Sleeping eight to 10 hours in a night doesn’t ensure that you’ll have a good night’s rest. Yet, how is it that you can sometimes knock out only four or five hours and feel super refreshed by morning?

There are a several special ingredients, here are two …

It’s all about Quality not Quantity! And you can blame or credit your mattress.
The best mattress and box spring in the world may not provide optimum sleeping conditions.

Read the full post on A Good Night’s Sleep – Is 8 Hours Enough?.

NBC’s reality show The Biggest Loser has adjusted their pre-show medical work-ups to include a sleep study, and the results have been striking. Physicians found that a majority of the contestants had sleep apnea, and in one season every single cast member had a positive sleep apnea diagnosis! The Biggest Loser doctors used to talk about the three pillars of health – psychological, healthy eating and healthy exercise. Now they’ve added a fourth pillar called “sleep optimization.”

Read the full post on The Biggest Loser Adds Sleep Study to Pre-Show Medical Work-Ups.

A recent study from Stanford University presented at the SLEEP 2010 conference showed that Americans reported moderate to severe daytime sleepiness 33% more than their European counterparts. Almost 20% of those surveyed reported moderate to excessive sleepiness, and 11% reported severe sleepiness. Women reported more sleepiness than men.

Some interesting findings:
- 18% of people reported being sleepy in situations that require a high level of concentration.
- People who work at night, are insomniacs or are depressed showed the same rate of sleepiness, nearly two times more likely than the typical subject.
- People with obstructive sleep apnea were three times more likely to be sleepy – wear your C-PAP machine!

Read the full post on America is Sleepier Than Europe.

A new study from McGill University in Canada is providing some clues between the development of dementia and a sleep disorder known as rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD).

With RBD, the paralysis that normally occurs with REM sleep is incomplete or absent. This causes people to not get the deep restful sleep that they need. RBD is usually seen in middle-aged to elderly people, most often in men. The research showed that 63% of people who experienced RBD developed dementia with Lewy bodies or Parkinson’s later in life. In some cases the RBD was detected 50 years before the actual onset of the neurodegenerative condition. More research is needed, but it’s possible that detecting RBD may help people get treatment at an earlier age and perhaps prevent/minimize dementia that could occur later in life.

Read the full post on Sleep and Dementia.

West Virginia University’s faculty of medicine research team recently analyzed data of over 30,000 people from the 2005 USA National Health Survey and determined that seven hours of sleep a day, including naps, was optimal and anything less or more could cause heart disease. Their research was published in the journal SLEEP.

An increased risk of angina, coronary artery disease and heart attack was found for people whose sleep deviated more or less than two hours from the optimal timeframe of seven hours of sleep. Under-60 adults who slept less than five hours a day were found to be at the highest risk, enhancing their risk of getting a cardiovascular disease by more than three times than people who slept seven hours. People with diabetes, high blood pressure or depression were excluded from the study.

Read the full post on Study Finds Seven Hours of Sleep Optimal for Heart.

An “unequivocal link” between poor sleeping patterns and premature death was concluded recently in a report from the University of Warwick in Great Britain and the Federico II University Medical School in Italy. The study, published in the journal Sleep, analyzed 16 studies of more than 1.3 million people in Asia, Europe and the United States.

Study participants who slept for less than six hours a night showed a 12% increased risk of premature death as compared with participants who averaged between six and eight hours of nightly slumber. Sleeping too long also was a case for concern, but it is more than likely a symptom – not a cause – of already existing ill health, according to lead research professor Francesco Cappuccino.

Read the full post on Early Death And Poor Sleep Linked.

What happens when you dream? A new study suggests that your dreams may be a way of telling you that your brain is hard at work consolidating recent memories, which in turn helps us to perform better on performance-related tasks. Researchers from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School showed that your sleeping brain is working on memories at multiple levels, including ways that directly improve performance. The study was reported in a recent issue of Current Biology.

Read the full post on Boost Your Memory By Dreaming.

Getting proper sleep is especially important for children, as it is vital for physical and mental development. One of the many challenges facing a new parent is accommodating the sleep routine of newborns. While newborns tend to sleep a total of 14-18 hours a day, they wake up frequently and require attention, feeding or nurturing.

Read the full post on Sleep Advice for Parents of Newborns.

A recent report on ABC News noted that American’s most common complaint about sleep is that they don’t get enough of it, and this can lead to serious health consequences. Researchers reported that a lack of sleep is connected to cardiovascular disease and hypertension. It also compromises your immune system, contributes to obesity and can impair your mental judgment. A new study from Sweden reported that heart attacks rose 5% during the springtime when clocks were changed and people adjusted to losing an hour of sleep; heart attacks dropped in the fall when the clocks were turned back and an extra hour was added.

Read the full post on Too Little Sleep Most Common Sleep Complaint Among Americans.

Getting deep and restful sleep is important to your overall health. One of the key factors to achieving deep slumber is maintaining a bedroom temperature that is conducive to rest.

In general, researchers found that most people are sleeping in a room that is too warm. Studies have come out with two different ranges, one from 60-65 degrees and the other from 65-72 degrees, as optimal in promoting deep sleep. Generally, you want your bedroom to be a bit cool, as your body lowers its temperature as you sleep, and a lower body temperature is a signal to your brain that it is time to rest. You’ll want to experiment a bit to find your personal temperature preference.

Read the full post on Setting Bedroom Temperature for Sleep.