אודות פרק זה
- How Seema slept the night before the interview — and how her dogs got involved
- Whether dogs belong in the bedroom or in the bed
- What the Mayo Clinic dog-and-sleep study actually found
- Why the “women sleep better with dogs than partners” headline overstates the underlying research
- Seema’s path from pulmonary and critical care medicine into sleep medicine
- The severe sleep-apnea patient who changed how she thought about treatment
- Why “the patient couldn’t tolerate CPAP” should not automatically end the treatment conversation
- Why sleep-lab testing feels so unnatural
- Performance anxiety on the first night of polysomnography
- Normal sleep-study values and the PSG norms project
- Why Neil’s sleep-study data became part of his own sleep investigation
- Seema’s three years chairing the AASM Consumer and Clinical Technology Committee
- How sleep doctors evaluate trackers, apps, sensors and gadgets
- The difference between an FDA-cleared component and a validated consumer claim
- Proprietary algorithms and the “black box” problem
- Why a phone sitting on a mattress cannot prove that sleeping on the floor cured anything
- Fitbit, sleep scores and the gap between measured sleep and how you actually feel
- Orthosomnia and the danger of trying to perfect sleep data
- Why consumer sleep technology can be useful without being diagnostic
- Why more data is not necessarily more useful data
- When feeling unrefreshed matters more than a “good” tracker score
- Why Dr. Reddit and Dr. Google are poor substitutes for a proper sleep evaluation
- Different ways obstructive sleep apnea can be treated
- Why getting people to care about sleep may require meeting them where they are
- Sleep, performance, athletes and hard-charging executives
- Seema falling asleep at a stop sign during medical training — and initially treating it as a badge of honor
- How exhaustion became culturally confused with dedication
- Sleep envy and comparing your sleep-onset time with your partner’s
- Why falling asleep immediately is not necessarily something to aspire to
- Different sleep timing preferences and Seema’s tendency toward later sleep
- Neil’s inability to understand people who can casually take a 30-minute nap
- How early COVID-era schedule changes gave some people more opportunity to sleep
- The limits of generic sleep-hygiene advice
- Why chronic insomnia requires more than “put down your phone and take melatonin”
- CBT-I as the evidence-based first-line behavioral treatment for chronic insomnia
- The launch of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Talking Sleep podcast
- Why Seema wanted the AASM show to reach beyond sleep physicians
- Dr. Chris Winter as the first Talking Sleep guest
- Why more people talking intelligently about sleep is good for everyone
About Dr. Seema Khosla
Seema Khosla, MD, is a sleep physician in Fargo, North Dakota, and medical director of the North Dakota Center for Sleep. She is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, critical care medicine and sleep medicine.
Dr. Khosla has held several leadership roles with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. She previously chaired its Consumer and Clinical Technology Committee, contributed to the AASM position statement on consumer sleep technology and served on its sleep-telemedicine task force. She currently chairs the AASM Public Awareness Advisory Committee.
She is also the longtime host of Talking Sleep, the AASM podcast devoted to developments in clinical sleep medicine. In 2022, the AASM honored her with its Excellence in Education Award.
MENTIONEDTalking Sleep — American Academy of Sleep Medicine
The AASM podcast Seema had just launched when this conversation was recorded. It remains active in 2026 with Seema as host.
Consumer Sleep Technology — AASM Position Statement
The 2018 position statement led by Seema on how clinicians should think about consumer sleep apps, wearables and patient-generated sleep data.
Consumer Sleep Technology: AASM Position Statement
Wearable Sleep Tech: Clinical Use and Best Practices
A 2026 Talking Sleep episode revisiting the exact technology questions Seema and Neil were discussing here in 2020.
Talking Sleep: Wearable Sleep Tech
The Effect of Dogs on Human Sleep in the Home Sleep Environment
The 2017 Mayo Clinic Proceedings study discussed in the episode. A dog in the bedroom was compatible with good sleep efficiency, while having the dog on the bed was associated with lower sleep efficiency.
Adult Women’s Sleep, Pet Ownership and Bed-Sharing
The 2018 survey behind headlines about women preferring dogs as bed partners. The results were primarily about perceived disruption, comfort and security and did not establish that dogs objectively produce better sleep than human partners.
Anthrozoös: Women, Pets and Bed-Sharing
Normal Polysomnography Parameters in Healthy Adults
The interactive reference tool developed from the systematic review by Mark Boulos and colleagues, discussed when Neil and Seema compare sleep-lab results with normative data.
AASM Insomnia Toolkit
Current clinical resources and guidelines for insomnia, including the 2021 guideline strongly recommending CBT-I and advising against sleep hygiene as a stand-alone treatment for chronic insomnia.
