White Coat Black Sheep with Dr Civelli

In this episode, Dr Civelli breaks down why you can sleep eight hours and still wake up exhausted.

If you are not dreaming, waking up multiple times a night, or living in light sleep without realizing it, this conversation will change how you think about recovery.

From circadian rhythm to cortisol physiology, we unpack:

• Deep sleep vs REM and why dreaming matters
• Why checking your phone at night resets melatonin
• The difference between light sleep and restorative sleep
• Snoring, oxygen drops, and hidden sleep apnea
• When to use wearables vs formal sleep studies
• How stress and cortisol timing affect sleep quality
• Why no heavy conversations after 5 pm can protect recovery

This episode is for clinicians, entrepreneurs, parents, and high performers who feel tired despite doing “everything right.”

If you’ve ever thought,
There has to be a better way to do this.
You’re in the right place.

Subscribe to White Coat Black Sheep for weekly conversations where science gets curious and dogma gets uncomfortable.

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not provide personal medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider for individual care.

Welcome to White Coat Black Sheep — where science gets curious and dogma gets uncomfortable. In this episode, Dr. Civelli and Nurse Sarah unpack what it actually means to practice “real world medicine” when patients, lab reports, and guidelines don’t fit neatly into a checkbox.

They talk about why reference ranges can mislead, how clinicians decide what’s urgent vs. noise, and the difference between “normal” and optimal. Along the way: a story from the gym that turns into a serious safety lesson, why people misunderstand medications as “only for one thing,” and a candid conversation about hormone therapy myths that have shaped an entire generation’s decisions.

In This Episode

• The origin of White Coat Black Sheep and what the show is here to question
• Why Dr. Civelli calls herself a “hybrid” physician (and why that matters)
• Hospital lab priorities vs. optimization medicine: what gets missed
• “Don’t send the babies to war”: understanding bands and what they can signal
• Why people panic at bolded lab values—and what’s often actually relevant
• Injection safety basics (and a serious warning about the inner-thigh/groin “triangle”)
• “You don’t ‘used to’ have a heart condition”: risk, denial, and the danger of ignoring data
• How medications get pigeonholed—and why side effects are sometimes the point
• Hormone therapy fear, the culture that spread it, and what patients are hearing now
• Topical vs oral vs injection delivery: why the route changes the physiology
• Dr. Civelli’s philosophy: if you’re going to push limits, you don’t get to skip the data