Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris Winter

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  Bonus - The AI Interview Experiment...UNHINGED: Wish I Knew What You Were Looking For 16.09.2026 32dk

  A few days ago, we did an experiment to see how well AI could interview me about sleep. In this bonus episode, I reveal the original attempt which was a bit all over the place. The interview was much more personal and strange which we corrected by adjusting the prompt in the "official" episode, but I thought it might be funny to share the trial run. In this episode we will: -Debate how much of my career success can reasonably be attributed to my looks -Discuss my questionable resemblanc...
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  #221 - The AI Interview Experiment: Wish I Knew What You Were Looking For 14.09.2026 28dk

  What happens when the interviewer knows nearly everything you have said publicly and has zero fear of challenging or offending you? In this unusual episode of Sleep Unplugged, I turn over all control of the podcast to AI and let it ask the questions and dictate the program. The result is a surprisingly candid conversation about certainty, contradiction, expertise, and what an algorithm might see when it examines a career devoted to sleep. In this episode I (or we?) will: Turn the microphone a...
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  #220 - The Lindsay Clancy Tragedy: Insomnia, Overmedication, and the Psychiatric Safety Net 07.09.2026 48dk

  A Massachusetts courtroom just produced something that almost never survives into public record: a near-complete paper trail of one woman's psychiatric care in the three months before catastrophe. Her diary, her phone notes, and the testimony of every provider who tried to help her sleep all lead to a central question: what actually happens when insomnia and psychiatric illness feed each other, and how thin is the system supposed to catch it before it breaks? In this episode we will: Walk thr...
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  #219 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: Trapped Inside Disillusion 31.08.2026 43dk

  Dr. Alison Kole is taking on sleepmaxxing, ChatGPT, and the sleep-industrial complex in her Top 10 Sleep Threat list. In this episode we will: Explore why patients sometimes arrive at the sleep clinic with their story and diagnosis already writtenLook at the fear of sleep studies, sleep apnea diagnoses, and outdated ideas about CPAPAsk why CBT-I remains underused despite being the gold-standard first-line treatment for chronic insomniaConsider why better sleep requires thinking beyond the bed...
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  #218 - Medication Deprescribing: Get Off This 24.08.2026 43dk

  Nobody blinks when a doctor says you'll be on blood pressure medication for the rest of your life. Say the same sentence about an antidepressant, or Zepbound, and responses are quite different. This episode digs into deprescribing, the fast-growing clinical movement around when and how to stop medications, and asks why some "forever drugs" get a cultural pass while others get moralized. In this episode we will: Separate the real clinical debate around antidepressant tapering from the online d...
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  #217 - Modern Night Shift and Circadian Adaptation: Up All Night 17.08.2026 31dk

  Our current gig economy did not just create new jobs, it expanded a whole new category of night worker, from rideshare drivers to online freelancers to overnight fulfillment teams. Today (or tonight rather), our bodies are struggling to make the switch. In this episode we dig into what that circadian resistance actually costs your heart and metabolism long-term, and the handful of interventions that can actually shift it. In this episode we will: Break down why 22 of 30 permanent night nurses...
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  #216 - Nasal Strips and Sleep: Leave Me Breathless 10.08.2026 24dk

  Nasal strips have been a fixture in pharmacy aisles and on athletes' faces for decades, sold on the promise of easier breathing, but the peer-reviewed evidence often tells a different story than the packaging does. We put nasal strips and internal dilators through the RCT wringer and sort out what these devices can and can't actually do, from your bedroom to the finish line. In this episode we will: Break down what the highest-quality evidence — a 2026 meta-analysis of 17 studies and nearly 5...
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  #215 - Seqoquel and Insomnia: Same Thing From The Same Old Cause 03.08.2026 41dk

  Ten million prescriptions a year, and most of them aren't for what the drug was built to treat. Seroquel started life as an antipsychotic — engineered to quiet psychosis, not close your eyes. Somewhere along the way it became one of the most common "off the record" sleep aids in America, riding on a side effect nobody set out to sell. The evidence behind that shift is thinner than most people assume — and Seroquel isn't the only drug doing this. In this episode we will: Trace quetiapine from ...
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  #214 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: They Couldn’t See It 27.07.2026 40dk

  Most "top sleep threats" lists stick to one lane — pediatric or adult, clinical or cultural. Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown's list refuses to. It jumps from kids' airways to menopause to AI chatbots, and by the end a pattern emerges: the same symptom, in different bodies, keeps getting waved off as normal. In this episode we will: Work through pediatric snoring dismissed as harmless and untreated mouth breathing, and why both are often lead to the same airway problem Get into exhaustion worn as...
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  #213 - Research from the 2026 SLEEP Scientific Conference: Something New 20.07.2026 47dk

  Every June, thousands of sleep researchers descend on one city and quietly rewrite what we think we know about a third of our lives. This year it was Baltimore's turn, for the 40th annual SLEEP meeting — and the data that came out of it hits closer to home than usual: blood pressure, diabetes, teenage phones, and why "night owl" might really mean "lonely." Here are my Top 10 studies from SLEEP 2026 most likely to actually change how you sleep. In this episode we will: Break down why being sle...
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  #212 - Deep Sleep and REM Sleep: A Deeper Understanding, Lost In A Dream 13.07.2026 41dk

  Deep sleep and REM sleep get lumped together as "good sleep," but they're almost opposite states — one is the quietest your brain gets all night, the other is nearly as active as being awake. In this episode we pull the two apart: how we stumbled onto each of them, what's happening chemically while they run, and why one of them quietly shrinks as we age while the other holds steadier. In this episode we will: Break down what's actually happening in slow-wave sleep versus REM — brainwaves, mus...
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  #211 - Insomnia and Sleep Apnea: Just Don’t Know 06.07.2026 37dk

  We tend to think of insomnia and sleep apnea as two completely different sleep disorders. One means you can't sleep. The other means you stop breathing. Simple, right? Not so fast. In reality, many people with sleep apnea don't complain about snoring or excessive daytime sleepiness. Instead, they complain that they wake up repeatedly throughout the night and can't stay asleep. In this episode we will: Explain why sleep apnea often causes insomnia-like symptoms rather than daytime sleepiness&n...
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  #210 - Top 10 Sleep Threat Power Rankings: Stop Right Now, Thank You Very Much 29.06.2026 37dk

  This week marks the 12th month we have put out the Top 10 Sleep Threats Power Rankings, and this week, we have a special guest assessor, Upneet Chawla, MD (@sleeping.beauty_md). Upneet is an internist and board-certified sleep specialist. In this episode, she has graciously provided us her list. In this episode we will: Find out what Dr. Chawla thinks are the top threats to your sleepIncorporate abstracts from the 2026 Sleep meeting to illustrate her pointsOriginal intro music Vigilante...
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  #209 - Sleep Quantity or Consistency…which is Queen?: Your Future’s At Stake 22.06.2026 35dk

  Sleep duration has always been the headline number in sleep science, but mounting research is pushing the conversation toward something less obvious: how consistent your timing is from night to night. In this episode we dig into a debate that's far from settled, and into a statistical trap that may be quietly distorting it. WIn this episode we will: Break down the four separable pillars of sleep health: duration, consistency, continuity, and circadian alignmentWalk through the landmark UK Bio...
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  #208 - Menopause and Sleep Update: Outside This Woman's Work 15.06.2026 33dk

  Menopause has always been linked to sleep disruption, but the story has changed dramatically since we last covered it in episode 3. Hot flashes and night sweats still matter, but newer research is pushing us to think more broadly about brain temperature regulation, insomnia, mood, sleep apnea, cardiometabolic risk, and a new generation of nonhormonal medications that directly target vasomotor biology. In this episode we will: Revisit why menopause so often produces sleep-maintenance ins...
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  #207 - Insomnia and Narcolepsy: Tired of the Same Old Story 08.06.2026 36dk

  Narcolepsy is often described as a disorder of excessive daytime sleepiness, but that description only tells part of the story. Many people living with narcolepsy also struggle with fragmented, restless, and unrefreshing sleep at night; and these symptoms that can look a lot like insomnia. In recent years, researchers have increasingly viewed narcolepsy as a disorder of sleep-wake instability, where the boundaries between wakefulness, non-REM sleep, and REM sleep become less secure. Understan...
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  #206 - Sleep Trackers in the Clinic--Help or Harm?: I Guess I Gotta Buy It 31.05.2026 41dk

  Sleep trackers have become one of the fastest-growing trends in modern health culture. Rings, watches, apps, and mattress sensors now promise to measure everything about your sleep, but are these devices actually helping us sleep better…or simply giving us one more thing to worry about? In this episode, we will: Discuss whether sleep trackers improve sleep health or simply increase sleep-related anxietyExplore whether sleep trackers are evolving from wellness gadgets into legitimate hea...
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  #205 - Socks In Bed: Taking All The Heat On Your Feet 25.05.2026 28dk

  People tend to have surprisingly strong opinions about wearing socks in bed. Some people swear by them, claiming they fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. Others find them uncomfortable, claustrophobic, or far too warm. But beneath this oddly polarizing sleep habit lies some genuinely fascinating science involving thermoregulation, circulation, and the body’s preparation for sleep. In this episode, we will: Explore why warming your feet may actually help cool your core body temperatureRe...
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  #204 - Nidra for RLS: Voltage Running Through Your Skin 18.05.2026 25dk

  Restless Legs Syndrome has long been treated as a medication problem. But what if one of the most important clues was hidden in the thing patients already know: movement helps. Nidra, a prescription neuromodulation device using tonic motor activation, attempts to borrow the benefit of movement without requiring patients to pace the bedroom at 2:00 AM. In this episode we will: Review how Nidra stimulates the peroneal nerves to engage movement-related pathwaysExplore the RESTFUL pivotal trial a...
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  #203 - What’s Next To Your Bed?: In The Dark, Try To Make It Work 11.05.2026 29dk

  What’s on your bedside table? A lamp? A phone? A book? A bottle of melatonin gummies? A tangled charging cable? In this episode we explore what our bedside environments reveal about our relationship with sleep itself. Using real listener-submitted nightstands and bedside drawers — including my own — we introduce the Sleep Sanctuary Index (SSI™), a playful but evidence-informed scoring system designed to determine whether the things beside our bed are helping or hurting sleep. Along the way we...