Hitting the snooze bar

is one of the worst things you can do.

"Sleeping positions don't matter."

Now, wrong.

Sleeping positions absolutely do matter.

"If you snore, you have sleep apnea."

This one is critically important to all sleep physicians.

Hi, my name is Girardin Jean-Louis.

I'm a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences,

and my work focuses primarily on circadian and sleep health.

And I'm Rebecca Robbins.

I'm an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School

and associate scientist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital.

In my research, I design behavioral interventions

to give individuals the tools

to improve their sleep and their health.

And today, we're making an effort

to debunk some common myths about sleep.

"It's better to be a morning person than a night owl."

So, one isn't better than the other.

We do have in our society both night owls and larks.

There's no question about that.

Both of them do very well

in terms of their own personal livelihood.

The difference is that, for personal happiness,

to be a morning person,

because of the way society is structured,

they tend to do much better.

Robbins: We have sayings like

"the early bird gets the worm,"

and unfortunately that's to the detriment, often,

of evening people.

They really live in a morning person's world

and often are forced to work on a morning person's schedule.

So, what we hope to see happen

is that people become aware of the kind of person they are.

If you happen to be a morning person,

do know that your performance

is going to be much better in the morning.

If you're an evening person,

your performance is going to be much better

during the evening hours.

"Sleeping positions don't matter."

Now, wrong. Sleeping positions absolutely do matter.

We all, believe it or not,

spend most of our time in one of three positions.

Most people are side sleepers.

The next most common is your back,

and the least common is sleeping on your stomach.

The key thing when it comes to sleeping positions

is to make sure that your spinal column is aligned

and you are supported

over the course of your sleep at night

in your preferred position.

I would only add that if you happen to be somebody

who has positional sleep apnea,

the position at which you sleep does matter,

because if you are sleeping in a supine position,

it's more difficult for you to breathe,

therefore you snore a little louder,

and your bed partner may not really appreciate that.

Now, pregnancy is a time

where your sleeping positions also really matter.

During pregnancy, you want to make sure

you're comfortable and ideally on your side,

so that the belly isn't compressing down on top of you

and that the baby's protected.

But the key thing for pregnant people

is you want to be comfortable.

In whatever position you take,

make sure that you are supported with lots of cozy pillows.

"The cure for jet lag is not sleeping all night."

Robbins: One of the common things that we hear

people say is often,

"I'll just stay up all night, and I'll cure jet lag."

And, of course, that's not a cure for jet lag.

You're just sleep-depriving yourself so significantly

that of course you will fall asleep

at any time the next day.

There really is no cure for jet lag,

but you can cope with some of the consequences

by making sure to walk outside in your new time zone

as much as possible, get natural light exposure.

Jean-Louis: If you're traveling east,

do not wait until you get there

and try to sleep-deprive yourself.

You can start to prepare ahead of time.

So if you're going to be going to Paris,

you know it's about five hours away.

So what do you do?

You begin to shift your schedule progressively,

maybe four or five days before,

so that by the time you get to Paris,

you are already in the Paris time zone.

And try to avoid alcohol.

Sometimes that can interfere

with your ability to get healthy sleep.

Jean-Louis: Avoid any type of stimulant.

Give yourself a few days. You will adjust naturally.

"Hitting snooze will give you extra meaningful rest."

This is actually a myth.

Hitting the snooze bar

is one of the worst things you can do,

because what you're doing is you're robbing yourself

of some of the best sleep.

In the second half of the night

is when we have most of our rapid-eye-movement sleep,

and that's where we get a lot of the benefits

cognitively of our sleep.

So if you're hitting your snooze bar

one or two or three or, worse, more times,

you're interrupting some of that really valuable sleep

when it comes to the standpoint of our cognition.

Sleep fragmentation is really not good,

because it leads to all kinds of psychological problem

as well as physical problem.

If you are sleep-fragmented, then you are more likely

to have cardio-metabolic dysfunctions,

and your mood is not as positive as it should be.

Robbins: Instead of hitting the snooze bar,

the best thing is to sleep as late as you possibly can.

If you have to go to the office at 8 o'clock

and it takes you an hour to get ready,

set your alarm clock for 7 o'clock

and commit to not snoozing.

Get up at 7 o'clock and go about your day.

So if you find yourself having to hit the snooze button,

it tells you you really need to have

a much longer period of sleep.

So you may have to think about your lifestyle

and see how can you incorporate more sleep

in your daily routine.

"Napping makes up for lack of sleep at night."

Napping is an interesting concept in our field.

It does have its merit. It also has some of its drawbacks.

Robbins: The ideal duration for a nap

is actually about 20 minutes, so it's quite short.

So make sure to set an alarm, so you don't sleep too long,

which will cause you to wake up groggy

and might affect your sleep that night.

Jean-Louis: If you've already had your seven hours,

which is your core sleep needs,

there's no point trying to do more.

In fact, if you're trying to do more,

you could develop insomnia because of that.

"Taking melatonin will make you fall asleep immediately."

It's not going to be something

that knocks you out right away.

Melatonin, we call it a neurotransmitter.

It's secreted in the brain.

It's associated with the transition to darkness

in our environment.

And ideally, melatonin is a naturally occurring process,

but melatonin can also be taken exogenously

or as a supplement.

Jean-Louis: If you're taking short-acting

melatonin substances,

it's highly recommended you do that

about two to four hours before bedtime,

certainly not right before you go to bed.

It takes a while before it becomes effective.

Most of the melatonin that's available over the counter

isn't highly regulated,

so unfortunately we don't know its purity.

The other key thing is many people take far too much.

So often you go to the drugstore

and you see 10 milligrams, 20 milligrams of melatonin.

That's far, far too much.

Much smaller doses are important.

You will want to talk to your physician

to make sure that you pick the right type of melatonin

for the problem that you're having.

"If you pull an all-nighter, sleep as soon as possible."

Now, hopefully you're not pulling all-nighters,

because, again, sleep is so important

night in and night out.

But if you did get a night

of either very insufficient sleep

or maybe no sleep at all, this is a myth, in some ways,

because we don't want to just binge-sleep

as soon as you're absolutely able to.

What you want to do is actually get back

to your normal routine as fast as possible.

So that means maybe trying to push through the day

and wait until your regular bedtime,

maybe taking a nap in the afternoon if you're tired,

but trying to get back on your normal schedule

as soon as possible,

not necessarily sleep as soon as possible.

That's an excellent point.

I would only add that, if you happen to be a young person,

that's really true,

a couple of days before you're back on schedule.

But if you happen to be an older person in your 60s and 70s,

it could take you up to a week to recover.

So you have to think about, what am I doing?

Do I have to do that?

Because there's a price to pay,

particularly if you happen to be an older person.

"Dreams only last for a few seconds."

Now, dreams don't only last for a couple seconds.

They can be a couple seconds,

they can be a couple minutes, and they can be longer.

We all dream four to five times a night.

And it happens predominantly in rapid-eye-movement sleep.

We believe about 80% of dreaming takes place then.

You could have a dream episode

that lasts about five seconds,

and when you are recounting

what actually took place during the night,

you feel as if you had this dream

for, like, two, three hours.

You could also have a dream that lasted 10 minutes,

and then you feel it

really should have been about five seconds.

It has to do with the emotional content of the dream.

And, in fact, most people remember their dreams

because of the thing that they see.

If you see a loved one die in a car accident,

you're going to remember this.

There is no precise duration of dreams.

We know less about their quantity and length.

But what we do encourage is to have fun with your dreams.

Talk to a loved one. Maybe keep a dream journal.

"If you snore, you have sleep apnea."

Now, snoring is one of the most common symptoms

of a condition called obstructive sleep apnea,

which is life-threatening,

but the snoring doesn't necessarily mean

that you absolutely have this condition.

Many people snore and are completely healthy.

Essentially, snoring or sleep apnea

is really a mechanical problem.

That is, because of the excess weight on the upper airway,

you put too much pressure on your throat,

therefore the airway collapses either fully or partially.

That's what snoring really is.

It's you making an effort

trying to keep the upper airway open.

But if that snoring is coupled

with excessive daytime sleepiness

or if you've ever been told

that you wake up over the course of the night

or stop breathing or gasp for air,

those could be signs of sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a very serious problem.