Researchers in Sweden found people rated photographs of strangers as less attractive and healthy when the people in the photographs had less sleep.
The study used photographs of healthy, mainly young, students taken after either two nights of normal sleep (around eight hours a night) or two nights of restricted sleep (around four hours a night).
The photos were rated by 122 strangers, who were asked how much they would like to socialise with the people in the photographs, and how healthy, attractive, trustworthy and sleepy they looked.
The study found that on average, people were 2.1% less likely to want to socialize with people who'd had less sleep.
It's unclear how significant this finding is in real life, or what effect it might have on people not getting enough sleep. If you're having difficulty sleeping, whether or not other people want to socialize with you may be the least of your worries.
Persistently poor sleep can increase the chances of obesity and diabetes, and worsen conditions like depression and anxiety.
The study was carried out by researchers from Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University in Sweden and was funded by the two institutions and published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
This was a psychological study, using volunteers. This type of study can show the effects of experimental conditions on volunteers, but doesn't necessarily tell us what happens to people with sleep problems in real life.
Researchers recruited 14 female and 11 male students, mostly in their early 20s but ranging from 18-47 years old. All 25 students had their photograph taken twice – once after two nights of sleep restriction and once after two nights of normal sleep.
The photos were viewed by 122 members of the general public from Stockholm, 65 of them women, who gave ratings on a number of questions.
The researchers looked at the results to see if there was a difference between people's ratings of photos taken when people were sleep restricted, or when they'd had normal sleep.
For the photographs after normal sleep, people were told to go to bed for around eight hours, between 10pm and midnight until between 6am and 8am.
Before the sleep deprivation photographs, people were told to go to bed for around four hours, between midnight and 2am until between 4am and 6am.
They used actigraphs (special monitors) to measure activity so the researchers could check the students had followed the instructions properly.
The average difference in hours of sleep between the normal and restricted sleep was 3.5 hours a night, adding up to seven hours less sleep than normal over two nights.
All photographs were taken at the same time of day, by the same photographer, with people wearing no make-up and hair scraped back from the face.
Raters were asked to look at 50 photos (two from each person) and say on a scale of one to seven:
The researchers excluded ratings from people whose ratings showed low variability (less than 0.5 standard deviation between scores on normal sleep and restricted sleep photos) because they say this could indicate "low motivation to adhere to the instructions of the task".
People's average ratings were mostly in the middle of the seven-point scale on all questions, with averages between three and five for people who'd had normal sleep.
Raters' scores suggested they were less willing to socialize with people who'd been sleep restricted, but only by 0.15 points on a seven-point scale (around 2.1%).
Compared with average ratings after normal sleep, average ratings on a seven-point scale were:
There was no difference in the trustworthiness scores between normal sleep and sleep deprivation. Analysis showed only about a third of people's reduced willingness to socialize with sleep-restricted people was explained by the findings on attractiveness, health and sleepiness. In other words, something other than attractiveness, health or sleepiness was putting people off.
The researchers say their study "indicates that restricted sleep affects facial appearance negatively and decreases others' willingness to socialize with the sleep deprived person". They say it confirms previous findings that people completely deprived of sleep for one or two nights are judged to look less healthy and attractive, and extends the findings to "less substantial and more natural" sleep loss conditions.
Most people who have looked in the mirror after a sleepless night won't be surprised to hear that a poor night's sleep makes you look less attractive and healthy. It may not be particularly welcome news that your appearance could also put people off talking to you. But the study results show only a very small impact of sleep deprivation on people's perceptions of appearance.
While the results are statistically significant, it's hard to know how you would notice a 2% drop in a stranger's willingness to socialise with you and studies like this, which include only a limited demographic (in this case Swedish students aged around 22, mostly white) may have little relevance to anyone who doesn't fit that profile.
More important are the known health effects of sleep problems. An occasional late night is very different from persistent difficulties in getting to sleep or staying asleep.
Regular poor sleep can raise your risk of diabetes, heart disease and obesity, and is linked to mental health problems like anxiety and depression.
There are plenty of things you can try yourself to increase your chances of getting a good night's sleep. But if you've tried these and you're still struggling to sleep, talk to your GP.
Updated May 18 2017
Physiology of Breathing.
Normal breathing is done through the nose. Each nostril functions independently and synergistically to filter, warm, moisturize, dehumidify and smell the air.
Babies are born obligate nose breathers, but somewhere along the way nose breathing can change to mouth breathing, with dire consequences. The most obvious adverse effect of mouth breathing is dryness of the oral and pharyngeal tissues, leading to inflamed tonsils, tonsil stones, dry cough, swollen tongue, halitosis, gingivitis and caries.
Normal respiration follows a gentle wave pattern with 10 to 12 breaths per minute. Mouth breathers take too many breaths, with rates from 12 to 20 breaths per minute or more. Breathing delivers oxygen to the cells of the body and removes excess carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct of exercise and digestion of food. Carbon dioxide plays a significant role in the release of oxygen from hemoglobin. It also triggers breathing, maintains blood pH and prevents smooth muscle spasms. All of these functions are reduced or impaired in mouth breathers.
Surprisingly, oxygen is absorbed on the exhale, not on the inhale. The back pressure created in the lungs with the slower exhale of nose breathing allows more time for the lungs to transfer oxygen to the blood. This exchange requires carbon dioxide. Exhaling through the mouth blows the carbon dioxide out too quickly, resulting in less oxygen being absorbed.
The reason nasal breathing results in more oxygen being absorbed is nitric oxide is released in the nasal cavity and inhaled with nose breathing. Nitric oxide increases the efficiency of oxygen exchange by 18 percent. There is no nitric oxide inhaled with mouth breathing, therefore less oxygen is absorbed. The reduced oxygen absorption leads to a cascade of sleep, stamina, energy level and ADHD problems. Children diagnosed with ADHD may in fact be mouth breathers who are simply sleep deprived.
With nasal breathing, the tongue rests against the palate without touching the teeth. In this position, the tongue provides passive pressure that stimulates stem cells located in the palatal suture and within the periodontal ligaments around all the teeth, to direct normal palatal growth. The teeth erupt around the tongue, producing a healthy arch form. The lateral pressures from the tongue counters inward forces from the buccinator muscles
What Goes Wrong with Mouth Breathing?
Several things go wrong with mouth breathing. The low carbon dioxide levels associated with mouth breathing lead to over breathing or hyperventilation. With less oxygen being delivered to the brain, muscles and all the cells of the body, the body functions less than optimally. Sleep is often disturbed and of poor quality, leaving the mouth breather tired in the morning and feeling fatigued mid-afternoon. As the mouth dries out, the pH of saliva drops, leading to increased caries. This dryness and lack of air filtration in mouth breathing causes enlarged and inflamed tonsils and adenoids and increased risk of upper respiratory tract infections. Lower levels of carbon dioxide cause smooth muscle spasms associated with gastric reflux, asthma and bed wetting. Smooth muscle is found throughout the body – in the respiratory system, digestive system and circulatory system.
With mouth breathing, the tongue is down and forward allowing the buccinator muscles to push unopposed, causing the upper arch to collapse. Children who mouth breathe have an underdeveloped, narrow maxilla with a high vaulted palate. They develop a retrognathic mandible and generally have a long face. This is known as long face syndrome.
Some think the long face syndrome associated with mouth breathing is actually dictated by genetics rather than breathing. To see if mouth breathing alone could change jaw development and occlusion, Dr. Egil Harvold and his team tested this idea in monkeys. They artificially switched nose-breathing monkeys to mouth-breathing by surgically blocking their noses with silicone plugs. The monkeys were uncomfortable with the new mouth breathing, but eventually adapted and all developed changes to their jaws and malocclusion.
Mouth breathing related problems of skeletal development will set children up for obstructive sleep apnea later in life. In addition to changes in development of both maxilla and mandible, the airway is constricted, predisposing the child sleep problems.
It may seem logical that mouth breathing occurs because the nose is congested, but that is not always the case. The brain of a mouth breather thinks carbon dioxide is being lost too quickly from the nose and stimulates the goblet cells to produce mucous in the nose to slow the breathing. This creates a vicious circle of mouth breathing triggering mucous formation, nasal passages blocking, leading to more mouth breathing. So in fact, mouth breathing can cause nasal congestion leading to more mouth breathing.
Recognizing Mouth Breathing.
Determining if someone is a mouth breather is not always easy. Some people admit they always breathe through their mouth. Others believe they are nose breathers, but if you watch them, their mouth is open most of the time. Sitting still, they may have their mouth closed, but if they get up and walk across the room, their mouth is open. Chewing with the mouth open may be done so the person can breathe while eating. One sign of mouth breathing is an addiction to Chapstick or lip gloss. An open mouth leads to drooling, both awake and asleep, causing chapped lips and a tendency for mouth breathers to lick their lips frequently. Closed-mouth lip seal is efficient at keeping saliva in and air out, but chronic mouth breathers may find it very difficult to hold their lips together.
Mouth breathing at night dries the tissues so the mouth, teeth, tissue and the throat are all dry upon waking. Always having a glass or bottle of water at hand might signal systemic xerostomia, but it is also a sign of mouth breathing. If someone wakes with a dry mouth, they are likely a mouth breather at night, which means they are also likely to mouth breathe during the day.
Trisha O'Hehir, RDH, MS
Updated May 8 2017
Snoring doesn’t just interfere with the snorer’s sleep. When it comes to couples, one person’s snoring often means sleep trouble for two. And it isn’t only sleep that can suffer. Snoring can put great strain on relationships. A snoring problem often creates not only tiredness but also frustration and resentment between couples. It can interfere with sexual and emotional intimacy, and can push couples to sleep in separate bedrooms.
There are many good reasons to treat snoring, including restoring sleep quality, guarding against risks to health, and improving daytime functioning. Protecting the health and intimacy of your relationship is another important reason to treat a snoring problem.
How can snoring cause so much trouble within a relationship? Snoring, a form of sleep-disordered breathing, interferes with sleep quality and sleep quantity, both for the person who snores, and, often, for the person who sleeps with a snorer. Poor quality and insufficient sleep interfere with our thinking skills and judgment. Lack of sleep can make us irritable and short-tempered. Poor sleep diminishes our ability to manage conflict well increasing negative feelings and reducing our ability to empathize. Lack of sleep has been shown in scientific research to make couples feel less appreciative of each other, and to experience greater feelings of selfishness. Sound like a recipe for relationship difficulties? It is.
What’s more, snoring can become a focal point of both frustration and shame within the dynamic of a couple’s relationship. The person who is kept awake (or who has to shuffle off to the spare bedroom in the middle of the night) may grow to feel resentful of his or her snoring partner. The snorer, meanwhile, often feels guilty, ashamed, and helpless about their noisy, disruptive sleep. These feelings can be a real source of irritation and isolation for even very loving couples.
It’s no surprise that snoring often sends couples to separate bedrooms in search of undisturbed rest. Some couples may find that sleeping apart suits them well, and doesn’t diminish their feelings of closeness. But many couples very much want to sleep together — but can’t, because of a snoring issue. Sleeping apart can interfere with intimacy, sexual and emotional. Couples may find themselves having sex less often when they’re regularly sleeping apart. Partners also may miss the physical closeness of sleeping together, and the emotional bond that it confers for many people.
Snoring isn’t the only reason that couples resort to sleeping apart. Different schedules and different preferences for bedtimes and wake times may lead couples to separate sleeping spaces. Issues within a couple’s sleep environment — a room that’s too hot, or too bright, or a bed that’s too small — can also drive couples to different rooms. But snoring is a common reason. Think you’re alone in sleeping separately from your partner? Far from it. Estimates vary, but recent studies and surveys indicate that anywhere from 25 percent to 40 percent of couples are regularly sleeping in separate bedrooms.
It doesn’t need to be this way. Tending to a snoring problem can pave the way for couples to sleep peacefully — and quietly — together, and help to improve the way couples relate to one another during their waking day.
Tending to a snoring issue can lead to better sleep for both partners, as well as a more loving and harmonious relationship that includes sleeping together, not apart. Sleeping well with the person we love is the goal, and by treating snoring effectively, it can happen.
Michael J. Breus, PhD
Updated May 6 2017
So you have given up caramel mocchacinos, and promised you will use your gym membership, and maybe even jumped on the “be kind” bandwagon. But have you thought about adding your family’s sleep to your resolutions? I’m going to convince you that it should be on your list, if not at the top of it.
Does it seem like sleep should just “come naturally” and not even be a “resolution”? Well, I can tell you based on the science and on experience working with thousands of sleep deprived infants, toddlers and parents around the world that one of the biggest sleep myths out there is just that: “sleep comes naturally, it is just a matter of time.” Like riding a bike, healthy sleep habits and learning to fall and stay asleep are learned behaviors that take a lot of practice for your child and patience for you!
Here are 10 reasons why you should add “ensuring adequate sleep for my family” to the top of your list:
Brain Development: Infant’s brains are growing rapidly, every day, every minute much of the growth occurs during sleep. Growing brains require repeated cycling through all the stages of sleep in order to develop and work properly. Interestingly, research suggests infants who get large proportion of sleep at night perform better at abstract reasoning tests at age 4.
Cognitive Development: We all are better able to retain information when we are well rested. Many studies have shown that children who get sufficient sleep are better problem solvers, more creative and flexible thinkers, and have greater academic success. One recent study from University of Massachusetts, Amherst showed that preschoolers who missed naps were less able to both learn new information and recall information they had recently learned. Studies also show that high school students with high academic achievement get an average of 30 minutes more sleep per night than students with lower performance.
Muscle Development: Muscle development happens almost exclusively during sleep for adults and children. And this doesn’t just matter if you’re trying to bulk up — children spend a lot of their time growing and lengthening, turning baby fat into coordinated muscles. If infants and children are not sleeping properly, their muscles cannot develop as they should. Deep sleep triggers the body to release human growth hormone that aid growth in children and teens. This hormone also improves muscle mass and helps repair cells and tissues in children, teens, and adults.
Memory: When we are snoozing, our brains are working hard to file and store (or discard, as the case may be)what we have experienced and learned during the day. Children’s brains transform subconsciously learned material into active knowledge while they sleep. This process is much more effective and important in babies and toddlers because everything is so new to them. Conversely, sleep deprivation interferes with memory acquisition making learning and retaining new things almost impossible.
Mood: Brace yourself for the foul mood of a toddler who has missed a nap or the fussiness of an infant who has been passed around to too many family members for too long. We can all get a little grouchy when we don’t sleep; but young children and babies have an especially low tolerance for lack of sleep causing them and everyone around them to be irritable, angry and easily upset. A study from The University of Colorado at Boulder concluded that toddlers with insufficient naps showed more anxiety and frustration, less joy and interest, and poor understanding of how to solve problems.
Behavior: Anyone with a toddler who woke up a little too early, stayed up a little too, or missed a nap knows the dreaded consequences: whines that escalate into a supersonic, ear-shattering, teeth-jarring screams that make you want to run away and join the circus if that were an option. I can tell you from experience that one simple solution to these all out meltdowns is adequate sleep. The New England Center for Pediatric Psychology has coined the term Faux ADHD to describe children who have been diagnosed with ADHD, but whose behaviors are in fact directly linked to two detrimental sleep behaviors. In up to 35% of cases, sleep deprivation is misdiagnosed as ADHD.
Immunity: Did you know that sleep not only energizes our body and our brain, but also helps our immune system protect us against the common cold? And even a small amount of sleep loss can increase inflammation and cause tissue damage, affecting the immune system’s ability to fight infection. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recently published their recommendations for the amount of sleep needed by infants through teenagers to “avoid the health risks of insufficient sleep.” Ensuring adequate sleep is the secret weapon that can help ward off the common cold, as well as chronic diseases like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Obesity: Many studies have now confirmed strong links between obesity and sleep deprivation in children. The science shows impaired glucose control and altered hormone production as the main culprits; in addition to the fact that kids who are getting less sleep are spending more time watching TV. The NIH even concluded that adequate sleep may prevent obesity.
Safety: Numerous studies show that losing sleep impairs your ability to think and make decisions akin to being intoxicated. After several nights of losing sleep — even just 1–2 hours — your ability to function suffers as if you haven’t slept at all in 2 days. This seems especially scary for injury prone toddlers who turn living rooms into Olympic stages and think nothing of torpedoing off the sofa when you’re looking the other way.
Your sanity: Need I say more?? You quite simply can’t function like a normal human being when neither you nor your child is sleeping and this makes all of us a bit loopy.
Rebecca Kempton Physician and certified pediatric sleep specialist.
Updated April 28 2017
Children who snore are at greater risk of developing reduced intellectual abilities, high blood pressure and poor behaviours than sound sleepers. Disturbing new research by Monash University reveals that snoring in children is leading to far more harm than missed snooze time because lower oxygen levels during the night can affect a child’s cardiovascular and neurocognitive abilities. The study of more than 260 children found that the blood pressure in child snorers was 10 per cent higher than children who don’t snore. MRI scans also revealed significant changes to the brain of children who snore which can lead to reduced mental abilities and poor behaviour. With approximately 1 million Australian children snoring, Monash University Professor Rosemary Horne has warned parents snoring is not a harmless process their kids will outgrow. Professor Horne says snoring will affect how children behave and learn at school as well as their blood pressure. The most common treatment for problem snoring is the removal of adenoids and tonsils. The study of 136 children aged 7-12 and 128 aged 3-5 revealed their blood pressure had improved after treatment however Professor Horne warns although these children showed improvement, they were still behind their classmates who had never snored. “What we want to know now is if you treat these children, whether the deficits we see in the brain can be repaired,” Professor Horne said. Full results of the Monash study will be presented at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies meeting in Boston this June. Prof Horne hopes the study will convince more parents to have their children referred for sleep studies before the damage is done.
Updated 19 April 2017
New research suggests why waking up every few hours because of a newborn is such agony. Several nights of interrupted sleep may be tougher to deal with than getting less sleep, new research suggests.
"When your sleep is disrupted throughout the night, you don't have the opportunity to progress through the sleep stages to get the amount of slow-wave sleep that is key to the feeling of restoration," study lead author Patrick Finan, a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a statement.
The findings are published in the journal Sleep.
Parents of a newborns — as well as people who work certain jobs, such as hospital doctor — know what it's like to be woken up multiple times a night. And people with insomnia often suffer from fitful sleep. They also tend to have depressed moods, but researchers don't know exactly why.
To better understand why insomnia and depression are linked, Finan and his colleagues asked 62 men and women to come to the researchers' sleep laboratory. There, the participants had their sleep tracked for three nights using a technique called polysomnography.
Half the people were woken up eight times over the course of those nights, while another group was forced to go to bed late for three days, but allowed to sleep uninterrupted.
After the first night, neither group felt great. People in both the frequently woken group and the sleep-deprived group had low levels of positive emotions, and high levels of negative mood in the morning.
But on the second and third nights, those who were awoken through the night had even lower levels of positive mood than those who were deprived of sleep.
Based on the subjects' brain waves, the researchers determined that the people whose sleep was interrupted spent less time in deep, slow-wave sleep. The shortage of slow-wave sleep was tied to lower levels of positive mood, the study found. And those who were awoken frequently not only felt less energetic, but also less friendly and sympathetic, the researchers found.
“The findings suggest why insomnia may be so hard on people's mood and disposition, Finan said: They're missing out on the restorative phase of sleep. You can imagine the hard time people with chronic sleep disorders have after repeatedly not reaching deep sleep”.
By Tia Ghose.
Updated April 12 2017
The unfortunate reality is that you can do everything you’re supposed to do in order to get a good night’s sleep — put away your phone and your laptop, keep your feet outside the covers, cut out caffeine several hours before bed — and still end up staring at the ceiling long after you turn out the lights.
Here’s the problem: For all the tips the experts have to offer, they still haven’t figured out a way to stop the slow march of time — and as pretty much anyone past college age can attest, growing older means getting worse at sleeping soundly.
The amount of deep sleep you get each night begins to decline in your late 20s, regardless of how long you’re actually unconscious; by age 50, you spend just half as much time in deep sleep as you did 30 years before.
If you can’t beat it, though, at least you can try to understand it. In a review paper published this week in the journal Neuron and highlighted by Popular Science, a team of researchers identified one possible cause. As you age, your brain becomes worse at knowing when you’re tired.
Specifically, they argued, the neurological receptors that pick up the chemicals that signify fatigue decrease over time, leaving you with a sleepy body and a brain that won’t shut off to accommodate it. “It’s almost like a radio antenna that’s weak,” co-author Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, said. “The signal is there, but the antenna just can’t pick it up.”
The bad news is, there’s not really anything you can do to stop that process; the good news, however small a comfort, is that at least all those other research-backed tips and tricks are better than nothing.
Updated April 9 2017
This is the first genetic mutation found to be associated with delayed sleep phase disorder. Sleep apnea.
Do you get your best work done late at night and then struggle to wake up in the morning? New research suggests your night owl tendencies could be hard-wired in your genes.
In the new study, researchers looked at 70 people from six families and found that a mutation in a gene called CRY1 was common among those who have a condition known as delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD). In people with this condition, the circadian clock runs behind, so they wake up later than normal, and go to bed later than normal.
The mutation was absent in the members of these same families who did not have DSPD, the researchers said. In addition, the researchers showed in lab experiments that this gene may play a key role in driving the circadian clock.
This is the first genetic mutation found to be associated with DSPD, the researchers said.
“Carriers of the mutation have longer days than the planet gives them, so they are essentially playing catch-up for their entire lives,” Alina Patke, the lead author of the study and a research associate in the Laboratory of Genetics at The Rockefeller University, said in a statement from Cell Press.
Daily rhythms
The circadian clock is an internal rhythm that guides nearly all life on Earth. In people, it dictates when one feels tired, hungry or awake. It even regulates body temperature. Most people are hard-wired to a 24-hour clock, but up to 10 percent of peoplewith DSPD follow an internal clock that runs on a longer loop.
“A person like a bartender, for example, might not experience any problem with the delayed sleep cycle,” Patke told Live Science. “But someone like a surgeon who has to be in the OR in the early morning – that’s not compatible.”
Patke and her colleagues first identified the DSPD-linked mutation seven years ago, in a 46-year-old U.S. woman who had come to a sleep clinic after a long struggle with her late sleep cycle.
Patke’s team andother researchers analyzed the woman’s natural sleep patterns. She was placed in an apartment for two weeks that was isolated from all time cues.
“It didn’t have windows, TV or internet,” Patke said. “Then we told her to live on her own timeline and to eat and sleep according to what her body told her to do.”
In this isolation, the woman settled into a rhythm that stretched about 1 hour longer than the typical 24-hour circadian cycle, and her sleep was fragmented, Patke said.
In sequencing her genes, the researchers identified the CRY1 mutation. The mutation is a single-point mutation in the CRY1 gene, meaning just one “letter” in its genetic instructions is off.
In the new study, Patke’s team confirmed CRY1 genetic mutation’s link to delayed sleep phase disorder by looking for the mutation among the woman’s extended family, and in other population samples.
Using a database of genomic information for people in Turkey, the researchers identified people who carried the mutation in CRY1. In collaboration with researchers at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, the researchers reached out to these people, and were able to conduct interviews and perform further DNA sequencing with the members of six families.
Among the Turkish family members, 39 carried the CRY1 mutation, and 31 did not. Data revealed that the sleep cycles of those carrying the gene were clearly late-shifted. Their midpoint of sleep naturally fell between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., while the midpoint of sleep for those who did not carry the mutation fell around 4 a.m.
Other genetic causes?
Clinical studies estimate that up to 10 percent of people experience delayed sleep phase disorder, and not all the cases may be linked to this single mutation, the researchers said.
In fact, Patke said that she is a night owl and often works late into the night. But she does not carry the CRY1 mutation.
“I checked,” she said. “Not everybody who had this behavior necessarily has this mutation, but it does seem to have an effect on a large part of the population.”
There are likely other underlying genetic causes for the condition, Patke said.
Still, identifying at least one genetic mutation behind the sleep disorder represents an important step.
“Understanding how the rhythms are controlled opens the door to eventually manipulating them with drugs,” Patke said.
Also, she said that if a drug is eventually found to help night owls align their sleep schedules to normal patterns, a similar pathway could be tapped to help travelers deal with jet lag.
In the meantime, the researchers emphasized there are strategies that people with delayed sleep phase disorder can use to try to reset their clocks.
Patke advised practicing “good sleep hygiene,” which involves going to bed at a set time every night, even on weekends, and waking up at a set time each morning. Avoiding bright lights (including laptops and smartphones) at night also helps, as does exposing yourself to the sunlight first thing in the morning.
“Even if you have this mutation, it’s not unchangeable destiny,” Patke said. “There are steps you can take to try and match your internal rhythms to the outside world.”
Amanda Onion Live Science
Updated April 8 2017
The most common sleep disorder is, by far, insomnia. One in every 3 adults has occasional insomnia while one in every 10 has it chronically. Insomnia is normally a phase for many people due to many reasons like stress for example. Once the stress is gone, then the insomnia is gone. This type of insomnia can usually be fixed by trying natural methods.
One of these methods to help you sleep better can be as simple as changing your diet. Yes, certain foods can make us sleepy! Why do you think sometimes you feel sleepy after that nice lunch you had on your work break? Now, this does not mean to engorge these foods and you will sleep better at night. Actually, eating too much of any kind of food will hurt your chances of getting a good night’s rest. So, what are the foods that help you sleep? Here are the top 10.
The key to remember is foods with a mix of calcium, potassium, magnesium, tryptophan, and B6 are going to be the foods to look for. All of the above have one of these or more. By trying these foods in the evening, you may be surprised by how fast you can fall asleep.
Author
Aaron Stevenson.
Updated April 7 2017
New research has found sleep quantity and quality decline from the mid the mid-30s suggesting the elderly are suffering from an unmet sleep need.
Getting good quality sleep and enough of it has been proven to be a nightmare for older people. It's well known that as people age, they sleep less and wake up more frequently.
New research suggests the ageing process affects the quality of sleep people get, wreaking havoc on a person both mentally and physically and could even be implicated in the prevalence of many diseases and dementia.
A review of scientific literature published in medical journal Neuron found that adults may be losing their ability to produce deep, restorative sleep from their mid-30s.
"Sleep changes with ageing, but it doesn't just change with ageing; it can also start to explain ageing itself," said review co-author Matthew Walker, who leads the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Every one of the major diseases that are killing us in first-world nations - from diabetes to obesity to Alzheimer's disease to cancer - all of those things now have strong causal links to a lack of sleep. And all of those diseases significantly increase in likelihood the older that we get, and especially in dementia."
"We need to recognise the causal contribution of sleep disruption in the physical and mental deterioration that underlies ageing and dementia. More attention needs to be paid to the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disturbance if we are going to extend healthspan, and not just lifespan," he said.
Updated April 6 2017
If you wake up regularly feeling like the inside of your mouth is as parched as a desert, you could be a mouth breather. A condition that sees people breathing through their mouth rather than their nose, mouth breathing can come with a host of unpleasant symptoms.
What is mouth breathing?
Though mouth breathing happens for different reasons in adults and children, the culprit is usually a nasal obstruction. When we breathe normally through the nose, the air we take in is warmed and moistened before it gets to our lungs. If a person has difficulty breathing through the nose, however, he or she is forced to take in cold, dry air through the mouth.
What causes it?
Essentially an incorrect form of respiration, mouth breathing can happen for a number of reasons. ‘Some kids do it out of habit,’ explains Dr. Veronique Benhamou, director of periodontology at McGill University in Montreal. ‘Their bite may be off, or the position of the jaw and teeth may be such that when they sleep, their lips don’t quite close.’ A child may also suffer from abnormally large tonsils, which can obstruct breathing.
Dr. Harry Hoediono, president of the Ontario Dental Association, says mouth breathing may also occur as a result of a birth defect, like a deviated septum, that may make it more difficult to breathe through the nose. ‘It could even be a skeletal deformity that has never been picked up on, but that makes it easier for someone to breathe if they lean forward and breathe through their mouth,’ he explains.
Dr. Hoediono also says that some people, especially older people, can end up mouth breathing as a result of taking medication, a condition called xerostomia. ‘In these cases, the dryness can be painful. It can feel like the mouth is burning,’ he says. Mouth breathing can also develop after glands are damaged during chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Why is it a problem?
One of the most common side effects of mouth breathing is an excessively dry mouth. Under normal conditions, saliva continuously washes bacteria from the mouth. If your mouth is dry, however, that bacteria can more readily take hold and cause problems like cavities. ‘That’s because dry membranes are easier to invade,’ explains Dr. Hoediono.
In children, mouth breathing can also lead to permanent skeletal deformities. That’s because it promotes the growth of the upper jaw, rather than the lower jaw. ‘The result is a large overbite and a gummy smile.’
Dr. Hoediono says that mouth breathing can also cause sleep difficulties, causing people to wake in the night if they aren’t getting enough oxygen. In children, lack of sleep may reduce their ability to pay attention and concentrate at school, which may be mistaken for attention deficit disorder. In adults, mouth breathing can be related to sleep apnea, which causes people to wake frequently at night. ‘You can end up feeling exhausted the next day,’ says Dr. Hoediono.
Signs of mouth breathing.
While a natural mouth breather may be able to stave off dryness by remoistening the mouth throughout the day, it will get dry overnight. ‘Because you are breathing through your mouth all night, you dry out the soft tissues,’ she explains. Mouth breathers often have chronically red and inflamed gums, even if their oral health is otherwise good. Adults may also find they have bleeding gums, or may get frequent cavities.
Another sign is if the back of your throat feels dry and itchy when you wake up, or there’s a burning sensation. ‘When you wake up, put a finger over one nostril and try to breathe in while keeping your mouth closed, and then try it on the other side. Any difficulty inhaling could indicate a problem with blocked nasal passageways.’
Because it is so drying, mouth breathing can also cause chronic bad breath. ‘People tell me they brush their teeth constantly or they chew gum, but the bad breath is still there,’ says Dr. Hoediono.
What to do.
It’s important to determine why the mouth breathing is happening before you can correct it. ‘If the cause is huge tonsils, then removing them might be an option,’ she says. If the problem is structural ‘ a child can’t, for example, close his lips over flared front teeth ‘ then the solution may be orthodontic treatment.
Using a humidifier while sleeping can help ease mouth dryness, as can replenishing with lots of fluids. Dr. Benhamou sometimes suggests patients rub a small amount of vitamin E oil on their gums before bedtime to keep them from drying out overnight.
Updated April 5 2017
Sleep For Elite Athletes and Nutritional Interventions to Enhance Sleep
Sleep has numerous important physiological and cognitive functions that may be particularly important to elite athletes. Recent evidence, as well as anecdotal information, suggests that athletes may experience a reduced quality and/or quantity of sleep.
Sleep deprivation can have significant effects on athletic performance, especially submaximal, prolonged exercise.
Compromised sleep may also influence learning, memory, cognition, pain perception, immunity and inflammation. Furthermore, changes in glucose metabolism and neuroendocrine function as a result of chronic, partial sleep deprivation may result in alterations in carbohydrate metabolism, appetite, food intake and protein synthesis. These factors can ultimately have a negative influence on an athlete’s nutritional, metabolic and endocrine status and hence potentially reduce athletic performance.
Research has identified a number of neurotransmitters associated with the sleep–wake cycle. These include serotonin, gamma-aminobutyric acid, orexin, melanin-concentrating hormone, cholinergic, galanin, noradrenaline, and histamine. Therefore, nutritional interventions that may act on these neurotransmitters in the brain may also influence sleep.
Carbohydrate, tryptophan, valerian, melatonin and other nutritional interventions have been investigated as possible sleep inducers and represent promising potential interventions. In this review, the factors influencing sleep quality and quantity in athletic populations are examined and the potential impact of nutritional interventions is considered.
While there is some research investigating the effects of nutritional interventions on sleep, future research may highlight the importance of nutritional and dietary interventions to enhance sleep.
Updated April 5 2017
