Practically Speaking: Behind the Episode “Take That Nap! Strategies and Tips for Working with the Sleep Deprived”
When we think of “sleep problems” most of the time our brains go to insomnia – that group of people we work with who have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep despite adequate opportunity to sleep. But what about the opposite side of the sleep coin… or pillow, if you will? What about the group of folks who desperately want sleep, need sleep, crave sleep AND could sleep if only given adequate opportunity to do so? In this week’s episode, we sit down, once again, with one of CDP’s sleep experts, Dr. Diana Dolan, to talk about sleep deprivation and the associated functional impairments.
The cause of sleep deprivation can vary widely client to client and might include things like high ops tempo, deployment demands, having a new baby in the home, living in noisy barracks or even something like surviving a a crisis like a natural disaster – but despite the cause, the functional impairments are significant regardless. Dolan lists off just a few of the evils associated with sleep deprivation, “Their working memory is impaired. Their executive functioning… they're having a lot of other psychological impacts like irritability, emotional ability, feeling like they're not in a great mood.” Sounds fun, right? Who wouldn’t want to walk around sleep deprived?
And yet for many people a notion that one “needs very little sleep” is considered something to brag about. This can be particularly true in the military culture where “needing little sleep” is often viewed as a badge of honor with competitive bragging over who needs less sleep. In actuality, not many people (maybe 1 - 3%) can function (or function well) with less than 6 hours of sleep. So is it problematic for clients to downplay their need for sleep? Dolan reflects, “Absolutely. Especially folks in the military. And I think that's the challenge. So someone may say, well, I'm just fine with only getting these five hours of sleep. Is this really sleep deprivation or is this really a problem? The thing is, over a period of time if you're sleep deprived, you stop noticing your deficits. So when they do cognitive testing, people who are sleep deprived will say, "I'm fine," And their performance is tanking. So you don't know what you don't know, if that makes sense.” And so if our clients don’t know what they don’t know, we behavioral health providers DO need to know how to assess and intervene as appropriate.
We encourage you to join us to learn some useful tips and strategies when working with sleep deprived individuals both in survival mode during crisis situations as well as how to help prioritize sleep for those who have more flexibility. We all need sleep to survive so be sure to check out the actionable intel in this episode to maximize sleep for your clients on the sleep deprivation continuum. Spoiler alert: take that nap!
Listen to the episode: https://deploymentpsych.org/CDP-Podcasts
Resources mentioned in this episode:
The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.
Jenna Ermold, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist working as the Assistant Director of Online Training, Technology and Telehealth for the Center for Deployment Psychology at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Ermold oversees the development of online and face-to-face trainings for behavioral health clinicians to improve clinical and cultural competency in working with military members and their families.
When we think of “sleep problems” most of the time our brains go to insomnia – that group of people we work with who have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep despite adequate opportunity to sleep. But what about the opposite side of the sleep coin… or pillow, if you will? What about the group of folks who desperately want sleep, need sleep, crave sleep AND could sleep if only given adequate opportunity to do so? In this week’s episode, we sit down, once again, with one of CDP’s sleep experts, Dr. Diana Dolan, to talk about sleep deprivation and the associated functional impairments.
The cause of sleep deprivation can vary widely client to client and might include things like high ops tempo, deployment demands, having a new baby in the home, living in noisy barracks or even something like surviving a a crisis like a natural disaster – but despite the cause, the functional impairments are significant regardless. Dolan lists off just a few of the evils associated with sleep deprivation, “Their working memory is impaired. Their executive functioning… they're having a lot of other psychological impacts like irritability, emotional ability, feeling like they're not in a great mood.” Sounds fun, right? Who wouldn’t want to walk around sleep deprived?
And yet for many people a notion that one “needs very little sleep” is considered something to brag about. This can be particularly true in the military culture where “needing little sleep” is often viewed as a badge of honor with competitive bragging over who needs less sleep. In actuality, not many people (maybe 1 - 3%) can function (or function well) with less than 6 hours of sleep. So is it problematic for clients to downplay their need for sleep? Dolan reflects, “Absolutely. Especially folks in the military. And I think that's the challenge. So someone may say, well, I'm just fine with only getting these five hours of sleep. Is this really sleep deprivation or is this really a problem? The thing is, over a period of time if you're sleep deprived, you stop noticing your deficits. So when they do cognitive testing, people who are sleep deprived will say, "I'm fine," And their performance is tanking. So you don't know what you don't know, if that makes sense.” And so if our clients don’t know what they don’t know, we behavioral health providers DO need to know how to assess and intervene as appropriate.
We encourage you to join us to learn some useful tips and strategies when working with sleep deprived individuals both in survival mode during crisis situations as well as how to help prioritize sleep for those who have more flexibility. We all need sleep to survive so be sure to check out the actionable intel in this episode to maximize sleep for your clients on the sleep deprivation continuum. Spoiler alert: take that nap!
Listen to the episode: https://deploymentpsych.org/CDP-Podcasts
Resources mentioned in this episode:
The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.
Jenna Ermold, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist working as the Assistant Director of Online Training, Technology and Telehealth for the Center for Deployment Psychology at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Ermold oversees the development of online and face-to-face trainings for behavioral health clinicians to improve clinical and cultural competency in working with military members and their families.