Why You’re Sleeping Less—and What to Do About It

Food, We Need To Talk

Juna Gjata

Nutrition, Health & Fitness, Health

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, we continue our conversation with Dr. Michele Joanellis all about insomnia and why so many of us are struggling with sleep—without even realizing it. We dive into what happens to our sleep as we age, why menopause and post-menopause can disrupt sleep patterns, and whether it's normal to wake up in the middle of the night (spoiler: it might be more normal than you think). Dr. Joanellis also breaks down why your Fitbit might be lying to you, how to rethink sleep “opportunity” vs. actual sleep, and why your mom's late-night TV habit might not be the worst thing ever. Plus, we get into how much sleep you really need, how to help your circadian rhythm as you get older, and what to actually do when you're wide awake at 3 a.m.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to another episode of The Talk.
0:03.9	Today we are continuing our conversation with Dr. Joan Ellis all about insomnia and just having trouble sleeping.
0:11.3	I know a lot of us didn't even think we counted as people having insomnia.
0:15.4	And now we're having our minds opened.
0:18.1	So the first thing I want to ask you about is what happens to sleep as we age
0:21.5	because I will just say my mother is in her mid-50s and definitely has very disrupted sleep and
0:29.2	she, I think, worries a lot about it. So definitely that stress sleep cycle is going on. But I was just
0:34.1	wondering, like, what happens through menopause and postmenopause to your sleep?
0:37.8	And then, like, for example, my grandmother, she's in her 80s.
0:40.6	And she, like, has terrible sleep.
0:42.8	And I was just wondering, is that just, like, a part of aging?
0:45.0	Or is the treatment for that different when you're older?
0:48.2	Like, what happens to our sleep as we age?
0:50.4	Sure.
0:50.9	Okay.
0:51.3	So what happens to our hair as we age, right? Like it gets gray. It gets thinner.
0:57.9	Yes, thinner. Fault out. Right. What happens to our skits?
1:04.0	Just for the listeners. The listeners, Eddie has a full head of luscious hair.
1:08.1	Oh, yeah, right. Dr. Janellis can see me on the video, and I'm pointing
1:15.2	at my baldhead and smiling. I'm smiling, right. Right. So our hair changes as we get older. Our
1:21.1	skin changes as we get older. Our joints change as we get older. Is this degenerative change
1:26.8	progression towards decapacy? I mean, I don't know.
	...

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