Posts filed under 'Sleep'
Yesterday I posted the article “Study: Men Sleep Better Alone” which discussed research from Vienna about how men and women rate their quality of sleep.
In the study, men and women were questioned and tested on sleep quality when sleeping together and apart. Thinking about the results at greater length, the following points come to mind:
- The couples tested were in their twenties.
- The article cited does not specify how long the couples were in their relationships and how long and how regularly they do sleep together.
- The couples were unmarried.
- The study was limited to a mere eight couples.
What is really interesting, though, is the fact that the men were either mistaken or lying about their quality of sleep, while women’s responses were judged to be accurate.
Are men clueless, or just telling our significant others what we think they want to hear?
The source article:
Bed sharing ‘drains men’s brains’ [BBC]
Technorati Tags: Sleep, sexes
July 21st, 2006
While we’re on the topic of sleep today, a study from Vienna makes some interesting assertions about adult co-sleeping.
According to the findings, while men and women both claim to sleep better when sharing a bed, in fact the men are deluding themselves. Sensors indicated that male test subjects were actually not sleeping as deeply when sharing a bed. Further, cognitive tests the next morning showed that after co-sleeping men performed worse in cognitive tests than when they slept solo.
Women, on ther other hand actually do fall into a deeper sleep when sharing a bed with a partner.
Read More:
Bed sharing ‘drains men’s brains’ [BBC]
July 20th, 2006
If you are ineligible for an MRI, you may not be able to sleep on the new levitating bed from Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars and Bakker Magnetics. What would you be missing?
The levitating bed is a platform that floats in space without the need for a foundation or box spring. This is possible because the bed and the floor beneath it are made of intensely powerful magnets which are placed in polar opposition to each other.
Does it make for a better night’s sleep? Since neither of us here at HHDC have tried the bed, we don’t have firsthand experience. While it is tempting to make flippant and dismissive comments about the actual therapeutic value of the bed itself, let’s try not to go there for a moment.
The “mattress” seems to be a horizontal obelisk, evocative of 2001: A Space Oddessy. It is not at all soft or gushy looking. If the magnet is not incredibly strong, I could imagine it sliding or bouncing around when a sleeper adjusts position. For a more comfortable offbeat sleeping solution, Kevin Kelley’s Cool Tools has a recommendation today: the Low Rise Cot.
Read More:
The Floating Bed [GizMag]
July 20th, 2006
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: polyphasic sleepers aside [Hacking your Sleep Patterns(10/17/05), Counter-Point: Sleep Hacking Kills (10/18/05)], most americans don’t get enough sleep.
Susan Nielsen says in an Op-ed in the Seattle Times:
“Sleep is the new sex, as the experts in sleep disorders like to say. Men think about it every seven seconds or so. Women romanticize it. Teenagers yearn for the weekends, when they might get a little of it.”
“…the collective fatigue is growing. People sleep nearly an hour less each night than they did two generations ago, according to historic estimates of sleep patterns. High-school seniors are among the most sleep-deprived, getting about two hours less each weeknight than the nine hours they need.”
While this isn’t exactly hard-edge health news reportage, it is a good reminder- catch your Z’s!
Read More:
Wake up to the reality of sleep deprivation[Seattle Times]
via MeFi
July 13th, 2006
Usually when we discuss the iPod here it’s all about hearing loss, but ForeverGeek.com has an article worth reading on using your personal music player to enhance your brain power.
The article discusses a software application called the Brainwave Generator to create MP3s that will have different but specific effects on your state of mind. Apparently the changes can actually be observed via EEG. The Brainwave Generator site has the encoder and several premade files available for download. The sensations stimulated by this set of files includes:
- deep sleep or just relaxation
- had too much coffee,
- generate lost time,
- getting a tooth drilled,
- sexual stimulation,
- sexual simulation, and
- LSD simulation
There is a community of file contributors, sharing tons of free user-developed files with a rating system.
Read More:
The Brain Wave Generator [BWGen]
March 31st, 2006
Sometimes, when driving late at night or early in the morning, I feel like this image. But no more! Brad Isaac, whose blog is called Achieve-IT! brings our attention to research from the Loughborough University which demonstrates that people who have had insufficient sleep are most alert after taking a “Caffeine Nap”. The test compared sleepy drivers who attempted to focus by, among other things, blasting the stereo, rolling down the windows and slapping themselves.
So what exactly IS a Caffeine Nap? Simply this: drink a cup of coffee, then immediately take a nap lasting exactly fifteen minutes.
From the article:
Researchers found coffee helps clear your system of adenosine, a chemical which makes you sleepy. So in testing, the combination of a cup of coffee with an immediate nap chaser provided the most alertness for the longest period of time.
Read More:
How to Take A Caffeine Nap [Achieve-IT]
via Lifehacker
February 16th, 2006
If you are a hardcore sleephacker, you may be interested in the drug Modafinil, also known as Provigil.
According to GizMag.com, the drug’s manufacturers claim that:
Modafinil improves memory, and enhances one’s mood, alertness and cognitive powers. The drug has a smoother feel than amphetamines and enables the user to stay awake and alert for 40 hours or more. Once the drug wears off, you just have to catch up on some sleep.
Test on military fighter pilots (the armed forces are quite interested in this med) show that on long flight missions, pilots taking Modafinil begin to dramatically improve performance compared to non-medicated pilots at about 25 hours of wakefulness, hitting peak benefit at around 33 hours. The benefit continues on past the 40-hour mark.
Provigil/Modafinil was invented by the french in the late 1970’s but only maketed in the US starting in 1998. It has some uses for ADHD, narcolepsy and some other sleep disorders, but not Chronic Fatigue.
The ethics of using this medicine for purposes of productivity, as the military intends, seem to be a grey area, but we would advise against recreational use.
Read More:
Modafinil - the time-shifting drug [GizMag]
Modafinil [WikiPedia]
Modafinil Fact Sheet [MedLine Plus]
January 20th, 2006
Men’s Journal is running a short article on Power Napping. The piece is really a brief introduction of the subject.
Some practical advice offered is on preventing “sleep inertia” by awakening at the wrong point in your sleep cycle. It is suggested that one must keep the nap to 20 minutes or slightly less. If extra sleep is needed, sleep up to the 50-minute mark. This will prevent you from waking up groggy, or even more tired than when you fell asleep.
The following list is included in the article. It is from the forthcoming book Take Back the Nap! by Dr. Sara Mednick.
- The first consideration is psychological: Recognize that you’re not being lazy; napping will make you more productive and more alert after you wake up.
- Try to nap in the morning or just after lunch; human circadian rhythms make late afternoons a more likely time to fall into deep (slow-wave) sleep, which will leave you groggy.
- Avoid consuming large quantities of caffeine as well as foods that are heavy in fat and sugar, which meddle with a person’s ability to fall asleep.
- Instead, in the hour or two before your nap time, eat foods high in calcium and protein, which promote sleep.
- Find a clean, quiet place where passersby and phones won’t disturb you.
- Try to darken your nap zone, or wear an eyeshade. Darkness stimulates melatonin, the sleep- inducing hormone.
- Remember that body temperature drops when you fall asleep. Raise the room temperature or use a blanket.
- Once you are relaxed and in position to fall asleep, set your alarm for the desired duration
Read the Article:
Snooze, You Win [Men's Journal]
December 27th, 2005
Health-Hack.Com is proud to announce the launching of a new sister site on the subject of Obstructive Sleep Apnea. The site can be found at:
http://apnea.health-hack.com.
Eventually all the ApneaBlog articles from HHDC will be moved over there along with future postings on Sleep Apnea, CPAPs, BiPAPs, the Pillar Procedure, etc. The Sleep channel here on the main site will deal more with other sleep related topics such as insomnia and polyphasic sleep.
Eventually we hope to move all of our sister sites (most of which are hosted on Blogspot) over to unique subdomains here at Health-Hack.com.
Let us know what you think, and feel free to offer any advice. As always, we welcome comments and article submissions, or even ideas for future stories.
Thanks,
-The Eds
UPDATE: We have also moved over our Gout website, The Cause of Gout Symptoms to an HHDC subdomain as of last night. It is still a little rough around the edges and needs a new WordPress theme, but it does have all the old posts preserved.
December 12th, 2005
The effect that untreated Sleep Apnea has on incidence of stroke is now revealed to be strong even in mild cases of Apnea.
The December issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reports that even in moderate cases, “…sleep-disordered breathing after adjustment for age and sex is related to significantly increased odds of suffering a stroke over the next 4 years,” according to researcher Dr. T. Douglas Bradley, M.D., of the Toronto General Hospital.
Those bold parts in the above are particularly troubling. The Good news is that Apnea is easy to diagnose and treat. The bad news is that it is infrequently tested for. Your doctor may not think to screen you for it even if he knows you snore.
If you do snore, Please consider requesting a sleep study. There are so many ways Apnea can damage or even end your life that screening is a very sensible precaution.
December 5th, 2005
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