Snoozester Sleep Blog

According to this article in Scientific American, by not getting enough sleep, a child’s risk of being overweight doubles and chances of later depression and anxiety increase. In two separate studies, young children who slept too little, were twice as likely to be overweight by age 3 and reported more anxiety, depressions and aggressive behavior as adults.

According to this article in Bangkok Post, just a few minutes of sleep can improve your memory and mental performance. Dr. Olaf Lahl at the University of Dusseldorf (Germany) conducted an experiment in which volunteers were asked to remember a list of 30 words. Then, the volunteers played solitaire for one hour. During the one hour period, some of the volunteers were allowed to take a 6 minute nap, while others were asked to stay awake. The experiment found that subjects who took a brief nap displayed “superior recall” when compared to subjects that stayed awake.

The BBC has a great article online, “Are you getting enough?“

The article discusses the pervasiveness of sleep disorders in the U.K. (and modern society in general) as well as some interesting suggestions to help you fall asleep faster. Here are a few:

Systematically tense each muscle group in turn until it starts to hurt - about 20 seconds - and then let go. This creates a warm feeling of relaxation, and any tension should flow away. The theory is that with physical relaxation comes mental calmness. PMR is used as a stress buster, as well as helping sleep.

Just repeating “the” could be the solution. It’s known as a blocking strategy, another cognitive technique. The aim is to stop the mind racing. Repeating a simple word like “the” at irregular interval blocks other thoughts coming into your head.

According to a recent study, women who recently gave birth should sleep more if they want to lose weight. According to a Sydney Morning Herald article about the study, ” They found that mothers who slept five hours or less a day when their babies were six months old were three times more likely than more rested mothers to have kept on the extra weight at one year.”

This sounds like a win-win, more sleep and less weight, but I can’t imagine it is very easy for mothers of newborns to get any sleep, let alone more sleep. Your thoughts?

This is another one of those conclusions that seems obvious, but hadn’t necessarily been thoroughly analyzed until now. Not getting enough sleep can make you feel grumpy.

Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and Harvard Medical School conducted a study of the effects of sleep-deprivation on the brain’s control over emotions. The researcher’s studied 26 adults aged 30 and under; the participants were divided into two groups, one group stayed awake for 35 hours, the other group was allowed to sleep normally. the participants were shown a series of images, some of which were disturbing, while researchers monitored their brain activity. The researchers found that the sleep-deprived participants became aversive and experienced a decrease in prefrontal lobe activity, the area of the brain that controls emotions.

One of the researchers, Matthew Walker, said, “Sleep appears to restore our emotional brain circuits, and in doing so prepares us for the next day’s challenges and social interactions. Most importantly, this study demonstrates the dangers of not sleeping enough.”

For more information about the study, check out the most recent issue of Current Biology, where the study is published. More information is also available via Fox News and the USA Today.

This may sound obvious - If your pillow is too tall, it may impact the quality of your sleep.

Less obvious - How tall is too tall? Not very according to a Japanese study discussed in a recent Bloomberg article. Two excerpts from the study:

“Even a pillow that’s 2 centimeters (1 inch) too high can reduce sleep quality by causing shoulder and back strain”

“Those using an ill-fitting pillow were 2.8 times more likely to suffer back pain and 1.5 times more likely to experience tiredness”

Forbes has an article on their website, “Sleepless Kids Are Troubled Kids,” about the causes and effects of poor sleep on children’s performance. The article discusses the wide range of sleep disorders that affect children - “That spans everything from kids who are waking during the night, to resisting bedtime, to sleepwalking, disordered breathing — the gamut,” as well as some of their effects - “One 2006 study in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine found that youngsters with sleep apnea scored lower on standard IQ tests compared with unaffected kids — an average of 85 points vs. 100, respectively.”

According to a study presented at the American Professional Sleep Society’s annual meeting, children and teenagers who sleep in on the weekends may be hurting their scholastic performance. An article in the Poughkeepsie Journal discusses the study’s findings, which suggest that by sleeping in on weekends, kids are basically subjecting themselves to the effects of jet lag. When Monday rolls around and it’s time to go back to school, the kids feel tired and groggy and their performance suffers as a result. The whole problem is compounded by the fact that many of these kids are not getting enough sleep during the week, and they are trying tomak up for it by getting extra sleep over the weekend.

A study released today by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that a lack of sleep may increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.  The researchers, who monitored a group of 39 subjects, found that after consecutive days of insufficient sleep, the subjects experienced higher than normal heart rates and appeared more likely to experience heart trouble. The AFP article about the study has been picked up by multiple international news outlets.

NBC 5 Chicago is running a story on their website about a recent study conducted by Dr. Michael T. Smith of JHU. Dr. Smith found that women who were frequently woken up from their sleep experienced a higher rate of spontaneous pain. Here is the kicker - the spontaneous pain may cause them to be woken up even more frequently in the night. It’s a viscous cycle…

 Another article about the same study