The science of sleep and how to get help if you’re struggling getting it

If you’re counting sheep at night, it might be time to add up the cost of the loss of energy. Dr. Stephanie Wappel of GBMC is here to discuss sleep science and modern treatment for insomnia and apnea as Nestor doesn’t go to sleep on how different we all rest and when and how. And just what is the Sunshine Protection Act?

Summary

Maryland Crab Cake Tour & Introduction to Sleep

• Nestor Aparicio opens the segment from WNST AM 1570, mentioning the Maryland Crab Cake Tour stops and sponsors (Maryland Lottery, GBMC, etc.).
• He introduces Dr. Stephanie Wappel, a sleep medicine specialist at GBMC, to talk about sleep, insomnia, and sleep apnea.
• Nestor describes his own unusual but symptom‑free sleep pattern (4–5 hours at night plus occasional naps, lots of activity, no daytime sleepiness) and notes he personally doesn’t feel he has a sleep problem.

How Much Sleep We Need & Circadian Rhythms

• Dr. Wappel explains that most adults need about 7–8 hours of sleep, though there is individual variation.
• She emphasizes:
  • Keeping a consistent schedule and rhythm.
  • Focusing on “sleep‑promoting” behaviors between bedtime and wake time rather than labeling habits as “good” or “bad.”
• Nestor recalls working night shifts at the Baltimore Evening Sun and mentions circadian rhythms and his cat’s nighttime activity.
• Dr. Wappel explains:
  • The brain has internal pacemaker cells that keep our internal clock.
  • Left alone, that clock runs a bit longer than 24 hours, so we need external cues, especially morning blue light from the sun, to stay aligned with a 24‑hour day.
  • Humans are generally meant to sleep at night and be awake during the day.

Why People See a Sleep Doctor

• Nestor notes his father had sleep apnea decades ago and that science has evolved since then.
• Dr. Wappel says the two main reasons people see her are:
  • Sleep apnea or snoring / breathing difficulty during sleep.
  • Insomnia (difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking too early).
• She clarifies:
  • Waking briefly once a night (e.g., to use the bathroom) isn’t necessarily a problem if there’s no daytime impairment.
  • Not everyone needs a sleep doctor; it becomes important when sleep problems hurt daytime functioning.

How Dr. Wappel Evaluates Patients

• Dr. Wappel starts with the main complaint, then takes a thorough sleep history, including:
  • Usual bedtime and wake time.
  • Number of overnight awakenings and what the person does when awake.
  • Daytime activities, work schedule, and nap patterns.
  • Eating habits, caffeine, and other substances.
• She notes that Nestor’s ability to nap and flexible schedule may help him reach enough total sleep across 24 hours.

Insomnia, CBT‑I & “Counting Sheep”

• When there’s “pure insomnia” without clear breathing concerns:
  • She focuses on habits, patterns, and thoughts around sleep.
  • The primary treatment is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT‑I), not medication, when there is no physical cause.
• On counting sheep:
  • She explains a concept called paradoxical intention—shifting focus away from the pressure to fall asleep to a gentle, repetitive mental task (like counting sheep, reciting a poem, or song lyrics).
  • The specific image (sheep vs. cats vs. snakes) is less important than it being calming and non‑threatening.

Aging, Sleep Duration & Possible Hidden Issues

• Nestor compares his own current 5‑hour sleep pattern to his late father, who worked at a steel mill, slept about five hours, and functioned well.
• He asks why people often seem to sleep less as they age and still feel fine.
• Dr. Wappel suggests:
  • Social norms once made it more acceptable—especially for men—to underprioritize sleep.
  • In an evaluation, she’d ask:
    • Why he wakes so early or goes to bed when he does.
    • Whether things like snoring or sleep apnea and nighttime awakenings to urinate might be fragmenting his sleep.
  • We each only know our own “normal,” so a structured discussion can uncover issues people don’t recognize day-to-day.

Practical Sleep Hygiene Tips

• Nestor asks for basic “common sense” tips: caffeine cut‑off times, not eating late, etc.
• Dr. Wappel avoids rigid rules but recommends:
  • Establishing a consistent bedtime and a 30‑minute wind‑down period beforehand.
  • Making everything from wind‑down to wake time sleep‑promoting:
    • Stop eating and reduce fluids well before bed.
    • Avoid caffeine later in the day.
    • Avoid screens, social media, intense conversations, and task‑oriented work right before bed, in bed, or during nighttime awakenings—these are wake‑promoting and make falling or staying asleep harder.

Sunlight, Standard Time & Daylight Savings

• Nestor talks about feeling crankier in November, the impact of early darkness on mood and on his radio work, and the broader societal “November doldrums.”
• He asks about sunshine, time changes, and the Sunshine Protection Act.
• Dr. Wappel explains:
  • The American Academy of Sleep Medicine strongly favors permanent standard time, not permanent daylight savings.
  • Standard time means the sun is roughly overhead at clock noon, which best supports:
    • Healthy circadian rhythms.
    • Better physical and mental health.
  • Daylight savings time (DST) originated partly to save oil and money during wartime.
  • The biannual clock changes, especially the “spring forward,” are linked to:
    • More car crashes.
    • Increased risks of heart attacks and strokes in the short term.
  • Permanent DST would push winter sunrises later (after 8 a.m. in some regions), raising concerns for children going to school in the dark and overall health.

Seasonal Mood, Depression & Light Exposure

• On seasonal mood changes:
  • Nestor notes that early darkness in fall seems to depress many people.
• Dr. Wappel adds:
  • Countries like Russia and Morocco tried permanent DST and later reversed it.
  • They saw increased seasonal depression, especially in children and adolescents, during winter.
  • Longer darkness can affect mental health, but:
    • Getting morning sunlight helps boost mood, alertness, and energy, and supports exercise earlier in the day.
  • Our current system, with late-year clock shifts, makes it harder for people to recalibrate their rhythms.

When to Call a Sleep Specialist

• As the conversation closes, Nestor asks when someone should see Dr. Wappel.
• Dr. Wappel says it’s time to seek help when:
  • Sleep problems lead to daytime sleepiness, mood issues, or affect relationships and work productivity.
  • There are signs of sleep-disordered breathing:
    • Loud or disruptive snoring.
    • Witnessed gasping, choking, or pauses in breathing.
    • Waking with headaches or feeling unrefreshed.
  • Even if a person doesn’t think it’s serious, bed partners who hear snoring or notice breathing changes are often key in prompting evaluation.
• She emphasizes:
  • Snoring is often not benign.
  • A thorough sleep and health history helps determine whether it’s more than “just snoring” and whether it’s impacting health.

Wrap‑Up

• Nestor thanks Dr. Stephanie Wappel and says it’s reassuring to know she’s there if sleep issues arise.
• He closes by:
  • Plugging GBMC and the Maryland Crab Cake Tour.
  • Mentioning sponsors like the Maryland Lottery, Furnace and Dermer, and reminders about Orioles and Ravens coverage on WNST.
  • Encouraging listeners to enjoy summer—even if it means staying up a bit later—while underscoring the importance of good sleep and available help for those who struggle.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positively into summer. Ravens are out on the field right now. We’re doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour. We will be at Costas this week in Timonium, moving it around. We’re Koco’s on the 26th of next month, putting together more stuff. We were Pizza John’s last week at Essex, and I’m trying to work out breakfast at State Fair a little later on in the month, and maybe a dinner over at the Fishmonger’s Daughter. All of it brought to you by our friends at the Maryland Lottery. I will have Raven Scratch offs with the cool Kiss bird to give away lucky batch so far in Essex last week. Also our friends at GBMC, which is what this segment’s all about, and getting some better sleep. I, I was on a bus all night. Got back back from New York. I slept sort of upside down, but I don’t have any sleeping problems. But for people who do, like my cat who keeps me awake all night, who keeps my wife awake all night, she’s got a real job, not like me. Our friends at GBMC, and I’m wearing my walk a mile shirt here from a couple months ago. But I always like to point out that they are local, right here in Baltimore County, taking care of people, making babies, and keeping people healthy, and doing all sorts of things. And they have all sorts of ways to help you. Dr. Stephanie Wapple is, you know, I’m reading right from the sheet here. Sleep medicine, sleep medicine, and you know, I remember when I was a little boy, Lawrence Welk would come on and say to my mom, “Just take a Salmonex, you know, and go to sleep. You know, I think we’ve come a little way over the last 50 years. Doc, good day to you. How are you? Did you sleep well last night? Do sleep doctors sleep well?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 1:31
Yes, we try to. Yes, I did last night. Thank you.

Nestor Aparicio 1:35
What do people need to know about sleep in a general sense? This a how important it is, right? And eight hours a day, we hear all of that. I’m a weird cat. I’m pushing up on 60. I know I look younger than that when I shave, but I sleep a lot less than I used to. I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been, despite what my doctors might tell me at GBMC and my Planet Fitness partners. But you know, I’m a hot yoga guy, and I do a lot of meditation like that. I sleep four or five hours a day. For me, it feels incredibly normal to wake up at 4o’clock in the morning, and I go about my day. Sometimes I take a little nap because I am getting a little older, and my Venezuelan blood allows me to take a siesta in the afternoon and my lifestyle. But in a general sense, I don’t sleepwalk through days. I don’t feel tired. I drink some coffee, you know. But in a general sense, I’m not a person that would come to you and say, “Help me, but boy, do I know a lot of people that have trouble sleeping.

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 2:27
Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, we all need sleep, but most adults need average seven to seven to eight hours of sleep. And I think one of the most important things is trying to keep yourself on a some kind of consistent schedule and rhythm, and really prioritizing the things that help you, the things that are sleep promoting between your bedtime and rise time. That’s how I like to word it for my patients. I say there’s no good or bad here. It’s not a moral issue. It’s more of a what helps you sleep versus maybe helps you stay awake.

8

Nestor Aparicio 2:59
Yeah, I I spent my teenage years working at the Baltimore Evening Sun, and we put the paper out all night. So five nights a week, I worked night shift from the time I was 17 till I was like 23 during the week, and it was before cell phones, so you couldn’t be awakened. You’d have to turn your your phone off, and just I sort of adjusted to it. But I read up on circadian rhythms and what humans are supposed to do and why my cat’s awake all night hunting all sorts of things in the summer out the windows. The normal part of being a human and circadian rhythms. What is your belief or what is scientific belief about we’re supposed to sleep at night, kind of sort of, aren’t we?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 3:40
Yes, ideally. So we actually have a natural kind of pacemaker cells inside of our brain that keep our internal clock. And if led, if left to no external cues, it actually would run a little longer than 24 hours. So we need these external cues, particularly the blue light from the sun to keep our natural clock on a 24-hour to keep our natural like brain on a 24-hour schedule, and so it is really important to have those external cues when you need them to kind of keep that aligned with a normal schedule.

Nestor Aparicio 4:20
I appreciate you doing a one-on-one with me. Dr. Stephanie Waples here. She’s over at GBMC. They are our partners, and I try to educate folks on all sorts of things. This is something that I’m really sort of naturally ignorant about because I’ve never sort of watched a documentary or seen anything on TV. I’ve never had a sleep problem. You know, my dad had sleep apnea, but he’s been dead 30 years, and the science I’m sure was way different in the late ’80s for someone that worked in the steel mill and you know had all sorts of other issues. My question for you would be: Is if I sent someone in, or someone was having sleep problems, or maybe even the number one reason people come to you? But when they come to you, I would think the first thing you would do to me is observe me and say, “What’s keeping you awake? What are you eating?” What are when are you working at? When are you working? What’s on your mind? Do you have problems? Are there things on your mind? Are you counting balloons on the ceiling trying to get to sleep? I’m not that cat. I mean, I’m just not. Like I, I literally, and I had a really interesting conversation. I’ll bring this up with you because a friend of mine and I were chatting about dreams and dreaming about a week and a half ago, and I actually said to my wife like three days ago, I’m like, I it’s not that I don’t dream. I know I do, and you’re gonna tell me I do, and every sign, every every smart doctor will tell me I do. I haven’t remembered a dream in so long. Not a nightmare, not a good dream, not a weird fever dream kind of thing in forever. I doc, I sleep like a freaking rock, and I, I so I’m doing a segment with you, and I don’t even. I why do people come to you? Because they just wouldn’t be what I would do.

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 5:47
Yeah, no, that’s a great point. I mean, there are fortunately a lot of people who sleep well, don’t have any daytime impairment, even if they maybe don’t get as many hours of sleep. Some people don’t necessarily need as many hours. The main reasons people come to us, the two main complaints, are sleep apnea or snoring, difficulty breathing during sleep, and and insomnia, which is kind of a bit of an umbrella term for difficulty initiating sleep, frequent awakenings, or sort of that early morning awakening with difficulty falling asleep. Some people wake up maybe once every night around 3 a.m. Go back to sleep very quickly, and if it’s well, when you’re 57 and male, when you’re 57 and male, you get up, go to the bathroom. You just do hear that, yes. And as long as it’s not causing any daytime impairment, it’s not necessarily a problem. So just because all humans sleep doesn’t mean they all need a sleep doctor, but there are a lot of things with sleep that we can help our patients with.

Nestor Aparicio 6:48
Well, if I came to you, you’d say how how much do you sleep, and I’m like four or five hours of the day, and you’d be like, you’re not getting enough sleep, and I’d be like, I’ve been doing this for 15 years. I’m not one of those guys, and again, I make my own schedule. If I had to be somewhere at 7o’clock in the morning teaching children or saving the world or do you know it would change my life dramatically. I think if if I had to go on that sort of a rhythmic sleep, but I I don’t have any complaints about it. But people that come, I guess their biggest issue is it’s really screwing up their daytime, right? Like they sleepwalk during the day because they’re not sleeping at night. Where do you begin? Do you begin with diet? Do you begin with your bed? I mean, there’s a million factors that could factor into why you’re staring at the ceiling at night. Correct?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 7:34
Yes, and that is why I love sleep medicine so much because there are so many layers to it. I begin with getting a sense of what’s the main, you know, what’s the patient’s kind of main complaint or concern, and then I do take a full, thorough sleep history where I ask, what time do you typically go to bed? What time do you get up in the morning? How many times do you perceive you wake up overnight? What do you do during the day? And and you know, I do ask about eating. I do ask about caffeine and other substances, I think you made an important point about you know your schedule, and it sounds like you do have the opportunity to also take a nap during the day, which for you may allow you to get enough hours of sleep in your 24 hour day. And I love this work from home foundation.

Nestor Aparicio 8:22
Well, I I would say for for anyone that comes to you and and we’re chatting with Dr. Stephanie Wapple at GBMC. If you’re having sleep problems, where do you start? Because I mean, I made a joke about salmonex. Somebody say, well, take a pill, take a drug, get some cannabis, take a sleep this that you know, wear yourself out a little bit more. I don’t know. Count sheep, right? I mean, that was my parents would tell me. You know, 100 bottles of beer on the wall. You know, whatever you would do. Where do you start with someone to say, from a medication standpoint, to a let’s take a look at your breathing. Let’s take a look at because I would say observations probably everything because somebody comes in and tells you how they’re sleeping, until you see it, you might not be able to help them, right?

8

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 9:05
Right, exactly. And so there are some people who come with kind of pure insomnia, and we don’t really have concerns about their breathing during sleep. And that’s where you really dive into their habits and their sleep and their sleep patterns, and see if there are things that you can reframe and you know help them with cognitive behavioral therapy is actually the main say primary treatment for insomnia if there is no physical reason why the person has insomnia so that can be really helpful for patients you know the counting sheep actually there is some science behind that why sheep I need to know sheep. Why not cats? That I don’t know. That I don’t know. I’m sure it’s some agricultural history, but sheep are calming. If I

Nestor Aparicio 9:49
counted snakes, I’d be up all night, right?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 9:52
That’s fair. That’s fair. We do call it paradoxical intention, where you try to shift your focus from trying to fall back to sleep to. Something else that sort of like I help patients sometimes to you know recite a poem or song lyrics that are kind of familiar to them if they don’t like to count sheep or snakes. I could

Nestor Aparicio 10:11
think of some sleepy lullaby songs or something like that. So if if my wife dragged me into you and said he’s nuts, he only sleeps four hours a day. I don’t understand. Is there anything wrong with that? And I would say this because I like telling stories about my father. My dad passed away 33 years ago. He worked at at at the point, and and he was an older father to me, 50 years older than me. And I was adopted, and I used to watch him take me out to Oriole games in the 70s and 80s, get home at 11 o’clock at night on the bus, and his alarm was set at 424, 30 every morning. He worked in the steel mill, and he got up at 430 and packed the lunch and got on the bus and went to the mill and came home. Never napped in his life, never even got sleepy, but he was 5556, 57. I’m 5556, 57, and all of a sudden, I am that guy that can sort of roll on five hours of sleep. I don’t really understand it, and I know being married to para-postmenopausal wife at this point that women’ bodies change in their 30s, 40s, 50s. I would even ask you to scientific: Why do I sleep less, and why is it so normal for me? And why was it normal for my dad when you get older?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 11:22
So I think you know for your I mean very different times. So I think you know for your father it was a little more acceptable in society for particularly men to not get as many hours of sleep. People didn’t prioritize sleep. I think in your case, if your you know wife or anyone you know a loved one had concerns about your limited sleep time. I would ask some questions about why are you waking up so early in the morning or having difficult or going to bed later than maybe would be maybe your internal clock would want you to do. So we probably would tease that out a little more to see if there is anything going on either behaviorally or maybe there is some snoring or sleep apnea waking you up in those early morning hours to empty your bladder, making it difficult to fall back to sleep. So we only have our own frame of reference for how we how we feel during the day and what our sleep is like. And so sometimes talking it out, some things come up that maybe you didn’t realize as you go through your day to day.

Nestor Aparicio 12:23
Do you give any general like don’t drink caffeine after two in the afternoon if you want to go to bed? You know, just simple sort of don’t eat late at night. It’ll you know don’t eat spicy stuff at 11 o’clock at night and try to go to bed. I mean, I these are pretty basic common sense, I guess in some cases. But some people might come to you and not have common sense and still have trouble sleeping. But what are some common sense things that you could pass along to tell me that might help me sleep that fifth or sixth hour?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 12:52
Yeah, so you know I try not to do any like black and white, like you should do this or this is good or bad. But certainly, when people are coming to me with issues with sleep, I do give some general records. You’re the sleep doctor. If I’m

8

Speaker 1 13:04
out having happy hour, be like, help me. This would be

Nestor Aparicio 13:06
what I’d be saying to you over that, you know. But

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 13:08
so yeah, so I like to think about um, uh, you know, setting a kind of bedtime and before that for the 30 minutes or so before that to kind of have that be your sort of wind down and make everything between that time and your rise time be sort of sleep promoting things. So cutting off eating fluids, you know, caffeine much earlier in the day to sort of get ready for that, get ready for that bedtime and that wind down, and then certainly avoiding screens, social interactions, task oriented things right before bed, or certainly in bed, or in the middle of the night, because those are very wake-promoting. So it’s going to be harder to fall asleep or maintain sleep.

Nestor Aparicio 13:48
Anyone that knows me knows that I get a little cranky sometimes in November, especially when the Orioles don’t win the World Series again for the 43rd year, or if the Ravens aren’t playing good football. But man, the minute we start screwing with the clocks, right around Halloween, and my birthday’s October 14th, so sometime between my birthday and let’s say Thanksgiving, we get into this like it’s dark at 4:30. It’s dark in afternoon drive. It screws with my radio signal and AM radio too, so I don’t like that either. Especially when the Ravens are doing well and I’m in a good mood. We hear so much about that sort of seasonal doldrums and the sunshine, and I already mentioned circadian rhythms, even though I don’t know what exactly what it means. I know it means I’m supposed to go to bed at night and be awake during the day. Teach me about this sunshine situation here and what it means in the Sunshine Protection Act, and I know it gets hyper political, and I also know it’s societal. You know, in other societies where they grow corn and they grow food and they have crops and farmers, I’ve always heard about you know daylight savings time was tied to farmers in our country. I don’t know really what it does other than depress the hell out of everybody in November, and we all get excited. July when it’s still it feels like being in Northern Europe when it’s 915 and you can still you know see light, but it there is a big difference in this country in our society right here in Baltimore over whether it’s dark at 430 or whether it’s dark at 9o’clock at night and the weather and the time and how much daylight we get in a day and why I don’t really want to live in Alaska in the winter and not experience daylight. I’ve done a little bit of that for a day or two. It’s a little weird when the sun comes up at like 11 in the after 11 in the morning and sets at two in the afternoon. Talk to me about the sun and about that because I know that that’s really a a big part of your job at this point for all the doctors to be examining this and saying what’s really best for our society and our economy too.

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 15:46
Yeah, so very important subject. So the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s position is very much in favor of permanent standard time. So standard time means that noon is when the clock is directly overhead. That is the healthiest for our circadian rhythms and the healthiest for our physical and mental health. So many things in our body and our brain rely on these external cues, and when the sun is directly overhead at noon, that allows us to keep everything aligned. As we go into the summer, the days get longer, so we have more sunshine per day. That’s why we all love summer.

Nestor Aparicio 16:26
That’s why we’re all so

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 16:27
happy. So if you notice, you know, but right before the time change, the days are already starting to get longer. So we’re not able to add more sunshine to our day. What we’re able to do, or what we potentially can do is allow people to live on a schedule that best aligns with our internal clock and helps keep our bodies as healthy as possible. So the daylight savings time actually started to try to save, I believe, save oil and save money during one of the world wars, and that’s when they started shifting the clocks. And over time, there’s been some some misconception about daylight savings being arguably better. It’s actually really not better for our health. But now we spend more time in daylight savings time than we do in standard time. Which the shift alone, the shift that we have two times a year, the time change can have some short-term effects on people’s people’s health, and including you know more car crashes, increased risk of heart attacks and stroke as we change to the you know as we change and do that spring forward. But moving to permanent daylight savings time would risk having much darker mornings, particularly in the winter. In some parts of our country, the sunrise wouldn’t be until after 8 a.m. which is kind of concerning, especially for our children going to school and going, you know, getting waiting for the busses. So it doesn’t give us more sunshine. It just, you know, kind of shifts things sort of permanently, which is a little a little concerning. I think the main focus is that standard time is is the best for our for our health mentally and our mental health and our physical health.

8

Nestor Aparicio 18:14
Dr. Stephanie Waplis here. She’s with our partners at Cheat BMC. They send us out on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour with our friends at the Maryland Lottery and our partners at Farnin and Dermer will be back at Costas and Timonium this week, not far from the GBMC main campus. But there’s GBMC off-campus locations available everywhere. I’m going to be talking more about that as we get into the year. And I will just leave you with this: the November thing, I sleep more and earlier, like everyone, when the sun goes down, that’s part of being human, right? Like the November doldrum thing, that’s like a real thing in this country, right? Like it really is. Darkness brings some depression, does it not?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 18:51
So it does, but actually, interestingly, several countries have tried to go to permanent daylight savings time. Russia did it. Morocco more recently did it. They ended up changing that because what they did see was that there was an increased risk of seasonal depression, particularly in children and adolescents during those winter months by shifting to be in daylight savings time permanently. So yes, we you know when it’s darker out longer during the day that does that does affect our mental health. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, particularly adolescents. But getting those morning hours of sunlight does help boost our mood, our energy levels, helps us stay awake and alert, helps us even have more energy to exercise earlier on in the day. So that is a way to kind of counteract that. We just haven’t experienced it in so long because we’ve been on, you know, we’ve been shifting, and now we shift so late in the year that it’s harder to recalibrate.

Nestor Aparicio 19:50
Well, I was looking at like I get a couple extra hours a day for the people that sleep eight hours a day, so I get more living, more time to do this work. I, you know, you ask me what I do with my extra. I work. I sort of like my work, so that’s what I do. Unfortunately, Doctor Stephanie Wapple is here. She loves her work as well. She is a sleep medicine person trying to help me get some sleep. And if you need her, she’s over at GBMC, and we’ll certainly send out a link for doing that. It’s nice to know that you’re there if I ever struggle. But at this point, I just run, run, run, run, run, and then the Orioles game ends. At some point, I pass out. I wake up and I do it all over again. So I hope to continue to do that. Thanks again for your time for the education part of this. Any parting shot that what people need to know, and and when should they call you? Like when when is not getting enough sleep really, other than just complaining about it and saying I didn’t sleep well last night, or cat kept me awake. That’s our issue here: is our cat being awake in the middle of the night. But lately, at least in summertime. But in a general sense, when’s the right time to call you?

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 20:58
They’re concerned about having such poor quality sleep that you’re sleepy during the day, it’s starting to affect your mood. It’s starting to affect your, you know, relationships, work productivity. Certainly, if you’re having any difficulty breathing during sleep, or if you’re, you know, waking up with headaches and snoring, and really, I mean, we we help patients with any any sleep issue whatsoever. So if your spouse is is mad at you in the middle of the night and say, “Dude, you’re

Nestor Aparicio 21:24
you’re snoring all night, it’s a good idea to get checked out, right? I mean, my dad was that guy. My dad, my God, dude, like he would snore, and it would. I mean, the whole hat. It was Fred Flintstoney, and I’m sure he had an. You know, I know he had an apnea, but this is a long, long time ago before diagnosis. But I would think this. In in some cases, to be honest, a lot of dudes listen to me. Their their wives say, “Hey, you’re this isn’t good. You know, you’re I I know what that that that shake, that sound, all of that. If my wife were doing that, I’d be like, “Get over to the doll. You got to get this checked out. But I wouldn’t listen to her, which is how I wound up with GBMC anyway, because I, you know, I mean, but but it if someone you wouldn’t know it and your spouse or your sleeping partner hears it feels it that’s that’s a good push to say hey something’s going on in the middle of the night

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 22:11
absolutely snoring often is not benign and again people can have different symptoms and they don’t necessarily realize how it’s affecting them so that’s why we do a thorough sleep history and health history to figure out if it’s more than just snoring and if it actually you know is causing issues with their health.

Nestor Aparicio 22:30
I snore when I’m really tired or when the Ravens lose and wear me out. Dr. Stephanie Wapel is here. She is over at GBMC. She helps folks get a better night of sleep, and for that we’re all grateful. Thanks again for your time in the education part. And I’m sorry I I don’t understand the circadian rhythms, and I don’t. I’m not the guy with the sleep problem, but it’s nice to know you’re on the wall if I need you. Okay.

8

Dr. Stephanie Wappel 22:51
Thank you,

Nestor Aparicio 22:52
Dr. Stephanie Wapel here as part of our inclusive, and we continue to talk about all sorts of things. This was more fun than discussing my colonoscopy, I must I must say that. But I’m feeling healthier, and my friends at GBMC have helped me out, and they can help you out as well. We talk about it all the time. They’re out on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour with me at Costas this week. We’ll be giving away the Raven scratch-offs. I do love the new tickets. They’re sort of they’re great color. Also, our friends at Farnin and Derm. If it get a little hot inside, they are HVAC specialists as well as plumbing. You can reach them at 410 367777. And by the way, any breaking news with the Orioles and trading deadline available first on the WNST Tech Service. That is all brought to you by Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy. It’s almost football season. It’s definitely baseball season. It’s summer season. Stay up late and enjoy yourself. It’s summertime. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking. Baltimore positive.