A Good Snooze
News and Information about Sleep
Even the most loving of marriages can become fraught with tension and arguments when one of the spouses snores. The continuous sawing of logs deprives the other partner of sleep and can cause intense frustration. While many women snore, it’s usually the wife who suffers as many men rattle the windows when they snore, often even waking them selves up. Many divorces have happened because of continuous sleep deprivation. When lack of sleep dominates one or both partner’s lives, patience gets replaced with irritability. Then the smallest flaws, habits or gripes can get blown out of proportion.
Work life suffers, home life suffers, and then the blame game begins. This tension and arguing often ends up with one partner going to another room desperate for a few hours sleep. As you can imagine, dreading to go to bed for fear of being kept awake all night destroys intimacy and does damage to their sex life. Sadly, this causes an awful lot of people to consider leaving their snoring spouse. Especially when the snorer believes there is no solution and the non snorer is left even more frustrated.
Obviously this can clobber a marriage if left unchecked. If this is happening in your marriage or partnership it’s time to deal with it before the worst happens. Imagine losing your husband or wife because of snoring! Many snorers will be happy to know that with buckwheat husk pillows or contour pillows the problem can be greatly reduced and the marriage restored to its previous bliss. Act Now!
Your doctor will diagnose restless legs syndrome (RLS) based on your symptoms, your medical and family histories, and the results from a physical exam and tests.
Your doctor will use this information to rule out other conditions that have symptoms similar to those of RLS.
Specialists Involved
Your primary care doctor usually can diagnose and treat RLS. However, he or she also may suggest that you see a sleep specialist or neurologist.
Symptoms
You must have the four key signs of RLS to be diagnosed with the condition.
Your doctor also will want to know how your symptoms are affecting your sleep and how alert you are during the day.
To help your doctor, you may want to keep a sleep diary. Use the diary to keep a daily record of how easy it is to fall and stay asleep, how much sleep you get at night, and how alert you feel during the day.
Medical and Family Histories
Your doctor may ask whether you have any of the diseases or conditions that can trigger RLS. These include kidney failure, Parkinson disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, pregnancy, and iron deficiency.
Your doctor also may want to know what medicines you take. Some medicines can trigger or worsen RLS.
Because the most common type of RLS tends to run in families, your doctor may ask whether any of your relatives have the disorder.
Physical Exam
Your doctor will do a physical exam to check for underlying conditions that may trigger RLS. He or she also will check for other conditions that have symptoms similar to those of RLS.
Tests
Currently, no test can diagnose RLS. Still, your doctor will likely order blood tests to measure your iron levels. He or she also may order muscle or nerve tests. These tests can show whether you have a condition that may worsen RLS or that has symptoms similar to those of RLS.
Rarely, sleep studies are used to diagnose RLS. A sleep study measures how much and how well you sleep. Although RLS can cause a lack of sleep, this sign isn’t specific enough to diagnose RLS.
Researchers continue to study new tests to diagnose RLS.
Drug Therapy Trial
If your doctor thinks you have RLS, he or she may prescribe certain medicines to relieve your symptoms. These medicines, which are used to treat people who have Parkinson disease, also can relieve RLS symptoms. If the medicines relieve your symptoms, your doctor can confirm that you have RLS.
Source: U.S. National Institutes of Health
Insomnia is a condition in which you have trouble falling or staying asleep. Some people with insomnia may fall asleep easily but wake up too soon. Other people may have the opposite problem, or they have trouble with both falling asleep and staying asleep. The end result is poor-quality sleep that doesn’t leave you feeling refreshed when you wake up.
Types of Insomnia
There are two types of insomnia. The most common type is called secondary insomnia. More than 8 out of 10 people with insomnia are believed to have secondary insomnia. Secondary means that the insomnia is a symptom or a side-effect of some other problem. Some of the problems that can cause secondary insomnia include:
Certain illnesses, such as some heart and lung diseases pain, anxiety, and depression medicines that delay or disrupt sleep as a side-effect
Caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, and other substances that affect sleep
Another sleep disorder, such as restless legs syndrome; a poor sleep environment; or a change in sleep routine
In contrast, primary insomnia is not a side-effect of medicines or another medical problem. It is its own disorder, and generally persists for least 1 month or longer.
Overview
Insomnia is a common health problem. It can cause excessive daytime sleepiness and a lack of energy. Long-term insomnia can cause you to feel depressed or irritable; have trouble paying attention, learning, and remembering; and not do your best on the job or at school. Insomnia also can limit the energy you have to spend with friends or family.
Insomnia can be mild to severe depending on how often it occurs and for how long. Chronic insomnia means having symptoms at least 3 nights per week for more than a month. Insomnia that lasts for less time is known as short-term or acute insomnia.
Outlook
Secondary insomnia often resolves or improves without treatment if you can eliminate its cause. This is especially true if the problem can be corrected soon after it starts. Better sleep habits and lifestyle changes often help relieve insomnia. You may need to see a doctor or sleep specialist to get the best relief for insomnia that is persistent or for which the cause of the sleep problem is unclear.
Source: U.S. National Institutes of Health
Until the 1950s, most people thought of sleep as a passive, dormant part of our daily lives. We now know that our brains are very active during sleep. Moreover, sleep affects our daily functioning and our physical and mental health in many ways that we are just beginning to understand.
Nerve-signaling chemicals called neurotransmitters control whether we are asleep or awake by acting on different groups of nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain. Neurons in the brainstem, which connects the brain with the spinal cord, produce neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine that keep some parts of the brain active while we are awake. Other neurons at the base of the brain begin signaling when we fall asleep. These neurons appear to “switch off” the signals that keep us awake. Research also suggests that a chemical called adenosine builds up in our blood while we are awake and causes drowsiness. This chemical gradually breaks down while we sleep.
During sleep, we usually pass through five phases of sleep: stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. These stages progress in a cycle from stage 1 to REM sleep, then the cycle starts over again with stage 1 (see figure 1 ). We spend almost 50 percent of our total sleep time in stage 2 sleep, about 20 percent in REM sleep, and the remaining 30 percent in the other stages. Infants, by contrast, spend about half of their sleep time in REM sleep.
During stage 1, which is light sleep, we drift in and out of sleep and can be awakened easily. Our eyes move very slowly and muscle activity slows. People awakened from stage 1 sleep often remember fragmented visual images. Many also experience sudden muscle contractions called hypnic myoclonia, often preceded by a sensation of starting to fall. These sudden movements are similar to the “jump” we make when startled. When we enter stage 2 sleep, our eye movements stop and our brain waves (fluctuations of electrical activity that can be measured by electrodes) become slower, with occasional bursts of rapid waves called sleep spindles. In stage 3, extremely slow brain waves called delta waves begin to appear, interspersed with smaller, faster waves. By stage 4, the brain produces delta waves almost exclusively. It is very difficult to wake someone during stages 3 and 4, which together are called deep sleep. There is no eye movement or muscle activity. People awakened during deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes after they wake up. Some children experience bedwetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking during deep sleep.
When we switch into REM sleep, our breathing becomes more rapid, irregular, and shallow, our eyes jerk rapidly in various directions, and our limb muscles become temporarily paralyzed. Our heart rate increases, our blood pressure rises, and males develop penile erections. When people awaken during REM sleep, they often describe bizarre and illogical tales – dreams.
The first REM sleep period usually occurs about 70 to 90 minutes after we fall asleep. A complete sleep cycle takes 90 to 110 minutes on average. The first sleep cycles each night contain relatively short REM periods and long periods of deep sleep. As the night progresses, REM sleep periods increase in length while deep sleep decreases. By morning, people spend nearly all their sleep time in stages 1, 2, and REM.
People awakened after sleeping more than a few minutes are usually unable to recall the last few minutes before they fell asleep. This sleep-related form of amnesia is the reason people often forget telephone calls or conversations they’ve had in the middle of the night. It also explains why we often do not remember our alarms ringing in the morning if we go right back to sleep after turning them off.
Since sleep and wakefulness are influenced by different neurotransmitter signals in the brain, foods and medicines that change the balance of these signals affect whether we feel alert or drowsy and how well we sleep. Caffeinated drinks such as coffee and drugs such as diet pills and decongestants stimulate some parts of the brain and can cause insomnia, or an inability to sleep. Many antidepressants suppress REM sleep. Heavy smokers often sleep very lightly and have reduced amounts of REM sleep. They also tend to wake up after 3 or 4 hours of sleep due to nicotine withdrawal. Many people who suffer from insomnia try to solve the problem with alcohol – the so-called night cap. While alcohol does help people fall into light sleep, it also robs them of REM and the deeper, more restorative stages of sleep. Instead, it keeps them in the lighter stages of sleep, from which they can be awakened easily.
People lose some of the ability to regulate their body temperature during REM, so abnormally hot or cold temperatures in the environment can disrupt this stage of sleep. If our REM sleep is disrupted one night, our bodies don’t follow the normal sleep cycle progression the next time we doze off. Instead, we often slip directly into REM sleep and go through extended periods of REM until we “catch up” on this stage of sleep.
People who are under anesthesia or in a coma are often said to be asleep. However, people in these conditions cannot be awakened and do not produce the complex, active brain wave patterns seen in normal sleep. Instead, their brain waves are very slow and weak, sometimes all but undetectable.
Source: U.S. National Institutes of Health
Chronic snoring can dramatically affect both your life and the lives of everyone you live with.
Uninterrupted sleep is necessary to maintain your health and to reduce stress. If your or your partners snoring is continually waking you up, you need to do something now!
If you are overweight, that may be what’s causing your snoring. Adjust your diet and start exercising to lose weight. Your snoring will steadily decrease and eventually stop.
How you lay in bed can be a big influence on whether or not you snore. Avoid sleeping on your back. People who sleep on their backs tend to snore more than those who sleep on their sides or stomach, change your sleeping position, it might work.
Smoking is a big cause of snoring. Tobacco smoke and its additives cause the throat muscles to relax and obstruct the airway, interrupting your breathing. Yet another good reason to stop smoking.
Alcohol is another snore starter as it also relaxes your throat tissue. Reducing your drinking in the evening, especially before bed, can really help.
Eating also causes your throat muscles to relax, so avoid late dinners and snacks. Eating earlier in the evening gives your body a chance to digest and normalize your throat muscles.
Successfully tackling a snoring problem means being aware of your routines and habits so you can narrow down the cause. Sometimes minor adjustments to the way you live and eat can make all the difference. Nothing is better than a good nights sleep!
