People sleep significantly better and feel more alert during the day  if they get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, a new study  concludes.

A nationally representative sample of more than 2,600 men and women,  ages 18-85, found that 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a  week, which is the national guideline, provided a 65% improvement in  sleep quality. People also said they felt less sleepy during the day,  compared to those with less physical activity.

The study, out in the December issue of the journal Mental  Health and Physical Activity, lends more evidence to mounting  research showing the importance of exercise to a number of health  factors. Read the rest of this entry

(Reuters Health) – New research shows high rates of sleep disorders among veterans of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or head injuries.

The study conducted at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, found that among some 300 soldiers with PTSD, head injuries or both, more than half had sleep apnea — a serious interruption of breathing during sleep — and nearly half had insomnia.

“Sleep complaints were universal,” wrote Dr. Jacob Collen and his colleagues in their research summary. Collen’s team presented their findings this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Honolulu.

The researchers studied 135 soldiers with PTSD, 116 with traumatic brain injury and 66 with both conditions.

Sleep testing performed on most of the patients found obstructive sleep apnea in 56 percent of them and insomnia in 49 percent. Read the rest of this entry

Are you unable to fall asleep? Do you wake up often throughout the night? Do you feel well-rested when you awake in the morning? Do you want to improve your quality and quantity of your sleep? Symptoms of forgetfulness, headaches, lack of focus, itching, moodiness, cravings, headaches, and neck and backaches often disappear with a good night’s sleep.

Restful sleep is a must for health, vitality, longevity and fat loss. Researchers found that sleeping four hours a night interferes with your ability to secrete and regulate hormones, which in turn promote aging, increase appetite, add inches to your waistline and increases your risk of developing diabetes. Lack of sleep promotes an environment prime for inflammation and catabolism (muscle loss).

One loses ”one IQ point” for every hour of lost sleep one didn’t get the night before. Cognitive and mood problems develop, along with an increased risk of high blood pressure and heart disease are just a few consequences of too little sleep. Read the rest of this entry

Are you sleeping too much or too less during nights? Research concluded in recent past has revealed that inflammation could play a key role in your health condition in such a situation.

Long and short duration sleep has been reported to have an increased risk for several disorders and health problems including coronary heart diseases, diabetes, obesity, and death in many of the previously concluded researches and studies. Inflammation regulating cytokines elevations have been found to have direct linkage with enhanced risk of health problems like heart disease and diabetes.

In this study where 614 participants reported their sleep habits after spending a night in sleep lab the mean self-reported sleep duration was calculated to be only 7.6 hours. The sleep lab reported sleep duration was only 6.2 hours on the contrary. Read the rest of this entry

Treatment with pregabalin significantly improved sleep and pain in patients with fibromyalgia, according to research presented at the 63rd annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, in Honolulu (S27.003).

Between 1960 and 2010, the average night’s sleep for adults in the United States dropped to six and a half hours from more than eight. Age can have a detrimental effect on sleep. In a 2005 national telephone survey of 1,003 adults ages 50 and older, the Gallup Organization found that a mere third of older adults got a good night’s sleep every day, fewer than half slept more than seven hours, and one-fifth slept less than six hours a night.

With advancing age, natural changes in sleep quality occur. Habits that ruin sleep often accompany aging: less physical activity, less time spent outdoors ,poorer attention to diet, taking medications that can disrupt sleep, caring for a chronically ill spouse, having a snoring partner who snores. Add to this list a host of sleep-robbing health issues, like painful arthritis, diabetes, depression, anxiety, sleep apnea, hot flashes in women and prostate enlargement in men. [  Read Complete Post By JANE E. BRODY At NewYork Times ...   ]

Older adults need about 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep, but for many reasons they may often be sleep deprived.  Sleep deprivation may be caused by day time napping, anxiety, sleep apnea, or movement disorders such as restless leg syndrome, medications, or dementia.

Risks of sleep deprivation include: a decreased ability to fight infection, heart disease (48% greater chance of developing or dying from heart disease), high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, an increase incidence of accidents, impairment of attention, judgment, and problem solving.  Lack of sleep contributes to depression, aging of the skin, anxiety, and weight gain. Sleep maybe the fountain of youth but unlike that elusive natural wonder, sleep can be found and embraced.

There are many ways to get better nights sleep.  Most important is to minimize sleep during the day. A short daytime nap may be beneficial but multiple naps or extended daytime sleeping affects the quality and quantity of the primary sleep period.  Developing habits around bedtime, the waking hour, regular exercise, and a relaxing bedtime routine, help to maximize sleep.  Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and  large quantities of liquids and food should also be avoided close

Safe sleep is just as important and good sleep.  When getting up in the middle of the night from a sound sleep, disorientation, low blood pressure or generalized weakness may develop. Stay safe at night by keeping a phone with emergency phone numbers close to the bed, having a nightlight in the bathroom, removing area rugs and getting up slowly to make sure strength and balance are present before walking.  Falls are the leading cause of injury related visits to the emergency room, most of them happening at night.

Canada, like many other nations around the world, has a tremendous growth in the number of obese people. Currently, 59 per cent of Canadians are either overweight or obese and that is a much too high percentage for our supposedly healthy society. What’s even worse is that we are letting many of our adolescent communities reach this point of being overweight, or even obese.

Currently, a whooping 26 per cent of Canadian children from the ages or 2 to 17 years old are either overweight or obese. The rate of these obese children has almost tripled in the past 25 years. This clearly shows that we are doing something wrong to help create a healthier and happier life for our future teenagers and adults. Read the rest of this entry

SleepApneaDisorder/[ Press Release ]/ SAN DIEGO, May 24, 2011 /- ResMed today released the ResMed Sleep Assessment app, a novel new app for iPhone that lets users record themselves during sleep. The app also includes a clinically validated questionnaire that assesses their risk and other helpful features to empower users to discuss their sleep health with their physician.

Excessive tiredness may be due to sleep apnea

Feeling excessively tired or fatigued is often the result of disrupted, unhealthy sleep. Numerous factors can lead to poor quality sleep, some of which have significant negative health effects. One possible cause of fatigue is sleep apnea, a common sleep disorder. People with sleep apnea report feeling like they’re living in a fog, and that no matter how much they sleep they still feel exhausted.

Sleep apnea is a serious health condition in which a person stops breathing temporarily during sleep. After several seconds, the brain triggers a wake-up response, causing the person to awaken gasping. These events may happen hundreds of times per night, though the sleeper usually won’t remember waking up. Often a spouse or partner will notice that the person snores loudly during sleep.

Sleep apnea affects approximately one in five U.S. adults, although it is estimated that as many as 80% of sleep apnea sufferers are undiagnosed and untreated. A known cause of hypertension, untreated sleep apnea has also been linked with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression and stroke. Read the rest of this entry

In a recently concluded research study the researchers from Germany and Switzerland evidenced that hypoxia in the context of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) might be a trigger for migraine and can be improved by continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP).

Ulf Kallweit, MD, of University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland, and colleagues assessed 11 patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS ) and migraine headache before and 1 year after conventional CPAP therapy. Six patients had migraine, 4 had migraine with aura, and 1 had chronic migraine. Their mean BMI was 29.7 kg/m². Read the rest of this entry

SleepApneaDisorder/[ Press Release ]/ FRAZER, Pa./ May 6, 2011 / At the Society of General Internal Medicine’s 34th Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Ariz. today, Cephalon, Inc.  presented positive results from a phase IV trial of nearly 400 people with excessive sleepiness associated with shift work disorder. In the trial, NUVIGIL® (armodafinil) Tablets [C-IV] improved shift-workers’ overall clinical condition late in their shifts (i.e., 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.), including the commute home, compared to placebo. The key secondary endpoint of the study was to assess global function, as measured by the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), and patients taking NUVIGIL experienced a greater improvement in GAF score compared to those patients taking placebo. Shift work disorder occurs when the body’s internal sleep-wake clock is out of sync with the individual’s work schedule – their bodies tell them to go to sleep when their work schedule needs them to stay awake. The primary symptoms of shift work disorder are excessive sleepiness and insomnia. Read the rest of this entry

Sleep apnea is one of the worst kinds of disease that affects many people in US. If you have a sleep apnea this does not mean that you are denied from getting a proper health insurance. As per the surveys conducted in U.S alone approximately 20 million people have this disease this number is aggressively increases on a daily basis all over the world. The main symptoms of this disease include high blood pressure, insomnia, morning headaches etc.

This is not a simple health condition that you can avoid and live at ease. If you are not giving much of attention to this disease it will slowly get worst over time. So it is required that you get proper medication on time and you must get the right sleep apnea insurance to cure this disease. Read the rest of this entry

Dr. William Gross of Murfreesboro Medical Center

Sleep apnea affects many people all over the country, but a new type of surgery, aided by a development in technology is helping to alleviate the symptoms of sleep apnea sufferers

“The condition of sleep apnea is characterized by episodes of airway obstruction during sleep, leading to inadequate breathing and oxygen de-saturation during sleep,” said Dr. William Gross of Murfreesboro Medical Clinic and SurgiCenter.

“Symptoms can include severe chronic snoring, daytime fatigue and sleepiness, and morning headaches. If untreated, it is a major risk factor for hypertension, diabetes, heart attack and stroke. It is a lot more than just an embarrassment or nuisance.”

The doctor is using a new type of technology — a robot, in fact — to treat sleep apnea.  [ Read Complete Post At daily News Journal... ]

Snoring can be a symptom of a serious problem: sleep apnea. Thirty percent of adult males and 20 percent of adult females suffer from sleep apnea.

People with this problem, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, characteristically make periodic gasping or “snorting” noises, during which their sleep is momentarily interrupted. This can lead to excessive daytime sleepiness and can pose serious health implications. The condition has been linked to obesity, heart disease and other illnesses.

More than 12 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, and an estimated 10 million more have it and don’t even know it.

One common cause is temporomandibular (jaw joint) disorder, or TMD, which can also cause headaches, including migraines; neck, back and shoulder pain; ringing in the ears; jaw popping; and tingling fingers. Read the rest of this entry

Is snoring keeping you or your significant other from getting a good night’s sleep?

It could be a serious issue that needs your attention, according to a sleep expert at Baylor College of Medicine.

“Loud snoring, daytime sleepiness and waking up with a sore throat in the morning are all symptoms of sleep apnea,” said Dr. Mary Rose, assistant professor of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at BCM.

Categories of Sleep Disorders

Sleep apnea is a respiratory sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep, said Rose.

Generally, these pauses are defined as apneas, complete cessation of breathing; hypopneas, a 30 percent reduction of breathing; or respiratory effort related arousals, awakenings due to disrupted breathing. When people have more than five of these events per hour of sleep, they are classified as having sleep apnea, said Rose. Read the rest of this entry