Too Much Light: Ruining Not Just Your Sleep But Your Health Too

Falling asleep with the TV on or a dim night-light in your room may seem soothing. But these seemingly innocent light sources could also form barriers between you and healthy sleep.

Falling asleep with the TV on may ward off the bogeyman, but research suggests that, over time, too much light at night could interfere with healthy sleep, possibly increasing your risk of sleep disorders and other health problems. According to emerging research, sleep disorders and nighttime lighting may be making ...

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15
MAR
0

Tips and Tricks

Tips to Manage This Weekend’s Time Change

A few minor adjustments can help ‘morning people’ and children.

When the clocks go back an hour this weekend, some people may have trouble adjusting to the time change.

Many welcome the switch from daylight savings time to standard time because it means an extra hour of sleep on Sunday, but some will find it difficult to adapt, according to Girardin Jean-Louis, a sleep specialist and professor of medicine at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Exposure to ...

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1
MAR
0

Tips and Tricks

Tips on Coping With Daylight Saving Time

Tweaking sleeping, eating, drinking and online habits all can help, experts advise.

The loss of an hour of sleep that comes with overnight Saturday’s switch to daylight saving time can be uncomfortable if you don’t take some simple steps to prepare, experts say.

To help you adapt, Dr. Praveen Rudraraju, director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y., offers the following tips:

The bedroom should be used for sleep and sex only, Rudraraju advised in a ...

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15
FEB
0

Tips and Tricks

The Allure of Lucid Dreaming

Sounds like the stuff of movies, but some people can realize they’re in a dream while they’re still having it. Find out about this unusual phenomenon called lucid dreaming.

You’re standing somewhere that you only vaguely recognize. Maybe it’s your second grade classroom or a temple from ancient Greece. All the sudden, five tigers descend directly on you. Fear starts to make your breathing stop and your hand flail. But wait — you try to jump and suddenly you can fly ...

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1
FEB
0

World of Dreams

Snacking While Asleep? The Truth About Nocturnal Eating Disorders

Do you wake in the night and eat? Sleep eating is more common than you think.

Sure, everyone likes a good bedtime snack, but for some people, nighttime eating stretches beyond that final bowl of ice cream before turning in. These people find themselves inadvertently snacking the night away, either knowing or unknowingly, in the form of nocturnal eating disorders, or NEDs.

There are two types of these eating disorders, nocturnal eating syndrome (NES) and sleep-related eating disorder (SRED). The main difference ...

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15
JAN
0

Other Sleep Disorders

Smartphone Alarm Clock Offers Better Mornings

Want to wake up feeling well-rested more often? Smartphone apps can monitor your sleeping phases and wake you up when you’re the most likely to feel well-rested.

Waking up every morning without an alarm would be nice, but that usually happens only on the weekends. The problem with alarm clocks is that they wake you regardless of where you are in your sleep cycle, which often means sleep interruption.

A bio-alarm, however, offers a nearly painless way to wake up all week ...

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1
JAN
0

Tips and Tricks

Sleeping Pill Linked to Hospital Falls

Mayo Clinic phasing out Ambien because of study findings.

The sleep drug Ambien (zolpidem) greatly increases hospital patients’ risk of falling, a new study finds.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., looked at data on more than 16,000 hospitalized patients and found that the fall rate for those who took Ambien was more than four times higher than for those who did not take the drug — just over 3 percent compared with 0.7 percent.

Ambien is a commonly used sleep ...

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15
DEC
0

Doctors Orders

Sleep Positioners Linked to Infant Suffocation

These devices endanger babies’ lives and should not be used, U.S. agencies warn.

Parents should not use commercially available “infant sleep positioners” unless they are prescribed by their pediatrician. The devices have been associated with suffocation deaths, U.S. health officials warn.

The U.S. Centers of Disease and Prevention released a report detailing one such case and including findings from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has documented 13 deaths linked to infant sleep positioners in a 13-year period.

“Infant sleep positioners pose ...

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1
DEC
0

Doctors Orders

Sleep Meds Linked to Hip Fractures in Nursing Home Residents

Researchers linked the class of sleeping pills that includes Ambien, Lunesta, and Sonata to a higher risk for hip fractures in a new study, but experts say insomnia and a poor sleep environment may be to blame, not the sleep drugs.

Some sleep-inducing medications may be tied to an increased risk of hip fractures, according to a study published today in the the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

A research team led by Sarah D. Berry, M.D., M.P.H., of Harvard ...

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15
NOV
0

Doctors Orders

Sleep May Be Brain’s ‘Cleaning’ Time, Mouse Study Suggests

Is waste-removal system at work during slumber?

Why do humans need sleep? That age-old question may have an answer, with scientists finding that slumber seems to help the brain clear away potentially harmful waste that builds up during the day.

The new study of mice found that by “taking out the trash” during sleep, the brain clears away toxins thought to be responsible for brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

“This study shows that the brain has different functional states when asleep and ...

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1
NOV
0

Doctors Orders

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