How our sleep patterns change throughout our lives, and how to cope with the changes

And don't I know it. This article explains a lot:

Sleep Patterns Make Steep Changes During Your Life

[...] MIDLIFE SLEEP CRISIS

A lot of accomplished people claim not to need a lot of sleep. Household arts maven Martha Stewart purports to get only four hours a night. So does Tonight Show host Jay Leno. Napoleon, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Salvador Dali and Leonard da Vinci didn’t get much shut-eye either. So television journalist Pamela Wallin, who also averages only four hours a night, is in august company. “I’ve been an insomniac for as long as I can remember,” says Wallin, a Saskatchewan native who lives in Toronto. “I’ve tried herbal remedies and chamomile tea. I avoid prescription drugs because I can’t afford to lose my sharpness the next day.” Ultimately, Wallin regards her chronic insomnia as something she just has to live with. “If I needed more sleep,” she reasons, “I probably wouldn’t have gotten done what I have done in my life.”

Sixty-two per cent of Americans experience a sleep problem a few nights a week, according to a National Sleep Foundation study released last month. Two-thirds say sleepiness interferes with their concentration. “We should really get nine or 10 hours of sleep,” says psychologist Coren. “But we’re only getting seven. Sleep is not something we value.” Family stresses, the frenetic pace of life and poor bedtime habits all contribute to an epidemic of sleeplessness. Among modern complications: the wired world. “I know people who have a fax machine at the foot of their bed with a little bleeper so they can get up in the middle of the night to read their faxes,” says Coren. “The pressure to lead a 24-hour life is getting worse.”

At least many poor sleepers know they need help. About 2,000 people a year use the sleep clinic at UBC run by psychiatrist Jon Fleming. Thirty-five per cent of them complain of insomnia, a disorder that often runs in families. Others attend the clinic because of sleep apnea (troubled breathing) and narcolepsy (an overwhelming desire to sleep), among other sleep disorders. “The causes of insomnia are legion,” says Fleming. “It can be caused by psychiatric conditions or drug and alcohol abuse. But the leading cause is stress.” When Vancouver children’s bookstore owner Phyllis Simon can’t sleep, she gets out of bed for a while and writes a list of all the things she has to do. “I try to transfer my anxieties to the list. Then I’ll make myself a cup of warm milk.”

But waking up in the middle of the night and then going back to sleep – – as Simon sometimes does — can be harder on cognition than not sleeping at all, says University of Montreal psychiatrist Roger Godbout. “Your performance the next day will be worse than if you stay up all night,” he explains. While insomnia may lead to fuzzy thinking, those who short-circuit sleep by working long hours could also be compromising their physical health. Research at the University of Chicago shows adults who get fewer than seven hours of sleep are more prone to diabetes, high blood pressure and endocrine dysfunction.

Women also report more sleep problems than men — a consequence, often, of their biology. Just before menstruation, says Toronto Western Hospital sleep researcher Helen Driver, “there is a withdrawal of hormones that triggers poor sleep.” Entering menopause doesn’t make it better. Thirty-six per cent of menopausal women polled by the National Sleep Foundation said hot flashes interfered with their night’s rest. Sleep investigators are becoming more aware of the effects of the female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, says Driver. “Progesterone,” she says, “interacts with a receptor in the brain that seems to have sleep-inducing qualities.” [...]

I used the "Midlife Stage" as an excerpt for this blogpost, because that is about where I am at now. But the entire article starts with infancy, childhood, teen years, all the way through to old age. Something for everyone! Read the whole thing, for embedded links and advice for improving your sleep, whatever stage you may be in.
     

A new kind of sleeping pill: "Dora-22"

A Sleeping Pill Without The Sleepy Head?

[...] DORA-22 is part of a class of new drugs — one of which the Food and Drug Administration is already considering for approval — known as orexin antagonists.

“It’s high quality research,” says Jerome Siegel, professor of psychiatry at University of California Los Angeles, who was not associated with the study.

The authors compared the sleep-inducing effects of DORA-22 to those of three well-known sleeping pills: diazepam (Valium), zolpidem (Ambien) and eszopiclone (Lunesta), which work by slowing down brain activity. Immediately after giving the animals the drugs, the scientists tested the animals’ memory and reaction time. (While most people take sleeping pills before going to bed, such effects are important to document so researchers, and users, can fully understand how their brains and bodies are affected by the medications in case people don’t take the drugs as prescribed.)

“It’s very enticing because there are some clear results that show [that these drugs] differ from old hypnotic drugs in terms of affecting cognition and memory in two animal species,” says Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, director of the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences, who wrote a commentary on the research, which was published in Science.

Rats given high enough doses to cause sleep of the three currently available drugs had difficulty recognizing whether they had seen an object previously presented to them, while those dosed with DORA-22 did not show such compromised recall. Similarly, all of the drugs except DORA-22 reduced rhesus monkeys’ ability to react to a touch screen and correctly choose a colored square associated with a reward. In fact, even at doses 30 times higher than the lowest amount needed to affect sleep, the drug did not impair performance on this task.

What makes this new class of drugs different? Orexins, which are also known as hypocretins, are brain chemicals that promote wakefulness. Of the brain’s billions of neurons, only tens of thousands produce orexins. People with narcolepsy who have difficulty staying awake and are prone to suddenly falling asleep without warning are missing almost all of the neurons that produce these chemicals. DORA-22 and similar drugs work by blocking orexins by essentially producing a brief and reversible bout of narcolepsy. [...]

It's an interesting concept. But how many years till we find out the long term side effects?
     

Health Links 09-08-12

Is it "feed a cold, starve a fever" or vice versa? And should you?

[...] The idea, if not the exact wording, dates back to 1574, when a dictionary maker named Withals wrote, "Fasting is a great remedie of feuer."

You're thinking: this guy wrote a dictionarie? His medical advice wasn't so hot either. Doctors have been trying to stamp out the above piece of folklore for years. Current medical thinking is that you want to keep an even strain when you're sick with either a cold or a fever, and you certainly don't want to stress your system by stuffing or starving yourself.

Nobody's sure where the notion of feeding colds and so on arose. (It surely didn't originate with Withals.) One somewhat dubious explanation has it that the proverb really means "If you feed a cold now, you'll have to starve a fever later." A more plausible interpretation is that the feed-a-cold idea arose out of a folk understanding of the disease process, namely that there were two kinds of illnesses, those caused by low temperatures (colds and chills) and those caused by high temperatures (fever). If you had a chill, you wanted to stoke the interior fires, so you pigged. If you had a fever, you didn't want things to overheat, so you slacked off on the fuel. [...]

WebMD goes a bit further, and gives lots of advice on How to Feed a Cold:

Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever?

Do you starve a cold and feed a fever when you're feeling under the weather? Or is it the other way around? Good news -- starving is never the correct answer. [...]

Read the whole thing for detailed recommendations.


8 Lifestyle Tweaks for Restless Legs Syndrome

If you've got restless legs syndrome (RLS), your daily habits can make a difference to your condition.

Revamping your diet, exercise, and medications is just the beginning of what you can do to improve your RLS. You might even find some help in unexpected places. [...]

Can't Sleep? When to Get Out of Bed

You wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.

Whether you drank one cup of coffee too many earlier, or you've got a lot on your mind, it's time to decide whether to get up or stay in bed.

Getting out of bed makes sense at some point. Tossing and turning endlessly isn't going to help.

If you do get up, though, you're not giving up for the night. You still need rest. So your goal should be to get back to sleep as soon as possible.

Some activities help with that. Others put sleep even further out of reach.

What you do now, in the wee hours, will affect how the rest of your night goes. That could make all the difference in how you feel tomorrow. [...]

Read on for suggestions.
     

Computer Screens, and a Good Sleep

They DON'T go together:

Can't Sleep? It Could Be Your iPad
Glow From Tablets at Bedtime May Make It Tougher to Sleep

Aug. 31, 2012 -- Is setting down your iPad the last thing you do before bed? New research shows that all of those nighttime hours spent with your tablet can wreak havoc on your sleep.

The bright light emitted from these tablets can suppress melatonin. That's a hormone that helps control sleep and wake cycles, called circadian rhythms.

The researchers only looked at the iPad, iPad 2, and a tablet known as the Asus. Using these tablets for two hours on their brightest settings suppressed melatonin by about 22%. The findings appear in the journal Applied Ergonomics.

“If they are bright and they are big and are close to your eyes, they have more potential to disrupt your melatonin than the TV, which is usually farther way,” says researcher Mariana Figueroa. She is an associate professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

iPhones and other small gadgets may not affect circadian rhythms. “Smaller devices emit less light,” she says. But even if these devices aren't zapping the body’s melatonin supply, they may still be disrupting sleep by delaying your bedtime, she says.

Not ready to give up your tablet before bedtime? Follow these four tips to make sure you use them in a way that does not leave you tired all day long. [...]

I always suspected that working on the computer right before bedtime, somehow 'wired' my mind, instead of relaxing it. Now this seems to offer proof:

[...] “These devices are faking out our body and saying it’s morning when it’s night,” Breus says. This disruption in circadian rhythms can affect learning among school-aged children. “Impose an electronic curfew,” he suggests. [...]

Exactly. That's why I usually read a book in bed for a bit, before turning in. No glowing screens.

   

"Natural" tips from WebMD

Natural Good Sleep: Tips on Melatonin, Valerian, and More

[...] So, what's been proven to work? What's safe?

Plank is a big advocate of chamomile tea, as well as valerian and melatonin. "Both of those have good scientific evidence backing them up," Plank tells WebMD.

Start with low doses of any supplement, she advises. Always tell your health provider what you're doing, as some people should not take specific supplements. There may be interactions with other medications you're taking or other serious side effects. Also, keep these sleep solutions short-term.

"Any sleep aid should not be taken for long periods," Plank says. "You must address lifestyle, too. Make sure something else is not interfering with sleep."

Plank recommends:

* Chamomile tea
* Melatonin
* Valerian
* Kava

For optimal nerve health (to help you relax), she also advises 100 to 400 milligrams of magnesium. "I don't know of studies of magnesium for sleep, but in my experience it helps," she tells WebMD. [...]

The rest of the article goes into more detail about each of those supplements.

The next two article follow a similar format on their topics:

Natural Allergy Remedies

Natural Pain Relief: Chronic Pain Supplements