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

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Taking An Inventory Of Your Sleep Habits

You know the signs: lead in your jowls, dragging feet, million-dollar mistakes at work, lowered eyelids at the stoplight, snapping at the kids, drool on the computer keys. Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy all rolled up into one. Turns out you have some company in the sheep-counting club. Millions of Americans don’t get the quality sleep they need-and suffer from consequences that affect every aspect of waking life. Still, many think sleep problems are a natural fact of life. In fact, people who suffer from sleep problems typically wait about 12 years before they seek help. But experts say most sleep problems can be resolved, it just takes close examination and perseverance. "People feel that sleep problems are a part of life and that they are something that they should endure." says behavioral sleep medicine specialist Dr. Saul Rothenberg of Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York City. "They don’t realize that there are many excellent strategies for solving sleep problems."

"I think the first question you need to ask yourself is whether you’re satisfied with your current set of sleep habits and pattern." Dr. Rothenberg continues. "And if the answer is no, then you have to change something in your life in order to improve the sleep pattern. What you want to do is trading one set of habits that don’t work to your satisfaction for another set of habits that will hopefully work a lot better for you."

Sleep when you are sleepy, otherwise get out of bed
Sometimes you get into bed and just lay there for what feels like an eternity. To cut down on insomnia, doctors suggest restricting time in bed to the amount of time you are actually sleeping. "People who have difficulty with their sleep often lay awake in bed for extended periods." explains Dr. Gary Zammit, director of the Sleep Disorders Institute at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City "And then the bed becomes associated with wakefulness rather than this nice, warm, delicious sleep. So if you are spending eight hours in bed, but sleeping only six, you should reduce the amount of time in bed to only six. You need to break the learned association between being awake and being in bed. If you are not asleep in 15 to 20 minutes, get up out of bed, go into another room and engage in some sedentary activity until you begin to feel sleepy. Then at that point, return back to bed."

Reserve the bed for sleeping and sex only
People have a tendency to live in their beds and that says experts that can be counterproductive. "One of the most common things that people with insomnia do is spend excessive time in bed, so that they begin to do a number of things in bed that have nothing to do with sleep—talk on the telephone, watch TV, balance their checkbook—things keep them awake in bed." says Dr. Daniel Buysse, director of the Sleep Evaluation Center in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. "Eliminating bedtime activities that have nothing to do with sleep is important. You want to strengthen the association between sleep and the bed or bedroom."

Keep a consistent wake-up time
Another recommendation sleep experts make is to keep regular sleep hours, in particular, the wake-up time. "Your wake-up time in the morning is very important, because it helps regulate your biological clock so that you get sleepy at the same time every night." Dr. Rothenberg says. "Every night, when you go to sleep, you’ve been awake for roughly the same number of hours. So that amount of sleepiness becomes predictable and familiar. And the more predictable and familiar it is, the less you think about it and worry about it; the less you think about it and worry about it, the better sleep works."

Remove sleep stealers
What you do during the day and evening can also affect your sleep. Dr. Brooke Judd, of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, says, "People should be avoiding caffeine after the afternoon. Caffeine is actually fairly long acting, and it’s a stimulant that will promote keeping your brain awake. So avoiding caffeine in the afternoon, and certainly in the evening, is important. Also, you should avoid alcohol in the evening. Although it may help you fall asleep, alcohol will worsen your quality of sleep. And you should avoid smoking right before going to bed because nicotine is activating."

Experts also say exercise should not be performed immediately before bed. "Vigorous exercise very close to bedtime can raise body temperature, and it makes it harder to fall asleep. On the other hand, it turns out that if you exercise approximately four to six hours before bedtime, it may in fact help you fall asleep later that night." Dr. Rothenberg says.

Make your sleep environment conducive for sleep
You may think this is a no-brainer but making your sleep environment comfortable is remarkably helpful. What you sleep on, your bedding, light, noise, room temperature, pouncing pets and snoring spouses can all contribute to a poor nights sleep.

"Some people don’t have any difficulty falling asleep in a light room with a lot of noise. On the other hand, there are people who are very sensitive to these things and can be disrupted by having too much light in the room, too much noise in the room, if the temperature that isn’t right. People tend to sleep better in rooms that are a little bit cooler rather than a little bit warmer." Dr. Judd says. People tend to fall asleep as their body temperature falls. Says Dr. Thorpy, "You can artificially elevate the body temperature, such as having a hot bath or a long hot shower, and it brings the body temperature up, then when you get into bed and the body temperature starts to fall, that helps you to sleep. So the old story of a hot bath before bed in fact does work."

Having a loud bed partner who snores or does a lot of leg kicking can be an extremely disruptive. Periodic limb movements and sleep apnea, a sleep disorder characterized by loud snoring, require treatment from a sleep specialist.

"Snoring is a sign of partial obstruction of our airway during sleep." Dr. Buysse says. "Virtually everyone who has obstructive sleep apnea will have very loud snoring that can often be heard from other rooms, or even other floors in the house. Snoring clearly can disrupt our sleep at night, even if the individual doesn’t stop breathing entirely. So rather than being a sound of restful, restorative deep sleep, snoring is actually a sign of disrupted sleep."

Take a closer look at your medical conditions
Underlying medical conditions can also contribute to sleeping problems. According to Dr Buysse, "Virtually every chronic medical illness—conditions that cause pain, impair our ability to move at night, cause difficulty breathing—can be associated with insomnia. Psychiatric conditions, such as clinical depression and serious anxiety disorders, can also be associated with long-term insomnia. And many medications can lead to insomnia, including some antidepressants, blood pressure medications and certain over-the-counter medications." Simple adjustments in medical care can often help minimize problems stemming from medical sources.

Don’t suffer in silence
There’s a lot of stigma associated with sleep problems, but experts want poor sleepers to know that there is a lot you can do. The important thing is to really do an inventory of your waking and your sleeping life. Look for factors that can disrupt your sleep and do your best to minimize those factors. If you aren’t able to make the right adjustments, work with a sleep specialist. Dr. Thorpy sums it up well: "Practicing good sleep hygiene is important for anyone who has a sleep problem. In fact, it’s important for anyone because if people don’t adhere to these recommendations, they could develop a sleep problem in the future. Understanding what can adversely affect sleep is something that every man, woman and child needs to know."