The Insomnia Blog - Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, PhD

Get Out of Bed for Better Sleep?

Outside of giving its name to this blog, insomnia can be exceptionally difficult to live with.  Insomnia is often referred to as “vague” because it is so difficult to determine what exactly is causing the sleeplessness:  underlying medical conditions, chronic pain, depression, or even another sleep disorder like restless leg syndrome.  For some, the cause could be as simple as stress.

Regardless of the cause, all insomniacs know that it can be nearly impossible to fall asleep or fall back to sleep.  If you have insomnia, you may spend hours lying in bed, tossing and turning, trying desperately to fall asleep.  You may even feel that doing so makes you feel even more stressed about not being asleep.  A new study suggests that not only is that stress keeping you awake, being in the bed itself might be contributing to your sleeplessness.

In fact, the researchers found that one of the best things to do is get out of bed.  That will help you decrease the amount of stress you feel about not being asleep, and may help you become more ready to fall asleep.  If you are stressed or worried about other things, finding ways to ‘turn your brain off’ before you get into bed may be helpful.  The medical staff involved in the study suggested that a consistent sleep routine is more likely than simply lying in bed to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

Here are my top five tips to help you create and maintain a successful sleep routine:

1. Set aside a Power Down hour before bedtime. Stop work. No chores.  Do something relaxing like take a warm bath, engage in light reading, or watch TV if that’s relaxing for you (avoid the news channels).
2. Go to bed and get up at the same time 7 days a week—no matter what!
3. Schedule in at least 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week. You can break up these minutes into pockets of 10 minutes if you have to. Here’s an idea: Expose yourself to bright, morning natural light (a good thing for calibrating the body’s natural clock) with a brisk walk before breakfast, then again at lunch, and after dinner.
4. Avoid caffeine after 2 pm in the afternoon. Don’t forget hidden sources like soda, and some headache medicines.
5. Adopt some mind-, body-, and sleep-friendly practices like meditation, massage, or yoga. 

It’s best to associate being in bed with being asleep, not with being awake and stressing about not being asleep.  A healthy sleep routine can help you do so, and though it seems a little contradictory, so can getting out of bed if you’re really struggling to fall asleep.

 

Sweet Dreams,

 

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

Everything you do, you do better with a good night’s sleep™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

twitter: @thesleepdoctor

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesleepdoctor

Vitamin D: Daytime Energy the Old Fashioned Way.

Once again I love it when a mystery is revealed, or at least partially explained.

I was reading a case study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine and it helped confirm a hypothesis I have had for a while about the importance of vitamins to your sleep.

 

Look a the Busy B’s: Did you know that Vitamin B can help regulate the use of tryptophan?

• B3: Has been shown to increase REM sleep, help with depression in some cases and a decrease in nighttime awakenings.
• B6:  is essential in the production of serotonin, the “calming” hormone that helps calm the body before falling asleep.
• Folic Acid: deficiency in folic acid deficient can  be found in those with insomnia
• Important Minerals: Calcium and Magnesium, taken in a 2:1 ratio, can be helpful for sleep
• Calcium: is a natural relaxant which has a calming effect on the nervous system.  500 mg daily can be helpful (soda can actually strip away calcium).
• Magnesium: is a mineral that appears to help assist chronic sleep problems as well. It should be taken 250 mg daily with 500 mg. of calcium.
• But a recent case study has shown that a patient with severe sleepiness, and a vitamin D deficiency,  vitamin D supplementation improved daytime sleepiness dramatically:
• The patient was a 28 year old female.  She was suffering for about 4 months with excessive sleepiness. Her symptoms started slowly and continued to progress.
• She kept a standard bedtime between 10 and 11 pm, and she reported falling asleep within minutes.  She would wake at 7:30 am and reported that she did not think that she was sleeping poorly. She would get her kids ready for school and then be back in bed by 8am until noon. She would then nap from 4 pm to 7 pm. She reported about 14 hours of sleep per day.
• Her sleep study showed no signs of sleep apnea or other sleep disorder. During her clinic visit she showed no signs of narcolepsy, depression or anxiety. Her next day nap study was unremarkable.
• She reported muscle fatigue and pain, as well as headaches, her labwork showed a thyroid in the low but normal range and she had low levels of vitamin D.

She was started on a Vitamin D supplementation at 50,000 units once per week (IV) and within 2 weeks she started to see a decrease in her sleepiness and fatigue.

Vitamin D is actually considered a fat soluble hormone that can be received in foods (dietary sources and fish) or is self-manufactured by the skin after exposure to UVB light. A Vitamin D deficiency has been noticed as a global issue and recently found in underserved populations, patients in northern latitudes, people with darker skin tones, the elderly, obese and pregnant or lactating women. Also very common in areas with a high degree of sunshine (this seems counter-intuitive, but think about all that sunblock!). Recent studies have linked Vitamin D deficiency to metabolic syndrome, muscle pain, and even type 2 diabetes.

 

So why do we think it helped her sleepiness? It is really hard to say, but I have seen this in some of my patients. It could be linked to a decrease in sleep disturbing pain. Or Vitamin D may be something that will help decrease a person’s drive for sleep. Only more research in this exciting new area can tell us.

 

Check with your doctor about vitamin supplementation. We all work hard, and eating right isn’t always easy - and even when we do, we may not get what we need from the food we eat. Our bodies actually make vitamin D, but we have to get enough sunlight to make that happen effectively.

 

Have you started taking vitamin D and noticed an increase in your daytime energy? What about vitamin B? Share your stories – would love to hear your experiences with keeping healthy and getting better sleep.

 

Sweet Dreams,

 

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

Everything you do, you do better with a good night’s sleep.™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

twitter @thesleepdoctor

Facebook: The Sleep Doctor

The Sleep Doctor’s Sleep Suggestions from the Top Sleep stories of 2010 (Part II)

As you saw from my last blog, we learned so much in 2010 about our sleep and what we should and should not do. Here is Part II of my practical sleep suggestions -  based on the latest cutting edge research on sleep from the second half of 2010.

July

Sleep Suggestion: Problems Sleeping? Tart Cherry Juice may be helpful.

• In an article published in the Journal of Medicinal Foods, researchers from the University of Pensylvania had adults drink 8 ounces of tart cherry juice in the morning and evening for 2 weeks and results indicate that they had reduced insomnia severity, and a reduction in wake time after they fell asleep by 17 minutes.

Sleep Suggestion: During your child’s first 2 years get all the sleep you can!

• New parents have a huge sleep deficit. A survey in the UK showed that new parents (within the first 2 years of a child’s life) lose about 6 months of sleep! Over 60% of parents with babies aged less than 24 months get on average 3.25 hours of sleep per night.

August

Sleep Suggestion: Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day-it’s good for your cholesterol

• Your Body Clock and Triglycerides. An animal study showed that disrupting the body clock or circadian rhythm can change the normal 24 hour cycle of your triglycerides and leave them high!

September

Sleep Suggestion: Falling asleep in the afternoon? Don’t eat lunch.

• Being hungry may help you stay awake and alert. Does eating a big meal make you feel sleepy? This research suggests that being hungry will not only keep you awake but alert as well. This animal research showed that the need for food was greater than the need for sleep.

October

Sleep Suggestion: Get more sleep and you will lose fat, not muscle on your diet.

• Sleep away your fat. This study showed that people who are on a low calorie diet will lose the same amount of weight if they are sleeping 5.5 or 8.5 hours, but those sleeping 8.5 hours will lose more fat, while those with 5.5 hours will lose more muscle.

Sleep Suggestion: Talk with your doctor if you have sleep problems, they may not ask.

• Menopause and sleep problems. In a survey of over 900 menopausal women, many of whom had sleep issues, it was revealed that most of their doctors did not ask them about their sleep.

 November

Sleep Suggestion: Take the phone out of your teen’s bedroom, even texting affects sleep

• Bedtime texting and internet use affect sleep. More than half of the teens that text or surf the internet at bedtime have problems falling asleep, and have mood, cognitive, and behavior problems the next day. And the average teen sends a total of 3400 electronic messages at bedtime every month.

Sleep Suggestion: Never drive drowsy

• Drowsy driving kills. In a study by AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety it was determined that 1 in every 6 fatal crashes (16.5%) involves drowsy driving. 41% of drivers say that they have fallen asleep while driving at some time in their lives. And 10% of people admitted to falling asleep while driving in the past 12 months.

December

Sleep Suggestion: Get your beauty Sleep, it is for real.

• Want to look attractive and healthy, get your beauty sleep. There is scientific backing for the concept of beauty sleep. When people were photographed sleep deprived and non-sleep deprived they were rated less attractive and less healthy looking, with less sleep.

Sleep Suggestion: Make sure your child is not ingesting caffeine, you might be surprised!

• 75% of all children (age 5-12) consume caffeine daily. Caffeine consumption has been blamed for both bedwetting and sleep problems in kids, but this research showed that bedwetting was actually not due to caffeine consumption. More shockingly, kids between the ages of 8-12 were drinking the equivalent of 3 cans of soda per day.

So there you have it, 22 sleep suggestions, maybe even resolutions,  based on some of the most fascinating sleep research of 2010.   I know that I learned a lot last year about sleep and I hope you did as well. Looking forward to a healthy, happy and well-rested 2011.

 

Sweet Dreams,

 

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

Twitter: @thesleepdoctor

Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheSleepDoctor

The Sleep Doctor’s Sleep Suggestions from the Top Sleep Stories of 2010 (Part I)

Happy New Year!  As 2011 is here I wanted to look back and think about all of the amazing stories, research and clinical cases that have changed the face of sleep medicine in 2010. The amount of sleep research going on today is one of the very reasons why I got into this field, the changes are constant and exciting. While this does not encompass everything, these are what I considered some of the top stories in sleep medicine in 2010, and I have included a practical sleep suggestion to help you use this research in your everyday life.

January

• Sleep Suggestion: Set your adolescent’s bedtime before 10pm
  
  •  Earlier bedtimes may have a “protective effect” for adolescents against Depression and Suicidal thoughts-in the Jan issue of the journal Sleep researchers found:
    
    • When parents set their kids bedtimes earlier (10pm or earlier), adolescents were less likely to suffer from depression (by 24%) and less likely to think about committing suicide (by 20%). Earlier bedtimes seemed to allow for more total sleep time in these kids. And kids who report sleeping 5 or fewer hours were 71% more likely to suffer from depression and 48% more likely to think about suicide.
• Sleep Suggestion: Make sure your child is getting enough sleep
  
  • High School Kids are not getting enough sleep-In a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health 12,000 kids were evaluated in grades 9-12 and only 8% of students were found to get enough sleep on average.
  • 10% of Adolescents sleep only 5 hours
  • 23% sleep only 6 hours
  • Nearly 20% more 12^th graders have sleep deficits than 9^th graders

February

• Sleep Suggestion: After a class or lecture or presentation; take a break, close your eyes and rest for 10 minutes - you will remember more.
  
  •   “Wakeful Resting” can improve your memory- when we rest while awake our brains are still at work. One researcher commented: “Your brain wants you to tune out of other tasks so you can tune into what you just learned.
• Sleep Suggestion: Take a 90 minute nap and boost your “Brain Power.”
  
  • Researchers at UC Berkley found that a 90 minute nap can help boost and restore brain power, not only does it refresh the mind, but they think it can make you smarter. It makes sense: a 90 minute nap is about 1 full sleep cycle.

March

• Sleep Suggestion: Those under forty need 7-8 hours a night to keep off that “spare tire” of belly fat
  
  • Research from Wake Forrest University published in the journal Sleep showed that individuals under 40 who slept 6-7 hours a night had far less belly fat than those sleeping less than 6 hours and more than 8 hours.

• Sleep Suggestion: Know your kids friends, if your kids hang out with those that do not sleep, watch out for possible drug issues
  
  • In some fascinating research on social networks influence on teen health researchers at UC San Diego showed that the spread of one behavior in social networks (poor sleep patterns) influences the spread of another behavior, adolescent drug use.  

April

• Sleep Suggestion: Keeping a daily routine helps older adults sleep better. 
  
  • In the April issue of the Journal Sleep, researchers found that when older adults living in a retirement community kept a daily schedule there was a reduction in their insomnia and an improvement in their quality of sleep.

May

• Sleep Suggestion: Find your “sleep need” number and stick to it  
  
  • Sleeping less than 6 hours and more than 8 hours is linked to premature death! Researchers at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom that those who slept less than 6 hours a night were linked to a 12% higher chance of premature death compared to those sleeping 6-8 hours. Also those that slept for 9 hours or more were linked to premature death, but probably for different reasons.

• Sleep Suggestion: Consider Yoga as a new technique for better sleep
  
  • Yoga helped cancer survivors reduce fatigue and improve sleep quality. A 4 week low-intensity yoga program that included breathing techniques (pranayama), meditation, visualization and special yoga positions (18 different asanas) appeared to help reduce fatigue in cancer survivors, they took less sleep medication, and they reported a better quality of life.

June

• Sleep Suggestion: Use your CPAP at least 4 hours a night - it could save your brain and life!
  
  • CPAP has been shown to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular events and hypertension in OSA patients. There was a 25% reduction of hypertension and cardiovascular events risk with consistent CPAP use (4+hours per night).
  • CPAP therapy was shown to restore brain tissue in adults with OSA. After 3 months of nightly CPAP use there was a significant grey-matter volume increase (in the hippocampus and frontal areas) this is where the brain does most of its information processing.

• Sleep Suggestion: Attention New Parents: Get more sleep and enjoy your relationship
  
  • First time parents’ relationship satisfaction appears to be linked to the amount of sleep they get while caring for their new infant. Research presented at the 2010 APSS convention showed that when you looked at actual hours of total sleep vs. estimated hours of sleep there was a negative relationship (less actual sleep = poor relationship satisfaction). So do not worry about meaningless chores, sleep more and be happy.  

• Sleep Suggestion: If you child was up late studying, drive them to school AND pick them up yourself!
  
  • Earlier school start times were associated with increase in teen auto accidents. This study done in Virginia showed that in Virginia Beach (where school start times were 7:20am ) vs. Chesapeake (where school start times are 8:40am),  there were 20% more teen car accidents. Most of these accidents were in the afternoon when school was out.

Next:  Part II covers what we learned from sleep research in the second half of 2010 and more great sleep suggestions.

 

Sweet Dreams,

 

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

Twitter: @thesleepdoctor

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesleepdoctor

 

Snoring Predicts Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic Syndrome is probably something you have seen or read about in the news lately. But you may not know exactly what it is, or how to know if you have it. Metabolic Syndrome is the name for a group of risk factors that has been linked to obesity, and that can increase the risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke (it has also been labeled syndrome X and obesity syndrome). Generally this situation does not have official symptoms, however, patients with Metabolic Syndrome may also:

• High blood sugar-when diabetes is present
  • Increased thirst
  • Increased urination
• High blood pressure
• Fatigue
• Blurred vision
• Headache

So how would you know if you had Metabolic Syndrome? Your doctor would take a clinical history and do some blood work. Here is what they might find:

1. A large waistline (35+ inches for women; 40+ inches for men)
2. High Triglycerides—this is a type of fat found in the blood (150 mg/dl) or higher
3. Low HDL (less than 50 mg/dl for women and 40 mg/dl for men)
4. High blood pressure (anything above 135/85
5. High fasting blood sugar (100+ mg/dl)

About 85% of people with type 2 diabetes also have metabolic syndrome. 
So what does metabolic Syndrome have to do with Sleep? In a Study published in the Dec 1, 2010, issue of the journal Sleep researchers found that:

• Loud Snoring,
• Difficulty falling asleep,
• And “un-refreshing” sleep

...may predict development of metabolic syndrome.

This prospective study had 812 subjects who were free from metabolic syndrome or diabetes at baseline, the beginning of the study, and in just 3 years 14% of them had developed metabolic syndrome. Two thirds of the study subjects were women and 36% were African American. While the statistics on predicting Metabolic syndrome from the sleep characteristics in this study were low, the study continues to remind us that every organ system and every disease state can be affected by lack of sleep. So if you snore loudly, have difficulty falling asleep, and wake up feeling “un-refreshed,” see your doctor.

 

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com
Everything you do, you do better with a good night’s sleep™.

Facebook: thesleepdoctor
Twitter: @thesleepdoctor

Are You a Ticking Time Bomb?

If someone said to you that your lifetime risk of a heart attack is close to 100 percent, you’d probably want to do everything you can to either prevent that fate or delay it by as long as possible. Right?

Heart attacks continue to be the number one killer of Americans; 1.5 million heart attacks occur in the United States each year with 500,000 deaths. Costs related to heart attack exceed 60 billion dollars per year.

Most of us are aware of the ways in which we can help keep our hearts healthy:

• Eating a sensible, balanced diet high in healthy fats and low in saturated fat.
• Keeping our cholesterol and blood pressure under control.
• Maintaining a regular exercise routine that gets our heart pumping faster.
• Managing stress.

But what about sleep? How does that factor in?

Turns out that sleep factors in big time: a new study shows that poor sleep may worsen heart health by increasing inflammation. Chronic inflammation has gained a lot of attention in recent years due to the associations found between this bodily process and an array of illnesses and disease. While inflammation is a normal physiological process and part of our immune system, when it runs amok it can wreak havoc on our cells and tissues. Which explains why inflammation can play a major role in heart health, as it can lead to restricted blood flow and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

This recent study found that regular bouts of insomnia and poor sleep quality may increase inflammation throughout the body, which may be further aggravated by high cholesterol, resulting in heart complications. The specifics:

• After surveying 525 participants on their sleep habits, researchers from Emory University measured their levels of certain inflammatory hormones, including the famous C-reactive protein that’s used as a biomarker for inflammation.
• They found that individuals who regularly got the least sleep were significantly more likely to have high levels of the hormones and consequently, inflammation.
• In fact, adults who slept for six or fewer hours had higher levels of all three inflammatory markers that the researchers measured.
• The researchers at Emory also noticed that men and women with poor sleep quality had higher blood pressures.

Something else that the researchers discovered to their surprise:  men—not women—who experienced poor sleep quality had less flexible arteries. This condition also contributes to hypertension and puts more stress on the heart.

The reason for this could be due to certain hormones or other variables going on in women that help explain the discrepancy. This doesn’t mean women can get away with poor sleep. It just means we need to study the gender differences when it comes to health and their separate risk profiles.

Fibrinogen, one of the other markers observed in this study, forms a fibrous mesh that slows the blood flow, thus increasing blood pressure and potentially causing hypertension. This fibrous mesh quickens the time it takes for your blood to clot, which can cause a stroke or heart attack. 

So it goes without saying that we all need to keep sleep on our list of priorities for keeping our hearts healthy and strong.

Bottom line: Rest up to keep your heart up and running. You may feel like a ticking time bomb as you juggle too many To Dos and run around like mad addressing your commitments and obligations. But that ticking time bomb can be real if you’re simultaneously throwing sleep out the window. Add more minutes to your life just by adding more quality sleep minutes to your time in bed. 

It really could be as easy as that.

Sweet Dreams,

 

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

Teens, Sleeping and Eating

Important news for parents of teens: the latest headlines in the sleep literature say teens who sleep less eat more. And they aren’t reaching for fruits and veggies.

It’s not news to scientists who’ve found that people who sleep fewer than the hours their bodies need have a stronger craving for fatty foods and snacks. All of which can send a roaring teen metabolism on vacation and open the door to weight gain and obesity.

But this latest study went a bit further to show a relationship between sleep duration and snacking, a favorite food activity for teens:

• For each 1-hour increase in sleep duration, the odds of consuming a high amount of calories from snacks decreased by an average of 21 percent.
• A significantly greater proportion of teens who slept less than 8 hours per weeknight consumed food in the early morning between 5 AM and 7 AM.
• Specifically, the researchers found that—after adjusting for factors like age, sex, and race—teens who slept less than 8 hours on weeknights consumed 2.2 percent more calories from fats and 3.0 percent fewer calories from carbs than teens who slept 8 hours or more.

News like this doesn’t  bode well for the future of our children given the fact sleep is last on their list of things to do. What’s more, 2.2 percent more calories from fats may not seem like a lot, but when you add it all up over time it can amount to a weighty number.

The challenge: teaching our children to establish good sleep habits, knowing that this may be part of the struggle we have in teaching healthy eating habits! Unknowingly, teens may be establishing a vicious cycle where their food choices are driven by their sleep choices.

Teenagers are likely to be saddled with body-image issues. An unbalanced diet in adolescence, especially one with high fat content, has both short- and long-term health consequences. If a lack of sleep is behind these eating habits, try a conversation about sleep, diet, and health.  How much of a sacrifice would it take for them to get to bed earlier? Today's teens have many responsibilities, heavy academic loads, extracurricular activities, and the typical teen social attractions and distractions, all of which often make their list of priorities ahead of sleep Maybe you can compromise on a reasonable bedtime, try it out for a week and adjust it later.

The good news is that the importance of sleep might motivate them to make a change—much more so than insisting that they eat their broccoli and take their vitamins. If they knew that a solid start to a healthy body is just a good night’s sleep away…well, you never know. It just might be the ticket to a healthier, and maybe happier, teenager. And a healthy, happy household.
 
Sweet Dreams
Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com

Are You G-Free and Sleep-Free?

Being gluten sensitive or intolerant has gained a lot of attention in recent years, no doubt spurred by celebs like The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck who has written a book about living a “G-free” life. Also called celiac disease, this condition is caused by an allergic reaction within the inner lining of the small intestine to proteins (gluten) that are present in wheat, rye, barley and, to a lesser extent, in oats. The body’s immune response causes inflammation that destroys the lining of the small intestine, which then reduces the absorption of dietary nutrients and can lead to uncomfortable symptoms and signs of nutritional, vitamin, and mineral deficiencies.

You wouldn’t think being sensitive to gluten would have any effect on sleep, but there is in fact a strong connection. A team of researchers recently found that people with this condition—even those following a gluten-free diet —  commonly suffer from sleep disorders that are related to depression, anxiety, and fatigue. It is, to put it mildly, a vicious cycle:

• When you’re tired and down, you’re not likely to sleep well, which can then play into digestive issues.
• Add to that a sensitivity to an ingredient as ubiquitous as gluten and there’s bound to be trouble.
• The reverse holds true as well: when your eating life is challenged by celiac, you run a higher risk of having physical ailments that hinder restful sleep.

Since anxiety and depression both occur at higher rates in people with celiac disease than in the general population, the researchers were curious to see how celiac disease might affect quality of sleep. In addition to finding that sleep disorders commonly affect people with celiac disease, regardless of gluten-free status, they also found that sleep disorders are less common in celiacs who score higher on quality of life scales, while those with low quality of life scores suffer at higher rates.

This may seem an expected likely observation, but it further proves the complex challenges people face when their health is not 100 percent or they suffer from a condition that can lower their quality of life. Just about any disease or illness can cut sleep short and increase one’s risk for consequences linked to sleep deprivation. Fatigue, depression, and anxiety are really just common denominators to myriad other conditions; in other words, they happen as a side-effect to enduring or living with other health problems.

Here’s some help:  if you or someone you love has celiac disease, be prepared to address sleep issues, and do everything possible to ensure a good night's rest. That means:

• Avoiding digestive irritants, especially if you’re sensitive to gluten.
• Keeping a regular bedtime routine.
• Watching your consumption of stimulants, from caffeine to CSI at night.
• Managing stress better in your life and being mindful of your mood.
• Getting the sleep your body deserves.

For celiacs, living a G-free life doesn’t mean you have to be sleep-free too. The more restful sleep you achieve, the easier it will be to manage your condition and enjoy a vibrant, well-rested life.

 

Sweet Dreams,

 

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

Do Football Players Have a Higher Risk for Sleep-Disorders?

I’m still trying to get over the fact we’re into football season already. Monday night has millions of people glued to televisions for their pro games. This past week a news brief reported on Minnesota Vikings player Percy Harvin, who lost consciousness and had to leave practice in an ambulance on August 19^th. It was a scary incident that led to, of all things, a sleep test.

Harvin is a long-time sufferer of migraines, and at first he thought his collapse on the field was solely related to another headache. But it turns out that his problem is much simpler than that: an overnight sleep test determined that Harvin has sleep apnea. Eight times during the sleep test he stopped breathing for up to ten seconds at a time.  The doctors suspect Harvin wasn’t getting enough oxygen while sleeping, which clearly affected his performance during the day.

The reason I call Harvin’s problem “simple” is because migraines can be very challenging to prevent and treat. They are still quite a mystery. But sleep apnea has a clear solution that works on many people. The CPAP device helps regulate a person’s breathing while sleeping, and no sooner did Harvin start using one than his sleep was transformed. And so was his track record with migraines: he no longer needs medication for them. I guess a good night’s sleep is enough to keep his migraines in check.

Harvin’s recent experience brings to light a lot of similar health concerns for football players:

• The nature of the sport raises their risk for physical injury, head trauma, and fractures.
• Defensive players are encouraged to keep a certain amount of weight on, so they tend to be “overweight” according to standard body-mass-index charts, and live with a heighted risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke, etc.
• Having a sleep disorder exacerbates these risks.

But here’s something interesting: a new study shoots down prior studies that have suggested that the prevalence of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) among NFL players is disproportionately high. According to this latest study, which examined a total of 137 active veteran players from 6 NFL teams, SDB wasn’t nearly as pervasive among players as you’d imagine. It was “modest,” predominately “mild” and any SDB documented did not account for excess cardiovascular risk factors.

I admit, I was scratching my head at this one. I would have guessed that the scientists confirmed the obvious—that football players are more likely to have sleep disordered breathing, which in turn increases their risk for cardiovascular problems. What really surprised me was reading that linemen and non-linemen were no different in their prevalence or severity of SDB!

If there’s one takeaway to highlight here it’s the fact sleep can be the ticket to a reduced risk for headaches and migraines.  There’s plenty of research to back this up. And you don’t have to be a professional football player to appreciate that!

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

www.thesleepdoctor.com

 

 

Does Your Teen Get Fewer than 8 Hours?

If so, listen up: your teen is more at risk for obesity and all the health problems connected to that (high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke…).

The link between sleep deprivation and a higher risk for obesity and related cardiovascular problems may not seem obvious. But here’s the key: when you’re sleep deprived (and yes, for the vast majority of teens, fewer than 8 hours on a regular basis qualifies as being sleep deprived), you’ll crave high carbohydrate foods—especially those that are loaded with fat, salt, and sugar.

I know, it’s not fair to crave junk food when we’re already lacking in the sleep department, but you can blame our ancient DNA on this fact. Encoded in our genes are signals to eat like this when we’re tired. Hormones that control our signals of hunger and, conversely, fullness, get thrown out of whack when we are sleep deprivation.

In a new study published this month in the journal Sleep, researchers determined that teens can’t escape this hard-wired reality that adults are saddled with. Though plenty of studies in recent years have implicated obesity with sleep deprivation in adults, not many have been performed on younger generations to find similar associations. In this latest study:

• Sleep-deprived teens consumed 2.2 percent more calories from fat;

• Ate more snacks than those who slept eight hours or more a night; and

• Ate more total calories.

And you know what that spells: weight gain. When we think of adolescents losing out on sleep, our minds quickly turn to potential accidents, and an inability to concentrate or perform well in school. Studies like this highlight the health consequences of sleep deprivation.

The health repercussions of sleep deprivation at this “tender” age may actually be worse than those of an adult. For starters, teens are establishing habits they will keep for a lifetime. A teen who gets used to eating poorly and packing on the pounds will likely grow into an overweight adult, when it’ll be that much harder to change those habits and lose the excess weight. The more fatty foods you eat, the more you crave them.

Secondly, we’re only beginning to understand the biomechanics of a developing person’s metabolism. Do teens who begin to have metabolic disturbances early in life suffer from a lifetime of irreversible higher health risks? It wouldn’t surprise me. And those higher risks may go far beyond just obesity and cardiovascular challenges. They may in fact go as far as upping the risk for cancer.

So thirdly, it’s a foregone conclusion: teens need their sleep as much as adults do. Need help establishing healthy sleep hygiene in your family life? Go here for more. Or pick up a copy of my book if you need a total makeover on the home front.

Sweet Dreams,

 

Michael J. Breus, PhD

The Sleep Doctor™

www.thesleepdoctor.com