Many women are turning to unnatural remedies to get to sleep.

Research finds more and more women are turning to sleeping pills in order to get their beauty sleep. It’s a problem that’s sending many women to rehab clinics.

A study from the National Sleep Foundation found nearly three in ten women say they take sleeping aids at least a few nights a week.

Doctor Nancy Collop at the Emory University’s sleep center reports that three out of four insomnia patients are female.

She examines more over scheduled soccer moms, stressed out working women, and women undergoing hormonal changes taking pills to help them rest. Read the rest of this entry

One of the most common health disorders among people around the world is “sleep apnea”. In its simplest sense ‘sleep apnea’ can be understood as one or more pauses in normal breathing. In many cases the shallow breathing during sleep is also termed as ‘sleep apnea’.

A pause in normal breathing during sleep may have an undefined duration. Meaning thereby, the pause could be for a few seconds only or it can even stretch up to few minutes.

Similarly, the rate of occurrence of such pauses during sleep may also vary up to great ranges. It could be five times per hour or even up to 30 times an hour. Normal breathing generally starts immediately after such a pause but this re-start could generate a snoring or choking sound as well.

Once a person is a victim of ‘sleep apnea’ this disorder converts in to a chronic disorder slowly over the years. In majority of the cases people never realize that the ‘sleep apnea disorder’ has crept in their lives. Read the rest of this entry

Sleep disorders often remain undiagnosed. Untreated sleep disorders among police officers may adversely affect their health and safety and pose a risk to the public.

Researchers examined and evaluated associations between sleep disorder risk and self-reported health, safety, and performance outcomes in police officers.

Cross-sectional and prospective cohort study of North American police officers participating in either an online or an on-site screening (n=4957) and monthly follow-up surveys (n=3545 officers representing 15 735 person-months) between July 2005 and December 2007. A total of 3693 officers in the United States and Canada participated in the online screening survey, and 1264 officers from a municipal police department and a state police department participated in the on-site survey.             Read the rest of this entry

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

A new study presented in November at the American College of Allergy, Asthma  and Immunology Annual Meeting found that obese adolescents have an increased risk of sleep apnea or abnormal breathing during sleep.

Previous research has shown that obese children and teenagers are at higher  risk of health-related problems, including heart disease, diabetes, high blood  pressure and asthma. Children who are overweight are nearly 2-1/2 times more  likely to have asthma than those who are not overweight. Now, this new study  highlights how obesity may interfere with a child’s ability to have restful  sleep.

“Quality nighttime sleep is a key component for advanced executive function  in children and teenagers,” says Sushmita Mikkilineni, M.D., Director Pediatric  Pulmonology for Children’s Hospital of New Jersey (CHoNJ) at Newark Beth Israel  Medical Center. “Untreated pediatric sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, can  exact a heavy toll on young people. Children suffering from sleep disorders may  be hyperactive, inattentive, and chronically tired.” Read the rest of this entry

Sleep apnea screening is rare among psychiatric patients at present, but it’s important to diagnose obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) because it can make mental illness worse, contributing to depression and possibly to the risk of manic episodes.

The symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea can mimic mental illness as well, making patients irritable and tired. If a patient is diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea it will further complicate the use of benzodiazepines and other respiratory depressants in such patients.

The lead investigator Dr. Vanita Jain, a psychiatry department resident at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City says,” “Sleep problems are so integral to psychiatric problems, [and] we wanted to make sure that along with psychiatric disorders, we were treating obstructive sleep apnea, too”. 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

Losing weight reduces the risk factors for many diseases, especially cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. Shedding just 10 pounds, for example, can lower blood pressure. Weight loss also lowers blood sugar and improves cholesterol levels.

Now, it looks like a new benefit can be added to the list. Losing weight can reduce urinary incontinence in women who are overweight or obese. In a randomized trial funded by the National Institutes of Health, moderate weight loss in a group of heavy women who undertook a six-month diet and exercise program cut the frequency of urinary incontinence episodes by nearly a half.

Urinary incontinence affects more than 13 million women in the United States. It not only causes inconvenience and emotional stress, it also raises the risk of falls, fractures, and nursing home admissions. Obesity has long been associated with urinary leakage in women, but until now, there’s been little research to confirm that losing weight would help reverse the problem — or to suggest how much weight loss would be needed. Read the rest of this entry

SleepApneaDisorder/ [  Press Release  ]/ Versailles, Ohio /October 17, 2011/ Sleep Apnea: A Growing Health Concern According to the National Institute  of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, an estimated 18 million Americans have  sleep apnea. However, few of them have had the problem diagnosed.

Sleep apnea is the repeated interruption of normal breathing during sleep.  Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type of breathing-related sleep disorder. In patients with OSA, the airway collapses, temporarily restricting  airflow to the lungs. This partial airway obstruction causes the upper airway  tissue to vibrate and produce the sound of the classic snore.

As OSA develops, it has a cumulative effect, meaning that the longer the  disease goes untreated, the greater the negative side effects and associated  health risks. According to numerous  research studies, if sleep apnea remains untreated, other health conditions  may emerge or current health problems may worsen, including: 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

Sleep disorders, like sleep apnea and insomnia, affect 40 per cent of Canadians, according  to new figures from a Laval University study published in this month’s issue of  the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

Through a survey of 2,000 people across Canada, researchers found 40 per cent  of respondents experienced symptoms of insomnia at least three times a week.  Symptoms include taking longer than 30 minutes to fall asleep, being awake  during the night for more than 30 minutes, or waking up at least 30 minutes  earlier than planned.

Although 20 per cent of respondents said they were unsatisfied with the  quality of their sleep, only 13 per cent of survey respondents say they visited  a doctor or health-care professional about the problem. Read the rest of this entry

The researchers investigated whether sleep quantity and quality were related to 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure and cardiovascular reactivity  in children.

Researchers studied term-born, healthy 8.0-year olds (SD: 1.4 years) without sleep-disordered breathing (231 and 265 children provided valid data for analyses of ambulatory blood pressure and cardiovascular reactivity, respectively). Sleep was registered with an actigraph for 6 nights on average (SD: 1.2; range: 3 to 13 nights). Ambulatory blood pressure was measured for 24-hours (41% nonschool days) with an oscillometric device.

The children underwent the Trier Social Stress Test for Children, during which blood pressure, electrocardiography, and thoracic impedance were recorded and processed offline to give measures of cardiovascular and autonomic function.

Neither quantity nor quality of sleep was related to 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure or cardiovascular reactivity after accounting for major covariates (sex, age, height, body mass index, and parental education). Although lower sympathetic nervous system activation and higher cardiac activation under stress were found in the group of  children who slept for short duration when they were compared with the average sleep duration group, these associations were not significant after correction for multiple testing and were not seen in linear regression models of the effects of sleep duration.

These findings do not support the mainstream of epidemiological findings, derived from samples more heterogeneous in age, sociodemographic characteristics, and health, suggesting that poor sleep is associated with an unhealthy cardiovascular phenotype.

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).

A new study by researchers at Stanford University, using a technique that manipulates light to control brain cells, has shown that broken sleep causes memory impairment in mice.

Until recently scientists have been unable to separate the effects on the brain of different sleep patterns. But in the newest study, they were able to overcome that problem using the new method, known as optogenetics.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study could help explain memory problems linked to conditions including Alzheimer’s and sleep apnea.

The new study looked at sleep that was fragmented, but not shorter or less intense than normal for the mice. They targeted a type of brain cell that plays a vital role in switching between the states of being asleep and being awake. Read the rest of this entry