The Insomnia Blog - Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, PhD

Social Media NOT Causing Sleep Problems?

I don’t believe it.

A new study says the amount of time spent on social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn doesn’t affect how much sleep college students get each night.

Like I said, I’m very skeptical of this study, though I should note that it wasn’t done on American students.

The very next day, I read about another study—this one done on US soil by the Kaiser Family Foundation—that states plainly how connected our kids are these days. Check out the following facts:

A Must See for a Good Laugh…

The challenge: find a way to help people sleep in uncomfortable (and perhaps uncompromising) positions, like standing on a busy street corner, at a desk in a cubicle, or high on a cold, snowy hilltop.

The result: some very unusual and often ingenious  contraptions that will cause such a ruckus in public that you might as well just lie down and crash on the hard ground (and without the laughs).

I had to look twice at these apparatuses and scratch my head, wondering if they were serious products or just another Photo-shopped joke blowing through the Internet:

Whose Bed Is It Anyway?

Usually when I am asked questions about co-sleeping or “the family bed” it is in reference to having children sleeping in the bed with their parents. But recently I was asked to comment on pets in the bed, so I thought this might be a good thing for us all to think about.

Some bulldogs can snore louder than our human bed partners, and whether your bed partner is a Great Dane or a Chihuahua, having a dog in your bed can make a difference in how you sleep. Not to mention cats. Cats seem to be nocturnal, in that they always want to choose between kneading the dough of someone’s belly in the middle of the night, or sleeping on your pillow with their tail falling flat on your face. Having more than one pet in the bed can make you the “meat” of an animal sandwich. 

I am a sleep doctor, a pet owner (two dogs, one cat), my sister is a veterinarian and I am married to one of the largest animal lovers of them all.  We have had pets in our bed, kids in our bed, and I’ve certainly heard both sides of the story. In contemplating the issues, as well as the pros and cons, here are my simple rules on the subject:

Hidden Sources of Caffeine Call for New Labeling

If one your New Year’s resolutions is to “get healthier” then read on. Surely among your newly minted list of things to do (or not do) is to watch your diet and the amount of caffeine you ingest. Right?

Watch out: caffeine is about as ubiquitous as water these days in food products and beverages. So much so that there’s been a call for labeling standards to help us all know just how much we’re getting and from where. Currently there are no guidelines, so yes you could be having sleeplessness nights thanks to that afternoon gum, candy bar snack, and sip of “water” (laced with caffeine).

In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, a Duke University professor of medical psychiatry, Dr. James Lane, points to a number of side effects of excess caffeine:

A Snor-Chestra of Song

Tired of the Christmas carols? Sick of holiday songs and jingling bells?

Well, as you pack up those holiday decorations, I suggest you check this out: a group of musicians got together and created a montage of snorers from around the United Kingdom to the tune of, well, let’s just say a very odd sounding “Silent Night.”

Now that’s not what I call a “silent” night!

What Do Snoring Kids and Urine Have in Common?

Answer: a clue to whether or not your child’s snoring is a sign of obstructive sleep apnea or not.

New research from the University of Chicago shows that proteins found in the urine samples of children with sleep apnea are different than those found in children without the disorder.

Snoring is typically a sign of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common sleep disorder I’ve blogged about several times. People with OSA repeatedly stop and start breathing during sleep when throat muscles relax and block the airway. This results in fragmented, poor sleep, as well as low blood oxygen levels. OSA has been associated with an increased risk for myriad health problems, including hypertension, heart disease, mood and memory problems.

OSA gets a lot of attention in adult sleep circles, but not so much when it comes to children. It’s been estimated that only about 20 to 30 percent of children who snore actually have sleep apnea. But that’s enough to warrant closer inspection. Given this new study, screening can become the norm to separate out the kids with a serious sleep disorder so their problem can be addressed and successfully treated.

After all, children need as much quality sleep they can get as they continue to mature and develop. No parent wants to set a child up for a lifetime of health challenges by letting a common sleep disorder go under the radar (and under the disguise of seemingly harmless snoring). And, not to scare you, but I’ll add that another recent study showed that kids with sleeping problems are at higher risk for manic depression. They need their sleep as much as you do, if not more so.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

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