Turn off the Tech

Your bedroom, needs to be a place of solitude for sleep and intimacy.  Only more recently has the television and personal computer devices come into the bedroom.  From a science perspective, your body needs to release melatonin to start the sleep cycle. Melatonin is a ubiquitous natural neurotransmitter-like compound secreted by the pineal gland in the brain.  Melatonin has diverse functions that regulate the circadian rhythm, energy metabolism, and the immune system; it also inhibits oxidative stress and participates in the aging process.  Simply stated the blue light emitted by your cell phone screen restrains the production of melatonin, the hormone that controls your sleep-wake cycle (aka circadian rhythm). This makes it even more difficult to fall asleep and wake up the next day.  Studies also show that exposure to blue light can cause damage to your retinas.  So as best you can, try to read a good book before bed for 30 – 60 minutes, generally this should help you reduce stress and allow for a strong surge of melatonin to put you to sleep.

Less Stress

The famous line from the movie “Bridge of Spies”.  The defense lawyer James Donovan was interviewing the Russian spy Rudolf Abel.  Donovan asked Abel: “You have been accused of spying on the US Government and they desire to have you placed in the electric chair…..You do not seem alarmed Mr. Abel?”.  After a pregnant pause, Mr. Abel, the accused spy returned calmly: “Would it help?”.

We may all take a lesson from Mr. Abel.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – Insomnia (CBT-I)

In short, CBT-I is one of the  most effective methods and is evidence based.  Forget the fancy works, this method is about reducing stress and how we react to problems during the day.  While one could spend money on resources in CBT-I, the concepts can be learned and trained without spending money.  Michal Irwin, MD of UCLA studied ninety breast cancer survivors ranging in age from 42 to 83.  Half of the women were in a group that engaged in weekly CBT-I and the other group did weekly tai chi for three months.  Both groups were closely monitored monthly, and fifteen months later both groups reported continued improved sleep with less fatigue.  not only was tai chi as effective as CBT-I at improving sleep outcomes, Irwin found that tai chi led to greater reduction in inflammatory markers.  Even more simply, we can take advice from the good book on stress and how to have perspective: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life. And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear? Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”

Taking Pills vs. Changing Habits

Let’s be blunt and look at the science.  Pill assisted sleep is not restorative sleep.  While sleeping pills do put you to sleep, benzodiazephines and other drugs do not move you through all stages of sleep.  In fact, no drug on the market increases the deepest stages of sleep which are necessary for optimal health and restoration.  Michal Irwin, MD of UCLA states: “There are significant changes in sleep architecture associated with the use of benzodiazephines, including the loss of slow wave sleep.  Such findings in top medical journals raise very real questions about the impact of benzodiazephine as an insomnia treatment, on mitigating insomnia – related inflammatory responses, or helping the person who has insomnia return to normal physiological homeostasis.”