Best Science Medicine Podcast - BS without the BS
Sep 15, 2026 · 27 min · 11 segments
In episode 628, Jamie and James invite Jennifer Young back to the podcast to talk about the very important topic of sleep and what to use instead of medications. We go over all the evidence for…
Jamie FalkHostSo if you haven't figured it out, we're going to talk about something to do with insomnia, but we're going to stay away.
We'll briefly touch on medications, but this is the tools of practice that we published about six or eight weeks ago.
I put it together with Jen Potter and Adrian Lindblad, something that, yeah, great team to work with.
The question specifically was how effective is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia? Is CBT small I? Yeah.
And like, how did this start? Did someone come up with the idea? I mean, it's obviously important.
The desire to reduce the use of sedative hypnotics is huge, but we need to have another answer for it.
And we wanted to see just how effective are these interventions that help people to overcome the various aspects of insomnia without using medications.
There was a previous tool for practice on sleep restriction that I would refer listeners to, and it worked.
But the question around, you know, is what, is it worth it to try to pursue the components of CBT-I? Perfect.
And we did focus on two of the most recent systematic reviews of randomized control trials.
So, I mean, it is a lot of RCTs and not a lot of participants per RCT, as you can see if you do the math.
So if you haven't figured it out, we're going to talk about something to do with insomnia, but we're going to stay away.
We'll briefly touch on medications, but this is the tools of practice that we published about six or eight weeks ago.
I put it together with Jen Potter and Adrian Lindblad, something that, yeah, great team to work with.
The question specifically was how effective is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia? Is CBT small I? Yeah.
And like, how did this start? Did someone come up with the idea? I mean, it's obviously important.
The desire to reduce the use of sedative hypnotics is huge, but we need to have another answer for it.
And we wanted to see just how effective are these interventions that help people to overcome the various aspects of insomnia without using medications.
There was a previous tool for practice on sleep restriction that I would refer listeners to, and it worked.
But the question around, you know, is what, is it worth it to try to pursue the components of CBT-I? Perfect.
And we did focus on two of the most recent systematic reviews of randomized control trials.
So, I mean, it is a lot of RCTs and not a lot of participants per RCT, as you can see if you do the math.
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