The Morality of Sleep?

June 1, 2011

In a culture that views taking naps or siestas during the day as being lazy or unproductive, it’s no wonder that we have more and more emotional, psychological and physical health problems in our society. The issue of sleep as a moral conundrum was discussed on this Bloggingheads video at the NY Times.

As a society, we tend to shun sleep for more productive work-related or social activities. This has lead to people sleeping about 1-2 hours less than what we used to do a few hundred years ago. Modern medicine tends to focus on our bodies when we’re awake. What happens when we’re sleeping has been essentially ignored, until very recently. There are now tomes of studies showing the detrimental effects of too short or too long sleep, including problems with memory, cognition, test scores, creativity, and sexual arousal. Medically, if your sleep is too short or too long, you have a much higher chance of developing diabetes, hypertension, obesity, depression, heart disease, heart attack, or stroke. Your overall changes of dying increases significantly if you don’t get the optimal amount of sleep.

This is all assuming that we’re breathing perfectly fine while sleeping. As I’ve alluded to in past blog posts and in my book, most modern humans can’t breathe properly while sleeping. The end extreme of this continuum is called obstructive sleep apnea, but all of us are on a continuum. So not only are we not sleeping long enough, we’re also not sleeping efficiently, due to multiple interruptions from breathing pauses.

This is such an important issue, not only from a public health perspective, but also from a personal perspective—how many of you have had family members or relatives that had a heart attack or a stroke at a young age, or was the victim of a motor vehicle accident due to a drowsy driver?

What should we do as a society to reverse this trend that devalues sleep?

Written by Steven Park · Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

An Interesting Series of Videos on Sleep

April 5, 2010

I finally had some time on my flight to and from LA during our family vacation to watch a series of videos called "Waking Up To Sleep 2007." The conference was held at the Salk Institute, and was presented by The Science Network. There are about 25 videos of pre-eminent sleep researchers on various topics including:

• Can sleeping on a problem create overnight insights?

• Will naps make you smarter?

• Are you getting enough sleep?

• How much sleep is enough?

It can be a little technical at times, but there are lots of areas that a layperson can understand and appreciate. I highly recommend that you browse through the various topics and learn as much as you can. Then sleep on it. The ones about memory and naps were especially interesting. Please come back to this post and give me your feedback on the various videos. What was your favorite topic?

Written by Steven Park · Filed Under Blog | 2 Comments

5 Quick And Easy Ways To Get Better Sleep Fast

December 1, 2009

In our over-stressed, over-weight, sleep-deprived society, there’s a tendency for experts to offer you the latest, greatest, high-tech, and usually expensive advice when you want to get better sleep. From the new Zeo (which measures your brain waves while you sleep), to $3,000 mattresses with reclining features and NASA engineered memory foam, there’s an unlimited number of gadgets and devices that promise to give you a better nights’ sleep.

But before you consider these expensive options, try the following 5 quick and easy tips to help you sleep better for free, or at a relatively low cost.

Tip #1: Avoid Acid Reflux

Acid reflux is a major cause of poor sleep, especially if you eat just before going to bed. If you have a sleep-breathing problem, this condition becomes even worse, since stomach juices are actively being suctioned up into your throat every time you stop breathing. In sleep apnea patients, vacuum forces are created in the throat with each obstruction, which forces normal stomach juices into the throat.

Two of the most common ways of treating this condition is to either take acid reflux medications, or sleep inclined, with your upper body angled up. Before you invest in an expensive adjustable bed that can incline your body upwards, just stop eating close to bedtime. Make sure you stop eating at least 3-4 hours before you go to bed. This way, even if you do stop breathing, you won’t have as much stomach juices that can come up into your throat (which also includes bile, digestive enzymes, and bacteria).

Take Power Naps

There are tons of research studies that tout the benefits of taking short naps in the mid to late afternoon. Our bodies naturally have sleepy tendencies during this time, so why not take advantage of it? It’s been shown that not only will you have more energy for the remainder of the day, but your chances of heart disease and dying early can be lowered if you nap regularly.

If you have a sleep-breathing problem, like obstructive sleep apnea, make sure you don’t sleep longer than 30 to 45 minutes. Sleep-deprived people tend to go into REM sleep earlier than the 90 to 120 minutes it normally takes to reach REM sleep. This is when your muscles relax the most and you’ll be more likely to have obstructive events.

Take Breathing Lessons

Deep breathing exercises have been shown scientifically to calm your nervous system. Thy is why people who engage in yoga, tai chi, or any other discipline that teaches proper breathing techniques feel so much more relaxed.

If you don’t have time or the funds to take classes on a regular basis, make it a point to take 4-5 slow deep breaths every 1-2 hours, especially when you’re transitioning from one activity to another, or if you’re feeling stressed. You can also make it a habit to meditate on your deep breathing anytime you’re waiting on the phone, standing inline, walking somewhere.

Take A Media Vacation

Modern humans are inundated with too much information. Too much news coming from too many sources can lead to information overload, not to mention anxiety-provoking states that keep your mind racing before you go to sleep at night. Turn off the TV, don’t read the paper, check email only once a day, and limit surfing the internet. Think of it as a cleansing that empties your mind of needless clutter. The world will go on without you if you don’t know what’s going on.

Undergo Natural Phototherapy

Rather than investing in bright light boxes or suntan sessions, expose yourself to more sunlight. Early morning sunlight is the best time since it’s not as intense, and exposing your eyes to light at this time helps to strengthen your sleep clock. This is also the best time to exercise outdoors, if you have the time.

If you’re already supplementing with vitamin D and calcium, exposing yourself to more natural sunlight can help to optimize theses supplements’ beneficial effects. Don’t worry too much about skin cancer, since sleeping better can help to fight off cancer.

These 5 tips are some of the many free or inexpensive ways that you can get better sleep. Without laying the foundations for these fundamental sleep habits, sleeping pills, beds, pillows, and gadgets won’t ultimately help you sleep better in the long run.

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Click here to find out the secrets of using ancient Chinese herbal medicine to get better sleep quickly and easily from , Dr. Maoshing Ni (AKA: “Dr. Wow” from Sex and the City).

Written by Steven Park · Filed Under Articles, obstructive sleep apnea, Sleep Health | Leave a Comment

The Real Reason Why Some People Are Lazy

November 20, 2008

More than a few times per month, I have patients comment that they think others perceive them as being lazy. Whether they like to "sleep in" or have trouble getting up in the mornings, or if they’re prone to taking naps in the afternoon, their sleepiness often elicits other’s perception of them as being lazy or unproductive. Add to this a saying from Proverbs: "Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless man goes hungry." Given that this type of work ethic runs deep in our modern day culture, it’s difficult to avoid being called lazy if you’re not the first one in the office and the last one to leave.

However, laziness may have less to do with sleep than it does with how well one is breathing while they’re sleeping. Without assessing the latter, it would be wrong to assume the former.

Sleepy or Sleep Deprived?

Typically, most self professed "lazy" people don’t look forward to waking up in the morning. On more than one occasion, patients have complained that they "curse the mornings" when they have to get up. Often it takes multiple cups of coffee, or vigorous exercise, before they feel even somewhat functional. Naps are also a requisite for most of these people and almost all of them crash at night, completely exhausted by the time they get to bed. In the morning, they never feel refreshed—always feeling like they’ve slept only for a few hours.

The other common misperception people have about other sleepy people is that they must have trouble sleeping or that they have insomnia. However, what many supposed "lazy" people suffer from is not usually due to insomnia—they can fall asleep just fine. In fact, many of these people fall asleep too easily. The difference is, these people just can’t wake up once they do fall asleep.

So, if these people are not sleep deprived, sleeping more than their peers, why do these people seem so tired and "lazy" all the time? The true answer lies in how well they’re breathing while they’re sleeping.

To Breathe Or Not To Breathe

Many supposed "lazy" people that I see in my practice often have a sleep breathing problem called Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (or UARS for short). This often occurs to those who have a smaller than average airway opening, or a bigger than average tongue to jaw size ratio. And for those who suffer from UARS, this is the primary reason why they’re not getting the deep and restful sleep that they truly need and desperately desire.

It’s taken for granted that all humans have rigid, open windpipes that allow air to pass easily from the nose through the lungs. What’s unique about the human upper airway, however, is that due to our unique ability to talk, our voice boxes are much lower down, underneath the tongue, which forces the tongue to rotate backwards. This is fine when you’re awake, but when you’re on your back, the tongue and voice box falls back partially due to gravity. Furthermore, when you go into deep sleep, your throat and tongue muscles relax, then with a bit of deep inspiration, the tongue falls back completely to occlude the 1-2 mm airway space behind the tongue.

If you have UARS, a number of different scenarios can occur: the tongue falls back, and you can wake up after a few seconds, with you panting, in a sweat, your heart racing, and in a state of panic. Or you wake up from deep to light sleep only, never realizing that your sleep was disturbed.

Also, if you stop breathing for 10 seconds or longer, and then wake up, then you just had an apnea or a "loss of breath" due to an obstructed airway. Five or more apneas per hour is in the range of having obstructive sleep apnea. But even if you stop breathing 20-30 times every hour, each lasting anywhere from 1-9 seconds, you’ll be told you don’t have any apneas, so therefore there’s nothing clinically wrong with you.

This is the major conundrum many UARS patients find themselves in. Although they’re not found to have a clinically diagnosable problem, they still suffer from the same level of fatigue and exhaustion that many OSA patients experience. This may be why so many UARS patients are often mistaken for being lazy and not properly treated as someone who suffers from a sleep breathing problem.

Fighting While Sleeping

Another physiologic phenomenon that many UARS patients experience is that they’re constantly under a low grade state of stress or anxiety.Whether or not they feel this way while they’re awake, while they’re sleeping, their bodies are in a constant mode of "fight or flight." Both hormonally and neurologically, having UARS can put your body under enormous stress. Since you’re never able to reach a deep level of sleep, and stay in a sustained state of light sleep, your entire nervous system goes en guarde, and becomes hypersensitive. Even your emotions and senses are heightened, including your hearing, vision, taste, and smell. Simultaneously, you are exhausted all the time.

Also, in this constant state of readiness, blood is taken away from your gastrointestinal system, your reproductive organs, your skin or your hands and feet. This may be why so many people with UARS have cold hands or feet or suffer from a rash of gastrointestinal problems.

Laziness May Be a Virtue

But there is one positive side to all of this. Contrary to popular belief, I see many people with UARS who self proclaim themselves as being lazy, compensate for their chronic fatigue and lack of energy by becoming overachievers, being highly productive and creative in everything they do, going non-stop during the day, but crashing at night. They’re also much more attuned to their bodies, being proactive about their health, and taking care of whatever illnesses they have before they become huge problems.

However, there are those who can’t sustain this high energy lifestyle especially as they get older and they start gaining weight. What happens for many of these patients is that they now progress into a more severe form of sleep breathing problem like OSA.

So the next time you think you’re lazy or think that others perceive you this way, the way you feel and act may actually be due to chronic deep sleep deprivation and not a personality defect. Something else to sleep on.

Written by Steven Park · Filed Under Articles | 9 Comments