How To Get Better Sleep When You Have Severe Hot Flashes

The stage of menopause is a natural process that occurs in every woman’s life. Once she is in her 40s or older, menopause begins to creep in. Part of the reason why menopause is considered a transition is because it makes it possible for a woman to enjoy pleasures in life and explore many possibilities. The children have grown, there is no fear for responsibilities, and she can now have more time for herself. But menopause is not a very bright episode. Along with it are the symptoms of menopause like hormonal fluctuations, cold sweats, weight gain, and of course, hot flashes.

So what are hot flashes?

Hot flashes happen to women during years leading to menopause. Hot flashes occur due to a drop of estrogen level in a woman’s body, leading to a sudden rise of body temperature, and a feeling of warmth on her chest, neck, head, arms and shoulders. Not all women have them, but to those who do, they are a pain in the neck. To make matters worse, hot flashes can also cause insomnia in women. Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine interviewed 982 women, aged 35 – 65 years old by phone between June 28 and April 2004, by asking their age, stage of menopause, severity of hot flashes and sleeping habits. 57.2 percent of the participants were premenopausal. Another 20.5 percent were postmenopausal, without experiencing having periods within the past year, and 22 percent were perimenopausal.

33 percent of the subjects they had hot flashes. Half of the women who had hot flashes said they usually did not cause sweating. One – third said they had moderate hot flashes that made them perspire but not enough to make them stop what they were doing. On the other hand, 15 percent said their hot flashes caused them profuse perspiration, which made them

stop their activities.

81 percent of the women who experienced severe hot flashes said they had trouble falling asleep or staying asleep for long. Researchers found that as the severity of their hot flashes increased, so did their insomnia symptoms.

Another interesting finding: According to a study done by researchers of the University of California, Davis, in general, women who were overweight were at greater risk of frequent vasomotor symptoms as were smokers.

To women reading this article, you might be saying, “So what’s the use of counting sheep? The odds are all against me.”

No, not at all. Simple changes to your habits daily will improve your sleep. Here are some things you can do.

1. Say no to caffeine. Caffeine is found in chocolate, tea, coffee and certain medicines.

2. Get lots of morning sunshine by walking outside the house.

3. Quit smoking and lose weight. As stated earlier, smoking and being overweight make you experience hot flashes more frequently. Besides, they don’t do anything good to your health.

4. Do relaxation exercises like breathing exercises, meditation and guided imagery.

5. Exercise during the day, during late afternoon. The more tired you are, the better chances you have of falling asleep. And exercise decreases your chances of getting heart illnesses, osteoporosis and other conditions that may occur due to a drop of estrogen in the body.

To reduce the effects of hot flashes, here are the things you can do.

1. Exercise regularly. Taking a brisk walk for 30 minutes helps you cool down when hot flashes arise. Avoid anything that can worsen your hot flashes, like spicy foods, a hot weather, or alcohol.

2. Black cohosh. A series of German studies done in the past have shown its efficacy in relieving hot flashes and other menopause-related symptoms. The North American Menopause Society supports its use for up to 6 months, because of its low side effects. However, cases vary in each woman, but it’s still worth a try.

3. Hormone therapy seems controversial because of a large study funded by the National Institutes Of Health. The study was stopped because the participants were found to have an increased risk of heart attack, stroke and breast cancer. Low doses are recommended, depending on your doctor’s advice.

So cheer up. Insomnia is not inevitable just because you are menopausal. If these strategies do not work it’s high time for you to seek your doctor’s help.

Stretch It Out: Exercise to Make Your Snoring Stop

Snoring is the act of breathing through the open mouth in such a way as to cause a vibration of the uvula and soft palate, thus giving rise to a sound which may vary from a soft noise to a loud unpleasant sound. This most commonly occurs during sleep.

Stress seems to still knock on your doorstep during unholy hours “your sleep”. It can be very frustrating!, and not only for you but people around you as well.

Most people think that they may be free of stress once they close their eyes and rest to sleep. What most individuals do not anticipate is that they acquire more stress during sleep if they snore.

“Stress (roughly the opposite of relaxation) is a medical term for a wide range of strong external stimuli, both physiological and psychological, which can cause a physiological response called the general adaptation syndrome, first described in 1936 by Hans Selye in the journal Nature.”

Snore causes stress. To lessen stress in your life, you need to work on factors which drive you to be anxious. One way is to make snoring stop. Studies show that exercise helps a lot to make snoring stop.

Exercise can be categorized into two. The first one is termed as “general exercise” and the second category is known as “focused exercise.”

General Exercise

Obesity is one of the many causes of snoring. Thus, you need to lose weight to put an end to snoring. You can lose weight through exercising. Some of the common general exercises are brisk walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, and jumping rope.

You do not need to push yourself to exercise. It is important to precondition your mind as well as your physical state. By doing so, you are more prepared to undertake your preferred exercise.

General exercises should be performed at least three to five days per week with a minimum of a thirty-minute exercise every session.

Focused Exercise

This type of exercise focuses on a certain body part which needs utmost concentration. To stop snoring, you need to exercise body parts such as the throat, tongue and jaw.

Once the said areas of the upper body are exercised your air passageway is most likely be unblocked hence you will have normal breathing which can lessen snoring or to some extent prevent you from snoring.

Do not let snore add up to the many stresses in your life. Act now by exercising.

She’s Trying To Stop Her Jack Russell Terrier From Sleeping In Their Bed

A Jack Russell Terrier owner e-mailed me with the following question: “My boyfriend has allowed his wonderful, very well-behaved Jack Russell, who is two years old, to sleep not just on but in his bed. We are trying to teach her to sleep in her bed which is on the floor by our bed but it’s proving very difficult! She’s managed to sleep there until about 4 AM, but then the whining starts and she ends up with us. It’s not really a problem so much when we are at our house but we are planning to go on holiday and she will be staying with my parents and they really won’t tolerate her sleeping in bed with them, nor the whining when she isn’t allowed to, so we thought it best to nip the habit in the bud completely. We can get her to stay in her bed but we can’t get her to actually sleep … she just whines … even if we take her for a hundred walks to tire her out. It’s as if she HAS to be that close to us!”

Thanks,

Tiffany

Dear Tiffany:

Put the dog in a crate. Not only will she be UNABLE to get onto your bed, but when she goes to your parent’s house, you will be able to take the crate with her so she will have a familiar place to sleep at the different residence. By crating her at night, you’re providing her with her own “den” since dogs derive more satisfaction from small places than we do. She will more than likely put up a fuss in being confined beyond her control, but it should go away after a few nights as she becomes more comfortable with the crate. Do not give her any attention while she is whining, as this will only reinforce the behavior. Some people go so far as to buy earplugs for those first nights.

Introduce the crate in a positive manner, with lots of treats and praise. Put her bed in it so it has her scent in it. Feed her in her crate so she gets the idea that no one will disturb her and the crate is a safe place. When you have to shut her in, give her a special “crate toy.” Many people have had success with Kong toys stuffed with peanut butter or cheese/liver paste and freezing these.

The crate is also useful for confining the dog when it can’t be supervised to keep it out of trouble (see the first article above). My book, “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer!” which is available exclusively at Dogproblems.com, goes into more depth on the use of crates and other training devices.

There’s A Good Chance You Can Blame Their Tiredness on Teenage Sleep Disorder

You can see a line of teenagers waiting in front of a vending machine, looking almost like zombies. A teenager lies across a bench in the school waiting for the bell to ring, and as you walk past a classroom you can see other children at their desks early, all with their heads resting on the desks waiting for another day at school.

This is commonplace in alot of high schools at 7:00 in the morning, What does this tell you? Teens are tired! It’s very easy to blame on the teens themselves, why don’t they go to bed early, and stop playing those video games? However, experts have come to the conclusion that it might not be the teenagers fault, it could more likely be a result of teenage sleep disorder.

Only For Your Teens: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

The buzzwords teenage sleep disorder is actually called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. While it doesn’t affect all teens, it can explain why many so many have sleep problems. It all happens when teens enter into the adolescent years: the circadian rhythms in their bodies change. This change naturally causes teens to fall asleep later and also wake up later too. The change occurs because the melatonin is produced later at night, whereas children and adults produce melatonin earlier in the evening. This delayed production of melatonin, the sleep hormone means that teens don’t start to feel sleepy unitl later. Therefore, the teenage sleep disorder phase syndrome came to be.

There Are Some Other Causes

Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome isn’t the one and only teenage sleep disorder. There are unfortunately many other teenage sleep disorder that affects the teen and causes them to not get enough sleep. Some other commonplace teenage sleep disorders include: insomnia, Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, Restless Leg Syndrome, Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Gastro Reflux Disease, nightmares, and sleepwalking.

Treatment

Before you rush off to the doctors telling him/her about what you read on the internet, there are some other ways that you could treat teenage sleep disorder. The doctor can give you medcation that could help, but there are many behavioural changes that could be made as well. If your teen drinks alot of caffeine, reducing the intake could help. Try to stop them playing video games or watching TV late at night. Making the small changes in your teens daily life can have an amazing effect on a teenage sleep disorder.

Dog Barking – 5 Proven Tips to Stop Your Dog Barking

Nothing is more annoying and stressful than to deal with constant dog barking. It is a frustrating and futile experience to control this unwanted behavior without a basic understanding of why they bark.

Dogs bark for various reasons. It is their way of communicating to you their moods, excitement and to get your attention to their needs. It is not mere noise but in conjunction with their body language, tail movements and facial expressions they tend to convey their message across to you.

Here are some instances where they convey different meaning. High-pitched short tonal bark with swift tail wags when he is in a playful mood. Low gruff bark gradually increasing to howlingwhen somebody is at the door or near the house. Loud bark with raised hackles when he sees another dog or cat. High pitched incessant bark when he is lonely or distressed and so on.

Once you know what triggers the barking then putting a fix is an easy task. Reasons for barking fall into two main categories – Basic behavior problem and situations and circumstances contributing to the barking. Barking on instinct is natural and should not be restrained.

Here are some proven techniques to stop your dog’s continuous barking, which is unwarranted and not natural:

* Teaching your dog what is an acceptable behavior and what is not should be the first in your dog behavior training. Barking constantly in an attempt to get your attention and forcing you to submit to his needs is not good. Just to stop him from barking if you give a treat or play then you are encouraging him to bark even more in the future. Just walk away from him and don’t even look at him. He may be confused and bark harder at first but by consistently reinforcing this you will have better control over this behavior.

* Teach him “quiet” or “enough” command whenever he barks. Explore the reason for barking before you hush him. Pat him and praise him immediately when he stops barking. He will learn to be quiet by associating the command with the praise.

* When your dog deliberately disobeys any of your commands, he displays his dominant position and if left unchecked will get worse with time. He needs to realize at young age that you are the authority leader an Alpha dog and he is below you. Dogs are well behaved when they know you are the leader of the pack and form a cordial relationship based on faith and respect.

* Boredom is another reason for constant barking. Dogs need to be engaged constantly and exercised enough to get rid of their boredom. Take your dog for a long walk every day or spend time with interactive plays like fetching the ball.

* Loneliness and separation anxiety are other causes of constant barking. They bark in an effort to get out of their confinement when left alone. Vigorous exercise before you leave will make him sleep when you are away and with chewy toys and items around will keep him busy till you return.

Bark aka shock collar use to stop dog barking is not human and has long-term psychological implications. Conditioning with praise and reward is the most compassionate approach to any dog behavior problem.

Stop Panic Attacks Without Medications

Is it possible to stop panic attacks without using medications? Of course it is — many individuals have been cured of panic attacks without resorting to using (sometimes addictive) prescription drugs. There are several different methods to stop panic attacks naturally, and in this article will take a look at if you of the most popular and effective of these.

1. Changing Your Diet. Many people — including doctors — often overlook the importance of diet as a contributing factor to panic attacks. There has been an enormous amount of research showing that unknown food allergies often produce anxiety symptoms, and in some cases an individual can stop panic attacks by simply a limb and aiding the offending food.

One of the most common unrecognized food allergies is dairy products. It is well known that many people are lactose intolerant; it is also a fact that lots of people unknowingly have milk and dairy allergies. A simple way to check for a dairy allergy is to refrain from drinking milk or eating dairy products for at least two weeks, and noticed the effect this has on both your body and your state of mind.

It is also important to drink plenty of water every day and eat a balanced diet including plenty of green vegetables and fruits. It has been documented that a deficiency in the complex vitamins can contribute to panic attacks, so it is important to eat foods rich in vitamins B1, B6 and B12. Magnesium deficiency has also been linked to a variety of anxiety-related problems, including panic attacks, so you’ll want to be sure you’re getting plenty in your diet. Taking a daily supplement is helpful for many people to ensure they receive proper nutrition.

2. The Importance of Sleep. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation can cause panic attacks. Insomnia is a serious problem for many people, and unfortunately, the medical community usually attempts to shriek this problem with the use of questionable drugs, which can have unpleasant or even dangerous side effects, as well as being addictive.

A better cure for insomnia is to use natural supplements such as melatonin, and be sure to get plenty of exercise. Vigorous exercise has been shown to encourage restful sleep, and even a brisk walk in the afternoon can be sufficient to help you sleep better at night. Getting proper rest and exercise can sometimes stop panic attacks, without the need for further treatment.

3. Relaxation Techniques. Relaxing exercises that promote proper breathing had been shown to stop panic attacks and anxiety. Yoga is particularly beneficial to panic attack sufferers, as it encourages mindfulness and proper breathing. Tai chi is another eastern practice that has become very popular in the West. Like yoga, tai chi focuses on proper breathing and helps to reduce tension in the body and the build up of stress.

4. Avoiding Stimulants. Caffeine and nicotine are both stimulants, and can lead to insomnia, rapid heart beat and anxiety problems. Cutting out caffeinated coffee and fizzy soft drinks will help the body to relax and naturally. And although many people try to calm their nerves by drinking alcohol, research shows that excessive alcohol consumption increases the risks of panic attacks, generalized anxiety and depression.

You can stop panic attacks by making simple lifestyle changes — and better choices. Become mindful of your diet and avoid stimulants that may make it harder to sleep at night. By using several of these methods simultaneously, many people manage to stop panic attacks without resorting to prescription drugs.

Reflections: Sleep

Sleep, won’t you come and take me away? Take me away to the Land of Nod? The Land of Nod where the grass is green and the sky is blue, birds sing, butterflies flutter, lamb bleat, crickets cricket, trees stand colourful and tall and fences are well kept.

Sleep is like a drop of happiness in a sea of troubles. It erases reality, taking with it any issues, problems, complications, worries.

Ok, so sleep isn’t all about candyfloss. I know first-hand that if you are worried about something, this is reflected in your dreams, through a dragon chasing you or falling off the edge of a kerb perhaps. Besides, sleep serves a serious function: to keep us awake.

All humans and animals need sleep. Without sleep, we stop being able to function properly.

I carried out a little experiment with a friend whilst at university, to see how long we could go without sleep. It wasn’t the most scientific of experiments and basically consisted or me and my friend staying awake for two nights, through sheer determination and a deranged sense of purpose. A lot of tea was consumed, and the odd bit of coffee although less so in my case as this tends to make my head feel six feet above my shoulders. Not helpful, particularly when you have had no sleep. I remember the first day and night was fine, and even the second day – I’m sure many of us have pulled an all-nighter at some point due to study, work or fun commitments. We humans are tough, and this poses few challenges on us other than tiredness and feeling drained. Going into the second night was hard, and we had to keep taking ourselves out for walks in the freezing November air just to stay awake. Things start to shift, blur a little at the edges, speech becomes harder and you struggle not to slur. It reminded me of the aftermath of a heavy night out! By the third morning, we were starting to be in trouble and decided we had performed our duty to science.

I obviously would not recommend anyone tries to stay awake longer than necessary. Not least, because it can be very dangerous – we have all heard stories of people causing accidents as a result of driving after insufficient sleep; and on a less serious note, we know a lack of sleep means we are unable to think so clearly or behave so rationally.

Humans need sleep. It recharges our batteries. It ensures we are awake when we are awake. It makes us feel alive. It keeps us sane.

And on that note, I best go and find some zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Stop Thinking So Much

When taking a test, why do people always tell us to trust our first answer? Why do we remember some person’s name that was elusively on the tip of your tongue earlier, in the shower or before we drift off to sleep? Why do we have some our greatest creative ideas in the shower? When we are doing a crossword puzzle and get stuck on a word for an eternity, why do people suggest that we put it down for a while? And, why is it that when we pick up the puzzle a little later the letters practically jump into the boxes? The answer to all of these questions is “because that is when we are not thinking” or “we stopped thinking so much”.

The complete title of this piece should be “Stop Thinking and Just Know” or, even better – “Don’t Think with Your Brain, Know with Your Soul”. When you know that God is part of you – in your soul (what Hindus call Atma), you also know that God’s infinite knowledge – or if you prefer, the infinite knowledge of the Universe – is also in your soul. Those moments when you are in the shower or drifting of to sleep or even driving you car, are moments when you are knowing with your soul. You are not consciously trying to think and in doing so, you brain is left out of the process. The great Yoga master Swami Sivananda put it in a very simple yet profound way when he referred to this as “knowing without thinking”.

So, why is thinking and knowing so different?

First, thinking with your brain is not a bad thing. In our daily lives, we use our brains all of the time to do analytical thinking, to store and recall names and dates, remember the size of our paycheck, to do basic problem solving, and to do our taxes – ugggh. The soul, on the other hand, provides answers to things that we may not have stored in our brains – no matter how many analytical processes we draw on to attempt to connect the dots. The soul provides us with solutions that we never even would have considered with our brains. The soul gives us creative ideas and what we call “thinking outside of the box”. It is an always open door to God’s infinite knowledge, which is really in our soul. The soul points out that we already had the answer, but our brains stomped right on it by over-analyzing. When just one strand of lights goes out on the Christmas tree, the brain tells us to run to the hardware store and buy some more, but the soul tells us how to fix the problem. If we just ask for the solution (true story).

Second, you need to realize that knowing with your soul is instantaneous and thinking with your brain takes time. Think of your brain as a computer that you ask a question and it does some processing – some analysis – and gives you an answer. No matter how powerful the computer is, there is still some amount of time elapsing between asking the question and having the answer. That wee bit of time, now matter how brief, is the problem. Even one millisecond allows the destructive ego to slip in and muddy the waters with its various forms of doubt, second guessing, and pride. Some people like to distill this phenomenon down to cutesy cliches like “paralysis by analysis”, but these phrases do nothing to explain why this occurs.

Our souls always have, or have access to, the infinite knowledge of God, the universe. When we come back into the physical world as babes, our souls have all of that knowledge and our brains are virtually empty except for our basic survival instincts. This explains the sometimes extraordinary spiritual abilities of children, even the very young. There is lots of knowing and very little thinking. Our brains start out as empty sponges and as we grow, our brain fills with all kinds of knowledge, experiences, societal values and dogmas. As our brain fills with these things, the ego also grows. Gradually, our ego draws us to the thinking side, often destructive thinking, and we are drawn away from knowing/listening to our souls.

I have been a computer programmer and system designer for over 20 years and know all too well that the best designs or a fix to a nagging bug come to me in the shower or when throwing a ball around for 15 minutes at work.

Throughout time, many great artists have known the powerful role that knowing plays in the creative process. It has been described in many ways, the inner voice, listening to God, and divine inspiration, to name but a few. And, in the end, it all distills down to the idea of knowing/listening to the soul.

“When I am traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The great jazz guitarist, Pat Martino, on the topic of improvisation, once said, “Try to learn everything you can, and then forget it.” i.e. stop thinking with your brain. Great improvisation is instantaneous – from the soul. Sometimes you might just be noodling around on an instrument. You look up unknown minutes later not even remembering what you just played and your friend is just staring at you. One of you eventually says what the other one is thinking, “Where the (blank) did that come from?” That, my friends, is a beautiful moment!

When things in your day are clicking or flowing, when there are truly no problems and just solutions, you are knowing with your soul. This is sometimes referred to as “just being” or the “I AM”. God has already provided the answers for you. You don’t “access” them. They are already there – you just have to know it. When you are consciously aware of this, you can readily apply it to any aspect of your life. More and more it will just happen, and you will be aware of it. You will observe it happening. You will become fearless, because you will know that all of the answers are inside of you.

In your spiritual endeavors, be willing to try things you’ve never done before. You grow by taking chances and not worrying about making mistakes, the outcome, or what others will think. Whether it be astral projection, healing, talking to Gautama or God or and Archangel (true stories), just know that there are no right or wrong ways. Any real truth or skill can be distilled down to the exquisitely simple.

The trick is then to take the concept of knowing from the conceptual to the experiential. To listen to what is inside of you or to believe that you have it all inside of you is daunting for most people. Our egos, thinking, put the doubt, second guessing, etc… inside of us. We find it easier to look outside for answers.

Here is one little exercise to use to nudge you in the right direction. It will help you get comfortable with knowing that you have access to the infinite knowledge of God/the universe. Over time you will start to realize that it is all inside of you. When you have a question or problem, visualize the question being written down on a fine piece of square parchment. Say the question in your mind. See the four corners of the parchment folded in to meet in the middle and then sealed with red wax and a stamp. Now visualize the sealed question being sent floating off into the universe. Then forget about it. Let it go from you mind so that you are not thinking about it. At some point, often very quickly, an answer will come to you in some form. It may just pop into your head, or be triggered by a song, a TV add, or something someone says. Don’t be looking for it to come, but when it does, you’ll say, “Ohhh.” Don’t second guess it or doubt it. Go with it and thank God/the universe for the blessing i.e. express gratitude. Practice this often and over time you will transition to just asking the question in your head without the need of the visualization. You will know that the answer is inside of you.

The reality is that you don’t need me or anyone else to help or tell you how to do this. Be your own guru. Just know that you are already doing it. So start thinking less often and start knowing more often.

The Effects Of Sleep Disorders And Daylight Savings Time

The Fountain of Youth World Summit with Dr. Michael Breus, the author of Good Night and Web MDs sleep expert.

Dr. Breus: When I was working with Rosie O’Donnell from the television show “The View”, she too had obstructive sleep apnea. We talked about it nationally on television with her, and she stopped breathing in her sleep over two hundred and fifty times in a night.

Kevin: Wow! Then how do you know that it’s happening? They don’t know that it’s happening!

Dr. Breus: They have no idea. And that’s what’s so scary about this situation with sleep. It’s you wake up and you don’t feel so hot, but you have no idea what was going on.

Kevin: Right.

Dr. Breus: So there’s multiple ways to get at that. Sometimes it’s going for a formal sleep study. Sometimes it’s even easier than that. Sometimes it’s just asking your bed partner “Hey, have you heard me snore?” or “Have you heard me stop breathing in my sleep?”, or things like that. Because again that can be a really big factor. But all of these different things – whether it’s a sleep disorder or disordered sleep – cause sleep deprivation.

Kevin: Yeah.

Dr. Breus: And that’s the real big kicker here. It’s not necessarily stopping breathing in your sleep that’s not so great for you, even though, believe me, having low oxygen levels isn’t good. Because it can cause stroke and heart attack and things like that.

Kevin: Mm hmm.

Dr. Breus: But what happens is this – your brain says “Holy cow! There’s no oxygen.” And it wakes you up. And it’s like an alarm clock going off all night long.

Kevin: Two hundred times.

Dr. Breus: [Every] five or ten minutes.

Kevin: Yeah.

Dr. Breus: I mean, think about that. If an alarm clock went off every five minutes all night long, how good would you feel the next morning?

Kevin: [Laughs] Terrible.

Dr. Breus: Right, you’d feel pretty crappy.

Kevin: Yeah.

Dr. Breus: Well, every time you do that – from either sleep apnea or insomnia or restless life syndrome or what I call disordered sleep – it causes sleep deprivation. And sleep deprivation affects several different areas. The first area that it affects is cognition or thinking in creative process. You know when we’re at work, or we’re at home, or we’re trying to problem-solve or come up with new solutions, we have a real big problem if we’re too sleepy to do it. You know what I’m saying?

Kevin: I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of callers on the line right now have experienced that.

Dr. Breus: Yeah. There’s no question about it. Another big area is reaction time. So how quickly do we react to external stimulants?

Kevin: Mm hmm.

Dr. Breus: Turns out to be a major factor, from sleep deprivation. So, what does that mean? Driving a car, big factor. Here’s a great example – Daylights Saving Time. We all just experienced this, the spring forward aspect. What we lose – approximately one hour of sleep -

Kevin: Right. Dr. Breus: Well, did you know that the two days after Daylights Saving Time are the number one and two days for car accidents?

Kevin: Get out of here. That’s incredible.

Dr. Breus: Yeah.

Kevin: Hmm.

Dr. Breus: And that’s from losing one hour of sleep. Now you’d think “Oh so what I lose an hour. It’s not that big a deal.”. The truth of the matter is, it turns out to be a bigger deal because we are a sleep deprived nation. The average individual gets approximately 6.9 hours of sleep per night. But what we’re finding is when we really look at that a little bit closer ( cause that’s what they report ) it’s about 6.9 hours, which you see now, seven hours of sleep. That’s not so bad.

Kevin: Mm hmm.

Dr. Breus: When we actually study them in the lab, it turns out they’re getting closer to 5.9 hours of sleep.

Kevin: Really? And the difference is …

Dr. Breus: About an hour’s worth of sleep, and then when you’re talking about people who are getting six hours worth of sleep verses seven, that’s almost a full sleep cycle towards the end of the night, which can have a tremendous amount to do with memory, reaction time, creativity, you name it.

Kevin: Yeah. Well, without getting too detailed, can you go into a sleep cycle?

Dr. Breus: Sure. So what happens when you go into a sleep cycle? First of all, people should know, that sleep is not just an on-off switch. It doesn’t work that way. You don’t just walk into a room, turn off the light and boom you’re asleep. It’s more like pulling your foot slowly off the gas

Kevin: Yeah.

Dr. Breus: Multiple things have to be released and multiple things have to occur in order for that switch-over to happen. But once [you actually], your body does settle down and calm down enough to fall asleep, that’s when things start to get interesting. So we measure sleep in multiple different ways, but primarily through brainwaves, or what we call EEG. Now people have probably seen it on you know, “[Grey's] Anatomy” and, you know, “E.R.”, normally thinks we see the line flipping across the screen,

Kevin: Mm hmm.

Dr. Breus: Well, there are different wave forms that we can identify that will tell us which stages of sleep people are in. And that has to do with how quickly information is moving across your brain. So right when you close your eyes, you have alpha wave, which is a calm, sort of bio-feedback situation where you’re relaxed just somewhere between seven and nine [hertz], so seven to nine cycles per second of your brain moving back and forth. After that, you move into Stage One sleep. and Stage Two sleep. Now, Stage One and Stage Two sleep are kind of hard to tell apart. There are a couple of different landmarks, and we don’t have to go into all the specifics of it. But basically, Stage Two sleep occupies almost fifty percent of your night, as an adult.

Kevin: Okay.

Dr. Breus: But as a child, it only represents about twenty percent of your night. And as an infant, it [laughs] almost doesn’t represent any of your night.

Kevin: Okay.

Dr. Breus: So, if I take a baby and I hook him up to an EEG, it’s almost all deep sleep, which we as adults are lucky if we get eighteen to twenty percent [of our night hour]

Kevin: Okay.

Dr. Breus: And that’s the wake-up-and-feel-great sleep. That’s the “Wow! I feel recharged. I feel refreshed. I feel ready to meet the day” sleep.

Kevin: Okay.

Dr. Breus: Okay. Infants also have a much larger bit of R.E.M. sleep, or rapid eye movement sleep. Now, a lot of people say “Well, Micheal, isn’t that the sleep where you dream?”. Well, yes and no. You have a greater [preponderance] to dream during R.E.M. sleep. But you can actually dream at any stage of sleep, believe it or not. Most people don’t know that. And the way you can prove that to yourself is if you ever fall asleep on the couch, and you’ve had a dream, you’ll know that you probably want to sleep that long. The average person, it takes them between eighty and a hundred and twenty minutes to get to R.E.M. sleep.

Kevin: Well, okay.

Dr. Breus: So it turns out to be quite a big difference there. So, again, it’s not necessary that you’re only going to dream during R.E.M. sleep. You have a greater tendency to dream then, but you can dream during any stage of sleep.

Kevin: Okay.

Dr. Breus: Let’s get back to some of the facts of sleep,

Kevin: Sure.

Dr. Breus: Provision on health. It also affects how we heal. One of the things we know is that research studies shown here, hospitals show that individuals who have better sleep in hospital actually heal better. We know that people lose weight better when they’re not sleep deprived and when they’re… going into the specifics of that in a little while.

Kevin: Mm hmm.

Dr. Breus: We know that we defend against disease. There was a fantastic study that showed that individuals who take the flu shot actually find that they are less effective when they are sleepy. I mean, think about that. Think about all the people who go out and get flu shots. And if they are sleep deprived, they’re doing themselves no good. You know what I mean? Depression is a whole other factor. One of the things we’re starting to learn about now, is that individuals who are sleep deprived have a greater tendency to have depression. And people who have a genetic propensity for depression, they can kick off in the bed, just like being sleep deprived.

Kevin: Okay.

Dr. Breus: So it’s pretty serious stuff. When we look at just women, in general, there are some pretty amazing statistics here as well. Seventy-five percent of menopausal women experience hot flushes, alright. Hot flushes will affect your sleep. Forty percent of menopausal women have sleep problems caused by hot flushes. So, what we’re talking about now, is we’re talking about roughly thirty- five percent of all menopausal women are having disrupted sleep. And all women go through menopause.

Kevin: Wow.

Dr. Breus: So, that’s a pretty tremendous section of the population who’re going to have sleep problems, just from the life hormonal changes.

Getting To Sleep Faster – 6 Tips

Many people have problems falling asleep at night, often because their minds keep running at full-speed even though they feel physically tired. I used to have problems falling asleep at night, but now I’m out within minutes – maybe even seconds – of the light going out. Here are six techniques that have helped me get to that point:

1) Keep a regular sleep schedule. This gets your mind and body into a routine. My light goes out somewhere between 9:45 and 10:15 pm almost every night. I know that may seem ridiculously early to some of you, but up here in northern New England people seem to go to bed and wake up earlier than other places I’ve lived.

2) Stay away from reading fiction before bed. I love a good novel, but fiction stimulates your imagination and does not help you relax your mind and get to sleep. Before I adopted this practice, I can’t tell you how many times I’d stay awake late to finish a chapter or even a whole book. And then my mind would still be thinking about the book after I turned off the light. Now, I pick nonfiction instead. Yes, nonfiction can be interesting, but it rarely gets my mental energy going like a good thriller. Mental energy is not what you want when trying to fall asleep.

3) Take a few minutes to quiet your mind. This will help stop that ceaseless thinking. Ways to quiet your mind are: slow and deepen your breathing; think of a few things that went well with the day and be grateful for them; release the emotions attached to anything that didn’t go well; stop consciously thinking about things. That last one means to stop trying to think about any issues you have, and stop consciously putting your attention on them. If something is still on your mind, write it down on a notepad next to the bed and resolve to deal with it tomorrow. This is really an important step because if you haven’t released something that’s bothering you before you try to go to sleep, you’ll be replaying it over and over unless you have extremely good control of your thoughts.

4) Keep away from any form of caffeine after 1:00 pm in the afternoon. No coffee, decaf, tea or soda with caffeine. If you are susceptible to the effects of caffeine, it will make it harder for you to quiet your mind when you want to sleep. If I have a Coke at three in the afternoon, I’ll feel tired but unable to sleep until midnight. (Another note: I can also always tell if there was MSG in my Chinese dinner because my heart will be thumping and I’ll be wide awake staring at the ceiling at 1 am.)

5) Focus on your body and relax one area at a time starting at your feet. This both helps your body physically relax and helps you keep your attention on something other than your to-do list, what’s going on at work, how mad you are at someone, etc…

6) Visualize walking down an endless stairwell. Keep your attention on your feet as you visualize your walking. This is similar to number 5 above. Giving your attention to something mindless and repetitive helps your brain shut down.

Those are my tips for how to fall asleep quickly at night. They work for me, and if you have a sleep problem, I hope that maybe they can work for you too.

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