By Brian Alexander A CPAP device, the Darth Vader-like mask used to ease breathing in sleep apnea sufferers, might be the least attractive thing a man can wear at night, but it could wind up improving his sex life, according to a new study released today at an annual meeting of sleep experts. In yet another example of how the human penis can serve as an important health indicator, a team of doctors from the Sleep Disorders Center of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has found that erectile dysfunction is common in younger men with sleep apnea, but that E.D. -- and libido -- improves in men who use the CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure machine. They presented their results today at the meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Boston. Over the past few years, medical science has repeatedly shown that how a man’s penis is working can reflect how the rest of his body is working. E.D. can be an early sign of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and poor fitness, among other ailments. So when army captain Dr. Joseph Dombrowsky looked at a small handful of studies that had linked apnea to E.D., he realized that he had access to a pool of possible test subjects -- military beneficiaries newly diagnosed with the sleep disorder -- that he could use to explore the link. Dombrowsky and his colleagues recruited 92 men with an average age of nearly 46 who had both a new diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, and who were starting therapy with CPAP machines. © 2012 msnbc.com

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 12: Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 16912 - Posted: 06.14.2012

By JoNel Aleccia Attention, busy middle-aged folks. You may be healthy and thin, but if you habitually sleep less than six hours a night, you still could be boosting your risk of a stroke. That’s the surprising conclusion of a new study being presented Monday at SLEEP 2012, the annual meeting of the nation’s sleep experts. Getting too little shut-eye appeared to more than quadruple the risk of stroke symptoms among healthy, normal-weight people aged 45 and older, according to a study of some 5,600 people followed for up to three years. “The really important take-home message is this: Don’t blow it off. Sleep is just as important as diet and exercise,” said Megan Ruiter, the University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher who led the study. Experts recommend that healthy adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night. But about one in three U.S. workers regularly gets less than seven hours of snooze time, according to a recent government health report. Ruiter and her colleagues reviewed data from some 30,239 people participating in the REGARDS study – Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke – sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Of those, they teased out some 5,666 people who were healthy at the start of the study – no history of stroke, stroke symptoms, so-called “mini-stroke” or transient ischemic attack, or elevated risk for sleep apnea and other sleep-disordered breathing problems. © 2012 msnbc.com

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 19: Language and Hemispheric Asymmetry
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 15: Language and Our Divided Brain
Link ID: 16900 - Posted: 06.12.2012

By Scicurious Most of us will suffer sleep deprivation at one time or another. I’m not talking our usual state of broken sleep, 5 hours a night, or something else. I’m talking a full night without sleep, the kind many people experience in the army, with a brand new (or not so brand new) baby, or more frivolously (I hope), in college. We all know what sleep deprivation does to us. We’re unable to pay attention. We’re often cold or hot. We can’t think straight, we start doing very strange things (you would not BELIEVE the crazy dances I’ve made up…), and of course, we’re really, really tired. But why do these symptoms happen? What’s going on in the brain during sleep deprivation to explain this behavior? Well, in part, it might be changes in your D2 receptors. There are lots of signs that point toward the involvement of the neurotransmitter dopamine in wakefulness. Drugs that increase levels of dopamine in brain (including, but not limited to, drugs like cocaine, amphetamine, meth, and Ritalin) also increase feelings of wakefulness. Increasing dopamine in the brain via genetic alterations, like getting rid of the dopamine transporter in a mouse, stopping dopamine from getting recycled, produces a mouse that sleeps less. Diseases that are characterized by low dopamine levels, like Parkinsons, also have daytime sleepiness. But a neurotransmitter is only as good as its receptor. Dopamine has two main types of receptors, and the current hypothesis is that the wakefulness promoting effects of dopamine may be controlled partially by the D2 type receptor. Antipsychotics, which block D2 type receptors, make people sleepy, and previous studies showed decreased D2 binding in the brains of sleep deprived people. © 2012 Scientific American

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 12: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavioral Disorders
Link ID: 16872 - Posted: 06.05.2012

By Meghan Holohan You're drifting off to sleep, when suddenly you feel like you're plunging off a cliff -- and you jerk awake. The jolt is disorienting, and you must try again to fall asleep. As many as 70 percent of people experience sleep starts or hypnic jerks while falling asleep, says Dr. William Kohler, medical director of the Florida Sleep Institute and director of the pediatric sleep services at Florida Hospital, Tampa. “A hypnic jerk or sleep starts are a perfectly normal occurrence that is almost universal,” explains James K. Walsh, executive director and senior scientist at St. Luke’s Sleep Medicine and Research Center in St. Louis. “It involves a total body experience where your muscle contracts therefore your limbs jerk or your body twitches. They generally occur during the transition between wakefulness and sleep. All of these things are very, very brief, lasting a half second or less.” Hypnic jerks are myoclonus twitches, or involuntary muscle spasms, but sleep starts occur during hypnagogia, the stage when the body is falling asleep. While most people have felt hypnic jerks, a small number of people experience the frightfully-named exploding head syndrome, the sensation that there is an explosion, crashing cymbals, or thunder near (or in) one’s head. Exploding head syndrome is so rare that it is mostly reported by individual case studies. While exploding head syndrome distresses people with it, both Walsh and Kohler stress that this, too, is normal and not a sign of any problem, physical or mental. © 2012 msnbc.com

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 16830 - Posted: 05.23.2012

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR Two new studies have found that people with sleep apnea, a common disorder that causes snoring, fatigue and dangerous pauses in breathing at night, have a higher risk of cancer. The new research marks the first time that sleep apnea has been linked to cancer in humans. About 28 million Americans have some form of sleep apnea, though many cases go undiagnosed. For sleep doctors, the condition is a top concern because it deprives the body of oxygen at night and often coincides with cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes. “This is really big news,” said Dr. Joseph Golish, a professor of sleep medicine with the MetroHealth System in Cleveland who was not involved in the research. “It’s the first time this has been shown, and it looks like a very solid association,” he said. Dr. Golish, the former chief of sleep medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, said that the cancer link may not prove to be as strong as the well-documented relationship between sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease, “but until disproven, it would be one more reason to get your apnea treated or to get it diagnosed if you think you might have it.” In one of the new studies, researchers in Spain followed thousands of patients at sleep clinics and found that those with the most severe forms of sleep apnea had a 65 percent greater risk of developing cancer of any kind. The second study, of about 1,500 government workers in Wisconsin, showed that those with the most breathing abnormalities at night had five times the rate of dying from cancer as people without the sleep disorder. Both research teams only looked at cancer diagnoses and outcomes in general, without focusing on any specific type of cancer. Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16820 - Posted: 05.21.2012

By Jennifer Huget When my daughter was little, she was quite the sleepwalker. Until you have a sleepwalker in the family, you have no idea how terrifying it can be. You worry about whether they’ll safely navigate the stairs when they decide to sleep-stumble from the second-floor bedroom where they’re supposed to be, well, sleeping, to the first-floor family room where you’re watching TV. Or that they’ll open a door and wander outside in the middle of the night — and that you might not hear them leave. Or that they’ll pick up a knife in the kitchen or light a burner. . . . Let’s just say it’s hard to sleep with a sleepwalker around. And if you have ever tried to talk to a sleepwalking child, you know how worrying it is to see how completely out of it they seem. My son never walked in his sleep, and my daughter finally outgrew the behavior, which affects up to 30 percent of children, according to the introduction to a study published Monday afternoon in the journal Neurology. The new research set out to determine how common sleepwalking is among adults. According to the report, the phenomenon has been little studied, so data about its prevalence are quite limited. The best estimate before this new study was that between 2 and 3 percent of adults walk in their sleep; the new research puts the number of adults who have walked in their sleep at least once in the past year at 3.6 percent. And 29.2 percent of those surveyed reported having walked in their sleep at least once in their life. © 1996-2012 The Washington Post

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16790 - Posted: 05.15.2012

By Consumer Reports, Millions of Americans might be overusing sleeping pills, which can pose health risks, a recent analysis by Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs noted. Medication for insomnia can lead to side effects, dependency and even worse sleep problems when taken too often or in excessive doses. If you need help for short-term insomnia caused by travel or a stressful event, start with an over-the-counter sleep aid. If that doesn’t work, ask your doctor if you should try generic zolpidem. But everyone — especially those with chronic insomnia and people 55 or older — should first try these nondrug approaches: Lifestyle changes. Behavior modification — such as changing sleep habits by getting up at the same time every day and avoiding naps — produced significant improvements for older adults with chronic insomnia, according to a 2011 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Cognitive-behavioral therapy. Seeing a therapist who specializes in insomnia might help 70 to 80 percent of people with chronic insomnia, often providing a “cure.” (Pills treat the symptoms.) To find a sleep center where CBT is offered, call the American Academy of Sleep Medicine at 630-737-9700 or go to www.sleepcenters.org. Ask your insurer about coverage. Exercise. A study of more than 3,000 adults, published in December in the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, found that 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise, such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity, such as running, improved sleep quality by as much as 65 percent. © 1996-2012 The Washington Post

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16772 - Posted: 05.10.2012

By Rachel Saslow, By the time new parents take their babies home from the hospital, they have been thoroughly drilled on the litany of infant-sleep no-nos: No stomach-sleeping. No loose blankets. No pillows. No soft mattresses. No crib bumpers. The list goes on. Whether parents choose to follow these rules is another matter. When her twins were born in 2008, Amy Cress of Silver Spring dutifully put her babies on their backs to sleep. But at about 6 months of age, her son Nathan rolled onto his stomach during the night. Cress was so relieved that her son was asleep, she left him like that. He preferred sleeping on his stomach from then on. “We used bumpers, too, which is really not allowed,” she says. “We felt like rebels.” It has been 20 years since the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) first recommended that parents place their babies on their backs to sleep for the first year of life to prevent sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. The rate of SIDS in the United States has plummeted more than 50 percent since the government launched its “Back to Sleep” campaign in 1994. In 2006, 2,327 infants died from SIDS in the United States. Still, about 25 percent of U.S. babies sleep on their stomachs or sides, according to a national infant sleep position study. (In 1992, before the “Back to Sleep” campaign, that proportion was roughly 85 percent, according to the study.) © 1996-2012 The Washington Post

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16763 - Posted: 05.08.2012

By Tori Rodriguez Early birds, save your creative challenges for just before bed. Your least productive time of day may be the perfect opportunity for a moment of insight, according to a study from a recent issue of Thinking & Reasoning. Mareike Wieth, an assistant professor of psychological science at Albion College, and her colleagues divided study participants into morning types and evening types based on their answers on the Morningness Eveningness Question­naire (those who scored in the neutral range—about half of initial respondents—were excluded). Wieth instructed them to solve three analytic problems and three insight-oriented ones. No time-of-day effect was found for analytic problem solving, but subjects’ performance on tasks requiring creative insight was consistently better during their nonoptimal times of day. Wieth believes this effect is the result of a reduction in inhibitory attentional control—the ability to filter information that is irrelevant to the task at hand. “This less focused cognitive state makes people more susceptible to think about other, seemingly unrelated information—like things they experienced earlier or their to-do list,” she explains. “This additional information floating around in your mind during your nonoptimal time of day ultimately helps you reach that creative aha! moment.” © 2012 Scientific American

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 18: Attention and Higher Cognition
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 14: Attention and Consciousness
Link ID: 16757 - Posted: 05.07.2012

by Sara Reardon Their dads may be up with the sun, but it takes more than that to wake up a chick still in its egg. Unhatched chicks aren't roused from slumber by random noise, but they do wake up if they hear a chicken danger call. Evan Balaban of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, says we still don't know when fetuses begin to experience sleep cycles the way adults do. It makes sense for the developing brain to stay in a state of suspended animation, similar to that of someone in a coma, to conserve oxygen. If the fetus brain is too active, it runs the risk of running out of oxygen and damaging itself. To find out more, Balaban and colleagues looked at developing chicks still in their eggs. Unlike mice, the chicks in their eggs are separated from any influence by the mother's hormones, making them easier to study. The researchers labelled sugar molecules with radioactive tracers and injected the sugar into the chick embryos. When the brain is active, it uses the sugar and lights up with the radioactive tracer. Using this method, the researchers found that the chicks' brains were fairly inactive until 80 per cent of the way through their development inside the egg. At that point, the brains began to take up the sugar in a regular cycle, suggesting they were passing through phases of sleep and wakefulness. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16751 - Posted: 05.05.2012

By Linda Carroll It sounds like the stuff of nightmares: A man wakes up in the middle of a surgery and can’t speak, or even twitch a muscle. But that’s exactly what a young man from Sweden says happened to him. The 22-year-old Swede was in the middle of surgery for a collapsed lung when he woke up to hear doctors moving around and operating on him, the Swedish newspaper The Local reported. “It was terrible, my worst nightmare,” he told the Sweden’s English-language paper. The operation was in March and the patient, Simon Rosenqvist, recently filed a complaint with Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, according to a report in the New York Daily News. “My brain kept telling me over and over ‘say your name, say something, do something, wiggle your toes,’ but I was completely incapable of saying something or moving my body at all,’” Rosenqvist wrote in his report. Rosenqvist told The Local that he was awake for some 30 to 35 minutes of the 50 minute procedure and that he was in serious pain and was very angry at the end of the procedure. Experts say that although it’s rare, patients do sometimes wake up during surgeries even when they’ve been given general anesthesia. Overall, this happens in 1 to 2 out of 1,000 procedures, says Dr. Lee A. Fleisher, a professor and chair of anesthesiology and critical care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. © 2012 msnbc.com

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 8: General Principles of Sensory Processing, Touch, and Pain
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 16724 - Posted: 04.30.2012

By Katherine Harmon It’s always nice to get the full recommended seven or nine hours of sleep every day. But life—and work—often gets in the way. And getting too little sleep can decrease attention and short-term memory and can also alter rational judgment—in addition to increasing the risk for some diseases and making it harder to lose weight. Thus, for those who work in an industry where a simple error can lead to injury or death, missing out on sleep can be seriously dangerous. Moreover, according to a new survey, workers in industries with heavy equipment are among the least likely to be well rested. A study of more than 15,000 employed U.S. adults shows that 30 percent of all workers reported getting fewer than six hours of sleep every day. That’s some 28.3 million workers who are operating (themselves and often machinery) with far less sleep than recommended. The findings were published online April 27 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Night shift workers were, predictably, the most likely to be getting less z’s, with 44 percent—some 2.2 million people—getting fewer than six hours a day. (Trying to sleep during daylight hours can be a challenge because the body’s circadian rhythms are more likely to be sending stay-awake hormonal signals.) Of people who work in transportation and warehousing on overnight shifts, almost 70 percent are getting fewer than six hours of sleep a day. This is of particular concern considering that at least one in five vehicle accidents is the result of a fatigued driver. © 2012 Scientific American

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16722 - Posted: 04.28.2012

By Deborah Kotz, Globe Staff With a social network of friends who are parents of school-age children like me, I’m amazed that I’ve never had a conversation about bedwetting. One of my friends alluded to it once, I think, when telling me why her 11-year-old never went to sleepovers. Unlike other topics that friends frequently ask me for information about as a health reporter, I’ve never been asked about bedwetting: what causes it, how to prevent it, and whether it ever resolves on its own. Perhaps it’s just too embarrassing to broach or seen as some sort of failure on the part of the child or parent. Yet bedwetting -- which becomes a medical condition called nocturnal enuresis after kids reach the age of five -- is far more common that you might think. About 6 percent of boys and 3 percent of girls ages 8 to 11 experience it at least two nights a week, and boys have more severe bedwetting than girls. Genetics also plays a role: A study published last year in the Journal of Urology found that the odds of a child being a severe bedwetter were nearly four times higher than average if the mother also had a history of bedwetting as a child. The reasons for why it occurs are usually physiological, not psychological: excessive urine production at night, overactive bladder, and failure to awaken in response to bladder sensations. “Each mechanism can be supported by various studies, and no one theory is likely to explain bedwetting in all children,” wrote Dr. Darcie Kiddoo, a pediatric urologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, in a review paper published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. © 2012 NY Times Co.

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16703 - Posted: 04.25.2012

Teenagers can suffer severe sleep deprivation when the clocks change, say researchers at the University of Surrey. The amount they sleep decreases to less than six hours a night on average the week following the move to British Summer Time. During this period their concentration may be lower and mood affected. Scientists also found that even before the change, teenagers were getting less than the recommended hours of sleep. The activity of some sixth-form students from Claremont Fan Court School in Surrey was studied using wristwatches. These were worn constantly over a 10-day period before and after the clocks moved forward on 25 March. The watches reliably indicated when the teenagers were awake and asleep. The researchers found that in the days following the clock change, the teenagers had less than six hours of sleep a night. Adults generally have eight. Joanne Bower, a sleep researcher at the University of Surrey said: "During adolescence, teenagers experience a shift in their circadian rhythm [body clock] - these make sure the same things happen at the same time every day. One of these things is the production of the sleep-promoting hormone, melatonin. BBC © 2012

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16678 - Posted: 04.19.2012

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Researchers have found further experimental evidence that inadequate sleep can increase the risk of obesity and diabetes. A five-week study showed that sleep disruption decreases insulin secretion, increases blood glucose levels and slows metabolism enough to lead to significant weight gain. Scientists kept 24 male and female volunteers in a sleep laboratory for 39 days. After an initial period of normal sleep, the volunteers were put on a schedule by which they slept for 5.6 hours and were kept awake for 21.5 hours, for three weeks. Then the participants had nine days to re-establish normal sleep patterns. Disturbed sleep resulted in a 27 percent average decrease in insulin secretion after eating, and higher glucose levels over a longer period of time, sometimes high enough to make the subject prediabetic. In addition, there was an average 8 percent decrease in resting metabolism rate, a measure of how much energy the body consumes at rest, that translates into a theoretical weight gain of more than 12 pounds a year. Orfeu M. Buxton, the lead author and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard, said the key for people who must work nights, or rapidly change time zones, is to “get better sleep during the day by sleeping in a dark, silent, cool room.” © 2012 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of Internal States
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Link ID: 16659 - Posted: 04.17.2012

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR About 28 million Americans have sleep apnea, which causes repeated awakenings and pauses in breathing during the night, sometimes resulting in loud snoring and gasps for air. For decades, the standard treatment has been “continuous positive airway pressure.” A mask worn at night pushes air into the nasal passages, enabling easier breathing. C.P.A.P. reduces and in some cases completely prevents episodes of apnea. But the mask is like something from a bad science fiction movie: big, bulky and obtrusive. Many patients simply refuse to wear it or rip it off while asleep. Studies show that about half of all people prescribed C.P.A.P. machines stop using them in one to three weeks. “For a lot of people out there, the C.P.A.P. machine turns into a doorstop,” said Dr. Joseph Golish, the former chief of sleep medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “C.P.A.P. is very effective in the sleep lab. But when people go home, there’s a good chance they won’t use it, and the success rate of an unused C.P.A.P. machine is absolutely zero.” Now an alternative form of C.P.A.P. is gaining popularity: a patch that fits over the nostrils. Called Provent, the patch holds two small plugs, one for each nostril, that create just enough air pressure to keep the airways open at night. It is far less intrusive than the traditional C.P.A.P. machine. It is also more expensive, and it doesn’t work for every patient. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2008, Provent has spread mostly by word of mouth. But it has caught on fast. Its manufacturer, Ventus Medical, says it has shipped one million of the devices in the past 12 months, up from a half million total in the two years prior. Doctors say it has given them a new weapon in the battle against sleep apnea, and many patients who struggled with C.P.A.P. call it a godsend. © 2012 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16633 - Posted: 04.10.2012

CBC News Having sleep apnea may be associated with major depression, a new study suggests. Research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which a person has short pauses in breathing during sleep, may be connected to depressive symptoms. Caused by a temporary collapse of the airway, these breathing stops can last 10 to 30 seconds, and may occur dozens or hundreds of times each night. Risk factors include: Advancing age. Being male. Being obese. "Snorting, gasping or stopping breathing while asleep was associated with nearly all depression symptoms, including feeling hopeless and feeling like a failure," Anne Wheaton, lead author of the study, said in a release. "We expected persons with sleep-disordered breathing to report trouble sleeping or sleeping too much, or feeling tired and having little energy, but not the other symptoms." The study of 9,714 adults from across the U.S. was conducted between 2005 and 2008. It is in the April issue of the Journal Sleep. © CBC 2012

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16596 - Posted: 03.31.2012

By HENRY ALFORD COILED viper-like within the word “insomnia” is the terrifying “omnia.” Why does sleeplessness seem all-powerful? Because some nights I can’t get down into the Valley regardless of how many Dolls I lash to my burro. I’m not alone. It’s difficult to go to a Manhattan cocktail party these days and not get roped into a discussion of someone’s insomnia or the relative merits of melatonin and “snore absorption rooms.” If you find yourself buttonholed by a well-heeled but heavy-lidded person, prepare for a slightly defensive diatribe called “Why I Have Recently Purchased a $60,000 Mattress.” Glamorous (and sometimes dubious-sounding) treatments continue to pop up, a fact underlined by last week’s designation by the National Sleep Foundation as sleep awareness week. Europe’s first “nap bar” recently opened in Paris, giving the weary a place to rest on a massage chair or zero-gravity chair. The Grand Resort Bad Ragaz in Switzerland will film your sleeping patterns during the night and then analyze them and suggest cures. At La Mansión del Rio in San Antonio, you’re encouraged to put some of the resort’s “worry dolls” (one doll for each of your worries) under your pillow so that, through Indian magicking, you’ll awake liberated, fresh, burden-free — a person who can crush a plaything solely with the force of his head. In Midtown Manhattan, the Benjamin Hotel employs a sleep concierge, on call to help guests choose from 12 free sleep-friendly pillows, as well as field requests for sleep aids like massages and midnight snacks (e.g., hot chocolate or milk and cookies). © 2012 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16532 - Posted: 03.17.2012

By RONI CARYN RABIN Talk about sleepless nights. Patients taking prescription sleep aids on a regular basis were nearly five times as likely as non-users to die over a period of two and a half years, according to a recent study. Even those prescribed fewer than 20 pills a year were at risk, the researchers found; heavy users also were more likely to develop cancer. Unsurprisingly, the findings, published online in the journal BMJ, have caused a quite a stir. Americans filled some 60 million prescriptions for sleeping pills last year, up from 47 million in 2006, according to IMS Health, a health care services company. Panicked patients have been calling doctors’ offices seeking reassurance; some others simply quit the pills cold turkey. Some experts were quick to point out the study’s shortcomings. The analysis did not prove that sleeping pills cause death, critics noted, only that there may be a correlation between the two. And while the authors suggested the sleeping pills were a factor in the deaths, those who use sleep aids tend as a group to be sicker than those who don’t use them. The deaths may simply be a reflection of poorer health. Still, the findings underscore concern about the exploding use of sleeping pills. Experts say that many patients, especially the elderly, should exercise more caution when using sleep medications, including the non-benzodiazepine hypnotics so popular today, like zolpidem (brand name Ambien), eszopiclone (Lunesta) and zaleplon (Sonata). © 2012 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep
Link ID: 16505 - Posted: 03.13.2012

By Melissa Dahl One of the less-talked-about side effects of being blind: fielding many (many!) questions from us sighted folks -- enough questions, apparently, to program a YouTube channel. Tommy Edison, who is blind, hosts the popular YouTube series "The Tommy Edison Experience," where he answers viewer questions: How do blind people use an ATM? How do blind people use paper money? In one of his latest videos, he posts his answer to a fascinating question: How do blind people dream? Edison explains that he's been blind since birth, so, no, he doesn't "see" in his dreams. "I think because I’ve never seen in real life, that my sub-conscious doesn’t know what it’d be like to see, either, so, no. I don’t see in my dreams,” Edison explains in the video. “I mean, the way it works for me, is just the way my life occurs, right? So it’s all smell, sound, taste and touch," he continues. "That’s all there is. Just like your life works. I mean, you see in your life, so, obviously, you’d see in your dreams." To someone who's always been able to see, though, that description might be surprising. (Edison dreams in Smell-O-Vision?) Most sighted people remember the images and emotions from a dream -- but smells, sounds, tastes and touches, maybe not so much. "You guys, you’re visually driven," Edison said to me in a phone interview. "I don’t know, 'cause I’ve never seen, but I would think if there was something very prevalent -- like if there was a fire in your dream -- I would think you would remember the smell of it. Or take a bite of the hamburger, and it tastes like lobster -- that’s going to be a funny thing you'd remember." © 2012 msnbc.com

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 14: Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming; Chapter 9: Hearing, Vestibular Perception, Taste, and Smell
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 10: Biological Rhythms and Sleep; Chapter 6: Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell
Link ID: 16501 - Posted: 03.12.2012