The Insomnia Blog - Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, PhD

Early Riser Gene Identified

Early morning people may be genetically determined.

In a recent issue of the journal Cell, University of California (at San Francisco) researchers showed that when a human gene was inserted into an otherwise normal mouse, it caused the mouse to wake up early. A classic sign of familial advanced sleep phase syndrome (FASPS).  (More info is also availabe in this Washington Post article.)

"This study highlights the power of natural human mutations to uncover things (about the circadian clock) that we might not otherwise have learned, or that we might have misunderstood before," said Howard Hughes Investigator Louis Ptacek of UCSF.

FASPS is an inherited condition in which people are "early birds." They rise early and go to bed early. Those with the condition generally show changes in core body temperatures and other characteristics governed by the circadian clock that are shifted up by 3 to 4 hours. It takes just one copy of the abnormal gene to exhibit symptoms.

The Shins Frontman Suffers from Insomnia

File another one under "Celebrities with Sleep Problems" --- according to MTV, singer/songwriter James Mercer suffers from bouts of insomnia when he's under stress, a fact that informed most of the songwriting on the new album "Wincing the Night Away":

"I may have some sort of insomnia — it's not crippling," he allowed. "But it's something I wrestle with once in awhile if I've got a stressful situation or something to deal with. And so, during the recording of this record, I was up late quite often and just found myself in this other world: my neighborhood at night," he said, referring to his Portland, Oregon hometown. "It's sort of romantic, it's spooky. And so I went with that as a theme and tried to create this nocturnal vibe. There's something to be said about being awake when everyone else is asleep. There's a spirit to it."

Kids, Sleep & Caps

Courtesy of Parent Hacks, here's a great idea to try if your young one wakes up in the night:  send her to bed wearing a cap. During winter, it could be the cold weather that's waking your child up.

Sleeping Sickness -- New Advances

Now there are times, especially on Saturday mornings when the kids are up at the crack of dawn, that my wife tells me she wants me to “deal” b/c she must have contracted African sleeping sickness over the course of the evening and just cannot get out of bed.  (By the way, I get up with the kids every morning, just thought I would throw that in.)

But there is some recent news on this disease.  African trypanosomiasis, aka sleeping sickness, is a serious disease spread by the bite of tsetse flies. It's found only in Africa and it is fatal. 

The symptoms include: fever, headache, and extreme tiredness. The disease progresses to attack the central nervous system, and, ultimately, results in death several months or years after infection.

The chances of my wife having contracted this overnight are in fact quite slim (thank goodness). A new study appears in the Public Library of Science's journal PloS Clinical Trials shows some promise. They think that a particular drug combination may work on those infected with the disease, but there does not seem to be any inoculation for it as of yet.

Sleep-Deprived Call Center Workers

A recent article in the The Hindu, the online edition of India’s National Newspaper, caught my eye in that it mentions sleep -- specifically, sleep deprivation and insomnia. Those working in IT call centers and BPO’s can suffer from these sleep problems for the following reasons:

• They keep odd hours to be able to service the US.  (They are often better from a health perspective when working with companies from the UK, based on time zone differences.)

When they deprive themselves of sleep, we see several things happen -- everything from cognitive dysfunction (They answer questions poorly, and do not come up with creative solutions.) to health problems (Mainly, immunosupression -- they get sick more easily since they cannot fight disease -- and this means higher absenteeism.)

• They drink caffeine throughout the night to stay awake. This causes several problems, from autonomic nervous system side effects (the jitters) to not being able to relax once they are off of work.

In the past year, N. Ramakrishnan, director of the Nithra Institute of Sleep Sciences, claims to have treated over 200 people in the IT/BPO sector of India for sleeplessness.

So the next time you are speaking to a customer service rep and you think they may be talking to you from another country, consider the possibility that they could also be giving you a sleep deprived answer to your problem!

YouTube: Insomnia Music Video

This video from YouTube is an example of how some AP Psychology students decided to present what they'd learned about insomnia, narcolepsy, and other sleep disorders: