ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: SleepyHeadCENTRAL's top 25 most popular posts

As determined by Google Analytics, including posts timestamped between September 19, 2014 and September 19, 2015

1. APR 15. 2015 || JUST BREATHE: Upper airway resistance. It's a thing. And it matters.
   
2. NOV 29, 2014 || SHED SOME LIGHT: Misconceptions about Circadian Rhythm Disorders
   
3. NOV 21, 2014 || SHED SOME LIGHT: Terra Ziporyn Snider, PhD, on later school start times
   
4. JUN 12, 2015 || GUEST POST: Insights into the recent ASV device recall
   
5. FEB 13, 2015 || ALTERNATIVES: Therapies for Sleep Apnea that don't involve a mask
   
6. APR 30, 2015 || JUST BREATHE: "Heard About Sleep?" APNEA... If not, listen in here.
   
7. APR 30, 2015 || JUST BREATHE: What happens if I don't treat my sleep apnea?
   
8. NOV 7, 2014 || SHED SOME LIGHT: ...on circadian disorders
   
9. OCT 24, 2014 || MONSTERS OF SLEEP: Ken Scholes on sleeping and PTSD
   
10. NOV 17, 2014 || SLEEP HYGIENE TIP OF THE WEEK: Melatonin is tricky
    
11. NOV 11, 2014 || SHED SOME LIGHT: ...on non-24 disorder
    
12. OCT 18, 2014 || CPAP CENTRAL: A Season for Masks: Smaller Might Be Better
    
13. JAN 2, 2015 || DEFINITIONS: What is normal sleep?
    
14. NOV 4, 2014 || SHED SOME LIGHT: Are insomnia and winter depression linked?
    
15. MAR 24, 2015 || INSOMNIA: Why is it linked to depression?
    
16. JUL 24, 2015 || SLEEP STUFF: Smartphone apps for sleep
    
17. SEP 20, 2014 || GUEST POST:  Edward Grandi on Sleep Apnea: What is it and what can I do about it?
    
18. JAN 17, 2015 || ALTERNATIVES: Sleep better when you have the flu with these tips
    
19. DEC 18 , 2014 || VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS: Alcohol is NOT the sweet dream fairy
    
20. FEB 17, 2015 || ALTERNATIVES: Valerian, aka "Nature's Valium" -- safe to use, effective? You be the judge
    
21. MAR 11, 2015 || INSOMNIA: On Sleep State Misperception, with Dr. Robert Rosenberg, DO
    
22. DEC 17 , 2014 || VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS: Sleep Disorders 101: NS-RED and NES, Sleep Eating Disorders
    
23. FEB 17, 2015 || ALTERNATIVES: Aromatherapy
    
24. MAR 17, 2015 || INSOMNIA: The problem with insomnia forums
    
25. APR 23, 2015 || JUST BREATHE: Hope2Sleep's "Dangers of Untreated Sleep Apnoea" infographic 

SHED SOME LIGHT || Ask the Expert: Misconceptions about Circadian Rhythm Disorders

Today SHC hosts a great summary of misconceptions about circadian rhythm sleep disorders from Peter Mansbach, PhD and president, founder and webmaster of the Circadian Sleep Disorders Network. 

Peter Mansbach PhD, President
of the Circadian Sleep Disorders
Network

_______________________________


I would like to clarify some things about Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders that are often glossed over or not widely recognized.

First and most importantly, there are TWO problems contributing to these disorders. One is that the timing of the body's clock is off. The other is that the sufferer is UNABLE to shift that timing.

Many people are "night owls": their body clocks run late, they want to go to sleep later than is customary in our society, and they get up later in the morning. But many night owls can, with a little attention to proper sleep hygiene, adjust their schedule to be able to work normal daytime hours.

This preference rises to a disorder only when the night owl is UNABLE to adjust their hours without more rigorous treatment. It is called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, or DSPD [1].

What do I mean when I say a person is unable to adjust their sleep hours? I mean that they can set their alarm and force themselves to get up at the desired time, day after day, but when it comes time to sleep, they cannot fall asleep. Their mind becomes active, they toss and turn for hours until their body clock finally decides it's sleep time. By sticking with this schedule they are not getting enough sleep, night after night. They are increasingly tired during the day, find it difficult to function, and this causes long term damage to their bodies. Yet they still do not fall asleep at the desired bedtime.

I've been asked many times to get up early for a doctor's appointment, repairman visit, relative's kid's baseball game, whatever. "Can't you just set an alarm and get up, just this once?" ("Just this once" ... right.) Well, yes I could--but don't try to hold an intelligent conversation with me that early, because I can't even process what you say, let alone formulate an answer, and that's if I don't crash the car on the way there. Once, when I did try to get up really early for an urgent business meeting, I drove onto the highway and found myself facing two lanes of cars coming at me at 60 mph: I had accidentally driven onto an off ramp. Not recommended.

What causes Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder? DSPD refers to a set of symptoms, and there may be different underlying physical abnormalities in different patients. These may include long intrinsic circadian period, lack of sensitivity to light, over-sensitivity to light, deficiencies in the ipRGC cells [2] of the retina, lack of melatonin production, long elimination time of melatonin, differences in timing of sleep relative to internal circadian rhythms, differences in tolerance to phase mismatch, and possibly others. So it's not necessarily a single disorder with the same cause in all patients.

DSPD is treated using bright light in the morning, avoiding light in the evening, and/or taking melatonin. Timing is critical. Yet not everyone responds well to treatment. Some researchers mentioned a 40 percent success rate, though treatments have improved since then. Why so low? I suspect because different people have different underlying causes, and the researchers tried a one-size-fits-all treatment.

How many people are we talking about? The studies that I'm familiar with estimate the prevalence of DSPD at about 0.15 percent, or 3 in 2000. That's half a million adult Americans! It's also a lot more prevalent in teens, perhaps 7 to 10 percent of them, most of whom will grow out of it.

Regarding Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder (Non-24), I want to distinguish between Non-24 in blind people versus in sighted people. The Non-24 diagnosis refers to a set of symptoms in which the patient cannot entrain their schedule to a 24-hour day. Instead, their sleep time progresses later and later each day, going all the way around the clock. It is also called Free Running Disorder.

We know what causes Non-24 in blind people: lack of response to light. People's body clocks do not run at exactly 24 hours. On average, they run about 10 minutes longer than that [3], but exact timing varies among individuals. The body syncs its clock to the 24-hour day-night cycle through light entering the eyes [4]. In blind subjects, this synchronizing often does not occur [5].

In sighted people, the causes of Non-24 are believed to be similar to the causes of DSPD. I think we need to view these as two different disorders--Sighted Non-24 and Blind Non-24--since they have such different causes.

I'll close by touching on what I call "the myth of the good night's sleep" in relation to circadian rhythm sleep disorders. 

The literature describes DSPD and Non-24 by saying that, if allowed to sleep on their bodies' natural schedules, patients would sleep well and arise fully rested. 

For many people this has not been the case. Although they function far better on their own schedule than if they force themselves into a normal sleep schedule, they may still sleep fitfully, or be tired during their wake time.

Thanks to Tamara Sellman at SleepyHeadCENTRAL for this opportunity to post.



[1] Earlier medical classifications referred to Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, DSPS, and this is still a popular term. The current classifications use the term Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, DSPD.
 [2] ipRGCs: Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. These cells in the eyes are receptive to light even in the absence of the rods and cones in the eye used to "see" light.
 [3] Early studies suggested 25 hours, but that has been discredited. It resulted because the study subjects used light in the evening.
 [4] There was an experiment which claimed light at the back of the knees could entrain the body clock, but that data could not be replicated, so the theory has been abandoned.
 [5] It can still occur, even without visual perception, if the ipRGCs in the retina are unaffected.

SHED SOME LIGHT: Sleep Hygiene Tip of the Week: Managing jet lag while traveling over the holiday

"Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go..."

NOT... Grandmother lives in Miami and you live in Denver. Your siblings and their families live in Fargo; Trenton, New Jersey; and Memphis.

"Nightly Rotation Above San Jose International
Airport" (2005) by Wing-Chi Poon. CC:ASA-2.5 Generic.

These days, airlines have replaced the old-timey sleighs that carted families from one town to the next for special occasions like Thanksgiving.

If you are someone who lives far away from family and must rely on flights to be reunited, then you likely admire those who only have to make the quick drive across town or even the few hours on the highway.

Traveling in the winter, especially, takes extra time and extra energy to sort through all the delays that might arise due to weather and overbookings.

What makes things worse is that every time you hop a time zone (forward or backward), you confuse your body clocks. The more time zones you cross during a continental flight, the more confused your body clocks will be.

Your main clock, located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brain, will find changes in light exposure (too little when the brain expects there to be light, or too much light when the brain expects there to be little) overwhelming.

It's not a force of habit that leads to the symptoms of exhaustion that we have come to term jet lag, but actually a reshuffling of chemical balances in the brain, which has been confused by these external queues and suddenly cannot reset itself accordingly. It is essentially out of rhythm with the rest of the body.

Circadian rhythms are informed by the light and dark cycles of the earth. They also take their cues from our activity levels (the body naturally is more energetic in the morning and less energetic in the evening, for example) and our eating habits. Our digestive system does not expect to be processing a main meal several hours before or after it normally does this task; meals eaten much later than normal are especially troublesome because that is when key organs in the body, which operate on their own clocks--which are synchronized to the main clock--are trying to rest.

What this all amounts to is a sense of disorientation, however temporary, plus feeling less than 100 percent. Fatigue, gasiness and bloating, dehydration and insomnia can all be side effects from hopping time zones.

Technically speaking, jet lag has been taken off the list of circadian rhythm disorders because of its temporary nature... everyone eventually recovers from these shifts in the body's rhythms when they return home. That doesn't make it easier to manage during stressful times like the holidays, however.

There are ways to help yourself so that these feelings of travel-related malaise aren't quite so extreme.

• Drinking water before, during and after the plane ride (and not coffee, alcohol or soda) will help keep your body in balance through changes in temperature, climate and cabin pressurization. In fact, most of your discomfort from jet lag will come because of dehydration.
• How many hours are you traveling east? Three? Then start shifting your schedule by going to bed a half hour earlier on Saturday, then an hour earlier on Sunday, then an hour and a half earlier on Monday, two hours earlier on Tuesday, two and a half hours earlier on Wednesday. Reverse this plan if you are traveling west across three time zones. It may seem extreme but if you really need all your energy for the holidays themselves, you will thank yourself later for planning ahead so you won't need to endure the fatigue/insomnia showdown that can come with jet lag later.
• On your travel days, curb your eating. Don't eat a big meal before getting on the plane. Try not to eat a full meal on the plane, as well (a snack would be okay if you really are hungry), then wait until you are off the plane. Once you are at your destination, eat only during the local meal time. This will make it easier to adjust for the holidays when you really want to enjoy those family meals together.
• Use earplugs, eye masks, blankets and neck pillows to sleep comfortably on the plane, should you be traveling during a time you would normally sleep. However, try not to oversleep on the plane; only sleep when your body needs it or you might rob yourself of your sleep drive prematurely.

SHED SOME LIGHT || Guest post: Terra Ziporyn Snider, PhD, on later school start times

The Start School Later Movement

by Terra Ziporyn Snider, PhD

When I moved to Maryland in 2000, plans were in the works to delay our county’s brutal 7:17 a.m. high school start time. Sleep research was already clear that these hours were unhealthy and counterproductive, and school leaders were leading the charge for change. With my oldest child in seventh grade and my baby in kindergarten. I assumed the problem would be solved by the time my kids were affected. Nearly 15 years later, my baby is in college, and nothing has changed.

Nothing has changed in most of the 15,000 or so school districts around the US either. Education Secretary Arne Duncan may have tweeted his view that later start times are a “common sense way to improve student achievement,” but fewer than 15 percent of US high schools start before 8:30 a.m., the minimum acceptable time for middle and high schools recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Nearly 43 percent of high schools start before 8 a.m., and 10 percent before 7:30 a.m.

This inaction shocks sleep researchers and health professionals, as well as many parents who know the grim reality of trying to rouse sleep teenagers before sunrise. For decades, sleep scientists have been telling us why: at puberty, circadian rhythms shift later, not only in humans, but in other mammals as well. Typical sleep cycles begin around 11 p.m. for teenagers and continue through 8 a.m. This means that an early wake-up call (5 or 6 a.m. in many cases) not only allows a maximum of only six to seven hours of sleep, but it also requires students to wake in the middle of deep sleep. 

Since the average teenager needs 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep per night, it’s no wonder that nearly 70 percent of US high school students get under 8 hours – and 40 percent get six or fewer. In addition, they’re getting this insufficient sleep at the wrong time, sleeping in on weekends or napping after (or in) school, creating a situation that amounts to chronic jet lag or shift work.

This wasn't always the case. A hundred years ago, most schools (and places of business) started the day around 9 a.m. In the 1970s and 1980s, many schools shifted to earlier hours. Back then the importance of sleep and adolescent circadian shifts were little understood, and cost savings of running the fewest possible buses in multiple cycles was appealing. Even schools that didn't run buses often found it helpful to match hours to those of nearby schools. As a result, many students today are required to be in class much earlier than their parents and grandparents had been. 

These changes might have saved bus money, but they shifted costs to students and families. Sleep-deprived teens not only risk eating disorders and obesity, heart disease and diabetes, immune disorders, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and suicide, but they put their safety and that of others at risk by walking to the bus or driving themselves to school on dark, deserted streets. Judgment, focus, and memory are impaired, and risks of tardiness, truancy, and dropping out increase, reducing chances of school success, particularly in disadvantaged children.

When public school times changed, the whole community's rhythms changed, too: Today, "after" school stretches out to four hours (and fills up with activities), leaving many kids unsupervised at the peak period for adolescent crime and risky behavior. Elementary schools often start as late as 9:15 or 9:30, forcing working parents to send young children to before-school care as well as after-care. Families whose children are in multiple school levels often have start and end times that span two hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon. 

Most people now perceive these adaptations as inevitable and normal. And this perception is the key to understanding why schools aren’t listening to sleep research. People who have adapted their lives to current school hours assume that they cannot adapt to changing them again. Fearing that new hours will disrupt commutes, daycare, teacher training, after-school activities, and so forth, they protest shifted schedules vehemently, sometimes to the point that superintendents have lost their jobs. It’s no wonder that school officials find ways to make later school start times sound as complicated and expensive as putting a man on Mars. 

“One of the hardest things you can ever do as a superintendent…is to begin to tinker with the bell schedule,” said Deb Delisle, Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Education. “People go absolutely bananas over that. You can change textbooks, you can change report cards, [but] as soon as you tinker with that bell schedule – whoa, too scary!”

The good news is that finding ways to run schools at safe, healthy hours is not rocket science. Schools have, and continue to, run at many different times around the world, and community life always adapts to them. We now have plenty of success stories providing data that put the many dire speculations blocking change to rest. 

Even the common sense speculation that later hours would just lead teens to stay up even later has 
been felled. In every study to date, students actually go to bed around the same time, and get significantly more sleep, when morning bell times are delayed.

The hundreds of examples of schools that have found ways to run schools at later, healthier hours by prioritizing sleep, health, and learning provide empirical evidence that the challenge to later start times isn’t daycare or jobs or sports or even the cost of running more buses. The real challenges are fear of change and failure of imagination.

Combating these challenges will take more than sporadic local advocacy efforts. It will also take more than sleep research, however compelling. Instead, it will take treating sleep and school hours as fundamental matters of public health rather than as negotiable school budget items.

Once we start viewing sleep and school hours as equivalent to other public health issues like child labor, smoking, and seatbelts, objections to later start times will melt away. Making that happen, however, will require health practitioners, sleep researchers, educators, policymakers, and advocates to join forces, with a common goal of consciousness-raising and collective action on local, state, and national levels.

 --------

Terra Ziporyn Snider, PhD, is the Executive Director of Start School Later, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness about the relationship between sleep and school hours and to ensuring school start times compatible with health, safety, education, and equity.

Sleep Hygiene Tip of the Week || Melatonin is tricky

"Walgreens Melatonin" (2010) by Jed Carroll,
UK. CCA:2.0 Generic. Publication of this
image does not imply endorsement of this
or any products by SleepyHeadCENTRAL.

The seemingly kneejerk practice of automatically turning to medications to treat health disorders, even over-the-counter supplements (which are essentially unprescribed drugs), is a discussion for another time.

Over-the-counter sleep aids that are touted for their sleep-promoting properties (namely diphenhydramine, valerian and melatonin) have their fans and detractors, as well.

For this week's tip on sleep hygiene, melatonin is going to nab a little of that spotlight.

Some people LOVE using melatonin and swear by it for their problems with falling asleep or maintaining sleep. Others find it useless.

Sleep science is not conclusive on the benefits of melatonin, either. Melatonin dosages currently available from the drugstore may or may not be adequate. Also, melatonin requires a very careful schedule of dosing for it to work, and that schedule will depend entirely on the individual using it.

SHC maintains the policy of asking your doctor for advice before using melatonin, and if you should decide to go this route, to seek exact advice regarding timing and dosage from a medical professional. With any medication or supplement, there can be side effects as well, so please look at this aspect of melatonin use before taking this popular sleep aid.

Below are some articles that help explain how and why melatonin works (or can work) and why it may or may not be for you.


YourSleep || AASM.net
Over the Counter: Will Melatonin Cure Your Sleep Problems?

Natural Practitioner
Monograph: Melatonin

Drugs.com
Melatonin

Wellness || Cleveland Clinic
Melatonin Supplement Review

Drugs and Supplements || Mayo Clinic
Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine)

SHED SOME LIGHT... on Non-24 Disorder

You may have seen commercials for a new drug, Hetlioz, airing on TV the last few weeks for a mysterious condition called Non-24 Circadian Rhythm Disorder (also known as Non-24, N24 or free running disorder). Non-24 is considered a circadian rhythm disorder which occurs in both blind people and people who are sighted. Those with Non-24 can struggle to keep to a regular schedule of work or classes. Those who are blind run a 40-70 percent risk of suffering from this disorder, which researchers still don't understand fully, as it can equally effect people who have their sight.

Here are some good questions that help doctors to identify people struggling with Non-24 Disorder:

• Do you struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep at night?
• Do you find you are sometimes excessively sleepy at inappropriate times during the day?
• Do you find it hard to concentrate on tasks?
• Do you feel like you are never well rested even after sleeping?
• Do you sleep at times that are remarkably different from those around you?
• Do you feel as if you are the only one who has your sleep schedule?

It is important to see a doctor about these concerns as they point to multiple kinds of sleep disorders. And like many other sleep problems, Non-24 shares two major symptoms:

1. The inability to fall and/or stay asleep at night.
2. An overwhelming urge to sleep during the day.

These symptoms can point to the improper timing of hormone release in the body, primarily of two sleep-related hormones: melatonin (which encourages sleep) and cortisol (which encourages wakefulness and appetite). When these hormones run out of sync with one another they can impact the phasing which leads to normal sleep patterns. On top of that, sleep deprivation that comes as a result can lead to daytime cognitive dysfunction and mood disorders.

Those with Non-24 Disorder have brains which do not adequately time the release of the sleep-wake hormones melatonin and cortisol due to an abnormal circadian clock, which is found inside the brain (the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN). As a result, their sleep-wake and other critical rhythms shift off schedule gradually every day, leading to significant disruptions in sleep-wake function until the circadian clock is eventually reset. 

Thanks to HetliozPro for use of this diagram.

Why do the hormones fall out of rhythm? Science isn't sure. Most people have circadian rhythms that run around 24 hours; the cycles of sleep-wake and other drives rely on the regular timing of hormones in conjunction with external time cues (like light and dark) to keep these rhythms on track.

Somebody with Non-24 has a body clock which is set for longer or shorter than the 24 hour clock that most people function on, so they basically shift a little earlier or later each day in comparison to everyone else until their rhythms align outside of what is considered a normal schedule. Hence, they can become sleepy during the day due to a persistent shift in rhythms that forces their sleep drive to kick in at times which are incongruent with social norms.

For people who are sighted, Non-24 is fairly rare, but it may be amended by the use of light cues and phototherapy, matched with forced sleep schedules, to help inform the sleep drive mechanisms in the body. Managing light exposure is key to making melatonin work. However, those who are blind are less able (or unable) to use light exposure effectively to control melatonin production and need to try other methods to keep from "free running."

How it Non-24 treated? Carefully timed phototherapy can help some people regain a regular rhythm or at least offset deep shifts so they can manage normal job or school schedules. A new melatonin receptor, Hetlioz (tasimelteon), was approved earlier this year by the FDA to treat Non-24 and can be obtained by prescription through specialty pharmacies.

For more information about Non-24, please visit these excellent websites.

Non-24 Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder || Facts & Prevalence || NSF
Circadian Sleep Disorders Network Non-24 Q&A

Sleep Hygiene Tip of the Week || SHED SOME LIGHT: Teens can benefit from "happy lights"

One of the biggest circadian rhythm problems relates to Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder (DSPS), in which teenagers, due to the developmental nature of their changing brains, tend to fall asleep later and require sleeping later in the morning.

It's a challenge because teens have been shown to be at risk for sleep deprivation because of late bedtimes mixed with school start times which are too early. Also, those kids who are active in sports or jobs which have challenging hours may also struggle to get more than 5 hours a sleep a night because they have practices or shifts that cut into their homework and sleep schedules.

Society, on the one hand, demands that we keep our kids busy, but the price they often pay to stay out of trouble is sleep deprivation, which can contribute to other kinds of trouble: poor grades, motor vehicle accidents, mood disorders.

So how are we to get adolescents out of bed in the morning with so much stacked against them? Using phototherapy can help.

In one randomized parallel clinical trial, the use of bright light (compared to dim light) as part of a sleep phase adjustment protocol was shown to improve morning sleepiness in the subjects. Bright light was defined as measuring at 2700 lux, while dim light was measured as 0.1 lux. Phototherapy in this study was delivered via a special mask.

The sleep phase adjustment protocol in this experiment was designed for nine weeks: one week to establish a baseline sleep schedule for each subject, then four weeks of chronotherapy treatment which included one-hour shifts in bedtimes per week with no naps or bright light after 5pm, followed by four weeks of followup.

Not only did bright light help improve morning sleepiness, but the overall treatment protocol for DSPS in this study ultimately suggested that complete adjustment therapies using chronotherapy without bright light treatments were not as effective.

If you have a teenager who struggles to get out of bed in the morning, and there are no other options for them (such as delayed school start time), it might be a good idea to visit the doctor to discuss the possibility of a sleep phase adjustment using both phototherapy and chronotherapy. A doctor will, at this time, want to rule out other causes for daytime sleepiness, such as narcolepsy or sleep apnea. If the doctor determines that your teen has DSPS, they will wish to work with you and them on a behavior therapy that the teen must follow to reset their rhythms; it requires strict adherence to a bedtime protocol, careful use of lighting, and a sleep diary, among other things. It has been shown to be helpful and doesn't usually require medication.

This Verilux product, the Rise & Shine Serenity series,
gives timed light that mimics natural sunrise and sunset times.
It may be useful in resetting circadian rhythms in teens
suffering from DSPS. Image courtesy Verilux.

In addition, the investment of a so-called "happy light" can be very useful. Full-spectrum lighting systems which adjust light brightness in the teen's bedroom on a gentle timed schedule can gradually help them to adjust to nature's circadian rhythms and light cues.

Some of these come equipped with alarms, as well. Verilux offers two different systems which may work well for you. Avoid bright lighting with ultraviolet rays; most full-spectrum systems do not include it for safety reasons.

Sleepy Hygiene Tip of the Week || SHED SOME LIGHT: Surviving Daylight Saving Time's end

Get ready to feel a little out of whack this week. Even though we get lucky in the fall and actually gain an hour on the clock at the end of Daylight Saving Time, that extra hour may not actually feel so great by midweek. We may be grumpy, tired and out of sorts all the same. Here are some things to do to help combat that sense of being out of sync with the change in the clock.

• Go to bed at a normal hour, or even slightly earlier, on Sunday night in order to bank some sleep during the transition. Yes, a little extra sleep here or there can help your body catch up with your brain during the next week as your rhythms adjust, even if you gain an hour.
• Don't mess with your morning schedule. Stick to what the clock says and get up when the alarm goes off, even if you think you have an extra hour to sleep in. 
• Use this time to reassess your exercise habits. If you are exercising regularly, you are indirectly giving yourself the gift of healthy sleep. If you feel sluggish this week, try adding brisk walks in the morning to help get your day started.
• Watch what you eat: With the extension of nights and shortening of days, we may crave comfort food that's outside the goals of a more healthy diet. Eating heavy, high calorie food too late into the evening will tax your sleep cycles. Eating more healthfully can help you sleep better.
• You can try some melatonin. This is a subject for a more lengthy discussion, but for now, a reminder: even though it's easy to purchase over the counter, melatonin is still a drug and must be taken properly (in terms of both timing and dosage) in order to work. Also, it can cause drowsiness and might interact with your other medications. Melatonin can also come in doses that are higher than you might actually need, so please consult with your pharmacist and/or doctor about using melatonin. 
• Don't fret! Your rhythms should only take a couple of days to reset, and then you'll be back to your normal rhythms. Some people, especially night owls, may take longer to adjust.

Daylight Saving Time || Let the Phase Shifting Begin!

This month at SHC, the theme will center on sleep phase disorders, also known as circadian rhythm disorders, in which the brain responds inappropriately to changes in light and temperature. These are often (but not always) indicative of a switch to longer nights and shorter days.

Look for posts on time cues and sleep, non-24 sleep phase disorder, jet lag, advanced and delayed sleep phasing, shift work disorder and phototherapy before November is through.

You'll note the posts regarding circadian rhythm sleep dysfunctions by the icon, SHED SOME LIGHT, which is a play on the idea that while we lose light during the late fall and early winter, we can still be enlightened to these circadian rhythm changes and make healthy changes in our lifestyle to protect our sleep schedules.

In addition, we're playing with the image here of the first lightbulb lit by famous American scientist Thomas Edison; historically, the advent of electric light has had a major impact on sleep health, a subject to be explored in November at SleepyHeadCENTRAL. Stay tuned!