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  1. Is there a deep sleep flavor of the month?

    May 17, 2012 by nadolski

    Remember Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors?

    Greetings from Zzzzzzz Pleazzzz!’s version of Flavor of the Month.

    To make it easy for you to order the best solution you are craving for a good night’s sleep, I want to serve up samples of information on what might be the reason why you’re not getting the good sleep you deserve.

    Just like Baskin Robbins 60+ years ago, they were convinced there were no other combinations of vanilla, chocolate chip, strawberry or peanut butter possible for ice cream. And customers weren’t reporting interest in anything else.

    Same thing happened 50+ years ago for Dr. Bill Dement when he studied the sleep of the Radio City Rockettes in his apartment in New York City. Plain old vanilla sleep did not even scratch the mattress for what goes on under the covers.

    A sleep disorder is another way of saying “I can’t sleep.” In my practice I witness all 81 identified (so far) flavors of “I can’t sleep.”

    Like BR, the names of sleep disorders have been created to describe the flavors. Insomnia, is the vanilla flavor and most well-known. An example of a less familiar, but flamboyant, flavor would be RBD (REM Behavior Disorder) which is considered liver and onions and seldom on the menu at all.

    A sleep disorder is medical mayhem to healthy and restorative shuteye. Sleep disorders are serious and interfere with physical, mental and emotional performance and need attention sooner vs. later.

    Here are some of the flavors we’ll be serving in the next months. Don’t let the multisyllabics scare you.

    Bruxism
    Parasomnias
    Obstructive Sleep Apnea
    Insomnia: Sleep Onset Type
    Insomnia: Sleep Maintenance Type
    Restless Leg Syndrome
    Delayed Phase Sleep Disorder
    Shift Work Sleep Disorder
    Jamoca Almond Fudge – my favorite

    Baskin Robbins now boasts serving up 1000 different flavors. They said technology and shopper response has helped them offer more.

    That’s true for us in sleep medicine. Technology has given us the tools to look under the hood, diagnose and treat all 81 sleep disorders. And, like Baskin Robbins, until we hear from you or your family, we cannot offer more.

    Here’s news you can use: Zzzzz’s Pleazzz! is building Sleep School online. Doors to Sleep School will be open the first of June. Just in time for those Lazy Crazy Daze of summer.

    P.S. Baskin-Robbins Flavor of the Month for June is Lunar Cheesecake

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  2. Is it Mom’s Day TO SLEEP?

    May 10, 2012 by nadolski

    Meet Mark Quinn. We met online. He is our fabulous guest blogger for the day!

    What makes him the Rick Springfield of bedding is his willingness to investigate the inside of the sleeper as well as the outside sleep scene. He spends his work days at Leggett and Platt in Missouri in marketing. You can find him at Q’s View’s and most recently at Hybrid Rap

    Oh – and he wanted me to tell you …..he likes Pina colada’s and getting caught in the rain.

    The Best Beds for Women

    Once upon a time (every great story starts with that right?), the mattress industry was run by middle aged men who were totally focused on trying to outdo their competition by building the fattest bed for the cheapest price. I am happy to report that we have evolved and now only half of bedding manufacturers are trying to build the fattest bed for the cheapest price. The other half is moving beyond fat and cheap. As for the others that are stuck in the past, what these manufacturers should be doing is listening to people, especially women. Women buy more than men. It’s that simple. If the industry listened, they’d find out what I’m about to share and much more.

    There are many sleep inhibitors that affect females. Many women encounter issues like sleeping too hot, partner disturbance from movement, snoring, and pain from pressure points that cause tossing and turning. Ladies, you don’t have to suffer! There are mattress solutions out there today that can address many of these problems, so here are a few things to look for:

    ● Sleep cool: Research tells us that during REM sleep your body temperature actually drops. That means it’s important to sleep in a cool environment that allows that temperature drop to take place. Keeping cool can improve your quality of sleep. There are products that can cause you to sleep hot. Often times, it’s the comfort materials in the bed do not breathe very well. We did some research with Kansas State University that says getting your shut-eye on an innerspring mattress allows you to sleep up to 28% cooler because air can flow through your bed. In addition, components suppliers are creating gel and visco foam solutions (as well as fibers like Outlast) that sleep at cooler temperatures, so be sensitive to this as you shop for your perfect bed.
    ● Partner movement: Just because our partner is having a rough night of sleep does not mean that you should. You want to be on the look out for a sleep solution that can minimize motion transfer. Fabric encased coils are especially good because they are not tied together by wire, but instead wrapped in an individual fabric pocket allowing them to react independently of the rest of the bed. There are some specialty sleep products like latex and visco foam that are particularly good at this as well. When you are in the store have your partner move around a little on their side of the bed and see if you can feel it. If you can, you might want to look behind curtain number two.
    ● The magic bed: My favorite product in sleep technology is the adjustable bed. Anyone I know that sleeps on one would never own a flat bed again. There is nothing like being able to adjust your bed for comfortable reading, watching television, or even to take full advantage of those intimate moments. These beds can give you a light massage, provide a silent alarm to wake you up, and some even come with a snore feature that will raise your partner’s head should they start sawing logs. In light to moderate cases of snoring, this feature will actually open the airways and silence the buzz saw. If you know of anyone that is pregnant, an adjustable beds is a must have. I’ve had friends tell me their adjustable bed was the only thing that made them comfortable as they got closer to their delivery date.

    As an industry we are still learning about our female audience, but we are working on it. Get some comfortable clothes on, drag your partner with you, and even bring your own pillow and hunt for your perfect mattress. If you don’t climb into your bed EVERY night and say WOW this rocks, then you are really missing out!

    Happy Mother’s Day and more importantly (in my business anyway) Happy Mother’s Night

    Please feel free to share today’s post with any and all of the sleepers that you know.

    Good sleep is good medicine at any age.

    Cheers,
    Nancy Nadolski

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  3. Your little bundle of… sleeplessness!

    April 29, 2012 by nadolski

    Question? Do you remember Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out for Summer?”

    Okay it was 1972 and you may NOT remember this golden oldie…but the point is that here at ZZZZZ’s Pleazzzz school is not out…it’s totally IN session!

    Here in the land of Sleepless in Boise I’ve been teaching a new class for new parents. It’s called Parenting at Midnight and is funded by a generous grant from Saint Alphonsus Foundation. Here’s the official skinny;

    In America four million babies go home to soon-to-be-sleepless parents every year so I thought you might enjoy some important tips here for the new parents in your life.

    The age-old baby specialist Dr. Spock once said:

    Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.

    but obviously Doc Spock wasn’t talking about new parents and sleeping. Bring a new baby home is like bringing uninvited insomnia into the house. Parents begin to to think, “when will it end, when will this uninvited insomnia guest leave us alone?”

    For the proud parents of a newborn (zero to three months) I counsel these happy, sleepy family tips:

    -include your child in the routine of the day
    identify one time of day to sleep when your baby sleeps
    get the newborn into bright sunlight first thing in the morning
    sleep needs to be in completely dark room, white noise, and cool
    make the night time all about business – change, feed, back to bed
    ask for help for family and friends and set the “call before you come” rule

    Just like the little bundle of joy changes over the first three months, so do the ways both baby and parents can get some sleep. From three to six months:

    help baby learn how to self-soothe by placing be bed sleepy, not asleep
    establish a routine with consistent and positive sleep associations
    make sure there are good feedings during the day
    avoid letting baby get over tired, good sleep breeds good sleep
    adhere to a schedule for naps

    Easy cheesy, right? Okay maybe not… so your favorite sleep school teacher has some final crib notes for you (ha ha, I said “crib notes”)

    reduce stimulation 30 minutes before sleeping – turn down lights
    use swaddling blankets or sleep sacks
    add white noise
    consider black out shades
    a bath or baby massage are helpful tools for sleep
    rocking is an oldie but a goodie – but only to get sleepy, not asleep

    Please feel free to share today’s post with any and all of the parents you know. And I have some cool news to share too;

    We have a guest blogger lined up for your impending reading pleasure. He is a super cool guy and happens to be an expert in the, wait for it, mattress industry! He knows all about that place where we spend our most important hours and how to get the best out of the sleep/mattress relationship. He is also fun, funny and I know you’ll get a kick out of him/

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  4. teens, tweens and beddy-bye time

    April 3, 2012 by nadolski

    Did you know that one summer Stanford University boasted a camp for sleep? Yep, and during that time they got a glimpse of what’s normal for teen ZZZZZZ’s.

    The original faculty at Stanford’s Sleep Camp were William Dement and Mary Carskadon. They were the Tina Turner and Eric Clapton of the sleep world at that time. (And in my mind they still are.) In the 60′s, this brave and curious William Dement identified REM sleep and dreaming with the first female research subjects; The Radio City Rockettes!

    Today, some sleep experts are kicking up their feet, rockette style because of a new sleep study, with some sleep info that varies from the long established Federal guidelines.

    A new Brigham Young University study found that 16-18 year olds perform better academically when they shave about two hours off that recommendation.

    The entire report is right here, but it boils down to this:

    “The new study by Eide and fellow BYU economics professor Mark Showalter is the first in a series of studies where they examine sleep and its impact on our health and education. Surprisingly, the current federal guidelines are based on studies where teens were simply told to keep sleeping until they felt satisfied.

    “If you used that same approach for a guideline on how much people should eat, you would put them in a well-stocked pantry and just watch how much they ate until they felt satisfied,” Showalter said. “Somehow that doesn’t seem right.”

    In the new study, the BYU researchers tried to connect sleep to a measure of performance or productivity. Analyzing data from a representative sample of 1,724 primary and secondary school students across the country, they found a strong relationship between the amount of sleep youths got and how they fared on standardized tests.

    But more sleep isn’t always better. As they report in the Eastern Economics Journal,

    the right amount of sleep decreases with age:

    The optimal for 10-year-olds is 9 – 9.5 hours
    The optimal for 12-year-olds is 8 – 8.5 hours
    The optimal for 16-year-olds is 7 hours

    I’ll put this new study in the: “let’s put it in our pipe and smoke it” category. I’m all about solid research but this study only analyzed the relationship between hours asleep and test performance. As we know, there are other variables that apply to testing AND to sleeping.

    The good news is that if your teen is only sleeping for 7 hours a night you can probably still expect peak performance in a test. Now if you could only expect a teen to clean his or her bedroom to boot – we’d really be talking!

    All this talk of teens reminds me of something that humorist Dave Barry almost said;

    Your modern teenager isn’t going to listen to advice from an old person. An old person is defined as someone who remembers when there were no cell phones.” And I can remember rotary phones.

    Good sleep is good medicine at any age.

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  5. Which part of the usa is the sleepiest?

    by nadolski

    Interesting news in the world of sleep…forget about red states and blue states – now we have sleep states. Our friends to the south report the most daytime fatigue and sleep disturbances, poor thangs! That probably explains this sentiment;

    Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life

    with our slow, detailed replies

    until you are nothing but a husk of your former self

    and that much closer to death.

    Where you live in the United States may influence how well you sleep, researchers report. Annoyed or not, a new sleep map shows that Southerners are the sleepiest.

    Sweet tea and fried green tomatoes aside, Southerners report the most sleep disturbances and daytime fatigue, while people in the West have the least. This according to a new study that created state-by-state sleep maps for the United States. Of course I live in the West and see plenty of people with sleep problems too.

    Here’s the story from the Journal of Sleep Medicine;

    University of Pennsylvania researchers created maps using national data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    “Sleep disturbance is a major public health concern. However, geographic dispersion of sleep problems, and the factors that may play a role in why some states or regions get better sleep, have been largely unexplored,” said study author Michael Grandner, a research associate at Penn’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology.

    “Our study generated the first sleep maps for the U.S. that include data on sleep disturbance and daytime fatigue across most of the country,” he added.

    Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and West Virginia had the highest rates of sleep disturbance and daytime fatigue. The findings are consistent with previous research showing that many of the states with higher rates of sleep disturbance and daytime fatigue are the same ones with higher rates of other conditions, such as obesity.

    The researchers used telephone survey data from more than 150,000 adults. They determined that regional differences in mental health, race/ethnicity and access to medical care were the major reasons for the differences in sleep patterns among states.

    “The take-home message from this study is that different regions of the country sleep better than others,” Grandner said. “We should begin to use this data to track patterns of poor sleep and try to understand why these patterns occur. Sleep is such an important part of overall health, we need to do everything we can to help give a good night’s sleep to those in the highest-risk regions.”

    I’m on a roll with quips about the south, so here is just one more;

    “A determined Yankee book seller once told a Southerner that ‘a set of books on scientific agriculture’ would teach him to ‘farm twice as good as you do.’ To which the Southerner replied: ‘Hell, son, I don’t farm half as good as I know how now.”

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  6. Not sleeping? Time to say; “WHAT’S UP DOC?”

    April 1, 2012 by nadolski

    Millions of Americans dread the bed. Millions and millions and millions. The estimates range from 10% to a whopping 25% of us have insomnia. A. Lot. Of. People.

    With so many people on a first name basis with sleeplessness it is still amazing to me that clinicians have no idea how to jump into the ring with insomnia.

    A review just published in The Lancet concludes that: “more needs to be done to diagnose and treat insomnia early so that patients are treated according to clinical guidelines, rather than being administered with off-label drugs that show little evidence in terms of effectiveness.”

    Authors of the seminar say; “In view of the high prevalence of insomnia ……. patients should routinely be asked about sleep problems by health-care providers.”

    As a sleep practitioner I was really pleased to learn that as a result of this review the NIH declared that only two treatment options, i.e. cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT] and approved hypnotic drugs have shown sufficient evidence to support their use for treating insomnia.

    So what does this mean to you?

    It means that when you see your own health care provider it is up to you to reveal any and all sleep problems you are having. Whether you have trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep or feeling fatigued the next day, it’s up to you to make yourself heard. If the strategy you have been given is not grounded in evidence based medicine and practice guidelines, keep asking questions.

    And best of all ask your own personal Marcus Welby M.D. (kind of dating myself!) if you are a candidate for cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT].

    “What is this CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy for sleep?”

    This really powerful treatment uses your history and story as home plate to a goodnight’s sleep. Like wisdom gathered over time about nutrition and exercise for solid health, my sleep practice puts focus on education about the entire 24 hour day and how the hours awake impact those we desire to have asleep.

    I see the success of this CBT combo approach every day and all of the current research indicates effectiveness for ridding pesky insomnia. When I hear a new patient tell me they “have tried everything,” I believe they have tried everything their health care provider told them to do.

    A recent publication from my mentor Jodi Mindell, PhD, (Sleep Medicine, October 2011) reports medical school education is way behind on arming physicians with current treatments for insomnia. Surveys were sent to 409 medical schools across 12 countries. The response showed the average amount of time spent on sleep education is just under 2.5hours, with 27% responding that their medical school provides no sleep education at all.

    I believe that they also have tried everything they have read in popular literature and what their friends and colleagues have told them to do. “I’ve tried every diet,” is no different from “I’ve tried everything for sleep.” Someone once told me the teacher shows up when the student is ready. That is true for all health behavior change and it is even truer for restoring sleep to the 24 hour period.

    So, at your next annual exam, if your health care provider includes questions about sleep, do a back flip jump off the exam table in your paper togs and give her a giant hug. It’s like I always say, good sleep is good medicine.

    AKA “When you discover you are riding a dead horse, get off.” -Dakota tribal wisdom

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  7. I’m channeling Tony the Tiger – in a good way

    by nadolski

    We’ve known for a long time that a good breakfast is the start to a great day (I sound like Tony the Tiger) and breakfast is also key to maintaining a healthy weight.

    It also reminds me of a little breakfast funny I heard from a comedian recently;

    I like to use ‘I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter’ on my toast in the morning, because sometimes when I eat breakfast, I like to be incredulous. ‘How was breakfast?’ Unbelievable!

    But now we know a lack of sleep actually makes your BRAIN hungry, and that is not good news for a healthy breakfast or a healthy body.

    The smart people over the the National Sleep Foundation reported yesterday that

    “new research in Sweden shows that a specific brain region that contributes to a person’s appetite sensation is more activated in response to food images after one night of sleep loss than after one night of normal sleep. Poor sleep habits may therefore affect people’s risk of becoming overweight in the long run. The findings are published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

    In this study, Christian Benedict, together with other researchers have examined which regions in the brain, involved in appetite sensation, are influenced by acute sleep loss. By means of magnetic imaging the researchers studied the brains of 12 normal-weight males while they viewed images of foods. The researchers compared the results after a night with normal sleep with those obtained after one night without sleep.

    Christian Benedict explains:

    “After a night of total sleep loss, these males showed a high level of activation in an area of the brain that is involved in a desire to eat. Bearing in mind that insufficient sleep is a growing problem in modern society, our results may explain why poor sleep habits can affect people’s risk to gain weight in the long run. It may therefore be important to sleep about eight hours every night to maintain a stable and healthy body weight.”

    The bottom line is that it’s easier to give an enthusiastic “no” to a maple bar when you’ve had a bowl full of nutritious ZZZZZZZ’s.
    Gray

    Here’s to a GRRRREAT night’s sleep, because good sleep is good medicine.

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  8. Sleep makes you smarter, creative and prettier – or at least 2 out of 3

    January 28, 2012 by nadolski

    What would you say if I offered you an opportunity to make your memories stronger and to improve your creativity at the same time?

    Sound too good to be true? Well “step right up ladies, gentlemen and children of all ages” because SLEEP makes your memories stronger, and helps with creativity!

    New research is showing that sleep seems to reorganize memories, picking out the emotional details and reconfiguring the memories to help produce new and creative ideas, according to the authors of an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

    Someone once said that dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions. That fanciful but pleasant thought notwithstanding, turns out that sleep may be the key to a better tomorrow and even a better yesterday!.

    Scientists have found that sleep helps consolidate memories, fixing them in the brain so we can retrieve them later. How cool is that?

    Check this out;

    “Sleep is making memories stronger,” says Jessica D. Payne of the University of Notre Dame, who co-wrote the review with Elizabeth A. Kensinger of Boston College. “It also seems to be doing something which I think is so much more interesting, and that is reorganizing and restructuring memories.”

    Payne and Kensinger study what happens to memories during sleep, and they have found that a person tends to hang on to the most emotional part of a memory. For example, if someone is shown a scene with an emotional object, such as a wrecked car, in the foreground, they’re more likely to remember the emotional object than, say, the palm trees in the background — particularly if they’re tested after a night of sleep. They have also measured brain activity during sleep and found that regions of the brain involved with emotion and memory consolidation are active.

    “In our fast-paced society, one of the first things to go is our sleep,” Payne says. “I think that’s based on a profound misunderstanding that the sleeping brain isn’t doing anything.”

    The brain is busy. It’s not just consolidating memories, it’s organizing them and picking out the most salient information. She thinks this is what makes it possible for people to come up with creative, new ideas.

    Cool, right?

    Have you ever seen that funny refrigerator magnet that says “I’ll sleep when I’m dead?” Cute and all but those people are actually sacrificing their ability to have good memories and creative ideas today. Sure, you can get by on less sleep but just think about how much better your mind and your life will be when you are getting enough zzzzzzzz’s!

    It’s like I always say; good sleep is good medicine.

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  9. Dear Diary – please help me get some sleep!

    January 18, 2012 by nadolski

    When I was growing up I kept a diary and recorded all of my very very VERY important secrets and thoughts.

    Oscar Wilde said; “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train” but sadly diaries have fallen into the same category as whiteout and full service gas stations.

    There is though, one kind of diary that I actually prescribe for patients with sleep problems. Namely, drum roll please, a sleep diary. Sleep diaries are incredibly helpful in identifying underlying causes of insomnia and help with proper diagnoses.

    There is even new tech news about sleep diaries and sleep analysis via actigraphy that may make it even simpler.

    Here’s old school. Make a chart with spaces for:
    • The time you went to bed.
    • How long you slept.
    • What time you were awake during the night and how long.
    • How much caffeine or alcohol you consumed and when.
    • What/when you ate and drank.
    • What medications you took and what time you took them.
    • The time you planned to wake up.
    • The time you actually woke up and got out of bed.

    When gathering this baseline data, it’s time to let your nighttime clock watching take over. We want data to compare when problems are identified and changes made.

    Then bring the sleep diary with you when you see your regular doc or your sleep specialist. Patients are often very surprised about what the sleep diary can tell us.

    If you are more of a techie check out this interesting sleep related tech news from the NYTimes;

    “The first iteration of wearable computers are here, focusing on tracking people’s health.
    “I think we are at the very beginning of wearable computing,” said Julia Hu, founder and chief executive of Lark, a start-up based in Mountain View, Calif., that makes a wearable sleep tracking monitor.
    Ms. Hu’s company chose to focus on sleep better because, she said, more than 70 million Americans have a sleeping disorder.The Lark tracks more than 3,000 micro data points each night through a wrist device users put on before going to sleep. Lark’s software, which runs on a smartphone, then parses through all the micro-motions it has tracked throughout the night and makes recommendations to users.
    “We use a type of sleep research called actigraphy — it’s what sleep scientists have used for the last 15 years — and then we sift through your personalized data and offer a better sleep, diet and exercise schedule,” Ms. Hu said.

    Whether you rock the new wearable computer or scribble in a pretty pink sleep diary with a tiny key – it’s nice to know they might help us get a good night’s sleep.

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  10. Is the right side of your bed the right side of your bed?

    by nadolski

    The iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan once said; “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”

    But the headline this week is that your daytime success may be related to the side of the bed you sleep on.

    Do you ever wake up feeling crabby and out of sorts? A new survey out this week says that there may be something to the old saying about ‘waking up on the wrong side of the bed.’ As a matter of fact, the fun-but-probably-not-very-scientific research indicates that people who sleep on the left side of the bed tend to be more cheerful than those who sleep on the right side of the bed.

    According to a new study carried out by a British hotel chain, the 3000 guests they surveyed say that those who have a tendency to migrate to the left side of the bed are in fact far better off than their ’right’ counterparts.

    “The study by the UK’s biggest chain of hotels found that people who sleep on the left generally more cheerful, but they are also more positive and capable of tackling heavy workloads and a stressful day ahead. Indeed, those who sleep on the right-hand side are less likely to wake up in a good mood. Over a quarter of people who snooze on the left side of the bed feel they have a really positive outlook on life in general, compared to 18 per cent of right-side sleepers.
    The upbeat morning mood of ’lefties’ may also go as far as explaining why over half of those surveyed refuse to swap sides with their other half. In fact over 75% of Brits are so stuck in their sleeping routine that they would find it strange to sleep on the other side of the bed. Additionally, a quarter of them claim it would certainly affect their mood the next day, with 23% of the nation convinced there is a wrong side of the bed.”

    As usual, inquiring minds wanted to know and the first thought in my brain was; which side is which? Did they mean the right side as you face the bed, or as you are in the bed? No worries, the study defines the left side as the side when you are lying in bed. Make sense?

    What about you? Do you think this is true?

    The good news is that you’ve got a 1 out of 2 chance of agreeing with the survey. I think the bottom line is that people worldwide are interested in, fascinated by and struggling with getting a good night’s sleep. That’s why I’m in the business of building better sleep regardless of what side you sleep on.

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