SHOW / EPISODE

COVIDsomnia - How It's Hurting Adults & Kids Alike

29m | Oct 19, 2020

In this episode

What “COVIDsomnia” meant in 2020 — and why it was never one formal new sleep disorder
Lynelle Schneeberg’s three drivers of children’s pandemic sleep problems: schedules, physical activity and anxiety
Why family activity sometimes had to replace recess and school-based exercise
How bedtime can become accidentally associated with worry
The “worry jar” and scheduled worry time
Why taking a child’s concern seriously does not require solving it in bed at night
Remote school, later wake times and adolescent circadian biology
The case for later middle- and high-school start times
What later research found about sleep duration, mood and academic performance after delayed school starts
Seema Khosla’s firsthand observations of COVID in a sleep-medicine practice
Changes in CPAP downloads and unusually long sleep during acute illness
Stress-related insomnia versus sleep disturbance during and after COVID infection
How persistent sleep disturbance became part of the long-COVID picture
CBT-I, sleep medication and the importance of an exit strategy
What the 2026 AASM insomnia guideline adds to that treatment discussion
Remote work, telemedicine and the sleep gained by eliminating long commutes
Which pandemic-era schedule changes were worth keeping

About Dr. Lynelle Schneeberg

Lynelle Schneeberg, PsyD, is a behavioral sleep psychologist, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at Connecticut Children’s Sleep Center. She treats sleep difficulties in children, adolescents and adults, with specialties including insomnia, circadian sleep disorders and pediatric sleep problems. She is the author of Become Your Child’s Sleep Coach: The Bedtime Doctor’s 5-Step Guide, Ages 3–10.

About Dr. Seema Khosla

Seema Khosla, MD, FCCP, FAASM, is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, critical care medicine and sleep medicine. She is Medical Director of the North Dakota Center for Sleep in Fargo and remains the host of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine podcast Talking Sleep, where she covers current clinical research, technology and treatment in sleep medicine.