Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: sleep + blues + 468,000  Related to the article below (Last Update: 8/5/2008)

Blues star Williams bids to end injury heartache WalesOnline, United Kingdom - ?I was in a brace for 10 to 12 weeks, with the knee locked straight to let the tendon heel, so I didn?t sleep properly for about two months. ... Exercise away the blues ? or not St. Louis Post-Dispatch,  United States - Aug 4, 2008 They may feel bad because they?re out of shape, chubby, no stamina, screwed up sleep. What?s not in dispute is that whenever exercise improves stamina, ... The acid test: World's weirdest experiments Independent, UK - 14 minutes ago It's three in the morning and you're trying to get to sleep. But you're not having much luck because you're stuck in a cramped seat on a plane cruising at ... Are you ready for your newborn? Dallas Morning News, TX - You know to put baby to sleep on his back, unless a doctor specifies otherwise. You know the details of baby's first bodily excretions. ... Back to School Blues YourHub.com, CO - Aug 4, 2008 I didn't care if they went to sleep, just that they went to their beds to read or, when younger, play with toys. I needed time alone, especially since my ... Postpartum Depression Journal and Courier, IN - By Dr. Bob Martin ? August 5, 2008 Following delivery of their baby many new mothers suffer from blues or depression. Postpartum blues typically occur ... Don't play politics with games BirminghamMail.net, UK - THE whole country will be united in supporting us this weekend and, no, not Blues in the Championship, I mean our competitors in the Olympic Games. ... Walter Trout sings the blues, no thanks to Travolta Toronto Star,  Canada - Jul 31, 2008 I can do guitar solos in my sleep ... songwriting is where the meat is." Don't be misled. The Outsider is loaded with Trout's signature guitar work, ... Tottenham's new keeper Heurelho Gomes: My big debt of thanks to ... Mirror.co.uk, UK - Aug 3, 2008 "The best time to sleep for me is around 2pm and they would always come around that time. But here I will try and find a house which is the closest to the ... SkySports Hargreaves prediects improvement for United ESPN - Aug 1, 2008 Your day pretty much consists of eat, sleep and train. But you have to try and build a base for the new season.' After suffering tendinitis problems in his ... Tiring Chelsea tour has players in the travel blues Peninsula On-line all 580 news articles »

The Sleep Blues

Worries often surface at night. That's when you think about making the presentation to the boss, the breakup, the rent check. So it's no surprise that that difficulty sleeping is one of the primary symptoms of depression.

Oftentimes, sleep problems can be remedied with a simple change in sleep habits or improvements in sleep environment. Experts agree that getting help for depression is the first order of business. This can be achieved through psychotherapy and, if necessary, the use of antidepressants. But it is also crucial that people with depression are evaluated for sleep problems. And new research has emerged that indicates that poor sleepers may be at risk for depression. Below, James O'Brien, MD, president of Talk About Sleep, an educational Web site, and Arthur J. Spielman, PhD, a professor of psychology at City College of New York, discuss the association between sleep and depression and how people can get better sleep for their mental health.

What role does sleep play in regulating your mood during the day?
JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: Mood is affected by many factors, and one of those factors is sleep. One of the elements of sleep that affects mood is REM-stage sleep, or rapid eye movement sleep. We need to achieve 25 percent of our total sleep time in REM-stage sleep. REM-stage sleep is the level of sleep where our brain is actually more active than when we are awake. REM-stage sleep is where we deal with emotions and neurocognitive functions, which if we don't deal with properly in sleep, will affect us in terms of our daytime functioning on a mental and emotional level.

JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: Depression affects people in a variety of ways. They have less energy in terms of doing activities, their libido is down, their memory is poor, and their sleep is lousy. They might sleep too little or too much. They're eating more than they usually do, or they're eating less than they usually do. They're not participating in life, and they know something isn't right.

How prevalent are sleep problems for people who are depressed?
ART SPIELMAN, MD: Sleep loss often goes hand-in-hand with depression. It's very common. The majority of patients with depression have difficulty staying asleep or falling asleep. At first it was thought that patients with depression only had trouble in the morning, waking up really early. But they also have trouble falling asleep.

Why do some people with depression seem to sleep too much?
ART SPIELMAN, MD: There is a subgroup of people with depression who do sleep more, and some of them have bipolar disorder, so when they're in the depressive phase of that illness, they will tend to sleep a little bit more. And then there are patients with minor depression, not major depression, who also sleep more, and we think that that's an adaptive coping mechanism. It's a way to kind of dampen their pain.

Can antidepressants affect sleep?
JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: Antidepressants can come in a variety of forms. You have sedating antidepressants and more stimulating types of antidepressants. Clearly a stimulating antidepressant can have an effect on one's ability to initiate and maintain sleep. So it's very important that we use the appropriate type of antidepressant in order to optimally manage patients.

ART SPIELMAN, MD: If insomnia appears to be secondary to a particular antidepressant, it's still important to continue with the medicine to see if it's going to affect the depression. Because once your depression is better, insomnia can be dealt with in various other ways.

How can better sleep habits help?
JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: When you're assessing a patient who's depressed and having trouble sleeping, it's important that you assess their sleep hygiene measures [such as whether they go to bed around the same time every night]. You may discover that their sleep hygiene is horrible and clearly is a major basis for some of their problems with sleep, which could affect their depression.

ART SPIELMAN, MD: One of the methods which is tried and true is to not stay in bed awake thrashing around and feeling hopeless about whether you'll ever get to sleep. That builds an association between sleeping and that turmoil. There's a treatment called stimulus control, which says if you're not asleep within about 10 or 15 minutes, get out of bed. Only get back into bed when you think you can fall asleep.

You also don't want to associate the bed and your sleep environment with non-sleep related activity. So if you're in bed, on the phone, doing your checkbook or playing card games, you are associating that bed experience with an activity other than sleep. And if you have a sleep problem, you want to avoid that.

I hope to help people for the long run, and the way to do that is to give them various tools to help them readjust their sleep so they can get better now and get better when they have an insomnia again because it's a recurrent problem.

What are the benefits of using a sleeping medication?
JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: Patients who are depressed feel that they've lost control of their lives. It's extremely important that they begin to regain their control by regaining their ability to fall asleep and to maintain sleep. The short-term use of a sleeping medication may be required to facilitate their control so that they can achieve good, sound sleep.

What advice would you give to someone who is depressed?
JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: Sleep issues are epidemic in our society and can result in a variety of both mental and emotional and physical problems. If an individual is experiencing depression or symptoms of depression, it is exceedingly important that they be evaluated for depression and any improper sleep process that may also be occurring that might be contributing to this problem.