Getting a good night's sleep

Posts Tagged ‘sleep loss’

Does it often take you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep at night? Or do you wake up frequently during the night — or too early in the morning — and have a hard time going back to sleep? When you awaken, do you feel groggy and lethargic? Do you feel drowsy during the day particularly during monotonous situations?

If you answered “yes” to any one of these questions, you may have a “sleep debt” that is affecting you in ways you don’t even realize. And, you aren’t alone. A recent NSF Sleep in America poll found that a majority of American adults experience sleep problems. However, few recognize the importance of adequate rest, or are aware that effective methods of preventing and managing sleep problems now exist.

Why Do You Need Sleep?

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RELATED STORIES More health news Proven steps to a longer life Washing hands fight disease Heavy workers, hefty price Mammogram testing on decline More health news Today’s Top News Stories • 1 dead, 2 hurt in Mich. office shooting; police say suspect had worked there – 6:04 PM • AP Poll: Congress’ approval hits high point – 5:35 PM • Katrina claims stagger corps – 4:22 PM • National Guard tapped for Iraq tour – 3:04 PM • Edwards scared of ‘rabid Republican’ neighbor – 2:00 PM • Add USATODAY.com RSS feeds Age and sleep play catch-up Mimi Payne, 57, has her sleep “dissected” at the Sleep Disorders Center of Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. By Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

As the youngest of 76 million boomers move through their 40s, they’ll discover what many older Americans already know: The chances of enjoying restful sleep slowly but steadily decrease. The older the adult, the more likely he’ll have chronic insomnia, says Andrew Monjan, chief of neurobiology at the National Institute on Aging. Among twentysomethings, only about 1 out of 8 are insomniacs. By ages 50 to 64, it’s 1 out of 5. It rises to 1 in 4 over age 65. (Chat: Talk with Dr. Monjan, Thursday, 1 p.m. ET)

But insomnia is only part of the challenge. Snoring and sleep apnea — repeated short episodes of not breathing — also increase with age. About 3 out of 5 adults over 65 have some kind of sleep complaint, national studies show.

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Normal Sleep in Adults, Infants, and the Elderly

Normal sleep is divided into non–rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. NREM sleep is further divided into progressively deeper stages of sleep: stage N1, stage N2, and stage N3 (deep or delta-wave sleep). As NREM stages progress, stronger stimuli are required to result in an awakening. Stage R sleep (REM sleep) has tonic and phasic components. The phasic component is a sympathetically driven state characterized by rapid eye movements, muscle twitches, and respiratory variability. Tonic REM is a parasympathetically driven state with no eye movements. The REM period length and density of eye movements increases throughout the sleep cycle.1

Waking usually transitions into light NREM sleep. NREM sleep typically begins in the lighter stages N1 and N2, and progressively deepens to slow wave sleep as evidenced by higher-voltage delta waves. N3 (slow wave sleep) is present when delta waves account for more than 20% of the sleep EEG. REM sleep follows NREM sleep and occurs 4-5 times during a normal 8-hour sleep period. The first REM period of the night may be less than 10 minutes in duration, while the last may exceed 60 minutes. The NREM-REM cycles vary in length from 70-100 minutes initially to 90-120 minutes later in the night.

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Chronic Back Pain and Sleep

When chronic back pain affects you or a family member, Â you might despair of ever getting a good night’s sleep. Pain can disturb the sleep your family needs, night after night. But experts say that with proper treatment, the chances are very good that you or your loved one can get relief from chronic back pain and enjoy normal sleep. Below, find out about treatments and lifestyle tips for better sleep.

Why Sleep Is Important When You Have Chronic Back Pain

The inability to get a good night’s sleep hurts — literally. Chronic back pain prevents you from sleeping well. You can wake up hurting even more.

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If you are like many people reading this article, you see “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia” and think, what is that? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, often called CBT-I, is an approved method for treating insomnia without the use of sleeping pills. Sound impossible? It isn’t. Sounds like hard work? It can be. CBT is aimed at changing sleep habits and scheduling factors, as well as misconceptions about sleep and insomnia, that perpetuate sleep difficulties.

In fact, the recent National Institute of Health state-of-the science meeting on insomnia concluded that CBT-I is a safe and effective means of managing chronic insomnia and its effects. At this point you may be thinking, “That is great, but I still don’t know what CBT-I is.” Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia includes regular, often weekly, visits to a clinician, who will give you a series of sleep assessments, ask you to complete a sleep diary and work with you in sessions to help you change the way you sleep.

For Christine, a swim and safety instructor for the U.S. Navy, a simple cat nap while recovering from knee surgery turned into a full bout of insomnia. She explained, “I had to take medication for the excruciating pain and it would make me sleepy. My doctor told me to stay on bed rest but I found it difficult to lie around all day without drifting to sleep. However, day time napping was making a big impact on my ability to fall and stay asleep at night. When the pain in my knee finally went away and I headed back to work, I found that I was hooked on napping.”

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Sleep loss may affect health by curbing exercise

A businessman takes a nap on a bench in Tokyo June 8, 2007.

Credit: Reuters/Toru Hanai

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Good sleep habits are one of the single most important things you can undertake to improve. When you have a good quality sleep , you start each day with vital energy that can help you maximize your potential in all areas, conversely a lack of sleep will minimize your ability to perform any task, activity or function.

One of the secrets in learning how to get a good nights sleep is to know your own body’s rhythms and tailor your sleep apnea treatments to you.

Everyone is different, but one thing is for sure and that is whether you suffer from sleep apnea disorder or a just a light sleeper, you need to get a better sleep for your health and sanity.

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Introduction Background

Sleep disturbances in youth represent highly common phenomena that, in severe forms, can interfere with daily patient and family functioning. Interest in pediatric sleep problems continues to increase, yet further investigation is needed to develop empirically based detection and treatment of pediatric sleep disorders.

The consequences of untreated sleep problems may include significant emotional, behavioral, and cognitive dysfunction. The magnitude of these sequelae is inversely proportional to the child’s overall ability to adapt and develop in spite of the sleep disturbance. Nevertheless, sleep regulation remains a critical part of health for youths. Elevated rates of sleep problems exist among children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental, nonpsychiatric medical conditions and psychiatric disorders.

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Beyond leaving people bleary-eyed, clutching a Starbucks cup and dozing off at afternoon meetings, failing to get enough sleep or sleeping at odd hours heightens the risk for a variety of major illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, recent studies indicate.

“We’re shifting to a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week society, and as a result we’re increasingly not sleeping like we used to,” said Najib T. Ayas of the University of British Columbia. “We’re really only now starting to understand how that is affecting health, and it appears to be significant.”

A large, new study, for example, provides the latest in a flurry of evidence suggesting that the nation’s obesity epidemic is being driven, at least in part, by a corresponding decrease in the average number of hours that Americans are sleeping, possibly by disrupting hormones that regulate appetite. The analysis of a nationally representative sample of nearly 10,000 adults found that those between the ages of 32 and 49 who sleep less than seven hours a night are significantly more likely to be obese.

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A recent joint study from Elizabeth Klerman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard Medical School states that the elderly don’t need as much sleep as the general population. Sure, there are lifestyle and medical reasons why the elderly have trouble sleeping, but the real answer lies in changes in the circadian rhythm and REM sleep.

But, even with the results of the study, everybody needs sleep, and the elderly are no exception. In fact, a recent study by the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine shows that poor sleep and sleep deprivation in older adults can lead to earlier death.

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