Even a 12-minute nap can boost some forms of memory, adds Dr. Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School.

Remedies to help people fall asleep have been around for centuries, from laudanum in the 1800s to barbiturates more recently. “Unfortunately, most of them were addictive and potentially deadly,” said Dr. David Neubauer, associate director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “The history of sleep medications is really a tale of improving safety.”

Experts say this erratic sleeping cycle is all too common, especially among busy young women. But many somnorexics don’t know that their habits are unhealthy.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, more than 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders. This week, the sleep industry’s biggest convention of the year drew some 5,400 medical experts and sales reps to Minneapolis. That’s about 10 times the number who came in 1990, when the city last hosted the event.

“Many physicians assume that when an older patient has insomnia, and is given a hypnotic drug to help induce sleep, the drug will make the patient likely to fall and develop a hip fracture,” says Avidan. “But our findings suggest that people whose insomnia is effectively treated are less likely to fall than untreated insomniacs.”

It is recommended that older adults get seven to eight hours of sleep each night for good health and optimum performance. Unfortunately, many older adults often get less sleep than they need. One reason is that they often have more trouble falling asleep.

Insomnia is becoming more common in our society, particularly in women. The one thing you have to realize is that all these medicines suppress your breathing. If you have sleep apnea, you do not want to take them because they can make your breathing more shallow. Unfortunately, the drugs we have are just short-term treatment options.

Exhaustion reduces the body’s ability to fight disease. It diminishes mental sharpness, leading to poor judgment and delayed reaction time — critical factors while driving a car, say, or caring for small children. Drowsiness or driver fatigue is cited by police as a factor in 56,000 accidents annually.

Getting to the backcountry sometimes involves staying up late and getting up early, so how we manage sleep and being sleepy is a safety issue. Mountain climbs often start in the early morning, so getting proper sleep is a safety factor as well as an issue of comfort.
There are two major components of sleep called […]

Persistent sleep disturbances add to the fatigue they hope to overcome. Doctors don’t know why as many as 66 percent of cancer survivors experience sleep problems in the year following cancer treatment. Despite the use of sleep aids and antidepressants, survivors continue to report fatigue and depression.