Sleep Hygiene September || Take 2 Tips: Check your thermostat

FEB 22 || WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Best Temperature for a Good Night’s Sleep
"Temperature is one of the recurring reasons why we have trouble falling asleep or why we wake up during the night."

AUG 1 || MAKE USE OF
4 Health Benefits of Monitoring Temp & Humidity at Home
"As it turns out, recent research shows that sleeplessness could be caused by sleeping at the wrong temperature. Most people think that colder is better, but too hot and too cold can harm sleep quality."

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SLEEP HYGIENE TIP OF THE WEEK: Clean your bedroom!

This isn't just advice for those messy teenagers with wet towels on their bedroom floors, unmade beds, collections of soiled dishes, and mounds of dirty laundry in direct contact with the space where they sleep.

Even though recent studies suggest that teenagers may have problems with sleep thanks to the smells coming from their bedrooms, the problem of messy, unkempt sleep spaces is not limited only to people in their age bracket.

How we keep our bedrooms has a direct impact on the quality of sleep we can expect at night. The three main areas of concern for any bedroom center on comfort, clutter, and sanitation.


Comfort

Comfort matters. If we are uncomfortable, we can't relax, and if we can't relax, sleep will be hard to come by. Don't shortchange yourself basic comfort at the end of the day. It's not really optional, much in the same way sleep is not optional.

• Have you ever noticed... an unmade bed is not comfortable to climb into at the end of a very long day. A made bed is inviting, smooth, and enveloping. Show yourself five minutes of self-love in the morning by making your bed. You will thank yourself after a long, hard day.
  
• Flat pillows that are no longer "plumpable" need to be replaced, not only because they are no longer comfortable, but because they can contribute to neck and shoulder pain and problems with breathing. They can also harbor microorganisms if they are not cleaned properly. You can simplify this by bagging your pillows with washable liners before placing them into cases.
  
• Mattresses that are lumpy, caving in at the center, missing their bounce, damaged by fluids, or which have springs poking through the surface need to be replaced. Most mattresses last about 10 years. Again, this is not only a comfort measure (which still counts as good sleep hygiene) but also critical to avoiding back and hip problems. Pain is the enemy of sleep; don't let your bed be the reason you can't sleep!
  
• Room temperature is much more critical to good sleep hygiene than you might think. A cooler room not only means it will be less stuffy, but it means your body will be better prepared for sleep. The body's thermostat makes important changes during the sleeping period that are a reflection of the circadian system. Too warm a room can mean your core body temperature is not cool enough to allow for quality sleep. Lower your thermostat and add more blankets in layers that you can adjust throughout the night if you find it hard to sleep in a cool room.

Clutter


There's plenty of discussion these days about how to keep up with clutter, how to deep clean personal spaces, and why decluttering is good for your overall mental health. This definitely relates to the bedroom as much as to the more active living spaces in your home.

• If you take work with you to bed, the chances are high you have a nearby mess of pens, papers, folders, electronics, notepads, or paperwork that is cluttering the space. This clutter can not only get in the way of sleeping (literally), but it's also an unpleasant reminder of work "still to do." It's quiet presence alone can fuel racing thoughts at bedtime and prevent sleep onset. Also, waking up to reminders of unfinished work is not exactly a good way to rise and shine. Best practice: Don't take your work to bed with you.
  
• General clutter has been shown to negatively alter important cognitive functions and mood (as well as serve as a dust magnet!—See Sanitation below). Is this how you want to wake up in the morning? How you want to go to bed at night? Think about it. Television's popular home improvement shows frequently describe how the bedroom should be a "sanctuary," and they are right on. Your bedroom should be a welcoming space, not one that you dread going to or waking up in.
  
• Do you use your bedroom as a storage space to make other rooms in your home more accessible? You might want to rethink this habit, not only for the purposes of "preserving your sanctuary," but because a bedroom's main purpose is for sleep and intimate time with your partner. The clear delineation between your sleeping space and your living space is not accidental; living space is for living, sleeping space is for sleeping. When these two purposes collide, anxiety enters the picture and messes with both the sleep and wake portions of your daily life.

Sanitation

This is the most obvious reason to keep your bedroom clean, but it bears repeating. We all get busy and don't always make housekeeping the priority. Here are some reminders why getting out the vacuum and the window cleaner are not only investments in your home, but also in your health.

• If you don't vacuum or dust regularly, all those particulates in the carpets, the bedding, the air, and collecting along the woodwork can worsen air quality and lead to congestion, allergies, and all the other upper respiratory problems we normally attribute to air pollution. Make sure any air intakes or filters are regularly cleaned (or filters changed) to improve air quality.
  
• The same goes for clean sheets and pillowcases: your body sheds skin cells and bodily fluids at night even if you don't notice them. These can create an environment for bacteria as well as leave odors and contribute to allergies. Anyway, clean linens smell great and feel great!
  
• Dirty laundry smells just as bad in an adult's bedroom as it does in a teen's room. The term "nose-blind" seems appropriate to use here (see also "Why can't you smell your own home?"). It describes our inability to note the odors in our own personal living spaces even as strangers entering the house may notice them right away. This isn't a missive on aromatherapeutics, however. Spraying a fragrance does not fix the underlying problem. Odors you don't notice in your own sleeping space still introduce bacteria in the airspace and become part of "room air," which you breathe all night long.
  
• Recycled air in a bedroom, even when the laundry isn't allowed to pile up, becomes less "aerobic" when the windows are sealed shut all the time. Anaerobic means that the amount of oxygen available to you as "room air" is not adequate for good health in the long term: it contains less oxygen, which your bloodstream requires for sustaining the body's myriad functions. "Room air" is measured normally as 21 percent of any space's atmosphere (that is to say, 21 percent of the atmosphere you breathe is composed of oxygen). The less aerobic the air in your bedroom means your body, over time, will need to compensate in other ways—such as by altering the respiratory rate—so that you can maintain a healthy oxygen balance in your bloodstream. (Read this interesting discussion of what happens to a human locked in an airtight room for some ideas about why.) But the solution is pretty simple: Most homes are meant to "gas off" to help achieve a healthy, balanced atmosphere; briefly opening the windows, even in winter for just a few minutes, can make all the difference.

• Check your windows for mold patches and any mildew formed around the frames or inside the mesh screens. These can enter your airspace and lead to disease. Wipe windows, frames, and screens regularly—frequently if you have windows that leak air or water. Moisture and/or oxygen in a warm space can provide the breeding ground for microorganisms, which can detract from your bedroom's air quality. 

Making New Year's Resolutions? Put sleep at the top of your list

"Almofadas" by Castelaa - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Here are 10 simple ways to add "better sleep" to your goals for 2016:

1. Put your smartphones and other handheld electronic devices away 1 HOUR BEFORE BED.
2. Eat smaller, leaner portions at dinnertime at least two (ideally three) hours before bed.
3. Spray lavender mist on your pillow at bedtime.
4. Learn yogic breathing and practice it if you are struggling to sleep.
5. Wear an eye mask if streetlights outside are keeping you awake.
6. Invest in a new pillow. It doesn't have to be expensive, it just has to support your neck and spine.
7. Drink an ice-cold glass of water at bedtime to help encourage a lower core temperature for sleep.
8. Give yourself permission to nap... and then take a nap if you need one.
9. Use a saline nasal spray at bedtime to keep your nasal and sinus passages clear.
10. Stop all consumption of caffeine products by no later than 3pm.

SLEEP HYGIENE TIP OF THE WEEK: Watch your thermostat

People pay good money to sleep in cold rooms! Fortunately, you don't
have to sleep in an ice hotel in order to benefit from a lower thermostat.

Despite our desire to feel warm and toasty to get us through the winter, our bodies need a cooler room to sleep in. We set our household thermostats to a warmer setting without realizing that the ambient warmth at night might be creating a challenge for our own personal thermostats.

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) recommends between 60° and 67°F. 

From the NSF website:

"Your body temperature decreases to initiate sleep—and the proposed temperatures above can actually help facilitate this. If your room is cool, rather than warm, it will be much easier to shut your eyes for the night. Thermostat settings far lower or higher than what’s recommended could lead to restlessness and can also affect the quality of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the stage in which you dream."

Does this sound too cold for you? You can adjust your household thermostat while also making adjustments to your personal thermostat so you don't have to shiver all night.

The best solution is to have a cool room temperature but use several layers of blankets to adjust throughout the night. Start with a bottom sheet, a thermal or fleece blanket, then a comforter and then add or subtract according to your comfort level. Some people like wearing socks to bed as well, or filling a hot water bottle and placing it at the foot of the bed.

Do the NSF recommendations sounds too warm for you? If you wake up in the middle of the night, lighten your layers of sheets and blankets to help correct any overheating, then pull them closer when you feel sleep returning.

Sometimes simply sticking your foot outside your bed coverings allows it to cool down; this also helps to correct whole body thermoregulation.

If you are someone who lives in a household where the temperature is much higher than you prefer, you can also drink a glass of ice-cold water at bedtime (or at any time you wake up in the night and feel overwarm), as this can quickly adjust your body's core temperature to one more amenable to sleep.

ABCs of SLEEP || E is for Entrainment

Entrainment is the word scientists use to explain how we all, as human beings, "set our clocks." Our human body clocks, to be specific. Our bodies have multiple "clocks" in specific organs as well as inside each and every blood cell, and like clockwork they help us to manage our daily rhythms, which inform the behaviors that make us functioning human beings.

Think about hunger, sleep, sex, digestion. These are all physiological processes that require some precise timing on the part of our personal clocks. This is what our circadian rhythms are all about. When our rhythms fall out of synchronicity, that is when we can experience disease, general malaise or other kinds of biological confusion. We really can't live healthy lives without adhering to circadian rhythms.

The most obvious way that we entrain ourselves to life's rhythms is through our perception of light. Light is what marks the day/night cycles; the sun rises, the sun sets. Sunlight, and its absence, also helps the body to detect seasonal shifts. These are primal communications we share with the earth. All living things require the light-dark cycles, as established by the rotations of our planet, to manage these critical life rhythms. 

Light is perceived by the eyes, of course, but also through the skin via melanopsin. Signals collected by these organs are sent to the body's main pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which issues orders to all others parts of the body to function according to a preset pattern of rhythms that, by and large, most human beings are commonly entrained to using light.

For the vast majority of human beings, light is the key influence over when we sleep and when we wake up. For those with circadian rhythm disorders like Non-24 Sleep -Wake Disorder (also known as free-running disorder) or shift work disorder or even a temporary case of jet lag, light doesn't deliver the same influence over sleep-wake cycles. 

The person who suffers from these kinds of disorders struggles to maintain a normal life on an abnormal schedule. They have fallen out of entrainment and need to find a way to "reset" or else they are forced to adjust their schedule in ways that are not typical, even unorthodox, in order to simply get by. 

Imagine the person who can only feel awake and alert in the later afternoon; maybe they have a job working at the toll both during the morning commute. Or imagine the nurse who can only work night shifts but who has children to watch during the day at home. Or the musician who cannot stay awake long enough to attend the gigs he is scheduled to perform at nightclubs. 

Having pattern disruptions in one's rhythms can absolutely devastate the efforts of many to live normally (in this case, meaning "by society's schedule"), and that includes having the ability to earn a living, care for family or function at their maximum potential while on the job. Circadian rhythm disorders also seriously disrupt relationships and social lives.

Non-visual cues

Believe it or not, there are other cues besides light--in science, they call them zeitgebers, which translates as time markers, external or environmental cues that synchronize our biological rhythms--which have a powerful impact on our lives, including our time while sleeping. These are also ways we are entrained to healthy--or unhealthy--rhythms. 

Eating and digesting do not require light or even sight to take place. They require that the gastrointestinal system follow specific cues that dictate that you eat and digest while you are awake. While you sleep, the digestive system goes into sleep mode as well. This is why, generally speaking, most people do not get up in the middle of the night to have a bowel movement. The digestive system does not expect food to enter the alimentary canal at this time. Instead, the act of moving food through the system slows dramatically.

Large meals eaten right before bed, however, can create problems with sleep disruption; the digestive system is suddenly working overtime when it had fully expected to be in bed like the rest of you. Poor sleep can result, as can reflux disease and other health problems related to metabolism. There are lots of studies to suggest that eating out of synch with one's normal body rhythms (meaning, late at night) can lead to imbalanced secretions of certain hormones like melatonin, orexin, leptin and ghrelin, which can impact metabolism in negative ways. 

Finally, there is a circadian shift in metabolism that occurs in the morning as part of your biological rhythms. This is normal; it prompts hunger and stimulates the body to recommence digestion. Now you know why we almost always need to use the restroom first thing in the morning: wakefulness stimulates digestion and the elimination of wastes that have been in your "holding tanks" (meaning, the bladder and the bowel) overnight.

This illustration from the University of Zurich shows how the brain and digestive organs carry their own "pacemakers." The main pacemaker in the body is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is located
deep inside the brain. Its companion pacemakers exist in the digestive system and are driven
by information related to internal cues relayed to them via messages sent by the SCN. 

Activity levels are other non-light time markers that can inform sleep-wake cycles and metabolism. If you exercise too late at night, this could mess with your ability to fall asleep. Physical activity (it could be running a mile or doing laundry) amps up adrenaline and other hormones which encourage wakefulness. 

Similarly, body temperature, which is influenced by how physically active you are, impacts your ability to entrain to patterns that allow for consistent sleep-wake patterns. If you do not get enough physical activity during the day, you may find it hard to fall asleep, as well--with no normal rise and fall in daytime body temperature, the body may not be able to read your activity markers clearly enough to signal sleep to occur. 

Also, the act of sleeping itself is marked by specific patterns of body temperature shifting that prepare the brain and body systems for specific kinds of sleep. If your body temperature is out of whack as you are heading off to bed, you might be missing out on sleep stages that are critical to your body and brain to function at maximum potential.

Temperature-related breaks in entrainment are experienced by people with major stress disorders like PTSD or severe depression: they may generate higher body temperatures at night while in stress response even as they are hoping to fall asleep. Women, because of their monthly cycles, can also experience temporary periods of sleep disruption due to normal alterations in body temperature caused by menstruation or other major changes in hormone balance like pregnancy or menopause.

MONSTERS OF SLEEP || Research shows that women have the scariest nightmares... Why?

A British study found that women suffered through more nightmares, on the order of 30% versus 19% of men, and that their nightmares are far more terrifying.

Researcher Dr Jennie Parker explains one theory: that "nightmares help the brain 'rehearse' distressing and disturbing events that one is likely to encounter in the future."

In addition, the study acknowledges that there could be a correlation between changes in body temperature and dreams. Women experience body temperature changes as a result of their menstrual cycles which may be a factor in the quality and frequency of their dreams.

Also, Dr Chris Idikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, contends that women tend to verbalize more of their interior life than men do, which may explain the fact that they remember their dreams more often, and which might better explain why they have more nightmares which are more scary.

What do you think? Is it the way women and men are wired, or do you think it's something else?

Check out the original article at the Daily Mail: Why women have the scariest nightmares

Sleep Hygiene Tip of the Week || Stay Cool!

"Kawasaki Electric Fan," 2004. Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0

It may seem obvious that warm weather makes it hard for many to be comfortable enough to sleep during the summer, especially if they don't have air conditioning or good air circulation in their homes. But keeping a proper temperature in your sleeping space at every time of year is important for more than just comfort.

Part of your body's circadian system relies on your body's careful regulation of its temperature. A general reduction in core temperature helps to facilitate sleep. You achieve your lowest core temperature about four hours into your sleep period and this low point helps reset your rhythms for the day.

By no means does this suggest you make your efforts at body temperature reduction extreme, as being too cold can also keep you from sleeping. But generally speaking, the human body has a thermal pattern that includes a cooling off period at night which helps make you sleepy.

So there's a heat wave on where you live. What then? If the ambient room temperature in your sleeping space is uncomfortably high, you will end up sweating, tossing and turning because your body isn't going to achieve the lower core temperature required to become drowsy.

While there isn't a perfect room temperature conducive to sleeping for all human beings, being in a sleeping space that's 54-75 degrees Fahrenheit is one's best bet. Therefore, if you don't have air conditioning or even a fan to help move air and make you feel cooler, and it's very warm in your sleeping area, you may need to cool your core temperature with cold fluids at bedtime or even take a sponge bath using cool (not icy) water to help cool yourself off before going to bed.

Research has shown that insomniacs generally have a higher core body temperature, no matter what time of year, which could be part of their sleeping challenge. One way to help drive that drop in core temperature for them might be to take a hot bath right before bed. I know, it seems counterintuitive! But once out of the hot bath, the body naturally cools in a cooler space and this could lead to the drowsiness that can elude some insomniacs.

Also, if you wear too many blankets at any time of year and sweat a lot during the night because of it, this could hamper your efforts to more quickly fall asleep, so you might think about turning down your room temperature if you can't get rid of the blankets, or try for lighter blankets so you can better facilitate your own good sleep.