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Sunday, October 23 518Life

The 9 Habits of Poor Sleepers

Break these and get a better night’s sleep!

For many of the 40 million American adults who have insomnia, bedtime can be the most miserable part of their day — and that's saying a lot about a sleep disorder that sucks the life out of its sufferers every waking hour, and leaves them physically and emotionally drained.

"They start to really dread going to bed," says Dr. Howard S. Weiss, associate medical director at the St. Peter's Sleep Center in Albany, "knowing it's going to take hours to fall asleep or they're going to wake up and not be able to fall back to sleep."

Sleep deprivation has been shown to lead to major health issues such as heart disease, obesity, hypertension (especially in women), diabetes, depression, problems learning or retaining new information, and workplace and road accidents, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

"It can be very dramatic for people because they tend to wait months, or years even, to get their sleep issues resolved," says Weiss.

Calling sleep "a public health imperative," medical experts and researchers recently urged lawmakers, doctors and parents to consider it as important to health as eating right and exercising.

"Sleep deficiency is a growing and underappreciated determinant of health status," wrote members of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society in a 2012 paper published in the journal SLEEP. The societal consequences of sleep deficiency are enormous, the paper concluded.

"Sleep deprivation is a form of torture," agrees Dr. Siobhan Kuhar, medical director of the Albany Regional Sleep Disorders Center and a surgeon at Albany ENT and Allergy Services. "It impacts every aspect of your waking life — your mood, your energy level, your productivity, your safety ..."

While sleep problems can have underlying medical causes that should be treated by professionals, insomnia in many cases is simply a matter of lifestyle. Capital Region sleep experts say the following are the most common habits that sabotage sleep and keep poor sleepers from getting their recommended seven to eight hours of ZZZs every night.

1. They keep an erratic sleep schedule — We all have an internal timepiece that ticks off the amount of time our bodies need to be awake before they are ready for sleep.
"One of the really key things [to poor sleep] is not keeping to a regular schedule," says Kuhar. "During the week they keep to one schedule and on the weekends another, expecting the body will immediately adapt on Monday after a weekend of staying up very late and sleeping in very late."
Sleeping in can disrupt our body clocks, Kuhar says, and "It can take days to really catch up."

2. They don't get enough sunlight — "We live in a 24/7 society," says Kuhar. "People are working atypical [night] shifts and we know the sleep that's gotten during the day tends to be not nearly as restorative as sleep during the night." Daylight, she says, particularly morning light, is vital for regulating our sleep clocks.
"We have special receptors on the backs of our eyes that regulate the secretion of melatonin" — our bodies' natural sleep facilitator, she says. Those receptors are triggered partly by our exposure to light during the day and darkness at night.

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3. They use electronics in bed — Artificial light from our computers, televisions, tablets and cell phones interferes with our "sleepiness cues," says Denise Whitehouse, lead therapist at the Ellis Medicine Sleep Disorders Center in Schenectady. Once asleep, our brains continue to survey our environment, and, without being aware of it, we hear the TV or the ping of an incoming text message. People, more and more frequently, are responding to those noises, says Weiss, using their devices in the middle of the night to check their social media profiles, emails and text messages.

4. They take their worries to bed — It's a vicious cycle, says Kuhar. "People who are sleep-deprived are at an increased risk for depression and anxiety while people with anxiety and depression are at increased risk of sleep-deprivation," she says. Whitehouse advises poor sleepers to keep a notebook handy so that "if you're stressed out or worried you can write those things down and release them," she says.

5. They don't "wind down" before bed — Whitehouse recommends bedtime rituals — a warm bath, a good book, soft music, and tells her patients to wait until they're drowsy before lying down in bed. "If they don't fall asleep within 20 or 30 minutes, I tell them to get out of bed and participate in a quiet activity like reading or listening to music again until they start feeling drowsy."

6. They have a nightcap or two — While alcohol close to bedtime might make people fall asleep more quickly, it tends to ultimately cause a disruptive, disordered sleep in the second half of the night as the alcohol metabolizes, says Weiss. Also, says Weiss, drinking ultimately leads to middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom.

7. They underestimate the kick of caffeine — Having coffee or tea, soda or chocolates, energy drinks and even some dietary supplements that contain caffeine during the day can disrupt sleep later on, says Kuhar. "Caffeine lasts in our system about nine hours," she says, "and we often forget it can have an impact on our sleep even if we had it at 1 o'clock in the afternoon."

8. They keep furry bedfellows — "Pets jumping on and off the bed or moving around on the bed can be a real sleep disrupter," says Kuhar.

9. They smoke a cigarette before bed — "Nicotine is a stimulant," says Weiss. "Certainly some people are more susceptible to disruptions in sleep than others, and oftentimes they can get away with doing one or two of these things and be fine, but when it comes to doing three or four of these things" — eating a big meal, having a glass or two of wine, checking Facebook and topping it all off with a smoke before bed — "they suffer."


New help for insomniacs „

The National Sleep Foundation launched a new website in 2013 aimed at providing resources and information to people suffering from insomnia. The website, sleepfoundation.org/insomnia, is a comprehensive resource containing information on insomnia causes, symptoms, diagnosis, sleep expert advice and treatment options.


What is insomnia?

Everyone experiences trouble sleeping at one time or another. Doctors consider insomnia chronic if it occurs at least three nights per week for three months or longer. You may have insomnia if you have one or more of the following symptoms:

-Difficulty falling asleep
-Difficulty staying asleep (waking up during the night and having trouble returning to sleep)
-Waking up too early in the morning
-Unrefreshing sleep (also called "non-restorative sleep")
-Fatigue or low energy
-Cognitive impairment, such as difficulty concentrating
-Mood disturbance, such as irritability
-Behavior problems, such as feeling impulsive or aggressive
-Difficulty at work or school
-Difficulty in personal relationships, including family, friends and caregivers 

Source: National Sleep Foundation, sleepfoundation.org