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.”

Are you one of the many Americans plagued with insomnia?
You’re not alone. According to an article published in the April 2007 issue of About.Com: Longevity, between 30 to 40 percent of adults report some difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep and 10 to 15 percent of report some form of long-term, chronic insomnia.
Researchers attribute insomnia […]

Insomnia is one of the most common disorders. The 2005 Sleep in America Poll of the National Sleep Foundation showed 54 percent of respondents had experienced at least one symptom of insomnia at least a few nights a week in the past year. While the vast majority of those polled said they never use sleep aids, 11 percent reported using alcohol, beer or wine; 9 percent, over-the-counter sleep aids; 7 percent, prescription medications; 3 percent, an eye mask or earplugs, and 2 percent, melatonin.

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.

To fight travel insomnia, take earplugs and eye shades. Check with your doctor if you think you need a prescription sleeping pill or want to try something homeopathic.

Night owls also displayed the most erratic bedtime and wake-time habits, and were relatively more depressed and more frustrated by their insomnia. For example, the “owls” expressed more concern than the others about the consequences of insomnia and their inability to control sleep. They made up for such deficits by choosing to spend more time sleeping. In this way, they actually racked up more total sleep time than the other study participants.

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 […]

Researchers studying a disease that causes people to suddenly drop off to sleep are trying to turn what they have learned into a new way to help insomniacs get some shut-eye.
They found that blocking brain receptors for orexin, a blood peptide, promoted sleep in rats, dogs and people, according to a paper in Sunday’s online […]

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.