00:09:37 (someone): Yeah, and that's one of the biggest, I think, things about insomnia. If you really have bad insomnia is the worry and even the In the hours before bedtime, people will start to worry. And that's just such a sad way to live, you know? Yeah, the idea of thinking about your bedroom as a place of dread and anxiety is really, really sad to me. I love my bedroom. Yes, me too. And I hope that everyone with insomnia gets over it eventually, because everyone deserves good sleep. Yeah. And, you know, it goes without saying that lack of sleep can cause all sorts of medical health issues because your body needs sleep, not to mention accidents that can happen when you're too sleepy, whether it's falling asleep at the wheels or if you, you know, work a chip job and you're running machinery and stuff like that. All kinds of bad things have happened because you haven't had enough sleep. Yes. And so you say, OK, well, this is a disorder that affects a lot of people. Did you say how many people have it? We didn't go over the stats. Why don't you hit them with some? OK, I'm taking the stat man role for today. All right, I'm going to take a quick little microsleep. As many as 70 million Americans have some sort of sleep disorder, which would include insomnia, and that at any given night, there's 10% of people in the United States are having trouble sleeping. That's a lot of people.

00:10:46 (someone): As many as 70 million Americans have some sort of sleep disorder, which would include insomnia, and that at any given night, there's 10% of people in the United States are having trouble sleeping. That's a lot of people. That's 25 million, something like that? Yeah. And that eventually about two-thirds of people will experience insomnia to some degree or another. Yeah. I also saw some worldwide statistics that said that, and this wasn't necessarily just insomnia, but 62% of people all around the world say they don't get enough sleep.

00:11:23 (someone): Yeah.

00:11:24 (someone): That's a lot. That's, you know, in the majority. Yeah. That's sad. People aren't sleeping enough. And it's supposedly a pretty modern problem because I saw some sleep doctor, I think he was a neurologist, and he was saying like, you know, we have ways of storing up energy later on because humans as a species have encountered, you know, feast or famine cycles before. So our bodies evolved to like store food for a while in times of leanness, right? We don't have that with sleep. Like we don't have a way to store like a wakefulness or something like that or energy in our brain for times when we don't get sleep. And he was saying that's evidence right there that we've never as a species encountered difficulty sleeping before, that that is a very new thing. That's really interesting. Yeah, I thought so too. And not surprising.

00:02:18 (someone): I get up a lot to go potty. Me too. It sucks. But I've gotten way better probably since I've had a kid of being able to fall back asleep pretty easily. Whereas I used to not be so good at that. And that's a real key to getting good sleep is, because very few people, I think adults are, I mean, some are, but are just so sound that they're just rocks through the night. You got to be able to get back to sleep. If you start thinking about stuff, then you're toast. Yeah. Some people have trouble falling back asleep. Some people, Chuck, get this, have trouble falling asleep initially even. I have a lot of empathy for people with chronic insomnia, which we're talking about insomnia. It just sounds like a terrible thing. We've talked about fatal familial insomnia. Yeah. And we've talked about like how much sleep do people need? That was one of the like early, early ones. And is science phasing out sleep? That was about nootropics. Yeah, but I was really surprised that we hadn't just done a regular old insomnia app. I was too. Big thanks to the National Institute of Health and Sleep Foundation, our old friends at HowStuffWorks.com, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard. I got a lot of different sources for this one. And here we go with insomnia.

00:17:37 (someone): Plus, it's not a good look for psychology as a field that there is an entire category of, we don't know, insomnia. Yeah, true. So some of the things that can trigger secondary insomnia, you mentioned some people at risk, like pregnant people or the elderly as you age, but also people with depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder. Apparently, 85% of people who have clinical depression also have insomnia. And there's also a lot of drugs that can keep you up as well. Ironically, those same people who have depression, their treatment for depression, SSRIs, can actually keep them up and give them insomnia as well. So they would have double secondary insomnia, it sounds like. Yeah, there are all kinds of, and these are drugs that people, you know, are very popular for a lot of things like cardiovascular disease and asthma and allergies and beta blockers and alpha blockers, like all kinds of very common drugs. One of the side effects oftentimes is sleeplessness. So, you know, you always have to take that into consideration for the picture of your overall health. Right. Chuck, I think it's high time we took a break. Let's do it.

00:19:14 (someone): What's up, fam? I'm Brian Ford, artisan baker and host of the new podcast, Flaky Biscuit.

00:19:19 (someone): On this podcast, I'm going to get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to mom's Thanksgiving dressing. Sometimes I might get it wrong. Sometimes I'll get it right.

00:23:35 (someone): Something you might not think about much. Yeah. Worrying about things like bills or paying rent or groceries and all that stuff. That's that will keep you up at night. And that is that qualifies as insomnia. Obviously, anyone suffering chronic pain, diabetes is another one. And then the, you know, sort of the sleep apnea and like restless leg syndrome and the Jimmy Legs, stuff like that. I knew you were going to say it. If you didn't say it, I was going to say it. Yeah, that's all going to keep you up more. And again, something like restless leg syndrome might wake you up, but it's that ability to get back to sleep is when it becomes a big problem. Yeah, so an inability to fall back asleep is sleep maintenance insomnia. There's all these great terms associated with this stuff. They get really specific. Sleep is one of the more studied things. You bet your sweet bippy it is, Chuck. As far as the diagnosis, like you were talking about, you can't just stroll in and say, like, I can't sleep, and they'll say, here's some drugs to help you. Well, they might. Yeah, actually, they might. So forget I said that. Scratch that. But it does start with you telling your doctor, because they're not with you in the bedroom, unless you're married to a doctor.

00:12:20 (someone): Yeah, I thought so too. And not surprising. There is not like a single you can't point to a single cause or all kinds of reasons someone might have insomnia. But most of them boiled down as far as like not non psychological causes. There are many, many, many physiological arousals that might keep you awake. And it's you know, it's a bedtime. It's not when you want them. So like your body temperature might be up. or your heart rate might be up, or your cortisol levels or other hormones might be jumping around. And this is happening at bedtime, which is not when you want that stuff to happen. You may have also gotten it from, it could be genetic, might have something to do with your age. I think women are more likely to have bouts of insomnia than men. Especially if they are pregnant. Oh, big time. It's like 80-something percent, right? Yes. Yeah. And it can also be comorbid with a lot of different kinds of mental health disorders, especially things like depression and anxiety. I think it was something like 85 percent of people with depression also have insomnia. So, let's dig in a little more to these categories, these baffling, confusing categories, okay? Sure. You mentioned transient insomnia. That's, say, just a day or two or a couple of days.

00:52:39 (someone): That's a good one. And then you just repeat as necessary until you fall asleep. And apparently, five weeks of stimulus control therapy following a sleep boot camp program of 25 hours, this Australian study found that that is a really great way to get past chronic insomnia without any drugs. Yeah, and that's the good news is I roundly found everywhere I looked that most people can cure their insomnia. That is the good news. And a lot of the people who, a lot of people never try. I think I saw, or I just did the math, it was something like 60-something percent of people, no, it was like 80-something percent say that they should get more sleep. Or they don't sleep well, I think was the stat, but only like 60% do something about it. Or maybe it was even less. It ended up being like 20 or 30% of people have insomnia and don't seek help. Yeah, I think a lot of them are like, well, wait a minute. To cure my insomnia, I need to stop looking at my phone right before bed? Then forget it. I'll just deal with the insomnia. Yeah, or just, you know, struggle through it. And I think the same goes with any mental health issue. Like, so many people just don't seek help and try and figure it out for themselves. And that it's oftentimes the very first step to solving your problem. There's one other thing, too, Chuck, that I want to talk about before we sign off here. Let's do it. Counting cheap?

00:14:59 (someone): Yeah, sure. Let's call it that. But they've kind of changed things over the years just to confuse people. But there's also primary and secondary insomnia, right? Yes, and I don't believe this is the case anymore. I think they used to divide it up until very recently. But primary insomnia was where the insomnia itself is the disorder. There's not another cause. It's not comorbid with something. It's the problem itself. And they further broke it down into three subcategories of primary insomnia. Psychophysiological, idiopathic, and paradoxical. Yeah, idiopathic literally means there's no cause and that's the one that they basically gotten rid of completely. Yes. Although I did see that there was still some debate going on. I'm sure there's still some people like that don't want to give that up for some reason. Yeah. They're like, they really love the name. They basically said, though, that there is a reason behind... I think idiopathic was like, you know, you're sort of a kid that can't sleep, and then you're an adult who can't sleep, and there just never is any reason. And they're basically saying, like, that's really not true. You're convinced throughout your life that there really is a monster in your closet? You just can't shake it? That's right.

00:38:28 (someone): removing the anxiety enough that you will fall asleep, kind of, whether you mean to or not. Yeah, I just, man, I can think, I can't imagine what it's like to be so desperate that you're trying all these different things, and imagine even trying these things will bring on anxiety. I have seen a thing where the bedroom can be such a, like, they recommend that you just, once you leave your bed in the morning, if you can, if you're in a, you know, studio apartment or something, then that really stinks. But, like, close that bedroom door and do not go in there at all, all day long. Like, act like it's not there, yeah. Exactly, put a lock on the door. What else? What about supplements? Well, one of the ones that people use a lot, Chuck, is melatonin, and it's a natural supplement. As a matter of fact, they make some of it from the pineal glands of animals. Did you know that? I did. I think most of it's synthesized, but I did know that some of it came from animal parts. Yeah, and you don't want those. You want the synthetic ones. Or maybe ones from microorganisms. But they say, like, yeah, you can take melatonin. If you have, like, maybe jet lag, you can take it for a night or two. Or if you have transient insomnia or your shift has just changed, you're doing shift work and it's just changed.

00:09:37 (someone): Yeah, and that's one of the biggest, I think, things about insomnia. If you really have bad insomnia is the worry and even the In the hours before bedtime, people will start to worry. And that's just such a sad way to live, you know? Yeah, the idea of thinking about your bedroom as a place of dread and anxiety is really, really sad to me. I love my bedroom. Yes, me too. And I hope that everyone with insomnia gets over it eventually, because everyone deserves good sleep. Yeah. And, you know, it goes without saying that lack of sleep can cause all sorts of medical health issues because your body needs sleep, not to mention accidents that can happen when you're too sleepy, whether it's falling asleep at the wheels or if you, you know, work a chip job and you're running machinery and stuff like that. All kinds of bad things have happened because you haven't had enough sleep. Yes. And so you say, OK, well, this is a disorder that affects a lot of people. Did you say how many people have it? We didn't go over the stats. Why don't you hit them with some? OK, I'm taking the stat man role for today. All right, I'm going to take a quick little microsleep. As many as 70 million Americans have some sort of sleep disorder, which would include insomnia, and that at any given night, there's 10% of people in the United States are having trouble sleeping. That's a lot of people.

00:39:36 (someone): If you have, like, maybe jet lag, you can take it for a night or two. Or if you have transient insomnia or your shift has just changed, you're doing shift work and it's just changed. Melatonin can help. It does, it's, our brains produce it in response to darkness and it does help us sleep. The thing is, is over time, prolonged use, like if you have chronic insomnia, you do not want to use melatonin because it can have all sorts of deleterious effects. Like, because it controls not just how you sleep, but also your blood vessel tone, your body temperature, your blood sugar, and you can mess with those things inadvertently over time by taking melatonin. Yeah, and that goes for parents, you know, they have the kids sleep gummies. And we will use those very, like half of one very judiciously. But you don't want to, you know, the jury's kind of still out. But I don't know, for me, you don't want to be giving your kid like a sleep aid every single night. That's a lot of legal metaphors you just used. Well, I just, you know, I have seen like all kinds, like, I don't think all the evidence is in on like kids taking melatonin. But to me, that's reason enough to where like you wouldn't want to give your kid a melatonin gummy every night, even though, you know, you can be desperate as a parent when your kid won't go to sleep. I mean, they used to use and probably still use like Benadryl, right?

00:03:34 (someone): I got a lot of different sources for this one. And here we go with insomnia. Okay, I guess we're starting everybody. This is a preamble. So I thought that this definition of insomnia was about as succinct as it can be. It's a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. This is very important. Even if you have ample time to fall asleep or sleep, even if you have a bedroom environment conducive to restful sleep. So you got everything you need to sleep and you still can't sleep, you still can't stay asleep, or both. Yeah. And we'll get to all the different kinds. It gets a little confusing, actually. I'm still not 100% sure how to classify the different types of insomnia. I think they rolled it all together. Yeah, true. But if you, you know, if you live next door or above an apartment, above like a loud club, or if you recently had like a big shift in your work hours, like, these are all reasons that you might not be able to get to sleep and you may have insomnia. But, and again, we'll go over all these in more detail, but that is like a temporary or transient insomnia. Transient, if it's really just a few days, like if you have jet lag or something, And then if it's a few days into like a week or two, then it can, then it travels to, what's the other kind? Chronic.

00:08:15 (someone): You mean like eating barbecue? All right, so insomnia in Latin literally means no sleep. And they had to settle on a number. You know, it really varies on how long it takes people to fall asleep, obviously. But they had to get together finally and say, we got to come up with a number, everybody, for what you should shoot for. And what they eventually landed on was 20 minutes. to fall asleep is what they consider sort of the quote-unquote normal range. And if you're going well, well beyond that, then you may have insomnia. Yes. Yeah, that's weird. Like, I think that you usually need 30 to 45 minutes to fall asleep. And I don't know if that's just on the nights where you get sleep or if that alone qualifies you for insomnia. Yeah, because 30 doesn't, I mean, that's only 10 minutes more. No, but that would qualify as difficulty falling asleep, which the term for that is sleep onset insomnia. And that's if you're really trying to go to sleep. You're not laying there and scrolling through your social meds. Right. And we'll see that trying to go to sleep can have a counterproductive effect on people with insomnia because there's a type of insomnia where you are worried you're not going to get sleep so much that you can't fall asleep. Yeah, and that's one of the biggest, I think, things about insomnia. If you really have bad insomnia is the worry and even the

00:22:08 (someone): So it seems like the distinction between the different spongiform diseases is what part of the brain specifically they attack. Right. Fatal familial insomnia, they attack the thalamus, specifically the hypothalamus, and specifically the parts of the hypothalamus that help regulate sleep. And there's this part of your hypothalamus that creates what you could call an anti-waking system to where not only are the neurons shut off in one respect, in another a bunch of neurons that are off while you're asleep are on and just keeping you asleep. So when you're waking normally, those neurons are off, and when you're sleeping, they're on. The problem is, if you have fatal familial insomnia, the prions have eaten away at this system, and now all of a sudden, that anti-waking system that keeps you asleep when you're asleep, allows you to go to sleep, to transition from one stage of sleep to a deeper stage of sleep, is no longer active any longer, and so the only thing that is active is your wakefulness, and it is on all the time.

00:23:24 (someone): So you know you're dying and there's this, it's got to be some sort of madness from not being able to sleep. It just exacerbates everything. Yeah. And it's just one of the symptoms.

00:23:35 (someone): It is. And it is a symptom, but it's also directly related to the mechanism of this disease.

00:23:43 (someone): Yeah, and it's got to speed up the process, because your body's not getting the rest it needs on top of everything else.

00:23:49 (someone): Exactly.

00:37:21 (someone): Yeah, I think so. Because the other ways are basically a few. It's drugs, which we'll talk about, and then a couple of different therapies and like sleep retraining. Yeah, there's some, they almost sound mean, but apparently they're really effective, some of the retraining. Yeah. Well, let's talk about it, Chuck. All right. Well, obviously, relaxation techniques, meditation, controlled breathing, all these sort of low-level relaxing behavior therapies can really help you out if you can get in that kind of mind space. Yes. And then we talked about how just the idea of not being able to go to sleep can make you lose sleep and cause insomnia. Just the fear of that. So there's a technique called remaining passively awake, where you're like, I don't care if I go to sleep or not. I'm just staying up. It doesn't matter. And if I fall asleep, then great. If I don't, whatever. It's like you're changing your mindset so that you're not worried about it. You're just kind of taking a more casual approach to it. And apparently that can have the effect of removing the anxiety enough that you will fall asleep, kind of, whether you mean to or not. Yeah, I just, man, I can think, I can't imagine what it's like to be so desperate that you're trying all these different things, and imagine even trying these things will bring on anxiety.

00:40:51 (someone): But to me, that's reason enough to where like you wouldn't want to give your kid a melatonin gummy every night, even though, you know, you can be desperate as a parent when your kid won't go to sleep. I mean, they used to use and probably still use like Benadryl, right? Didn't that knock kids out? I don't know. I'm pretty sure some parents do use that. Really? All right. Yeah. And then cough syrup if you're really desperate, I'm sure. There are other supplements. There's not a ton of scientific evidence for stuff like aromatherapy to fall asleep and stuff like that and other supplements. But if it's safe to try, then you can give it a whirl, is what I think. As far as that stuff goes, try some aromatherapy. It might work for you. I don't think it's going to hurt. Probably not, unless it catches your curtains on fire. Like tryptophan is another one, and valerian. Yeah, valerian.

00:41:49 (someone): These over-the-counter sups.

00:41:50 (someone): I don't know if it was... I've never taken it as a pill. I've always made tea from valerian root. Yeah, same. And it's an acquired taste, for sure, and an acquired smell.

00:25:37 (someone): How long did it take for you to get to sleep? Just little details like that that you take for granted when your sleep isn't problematic. But that you can really kind of observe and come up with some real easy things that you can change in your life that might help you go to sleep. There's something called sleep hygiene. Yeah, I mean, that's what you're describing, basically, is someone's sleep hygiene, whether it's good or bad. Right. So what is sleep hygiene, Chuck? Which is better than hygienic utensil, but still not great. Well, it's exactly what you were saying, which is, do you exercise too close to your sleep? Were you looking at a screen that emits blue light? That's a big one. Like, right, but it's a huge one these days, of course, like right before you go to sleep. How, you know, did you eat? What did you drink? Had you had any kind of stimulant? And alcohol is really bad as well, like drinking alcohol, even though that's not something you might think of as a stimulant. Did you do a big hog's leg of cocaine right before you went to bed? Sure, the sleep hygiene is sort of all the things that go into, you know, do you have good light blocking in your room, sound blocking, like all of the stuff that goes into a good night's sleep is sleep hygiene. Right.

00:23:35 (someone): Something you might not think about much. Yeah. Worrying about things like bills or paying rent or groceries and all that stuff. That's that will keep you up at night. And that is that qualifies as insomnia. Obviously, anyone suffering chronic pain, diabetes is another one. And then the, you know, sort of the sleep apnea and like restless leg syndrome and the Jimmy Legs, stuff like that. I knew you were going to say it. If you didn't say it, I was going to say it. Yeah, that's all going to keep you up more. And again, something like restless leg syndrome might wake you up, but it's that ability to get back to sleep is when it becomes a big problem. Yeah, so an inability to fall back asleep is sleep maintenance insomnia. There's all these great terms associated with this stuff. They get really specific. Sleep is one of the more studied things. You bet your sweet bippy it is, Chuck. As far as the diagnosis, like you were talking about, you can't just stroll in and say, like, I can't sleep, and they'll say, here's some drugs to help you. Well, they might. Yeah, actually, they might. So forget I said that. Scratch that. But it does start with you telling your doctor, because they're not with you in the bedroom, unless you're married to a doctor.

00:14:59 (someone): Yeah, sure. Let's call it that. But they've kind of changed things over the years just to confuse people. But there's also primary and secondary insomnia, right? Yes, and I don't believe this is the case anymore. I think they used to divide it up until very recently. But primary insomnia was where the insomnia itself is the disorder. There's not another cause. It's not comorbid with something. It's the problem itself. And they further broke it down into three subcategories of primary insomnia. Psychophysiological, idiopathic, and paradoxical. Yeah, idiopathic literally means there's no cause and that's the one that they basically gotten rid of completely. Yes. Although I did see that there was still some debate going on. I'm sure there's still some people like that don't want to give that up for some reason. Yeah. They're like, they really love the name. They basically said, though, that there is a reason behind... I think idiopathic was like, you know, you're sort of a kid that can't sleep, and then you're an adult who can't sleep, and there just never is any reason. And they're basically saying, like, that's really not true. You're convinced throughout your life that there really is a monster in your closet? You just can't shake it? That's right.

00:10:46 (someone): As many as 70 million Americans have some sort of sleep disorder, which would include insomnia, and that at any given night, there's 10% of people in the United States are having trouble sleeping. That's a lot of people. That's 25 million, something like that? Yeah. And that eventually about two-thirds of people will experience insomnia to some degree or another. Yeah. I also saw some worldwide statistics that said that, and this wasn't necessarily just insomnia, but 62% of people all around the world say they don't get enough sleep.

00:11:23 (someone): Yeah.

00:11:24 (someone): That's a lot. That's, you know, in the majority. Yeah. That's sad. People aren't sleeping enough. And it's supposedly a pretty modern problem because I saw some sleep doctor, I think he was a neurologist, and he was saying like, you know, we have ways of storing up energy later on because humans as a species have encountered, you know, feast or famine cycles before. So our bodies evolved to like store food for a while in times of leanness, right? We don't have that with sleep. Like we don't have a way to store like a wakefulness or something like that or energy in our brain for times when we don't get sleep. And he was saying that's evidence right there that we've never as a species encountered difficulty sleeping before, that that is a very new thing. That's really interesting. Yeah, I thought so too. And not surprising.

00:17:37 (someone): Plus, it's not a good look for psychology as a field that there is an entire category of, we don't know, insomnia. Yeah, true. So some of the things that can trigger secondary insomnia, you mentioned some people at risk, like pregnant people or the elderly as you age, but also people with depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder. Apparently, 85% of people who have clinical depression also have insomnia. And there's also a lot of drugs that can keep you up as well. Ironically, those same people who have depression, their treatment for depression, SSRIs, can actually keep them up and give them insomnia as well. So they would have double secondary insomnia, it sounds like. Yeah, there are all kinds of, and these are drugs that people, you know, are very popular for a lot of things like cardiovascular disease and asthma and allergies and beta blockers and alpha blockers, like all kinds of very common drugs. One of the side effects oftentimes is sleeplessness. So, you know, you always have to take that into consideration for the picture of your overall health. Right. Chuck, I think it's high time we took a break. Let's do it.

00:19:14 (someone): What's up, fam? I'm Brian Ford, artisan baker and host of the new podcast, Flaky Biscuit.

00:19:19 (someone): On this podcast, I'm going to get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to mom's Thanksgiving dressing. Sometimes I might get it wrong. Sometimes I'll get it right.

00:52:39 (someone): That's a good one. And then you just repeat as necessary until you fall asleep. And apparently, five weeks of stimulus control therapy following a sleep boot camp program of 25 hours, this Australian study found that that is a really great way to get past chronic insomnia without any drugs. Yeah, and that's the good news is I roundly found everywhere I looked that most people can cure their insomnia. That is the good news. And a lot of the people who, a lot of people never try. I think I saw, or I just did the math, it was something like 60-something percent of people, no, it was like 80-something percent say that they should get more sleep. Or they don't sleep well, I think was the stat, but only like 60% do something about it. Or maybe it was even less. It ended up being like 20 or 30% of people have insomnia and don't seek help. Yeah, I think a lot of them are like, well, wait a minute. To cure my insomnia, I need to stop looking at my phone right before bed? Then forget it. I'll just deal with the insomnia. Yeah, or just, you know, struggle through it. And I think the same goes with any mental health issue. Like, so many people just don't seek help and try and figure it out for themselves. And that it's oftentimes the very first step to solving your problem. There's one other thing, too, Chuck, that I want to talk about before we sign off here. Let's do it. Counting cheap?

00:26:42 (someone): Sure, the sleep hygiene is sort of all the things that go into, you know, do you have good light blocking in your room, sound blocking, like all of the stuff that goes into a good night's sleep is sleep hygiene. Right. And so all those things you don't want to do, like actually you'd think exercising would be a good thing to do. No, it's actually, it really energizes you if you've ever paid attention after you exercise. Like, yes, your body is sore and you're kind of slow, but you feel good. You don't want to do that. You might actually want to take up yoga before you sleep. Yoga makes me sleepy. Yeah, especially if you do specifically yoga designed for bedtime, which is basically just some kind of light stretches, 10-15 minutes. If you're having trouble sleeping and you don't try bedtime yoga, you're welcome. Yeah, I do morning yoga, and I find that I want to take a nap after.

00:27:40 (someone): Yeah, it feels good though. I love it.

00:27:42 (someone): It does. They also say as far as your sleep hygiene, that you want to have a regular, I mean, if you're doing it right, I know it's hard for people, but you try to have a regular bedtime and wake time, and that includes weekends. If you're having trouble sleeping and you're doing that thing where you're staying up on the weekends and stuff like that, you're not doing yourselves any favors. No. Also, you want your bedroom to be conducive to sleep.