Snoozester Sleep Blog

Doctors at the SRI Sleep Research Institute have initiated a new study to ease the transition of smokers looking to quit their addition. Research shows that half the people who try to quit smoking do not succeed and it may have much of that has to do with a lack of sleep. Among the side effects of quitting is lack of enough sleep which can lead to various difficulties. Dr. Ian Colrain, Ph.D. believes that “Being tired and grumpy the next day. Your performance goes down. Your moods go bad. And you know how to fix tired and grumpy? You go back to smoking.” See full article

Forbes has another sleep-related, quick and informative slideshow, “10 Ways to Sleep Better.”

The slideshow seems to agree with the suggestions we hear most often, such as:

• Drinking less caffeine and alcohol
• Follow a set schedule of sleeping and rising (even on weekends)
• Exercise regularly

There is an excellent post on Everything2 about the Uberman sleep schedule (warning - strong language). While this schedule is not significantly different from the other alternative sleep schedules we’ve posted about in the past, this post is well worth reading as it includes an in-depth first-hand account from someone who actually followed the schedule for an extended period of time. Some excerpts:

“You’ll be sleeping for twenty minutes at a time, every four hours, round the clock. When I did it, I took a nap at 8, 4, 12, then 4, 8, and 12 again. This totals a mere two hours of sleep in a twenty-four hour period. As a forewarning, yes, it sucks a– to get used to, but after about two weeks you’ll never wanna give it up.”
“I was much less tired after two or three weeks of this than I have ever been, before or since. For one thing, you’re going to bed every four hours, so every time you turn around it’s time to go to sleep.”

“Day one and two, you just feel like you haven’t slept, and those naps aren’t doing you any good because you just toss around for twenty minutes, or, usually on day two, you drop off and then want to kill yourself when the alarm goes off 20 minutes later.”

A recent analysis of 37 sleep studies that were conducted from 1998 to 2004 has yielded some interesting tips that will hopefully help those of you who have trouble getting to sleep at night:

•  Go to bed only when you’re sleepy.
• If you can’t sleep, get out of bed.
• Use the bedroom only for sleeping (no reading, TV, etc.)
• Get up at the same time every morning.
• Don’t nap.

To see the rest of the tips and read more about the studies, check out the full article on WTKR.COM.