162. Dr. Meredith Broderick: What An Undiagnosed Sleep Disorder Is Quietly Doing To Your Brain And Body
5/7/20261 hr 15 min
A lot of people are walking around exhausted, foggy, moody, and struggling with their cardiovascular health blaming stress, diet, age, and everything in between, never once considering that the real culprit might be happening in the eight hours they are not even awake for. And in children, what is being labeled as ADHD and treated with medication could in many cases simply be an undiagnosed sleep disorder that nobody thought to look for.
In this episode of Extend, I sit down with Dr. Meredith Broderick for a conversation that is going to completely reframe the way you think about sleep and what ignoring it is actually costing your health, your brain, and your children. Walk away finally understanding what is driving your symptoms, why the medications most people reach for are quietly making things worse, and what actually works to fix your sleep for good.
My guest today is Dr. Meredith Broderick, a triple board-certified sleep neurologist and one of only four practitioners in the world to hold certifications in neurology, sleep medicine, and behavioral sleep medicine. What makes her truly unique is how she brings together holistic, preventative, and behavioral approaches to sleep medicine in a way that almost no one else in this field can.There is truly nobody more equipped to have this conversation than someone who has spent her entire career at the exact intersection of the brain, the body, and the behavior of sleep.
WHAT'S DISCUSSED:
(7:29) Why children with sleep disorders are being misdiagnosed with ADHD and put on medication before anyone checks their sleep.
(8:45) The signs of a sleep breathing problem in children that most parents and pediatricians completely miss.
(13:48) Why sleep apnea is not just a snoring problem and how it silently drives cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, and even cancer.
(18:35) The surprising connection between mouth breathing, tongue position, and sleep apnea that nobody is talking about.
(36:34) What chronic insomnia actually is, why one in three people has it, and why most people are treating it completely wrong.
(40:19) What cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia actually is and why it outperforms every sleeping pill on the market.
(55:01) Why Ambien may be blocking the brain's ability to clear the toxins linked to dementia while you sleep.
(1:11:03) The two or three sleep environment changes that make an immediate and measurable difference in sleep quality.
Listen to this episode of Extend and finally understand why your exhaustion, brain fog, and mood issues may have nothing to do with stress or age, what your sleep is actually doing to your long term health, and what it takes to fix it in a way that changes everything.
Thank You to Our Sponsors:
- Function Health: Learn more and join using my link. Visit functionhealth.com/drshah and use gift code DRSHAH25 for a $25 credit toward your membership.
Learn more about Dr. Darshan Shah:
Website: drshah.com
Clinic: next-health.com
Instagram: darshanshahmd
Learn more about Dr. Meredith Broderick:
Instagram: @thesleepneurologist
TikTok: @thesleepneurologist
Website: www.soundsleepguru.com
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDarshan Shah· Host0:00
[gentle music] Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span. There's a version of exhaustion that many people are having trouble fixing. It's when you're getting your hours of sleep, but you're wide awake at 3:00 in the morning, and your mind is running, your body's alert, and there's no amount of breathwork or melatonin that gets you back to sleep. For millions of people in midlife, this becomes a norm. And what many doctors miss, and most patients never get told, is that insomnia isn't a diagnosis. It's actually just a symptom, and treating a symptom without finding the underlying cause is exactly why so many people end up with long-term prescriptions that never really fix anything. Sleep specialists actually work from a differential diagnosis about why you're getting the insomnia. It's the same