When to See an Otolaryngologist

First of all, what is an otolaryngologist – also called an ENT? It is a doctor who specializes in ear, nose, and throat conditions. Regardless of which one of those three areas is affected by your health condition, you may need a referral for an ear, nose, and throat doctor.

Let’s take the ear, for example. If you suffer from recurrent ear infections, a balance problem, ringing in your ears, or were born with a disorder of the ear, an otolaryngologist ...

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SEP
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Doctors Orders

The Positives and Negatives of Napping

Feel an afternoon yawn coming on? Put down the coffee and make room for a little shut-eye.

Ever get that sleepy feeling in the late afternoon, where you just start yawning? Your body may be clamoring for a nap.

For many people, a late-afternoon snooze can be beneficial, said Steven M. Scharf, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore, explaining that the body operates on a 24-hour clock regulating sleepiness and wakefulness.

Ask most any night-shift ...

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AUG
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Sleep 101

How Bladder Problems Can Impact Your Sleep

Are you waking up to go during the night? Find out what could be behind these unwanted nighttime trips to the bathroom.

If you dream of a solid night of sleep, but nighttime urination often interrupts those plans, you’re not alone.

“Nocturia, or the need to urinate at night, is a common complaint of many people,” said W. Stuart Reynolds, MD, MPH, assistant professor of urologic surgery at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn. According to the National Sleep Foundation, ...

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AUG
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Doctors Orders

Sleep and Childhood Brain Development: The Critical Link

In this month’s British Medical Journal, there’s a report on a study demonstrating the relationship of sleep to brain development in kids. It is called the Millennium cohort Study, and it followed 11000 children. Those children who demonstrated irregular bedtimes up to the age of three were the most negatively affected when it came to reading, math skills and spatial awareness. When followed over time, they continued to lag developmentally even by the age of seven — and girls more ...

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15
JUL
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Sleepless Dangers

Sleep and Circadian Rhythms

Circadian rhythms is the changes in your body over the course of a day. For example, in the morning your body changes the levels of the hormones which create the feeling of being awake and alert. In the evening, these levels change again, making you feel sleepy. Circadian is a combination of two Latin words: circa meaning ‘around’ and dies meaning ‘day.’

The SCN – Your Body’s Clock

You body needs to know what time it is. It uses cues like daylight ...

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15
JUN
0

Sleep 101

The $63 Billion Cost of Insomnia: By the Numbers

With the average worker losing 11.3 days of productivity to insomnia each year, employers should be losing sleep

Not sleeping enough can have serious health costs. But it can have pretty big financial costs, too, according to a new study in the journal Sleep. Insomnia is “an under-appreciated problem,” says lead author Ronald Kessler, at Harvard Medical School. “Americans are not missing work because of insomnia,” but they are doing lousy work because they’re tired. “It’s difficult to find a condition ...

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JUN
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Insomnia

The Stages of Sleep

There are five phases of sleep: stages 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM (rapid eye movement). Usually when you are sleeping, you begin at stage 1 and go through each stage until reaching REM sleep, and then you begin the cycle again. Each complete sleep cycle takes from 90 to 110 minutes. Your brain acts differently in each stage of sleep. In some of the stages, your body may make movements, but in others your arms and legs will be ...

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15
MAY
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Sleep 101

Top 10 Sleep Myths

We sleep about one-third of the day, but we know very little about sleep. Understanding these 10 sleep myths will help you clear up misunderstandings and get more and better sleep each night.

1. Sleep is Just Rest

Sleep is more than simply a period of rest; it is an essential time for your body to perform routine maintenance, creating long-term memories and repair damage from your day. Sleep brings many health benefits. Getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night ...

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MAY
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Sleep 101

Understanding Dreams

What are Dreams?

Dreams happen during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. In a typical night, you dream for a total of 2 hours, broken up by the sleep cycle. Researchers do not know much about how we dream or why. They do know that newborns dream and that depriving rats of REM sleep greatly shortens their lives. Other mammals and birds also have REM sleep stages, but cold-blooded animals such as turtles, lizards and fish do not.

REM Sleep ...
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APR
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World of Dreams

Air Mattress Guide: From Practical Guest Beds to Peaceful Rest Beds

Once reserved for holidays and houseguests, air beds have recently carved out a much broader niche in the bed world, due largely to the efforts of the Sleep Number mattress company, maker of the popular Sleep Number bed. Today’s more robust, upscale air beds look similar to innerspring mattresses, but use air in lieu of coils. For aficionados, the air bed’s most attractive feature is its adjustable firmness, which can be easily tweaked by increasing or decreasing the air pressure ...

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Mattresses 101

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