Eye On Sleep

The Perils Of Being Unable To Socialize With The Sandman

2011-09-16T19:49:00.000-02:30

There’s a hotel in London, England, currently offering an insomniac package that includes a session with a deep-sleep coach, a briefing on brainwaves, a hot-stone massage, a chemical aid (if need be), and a $1,600 a night price tag. Crazy thing is, on one of those nights when sleep is elusive and frustrations are high, most of us would gladly mortgage the house and pay the price.
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Man Jailed After Falling Asleep At The Wheel

2011-09-16T18:45:00.000-02:30

An Ipswich man suffering from narcolepsy had ignored his doctor's instructions not to drive in the years leading up to him crashing his car and killing is fiancee. Alan Leslie Styman will spend the next 12 months in jail and has been disqualified from driving absolutely after he faced Brisbane District Court today charged with dangerous driving causing death.
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Insomnia Findings A Wake-up Call For Canadians

2011-09-16T17:27:00.000-02:30

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.
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Lack of Deep Sleep Tied to Hypertension

2011-09-16T17:21:00.002-02:30

Earlier studies have tied chronic sleep disorders and low levels of sleep to greater risks of heart disease and obesity, and even reduced life span. But the new study, published in the journal Hypertension, is one of the first to find that it’s not just how much you sleep, but the quality of your nightly slumber that can affect your risk for high blood pressure.
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Sleep Disorders Lead To Increased Dementia Risk And Long Term Care Need

2011-09-16T17:12:00.000-02:30

Older women with sleep-disordered breathing are more likely to develop cognitive impairment or dementia than women without this disorder according to a new study.
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Australian Mums Prefer Sleep To Sex

2011-09-16T17:00:00.000-02:30

A night of romance may have helped create their much-loved children but exhausted, time-poor mums would overwhelmingly choose uninterrupted sleep over an evening of passion.
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Parental Counselling May Help Kids' Sleep

2011-09-16T16:47:00.000-02:30

Screening children for sleeping problems and discussing sleep strategies with parents could help youngsters settle into school with better nighttime routines, according to a study from Australia.
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Are Your Sheets Preventing A Good Night's Sleep?

2011-09-16T15:46:00.000-02:30

Ever wondered why you're not getting a good night's sleep? Maybe it's time to consider your sheets or mattress, which could be keeping you too hot. That's the idea behind a wave of new sleeping products, including new sheets developed by two former women's college basketball coaches to mimic the moisture-removing qualities of their favorite athletic gear.
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Breast-Feeding Lowers Risk For Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

2011-06-19T23:25:00.001-02:30

Breast-feeding, particularly exclusive breast-feeding, is associated with a lower risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) according to the results of a meta-analysis reported online June 13 in Pediatrics.
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Sleep Apnea Keeping You Up? Try Making Funny Faces

2011-06-19T20:36:00.000-02:30

Turns out making faces and sticking out your tongue might not just be for sassy kids – it might be the keys to a good night’s sleep. According to new research, if you suffer from sleep apnea, treatment might just be a few tongue and jaw exercises away.
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Sleeptime Head-Cooling Cap Eases Insomnia, Study Finds

2011-06-19T20:00:00.000-02:30

Not only do cooler heads prevail, they might also sleep better, according to researchers who say they have developed a cooling cap that, when worn during sleeptime, may help treat insomnia.
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Meet Theo, The Alarm Clock Dog

2011-06-19T19:00:00.000-02:30

A teenager who suffers from the sleep illness narcolepsy has had her life transformed by a specially-trained dog. Kelly Sears, 19, from Chadwell Heath, Essex regularly falls asleep without any warning and is often let with nasty cuts and bruises as she tumbles to the ground. But the teenager's life has dramatically improved thanks to a Cocker Spaniel called Theo who has been taught to lick her neck and face until she wakes up.
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Sleep Disorders Prevalent In US Women

2011-06-19T18:41:00.000-02:30

“Women are sleepy because we work very hard, and we work a lot,” Fadness explained. Women work an average of 41.7 hours per week (compared with 48.8 hours for men), but when you add in the work they do around the home the total comes to 65 to 85 hours per week.
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Dying Without Sleep: Insomnia And Its Implications

2011-06-19T17:26:00.000-02:30

Ideally, humans sleep for at least eight hours every day, meaning that we spend about a third of our lives “unconscious.” Scientists have yet to agree on why this unconsciousness is vital, but we know that without sleep, all mammals and birds would die. Because sleep has only become the subject of research in the recent past, rare neurological disorders like fatal familial insomnia (FFI), which causes patients to die within a year or two of its onset (usually in the patient’s early fifties), ranks very low on the list of things to cure.
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Bedtime Bullying

2011-06-19T17:11:00.000-02:30

What makes bullies bully? According to a recent study it may very well be sleep deprivation. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that the elementary school bullies they surveyed were twice as likely to show signs of sleep disorders like snoring or daytime sleepiness. The results make a lot of sense to Dr. Vipin Garg at Trinitas Hospital Sleep Disorder Center.
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Sleep Disorders Fuel Marital Discord

2011-06-19T15:55:00.001-02:30

To many people it is ‘very normal’ when someone you share a bed with snores, tosses and turns, and takes very long hours to fall asleep at night. But married couples might now need to think again if a recent study by US researchers, which suggests that sleep disorders are real (not imagined) marriage breakers, is anything to go by.
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Night Owls' Poor Sleep Habits Can Hurt Grades

2011-06-19T15:50:00.001-02:30

Students who are night owls have worse grades in high school and the beginning years of college, research has shown. However, a new study suggests that, as they adopt more traditional sleeping schedules, a change occurs.
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Fatigued Driving Peaks In Early Mornings

2011-06-19T15:41:00.001-02:30

Police have blamed driver fatigue for the Interstate 95 wreck, which killed four women and injured more than 50 other passengers last month. Prosecutors in Caroline County charged the driver, Kin Yiu Cheung, 37, with four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
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Study Finds Optimal Sleep Limits Depression

2011-06-19T15:25:00.001-02:30

Getting six to nine hours of sleep a night is associated with higher ratings for quality of life and lower ratings for depression, according to a research abstract presented this week in Minneapolis at SLEEP 2011, the 25th Anniversary meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.
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Sleep Loss A Chronic Problem For Afghanistan Troops

2011-05-22T13:31:00.000-02:30

Combat troops in Afghanistan suffer from high rates of sleep deprivation, a recent Army mental health report indicates, but not from factors that might be suspected. Only about 10 percent of soldiers and 15 percent of Marines reported sleep problems over a 30-day period because of combat stress. And another potential culprit – video gaming and movie watching – accounted for less than 5 percent of reported sleep problems.
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New Implantable Device For Sleep Apnea

2011-05-21T16:19:00.000-02:30

It's estimated one out of every 15 Americans has moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea. To treat it, many people try a machine called a CPAP, short for "continuous positive airway pressure." But because some find it uncomfortable, up to half of those who try a CPAP machine give up on using it. Now, there's a new treatment option on the horizon.
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Fatigue and Drowsy Driving: An Experts’ Report

2011-05-21T14:56:00.000-02:30

Micro sleep is where a driver of a vehicle momentarily falls asleep and awakes almost immediately. It is very common; the driver continues with his previous activity without interruption and usually drives along without any incident. However, if an oncoming vehicle cuts into opposite lane, or if the driver is negotiating a curve, or if the vehicle in front suddenly slows or stops, the normal reflexes are absent to react fast enough and an accident is the result.
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Science Of Sleep Reveals Critical Health Issues

2011-05-21T13:50:00.000-02:30

We are quickly becoming a chronically sleep-deprived nation, and the consequences may be more serious than dozing off in an afternoon meeting. “We are understanding more and more how sleep, or a lack of sleep, affects general health,” explains NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore) Neurologist Cathy Goldstein, MD. A fellowship trained sleep specialist, Dr. Goldstein and her colleagues at NorthShore’s Sleep Center help diagnose and treat a full range of sleep disorders including sleep apnea, insomnia, parasomnias, restless leg syndrome and narcolepsy.
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Too Much Or Too Little Sleep Linked To Faster Brain Aging

2011-05-21T10:20:00.000-02:30

We all know what a night of missed sleep does to our brain: We can’t think straight or concentrate; we’re cranky; we drive as if we’re drunk. But what if you skimp on sleep on a chronic basis? Turns out, folks who get less than seven hours a night have accelerated aging in the brain, according to a study published last week in the journal Sleep. Their cognitive function is on par with someone who is three to seven years older. Surprisingly, getting too much sleep — more than nine hours a night — also appears to be linked to speeding the brain’s aging process.
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'Night Owls' Eat More, Eat Worse, Study Finds

2011-05-21T09:15:00.000-02:30

Regularly staying up late at night and sleeping in the next day could put you at risk for gaining weight. A new study finds that "late sleepers" tend to eat more, weigh more, and eat more low-quality food – even if they get roughly the same amount of sleep as people who hit the hay at a more normal time. For the small study, which appears in the journal Obesity, scientists from Northwestern University looked at 51 adults: 23 late sleepers and 28 normal sleepers.
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