sleep anxiety?
44:39–52:29
8
What practical habits can improve sleep without obsessing over sleep numbers?
52:29–1:00:54
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Life's Dirty Little Secrets Podcast | Breaking Silence Around the Secrets We All Carry
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