Archive for April, 2010
Dr. Mansfield Is Difficulty Breathing While Lying Down A Sleep Apnea Symptom?
Dr. Mansfield recalls if difficulty breathing when lying down is considered a sleep apnea symptom. For more on sleep apnea visit http://www.empowher.com/condition/sleep-apnea.
Duration : 0:1:0
How to Diagnose Sleep Disorders : Obstructive Sleep Apnea Treatment
Obstructive sleep apnea can be very difficult for an individual’s well-being if it’s not treated properly. Learn some tips for assessing and treating obstructive sleep apnea from our medical expert in this free video.
Expert: Taylor Smith
Bio: Taylor Smith, CMA, is a multifaceted Certified Medical Assistant.
Filmmaker: Doug Craig
Duration : 0:2:47
Insomnia cures and home remedies “insomnia”
http://bit.ly/8bpiAL
website
Causes
Insomnia can be caused by:
* Psychoactive drugs or stimulants, including certain medications, herbs, caffeine, cocaine, ephedrine, amphetamines, methylphenidate, MDMA, methamphetamine and modafinil
* Hormone shifts such as those that precede menstruation and those during menopause
* Life problems like fear, stress, anxiety, emotional or mental tension, work problems, financial stress, unsatisfactory sex life
* Mental disorders such as clinical depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, general anxiety disorder
* Disturbances of the circadian rhythm, such as shift work and jet lag, can cause an inability to sleep at some times of the day and excessive sleepiness at other times of the day.
Jet lag is seen in people who travel through multiple time zones, as the time relative to the rising and setting of the sun no longer coincides with the body’s internal concept of it. The insomnia experienced by shift workers is also a circadian rhythm sleep disorder.
* Insomnia-Estrogen Estrogen is considered to play a significant role in women’s mental health (including insomnia). A conceptual model of how estrogen affects mood was suggested by Douma et al 2005 based on their extensive literature review relating activity of endogenous, bio-identical and synthetic estrogen with mood and
well-being. They concluded the sudden estrogen withdrawal, fluctuating estrogen, and periods of sustained estrogen low levels correlated with significant mood lowering. Clinical
recovery from depression postpartum, perimenopause, and postmenopause was shown to be effective after levels of estrogen were stabilized and/or restored.
* Certain neurological disorders, brain lesions, or a history of traumatic brain injury
* Medical conditions such as hyperthyroidism and Wilson’s syndrome
* Abuse of over-the counter or prescription sleep aids can produce rebound insomnia
* Poor sleep hygiene
* Parasomnia, which includes a number of disruptive sleep events including nightmares, sleepwalking, violent behavior while sleeping, and REM behavior disorder, in which a person moves his/her physical body in response to events within his/her dreams
* The full moon lunar phase
* A rare genetic condition can cause a prion-based, permanent and eventually fatal form of insomnia called fatal familial insomnia
A common misperception is that the amount of sleep a person requires
decreases as he or she ages. The ability to sleep for long periods,
rather than the need for sleep, appears to be lost as people get older. Some elderly insomniacs toss and turn in bed and occasionally fall off the bed at night, diminishing the amount of sleep they receive.
An overactive mind or physical pain may also be causes. Finding the underlying cause of insomnia is usually necessary to cure it. Insomnia can be common after the loss of a loved one, even years or decades after the death, if they have not gone through the grieving process. Overall, symptoms and the degree of their severity affect each individual differently depending on their mental health, physical condition, and attitude or personality.
Duration : 0:0:51
What diagnostic tests should I ask my doctor to do to determine cause of my tiredness and sleep difficulties?
I am 43 year old male, and am feeling overall poorly. I am strong and all that, but I just feel weak and tired, and I have difficulty getting good sleep. I recently was diagnosed with sleep apnea and am using the CPAP machine, but I still wake up tired and cant maintain my sleep through the night. I still drag through the day with tiredness, weakness, and depression. A friend suggested a series of tests his naturepathic doctor took him through including hormone levels check, hair, and spittle test…but he didnt know what the other tests available to determine chemistry and nutritional deficiencys might be. Wondering if anyone could advise me on what tests to have my doctor adminster.
Sleeping 02 sats – your blood oxygen level while sleeping. It needs to be mid-to-high 90s or you wake fatigued, have anaerobic metab and are setting yourself up for cancer.
Why am I heavily sweating in my sleep?
İt didn’t use to happen before. İt has been a month when I go to sleep at night, I wake up all sweaty, my heartbeat is faster and sometimes my hands feel a little numb.
today it happened during day time too. I got sweaty for no reason. I was at my desk working as usual.
what do you think this could be? many thanks.
get your blood sugar checked
What is the best sleep remedy without drinking sleeping pills?
I’ve tried warm milk. I just have trouble sleeping and staying asleep.
First, have a think about WHY you’re having sleeping problems. Are your sleep problems a symptom of something else? If so, your first step is to figure out if you can tackle this ‘something else’ – because if so, your sleep problems may take care of themselves. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
There are a few good suggestions above (except the person who told you to raid the medicine cabinet for anything that causes drowsiness). As a rule, you’re better avoiding habit-forming medicines, and you obviously want to which is good. For depression without any specific cause, see your doctor: medication may help here. Herbal remedies like valerian are recognised to do no harm, but their effect isn’t proven and it’s not ideal to become dependent on any pill (whether its effect is placebo or therapeutic) to get you to sleep.
But first things first: you’ll need to give people some idea why you’re having these problems before anybody can give you helpful and targeted suggestions. If you have specific worries which are easy to identify as the source of your problem, then suggestions might include writing your worries down before going to bed and coming up with a few actions which you will take the next day to help address them – this can be a soothing exercise that gives your fretful thoughts a much-needed activity and target, unlike when you’re lying awake in bed.
If your sleep problems are related to other medical or environmental conditions – pain, hayfever, noise etc – then a host of other suggestions apply. Think of the environment: Foam earplugs give a useful sense of isolation which may help you nod off. Block off any distractions (e.g. reflections from streetlights), by tucking in curtains, changing the position of your bed, or trying an eye-mask. If your mind just won’t switch off, then avoid anything which can excite (TV, videogames etc) before going to bed, and don’t watch TV in the bedroom or read gripping murder mysteries in bed. Simple breathing exercises can be very relaxing – there are loads on the web – and meditation can also help. Sex is a known soporific if you have access to it.
There are stacks of suggestions, but just have a think about the source of the sleep problem first. That will help you to look at the best sleep suggestions. And if you do have an issue in your life which you take steps to tackle during daylight hours, you may find your sleep problem improves as a consequence.
Does anyone have any information on natural cures for insomnia?
My husband is driving me mad. He has suffered with insomnia for as long as I’ve known him but it’s getting worse. It doesn’t help that he works a 3 shift system. But lately it’s been getting worse. We’ve tried some of the over the counter products but they don’t help. I’m desparate, he is so miserable and tired all the time! PLEASE HELP!
I had a bad problem with insomnia for many years, and did some research on it. Here are the things I’ve found that help the most.
1. Don’t take the sleeping pills. Although they are not addictive in the way we tend to think (you won’t jones for them if you miss taking them) they are addictive in the sense that once you have taken them for a while, you will have to take them to get to sleep, but they won’t have the same effect they used too. This is because you tend to not get the necessary REM sleep you need to be rested. If you must take a sleeping pill, take it well before you go to sleep. For instance, I prefer to take sleeping pills 2 hours before I go to sleep, so that the pill can get into my system and make me drowsy before I get into bed, then get out of my system (hopefully) early enough that I get some normal sleep.
2. Try to go to bed at about the same time every night. You have some wiggle room on this, but if you stay out on Saturday night till 3, it’ll be harder to go to sleep at 10PM Sunday. (I understand with a three shift system that that is not going to work, but at least go to bed at the same time for each shift)
(Which somewhat contradicts:)
3. If possible, don’t go to bed if you’re not sleepy. Note – one thing I have read and found to be true is that you have to be awake for 12 hours before you can go back to sleep. So if you sleep till noon, again, you won’t be sleepy at 10PM.
4. Don’t spend more than 15-30 minutes trying to get to sleep. If you notice that you’ve been in bed more than 15 minutes, get out of bed and do something for a while. Make sure what you do isn’t going to make you more hyper; e.g. no exercising or energetic music or writing posts to online debates.
5. When you go to bed, choose a chore or some other task that you do not want to do and tell yourself that if you are still awake in thirty minutes you will do that task. Then, if you are still awake, get up and do your chosen task. This is my favorite suggestion, as it has worked nearly every time I’ve used it. .
Those are the most useful suggestions I have. Other things you can try:
Before you start getting ready for sleep, turn off high energy music and turn the lights down. I love R&R music, but I went through a period where I had to turn the radio off every night about an hour before I went to bed, or I would be too wired to sleep. And our bodies react to reduced light by producing melatonin which puts us to sleep.
Get plenty of exercise, but not right before bed. (Unless you’re weird like me – exercise right before bed just puts me to sleep)
Another suggestion that might work is to relax your body, consciously, one area at a time, starting from your feet. You think about the ball of your left foot and relax it, then the ball of your right foot, then the arch of your left foot, etc. You have to concentrate (pretty hard) on what you are doing
Sex *grin* by yourself or with an SO, it produces a nice soporific chemical, which does a nice job of putting you to sleep.
My husband (who worked shift work) adds: make sure that the shifts are rotating in the right direction, namely morning->evening->night and not the other way around. Bob says that if it rotates the other way that the boss is insane. If it rotates in the right direction, your husband want to schedule his sleep times so that he is basically "staying up late" compared to the previous shift.
Rosie O’Donnell and Obstructive Sleep Apnea (The View)
Rosie O’Donnell and her guest, sleep doctor Michael Breus, discuss the diagnosis and treatment of her sleep apnea. Rosie discusses the process of being diagnosed via a sleep study, and demonstrates how to use her CPAP mask. Dr. Breus explains what obstructive sleep apnea is and how it can affect physical and mental health. He also explains the symptoms of OSA and talks about how women in particular often believe they have insomnia when in fact they have apnea.
Duration : 0:6:57
Hypnosis sleep aid – sleeping by the sea
http://www.HypnosisMarketplace.com – This deeply relaxing mp3 recording is designed to get you to sleep fast. Imagine yourself strolling along a beautiful beach, you can hear the gentle surf lapping the shore as you listen to a soothing voice that leads you further and furthing into deep relaxation. You’ll discover a wonderful beach side Hammock that is perfect for you in every way, there you can lie down and enjoy the soft music and surf background as you drift off to sleep.
Duration : 0:3:19