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Insomnia and other sleep depriving issues…

I sleep very little (usually between 5-8am or 7-10am) and it’s driving me  (and my family) crazy!!  The oddest thing is that even though I am sleeping about 3 hours - I am NOT tired throughout the day. However, I do know that the body does REQUIRE adequate sleep – AND I’M NOT GETTING IT!!  That’s when I heard about the blue end of the light spectrum.

“The blue end of the light spectrum (emitted by ordinary lightbulbs, televisions, and computer screens) suppresses melatonin,” says Naiman, a sleep expert.  She recommends I buy blue-blocker filters (available at www.lowbluelights.com ) for my computer screen (she knows I’m on www.hluizpresents.com all the time) and reduce the amount of light in general around my estimated sleep time (which is, believe it or not -10pm.) Then she says to catch-up on my email only during the day (doesn’t she know how busy I am?? I must check email 24/7…right? WRONG!) Also, I have my large HD flatscreen playing in the background (which also emits that damn blue light at the end of the spectrum) while I’m posting.

 “Being exposed to too much light at night is the environmental equivalent of caffeine,” says Naiman.

I have also been reduced to take Nikki Q (a popular medicine “so you can sleep better” wink-wink) about 3 times a week so that I can sleep at least 5/6 hours – revolting.  I just end up being groggy for about 10 hours (when I really need to be alert for meetings, classes, conferences, webinars, etc.)

So, let’s see if these tips will work for me in the next couple of days.  However, If you’re experiencing sleep disturbances, here are some other tips that may work for you (let me know):

The Early Bird

The challenge: Brooke Brown, 38, is a married prekindergarten teacher with three children from Wellesley, Massachusetts. Given her round-the-clock proximity to small children (her own are ages 4, 7, and 9), Brooke is understandably exhausted by the end of the day. So much so that she often falls sound asleep as early as 7 p.m. But she is routinely awakened around 2 a.m. — by a child, her husband snoring, or a need to use the bathroom — and never manages to fall back asleep. She lies in bed with her brain in high gear, eventually giving up on sleep and getting out of bed at 5 a.m. to get a jump on her day.

Expert advice: “She is spending too much time in bed,” says sleep-disorders specialist Susie Esther. Brooke should establish a standard waking time (and stick to it seven days a week), then work backward to figure out what her bedtime should be. So if she wants to get up at 5 a.m., she should plan to be asleep by about 10 p.m. — not 7 p.m. “She should gradually adjust her bedtime so that she is able to stay awake later, and that will help her body adapt to the new schedule,” says Esther. To quell Brooke’s middle-of-the-night worrying, Esther suggests that, instead of lying in bed, she get up and do something relaxing, like having a cup of decaffeinated herbal tea. “Staying in bed and trying to sleep will just wake you up more,” says Esther. “Sleep isn’t something you can ‘try’ to do.”

The chronic insomniac

The challenge: Kristy Lewis, 29, a married homemaker and photographer from Hampton, Virginia, can’t remember a time when she didn’t have trouble sleeping. “I thought it was normal to take an hour or longer to fall asleep, but in 2004 my doctor diagnosed me with insomnia,” she says. She also wakes several times during the night and remains awake for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. She also suffers from restless legs syndrome and frequently talks in her sleep. Sleep medications help to some degree but leave her feeling drowsy the next day. She has also tried practicing yoga, doing vigorous exercise earlier in the day, avoiding caffeine, and reading or writing in a journal before bed.

Expert advice: “I would first want to investigate her restless legs problem,” says sleep-medicine specialist David Neubauer. Restless legs syndrome, which has recently been taken more seriously by doctors, can sometimes be caused by anemia. If blood tests show that Kristy has anemia, iron supplementation could help. If anemia is not the cause, she could ask her doctor about medications like Mirapex and Requip, which are often prescribed for restless legs syndrome. Otherwise, Kristy might consider:

• Pay even more attention to her evening routine and her sleep environment. “Good sleep habits don’t necessarily solve sleep problems, but they do create a foundation for improved sleep,” says Neubauer. Good habits include things such as keeping the bedroom cool and dark, using a fan or a white-noise machine to create a blanket of sound, and using the bed exclusively as a place for sleeping — and not for watching television, for example.

• Making an appointment at a sleep clinic, which can be a smart step for people with a long history of sleep issues. Most often this involves office visits (which will not necessarily be overnight observations), during which the patient will undergo a physical examination and work with a doctor to assess and diagnose the cause of the sleep problems. (For more information or to locate a sleep specialist near you, go to the Web site of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine)

The hormone sufferer

The challenge: Patty Magovern, 53, a married human-resources director from Wall, New Jersey, never had trouble sleeping — that is, until menopause hit last year. “My whole life, I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and sleep through the night,” she says, “but those days are long gone.” Now, no matter what time she goes to bed, she has difficulty falling asleep and, like clockwork, awakens at 1 a.m. For the rest of the night, she tosses and turns before finally getting up at 6:30 a.m. Taking over-the-counter or prescription medications helps but leaves her feeling logy in the morning rather than refreshed. She doesn’t want to take hormone-replacement therapy to treat her menopause symptoms, including the hot flashes that sometimes disrupt her sleep, because she worries about the risks.

Expert advice: There is some evidence that hormonal changes can have an effect on sleep. If hot flashes are a big issue, sleep-medicine specialist David Neubauer, points to recent studies that have shown that sleeping in a cooler-than-normal room can help prevent them. More advice:

• Use caution regarding over-the-counter sleep medications, since they contain some type of antihistamine, which can stay in the body for a long time. “It takes about 18 hours for your body to clear out 50 percent of the active drug. For most of your waking hours, it will still be in your system, making you drowsy,” says psychologist Rubin Naiman.

• Patty might also benefit from taking 0.3 milligram of an over-the-counter melatonin supplement about 20 minutes before bedtime since the production of melatonin (a naturally produced hormone that helps regulate circadian rhythms) drops off as we age.

• Go for a checkup. “Around the time a woman reaches menopause, other risk factors may emerge, such as sleep apnea,” Neubauer says. Patty should consider that new medications she may be on could also be disrupting her sleep.

 

*Please let me know what works for you or if you have more advice or expert tips.

Tags: bed, blue light, H. Luiz, Insomnia, rest, sleep disorders