Smarter Sleeping 101

Archive for the ‘In The News’ Category

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.”

Keep Reading… 

This is a great article from The Street:

“Be honest. Are you feeling a little sluggish right now? Slightly less focused than you’d like? Are visions of caffeine-laden lattes dancing in your head?

Do you:

• Fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow?
• Need an alarm clock to wake in the morning?
• Often feel drowsy while driving?
• Feel slow or frustrated when faced with critical thinking, problem solving and creative tasks?

If so, you’re most likely not getting enough sleep. While your afternoon sluggishness may seem like a minor inconvenience — an honorable testament to the incredible entrepreneurial drive you possess — it is likely that your willpower is undermining your potential.

According to Dr. James Maas, author of Power Sleep, “Often we are totally unaware of our own reduced capabilities because we become habituated to low levels of alertness. Many of us have been sleep deprived for such a long time that we don’t know what it’s like to feel wide awake.”"

Read the rest… 

With Obama and Clinton campaigning at a blistering pace, seemingly nonstop state to state, one must wonder where they fit in their shut-eye. Turns out, sometimes they don’t…and sometimes they use that as an excuse for their slips of the lip.

“Research shows that being sleep-deprived can knock down your inhibitions — and take down your good judgment — as effectively as if you were drunk.

So, as Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue their protracted battle for the U.S. presidential nomination, they’re also fighting fatigue and their own wayward tongues.

Do voters benefit when carefully rehearsed, ambitious leaders are simply too tired to successfully hide their true feelings?”

Check out the rest of the story from the Ottawa Citizen here: Sleepless On The Campaign Trail.

What do you think? Are you sympathetic of their exhausting schedules or is that no excuse for speaking incorrectly or falsely?

Wired just published this article about a woman who has begun a regimen of polyphasic sleeping.  She’s not an insomniac, but merely a self-described geek, and is trying the experiment just to see if it works as well as a full night’s sleep.  Check out the excerpt below and then follow this link for the rest of the story.

There are various types of sleep regimens floating around the internet, but the one Rachel tried was called the Uberman (though she’s not much for the name).

It works like this: you break up the 24 hours of the day into 4 hour chunks. At some point in each 4 hour set, you take a twenty minute nap; the total amount of sleep adds up to about two hours. The schedule meant she’d have to sleep some during the workday, which her bosses approved, as long as she documented her progress on the how-to site. Her boyfriend was even up for trying to match their schedules.

“McConnell began her sleep regimen,  and at first things went well.

‘I was able to get more done. I was up at three in the morning thinking, “Ok, what can I do now?”‘ she said. ‘I was able to make significant headway on my enormous to-do lists. I would go out on bicycle rides in the middle of the night.’

But by day five, her experience was already starting to deteriorate, even as she held out hope that her body would acclimate to the new sleep schedule.

‘Despite the feeling awful part of the time, I am definitely getting things done,’ she wrote. ‘If I don’t acclimatize and feel crappy half the time like now, it is not worth it.’

Indeed, she made a few changes to her regimen, adding sleeping time, but about 17 days in, McConnell got sick and decided to quit the sleep experiment. In her farewell note, she summed up her experience,’My current belief is that polyphasic sleep is a method for handling sleep deprivation as well as possible, but that it likely does not provide enough sleep for an average person.’”

A new survey reveals Coldplay as the preferred choice of music for Brits to fall asleep too. With a frontman like Chris Martin possessing one of the “sleepiest” voices in all of music, and backed up by a band that produces a sound like that of a musical rainshower, it’s no surprise a Coldplay tune makes for a great lullabye.

James Blunt, Snow Patrol, Take That and Norah Jones rounded out the top five of the survey conducted by Travelodge.

The survey also showed the autobiographies of David Beckham, Jodie Marsh, Coleen McLoughlin and Sharon Osbourne were also highly effective sleep-inducers.

Leigh McCarron of Travelodge said: “The research shows that we are increasingly relying on slow, sleepy music and unchallenging books to take our minds off the pressures of modern living, to help us switch off and get to sleep at night.”

Do you have a favorite artist/author you like to settle in and fall asleep to?