Nishi Bhopal, MD is board-certified in Psychiatry, Sleep Medicine, and Integrative Holistic Medicine. She is the founder and medical director of Pacific Integrative Psychiatry, an online practice in California where patients receive a whole-person approach to anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, including nutrition, psychotherapy, and integrative and functional medicine. In addition to her private practice, Dr. Bhopal is the founder of IntraBalance, an educational platform that includes a YouTube channel and online courses for physicians and therapists where she teaches the fundamentals of clinical sleep medicine.

Some of the topics we discussed were:

• Safe approaches to elderly patients who have difficulty sleeping in the hospital
• Melatonin in an inpatient setting
• How to handle a situation where a patient insists on taking sleeping pills by using the FIFE model
• Strategies to decrease the negative impact of sleep disturbance for healthcare professionals who work long hours, night shifts, or who constantly switch between day and night shifts
• Melatonin for healthcare professionals doing shift work
• Traveling tips on how to help decrease the negative impact of changing timezones and deal with travel fatigue and jet lag
• The truth about how blue light exposure affects sleep
• Ways to promote better sleep in your evening routine
• How to watch a show or movie at night without disturbing your sleep
• Dr. Bhopal’s tips and recommendations for sleeping better yourself and for helping patients sleep better
• The interaction between food and sleep

And more!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

CDC free shift work resource:
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/work-hour-training-for-nurses/longhours/mod1/01.html

TimeShifter app:
https://www.timeshifter.com/

Study on sleep in hospitalized patients:
Morse AM, Bender E. Sleep in Hospitalized Patients. Clocks Sleep. 2019 Feb 25;1(1):151-165. doi: 10.3390/clockssleep1010014. PMID: 33089161; PMCID: PMC7509688.

Dr. Bhopal's sleep workshop for patients:
https://go.pacificintegrativepsych.com/sleep-tune-up

Connect with Dr. Bhopal:

LI:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishibhopal/

YT:
https://www.youtube.com/c/intrabalance

IG:
https://www.instagram.com/intrabalance

FB:
https://www.facebook.com/IntraBalanceLLC/

Private practice website:
https://pacificintegrativepsych.com/

Private IG:
https://pacificintegrativepsych.com/