Did you know…

• Only 57% of Americans now say science has a mostly positive effect on society—down 16 points since before COVID?
• And yet, 83% of people still trust their doctor more than anyone else when it comes to vaccine advice?

We’ve all lived through it—the pandemic reshaped our health, our trust, and our divisions, and those dividisions have been on full display recently as hearings have highlighted a growing distrust in the medical and scientific communities. In this episode, we will:

• Explore why COVID was not just a disease, but a collective trauma—and how trauma often drives blame and denial
• Examine the promise of MAHA (Making America Healthy Again) and the peril of dismantling expertise in the process
• Confront the deep health inequities that make the U.S. lag behind other developed nations in life expectancy and outcomes
• Ask why preventive medicine never fulfilled its promise in our healthcare system
• Review how vaccines remain one of the greatest public health successes—even as skepticism grows
• Unpack why rare side effects feel amplified when billions of doses are given
• Revisit the vaccine rollout as both a modern miracle and a “fog of war” moment with inevitable missteps
• Challenge the myth of “doing your own research” and why interpretation of science matters more than access
• Discuss how shaming during the pandemic hardened divides instead of fostering change
• Look ahead: why questioning science is healthy, but abandoning it could cost us the cures and treatments of the future

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

When it comes to insomnia, many people begin their journey staring at the clock after yet another middle-of-the-night bathroom trip and wondering: is it my bladder or my sleep that’s broken? In this episode, we will:

• Define what nocturia is—and what counts as normal versus abnormal
• Explore why most people wake up first and then feel the urge to urinate
• Reveal how nocturia can be a surprising red flag for obstructive sleep apnea
• Distinguish between urinary problems that happen all day long versus nighttime-only frequency linked to sleep disorders
• Challenge the myth that cutting off fluids during the day is an effective fix
• Reassure you that a single nightly bathroom trip can be perfectly healthy

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

We’ve all been there—different bed, strange noises, mystery thermostat settings—and suddenly your “dream” vacation or business trip comes with a side of sleeplessness. But hotel sleep doesn’t have to be a gamble. In this episode, we will:

• Explore why the “first night effect” sabotages rest in unfamiliar places
• Share 10 science-backed strategies to optimize any hotel room for sleep
• Learn how to manage temperature, light, and noise—even when you can’t control the building
• Discover how bringing small comforts from home can calm an over-alert brain
• Review simple, evidence-based tricks to dodge jet lag and keep your circadian rhythm on track

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

Headaches don’t punch the clock at bedtime — in fact, for many, night is when they strike hardest. In this episode, we’ll:

• Explore how disrupted sleep can trigger and intensify migraines, cluster headaches, hypnic headaches, and chronic daily headache
• Examine the role of sleep apnea in “morning headaches” and how CPAP therapy can make them disappear
• Review the latest research linking insomnia treatment to reduced headache burden — including new findings from a Seattle study on prazosin for posttraumatic headache in veterans
• Break down the brain mechanisms connecting sleep and pain, from hypothalamic circadian control to CGRP signaling
• Offer practical, research-backed strategies for patients and clinicians to address both sides of the equation

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

At every medical appointment, certain rituals unfold: height, weight, blood pressure, and—almost reflexively—temperature. But in asymptomatic patients, how often does that temperature reading actually matter? In this episode, we will:

• Examine the origins of routine temperature checks and their current clinical value
• Explore data showing how infrequently temperature readings in well visits lead to meaningful outcomes
• Introduce the idea of sleep as a more relevant and revealing “vital sign”
• Highlight how simple questions—like “Do you snore?” or “Are you sleepy during the day?”—can uncover high-impact sleep disorders
• Contrast the diagnostic yield of temperature checks vs. sleep screening
• Consider why sleep is still overlooked in routine care, despite its massive public health implications
• Reimagine a future where sleep quality is as routinely measured—and meaningfully addressed—as blood pressure

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

We all think we know what insomnia is: trouble sleeping, tossing and turning, maybe staring at the ceiling until sunrise. But does the public really have a clear picture of insomnia and does that impact the massive health impact it has? In this episode, we will:

• Explain how insomnia is not a single problem but a progressive condition, starting with a few rough nights and, in some, developing into a chronic disorder
• Explore why insomnia is often a disorder of perception, where patients significantly underestimate how much they sleep
• Review what studies show about actual sleep time in insomnia—based on polysomnography, actigraphy, and other objective measures
• Identify how public misunderstanding of insomnia has contributed to ineffective treatments and persistent myths
• Walk through a new six-level clinical framework for managing insomnia, from public health education to relapse prevention
• Highlight why “doing nothing new” after a bad night may be the best form of early treatment—and why CBT-I remains the gold standard when things don’t resolve
• Discuss the role of hyperarousal, sleep identity, and over-attention to sleep in making insomnia worse over time

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

In our modern world of blue light and burnout, it’s easy to forget that sleep has always been shaped by the forces of its time. In this episode, we travel back to the Gilded Age—a period of dazzling progress, deep inequality, and curious beliefs about sleep. In thenis episode, we will:

• Explore how medical professionals in the late 19th century understood sleep—and misunderstood insomnia
• Learn what physicians were prescribing to sleepless patients in an era of opium, electricity, and moral fatigue
• Contrast the sleep practices of the working poor and the wealthy elite, and how each class shaped our modern assumptions
• Examine the “rest cure,” neurasthenia, and other diagnoses born from a world grappling with industrial change
• Discover the surprising technologies and bedding innovations that started appearing in Gilded Age bedrooms
• Reflect on how beliefs from this gilded era still echo in our bedrooms today—from sleep hygiene to the fear of lying awake

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

We’ve talked extensively about sleep and its science, but what happens when sleep becomes the story itself—on screen? Television has portrayed sleep, sleeplessness, and dreaming across decades of iconic storytelling. In this episode we will:

• Highlight classic TV episodes where sleep or sleep disorders play a central role
• Examine how sleep is portrayed in multiple genres
• Review how accurately sleep is represented in some of the most famous shows
• Discuss why sleep deprivation and dreaming are such powerful storytelling devices
• Explore pop culture portrayals of sleep studies, insomnia, and dream manipulation
• Share fun facts and behind-the-scenes trivia from episodes of The X-Files, Star Trek, The Simpsons, Schitt's Creek, and more

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

We’ve explored sleep apnea in depth on the podcast—its causes, its severity, and the many ways it’s treated. But what happens when the sleepiness lingers, even after treatment? In this episode, we will:

• Define sleep apnea, what it is—and what it isn’t
• Learn how excessive daytime sleepiness is defined, both on its own and in the context of sleep apnea
• Review the most common and effective treatments for sleep apnea
• Explore how often treatment truly resolves sleepiness in patients
• Consider why lingering sleepiness is frequently missed or dismissed
• List treatment options for residual EDS in individuals with sleep apnea

Produced by: Maeve Winter

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• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!

The Atlantic recently published a feature article entitled "Why Americans Can't Sleep." The article was written by Jennifer Senior, and fantastically accomplished writer (2022 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, the 2022 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, and the 2024 National Magazine Award for Columns & Essays) and details not only her own personal struggles with insomnia, but also attempts to dive deeper into sleep science and what she describes as a "public health emergency." In this episode, we will:

• Look at this article in a list of similar articles and books over the decades that detail harrowing personal accounts of insomnia
• Understand why the hook of these articles seems to mirror that of other news/extreme weather, where the thrust of the piece is centered around the insomnia being "the worst" and "the most severe"
• Discuss how failure to differentiate sleep deprivation and insomnia can lead to erroneous conclusions
• Examine how these pieces almost uniformly fail to define insomnia, and in doing so fail to define what a successful outcome/solution would look like. In other words, what does "work" mean?
• Imagine what a truly revolutionary article about insomnia might look like

Produced by: Maeve Winter

More

• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!