Smarter Sleeping 101

Archive for May, 2008

Take a gander at the below sleep positions and what they supposedly tell you about your personality.  Does your sleep position fit the description?   Janet Kinosian seems to think so, as these four  explanations come from her recent article on what your sleep position says about you.  The article goes on to  talk about couples’ sleep positions and so on.

“1. In the prone position, sleeper lies face down on the stomach with arms extended and bent, usually framed above the head. People who regularly sleep in the prone position - and both Madonna and I are in this category, interestingly enough - tend to have strong compulsive tendencies and stubbornness in their personalities and are persistent and goal-oriented.

2. The royal position is the geometric opposite of the prone. The royal sleeper lies supine, fully on the back, with arms slightly akimbo at the sides. It’s an open, vulnerable and expansive position, and these people display self-confidence and self-involvement. Workaholic businessmen and entrepreneurs often prefer this position.

3. The most common position, the semi-fetal, has sleepers lying on their sides with knees slightly bent, one arm outstretched above the head, the other resting comfortably on the opposing upper arm to cradle the head. Conciliatory, compromising, non-threatening, non-shakers; sleep experts claim this to be the optimal sleep posture position.

4. The full-fetal is the characteristic womb position. Sleepers lie curled on their sides, with knees pulled all the way up, heads bent forward. Usually a pillow or blanket mass is centered at the stomach. These people are highly emotional, sensitive, artistic, and have intense one-on-one relationships. Oddly, it’s found that women who sleep in this position normally have heightened capacity for multiple orgasms.”

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We all have celebrities we can relate to whether it’s by looks, hobbies, sense of humor.  Many of us think, “if only I could meet them, I’d bet we’d be friends.”  In actuality the majority would freeze up and stutter uncontrollably until he/she awkwardly left your presence.  However, here’s a list of celebrities you can share in suffering with.  These 10 celebrity insomniacs, some alive and some dead, all battled the crippling effects brought on by a lack of sleep.  Next to the names are the personal insomnia remedies used by each.  The list comes from Canongate (the link to the story has since broken):

1. Marlene Dietrich, actress : a sardine-and-onion sandwich on rye.

2. Amy Lowell, poet : in a hotel, Lowell hired five rooms - one to sleep in, and empty rooms above, below, and on either side, in order to guarantee quiet.

3. W.C. Fields, actor : On his worst nights, he could only fall asleep under a beach umbrella being sprinkled by a garden hose.

4. Alexandre Dumas, author : He took late-night strolls.

5. Judy Garland, actress: As a teenager, Garland was prescribed amphetamines to control her weight. As the years went by she took so many that she sometimes stayed up three or four days running. She eventually died of a drug overdose.

6. Tallulah Bankhead, actress: She hired young homosexual `caddies’ to keep her company, and one of their most important duties was to hold her hand until she drifted off to sleep.

7. Franz Kafka, author: kept a diary detailing his suffering. For October 2, 1911, he wrote, `Sleepless night. The third in a row. I fall asleep soundly, but after an hour I wake up, as though I had laid my head in the wrong hole.’

8. Theodore Roosevelt, US president: a shot of cognac in a glass of milk.

9. Groucho Marx, comic actor: When he couldn’t sleep, he would phone people up in the middle of the night and insult them.

10. Mark Twain, author: Twain once threw a pillow at the window of his bedroom while he was a guest in a friend’s house. When the satisfying crash let in what he thought was fresh air, he fell asleep at last. In the morning he discovered that he had broken a glass-enclosed bookcase.

Now, I certainly do not recommend breaking bookcases or hiring homosexual caddies to hold your hand, but as you can see some people will do anything for some shut eye.

What’s the strangest remedy you’ve ever tried?

From News Inferno:

“New generation sleeping pills, like Lunesta and Ambien, may be as likely to cause serious adverse reactions as older sleep aids.  While older pills are much more likely to cause daytime sedation, addiction and withdrawal symptoms, drug classified as nonbenzodiazepines (NBZs), including Lunesta and Ambien, seem just as likely to cause amnesia and erratic behavior.

Introduced in the 1990s, NBZs are all sedatives used for the  treatment of insomnia. They have proved to be safer than both benzodiazepines and the older barbiturates, especially when taken in overdose, and also have less of a tendency to induce dependence and addiction although these issues can still become a problem with abuse of NBZs.  As a result, NBZs like Lunesta an Ambien have become widely prescribed for the treatment of insomnia, particularly in elderly patients.

But it appears that NBZs have not eliminated all of the problems associated with sleeping pills.  According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, an analysis of adverse-event reports filed with the World Health Organization suggests that some side effects of this generation of sleep medications may be as bad as- and even worse than - the older generation, including Halcion, which was banned in some countries.”

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This week’s Insomnia Story comes from Skwashy.  If you’ve ever been hesitant to take prescription sleep aids (namely Ambien,) just read what it did to Skwashy:

“Why, I ask you, do I wake up at 4:15 a.m., all chirpy and awakey, and then fall asleep right about NOW, at 9:11 a.m. as grumpy people are calling me on the phone, demanding the most detailed arcane information possible? I can barely focus my eyes by Thursday. The insomnia was supposed to go away when my levothyroxine dose was lowered, but it didn’t.

I spoke with a friend of mine about sleeping pills. She takes Ambien, she says, in spite of the reservations she had about becoming dependent on them. She has children, she said, and could not afford to go without sleep.

I have no children. Oh, there is the Stinky Terrierist, of course, but he gets along very nicely, peacefully lying on his side and gazing into space (when he is not scheming to supplant me in the affections of Mrs. Skwashy) from his little cushion-bed on the floor. He does not need help with his homework or to be picked up after dance class. So that is no motivation for regular sleep.

Also…what was I going to say? Darn. Was it something about needing to be alert for work? Don’t believe me if I tell you that.

Oh yes. I remember: Ambien is so strong that even half a pill gave me a blackout. It is scary! I swear! It happened twice. I took a half-pill, then settled on the sofa to check my email before bed, and then woke up at my usual time with no recollection of sending the letter I was writing, shutting down the computer or going to bed. A total blank. Very scary. What if there was some emergency that I need not to be blackouted for? If you understand what I mean.”

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This is a funny one from silentprotext:
“Here I am, irritated because my dream was ending and I was woken up. Because of that I am now left with bits and pieces of the dream. Here is from what I remember of the greatest dream EVER.

From the beginning: I recall being on Americas Next Top Model and these two other girls were fighting over each other over some stupid reason. When one of the girls grabs this plush necklace of Naruto in chibi fox mode, I get livid. I grab it and tell her to let go. She gets this look on her face and I start growling for her to give it back. She doesn’t and all mayhem ensues. Things start getting pushed over. Now at this point it was getting wierd because a cabinet kept falling down and this is what happened.

The first time the cabinet fell over, we thought we crushed the baby.
The second time, we thought we crushed the cat.
The third time, we thought we crushed Tyra! We ended up pulling out a doll from under the couch that we thought was Tyra and it was a manequin blow up doll version of Tyra.”

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