Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:32 - Catch-Up
00:04:37 - Circadian Confessions
00:12:05 - COVID and Circadian Shifts
00:16:01 - Chronotypes Across the Lifespan
00:18:50 - Chronotype vs. Diurnal Preference
00:21:52 - Melatonin as a Phase Marker
00:25:50 - Are Chronotypes Fixed?
00:35:58 - Daylight Saving vs. Standard Time
00:43:32 - Who the Clock Change Hurts
00:47:41 - The Sunshine Protection Act
00:49:42 - Advocacy and Closing Arguments
01:00:10 - Outro
Medical disclaimer: This episode is for general informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, and does not create a clinician-patient relationship. For advice about your own health, consult a qualified healthcare professional. In an emergency, call 911.
Sponsor disclosure: This episode includes paid promotion from WAKIX: https://wakixhcp.com/
The Sleep Doctors Show is supported by Harmony Biosciences. The partner has no editorial control over the content of the show.
All views expressed on this show are the hosts' and guests' own and do not reflect those of their employers or affiliated institutions.
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Your body clock runs on genes you did not pick, then spends your whole life negotiating with your alarm. This episode is the panel's argument over how much of that is actually negotiable. Cathy Goldstein makes the case that your chronotype is essentially fixed, a genetic feedback loop you can nudge but never rewrite. Jesse Cook is not convinced, and pushes back that development, light and lived experience may leave the system more flexible than the textbook admits. It is the rare episode with a real, unresolved disagreement between four sleep doctors, and they let it breathe.
Along the way: how circadian timing drifts from the ultradian newborn to the phase-delayed teenager to the early-rising older adult, why melatonin is both an honest phase marker and a slippery one (it moves with your behavior), and what Chuck Czeisler's non-24 sighted cases reveal about the gap between your clock and your schedule. Then the panel turns to the fight in Congress: the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act 308 to 117, sleep medicine wants permanent standard time instead, and the hosts take apart the marketing that makes "saving daylight" sound like a gift. School start times got teased and then saved for a future episode, so hold that thought.
