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Emily Wade: We are entering cozy season here in Massachusetts, which means we're all doing stuff like curling up with a mug of something warm or wrapping up in a blanket or researching soup recipes. But it also means that the time is changing and the days are getting shorter, and pretty soon we're gonna blow past the winter holidays and we're going to end up in slushy, sloppy, oh my God, I need this to be done season.
So what are we gonna do? Today, I'm welcoming an actual bonafide MIT celebrity, the voice of the sleep line to this podcast, Zan Berry. She's the manager of wellness education here at MIT Health, and she's an expert in sleep and stress management, and she's gonna help us navigate the months ahead. Welcome, Zan
Zan Barry, PsyD: Hey, Emily. Thank you
Emily Wade: we've talked about this a little bit in our planning for this episode, but we're about to head into the time of the year where it gets dark like the second you get out of work or school. And so suddenly everybody's feeling a little sleepy and cranky. is there a real biological response going on there?
Or are we just being like dramatic New Englanders who must suffer?
Zan Barry, PsyD: Excellent question. And if you think about it, if you live in New England, you may notice that the longest day of the year, right around June 21st, is over 15 hours of daylight. And then the shortest day of the year, right around December 21st, is nine hours of daylight. And we have to adapt our circadian rhythm, our biology has to adapt to that enormous over six-hour swing between the long days and the short days.
And so this does create some difficulty with regulation. You know, it may be a melatonin, serotonin regulation issue, but it will create feelings of drowsiness during the day or the feeling that sleep is not quite as restorative or, you know, for some people it's intense food cravings, carbohydrate cravings, wanting to take more caffeine.
There are lots of ways in which the body's trying to biologically adapt to this huge swing
Emily Wade: what is our circadian rhythm actually doing when that daylight is decreasing?
Zan Barry, PsyD: We need daylight as a rhythm setter, a time setter for every part of our biological rhythms. And we need light to go into the retinas. For sighted people, we need light to go into the retinas, to go into the master clock in the brain. And when there's less, relatively less light and people, let's say, are getting up in the dark and then coming home in the dark, it's not that it's a lost...
We're not a lost cause, but we do need to make the most of those middle hours when the sun is the most overhead. So when the sun is highest in the sky, let's say 11:00 to 1:00, or 10:00 to 2:00 PM, we need to be, getting some of that light into our retinas in order to be setting partially, you know, resetting those, disequilibrated, hormones.
And also we need to be getting light early in the day as a way to set the clock off. We need... You know, whenever, we get up, we need to turn on some light or we need to get that first sunlight of the day. And this will, impact when we secrete melatonin at night, which impacts the quality of our sleep and can impact mood and other things.
Emily Wade: So I think, I feel like it's b- it was a trend a while ago, and it's probably still a trend, but, you know, it feels like sometimes everything gets, like, flavor blasted with mel- melatonin. Like, there's, like, melatonin gummies and, like, melatonin breakfast cereal. Like, i- is that, is that a legit way to supplement your melatonin, or is, is getting outside and getting into the s- the sun or, like, exposing yourself to light the preferred delivery format for melatonin?
Zan Barry, PsyD: Well, if the brain already has a natural pharmacy of melatonin, let's make the most of the natural pharmacy first and foremost. So that means light in the morning. And for some people, they may use a brighter light or full spectrum light. You can talk to your clinical provider about perhaps light therapy, something called light therapy boxes that you could use in the morning, which is both for mood and for melatonin.
Or to suppress melatonin, right, and get the brain alert. but let's make the most of the natural pharmacy using light. We have this incredible system that, naturally sets a beautiful pattern, a beautiful rhythm where we're meant to be awake for about 16 hours and asleep for about eight hours, and the melatonin pattern looks in that, you know, looks like that curve.
so first and foremost, let's start there. And then if you wanted to talk to a provider about supplementing melatonin, if you look at the research, most melatonin research is on things like jet lag, so more adjusting to a new time zone as opposed to an ongoing situation. and most of the dosages in that research are rather small.
It's usually a low, start with the lowest effective dose kind of thing. but talking to a provider about supplemental melatonin could be, one avenue to take. I always say start with the natural pharmacy first
Emily Wade: I'm gonna use a grad school word, to problematize this moment, when we are supposed to be outside is right at the same convenient time when we have these super fun things called work and school. And, I think that that's kind of what-- I'm gonna blame that for the reason that I'm not going outside enough. I'm sure there's other, other excuses I could use. But what do you-- what advice do you have for someone who is feeling like, "I, I have a plan. I'm gonna get outside," but then, you know, they're getting dumped into like six meetings or, you know, their class or their research project is, is running right up against that valuable sunlight time.
What are, what are some strategies that you recommend to kind of head that off?
Zan Barry, PsyD: Mm-hmm. Well, what I really like about, expanding the window of time, let's say 10:00 to 2:00 is your window. If, at all humanly possible to manage the expectations of the outside world to
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get recess, lunch, a walking meeting, an outdoor chore, a little outdoor errand. And let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
If it's 20 minutes, it's, you know, that's great. Go to the, you know, take a walk, a loop around your building and come back. But, but if your window is that nice wide range, 10:00 to 2:00, somewhere in that four hours, and of course, it's always helpful to have a bit of social support. So if you're meeting someone, you're probably not gonna blow it off.
it's a little sometimes harder to keep our dates with ourselves, but often if there's a social motivator or some social expectation, we'll be there. so if people are willing to do walking meetings. Of course, this involves putting on mittens, right? And being prepared to, be, you know, ready for the weather, finding some outdoor spot where you can enjoy time outside.
I'm not asking people to love the winter, but, to, you know, dress appropriately and get outside. And one of the things that we have at MIT is the tunnels. We have the tunnels which run under all the buildings, so you can get from point A to point B, never going outside. And people take the tunnels when the weather starts to get bad.
And I would say, unless it's a blizzard, try to walk outside. Even on a cloudy day, you are getting so much beneficial light, from being outside instead of being down under the, in the tunnels. that try to, you know, get the outdoor time if you can
Emily Wade: Oh my God, I, I love that because I, I am such a mole person. And like the second that, you know, the days get a little shorter, I'm just like, "I'm gonna walk through all of the tunnels to get-- to like go get underground sushi somewhere." You know? I'm getting that sushi at the coffee shop at the fr- you know, front of the Infinite
Zan Barry, PsyD: go one floor up. Yep. Get above. Yeah
Emily Wade: Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna change my ways. I think that's good. MIT, you heard it here first. Maybe, maybe take that next, next meeting. Don't take it on Zoom. Take it outside. You know, go on a little adventure, you know? S- try out one of the million new restaurants that has opened in our area.
so let's talk a little bit about the other thing that happens at this time of year, the time change. Everybody's favorite, spring forward, fall back. this thing destroys my life every year. I know that daylight savings time is supposed to be the one that's worse, I know, technically, but this is the one that it just...
I can't, I can't function the second I have to fall back. I'm just curious, you know, what, what's going on biologically that makes this, like, seemingly little change just blow everything up?
Zan Barry, PsyD: Well, it is a little bit of jet lag. You know, the sort of imposed jet lag that we suddenly are in an hour different time zone the very next morning. This is, an unusual circumstance for the body for sure to go an hour's difference in, the blink of an eye. However, we are... We do have some flexibility.
People do adapt circadianly and, That's not a real word, but, you know. Circadian. People have circ- circadian a- adaptivity, and we can adapt to that one hour probably in a day or two, as we would adapt to going to Chicago, you know, within a day or two. but it's the surprise of that darker nighttime when you know, dark comes quickly at night and it really catches...
It's almost like a biopsychosocial phenomenon where people just aren't used to driving in the dark, they aren't used to getting out of work in the dark, and all of a sudden it's dark. if we can reframe this, I'm big on reframing. If we can reframe this as, "Oh, boy, I get an extra hour of sleep," first of all, this fall change.
Second of all, "Oh, boy, if my sleep schedule has gotten really messed up and it's gotten very erratic or all over the place, this is a really good chance to reset it because I'll naturally be inclined to wake up a bit earlier," 'cause again, the clock has shifted and the body may be ready to wake up an hour earlier on the clock than the day before.
So if I've been wanting to start getting up earlier, getting more morning light, this is my opportunity. use it as a little springboard if you've been wanting to be more of a morning person. and just getting, again, making sure you're not getting into that vampire mode where you're sleeping in past some of the good daylight, and then the, sun, set happens at 4:30.
If you've missed the entire lightest part of the day, that's where people start to get really, really, ugh, you know, just in the doldrums. So, it's really important, again, to plan ahead. Use it as a springboard if you wanna be getting up earlier. Enjoy the extra hour, and make sure at least that first couple days you get out in the middle of the day to get all that good overhead light.
Emily Wade: Are there any things we can do ahead of the time change to just like sort of prepare ourselves?
Zan Barry, PsyD: I mean, this is the one that people tend to, I'm sorry, Emily, enjoy more because they are getting this extra hour of sleep, and it feels like sort of a, you know, a little, treat inserted. But, for sure, if you've been wanting to get up earlier and adjust your time more th- by more than an hour, adjust your schedule by more than an hour, it's a great idea the f- three or four days before to start shifting 15 minutes at a time.
If you want to shift 15 minutes earlier to bed, and then you'll be getting even more kind of, ahead of that time change and, and getting even more extra sleep that night. or getting, you know, your s- your sh- clock, your circadian clock will have shifted even more by the night that the time change rolls around.
so if you wanted to use, again, use it as a springboard, usually 15 minutes at a time is a good amount of time to shift your body clock. It's gentle. It's not like trying to wake yourself up three hours earlier. but little 15-minute increments each night or 20 minutes every couple days is
a good way to start, shifting your clock if that's something that you're wanting to do.
Emily Wade: If you're, if you're someone like me who for, for some reason just really resents that extra hour of sleep, I guess. so we've, successfully gotten through the time change, and we're, you know, we're trying to go outside and occasionally, I th- I think I used the phrase in my la- last one of these, touch grass.
I guess we're gonna try and touch frozen grass
Zan Barry, PsyD: Touch, furs, and grass
Emily Wade: touch frozen grass. there-- are a lot of gadgets that I feel like even, you know, it's like if you walk past the MIT, museum gift shop, I feel like they have a lot of like light gadgets in there right now, and sometimes I'm like, "Oh, maybe these would transform my life."
But are there, are there kind of things that we can buy or use to kind of fix this and jumpstart it?
Zan Barry, PsyD: Well, the first thing I would say is if you're interested in a light therapy type gadget, a light therapy box that has specific regulations around what would be a therapeutic dose of light and how much time to spend in sitting in front of it. You don't have to stare at the light. You could sit and read, you know, but the light is close.
talk to a clinician about that. Talk to a clinician about anything that's like light therapy because you wanna make sure it's appropriate for your situation, appropriate for your eye health, appropriate for other, you know, kinds of conditions. That's light therapy. And then there's just getting a good, you know, full spectrum light bulb that you can Google that and, you know, find some good full spectrum light bulbs.
You might wanna get a programmable bulb. Doesn't have to be fancy, but something that will go on when your alarm goes off. So in the morning, as your alarm is starting to... I wake up to this bird sound, you know, and I have a light bulb that starts to come on, feels a bit like a sunrise. And I have to say, that is a very pleasant addition during the dark, dark days.
it's, really nice to have it right at eye level or, you know, just above eye level maybe with no sh- it doesn't have a shade on it. So it's just an additional alerting signal in the, dark days of winter that can be something to try
Emily Wade: Oh my gosh, I love that. I think, I think our community can get behind programmable light stuff and probably, probably make a very satisfying and exciting option. I l- So everybody get, get creative
Zan Barry, PsyD: Yes. Send me your i- your, interesting ideas.
Emily Wade: Yeah. Send, send us, send us photos of your, of your interesting light setups. we wanna see them. We want, we want to, we want these for... We can include them in the patient newsletter. It'll be awesome. so I'm holding it right now, my big honking muv- mug of coffee. What should be- we be doing?
This is inevitably the time when, you know, our... Well, it's out in Massachusetts, so everybody's getting the giant iced coffee and, and, everybody's upping their caffeine intake. when is this like you should, you should stop and, and move to something else? Like, i- is it something where it's like, can you continue to drink, you know, the two cups a day of coffee that, that you're drinking, or is, is increasing that gonna be bad?
Like, you know, when, when is it too much?
Zan Barry, PsyD: the way that coffee or caffeine gets, craved, let's say, during this time of year is because people are feeling groggy all day long. They never quite feel like they wake up. That's one issue that can sometimes have with, have with these shorter days with the melatonin, serotonin dysregulation that could happen during this time of year.
So people will be craving that feeling of wanting a stimulant all day long. that's one situation. And the other is just, "I need something to, you know, me going in the morning." the problem with caffeine is that it has to go through several half-lives as it leaves the body, and the average half-life
No one is the average person, but the average half-life, let's say, is between five and six hours. And the rule of thumb is that you wanna go through two half-lives before you're ready to go to bed. You want two cycles of half-lives before, you know, the body may be, ready to go to bed. So that's why you often hear this advice, no coffee after lunch or after noon, because we are thinking if it's still in the body five hours later, and then again another five hours later, it's gone through another half-life, then by 10:00 or midnight we'll assume it's, it's gone through its two half-lives.
that's one rule of thumb. But the other, I think, personal experience, if it's making your heart beat fast and making you feel anxious, if it's fragmenting your sleep, if it's just making you feel more jittery than anything else, or if it's not even doing its job anymore because we've developed tolerance, and then we're taking in more and more just to stave off withdrawal, but not really getting any- anything out of it, there
The other s- you know, ways to increase energy, first of all, are to let's work on the quality of your sleep to make it as robust, as consolidated, as good quality as it possibly can be, which means, again, keeping that caffeine way earlier. getting exercise will definitely strengthen sleep, and definitely, create the kind of sleep drive and fatigue that the body loves in order to be able to fall asleep more easily.
So exercise is a much better idea, let's say. but there are upper limits to, you know, the amount of caffeine, and people start, start getting tolerance and stop feeling the boost of it after a while. So, so the two, you know, downsides would be either you don't feel any boost or you're getting jittery, anxious, or, fragmented sleep.
And we want to avoid those things. And I think the rule of thumb about keeping it toward the morning is a, is a good one, and then adding exercise and light, and use those as your natural stimulation.
Emily Wade: Well, I
love that. It's also, I feel like those are, cheaper. These, these coffees, they add up after a while
Zan Barry, PsyD: They do. And I'll tell you another secret because I s- started life as a yoga teacher. I do dynamic breathing, which is sometimes called chicken breath, which has no downsides at all in terms of caffeine, stimulation. It's just pure energy, and it means pumping your arms and bouncing up and down like a chicken a little bit if you want to, in, out, in, out through the nose.
Keep your mouth closed. Just do a few of those to kind of pump the lungs like a bellows and, and you will find that you get energy without jitteriness.
Chicken breath, there you go, from me to
Emily Wade: Okay. Okay. That's, that's awesome. We have a town hall today. I feel like you should I feel like you should model chicken breath at our, at our MIT Health to- town hall today. All right. we've, covered a lot today, and this is, I think, I think people are gonna come away, I know I'm gonna come away, with a lot of, a lot of strategies to try.
so say someone has, you know, they've tried going outside. They've-- they're avoiding those tunnels. They're no longer a mole person, and they're trying to get out in the light, and they're improving the re- routines and working on, you know, doing those workouts, and they still feel just like, "I am just made out of doldrums.
I'm just still feeling, the blahs." When is, when is the moment to contact MIT Health or your, your, you know, clinician, and what's the right door? Where, where do you-- where should you go first? Who should you ask?
Zan Barry, PsyD: Well, there is no wrong door because any primary care provider will be able to help you find a behavioral health or a mental health provider. Vice versa, any mental health provider will be able to answer questions about seasonal pattern blues or seasonal mood, pattern mood problems and get you, the, the full complement of care that you might need.
So we're all, networked together. I will say if you're trying things on your own, I really recommend putting something on the calendar to look forward to each month of the dark months, November, December, January, go all the way through March, something on the calendar to look forward to. Start, as you say, you know, putting some of the, the behavioral things into practice and if you, if you know what you wanna do and all those clinicians can help you figure out what, what do I wanna do to get through these months?
But you're having a hard time putting it into place and putting where the rubber meets the road, making it, actionable, I can help you with the how. Like how can I fit this into my busy schedule? How can I make this realistic and bite-sized? How can I, make this work for me? That's where something more like a wellness consultation with someone like me who's trained as a health coach, could help.
You know, the clinicians will help with the what and then I'll help with the how and then together, you can
flourish
Emily Wade: this, has ha- been great. And the other thing is I wanna say is, Zan, you have quite a few different wellness workshops and classes that are coming up. so if you go to health.mid- mit.edu/thrive, not only can you submit a question to office hours, but you can also go through and find out all of the really great programming that Zan has cooked up for the next few months, 'cause there's, there's things about stress and time and s- time changes and management and sleep and, and just every possible, class that you can use to improve all of these different conflicting situations.
You know, it-- you don't have to just cling to your blanket and your, your cozy cup of coffee. You can, you can also get, get some help here at MIT Health
Zan Barry, PsyD: I would love to see everybody there
Emily Wade: Yes. Yes. That would be awesome. well, this has been a wonderful episode. Zan, I'm probably gonna invite you back when we switch over to the t- new time again because, you know, I-- even though I-- this is the one I don't like as much, I-- they both mess me up. What can I say? So we- we'll have you back for, for daylight saving.
and thank you so much for being on the show. All right, listeners, I have a challenge for you. I need questions. I need you to go to health.mit.edu/thrive, send us those questions. We really love hearing from you. All right. Have a cozy, cozy time out there, folks, and we'll see you next time