Monday 4 November 2024

Music vs Insomnia: How does music aid my sleep?

From bona.co.za

Ever found yourself struggling with insomnia, and no matter how much you toss and turn, just cannot seem to find the perfect position to fall asleep – until you make the decision to listen to calming music and you are instantly taken away by your dreams?

For many, the moment brings so much relief as it ensures that you ultimately get in proper sleep so you can be fresh for whatever the next day requires.

When it comes to music, there is a strong link between the sweet melodies and their ability to help one fall into a proper sleep.

“Music can aid sleep by helping you feel relaxed and at ease. With streaming apps and portable speakers, it’s easier than ever to take advantage of the power of music wherever you go,” explains the Sleep Foundation.

                                                                         Illustration. Picture: Pexels

According to the above-mentioned publication, music has long been a powerful source when it comes into contact with the human body. For years it has not only allowed humans to express their joy through dance, or sadness through crying but has also been a way to calm our minds.

Since birth, this has been the go-to solution when parents experiment with the singing of lullabies and gentle rhythms so babies can fall asleep.

In an article published by UC Davis Health Jesse Koskey, a psychiatrist in the UC Davis Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Science found that music is a low-cost and accessible treatment which is effective for overcoming insomnia in comparison to a sleeping pill.

He explains that listening to slow-tempo songs produces an effect known as entrainment. This is when your body synchronises with your environment.

“Music around 60 beats per minute, which is the same as a relaxed heart, can entrain the rest-and-digest part of your nervous system, leading to a slower, more relaxed heart rate,” he explains.

According to the British publication Belledorm, these are the kinds of music to listen to before bed:

  • Acoustic
  • Classical
  • Chillout
  • Lullabies
  • White noise
  • Ambient sounds

Saturday 2 November 2024

Insomnia breakthrough: Handheld device in development may soon zap away sleepless nights

From studyfinds.org

TUCSON, Ariz. — Imagine being able to “turn off” your racing thoughts with a 40-second burst of magnetic pulses. For people plagued by chronic insomnia, this might soon become a reality.


Researchers at the University of Arizona are pioneering a ground-breaking approach to combat sleeplessness among military personnel, targeting a persistent problem that affects an astounding 85% of service members. With a $3 million grant from the Department of Defence, Dr. William “Scott” Killgore and his team are developing a non-drug intervention that could transform how we treat sleep disorders.


The core of the problem is frustratingly familiar to anyone who has ever struggled to fall asleep: an inability to quiet the mind.


“Many people with insomnia describe being unable to ‘turn off’ their thoughts when trying to fall asleep,” explains Killgore in a university release.


The culprit? A brain network called the default mode network (DMN), which becomes hyperactive during rest, churning out a constant stream of internal dialogue, worries, and ruminations.


The solution is elegantly simple: a handheld device that uses targeted magnetic pulses to temporarily disrupt this overactive brain network. In just 40 seconds, the device delivers rapid, repetitive magnetic bursts to specific brain regions, effectively “silencing” the mental chatter that keeps people awake.

Preliminary studies have already shown promise. Participants experienced improved sleep after just a single session of what researchers call “continuous theta burst stimulation.” Now, the team is launching a more comprehensive three-year study involving 120 participants with chronic insomnia.

The research goes beyond just helping military personnel. As department chair Dr. Jordan Karp notes, this could be “an important discovery for sleep science” that offers “a tangible, drug-free treatment option for those grappling with chronic insomnia.”

What makes this approach particularly compelling is its non-invasive nature. Unlike sleeping pills that can have significant side-effects, this method uses a brief, well-tolerated magnetic stimulation. Participants will be monitored using advanced sleep trackers and portable brain wave monitors to assess both short-term and sustained improvements.

Two active-duty military consultants with personal experience of sleep disorders are helping shape the study, ensuring the research directly addresses the needs of service members. The goal is not just to provide temporary relief but to develop a sustainable solution that can be integrated into military healthcare.

As the study progresses, it represents more than just a potential treatment — it’s a beacon of hope for those who have struggled with sleepless nights, offering a glimpse of a future where a quick, precise intervention could mean the difference between restlessness and restorative sleep.

https://studyfinds.org/insomnia-handheld-device/ 

Friday 1 November 2024

The Military Sleep Method: Does It Work?

From health.clevelandclinic.org

The military sleep method promises to get you snoozing in two minutes — the techniques are sound but outcomes may vary 

The military sleep method promises that (with practice) you can learn to fall asleep in two minutes. Yes. Two. Minutes.

Sound too good to be true? It might be.

Could it help you get cosy and drift off a little faster than usual? Maybe.

Nearly 15% of adults in the United States have trouble falling asleep, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It’s called sleep onset insomnia. And that tossing and turning and looking at the clock can put a real damper on your morning — and your overall health.

So, it makes sense that people are looking for all kinds of magic solutions to help fall asleep faster. From melatonin supplements to sleepy girl mocktails and, now, the military sleep method.

We talked with sleep psychologist Alaina Tiani, PhD, about what this method is and whether it’s worth a try.

What is the military sleep method?

The military sleep method is a relaxation routine that claims to get you to sleep in two minutes. Considering that it can be normal to take up to a half hour (or longer) for the average person to fall asleep, it can sound like just the remedy you need.

“Understandably, when you’re having trouble falling asleep, you want to find the thing that’s going to help get you there quickly, which is probably why things like the military sleep method have become so popular. I have patients asking about it more and more,” Dr. Tiani acknowledges.

Reports are conflicting about where the method started and whether it’s actually taught to military personnel. But the lore says that service people — particularly fighter pilots and those out on missions — use this method to ensure they can conk out fast when time is of the essence.

But for the average person, the stakes aren’t that high. And hurrying along sleep can actually make sleep more elusive. More on that in a bit.

Military sleep method steps


The military sleep method emphasizes well-researched techniques that can promote a sense of calm and relaxation to help your brain and body prepare for sleep.

But it’s worth pointing out that no studies have been done on the method itself. And no research has promised that any of these techniques will get you snoozing in two minutes.

Depending on what you read or watch, the exact steps of the military sleep method can vary. Let’s take a look at the most widely recommended practices.

1. Muscle relaxation

The military sleep method recommends starting by lying down in bed on your back. Close your eyes and purposefully think about relaxing each part of your body. Start at your forehead and work methodically down to your toes.

Think about each part of your body, consider how it feels and give it permission to relax.

  • Are you clenching your jaw? Allow it to soften.
  • Are you scrunching up your shoulders? Release the tension.
  • Are you sucking in your belly? Allow it to rise and fall with your breath.
  • Are your toes pointing straight up at the ceiling? Let your feet flop naturally to the sides.

2. Breathing

As you relax your body, deepen your breath. Take long inhales. And even longer exhales.

Deep breathing allows oxygen to flow freely through your body. That can help calm your racing thoughts and relax your muscles.

3. Visualization

Visualization techniques, like guided imagery, are also an important part of the military sleep method.

Here’s how to do it: As you relax your body and breathe, imagine and immerse yourself in a calming situation. Maybe you’re floating down river in a canoe at sunset. Or admiring the view from a snow-capped mountain top. Or watching the tide roll in on a tropical beach.

Wherever your happy place is, use all of your senses to ground yourself in that place. Take in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures around you. If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to that place.

Does the military sleep method work?

Proponents of the method suggest that after practicing the method faithfully for six weeks, you’ll find that you nod off in two minutes.

That’s a pretty bold claim. And it’s not likely to work for everyone.

For the military personnel for whom the method is named, it makes sense that they’d fall asleep quickly. But that may have more to do with the intense physical and mental experiences they endure each day than the sleep method itself.

“The methods proposed by the military sleep method may help to facilitate a calm and restful state that may increase the likelihood of falling asleep. But they are likely not the things that are putting you to sleep,” Dr. Tiani clarifies.

In other words, yes, these relaxation techniques may help set the stage for sleep by relaxing your body and calming your mind. But it takes more than a relaxed self to head to dreamland.

Your circadian rhythm (determined by your circulating melatonin levels), and your sleep drive (just how much your body feels a need to sleep at any given moment), matter, too.

And when sleep (inevitably) doesn’t wash over you after 120 seconds of deep breathing, your attempts can really backfire.

You get frustrated. You chastise yourself for failing. You feel defeated.

“We’re seeing a phenomenon where sleep is becoming performance-based or gamified,” Dr. Tiani notes. “You can track sleep on your fitness device, and you get a score. You want to get good sleep, of course. But all that information can build a lot of pressure to ‘win the sleep game.’”

Even the idea that you need to fall asleep in two minutes can place undue pressure on yourself. But no one is handing out gold stars for falling asleep the fastest.

“As a sleep psychologist, I want to help my patients look toward sleep as a cosy, welcome repose at the end of the day, not something they must battle or put excessive effort into achieving,” says Dr. Tiani.

For most people, taking 20 or 30 minutes to fall asleep isn’t something to “fix.” What’s more, for most people, regularly falling asleep too quickly isn’t necessarily a “good” thing. It could indicate a larger problem with sleep deprivation or other underlying sleep disorders.

But we want to fall asleep now. And all that pressure, frustration and disappointment? Absolutely not helping you get to sleep.

Some people are calling it “orthosomnia.” It’s a term that gets at the idea that some people will laser-focus on doing everything they can to make sure they get good sleep — to a fault.

“We’ve seen people work so hard to sleep and try so many ‘sleep hacks’ that it backfires. Because the pressure is so intense,” Dr. Tiani shares. “You can even develop sleep anxiety, where you dread going to sleep night after night.”

That said, the techniques used in the military sleep method — relaxation, breathing and visualization — are all scientifically backed practices to help you wind down and (maybe) get some ZZZs. So long as you actually find them to be calming and not adding extra stress to your nightly routine, they might be worth a try.

The best way to fall asleep with ease?

Per Dr. Tiani, “Only climb into bed when you are sleepy — not just tired, but truly sleepy. Think of that heavier feeling where it’s hard to keep your eyes open. We can’t necessarily pick an arbitrary time to force our body to generate sleep at night. It is better to go about your night, wait until you notice a feeling of sleepiness, and then act on it by heading to bed.”

For those who experience sleep onset insomnia, she recommends considering delaying your bedtime by 30 to 60-minute increments to see if going to bed later helps you fall asleep faster.

Other sleep hygiene methods, like following a consistent bedtime and limiting screens before bed might help, too.

And if sleep is still out of reach? Talk with a healthcare provider. They can help you find ways to get the sleep you need.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/military-sleep-method

Tuesday 29 October 2024

Seven Hours of Sleep Is the New Eight, Expert Says

From healthnews.com

Sleep doesn’t have to be perfect to be perfectly fine, says Dr. Michael Grandner, a clinical psychologist and sleep expert.


What is the optimal time to take melatonin? Which data from sleep trackers can we trust? What simple test can tell you that your body is ready to sleep?

Grandner, a licensed clinical psychologist and director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, answers these and many other common sleep questions.

In an interview for Healthnews that took place during the Sleep Fest in Vilnius, Lithuania, Grandner revealed an insomnia treatment more effective than any sleeping pill on the market: cognitive behavioural therapy.

Q: What prevents us from getting enough sleep? Do we lack discipline as individuals, or does it have something to do with how modern society works?


A: We don't have data going back thousands of years, but I suspect humans have been struggling with this for a long time because of how sleep is built.

A long time ago, evolution figured out that if we need to survive by running from a bear in a jungle, we can delay the onset of sleep until we're safe. And if we're in danger while we're asleep, we can wake up very quickly and escape that danger.

Our society has solved most of those problems for many people, but we still have this biology to protect us that gets in the way of sleep.

People who are in a place to choose to have a good and safe night of sleep have a struggle of seeing sleep as unproductive and optional.

They say, how much sleep do I need to have so I don't die? But no one says, how little oxygen can I breathe before I suffocate? So I think that's social and cultural, not biological.


Q: How much sleep do we need to be healthy? Does the 8-hour rule apply to everyone?

A: Statistically, there seems to be no real difference between people who say they get seven hours of sleep and people who say they get eight. We don't know much about the group that says they get 6.5 hours of sleep because we usually measure things in whole numbers.

People who say they get six hours are more likely to have health issues like weight gain or high blood pressure. But that doesn't mean everyone who gets six hours is at risk.

Does that mean everyone needs seven hours of sleep? It's hard to know what someone needs, but I would say seven is the new eight.

However, it is based on what you say. An accurate tracker will pick up about 30 to 60 minutes less sleep than you remember because they may be picking up actual awakenings that didn't form memory because they were too short.

That's why the seven-hour recommendations and guidelines are based on your remembrance of sleep, not on a tracker.


Q: TikTok and other online spaces are full of sleep myths, like the one that women need at least nine hours of sleep compared to men who need eight. What are your thoughts on that?


A: I don't think there's real evidence that suggests that, on average, women need more sleep than men.

Women are more likely to feel some of the effects of not sleeping or at least report them or be honest about them. Men are more likely to have undiagnosed sleep apnoea, while women are more likely to have insomnia.

It's well-documented that younger people need more sleep. Older people might not need less sleep, but they seem more resilient to sleeping less than younger people.

I think it's also largely irrelevant because the key thing about sleep is that it doesn't have to be perfect to be perfectly fine.

Compared to our ancestors, we sleep much more comfortably now than we did 100 years ago. If sleep was so fragile that it had to be under all these controlled conditions, our ancestors would have never survived.

So it is important to remember that sleep is our ally and investment in ourselves. It's there to help us, not something to stress about.


Q: Many people rely on sleep trackers to determine the quality of their sleep. What are the benefits and risks of using them?


A: Knowledge is power, but if you don't know what to do with that power, sometimes it can hurt you.

If your sleep tracker picks up lots of little awakenings during the night that you don't remember, you could probably trust the data. If it doesn't, it's either hiding it from you or missing it because people have these awakenings.

The worse your sleep is, the less able these devices are to measure it because there are assumptions in their algorithms. And all the assumptions are that your sleep is perfectly normal. The further you go away from sleeping perfectly normally, the more inaccurate those devices are.

Trackers are not as good for the sleep stages. Don't look at the number of minutes of whatever stage of sleep. It's probably about 60% correct, which is not enough to make a decision on, but it's at least a ballpark. When it comes to any other metrics like recovery, mostly ignore them.

These devices are there to give you information. If it's helpful, it is. But if it causes you stress or worry, it probably doesn't deserve that level of worry.

                                                                              Image by Gladskikh Tatiana via Shutterstock

Q: What does being constantly sleep-deprived do to our health?


A: One or two nights of sleep deprivation is not that bad for the body or brain. You feel worse than you really are.

Most people can function just fine after one or two nights of really bad sleep. The problem is that the things that interfere with sleep are supposed to be short-term.

So if you chronically sleep deprive yourself, the problems start creeping in slowly over time to the point where you may not notice them.

There's this interesting paradox that occurs after about a week or so of not getting enough sleep. People think they start adjusting, but if you measure their test scores and their performance, they're worse. And they keep getting worse, even if they think they're back to normal. The level of impairment becomes normal for them.

The first thing to go is the ability to focus and maintain attention.

There is a great test to determine whether you're sleep-deprived: if you sit in a dark and quiet room, can you stay awake? If you find yourself nodding off at boring things like movies, meetings, or classes, if you're nodding off when your brain wants to be awake, that means you're starved for sleep, and your body is taking it.


Q: Let's say I sleep five hours a night from Monday to Friday. Can I compensate for the harmful effects by sleeping in on the weekend?


A: That's like saying, well, I eat nothing but cheeseburgers and pizza all week, so how much salad do I need to eat on the weekends to make up for that?

My answer is the same: that's better than eating nothing but cheeseburgers and pizza seven days a week, but it doesn't undo the problem; it just reduces the total impact. That's why people who get five hours of sleep don't live as long and get sick more.

People who do that and then sleep in on the weekends still have an increased risk, just slightly lower.

They also introduce more irregularity into the system, which makes sleep a moving target.

If your choice is between five hours a night, seven days a week, with high regularity, or five hours a night and then eight or nine hours on the weekends with decreased regularity, you should probably go with the second one, knowing that neither one of those is great and doesn't negate the effects.


Q: What is the right way to use melatonin, and what are the risks?


A: Melatonin is highly misunderstood. It is a hormone that does not induce sleep but tells your body it's night time. We naturally produce it at night.

Melatonin has little sedating effects. However, people use it for sleep because sometimes, giving the body more or stronger nighttime signals can help.

The paradox with melatonin is the worse your sleep problem, the less likely it is going to help you. In most people with insomnia, melatonin doesn't work because bodies already know it's nighttime but still can't sleep.

Melatonin is great for jet lag, people who take melatonin-suppressing medications, or those with more mild sleep issues.

The dosing and timing of melatonin are very specific and different from most other medications.

You start producing melatonin a couple of hours before your typical bedtime. Melatonin peaks in the middle of the night and drops off right around the time before you're expecting to wake up.

Taking melatonin in the middle of the day will do almost nothing because your body's not producing it and doesn't know what to do with it. If you take melatonin at night, it's probably going to have very little effect because you're already producing it and getting the effects of it.

When people take too high of a dose of melatonin at night, they can't metabolize it fast enough, and melatonin is still hanging around in their system in the morning, causing daytime grogginess.

The optimal time for melatonin seems to be about four hours before bedtime because it's a couple of hours before your body is naturally going to start producing it. This gives it a little boost at a time when your body is not sure whether it's daytime or nighttime yet.

In the U.S., the doses of over-the-counter melatonin are sometimes as high as 5 mg or 10 mg, which is unnecessarily high.


Q: What are the most effective non-medication treatments for sleep disorders?


A: If you have insomnia, what you should be looking for is cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia (CBTI). It is very different from other forms of cognitive behaviour therapy for disorders like depression and anxiety.

The great thing about CBTI is that it is not only safe and effective but also outperforms prescription sleeping medications.

There has never been a prescription sleeping medication on the market that has shown better data than CBTI alone. However, CBTI just doesn’t work right away.

CBTI is less a therapy and more a training protocol that re-teaches the brain how to sleep naturally.

If someone with insomnia and pain receives CBTI for their insomnia, their pain gets better. If you have insomnia and depression, CBTI also helps with depression because of the role of sleep in so many of these other conditions.

CBTI improves whatever the other condition is more than CBT for depression improves insomnia.


Q: Probably all of us have these nights when we lie awake for hours and start getting really anxious and stressed about not being able to fall asleep. Are there any tricks that can help in moments like this?


A: Think of it this way: if you sit down to eat dinner and you are just not hungry, do you think, what if I starve to death? That thought doesn't even enter your head. If you don't eat, you're just going to be more hungry tomorrow and you'll be fine.

If you lie down to sleep, you cannot make yourself hungry for sleep. Maybe your body is just not ready.

Evolution figured this out a long time ago that you're actually quite resilient to a night or two of bad sleep because you need to be able to be flexible to deal with the demands of life.

If you’re in bed and then feel anxious about not sleeping, the best thing you can do is get up and wait until you want to try again, or especially if you feel a head bob. If you're going to do something, lean forward because you can feel the head bob.

As soon as your body gives you the signal that it's time, that's when you go to bed.

And if you sleep less that night, you’ll be just fine. The system will correct itself.


Q: What is the best thing to do in the meantime?


A: It is important to allow sufficient time to pass for the body to build sleep pressure. What you do during that time usually will not change the amount of sleep pressure that accumulates. There is nothing you can do to make it go faster.

Turn on all the bright lights you want, watch your favorite show, and get all excited because you have that time to wind down before your body is ready.

You don't have to sit in the dark and meditate for an hour. The best thing to do is probably to read. The second best thing would be maybe listening to a podcast, something that's mentally stimulating enough but isn't too distracting.

https://healthnews.com/news/michael-grandner-sleep-insomnia/