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**Tamsen Fadal** (0:05)
Hi friends, welcome back. I am so glad you're here. I have to admit something, I am exhausted. I got off a plane from Europe less than 48 hours ago. Before that, I was in New York, then Florida, then Los Angeles, back to New York again.
I really try to prioritize sleep on my travels. I really do. I tell myself I'm going to get to bed early, stick to some kind of routine, and then life happens.
So I had early flights. I had late dinners with family, which I would never give up for the world. I didn't want to leave.
And then I had work calls across different time zones. But maybe the reason I'm so tired isn't because I'm bad at sleeping, but because I've been trying to follow sleep advice that wasn't designed for the life I'm living right now, which is exactly why I asked sleep expert Dr. Chris Winter to join me today. So you might recognize his name, because not only has Arianna Huffington called him the sleep whisperer, but he also contributed to my book, How to Menopause. In our conversation, Dr. Winter breaks down the science of sleeping well when life gets in the way. And trust me, it gets in the way for all of us. He's answering questions we all have. Can naps make up for lost sleep? Do sleep supplements actually work? And how do you recover from jet lag? And by the way, what should you do if your schedule is totally out of control? Dr. Winter's written two books, The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child. I'm a huge fan of him and his work, and I cannot wait for his advice to help you sleep better starting tonight.
Before we jump in though, could you do me a quick favor? Could you leave a review? It means the world to me and I would so appreciate it.
Let's go ahead and get into it.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:36)
This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom.
For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:51)
These are the moments that make Nordstrom, Nordstrom.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:54)
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**SPEAKER_3** (1:57)
Celebrating 125 years with new moments still ahead.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:01)
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**SPEAKER_4** (2:07)
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Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi Zero Sugar today.

**Tamsen Fadal** (2:34)
Chris, it's so good to see you.

**Chris Winter** (2:36)
It's great to see you too.

**Tamsen Fadal** (2:38)
We've talked a little bit over the years. So I want to dive into sleep, obviously, but I want to talk about you. Why did you pick sleep as a specialty?
What was your interest in it? Because I feel like it's such a popular topic now and I don't know if it always was.

**Chris Winter** (2:54)
It wasn't.
I started in sleep because as a child, I decided to be a doctor for no reason. I think the reason was when you say it to your grandparents, and my parents were the first in both their families to go to college. When you're around grandparents and you say I want to be a firefighter or a pastry chef, nothing happens. But if you say you want to be a doctor, you get a little bit of money and like hard candy. I think there was a weird feedback loop that got established. I got to college and knew nothing about it. So I went to my advisor and he said, maybe you should work for a doctor and see if you like it. And he gave me this book of doctors who were looking for undergrads to help with their research. And I remember looking through it thinking, this is not great. This is really looks boring. And maybe I should be a pastry chef. And I turned the page and it was this whole thing about sleep and looking at micro pigs and something about breast implants that they were using to create sleep apnea. I thought, well, this sounds really interesting. And so I started working for the guy who ran the sleep lab at the University of Virginia, Paul Surratt, amazing individual and just kind of fell into it. I never really thought it was anything more than like, you know, college credit beer money kind of thing. But it just, you know, then you know, one thing keeps leading to another, and then you find yourself in your fifties having never left. So, and I remember going, I just got back from the Baltimore Sleep Meeting, which is this big yearly meeting of all the researchers and cool people around the world who work in sleep. And I remember going to a meeting that he sent me to as an undergrad in the early nineties. It was like 12 guys in a room, you know, it was like, and I was thinking this year how far it had come, just in terms of size and the leadership of the women. There's a set for the second year in a row, the president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine is a woman and she's amazing. Hello, Faria.