Care For Your Sleep

The most updated statistics says that every one of three people suffer from occasional or chronic insomnia, and there’s hardly an adult person in the world, who is not familiar with any of sleep disturbances. Sleep difficulties and insomnia are much less common in men than in women, and if modern young people more tend to have problems with falling asleep when it’s the bedtime, the elderly are most likely to suffer from frequent waking ups at night and having problems with falling asleep again. The scientists are concerned and go on looking for effective natural sleep aid for all age groups.

Recently, the results of an interesting and very promising study were published in the Journal of Medicinal Food. The specialists at the University of Rochester, the University of Pennsylvania and VA Center of Canandaigua united their forces for studying possible effects on sleep duration of such common natural product as tart cherry juice. This delicious berries are famous for their high content of melatonin, a type of antioxidant responsible for sleep cycle duration. This substance can induce sleep and improve wakefulness in the morning.

A group of 15 volunteers was invited to participate the studies. Adult people who suffered from chronic insomnia were offered to drink a glass of fresh unsweetened tart cherry juice twice a day: in the morning and before the bedtime. At that, some participants were given a similar type of fresh juice mix with no tart cherry juice. The trials lasted for 14 days, and as a result, those who were regularly receiving tart cherry juice treat on a daily basis reported about certain improvements in their sleep quality. Also, their sleep cycle increased for 17 minutes in average.

These results made millions of insomnia victims hopeful about receiving a new effective natural remedy for this terrible problem in the nearest future. An American specialist Dr Russel Reiter, of the University of Texas, says that this study could help to find out the ways to stimulate body’s supply of melatonin, necessary to boost sleep. “Cherries may help regulate the sleep cycle and increase sleep efficiency, including decreasing the time it takes to fall asleep,” he commented on the importance of the findings of the study to American mass media.

Many of us are very well-familiar with a wide range of negative effects of insomnia. Those include a terrible feeling of fatigue and restlessness, body aches, headaches, drastically reduced energy levels, slowed down mental functions, lack of attention and inability to focus, resulting in decreased performance and lack of success in daily life, mood swings, irritability, depression and other emotional problems, as well as many many more, depending on personal factors and personality type of every one of us. This reactions we all experience after sleepless nights can affect our entire life to a great extent.

To make the situation worse, nowadays, the specialists could add one more negative effect of a lack of sleep, which is paranoid thoughts. Nice isn’t it? Just like we were lacking problems and bad reactions of our body on chronic insomnia. This week, Dr Daniel Freeman from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London presented the findings of his new research at the Cheltenham Science Festival. He told that insomnia is linked to developing a stable feeling that other people are trying to cause harm or control us. In other words, chronic insomnia is linked to paranoid thoughts and unjustified  fears of being harmed by other people.

According to a research, carried out by a group of British specialists leaded by Dr. Freeman,  which involved 8,580 adults, those who experience constant lack of sleep reported that within only a month or two their mental condition has worsened, and they have fears that people around tend to harm them. Such paranoid thoughts were registered in about 21% of the participants who suffered constant insomnia, and 9% or them reported that they’d believed in the existing control over their thoughts by outside forces. In addition, 1,5% of chronic insomniacs said that their feelings of anticipating a potential serious harm from other people were sometimes really disturbing.

If you want to have a regular good sleep, instead of using sleeping pills and counting sheep till the morning you should try to find your soul mate. Recently, the scientists came up with the idea that married women or the women with a stable life-partner usually have better sleep than divorced or single women. A long-term research leaded by Wendy Troxel, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, brought the scientists to the conclusion that women in stable relationships sleep better than women who are divorced and lonely. The results of the study were recently presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

During 8 years the researchers worked with about 360 American women, recorded their relationship status, as well as the specifics of their sleep activities. The scientists noticed that single and lonely women displayed the results indicating having the lowest quality of sleep. In this context, the specialists are certain that the absence of a stable life-partner is one of the leading reasons for modern women to suffer from insomnia and have regular restless sleep. Married women, instead, can not only enjoy the benefits of regular good sleep, but they are also under much lower risks of having their sleep affected by such common negative factors as stresses and depression.

Some experts criticized the results of this study, pointing on the fact that many more other important factors usually play a role in how good we sleep. Besides, they say that many married women who are unhappy in their marriages have to face regular serious sleep problems and disturbances. In contrast to them, a lot of newly divorced women who hated their marriage and chose to get divorced, feel a psychological relief and start sleeping better though they sleep alone. In my opinion, there is some subjectivity in all these speculations. No need in scientific evidence of the fact that happy people always seep better than unhappy ones, regardless of their marital status. And, certainly, having a loved one next to you, who can share your ideas and protect you against many troubles, makes you happier – and a better sleeper!

It is hard to find someone on earth who does not know what insomnia is all about. Insomnia can be a serious problem for some people, and there are lots of reasons and causes of it. For decades scientists have been studying the influence of such factor as heredity on insomnia or other sleep disorders, and a great deal of the specialists have been trying to find out the connection between parental insomnia and sleep patterns of the children. A year ago, Dr. Xianchen Liu, an expert at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School presented to the audience of the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies the results of his most recent study.

The specialist found out scientific evidence of the fact that the children and especially adolescent children of the parents, who regularly suffer from insomnia, have increased risks of developing insomnia and other sleep disturbances, as well as a number of mental and behavioral problems. During the research, the scientists worked with about 900 children over 14, who were both insomniacs and normal sleepers. After studying sleep habits of the children, whose parents have sleep problems, the scientists found out that such children have 3 times higher risks of having insomnia, 5 times higher risks of using hypnotic drugs and 2 times higher chances of having regular fatigue in comparison with the children whose parents sleep good every night.

Moreover, the specialists published quite alarming statistics showing that 17% of children affected by parental insomnia have regular depression and suicidal thoughts, and 9.5% of such children reported about having clear suicide plans and even suicide attempts. Donna Arand, clinical director of Kettering Sleep Disorders Center in Ohio and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine commented on the results of this study as the following: “We have known just in the last year or so that having insomnia makes that individual at high risk for major depression later in life, but this is, to my knowledge, the first time we’ve looked at offspring and realized we have a significant problem.”

There are many cases when familys have generations of insomniacs, and parental insomnia can be really dangerous for children. Statistics shows that in our times, about 30% of adult people have to fight with occasional insomnia, and 10% of modern adult people have to face chronic insomnia. That is why heredity plays more and more important role as a factor which affects normal sleep patterns of adolescent children. Other studies (in particular, a recent research of Brazilian specialists at Sao Paulo University) proved the hypotheis about a stong connection between insomnia and suicidal behavior. In order to avoid possible mental disorders and behavioral problems, it is very important for today’s adolescents to pay proper attention on their sleep habits and sleep not less than 9 hours. Teenagers between 11 and 14 should sleep not less than 10 hours every night.

If you suspect that you might be suffering from insomnia, you should analyze your sleep routine and answer the following questions:

1. Do you have difficulties with falling asleep or maintaining good sleep all night long?
2. Do you usually wake up very early in the morning?
3. Do you feel tired, unrefreshed and restless when you wake up?
4. Do you experience all of these problems even in those situations, when you have an opportunity to go to bed in the most convenient time and sleep as much as you want?
5. If you suspect insomnia in your child, does he refuse going to bed and sleeping alone?
6. Do you have at least one of the following problems:
— lack of energy;
— lack of motivation to do something;
— problems with attention, memory or abilities to concentrate;
— lack of success at work or in school;
— frequent changes of the mood;
— daytime sleepiness;
— frequent mistakes when doing usual daily work or when driving;
— nervous tension, headache and abdominal pains;
— disappointment or worries about own sleep?

If you answered “YES” to all of these questions, there is a big probability that you are suffering from insomnia. In such case, it is very important to find out, whether you have some other reasons causing you problems with sleep. Sleep disturbances and disorders can be the result of various reasons including:
— Chronic medical conditions and neurological complications;
— Long-term use of some medications;
— Substance abuse;
— A psychological disorder;
— Another sleep disorder or disturbance, etc.