welcome to "beyond the headlines." i'm chirl jennings. today is about the importance of having adequate quality sleep. according to the centers for disease control and prevention, insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic. it is motor vehicle crashes, industrial disasters and medical and other occupational errors. people who don't get enough sleep are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression and obesity. recently uc berkeley researchers found that not enough sleep also contributes to excessive worrying. sleep deprivation amplifies anxiety by firing up brain regions associated with eemgtsal processing. the same brain processing

happens in those with anxiety disorder. findings suggest that sleep could help with many illnesses. that study is in the journal of neuroscience. we have dr. winston chung you with us in the studio to talk about why quality sleep is to critical to our health. he is medical director of inpatient psychiatry at california medical center and works at the guisal school of medicine. nice to have you here. >> thank you for having me, cheryl. >> you went to med school, you're a doctor u. probably didn't sleep at all. >> there were a lot of nights without much sleep, correct. >> but it's so important to have a good, quality sleep. sleep hygiene is the new phrase, i think. >> absolutely. very important. simply put, restful sleep is critical for our mental and physical functioning. you described some of the ways that poor sleep can impact us physically, but certainly our mind throughout the day is involved in a lot of activities,

planning, organizing ourselves. when we drive behind the wheel, if we lose hours of sleep at night, that can impact our ability to function in that way, in an appropriate manner. >> it's important to just shut the brain down for a while? >> yeah. our brain is very busy during the day, and in a certain sense our brain goes into a different electrical mode at night that helps rest, recharge. studies show that children or teens who don't get adequate sleep might have more difficulty learning. they might also have more emotional or behavioral difficulties as well. studies also show that sleep dip deprivation affects certain parts of the brain. so restful sleep is critical for brain functioning. >> the amount of hours is different for different people, right? could you walk us through that. >> that's right. i think it's important to keep in mind there's no magic number. there's no exact number of hours one needs. generally speaking, however, younger people, specifically

newborns, infants, toddlers, may need a little bit more sleep than adults. and even teens need a little bit more sleep than adults. on average, they say that an adult who gets less than seven hours a sleep might be susceptible to some of the things you mentioned, heart disease, obesity, difficulty with immune function. that evidence is pretty strong. there's also some evidence that suggests more than nine hours could also be detrimental for illnesses, motor vehicle accidents. there's some controversy whether that evidence is very strong, but they say maybe somewhere between seven to nine, but it's individually based. for instance, my wife needs a certain amount of sleep, maybe more than eight hours, and maybe i can use a little bit less. that's what we need, and it's individually based. >> you just have to kind of figure it out. >> yes. >> so what are some of the things that we shouldn't do? >> so my don'ts of sleep hygiene would be to not use caffeine,

alcohol, or nicotine. >> within a certain amount of hours? >> certainly not close to bedtime, but in general, if you're having problems with sleep, you may want to cut that out entirely. other things to try and avoid would be late-night eating, not nappi inping close to bedtime. that can disrupt sleep. avoiding screen time close to bedtime. >> no tv? >> no tv. we live here in the bay area. we're very wired. but ipads late at night creates this artificial light that can, some studies show, can disrupt melatonin production which is critical for our sleep/wake cycle. >> how do we get into that relaxing mode to get that good hygienic sleep? >> you can try a routine, a bedtime routine, that is a calming routine. that could include, for instance, setting a nice bath with maybe some aromas, nice, calm music. something that kind of begins to

calm your body and mind down. for some people it could even be making sure at certain times you're doing things. i'm going to start my routine at 10:00, and that includes brushing my teeth in the same way. again, our bodies like rhythms. and the sleep/wake cycle is a rhythm. anything we can do to facilitate that rhythm is going to be helpful. >> the relaxing bedtime, i bet your wife loves you for that, too, because your job is extremely stressful. i bet she has a stressful life, too. how do you deal with clearing out all the mental clutter so you can get that good, quality sleep? >> well, that's a challenging thing a lot of the time. again, there's no right answer for that. but some of the things that people can do that might facilitate clear things out later would be to be more active in the daytime. during waking hours if you're more active, expending physical and mental energy, that might later make it such that you have

an easier time calming down out of exhaustion. >> is exercise a good idea? >> if done in the daytime. they recommend against exercising close to bedtime because that might be stimulating. >> i think that you talked already about alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, late naps and no food, no eating late. >> no eating late. it's one of those things, alcohol as well, you know, sometimes people might feel like they fall asleep easier with a little alcohol. some people feel they may nap or fall asleep easier after eating, but the fact of the matter is it disrupts the quality of sleep. you're not going to get the same restful sleep we're going to need for our body and mind to recover for the next day. >> i appreciate all of your advice. thank you so much, doctor. >> thank you for having me. >> and we do have to take a break, but we'll be back in just a moment. we're going to hear from our experts who have insight on a world-renowned sleep center often considered the birthplace of sleep medicine. stay with us. we'll be right back.

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well will come back to "beyond the headlines." we often consider sleep to be eye pa eye passive activity, but it's a critical part of good health and helps prevent diabetes, hypertension and depression. a proper bedtime is important when it comes to kids and their learning. british researchers studied more than 11,000 children under the age of 7. they found that kids that went to bed after 9:00 or whenever

they wanted scored lower on reading and math tests. researchers think the lack of sleep may impair the way the brain processes information. the study is published in the journal of epidemiology and community health. here to help us understands this a lot better from the stanford center for sleep sciences and medicine is associate professor raphael palia. thank you for being here today. >> thank you for having me. >> sleep is illusive for a lot of us in this industry. >> sure. >> for the families who come to see you also. let's start with the kids. what should parents know about the kids and what they need? >> i think parents need to know that kids are 3408ding after them. as a parent, if you don't make sleep a priority in your life, don't be surprised your kids aren't doing it. for a lot of parents, the kids sleep is the way for the parents to get a break from their kids. you can't do it that way either. i think kids need to be taught that they get to sleep, not that they have to sleep. it's different. if you ask a child sometimes why you sleep, they don't have a good sense of it. what's the value of it?

we know why we have to eat. we know what the other things are, exercise. but ask somebody why they have to sleep, parents don't have a good answer a. they want a break. i think it's important for parents to realize kids model them. if the parents stay up late, the kids are wondering what they're missing out on. if the parents are watching tv late at night or on the computer, why can't the kids do the same thing. kids are watching them. >> we were talking about the study that mentioned that kids don't do well on testing if they don't get enough sleep. kids aren't going to make that correlation, but the patient pa should. >> right. the overarching question is always the same -- why sleep in the first place? one of the early sleep scientists said, if sleep had no function, it's the biggest mistake evolution ever made. if you think about the body, the kidneys don't have to sleep, the lungs don't sleep, the heart doesn't have to sleep. it's for the brain. so what is sleep doing for the brain? obviously sleep is an important function for the brain, and we now have a better sense that one of the things that is happening is that, while we're sleeping,

the brain is integrating information, taking what it learned during the day and applying it to tomorrow's problems. so that processing and integration occurs in sleep. creativity we think is linked directly to dreaming, for example. >> kid ans act out whether they don't get enough sleep, right? >> kids and adults. >> oh, yeah. >> the first thing affected by lack of sleep is mood. people tend to be grumpy, in the mornings, i need my coffee. they really didn't get enough sleep. otherwise, you just had a lot of sleep. what do you need coffee for? the first thing affected is mood, the second is attention. last thing affected is your motor performance. so adults can drive their cars, for example, be grumpy and airritable and forgettable. with children, certainly if you don't sleep well how can you possibly learn? especially when you're not getting enough sleep, it shows up when you're in a boring, monotonous environment. if a child is bored, we all know how kids behave. when a child doesn't get enough sleep, any 3-year-old in the

supermarket, you make eye contact with that adult about their child, they look at you and say, he skipped his nap. you say, oh, i understand. going nuts because you skipped your nap. that phenomenon is going to carry over. kids are not voluntarily going to lay down to take a nap. this is what they're told to do. >> what about teenagers? >> i have a 15 and 18-year-old. they sleep actually really well, fortunately. by the way, my wife is also a sleep doctor. maybe that has something to do with it. they don't get a break. but it's an important thing about sleeping because teenagers start to behave more like adults in some ways but their sleep is still very childlike. in fact, physical growth leng lengthening of bones occurs in sleep. if your child is growing, they need more sleep. that's been measured, the lengthening of the bones. teenagers need more sleep than yucker kids do.

this ha this's a little surge. the first thing you need to watch for in teenagers, first thing to watch for is they start sleeping in on weekends. 8-year-olds don't sleep in. parents wish they would when they're 8. they don't. 8-year-olds just get up and go, they motor around, take off, no naps. they just move. but when you start getting extra sleep on weekends, the idea of catching up, the parents might feel guilty, my child needs more sleep. that's fine. but it lets you know something is very, very wrong during the sleep. people don't get extra calories on weekends, they don't need extra food. why sleep? >> what do you worry about? >> there's data on this. if your child sleeps in more than two hours compared to their usual school day wake-up time, normally gets up at 8:00 or 7:00, if they sleep in beyond two hours on weekends, there's a problem. data shows kids who are sleepy who sleep in more than two hours of weekend have high chances of

suicidal thinking. >> let's start with that when we get back. we have to take a break. the doctor will stay with us to talk about the disorder that's can be caused by poor sleep. stay with us. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "beyond the headlines." today's show is about sleep and the fact we need it. a study in the journal of sleep

shows that a link between breathing problems and insomnia. people are respiratory problems show a drop in the oxygen inhaled which could affect how deeply they sleep. chronic insomniacs wake up as many as 30 times overnight. the stanford sleep center finds that at some point in our lives, at least three-quarters of adults will suffer from at least one of 90 diagnosable sleep disorders. agai i wanted to get back to something you said before the break about how sleep and your thought processes start changing. talked about kids and suicidal thoughts. >> yeah. sleep has a function, and sleep is good for the brain. we do know that people who don't get enough sleep their brain doesn't work as well, their memory isn't as sharp. children may be inattentive. when they're bored they look for things to stimulate themselves.

and people who don't get enough sleep tend to be more impulsive, more risk tarkers. casinos make you sleep deprived to make more mistakes. sadly, there's strong data, several studies have come out supporting a link between inadequate sleep and suicidal behavior in teenagers. they're under a lot of stress, not getting enough sleep, and then they also may be more impulsive due to lack of sleep. there's no doubt that the best bang for the buck, as far as improving your help, is through sleep. >> it's free! >> it's free. you get to do it. it's beautiful. i mean, why not get more sleep? >> we talked about a variety of disorders that can contribute to really poor health problems. can you talk about that. >> of course. there are, as you mentioned earlier a, over 90 different sleep disorders. the most common thing we do at our clinic is something called sleep apnea. people stop breathing in their sleep. the brain has to decide what's more important, breathing or sleeping. for a little window of time, the

brain says, i'd rather sleep than breathe. there's a gap in your breathing, and that will go on hundreds of times during the night. i think it's important for the viewers to understand that there's no such thing as normal snoring. nobody should ever snore. >> oh, boy! >> welling, you and i are both breathing right now, our breathing is silent. when are you more endangered being attacked by predators, sleeping? why would you tip off your predators by making noise? there is no normal snoring. the only snoring we know of is in humans and domesticated animals. never accept snoring as normal. >> so what do you do about that? i know your sleep centers work on that. i've heard of devices that help with breathing. >> there are several ways of taking care of the issue. the first thing is, if you have trouble with your sleep or your snoring, it's not to ignore it. that's the most obvious thing. mild conditions can become moderate and then become severe. and we do know that people with sleep apnea have increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, death, car accidents it's a real

public health issue so don't ignore it. every day at work i hear somebody say, my wife claims i snore. i say, why would they claim that? of course you do. they're not making it up. of course you do it. or they say, she just of needs ear plugs. you hear that a lot. it's very important that you mention to your physician. if they ignore it -- hopefully they don't -- go see somebody else. because there'sp,ç no such thins you waking up tired. as you get older, you shouldn't feel more tired when you wake up. you should feel energized. never, ever wake up feeling tired. that makes no sense at all. >> so some of the other disorders i wanted to get to really quickly, restless leg syndrome and narcolepsy. >> yes. restless leg syndrome is a very common condition. it's been considered to be a curse by some people, where they just feel an uncomfortable feeling in their legs, an urge to move your legs as you're

about to go to sleep or when you're sitting still. it's a treatable condition. we now know it's associated with lack of iron in some people, and it's something that there is active research going on, shouldn't be ignored. narcolepsy is a very common condition, affects a lot of young people. now we know it's an auto immune disease, which means the body attacks itself. people with narcolepsy will have their awake behaviors intruding into their daytime. more recent data from sleep centers show it's autoimmune which means it can be caused by the body attacking itself. there's an outbreak in europe from immunizations in children, 2 and 3-year-olds that have narcolepsy for life now. >> we are unfortunately out of time. you are a fountain of information, and we'll provide the researchers for our viewsers at home to contact your office. >> thank you so much. >> a lot of us who are sleep deprived love this subject. we have to take a break. up next, we are going to speak to a woman who lives with a disease that keeps her awake

welcome back to "beyond the headlines." we've been talking about the importance of sleep, some of the sleep disorders that keep us from restful sleep. another reason we need a good

night's rest has to do with our diet. researchers at penn state have found that people that only get four to six hours a night actually end up eating more and usually more of the wrong foods. doctors say it's a combination of hormone changes in the body that results from staying up longer and it affects our eating patterns. in addition, if you're awake, there's more of a chance you're going to eat. why not, right? not good. our next guest has been struggling with poor sleep for 17 years. kathleen frazier volunteers with the american diabetes association and lives with type 1 diabetes. i was commenting about how you just look like you're in such great shape. you know, you'd never know that you've been living with such a disease. how is this affecting your life, and how is sleep a part of that? >> well, diabetes, type 1 diabetes in particular, is one of those conditions that really is 24/7/365. it really requires a lot of vigilance in terms of monitoring blood sugar and dispeninsusing

insulin. so a plan requires 8 to 10 to 12 blood sugar checks a day so a lot of diabetes management has to be done it overnight while you're sleeping. diabetes doesn't sleep when your brain goes to sleep so you really have to be very vigilant even in the middle of the night. >> so what do you do? >> so i set an alarm and do blood sugar checks in the middle of the night. a lot of families -- and i saw from the other slides that you're looking for children to get anywhere from 10 to 15 hours of sleep -- that's way too long to go without a blood sugar check. >> what would happen if you did that? >> well, you know, the biggest risk is a serious low blod sugar and a serious low blood sugar that i don't wake up from would cause a seizure, coma and you could die. it's about preventive management to ensure i'm in a safe zone when i'm trying to sleep. >> so that must be frustrating trying to balance both things. >> it is frustrating. there's a lot of technology out there to help us, i wear a

continuous glucose sensor which monitors my bloog sugar 24 hours a day, but there's also false alarms that wake you up in the middle of the night so i'm really still checking throughout the night my blood sugar to make sure i'm in a safe zone and i wake up the next day. >> that's a good thing. >> exactly. >> now, you're an athletic work, is that all part of your process? >> activity and athletics is good for anybody. for me, i do triathlons and participate within a group of women with type 1 diabetes around the country doing triathl triathlons. but exercise very much increases your risk for hypoglycemia and low blood sugar. even though it's good for me, it also adds to kind of the risks associated with low blood sugars. >> we've been talking throughout this whole show about parents and kids and trying to manage sleep. so what are some of the tricks that families are doing who have

children with sleep issues and diabetes? >> you know, parents are the ones managing their child's diabetes f. you're in a two-parent household, some parents, one parent is staying up until midnight and doing that midnight check and the parent that went to bed earlier might do the 3:00 a.m. check. sometimes one parent can just function a little bit better with lack of sleep so one patieparent may do the checking during the week and one on weekends. parents in a divorced household, the time your child is at the other parent's house might be an opportunity to catch up on sleep. sleeping in late on the weekends. i know the other gentleman said that wasn't such a great thing to catch up on sleep, but sometimes it's the only thing they can do in terms of balancing diabetes management and their own health. >> of course. you've got to do that. the american diabetes association is a great resource. tell us a little bit about that before we run out of time. >> the american diabetes association is a wonderful

organization. they connect families and adults with type 1 diabetes so you can share tricks of the trade. there are a lot of community organizations out there that are doing that. and i think sometimes knowing that you're not alone can really help. again, to share tricks of the trade with other family members can really be helpful. >> so they're easily available online, probably in social me a media? >> yes. there are a lot of different organizations. very important, a very strong community here in the bay area. i encourage all families to reach out and get involved with their local families. >> kathleen, thank you so much. really appreciate it. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> good for you for taking care of yourself so well. you're an inspiration. >> thank you. >> that is all the time we have for today. special thanks to all of our wonderful guests. for more information about today's program, go to absence a abc7news.com. or follow me on twitter. i'm cheryl jennings, have a

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welcome to bnd. ooich cheryl jennings. today's show is about preventing suicide. a serious public health problem that devastates the lives of friends, families and entire communities. the centers for disease control and prevention says that from 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among adults jumped by nearly 30% to more than 38,000. making it the tenth leading cause of death for americans. one possible reason according to the cdc may be the economic downturn over the past decade. the report also finds that men are far more likely than women to take their own lives. while our first guest today is joining us from the american foundation for sued prevention, janice doudsy a volunteer board member of the